Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

by 12 Comments

“Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.”
—James Stewart

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
Woman and Child on a Balcony, 1872
Oil on canvas 61 X50 cm.

 

Helen Keller meets Charlie Chaplin on the set of Sunnyside, Hollywood, California, 1919

 

Rick McGinnis
San Miguel de Allende
December 2016

 

The Tourby Sector dial embodies the Art Deco movement of the 1930s.

 

Highland Park diner, Rochester, N.Y.

 

“I’ve given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can’t divorce a book.”
—Gloria Swanson

 

Art Nouveau doorway, Strasbourg, France.

 

Winners of the National Spelling Bee pose with President Calvin Coolidge, May, 1928.

 

Edvard Munch (Norway, 1863 – 1944)
Evening, 1888
Oil on canvas: 75 X 100.5 cm.

 

A young woman rides a motorized bicycle, 1918

 

Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem

 

“You’re better off betting on a horse than betting on a man. A horse may not be able to hold you tight, but he doesn’t wanna wander from the stable at night.”
—Betty Grable

 

1956 Austin-Healey 100 BN2 Roadster

 

Greta Garbo and Ina Claire in Ninotchka, 1939, a brilliant romantic comedy and the greatest anti-Communist movie ever produced.
Screenplay by Melchior Lengyel, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Story by Melchior Lengyel

 

Grant Wood (America, 1891 – 1942)
Sunlit Studio
oil on composition board: 38.42 X 50.17 cm.

 

Elvis and Sophia Loren, 1958, photo by Bob Willoughby.

 

Livia Yarden wishes all our friends and relatives the best Shabbat ever.

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I’ll join the chorus of great photos. Love the diner. The spelling bee champions – and the President – look rather dour – like none of them want to be there!

    Love the picture of your granddaughter – and Elvis and Sophia! They all look genuinely happy.

    Funny quote by Betty.

  2. HI Robert.
    I love your Friday posts. I just wanted to comment on “the best Shabbat ever.” Does that mean Shabbat next week won’t be as good?

    I’d like to wish you and all your readers the best Shabbat so far.

  3. Some beautiful pictures today, Robert. I like that Morisot painting very much. I would definitely hang a copy of it in my house, right across the room from that Grant Wood, which is very calming and peaceful.

    I saw “Sunnyside” for the first time a couple of months ago, and, except for the dream of dancing girls at the end, liked it a lot more than I thought I would. Keaton always makes me smile, but for some reason I blow hot and cold on Chaplin’s pictures.

    I wouldn’t mind walking into that diner and ordering a hot cup of joe and a good, greasy breakfast.

    Those Swanson and Grable quotes are interesting. I can imagine Swanson had a jaundiced view of marriage after her time with Wallace Beery, but that Grable quote just reeks of disappointment. I wonder if, being Hollywood people, even level-headed women like those two let the movie fantasy of true love affect them more than they realized?

    A lovely weekend and Memorial Day to you and yours.

    • My most cherished silent films are those produced and starring Harold Lloyd. His scripts were air tight, and his production values were off the charts. Generally, Chaplin leaves me cold. His sets frequently look like grade school back drops. But I do love City Lights. Keaton did some amazing stuff. My favorite is Seven Chances.

      • I have The Kid Brother which was a favorite of my mother-in-law, but even better is the 4 K restoration the Reginald Denny collection. Three 4-K Blu ray discs all directed by William Seiter. A revelation in how brilliant Seiter’s work was at this time, and how attractive and talented the great Reginald Denny was. At the highest level.

        • Reginald Denny is all but forgotten, but he was a wonderful on-screen presence. Seiter gets no love from film lovers but he was one of those directors who always put the camera in just the right place and got optimal performances from his cast. I once heard Quentin Tarantino sing his praises.

  4. Nice set of photos, especially the art deco and “Sunlit Studio.” Betty Grable was another child star with a stage mother. Did any of them turn out happy? A friend had an Austin-Healy like that one when I was a college freshman. The body was aluminum and sitting on a fender would distort the shape. Permanently. Motorcycles in 1918 had 4 horsepower motors. I wonder what the bicycle had ?

    • That famous photo of Grable became the most popular GI pin-up of WWII. Ironically, as millions of American soldiers were yearning for Grable she was miserably married to musician Harry James who cheated on her continually.

  5. I love the clean lines of the Tourby watch, the whimsical design of the Art Nouveau doorway, and the Art Deco design of the diner.

    The Edvard Munch and Grant Wood paintings are excellent, as is Rick’s photo.

    I’d love to drive that Austin-Healey.

    I can’t look at Betty Grable without thinking of two points: 1) her famous World War II pin-up poster was a “derriere shot” because she was so obviously pregnant from any other angle, and 2) she seemed (to me) to be the most unhappy celebrity in the world – she seemed cynical and/or depressed in almost all of the quotes I can remember. She died at a young age from lung cancer.

    No one looks happy to be in the Spelling Bee photo. Not even the President wants to be there!

    Lastly, I wonder about the young lady on the motorized bike. Most of us would think nothing of seeing a young lady on one today, but in 1918 that might have been very different. I know my grandmother was considered by some to be “a fast woman” because she smoked cigarettes! Can you imagine what sort of floozy rode a motorized bike?? Of course, this was at the end of WW I and many social roles were changing among the sexes and the social classes, so. . . maybe she was just “a liberated woman”.

    Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

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