Seraphic Secret

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

Black Narcissus

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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“Say anything you like, but don’t say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, the prissy b***h. Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs. And get drunk.” -Mabel Normand (1892 - 1930)
“Say anything you like, but don’t say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, the prissy b***h. Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs. And get drunk.”
—Mabel Normand (1892 – 1930)

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Nuns in Hollywood

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Still from “Marketa Lazarova,” 1967, a Czechoslovakian film I have screened about half a dozen times and have yet to understand what the heck is going on. But the imagery is haunting and spectacular.

Hollywood has always been fascinated by trashy vamps and holy nuns. Obviously, these polar opposites provoke strong reactions in audiences. Actresses are invariably drawn to playing these roles for both trade in extremes of  sexuality: promiscuity and celibacy, great showcases for any thespian.

Over the past few months, just by chance, I’ve screened several movies that tell the story of a nun. Invariably, each film is a love story, supporting Seraphic Secret’s Rule #1 of Hollywood narrative: Every great movie is a love story.

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The Twenty Greatest Movies of the 1940s: ’44-’46

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We continue our series of the Twenty Greatest Movies of each decade. Last week we listed the first Ten Greatest Movies of the 1940’s. Our list continues with the next five great movies.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in “Double Indemnity,” 1945.

11. Double Indemnity, 1944. Once again, a Barbara Stanwyck performance that is nothing less than perfection. This time Stanwyck plays bad blond Phyllis Dietrichson, a hard-boiled tramp—her gold anklet speaks volumes—who wants her husband dead. Fred MacMurray is the cynical insurance salesman who steps libido-first into Dietrichson’s web of deceit. This is the movie that sets the standard for Film Noir, that most influential genre.

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