Scotty's services

Its certainly a fascinating read! - the book they are all up in arms about ... Scotty Bowers' story of the sexual services he provided for the in-crowd of Hollywood during the 1940s and later, from his gas station in downtown L.A. - the biggest stars turned up ...

I feel I am the only one in on the joke - this is surely Gore Vidal's last throw of the dice, a gigantic spoof, on the lines of his novels MYRA BRECKINRIDGE and MYRON - that pansexual world he advocates where everyone can have sex with everyone else regardless of gender or age, and may be his final revenge on people he doesn't like ...

I can well believe Scotty really exists (he is now 88) and was pimping out not only himself but also other guys and gals at the gas station in L.A. back in the '40s - Gore certainly knew him and has taken his story and added all the star stuff - "spilling the beans" on Hepburn, Tracy and the rest. Scotty seems to get his dates mixed up quite a bit - just after the war in about 1946 he describes a lunch meeting with Hepburn and Cukor and hair stylist Sydney Guilaroff (another happy client of Scottys of course) and they are arguing over Kate's hair style in ADAMS RIB, which is a 1949 film !

Also rich famous and goodlooking stars like Cary Grant and Randolph Scott would surely have to be very careful if they needed hunky marines to spice up their relationship between all those marriages of theirs. And then there is the peculiar story of Spencer Tracy and Scotty - and Walter Pidgeon (who knew? my mother's favorite actor!) outed as an early client of Scottys! Of course closeted stars back then couldn't be seen hanging out in bars, cruising the seafront or attending George Cukor's or Rock Hudson's exotic parties - not after Tab Hunter was caught at a "pyjama party". Also a lot of these actors had lines to learn for the next day, and could not be out late at night - so a discreet service set up by a hunky ex-marine who kept his mouth shut would have been ideal.

Despite my fascination with this tawdry side of hollywood it is not gossip as such I am after, but the truth of things - it is always the work that is important to me, and they certainly worked in those days, with 2 or 3 films a year !

I don't know how the lesbian scene works but would one of hollywood's top stars like Kate Hepburn want (or trust someone to get) young girls sent to her ? Supposing they talked afterwards ... why have none of them come forward, some must still be alive. And I think Vivien Leigh was quite adept at picking up truck drivers on her own, without Scotty's help ...

The book seems very disjointed - it begins with him being an innocent arriving in hollywood in 1946 after the war - Gore's golden age, as he often wrote about - and starting work at the gas station - as if he was an innocent and knew nothing about the goings on of the early 40s ... but as he tells his story in the following chapters he is the new kid in town in the early 40s on a weekend pass from the marines, and the first guy who picks him up turns out to be Orry-Kelly ! the famous dress designer (and a close pal of Cary's - who is not mentioned then). Then George Cukor turns up and invites him to his pool party the next sunday ! Then he is having threesomes with Cary and Randy - whom I thought lived together in the mid-30s - but this was the early 40s when they were at the height of their carrers and married to women, so they were hardly living together then, so maybe Scotty is getting his wires crossed - and he says he also bartended at a party/orgy of theirs in 1950!

Oh, and he meets Katharine Hepburn at the first Cukor pool party he attends, where she comes across as a very mannish lesbian ... so was Kate a regular at George's famous pool parties then? and it turns out George hates Garland ! It seems too that these guys like Cukor and Cole Porter are only interested in oral sex -maybe back then famous gays always paid for every sexual encounter and never wanted a relationship or to live with someone, but just to suck off an endless parade of johns - what a way to live!

And it seems every man Scotty ever met wanted to have sex with him, even when he was a kid, even all the married ones! Its a great read but one can hardly believe some of it! - plus no notes or index. Trash, then - utter trash, but try putting it down ... Scotty comes across as a saint, he never charged for his services, and didn't even want a cut on the sale of (then hard to get) pornographic pictures he posed for! Of course gay liberation and the gay lifestyle did not exist back in that post-war 1940s golden era, so young guys (and gals presumably) could sleep with or provide tricks for either sex without thinking about it too much or having to label themselves ... and there wasn't that 24 hour news media, mobile camera phones, or internet or inquisitive press to spoil things - as long as the fan magazines were kept happy!

Then of course in the '50s he helps out Roddy, Rock, Monty, Tony Perkins et al, but certainly didn't like Jimmy Dean! - his view on Rock's sham marriage is certainly interesting too - she, Phyllis, was of course a lesbian. How did they get away with it?, with all the PR people and fan magazines colluding in the fantasy; that couldn't still happen today could it? An interesting companion too to that William K Mann's tome on KATE a few years ago ... which also mentions Scotty. Plus if you read it you won't ever see Charles Laughton in the same light again!
(Coming soon: all those photos of Cary and Randolph ...)

"The Throb of Manhattan"

ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER, 1955, may well be my very favourite musical (after A STAR IS BORN and THE BANDWAGON of course) - it and those sophisticated musicals from 1957 [LES GIRLS, FUNNY FACE, SILK STOCKINGS, THE PYJAMA GAME, bits of PAL JOEY] are my perennial favourites, ever since I saw them as a child at Sunday afternoon matinees - BRIGADOON was another but it it not quite in that league, but I prefer them to the over-hyped SINGING IN THE RAIN or AN AMERICAN IN PARIS both of which show Kelly at his most grating (of course, as per Musicals label, I also love ON THE TOWN, MY SISTER EILEEN, KISS ME KATE, SWINGTIME, GYPSY, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT among others...)

Good to see that ITS ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER is being revived by the London National Film Theatre in their season on MGM musicals - it cries out to be seen on widescreen, using as it does, multiple images when our 3 wartime buddies reflect on their lives now. It seems to have been a troubled shoot, co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen fell out, Kelly and Charisse don't have any number together, she has one marvellous dance number "Baby You Knock Me Out" at the gym (where, as Pauline Kael put it, "Cyd Charisse is benumbed until she unhinges those legs") wearing that terrific Helen Rose ensemble, and Gene has the very inventive roller-skate number and of course when the 3 guys dance with the dustbin lids, so it is all very innovative, just as original musicals were dying, it was mainly films of Broadway shows after this.

It is the perfect mid-century story of 3 wartime buddies meeting up 10 years later in 1955 and realising that they don't like each other much now, and indeed Kelly and Dailey don't much like themselves either. Gene is mixing with hoods and managing a dumb boxer, while Dan Dailey has risen to "Executive Vice-President" level in advertising and is sick of the advertising game as he lets rip in his terrific solo number "Advertising-wise". Cyd Charisse is the television researcher who stumbles across the 3 wartime buddies and realises their reunion is ideal for her television show "Midnight with Madeline" for "The Throb of Manhattan" spot where saccharine stories are featured. This is the early days of live television and the movie is a splendid satire on those artificial tv hostesses like Madeline and her diva tantrums. Dolores Gray is stupendous here, and has one of the best numbers ever "Thanks a lot but no thanks" which is a delirious treat with that ritzy gown and that killer line:"I've got a man who's Clifton Webb and Marlon Brando combined"!. Then hood Jay C Flippen and his goons invade the studio where the live broadcast is being made, as they are after Gene who has thrown the fight once he realised his boxer has been bribed to lose it. Cyd gets the hoods to confess on live air, Madeline has a hit show, the 3 buddies realise they are still friends after all. It's a perfect conclusion as Cyd joins Gene and the the guys back at the bar where they vowed to meet up 10 years previously.



Choreographer Michael Kidd is ideal as the family man, Dailey has one of his best roles (apart from his father in THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS), Cyd and Gene sparkle as they spar with each other, and Dolores steals the show. What's not to love? It is a dark, sometimes bitter take on ON THE TOWN a decade later as the 3 buddies meet again - by 1955 though Sinatra had gone on to solo projects and was "difficult" and Jules Munchin was not a name enough. Produced of course by Arthur Freed, with songs by Andre Previn, script by Comden and Green; perfect entertainment then, but see the widescreen version, not panned and scanned! The DVD includes a fascinating 'Making-Of' chronicling the fallout between Kelly and Donen, and several out-takes including a terrific inventive (that word again) deleted number between Kelly and Charisse "Love is Nothing But a Racket" which has been unseen for far too long, and Michael Kidd's solo spot with some kids, but Gene did not want that included, after his number with kids in AN AMERICAN IN PARIS! Essential stuff then.

I met Gene at a recording of an interview of his for the BBC in 1975 - Donen of course went on to direct several of my enduing favourites: those Audrey Hepburn films like TWO FOR THE ROAD and CHARADE, Kendall in ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, Peck and Sophia ideal in ARABESQUE, and the marvellous BEDAZZLED with Pete and Dud and Eleanor Bron in 1967. We won't mention STAIRCASE or LUCKY LADY!

Guilty Pleasures: Justine

I see that JUSTINE gets a couple of rare screenings as part of the Dirk Bogarde retrospective (only his post-1960 career) at the London National Film Theatre - I shall have to amble along and savour it on the widescreen again. It has been unseen for decades but it was a treat to get a copy recently, an enjoyable 20th Century Fox version of the Durrell books set in Alexandria and rather a botched movie. It was began in Tunisia in '68 with director Philip Strick, but the project was then recalled to the Fox lot in California, with George Cukor taking over. Cukor and Aimee had one of THE famous feuds, as they did not get on AT ALL. The fascinating international cast though has Dirk Bogarde giving another terrific performance as Pursewarden, young Michael York as Darnley the narrator who falls in love with the mysterious Justine, also Anna Karina, John Vernon, Robert Forster, Philippe Noiret and Cliff Gorman as one of those dancing girls.



I just like the look of the film, those mysterious locations and Aimee being very enigmatic, looking alluring with that little girl voice, she seems incommunicative though, as though she does not want to be there – it was silly though to use the nude body double seen in long shot for the beach scene with the horses. Leon Shamroy makes it all look terrific and there is a nice score by Jerry Goldsmith. It really has the look and texture almost of a Von Sternberg picture, and remains one of the great good bad movies. I used to have a photo of Anouk as Justine on my wall back in 1969...by the late '60s everything Moroccan and Tunisian were suddenly part of the new hippie chic, as movies like DUFFY, MAROC 7 and PERFORMANCE showed.



It just looks terrific with those Tunisian locations, Vernon and Forster are the warring brothers Nessim and Narouz, and there are masked balls, belly dancers and lots of intrigue among the expats in Alexandria where everyone seems to be hiding guilty secrets. Bogarde is ideal as Pursewarden - by this time Anouk had become a very big star indeed, having been in movies since the late 40s, those Fellinis and UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME had added to her allure, but by the time JUSTINE she just wanted to be away with her new love Albert Finney, so it seems she had no real interest in the film and didn't film again until 1976 by which time her marriage to Finney was over.



York is the young narrator describing in the voiceover how Justine seemed to move in a golden glow..."blood-sister to a thousand tyrant queens". Everyone is in thrall to the fascinating Justine, the seemingly amoral wife of a wealthy Egyptian, biding her time in 1930s Alexandria with a slew of lovers, who spends her time looking for a lost child in the brothels of Alexandria, Anna Karina is the less fortunate prostitute who innocently lets slip Justine's real political interests to Pursewarden, after her romance with York has finished.







It is a condensed version of Lawrence Durrell's brilliant literary classic "Alexandria Quartet", about the sophisticated game of international intrigue and espionage in Alexandria between the first and second world wars with subtle character portraits from a range of British and European actors at the top of their game; it is just a perfect film of its time and place, late 60s, Europe and Hollywood combining. I can't wait to see it again .....

Movies I love: A Star Is Born (for Stanley and Gary)

The 1954 one of course!

Like JOHNNY GUITAR, A STAR IS BORN is another from my first year of movie-going, aged 8. It must have been one of the first films I saw,
(my parents must have taken me, my mother and I went to I COULD GO ON SINGING later) again I was fascinated by the widescreen images, that beach house with the sea reflected in the windows as the man goes into the sea, and that slap scene at the awards. Over the years it's richness and complexity have got to me, that lustrous rich Warnercolor, and George Hoyningen-Heune's color co-ordination (a Cukor regular). I do not see it as a musical as such, but as a drama with music. For a big film it is surprisingly intimate - there are really only 5 people in it: Esther/Vicki and Norman Maine, Charles Bickford as Oliver Niles the avuncular head of the studio, Jack Carson as Libby the vicious press agent, and Tommy Noonan as the bandleader who is also there for Judy. The Cinemascope images still dazzle, that movie premier, Norman being drunk, then when he takes the lipstick and makes the heart symbol on the wall, and later when he awakes and sits up in bed remembering .... that amusing scene where he is on the prowl in the nightclub and then busting in on "The Man That Got Away", and the lovely scene at the studio in the morning where Esther is getting ready for her screen test after being made over by the experts and he wipes away all the gunk off her face and a radiant lovely Estehr emerges. Later we have Judy's "I am discovered on a rather simple divan" for the "Somewhere there is a Someone" number, and of course during "Born in a Trunk" the drunk interrupting with "sing Melancholy Baby" and the agent going "Yes!" to Judy's "No!" as she does the rounds. Then at the studio "We can see your face" as she plays an extra, and "Go to L" when Esther signs on for her paycheck only to find she is now Vicki Lester! So, a film of great moments, from the Moss Hart screenplay, the Harold Arlen songs and that marvellous look of the film. Then those dramatic scenes later on, as Vicki begs Oliver to give Norman one more chance, and her appearance at his court hearing...

My best friend Stan had the soundtrack album which we played a lot, and then in 1970 my 1963 "Films and Filming" penfriend Gary from Brisbane arrived in London and took me to a screeing at the old Starlight Cinema at The Mayfair Hotel - it was marvellous seeing it on the big screen again, as back in that pre-video/dvd age one only saw movies at cinemas or on small black and white televisions!

So I relished the 2-disk dvd release with the restored scenes which make more sense of the story, and those 3 alternate versions of "The Man That Got Away" all as brilliant as the version in the film, with great Scope compositions and Judy being a powerhouse as ever. I was never a total Garland fan, but this and I COULD GO ON SINGING are two special films for me. It is actually Mason who is astounding here - it is a multi-layed marvellous performance, if it hadn't been Brando's year, James should surely have been best actor. That scene where he overhears Bickford and Garland talking about him is so brilliantly realised, the irony of course being that it was Garland who was the ravaged self-destructive star who was really all washed up in Hollywood by 1954. One only hopes all the early admirers of the film got to get the dvd restoration, as they will love it even more (particularly David McGillivray, author of "The Hollywood Musical"). Bob Willoughby's photographs [above] from the set are terrific too, as per his book "The Hollywood Special".

Of course I went to the Streisand version in 1976, and of course loathed it - that finished my Streisand fandom for a very long time, even Pauline Kael her great admirer was appalled. Suddenly it was A STAR IS BORING. Beyonce (going by her show at Glastonbury) could be marvellous with the right co-star if the new proposed version by Clint Eastwood goes ahead .... but we will always have Cukor's definitive version.
One can see now though why classy new girl Grace Kelly won the best actress Oscar that year (for looking dowdy in a cardigan) - Judy at 32 was considered an old-timer and difficult, it seems Jack Warner lost faith in the movie, which was a difficult shoot, and cut it to fit more screenings. Judy's weight and looks vary from scene to scene, but that slim look of hers in the award scene in the movie was something that I just found totally fascinating...



Another marvellous item on the restored dvds is the premiere footage, including that one in LA when everyone came out for Judy, one realises what a big event the film was and they all wanted Judy to be a hit. There's Doris Day, Peggy Lee waiting to be recognised, Debbie and Eddie, Tony and Janet, Liz and Wilding, Joan Crawford joshing with her old MILDRED PIERCE co-star Jack Carson, who was the MC, and all hollywood's hot shots, including Lauren Bacall [the woman who knew everyone] lighting up a cigarette next to Judy and Jack Warner - oh, and a bashful Raymond Burr "just back from Korea" with a cute young marine in tow!. Fascinating stuff ... I want to see it all again now. A STAR IS BORN will always be in my top 10.

The Best of Everything

Rona Jaffe's bestseller THE BEST OF EVERYTHING is back in the bookshops - due to the success of MAD MEN on tv, where Don Draper is seen reading it. Perhaps the movie will be back too? It is one of those perfect '50s confections, exploring the lives of loves of office girls in New York in the oh-so glamorous world of paperback publishing. It is a well-crafted story following Hope Lange as she emerges from the subway (with that nice touch of the breeze blowing up her bolero jacket showing us the lining material) wearing her white gloves and hat. Then we get to meet the other girls including Diane Baker (falls for a cad [Robert Evans no less] who wants her to have an abortion and then she meets a nice doctor!), fashion icon Suzy Parker who was in a few movies at this time as Gregg the actress who is just not good enough and cannot handle rejection by cad Louis Jourdan ... there is also Martha Hyer having an affair with an office colleague but that story is practically snipped out as the film focuses on the three main girls, with Hope getting involved with Stephen Boyd, and then her old flame Brett Halsey re-appears and he wants her to be his mistress.

There's a few old timers too - Brian Aherne as the lecherous boss and "as Amanda Farrow" Joan Crawford in full fighting mode as the office dragon making life hell for the girls in the typing pool. Amanda leaves to be with her long time married lover, so Hope gets promoted to her place, but it seems Amanda has left it too late..
It has those lush 20th Century Fox production values including that Johnny Mathis theme tune as the credits unfold over New York in the 50s - and is a sterling addition to those '3 girls sharing an apartment and looking for love' movies they did so well - usually directed by Jean Negulesco, who helms again here. The book was a bestseller at the time, along with those other torrid tales like PEYTON PLACE by Grace Metalious, MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR (Natalie Wood in the '58 film) by Herman Wouk and A SUMMER PLACE by Sloan Wilson - all successful movies too, showing America in the late '50s before all that liberation stuff began! Then came the early '60s and titles like THE CHAPMAN REPORT (I have already reviewed this delirious Cukor classic) and Mary McCarty's THE GROUP [filmed by Lumet in 66] before we got to John Updike and RABBIT RUN! We move on to A SUMMER PLACE shortly ...

1930s: Kate and Sylvia Scarlett

SYLVIA SCARLETT has the reputation of being one of the oddest films of the '30s and was such a disaster on its release that its perpetuators Cukor, Hepburn and producer Pandro S Berman never experimented on such a scale again. They must have thought they were being very clever at the time, but Hepburn was soon on that "box office poison" list along with the likes of Dietrich and others. Also odd to think that the sublime BRINGING UP BABY was also not popular initially, as Howard Hawks himself admitted it was just too screwy with everyone around the bend in it! Hepburn re-established herself with Cukor's witty HOLIDAY from the Philip Barry play, again with Grant, and in La Cava's STAGE DOOR, playing to her patrician persona, as she initially refused to rehearse with the other stage door gals Ginger Rogers et al. She then cleverly got Barry to create a new play for her which was a success on Broadway and she then sold the package to Louis B Mayer placing herself back at the top of the pile for the 1940s. That was of course PHILADELPHIA STORY, which to me is rather over-rated. Then of course came the first of those with Tracy, WOMAN OF THE YEAR in '42. (Below, Cary going gay in BRINGING UP BABY)

It was good to finally catch up with 1932's CHRISTOPHER STRONG a while back where she is the dashing aviatrix, but a lot of her other early films like QUALITY STREET, SPITFIRE or even Ford's MARY OF SCOTLAND are not really much on view these days (I am not even sure if they are on dvd) [it was of this era that Dorothy Parker famously said that Hepburn "ran the gamut of emotions from A to B", but she was certainly different from those other prettier ingenues, her Jo in the first LITTLE WOMEN was certainly well regarded]. But back to SYLVIA SCARLETT - this was an important movie for Cary Grant too, he and Hepburn strike sparks off each other and she looks amazing as a male - rather like a young David Bowie sometimes.

She was certainly lucky in always being financially independent - no cheap horror movies for her! Also in being off the screen since 1959's SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER to 67's GUESS WHO... only added to her legend. The 1962 LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT may have been among her best performances and won the cast acting awards at Venice, but it was an independent release not widely shown at the time, but thankfully is on dvd now. The very names of Hepburn's characters sum her up: Tracy Lord, Tess Harding, Susan Vance, Linda Seton, Rose Sawyer, Jane Hudson (no, not that one but in SUMMERTIME) Lean's 1955 film set in Venice was another hit, along with THE AFRICAN QUEEN, THE RAINMAKER and those late Tracys PAT AND MIKE and DESK SET and of course Violet Venable in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER. She had a nice line in the '50s of these quivering spinsters on the brink of finding love.

We revered Hepburn all over again back in the 60s when I was in my early 20s - GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER had been the most enormous success (even if its sadly dated today) with Hepburn re-discovered for a new generation, being on the cover of LIFE magazine etc, and then the even bigger success of THE LION IN WINTER, a key film for 1968 where she is Eleanor of Aquitaine to the manner born, with as another best actress award, even if was shared with Streisand in that other big hit of '68 FUNNY GIRL. THE MADWOMAN OF CHAILLOT which followed was less successful and I am going to catch up with THE TROJAN WOMEN shortly. Hepburn, like Davis, was now a living legend and soon teamed with the likes of Laurence Oliver and John Wayne, as well as that nice remake of THE CORN IN GREEN in Wales with Cukor in '78. Later television movies included pleasant enough fare like LAURA LANSING SLEPT HERE and MRS DELLAFIELD WANTS TO GET MARRIED as she got older. Suddenly Hepburn was everywhere, giving interviews in various documentaries - always with that red pullover over her shoulders - burnishing her legend giving us her version of her life and that romance with Tracy, including her own book "Me" a very selective view of herself. Lots of interesting new books on her too incuding some good picture books.The later Scot Berg and William K Mann books on her, after her death, painted other versions of her life and romances but only added to her legend and lustre. There was simply no-one else like her. Of American actresses perhaps only Davis had a comparable career - shame they could never agree to team up for at least a photoshoot. (Bette was willing, but Hepburn wouldn't). Another actress Hepburn did not get along with was Margaret Sullavan, subject of my next post .... Kate being perhaps too competitive with a rival? I got to see Bette up close in '72 but it must have been marvellous to have seen or met Hepburn - I love those '50s/60s shots of her striding on and off planes or dodging through hotel lobbies in her macs and khakis. At least New Yorkers got to see her on stage several times. She even did a musical: COCO (though Chanel thought they had meant Audrey to play her!)

Back in 1935 she and Cary and Brian Aherne etc were young and having fun playing games as they shot the quaint SYLVIA SCARLETT along the California coast, with their Cockney accents ... let's slip it into the projector and have another look.

SYLVIA SCARLETT is actually an intriguing failure due to its uneven tone - comedy or melodrama? - mixing in its crooked characters, travelling players, Hepburn posing as a boy, that odd relationship with Aherne and the other girl who fancies her/him, but Grant is maturing into "Cary Grant" and Hepburn is clearly having a field day, and her and Cary's pal Howard Hughes used to fly in to join them for lunch! but it is easy to see now why, in 1935, it would be such a failure: it's just too anomalous, too strange, too ambiguous.

Next: Margaret Sullavan and a Christmas treat: THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER

People We Like: Claire Bloom

It may be ungallant to mention a lady's age, but in her late '70s its great to see Claire Bloom still acting, cropping up on television shows like DR WHO, THE BILL and NEW TRICKS (where she is an actress who shoots her husband on stage with a real gun). She was also on stage a few years ago, but I missed that.

Claire of course has had an extensive career as star and leading actress since the early '50s when Chaplin chose her for LIMELIGHT lauching her on an illustrous career. Other roles followed in films like Carol Reed's THE MAN BETWEEN in '53 where she and James Mason are ideal together, RICHARD III with Olivier, where she is a compelling Lady Anne, with Richard Burton in ALEXANDER THE GREAT and LOOK BACK IN ANGER and THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD. She and Burton were in fact lovers for some time during their years with the Old Vic.
She was also with Brynner in THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV fo MGM in 1958 and THE BUCCANEER where she is an engaging lady pirate.

She delivers a powerhouse performance as the nymphomaniac in Cukor's THE CHAPMAN REPORT in 1962 and she said in a radio interview recently that Cukor was the best director she worked with.

I saw her on stage in 1974 in a highly acclaimed London production of A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE as a blonde Blanche. She also said in that radio interview that Blanche is the hardest role for women - comparable to Hamlet or King Lear! Programme notes below (click to enlarge):

Her two films with then husband Rod Steiger, THE ILLUSTRATED MAN in 1969 and THREE INTO TWO WON'T GO are interesting late 60s oddities now. Wise's THE HAUNTING in 1963 is another key role for her (as a slinky lesbian) as she and Julie Harris grapple with that haunted house...other roles of interest include in THE OUTRAGE with Newman and Harvey in '64, Iris Mudoch's A SEVERED HEAD in '70, Lady Marchmain in the original classic series BRIDSHEAD REVISITED and as Merle Oberon's Indian mother in the fun tv series QUEENIE! Other films include 80,000 SUSPECTS and ISLANDS IN THE STREAM and Woody Allen's CRIMES AND MISDEMEANOURS.

She was also a terrific Nora in the 1973 film of A DOLL'S HOUSE, made at the same time as Losey's version with Jane Fonda. It would seem that Bloom's version won hands down in a standard telling of the play, which she also successfully played on stage.

Its good to see Claire still performing. She is one of the survivors of that great generation of British actresses [like Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons, Glynis Johns] who had success in England and then in Hollywood as well as maintaining links with the theatre and then television. Her revealing autobiography is a fascinating read on her life in the theatre and cinema and those difficult husbands (including a disastrous marraige to writer Philip Roth) and lovers (who included Olivier, Brynner, Anthony Quinn)! Burton though did say that she had been the love of his life ...

Back to 1962

Very 1962! Above: Marisa Solinas and Germano Giglioli (yes really!) in the missing episode, by Monicelli, from BOCCACCIO 7O - this was cut from the original release but is now included in the 4-episode dvd. The original was sold on its 3 stars - Loren, Schenider and Ekberg - in the De Sica, Visconti and Fellini episodes (right). This missing one now is pure 60s as it follows it's young couple around a typical Italian landscape of the early '60s. It's been fun to see them all again.
I already reviewed several choice 1962 items previously here: CLEO FROM 5 TO 7, ALL FALL DOWN, THE CHAPMAN REPORT etc.

Eva Marie Saint and Warren Beatty look terrific here in Frankenheimer's choice melodrama ALL FALL DOWN:

Dean Stockwell and Katharine Hepburn in the little-seen (then) LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT by Sidney Lumet, finally on dvd. Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards are also terrific here. All 4 won the joint best acting award at - was it the Cannes film festival?
1962 must surely be one of the 3 best years ever for movies - my other 2 would be 1939 and 1959 - each have at least 20 films of note. It was also that great era for black and white films and that early 60s vibe. I will get around to 1959 later but for 1962 - when I was 16 in Ireland - the key movies include L'ECLISSE, ADVISE & CONSENT, LOLITA, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (where Lee Remick should have won that academy award!), BILLY BUDD, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, JULES ET JIM, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, TO KILL A MOCKINBIRD, SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH, JUMBO, GYPSY, THE MUSIC MAN, A KIND OF LOVING, BOCCACCIO 70, Welles' THE TRIAL, WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (trash but I love it), ALL FALL DOWN, THE CHAPMAN REPORT, THE LION, THE MIRACLE WORKER and THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR, for starters, plus Sophia Loren doing the twist in Paris in 5 MILES TO MIDNIGHT and the camp farrago that is SODOM AND GOMORRAH. REACH FOR GLORY by Philip Leacock is a fascinating British film, hardly seen since 1962, which I shall return to...
Right: Ty Hardin on the beach interests Glynis Johns in that well-used still from CHAPMAN REPORT. Below: click image to enlarge text ....
The big regret of 1962 though: if only... I remember 5th August 1962 well, as I saw BUS STOP the night before. Marilyn's pool pix though achieved their aim in getting Liz Taylor off the world's magazine covers as CLEOPATRA over-ran in Rome, and are imperishable almost 50 years later...