Its all Too Much ... / People We like: Dorothy Malone

1958's TOO MUCH TOO SOON is a delirious piece of trashy cinema, nice to relish now, purporting to tell the true story of Diana Barrymore - of the Barrymore dynasty, as played by Dorothy Malone. Its main interest of course is the casting of Erroll Flynn as Diana's father the great John Barrymore who dissipated his talent in drink and god knows what else - as Erroll was in fact doing at this stage of his life - he would of course die the following year 1959, ravaged by the excesses of his wayward life, looking a lot older than his 50 years - a long way from the glory years of the mid-30s when he was perfect for CAPTAIN BLOOD, ROBIN HOOD, ESSEX and all the rest.

Flynn is very touching here as the sozzled father trying to re-connect with his adoring daughter - but he exits the film half way through, leaving an hour more of Diana's descent to the gutter and her ultimate redemption (a year before her demise too, as the end credits tell us ...). The very under-rated Malone is marvellous here, ageing from a teenager to a mature woman - and the guys are ok too: Martin Milner as the reliable old beau, Efrem Zembalist Jr as the first husband and Ray Danton as the sleazy tennis pro who knows when he sees a dame to latch on to and exploit and abuse.

Booze, drugs and an endless string of bad lovers put her career on the rocks from which she never really recovered. Ms. Barrymore's story is sad and morose and this movie does its best to sensationalize it. Her fast rise is chronicled here as well as her even faster fall from grace. So its a downbeat movie really, not as trashy as those later Lana Turner epics, but theres a lot to interest here. Good to see it finally available. Directed by one Art Napoleon.

Now for Dorothy's WRITTEN ON THE WIND, a Sirk classic and her Oscar-winning best supporting actress role in 1956. Dot Malone is indeed one of those great gals we like (and she is still here too ...), review of her and Liberace in SINCERELY YOURS at Dorothy Malone label - a change for her from being out west a lot in all those oaters, she also pops in FATE IS THE HUNTER (1964) as another ritzy society dame, before she went into the tv series of PEYTON PLACE. I am catching her seduction of Tab Hunter in Warners' BATTLE CRY (1954) on again this weekend ... Dot too is terrific in all those westerns like WARLOCK ('59), THE LAST SUNSET ('61), FIVE GUNS WEST ('55), and in Sirk's TARNISHED ANGELS with Rock again in 1957 and back to Hawks' THE BIG SLEEP in '46 where she has that memorable scene in the bookshop with Bogie.

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 ...)

Titanic, 1953

Fanscination with The Titanic rolls ever onward - in its centenary year. We will soon have a new 4-part series written by Lord Julian Fellows (DOWNTON ABBEY), and of course whatever one thinks of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster, the second half after the iceberg hits is stunningly well done as one really feels the ocean invading and sinking the ship ... so it was interesting to catch Jean Negulesco's 1953 version. Winner of three Academy Awards, the 1953 TITANIC holds up well, even on a much smaller budget - as does the 1958 A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, with Kenneth More, perhaps the best all-round version of events without silly stories at the forefront.

Fascination with the fate of the huge and opulent liner is as strong as ever, especially since improved technology has led to more breathtaking visits to the ship's resting spot on the floor of the Atlantic where state-of-the-art robots with cameras explore the crumbling interiors of the still eerily majestic but rapidly decaying wreck.



20th Century's contribution to the story hold the interest with Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck heading the cast as an ill-matched couple; she is in fact leaving him and returning to America with their children as he joins the ship at the last minute to reason with her. Webb and Stanwyck bring their expertise to this soap opera story and it remains very affecting. Add in young Robert Wagner, more like a 50s teenager than a 1912 one, and Thelma Ritter as the famous Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Brian Aherne as the captain and the stage is set for some dramatics. Negulesco keeps it going nicely and it has that early 50s 20th Century Fox look in spades.

The tempestuous exchanges between Webb and Stanwyck are strongly and believably acted, and then we have the sinking of the vessel - not as graphically done as in the later versions, but suitably stiff upper lip to the end. Interesting to compare these versions this anniversary year, we shall be hearing more about them.

Movies I Love: River Of No Return

RIVER OF NO RETURN is a western I can watch anytime - though it is hardly a Western at all, more of a Canadian ... filmed in Canada in 1954, that magic year for me - by Otto Preminger it moves along at a cracking pace, Monroe and Mitchum are great together - just like Mitch and Deborah Kerr in that 1957 John Huston classic HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON - another great Fox Scope movie (and another Movie I Love - see Mitchum label). (Apparantly Mitchum had been in the army with MM's first husband, and had seen photos of the young starlet then ...) - actually MR ALLISON is about a marine and a nun in the wilderness (or a remote tropical island), so it shares similarities with this - there they catch that unfortunate turtle, here it is a moose; plus are holed up in a cave with marauders on the loose ..
1954 was that year I began going to the movies when about 8 - JOHNNY GUITAR, DRUM BEAT, SITTING BULL, THE COMMAND - RIVER OF NO RETURN was another western that year, while Raoul Walsh was also making SASKATCHEWAN with Alan Ladd and Shelley Winters in Canada that year. (Shelley and Marilyn had of course been room-mates at one stage...). Here Marilyn is Kay, a saloon singer who is entangled with no-good Rory Calhoun who has cheated his way to a gold mine and needs to get to Carson City to file the claim. Mitchum is the farmer who comes to the tent city after a stint in prison, looking for his son - Tommy Rettig, who is friends with Kay. Later back on the farm father and son rescue Calhoun and Kay who are going downriver on a raft - but Calhoun has his own plan and takes the farmer's horse and gun, leaving them at the mercy of marauding indians, so there is nothing for it but for father, son and Kay who has stayed behind to head down the river themselves on the raft. The Canadian wilderness (Alberta and Banff area) looks great here, and I love the music for whenever the redskins appear ... it is a great soundtrack too.



Exciting fare then, and the back projections with the raft and the stunt doubles are well done. I like the sequence where Mitch takes the frozen wet Kay to a cave, wraps her in blankets and massages her back to warmth as their warring characters begin to respond to each other as the scene melts into the shot of the warm flames. MM and Mitch spar well together and she copes well with the rough stuff. I love how Marilyn looks in 1954, here and in THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS, after that break-out year 1953 for her. Her Kay is pure peaches and cream, and she sings marvellously too. She had developed so much as an actress and performer since those early small parts in 1950 just a few years earlier ...


People tend to forget what a great vocal artist she was. When I was a teenager one of the first record albums I had was "Marilyn" the soundtrack to the 1963 compilation film Fox were quick to put out about her, and it included those songs from the film on it - the theme "River of No Return", "One Single Dollar", "Down in the Meadow" and the terrific "I'm Gonna File My Claim" which she sings in the saloon to the understandably dazed audience. This film has all those Fox Monroe touches: her costumes by Travilla, choreography by Jack Cole, and the songs with lyrics by Ken Darby and music by Lionel Newman. Preminger keeps it going well - he also did CARMEN JONES the same year in that busy decade for him before his Jean Seberg films (we also like BONJOUR TRISTESSE (see Deborah Kerr label) and he finished the decade with ANATOMY OF A MURDER, before his early 60s big hitters). So, its a fun western, an enjoyable movie I can happily re-watch any time its on - I love the bit where the redskin gets onto the raft to rip her blouse off (before being despatched) so she has to face the rapids in her camisole. It may be symbolic but why at the end does she throw her red shoes away - she is going back to the burnt out cabin in the wilderness with no proper clothes or shoes!
In the Monroe filmography RIVER though is regarded as a studio programmer she had to do in 1954, but it actually stands with the best of her Fox films and Kay is one of her best roles.

1954 - what a year for leading ladies: Marilyn's 2, Elizabeth Taylor's 4 including THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS, Ava's THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA, Audrey as SABRINA, Grace in 5 films including REAR WINDOW, THE COUNTRY GIRL and GREEN FIRE, not to mention those other busy ladies like Shelley Winters, June Allyson, Lauren Bacall, Doris Day, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons, Anne Baxter etc.... and Kay Kendall in England; and in Europe: Alida Valli in SENSO, Sophia Loren in WOMAN OF THE RIVER, Silvana Mangano in MAMBO; more at 1954 label. (By 1957 the new crop like Lee Remick, Shirley McLaine, Joanne Woodward, Eva Marie Saint and the grown-up Natalie Wood had arrived, along with those second tier names like Vera Miles, Martha Hyer, Dorothy Malone and the B-girls Rhonda Fleming, Virginia Mayo, Arlene Dahl, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget ... while Ingrid Bergman was back, and the '40s gals like Lana, Rita, Susan were pretty busy too, as indeed were the '30s lot!

Bad Boys: HUD and ALL FALL DOWN

Finally I have seen HUD all the way through, as previously I had only seen bits of it here and there. It certainly lives up to his reputation with that great Panavision black and white photography and that modern (1963) western setting, as directed by Martin Ritt who gets the best from his cast of 4, from a novel by Larry McMurtry (who also wrote THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and who scripted Ang Lee's film of that other modern western also set in 1963 BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.) Here we have proud old Melvyn Douglas (that debonair leading man of Garbo's in films like NINOTCHKA and TWO FACED WOMAN) as the old rancher sharing his farm with son Hud (Paul Newman), grandson Lon (Brandon de Wilde) and housekeeper Alma (Patrica Neal). Lon of course hero worships Hud who is shown to be a heel, getting involved with married woman and generally not caring for anybody but himself. He and the weary and wary Alma have a flirtation which spills over almost into violence one drunken night. Problems at the ranch escalate too with the herd of sick cattle which have to be destroyed in a grim sequence, which proves too much for the proud older man. Alma leaves on a greyhound bus and Lon also sees the light leaving the unrependant Hud feeling distinctly sorry for himself. Its a searing climax. Neal's Alma is a brilliant creation well deserving of her best actress award that year.

[This May 1963 issue of "Films & Filming" was the one which had my personal ad in when I was 17, which led to all my pen-friends then... as per other posts here].

Here is a good synopsis from IMDB: "Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore".
A confession though: while I admire Newman's charity works and his spaghetti sauces, as an actor he just never interested me much - whether he is HUD or THE HUSTLER or COOL HAND LUKE or Brick in CAT... or Ben Quick in THE LONG HOT SUMMER or Chance in SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH he always seems the same basic bad-ass character to me, so as Hud he is more of the same really.


ALL FALL DOWN, as scripted by William Inge and filmed by John Frankenheimer, from the novel by James Leo Herlihy (who also wrote BLUE DENIM and MIDNIGHT COWBOY) which I loved then in 1962 aged 16 - the same age as Clint, who records events obsessively in his notebooks, observes his parents Ralph and Annabel (Karl Malden and Angela Lansbury, both perfect casting) and he falls for the visiting "old maid from Toledeo" Echo O'Brien (Eva Marie Saint - also perfect as ever) - the fly in the ointment though is older brother Berry-Berry (Warren Beatty at his most) a never-do-well who returns home with predictable results ... its one of those rites of passage movies where Client finally realises his idolised older brother is no good and is in fact a dangerous, pitiable jerk who leeches onto women and cannot function in a relationship.



Set in Cleveland Ohio it has some lyrical black and white photography and some nice scenes set in Florida as Clint travels looking for his straying brother ... this is one I like a lot and have done for decades.

People We Like: Brandon de Wilde

The next 'People We Like'* is an actor who would - amazingly - be 70 this year - but the fates had other ideas, as he died aged 30 in an automobile accident in 1972. Brandon de Wilde though, like James Dean and those others who perished in traffic accidents (like Francoise Dorleac, Belinda Lee, Jayne Mansfield) will be forever young ... it would have been interesting though to see how his career would have gone in the '60s and '70s - would he have been a conventional leading man or something more oddball in the Dennis Hopper mould ?

Born in 1942 he was acting on Broadway aged 9 in the theatre production of Carson McCullers' THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, as the sombre little boy John Henry, which he also played in Zinnemann's 1953 film with co-star Julie Harris (below). That year he was also the little boy in SHANE, George Stevens' classic western. Other roles in the 50s included films like FAREWELL MY LADY (Lady is a dog), THE MISSOURI TRAVELLER and a James Stewart western I like, NIGHT PASSAGE, in 1957 (below). As a teenager he starred in BLUE DENIM (or BLUE JEANS) with Carol Lynley in 1960, a drama about unmarried teenagers having a baby. I did not see this at the time, but have recently got a copy of it, so a fuller report on that in due course. In 1962 he is Clint, the hero of James Leo Herlihy's novel ALL FALL DOWN, a favourite I have written about here several times (1962 label), subject of my next post...

HUD in 1963 was more of the same, with young Lon (De Wilde) losing his hero worship of uncle Paul Newman. Then came roles in Preminger's IN HARM'S WAY in 1965 and other routine movies like THOSE CALLAWAYS and lots of television work. He was touring in the play BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE at the time of his fatal accident, in Denver, Colorado when on the way in a camper van to visit his second wife who was in hospital; he left a son named Jesse.

(* other 'People We Like' here include: David Hemmings, Stewart Granger, Jeffrey Hunter, Stephen Boyd, Stanley Baker, Michael Craig, Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Capucine, Joan Greenwood, Kay Kendall, Dirk Bogarde, Lilli Palmer, Ingrid Thulin, Alida Valli, Silvana Mangano, Romy Schneider, Anouk Aimee etc).
See labels - Coming up: Peter Finch, Alan Bates, David Warner.

Dory Previn, R.I.P.

What memories the very name Dory Previn brings back - those early '70s albums and songs like "Mythical Kings and Iguanas", "The Lady with the Braid", and the song about Mary C Brown the girl who jumped off the Hollywood sign, and Janis Joplin buying a headstone for Bessie Smith - but forgetting to pay for her own! In the era of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, Paul Simon et al Dory established herself as the singer/songwriter of gloom and depression, an acquired taste certainly but very effective. My late friend Stan liked her so much.

The breakup of that marriage with Andre Previn and the song about Mia Farrow were also fascinating ..... RIP indeed Dory, 86 is a very good age. Don't expect any Whitney-type coverage though.
She had met Previn on the set of the trashy MGM film THE SUBTERRANEANS (Trash label) in 1960, as he was one of the jazzmen included in the film, for which she had writte the theme lyric. ("Andre Previn and the Previnettes" as Morcambe & Wise once memorably introduced him in one of their tv sketches...)

Movie-wise her lyrics include Natalie Wood singing "Youre Gonna Hear From Me" in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER and Dionne Warwick's theme song and Susan Hayward/Helen Lawson's "I'll Plant My Own Tree" in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS !