Old Yeller: Favorite Movie #45

1957 Children's Classic
From Walt Disney Studios
Directed by Robert Stevenson

Starring
Dorothy McGuire
Fess Parker
Tommy Kirk
Kevin Corcoran
Jeff York
Beverly Washburn
Chuck Connors

Vera Miles

She was a radiant movie star of the 1950s and 1960s.  She made a few very important and famous films.  She worked with some of the best directors, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford among them, and some luminous costars.  She always worked in television but in later decades that was her primary medium... never a series but many guest star roles in nearly every popular show of the day and a number of television movies.  She was usually blonde, sometimes brunette and always beautiful.  She really should have been a bigger star than she was.  She certainly had the talent. Maybe it was a lack of interest or true ambition on her part.  She never much played the Hollywood game... that can pose a problem if you want to be big.  Then she left... and we have heard almost nothing of her since.

France & Nancy

Two beautiful actresses, Nancy Kwan and France Nuyen, came onto the Hollywood scene at just about the same time.  They were both born in 1939, just a couple of months apart.  Their careers also intersected a number of times, but that is easily understood since the pool of Asian actresses was pretty much non-existent when they arrived on the scene. 

A Summer Place: Favorite Movie #46

1959 Drama
From Warner Bros
Directed by Delmer Daves

Starring
Richard Egan
Dorothy McGuire
Sandra Dee
Arthur Kennedy
Troy Donahue
Constance Ford
Beulah Bondi

Quiz #2

We'll have periodic quizzes... when my brain is up to thinking of some questions. I'll advise at the end of each quiz when the answers will be posted. Here's your second one. Get that brain stimulated. We'll call this open book... use your resource materials. Have fun.

Ok, here's the gig.  Between each listed movie is a blank for you to fill in with the actor or actress who appeared in each set of movies.

It might look like this:

Gone With the Wind

1.  Clark Gable_____

Mogambo

2.  Ava Gardner____

Show Boat

Gable starred in both Gone with the Wind and Mogambo and Gardner starred in both Mogambo and Show Boat.  Get it?  Go...

Clifton Webb

The movies have never really known anyone quite like him.  Oh some others had this or that trait in common with him, but no one ever quite measured up to Clifton Webb.  If you remember him, then you know exactly what I am talking about.  He is nothing if not memorable.  He also had one of the oddest careers in Hollywood but no one can deny he wasn't the best at what he did.  If you don't know who he is, then hit "read more" and let's take it away.

My Week with Marilyn: Favorite Movie #47

2011 Biographical Drama
From The Weinstein Company
Directed by Simon Curtis

Starring
Michelle Williams
Eddie Redmayne
Kenneth Branagh
Judi Dench
Dominic Cooper
Julia Ormond
Zoë Wanamaker

The Garner Files

I never much thought about James Garner when he was at the height of his fame... didn't dislike him whatsoever... he just never set any fires for me.  I always found him to be a completely competent actor but rather bland.  I do credit him with always having a perpetual twinkle in his eye.  Humor is his pal and I see that.  I have seen many of his films but cannot say that he was the draw.  I certainly watched Maverick on the tube as a kid but thought it was just featherweight stuff, typical of the same-o, same-o western stuff Warner Bros. churned out at the time.  And perhaps I should hang my head to say this, but I have never seen The Rockford Files.  Was it good?  Garner thinks so.

Ava Gardner

What a babe!  What a broad!  I can well imagine that when one looks up those B-words in a dictionary or online, the words Ava Gardner must be part of the definitions.  She was such a sultry siren and she made men do things against their better judgments but what often came out of that mouth of hers made those same men cower.  Or most of them.

The Lion: Favorite Movie #48

1962 Drama
From 20th Century Fox
Directed by Jack Cardiff

Starring
William Holden
Trevor Howard
Capucine
Pamela Franklin

Richard Widmark

Early in his movie career he played vicious psychopaths and an assortment of other unsavory types, often in my beloved film noirs, and then he gravitated to mainly good-guy roles, frequently in war dramas and westerns.  In his later career, at an age when most actors would have retired or at least been forgotten by Hollywood, he got back to some bad-guy roles.  And the funny thing is, like a lot of those who played villains, in real life he was a terrifically nice guy.  I have always considered him to be one of the most watchable of actors, a true scene-stealer if there ever was one.

Inquiring Minds

Here are some questions I have rolled around in my mind... some for quite some time, others while I sit here at the computer.  If anyone knows the answers, do let me know.

Forbidden: Favorite Movie #49

1953 Drama
From Universal
Directed by Rudolph Maté

Starring
Tony Curtis
Joanne Dru
Lyle Bettger
Victor Sen Yung
Marvin Miller
Peter Mamakos