Guilty Pleasures: The Legend of Lylah Clare

1968 Drama
From MGM
Directed by Robert Aldrich

Starring
Kim Novak
Peter Finch
Ernest Borgnine
Rossella Falk
Milton Selzer
Gabriele Tinti
Michael Murphy
Valentina Cortese
Coral Browne

Richard Jaeckel

During my first year of marriage I lived in Sherman Oaks, California.  On Saturday mornings I could often be found walking the dog, cutting the grass or washing the car.  (That's probably why I got a divorce.)  I couldn't help but notice a very hunky, short, handsome, blond man in a beautiful blue Woody pull up in front of the house three doors from mine.  He was there most Saturdays during the time I lived there.  One time he walked over to my house and asked if he could use my phone.  When he came back out I said I liked his car.  

The Directors: Chuck Walters

He was not an auteur... he was a company man.  He never went after the limelight... leave that to Minnelli and LeRoy and those other guys.  He felt he put in an honest day's work and he wanted to go home at a reasonable time and he would be back again in the morning.  MGM had a lot of big egos and Walters never had one of them despite excelling in dancing, choreography and directing.  

MGM Livewire: Debbie Reynolds

As a kid living first in Texas and then Burbank, California, Mary Frances Reynolds (you can call her Frannie, everyone did)
was a tomboy and everyone's kid sister.  She loved playing with boys and doing boy things, especially baseball.  The boys didn't always treat her nicely and she bristled when they accused her of being a girl.  As a result Frannie grew feisty, tough and energized, traits that would be a part of her until her dying day.

Villainy with B Leading Man Stephen McNally

He populated a helluva lot of movies in my boyhood and my young eyes bulged out of their sockets at some of the vicious, spellbinding things he did.  All those women he slapped and the men he shot right between the eyes.  While I didn't know the word "amoral" at the time, I see it's fitting to describe Stephen McNally's characters.  He could be a nasty killer, a brooder, blistering with his stock-in-trade being the eyes that narrow and bore into his quarry.  He scared me.  

Guilty Pleasures: Valentino

1977 Biography
Screenplay by Ken Russell
and Mardik Martin
From United Artists
Book by Brad Steiger and
Chaw Mank
Directed by Ken Russell

Starring
Rudolf Nureyev
Leslie Caron
Michelle Phillips
Felicity Kendal
Carol Kane
Seymour Cassel
Huntz Hall

Visiting Film Noir: Johnny Eager

1941 Film Noir
From MGM
Screenplay by John Lee Mahin
and James Edward Grant
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Starring
Robert Taylor
Lana Turner
Edward Arnold
Van Heflin
Robert Sterling
Barry Nelson
Paul Stewart
Patricia Dane
Glenda Farrell
Cy Kendall

Vivien Leigh

Few actresses have been as celebrated as Vivien Leigh.  She is certainly among the five best actresses of the Golden Age.  In her own country she was likely more honored for her stage work.  In America she is far better known for her work in two films playing neurotic southern women with a fire burning deep within them... and winning Oscars for both.

From the 1940s: Waterloo Bridge

1940 Romance Drama
From MGM
Screenplay by S. N. Behrman
and Hans Rameau
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Starring
Vivien Leigh
Robert Taylor
Lucile Watson
Virginia Field
Maria Ouspenskaya
C. Aubrey Smith