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"That's all there is, there isn't any more..."
~Ethel Barrymore's curtain call line, designed to send insistently worshipful audiences on their way.

The movie industry, where Ethel Barrymore claimed
"[h]alf the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be," was simply a way for the doyenne of the American stage to make money. Thankfully, though, in the process of collecting remarkable fees for their time, ( $40k for the silent The Final Judgment in 1915), the lady turned in some memorably effective performances. Though in exchange for lending her considerable prestige to such dubious fare as the undemanding parts she played in The Secret of Convict Lake (1951) or That Midnight Kiss (1949) or Johnny Trouble (1957), the actress' better movies offer us some clue about what kind of power Ethel Barrymore could have for an audience—even while her contemporaries on stage, the legendary Maud Adams and Laurette Taylor, are simply unknowable.

Mention "The Barrymores" to a classic film fan of a certain age, and the comparatively young and deft contemporary actress Drew may not be the first name that comes to mind. You'll find many of this cherished band attached to the ubiquitous and occasionally brilliant Lionel Barrymore's performances, (thanks to his long tenure at M.G.M., he is still familiar to many, though it is his little known performance as the death-defying grandfather in On Borrowed Time (1939) that flares most vividly in my memory). Others will claim fealty to the glamorous, self-destructive John Barrymore, whose wildly uneven film work, including his truly brilliant comedic work in Twentieth Century (1934) and his lacerating dramatic appearance in Counsellor-At-Law (1933) are still high water marks in cinematic acting for me. Less than 30 performances exist on film for their sister, but some of them are very appealing to me.

Few, however, seem to be overly fond of the cool reserve of talent of their sister displayed by Ethel Barrymore, for whom last Friday, August 15th, marked the one hundredth and twenty ninth anniversary of her birth in 1879. That may be partly due to her reluctance to embrace the movies. There is something less easily defined about her screen persona; a refusal on her part to fill in all the blanks of her cryptic cinematic characters, who say more with a flash of her still beautiful dark eyes or the suggestion of a smile than any screenwriter could ever suggest in a page of dialogue. Frankly, Ethel Barrymore always acted as though she was slumming in most of her movies. In several cases, she was often right about that too.

For evidence, see her first, deadly slow talkie, and the only film in which Ethel tussled with her brothers for the spotlight, Rasputin and the Empress (1932).

[caption id="attachment_2841" align="alignright" width="260" caption="Director Boleslawski & Ethel (1932)"][/caption]

Insecure and supremely lofty in her condescending manner when she took this job at MGM at the urging of prestige-mad Irving Thalberg (and Ethel's impatient creditors), she fussed about the script (or lack thereof), her director (poor Charles Brabin was dismissed at her assistance, to be replaced by Moscow Art Theater veteran and somewhat overwhelmed cinematic tyro, Richard Boleslawski, seen at right with Ethel on the set). I guess it never occurred to any of the intimidated to ask her what she was doing as she flailed around grandly trying to create something memorable out of her vague character in a highly stagey manner. Fortunately, that is what family is for in many instances. Brother John, finally asking her to explain what the heck she was trying to do, received a heartfelt reply of "I don't know." Though she only admitted publicly a few times, Ethel was she was "always scared to death" because of her shyness when she went on any stage or before the cameras. Taking her aside, John Barrymore, (who might have taken his own advice occasionally), urged her to tone her characterization down a bit, speak more softly, remember the over $50k she was getting for this gig, and try to forget about Lionel's over the top scene stealing as a wild-eyed Rasputin threatening the Czarina, her family and the state of Mother Russia. Not that his advice could save this turkey, which, if you've ever seen it on TCM, is fascinating, if the slowest moving mass of historical inaccuracies that ever came out of tinseltown. (Sued by more than one survivor of the Czar's court and the Russian Revolution for fudging the facts and impugning some royal reputations, it lost a pile for the studio as well).

I recently mentioned Ethel Barrymore's presence in a movie as a compelling enough reason to watch a film. A friend reacted with a visible chill, wrinkling her nose at the thought of going out of her way to see Ethel, the somewhat frostily regal, but to me intriguing presence in almost any of her movies. My reluctant friend explained that Ethel always struck her as too stuffy a presence, and even suggested that there was something malevolent about her presence. My attitude is "Yes!", I relish that fuddy-duddiness of hers, that refusal to be fashionable, as well as her mysterious and possibly latently hostile roles in a variety of movies over a period of about ten years, from her openly cool mother to ne'er-do-well Cary Grant in None But the Lonely Heart (1944), (which won her an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress), to last week's broadcast on TCM of a fifties artifact, Young at Heart (1954), which offered up Ethel as a maiden aunt with a smiling cheshire cat smile, tending to the needs of a whippet-sized Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and company.

[caption id="attachment_2842" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Ethel, edging away from the cast of Young at Heart (1954)"][/caption]

In the case of the last film, (a remake of the more dramatically interesting John Garfield debut opposite Priscilla Lane in 1938's Four Daughters), I kept wondering when Ethel was going to finally turn around and tell the youngsters to put a cork in their belly-aching. The best scene in the movie, for me, features Ethel's on-screen brother, Robert Keith, (in the story, the father of a brood of ferociously marriage-minded blondes, led by Doris, Dorothy Malone & Elizabeth Fraser), playing the flute annoyingly while Miss Barrymore tries to catch the Friday Night Boxing Match on the tube. Aside from Sinatra's excellent singing, which took the movie off into another, hipper universe occasionally, the most genuine emotions in the movie passed over Ethel's mug when she really looked disgusted after paying her brother his winnings, after her white-trunked pugilist took a dive. A lifetime of competition with her sibling and a healthy interest in the rude entertainments of her time were all expressed with the downturn of her mouth and the raising of an eyebrow. The expressiveness that she brought to her film work rarely went over the top after she took her brother Jack's advice to heart. Unlike Lionel and John, their independent sister Ethel was never wholly a prisoner of Hollywood, or so she hoped. Consequently, she was also never in a wholly popular success in the movies either, such as those cherished now, among them the perennials Grand Hotel (1932) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Her theatrical history and her reluctance to play the game in the company town helped to keep her distance from the ballyhoo, even after California had become her home. With her erstwhile actor son, Samuel Colt by her side, in a small home where she was visited regularly by George Cukor, Katharine Hepburn and others, (who also contributed to her financial support, and found her occasional work), Ethel Barrymore eked out a living, occasionally showing flashes of the brilliance that built her reputation, and even surprising audiences and contemporaries once in awhile with her skill and her down-to-earth mystery.

During her desultory shooting on the film with Day and Sinatra, Barrymore had several physical problems that made it a heckuva lot easier to lie down and act or be wheeled about on the set. Still, when ballerina Alicia Markova visited the set of Young at Heart (1954), Miss Barrymore astonished all by promptly springing from her chair, crossing the soundstage and greeting the prima ballerina and her friend warmly. Co-star Doris Day later remarked to a companion, "Can you believe it? She's never out of that chair. I mean, we have to cart her around everywhere."

Ethel liked to take people aback, and could never, seemingly shed her magisterial air completely.

Spotting his leading lady on the set of None But the Lonely Heart for the first time, director Clifford Odets, asked to approve the actress' choice of the most pathetic hat for her working class character's headgear, burst into laughter, remarking that "You still look like a queen!" As the astute theater man Harold Clurman observed when trying to explain her naturally regal demeanor that "[i]t is a spiritual rather than a social quality," he observed. "Very few kings and queens have possessed it."

Ethel, her hat & co-star

Despite that stately appearance she was asked to project on screen, I sometimes suspect that Ethel Barrymore had a streak of mischievousness that crept out into her acting in movies in her later years, particularly in her byplay with Charles Bickford in The Farmer's Daughter and with Hoagy Carmichael in the neglected Night Song) As with her brothers, she struggled with her personal life, (enduring an unhappy marriage to Russell Colt while giving birth to three children), substance abuse, (alcohol was no more her friend than it was for other family members, though she too sought refuge in it when life wore her down), and seemingly, an inherited tendency toward monetary impecuniousness that left her strapped all her life, despite a demon work ethic in her bones. Her daughter, who described her mother as "a caged tigress" when she wasn't working, may have been relieved when her aging mother finally moved to Hollywood in the forties, after dipping her toe only occasionally into movie-making since the silent era.

How are you at reading faces? While we all do it, consciously or not, all day long, if I were a betting woman, I'd put a fiver on Ethel Barrymore's carefully arranged expression in the photo below as a sign of mild irritation bordering on bored peevishness.

The occasion was the celebration of her 70th birthday on August 15, 1949. Mogul Louis B. Mayer, looking like a bit of a lost lamb between Ethel and Lionel, insisted that a national radio hookup be arranged with greetings and salutations pouring in from all points of the compass for the delectation of the public, or, as Ethel was wont to phrase it, to give everyone their money's worth "gawking at the fossils." On a later birthday (her 75th), Ethel was asked what she thought of the attention, which by then included the new medium of television. Her reply: "It's hell." Yet, since she was a theatrical "institution" and a rather expensive contract player for M.G.M. at the time of these birtdays, (a situation that would change abruptly some time later with the completion of her role as the prisoner in her own home in Kind Lady. After too many days were lost in production due to her multiple illnesses and a vexing tendency to whistle when she spoke her lines, her option was summarily dropped, and she would be employed only sporadically from then on). Ethel, whose attitude toward acting and Hollywood was, at best, described as realistic, really would might have preferred a day off. After all, she'd been working since the age of thirteen.

Born into the tenth generation of a gifted acting family led by parents Maurice and Georgiana Drew Barrymore a year after her stalwart brother, Lionel, and three years prior to the dazzling John; in her lifetime, Ethel may have received the greatest respect from the theater-going public, in part because they never knew as much as they thought they did about her. As the only girl, and at least superficially, the most capable sibling in the trio of children adrift on the tides of the world's shoals and eddys, Ethel endured, learning from childhood, that it was up to her to get things done in the often far-flung, peripatetic family of actors. At thirteen, Ethel, secretly hoping to study piano as a serious musician, had been removed from school and told to accompany the actress-mother she barely knew on a rest cure to Santa Barbara. Coughing all the way to the coast during their ocean voyage from New York through the Panama Canal to California, it was Ethel whose spirits rose and fell with every rally and setback Georgiana Drew Barrymore experienced during the trip to the West Coast. It was Ethel alone who accompanied her mother's coffin back to the east coast after Georgie's death at 37 from tuberculosis in July, 1893. Any further serious musical education was deferred in favor of setting out in the family business of acting.

"Speak your piece good and you will get a big red apple," was a maxim that her uncle, John Drew quoted to her when giving her the encouragement she craved as she first ventured on stage in a star part, in Clyde Fitch's "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines" in 1901. He left her a large red apple. It was the initiation of a custom which became a Barrymore tradition. Later, after their spendthrift father Maurice became incapacitated, Ethel guided her brothers Lionel and Jack, both of whom longed to become artists, into show business as well. Her appearance as a young woman was so enchanting that a very young Winston Churchill sought her out, became friends and even asked for her hand in marriage. By the end of the '40s, when fellow actor Louis Calhern mentioned having met then ex-Prime Minister Churchill during a recent appearance on the London stage, he related to Ethel that her former beau had grown misty-eyed speaking of her. Perhaps in an effort to keep sentiment at arm's length, or simply to shock Calhern, Ethel glibly asked, "How is the old sonofabitch?" Anything to keep her real emotions from showing, since she'd spent a lifetime tailoring them to dramatic effect on stage. Years of work also took their toll on her physically, making those roles in which she literally lay at death's door on screen a pretty regular event. In The Spiral Staircase (1945), Pinky (1947), The Great Sinner (1949) and Kind Lady (1951), all entailed a minimum of movement, though, she was central to whatever success these movies may have had. Here are a few examples of moments when Ethel's sometimes playful, talented nature shone through while she stole the scene:

While making Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947) with Gregory Peck, the young actor, who was frankly in awe of Ethel's ability to create a very human character from the meagerly written role given her as Charles Laughton's emotionally starved wife, found that she reveled in discussing her beloved New York Yankees and the antics of the prizefighting game, especially enjoying reliving the triumphs of Joe Louis with Peck the sports fan. Still, in the plaintive scenes when Ethel appears cowed by the judgmental husband played by Laughton, there is a life that she gives the character, whose sad and timid eyes, tell the story of a blighted marriage. Later, in the Dostoyevskyian melancholy of the Gregory Peck-Ava Gardner vehicle, The Great Sinner (1949), her brief appearance as the deus ex grandmama who is bitten by gambling fever stops the show, literally. Her brief time on camera is a highlight of a rather lugubrious movie sparkling with some fine character actor turns, topped by Ethel's appearance to that of the sublime Walter Huston as a profligate bettor, to Agnes Moorehead as a pawnbroker to Frank Morgan as a loser who turns his back on a chance at redemption.

Elia Kazan never struck me as a shrinking violet. He didn't emerge out of New York's innovative, often bumptious atmosphere of the Group Theater or the ranks of minor character actors as a powerhouse director by just being polite. Yet, in the late winter of 1949, he was attempting to film Pinky (1949), a 20th Century Fox movie that tackled the story of a young, light-skinned African-American nurse who was passing as white, (played by an overwhelmed, emotionally inexpressive but dignified Jeanne Crain, who tried hard, but was in over her head). Finding himself at a loss to extract what he wanted from Ms. Crain, and--as with many who worked with the legendarily talented yet prickly Ethel Waters, (who played Crain's grandmother), Kazan was walking on eggshells on the tense set, where he'd replaced an allegedly ailing John Ford. His solace, or so he thought, was the presence in the cast of that other Ethel--Ethel Barrymore, who played the role of the canny, failing patient attended by Crain's character. Describing her as a "grand old battlewagon, all flags still flying", Kazan recognized her disdain for anything smacking of the Method's analytical techniques, but nevertheless, requested repeated takes. Her reaction was a withering "Why? I can't do it any better, boy." Pressing her a bit, Ethel gave him pause by asking him "What do you want it for, your collection?"

Ethel had been stopping wonder boys such as "Gadge" Kazan in their tracks for half a century by the time they encountered one another in her 70th year. Her role as the woman who helps Jeanne Crain face her own nature, (while Ethel's rich old lady also finds a way to thwart her grasping relatives from the grave), would also gain her a fourth Oscar nomination, (Ethel was nominated for The Spiral Staircase, The Paradine Case and Pinky as well as for her winning role in None But the Lonely Heart. If you spliced all these performances together, I doubt if you'd have one hour of film.)

My own selection for her very best performance on film, brief as it may be, might be the segment of the anthology film The Story of Three Loves (1953) directed by Vincente Minnelli, called "Mademoiselle". A discontented boy, (an impatient Ricky Nelson) trapped in the thrall of a lonely governess (a very inexperienced Leslie Caron, in a moony performance) while his parents are away, in a luxurious Italian hotel, wanders away at night, and stumbles upon a strange lady in a ramshackle garden on the grounds. "Hazel Pennicott", as Ethel introduces herself, seems to be an eccentric, speaking rather brusquely in riddles to the boy, who is gradually intrigued by this strange woman and her intimidating German Shepherd dog, (or is he a familiar?). Telling the irritable boy to wrap a ribbon she gives him around his finger at midnight, and repeating her name, Ethel's sorceress (one can never be sure that she is a good or bad witch), promises that he will be free of his burden of childhood before he knows it, at least for a little while. Of course, when Nelson awakens as Farley Granger he gets more than he bargained for, especially when he encounters an adventuress (Zsa Zsa Gabor) at the hotel bar. It's a slight piece, sandwiched between two stronger segments directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, but there is something about Ethel's mesmerizing, sad yet romantically philosophical witch that raises this throwaway piece of late Hollywood storytelling to the level of a haunting fairy tale. It is pure fantasy, with a spell woven by a Barrymore, the beautiful cinematography of Charles Rosher and Harold Rosson, the music of Miklós Rózsa and Minnelli's dark dreaminess. The film, which is not on dvd and was not a popular or critical hit in 1953, does appear on the TCM schedule from time to time. Her role is a bit reminiscent of her mysterious art gallery owner in director William Dieterle's lovingly crafted Portrait of Jennie (1948), an earlier film that was also not a financial or critical hit at the time of that movie's release, but which has grown in stature over time. Perhaps Ethel's rather believable spiritual presence, like an apparently sage if cryptic guide, has a longer shadow in retrospect than was apparent to the generation who attended her movies in the theatre.

Her talent, demeanor, beautiful, throaty speaking voice and dark eyes never left her, even when Ethel Barrymore, finding herself without her brothers, both of whom predeceased her by several years, continued to labor in the family business until near her death in 1959. Near the end, it is reported that Ethel sighed and wondered, "Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy." I'd like to hope she is at least at peace, away from the stage, the screen and all that hard work. She earned a rest.

To see the upcoming Ethel Barrymore films that are scheduled on TCM, please click here

Sources:
Barrymore, Ethel, Memories, An Autobiography, Harper and Brothers, 1955.
Haney, Lynn, Gregory Peck: A Charmed Life, Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2005.
Kazan, Elia, Elia Kazan: A Life, Da Capo Press, 1997.
Peters, Margot, The House of Barrymore, Simon & Schuster, 1990.

If Stanley Banks had not been ready to see his daughter get married in the 1950 comedy Father of the Bride, he certainly was unprepared to become a grandfather.

This cute 1951 sequel would later be adapted for Steve Martin as Father of the Bride II, but here Spencer Tracy once again portrays grumpy Stanley Banks as he comes to terms with his newfound status.

The material is episodic and relatively cosy but strong performances from Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Bennett give the film sufficient charm to be quite entertaining, if not a riot.

The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli who handles the material well, particularly the chaotic scenes with hoardes of well-wishers. Unfortunately however the film is in poor condition, looking washed out and with high levels of background noise.

That said, for fans of the first movie or the remakes this is a diverting eighty minutes that manages never to outstay its welcome.

Originally posted on Spout.com on August 15th 2008.

Recuerdo que Cyd Charisse sustituyó a Lana Turner en la secuela de 'Cautivos del mal', 'Dos semanas en otra ciudad'.

Richard Widmark nació en Sunrise (Minessota) el 26 de diciembre de  1926. Descendiente de agricultores suecos, era hijo de un representante comercial por lo que su infancia y adolescencia se caracterizó por constantes cambios de domicilio hasta que la familia fijó su residencia definitiva en Illinois. Tras dejar la carrera de Derecho y estudiar interpretación en la Universidad de Lake Forest (Illinois), debutó en 1938 como actor radiofónico en el serial Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories.

En 1942 contrajo matrimonio con la que sería su esposa durante 55 años: la actriz y guionista Jean Hazlewood (fue la responsable del guión de la película Caminos secretos -1961- protagonizada por el propio Widmark bajo la dirección de Phil Karlson).

Declarado incapacitado para alistarse en el ejército durante la II Guerra Mundial a causa de una perforación de tímpano, Widmark inició su carrera en Broadway donde participó en la obra teatral Kiss and Tell. Su interpretación impresionó tanto al director Henry Hathaway que le ofreció su primer papel como actor cinematográfico: el asesino psicópata Tommy Udo en El beso de la muerte (1947). La película resultó ser un éxito y la fama de Widmark subió como la espuma: firmó un contrato de siete años con la 20th Century Fox, ganó el Globo de Oro al mejor actor revelación y fue nominado al Oscar al mejor actor secundario.

A continuación reproducimos la célebre escena de El beso de la muerte.

Las décadas de los 40 y 50 fueron las más prolíficas cinematográficamente hablando poniéndose a las órdenes de directores de la talla de Jules Dassin, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Elia Kazan, Edward Dmytryk, Vincente Minnelli, Delmer Daves, John Sturges, Jean Negulesco, Richard Brooks, Robert Wise, Samuel Fuller u Otto Preminger.

Durante los años 60 su popularidad aumentó gracias a películas tan conocidas como El álamo (1960) de John Wayne, Vencedores o vencidos (1961) de Stanley Kramer, Dos cabalgan juntos (1961) y La conquista del oeste (1962) de John Ford o Brigada homicida (1968) de Don Siegel.
Aunque en la década de los 70 pudimos verle en la serie televisiva Madigan (personaje que aparecía en la anteriormente citada Brigada homicida), en Asesinato en el Orient Express (1974) de Sidney Lumet, en De presidio a primera página (1977) de Stanley Kramer o Coma (1978) de Michael Crichton, los años 80 marcaron su progresivo distanciamiento del cine hasta llegar a su última participación en un largometraje en el año 1991 con el El color de la ambición (1991) dirigida por Herbert Ross. Sin embargo, su última aparición se produjo en el documental que Todd Robinson dirigió sobre la figura de William A. Wellman.

En 1999 contrajo matrimonio con la actriz Susan Blanchard (ex mujer de Henry Fonda) que fue quien difundió la noticia de su muerte a los 93 años de edad en Roxbury (Connecticut).

Actor versátil que, sobre todo, protagonizó westerns, películas de cine negro y bélicas, su imagen de tipo de duro y con carácter no se correspondía con el personaje real, puesto de Widmark era muy tímido. Demócrata convencido, se opuso a la guerra del Vietman, creó una fundación para la investigación del Alzheimer y el cáncer, para la conservación del medio ambiente y para combatir las armas nucleares y no dudó en “huir” de las multitudes y del glamour al que Hollywood nos tiene tan acostumbrados.

Filmografía completa

- El beso de la muerte (Kiss of Death) (1947), de Henry Hathaway.
- Cielo amarillo (Yellow Sky) (1948), de William W. Wellman.
- La calle sin nombre (1948) (The Street with No Name), de William Keighley.
- El parador del camino (1948) (Road House), de Jean Negulesco.
- Situación desesperada (1950) (Halls of Montezuma), de Lewis Milestone.
- Un rayo de luz (1950) (No Way Out), de Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
- Pánico en las calles (1950) (Panic in the Streets), de Elia Kazan.
- Noche en la ciudad (1950) (Night and the City), de Jules Dassin.
- Cuatro páginas de la vida (1952) (O. Henry’s Full House), de Henry Hathaway.
- Niebla en el alma (1952) (Don’t Bother to Knock), de Roy Ward Baker.
- Hombres de infantería (1953) (Take the High Ground!), de Richard Brooks.
- Manos peligrosas (1953) (Pickup on South Street), de Samuel Fuller.
- Tempestad en Asia (1953) (Destination Gobi), de Robert Wise.
- El diablo de las aguas turbias (1954) (Hell and High Water), de Samuel Fuller.
- Lanza rota (1954) (Broken Lance), de Edward Dmytryk.
- El jardín del diablo (1954) (Garden of Evil), de Henry Hathaway.
- La tela de araña (1955) (The Cobweb), de Vincente Minnelli.
- La ley del Talión (1956) (The Last Wagon), de Delmer Daves.
- El sexto fugitivo (1956) (Backlash), de John Sturges.
- Huida hacia el sol (1956) (Run for the Sun), de Roy Boulting.
- Santa Juana (1957) (Saint Joan), de Otto Preminger.
- Mi marido se divierte (1958) (The Tunnel of Love), de Gene Kelly.
- Desafío en la ciudad muerta (1958) (The Law and Jake Wade), de John Sturges.
- El hombre de las pistolas de oro (1959) (Warlock), de Edward Dmytryk.
- El Álamo (1960) (The Alamo), de John Wayne.
- Vencedores o vencidos (1961) (Judgment at Nuremberg), de Stanley Kramer.
- Dos cabalgan juntos (1961) (Two Rode Together), de John Ford.
- La conquista del Oeste (1962) (How the West Was Won), de John Ford.
- El gran combate (1964) (Cheyenne Autumn), de John Ford.
- Patrulla de rescate (1964) (Flight from Ashiya), de Michael Anderson.
- El Incidente Bedford (1965) (The Bedford Incident), de James B. Harris.
- Alvarez Kelly (1966) (Alvarez Kelly), de Edward Dmytryk.
- Camino de Oregón (1967) (The Way West), de Andrew V. McLaglen.
- La brigada homicida (1968) (Madigan), de Don Siegel.
- La ciudad sin ley (1969) (Death of a Gunfighter), de Don Siegel.
- El infierno del whisky (1970) (The Moonshine War), de Richard Quine.
- Cuando mueren las leyendas (1972) (When the Legends Die), de Stuart Millar.
- Asesinato en el Orient Express (1974) (Murder on the Orient Express), de Sidney Lumet.
- Montaña rusa (1977) (Rollercoaster), de James Goldstone.
- De presidio a primera página (1977) (The Domino Principle), de Stanley Kramer.
- Alerta: misiles (1977) (Twilight’s Last Gleaming), de Robert Aldrich.
- El enjambre (1978) (The Swarm), de Irwin Allen.
- Coma (1978) (Coma), de Michael Crichton.
- Operación Isla del Oso (1979) (Bear Island), de Don Sharp.
- Hanky Panky (1982) (Hanky Panky), de Sidney Poitier.
- S.A.S. Los invencibles (1982) (Who Dares Wins), de Ian Sharp.
- Contra todo riesgo (1984) (Against All Odds), de Taylor Hackford.
- Viejos recuerdos de Louisiana (1987) (A Gathering of Old Men), de Volker Schlöndorff.
- Texas Tren (1988) (Once Upon a Texas Train), de Burt Kennedy.
- Un lugar llamado Cold Sassy (1989) (Cold Sassy Tree), de Joan Tewkesbury.
- El color de la ambición (1991) (True Colors), de Herbert Ross.
- Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick), de Todd Robinson

Briony   

Desgraciadamente tenemos que hacernos eco de otro vacío que deja la muerte en el mundo del cine. 

Richard Widmark, falleció el lunes pasado en su casa de Roxbury, Connecticut, a la edad de 93 años, tras padecer una larga enfermedad.

Un actor de corte clásico al que siempre se le ha reconocido como actor de carácter, y que protagonizó más de sesenta películas durante su carrera, encarnado a hombres rudos de controvertidas personalidades.

Su reconocimiento por crítica y espectadores, le vino ya en su primera película, en la que interpretaba a un asesino psicópata (“El beso de la muerte” -1947).

Más tarde vendrían títulos, como “Pánico en las calles” (1951), “La ley del talión” (1956), “El Álamo” (1960), o “Brigada homicida” (1968), entre otras.

Trabajó a las órdenes de grandes directores. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Samuel Fuller, Vincente Minnelli, John Ford., o Sidney Lumet, son una pequeña muestra de los que demandaron su presencia en sus películas.

Widmark se ha ido, pero nos ha dejado un buen legado a los aficionados al cine. Las películas en las que actuó.

D.E.P.

Nota de Cinéfagos:  En los próximos días, publicaremos su biografía completa

Swanson  

As my friend Ted said: Yes, it does work wonderfully. I like A Letter to Three Wives just as much. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir is a fine sentimental comedy, and People Will Talk, like Marnie, is having its rep rehabilitated. It's not often you get that kind of dialogue by an American writer in an American film. Most writers of the Golden Age were more of the clipped Ben Hecht/Preston Sturges American wisecracking school. IMDB says Mankiewicz's idol was Lubitsch, and you can see that Mank blends the continental with wisecrack. That allowed him to be the screen's Shaw, and not just another second rate issue of the George S. Kaufman progeny.

Have you ever checked out TCM's website? You can order videos and film books directly from them. Every month I try to remember to enter their book giveaway contest:

http://www.tcm.com/bookcorner/index/?cid=193149

Yesterday I saw a Kirk Douglas film (directed by Vincente Minnelli, who was so versatile) I haven't seen in ages, The Bad and the Beautiful, an expose of how Hollywood producers and directors (and different kinds) get ahead at the expense of actors and writers. Kirk Douglas is amazing in the scene where he viciously rejects Lana Turner's love, the only time he exposes his character's insecurities. You might have thought the character Dawn on Buffy was the only one to have an emotional breakdown, shrieking, "Get out, get out, get OUT!!!!!" Not so. Douglas was the first. You could have knocked me over. Then Lana Turner (who I never thought of as a great actress) practically outdoes him as she disintegrates driving away from that humiliation. Wow.

And in tribute to Buffy and its panel at the Paley Center in Los Angeles a few days ago, I'll be watching the episode The Body today from my Chosen Collection, arguably the, if not one of the best episodes of the entire series.

I've previously sung the praises of the New-York Ghost, a fine and free periodical to which I occasionally contribute my word sculptures. This week saw the annual film special explode all over us like John Cassavetes at the end of THE FURY, under the guest editorship of B. Kite, but cheeky gremlins prevented the appearance of this fine material by Christoph Hubert. I've never met the man, but Hubert is known to Mr. Kite as "The Austrian Cairns," and fears have been expressed that if we should ever come face to face Space-Time would implode, or something. My doppelganger's suppressed meisterwerk is here appended for your amazement and edification, and to encourage y'all to check out the Ghost.

FEVER-DREAM DOUBLE FEATURES

As befits the year, I've seen lots of great works from all corners of film history (most mindblowing masterwork almost unheard of - Niemandsland, from 1931, by Victor Trivas, who as The Head, a quickly ordered, and weakly dubbed, cheap DVD of his last film Die Nackte und der Satan proved, is overripe for rediscovery). But three times the movie experience was so outstanding it instantly conjured an out-of-mind conjunction with other films. These were my fever-dream double features of the year:

Cuban Story (Victor Pahlen, 1959) - also known as The Truth About Fidel Castro Revolution, a haphazard, poverty-row kind-of-documentary on the fall of Batista, kind of narrated by „firsthand witness" Errol Flynn (who was around to shoot an introduction, but obviously not to dub his alleged voice-over, which sounds slightly British - and radiates an intriguing sense of erosion of authenticity onto the entire enterprise). Screams for a double bill with its ideological and aesthetic opposite: Mikhail Kalatazov's excessive Soy Cuba.

Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954) - especially after the Peter Jackson juggernaut it was nice to discover they once did make intriguing films about the little people, plus this is clearly the ultimate expression of Minnelli's aesthetic credo, gaudy studio schizophrenia and all. What is most unexpected about it, though, is when it turns out good ol' Luis Bunuel clearly just stole its nightmarish New York nightclub finale for his Simon of the Desert. Makes for instructive comparison.

Mondo Topless (Russ Meyer, 1966). First five minutes are a (literally, thanks to Mr. Auteur) screaming tour of San Francisco, jumping on any sexual pun possible. Then Russ gives us a crazed series of girl shaking booty with even more crazed voice-over (both by him and the subjects), plus shots of transistor radios to diegetically justify the music. A masterpiece already, then, not least because of Meyer's montage mannerisms, which are always at least as inspired as anything by his contempo Godard. But (despite a few detours to Europe, thank you readily available archive material) as an exploration of San Francisco this is even better - as good as contemporary maverick filmmaker James Benning's experimental studies of the American landscape, but more lively. And, I swear, it includes that shot of the bay and the bridge, so a pairing with Vertigo should make this the apex of obsessive double features. Better yet, make it a fever trauma triple feature and screen Mondo Topless once before and after the Hitchcock for more intense (in every sense) scrutiny, after all it's only half as long.

--- Christoph Huber

If C.H. doesn't mind, I'd like to run with the Fever Dream Double Feature idea in future, and welcome submissions from Shadowplayers everywhere.