An awesome montage. Just keep scrolling! The one of Crawford lying on her towel is goooooooorgeous. Is she perfect or what?
And I can’t get over Jean Arthur as a red-lipsticked saucy brunette. I didn’t even recognize her!
The still below from Only Angels Have Wings is the wallpaper on my computer. I know Arthur was not pleased with her performance in that movie – she felt she didn’t ‘get’ it, and she couldn’t do what Hawks wanted, and Howard Hawks wasn’t really happy either … he was eloquent about it much later in his life – it’s very interesting to read about the shooting of that film, and the struggles they had … and that’s cool, fine, if they felt she didn’t match up to the “Hawks Woman” fantasy … but I hope it’s cool with them, too, if I disagree. I thought she was wonderful!! Funny and awkward and completely unDONE by being in the presence of cranky macho Cary Grant.
Love the looks on both their faces here:
I just stole that snap for my own PCs – thanks!
Isn’t it great?
Yup. What ever was I doing before you hipped me to Cary Grant? I found this book:
http://tinyurl.com/32kp7x
for sale (50% off!) a couple of months ago – I can’t wait for the semester to end so I have time to read it.
I didn’t recognize Joan Crawford on the towel! But I love everything in that photo: Joan, the garden furniture, the telephone.
And I seriously love Jean Harlow in her dark suit and little hat. Well, I love Jean Harlow, period.
Also, that photo of Dorothy Lamour is smokin’! That look!!!
Maybe it’s just me, but part of what I love about Jean Arthur is how she doesn’t always “fit.”
The jitters she so often shows and then fights past are part of the allure.
In her best roles, I think, you come away with the feeling, for better or worse, that she’s the only one who could have given that performance.
James – I’m not of the mind that it’s either/or. I agree with you, I love her too – her awkwardness, her human qualities – she seems very real to me – but that doesn’t mean Hawks is “wrong” about her or that Arthur’s assessment of her own weaknesses as an actress are “wrong”. I find it interesting that she struggled with the slapstick quality Hawks wanted. She apparently had tremendous stage fright, would sit in her dressing room and tremble – afraid to go out and face the cameras.
Just watched Talk of the Town again recently, and she is positively MANIC in that. Running around that house, trying to hide Cary grant from Ronald Colman – she is totally hilarious in it!!
i love the pic of Crawford passed out on the floor in front of the bandstand…holy crap she was stunning!
Mitchell – I know!! She just wiped OUT. What gams that dame had too, huh??
gams and cheek bones…i was chatting with a friend about who today has the kind of old school glamor of these ladies??? what do u think? we thought of Cate Blanchett..but who else? Charlize? Catherine Zeta? ….hmmm..who is the Myrna Loy or Deborah Kerr of today?
Mitchell! Definitely Catherine Zeta, but not 20’s glam, more like 50’s glam. Kate Winslet has a 30’s feel to her, I’d say, Cate B. is in the late 30’s/early 40’s period, and I’d plunk Ms. Kidman as a 60’s Truffaut woman, but for that 20’s glam you gotta go with Annie Lennox at her apex, which I know is totally ludicrous, people think of her as ultra modern, but then so was Dietrich, and La Lennox is da bomb – I throw her the two-snaps gay salute from the heart. Kiss kiss.
Now that I think about it, it’s the singers who can be glam – Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera – not actresses so much somehow. Even Ms. Mariah Carey can seem downright 40’s bandstand in the right outfit and lighting (but alas, no cheekbones to be seen for miles).
xxx Stevie
nice Stevie!!! i love Miss Annie Lennox as well..quite obsessed actually….she is so FABU!… i agree with ur observations…i love the specific time periods!-mitchell