i feel like my stuffed animals r sad whenever i am
They are. They’ll weep at your graveside.
trying on a metaphor
we're not kids anymore.
h
DEAR READER
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
RMH
Jules of Nature
d e v o n
Three Goblin Art

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hello vonnie

祝日 / Permanent Vacation

if i look back, i am lost
YOU ARE THE REASON
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Game of Thrones Daily
art blog(derogatory)
Monterey Bay Aquarium
cherry valley forever
TVSTRANGERTHINGS

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@kwdayboise
i feel like my stuffed animals r sad whenever i am
They are. They’ll weep at your graveside.
Because when wages and jobs increase they like to call that “superheating the economy”.
Three Ages 1923
Frank Capra + rain/water curtain Ladies of Leisure (1930) The Miracle Woman (1931) Platinum Blonde (1931) Lady for a Day (1933) It Happened One Night (1934) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) Lost Horizon (1937) Meet John Doe (1941) It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) State of the Union (1948)
He moves in and out of the shadows, one moment skimming down stairways in furtive silence, the next rolling through the city streets like a phantom tumbleweed, at the same time sprung from the noir milieu and detached from it.
- Stephen D Youngkin (The Lost One, A Life of Peter Lorre) on Peter Lorre in Stranger on the Third Floor [1940]
The Makers and the Breakers: The Hollywood Studio System By Constance Cherise
From anecdotal tales to darker narratives of downright malevolence, movies about the Hollywood studio system are as prevalent as the subject is understandably intriguing. Films like A STAR IS BORN (‘54), THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (‘52) and, just for a bit of naughty camp, DAISY CLOVER (‘65), to name a few, all allow a voyeuristic gaze behind an enchanted curtain. The major Hollywood studios controlled all aspects of filmmaking, distribution and the lives and appeal of their stars.
A studio executive’s expertise was to home in on the “It” factor of an actor. Then the build-up of publicity would begin. A well-engineered system of perfectly timed pulleys and cranks, bells and whistles would turn, and it didn’t matter whether stories about a star were the truth, embellishment or lies, from the studios perspective stars weren’t actual people, they were commodities that were bought, sold, traded and used as pawns to the benefit of the studio system. (A thorough reference on this is Jeanine Basinger’s The Star Machine) But, if anyone had ill feelings about their treatment, only those that were the most daring spoke up. The cliché “You’ll never work in this town again” wasn’t just a catchphrase, it was wholly and utterly true. Speaking up too loudly about one’s gilded cage could end a career faster than Eleanor Powell’s “machine gun” tap dancing. As quickly as the mechanism could build a pretty face to stardom, it could just as easily grind to a halt, meticulously dismantling at record speed.
The true genius of the studio system was its innate and pristine ability to create a persona around the most capable assets that their commodity had to offer. An exceptional dancer with buck teeth? No problem. Send her to the dentist for cosmetic surgery. A heartthrob of a man who was too short? No problem. Elevate his shoes and make sure his counterpart wasn’t wearing heels. A knockout beauty who could dance but was too ethnic-looking? Change her hair color from jet black to red, perform electrolysis on her hairline, add luscious waves, put her on a diet and change her name from Margarita Carmen Cansino to Columbia Picture’s own Rita Hayworth.
The system found what was innately undeniable, played up the strengths and buffed, polished or cleverly disguise the flaws, a process still happening in media. But the studio system of the Golden Age was far-reaching. Its governance traveled beyond its inner sanctum into affecting contractors’ personal lives. A moral clause was a standard part of an actors’ contract. Both law enforcement and mobsters were part of the studio’s payroll, a necessary tactic thought to keep its stars in line and to protect the industry’s overall reputation. If a star found themselves in a compromising position, there was always a hired hand, such as in the case of MGM’s Eddie Mannix, to respond, repair and refute, regardless of the cost. Studios further exerted control by means of inclusivity. By creating an insular studio with every conceivable notion at their fingertips, including health facilities and a police force (as was present at MGM), the studio system was privy to inside information by way of design and therefore able to thwart potential problems sooner rather than later.
Opinions amongst stars who were part of the system varied. Some found it confining and artistically stifling (United Artists was created as a direct result of the burgeoning studio system in 1919), while others enjoyed its protective embrace. Fred Astaire was not a particularly handsome man, but his virtuoso skill of dance was undeniable. By the time he made it to Tinseltown, he had already been a star on the stage and his elegant persona was well polished. Almost the same could be said for Gene Kelly, except that Kelly was quite handsome with his all-American chiseled features and athletic body. He too came to Hollywood bearing Broadway accolades. Anything else either star may have required was worth any level of contribution on the part of the studio. But most stars didn’t come fully assembled.
Numerous classic musical fans are aware of actor and untrained dancer Debbie Reynolds’ account of bloodied feet while rehearsing “Good Morning’’ for the film SINGING IN THE RAIN (‘52), a story she confirmed in a TCM interview with late host Robert Osborne. Reynolds would star in multiple roles where dance was required, and for someone who was not a professional, with training from expert choreographers, she fooled us all. Ava Gardner did not go looking for the fame that found her. She was discovered through a photo in a shop window. The daughter of sharecroppers, Gardner had no experience in acting to speak of, and in fact, had a free-spirited reputation of reluctance. She had to be trained out of her deep southern accent, but her naturally stunning features combined with her charm literally smoldered the camera.
For all the contract players who willingly or unwillingly accepted the exploitation of their assets, there were those few who refused to play by studio rules. One not to cower was Mae West, who solidified her autonomy by demanding and receiving one dollar more than the head of Paramount, Adolph Zuckor, as well as full script approval of her films. MGM’s Luise Rainer, after becoming the first woman to consecutively win two Academy Awards, turned her back on Hollywood due to its iron grip. “I did not like the superficial life that one is naturally forced at times to live,” Rainer stated in a TCM interview. William Haines, one time voted as America’s top male star, refused to hide his homosexuality living an open life with his lover, defying the orders of traditional marriage by Louis B. Mayer and as a result was fired from MGM.
That’s what the studio system did: take an inarguable asset, create an inflated persona around it, smooth the dents, add a little extra padding where necessary and package it to be received exactly how they envisioned for public consumption…or…destroy it. After all, with over 70% of Americans attending film theaters at least once a week, the public turned the film industry into a multi-million-dollar business during its Golden Age when the average price of a ticket was 25 cents. Studios were readily aware they held the power and used it skillfully to full advantage.
The studio systems tactics could easily be viewed as a calculated sleight of hand, however, it unequivocally delivered, and its final product was polished, pristine and precise. But for those that were plucked from obscurity, was it truly a sleight of hand? One could argue that you can’t get blood from a stone, and if that statement is true, the studio’s techniques of engineered transformation couldn’t possibly invoke aptitude that didn’t already exist somewhere within, however miniscule. Perhaps, instead of the credit studio’s retained for creating stars, its genuine function was to awaken exceptional latent potential that was simply waiting to be discovered.
“Produced in Detroit, Michigan by little-known African-American filmmaker Richard Maurice, Eleven P.M. is a surreal melodrama in which a poor violinist named Sundaisy (Maurice) tries to protect an orphaned girl (Wanda Maurice) from a small-time hoodlum. The story, which may or may not be a dream concocted by a struggling newspaperman, has one of the most bizarre endings in film history, when the spirit of the deceased Sundaisy possesses the body of a dog in order to take vengeance upon the crook.” ELEVEN P.M. (1928) dir. Richard Maurice
ANN SAVAGE in DETOUR (1945) dir. Edgar G. Ulmer
Every moment says “Watch your ass.”
Martha Vickers
In my top 10 of the most beautiful women in film.
How Race Prevented Dorothy Dandridge from Being a Star By Susan King
Dorothy Dandridge was the first Black movie star. “She was our queen,” once said African American actress Nichelle Nichols (of Star Trek fame). Dandridge also made history with her full-blooded performance as the femme fatale in Otto Preminger’s 1954 CARMEN JONES. She became the first Black woman to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and the first to grace the cover of Life magazine.
Her achievements were during a decade before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and her nomination would mark five decades before a Black actress, Halle Berry, would win in that category. Berry also won an Emmy for her performance as the Dandridge in HBO’s Introducing Dorothy Dandridge (1999).
By the time Dandridge landed her role in CARMEN JONES, she had already paid her dues tenfold. She knew how difficult it was to be gifted, young, Black and beautiful in Hollywood. “CARMEN JONES was the best break I ever had,” said Dandridge, who tragically died at the age of 42 in 1965. “But no producer ever knocked on my door. There just aren’t as many parts or a Black actress. If I were white, I could capture the world.”
She was a child singer along with her older sister Vivian as part of The Wonder Children. Her mother, actress Ruby Dandridge, was the ultimate stage mother and so was her companion Geneva Williams, who oversaw their career. She was strict and allegedly was abusive. With family friend Etta Jones, Dorothy and Vivian became The Dandridge Sisters. They came to Hollywood around the time she was four. “I was one of those musical kids you hear about, with parts in pictures like the Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races (‘37),” Dandridge said.
The Dandridge Sisters performed in Europe, the famed Cotton Club and appeared on Broadway in 1939 with Louis Armstrong in the short-lived Swingin’ the Dream. They also sang with African American band leader Jimmie Lunceford. And besides appearing in A DAY AT THE RACES, they were a specialty act in such movies and shorts as Snow Gets in Your Eyes (‘38), in which they perform “Harlem Yodel” and “Rhythm Rascals.”
Even as a teenager, you can’t keep your eyes off of Dandridge. She had the indescribable “It” factor. And after she went out on her own, she continued to dazzle in short musical films known as “soundies” that were produced for video jukeboxes of the era. She also had tiny roles, often uncredited, in movies, including David O. Selznick’s popular World War II film SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (‘44). Perhaps her most notable performance at this time was in the Sonja Henie musical ice-skating comedy SUN VALLEY SERENADE (‘41) in which she performs “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in a slinky black ensemble with the tap-dancing duo Harold and Fayard Nicholas.
“No film fan has ever forgotten her as a dream girl with the brothers,” said African American film historian Donald Bogle in his book Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers.
She was all of 19 when she married Harold Nicholas, whom she had first met while performing at the Cotton Club. Their only child Harolyn was born in 1943. Nicholas had gone off to play golf the day Dandridge went into labor and he took the car keys, so she was delayed getting to the hospital to deliver the baby. Harolyn was born brain damaged and was never able to speak or even recognize Dandridge.
Dandridge believed the reason she was born mentally disabled was because of the delay in delivery. Dandridge would be haunted by guilt the rest of her life. She provided expensive care for her daughter, but when her finances became grim, Harolyn became a ward of the state. According to the TCM.com overview of BRIGHT ROAD (‘53), in which Dandridge portrays a dedicated young schoolteacher, seeing “healthy African-American children playing on the set proved too much for her, and she fled to her dressing room.”
Dandridge had always wanted to be a dramatic actress and attended the progressive Actors’ Lab in Los Angeles, becoming one of the school’s first Black students. Marilyn Monroe was also one of the students and became great friends with Dandridge. It would be considered a communist organization in the early 1950s with several members being blacklisted and the theater soon closed.
She also worked with noted coach and composer/arranger Phil Moore to develop a nightclub act, which Dandridge performed internationally to great acclaim. Under Moore’s guidance, Dandridge went from the young vivacious singer to a sultry, sexy chanteuse. Time magazine wrote about a nightclub appearance where she “came wriggling out of the wings like a caterpillar on a hot rock.” And according to a 1997 New York Times piece by Janet Maslin, when Dandridge headlined the Mocambo nightclub in L.A. in 1953, the cigarette girls actually sold copies of Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
“I think it was really the heartache over my child and the failure of my marriage that forced me to make a success out of my career,” Dandridge explained in 1954. “I had to keep busy. I threw myself into my work. It’s a wonderful therapy. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself.”
She landed roles in three low-budget films including TARZAN’S PERIL (‘51). Dandridge is the best thing about the adventure as Melmendi, the young, beautiful and feisty Queen of Ashuba, who is kidnapped and rescued by Tarzan. Bogle notes that Lex Barker’s Tarzan shows a lot more interest in Melmendi than he does in Jane (Virginia Huston). “Here were suggestions of an interracial romance that the studio didn’t explore.” But audiences were titillated. Ebony magazine put her on the cover with the banner: “Hollywood’s Newest Glamour Queen.’’
She would appear in a few more roles, including THE HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS (‘51) and BRIGHT ROAD opposite Harry Belafonte, who would star with her the following year in CARMEN JONES. The operetta gave her high visibility but few additional film roles. Also, she had fallen in love with Preminger, who didn’t give her the best career advice. They would work together one more time in the film adaptation of PORGY AND BESS (‘59), for which Dandridge was nominated for a Golden Globe.
“But sadly, her decline came soon after her triumph,” notes Bogle in Brown Sugar. “She realized she was a token figure within the movie colony, her position not much different than Lena Horne’s in the ‘40s. There was no great follow-up of roles to sustain her fame. Three years passed before she appeared in another film.” Dandridge once said of racial prejudice: “It is such a waste. It makes you loggy and half-alive. If it gives you nothing.”
Dandridge was drinking heavily and taking antidepressants by the late 1950s. In fact, when Dandridge married a second time in 1959, to the man who was not only abusive but would leave her broke, she was so drugged that she fell asleep at the reception. “Dandridge’s last years were lonely and sad as she struggled to find work,” said Bogle.
Peter Lorre and friends, 1944
Peter Lorre discovers the marking known for identifying murderers on the back of his coat in 1931’s “M”, dir. Fritz Lang.
One of the few actors who could make you sympathize with a child murderer.
The Maltese Falcon (1941) dir. John Huston
“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre
Gawd I love this movie.
Orson Welles, 1941
“Everything about me is a contradiction, and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There’s a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.”
Unusually naughty.
Robert Redford & Jane Fonda in 1966 and 2017.
I love Fonda but I'm in love with Redford's hair.
Always amazing how he takes a somber moment and turns it into comedy.