Happy New Year to all of our readers! It's time to ring in 2017! A brand spanking new year of exploring obscure classic films, delving into Hollywood's past, and discovering the wonders of British entertainment as well. Are you ready for 2017? We certainly are! Here's a toast to you, our faithful audience, wishing you the merriest and most blessed new year!
Debbie, I miss your wonderful smile already. In your youth, your exuberance and your energetic spunk were marvelous to watch. Later, as you grew older and matured, you blossomed into a beautiful young woman. Your tender rendition of "Tammy" will last for ages. I loved your pizzazz in Singin' in the Rain ( 1952 ) and your winsome country ways in The Mating Game ( 1959 ). MGM would not have been the same without you. You were even more beautiful in the 1960s. You were the ideal woman of the West in How the West Was Won ( 1962 ), one of your best films; and you personified Molly Brown herself in The Unsinkable Mollie Brown ( 1965 )....your favorite film. I loved when you let your hair down in The Catered Affair ( 1956 ) - a great performance - and The Pleasure of His Company ( 1961 ).....you should have kept that style. You were wildly funny in Goodbye, Charlie ( 1964 ) and How Sweet it is ( 1968 ) and you even convinced me that you were a woman of habit in The Singing Nun ( 1966 ). I look forward to exploring all of the films you made that I have not yet seen, but right now I just miss you. At least, you are happily reunited with your daughter and your old friends. Try not to argue too much with Eddie.....
During the Christmas season we are often bombarded with Christmas tunes on the radio and television and they become so familiar to us that we overlook the story behind these songs. One such story is the tale of Alfred Burt, a young man who wrote and then sent out carols, in place of a Christmas card, to his friends and families. This tradition began with his father, Reverend Bates Gilbert Burt, who wrote both the music and lyrics to Christmas carols that he would send out to friends and parishioners throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Alfred Burt helped set his father's lyrics to music during the WWII years and, after his discharge from the Army Air Force, he toured America, along with his wife, working as a trumpeter with an orchestra and writing many of the band's arrangements as well. In 1946, he surprised his father by presenting him with his very own Christmas carol. When Al's father suffered a fatal heart attack in 1948, Al and his wife decided to carry on Reverend Burt's Christmas carol tradition. Originally their list of Christmas carol recipients amounted 50, but after touring with the Alvino Rey Orchestra, they met so many new people that it quickly grew to 450 cards to mail out!
In the early 1950s, Alvino Rey's orchestra kept them in the San Fernando Valley, and so they decided to settle there. Al became active in all phases of the Hollywood musical scene. In 1952, during a rehearsal with the Blue Reys ( Alvino Rey's singing group ), Al asked if they could sing his latest carol "Come, Dear Children" just so that he could check the harmonies on it.....but they liked the song so much they pleaded with him to use it during their annual King Family Christmas party performance. It was a great hit and in the coming year Al spent many hours working with Rey and the King singers for a television show they were putting together. He took a break from this work to set up the Horace Heidt orchestra for a road tour but, upon his return, he looked tired and worn. His wife insisted he see a doctor and his diagnosis hit them like a wave - Al had lung cancer with less than a year to live. The Burts were crushed with this news. They had a young daughter, and Al had not yet accomplished his dream of writing a musical, but since his fate was inevitable, he wanted each remaining day to be filled with happiness and humor. A friend of theirs, upon hearing the news, alerted James Conkling, president of Columbia Records, to record Al's carols as a final gift. Al was thrilled with the news, and managed to attend the recording which featured a volunteer chorus of some of Hollywood's finest singers. Alfred Burt wrote his final carol - "The Star Carol" - just a day before he passed away...at the age of 33. His wife and daughter sent out this Christmas carol, his most beautiful, in Christmas 1954, including a note telling of the end of the Burt carol tradition. In the years following the release of "The Christmas Mood", Columbia's first release of Burt's carols, his music was recorded by so many popular singers of the time, including Bing Crosby, the Fred Waring Orchestra, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Anita Bryant, and Andy Williams. Today, Burt's songs have joined the ranks of being traditional Christmas carols, sung in many people's homes and performed around the world during the holiday season. Little did Al realize that the Christmas carols that he wrote just for friends would become so popular and become a part of so many people's lives.
Below we have a selection of Youtube videos featuring some of our favorite Burt carols. Enjoy.....and Merry Christmas!
All on a Christmas Morning ( 1946 ) - This was one of the very first carols that Alfred Burt helped to write along with his father, Reverend Burt. This version is performed by the Dick Major Singers, which today is a little remembered singing group.
Sleep Baby Mine ( 1949 ) - This is a lullaby inspired by the birth of the Burt's daughter, Diane. It features lyrics written by Wihla Huston, who wrote most of the lyrics to Burt's carols.
Some Children See Him ( 1951 ) - Andy Williams performs the tender "Some Children See Him", which is probably Burt's most recognized work. Only Andy could sing it with such passion!
O Hearken Ye ( 1953 ) - Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians performed many of Burt's carols in the 1960s. This one is much more upbeat than Burt's usual carols.
The Star Carol ( 1954 ) - This was the last carol that Alfred Burt composed before he died, and it is certainly his most beautiful. The Lennon Sisters performed it many times on television and in live performances. This particular clip is from the 1966 Christmas special of The Lawrence Welk Show.
To read more about Alfred Burt, his music, and his daughter's work in continuing his legacy, check out this link.
Lately, we've been posting some screenshots that have been truly impossible to guess, but since this is the season to be generous, today we have posted a Not-So-Impossibly difficult screenshot! This one features a lovely winter landscape, and two backs of heads that look very familiar....don't you think? Be the first to guess the movie this shot is from, and you'll win a prize for Christmas! As always, if you are not familiar with the rules to the Impossibly Difficult Name that Movie game or the prize, click here! GAME OVER. Congratulations to Vienna who correctly answered The Farmer's Daughter ( 1947 ). Those familiar looking backsides belong to Ethel Barrymore and Charles Bickford and those two figures running are none other than Joseph Cotten and Loretta Young. Katie Holstrom ( Young ) believes that running keeps her in shape for skating, while skating keeps her in shape for running. Only a Swede would be brave enough to go jogging in the snow!
You've seen him before...that imposing stature, that jovial smile, his booming voice, and those eyes, those eyes that bulge at just the right moments. Thurston Hall is his name and governors, senators, businessmen, and doting fathers are his game. His name is often confused with Thurston Howell III ( Jim Backus ) of Gilligan's Island fame, and although the series' creator Sherwood Schwartz never directly admitted that his multi-millionaire character was based on Hall, he certainly could have been! Thurston made nearly 270 films in his career which spanned between 1915-1958. Westerns, dramas, musicals, comedies, adventure films....he did them all. If any film featured a blustery authoritarian you could be sure that it was Thurston Hall playing the part. This 6' tall Bostonian toured New England with a theatrical troupe in his youth, later forming his own theater company and traveling throughout Australia and South Africa. He was kept busy throughout the early 1900s and 1920s juggling both stage performances with numerous silent film appearances. However, his rich baritone voice could not be heard in silent films and so audiences did not embrace him as the leading man he could have been. It was not until he was nearing the age of 50 that he found his niche as a character actor appearing in films for just about every studio in Hollywood. Thurston was a delightful character, and it did not matter whether he played unscrupulous men, or pompous politicians...you just couldn't help but like him. A prime example of a typical Thurston Hall role was Mr. Bruce Pierce, publisher of the sensational Pierce paperbacks in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty ( 1947 ). Walter Mitty ( Danny Kaye ) would continually come up with excellent suggestions for company, all of which Mr. Pierce would later boast were his own brilliant ideas. Ten years earlier, he had portrayed a similar role as Irene Dunne's flustered New York publisher Arthur Stevenson in Theodora Goes Wild ( 1936 ).
In Fast Company ( 1938 ) he was crooked District Attorney MacMillen, a man always ready to swoop down on the Sloanes...especially when he felt them breathing down his neck. In almost every film, Thurston had a fat cigar hanging from his lips, and he would often puff on it nervously when his character's underhanded political dealings were about to be exposed. It was these political roles that Thurston excelled at in particular. His face, his manners, and that voice of his were the ideal image of an American politician....particularly a congressmen or senator. The Great Gildersleeve ( 1942 ), Sherlock Holmes in Washington ( 1943 ), The Farmer's Daughter ( 1947 ), Welcome Stranger ( 1947 ), and Up in Central Park ( 1948 ) were just a few of the films where he played men of political prominence. Remember that wealthy socialite Mr. Bel-Goodie in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man ( 1938 )? That was Thurston, too. When he wasn't portraying crooked financiers or politicians he played wealthy upper-crust men of society. In First Love ( 1939 ) Deanna Durbin made sure to tickle the snooty gent the right way because she was smitten with his son ( Robert Stack ).
Thurston also played military men with ease, often portraying colonels or captains of the Army and Navy ( as in Going Places and Brewsters Millions ). When he wasn't donning a uniform you could find Thurston with a cowboy hat atop his head. Jasper Jim Bandy ( Swing the Western Way ), Big Jim Hanlon ( Rim of the Canyon ), Horatio Huntington ( Belle of Ole Mexico ), Big Jim Lassiter ( Whirlwind ), and Mr. Gaytes ( Texas Carnival ), were some of the larger than life Texan characters that Thurston tackled in the 1940s and 1950s.
When Thurston Hall's film career came to a close in the mid-1950s, he focused his attention on television, appearing in episodes of The Abbott and Costello Show and My Little Margie as well as being a regular in The Adventures of Hiram Holliday and Topper. Incidentally, his role of the blustery boss Mr. Schuyler in Topper is what he is most remembered for. In Hollywood today there aren't many character actors who are known for playing one particular kind of role. Even if these actors still existed, we doubt that anyone could personify a politician as well as Thurston Hall. We like to call him "The Great Senator". After all, who could claim they were a senator so many times in their career? Paula's Cinema Club, Once Upon a Screen, Outspoken and Freckled are hosting the 5th annual What a Character! Blogathon and this year there are some really juicy posts about obscure character actors, so be sure to check out the other entries here.
Jean Renoir is often revered for directing two brilliant cinematographic films of the 1930s - La Grande Illusion (1937) and The Rules of the Game (1939) - both considered by critics to be among the greatest films ever made, but Renoir also voyaged into the realm of Technicolor in the early 1950s and produced what could be considered one of the most vibrant color films ever made - The River (1951), shot entirely in India.
This film won the International prize at the Venice Film Festival when it was first released, but it has since fallen into obscurity, especially among Hollywood film fans. It may be because Renoir chose to use amateur actors for the leads, and while they handle their parts adequately, many feel that their performances kept this film from becoming the classic it could have been. I feel their naturalness adds to the charm of the picture, which often takes on the tone of a documentary. The River is one woman's reminiscences about her childhood in India and the growing pains she encountered as a girl: that woman being Rumer Godden. She wasn't a glamorous girl, and felt awkward at times...hence, the actress chosen to portray her (Bengal-native Patricia Walters) was not glamorous and often awkward herself.
The other main characters in her story are her childhood friends, Melanie (Radha), a half-British/half-Indian girl, and Valerie (Adrienne Corri), a flighty beauty who isn't sure where her emotions stem from. Their peaceful childhood together growing up among the banks of the Bengal river are disrupted when a soldier, Captain John (Thomas Breen) comes for a prolonged visit with their neighbor. The captain is a handsome youth with flaming red hair, and the three girls quickly become smitten with him. Little do they realize that their romantic fantasies aren't shared by him. Captain John lost a leg in the war, and he has come to India primarily to escape the pity he feared he would receive back home. He also hopes to find inner peace and an acceptance for his condition, but leaves finding neither. All of the characters in The River are truly misfits. Melanie does not know whether her viewpoints about life and marriage are more Eastern or Western; Valerie is beautiful but immature. The main character, Harriet, is wise but homely in appearance; Harriet's father has only one eye; and Captain John is the most lamentable of them all for he feels that his missing leg makes him less whole than others.
Captain John is portrayed by Thomas Breen, son of Joseph I. Breen, a film censor who was appointed by Hays to enforce the Production Code in Hollywood. Thomas had his leg amputated after injuring it in combat in Guam during World War II. Esmond Knight and Nora Swinburne, two prolific English actors, portray Harriet's parents. They lend a touch of professionalism to an otherwise all-amateur cast.
The River is a gentle and thoughtful film and it meanders along at a refreshingly slow pace while it explores these themes of love and hatred, acceptance of our situation, as well as life and death. Renoir makes his audience feel as though they were taking a slow boat journey down the river with plenty of time to stop and observe the locals in their daily activities and meditate on the constancy of the circle of life. If you have the time, it is well worth taking this journey. Seen The River already? Then check out Alexander Sesonske's splendid essay on the film over at Critieron's website.
Bond proves that Kamal Khan's luck with dice is more than mere wrist action in the action packed James Bond classic Octopussy.
From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures
Agnes Moorehead has long been one of the most beloved supporting actresses of the golden era, and so, to pay tribute to this wonderful talent, In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood is hosting The Agnes Moorehead Blogathon running from December 4-6th. Agnes was truly one of the best. She was a marvelous actress who covered every field of entertainment from performing in over one hundred films, doing dozens of radio programs, taking on numerous television work and acting in theater, to touring as a public speaker. Versatility and professionalism were Ms. Moorehead's greatest assets. She could take on any role and give audiences the very best she had to give in every performance. Agnes was born in Clinton, Massachusetts in 1900. Her father was a Presbyterian minister and her mother a former mezzo soprano. Agnes began performing at a young age when her parents encouraged her to recite and sing in public. She also had a vivid imagination and loved to create characters to fit every mood. If she didn't feel like being Agnes one day, she would pretend she was somebody else. Throughout her life, Agnes never considered herself to be pretty, feeling especially awkward in her youth. "As a little girl I was the long gangly type, almost as tall as I am now ( 5'6" ), it was sad and pathetic." But she loved to perform, and decided at a young age that this was what she wanted to do with her life. Before stepping into the limelight, Agnes decided to educate herself, for as she explained once, "I believe the more you know about what goes on around you, the more prepared you would be for any parts that might come along." She taught English at schools in Muskingum, Ohio ( her family's hometown and the area she was raised as a girl ), and in Wisconsin, before attaining a Master's Degree in Public Speaking and English, earning a doctorate in literature, and graduating with honors from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1929. She had hoped to venture into Broadway but significant parts were scarce and, rather than starve as she had sometimes done, she sought work as a library assistant, waitress, and teacher before she discovered that she could earn a steady income through radio.
"Radio was a wonderful boon to an actor, " she said. "You could use your imagination and your voice to create all sorts of characterizations." Ms. Moorehead had a particularly distinctive voice that evoked much emotion and depth. It was through her radio work that she met Orson Welles, a young actor who was also an innovative director. Welles featured Agnes in "War of the Worlds" a news report style science-fiction broadcast that scared the wits out of the nation. Welles admired Agnes' professionalism and ability to adapt to any role, and so he invited her to join his theatrical group, the Mercury Theater players. RKO film studios had their eye on Orson Welles and, in 1940, invited him out to Hollywood.....with him came Agnes and another talented Mercury player, Joseph Cotten. The three of them would all have parts in Welles' first film Citizen Kane ( 1941 ). Agnes' introductory role as Kane's poverty-stricken mother was small but memorable, and essential to establishing the millionaire's dying yearn to return to his childhood.
Her next role was Fanny Amberson, the emotional aunt in Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons ( 1942 ). This part earned her the first of five Oscar nominations she would receive in her lifetime. Accolades do not build up wealth in the bank, however, and the fear of experiencing poverty like she suffered during the 1920s made her return to radio work. Agnes would make her most famous radio performance in Sorry, Wrong Number, one of the numerous episodes she did for the Suspense mystery program. Agnes portrayed the selfish bed-ridden woman who overhears a phone conversation of a killer plotting to murder a woman....not knowing that she herself was the intended victim! Whatever role she took on, Agnes made it her own, adding presige to even the most minor of parts. She had small roles in Government Girl ( 1943 ), Jane Eyre ( 1943 ), Dragon Seed ( 1944 ), Since You Went Away ( 1944 ), and The Seventh Cross ( 1944 ), but much to her disappointment, she was seldom offered sympathetic parts...until Mrs. Parkington ( 1944 ). In this film adaptation of Louis Bromfield's best-selling novel, Agnes portrayed the world-wise Baroness Aspasia Conti, a dear friend to both Major Parkington and his wife ( portrayed by Walter Pidgeon and Greer Garson ). This role earned her her second Oscar nomination and, more importantly, opened up the window to a more diverse range of parts.
Throughout the 1940s, Agnes was kept busy in family dramas ( Our Vines Have Tender Grapes ), musicals ( Summer Holiday ), comedies ( Her Highness and the Bellboy ), and even film noirs such as Dark Passage ( 1948 ), where she was given the opportunity to play "the other woman" in Humphrey Bogart's life. Ms. Moorehead's glowing success ( she was earning $6000 a week and was now a sought-after supporting actress ), had its price on her personal life. Her husband of twenty-two years, Jack Lee, filed for divorce in 1952 claiming that Agnes "berated him because of his dress, speech, posture, and manner of eating", and often complained of his "snoring". Agnes continued to keep busy throughout the 1950s, not only in film and radio but in theater as well, notably touring with Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton. Still, there was nothing she valued more than her privacy from the prying eyes of columnists, and she often retreated to the 320-acre "gentleman's farm" in Cambridge, Ohio, that had been homesteaded by her great-grandparents. Agnes loved to cook all of her meals from produce fresh from the earth. She also adored animals, particularly pigs, deer, and her beloved dogs. In 1953, Agnes remarried, this time to actor Robert Gist. Despite sharing a professional bond, Agnes' high moral standards and religious devotion put a strain on their marriage and within five years their union ended. During this time, Agnes adopted her foster son, Sean, who also had a mop of red hair. That royal demeanor often seen on screen was merely Agnes' true character shining through. Off-screen, she was known as "The Lavender Lady" because she was always seen wearing lavender, a lighter shade of the royal purple. Agnes also threw soirees fit for royalty. Her annual Christmas party, held at her Mediterranean style mansion Villa Agnese in Hollywood, was an event covered by newspapers on both coasts.
The 1950s were high times for Agnes and she appeared in some of her most colorful roles during this decade. In Magnificent Obsession is played Nancy Ashford, a noble nurse. This was also one of the few Technicolor films that showed audiences her flaming red hair. She portrayed queens in both The Swan ( 1956 ), and The Story of Mankind ( 1957 ), and Hunlan, a Mongolian woman in The Conqueror ( 1956 ), a part that later in her life she would seriously regret taking. In The Bat ( 1959 ), Mrs. Moorehead portrayed Mrs. Van Gorder, a mystery writer who finds a killer known as The Bat lurking around the country manor she rented for the summer. The presence of Agnes, and that other remarkable talent Vincent Price ( her male counterpart ), lent this budget thriller a touch a class, and their interaction on screen is wonderful to watch.
Agnes was excellent as Mother Prescott in the western epic How the West Was Won ( 1962 ) and as the spectacularly trashy Velma Cruther, but focused primarily on acting in comedies and light-hearted fare in the early 1960s ( Pollyanna, Bachelor in Paradise, Who's Minding the Store? ), before signing on to play Endora the Witch in the long-running television series Bewitched. This is probably her most recognized role, and yet she did not want to be associated for this part alone. She found work in television to be tedious, but nevertheless, she enjoyed the series and was proud of its wholesome tone. In the 1960s and 1970s, Agnes shared her knowledge of acting, and especially public speaking, with budding actors who sought her out as a mentor. She educated them in Shakespeare, technique, and movement, and tried to steer them away from the sordidness that was becoming prevalent in modern entertainment. During this time, Agnes was diagnosed with cancer. Like Dick Powell, Susan Hayward, and John Wayne, she had contracted the disease during location filming for The Conqueror in St. George, Utah...not far from the nuclear test area in Yucca Flat, Nevada.
Moorehead spent as much time as she could back at her Cambridge farm before the effects of cancer set in and she was hospitalized. In her last days, only her good friend Debbie Reynolds, whom she had met during the making of How the West Was Won, was by her side. Agnes and Debbie were over thirty years apart in age, but sisters in heart. "Debbie has an incredible sense of humor," Agnes once said, "and it's a good thing she had. You know, it's really the only thing that keeps us actors going. If an actor either loses his sense of humor - or just doesn't have one to start with - he can eat himself up inside. Both Debbie and I manage to see the funny side of things - and so survive." Agnes' son Sean had walked out on Agnes years before, and during Agnes' illness was rumored to have been living with Paulette Goddard in Switzerland. She passed away on April 30th, 1974. In her final will she left most of her estate, including both of her Ohio homes, to Muskingum College and Bob Jones University. She was buried in her family plot in Dayton, Ohio. Want more on Moorehead? Check out her cousin's blog "Just Call Me Aggie" for some great ancestral insights and behind-the-scenes stories, and "My Travels with Agnes Moorehead - The Lavender Lady" by Quint Benedetti.
