Olivia de Havilland at age 100: 7/1/2016

[LADoug1]

In a film class I took at UCLA once, the professor gave his list of the 3 greatest performances ever given onscreen by a woman. They were: Lillian Gish in "The Wind", Barbara Stanwyck in "Stella Dallas" and Emma Thompson in "Howard's End". I didn't disagree with him but I would have expanded the list to 5 and included Vivien Leigh in "Streetcar Named Desire" and Cicely Tyson in "Sounder". (The list was confined to English speaking films; otherwise, some very fine European performances would have been mentioned - Giuletta Masina in "Nights of Cabiria" comes immediately to mind.)

 

We will never agree on Charlton Heston! And my opinion of him has nothing to do with his politics, as abhorrent to me as they were. He was just of that generation of actors that I found so difficult to watch or appreciate because they were so big and noisy - Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Heston, Stephen Boyd. Too macho for me. Too conscious of their own greatness.

 

I disagree with you about Peck. I think he's very fine in a lot of movies, such as "Keys of the Kingdom", "Mockingbird", "Boys from Brazil".

 

"Roman Holiday" was originally intended for Elizabeth Taylor and would have subsequently been a lousy movie. Taylor would have LOOKED like a princess but Hepburn WAS a princess - the posture, the accent, the manners, the slight haughtiness, the incomprehension of "ordinary" things.

 

I'm a huge Stanwyck fan. I never liked Crawford and find Bette Davis almost impossible to watch in most things, "The Letter" being the exception. My favorites of their contemporaries were Claudette Colbert, Loretta Young, de Havilland, and sometimes, not always, the other Hepburn - Kate. I especially liked the movies Stanwyck made with Fred MacMurray, "Remember the Night" being the best. That cast also included the divine Beulah Bondi, one of the greatest character actors ever. I liked Norma Shearer a lot too, when she wasn't being grand. She is sublime in the last third of "Marie Antoinette", especially in her scenes with the children when they are imprisoned in the Temple. In fact, she's always good with kids; her best scenes in "The Women" are with her daughter. She's bad when she's "cute" and when she didn't have a strong director, she tended to rely on "cute" a lot. Watch her in "Private Lives" - you'll want to smack her. She has moments in "Barretts of Wimpole Street" but is mostly acted off the screen by Charles Laughton and Frederic March, even though the movie was a vehicle for her. I liked Ginger Rogers in her non musical roles too. I understand why she got the Oscar for "Kitty Foyle"; it's a lousy movie but she's quite wonderful in it. She elevates the soap opera material in a way that I never thought Davis did in her melodramas. I read that Rogers was offered "All This and Heaven Too", and I think it would have been a much finer picture with her as the disgraced governess than it was with Bette Davis pretending to be shy and awkward. I know that "Now Voyager" is a beloved film but I find it unwatchable because of Davis' performance; she seems to be wearing a sign throughout that says, "Aren't I just a great actress, folks? First I'm ugly and then I'm beautiful! You should be SO impressed."

 

It's funny that I didn't like Davis and Crawford but I always enjoyed Susan Hayward. Now there's a woman who defined "over-the-top" but for me, she was so much more fun to watch and not nearly as annoying as the other 2 divas because there was a core of honesty in Hayward that I never sensed in Crawford or Davis. Davis was always Davis acting with a capital A, and Crawford just always seemed to be looking for her key light but Hayward seemed to want to be good, knew her limitations, and didn't have the crippling vanity the others did.

 

As for Audrey Hepburn, I'd have watched her read the phone book, as the saying goes. I even liked her in "My Fair Lady". When she comes down that staircase in that white ball gown, it takes your breath away. It is one of the most perfect moments ever filmed.

 

Oh dear, I've gone on and on. I'm an actor/singer/dancer, and passionate about my profession so when you get me on the subject of theatre, movies, theatre/movie history, great performances, lousy performances, directors and stars, I don't know when to shut up.

+++1 for Stella Dallas.

[longtime lurker]

Much to agree with you on and much to disagree with you on. I like Roman Holiday somewhat but without Hepburn I couldn't watch it. She's magical. Peck is the most boring actor in the entire history of cinema and that includes Keanu Reeves. I can't abide him for even a second. I'll disagree about Heston. I think his performance in Ben Hur is top notch. I find most people who don't like him are really reacting to his high profile political profile instead of his actual acting. I defy anyone with a heart to not be moved by the final scene of Ben Hur with Heston walking up the stairs with tears in his eyes. THAT's a movie star.

 

Since we've moved on from the topic of Olivia and onto other classic stars...

 

Heston was... good... in BEN HUR. Oscar worthy? Ehhh... I think he was much better in PLANET OF THE APES. Of course, these films were made when he was a "liberal", just like Ronnie Reagan in KINGS ROW (the closest he ever got to Oscar worthy material). Acting when you are a "liberal" tends to involve more sensitivity.

 

I definitely favor the 1925 version of BEN HUR with Ramon Novarro though. Maybe because the silent screen demanded more facial expression, while Heston could look stoic all the time and viewers could count on his talk to carry the story. Then again, maybe time has been more kind to Novarro since he was among the last victims of the pre-Stonewall era (the trial involving his murderers starting concurrently in the summer of '69). Some of his twenties films like THE PAGAN are guilty pleasures for a forum like this... light on plot, but plenty of the thirty year old hopping around half naked and quite frisky in a most "versatile" way. What is amusing about BEN HUR when you see it a few times is that it had a long filming schedule and Ramon changes quite a bit in appearance. In some scenes he clearly has chest hair, if only a small amount, and others is clearly "waxed". It was nice that they left Heston's chest alone.

 

Gregory Peck was good in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. His best performances were in the 1940s though (SPELLBOUND, DUEL IN THE SUN, etc.) since he was among the "method" actors before he became a bit too stoic and stuck-in-a-rut later on. However he did THE OMEN after his son's suicide and that boasted an impressive performance with a lot of visible pain involved. Especially in the scene when he has to kill his own son.

[+ WilliamM]

im Novak couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag but acting isn't required of her in VERTIGO, which is, IMHO, the greatest film ever made. She isn't the center of the film at all. It's Stewart's film. It's all about him and his obsessions. Stewart's performance, on the other hand, is geni

 

If Hitchcock had cast an actress who could act, he would have ruined the film.

[actor61]

My Kim Novak story. I met Novak in the late 1970s in Carmel, California through friends of friends and we spent an evening together. She was delightful, funny, smart and surprisingly vulnerable. We discussed her various films and she was quite proud of her work but I agree with the above - she was a rotten actress. She got to work with some great directors, though, including Hitchcock and Preminger. She thought her best performance was in "Middle of the Night" and we all just nodded and said non committal things like "Interesting movie", "You looked so beautiful", "How was Frederic March to work with?" I mean, when you're sitting in somebody's living room sipping their wine and listening to fascinating anecdotes, you can hardly say, "Oh, honey, you were terrible in everything! I'll have another glass of Chardonnay please."

 

I have to defend Loretta Young. The Oscar for "The Farmer's Daughter" WAS probably undeserved but there have been a lot of undeserved Oscars (Gwyneth Paltrow has one for heaven's sake!!!), so it doesn't bother me that they rewarded her for a career that began in the silents with an award for a very competent and rather charming performance in the 1940s. But watch her in "The Bishop's Wife", my favorite Christmas movie. She is completely winning, smart and lovely. It might not be great acting but it's a wonderful performance.

 

Yes on Irene Dunne. Terrific, terrific, terrific actress and vastly underrated. One of my all time favorite films is "Penny Serenade" with her and Cary Grant. It's sentimental claptrap directed with great gooiness by George Stevens but the 2 of them are superb, especially Dunne.

 

I also liked Greer Garson a lot of times. She made "Mrs. Miniver" believable (another Wyler movie with a very strong female slant, that's why I called him the best of the Women's Directors) even though so much was going against her. I mean, the high heels when she's making beds, the full make-up and hair when she's capturing Nazis in the kitchen, and the impossible poise when in the bomb shelter defy reality but she somehow makes it work. She could be veddy grand but she was charming and likable most of the time. Once when I had a really lousy bout of flu that laid me up for a week, I watched "Julia Misbehaves" on a freezing, drizzling, miserable afternoon and was happy as a clam. It's a horrible movie and Elizabeth Taylor is execrable in it, but Garson's just glorious in an awful way. What more could anyone ask?

 

We can type away to each other for weeks but I'll never agree that Heston was good and Peck was bad!!!

[body2body]

Back in 1975, friend was studying film at UCLA. She was taking a " Women in Film " course with a professor who made her radical feminist views very clear. My friend called me and said they were screening Stella Dallas and invited another friend and I to the screening. The film was being shown in a small theater on campus. I'd never seen the film in a Theater, only on TV, so I was excited. Before the screening, the professor went on a rant about what a negative, subversive view of women the film portrayed. She warned us not to fall for the "manipulative" performance delivered by Stanwyck. At the end of her remarks she admonished that we should not cry. They dimmed the lights and the film began. By the time the film reached its touching end, virtually the entire audience was sobbing.

[actor61]

Back in 1975, friend was studying film at UCLA. She was taking a " Women in Film " course with a professor who made her radical feminist views very clear. My friend called me and said they were screening Stella Dallas and invited another friend and I to the screening. The film was being shown in a small theater on campus. I'd never seen the film in a Theater, only on TV, so I was excited. Before the screening, the professor went on a rant about what a negative, subversive view of women the film portrayed. She warned us not to fall for the "manipulative" performance delivered by Stanwyck. At the end of her remarks she admonished that we should not cry. They dimmed the lights and the film began. By the time the film reached its touching end, virtually the entire audience was sobbing.

I LOVE that story!!

[Andy2]

More . . . please.

 

This thread is filled with literate, learned discussions of art, film, acting, and taste. The disagreements are civil and illuminating.

 

Gentlemen: Bravi!

 

Not only have I learned a great deal of movie trivia and some genuine cinematic or theatrical insights from reading the posts on this thread, but it has filled me with an intense desire to revisit "The Heiress" and other classics that I enjoyed in college many many decades ago . . .

 

Nostalgically yours . . . .

[longtime lurker]

My Kim Novak story. I met Novak in the late 1970s in Carmel, California through friends of friends and we spent an evening together. She was delightful, funny, smart and surprisingly vulnerable. We discussed her various films and she was quite proud of her work but I agree with the above - she was a rotten actress. She got to work with some great directors, though, including Hitchcock and Preminger. She thought her best performance was in "Middle of the Night" and we all just nodded and said non committal things like "Interesting movie", "You looked so beautiful", "How was Frederic March to work with?" I mean, when you're sitting in somebody's living room sipping their wine and listening to fascinating anecdotes, you can hardly say, "Oh, honey, you were terrible in everything! I'll have another glass of Chardonnay please."

 

I have to defend Loretta Young. The Oscar for "The Farmer's Daughter" WAS probably undeserved but there have been a lot of undeserved Oscars (Gwyneth Paltrow has one for heaven's sake!!!), so it doesn't bother me that they rewarded her for a career that began in the silents with an award for a very competent and rather charming performance in the 1940s. But watch her in "The Bishop's Wife", my favorite Christmas movie. She is completely winning, smart and lovely. It might not be great acting but it's a wonderful performance.

 

Yes on Irene Dunne. Terrific, terrific, terrific actress and vastly underrated. One of my all time favorite films is "Penny Serenade" with her and Cary Grant. It's sentimental claptrap directed with great gooiness by George Stevens but the 2 of them are superb, especially Dunne.

 

I also liked Greer Garson a lot of times. She made "Mrs. Miniver" believable (another Wyler movie with a very strong female slant, that's why I called him the best of the Women's Directors) even though so much was going against her. I mean, the high heels when she's making beds, the full make-up and hair when she's capturing Nazis in the kitchen, and the impossible poise when in the bomb shelter defy reality but she somehow makes it work. She could be veddy grand but she was charming and likable most of the time. Once when I had a really lousy bout of flu that laid me up for a week, I watched "Julia Misbehaves" on a freezing, drizzling, miserable afternoon and was happy as a clam. It's a horrible movie and Elizabeth Taylor is execrable in it, but Garson's just glorious in an awful way. What more could anyone ask?

 

You must have a yin for the Stoic Actresses. Well... Irene was quite hilarious as a comedy star too, with The Awful Truth (also with Grant) being my favorite. Yet her more "typical" roles were of the Cimarron, Anna and the King of Siam and I Remember Mama type... and she was definitely good in all of them.

 

To be fair, Kim Novak was always stuck in the "straight man" roles, sort of like Dean Martin was to Jerry Lewis. Even though Barbara Bel Geddes was more entertaining in her smaller role in Vertigo than she was, you couldn't help but feel sorry for all of the torture she had to put up with. In a movie like Pal Joey, she essentially allows Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth battle it out as she sits on the sidelines. I still laugh each time in Picnic when Millie (Susan Strasberg) says "For once in your life, do something right." Her character of Madge is so shallow that she needs her nerdy sister to "think" for her! But even Madge has a heart, so you can't exactly hate her... just as Kim does. It seems like Harry Cohn at Columbia basically wanted a cross between Fox's Marilyn Monroe and his own Rita Hayworth and she didn't quite fit the mold just right on screen (although when I close my eyes during Pal Joey, I sometimes get their voices mixed up since both keep talking sultry and slow... and equally cynical of Frankie's behavior).

 

Poor Loretta Young never gets a break because she was SUCH a prude! Per Marlene Dietrich, "Every time she 'sins,' she builds a church. That's why there are so many Catholic churches in Hollywood." Called her daughter a "walking mortal sin", although it is widely speculated that Clark Gable date-raped her instead of it being all "consensual" on the set of Call of the Wild (appropriate title for its most famous backstage gossip tale). I think the reason so many struggle with The Farmer's Daughter is because it was too much of the fantasy "ideal" that Loretta wanted the public to view her as. Sort of like Mel Gibson as Braveheart.

 

My favorite Greer Garson movie is Random Harvest. Her only fault was playing too many similar characters. She was certainly L.B. Mayer's fantasy "ideal". I think he was in love with her, but obviously didn't do anything questionable with his stars like Darryl Zanuck was often notorious for.

 

Back to Olivia. What is everybody's opinion of Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte? Her anti-Melanie role.