Pickford was a leader in the fledgling movie business, forming the United Artists movie studio along with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith in 1919.  She was one of the 36 founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927.  Pickford gained creative, co-star, and financial control of her films long before other actors were doing the same, and she helped establish the Motion Picture Home for retired employees of the movie business.  She was as big an influence on the early days of American movies as anyone else you could name.

Plus, she was part of Hollywood’s first glamorous power couple with her second husband, fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks.  They were pretty much the “it” couple for years and years, entertaining luminaries such as Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, George Bernard Shaw, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Noel Coward, Greta Garbo, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at their Beverly Hills mansion, Pickfair.

(Why wasn’t Pickfair made a historical site and museum to honor Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks?  I Googled it in hopes of having a new place to visit on my next trip to Los Angeles, only to learn that it had been demolished in 2012.  Sad.)

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the first actors to put their footprints in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, supposedly because they made the suggestion to the theater’s owner after their dog stepped into some cement at Pickfair and left his pawprints on the driveway.

Weren’t they gorgeous and perfectly chic?  The embodiment of what you’d imagine 1920s movie stars to be.

(Shallow side note: I want all her shoes!)

The documentary is very well done, full of fascinating detail about Mary Pickford’s life and career, and interviews with friend and actress Lillian Gish, stepson Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Pickford’s third and final husband, actor and band leader Buddy Rogers.  Much of the film is narrated in her own voice, too, with voiceovers of interviews she gave during her life providing even more insight into her character.

I can’t say I’ve yet developed a huge appreciation for silent movies, although 2011′s The Artist made me a lot more open to seeing them and I’ve enjoyed a few recently, including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans starring George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor and Laugh, Clown, Laugh starring Lon Chaney and Loretta Young.  After learning about Mary Pickford’s life and career, however, I’ll be sure to check out any of her movies that air on TCM.  She was a truly remarkable woman, and one I’m looking forward to learning more about.

At the end of my long and movie-filled holiday break, I finally got around to seeing director William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives, a movie that had been on my “to watch” list for many years.  Talk about ending my vacation on a high note!  The film is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. It’s the story of three WWII veterans who return to their midwestern hometown after the war, and their difficulties readjusting to life with their families, friends and jobs after years away.

Fredric March plays a middle-aged banker who served as an infantry sergeant in the Pacific and returns to his lovely, understanding wife (Myrna Loy) and two children (Teresa Wright and Michael Hall) who’ve grown up in his absence. In spite of all he has, he struggles to acclimate to the life and career he knew before.  He feels he no longer knows his children, chafes against the rules and regulations of the bank at which he works, and copes with his post-war trauma and uncertainty by drinking a great deal more than he should.

Dana Andrews gives a charismatic and nuanced performance as a guy who was a soda jerk from the wrong side of the tracks prior to the war, but who in the service became a captain and a decorated bombardier. All he wants is to return to his wife (Virgina Mayo), find a good job, and move to the suburbs. Unfortunately the shallow woman he married after a brief wartime romance is unimpressed with him now that he’s not a glamorous army flier, and jobs for men with the skills he gained in the service are hard to come by now that planes are being decommissioned and nobody’s dropping bombs.  That Dana Andrews wasn’t even nominated for an Academy Award for this role is an absolute travesty.  To me his was the most fascinating character in the film – a man whose wartime opportunities allowed him to escape a poverty-stricken upbringing and become a success, however briefly.  Seeing him come crashing back to earth when post-war realities set in is heartbreaking.

Harold Russell, a disabled WWII veteran who’d never acted prior to this movie and turns in a memorable and touching performance, plays a sailor who lost both hands in an explosion and fire.  Although he’s learned how to cope with the physical side of his injuries quite well, lighting matches, dressing, and even shooting targets using his new prosthetic hooks, the emotional repercussions of his loss are harder to shake off.  He can’t stand to be pitied by those he loves, and pushes his family away in an effort not to be a burden.

Every performance and storyline in the movie is pitch-perfect and honest. It’s not melodramatic or emotionally manipulative, and it doesn’t particularly try to be a tearjerker. The emotion comes from seeing these decent if imperfect men deal with displacement, awkwardness, and post-traumatic stress in the aftermath of the war, and from seeing their loved ones also come to grips with their return and the fact that the men they’re welcoming home aren’t quite the ones they sent away years before.

There are many memorable scenes in the movie: the three vets flying home in the nose of an army plane, looking down at the country they fought for; Fredric March reuniting with Myrna Loy; Teresa Wright gently and matter-of-factly calming Dana Andrews after a nightmare; Harold Russell letting his sweet, girl-next-door fiancee (Cathy O’Donnell) see just how helpless his disability has made him; Dana Andrews walking through a graveyard of decommissioned planes, climbing into one as he tries get the past out of his system. The movie is full of moments that are honest, warm, heartrending and hopeful, and the characters are such real people that you grow to love them.

In spite of The Best Years of Our Lives being on lists of the greatest movies ever made, a winner of multiple Oscars and starring actors I like, I’d put off watching it for years. For one thing, I knew it would make me cry, and for another it’s almost three hours long and these days my attention span isn’t what it used to be. I shouldn’t have avoided it for so long, though! The tears I shed were worth it, and the movie was so engrossing that three hours sped by in a flash. In fact, I watched it a second time later that week and felt I got even more out of it with a repeat viewing.  I can’t say enough good things about this film.

The Best Years of Our Lives is available on DVD and airs on TCM February 26th and March 19th.  I highly recommend checking out this very special movie if you haven’t seen it before.  Don’t wait years and years like I did!

Last week I watched a movie that’s been on my to-watch list for a while now, September Affair starring Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten, directed by William Dieterle.  Fontaine plays a concert pianist on her way to New York from Florence, Italy to give her first big performance.  Cotten is a successful engineer who’s in an unhappy marriage and came to Florence alone to try and figure out where his life is going.  When the plane they’re on has to land in Naples for a repair, they spend a few hours exploring the city together.  Then when they miss the plane, they decide to be “unconventional” and stay on together for a few more days as tourists and friends, exploring Naples, Pompeii, and Capri.

During those days they fall in love.  When they read in the paper that the plane they missed crashed and they’re presumed dead, they decide to escape their pasts and make a new life together in Italy.  Of course that new life is based on deceit and selfishness, so how can their love last? 

It’s hard to ever feel good about the couple’s newfound happiness since it’s founded in the unhappiness of others, most particularly that of Cotten’s wife and teenaged son. The movie doesn’t shy away from the questionable nature of their choices or give the characters a free pass when it comes to their behavior, even though they’re both likeable people and you can’t help wishing they could be together.  The one person who knows the pair is still alive is Fontaine’s piano teacher in Florence, portrayed by Françoise Rosay.  Rosay says and feels all the things I felt as a viewer watching the film.  She’s sympathetic with the lovers to a point, but also deeply uncomfortable about the decision they’ve made and its effects on other people.

Joseph Cotten is one of my favorite actors and he’s really good in this.  We can sense how disconnected his character has become from his family and his work, allowing us to understand why he’d snatch at the first thing that’s made him feel alive in years, regardless of the consequences.

Joan Fontaine has grown on me a lot in the past few years too as I’ve seen more and more of her movies, like Letter to an Unknown Woman and The Constant Nymph.  She’s lovely in September Affair, showing us a woman of intelligence and talent who struggles between what her heart wants and what she knows is right.

Jessica Tandy has a supporting role as Cotten’s wife, a woman who comes across as a decent and understanding sort of person, making her husband abandoning his family even more disconcerting.

The movie’s music is wonderful.  Rachmaninoff’s 2nd piano concerto is featured, as is the 1930s version of “September Song” sung by Walter Huston.  You can hear it in this YouTube video, and it’s very touching.

It’s a nice film to look at.  There’s just something special about Italy in the ’50s.  Cotten and Fontaine wander through a country that’s romantic and beautiful, but with a certain post-war grittiness still apparent.  Florence, Naples, Pompeii and Capri all look great, though it would’ve been nice to see them in color instead of black and white — especially when they visit the Blue Grotto.

The costumes by Edith Head are pretty, with shades of what was to come in Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday wardrobe a few years later appearing in Joan Fontaine’s white blouses, full skirts with itty-bitty belted waists, and summery sandals.

It’s too bad the movie isn’t out on DVD, because it’s a good romantic tearjerker along the lines of Summertime, Now Voyager, and Brief Encounter.  However, it’s available for streaming on Amazon Prime and on Netflix and is well worth checking out if you have access to one of those.

I absolutely loved it! It may be lacking in any meaningful content, but the trappings are so pretty and so much fun. Gorgeous Hawaii, gorgeous young Elvis, early ’60s cars and clothes, and lots of good music. I was absolutely smitten with the whole thing, especially with Elvis. I went into watching Blue Hawaii with such low expectations because of his films’ reputations, and couldn’t believe how wrong everything I’d heard about him was. Elvis was charming and charismatic, with the kind of presence that makes you want to watch him no matter what he’s doing on screen — a true movie star.

Soon I was watching more and more of his movies. I couldn’t get enough. Elvis made 31 feature films, and at this point I’ve seen about half of them. Only a few of those have been genuinely lame.  Many of them have been very good, or at least entertaining, and Elvis himself has never been unpleasant to watch. On the contrary, he makes even the silliest, most formulaic movie enjoyable on some level, just because he’s in it.

I really think the prevailing narrative of Presley as a lousy actor in lousy films is one that needs to be reevaluated. Thankfully a few bloggers, like Sheila O’Malley of The Sheila Variations, and Jeremy Richey of Moon in the Gutter, are doing just that. All these years I avoided Elvis movies because of their reputations, only to learn that I missed out on some good stuff. Oh well, better late than never!

Here’s a quick rundown of my favorite Elvis Presley movies, of the ones I’ve seen so far.

Jailhouse Rock (1957)

Jailhouse Rock was Presley’s second movie, and probably his most iconic performance. Even people who say they hate Elvis movies will admit the “Jailhouse Rock” song and dance sequence is great.  In truth the whole movie is fantastic, and Elvis is very good as an ex-convict with a chip on his shoulder, trying to make it in the music business.

Presley’s idol was James Dean, and you can see that Rebel Without a Cause influence on his performance. This is one of the best of Presley’s movies I’ve seen so far in terms of depth, quality, and acting. Here’s one of my favorite scenes. That ain’t tactics, honey. That’s just the beast in me. Sexy!

Loving You (1957)

Loving You has a biographical flavor, with Elvis playing a small town truck driver discovered by a manipulative manager who turns him into a big, if controversial, star. The soundtrack to this movie is great, featuring “Mean Woman Blues,” “(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear,” “Loving You,” “Got a Lot o’ Livin’ to Do,” and “Lonesome Cowboy.”

This was Elvis’s first color movie, and he looks simply gorgeous. Lizabeth Scott plays his manager, and Dolores Hart plays his girlfriend. It’s a really enjoyable movie. Elvis’s mother and father are in the audience during one of the final scenes. It’s so touching to see Gladys Presley enthusiastically cheering her boy on, especially knowing she wouldn’t be around for him much longer.

King Creole (1958)

This was the last of Elvis’s movies before he left for a 2-year stint in the Army, and it’s probably the best film he ever made. It co-stars Carolyn Jones, Walter Matthau, Dean Jagger, and Dolores Hart, and was directed by Michael Curtiz. Not too shabby!

Elvis is wonderful as a streetwise but sensitive high school dropout from New Orleans, torn between the expectations of his weak but moral father and the powerful grip of a sleazy mob boss who wants him to sing in his club.

Regardless of the reputation he may have with some, Presley wasn’t some rube with no acting talent. He had a lot of natural ability as an actor — a great sensitivity and honesty in what he put out there. Here’s what Walter Matthau, who played the mob boss in the movie, had to say about him.

I almost hesitate, I creep up to the sentence, he was an instinctive actor. Because that almost is a derogation of his talents. That’s saying, ‘Well, you know, he’s just a dumb animal who does it well by instinct.’ No, he was quite bright, too. He was very intelligent. Also, he was intelligent enough to understand what a character was and how to play the character simply by being himself through the means of the story. Michael Curtiz used to call him Elvy and he’d call me Valty. He’d say, ‘Now Elvy and Valty, come here, now Valty, this is not Academy Award scene. Don’t act so much. You are high-price actor. Make believe you are low-price actor. Let Elvy act.’ But Elvy didn’t overact. He was not a punk. He was very elegant, sedate…refined and sophisticated.

Elegant, sedate, refined, sophisticated? Not the words people usually use about Elvis Presley’s acting, but Matthau was right, especially when it comes to King Creole. Elvis didn’t have as many opportunities to shine in his fluffy ’60s musicals, however fun some of them were, which is a shame. You can see that the potential was there for him to accomplish a lot more as an actor than he did.

Sheila O’Malley does a wonderful job of dissecting a particularly pivotal scene in the movie on her blog.  See, that’s what Valty was talking about!  The boy could act.

Blue Hawaii (1961)

The movie that got the ball rolling for me!  Blue Hawaii is just plain fun and Elvis is adorable in it. This movie was such a success with audiences that it served to lock Elvis into making many, many more with similar formulas. This is one of the best of those formula films.

It’s worth watching for the beautiful views of mid-century Hawaii, if nothing else, but it has a lot of other things to offer, like some great songs (“Can’t Help Falling in Love” and “Hawaiian Wedding Song” among others), a good cast that includes Angela Lansbury as Elvis’s silly Southern mother and Joan Blackman as his spunky girlfriend, cool cars, and lovely costumes.

Wild in the Country (1961)

I have no idea why this movie doesn’t have a bigger following. It’s really good, and Elvis is so good in it. His role in Wild in the Country, the script of which was penned by Clifford Odets, is one you can imagine someone like James Dean or Montgomery Clift doing, and he acquits himself beautifully. He holds his own with co-stars Hope Lange, Millie Perkins, and Tuesday Weld and gives a really affecting performance.

I love this scene with Hope Lange. He’s so vulnerable and sensitive in it, not to mention sensual and dreamy. He’s a troubled but talented young writer who’s had run-ins with the law; she’s the court appointed therapist several years his senior with whom he falls in love.

At about the time I saw this movie during my Presley movie fest, I started getting actively annoyed at how many people disregard Elvis as an actor. It seems almost willfully mean!  When he had decent material to work with, he was terrific.  It bugs me to see him so underrated.

Follow That Dream (1962)

Follow That Dream is another movie I’d show to anyone who doesn’t yet see how good an actor Elvis Presley was. The movie is hilarious, and Elvis’s comic timing is brilliant. It may be my favorite of his comedies that I’ve seen so far. The character he plays is completely adorable – naive and dim, but not really the idiot everyone thinks he is. He has an unsophisticated, native intelligence of a sort. It’s so endearing.

This scene, in which his character attempts to get a bank loan, is a total riot!  What’s nice about Follow That Dream is that it’s just a good movie – it’s not an “Elvis movie.” It doesn’t follow a formula, and it doesn’t even have that much music in it — although what it does have is good.

Viva Las Vegas (1964)

This movie! I love it more than I can say. It’s one of the coolest, most stylish films of the early ‘60s. The soundtrack is great, and both Elvis and Ann-Margret are fabulous. I must admit, I kind of have a crush on both Elvis and Ann-Margret in Viva Las Vegas. Talk about two sexy, charismatic people. The chemistry between them is so hot, but also completely sweet and charming.

One of the things I most enjoy about Viva Las Vegas is that Elvis’s leading lady is a true equal on screen. In many of the post-Army musicals, he’s paired with some forgettable starlet whose part is just to be there for Elvis to sing to and kiss. Not so with Ann-Margret. She gets as much screen time as he does, sings and dances, and is nearly as mesmerizing to watch as Elvis himself. And when they’re on screen together, it’s truly electric.

Girl Happy (1965)

Elvis’s leading lady in Girl Happy may not have quite the magnetism of Ann-Margret (who does?), but Shelley Fabares is another strong co-star for Presley. They have a great rapport in this light-as-air comedy about a singer sent to Fort Lauderdale during Spring Break to secretly keep an eye on a mobster’s college student daughter.  It’s amusing and fun, with some catchy tunes and a believable, sweet romance.

Live a Little, Love a Little (1968)

This movie is nuts! It’s a sexy screwball comedy with a little 1960s psychedelia thrown in for good measure. The film was made the same year Elvis made his famous “Comeback Special” on TV, and he never looked more beautiful – lean, tanned, with chiseled cheekbones and jet black hair and sideburns. He’s breathtaking, really – prettier than any woman.

This movie features a couple of good songs, including “A Little Less Conversation.”  This scene is just groovy.

Change of Habit (1970)

For some reason Change of Habit seems to be one of the most derided Elvis Presley movies, but when I watched it I was puzzled as to why. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, but I chalk that up more to the time period than anything. Some of the attitudes toward life in the ghetto and medical treatment are strange to modern eyes, but the movie is quite entertaining and Elvis himself is lovely.  He brought such warmth and kindness to the role.

He looks wonderful, too — ‘68 to ‘70 were good years for Elvis, looks-wise.  Plus, that movie gave us “Rubberneckin’” – an excellently funky, if cheesy, song.

Those are just the cream of the crop of the movies I’ve seen so far.  There were others I enjoyed but don’t consider favorites (G.I. Blues, It Happened at the World’s Fair, Fun in Acapulco, Girls! Girls! Girls!) and a few others I didn’t like much at all (Roustabout, Tickle Me), but for the most part I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen.  And I still have Love Me Tender, Kid Galahad, Flaming Star, Charro and others to look forward to.

I guess my point is that if a film career included 31 pictures in only 13 years and at least half of them are entertaining and, in a few cases, genuinely good, how can that be deemed a failure?  And if an actor successfully played drama and comedy, and brought something interesting, worthwhile and arresting to even the silliest, fluffiest movie, how can he be labeled a bad actor?  I just don’t buy it.  Sure, Elvis could have made better quality, less formulaic films, and I often wish he had, but writing off his whole Hollywood career is ridiculous.

Anyway, 99% of the time I’d rather watch something happy like Viva Las Vegas or Blue Hawaii than a deep ’50s drama directed by Elia Kazan. There are only so many times you can see Brando get beaten up in On the Waterfront before you want to kill yourself, whereas I could watch this next scene every day and be glad about it.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, haters!  Just kidding.  I do feel a little bit protective about Elvis these days, though.  He brings out the mother hen in women, that’s just a fact.

You can read a review of  Toward the Unknown here.  Although I agree with his points, I think I liked the movie a little more than the reviewer, I suppose because I’m a sucker for movies about pilots (Only Angels Have Wings, Test Pilot, The Right Stuff) and for William Holden.

He was so charming and dreamy!  Such a great smile.

Next up is Holden’s appearance on the “LA at Last” episode of I Love Lucy.  I’ve seen this more times than I can even count, but it never fails to crack me up.  The Hollywood episodes of I Love Lucy are my favorites, especially this one.  William Holden was a very good sport, taking that pie in the face.  His reactions to Lucy’s fake nose are hysterical!

Today’s movie for William Holden Wednesday is one of the biggest commercial successes of Holden’s career, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.  It’s a movie that’s problematic for modern audiences in many ways, most especially in the casting of Jennifer Jones in the role of a Eurasian woman.  The thought of casting anyone but an actor of Asian descent is bizarre to us now, and seeing Jones made up to be half Chinese is jarring.

Still, it’s a movie that had aspirations to open-mindedness, with its exploration of the cultural clashes between East and West and of the racial prejudices of the day.  Plus it’s a romantic and beautiful film, with its scenic vistas of Hong Kong and its gorgeous score by Alfred Newman.  The movie also features a memorable theme song which became a pop hit for various artists in the 1950s and ‘60s.  (Andy Williams’ version is my favorite.)

Love is a Many-Splendored Thing is the story of Han Suyin, a doctor working in a hospital in Hong Kong during the time of China’s communist revolution.  Though she has strong ties with the Chinese side of her heritage, she is also half English and is part of the European set in Hong Kong.

She meets American journalist Mark Elliott (Holden) at a cocktail party and they quickly make a connection.  In spite of her hesitation – she is a widow whose focus is now her work, he’s a married-but-separated man whose wife won’t give him a divorce – a passionate romance soon blossoms between the two.

Holden and Jones are at their most gorgeous in this movie, and in spite of the fact that they couldn’t stand each other in real life (about which more below) they have great chemistry.

That’s especially apparent during a scene on the beach, with the pair of them in bathing suits.  Holden lights Jones’s cigarette with his in the most blatant use of smoking as a substitute for onscreen consummation since Paul Henreid and Bette Davis blew smoke in each other’s faces in Now, Voyager.  See it below beginning at about 8:30.

It’s a little cheesy, sure, but also pretty steamy and suggestive.  With Picnic’’s release the same year, 1955 was a good year for Holden’s image as a sex symbol.  As I said a couple of weeks ago, one of the nicest things about Bill Holden is how often he was shirtless in his movies!

In the end pressure from both Suyin’s Chinese relatives and the prejudices of the European community in Hong Kong put a strain on the couple’s romance before the dangers of wartime tear them even further apart.  I won’t spoil the ending for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but I will say that I can never get through this movie without having a good weep.

But back to the gossip!  From Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden by Bob Thomas:

The love scenes between Holden and Jennifer Jones evoked tears from millions of American women, but the film was a rare instance when he lacked affection for his leading lady.  Miss Jones complained about her makeup, her costumes, the dialogue; and when Holden failed to sympathize, she complained about him.  “I’m going to tell David about this,” she said repeatedly; and her husband, David O. Selznick, sent a stream of memos to Fox about her complaints.

The acrimony reached the point where the two stars were scarcely speaking to each other except during their love scenes. Holden decided to seek a truce, and he presented Miss Jones with a bouquet of white roses.  She threw them in his face.

Yikes!  I’ve read elsewhere that Jones was so disturbed by Holden’s reputation for romancing his leading ladies off-screen as well as on that she did things like chew garlic prior to scenes in which she and Holden had to kiss.  Can you believe it?  Given her obnoxious behavior, I’m not sure garlic breath was the most off-putting thing about Jennifer Jones.  She probably needn’t have worried about Bill throwing himself at her feet.  She was no Audrey Hepburn, let’s put it that way!

While Holden may not have fallen for his co-star in this movie, he did fall in love with Hong Kong and eventually owned an apartment there.  In 1960 he starred in another story of interracial romance also filmed in Hong Kong, The World of Suzie Wong, and that time he had an Asian co-star in the beautiful Nancy Kwan.

See you next Wednesday for more William Holden!

William Holden and Audrey Hepburn fell in love while filming 1954’s Sabrina.  It didn’t work out in the end, of course.  He was married, albeit unhappily, and though he wanted to leave his wife for her Audrey broke off the relationship.

From Golden Boy: The Untold Story of William Holden by Bob Thomas:

Ernie Lehman [Sabrina’s screenwriter] recognized what was happening when he dropped into Bill’s dressing room one day.  Lehman had been working so hard on rewrites of the Sabrina script that he had broken down in a weeping fit in a corner of the stage.  “Go home and get some rest; you deserve it,” [director Billy] Wilder said.  Before leaving, Lehman wanted to say goodbye to Bill Holden.

He walked into Holden’s dressing room unannounced.  He found Bill and Audrey standing a foot apart facing each other, their eyes meeting.  Lehman said his farewell and departed, realizing that something profound was happening between Bill Holden and Audrey Hepburn.

In these pictures from the set of Sabrina, it’s pretty clear to us, too.  They look so besotted with one another.

William Holden eventually divorced his wife and went on to have other relationships (including one with Stefanie Powers, a/k/a Jennifer Hart), but he called Audrey the love of his life.  He was so wrecked by working with her again on Paris When it Sizzles ten years after Sabrina that he pretty much spent the whole time intoxicated.

A sad end to their relationship, but the chemistry between Holden and Hepburn in Sabrina is delightful.  For me the most enjoyable parts of the movie are their scenes together, beginning when Sabrina returns home from Paris a sophisticated and elegant young lady.

We’re supposed to root for Sabrina to get together with Humphrey Bogart’s Linus Larrabee, but I’m afraid I’m always a little disappointed when she doesn’t get together with Holden’s David Larrabee.  Even though I know he’s a shallow playboy who would’ve probably broken Sabrina’s heart, I still find him much more appealing with Hepburn than the miscast and slightly ancient Bogart.

More from Golden Boy:

One scene called for [Holden] to vault over a fence as he approached Audrey.  He performed the leap with total ease on the first take.  “That was good, Bill,” said Wilder, “but a little too fast.  Could you do it a little slower, please.”  To the astonishment of the director and everyone else, Holden repeated the leap and seemed almost to pause in the air before landing.”

It’s a great moment, and one of my favorites in the movie.  Sabrina’s dream must truly seem to her to finally be coming true, with this handsome man she’s loved for years entranced by her and blithely leaping over a wall to take her in his arms.  You can see it below, at about 4:40.

Oh, that dress by Hubert de Givenchy!  It’s the most divine gown ever made for the movies.  Or maybe just the most divine gown ever made, period.

For a more detailed and insightful look at Sabrina, I recommend Jacqueline Lynch’s two-part discussion of the film at Another Old Movie Blog. She captures the mid-century dreaminess of the movie so well.  She says:

It is a time when dancing was a social accomplishment and seduction took time. We see it is a time of a single strand of pearls and strapless evening gowns with full skirts. Young people at this period did not want to be young, for to be young was to be gauche. Young people yearned for sophistication and experience, to emulate their elders, as Sabrina does when she spies the party from the branches of a tree on the estate.

Check it out, it’s a lovely read about a lovely film.  More Bill Holden next week, and something more substantial than pictures and quotes, I hope!

Here he is in New York during the filming of the first movie I ever saw him in, Sabrina. I love this picture!  Beautiful city, beautiful car, beautiful man.

In many ways Bill Holden was the quintessential All-American leading man for the 1950s, able to portray wealthy playboys, hardened soldiers, idealistic journalists, ambitious businessmen, and aimless wanderers with equal ease.  He acted in war movies and melodramas, as well as in light-as-air romantic comedies and dark film noirs.  With his muscular build, strong jaw, deep voice and sensitive yet knowing eyes, Holden embodied much of the post-war masculine ideal.  I’ve often thought that Jon Hamm’s Don Draper has more than a little William Holden in him.

Holden was a very versatile actor and one who, once he got away from the fluffy, Mr. Good Guy roles given to him by Columbia Studios in the 1940s, made some very interesting and risky choices.  He often played world-weary men with a bit of a cynical edge — or a lot of a cynical edge, as in Stalag 17.

(I’ll be honest, though, I like a lot of those fluffy, Mr. Good Guy roles, too!  Meet the Stewarts and Father is a Bachelor, for instance, are very pleasant and fun to watch, even if they aren’t great filmmaking.)

On a shallower note, Holden wasn’t exactly hard to look at!  He was incredibly handsome, especially in his movies from the 1950s.  He had the most gorgeous, dreamy smile.  You can see that swoon-causing grin in this video of him giving Audrey Hepburn her Oscar.  How adorable are those two?  Super adorable!  (More on the love affair between Hepburn and Holden later this month.)

Holden was quite the hunky sex symbol, often appearing on screen shirtless.  In Picnic, Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Sunset Boulevard and many more, if Bill was on screen that shirt was coming off.  I can’t exactly complain about that aspect of his screen presence!

Holden didn’t seem to be stuffy, or to take himself too seriously.  The episode of I Love Lucy in which he guest stars is my favorite from the entire series, in large part because of how much fun he is in it.

He led a fascinating off-screen life and was an intelligent man with many varied interests.  The wildlife foundation which bears his name is testament to just one of those interests.  Of course his life had a dark side too – an unhappy marriage, multiple infidelities, and the alcoholism which would eventually lead to a tragic and senseless death at too young an age.

But it’s William Holden’s many wonderful movies and fine performances I want to focus on this month, because ultimately they’re why he should be remembered and celebrated.

For the first William Holden Wednesday of the month I want to talk briefly about two movies from his career, made 20 years apart.  Looking  at these two films together, you can’t help but marvel at just how much the world and the movie industry changed between the 1950s and the 1970s.

The Moon is Blue (1953)

The Moon is Blue stars William Holden along with Maggie McNamara (probably best remembered for her role in 1954’s Three Coins in the Fountain) and David Niven.  It’s an innocent little romantic comedy when seen today, but when it came out in 1953 it was terribly scandalous.

The characters use the words “virgin” and “pregnant.”  McNamara’s character bluntly asks Holden’s if he has a mistress, and hopes he won’t be too bored with her virginity since she’d enjoy a little affection, even if she doesn’t want to go all the way.

It’s implied that William Holden’s character has slept with his ex-girlfriend, who tries to lure him back by meeting him dressed in nothing but a mink coat. “She has a very pretty chin,” says McNamara, looking at the girl’s picture. “She’s very pretty all over,” says Holden appreciatively.

David Niven is the ex-girlfriend’s playboy father, who is much less distressed by his daughter’s shenanigans than he ought to be.  Niven has some great lines in this movie, and he delivers them with his usual polished wit.

The film’s director, Otto Preminger, refused to change the play on which the movie was based in order to clean up the story’s “immoral” words and attitudes, thus forgoing the approval of the almighty Hays office.  Watching the movie now it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about. It’s fairly tame and mildly cute, though Maggie McNamara is a little on the annoying side. For me it’s the presence of Holden at his most gorgeous and Niven at his most roguish that makes the movie worth checking out.

Plus, it’s an interesting bit of Hollywood history, since it was one of the first movies to take a crack at the Production Code that had been in effect since 1934. Here’s an excerpt. Don’t you feel faint when the word “virgin” is uttered? Shocking, my dears, just shocking!

Breezy (1973)

Fast-forward 20 years, and oh how things have changed!  Breezy, directed by Clint Eastwood, is far less innocent and tame than The Moon is Blue, and yet to my knowledge it caused no great scandal upon its release.  On the contrary,  Eastwood’s biographer Richard Schickel believed that the sexual content of the film’s love scenes was too tame, which probably led to the movie not being a success when it came out.  This in spite of nudity and some frank, if not explicit, sexuality.

Breezy is the story of a sweet-natured, free-spirited 19-year-old hippie (Kay Lenz in the title role) who meets and falls in love with a jaded middle-aged man played by William Holden.

Holden is bitterly divorced and has no interest in committing to another woman or in opening his heart to anyone again.  Lenz’s Breezy, on the other hand, is all open heart, full of love and hope in spite of the sadness in her past.   Against his will and better judgment, and in the face of ridicule from his friends, the fiftysomething man finds himself falling hard for the wise-beyond-her-years flower child.  Here’s the trailer.

Breezy is surprisingly sweet and oddly romantic in spite of the May/December (really more like February/December!) angle.  Although Holden’s looks weren’t what they used to be, years of alcoholism having taken their toll, he was still a wonderful actor.  It was a brave role for him to have taken on, I think, and his portrayal is touching in its vulnerability.  I wasn’t sure I’d like Breezy when I first started watching it, I suppose because I feared a love story about a very young woman and a much older man might be creepy or exploitative.  It didn’t strike me that way, however. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The Moon is Blue is available from the Warner Archive and also airs on TCM now and then.  Breezy is available on DVD and streams free for Amazon Prime members.  Both are well worth checking out.

See you next week for more William Holden!

For anyone who loves classic movies, The Artist is a real kick. Bérénice Bejo plays starlet Peppy Miller, and she’s absolutely adorable. She does a wonderful job of emoting in a way that seems true to the silent movie style without being over the top. She says a lot with her eyes.

Jean Dujardin is handsome and charismatic as silent star George Valentin, a blend of the swashbuckling, mustachioed Douglas Fairbanks and Gene Kelly’s character from Singin’ in the Rain. In fact the movie itself owes a lot to Singin’ in the Rain, and also to A Star is Born and Sunset Boulevard. Still, it’s its own entity and is beautifully done.

The only thing that took me aback was the extensive use of Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score during the movie’s heart-wrenching climactic sequence. They don’t just play a little snippet — it goes on and on and on. Of course the filmmakers got the rights to use Herrmann’s score, but it’s still a little odd to me that a film that shows Ludovic Bource as the composer during the opening credits waits until the final credits roll to mention Herrmann’s contribution to the music played during the film. It just bothers me that some people seeing The Artist will hear that beautiful, haunting bit of the movie’s score and think it was written by Bource. I don’t blame Kim Novak for getting upset, although her reaction seems over the top.

Here’s part of Herrmann’s score from Vertigo. To me it’s so inextricably linked to Hitchcock’s film that it took me out of the moment a little, hearing it during The Artist.

Anyway, I really encourage you to see The Artist if you get the chance. It’s a witty, ingenious tribute to an early era in Hollywood history. It’s made me want to watch more silent movies on TCM, and to finally read Jeanine Basinger’s book, Silent Stars.

So cute!

She’s at her most gorgeous in Christmas in Connecticut, playing an unmarried career woman who poses as a married expert on domesticity, gloriously bedecked in mid-’40s finery designed by Edith Head. (Head was borrowed from Paramount to dress Stanwyck; the other costumes were by Warner’s Milo Anderson.)

Dennis Morgan was handsome and dreamy in his uniform, plus he had the most beautiful singing voice. I would’ve fallen for him like a ton of bricks, too.

Stanwyck’s attempts at homemaker perfection are hilarious. You could probably discuss this movie in terms of the end of the war, women being forced out of the working world as men returned from overseas, and the coming feminine housewife ideal of the 1950s, if you were so inclined.

I’m not so inclined at the moment, however, since Christmas in Connecticut is silly and romantic, and features S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall frequently slapping his chubby cheeks and saying things are “hunky dunky.”

I highly recommend seeing the movie if you haven’t already. It streams for free on Amazon Prime and will air on TCM this Friday night.

This morning I also watched a fluffy but entertaining 1946 comedy of remarriage set mostly at Christmastime, Never Say Goodbye, starring Errol Flynn and Eleanor Parker. (And S.Z. Sakall! He was in so many movies.)

Errol Flynn was beautiful. How is it that men were dashing with thin mustaches then — Gable, Flynn, Niven, Powell — but would look bizarre with them today? And why oh why did we let dressing up, supper clubs, and dancing cheek-to-cheek disappear? There’s no romance in the world anymore.

I don’t see any upcoming airings of Never Say Goodbye on the TCM schedule, but the movie is available from the Warner Archive.