Vintage Image of the Weekend: Grace Kelly
Filed under: Classics, Vintage Image of the Day
Normally when I write about a Vintage Image of the Day, I have a tendency to pick actors and films that I particularly enjoy, or want to know more about myself, and go on at length about their good points. Not today. I suppose I should gush sweetly about Grace Kelly, who was born on this day in 1929, cut off her acting career in its prime to become a real-life princess (of Monaco), and then died suddenly in 1982.
But you know what? I've never liked Grace Kelly in a movie. She's lovely to look at, but she tends to annoy me. She was far too in-your-face virtuous in High Noon, had little discernable personality in Rear Window, and was so glacial it hurt in High Society, from which the above still was taken. I still like to watch High Noon and Rear Window occasionally, but I can't stand High Society one bit (except for some of the Cole Porter songs). High Society was a musical remake of Philip Barry's play The Philadelphia Story, which was first made into a movie with Katharine Hepburn in 1940. The witty one-liners of the original are severely toned down in the remake, and the pastel-perfect Technicolor probably doesn't help either. Hepburn plays Tracy Lord as being strong-willed and a little too insensitive, but never the first-class bitch and ice queen that we see when Kelly assumed the role in 1956. I could understand why Tracy might divorce her first husband in the 1940 film, but in High Society, Dex is played by Bing Crosby in such a way that all the blame seems to fall on Tracy herself. (Do not even get me started on the inferiority of Celeste Holm in the role played so perfectly by Ruth Hussey.)
Feel free to disagree with me. Is there some quintessential Grace Kelly role that I've missed? Or perhaps the problem is that I'm not partial to most 1950s American films, and the actresses that dominated that decade.
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
Shelf Life: Fight Club_thumbnail.jpg)
Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
_thumbnail.jpg)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-12-2006 @ 4:02PM
David said...
The image is beuatiful. I knew nothing 'bout Grace Kelly. Thanks for some information.
Reply
11-12-2006 @ 4:49PM
Luke G. said...
I loved Grace in "To Catch a Thief," but then again I thought she was terrific in "Rear Window."
Reply
11-12-2006 @ 6:27PM
chris ullrich said...
i second the affection for grace kelly in "rear window." one of my favorite hitchcock films and one of my favorite leading ladies of all time.
Reply
11-12-2006 @ 7:16PM
Travconian said...
Grace Kelly... Yummy... so stuff a gag in her mouth and do her till the sheets are soaked......
Reply
11-12-2006 @ 10:54PM
George Myers said...
The last time I saw her in a media event she was saying the Catholic Rosary was it or promoting it? It was on TV back in the 1980s in NYC I saw it in Brooklyn, in Dom Delouise's (and Tiny Tim?) old neighborhood. Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach (Mr. and Mrs. Starr) live in Monaco. I thought she was a good in "Mogaombo" and "To Catch a Thief".
Reply
11-13-2006 @ 2:51AM
Miriam said...
Thank God someone else agrees with me finally! I, too, think that Grace is beautiful, but I simply cannot stand her in any of her roles. She just leaves me cold in all of them--there's something about her that really irks me. You picked one of my favorite pictures of her, though. Do you know who took it?
Reply
11-13-2006 @ 10:27AM
tom dowse said...
How about Mogambo?
Reply
12-04-2006 @ 10:03PM
Amy Hunt said...
Grace Kelly, better known to history as Her Serene Highness, Princess Grace of Monaco, was indeed a very talented actress. She herself hated her performance in High Noon and went back to study acting *more* before embarking on her next film, Mogambo, which brought her first of two Oscar noms. She would later win for "Country Girl", which i recommend viewing.
How anyone can not enjoy Grace in Hitch's "Rear Window" is beyond me!! And although "To Catch a Thief" (also a Hitchcock film, co-starring the always wonderful Cary Grant) was mostly a piece of fluff, she was pretty amazing there too. Check out the kiss she lays on Grant's character when he escorts her to her room following dinner with her Mother and the insurance man. Woo-woo!!
Her career was too short - i think the glimpse we were allowed to see in "High Society" ( A note - "The Philadelphia Story" was written *for* Kate Hepburn. Of course she made a better Tracy Lord! The writer hung out at her house! These are very different films) of her comedic talents was the beginning of something we all missed out on. I think Grace was - in her funny moments in High Society - not the "Ice Princess" ones - herself most in that picture. She was known as a "giggly girl" to all her friends.
Sometimes, one has to look behind the veneer - most are too lazy too, however. Sad, but ultimately your loss. (Go watch Rear Window again. It's just so good!).
amy,
who thinks Grace was just the best. And not only because she was my cousin, although I can't say that doesn't color my opinion a *little*!!
Reply