Barbara Stanwyck Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's a caveat or two with which I submit this list of our favorite con artists on film, to correspond with tomorrow's NY/LA bow of The Brothers Bloom (our review from Toronto is here; our interview with director Rian Johnson, there).

One: I have not seen the following -- David Mamet's House of Games, David Mamet's The Spanish Prisoner, and David Mamet's Frank Oz's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. I know, for shame, boo and hiss and so on and so forth.

Two: I've seen but don't fully recollect either The Grifters or Nine Queens enough to feel comfortable including them as if I had (I also missed the English-language remake of the latter, Criminal, though I've been told that's for the best). If I were a slier man, then maybe I could fittingly deceive the lot of you, but I'm not, so I won't.

While I don't doubt that the characters in those films would be worthy of a slot on our list, there are still at least seven other con (wo)men in the movies worth shining the spotlight on, and I do hope that you do think that may make do when all's said and done.

Jette's very good column the other day called Remember the Night one of the seven Christmas movies you haven't ever seen. Jette caught it on TV once and hadn't watched it since. This 1940 romantic comedy is another one of those films that reminds you why you'd better not ditch your VHS player yet. If you want to see this (and, oh, you will want to see this, if you're a Preston Sturges fan), you have three options: one is to buy a grey-market DVD, something anyone with a search engine and a credit card can do. Another is to get one of the few VHS copies available off Amazon for $50 (excuse me, $49.99). The last, and cheapest, is to live in an urban area with a good specialty video store--such as Silver Screen in the Berkeley area suburb of El Cerrito.

If the last is the case, it's worth checking today to see if someone hasn't rented it out yet. Remember the Night is an unknown classic of the holiday, stressing romance, comedy and -- most important on Christmas -- hope and rebirth. The American cinema's most versatile actress, Barbara Stanwyck plays a character study for screenwriter Sturges' later The Lady Eve. Here she's a larcenous woman who turns out to be essentially no worse than the people around her.

One of the perennial favorites for TV broadcast at this time of year is the 1945 film Christmas in Connecticut, starring Barbara Stanwyck. I sat down for the first time in years to watch the entire movie, and gave it my full attention in a way that I never did while I was wrapping presents or chatting with relatives or trimming the tree. As I suspect from my half-assed viewing of the film over the years, Christmas in Connecticut is a very slight movie; if it weren't related to Christmas, or didn't star Stanwyck, most of us might never have heard of it.

The plot is pretty lame: Liz Lane (Stanwyck) has gained career success by writing a series of columns about the joys of being a housewife and mom on her farm in Connecticut -- a Forties version of Martha Stewart. Trouble is, she's really a single NYC career girl who can barely boil water, and who gets her recipes from her Uncle Felix (S.Z. Sakall), who runs a restaurant. This was never an issue until her publisher Alexander Yeardley (Sydney Greenstreet) decides to accompany war hero Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) to Liz's Connecticut farm for Christmas to experience home cooking and happy holiday domesticity. Liz talks her longtime cold fish of a suitor into lending his farm, they bring Felix along to cook, and even manage to borrow a baby ... but can they pull this off without Liz and her editor losing their jobs?

When you ask people to name their favorite holiday movies, the same answers crop up everywhere: It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, and perhaps some version of A Christmas Carol (Muppet Christmas Carol and Scrooged seem most popular these days). A few people might try to be different and name Die Hard or Bad Santa, and a few traditionalists might reminisce about Meet Me in St. Louis. And of course there's the Silent Night, Deadly Night crowd. Personally, I would have to bring up Auntie Mame.

But the movies I'm about to mention have only a few fans these days. Most are widely available on DVD, and are not shown very often during the holiday season. Some are forgotten treasures, some date badly. One is a well-known Oscar winner that may be too depressing for some New Year's Eve viewers. But if you are tired of watching Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, or have had enough of the leg lamp and the Red Ryder BB gun, consider some of these films for your holiday viewing ... if you can find them.

One hundred years ago today, Barbara Stanwyck was born. While her professional life flowed with vigor and success, she was also a fighter, who overcame a heck of a lot to get to the top and stay there. Stanwyck lost her mother at two, was abandoned by her father at four and spent the rest of her childhood in various foster homes and with an older sister. She began working at the fresh age of 13, and it would be six years before she discovered acting. While a number of hardships continued to befall Stanwyck, from marital issues to a run-in with a robber, the success she found on the silver screen continues to impact, even 17 years after her death.

Funnily enough, I first discovered Stanwyck because of Grease 2 -- Maxwell Caulfield had piqued my interest, so I would slip my young butt down in front of the television and watch The Colbys -- Stanwyck's last work. Lucky for me, what introduced me to the actress was nowhere near the caliber of what she accomplished. Her work was known for its range, and she managed to nab four Oscar nominations for her performances in Stella Dallas, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity and Sorry, Wrong Number. Yet it wasn't until 1982 that she got a statue for herself, under the mouthful: "for superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." But we've also seen her board the doomed Titanic, flash pistols as sharp-shooter Annie Oakley and even wear Boots when the whim overtook her.

As Anne Thompson outlines in her blog, everyone seems to be taken right now with her memory, from Anthony Lane at the New yorker, to Kenneth Turan at the L.A. Times. But beyond the written word, the actress is also being remembered on Turner Classic Movies today, and according to Thompson: "the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences has mounted its largest-ever exhibition dedicated to one star, featuring more than 70 posters and lobby cards from Stanwyck's pics." In a world where Monroe and Dean have become epic figures beyond their body of work, its nice to see some solid praise for long-lasting, classic talent.

Some days I feel like I've spent entirely too much time reading film blogs instead of doing something more productive, like paying bills or watching movies or entertaining the cat . Sometimes I feel like I never spend as much time as I want reading film blogs, much less writing for them myself. For example, I regret I never made time to participate in the Shakespeare Blog-a-Thon listed below, and also that I haven't been able to read all the blog-a-thon entries yet. To lighten my feelings of guilt on all accounts, I figured the best thing to do was to share a bunch of good blog entries out of the ones I read last week.

Normally I prefer to arrange Film Blog Group Hug entries into a neat little category, like "Austin bloggers" or "film festival bloggers" but this week, I decided to post a variety of links, just for fun. Consider it a quick tour of various fun spots in the online world (I can't stand the term "blogosphere"), from Shakespeare to Woody Allen to Spike Lee. After all, this is how most of us read film blogs, isn't it? Dive in and enjoy.

Trying to figure out how many prostitutes have turned up in the movies is a mug's game, but let's play it a little, shall we? James Robert Parish's 1991 Prostitution in Hollywood Films (McFarland) lists 389 films in which prostitution is a subject or subplot. Parrish includes everything from Porky's to all six versions of the penthouse-to-pavement melodrama Madame X. The IMDB tops this number by claiming about 800 movies with prostitution as a subject. Ever since the first important film on the flesh trade -- the 1913 Traffic in Souls, just inducted into the Library of Congress -- the subject of the Fate Worse Than Death has fueled comedy, drama, and film noir. Oh, and science fiction -- remember the "Furniture Girls" in Soylent Green? Playing a hooker is also good Oscar fodder. So far it's gained six Best Actress awards and 15 nominations, as well as seven Best Supporting Actress wins and five nominations.

This count requires some give and take: Madeleine Kahn's Lili von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles (an Oscar nominee) was officially a dance hall girl (wink, nod). Sally Bowles in Cabaret didn't make the count, though it's fairly clear how she paid the rent. Ditto the no-visible-means-of-support Holly Golightly. Hey, we're all prostitutes! So the top seven below need kibitzing and counter suggestions, and perhaps some flame-broiling. The idea here is for time-tested films, meaning that more recent working girls aren't aboard, despite impressive acting by Sophie Okonedo in Dirty Pretty Things, Taraji P. Henson in Hustle and Flow or Morena Baccarin in Serenity. (And Brittany Murphy was no slouch as The Dead Girl.) Let's overlook Reagan-age free-market propaganda disguised as sex comedies, and pass on that famous trio of savvy businesswomen Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places and Rebecca de Mornay in Risky Business. (How about Kathy Baker in Street Smart, Marilia Pera in Pixote and Louise Smith in Lizzie Borden's neo-doc Working Girls instead?)


Janet Gaynor, Seventh Heaven (1927) The ultimate Victorian-era victim of circumstances, gold heart beating under a manhandled breast, pursued by the same hypocrite society that drove her to a life of crime. And now I'm making this really beautiful film sound terrible. Gaynor, a small and frail-looking actress--a shadow of the streets, as Edith Piaf put it--is teamed with ultimate woman's-film director Frank Borzage. And Borzage was one of the few men who could make a movie that you'd weep at without hating yourself for it in the morning. Matching her here is frequent co-star Charles Farrell, who plays a Parisian sewer worker who wants to rise out of the depths to the open air. Some (Catholics, probably) would make the mental connection between Seventh Heaven's pairing of the two trades and St. Thomas Aquinas's cold-blooded comment that prostitutes were like sewers: despicable but necessary to society.

Damn, Warner Bros. sure is busy today -- Variety reports the studio has tapped Jennifer Garner to star in a remake of the 1945 comedy Christmas in Connecticut, reuniting the actress with her 13 Going on 30 producers Susan Arnold and Donna Ruth. The original film, which was directed by Peter Godfrey and starred Barbara Stanwyck in the lead role, revolved around a Martha Stewart-type cooking writer who convinces the world that she lives this perfect little life on a farm in Connecticut with her husband and child, when in reality she's single, living in New York and cannot cook a damn thing (a good friend provides her with all the fantastic recipes). Hilarity ensues when the owner of her magazine invites a heroic sailor to spend Christmas on her fake farm. Oops.

Technically, this will be the second Christmas in Connecticut remake, as none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger directed an updated version for TV back in 1992 -- that one starred Dyan Cannon and, along with being a writer, she also hosted her own cooking show. My guess is Warners will probably go that route as well, especially with folks like Rachael Ray turning into something of a phenomenon as of late. (Personally, if I hear her say "Let's just throw a little S&P on that and top it off with some EVOO," one more time, I might have to throw something hard and sharp at my television.) Also, look for the "heroic sailor" to be replaced by a handsome veteran of the Iraq war. Any guesses as to who they'll get for the male lead?

I am one of the world's worst gift wrappers. People look at the presents I give them, and ask if I let my niece or nephew wrap the gift for me. I admit I can't be bothered to spend a lot of time getting the ribbons to curl just so, and to make sure that the wrapping paper fits the present size before I start cutting it out. Over the years, I've learned to rely a lot on gift bags, which are reusable (good for the environment) and look very smart with some tissue paper and perhaps a little raffia used to attach the gift tag. The gift bags were also good for quick last-minute wrapping during the years when I used to take the plane to my parents' house for the holidays, because wrapped gifts aren't allowed on flights.

A big reason why my gift wrapping isn't fabulous, however, is that I don't pay much attention. I'm very fond of putting on a movie in the background while I'm wrapping presents. The idea is that the movie should be something I've seen before, so I am not tempted to put down the scissors and ribbons and watch closely. It's also nice to watch a movie with a holiday theme, to get me in the right spirit for all that gift wrapping.

Therefore, I've put together a list of seven movies that are my favorites for background watching while wrapping presents during the holiday season. Many of them are on TV during the holiday season, so if you're stuck in the back bedroom of someone else's house on Christmas Eve, frantically wrapping before anyone comes in to see what you're giving them, you might be able to find one of these movies on cable (Turner Classic Movies especially).

Finally doing something about the lack of pre-code films available on DVD (or, for that matter, in any other medium) Warner Bros. is teaming up with Turner Classic Movies to release what they swear will be be a series of films from that period. The first such set -- TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 1 -- is due out December 5, and the films included in volume one are anything to go on, this series is going to be one to look out for. Included in the set are the Barbara Stanwyck-starrer Baby Face (including both the edited and recently discovered original versions), Red-Headed Woman (starring Jean Harlow) and James Whale's Waterloo Bridge. All three films were released in 1932 or 1933, shortly before the Production Code went into effect, and are striking illustrations of just how different (part of) Hollywood was before Will Hays and his friends came along.

The only problem with the set so far is that for some reason they squeeze all four films onto two discs, with Waterloo Bridge and Red-Headed Woman on one, and the two version of Baby Face (plus the film's theatrical trailer) on the other.