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But man I wish it hadn't.
Bette Davis: First Lady of the American Screen
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I downloaded THE LITTLE FOXES from You-Know-Where, and I plan to watch it very soon.I admit, I'm somewhat less enamored with Bette than most classic movie fans, but I will kick this off with my favorite performance and film of hers: THE LITTLE FOXES.
There's a small part of me that wishes the role had gone to Tallulah, just so we could have some cinematic evidence of her as an actress rather than a flamboyant personality. That doesn't detract from my admiration for Davis' work. As an actress she was known for her melodramatic intensity; I suspect that's what people love about her work, but I often find it to be too much. In TLF, her work is uncharacteristically restrained; she shrewdly underplays in most of the film so that when she finally lets go on key moments, it's like watching a coiled cobra strike.
Although Hepburn eventually surpassed her in longevity and public adoration, from the late 30s to about 1950s Davis was the true Queen of Hollywood.
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Stanwyck and Davis worked together in So Big, released in 1932. They are also both in Hollywood Canteen but they don’t appear together.
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Be
Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent and Bette Davis together in So Big. Stanwyck played the mother of George Brent’s character, so she plays her character over about six decades.
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I watched OLD ACQUAINTANCE today for the very first time. I've had this movie for several years as part of the Bette Davis TCM collection, but I finally decided to watch it today. The reason I decided to watch it was quite simple: there's so much hoopla surrounding Bette's rivalry with Joan Crawford that her rivalry with Miriam Hopkins is often overlooked in pop culture. I wanted to watch a movie that Bette and Miriam made together, and I honestly felt like OLD ACQUAINTANCE would be more interesting than THE OLD MAID (but that's just going off what vague impressions I had of each movie).
On the surface, OLD ACQUAINTANCE is a basic WWII women's picture. But that's alright because I am typically fond of those old-fashioned weepies that are made to tug at my heartstrings. The set-up of the story is also quite simple: Kit Marlowe (Davis) and Millie Drake (Hopkins) have been friends for ages. When Kit returns to the ladies' hometown as a successful writer, this flairs up a long-held jealousy between the two women. The rest of the movie basically tackles their relationship as it evolves through the years, with everything ending quite nicely when the two women decide to remain friends against all the odds.
Overall, I rather enjoyed this movie. There are few spots I felt it dragged some (which is typical of some older films), but I still found the story quite compelling and enjoyable. As usual, Bette Davis turns in a great performance as Kit, playing a noble woman and good friend. Likewise, I thought Miriam Hopkins gave a solid performance, although I found her character Millie to be annoying and selfish. The points of the character that irritated me cannot be laid at Miriam's footsteps, but yet to the writing. The goal was to create a layered, quite self-centered individual, and they certainly achieved that goal.
This movie simply reaffirms (at least for my preferences and viewpoint) that Bette Davis was quite easily the greatest actresses during her heyday. It is quite amazing how she effortlessly glides through her performances, even in such routine pictures as OLD ACQUAINTANCE. One can imagine that it wasn't the favorite of her films, considering the part of Kit doesn't necessarily challenge her talent. But I did enjoy this movie and it will definitely get a re-watch down the road.
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Happy 114th Birthday, Bette!
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I hadn't remembered that Stanwyck and Bette were in a movie together... Wasn't Bette contemptuous of her, hissing "That Stanwyck...!" because of Missy's propensity to charm the crew?
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31/12/69
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Its been a Bette Davis day on BBC2
www.bbc.co.uk
For anyone in UK, check this out with 3 great interviews and 2 films on this afternoon
Whats not to like.
BBC Two - Talking Pictures, Bette Davis
A look back at the milestones and highlights of Bette Davis's life and career.
For anyone in UK, check this out with 3 great interviews and 2 films on this afternoon
Whats not to like.
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Bette sure gave a lot of interviews! From 1960s until her death, she must have done dozens of tv interviews all over the world. It's always a fun watch and she was usually in her element. She was shrewd and knew that by doing them, she was in a way extending her legacy and connecting with current and future audiences, even when good roles have long dried up. In a way, she was the only one from her generation who was truly part of the popular culture up until her death, and it's thanks to her tv appearances.
Poor Joan died too early but even before that she only did a few tv interviews with little success, she just could not connect to audience and her personality prevented her from it. Hepburn was of course a recluse and rarely appeared anywhere, though she did do that 2 episode Dick Cavett special and some interviews in the 80s. Stanwyck is a mystery though cause I can not find any tv interviews with her, ever. Is it possible that she was never on Dick Cavett or any other talk show??? She was a big tv star after all so it makes no sense she never did tv interviews or promo appearances for her tv projects. I would love to see something show up, surely she would have been a great guests that could connect to the audiences easily.
Poor Joan died too early but even before that she only did a few tv interviews with little success, she just could not connect to audience and her personality prevented her from it. Hepburn was of course a recluse and rarely appeared anywhere, though she did do that 2 episode Dick Cavett special and some interviews in the 80s. Stanwyck is a mystery though cause I can not find any tv interviews with her, ever. Is it possible that she was never on Dick Cavett or any other talk show??? She was a big tv star after all so it makes no sense she never did tv interviews or promo appearances for her tv projects. I would love to see something show up, surely she would have been a great guests that could connect to the audiences easily.
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Interesting observation; now that I think about it, I can't recall ever seeing Stanwyck interviewed. Poking around the internet a bit, I couldn't find any or even any specific reason why she apparently didn't do interviews. This is probably the explanation: let the work speak for itself.
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Joan took herself sooooooooooooo seriously (which she even admitted) while Bette was a raconteur which worked well on television. Also, Crawford had stage fright and refused to do theatre because of it, while Bette's "phukc you!" energy was ready-made to entertain live studio audiences.
Both actresses wanted their own TV series, and both made numerous pilots (Bette openly admitted that she made eight pilots during the '50s and'60s and none of them sold, while Crawford made ROYAL BAY/DELLA, which also didn't sell, and reportedly was offered the Joan Bennett role in DARK SHADOWS but likely didn't want to do daytime soaps --- in fact, Dan Curtis didn't want DARK SHADOWS to be a daytime show, either)... Bette's daughter, BD Hyman, who can't be trusted, claimed that Davis had the standard movie star snobbery about series TV but did it anyway, if only in a guest star capacity simply because it was offered to her, and openly admired the acting and storytelling on daytime soaps, later telling Linda Gray that she, Bette, was a huge DALLAS fan.
Bette eventually did the HOTEL pilot in 1983, which I watched with cautious optimism so the inevitable disappointment wouldn't be so crushing, and then her health problems stopped her from doing the series, Anne Baxter took over as the lead in a cheeky nod to ALL ABOUT EVE (which then quickly killed Baxter) and then Bette took to calling Aaron Spelling's blandly tawdry program "Brothel." (I still wish Bette had done one episode of DYNASTY/THE COLBYS before she perished as Sable's mother -- though the parent series would've found a way to screw it up).
After a 1974 photo of herself and Rosalind Russell at New York's 21, badly lit from underneath, Crawford apparently decided concretely that she'd never make a public appearance again. And she didn't.
Bette Davis reportedly became a volatile social presence around Hollywood in her youth deliberately in order to advance her career by generating "naughty girl" press that, unlike other actresses, she wasn't afraid of -- as OF HUMAN BONDAGE would prove. Crawford had a lot of such scandals just by her nature, and whether that helped her career is an open question.
Barbara Stanwyck, on the other hand didn't do TV interviews basically at all. A shyer and somewhat more tasteful personality, when asked to do a memoir about her life and career, she said, "Oh, who cares...?" about those olden days. Ironically, perhaps, she was the only one who had a successful series, THE BIG VALLEY.
Katharine Hepburn, however, was infamous for keeping a large TV on display in her NYC living room, one pulled out from the wall and turned around facing the corner with the unplugged cord draping across the set, which she called "the idiot box." When Hepburn was finally lured onto THE DICK CAVETT SHOW in 1973, it seemed to be for purposes of shock effect on her part, so unexpected it was for her to deign to appear on the small screen in any capacity at all. It was a good two-part show and actually had the effect of boosting her career, leading to her first made-for-TV movie, LOVE AMONG THE RUINS with Laurence Olivier, which was excellent and won multiple Emmy awards but bombed big time in the ratings, due in large part to ABC's foolishly snooty PR campaign which made it look tastefully drab and dry and humorless (which it absolutely was not)... She did a 60 MINUTES interview after her CAVETT appearance, and by the '80s, Kate was doing a television interview every couple of years, and that pattern reached a crescendo when her autobiography "All About Me" was released around 1991... She later admitted that if she had publicized her life earlier, it might have hurt her career. So seeming unattainable was a strategy which worked for Hepburn and fit her persona, and she knew it.
In her interview with Cavett, Kate said Marlon Brando was an "unlimited actor" but a "limited person" due to his refusal earlier that year to accept his Oscar for THE GODFATHER and she said about Bette, "Yes, she's awfully good," when Cavett asked.
Both actresses wanted their own TV series, and both made numerous pilots (Bette openly admitted that she made eight pilots during the '50s and'60s and none of them sold, while Crawford made ROYAL BAY/DELLA, which also didn't sell, and reportedly was offered the Joan Bennett role in DARK SHADOWS but likely didn't want to do daytime soaps --- in fact, Dan Curtis didn't want DARK SHADOWS to be a daytime show, either)... Bette's daughter, BD Hyman, who can't be trusted, claimed that Davis had the standard movie star snobbery about series TV but did it anyway, if only in a guest star capacity simply because it was offered to her, and openly admired the acting and storytelling on daytime soaps, later telling Linda Gray that she, Bette, was a huge DALLAS fan.
Bette eventually did the HOTEL pilot in 1983, which I watched with cautious optimism so the inevitable disappointment wouldn't be so crushing, and then her health problems stopped her from doing the series, Anne Baxter took over as the lead in a cheeky nod to ALL ABOUT EVE (which then quickly killed Baxter) and then Bette took to calling Aaron Spelling's blandly tawdry program "Brothel." (I still wish Bette had done one episode of DYNASTY/THE COLBYS before she perished as Sable's mother -- though the parent series would've found a way to screw it up).
After a 1974 photo of herself and Rosalind Russell at New York's 21, badly lit from underneath, Crawford apparently decided concretely that she'd never make a public appearance again. And she didn't.
Bette Davis reportedly became a volatile social presence around Hollywood in her youth deliberately in order to advance her career by generating "naughty girl" press that, unlike other actresses, she wasn't afraid of -- as OF HUMAN BONDAGE would prove. Crawford had a lot of such scandals just by her nature, and whether that helped her career is an open question.
Barbara Stanwyck, on the other hand didn't do TV interviews basically at all. A shyer and somewhat more tasteful personality, when asked to do a memoir about her life and career, she said, "Oh, who cares...?" about those olden days. Ironically, perhaps, she was the only one who had a successful series, THE BIG VALLEY.
Katharine Hepburn, however, was infamous for keeping a large TV on display in her NYC living room, one pulled out from the wall and turned around facing the corner with the unplugged cord draping across the set, which she called "the idiot box." When Hepburn was finally lured onto THE DICK CAVETT SHOW in 1973, it seemed to be for purposes of shock effect on her part, so unexpected it was for her to deign to appear on the small screen in any capacity at all. It was a good two-part show and actually had the effect of boosting her career, leading to her first made-for-TV movie, LOVE AMONG THE RUINS with Laurence Olivier, which was excellent and won multiple Emmy awards but bombed big time in the ratings, due in large part to ABC's foolishly snooty PR campaign which made it look tastefully drab and dry and humorless (which it absolutely was not)... She did a 60 MINUTES interview after her CAVETT appearance, and by the '80s, Kate was doing a television interview every couple of years, and that pattern reached a crescendo when her autobiography "All About Me" was released around 1991... She later admitted that if she had publicized her life earlier, it might have hurt her career. So seeming unattainable was a strategy which worked for Hepburn and fit her persona, and she knew it.
In her interview with Cavett, Kate said Marlon Brando was an "unlimited actor" but a "limited person" due to his refusal earlier that year to accept his Oscar for THE GODFATHER and she said about Bette, "Yes, she's awfully good," when Cavett asked.
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Very interesting and informative posts, guys. It makes perfect sense that Barbara wanted her work to speak for itself and so she ignored the media but it still makes me sad that there will never be a Missy/Dick Cavett interview popping up on You Tube. I was really hoping she did one. 
Well..... we'll always have a new Bette Cavett interview popping up, I guess, she was a regular there.
Well..... we'll always have a new Bette Cavett interview popping up, I guess, she was a regular there.
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You know, I don't think I've ever even looked for a Stanwyck interview online anywhere. I've seen a few of Bette's, even fewer of Joan's and Katharine's, and nothing from Barbara. I just never thought about it I don't guess.
Never knew Crawford was offered the role in DARK SHADOWS. Perhaps she would've been more inclined had it been a night-time series, which would've been far less demanding than a daytime series.
Never knew Crawford was offered the role in DARK SHADOWS. Perhaps she would've been more inclined had it been a night-time series, which would've been far less demanding than a daytime series.
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Of that vintage, TV interviews leaned towards a formality that exacerbated Joan's hoity-toity propriety. Although even then occasional flashes of personality could be seen, as in her near double take when asked if Clark Gable was short. If she had remained active through the 70s and even alive into the 80s, it's hard to imagine her relaxing enough to chat with Johnny Carson or be grilled by Joan Rivers. (Imagine Joan to Joan: "So what's with the coat hangers?")
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Oh, goodness. Crawford couldn't have taken the drilling and personal questions asked by the likes of Cavett, nor would she have taken well to the jokes made (at her expense) by someone like Joan Rivers. Had she not passed when she did, I see Crawford quietly remaining in retirement and being very selective about what projects she involved herself in (she did a narration for the EASTER ISLAND documentary in 1975, just two years before she passed, so perhaps other similar work would've been commonplace for her to still feel needed) or being exceptionally picky as to what TV interviews she may or may not have done (one imagines she would've gobbled at the chance to being praised on practically any outlet and by any moderator, especially if her glamour and her commitment to stardom were on display).
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Joan was horrified that magazines would print such awful pictures of her. In her time, the fan magazines only printed the most glamorous publicity stills -- well, until trash like CONFIDENTIAL and other tabloid-style magazines gained ground in the '50s. A star of Crawford's stature in the '30s and '40s likely got to choose what photos of her would be used in magazines, especially for the magazines she had given personal interviews to (at the very least MGM and Warner Brothers got to pick the best pictures of her to be used when she was a contract star for those studios).
So, knowing Joan's devotion to being glamorous for her public, it's reasonable that she felt shafted when she saw those 1974 pictures plastered across the front of newspapers. It was a huge ego blow for a very image-cautious celebrity like Joan, and she'd rather give up her career (which she desperately wanted) rather than growing old and ugly before the cameras for the whole world to see.
