Oscar Horrors: I've Written a Letter to Bette

HERE LIES... Bette Davis's Best Actress nomination for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, sent to an early grave by Anne Bancroft's more Oscar-friendly work in The Miracle Worker. 

Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here. In 1962, Bette Davis had a good three decades of acting ahead of her—what endurance!—but her disturbing, self-deprecating performance as Baby Jane Hudson sure feels like a go-for-broke swan song. It builds on all her tics and trademarks (bitchiness, powerful voice, melodramatic intensity) and exaggerates them almost beyond recognition. Following in the footsteps of Norma Desmond, Baby Jane's a quintessential star-as-monster. Try as you might, you just can't look away.

Granted, Joan Crawford does co-star as Baby Jane's paraplegic sister Blanche. But this is unmistakably Bette's show all the way: she dominates every second of screen time, whether by snarling and squawking with an alcohol-induced slur, or through a mere flutter of her eyelashes. She plays the role broader than broad with gargoyle makeup and coarse body language, often standing akimbo like a pissed-off teenager. But she leaves space for smaller gestures, like the sudden, wicked curling of her lips, that give us a vision of Baby Jane's sick, sad inner life.

Because she's not all monstrous. If only she was, she'd be so much easier to watch. Instead Bette plays her with a nagging core of pathos, of innocence lost. Occasionally her underlying tragedy (and implicit Electra complex) breach the surface, like when she sings her old vaudeville hit "I've Written a Letter to Daddy." It's the film's great can't-look-away set-piece, a pitiful song and dance rooted in Baby Jane's hideous regression to childhood, and Bette performs the hell out of it. No shame, no holding back, nothing but raw chutzpah.

Egged on by Victor Buono's ghoulish pianist, she hoarsely belts out the mawkish melody, and the resulting incongruity is a nauseating mix of horror and morbid comedy. It's a boozy, psychotic siren song that, to their credit, the Academy's members were unable to resist. It's an artifact of poisoned camp, a sour recapitulation of Bette's Hollywood career, and an indelible piece of horror history.

And if you want a real surprise, watch Baby Jane back to back with Bette's foray into Hammer horror, The Nanny. There, she's equally chilling, but all of Baby Jane's grand flourishes have been replaced with stoicism and restraint. It's black-and-white proof that Bette's performances didn't just have magnitude; they had range.

Previously on Oscar Horrors
The Fly, Death Becomes Her, The Exorcist, The Birds, Carrie and more....
Top 100 Most Memorable Best Actress "Characters" 

Judy Fest: "The Harvey Girls"

Silly me. I had the greatest time at the Judy Garland festival at Lincoln Center this week and the movie I didn't write about Presenting Lily Mars was probably my favorite viewing experience. Rent it! Judy was just so funny in it, it was really charming and I liked her chemistry with Van Heflin (I confess I had to look him up since Shane had slipped my mind and I'd never seen his Best Supporting Actor Oscar performance for Johnny Eager (1941). Have any of you seen that one? Is it worth checking out?

But enough about Lily Mars... on to Judy in another incarnation. The Lincoln Center portion of the festival ends tomorrow though the celebration continues at the Paley Center for Television (since Judy did a lot of variety work on TV in the 50s). The last two films I caught were period musicals and here's the first of them.

The Harvey Girls (1946)
I always forget that Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury were contemporaries. They were just three years apart in age (Angela is younger) though in this western musical, Lansbury is clearly meant to be the older woman. Or at least the more experienced one, if you know what I'm saying. Angela is a hardened showgirl (i.e. prostitute) at a rowdy saloon (i.e. casino/brothel) and she's just about the only person in the frontier town who isn't thrilled when Judy Garland arrives "On the Atchison Topeka and the Santa Fe".

In fact, that first big ensemble musical number hilarious stops halfway through just so everyone can gawk at Judy as she steps off the train, like she's the most famous beloved celebrity in the world. The showstopping entrance makes no narrative sense whatsoever -- Judy's "Susan Bradley" being a nobody who is about to start work at Harvey's restaurant -- but it makes perfect movie-movie sense because Judy Garland IS famous and beloved. And if there's a musical number already in progress when Garland arrives at the scene it's basically the Red Sea to her Moses.

The town is divided too, right down the middle, between the wild saloon and the proper restaurant. It's basically a battle for both the soul of the town and the town's most powerful man (John Hodiak) with Lansbury and Garland representing for either side. Guess who wins: The good girl or the bad one? The headliner or the newbie (this was only Lansbury's fourth picture)? I'll give you one guess.

The Harvey Girls hasn't aged as well as some of Garland's output. It's pretty creaky and I don't think it's only due to the print we saw that badly needed some restoration and color correction. Part of the problem is that the film grinds to a halt whenever the typically able Garland isn't front and center. Plus, the songs aren't as memorable as those from her other films. Though the young Cyd Charisse is all porcelain loveliness and Angela Lansbury's perma-scowl is amusing the plot points connecting their numbers and several other characters feel insufficiently developed to hold interest in The Harvey Girls as an ensemble piece. It's always "Can we please get back to Garland?" Still, you can't beat that rare opportunity to see Dorothy dance with her Scarecrow again (Ray Bolger). I think she had missed him most of all. B-

Judy Fest: "For Me and My Gal"

Bless the Walter Reade theater and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. This summer has been so trying in so many ways, but the Judy Garland retrospective is bliss. It helps that the Walter Reade is such a great place to see older films what with great air conditioning, comfortable seats and a big screen. The same can't (unfortunately) be said for the other prime NYC HQ for cinephiles (Film Forum). Anyway, people often think of Judy as an icon of tragic catharsis: heartbreak voice, trembling gesture, short life... but then you see the movies and she's just got charm for miles, a full range from light touch to direct hit, and she's funny and dazzling.  Watching her proves far more joyous than tearful though sometimes the two come together.

I caught two consecutive features earlier this week from the brief moment between her ascendance (Dorothy Gale + all those Mickey Rooney pictures) and adult superstardom (Meet Me In St. Louis).  Both pictures were made around her 20th year, as she left teen stardom behind. 

For Me and My Gal (1942)
This was the first of Judy Garland's three pairings with Gene Kelly (and his film debut!) and the first picture where she alone was billed above the title, indicating Hollywood's new confidence in her bankability. It's a period piece with Gene & Judy playing low rent vaudeville act "Palmer & Hayden". They're attempting to up their game and become headliners at the Palace (New York) just as Judy's brother and all able bodied young men are being shipped off to World War I. Palmer (Kelly) doesn't want to go when the draft hits him and this relentless career drive looks like cowardice and lack of patriotism to everyone including Hayden (Garland).

Two of the movie musical's greatest bond over song and dance. It's a little bit like that famous scene in ONCE (2007) actually, a kindred spirit discovered at the piano.

The film peaks quite early with the title song, a thrilling example of what modern musicals are always forgetting: songs are supposed to move the story along! "For Me and My Gal" was an old standard at the time -- this is essentially a jukebox musical like Singin' in the Rain -- but it's used as a plot device, the performance of which, falsely casual over coffee, is a sneaky ploy by loveable cad Palmer (Kelly) to win innocent Hayden (Kelly) away from her current act.

As anyone who's ever seen Kelly & Garland perform together knows, they're a match. The ploy will work. That swoony soft tenor of Kelly's, the aural equivalent of a randy comfortable blanket for vocal partners to take to their beds, just nuzzles right up to her more powerful alto, and let's it do the heavier breathing while he moves. And oh how he moves. John Fricke, noted Garland historian, was on hand to introduce the film and he shared that Kelly credited Judy with teaching him how to act for the camera. He didn't yet know how subtly you can play for the camera as opposed to the stage (Before this film he'd become a Broadway sensation in "Pal Joey" and Garland lobbied to hand him this debut.). You can see Kelly's learning curve in this film but as a song and dance man, he just can't be beat. 

I amend. The film peaks a little later than that, when Judy sings "After You're Gone" which would become a concert staple for her (see below). 

You can chalk up the song's staying power to the weird combo of its fickle tempo changes and Garland's unfaltering emotional control of its content. The film version of this number (I couldn't find a good video), takes place in a improvisational hurry because Kelly has been seeing another woman (Márta Eggerth -- more on her in the next post) and is late to their performance. Garland is essentially selling the song AND three separate character and plot points within its ebbs and crescendos: Hayden's ascendance into a confident entertainer who is able to leave her personal drama offstage, a young girl's immediate and unruly love for a man who is clearly trouble, and a maturing woman's worry about their future as partners. The song is prophecy, future tense, but Garland manages to sell her character's past, immediate present and future depending on the note.

Amazing.

The film's second half -- once we arrive at draft dodging and war bond selling patriotism and even an actual grenade throwing war sequence, is weirdly ungainly and choppy. But the film is definitely worth seeing as a milestone in three of the greatest careers within cinema's musical genre: Garland's, Kelly's, and director Busby Berkeley who considered For Me and My Gal his best film. (People aren't always the best judges of their own work but that's still something.

For Me and My Gal (first half: B+; second half: B-)

As exit music, why not Gene Kelly dueting with wee Liza on the title track years and years after her mama's movie hit it big?

Isn't that sweet?

Next up... the other film from this time period, with some interesting similarities Presenting Lily Mars (1943)

50th Anniversary: "Judy Judy Judy"

10|25|50|75|100 -anniversary specials

In the annals of showbiz history few one night events are as seismic as "Judy Judy Judy" the night Judy Garland hit Carnegie Hall, 50 years ago at this very moment, for her comeback performance. She was called many things during her legendary career: Hurricane Judy, The World's Greatest Entertainer, Ms. Showbiz and a lot of those titles coincide or funnel right into or through this big night. There's not really any concert footage of this event though it was famously recorded live to fulfill her record contract and eventually became her most important album.

I can't for the life of me remember how that Garland miniseries with Judy Davis covered the event but they must have done so given that it was one of those 'from cradle to grave' bios. Garland died just 8 years after this concert at the age of 47. Do you think the proposed Anne Hathaway as Judy Garland film will stretch this far into Judy's career? Or maybe it will never get made?

Hathaway is 28 years old at the moment, just ten years younger than Judy was on this big night...

Lots more after the jump including four melodic videos because I couldn't help myself. I do get carried away with the mythic actresses, don't I?

Click to read more ...

April Showers: Stanley Kowalski

wateworks weeknights at 11

Have you ever been so out of control drunk that your buddies had to do a physical intervention and shove your sorry ass in a cold shower? Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando) has.

In A Streetcar Named Desirei, which I haven't been able to shake since we did our "Best Shot" episode (how about you?), Blanche Dubois is always taking baths to relax or to clear her head. Her nemesis and brother-in-law law Stanley isn't obsessed with bathing. His liquids are clearly blood, sweat and tears. But in this scene the shower wakes him from his violent stupor.

But still dripping wet, he's back to generating his own waterworks; a crying boy seeking comfort from the woman he's abused.

Hey baby? HEY STELLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA