Norma Shear. What am I missing?

Joan Crawford couldn't stand her because she thought Shearer was a sleazy whore who fucked her way into a prestigious movie career.

[quote]Norma Shear.

Oh, dear.

She married Irving Thalberg, head of MGM. What more did she need?

Such teeny, tiny eyes - yet, I find her kind of fascinating.

She was what was in style at the time, her stage presence and delivery. I understand why she married Irving, I just never understood why he married her.

JOAN thought Norma was a whore? That's rich.

You're missing the last two letters of her last name, OP.

Oops. It’s the grease fire for me. Norma Shearer Norma Shearer Norma Shearer

"I understand why she married Irving, I just never understood why he married her."

According to Gavin Lambert, her biographer (and a fan of hers) she "kept trying out for the role until she got it." Which means she kept hanging around until Irving figured she would make him a good wife. She didn't disappoint; she played the role of Mrs. Irving Thalberg, Queen of the MGM Lot, to perfection. She didn't want children, but had them because he wanted them, and she produced first a son, then a daughter...perfect! They would act all lovey-dovey, but their marriage was really an arrangement more than anything. Her niche was the Queen of the Lot, wife of Irving G. Thalberg, and when he died it rocked her world. She went on to do "The Women" and "Marie Antoinette" but her career didn't last much longer. She married a ski instructor a dozen years younger and got older and more and more mentally disturbed. She lived out her final days in the Motion Picture Home, asking men who came to visit her "Are you Irving? Were we married?" It was a long, drawn out, sad ending for the Queen of the Lot. Virginia Bruce, another resident of the Motion Picture Home said "Do you know Norma Shearer is just down the hall? She was the biggest of them all, and here she is, blind and dying, after all that, all that fame and riches and now this. Maybe I haven't had it so tough."

OP try Norm Shear.

"The Women" was made when Shearer was already the Grande Dame of MGM, playing respectable women in prestige films. But she became a star years earlier, playing sexually liberated young dollies parading around in slinky outfits in suggestive pre-Code films.

OP, I've seen her in other movies where she gave a decent performance, but in The Women, I agree, she was horrible. Not only over-acting, but doing it in a very hammy old-fashioned way (even for 1930's).

Her best performance was in Idiot's Delight with Clark Gable.

It's amazing she became a film star, considering how unprepossessing she looked, with those tiny eyes and that "cast" that one of them had. Her co-star Robert Morley asked her "How did YOU become a movie star?" and she said "Because I wanted to!" And that was true; her incredible drive and ambition made her a star....and the wife of Irving Thalberg.

Without her, we wouldn't have Jamie Lee Curtis.

Another thread on a prelapsarian actress who no one under the age of deceased remembers. Quelle joie.

"Another thread on a prelapsarian actress who no one under the age of deceased remembers."

Anyone interested in movie history would know who she is. And know who Irving Thalberg is, too.

I prefer Norma Shearer to June Fucking Allyson.

R15

Pull that stick out of your ass, ya fucking snob. I watched a movie and had an honest question. No need for you to be such a sanctimonious cunt.

WORST FUCKING TROLL EVAH

R4

Norma Shearer was cross-eyed to a bad degree; Ziegfeld critized her looks including her eye issues, but undeterred and determined NS carried on. Eventually thanks to working with a certain Dr. William Bates Norma Shearer was able to conceal her eye problems long enough to film movie scenes.

If NS hadn't been married to Irving Thalberg it is highly questionable she would have been cast as Mrs. Stephen Haines (The Women).

Norma Shearer's style of acting was totally wrong for a 1930's picture, but it was all she knew so those grand gestures and so forth came along for ride.

" I watched a movie and had an honest question. No need for you to be such a sanctimonious cunt."

I said nothing that would warrant such an outburst. You're a very immature individual. Grow up.

You're missing the last two letters of her name. Either you knew that and were waiting for someone to say it or you're a dolt. Either way, 1/10.

R1

And she (Joan Crawford) ought to know.....

Talk about a pot calling kettle black; Joan Crawford was known as an easy lay going back to her high school years.

The material she had in "The Women" was old fashioned--I don't think she does badly with it. The other women were written to be more contemporary and could have more fun with their roles.

Thalberg, to his credit, didn't necessarily put her in MGM's biggest pictures but found roles for her that helped craft her image. Her son became a college professor--an epistemologist, no less. Her daughter married multiple times, but well.

Crawford hated her because Crawford wanted to be queen of the lot and was really a little too "common" to carry it off.

You're wrong, R20. Shockingly wrong! Norma started out in silent films, so that could explain her dated style.

Did Dr. William Bates work with Bonnie Franklin?

R25

Please don't talk about me when I'm gone....

During the filming of The Women, both Roz and I had a hard time deciding which eye to look into of Miss Lotta Miles. She's wonk-eyed you know.

Crawford hated NS because Crawford had started out in silent films as Shearer's stand in.

[quote]What am I missing?

Um, another "er."

R26

Doubt it, good doctor died about ten years before Ms. Franklin was born.

I don't know. I preferred Bette Dav, Joan Crawfo, Rosalind Russ, and Barbara Stan.

I could never stand that cross eyed no talent.

OP is a dolt. The Women is a classic and the casting near perfect. To this day one of the funniest satires in film.

Diana Do. And how.

Wrong OP!

*F*L*A*W*L*E*S*S*

I think OP might be on to something. We could add Norma Shear to the list of DL icons that include AnnE Hathaway, Lens Dunham, and Shitley MacLaine. Am I forgetting anyone?

Julianne Moore, seriously.

[quote]Am I forgetting anyone?

BIG Time!

I read once there's a very old thread about the life, times, and tribulations of you, dear Helen, but I've never been able to find it.

Did you have it killed?

Agree she is horrible. The worst part of the movie. I think DL has nailed it too - it’s to “old” style acting. Sappy, hammy, unrealistic. Joan was real, Roz was sharp and funny, Paulette Goddard was real and savvy. NS was a dud. Otherwise a great movie.

I love how at the end they say “but what about your self-respect” - and the answer is “who needs self-respect”. Lol - a true whores motto.

Norma Shearer makes complete sense in the role, amongst the "fast" women around her.

I don't think she had a great relationship with her kids, but they were too well mannered to have written a book about her or bring any attention to themselves in any way. I'm not even sure that she saw her grandkids. She was so paranoid of being thought of as old.

She was abandoned at the Motion Picture and Television Country Hospital where she died of Alzheimers.

She was perfection in Women

R37, "straight me" could be added to that list, though it's not a specific person.

R42

Some of those "fast" women tried to warn Mary Haines, but she was too busy playing the wronged woman.

Women like Miriam Aaron who came from the "other side" of UES (Yorkville if you like) and presumably had been around block a few times understood far more about men than Mary Haines ever did.

They warned her of truth; her husband was just after sex with some strange women for a bit of a boost. Yes, it was being unfaithful but a man like Stephen Haines wasn't a serial philanderer, he still loved his wife deeply, but now was in a spot. Had Mary not forced the issue he would soon enough grown tired of Crystal Allen (as did after marrying her), felt guilty and gone back home to his wife and child.

Ironically it wasn't even a woman, but young girl (Little Mary) who puts a foot up her mother's behind that gets her moving. IIRC Little Mary was booed every time she appeared on screen back when TM ran; and it is clear now why. That little girl had Crystal Allen's number and let her know it four thousand ways from Sunday.

That little curtsey (along with smirk) LM gives after telling Crystal Allen Haines she thinks her bathroom is "perfectly ridiculous" is priceless.

She was the Meg Ryan of her day, but then again even Meg Ryan is no longer Meg Ryan.

Nobody could bite their own knuckle better

Is she a Scissor Sister?

You shouldn't judge Norma Shearer by The Women, a role that even she didn't want to do. She realized the part called for her to play a noble woman defending the sanctity of marriage, while everyone else play it for laughs. But studio chief LB Mayer put the pressure on, and she no longer had her husband Irving to help fight against him. So she reluctantly agreed to do it.

I don't think there was another actress at MGM at the time who could've done better in such a thankless role. Shearer keeps the movie together as the eye of a hurricane, remaining the calm focus as the other outrageous characters and their clever lines go flying around her.

As for her looks, she was the epitome of 1939 Hollywood glamour combined with the chic style of a young New York society matron. Her makeup and hairstyle didn't help, but all the actresses including Joan Crawford and Roz Russell, had unflattering hairstyles.

Shearer did her best work in the late 20s and early 30s, 10-15 years before The Women. She was the leading young actress to make the transition from Silents to Talkies, and was widely copied and respected. Check her out in A Free Soul (with a young newcomer named Clark Gable), Private Lives and The Divorcee, playing sexy, free-wheeling women who are the opposite of Mary Hanes.

Those hairstyles were atrocious!

“Ah l’amour, l’amour!”

Pictures of Norma make me think of Jennifer Aniston - they are both nice looking; for real life — but hardly beautiful or even interesting looking enough to make sense as a movie star.

Very good actress. She holds The Women together while everyone else is doing their Cukor turns and her Jungle Red! is priceless. Also like her very much at the end of Marie Antoinette when she's lost everything and they come for her children. In actuality Marie was publicly accused of sexually abusing them.

Very good in Idiot's Delight and another end of career film which nobody knows Escape a rare pre war dealing with the Nazi's which includes evil Conrad Veidt and Nazimova. Oh yeah and that piece of balsa wood Robert Taylor.

I also like her in The Barretts of Wimpole Street opposite Charles Laughton and Fredric March.

Yes when she realizes her father is sexually interested in her and she has to get away from him is done very well. Especially that this is a post code MGM prestige period picture it is all the more creepy.

Normy and I grew up together. Same shitty street in the same shitty town. You know, by the age of eleven, that girl could suck the chrome of a Kissel 's bumper. No wonder she got that Jew-boy. They love their little things sucked on. And I outta know, I've mouthed some of the greats. Mayer, Selznick, Zukor.

And aren't you sweet R40. First day at the agency? There have been dozens of threads about my greatness. True, some of them were major flops, but in even those, you could find an occasional pearl.

Would your mother like a bottle of Helenesque? It's the perfume that's a floor wax.

Helen, is it true you turned down Dolores Gray's role in the 1955 remake? Is that quote true -- "I'll take second billing to Joan Collins' but not Miss Diaperpants"?

My now deceased grandfather used to tell me the story of how he had her to a dinner party back in the day and that she was really cool and down to earth. When I was a kid I had no idea who she was so it went in one ear and out the other , and now I wish I would have asked more questions. Grr.

What did your grandfather do, R59, that he is able to invite movie stars to dinner parties?

I coached her granddaughter in acting when she was in high school in the Chicago area. Nice kid, not extremely talented.

Rich?

From Robert Wagner's book "I Loved Her In The Movies": The butler showed us into her bedroom, which didn’t surprise me, because I had already gotten the distinct feeling from Irving that his mother spent a great deal of time there. Norma was sitting up in bed, and couldn’t have been more gracious. She didn’t have the ethereal glow that would strike me when I saw her in the movies, but then William Daniels hadn’t lit her bedroom. She asked about my parents and then about the classes I took with Irving Jr. Even though I was just a kid, the atmosphere was swankier and more complicated than just meeting the mother of a classmate; it was more like an audience with a

Norma wed Irving Thalberg in September 1928 and their marriage immediately vaulted her ahead of every other actress on the MGM lot, with the exception of Garbo.

Contrary to those who argue that she wouldn’t have been anything without Irving Thalberg cherry-picking projects for her, Norma had been a considerable star before they married, in such roles as a cheerful barmaid in Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg and an ambitious young actress in Upstage. What Thalberg did do for his wife was to raise her to the highest level of stardom by casting her in gilt-edged properties that had a high probability of success; he didn’t make her a star, but he made her a much brighter star than she would have been on her own.

Wagner, Robert. I Loved Her in the Movies: Memories of Hollywood's Legendary Actresses (p. 10). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

... Because of her kindness to a kid she didn’t have to be kind to, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Norma. I still do. I saw her regularly years later, usually at Sun Valley, where she liked to go skiing with her second husband, Martin Arrougé. Marti looked a great deal like Irving Thalberg, except he was extremely athletic, unlike Thalberg, who had been limited by the rheumatic heart that shortened his life. I respected Marti—he made Norma extremely happy, he was devoted to her, took impeccable care of her, was there for her every minute of the day. He sincerely loved her.

Somebody. Since I liked to study the radiant female of the species, Norma’s affectations were attractive, but I could see how it would be difficult to live with someone like her. In fact, both of Norma’s children, Irving Jr. and Katherine, kept their distance from their mother in later years. Irving became a professor of philosophy in Chicago, and Katherine ran a bookstore in Aspen. The Thalberg bent for quality came out in Katherine. Her bookstore, Explore, is one of the finest I’ve ever been in, created with loving hands, in everything from the furniture and shelves to the stock of books. In her own way, Katherine Thalberg was a kind of artist, as well. As for Norma, later in her life she seldom ventured east of Sun Valley. In our occasional conversations when she was older, she admitted that she had been a fiercely

ambitious young woman, but she seemed perfectly happy in her retirement. Unlike other great stars who walked away from the movie business—Mary Pickford, Garbo—she never made any tentative moves to get back in the game. It’s fair to say that Norma’s reputation today is not what it was at the height of her fame, mostly because of the type of woman she played and the kind of films she made later on in her career, which are the ones that most people now see. Well-dressed, loyal wives in sentimental domestic dramas are relics of an earlier time and that time’s dramatic conventions. They can be watched now more as interesting sociology than as involving dramas.

Her acting was very mannered and the style at the time.

[Quote] Since I liked to study the radiant female of the species

He means that in a scrapbooking way, doesn't he?

Honestly, the only worthwhile thing she ever did was discover Janet Leigh... (and even Leigh was a somewhat mediocre star)

Ah, June Allyson. Thank you for the question R58.

Horrible overbite and spit problem. Could only crimp a carrot.

Fortunately, Junie loved anal, specifically double-punch fucking.

She and Van Johnson would go pick up sailors in Long Beach together.

"She seemed perfectly happy in her retirement."

I don't think she was. I think she went on with her life after Thalberg died, but never got over the fact that she was no longer wife of the head of production at MGM, the Queen of the Lot. I think she dearly missed that life. When speaking at some kind of function honoring Louis B. Mayer she recalled that period of time in movie history, the time when she was Thalberg's wife and a huge star, with tears in her yes, calling it "the very most of life." She never really let go of it.

If that were true, she'd have done more movies. No one lets go of their best memories.

She had plenty of vanity, but she probably also had sense enough to know that her time was up. Perhaps she would have come back if Selznick or Goldwyn asked but more likely it would have been someone like Howard Hughes or Harry Cohn who need some luster for their struggling (RKO) or up and coming but cheap (Columbia) studios.

I kind of remember a quote about the MGM queens of the 1930s: Garbo got the grand artistic productions, Shearer got the expensive prestige productions and Crawford's movies made the money to pay for them.

something like that.

"If that were true, she'd have done more movies."

No, because her vanity was such that she didn't want to be seen on screen anymore, not as a middle aged woman. She was offered the starring role in "Mrs. Miniver", which won Greer Garson an Oscar, but refused it because she didn't want to play the role of a woman who had an adult son. She didn't want fans to see her age.

For someone who didn't want her fans to see her age, she didn't mind being photographed at public events.

....

M. Martin Arrougé was rather good looking, in a Gallic sort of way.

"For someone who didn't want her fans to see her age, she didn't mind being photographed at public events."

Going out and living your life is one thing; being on a movie screen is something else again. She didn't want every wrinkle and sag to immortalized and exaggerated on a movie screen. She never had any plastic surgery either, so she aged naturally. She considered getting a facelift somehow shameful.

She wasn't just going to the supermarket. She went to industry events.

She was so good I'm the Divorcee.

She told her husband she balanced their accounts! Pre-code films were so scandalous!

I love how everyone rode a train back then!

[quote] it was more like an audience with a....

With a WHAT, R63?? You left us hanging.

In Lubitsch's The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg both she and Navarro are very moving.

R64 wow - do please tell us about l'été chez le Prince Aly Khan au Château de l'Horizon!! Divoone?

I see R67 has explained R13.

R57, I didn't know you were Canadian, Helen. I figured you were from Flatbush.

Lol, R80 - Sorry,

"It was more like an audience with a QUEEN.

[quote]r79 I love how everyone rode a train back then!

Especially on Norma.

Poor Norma, she was so cross-eyed...for years she thought I was twin

Poor Joan, she slept with every male in Hollywood except Lassie and still couldn't reach my career heights.

Working with Poor Norma, with those eyes!

It was so challenging, you know...

One could never be quite sure if she was saying her lines to my tits

or to Roz Russell ass

No matter how many cameras they brought to the set...

they could never quite keep up with that wandering eye of Norma's

(But we all did try so HARD to make Poor Norma look good!)

Her daughter married Richard Anderson, best known as Oscar Goldman in THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN & THE BIONIC WOMAN.

Dear Joan I have laundry for you. You can't act but you certainly know your way around a cleaning establishment. You know where they have wire hangers?

[quote] Her daughter married Richard Anderson, best known as Oscar Goldman in THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN & THE BIONIC WOMAN.

Not MacGyver?

Oh Norma, if only you could have had the benefit of the modern CGI technology

Your freakish Cyclops affliction wouldn't have been so obvious

George Hurrell found Norma to be quite photogenic...and he knew his job. It was Norma who got him a job at MGM. She had a patrician profile - like something from a rare coin. While not perfect looking, she was quite pretty. But her acting style was a holdover from the silent era, I’m afraid. Big hand gestures and such.

Patrician profile?

That might be overstating it a bit - but photographing her in profile did hide the distraction of those dueling eyes

She used to give blow jobs to 16 year old Mickey Rooney in the MGM parking lot.

r93 That's Richard DEAN Anderson. THIS is Richard Anderson.

[quote]Poor Joan, she slept with every male in Hollywood except Lassie and still couldn't reach my career heights.

She tried to put the moves on me, but she was the biggest bitch I'd ever run across, so it was no dice.

I knew Norma's former daughter-in-law: ice-cold bitch (the daughter in law). Snotty as hell.

[quote]She used to give blow jobs to 16 year old Mickey Rooney in the MGM parking lot.

So what if she did - she was married to the studio executive Irving Thalberg

Besides, they say Norma gave very good blowjobs!

(And she used those lizards eyes to keep a lookout for the cops too!)

We were so lucky to get one of mother's old Stand-Ins to play her at our wedding.

Did I fucking say I was BORN there R84?

And I tease, so my bush is never flat.

r102 Is that the lovely Mr. Alan Ladd and his much older agent-frau-wife?

I also prefer Norma Shearer to June Fucking Allyson.

I prefer anyone to June Allyson. Never could figure out what a guy like Dick Powell saw in her, especially after being married to Joan Blondell.

I guess you never saw June Allyson eating corn on the cob.

Did that overbite help with her cocksucking skills?

Is she dead yet?

Lassie--as the name implies--is not a male.

Although for all we know MGM might have used a male collie for filming.

But in the stories, Lassie is female.

Wasn't Alan gay? I could totally believe it. I think I might have read it in Riva's book. Being as short as a tree stump didn't help as Shirley M said when she met him. She said he was one of her favorites but when she met him she had to look straight down.

June Allyson. So one note as an actress. All she ever did was play the wife or girlfriend.

You have to like MGM musicals to like June Allyson. She was good in those. And though not especially pretty men found her very attractive so she had the good fortune of being able to act like a wildcat.

R93

That would be Richard Dean Andersen, who by the way looks nothing like his heart throb MacGuyver days.

June Allyson was rumored to be a nymphomaniac.

R13, Or Ali MacGraw.

R116

Don't forget me

June was popular with the Prune Producers of America.

Not so much with the janitors at MGM.

R110 Lassie was always played by a male collie at MGM -- it was well-known at the time and among most fans today. This remark is paraphrasing Bette Davis' famous insult against Joan. She knew that Lassie was played by a male.

So Lassie was a male playing a female? Never watched it. Not into boy and his dog stories.

[quote] But in the stories, Lassie is female.

Interesting I always assumed it was supposed to be a male dog, mainly because it was the boy's dog and the way they talked to it. Never thought about the name referring to a Scottish female.

I think Joan Rivers had a joke about Lassie’s gender —as a kid she’d wait for shots of “Lassie clearing the wall.”

Lassie is supposed to be female, but male collies are bigger and have fuller coats than females. They look better on the screen.

First, you get my name wrong, then you derail my thread with post after post about that filthy bitch (and I'm not talking about Crawford!) I am NORMA SHEARER, Queen of the MGM lot!

Meanwhile on another Hollywood lot around same period this is how another "wronged" wife handled her business.

"The Divorcee" is a very good film. I much prefer Norma Shearer's Pre-Code performances to anything else she did.

"Norm Shear"

That's what they called her back in Canada

before they started her on hormones

and trimmed off her manly bits

R5 takes a whore to know a whore!

Joan Crawford’s comment on the Norma’s marriage to Irving Thalberg was:

“She doesn’t love him you know. She gave herself to him, like a nun gives herself to Christ, to fill her inner needs.”

Hilariously bitchy!

Based on this outfit Norma wore at her wedding to her second husband Martin

I can only conclude that Joan was successful in turning all the gays against Norma

I though Norma Shearer’s performance, in “The Women”, was superb.

He looks like a taller, more strapping version of Irving.

R119 et al

"Of all the types I've ever met within our democracy,

I hate the most the athlete with his manner bold and brassy!

He may have hair upon his chest, but sister, so has Lassie!

Oh I hate men!

I Hate Men Lyrics - Kiss Me, Kate musical

Norma loved her sex...with Thalberg as frail as he was, she must’ve been moist with sexual tension. And it sounds like she tore a path through the eligible men in Hollywood.

[quote] She considered getting a facelift somehow shameful.

I think it's wrong. Shockingly wrong!

R134, Norma's men . . .

Norma dated George Raft and it was all about the sex.

I love Rosalind Russell in almost all of her films, but she is absolutely awful in "The Women". So over-the-top, it's a wonder any scenery went unchewed. One of the worst performances of her career. Joan Fontaine gave her typical mousy, naive-girl acts. Norma is actually not bad by comparison and Joan Crawford is great.

Most people love Roz in the film. She begged Cukor for the part and it proved she had comedic chops. I think she's very funny. She is over the top but there is a real nastiness at work as well. I think Hoffman is horrible in Tootsie but most people think it's a wonderful performance. What can you do?

My favorite actress in "The Women" is Paulette Goddard, but I do agree that Joan Crawford does an excellent job.

It's a great cast. Cukor did a masterful job. So many terrific performances. It was a big risk for a major studio to not include one man and George made it work.

Oh, l'amour, l'amour. How it can let you down.

Was this outfit a surrealistic crack at Norma?

[quote]Most people love Roz in the film. She begged Cukor for the part and it proved she had comedic chops.

Which she then deployed at full strength the following year in "His Girl Friday."

[quote] Norma Shear. What am I missing?

The "er" at the end of her name

[quote]The "er" at the end of her name.

How witty. How charming. How lazy.

Stay pressed, R30.

Mrs Prowler, Still makes me laugh.

R140, Paulette utters my favorite line . . .

"You should have licked that girl where she licked you . . ."

Bum's rush to the melody! (Also used in the 80's when my good looking friend was getting rid of his latest octopus in a club.)

R41, here's the exact quote:

Sylvia Fowler: [Last lines] Mary Haines, don't you have any pride?

Mary Haines: No pride at all. That's a luxury a woman in love can't afford.

R150, Actually, it's "The bum's rush in melody . . .".

R152

And I thank you!

R152

And I thank you!

R54

"In actuality Marie was publicly accused of sexually abusing them."

Marie-Antoinette was accused of unnatural relations with her son; le Dauphin (later Louis XVII after his father's judicial murder). Revoluntaries got the poor boy to say things he couldn't have understood, and or twisted his responses to suit their purposes. A document was drawn up listing these "charges" to which Louis XVII signed.

MA's trial was actually going well for her (as could be expected) because state really had nothing on the queen. In fact when you get down to things her trial was more about fact killing of Louis XVI didn't bring about reaction Robespierre and others wanted. So they doubled down on that bet by going after most hated woman in France,or so they believed, Marie-Antoinette.

When presented with state's charges MA shuddered; she stood and turned to the court and said "Mothers of France, how could this be possible"? Women and men in court actually either applauded and or otherwise were for MA, but it made no difference, her life was forfeit and decision had been made before trial even began.

Child king Louis XVII somehow worked out what had happened, and ceased all further cooperation with his jailers. He never spoke a single word ever again for remainder of his short life.

George Cukor insisted that Rosalind Russell portray Sylvia as comical and exaggerated. It worked. She was brilliant. Sylvia had to be portrayed as silly and foolish.

Personally, I thought she was over the top.

L'amour, l'amour!

Who are June and Allyson, R16. I’d like to watch that film.

She was fantastic in The Women. What you are missing, OP, is taste

Jungle Red!

[quote]What am I missing?

An understanding of how to seduce a man with Pancakes Barbara.

R162, And a splash of Summer Rain.

Per Joan Crawford, the filming was “like a fucking zoo at times. If you let your guard down, you would’ve been eaten alive.”

How urban of you R147. Spearchucker?

Guess I was put in my place. Hah.

[quote]Per Joan Crawford, the filming was “like a fucking zoo at times. If you let your guard down, you would’ve been eaten alive.”

"There's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society . . . outside of a kennel. So long, ladies!"

What you are missing is the strange case of Delilah-Judith!

Only Norma could have truly brought Delilah-Judith’s story to the screen accurately.

Norma fumbles and swears for the troops!!

She became very grand and phony later in life. The Women is a stupid film, an simpering exercise in camp. There isn't a good performance in it. Crawford is hideously masculine and Rosalind Russell is funny for a minute but she had no real comic timing. At least Norma was a pretty good actress. She gave a consistent artificial performance of the dutiful hurt wife and mother who is surrounded by all wised up broads. Shearer definitely stands out as the star of that terrible movie.

In the pre-code films that I've seen, Shearer looks sexy and modern, with much less affectation. She's no Miriam Hopkins, but she was always better than Joon Crawford.

R169, "The Women" is a delight.

A delight for ancient white fags maybe, but "The Women" is a disgrace.

NYT review of 2002 Broadway revival of TM:

"TM?" R172?

More dirt on Norma, bitches please! I just watched it for the 3rd time. Her interactions with her on screen kid and mother are so painfully, fucking fake . Such the carefree, "romping" type. Barf.

R173

Sorry, should have been "TW"...

Carry on...

"Dear Mr. Thalberg, how is your lovely, lovely wife with the tiny, tiny eyes?".

[quote]A delight for ancient white fags maybe, but "The Women" is a disgrace.

You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.

She’d give her children’s friends autographed photos of herself. If that isn’t first class narcissism, I don’t know what is.

Those kids could probably get a lot of money for those autographed pictures now on eBay, if they haven't yet died of old age.

Well, if Dame Norma had any fans, they might be.

Now she’s just a dumbfounding curiosity.

I can't review this entire thread but I think I've seen it before. If I have, I'm sure that I posted that Hitchcock once said that Shearer was his ideal film actress. He once tried to put together a project for them together but it fell through.

Hitch was a brilliant film maker but very seriously weird,. Perverse actually. I wonder what kind of situations he would have written Shearer into.

Sorry you can't read though a stupendous 179 posts

179 posts are a lot to read through when you're on a half hour break from work and also have to get something to eat. Work. You know what that is, don't you, r181?

Perfection . . .

r89's quote sounds exactly like something Joan Crawford really would've said.

Lovely

[quote]R180 Hitchcock once said that Shearer was his ideal film actress.

Where did he say this?

Some of his performers do come across as a bit blank, so I can see why he might not have exactly OBJECTED to her. He was inclined to put his own story and technique first. But there’s no Hitchcock film that comes to my mind as perfect casting for her, either.

Maybe as the lady who yells at Tippi Hedren in the diner and get a slap for her efforts?

Re: Hitchcock and Shearer. Wikipedia. Scroll down to Escape (1940).

[quote]Hitchcock desperately wanted to direct Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, and Conrad Veidt in one of the first World War II dramas, Escape. Hitchcock, a long-time admirer of Shearer's acting, had sought for years to find a suitable project for her. However, Hitchcock was shut out of the project when the novel Escape by Ethel Vance (pen name of Grace Zaring Stone) was purchased by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Hitchcock knew he could never work for the notorious MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer, who selected Mervyn LeRoy to produce and direct the film, which indeed starred Shearer and was released in late 1940. Years later, Hitchcock made the statement about the lack of true Hollywood leading ladies with the quote, "Where are the Norma Shearers?"

That’s weird.

Norma was expert at hiding her physical flaws for the camera and used to advise other actresses how to do the same.

Or, maybe she was just a cunt.

Huge star in her day, completely forgotten by the general public for decades now.

I think she could be good, but often was miscast (I mean, Juliet?) or didn't have a director who could rein in her silent-movie techniques. I wonder--was she anyone's "favorite" actress, did anyone say, "Oh, I can't wait for that new Norma Shearer movie!" I mean, the way they probably did for Davis or Crawford or Stanwyck back then--or, even earlier, Marie Dressler. Was she ever someone's reason for seeing the movie?

R191, lots of past movie stars fall in that category.

Given that Hitchcock cast Doris Day in one of his films, his ideas of great actresses might not line up with everyone's. I can think of actresses who could have been better in "The Man Who Knew Too Much", but she did well with the role.

[quote]R192 Was she ever someone's reason for seeing the movie?

I rarely use this word, but her fans were...fraus.

She was ladylike, and had a very public happy marriage. Her (onscreen) looks were nice, but non threatening. And most of her big films were “classy”, so she had an air or culture and respectability.

Shearer's pre-code films. including her silents, are actually quite good. Her later films under husband Thalberg were stereotypical. She's perfectly fine in the 1931 film version of Private Lives and author Noel Coward, who was opposed to her casting, ended up praising her..

She was a dumbass

[quote]I can think of actresses who could have been better in "The Man Who Knew Too Much", but she did well with the role.

But none of those other actresses could have sung "Que sera, sera" with quite the same verve.

R188, "Escape" is a very good movie, the ending is quite suspenseful.

Fun fact: Robert Taylor's mother is played by Nazimova, Nancy Davis Reagan's godmother.

I'd love to see a pre-code Private Lives

R200, Private Lives is a pretty tame play.

"Design for Living" is the Noel Coward play that, with its implications of a ménage à trois, had to be toned down for its movie version, which was made in 1933 and starred Gary Cooper, Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins.

But nobody does Design for Living anymore. They still do Private Lives which is a very entertaining film.

Though I don't know why they do it. The style for such a piece is completely lost.

[quote]She’d give her children’s friends autographed photos of herself.

Give? Shit, I charged my crotch fruit ten cents per.

R203, Obviously, you missed our revival.

Not to mention my London revival, darling.

Fredric March was quite the dish in his younger years, wasn’t he?

R207, Veronica Lake shades Fredric March, big time, at 10:20.

R169 is a humorless, charm free lesbian. Lighten up, dear. Hop into your Subaru, and buy a new pair of Birkenstocks.

George Cukor once said trying to film a close-up of Norma with her wandering eyes was like watching a bear try to follow a bumblebee about to land on his nose.

I think dear George was being generous - watching those eyes of hers always made me feel motion sick and a little nauseous...well that and her "not so fresh" smelling lady parts.

Oh dear, dear Joan,

We must get together soon and catch up.

Tell me dear, how are your precious children?

I think Veronica Lake was drunk or something on Dick Cavett’s show. I stand by my opinion that Fredric March was hot.

r212=Mrs. Norman Maine

He simply didn’t like her (probably because he was from the “legitimate theater” while she was a mere beauty contest winner), and she was like, “Fuck off, gramps.”

Their body language is revealing?

Joel McCrea didn't like working with Veronica either. Never said why though...by all accounts Joel was one of the easier actors to work with, if not on the level of Fredric March talent wise...

Lake is terrific in Sullivan's Travels. Sturges was not going to star a mannequin in one of his films.

Veronica Lake was utterly gorgeous, with a very enticing charisma onscreen. She was very sweet/sour.

The Women was written by a woman who was a member of these social circles of the period. So to say it is ancient faggot camp nonsense is to be oblivious beyond imagining.

It is a documentary compared to the crap commercial films of today.

Clare Booth Luce was supposed to be insufferable, as a person.

R220, As a young Congresswoman, she had an affair with LBJ.

R219, The Women was toned down for the movie. The Broadway play was more risque.

R219

Indeed it was!

IIRC in original play TW it is Sylvia Fowler who was having an affair, and her husband does the divorcing.

Also in the luncheon scene where Edith Phelps complains of morning sickness Syliva Fowler utters " I can't figure out if you're careless or Catholic".

None of this and more would have made it past film censors of 1930's so film script was toned down/changed.

The film of The Women also cut much of the material for lower class characters. The play is a lot more about class differences.

"Why, women like you don't know what an terrible time is. Try bearing a baby and scrubbing floors. Try having one in a cold filthy kitchen, without ether, without a change of linen, without decent food, without a cent to bring it up--and try getting up the next day with your insides falling out, to cook your husbands---! (controls herself.) No, Mrs Potter, you didn't have a terrible time at all."

Not all of it is that direct and serious, but it gives you an idea of what Clare Booth Luce was really interested in.

In the play, when Sylvia barges in on Crystal bathing and she stands up naked, Sylvia looks her over and comments on Crystal being a natural blonde.

DL fave Arlene Francis was in the 1936 OBP as Princess Tamara, one of the models.

Luce was world class social climber who tried to hide her very common roots. the play may have expressed some of her annoyance with snobs and social climbers but she, herself, clearly loved playing the game and became quite grand, though paranoid as time went on.

[quote]DL fave Arlene Francis was in the 1936 OBP as Princess Tamara, one of the models.

Was that her first role in the legitimate theater?