"The Man Who Came to Dinner" on TCM at 5:45 ET

lol and that's DL Fave and legendary beauty Mary Wickes

And she has perhaps the best quote in the movie/play: "After one month with you, Mr. Whiteside, I am going to work in a munitions factory. From now on, anything I can do to help exterminate the human race will fill me with the greatest of pleasure.”

I always enjoyed this movie along with TCM, unfortunately in our area Comcast removed TCM and now one has to pay extra for a TCM/Sports package. I already have channels that I would enjoy dropping to lower my Comcast bill. I just say Pluto TV into my tv remote and presto, numerous channels so I can watch hours of BBC Antiques Roadshow.

LOL R2

They don't write dialogue like than anymore, outside of John Waters and Almodovar.

This movie has one of my favorite sets of all time -- a recreation of those massive Victorian houses in the Midwest. Huge rooms, pocket doors, great staircases, et al. I also love the look of a writing desk behind the couch.

The movie does go on for a bit too long, and the Jimmy Durante/Harpo Marx character is grating, and there are numerous plot holes (Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence characters dropping by). But boy would I love to live in that house.

I think Billie Burke is wonderful in this. I feel so sorry for her when I watch it.

It's not as funny as it tries to be. Also Wooley has played the role far too many times. Wickes though is a marvel as always. What an idiot I was to miss her in Oklahoma.

I heard something about it last Christmas.

[quote] The movie does go on for a bit too long

I agree about that. There are some stretches that could be shorter to keep it sharper and focused.

Was there ever a Nathan Lane version on TV?

The woman in the picture looks like Dora from Now, Voyager (a DL classic I only saw several months ago for the first time).

I wonder why Davis did this movie. She has a thankless role, with the showiest parts going to Wooley and Sheridan.

Davis agreed to appear because John Barrymore was slated to play Whiteside. Unfortunately by that time he was unable to remember his lines, so they hired Monty Woolley instead.

Thats because it is, R11.

Her Laurie was one for the ages, r8!

^ r7

[quote]The most Datalounge movie ever

Really?

How would it be cast for the Trump Era? Trump, of course, as the incontinent and incoherant White-side. Ivanka as the bad girl, forgot her name. Kamala in the Bette Davis role, having to tell White-side the bad news that he's being evicted.

Countess de Cyanide

No, they just don't write scripts like this any more....

Ann Sheridan was just one fantastic actress.

You're just an angel in disguise....

As a boy I loved Pistols and Petticoats. I was so upset when she died so young. One of my first crushes along with Rod Taylor.

I think what was more significant, r20, was her...oomph.

I am lucky. I saw that production of Oklahoma! three times. I'd just gotten here for school. It was beautiful, and she was a riot!

Supposedly, after seeing the play on Broadway Bette begged Jack Warner to option the film for her which she saw as a vehicle for John Barrymore and her. But when they tested Barrymore, he was clearly beyond capable of remembering his lines and the fast-paced delivery they required.

Warners then tested Charles Laughton, who was desperate to play Whiteside, but his audition tapes were a disaster (why, I can't imagine). Cary Grant was then approached but Bette Davis, very powerful at that time, so strongly objected, he backed out and signed up for Arsenic and Old Lace. Orson Welles was interested but only if he could also direct.

So, ultimately Warners went to the play's Broadway lead Monty Woolley, even though Jack Warner worried that his effete homosexuality would be too apparent. Woolley had never appeared in a film before and was teaching at a university when Kaufman and Hart found him to star as Whiteside on Broadway. Bette hated working with him and had little faith in the director William Keighley, who she felt was unimaginative.

I enjoyed watching the film yesterday, which I hadn't seen in years. Knowing about the Whiteside casting controversy, which I read about on Ibdm as I watched, made me wonder how much more interesting Barrymore, Laughton or Welles might have been had circumstances been different. Woolley does seem very stagey and stale now.

One question: what was that character, the crazy old maiden aunt who lived upstairs about, anyway? Whiteside keeps thinking she looks familiar and she gives him an old photo of herself for Christmas, but then we never find out what their connection is. Did they forget to resolve that plot point? Did miss something?

BetteDavis' hairstyle in this film is incredibly ugly.

r25 She was a murderess in her youth, that's why Sheridan vaguely remembered her. He then used the info to blackmail the head of the household who had threatened to throw him out.

Ann Sheridan was as wooden as a 2 x 4.

After Lucille Ball died, Lucie Arnaz found a collection of letters that her mother and Mary Wickes wrote to each other over the years.

The letters were quite intimate in nature, though Lucie does not believe they had an intimate sexual relationship.

Ah, thank you, r27, I was too busy reading up on trivia from the film and let that important little bit of info go right by me!

Sheridan is hilarious as the self absorbed star.

I enjoy the movie, it's fairly racy for it's time. However, Bette Davis and Ann Sheridan were miscast. Perhaps if they had switched roles it would've worked better.

Bette's hair and wardrobe were hideous, even for the times. She looked like a midget waif in most of her scenes. That little hat with the puff on top made her look like Santa's elf.

That guy would played Bette's love interest (Richard Travis) turned in one of the worst performances I've ever seen in old Warner Bros. movies. I know good leading men were hard to find during the war years, but he was woefully amateurish. Good looking though.

Nathan Lane's Broadway production was filmed for PBS. Unfortunately, nothing was done to make it more suitable for filming, so it looks dull and stagey.

Who is the actor who plays Bette's love interest, the town reporter? He's quite the hunk. I hope Bette enjoyed him.

Woolley was very good in other movies where he hasn't played the role a thousand times all over the country.

I don't know why Jack Warner thought Woolley was too gay for the role. He played it like an effete, asexual New Yorker that the part demanded. When I watch him I don't think of him sucking a cock at all.

That's because you don't want to think of him sucking a cock at all.

I don't know this but wonder if Woolley in real life was just too "out" for Warner, like Noel Coward? Old time Hollywood execs had a long history of suspecting the Broadway crowd of all sorts of things like elitism. effeteism and the homosex.

I missed this yesterday and now find it can't be streamed anywhere (not even from TCM) and the DVD is made of unobtainium. Maybe I'll order it anyway and get it sometime next year.

R38 you can watch it in parts on Dailymotion. Unfortunately you have to click on each section after you watch so I linked the search page. The picture quality looks pretty good.

R38 TCM is showing it again on the 23rd and Christmas Day.

Miss Smart came off pretty well, though, r32.

Is Beverley Carlton supposed to be homosexual? Hes sure played that way butmentions something about some woman that really throws me off.

Monty was known to cruise the waterfront with his buddy, Cole Porter, looking for seamen. There is a story about them offering some hunky sailor trade money for the use of his semen....well, read about it for yourselves:

"It was his infatuation with Russian poet Boris Kochno, however, which marked a turning point in his life: after a brief, frustrating affair with Kochno in 1925, Porter limited his sex life to encounters with sailors and hustlers. He maintained that sex, like other pleasures, could be far less complicated when it was purchased. Porter's old friend, actor Monty Woolley, often joined him to cruise New York City's waterfront bars and bordellos. The tricks they picked up in these places were not likely to talk and would not be believed if they did. The two friends were usually successful in their quests for fresh diversion, at least in part because of their boldness. One night, a young sailor they drove up to on the street asked outright, "Are you two cocksuckers?" Wooley smiled and said, "Now that the preliminaries are over, why don't you get in and we can discuss the details?"

R33, Richard Travis

Davis knew that it was somewhat of a thankless part, but she loved the property and wanted to be part of its filming. After Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Letter, All This and Heaven Too, The Little Foxes, and Now, Voyager you can understand why she may have wanted to lighten up a bit. Ann Sheridan is a wonder -- beautiful and sexy.

John Barrymore would've been brilliant, but unfortunately he was in end-stage alcoholism and was a physical and mental wreck. He died not too long afterwards.

Mary Wickes was one of the greatest character actresses ever.

Bette must have enjoyed working with her...

Are Monty Woolley, Clifton Webb, and Edmund Gwenn sort of interchangeable?

Throw Sebastian Cabot into the mix.

[quote] Are Monty Woolley, Clifton Webb, and Edmund Gwenn sort of interchangeable?

Different varieties of homosexuals.

The Man Who Came at Dinner"

R24 Exactly, stagey and stale. I remember watching this film and being more irritated than charmed or even interested in Whitehead as a character. I recall some nonsense about penguins (?) and thinking “aw, fuck this”.

Woolley recalls (for me, and possibly only me) some really unpleasant experiences with bitchy, campy old professors in college and the kind of presence I’d never aspire to be or even be around at that age. If you want real friends, don’t be the guy who always needs to be noticed and dealt with. No one is smart or witty enough to pull that off any more.

[quote] Woolley recalls (for me, and possibly only me) some really unpleasant experiences with bitchy, campy old professors in college and the kind of presence I’d never aspire to be or even be around at that age.

I think the biggest problem with Woolley's performance today is that the humor Whiteside espouses once had a cache of shock value. He doesn't seem so outrageous now so he's no longer very funny. Maybe Barrymore or Laughton in their prime could have made the character ageless.

For me this is exactly the problem with Auntie Mame.

His diction has lost the cachet it once had, and we can now only understand put-downs like this if it’s Maggie Smith enunciating them. US-born character actors like him were a stock character through the 1950. Jessie Royce Landis was perhaps the last of them. Remember, Vera Charles was from Pittsburgh.

Barrymore and Woolley had some sex appeal, Laughton didn't.

Although, r55, she was NEVER in the chorus.

Woolley was touching as the history professor friend of the title character in The Bishop's Wife.

R34. He was very good as the retired army who boards with Claudette Colbert’s family during WWII in “Since You Went Away.” (He received a Best Supporting Actor nomination.) it was a variation on his gruff old man, but he brought genuine pathos to it. I’ve never seen “The Pied Piper” for which he received a Leading Actor nod—I think he plays a (what else?) gruff curmudgeon who rescues some abandoned children during the war. I know some of it was probably studio politics, as it was a lot then (and now), but for someone who entered film that late that’s pretty impressive. Clifton Webb similarly got 3 Oscar nominations between 1944 and 1948, the last Leading. He was expected to take BSA for “The Razor’s Edge,” but Harold Russell unexpectedly won (unexpected to the point they decided to give Russell a Special Oscar, making him the one actor to receive two Oscars for the same role). Russell’s Performance was heart-rending and real because he was a non-pro and there was no artifice—he WAS Homer—, but Webb’s death scene as Elliot Templeton was beautifully acted. His loss of the Lead Oscar was to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.

Did Woolley's career dry up after playing so many of the same roles? Did he work into the 1950s? I know I can google but hoping for a little DL insight.

This is one of the classic films I watch every year during the holidays. I have them on DVD and last year recorded most of them on DVR (from TCM). The others on my "must watch" list are:

It Happened on 5th Avenue

The Bishop's Wife

A Christmas Carol (the 1938 version)

The Shop Around the Corner

Holiday Affair

Christmas in Connecticut

Sometimes: Miracle on 34th Street

R32, agree with 80% of what you say. Davis was miscast, but she probably just wanted some relief from all the heavy roles she was doing. It's a shame she really couldn't do comedy. And the wardrobe/makeup department certainly did her no favors in this film. Davis' love interest (Travis) is really just awful. Did he do much other acting besides this?

Where I disagree is your point about Sheridan. She is just luminous in the role, and funny and sexy at the same time. The movie just comes alive when she is on screen.

I'm curious about your feelings on Durante.

Monty Wooley and John Barrymore both show up in a wonderful 1939 Paramount comedy, MIDNIGHT, directed by Mitchell Leisen and written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. It's a great romp, starring Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche, with the wonderful Mary Astor. Check it out if it ever shows up on TCM.

Normally enjoy him but I can't bear Durante in this. He's just not funny and, of course, some of that is the screenplay's fault. He also comes into the film so late, you feel you don't need another character trying so hard to shake things up. Like a lot of stuff that happens in this film, it just doesn't seem as outrageous and above board as it did 70 years ago. You tend to feel sorry for Billie Burke being so mercilessly bullied.

I think Ann Sheridan's performance is a little uneven. Mostly great and she looks and moves fab but she isn't as adept at firing off the quick dialogue as an actress like Roz Russell (or Bette Davis) would have been.

r62 I like Ann Sheridan and I know she could do comedy well. However, the part calls for a Tallulah Bankhead or Gertrude Lawrence type -- a larger-than-life star who is beloved by the public but is a terror behind the scenes. Ann was too young and even-keeled. Miriam Hopkins would've been great in the role.

Durante was an intrusion and too low-brow for this type of comedy. He was more vaudeville than Broadway.

r42 Beverly Carleton was based on Noel Coward, so yes he was very homosexual.

Banjo was based on Harpo Marx, who also talked in real life.

Lorraine Sheldon was based on Gertrude Lawrence.

Sheridan Whiteside was inspired by New York critic Alexander Woollcott.

His college and life long best friend Cole Porter took exception to Monty Woolley taking a black man as his lover.

Mr. Woolley eventually settled down with Cary Abbot (Yale class of 1911), until his death.

From MW's Wiki page:

"Starting in 1939, Woolley was living with a companion, Cary Abbott, who had also graduated from Yale in 1911. Abbott was discreetly identified publicly as Woolley's "courier-secretary-traveling companion." In 1942, Woolley and Abbott moved into a house in Saratoga Springs, where they lived together until Abbott's death, at age 58, from lung cancer, in 1948"

Gertrude Lawrence is all but forgotten today, but she was a big stage star at the time. Funny how some people's fame doesn't translate to later generations while others are still well-known in the present day.

Put Ann Sheridan in that category.

Ann Sheridan was great in her role; funny, sexy and above all just the sort of polar opposite that Bette Davis's character would indeed see as a man trap.

Agree with posts about Jimmy Durante, his arrival, song and rest of it just wasn't needed. Someone either owed him or something because his character just really wasn't needed IMHO.

I think his character was in the original play, he wasn't just shoehorned into the movie.

So I guess, take it up with Kaufman and Hart...

“And bring some rye bread...”

The mind reels.

We get Bankhead today because she left a number of wonderful performances on film and TV. But Lawrence on stage was supposed to have been utterly fabulous and we have practically no documentation of that. There are a few recordings, film performances and the King and I obc but nothing there hints at the tremendous stage incandescence we read about that everyone who saw her agrees she had.

Lucy was big buddies with Mary Wickes. Ms. Wickes was also , friends with Bette . Im rather surprised the 3 didn't pal around more .

Mary Wickes worked into her 80s, until right before she died in the mid 90s. Tons of credits.

She was a lez, btw.

I may be one of the precious few who actually saw “Sherry,” the musical version of “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” It was in Boston, while it still starred George Sanders, who left before the show transferred to New York. Best thing in it was the score by Laurence Rosenthal. Best song was “Imagine That,” sung by Elizabeth Allen, whom I liked very much.

However, it didn’t work as a musical, I guess because the play was so over the top to begin with. Much as I liked the songs, they got in the way of the story, and the pacing suffered. For those interested, years later there was a studio cast 2-CD released, which is pretty good. (Curiously, the re-recording was set in period, while the show was supposedly in modern day 1967.)

I’ve also seen Wooley in “The Pied Piper” (1942) several times. Based on a novel by Nevil Shute, author of “On the Beach,” the story concerns a British curmudgeon, who finds himself stuck in France when the Germans invade. In his efforts to return to England, he encounters various people who convince him to take along various young children. It’s actually a moving tale, as he finds a sense of humanity he had not previously shown. The best scene in it is when he’s captured by the Germans, but meets a commandant, played by Otto Preminger, in one of his few screen appearances, with an ironic result.

[quote] It was in Boston, while it still starred George Sanders, who left before the show transferred to New York.

I find it amusing that George Sanders' Wikipedia entry has a chart near the bottom named "Husband of a Gabor Sister" (he was married to both Zsa Zsa and Magda). It's a chart that also includes Conrad Hilton.

I miss the old Christmas trees of yore, which were festooned with tinsel and garland. They look so elegant and classy compared to the gaudy trees you see today.

These vintage trees bring back such wonderful memories.

I miss tinsel and garland.

[quote] I miss tinsel and garland.

I miss Mama too. I don't know who Mrs. Tinsel was.

[quote]"Husband of a Gabor Sister" (he was married to both Zsa Zsa and Magda).

No wonder he killed himself.

[quote]I may be one of the precious few who actually saw “Sherry,” the musical version of “The Man Who Came to Dinner.” It was in Boston, while it still starred George Sanders, who left before the show transferred to New York. Best thing in it was the score by Laurence Rosenthal. Best song was “Imagine That,” sung by Elizabeth Allen, whom I liked very much.

But thankfully they were able to salvage the title number and interpolate it into "Jersey Boys."

Who replaced George Sanders as Sherry on Broadway? Or did the show not reach Broadway?

And I'm also curious who played the Bette Davis and Ann Shridan roles in the original play on Broadway.....anyone know?

R84, from Wikipedia:

[quote] The production opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre on March 28, 1967, where it ran for 72 performances and fourteen previews. The cast included Clive Revill as Whiteside, Elizabeth Allen as Maggie, Jon Cypher as Bert, Dolores Gray as Lorraine, Eddie Lawrence as Banjo, Byron Webster as Beverly, and Cliff Hall as Dr. Bradley.

Oh and Clive Revill, who played Whiteside in Sherry, was the original voice of the Emperor in The Empire Strikes Back.

Wasn't Clive Revill also the original Fagin in Oliver!?

Movie stars were so "classy" back then, unlike so much of the trash we have today.

So I l got off my ass and looked it up myself and IBDB tells me that Carol Goodner played Lorraine Sheldon and Edith Atwater (who sounds vaguely familiar) played Maggie Cutler in the original Broadway production.

Besides Monty Woolley and Mary Wickes, the only other name of note in the cast was David Burns as Banjo, who I assume was the same actor who went on to create the role of Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly.

Laughton had sex appeal in Island of Lost Souls, R32. He could turn it on if he wanted to.

Durante couldn't pull off the Harpo Marx bit because he just didn't have the personality for it. The Marxes were all intelligent and Harpo was considered quite the wit, and was friends in real life with Wollcott, but also could be about as grotesque and base as you could get.

Durante couldn't manage to convey any of that, he was just wacky.

Well, wasn't Durante really just playing Durante? I imagine when he was cast, that's what they were expecting, not a Harpo Marx imitation.

I also expect that they wanted Durante playing Durante, but it doesn't work, because the character was written for a Harpo Marx type, not just some wacky guy doing wacky things.

R88

Tell me about it....

Ann Sheridan in clips above oozed more sex appeal and "ooph" fully dressed than nearly all of today's surgically enhanced actresses who cannot manage to keep their clothes on in whole or part.

Watch how Ms. Sheridan moves in "Love Isn't Born, It's Made...". That strut would stop traffic today anywhere in world.

There was an earlier Broadway revival in 1980 that featured Leonard Frey ("Boys In the Band," "Fiddler") as Banjo.

[quote] Leonard Frey ("Boys In the Band," "Fiddler") as Banjo.

Does his entire oeuvre refer to musical instruments?

Mary Wickes left behind a sizeable estate, endowing a college in St. Louis with a $2 million scholarship fund.

^ Washington University, her alma mater

Somerset Mog-um

"courier-secretary-traveling companion."

In other words gay as a goose.....

Wonder how these men felt traveling around and being introduced as an employee or worse servant of their partner. Of course there were those who knew what time it was (or guessed soon enough), but still certain appearances must be kept up.

Going to hotels, traveling by train or ship.... obviously the "secretary, traveling companion...." wasn't going to be sleeping in same room as their "employer".

Gertrude Lawrence...

For those who've only heard Risë Stevens bump and grind her way through "The Saga of Jenny"; Gertrude Lawrence got there first.

I didn't realize Lawrence looked so much like Ginger Rogers.

r95 I saw that 1980 revival at Circle in the Square, an intimate theater in the round. Leonard Frey was good as Banjo as was Carrie Nye who stole the show as Lorraine. Broadway veteran Maureen Anderman was Maggie, while actor/director Ellis Rabb did a decent job as Sheridan Whiteside, although he lacked the commanding presence of Woolley.

^^ That handsome actor who played Maggie and Lorraine's love interest is Peter Coffield, who died in 1983 of AIDS.

I only have one response to that picture at R102: "Oh, Kay!"

I always believed that Bette took the less showier role because of the prestige that it would give her being based on a big Broadway hit featuring some of the original cast. Clifton Webb did the road company. Bette also took the less showy role in "Watch on the Rhine", getting a great speech, but basically being supportive to her husband, played by Paul Lukas who won the Oscar. When she saw what Mary Astor was doing with "The Great Lie", she just let Mary run with it and was thrilled with her winning Best Supporting Actress. Had comedy been honored more in the 1930's and 40's, I think Monty Woolley & Mary Wickes could have been Oscar contenders. Those are the types of performances that would have gotten Golden Globe nominations had they been around. Grant Mitchell is very funny too as the frustrated head of the household, comically banging his head against the wall at the very end.

Love the Gertie Lawrence clip! Fun seeing her singing and sort of dancing in that fabulous gown. She was probably wise to confine her energies to the stage where a little distance, enhanced her talents.

R107 edit: ^ After "give her being" I meant to add in "in a movie".

"...the only other name of note in the cast was David Burns as Banjo, who I assume was the same actor who went on to create the role of Horace Vandergelder in Hello Dolly."

*

And, r89, (literally) die in 70 GIRLS 70.

Except, r107, when Bette begged Jack Warner to option the play for her she envisioned herself with John Barrymore, not Monty Woolley nor anyone else from the Broadway cast. I think it was more about looking to play a very sympathetic role for a change and not star in a film that she carried and depended so much on her presence.

Mary Wickes was lucky she was cast. She smartly moved to LA when her run in the play was over to be available and begin her Hollywood career.

According to IMDB, Bette was paid $66, 667, Woolley was paid $15,000 and Mary Wickes was paid $3000.

R105

Another one we lost far too soon!

They had to cover Julie, neck to stirrup pants, in sequins. Gertie did more with less....

If there was any residual interest in Gertrude Lawrence, STAR! (Julie Andrews in a musical biopic of Lawrence's life) destroyed it forever. I tried to watch it a few weeks ago and was stunned by just how dreadful and boring it is. A-List talent galore but a complete waste of time.

Ann Sheridan was great in this movie - too bad she didn't arrive until later in the film. Her getup (outfit) was so outrageous - get a load of those 'Thumbs Up' buttons on her blouse! She was only 26 at the time but looks older (not old) probably due to her wardrobe.

But it has a wonderful soundtrack recording, r114, and Julie got some fun costumes, and....

I wouldn't say that Bette "couldn't play comedy" but I do think she had a limited comedic range. Her performance in ALL ABOUT EVE, a comedy-drama, is full of hilarious touches and live audiences respond to her performance with laughter in the right places. She could do mordant/sardonic humor quite well but wasn't at her best in farce, which was very popular in the 1930's. Those of you who said Bette did MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER for a change of pace are correct - she wanted to switch things up.

[R115] You can see Ann's nipples in that photo.

[R116] Please don't traumatize me - I'm still getting over my STAR! experience. There are a frightening number of stillborn musical numbers in that film - it just goes on and on and on and on...and gets nowhere.

Well, just watch the trailer for an abbreviated experience...

Well, they wanted to give Julie a Funny Girl....

As a boy I got the soundtrack as a cut out lp and was able to order the souvenir book. I listened to the lp a lot as it was wonderful and the souvenir book was beautifully produced filled with wonderful photos. I thought how could this be bad? I finally years later got to see the complete roadshow cut and it proved to be pretty terrible. On screen every musical number is a dud except for possibly Burlington Bertie (it is Michael Kidd's worst choreography)and the script is terrible. I have to admit Massey is as terrific as everyone says but he is in too little of the film. All the other men in this film are charisma free and Julie says cripes a lot and is a handful without being fun. I tried watching it again on DVD but got to the intermission and said enough. Those involved think it was an unappreciated gem. It is not.

Do any of the Gertie admirers think her life would have been worthy of a better film if the censors hadn't been so strong back in 1969? Were there scandals and affairs that couldn't be covered? Could Noel be presented as more frankly gay? With Bea Lillie now gone, could she an interesting sidekick?

Ann Sheridan's nipples are actually very present in that dress in the film....I don't understand how they got by the censors. I was shocked!

Those "thumbs up" clasps were an innovation of designer Elsa Schiaparelli and appeared in different versions of her couture gowns in the late 1930s. They were a hat tip to the surrealist art of her pal Salvador Dali. Doesn't Roz Russell wear a version in her first costume in The Women (1939)? Actually, by 1942 when TMWCTD was released they would have been a little passe.

There is a mention of Alexander Woollcott as being the inspiration for the main character in a comment above. Woollcott was so proud of this that at some point he was asked to actually play the role for a road company show and jumped at the chance to show others how it should be played. He bombed! Seems he couldn't play himself at all and quietly excused himself from going on with the show.

He was a very rare character in real life. Allegedly homosexual, but very much on the downlow if any sexual activity actually occurred. The word asexual was thrown around a lot too. Great friends with the Algonquin round table set. In fact, he was one of the original members.

[R125] He was a also a friend of Algonquin-adjacent Tallulah Bankhead, who enjoyed his company but regarded him as a lousy critic. He really seems to be someone you'd have had to experience in person to "get." He's from an era when a certain type of personality strove very hard to cultivate an aura of cleverness - with the Algonquin group (Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, etc.) embodying this sensibility. In the case of Dorothy Parker, once the '30's were over she evolved into a bitterly, unhappy alcoholic preoccupied with social crusades which naturally should have been none of her business. She became the opposite of funny.

I think it would have still had a niche audience, r123. I think it could have been a nice PBS mini-series depicting a theatrical era that was no longer, like the one on Lillie Langtry . The problem is who could capture that magic she had in person and on stage? Even Gertie herself couldn't put it across on film. Jessie Matthews (her Charlot's Review U/S) was more capable of that, granted she was a better singer/dancer. I'm still trying to envision Gertie as Margo Channing.

It was the Nathan Lane version I caught on PBS.

Though a little dull and long, Jean Smart was great.

Jean would be a great Mame but her singing isn't much. And that's being kind.

Yes Jessie's magic translates to film. Evergreen is wonderful except for that ridiculous sci fi part which even she thought was absurd.

And I would hope Woollcott himself came up with better than 'I may vomit.'

Has that wonderful song DANCING ON THE CEILING been used in anything else famous over the years? I've never seen the Jessie Matthews film so I don't know it from that. It's driving me CRAZY! I wonder if it's sung by some Broadway diva on one of the old albums I own? I love it!

It was once a popular song so that the generation before boomers knew it without even seeing Evergreen.

After Ginger Rogers moved on from musicals, Jessie Matthews was supposed to replace her as Fred Astaire's partner. She would have been wonderful, but in the event it all fell through.

I think Ella sings it in the Rodgers and Hart songbook.

[quote]Jean would be a great Mame but her singing isn't much. And that's being kind.

Is that a problem?

If Lucy had been dubbed it could have been a very different picture.

Not really, r135.

Lady in the Dark

Lucy should have done Lady in the Dark. Her cigarette whisky soaked foghorn would have been perfect for Weill.

Her Surabaya Johnny....well....you can just hear it...

'Take that pipe out of your mouth, you dog.'

Yes I can hear it.