THE TURNING POINT. Because it deserves it's own thread.

Loved rewatching this film after all these years! It did not disappoint and be seen currently on HBO Max.

Loved it.

And for the record-

The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Actress for Goldberg and Best Supporting Actress for both Avery and Winfrey). It failed to win any of them, tying the record set by 1977's The Turning Point for the most Oscar nominations without a single win.

I just watched this. I liked it. Very old fashioned soap opera. Maclaine was excellent.

And it's has Palmer Courtlandt in the movie too.

Wonderful movie.

Related

So self-indulgent.

No wonder it won no Oscars.

James (Palmer Courtland) Mitchell was married in real life to The Turning Point's costume designer Albert Wolsky, 2 time Oscar winner for Bugsy and All That Jazz. James Mitchell began his career as a ballet dancer dancing with Herbert Ross' wife, former prima ballerina Nora Kaye, who I'm certain brought great versimilitude to Ross' direction of the film. Screenwriter Arthur Laurents was an old chum of Ross and Kaye, too.

Worth it for Baryshnikov.

The fight in the parking lot is a lot better than mgregor, misha looks so great, he is so talented. I used to watch that movie a lot when I was a kid. I was obsessed with the dancing scenes he is such a symmetrical person and one of the sexiest dudes ever and is also quite intelligent. He seems traumatized and is a deep thinker

How did this dreary soaper garner 11 Oscar nominations. It feels like a remake/update of some 40s 'woman's picture' How did Leslie Browne rate an Oscar nomination? It appears to have been a weak year for film as the other BP nominees suggest. Annie Hall, Julia, Star War and The Goodbye Girl. MacLaine and Bancroft are dull and have no combustible chemistry.

*

Starr Danias played such a cunt.

Yeah, it was a good old-fashioned women's movie + Baryshnikov at his peak. The weak link was Shirley MacLaine's daughter who had an affair with him. I guess they wanted to cast a real dancer rather than an actress.

Wasn't it supposed to be Gelsey?

“It’s My Turn” was a similar women’s vehicle, only with a hit song to recommend it.

My turning point is 376. If this many guys haven’t signed up to jizz in me over the Labor Day weekend at Fire Island, what’s the point of staying??? I’m turning around and going home!

The other thread doesn't mention Grace Kelly and Joanne Woodward in the casting process.

the other thread is closed but has some interesting information on Herbert Ross and the casting of TTP The Anne Bancroft role was apparently coveted by Audrey Hepburn

Yes, Gelsey Kirkland was offered the role. She was going through substance abuse issues snd smartly realized she wouldn't be able to handle the role in her then-current condition.

Arthur Laurents wrote a major subplot about about Wayne (Tom Skerritt)'s bisexuality. He,claimed that Herbert Ross mostly dropped it. A little too close for comfort?

I thought Tom Skerritt was really sexy in the movie.

I also remember liking him as the father in that awful Ice Castles film.

[Quote] it was a good old-fashioned women's movie

it fails at being even that. It needed a Joseph Mankiewicz, George Cukor, Michael Curtiz or Douglas Sirk to bring it to life. The Turning Point is earnest and dull.

Ooh, I didn't find it dull at all! And I loved their catfight at the end, in which the role of Lincoln Center was played by Century City.

It was soap opera shit. A bad woman's picture. Not a bad plot it just needed somebody better than Laurents in his garage period (like The Way We Were.)

And even Vincent Sherman would have been a thousand times better than Ross. Imagine Bette and Miriam.

[quote]Imagine Bette and Miriam.

Or better yet just watch the 1940s movie Old Acquaintance with Bette and Miriam. (Bette's the one with the professional success and Miriam's the resentful married one with the daughter).

[quote]James Mitchell began his career as a ballet dancer dancing with Herbert Ross' wife, former prima ballerina Nora Kaye, who I'm certain brought great verisimilitude to Ross' direction of the film.

James Mitchell can be seen in the movie of "Oklahoma!" as the dancing version of Curly in the dream ballet.

Apparently Anne throwing a drink in Shirley's face wasn't scripted but Bancroft and the director planned it to surprise Shirley. She was pissed because she thought she could have acted it just as well knowing it was coming.

DLers bitch about Leslie Browne's Oscar nod, but for me Baryshnikov's is the bigger headscratcher.

At least Browne's character was integral to the plot and IMO played a convincing drunk in that one bar scene.

On the other hand, Baryshnikov had like 5 minutes of screen time and had barely any dialog.

He was just Browne's boyfriend, who mainly danced on screen.

His nomination was clearly political. He had defected from the USSR just three years prior.

The nomination was for his ass and it was richly deserved...

"The Anne Bancroft role was apparently coveted by Audrey Hepburn"

She would have been FAAAABULOUS in the role! And her casting would have been an Event-with-a-capital-E.

Not that Bancroft wasn't damn good, and fairly convincing as a dancer, but Audrey had actually been a dancer in her day, was a top-flight dramatic actress, and had an ineffable elegance that would have been perfect for the character. Does anyone know why she wasn't cast?

I came away thinking would the hot Tom Skerritt really fuck Shirley MacLaine?

R30. I think Audrey turned it down and later regretted it. I love Bancroft because she's scrappy and you totally believe she got her friend out of the way so she could be #1. She also had that regal ballet dancer look but, wisely, she's only seen in one dance sequence but she's wearing a cloak and does more emoting than dancing. Audrey would have been very, very different.

I like this film. Bancroft was the better of the leads, she embodied all we saw so effortlessly.

Former ballerina Alexandra Danilova, the aging ballet coach/landlady in this, was a nice touch of art meeting reality. Or vice versa.

Seconding(thirding? fourthing?) the hotness of Tom Skerritt.

As much as I admire Audrey Hepburn's acting talents I feel she didn't have the chops to play the deep-seeded venom/jealousy/longing required for the role of Emma. In addition, if she had been in the film her mere presence would've overshadowed the dynamic between the two leads. MacLaine and Bancroft's parts WERE on the same level, just in different settings.

Interesting tidbit about the drink tossing scene. I wonder if Shirley ever forgave Anne for not tipping her off?

Gelsey trashed the movie in her Dancing On My Grave book. She called the character Emilia a twit etc etc. She said in the book she decided to starve herself so she would be too ill to play the role. She’s so neurotic. Such a borderline.

Leslie Browne had a hard time for a few years after the film came out because she was a star, but her dancing was not special enough to meet people’s expectations. Anyway, based on pics on the web, it looks like she fucked up her face with shitty plastic surgery

Having just seen the film again last night, I was reminded how much is made of Bancroft's Emilia's humble beginnings, that she and Dede had both come from ordinary working class backgrounds. I don't think Audrey could have evoked that in the character in spite of the poverty of her Belgian youth, whereas Bancroft intentionally lets those crass beginnings slip (well, she was born Anna Maria Italiano in the Bronx, after all).

Of course, had Audrey been cast, the role would have been more tailored to her, but, as someone wisely said upthread, Laurents and Ross really did a great job of presenting both characters equally in their own very different strengths. Audrey would have tipped the scales unhelpfully.

LOVE Daniel Levans as the bitchy young choreographer Arnold, who I think was somewhat based on Eliot Feld. His scenes with Lesley Browne and particularly with Bancroft (who he has no issue dressing down) sizzle with snark.

WHET Lisa Lucas who played younger daughter Janina? Didn't she have a brief career in tom boyish roles in the late 70s?

And the kid who played the son Ethan? So adorable and perfect as a boy torn between baseball and ballet. He was so believable as Shirl and Tom Skerritt's son.

From some comments on the Theatre Gossip thread it seems that there was much more made of Tom (Wayne) Skerritt;s character's bisexuality in the original screenplay that got cut.

Kelly Brown - Leslie's father - was one of the suitors in 7 Brides for 7 Brothers....the cute one in the middle. He left the business to open a dance studio in Arizona.

James Mitchell was Dream Curly in the movie version of Oklahoma!

[quote]Because it deserves it's own thread

Oh, dear.

R40. Oh shit. I deserve that Oh, dear and a thousand more. Sorry.

Lisa Lucas was also in an Unmarried Woman. Much better part and she was perfect as an UWS teenage brat.

This is a terrible movie.

House without a Christmas Tree Lisa was the saddest kid ever. Damn that Jason Robards!

Lisa Lucas was also in that downbeat holiday movie A House Without a Christmas Tree (with Jason Robards and Mildred Natwick).

You beat me to it R44.

Oops - meant the numbers the other way around

Obviously, there are plenty of people who love the film.

IIRC, it came out the same year as Julia. Four great actress roles between them.

Misha made every bit if not more of an impression than George Chakiris did for his Oscar in West Side Story, and with 10 times as much brilliant dancing. True, he didn't die at the end of it but he did have to convincingly make love to Lesley Browne.

Jimmy & Cyd

Bancroft was too old and mannish for the part. I don't remember, do they actually show her dancing? All I remember is her sitting on some semblance of a ballerina stance.

Anne Bancroft was two years younger than Audrey Hepburn.

Hepburn was feminine enough regardless of her age. Bancroft looked like she danced in football cleats.

I will never forgive Anne Bancroft for giving Anne Sullivan an Irish brogue in THE MIRACLE WORKER, thereby influencing many women to imitate her accent in various play revivals/film adaptations.

The real Anne Sullivan did not speak like that. She was the child of Irish immigrants, but she was born in Massachusetts and raised by the state, because her mother died when she was a small child and her father had deserted the family.

You can tell that a production has done their proper research when their Anne Sullivan sounds like a Yankee, not an Irishman fresh off the boat. She's even referred to as a 'Yankee girl' in the script.

How did Shirley and Anne get along during the shoot? Their characters' relationship, both good and bad, in the film is thoroughly believable. But I do wonder how two such different alpha personalities would relate on the set. I must check those Arthur Laurents bios in my shelves to see if he talks about them much.

Don't forget that Shirl got Anne's Seesaw role, r55.

It’s Leslie, not Lesley.

I think Browne has gone by both spellings of her first name throughout her short career.

GOD one of my elementary school teachers was obsessed with the Miracle Worker back in the 60s. Somehow she got ahold of a copy and we watched it more than once.

It's probably banned in Florida schools now, r59, though god knows why.

r54, you've really never forgiven Anne Bancroft? Way to hold a petty grudge. (And it made not one whit of difference in her delivery of a brilliant performance.)

Leslie Brown's performance is so bad, it almost ruins the entire film.

Bancroft looks like she would be very easy to get along with. Even with Shirl.

I'd remembered Browne's performance as wanting but watching it again last night, I found her to be totally believable and even quite endearing. I'd forgotten all the emotions and moods and situations the character goes through, quite a beautifully written arc. She can be quite "actory" in some scenes but it totally suits her character. Her joyous solo ballet performance over the final credits is stunning.

If you're commenting on this thread and haven't watched the film in years, it's really worth a look.

Checking on IMDb for Philip Saunders' credits (he played Ethan the son of Shirl and Tom Skerritt), it appears he never did another film after The Turning Point.

Browne also appeared in the dance films Nijinsky (1980) and Dancers (1987), both directed by Herbert Ross. She also appeared on the television series Happy Days as a special guest star as a dancer-girlfriend of Fonzie's.

R55. No mention in Arthur’s boks. Just read them both (his bios) last week. He wrote about liking Babs

Hard to believe Laurents had nothing negative to say about Shirley MacLaine. I guess the making of the film was the rare good experience for him, perhaps because he and Herb Ross, old friends, trusted each other and Arthur wasn't jealous.

As a side note: I just read Laurents's "Mainly on Directing" for the first time, after having read "Original Story" years ago. In the latter he was just a nasty entitled bitch settling scores and claiming he was always right, but in "Mainly on Directing" I felt he was far less bitchy and much more willing to admit when he made mistakes himself in his professional career.

R49, I developed a MASSIVE crush on Baryshnikov after seeing this film, I was 14-15 and had no other hormonal outlets. Fortunately he was all over PBS in those days and I got frequent chances to see him dance (and fap afterwards), but anyway! The reason he was nominated for an Oscar was that he had Star Quality! His stage charisma totally translated to film, the camera loved him and he had great screen presence. Even though his English was pretty terrible, Hollywood took notice of him, and was wondering if they could make him into a moneymaking star.

Now he did do a bit of acting now and then, when he had nothing better to do, but he never became a film star. I don't know how much of that was his choice and how much was Hollywood's, but IMHO Baryshnikov was like David Bowie, someone who had the potential to be a movie star, but who had better things to do. Of course Bowie had a better shot at movie stardom, because he was taller and had a more interesting presence and had no language barrier to deal with, but acting was never more than a sideline for him.

The closeups of Baryshnikov in the non-ballet scenes here are off the charts. Curiously, his face looks much less handsome when in full ballet makeup with his hair all pomaded and slicked up,

Tom Skerritt seems hardly the bi type.

But you could easily imagine young men and women falling all over him in a ballet company.

I like Pauline Kael's title for her review: Shouldn't Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?

Tom Skerritt is always the best thing in anything he’s in and I include Alien in that.

I have a type. He’s it.

Skerritt turned 90 last weekend, and still seems to be working.

[Quote] From some comments on the Theatre Gossip thread it seems that there was much more made of Tom (Wayne) Skerritt;s character's bisexuality in the original screenplay that got cut.

His entire character could have been cut. He's as unnecessary here as he was in another Herbert Ross film Steel Magnolias.

[quote]So self-indulgent.

Who was indulging theirself?

[quote]The real Anne Sullivan did not speak like that. She was the child of Irish immigrants, but she was born in Massachusetts and raised by the state..."

I've never heard any recording of her voice. Does one exist? It's not unreasonable to thing Anne Sullivan might have had a brogue. She was eight years old when she went into the orphanage, so she learned to speak from her parents and other Irish immigrants in her poor Agawam neighborhood. It's also not unreasonable to think that women whose jobs were tending to orphans in the Boston area would be Irish immigrants.

Arthur Keller, Helen's father, was a captain in the Confederate army. Anyone from north of Richmond was a Yankee.

Annie Sullivan was raised in a rare Norwegian Catholic enclave of Massachusetts.

Totally disagree about the character of Wayne and Tom Skerritt's presence in the film, r77. His sweet portrayal of Dede's husband is there to show us how happy and satisfying their home life is and everything Emilia gave up to have a professional career. He's a very idealized character, perhaps, but still believable. I can even believe him as a dancer when he was in his 20s and running a suburban Tulsa ballet school in his 40s.

And I also love the little scene with Marshall Thompson as Emilia's long-time married lover who tells her she's finally missed the opportunity when he would have gladly left his wife and family to marry her. The film is filled with little telling scenes that are just so astute and well-observed , beautifully crafted in the writing, direction, casting and performances.

Pauline Kael was a snob and an idiot.

James Mitchell seems very familiar to me. I thjnk he appeared in some tv episodes in the 60’s and 70’s.

I think Herbert Ross was Emilia Brown’s godfather.

Slapping!

The thing that "Old Acquaintance" really has going for it is that it's so funny in places (most memorably when Bette Davis shakes Miriam Hopkins, but also in the hilarious montage when they show all of Hopkins's slurpy bestselling potboilers rolling out).

There's almost zero humor in "The Turning Point"--it takes itself too seriously.

Arthur Laurents did write in one of his books that Anne Bancroft banned him from the set after he told her that she was walking through a scene with “one hand tied behind her back.”

So it seemed it was she he battled with instead of MacLaine

Laurents and MacLaine sat together at the Oscars that year. She has such an odd reaction to Diane Keaton winning.

It always puzzled me why they had the real dancer (MacLaine) play the housewife and not vice versa.

[quote]Annie Sullivan was raised in a rare Norwegian Catholic enclave of Massachusetts.

Where did you get that information? At least 30% of the population of the West Springfield/Agawam area were Irish. They were generally poor and lived in the same neighborhoods.

re: r89:

*cough* Newbie! *cough*

Shirley MacLaine was a former Broadway chorus girl, not a prima ballerina. Bancroft never danced but she had an imperious look (face and body and posture) that resembled Margot Fonteyn, Maria Tallchief and other great ballet stars. And director Herb Ross' wife Nora Kaye,, who was a huge ballet star in the 1940s. They often had that dark exotic look.

I listened to a radio version of Old Acquaintance where Alexis Smith played the Bette Davis role opposite Miriam Hopkins. They did a slap rather than the shake in the confrontation scene. I wonder if that was in the original script of the movie but Miriam vetoed being slapped.

Old Acquaintance and Mr. Skeffington are my favorite Bette movies.

[quote]Skerritt turned 90 last weekend, and still seems to be working.

I didn't realize he was that old.

I figured he was around the same age as Streisand and De Niro (b. early 1940s).

Good for him. I hope he makes it to 100.

Bob Barker and Betty White disappointingly died at 99.

R81 To me your description supports the idea that the film is sappy and dreary. And the homelife you describe sounds like The Donna Reed Show.

"They have concocted the balletic version of all those countless sentimental backstage musicals and comedy dramas of yesteryear.

...the script oversimplifies the goodness of Deedee's patient husband however roundedly Tom Skerritt tries to play him.

still dragged down by cliches as it is The Turning Point does take a hefty step ahead in film ballet. Herbert Ross may be an indifferent director, but he was a choreographer and knows where the camera should be for maximum efficacy during every moment of the dance sequences." -JOHN SIMON

R65? A lot of people should’ve never worked again after The Turning Point.

I thought Rich and Famous was a remake of Old Acquaintance?

Yes.

[quote]It always puzzled me why they had the real dancer (MacLaine) play the housewife and not vice versa.

Maybe because Shirley is much more believable as a housefrau than Bancroft would have been? MacLaine had been a Broadway hoofer, not a ballerina.

[quote]Pauline Kael was a snob and an idiot.

When I was young, I loved reading Pauline Kael's reviews, but even then I disagreed with her sometimes. Reading some of those reviews again years later, I'm a lot less impressed. She can be downright ridiculous at times.

I loved reading Rex Reed's reviews. He could be cruel and hilarious at the same time.

Kael: "We get a glimpse of something great in the movie—Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing—and these two harpies out of the soaps block the view."

Wish she was still around.

Did Pauline Kael ever like a film that explored the relationships between mature adult women? Somehow I doubt it.

"It always puzzled me why they had the real dancer (MacLaine) play the housewife and not vice versa."

MacLaine took the largest role in the film, she could fairly be called the protagonist. She also took the role that didn't require her to crash diet down to a skeleton, Shirley was a big gal and was never once in her life thin enough be a modern ballet dancer. She was always slim, but never scrawny, and modern ballet dancers are required to be underweight.

She was also never a good dancer. She did a few musical numbers on film but never did more than show off her legs and do a few basic steps. Bancroft couldn't dance at all as far as I know, but she was skinny thin enough, and she managed the ballet dancer's distinct posture.

Bitch stole my look! And career.

[quote]She did a few musical numbers on film but never did more than show off her legs and do a few basic steps.

Hardly, r104.

My earliest exposure to Shirley MacLaine was when I was brought to NYC by my dad to see the reserved engagement screening of Around the World in 80 days in 1956. I guess I was just 6 and completely fell in love with Shirl as the Indian Princess Aouda, who is saved from the barbaric but traditional sacrificial suttee, in which a royal widow would be burned to death on the funeral pyre of her late husband. She subsequently falls in love with her savior Phileas Fogg, played by David Niven, and accompanies him on his journey back to London.

I still have the souvenir program from the film which was done as a hard-cover book and all of the bios of the star-studded supporting cast are accompanied by little caricatures in cameo shapes. This was where the term "cameo" came from, meaning a short guest appearance by an actor.

At that young age the casting of MacLaine as an Indian princess, decked out in saris and in a flowing black wig and swarthy makeup, didn't ring false to me but what an insane bit of casting, especially as producer Mike Todd could have had any number of more exotic actresses in the role, including his wife Elizabeth Taylor. I guess he wanted an unknown and I think this was her film debut but I've never really understood how she landed that star-making role.

It wasn't until a few years later that I saw Shirl onscreen again in the wonderful film of The Matchmaker with Shirley Booth and Tony Perkins that I made the connection it was the same actress who played my Indian princess. Around the same time I caught her on TV in a sweet rom-com called Ask Any Girl, also opposite David Niven.

I haven't really enjoyed her much since those days except for The Turning Point and Postcards From the Edge.

Interesting that Bancroft didn't show up that year for the Oscars, but perhaps she knew she didn't have much of a chance of winning.

Of course, she was most famously also absent the year she did win for The Miracle Worker but you know who graciously accepted for her. I wonder if Bancroft was ever present on a year she was nominated. Maybe, like Kate Hepburn, she didn't want to chance the humiliation of losing?

Mikhail Baryshnikov wasn't present at the Oscar ceremony, either.

Neither were most of the Supporting Actor nominees, except for Peter Firth ("Equus").

MIA were Baryshnikov, Alec Guinness ("Star Wars"), Maximilian Schell ("Julia"), and winner Jason Robards ("Julia").

Choreography

R108 Anne was there in 1968 when she was nominated for The Graduate as well as 1986 when she was nominated for Agnes of God

and in 1965 when she was nominated for The Pumpkin Eater

And the year after Bancroft won, she traditionally presented Sidney Poitier with his historic win!

I believe Bancroft was on Broadway starring in Golda at the time so she skipped the Oscars.

We know Anne was at the Oscars for her Agnes of God nomination - she played supporting to Jane Fonda's lead so category fraud there - and had the exasperated reaction to F Murray's pronouncement about Geraldine Page being the greatest actress in the English language.

and Bancroft was there in 1967 to accept Elizabeth Taylor's Oscar for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

It would be interesting to read a list of all the Oscar winners (in acting categories) who were NOT there to accept in person. Rather long, I suspect.

Anne Bancroft first came to fame on Broadway playing a dancer named Gittel Mosca in Two For the Seesaw. Yes, I know Shirl won the role in the film but The Turning Point was not the first time Annie played a dancer, though I can't remember if Gittel is a Broadway gypsy wannabe or a modern dancer wannabe. She wore a lot of leotards, anyway.

Michelle Lee played Gittel in the 1973 Broadway musical version called Seesaw, replacing Lainie Kazan, who'd been fired in out of town tryouts. Lucie Arnaz played Gittel in the national tour of Seesaw.

R92, you can't hear someone shaking another over the radio.

Regarding Annie Sullivan's accent, I have no new information to add, but the original comment sent me to this lovely piece (which I read hoping that a contemporary of hers might mention it).

R117 well, we all know Joan Crawford, George C. Scott and Brando for The Godfather didn't accept their Oscars in person and neither did 4-time winner Katherine Hepburn and two-time winner Glenda Jackson.

R119 thanks for that article.

William Gibson really did his research. Annie's backstory and experiences in the asylum with her late younger brother, Jimmie, are exactly as described in his play.

Also the part about Laura Bridgeman dressing the doll that Annie was to take to Helen Keller. I thought that was made up for the play just to namedrop Laura. 😂

Geraldine Page played the same role in Agnes of God on Broadway and was nominated for a Best Actress Tony. It's not a supporting role. It's a second lead.

I always had the hots for Tom Skerritt. He’s so fucking sexy.

Tom Skerritt is a Midwesterner, from Michigan.

Kirkland was/is a moron but Emilia's rise to stardom is based on her career and Arlene Croce accurately noted that with her in the fantasyland story, it might have had some credence. But Browne was still an unknown after the movie came out.

It's probably a bigger crime that we didn't have an ultimate recording of her, although I loved The Nutcracker.

I loved the relationship between the other daughter and the ballet company owner, they were fun together. Lisa Lucas did a bit of schtick eating an apple in both this film and An Unmarried Woman.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Kirkland's 'Dancing on My Grave' it's a fascinating read.

Martha Scott calling everyone 'dearie' was hilarious.

Why was Arthur Laurents such a cunt?

[Quote] We know Anne was at the Oscars for her Agnes of God nomination - she played supporting to Jane Fonda's lead so category fraud there -

No category fraud R115 I saw the film and the play with Geraldine Page, Eizabeth Ashley and Amanda Plummer as Agnes and Meg Tilly who played Agnes in the film version was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting role. Like Maclaine and Bancroft in The Turning Point, Fonda and Bancroft were the leads.

Kael: "We get a glimpse of something great in the movie—Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing—and these two harpies out of the soaps block the view."

It should have been called As the Stomach Turns

Bancroft was not appearing in Golda when she won her Oscar. It was Mother Courage.

Nobody said that she was, r132.

of, for, by and about faggots

Maclaine and Browne don't convince as mother and daughter

R135. It's SACHI! MY NAME IS SACHI!!!!

[Quote] It's SACHI! MY NAME IS SACHI!!!!

So, I've heard.

DeeDee: Leave my daughter alone!

Emma: like you did!

That interview with Sachi is unbearably sad. And entirely credible. I do hope she's found some happiness in her own life and with her kids.

R133 - Didn't R114 mention it?

We don't really know to which Oscar year r114 was referring, do we?

I understood it as doing Golda when she was *nominated* for TP, r141.

Yes, we do. R141 It was the only time she didn't attend when she was nominated and Joan Crawford accepted for her

[quote] and had the exasperated reaction to F Murray's pronouncement about Geraldine Page being the greatest actress in the English language.

I always think Abraham would have had a better career after "Amadeus" if he hadn't made that dumb and pompous gaffe.

He was friends with Page, and admired her, which is why he made the comment; but making that comment at that moment was insulting to the other women up for that award. It was a hugely embarrassing moment.

Before Tom Skeritt became a film actor, he worked for an enamel company in Detroit owned by the father of one of my best friends. Ah, fame, though glittering bauble!

Since we were discussing The Turning Point I said she skipped the Oscars because she was playing Golda on Broadway at the time. We weren't discussing her skipping the Oscars for The Miracle Worker.

Can anyone make out what Bancroft says in response to F Murray's declaration? Any lip-readers?

[quote]Ah, fame, though glittering bauble!

*Thou* glittering bauble.

I love that Oscar clip at r111 of George Cukor accepting for winner Kate Hepburn (the only absent nominee) and loudly whispering to presenter Sidney Poitier as he approaches the podium: "Please tell them all who I am."

R107, not even Some Came Running?

I’m just going to add that Jane Fonda was offered both parts and turned them down because it’s probably true.

Who names their kid Sachi?

Steve had a Japanese fetish, r152.

[Quote] Did Pauline Kael ever like a film that explored the relationships between mature adult women? Somehow I doubt it.

I can't think of many films let alone good ones that explored the relationships between mature adult woman.

Kael liked The Grifters, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Crimes of the Heart, All About Eve, Little Women (1933) Heartaches (1981) with Margot Kidder and Annie Potts, 1982s By Design with Patty Duke and Sara Botsford and The Dressmaker (1988) with Joan Plowright and Billie Whitelaw. Kael just didn't like crap.

I don't think she liked Entre Nous which is a French film about two female friends but I don't think she liked Isabelle Huppert.

Kael on Entre Nous

Diane Kurys tells the story of two young married women in the 50s who don't recognize how unfulfilled they have been in their marriages until they meet each other. The picture keeps teetering on the verge of a seduction scene and that teasing possibility gives many of the scenes their only tension. This is a movie about two women not having a lesbian affair. The only thing that's distinctive about it is the veneer of post feminism.

God, I love Entre Nous. So happy it’s now on Criterion.

She loved Personal Best although it was not about a mature adult relationship between women. It's one time Rex Reed really one-upped Kael. He said that the movie suggested lesbianism can be caught in a locker room like athlete's foot.

Saw Skerritt in person once. He's 5-11 but he seemed tiny. I'm 5-9 and I was taller.

There’s that gorgeous shot of him beaming with pride as the dad in Ice Castles. I sort of fell in love with him right there and then.

He does .little else but beam with pride in THE TURNING POINT. Sometimes even shirtlessly. But it works for me.

R159 he's 90. Elderly people shrink.

If Tom Skerritt never showed hole then why care about his smile?

Figures this thread is full of a bunch of bitches I’ve blocked.

Further to R55 and Kael on Huppert:

Any picture that features her is likely to be somewhat numbing. Right now, if you want to go to the movies she's hard to avoid though it's worth the effort. Huppert is never completely there, but she isn't any other place either. She drags her feet across the screen, her voice is placid and toneless, and her face is closed - not enigmatic, just closed. She hardly changes expression; she just gives you a little glimmer of something that is so small and wan no camera yet invented could turn it into an emotion. You feel that she expects the audience to find magic in her matter-of-fact passivity while she remains uninvolved - a visitor on the set.

It wasn't yesterday R162, it was probably in the mid-80s.

I once bought a 2nd hand book of Pauline Kael reviews and disagreed with most of them.

But she's so right about Huppert at R165. She brings down any movie I've seen her in.

For me, it isn't whether or not one agrees with Kael. It's how well and how cleverly she expresses her opinions.

Clever for cleverness sake...meh.

They were discussing this film on 'And the Runner-Up Is...' an Oscars podcast I listen to, and the guest host made the astute observation that in real life, it seems the roles of the two women were reversed. MacLaine was a careerist while Bancroft was highly devoted to her husband and son and let many plum film opportunities pass her by. She didn't appear in a single movie for five years after 'The Graduate' was released.

She still had a highly successful career, of course, but her legacy would have benefited from playing at least one of the high-profile parts she turned down (The Exorcist, Cuckoo's Nest, and much later, Ellen Burstyn's role in Requiem for a Dream).

I thought Bancroft got very hammy in later years. She's way over the top in Torch Song, Garbo Talks and Fatso.

R171, she has no excuse for Fatso since she shockingly directed it, but she's at her absolute best at 84 Charing Cross Road. As for being hammy, well look at who she was married to.

[quote]MacLaine was a careerist while Bancroft was highly devoted to her husband and son and let many plum film opportunities pass her by.

I think a lot of that had to do with Bancroft (nee Anna Maria Italiano) being Italian-American.

She was the daughter of Italian immigrants and was born/raised in the Bronx.

Italian mothers are very hands-on.

Another reverse is that in real life interviews Bancroft comes across as warm and funny but MacLaine is reserved and serious.

R174, MacLaine used to be funny and warm in interviews but then all that new age stuff happened. How could a woman who has achieved so much become so bitter in such a short amount of time?

I agree about Bancroft's late hammy performances including 84 Charing Cross Road, for which I thought she was very miscast. I would imagine in her elder years she'd become impossible to direct. For that matter, I'd say that exact same thing about MacLaine.

I find it very interesting to think how Bancroft recognized at the very beginning of her career that she needed to shed any ethnic Italian quality she may have exuded to not be typecast and knew she could carry off a Waspy aristocratic name like Bancroft. And I don't mean that in any way as a criticism.

Nevertheless, I don't think she had much success in Hollywood in the 1950s and it wasn't until she returned to NY and committed to serious stage work that her career took off. But in her first two Broadway successes, Two for the Seesaw and The Miracle Worker, she played ethnic working class roles, though neither were Italian.

84 Charing Cross Road is a lovely movie but they should have cast Ellen Burstyn who played the role on stage.

I understand why people dislike Huppert and I don’t disagree with Kael’s description of her acting, but for some reason, it works for me.

*

I saw a Korean movie with Isabelle Huppert some years ago. I don't think I'd ever seen a performance of hers, but I had pretty optimistic expectations because of her standing and CV. Let me tell you: her acting in it was shockingly bad. Just very, very bad. She didn't do much of anything, and what she did do was unconvincing. I was really surprised.

I should have said "starring," not "with," I know. No, I didn't go to the movie theater with her.

Bancroft was on What's My Line twice.

Bancroft sounds like such a *grand* name.

Bancroft is so fresh and low-key and absolutely naturally gorgeous in that WML clip. When she gets up to leave at the end you can see her elegant posture and slimness never left her, it's the same in The Turning Point.

It just occurred to me that the WML clip was 1962 so The Turning Point was shot only 15 years later. But if you were told back then on WML that her line was prima ballerina, you'd absolutely believe it.

R110 That clip is interesting. MacLaine is so fit and disciplined in her movement. I watched the first portion, dance in the style of Bob Fosse’s choreography. I never suspected MacLaine of being anywhere near that caliber of a dancer. Pretty incredible.

R181 = Mary Haines

R187 remember that Gwen Verdon taught MacLaine the dancing for the film of Sweet Charity.

Choreography, r189.

Anne on the first WML is soft spoken. Funny the audience goes wild over her and The Miracle Worker when Anne reported she didn't make a dime on the film.

She is so sweet and funny in this Password.

[Quote]Clever for cleverness sake...meh.

Kael was actually quite incisive in most of her reviews and mere cleverness doesn't account for her lasting legacy and influence. Her criticism is the subject of the documentary What She Said and she is the subject of a biography by Brian Kellow "A Life in the Dark" and there are numerous collections of her criticism still in print: 5001 Nights at the Movies, I Lost it at the Movies, Kiss, Kiss Bang Bang, Going Steady, Taking It All In, Reeling, When the Lights Go Down, Deeper into Movies, State of the Art.

BTW Quentin Tarantino has reportedly completed the screenplay for his 10th and final movie and it's rumored that the main character could be based on beloved movie critic Pauline Kael-screenrant.com

What's My Line 2nd appearance.

Wonder how Bancroft would have been in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Great, I suspect.

She did Regina...

Not too long after Bancroft did The Little Foxes, directed by Mike Nichols, she was cast in The Graduate by Mike Nichols.

Nope the other way around.

Love this. Anne Bancroft and Lee J. Cobb in "The Yma Dream."

I've never seen it, but will soon, given the cast. But I never, ever found Mikhail Baryshnikov attractive. His face weirds me out.

Get back to us after you've seen it. And him, r200.

Thanks, r199. Always great to see that. Wasn't it written by Thomas Meehan who wrote the books for ANNIE, PRODUCERS, HAIRSPRAY, etc.?

Yes, it was written by Meehan, R202.

The problem with casting Audrey Hepburn would have been making the audience believe that Audrey Hepburn was the lifelong BFF of this Oklahoma housewife!

Because while Hepburn would have had no trouble passing as a ballerina, never in her life could she pass as an American. Bancroft was actually just right for the role, she had the elegance and the build of a ballet dancer, but underneath the elegant exterior was a New York Italian-American. For all her airs and graces, you could believe Bancroft's prima ballerina could still yell at a cabbie as loudly as any other New Yorker.

does the haggard, urban, ashen Bancroft seem believable as BFF of the Oakie wifey? And Hepburn was believable in Wait Until Dark playing what I assumed was an American.

[quote]Because while Hepburn would have had no trouble passing as a ballerina, never in her life could she pass as an American.

Yes. She could never drop that weird Euro accent of hers.

In SABRINA, she was supposed to be a Long Island girl, but she sounds like she's from another lahnd. And she won the Oscar! 😂

In BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, she was supposed to be a Texas hillbilly. 🤣

R206 she was Oscar-nominated for that, too.

Americans are very forgiving about foreigners attempting their accents than vice-versa.

It's usually "Close enough! Here's your Oscar!" whereas Europeans tend to be like "That's not even close!"

I'm still called a Belgian yet I gave up the waffles long ago.

She won her Oscar for playing a princess in "Roman Holiday," not Long Island girl Sabrina. Both she and Gregory Peck were at their best in "Roman Holiday."

While I agree about all these issues with Hepburn vs Bancroft playing Emilia, Audrey and Shirley were totally believable as intimate college friends who founded a girls' school together in THE CHILDREN'S HOUR in 1960, where they're both in their early 30s.

Jesus god did the cinematographer hate Bancroft? She looks like shit through the entire movie and especially at R27's link.

(^.^) And Bancroft's Emma is a trifle more convincingly dancerish, If only because she looks thin and drawn; yet she has a way of wearing her haggardness as if it were a layer of stubborn dirt that has defied all cleansers-JOHN SIMON

If Hepburn had played it, they could have changed the set-up. They met at School of American Ballet, or something.

And there's another old Hollywood actress who was an actual ballet dancer, Leslie Caron.

But you're missing the point with Hepburn and Caron, r213. What makes the film work is you can believe both Bancroft and MacLaine, different as they are, both came from working class backgrounds and started ballet on an even playing ground. But they chose very separate paths.

When did the two first meet, r214?

They met as students (or at least novice ballerinas at the ballet company (based on ABT) that Martha Scott's character ran even back then, dearie.

I thought they were trying to get Audrey to do it with Grace Kelly. But I supposed Monaco might have objected to Grace doing another movie like with Marnie.

The AFI page says According to a 15 Mar 1978 HR news item, Audrey Hepburn and Princess Grace [Kelly] previously turned down the roles that earned MacLaine and Bancroft Academy Award nominations.

That's what I thought, r216. So had Audrey played it, it was plausible that she came to NYC from...afar.

Like Grace Kelly would ever consider playing an Oklahoma mom who'd put on a few pounds!

She could n we ver play ordinary Americans. She tried once and she was just awful, even if she did get the most undeserved Oscar ever for it.

[quote]She tried once and she was just awful, even if she did get the most undeserved Oscar ever for it.

Tell me about it.

[Quote]they are, both came from working class backgrounds

would the story be any different if they came from middle class homes?

But Grace Kelly WAS an American with delusions of grandeur. And she put on a few pounds after having children.

Ages ago there was talk that Arthur Laurents wanted to do a stage version with Donna McKechnie and Ann Reinking.

R223, Grace may have been an American with a few extra pounds, but she had spent her life as a commoner life being an upper-class American with money and style. She'd have no idea what to say to an Oklahoma dance teacher, not that she'd ever have a reason to speak to one.

R224 with ingenue Alyson Reed as Emilia!

Having not seen this movie in about 30 years, is this closest Bancroft gets to actually dancing?

Dede – I loved Wayne!

Emma – So much so that you said to hell with your career?

Dede – Yes!

Emma – And got pregnant to prove it?

Dede – Yes!

Emma – Oh, get right with yourself! You got married because you knew you were second rate, and you got pregnant because Wayne was a ballet dancer and in those days that meant queer, so you had to prove he was a man so you had a baby… Dede – That’s a goddamn lie!

Emma – That’s the goddamn truth and you know it! You saddled him with a baby and blew his career.

And she’s grown up and better than you ever were and you’re jealous!

r222, Honestly, I don't think there's anything in the script to tell us either Dede or Emma came from working class backgrounds. For all we know, their fathers could have been doctors or lawyers or college professors. But in my imagination, watching and re-watching the film over these many years, I get the sense of a scrappy working class background from both Bancroft and MacLaine's very layered performances and it adds to the texture of the storytelling.

Why are the photo mockups of their younger days always so badly done?

I just fired it up on Max.

It comes to me that it may be beneficial to speed through the dance sequences.

[quote]Put this one down for those who are light in their ballet slippers. Ballet and middle aged bitches. Who thought this was a good idea?

I love this thread.

Choreographer Arnold looks like he attends Neo-Nazi rallies in his spare time.

One hour in and not one goddamn dance step from Bancroft.

Silly me. All thrse years I thought the British posh dancer cunt was named Sybilla but her name is actually Sevillla. Which is a stupid name. Her real name is probably Elsie or Muriel.

I read Sachi’s memoir about her insane mother and father. Bless her heart. Her parents were both cunts of the highest order.

Sachi may have a happier life the next time around. Or the time after that.

Shachi!

[Quote] Honestly, I don't think there's anything in the script to tell us either Dede or Emma came from working class backgrounds. For all we know, their fathers could have been doctors or lawyers or college professors. But in my imagination, watching and re-watching the film over these many years, I get the sense of a scrappy working class background from both Bancroft and MacLaine's very layered performances and it adds to the texture of the storytelling.

The urban, ethnic Bancroft and the midwestern Maclaine don't seem as if they grew up in the same part of the country The Hepburn/ Maclaine friendship in The Children's Hour was a more believable pairing.

I had a chuckle when Janina (what a name!) says Shirley wearing beads with that dress is gross but then Janina's dress is a Heidi horror.

I don't think it's ever implied that Emma and Deedee grew up together or are from the same part of the country. They met when they were in the corps de ballet where they became best friends and rivals. Audrey would have been well cast but Bancroft is more interesting because she's tough and much more believable as someone who wanted success so badly she fucked over her best friend.

KNOTS LANDING had a similarly themed episode where Jessica Walter played Michelle Lee’s college friend, now a successful but still unmarried fashion designer. Jessica was trying to win over the daughter. And there was a fashion show at the end.

It's a plot formula on many show episodes.

How do we feel about Joanne Woodward as DeeDee? she was interested as Woodward had taken up ballet in the 1970s to lose weight. Apparently the head of Fox Alan Ladd Jr. disliked Joanne so she was vetoed. Did she say something bad to his father?

[quote]Did she say something bad to his father?

She passed him on the lot one day and called out "Hey, Shrimp!"

r241, Whoever said or suggested that DeeDee and Emma "grew up in the same part of the country"?

This is a great thread.

And I honestly hope you'll all re-watch the movie if you haven't already and not base your opinions on 1977 memories.

So Emma's big dance scene consists of her standing backlit on a totally dark stage smothered in a head to toe cape AND THEN SHE FALLS ON THE FLOOR.

r250, do you really wanna see 5 minutes of Anne Bancroft dancing? 3 minutes? Would that make it a better film?

It was a disingenuous plot line R251.

disingenuous: not candid or sincere

MacLaine said Bancroft had a hard time being ethereal. As if Shirley ever was.

Go to bed, Sachi.

Tom Skerritt plays a ballet dancer in this?

Who was a better ballet dancer, Bancroft or Jennifer Lawrence in Red Sparrow?

One difference between watching it as a 17 year old and watching it now is I really think James Mitchell did beautiful work as Michael, the choreographer turned artistic director. He deserved a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

Actually Skerritt looked pretty good when he was lounging in that chair after the phone call with the ballerina daughter.

disingenuous: dishonest

They seemed to be making a strong argument that straight men could be ballet dancers though what Mikhail saw in that poor flat-chested girl is a mystery.

dis and dat

"I don't think it's ever implied that Emma and Deedee grew up together or are from the same part of the country."

No, it was never implied that they'd grown up together or were from the same region, I'd say it was obvious that the reverse was true. But they were corps dancers together and probably became BFFs as teenagers, which is totally believable. Corps dancers join a ballet company at age 16-18, and live an oddly isolated life of "class", rehearsals, and performances, in an atmosphere of dedication, competition, unchecked egos, and real artistry. If Emma and DeeDee had left their families in their home towns they'd be eager to bond with new people, and at an age when bonding is easy, so yes.

The backstory of them becoming BFFs as young dancers, and never forming as intense a friendship with anyone else is believable.

Always wanted to see By Design but I don’t see it anywhere

Interesting remarks about the film.

Doris Day, here with her fourth husband, Barry Comden in 1976, met with director Herb Ross. He visited her Beverly Hills home in 1976 and brought her the script, which she loved. She was offered the role eventually played by Shirley MacLaine but declined it. She was hopeful that her 4th marriage would take but it ended several years later.

Doris was an interesting casting choice but I can't imagine her ever engaging in a cat fight with Anne Bancroft. And the idea of Doris and Audrey Hepburn wrestling together is even more absurd. The film got the DeeDee and Emma it deserved.

R246 Joanne Woodward was a cunt and I'm the dame who can prove it.

[quote]do you really wanna see 5 minutes of Anne Bancroft dancing? 3 minutes? Would that make it a better film?

R251, seeing some attempt at dance would have improved her performance and the audience's belief in her character. Nobody believed she was a prima ballerina because we believe what we see. And what we saw was her smoking during rehearsal, one attempt at an arm movement and Emma dressed in a tutu and crown that looked like they were purchased off Wish. And yeah I get that she got an Oscar nom for the performance but so did Barishnikov, Browne and McLaine but nobody won one. They weren't nominated for their performances they were nominated because it was the popular movement at the time.

Oh.....movement!

Wonderful movie you can watch over and over again…

(R267) When Doris was approached by Herbert Ross, her autobiography written with A.E. Hotchner had just come out. For months it topped the best-seller lists landing at number one for many weeks. It was shockingly frank for the time and Doris was being looked at in a different way because of the surprises contained in the book. She was very interested in "The Turning Point", telling a close friend, "It's unlike anything I have ever done. I get to be an adult on equal footing with another female star. I don't want to look back and do 'Grandson of Pillow Talk' or something similar. If I trust my director, I am willing to step out of my comfort zone..." Ultimately 4th husband, Barry Comden, gave her an ultimatum. Her career or him. She hoped to find happiness, finally, and allowed him to dictate. Three years later it all came crashing down.

Similarly in late 1959, she had been approached about doing "The Children's Hour" with Katharine Hepburn. She was intrigued but 3rd husband, Marty Melcher and MGM Producer Joe Pasternak urged her not to take the risk. "Pillow Talk" had just come out and was making a mint. She was in the midst of filming "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" at MGM for producer Pasternak and he feared any stories about Day contemplating something as adult as "The Children's Hour" might impact "Daisies" April of 1960 release.

Day and Katharine Hepburn met in 1959 to discuss "The Children's Hour" but after Melcher said no, the film was cast with MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn.

[quote]Corps dancers join a ballet company at age 16-18, and live an oddly isolated life of "class", rehearsals, and performances, in an atmosphere of dedication, competition, unchecked egos, and real artistry.

Sounds familiar.

Was Katharine Hepburn supposed to play Doris' old college chum, the Audrey role? Surely not! Or was she going to play the wealthy grandmother, ultimately played By Fay Bainter? That would have made sense.

Doris Day as a lesbian? Who'd believe that??

That’s Kay(e) to you!

Kate was way too old to play Audrey's part R272, and I seriously doubt she would have agreed to accept such a small supporting role at that stage in her career.

It would have been absolutely fascinating to see Doris attempt to play that part, but again it seems difficult to believe that Doris would have ever seriously considered something that controversial and against her image.

She turned down The Graduate.

Doris is excellent in Love Me or Leave Me.

Doris Day's best comedy at Universal is "The Thrill of it All" and that's partly due to Carl Reiner's script but also to the director, Norman Jewison. Although a newcomer to films, Doris trusted him implicitly and he helped her achieve a wonderfully comedic role that was totally different from the Day-Hudson and Day-Grant pairings. Had she trusted Mike Nichols (The Graduate) or William Wyler (Children's Hour) or Herbert Ross (Turning Point), she could have given a performance that was unexpected. Hitchcock directed her to some very fine work in "The Man Who Knew Too Much".

Doris Day was a very limited actress.

R281 = Barbara Thorndyke.

So Barry Comden was Doris' Gary Morton

r276, I was trying to hide my identity.

R280, have you REALLY watched The Thrill of It All lately? I'd never seen it but came across it on TCM and couldn't believe how lame and unfunny it all was.

[quote]Doris Day's best comedy at Universal is "The Thrill of it All" and that's partly due to Carl Reiner's script but also to the director, Norman Jewison.

She had never played a pig before, r280.

r277, you're probably right that Kate wouldn't have wanted to play that small (but Important!) role in The Children's Hour, but in 1960 when The Children's Hour was cast, she was at a bit of a low point career-wise, having just played the supporting mother role in Suddenly, Last Summer after two years of no film work post 1957's Desk Set. a bit of a low point for a Hepburn/Tracy movie.

Unlike Bette and Joan, Kate never worked for work's sake. Or money.

I believe that in another 30 years or so when all the original Doris Day audiences will have died out (literally), young film fans will look at her films and wonder what the fuck that was all about. Maybe not some of the sweet and genuinely fresh early Warner Bros. musicals like On Moonlight Bay and By the Light of the Silvery Moon, but just about everything that followed. A controversial statement, I'll admit...

[quote]Kate never worked for work's sake

Of course she did, r287. That was the work she loved. Look how much theatre she did.

You're right about her theater work, r289. But I never got the sense that Kate took on an unworthy film role (at least what seemed unworthy when she signed on) just to stay busy and be in the public eye. There were years: 1950, 1953, 1954, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1963-66, etc. when she never did a film.

Well, there was 1956's The Iron Petticoat opposite Bob Hope, the exception that proves the rule.

Iron Petticoat anyone?

Kate's role on SUDDENLY may have been supporting, but she was nominated for Best Actress.

Doris's CALAMITY JANE is still pretty great, despite the sexism.

It has a woman's touch, r293.

Shirl said she and Audrey never discussed the lesbian stuff in TCH. How odd. I actually think These Three is a better movie than Children's Hour even with the happy ending.

What's to discuss? I'm sure they both knew which end was up.

Anne...dancing.

Yeah if you wanna call it that, R297.

Jennifer Lawrence was too fat to be a Bolshoi prima ballerina, r257. That was a dreadful movie.

Jennifer is not fat, she's full of cum.

Drama wasn’t Doris’s thing kids.

Apparently R301 never saw Doris try to land that plane in "Julie."

Lawrence wasn't fat in that movie, R299, she has a lovely body and showed us lots of it!

But ballet dancers don't have lovely bodies, they have scrawny stringy bodies. She looked gorgeous, but she didn't look like a ballet dancer.

The male dancers have the most exquisite legs though.

R304. Not always

Tell me more about being filled with cum please.

And Doris was the original choice for the film of The Sound of Music? Please. She would have made a perfect Nellie Forbush for South Pacific, though.

I wonder why the kid playing Ethan never acted again. Did he become a dancer?

Doris personally declined "The Sound of Music" saying, "I am too American-looking to be believable as an Austrian nun."

[quote]And Doris was the original choice for the film of The Sound of Music?

Dell thought so.

Brava to Doris if she really did say that!

(R310) She said it to Dick Zanuck who used her quote in several interviews.

It's funny. While I totally agree Doris Day was too American to play a young Austrian nun, I'd be all there for Mary Martin as Maria.

Doris was of German descent, so she could have played her. The problem was that she was in her forties and wouldn’t have been able to pull off being a young maiden. Julie was thirty years old then but she could still get away with playing younger than she was.

If Ethel Merman had played Maria and Mary had played Mama Rose, the Tony goes to... ?

I don't care if Doris was even born in Germany (or Austria). She could never have played Maria, not even when she was in her 20s. She was just too apple pie sunny. No gravitas whatsoever.

Yes, a 40-year-old postulant would have been ludicrous on the screen. Or anywhere re else.

[quote]If Ethel Merman had played Maria and Mary had played Mama Rose, the Tony goes to... ?

Ethel.

You can't buck a nun.

Ethel would have made a great Captain von Trapp.

"Sing out, Louisa!"

R315. Yes, because Julie’s perfect evoked memories of Eva LeGallienne doing Ibsen.

Performance not perfect

Yes, r320, even though Julie Andrews was a classic English Rose she was totally believable as an Austrian postulant. It's called acting.

(R322) What's that got to do with Julie Andrews?

[quote]It's funny. While I totally agree Doris Day was too American to play a young Austrian nun, I'd be all there for Mary Martin as Maria.

Doris was also too old to play a young Austrian nun at that point. And Mary Martin was even older. Martin was too old for the role when she did it on Broadway. By the time the movie was made, Mary could have played the Mother Abbess.

I think Barbara Stanwyck would have been a great Maria. Hunched over with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, belting her heart out, singing, “Da hillls ah aluyve with da sound of music…now get awfa my mountain!”.

I'm sorry, r325, but Miss Stanwyck didn't do "hunched over".

Martin would have been a great choice for Mother Abbess. If she didn't have the pipes, neither did Peggy Wood.

Doris would have been PERFECT as Nellie Forbush, much better than Mitzi Gaynor. Not only was she a good enough singer, but Doris always had that plain-spoken butchie edge to her - she was exactly the sort of gal you can imagine cheerfully packing wounds, emptying urinals, and zipping up body bags in an army field hospital, and doing it with a convincing smile! The same isn't true of Gaynor, to put it politely.

But I think that she would have been decent as DeeDee, but MacLaine was a better choice. The thing is, Day would have seemed so at home in her current life as an Oklahoma mother and dance teacher, that nobody would have been able to imagine that she'd ever had a shot at ballet stardom, or that she might have preferred a life of rarefied glamour! The thing is, MacLaine even though MacLaine gained a few pounds and dressed dowdily, she was still a damn good-looking woman and had a touch of the diva in her personality, you can believe that if her DeeDee still thinks she had a shot at stardom, she isn't fooling herself.

I've always thought Mother Abbess looked like John Wayne in a habit.

1977 Best Actress Oscar Race-Re-live Diane Keaton's Oscar-winning moment with acting clips for all the nominees Bancroft, Fonda, Keaton, Maclaine, Mason

R297 People around her are dancing she's just moving

She danced in To Be or Not to Be. But it seems a double is used for the hard stuff.

[quote]Martin would have been a great choice for Mother Abbess. If she didn't have the pipes, neither did Peggy Wood.

Peggy Wood had been a legit singer and had the pipes when she was younger, but she could no longer handle "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" and had to be dubbed.

They should have used Hyacinth Bucket!

Is that Janet Gaynor presenting Diane Keaton with her Oscar at r330?

Janet Gaynor and Walter Matthau Presenters of the award for Best Actress

I hope Walter was polite to Janet.

(R337) He had to be. She was more manly than him.

You mean Janet GAYnor?

R54 That’s a good point, I didn’t know that about Anne Sullivan. In Boston parlance though, a child of Irish immigrants would’t be considered a Yankee. A Yankee would be a WASP descendant of the English settlers of the NE region.

R328 Nellie was supposed to be a young Navy nurse from Arkansas who’d never been away from home before, who had never seen much of the world and still had her regional prejudices. She’s probably the same age as Lt. Cable. Doris Day was 38. Maybe she was the type 10 years earlier, though I’m not sure she ever was.

Sorry - she was 36. Still way too old, slick and sophisticated.

(R342) Actually when the movie was shot, she would have been 35.

This is Day in 1957, and she could have easily played several years younger.

R340 Southerners referred to anyone born/raised above the Mason-Dixon line a 'Yankee,' but they wouldn't have called someone from Ireland or who sounded like a foreigner that.

That's why Anne in the play should sound like a Northener to contrast with the Southern Kellers from Alabama. The play and movie don't really go into it, because that's not the point of the story, but in reality there was a lot of contention between Annie and the Captain regarding politics.

They fought not just over the handling of Helen but also over the Civil War and Reconstruction, which was still a recent memory in the 1880s. You can tell Anne was born/raised in Massachusetts. An Irish immigrant of that time would not go head-to-head with her boss like that over politics.

[quote]Julie was thirty years old then but she could still get away with playing younger than she was.

R313 not to be pedantic, but Julie Andrews (b. 1935) was 28 years old when THE SOUND OF MUSIC was shot in the spring and summer of 1964. The film was released in March 1965.

Forgot to add her birthday is in October.

R345Good points. Yes, to a Southerner, she was a Yankee.

R344 Doris Day played a mother of a kid who was around 5 in her second film, in 1949. She played the mother of a 10 year old in a film in 1955. True she later reverted to playing virgins in the 60s (“career girls”)....if you wanted her to pl;ay Nellie Forbush, ok but I don’t think she could pull off naive and unworldly in 1957...or 58...incidentally in 1958 she again played a mother, in Leave It To Jane. What was wrong with Shirley Jones?

R345^

(R348) She'd had a falling out with Dick Rodgers after she stopped providing "services" to him. He had a habit of promoting singers and then losing interest when something better came along.

Jane Powell was good as to type (if not voice). Somewhat better than Gaynor. Gaynor was better at a different kind of role, she was great in Les Girls for ex.

Jane Powell was too "trillly" for Nellie Forbush. Shirley Jones was too flirty/sexy.

Was Mitzi Gaynor really much younger than Doris?

(R352) Gaynor was about a decade younger than Day but Day had more screen appeal than Gaynor could ever think of having. Gaynor was great in nightclubs and her series of specials on television are memorable. Her screen work is spotty and after "South Pacific" there was not a wealth of screen credits.

You have to remember that R&H didn't use *big* stars. I think they wanted the show to be the star.

Rodgers met Day at a party and asked her if she would sing for him - she replied that she never sang at parties. Several people had suggested her to him for the role. I can’t remember where I read this anecdote but it was in a book, before the internet existed. This apparently soured Rodgers on her.

Elizabeth Taylor was strongly considered for the role and auditioned for R&H in New York, but completely dried up when it was time to sing, since she was so nervous/intimidated.

R354 They has originally cast Frank Sinatra in the movie of Carousel.

Deborah Kerr in The King And I was a pretty big star at the time, as well.

(R355) It was actually the film's director, Joshua Logan, who was at the party. Rodgers and Hammerstein soured on using Day when her husband, Marty Melcher who wanted a producer credit on the film. R & H could see right through him and instantly took a disliking to him. Logan was intimidated by Day and wanted someone he could more easily control.

Several years later Rodgers sent a letter to Day telling her that her recording of "Something Wonderful" on an album she did, was the best version of the song he had ever heard.

I know, r356, but that's two actors out of five movies...six if you include Flower Drum Song.

Doris discussed her career and "South Pacific" during a wide-ranging 2010 radio interview. She was 88 at the time.

R357 Oh, yeah, you’re right. Did I read that in Logan’s autobiography?

(R360) Yes, I believe it was.

R358 What were the 5 movies? Are you including State Fair? (Either version)

r362 -

Oklahoma

Carousel

The King & I

South Pacific

Flower Drum Song

The Sound of Music

State Fair wasn't based on a stage show

I also read that Doris was afraid of flying and SP was shot in Hawaii.

How did this devolve from "Turning Point" to Doris Day? I haven't listened to Doris on that radio talk show yet, but I do remember hearing her on some radio or phone interview that R&H and Josh were very interested in having her play Nellie, but "they wouldn't meet my price". It's possible not wanting Marty involved was another reason they decided to go with Mitzi.

Jane Powell would have been awful. As mentioned her voice is wrong-too high and operatic. Also, she just seemed too tiny-wouldnt have looked good with the butch Nellie haircut, either. I always found her a little lacking in screen presence.

Not withstanding what Richard Zanuck said about Doris' reason for turning down TSOM, I don't think that's the real reason. If anything her German ancestry made her more authentically "Austro-German" than DL fave Ms. Andrews.

Yes, Doris was way past 40 at the time, but she did photograph younger and I'm sure with the right camera angles and lighting they could have fixed that if they really wanted to. Also keep in mind when they were considering Doris, they were also considering Der Bingle for Captain Von Trapp, so Doris would have looked childlike in comparison.

Not to belabor this topic on what should really have it's on thread, if Doris was indeed offered Maria and did in fact turn it down, one of the main if not the main reason would be the crippling fear of flying she developed in the early 60's. She would have had an extremely difficult, if not impossible time getting to Austria for the location shoot. In later years she turned down the Kennedy Center honors because she refused to fly and appear in person.

By the way, R&H were very interested in having DL super, duper fave Helen Lawson a/k/a Susan Hayward play Nellie. I can't really see tough Brooklyn born Hayward as a naive Arkansas navy nurse, but perhaps Josh could have worked with her and coaxed a good performance out of her. Anyway, I think Logan approached Hayward and asked her to screen test; she took it as an insult and negotiations broke down.

Makes sense that they allowed a big star to play Mrs. Anna in the film, since they cast a VERY big star to play her onstage.

Gertie brought the property to them, r366.

R367 I thought Mary Martin did that with THE SOUND OF MUSIC?

R365, photographed younger? Did you see her closeups in the final scene of MIDNIGHT LACE? Brutal. And I like Doris.

Mostly…

Doris and Marty saw "The Sound of Music" on Broadway in 1960 and she loved it. Her 1960 recording of the song earned her a Grammy Nomination, although the arrangement is nothing like the Broadway or film arrangement.

Had she really wanted to do this film or "South Pacific" for that matter, she would have traveled on location as she had for Hitchcock's 1956 "The Man Who Knew Too Much". However, not playing either role didn't bother her and when she and Julie met out at Malibu in the 60's, she lavishly praised Julie for her performance in the film.

(R369) Ross Hunter wanted the last scenes to be photographed in the lush way he liked to photograph his leading ladies. It was Doris who questioned that plan, telling him that no one who'd just gone through what her character had gone through, would look, "...like she was on her way to a glamorous photoshoot..."

[quote][R367] I thought Mary Martin did that with THE SOUND OF MUSIC?

She did as well, r369.

Regarding Gertie:

[quote]In 1950, British actress Gertrude Lawrence's business manager and attorney, Fanny Holtzmann, was looking for a new vehicle for her client when the 1944 Margaret Landon novel Anna and the King of Siam (a fictionalized version of Leonowens' experiences) was sent to her by Landon's agent. According to Rodgers biographer Meryle Secrest, Holtzmann was worried that Lawrence's career was fading. The 51-year-old actress had appeared only in plays, not in musicals, since Lady in the Dark closed in 1943. Holtzmann agreed that a musical based on Anna and the King of Siam would be ideal for her client, who purchased the rights to adapt the novel for the stage.

[quote]Holtzmann initially wanted Cole Porter to write the score, but he declined. She was going to approach Noël Coward next, but happened to meet Dorothy Hammerstein (Oscar's wife) in Manhattan. Holtzmann told Dorothy Hammerstein that she wanted Rodgers and Hammerstein to create a show for Lawrence, and asked her to see that her husband read a book that Holtzmann would send over. In fact, both Dorothy Rodgers and Dorothy Hammerstein had read the novel in 1944 and had urged their husbands to consider it as a possible subject for a musical. Dorothy Hammerstein had known Gertrude Lawrence since 1925, when they had both appeared in André Charlot's London Revue of 1924 on Broadway and on tour in North America.

[quote]Rodgers and Hammerstein had disliked Landon's novel as a basis for a musical when it was published, and their views still held. It consists of vignettes of life at the Siamese court, interspersed with descriptions of historical events unconnected with each other, except that the King creates most of the difficulties in the episodes, and Anna tries to resolve them. Rodgers and Hammerstein could see no coherent story from which a musical could be made until they saw the 1946 film adaptation, starring Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison, and how the screenplay united the episodes in the novel. Rodgers and Hammerstein were also concerned about writing a star vehicle. They had preferred to make stars rather than hire them, and engaging the legendary Gertrude Lawrence would be expensive. Lawrence's voice was also a worry: her limited vocal range was diminishing with the years, while her tendency to sing flat was increasing. Lawrence's temperament was another concern: though she could not sing like one, the star was known to be capable of diva-like behavior. In spite of this, they admired her acting – what Hammerstein called her "magic light", a compelling presence on stage – and agreed to write the show. For her part, Lawrence committed to remaining in the show until June 1, 1953, and waived the star's usual veto rights over cast and director, leaving control in the hands of the two authors.

Doris Day was 43 in 1965, and while she was still a good-looking woman, her skin was getting leathery from the tanning and she looked 43!

Anyone who thinks she could play a teenaged ex-postulant tackling her very first job, started on the mimosas pretty damn early.

40-year-old Faye Dunaway played Eva Peron at ages 15-33 in the TV miniseries EVITA PERON from the early '80s.

In 1965 didn’t Doris play a mother of young adults in With Six You Get Egg Roll? I don’t have IMDB handy. Why would she play the oldest postulant nun in Austria? That would have been a disaster. She was probably older than Hitler was at the time of the story.

"Eggroll" was in 1968.

Never mind, it was Do Not Disturb.

Doris was way too sexy in 1965, to be believable as a postulant. Ray Aghayan and Bob Mackie designed this gown for her to wear in "Do Not Disturb"

R373-Nowhere in the script is she described as "teenaged". As a matter of fact I just googled her and she was close to 22 when she came to the Von Trapp house.

Again, with the proper hairstyles/wigs, costumes, lighting, camera angles, etc., while not passing for 22, she would have photographed several years younger. More than likely it was a combination of her fear of flying/hugh salary request/Marty's interference that caused her to pass.

I thought I remembered reading or hearing that it was her fear of flying/reluctance to travel to Hawaii that caused her to pass on SP. If that indeed was the beginning of her fear of flying, she overcame it. 2 years later when she traveled to London to shoot "Midnight Lace" on location. I believe LA to London in those (pre-jet?) days was an even longer and more exhausting flight than LA to Hawaii would have been, so I really don't buy that excuse. It does sound much better though than "they couldn't meet my price" which makes Doris and/or Marty sound mercenary and a little bit greedy.

Can we get back to "The Turning Point", only this time focus on Misha's delicious ass (which really deserves it's own thread).

It is just possible that Doris could have found the time to take the QEII or another luxury ocean liner to Europe if she wanted a role badly enough.

All this talk about her playing Maria von Trapp here is truly insane. Do you really think after Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back, That Touch of Mink, The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling, all shot before TSOM, she would have been remotely acceptable or believable as a 20-something nun?

And as to the Kennedy Center honor, decline, remember, Doris also repeatedly turned down an honorary Oscar and she didn't have to fly anywhere to accept it. She clearly knew herself and her worth and didn't need to play every role nor accept every honor and award.

I didn't know DD turned down an honorary Oscar. I respect her for that. They should reserve that award for film people who did Oscar-quality work but somehow never won one, not for those who were just popular and/or beloved or just had a long career.

People nowadays all seem to agree that Doris was sexy, but I don't see it and never have. She was pretty enough and had a nice figure--besides being a talented singer. But is it just a "thing" to say that now, like the current posthumous take on Sinead O'Connor that holds that she was not a nut but a misunderstood, heroic crusader? I grant you that she was kind of both, but, realistically, she was more unstable than misunderstood.

JOHN SIMON on Doris Day:

Against my better judgment I again attempted to stomach one of her films Move Over Darling which yet again affected me as a cross between an all-day sucker and a hand painted necktie

The only very real talent Miss Day possesses is that of being absolutely sanitary: her personality untouched by human emotions, her brow unclouded by human thought or her form unsmudged by the slightest evidence of femininity.

Now the alleged virtues of Miss Day's persona are three crisp wit girlish radiance and healthy sexuality. Has anyone who scrutinizes even one of the day movies will note the the wit is so crisp that dropped on your head it produces instant coma; the radiance is so girlish that it has to be shot through special screens to disguise a bad case of creeping pucker which has begun to ravage that once youthfully insipid face and the healthy sexuality is a coy protracted game of teases and double entendres.

What I repeat does this endemic Day worship mean. It means that two or three generations of Americans are basking in witlessness and calling it wit, in facelessness and calling it radiance, in sexlessness and calling it sex.

Ouch.

I refuse to believe John Simon did not know how to use a comma.

[quote] I didn't know DD turned down an honorary Oscar. I respect her for that. They should reserve that award for film people who did Oscar-quality work but somehow never won one, not for those who were just popular and/or beloved or just had a long career.

She turned it down afaik because she didn’t want to appear at any ceremony, to receive it, not because she thought she was unworthy of the honor.

Doris did have an Oscar nomination (for Pillow Talk). But the honorary Oscar can be for anyone, it’s not a consolation prize for not winning an Oscar nor is it necessarily a lifetime achievement award. Scroll through some of the awards, you may be surprised at some of the winners.

Doris was in many musicals and those performances aren’t often Oscar-nominated despite requiring a great deal of talent.

Also - in those days (late 50s) many people sailed to Hawaii - if you’re old enough you may remember the Matson Line ads in the National Geographic. South Pacific was also filmed in Jamaica, iirc.

Doris when she did go overseas (in the early 50s) - in Spain - and looking sexy, for those who dispute that.

She was somewhat thinner here, was more buxom later.

By the way, since I looked closer at the life preservers, they say Last Frontier, and so it’s probably Lake Mead (USA) since the Last Frontier hotel/casino was in Las Vegas - the caption is wrong.

If for nothing more, Doris Day will be remembered for decades of tireless work on behalf of animal welfare. She wasn't seeking rewards or honors and was actively informed, not just lending her name to a cause. And at 44, in this picture, she could swish a mean tail.

Maybe Shirley MacLaine could have played Nellie Hairbrush? She is not a great singer but then Nellie's 3 big songs aren't that hard. I just read recently that they wanted Howard Keel for Emile but he was trapped in another studio contract.

I think Doris Day would have made a terrific Nellie Forbush. She still looked young enough to play the part, and let's not forget, Glenn Close was 54 when she played Nellie (a distaster). That said, by the early 60s, she started to look matronly. She was too old for Maria, and too old for The Turning Point.

Kael on Doris Day in LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME: "a little less butch than usual." Maybe a bit too butch for Nellie?

Certainly not Anne Bancroft. Too ethnic and her singing voice was toneless.

Maybe exotic is a more politically correct way to say ethnic.

What about Debbie Reynolds for Nellie Forbush? She certainly still seemed quite young and naive in 1958. I wonder if she was ever under consideration.

[Quote] and looking sexy, for those who dispute that.

She looks good in that picture, but she was never sexy in films.

Her performances in Julie and Midnight Lace are arguably her funniest.

As I said somewhere up thread, in 50 years (maybe sooner), after most of us reading this now are dead, people will look at Doris Day's films and say WTF? I think even Betty Grable, for example, will be more easily understood.

R389, I don't think MacLaine was a good enough singer for"South Pacific", plus in the fifties she had a slightly offbeat persona. Reynolds would have been a better fit, she was a better singer, and had that slightly butch slightly, tough quality, that I would expect in an army nurse.

Plus she was very pretty and very cute, and an okay singer. She would have been my second choice, after Day.

Oh pish, r396, grab a rehearsal skirt...

Actually, r398, that is her only movie I can say I genuinely love.

Answering my own question, maybe Debbie Reynolds was in a career slump around 1958, post her MGM and Tammy ingenue days and not yet reinvented as the sassy and sympathetic divorcee post-Liz/Eddie/Debbie. She wouldn't have been hot enough for a big R&H event musical.

There always seemed to be a knowing, tongue-in-cheek quality to Debbie's persona that I don't think would've have fit Nellie. There's a contrived quality to Debbie's sweetness and naivete which works well in some formats, but not in others.

As a Xer, I never really heard about DD being sexy, I just always heard she had great legs and a great ass and it was in counterpoint to her "virginal" image.

[Quote] As I said somewhere up thread, in 50 years (maybe sooner), after most of us reading this now are dead, people will look at Doris Day's films and say WTF? I think even Betty Grable, for example, will be more easily understood.

who needs 50 years! The films Day made in the 1960s went from insipid to awful: Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Lover Come Back, Send Me No Flowers, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out, The Glass Bottom Boat, Caprice, With Six You Get Eggroll and The Ballad of Josie!!!

Also, r401...a bosomy lass.

R402 nevertheless, they made her the biggest movie star, male or female.

From the early to mid '60s, she consistently made Quigley's annual list of Top 10 bankable film actors.

Several times she even topped the list: 1960 (#1), 1961 (#3), 1962 (#1), 1963 (#1), 1964 (#1), 1965 (#3), 1966 (#8).

She was literally a product of her time R404. She was well marketed, dependably clean and bright like a laundry detergent. The films are and were shit.

[quote]Nellie was supposed to be a young Navy nurse from Arkansas who’d never been away from home before, who had never seen much of the world and still had her regional prejudices. She’s probably the same age as Lt. Cable. Doris Day was 38. Maybe she was the type 10 years earlier, though I’m not sure she ever was.

Isn't 38 awfully young to be playing Nellie?

Emile is fortysomething.

Nellie is college-aged (18-22).

(R406) Day was 35 when "South Pacific" was filmed in 1957.

Kelli O' Hara was 32 when she played it on Broadway in 2008.

Howard Keel and Jane Powell toured in South Pacific in the 80s I believe.

Nellie might have been "college age" in the original Michener stories but the template for the character was created with the casting of Mary Martin who was 36 (and looked it) when South Pacific opened on Broadway.

R374 and we still haven’t forgiven her for that.

Martin made up for her age inappropriateness in many vehicles (she was 40 in Peter Pan) by being a brilliant performer. One of the greatest.

The bitch was eternally youthful.

[Quote] Kelli O' Hara was 32 when she played it on Broadway in 2008.

but the close-ups in Cinemascope reveal age that the distance of the stage doesn't.

[Quote] nevertheless, they made her the biggest movie star, male or female.

[Quote] From the early to mid '60s, she consistently made Quigley's annual list of Top 10 bankable film actors.

Julia Roberts like Day was a top BO star for nearly decades despite the fact the most of her films were forgettable crap: Larry Crowne, Charlie Wilson's War, Notting Hill, Stepmom, Mona Lisa Smile, The Mexican, Mary Reilly, My Best Friend's Wedding, Dying Young, I Love Trouble, Sleeping with the Enemy, Everyone Says I Love You, The Pelican Brief, Michael Collins, Something to Talk About, Runaway Bride . . .

The NY Times on Day's film debut in Romance on the High Seas:

As much as we all like to welcome new faces and talents to the screen it is hard to work up enthusiasm for the Warner's new starlet Doris Day maybe this bouncy young lady who came directly from singing with bands to a leading role in that studio's color musical has ability and personality but as shown in this picture at the Strand she has no more than a vigorous disposition which hits the screen with a thud.

Maybe the Warner's figured They had a new Betty Hutton in her but even without other assets she still lacks Miss Hutton's vital style

Doris might have enjoyed a new Betty Hutton in her . . .

Well, Doris got the last laugh on The Times, didn't she? Few remember Hutton these days, and Doris is a legend.

and NY Times reviewer, Bosley Crowther who penned that review became a hug admirer of Day's work, throughout the 50's and into the 60's.

John Updike was a longtime DD stan. He wrote a bad poem celebrating her eternal sexiness. (Sorry Anne and Shirley, but Doris has hijacked your thread.)

Her Coy Lover Sings Out

Doris, ever since 1945,

when I was all of thirteen and you a mere twenty-one,

and “Sentimental Journey” came winging

out of the juke box at the sweet shop,

your voice piercing me like a silver arrow,

I knew you were sexy.

And in 1962, when you

were thirty-eight and I all of thirty

and having a first affair, while you

were co-starring with Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink

and enjoying, according to the Globe,

Doris’ Red-Hot Romp with Mickey Mantle,

I wasn’t surprised.

Now in 2008 (did you ever

think you’d live into such a weird year?)

when you are eighty-four and I am seventy-six,

I still know you’re sexy,

and not just in reruns or on old 45 rpms.

Your four inadequate husbands weren’t the half of it.

Bob Hope called you Jut-Butt, and your breasts

(Molly Haskell reported)

were as big as Monroe’s but swaddled.

Hollywood protected us from you,

they consumed you, what the Globe tastefully terms

the “shocking secret life of America’s Sweetheart.”

Still, I’m not quite ready

for you to breathe the air that I breathe.

I huff going upstairs as it is.

Give me space to get over the idea of you -

the thrilling silver voice,

the gigantic silver screen. Go

easy on me, Clara, let’s take our time.

[quote]Julia Roberts ... was a top BO star

That's what I've heard, too.

[quote]Now in 2008 (did you ever

[quote]think you’d live into such a weird year?)

[quote]when you are eighty-four and I am seventy-six.

R421 he died the following year and she outlived him by another decade.

her movies certainly stank R422

[quote]Howard Keel and Jane Powell toured in South Pacific in the 80s I believe. G

As I recall, Jane Powell was doing summer stock productions of "Meet Me in St. Louis" in the '70s, playing the Judy Garland role, not the Marjorie Main role.

I'm actually stunned that Lucille Ball was never in the conversation for one of the two leads. It would seem to make sense as she was one of the biggest stars in the world. She demonstrated in Mame that she was still a heckuva dancer and acting-wise was capable of so much more than she was ever allowed to show. Really it's only her turn as Clarabelle and Catherine Curtis where we are able to see the depth Lucy was capable of. Had she not been bound by her image and those around her who saw that image as a meal ticket, she could have rivalled Kim Stanley or Kim Hunter.

I'm shocked that no one else thought of her for "The Turning Point," R426. She was already preparing for such a role years earlier on "I Love Lucy."

Herbert Ross later said he was emotionally devastated and ready to halt production after losing both Gelsey Kirkland and Lucy.

Herb, gurl, get a hold of yourself.

Lucy was in her 60s when it was filmed. All y'all are fucking HIIIIIIIIGH if you think she'd have been cast.

Bless your heart, r430.

She would have been excellent in the Martha Scott role. A small dramatic part would have been perfect for her career right then.

Hard to believe Shirl and Annie were only in their 40s back then and now I'd be old enough to play one of their (working class) fathers!

R107 Shirley made her film debut in The Trouble With Harry, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1955). Her second film was for producer Hal Wallis (who discovered her, the first night she understudied for Carol Haney in he Pajama Game), Artists and Models (1955) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (and Dorothy Malone).

I think Mike Todd cast her as an Indian Princess precisely because the casting was so unlikely. David Niven had never actually played a character like Phileas Fogg, either. He played a character with little sensitivity, wit or charm, which was far from what he usually played in the movies.

Shirley in My Geisha. She did a lot of crap following the success of The Apartment: Two Loves, Two for the Seesaw, Irma la Douce, What a Way to Go! The Yellow Rolls-Royce, John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! Woman Times Seven, The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom, Two Mules for Sister Sara, The Possession of Joel Delaney, Desperate Characters.

R435 the tagline for that movie was so lame.

"MY GEISHA"

and her guys!!!

😂

Not nearly as lame as the movie, I'm sure. An actress disguises herself as a geisha in order to land the lead role in her director husband's film version of Madame Butterfly. Sounds like an episode of The I Love Lucy Show.

Except when Lucy did it, it was funny.

I think "Desperate Characters" is one of her best performances.

Weirdly, Bob Cummings is in both My Geisha and the Lucy/Desi Comedy Hour in which Lucy and Ethel disguise themselves as Geisha girls.

Not to defend Shirley but the early 1960s were a real low point for decent roles for serious actresses. Most of the big movies were rom-com dreck starring the likes of Natalie Wood and....Doris Day.

People forget that the Golden Age of Hollywood (1910s-1950s) was in its last vestiges by the early 1960s.

Something had to give.

Hence the emergence of New Hollywood in 1967.

There was a great DL thread last year on WHAT A WAY TO GO! that dissected the early 60s era of movies and used the film as an exemplar of everything that was wrong with it..

[quote]Not to defend Shirley but the early 1960s were a real low point for decent roles for serious actresses. Most of the big movies were rom-com dreck starring the likes of Natalie Wood and....Doris Day.

Jane was getting the Broadway to film roles:

Barefoot in the Park

Any Wednesday

Sunday in NY

Period of Adjustment

Two for the Seesaw is not crap. Of course we know it started as a play with Anne Bancroft and Henry Fonda. Anne had a guest appearance on a TV musical show - Perry Como I think - where she did a scene so we get a taste of what her stage performance was like. Shirley is somewhat better casting as a failed dancer in the film though the story is a downer. It's one of those about a couple you know should never try to be together. Ironically Shirley began an affair in real life with Bob Mitchum.

How about dull R445 ?

The Robert Wise (“Blood on the Moon”/”West Side Story”) adult comedy-drama is based on the successful two-character Broadway play by William Gibson (it starred Henry Fonda and Anne Bancroft), that’s expanded with the inclusion of secondary characters for the film but unfortunately still remains stage-bound and too talky. Isobel Lennart adapted it from the play. One of the film’s main problems is that the leads are miscast. Robert Mitchum is too stiff and acts as if he was doing us a favor by appearing in this production; while Shirley MacLaine, considerably more suited for the part, but tries too hard in a strained performance lacking the required energy needed for her perky heroine to shine and has no on-screen chemistry for her lover.

[quote]though the story is a downer

And a two hander. Wait, I know! Let's make a musical of it!

Anne and Joan discuss Two for the Seesaw @1:38

This is why I HATED FEUD!

The marquis of the Martin Beck Theatre????? Did no one realize that theater still exists (easily researched and well-known in NY) and doesn't now nor has it ever looked like a Westwood Cineplex?

Shirley would have made a better Molly Brown than Debbie. There. I said it.

Shirley on Charlie Rose. She dishes on Sinatra, Dean Martin and Debra Winger.

[Quote] The marquis of the Martin Beck Theatre????? Did no one realize that theater still exists (easily researched and well-known in NY) and doesn't now nor has it ever looked like a Westwood Cineplex?

most people realized but it didn't necessarily make them hate Feud. No Broadway theater has a marquis like the one seen in Feud

Marquee.

I can't believe I misspelled marquee. It makes my rant look stupid. Oh, dear.

Nevertheless, why do films and TV make such annoying and careless blunders like that in their production design and costume design (that's a whole other matter)?

R441 Shirley MacLaine might be considered a “serious actress” now but she did a lot of comedies in her early career because she was good at comedy. She also did dramatic roles but that were suited to her quirky quality.

Btw I only saw My Geisha once but I thought it was good. Have people here who put it down seen it? A weird thing about it was that it was originally supposed to costar Jimmy Stewart and ended up costarring Yves Montand.

I've seen it, years ago, and thought she was good in it.

R244, I love you!

A fashion show during a television episode? Unheard of!

It can work wonders for a series' lagging popularity!

I saw My Geisha and I thought Yves must be an idiot not to recognize her.

Heck, even Ricky and Fred recognized Lucy and Ethel!

Wasn't she in makeup and costume?

It's as silly as putting on a pair of glasses and no one knows you. Right.

I saw "My Geisha" ages ago, and the makeup artist did a much better job with the "yellowface" than most.

However Shirley would still have been about 5'10". She's always been a big gal.

r463 That's so right, Mr. Kent. 🦸🏻‍♂️

Shirley has tiny almond shaped eyes…and a snub nose. Somewhat Asiatic in appearance.

How come Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty don't look anything alike?

They're like River and Joaquin Phoenix in that regard.

Mrs. Beatty had a different milkman in 1934 (Shirley) than the one she had in 1937 (Warren).

My god, is Warren really 86? No wonder we never see him.

I just wanna say: THE TURNING POINT does not deserve two threads.

Please wind this up and stop embarrassing the rest of us. As I’m sure Emma Jacklin would agree, we have our reputations to think about.

Your posting on this thread only bumps it, r470. And probably half the thread had nothing to do with THE TURNING POINT, anyway.

Yeah, R467, why DO Warren and Shirley look nothing alike? Different coloring, different bone structure, although I'd bet real money that Shirley's hair is also naturally light brown.

As for Joaquin and River Phoenix, they probably have different biological fathers. Their parents belonged to a weird cult that encouraged "wife-swapping" as well as pedophilia.

Bitch, I will wrestle you to the ground in front of Lincoln Centre before I let you or anyone else create a 2nd thread!

DNA tests proved that Shirley's father was the notorious mailman Ralph Malph Sr.

I still can’t look at Shirley the same way I did after reading Sachi’s book. She first started getting on my nerves when she was promoting STEEL MAGNOLIAS with the rest of the cast. They were so cringe on every talk show they appeared on, with the most obnoxious being on Oprah’s…and I can’t stand STEEL MAGNOLIAS.

Did you like her on Donahue?

R472 Warren had light brown hair? Did he dye it dark brown when he became an actor?

I don't care if Shirley was a shit mom or Mother of the Year. It has nothing to do with her work and the films she's made and she's always been outstanding.

One thing I can truthfully say about Shirley is that I don’t think she’s always been outstanding. At times, she has been, but there have been times I think she was pretty weak, too.

R479. I agree—she’s uneven across her career. I think her best work was in The Apartment and Terms of Endearment. She’s both touching and annoying in Some Came Running, but that’s the character. I don’t think she’s very interesting in her other two Oscar nominated performances (Irma and Turning), and I hated her in Sweet Charity. And she’s not nearly as bright as she thinks she is.

Personally, I think Shirley was at her best in her fresh-faced 1950s performances like The Trouble with Harry, Ask Any Girl, The Matchmaker and Some Came Running, culminating in 1960's The Apartment, where she played quirky girl next door types and there was really nobody quite like her.

As she reached her thirties in the early 60s and might have enjoyed more mature leading lady roles with some depth, Hollywood hit rock bottom (What a Way to Go!, My Geisha, John Goldfarb, Irma la Douce, etc.). It wasn't until 1967 when films caught up with American culture and became more sophisticated, but by then she was still associated with Old Hollywood and the Rat Pack aesthetic.

She certainly signed on for interesting projects like Gambit, Desperate Characters and The Possession of Joel Delaney but her output was very spotty throughout the rest of her career. The Turning Point, schlocky as it may be, still remains my favorite of her after 40 roles.

She was absolutely hammy in MADAME SOUSATSKA and GUARDING TESS.

R478 = Roman Polanski

I defy you to get through that Donahue cast interview without cringing.

[quote]She was absolutely hammy in MADAME SOUSATSKA and GUARDING TESS.

Shirley had Oscar buzz for "Madame Sousatska."

She won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and tied for the Golden Globe with Sigourney Weaver ("Gorillas in the Mist") and Jodie Foster ("The Accused").

(There was no SAG until 1995 and BAFTA didn't become an Oscar precursor until 2001).

Shirley was MIA, and the latter two got the nod.

"She was absolutely hammy in MADAME SOUSATSKA and GUARDING TESS."

You say that like it's a bad thing.

R480 I agree about the two you mentioned though I loved her in Some Came Running. Her singing voice is horrible - to my ears, anyway. In Can-Can, for example.

Her singing sounds worse cos she was paired with Sinatra.

Is that why they made IMRA LA DOUCE a non-musical film?

I love her in Some Came Running. You can really see that her performance was the template for the later careers of Melanie Griffith and Renee Zellwegger, to name a few.

Is everyone aware of the YouTube channel, Fritz and the Oscars? Fritz just released the final part of the 1963 Best Actress race which covers Anne Bancroft’s career, up to that point, and eventual win. He covers Best Actress races dating back to the 1930s (randomly, not in sequential order), 1950s, 60s and does Glenda Jackson’s 1st win in 1970 and Shirley’s win in 1983.

He does separate docs with bios, reviews and analysis on each nominee with great investigation and is quite astute in his film criticism. I love his German dialect.

He’s done DL favs Shirley Booth (yes, he mentions Hazel) Carrie Snodgress (for Diary of a Mad Housewife) and a lot on Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker/Anne Bancroft doc. (Izzy at Be Kind Rewind just released Part 1 of a Valley of the Dolls video this week with A LOT on dear Patty.) He does a video on Shirley’s nomination for Irma La Duce. There’s a lot on Hepburn and Davis as well. And Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of Youth.

It’s really interesting how in the 1940s & ‘50s that hit Broadway plays were ALWAYS adapted to film including the majority of plays by William Inge and Tennessee Williams. Of course, I knew this but part of revisiting these cultural flashpoints is realising how different - and frankly, expansive - American cultural tastes used to be, including a film version of Suddenly Last Summer being one of the Top 10 films of the year. They were different times.

It’s also notable how actresses themselves were more interesting, varied figures. At least those that were honoured by the Academy. I love Fritz’s doc on Simone Signoret’s win for Room at the Top (and glad to have finally discovered this film, sort of a British “A Place in the Sun”).

It’s a great channel. You’ll love Fritz. Check it out!

[quote]He’s done DL favs Shirley Booth (yes, he mentions Hazel)

How...shocking.

Is there a problem, R492? Would you like to speak to a manager?

Broadway used to receive more publicity because a lot of TV used to from New York (including live TV plays, and variety shows that would sometimes have scenes from plays and musicals), and also because of the big pictorial or news magazines having stories/pictures/covers devoted to NY theater. Pre-sold titles people were interested in seeing on the screen.

"Is your life really so wonderful?"

"Apparently you think so."

How not?

"How not?" We've picked up some fancy-schmancy expressions along the way, haven't we?

Bump

It's strange how I never got around to seeing The Turning Point. I recall when it came out going to see it as a teen with my sister and some friends, but the show at the theater was sold out and we didn't want to wait 2 1/2 hours or however long it was for the next showing, so we sent to see something else. I think it played on network television a few years later, but I was always reluctant to watch movies with because they usually the heavy editing and all the commercials ruin the experience for me.

I can’t believe that Leslie Browne got an Oscar nomination for her role as Shirley’s daughter. She was godawful.

500!

It makes me want to toss a drink in someone's face.

Is the movie streaming anywhere now? I just looked at Max, before realizing how long OP’s post has been around, and couldn’t find it.

It was on Max at some point last year but it got pulled off for some reason.

Bump

It used to be on youtube for free. Check there.

To R82 and others, James Mitchell used to be on All My Children. He played Palmer Cortlandt.