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OT: RIP To 2 Bombshells, Days Apart: Raquel Welch and Stella Stevens

posted 2 years ago by ecarle (14979)
45 replies | jump to latest

Ah the world of coincidence and timeliness.

Raquel Welch passed a few days ago, at age 82. Stella Stevens passed today, at age 84.

My first thought is that both ladies proved: you can be a bombshell babe like Marilyn Monroe was and lead a much longer and more fulfilling life.

Indeed, a LOT of former hot babes and pin up gals have lived nice long lives. I think Jill St. John is still with us, for instance. And of course, from the Hitchcock gallery: Kim Novak.

Ventriloquist Edgar Bergen told his young gorgeous daughter Candice Bergen -- in her 20's -- that he had known far too many beautiful young actresses who had given themselves over to depression, substance abuse and even suicide when age came and their looks faded. He cautioned Bergen to "develop a career for later" and Bergen chose photography. But the world changed and Bergen stayed quite gorgeous -- and then attractive, and then handsome -- right on into her 70's. So papa Edgar need not have been so worried.

Obits on Raquel Welch noted that she never appeared nude in any of her films or even in a 1979 Playboy spread. She was one of those sex symbols who maintained a certain mystery to the end -- those precious few inches of skin that society deems "naughty and not for public view" were kept private by Ms. Welch, who rather specialized in bikinis during her initial sex bomb years(famously in the animal skin prehistoric version for 1 Million Years BC) and who wore simply a tight white scuba suit for her initial movie splash(quite serious and respectable) in "Fantastic Voyage" (about a crew of scientists shrunk down to drive a tiny submarine around a man's internal vessels and organs.)

Welch "didn't get no respect" for a lot of her early career, but she ended up -- as all "names" do -- in some respectable movies besides herself. Like The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers(one movie split in half) , where (playing a role that June Allyson played in the 40's!) Welch was "the good girl"(Faye Dunaway was the bad one) and added pratfalling and bumbling and slapstick and good humor in a manner than melted her rather "stone faced" previous persona.

She was also in the "all-star whodunit" "The Last of Sheila" among more seasoned actors like James Coburn, James Mason, and Richard Benjamin(none of whom much liked her diva ways, it is said)...but she held her own.

I'm of a small clique who loved her 1972 revenge Western Hannie Caulder in which Welch played a frontier woman raped by three idiots(Ernest Borgnine, Strother Martin, and Jack Elam) and learns how to shoot and guns 'em all down. The real star of Hannie Caulder is Robert Culp -- a TV guy who just couldn't make it in movies but is "all star here" -- handsome, cool, humorous, deadpan,sympathetic -- all the things he did cool on "I Spy" and as a Columbo killer but here in the service of a great doomed hero role. (The movie also features Christopher Lee as a good guy gunsmith and a great staging of a Western gunbattle on a BEACH.)

1972 also found Welch playing a "roller derby fighter" in Kansas City Bomber, which allowed her to beat on and get beaten by other women in the roller derby ring. (Roller derby has always been such a strange working-class sport for men and women, but especially for women -- inexplicable rules, roller skating at top speeds, and a feeling of lady wrestling with more clothes on. A weird choice for Welch to do -- but it proved her "true grit.")

Critics noted her inter-racial love scene with NFL great Jim Brown in the Western "100 Rifles" but the hidden star in THAT movie was Burt Reynolds, overshadowing the higher-billed Brown and Welch and making fun of Welch quite a bit on the Johnny Carson show. The Raquel Welch career always had the edge of dissing and feuding to it. Was she really a diva or was misogyny at play in the press? A bit of both, but she survived, threw it off, passes away as a true legend and a "successful" sex symbol.

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That Stella Stevens passed only a couple of days after Welch just seems weirdly fitting to me (as it would have had Jill St. John or Kim Novak gone. But I hope they'll stick around.)

Just as much as Raquel Welch never did nudity in her films, Stella Stevens DID do nudity -- not so much on screen, but in Playboy a couple of times, so men knew what she looked like and her reputation was more "loose." She's a perfectly young cheerleader type in Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor of 1963, but a mere 9 years later in the megahit The Poseidon Adventure in 1972, her sexuality had coarsened(part as a matter of her ex-hooker character and a squawking nag of a voice towards cop husband Ernest Borgnine) and she looked prematurely OLD. Yet extremely sexy. (Her dress shirt and panties ensemble for her "climb the ship's innards" adventure were famous.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Between those two movies, I rather fancy Stella Steven in Sam Peckinpah's ALMOST non-violent, ALMOST "nice" "sex Western of 1970" -- The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Jason Robards plays Stevens' grizzled , bearded beau and the movie has him give her a bath and her give him a bath -- equal opportunity nudity with a bit more for Stella. (Who is a hooker, but more available to Robards than to anyone.) Stevens character comes out of the story a bigger winner than anyone else; it is a positive role for her.

I KNOW Stella Stevens did some serious stuff, but I'm afraid the sexpot stuff was the most memorable. The Nutty Professor. Dean Martin's Matt Helm spy spoof "The Silencers" -- in which Stevens pretty much has the female lead amidst a pack of curvy 60's sexbombs (ah,the women of the 60's and the roles they were willing to play.)

All that said, I would say that "Cable Hogue" stands as Stella Stevens most rewarding role, and her role in The Poseidon Adventure(the Number One or Number Two movie of 1972 , give or take The Godfather) her most famous. She done good and made a name for herself.

As did Raquel Welch. Thanks for the memories from my youth, ladies. Thank you very much!

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Between those two movies, I rather fancy Stella Steven in... The Ballad of Cable Hogue.

Peckinpah's own fave of his films. I like it a lot too and Stella Stevens is a sexy ray of sunshine in that film. Stevens' Obit in the NY Times was very interesting to me. It goes through her frustrations about trying to direct etc.. I wasn't aware of that side of her:

https://archive.ph/OG2jK [allow a few seconds for the images to load]

I mainly know Raquel Welch's '60s stuff, especially Fantastic Voyage and Bedazzled. Her death and reading her Obits has got me interested in tracking down some her 1970s stuff. The one I currently have queued up is The Wild Party (1975) which covers some of the same territory as Babylon (2022). I'll report back with a review.

Another show-biz death that hit hard recently: Burt Bacharach. Lots of movie connection for ol' Burt. Won two Oscars for Raindrop Keep Fallin' and Arthur's theme ('When you caught between the moon and NYC...'), was nom'd for 'Alfie' but lost To 'Born Free' ('Georgy Girl' was another ubiquitous hit song nom'd that year.... In 2022/2023, as is customary these days, none of the song noms, even those by Rihanna and Gaga, have any hit status in the real world. What happened?)

Anyhow Bacharach's death reminded everyone of his truly glorious strand of pop music next to which so much other stuff just seems under-done and fundamentally uninteresting, unmemorable, and even unpleasant. While I was drowning myself in Bacharach-stuff last week two *big* *now* things happened: Ed Sheeran played two sold-out 50K-seat stadium shows near me, and Rihanna did her Superbowl half-time show. Both these guys are impressive in their own ways but neither has a single song in their catalogues that could get into a Bacharach top 20. The gap is huge. So, Bacharach's death made contemporary music look bad and his connection to movies highlighted contemporary mainstream film's strange musical inertness.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Between those two movies, I rather fancy Stella Steven in... The Ballad of Cable Hogue.
Peckinpah's own fave of his films.

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It was? I did not know that(as Ed McMahon used to say, but who remembers HIM?)

As I've noted, somewhere between Hitchcock and QT , I was a big Sam Peckinpah fan. The Wild Bunch uber alles(a cinematic spectable like none other with a sad story amidst all the blood) but also Ride the High Country(tears at the end), Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs, Junior Bonner, The Getaway, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid(butchered though it was), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia(what a title!), The Killer Elite, Cross of Iron...all good stuff.

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I like it a lot too and Stella Stevens is a sexy ray of sunshine in that film.

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Oh, yeah -- here was a sexy actress fully in touch with her sexuality and yet also possessed of a certain "niceness."

A great line from "preacher" David Warner in that movie, about women(about Stella):

"Funny thing...it doesn't matter how much or how little you've wandered around...how many women you've been with. Every once in awhile, one of them cuts right through you. Right straight into you."

Tell, it brother. Been there.

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Stevens' Obit in the NY Times was very interesting to me. It goes through her frustrations about trying to direct etc.. I wasn't aware of that side of her:

https://archive.ph/OG2jK [allow a few seconds for the images to load]

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Yes, she tried to stay on the creative side. I haven't read all of the article but I think her son Andrew and she tried to get things going more behind the camera.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I mainly know Raquel Welch's '60s stuff, especially Fantastic Voyage and Bedazzled. Her death and reading her Obits has got me interested in tracking down some her 1970s stuff. The one I currently have queued up is The Wild Party (1975) which covers some of the same territory as Babylon (2022). I'll report back with a review.

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Ah, yes, some of that Wild Party stuff "sounds" in the opening party scene of Babylon. I'll be looking forward to your review.

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I think Raquel Welch ultimately doled out her stardom to TV and stage performance and faded away from movies. Stella Stevens was willing to stay in the public eye longer and to "look old" but Welch seems to have hidden herself a way. She was funny in Seinfeld though, and that was the 90's.

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In 1968, she made a standard Western called Bandolero. She said "The over the hill gang made that one" but noted that co-star Jimmy Stewart taught her to value her fans and sign autographs ("They buy the tickets") and revealed that she cast an "Aye" vote to let newly Oscared supporting guy George Kennedy go "up above the title" with Stewart, Dean Martin, and her. So...a bit of a melting of the diva on that movie.

And: in QT's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," Brad Pitt drives to his trailer behind a drive-in and on the marquee is: "Lady in Cement" starring Frank Sinatra and Racquel Welch." Misspelling on humorous purpose. Now enshrined in a QT movie.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Another show-biz death that hit hard recently: Burt Bacharach.

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I was "saving" an RIP on Bacharach but Raquel and Stella beat me to it and seemed to "share a theme."

And I have one other RIP I've been sitting on since December -- and it DOES relate to "Psycho." (But then, we are allowed some latitude here and I contend that's a good thing to keep the film world flexible.

Bacharach first, from you:

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Lots of movie connection for ol' Burt. Won two Oscars for Raindrop Keep Fallin' and Arthur's theme ('When you caught between the moon and NYC...'), was nom'd for 'Alfie' but lost To 'Born Free' ('Georgy Girl' was another ubiquitous hit song nom'd that year....

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Robert Redford, star of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, said the one thing he really got WRONG about that movie was the role of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" in importance. I mean, its not really a song you identify with the tough gunfighter the Sundance Kid, is it? But then Redford saw it win an Oscar "and heard it in elevators forever." A backhanded compliment.

I don't much like the song either. Its just a bit too lightweight and simple in verse. It WAS everywhere on the radio in 1969/70 and it kept turning up in "little bitty bits" as part of Burt Bacharach "medlies". I used to joke with my friends about the perfect Burt Bacharach song: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on San Jose." I mean, that guy was EVERYWHERE.

All that said, around the year 2000(now 22 years in the past) I was gifted a multi-CD set of ALMOST EVERY Burt Bacharach song ever made and wow...he had a lot of good ones, some famous, some not.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

It begins as early as the bouncy theme song for the Steve McQueen SciFi classic, The Blob ("Be careful of the blob...it creeps and seeps and crawls all across the floor and out the door...beware of the blob.") It ends in an 80's era where the "Bacharach sound" rather disappears(the all-star group song "That's What Friends Are For"..I can't hear Burt in it.)

But in between?

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Well consider the so-bad-its-good James Bond spoof of 1967, Casino Royale. Burt's overall score, "wall to wall" is totally Burt. There's a classic sexy love song -- "The Look of Love" that was Oscar nommed and lost to "Talk to the Animals"(because Dr. Doolittle had to win SOMETHING.) But there is also the catchy horn-power title instrumental(by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass) and a totally exciting and sexy long dance musical stretch for Joanna Pettit's "Mata Hara dance" in front of David Niven. Not a very good movie, but a GREAT score.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

A bit more Bacharach, and later an RIP for the "Psycho" relevant person:

Bacharach won for the score for Butch Cassidy, which was the Number One hit of 1969, so my complaint here likely falls on dead ears -- but I heard complaints about it from my movie going parents when they saw the movie in 1969, and I'm with them:

During the Bolivia part of the movie -- which I will "wokely" say basically shows two handsome WASP guys holding up groups of poor South Americans and their bankers -- director George Roy Hill directs a wordless montage of robberies, chases, explosions(of bank vaults) ...and has Bacharach overlay the whole sequence with a very "1969 pseudo hip" chorus of men and women aimlessly singing SOUNDS "bop be bop be bop bop bop....do de doo de doo doo doo..." It is SO cutesy and goes on for SO long and has "sealed in amber" Burt Bacharach almost at his worst. (His worst was to come in 1973.)

And yet so much OTHER stuff to LOVE in the Bacharach canon . That 2000 CD collection taught me. You've got your Alfie and your What's New Pussycat and your Look of Love and all the Dionne Warwick songs(which helped make the Julia Roberts movie "My Best Friend's Wedding a hit), and lesser known good stuff like Promise Her Anything(from a Warren Beatty movie) and Made in Paris(from an Ann Margret movie) -- BOTH sung by Tom Jones. You've got the very powerful "A House is Not a Home" and the soulful "Message to Michael"(which also has a man singing the song to a women in another version.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

You've got "Nikki" -- what was "Nikki"? It was an instrumental that became the theme song for the ABC Movie of the Week ("Tonight...an original motion picture produced specifically for ABC" -- which usually meant a cheap, short crappy TV movie.) Nikki was the name of the daughter of Burt Bacharach and once-wife Angie Dickinson. Nikki's was a sad story. Born with some mental defects, ultimately a suicide as a young woman. Burt's life was not ALL blessed. (And Angie was one of Burt's FOUR wives, whom he married between affairs and flings -- he was a ladies man.)

Here's a forgotten Bacharach work: the score for a Broadway musical called "Promises, Promises" based on my second favorite movie of 1960 -- Billy Wilder's The Apartment. The soundtrack album spawned two radio hits -- the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." My parents had the soundtrack album and I memorized the tunes -- some of which were good, some not so good. Its funny to watch the REAL Apartment and hear Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray and Shirley MacLaine give out "cues" for the musical to come in 1968. For instance, MacMurray says to Lemmon about the key to Lemmon's apartment: "Its our little secret" -- well, that's a song for ALL the cheating men in "Promises Promises": "Its our Little Secret" is an OK comedy tune. Lemmon's melancholy meet up with a floozie at a bar at Christmas becomes an attempted pick me up with the lyric "Forget the past, and think about the present...the present's very pleasant...forget what the future might bring." And the Xmas party scene from the movie becomes a big number called (!) "Turkey Lurkey Time."

"Promises Promises" starred Jerry Orbach of Law and Order(a YOUNG Jerry Orbach) in the Lemmon role and the musical was pitched for a movie with Dustin Hoffman and Liza Minnelli. I think we dodged a bullet on that one. I'm no big Jack Lemmon fan, but he and Shirley MacLaine were perfect and irreplaceable.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

"Lost Horizon" of 1973 is the big Hollywood musical(from Frank Capra's classic film) that pretty much stopped Burt Bacharach dead as a "force" and, worse, evidently broke up his team with lyricist Hal David.

I watched that movie all the way through a few months ago, and its weird. It has the cheapness of a Universal backlot job(the temple WAS filmed on the Universal backlot, I went to it on the tour) but it is a Columbia movie. The cast is top notch -- Peter Finch, three years before Network, and Oscar in Network(and his death, he looks fine here.) Ingmar Bergman fave Liv Ullman brought over to try to be Julie Andrews(and failing, big.) George Kennedy in the Thomas Mitchell role. Talented dancer singer Bobby Van(the true star of the show), Michael York and Olivia Hussey and John Gielgud and Charles Boyer and Sally Kellerman. And ...a big bomb.

Mainly because most of BB's songs here are TERRIBLE. Atonal, wandering, often without a melodic flow.

Weird: the first song doesn't even show UP until 40 minutes in -- like the shower in Psycho.

As for the bad songs, I have a theory: I believe that many of our most talented songwriter-singers eventually "run out of melodies." They literally dry up. James Taylor. Elton John(or whoever wrote his music). Stevie Wonder. Paul McCartney. Its like God only gave them a limited supply of melodies and one day...no more. James Taylor does Christmas songs and covers (Moon River) now. His last album of ORIGINAL songs barely had one memorable melody. He dried up.

I guess that happened to Bacharach on Lost Horizon. With two exceptions -- the title tune over the credits(where the tune STILL takes a long time to finally emerge) and the movie's set piece: "The World is a Circle."

"The World is a Circle" is a great song but poor Liv Ullman can't sell it at all. Her arm movements and dance movements are all wrong. Children and Bobby Van and a dubbed female singer(the BIG cheat) carry it for her.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Best, though: I did some YouTube research on Lost Horizon and found an excerpt from a 1973 TV special about the movie in which we watch the REAL Burt Bacharach "direct and coach" a group of cute children in how to sing "The World Is a Circle." He is kind but tough with them, very much in his "zone" -- when he says "there will only be ONE figure here -- a tuba" it sounds like "TOO-BAH!" and his teaching power is on full display. When the kids sing the whole song -- its a lot better than Liv Ullman.

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Bette Midler said of Lost Horizon "I never miss a Liv Ullman musical," and ol' Bette resurfaced to celebrate a late triumph for Bacharach when she gave out the Best Song of 1981 Oscar at the 1982 ceremony. The winner was "Best That You Can Do" from Arthur.

You can see this on YouTube. Bette's hilarious all the way through ("Endless Love...from the endless movie of the same name") and then awards the Oscar to FOUR people -- Bacharach, his THEN-wife Carole Bayer Sager, the song's singer Christopher Cross and Peter Allen who reveals that the line "When you get caught between the moon and New York City" was HIS, based on having to circle NYC in a plane waiting to land at Kennedy(a romantic idea from a real life nightmare.)

Its funny. The release of Psycho is in a "fantasy land" of made up memory for me. I was alive but totally unaware of Psycho, its impact, its crowds. However, by 1981, I had been around quite long enough to be alive and aware of everything, and though 1981 was a long time ago, I remember it well and warmly. Good times. Romance. And a movie like Arthur -- and its theme song on the radio all the time -- to make the summer of 1981 just that much MORE pleasant and happy and romantic.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Arthur was that rarest of rareites: a true sleeper hit. This was the summer of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Superman II and For Your Eyes Only, and here was this twee little comedy about a rich drunk hitting BIG at the box office and GROWING in grosses each week. Dudley Moore (replacing fading star George Segal) had had a hit 2 years earlier with "10," now he had a second BIGGER hit(and an Oscar nom) and got to be a movie star ...for about three more years.

No matter. The script is hilarious. EVERYBODY was doing the lines and acting drunk like Arthur that summer. John Gielgud won one of those "the character wins the Oscar" for playing the snooty butler who really loves his rich drunk charge, and is dying, and needs to fix him up soon. Even Liza Minnelli FINALLY got some of her "Cabaret" star power back as Arthur's quirky love. One sad side note as I recall is that the writer-director of Arthur died shortly after making it, so we never got anything from him again. (The sequel to and remake of Arthur were...awful.)

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So when Burt Bacharach died , the whole world -- which needs love sweet love, that's the only thing that there's just too little of -- reflected on all the decades he was part of our soundtrack. He was called the "Muse of the suburbs," playing on a lot of LPS in dens and entering the fabric of our lives, sometimes with good songs, sometimes with not-so-good songs, but always THERE.

RIP.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

OK, one more RIP here. I"ve been sitting on this one since December 2022 but he IS Psycho relevant, and interesting in some other ways:

A British director of TV and movies named Mike Hodges. Died at age 90. A nice long life.

A nice long career, too, though for me, he boils down to only four movies and one interesting Psycho anecdote. Here goes:

Hodges "made his name" with the 1971 British Michael Caine crime film, "Get Carter." Its my second favorite movie of 1971(after Dirty Harry) and sometimes when I see it again, I like it BETTER than Dirty Harry. Dirty Harry had that Hollywood Panavision polish -- Get Carter is down and dirty, gritty, immensely powerful -- I'll never forget it. It has won titles like "Best British Crime Film" and "Best British Film"(period) in some polls . That's OK by me.

The plot is simple but vicious. London mob enforcer Michael Caine defies his London mob bosses and takes a train north to the seaside village of Newcastle to investigate the drunk driving death of his brother, and to try to care for his brother's teen daughter. Caine is certain his brother was murdered, and he's gonna get him some revenge and its GLORIOUS.

Newcastle circa 1971 is at once very depressing and somehow exotic and alluring. We see how its very poor people still manage to eke out a living and to forget their woes in pubs and dance clubs. Aside from the "innocents" it seems that every man is a criminal and every woman is a hooker or in porn. That's the world Caine confronts and when he finds out what REALLY happened to his brother -- and his niece(who might be his daughter)...watch out. A lot of vicious, semi-psychotic killing ensues. And a lot of great comedy lines!

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Caine turned down the rapist-killer Bob Rusk in Frenzy around this time, but he's pretty damn psycho as Carter. Difference is..he's OUR psycho..our hero. He roughs up two women, kills one of them directly, one indirectly so we get a sense of Rusk in the performance. Still, he's killing CRIMINAL women here -- in Frenzy, Rusk kills innocent women. Caine knew: there is a difference.

Get Carter also has a tres cool, synthesizer jazz score by Roy Budd that gives the movie its bleak mood as surely as Herrmann makes Vertigo romantic -- and it also fits in with the Shaft and Dirty Harry(Lalo Schrfin) scores of 1971.

It was all the way to 1980 before Mike Hodges got a "big movie again" and it couldn't have been more different than the realistic Get Carter. Flash Gordon was Dino De Laurentis trying to cash in on Star Wars with a bizarre, surreal "spaghetti SciFi actioner" that had Prestige Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, a vapid American blond named Sam Jones as Flash , and a handsome British guy named Timothy Dalton in SUPPORT. It had weird orange skies in space and a classic Queen soundtrack including the title tune.

Its a cult classic, and decades later, a young teen in my circle showed me how the modern comedy "Ted" (about an oversexed talking teddy bear and his adult pal, Mark Wahlberg) made both Flash Gordon and Sam Jones hot again. Ted the bear LOVES Flash Gordon and LOVES the rather broken down blond beauty Sam Jones. In Ted 2, Ted seeks Jones' "seed" to impregnate his girlfriend. Jones woefully reveals that years of cocaine have rendered it useless...so Ted and Wahlberg sneak out to get the same baby making stuff from...Tom Brady. But I digress. "Flash Gordon" joined "Get Carter" on Mike Hodges cult classic list.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Years and years passed, and then in 1998, Hodges returned to his London/England crime roots for a movie called Croupier, which helped make Clive Owen a star as a London card dealer with mob ties (and some hot women.) The James Bond talk began immediately and hey -- Hodges had launched Timothy Dalton....

Another 5 years took Hodges and Clive Owen to a movie called "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" which I saw out of loyalty to both men. It was a weird story. I can't remember any of it except the climactic dialogue scene, which my sig other and I started laughing at because Owen keeps saying the SAME THING OVER AND OVER when told something shocking about his dead brother:

Man: Well, your brother is dead but..
Owen: What are you trying to tell me?
Man: Well, its what happened before then..
Owen: What do you mean?
Man: Well...he was raped.
Owen: Really what are you trying to tell me?
Man: You know...raped.
Owen: I don't understand. What are you trying to tell me?
Man: Well...he was raped. He couldn't handle it.
Owen: What are you trying to tell me?
Man: Well, he was..
Owen: No..I don't understand. What are you trying to tell me?

And on and on. I'm exaggerating but only a little.

So let's leave Mike Hodges with Get Carter(an all time great), Flash Gordon(fun camp) and distantly with Croupier.

And let's leave Mike Hodges with the April 1976 issue of Film Comment magazine, which celebrated Hitchcock's entire career to promote Family Plot. Various famous people offered short interviews -- even Cary Grant(about four lines). And James Stewart.

But Mike Hodges wrote the best essay. About how Psycho changed his life and set him on his director's path when it came to his small North England town in the summer of 1960.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Hodges noted how the town had a giant Palace Theater that usually played the "regular stuff" to near empty houses..a melancholy salute to the death of the movie business (in 1960!)

Until it was announced that Psycho was coming to the theater. The WHOLE TOWN knew about Psycho, had heard about it "through the grapevine," had read some reviews and articles.

When Psycho played that old Palace Theater, the lines were forever and the theater was packed to the rafters the night young Mike Hodges saw it. The crowd murmured through the "Certificate X" sign put on screen before the movie started and stayed rapt throughout.

Hodges took pleasure writing this: "The private detective Arbogast looked up at the stairs. The whole crowd screamed DON'T GO UP THERE! And when Arbogast DID..pandemonium! The DOG WAS OUT OF THE MANGER."

Hodges wrote that in caps(clever man.) I don't know what "Dog was out of the manger" meant, but he communicated how the whole British crowd screamed as one and how, for one blessed night(perhaps a few weeks more) Psycho brought back the movies and their magic to his small England town...and set him on course to become a director. (Indeed, there is a BIT of Psycho in Get Carter, come to to think of it.)

So RIP, Mike Hodges. Get Carter. Flash Gordon. And one of the best pieces on Psycho I have ever read....

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

The Wild Party (1975) seems to have been a very conflicted production. Apparently it was going to be a full musical at one point and the best sequences in the released version (Director's cut) are its musical numbers, including one, 'Singapore Sally' sung and danced passably by Welch. The film was a strangely, non-genre, non-explotation prestigious production for Corman's AIP, but I'd guess that it was sharply constrained in its budget nonetheless. It's got a cramped, cheap look (mostly just a single location) about it compared to Day of the Locust in particular but in fact compared to almost any other film of note from 1975. And director James Ivory (who'd go on to make bank on literary adaptation/costume dramas in the 1980s and 1990s (Room with a View, Remains of the Day, etc.)) doesn't exhibit much interest in either shot-making or editing here. It feels very flat and TV-ish for the most part.

The lead James Coco plays a Fatty Arbuckle-alike, Jolly Grim, who's hitting the wall in 1929 with the transition to sound. Racquel is his long-term mistress, Queenie, who Grim saved from the gutter as a teenager a decade ago. Now stressed and failing, Jolly berates Queenie to her face all the time but whenever they're apart he pines for her. For her part, Queenie's sorta trying to leave but as soon as they're apart she feels guilty about how much she owes Jolly. At the big party Jolly's throwing to preview his (self-financed) first movie in 5 years to producers things come to a head as his silent, mutiply-dated film bombs while Queenie falls for a guest at the party, the hottest young male star around, with the porn star name, Dale Sword (played by a very good-looking actor Perry King who impresses - how did he miss becoming a big star?). (Cont'd)

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

(Cont'd) Since you'd be thick not to recognize that Jolly Grim is based on Fatty Arbuckle (and since the film begins with a poet-producer friend of Jolly's in Hospital looking back at the Wild Party where he got his injuries) and since this *is* 1975, the year/time of extreme films such as La Grand Bouffe, The Last Woman, In The Realm of the Senses, Salo, we expect that the party is going to conclude with death, mutilation, pedophilia, *something* terrible, and a 13-14 year old girl floats around the very adult party and more or less lands in Jolly's lap so the movie clearly is flagging to us that things are going to take a very nasty turn indeed. But, no, the film pulls that punch and ends just with relatively bloodless (and somewhat ineffectually staged) adult deaths and injuries. Pretty tame glimpses of orgy activity in the last 20 minutes of the party and film were enough to get the film its X-rating at the time and drugs are mostly talked about rather than seen. Moreover, what leads to Queenie and her paramour being shot is pretty stupid and is seemingly driven by budget consideration. Holly is well aware of and very angry about Queenie's flirtations and imminent tryst and Queenie knows all this. But rather than leave the party and, as it were, go to his (Dale Sword's) place for the deed, they instead just head to an upstairs bedroom in Jolly's mansion, i.e., where all the main actions has taken place. Not only is this generally insane, it seems deeply out of character for Queenie whom the movie wants to insist is not cruel and would not want to add any unnecessary humiliation to Jolly's situation.

In sum, while the film has its moments (manly musical), it's quite slapdash and uninvolving for the most part, and is also budget-constained to the nth degree. Welch is at her loveliest here but doesnt really convince as a 1920s chick. James Coco also feels very from-the-1970s, so there's a question of basic miscasting here I'd say, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The Wild Party (1975) ...The film was a strangely, non-genre, non-explotation prestigious production for Corman's AIP, but I'd guess that it was sharply constrained in its budget nonetheless. It's got a cramped, cheap look (mostly just a single location) about it compared to Day of the Locust in particular but in fact compared to almost any other film of note from 1975.

---

Roger Corman's "American International Pictures' (AIP) has gotten its share of articled and books and lore. For an outfit that turned out some REALLY cheap looking movies, some filmed in TWO to four DAYS...Roger Corman seems to have attempted, over the years, to "up the quality quotient" and compete a little bit both with studio product AND with art indies(hence James Ivory directing this.)

Corman starts in the 50's with stuff like "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and then made that run of Technicolor(or somethingcolor; cheap) "Vincent Price Edgar Allen Poe movies"(classy, respected) and then had his late 60's biker/druggie period(with Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Hitchcock's Guy Bruce Dern making their names) and then...in the 70's it seems like Corman felt lost. All his genres were OVER and he had to try something new. Bonnie and Clyde Ripoffs. Serious works.

I recall that not only did fading star Lee Marvin turn down Quint in Jaws, he turned that down to work in an attempted "prestige" AIP movie called Shout at the Devil.

Eventually -- I don't know the exact year -- American International folded and closed. But Corman somehow lived on and worked on. He was a Stanford grad whose movies often looked stupid but he trained Coppola and Bogdanovich and Scorsese and gave Nicholson and DeNiro breaks. Big power player. And yet, as I recall, "the Academy" resisted for years giving Corman an honorary Oscar (despite Big Jack and Easy Rider Fonda and Scorsese lobbying for it) ...because Corman's movies were, in the main, pretty bad (I can't remember -- DID Corman get an Oscar?)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And director James Ivory (who'd go on to make bank on literary adaptation/costume dramas in the 1980s and 1990s (Room with a View, Remains of the Day, etc.)) doesn't exhibit much interest in either shot-making or editing here. It feels very flat and TV-ish for the most part.

--

Well: nature or nuture? You put James Ivory on a Roger Corman movie and I guess he just can't overcome the cheap. (I'm not much of a Merchant-Ivory fan -- its "to each his own" for me. Meanwhile, QT just HATES those movies.)

---

The lead James Coco plays a Fatty Arbuckle-alike, Jolly Grim, who's hitting the wall in 1929 with the transition to sound. Racquel is his long-term mistress, Queenie, who Grim saved from the gutter as a teenager a decade ago. Now stressed and failing, Jolly berates Queenie to her face all the time but whenever they're apart he pines for her. For her part, Queenie's sorta trying to leave but as soon as they're apart she feels guilty about how much she owes Jolly

---

Raquel Welch spent the 70's "trying to get respectable." Her "Three Musketeers" reviews and awards had given her some "serious cred" and I suppose a movie like The Wild Party was part of her plan to ...get respectable. James Coco had a bit of a "Character Star" career for a few years, and the "romantic match" of Coco and Welch would tell the fictional tale of Fatty Arbuckle in all its rough glory. Fatty WAS a big star, an attractive but poor woman WOULD hang around but...such a mismatch. If the money and stardom and power goes...Fatty's in trouble. (Or Jolly Grim.)

Of course, the REAL Fatty and his REAL wild party were different...the female victim was no Raquel Welch. And yet, "the legend lives on" -- Fatty had to deal not only with career decline but with a trial and scandal and..over. (Arbuckle's fall has been countered by the many celebrities of recent years who have survived their own scandals, they have certain protections of money and lawyers.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

and since this *is* 1975, the year/time of extreme films such as La Grand Bouffe, The Last Woman, In The Realm of the Senses, Salo, we expect that the party is going to conclude with death, mutilation, pedophilia, *something* terrible, and a 13-14 year old girl floats around the very adult party and more or less lands in Jolly's lap so the movie clearly is flagging to us that things are going to take a very nasty turn indeed. But, no, the film pulls that punch and ends just with relatively bloodless (and somewhat ineffectually staged) adult deaths and injuries. Pretty tame glimpses of orgy activity in the last 20 minutes of the party and film were enough to get the film its X-rating at the time and drugs are mostly talked about rather than seen.

--

"The Wild Party" got an X rating? I didn't remember that. Hmm...Raquel Welch in an X-rated movie and yet...no nudity, ever. Good for her. I guess.

I expect that (a) Roger Corman and (b) American filmmakers in general...simply weren't up to putting on the screen the kind of horrific sex/violence outrages that foreign films were giving us in La Grand Bouffe, The Last Woman, In The Realm of the Senses, Salo, etc. America remains more puritanical in the main than other film making countries. Especially now.

---
CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Pretty tame glimpses of orgy activity in the last 20 minutes of the party and film were enough to get the film its X-rating at the time and drugs are mostly talked about rather than seen.

---

Its funny. There is certainly an "orgy" quality to the opening party in Babylon, but that one TOO "pulls its punches." I guess I'll have to watch it again, but I recall a few naked ladies and certain Margot Robbie gyrated well in a barely there red dress but...none of it was very sexy. I guess with orgies -- "you had to be there."

Old Stanley Kubrick at least staged a pretty graphic orgy -- with plenty of sex and gorgeous female bodies -- in his final film Eyes Wide Shut(he died right after making it, too strenuous?), but even that one got panned (even in the uncensored version where you can see EVERYTHING happening.) I dunno -- I found that orgy pretty impressive and involving. But nothing beats the real thing...

Meanwhile, Babylon compressed the entire "Wild Party" story into a few fragmented seconds and some really gross on screen activity with a really gross "stand in for Fatty."

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

while Queenie falls for a guest at the party, the hottest young male star around, with the porn star name, Dale Sword (played by a very good-looking actor Perry King who impresses - how did he miss becoming a big star?).

--

Its tough, but it happens. Perry King got a few movies, and then a lot of TV, and as I recall, he survived. But he never broke through.

Its hard for handsome leading men to somehow differentiate themselves from all the OTHER handsome guys in Hollywood. I recall some agent writing how Robert Redford was handsome , but just a bit MORE handsome -- in specific ways - -than other handsome guys: "Its a matter of millimeters, facially," the guy wrote.

Tyrone Power and Cary Grant and Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis all broke through in certain ways, but it was hard to hang on for all of them -- and Power died young. In the 70's, the handsome guys had to compete in a world where Dustin Hoffman and Walter Matthau(!) were stars with female followings.

I recall Perry King appearing in a "50's leather jacket greaser" movie called "The Lords of Flatbush" where EVERY OTHER UNKNOWN LEAD in it became a star -- Sylvester Stallone and even Henry Winkler as the Fonz -- and King didn't. And he was the LEAD. Oh, well. (Also, Richard Gere got fired off of it -- clashed with Stallone.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

I recall Perry King appearing in a "50's leather jacket greaser" movie called "The Lords of Flatbush" where EVERY OTHER UNKNOWN LEAD in it became a star -- Sylvester Stallone and even Henry Winkler as the Fonz -- and King didn't. And he was the LEAD. Oh, well. (Also, Richard Gere got fired off of it -- clashed with Stallone.)

Interesting. I guess there's nothing to explain really. Stardom is like a golden ticket and there are always only a few golden tickets to be had. Everyone else, hundreds of could-have-beens at every juncture, *don't* get one. I guess that one of the main melancholy pleasures of checking out marginal older movies (as opposed to classics whether acclaimed or overlooked) *is* that you see lots of could-have-beens at their highest points, when they were oh-so-close to having one of those golden tickets. The Wild Party for Perry King is one of those I guess. Cutter's Way for John Heard was another recent case for me.

On the general 'handsome guy problems' theme: I remember seeing The Princess Bride in 1987 and being pretty much sure that Cary Elwes was going to be big star on the strength of that. But while he's kept working, he's never grown as a star. For some damn reason Hollywood wasn't ready to anoint a new pretty boy for another few years when suddenly Leo and Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp would be everywhere. There's a weird generational logic at work perhaps to when particular types of golden ticket are available.

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Something fun from Raquel preserved on youtube: a 1970 CBS TV special with her singing (including 'Raindrops keep falling...' in front of a fountain] and dancing in various glamorous locales (e.g., a lot of Paris) and featuring Bob Hope, Tom Jones, and John Wayne as her special guests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsWsgaHgMQ

I imagine that this was quite something (corniness notwithstanding) in a world of 3 or 4 TV channels, no VCRs, DVDs, the internet, even just before international travel started to become cheap and commonplace (the Boeing 747 is prominently featured).

[–] ccr1633 (1523) 2 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

My favorite Racquel Welch appearance was on the first season of Saturday Night Live when she sang "Superstar" by The Carpenters. She sings the first verse faithfully to lure in an unsuspecting audience. Then John Belushi, clad in a Woodstock era tie-dyed tee shirt, waddles onstage as Joe Cocker and absolutely kills it. Belushi perfectly captured Cocker's gruff stiffness, as if he were perpetually on the brink of rigor mortis. At the end he curls himself into a crescent shape, falls to the ground, and see-saws back and forth in one of the most astounding displays of physical comedy I've ever seen. Welch was cool and a real good sport about it all.

---

Ha. I remember Belushi "doing Joe Cocker" -- side by side WITH the REAL Joe Cocker. A different episode. I've rarely laughed harder at something in my whole life. You had to figure that Joe Cocker REALLY had to be a good sport, but I suppose that Cocker knew it could only help his act to have Belushi imitating him -- as I recall, some of Cocker's spastic movements were "schtick" but some were actual physical problems. Still..it WAS funny and Cocker agreed to appear in the sketch.

I can't remember if it was the Raquel Welch episode or the Dolly Parton episode where the star landed on a planet where the women all had enormous "boobs" and the newcomer's "chest was very flat."

Raquel Welch "protected her brand" through the 70's, 80s and beyond and seemed to become better liked and more respectable as the years passed. That happens a lot in Hollywood -- stars with terrible reputations for ego and diva behavior simply get older and the hatchets are buried.

[–] ccr1633 (1523) 2 years ago

Ha. I remember Belushi "doing Joe Cocker" -- side by side WITH the REAL Joe Cocker. A different episode. I've rarely laughed harder at something in my whole life. You had to figure that Joe Cocker REALLY had to be a good sport

I remember that episode, although I wasn't of the era to see it live. When SNL released all the episodes on DVD I ate them up voraciously. In that Cocker v Cocker skit, I recall the real Joe looking distinctly unamused. That may have been part of the act. He was supposedly cool with it.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Something fun from Raquel preserved on youtube: a 1970 CBS TV special with her singing (including 'Raindrops keep falling...' in front of a fountain]

--

Hah! It just goes to show us the "sychronicity" of the world. Burt Bacharach and Raquel Welch die within weeks of each other and here was a 1970 show that "brought them together" -- her singing his Oscar winning(and really rather too cutesy) song Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head(even the TITLE is cutesy.)

And yet: BB was capable of truly GREAT and moving and involving songs. You mentioned Walk On By as used in The Fabelmans and that song is one of his GREAT ones.

---

and dancing in various glamorous locales (e.g., a lot of Paris) and featuring Bob Hope, Tom Jones, and John Wayne as her special guests:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsWsgaHgMQ

---

I sampled this and...its hard. One does NOT want to be snobbish about these things. You can see here exactly how Raquel Welch's celebrity functioned in its formative stages: do some cheesecake movies, none very good. Pose in a bikini a LOT. Then go on a show with some established old time stars(Hope, Wayne) and one new one(Jones) and show your "chops": singing(not too great), dancing(not too great) but...she was finally a "name" and not just for her bikinis.

My memory bank clicked on this: Raquel Welch was not her real name. Her real name was Jo Raquel Tejada, and she "broke" in a time when that name was too "ethnic." What one sensed then -- and knows now -- is that Raquel Welch was a major Hispanic star who could not SAY that she was. All the same, she took Mexican roles in the Westerns Bandolero and 100 Rifles. It was a different era...about to end.

---
CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I imagine that this was quite something (corniness notwithstanding) in a world of 3 or 4 TV channels, no VCRs, DVDs, the internet, even just before international travel started to become cheap and commonplace (the Boeing 747 is prominently featured)

--

Yep. We took what we got ...and we liked it. I'm reminded of the Springsteen song "57 Channels and There's Nothing On." Today. Back then...3 channels, SOMETHING on. We craved ANYTHING. By the way, in Los Angeles back then -- SEVEN channels. Three networks ABC, CBS, NBC and then local channels with movies and reruns: 5,9, 11, and 13 were their "dial numbers." We had it made in LA in the 60's.

Bob Hope had "specials" all through the year on NBC, about four times a year. You can go look at some of them and see things like Lee Marvin (around 1968)totally hamming it up as a gangster in a not-very-good sketch with Hope but hell, it was LEE MARVIN...available on your home screen.

Theatrical movies were BIG DEALS...aired in November and February("sweeps month" to gauge tip ratings), you couldn't get them anywhere else. Psycho famously got dumped off CBS...but when it played "local" a year later -- it aired in November and February! Guess why?

Another thought that I have about the kind of entertainment evidenced by this Raquel Welch special and the Hope shows is this-- my GRANDPARENTS were around then, and they'd come up in the 10s, 20s, 30s of the 20th Century..on vaudeville and radio, etc...and this was THEIR kind of entertainment. We rather honored THEM by watching these shows with them. (I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't see Psycho when it came out -- as someone wrote, "that was a private teenage preserve" -- along with The Birds.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Yep. We took what we got ...and we liked it.

The overall scarcity of contact with stars built an audience for specials like this, their talk show appearances, etc.. It seems to me that some of that logic of scarcity still applied as recently as the late '90s maybe even the early '00s. It's only after *that* that all movie stars and musicians were more or less *required* to be constantly in contact with, constantly cultivating their fan bases, constantly tweeting, sharing what their back garden looks like (and who it was designed by) or what they had for breakfast on instagram, constantly selling. I'm thinking, for example, of how it was big deal when Jim Carrey came down from the movie star mountain and appeared on SNL. These days you can creep yourself out by following Carrey's every last thought on social media 24/7. In general fans now are lured to think that they are best buddies with stars of all sorts, with all the various problems *that* brings for both fans and stars alike.

this Raquel Welch special and the Hope shows is this-- my GRANDPARENTS were around then, and they'd come up in the 10s, 20s, 30s of the 20th Century..on vaudeville and radio, etc...and this was THEIR kind of entertainment.

Good point. Hell, on UK TV full-blown minstrel shows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMoLprj921o
were very popular until finally being retired in 1978. And I vaguely remember from my '70s childhood all manner of stars from earlier entertainment eras (vaudeville, radio-drama, silent film, you name it) still hanging around, greeted rapturously on talk shows etc.. It's important to remember that the audience for all those figures was *still there* then so it makes complete sense.

[–] letess (1513) 2 years ago

She told everyone her father was Bolivian - that she was half Bolivian. She said her father was also abusive to her mother. Her first husband was named James Welch and he’s the father of her two kids. So it’s not a stretch for her name to be Raquel Welch. She did say someone wanted her to change her first name to Debbie. She said she was proud of her heritage. Raquel is a great name. Although no one could pronounce it. People would say RaKWELL instead of RaKELL.

During this time period in the late 60s and early 70s, there were a lot of sultry earthy dark Italian actresses. I’m pretty sure she drew on these. Especially Claudia Cardinale in The Professionals and Once Upon a Time in the West. However, 100 Rifles was quite controversial for the time.

She said of herself that she was really not an actress in the true sense of the word, but a presence.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

She told everyone her father was Bolivian - that she was half Bolivian.

---

And her other half?

I'm just wondering of her background. She certainly projected earthy non-WASP Latino/Hispanic vibes. I know there were latino "bombshells' in the 40's, etc -- but Welch was a contrast to the WASPy MM, Kim Novak, Stella Stevens, Jill St. John mold.

--

She said her father was also abusive to her mother.

---

Often our major stars come from tough beginnings.

---

Her first husband was named James Welch and he’s the father of her two kids. So it’s not a stretch for her name to be Raquel Welch.

--

Bingo! I did not know that was once her married name. I thought it was given to her to "anglo-cize" her. Of course, it DID. But I didn't know that was once her real married name. And I forgot about the kids.

For awhile there, one of her husbands was her manager -- a boyish, not very macho guy who looked like the luckiest man in the world. I'm reminded that a movie journalist named Joe Hyams was married to blonde (Swedish?) bombshell Elke Sommer for a few years and after their divorce he said : "No regrets, don't you get it? I was married to Elke Sommer! It didn't MATTER for how long."

--

She did say someone wanted her to change her first name to Debbie.

---

When I'm glad they stopped THAT.

--

She said she was proud of her heritage. Raquel is a great name. Although no one could pronounce it. People would say RaKWELL instead of RaKELL.

--

I always had that problem. Tarantino had fun with the misspelling on the marquee in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ("Racquel Welch.")

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

During this time period in the late 60s and early 70s, there were a lot of sultry earthy dark Italian actresses. I’m pretty sure she drew on these. Especially Claudia Cardinale in The Professionals and Once Upon a Time in the West.

---

Yes...let's face it...that was a "type," and the Italian Cardinale worked fine as a Mexican(casting used to be that way.)

I daresay that Welch was a bit too wooden in her line readings to match what Cardinale did. I'm glad that Raquel Welch was NOT in The Professionals(a favorite of mine) or OUATITW. Bandolero was a better, more shallow fit.

---

However, 100 Rifles was quite controversial for the time.

---

Well, the clinch/sex scene between black Jim Brown and Hispanic Raquel Welch was a sensation of sorts but...I really think society, even back then, was more than ready for it. Only gossips looking for 1969 "click bait"(er, selling newspapers) really CARED.

---

She said of herself that she was really not an actress in the true sense of the word, but a presence.

--

She understood herself. I suppose also, like Zsa Zsa Gabor then, and Kim Kardashian now, she was "famous for being beautiful" and "famous for being famous."

--

I've read up on her since beginning this post, and it looks like she figured out early on that she was NOT going to be a true movie star, and needed to use the stage(mainly) and TV(a bit) to keep her image going.

[–] letess (1513) 2 years ago

I don’t think anyone could beat the Italian movie stars at this time. Not Elke, Stella. There is nothing like Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale and the spectacular Virna Lisi. And then later, Ornella Muti. And they could act. Julie Christie was phenomenal. Ann Margaret was trying too hard to be a sex symbol but she was really good in Cincinnati Kid - so was Tuesday Weld and then later in 52 Pickup. But that one with Elvis Presley. Viva Las Vegas kind of fit in with the surfing and car racing movies at the time. Angie Dickinson made some good movies - my favorite was Point Blank. Lee Remick was great and so was Natalie Wood - these two were actually fantastic beyond belief.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

What a pleasant, relaxing and..stimulating list to read.

Virna Lisi coming out of that cake in a whipped cream bikini in "How to Murder Your Wife," with Neal Hefti's ultra-sexy yet ultra-romantic music. Bachelor Jack Lemmon was a goner.

I don't know if its purely a matter of feminist politics from the 70's on, but we surely had a lot of buxom beauties of all nationalities in the 60's -- and they seemed to ENJOY showing themselves off on screen.

I'm reminded of a line from Ingrid Bergman in Saratoga Trunk from the 40s:

Man: You're beautiful.
Bergman: Yes...isn't it wonderful?

These ladies enjoyed showing the world what they had.

PS. There were plenty of beauties on screen from the 70's on, but rather constrained.

[–] letess (1513) 2 years ago

It’s funny you mention Saratoga Trunk - it’s one of my favorites. Clint Maroon and Cleo Dulaine in NOLA and then Saratoga. And of course, the fantastic British actress Flora Robson - doing what - a creole? People talk about woke casting, but before there was woke, there was 60 years of un-woke when all white actresses played black women. Ava Gardner, Natalie Wood, Yvonne DeCarlo, Hedy Lamar. And then out of nowhere, the original Imitation of Life 1934 had the brilliant Fredi Washington, who was a black actress. It seems things were more real in the 30s than anything later on. Maybe Dorothy Dandridge - Carmen Jones - Otto Preminger - but that was an all black cast.

You mention buxom beauties of that time period - most of these women were the real deal, including Raquel. Jacqueline Bisset was real. A lot of actresses altered their figures when they were already really good like Jane Fonda.

Tahnee was born in 1961 and One Million Years BC is 1966.

Someone mentioned Raquel’s poster in Shawshank but I think of Rita Hayworth. Rita was half Latina as well but there is nothing like the movie Gilda. It was unfortunate for that time period, an actress was considered older in her 30s. In Pal Joey, Rita played the older woman to Kim Novak and Rita was only 39. Frankie was 42.

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

I don’t think anyone could beat the Italian movie stars at this time.

Something special went on in Italy post-War, producing by the late '50s 'La Dolce Vita' recorded in Fellini's 1960 film of the same name. A new sort of publically exhibited celebrity co-evolved with the first draft of the modern trash media and social media ecosystem. Fashion and partying and film-making and design simultanenously exploded there and beautiful people from all over Europe (and beyond) flocked there to join in the fun. Rome in particular became a Hollywood for Europe and truly vast numbers of genre films were made as well as more prestigious films (including lots of runaway Hollywood productions). Incredible beauty was, in effect, just treated as a free-flowing natural resource by producers. Your average Giallo had 3 or 4 stunners in it and for them acting talent or any particular language was highly negotiable since sound was post-recorded. Below the level of your Cardinales and Lorens there were gals like my fave Catherine Spaak who was in 3 or 4 classics including Il Sorpasso. I mean just look at her:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_noia_%281963%29_-_Catherine_Spaak.jpg
and here she is on the same location chatting with Bette Davis:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_noia_%281963%29_-_Bette_Davis_and_Catherine_Spaak.jpg
See also Monica Vitti, Stefania Sandrelli, Dominique Sanda, Edwige Fenech, Barbara Bouchet, Eleanora Giorgi, Barbara Bach, Dagmar Lassander, Haydee Politiff, Marisa Mel, and so on. A bunch of economic and social factors all came into alignment to produce such an excess of extreme beauty, all captured on film, in one place, for a period of 15+ years. But it really happened.

[–] letess (1513) 2 years ago

This is really a magical post.

I would add to the list: Lea Massari, Stephan Audran, Antonella Lualdi.

I do know Catherine Spaak. She passed away last year. Le Trou is one of my favorite films even though that was a small role. And I love giallos - She was in Ill gatto a nove code. I also saw her a few years ago in the Venetian detective series - Zen. Some of the actresses you list I have never heard of. Haydee Politoff - and I saw The Collector. A lot of these are definitely from giallos. My favorite giallo was Bird with the Crystal Plumage - Suzy Kendall was the lead in this one but there was this other actress who was just in it for minute and she was memorable - Rosita Torosh. Another actress not mentioned but is my favorite is Laura Antonelli - in Wifemistress, Malicious, The Innocent. A few years ago, I saw the movie The Great Beauty with Toni Servillo and it was a gift. The viewer traveled with Toni through Rome and saw a different kind of travelogue.

A lot of these films you have to figure out how to see. If you’re from the US, access to movies made overseas don’t make it here unless they were shown in a small art house theater with one screening only. Plus, they were shown a very long time ago. I am discovering movies I can only see on the Criterion Channel and on my computer. One actress from this time time period just dazzles. And that is Romy Schneider. I had seen La Piscine years ago. And The Train. Romy and Delon were the ultimate couple and I can see why Visconti originally wanted them instead of Gianni and Antonelli - but I loved The Innocent just the same. Jennifer O’Neill was in this too. But I just saw for the first time - Cesar and Rosalie, The Things of Life. And I can’t get over these films. But it was Max et les ferrailleurs that was the magnificent one for me with the great Michel Piccoli and Romy. And I always wanted to see Garde a vue after I saw the Hackman remake Under Suspicion, but I can’t find it anywhere to watch.

Anyway - really great post.

[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Thanks Letess. It sounds like you have a lot of experience in this area and I'm noting down many of the names of films and people that you mention that I've not seen or heard of before too.

So much to comment on but perhaps The Great Beauty deserves special mention. In many ways it felt to me like a simultaneous sequel to La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8&1/2 (1963) and I confess that I found it more ingenious than affecting and in the short term it just made me want to revisit those masterpieces (which I did!). I need to watch The Great Beauty again and try to see it more for itself.

Obviously *part* of what TGB is about is something of which those of us from relatively young countries have only a secondhand grasp: If you're Italian you grow up surrounded by beautiful ruins from previous golden ages; your ancestors were absolute top dogs 2000 years ago and again in the Renaissance. And now Sorrentino is adding to that list (and to the weight on the present if you're Italian) a third Golden Age personified and captured by Fellini at his peak.

Those of us who aren't Italian, however, don't share this ambivalence about the prior Golden Ages, we just get to enjoy the most recent one from the lowest Giallos [e.g, one I can't get over is One on Top of the Other (Una sull'altra) (1969) dir. by the mostly wretched Lucio Fulci which sees Jean Sorel and Marisa Mell restage a Vertigo-ish story in a California where everyone speaks Italian! It's so bizarre.] to the highest artsiest triumphs of Fellini, Visconti, Pasolini, Antonioni, Leone, etc..

[–] letess (1513) 2 years ago

Her mother was wasp-y. English. She was close to her mother and intervened when her dad was abusive. I can’t believe that she had two kids before One Million Years DC. Damon and Tahnee who was in Cocoon when Vanity dropped out. Not sure on that exactly. But her figure after two kids is amazing. And trying to make your mark with two kids is amazing on her part. I never thought she could act. Even a little bit. But she did have an interesting list of films. The roller derby one too. I like the film Last of Sheila which she just happened to be in.

Do you remember Yvette Mimieux from this time period. The Time Machine. She was on the cover of Life or whatever with an orange bikini and a surfboard on the beach. She was half Latina too. But a blue-eyed blonde.

Elke Sommer was also a painter when she was married to Hyams.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Her mother was wasp-y. English.

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Hmm...this is interesting. I always thought that RW had a certain 'WASPY" tone to her voice. Mixed racial components can make for unique types of beauty. (As in your notation of Yvette Mimeux.)

I might add that while RW's line readings might be a bit wooden, Claudia Cardinale had trouble with her English pronunciations on "The Professionals," and THAT sounded a little amateur, too. But it made sense that Claudia's Mexican character would have trouble with English.

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She was close to her mother and intervened when her dad was abusive.

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Good! And once you are a movie star/celebrity, you can hire men to take care of that, too.

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---- I can’t believe that she had two kids before One Million Years DC. Damon and Tahnee who was in Cocoon when Vanity dropped out.

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Tahnee in Cocoon and Tyrone Power's son in the same film were both attractive people, but unforuately , they were rather "visually weaker" versions of their famous parents. Didn't know that about Vanity.

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Not sure on that exactly. But her figure after two kids is amazing. And trying to make your mark with two kids is amazing on her part.

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Well, pretty much ANY person who becomes ANY sort of "Name" in Hollywood is someone who knew how to persevere, fight for their celebrity. Of course, like many in Hollywood, RW knew she was gorgeous as a starting point. But there are a LOT of women like her in Hollywood.

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CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I never thought she could act. Even a little bit. B

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Oh, that's always been hard for me to gauge. She rarely got good scripts. Its hard to act well reading bad lines. With The Three Musketeers and Last of Sheila, she got good scripts and she was...OK.

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she did have an interesting list of films. The roller derby one too.

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She got banged up realgood making that. It came out in the same summer of 1972 as her cult Western "Hannie Caulder." I saw both of them at the drive-in. Back when drive-ins were cool.

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I like the film Last of Sheila which she just happened to be in.

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I've only seen The Last of Sheila all the way through once. I don't remember RW's part being very big, or her lasting to the end. Maybe she was a murder victim. I can't remember. I DO remember James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, James Mason, and especially Dyan Cannon.

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Do remember Yvette Mimieux from this time period. The Time Machine.

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A favorite movie.

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She was on the cover of Life or whatever with an orange bikini and a surfboard on the beach.

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Yep.

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She was half Latina too. But a blue-eyed blonde.

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I did not know that. Yvette Mimeux could be sexy, but she projected a rather teenage, almost child-like quality that was a bit hard to "sell" as a sex symbol. Dangerous. She was good as a total wide-eyed innocent(to be protected by time traveller Rod Taylor) in The Time Machine.

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Elke Sommer was also a painter when she was married to Hyams.

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As I mentioned upthread, beautiful bombshells were encouraged to find other creative outlets for when their looks faded. Except modernly ...looks don't fade entirely. Wigs. GOOD plastic surgery. Healthy lifestyles.

[–] ccr1633 (1523) 2 years ago

Raquel Welch's most lasting legacy might well be her role as the cupcake on the wall in The Shawshank Redemption.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Raquel Welch's most lasting legacy might well be her role as the cupcake on the wall in The Shawshank Redemption.

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I forgot that one, but yeah...you're probably right.

That's a very famous movie, not a hit on release but now seen by millions on VHS, DVD, and cable. And that poster is VERY important to the movie ..(followijg Rita Hayworth as a 40's pinup on the wall to show the passage of the years.)

That's Welch in her famous One Million Years BC costume. Lousy movie. Lasting image.