comfy chair! Bob & 2 Texas movies
Apropos of my recent quick review of The Man in Possession, and generally relevant to my love of Mr. Robert, I hereby declare the comfy chair warmed up and awaiting Carrie, mistress of all things Montgomery. At her site you can feast your eyes on so much good stuff on Bob, his life and times, stay up to date on showings of his movies on TV or releases on DVD, related ephemera and clippings so forth as well and the occasional tip of the hat to similar gentlemen such as Ray Milland.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept or origin of comfy chair, please refer to this post to see the video whence it sprang, and more importantly please click this “COMFY CHAIR” TAG to see all the great past occupants.
TCM this week:
Monday, To Be or Not to Be, which I wrote about recently here, is always worth a second, third and even tenth look. That Carole Lombard and Jack Benny are comedic gems can go without saying, but make sure when you watch to note Robert Stack. Those from a generation who might only know him as the host of Unsolved Mysteries or the funny Airplane! pilot owe it to themselves to see him impossibly young and sweet in this movie and then read on for another, vastly different example of his work.
Thursday has a nice evening of different types of films based around the theme of Texas, and I pick two films that should go a long way to showcasing and proving the sometimes-doubted and even maligned, but undeniably considerable and layered acting talent of one who was much more than just a cowboy and two who were more than just pretty boys.
First up is Red River, the great Howard Hawks western with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift, plus a deep cast of familiar faces like Walter Brennan, Joanne Dru, John Ireland (real life married couple) Harry Carey, senior AND junior, and Noah Beery, Jr. Don’t know how many times now I’ve written the words “one of the greatest westerns ever made” but I know it must be a big number, because it’s a genre with many greats and this is one of them. The cattle drive is the occasion for a clash between and shift of the generations, both within the story which tells of the rebellion and cleaving of the relationship between son against stepfather, and in the acting which contrasts John Wayne’s more traditional and understated though striking, solid and deep style against the newer angst-ridden, self-aware and leaning toward the arty (when overdone) method style of which Monty Clift was an early follower.
Later that night, if you haven’t had your fill of Texas-sized family drama, or just prefer something more modern than cowboys, then you should catch Written On The Wind with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone and Robert Stack in director Douglas Sirk’s most successful film, and one of eight he did with Hudson. It’s an intricate, sprawling soap as big as the oil fields of Texas indeed and holds firm to the maxim, “anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” an approach picked up in similarly juicy and complex TV soaps of the 80’s. Here Stack is the tortured and explosive husband of Bacall, whom he lured away from Hudson, while Malone is Stack’s promiscuous sister. It’s an intense examination of churning relationships, the yearnings, frustrations and machinations of some deeply flawed and unlikable characters, but all extremely colorful, glossy and gripping. Stack and Malone were both Oscar nominated; she won hers but Stack lost to Anthony Quinn in Lust For Life.
Feel free to leave your pick(s) for the week
from the SITE NEWS desk, some further streamlining has gone on since the site remodel and from now on I’m moving into the sidebar such things as: new link page adds, various other site improvements and updates, plus a sneek peek at future posts, so always let one eye wander over there when you visit. Also, thanks to a reader suggestion, from now on the mystery links get an accompanying clue, so you need never wonder if you’ve already seen it or not.
