Phone Book Actresses

I thought the swoon worthy actors seemed lonely so I decided to give them some company. Here are my actresses who I'd watch read the phonebook.


Katharine Hepburn: Did she ever give a weak or boring performance? I can't think of one. From the flimsiest comedy to drama with a capital, "D" she was always a pro. Though Bringing Up Baby is my favorite I have a soft spot for all her films with Cary Grant, especially Philadelphia Story which was more or less created with her in mind. I know this picture has Jimmy Stewart in it too, but Kate looks so pretty, I couldn't resist.



Irene Dunne: Another actress who was at her best when she was with Cary Grant, nevertheless she made some great movies with other people too (Theodora Goes Wild, Love Affair, I Remember Mama ) Favorite Film: The Awful Truth Favorite Hat: see above.



Barbara Stanwyck: While I adore her comedies, Barbara can get me to watch her in anything. I must have watched half a dozen of her pre-code melodramas last year and I never tired of her. She certainly knows when to show a little leg, doesn't she? I love that about Babs. Favorite Film: Ball of Fire.



Ingrid Bergman: Woody Gutherie wrote an unpublished song about Ingrid Bergman after seeing her in Stromboli. That's how hot she was. Yet, she didn't really seem aware of that and she put forth both vulnerability and a down to earth quality that I've always appreciated. Favorite Film: Notorious and Spellbound.


Claudette Colbert: I think of Colbert as the quintessential 1930s actress. She just kept turning up in movies that I was interested in until eventually she became the reason to watch a movie. I think it's pretty funny that not one but two Colbert bathing scenes (Four Frightened People and Sign of the Cross, above) were among the "last straws" leading to Production Code enforcement. Favorite Film: It Happened One Night and Smiling Lieutenant


Jean Arthur: Whether she's holding a varmint at gun point or going undercover to report a story that little gal sure has moxy. Favorite Film: Only Angels Have Wings


Myrna Loy: Of course her work with William Powell was what originally brought me to Myrna Loy. Her career had so many facets, including an early vamp/Asian period where she played exotic villains. I think we have Myrna to thank for the fact that just when the Code made domestication the ultimate goal of every film, she actually created a vision of marriage and being a wife that was sexy, glamorous and fun. Favorite film: The Thin Man


Miriam Hopkins: I've only seen four of her films but all of them have blown me away so I'm putting her in here. Hopkins seems like she could survive today and be just as versatile and popular as she was in the early 30s. The roles she created for Lubitsch films feel completely modern. With her ability to change her look for any part she didn't really mesh with the glamor machine of the studio system and I think she would have fared better in a more independent climate. Favorite Film: Trouble in Paradise, Design for Living and Smiling Lieutenant.


Greta Garbo: Smarter people than I have tried and failed to sum up Garbo's appeal. Simply put she is the quintessential movie star. Favorite film: Ninotchka.


Bette Davis: Even as a very young, inexperienced actress, Bette Davis put forth a feeling of worldliness and sophistication in every role she played. She must have come out of the womb a little jaded, I think. Favorite Film: All About Eve.


Carole Lombard: This has to be the most awesome picture ever. Even if I wasn't going to put Lombard on my list, this picture would have shown up in Eye Candy sooner or later. She's pretty much the queen of my favorite film genre, Screwball Comedy. Favorite film: My Man Godfrey, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and To Be or Not To Be.


Kay Francis: She created strong female characters with careers and minds of their own. She was also a style icon which seems like it would require no talent, but I suggest that not just anyone could pull off some of the outlandish creations she wore rather casually in her films. The Code more or less killed her popularity, but she has had lately the revival she was due. Favorite film: Trouble in Paradise.



Sylvia Sydney: She was a good actress, but really I just love her because she's so adorable. I know that sounds lame but I can't help it. She is cuter than the most precious object on Mod Cloth. Favorite Film: Thirty Day Princess.


Greer Garson: The first Greer Garson movie I ever saw was Pride and Prejudice and I became an instant fan. Favorite film: Goodbye Mr. Chips.

Not quite phonebook actresses: Margaret Sullavan, Joan Blondell, Margaret Lockwood, Norma Shearer, Constance Bennett

Thirteen Women is about 11 too many

If you would have told me ten years ago that I'd be giving a bad review to a movie starring Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne, I would have told you that you were nuts. Loy and Dunne are two of my favorite leading ladies of the thirties and to imagine them in the same movie is almost one of those Dream Team scenarios that film geeks like to imagine from time along the lines of "Wouldn't it have been great if Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart had made more than one movie together?"

So it is almost complete disbelief that I type the words "Thirteen Women (1932) starring Myrna Loy and Irene Dunne is one of the worst pre-code movies I've seen." Not only is it bad, it's not really bad enough to be quite laughable. Myrna Loy plays a woman who seeks revenge for ill treatment in boarding school by killing her classmates one by one. As was typical for this period in Loy's career she plays the Asian exotic. It's one of those oddities of film history that she beat out an actual Asian actress, Anna May Wong for the part of Ursula Georgi, the killer who uses the power of suggestion to murder her former class mates. This character fits into the vamp type that was slowly fading in this period after being hugely popular in the silent era. Loy at least is a convincing vamp, and the scenes where she is held in the camera's gaze with only her eyes to hold the viewer do have a certain creepiness to them. Also her wardrobe is to freakin' die for. Really, I think she must have used the power of suggestion to get those amazing dresses that she's poured into throughout the film.

Irene Dunne plays the one standout school chum who manages to resist her suggestions and schemes and so Georgi goes after Dunne's little boy. Part of the problem with the film is the script which spends a great deal of time expositing on the other twelve women who after a while all blur together. There are only so many women in short marcelled hair cuts that you can absorb in 90 minutes. Ricardo Cortez is underused as the detective solving the case. He and Dunne have decent chemistry and its too bad the movie didn't focus on those two more. On her own, though, Dunne's character is pretty dull and after a while I started rooting for Ursula, whose grudge at least comes from the fact that she was kept out of a sorority because of her race. If Thirteen Women were just a little campier, it would be fun and if it were a little better made, it could have actually been a decent thriller given the talent involved in the production.

Lovely to Look At: Roberta

Ginger Rogers sings the intro to Hard to Handle in Roberta. In this scene, Ginger sports a ridiculous fake Russian accent though she is supposed to be from Indiana. (Irene Dunne who is supposed to be from Russia might as well be from Indiana.)

Though the movie is jam-packed with spectacular gowns, this is my favorite outfit. Ain't she just adorable?

What can you say about a movie so bursting with talent and entertainment that two hours can scarcely contain it? Well, you could just say "Roberta" and anyone whose seen it will know what you mean. Roberta is funny enough to stand as a comedy without singing or dancing and entertaining enough as a musical that it could be half as funny and still work. Throw in gorgeous Art Deco gowns enough for twenty movies and you have the eye candy of the century.

The ogling begins with Randolph Scott as the male object of desire who makes girls go giddy with the sheer bulk of his charm. I've always had a soft spot for Randy, due to his friendship with Cary Grant and his work in movies like My Favorite Wife. Pairing him with Irene Dunne, my favorite Cary co-star, has the feel of a bit of a family reunion of sorts. Scott and Dunne have a fun hick meets chic chick chemistry that is reminiscent of Ralph Bellamy and Dunne in the Awful Truth. I kept half-expecting Cary Grant to burst in, do a pratfall and win the girl. Really, that would be the only way you could improve on this already awesome movie.

Roberta marks the first-ever Rogers and Astaire movie I've ever seen. I loved it. Though, they weren't the leads in this movie, and take second-billing to Dunne and Scott, it is easy to see why they became the immortal legends they did. Their interactions are so easy and fun and their dancing is so seemingly effortless. My favorite number is Hard to Handle, in which Ginger almost seems to melt into Fred as they move around the stage. The band the so-called Wabash Indianians are no slouches either. Two years earlier, Bob Hope and George Murphy had starred in the Broadway version of Roberta. The producers of the film decided to combine their characters into the Huck Haines character played by Fred Astaire. They also removed a couple of numbers and added two discarded Jermome Kern songs "I Won't Dance" and "Lovely to Look At" which became more popular than any songs in the original version. I don't keep good record of such things, but this may be one of the few instances in which a film improved on stage play.