Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Wednesday, June 21, 2006



Vincent Sherman --- 1906-2006

I’m about to risk another of my blanket statements --- in fact, I’ll make two. First --- Vincent Sherman was the last major surviving director who had worked in the 1930’s. Second --- he was the only director from the thirties to participate in DVD extras. Right or wrong? I realize that Sherman helmed only one actual thirties release --- The Return Of Dr. X --- but still I’d maintain --- he was the last of them. Another four or so weeks and he’d have made it to 100 --- and sharp as a tack for all of that. There are Vincent Sherman audio commentaries we haven’t heard yet. Some of them are forthcoming on DVD --- The Hasty Heart, Return Of Dr. X, All Through The Night. I understand he recorded tracks for all of the Warner pictures he did, so his legacy will live on, as if the films and his incredible book (Studio Affairs) weren’t enough. This was a truly amazing man. He was making personal appearances right up to the end. Vincent Sherman was one Hollywood veteran you believed. There was a genuine modesty about him. Flamboyant types like Raoul Walsh and William Wellman back in the seventies were chock full of colorful insider tales, and tall ones at that --- these old-timers were no doubt trying to live up to countercultural expectations by presenting themselves as rebels against the system --- always getting the last word on studio bosses, forever pulling a producer’s bacon out of the fire. Vincent Sherman would never descend to such caricature. He was never hostile like John Ford. He didn’t fabricate like Howard Hawks (love ya, Howard, but you sure told some whoppers!). Mr. Sherman just sat back and calmly told it as it was. That book he wrote is hands down the best director memoir I’ve ever read. If you haven’t checked out Studio Affairs, HERE is where to get one. I challenge you to put it down once you've started.



The last Courts autograph show I attended was in 2001. They used to be held at the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn in North Hollywood. Some of the dealers and celebrities would get there early in the morning. On this particular Saturday, I came directly from breakfast to the ballroom. It was a more or less vacant 7:00 a.m. --- except for a hale and hearty gentleman in his nineties seated at the far end of the room, clad in a turtleneck sweater and sport jacket --- all by himself. He’d probably been up for hours. Guys in their nineties don’t sleep late (unfortunately, neither do guys in their fifties). I walked up tentatively to this man who’d acted with Barrymore, directed Bogart, Flynn, Davis, Crawford, and Gable --- and introduced myself. Vincent Sherman invited me to sit down and talk. For twenty minutes, we did. I can’t remember one thing he said. I just kept pondering the fact that I was sitting at a table talking to the director of The Adventures Of Don Juan … and All Through The Night … and Mr. Skeffington … and …. Let’s just say this experience had it all over the time I spoke with Val Kilmer at the Virgin Megastore on Sunset --- and for the record, Vincent Sherman was about the nicest celebrity I ever met (take that, Adam West!).



These stills attempt to hit some highlights in a career filled with same. Counselor-At-Law saw fledgling actor Vincent Sherman (actually, he’d clocked several years on stage by that time) standing up to at-his-best John Barrymore in 1933. Read Studio Affairs for an amazing account of that experience. Sherman wrote insightfully of his working relationship with the great Claude Rains in the 1978 essay collection, Close-Ups, edited by Danny Peary (another fantastic book). Here they are in 1940 working on Saturday’s Children. Director John Huston’s just been called off to war, so he’s turning over Across The Pacific reins to Sherman, as co-stars Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet look on (guess we can applaud them both for the great movie that turned out to be). The Hard Way was embraced by feminists years after the fact. Speaking of the ladies, Sherman had a way with them. Those Studio Affairs included Davis, Crawford, and Rita Hayworth. The chapters on them are among the most revealing in his book. This set still with Hayworth was taken during Affair In Trinidad (1952). Errol Flynn gave rise to any number of Sherman anecdotes, all of them priceless. Here they are with Alan Hale on The Adventures Of Don Juan. The Joan Crawford melodramas at Warners were best when they dealt with noir and crime themes --- The Damned Don’t Cry was Vincent Sherman’s contribution --- and a fine one. Finally, there is The Young Philadelphians, a criminally underrated Warners release from 1959 (that's Barbara Rush with Paul Newman). Can’t wait for that DVD. Vincent Sherman retired in 1983 with some episodes of Trapper John, MD. Truly one of the most versatile directors around. I never saw a bad picture with his name on it. He was our last great ambassador for classic Hollywood and he will be sorely missed.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had forgotten that Sherman penned that excellent tribute to Claude Rains in Peary's Close-Ups -- a book that nearly any visitor to the Greenbriar would find rewarding. [Sergio Leone on Henry Fonda! James M. Cain on W.C. Fields!]

I think THE HARD WAY is a first rate vehicle for Lupino; it's my favorite of Sherman's pictures. I always look at THE HASTY HEART when it turns up on TCM. It isn't perfect, but Sherman and lead Richard Todd managed to capture something unique about dying and loneliness... It's moving in a way hard to find in other studio productions.

10:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I sent Joan Leslie a 1942 copy of Life magazine, upon the cover of which she danced in one of her costumes from "The Hard Way." The article inside mentioned her impending appearance in one of my all-time favorites, "The Sky's the Limit" (at that time it was planned under the title "Look Out Below.") In a letter I told her how much I enjoyed her performances in "Sky's" and other movies, and she signed the cover, "This was the high point of my career," and sent it back to me. It wasn't clear to me whether she meant "The Hard Way" or "Sky's," but I certainly treasure it either way.

8:56 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024