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Saturday, August 05, 2006


We Think You'll Like It!


Endorsement ads are often suspect. When stars recommend a movie, you can usually detect some benefit accruing to them for having done so. Warner players would often rave in print over Warner pictures --- one hand washing the other. Then there are those occasions when the product really does merit praise, and the celebrity kudos neither bought nor coerced. Sunset Boulevard was a show that got attention, particularly in the town it dissected so brilliantly. I’ve no doubt that everyone in the industry wanted to see it, and most would likely be impressed, if not made a little uneasy by it. Could all of this happen to them someday? Yes to that, for many a Norma Desmond plies his/her trade most weekends at far-flung autograph shows. The only difference is most of them don’t have crumbling Hollywood mansions to go home to. I’m not sure that even Norma could have been reduced to peddling her signature for $15 a pop in some hotel ballroom, but her modern counterparts are sure doing it today. Looking over this ad, I see a few stars that were in bed with Paramount at the time --- Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Fontaine, Loretta Young --- were they just greasing some wheels, or did they really like Sunset Boulevard? Well, the question might be better put, How could they not like Sunset Boulevard? Joan Crawford often endorsed the other man’s product --- she was generous that way. Bogart was nobody’s whore when it came to recommending movies --- this is the only time I can recall seeing his name attached to an ad blurb. The columnists here were in the business of promoting films, so no surprises there, though I wonder if Hedda Hopper refers to Sunset Boulevard or her performance in it (Great!) --- probably both, and she’s right.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I well recall some notable "celebrity quotes" ads for other pictures: Bing Crosby praising 42ND ST., caricatures of Jack Benny and other comics hailing A NIGHT AT THE OPERA as a masterpiece, and a crop of '50s stars tub-thumping MARTY (Charlton Heston: "What a man is MARTY!" Dean & Jerry: "We like him! We like him!")

I've never seen this one for SUNSET before, and I'm a little surprised by it. The movie was more than slightly controversial -- remember Louis B.'s tirade at Wilder about it? -- and it's interesting that so many celebs were willing to lend their names in direct support to such a dark, dark picture. [Though the curator's comment, How could they not like SUNSET BOULEVARD? is, of course, absolutely on target.]

Stanwyck, it will be recalled, dramatically (and famously) knelt to kiss the hem of Swanson's dress after an early industry screening; she was also a firm backer of Holden and Wilder of some years standing. I also liked the quotes from not- strictly- industry- types like Margaret Whiting and Cornelia Otis Skinner.

You are quite correct in noting Joan Crawford's generosity in giving favorable blurbs to work she admired, particularly in the latter part of her career. [During her MGM days, I must assume every Crawford public statement was either vetted or actually penned by a Metro publicist.]

Over the years I've run across any number of quotes and blurbs attributed to Crawford in support of a wide range of films, plays and books, few of which had any direct connection to the actress in common, or anything at all in common, except that they were pretty good. I remember reading Lisa Alther's wild, crazy and hilariously sexual "Kinflicks" when it came out in paperback in 1977; I was amazed to find, tucked toward the end of the book's opening pages summarizing the considerable critical praise the work had received in hardcover, an enthusiastic comment from Joan Crawford -- who must have read the book in the last months of her life. It wasn't the kind of book I might have imagined that Crawford would curl up with, but the actress was always full of surprises...

3:37 PM  

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