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




Thursday, May 28, 2020

Take Away Applause, and What Did They Have?


Why Act If You Never Hear Them Clap?

Note I Don't Need to ID Rock and Yvonne, But The Lunts? That's Something Else 
What more dispiriting than to perform, and receive nothing from those who see you do it? Stage players shunned movies for this reason, plus scores more. “I did it for the money” was said more times by imported-from-stage actors than “They went thataway” by screen cowboys. Some never got over shame of appearing before cameras, pool and mansion poor swaps for artistic integrity. Katharine Cornell refused leads on film, so we barely know her. Same for the Lunts, once up for The Guardsman, never to co-star on film again. I’ve read arguments from many a memoir: No one to play to, save techs on set, and they seldom noticed, plus shooting broke into bits and seldom done in proper sequence. You’d act a climactic scene in the morning and the opener after lunch. There was no such thing as sustained performing in movies. Those who began and continued careers on screens were better served. A Rock Hudson or Yvonne DeCarlo were not off-put being filmed, because it was all they knew, or wanted to know. Actors from the stage underestimated film-incubated talent at their peril. Deferred gratification from an invisible audience was reality understood by all those cinema-wise. For many, however, no gratification came at all, because here’s the thing … movie stars could not sit among us and enjoy our reactions to their projected image. How could they, when the very celebrity they sought barred them from experiencing their art with the viewers it was made for?


Conrad Nagel Being a Commodity, with Garbo in The Mysterious Lady


Lots did not care. Paul Muni refused to watch himself, shunned rushes, then premieres. Conrad Nagel for a late-in-life interview made his point clear, and spoke undoubtedly for others: “ … I never took much pleasure in seeing myself on screen. It was just a business. That thing up on the screen was just the commodity I sold. It was a product, nothing personal.” Nagel was a realist, more so than most I suspect, and for that reason had a longer career to show for his utter detachment. Colleagues, ones to whom approbation meant something, felt its loss keenly and did fret constant over a public they seldom saw, or did so in constricted circumstance. Those stars who entertained service personnel during wartime were stunned by emotional response they evoked. The love was out there, had been all along, but when were they exposed to it, let alone given opportunity to know extent of it? Celebrity life would not allow drop-ins to a Bijou in Oshkosh to see how folks liked your newest. Try that short of wearing a false beard or hump back and you’d be mobbed (possible exceptions: Chaplin or Groucho minus mustaches, Lon Chaney as Face #1001, his own). So much of nurturing warmth a country-wide fan base had to give was thus missed, so how could any star realize how popular he/she was?




Tumble-upon truth of your standing came by sheer chance, if at all. Judy Garland was let go by MGM and sorting out prospects in New York when she noticed Summer Stock playing at the 5,230 seat Capital Theatre. Blending into balcony seating, Judy saw the show along with plain folk and basked in their happy reaction, them not knowing she sat nearby. This was an experience apart from studio-rigged premieres where peers and press huzzahed whatever the effort, or lack of it. Garland saw honest response that day from a paying public, privileged access few stars would experience. Spotted coming down stairs, Garland got recognition's surge, only this was spontaneous, a joyous surprise for a crowd expecting least of all to see Judy Garland exiting the Capital alongside them. I wonder if she had ever had an experience quite like this, or would again (Garland differed from most, thanks to live performing and adulation that dependably came of that).




There was an interview with Peter Bogdanovich on TCM where he talked about going to see What’s Up Doc? several times while it played at Radio City Music Hall in 1972, a full house in each instance. Being merely the director, no one knew him, so he got the high, but not the hangover, a treat Barbra Streisand or Ryan O’Neal could not have shared with him. How fair was that? Everyone, it seems, wants celebrity, certainly most players do, most urgently, but look what they give up. It’s like a fable of the man who sought wealth, found it, but finds the price to be … no one to enjoy it with. I toted my boy’s way to the Liberty in late 1967 for Wait Until Dark, wherein blind Audrey Hepburn was beset by thuggery. A shock shot near the end had a baddie suddenly lunging out of pitch black after we thought he was dead, grabbing Audrey by the ankle to screech-raise all us watching, a moment we’d take home and to friends who must see Wait Until Dark. I wondered at the time if Audrey Hepburn dropped in at theatres to gauge reaction to that third act blast. Now I realize: She did not … she could not. So movie stars decried a loss of privacy? Well, they got bushels of it, just for being kept out of the very places that would have rewarded their effort loudest.

10 Comments:

Blogger Mike Cline said...

George Raft told Johnny Carson on the TONIGHT SHOW that he never saw himself on the screen.

10:00 AM  
Blogger DBenson said...

Then you had comics who'd honed their timing before live houses and studio audiences. Some were so seasoned they could maintain their comedic timing before a movie camera, but all ultimately had to trust directors and editors. The ones that endured never forgot (or belatedly learned) how to work a live audience, soldiering on with stage tours and television variety shows when movie careers cooled.

3:53 PM  
Blogger Scott MacGillivray said...

John, you make a good point about movie stars seldom getting audience feedback. Our old friend Gloria Jean enjoyed a good run on the screen, but she seldom saw her pictures in theaters. She fondly recalled dropping into a neighborhood house to see how her 1948 Columbia musical I SURRENDER DEAR came out. The crowd cheered and applauded, and Gloria "was delightfully surprised. I thought, 'Is this that good?'" On her way out, she introduced herself to the theater manager, who congratulated her: "Boy, do they love you."

4:09 PM  
Blogger Michael said...

Speaking of Lunt and Fontanne, as one rarely has occasion to do, I recommend taking the tour of their summer home, Ten Chimneys, in the tiny Wisconsin town of Genesee Depot (a half hour or so outside Milwaukee. It must be close to the best surviving example of how theater folk got away in the months too hot for theater, with a cozy house stylishly decorated by artistic friends (the bedrooms all being off a central landing was said to facilitate late night bed-exchanging), a second cottage where plays were workshopped and visiting dramatists isolated to focus on writing, the remains of a pool, and so on. It seems idyllic, and really brings to life an era when, like for the Ambersons, there was time for sleigh rides and balls, assemblies and cotillions.

4:18 AM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

There's a terrific conversation, singly and together, with Lunt and Fontanne in "Actors Talk About Acting," one of the best interview anthologies I've come across. Lunt had been in vaudeville, enjoyed reminiscing about it, seemed to have a refreshing, innate modesty. I passed along some of his memories of once working with Lillie Langtry in Greenbriar's column about "The Westerner" on 5/29/19.

6:54 AM  
Blogger Filmfanman said...

I read somewhere that Richard Burton never watched his own movies. The one time he had done so, he had walked out after the first glimpse he had of himself on screen - the reason he gave for doing so was that on film he appeared to his own eyes to be the spitting image of his own father - but he hated and detested his father with a passion for the abuse he had endured from him while younger.
Richard Burton simply couldn't stand to be reminded of his hated father in any way, and so he never watched his own performances on film due to the similarity of his physical appearance on film to his abusive father. Or so he claimed.

8:29 AM  
Blogger James Abbott said...

The shot of What's Up Doc? reminded me of one of my happiest movie memories.

What's Up Doc? was the first movie I went to alone, without adult supervision. (I was 10.) The audience was howling! And so was I … my first brush with the power of movie comedy.

3:15 PM  
Blogger Reg Hartt said...

Bob Clampett said he took a print of his latest cartoon to several theaters. He then sat at the front of the theater watching the audience watch his film. He learned the each theater and each audience reacted differently. I observed this myself first hand when I played one film 7 nights a week for several months. Each night's audience reacted differently but consistently. Monday night's crowd always reacted the same way each week. Ditto Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday. I asked people who worked in live theater if they had observed the same pattern. They had.

3:30 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

Reg: That audience reaction you noticed is spooky.

12:55 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

Conrad Nagel also said that he oncemonce 31 movies over a 24 month period. He and his wife wanted to go to the movies one evening but discovered he was playing in every theater. They wound up going home.

1:01 PM  

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