Impossible celebrity couples

I just found an entertaining website (Worth1000), that seems to frequently have photoshop contests. I found one contest with the name of "Impossible celebrity couples", which proved to have a lot of amusing photoshopped pictures! Not all were that skilled, but a lot of them were: here's a couple of my favorites.

Audrey Hepburn and Justin Timberlake by claudia.

Buster Keaton and Tara Reid by controlfreak.

Charlize Theron and Charles Bickford by Mandrak.

Clark Gable and Madonna by Shorra.

Claudia Schiffer and Peter Sellers by Mandrak.

Eddie Murphy and Bette Davis by emilliom.

Elijah Wood and Jean Arthur by carmsie.

George Clooney and Elizabeth Taylor by juicebx75.

George Clooney and Grace Kelly by hank101.

Humphrey Bogart and Scarlett Johansson by MarcusBCS.

John Wayne and Heath Ledger by mzpresto.

Johnny Depp and Ingrid Bergman by frank1956.

Laurence Olivier and Scarlett Johansson by oilcorner.

 

Madonna and Fred Astaire by getuchito.

Marilyn Monroe and Jeff Goldblum by Errorquetzal.

Oliver Hardy and Mel Gibson by hechtal.

Robert Downey Jr and Joan Crawford by pcysmith.

W.C. Fields and Kirsten Dunst by pcysmith.

Woody Allen and Marilyn Monroe by Heztone.

And the most gruesome, but clever:

Vincent Price and Gwyneth Palthrow by NomeDaBoy.

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)

The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex aka Essex and Elizabeth
Director: Michael Curtiz
USA 1939
106 min
Starring: Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Donald Crisp, Vincent Price and Henry Daniell, among others.

Welcome to the misogynist version of the life of Queen Elizabeth I!

Nah, I won't complain too much. Just enough.

This film is, like the ones in my previous post, based on a popular play. This was Elizabeth the Queen from 1930, written by some bloke called Maxwell Anderson. Initially the film version had the same title, but pompous Flynn wanted his existence included in the title - and there you have the present title. The "aka" title is even worse, putting Essex's name before the queen's! It is with that title the film is listed at IMDb.

Misogynist points: +5p.

Bette Davis as Queen Elizabeth I. The likeness is astounding.

Errol Flynn as Earl of Essex. Uncanny resemblance.

One can of course not expect a Hollywood version of a play, based on real events that took place more than 400 years earlier, to be entirely historically correct. For one thing, when this film starts it is 1596 and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (Flynn) has just to returned to London after the capturing of Cadiz.
In short: he beat up some Spaniards and the British people was happy, even though Essex wasn't entirely successful. At this time Essex was 31 years old - Queen Elizabeth was 63. Bette Davis was less than half the real age of the queen! But it's Hollywood, and the studio probably didn't want to put Marie Dressler in a romantic lead opposite handsome Flynn. Perhaps because she had been dead since 1934, but I don't know.

Misogynist points (for not hiring Dressler): +2p.

Before I get carried away with bitchiness, I may add that I loved the dialog that obviously points to a great playwright. And although Bette Davis and Errol Flynn didn't get along (to say the least), they managed to fool me several times - pointing towards great actors. Donald Crisp is excellent as Sir Francis Bacon, even though he still haunts my worst nightmares since Broken Blossoms (1919) [blog post]. But the coolest of all: Davis had her forehead and eyebrows shaved for this role. A funny fact that all classic film devotees should know blindfolded while being eaten alive by plague smitten rats.

So, may I be a little cruel now that I have been a pleasant little girl? Good. Yes, the dialog was smoothly written and is delivered with elegance - but what the heck does Essex think he can say to a queen? She is of course quite a bitch sometimes, but she is the goddamn queen! Take for example when the queen asks him if he think he's rule England better just because he's a man.


"I do indeed. And that's exactly where you fail. You can't think and act like a man."

When she gets mad, he laughs and says: "Fiery wench, aren't you?"

I want to hit him. Hit him hard. Which Bette Davis amusingly enough did during their first scene, after Essex had had the guts to turn his back to the queen. The slap, with heavy rings and all, was real and not intended. (Perhaps intended by Bette, but not planned by the director or anyone else.) According to Flynn's autobiography he wasn't too happy, which really shows in the scene. He has to use all power not to strike back. Haha, he deserved it. Pig.


Misogynist points: +10p.

Essex goes to Ireland to fight (don't they ever stop?), but the Queen orders him home. (In reality, she had forbidden him to come home, but being accurate is so boring.) The whole messy relationship ends when Essex tries to overthrow the queen by taking her and the palace hostage. (In reality he suddenly turned up in her bedroom without her being properly dressed - this time being accurate was too fun. He did not invade her court until two years later, neither. Too boring a fact.) Queen Elizabeth forgives him after some romantic talk about how he will become a good king and she will rule by his side (yeah, right), after which she demands him taken to the Tower and be executed for treason. Sensible enough.

What I don't quite buy, though, is her calling him back the day of the execution to pardon him. He was obviously only after her throne (Queen Elizabeth was, like I said, 60+ years old and covered with smallpox scars), yet she wants him pardoned - and he refuses! Yes, the silly man refuses to be pardoned, turns his back on her (again) and leaves for the gallows. She falls to the floor, shouting after him:

"Robert... take my throne! Take England! It's yours!"

...yeah, about that. What the duck? Why a duck?
No, seriously. This is a parody of post-code Hollywood - to have goddamn Queen Elizabeth begging on the floor. We are talking about the woman who, apart from being the daughter of infamous wife-executioner Henry VIII, imprisoned and executed her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots. The woman who became queen at the age of 25, and obviously had been able to handle her own for 40 years. Her... begging, with tears flowing down her face? She was obviously sad by the turn of events, but I will not buy that she couldn't keep it together at all and offering the throne to a traitor.

Misogynist points: +157

Result: A movie that does not fancy women.

Bette is disappointed with the view on women in Hollywood.

I hate when I sound like a feminist whiny bitch, but this is just too much. It's not a bad movie, Bette Davis is strong and awesome (most of the time... when she could)... but these little details annoyed the hell out of me. (Should one really take ten frustrated cigarette breaks and a glass of red wine during one movie?) To hell with it. And Errol Flynn (although he is quite handsome).

Fun fact: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was the only man to ever have a private execution on Tower Green (no family fun for the British people there), and it supposedly took the executioner three chops before his head was severed. That's karma, asshole.

Go through hell for retro boots

A typical late-at-night-last-minute-bidding-tournament resulted in me winning an auction for these retro 1970's boots. But of course, I had forgotten to update my address on the site, so they wound up at the other side of town. Being a woman I still felt that I needed these shoes right now, so away I went on a little journey. Little did I know that it would be a journey from hell.

First the usual five minute wait for the elevator to finally reach my floor. I realize that I had forgotten my ID, so I had to go back again.

Returning to the elevator a family in the building has decided that they want to move furniture during that five minute delay for ID retrieving. I am welcomed by three dumb faces and a bed, staring  foolishly at me. Well, the bed did more of a triumphant expression to be honest.

Squeeze a bed in there, and you've got the picture.

The rape staircase it is. It's dark, narrow and goes in a frightening Vertigo spiral. And at the bottom floor there is smeared dog poop that has been there for weeks, giving of a delightful smell to welcome any passing house guest. (Someone should probably call about that.)

Finally. Almost on my way. But no. Of course the rails for the streetcar has to be renovated today, so I have to take the bus instead. Do I have to mention that the bus I had to take is also the one that every damn citizen in this little town of mine has to ride on, and that the route goes about three times around the city before reaching its destination? I bet I don't, since I just did.

The bus stops about seventy eleven blocks away from the dirty little store that has my boots. On the way I almost slipped and fell to my death five times. Oh, and the temperature outside! It's not that cold that I need a jacket, but it's too cold if I take it off and I begin to sweat wearing it. I adore Sweden, I do.

Well, I received my package, the local store sold my favorite brand of cigarettes, Virginia Slims, and I was almost happy again. (How smart is it not to design a pack of cigarettes to look like a fashionable brand of lipstick?)

I get home, try on the boots... one size too small. Obviously they were the 1970's idea of size 9, and not the real size 9. How about those genes? I am as short as my mother and have as big feet as my father. Very proportional.

Maybe this is the solution to my problem?

But damn it, I have to have those boots. I squeeze by feet in and hope to be able to stretch them out to my size. What is a flesh wound in this context, anyway? And how about that - the heel broke.

I fear the day my Forever 21 order arrives.

Bette knows how I feel.

3 reviews for the price of 1

Swedish poster for Design for Living (transl: "Between us Gentlemen"), and two Italian posters for Dark Victory (same transl.) and The Old Maid (transl: "The Great Love").

I still have a cold (probably the swine flu, I really shouldn't socialize with all those strange men down at the docks), so there have been some film viewing.

When I had seen three really great films in a row, I felt it hard to decide which one to write about - so I thought I would try to make short reviews of all of them instead. Summarizing the plots in a few lines, and focusing on what I liked/disliked about them. And lots of pictures. Sound any good? I'll do it anyway.

The films: Design for Living (1933), Dark Victory (1939) and The Old Maid (1939).

Frequently used ingredients: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, George Brent, Edmund Goulding and socially awkward situations.

Spanish film poster (transl: "A Woman for Two").

Design for Living

Director: Ernst Lubitsch

USA 1933

91 min

Starring: Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins, Gary Cooper, Edward Everett Horton and Isabel Jewell, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

Gilda (Hopkins) meets two young artists on a train in Paris: painter George (Cooper) and playwright Tom (March). Complications arises when both men fall in love with her, while she keeps up a liaison with both of them. She admits that she can't choose between them, so they make a gentleman's agreement: They will all three live under the same roof, but no sex can occur.

The ménage à trois seems to work, and Gilda becomes their artistic muse. But when Tom goes away to London to work on his successful play, Gilda and George are left alone with their frustrations. Around this time, Gilda proclaims that "It's true we had a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately, I am no gentleman.", and the carousel of relations suddenly spins at top gear, making all the contestants feel sick and confused, but no less a-mused.

What I like about Design for Living:

• The amazing actors and actresses, down to the bit parts. E. E. Horton is a comical genius playing the old friend of Gilda's, Max Plunkett, who only deeply cares about his social position. His stenographer is played by pretty Isabel Jewell, an actress that worked in a lot of great pictures (including Gone With the Wind. 1939), but seldom had any meaty parts. She is highlighted in Kate Gabrielle's Silents and Talkies [post] and Mark Clark's Film Noir Photos [post] blogs.
• Miriam Hopkins. When I first saw her in a film, I thought I would hate her. I always adored Bette Davis, and they are known to be each other's nemesises. But I can't avoid it - I like Hopkins. Her accent and voice is so charming, and she is a darn good actress with a lot of charisma.
• Tom's silly play. Hilarious.
• George's seriously good paintings. (I really want to believe that Cooper painted them in real life.)
• Two strikingly good-looking men in the leading parts. I understand Gilda's problem - I would have had trouble choosing too. I love their drinking scene, obstinately trying to find something to drink for every time they raise their glasses (which is frequently).
  
• "The Lubitsch Touch". Such a great picture! Probably impossible to get bored by, no matter how many re-runs of it you participate in.

What I don't like about Design for Living:

• Ehm... nothing? That I haven't seen enough of it, perhaps.

Italian film poster (transl: "Sunset).

Dark Victory

Director: Edmund Goulding

USA 1939

104 min

Starring: Bette Davis, George Brent, Humphrey Bogart, Geraldine Fitzgerald and Ronald Reagan, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

A spoiled 23 year old heiress, Judith (Davis), is faced with the fact that she is dying of a brain tumour. When Judith falls in love with her brain surgeon, she is afraid that he proposes to her out of pity.

Since we know from the beginning that Judith sooner or later has to die, the film focuses on the environment's inconvenient feelings toward the tragedy and how Judith tries to make the best out of the time she has left, rather than focusing on the question "Will they find a cure?" or "Will she really die?". A brilliant plot direction.

What I like about Dark Victory:

• A brilliant script, that doesn't chicken out with an un-realistic happy ending, as post-codes tend to do.
• Bette Davis in her probably best role. I can't see any other actress do the part of Judith as perfectly as Davis. Those big eyes of her hold a lot of emotions.
• Ronald Reagan. I mean, seriously. How mant other countried than the USA could make a presidant out of a, perhaps only decent, actor?
• Well, the rest of the amazing cast. George Brent is really growing on me as an actor (hadn't any opinion of him just a few months ago), and Geraldine Fitzgerald is amazing as the heartbroken best friend of Judith's.
• The ending. So sad, beautiful and artistic.

What I don't like about Dark Victory:

• How could Warner Bros do this to Humphrey Bogart? He is just so wrong as the Irish stableboy. His accent is embarrassing, and his part has really no great purpose in the film.

The Old Maid

Director: Edmund Goulding

USA 1939

95 min

Starring: Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins, Donald Crisp, George Brent and Jane Bryan, among others.

See it on YouTube here.

A costume "woman drama" set in the days during and after the Civil War. Delia (Hopkins) is just about to be married when her previous fiancé Clem (Brent) comes home from the war. Delia breaks her engagement to him and goes on with the marriage, but her cousin and friend Charlotte (Davis) has feelings for Clem and spend time with him before he goes to war again. He is later killed in the war, and the next thing we know Charlotte runs an orphanage for children who lost their fathers in the war. Among those children are her and Clem's love child, Clementina, who for security purposes is adopted by Celia and raised as her own.

Charlotte moves in with Delia and her family and grows into an old maid, while her daughter Clementina only knows her as the stubborn, unsympathetic "aunt Charlotte".

What I like about The Old Maid:

• Donald Crisp. It feels almost surreal to watch him as a kind, child-loving doctor in this film, the day after I saw him as the tyrannic father in Broken Blossoms (see previous post)!
• Davis' and Hopkin's chemistry. They may not have likes each other in real life, but every scene they have together is almost magical. Perhaps the tension between them did it. Whatever the reason may be, we always feel the unsolved problems and unverbalized thoughts hanging in the air between them.
• Miriam Hopkins, again. She is a really great actress. I read that she was very difficult to work with, but you can't blame an artist for being eccentric, can you? Anyway, Hopkins is, like George Brent, growing on me big time.
• My Darling Clementine. The tunes of the song is played when Charlotte and Clementina have a scene together, and it's so heart tearing. Charlotte really loves her daughter, while Clementina never aknowledges her, except for complaining and yelling. (Nothing wrong with Jane Bryan, but the character is a horrible, spoiled brat.)
• Charlotte by the fire. When Charlotte practices her speach to Clementina when she comes home from the ball. At first she is the loving mother, then at an instant she changes into the strict aunt. An obvious proof of Davis' acting qualities.
• The final scene.

What I don't like about The Old Maid:

• George Brent dies. Okay, his characters can die, but not 20 minutes into the film! That was just brutal.
• Yes, the Clementina character. I want to hit her.

Poll's closed #10

One of my favourite Bette Davis portraits.

From The Rich Are Always With Us (1932)

If it is something that I'm horrible at, it's obviously to reveal the results of my sporadic polls. I always seem to get distracted. (Not so difficult, thinking about this blogosphere...)

Anyways. Back in 1983 or so I asked you to vote in a 1930's Bette Davis performances poll. You got to pick three favourites, and here's (finally) the results.

(And I know that I keep changing the spelling of words like "favourite/favorite", "honour/honor" and "colour/color" - haven't yet decided if I'm a British or an American Swede.)

***

No votes went to Bette Davis's performances in The Man Who Played God (1932), The Rich Are Always With Us, Jimmy The Gent (1934), Housewife (1934) or Satan Met A Lady (1936).

The misfits. (Click for larger picture. Yes, I love Photoshop.)

A striking blonde Mrs. Marie Roark in Bordertown (1935) only received 1 vote. But does it look like she cares?

There's a tie between Joyce Heath in Dangerous (1935) and Charlotte Lovell in The Old Maid (1939) with 3 votes each. Anyone besides me who'd like to see a catfight between Bette Davis and Bette Davis?

Bette Davis in Dangerous, and with her nemesis Miriam Hopkins in The Old Maid.
(Click for larger picture.)

With 15% of the votes (4 votes), Mary in the crime drama Marked Woman (1937) starts to show that Bette Davis is something to count on. After all, co-acting with Humphrey Bogart can't give too bad of an outcome. Yes, "it's Bette Davis".

On the fifth place of the poll we find Lynn Mason in Fashions of 1934 (1934), with 5 votes. I bet it's the perfect gentleman William Powell who taught her well.

Lynn in Fashions of 1934. Absolutely fabulous, dahlin'.

Now it starts to get intriguing! On the fourth place, with no less than 7 votes, is a public favourite - Queen Elizabeth I in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), with charming bad boy Errol Flynn as the Earl of Essex. That fat slap Essex receives from the queen is unforgettable - and so was the pain, according to Errol Flynn's autobiography My Wicked Wicked Ways (1959).

The bronze medal goes to Judith Traherne in Dark Victory (1939) with 8 votes, 30%. Not to bad, for a dying woman. Maybe she stands out like Ethel Barrymore in contrast to Bogart's unlikable Irishman? I won't complain - he's handsome as Satan.

On the second place, believe it or not, is another catfight! (9 votes each.) This time in the mud pit stands Mildred in Of Human Bondage (1934) and Gabrielle in The Petrified Forest (1936) (review). To this I have to say - poor Gabrielle. Her only chance is if Mildred suddenly collapses of a drug overdose in the middle of the battle.

Or what do you think?
(Click for larger picture.)

Who's first? Who's first?

Of course it's the Southern beauty in the improper red dress - Julie from Jezebel (1938) (review). She flatters herself with the standing ovations for no less than 15 votes (that 57%, folks!), and I honor it by being so lazy that I just insert the colorized picture from the film that I used in my review post on it.

But I can at least give you the one without the "Colorized by Lolita"-railroad across it. But what if someone steals it? Well, let them.

Thanks for voting, and keep your eyes open for the next poll!