Men and cigarettes - part 2

It seemed popular to show half naked men in a post some time ago, to break from the pattern of beautiful half naked women, so I'll go ahead and do a follow-up on my Men and Cigarettes post from February. Then I added the cause of death also (just to make it a little more depressing), so I'll continue in that manner.
Enjoy - Men and cigarettes - part 2! As usual you can just click on the pictures to see them in a larger version. If you are like me and steal pictures on every site you visit, that is.

(I will do my best to do a follow-up on the Male Cheesecake post ASAP. Fight your demons until then, ladies!)

Alain Delon (1935-)
I just recently realized how God darn good looking Mr. Delon is. Phuh...

Chico Marx (1887-1961)
(Heart ailment)
I can't remember if I already have confessed on this blog that I find Chico Marx extremely sexy. I was oh-so delighted when I found this picture of him - here's your proof of his sex appeal. And the fact that he got his name because he "chased the chicks" just adds to my opinion of him as one of the most desirable ladies men ever. (Am I being weird again? I can seldom tell.)

Conrad Veidt (1893-1943)
(Heart attack)
The cool German actor you probably remember best as Gestapo Maj. Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He died while playing golf. As he was blacklisted in Nazi Germany his death wasn't officially announced - his wife and daughter heard about it on the radio.

Harry Langdon (1884-1944)
(Cerebral hemorrhage)
Does this look like a guy who ran away from home and joined a circus at the age of 12?

James Dean (1931-1955)
(Car crash)
This picture just makes me drool... (When I ordered a calender you could make yourself online I chose this picture for my birthday month. As a present to myself.)

Michael Caine (1933-)
Oh, how I adore Englishmen! This is the son of a fish-market porter and a charlady. He is also the father of Austin Powers.

Preston Sturges (1898-1959)
(Heart attack)
The director of the 1941 films Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve looks like someone I wouldn't like to meet in a dark alley by myself. (Or maybe I would...?)

Raoul Walsh (1887-1980)
(Natural causes)
Together with two extras, Italia and Venezia Frandi, in the days before a killer rabbit stole one of his eyes. Such beautiful, bright eyes too.

Ricardo Cortez (1899-1977)
(Natural causes)
An Austrian guy who went to Hollywood to make a career as an "exotic screen lover", went on to play Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1931), and by the end of his life he was a member of one of Wall Street's top brokerage firms. He died after having lived quite a comfortable life.

Notice that the article above says he was born in 1889 and not 1899. Typo or intentionally wrong information?

Robert Montgomery (1904-1981)
(Cancer)
Such a beautiful photograph. Quote from Mr. Montgomery:

"If you are lucky enough to be a success, by all means enjoy the applause and the adulation of the public. But never, never believe it."

Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996)

(Pancreatic cancer)
Seems like a privileged fellow - bathing in Fontana Di Trevi with a Swedish blonde one minute, lying in a bed next to Sophia Loren and airing his hairy chest the next.

Tod Browning (1880-1962)

(Cancer)
Looking cool with Lon Chaney on a break from shooting The Road to Mandalay (1926). Chaney looks just a tiny bit creepy. Oh, and he died of lung cancer four years later.

*anti-smokers cheering*

3 x Shearer and Montgomery

It was Friday 17th of July, 2009.

Lolita was very eager to get a hold of some friend to take a cup of coffee with her. Seven bitter phone calls later, she had to give up and realize that she obviously didn't have enough friends - they either had other plans or were ill. How incredibly selfish of them. (Lolita really should get a job.)

She did however always find a solution for a problem like that. Rather than getting out in the real life and doing something important, she could always hang out with her friends from the silver screen.
So she sat down and watched three films in a row. And they had something important in common - they were all pre-code Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery vehicles. Great ones, too.

And to leave that silly third person story telling, I must say - Shearer and Montgomery might be among the most lovable on-screen couples in motion picture history. They sparkle.

So, here's a little summary of of the films I watched that awful day when I didn't have any friends to play with me.

Their Own Desire

Director: E. Mason Hopper

USA 1929

65 min

Lally (Shearer) is a wealthy girl, living a happy life playing polo and joking around with her father Henry (Lewis Stone). But the idyllic life is soon smashed to pieces when Lally's father after 23 years of marriage divorces her mother Harriet (Belle Bennett) to start a-new with a younger woman, Beth Cheever (Helene Millard), who also leaves her current husband.

Harriet is devastated, and Mandy turns against her father and his new woman. Bitter on all men on Earth, she and her mother go on a vacation. There she, of course, meets a charming young man; Jack (Montgomery), and falls in love. Things get more complicated when Lally realizes that the man she is wooing is none other than the son of Mrs. Cheever.

Their Own Desire is surprisingly fluent in its story-telling, considering that it is a pretty early talkie, and that those often tend to be a bit clumsy. The first scene with Shearer and Montgomery is fantastic - he sees her at a swimming pool, about to dive in. When she does, he goes after her (clothes on and all), and surprises her with a kiss in an under-water shot. Really beautiful. And, as would for any real woman, it works.

Strangers May Kiss

Director: George Fitzmaurice

USA 1931

81 min

Our leading lady Norma Shearer plays Lisbeth Corbin - a modern woman who doesn't feel the necessity to get married to her lover, Alan (Neil Hamilton). Or is it just he who doesn't want to get married? At least that's what Lisbeth's friend and family thinks (among them Irene Rich and Marjorie Rambeau) and warn her about.

Despite having the wonderfully charming Steve (Montgomery) volunteering to marry her, Lisbeth decides to follow her love interest to Mexico. While there, Alan confesses that he actually has a wife in Paris, making Lisbeth realize that she probably doesn't mean more to him than being another mistress. Heartbroken she decides to go to Europe and exploring the loose single life that all men obviously know about - being single or not.

Steve catches up with a Lisbeth surrounded by Spanish admirers. He quickly learns that Lisbeth hasn't wasted any time at her travels.

Steve: Ooh, what I heard about you in Paris, ooh...

Lisbeth: And of course, like a true knight, you refused to believe it.

Steve: Well, the first six or seven hundred times I did.

Lisbeth clearly enjoys the fruits of life ("I'm in an orgy, wallowing. And I love it!"), but as soon as she receives a telegram from her dear Alan - telling her that he's getting a divorce and wants to marry her - she lets go of everything and travels to Paris to meet him. Unfortunately, her reputation gets to Alan first, and he isn't that interested in having her for a wife anymore. For the second time in a row, she fails in getting the man she wants.

"Now, let dear Steve comfort you!", the naïve public hopefully thinks. Oh no - he's a gentleman. He leans back as problems get solved between his love interest and Alan-the-pig. There's always a champagne bottle to keep him company.

There were more sexual tension between Shearer and Montgomery in The Divorcee (review here), in their of-three-silent-clips-consisting-scene they shared in that one, than in this entire film. It feels like they should have switched Hamilton's and Montgomery's parts.

But it's a great film, and Shearer is that typical pre-code woman she always should have been able to play all through her career.

Private Lives

Director: Sidney Franklin

USA 1931

84 min

My favourite of this bunch. It starts off with cutting between two weddings - Elyot (Montgomery) being married to Sibyl (Una Merkel), and Victor (Reginald Denny) to Mandy (Shearer). We see the couples happily going away on their honeymoons, and soon we understand that Elyot and Mandy have been married to each other, due to their new inquisitive partners.

And it isn't finished there - the two newlywed couples happen to spend their honeymoons at the same hotel - door to door! It is of course only a matter of time before Mandy and Elyot bump into each other.

This is an insane comedy/drama, based on a play by Noël Coward. The snappy, insinuating dialogue and the blabbering of the characters who constantly interrupt each other remind me of the screwball comedies of the 1940's. I can however never decide whether Una Merkel's character is cute and neurotic or just insanely annoying. But the fighting scene with Shearer and Montgomery is hilarious - and I read at IMDb that Montgomery (unintentionally) was knocked unconcious while filming that scene! No wonder - it looks really hectic and temperamental to me.

In short - Private Lives is a wonderful and entertaining movie with Shearer and Montgomery at their absolute best. If you haven't seen it yet - DO IT.

Shearer and Montgomery in Their Own Desire.

Shearer and Montgomery in Strangers May Kiss.

Shearer and Montgomery in Private Lives.

The Divorcee (1930)

The Divorcee

Director: Robert Z. Leonard

USA 1930

82 min

From The Forbidden Hollywood Collection - volume two.

The film begins with a New York "in-gang" spending a pleasant time in a cabin in the woods. Ted and Jerry (Chester Morris and Norma Shearer) are young and in love, and soon they pronounce they are engaged. Most of their friends are thrilled by the surprise (including an unbelievably charming Robert Montgomery as Don and Florence Eldridge, one of the Thirteen Women, as Helen), except for Paul (Conrad Nagel) who in secret always have been in love with Jerry. (God, that was a long sentence. Really kafkaesque!)

When it gets time to leave the cabin, Paul has gotten so drunk that he in a shockingly horrifying scene wrecks his car, the accident causing one of the women, Dorothy (Judith Wood), to become totally disfigured. Out of pity, Paul marries her by the same time of Ted and Jerry's marriage.

Chester Morris and Norma Shearer in the leading roles.

We jump in time. Ted and Jerry Martin proves to be happily married, but on the night of their third anniversary Jerry finds out that Ted has been unfaithful to her. Ted is going away on business and has no time to explain the situation more than "it didn't mean anything at all". Feeling betrayed and disillusioned, Jerry goes out for a night on the town with her friends and eventually end up in the beautiful Don's bed.

When Ted gets home from his business trip, Jerry explains to him that she has "balanced their accounts", and Ted gets furious. After having shown up drunk and crashed the wedding party of one of their friends, Ted leaves Jerry and they seek for a divorce.

We once again take a leap in time, to the time where the divorce has been finalized. Jerry is devastated, but tries her best to feel the greatness of being single again. But no matter how many men she meet and charms, she only realizes more and more that the divorce was a mistake.

Norma Shearer with Conrad Nagel.

The Divorcee is without a doubt one of the best pre-codes I've seen (competing violently with Red-Headed Woman and Baby Face), and the Norma Shearer film I've seen that her acting is at her best.

When casting the film, the MGM producers doubted that Shearer would suit the part - until this time she had mostly played "proper" characters. Interestingly enough, producer and Shearer's husband Irving Thalberg was the one who doubted her most. To prove them wrong, Norma did a photo shoot where she posed provocatively in lingerie - and after having seen those photos, all doubts about Shearer being able to play sensual women were gone with the wind.

Shearer received the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, as well-deserved.

Norma with the irresistible Robert Montgomery.

At the time of The Divorcee's release, the subject of divorce was a sensitive issue. When the Hays Code was finalized in 1934, this film would be unthinkable. I therefore found the introduction dialogue of the film very interesting, having four people playing cards and casually joking about their ex-husbands and ex-wives.

And now I must admit that I fell in love with Robert Montgomery today. He is just swell in this film. And even though I was quite charmed by Chester Morris in Red-Headed Woman, his character in The Divorcee is too proud not to be annoyed with. Conrad Nagel is nothing I would turn down, neither, but his character is quite flat. Montgomery's self-confident Don Juan is more my type. In conclusion: with Montgomery in the lead, The Divorcee has a lot of eye-candy for a woman!

Ever seen Robert Montgomery, Chester Morris and Conrad Nagel play The Cocoanuts?

Quotes:

Jerry Bernard Martin: [slipping on a diamond ring] Oh, I couldn't think of accepting such a valuable gift!
Offscreen man: But, my dear, my feeling for you is purely platonic.
Jerry Bernard Martin: Really? I've heard of platonic love, but I didn't know there was such a thing as platonic jewellery.