Undercurrent (1946, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum)

Good morning!!

How's tricks?

Undercurrent was part of a multi-disc set of Katharine Hepburn movies I bought circa 2007, back when I was a single gal working in a fully grown up job with hardly any bills and I used to trawl half.com for good eBay deals on classic box sets (bid time return, lol). It's hard for me to remember back to a time when I was actively collecting dvds, but there you go-- fossil record evidence of the pre-streaming days. I remember having liked the movie more than I thought I would back then, but ten years later, in the throes of this Robert Taylor kick I'm on, I thought I'd give it another spin. And oh, what a spin it was.

The movie follows scientist's daughter Katharine Hepburn, at first glance messy in slacks and a shapeless shirt, who falls for dashing industrial millionaire Robert Taylor when he comes to discuss some mineral's commercial possibilities in government contracts with her father. Taylor pitches woo, Hepburn unstupidly marries him, and they fly off back to his home-base of Washington, DC to start their happily ever after. However, the introductory cocktail party thrown in honor of the happy couple is a nightmare for Hepburn as she is dowdily dressed among the swans of political high society and out of the loop for all the Congressional shop talk, and things only go downhill from there. Everyone keeps mentioning "Michael, Michael, Michael" as they congratulate the newlyweds-- where's Michael? Has anyone seen Michael? What about Michael? The young man is revealed to be Taylor's brother, a presence that hangs spectre-like over the onscreen proceedings. Did Taylor have something to do with his disappearance...or dare we say it, possible MURDER? What connection does the sultry, sleepy-eyed caretaker (played by OH HELLO ROBERT MITCHUM I FORGOT YOU WERE IN THIS) at Michael's ultra modern cliffside hideaway have to the mystery? Why does an increasingly more agitated Robert Taylor react so violently to the mere mention of the brother's name?

While I was deeply invested in the midcentury women's magazine story going on here (which, indeed, was adapted from a story by Thelma Strabel that was serialized in Woman's Home Companion magazine between 1944-5), Undercurrent is a bit of a mess. A beautiful, well meaning mess, but a mess just the same. 

For one, the movie owes a substantial debt to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which made a more successful transition to the screen only a few years earlier, and in that sense, also to Rebecca's spiritual predecessor, Jane Eyre. Both Rebecca and Undercurrent follow the plot impetus of an inexperienced woman who marries hastily and finds herself ill-at-ease in the soignée circles to which her new husband belongs-- each features a husband harboring some dark past that yet haunts the marriage by way of an unseen character is continually brought up to stir the mystery. In Rebecca, no less a luminary than the fresh-off-the-set-of-Gone With the Wind Vivien Leigh was turned down for the role of the timid second Mrs. de Winter in favor of a more believably maladroit Joan Fontaine. No such favors were done in the casting of Undercurrent. My GOODNESS could they have chosen a more ill-suited actress to fill the unsure shoes of the protagonist in this than Katharine Hepburn, who, in spite of her extraordinary acting chops, is by very definition brimming with brash self-confidence.

At a turning point in her career by 1946, Hepburn had already clocked two distinct phases in her onscreen persona. Her 1930's body of work, in which homegirl won not one, but TWO Best Actress Oscars, was defined by a dewy, vulnerable, unusual-but-lovely-in-her-way Hepburn, always playing an endearingly odd duckling, full of vigor and strident self-assurance but also secretly susceptible to showing real hurt in a way that would bring tears to the moviegoers eyes as they did to her own (see: Morning Glory, Alice Adams, Stage Door...as I just start crying thinking about them). In the 1940's, the ingenue gave way to the brassy society/career girl, who traded well-enunciated barbs with Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant in The Philadelphia Story and tackled taming sportswriter Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year. The brisk, assiduous spinster/semi-spinster roles she was to play in the latter half of her career (Summertime, Desk Set) were yet to come. And so why not, well-meaningly enough I'm sure, plop our Kate into one of the LEAST believable characterizations of her career (yes, I'm counting this as only third behind her role as an Ozark mountain hillbilly in Spitfire and her role as a native villager in rural China in Dragon Seed...because those really did happen somehow). Even 1930's Hepburn in this role would have been too headstrong to play Ann Garroway-- she's EVERY kind of wrong for this role, and yet somehow, I guess through the magic of consummate professionalism, she manages to make the best of things and comes off only just "wrong" and not "embarrassingly wrong". 

Now this hat, on the other hand-- that may actually be embarrassingly wrong.

There's a shift in her costuming after the disastrous dinner party when  the character begins to care about her appearance and suddenly her blade-of-grass-slim figure is hung with designer clothes instead of sloppy slacks and untucked blouses...some things go well on that front, and some not so well. I would like to mention in a special category though the ankle-strap wedgies she wears for a large portion of the movie, which should have got their own line in the credits. Ahem:

Robert Taylor, freshly returned to the screen from war service as a flying instructor in the U.S. Naval Air Corps, is very good excepting the occasions in which he is very bad-- he has a habit of darting his eyes around like some kind of cartoon villain to telegraph caginess, which...could be better than it is.  Nobody's perfect! However, it's a credit to his charisma and a fault with the casting in that you can't really dislike him in the way that's necessary for you to dislike him to make the part work. This is a Cary-Grant-in-Suspicion type husband role, where you should be charmed by him at the same time you're distrustful of him. Cary Grant had a kind of darkness to him, which made him a great Hitchcock leading man, and believable as someone who is only *pretending* to be as sans souci on the exterior while nursing some strange grudge, and Taylor just doesn’t have it in him to be as convincingly layered as the role demands.  

My biggest gripe from the movie (SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading if you haven't watched it yet) is the ending. There's a weird clash between the married Garroways about twenty minutes from the end that makes no sense, where Hepburn is suddenly afraid Taylor is going to kill her, and also inexplicably "in love" with Michael. I understand how this makes sense from a "ooh, wouldn't that be a fun way to end an already kind of histrionic movie" point of view but in terms of the development of the characters, what in the Sam Hill were they thinking?

"Wait we're what? I'm doing...wait, who am I in love with?" -KH in the end of this movie

What happens in the end of the movie: Robert Taylor either inadvertently or purposefully caused the death of the immigrant scientist upon whose work his company's fortune is founded, Robert Mitchum threatens to reveal him as a murderer/fraud, Taylor threatens to off Mitchum, Taylor and Hepburn argue, they go off on a horse trail together with their neighbor, Taylor schemes to get Hepburn alone and tries to force her horse off the cliff, Hepburn is thrown from the horse and the horse tramples Taylor to death. Mitchum comes to visit Hepburn in the family home where she's recuperating from her accident and there's a kind of understanding that they may get together sometime after the credits roll. Me, eyeballing the "the end" card like "WHAT. DO YOU MEAN."

What should have happened: Robert Taylor inadvertently caused the scientist's death but thought covering it up was better than being accused of murder and ruining the family name-- his weird neuroses come from being under the strain all these years. Mitchum threatens to reveal Taylor as a murderer, Hepburn continues to press Taylor about his brother, Taylor continues to act weird and lashes out at Hepburn. Taylor and Hepburn argue, they go off on a horse trail together and Taylor has some kind of complete mental breakdown because he's been kind of neurotic the entire time and now the added stress of Mitchum and Hepburn dips him over the edge. Time skip (calendar pages fly, fall turns to winter turns to spring, etc). Hepburn visits a sanitarium where she meets with a doctor in his office. The doc says Taylor's doing much better, but the delusions he's been suffering under will only improve if he has the love and support of his wife and family. Hepburn and Taylor have a scene in his room where he's in some very sharp pajamas in which he's obviously much better and contrite/vulnerable and Hepburn pledges to see him through this illness. She runs into Mitchum in the lobby who's coming to visit Taylor, they have a little mini-resolution scene, Hepburn has some great line referencing the "undercurrent" mentioned earlier when they first met, music swells, end credits. Me: "Ahhh. MUCH better."

Unfortunately, no one consults me in these matters. WHY. WHY. I'll have to go soak my head, I guess-- you guys check out all these contemporary-to-the-time press clippings, courtesy of the archives over at the Media History Project, while I do.

So! Seen any great, little-seen movies lately? Had a crush on an actor or actress that had flown under your radar previously? What's your take on Katharine Hepburn? Let's talk!!

That's all for today, but I'll see you again soon! Take care!

Confessions of a Plant Killer (Plantscape Inc. Interior Landscape Review)

Good morning!!

Tell the truth-- are you a low down plant murderer like myself or are you one of the blessed few of my acquaintance who could keep an orchid alive in the Kalahari? And if you're in the latter category-- how on earth do you do it? 

I feel like "plant tending" is one of those adult competencies no one mentions to you until you're far too far behind to hope to catch up-- nothing looks as grown up as a room full of floor-trailing leafy limbs and ferns and palm sprouting things in full verdant splendor, but good golly, it's hard to keep those green things green. I had a nice, Victorian-looking palm plant in a big pot that I proudly bought at Home Depot some years ago, whose green fronds turned yellow and then brownish and then just shriveled up and died without so much as a pause in between color change stages for me to ask myself what I was doing wrong. I'm not sure if I was overwatering, underwatering, or just putting too much of my faith in the Lord Jesus to keep the plant alive if I couldn't...but in whatever case, that plant in heaven now (RIP).  However! Oddly enough, this inauspicious beginning and taste of plants in my house didn't discourage me-- it only convinced me that I needed a more forgiving plant in my life. And so far, I have two-- a Christmas cactus I bought heavily discounted after Christmas, and an Easter Lily, both of which are alive if not totally thriving in my back bedroom after getting kicked out the living room by an overly inquisitive toddler. I do wonder, though, if the real answer is in Dustin Hoffman's dad's friend's advice from The Graduate: "One word. Plastics."

To dreeeeeam....the impossible dreeeeam..... (source)

Plantscape Inc, which describes itself as a "leader in the manufacturing of interior landscaping related products exclusively for commercial projects and the wholesale trade", contacted me via email the other day, and was I pleased! All my blogger friends back in the heyday of personal blogs would get offers from eShakti and the like and all I ever got were weird offers to "organically increase traffic on my website" or "order metal bracket pulls at commercial prices" (I wish I was kidding). When Plantscape offered me a plant of my choice to review for the blog, so you'd better believe I snapped one up tout de suite. The process took less than I think a week or so from ordering to having the plant in a large box I originally mistook for a flower delivery on my front porch.

Here's what the plant looked like on the website (minus the hearts...the hearts are mine):

And here's what it looks like at home with me:

Sorry about the unintentional camouflage, outside on the patio was the only
place bright enough to photograph this guy!

Not bad, huh? I honestly think it looks a little better than the photographs, and how often is that the case (trick question: never). I also always worry that the plant will be smaller than I imagined it when I ordered it online, but this one was about exactly the size I expected it to be, and packaged safely enough that none of the leaves were bent or broken in transit. All I had to do was "fluff" some of the leaves and I honestly am ready to have it on display.

I was impressed with the quality of the plant. I feel like the field of plastic plant-making must have come a long way since my memory of very noticeably fake ficus trees and the like in the dentists' offices of my childhood. I can remember, too, my mom putting together flower wreaths for family plots at the cemetery that, in spite of her good eye for color, bore about as much resemblance to a real flower as Velveeta to Wisconsin cheddar. This, however, minus a few little places where the glue shows and I might need to scrape a bit of the excess, looks like a very realistic plant!

I think the key to good fake indoor plants, beyond buying one that isn't egregiously fake looking, is just blending it in where a real plant would look reasonable or WITH other real plants. Sometimes, reading interior design blogs, I'm shocked to find that the fiddle leaf fig I was drooling over and wondering if the owner misted every day with a perfumed spritzer or exactly HOW they'd managed to coax such an exotic thing into living in a non-climate-controlled Nashville sitting room, was not from a nursery but from Overstock's large selection of fake indoor houseplants (as in Elsie from ABM's guide to fake plants in ya own home environment). Color me impressed.

Now if I could only get that midcentury wall unit AND that possibly real, possibly fake fiddle tree, I would be so happy. Source

Now, the thing left to do, and the thing I should have already done before I committed to writing a blog about the new fake plant in my life, is to find a suitable pot to put it in, and then I think I'm going to put real dirt in around the ersatz stuff in the plastic container the plant came in. Usually, landscaping rocks and dirt together would look better in my opinion, but having a toddler around with curious hands who likes to put anything/everything in his mouth, I feel like dirt is less likely to trigger a visit to the emergency room than smooth river stones. Though, I mean, ideally, he'll just leave it alone ( ha, ha, HA, I can hear you say...it's ok, I say it to myself, too). The last fake plant I had, which I kept in the living room and loved DEARLY, I had to eventually surrender back to Hobby Lobby because I felt bad about having this $100-ish dollar home decor object that Remy was 400% going to destroy before the end of the year. He liked to take each of the approximately 24" leaves and pull on them as if they were something in a ribbon twirling competition. While this mischief hadn't caused any major damage yet, I knew it was only a matter of time (glad I kept that receipt).

Look how cute that plant looked. God speed, fake plant from Hobby Lobby.

I'm hoping to put the new Plantscape plant in exactly the place of the old one, but what kind of planter should I use? I think all of these look great. I might just run out to World Market or Hobby Lobby and grab something this weekend.

one, two three, four

So! If you're a green thumb, what are your tips for keeping a plant this side of the land of the living? If you have fake plants in your house, how do you style them to keep them looking less like "80's resort lobby" and more like "I can't believe that's not real!" ? Let's talk!

Back to movies next week, but we'll talk again soon! See ya then.

For more on Plantscape:

interior landscape design

interior plant service

This is a review post for Plantscape Inc. All opinions are my own. I was compensated for this post with a product supplied by them.

Ebay Shopping: Vintage Celebrity Letters edition

Good morning!

How's March treating you? I am still kicking. Today I thought I'd pop back in and show you a few of the things I've been drooling over in my free time (such as it is) that I in no way shape or form can afford-- letters from classic Hollywood celebrities on eBay!

Many, many moons ago (or not that many, maybe like a year and a half ago), I came across a letter from Tyrone Power to a screenplay writer back in Hollywood on eBay. Power was filming a movie in Spain and, to say the least, having a bad day. Typed out under his scrolled initials on his personal notepaper, he vented for two pages about the lackluster scripts and the general listlessness that has settled in on him after forming his own production company a year or two previous. He went on to describe how he felt everything had been for "f-cking nothing" before apologizing for being in such a black mood and closing with some tidbits about what he would be doing in the next month or so. The content itself, the fact of the letter existing was riveting to me-- homeboy has been dead since 1958, and here, I think maybe five or six years before his untimely death from a heart attack while filming overseas, was a letter from a person who didn't know how his story would end, who wasn't the two dimensional almost obscenely handsome guy from all those Loretta Young or swashbuckler pictures, but a real person with feelings and moods and all the rest. This was someone who sounded like me gmail chatting at the end of particularly crummy shift at the library. And you could own it! You could have in your hands the same letter written by the same guy the letter so plainly illustrated. I was hooked! And I was disappointed-- I think it had a buy it now of $300. I may be profligate with my money in the service of a good, selfish cause sometimes, but that's $150 a page, guys. It sold, and my heart was sad...but ever since, when I have a free half an hour or so to binge, I stalk around on the Movie Memorabilia listings looking for similarly revelatory evidence of the lives movie stars lived in and around their famous careers.

1) Charles Boyer, 1946

CHARLES BOYER - AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED 12/28/1942

One of France's best Hollywood exports, I've spoken before at length about how Charles Boyer is near the top of historical mystery dates I'd like to open the door to-- I have an original autograph of his in my collection, but wouldn't I give my eye teeth for this two page letter, currently. Only $600! Or $28 for 24 months-- it sounds so much less expensive like that (also if I start buying on celebrity autographs on time I would never stop). The letter is in French, which is less difficult for me to decipher that Boyer's tiny, elegant handwriting, which sometimes makes m's that look like w's and forms q's as p's. Nevertheless, I got out my magnifying glass and made good progress with what the letter said. Here's a taste for you, an exclusive transcription and traduction by yours truly:

Je ferais à vous dire combien ma femme et moi étions près de votre peine. Puisse le destin favoriser la cause pour laquelle Raoul s’est battu avec tant de ferveur jusqu’à son dernier jour. (I would have you know how much my wife and I feel your pain. May fortune favor the cause for which Raoul fought with such feeling to his last breath).

Interesting stuff, right? Boyer wrote this letter in 1942, to the mother of a friend, Raoul, who it sounds like was killed in action during WWII. It's very beautifully written in a way that reminds you of how eloquent people used to be in print (as opposed to say my habitual "where you at you've been gone forever don't forget fries" text sent to my husband during his time at the grocery store). I wish I could find out more about who Raoul was but the context clues (including a mention of Geneviève Tabouis and the French language newspaper Pour la victoire) have turned up goose eggs so far. I appreciate that Boyer is as beautifully spoken off screen as I would have imagined him to be, and that this heartfelt condolence letter made its way to eBay where I could read it.

2) Claude Rains, undated

2 Page Letter By claude rains

This letter is far less literary, but I'm obsessed with it because of who wrote it-- my OTHER, and possibly top of the list, crush, Claude Rains. It's $500 or only $45 for 12 months (this is obviously a shorter loan term and seems more expensive, lol). In searching for an autograph of his for sale online, I've found many examples, all of which were in the high three digits or low four...but god willing, I'll locate some less pricey cocktail napkin or coaster he scribbled on eventually and add that trophy to my autograph wall. I think Rains may have the worst Hollywood handwriting I've seen so far-- his autograph is usually just a hasty scrawl at the bottom of an 8 x 10 (or, cheekily in this case, along the collar of his photographic self's dress shirt). This, however, is a full on letter, on his personal stationery! It reads (I think) :

Dear Charlotte [?? something "man"],

Your treatment of Mr. Johnson is a beautiful work of art and I shall treasure his works even more! Here is your check. I have an idea—culled from your library (such a lovely place for work)—a glass case for maybe the open book. If and when you can, could you give it a thought and tell me where to go for such a rarity? Always my most grateful thanks and real appreciation. You are a great packer too. 

Sincerely, Claude Rains 

I love how excited he sounds about this glass case to display her book on (probably) Ben Jonson, an early modern playwright. Can you just hear him reading this letter aloud?

3) Errol Flynn, 1956

ERROL FLYNN RARE SIGNED LETTER CRITICISING PRODUCER OF ERROL FLYNN tHEATRE 1956

This one is a pip simply because Errol Flynn is POPPING. OFF. on a producer of his mid fifties' tv show, Errol Flynn Theatre. Don't be fooled by the letterhead and address...it may look like slash WAS official correspondence, but the tone is decidedly unprofessional (and FANTASTIC as a result). Lots of celebrities had anthology tv shows in the fifties'-- Boyer was part of Four Star Playhouse, which included Ida Lupino, Dick Powell, and David Niven to round out the quartet; The Barbara Stanwyck Show, Douglas Fairbanks Presents, The Joseph Cotten Show, and Robert Montgomery Presents all featured the title presenter as an occasional actor to bring new faces to the screen and try to hang on to the relevance of their forties' motion picture stardom. What surprises me is that I've never even heard of this one, in which Flynn and third wife Patrice Wymore would turn in thirty minute live performances of adapted material (I found an episode on archive.org that I plan to watch after posting this). I've never heard of it (or retained memory of it) and I've been through AT LEAST four or five books on Flynn, he's one of my favorite movie stars! You can read the letter itself, but in sum, Flynn is up to here with the lack of quality and corniness of the scripts presented pre-production for this series... throwing around terms like "old hat", "corny", "ordure", "mediocre" in a scathing but somehow still lighthearted memo. Speaking as someone who has watched a lot of 1950's tv in my day, I can attest to the low grade material that was sometimes placed in front of tv dinner eating Eisenhowerites...so maybe this was more of the same. However, the hilariously literate way Flynn, a published author in his own right outside of his acting work, lights 'em up makes me wish there was a book collecting his correspondence-- if this was a throwaway business communication, I'd love to see some of the personal stuff.

Whoever bought this for $220, kudos! You have a treasure on your hands.

4) Katharine Hepburn, undated

Katharine Hepburn Letter Signed

The jerkiness of Hepburn's imprecise script in this letter seems to mimic to me her own idiosyncractic speech pattern...I like to think of all those either ellided or staccato tones as recreated here by the individual letters. Look at the e's in "feel" and the general rectangularness of each line! I'm no graphologist, but that has to mean something to a handwriting expert. Ebay seller "historydirect" transcribes most letters, God bless them , so this is an easy one to read if you're looking at the listing:

"I came back from Florida to be greeted by your huge Stowaway treat - then found the grapefruit & the tangerines - You are obviously quite insane & must be going broke rapidly. They are all so good but I worry that you spend too much on me- Your letters always make me feel fine & your story of the broken dish - oh how often i've done just that. Trying to catch up with the endless letters. Affection." 

"You are obviously quite insane and must be going broke rapidly" is such a cheeky little line, I love it. I revere Katharine Hepburn...but I hated...hated... HATED her autobiography, "Me". One, for its ersatz ee cummings tone and composition-- two, for the fact that, considering this is someone who had to have lived THE MOST AMAZING LIFE, she was surprisingly tight lipped on anything I had any interest in, and all too open with things I had no interest in. The audiobook was a little better because you could hear her perform the otherwise almost too self-indulgent text, but I still give it failing marks-- Garson Kanin's book about Tracy and Hepburn was about a million times more interesting. Just FYI. Yet another person I wish had a book of letters collected so that we could see more of "the real [insert name here]".

5) Clark Gable, 1938

Clark Gable Typed Letter Signed 1938

I thought this would be a boring letter because it's typed, but it's pretty interesting! Lots of typed correspondence like this is strictly business-- contracts, "I hereby do" whatevers, etc etc. Or else professional blurbs under the guise of letters-- I've seen ones from silent star Colleen Moore and another from the aforementioned Tyrone Power that was really less a personal letter and more a press release for an upcoming project. However! "The King" wrote this letter on his personal letterhead to the editor of Sports Afield magazine, in November of 1938, a little more than a year ahead of the release of Gone With the Wind. It reads:

"I hate alibis and this isn't an alibi-ing letter. I feel as though I have no good excuse for not having written sooner. I arrived home Sunday morning going directly from the station to the studio and haven't been idle one day since then. This has been the busiest and most difficult picture I have ever made. Still have three weeks to go. I am writing this between shots on stage. Needless to say I had a marvelous time up there with you and all the fellows from Minneapolis. Haven't been duck shooting down here but once. There were no ducks as usual. The pictures they sent to me I have distributed around the local duck hunters just to let them know there are ducks in some parts of the country. When I told Harry Fleischman about all the ducks and mallards he looked at me with a movie studios eye; however, having seen as many as I did I had a convincing ring in my voice, I know, because now all the guys here are saying, 'when you go up there again, take me with you.' Received Clara's letter giving me all the news. Are Murphy and Walt still working out in the club house every afternoon after the shoot? Give them my regards and tell them I hope to bend the elbow again with them next year. Are you going to spend the winter here in California or in Florida? If you are coming out here let me know because I'll have to kill the Fatted Calf'. Had a letter from Nick Mahler the other day regarding some skates that he was sending to me. Nick is a swell lad and never seems to stop doing things for someone. That was a swell party he threw and I enjoyed meeting all of his and your friends. Quail season opened here today but unfortunately I am stuck here as usual. All the gang went up by Bakersfield to warm up their guns. I think they will get their limits as quail seem plentiful here this year. Imagine the ducks are in at your place by now pretty thick. Wish I could be there for a couple of days shoot with you, however I am grateful for the fine shoot that I had. Kindest regards to all the gang and to yourself and Clara." 

Is that not a great letter? Like the others, can't you just hear him saying it? I love the jocular tone and the little jokes like "The pictures they sent to me I have distributed around the local duck hunters just to let them know there are ducks in some parts of the country." Gable was an avid outdoorsman who was frequently shot for Photoplay and other fan magazines in full hunting gear, tramping around his farm or up the country with his gorgeous wife Carole Lombard or friend Gary Cooper in tow. I'm always surprised and heartened to see my movie idols turn out to be kind of like they are in the movies-- doesn't Gable seem like a hail fellow well met? Somebody wire me $2,200 so I can keep this encased in lucite under my pillow.

6) Douglas Fairbanks Jr. , 1987

DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS JR SIGNED LETTER BETTY BARKER FUNNY CONTENT LAURENCE OLIVIER

This is one of my favorites because the idea of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Laurence Olivier being good enough friends to play little jokes on each other even into their respective eighties' is adorable to me. DFJr, former husband of Joan Crawford, wrote this letter to Crawford's former personal secretary. In it, he reveals that he and "Larry" used to pal around with frequent Crawford co-star Robert Montgomery (the often tuxedoed-in-1930's-movies father of Bewitched actress Elizabeth Montgomery), but apparently hated him. DFJr thought it would be a lark to send Olivier a picture of Montgomery made out to him personally and asked if the secretary had one of "any size, kind or description" for him to follow out his little prank. I live for it. The handwritten postscript is funny too: "PS. How and where are you!" Above, I've added pictures of Olivier and Fairbanks with Lillian Gish at an awards ceremony in the late 80's, Robert Montgomery in his prime, and Betty Barker, the assistant and recipient of the letter. I'm still getting a kick out of how cheeky this is days after I initially found it, so there.

7) Natalie Wood, 1974

1974 NATALIE WOOD WAGNER HAND SIGNED LETTER WITH ENVELOPE FRANCE PSADNA RIP

This is a GREAT and suitably bubbly letter from a pregnant Natalie Wood, on holiday in the south of France with her husband Robert Wagner. The addressee is Dr. Joseph Milstein, an LA ob-gyn who I think may have been her doctor...hence all the details on the pregnancy? It's very friendly either way.

The letter reads:

Dear Joe,

Greetings from the South of France & Happy New Year! R.J. had 2 ½ weeks off so we flew here for a terrific holiday! It’s gorgeous here & London is absolutely pre-war, miserable, cold, & everyone has a tight lip! I might mention that before we left London I weighed in at 143 and when Gordon Bourne finished fainting he recorded the baby’s heartbeat, announced that since the heartbeat was 130 it would be a boy, and gave us the cassette. After R.J. and I finished fainting we wondered if he could be right & decided he had a 50/50 chance to be – or 106 to 100 if my current readings are correct! Here in France they have all kinds of special creams for the prevention of dreaded stretch marks & so far much of my holiday has been spent in the religious application of the aforementioned creams! I’ve been feeling great and we have a lovely flat in London & only 1 more month to be there so all goes well! Hope you had terrific holidays and every good wish for health, happiness & all good things for you & your family for ‘74

Love from R.J. and Natalie

Spoiler: the doctor was wrong, and Courtney Wagner was born March 9, 1974 (three months after the letter was written!). Only slightly creepy for the way things ended up for Wagner and Wood. :( Still, I love seeing her very legible handwriting and reading about how excited she was to have this baby, having been through the same myself what seems like yesterday.

8) Cary Grant, undated

Ugh! This may be the one I wanted the most out of the whole batch. An Affair to Remember: My Life with Cary Grant is the ne plus ultra of celebrity girlfriends/wives memoirs, in equal parts romantic, dishy, and well-told-- I have read it at least four times, and that's coming from someone who never likes to re-read anything. Its author, Maureen Donaldson, is the intended recipient of this note on Faberge letterhead, written to her it sounds like slightly after the breakup of their four year relationship. The handwriting! The writer! (As I just sigh my dreamiest sigh). 

It says:

Maureen,

This-- the enclosed-- will relieve a little of the pressure. Now concentrate on your work, your reputation, and the daily [promise?] of self pride! You looked well and I was very pleased to see you.

Cary 

I know, from several biographies I've practically committed to memory as well as Donaldson's book, that the man was probably no picnic to live with in real life, but my GOODNESS the suavité. "You looked well and I was very pleased to see you", coming from Cary Grant? Stop IT. I think this must have originally included a check ("the enclosed") and was probably a nice gesture from a very wealthy (though notoriously tight fisted) man to his ex girlfriend, who was at the time starting a career in photography. Speaking of, I googled "Maureen Donaldson" in Getty Images to see if I could spot any photos of her and Grant out on the town, being stalked by paparazzi-- instead, it came up with A BLUE MILLION late 70s/early 80s publicity photos she took of some people who took off, and some who didn't! Click here to see early Jim Carey, Jodie Foster, Heather Locklear, and more.

Well! I think I have talked your ear off enough for today. What did you think? Which is your favorite letter? Is there an old time Hollywood actor or actress you'd just love to snag a memento of? What kind of weird things do you look up on eBay when you're not really looking for anything in particular? I'd love to hear from you!!

I'm glad to be back on the semi regular and hope to keep in the habit of writing. Take care, and we'll talk again soon!

Bing Crosby and Dean Martin à la française (French Records, 1953 and 1962)

Good morning!!

I have been gone but hopefully not forgotten-- how's tricks? Things are swimming along as smoothly as you could hope for with an almost fourteen month old under foot, but I thought I'd pop by and bend your ear on the subject of some vintage records that have recently come to my attention. In sum:

GUYS. THERE ARE TWO FRENCH-THEMED ALBUMS BY BING CROSBY AND DEAN MARTIN, RESPECTIVELY. I'd heard of these some time back but just got a chance to sit and listen this week thanks to Spotify. Wanna hear all about it? I knoooow that you do, haha.

Allons-y!

1) Le Bing: Song Hits of Paris: Sung in French by Bing Crosby:

This album popped up when I was looking through the Crosby discography to weed out Christmas records. Bing Crosby's contribution to supermarket/department store PA system soundtrack music from approximately October to December 25th is greatly appreciated, and "White Christmas", contextualized into its WWII beginnings and listened to for on its own merit outside of how popular it became, is incredible...but I was looking for more of his early crooner stuff after seeing the knock-your-socks-off PBS American Masters doc on his life and work and having read a really solid biography of the same. And...what the heck...did I spy with my little eye A WHOLE RECORD OF BING SINGING ENTIRELY IN FRENCH? I did, mesdames et messieurs. I did.

And ten easy lessons later...we have Le Bing!

Der Bingle is actually not too bad at the French accent! I am impressed by his dedication to doing the entire album without switching languages-- a lot of people would have gone for translations with a bit of French sprinkled in (spoiler: see Dino's record below), but he definitely goes whole hog (cochon entière).  The re-issue includes several French to English songs or Franglais songs, but the original record is mostly all French. Crosby sounds about like you would expect him to and doesn't make any hideous or egregious mistakes in accent-- HOWEVER. I would like to point out to the jury exhibit A, track four of this album, in the case of "does Bing speak French or is he working on this phonetically". 

If you live on planet Earth, you've probably heard Edith Piaf's gorgeous signature hymne de l'amour, "La Vie en Rose". You may or may not have heard Louis Armstrong's English language version, which is *so* beautiful and maybe my second favorite interpretation of the song. For Armstrong's version, the lyrics are changed from Piaf's, because French to English translations sometimes have to take liberties to preserve the elegance of the sentiment. The English version's opening line: "Hold me close and hold me fast / The magic spell you cast / This is la vie en rose" is not exactly the same as "Quand il me prend dans ses bras/ Qu'il me parle tout bas/ Je vois la vie en rose". The French directly translates "When he holds me in his arms/ When he talks to me softly/ I see life in pink". As this is a woman singing, notice it's when he holds me in his arms, when he talks to me softly. In some French language versions I've heard with a male singer, they either switch the pronoun to "she" (elle) or take a note from the English version and say "you" (tu, in the familiar, which makes sense, as a person who makes my life la vie en rose is probably beyond the vous stage of the relationship). Bing blithely sings the song exactly as it was written for Piaf, meaning you have him saying things like "C'est lui pour moi/Moi pour lui dans la vie/ Il me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie" (It's him for me, me for him in life, he told me so, swore it for life). Um. Which, believe me, is very cool with me if he meant to sing a wrenching beautiful torch song to a man, but-- I don't think this was intentional. And it would have been such an easy fix!! Verdict: Our favorite ba-ba-ba-booer is not a genuine francophone, but puts up a pretty dang good show of it.

A typically pithy quote from him, cribbed from the Wikipedia page on this record:

Of his French accent, Bing remarked at the time that any complaints should be sent 'to the back door of the United Nations'.

"So sue me." (Poursuis-moi, alors)

The rest of the disc is a bit of a sleeper-- it reminds me of a lot of Eisenhower era crooner records in that you can put it on and forget that it's on outside of some standout tracks. No less than my blessed Frank Sinatra is guilty of this with some of his lesser Decca recordings. Overall, though, I have to say I was so pleased with the novelty of the foreign language format that I would listen again. It might even get better on a second spin, qui sait.

Verdict: Three out of five croque monsieurs:

2) Dean Martin: French Style

Dean Martin: French Style is MUCH livelier, if more English-speaking, than Le Bing. If you remember, along with the likes of Jerry Vale, Connie Francis, and Al Martino, Dean Martin was part of a wave of second generation Italian singers, making up like an entire GENRE of music in the fifties' and sixties', the Italian American Italian language ballad. So! To have him travel up the continent to France isn't a stretch but a very interesting stamp on his musical passport nonetheless. Dino's waggish spoken asides are as light-hearted as his appearance on the cover en blouse d'artiste, béret, et  porte-cigarette (and doesn't he wear it all with a dash!). Most of these songs are about France with tiny bits of French included, but I can appreciate a concept album right along with the best of them. Can you imagine someone's mom and dad / grandma and grandad pulling the cellophane off this record brand new in 1962, and putting it on a console record player while making beefaroni for the family? Something about the earnestness and unselfconsciousness of making a somewhat tongue in cheek but not satirical or snarky record cements a record like this so FIRMLY in the time period for me.

Songs to look for? Dino tackles "La Vie en Rose" in English with exactly the same timbre/pathos of his classic "Non Dimentecar", which I never realized sounds kind of like an Italian cousin of this song. I like his version of "I Like Paris"on this record-- but I looooove the "I Love Vegas" version on this live Rat Pack record. His riffs on his own song catalog in his Rat Pack performances are always one of the highlights of show for me. But I digress. Some low points include throwaway lyrics in between accordion blasts on songs like "The Poor People of France", which includes such lackluster paroles as "I feel sorry for the French/Every guy has got a wench/ Every couple's got a bench/Kissing shamelessly"...uh, this is like late movie career Elvis bad in terms of songwriting. BUT! I still think overall it's a lot of fun.

With Jerry Lewis in Paris-- did you know that restaurant is still in business?

Verdict: four out of five jambon emmental sandwiches from Monoprix, which have no earthly right to be as good as they are, considering they come out of a refrigerator case at a corner store:

You can listen to both of these albums on Spotify or even Youtube! What are you waiting for?






Well that's it for this installment of "what's been buzzing around in Lisa's head"-- I hope to share more weird recent finds with you soon. In the meantime, what you been listening to? Any great midcentury finds in either English or French? What do you think about non-native speaker foreign language celebrity records (what a section that would be in a record store)? Parlons-nous!

Take care, and we'll talk again soon!