Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball
Cary Grant, “Baby”, and Katharine Hepburn on the set of Bringing Up Baby (1937, dir. Howard Hawks). “Cary was so funny on this picture. He was fatter, and at this point his boiling energy was at its peak. We would laugh from morning to night. [Director Howard] Hawks was fun too. He usually got to work late. Cary and I were always there early. Everyone contributed anything and everything they could think of to that script.” -Katharine Hepburn in her autobiography, Me

Cary Grant, “Baby”, and Katharine Hepburn on the set of Bringing Up Baby (1937, dir. Howard Hawks).

“Cary was so funny on this picture. He was fatter, and at this point his boiling energy was at its peak. We would laugh from morning to night. [Director Howard] Hawks was fun too. He usually got to work late. Cary and I were always there early. Everyone contributed anything and everything they could think of to that script.”

-Katharine Hepburn in her autobiography, Me

Bette Davis, 1939 (via LIFE, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt) Maybe I just didn’t have the temperament for stardom. I’ll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, “Miss Davis, I’m Ava Gardner and I’m a great fan of yours.” And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. “Of course you are, my dear,” she said. “Of course you are.” And she swept on. Now that’s a star. -Ava Gardner

Bette Davis, 1939 (via LIFE, photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt)

Maybe I just didn’t have the temperament for stardom. I’ll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, “Miss Davis, I’m Ava Gardner and I’m a great fan of yours.” And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. “Of course you are, my dear,” she said. “Of course you are.” And she swept on. Now that’s a star.

-Ava Gardner

“I loved working with Katharine. She was fun..but she was very serious about the film. She was almost the producer, and when I had to do a scene in a bathing suit…well, I just told Katharine that I looked ridiculous in a bathing suit because my legs were just so thin. She said, “Show me your legs,” and she said it with such authority that I hoisted my pants up until she could see my knees. And she took one look and said, “You’re right. Those are just the worst legs I’ve ever seen!” And so she talked [director George] Cukor into letting me do the scene in a bathrobe”. -Jimmy Stewart on Kate, his gams, and filming The Philadelphia Story (photo via drmacro)

“I loved working with Katharine. She was fun..but she was very serious about the film. She was almost the producer, and when I had to do a scene in a bathing suit…well, I just told Katharine that I looked ridiculous in a bathing suit because my legs were just so thin. She said, “Show me your legs,” and she said it with such authority that I hoisted my pants up until she could see my knees. And she took one look and said, “You’re right. Those are just the worst legs I’ve ever seen!” And so she talked [director George] Cukor into letting me do the scene in a bathrobe”.

-Jimmy Stewart on Kate, his gams, and filming The Philadelphia Story

(photo via drmacro)

“If spiritually you’re part of the cat family, you can’t bear to be laughed at. You have to pretend when you fall down that you really wanted to be down there to see what’s under the sofa. The rest of us don’t at all mind being laughed at.” -Orson Welles (1946, photo by Al Fenn)

“If spiritually you’re part of the cat family, you can’t bear to be laughed at. You have to pretend when you fall down that you really wanted to be down there to see what’s under the sofa. The rest of us don’t at all mind being laughed at.”

-Orson Welles (1946, photo by Al Fenn)

Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart on the set of Rear Window (1954) [Cary Grant and James Stewart] were as different in their professionalism as in their onscreen personas. While Grant could be a royal pain, fussy and demanding in his approach to a film, Stewart punched into work like a guy carrying a tin lunch box. Stewart was more of a partner, and the Hitchcock-Stewart films were organized as partnerships, with Stewart’s company sharing a percentage of the gross and profits—and risk. As with Rope (1948), Stewart paid himself a reduced salary, taking the chance of making more money on the back end. The director knew from experience that such an arrangement wouldn’t work with Cary Grant, but after Rope, Stewart would be involved in this way in each of his other three films with Hitchcock, from the script stage through to the end of production. Hitchcock and Stewart had a peculiar friendship; they were intimate but also proper with each other, close but also businesslike. Stewart wasn’t much of a gossiper, a chuckler at dirty stories, or a practical joker. He attended at least one “blue dye” dinner party at Bellagio Road, where Hitchcock served blue martinis, blue steak, and blue potatoes to the guests, but thereafter he was a rarer visitor to the Hitchcock houses, in Bel Air or up in Santa Cruz. (It worked the other way around; Hitchcock visited Stewart, often at his home in Hawaii.) In meetings or on the set they didn’t talk much. They had more of an unspoken communion, sharing amused glances—like Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock. -Patrick McGilligan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

Alfred Hitchcock & James Stewart on the set of Rear Window (1954)

[Cary Grant and James Stewart] were as different in their professionalism as in their onscreen personas. While Grant could be a royal pain, fussy and demanding in his approach to a film, Stewart punched into work like a guy carrying a tin lunch box. Stewart was more of a partner, and the Hitchcock-Stewart films were organized as partnerships, with Stewart’s company sharing a percentage of the gross and profits—and risk. As with Rope (1948), Stewart paid himself a reduced salary, taking the chance of making more money on the back end. The director knew from experience that such an arrangement wouldn’t work with Cary Grant, but after Rope, Stewart would be involved in this way in each of his other three films with Hitchcock, from the script stage through to the end of production.

Hitchcock and Stewart had a peculiar friendship; they were intimate but also proper with each other, close but also businesslike. Stewart wasn’t much of a gossiper, a chuckler at dirty stories, or a practical joker. He attended at least one “blue dye” dinner party at Bellagio Road, where Hitchcock served blue martinis, blue steak, and blue potatoes to the guests, but thereafter he was a rarer visitor to the Hitchcock houses, in Bel Air or up in Santa Cruz. (It worked the other way around; Hitchcock visited Stewart, often at his home in Hawaii.)

In meetings or on the set they didn’t talk much. They had more of an unspoken communion, sharing amused glances—like Mr. and Mrs. Hitchcock.

-Patrick McGilligan, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

Fabulous Final Scenes: Marlene Dietrich in Dishonored (1931, dir. Josef von Sternberg) The gorgeous music that plays over the final shot is Ivanovici’s “Donauwellen” (Waves of the Danube).

As the lady spy confronting the firing squad in Dishonored (after having spent her last night on Earth playing a piano in her cell), she waits patiently while a young soldier in a burst of heroism shouts, “No more butchery!” Marlene, as sure that there will be more butchery as she is that her own death will follow, merely applies fresh lipstick. This is the ultimate vision of beauty as courage and the ultimate victory of style (Dietrich’s & Sternberg’s) over content; style has become content. For what man will not feel his claims to courage dwarfed by such a gesture of acceptance, and what director will not feel the pretentions of his socially conscious film reduced by such a shrug!

-Molly Haskell (1973)

Alfred Hitchcock & Anthony Perkins on the set of Psycho (1960) (via mptvimages/Universal Studios) Hitchcock had made the all-important decision to hire Perkins way back in early summer, before there was any script. Perkins, who had made his screen debut in 1950, had the facade of a “bobby-soxer’s dreamboat with a brain,” in [critic Stephen] Rebello’s words; he even recorded pop music albums. But Hitchcock liked Perkins as soon as he met him: he was a sensitive, intelligent actor eager to take a dare and play a cross-dressing serial murderer. Although it was never mentioned between Hitchcock & Perkins, the actor’s homosexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, and Perkins as Norman Bates couldn’t help but draw on that subtext. […] Hitchcock got along wonderfully with Perkins, whose guarded personality intrigued him. The actor suggested aspects of his boy-next-door wardrobe, and it was Perkins’s idea for Norman Bates to munch candy corn. Even Perkins’s requests for extra takes were indulged, and at one point, when he approached the director to ask haltingly about making a few minor changes in his dialogue, Hitchcock, ruffling his newpaper, looked up. “Oh, they’re all right - I’m sure they’re all right. Have you given these a lot of thought? You’ve really though it out? And you like these changes?” When Perkins assured him he did, Hitchcock said, “All right, that’s the way we’ll do it.” [Perkins’s character Norman Bates] was accustomed to pampering and part of the strange power of Psycho comes from the fact that the serial killer isn’t harshly judged by Hitchcock, but is allowed to live and breathe - is even pampered - by the director. -excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Patrick McGilligan

Alfred Hitchcock & Anthony Perkins on the set of Psycho (1960) (via mptvimages/Universal Studios)

Hitchcock had made the all-important decision to hire Perkins way back in early summer, before there was any script. Perkins, who had made his screen debut in 1950, had the facade of a “bobby-soxer’s dreamboat with a brain,” in [critic Stephen] Rebello’s words; he even recorded pop music albums. But Hitchcock liked Perkins as soon as he met him: he was a sensitive, intelligent actor eager to take a dare and play a cross-dressing serial murderer. Although it was never mentioned between Hitchcock & Perkins, the actor’s homosexuality was an open secret in Hollywood, and Perkins as Norman Bates couldn’t help but draw on that subtext.

[…]

Hitchcock got along wonderfully with Perkins, whose guarded personality intrigued him. The actor suggested aspects of his boy-next-door wardrobe, and it was Perkins’s idea for Norman Bates to munch candy corn. Even Perkins’s requests for extra takes were indulged, and at one point, when he approached the director to ask haltingly about making a few minor changes in his dialogue, Hitchcock, ruffling his newpaper, looked up.

“Oh, they’re all right - I’m sure they’re all right. Have you given these a lot of thought? You’ve really though it out? And you like these changes?” When Perkins assured him he did, Hitchcock said, “All right, that’s the way we’ll do it.” [Perkins’s character Norman Bates] was accustomed to pampering and part of the strange power of Psycho comes from the fact that the serial killer isn’t harshly judged by Hitchcock, but is allowed to live and breathe - is even pampered - by the director.

-excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Patrick McGilligan

Alfred Hitchcock & Janet Leigh on the set of Psycho (1960) (via mptvimages/Universal Studios) Janet Leigh was a good sport, who got a kick out of [Hitchcock’s] off-color limericks, puns, and pranks. The worst jokes on Leigh seemed to come just moments before her most important scenes - and she found most of them terribly funny. Hitchcock had one running gag involving Leigh and Mrs. Bates - Norman’s mother - as he tested the various mummified skeletons created by the effects department. The director “relished scaring me,” Leigh wrote in her memoir. “He experimented with the mother’s corpse, using me as his gauge. I would return from lunch, open the door to the dressing room, and propped in my chair would be this hideous monstrosity. The horror in my scream registered on his Richter scale, decided his choice of the Madam.” Hitchcock cared about Leigh (and the character she was playing), a concern reflected in the way he helped her out, even acting from the sidelines, during the protracted car-driving interludes (unusual for a director not at all known for hand-holding or even being willing to discuss a character’s motiviations with an actor). In those scenes Marion wears “a troubled, guilty face,” according to the script, and the director “completely articulated for me what I was thinking,” Leigh recalled. “‘Oh-oh,’ he’d say, ‘there’s your boss. He’s watching you with a funny look.’” -excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Patrick McGilligan

Alfred Hitchcock & Janet Leigh on the set of Psycho (1960) (via mptvimages/Universal Studios)

Janet Leigh was a good sport, who got a kick out of [Hitchcock’s] off-color limericks, puns, and pranks. The worst jokes on Leigh seemed to come just moments before her most important scenes - and she found most of them terribly funny.

Hitchcock had one running gag involving Leigh and Mrs. Bates - Norman’s mother - as he tested the various mummified skeletons created by the effects department. The director “relished scaring me,” Leigh wrote in her memoir. “He experimented with the mother’s corpse, using me as his gauge. I would return from lunch, open the door to the dressing room, and propped in my chair would be this hideous monstrosity. The horror in my scream registered on his Richter scale, decided his choice of the Madam.”

Hitchcock cared about Leigh (and the character she was playing), a concern reflected in the way he helped her out, even acting from the sidelines, during the protracted car-driving interludes (unusual for a director not at all known for hand-holding or even being willing to discuss a character’s motiviations with an actor). In those scenes Marion wears “a troubled, guilty face,” according to the script, and the director “completely articulated for me what I was thinking,” Leigh recalled. “‘Oh-oh,’ he’d say, ‘there’s your boss. He’s watching you with a funny look.’”

-excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Patrick McGilligan

Gregory Peck in Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) While filming Spellbound, Gregory Peck made the mistake of inquiring about his motivation in a particular scene. What were his character’s inner life and feelings? What should he be thinking?  “My dear boy,” Hitchcock drawled. “I couldn’t care less what you’re thinking. Just let your face drain of all expression.” Peck’s “soul-searching and…lack of ready technique,” in the actor’s words, tested Hitchcock’s patience. The inexperienced leading man hungered for guidance. Much of the time Peck felt adrift, vulnerable - rather like the character he was playing. Although the drained expression was a guise, it also suggested the reality of an uncertain actor.  -via Patrick McGilligan’s Alfred Hitchcock:A Life in Darkness and Light

Gregory Peck in Spellbound (1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

While filming Spellbound, Gregory Peck made the mistake of inquiring about his motivation in a particular scene. What were his character’s inner life and feelings? What should he be thinking? 

“My dear boy,” Hitchcock drawled. “I couldn’t care less what you’re thinking. Just let your face drain of all expression.” Peck’s “soul-searching and…lack of ready technique,” in the actor’s words, tested Hitchcock’s patience. The inexperienced leading man hungered for guidance. Much of the time Peck felt adrift, vulnerable - rather like the character he was playing. Although the drained expression was a guise, it also suggested the reality of an uncertain actor. 

-via Patrick McGilligan’s Alfred Hitchcock:A Life in Darkness and Light

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Rebecca (1940)  [While filming Rebecca],Hitchcock built up his power over Joan Fontaine while keeping her nervous & vulnerable enough to enhance the nervous, vulnerable character she was playing. She was not, it must be said, all that popular on the set. Olivier, still smarting over the fact that Fontaine had beaten out [his lover] Vivien Leigh for the part, treated his costar with transparent disdain. Olivier’s “attitude helped me subconsciously,” Fontaine later conceded in No Bed of Roses. “His resentment made me feel so dreadfully intimidated that I was believable in my portrayal.” Hitchcock encouraged these tensions as grist for the scenes between his two stars. When, during the first week of shooting, Fontaine expressed shock after Olivier used a four-letter word, Hitchcock stepped in. “I say Larry old boy, do be careful,” he cautioned. “Joan is just a new bride.” When Olivier asked who the husband was, Fontaine replied that she had married Brian Aherne. “Couldn’t you do better than that?” he flung over his shoulder before striding off imperiously. The retort demolished her; Aherne was a lightweight, often typecast as an English gentleman, and Fontaine said later that she could never look at him with the same eyes again. (An impulsive marriage to begin with, it would also be a short-lived one.) Not just Olivier but the entire cast, behaved like a “cliquey lot.” United by their superiority and their purer Englishness, they sneered at the least-seasoned player behind her back, or so Fontaine believed. Hitchcock took advantage of this, too, drawing on Fontaine’s insecurity to inform her performance in Rebecca. Ordering Fontaine to the set on her day off, the director surprised the actress by throwing her a birthday party. She was equally surprised that the important cast members didn’t bother to show up; they stayed in their dressing rooms. Hitchcock could have summoned them – but their absence suited his strategy. It wasn’t really a matter of “Divide & Conquer” as Fontaine described it in her autobiography. It was Hitchcock forcing a movie actress to become her character, by treating Fontaine like Mrs. De Winter. The actress felt as alone, as terrified, as de Winter’s young bride felt in Rebecca’s world. -excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness & Light

Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Rebecca (1940) 

[While filming Rebecca],Hitchcock built up his power over Joan Fontaine while keeping her nervous & vulnerable enough to enhance the nervous, vulnerable character she was playing.

She was not, it must be said, all that popular on the set. Olivier, still smarting over the fact that Fontaine had beaten out [his lover] Vivien Leigh for the part, treated his costar with transparent disdain. Olivier’s “attitude helped me subconsciously,” Fontaine later conceded in No Bed of Roses. “His resentment made me feel so dreadfully intimidated that I was believable in my portrayal.”

Hitchcock encouraged these tensions as grist for the scenes between his two stars. When, during the first week of shooting, Fontaine expressed shock after Olivier used a four-letter word, Hitchcock stepped in. “I say Larry old boy, do be careful,” he cautioned. “Joan is just a new bride.” When Olivier asked who the husband was, Fontaine replied that she had married Brian Aherne. “Couldn’t you do better than that?” he flung over his shoulder before striding off imperiously. The retort demolished her; Aherne was a lightweight, often typecast as an English gentleman, and Fontaine said later that she could never look at him with the same eyes again. (An impulsive marriage to begin with, it would also be a short-lived one.)

Not just Olivier but the entire cast, behaved like a “cliquey lot.” United by their superiority and their purer Englishness, they sneered at the least-seasoned player behind her back, or so Fontaine believed. Hitchcock took advantage of this, too, drawing on Fontaine’s insecurity to inform her performance in Rebecca. Ordering Fontaine to the set on her day off, the director surprised the actress by throwing her a birthday party. She was equally surprised that the important cast members didn’t bother to show up; they stayed in their dressing rooms. Hitchcock could have summoned them – but their absence suited his strategy.

It wasn’t really a matter of “Divide & Conquer” as Fontaine described it in her autobiography. It was Hitchcock forcing a movie actress to become her character, by treating Fontaine like Mrs. De Winter. The actress felt as alone, as terrified, as de Winter’s young bride felt in Rebecca’s world.

-excerpted from Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness & Light

Katharine Hepburn in the stage production of The Philadelphia Story (1939, photo by A. Eisenstaedt) When compiling my “pro” and “con” “Should I keep smoking?” lists, this photograph made up most of my “pro” column, nearly balancing out the increased odds of bronchitis and emphysema. 

Katharine Hepburn in the stage production of The Philadelphia Story (1939, photo by A. Eisenstaedt)

When compiling my “pro” and “con” “Should I keep smoking?” lists, this photograph made up most of my “pro” column, nearly balancing out the increased odds of bronchitis and emphysema. 

Kim Novak on the set of Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) Novak was the top box office star three years running in the ‘50s. Still, she is not usually mentioned in the same breath with the other major actresses of the period — Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner. She was not earthy like Gardner or icy like Kelly or Rubensesque like Monroe or raunchy like Jane Russell or perky like Doris Day. She was something that has gone out of fashion and even become suspect in an era of feminist strictures: she was the object of a voyeuristic male gaze. The characters Novak plays know and resent the fact that those who pursue them are drawn only to their surfaces and have no idea of, or interest in, what lies beneath. Betty in “Middle of the Night,” Madge in “Picnic,” Lona in “Pushover,” Linda in “Pal Joey,” Molly in “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Polly the Pistol in “Kiss Me Stupid,” Judy in “Vertigo” — all are the prisoners of their beauty and its effect. One critic speaks of Novak’s “passive carnality.” Her characters draw men in, but not willfully. That is not who they are or what they want, although no one cares to know. It is possible that the men who directed her — Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Joshua Logan, Richard Quine, Delbert Mann — saw her in the same way and made her into a projection of their fantasies. …At any rate, “that kind of image” — of the inwardly fragile beauty dependent on the men who wish only to possess her — was no longer what the movie-going public was looking for after the early ‘60s, and that model of female behavior has not come into favor again…But however retrograde it may be, that role was performed to perfection by Kim Novak, who, after all these years, can still break your heart. -Stanley Fish, Giving Kim Novak Her Due (NY Times)

Kim Novak on the set of Vertigo (1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Novak was the top box office star three years running in the ‘50s. Still, she is not usually mentioned in the same breath with the other major actresses of the period — Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Ava Gardner. She was not earthy like Gardner or icy like Kelly or Rubensesque like Monroe or raunchy like Jane Russell or perky like Doris Day. She was something that has gone out of fashion and even become suspect in an era of feminist strictures: she was the object of a voyeuristic male gaze.

The characters Novak plays know and resent the fact that those who pursue them are drawn only to their surfaces and have no idea of, or interest in, what lies beneath. Betty in “Middle of the Night,” Madge in “Picnic,” Lona in “Pushover,” Linda in “Pal Joey,” Molly in “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Polly the Pistol in “Kiss Me Stupid,” Judy in “Vertigo” — all are the prisoners of their beauty and its effect. One critic speaks of Novak’s “passive carnality.” Her characters draw men in, but not willfully. That is not who they are or what they want, although no one cares to know. It is possible that the men who directed her — Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Joshua Logan, Richard Quine, Delbert Mann — saw her in the same way and made her into a projection of their fantasies.

…At any rate, “that kind of image” — of the inwardly fragile beauty dependent on the men who wish only to possess her — was no longer what the movie-going public was looking for after the early ‘60s, and that model of female behavior has not come into favor again…But however retrograde it may be, that role was performed to perfection by Kim Novak, who, after all these years, can still break your heart.

-Stanley Fish, Giving Kim Novak Her Due (NY Times)

Vampyr (1932, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer), which, in the words of Cliff Doerksen “merits the attention of lovers of German expressionism, admirers of David Lynch and Guy Maddin, devotees of J-horror, and anyone interested in cinematically induced disorientation, madness, and fear.”  And really, who’s not interested in that?

Vampyr (1932, dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer), which, in the words of Cliff Doerksen “merits the attention of lovers of German expressionism, admirers of David Lynch and Guy Maddin, devotees of J-horror, and anyone interested in cinematically induced disorientation, madness, and fear.”  And really, who’s not interested in that?