Category Archives: “Rosebud”

On “thin ice”?

Posted on June 29, 2023 | 2 comments

                    

When the events in our world become too unpleasant, I retreat to a comforting place:  old movies.

I’ve been a movie buff my entire life, and I’ve previously written about some of my favorite films.  

An invaluable source of old movies has been the TV channel TCM, Turner Classic Movies.  A recent threat to the status of TCM arose when a new CEO assumed a degree of power over it.  Maureen Dowd described the situation perfectly in her column in The New York Times on June 24, “Save Turner Classic Movies.”  In her column, Dowd proclaimed that TCM is “a public good, like libraries,” adding that “It enshrines our cinematic past.” She relates that she has spoken with David Zaslav, the new CEO in charge, and he promised to preserve it.  Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have just announced that they will work for free to help TCM survive.

Watching old films is illuminating:  They almost never feature extreme violence and the supernatural, two features prominent in current films.  Although I’m frequently disturbed by the depiction of women as either frivolous or annoying (also apparent when I rewatched on DVD the first season of TV’s Twilight Zone), there’s almost no graphic depictions of the worst kinds of aggressive sexual violence toward women.  Women didn’t have the role in society that we (for the most part) play today, and that’s reflected in the films from earlier eras.  Still, women frequently played strong characters in many of the classic films I’ve watched.  As Dowd noted, film noir femmes fatales “taught me that women could be tough and play the game better than any man.”

I fervently hope that the threat to TCM does in fact vanish because I rely on TCM to find films featuring absorbing plots, excellent dialogue, and highly regarded film stars of the past.  Male stars like Paul Newman, Montgomery Clift, John Garfield, and Humphrey Bogart. I’ll add Tyrone Power, William Holden, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Marlon Brando, Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Jack Lemmon, James Stewart, Fred McMurray, Stewart Granger, Orson Welles, Ray Milland, Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, Charleton Heston, and Edward G. Robinson. And if Robert Redford has truly left making feature films, I’d add him also.

Unfortunately, many women stars haven’t survived nearly as well.  Some may have been cast aside because they wouldn’t comply with the bedroom demands of certain Hollywood moguls.  But women like Ingrid Bergman, Katharine Hepburn, Ida Lupino, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Judy Holliday, Susan Hayward, Vivien Leigh, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Anne Baxter, Deborah Kerr, Audrey Hepburn, Geraldine Page, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Myrna Loy, Claire Trevor, even Marilyn Monroe survived and played strong female characters in a variety of classic films.  (I’m probably forgetting a few of your favorite stars of the past, both male and female.  Sorry.)

I’m currently obsessed with Tyrone Power, a great actor who starred in 48 feature films during his short lifetime. His handsome face and endearing persona simply beam from my TV screen.  Although I was already aware of some of Tyrone Power’s (hereinafter “TP”) best films, TCM has helped me discover a great number of movies I’d never encountered.

In my quest to find more of TP’s films, I’ve found many on Netflix DVDs (sadly ending in September).  I also learned that the San Francisco Public Library houses some of them on DVD, and I can request that these show up at my local branch. The result is that, thanks to TCM and the two other sources, I’ve recently been immersed in TP’s films.  Some of the DVDs also include wonderful special features, while TCM hosts like Ben Mankiewicz sometimes add “inside Hollywood” stories.

I’ll list just a few of TP’s films that you’re probably never heard of.  (I didn’t.)  I recommend that you seek them out if you can.  In chronological order, they are:

In Old Chicago (1938): A fictionalized story of brothers who become political leaders in Chicago, ending with an amazing depiction of the Chicago Fire of 1871

Rose of Washington Square (1939): A music-filled film that centers on the same life-story of Fanny Brice as that told in “Funny Girl,” with Alice Faye as Rose (Fanny) and TP in the Nick Arnstein role.  By the way, when Fanny Brice sued Fox for $750,000, the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed amount

The Rains Came (1939): TP plays a handsome MD in India, and a haughty Myrna Loy falls hard for him; it features astounding special effects of flooding rains and an earthquake that earned the very first special-effects Oscar

The Mark of Zorro (1940): An exciting updated version of the story that starred Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in the 1920 silent version; Basil Rathbone, who sparred with TP in a fierce sword-duel, said that “Power was the most agile man with a sword I’ve ever faced…. He could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat.”

Blood and Sand (1941): TP is a wholly believable matador in glorious Technicolor

And now for a unique film I was surprised to come across:  Thin Ice (1937).  Here TP is paired with Olympics gold-medal-winning Norwegian ice skater, Sonja Henie.  Henie set records as a three-time Olympic champion in women’s singles, and Hollywood welcomed her as a star from 1936 to 1943. Thin Ice is set at a resort in the Alps, where Sonja arrives to teach ice skating.  While skiing, she encounters TP, a prince from somewhere in Europe.  Clothed in casual skiing garb, he introduces himself as Rudy, and he charmingly proceeds to keep his real identity as Prince Rudolph a secret.  

During the film, Henie performs as the star of several ice shows at the resort, skating to music by Borodin (before “Stranger in Paradise” used the same melody in the Broadway musical “Kismet”) and other classical composers. TP sits in the audience disguised in absurd Groucho Marx-type outfits, but of course the two finally meet up as prince and skating star and fall in love.

I find this film of special interest because Sonja Henie played a small but memorable part in my life. When I was very young, my parents took me to see one of the skating extravaganzas she starred in when her life as a movie star was over.  My father remarkably saved the souvenir program from the extravaganza, the “Hollywood Ice Revue,” and I found it years later in a scrapbook he kept for our family.  I’ve preserved this program, perfectly intact, ever since.  And although I’ve forgotten almost the entire show, I retain a vivid memory of one thin slice of it when Henie came out onto the ice.  She was perched at the top of an enormous ice-cream soda glass, sitting on the whipped cream at the very top, before somehow getting to the ice in order to skate. 

Tyrone Power left Hollywood to serve in the Marines during World War II.  His distinguished service record led to a bunch of medals.  In 1946, he returned to Hollywood and resumed a successful career in films.  But he also left on occasion to work as an actor in several notable stage productions.

Memorable films during this period include these:

Nightmare Alley (1947): TP’s favorite role, and one he had to fight to make. Darryl Zanuck, who ran Fox, viewed TP as his “darling boy” and tried to confine his roles to the lightweight ones in his early films.  But TP was determined to play more challenging roles, and he finally succeeded in making Nightmare Alley.  The studio didn’t promote it and, as a result, it wasn’t a box office hit, but it has gained acclaim and is now recognized as a film noir classic. The recent remake, starring Bradley Cooper, lacks the exciting flavor of the original.

Rawhide (1951): A wonderful pairing of TP and Susan Hayward (another of my favorites) in an unconventional Western setting; they’re hostages held by a murderous gang seeking to steal a shipment of gold (BTW, it has no connection to the TV series sharing its title)

TP’s last completed film, Witness for the Prosecution (1957), is an exciting drama ending with a riveting courtroom scene. In the story, based on a play by Agatha Christie, TP is the lead, playing a criminal defendant accused of murder.  Although Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich, in starring roles, have probably garnered more attention for this film than TP, he plays his part brilliantly, directed by the esteemed Billy Wilder.

Tyrone Power tragically died at the age of 44 while making a film in Spain in 1958.  I’ll skip the harrowing details of his death; you can read about them online.

I’ll simply state that watching him in one or more of his movies will probably lead you to admire him as a brilliant and accomplished actor who illuminated every film he was in. 

And if you want to fall in love with Tyrone Power, as I have, please watch one more film:  The Eddy Duchin Story (1956).  In this film, TP assumes the role of the real-life pianist who achieved fame as a bandleader and musician in NYC in the 1930s.  Co-starring with Kim Novak as his wife, TP is bound to win you over.

In my view, Tyrone Power’s reputation is secure.

On “thin ice”?  Not the way I see it.   

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Posted in "Funny Face" film, "Rosebud", "Some Like It Hot", 1940s, 1950s, American culture, Audrey Hepburn, Battle of the Sexes film, Billy Wilder, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Daddy, films, Hollywood, Jack Lemmon, Orson Welles, The New York Times, theater

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Return to Xanadu, or Have you found your “Rosebud”?

Posted on October 16, 2019 | 1 comment

“Rosebud”… every film buff knows the reference. In the monumental 1941 film, Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane repeats the word on his deathbed, recalling the beloved sled so cruelly snatched from him during his impoverished youth.  He was still obsessed with its loss, a loss that may have represented the loss of his mother’s love.

I hope you’ve never lost your “Rosebud.”  But it you have, you might look for it at Hearst Castle.

Hearst Castle?  It’s the fabulous estate built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst on the central coast of California.  Most filmgoers acknowledge that it was Orson Welles’s inspiration for Charles Foster Kane’s mansion, “Xanadu.”

Today Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark (as well as a California Historical Landmark), and this year it’s turning 100 years old.  When I learned of this milestone, I couldn’t help recalling my two visits to that extraordinary place.

It wasn’t always called “Hearst Castle.”  Hearst inherited the original estate at San Simeon from his father (along with even more land and $11 million) when his mother died in 1919.  Together with his architect, the pioneering Julia Morgan, they greatly enhanced it during a span of over twenty years.

Hearst himself later called it “The Ranch.” After he separated from his wife in 1925, he and his mistress, Hollywood film star Marion Davies, spent time at his mansion entertaining prominent guests from the worlds of politics, literature, and film.  In addition to the mansion itself, Hearst acquired an enormous amount of priceless artwork and furnishings on an epic scale.

I first heard about Hearst’s mansion in the early 1970s when my soon-to-be husband (I’ll call him Marv) proposed that we drive up the coast from Los Angeles, where we’d met a few months earlier, to San Francisco and back.  Marv said we could stop at “San Simeon,” and our stop there turned out to be a shimmering highlight of one of the most memorable trips of my life.  Maybe that’s why I remember it so well.

We set out from LA on a beautiful sunny morning in mid-March.  Driving north on Highway 1, we visited Danish-themed Solvang and beautiful Morro Bay en route to San Simeon.

When we arrived, we walked up to a fairly small entrance and joined a few other tourists on a tour of the mansion, where we learned a lot about Hearst and his mansion’s history.  I knew something about Hearst from his role in U.S. history, especially his “yellow” journalistic efforts to embroil the U.S. in the Spanish-American War in 1898.  But before we visited San Simeon, I knew very little about his personal life.

When the tour ended, we were able to explore the outdoor areas by ourselves.  My photo album includes scenes of the two of us at “Hearst Mansion.”  Unaccompanied and unbothered by any staff or other tourists, we roamed around, taking photos of each other, choosing backdrops like the gorgeous Neptune Pool and some of the exquisite outdoor statuary.

Just after leaving the Hearst Mansion, we drove through Big Sur and relished a memorable lunch at Nepenthe.  This charming restaurant, which first opened in 1949, features an outdoor terrace offering a panoramic view of the south coast of Big Sur.  The breathtaking view is still worth a stop.

The rest of our trip included equally memorable stops in Carmel and Monterey, as well as a celebration of my birthday in San Francisco.  Visiting a couple of wineries in Napa, seeing friends in Berkeley (where Marv had spent five happy years as a grad student), and a trip down the coast to return to LA (via Andersen’s Pea Soup just off Highway 1 in Buellton) completed our remarkable trip.

But most unforgettable was our joyful decision to marry each other in a few short weeks.

Fast forward about 35 years.  I returned to Xanadu…er, Hearst Castle, during a road trip with my daughter in 2008.  This visit was very different.  First, we had to enter through a sterile structure, the visitor center, which didn’t exist at the time of my earlier trip.  In this dreary “holding pen,” we waited with a large crowd of other tourists until we were herded onto a bus, herded through the castle, and herded back onto a bus.

This new approach struck me as far too regimented.  Although my daughter was delighted to see the castle and learn about its history during our tour, we had very little chance to roam around the grounds by ourselves when the tour ended.

With the castle’s 100th anniversary coming up, some positive changes are arriving on the scene.  For example, the slate of tours has expanded to include tours with exciting new themes.  Even better:  Most tours now allow visitors free-roaming once their guided tour is over. This appears to be much like the roaming I remember from my first trip.  Visitors can admire the grounds, including the Neptune Pool (recently renovated for $10 million), for as long as they wish.  So it now promises to be a far better experience for visitors than the one I found wanting in 2008.

 

In my mind, Hearst Castle is inescapably linked with the movie Citizen Kane.  That classic film looms especially large because it turned out to play an important role in my own life.

Marv and I had met on the campus of UCLA, where we were both working, and we had rented apartments in the same building on the fringes of the campus.  Our lives, not surprisingly, often centered around UCLA.

One of our most remarkable dates involved a showing of Orson Welles’s film in a classroom building on the campus.

Sometime after we decided to get married, Marv asked me whether I wanted to see Citizen Kane.  I immediately jumped at the chance to see a film I’d only heard about but never saw, even on late-night TV.

Marv grinned and said something like, “I think you’ll like it,” adding, “There’s a surprise in it for you.”  That clearly piqued my interest, and I couldn’t wait to see it.

We took our seats in a bare-bones classroom and began to watch the film.  It was fascinating from the start, beginning with the announcement of Kane’s death on the “March of the News” (patterned after the “News of the World,” a newsreel shown in movie theaters in the 1940s). The story then flashed back to Kane’s involvement in politics, the purchase of his first newspaper (soon followed by other papers), and his marriage to his first wife.

I was totally caught up in the storyline.  Then came the surprise.  A character named Susan Alexander suddenly appeared on the screen.

My birth name is not Susan Alexander.  But I was never very fond of the last name (my father’s) I was given at birth, and I was planning to change it to Marv’s last name when we married.  Now here was a character with the name I hoped to have.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t a totally positive character, and as the story moved on, she became less and less so.  Abused by Kane, by the end of the movie she had become a pathetic alcoholic, engendering sympathy rather than antipathy.

I would have been happier to see a more positive figure with my future name on the screen.  But what’s astonishing is how the character’s name has lodged in filmgoers’ minds.

During the decades since I married Marv and assumed her name, I’ve encountered countless people who, upon meeting me, mention Citizen Kane.  I immediately know that these people (sadly, a dwindling number) have seen the film and vividly recall the name of Kane’s aspiring-soprano second wife, who was actually patterned after the wife of another tycoon, Samuel Insull.

I’ve always been happy that I took Marv’s last name and became Susan Alexander (even when I’ve been confused with other women who share my name).  And I’ve never regretted being associated with a truly great film like Citizen Kane.

 

Do you have a “Rosebud”?  I didn’t have a favorite toy that I lost during my childhood, so I’ve never obsessed over something the way Charles Foster Kane obsessed over his sled.

But if you have a “Rosebud,” I hope that you’re luckier than he was, and that someday you, unlike Kane, succeed at tracking it down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in "Rosebud", 1940s, American culture, Bay Area, California, Charles Foster Kane, Citizen Kane, daughters, driving, family road trips, films, happiness, Hearst Castle, Hollywood, joy, Julia Morgan, Los Angeles, LA, marriage, movie stars, movies, Orson Welles, San Francisco, San Simeon, sunshine, travel, TV late-night, UCLA, University of California, Berkeley, William Randolph Hearst, Xanadu

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