Happy Anniversary, Robert Ryan!

Happy Anniversary, Robert Ryan!

Robert Ryan, portrait by RKO studio photographer Ernest Bachrach, 1942

In The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949), veteran boxer Stoker Thompson (Robert Ryan) hides out in the deserted “Paradise City” venue, which a few moments earlier had been oozing with carnal and visceral presence. Meanwhile, his troubled wife (Audrey Totter) leaves the bustle of the “Dreamland” penny arcade by a flight of stairs to the complete isolation of a downtown walkway.

Noir of the Soul: On Dangerous Ground (1952), Nicholas Ray’s tale of a city cop gone rotten, departing into the country to work on a rape and murder case, highlights all of this powerful filmmaker’s stylistic strengths, from his knowing and caring work with performers to his keen eye for setting and his meshing of the arc of dramatic flow to both human feeling and situational design. Ray, who had studied architecture with Frank Lloyd Wright, was long fascinated with horizontal design, and so this film is a blunt contradiction of the principle of vertical obliquity so firmly stated by Schrader. Here, whether he is racing through the alleyways of the city in order to find low-life criminals to pummel and insult or, slowly softening and losing his anger, meandering in the snow-covered fields or the pine forest of the country to chase the rapist–killer, Robert Ryan’s Jim Wilson centers a cinematography that spreads action out laterally, giving us the incessant feeling that the conditions of the drama are not bounded by the arbitrary limits of the frame.

A simple narrative device accentuates the visual strength of the frame and enlivens our optical engagement with the action once Jim is out of the city: his meeting and slowly developing familiarity with the woman with whom he ultimately falls in love, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino, in one of the signal performances of her great career), a blind young woman who is the sister of the adolescent boy who committed the crime. The city in this film, more than the setting of the establishing scenes early on, is the locus of despicable behavior, greed, anxiety, and mistrust that Jim carries in the depths of his heart even while he is running through the snowy fields under a brilliant, open sky. -"A Companion to Film Noir" (2013) by Andrew Spicer & Helen Hanson

Pale Blue Eyes: Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon

Frank Sinatra - Mr. Ol' Blue Eyes

THE BAD NEWS FOR BLUE-EYED BLONDES: Blue eyes tend to be more sensitive to light, says Marchetti. ‘There’s less pigment in the eye so more light is let in,’ she explains, adding that this is why blue-eyed people are statistically more likely to develop age-related macular degeneration, a condition in which the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye begin to die out, leading to sight loss. Meanwhile, fair-skinned people are more prone to rosacea, and over half of sufferers will experience the symptoms in their eyes, known as ocular rosacea. ‘This is what is often behind recurrent blepharitis,’ says Ali Mearza, consultant ophthalmologist at Imperial NHS Trust. ‘This inflammatory skin condition can spread to the eyelid, causing the oil glands to become blocked.’ Learning and avoiding the triggers of the rosacea can help, or it may be treated with steroid drops and antibiotics. Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

The meanings of blue are often associated with serenity, calm and spirituality. But color symbolism can be strangely contradictory and Blue is no different. Blue also brings to mind sadness and loneliness for many. Surveys show it is most people's favorite color especially men. For many the darker shades such as navy blue, are thought of as ultra-masculine, associated with success, authority and corporate color meanings. We also think of cool crisp blues in relation to water sports such as sailing. Source: www.color-wheel-artist.com

The significance of eye color may have evolutionary roots. Blue eyes only originated 10,000 years ago and were a rarity which made everyone who had them a hot commodity. So if men were pursuing blue-eyed babes more frequently than ladies with brown eyes, they may have cared less about other facial features which indicated trustworthiness. In the process, these less-trustworthy facial genes may have been passed on in blue-eyed men and women. Source: shine.yahoo.com

Leonardo DiCaprio, Details magazine, January 2013

Matt Damon in GQ Japan magazine, November 2013


More than a week after Lou Reed's death, a tribute has arrived that's too poetic and touching to be overlooked. Patti Smith has been vocal about honoring her fellow New York rock trailblazer, telling Rolling Stone the former Velvet Underground frontman was "a very special poet" and highlighting "Pale Blue Eyes" as a personal favorite Reed song in a chat with The Hollywood Reporter. [She said that the fragile, weary ballad reminded her of her late, blue-eyed husband, guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith. "I never fail to think of him and his gaze when I'm singing that or hear that song," she said. "Lou had a gift of taking very simple lines, 'Linger on, your pale blue eyes,' and make it so they magnify on their own. That song has always haunted me."] She also reflects vividly on her encounters with Reed, over the years and just recently before his death ("his dark eyes seemed to contain an infinite and benevolent sadness"). Source: www.spin.com

Barbara Stanwyck (new biography by Victoria Wilson): Steel-True 1907-1940

"My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth." -Barbara Stanwyck

Frank Capra claimed he would marry Barbara Stanwyck if she divorced Fay. “I fell in love with Stanwyck, and had I not been more in love with Lucille Reyburn I would have asked Barbara to marry me after she called it quits with Frank Fay,” Capra would write in 1971, when he and Lucille were about to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. When Barbara, Lucille, and the two Franks were all dead, biographer Joseph McBride would claim Capra and Stanwyck were lovers for nearly two years, that it was Barbara who in the end rejected the director. Without saying outright he was Barbara’s lover, Capra would admit he was very close to her, that their relationship was both important and rewarding: “I wish I could tell you more about it, but I can’t, I shouldn’t, and I won’t, but she was delightful.”

Barbara never admitted to any affair. Sentiments aside, a liaison stretching into the fall of 1931 seems unlikely. Frank Capra and Lucille were a sane presence, symbols of moderation and rationality for whom all-night drinking and gambling were unthinkable. Fay, Capra, Barbara, and Lu saw a good deal of each other and of Jack Gilbert. Barbara learned that if acting onstage is a matter of mannerism, screen acting is done with the eyes. “Mr. Capra taught me that. I mean, sure, it’s nice to say very nice dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting… Watch the eyes.” “She can give out that burst of emotion,” Capra would recall decades later. “She played parts that were a little tougher, yet at the same time you could sense that this girl could suffer from her toughness.” -"Stanwyck" (2001) by Axel Madsen

Rumors circulated for years and persist today about her marriage to Robert Taylor, and that it may have been manufactured as something as a “lavender marriage” by the studio system to quell talk about the sexualities of both Stanwyck and Taylor. Clearly, it would be very difficult to say for certain whether or not this was the case, especially as so many years have passed. In addition, Stanwyck seemed to be very much in love with Taylor, never remarried, and took his 1969 death extremely hard. In your research, was there anything you found that would lead you to believe that these persistent rumors about their marriage had any truth to them?

Stanwyck and Taylor came together at opposite points in their careers, which most people don’t know. She may have been successful and by that time been around Hollywood for six or so years, but her career was in trouble when she met Taylor. He was the big big star, just exploding into real fame and overwhelmed by it all. If anything, she needed him, for lots of reasons, which I write about in the book. And he needed her – just not as his beard.

The last thing Metro wanted was for Robert Taylor to be married, until they did, and it was not as a cover up for his sexuality. When people read the book they will see in detail how Stanwyck and Taylor came together, and what it did for both people; how it helped both and changed both. Volume Two portrays the shape of the marriage and how and why it ultimately fell apart, which, as in real life, happened over time and grew out of a set of subtle and complicated circumstances – and out of two people changing and changing out of different needs at different stages of their life, and their work.

On November 12, Simon & Schuster will publish A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True (1907-1940), volume 1 of the long-awaited first complete biography of Barbara Stanwyck. 15 years in the making and running a whopping 1,056 pages in length, author Victoria Wilson has created a colossal piece of literature covering the first 33 years of Barbara Stanwyck’s life. Source: backlots.net

Joel McCrea's Anniversary, Post-War Alienation

Happy Anniversary, Joel McCrea! Born: Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905) in South Pasadena, California - Died: October 20, 1990 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California (USA)

Nancy Kelly and Joel McCrea in "He Married His Wife" (1940) directed by Roy Del Ruth

Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in "Sullivan’s Travels" (1941) directed by Preston Sturges

In a sea of photographers and flashing lightbulbs, Sullivan is greeted in a Kansas City hotel. Over the loud din of the crowd (many of whom are carrying his next project's source, the book: O Brother Where Art Thou? by Sinclair Beckstein - a play on two author's names - John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis), the Girl tells him how happy she is and grateful that he is no longer married or obligated to his alimony-demanding ex-wife. On the commercial airliner returning to Los Angeles, Sullivan assures the Girl that his ex-wife will have to give him a divorce - and he will be set free. -Sullivan: ...Otherwise, it's bigamy, unfaithfulness, alienation of affections, corpus delecti. -The Girl: And then you'll be free. -Sullivan: And then I'll be free. But not for long, I hope.

Joel McCrea stars as an American journalist in London in 1938 who covers the war and discovers an espionage ring and assassination plot. Hitchcock outdid himself with the action-packed set pieces, using all manner of camera trickery and special effects, from a fatal fall from high atop Westminster Cathedral to mysterious goings-on at a windmill in the Netherlands to an inventively staged plane crash. McCrea's impassioned, Edward R. Murrow-esque radio monologue during the London blitz finale even impressed the opposition — Nazi Germany's Joseph Goebbels thought the film "a masterpiece of propaganda." Six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Source: www.afi.com

The Cold War was a primary influence over all aspects of American life from the end of WWII through the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cold war abroad may have been run by the military and the government but cold war ideology at home was most effectively disseminated by psychiatrists and advertisers, groups that depended for their livelihood on their ability to predict and control the actions and desires of their biggest market: housewives. Mary Beth Haralovich has insightfully traced the way advertisers trained and exploited middle-class women consumers, but less attention has been paid to the extraordinary growth and influence of the psychiatric industry during this period. In 1954 and 1955, the number one identified health problem in the United States was ‘emotional disease.’ In 1954, 150,000 adults entered mental hospitals and 700,000 mental patients received hospital care (in comparison, physical disorders accounted for only 600,000 patients). That same year, over a billion dollars was spent for the care of people diagnosed as mentally ill. In 1955, the year minor tranquillizers first became available outside of hospitals, 75 per cent of patients were being treated in hospital settings, over half a million people, compared to 150,000 in 1980. And although the wide availability of tranquillizers meant that hospital stays decreased by the late 1950s, there were still over a quarter of a million people employed in the industry, and hospitals continued into the late 1950s to report staff shortages. Over half of the patients in these hospitals were women, the majority married.

Like the advertising industry, the mental health industry depended on its ability to convince people that their happiness and well-being required the consumption of the industry’s products. Warren’s work supports Chesler’s contention throughout "Women and Madness" that women were often diagnosed as mentally ill because of their perceived ‘sex role alienation.’ Several of these expatients were rehospitalized by their husbands primarily because they had refused to function properly ‘domestically’. Indeed, the husbands who readmitted their wives ‘expressed significantly lower expectations for the total human functioning of their wives. They were willing to tolerate extremely childlike dependent behaviour in them as long as the dishes were washed.’ These studies suggest specific ways in which post-war women’s anxieties were socially constructed as ‘mental illnesses’ in a manner that served both corporate America and the cold war nuclear family ideal. -"Small Screen, Big Ideas" (2002) by Janet Thumim

Jake Gyllenhaal in talks to play boxer in "Southpaw"

Jake Gyllenhaal in Talks to Star in Former Eminem Boxing Movie ‘Southpaw’ (Exclusive)

Fresh off an acclaimed performance in the thriller “Prisoners,” Jake Gyllenhaal is in talks to star in the boxing drama “Southpaw,” which Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) is directing for the Weinstein Company, multiple individuals familiar with the project have told TheWrap.

Eminem was once attached to star in the movie, which serves as proof that Hollywood can’t keep a good project down.

A fighter of a film, “Southpaw” was originally sold as a pitch to DreamWorks. The studio hired “Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter to write the script. When DreamWorks tapped out, MGM swooped in planning to distribute through Sony, though the film was eventually put into turnaround, which is where the Weinstein Company rescued it.

If the deal gets signed, Gyllenhaal will play a left-handed prizefighter who wins a title but suffers a tragedy soon after and must put his life back together to earn the respect of his young daughter. While the film is set against the backdrop of the boxing ring, Fuqua previously told the Los Angeles Times that “the heart of the movie is about a man learning to be a father.” “Southpaw” is expected to start production next year. Source: www.thewrap.com