PRINCE POPPYCOCK: Charles Laughton

Best and Worst of the Best Actor Oscars

It's that time of year again, when Edward Copeland, hardest-working man in Film Blogdom, puts together another Oscar survey. This year, the extravaganza of second-guessing extends to the Best Actor category. Which five performances represent the best the film world had to offer? With which five did the Academy get it forehead-smackingly wrong? The Siren has compiled her list, and you should too. The deadline is tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 1, at the stroke of midnight. This is a huge service that Mr. Copeland performs for us each year, offering a constructive outlet for carping that we would otherwise have to direct at our office mates, our spouses or the television set (and maybe not even the TV if the strike continues). Details are here.

When looking over the long list of Oscar-winning Best Actors, the Siren was struck by two things. First, she's seen nearly all of the movies. Second, a big chunk of the list is awfully dull. Not bad, just boring. Well-meaning. Earnest. Didactic. Sidney Poitier isn't bad in Lilies of the Field, he's very good, but the movie is a snooze. Ditto Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer, Ben Kingsley in Gandhi...just nothing the Siren wants to sit down and watch again.

So for her Best Best Actor list, the Siren used this single yardstick: which five performances, if shown on TCM tonight, would likely glue the Siren to her couch, no matter what she had to do? So, with that alone in mind, here are the Siren's top five, in reverse order.

The Best

5. Charles Laughton, The Private Life of Henry VIII. The Siren doesn't expect to find this one very high on the final list, due mostly to its age. But god is Laughton good, so much so that our collective memory of Henry is neither Shakespeare nor Holbein, but rather the lusty, impulsive figure that Laughton creates here. He is, as Simon Callow says, "more Henry than Henry."

4. Alec Guinness, The Bridge on the River Kwai. Courageous, pigheaded, utterly bonkers, Guinness carries the weight of a script that has him standing in for all the mythical glories and bloody illogic of imperial Britain. His performance is so superb that the moment you glimpse Nicholson's madness is the moment of his greatest heroism, as he is carried out of the hotbox--the colonel is still fighting for that crisp self-discipline. And you realize, looking at Guinness's wobbly yet triumphant walk, that a sane man would have snapped.

3. James Cagney, Yankee Doodle Dandy. As George M. Cohan, the flag-waving showman and songwriter, Cagney steals everything but the floorboards in the most sheerly enjoyable biopic of all time. The Siren never gets tired of Cagney turning a tuneless voice and a weird, high-pockets dance style into the movie's greatest virtues. That final walk down the White House staircase, which gradually becomes a hoof-step expressing all the joy of Cohan's patriotism and his vanished theatrical world, was reportedly improvised on the spot by Cagney.

2. Fredric March, The Best Years of Our Lives. March is usually described as a flashy, scene-stealing actor, but his two finest moments in this movie are played in silence. There's March's expression as he walks into his home and sees Myrna Loy, flesh and blood instead of the image he yearned for through all his time at war. And then there's March's face, tired and hung over, trying to find himself in the picture on the mantelpiece, a photo of a man he will never be again.

1. Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront. Brando had to be number one, but which to pick--this one, or The Godfather, in which he is equally brilliant? Well, The Godfather is the better movie but like a judge at the Olympics, the Siren is awarding extra points here for degree of difficulty. Simple human decency will never have the glittering, seductive fascination of greed, power and violence. Brando gives us an ordinary man of somewhat less than average intelligence, and makes that man's struggles with his conscience not only interesting, but moving.

The Worst

With the exception of No. 4, the Siren probably wouldn't watch these again even if she were snowed in and without other entertainment at the Missoula International Airport.

5. Lee Marvin, Cat Ballou. Here we have the major, major problem with the Academy Awards: Rarely has the Academy known what to do with comedy. On the infrequent occasions that it honors a comic performance, it picks the wrong damn one. This example isn't as egregious as the Siren's number one, but it still hasn't aged well, assuming you ever thought it was all that great. Listen, the Siren finds Marvin appealing too--the man had cool to spare. But when Cat Ballou is viewed dispassionately, without all the awe at his incredible Lee Marvin-ness, the fact is that his timing is leaden and overall his drunk routine isn't a patch on W.C. Fields. Somewhat amusing in spots but the best actor of 1965? No wonder Richard Burton's drinking began to get worse at this point.

4. Spencer Tracy, Captains Courageous. To a younger generation the once-unquestionable reputation of Spencer Tracy as the best actor in Hollywood is sometimes understandable, and then again, sometimes not. "You never catch him acting!" said his enraptured colleagues. True enough in something like Bad Day at Black Rock. However, not only can Tracy be found acting in Captains Courageous, he can be found indicating, mugging and just plain hamming it up. The accent is inexcusably dreadful but it's only the most obvious manifestation of Tracy's phoniness as a Portuguese fisherman. Freddie Bartholomew is a good deal more truthful in his transition from sniveling brat to nice kid. The Siren maintains that Bartholomew is the one who gives Tracy more believability, not the other way around.

3. Bing Crosby, Going My Way. The story goes that Noel Coward, at the peak of his popularity, one day found himself surrounded by a large group of reporters shouting questions. "Mr. Coward! Mr. Coward!" bellowed one. "Have you anything to say to the Star?" "Certainly," replied Coward. "Twinkle." Bing Crosby here takes that admonishment, and turns it into an entire performance.

2. Al Pacino, The Scent of a Woman. The intelligent, carefully calibrated actor of Dog Day Afternoon and The Godfather movies hides behind a wall of shouting, tangoing, full-throttle mannerisms. The mere thought of watching the movie again gives the Siren a headache.

1. Roberto Benigni, Life is Beautiful. The Siren left the movie with her lace hanky soaked to the hem with her tears, ready to snatch Roberto Benigni bald-headed for this nauseating exercise in audience manipulation. The man has an enormous talent for slapstick but no taste whatsoever. He's so busy being touching and humane and the endearing character whose comic eccentricity makes him the island of sanity in an ocean of madness that he can't be bothered to REact to anyone, including his beautiful, ghost-eyed son.

NOTE: The Siren hasn't seen Ray, Capote, Gladiator, The Last King of Scotland, The Last Command, The Way of All Flesh and In Old Arizona.

*****

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Tom Watson's excellent brainchild, Newcritics. As a celebration, all this week we are contributing posts on the one bit of media that touched our lives in the past year. You will not be surprised to hear that the Siren's post is still under construction, but meanwhile do mosey over to Newcritics and have a look around.

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For the Love of Film: The Film Preservation Blogathon Master List

The Siren is exhausted, but very, very happy.

It's the last day of the blogathon, and donations and posts are still coming in. Let's make this the best day yet. Keep reading, and if you have not done so already, toss something in the hat.

As Marilyn has posted on our Facebook page, the troops have answered the rallying cry: "We've raised enough to preserve a 1,200-foot black-and-white nitrate silent film in fair condition, starting with lab inspection, cleaning, minor repair, and then moving on to make a new negative and print."

And what's more, "If we keep the donations coming, we might even be able to save a two-reeler or three-reeler."

The Siren has been delighted with the number of bloggers participating, and the very high quality of their posts. We are raising awareness in a big way, and creating an archive on this topic that will be a great resource on the Net.

But of course, the point is to raise money. And while donations have been present, and steady, and the good folks at the National Film Preservation Foundation are grateful for every dime, the Siren thinks we can do better.

First person truth time here: I've been running this blog for five years, and never asked anyone for a dime, until now. Please consider throwing a donation into the hat for the NFPF, no matter how small.

DONATE NOW!

This week, the film blogosphere is demonstrating vast knowledge and love of film history. Let's also show our generosity.

More in store today here and at Ferdy on Films. I have a new post up, an interview with Lee Tsiantis, the man who played a key role in bringing the RKO Six back onto our screens a couple of years ago. Lee is a film lover working a dream job as Corporate Legal Manager at Turner Broadcasting. His work entails sifting through the vast paperwork associated with the film library there, and he has much to say about the ins and outs of film rights.

Welcome! Here is where the Siren will be keeping track of posts as they come from bloggers. You can drop her a line in comments or via email (campaspe101@yahoo.com) to say your post is up. And please do the same at Marilyn's place, Ferdy on Films; as co-hosts we will be both be keeping lists.

Over at Cinema Styles, Greg has a beautiful new commercial for the Blogathon, suitable for embedding.

And remember to include the all-important

CONTRIBUTION LINK

to the National Film Preservation Foundation. Feel free to include the following boilerplate, for your readers' convenience:

The National Film Preservation Foundation is the independent, nonprofit organization created by the U.S. Congress to help save America’s film heritage. They work directly with archives to rescue endangered films that will not survive without public support.

The NFPF will give away 4 DVD sets as thank-you gifts to blogathon donors chosen in a random drawing: Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934 and Treasures IV: American Avant Garde Film, 1947-1986.

Do follow the links to the posts. The Siren is mighty impressed with the lineup and can't wait to read the contributions herself. Remember too that comments are a blogger's joy.

As the week goes on, this post will be continue to be top o' the Siren's blog; her own preservation posts will be immediately below.

Sunday, February 21st

The mighty James Wolcott sets a good example with his own donation and notes with pleasure that he's helping to save, among others, a Norman Mailer film called [untitled].

C. Jerry Kutner of Bright Lights After Dark has a lovely screen-cap essay on Maurice Tourneur's Victory. Stunning images, complete with the original tinting.

Mary Hess of Eastman House pays tribute to her mentor, James Card, who is a hero to all those who care about preservation. Includes a clip from the restoration of Melies' Peter Pan, which Card supervised; at Mary's new blog, Laughing Willow.

Toby Roan, of 50 Westerns from the 50s, a great blog that's new to the Siren, posts about the near-miss involving Jacques Tourneur's Stranger on Horseback, starring the beloved Joel McCrea.

Noel Vera, a familiar name to the Siren's readers, brings a preservation bulletin from the Philippines (the news ain't good) and a brilliant write-up of a sharp and prescient film that is almost entirely lost--and it was made in 1986.

Arthur S. discusses Samuel Fuller's Run of the Arrow, arguing passionately for the film's greatness and lamenting its lack of availability. (And by special request of the Siren, he includes a link to a piece on The Cobweb, a film we would both like to see resurrected.)

David Cairns devotes his Sunday Intertitle to our blogathon. The Siren won't tell you the one word of the intertitle, but she will tell you the post focuses on a name that makes her happy just to hear or look at: Lubitsch. And there is more Lubitsch here, in the splendid "Trailers for Lost Films."

MovieMan0283, at his Dancing Image blog, has an absolutely not-to-be-missed roundup of images , many from movies that are either unavailable, or damn close to it. The good news: In the year since he compiled the list, a number have been released from non-DVD purgatory (I see you, African Queen.)

Tinky Weisblatt returns to give props to three more heros of preservation, as well as to the bienniel Orphan Film Symposium. All this, and an easy recipe for peach jam. Yum!

DeeDee of Noirish City wraps up her blogathon posting with another reminder of what is at stake for film lovers. Thanks so much for your week-long support, DeeDee!

Sarah Baker, who wrote so movingly about Olive Thomas, has another must-read post, Reputations Restored: Lost and Found Movies of 1929.

Donna Hill closes out her blogathon posting with a series of marvelous clips from the silent era.

Joshua Ranger argues for preserving the lesser lights of filmdom, including the unloved biopic: "we also have to maintain the insignificant because it, too, is a piece of the picture of the past."

Jaime Grijalba posts, in Spanish, on Exodus 8:2 about one of the most keenly lamented of all lost films, London After Midnight.

Finally, my pal Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running gives us another plug, and fulfills a previously unrecognized but nonetheless urgent need: The blogathon's own haiku.

Saturday, February 20th

Buckey Grimm sums up his series with a post in praise of those who have been doing the hard work of preservation for decades now.

Dennis Nyback is back with a post about a 1940 movie, which Dennis transfered himself, of singer Ronnie Mansfield--which he screened for Mansfield's granddaughter and her children.

Stephen Morgan at Screen Addict writes about original intent--not constitutional, but cinematic.

Sara Freeman of Today's Chicago Woman has a tribute to women of the cinema, with special mention of the radiant Lillian Gish in The Scarlet Letter.

Hind Mezaina returns with clips of women having fun with swimming, cycling and sending Valentines in the early days of the century.

Tom at Motion Picture Gems posts about a film the Siren believes to be seriously underrated, Peter Bogdanovich's Nickelodeon, and the preservation message it carries.

Ryan Kelly of Medfly Quarantine signs in with a piece about that screwy, ballyhooey, phoney, super Coney, one and only...Fort Lee, New Jersey! What, you were expecting someplace else?

J.C. Loophole of The Shelf outs himself as an academic, an historian to be precise, and explains with great eloquence the historical case for film preservation: "The images we have of our nation, of our entertainment, or our highs and lows, of how we interpret those highs and lows are as important as the self-same written documents and government papers that we spend so much time and effort to preserve."

Andreas at Pussy Goes Grrr ponders the tragedy of lost films, including janitors both shamed and redeemed.

They tell me there's an Olympics going on; well, David Cairns has a clip depicting (ahem) amazing athleticism at Shadowplay.

Paula has more stills, this time from The Shamrock Handicap.

Friday, February 19th

Marilyn is looking deep into the eyes of Theda Bara in A Fool There Was.

At Gareth's Movie Diary, the proprietor uses the beguiling Bar Harbor Movie Queen, among others, to talk about the urge not only to preserve, but to present.

Jenny the Nipper of Cinema OCD has an excellent and provocative post: Bootleggers or Preservationists?

From the University of Vermont comes Adrian J. Ivakhiv at his blog Immanence, talking about the ways in which Decasia "comments on its own materiality."

Joe Thompson ends his series on the history of nitrate with a bang: the 1909 Pittsburgh film exchange explosion. Many photos.

Marilyn and I are very pleased to be joined by students, including Trish Lendo, Sadie Menchen and Charles Edward Rogers, in the moving-picture archive program at UCLA--they are the the future of preservation. (I'm also very taken with "Let Us Now Praise Scratchy Prints.")

Hind Mezaina, who writes The Culturist blog from her home in Dubai, brings in an international flavor with a series of posts that include some marvelous clips from the BFI Archive.

Justin Muschong returns with A Trip to the Acme Film Preservation Emporium.

Donna Hill also returns with stills and posters from lost films.

Thursday, February 18th

At the Phil Nugent Experience, the host gives props to several heroes of film preservation, including the inimitable Henri Langlois.

Shahn runs Six Martinis and the Seventh Art, that pictorial temple to the art of black and white; but in this photo series, she shows the ravages of decay.

Before the blogathon began, a man of the Siren's acquaintance demanded, "If this is about saving all film, what about porn, huh?" Well then, here is Doug Bonner, with a post about the perfect film stock for the Golden Age of Porn and which film from that era he would most like to see preserved.

Movie Man at The Sun's Not Yellow warms up with a post on Rossellini's Stromboli, ahead of another promised post on Sunday.

Tinky Weisblat of Our Grandmother's Kitchen posts some reminiscences about Britain's Iris Barry, who used her influence as a critic to support preservation early on. And there's also a swell recipe for tea sandwiches.

Kendra at Viv & Larry has another entry in her series tribute to the fine folks at Criterion, this one on Nights of Cabiria.

Tim Brayton at Antagony & Ecstasy finds three different faces of film preservation in those once and future media darlings, vampires.

DeeDee of Noirish City returns with a post about George Melies' The Impossible Voyage.

Buckey Grimm continues his Brief History of Nitrate with a brief post about nitrate testing, and a link to remarkable photos from some tests.

Catherine Grant at the invaluable Film Studies for Free contributes a plug and clips from "some entertaining and informative online videos about film preservation," as well as links to "openly accessible, scholarly material about this essential but expensive art and science."

Ed Howard of Only the Cinema writes about two avant-garde shorts, by Bruce Baillie and Storm de Hirsch, that have been preserved by Anthology Film Archives and included on the Treasures IV set from the NFPF.

The Siren adores Greenbriar Picture Shows, and thoughtful, funny, well-versed John McElwee, who runs it. You owe it to yourself to click on this one: "We Are All Preservationists."

The name James Card should be as familiar to film lovers as Henri Langlois. Jon Marquis, of Thoughts of Stream, shows why as he examines Pandora's Box, the resurrection of which was one of Card's finest accomplishments.

Joe Thompson is back with part II of a Brief History of Nitrate, including the perils of moviegoing at the turn of the century.

Mark Edward Heuck, who does freelance work rescuing genre and exploitation films from limbo and coaxing them onto DVD, has a touching story about how one such film brought back a small piece of a wife and mother for her famous widower and son. At the delightfully named blog The Projector Has Been Drinking.

Peter Nelhaus returns with a post about the 1934 Chinese film The Goddess, saved through the efforts of a single person, Professor Richard J. Meyer.

What this blogathon really needed was more Conrad Veidt; Paula's Movie Page has a boatload of pictures from Different From the Others.

Wednesday, February 17th

Lou Lumenick, New York Post head film critic and the Siren's TCM comrade, has a fantastic piece of writing and research at his place, about the Public Domain Purgatory of Henry Hathaway's To the Last Man--"a tight, surprisingly dark and impressive little movie."

Adam Zanzie at Icebox Movies examines Fear and Desire, the hard-to-see Stanley Kubrick film that for years has garnered "a frown, a groan, a snicker, or a goofy grin" from fans.

Brent Walker, at his blog devoted to Mack Sennett, uses that director's career to explain why the best fate for a silent movie was to be made for a company that went out of business.

Brian Herrera of Stinky Lulu signs in with a post on the sui generis Who Killed Teddy Bear, analyzing it as artifact of its era ("like a nudist magazine, Teddy Bear lets it all hang out without really ever showing anything") and as a "queer" film.

Buckey Grimm of Mindless Meanderings explains the origins and preservation methods of the Library of Congress Paper Print collection.

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson lend their highly respected voices in support of our efforts; the plug is part of an essay about the intricacies of preserving experimental films, when the "flaws" are deliberate.

David Cairns is back with a look at the avant-garde film Decasia, so brief and impeccable the Siren will spoil it no further.

Dennis Nyback returns with an elegiac tribute to two theatres that were once grand temples of nitrate, the Michigan Theater and the Grand Riviera, both in Detroit.

Greg Ferrara, having done so much with promoting the blogathon, chips in even more at his blog Cinema Styles, with a post about C.B. DeMille's The Godless Girl, a recently restored silent sent to him by the NFPF: "The restoration of The Godless Girl allows cinephiles everywhere to witness the last great gasp of a director in the silent era before sound slowed him down."

Director Jeffrey Goodman joins in with memories of screening films with the ghost of Henri Langlois, at The Last Lullaby (and) Peril.

Justin Muschong, at Brilliant in Context, meditates on which film is worth saving ("all of it") in a witty essay that ranges from Welles to Army boots.

Karie Bible of Film Radar takes us through the lost films of Clara Bow, as well as hope in the form of some that have been restored.

Kendra at Viv & Larry is back with a loving tribute to the immortal romance of Brief Encounter.

Leo Lo, whose blog is 365 Films a Year: A Librarian's Film Journal, tackles the question of what academic librarians can do to preserve films.

At Paula's Movie Page, she has posted more stills, from Where Are My Children? and Lady Windemere's Fan. paulasmoviepage.shutterfly.com.

Tony Dayoub at Cinema Viewfinder checks in with a review of the recently restored 1922 Sherlock Holmes, and finds not only a subdued performance from John Barrymore, but also a supporting cast that includes a future ghost magnet, a future columnist and a future martini-drinking icon.

Tuesday, February 16th

Roger Ebert is once again rallying the troop for the blogathon, with more tweets about our fundraising and praise for the contributors. His devotion to preserving cinema has been an example to everyone for more than forty years, and his support gladdens our hearts.

James Wolcott gives us more reason to rejoice, with a rousing plug for the blogathon, full of links, praise and the all-important donation link to the NFPF.

Gloria Porta, lover of film in general and Charles Laughton in particular, has an amazing treat for all fans of the actor and Spartacus: an in-depth look at the movie's convoluted filming, from screenwriting to editing, and extensive discussion of Laughton's preparation and interactions on set, and a huge, invaluable list of references and links.

Gordon Dymoski of Blog This, Pal writes about the intersection of film preservation and pop culture with a piece about VCI Entertainment's reissue of the first Green Hornet serial.

Joe Thompson at The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion offers a history of nitrate, via newspaper articles and clippings from as early as 1889--for example, a letter to the editor, in 1897, from a fire warden worried about the dangers of the movie projector setup.

Kendra of Viv & Larry continues her appreciation of all things Criterion with a post about Days of Heaven, surely on everyone's list of the most beautiful movies ever made.

Peter Nelhaus of Coffee, Coffee and More Coffee, who is rumored to have seen everything, makes his first contribution: a look at Lon Chaney's first starring role in The Penalty, detailing Chaney's amazing preparations for the role of a legless crime lord.

Sarah Baker at Flapper Jane continues her contributions with three simple, but eloquent, reasons to support film preservation.

Monday, February 15th

Catherine Krummey at Speaking of Cinema pays tribute to Martin Scorsese, a hero to preservationists everywhere, and gives a link to his acceptance speech for the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes.

Christopher Snowden of The Silent Movie Blog has a beautiful set of rare stills from lost movies, and some witty suggestions as to where to find the missing films--far off the beaten track.

Dennis Nyback, having wowed everyone in his interview with Anne Richardson, is going even further to help out, via a post at his own site. The irresistible title: "Nitrate Film – More Feared Than Frankenstein – Less Understood Than Eraser Head – More Dangerous than repeated viewing of Sleepless in Seattle."

Erik Loomis of alterdestiny is a historian with a specialty in the late 19th and early 20th century. Here he talks about the importance of the NFPF archives in his teaching work, using the example of a chilling 1912 movie about slum life, The Land Beyond the Sunset.

Greg offers a concentrated dose of gorgeous in a teaser post at his pictures-only blog Unexplained Cinema: 10 Frames: The Godless Girl.

Jacqueline T. Lynch at Another Old Movie Blog delves into Vertigo, reminding us that it took years for the movie's stature to grow. Although Vertigo was made in 1958, restorers stil found film stock of Hitchcock's masterpiece that was rotting in the can.

Kendra at Viv & Larry continues her blogathon contributions with a loving writeup of That Hamilton Woman, in which she pays careful attention to the design and cinematography of the film as well as the two glorious leads.

Maggie at Silver Screen Dream bemoans the state of Love Affair's print; and fearlessly tackles the question of whether some films are "worth saving."

Paula will be promoting us by posting movie pictures at her Shutterfly page all week; view the first batches here.

Rob at Rob's Movie Vault dubs The Race to Save 100 Years "Preservation 101," and unearths many salient facts among the paeans to Ted Turner. (We forgive him for that fling with colorization now, don't we?)

Sunday, February 14th

Anne Richardson of Oregon Movies A to Z has an interview with Dennis Nyback, a collector, curator and projectionist with much experience of nitrate--and film booth stories to scare the hell out of Quentin Tarantino.

Arthur S. brings his unerring eye and deep sense of film history to bear on the great Raoul Walsh and two early sound pre-Code films, The Bowery and Me and My Gal.

Betty Jo Tucker of Reel Talk Movie Reviews looks at Martin Scorsese's invaluable role as a high-profile, tireless advocate for film preservation.

Bob Fergusson, the Operator 99 of Allure, takes a single issue of Photoplay magazine from 1931 and analyzes the survival status of all 186 movies listed in it, in a riveting exercise he calls "Now You See It, Now You Don't." A must for Pre-Code hounds.

Buckey, back at his blog Mindless Meanderings, writes about the early days of film preservation, while silent movies still reigned. Among many things the Siren learned from this piece: "Productions such as D.W.Griffith’s ‘The Avenging Conscience’ were totally unusable in as little as 10 years after its release."

Buttermilk Sky, long a treasured commenter at the Siren's place, has a post on her favorite Marx Brothers film, Monkey Business, and why it deserves restoration. You had me at "Marx Brothers," though!

David Cairns, whose Shadowplay is simply one of the best classic-movie blogs anywhere on the Interwebz, ponders why Rin Tin Tin is more like Burt Lancaster than Montgomery Clift.

David Ehrenstein of FaBlog has a clip-studded tour through the highly flammable, but oh-so fabuloso history of nitrate, with Max Reinhardt's gleaming, glorious A Midsummer Night's Dream as the centerpiece.

DeeDee at Noirish City has links to the blogathon, her thoughts on and her own pledges for film preservation--and plans for her own giveaway. Check it out!

Donna at Strictly Vintage Hollywood furthers her love of all things Rudolph Valentino with a look at the great lover's three lost films. Two of these, A Sainted Devil and The Young Rajah, have fragments surviving; but Donna gives a complete storyline and numerous production stills for Uncharted Seas, not one frame of which is still with us.

Dwight Swanson of Home & Amateur writes about the poignant history of Think of Me First as a Person, a documentary put together from home-movie footage that was shot in the 1960s and 1970s by the father of a child with Down Syndrome.

Eddie Muller, president of the Film Noir Foundation, guest blogs at Marilyn's Ferdy on Films. He describes the making of Cry Danger, praises the film's excellence, and offers a heartening example of how his foundation worked with studios to get a decent print circulating once more. Lucky San Franciscans will be able to see it at the Noir City festival this year.

Ivan G. Shreve untangles the Very Meta Mystery of the two versions of It's in the Bag! (1945), one of only six movies made by radio legend Fred Allen. Ivan has even included a transcript, so you can play along at home.

Kendra of the smart, well-written Leigh & Olivier fan blog, Viv & Larry, pays tribute to everyone's favorite DVD house, Criterion.

Lou Lumenick, chief film critic of the New York Post, links arms with the blogosphere and plugs the blogathon. His teaser post has a cameo from a sad Kay Francis and a high-profile villain: Joseph P. Kennedy.

At her blog Or Maybe Eisenstein Should Just Relax, Meredith chooses the restored version of The Red Shoes to be her valentine, after seeing it at the British Film Institute--along with memorabilia from the movie, lent by Martin Scorsese.

Ray Young of Flickhead, one of the most original film writers around, reviews all six pounds of the apparently definitive work of research and love, This Film Is Dangerous: A Celebration of Nitrate Film. Amazon, anyone?

Sarah Jane Baker, the film historian and writer who maintains the Flapper Jane blog, has a lovely piece about that iconic figure of Hollywood tragedy, Olive Thomas. In Sarah's quest to blow the cobwebs off the legend, she was able to locate and preserve some films that reacquaint us with Olive, the talented actress.

Vince is the proprietor of Carole & Co., a fan blog cherished by all who appreciate painstaking research and excellent writing, as well as the great Carole Lombard. His post delves into the mystery of what Lombard looked like before her facial injuries in a 1926 car accident, and describes the fate of two early Lombard sound films.

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In Memoriam: Jean Simmons, 1929-2010

In the Siren's head, there is a triangle of aristocratic mid-century actresses, one that goes Europe-America-Britain--Hepburn, Kelly, Simmons. Jean Simmons, who has died in California, age 80, is the apex. Alas for the Hollywood in my head, Simmons isn't a household name like the other two. But her filmography is packed with layered and intelligent performances as well as darkly ambiguous characters the likes of which the other two ladies, great as they were, never dared.

Simmons began as a child actress, an excellent one. The Siren hasn't seen much of her juvenile work but like everyone else she's seen Great Expectations, and Simmons was fine as the young Estella, wounding and luring young Pip. In Black Narcissus her body makeup was the one false note in the masterpiece, but as the sensual, predatory serving girl Simmons put it all into her movements and snake-charmer eyes. In Hamlet, James Agee said she was "the only person in the picture who gives every one of her lines the bloom of poetry and the immediacy of ordinary life." She earned an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress and Hollywood was interested, but she was still under contract in Britain and continued to make films there.

She made the 1949 version of The Blue Lagoon and if the Siren's memory is to be trusted, that one was no less silly than the remake, although Simmons worked valiantly. Much better was the beloved So Long at the Fair, a mystery-romance centered on the old legend of a disappearance at the Paris Exposition of 1889. There are many reasons to cherish this atmospheric, dreamy movie; for one thing, the sinister Parisians who take turns gaslighting poor Vicky (Simmons) fit neatly with the perception one can get of customer service in that city. But more credit goes to Simmons, who displayed her signature ability to yank a damsel-in-distress role out of mothballs and make the girl seem courageous, intelligent and worth saving.

Simmons had her own distress in the early years of adult success. There was her romance with Stewart Granger, who left his wife for her in 1950, causing some anxiety for Simmons and her employers in those sterner times. She weathered the Granger publicity, then endured a long series of contract disputes that held up her career and occasionally forced her into parts she didn't want. Rank, the studio that had Simmons under contract, put on dark glasses to avoid seeing Hollywood beckon as they cast her in pictures that did well at the box office, if not always with critics. (There are a number from this era that the Siren would like to see, including Uncle Silas, The Clouded Yellow and Cage of Gold.) Finally, as Granger prepared to go to MGM, Simmons was permitted to go with him as Rank loaned her to RKO for Androcles and the Lion.

The Siren thinks she's charming as Lavinia, but the movie must have been a bad memory for Simmons. The filming dragged on and on, she couldn't take any of the offers pouring in, and then Rank sold her contract to RKO with just six months left to go. RKO, then being run into the ground by Howard Hughes, claimed she made an oral agreement to stay on. Simmons said she did no such thing, and indeed it seems unlikely as Hughes made his sexual interest in the newlywed vulgarly obvious. She was so miserable that Granger claimed in his memoirs that the couple discussed the advisability of pushing Hughes off the cliff near their home. Instead, she agreed to do three more films and in a fortunate move for everyone, not least Simmons' fans, she made Angel Face.

Robert Mitchum biographer Lee Server says Hughes hired Otto Preminger to direct the movie in hopes of making the leading lady's life as difficult as possible: "I'm going to get even with that little bitch," quoth the ever-gallant Hughes. Preminger was often brutal to his actors for the sheer hell of it. Given explicit encouragement by a studio boss he "absolutely, totally destroyed me," Simmons said later. But she was no fragile Jean Seberg, thank goodness; when Hughes made one too many demands about her hairstyle she cut it all off and was made to wear a wig during filming. A scene where Mitchum slapped Simmons resulted in the legendary moment when, after Preminger had done take after take, Simmons bearing each blow until her eyes watered from the pain, Mitchum turned around and slapped the director instead. But oh, the film they made. Simmons is magnificent, an evil, father-obsessed, psychopathic beauty to place beside and even eclipse Gene Tierney's similar turn in Leave Her to Heaven. Simmons, so often cast as a schoolteacher or a missionary, takes her Black Narcissus sexiness and turns it full force on Mitchum's chauffeur. Their erotic chemistry is as potent as any in film noir.

Hughes continued to be a putz, refusing to loan Simmons out for Roman Holiday. The RKO dispute landed in court and Simmons eventually won a qualified victory and the ability to work at other studios. At MGM she made Young Bess, a movie notable mostly for Charles Laughton's return to his Henry VIII role (his scene with Simmons is the best in the movie) and her fiery, wilful Elizabeth, a girl you can easily see growing up to defeat an Armada. She made another film at RKO and then it was back to MGM to play The Actress, a role intended for Debbie Reynolds, who would have been pleasant, I suppose. Under George Cukor's direction, Simmons turned it into the definitive portrait of stagestruck youth. Part of Simmons' talent is that she never tries to signal the audience that she sees a character's flaws--she plays foolishness straight up. She takes the girl beyond the acting bug into a place for all adolescent dreaming. It is one of Cukor's best films and the Siren's favorite Simmons role. But the movie did poorly and David Shipman notes the irony, in a verdict the Siren agrees with; "she was wan as the heroine of The Robe with Richard Burton, a tremendous success...[but] a rotten version of a rotten novel by Lloyd C. Douglas."

The 50s were Simmons' years at the top, as she was cast in big-budget fare like Desiree and The Egyptian. Neither was very good, though the Siren gets plenty of pleasure from both. The Siren has little use for what Samuel Goldwyn and Joseph Mankiewicz did to Guys and Dolls, but no less an authority than Steven Sondheim called Jean's joyous dance in Havana "a high point of the picture." (In the 1970s, Simmons toured as Desiree in A Little Night Music and originated the role in London; she's said to have been terrific.) The Siren does think Simmons is swell in a somewhat anemic, but enjoyable women's picture, Until They Sail, about sisters in New Zealand experiencing World War II chiefly as man trouble.

Just after that, Simmons made The Big Country with William Wyler, who thought highly of her talent although he annoyed her as much as he did any other actor. The Siren cares not what others say of this movie, when she hears that music she sits and watches it all over again, yep, all three hours. Simmons, as she often did, had the hardest character of the lot, a well-bred orphan meant to serve as a battleground as vital as the movie's Big Muddy watering hole. Instead she breathes such intelligence that certain less-plausible ideas, like courtly treatment from Burl Ives' otherwise ruthless rancher, cause nary a flicker of disbelief. Of course he would defend this woman. Such is her radiant dignity, he might even lumber off his horse and bow. (He doesn't, but he could have.)

The marriage with Stewart Granger began to fail, as marriage with Stewart Granger must, and Simmons made Elmer Gantry with Richard Brooks, who became her second husband. It was one of the finest roles of her career, an evangelist doomed by belief in her own cant. Simmons is remarkably free of any condescension to Sister Sharon, her conflicts or her beliefs. There haven't been many performances like it since, as we live now in an age where we see a preacher address thousands and just assume there must be a Jim Bakker backstory somewhere. Incredibly, Simmons did not get an Oscar nomination though her work was as great as that of Burt Lancaster, who won.

She was professional as always in Spartacus, but while the movie is good and has acquired a devoted following, the Siren thinks Simmons' part isn't particularly interesting. She gets a couple of chances to shine near the end, however. Her kiss for Laughton is so loving you feel his reaction may not be acting at all, and the moment where she sees Spartacus dying, and the camera stays and stays on her face, is the most heartbreaking in the movie.

Shipman says that around this time, "to protect this marriage and to bring up her children," (she had one from each marriage) "she began to refuse work." Simmons is darling in The Grass Is Greener, her giddy Mitford-esque flirt out-shining onetime Granger love Deborah Kerr. She was great again as the mother in All the Way Home, a beautiful movie based on Agee's A Death in the Family that also had an equally fine Robert Preston. But the downbeat story was a flop.

As the 60s hurtled on, Simmons found her offers getting fewer and less interesting, as they do for most actresses with the nerve to get older. Her beauty was striking right up to the end, but what does that ever matter in Hollywood? The Siren hasn't seen much of her work past about 1967, including her Oscar-nominated role in Brooks' The Happy Ending. The Siren did see her in The Thorn Birds; she was lovely. Simmons was always lovely, even in silly fare like North and South where her presence was like using a Stradivarius to play "Oops, I Did It Again."

Joseph Mankiewicz called her "a fantastically talented and enormously underestimated girl. In terms of talent she is so many head and shoulders above most of her contemporaries, one wonders why she didn't become the great star she could have been." He went on to theorize, "it doesn't matter to her much." The Siren isn't so sure; stardom means good parts, and those mattered a great deal to Simmons, enough to keep her working nearly her entire life. "Maybe it doesn't help to have been so good so young," said Shipman. Well, Simmons deserved better from the movie business, as did so many actresses. But the Siren, as a Jean Simmons admirer now and always, got much indeed from the lady's acting.

(Please note: the beautiful picture at the bottom is copyright-held by the gentleman we know as Yojimboen. He took it himself, the lucky devil.)

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Anecdote of the Week: "Oh God, This Is a Dirty Picture"

The Siren has no particular reason for posting this anecdote, other than the way it consistently cracks her up. It concerns Samuel Goldwyn, whose fate it was to figure prominently in many anecdotes that simply never happened. His occasionally fractured English was irresistible to Hollywood wags, and eventually publicity folks just started making stuff up. This story, however, is from A. Scott Berg's excellent biography of the mogul.

Sexual liberation in the sixties turned the motion picture screen into an orgiastic playground, and most of Hollywood's latest product turned Goldwyn off. His private screening of Blow-Up in 1966 was going just fine until the scene in which David Hemmings cavorts with a couple of young girls. "Oh God," Goldwyn cried out, calling a stop to the screening; "this is a goddamned dirty picture!" Not long after that, Goldwyn complained to Billy Wilder that he had seen an even more disgusting disply--Hello, Dolly! Wilder was puzzled--not only because he could not imagine anything scurrilous in that harmless musical but also because Darryl Zanuck had not released it yet. Goldwyn insisted he knew what he saw, and it was one of the filthiest pictures he had ever seen. Wilder asked him to recite the plot. "Sam," he interrupted upon hearing about the drug-taking and sex lives of three aspiring actresses, "I think you're referring to Valley of the Dolls." "That's just what I said," Goldwyn insisted. "Valley of the Hello Dollies."

As the Siren flips to the notes of Berg's books she sees that the source for this bit of utter hilarity is Billy Wilder himself, which may, may mind you make it a teensy bit suspect. Like John McElwee the Siren has never bought the old story of Wilder telling L.B. Mayer--Mayer!--"go fuck yourself" after the first screening of Sunset Boulevard.

But it's a great story, isn't it?

The Siren will be mostly off-line today but she invites you to catch up with the following, as she has been.

Speaking of old dark houses: Six Martinis and the Seventh Art brings you The Bat Whispers.

Film in Focus's Behind the Blog interviews fine film writer and all-around good guy Peter Nelhaus, one of the Siren's first friends in the blogosphere.

The Siren has been tracking Gareth's Watching Movies in Africa project and finally read his entry on Captain Blood, a feast for any admirer of red-blooded 1930s screen manhood.

Gloria uses a splendid photo of Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester as a jumping-off point for...well, go read it, I won't spoil it. And Elsa looks quite pretty.

Brian at Bubblegum Aestheticswrites a lengthy and utterly absorbing post on the intertwined, but not-so-parallel lives of two film legends who shared a birthday.

Raquelle at Out of the Past is writing up a storm about TCM's Latino Images in Film (did anyone else catch the original And Now Miguel? lovely film), and she endeared herself to the Siren no end by putting in a good word for George Stevens' great widescreen epic Giant. On a related note, last month Allure ran a post full of scans from Latin American movie magazines.

Another way to get on the Siren's good side: praise Charlie Chaplin.

This also goes back to March, but the Siren has to point out Greenbriar Picture Shows' beautiful elegy for Wallace Reid.

Not classic-era, but kudos anyway: Stinky Lulu issues a defense (albeit somewhat qualified) of Marisa Tomei's unjustly maligned Oscar-winning turn in My Cousin Vinny. Why does everyone complain, year after year, that the Academy snubs comedy, and then pitch a hissy fit when an extremely funny performance wins over actresses doing Important Drama? Yeah, Miranda Richardson was great in Damage. The movie was a mess, and the Siren says this as a longtime Louis Malle lover. The Siren's own pick that year would have been Judy Davis for Husbands and Wives, but all the same, if you fired up Vinny on the DVD player right now, the Siren would happily watch just for the part where Mona Lisa Vito gets out of the car and says, "I bet this place has lousy Chinese food." As an Alabama native, the Siren has to tell you truer words are seldom spoken on screen.

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The Inevitable 20 Actors Meme

It was as inevitable as the tide, as Oscar-season food-fights, as politicians blaming the media. The 20 Actors Meme, or, as it's known around the Siren's place, more goddamn homework. Mind you, the Siren loves Tony Dayoub, who tagged her, but this time the Siren is doing it her way.

Here are her rules. (Edited to add: These are my rules only, nobody else has to follow them. For some reason I just live to make these things more complicated. The original meme is just 20 actors, 20 pictures. You don't even have to do captions.)

1. No actors who were primarily, or more celebratedly, directors. That means no Orson, though it pains me. That means no Renoir, though his performance in La Règle du Jeu just might be the Siren's favorite of all time. No Keaton, Chaplin, or Eastwood. My rationalization (other than that I need the space) is that they are being saved for the 20 Directors meme, not that the Siren has any intention of starting or even responding to that one.

2. The requirement here is slightly different than for the actress meme. Some of these gentlemen, for whatever reason, have had uneven careers, and the Siren can't in all honesty say she'll watch them in anything. For example, if the Siren ever were to find herself anywhere with Michael Caine, even just a lobby, the force of his brilliance would paralyze her vocal cords so that she could only widen her eyes and point, like Dorothy McGuire in The Spiral Staircase. However, dearly as the Siren loves the man, there is no way in hell she is ever going to watch more than the first 10 minutes of Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.

So the Siren chose actors who always give her a lovely little shiver of "oh, HIM!" every time the name appears in the credits. This is NOT a list about pure acting greatness, otherwise a few of these actors wouldn't be on it. It's about who I love.

4. No comments this time. Just stills. Rather than picking stills that show the actor full-on, the Siren picked some that show him interacting with others, acting being REacting and all that. The Siren chose movies she likes a lot, though in some cases she bypassed a favorite in favor of something more unexpected.

4. Since Tony helped himself to an extra 10, I'm-a grabbing 10 more than that. And I could list 20 after that, but here's the thing. This second group of 20 is no less valid than the first. I could, in fact, flip the groups and be almost as accurate in terms of my taste, save a few that really always have to be on top--those ones my longtime readers can probably guess.

5. Finally--the order. Once the Siren gathered the stills and started uploading them into Blogger, she previewed the post and noticed something a bit spooky. She began to get a sense, as she looked down the vertical line of the photos, that these gentlemen were speaking to one another across movies, that in fact these actors wanted to do an improv. So rather than alphabetical or preferential or chronological order, the Siren felt compelled to let each gathering of photographs have its little meta-narrative, although the story lines probably would have sent Harry Cohn's ass into overdrive.

The First 20