This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This week's theme is "Great Final Films of Actors/Actresses". Note that it says "Great", not "Memorable", so I couldn't use
Joan Crawford in Trog (1970). Instead, I picked three other movies with great actresses in great roles, although I'll also admit to having used one of them over two years ago:
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Actress: Renée Jeanne Falconetti. To be fair, this was more or less her only movie, having appeared in one silent a decade earlier. The movie focuses on the trial of Joan of Arc (Falconetti) after she had led the French to victory in the battle of Orléans and ticked off certain sectors of the Catholic Church. Falconetti is outstanding and the cinematography by Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer, is tremendous too.
The Whales of August (1987). Actress: Lillian Gish (although it's also the final completed performance for Bette Davis, I believe, she having done a few days' filming on one more movie before her death). Gish and Davis play elderly sisters returning to their summer cottage in Maine in the 1950s for one final time, Davis being wheelchair-bound and nearly blind. They have a neighbor in Oscar-nominated Ann Sothern, and add a fourth in putative Russian émigré nobleman Vincent Price, the baby of the cast at 75.
To Be or Not to Be (1942). Actress: Carole Lombard. Lombard plays a Polish actress married to Jack Benny; they're forced to do Hamlet instead of the satire of Hitler they intended for political reasons. Every time Hamlet starts his soliloquy, Polish airman Robert Stack goes to see Lombard in her dressing room, he being in love with her. The Nazis invade and Stack goes off to England, eventually parachuted in for a secret mission and meeting up with Lombard, Benny, and their troupe again. Lombard was killed in a plane crash on a war bonds tour in early 1942, so this movie was released posthumously, and as I understand it wasn't successful at the time because audiences weren't ready for this sort of comedy during the war.
Noirsville Tune of the Week
2 hours ago
3 comments:
Nice way to go.
Passion of Joan of Arc is a fascinating film as is Whales of August in its way. Bette was in rough shape by this point but Lillian gives a beautiful performance. Nomination worthy really.
We match on To Be or Not to Be. I can see how audiences of the time weren't ready for it but it's a glorious film and Carole tremendous in it.
Trog is a horror show, poor Joan, but for me the worst final film has got to be Veronica Lake's Flesh Fest. Just appallingly bad in every way.
It was tougher to come up with great final films, they are the exception not the rule, but I did come up with these.
To Be or Not To Be (1942)-In German occupied Warsaw during World War II a Polish theatrical troupe headed by husband and wife stars Joseph & Maria Tura (Jack Benny & Carole Lombard) set out to prevent a German spy from revealing key members of the Polish underground to the Nazis by means both desperate and humorous.
Ernst Lubitsch directed masterpiece was Lombard’s final film. America entered the war just before the film’s premiere and Carole was the first star to go on a bond tour (to her native Indiana) and perished in a plane crash, along with her mother, on the return journey. A line her character spoke “What can happen in a plane?” was excised before the film debuted.
The Misfits (1961)-In Reno for a divorce Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe) meets aging cowboy Gay Langland (Clark Gable), WWII aviator Guido Racanelli (Eli Wallach) and broken down rodeo rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift). Lonely and feeling lost Roslyn accepts Guido's invitation to stay at his desert home with the trio and the four wrestle with life’s questions.
Directed by John Huston and written for Marilyn by her then husband Arthur Miller this somber film was the final one for both Gable and Monroe. Gable, who performed some of his own stunt work died 12 days after the film wrapped. Marilyn started the trouble plagued “Something’s Gotta Give” but died before its completion and the picture scrapped.
The Iceman Cometh (1973)-In 1912 New York’s Last Chance Saloon a group of chronic alcoholics are momentarily shaken from their hopeless ennui by the arrival of Hickey (Lee Marvin) one of their number now sober urging them to abandon their pipe dreams and face reality. It does not go well. Powerful with a powerhouse cast (beside Marvin-Jeff Bridges, Robert Ryan, Fredric March, Moses Gunn, Bradford Dillman among others) full book adaptation of the Eugene O'Neill play couldn't be better presented (it’s directed by John Frankenheimer) but it's so long (four hours!) and full of doom and gloom it’s a hard one to embrace.
This was the last film for both Robert Ryan (who died before the film’s premiere) and Fredric March who retired on the film’s completion and passed away shortly afterwards.
Advise & Consent (1962)-Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell (Henry Fonda) is being investigated by a Senate committee headed by Senator Brig Anderson (Don Murray) before his appointment. When serious allegations are leveled against Leffingwell engineered by Senior Senator Seab Cooley (Charles Laughton) pressure is applied to Anderson in the form of exposure of a long hidden secret to influence the outcome. Otto Preminger directed, star-studded (Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon, Lew Ayres, Franchot Tone, Burgess Meredith, Betty White etc.) political drama is still timely.
This was Charles Laughton final feature (passing away within six months of completion), by happenstance he co-starred with each of the other stars excepting Ryan in one of their films (Lombard-They Knew What They Wanted, Gable-Mutiny on the Bounty, Fredric March-Les Miserables and Monroe-O Henry’s Full House).
The only one I've seen of yours is The Passion of Joan of Arc and I didn't love it, but Falconetti was wonderful. I had forgotten she didn't continue film work after that.
I am a week late..I love Passion of Jean D’Arc which I saw I. A theatre with a choir..it was brilliant and a great film. We match on To Be or Not to Be..Carole Lombard is a great actress and quite the beauty. I also love The Whales of August with Vincent Price in a sweet role. Poor Gosh had to deal with Davis’s antics but she managed with great dignity. I still have to see Trog and I want to see Joel’s mention of that Lake film.
Post a Comment