Bette Davis – The Magnificent 60s

A Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ***

Frank Capra was yesterday’s man – one movie in a decade – and 15 years away from the consolation of knowing that his flop It’s A Wonderful Life (1948) was on its way to becoming, arguably, along with The Wizard of Oz (1939), America’s most beloved picture thanks to annual Xmas showings on television and subsequently in the cinema.

There’s nothing new here, either, it’s a remake of his Lady for a Day (1933) and it’s more of a fable lacking punch than some of his more famous pictures. And the main interest for contemporary audiences may well be that it marks the debut of Ann-Margret (The Swinger, 1966) who gets to sing but not shake her booty in trademark fashion. And it takes forever to wind up to a pitch. We’ve got to wade through three subplots before it gets going.

First of all Prohibition gangster Dave (Glenn Ford) meets up with the daughter Queenie (Hope Lang) of a deceased club owner who’s in hock for $20,000. Dave is much taken by the earnest Queen’s determination to repay the debt at the rate of five bucks a week. For no reason at all except narrative necessity, she’s turned into a nightclub singing sensation.

When Prohibition ends, big-time Chicago gangster Steve Darcey (Sheldon Leonard) plans to muscle in on the New York rackets and it takes all Dave’s suave bluster to keep him, temporarily, at bay. The end of Prohibition comes as a relief to Queenie and with the nightclub shut down she agrees to marry Dave with the proviso that he give up the gangster life and retire to her home town in Maryland and they become an ordinary couple.

Very much on the fringes of this is Apple Annie (Bette Davis), a street panhandler who sells “lucky” apples, one her most satisfied customers being Dave. When her illegitimate daughter Louise (Ann-Margret) returns from Spain to New York with rich beau Carlos (Peter Mann) in tow, Annie’s in a pickle, because she’s been keeping up the pretence of being a wealthy woman.

Queenie insists they help Annie to maintain her charade and Dave goes along with the idea because he’s worried his luck will run out. So Annie is turned into a sophisticate, manners polished, furnished with a luxurious apartment, including a butler, and fake husband Henry (Thomas Mitchell).

None of the stars seem to know how to handle the material, and for most of the time they act as if in a pastiche, like they were throwing winks to the audience. Glenn Ford (Fate Is the Hunter, 1964), generally adept at comedy, plays this all wrong. He wanted the part so badly he helped finance the picture. Bette Davis (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, 1962) overacts, as does Peter Falk (Murder Inc, 1961), though the Academy didn’t think so and threw him a second Oscar nomination. Hope Lang and Ann-Margret, playing it straight, get it right, though the latter, vivacious personality to the fore, wins that battle by more than a nose. Might well have worked if original choice Frank Sinatra hadn’t ankled the project.

Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend wrote the remake, based on a Damon Runyon story. It was always a tricky business to capture the stylistic essence of Runyon, Guys and Dolls (1955) the most effective transition, Lady for a Day better than this and Little Miss Marker filmed three times.

Once the Bette Davis pretence enters the equation, the tale takes on some narrative drive and the quintessential Capra shines through. But it’s too little too late.

Not the swansong Capra anticipated, but he only has himself to blame.

Behind the Scenes: Raquel Welch on “Myra Breckenridge” (1970)

In 2012, Raquel Welch was accorded a ten-film tribute at the prestigious Film Society of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and turned up in person to be interviewed on stage prior to various screenings. One of these was Myra Breckenridge (1970). Though interviewer Simon Doonan kicked off proceedings by mistaking her for Ann-Margret (yep). Graceful as our star was, she didn’t storm off the stage.

She admitted she wasn’t first choice for the picture. “I didn’t get a call,” she explained. “I had heard about the movie. I had read the book. The book was absolutely hysterical, so funny, and I thought it was very innovative because it was the first time I had seen somebody like Gore Vidal, who was really a genius, deal with the duality of the nature of both the male and the female. I never saw that before.

*Is that a gun or a are you just pleased to see me?*

“I was interested in how they were going to do this movie and then I heard through the trade that Anne Bancroft (after the success of The Graduate, 1969) had turned it down. So I thought, hmmm, I wonder what they’re going for. A little bird told me to call Dick Zanuck (head of 20^th Century Fox) so I called Dick, who I was in contract with, and asked what kind of actors they were looking for in this role. I was thinking if a guy was going to change his sex and wanted to be like a movie star kind of girl, don’t you think he might want to look like me? And he said, oh my god, that’s a thought, let me talk to David – that was David Brown (later, producer of Jaws, 1975) and I’m sure Helen Gurley Brown (his wife and editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan) got in on it too. And then I did get the call and they asked me to come in and talk to them and they gave me the role.

“I had not seen the script, it’s true. As much as I loved doing Myra, I was kind of disappointed in the outcome of the movie because the narrative never did really string together. It was very disjointed and it didn’t really tell the story of Myron the film critic who was enamored of all the very very strong swashbuckling women of the golden age of film from Joan Crawford to Bette Davis and Myrna Loy.

“He wanted really to be one of those superwomen and I think that’s where the superwomen thing started because it was women then who used to go to the movies. They used to bring the guys to the movies. That was the way it went then more than it does now…The dialog was both male and female and I felt like now I’m playing the girl’s part. Rex Reed is playing Myron and there’s really hardly any relationship between the two. They’re not one person so there’s no idea of the duality and nature. One minute she likes girls and the next minute she likes studs and the older men are just to use and abuse.”

Asked about how she developed her character, Raquel replied: “The real thing – I know this is going to sound very shallow – but Theodora Van Runkle (who had swept to national fame by starting a fashion trend with her outfits for Bonnie and Clyde, 1967) did these beautiful period costumes which did emulate all of the great film stars…I felt these clothes kind of evoked this attitude.

“I did want to meet Mae (West). I did go out and research her and find out all about her and it turned out she had never made a color movie before. I asked for an audience. (In her apartment) I noticed all her furniture was white and also noticed all these 25-watt pink bulbs (to keep the room dim).”

Raquel had observed of movie stars, “There’s a screen persona and a real side. Mae didn’t have a real side. She was wearing a long peignoir and lots of eyelashes. This was noon. She didn’t bring the chimps out (she was rumored to have a menagerie of them…and young men, and neither were in evidence).”

(On set) “The other thing that got to me a little bit was that Mae never worked before 5pm. Also she never really moved by herself. (The limousine that had driven her to the studio) also brought her on to the set. I kissed her hand and one false fingernail fell to the floor and then I thought I’m getting a vibe, I think she’s a man. She refused to appear in the same frame as me. At 77 (Mae’s age) all bets are off and you’re not going to be able to doll it up that much.”

While stars being able to veto a director and perhaps refuse to work with certain other stars was still a perk for the highest-paid movie actors, Welch discovered that Mae West had a very distinctive unheard-of perk. She had costume approval. Van Runkle had designed a Garbo-esque black dress that Raquel was looking forward to wearing. But when it came time for that particular scene she discovered it had been “confiscated….nobody got to wear non-color (West was always dressed in white) except Mae.”

“Very early on (I realized) this isn’t Gore’s book. Nobody’s going to undertsand it…they hired Michael Sarne who’s only claim to fame was Joanna (1969), a visual montage kind of thing and that’s what he did to this movie. The fact that it had dialog was secondary. He used to carry round this little rectangular box and he used to say, I’ve got this little box for you, Raquel.

“It was sad fun, I didn’t want to make a movie that didn’t make any sense. I thought we were going to make something that was revolutonary. I did think it was kind of a landmark that said it’s very likely that world culture will change from this point on.”

You can catch this interview and another one discussing The Three Musketeers on Youtube.

Female Earnings – The Inconvenient Truth

Last week’s headline-grabbing articles about how few women featured in the rankings of top-earning movie stars, suggesting this was an age-old problem, overlooked one inconvenient truth. A century ago, actresses were the biggest earners in Hollywood.

In fact from Hollywood’s inception around 1910 and for the next sixty years actresses from Mary Pickford in the 1910s to Elizabeth Taylor either out-earned or equalled the male pay packets. I know. I wrote a book about it – When Women Ruled Hollywood (Baroliant, 2019). It was subtitled – “How Actresses Took on the Hollywood Hierarchy – and Won.”

The simple fact of the matter is that a woman – Florence Lawrence – in 1910 became the first Hollywood star, on the princely (or should I say princessly) salary of $50 a week, at a time when 77% of the female workforce survived on less than $7 a week. She was the equal highest-paid earner of the day.

*Taylor earned $3 million for Cleopatra*.

When movies began, movie stars were not as highly paid as those who worked on stage. But, again, women were by far the highest paid earners. The number one star in vaudeville – the U.S. version of music hall – was Gertrude Hoffman on, wait for it, $3,000 a week (about $90,000 equivalent now). In 1911 the number one spot was shared – by two women. Sarah Bernhardt and Gaby Deslys now took home $4,000 a week. The following year Bernhardt was top dog again, on $9,000 a week and the next year again as the highest earner she pulled in $22,000 a week.

Movie stars of neither gender were earning that much but everyone knew what vaudeville stars earned so there was no shortage of precedent for actresses in the burgeoning movie business to ask for more. They employed a simple technique. They held studios to ransom. Give me more money or I jump ship.

In 1915, Mary Pickford broke all records for movie star earnings by taking in more than $150,000 a year. This was far more than male sensation Charlie Chaplin and even as his salary leapt upwards so did hers. In 1918 she picked up $1.8 million a year.

Despite the advent of top males in the 1920s of the calibre of Valentino, Lon Chaney, Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd and John Gilbert, women topped the earning chart once again. Gloria Swanson would have easily been the top-ranked earner had she accepted an offer of $18,000 a week but turned it down preferring to retain her independence. In her absence Corinne Griffiths came out of top with a $13,000 a week salary at First National.

*Hepburn was on a cool $1 million per picture*.

In the early 1930s Greta Garbo topped the heap with $500,000 a year – for a 40-week deal. In 1935 Mae West took home $480,000, not just the highest earner in the movies, but the second highest earner, $20,000 behind publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, in the whole of the United States.

In 1936, when Gary Cooper came top with Ronald Colman second, women occupying the next three spots. In 1937 when Fredric March took the top spot, women placed, second, third, four, fifth and sixth. In 1938 Claudette Colbert was number one and Irene Dunne the topper in 1939.

Bing Crosby topped the bill in 1940, and the next year it was Colbert again. The war inflicted a number of anomalies on the business, mainly the arrival from radio of Abbott and Costello, top earners in 1942, with Fred MacMurray, without even taking top billing in most of his films of the period, hitting the earnings peak for both 1943 and 1944. Ginger Rogers was top in 1945, Joan Crawford in 1946 and except for a parachute payment to stop him leaving Warner Brothers Humphrey Bogart would have been pipped at the post by Bette Davis, with chanteuse Deanna Durbin top of the heap in 1948.

With demise of the studio system in the 1950s, female earnings tumbled except for Marilyn Monroe who ran top earners John Wayne and William Holden close. But in the 1960s Elizabeth Taylor out-earned everyone by a huge margin and Audrey Hepburn, Doris Day and Julie Andrews either earned or equaled the earnings of top male attractions like John Wayne, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman.

The advent of action pictures, which sold more easily around the world than comedies or dramas, ensured that from the 1970s onwards men mostly ruled the earnings game. But still stars like Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda, Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock held their own. And it was not so long ago that it was the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, thanks to The Hunger Games franchise, beat everyone.

You can buy my book on Amazon for about £10 and $12.

Books – Behind the Scenes of “Valley of the Dolls” (1968)

Behind-the-scenes books generally benefit from as much scandal as possible. Using that criteria, Dolls! Dolls! Dolls! by Stephen Rebello leaps to the top of the list. Rebello had been primarily responsible for turning Valley of the Dolls (1968) into a camp classic by hosting repeated showings of the picture from the 1990s onwards and making it number one in his book Bad Movies We Love.

The novel Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann was a record-breaking bestseller on the “sex/sin/salvation literary rodeo” but nothing that came out of the fevered imagination of Harold Robbins could match the Susann book, an insider’s look at the murky goings-on in Hollywood with drug abuse at the top of the heap. Unfortunately for Susann, Twentieth Century Fox struck a deal for the film rights pre-publication, long before it became a sensation, so she earned only $85,000 upfront, a quarter of what was paid for Peyton Place which sold far fewer copies. Mark Robson who had brought Peyton Place to the big screen was hired as director.

Stars clamoring for roles included Natalie Wood, Bette Davis, Debbie Reynolds and Kim Novak. The list of those who turned it down was longer: Lee Remick, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Raquel Welch, Candice Bergen. Christopher Plummer and James Garner were screen-tested. Sharon Tate, Barbara Parkins, Judy Garland and Patty Duke won the main roles.

Movies had done away with the “any similarity” disclaimer but it was upfront in all ads for the film as well as in the pre-credits on the film, whether as a publicity ploy or to head off potential legal action is unknown.

The screenwriters were as appalled at the material as the censor. But that was just the beginning of strife central. The personal enmity between Duke and Parkins rivalled that of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Screaming matches and hissy fits abounded. Duke suffered from drug and alcohol abuse, mood swings and nervous skin conditions and constantly clashed with the director. Plus, despite cutting some singles and albums, she had to mime. Tate was forced into take after take for the normally economic director. The three young stars, believing this was a career-making picture, took no prisoners. Robson used a stopwatch when filming, as if he was already editing the film in his head, pushing the actresses to speak the lines faster, or undertake actions exactly on a time cue, a humiliating procedure in one scene for Tate. She refused to cry in case it messed up her make-up, which would cause further delay and further infuriate Robson. Tate was also embarrassed by publicity photos taken during her pornographic scene.

Garland was in no fit state to make a movie. She was drinking wine by the bucketload, dropping pills, slurring her lines, missing her cues and turning up late for work. Finally, it got too much and she was fired. Fans bombarded the studio with irate messages. Ginger Rogers rejected the role on account of the language. Robson put in a personal phone call to Susan Hayward, who had quit Hollywood, and turned down several comeback roles including Mrs Robinson in The Graduate. When Hayward was finally persuaded for a hefty fee, the producers had to shred Garland’ s costumes. They were different sizes. Hayward’s wardrobe was redesigned from scratch. The last straw on the troubled production was producer David Wiesbart dropping dead. That wasn’t quite the last straw. Critics trashed the picture. Luckily, audiences didn’t and lined up in droves.