Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Great Moments In Movie Staches

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When we posted this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" at The Film Experience yesterday, facing off Double Indemnity stars Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray - have you voted yet? - we got to thinking about MacMurray... specifically these pictures of MacMurray, which are always the ones we picture when we picture him now even though dude only had a mustache in one single movie his whole career.

That movie was 1937's True Confession with Carole Lombard, the fourth of four movies those two made together, which has him playing a lawyer forced to defend his wife, a pathological liar, in court. Anybody seen it? I have not. But it sure gave us a ton of fun photographs of the two...



... and that's not even counting that shirtless photo-shoot he did alongside the movie (I'm pretty sure it's not specifically for the film) that are seen up top. The thing about that mustache is though - apparently not everybody was a fan! While looking up this film I stumbled upon a terrific mustache-themed story at the site called "Stars And Letters," which shares old celebrity correspondences of note. They share a letter that MacMurray wrote to a fan, some British Dude named Eric in 1941, who'd apparently told MacMurray he hated the stache! Here's MacMurray's letter (click to embiggen):

Well I guess that explains why he only rocked the stache in one single movie - a real loss to the movies, if you ask me. Damn you, Eric Moorehouse of Liverpool, England! You ruined everything. What do you guys think?

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1 comment:

joel65913 said...

I voted no stache though I don't object to it, but in his youth he was a fine piece of man hirsute or not.

I have seen True Confession and I'm sad to say it's by far the worst of their four flicks together. It's just a mess! Both lead characters are fools and irritating in the bargain. Carole's native intelligence shines through which actually weakens the movie since it reminds you that a woman obviously this smart would never do things so stupid. Fred's part is a dullard simp and even he would never believe the ridiculous things his wife comes up with. John Barrymore, or rather what's left of him at this point, is beyond hammy with another character that makes no sense. The only bright spot is Una Merkel who gives a sprightly, cute performance of the only person in the picture who seems like she would actually exist. Aside from her the movie is a dog. Though those publicity shots are great fun.

LOVE the letter!! So courtly and yet he manages to get in plugs for his two upcoming films! Virginia was a tough one to run to earth but I found it just about a month ago. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense but Fred looks good in Technicolor and it's also the screen bow of an impossibly young Sterling Hayden-sans future cragginess! Both it and Night in Lisbon (an only okay war film with an awesome supporting cast) costar Madeleine Carroll and she was so taken with Hayden on the first that they were married for several years and made another film together (though without Fred this time) called Bahama Passage (a real stinker but Hayden is a golden god in it)