... you can learn from:
The Women (1939)
Exercise Instructress: Let's begin with posture.
A lady always enters a room erect.
Sylvia: Most of my friends exit horizontally.
Is the gayest thing about The Women the fact that that character is called the "Exercise Instructress" or what? That's a trick question: Everything is the gayest thing about The Women. Oh George Cukor, you nelly thing. Anyway speaking of nelly things we're wishing that great broad Rosalind Russell a happy birthday today -- she was born this day in the year 1907. What's your favorite Rosalind Russell performance? Is there any answer that isn't either His Girl Friday or Auntie Mame?
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5 comments:
Auntie Mame!
Oh Geez that's a tough question. My automatic response would be Auntie Mame where she's peerless but there are so many other of her performances I love I have to do a top ten, well eleven with Mame at the top:
The Velvet Touch
No Time for Comedy
The Trouble with Angels
A Majority of One
The Women
His Girl Friday
Take a Letter, Darling
Roughly Speaking
Gypsy
Oh Dad, Poor Dad Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad-A mess of a film but Roz jumps right in with her various colored wigs and gives it her best shot.
But really any of her films, excepting the utterly terrible misfire The Guilt of Janet Ames, is worth watching if only for her presence alone.
I mean she's great in Gypsy and His Girl Friday and The Women and, well, pretty much always - but it's got to be Auntie Mame.
My friend and I just watched The Women last night. He'd never seen it. I think the script still sparkles and it's a great movie. One thing people may not know is that many of the women in the cast were potential Scarlett O'Haras. Both Joan Crawford and Paulette Goddard were close to getting the role. George Cukor was the original director of Gone With the Wind as well. This was something of a consolation prize for these actresses. Evidently, Norma Shearer and Crawford would keep them waiting as they had their limos circle the studio to see who would enter first. Shearer had been married to Irving Thalberg, who was the head of the studio until Louis B. Mayer worked him into an early grave.
Other than the usual I love The Trouble With Angels and Where Angels Go Trouble Follows
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