Post by Salzmank on Sept 13, 2017 4:11:58 GMT
Ah, Babs. I've always adored her, and I find she's the one of the actresses I always associate the most specifically with the '40s. (I don't know if that makes any sense; what I mean to say that she seems to fit the period perfectly and it her.)
She's wonderful in so many films, but I keep going back to Christmas in Connecticut, as that's the kind of idealized sort of life I'd like: a farm in the country, snow, sleigh-rides, the minister and the doctor coming to visit, the big old New England barn with square dancing... Anyhoo, nothing to do with Stanwyck. She gets to exercise her acting chops to the fullest in Double Indemnity, Meet John Doe, and The Lady Eve; the last-mentioned, featuring characteristic overelaborate Sturgesian comic plotting, allows her to combine perfectly her style of comedy, which always had something of tragedy behind it. (Sarris makes this distinction perfectly: it's "comedy/not tragedy" rather than "comedy/ha-ha."
As you put it so accurately, spiderwort, "...she could also do comedy with the best of them, and with great honesty." Honesty--that's the quality I find so appealing about her. Candor, really, and a sense of decorous decency. Oh, well, I can't do justice to these concepts, but she had a remarkable way with her roles, and I find her a fine actress.
She's wonderful in so many films, but I keep going back to Christmas in Connecticut, as that's the kind of idealized sort of life I'd like: a farm in the country, snow, sleigh-rides, the minister and the doctor coming to visit, the big old New England barn with square dancing... Anyhoo, nothing to do with Stanwyck. She gets to exercise her acting chops to the fullest in Double Indemnity, Meet John Doe, and The Lady Eve; the last-mentioned, featuring characteristic overelaborate Sturgesian comic plotting, allows her to combine perfectly her style of comedy, which always had something of tragedy behind it. (Sarris makes this distinction perfectly: it's "comedy/not tragedy" rather than "comedy/ha-ha."
As you put it so accurately, spiderwort, "...she could also do comedy with the best of them, and with great honesty." Honesty--that's the quality I find so appealing about her. Candor, really, and a sense of decorous decency. Oh, well, I can't do justice to these concepts, but she had a remarkable way with her roles, and I find her a fine actress.