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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jun 24, 2017 12:41:06 GMT
I had assumed she had been, at least once, but no, not at all! She had the nickname "Queen of Hollywood" so this seems a major oversight. They did have the good sense to give her one of those lifetime achievement awards eventually.
Watching her now, in her final theatrical film, Just Tell Me What You Want. Prior to this week, I'd only known her from her older movies. Earlier this week I also saw her in The End, with Burt Reynolds. I was taken by surprise that she had gotten older, which is a ridiculous statement to make, I realize, but my brain had to adjust.
About 15 years ago I saw her in The Thin Man but still haven't seen the rest of the series. I have them all recorded from TCM and plan to get to them soon. I heard that some of the later entries are not as good, but how bad could they be?
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jun 24, 2017 12:45:17 GMT
Also, when she signed with Warner Bros, they changed her last name from Williams to Loy. Why? Was Williams considered too generic? And who came up with Loy, and why?
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Post by BATouttaheck on Jun 24, 2017 12:53:11 GMT
Lebowskidoo 🦞re: Williams to LOY Found this here on the lovely ladies IMDB Page MYRNA LOY "Changing last name from Williams to Loy was suggested by legendary pulp writer Paul Cain (AKA Peter Ruric)." Gotta admit that Loy sounds more exotic that Williams !
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jun 24, 2017 12:58:36 GMT
Lebowskidoo 🦞 re: Williams to LOY Found this here on the lovely ladies IMDB Page MYRNA LOY "Changing last name from Williams to Loy was suggested by legendary pulp writer Paul Cain (AKA Peter Ruric)." Gotta admit that Loy sounds more exotic that Williams ! She must have made the change to sound more exotic, Williams is fine, but doesn't sound too exotic, really.
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Post by teleadm on Jun 24, 2017 16:22:13 GMT
Never even nominated, what a shame!
Seams she mostly played vamps until MGM transformed her to their sophistacated humourus elegant female star. Great sparring partner to great leading men, and she could hold her own against any man.
The Thin Man series, and many more outside that serial with William Powell
The wife in The Best Years of Our Lives 1946.
The original Cheaper by the Dozen 1950 and it's sequel (yes they did sequels back in those days too).
Her work for UNESCO made her movie career a bit spotty after the mid 1950s.
Airport '75 1974 (a guilty pleasure), a scene in a bar, she surprices the men by having no trouble sweeping a big drink (a nod to Nora Charles maybe).
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Post by mikef6 on Jun 24, 2017 17:59:58 GMT
About 15 years ago I saw her in The Thin Man but still haven't seen the rest of the series. I have them all recorded from TCM and plan to get to them soon. I heard that some of the later entries are not as good, but how bad could they be? In my own Not-So-Humble-Opinion, the only one that is really weak is the last of the six, "Song Of The Thin Man." That one is kind of dull and plodding plus Nick doesn't actually solve the mystery but sets up a trap to force the killer to reveal himself - and even then, it's not much of a surprise. Still, it is never a Bad Thing to spend an hour and a half with Nick, Nora, and Asta. BTW, there are some who claim that in the original first film from Hammett's novel, the murder is also not solved but the criminal trapped - based on Nick's off-hand statement that he had no idea who the killer was when he called all the suspects together, but my feeling is that he was either being modest or setting himself up to look even better than it turned out. lol.
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Post by mattgarth on Jun 24, 2017 18:22:13 GMT
And in AFTER THE THIN MAN Nick only solves it at the last minute because of a clue in a photo.
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Post by marianne48 on Jun 24, 2017 19:36:36 GMT
She was always so solid, so subtle, so dependable, that she was taken for granted. All the Oscars tended to go to the histrionic performances by over-the-top actresses. Maybe she should have played a murderess, a prostititute, or someone with a mental disorder, and she could've gotten the gold. She never got any of those scenery-chewing, attention-grabbing parts, so she was destined to remain Oscarless in her long, impressive career. Any movie she appeared in was always automatically better because of her presence. She was always one of the prettiest actresses, too.
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jun 24, 2017 21:19:26 GMT
She was always so solid, so subtle, so dependable, that she was taken for granted. All the Oscars tended to go to the histrionic performances by over-the-top actresses. Maybe she should have played a murderess, a prostititute, or someone with a mental disorder, and she could've gotten the gold. She never got any of those scenery-chewing, attention-grabbing parts, so she was destined to remain Oscarless in her long, impressive career. Any movie she appeared in was always automatically better because of her presence. She was always one of the prettiest actresses, too. She dominates the first half of Just Tell Me What You Want, and she grabs your attention in The End as well. She had The Power, right to the end of her career. There are many Oscar winning actresses that never get talked about anymore, on the internet or elsewhere. I think Myrna would like that we still care enough to do so still, more than any old Oscar. I heard the gold paint would wear off the older ones anyway!
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Post by petrolino on Jun 25, 2017 0:13:47 GMT
I heard it was a public relations disaster for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that they belatedly tried to rectify decades later with an Honorary Award. That was a nice gesture, for sure, but too often the principled Myrna Loy had been passed over due to voters selecting the same old cronies.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 25, 2017 2:23:16 GMT
About 15 years ago I saw her in The Thin Man but still haven't seen the rest of the series. I have them all recorded from TCM and plan to get to them soon. I heard that some of the later entries are not as good, but how bad could they be? In my own Not-So-Humble-Opinion, the only one that is really weak is the last of the six, "Song Of The Thin Man." That one is kind of dull and plodding plus Nick doesn't actually solve the mystery but sets up a trap to force the killer to reveal himself - and even then, it's not much of a surprise. Still, it is never a Bad Thing to spend an hour and a half with Nick, Nora, and Asta. BTW, there are some who claim that in the original first film from Hammett's novel, the murder is also not solved but the criminal trapped - based on Nick's off-hand statement that he had no idea who the killer was when he called all the suspects together, but my feeling is that he was either being modest or setting himself up to look even better than it turned out. lol. Granted that Nick probably had some idea who the killer was before going into the summation, Mike, but he really had no evidence or anything, as far as I can remember: in fact, he pretty much guesses the killer's identity by persuading Mimi to give evidence and then forcing the killer into acting. As much as a mystery buff as I am, I still say that one of the funniest and, indeed, best things about the Thin Man series is how they go out of their way to emphasize how little the mystery means and how far more important is the repartee and relationship between Nick and Nora. I'm with you completely on this: "...it is never a Bad Thing to spend an hour and a half with Nick, Nora, and Asta." Very, very true.
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Post by Nalkarj on Jun 25, 2017 2:30:04 GMT
And in AFTER THE THIN MAN Nick only solves it at the last minute because of a clue in a photo. And it's not even a fair-play clue, either! That's something that annoys me about the plotting in After: the first movie goes out of its way not to give us a fair-play, well-clued detective story because it emphasizes how much more important the relationship between Nick and Nora is (as I just wrote to Mike)--and I've got to say I love it. But After does give us a detective-story, complete with clues and suspects and deduction on Nick's part--and then squanders it all by not telling the audience about the clue (and not all that great a clue, either, to be honest--one of those " I Never Said It Was Poison" deals). It seems inexplicable to me that the writers spend all that time centering the plot around that clue (and it is a lot of time spent on it, when we could be spending time with N&N) and then never give us the clue! (That's not my only problem with After--though I still enjoy it a lot, albeit not as much as the first.)
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Post by snsurone on Jun 25, 2017 2:39:15 GMT
A number of major Hollywood stars were never nominated for Oscars: Marilyn Monroe, Tyrone Power , and John Barrymore, to name three. Whether they deserved Oscar nods is a matter of individual conjecture.
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Post by gunshotwound on Jun 25, 2017 3:22:09 GMT
A week or so ago I watched an old (c1980) interview Loy did with Dick Cavett on the Decades channel. She spoke of growing up in Montana, her father's death, her family's move to Los Angeles, changing her name, her roles as an exotic girl, her friendship with Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova and many other things. She also spoke of attending Venice High School. A sculptor friend of hers got her to pose for a statue he was making for the high school and that statue is still standing in front of the school. Over the years the statue was vandalized and one of the arms was broken off. The statue has since been restored. You can see the statue, missing an arm, at the beginning of the movie Grease (1978). Here is a photo from the movie. www.interlog.com/~tfs/images/notes/TFSNotes_MyrnaLoyStatue5.jpgAnd here is a photo of the restored statue. c4.staticflickr.com/4/3109/5874946286_a61a32ee03_b.jpg
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Post by BATouttaheck on Jun 25, 2017 12:58:03 GMT
gunshotwoundThanks for posting more great photo links ! With my DOS speed computer, I do much better being able to look at them off IMDb=V02 site. I wonder how many of the HS-ers know about the statue and who it is ! Lovely statue, especially those arms!
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Jun 25, 2017 13:14:00 GMT
A week or so ago I watched an old (c1980) interview Loy did with Dick Cavett on the Decades channel. She spoke of growing up in Montana, her father's death, her family's move to Los Angeles, changing her name, her roles as an exotic girl, her friendship with Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova and many other things. She also spoke of attending Venice High School. A sculptor friend of hers got her to pose for a statue he was making for the high school and that statue is still standing in front of the school. Over the years the statue was vandalized and one of the arms was broken off. The statue has since been restored. You can see the statue, missing an arm, at the beginning of the movie Grease (1978). Here is a photo from the movie. www.interlog.com/~tfs/images/notes/TFSNotes_MyrnaLoyStatue5.jpgAnd here is a photo of the restored statue. c4.staticflickr.com/4/3109/5874946286_a61a32ee03_b.jpgWow! Who knew Myrna Loy was in Grease, in statue form! Great trivia!
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Post by Doghouse6 on Jun 25, 2017 15:07:51 GMT
Wow! Who knew Myrna Loy was in Grease, in statue form! Great trivia! That statue has an official title too: "Aspiration."
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Post by louise on Jun 25, 2017 15:12:33 GMT
Perhaps because she didn't play very exciting characters on the whole. She usually seems to be someone's loyal and dependable wife, or something like that.
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Post by taranofprydain on Jun 27, 2017 0:48:58 GMT
And that's truly a pity because she was an exceptional actress. I wish that she had been nominated for and had won for The Thin Man.
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Post by kijii on Jun 27, 2017 3:24:38 GMT
We are big fans of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. Maybe Loy was just TOO natural some times.
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