spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
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Post by spiderwort on Sept 11, 2017 14:14:06 GMT
What I love about Stanwyck is that she was a wonderful dramatic actress, but she could also do comedy with the best of them, and with great honesty. She was both "bad" and "good" depending upon the material. Sometimes I think of her as the quintessential film actress, someone the camera loved and who never seemed to have a false moment in any performance. A natural truth-teller.
There's a great story about Double Indemnity: She didn't want to do the film because to her the character was so unsavory (she was apparently a very nice person in real life). And Billy Wilder only got her to do it by asking, "Are you an actress or a mouse?" Or words to that effect. Of course, she acquiesced.
I love her in everything, but especially in these:
Double Indemnity Meet John Doe The Lady Eve Remember the Night Christmas in Connecticut
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Post by snsurone on Sept 11, 2017 14:38:37 GMT
My favorite performance of hers was in STELLA DALLAS. IMHO, she should have won the Oscar as Best Actress.
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Post by politicidal on Sept 11, 2017 15:14:36 GMT
Hah! I actually enjoyed Double Indemnity the best of her movies. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) was pretty good too. Way ahead of its time with the interracial romance.
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Sept 11, 2017 17:38:25 GMT
What I love about Stanwyck is that she was a wonderful dramatic actress, but she could also do comedy with the best of them, and with great honesty. She was both "bad" and "good" depending upon the material. Sometimes I think of her as the quintessential film actress, someone the camera loved and who never seemed to have a false moment in any performance. A natural truth-teller. There's a great story about Double Indemnity: She didn't want to do the film because to her the character was so unsavory (she was apparently a very nice person in real life). And Billy Wilder only got her to do it by asking, "Are you an actress or a mouse?" Or words to that effect. Of course, she acquiesced. I love her in everything, but especially in these: Double Indemnity Meet John Doe The Lady Eve Remember the Night Christmas in ConnecticutI've seen three of those movies, with Double Indemnity being the latest, watched it for the first time earlier this summer. Even with that wig, she was amazing and basically defined ruthless women in movies for generations to come. I have The Lady Eve recorded off TCM and I haven't seen Meet John Doe yet either. Or Stella Dallas. I have so much Stanwyck goodness yet to see.
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Post by teleadm on Sept 11, 2017 18:41:58 GMT
Stella Dallas 1937 The Mad Miss Manton 1938 The Lady Eve 1941 Meet John Doe 1941 Ball of Fire 1941 Double Indemnity 1944 The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 1946 The Two Mrs. Carrolls 1947 Sorry, Wrong Number 1948 The File on Thelma Jordon 1950 The Furies 1950 Clash by Night 1952 There's Always Tomorrow 1956 Roustabout 1964 The House That Would Not Die 1970 TV-Movie The Thorn Birds 1983 TV Mini-series
Are the ones I can remember I've seen. Though she was always good, some are not as good as others. One thing that I read about her is that at times the offers she got weren't always good, but she thought it was better to keep on working and something good might come along the way.
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Post by Wesley Crusher on Sept 12, 2017 13:57:12 GMT
Barbara Stanwyck#2 Ranked Actress 50 films seen (top 30 listed) 01 Double Indemnity 02 Baby Face 03 Ball of Fire 04 Executive Suite 05 Titanic 06 Remember the Night 07 Christmas in Connecticut 08 Annie Oakley 09 Night Nurse 10 Meet John Doe 11 These Wilder Years 12 Walk on the Wild Side 13 Stella Dallas 14 No Man of Her Own 15 The Violent Men 16 The Gay Sisters 17 The Strange Love of Martha Ivers 18 Hollywood Canteen 19 Variety Girl 20 East Side, West Side 21 The Two Mrs. Carrolls 22 Always Goodbye 23 Blowing Wild 24 Clash by Night 25 Ladies They Talk About 26 This Is My Affair 27 Forbidden 28 Crime of Passion 29 Red Salute 30 The Bride Wore Boots
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Post by koskiewicz on Sept 12, 2017 16:06:59 GMT
...she's great in everything she's been in. One of my faves is the pre-code film "Night Nurse"
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Post by wmcclain on Sept 12, 2017 17:52:34 GMT
It's not a great film, but I enjoyed seeing Stanwyck with Errol Flynn: Cry Wolf (1947)
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Post by petrolino on Sept 12, 2017 22:08:40 GMT
Amazing actress. So many great performances. Can't say I love her in everything though; the last movie I saw her in I thought she was all over the place (including her accent), portraying Nora Clitheroe in John Ford's drama 'The Plough And The Stars' (1936).
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Post by wmcclain on Sept 12, 2017 22:14:43 GMT
With Bogart. The little girl is Ann Carter who starred in Curse of the Cat People. She contracted polio, recovered, left acting, became a teacher. The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,544
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Post by spiderwort on Sept 13, 2017 1:28:30 GMT
Amazing actress. So many great performances. Can't say I love her in everything though; the last movie I saw her in I thought she was all over the place (including her accent), portraying Nora Clitheroe in John Ford's drama 'The Plough And The Stars' (1936). Oh, I haven't seen this but now I must, petrolino. It sounds like a bit of terrible casting to me. I don't think Sean O'Casey and Barbara Stanwyck would be a good mix. It also doesn't appear to be one of John Ford's best efforts. Can't wait till it shows up on TCM. Interesting to ponder. . .
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Post by Nalkarj 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.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 13, 2017 16:27:57 GMT
I wonder if I'll get pilloried for this.
Make no mistake: I love watching Stanwyck. She was a magnetic, forceful and entertaining screen presence; skillful and versatile, she knew exactly what she was doing every minute and I'll watch her in just about anything. And yet I never quite believe her.
That's my simplest and highest gauge of screen acting: do I believe it? Do I forget that I'm hearing memorized dialogue and watching scripted action written by someone else, and instead buy into the idea that the thoughts and emotions being expressed are genuinely occurring in the moment?
Some actors accomplish this by becoming the character: your Meryl Streeps, Paul Munis and Marlon Brandos, for instance. Others do it by making the character become them: Spencer Tracy, Peter O'Toole, Katherine Hepburn, James Garner and Clark Gable are examples; they never need to be anyone other than who they are, and can convince me they're not acting. Sill others manage to somehow absorb and internalize the character, and what emerges is someone who's recognizably them, and yet someone else: Edward G. Robinson, Claude Rains, Montgomery Clift, Ingrid Bergman, Mary Astor, to name some; you always know what the character rather than the actor is thinking and feeling, and the machinery never shows.
Stanwyck is among those I call great performers, wearing a character like a costume, either simple or elaborate: the majority of Bette Davis's work falls into this category; Kirk Douglas, Susan Hayward and William Holden are others. There are some who spent the first decade or two of their careers doing this, and then in the final decade or so matured from performer into actor: Cagney, Bogart and Lancaster come to mind. There were some who reversed the process, exhibiting vitality and sincerity that seemed instinctive in their early years, then becoming mannered and calculated in later ones, as in the acute cases of Joan Crawford, Loretta Young and Ginger Rogers.
Stanwyck never fell into that trap. There was probably no more remarkably consistent performer in films: she seemed to burst forth fully formed in her very earliest roles, always giving her committed best and with the solidity of her work never wavering or slipping even in lower quality projects. I never saw her give a bad performance, nor ever felt she was wrong for a part. So I don't mean to be harsh in assessing her as "performer" rather than "actor," or even that I never quite believe her. There are all kinds of compelling screen performance, each requiring skills of one sort or another, and that kind of reliability counts for a great deal, no doubt contributing to the longevity of her career and the enduring enjoyment to be found in it.
Well, that's how I see it. Hope I didn't offend anyone.
Oh, and I meant to include this: there was one special performance of Stanwyck's I found truly transcendent, and I consider it her finest hour: Stella Dallas. That one really grabs you in the gut.
Over and out.
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Post by geode on Sept 13, 2017 17:19:19 GMT
Hah! I actually enjoyed Double Indemnity the best of her movies. The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) was pretty good too. Way ahead of its time with the interracial romance. Your second film mentioned is my choice for the first "modern" film, when talkies finally got past locked down cameras positions, etc. It has a strangely effective ending, quite pre-code.
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Post by Nalkarj on Sept 13, 2017 18:17:45 GMT
Doghouse6I don't think anyone here would pillory you, especially when, as always, you lay out your case so well. I do wonder, however, if believability is the sine qua non of acting; for me, at least, I find what you described as magnetism, forcefulness, and entertainment to be just as, if not more, vital, as I continually note that acting is unreal ipso facto. That does not mean, I hasten to add, that I dislike believability, but I can never quite convince myself that it's real, even if emotion comes achingly close to reality. (Hope that makes some sense.) Meryl Streep is, as you say, an actress who becomes her character, but even with her I can see the machinery if I look close enough, hidden though it may be. Perhaps that's simply a natural feature of screen-acting, as the screen heightens artificiality just by virtue of its existence. Or perhaps it's some problem on my own part. Oh, well: I'm no expert on acting, and what I said may be completely off-base, but I am reminded of certain scenery-chewing performances that can never convince me of their reality but that are immensely enjoyable, so much so that I am dragged across the suspension of disbelief line in spite of myself. Certainly one cannot count Stanwyck in this category, but I suppose the point has relevance to your larger argument. I have never--if I may say so--felt a complete lack of reality with Stanwyck, what I wrote before to one side, except in Ball of Fire (in which I experienced exactly what you're describing in regard to her). Again, hoping this all makes some sense, folks...
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Post by teleadm on Sept 13, 2017 18:52:21 GMT
I like this pic because they are all smiling: ca 1940 with her husband at the time Robert Taylor, and old silent filmstar William S. Hart (at his home).
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Post by BATouttaheck on Sept 13, 2017 23:32:46 GMT
She's a fellow kid from Brooklyn. Of course I like her ! Often called "The Best Actress Who Never Won an Oscar." More from her very readable trivia page : www.imdb.com/name/nm0001766/bio
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 14, 2017 0:02:17 GMT
She's a fellow kid from Brooklyn. Of course I like her ! Often called "The Best Actress Who Never Won an Oscar." More from her very readable trivia page : www.imdb.com/name/nm0001766/bioLike another well-known Brooklyn-ite, Barbra Streisand, she never bothered to try disguising her origins, and they never mattered. Not even in Double Indemnity when, asked by Fred MacMurray, "Where did you pick up this tea drinking? You're not English, are you," she replies, "No, Califawnian. Bawn right here in Los Angeles."
I once worked with a lady from Brooklyn who had a theory about L.A. that was just as snarky as MacMurray's reply to Stanwyck ( "They say native Californians all come from Iowa"): "After you've lived here seven years, you become a native."
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Post by manfromplanetx on Sept 14, 2017 0:49:56 GMT
Wonderful Introduction thanks spiderwort ... I can only agree with everyone here, I just love every Stanwyck performance I have seen. especially ... Stylistically audacious a bold proto-feminist fairy tale built around the larger-than-life figure of Barbara Stanwyck's "Woman with a Whip," Jessica Drummond, a seductive and ruthlessly sensible tyrant who rules with unflinching authority over her vast Arizona cattle territory and faithful army of Forty Guns (1957). Stanwyck gives a typical outstanding performance, displaying with great sincerity a range emotions which develop throughout the film Fuller films places much emphasis on EMOTION. Stanwyck,s Jessica draws a heart felt tear from me on a couple of occasions, a credit to the depth of her talents. During production a stunt woman refused to allow herself to be dragged along by a horse spooked by a storm with one foot caught in the stirrup, saying that it was too dangerous. Without hesitation 49 year old Stanwyck did it by herself. She got some bruises and scrapes, but was okay to do another take !.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Sept 14, 2017 1:26:26 GMT
Doghouse6 I don't think anyone here would pillory you, especially when, as always, you lay out your case so well. I do wonder, however, if believability is the sine qua non of acting; for me, at least, I find what you described as magnetism, forcefulness, and entertainment to be just as, if not more, vital, as I continually note that acting is unreal ipso facto. That does not mean, I hasten to add, that I dislike believability, but I can never quite convince myself that it's real, even if emotion comes achingly close to reality. (Hope that makes some sense.) Meryl Streep is, as you say, an actress who becomes her character, but even with her I can see the machinery if I look close enough, hidden though it may be. Perhaps that's simply a natural feature of screen-acting, as the screen heightens artificiality just by virtue of its existence. Or perhaps it's some problem on my own part. Oh, well: I'm no expert on acting, and what I said may be completely off-base, but I am reminded of certain scenery-chewing performances that can never convince me of their reality but that are immensely enjoyable, so much so that I am dragged across the suspension of disbelief line in spite of myself. Certainly one cannot count Stanwyck in this category, but I suppose the point has relevance to your larger argument. I have never--if I may say so--felt a complete lack of reality with Stanwyck, what I wrote before to one side, except in Ball of Fire (in which I experienced exactly what you're describing in regard to her). Again, hoping this all makes some sense, folks... If there's one thing all of us are experts on, it's what we like: what moves us; speaks to us; tickles us; appeals to us. About that, no one can be off-base. So, as a matter of tastes, I readily accept the validity of all approaches to, and forms of, screen acting and performance, including the scenery-chewing varieties, even if some don't appeal to me in given instances. What you say about artificiality, for instance, again brings Bette Davis to mind. Although I never saw her apply the word "artifice" to it, I've read - in her own words - that she believed acting was by its very nature something meant to be BIG; not "real life" but larger-than-life. It may be only coincidence that, of all of her screen roles, the two that stand out for me as the most genuine - poles apart as they are - were women whose lives have been invested in artifice...one directed outward, the other inward: Margo Channing and Jane Hudson. Perhaps that's among the reasons they've endured as her most iconic. Claudette Colbert notwithstanding, Davis as actress and Channing as character seem made for each other, and I've always wondered if stepping into it a scant 48 hours before shooting began didn't contribute to her performance; under the gun and without prep time to "cook up" a characterization, she forgot to "be Davis" and let the scintillating text and her most basic instincts carry her along. Whatever was going on, a hundred understated and convincingly uncalculated nuances produced authenticity I'd never witnessed in any of her prior work. We'll never know, of course, if Colbert - had she not injured her back - might have pulled out the performance of her life (to use Addison's phrase) as Channing, just as Gloria Swanson did the very same year as Norma Desmond, but it's impossible for me to imagine anyone but Davis as Margo. For all her gargoyle-esque qualities, Jane Hudson can be mistaken for outsized caricature but, as with Margo Channing, Davis's portrayal is threaded with so many marvelous subtleties, and ones that can be easily overlooked in this perhaps most transformative of all her roles. I've no theories like those above about what extraordinary alchemy into which she tapped for this particular one, except to observe that another element it has in common with that of Margo is weariness. In both films, that aspect has the effect of tamping down most of Davis's more typically effusive and at times manic mannerisms. What has all this to do with Stanwyck? I'm not sure, really. I go off on what Bat and I call in our punny way "George Hamiltons" (a tan gent). But it suddenly occurs to me that what I might've been leading to without realizing it is that I find it easiest to "buy" Stanwyck in roles that were more "character" than "leading lady," as was often the case with Davis. Along with Stella Dallas, she "sells" me in Ball Of Fire - in a way that didn't work for you - by sort of stepping out of herself and exercising muscles for which most roles didn't provide such occasions. Case in point: there's an apparently neglected 1942 picture of hers called The Great Man's Lady. Told mostly in flashback, it begins and ends with prologue and epilogue in which she's a century old. Along with inebriation, advanced age is one of the most difficult things for a player to portray, if displays in countless films are any indication (a Roger Livesey in Colonel Blimp or an Orson Welles in Citizen Kane are all too rare). Well, Stanwyck is just astonishing in these scenes. Makeup that's incredibly advanced for the period helps, but that gets any player only partway there, and Stanwyck does the rest. So Big is another example of a role that's a character one for a good portion of the picture, and is among those in which I find her most compelling. So maybe what I miss with Stanwyck has mostly to do with unrealized opportunities to exhibit what might have been her forte; the sense that there was a greater player who could have shone in the sort of "character lead" niche that Davis had pretty much all to herself...and in which Stanwyck could have given her a run for her money. Thanks, Doctor, I feel better having worked through that. I'll see you next session.
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