Katie Did It - 1951 - A Lost Movie, An Overlooked Career

Katie Did It(1951) has become an elusive sort of “holy grail” quest for me during this year-long series on the career of Ann Blyth.  I left this spot open towards the end of the year figuring I would have either the movie to discuss, or else have a metaphor for reason the bulk of Ann Blyth’s career is largely forgotten and that she is looked upon by those who do recall her work fondly as an “underratedactress.”

Ann plays Katherine Standish, a prudish small-town New England librarian.  Mark Stevens plays a big-city commercial artist who comes to town, causing scandal when he paints Ann in a provocative pose for an advertising campaign.  Directed by Frederick de Cordova, this comedy also features Craig Stevens and Cecil Kellaway.

There are no reviews on the IDMb website, only the sound of crickets.  Critic Leonard Maltin, as posted on the TCM page for this movie, says:

“Ann Blyth is perkier than usual as square New England librarian who becomes hep when romanced by swinging New Yorker Stevens.”

Not much to go on, but “perkier than usual” might seem to indicate that Mr. Maltin has actually seen the film himself.  I wonder.  Even the mighty TCM website (on which I confess, like the IDMb website, I have found disappointing errors from time to time) is otherwise silent on this unaccountably obscure film.

In the timeline of Ann’s movie career, Katie Did It is sandwiched between two big hits: the drama Our Very Own (1950) which we discussed here, and the musical, The Great Caruso (1951), which we discussed here.  It seems to have been obscured by them both.

We do have, however, a brief glimpse into the filming of this movie from an article that discussed Ann’s “first day jitters” at the start of a film.

“Everything is fine until the minute I walk on the set for my first shot,” Miss Blyth said, “Then my knees sort of buckle, sweat trickles out on my forehead and my tongue seems to stick to the roof of my mouth…Yet I feel somehow that if I didn’t feel that way, something would be wrong.”

“At the very beginning, Freddie (director Frederick de Cordova) suddenly switched scenes on me,” she said, “Instead of doing the sequence I came prepared for, he announced we’d shoot an entirely different scene.”

It made her so busy learning new lines and shuffling into another costume, that Ann didn’t have time to remember to be jittery.

“Then he told me that this was a deliberate attempt to put me at ease—after we’d made the scene.  I was rather cross about it at first, until I made the discovery that I’d breezed through the almost-unrehearsed sequence with no trouble at all.”

The movie was never released on DVD or VHS, and to my knowledge, has not been shown on TCM, but I hope someone will correct me.  Failing this, I’m hoping that the film may exist in a private collection or somebody’s warehouse or attic in 16mm form.  If so, I’d be interested in buying it.

No film yet, but the metaphor?  I would hesitate to hang Ann Blyth’s current reputation among many to be an underrated or even unremembered actress just over one “lost” film, not when there are so many other movies to give ample evidence of her being a very gifted actress.  But there is something else niggling in her legacy to classic film buffs.

Here I quote from my discussion on my pal John Hayes’ blog Robert Frost’s Banjo a couple months ago:

Blyth is perkier than usual as square New England librarian who becomes hep when romanced by swinging New Yorker Stevens.Blyth is perkier than usual as square New England librarian who becomes hep when romanced by swinging New Yorker Stevens.Blyth is perkier than usual as square New England librarian who becomes hep when romanced by swinging New Yorker Stevens.

This woman had been the flavor of the month all through the late 1940s and most of the 1950s, on enough magazine covers to choke a horse, and as famous in her day as any young star could be.  Today, she is nowhere to be seen in that kitschy souvenir shop universe where classic film fans can easily snag T-shirts and coffee cups and posters of Clark Gable and The Three Stooges, Mae West and Betty Boop, and, of course, the ever-exploitable Marilyn Monroe.   

Where was Ann Blyth?  She never retired from performing.  She had, unlike most other stars of that era, performed in all media from radio to TV to stage, and was successful in all of them.    Far, far more talented than any other 1950s glamour girl, yet she is not as well known today among younger classic film fans.  I wanted to know why.

Not that I am calling for Ann Blyth key chains and Veda Pierce car mats, but if many have forgotten her reputation as one of the best actresses of her generation—and she was clearly regarded as such by her peers and the industry in the late 1940s and early 1950s—then we have also forgotten about her name and face in popular culture as a star.  This lofty place was undeniably due to her exquisite beauty, for the only thing more prized in Hollywood than talent is being photogenic.  

I would compare Ann’s introspective, working from the inside-out skill as an interpretive actress similar to two other actresses slightly older than she: Teresa Wright and Dorothy McGuire, who both conveyed a soulful depth to their characters.  Neither of those two tremendously talented, and very serious actresses, who cared more for their art than for stardom, could reach the power (or were offered the opportunity) of Ann’s evil Veda Pierce, her venial coquetry of Regina Hubbard, or her sleazy-cum-brokenhearted and ultimately reformed characters she played in Swell Guy and A Woman’s Vengeance.  And neither of them sang.  Ann was a most valuable player. 

Also, unlike those two ladies, Ann actually was as much a “star” as a dedicated actress, who, despite pursuing her purposeful private life with unruffled determination, still seemed to enjoy being a movie star and attending industry functions, cooperative with the publicity department and whatever the studio asked of her.  You can rub elbows with her on the TCM Classic Cruise in two weeks.

She never shirked autograph hounds, but patiently tackled every slip of paper that was shoved in front of her, leaving that bold, elegant signature that, like her beliefs, her manners, and her sense of responsibility, never wavered. 

But, though we might dispense with souvenir kitsch, we also are left a surprisingly scant discography.  Music is a marketable product that lifts the soul and does not just collect dust.  This woman was a beautiful singer, with a trained voice, but where are all the albums?  Celebrities who could sing cranked them out, and those who could not sing still unaccountably found themselves with record deals.  To my knowledge, Ann had made few records.  I have read of her intention to make albums, particularly a collection of Irish songs, and including at least one with her brother-in-law, Dennis Day.  Do they exist?

At the 32^nd Academy Awards held on April 4, 1960, Ann Blyth accepted the Oscar® for Documentary Short Subject won by Bert Haanstra for Glass(which I’ve never seen, but even so, I can’t believe it beat out Donald in Mathmagicland, which we covered here.  No really, I’m serious.  Really.  Stop laughing.)

Mitzi Gaynor handed the statue to Ann, and for a moment, Ann Blyth fans, and perhaps even herself, had a fleeting and thrilling vision of the formerly nominated actress (in the Best Supporting category for Mildred Pierce) to finally get her due.  But Ann herself slapped down that daydream and remarked, though clearly excited to be holding the award, “Gee, I guess this is the closest I’ll ever be to getting one.”

Many superb actors and actresses finished their careers without an Oscar®, but we film buffs remember, most defiantly, who they are.  (This clip from the award ceremony is currently on YouTube here.  Scroll to 18:00.)

Surely, being overlooked, or even unknown today, doesn’t all boil down to a film career that lasted only 13 years?  Grace Kelly’s career was even shorter.  Audrey Hepburn’s film appearances stretched over more decades, but she made less films.  Though both were Oscar® winners, deservedly so for those winning roles, neither enjoyed the range of roles, or displayed the acting range of Ann Blyth; neither possessed her powerful lyric soprano (both gamely tried musicals, but had weak, if pleasant, singing voices); and neither, despite their obvious radiant beauty, were morebeautiful.  But they had long ago reached icon status and stayed there.

Both gave up films—for long periods or forever—and abandoned Hollywood for Europe.  Ann never walked away from her career, she only modified it to her personal tastes and her family’s needs.  (And her home, for decades, remained in North Hollywood, only a few miles from the studios.)

Is her forgotten status due, perhaps, to a combination of circumstances unique to Hollywood—that because the quiet stability of her private life did not make headlines she therefore couldn’t be exploited for profit, because the bulk of her films are hardly, if ever, shown today, and because, unlike those tragic stars who died young, or younger, she outlived all her co-stars?

Had she done more television, she might have regained recognition among younger audiences. (For instance, like Angela Lansbury, who without Murder She Wrote might be known only to classic film buffs and theatre fans, but not have household name recognition in the U.S. and around the world.) Still, though her staunch fans might mourn her lack of icon status, I doubt Ann would.  Truly, she got the best of the bargain in a rich and rewarding private life—long and happy marriage, five children, ten grandchildren, life-long friends in and out of the entertainment industry, charitable work—and satisfying career in proportions she could deal with, and never expressed regret. 

Have a look at the two videos below at the wedding of the year where the movie star becomes a bride.

The wedding and reception footage begins in this second video at 1:38. Before that we have a glimpse of Stanwyck on location.  This shutterbug really got around.

We have a few more TV appearances to discuss the rest of this month, and then a few more films to round out the series in the coming weeks that demonstrate a variety of genres: a western, a war picture, a bio-pic, musicals…and a look at her “third act” career—as a singer in concerts and nightclubs.

Come back next week to 1979, when Ann and fellow Hollywood star Don Ameche come under scrutiny in a murder only Jack Klugman can solve in an episode of Quincy, M.E.

My thanks to the gang at the Classic Movie Blog Association for voting this Year of Ann Blyth series as the Best Movie Series for 2014.  Congratulations to all the winners and nominees in all categories.

And congratulations to the three winners of my recent Goodreads Giveaway, who will each receive a paperback copy of my book on classic films: Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century.

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CriticalPast.com
Hartford Courant, July 9, 1950, Part II, page 15, syndicated UP article.

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As  most of you probably know by now, this year's TCM Classic Cruise will set sail (proverbially) in October, and one of the celebrity guests is Ann Blyth.

Ann will be doing a couple hour-long conversation sessions, and will also be on hand for a screening of Mildred Pierce.

Have a look here for the rest of the schedule and events with the other celebrity guests. Unfortunately, the cruise is booked, so if' you're late, you can try for the waiting list.

I, sadly, am unable to attend this cruise, but if any reader is going,  I invite you (beg you) to share your experiences and/or photos relating to Miss Blyth on this blog as part of our year-long series on her career.  I'd really appreciate your perspective on the event, to be our eyes and ears.  Thanks.
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 THANK YOU....to the following folks whose aid in gathering material for this series has been invaluable:  EBH; Kevin Deany of Kevin's Movie Corner; Gerry Szymski of Westmont Movie Classics, Westmont, Illinois; and Ivan G. Shreve, Jr. of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  And thanks to all those who signed on as backers to my recent Kickstarter campaign.  The effort failed to raise the funding needed, but I'll always remember your kind support.

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TRIVIA QUESTION:  I've recently been contacted by someone who wants to know if the piano player in Dillinger (1945-see post here) is the boogie-woogie artist Albert Ammons. Please leave comment or drop me a line if you know.

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 HELP!!!!!!!!!!
Now that I've got your attention: I'm still on the lookout for a movie called Katie Did It (1951) for this year-long series on the career of Ann Blyth.  It seems to be a rare one.  Please contact me on this blog or at my email: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com if you know where I can lay my hands on this film.  Am willing to buy or trade, or wash windows in exchange.  Maybe not the windows part.  But you know what I mean.

Also, if anybody has any of Ann's TV appearances, there's a few I'm missing from Switch, the Dennis Day Show (TV), the DuPont Show with June Allyson, This is Your Life, Lux Video Theatre.  Also any video clips of her Oscar appearances.  Release the hounds.  And let me know, please. 

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A new collection of essays, some old, some new, from this blog titled Movies in Our Time: Hollywood Mimics and Mirrors the 20th Century is now out in eBook, and in paperback here.

I’ll provide a free copy, either paperback or eBook or both if you wish, to bloggers in exchange for an honest review.  Just email me at JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com with your preference of format, your email address, and an address to mail the paperback (if that’s your preference).  Thanks.

Film Stars on Stage - La Jolla Playhouse

 

I love the names across the top of this typical summer stock playbill.  We old movie buffs will recognize the names of Dorothy McGuire, Jane Wyatt, Mel Ferrer, Mildred Natwick—but here we find them in a different setting.  Not the end credits of a film, but each of them “above the title,” as it were, on a small-town summer stock program.  Appearing not in a film noir or “weeper,” but the English classic, “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde.  The play is produced in the town’s high school auditorium, a couple of hours south of Los Angeles.  Time: 1949.   See here for production photos.

The La Jolla Playhouse was founded by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer as an outlet to their passion for the stage, and their regret at being so imprisoned by film studio contracts that they were not allowed to perform on Broadway between films.

Starting a theatre company is always chancy, walking a financial tightrope and needing to find community support and audience as much as backers with money.  It was not always easy for the La Jolla Playhouse, founded in 1947.  The three producers juggled things for some years, aided by Miss McGuire’s husband, John Swope (whose own interest in theatre harkened back to the days of the University Players where he was pals with Henry Fonda and James Stewart—see this previous post on my blog Tragedy and Comedy in New England.)

The group disbanded in 1964, but was revived in 1983, and continues to produce quality theatre, with some famous names appearing at its new playhouse.  Have a look here for what’s doing at the La Jolla Playhouse these days.

The lure of the stage is very strong for serious actors who are passionate about the workshop atmosphere, about improving their skills, and the thrill of the flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants experience that isn’t found in the controlled environment of film.  It was for Gregory Peck, who worked on the planning for this theatre company while he was shooting “Gentlemen’s Agreement” (1947).

 

 

Author Gary Fishgall in Gregory Peck-A Biography (NY:Scribner, 2002) pp. 125-126, notes that the cast rehearsed a play for a week, it ran for a week opening on Tuesday and closing on Sunday.  There were additional matinees on Wednesday and Saturday.  Sets were “struck” on Monday and the new set moved into the high school auditorium.  On Monday evening, the actors got their first dress rehearsal on stage for the opening the next night.  It was that hectic.  Since they were only being paid $55 per week plus hotel accommodation and two meals a day, as noted in Gregory Peck-A Charmed Life by Lynn Haney (NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003,  p. 157), we can only assume it was a very rewarding experience for these film actors who were normally paid thousands and thousands of dollars per year.

The La Jolla Playhouse put on 10 shows each summer.  The first one was “Night Must Fall” with Dame May Whitty, who re-created her film role.  (See this previous post on the movie.)  She had played the same role on the London stage and on Broadway.  Apparently this high school auditorium gig wasn’t too beneath her.  That’s an actress.

 

 

Others who performed with this fledging group, escaping their film shackles if only for a week, include Eve Arden, Una O’Connor, Robert Walker, Patricia Neal, Vincent Price, Joan Bennett, Charlton Heston, Laraine Day, Joseph Cotten, Jennifer Jones (the group also received considerable financial support from David O. Selznick).  Leon Ames trod the boards of La Jolla High School, June Lockhart, Wendell Corey, Craig Stevens, Teresa Wright, Raymond Massey, Mary Wickes, Marsha Hunt, Beulah Bondi, Pat O’Brien, Richard Egan, Fay Wray, Groucho Marx,  Allen Jenkins, David Niven, Jan Sterling, Olivia de Havilland, Kent Smith, and of course, the three founders: Mel Ferrer, Gregory Peck, and Dorothy McGuire.  There are lots more, and you can read the casts and productions here at the La Jolla Playhouse production history page.

 

 

According to the Mel Ferrer website, which also has some interesting facts and photos on the La Jolla Playhouse, co-starring for “The Voice of the Turtle” was a New York stage actress named Vivian Vance.  In the audience that evening was lady named Lucille Ball (stars not only appeared on stage at La Jolla, they made a grand audience as well), and she was so impressed with Miss Vance’s work, she invited her to become her sidekick on a new TV show she was about to produce with her husband, Desi Arnaz.  The show was “I Love Lucy,” and Ethel Mertz was born.

The neat thing about these old theatre programs is the actor bios.  Ellen Corby notes she spent 12 years in Hollywood as a script girl before making her first film.  Teresa Wright notes she got her first big break on Broadway as Dorothy McGuire’s understudy in “Our Town.”  La Jolla produced the show with Ann Blyth, Millard Mitchell and Beulah Bondi.

 

 

The bios frequently discuss the actor’s stage history first; later on at the end of the paragraph they’ll note, ah, yes, they made some films as well.  As if the latter was only to pass the time between stage engagements.

Stage work allowed them to stretch different acting muscles.  It allowed them to play against type: film heroes got to be stage villains, and minor film character actors got to be stars. 

 

 

Look on this playbill.  Florence Bates, perennial movie busybody, is right up at the top, a star in “Arsenic and Old Lace.”  Her cast bio in the program relates her interesting journey as the first female lawyer in the state of Texas, to antique shop owner, to investor in Mexican oil wells, to helping her husband run a bakery.  (More on Florence Bates in this previous post.) On a whim once, when she was already well on in life, she auditioned for a part at the famed Pasadena Playhouse (where so many young film stars were discovered), and got the part, though she had no experience.  Alfred Hitchcock discovered her shortly thereafter, and by time of this appearance on stage in La Jolla in 1950 she had appeared in some 60 films. 

But she wanted to be on stage again.  The communal experience shared by actors and technical staff and audience is unique to the theatre because it is live and simultaneous, and in the moment.  Once it’s gone, it’s gone, if forever remembered.

 

 

Even by someone stumbling across 60-year-old playbills from a small-town summer stock theater—who can only imagine.

 

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As of a couple days ago, Another Old Movie Blog has reached its 6th anniversary.  Thank you all for the pleasure of your company.

 



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Coming up: I'll be speaking at the Westfield Athenaeum, Westfield, Massachusetts on Tuesday, March 12th in celebration of Women's History Month. I'll be drawing from essays in my recently published States of Mind: New England. This, and some of my novels, will be available for sale at this event.





 

Romance at the Drugstore

In a nod to Valentine's Day tomorrow, we pay tribute to that most romantic location...the drugstore.

Oh, my, how we've seen time and again that first flush of passion amid the nostrums and patent medicine, and comic books, and tuna melt sandwiches at the lunch counter. 



Only recently we were witness to the lusty scene of forbidden love over the costmetics counter in Richard Basehart's drugstore in "Tension" (1949).  Here, in that sexy white coat, he woos Cyd Charisse with acne cream.  Or something.

Dana Andrews, again in that sexy white coat, which is bona fide chick magnet, seduces Teresa Wright in the drugstore with perfume in "The Best Years of our Lives" (1946).

Even the very young are not immune to the romance of the drugstore.  Puberty strikes young George Bailey and young Mary Hatch pretty hard in "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946).



She whispers into his deaf ear as he prepares a sundae for her, "I"ll love you 'til the day I die."  Garbo never uttered more sultry words.

The drugstore is a place not only for romance, but for romantic rivalries.  No nightclub was ever so rife with players in the game of love.

Makes you want to slip out for some Vick's Vap-O-Rub or disposable razors, doesn't it?   Better doll up a little.  You never know what chance meeting may occur in the prostetics aisle to change your life.

Happy Valentine's Day.





California Conquest - 1952

“California Conquest” (1952) features Teresa Wright as a pants-wearing, deadeye shot in the days before California’s annexation to the U.S. This may be the movie’s chief delight as the delicately feminine heroine of 1940s Hollywood took that precarious turn into 1950s longsuffering wife/neurotic spinster roles. Here, as an interlude between those eras in her career, she rides, shoots, and saves Cornel Wilde from whipping by shooting dead the bad guy.

This is nothing if not refreshing.

Most of the movie, however, belongs to Cornel Wilde as the dashing nobleman of Mexican heritage who runs guns and organizes a movement for California to become part of the U.S. The people of Mexican ancestry are all called Californians here, to distinguish them from Mexicans who live below the Rio Grande, the part of Mexico we didn’t snatch in the Mexican War. Teresa Wright is called an American here. She is not a Californian, though she lives here with her gunsmith father, who sells guns to Cornel Wilde’s political movement.

The “good” Californians want to be Americans. The “bad” ones want to stay part of Mexico, or, failing that, to become part of the territorial designs of Imperial Russia, which also has settlements here. Got that, class?

John Dehner plays the head bad guy, a bad Californian who wants his brother to be Governor. Graft is so much easier when you’ve got a relative in power.

The two lead “Californians” then are played by Wilde and Dehner, neither of which in real life are of Spanish/Mexican heritage. A large cast of Spanish-speaking actors play minor, mostly nameless characters, with the exception of Alfonso Bedoya, who plays Jose Martinez, the head goon of John Dehner.

Hollywood casted movies by its own caste system. We’ve seen it before. In one scene, Teresa Wright watches a street fight, standing behind two stoic Indians, also watching. Were they Modocs or Washoes? Shoshonis or Yokuts? Who knows, they are not considered Californians, either.

The movie attempts to be a lot of things: a swashbuckling adventure, an historical picture, and to be sure, gets off on the right foot with the title exposed by a man’s hand swiping a glittering blanket of gold coins off the table. A vivid storybook-ish image. In parts, the movie has all the panache of a Saturday kiddie matinee adventure flick.

But we’ve got a lead actress of Teresa Wright’s caliber, so she can’t just sit around twisting a hanky in her hands. This film, to its credit, give her lots of action, too. When her gunsmith father is murdered, she joins Wilde to go after the killer. Wilde is distressed at her men’s attire, which he calls “horrible”, but seems to be unruffled by her gun fighting skills, which seem to be better than his.

The villains are one-dimensional, and the interesting story of the rivalry of three powers - US, Russian, and Mexican all converging in this rich land is pretty much lost in characters spitting out simplistic facts as plot exposition at convenient moments. Maybe the movie attempts too much, or maybe not enough.

Teresa Wright says to Wilde, “I wonder if we Americans will ever understand you people.” To which Wilde replies, “You don’t have to. It’s more important that we understand you.”

Placards of official dogma make for an easy, and lazy, explanation of why the characters are going from point A to point B, but they do nothing to flesh out even the characters’ motivations, let alone the complexities of political reality.

It is easier to focus on the beautiful rugged terrain, which we see much of behind swarms of hard-riding Californians chasing each other on horseback. We see the elaborate Spanish dress of the nobles at the ball, where a specialty act performs a beautiful, passionate dance.

Mantillas and ruffled shirts, and sword fighting out on the red-tiled patio among the potted yucca plants. The guy in tight burgundy pants slays the guy in tight purple pants. No blood. Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn did it better.

The ball brings Mr. Wilde and Miss Wright together again, and he marvels with relief that she looks more like a girl in her virginal white ball dress. There’s no romance yet; that doesn’t happen until they’ve been on the trail a few days, looking for the bad guys, and stop to rest in a hayloft. She’s back to a skirt for this scene, and well, there’s just something about haylofts. Instantly they are in love and planning a future life together.

But first, they trick the gang of bandits into leading them to the stolen guns, and John Dehner, and a Russian Count and Princess who are agents of the Czar. When the Princess balks at this pants-wearing female pointing a gun at her, Miss Wright, with absolutely no vestige of Peggy Stephenson left in her, remarks: “Lady, this gun will shoot anybody. It’s not particular.”

I love that line and her world-weary delivery.

Wilde is an almost too-cheerful hero, as if he is Robin Hood instead of a revolutionary, but since this movie drifts along on the mood of a kiddie matinee, his happy bravado is suitable, and the stereotype villains are serviceable, and the action is all we need to kill time.

It’s Teresa Wright who doesn’t quite fit, and not because she wears pants and a gun holster (which was probably a selling point for her to take this role). She’s too troubled for these shallow types around her, on a higher plane (and not the hayloft), where the deeper issues of California’s annexation await her consideration, figuring out what all this really means for her. She’s far too intelligent an actress to be stuck in this pop-up book.

Explorer John Fremont, the only real historical figure, shows up at the ball, despite the bandits that overturn his stagecoach, and tells the “good” Californians that the US will not annex California because Mexico is a neighbor and friend.

The Mexican War, from which we snagged a good chunk of Mexico, including California, would seem to contradict his assertion. Did anybody at the kiddie matinee catch that? Or did the kids in their red felt cowboy hats just knock back another handful of jujubes and cheer for the hard riding “good” Californians who, like they in school, pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and dreamed of cementing their heroism by pointing a gun in a haughty Russian’s face? Ah, 1952. Gotta love it.

World Without Blow Dryers - Answers

The answers to our screen caps in Monday’s post “In a World Without Blow Dryers” -

1. - That’s Cary Grant toweling Rita Hayworth’s tresses in “Only Angels Have Wings” (1939), which we discussed here.

2. That’s Bing Crosby toweling Alexis Smith’s tresses in “Here Comes the Groom” (1951), which we discussed here.

3. That’s Ruth Donnelly (the perennial wisecracking best pal) toweling Jean Arthur’s tresses in “More Than a Secretary” (1936), which I hope to cover sometime in the new year.

4. That Jessica “Jessie” Grayson scrubbing Teresa Wright’s scalp in “The Little Foxes” (1941). I always loved this scene. She does such a mercilessly thorough job. It’s fun to watch. Miss Wright may have been half drowned by the end of it, but she had very clean hair.  For the rest of her life, probably.

Mystery Beach Couple Solved!

Today we have the answer to last Thursday’s screen caption quiz…most of you had a tough time of it, which I enjoyed in my own evil way. Yvette did nail the identity of the lady, if even she wasn’t sure. Congratulations go to Kassy, who got it right. Drum roll, please….

The Mystery Beach Couple is:

Teresa Wright, and Gary Cooper in “Pride of the Yankees” (1942).

We become completely different people at the beach. Most of us in our everyday lives do not walk around outside half naked studying the body types of complete strangers in similar half-dress and allowing ourselves to be studied at the same time. All in very close proximity. We don’t lie half asleep on the ground for hours in the middle of work day, ignore the presence of sand in our hair, content also to ignore the blob of ice cream that fell off the soft serve cone and landed on the thigh. Immerse ourselves in frigid water (at least in New England) though we fiddle endlessly with the faucet in the shower at home because the water temp has to be just right.

After all this, drive home tired from being lazy, sticky, and satisfied that we have spent the day well, though on any normal day we would berate ourselves for not accomplishing our list of things to do. We are different beings at the beach.

So, it’s no wonder they were difficult to recognize.

For previous "at the beach" posts, have a look here and over here.