This is the seventh in a new series of “Getting to Know” Pages from Ultimate Movie Rankings.com. Our interview this time around is with UMR Hall of Famer Flora. Flora has been commenting on our pages for almost 10 years. She is a Top 3 Commenter. So we figured it was time to learn a little more about Flora.
Cogerson – It has always interested me in knowing which thespian made the first impact on a person. Who was the first actor or actress that you knew by their actual name?
Flora– Judy Garland because of The Wizard of Oz. I saw it on television.
Cogerson – That is a great movie. Every time I read a reference to The Wizard of Oz, I think about my grandmother. She had some of the original Oz books. She only had two VHS tapes in her house, The African Queen and The Wizard of Oz.
Cogerson – Is there a person in your life that pushed you down the path of liking movies? For me, it was my parents and my grandmother.
Flora – For me it was Mom. She would bring home rented movies back in the VHS days. I remember the first one she brought home was The Music Man. We still watch movies together on a regular basis.
Cogerson – When I was younger, I was convinced that Disney’s Gus was the greatest movie of all-time. Today, I realize, though it might be the best mule playing football movie, it is not very good. What movies did little Flora think were awesome when he was a kid?
Flora – I didn’t watch a lot of movies as a kid, actually, outside of Disney films which all hold up pretty well. I spent most of my time reading mysteries. I started watching non-animated films as a teenager. The teen-aged me thought that The Adventures in Babysitting was great, but it is not one that I can ever imagine me watching again.
Cogerson – I know that Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark are two of your favorite actors. How did they become such favorites?
I was introduced to Gregory Peck in grade 10. Our English class read To Kill a Mockingbird which I loved and then we watched the movie. I didn’t think that the film was going to capture the magic of the book, but it did and I was so impressed by Gregory Peck’s performance. I had to watch more of his films. I admire him a lot. I have seen almost all of his movies with the exception of The Shoot Out and the tv movie The Portrait.
Richard Widmark became a favourite actor through my love of Gregory Peck. I was watching a western called Yellow Sky starring Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter. I found myself watching this blonde character all in black even when Greg was on screen. I said to myself: “Who is distracting me from My Darling Greg?” After the movie I looked it up online and found the man was somebody called Richard Widmark. I had actually seen him in The Murder on the Orient Express several times. I decided that anyone who distracted me from my favourite actor was worth watching. I have seen most of his films. He is my favourite film noir actor.
Cogerson – Are there any actresses that reached the same level of Widmark and Peck in your eyes?
Flora – Audrey Hepburn is my favourite actress. She is utterly charming and she lights up the screen. I have seen 20 of her films, not as much as Peck and Widmark.
Cogerson – What are your Top 3 movies of all-time? Or share as many as you are willing to share.
Flora – The Guns of Navarone starring Gregory Peck and David Niven, Roman Holiday starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, Charade starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Rear Window starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly, The Maltese Falcon starring Humphrey Bogart, Out of the Past starring Robert Mitchum, Night and the City starring Richard Widmark, Double Indemnity starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, And Then There Were None starring Barry Fitzgerald, and Murder on the Orient Express starring Albert Finney.
Cogerson – Sorry I could only get 8 movies in the picture, but And Then There Were None and Night and the City get a second mention here.
Cogerson – Which movies do you re-watch the most? Do you have any tradition of watching a certain movie during a certain holiday or time of the year?
Flora – I watch film noir/crime (not all crime films are film noir) and musicals the most often in terms of genre. As for individual titles, I watch The Maltese Falcon and Singin’ in the Rain the most often year round. Every Christmas Eve I watch A Christmas Carol/Scrooge starring Alastair Sim. Every Easter I watch Easter Parade.
Cogerson – Tell me a few of your guilty pleasure movies. Movies you know are bad, but you really like them anyway. For me, Armageddon would be on my list.
Flora – Plan 9 From Outer Space. Ed Wood directed it and it was Bela Lugosi’s last movie. It is laughably bad.
Cogerson – Do you have any memorable movie experiences? I remember seeing Porky’s in theaters. People were laughing so hard, I thought the walls might crumble.
Flora – I have talked about this before on this site, but the most memorable experience was seeing Rear Window on the big screen. Mom and I drove into Vancouver to see it – that is about 90 minutes away from where I live. It was playing on the top floor of a mall. Although there were stairs with railings for the other floors, the top floor could only be reached by escalator and that was scary with my bad balance. I was not going to let that stop me. The theatre was packed. It was fantastic seeing a classic Hitchcock film on the big screen. I would love to see more classic movies on the big screen.
Cogerson – Can you believe it has been almost ten years that we have been talking about movies? From Hub Pages to UMR we have talked about so many movie subjects. So here is your chance. Your reward for doing this interview….we will do our next page on the actor or actress you most want to see an UMR page on. So what is the next new UMR page going to?
Flora – No, I cannot. So much has happened to us since then. You had recently lost your father and my father was still alive. I have loved reading these pages and sharing how many films I have seen of artists and my favourites. Prior to this, I had not kept track of which films I had seen. Now I use Letterbox. As for my request…..how about George Brent, leading man at Warner Bros during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Cogerson – Thank you Flora for taking the time to answer these questions. You are truly deserving of your UMR Hall of Fame status.
In case you missed the first interviews.
- –UMR HoF Interviews–
- Bern1960 Class of 2014
- GeorgeV Class of 2018
- Laurent Class of 2015
- PhilHoF17 Class of 2017
- Søren Class of 2014
- SteinHoF16 Class of 2016
- WoC Class of 2020
Another fine addition to your interview series. I feel I know Flora better. My mom loved Audrey Hepburn too.
Always good to hear of another Audrey Hepburn fan. Your mother has good taste 🙂
Thanks for checking out Flora’s page Taylor. Good comment.
This looks great, thanks Bruce. Thanks again for the George Brent page.
Other [to me] interesting points in the Flora interview that I wish to pick up on are:
1/She’ll certainly get no argument from me in selecting Widmark/Peck as her faves because as I have said before they and Jimmy Stewart and Alan Ladd are my own 4 favourite actors for ENTERTAINMENT value; whereas Brando for example would be the one whom I most admire for TECHNIQUE whilst not finding some of his movies particularly entertaining in themselves. Whilst I marvelled at his Streetcar movie powerhouse performance for example I have never been especially entertained by the movie itself; though I suppose its saving grace is that Stallone is not imposed on us instead of Marlon. By coincidencetwo evenings ago I watched Widmark in a rerun of 1956’s Backlash and boy did HE once again entertain me though it was just a very routine western with only a 49% review rating from that Work Horse skinflint. I have always been amazed that Richard never made AFI’s Greatest All-time Legends list instead of say Mitchum or Edward G. Those 2 were GREAT as well but for my money Richard was an especially unique actor – and as I have indicated ENTERTAINER!
2/Flora’s recollections of her introduction to Hitch’s Rear Window taps well into my own nostalgic movie memories. I can VIVIDLY recall one summer night in 1954 or 55 queueing for it outside our local Picturedrome and being so excited that Jimmy was in it. I had become properly acquainted with him 2 years earlier in the same cinema in Bend of the River. Rear Window also introduced me of course to the wonderful Canuck-American actor Raymond Burr who in later years as Perry Mason was to become one of my own handful of top TV performers along with the likes of Peter Falk/Kelsey Grammer /Dick Van Dyke.
3/SURPRISE omission from Flora’s interview. As my name is Robert Roy I have had to tolerate down the years “Rob Roy” jokes because of the historical Scottish warrior legend Rob Roy MacGregor [played by Liam Neeson on screen]. I would have expected Flora to be tortured with “Mrs Robinson” jokes [despite the slightly different spelling] but if that HAS been happening she doesn’t mention it – though her interviewer might has asked her !!!! As always though I was most impressed by the fine way in which Flora can articulate movie matters and overall I enjoyed the exchanges.
Hi, Bob. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on my interview. Regarding the Rob Roy jokes people make, I have never been had anyone joke about “Mrs. Robinson.” However, the reason I use my middle name of Breen on this site is because there was a British actress named Dame Flora Robson (notice the different spelling). She was a wonderful character actress whom I admire greatly. People often ask me if I am related to her or was named after her. The answer to both questions is no. I was named after my grandmother on my mother’s side.
Good conversation between Bob and Flora…..comments add so much to these pages.
Good interview
Thank you Mike.
To know, know, know him
Is to love, love, love him
Just to see him smile
Makes my life worthwhile
To know, know, know him
Is to love, love, love him
And I do
(And I do, and I)
(And I do, and I)
(And I do, and I)
(And I do, and I)
Track 3 On
Billboard Top Rock’ N’ Roll Hits – 1958
Sung by The Teddybears
Until you are privy to revealing interviews such as the Flora/Work Horse one you probably never completely know someone. I thought that via her fine work on this site I had sized-up Flora’s personality pretty well; but I was additionally impressed by the revelation in the interview that she was reading stuff like To Kill a Mockingbird even at school.
That was a good choice for a developing movie buff like Flora as Atticus Finch has been voted The No 1 Movie AND literary Hero of All Time by the American Film Institute . The Peck performance of later years that most impressed me was his wonderfully low-key one in 1989’s Old Gringo. Jane Fonda his co-star also produced the film and in an interview that I heard on radio Greg who had a quiet sense of humour quipped “When the movie was wrapped-up we kissed each other to celebrate. It was the first time I had ever kissed my producer!”
Unless Joel Hirschhorn has a twin brother still kicking around somewhere I can think of nobody [as a proxy] more deserving of a “know you” interview on this site than Flora– so “Voted [well] Up!” More comments in Part 2.
Hey Bob….thanks for the kind words…glad you enjoyed getting to know Flora better. Good point about her and Atticus Peck..or is it Gregory Finch.