We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
MOVIE REVIEW QUOTES
“Gary Cooper (56) and Audrey Hepburn (28 at half his age) in Love in the Afternoon! Is this for real? Maybe Hollywood should have considered calling it the more believable Lust in the Afternoon.” Cooper was just a year and a half younger than Audrey’s father Joseph Victor Anthony Rushton in real life
‘OH YOU RASCALLY OLD DOG MR GABLE!’ “Quote from review of 1959’s But Not for Me by Margaret Hinxman Britain’s lead film critic who worked for Photoplay magazine in the 1950s/1960s. M-s Hinxman is referring to the fact that once again in a Hollywood movie a very young woman, actress Carroll Baker, is passionately pursuing a seriously over the hill Hollywood superstar, Clark Gable, who is over twice her age at 58 years to her 28. That doesn’t stop HER from proposing to HIM!
The year before Gable romanced Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet. Miss Day is 21 years younger than Gable and the latter had also as his second leading lady and early-on ‘girlfriend’ in Teacher’s Pet one of Hollywood’s blonde bombshells, Mamie Van Doreen, who is 30 years Mr Gable’s junior and whose 50-year-old father, Warner Carl Olander, is in fact 7 years younger than Clark Gable. You couldn’t make it up!”
“MY FAIR SEXY REXY!” In the 1964 screen version of George Bernard Shaw’s classic play Pygmalion, which is called My Fair Lady Hollywood aborts Mr Shaw’s ending at which young Freddy Eynsford-Hill ‘gets’ Eliza Doolittle. In their musical, Hollywood gives Eliza instead to Professor Higgins, played by Rex Harrison, who is nicknamed Sexy Rexy in real life, and is 21 years older than Audrey Hepburn as Eliza.
“CHANGING EXPECTATIONS AT THE CINEMA
The clamour for television Reality shows suggests that today’s audiences wouldn’t likely buy into the Hollywood implication that all’s OK with the world if screen heroes like Clark Gable and Gary Cooper are successful in action and romance.
Also, modern feminist writers and other women who see themselves as progressives constantly protest against sales and television repeats today of movies in which female stars when they aged were “put out to pasture” as aunts and mothers and has-been characters of all sorts in the stories.
It is seen as double-standards that, in parallel with that, Hollywood allowed the contemporary ageing screen leading men to continue as before with fresh young female leading ladies, and healthy young male actors of those times were cast as “gooseberries” who invariably lost out romantically to the much older man, who was the bigger star.
Arguably the most prolific example is that, from 1955 until his retirement in 1966, British-born Hollywood icon Cary Grant, often call the Aged Charmer in his later career, was teamed with 11 lovely leading ladies all of whom were younger than he by 11 to 32 years in real life -an average of 23.8 years younger over those 11.
Joan O’Brien in 1959’s Operation Petticoat was less than half his age at the time (23 to his 55) and in the movie they marry and quickly have 4 daughters. That certainly brings to mind the old cliché ‘He’s old enough to be your father, my dear!’
In fact the Herbert William Palmer, the father of Jayne Mansfield, who was Grant’s leading lady in Kiss Them for Me, was born the same year as Cary, 1904! Jayne who becomes “attracted” to him in the movie was 29 years younger than Cary Grant.
HI STEVE The following cautionary note on TV at the moment for viewers wishing to buy or rent a copy of Bing’s White Christmas from the Sky movies store is perhaps an illustration of how perceptions and tolerances may have changed over the years:
“This film contains outdated attitudes and language and cultural references which may cause offence to viewers today.”
Speaking for myself I love viewing White Christmas every festive season and am on the lookout for yet another TV rerun this year– if they NOW dare show it!
It may be too sentimental for you: when Bing and Danny don those Santa suits there are no sharp axes covertly hidden under the folds and ready for festive slashing and if you prefer 1974’s slasher classic Black Christmas I respect your choice. This site’s democrat: that’s ole Bob.
Added in Steve’s latest videos…so far behind all everything internet related…..I think it is time to retire again…lol. Major kudos to Steve and the massive success of his Western Series. I am so jealous of his views. Great job Steve!
Thanks Bruce, your recent comment made it thru, for some reason youtube mail doesn’t like comments with URL links, sometimes I find them in the spam folder but your ones don’t even get that far.
Your tally 7, I’ve seen 9 and Flora 10. I enjoyed The Train Robbers too. Thanks again for the share at https://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/ much appreciated.
Enjoyed your posts Bob, always worth reading.
And thanks for the stats on Western movie grosses.
I wonder how Duel in the Sun stacks up in adjusted dollars against those modern Westerns. Selznick’s attempt to top his own monster hit ‘Gone With the Wind’ didn’t get that far but it was still a big draw back in the late 40s.
Btw my next video will be out on Wednesday, and will finish off the 1970s. Take care.
HI STEVE: Thanks for the response.
The Work Horse is again helpful by quoting an adjusted domestic gross of $466 million for Duel in the Sun and $187 million adjusted for the modern Django Unchained for example.
There are no worldwide figures available for Duel in the Sun but WH quotes an adjusted global gross of $486 million for Django Unchained so as Duel in Sun’s adjusted domestic gross alone is virtually that Duel’soverall adjusted gross is bound to considerably exceed Django’s.
The overseas movie markets were not as buoyant in the classic era as they are today and on average overseas earnings in those years were roughly 50% of domestic ones which might have meant Duel raking in around $700 million in worldwide gross revenues.
Bruce’s figures for Costner’s 1990 western Dances with Work Horses suggest that its worldwide gross was in the region of a whopping $920 million – wow!
Anyway enjoy the rest of your weekend and I look forward to Wednesday.