Barbara Stanwyck: An ILX Film Snobs Thread

heh, I watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers last night, which is an amusing potboiler. (also, Van Heflin has more screen time than Babs does.) It's basically a reprise of her Indemnity role, tho she kills as a child and gets everything she wants (for awhile) where Phyllis D didn't. Kirk Douglas weirdly cast as her drunken milquetoast husband in his debut!

july 16 on TCM (what wd've been her 100th bday) = ALL BABS ALL DAY

the lady eve = greatest romantic comedy evah

Marther Ivers is slow as molasses too, not least whenever Kirk Douglas, at the dawn of Method, tries to project soulfulness.

the girl who plays Young Martha IS TOT'LY OUTTA CONTROL

Fave line (reading) from Clash By Night: Paul Douglas' well-meaning bumbler of a suitor commiserates over a headache, suggesting that Stanwyck get some aspirin. Her reply gives me whiplash: "Yeah, or a new HEAD."

Babs' 100th

I caught the end of "Sorry, Wrong Number" the other day and was howling with laughter at its badness.

One of her worst movies, agreed, although Burt is smokin'.

i'm taping like six of these

love this lady

i missed Night Nurse, but I assume I'll be able to rent the TCM DVD.

my throats as red as the daily worker, and just as sore!@

love her too.

"i need him like the axe needs the turkey."

i caught Baby Face friday night.

'Baby face' is so awesome.

"Baby Face" is on that "Forbidden Hollywood" set, I believe? I've been meaning to pick it up for a while. I've never seen it, it sounds pretty wild.

Night Nurse is good fun, and Clark Gable never sexier.

Stanwyck has one of her best lines: "You MUTHA!"

OK, let's not re-post the whole thread, "toots" (snapping my gum)

so the version i saw on TMC would have been the original uncensored one?

*TCM

afaik

wasn't "sorry, wrong number" originally a radio play? i admit i can see it being pretty awesome in that format - espec the ending.

Christmas in Connecticut >>> Double Indemnity

Thank you very much for your insight, Mississippi Morrissey.

What's this about her and RJ Wagner?

lol, more beard action?

Hm, the guy that (co-)wrote the Wagner book has written seem other good books, at least from the parts I managed to read.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2008/09/seems-maydecemb.html

Wow, "Baby Face" is quite something, eh? Stanwyck's acting is really good & powerful. (Was that Toby Wing, briefly seen among the bank staff?) (I got the 2 "Forbidden Hollywood" sets for Christmas, the first one has the released version as well as the pre-release, uncut one. Probably watch "Night Nurse" tomorrow, that's on the second set.)

I saw Remember the Night for the first time on Christmas Eve. I wonder if Wilder had before he reteamed her w/ MacMurray, he must've, it was Paramount.

I thought Lane's article didn't get her range on screen, especially for characters in conflict with themselves at least as much as other people--especially Clash By Night, yow. And the vulnerabiltyl like in that one where she's a war widow, trying to be a good mom and also maybe find a new man, and keep her standing (but look out, she's available, and even if she weren't looking, she's so *good* looking and having kids means she ain't no virgin, pally)But she's always aware of vulnerabilty, which is why she can't take her boot off it sometimes (in other roles)

I'm prepared to argue that Stanwyck is the best pre-Method FILM actress (no real thee-a-tu antecedents).

anyone else see "night to remember" on tcm recently, with stanwyck and fred macmurray several years before "double indemnity"? it was a really moving movie, directed by mitchell leisen, written by preston sturges.

it's Remember The Night; Morbs just mentioned it.

"Night Nurse", I thought was even better than "Baby Face". Stanwyck's Lora Hart is so tough and aggressive, very, er, admirable. Clark Gable is really menacing & dislikeable, I pretty much like Joan Blondell whatever she's in. I liked the ending, with Gable's character bumped off by associates of the male protagonist - a bootlegger/gangster! That and the fact that Stanwyck and Blondell get changed into & out of their nurses uniforms loads of times, seemingly necessitating them getting down to their skivvies, I guess makes this kind of archetypally "pre-code".

These 2 "Forbidden Hollywood" DVD sets are pretty great - we also watched "Female", which is pretty dated, as hokey as fuck in places, and pretty antediluvian in its sexual politics, but it was still a blast. As I read somewhere, Ruth Chatterton's swimming pool is the pool used in the "By a Waterfall" number from "Footlight Parade"!

I forgot that Stanwyck was in "Dynasty"! What a trouper, kind of like old lady Joan Blondell being in "Starsky & Hutch".

Don't forget her in "Big Valley"! (new thread: Barbara Stanwyck vs. Lorne Greene--?)That was my intro to her, as a kid, awesome, and also when I saw her in some older Westerns: I was into those, and she was all in black, with short silver hair, and she was little, wirey, and beautiful)(childhood's end, bro)

At last.

http://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Stanwyck-Collection-Internes-Tomorrow/dp/B0037RBVLU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1272638950&sr=8-1-catcorr

Watching Double Indemnity for the tenth time. I came across this bit by Douglas Sirk, not known for loving actors, describing her work in All I Desire, the most OTM things about her:

Unfortunately I couldn't give her any great parts in those days. I did see All I Desire again. And you know there is nothing, NOTHING the least bit phony about her ever. Because she isn't capable of it. That insignificant little part she did with me and she played it all right out of herself. And yet she is so discreet -- she gets every point, every nuance without hitting on anything too heavily. And there is such a tragic stillness about her at the same time. She never steps out of it and she never puts it on, this deep melancholy in her presence...

...But that was a rare thing. She impressed me all the time as someone -- what can I say? -- someone who had really been touched by life in some way. Because she had depth as a person. I wish I could have done a really great picture with her..."

The Furies was pretty good, was kind of building to an intense ending then went a bit soft, but great stanwyck performance (and ace edith head outfits too)

just saw the other day that her two* films with sirk are available in a boxset in the US

*unless there were more than two

Just saw The Strange Love of Martha Ivers today. I loved the kid who was the young Stanwyck, that pretty much sucked me in right away.

New critical bio out:

http://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Stanwyck-Miracle-Hollywood-Legends/dp/1617031836

...and author interview

http://www.thelmagazine.com/gyrobase/the-miracle-woman/Content?oid=2212251&showFullText=true

loled at the George Brent dis:

She played opposite George Brent several times, and she might as well have been playing with a coat rack. I never liked Stanwyck's second husband Robert Taylor on screen, and researching their marriage and watching her three films with him again did nothing to change that. He's just a source of irritation to me, like a pebble in your shoe. So the mano-a-mano scenes with Ryan in Clash by Night are so impressive after all of these ineffectual men because here at last we have giant meeting giant.

love this lady

― carne asada, Tuesday, March 11, 2008 10:40 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and that old cassette he mentions of Red Salute is still at the NYPL! Just reserved.

I've wanted to watch There's Always Tomorrow since reading James Harvey's book on fifties cinema years ago.

That Sirk quote upthread is so otm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzylfvqJ-64

That author is speaking at a double-feature this Sunday at Momi. I unfortunately can't go because I'm going to a play.

Comparing George Brent to a coat rack is cruel to coat racks. Coat racks are at least useful.

Dan is right about Fred MacMurray, who is much more than boomers brought up on "My Three Sons" believe.

I dunno about that strawman. Lots of boomers saw The Apartment, and Double Indemnity has never gone away.

More boomers should watch Hands Across the Table.

well, I mean late boomers who aren't cineastes. My sister is 2 years younger than me and I'm p sure she's never seen Fred except in M3S and Disney films.

btw there's a feature film remake of "The Big Valley" coming soon w/ Jessica Lange

I am a big fan of Ruby except for her politics.

yeah, nearly all these Golden Age lady icons, esp who did screwball, were Randian/Bircher types: Babs, Irene, Jean Arthur too?

so otm about how uncomfortable Arthur looks/is in OAHW

Dan is right about Fred MacMurray, who is much more than boomers brought up on "My Three Sons" believe.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 12:20 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's all about "remember the night"

i love b.s. so much

btw sirk was wrong, he did direct stanwyck in a great film, it's called there's always tomorrow.

yeah, nearly all these Golden Age lady icons, esp who did screwball, were Randian/Bircher types: Babs, Irene, Jean Arthur too?

I was just thinking about this this weekend, since I was watching The Awful Truth.

I must get this biography, it would be a nice break from the rough going I'm having getting through all of these books on academic assessment.

'there's always tomorrow' is p great, 'all i desire' less so

Just rewatched Ball Of Fire last night, my first time on a big screen. She's not the most beautiful actress, but when she turns on the flirt in this (or in The Lady Eve) I think she's just amazing.

Almost made myself late for work this morning getting caught up in You Belong To Me (1941) at 7 AM on cable. Always a treat to catch a Stanwyck film I've never seen before, even though the "film snobs" on imdb seem to hate this one. It's definitely slight, the final reteaming of Babs and Henry Fonda, pretty much reprising his naive rich guy role from The Lady Eve. I'm very easily pleased when it comes to films like this, though.

would've been 106 today

Maybe the film snobs on imdb hate it, but the ones on ilx are keeping an open mind.

The artist didn't *quite* capture henry Fonda, but man I want this:

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/502408.1020.A.jpg

i just found out she is Tori Spelling's godmother

god bless

wow, between this and the Cukor retro, December in NYC will be a tizzy for retrogaysing:

http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/stanwyck#nowplaying

General Yen and The Miracle Woman = fantastic double bill.

^Capra before the sap

I have my eye on Red Salute & The Mad Miss Manton

new bio -- first of two volumes! God, what a horrifying early life.

Once she finds herself as an actress, the rest of her life seems to go underground. As Capra noted, “When she wasn’t in front of the camera, she was almost mousy. . . . But when the camera rolled, she turned into a huge person.” A biography, particularly one of such length, must spend much of its time off camera, and by Stanwyck’s clear choice there isn’t that much to see. Her marriage to Fay seems to have been a nightmare, but we can catch only glimpses of it. Her subsequent involvement with Robert Taylor, which takes up much space here, never rises above the level of convenience: “Barbara came to love Bob. He did the things she wanted to do. If she wanted to go to the racetrack, Bob went to the track. If she wanted to go to the newsreel theater, they went to the newsreels.” Taylor himself, bedeviled by a mother of Hitchcockian monstrousness, never emerges as a character of any fire. (We learn that when making a movie with Myrna Loy in 1939, he was offended by the “dirty” Cuban dance music she liked to play between takes.) For the story of their marriage—long rumored to be a studio-arranged “white marriage” in the great Hollywood tradition—we will have to wait for the next volume, but it should be noted that Wilson refrains throughout this book from drawing on that murky sea of innuendo and speculation so dear to most Hollywood biographers.

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/020_03/12167

more retro stuff

http://www.fandor.com/blog/daily-stanwyck-filmforumnyc

Baby Face is so much fun.

I've long been aware of her conservative bent, but this Wiki segment sounds like a Conservapedia entry:

Stanwyck vehemently opposed the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She felt that if someone from her disadvantaged background had risen to success, others should be able to do the same without government intervention or assistance. [52] Stanwyck was a staunchly conservative Republican along with such contemporaries as William Holden, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Stewart, George Murphy, Gary Cooper, Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Shirley Temple, Bob Hope, Adolphe Menjou, director Frank Capra, and her Double Indemnity co-star, Fred McMurray.[53][54][55] She was a fan of Ayn Rand, having persuaded Warner Bros. to buy the rights to The Fountainhead before it was a best seller and writing to the author of her admiration of Atlas Shrugged.

I'd never heard of Jeopardy (1953), but she and Ralph Meeker put a lot of energy onscreen when I saw it a couple of weeks ago. I looked up from my book when it started, thinking it would be 69 minutes of not much, and it grabbed me pretty thoroughly. Poor Barry Sullivan as the trapped father, I bet he was barfing seawater for weeks.

xp ugghhh

Her politics, like many of her generation in Hollywood, were utterly deplorable.

otoh Henry Fonda's politics were OK and he was a lousy husband

Fonda and Stewart were an odd couple of friends...

otoh Fonda was the kind of 'nice' liberal (Jane says) who told his daughter that if she really was a commie he'd turn her in. so, the more things change...

double feature of double indem and lady eve at ff on saturday!

poster fun!

http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/movie-poster-of-the-week-the-posters-of-barbara-stanwyck

she and Marilyn Monroe really can coexist in the same universe in Clash by Night.

The 1953 Titanic isn't very good -- lol BS marrying Clifton Webb even for money -- but all those movies work after they hit the berg.

Some of those Danish and German versions are really fun. Mini version of "Ladies They Talk About" poster is an important part of my cubicle decor.

saw The Mad Miss Manton last night -- so screwball it would qualify as torture for Eric. Very hit & miss and obv leagues below The Lady Eve, but some good gags and excellent support from Sam Levene and Hattie McDaniel.

Let's not forget right-wingers Stanwyck & Cooper, times massed brainpower of Cooper's academic colleagues, some of them with suspicious accents, vs. fugitive Sugarpuss "She Jives By Night" O'Shea's brute capitalist gangster ex--inBall of Fire
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/04/22/arts/22raff.large1.jpg

BS was a big fan of Ayn Rand

Fonda always seemed mildly querulous at best (though Preston Sturges and a few others knew how to bring out and use this best-of-sorts.) Generally tiresome-to-dickish, whatever his politics. No surprise he was a shitty husband and father. Think if I had to pick one of hers, would be Clash By Night: the toughness, vulnerability, humor, desperation, even panic, incl. of The Older Woman, which she wasn't afraid to bring (even stopped dyeing her hair around this time). No filters of taste, as in All About Eve, or Halloween camp, like Sunset Boulevard---not that those aren't good.

BS was a big fan of Ayn Rand---yeah! After making this demonstration of communal efficacy (the profs even all lived in the same house!), she and Cooper could've gotten questioned by HUAC though, like Ginger Rogers had to disavow the plot of another wartime movie, in which she and other DC worker bees had to share living quarters.

Not to mention Tender Comrade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR5WJhkEOVo

There's Always Tomorrow playing or played in Gotham this week.

I'll repeat what Sirk said about her:

Unfortunately I couldn't give her any great parts in those days. I did see All I Desire again. And you know there is nothing, NOTHING the least bit phony about her ever. Because she isn't capable of it. That insignificant little part she did with me and she played it all right out of herself. And yet she is so discreet -- she gets every point, every nuance without hitting on anything too heavily. And there is such a tragic stillness about her at the same time. She never steps out of it and she never puts it on, this deep melancholy in her presence...

...But that was a rare thing. She impressed me all the time as someone -- what can I say? -- someone who had really been touched by life in some way. Because she had depth as a person. I wish I could have done a really great picture with her..."

also:

And the way she acted between takes was very different. Most people, as soon as the camera stops, you know, go straight to the mirror to check. But every time she would go to ta corner of the set, hardly talking to anyone -- until we were ready to shoot again, and she was always ready and always perfect.

Her first two starring roles (circa 1929) are on YT as well

quote by herman mankiewicz that i read years ago and always stayed with me for some reason:

Barbara Stanwyck is my favorite. My God, I could just sit and dream of being married to her, having a little cottage out in the hills, vines around the door. I'd come home from the office tired and weary, and I'd be met by Barbara, walking through the door holding an apple pie she had cooked herself. And wearing no drawers.

lol

Never heard of Red Salute, thanks. Will check it (and much other Stanwyck on YouTube) when I get back from looking at Christmas lights---wow, the 30s:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026919/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl

interesting re: her politics

dunno if this impacts my devotion

Ginger Rogers was a right-wing maniac too

surm, don't let it

i know, i think i knew that about ginger, my childhood star

oh well

i won't let it

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/12/barbara-stanwycks-best.html

Wazzabout this one that just started at the Film Forum for a week.

terrific, best film from a pre-directed Sturges script

Just what I was hoping!

Exactly how many did she co-star in with Fred MacMurray? For years I only knew the most famous one.

Maybe there are only the two. Think I misread the New Yorker article as describing a third but it's the same one

no, the suburban adultery Sirk film they did + DI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kPa-i_EI48

TAT also unavailable on DVD AND YouTube.

Remember the Night was the first film in which MacMurray and Stanwyck appeared together. They later co-starred in Double Indemnity (1944), The Moonlighter (1953) and There's Always Tomorrow (1956).[1][2]

Thanks. Also confusing is the fact that she did two films with Sirk.

There's Always Tomorrow is out on DVD in one of those TCM bundles (4 Films by Sirk or something).

Actually 6 by Stanwyck: http://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Stanwyck-Collection-Internes-Tomorrow/dp/B0037RBVLU/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1388106242&sr=1-1&keywords=there%27s+always+tomorrow+1956

or 4 (you've heard of) by Stanwyck via TCM: http://shop.tcm.com/detail.php?p=455398&ecid=PRF-TCM-100189&pa=PRF-TCM-100189

There were moments where I was afraid Remember The Night was going to tip over with some corny business but another great performance from the leading lady made me forget all that. Also enjoyed enjoyed spotting in the jury box the character actor who does the demo of the Talking Picture in Singin' In The Rain, although for the life of me I can't remember if I seen him in actual Sturges-directed pictures or what his name is.

OK, it is of course Julius Tannen, just hadn't put it all together before or had forgotten about it.

Wikipedia sez:

Lucille Ball said that seeing Tannen perform in her hometown of Jamestown, New York when she was a child inspired her to go into show business.

Tcm writeup is full of info: http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/150479%7C0/Remember-the-Night.html

Mitchell Leisen's improvements mainly seems to have been cutting snappy dialogue Preston had written for Fred M because otherwise the movie would be too much about him and besides Fred couldn't pull it off anyway.

Reading Victoria Wilson's biography, the 1000 page part 1 of 2 one. Couple of hundred pages in, I could read it if it was ten times as long with ten times as much info. Too fascinating. Just the kinds of things I like - details about her directors, co-stars, quotes from everyone about her and her about everyone. She talked a big game, as quick with a quip in real life, full of hall of fame-worthy quotes.

I knew some of her story of course, but reading it's clear to me if anything she was tougher than all those gritty dames she portrayed in her first decade. Stubborn as hell, defiant, which goes some ways to explain why she stuck with Fay for a while while he got drunker, happy being an outsider with him vs Hollywood and all the fakes she hated. Interesting reading of her battle with Columbia backed by every other studio over contract breach, she lost and when Columbia head Cohn called to reconcile she gave him a "Nuts" and hung up. 24 years old standing alone vs the system. "Problem with me is I so love a good fight" as she's quoted another page in the book.

Just checked it out of the library. Thanks!

not sure I have 2000 pages of reading on her in me, no matter how good

Above average interest is required, but the details about the scene around her are extensive, the connection bw vaudeville, hollywood, all the people she worked with, the studios. Your mileage may worry, to me there's a lot of new and interesting bits about Hollywood in general. Helps to have watched her filmography or watch it as you go along, though.

vary*

Babs and Frank Capra, courtesy of The Nitrate Diva. Frank very intense as always, she wisely looking past:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CFUKVcyVAAA4Dk1.jpg

Recently on tcm in Crime of Passion, at age 50: a totally pro journo, cynical about getting relegated to the agony column; police detective Sterling Hayden is her vision of liberation, from behind the throne, but hey, she gets carried away. Sterling even almost has a facial expression, couple times. Snappy patter from the get-go. Who ordered the Jewish sandwich at the cop press conference? "Ah, he went to the Men's Room to get some fresh air."

Just got up and found Baby Face prison jam nearing the final curve; at 10:45 Central: Ever In My Heart, which starts sappy, but it's a set-up, not for a sucker punch, but something else that takes hold and gets darker and darker---saw it a long time ago, and comes around in my head more often than most (movies, anyway). Includes an incident of cruelty to an animal, nec to plot and not onscreen, but real enough.
Another prison movie and something called Gambling Lady follow, hope it's Stanwyck Day, but at least Stanwyck Morning.

that entrance in Ball of Fire is sumthin huh

also that rendition of "Genevieve" by the profs is the best non-Stanwyck scene (Richard Haydn great throughout)

Happy Birthday, Babs!

Believe Alfred was complaining about Ball of Fire on another thread. It's problematic, but yeah, there is some great stuff in it.

Here: The Big Sleep; or: Films that don't make any sense; or: Howard Hawks: classic or dud?

Her lesbian and/or bi madam in Walk on the Wild Side is one of two reasons to watch that amusing trash (young saucy Jane Fonda being the other), but she seems more fragile and less overbearing than I expected. Maybe that's just how she filled the screen by her mid 50s.

Her intensity is rather scary, though, and it's not camp when she's on screen (when she's not, hoo boy).

the first third/half of ball of fire is pretty great; latter third/half gets kinda plotty. the 7 professors are all uniformly excellent

also watched crime of passion after. not a strong movie!

yeah, of the ones i'd never seen that were shown yesterday, nearly all looked limp, including that one

I missed what I remember as the only good or anyway best scene in East Side, West Side: it's young Ava Gardner, impeccable bird of sin, rising from the wrong side of the tracks to once and for all stake her claim to rich, married, "respectable," born-old pre-Norman Maine-Humbert-Humbert James Mason.
Did get to see the scene in The Mad Miss Manton where young socialite Stanwyck is about to prove that she and the other debs did too find a body and are about to solve the murder for the cops: they have to detain still-clueless Henry Fonda, so it's "Get him, girls." After they have him hogtied, she yanks his pants off, knowing that *he's* not the sort to be going anywhere like that, even if he does get loose while they're out on the case again.

Watched Crime of Passion on Criterion the other night. Even though I don't think it's a very *good* movie - it takes some illogical and nonsensical leaps - it's a melodramatic "women's picture" with a few interesting things to say about suburban lifestyles and gender roles.

Watched Baby Face last night was as great as I’d hoped, but her love for Trenholm was unconvincing to me. Maybe if he had recognized her game right away as a playboy himself, and deliberately resisted lily’s charms, making her try harder, and eventually both succumbing to love.

No BABY FACE, but NIGHT NURSE and several other classics are streaming on Criterion now as part of three different series: PRE-CODE DIVAS, WOMEN OF THE WEST and CON GAMES.

Oh yeah and one nearly universally reviled oddity that I kind of like just showed up on Max as well.

Night Nurse comes and goes on Criterion

Sorry, BABY FACE is showing after all.

THE LADY EVE comes and goes as well.

As does its related bonus material.

THE PURCHASE PRICE is available on TCM on Demand for about another week. Directed by William Wellman. It was kind of poorly received when it came out but seems pretty good as of the first six minutes. Some interesting business— she even sings at the beginning!

Oh yeah and one nearly universally reviled oddity that I kind of like just showed up on Max as well.

Uh-oh, her co-star in THE PURCHASE PRICE is George Brent, which I had been trying not to think about.

His worst picture of 1932, according to the man himself. So no SO BIG!, even though it seems intended as some sort of follow-up.

2 mrs carrols is hilarious and fun

THE PURCHASE PRICE ended up being reasonably consistent all the way through, even the frozen north part with George Brent, who I ended up not minding here. Stanwyck is excellent as usual, Lyle Talbot very good and William Wellman and Sid Hickox both deliver.

Speaking of singing, plus dancing, and a bit more, the former chorus girl also shined in this snacktime activity:

Lady of Burlesque (also known as The G-String Murders and in the UK, Striptease Lady) is a 1943 American musical comedy-mystery film, produced by RKO Pictures and directed by William A. Wellman and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O'Shea. It is a faithful, if sanitized,[1] adaptation of the 1941 novel The G-String Murders written by strip tease queen Gypsy Rose Lee.

A significant portion of the film is taken up with onstage performances, including comic bits and toned-down striptease acts. There is also a lot of backstage action not directly related to the evolving murder mystery but highlighting the characters and lifestyles of the performers and crew.

...The film depicted as much as censors would allow with respect to the nature of "bumps and grinds", as well as the slapdash nature of burlesque shows. When reviewing the film script, which still carried Gypsy Rose Lee's original title, Joseph Breen, head of the Production Code Administration, the movie industry's self-censorship board, commented, "We are concerned about the prominent use of the object known as the 'G-String' as the murder weapon. It is our impression that the use of this extremely intimate female garment will be considered offensive . . . "[1]
...The film made $2 million[3] and earned a hefty profit of $650,000.[4][5][6]

Stanny is like… ripped in that movie

I was calling her that but recently learned that spelling is Stany with one ‘n.’

Stany very ripped; would whup my ass

I assume you know she famously liked to do her own stunts whenever possible.

Yeah she was so cool

https://www.barbara-stanwyck.com/an-interview-with-victoria-wilson-author-of-a-life-of-barbara-stanwyck-steel-true-1907-1940/?

I would imagine that after Fay was out of Stanwyck’s life, Barbara could reconnect with her old friends?

Stanwyck did not do that, once she moved on, she closed the iron door on you, which I am writing about.

THE MIRACLE WOMAN will be on TCM this coming Monday. I've never seen that one.

It's on!

Lived up to its billing

saw The Mad Miss Manton last night -- so screwball it would qualify as torture for Eric. Very hit & miss and obv leagues below The Lady Eve, but some good gags and excellent support from Sam Levene and Hattie McDaniel.

Was enjoying the beginning but ran out of time when it expired. Now thinking of watching Blowing Wild which I just noticed is streaming but have never seen.

Now curious about Crime of Passion

Watched No Man Of Her Own (1950) the other night - an enjoyable slice of impostor noir.

Yeah that one is good. Yet another keeper from the much-maligned Mitchell Leisen.

Baby Face is on HBO Max; just watched it. Hilarious and awesome until the totally unconvincing and unearned ending. I watched The Purchase Price a couple of months ago - that one was weirder, but possibly even more fun.

The Purchase Price is pretty good. You can also mention it on this thread: Post here when you watch on old George Brent movie

Believe the cinematographer reported that Stanwyck burned herself doing her own stunts during the fields on fire sequence iirc.