Category: classic film

classic film laurence olivier reviews

The Curious Life of Laurence Olivier

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If you’re looking for a great documentary on England’s greatest actor, look no further than Laurence Olivier: A Life.  Well, you can’t look any further because to my knowledge it’s the only documentary made about Laurence Olivier.  It also happens to be really good.  In the summer of 1982 at the age of 75, to coincide with the publication of Confessions of an Actor, Lord Olivier sat down with reporter Melvyn Bragg over a period of a few days to talk in depth, for the first time, about his life and career.

I had found a VHS copy (2 cassettes) on ebay about 8 years ago and hadn’t watched it in quite some time owing to the fact that I no longer have a VCR, and this doc. isn’t available on DVD.  Imagine my happiness when a fellow fan who visits vivandlarry.com sent me a DVD copy all the way from England!  Having some spare time last night, I made celery sticks with peanut butter and sat down for some quality time with my favorite old thespian.  I was not disappointed.

It’s fascinating to hear Laurence Olivier talk about acting because he was obviously so passionate about it, and confident in his abilities, even if he didn’t always like his work.  I do wish he’d talked more in-depth about his personal life, but I have to say I think he gave it quite a good shot in this film.  He spoke of how his father terrified and fascinated him at the same time, how he never really got over his mother’s death when he was 12 years old, and how he thought that experience in some way shaped who he had become as a grown man.  Larry had a rather rough childhood, but he was determined to make it in acting and he went out and did it, which is very admirable.  He didn’t talk much of Jill Esmond, but he did talk a fair amount about Vivien Leigh.  He explained how he wanted to marry her before going back to London during the war because they didn’t want to have to deal with leave and special circumstances in a changed environment.  He also talks about how he always knew she had what it took to be a great actress, but that it took some years before her talent (on stage) came out and shone as a light on its own.  He acknowledged that it was after their divorce that she really hit the mark on her own, and said she was “very remarkable” in the last few years of her life.  In the end, Larry turned out to be quite a character.

I thought the way he summed up his life with Vivien was quite interesting and to me, very telling as well, not in what he said, but the way he said it:

“It was a partnership that people felt mighty attracted by…and it involved all sorts of glorious luxuries like Notley Abbey.  There were great satisfactions about it, and then various, most unfortunate experiences with illness came upon us–not mine–but things began to become, unfortunately, very very difficult, but I don’t want to talk about that.  But  on the whole, it was–it was a life.  It was a rich experience, but if you’re asking me if I look upon it with a special roseate hue, no.  I like my life better now than I have ever liked it.”

Perhaps it is because I’m  a hopeless romantic, but every time I hear that clip I can’t help but think he’s lying when he says he doesn’t look back on his marriage to Vivien with a “roseate hue.”  It’s his tone of voice, he gets very quiet and sort of far away.  I don’t know, maybe he never did, but it’s certainly contrary to people claiming they caught him in his final years watching Vivien films on tv and weeping, saying “This was love.  This was the real thing.”

What do you think?

At any rate, I love the intimacy of this documentary, and I love the stories Larry tells.  I also love the commentary from a few of his famous friends: a drunken Ralph Richardson, a very eloquent John Gielgud, a very tan Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and a very classy Sibyl Thorndike.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it quite gets tot he bottom of who Larry was as an individual, but I don’t think any biography has every quite gotten there, either.  Still, it is a very interesting portrait.

As I said, this documentary is unfortunately not on DVD (even though it should be since it won a bunch of Emmy’s), but perhaps I can make some copies to give away as contest prizes!

Rating: A

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Buried Treasures (Part 2)

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The recent Criterion restoration of Gabriel Pascal’s 1945 epic Caesar and Cleopatra starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Raines, and based on the play by George Bernard Shaw, reminded me of another buried treasure in my Vivien Leigh/Laurence Olivier collection. Meeting at the Sphinx by Marjorie Deans is a book that was published in 1946 as a supplement to Pascal’s film. We see a lot of these types of film books today, and I’m not sure how common it was for them to be published for classic films, but I think this one is fairly rare. I got it for quite a steal on ebay a couple years ago.

Marjorie Deans was the script supervisor on the film, which lends credit to her placing herself in the narrative of the book. She talks of Vivien Leigh and Claude Raines behind the scenes, and how their personalities effected their characters (nothing negative, of course!). She also talks about the difficulties of making the film: air raids happened often, bombs were dropped quite close to Denham Studios, Vivien Leigh fell on the set and had a miscarriage (not mentioned in the book, only that she fell ill for six weeks), among other setbacks. Luckily for director Gabriel Pascal, the film was backed by producer J. Arthur Rank, who supplied the funds to import real Egyptian sand, to build such lavish sets, and to drag out the shooting schedule.

My favorite parts of this book are the amazingly vibrant Kodachrome plates by Wilfred Newton, the still photographer on the film (Cecil Beaton did the publicity portraits). They almost look like paintings.

Sadly, the film itself failed to live up to its hype and was considered a failure. Due to the pain of her personal loss, Vivien, who had wanted the part of Cleopatra as she had wanted the part of Scarlett O’Hara, would not see the film until the early 1950s.

Despite not being a huge fan of the film, I think Meeting at the Sphinx is quite a gem because we get the inside story on what was then the most expensive and lavish British film ever made.

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Buried Treasures (Part 1)

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I have a pretty big collection of Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier things–mostly paper goods (photos, magazines, and such).  One of the items in my collection is a negative film strip that contains two photos of Laurence Olivier from 1946 when he and Vivien Leigh invited reporters to their cottage in London for a photo call.  Many of you know some of the photos from this shoot: Vivien is wearing a polka-dot skirt and blouse, and can be seen with Larry and their Siamese cat New sitting on the couch or out on the front landing.  The two negatives I have depict Larry in his study and out on the landing with New.

I’ve had these for about a year, and finally took them in to get developed today.  I feel like stores that actually professionally develop film are a dying breed since so many people have gone digital, so I had to drive all the way to Irvine to get these done.  I got a pretty good deal (about $9 per 8×10), and I’m really happy with the quality.  My friend Mark’s friend Jay is a professional photographer, and he advised me to get prints made because, he said, eventually the negatives will disintegrate. So I’m going to pass along that bit of info to you out there:  If you have old movie negatives or film stock, get it developed so you’ll have prints in the future.

Aren’t these lovely?  I’m really liking the contrast.

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Review: Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

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“I shot an arrow in the air, she fell to earth in Berkeley Square”

My fascination with post-war British cinema keeps growing and growing!  For my birthday, I went on a small shopping spree at DVD Planet and picked up a few new Criterion DVDs for my collection.  One of these was Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets starring Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, and a whole lot of Alec Guinness.  This film was my first taste of Ealing Studios, one of the prominent British production studios in the 1940s and 50s.  Ealing was run by Michael Balcon (Daniel Day-Lewis’ grandfather) and was responsible for the output of such British classics as The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, and Passport to Pimlico.  In 1944, Ealing was bought out by J.Arthur Rank, but Balcon remained studio chief until the 1960s.  One of Laurence Olivier’s first films–Perfect Understanding with Gloria Swanson–was filmed at Ealing under its first studio chief, Basil Dean (who would later direct Olivier with Vivien Leigh in 21 Days Together).

Kind Hearts and Coronets is a sinister and highly entertaining dark comedy involving a young man named Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), a relative of the wealthy D’Ascoyne family whose mother was disowned for marrying beneath her.  Louis decides that the D’Ascoyne fortune is rightfully his, and plots to murder all eight D’Ascoynes (played by Alec Guinness) standing in the way to his immediate appointment to dukedom.  Alec Guinness is my favorite thing about this film, and is one of my new favorite people.  He plays eight characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets and it’s just brilliant because none of them are more over the top than the others, and he blends in so well!  Then of course there’s Dennis Price who is wonderfully wry in an understated performance, and Joan Greenwood, who is interesting all around, especially her voice.  I started watching her in The Importance of Being Ernest with Michael Redgrave last night at my friend Mark’s and can’t wait to see the rest.

Robert Hamer wrote and directed this film, and hats off to him because the script is so sharp.  One of the things I found particularly interesting is that I think this film is pretty racy for 1940s standards.  Granted, England didn’t have the Hayes Code to contend with, but in the documentary Made in Ealing (one of the special features on the Criterion DVD), Michael Balcon says that Ealing did not deal well with sex in films, and Kind Hearts and Coronets features an adulterous relationship and makes no qualms about it.

I really loved this movie and can’t wait to see more of the famous films that came out of Ealing.  Please put Kind Hearts and Coronets on your netflix queue if you haven’t yet seen it.  It’s a fabulous movie!

Grade: A

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5 Favorite Celebrity Autobiographies

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When I posted about my love for David Niven and his books The Moon’s a Balloon and Bring on the Empty Horses a few days ago, I got to thinking about some other autobiographies/memoirs (or “memwaaaahhs” in a John Malkovitch voice–Burn After Reading, anyone?) that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.  Now, before you ask “Why isn’t Confessions of an Actor by Laurence Olivier on your list, Kendra?!” the answer is because I liked it but I liked these better.  Don’t worry, I still love me some Larry.  Here are my top five page-turning celebrity stories.

1.  The Moon’s A Balloon by David Niven

You already knew this.  It’s hilarious!  I wouldn’t care if he made up every single word in this book, I so enjoyed reading it.  And I learned a lot of interesting things such as the fact that pot was big in the 1930s.  There used to be all kinds of debauchery and shenanigans going on at casa Niven/Flynn (David and Errol shared a bachelor pad for a few years in Hollywood).  What I love about David is his sense of humor.  He was pretty self-deprecating, but it was funny and made him seem very down to earth despite the extraordinary things that happened to him during his life.  I enjoyed his stories of showing off whilst water skiing on the Zacca off the coast of Catalina, being marooned by Errol Flynn and stuck floating out with the sharks, and then having to swim all the way back to the mainland (which is a feat I feel is pretty impossible unless you’re a marathon swimmer.  I’ve been to Catalina, it’s much farther out in the sea than it looks from the mainland).  I love all of his stories about is famous friends.  It’s like he rarely had a bad word to say about anyone.  I was up reading this book into the early hours of the morning, and never wanted it to end!

2. D.V. by Diana Vreeland.

Diana Vreeland wasn’t a film star, but she was very famous in her own right.  As the Editor in Chief of Harper’s Bazaar and later Vogue magazine, Diana was a guru of fashion.  She was the HBIC, and this comes across magnificently in her autobiography.  “Brother, let me tell you,”  if you want to learn about the ins and outs of the fashion and high society worlds of London and New York in the 1940s-60s, you must read this book.  Vreeland believed in “faction,” a blending of fact and fiction for her life’s philosophy.  D.V. is a name-dropper’s paradise.  This lady has stories about everyone from Coco Chanel to Clark Gable.  It’s very interesting to see how the worlds of entertainment and fashion collided, how fashion has influenced the world, and how Vreeland influenced fashion.  It’s also a really fun read.  Vreeland adds just the right amount of sass and brass to keep it entertaining, and to prevent it from being totally pretentious.

3.  Gracie A Love Story by George Burns

I confess, I didn’t know much of anything about George Burns or Gracie Allen before I read this book, but my friend Alexa had mentioned it quite a few times on her blog, and the passages she posted broke my heart, so I knew I had to find it and read it for myself.  I succeeded in getting a used copy at a second-hand book store (my favorite kind of book store) and read most of it on a plane to Texas to visit my friend Laura.  I’m so glad I read this book.  If you want to read about real, lasting love in Hollywood, this is it.  You know George Burns, that funny little guy with the thick black-rimmed glasses who smoked a cigar all the time.  He and Gracie Allen were a popular comedic vaudeville, radio, and television team, who also happened to be married to one another.  They complimented each other perfectly and it’s so obvious from reading this book that George loved Gracie with all of his heart. He admits to being second fiddle to Gracie because she got most of the laughs, and he was proud of her for doing that.  Its really rare in show business for a married couple to be famous because of all the pressures and rivalry, jealousy, etc.  My favorite couple certainly succumbed to it, but the Burnses made it work.  I can’t say that this book made me seek out much of Burns and Allen’s work, but I would definitely read this book again, and encourage you to read it, too.

4.  Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks.

Turning now from rather light-hearted memoirs to those about sad people, my next favorite is Lulu in Hollywood by the amazing and mysterious Louise Brooks.  Louise Brooks breaks my heart.  She was an amazing actress and a headstrong, very intelligent woman living in a man’s world.  She dared defy the trappings of Hollywood and was shunned for it, going into self-imposed exile in New York for years.  She reemerged much later to give back to the film community by working at the George Eastman House, and her legend had a major resurgence in her own lifetime.  Lulu in Hollywood is a compilation of accounts of her years dancing with Ted Shawn and then her acting career in Tinsel Town.  In it she gives us insight into some of the most prolific entertainers of the 20th century, from Marlene Dietrich to Humphrey Bogart and W.C. Fields.  It’s also exceptionally well written, so be sure to check it out!

5.  Self-Portrait by Gene Tierney

In some ways Gene Tierney reminds me a lot of Vivien Leigh.  They had the same type of beauty, and they were also both bipolar, and had been treated by the same psychiatrist.  Unlike Vivien, Gene lived long enough to talk about her struggle with mental illness while still trying to maintain a significant acting career.  In reading Gene’s book, I thought a lot about what things must have been like for Vivien, since she and Gene endured many of the same treatments, including electroshock therapy and the icy sheet treatment.  I admire Gene a lot for being an outspoken advocate for better treatment of patients with mental illnesses, and for not letting it ultimately destroy her.  Of course, Self-Portrait isn’t all about being bipolar and enduring hardship, it’s also about how full her life was otherwise.  She was married to fashion designer Oleg Cassini, and was in some pretty damn good movies (I need to see more, but I loved her in Leave Her to Heaven and Laura).  I believe this book is out of print but if you want to read about a super-glamorous star who was also a very courageous lady, I’d really recommend trying to find a copy.

I hope you enjoyed this list, and if it gave you any ideas for your “to be read list,” I’m glad.  Some of these are out of print, but you should be able to find used copies on amazon or abebooks.com.