Royal Film Performance Series: That Forsyte Woman (1949)

This poster proudly heralds the film as "THE CHOICE for the Royal Film Performance."

The fourth Royal Film Performance, which took place at the Odeon Cinema in Marble Arch, London on November 17, 1949, was attended by the King, Queen, and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret (Elizabeth had missed the last two events due to her wedding in 1947 and the birth of Prince Charles in 1948. The following day she would leave to join Philip in Malta, where he was stationed).

Shown this year was the American film, That Forsyte Woman (released in the UK as The Forsyte Saga) starring Greer Garson and Errol Flynn. It was based on the first book of the the popular series by John Galsworthy.

Errol Flynn shared stories about That Forsyte Woman in his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways:

I worked hard for this role in That Forsyte Woman. Now I had the opportunity to show maybe that I could do something else. And it was a joy and a delight to have Greer playing opposite of me. I think that that picture is one of the few worth-while vehicles in which I played (256).

The picture was "...a great success and landed us a command performance in England."

Janet Leigh recalls in her autobiography There Really Was a Hollywood meeting Flynn for the first time: 

I actually gasped. He was as beautiful as I could possibly have imagined, and as charming, and as lovable, and as naughty. When I looked at him, I saw Robin Hood and Captain Blood and Essex, and I remembered the nights I had gone home from the theatre and dreamed of him. He was such a gentleman—except when he played his practical jokes (84).

The evening, like in previous years, was a great success and attended by, aside from the Royals, thirty-one movie stars and a crowd 10,000 strong. 

The London Times reported: 

After the white lights and the cheerful din outside, the waiting auditorium was decorously dim until their Majesties appeared, when floodlights in the proscenium wall suddenly illuminated the front of the balcony, the company rose and clapped, and the band played the National Anthem. It was an affair that delighted the audience, and would have seemed heaven to the eager and fascinating throng outside. It was announced that some £30,000 had been raised for the trade charity.

According to A Rose For Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson, the "screening was followed by an elaborate live performance by a stellar array of MGM and British celebrities, including Jean Simmons, Richard Attenborough, Moira Lister, Sir Ralph Richardson, Jack Hulbert, Ann Sothern, George Murphy, Michael Wilding, Gregory Peck, and John Mills. Greer appeared with Walter Wanger in a comic version of The Miniver Story'' (231).

The "throng" that appeared outside the theatre to see the Royals and the stars numbered about 10,000, according to this news article in The Daily News:

The article notes that Greer Garson wore "a dress of heavy 

silver satin embroidered at the bodice with pearl and diamond drops.

CLICK HERE to see a three minute video of the stars and Royals arriving. I'm obsessed with Margaret Lockwood's glittering ensemble (insert heart eyes)!

AND HERE is a fifteen minute video. I love the glimpse of the program and outside of the theatre at the beginning of the video! It has nice, long looks at the stars as they arrive. You can see Greer's gown well starting at the 5:14 mark. 

Here are some photos from The Illustrated London News.

The Stars Remember

For Greer Garson, who had recently married Texan cattleman, wildcatter, and lawyer Buddy Fogelson and was in England filming The Miniver Story, the premiere was:

...the most rewarding one she had ever attended. Indeed, it was one of the proudest moments of her career, for the picture was to be honored as a Command Performance... Besides the king and queen, a great number of celebrities from British and American theater and motion pictures would be present. Her escort was Errol Flynn, who had arrived from location work in India for MGM's production of Rudyard Kipling's Kim (A Rose for Mrs. Miniver, 230).

Stars who attended were given a sterling silver commemorative coin with an engraving of the King and Queen on the front and personalized with their name on the back. Here is Rosalind Russell's coin. 

Rosalind Russell recalled her unique encounter with the Queen in her 1977 autobiography Life is a Banquet (173-175):

In 1949 I was summoned to a command performance before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother of England). It wasn't too long after the war, and things were still very grim in Great Britain. ... I wore a metal scull cap [you can see it at the 2:40 mark in the fifteen minute video linked above]. Hundreds of years earlier, a Viking queen had worn that cap to be married in. ... It was light as a feather, and there were little Viking wings on the sides, over each ear, and a split in the back for a bridal veil to come through, and a little chain. It was enchanting. 

At a rehearsal for the command performance, I asked an equerry if it would be suitable to wear something on one's head when meeting the King and Queen. "Of course," he said. "When women are presented at Court, they wear the feathers, the three plumes."

I couldn't wait for the big evening. It came. I dressed, adjusted my silver helmet, told myself, "This'll kill the people," went onstage and launched into one of the Cockney songs Cary Grant had taught me. 

Later, being presented to the Queen, I curtsied, and she smiled sweetly. "Where did you learn that song?"

I told her about Cary's coaching.

"It's a long time since I heard that," she said, "and you sang it very amusingly.

We actors were being presented in alphabetical order, so Walter Pidgeon had gone before me [actually Ralph Richardson was between them], and Jean Simmons was to come after me. As the Queen started toward Jean Simmons, King George approached and I went into another curtsey. All of a sudden the Queen was back, gesturing to me. I came up out of a half crouch, leaving the King standing there. "Yes, ma'am?" I said. 

"Excuse me," said the Queen, "but what is that wonderful thing you have on your head?"

I never think of that moment without delight. It was like "Where did you buy the hat?" or "Is that diamond necklace real?"; it was such a marvelous, feminine thing.  

The chapter was titled: "A Queen May Look at a Cap." Watching the video footage (11:20), it doesn't seem to appear to happen just as Russell described, but it's a marvelous story!

It looks like Russell may have worn her helmet to a charity auction as well. 

I came across this picture in the September 1949 issue of Photoplay. 

George Murphy recalled in a 1988 interview (recounted in Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900-1955 by Rusty E. Frank):

In the 1940s, I was part of a royal command performance in London. I was kind of the leader of the group. There was Ann Sothern, Errol Flynn, two or three others. In any event, I was the first one on the stage. And I looked down as I came down the stairs; they had carpeted the stage! I said, "Your Majesty. I’ve had some success as a Soft Shoe dancer. But they’ve carpeted the stage. So with your Majesty’s permission, you will see the softest Soft Shoe dance that’s ever been done.” And they had the big BBC orchestra, forty men in the pit. I doubt they could hear any taps. But I could have danced all night.

THE CINEMA Nov. 16, 1949 British Film Magazine | eBay 

Sources:

Flynn, Errol. My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Rowman & Littlefield. 1959.

Frank, Rusty E.  Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900-1955. De Capo Press. 1990. 

Leigh, Janet. There Really was a Hollywood. Doubleday & Company. 1984. 

Troyan, Michael. A Rose For Mrs. Miniver: The Life of Greer Garson. The University Press of Kentucky. 1999. 

Russell, Rosalind & Chase, Chris. Life is a Banquet. Random House. 1977.

Houdini (1953)

Harry Houdini has long been someone who has captured the imagination of the ordinary man. Performing daring acts unlike anyone else in history, his life is a natural for stories and films. I first learned about Houdini from my great-uncle. It was a fascinating tale and I have never forgotten it.

Houdini (1953) was the first of many films made about this singular figure. It was also the first film that paired real-life couple Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh together. Starting with young Houdini's early days as a wild man in a carnival, it tells the story of how he met his wife Bess, his growing career, the problems that his acts brought to their marriage, and up to his dramatic final act.

Houdini: It'll be the most dangerous thing I've ever done.

Bess: And the most dangerous!

 

Houdini: Bess, people aren't going to stand in line and watch me pull rabbits out of a hat.

Bess: Why? Why must every act you do be flirting with death?

 

Houdini: Because it's the only act that'll hold an audience spellbound. People fall asleep at the opera, but they stay wide awake at the bullfights because there's one man defying death down in that arena. You take this out of my act and I'm nothing!

Bess: You keep it in and we're both nothing!

Trivia:

• Three years before this film was made, 20th-Century Fox was negotiating with Houdini's family to make a picture called "The Life of Houdini" and starring Burt Lancaster in the title role.

• A talented amateur magician, Tony Curtis performed most of his own tricks in this film.

• The movie contains several factual errors, the most telling of which is the dramatization of Harry Houdini's death. In the film he almost drowns in the torture tank trick and dies on the stage in the arms of his wife. In real life he was punched in the stomach by a college student who had heard that Houdini could withstand any blow without harm. This did, indeed, rupture his appendix. He later collapsed on stage, was taken to the hospital and died there.

• Although Houdini didn't die onstage at a Halloween performance, as this film would have you believe, he did, indeed, die on Halloween, 1926, several weeks after his last stage performance. To this day, in Houdini's memory, October 31st is celebrated as International Magic Day.

This post is part of the Grand Finale of the At the Circus Blogathon hosted by Critica Retro and Serendipitous Anachronisms. Be sure to read all of the other amazing "acts," including the Grand Finale!!

Ten Movies on an Island: Tony Curtis & Janet Leigh

Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh are one of my favorite on-screen couples. I saw Curtis first in The Defiant Ones and Leigh first in Psycho. Then I saw several more Curtis films before seeing the two of them in either The Perfect Furlough or Who Was that Lady?. The only film of theirs I haven't seen is The Black Shield of Falworth.

1. Holiday Affair (1949) - Leigh & Robert Mitchum

2. Confidentially Connie (1953) - Leigh & Van Johnson

3. The Defiant Ones (1958) - Curtis & Sidney Poitier

4. The Perfect Furlough (1958) - Curtis & Leigh

5. Some Like it Hot (1959) - Curtis & Jack Lemmon & Marilyn Monroe

6. Operation Petticoat (1959) - Curtis & Cary Grant

7. Who Was That Lady? (1960) - Curtis & Leigh & Dean Martin 

8. Sex and the Single Girl (1964) - Curtis & Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda & Lauren Bacall

9. The Great Race (1965) - Curtis & Natalie Wood & Jack Lemmon

10. Not With My Wife, You Don't! (1966) - Curtis & George C. Scott

Honorable Mentions: Angels in the Outfield (1951), Houdini (1953), and Psycho (1960).

Want to watch: No Room for the Groom (1952).

Summer Under the Stars Day 12: Robert Mitchum

 

Robert Mitchum is todays focus on TCM's Summer Under the Stars. He was an "underrated American leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an air of disinterest" (source). First of all, did you know he can sing?!? After learning this I started looking at him in a whole new way...

 

Honey's Lovin' Arms

 

Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral

 

Little Old Wine Drinker Me

 

The Ballad of Thunder Road

 

Apparently he made a couple albums. Check out more search results here!

 

I've only seen four films with Mitchum: El Dorado and more recently Holiday Affair - also The Longest Day (1962) and one of his early films where he makes a brief but memorable appearance as a soldier on leave in Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1944) starring Simone Simon.

In El Dorado (1966) Mitchum plays a sheriff. A drunk sheriff. And he's very good at it. The films main star is John Wayne and the story is pretty much exactly like Rio Bravo (1959) - which I will be reviewing on the 20th, with Mitchum in Dean Martin's role. It also has a young James Caan.

James Caan as Mississippi

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Holiday Affair (1949) stars a young Janet Leigh as a single mother with a little boy. She is a comparison shopper - she buys products from stores and compares them and then returns them. Mitchum knows what she's doing but doesn't bring her to his boss like he's supposed to and ends up losing his job because of it. He doesn't really care though; he's more interested in pursuing Leigh. It's a cute little Christmas movie with the typical two guys who want the same girl (the other guy being Wendell Corey). Guess which one wins.

I like Leigh's little apartment in the film, especially the way she displays her Christmas cards (she sure has a lot).

Screenshot by Phyl

I recommend both films. Neither of them are among my top movies but they are definitely enjoyable.

This post is part of the month-long 2015 TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Kristen at Journeys in Classic Film. Be sure and check back all month to see all the great posts!

All images found via Pinterest except shot of apartment.