5 More of the Best Dressed Dresses

Norma Shearer in Adrian in "The Women" (1939)

Carole Lombard in "Man of the World" (1931)

Jane Greer in Edward Stevenson in "Out of the Past" (1947)

Lena Horne in Helen Rose in "Stormy Weather" (1943)

Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, and Jeanne Crain in Kay Nelson in "The Letter to Three Wives" (1949)

Carole Lombard in Travis Banton in "My Man Godfrey" (1936)

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×

#FridayShort Double Feature: Hollywood on Parade 11-13

#SayTheirNames #SilentEdition Mary Fuller

• When the Lyceum Stock Company broke up while on a short stopover in New York City, a stranded Mary went to Vitagraph Studios looking for a job and was immediately put to work
• Starred in the first film adaptation of Frankenstein (1910)
• Joined the Edison Film Company in 1910
• Eight of her screenplays became films from 1913-1915
• Walked away from Hollywood in 1916

Portrayals of Mental Illness/Trauma in Film: Harold Russell as Homer Parrish "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×

Harold Russell was a Canadian expatriate in his early 30s living in Cambridge, Massachusetts working at a food market in the years before WW2. But when he heard President Franklin D. Roosevelt give his famous "Day of Infamy" speech, Russell joined the Army the very next day. "I made a rush to the recruiting office," Russell explained in his 1949 autobiography Victory in My Hands, "not out of patriotism but because I thought of myself a failure." He served as a Sergeant before becoming an instructor in parachuting and explosives. Russell had been training troops at Camp MacKall in North Carolina on June 6, 1944 when a supposedly defective TNT fuse went off in his bare hands, resulting in the amputation of both of his arms below the elbow. 

Russell immediately went into a deep depression during his stay at Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland not opting for the initial limb replacement the doctors suggested. "I don't need to be beautiful," Russell insisted until discovering mechanical hooks, or what he would call "scary hooks," in a medical film and had mastered the prosthetics in 6 weeks. It was his mastery that got his Army Superiors impressed enough to cast him in a training film called "Diary of a Sergeant" (1945) which William Wyler had seen and immediately offered him the role of Homer Parrish in a film adaptation of McKinlay Kantor's novella "Glory For Me."

Russell rejected the role multiple times until giving in. 

Homer Parrish, a petty officer in the Navy, comes back to Boone City after World War 2 ends along with two other men (Frederic March and Dana Andrews). He had lost his hands from burns attained when his ship was sunk and uses mechanical hooks to great success. But now back in America, Parrish returns to his fiance and next-door neighbor, Wilma, and eventually pushes her away not wanting to burden her with his handicap despite her protestations.

Variety considered Russell "inspired casting [...]."Bosley Crowther of The New York Times describes Russell's portrayal as "incredibly fine" and "has responded to the tactful and restrained direction of Mr. Wyler in a most sensitive style."

Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×Enable GingerCannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection
or reload the browserDisable in this text fieldEditEdit in GingerEdit in Ginger×

#MakeThis Ruth Chatterton's Involvement with Mary Astor's Divorce Trial

While Mary Astor was taking Ruth Chatterton's husband on screen in "Dodsworth" (1936), Astor was dealing with a child custody battle behind the scenes gone ugly. Her ex-husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, had released her diary which reportedly held numerous accounts of her cheating exploits to the press which would risk not only her career and reputation, but her lover's, married playwright George S. Kaufman, as well. Astor lived in her dressing room bungalow while working on "Dodsworth" during the day and appearing in court in the evening with no support around her.

The older Ruth Chatterton ended up spending all but two days of the trial with her.

Jenna Coleman as Mary Astor

Amy Adams as Ruth Chatterton

Chris Pine as Dr. Franklyn Thorpe

#FridayShorts Breakdowns of 1940

#WomenDoingAwesomeThingsWednesday Myrna Loy

• Worked with the Red Cross and War Relief during WW2
• Helped create the Committee for the First Amendment
• Was co-chairman of the Advisory Council of the Natioal Committee Against Discrimination in Housing
• Wrote letters back and forth with President Franklin Roosevelt and was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt
• Helped run a Naval Auxillary canteen with Bundles by Bluejackets
• Sued the Hollywood Reporter for $1 million for condemning her for her Democratic activities
• When given direction in "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932) to whip a man with glee, she protested saying "I've done a lot of things in films, but this girl's a sadistic nymphomaniac" to which the producer asked what that meant. Loy replied back with "Well, you better find out, because that's what she is."
• Was the first actress to become a member of UNESCO
• Asked Louis B. Mayer himself to be released from her MGM contract
• Had an abortion in the '30s, but the procedure was botched and rendered her infertile
• Toured military hospitals visiting injured soldiers and organizing entertainment for them
• Outspoken against Adolf Hitler who ended up blacklisting her and banning her films in Germany
• Asked MGM Executives in 1934, "Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?"

Links to Check Out

LOY LOOKS BACK - Chicago Tribune
Myrna Loy - YouTube

Portrayals of Mental Illness/Trauma in Film: Buzz Wanchek in "The Blue Dahlia" (1946)

Director George Marshall was four weeks into shooting "The Blue Dahlia" when "the script girl pointed out that the camera was rapidly gaining on the script" to which "a faint chill of alarm invaded the studio." "We had shot sixty-two pages in four weeks;" explained producer John Houseman in an interview with Harper's magazine in 1965, "[Raymond] Chandler, during that time, had turned in only twenty-two-with another thirty to go." The script had come from a 120-paged novel Chandler had written and was stuck as to how to end it when Houseman sold it to Paramount. When he finally got an ending written, the Navy insisted they did not want one of their servicemen to be portrayed as a murderer.

Buzz Wanchek has a shell fragment lodged in his brain, which causes him chronic migraines and periodic bouts of amnesia. Certain types of music causes him to suffer from blackouts which is what happens when he unknowingly has a drink with his war buddy's wife. The wife is found dead and Wanchek doesn't remember anything when he wakes up.

Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" describes Bendix's portrayal as "brutely eccentric." 



Links to Check Out

William Bendix in "The Blue Dahlia" - Joe Sommerlad - Medium