Ruth Hussey
From the Washington Post:
‘Philadelphia Story’ Screen Actress Ruth Hussey Dies
by Adam Bernstein, Thursday, April 21, 2005; Page B06
Ruth Hussey, 93, the breathtaking brunette best known for her Academy Award-nominated performance as the sarcastic photographer in “The Philadelphia Story,” died April 19 at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, Calif. She had complications from a recent hospital stay for appendicitis.
Ms. Hussey, a former Powers model, appeared in more than 40 films and typically was cast as elegant, wise and slightly world-weary women.
Director George Cukor, a friend who hired Ms. Hussey for “The Philadelphia Story” (1940), became a mentor. “He gave me one piece of advice that I always use,” she once said. “‘Keep your emotions near the surface so that you can call on them when you need to.'”
In that film, she played Liz Imbrie, the scandal-magazine photographer who, with writing partner James Stewart, is sent to cover the Main Line wedding of haughty Katharine Hepburn.
Ruth Carol Hussey was born Oct. 30, 1911, in Providence, R.I. Her ancestor Christopher Hussey was one of the original purchasers of Nantucket Island, Mass.
Noticed by a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer casting agent when “Dead End” came to Los Angeles, she was signed to a contract in 1937. Reportedly, she was hired as a threat to keep stars Myrna Loy and Norma Shearer from becoming too demanding.
Her ascent was swift. A bit player opposite Spencer Tracy in the drama “Big City” (1937), she became his co-star three years later in the frontier drama “Northwest Passage” (1940).
Election: Don’t Panic
When you vote today, make sure you actually hit the right button.*
Actually, the above image has nothing to do with electioneering, but is instead from Sony’s Official HITCH-HIKERS’ GUIDE TO THE GALAXY website, which is currently scant on content. However, the initial Macromedia Flash presentation has a sparkling eight humorous animations. Don’t just click the button twice, reload and keep clicking and reload again to get the full sampling. I’d also point you towards the teaser trailer, but it’s mostly just special effects and spacescapes (a word that is achingly close to being a palindrome), and features no prominent Kenny Baker or Zooey Deschanel, so I won’t bother.
*There are a number of ‘blogs quoting a story about Texas voter fraud, which claims that it is “for real”. I have yet to delve into the professional news reportage about it, so I’m choosing to believe that this is grass-roots party paranoia-mongering at the moment. Be careful what down-to-the-wire decisions you make in the heat of worry and adrenaline, and don’t believe everything you hear in the next twenty-four hours.
Who’s got a stamp on his Mancini?
Shamelessly ganking the idea from Fraction‘s blog, I present to you the first stamp to be released in April of 2004: Henry Mancini.
And why do I care so much about this? Well, gentle reader, squint your eyes and read the third title from the list of films presented in the background of the stamp. Ah, yes, the classic CHARADE fixation rears its beautiful, coiffed head once again.
Peter asked if I were going to purchase the upcoming Criterion Collection re-release of the disc in anamorphic widescreen even though I already owned the previous non-anamorphic letterbox release. It’s not as if you have a widescreen television that will really take advantage of the difference, he said, and I concurred, adding that the special features were exactly the same. However, when one is a fanatic and dedicated to collecting every possible version of CHARADE available on DVD, then it’s really almost a requirement. After all, I bought the DVD of THE TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE just because CHARADE was available as a b-side, so I must clearly not have any powers of discernment when it comes to this particular fetish.
And since Criterion is offering a $10 discount to those who purchased the previous edition, there is now no question about my acquisition.
And while we’re talking Mancini and Hepburn, 20th Century Fox revealed in a Home Theatre Forum chat in January, that they are considering releasing TWO FOR THE ROAD on DVD. With Albert Finney’s recent success in BIG FISH, we can only hope that his old films may have a more marketable lustre.
PVP: Star Wars vs. Annie Hall
Scott Kurtz has written a strip for December 27th where he claims that nerds are demanding reparation for Star Wars losing the “Best Picture” Academy Award to Annie Hall in 1977. Now, I remember the Best Film internet poll a year or so ago when a bunch of iSavvy revisionists took to the bulletin boards across the web and “proved” that there was more popular support for Star Wars to have received “Best Picture” in the 1977 Oscars. There was some minor flap about it as people who actual had taste and perspective were outraged and everyone who registered as “Jedi” for their religion in the 2000 census celebrated this overturn. But because it was an internet poll, and therefore statistically representative of, um, nothing, people eventually forgot about it. Also, a new personality test had been created and everyone needed to see which Angel from Neon Genesis: Evangelion they were, or something. Anyway…
What I object to in this comic, is not simply its sentiment. It’s the use of the character who voices this sentiment. I don’t know how old Mr. Kurtz is; I assume he’s in his early thirties. In reading PVP, I have regularly found that I believe Mr. Kurtz places his editorial voice, the voice representing his age and life experience in the voice of Cole, the most aged character in the strip. Cole is the character who says that the Nerd Community is instigating for reparations for Annie Hall‘s “Best Picture” award.
Cole is old enough to have the perspective that Annie Hall very much is a Nerd Movie. It is a series of nerd fantasies, strung together in Allen’s signature nerdy perspective. Who else but a nerd would open his film with references to Groucho Marx and Sigmund Freud? Who else but a nerd would portray his girlfriend as a sexy rendition of the Evil Queen in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty? Marshall McLuhan steps out from behind a sign to prove Woody Allen’s character’s point: a total nerd fantasy.
Nerds didn’t become so codified, so specialized until after the Star Wars phenomenon. By the 1977 Oscars, Star Wars hadn’t even been re-released in the cinema with the “Episode IV” subtitle. It made a supreme amount of money and took the toy market by storm. It stayed in theatres for almost a year before being shelved and re-released. These are indicators of a great popular devotion, no question. But it wasn’t just a nerd thing. Look at the “Cancellation of Star Trek” skit on Saturday Night Live or the Trek references in the film Serial. These show that the appeal was broader than the Nerds. Nerds were literary fiends and HAM radio operators and Hi-Fi geeks and classical music DJs and political activists. They also read Greg Bear and Lester Del Rey and Philip K. Dick and were entranced with science fiction. But not just Lucas’ science fiction, but also the science fiction of Asimov and Serling. And they didn’t lock themselves into a narrow, narrow spectrum of interests: sci-fi, fantasy, comics, and computer games. Annie Hall shows beyond a doubt that the Nerd has withered. He is anaemic and inbred. And if he lacks the perspective to see that Annie Hall is his antecedent and his legacy, than he deserves nothing.
Or, to be more precise, he deserves precisely what he is getting. Hope you enjoy Episode III, Cole and Mr. Kurtz. They are what you demanded by not accepting the Oscar in 1977.
Rated P for Peril
Sometime in the vicinity of the V-Chip Ratings Flap, after which television shows started broadcasting small boxes indicating the potential danger of their subsequent content, I began reading film reviews that listed the reviewers’ thoughts on the reasons why a film received a certain rating. Some of these comments seem to be taking the piss, as it were — at least, I sincerely hope so. If one of the reasons why, for example, CROSSROADS received a PG-13 rating is because the three main characters drove without seatbelts, then I will have to seriously reconsider my already critical opinions of the MPAA and the CARA.
More recently, though, I have noticed that movie posters and film trailers have a box that lists the reasons why a rating has been merited. Some of these are worded flagrantly enough, and revealing of enough puritanical conservatism as to give their potential audience the wrong idea; can the “sexuality/sensuality” that appears in TUCK EVERLASTING really be so salacious as to bear mention if the film is only PG-13? Then again, I’ve noticed that casual drug use can be the sole listed reason why a film is rated R, and that a positive portrayal of a homosexual relationship will brand a film not only with an R-rating, but also the Red Preview Screen Of Death, indicating that it is not acceptable for all audiences and is not likely to even be shown at the majority of most commercial cinemas across the United States. Far be it from children to watch uncensored trailers that show men kissing with absent familiarity.
Still, the content preview boxes have provided me with entertainment, and have provided thousands of semi-observant teenaged boys with the ability to, um, pique their interests while searching for salacious content, much in the way that any television show rated TVMA will be worth their second glance. But by far the best rating reason I have seen is that of the upcoming Disney film TREASURE PLANET. Disney prefers to have their animated films judged as appropriate for General audiences, going so far as to release the PG-rated NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS under the Touchstone banner, in case it’s macabre trappings impugn upon the popular perception of the Disney family imprint. Still, the animated TREASURE PLANET will be rated PG.
And the MPAA stated reason? “Peril.”
Bwah-ha-ha ha haa ha ha haaaaa….
Oh my…
Editorial-Man
My first-ever letter to a newspaper was printed on Sunday in the Concord Monitor. Instead of feeling proud, I feel somewhat ashamed. I didn’t write about the crumbling state of something-or-other, I didn’t lash out against stagnant conservatism, I didn’t call attention to the gradual suburbanization of the New Hampshire wilderness. No, I fact-corrected a smarmy, useless front page fluff story about the success of Sony’s new Spider-Man movie.
I am such a bloody nerd.
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