Meant to Bea

In April of 2009, the world lost one of its unique talents. It’s hard to imagine anyone ever being quite exactly like Bea Arthur. Known for her considerable height, her well-projected baritone voice and her comic “takes” which could elicit gales of laughter from an audience without the need for words, she was a TV treasure, not to mention a terrific stage actress.

Ms. Arthur initially toiled away for years in plays and musicals, both on and off-Broadway, all the while balancing life as a wife and mother. She gained a degree of success as Lucy Brown in "Threepenny Opera", but it was her supporting role as Yenta in "Fiddler on the Roof" which got people to really start noticing her. When she won a Tony award for playing Vera Charles in "Mame," her reputation as a scene-owning comedienne was cemented, at least as the theatre world was concerned.

Then in 1971, she played Edith Bunker’s boisterous, liberated and domineering cousin Maude Findlay on an episode of the highly popular sitcom All in the Family. This led to her own series, Maude, which was a big success in its own right, earning the actress a 1977 Emmy Award. Maude is legendary for having tackled previously (and, in some cases, still) touchy subjects such as feminism, racism, abortion, alcoholism, plastic surgery and more. Arthur, who never let the promise of money keep her in a place in which she felt as if she were merely marking time, declined to continue the series in 1978, though it was still popular.

While Maude was still in production, she found time to appear in the big screen debacle Mame, an adaptation of the hit musical, which had starred Angela Lansbury on stage, but was done on film by Lucille Ball in an almost career-killing move. Arthur’s husband Gene Saks directed it, but Lucy held the reins and, even though she had requested Arthur to reprise her role, she also undercut it by draining a lot of the humor out of it and tweaking the music to suit her own frog-like voice. If nothing else (and trust me, there’s little else!), the movie served to capture Arthur’s rendition of “The Man in the Moon” on film along with a couple of her deadpan lines. Bea’s interaction with her dresser following the “Moon” number is a comic highlight.

Her resume between that time and 1985 includes some real dillies, including a role as the singing cantina-tender in the infamous The Star Wars Holiday Special and even her own TV special that featured such unlikely guests as Melba Moore and Rock Hudson. She also did a cameo in Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I.

In 1985, she was given a script that called for a “Bea Arthur type” and somehow she was deemed right for the part! This was, of course, the pilot for The Golden Girls and, here, she was granted one of her all-time best parts and given recognition in a series that simply refuses to die. It had an almost comically-long run on Lifetime, playing practically all day, every day and now airs on both WE (Women’s Entertainment) and The Hallmark Channel in lengthy blocks. Despite having been cancelled in 1992 (when, again, Arthur chose to leave, rather than milk a thing dry, though, for my money, it was mostly milked by around 1990 and I am a major fan of the show!), the series gains new fans every day, some of who weren’t even born when it first aired.

Arthur had already perfected the booming exclamations, the slow burn stares and the claw-handed reactions to other characters as Maude. However, The Golden Girls gave her the opportunity to round off some of the harder edges while playing Dorothy and also to explore some more heartfelt, vulnerable and, at times, kooky aspects of her persona that weren’t mined as deeply in the prior series. She picked up a second Emmy in 1988 for her work on the show. It’s interesting, too, to note the arc that Arthur, as Dorothy, undergoes in Girls with the initial episodes being very Maude-like and the later ones offering a far more tender (and zany) rendition along with the requisite toughness.

Though Ms. Arthur still made a fair amount of appearances after the end of The Golden Girls, she cut back significantly on her acting (the grind of the series having worn her out by her own admission.) When she did appear on TV, it was usually well regarded such as in her Emmy-nominated guest role on Malcolm in the Middle as an old babysitter.

One of her chief projects in the wake of Girls was a one-woman stage show, recounting her long career and performing various songs that she had either previously performed or merely enjoyed. She took it on the road in 2001 and 2002, eventually moving it to Broadway where she was nominated for a Tony (losing to Elaine Stritch, who was performing a similar style of show.)

It was during the pre-Broadway tour of this show (at the time called “And Then There’s Bea…” and later changed to “An Evening with Bea Arthur,” as well as other titles) that I was fortunate enough to meet Ms. Arthur in person. Ill with a cold and wearing a cast on one foot from having fallen into the orchestra pit Minneapolis, she nonetheless put on a captivating program and spent a friendly and unforgettable ten minutes or so with me and two of my friends afterwards. I learned during this encounter that it’s true that Ms. Arthur was, in person, very little like her screen personas. She was unassuming, demure, reticent, a little shy, really, but amiable. She was also humble, insisting that credit go to her accompanist Billy Goldenberg, who was a veteran composer in his own right and reacting with much surprise at the many compliments thrown her way. At that stage in the production, she had not yet added the songs “The Man in the Moon” or “What’ll I Do?” but she vowed to add them in after I had mentioned missing them.

Bea Arthur brought thousands of laughs (and a few tears as well) to millions of people during her career and the bulk of them came from enacting a tough as nails, foghorn loud type of character, but when the stage and set lights were out, she was really just a rather subdued, down to Earth type of gal, though still just as no-nonsense as the big characters she played. I’ve been grateful to have her work available to me as a pick-me-up on days that are less than wonderful and she never fails to leave me smiling.

A Barrel of Errol

Of the many classic stars to find success in Hollywood, Errol Flynn (known to millions as the star of the legendary and colorful The Adventures of Robin Hood) is among the most provocative and gossiped-about. Though he was a notoriously voracious sexual animal, he projected a heroic, dignified, at times even wholesome (!) image in many of his films. His background is shrouded in mystery, thanks in part to himself and the creative writing he did in his autobiography "My Wicked, Wicked Ways." Mr. Flynn seemed to delight in shocking people and spinning tall tales about his life, though some of them were likely true.

Before he broke into films in the early 1930s, he had led quite an adventurous life. Born in Tasmania to Australian parents, he was involved in an assortment of business, shipping and hunting ventures, giving him a background that would aid him in his many later roles as swashbucklers, rebels and other assorted heroes. His first role was as Fletcher Christian in an Australian version of Mutiny on the Bounty, though few, if any, Americans saw it. He did a few bit parts at Warner Brothers until they needed an immediate replacement for Robert Donat in Captain Blood and gave Flynn a shot. The highly successful film made him an instant star and he continued to headline major adventure movies for many years afterwards.

Occasionally, Flynn would attempt to break out of the mold by doing a contemporary drama or a comedy (something he was surprisingly adept at), but the public wanted him swinging on a rope with a sword in his hand or riding a horse firing a pistol. Flynn, being Australian, was surprised to find himself in many American westerns, but the truth is he was at home in any genre that required a dashing, confident man, especially if it involved any kind of uniform. Flynn looked smashing in period dress, sometimes beautifully carrying off looks that would have made other actors of his generation look silly.

Warner Brothers paired him eight different times with Olivia de Havilland and it’s easy to see why. Not only did they share wonderful chemistry on the screen (perhaps because of the tension deriving from the fact that the pair never consummated their relationship in real life despite having strong feelings for one another?), but they just looked plain terrific together. Errol enjoyed playing tricks on Olivia, some of which incensed her, but she retained a fondness for him as long as he lived and far beyond.

One costar who did not want to work with him was Bette Davis. They did The Sisters together in 1938 and were actually discussed as potential Scarlett and Rhett candidates when Gone with the Wind was in preproduction. However, she would not accept her role if it meant acting opposite Flynn. When they appeared together in 1939’s The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, her loathing of him was at full steam and when it came time for her character to slap his, she gave him a strike that would have put many men down. Many years later, she admitted to her pal de Havilland that her dislike for Flynn was misplaced and that he was not only good-looking, but also good! Incidentally, I think this film is the one in which Flynn is his most handsome.

The stories surrounding Flynn and his private life are mind-boggling. Apart from the public scandal that erupted in 1942 regarding the alleged statutory rape of two underage girls, he was accused, often posthumously, of everything including involvement in white slavery, spying for the Nazis, carrying on lavish sex and drug-fueled parties, barely surviving a raft of diseases, watching houseguests have sex through two-way mirrors, and carrying on affairs with Tyrone Power and Howard Hughes. We may never know how much or how little of these and other allegations are true, though it is generally believed now that the Nazism claims, at least, are either heavily exaggerated or altogether false. Certainly, Flynn packed enough living into his relatively short 50-year life that he died looking 70. Here in Poseidon’s Underworld, however, you won’t find photos of him looking bloated and worn. For some reason, the men here tend to be on display at their peak!

What does remain for everyone to examine and enjoy is his body of film work. I am of the belief that no still photo, no matter how beautiful – and some of them are, can truly capture the magic of Errol Flynn. He has to be seen in motion with his graceful moves, charming voice and that glint in his eye. At first, he didn’t take his film career very seriously. Then when he did, the audiences and producers didn’t, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t accept the inherent gifts that he’d previously been squandering. Do yourself a favor and, the next time the TCM documentary The Adventures of Errol Flynn comes on, watch it. It’s a fascinating, affectionate, but encompassing, look at this complicated and gifted man. See if you don’t have a newfound appreciation for his work and his beauty or, if you are already a fan, if that devotion isn’t enhanced even further.

Joan Structure

Yes, we know that Miss Joan Crawford was more of a “Movie Star” than an actress and, yes, we know that she was reputed to be a monster of a mother if you believe her adopted daughter Christina and the select people who have sided with her. Nonetheless, she is still the female star of old Hollywood who I worship the most.

There’s something about the rags to riches journey, the self-invention, the self-education and the amazing artifice that captivates me, regardless of how much or how little actual acting talent was there. (And, to me, her greatest performance – a lifelong acting feat – was managing to play “Joan Crawford” all those decades!) It’s the presence onscreen that mesmerizes and that FACE!

Joan came from a very ratty background. Her mother worked in a laundry in return for piddling wages and a small room for her and Joan (then Lucille LeSeuer) to sleep in. She hoofed her way through chorus dancing on the stage to silent movies, where she finally found her niche (though not without a ton of perseverance and determination on her part.) When a Name that Star contest resulted in “Joan Crawford” (following a previous winning name, Joan Arden, which was ultimately discarded, due to it being taken already), the actress balked, thinking it was too akin to “crawfish.” Little did she know at the time the lasting, legendary impression that the name Joan Crawford would have on the cinematic world.

As the sound era approached, Crawford went all out to make sure she had a voice that would read well and fail to give evidence of her humble background. Not only did she practice pronunciation, projection and elocution, but she also educated herself on the meaning of words, so that she would possess a wide vocabulary. This practice lent her an amazingly studied and affected speech pattern that was every bit as fascinating and, in some cases and to some people, annoying, as it was effective.

She loved to sit for still photography sessions and developed a particularly fruitful and rewarding relationship with George Hurrell. While she was certainly no slouch in person, she was also not quite the stunning goddess that he and his retouching wand created in their many shots, though there was no denying her incredible bone structure and amazing eyes. Because she was such a patient and willing subject and did possess extraordinary attributes, he experimented a great deal with her face and figure, resulting in many tremendous photos.

Joan was like the Madonna of her day, only in movies (which is a field Madonna has had only middling success in at best!) She shifted her looks and her approach in order to keep up with what was desired and required from audiences with each passing period. She went from flapper to working girl to fur-draped sufferer to self-supporting career woman to put upon victim and everything in between. Only near the end, when she clung to some garish makeup applications, which included thick, heavy eyebrows and almost scary false eyelashes with practically Sharpie marker liner, did she become rather stuck in one spot completely. Oddly enough, this is just about when I worship her the most!

Crawford was a tireless letter writer whose blue stationary was famous as she personally answered thousands of fan letters and sent ones of her own to stars she admired, especially up and coming talents that she saw on TV in her later years. It’s been said, perhaps apocryphally, perhaps not, that Joan sometimes even sent thank you cards in response to thank you cards!

Though Joan did play quite a few vulnerable characters in her long career, she was always able to put forth a very convincing tough persona on screen whether it be the gold-digging man-stealer in The Women, the obsessive housewife in Harriet Craig, the destructive control freak in Queen Bee, the concrete-hard Broadway diva in Torch Song or the fire-breathing book editor in The Best of Everything, to name only a few. These bitch goddess types are the ones that tend to attract a gay following. It certainly worked for me! Among my personal favorites are her strap ‘em down and shackle ‘em mental hospital nurse trainer in The Caretakers and her drunken, lovesick neighbor in I Saw What You Did.

One of the great sadnesses of my life is that she and Bette Davis couldn’t manage to get along long enough to complete the follow-up to their runaway hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? During the filming of Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, tensions ran so high that Crawford only worked four days before retreating to the hospital with (real or imagined, depending on who’s asked) pneumonia. Davis’s friend Olivia de Havilland filled the role and did it quite well, actually. It’s just that the JC of this period is the one I enjoy the greatest.

Perhaps because I was introduced to a lot of the great old female stars of Hollywood when they were old and had to work backwards or perhaps just because I like decaying old battle axes, I have a great fondness for films that feature actresses just beyond their prime. Maybe it could be because with age comes seasoning, experience and weariness that result in a more three-dimensional performance than those that were given in youth? Maybe I’m fascinated with the cosmetic attempts to stave off Father Time? Who knows…?

It’s also of particular interest to me that Joan Crawford and Faye Dunaway are my favorite female stars of all time and not only did Dunaway play Crawford (to my mind not really all that convincingly, but that’s for another post), but Dunaway was the sole actress of her generation who Crawford felt really had what it took to make it. Ironically, it was when Dunaway played Crawford in the character-maligning Mommie Dearest, her career began heading off the tracks and really never fully rebounded. And now, just like Joan, Faye seems to have begun to cling to things that she really ought to give up such as the long, octopus-like hair and the protruding lips! Has Joan had the last word after all?

A Mission Worth Accepting

One of the most elegantly handled television series of the 60s (and maybe of all time) was the undercover agent suspense drama Mission: Impossible. Conceived during The Cold War when spies were popular in films (The James Bond series among many others) and on television (The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and I Spy), this program revolved around the I.M.F. – Impossible Missions Force.

A highly secretive branch of the US government, the I.M.F. would receive instructions regarding a sensitive international situation or serious criminal activity, something beyond the realm of regular law enforcement, and be asked to step in and solve things. The leader would then select his team from a pool of agents, depending on his or her skills, and then construct a plan in which to get the job done. Though these plans were always elaborate (sometimes ludicrously so) and exceptionally well thought-out, there was always an element of suspense thanks to the wild card actions of the bad guys the team was trying to defeat.

The unforgettable opening theme (with famous music by Lalo Schifrin) showed an animated fuse burning while rapid-fire clips from the episode in question flickered on the screen. The (abhorrent to true fans of the show) film series starring Tom Cruise kept this music, but little else.

Though few casual fans of the show recall it, the first season featured a team leader named Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. When Hill began to experience (and cause) trouble due to some newfound religious beliefs, he was segued out and replaced from season two on by Peter Graves, who played Jim Phelps. Phelps and his team of Rollin (Martin Landau), Cinnamon (Barbara Bain), Barney (Greg Morris) and Willy (Peter Lupus), though they were only together for two of the seven seasons, are the most iconic and well-remembered group from the run of the show.

Despite the intense secrecy regarding the instructions given to the team (the leader frequently had to use code words or step into offbeat buildings in order to retrieve his envelope and tape recording), the man on the tape would state the following, “As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” and the tape would then “dissolve” in a huge cloud of smoke! Really private!

After a while, since the same people were chosen almost every single week, scenes involving the agents being selected out of a dossier were dropped. However, most episodes retained the debriefing scene in which the agents assembled, always glamorously dressed in shades of black, white and/or grey, and revealed tidbits of the plan -- just enough to intrigue the viewer.

Graves was a handsome and stalwart lead who stayed from season two on and even headlined a brief late 80s revival. (Greg Morris’s son Phil also starred in this as Barney’s son.) Landau got a nice acting workout as a master of disguise. Barbara Bain, in particular, was a breakout star of the show. Possessing an amazingly cool and beguiling face and a sleek figure, she added immeasurable class to the proceedings and picked up three Emmy Awards in the bargain! Morris was notable as the first black lead on a TV series in which no reference was made to his color. (When some racist viewers wrote in to complain that he and Bain were too close together, writers wrote scenes that placed them interacting even more closely!) Amiable muscle man Lupus could barely put five words together, especially at first, but his goodwill with audiences kept him there through the series. He would later shock his costars and the rest of the world with a full-on nude spread in Playgirl magazine.

In a startling and very messy break, Landau and Bain departed the series after three seasons. The complicated details of the split (with both sides blaming the other) led to career trauma for the couple. They later had a modicum of success (mostly on a cult level) with the British sci-fi series Space: 1999 before winding up in utter garbage like The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island! Not even Nostradamus could have predicted that Landau would eventually carve out a solid career as a supporting actor in films again, even winning an Oscar! Bain fared less well, but worked in some nice projects here and there. The once tight couple divorced in 1993.

Replacements for the departed cast members included, over the years: Leonard Nimoy as another master of disguise, Lesley Ann Warren as a nubile distraction, Sam Elliott as a hunky doctor and Lynda Day George, who did surprisingly well as a latter day re-dux of Bain, even copping an Emmy nomination for herself. When she went on maternity leave, Ironside’s Barbara Anderson stepped in for a while. Directly following Bain’s departure, a series of actresses filled in as agents. The most frequent was Lee Meriwether.

The show eventually moved from mostly foreign settings to mostly urban American areas which served to erode it’s uniqueness, but also kept it going after there had been so many fictional Slavic nations, Latin dictatorships and obscure duchies that it had worn thin. The budget decreased in time as well, however, and the series lost a bit of its luster. (However, times were becoming less glamorous anyway as the 70s rolled in, so it likely didn’t stand out so much at the time.)


Fans of Star Trek should take particular delight in watching M:I on DVD as the series share many, many guest stars in common. Remarkably, for a show about spies and crime, there was very little gunplay or bloodshed. The stories relied more upon intricately planned “stings,” much of which the audience was expected to grasp without a lot of explanation. The early seasons, in particular, devote an almost fetishistic amount of attention to the details of how the various gadgets work and the amount of trouble it took to complete the tasks at hand. This fact may be as off-putting to some viewers as it is fascinating to technology geeks.

The allure for me is in the crisp, clean photography, the stylish clothing of the performers, the dedicated teamwork of the agents and the elaborate hoaxes which were pulled on the villains.

Are You There God? It's Green Margaret!

I don’t suppose anything on Earth scared me quite as much as a child than The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz (with The Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang hot on her heels!) I’m certainly not alone on this score as this maleficent hag (and her creepy flying monkeys) sent countless children to their rooms at night, praying that they wouldn't awake to find her at the foot of the bed.

Now, of course, I revel in each and every frame of Miss Margaret Hamilton’s marvelous, but surprisingly scant, screen time in the film. What is it with me loving, practically worshipping, the same things that I either loathed or was afraid to death of as a child?!

Last night I was privileged enough to secure a ticket to a 70th Anniversary screening of this legendary movie which was presented in a high-definition format, allowing every possible detail of the many wonderful props and glorious costumes to be seen in all their glory. (Also, this format pointed out some of the artificiality in the sets and even the lace from the characters’ wigs, but who gives a hoot?!) A tornado was never more threatening and Miss Hamilton was never more vividly green. I came away from the screening even more devoted to the power of handcrafted special effects and more staunchly opposed to computer-generated imagery than I was before.

In an almost ridiculous bit of irony, Hamilton, who has elicited squeals from children for over seven decades now, was, prior to her film career, a Kindergarten teacher!! Jim “Mr. Howell” Backus was one of her young charges, as a matter of fact. She toiled away in character parts (which, with an usual face like hers, was all she could ever hope for, especially in those heady glamour days of Hollywood) until she was called upon to enact what would be a role for the ages.
Initially, the Wicked Witch was going to be more like Snow White’s stepmother, a tall, lithe beauty in a glitzy black gown, but still possessing all the evil qualities one might expect. When the decision was made to head more towards the crone territory, Gale Sondergaard declined to continue in the role. This paved the way for Hamilton who ensured that any potential campiness the role might offer, then or now, went out the window as she delivered a breathtakingly nasty villainess. In fact, some of her most vividly horrible moments were snipped from the film for fear of the effect it might have on kids who would be watching. One can only dream of these someday being unearthed and shown again, unlikely as it is.

Hamilton didn’t have it easy during the making of the movie. Aside from the arduous make-up tests and applications, the necessity to avoid eating during filming due to the toxicity of her make-up and the somewhat heavy costume under scorching lights, she was severely burned thanks to the mistiming of one of her exits involving a fiery explosion. It took a month and a half for her to recuperate and when she returned, she declined to take part in anything involving flames. In a sad comment of the times, she knew she had no way of suing or being compensated for her injuries and trauma unless she never wanted to work in films again.

Still, she took pleasure in the notoriety the part gave her, especially from 1956 on when the film was broadcast on television for the first time and enraptured a whole new generation (even though virtually all the TVs were in black & white at the time!) Miss Hamilton worked in TV and film periodically and had a long tenure as Cora, a general store owner who championed Maxwell House coffee in a series of ads. In 1976, she donned her Wicked Witch makeup and costume again for the ultra-campy and ridiculous Paul Lynde Halloween Special, in which she hobnobbed with, among others, Billie “Witchiepoo” Hayes, Florence Henderson (who delivered a humiliatingly hilarious disco rendition of “That Old Black Magic”) and, most startlingly, the rock group Kiss!

The legacy of Margaret Hamilton in this role is undisputed, but I must point out that even so, her ACTING seems somehow underrated. After all, it was not deemed worthy of an Oscar nomination even though, within the film, she demonstrates not only exceptional skill, but versatility as well. Her crotchety, fussy, old bat Miss Gulch, while mean and crusty, is semi-comic and light years removed from her Witch, who is the personification of horribleness. No one could have brought the intensity, vocal variety or sense of menace to the role the way she did.

Playing The Wizard in a stage production once was a complete joy for me and I must say that the message of this story (at least as it appears to me) is one that I admire heartily. That is that many times the things we desire, or believe that we lack, are within us already. We just haven’t discovered them yet. The Scarecrow who covets a brain is the one who keeps coming up with solutions. The Tin Man who wants a heart is the most emotional of all. The “Cowardly” Lion is the first one up the mountain to rescue Dorothy. It’s a rewarding notion that I think does children more good than 99 and 44/100% of the drek that is placed before them. The fact that they may not sleep for days afterward is a small price to pay in my opinion! Ha ha!

"Help! There's no one here to write the screenplay!"

With Airport having been a smashing success for Universal Pictures, it’s surprising that a sequel or other type of follow-up didn’t occur more readily, but once The Poseidon Adventure bowled over audiences, the disaster genre was in high gear and films of that ilk were popping out everywhere.

This one concerned a passenger airliner that is struck in midair by a small private craft, killing or severely injuring all of the flight crew, requiring the chief stewardess to take over the controls. Originally conceived as a television movie, producer Jennings Lang decided to dress it up with lots of stars and improve the budget in the hopes that it would make a successful feature instead. His instincts paid off when the $4 million film made $47 million at the box office! Think about that return. Early 70s audiences lapped up these types of films until they caught on to the routine, cookie-cutter nature of them by the end of the decade.

Unfortunately, the pedestrian and, at times, ludicrous script never made it past its TV-level roots and despite a roster of familiar faces (in boxes on the poster, something that always delights me!), no one in the film was able to truly distinguish his or her self. In fact, participation in this left blights on several careers! The film wound up on All Time 50 Worst Films lists.

Charlton Heston was, by now, an indestructible box office name who headlined many all-star action and disaster films of this era. George Kennedy (the only man to appear in all four Airport movies) was, despite an Oscar for Cool Hand Luke, never one whose name suggested high art anyway, so he also escaped unharmed (at least this time!) For most of the others, however, it meant either a final takeoff on the big screen or a direct flight into television and telefilms. Linda Blair’s career (regardless of the fact that she spent a mere three days filming her role in this) would never really rebound, especially after the debacles that were Exorcist II: The Heretic and Roller Boogie. Helen Reddy managed a featured role in Disney’s Pete’s Dragon, but that was basically it for her film career, too. Both these ladies, along with other folks from this film and the 1957 howler Zero Hour! were mercilessly parodied later in Airplane!, a 1980 send-up of the air disaster genre.

Someone who continued in films (some prestigious, most not) for a while, but who was never allowed to live down her role here is Karen Black as chief stewardess Nancy Pryor. Sporting heavy false eyelashes which draw attention to a crossed eye, she spastically and fretfully portrays a woman in over her head when asked to pilot a 747 jet while being coached by a passel of sexist men on the ground. Her infamous line, of course, bleated into a radio receiver is, “There’s no one left to fly the PLANE!!” Her entire parade of scenes in the cockpit are a scream as well as she concocts ways in which to react to falling electronics, oncoming mountains, in-flight mishaps and the like. Occasionally, she comes up with such creative actions such as tugging at her hose or sticking out her tongue! Three or four decades before, a leading lady with a catch in her eye (like, say, Norma Shearer, Queen of the MGM lot) would be photographed and lit as carefully as possible to downplay it. Miss Black, however, is granted so such favors and is splayed across the screen in whichever contortion she presents.

Producer Lang had (pipe) dreams of coercing Greta Garbo out of her 30+ year retirement to play an aged actress. When she swiftly said no, Gloria Swanson stepped up and played herself(!), or some reasonable facsimile of, and wrote all her own (often hooty) dialogue. Keen-eyed viewers will recognize her assistant Augusta Summerland as Chuck Heston’s bikini-clad sidekick from The Planet of the Apes. She briefly changed her name from Linda Harrison as a bid to change her career trajectory, but it didn’t quite work. He and Harrison share no scenes, nor does he share any with nun Martha Scott who twice played his mother in Biblical epics of his. (Despite this, he misidentified Ms. Scott as Ms. Swanson in a caption within his book "Charlton Heston’s Hollywood!") Likewise, Swanson shares no scenes with Nancy Olson, who was the ingenue in Sunset Boulevard, though they shared no scenes in that film either.

For the role of an amiable drunken old lady, Joan Crawford was first approached, but turned it down. Myrna Loy accepted the part and offers a warm and occasionally amusing presence, though the role is far beneath her. One of the film’s rare touching scenes involves a radio conversation between Susan Clark and her husband George Kennedy. Otherwise, there is a healthy amount of awkward comedy, clichéd drama and brazen sexism. On that last count, Erik Estrada is one of the chief offenders, but once he’s gone, Heston takes up the slack himself.

In 1960, in The Crowded Sky, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. played a military pilot who flew his jet into Dana Andrews’ passenger jet. Here, in a fun casting coup, Andrews is the small jet flyer who runs his plane into Zimbalist’s jumbo jet. It is these types of casting tidbits and the connections between the actors from previous projects that make classic movie watching more fun for me. There’s even a female passenger on the plane in this movie who winds up in a featured bit in Airplane! The nervous lady who’s drinking a bit too much when Linda Blair is brought on portrays the passenger who first gets ill and has eggs coming out her mouth in the later film!

Incidentally, Karen Black was not the first actress to portray a stewardess behind the wheel of a passenger plane. Miss Doris Day of all people completed the same task, even landing it, with no small amount of angst, in the 1956 flick Julie.

The Password is: Fun!

I’ve been a game show NUT ever since I was a kid and used to see Gene Rayburn, Richard Dawson and Charles Nelson Reilly on Match Game in the 1970s as well as that master of snarkiness Paul Lynde on Hollywood Squares. Though I eventually evolved to enjoying ever-so-slightly more challenging fare such as Jeopardy, I still can’t help but love the old celebrity driven shows including Password, which is currently being featured on The Game Show Network (GSN.)

Password was a rather simple game involving teams of two trying to make their partners guess a particular word by stating one other word and then alternating turns until either the word was guessed or the point value (which started at 10 and descended with each shot) ran out. The announcer would whisper the password for the home audience. Hosted by Allen Ludden, the original incarnation ran from 1961-1975 and featured a galaxy of famous men and women as the celebrity panelists. These panelists would each be assigned a player of the opposite gender and then, after the first game, the players would switch for a battle of the sexes round. Each game winner (the first to reach 25 points) won a whopping $100 and a chance to win $250 more in the lightning round which involved the celebrity firing through 5 more passwords in a minute or less. Though this was hardly big money, that sort of sum still went a fer piece in the mid-60s and contestants were glad to get it!

Ludden, a widowed father of three, had previously hosted The General Electric College Bowl, but is now most strongly identified with Password, including a revised edition call Password Plus that began airing in 1979. Sadly, he would pass away from cancer during the run of that series and be replaced by Tom Kennedy (though, to be truthful, no one could ever completely replace Ludden.) Ludden was an easy-going, very wholesome-acting person, but one possessing a glint in his eye and a sharp sense of humor. He met his match when a game-loving divorcee and TV personality named Betty White came on the show as a celebrity panelist. He fell for her instantly, but, having been burned twice before in the marriage-go-round, she dragged her feet for about a year before giving in and enjoying a very happy 18-year union with him. (Doubtless, Miss White used Ludden as a mental guidepost when recalling “Charlie” on all those episodes of The Golden Girls.)

This couple’s affection for one another was palpable and they not only worked together on Ludden’s game shows, but also worked on stage together in such unlikely vehicles as "Guys and Dolls!" Betty was a zesty, driven and excited Password player and is the only person to play the game in all of its incarnations including Super Password (hosted by Bert Convy) and even Million Dollar Password (hosted by Regis Philbin.) No one got more thrill out of winning a game than Betty with the possible exception of Eva Gabor. Hungarian Gabor played Password in the mid-60s and wreaked absolute havoc with the rules and decorum of the show. Unable to fully understand some of the words she was given to describe, she would tug on Allen and say, “I doan know zis vord. Vat das dis mean, dahlink?” or better yet yell out, “I don’t vant dis vord! Give me another vord!” Anyone else would have been pelted with ripe vegetables, but she was so enthusiastic and charming and endearingly helpless about it that she won everyone over. In the lightning round, she would screech “NO!” to her partner if he or she didn’t get what she was after, but when they won, she would chuckle with abandoned glee as her hunkalicious counterpart Hugh O’Brian looked on in amazement from the other side of the dais.

Peter Lawford held the record in the lightning round: 5 words given and guessed in 12 seconds. It was a formidable feat and few people ever got much closer to it than about 20 seconds. Other notable and frequent Password players included Carol Burnett, Elizabeth Montgomery and football great turned color commentator Frank Gifford who, in the color episodes of the 1960s was so breathtakingly handsome and polite, it’s almost impossible to believe that he eventually wound up married to that harpy Kathie Lee or involved in the sordid (and set-up) sex scandal that grabbed headlines everywhere at the time. Amusingly, the guest stars and the contestants seemed to take great pleasure in finding the most garishly hued clothing possible once the show began broadcasting in color around 1966. (The original set was bright blue with colored strips in the background. The orange photos here are from later editions.)

My favorite thing about Password is the method of introduction at the top of the show. The female star’s face would be shown as an old-fashioned announcer would gushingly state, for example, “This is the gifted and dynamic star of stage and screen, Oscar-winner Joan Fontaine!” followed by the lady introducing her contestant and where he was from. Then the male star would appear and the announcer might say, “And this is the popular and debonair star of Lost in Space, Guy Williams!” after which Williams would introduce his partner and then say, “…and we’re all here to play Password!” Then Ludden would be introduced, take a bow and swing the cord of his bulky microphone (which hung around his neck!) out of the way as he made his way to his spot. He would be given the words, packaged in little snap-together wallets, out of a sort of pit from someone unseen that he called “The little man.” It was a simpler time, but one that is fun to revisit through the magic of reruns (not to mention VCRs or Tivo as the original show is aired at 3:30am EST!)