Much like the men he played on-screen, Heston was indeed a man of principle and when he saw Hollywood embracing the permissive attitudes of the ultra-left, he wanted no part of it. Just as the likes of Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney had spoken out about the Communist influence in Tinseltown in the 1940's, Charlton Heston could see where the leftward drift was leading the film community and he dug in his heels. That probably signalled the end of his movie career because Hollywood will not tolerate those who rebel against the group-think of the industry. However, those of us who admired him up on the screen would not expect Moses, Ben-Hur or General Gordon to follow the herd, now would we?

Then came the shocker. There she was in From Here To Eternity as the tough, sarcastic blonde wife of an uncaring army captain, and when Sergeant Burt Lancaster came calling, she didn't say "No" to an adulterous affair.  Their big on-screen clinch obviously made a huge impact upon audiences and critics alike because every retrospective look at the greatest movies of all time includes that clip of Burt and Deborah locked in a passionate embrace upon the beach as the Hawaiian surf rolls over them. If we had ever considered her to be always icy and aloof, that scene destroyed the image forever. 

Deborah Kerr once told a reporter, "All the most succesful people these days seem to be neurotic.  Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me....for being so confounded normal!".

Well, I think that most movie-goers would admit that her film roles were anything but normal. 

They were carefully thought out, expertly portrayed on the screen and always totally believable.

Whether it was the discipline of her classical ballet training or her earliest parts in Shakespearean dramas, somewhere along the way, Deborah Kerr learned all the skills that a woman needs in order to be called an actress. In an age when studios where still anxious to find a new "glamour gal" to put on the screen, she could play the wife of a Roman patrician, a devout nun or the

blonde who let you know she was available, and make all of them seem completely real. That sort of versatility is not easy to come by and  I doubt that we shall see her like again. 

THE GIRL WHO JUST DIDN'T FIT IN
By Michael Oldfield

Actress Betty Hutton, who died on March 13th at age 86, had what can only be described as a checkered career in Hollywood.  Born in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1921 as Elizabeth June Thornberg, she sang on street corners as a child to help support her family following abandonment by her father. At age 13, she began singing with dance bands and eventually was the featured vocalist with the Vincent Lopez Orchestra.  Her older sister Marion Hutton was to become a singer with Glenn Miller 's Orchestra. Following a brief stint on Broadway, she made it to Hollywood in 1941 where her boundless energy earned her such nicknames as "The Blonde Bombshell", "The Incendiary Blonde" and "The Firecracker".  

On screen she starred in a string of musical comedies, and when she wasn't flinging herself about in the wild gyrations of the Jitterbug, she was eviscerating such songs as "Murder, He Says" by growling, hollering and crossing her eyes.   Paramount did give her a couple of serious roles and that's where the problem arose; audiences and studio execs alike just didn't know whether they should take her seriously.   Even in dramas, you half expected her to cut loose and become the wild and crazy girl she had always been.   Was she a screwball comic?   A singer and dancer?   A dramatic actress?   No one seemed to know for sure and casting directors seemed to be at a loss as to where to put her next.  

Hutton's two best movie roles were in Annie Get Your Gun, where she replaced the ailing Judy Garland, and then in 1952, Cecil B. DeMille, creator of Hollywood's greatest Biblical epics, cast her as the high-flying trapeze artist in The Greatest Show On Earth, in which she carried a torch for circus boss man Charlton Heston but could not resist the charms of the dashing and handsome Cornel Wilde.  

Shortly after the release of this film, Betty Hutton left Paramount over a dispute regarding her demands that her husband be hired to direct her films. From that point on, she slipped further and further down the showbiz ladder, appearing in small plays and nightclubs and eventually disappearing from sight.  In 1974, she was discovered almost penniless, working as a cook and housekeeper in a Catholic rectory in Rhode Island.  She had been married and divorced four times and had made and spent close to $10 million.  She returned to Broadway briefly in the 1980's, and taught acting in Rhode Island. She was living in Palm Springs, California at the time of her death.  

Hollywood old timers always used to say that to be a star, you had to be a triple-threat....a singer, a dancer and an actor.  Well, for some that was good advice but for the likes of Betty Hutton, trying to be everything to everybody just did not work out and under the old studio system, if they couldn't find a category to put you in, they soon put you out to pasture.  

THE TEMPTRESS WHO MARRIED A MONSTER
By Michael Oldfield

De Carlo appeared in a long list of westerns and pirate movies, but always in the same type of roles. Just some of their titles tell you all you need to know about the characters she was playing: Salome - Where She Danced, Slave Girl, Bring On The Girls, Frontier Gal , River Lady, Buccaneer's Girl, Scarlet Angel and Flame Of The Islands. On those rare occasions when she was given a decent script, Yvonne De Carlo proved she could turn in a first-class performance, especially if the role called for a dash of comedy as in 1951's Hotel Sahara with Peter Ustinov. To see her at her very best, rent The Captain's Paradise from 1953 in which she gives us a foretaste of Charo's "Cuchi-Cuchi" girl as the dancing, purring, and teasing non-stop party girl who has turned stiff and stodgy Alec Guinness into an all-night playboy.

In 1964, she was introduced to a generation of young TV viewers as Lily Munster, the devoted, long-suffering wife of Herman Munster who, we were told, had been built by a mad scientist. Regrettably, we were never let in on Lily 's origins although she did have a bit of a Vampira or Elvira look to her and always seemed to be otherworldly. However, once again, she was playing a role which demanded little of her.

It is a sad legacy of Hollywood that so many actors and actresses who could be counted on to show up on the set clean and sober, turn in a creditable performance every time, and create little if any problems for directors or co-stars were so often shuffled off into movies that made little demand on their talents and branded them as B-list performers for all of their careers. As Yvonne De Carlo showed in more than a few films, when someone took the trouble to give her a good script and a good role, she shone as bright as the brightest stars.

FAREWELL TO A SMILING VILLAIN
by Michael Oldfield

Actor Jack Palance died of natural causes on Friday, November 10 at the age of 87. To younger filmgoers, Palance will best be remembered as the guy who did one-armed pushups on the stage of the Academy Awards in 1992, but for an older generation, he will always be Jack Wilson, the cold-blooded gunslinger who has been hired to drive out settlers who are encroaching on the land held by the cattlemen in George Stevens' western classic Shane. Director Stevens introduces this character with a brilliant bit of cinematography and staging. As Palance enters the saloon, an old dog that has been sleeping on the floor gets up and slinks out of his way. The message is clear and simple; even the dog knows that this sinister stranger is not to be messed with.

Unlike other screen villains who ranted, raved and shook their fists, Palance's gunman speaks softly and always has a smile on his face. But it is a smile so filled with evil and malevolence that it sends a chill up our spines. Even as he kills, he smiles.

While quietly baiting and taunting one of the settlers, Palance stands high on the boardwalk, slowly putting on his black gloves and we want to shout a warning because we know exactly what he means to do. In a scene that left most of the audience stunned by its raw violence, Palance draws his .45 in a split second and with one of the loudest gunshots ever recorded on film sends poor Elisha Cook Jr. sprawling backwards to die in the mud. Still smiling, Palance returns the gun to its holster and removes his black gloves.

Born the son of a Pennsylvania coal miner in 1919, Jack Palance himself worked in the mines and then became a boxer. During World War Two, the bomber he was piloting crashed and burned. The scars left on his face and the plastic surgery he underwent left him with that gaunt, tight-skinned appearance which would make him a familiar movie villain. But his acting skills kept him out of the rut of playing nothing but Hollywood heavies. In role after role, he was the tortured soul who was carrying a lot of baggage; the man with the past who didn't want to talk about it. You could see this inner turmoil in an almost forgotten 1956 war film called Attack, in which Palance portrayed an officer desperately trying to save his men both from overwhelming enemy forces and a cowardly C.O. played by Eddie Albert. That same year, he was to win an Emmy for his portrayal of an ageing prizefighter in the TV drama, Requiem For A Heavyweight.

When Hollywood had no suitable roles for him, Palance appeared in several television series and then went to Europe to make films. He returned triumphantly to the screen in 1991 in the role of Curly, the trail boss who makes life miserable for Billy Crystal and company in City Slickers. This role finally brought him an Oscar for best supporting actor; he had been nominated twice before but had never won.

Jack Palance's performances should be studied by those who wish to understand what makes a good screen villain effective. It doesn't matter if you speak with a soft voice and smile from ear to ear; as long as you can emit an aura of pure cold-blooded evil, even stray dogs will get out of your way.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT DICK CAVETT
By John Lekich

Several years ago, I attended a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Candide. At a certain point during the overture, I broke out in a huge smile and blurted out to my companion: “That's the theme from the Dick Cavett Show!” She thought I was nuts. But I didn't care. The bouncy little ditty has been making my heart beat faster since the early seventies, when Cavett's talk show featured Margot Kidder sitting barefoot and cross-legged on his sleek couch. She talked about yoga and what it was like to hitchhike in Vancouver. It was the first time I ever witnessed a shoeless interview or heard my hometown mentioned on American TV.

Cavett – who sported rock star sideburns and once told Norman Mailer to “stick it where the moon don't shine” – was the kind of talk show revolutionary who was every bit as literate and unpredictable as his guests.

I've always felt that all good talk show hosts can be compared to certain magazines. (Johnny Carson is your old man's Playboy, Charlie Rose is last week's Harper's and David Letterman is a battered copy of Cigar Aficionado.) If this is true, Dick Cavett is a classic edition of The New Yorker. Who else would have a guest list that included Gore Vidal, Groucho Marx, Fred Astaire and – yes – a memorable gathering of cartoonists from The New Yorker?

His recipe for success was an intoxicating cocktail of wit and fun. Two parts intellectual (It was typical of him to drop the name of the great short story writer Jean Stafford while interviewing the young Woody Allen.) and two parts old-style gagman. (While writing for the old Jack Paar Show, Cavett received a raise from his grateful boss when he penned the immortal introduction: “And here they are: Jayne Mansfield!”)

Nowadays, it's all sound bites and shameless plugs for movies that rarely stand the test of time. But Cavett's interview with Katharine Hepburn ran in two, ninety-minute parts. She even flirted in her own crusty way.

No wonder I'm so excited that the Turner Classic Movie Channel is running a series of Dick's vintage interviews with the greats of Hollywood in conjunction with appropriate theme nights devoted to the likes of Robert Mitchum, Alfred Hitchcock and Bette Davis. (A brand new interview with Cavett's longtime pal Mel Brooks kicked things off with hilarious results.)

The best of Cavett's interviews are currently available on DVD. But it's great to be able to just turn on the tube and watch them all over again. Of course, there's always a chance you may not appreciate Woody Allen playing impeccable Dixieland clarinet, Robert Mitchum drinking real scotch out of a crystal glass, or Groucho Marx singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady. If so, may I respectfully suggest you stick it where the moon don't shine. ....................................................................................................
John Lekich is a Vancouver-based journalist, screenwriter, and film critic whose work appears regularly in the Georgia Straight.

HAVE YOU RENTED GLENN FORD LATELY?

By Michael Oldfield

In this present day when action films seem to dominate Hollywood , there would be no place for a Glenn Ford. It is hard to remember a film where he engaged in fistfights or derring-do. No.... he was the guy who reminded us all that in the face of adversity, you need someone who will not panic or run, someone who can be counted on to do the job properly. He may not have been dashing, glamorous, or exciting but in the words of Kipling's old poem..... Glenn Ford was definitely the guy who kept his head while all those about him were losing theirs.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO GAVE US AN ICON

By Michael Oldfield

In 1949, John Wayne starred in a film that became a box-office smash, Sands of Iwo Jima. The Duke portrayed John Stryker, a tough uncompromising Marine Corps sergeant who will go to any lengths to whip his raw recruits into shape for battle. One of the memorable moments from that film was the raising of the American flag atop Mount Suribachi. The actual photo of that event was taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who died in August. It was to become one of the outstanding images of the war and later regarded as one of the top photos of the 20th Century.  

Rosenthal was halfway up the slope when he heard that a flag was already flying on the peak and decided not to proceed until he heard that the first flag was too small and a larger one was to be raised.  He reached the summit just as the flag pole made from scrap pipe was being lifted.  He quickly raised his camera and snapped the picture, convinced it would probably be blurry or off-centre. When the picture reached America, it became the front page photo of almost every paper in the country as well as Life magazine.

The flag raising ceremony also showed up in a 1961 film called The Outsider starring Tony Curtis as Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona who served with the Marines on Iwo Jima and took part in this historic event.  Hayes is the one with his arms outstretched as the flag pole is hoisted. Rosenthal's photo showed up on recruiting posters, a U.S. stamp, and was turned into a huge black granite statue in Washington, D.C. to honour the Marine Corps in 1954. It is interesting to note that of the thousands and thousands of photos that were taken during World War Two, it is the shots of individuals and small groups that capture our attention.....the Frenchman with tears in his eyes as the Germans enter Paris....the little boy sitting amidst the rubble of his bombed-out London home....concentration camp inmates peering through the barbed wire....the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square on VJ Day...and that small group of Marines who had battled their way to the top of a mountain and had paused to raise the American flag as a symbol of hope and inspiration to their comrades. 

We, who were never part of these events, can be thankful for dedicated people such as Joe Rosenthal who risked it all so that they could click the shutter and forever preserve a bit of history for us. 

DECENCY TAKES A DIVE

By Michael Oldfield

On July 6, 2006, a Colorado judge sided with the major film studios and ruled against several companies such as CleanFilms and Family Flix that had been selling DVD's of mainstream movies, for private home viewing only, with the swearing, nudity, sexual scenes, and extreme violence edited out. In his ruling, the judge declared that such tampering violated U.S. copyright law. For those of us who might like to see the latest films but wish to avoid being bombarded with blood and gore, simulated sex scenes, and swear words instead of intelligent dialogue, this ruling comes as a real setback.

Let me play devil's advocate here for a moment and try to see things from your perspective. So… you like lots of swearing in your films, huh?

Well, here's a thought… why not save yourself a few bucks and just wander by the closest school playground at recess. There, for free, you will hear eight- and nine-year olds cursing each other a blue streak and using words you wouldn't hear during a fistfight in an army barracks! Okay, you could live without the swearing. It's really the nudity and simulated sex that draws you to the cinema. Again, let me try to save you a few bucks. Wouldn't it be cheaper to go to one of those X-rated video stores and rent Debbie Does Dawson Creek for $3 rather than head to your nearest multiplex and put down $10 in faint hopes of getting a fleeting glimpse of Jennifer Aniston's bare bum?

Michael Oldfield began watching movies as a youngster in England in the 1940's when his parents took him to the local picture palaces; he has been a confirmed film addict ever since. For 37 years he worked in TV broadcasting in Canada, which included a brief stint as a technician on three Hollywood films shot around Vancouver in 1970 and 1971. Prior to his retirement, he had spent 24 years working with CBC Vancouver as a film and studio sound technician. He has a large library of books relating to the films and animation of Hollywood 's Golden Age and continues to delve into the history of the Dream Factories and their stars.

Goodbye to the Ultimate Hard-Bitten Private Eye

by Michael Oldfield

Pulp fiction author Mickey Spillane died this week. His name won't mean much to youngsters like yourself but to us teenage boys in the 1950's he was The Man Who Wrote The Stuff We Wanted To Read. His mystery stories of detective Mike Hammer contained the raunchiest and most violent stuff that had been put down on paper for a long time. This was the ultimate hard-bitten private eye who dispatched bad guys with the roar of his .45 automatic and who attracted beautiful babes the way a jam jar attracts flies. When he wasn't pounding some thug to a pulp to get information out of him, Mike Hammer was standing there in his trenchcoat, puffing on a Lucky Strike cigarette while some dish disrobed for him. There were no plain and ordinary women in Mike Hammer's world; they all sounded as though they had stepped off a Vargas pin-up calendar from the 1940's in see-through negligees. This was the stuff us guys devoured, when our parents or other adults were not around and somehow, the teenage girls we bumped into never quite measured up to the fantasies that Mickey Spillane had implanted in our fertile horny little minds!

Hollywood took a crack at filming several of his novels but they were always done by cheapie studios using second- and third-rate stars and were obviously made to cash in on the popularity of the paperbacks. None is worth a second look today. In the 1950's, they could not show the violence that was an integral part of Hammer's character and, in an age where married couples were shown sleeping in separate beds, the sexual content was reduced to just a few meaningful glances. If some studio had decided to spend the money to do justice to these films, Robert Mitchum would have been a good choice for Mike Hammer. He did play a detective in a couple of films and was quite convincing. In the early 1960's, there was a TV series starring Darren McGavin. However, if we were casting today for a remake of I, The Jury, Kiss Me Deadly, My Gun Is Quick or Vengeance Is Mine, then my choice for the hard-boiled detective would be Russell Crowe. He has already played a mindless thug in "L. A. Confidential" and is always getting into fist-fights in real life. I think he would be a great Mike Hammer and since Hollywood is always looking for new scripts, somebody should suggest the old Mickey Spillane stuff to them.

Have your people call my people and we'll do lunch and work out a shooting schedule. However, let me make it perfectly clear that there will be no room in this film for the likes of Adam Sandler, David Spade, or Rob Schneider!!! My security people have orders to keep those slack-jawed yo-yos off the lot.

by Michael Oldfield

In World War Two, he was a paratrooper with the 101 Airborne Division but missed out on the D-Day drop having broken his leg in a night practise jump several days before.

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