This month’s Camp David is in memory of ROBERT CUSHMAN whose scholarship in the field of film history helped the Academy of Motion Picture arts and science accumulate an incredible collection of photographs during the decades he headed that dept. Robert was more than a colleague he was a friend. He read this column in one of it’s earlier edtions when it was to have been a sample chapter in a book to have entitled WOMEN WITH ISSUES…..perhaps one day it will be published and it will also be dedicated to this wonderful man.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO PETER LAWFORD HAPPENED TO BABY JANE.

One of the most widely discussed yet under appreciated films of the 1960′s has to be Robert Aldrich’s WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

In spite of the fact that BABY JANE made millions for Warner Bros., not to mention restarting the careers of both Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, the film itself is trapped in Camp adoration by gay men who have placed a reality check at the theater door when it comes to just how much Davis and Crawford really did hate each other, and just how impossible it was to get them to appear together on camera without bloodshed. I mean, how many times have you heard the one about Davis actually kicking the shit out of Crawford during the scene downstairs when Crawford tries to use the phone? In reality a stand-in was used and if you watch the film itself it is clear Crawford is not being kicked at all. These two highly professional talents worked together seamlessly and made a classic in the process. Then we have the director, Robert Aldrich, who has more than proven himself in every genre he ever chose to make a film in, and still BABY JANE is regarded as a guilty pleasure that can only come out at Horror festivals on Halloween, or drag balls at New Year’s Eve.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? was the beginning of what genre buffs now refer to as the era of the “Horror Hag.” Hopeless as that phrase has become, it does cover the territory well enough when we are discussing films like LADY IN A CAGE, DEAR DEAD DELILAH, THE ANNIVERSARY, DEAD RINGER, BERSERK and STRAIT-JACKET. The real beginning came a bit earlier with SUNSET BOULEVARD, and the unforgettable moment when Gloria Swanson descends her staircase in search of “those wonderful people out there in the dark.” The role was supposedly based on silent screen star Mae Murray. Miss Murray was in the audience when the film was finally previewed in Hollywood. Her take on the subject was priceless: “None of us floozies was that nuts.”

As the 21st century is well upon us it is time to place WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? back in the realm of serious filmmaking and reassess it as we have done time and again with Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. The comparison is certainly there if you wish to see it, as both Norman Bates and Baby Jane Hudson have been reduced to monstrous creations at the hands of family dysfunction. When Anthony Perkins was forced to make sequels to the Hitchcock film because, as he told those close to him at the time, “I want to make as much money as I can so my children will be looked after,” his character of Norman Bates (the role that forever became his doppelganger) was to become in these films a sympathetic pawn in the hands of others– especially his mother, the real monster of PSYCHO. Now if BABY JANE had been allowed sequels we might well have seen the character of Blanche become the real bitch of BABY JANE II, which would probably pick up at the beach after Jane goes for those damn ice cream cones–the ones she would not let Blanche have in the 1915 flashback.

Robert Aldrich must have realized just how much his work in this and its unofficial sequel HUSH, HUSH SWEET CHARLOTTE was a part of his legacy, as he requested that the songs from both films be played at his memorial. Aldrich had already worked with Crawford in the mid-fifties in AUTUMN LEAVES, which bears a number of similarities to BABY JANE in the dysfunction of Cliff Robertson’s character, traumatized by his father (an oversexed bully who ridicules his son from childhood and, as an adult, steals his young and willing wife away from him), leaving the scars for Joan Crawford (as the older woman starved for love as well) to heal. It was this relationship with Aldrich that probably led to insecurity on the part of Bette Davis who, as legend would have us believe, actually had a conversation with the director before filming as to whether or not he could work with Joan without favoring a former lover over Davis. Robert Aldrich apparently reassured Bette that there were no worries in that department.

In re-examining the film we must refrain from the diva-like behavior of its stars long enough to focus on just how well this film addresses the aging process, along with the trauma of family dysfunction, in the lives of two women living out their days in the worst place on earth to cope with the inevitability of losing one’s looks – Hollywood, and the motion picture business itself. All of the scenes where Jane goes forth on her own are cruel and spiteful; it is only because she is so wrapped up in her own reality that she can ignore the outside world for so long. The moment she can no longer do this is the “piece de la resistance” of the film. When Baby Jane sings “I’ve written a letter to daddy” into her own reflection, fantasy and reality come crashing together, allowing for the greatest primal scream in the history of movies as Jane Hudson finally gets her comeuppance many fold, to quote a similar moment in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS.

If one can move past the rats and parakeets for din-din, and see beyond the clown-at-midnight facade of Davis, we move into the stuff operas are made of in the intense longing of acceptance both the sisters craved as Hollywood players, allowing only Blanche a spotlight from which to move up into the stars above Hollywood Boulevard. In a series of brilliant set pieces we see the Hollywood backlots of the early talkies where studio execs sit in screening rooms yelling, “Kill it!” to screen tests that might as well put another place-card up at Forest Lawn for the actors left hanging on the screening room wall. Jane Hudson made her share of early talkies and they use two of Davis’s early films, PARACHUTE JUMPER (1932) and EX-LADY (1933); it’s a shame they didn’t include THE CABIN IN THE COTTON where she utters one of her early howlers, “I’d love to kiss you but I just washed maw hair.” We are never allowed to see the women at this stage except in films clips. Crawford shines in her private moments sitting in front of the television staring at her own image in a scene with Edward Arnold. During it she mutters to herself, “I told Lloyd to hold that shot a bit longer. Oh, why didn’t he listen?” It is during these moments that the audience is allowed into the private world of these two sisters, both lonely and desperately in need of the outside world. Blanche remains indoors as her vanity prevents her from letting too many fans see her in a wheelchair. It is with the accident that put her there that the dysfunction began to erode the minds of both Jane and her sister, and it is not until the final reel that we fully learn the degree of guilt between them.

Perhaps only the casting of Joan Fontaine with her real-life sister (and bitter rival) Olivia De Havilland would have drawn the same amount of blood between real life and the make-believe world of Blanche and Jane.

Hollywood become a character as well. In one of the blacker moments in the early part of the film, Jane goes into the LA Times to place an ad, reminding the puzzled staff writer that he might just remember who is standing in front of him by declaring, “I am Baby Jane Hudson…You may have heard of me,” to which he replies with a sincere lack of conviction, “Oh yeah.” As Jane exits he then says after her, “Who the Hell is Baby Jane Hudson?” and so say all of us. In Hollywood the only thing worse than being dead is being forgotten.

It is with the revival of Blanche Hudson’s films at a local TV station that the drama begins to boil to overflowing as Jane reads and then tears up or writes profanity over the bags of fan letters coming to her rediscovered sister. The neighboring house has two more Blanche Hudson fans in a mother and daughter, played by Anna Lee and Davis’s real life daughter B.D. The character Anna Lee plays is called Mrs. Bates (considering this was made less than two years after PSYCHO, one can guess what Robert Aldrich was paying homage to here–or was it just an uncanny coincidence?) Bette Davis would live to disown her daughter for writing a warts-and-all memoir of life with Mom not that long after Crawford’s adopted daughter did her own poison-pen letter to Mommie. These two are also glued to the television during the Blanche Hudson festival. Overwhelmed, Mrs. Bates brings flowers over to Blanche, only to be told off by Jane and the flowers dumped into the trash, all this behavior brought about from decades of resentment going back to their childhood in 1915 when Baby Jane was the breadwinner and spoiled beyond redemption by her father. If PSYCHO had such a flashback we might have been allowed to see just what the other Mrs. Bates was up to with her gentleman callers at the motel while little Norman watched through keyholes and openings in the wall; this would have made him a victim as much as those he killed while assuming his mother’s role as avenger.

Hollywood History tells us that not only did Joan Crawford discover the novel for BABY JANE but brought it to the attention of Bette Davis in the first place, dispelling any notion of feuds to begin with. It seems Crawford had long been looking for a property to bring the two of them together in one film and at last this was it. The project could not have come at a better time since Davis was in debt to the tune of $30,000, with no nest egg except a guarantee of playing in Tennessee Williams’ NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, which turned out to be a living nightmare since the play’s leading man (Patrick O’Neal) hated Davis to the point of actually trying to strangle her before a run-through. These ladies needed each other at the time the film was made and it was only afterwards when the film was a hit and Davis was nominated for the Academy Award that things went toxic for the two divas, so much so that the second attempt to bring them together went so far south it would place Joan Crawford in the hospital, shutting down the production for weeks before a replacement could be found in–of all people–the woman with a sister-feud for real, Olivia De Havilland.

It is time to begin to give credit to these two stars for creating, together with Robert Aldrich, a masterpiece of suspense in the Hitchcock tradition, with such detail to the breakdown, as presented by Hollywood, of what are supposed to be “normal” family values within the American dream after World War Two. David Lynch has made a career out of mining the same territory while openly admiring this film for its artistry.

The process of aging is difficult at the best of times within a family as loved ones become a burden that leads to premature burial in a nursing home, and this was not lost on Jane Hudson when she discovered Blanche’s plan to sell the house they shared for years simply because Jane was a handful, to put it mildly. It was time to “take care of me” as Jane puts it to her sister.

The scene that always stays with me is one of the scenes between Blanche and her maid Elvira. At this moment Jane has been caught writing profanity on the letters marked for Blanche from the station when Elvira forces the issue of a rest home for Jane as “she is getting worse by the day.” Crawford plays this scene to perfection in close-up. “You didn’t know Jane as a child. It wasn’t that she was just pretty. She had something about her. She was special. I can’t just tell her, she will know. After all, Elvira, we’re sisters. We know each other very well.” Davis certainly had the plum role but it takes a great star like Joan Crawford to pull scenes like the aforementioned one to life and Crawford more than held her own with her old rival from Warner Bros.

This essay was originally prepared for a book project on women with issues for Fab Press a few years ago and read quite differently at that time. I became interested in it all over again when I discovered a casting choice early in the filming of BABY JANE that has gone unnoticed for decades and that is the role of Edwin Flagg (played so brilliantly by the late Victor Buono), which began filming with Peter Lawford, and was terminated by Lawford when he simply left the set and never returned. It is rumored that he could not reconcile the character’s flaws (ie: mother-dominated, possibly coded homosexual/loser living in Hollywood on welfare and his mother). It is interesting to notice that after the success of BABY JANE with its effect on the careers of both Crawford and Davis allowing them to continue on in films quite similar in tone to BABY JANE, that Davis made sure Peter Lawford had a substantial role in DEAD RINGER. Lawford plays a golf pro with a sideline as a gigolo, and a very butch one at that.

Peter Lawford’s career, as everyone that follows the Kennedy family knows, was dealt two death blows: one from Joe Kennedy himself (in making Lawford the messenger in a tactless response to Frank Sinatra) and the other from Old Blue Eyes himself, who blacklisted Lawford in Hollywood for the rest of his life. Lawford’s last days were tragic in ways that redefine the term. He was reduced to game shows and episodic television. His social life was ruined as only Hollywood can ruin it by making you a last minute replacement at posh dinners making you the z at an A list event.

My personal experience with Lawford came around 1979 when I was working for Paul Tiberio in Beverly Hills. Paul resembled Lawford and was frequently mistaken for him in public. One night Paul and I were in a landmark West Hollywood gay bar on Santa Monica known as THE FOUR STAR, which also booked entertainment from time to time on weekends. On this particular evening Peter Lawford came in, only to be told at the door that there was that guy that everyone thought was him, so Lawford came over to where we were sitting and introduced himself. I will always remember how polite and well-mannered he was in complementing Paul on how much they did favor each other and so on. Paul introduced me as a film buff who loved movies and when Lawford asked me what my favorite film of his might be I blurted out, “Well I just saw you in SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH.” Peter was taken aback by that because it was almost his first screen appearance (he has one line as a sailor at the bar). I spent the rest of our time together trying to make up for it by naming films in which he had a more substantial part. We discovered that he lived in West Hollywood and was there at the request of the woman who was booking a singer he wanted to hear.

After the initial shock of my discussing his cameo in the Holmes film, about which he remembered “What dear men Rathbone and Bruce were, and how much they were a team in films, like Laurel and Hardy, not to mention that black bird that could not be tamed during the brief scene in the pub, and how many takes were ruined by its missing its marks and running amok.” I mentioned what a favorite of mine THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY was and how good I thought he and everyone else was in it. Lawford smiled at the mention of this film and responded with, “You’re much too kind about me. I was a green kid who was in great company like George Sanders, who really hated acting even though he was meant to be one. I never understood why Hurd Hatfield was chosen; when I first heard about the film being made at MGM I remember Robert Taylor was being considered, since there was no man in Hollywood at that time as handsome as Taylor. Albert Lewin, our director, was a real intellectual and gave the film class, no question. The sets were stunning, especially the house they created for Dorian. That staircase–I still remember walking down it with Donna Reed for nearly ten takes before we got it to Lewin’s satisfaction. Hatfield was very professional and aloof during the film, staying in character I believe. Still, I will always wonder what Bob Taylor would have been like as Dorian, not that he would have understood the perversity of it one bit. I still see Angela. What a great actress she became after that film.”

I always remembered him fondly after that. A few years later his death was announced on ten o’clock news with a clip of him from what was his very last appearance on some sitcom playing himself, alone, sitting at the end of a bar nursing a drink; the image was unforgettable in its sadness.

It is rather ironic that Peter Lawford would balk at playing the personal references to his character in BABY JANE and yet in five years he would play a character named Steve Banks in the Harlan Ellison scripted THE OSCAR where fact and fiction merge with uncanny accuracy. As the films protagonist Frankie Faye’s career slides into the gutter he returns to one of the overpriced eateries located in the ever so posh Beverly Hills where he confronts former glamour boy/actor Peter Lawford whose own career is reduced to walk-ons and waiting tables to make ends meet. The painful dialogue between the two actors leaves little to the imagination as to just how fleeting fame can be in Tinsletown, and Peter Lawford didn’t have to give a performance because this was his life he was playing at.

Whether or not Peter Lawford would have worked in the role for which Victor Buono received an Oscar nomination we will never know. Buono became a sought-after performer on Television afterwards. Davis tried to get him fired as she thought him too young and inexperienced, however halfway through filming she confessed “I tried to get Bob to fire you but I am glad you stayed You are absolutely marvelous in the part.” Could this have also been partly because of Peter Lawford’s attempt to play the same role only to flee the set when the mama’s boy references proved too close to home?

Victor Buono’s own take on acting alongside Davis and Crawford was classic: “I felt like an altar boy being asked to the Ecumenical Council in Rome in an advisory capacity.”

PASSAGE TO INDIA

India Adams

The other day I had the pleasure of interviewing the legendary recording artist India Adams whose voice I have long admired, and you may have unknowingly enjoyed her voice as well, especially if you are a fan of MGM musicals. You see India Adams, while long admired by her peers in the music industry, has been a well-kept secret among film buffs until recently, when more attention has been brought to these films via the THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT PART 3 compilation, not to mention the internet and DVD featurettes, that she provided the singing voices for the stars of two of the most outré musicals ever produced by MGM.

I chatted via the phone with India from her home in Los Angeles where she has lived since 1981 and found the lady accessible, humorous and candid regarding her Halcyon days dubbing stars like Joan Crawford and Cyd Charisse. I had been prepared for a Mommie Dearest style expose of Joan Crawford as my imagination ran amok with images of an unstable Joan chasing India around the MGM lot with an axe…. Well… I did say amok!

To my relief it was just the opposite: India Adams had nothing but praise for Joan Crawford as a professional and Hollywood star of the first rank. These two women bonded during the making of TORCH SONG and India has the letters from Crawford to back it up. Since the publication of Joan’s adopted daughter Christina’s tell all expose alleging a number of atrocities that are well known and do not bear repeating here, Joan Crawford’s image has taken a public beating that this star, in my opinion, did not deserve.

Joan Crawford was totally supportive of India Adams as they worked together to make TORCH SONG as successful as they knew how. Joan praised India’s singing voice and even admitted how lucky she was to have her on the project. Joan had tried her hand at recording the songs, and while she had a pleasant enough voice, it could in no way be the voice of Jenny Stewart, her character in the film. Crawford had a powerful ego, and even though she would have like to have done it all, she had already been given too much by MGM to risk sounding off-key, so she allowed herself to be dubbed and made the best of everything at her command.

The mutual admiration India enjoyed with Joan Crawford was a far cry from the treatment she received from Cyd Charisse while she was dubbing Cyd’s vocals in the BAND WAGON. India explained “I found Ms. Charisse to be cold and not particularly friendly. As I recall there was no real discussion between us regarding the vocals in the ‘Two-Faced Woman’ number as well as all the songs I dubbed for her.” I was intrigued by this so I watched both versions of the song just to see how different these two stars were with the material.

At this point let me point out that I am quite aware of TORCH SONG’S epic camp reputation and in particular the ‘Two-Faced Woman number’s substantial gay following. This cinematic faux pas was due primarily to Joan’s miscalculation of her makeup, singing and dancing in what appears to be black-face (this is a legendary misunderstanding as Joan’s make-up was in reality ‘Tan’ and was meant to reflect a ‘woman of the tropics,’ yet somehow this all went south and it now looks like an outtake from THE JOLSON STORY). The production number became a textbook example of how to play Joan Crawford in drag.

Joan Crawford in TORCH SONG

It s amazing to think that one year before TORCH SONG Joan Crawford was nominated for the Academy Award for best actress in SUDDEN FEAR. Joan must have been experiencing such a career high that the very thought of returning to Metro to star once more in a Technicolor musical playing a legendary diva named Jenny Stewart, which would show off the star’s spectacular legs at fifty, was just not to be denied. However, looking at the two numbers back to back, the first thing you notice is that Cyd Charisse is never seen in close up SINGING the song ‘Two-Faced Woman.’ Cyd DANCES the number to the point that India Adams becomes just the background music to which Charisse moves her sublime frame around the sound stage. Cyd does better with India’s vocals on the wonderful “New Sun in the Sky” number, which was not removed from the film as ‘Two- Faced Woman’ was during its release.

It is also to be noted that over half a century later we are STILL talking about Crawford’s version, which is a hoot, and I admit to being a fan of this number regardless of the consequences. Now back to India Adams, the first thing you notice is that Joan Crawford is lip-syncing to India’s powerhouse vocals, precisely because Crawford admired the clarity and beauty of what India brought to the table. Just look at Crawford’s expressions not only in this number but later on, in a moment when Crawford is visiting her mother in the film (Marjorie Rambeau in an Oscar nominated performance) and plays a record of one of her hits, ‘Tenderly.’ As the needle touches the vinyl, the beautiful voice of India Adams fills the room and Joan, at once transported back to a golden moment in her own career, begins to sing along. In that single moment you can see the respect Joan had for India and how much drama she tried to match it with as well. This was also true of the other songs in the film such as “You Won’t Forget Me” where the camera tracks right up to Crawford, posed against the stage curtain for a giant close up. Joan did not shy away from India’s vocals; she embraced them.

India reflected on TORCH SONG during our phone conversation and remarked “I will never forget the magic I felt walking into that rehearsal soundstage where the MGM orchestra performed. For a singer accustomed to more intimate surroundings this was like Carnegie Hall by comparison. It is no wonder the MGM musicals were so polished.”

The choice of Charlie Walters as the director of TORCH SONG has been a matter of controversy for some time. Was he overwhelmed by the Crawford image to the point of losing his grip on the production, or was this film simply too rushed, as it was shot in just 18 days? Walters had directed Leslie Caron in LILI to great success, so why shouldn’t he have been able to do the same with Joan Crawford? Perhaps the reason was simply that Caron was not a Movie Star like Crawford and did not require so much handling. Walters told friends at the time that Joan was very insecure about doing a musical and on the advice and coaxing by her long time co-star from the silent days, William Haines, she preferred to show those show stopping gams of hers and rely on the musical expertise of her gay director and best friend “Billy” to help her though the ordeal.

The two women remained friends throughout the filming and afterwards as well. “If Joan liked you she did her very best to be of help and make suggestions regarding your career,” India told me. They were still in touch when MGM asked India to make a record for the studio, and then made a strange request. “MGM asked me not to mention a word about this album to Joan Crawford until it was in release. I thought nothing of it at time, and did as they requested. When the record came out, the fact I kept it from Joan hurt her feeling to the point that it ended my relationship with her.”

At this point I wanted to know what had happed to India Adams since those MGM musicals, and I am happy to report while it is our loss that India did not dub more films or even star in few personally, she has had a very full and rich life, which is still going on, I might add.

As India explained “I am a native of Los Angeles, and Hollywood is my hometown, so I always loved the movies and show business. I was brought up around it you see.” India has lived on both coasts and, during her time in New York, aside from having three children (all boys), she performed extensively on radio and the Broadway stage, performing in a version of the ZIEGFEILD FOLLIES around the country, as well as finding time to take her nightclub act to the legendary Catskill mountains (long a tradition in show business). India even managed performing a moods-and-music revue at Radio City Music Hall in the early sixties, during the premier of Doris Day’s THE PAJAMA GAME. Dorothy Kilgallen was impressed with India Adams and made a point of saying so in one of her famous columns of the day.

India recorded an album in 1958 entitled “Comfort Me With Apples”(RCA VICTOR LSP-1943) with Ray Martin. The album cover features a stunning India Adams in a tub filled with apples (her idea), which is now a highly sought after collector’s item. You can may be able to find a copy on the internet on CD-R.

Ginger Rogers

After living in New York, India relocated to England in 1965 for 17 years. During her time in the UK she was always just a phone call away from playing another legend Mame Dennis in the musical version of ‘Auntie Mame’ at the Theater Royale in Drury Lane. Heading this version of ‘Mame’ was yet another legendary star, Ginger Rogers. India recalled the experience: “I was so charmed by Ginger, and found her to be nothing short of spectacular in person. Always dressed so beautifully, she simply took London by storm, especially the press. Ginger was very protective and kind with me. Unfortunately, Ginger never missed a performance during the entire18 month run of the play. Even though she did become ill at one point, she still went on, so I never did get to make my West End debut. I spent a lot of time over there doing shows for the BBC, so my dance card was always full no matter where I was living in those days.”

I became aware that India Adams was performing live when it was brought to my attention by friends at the Cinemateque that India and two other ladies (when I asked India who the ladies in question were, she told me Betty Wand – who dubbed Leslie Caron in GIGI and Rita Moreno in WEST SIDE STORY, Jo Anne Greer – who dubbed the vocals for Rita Hayworth in the fifties, and Annette Warren – who dubbed Ava Gardiner in SHOWBOAT), famous for “dubbing the stars,” were about to perform at the Hollywood Roosevelt‘s Grill room. By the time I got around to it the venue was sold out and I regret to this day missing out on hearing India Adams sing ‘Tenderly’ in person.

Now here is the good news: if you are interested in seeing a legend perform in person, then put the dates November 14th and 15th on your calendar, as India Adams will be performing in Hollywood at the always chic Gardenia Room located at 7066 Santa Monica Blvd. And I sincerely recommend calling for reservations at 323-467-7444 as this is bound to sell out.

At the end of our conversation I asked India if she felt disappointed that she never became a Hollywood star in the tradition of some of the ladies she dubbed and understudied. India laughed and said “Absolutely not. I have had a great time in this business. In fact I am still waiting for it to happen, so let’s wait and see, shall we?”

One thing is certain: India Adams is living proof that being talented is not always enough to insure stardom in Hollywood. It also requires something called luck. Whatever the circumstance, India Adams has spent a lifetime entertaining the world with the sheer beauty of her voice.

Whenever I watch TORCH SONG, I always remember this lyric from ‘Follow Me’: “Follow me and I will give you diamond starlight.” I can’t think of a better lyric to sum up the talent and personality of India Adams.

NOIR CITY

Recently I had the pleasure of finally meeting one of the true authorities of film noir author, historian and host {The Czar of Noir} Eddie Muller. Mr. Muller has presented film noir festivals all over the United States. His visits to Los Angeles and the wonderful program he hosts year after year at the American Cinematheque is reason enough to honor him both here in Camp David as well as with a round of applause from film lovers everywhere.

I have seen so many great, not to mention rare, films thanks to Eddie that we both marveled that it took us to the year 2005 to connect. His website www.noircity.com is a must for anyone that loves film especially the classic era of noir. Mr. Muller’s candid recollections of an evening in Hollywood trying to keep tough guy Lawrence Tierney in tow is a beautiful piece of observation. I cannot recommend too strongly that you give his site the once over for even more remarkable journalism and clever visuals.

Eddie Muller with noir legend Ann Savage

Eddie has been responsible for seeking out and preserving many films that were in danger of being lost. Look for Eddie Muller’s books on film noir. If you find yourself in the bay area, log on to his website for times and locations for local screenings.

As a poster collector for many years I particularly enjoy his volume “The Art of Noir” which showcases the crème de la crème of film poster artwork both here and abroad. I still want the Italian two-sheet from THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, a stunning rendition of Orson Welles and then-wife Rita Hayworth.
Mr. Muller is a novelist with a talent for what else…crime!! Eddie is at the moment co-authoring the long awaited bio of Tab Hunter entitled “Tab Hunter Confidential” which will address the actor’s private life as well as his long career as one of Hollywood’s heartthrobs which will debut later this year. More on that here at Camp David.

Camp David's David Del Valle, with Roger Corman

CORMAN AT THE AERO

When I first arrived in Hollywood one of my prime obsessions was to document all the principals involved in creating the Vincent Price/Roger Corman Poe films of the 1960’s. After nearly two decades I have come to the end and will soon publish the results in a volume to be called “Nevermore: The Poe films of Roger Corman”. A few weeks ago Roger and I were reunited at the Aero Cinema in Santa Monica for a retrospective of his Poe films and a chance to talk in front of a live audience. We talked for over an hour to a full house that included Julie Corman and Roger’s two daughters as well as actor/producer Mark Damon. Mark was the romantic lead in HOUSE OF USHER and spoke from the back of the house to both of us during the Q&A. At nearly eighty years of age Roger Corman is still running a film company that releases on an average of 15 films a year! He maintains the workload of a man half his age. He spoke lovingly of his working relationships with such icons as Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Jack Nicholson and especially the legendary Vincent Price. He discussed the period when Ray Milland came to work at AIP, appearing in the only Poe film not the star Price. Roger made it clear that Milland did not try to impersonate Price in any way during the filming of THE PREMATURE BURIAL and was quite capable of putting his own stamp on a role. After all, Milland won the Oscar and enjoyed a long successful career prior to making such unlikely films as THE THING WITH TWO HEADS!!! We here at Camp David look forward to saluting Roger Corman on his hundredth birthday when the time comes, after all we have seen the 21st Century reexamine Corman’s work, finding much to admire and learn from for future generations

TASCHEN BOOKS

An amazing new bookstore has come to Beverly Hills in the guise of a 1920’s Parisian salon complete with an Art Deco coffee bar with what can only be described as an ‘H.P. Lovecraft inspired’ ice sculpture that inhabits the center space. Only Benedikt Taschen {the former comic book king} could have imagined such a combination of styles that confound the eye and stimulate the mind. The store is located in the heart of BH on Beverly Dr. Check the Taschen website for directions. His film books do the same, with this year’s “Stanley Kubrick Archive” a definitive study of the director’s films. The text is secondary to its presentation – a giant coffee table book of great beauty! It rivals last years “Some like it Hot” book also from Taschen, the planet’s most advanced publishing house.

Jay Jennings, Director.

IFC SHORT FILMS

When it came time to film my interviews with directors Harry Kumel and Roger Corman, I used the services of maverick filmmaker Jay Jennings commit them to video. Jay has directed and photographed his own film, and is ready to submit it to IFC Channel for their short film series. A gritty crime tale in the manner of BAD LIEUTENANT, LOAN SHARK, with its hip hop soundtrack, is a no-holds-barred view of a day in the lowlife of a man who uses violence like other men swear. Have a look at www.loansharkmovie.com. I personally think it’s a prime candidate for the Sundance circuit. Bon Chance! Jaybird!!!

LOVE THE JOE BOY!

Warhol super star Joe Dallessandro is a true survivor of the New York/Hollywood scene with a natural ability to attract attention wherever he goes. Like the Lou Reed song he inspired, Joe’s walk on the wild side included a trek to Europe and more strange films that forever immortalize his image as the ultimate hustler movie star! A tribute to that image was just celebrated at the American Cinematheque. The ultra rare English track print of Serge Gainsbourg’s notorious “JE T’AIME MOI NON PLUS”(1976) with cult singer/actress Jane Birkin was the first of three films to showcase our Little Joe. A strange free wheeling flick regarding the exploits of two gay garbage men who wander the French countryside for adventures only to find our hero falling for a boyish Jane Birkin!!

There was a really great documentary on Jane Birkin and her career after the death of partner Serge Gainsbourg. She has mellowed into a fantastic personality and will remain an icon in France and most of Europe for that matter. It is a complement to Joe that he can hold his own on camera with strong women like Jane Birkin or Sylvia Miles in the very funny Sunset Blvd takeoff HEAT. A little post screening party took place at The Erotic Museum across from the Egyptian with our Joe the center of attention, as he should be.

NERVES OF STEELE

Barbara Steele

In my last column we observed cult queen Barbara Steele planning her visit to “Big D” in the state of Texas to witness the marriage of Stuart Whitman’s son to a local heiress. It should be noted that Barbara also co-produced two made-for-TV films this year, SAVING MILLY for CBS, and OUR FATHERS for Showtime. “Madeleine Stowe gives an extraordinary, Meryl Streep-quality performance in MILLY. I hope she goes up for an Emmy” said Barbara of the former, and about the latter film, based on the child abuse scandal in Boston, with Christopher Plummer as Cardinal Law, Brian Dennehy and Ted Danson, she was impressed not only by the script, but by the fact that Dan Curtis was able to direct two such complex shows back to back.

JOAN CRAWFORD LIVES!

To coincide with the release of the new DVD boxed set of Joan Crawford (which will include the never-before-seen-on DVD-or-tape THE DAMNED DON’T CRY), please have a look at the new issue of Scarlet Street magazine for your own Camp David reporter’s essay on FEMALE ON THE BEACH with a short interview with one of the stars, Natalie Schafer of Gilligan’s Island fame. One of La Crawford’s great lines in the film: when asked how she likes her coffee, she replies “Alone”! Read my review here in films in review for QUEEN BEE to understand my fascination with “JOAN”.
Until next time Remember: may all your dreams be in 70mm and Cinemascope!

Columbia/Tri-Star DVD, 2002
A Columbia Picture (1955). Black & White.
Duration: 95 minutes.

Ever since the publication of ‘Mommie Dearest’, the life and career of Joan Crawford has been demonized in the minds of the public. QUEEN BEE will do nothing to change this opinion.

In the 1950s, Crawford made a series of films in which she played a woman of great sexual attraction whose age is never discussed but always in question. QUEEN BEE is part Southern gothic soap opera and part psychodrama. All of these films in the Fifties could play in the horror genre. It wouldn’t take much to turn QUEEN BEE into THE LEECH WOMAN! Crawford is lit to conceal her advancing years but those dark shadows also conceal mental aberration. This reviewer once asked director Vincent Sherman (HARRIET CRAIG) if Crawford ever realized the connection between her life and these delirious Fifties flicks. He replied that her professionalism made it possible for her to make films that reflected her life and yet she was capable of distancing herself while working on them.

The horror pedigree is in evidence with the supporting cast of QUEEN BEE. It seems all of them were destined to go to hell in a handbag! Betsy Palmer, who portrays the victim in the piece, would go on to play the mother of Jason Voorhees in the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. Both Barry Sullivan and John Ireland would play in Joan’s later horror films NIGHT GALLERY and William Castle’s I SAW WHAT YOU DID. And of course, Fay Wray needs no introduction to the world of apes and monsters.

The camp factor in QUEEN BEE is of earthquake caliber. Joan has the best entrance and exit of all her Fifties output. She also has all the best lines and is even allowed two very dramatic breakdown scenes using cold creme and a riding crop to their best advantage. This reviewer thinks Crawford was always aware of her large gay following and, subconsciously or not, created the role of Bitch Goddess for every drag queen that ever had too much to drink and too many men in their lives.

QUEEN BEE opens on a Southern mansion and drifts into an antebellum drawing room full of hopelessly unhappy people. With the arrival of a dewy-eyed young niece, the stage is set for La Crawford to skewer one and all as she drifts through in Jean Louis glamour gowns inhaling bourbon as if it were Perrier. There is always a lot of drinking to be done in Joan’s Fifties films.

The plot is really secondary to Crawford’s theatrics which go on and on with every scene. The thrust of the film is that Crawford’s ‘queen bee’ is a sexual predator that no man can resist, but as soon as the sperm dries, they are all disgusted and want to pull out! But in QUEEN BEE no one goes anywhere until Crawford says so. The one character that gets to exit QUEEN BEE does so by hanging herself. Even the family dog, cute as a button, is shot to death rather than spend another minute around Joan and her outrageous dialogue.

The gay subtext of QUEEN BEE is there if you want it and believe me, you’re gonna want it! Barry Sullivan’s character is called Beauty, a cruel joke regarding a scar on his face inflicted by the ‘queen bee’ in a car accident. Crawford lectures her cousin on the best way to trap men, which is to deceive and seduce. When read in a gay context one can easily see the female roles played by drag queens, or better yet, by an all-male cast. The day will come when some enterprising screenwriter will adapt some of Crawford’s output as gay theatre.

The DVD of QUEEN BEE is a flawless transfer and letterboxed (1.85:1 aspect ratio). The sound quality is digitally enhanced. In short, you will never see this film look any better. There is also a camp trailer emphasizing the monstrousness of Joan’s character and a couple of posters in a rather skimpy advertising extra.

The real joy of a howler like QUEEN BEE is watching one male character after another reach for a bottle or the gun cabinet in an effort to cope with the spectacular villainy of Crawford’s Eva, who knows no shame even though she keeps telling her niece that she once was a young innocent, which is just NOT possible. Even in 1927 opposite Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford was a bitch!

In reassessing Crawfordí’ output in the Fifties, after viewing QUEEN BEE, this reviewer recommends the following: HARRIET CRAIG, TORCH SONG, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, SUDDEN FEAR, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO, and THE DAMNED DON’T CRY.

If you get through these titles you will then qualify as a Joanologist, having had a crash course in boys, booze and bad behavior! Who could ask for anything more?

Credits:
Producer: Jerry Wald.
Director: Ranald MacDougall.
Writer: Ranald MacDougall; Based on Novel by Edna L. Lee.
Camera: Charles Lang.
Costume Design: Jean Louis.

Cast:
Joan Crawford (Eva Phillips), Barry Sullivan (Avery Phillips), Betsy Palmer (Carol Lee Phillips), John Ireland (Judd Phillips), Lucy Marlow (Jennifer Stewart), William Leslie (Ty McKinnon), Fay Wray (Sue McKinnon), Juanita Moore (Maid).