Esther Ralston ~ America's Youngest Juliet

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Esther Ralston - 1926

photo: Photoplay Magazine

       

       

       

       

       

        

Today, September 17, is the birthday of Esther Ralston, a silent film star whose most prominent sound picture was To the Last Man in 1933. The film also starred Randolph Scott, Noah Beery Sr., Buster Crabbe, Shirley Temple and John Carradine.         

        

        

        

        

Ralston was born in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1902. She began her career as a child actress in a family vaudeville act which was billed as "The Ralston Family with Baby Esther, America's Youngest Juliet".         

 

Ralston later gained attention as Mrs. Darling in the 1924 film version of Peter Pan, the first film adaptation of the 1904 play by J. M. Barrie. It was directed by Herbert Brenon and starred Betty Bronson as Peter Pan, Ernest Torrence as Captain Hook, Mary Brian as Wendy, Virginia Browne Faire as Tinker Bell, Esther Ralston as Mrs. Darling, and Anna May Wong as the Native American princess Tiger Lily. The film was seen by Walt Disney, and inspired him to create his company's 1953 animated adaptation.       

Over the next six years she made 24 films and became one of Hollywood's highest-paid actresses. She was in the director James Cruze film, Old Ironsides (1926), an epic concerning the fight between 19th-century sailing ships and pirates, which starred Charles Farrell, with minor roles by Wallace Beery and Boris Karloff, and filmed in the early large-screen process Magnascope. 

 

 

Magnascope diagram
 

 

One of the writers of the film was Dorothy Arzner, who made her directorial debut with Fashions For Women (1927), a comedy starring Ralston in the dual role of an ageing society woman and the cigarette-girl who takes her place while she has a secret facelift.    

On January 14, 1994, Ralston died of a heart attack at age 91 in her home in Ventura, California.      

       

      

      

      

       

      

       

      

Viewfinder links:       

             

Dorothy Arzner         

J. M. Barrie       

Noah Beery Sr.            

John Carradine            

Buster Crabbe         

Boris Karloff            

Esther Ralston             

Randolph Scott     

Shirley Temple        

Anna May Wong          

      

Net links:       

       

Bizarre Los Angeles ~ Esther Ralston photos & quotes   

Chicago Film Society ~ Magnascope             

      

YouTube links:       

       

Movie Legends - Esther Ralston    

Esther Ralston ~ I Looked In Your Eyes     

  

     

      

      

       

      

       

      

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 6, 2023      

       

   

 

    

      

      

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Movie/TV People

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Esther Ralston articles/mentions

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To the Last Man     

     

     

mentions:     

The Byrds ~ Turn! Turn! Turn, Oh, Susana  

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Esther Ralston  - 1930

photo: Photoplay_(magazine)

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

 

 

 

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Hollywood Bound ~ Gene Autry, Flash Gordon & other Wonders

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A friend recently showed me a book he had just purchased entitled, Hollywood Bound by Peter Doggett, an English music journalist, author and magazine editor. The book had movie stills from films that had bondage themes of one type or another. As I had seen many of the films featured in the book, it brought back many memories.          

In the forties when I was about 8 years old, there was a movie theater called The State on 4th & Market, where Ross ("Dress for Less") is now located.   

 

 

The State Theater - ca 1950 

photographer unknown

 

 

On Saturdays The State had matinees for kids that cost 9¢ to get in. I lived in Visitacion Valley on Geneva Ave. in the outer Mission and my mother would give me a quarter to go to the 9 am showing. It cost 5¢ for the bus each way which left me 6¢. I would buy a candy bar which cost 5¢. That left me 1¢ which I saved and on the fifth Saturday I could buy TWO candy bars!         

During the Saturday matinee they had a double feature (two FULL length movies), usually "B" films that are now cult films, some featured in Hollywood Bound, or Hopalong Cassidy played by William Boyd . . .

             

 

Hopalong Cassidy Enters movie poster
 

 

. . . The Three Stooges usually with a great cast as in this one with Gale Storm, Louis Jordan, Will Osborne and Phil Regan an American actor and singer who later served time for bribery in a real estate scandal . . .        

 

 

Swing Parade of 1946 movie poster 
 

           

. . . coming attractions, a news reel (TV was newly invented & very few people had one, a bazillon cartoons and a serial, usually with cowboys (such as The Phantom Empire with Gene Autry), etc.!!!!!

 

 

Gene Autry ~ The Phantom Empire       

movie poster

The last Saturday I went, they showed a serial with Buster Crabbe (it was his birthday earlier this month) as Flash Gordon. It was my first viewing of a Sci-Fi film; even though it had pretty cheesy effects (e.g. the space ship), gaudy sets and bad acting (link below), from an 8 year old kid's point of view it was terrific. I remember being COMPLETELY transfixed and I had to see it again. Now, with all that stuff they showed, the entire program probably lasted three or four hours and I sat through THREE showings! I didn't get home until around 9 that evening; that's 12 hours I was gone. My mother was out of her wits by then, I caught holy hell and was never allowed to go to the movie matinee again. 

 

But it was worth it!!!           

Flash Gordon was always in trouble of one kind or another and in chapter 6, Emperor Ming (delightfully portrayed by Charles Middleton) . . . 

 

 

Charles Middleton as Emperor Ming 

film still

 

 

. . . was the culprit mentioned in the book, Hollywood Bound and shown on YouTube (link below).           

Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon

Hollywood Bound has many other photographs in it that are absolutely wonderful, some romantic, some erotic and some hilarious! But I'll leave that for another blog entry.         

          

          

          

          

          

          

          

          

Viewfinder links:

           

Gene Autry          

Buster Crabbe          

Louis Jordan           

Will Osborne           

Gale Storm          

The Three Stooges          

         

YouTube links:

          

Flash Gordon (Ch. 6, Flaming Torture) serial clip          

Flash Gordon (space ship) serial clip                      

          

          

          

          

          

Flash on, Gordon!

          

          

          

          

          

Styrous® ~ Sunday, February 27, 2022 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Michael Rennie ~ Klaatu barada nikto!

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The Day the Earth Stood Still - 1951

movie poster

I have many songs, pieces of music or whatever, that I will always remember the moment, situation or place I was when I heard it; a case in point is the theremin; ok, it's not a song but it fits in there. The first time I heard the sound of the instrument I was 11 years old and had discovered Sci-Fi in books and films several years earlier. As far as films go, I was used to the funky stuff, Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, the VERY low budget Man From Planet X, etc., so, from the moment the The Day the Earth Stood Still opened with the electrifying (pun intended) music score by Bernard Herrmann with the quivering, other-worldly sound of the theremin, which sent shivers up and down my spine (it still does), I was transfixed in my seat! The film score by Herrmann is sensational; it is in my pantheon of the top ten film scores of all time. I think it with the excellent production values are what makes Day the Earth the Grandfather of the modern Sci-Fi film age.     

 

The next technological/sonic breakthroughs would happen again 17 years later with the Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey . . .         

 

. . . then 35 years later with Star Wars.     

 

Today, August 25, is the birthday of Michael Rennie who starred as Klaatu, the alien from the flying saucer in The Day the Earth Stood Still. 

 

 

Michael Rennie as  Klaatu 

The Day the Earth Stood Still

film still

 

 

Michael Rennie was a 6' 4" tall British film, television and stage actor, born in 1909, in Idle near Bradford, West Riding of West Yorkshire, England. He appeared in more than fifty films but is best remembered for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 Sci-Fi film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.                  

He attracted the interest of a casting director at Gaumont British who took him on as an extra. Rennie said this was a deliberate strategy so he could learn how films were made. Head of production Michael Balcon said Rennie was taken on "because he was good-looking and athletic. He knew nothing of acting, but was given a contract to play small parts and to work as stand-in for players such as Robert Young and John Loder.     

          

Rennie's first screen acting was an uncredited bit part in the Alfred Hitchcock film Secret Agent (1936), standing in for Robert Young. Balcon says he saw Rennie act in a scene in East Meets West (1936) and fired him immediately afterwards. Balcon wrote "I had seen the rushes of that day's filming and had at once decided that Rennie was far too inexperienced to justify big screen parts."          

          

Rennie worked mostly in Yorkshire, eventually becoming a star with the York Repertory Company. Among his roles were as Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, a play by George Bernard Shaw, which was later made into the 1956 musical My Fair Lady .           

          

During World War II, Rennie began to receive offers for film roles but continued repertory work honing his craft. He enlisted in the RAF Volunteer Reserve on 27 May 1941. "There has been a pause in Rennie's film career", wrote Balcon in 1942. "But there will be parts awaiting him when the war is over"         

 

With the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Rennie was given his first film break, when cast alongside Margaret Lockwood, then at the peak of her popularity, in the musical I'll Be Your Sweetheart (1945), directed by Val Guest.        

 

The movie was not a big hit but Rennie received excellent notices, including a review from the US trade paper Variety who said his performance made the film "noteworthy" and that he was . . . 

". . . likely Hollywood material... the best bet in the way of a new male star to have come out of a British studio in many years. Rennie not only has a lot on the ball as a straight lead, he knows the value of visual tricks. Femmes will go for him in a big way."        

He followed this with The Wicked Lady in 1945. Rennie was the fifth lead but it was a good part and an excellent project to be associated with – the year's biggest box-office hit, subsequently being listed ninth on a list of top ten highest-grossing British films of all time.           

 

Rennie's prestige was raised when he was given a single prominent scene as a commander of Roman centurions in the Gabriel Pascal production of Caesar and Cleopatra by George Bernard Shaw (also 1945), starring Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains. Rennie was now established as a leading actor. One report called him "the bobbysoxers' dark idol... Gainsborough's 1945 discovery." He was mobbed by female fans on a personal appearance tour.        

 

In 1950, he was one of several English actors cast in the 20th Century Fox medieval adventure story The Black Rose starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles. Rennie was specifically cast as the 13th-century King Edward I, whose 6' 2" (1.88 m) frame gave origin to his historical nickname "Longshanks".    

After Claude Rains turned down the role, Rennie received top billing in his next film, The Day the Earth Stood Still, the first postwar, large-budget, "A" science-fiction film. It was a serious, high-minded exploration of mid-20th century suspicion and paranoia, combined with a philosophical overview of humanity's coming place in the larger universe. Rennie said director Robert Wise told him to do the role "with dignity but not with superiority". (The story was later dramatised in 1954 on Lux Radio Theatre, with Rennie and Billy Gray recreating their original film roles. Seven years later, on 3 March 1962, when The Day the Earth Stood Still made its television premiere on the NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Rennie appeared in a two-minute introductory prologue before the start of the film.)              

 

He appeared in the film Seven Cities of Gold in 1955 with Richard Egan and Anthony Quinn, and with them again in Demetrius and the Gladiators (link below). His film career only went up from there.    

Michael Rennie - 1958

photo: CBS Television

During a visit to his mother's home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, following the death of his brother, Rennie died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm almost two months before his 62nd birthday.    

 

 

          

Viewfinder links:

           

Buster Crabbe       

The Day the Earth Stood Still         

Demetrius and the Gladiators                  

Richard Egan        

Bernard Herrmann           

Alfred Hitchcock          

Stanley Kubrick          

Lux Radio Theater           

Tyrone Power         

Anthony Quinn        

Claude Rains         

George Bernard Shaw         

All things Star Wars          

Orson Welles          

          

Net links:

           

The Day the Earth Stood Still ~           

       Cast    

       Klaatu barada nikto! (interpretation)   

Complete filmography          
          

          

          

          

YouTube links:

           

      The Day the Earth Stood Still  (1951) main title sequence       

      The Arrival of the Saucer             

      Klaatu appears      

      Gort appears     

      The Day The Earth Stands Still       

      Klaatu's warning     

      The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) film review  

          

           

           

           

           

 

 

          

Klaatu barada nikto!

          

          

          

          

          

          

          

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, August 25, 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Buster Crabbe articles/mentions

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The Andrews Sisters ~ goodbye & thanks    

Hollywood Bound ~ Flash Gordon, etc.
Julie London ~ Cry Me a River   
Michael Rennie ~ Klaatu barada nikto!   
     
     
     
     
     
     

     
     

Buster Crabbe - ca 1940

publicity photo

     

     

     

      

     

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45 RPMs 26: Julie London ~ Cry Me a River

               

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Today, September 26, is the birthday of Julie London; she was born Julie Peck in Santa Rosa, California on September 26, 1926.



Julie London  ~ Cry Me a River
45 rpm single w/record sleeve
photo by Styrous® 




London sang as a teenager in a band on the West Coast, prior to her first film appearance. She attended Hollywood Professional High School and graduated in 1944. She was discovered by talent agent Sue Carol (the wife of actor Alan Ladd) while an elevator operator. 

In 1944, she appeared in her first film, Nabonga, which starred Buster Crabbe of Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers fame.

Nabonga - 1944

movie poster

Her first public professional singing performance was at the 881 Club. Her first recording was this 45 single, Cry Me a River, written by former high school classmate Arthur Hamilton. It was first published in 1953 and made famous in 1955 by London.

I remember hearing the song for the first time; it was soft, sensual, incredibly hypnotizing and her velvet, almost breathless voice was mesmerizing. I fell acoustically in love with her, sight unseen. Later I saw a photograph of her and it finished me off; I was eternally hooked.       

Julie London

date & photographer unknown

Arthur Hamilton later said of the song: "I had never heard the phrase. I just liked the combination of words... Instead of 'Eat your heart out' or 'I'll get even with you,' it sounded like a good, smart retort to somebody who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart."   

A jazzy blues ballad, Cry Me a River was originally written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in the 1920s-set film, Pete Kelly's Blues (released 1955), but the song was dropped.

 

Julie London  ~ Cry Me a River

45 rpm single record 

photo by Styrous® 

Another former classmate was disc-jockey Jack Wagner of KHJ in Hollywood. Jack was impressed with London's sultry looks as a high school student and equally impressed with her singing talent. He helped to promote her albums. He wrote the liner notes for her 1957 album, About the Blues (Liberty 3043). London was married to Jack Webb, star of the Dragnet TV series who also was the producer of Pete Kelly's Blues in which London appeared in 1955. She later married Bobby Troup who helped to sign her to the then new Liberty label. London made over 30 albums (link below).      

"Julie London emerged as the consummate cocktail siren. Movie star, club performer, recording artist, and occasional television personality.

She was also the perfect physical type for conveying "aerodynamic glamour in the new age of mass-produced Frididaires and televisions." She was a blend of Dionysian flesh and Detroit steel, streamlined car and cocktail shaker combined. Her cool, sleek supple contours, cobalt blue eyes, and high tech vocals satisfied America's fascination for what Marshall McLuhan called "the assembly line goddess."   

Julie London ~ The Great Man - 1958

Cry Me a River has been used in many films, V For Vendetta (2006), Repo Men (2010), as well as the Michael Bublé adaption of the song used in the BBC advertising for, and theme music for coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics.     

It has been covered by Joan Baez, Shirley Bassey, Dinah Washington, Barbra Streisand, Lesley Gore, Joe Cocker, Crystal Gayle, Aerosmith, Mari Wilson, Diana Krall, Etta James and many others.

Julie London  ~ Cry Me a River

45 rpm single lable

photo by Styrous® 

The "B" side of the record is S Wonderful, which is the complete opposite from Cry Me a River. It starts fast and jazzy then midway mellows out a bit but stays jazzy. It was composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics written by Ira Gershwin. It was introduced in the Broadway musical Funny Face (1927) by Adele Astaire and Allen Kearns. The song is considered a standard and has been recorded by many artists including Bing Crosby, Brian Wilson, Anita O'Day, Gene Kelly, Ella Fitzgerald Michael Feinstein, Judy Garland, Joe Williams, John Pizzarelli, Sarah Vaughan, Karrin Allyson, Diana Krall, João Gilberto, Shirley Bassey and Engelbert Humperdinck.     

Julie London  ~ 'S Wonderful

45 rpm single w/record sleeve

photo by Styrous® 

The song was included in the 1951 movie An American in Paris, where it is sung by Gene Kelly and Georges Guétary, as well as in the 1957 American musical film Funny Face, in which it was performed by Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Doris Day also sang it in Starlift (1951) and Dean Martin sang it during the opening credits of the 1964 film Kiss Me, Stupid.       

Julie London  ~ 'S Wonderful 

45 rpm single record 

photo by Styrous® 

Julie London was a chain smoker from the age of 16 onward, at some periods smoking in excess of three packs of cigarettes per day. She suffered a stroke in 1995 and was in poor health for the following five years. She died of cardiac arrest in the early morning hours of October 18, 2000, at the Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center in Encino, she was 74 years old.

She was buried next to her husband Bobby Troup, who had died the previous year, in the Courts of Remembrance Columbarium of Providence, at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (for recording) is at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard, also in Los Angeles.       

Julie London  ~ 'S Wonderful 

45 rpm single lable

photo by Styrous® 

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A - Cry Me A River, written by Arthur Hamilton - 2:36

Side 2:

B - S’Wonderful, written by George & Ira Gershwin* - 1:33

Credits:

    Bass – Ray Leatherwood
    Guitar – Barney Kessell*

Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (Side A): EB-1287
    Matrix / Runout (Side B): EB-1288
    Matrix / Runout (Runout Side A): 45-EB-1287-D8
    Matrix / Runout (Runout Side B): 45-EB-1288-D5
    Rights Society: ASCAP

Julie London ‎– Cry Me A River
Label: Liberty ‎– 55006
Format: Vinyl, 7", Single
Country: US
Released: 1955
Genre: Jazz
Style: Easy Listening


Viewfinder links: 
            
Aerosmith         
Joe Cocker           
Bing Crosby         
Ella Fitzgerald     
George Gershwin     
Ira Gershwin                
Lesley Gore     
Gene Kelly              

Marshall McLuhan         
Anita O'Day          
Barbra Streisand         
Dinah Washington         
Jack Webb     
Brian Wilson         
       
Net links:      
        
ABC News ~ obit                       
Discover Music ~ Julie London            
Emergency Fans ~ An inside joke?             
The Times ~ obit            
LA News ~ obit                  
NY Times ~ obit      
Sac Jazz ~ Famous Julie London Songs     
         
YouTube links:   
       
Cry Me a River     
'S Wonderful       
         

  

  

   

", , , the assembly line goddess."

              ~ Marshall McLuhan 

     
   
   
       

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 26, 2018   

           

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