Posted on 10/11/2010 7:54:08 PM PDT by FromLori
Hollywood, CA—I just finished watching another great Henry Hathaway, film noir classic, The Dark Corner (1946) starring Lucille Ball, Mark Stevens and Clifton Webb. Mark Steven’s plays a recently paroled private eye trying to rebuild his life and business. Ball plays the private dick’s new secretary. After the PI is targeted and endangered in a somewhat convoluted scheme, Ball’s clever character comes to his rescue at every opportunity. This film is available for instant play if you’ve got a Netflix account.
As a long time real life PI, I can’t imagine the luck of having a secretary like that in a million years. Together they overcome amazing odds and in case you’ve never seen the film I won’t spoil it be revealing the ending.
In The Dark Corner, Ball was a stunning 35 year-old looker that appeared much younger. Her grace, charm and acting were terrific. This is amazing in spite of the fact that Ball left, The John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City after only a few weeks. He acting coaches told Ball she had no talent!
As a child I grew up with a family TV show, I Love Lucy. It had its comic moments but it was more a comic soap opera of sorts in the lives of two couples, the Ricardo’s and the Mertz’s. Lucy was always up to mischief that usually backfired to the chagrin of her real life husband Desi.
Ball died in 1989 at age 77, when a recently repaired aorta ruptured. Aging and death is most unfair but the truth is we’re all in this together and none of us will get out alive.
What I really did not know was Ball’s age. She was already in her 40’s when she began her, I Love Lucy series. Her first husband Desi Arnez was seven years her junior.
This famous TV pioneer couple made entertainment history beginning with the three camera shoot of their series. With three cameras, scenes could be shot and edited together saving countless hours of setups and retakes.
Together they formed Desilou Productions and that led to many thousands of hours of programming that still seen and enjoyed today all over the world. Their 20 year marriage was volatile and finally ended after their second divorce filing in 1960. It’s always been said by their biographers that their love for each other never really waned, they just had difficulties mostly attributed to Desi that could not be overcome.
Not that long ago I had to do some business with Kelsey Grammar’s production company, Gramnet which was at the time located in the Lucille Ball Bungalow at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. I suspect the name Lucille Ball will be repeated hundreds of years after her death. She was indeed an artist.
When doing a little research for this story I learned that Ball actually joined the Communist Party and registered to vote that way in her earlier days. Ball’s politics were as red as her hair. The Communists always recruited members heavily in Hollywood because they knew that movie stars influence the masses. That still is the case today for sure.
The funny thing about Hollywood’s Communists, they all made huge fortunes through Capitalism. I will never be able to figure out that paradox.
Star Trek ever seems to have money.
“The human race has moved past that”
Sounds like ObamaLand. Obama has the ears to play Spock. Star Trek was highly overrated.
And your proof is where? Certainly not in her highly capitalist working life?
‘was not jimmy stewart one too?’
John Wayne and Ronald Reagan also, I suppose.
‘She was definitely a knockout. And pretty tall, too.’
She was originally a showgirl in shows like Ziegfield’s Follies. All showgirls are tall.
Cool story!
My late mom, who flew for TWA in the Connie days, told me that Lucy was banned from flying on TWA after her repeated and haughty treatment of the hostesses. (They also lived in the same Connecticut town.)
Does that square with what you know?
By the way, Mom also told me that Cary Grant was a sheer delight when she had him on a flight - she flew a lot of the transatlantic routes during and after WW II, when actors, actresses, musicians and dancer did a lot of USO work. I was relieved to hear that: I loved his performance in “Father Goose” and didn’t want to be disillusioned. :)
LOL!
Desi Arnaz despised Castro and contributed money to anti-Castro groups.
Hollywood is filled with skivers and cheats. No wonder Ridley Scott was so dismissive of Hollywood. The man is a real talent.
You’re really high on RS aren’t you? He’s more of a designer than a director. In ‘Blade Runner’ his empty glitter and neon just happened to fit and enhance the material but I don’t think he ever really grasped it.
I think the film was a lot more than empty glitter. The rewrite of Philip Dick’s book by Peoples and Hampton Fancher was quite good. The visuals and cast were outstanding. If Ridley Scott had stopped after doing Blade Runner and Alien he would be considered by most as a great director.
Deeley’s three films Italian Job (English one), Deer Hunter and Blade Runner were all very good films.
Most American filmmakers/directors are rubbish. The exceptions are Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese, Cimino, Curtis Hanson, and DePalma plus maybe Friedkin for Live and Die In LA.
Well I said that in the case of BR, he fell into a situation where the material and his design based aesthetic merged with mutually beneficial results. I was talking about the rest of his career. The American cinema is historically as rich as any in the world.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.