Ill at ease: Doris Day and James Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much
Posted on 05/19/2019 6:24:58 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Doris Day died this past week, at the age of ninety-seven and retaining her luster to the end. On Monday I recalled parts of a long-ago conversation with her. We talked that day, aside from the dogs, more about her music than her pictures - because I don't think anyone would dispute that she was a much better singer than actress. That's not to disparage her thespian side: In the Thirties and Forties many big-band canaries got shoved before the cameras, but very few parlayed the warbling into a two-decade career as a bona fide A-list movie star. Nevertheless, I would say she put more emotional nuance into a lyric couplet than a line of dialogue, so that, certainly in the first half of her film career, her characters in non-musicals seem more two-dimensional than those in musicals.
In an obvious sense, her best films harness her bouncy vivacity, specifically "The Deadwood Stage" ("Whip-crack-awaaaaay!") in Calamity Jane and pretty much everything in The Pajama Game. (You can hear Doris singing some other songs by Pajama composer Richard Adler here). But the three biotuners in which she hit her stride make the point more broadly: The eponymous gunslinging heroine of Calamity Jane, songwriting spouse Grace LeBoy in I'll See You in My Dreams and torch singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me are all very different people, but Doris doesn't act them terribly differently and it's mainly in the songs that she brings light and shade to the parts - particularly "Secret Love" in Calamity, and the gritty "Ten Cents a Dance" in Love Me. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Ill at ease: Doris Day and James Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much
Dont eat the daisies.n RIP DD.
Wasn’t an “optic sparkle” added to DD’s eyes in the movies?
I watched her on Johnny Carson one time. She does have a sparkle in her eyes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2vTXffu7A&list=PLhPRYwVM2tqsJ7PGo_HCDKKPTIBb7fjnY
classic-- https://trueclassics.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/pillow-talk-split-screen-tub.jpg
http://www.criticalcommons.org/Members/ccManager/clips/bathtub-split-screen-scene-from-pillow-talk/thumbnailImage_mini
Rock Hudson’s image as a romantic lead was forever shattered by the revelation that he was gay. It is, indeed, better that some things remain undiscovered. As Mark Steyn put it, “As Bagehot said of monarchy, one cannot let daylight in on the mystery - and that goes for real movie stars, too. The bubbles in that Pillow Talk bathtub cannot be seen to dissolve and subside and reveal what’s beneath.”
Stewart and Day may have been the big name actors (draw) in that film, but, as always, Hitchcock was the star.
Also recorded with Polka Great Frankie Yankovich...”You Are My Sunshine”
You have to admit that Doris Day was a better actress than she is given credit for. Selling a romantic scene with Rock Hudson took a lot of acting when it was like kissing her sister.
rwood
He berated Rosemary Clooney for changing the tempo of a song.....
and even launched legal action to try to stop a group that changed one of his songs into a Latin beat......
which went on to be a number one hit.
But when Doris recorded his song, "I Have Dreamed," he told her it was the most beautiful rendition and arrangemen he had ever heard.
The legend is she was having no luck and plnned o leave tinseltown.....
The night before she was about to leave, she went to a party.
She so impressed the party-givers----two composers---with her talent, that she was given an audition,
got the part. and became a star overnight ...in just one movie, singing "It's Magic."
Romance on the High Seas? One of our favs.
bump
She could act with the best of them and sing and dance too.
The Windy City from Calamity Jane (1953)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MnUrhptPSo
Doris Day - Cheek To Cheek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1_vssRskSI
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