A Debbie Reynolds Film Friday

This week's «Film Friday» is quite special because it is entirely dedicated to Debbie Reynolds, whose 85th birthday would have been today (hence why I am posting this on a Saturday). Sadly, Debbie pasted away last December, so I thought I would honour her with a compilation of all the Debbie Reynolds films I have written about on this blog.

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen | Co-starring Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor

Singin' in the Rain gave 19-year-old Debbie her breakthrough role and it remains her best known work. She played Kathy Selden, a nightclub performer and aspiring actress who falls in love with Don Lockwood, the swashbuckling matinee idol played by Gene Kelly. Selected over established stars like Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Powell and June Allyson, Debbie always stated that Kelly and Donen did not want her in the film, feeling that they were «stuck» with her. However, Donen maintained that he and Kelly wanted her from the very beginning, despite her relative inexperience in musicals.

Debbie Reynolds as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain.

Being a trained gymnast rather than a dancer, Debbie had difficulty adapting to Kelly's demands and perfectionism. The «Good Morning» number proved especially challenging for her. After fourteen hours of filming the routine, she had to be carried to her dressing room because she had burst some blood vessels in her feet. Debbie later said that she

«learned a lot from [Kelly]. He is a perfectionist and a disciplinarian — the most exciting director I've ever worked for. And he has a good temper. Every so often he would yell at me and make me cry. But it took a lot of patience for him to work with someone who had never danced before. It's amazing that I could keep up with him and Donald O'Connor.»

In turn, Kelly described Debbie as being «strong as an ox [...] also she was a great copyist, and she could pick up the most complicated routine without too much difficulty.» Despite her hard work on the «Good Morning» sequence, Kelly ultimately decided to dub her tap sounds.

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds in publicity stills for Singin' in the Rain.

It Started With a Kiss (1959)

Directed by George Marshall | Co-starring Glenn Ford, Gustavo Rojo and Eva Gabor

It Started With a Kiss was the first of two pictures produced by MGM co-starring Debbie and Glenn Ford. In this George Marshall-directed romp, they played a young married couple who decide to go without sex for thirty days in order to determine whether they are suitably matched or not. The story is set in Cadiz, Spain, where they become entangled with a famous matador (played by Gustavo Rojo) and a glamorous marchioness (played by Eva Gabor).

Debbie Reynolds as Maggie Putnam in It Started with a Kiss.

When Debbie began filming It Started with a Kiss, she was in the midst of an humiliating scandal. She had been married to teen idol Eddie Fisher, her co-star in Bundle of Joy (1956), for four years and the two had been labeled by the fan magazines as «America's sweethearts.» Fisher was the best friend of producer Mike Todd, who happened to be married to Debbie's close friend Elizabeth Taylor. When Todd died in a plane crash in 1958, a grief-stricken Taylor was consoled by Fisher, with whom she soon became involved. As he was still married to Debbie, the affair caused a major public scandal, topped only three years later when Taylor left Fisher to consort with Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra (1963).

Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford during production of It Started with a Kiss.

The Gazebo (1959)
Directed by George Marshall | Co-starring Glenn Ford, Carl Reiner and John McGiver

With The Gazebo, MGM decided to repeat the It Started with a Kiss formula by pairing Debbie, Glenn Ford and director George Marshall for a second time. Ford played a television writer who decides to murder the man who is blackmailing him over nude photographs of his wife, played by Debbie, taken when she was 18 years old.

As Debbie's marriage to Eddie Fisher collapsed, so did Ford's marriage to Eleanor Powell. During the making of The Gazebo, Debbie and Ford helped console each other and apparently they grew quite close. He even proposed to her, but she was not ready to commit again so soon. They remained lifelong friends instead, although they never appeared in another film together.

Debbie Reynolds as Nell Nash in The Gazebo.

From Debbie Reynolds, I also saw:

The Tender Trap (1955) | Co-starring Frank Sinatra, Celeste Holm and David Wayne
How the West Was Won (1962) | Co-starring Gregory Peck and James Stewart
Divorce American Style (1967) | Co-starring Dick Van Dyke and Jean Simmons

Comments

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest . Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest. Neal liked the script and about two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, « What's that!? » He ...

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Clark Gable , a tall, dark and handsome 30-year-old actor whom Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recen...

Golden Couples: Henry Fonda & Barbara Stanwyck

In the mid- and late 1930s, screwball comedy was in vogue and practically every actress in Hollywood tried her hand at it. Barbara Stanwyck never considered herself a naturally funny person or a comedienne per se , but after delivering a heart-wrenching performance in King Vidor's Stella Dallas (1937), she decided she needed a « vacation » from emotional dramas. In her search for a role, she stumbled upon a « champagne comedy » called The Mad Miss Manton (1938), originally intended as a Katharine Hepburn vehicle. Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda as Melsa and Peter in The Mad Miss Manton . Directed by Leigh Jason from a script by Philip G. Epstein, The Mad Miss Manton begins when vivacious Park Avenue socialite Melsa Manton finds a corpse while walking her dogs in the early hours of the morning. She calls the police, but they dismiss the incident — not only because Melsa is a notorious prankster, but also because the body disappears in the meantime. Sarcastic newspaper editor...

Film Friday: «Who Was That Lady?» (1960)

Theatrical release poster Directed by George Sidney , Who Was That Lady? (19 60 ) begins when che mistry p rofessor David Wilson (Tony Curtis) is caught by his wife Ann (Janet Leigh) kissing one of his female st u de nts. To stop her from divo rcing him , he a sk s for hel p from his good friend, television writer Michael Haney (Dean Mart in), who invents a crazy story that Davi d is working undercover with the FBI and kissed the student — a foreign agent — in the line of du ty. To convince Ann, Mi ke tricks Schult z (William Newel l), a prop man at the T V studio, into fabricating an FBI identification card for David and s up plying him with a g un. Ann is so t hrilled by the idea of being married to a secret agent t hat she forgives David. Meanwhile, Mike sets up a date wi th the Coogle sisters, Gloria (Barbara N ichols) and Florence ( Joi Lan sing), and takes David along , telling Ann that the girls are foreign agents. Just as Ann realizes that her h usband ha s...

Christmas in Old Hollywood

The beautiful Elizabeth Taylor with an extremely cute little friend. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall with their son Stephen (early 1950s). Here they are again. What an adorable picture! Paulette Goddard looking rather uncomfortable next to her Christmas tree. Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Hollywood Christmas party in 1932. The adorable Shirley Temple chatting with Santa. Here she is again with a dolly friend. Look how cute she looks here, modeling a new Christmas dress (1935). The fur-tastic Joan Crawford. Doris Day asking us to "do not disturb until Christmas." Don't worry, Doris, we shall not. Though it's past Christmas now, so I'm sure Doris won't mind if we disturb just a little bit. Priscilla Lane looking sparkling drapped in her garlands. A VERY young Carole Lombard sitting next to her tree (1920s). Jean Harlow looking stunning as always. Janet Leigh looking extra cute unde...

Films I Saw in 2020

For the past four years, I have shared with you a list of all the films I saw throughout 2016 , 2017 , 2018 and 2019 , so I thought I would continue the «tradition» and do it again in 2020. This list includes both classic and «modern» films, which make up a total of 161 titles. About three or four of these were re-watches, but I decided to include them anyway. Let me know how many from these you have seen. As always, films marked with a heart ( ❤ ) are my favorites. Sherlock Jr. (1924) | Starring Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire and Joe Keaton The Crowd (1928) | Starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) | Starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady and Marjorie Weaver Brief Encounter (1945) | Starring Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard and Stanley Holloway The Bells of St. Mary's (1945) | Starring Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman The Girl He Left Behind (1956) | Starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood Gidget (1959) | Starring Sandra Dee, Cliff Robertson an...

Wings of Change: The Story of the First Ever Best Picture Winner

Wings was the first ever film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Since then, it has become one of the most influential war dramas, noted for its technical realism and spectacular air-combat sequences. This is the story of how it came to be made. A man and his story The concept for Wings originated from a writer trying to sell one of his stories. In September 1924, Byron Morgan approached Jesse L. Lasky, vice-president of Famous Players-Lasky, a component of Paramount Pictures, proposing that the studio do an aviation film. Morgan suggested an «incident and plot» focused on the failure of the American aerial effort in World War I and the effect that the country's «aviation unpreparedness» would have in upcoming conflicts. Lasky liked the idea, and approved the project under the working title «The Menace.» LEFT: Byron Morgan (1889-1963). RIGHT: Jesse L. Lasky (1880-1958). During his development of the scenario with William Shepherd, a former war correspond...

80 Reasons Why I Love Classic Films (Part II)

I started this blog six years ago as a way to share my passion for classic films and Old Hollywood. I used to watch dozens of classic films every month, and every time I discovered a new star I liked I would go and watch their entire filmography. But somewhere along the way, that passion dimmed down. For instance, I watched 73 classic films in 2016, and only 10 in 2020. The other day, I found this film with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. that I had never heard of — the film is Mimi (1935), by the way — and for some reason it made me really excited about Old Hollywood again. It made me really miss the magic of that era and all the wonderful actors and actresses. And it also made me think of all the reasons why I fell in love with classic films in the first place. I came up with 80 reasons, which I thought would be fun to share with you. Most of them are just random little scenes or quirky little quotes, but put them together and they spell Old Hollywood to me. Yesterday I posted part one ; her...

Top 10 Favourite Christmas Films

Christmas has always been a source of inspiration to many artists and writers. Over the years, filmmakers have adapted various Christmas stories into both movies and TV specials, which have become staples during the holiday season all around the world. Even though Christmas is my favourite holiday, I haven't watched a lot of Christmas films. Still, I thought it would be fun to rank my top 10 favourites, based on the ones that I have indeed seen. Here they are. 10. Holiday Affair (1949) Directed by Don Hartman, Holiday Affair tells the story of a young widow (Janet Leigh) torn between a boring attorney (Wendell Corey) and a romantic drifter (Robert Mitchum). She's engaged to marry the boring attorney, but her son (Gordon Gebert) likes the romantic drifter better. Who will she choose? Well, we all know who she will choose. Holiday Affair is not by any means the greatest Christmas film of all time, but it's still a very enjoyable Yule-tide comedy to watch over the holi...

The Sinatra Centennial Blogathon: Frank Sinatra & Gene Kelly

In January 1944, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer happened to see a young crooner by the name of Frank Sinatra perform at a benefit concert for The Jewish Home for the Aged in Los Angeles. According to Nancy Sinatra, Frank's eldest daughter, Mayer was so moved by her father's soulful rendition of « Ol' Man River » that he made the decision right then and there to sign Frank to his studio. Sinatra had been on the MGM payroll once before, singing with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra in the Eleanor Powell vehicle Ship Ahoy (1942), although it is very likely that Mayer never bothered to see that film. Now that Frank was «hot,» however, Metro made arrangements to buy half of his contract from RKO, with the final deal being signed in February of that year. Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh Being a contract player at the studio that boasted «more stars than there are in the heavens» gave Frank a sudden perspective regarding his own talents as a film performer. The «g...

Back to Golden Days

Search This Blog