Dream Weaver

Oh, I know, other people's dreams really are dull, and mine are no exception.  Even so, I'm going to beg your indulgence and hope that you gentle readers might help me parse out one I've been having lately.

Maybe it's just a delayed reaction to reading her obituaries last summer, or maybe it's just the effects of reading too many show-biz bios, but she keeps popping up.  Usually, I'm in some random situation from everyday life, albeit one that has, for no good reason, become peppered with the great names of cinema. For example, in one I was a waiter (which I was, once upon a time, by the bye, and a damn good one), at a smart urban joint waiting on a very chummy Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (BD circa 1943 and JC 'round about 1970, it seemed, but it didn't faze me at the time) having a girls' lunch out.  As I hand them the check, I say, "Boy, that Celeste Holm sure was a bitch, wasn't she?"  Surprised expressions all around, a couple of raised eyebrows of agreement, and curtain.

In another, I am playing bridge with Gloria Swanson and a couple of Waxworks, and apropos of nothing, during a lull in a conversation about real estate (the consensus: sell), ask the same question.  Miss Swanson looks disapproving, as if she believing that if someone were to make such observations, it should be she.

Then there's the one where I'm rehearsing a dance number with Charlotte Greenwood and Kay Thompson (and there's an unpicturesque trio - with me standing between them, we'd look like the number 101) and I stop the piano player to demand of my partners, "Tell the truth - was Celeste Holm the biggest bitch you ever worked with or was she not?"

Finally, and most chillingly, there's the one in which I don't remember of whom I ask the fateful question (Margaret Rutherford? Theda Bara? Nancy Kulp?), but after doing so I turn and realize that standing behind me is... Celeste Holm.  And in that moment I know, in a flash of shock and fear, that "bitch" doesn't begin to describe it.

Sometimes I think I need to drink more before bedtime.  What do you think?

When Ladies Meet

This publicity photo is ostensibly just of three favorite supporting ladies modelling the spring's new fashions and hats.

However, I do feel that it could just as easily be construed as beloved ditherer ZaSu Pitts deftly - and to the surprise and, one feels, satisfaction of Paula Laurence (caught in the midst of her trademark Martita Hunt impression) - ripping a mouth-breathing Celeste Holm a new one.

You just know ZaSu could drop the Vera Vague act any time she wanted to, and one can hardly think of a more suitable target.

Trailer Trash: Miss Mellie Goes to Hell

We've had a run of fluff and low-budget wonders (not that there's anything wrong with that) the last few weeks, so I thought this time around we'd go with a little prestige. When do you suppose was the last time a film - pardon me, a "filmization" - was given enhanced credibility by its status as a "Book of the Month Club See-lection" and appearance in the Reader's Digest?

This may not be the very start of actresses seeking validation by deglamorizing themselves, but it's pretty close. It didn't work as well as it could have (Olivia didn't pick up her second Best Actress Oscar until the next year, for deglamorization of a different kind in The Heiress), but all involved seem pretty thoroughly de-glammed.

For a clearly "A" and generally well-remembered film, The Snake Pit has suffered a curious Case of the Disappearing Male Leads. Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Glenn Langan - what's up with that? Of them all, only Leif Erickson has a certain éclat, if you're willing to stretch things a tad. You look at the women in the cast and it's notables right down to the bits - Olivia and Celeste, of course, but then Beulah Bondi, Natalie Schafer, Lee Patrick, Isabel Jewell; veterans Minna Gombell and Minerva Urecal; and even silents-survivor Mae Marsh.

Sometimes I wish I could have been a studio-era scriptwriter. I imagine myself beneath a whirling fan, the long white curtains at the open office window moving in a languid southern California breeze while a parade of extras dressed as centurions and saloon gals drift by outside, and I tap away at my black enamelled Underwood, coming up with lines like "My head hurts! There's something the matter with my head!"