Terms Which Have Disappeared

[Doctor Strange]

I totally agree about The Country Girl - any doubts that Crosby couldn't act are quashed. He's heartbreaking.

It's the same syndrome as when people are so shocked that comedians turn out to be fine dramatic actors. There have been countless examples from Chaplin to today's sitcom stars. It turns out that comedy really IS harder, and if you have mastered the timing/delivery/empathy skills of comedy, you can do drama. Bing is a good example: considered a singer who could also manage light comedy mostly just because he was so affable and charming... and then he's tremendous in a dramatic role.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Artie Shaw once called Bing "the first hip white man in America," and it was precisely that sense of cool that he was referring to. Whether in his singing, his radio work, or his movies, Crosby projected ironic detatchment before anyone had any idea what it was. A generation that knows him largely as an elderly pipe-smoking fuddy duddy singing corny Christmas songs in a sweater with David Bowie would probably shocked to know that Bing was probably the coolest man in that room.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I really never saw it before, but to me, it's an nearly unbelievable blueprint of first class-acting.

And Bowie looks, as he would be really in his element and got joy.

 

[Fading Fast]

Artie Shaw once called Bing "the first hip white man in America," and it was precisely that sense of cool that he was referring to. Whether in his singing, his radio work, or his movies, Crosby projected ironic detatchment before anyone had any idea what it was. A generation that knows him largely as an elderly pipe-smoking fuddy duddy singing corny Christmas songs in a sweater with David Bowie would probably shocked to know that Bing was probably the coolest man in that room.

Agreed. He out cools Sinatra in "High Society." And you have to be one cool customer to be willing to take on any role already defined by Cary Grant.

While "Going My Way" is Crosby cool at its best, IMHO, I do love his complete insouciance in "High Society," even when he's finally cracked and trying to get Grace Kelly back, he still has a shrugged-of-his-shoulders attitude about it*. There are now two (three, I don't know) generations that probably don't get how cool he was.

And if you watch his video with Bowie, there's still the cool there and his respect for Bowie seem legitimate. He doesn't have the smirk against rock and roll that many of the crooners of his generation show even when they caved a bit to modern tastes and played along with rock and roll.

* It takes insane cool to be blithe about Grace Kelly even in a movie. I assume if I met her on my best day, I'd be unable to speak and would probably just self combust leaving Grace standing next to a pile of ashes.

Edit add: how funny, Trenchfriend just posted the video I was referencing. Thank you sir.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I remember hearing on the radio that Crosby had died, and when they mentioned that he'd died on the golf course, it seemed like the most natural way possible for him to go.

There were very very few actors who could ever approach Bing's level of cool. Grant is one, but I always felt like Sinatra tried too hard. Dean Martin, however, approached it, as did Harry Belafonte, and in his own way so did Buster Keaton. Douglas Fairbanks in silent pictures was a different kind of cool, and he was much more self-conscious about it than he needed to be. Self-conscious cool isn't cool. Errol Flynn labored mightily under the delusion that he was cool, but he wasn't cool at all. Not only wasn't he cool, he probably smelled bad besides.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Errol Flynn labored mightily under the delusion that he was cool, but he wasn't cool at all. Not only wasn't he cool, he probably smelled bad besides.

Thank you for causing me to experience having soda shoot out of my nostrils (my fault for reading one of your posts while drinking soda).

From what I've read, Flynn did love his image and himself, but he also seemed reasonably loyal to his friends (but that's all just based on a loose recollection of a bunch of stuff I've read over the years - I'm very, very far from a Flynn biographer). Hence, what provoke your comment (and my soda contretemps)?

 

[LizzieMaine]

He just Seems The Type.

Clark Gable was another one who provokes such a reaction from me. When he took off his shirt in "It Happened One Night," no matter how many other women in the audience sa-wooooooned, my first reaction was "ewwwwwwww." Imagine my sense of vindication when I read in one of his biographies that he was, indeed, a candidate for Lifebuoy.

 

[Fading Fast]

He just Seems The Type.

Clark Gable was another one who provokes such a reaction from me. When he took off his shirt in "It Happened One Night," no matter how many other women in the audience sa-wooooooned, my first reaction was "ewwwwwwww." Imagine my sense of vindication when I read in one of his biographies that he was, indeed, a candidate for Lifebuoy.

I'm with you with Gable. My girlfriend describes him as oily or greasy looking and said she wouldn't want to be in the same room with him. But I've never felt that way about Flynn. Maybe because, to a ten-year-old me, he'll always be the swashbuckling hero of "Robin Hood" and "The Sea Hawk" who gets the pretty girl.

I've always thought Tyron Powers looked like he needed a good wash and shampoo - I never got his leading-man thing at all.

On the female side, I thought Marylyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth looked like a bath wouldn't hurt them - but heck, who really knows. And don't get me started on Sophia Loren - a scrub brush and bar of Ivory always looked necessary.

I did read once that Julie Christie had such bad BO that it turned her leading men off. Probably a lie. I like to think so anyway as few have every looked better than she does in "Dr. Zhivago."

 

[2jakes]

He just Seems The Type.

Clark Gable was another one who provokes such a reaction from me. When he took off his shirt in "It Happened One Night," no matter how many other women in the audience sa-wooooooned, my first reaction was "ewwwwwwww." Imagine my sense of vindication when I read in one of his biographies that he was, indeed, a candidate for Lifebuoy.

I would add a bottle of Listerine to the list.
Mr. Gable was fond of eating raw onions.

Perhaps the dislike Ms. Scarlett had towards Rhett was
more than just acting.

 

[Upgrade]

The most recent reference I recall to the "Road to" pictures was in the 2000 Dreamworks film Road to El Dorado.

They make a brief homage to Hope and Crosby in the distorted reflections of the protagonists during one of the song and dance numbers.

 

[Zombie_61]

I think the problem a lot of people have with the Hope and Crosby pictures is that they no longer have the context to work from. The characters were never intended to be realistic --not even in the way that modern movie comedies are "sort of realistic." Both Hope and Crosby in their films together were playing caricatures of the personalities they projected on radio -- Hope was presented on radio as a wisecracking, vainglorious coward, and Crosby was the living epitome of absolute, unflappable, effortless Cool. Neither performer was trying to perform any kind of legitimate character in their films together -- they were cartoon figures. People seeing these films when they were first made knew these characterizations in the same way that they knew that Jack Benny was a cheapskate and Lou Costello was a "baaaaad boy," and they didn't expect them to be realistic. Further adding to this is the fact that many of the weird little asides they were constantly making were references to running gags from their radio programs, which, unless you've listened extensively to what survives of that work, are going to go right over the modern viewer's head...

This isn't the case for me. I'm familiar with their work outside of the "road" pictures; I guess I just don't like those personas when they're combined.

More to the point, I've never really cared for Bob Hope. I've seen some footage from his USO shows and found those entertaining, but have never seen one of his movies (without Crosby) or television shows and felt the same way. Bing Crosby, on the other hand, I've seen and enjoyed when he wasn't sharing screen time with Hope, and agree with all of the favorable comments made in the previous posts. He always seemed to have this relaxed way about him that made his performances, both as an actor and a singer, more natural and approachable.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Zsa Zsa Gabor is gone, now.

I never watched her. Maybe I should.

 

[skydog757]

That'll put some salt on his tail.

 

[p51]

I'm with you with Gable. My girlfriend describes him as oily or greasy looking and said she wouldn't want to be in the same room with him. But I've never felt that way about Flynn. Maybe because, to a ten-year-old me, he'll always be the swashbuckling hero of "Robin Hood" and "The Sea Hawk" who gets the pretty girl.

I've always thought Tyron Powers looked like he needed a good wash and shampoo - I never got his leading-man thing at all.

On the female side, I thought Marylyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth looked like a bath wouldn't hurt them - but heck, who really knows. And don't get me started on Sophia Loren - a scrub brush and bar of Ivory always looked necessary.

Funny you'd mention this as that's how I pretty much felt about most actors/actresses from the past.
You can look at many photos from the golden era and think, "Man, I bet they smelled horrible" as daily showers is pretty much a recent thing, societally (and of course not everyone regularly cleans themselves even now).
Imagine walking into a party in the 30s, where everyone is wearing (wool) suits, in hot weather, and nobody has AC. That and all the smoking. I'd have gagged before I got ten feet!

 

[BlueTrain]

Although I fondly remember most of these actors and actresses from the past, I never really cared to know that much about their personal lives, even though some of them had adventures outside of Hollywood. I especially liked Bob Hope (more than Crosby, too) but I don't really remember the road pictures. Even though I remember a few of his movies, which others here probably wouldn't like, I tend to think of him as a stand-up comic more than anything else. I also especially liked Dean Martin and thought he was more versatile than most, for what it's worth. But nobody gets bad marks from me on something they do well because they don't do something else well, too. But it's also hard to separate the characters from the person, too, sometimes.

 

[tonyb]

Mine is the minority opinion around here, by the looks of it.

Hope's shtick was perhaps novel back when the World War II generation was in its salad days, but by the time I rolled along I was left to wonder why anybody found him remotely humorous.

In determining when to hang it up, I make the comparison between Bob Hope and Johnny Carson. Best to bow out before people start muttering, "When's this guy gonna retire?" Be a Carson, not a Hope.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/08/hopeless.html

 

[LizzieMaine]

For me, Hope's best work is his pre-WW2 radio shows, which were unlilke anything else on the air then in their aggressive approach to comedy. He began to coast, though, when he started doing the Army camp stuff in 1941, and pretty much all of his wartime radio work is generic "hey great to be here at Camp Fillinthablank, but how bout those second lieutenants?" stuff. The GIs loved him, or perhaps they loved that he brought Frances Langford in a tight dress, but they never caught onto the fact the he did pretty much the exact same show at every base he visited.

His movies worked best in the context of his radio shows -- if you knew his character from radio, his movies came across as an extension of that zaniness. But his TV work from the fifties forward started out mediocre -- you could see him skimming the cue cards on TV all the way back to 1950 -- and by the 70s they were unwatchable. I used to feel embarrassed for him, and by the mid-80s, I couldn't bear to even look at his shows.

 

[Bigger Don]

they never caught onto the fact the he did pretty much the exact same show at every base he visited.

Catch on? Smells like an insinuation they were being fooled. Comedians don't write new routines for every town they visit. Les Miserables is Les Miserables, tour to tour, town to town.

Besides that, I remember my father and one of my uncles talk about seeing Bob Hope ("Mr. Hope" to you). One of the things they enjoyed was they could talk about their common experience, 100s of miles apart.

Quarter of a century or so after there experience(s), I was sitting with them and a cousin, who had just returned from Vietnam, at a picnic table playing Pitch at one of our 2-3 times a year extended family picnics. They were talking about Bob Hope, among other things. In the age when jerks in the national media were pushing divisiveness of "Generation Gap", I think it helped all three, and me, too.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Catch on? Smells like an insinuation they were being fooled. Comedians don't write new routines for every town they visit. Les Miserables is Les Miserables, tour to tour, town to town. .

Radio comedians were supposed to do a new show with new material every week, thrity-nine weeks out of the year, and the better ones did. Hope's 1938-40 stuff is excellent, because he was willing to experiment. He stopped experimenting once he became "Mr. Army Camp." It may have cemented his place in the hearts of GIs everywhere, but it was tedious, mediocre, even lazy comedy. Even Hope himself finally realized this, completely shaking up his radio format after the war, but it was too late to really recapture his prewar momentum, and by the fifties he'd stopped trying.

 

[ChiTownScion]

There's nothing more painful than watching a comedian who is past prime: it's like watching an over the hill boxer climb into the ring and get pummeled by someone nearly half their age. Timing is everything in comedy, and when it's gone, it's gone.

I remember going to a college "Marx Brothers Night" and seeing a silent short that Chico and Harpo Marx did about 1960: all I could think about was how the rapid fire gags and puns flew decades before when they really were part of the Marx Brothers. In their prime they were in a class by themselves. By the time that they made that short feature, they were just a couple of sad old men. The night was supposed to be about laughs: I left the auditorium early, trying to hold back tears.