Comments on: Why Is There a Mary Astor, Rather Than No Mary Astor?

By: Ray Davis

Ray Davis — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 14:35:58 +0000

I agree that Astor seems painfully wrong in “The Maltese Falcon”, but she got excellent reviews at the time and it gave her career a boost. That and “The Bad Seed”’s similarly inexplicable Patricia McCormack demonstrate that fashions in feminine deceit change faster than masculine ones. Having admitted that, I must insist that Astor is an everlovin’ knockout as the nymphomaniac in “The Palm Beach Story”. I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a line-reading better than her rendition of the single word “… Poppa?” Mere punctuation feels insultingly crass.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 02:16:57 +0000

Belle, who would you like to have seen in the role of O’Shaughnessy, given that Bacall was too young? I’d go with Barbara Stanwyck, who was great as a vamp in another outstanding film from 1941, The Lady Eve. (The only drawback would be that perhaps her role as Phyllis in Double Indemnity would be less memorable as a result. But I doubt it.)

By: W. Kiernan

W. Kiernan — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 01:10:46 +0000

My father looked a lot like Humphrey Bogart. How tall was Bogart, anyway? My father was rather short; it looked good on him. Anyway, I thought pretty much everybody considered Bogart to be a handsome guy so now your friend surprises me. Mary Astor looked just like Beatriz Viterbo. We who were in love with her found Beatriz very beautiful, painfully so; but to our other friends, the attraction or possession or whatever seemed not just un-understandable but aesthetically perverse.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 00:20:07 +0000

“Humphrey Bogart doesn’t have to be conventionally sexy because regardless of your gender he’s the character you want to be. Not have, be.” Ah, I guess that’s what I meant! Well said. “In Casablanca what man or woman bothers identifying with Ingrid Bergman? Doesn’t everyone want to be Bogie or Victor Laszlo?” Well yeah but that’s (isn’t it?) mostly for the usual obvious reasons. The Woman is just a generic Woman; Rick and Victor do stuff. We all want to be the people who do stuff, not the generic Byootifool Woman wot inspires them. But so that’s true of most movies. They have generic Women who don’t do or say much while The Men get on with running the world or killing everyone or taking over Vegas or whatever the hell it is. So it’s right that Rick and Louis go off together at the end.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 22:10:50 +0000

At this point i feel compelled to add that i find michael douglas the most ridiculous thing that ever appeared in a movie. And that’s including zardoz. Thank you for your attention.

By: fyreflye

fyreflye — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 20:21:41 +0000

I turn 70 this month and find more women in their 20’s attracted to me these days than ever were in my salad days. Of course, it’s not the fault of Bogart, Gable, Astaire or Nicholson that they’re not me.

By: HP

HP — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 19:48:46 +0000

I’d be more bothered by the way the way Hollywood assigns the informed attribute “sexy” to people who are physically unappealing and personality-impaired except that it happens all the time in real life. Surely we all know someone who seems to get all the guys/girls without having a single redeeming quality. Heck, we’ve all probably been swept up in it from time to time. “Attractiveness” has a social-consensus component that is at least as important as personal preferences or objective features. The perception of being attractive is very nearly the same thing as being attractive. Hollywood simply reflects that basic observation: Remember the Great Bert Convy Mass Delusion of the 1970s? After a time, the social consensus breaks down or drifts elsewhere, and we can finally ask, “What’s up with Mary Astor?” (To Have and to Have Not has Hoagy Carmichael singing “Hong Kong Blues.” Reason enough for me to treasure it. “As Time Goes By” OTOH, is a mediocre song that derives its appeal solely through the context of appearing in Casablanca.)

By: Martha Bridegam

Martha Bridegam — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 08:17:10 +0000

Humphrey Bogart doesn't have to be conventionally sexy because regardless of your gender he's the character you want to be. Not have, be. It makes the love interests in his movies kind of secondary as a result. In Casablanca what man or woman bothers identifying with Ingrid Bergman? Doesn't everyone want to be Bogie or Victor Laszlo? And you will forgive me if I am not gracious, but there's no comparison between Casablanca and To Have and Have Not. To Have and Have Not is only a movie, albeit a good one. Casablanca is a political as well as an artistic inspiration and almost every line is quotable -- "Shocked, shocked," and "Round up the usual suspects" are the least of it. Yeah, I know, James Agee hated the film and gave a personal award for dumb expository dialogue to the line, "Oh, Victor, please don't go to the underground meeting tonight." Yeah, but nevertheless.

By: Stefanie Murray

Stefanie Murray — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 08:05:16 +0000

I can’t believe no one here has mentioned Woody Allen. I almost lost my lunch in “Mighty Aphrodite” when the Crypt-Keeper-esque Allen mashed his maquillaged face into Mira Sorvino’s. Ack!

By: q

Fri, 09 Jul 2004 07:35:47 +0000

I look forward to a plot and script that can handle the challenging romantic pairing of Sean Connery and Cameron Diaz.

By: Erik

Erik — Fri, 09 Jul 2004 01:47:18 +0000

Sadly my copy is on loan, but I recall from the book that Brigit is emphatically not a looker. She played on men’s sympathy and trust, not their hormones. Which is not to defend Astor’s performance. But she was by no means a terrible casting choice.

By: julia

julia — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 21:08:26 +0000

Oh, you forgot Love in the Afternoon, with the completely decrepit Gary Cooper sweeping Audrey Hepburn, who looked about 12, off her feet, and High Noon, with the completely decrepit Gary Cooper sweeping Grace Kelly, who looked about 18, off her feet.

By: julia

julia — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 21:03:39 +0000

Mary Astor was more of a signifier back then than she is now. Her husband got hold of her diary and used it in their divorce proceedings. She’d had an affair with George S Kaufman, and she was pretty forthright about their sex life in the diary. It was a big scandal at the time – they were both very famous – so maybe they used her as shorthand for “bad girl” She was beautiful in a cookie cutter way back when she made silents, and not bad as Katherine Hepburn’s mother in Little Women but it would have taken a pretty spectacular face to overcome Bridget O’Shaughnessy’s haircut, which was incredibly bad.

By: Mac Thomason

Mac Thomason — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 20:44:55 +0000

I don’t think that Keaton’s performance in the “Godfather” movies is really her fault. As noted, she’s supposed to be a repressed WASP, and she played it that way. Also, the second half of the first movie is very odd. One day, they just happen to be married and have kids.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 19:13:28 +0000

I know, isn’t Joan Blondell great? All those tough broads in the WB studio – Ginger Rogers (yes, she was one of those Gold-diggers!), and – the one whose name I keep trying to think of. Made movies with Julie ‘John’ Garfield later. And June Allyson a nightmare – exactly so. So anyway, Mary Astor was a kind of film noir Ruby Keeler in the Maltese Falcon – that’s what I think. It was a Warner Brothers thing.