Nyad

 

I'm in the Screen Actors Guild, and I get these things every awards season.  I was going through some drawers, and I found some cards from different nominated movies.  I was going to throw them away, but I figured, what the hell, they've got photos on them and there might be a few people out there who'd find them interesting.  Nyad was released in 2023, so the QR codes on the back of the card are long dead. And, by the way, Nyad is a pretty good movie. 

Ryan's Daughter

Despite the fact that I live in Los Angeles and work in the movies, albeit in a rather minor position, I don't have a lot of photos from movie sets.  This one is from Ryan's Daughter, directed by David Lean.  Lean was a British director who made some rather nice adaptations of plays by Noel Coward and several books by Charles Dickens who went on to make a series of historical epics that made him into a major figure in the film world.  Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, and Doctor Zhivago, before returning to a couple of tasteful literary adaptations.  Ryan's Daughter which was based on Madame Bovary and A Passage to India, based on a book by E.M. Forster.  Although, there was a certain amount of criticism of the last two that Lean couldn't shake the epic feel which overwhelmed his story.  Well, as Edward Abbey once pointed out, it's not critics that make these decisions, it's the democracy of time. 

So, the two actors in this photo.  Leo McKern and Sarah Miles.  Other members of the cast included Robert Mitchum, Trevor Howard, John Mills, and Christopher Jones.  Jones is pretty much forgotten today, but when his career was just hitting it's stride he was thought of as the heir to James Dean.  He made a movie that's now considered a cult classic.  Wild in the Streets was about a 28 year old rock star elected president of the United States after the voting age is reduced to 16 and the age requirement for the office is eliminated.

New Pages

After the photo lab I worked at went out of business, I ended up working on movie sets as a background actor and stand-in.  When I found this picture I knew exactly what it was.  The man on the right is an assistant director or production assistant and he's delivering new script pages to the actors.   Too bad their faces aren't visible.  Who knows, those two might be really famous.

Clifton Webb and Friends

The man on the right is actor Clifton Webb.  Curiously what's written on the back, "Dave McIntyre Don Larson June 59"  doesn't mention Webb.  Perhaps the writer assumed that  identifying Webb wasn't necessary.  I couldn't find any info on McIntyre and Larson, but for those of you too young and don't watch old movies.....

Webb was born Webb Parmalee Hollenbeck in 1889 in the less than cosmopolitan Indianapolis, Indiana.  As a child he studied voice and dance and was a professional ballroom dancer by his late teens.  His early career was mostly in the theater.  He had the occasional film role, including in silent movies, but didn't become a star until 1944 when he played villain Waldo Lydecker in Otto Preminger's Laura.  In 1948 he starred in Sitting Pretty as Lynn Belvedere an eccentric genius who takes a job as a babysitter.  The movie was so successful that Webb ended up making a series of Mr. Belvedere films.  He was in Titanic opposite Barbara Stanwyck, still my favorite film version of the sinking of the ship.  (Sorry James Cameron.)  Some of his more memorable films,  The Razor's Edge,  The Man Who Wasn't There, Three Coins in a Fountain, Cheaper By the Dozen,  and as Victor Parmalee, in Boy on a Dolphin.  I wonder if he chose the name of the character.  He lived with his overbearing mother Maybelle  until she died in 1960.  He died six years latter in 1966. 

Going by the backdrop, I'm thinking this photo was taken in a television studio. Perhaps he was being interviewed.

Mariette Hartley and Arlene Dayton?

One would think, since I live in Los Angeles and work in the movies (albeit at a very low level), I'd have lots of Hollywood photos.  Not really.  The fact is they don't interest me all that much. I only have these two pictures because they were in one of those occasionally purchased envelopes of images that almost always have stuff I wouldn't have bought by themselves.

So, the woman on the left is Mariette Hartley, an actress that those of us of a certain age would recognize right away.  She did a lot of episodic television, the occasional movie, and most prominently, along with James Garner, was a long time pitch woman for Polaroid cameras. 

Look at the bottom of the two pictures and stage lights can be seen.  Clearly from a sound stage, probably from one of her many television appearances.  Going by the hair styles and clothing, I took a quick look at her IMDB page, searching for a possible match from about the late seventies through the eighties, but couldn't find an actual show.  As far as Arlene Dayton, her name is written on the back of the top print, but no one by that name  has an IMDB listing. 

Born in 1940, Hartley is still active.  She's had a recurring role in the Fox series 9-1-1. 

Camera, Action!

I might be necessary to click on the photos and bring them up in a bigger window to see, but there is a camera in the upper left corner, behind the actors.  And my favorite thing about these pictures; written on the back of the top image, "disregard dark lines on face of print."   Come on.  Once it's mentioned, no one will be able to disregard the fogging.

Lights

Alright, the shiny thing is a reflector.  Obviously, it's used to reflect light, and less obviously, to soften light.  The crew members are getting a bit more casual in dress compared to yesterday's post.

Sound

After the photo lab I worked at went belly up, after going through my unemployment, savings and retirement fund, I started doing background work in the movies.  This piece of equipment is a boom mic, and quite frankly, they haven't changed all that much since this picture was taken.  But who is the guy?  All the techs I've seen on set dress casually.  For some reason, they seem to favor shorts.  Did boom operators once show up to set wearing suits?  Hard to imagine. 

Famous People?

I have to say, this very small snapshot looks like it was posed.  Too, the tall man on the right looks familiar, and  the guy in the trench coat looks a bit like Spencer Tracy.  There is a stamp on the back, most of which is unreadable, but I could make out "KONSUM FOTOLAB" according to Google Translate, cooperative photo lab.  I like silent movies, and I've seen a number of German ones.  Perhaps, Tracy made a trip to Germany, and he met with members of the German film industry. 

My Heart Calls You

Written on the back, "Mein herz ruft nach dir."  A quick trip to Google translate gave me my heart calls you.  It sure looks like a theatrical photo so a quick trip to IMDB gave me Mein Herz Ruft Nach Dir, My Heart Calls You, 1934, starring Jan Kiepura as Mario Delmonte, and Marta Eggerth as Clara.  And what do you know, this happy couple are Jan and Marta themselves.  Really happy since they met on the movie, and married in real life.  They stayed married until Jan's death in 1966.

Anyway, both Jan and Marta were pretty famous in the world of opera, and starred in a number of pre-war German musicals.  Jan Kiepura, a tenor, was born in 1902, in a small town in  Poland, back when Poland was still part of the Russian Empire.  Marta Eggerth, a lyric soprano, was born in 1912, in Budapest, back when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

After their marriage, Jan and Marta called Vienna home, but after the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, they fled, first to Paris, and then the United States.  Back to IMDB, and I found a 1942 credit for Marta in For Me and My Gal, starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, directed by Busby Berkeley.  IBDB, the Broadway theater version of IMDB, listed three war time credits for Jan and Marta together.  They played supporting roles in two separate productions of The Merry Widow, and lead roles in Polonaise.  Marta also had a credit, without Jan, in Higher and Higher.  They also became American citizens and bought a home in Rye, New York.

After the war, they often returned to Europe to perform in operas, operettas, and concerts, though their pre-war film career was lost to them.  As already noted, Jan Kiepura died in 1966.  He was buried in Warsaw, Poland.  Marta lived to 2013, aged 101.  I went to YouTube and found some of their work, including a concert by Marta, aged 82, singing songs by Robert Stolz, composer of light operas and music for cabaret.   At that point, I realized I could spend the whole day researching Austrian operettas and Berlin cabaret.  I have eclectic musical tastes, have actually been to a grand total of two operas and have several  Kurt Weill/Ute Lemper CDs, (In German, I can't understand a word.) so it might have been a day well spent, but I've other things to do, so don't be lazy, do your own computer surfing.

Samurai

Written on the back, "This Poster Is Good Shot."   I agree.