Hmmm...

What's in a name?

Double feature of What's in a name!

What's in the names of one the most famous Hollywood couples in history?

I'll start off with the fairer half of the couple: Lucille Désirée Ball.

Lucille means 'light.' Couldn't agree more. Don't you just light up when Lucille pops up on the screen with all her zaniness and presence? 

Désirée (such a lovely name!) means 'desired.'

Now the other half: Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III, more affectionately known to us as Desi Arnaz.


Desi means 'desire.' How cute it that? It matches Lucille's middle name. Lucille is 'desired' by Desi who has a 'desire' for Lucille! I find that so awesome!


Alberto means 'bright.' There it goes again! 'Light' is 'bright.' It matches Lucille's name!

So much beauty in one place.

Vivien and Laurence giving Marilyn loving pecks.

Tidbit Time

Tori Spelling is the goddaughter of Barbara Stanwyck and Dean Martin. My goodness. How did this happen?

"You never looked like that when we were married!"

      "You never looked like that when we were married!"               "It's the way I often felt!"

SPEEDY SUMMARY:

"SHE claims...He makes her unfit to be Federal Judge."

YAY, it’s yet another film where Ms Rosalind Russell portrays a career woman, this time depicting a recently divorced lady attorney, Marsha, who is nominated for a judgeship. But her recent, highly publicized divorce makes her unsuitable for the position, in some patriarchal eyes. Robert Cummings is her ex-husband, Peter, also a lawyer, who is trying to get Marsha back, because the divorce was completely unnecessary and had rooted from a misunderstanding on Marsha’s part. Misunderstandings after misunderstandings, false identities, laughs, (Robert Cummings acts  the clown, happens to find himself in the most unfortunate of situations) and most of all Marsha’s desperate attempts to keep her name clean of all scandals in the newspapers…but all in all a happy ending! (OH YES, and Peter and Marsha get married again in the beginning, because THEY WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER, but then of course, misunderstandings drive them apart, again and again, and another divorce seems the inevitable result).

Rosalind. She is my heroine, THE career woman, THE lady in men’s world. I love the independent, outspoken and classy characters she plays. Rosalind’s Marsha is immaculately professional and precise, but also shows vulnerability and dependence, which really shows us that despite her imposing presence, she is a woman. She needs to be held and loved and nurtured. 

I must say I felt sorry for Mr Cummings for the whole duration of the movie. He’s being ridiculed all the time, ending up in bizarre, inexplicable situations and suffering from Marsha’s scathing sarcasm every step of the way. 

They have a love-hate relationship, but definitely more on the love side. Marsha completely rejects Peter: for some weird reason, Marsha perceives displaying affection to be displaying weakness and she can’t let Peter have the upper hand! It’s like the game uncle. The person to admit it first loses and the winner has the power. Marsha’s attempt to make Peter jealous is absolutely adorable! 

Scenes to watch out for:

1) Marsha spots Peter. She proceeds to grab the annoying (but handsome) man who was flirting with her before, and pretends to be his very special lady friend. They go into a bar and try to converse, Peter follows them, and Marsha does her operatic fake laughs, pretending that she’s having a ball of a time with the dashing gentleman. Peter is intensely focussed on Marsha, trying to tell her something. ‘YES! He’s jealous!’ thinks Marsha, but in fact Peter is trying to tell Marsha that her red lipstick has smudged, badly. It’s sweet how hard he’s trying to save his ex-wife from humiliation and ridicule.

Sporting smudged lipstick and still looking good.

 

  

2) Peter and Marsha happen to end up at a lighthouse after they escape from a highly scandalous situation. With the help of the light house keeper, they get a night’s rest there and some breakfast in the morning. There’s nothing but fish for the meal and Marsha insists on cooking her own one, yes, because she’s capable. Turns out, she doesn’t know a thing about cooking. She can’t bear to cut it and take out the insides! “Why does it have to look at me so accusingly?” distressed Marsha cries. Conclusion? She doesn’t have any breakfast. 

 

 

3) Awesome klutzy dance of Marsha with the guy that was with her at the bar, now her pretend husband. She’s just flung around by him, as the delighted onlookers cheer and clap. 

 
4) Peter insists on staying with Marsha in the lounge room, forbidding her access to the locked ‘honeymoon bedroom’ thinking that the pretend husband is inside. Alas, Marsha is the only one there and it was Marsha who had locked the bedroom moments before Peter had entered the scene, just to get a kick out of making Peter all suspicious and on his toes. Peter mournfully whines “How could you do this? How could you hide that man in your room?” Aw. 

5) Mr Cummings' girly high-pitched sneezes. Priceless.

6) Mr Cummings' sleepy face. Priceless.

Things I've learnt...

• Saying the alphabet is a real icebreaker when dining with a man (You see, the scene where Rosalind, with her smudged lips,  is ‘flirting’ with the man, she seductively whispers ‘A, B, C, D, E…’ , much to the gentleman’s confusion, to make it seem as though she is whispering sweet nothings…all the while Mr Cummings is trying to catch his wife’s attention. Just one big blob of laughs!) 
• The more successful a woman is, the more miserable her cooking skills are. Haha!

Link to the movie:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9aQKnboW3U&feature=related

Quotable Quote

[on Method acting]  "All this talk about the Method, the Method! WHAT method? I thought each of us had our OWN method!"

Gosh, I can't help myself but be amazed when reading Olivier's quotes. He was incredibly, almost obsessively, passionate about his work, and he always expressed this passion in such eloquent words. I can't help but marvel. 

Tidbit Time

As promised, a bit of Ramon Novarro trivia!

• Ramon's grandfathers were good friends before his parents met each other. When Ramon's parents started courting, the two friends were very, very pleased, especially because the two families were rich, powerful and respectable (had some blue blood in there somewhere, too). Thus, you can say that Ramon's family was like the ultimate household, double the power and reputation.

• Ramon was very close to his mother, Maria. It seems that Ramon was easily the favourite child (Maria had thirteen children!) because he and his mother shared the same passion: music and theater. Maria was gifted with a beautiful soprano voice, but never became a professional diva due to the notion that respectable women didn't do things like that. Maria taught Ramon piano, and later singing as well, wanting him to become a concert pianist.

• Ramon's first chance to shine as an actor came when he was six. At his grandmother's birthday party, he performed a Spanish piece (much to the delight of the family). From then on, his love of acting expanded and he regularly gave puppet shows.

• Ramon and his siblings were fascinated by African Americans since not many of them could be found where the family lived. They would ride on their horses to a nearby train station to wave and gawk at black porters on American trains. 

• Later, when he met the African American architect, Paul Williams, at a cocktail party, Ramon was giddy with excitement and said, "You're the first of your race that I have had the pleasure of meeting. May I shake the hand of so distinguished a member?" They did shake hands, although how Paul Williams felt, I do not know. At least Ramon was charming and polite.