Top Ten Anniversary: Favorite Movie Moments

And so we now come to the tenth and final Top Ten Anniversary list in celebration of ten fabulous years of Poseidon's Underworld. It seems impossible that we started the little-blog-that-could a full decade ago. Begun on a lark because my workload was at an all-time low and I wanted to appear busy lest I wind up being laid-off during a serious recession, now I am so busy at work I have to scramble to find time to keep the damned thing going! Today's list is of those moments in the cinema that I could never ever tire of seeing. Ones that I know by heart and relive in my mind (or sometimes in my dreams) and that I have to drop everything and watch if they are about to occur on television. To be honest, this really could have been ten Joan Crawford moments (and almost is, in a way!) or ten natural disasters or even ten Faye Dunway moments, but I did make a feeble attempt to add other varying ingredients. No one who loves old movies the way I do could truly have only ten favorite moments, but these are the ones I picked for this list.

AUTUMN LEAVES (1956) - Joan Crawford's tongue-lashing of Vera Miles and Lorne Greene -- Autumn Leaves is a decent movie with a solid cast and utilizes a memorable song performed by Nat King Cole, but I really don't count it among my JC faves. I typically prefer antagonist Joan versus victim Joan. In it, she plays the put-upon lover of a notably younger man with severe mental anxiety issues. No small contributor to this condition is the fact that his wife slept with his father and he witnessed it in action! When these two greedy guts try to strong arm the man (Cliff Robertson) into doing their bidding, they come upon a righteous and appalled Crawford who gives them exactly "what for" in an unforgettable condemnation that is as striking as it is hilarious. I could listen to this scene again and again. (Oh, let's face it. I have!)

GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) - Olivia de Havilland recognizes Leslie Howard -- I mean, come on... the truly memorable moment in GWTW for many people is Scarlett's vow to never go hungry again, even if she has to lie, cheat or steal. Many a lady left in the lurch has drawn upon that for personal inspiration, thus I include it in the montage above. But even as much as I love that, my favorite moment is when the war has ravaged everything that was once beautiful and the ladies are bone weary from feeding and doing endless laundry for the misbegotten soldiers who've straggled back home after defeat. De Havilland spies another hapless, faraway figure loping down the path and resigns herself to the fact that yet another person in need of care is on his way there. Then she realizes that it is none other than her beloved husband and bolts across the yard and sprints down the drive with all her strength! It's corny and impossibly melodramatic and I couldn't care less! I remember my mother once telling me that she loved my father so much that she could spot him out of a crowd of hundreds in an instant. You memorize the facets and composition of the one you adore. I love this sequence, and Miss de Havilland, so much, and this was the tear-jerking moment that I opted to leave out of my prior list.

LOVE HAS MANY FACES (1965) - Hugh O'Brian makes his presence known -- I don't recall the exact date, but one time in the mid-1990s, my life changed forever. I found a $3.00 VHS of an old movie called Love Has Many Faces at a grocery/department store called Bigg's and because it had Lana Turner in it, I thought I'd chance the purchase. Little did I know that inside that tape was one of the most glorious exhibitions of hirsute, sun-kissed, sizzlelean manliness that I could ever hope to encounter! You simply don't expect a glossy, 1965 major studio romance to have one of its leading men all but naked, swarthily flexing his physique and languidly loitering around trying to land a rich client for his gigolo services!  O'Brian wears three of these teensy-weensy trunks; yellow, blue and red. When he puts them away for real clothes, it's a devastating blow, but this introductory sequence is unforgettable. I knew that day that I was truly born too late...

MILDRED PIERCE (1945) - Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth discuss the check -- I said earlier that I prefer JC as antagonist rather than victim and yet I'm already about to contradict myself. I think the difference is that she was younger here and maybe I expect that by the time of Autumn Leaves she ought to have been able to stick up for herself better. Mildred Pierce is an exceptionally good film. It's got a tragic tone, yet benefits from the zesty comedic presence of Eve Arden as Crawford's pal. When Crawford's spoiled and thoroughly ungrateful daughter Blyth (as Veda Pierce) manages to bilk a fat check out of a gullible, rich boyfriend, the ever-patient mother can stand no more.  She demands the check from her selfish bitch of a daughter and gets a real earful from the loathsome brat. When Crawford growls out, "VEDA!," it's one of the greatest guttural reactions I can ever think of. Then they have a confrontation on the stairs that is marked by the check being torn into bits and falling like confetti to the floor. Appropriate since this is a scene to celebrate!

MOMMIE DEAREST (1981) - Faye Dunaway takes on the Pepsi board of directors -- For decades, Mommie Dearest was a favorite movie of mine and I could nearly recite it by heart. (In fact, one time, a female friend and I watched it with the sound off and used closed captioning to recite all the dialogue between ourselves - a far more entertaining experience than you might believe!) However, in recent years, I've cooled a bit in my love of the character-assassinating film because I don't like the image it gave the world of its title subject. Nonetheless, it still contains a ferociously entertaining performance by Dunaway and my favorite is when she attends a Pepsi board meeting, still in widow black following the death of her husband, and is about to be set aside by its male members. Dunaway adroitly assesses them and points out the unmistakable contribution she's made to their soft drink's success and finally let's it rip with the infamous line, "Don't FUCK WITH ME fellas! This ain't my first time at the rodeo..." This hard-line approach works wonders for her and they soon "get back to work."

THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) - The S.S. Poseidon capsizes -- There's almost nothing I don't love about this favorite movie, and Shelley Winters' heroic swim near the end is one of my favorite sequences in movie history, but for sheer spectacle and stunt coordination wizardry, I have to choose this part of the film. A sub-sea earthquake (somehow!) creates a massive wave that overturns an aging, top-heavy cruise ship just moments after midnight on New Year's Eve, sending everything - party favors, people, pianos! - flying around the dining salon! When VCRs were introduced, I used to meticulously watch this scene in slo-mo and freeze-frame. Same when DVD came about. You're welcome to all your CGI effects. They hold no interest for me at all because I don't believe what I'm seeing. But my disbelief IS suspended when I see real people swaying, sliding, screaming and eventually falling from the heights of the mammoth room. The expressions of the stars, particularly the ladies, during this catastrophe have become iconic to me. Remember when TV promos for the movie would show brief shots of the cast as their names were announced in order to get to you watch? I live for things like that.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973) Faye Dunaway and Raquel Welch tussle over the Queen's diamonds -- Practically the entire movie hinges on a political move to humiliate the Queen of France by proving that she gave prized diamonds to her lover (and enemy of France), the Duke of Buckingham. At the climax, as musketeer Michael York has retrieved them and is trying to get them to her at an opulent costume ball, he hurls them into a window... but it's the wrong window! So ruthless Dunaway gets her hands on them and it's up to klutzy Welch to get them back. These two begin to wrestle for them, using anything they can from deadly hair accessories to food (!) in order to beat down the other. There had been screen cat fights before (notably in Destry Rides Again, 1939), but this was the first one I ever saw and it not only left me awestruck, but primed me for the days ahead when Dynasty would make a yearly event out of such shenanigans. Remarkably, these ladies did the entire sequence themselves without the aid of any stunt doubles (and Welch did in fact injure a wrist during one fall to the floor.) 

THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) - The descent of the scenic elevator -- The frame shown in the above-left inset is my favorite shot in any movie. I just love the way the overhead light catches the bone structure of Faye Dunaway and gives an almost skull-like foreboding that this ride from the Promenade Room to the street is not going to be uneventful. Trapped at the top of the world's tallest building with almost no way out, architect Paul Newman rigs a glass-covered scenic elevator to slowly slide its way down with a dozen passengers on board. In a shamelessly romantic clinch, he embraces his girlfriend Dunaway and places her inside, hoping to see her safely out of danger. However, an explosion blows the thing off its track and it's left dangling thousands of feet above the ground! Even as a seven year-old, watching this in the theater, I recall thinking, "what a piece of shit!" as part of the railing and one panel of glass just fell apart! LOL But this whole sequence and the way it is dealt with was so unique. It gave me a life-long affinity for glass elevators and if you think I don't clasp my hands prayer-like and clench my jaw whenever I'm in one then you haven't been paying attention all these years! Ha ha!

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) - Patty Duke and Susan Hayward square off in the ladies room -- Everything about this movie is a camp riot, be it the beauty products commercial to the crazed vocal numbers to the parade of Travilla costumes, but the real treasure for me is the showdown between petulant Duke and fire-breathing Hayward on the night of an iffy Broadway preview. There isn't a syllable that comes out of either one's mouth that I don't know by heart and I never tire of watching and hearing it. Real life unease between the stars only adds to the seething hatred they have for one another on screen. Duke walks in the room like a gangster while human chimney Hayward is sucking down yet another smoke and within moments the insults begin to fly. Finally when they've hit their verbal stride, Duke tries to claw at Hayward's hair and comes away with more than she bargained for! It's all more than a bit ludicrous, but so is the whole movie. There's nothing like the luxurious lounge of a deluxe ladies room to make me long for a snarling
tête-à-tête between two enemies and this is one of the all-time greatest!

VERTIGO (1958) - Kim Novak's transformation at the hands of James Stewart -- Having lost the love of his life, a despondent Stewart runs across a girl who seems to bear a striking resemblance to his deceased paramour. Thing is, she doesn't QUITE fit the bill. So he methodically begins buying her the same clothes and encouraging her to look more and more like the woman he thought was gone forever, right down to not only her hair color, but the style as well. When she comes back to her apartment and he sees that she has opted for a different 'do than he requested (demanded!), he is dejected. Finally, as he waits in agony and the rapturous Bernard Hermann score is swelling, she emerges from the bathroom exactly as he had always dreamed she would. It's an extraordinary moment in a dreamlike, emotionally-charged film. And, as it does through most of the movie, colors (in this case green) play a part in the atmosphere.

BONUS PICS!

A happy reunion for Lorne Greene and Joan Crawford, years after she told him just where he could go and while he was starring as patriarch Ben Cartwright on the long-running Bonanza.

Crawford didn't always dislike her young female costars. She and Ann Blyth remained friendly for years after Pierce and would often visit one another's movie sets or catch up at industry functions. Ms. Blyth seems to have gotten some eyebrow tutoring here...!

In fact, the night of the Oscar ceremony Blyth came to Crawford's "sick bed" to help present Crawford's Oscar to her (with Pierce's director Michael Curtiz also on hand.) It was likely a bittersweet moment for her as she had just lost to Anne Revere for National Velvet in her own supporting category.

Crawford's slightly younger children always defended her against the allegations made by her first two, despite inheriting little money from her estate nor raking in any cash from inflammatory books about her.

The actors in Poseidon had to do a fair number of stunts during the filming, though there were doubles for the truly dangerous moments. Here, we find Jack Albertson, Shelley Winters and Red Buttons, holding on for dear life as a fork lift raises half the set they were standing on into the air.

Plucky Shelley also did her own dive into the water for her fabled rescue scene (earning a burst eardrum in the process.) She practiced and practiced her underwater swimming in the backyard pool of Kaye Ballard, but kept breaking all her flashlights by taking them into the water with her!

Though never close friends, Dunaway and Welch got along all right during Musketeers, even when Welch hurt her wrist during their cat fight and after Welch had gone and had all new costumes made to show off her ample bosom, at odds with the fashions of the time period. When they did get together later, it was often in the company of the world's most outre people, be it designer Thierry Mugler... Michael Jackson...

...or Prince Azim of Brunei. I guess money talks!

Paul Newman and Faye Dunaway enjoy a calm moment in between takes on The Towering Inferno. Having earlier balked at leaving San Francisco with him, she tells him in this scene that if he asked her "to go to the North Pole or to the cliffs of Mendocino," she'd go.

A distressed Jennifer Jones and artfully mussed Dunaway await the closing of the scenic elevator doors on them.

Dunaway's wind-beaten and cinder-speckled gown was up for auction some years ago and was purchased by a devotee where it now rests in a place of honor. Producer Irwin Allen's widow Sheila, who played the mayor's wife in the same elevator scene, recalls the gals constantly having to slap little bits of burning ember on their gowns as they were filming the moments where the elevator is hanging helplessly next to a conflagration of flames.

Publicity men for Vertigo enjoyed trying to throw viewers off by presenting both sides of Kim Novak at once in promotional stills.

I've never been to Mount Rushmore, but I'm good. I have Love Has Many Faces (featuring Hugh O'Brian's) on DVD!

Draped in a skimpy towel for this scene, the word HOTEL is stitched onto the back. Thing is, the way it's staged, all we can see it "HOT" across his ass... Don't tell me producer Ross Hunter wasn't having a ball here.

In this shot, the gigolos lie on the beach and fondle their bottles...!

Like I said, my life changed this day...! O'Brian did all his own physical fitness tricks for the movie, including repeated takes on this pole (!) and water skiing on a single ski that he was able to disengage from and trot up to the shoreline...

This scene - not to be found in the movie - has O'Brian coming in on a ski and running up to meet an enthusiastic gaggle of friends. One of them, a male, makes a point of not only clasping him on the ass but placing a finger or two in the crack!! In the finished film, there are no friends awaiting him and he is in his blue suit. This was found in a German release trailer for the film which also includes a wardrobe shot of Lana Turner that isn't in the movie (she's lying on a couch in a cover-up instead of on the bed.) And with that, I give you The End!