Rub-A-Tub-Tub!

Yes, we are back with more male stars taking a moment to scrub off the harsh realities of life with a dip in the bathtub (or some similar setting.) We've had this topic bubble up before here, here and here, but now we've amassed a few more examples, so it's time to draw upon them again! Thanks to our cover boy this time out, Jeff Bridges in Hearts of the West (1975.)

In a scenario you'll see more than once in this post, Martin Milner can't seem to achieve any privacy during his bath in this scene from an unidentified film.

Here is Milner years later taking a dip in a lake during a 1965 guest appearance on Laredo.

Miss Susie Slagle's (1946) was a heart-tugger about med school students rooming in Lillian Gish's boarding house, but Billy De Wolfe provided comic relief as one of the residents (who, as seen here, has plenty of company during his bathtime!)

Robert Tayler is lent a hand for his back in 1951's epic Quo Vadis.

We love Maurice Evans' bathtub in the 1952 film Androcles and the Lion.

Before becoming a household name in I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball was a movie actress in many now-obscure films like Valley of the Sun (1942), a western in which she had the terrific fortune of interrupting James Craig during a dip in a barrel. (As you can see, though, he has pants on...)

While we're out west, let's take a gander at Ward Bond and Jon Hall bobbing in the water as Dana Andrews (in uniform) looks on in Kit Carson (1940.)

Robert Mitchum took a remarkable number of baths in his movies and this shot is from El Dorado (1966.)

Henry Fonda washes off some prairie dust in Welcome to Hard Times (1967.)

You know... my grade school rented The Light in the Forest (1958) for us to watch, way back in the mid-'70s and that's the last time I ever saw it. Having seen this shot of Fess Parker watching James MacArthur take a bath, maybe it's time I took another look!!

James Garner does double-duty, shaving and bathing in Skin Game (1971.)

Now kicking off a mini world tour, we find Red Buttons getting some bath time assistance (not to mention an Oscar!) in Sayonara (1957)

In Italy, Gian Maria Volante gets a hand from Irene Papas in Christ Stopped at Eboli (1979.)

Barry Evans gets plenty of attention from Moyra Fraser in the British sex romp Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1968.)

Rod Steiger as Napoleon can't get much peace in Waterloo (1970.)

The Russian-set drama Fury (1973) finds Oliver Reed sharing a cozy tub with Claudia Cardinale.

As noted earlier, Robert Mitchum took quite a few on-screen baths, so we round out our mini-world tour with a series of shots from The Angry Hills (1959), a WWII drama set in Greece.

I included this last one of Mr. M freshly out of the tub and in a towel because it better shows off his forty-two year-old chest.

In Wild in the Streets (1968), Christopher Jones luxuriates in a deluxe bathtub.

Here's a closer look.

In Bloody Mama (1970), Shelley Winters likes to add the personal touch with her boys on bath day. Here, Robert Walden is being scrubbed down.

And here Walden is scalded with hot water from his brother Clint Kimbrough.

Next up, Robert De Niro (yes, that Robert De Niro!) is washed up by Mama Winters.

In this, one of my favorite bathtub scenes, all of the men were nude on set and with a little freeze-framing one can make out Kimbrough's and De Niro's private parts.

Here we see a rear view of Albert Popwell about to enter a soothing bath in Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975.)

Popwell and his brother Caro Kenyatta are prisoners of the evil crime boss Stella Stevens, but she allows them to enjoy the on-site facilities during their stay.

After some hesitation, Kenyatta gives into temptation and joins the fun.

I have never seen an episode of M*A*S*H, but I might be tempted to at least watch part of this one, in which three of the castmates (McLean Stevenson, Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers) take a communal bath.

Exotic-looking actor Judson Scott takes the plunge during his short-lived series The Phoenix (1981-1982.)

If you've never seen the 1981 rendition of Lady Chatterley's Lover, you owe it to yourself to check it out. In it, she (Sylvia Kristel) spies her gardener Nicholas Clay (a hunk for the ages!) giving himself a standing bath outside his cottage. :::sigh:::

Steve Martin suds up in The Jerk (1979)?

River Phoenix has a reflective moment in My Own Private Idaho (1991.)

A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys.

Handsome John Hamm relaxes with the paper in this magazine spread.

The 1985 romp Private Resort has provided a lot of fodder for my posts on towels, underwear and so on and here it is again in the post about bath time! Hector Elizondo has too much soap in his eyes to know that he's got accidental company in his bubble bath.

Rob Morrow, who is on the run after a bizarre encounter with a female guest of the resort, is in the tub, too!

Elizondo finds out (the hard way?) that his bathtub companion is not his wife.

We do love our Martin Kove and were perfectly willing to watch Steele Justice (1987), at the suggestion of a friend of Poseidon's Underworld, to see his bathing scene.

Like so many in this post, he is joined by company. Is real life like this or is it a cinematic conceit?!

The humpy Mr. Kove is a true joy to behold in his skin-baring scene.

We come to a close with a rather unusual sequence from The Waltons. In the episode "The Heritage," a therapudic hot spring provides relaxation and rejuvenation to Grandpa Walton (Will Geer) and John Boy (Richard Thomas.)

The two are quite cozily intertwined as they take their dip, but are interrupted by some passersby who wind up wanting to buy the place for its water.

I'm not aware of any other Waltons episode that showed this much skin (even if Will Geer isn't at the top of my list of cast members I want to see shucked down!)

I end with this, though, because it has a funny postscript. This scene, obviously done on a soundstage, would normally have the actors in some sort of moleskin undies or patches or something, but they were apparently nude or, at least, ditched whatever they'd been wearing because at the end of this brief blooper reel, they are singing "Yankee Doodle Dandy" to the crew and flip around to moon everyone! Geers gonads have to be edited out with a white dot!

We hope you enjoyed this trip to the bathtub and can luxuriate in your own, like Liberace, the first chance you get.

Guest Who! Quite Cape-able

While watching NFL football on CBS, I kept seeing promo blurbs for Supergirl (2015-), "the hero America's been waiting for," a new TV series spurred on by the relative successes of Arrow (2012-), The Flash (2014-) and others. I generally watch almost no scripted network series, but finally curiosity got the best of me and I looked at the pilot to see who was in it. The titular character is played by Melissa Benoist (a former cast member of Glee who was the first auditionee for the part and got it, but not before a thousand other young ladies were considered!)

Benoist's antagonist on the series (her secret identity's domineering boss at a publishing conglo- merate, lending a The Devil Wears Prada feel) is played by Calista Flockhart, a performer I have successfully avoided from 1989 till now, but even she didn't bother me as her character is meant to be loathsome. (That character being Cat Grant, created in the comics in 1987 and portrayed for one season, 1993-1994, on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman by Tracy Scoggins.)

What made me decide to watch the pilot episode was the stunt casting of Supergirl's adoptive parents on earth. Arriving years after her more famous cousin Superman, thanks to an unexpected detour to a zone in which time was frozen for her, she is greeted by the hero (shown only in silhouette) who now older than her instead of younger as he was back on Krypton!

He takes her to live with a couple of married scientists who had proven helpful to him in his own youth, The Danvers. We see the couple walking from their oceanfront home to greet Superman and his young cousin.

Upon closer inspection, we see that the mother, Eliza Danvers, is being played by Helen Slater and the father, Jeremiah Danvers, is portrayed by Dean Cain!

This is fun because Slater is best known for her cinematic debut as Supergirl (1984), in which she was a beautiful and appealing young actress caught in something of a messy movie. She's only given a line or two in this pilot episode as the story wants to chug along and get to the heroine's adulthood.

Cain (who fares even worse since he is given no lines and is barely seen!) is also an entertaining bit of casting since he was the star of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997.) Despite the fact that he was vastly underutilized, it was neat to see him on the show. (Slater, at least, has another guest spot in the can which will be seen on November 23rd.)

When Slater was Supergirl and Cain was Superman, we had not yet decided that it was abhorrent to wear saturated primary colors when portraying a superhero.

Now, all live-action projects centered around comic book heroes feature darkened, dulled renditions of the costumes that made the characters famous in the first place.

Thus, Supergirl's outfit is in line with this new trend. (Even her hair is far less blonde.) I wasn't sure what to expect out of this show, but I must say the pilot, and Benoist's considerable charm, won me over. For the moment, it's in my DVR as a series to record. Can we get a guest spot from Faye Dunaway as Selena?  Ha!

I've Got a Clint in My Eye Today!

We have a lot of trouble doing without Clint Walker in our lives and so periodically collect photos of him in his 6'6" hairy-chested splendor. Between his chiseled face with ice blue eyes and his brawny torso, we often have trouble deciding exactly where to look when he's on-screen! So here is a selection of recently curated pictures that will give you a chance to look him over for yourself.

Cute as he is, this early, skinny version of CW is not my favorite. I typically like a little man with my man.

He's still got that handsome face, but it's so lean.

Maybe I just have a daddy fixation or something, but I like him a bit more fleshed out.

Here's a rather rare glimpse of him in contemporary clothes.

A gal could hardly do better than to make her cinematic debut in the arms of Clint Walker (check that paw he's laying on her shoulder!) Laraine Stephens portrayed his love in flashback during None But the Brave (1965.)

I like it when his hair falls down over one eye, too. More on that in a moment.

Look out for his big ol' knife!

Mr. W. dwarfs even the horses...

...so it's only natural that he dwarfs the average mortal like this set painter!

His gargantuan physique can hold its own against any landscape or terrain.

Otherwise manly costars (such as, in this instance, James Caan) shrink in his presence.

Look how he towers over Burt Reynolds in Sam Whiskey (1973.) Not all leading men are comfortable working alongside someone so physically imposing.

He has to look down to see eye-to-eye with a stallion!

Behold physical perfection!

And so yummy in color.

The one way I might be convinced to come outside and help chop the wood. His affectionate Night of the Grizzly (1966) costars are Martha Hyer and Victoria Meyerink (and who can blame 'em?!)

And Clint was no dummy. See... He can pour water out of a boot even without the instructions written on the heel!

Here, Leticia Roman (Hollywood's luckiest actress in the history of cinema) helps Clint with his bath in Gold of the Seven Saints (1961), which was a black & white movie.

I like this redo a bit better!

For this bit of fun, costar Roger Moore got in on the action...

...but just like before, I like this redo better!

In color, his eyes light up the screen. Yellowstone Kelly (1959.)

From the same movie, he's seen here in the midst of a brawl. Love his messy hair.

Again, those eyes! That hair! (That chin!) And you can't even hear the voice, which is my favorite on earth...

Several of Clint's movies feature sleeping scenes (ostensibly in the raw?)

In Yellowstone Kelly, his roomie Edd Byrnes has trouble sleeping. (So would I!)

I really don't think seeing Clint wake up would help matters!

What a man... I hope you enjoyed these glimpses of him!