RIP Billie May Richards

I'm a week late but being a child from the 80s just had to pay tribute.  Billie May Richards beloved voice of the 1964 Rudolph and Care Bears Tenderheart  passed away at the age of 88.  Even now in my 20s I still watch the 60s claymation Christmas movies on ABC Family.   Therefore in memory, RIP Billie May Richards.

The Letter (1940)

The 1940's film, The Letter is the original Fatal Attraction.  The film opens in Malaya when Leslie Crosbie, played by Bette Davis shoots a gentleman caller, identified as Geoff Hammond a family friend.   After having her husband summoned and a police officer arrives she confesses to killing Mr. Hammond after he tries to make love to her grasping for the revolver to protect her honor.  Leslie is immediately brought into custody with little protest as though she was going to a day at the beach.  Each time Leslie is questioned her story never changes and is repeated word for word that, neither  herself or her husband had seen Geoff for many months until he appeared on her doorstep.  This is until a incriminating letter surfaces, written in Leslie's hand to Geoff Hammond on the day of the murder asking him to come to her home.  Of course this changes everything, following lies and deceit with a confession that can only be compared to Glen Close.

Two words could complete this review, Bette Davis.  Although that sounds cheap and undeserving for such a film.  It goes without saying that she is phenomenal, her emotion oozes like she is putting her entire being into the character giving the watcher a better connection to the story, even if you haven't killed your lover. That is not to say that Davis is the only one to give a heart wrenching performance, Herbert Marshall, who plays her devoted husband Robert Crosbie, pulls at your strings after finding out what a sham his marriage is and his life is in ruins.  Here he cries openly without restraint and I really felt for him.

I've always enjoyed William Wyler as a director because like Hitchcock he has a very different way of looking at things.  Speaking of Alfred Hitchcock, in his Rebecca while Maxim de Winter is stating how he killed the first Mrs. de Winter the camera flows about the room as if following a pantomime and feel like  you're seeing it through the killer's eyes.  Wyler does this too and I think it really adds something.

I hadn't watched The Letter in a very long time and forgot how stupendous it is.  This film puts me in the mood for Bette Davis and W. Somerset Maugham who's play it was based on.

It`s a great responsibility to win the award twice...

While Olivia De Havilland's third may not have been an Oscar the French Legion of Honor, is nothing to poo poo about.  Because of my love for Olivia De Havilland and adoration of the most beloved Gone with the Wind I just had to recognize this.

Instead of summarizing the article on the event (and unnecessary scrolling) publication of the ceremony can be found here

If you do that one more time, I'll punch you all the way out into the middle of Lake Superior!

I've been incommunicado as of late, but with good reason, I was on vacation.  We traveled all the way up to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, around the area where Anatomy of a Murder was shot.

As a quick recap of the film,   James Stewart plays Paul Biegler a former district attorney in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Biegler is contacted by Laura Manion, (Lee Remick) wife of  Frederick "Manny" Manion (Ben Gazzara) a U.S. Army Lieutenant who has been arrested for first degree murder of Barney Quill after seeing his wife being raped.  Paul Beigler is assigned to the case and to make matters worse, his client does not deny the killing.

My aunt and uncle watch this film on a monthly bases and visited all the "hot spots"  Some scenes were actually filmed in the Thunder Bay Inn in Big Bay, Michigan, one block from the Lumberjack Tavern, the site of a 1952 murder witch inspired the film. One such example is the court room in the movie. On the court room floor they have drawn a mirror image of the body, of course my aunt had to lay on the ground and recreate "the scene of the crime" and my uncle who is actually a lawyer recited Jimmy Stewart's monologue word for word.

The funny thing is that the citizens who are old enough to recall the goings on in 1959 could give you the smallest detail about the filming, but none have actually seen the movie.  Go figure.

I will have to make the rounds the next time I'm in the U.P.