Eleanor Divina, Part 2
Hello again, and thanks for joining me.
Picking up here and developing a bit further from where I left you last time in my adulation of actress, Eleanor Parker.
When I was growing up in the suburbs of Boston, a TV show called Dialing For Dollars aired every afternoon along with a motion picture. During breaks in the movie, the host would make random phone calls to viewers asking them for the password that he’d shared at the beginning of the program. If you got the call and didn’t have the correct answer, the dollars increased as did your addiction to the program.
The show reserved most of its family friendly film fare for the holidays—but, not necessarily as part of their regular programming—and, certainly not when I was glued to the living room TV on that home from school sick day I referred to in my last blog. What was unfolding on our black and white set even prompted my mother to pause from housework to join me. We were both suckers for exploitation—most especially when the realism valve was in full gush mode.
Now back to the woman who knew how best to swing her spigot.
Regardless of what she’s been assigned to, Eleanor Parker delivers in spades. And, in the case of 1951’s Caged, an unnerving women’s prison flick that a mother and her son watched one feverish afternoon, Ms. Parker—under the direction of the great John Cromwell—was presented not only with her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but was the recipient of the Best Actress award by the Venice Film Festival.
I’m of the opinion that Ms Parker had the same acting chomps as her Warner Brothers compatriot Bette Davis. In fact, she was chosen to play Mildred in the studio’s 1946 remake of Of Human Bondage, and may lightening not strike me for saying this—I actually prefer Parker to Davis. The remake is not a great film. In fact, there are no great film adaptations of Somerset Maugham’s extraordinary book. Unfortunately, Paul Henried in this remake is far too strong-willed to convince me of his vulnerability as the club footed Doctor. Parker, on the other hand, builds Mildred with a kind of controlled out of control steady as she unravels right up to the wild horror of her last syphilitic scene. It should be noted that the studios felt director Edmund Goulding’s handling of her last scene was too graphic for audiences. Evidently extensive cuts were made. But, what remains of Parker’s performance contains every degree of the sympathetic horror of a human being that Maugham had so scrupulously committed to paper.
Oh—
A little bit of trivia…What you’ve been listening to throughout this post is music composed by Erich Wolfgang Korngold for the film. The theme is titled Lullaby and refers to the birth of Mildred’s infant. The curio comes with its having been dedicated shortly after the film’s release to Frank Sinatra’s son, Frank, Jr.
But, I digress...
Back to my sick day shared with Eleanor Parker and my mother—next time.
Until then—
Be well.
And stay engaged
Bye bye for now
