Thursday, November 18, 2010

AVA GARDNER

I didn't always get why some people back in the day thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. But I just caught much of ON THE BEACH on TCM and though she wasn't absolute perfection, as they say, in every shot, still, I've just got one thing to say:

Ava Gardner.

6 comments:

-K- said...

I just finished reading "Frank," the biography of Frank Sinatra's life up until he won his Oscar for "From Here to Eternity. Aside from helping him get the role, she, as many people have pointed out, really taught him how to sing a torch song.

But, yeah, really really gorgeous.

Lally said...

I'm well into FRANK myself at the moment, And the connection between reading that and seeing here on the tube (though I guess they're not really "tubes" anymore are they?) last night probably prompted my reassessment. "Gorgeous" is the word.

Robert Berner said...

Dear Lal--Oh, "gorgeous" only begins to describe Ava Gardner. Go back and look again at Ava in the voluptuary scene in "Night Of The Iguana," or watch her again with Kirk Douglas in "Seven Days In May," and you'll be knocked out.
Bob B.

Lally said...

I hear ya Bob. One of the amazing bits in ON THE BEACH was a scene where she's in a small sailboat Gregory Peck's guiding to a win in a race and she tips it over deliberately—bored with the competition and wanting more attention—and when he helps her back in before he climbs back in, he pushes her up with one hand on her behind and they both laugh, looking gloriously pleased. It couldn't be more genuine and quite a surprise for a 1950s flick.

-K- said...

I admit, first off, that I didn't watch this movie too closely but it seemed to be another bit of Stanley Kramer claptrap. I can't think of any movie of his that has aged well and "On The Beach" seemed just as preachy and pious as all the others.

And Fred Astaire as a winning race car driver? No. No. No.

Lally said...

Yeah, Astaire wasn't the right guy for the role of a race car driver, but he actually was playing more of a scientist, and he had a few really good serious moments where he pulled them off. It was oddly paced, part of the point etc. and I tuned in and out of a lot of it (especially Astaire's and Anthony Perkins' bad Aussie accents). But anytime Gardner was on screen it was worth it. Not just her presence and screen charisma and all that, but her acting too. And when she and Peck were onscreen together, well, I couldn't resist their appeal. And I liked a lot of their acting "choices" too, as they say in that profession.