Aerial Daredevils

Among the many novels of William Faulkner, Pylon is less well known today than some of the author’s more critically acclaimed works such as The Sound and the Fury, Intruder in the Dust and The Reivers (a 1962 Pulitzer Prize winner). Yet, the novel, dismissed by most critics of its era as a tawdry melodrama, is a deeply personal work, reflecting Faulkner’s keen interest in flying while including autobiographical details from his own life. The 1957 film adaptation of Pylon entitled The Tarnished Angels and directed by Douglas Sirk was also unfairly dismissed by critics at the time with one reviewer calling it “…cheaply written…abominably played…and absurd” while another panned it as “mostly colorless…and lacking in punch.” Most surprisingly, The Tarnished Angels reunited three of the main actors from Sirk’s Academy Award nominated Written on the Wind from the previous year – Rock Hudson, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone (who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar) – but it was completely ignored by the Academy even though the movie is much more highly regarded now.

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The Many Noses of Orson Welles

triple Orson Welles shot“When you are down and out something always turns up – and it is usually the noses of your friends.” – Orson Welles

When you’re a film actor, it’s easy to understand how one can obsess over some less than perfect facial or physical feature that is going to be magnified by the camera on the big screen. But in most cases these fears are usually unfounded and not even something the average moviegoer would notice or care about. Claudette Colbert and Jean Arthur both insisted on being shot from the left side for profiles; Colbert called the right side of her face “the dark side of the moon.” Fred Astaire used movement and positioning to distract people from what he felt were his unusually large hands and Bing Crosby dealt with his increasing baldness by wearing hats at all times (he refused to wear toupees). Orson Welles’ insecurity over the size of his nose, however, is probably the most baffling of the actor hangups I’ve read about.

*This is a slightly revised version of my post that originally appeared on TCM’s Movie Morlocks blog     Continue reading