Marie Dressler - Superstar

Today, with our Angelina and Lindsay and J-Lo and Paris and Beyoncé, hot female stars fill the media sky. In the 1930s it was no different: with Jean Harlow, Carole Lombard, Myrna Loy, Loretta Young and more.

However, in the 1930s one unlikely superstar phenomenon moved ahead of the pack. This phenomenon was the great Canadian-American screen and stage actress, Marie Dressler. No different than the 21st Century, popularity in that period in entertainment history was largely determined by youth and looks. However, after an undistinguished earlier stint in film and an important stage career, Marie Dressler, never a beauty (her autobiography was entitled "The Life Story of an Ugly Duckling.") and, in the end of the 1920s into the early 1930s, already in her 60s, appeared in the Greta Garbo classic, "Anna Christie", and became an overnight sensation. By the mid-30s, this incredible woman who could be equally powerful and effective in the most serious of dramatic roles or in the frothiest comedies, was among the highest-paid Hollywood stars and had top billing over stars like Jean Harlow in George Cukor's cinematic masterpiece, "Dinner at Eight". Unfortunately, Dressler's star would not -- at least in this incarnation -- burn long. She died of cancer in 1934 at only age 65.

It was a treat to see Robert Osborne's tribute this week to Marie Dressler, whom I've long admired as an actress and personality, on Turner Classic Movies. Among the Dressler films shown on TCM was "Min and Bill" for which she won the Best Actress Oscar® in 1931. This, along with her more well-known films to later audiences such as "Anna Christie" and "Dinner at Eight", as well as her hilarious comedies with her longtime co-star, Polly Moran, demonstrated her legendary versatility and complete command of the screen.

Will there still be an audience for great classics starring people like Marie Dressler in the future? There are still people who lived in the 1920s and 30s, albeit fewer each day, who actually remember that era and the dawn of cinema, the dawn of talkies, etc. When we detach from that, will our new generations which are obsessed with easy-to-digest celebrity, even care about the origins of motion pictures? I wonder...

Let Marie Dressler charm you in this wonderful clip from the "Hollywood Revue of 1929" (from YouTube). She IS the Queen!

Asian Images in Film - Turner Classic Movies

Throughout June 2008, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting a series entitled "Race & Hollywood: Asian Images in Film". The special website dedicated to this very important film festival says that it "explores the variety of Asian characters depicted in American films, ranging from negative stereotypes and caucasian actors made up to look asian to the emergence of martial arts films that created their own Asian superstars, and the more sensitive and sophisticated vehicles of such dedicated actors as Sessue Hayakawa (*早川 雪洲, Hayakawa Sesshū), Miyoshi Umeki (*梅木 美代志, Umeki Miyoshi) and Pat Morita." Curated by University of Delaware professor, Peter X. Feng, in collaboration with TCM's great host, Robert Osborne, the festival -- with films ranging from the silent era through the start of the 21st Century -- is not only expository but, in the purest sense, provocative.

Asian Images in Film kicked off last night (June 3) with a one-hour documentary entitled "The Slanted Screen". It concentrates specifically on the "portrayals of Asian men in American media, chronicling the experiences of actors who have had to struggle against ethnic stereotyping and limited roles." The Slanted Screen features 15 interviews -- from Oscar-nominated actors James Shigeta and Mako (マコ岩松, Iwamatsu Makoto), to TV pioneers Dustin Nguyen and Bobby Lee, to director Justin Lin and more -- which, in a way, summarize the entire TCM series to come. That summary is their important perspective on the overwhelmingly maddening, virtual shutting out of Asian and Asian-American performers, and particularly Asian/Asian-American men in U.S. cinema. For all of the distinguished Asian and Asian-American artists who have directed, produced, written, photographed, and graced the screen in U.S. films, there are still today, in 2008 (!), virtually no major Asian or Asian-American actors on the U.S. cinema scene who command the same salaries as Caucasian actors. The rare exceptions are those who, even in very high quality films, still, in blatent or subtle ways, perpetuate Asian stereotypes.

TCM's series has purposely opened this and many other complex "doors" to the issues of Asian images on screen--with films to admire and admonish, respect and decry, sometimes simultaneously. Ongoing commentary by Professor Feng and Robert Osborn will bring out topics of discussion which will, no doubt, demystify, puzzle, inspire, enrage, empower and educate.

Race & Hollywood: Asian Images in Film can be seen on TCM on Thursday nights throughout June (check local listings).

From YouTube: The Trailer from Sidney Franklin's (and the uncredited Victor Fleming) "The Good Earth" (1937):