Showbiz History: The Children's Hour, Little Shop, and a Gyllenhalic holiday
Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 10:12AM 6 random things that happened on this day, December 19th, in showbiz history...
1915 Edith Giovanna Gassion born in Paris and immediately abandoned by her mother. She would be raised by prostitutes and would become the famous songbird Edith Piaf, her last name slang for "sparrow", and eventually an international icon. Her life was dramatized (in excruciatingly non-linear fashion as was the fad in the mid Aughts) in 2007's La Vie En Rose which won Marion Cotillard the Best Actress Oscar. Like her contemporary Judy Garland she would struggle with addiction and die at age 47 years in the 1960s.
1961 The now infamous drama The Children's Hour opens in theaters on its way to 5 Oscar nominations...
The play adaptation about a vicious lesbian rumor (which is accidentally half-true) that destroys the lives of two teachers (Audrey Hepburn and Shirley Maclaine) was much-apologized for in the brilliant documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995). Yes, even in the 1990s people were judging works of arts by current societal norms rather than considering the eras in which they were made. If you ask us The Children's Hour is fairly sympathetic to its closeted lesbian protagonist (for 1961, we mean) even if it's one of the reasons the "bury your gays" trope became so prevalent.
1967 Doctor Dolittle opens in the US a week after its London premiere. The very expensive film was a flop but the 20th Century Fox campaigned relentlessly and secured 9 Oscar nominations. We've recommended the book a bazillion times but Mark Harris' invaluable Pictures at a Revolution shares so many unbelivable stories about this film's journey to the Oscars. Disney remade it as soon as they bought 20th Century Fox and acquired all their IP.
1979 And now a confession about these "on this day in history lists"... we pull from a variety of sources and they don't always agree. At some point this weekend whether it was the 19th, the 20th, or the 21st (various sites disagree) a whole slew of big movies opened: Kramer vs Kramer, Being There, Roller Boogie, All That Jazz, The Black Hole, and The Electric Horseman among them. What is factual, even if the specific dates are muddy is that Kramer vs Kramer became an utter behemoth winning the Best Picture Oscar after being showered with box office dollars (the #1 film of its year) and precursor awards (it basically won everything except the National Society of Film Critics which went with Breaking Away instead).
1986 The wildly underrated movie musical Little Shop of Horrors and the Richard Gere and Kim Basinger crime drama No Mercy both opened in movie theaters. The 80s were not kind to the movie musical genre -- that was true even at the Golden Globes where Ellen Greene was snubbed for her utter brilliance as Audrey -- but Little Shop was a lonely bright spot.
2014 It was an uninspiring Friday night with Peter Jackson repeating himself with The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, another sequel Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, and the remake of Annie as the new wide releases. The quality was in limited release as Mike Leigh's Mr Turner (4 Oscar nominations) and Cartoon Saloon's Song of the Sea (Best Animated Feature nominee) both opened. Were you at any of those pictures on opening night?
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy 40th to Jake Gyllenhaal. We first loved him in 2001 via Donnie Darko and all these years later we're still proud Gyllenhaalics.
Jake and Anne Hathaway in "Love and Other Drugs" - when was the last time two major stars were this exhibitionist about their beauty together?
Other showbiz types with birthdays today: Legendary Cicely Tyson (Sounder, The Help), the great Chilean actor Alfredo Castro (Tony Manero, From Afar), Production designer and Mr Sissy Spacek himself Jack Fisk (There Will Be Blood), Oscar nominated Sir Ralph Richardson (The Heiress, Greystoke, Doctor Zhivago), Model Tyson Beckford (Zoolander), Germany's Actor/Director/Hunk Til Schweiger (Inglourious Basterds, Atomic Blonde), the late TV star Robert Urich, French star Béatrice Dalle (Betty Blue, Trouble Every Day), Soji Arai (Pachinko, The Ramen Girl), Jennifer Beals (Flashdance, The L Word), Emmy winner Annie Murphy (Schitt's Creek), Amy Locane (Cry Baby), TV star Alyssa Milano (Who's The Boss?, Charmed), Ken Marino (Wanderlust), Luke Cook (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Mike Looklinand (The Brady Bunch), BAFTA nominated cinematographer Andrzej Sekula (Pulp Fiction, American Psycho), songwriter Robert B Sherman (The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins), and Kristy Swanson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman Returns)
Reader Comments (15)
One of my first memories relating to the movies was how much everyone in my family (including my teenage brother) loved Kramer vs. Kramer. The entire household gathered to watch it when it premiered on network tv a couple of years later, when I was about 7, and I recall it being the first "adult" movie I appreciated. I think I found it compelling because Justin Henry's character was so valued and richly characterized.
I love The Children's Hour. I understand that it is dated, but it is also a great film about the consequences of malicious gossip, and all three principles are excellent.
The last time I had watched Little Shop of Horrors probably a decade ago, it had lost its allure for me, but watching it again this year, I fell in love with it again. Ashman and Menken's music has perhaps never been more catchy and clever. The performances across the board from the leads to the "Muses" to cameos from John Candy, Christopher Guest, and an absolutely brilliant Bill Murray are all so fantastic. I know some flak has been given to the fact that test audiences forced the filmmakers to create a happy ending, but I think it works in terms of Hollywood-izing the story. Director Frank Oz manages to stage the musical numbers with pizzazz and excitement despite the film very obviously taking place on a soundstage and oftentimes in small areas.
It really is a brilliant little underatetd gem.
My online movie club recently watched The Children's Hour. Many had not seen it. Most of us are LGBTQ, so the themes resonated. Everyone really was moved by the film and the consensus was that it is quite daring for its time and is well acted and directed. The sympathetic response by Karen toward Martha was noted by my colleagues, who have become big fans of William Wyler, and most of them previously didn't even know who he was. Audrey and Shirley are incredible in this, are are Oscar-nominated Fay Bainter and the always glorious Miriam Hopkins.
They need to remake The Children's Hour, but closer to what These Three, which Hellman adapted for the screen, would have been without The Code. Find an actress as good as Bonita Granville for Mary. The shot Wyler uses in These Three is a beautiful metaphor for the relationships.
I read this line - We've recommended the book a bazillion times but Mark Harris' invaluable Pictures at a Revolution shares so many unbelivable stories about this film's journey to the Oscars - and the first thing I thought was, YES, there's a reason the book has been recommended a bazillion times, LOL. That was genuinely one of the best (if not THE best) books I've ever read about movies.
Happy 40th to 9 to 5!!
"The Children's Hour" is superb, acting by all magnificent, script, cinematography, direction top-notch. Loved Audrey Hepburn's Karen character, still sympathetic to Shirley Maclaine's Martha after the revelation, what a gem. Best Birthday wishes to the enormously talented Cicely Tyson.
Jake G is a hairy gift to the world.
Shirley should have been in contention in the 61 Best Actress race.
Being There was the best Film of 79 and that's saying a lot for that stellar year.
I remember all the complaints about La vie en rose's structure, which made no sense to me as a hater of traditional biopics' linearity. I found it (and Cotillard's performance) thrilling.
We love you and we see you, Jake. We even forgive you for your lousy performances in Ozka and Buzzshaw.
The Children's Hour isn't a bad film but even with all the liberties taken and enforced by the Code I prefer the earlier These Three. Much of that has to do with Bonita Granville.
This version of Doctor Dolittle is a lumbering mess. Beside the book you mentioned its production and ultimate failure is discussed in the book Roadshow! The Fall of the Film Musicals in the 1960's by Matthew Kennedy. It looks at that whole phenomenon and how the mega success of The Sound of Music lead to a glut on the market of overblown musicals and the death of musicals as a viable genre for decades.
Can you do a sub par Showbiz History to show the series is fallible?
Goddamn, Doctor Dolittle was terrible. I saw it as a kid and was bored out of my mind.
I think I want to find that book by Matthew Kennedy. I'm interested in these failures such as Hello Dolly!</> and The Song for Norway. The latter of which featured a young dancer named Hermione Farthingale.
Here's some useless David Bowie trivia about Farthingale. She was the 1st love of Bowie's life in the late 60s and she went on to do this film and left him for an actor in that film. Bowie never got over it as it inspired him to write "Space Oddity" as well a song from his 2nd album in "A Letter to Hermione" which is an underrated gem. Then in 2013 on the video for "Where Are We Now?", Bowie wore a t-shirt that mentioned that film as it caused a stir among the Bowie fandom.
I've seen all those 1979 movies - except for Roller Boogie, which stars Linda Blair and sounds fabulously bad!
THE BLACK HOLE is on Disney+ and I watched it a few months ago. That is one fascinating and strange would-be Christmas blockbuster.
Little Shop of Horrors and Aliens should have swept the nominations and awards that year... it's heartbreaking to choose between Greene and Weaver, for Best Actress, Supporting Actor should have gone to Steve Martin, in a heartbeat. Rick Moranis should have been nominated as well... the added difficulty of acting at a different speed opposite a mechanical puppet so huge... Visual Effects? I always think it lost that one due to the cut presented to the Awards... because the original cut's ending would have obliterated Aliens. To me, LSoH should have won Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Song, Visual Effects and Film Editing, probably Cinematography as well.