London is Magic.

Nathaniel popping in to say hi. In case you've been wondering where I've vanished to, there was a last minute London trip for a film junket. I couldn't leave town without seeing two of my favorite actresses on stage so I stayed a couple of extra days and I'll tell you all about it when I return! For those who don't want to wait you can always follow on twitter or instagram. 

Yesterday I walked across Waterloo Bridge and thought of Vivien Leigh. Have you ever been to London... and if so what movies did you think of while strolling around?

Happy 75th Waterloo Bridge

Today is the 75th anniversary of Vivien Leigh's favorite from her own filmography Waterloo Bridge (1940). You shoud definitely see it if you only know Scarlett & Blanche. 

 

Vivien Leigh in "Waterloo Bridge"

TFE's Vivien Leigh Centennial Celebration continues with Abstew on Leigh's own favorite

Even if Vivien Leigh had only created Scarlett O'Hara and Blanche DuBois on film, her place as a Hollywood legend would be unquestionably well secured. Her portrayals of those two Southern Belles are so iconic that the rest of her modest filmography tends to get overlooked (she made only 19 films in her career, more than half of them British films before her star-making performance in Gone With the Wind). It certainly doesn't help that many of the films are not easy to find and some, like the 1955 film version of Terrance Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea (another film version of the play was released last year with Rachel Weisz which, incidentally, earned her many comparisons to Vivien Leigh), have never been made available for home viewing (although you can watch the entire film on youtube here. Not the best quality, but worth it for die-hard Vivien Leigh fans). But if there's one film that she should most be remembered for past GWTW and Streetcar, it's the film that Leigh, herself, claimed as her personal favorite of all her films, 1940's Waterloo Bridge. 

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