I'm still working on my essay about the best picture of 1929-30. Some of these posts are a snap (Maurice Chevalier took half an hour on Saturday morning), but this one is like passing a kidney stone. And in a little while I'm picking up one of my best friends at the airport, so no work today.
In the meantime, here's another picture of Anita Page, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite actresses of the late-Silent/Early Sound eras. You may remember her as the star of The Broadway Melody, which won the best picture Oscar for 1928-29. She was also a Katie nominee for her portrayal as a golddigging flapper in the Joan Crawford silent, Our Dancing Daughters. Her career went off the rails soon after—she famously refused one too many invitations to the casting couch—but we here at the Monkey will never forget her.
Slacker.
ReplyDeleteWhat; are you out chasing all the white women?
I get the sly allusion. . . .
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think the key to Anita Page as an actress is her eyebrows. Most actresses have arched eyebrows, even plucking them and penciling them in to exaggerate the effect. Anita Page's eyebrows are just the opposite, curving up as they approach the bridge of her nose. Gives her a look of either perplexed innocence or supercilious condescension, depending on the context. It was very effective in the silent era when a look was everything. I'll have to go back and look at her sound work to see how well she played on screen when sound was also coming out of her head ...
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