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A Favorite of Katie-Bar-The-Door's growing up, the Shirley Temple is a pretty easy drink to make:
ginger ale
a splash of grenadine
maraschino cherry
ice
Katie tells me the schmancy Main Line country club she hung out in made it with 7-Up instead of ginger ale, a common substitution. I've read a squeeze of fresh lime tarts it up a bit, but I wouldn't know, I've never had one myself—I was too busy digging ditches.
For those of you who prefer stronger stuff, a grown-up, married version of the drink called a Shirley Temple Black uses alcoholic ginger beer.
If I can find a recipe for a Jackie Coogan or a Margaret O'Brien, I'll let you know.
For a dearly-beloved four-star classic, The Wizard of Oz was a troubled production, from start to finish.
The studio wanted Shirley Temple to star, couldn't get her, considered Deanna Durbin and Bonita Granville, then reluctantly settled for Judy Garland. W.C. Fields almost signed on to play the Wizard, but wanted a little too much money. Gale Sondergaard agreed to play a sexy Wicked Witch of the West then dropped out when the role changed, first in favor of Edna Mae Oliver then finally Margaret Hamilton. Buddy Ebsen, of course, began as the Tin Man before falling ill. Eddie Cantor was once upon a time considered for the Scarecrow. Fanny Brice and Beatrice Lillie were first choices for the Good Witch. And Leo, the MGM lion, was initially discussed as a possibility to play the Cowardly Lion before somebody came to their senses and cast Bert Lahr.
Even then, director Richard Thorpe was fired twelve days into filming—with good reason, it sounds like. He'd slapped a blonde wig and garish adult makeup on Judy Garland, and instead of an iconic yellow brick road, imagined round stepping stones instead. Jeepers! It took Victor Fleming to set the project right, and even then King Vidor filmed all the black-and-white scenes when Fleming left to rescue Gone With The Wind.
I've re-imagined the movie poster with maximum crapitude in mind (as always, click on the picture to see it full size). In the short run, The Wizard of Oz with Shirley Temple might have grossed more at the box office, but in the long run, I'm certain it would have been largely forgotten—when was the last time you watched her in The Blue Bird? Shirley, as great as she was, didn't have the musical chops to pull off "Over The Rainbow" or the range as an actress to capture the teenage angst Judy Garland brought to the role.
Neither does the notion of a sexy Witch work for me—Margaret Hamilton scared the bejabbers out of me as a kid and I think that's a very necessary element of this particular fairy tale, maybe of all fairy tales. Besides, Gale Sondergaard wasn't all that sexy to begin with.
And finally, though it was a brain his Scarecrow was seeking, Ray Bolger provided the film's heart. Can't imagine the movie without him.
Postscript: By the way, yesterday was Shirley Temple's birthday. And all I got her was this lousy poster.
A look ahead at the Monty's March Madness Favorite Actress Tournament, part of which we'll be hosting here at the Monkey.
Voting begins March 5.
Shirley Temple
Birth Name: Shirley Jane Temple
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "Singers and Dancers" #2
Birth Date: April 23, 1928
Birthplace: Santa Monica, California
Film Debut: Kid's Last Stand (1932)
Academy Awards: Juvenile Award (1935)
Katie Awards: Best Actress (Drama) (1937) (Wee Willie Winkie and Heidi)
Three More To See: Bright Eyes, The Little Colonel, The Little Princess
versus
Hattie McDaniel
Birth Name: Hattie McDaniel
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "Singers and Dancers" #7
Birth Date: June 10, 1892
Birthplace: Wichita, Kansas
Height: 5' 2"
Film Debut: The Impatient Maiden (1932)
Academy Awards: 1 win, Best Supporting Actress (1939) (Gone with the Wind)
Katie Awards: Best Supporting Actress (1939) (Gone with the Wind)
Three More To See: Show Boat, Saratoga, The Great Lie
The winner of this match-up will face the winner of:
Ginger Rogers
Birth Name: Virginia Katherine McMath
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "Singers and Dancers" #3
Birth Date: July 16, 1911
Birthplace: Independence, Missouri
Height: 5' 4½"
Film Debut: A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929)
Academy Awards: 1 win, Best Actress (1940) (Kitty Foyle)
Katie Awards: Best Actress (Comedy/Musical) (1935) (Top Hat)
Three More To See: Swing Time, Stage Door, The Major and the Minor
versus
Joan Blondell
Birth Name: Rose Joan Blondell
Tourney Bracket and Seeding: "Singers and Dancers" #6
Birth Date: August 30, 1906
Birthplace: New York City, New York
Height: 5' 3"
Film Debut: The Heart Breaker (1930)
Academy Awards: 1 nomination, no wins
Katie Awards: Best Supporting Actress (1930-31) (Sinners' Holiday, Other Men's Women and Night Nurse)
Three More To See: Gold Diggers of 1933, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Cincinnati Kid
Stop, Monkey, stop!
Stage Door is a perfect example of what the so-called "chick flick" used to be before they devolved into soulless paeans to crass consumerism—sharp, biting vehicles for great actresses playing characters who dream big and succeed or fail on a large scale, all while shedding men like ducks shed water. Maybe the fantasy in the 1930s, when real-life opportunities for women were limited, was the possibility of taking charge and doing anything. Now when opportunities are approaching something like unlimited, maybe the fantasy is to buy lots of crap and do nothing.
Or maybe it's just that Stage Door had Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers and Eve Arden and Gail Patrick, and Sex and the City had, well, the cast of Sex and the City. But I don't think so.
Anyway, I treated Stage Door—which is as full of funny lines as any movie of the era—as a drama because underneath its snarky wit is an undercurrent of desperation that motivates nearly every character in it, including the one played by Andrea Leeds whose personal tragedy is the engine that drives the plot.
As for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I wouldn't say it's Walt Disney's best animated feature, but it was the first—not just his first but anybody's first—a risk so bold it was known as "Disney's Folly" until it made a sackful of money and changed the future of animation forever. In its field, it was as influential as Citizen Kane—and the songs are just so damn catchy.
And by the way, while we're being chatty, Katie-Bar-The-Door and I saw Grand Illusion for the first time in a ratty mall three-plex in Greenbelt, Maryland, which is a little like saying you ate Beluga caviar for the first time in a Cracker Barrel off the side of the interstate. We figured it must have been either a mistake or a practical joke, and we were the only two people in the theater, but, boy, what a good movie.
PICTURE (Drama)
winner: Stage Door (prod. Pandro S. Berman)
nominees: Make Way For Tomorrow (prod. Leo McCarey and Adolph Zukor); The Prisoner Of Zenda (prod. David O. Selznick); A Star Is Born (prod. David O. Selznick); You Only Live Once (prod. Walter Wanger)
PICTURE (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (prod. Walt Disney)
nominees: The Awful Truth (prod. Leo McCarey); Easy Living (prod. Arthur Hornblow Jr.); A Day At The Races (prod. Sam Wood); Nothing Sacred (prod. David O. Selznick); Shall We Dance (prod. Pandro S. Berman)
PICTURE (Foreign Language)
winner: Grand Illusion (prod. Albert Pinkovitch and Frank Rollmer)
ACTOR (Drama)
winner: Jean Gabin (Pepe Le Moko and Grand Illusion)
nominees: Ronald Colman (Lost Horizon and The Prisoner Of Zenda); Henry Fonda (You Only Live Once); Fredric March (A Star Is Born); Spencer Tracy (Captains Courageous)
ACTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Cary Grant (The Awful Truth)
nominees: Fred Astaire (Shall We Dance); Will Hay (Oh, Mr. Porter); Leslie Howard (It's Love I'm After); Fredric March (Nothing Sacred); The Marx Brothers (A Day At The Races)
ACTRESS (Drama)
winner: Shirley Temple (Wee Willie Winkie and Heidi)
nominees: Beulah Bondi (Make Way For Tomorrow); Janet Gaynor (A Star is Born); Katharine Hepburn (Stage Door); Ginger Rogers (Stage Door); Sylvia Sidney (You Only Live Once); Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas)
ACTRESS (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Jean Arthur (Easy Living)
nominees: Constance Bennett (Topper); Irene Dunne (The Awful Truth); Carole Lombard (Nothing Sacred); Ginger Rogers (Shall We Dance)
DIRECTOR (Drama)
winner: Jean Renoir (Grand Illusion)
nominees: Gregory La Cava (Stage Door); Fritz Lang (You Only Live Once); Leo McCarey (Make Way For Tomorrow); William A. Wellman (A Star Is Born)
DIRECTOR (Comedy/Musical)
winner: Leo McCarey (The Awful Truth)
nominees: Sam Wood (A Day At The Races)
SUPPORTING ACTOR
winner: Ralph Bellamy (The Awful Truth)
nominees: Edward Arnold (Easy Living); Walter Connolly (Nothing Sacred); Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (The Prisoner Of Zenda); Adolphe Menjou (Stage Door and A Star Is Born); Erich von Stroheim (Grand Illusion); Roland Young (Topper)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
winner: Eve Arden (Stage Door)
nominees: Constance Collier (Stage Door); Margaret Dumont (A Day At The Races); Andrea Leeds (Stage Door); Claire Trevor (Dead End); Dame May Whitty (Night Must Fall)
SCREENPLAY
winner: Morris Ryskind and Anthony Veiller, from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman (Stage Door)
nominees: Preston Sturges, from a story by Vera Caspary (Easy Living); Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir (Grand Illusion); Viña Delmar, from a play by Helen and Nolan Leary, and a novel by Josephine Lawrence (Make Way For Tomorrow); Ben Hecht, from a story by James H. Street (Nothing Sacred)
SPECIAL AWARDS
Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline and Paul J. Smith (Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs) (Score)
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