6 ‘n 90!  Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.

The Islander is where guests are interviewed by Nancy and asked to pick the ten films they would take with them to a desert island.  Nancy’s guest this week is actor Carleton Carpenter.  Carleton has acted on TV, film, and the stage.

Toy Story 3.  It’s Pixar!  It’s in 3D!  It’s dark and edgy!  What’s not to like?  Listen and find out.

Jonah Hex.  It’s said that Jonah Hex can speak to the dead.  Then maybe he should have himself a little talk with this movie and find out went wrong.  Because one thing’s for sure–it died a horrible death at the box office.

Knight and Day.  Is the bar so low for what’s considered entertaining that this mildly competent film can pass as one of the summer’s successes?  While not a Jonah Hex level disaster, it certainly didn’t do the business that was expected of it.  Still, the Misfits find themselves split as to its merits.

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Lee Patrick

In its heyday, Hollywood showcased dozens upon dozens of wonderful character actresses.  As with their male counterparts, most of them fell into “types,” roles for which they were well suited and extremely competent and reliable. Looking for a ditzy dame? Call upon Joyce Compton (The Awful Truth [1938], Christmas in Connecticut [1945]) or Barbara Nichols (Sweet Smell of Success [1957], Pal Joey [1957]). Need a high-toned, fussy society woman? Get in touch with Florence Bates (Heaven Can Wait [1943], The Devil and Miss Jones [1941]) or Edna May Oliver (Ann Vickers [1933], Pride and Prejudice [1940]). Want the ultimate kind, gentle, and understanding mother? Look no further then Fay Bainter (Young Tom Edison[1940], The Human Comedy [1943]) or, if the child in question is Jimmy Stewart, Beulah Bondi (Stewart’s onscreen mother in a record four films: Vivacious Lady[1938], Of Human Hearts [1938], Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939], and It’s a Wonderful Life [1946]). 

And that’s fine. It’s the way it should be. As an audience, we look to these women to fulfill a specific role with great competence and gentle dignity (yes, even the ditzy dames). 

What we don’t often see is the onscreen growth from one type of character into another. And another. But that’s exactly the sort of metamorphosis that character actress Lee Patrick achieved throughout the course of her long tenure as a bona fide character actress in Tinsel Town. 

Patrick was born in New York in 1901, the daughter of a trade paper editor. Thanks to him, her interest in the theatrical arts was sparked, and, by the age of 21, she had snagged a role as a part of the ensemble cast in the Broadway review The Bunch and Judy. The leads? Fred Astaire and his sister, Adele. Not a bad place to start. Over the next decade, she would become something of a fixture on the Broadway stage, appearing in 26 productions including a co-staring role (and off-stage romance) with future film great Humphrey Bogart in Baby Mine (1927) and the lead role in the smash hit Stage Door (1936). 

The prospect of starring in the 1937 RKO film adaptation of Stage Door ultimately lured Patrick to Hollywood, but her hopes were dashed when the studio demurred from taking a chance on a newcomer and ultimately rearranged the cast list and chose to spotlight the talents of Ginger Rodgers and Katherine Hepburn as the leads. To be fair, at the age of 38, Patrick’s ingénue days in Hollywood were well behind her. She wasn’t graced with leading lady looks at this point, although she did have a set of amazing cheekbones that would serve her well in front of the camera for years to come. However, even as an “older women” her dreams of mega-movie stardom were quelled when she lost out on the title role in Stella Dallas (1937) to slightly younger and more bankable leading lady, Barbara Stanwyck. 

There were more disappointments to come. Patrick’s husband, writer and journalist Thomas Wood, penned a frank and unflattering piece about Hollywood gossip columnist Louella Parsons. According to conventional wisdom, the powerful Parsons fought back by using her considerable influence to keep Patrick stuck mostly in B pictures. 

Lee Patrick as Effie lights one up for her boss, Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) in The Maltese Falcon.

Despite her feud with Parsons, Patrick had a long and successful career as a character actress, and over the course of three decades, appeared in scores of movies and television shows. In her performances, Patrick displayed a versatility that was rare even among the most gifted character actors. Three films in particular illustrate her range. In the first, The Maltese Falcon (1941), Patrick portrays Effie, the reliable and quick-witted Girl Friday of detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart). Her onscreen time is brief, but in it, she matches Bogart in snappy banter and adds just the right amount of brightness to a film cloaked in murder, deceit, and the fog of San Francisco. 

Patrick uses all her tricks to lure a fellow inmate into her web of vice in Caged.

Throughout the 1940s, Patrick appeared on screen steadily, albeit mostly in second-tier films. There were a few supporting roles in A movies thrown into the mix, such as Now, Voyager (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Snake Pit (1948). Then, in 1950, she portrayed Elvira Powell, the “vice queen” sentenced to serve some time in lockdown in director 

John Cromwell’s Caged, celebrated as the first bona fide entry into the genre of women’s prison films. Patrick doesn’t appear until well into the movie’s second act, but her impact is immediate and unforgettable. Filmgoers who knew her as Sam Spade’s helpful assistant would be excused for not recognizing her here. Her portrayal of a steely and resourceful incarcerated madam, bent on recruiting soon-to-be-paroled prisoners to work for her on the outside, deftly skirts campiness as her character cooly plots the ultimate downfall of two fellow inmates; first, the leader of her cellblock whose position she ruthlessly usurps, and second, the once naive heroine who finally succumbs to Elvira’s seductive bribes. It is a nuanced performance in a sub-genre where that term is seldom, if ever, used. 

Patrick (left) as Doris Upson, uses all her charms to welcome Rosalind Russell to the bucolic suburban life in Auntie Mame.

In the 1950s, Patrick successfully found her way into television, and was celebrated for her portrayal as the scatterbrained wife of the title character in the series “Topper,” based upon the 1937 film and the character originally played by Billie Burke. It’s not a stretch to suggest she parlayed this new characterization into her film role as Doris Updike in the Warner Brother’s hit Auntie Mame (1958). Surely, no one could be expected to top the wonderful Rosalind Russell, but Lee Patrick easily holds her own in two delicious scenes with Russell as Doris Upson, an upper-middle-class matron completely bent upon seeing her bourgeois lifestyle perpetuated through the marriage of her vapid daughter to Mame’s unsuspecting nephew. With her “New Look” style dresses (already hopelessly outdated by the end of the decade) and her hair swept into a classic French roll, Patrick epitomized the vacuity of a particular sect of the post-war generation long before it was stylish to do so, all with an infectious charm and goofiness so unlike her characterizations in Caged and The Maltese Falcon.  

Lee continued her work in film and television up until 1975 and spent her remaining years battling health problems while still pursuing her various hobbies including her love for painting. She died one day before her 81st birthday in 1982 and was survived by her husband of 45 years. 

Lee Patrick may not have become the most recognizable of character actresses in film, but that’s a great part of what made her so special.  Find Patrick’s name in a movie’s opening credits, and you are assured of a solid and satisfying performance – as well as one that just might surprise you.

6 ‘n 90!  Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.

Marmaduke.  He’s making the big move to Cali and livin’ large in the OC.   Of course, Marmaduke lives large wherever he is–except maybe at the box office.

The A-Team.  They specialize in the ridiculous.  Ridiculous story.  Ridiculous characters.  Ridiculous action.

The remake of The Karate Kid has lots of attitude, lots of great scenery, and lots of Kung Fu.  It’s even got lots of minutes (2 hundred and thirty of ‘em), but what it hasn’t got enough of is Jackie Chan.

The Misfits take a look at the movies opening in the last two months of the summer.

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When writer/producer David Jacobs joined me recently on “The Islander,” he had a lot to say about some of the films he loves, including why he is fond of them and what makes them stand-out cinematic achievements.  In this bonus audio clip, David uses his same keen understanding and appreciation of movies to discern what went horribly wrong with three films that should have been great but weren’t: The Chase (1966), The Cotton Club (1984), and Angela’s Ashes (1999).

6 ‘n 90!  Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.

The Islander.  Nancy concludes her interview with David Jacobs, the creator of both Dallas and Knots Landing.  David reveals the remainder of his desert island picks.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  We’re not even half way through the summer and already a second film about time travel is playing in the theaters.  The unavoidable question that has to be asked is, “If you could travel back in time and only avoid seeing one time travel film, which one would it be: Hot Tub Time Machine or The Prince of Persia?”  And no fair picking Marmaduke.  Just because time seems to stand still, doesn’t make it a time travel movie.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  Thriller?  Mystery?  Feminist wish fulfillment flick?  Character study?  Or just a freak fest?  The Misfits have a tough time pinning this one down.

Survival of the Dead.  You’ll moan, you’ll groan, and after two hours, you might stagger from the theater like a slack-jawed, brain dead zombie.  Even though the dead survive in this latest George A. Romero film, Survival of the Dead might be the shot to the brianpan that ends this cycle of living dead films.

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Gene Lockhart was such a character actor. Born in 1891 in Ontario, Canada, Lockhart benefited from parents who were musical and artistic, especially his father who sang tenor in the 48th Highlanders’ Regimental Band. Young Gene had the opportunity to study music and theatre in London, and, upon returning to North America, he sang in concert, often on the same bill with the reknown Beatrice Lillie. In 1917, at the age of 25, he first appeared on Broadway and went on to continue his stage work, both onstage and behind the scenes as a writer and lyricist. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music and taught classes there as well. In 1924, he married British actress Kathleen Arthur and, one year later, the couple celebrated the birth of their only child, June Lockhart.

Hollywood beckoned briefly in 1922, when Lockhart made his screen debut in Smiling Through, but it wasn’t until 1934 when his career in Tinsel Town really took off. By then, he had developed physically into the jowly and pleasingly plump personage that would serve him well for the next three decades. Lockhart alternated between two “types”: insidious villains in films such as Algiers (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and somewhat shy, bumbling characters, typified by his portrayal as Bob Cratchit in the 1938 MGM version of A Christmas Carol, in which he appeared with his wife as Mrs. Cratchit and his daughter June, making her screen debut as one of the Cratchit children.

What made Lockhart so special as a character actor was his ability to blend the two types for which he was famous, that of the overtly sinister villain and the bumbling nice guy, into a unique and compelling mix that never failed to delight. He did this again and again in numerous films such as His Girl Friday, Carousel, They Died with Their Boots On, Meet John Doe, Leave Her to Heaven, and, perhaps most memorably, the perennial Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street where, as Judge Henry X Harper, he almost single handedly saves Christmas.

OK, John Payne helped a little.

While Lockhart was known best for his work in film, he also had an impressive career on the stage, including his much-lauded performance as Willie Loman in the original Broadway production of Death of a Salesman (taking over from Lee J. Cobb). Before that, he appeared with George M. Cohan and another great character actor, Elisha Cook, Jr., in the Broadway debut of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness. All told, he had sixteen Broadway plays to his credit. Add that to his numerous television appearances and his more than a hundred film appearances, and it is clear that Lockhart rightly earned his place in the pantheon of great character actors.

Earlier, I mentioned his work as a lyricist. Think you don’t know any of his stuff? Oh yes, you do. I’ll let Les Paul and Mary Ford prove it as they perform one of Lockhart’s most famous songs…Presented by Listerine!

The song was originally published in 1919. Musical luminaries such as Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Django Reinhardt covered it over the years. Les Paul and Mary Ford’s version was a million seller in 1949. The classics! They endure!

6 ‘n 90!  Da Man reviews six films in ninety seconds.

The Islander is where guests are interviewed by Nancy and asked to pick the ten films they would take with them to a desert island.  Nancy’s guest this week is David Jacobs: producer, director, author, and creator of both Dallas and Knots Landing.

Harry Brown.  What I want to know is, where’s the Harry Brown action figure?  It could come with play money to drop everywhere in a drunken stupor, an asthma inhaler, and a cell phone that you can hear his old codger buddy being killed on.  Depressing drug den and graffiti covered, urine stained pedestrian underpass sold separately.

It’s back to school for show and tell as the Misfits share some of the things they learned at the movies.

Robin Hood.  Although there’s no robbing the rich and giving to the poor in this new version, when it’s over, your wallet will definitely be ten dollars or so lighter and you might very well feel like you’ve been robbed.

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The reason was Mark Lisanti, founding editor of Defamer, and our guest on “The Islander.”

Long story short:  Mark came to Hollywood looking to work in The Industry.  He dabbled about a bit, but also published his own blog, Bunsen, which got him noticed by New York-based Gawker Media Empire overlord Nick Denton who decided to branch out to the West Coast.  Thus, Defamer was born.

From it’s very inception, Defamer was a little bit of Brilliance.  Lisanti worked anonymously at first, sort of as a joke, but it really didn’t matter.  What did matter was the amazing quality of his posts, often as many as two dozen a day, which left the denizens of Hollywood gasping for air, and the underlings…the overworked personal assistants, underpaid production assistants, and yahoos like me…craving for more.

And Mark always delivered, slavishly pounding away on his laptop inside his Los Feliz apartment.  He fielded press announcement, trade postings, and tips from those on the scene.  Like this tipster-supplied holiday message from Eva Longoria, which Mark ultimately turned into a very special Thanksgiving greeting.

I was thrilled when Mark took me up on my offer to be our Islander, and it was an absolute honor to speak with him.  Please enjoy the segment, and then read his other online offerings:

Defamer archive of Mark’s posts

Bunsen, Mark’s first blog

Lisanti Quarterly, Mark’s current blog

The Little Golden Men Oscar blog on Vanity Fair

Islander interview with Mark Lisanti, part 1

Islander interview with Mark Lisanti, part 2

6 ‘n 90!  Da Man reviews six movies in ninety seconds.

Defendor.  He can’t spell, he can’t fight, and he pays a prostitute 40 dollars a day to be his friend.  A new hero for a new time?  Or just a direct to DVD mess?

Iron Man 2.  This sequel has more of everything: story lines, villains, and not just one Iron Man but two!  So how come it feels like something is missing?

Kick Ass.  It’s reprehensible, offensive, and objectionable.  But it’s also smart, challenging, and a well-made film.  And it’s got Hit Girl in it, which is a plus or a minus, depending on how you feel about the film.

The E*Trade Babies movie.  Product placement takes a giant leap forward as the product actually becomes the movie.  But why stop with the E*Trade Babies?  What about the Burger King?  Or the Maytag Repair Man?  Funny, you should ask…

We’ll be back in two weeks.  Thanks for listening!

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Here’s something else I’ll let you in on:  when it comes to energy sources, I don’t know a gamma ray from a dilithium crystal.  Hell, I’m pretty vague on the whole Flux capacitor thing.  But in Astro Boy, it’s all pretty simple.  Blue Core energy:  good.  Red Core energy: bad.  If you’re a dog or happen to be color blind, this might be a problem, otherwise, it’s all you need to know.

One last thing.  Back when “Da Man” was “Da Kid” (we’re talking early 60s here), there were actually Helms Bakery trucks that drove around the city and sold bread–right out the back of the truck.  No foolin’.  That’s how my friend and neighbor got his bread every week.  One time, as a promotional gimmick, Helm’s offered a 45 single with the Astro Boy theme song on it.  Damn, how I envied my friend that record!  At 8 years old, I thought the Astro Boy song was a rockin’ tune.

All right,  enough with the memory lane stuff.  What about the Astro Boy movie–is it the greatest thing since sliced bread?  Hardly.  But I gotta admit, I have a sentimental soft spot for it.  I’m in!

At last, I can listen to the Astro Boy song without having to buy any of that Helm’s Bakery stuff.  Speaking for myself, I was always a Wonderbread kid anyway.