Barbara Stanwyck: A Lady or a Liar?

Just this past December, I profiled TCM's then star of the month, Barbara Stanwyck, or "Babs from Brooklyn." The sassy broad is back again for the Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon, hosted by The Girl with the White Parasol.

Barbara Stanwyck played her share of angelic mothers and the like (SO BIG (1932), THE TWO MRS. CARROLLS (1947), STELLA DALLAS (1937)), but my favorite Stanwyck roles are when she played a smart-talking chiseller  Often, Stanwyck was even able to bring a certain degree of empathy to the dastardly of characters (excepting Phyllis Dietrichson, of course). Many of her swindling characters weren't really bad women, they were just involved in some pretty seedy dealings. Here is my list of Stanwyck anti-heroines. Whichever way you take your Stanwyck, these movies are definitely classic cinema gold.

Babs from Brooklyn: December's Star of the Month on TCM

Name at birth

Ruby Catherine Stevens
Professional Name
Barbara Stanwyck

"I couldn't remember my name for weeks. I'd be at the theatre and hear them calling, "Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck," and I'd think, "Where is that dame? Why doesn't she answer? By crickie, it's me!""

Nicknames

"Babs"

"Babs from Brooklyn"

"Missy"

"The Queen"

Stanwyck as a Ziegfeld Follies
chorus girl (c. 1924)

Childhood

Orphaned at age four, Ruby was raised by her show biz sister in Brooklyn, New York. She left school at 14 to work in a number of odd jobs before entering the business herself. In 1924 she became a chorus girl in the famous Ziegfeld Follies. She worked on Broadway for a few years before moving out to Hollywood with her first husband in 1928.

"I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I'm ninety and they won't need to paste my face with makeup."

"I want to go on until they have to shoot me." 

Closing the Book on "Great Adaptations"

This being the last week in November, it is also our last week of "Great Adaptations" on Turner Classic Movies. Time to say goodbye to all those great literary classics that have been transformed into cinematic masterpieces. This has been one of the best month highlights I've seen on TCM, and I am glad to say I made the most of it, but I am sorry to see it end.

As usual, TCM is closing out the month in style with three days of novel-film adaptations. Monday night into Tuesday morning will feature no less than a dozen quintessential stories from British Literature, including two Laurence Olivier pictures, WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1939) by Emily Bronte and PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1940) by Jane Austen. Another Bronte sisters' work is highlighted in Charlotte Bronte's JANE EYRE (1944). If you are interested in the more surreal writings of the 20th century, LORD OF THE FLIES (1963) will be showing at 8:00 am Tuesday morning. I remember reading that book in high school. Weird. Here's the full line-up for Monday and Tuesday:

Gary Cooper: BALL OF FIRE (1941)

This post is written in conjunction with the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Sittin' on a Backyard Fence and ScribeHard on Film. A full day of Gary Cooper films will air on TCM on August 26. BALL OF FIRE will be showing at 8:00 pm EST.

During college, my friend Cookie and I bonded over Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck's romance in Howard Hawks' BALL OF FIRE (1941). Of course "Cookie" isn't her real name - we picked it up from Katharine Hepburn in SUMMERTIME (1955). Anyway, BALL OF FIRE was by far our favorite classic film.

Professor Bertram Potts (Cooper) and his seven co-professors are shut up every day working on completing an encyclopedia when their hum-drum lives are overturned by the arrival of Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanwyck). Potts meets O'Shea in a nightclub where he was doing some research for his article about slang. When her crooked boyfriend runs into some trouble with the fuzz, his compatriots convince Sugarpuss to go into hiding with the bumbling professors, where she causes incredible upheaval, teaching them the cha-cha and generally interfering with their work. Of course, Sugarpuss and Potts sort of unwillingly fall for each other and that causes all manner of trouble with her boyfriend's mob of gangsters. Not to worry - if you didn't know it already, professors are actually superheroes and they can sort out any problem using wit, brain, and a little bit of adorableness.

Feminist Star Personas of Classic Hollywood (other than Katharine Hepburn)

http://feministguidetohollywood.blogspot.com/

Feminist personas of classic Hollywood come in many shapes and sizes. Some, like the great Katharine Hepburn, found profound new ways to represent strong women on the big screen. Others more subtly broke new ground in their private lives. There is no set way to define a feminist icon, but there are some ways you can measure how progressive the stars' personas could be. For one, all of these women are professionals who get paid (a lot) for their talent and hard work. Secondly, stars who were aware of their desire to present a progressive view of women often chose films which would showcase these strengths.