I gather you've already heard, and have also seen or heard dozens of invocations of speaking jive, and being "hard on the Beaver" by now. So of course I have to be different…but I like to think I'm being different purposefully, you know. Hence, this image from VIncente Minnelli's 1952 The Bad and the Beautiful. Billingsley here plays Evelyn, a movie studio costume designer who's very skeptical of the qualities of one Georgia Lorrison, incarnated by Lana Turner. And Evelyn is not shy about making her skepticism known to producer Jonathan Shields (that would be Kirk Douglas), who dismisses Evelyn and company at the end of the scene by making a request to be left alone with his "star." At the time Billingsley was just one of many working professionals whose roles not infrequently called for them to high-hat it over, well, highly-paid, public-awe-inspiring Hollywood icons. And Billingsley here does her job beautifully, betraying not a hint of non-diegetic deference to Turner. And until the point when she became, possibly unwittingly, a television Hollywood icon, that's the sort of thing Billingsley did, reliably, unobtrusively, convincingly. Such players were, and are, largely undervalued; but Billingsley maintained her particular professional ethos long after Leave It To Beaver ended its run. So, not just love, but a particular kind of respect ought to go out to her, I think.
A screen cap like this is worth 1000 words on how you so totally rule. I may have to steal it for my next banner. And look at my darling Lana, that’s one of her best scenes; she’s completely, believably uncomfortable.
Thanks for this, Glenn. Although with all due and deserved respect to folks like Billingsley who — as you point out — work with such unheralded skill, this particular film is one of my favorite salutes to star quality.
Not just Lana, either (although, yes, Siren, love the way she’s holding her arms above, as if she just got a bad sunburn — and her ill-at-ease physicality when she wakes up in Douglas’ house, after he’s tossed her in the pool, is perfect too.)
But Douglas, of course. And Grahame.
And Gilbert Roland, lord love him. More than a quarter of a century after his debut in the silents, and he’s still mamboing around like it’s 1926 and he’s ruling the marble dance floor at San Simeon. Just wonderful, uncomplicated confidence (flavored with just the tiniest lemon twist of amused self-knowledge). And he went on in pictures for another 30 years after this…
(And please, everyone, go get a copy of that score. That David Raksin music — with the great, tiny little keening flourish that condenses all of the movie’s hungry, yearning desire into two little notes.)
Sorry to highjack this, but that screen cap was too tempting…
Stephen, I completely share your love for this movie, and the Raskin score is divine. It’s Lana’s best work I think; I’d even put it above Postman.
And Gilbert Roland, amen. To hijack even further, he’s also superb as the master bullfighter in The Bullfighter and the Lady, a portrait of all that’s best in the image of Latin machismo, familial devotion and honor. At his best, the man just walked on a set and seized the camera.
Then, to bring it back to Billingsley, her expression there is perfect, and I know we must have seen it again on Leave It to Beaver…
That’s Raksin. Sorry, lysdexic typo.
This is lovely, Glenn. I’m actually writing about The Band Wagon this evening, so seeing this image from one of favorite Minnellis is both timely and a big surprise– I’d completely forgotten it was Billingsley in the role. Thanks for posting.