He's dead, Jim.

[The Rube]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

No question. Her best film work was pre-code. "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" The code took the edge off. She was funny in My Little Chickadee with W. C. Fields ("Is this a game of chance? Not the way I play it."), but could have been funnier.

And has one of the most mis-quoted lines in movie history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0eJp7V2Zs

 

[Old Pio]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

And has one of the most mis-quoted lines in movie history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0eJp7V2Zs

"Play it again, Sam" is on that list, too.

 

[The Rube]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

"Play it again, Sam" is on that list, too.

Indeed.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Irene Dunne and Lauren Bacall set the bar for Hollywood actresses. Not only has it never been equaled, it hasn't even been approached.

Please add Greer Garson and Myrna Loy to that list.

"All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here."

Muriel Blandings: "I want it to be a soft green, not as blue-green as a robin's egg, but not as yellow-green as daffodil buds. Now, the only sample I could get is a little too yellow, but don't let whoever does it go to the other extreme and get it too blue. It should just be a sort of grayish-yellow-green. Now, the dining room. I'd like yellow. Not just yellow; a very gay yellow. Something bright and sunshine-y. I tell you, Mr. PeDelford, if you'll send one of your men to the grocer for a pound of their best butter, and match that exactly, you can't go wrong! Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers. There's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhock leaf, but the little bluish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear? Now the kitchen is to be white. Not a cold, antiseptic hospital white. A little warmer, but still, not to suggest any other color but white. Now for the powder room - in here - I want you to match this thread, and don't lose it. It's the only spool I have and I had an awful time finding it! As you can see, it's practically an apple red. Somewhere between a healthy winesap and an unripened Jonathan. Oh, excuse me... "

Mr. PeDelford: "You got that Charlie?"

Charlie, Painter: "Red, green, blue, yellow, white."

Mr. PeDelford: "Check."

 

[The Rube]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Please add Greer Garson and Myrna Loy to that list.
"All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here."

Pam Grier if only for non-opportunities.

Jodie Foster is so close. /FreddieMercurysoclosememe

 

[MattS]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

It's like any other social advance: it starts with eccentrics, intellectuals and other fringe elements who are outside of mass pressures anyway if not actively hostile to them, then slowly and painfully permeates out through education levels, with local variation for geography. It's probably still a crippling stigma among the same sort of people who are, say, homophobic or racist or whatever. But with each decade more and more people realize that's stupid, and there are fewer and fewer people left with the old biases. The veil of ignorance lifts gradually, but it lifts.

Thanks for the social change lesson. I understand how social attitudes change. I was/am saying that I do not think the change has been as great as you seem to think.

I think both of these are true. I also think it depends on where you live. Certain parts of the country are more accepting than others.

This might be true. I believe that people are accepting in the abstract but not so much when it hits closer to home.

 

[joecct]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Best Years of Our Lives

When Fredric March comes home and Myrna Loy sees him for the first time in God knows how long - priceless.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Meryl Streep would like to have a word with you.

I'd like a word back. Overrated, clap, clap, clap clap clap.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

I'm troubled by that kind of language, too. We occasionally see "suicide clusters" among young people. With the deaths and the responses to them seemingly giving "permission" to other troubled adolescents to follow suit.

Someone who works in a psychiatric hospital told me they'd be on extra alert for the next several days because Robin Williams was reported to have hanged himself, and that is about the only way inpatients can commit suicide.

We lived in a small town in WY (~12,000 people) when Columbine happened, and in the subsequent weeks, five teens committed suicide. It does seem like one event easily can trigger several others in its wake.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

The Code hurt her, too. She was ahead of her time.

One of my favorite Mae West lines: "I love censorship. It made me a fortune."

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Please add Greer Garson and Myrna Loy to that list.

Myrna Loy absolutely. I hate to admit I just haven't seen enough Greer Garson to judge.

To be honest, if you were compiling a list of the 20 greatest Hollywood actresses you could start by just watching The Women: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine. There's 5 right there. Add Stanwyck, Dunne, Loy, Bacall, and Betty Davis and there's 10 more. I assume most people would insist on Katherine Hepburn (personally I never saw it). I would insist on Vivien Leigh (IMHO the most underrated actress of all time) and Claudette Colbert. So that leaves 7 spots for the pre-1930 and post-1950 contingent. Garbo I guess. I personally would list Joan Blondell but I recognize most people would call that perverse (most people are wrong). Liz Taylor absolutely.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Someone who works in a psychiatric hospital told me they'd be on extra alert for the next several days because Robin Williams was reported to have hanged himself, and that is about the only way inpatients can commit suicide.

We lived in a small town in WY (~12,000 people) when Columbine happened, and in the subsequent weeks, five teens committed suicide. It does seem like one event easily can trigger several others in its wake.

The Lemming Effect.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

I understand how social attitudes change. I was/am saying that I do not think the change has been as great as you seem to think.

I went looking for evidence that you're wrong. Turns out... you're right. From a 2004 survey:

More than 40 percent of those surveyed agree that anyone with a history of mental problems should be excluded from public office.

Nearly one in three believe a child should be placed in an alternative setting as soon as he or she exhibits a mental illness in school.

More than 50 percent believe major depression might be caused by the way someone was raised, while more than one in five believe it is “God’s will.”

More than 50 percent believe major depression might result from people “expecting too much from life,” and more than 40 percent believe it is the result of a lack of will power.

More than 60 percent said an effective treatment for major depression is to “pull yourself together.”

Even if we write off the magical thinking folks, those are still insane (see what I did there?) numbers. You are absolutely right -- the majority of people still live in the dark ages on this.

 

[SteveP]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Myrna Loy absolutely. I hate to admit I just haven't seen enough Greer Garson to judge.

To be honest, if you were compiling a list of the 20 greatest Hollywood actresses you could start by just watching The Women: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine. There's 5 right there. Add Stanwyck, Dunne, Loy, Bacall, and Betty Davis and there's 10 more. I assume most people would insist on Katherine Hepburn (personally I never saw it). I would insist on Vivien Leigh (IMHO the most underrated actress of all time) and Claudette Colbert. So that leaves 7 spots for the pre-1930 and post-1950 contingent. Garbo I guess. I personally would list Joan Blondell but I recognize most people would call that perverse (most people are wrong). Liz Taylor absolutely.

Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren (perhaps not "Hollywood")

 

[bigblue_dl]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

I went looking for evidence that you're wrong. Turns out... you're right. From a 2004 survey:



Even if we write off the magical thinking folks, those are still insane (see what I did there?) numbers. You are absolutely right -- the majority of people still live in the dark ages on this.

I fully agree with the science, that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, and is in fact a medical condition. My question is, is there science out there that can tell us what causes that chemical imbalance? Is it 100% genetic? Is it genetic in some cases, and caused by another driver in others? I ask because I don't know, and it is something that I'd like to know.

The reason I bring it up is because there seems to me to be a higher rate of depression in people that have had some kind of life-changing event, or series of events. Poor child hood, loss of a parent, accident,etc. I'm wondering if it is known that these life events can impact the chemicals in the brain, or if any correlation between the 2 is either purely coincidental or non-existent.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren (perhaps not "Hollywood")

I didn't include Loren because she belongs in the Europe bracket.

Audrey... don't get me wrong, she's wonderful, but... limited.

That's also why I'd put the kibbosh on West, Olivia de Haviland, Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, Grace Kelly, Ginger Rogers, and Jean Harlowe. And, rethinking it, I'll rescind Bacall -- she belongs with this group. They're all wonderful to watch, but you always know what you're going to get.

I'll replace Bacall with the incredible Gloria Swanson, who I really should have thought of before.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

I fully agree with the science, that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, and is in fact a medical condition. My question is, is there science out there that can tell us what causes that chemical imbalance? Is it 100% genetic? Is it genetic in some cases, and caused by another driver in others? I ask because I don't know, and it is something that I'd like to know. The reason I bring it up is because there seems to me to be a higher rate of depression in people that have had some kind of life-changing event, or series of events. Poor child hood, loss of a parent, accident,etc. I'm wondering if it is known that these life events can impact the chemicals in the brain, or if any correlation between the 2 is either purely coincidental or non-existent.

These are excellent questions which, not being a psychiatrist, geneticist, or neurologist, I can't answer with any authority. So, this being the internet, I'll guess. My impressions, from reading and what little interaction I've had with the former, are:

1) It is varied and complicated terrain. There are few "always" or "all" statements with mental illness, or even more focused areas such as anxiety or depression, because those terms cover hugely varied conditions that happen to manifest in symptoms that people think of as "crazy," "anxious," or "depressed."

2) It's still early days with the science. The first methodical explorations of these issues were around 1890, so we're really only talking about 125 years of work. We're still struggling to achieve an understanding of most brain functions, without which it's hard to define dysfunction.

3) There is a nearly universal consensus that trauma correlates with these illnesses. The jury's out on whether that's because there's true causation -- i.e., the experience of trauma actually rewires pathways in the brain -- or that it's a matter of exacerbating existing tendencies that are physiological, perhaps with some genetic component. This article seems like a good 10,000 foot view.

The things we do know are:

1) It's not God's will. Or in any case, when it comes to the rigorous scientific analysis that many of us associate with empirical reality, the type of person who answers any question as "it's God's will" has left the building.

2) It's not "character." Hard-working, level-headed, no-nonsense people suffer from all these conditions. It's not "the artistic temperament" or "hysteria" or "a spiritual deficiency" or any of the other variations on that theme.

3) It's not a choice. People fight these diseases just as they would cancer. Nobody suggests people choose to get cancer -- it is equally idiotic to assign that sort of agency to these diseases.

 

[MattS]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

I went looking for evidence that you're wrong. Turns out... you're right. From a 2004 survey:



Even if we write off the magical thinking folks, those are still insane (see what I did there?) numbers. You are absolutely right -- the majority of people still live in the dark ages on this.

What? I'm right? I really had no clue on this. I was just going by my impressions from personal experience.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

Please add Greer Garson and Myrna Loy to that list.

and Carole Lombard as well. She was wonderful in To Be or Not to Be,[SUP]1[/SUP] and brilliant in My Man Godfrey.





[SUP]1[/SUP] which also demonstrates that Jack Benny really could act.

 

[Kepler]

Re: He's dead, Jim.

What? I'm right? I really had no clue on this. I was just going by my impressions from personal experience.

As was I. I honestly thought far more people had moved beyond Iron Age concepts and the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" nonsense. Sadly, I seem to be quite wrong.