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The films of Barbara Stanwyck

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Scott Vander Werf and David Hast discuss the films of Barbara Stanwyck, including Stella Dallas, The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Double Indemnity and The Furies

David Hast: Scott, have you seen Stella Dallas?

Scott Vander Werf: I have not seen Stella Dallas. Tell me about it.

DH: Oh, I'm surprised. Well, it was, it was, it's one of Barbara Stanwyck's great roles and one of her personal favorites as an actress. It was the first of four movies that she was nominated for Best Actress for and actually all her life she was, that was the one she said she was disappointed with, that first one back in 1938 because she really thought it was her best performance. It's a drama about a mother who sacrifices everything in her life for her daughter's future. But I brought it up because it's, you know, a great Barbara Stanwyck film, and we're going to talk about Barbara Stanwyck.

SVW: I loved Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire and Lady Eve and several of the other films that I did see her in, the noir films, Double Indemnity. And she was an actress that really had a strong presence.

DH: She did. I mean, she's one of the greatest Hollywood actors. And I think nowadays maybe fewer people have heard of her. If you talk about classic cinema, you know, they've heard of Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but maybe the name Barbara Stanwyck isn't on the tip of everyone's tongue. But she was a wonderful, wonderful actress who started in the beginning of the sound and pre-code era in 1929 or 30 and acted in mostly movies and then switched, did television and acted all the way into the 1980s, so over 60 years. She acted with all the greatest leading men in Hollywood, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Bogart, Burt Lancaster. Kirk Douglas's first film is with her, it's a film noir. And you mentioned that, you know, you mentioned right away, screwball comedies, film noirs, she did a lot of westerns and dramas, so she worked in a lot of genres.

And she was always, what did you say? Just very believable.

SVW: Well, she was just a very strong woman, had a strong presence. And why was it that she was disappointed about Stella Dallas not being recognized as much?

DH: I think it was very personal to her, because I mean, I like her own personal story. Barbara Stanwyck was born to working class parents in 1907. When she was four years old, her mother died, and then her father, within a couple of weeks, left the family forever. She ended up in foster homes, sometimes many in one year and would run away. She never finished high school, and she fell into entertainment. She worked as a chorus girl. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, so this was New York. She worked as a chorus girl, and then she found her way into the movies, you know, in her early 20s.

And an interesting thing when you read about her, everyone says she was totally beloved in Hollywood. You know, she had these very humble beginnings and I guess she never forgot them. She was very kind to even the lowest ranking person on the set. And, um, and, and so, so a movie like Stella Dallas and some others were very personal to her.

SVW: Well, that's very interesting because again, uh, talking about her strong presence, I could see where maybe she might have been a difficult artist to work with because she had so much energy on the screen.

DH: Apparently, there was someone I read somewhere who said, you know, she has only two interests in life, work and work. I mean, she was just, her life was her acting and you can see it. There's just this level of intensity in everything she does.

Another one, some people say you don't really know Barbara Stanwyck unless you watch some of her pre-code films. She did a lot of films prior to 1934 when there were less restrictions in Hollywood. And one she did, here's another movie where she played a very poor character called Babyface in 1933.

This was her breakthrough role. This was the movie that elevated her to the beginning of stardom. She's a poor girl like in Stella Dallas, but in this one. She literally sleeps her way to the top of a big corporation. They keep cutting back to a high rise of the business, this exterior of this high rise corporate building. And they keep showing that she keeps with each affair she has with the guy, she moves to a higher floor until she's married the CEO. And she's the most powerful person in the movie.

SVW: And this is another film that I have not seen.

DH: Yeah, you gotta see Babyface. I mean, it's just, it's… classic pre-code stuff. I mean, it's full of transgressive moments.

SVW: Now, in 1941, she did the first of the movies that I've seen many times, The Lady Eve, directed by Preston Sturges, and Ball of Fire from Howard Hawks.

DH: Right, and that was her second Oscar nomination. And it's wonderful because most of her movies are dramatic, or, you know, the Westerns and the noir, there's a drama as well. But she was… wasn't she great at comedy?

SVW: Oh, she was very great at comedy. And the Lady Eve, I loved this movie, taking place on a boat, on a ship, and where she's a con woman trying to con Henry Fonda, who is a beer tycoon.

DH: Yeah, he's rich, but he's completely naive.

SVW: And of course, they fall in love.

DH: They truly fall in love. So then she has to deal with the fact that she's conning him. One writer said that in that movie, she quote, “Gives off an erotic charge that would straighten up boa constrictor.”

SVW: And it's I love the dynamic between her father, who is her partner in crime and how, you know, she's really struggling to to to like actually do the crime.

DH: Yeah.

SVW: Well, she really wants to do the crime, but she's, it's her emotions, her connection with the Henry Fonda character that eventually subverts it.

Dh: Right. Right. I think that's the great character actor Charles Coburn. I hope I'm remembering that right.

SVW: Yes, Charles Coburn. And then in Ball of Fire, she's surrounded by a bunch of nerds, a bunch of professors.

DH: Well, that one's basically Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, right?

SVW: Oh, I didn't pick up on that.

DH: Well, yeah, there's like seven of these professors and she goes, she seeks refuge with them because she's like a chorus girl or something or a lounge singer under the control of a mob and she's trying to get away from her mobster boyfriend, and the lead professor is Gary Cooper and she falls in love with him.

SVW: And then we can't you can't talk about Barbara Stanwyck without talking about Double Indemnity directed by Billy Wilder and based on the James M. Kane novel. It's one of the great film noir classics.

DH: We've talked about it on many of our shows. You know, I've often said if someone didn't know anything about film noir and wanted to see one, that'd be the one I'd recommend. That was her third Oscar nomination and, go look up any list of Barbara Stanwyck movies ranked and it's always going to be at the top and many people think it's her greatest role She and Fred McMurray playing, you know ruthless killers.

SVW: And then she was also Nominated for an Oscar for another noir film called. Sorry Wrong Number in 1948 and this is a film that I have not seen.

DH: I can't recommend this movie enough. This movie is a… She's great. It's one of an early Burt Lancaster film. He did a lot of film noir's early in his career. She's a character you don't really like at first, but then by the end you really sympathize with her. But this movie is, Sorry Wrong Number, reminds me of movies like The Big Sleep or Chinatown. It is so complicated. It's nothing but flashbacks. Like every time something happens in the present, the person talks about something and 10 seconds later it's a flashback. And there's flashbacks within flashbacks.

And it's incredibly beautiful, like really accomplished film noir photography by Saul Polito. So yeah, if you're looking for, I mean, this is Barbara Stanwyck, you can start to name all these movies she did and they're among some of the best movies that Hollywood has made.

SVW: Well, let's talk about her westerns, including The Furies in 1950, which I have not seen. I have seen Samuel Fuller's 40 Guns from 1957.

DH: But what'd you think of that?

SVW: It's great, as are all of Samuel Fuller's movies.

DH: Right, but Samuel Fuller's movies are kind of odd.

SVW: Yeah, very odd.

DH: They're kind of not like most Hollywood films. The Furies is like a revenge story. Martin Scorsese compared it to Greek tragedy. She's basically out for revenge on her father. So yeah, and she was great in Westerns and...

I don't know that she did any more westerns than any other genre, but it's where she ended up when she was older, right?

SVW: And we were talking about her, basically work and work were her two things. And it makes sense that for four years later in her life, she was the star of the Big Valley on television.

DH: Yeah,

SVW: Over 1965 to 1969.

DH: Right. So she was a well-known presence on television as well as the movies.

David Hast is a retired high school English teacher. He has an MFA in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University and worked 15 years in the film and video industry. Some years ago he taught video production part-time at GVSU, and as a high school teacher he regularly taught a course in Film and Media Analysis.
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