Hello, my friends, old and new! There are many Hollywood legends that deserved an Oscar but didn't get one. Excluding those who excelled in non-English-speaking movies, who would have a tough time getting one anyway, my main grievance is the fact that the Best Director Oscar eluded two of my favorite directors, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock. I am equally upset about the poor Oscar history of Hitchcock's favorite leading man, one of the brightest Hollywood stars of all time, Cary Grant.
Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I." Indeed, being Cary Grant was probably his greatest role. That certainly would have confused the Academy members when voting for Best Actor.
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alexander Leach on January 18, 1904, in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. This was the film that hinted at greater things to come for this young actor. Here's a scene:
Cary Grant is a man who embraced his contradictions: the working class lad from Bristol who became the epitome of the dapper, suave, elegant gentleman - the ladies' man (he had five highly publicized marriages) who would also spend twelve years by the side of another Hollywood star, Randolph Scott, (they were actually living together, at a time when for anyone else that would have been career suicide.) Why wasn't Cary's career affected? One of the reasons was that probably he would not give a damn, in fact, he was comfortable enough with himself to bring these ambiguities into his movies, as we'll soon see.
Grant specialized in four kinds of roles: there was the ex-husband who comes back into his ex-wife life to wreak emotional havoc as she's about to settle with another man (The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, The Philadelphia Story) - the morally ambiguous man whom you don't know whether to trust him or not (Sylvia Scarlett, His Girl Friday (again), Suspicion, The Talk Of The Town, To Catch a Thief, Charade) - the innocent who's flung into a maelstrom of events because of outrageous people or situations outside his control (Bringing Up Baby, My Favorite Wife, Arsenic and Old Lace, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, North by Northwest) - not forgetting how great he was in classic leading man roles, tough on the outside but with a sense of justice and integrity (Notorious, An Affair to Remember). His two Oscar nominations were atypical in his filmography: in Penny Serenade, a four-hanky melodrama about the dissolution of a marriage after the death of a child, he plays the grieving father. In None But the Lonely Heart, a socially realistic literary adaptation by esteemed writer Clifford Odets, he plays an itinerant who reluctantly returns home to help his sickly mother run her shop and in the process, they are both tempted to turn to crime to help make ends meet. The first time he lost to Gary Cooper for Sgt. York and the second time to Bing Crosby for Going My Way.
His leading ladies represented Hollywood's elite and he worked best (and often more than once) with actresses with big personalities and distinctive acting styles (chronologically): Mae West, Katharine Hepburn, Irene Dunne, Rosalind Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Ingrid Bergman, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple, Grace Kelly, Deborah Kerr, Eva Marie Saint, Audrey Hepburn. He didn't feel threatened by their personality or talent like many other leading men of his time did.
Sylvia Scarlett (1935) is a classic study of gender-confusion, with Katharine Hepburn's girl-disguised-as-boy in the center of this:
The Awful Truth (1937) is the first time that Cary showed the world what he could do in a screwball comedy:
... Which he perfected in Bringing Up Baby (1938). In this scene, "I Just Went Gay All of a Sudden" he jokingly toys with sexual ambiguity:
His Girl Friday (1940) was the best version of the three and the only one not titled The Front Page:
In My Favorite Wife (1940) his romantic interest is Irene Dunne and his romantic rival is his real-life "roommate", Randolph Scott. The film slyly alludes to the situation, especially in this scene:
The Philadelphia Story (1940) was one of his most successful films - and it was a shame that he was the only one of the main case missing from the Oscar race: James Stewart won for Best Actor, Katharine Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress, and Ruth Hussey was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Here it is:
This is his first Oscar nomination, Penny Serenade (1941):
Suspicion (1941) was Cary Grant's first role in an Alfred Hitchcock film. He would later star in three more: Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). All four were classics. This is the milk scene from Suspicion:
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) is an immortal black comedy. The play is still successfully revived around the world. This is it:
This is his second -and last - Oscar nomination, None But the Lonely Heart (1944):
Hitchcock's Notorious (1946) is among his finest roles. This is the superb final scene:
The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) is a very witty film, in which Grant plays perfectly well against Shirley Temple of all actors and doesn't hesitate to tear his dapper image to shreds, as in this scene:
To Catch a Thief (1955) is a very sexually charged exotic adventure. Interestingly enough, for a film of the 1950s, the women are the sexual instigators. It's by Hitchcock, of course. Here's a collection of scenes from the film:
This is the car-chase scene:
An Affair to Remember (1957) is one of the most beloved romances of all-time, referenced in many films, most famously in When Harry Met Sally, where it's a central part of the plot. This is the famous final scene:
Grant stars in my favorite Hitchcock film, North by Northwest (1959). This scene should be studied frame-by-frame by anybody who wants to call themselves a filmmaker or a film lover:
Charade (1963) pairs him with the much younger Audrey Hepburn but their chemistry works perfectly, despite the age difference. It's the most Hitchcockian non-Hitchcock film:
The weekend is here, which means it's time for our countdown and our statistics: At #185 of our Motown countdown, we find the man who appears 34 times in our countdown, Stevie Wonder. Happy Birthday (1980) was used to popularize the campaign to have the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. become a national holiday. United States President Ronald Reagan approved the creation of the holiday, signing it into existence on November 2, 1983. The first official Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, held the third Monday in January of each year, was held on January 20, 1986, and was commemorated with a large-scale concert, where Stevie Wonder was the headlining performer.
Besides being released as a single, the song also appears on Wonder's last masterpiece album, Hotter Than July. Although the single failed to reach the Billboard Hot 100, it charted on the R&B chart, and it became one of Wonder's biggest hits in the UK, reaching #2 in the charts in August 1981:
Wonder also performed this song at the Diamond Jubilee Concert in London for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. This is the scene where he performs Sir Duke, Isn't She Lovely, Happy Birthday and Superstition - classics all. Happy Birthday also features Will.I.Am:
At #184 is Yvonne Fair's most famous song, It Should Have Been Me. The song was originally written in 1963 for Kim Weston by William 'Mickey' Stevenson and Norman Whitfield (the co-writer and/or producer of such classics as the Temptations' Papa Was a Rollin' Stone, Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Edwin Starr's War, and Rose Royce's Car Wash). Gladys Knight & The Pips recorded it in 1968 and had a #40 US hit with it and Yvonne Fair recorded it in 1976, on making it as high as #85 in the US. In the UK, however, it was a surprise hit at #5. In 1991, dance diva Adeva had the first of two number ones on the US dance chart with her version.
The song is a classic "my love is getting married to another woman and I want to stop the wedding" type song, but Yvonne's performance is so convincing, that you find yourself rooting for the wedding to fall apart.
Yvonne's (born in 1942 in Richmond, Virginia - died 1994 from undisclosed causes in Las Vegas), early work was with the Chantels and then James Brown, who also fathered her daughter Venisha Brown and "stole" a song that she recorded called I Found You. Brown changed it to I Got You (I Feel Good) and the rest is history. She was married to Sammy Strain, who was a member of both Little Anthony and the Imperials and the O'Jays. She had a small part as a singer in the film that gave Diana Ross her only Oscar nomination, Lady Sings the Blues (1972). Her only album was released in 1975 and it was called The Bitch Is Black(an apparent nod to Elton John. It's obvious this singer could do so much more and I wonder why she didn't...
This is Yvonne's hit version:
This is Kim Weston's original version:
This is the other hit version, by Gladys Knight & The Pips:
This is Adeva's version:
At #183 we find The Temptations, an act that appears 33 times in this countdown, two of which happen today. The first song is Since I Lost My Baby, a hit single in 1965 (US Hot 100: #17, US R&B: #4.) The lead vocals are by David Ruffin and Melvin Franklin, while the background vocals are by Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, and Otis Williams - and the instrumentation is by The Funk Brothers and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
The song was written by Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Pete Moore and produced by Robinson. Longing and melancholy, Since I Lost My Baby tells a story about the pain of losing a lover. Temptations lead singer, David Ruffin, portrays the song's narrator, bass singer Melvin Franklin is also heard out front after each of Ruffin's first two lines on the first verse. It was Ruffin's third straight lead on a Temptations single. Here it is:
The Action released their George Martin-produced version in 1966:
Luther Vandross covered the song for his 1982 album Forever, for Always, for Love. In 1983, Vandross' cover was a top twenty R&B hit, peaking to #17 on Billboards R&B Singles chart:
At #182 we find the other song by The Temptations, Psychedelic Shack (1969). As the title suggests, this single features the Temptations and their producer Norman Whitfield continuing their submergence into psychedelia, with multi-lead vocals, hard rock guitars, synthesizer sound effects, multitracked drums, and stereo-shifting vocals giving the record a distinct sound. The song's title and lyrics refer to a type of hippie nightclub popular in the late 1960s.
Psychedelic Shack's LP mix begins with the sounds of a person entering a psychedelic shack and dropping the needle on a record, I Can't Get Next to You which was the Temptations single that immediately preceded this one. The use of the recording of I Can't Get Next to You from its 45 RPM single makes Psychedelic Shack one of the first songs to use sampling, a technique that would become a staple of hip-hop music in the coming decade.
Psychedelic Shack was the title track from the Psychedelic Shack album, released in March 1970. The song reached #7 on the US Hot 100 and #2 on the US R&B charts. Here it is:
The song ends, after its fourth verse, with the Funk Brothers backing band going into a jam session as the song fades out. Keyboardist Earl Van Dyke remembers Psychedelic Shack as one of his favorite recording sessions. The full extended version of the song, with the complete jam session, went unreleased until a new six-minute mix of the record was done in 2003 for the Psychedelic Soul compilation set. This is it:
This is a disco/punk cover version by the late Divine:
Finally for today, at #181, we find The Miracles, with their biggest hit without Smokey Robinson: Love Machine was a multi-million selling Platinum single and a #1 smash hit in the US Hot 100, as well as a #5 hit on the R&B chart and a #3 hit in the UK. The single has sold over 4.5 million copies.
This single was one of two Billboard Hot 100 Top 20 hits recorded by The Miracles with Billy Griffin as lead vocalist; the other is 1973's Do It Baby. Griffin had replaced Miracles founder Smokey Robinson as lead singer in 1972. The song features a growling vocal by Miracle Bobby Rogers, with group baritone Ronnie White repeating "Yeah Baby" throughout the song.
Engineered and mixed by Kevin Beamish, Love Machine was produced by Freddie Perren, a former member of The Corporation brain trust in charge of the early Jackson 5 hits. It was written by Billy Griffin and his Miracles group-mate, original Miracle Pete Moore, with whom he wrote the rest of the City of Angels tracks as well. The song's lyrics, delivered over a disco beat, compare a lover to an electronic device such as a computer or a robot. The seven-minute song was split into two parts for its release as a single, with "Part 1" receiving most notoriety. It was the only two-part single of the Miracles' career.
Love Machine, to which Griffin and co-writer Miracle Pete Moore retained publishing rights through their publishing company Grimora Music(instead of Motown's music publishing company, Jobete), is the most-used song in Motown history and has generated more than $15 million in revenues.
This is the complete, album version of the song:
This is the single version, titled Love Machine Part 1:
By 1979, the song saw its first cover version, performed by Thelma Houston. Houston's version became a popular song with club DJs at the time in the United States, although it did not chart. In Asia, and especially in Japan, Love Machine became Houston's most successful single, topping the Japanese charts.
Wham! performed a cover version of Love Machine on their 1983 album, Fantastic. The track was recorded as a last minute replacement for Careless Whisper, which Wham! decided to save for their second album. Here it is:
Now, let's continue with last week's statistics; after two weeks of great increase, the number of visits "corrected itself" as they say in stock-market lingo. There was a 24% drop, yet the absolute number of visits was still very satisfactory. The only story that seriously underperformed was the one that carried the photo of a young Stevie Wonder. Why? Your guess is as good as mine...
As far as countries are concerned, the trend continues: the United States, Greece, and Cyprus are riding high, while France, the United Kingdom, and Turkey are slightly falling behind. The other major players kept their percentages more or less stable. A new player, Ukraine, almost made the weekly Top 10 but was overtaken by Italy at the last minute.
Here are this week's Top 10 countries:
1. the United States
2. Greece
3. the United Kingdom
4. France
5. Cyprus
6. Canada
7. Germany
8. Australia
9. Spain
10. Italy
Here are the other countries that graced us with their presence since our last statistics (alphabetically): Afghanistan, Aland Islands, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Austria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar (Burma), the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zambia. Happy to have you all!
And here's the all-time Top 10:
1. the United States = 30.8%
2. France = 20.0%
3. the United Kingdom = 12.2%
4. Greece = 7.8%
5. Russia = 2.5%
6. Germany = 1.8%
7. Canada = 1.7%
8. Italy = 1.1%
9. Cyprus = 0.90%
10. Turkey = 0.83%
That's all for today, folks. Till the next one!
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