Just the Way You Are

On New Year's Eve 2010 before I settled in to watch recent comedies THE HANGOVER and BRüNO, I decided to watch a little something called JUST THE WAY YOU ARE (1984, directed by Edouard Molinaro), which tells the age-old story of a woman who has to travel across the globe just to find herself. Kinda.

Susan Berlanger (played by the spunky Kristy McNichol of WHITE DOG) is a professional flautist. Despite her slightly butch appearance, this gal is 100% straight and seemingly always on the prowl.

In fact Susan has to practically beat guys off a stick. You see Susan's engaged to wealthy and handsome Frank (pre-WINGS Tim Daly) and being stalked by a horny answering service operator named Jack (Lance Guest). Her best friend Lisa (Kaki Hunter) is a serious dancer and another horny dude named Sam (Robert Carradine) is after them both. After she Lisa compare notes on their disastrous relationships, we see that Susan is wearing a leg brace! What? She plays the flute so beautifully...how can she be disabled???

Turns out that Susan has been handicapped since a childhood bout with viral encephalitis, but she's so well-adjusted that she even jokes about wearing "Polio by Ralph Lauren" (insert sitcom "wha-wha"). After Jack and her have a almost blind lunch date, his subplot is quickly discarded and Susan hooks up with Sam (that's still Robert Carradine, if you're having trouble keeping track)–who isn't turned off by her bum leg. In fact I think he's turned on by her limp! Things seem to be going along swimmingly but suddenly Richie Rich, I mean Frank, walks in on them! Frank doesn't seem to be alarmed, and still wants to marry her because it's okay if she wants to sleep with other guys, because he does too! Yup, Frank's gay and their pending marriage would have been one of convenience so he could inherit his family's vast fortunes. Susan encourages him to be honest and maybe they'll accept him "just the way you are". Awwww...

So, after the broken engagement, Susan wants to see if total strangers would treat her differently if they didn't know she was handicapped, so she dumps Sam and accepts the offer to travel to Europe on a concert tour. So, while in France, she convinces a French doctor to put a cast on her bad leg, and then she heads off to the French Alps and a ski resort! When her room at the inn is double-booked, she quickly and eagerly makes friends with a slutty French woman named Nicole (Catherine Salviat) who instantly becomes her roommate! Nicole is having an affair with a married man, who never shows. Awww...

Soon Susan befriends skier Steve (Patrick Cassidy) and tries to jump his bones, but discovers he has to abstain from sex because it might interfere with his performance on the slopes. Enter Peter Nichols (MAKING LOVE's Michael Ontkean), a handsome and incredibly patient photographer there on assignment and his one-dimensional girlfriend Bobbie (Alexandra Paul). Before you know it, Susan and Peter fall in love, and so Peter dumps tantrum-prone Bobbie for Susan.

But can Susan tell him the truth about her damn leg? You'll just have to watch it to find out! This film is kinda odd. On one hand it's a cheesy 80s romantic comedy, on the other hand it's a "message movie" about how superficial people are.

McNichol makes snarky Susan likable in spite of man-eating ways. In fact if a lesser actress were cast in the lead role of a man-hungry, flippant and smooth operator such as Susan, the viewer might actually loathe her. But lovable Kristy just makes you wanna be on her side. The rest of the cast shows up and does their work, and some of the scenery is quite lovely.

The Billy Joel-less synthesized 80s soundtrack seems a bit too serious and heavy-handed in contrast to the airy romantics goings on, but it's always fun to hear Frida's awesome I Know There's Something Go On. Overall I'd give this Warner Archives gem a 7 outta 10 just because it's premise is so ridiculous, and yet it somehow works. As for Kristy, we'll always love her just the way she is!

A NEW KIND OF LOVE

In August 2009, as part of the SO BAD THEY'RE BRILLIANT film festival - I went to see the Diana Ross melodrama MAHOGANY, followed by a curiosity called A NEW KIND OF LOVE co-starring the usually great Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

What the hell were they thinking? Casting Oscar-winning supercouple, the usually charming Newman and ordinarily lovely Woodward in a fluffy screwball romantic comedy in the Doris Day / Rock Hudson mold? You would think that at least Paul and Joanne would have great on-screen chemistry and a knack for comic timing - but you would be dead wrong. Romantique? Oui? Non!
A NEW KIND OF LOVE (1963, directed by Melville Shavelson) starts out on a misogynistic foot with an overlong sequence comparing women shoppers to a herd of stampeding cows. Excusez-moi?Things only get worse from there as we meet Joanne's Samantha Blake, a butched up manhating "half-maiden" (whatever that means) who works for a department store as a spy who aids in producing knock-offs of expensive fashions (ala mode) for the everyday gal. The wonderful Thelma Ritter steals the show as Sam's old maid wise-cracking man-hungry coworker Leena. Merveilleux!
Sam's boss, penny-pinching department store head Mr. Joe Bergner (George Tobias, better known as BEWITCHED's Abner Kravitz) decides that the menage à trois needs to go directly to Paris to steal haute couture from the source. Unfortunately the film's budget only allowed their doubles to go to Paris, so anytime we see anyone in Paris they are either super-imposed in front of a screen or shot from about a mile away. Bon voyage!
Newman is cast as a sexist (and sexy) journalist Steve Sherman who can't stop screwing every woman he meets - which lands him in deep excrément when he mistakenly beds his boss' wife. The results? He is exiled to Paris via SAS Airlines! Can you guess where this is going? En garde!Paul and Joanne have a few awkward encounters when he mistakes her for a man and she calls him on his drinking and sexist ways. Hungarian sexpot Eva Gabor comes along and joins Thelma Ritter in competition for Mr. Bergner's affection for champagne and French Onion Soup, bringing the moribund story back to life everytime they appear. Ambiance!
We learn that Sam really doesn't hate men, she was just burned once and decided to cut her hair and dress unattractively to spite them all. What follows next is an odd religious ceremony overseen by ancient French icon Maurice Chevalier (who does an endless medley of his songs).
What I've learned that apparently on Saint Catherine’s Day (November 25 of each year), couture houses in Paris throw Catherinette parties for all unmarried women over the age of 25. The women are forced wear exotic hats in Saint Catherine’s colors, yellow and green and run through the streets of Paris like raving lunatics looking for men, sort of what the Red Hat Society does in the US today. Oh la la!
In the weirdest sequence in the entire film, Sam, drunk on booze and Chevalier songs, says a prayer to a statue of St. Catherine and the statue tells her to go to Elizabeth Arden for a makeover. For real. Sacrebleu!

So, Sam does this and through a montage we see her transform from a tomboy into a ridiculous drag queen named Mimi. Mimi winds up at an outdoor cafe where concentration camp survivor/TV actor Robert Clary pimps her out as a call girl to - you guessed it - Steve! Aidez-moi!So Steve decides to do a series of articles about the prostitutes of Paris and his subject is our "half-maiden" Sam. She decides to play along with the charade, feeding Steve stories from CAMILLE. When she runs out of ideas, she relays one of of Eva Gabor's sordid tales. Silly and poorly-executed fantasy sequences play out featuring Sam/Mimi and Steve. Au Gratin!

Through a series of wacky occurances, Mr. Bergner gets engaged to Eva, then after her tawdry past resurfaces in Steve's article - the engagement is off, so Steve fixes Mr. Bergner up with Sam/Mimi! In the end, Steve figures out what Sam is up to and after threatening to strangle and punch her, decides to French kiss her and declare that he wants her to be the mother of his children. S'il vous plait!
And poor Leena finally gets Mr. Bergner to notice her after 15 years and they decide to go out for Fench Onion soup. Bon Apetit!

Overall, A NEW KIND OF LOVE an unappealing mishmosh with poor pacing, flat dialogue, unfunny jokes and terrible editing choices. Seek it out only to see what happens when great actors make poor choices or if you are into the fashion, wigs and look of 1963 Paris. I wonder what the French thought of this film? Au revoir!

Mœbius (1938-2012)

The Third Day of Christmas

People Who Read People

Inspired by my friend Laura over at A Touch of Tuesday Weld, here's a couple of tasteful fashion ads from People Magazine circa 1977.

It's more like "Lynda Carter wants you to rescue her from the wilderness and take her shopping for something that does not look like a goth version of a Holly Hobbie quilt."

What the hell is she wearing on her head? She must have fallen off the marble pillars earlier. I hope that wrap stopped the bleeding, because I would not want any blood to get on his lovely white blouse. What an attitude!

How to Beat Your June Gloom...

It's not that I don't have plenty of important things  to blog about...it's just this crazy "June Gloom" that makes me want look at colorful old advertising that I've had it my design  "swipe files" for years. For example:

Wow - these colors are already cheering me up!  I've always wanted my outfit to match my furniture and my artwork. Who knew it was such "Effortless Ease"?

Talk about colorful! These PSA flight attendants not only "pop" - but all their uniforms are unique, but compliment each other's. How hot is that? If flight crew still dressed liked this, I'd be flying a whole lot more often.

And finally, The Cologne of the Future. I clipped this ad from an old French fashion mag from the 1960s. Not only did the perfume have a "futuristic" name, but the packaging and the ad imagery looked like they could be from another time and place as well. I'd love to have that box sitting on my bathroom shelf.

Black Diva History Month, Part 1 Addendum (1886-1922)

Before I get to Part 2, here's a few great African American women who I mistakenly left out of Part 1.Ma Rainey (Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett 1886-1939) was one of the first known blues singers to record. She was known as The Mother of the Blues and she influenced every major blues performer to come along after her.

Josephine Baker (1906 – 1975) was a controversial American expatriate entertainer who became a celebrated French citizen in 1937. She was given the nicknames the "Bronze Venus," "Black Pearl", "Créole Goddess" and in France, she was known as "La Baker". She was portrayed by Lynn Whitfield in 1991 TV film, THE JOSEPHINE BAKER STORY.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge (1922–1965) was an Academy Award-nominated American actress and pop singer. She starred in CARMEN JONES in 1954. She was portrayed by Halle Berry in the 1999 HBO film, INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE.

on the third day of Christmas...

Tattoo You

Did diminutive FANTASY ISLAND star Hervé Villechaize actually record a version of Annie Lennox's "Why" accompanied by a motley crew of young runaways? If so, WHY???