She never wore the famous bra?
I didn't know she was born two days after my Mom was!
Most of the following is something I posted on a quite recent blog about the new Blu-Ray release of a Jane Russell film:
--The Revolt of Mamie Stover
I had purchased a book once in the 90's titled Made in Paradise: Hollywood's Films of Hawaii and the South Seas.
There was a chapter in it of a Jane Russell film titled "The Revolt of Mamie Stover."
It intrigued me and I wanted to see it, but for years I couldn't find it anywhere, so I read the novel it's based on. The title character is most likely based on an actual woman who lived in Hawaii during those years, Jean O'Hara. I don't know if it's available anywhere, but there was an excellent program first aired as a 3 part segment on the History Channel program "The XY Factor" focusing on the role sex played in WWII on three fronts: the Pacific, Europe and the Home Front. I believe it was also aired on A&E as Sex in World War II.
The "Pacific" episode corresponded to the novel quite a bit and was really fascinating. Two of the interviewees on the program had written a book about how so many different people and races were mixing in Hawaii during the war years. So, not being able to find the film anywhere, I bought and read that book, too. It's called "The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii by Beth Bailey and David Farber."
So, I had a lot of historical research in my head after the Hawaii film book, novel, documentary and history book, before I ever saw the film. On a cloudy Saturday, November 12, 2005, [just a week after I'd seen Brokeback Mountain for the first time at a BAFTA screening, I just thought!] I was looking at movie listings, probably in the L.A. Weekly, and I happened to see that at the Egyptian Theater (American Cinematheque) that very evening, only a short time from when I saw the notice, they were airing a double feature of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes AND The Revolt of Mamie Stover!
The only question for me was, did I want to see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes again? I'd seen it so many times. But it's not a long movie and it's very enjoyable and I had never seen it in a theater, so I hurried to make my way there for this unexpected double feature. I was going to see The Revolt of Mamie Stover at last!
What I did not know until the Cinematheque host told us right before the Blondes screening was that JANE RUSSELL herself was in the house! She'd be doing a Q&A between the films, but was introduced beforehand...and she looked just like you'd want a noted Hollywood Movie Star to look like. She was made up to the nines and had on a sparkly green sequined dress and was greeted with a long standing ovation as she was escorted to her seat where she stayed to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes!
So, after the film and the Q&A, I'd say 75% of the audience left! So I got to move to a really great seat and enjoy my first viewing of Mamie Stover. It was a gorgeous looking film and I couldn't have been introduced to it in a sudden and more glorious fashion.
So, a few notes and impressions about the film and screening:
--First, I was really excited about the widescreen and the cinematography. It was superb.
--I happen to think, as an actor, Richard Egan is kinda dull. He was appropriate for his role, and part of his character is to distance himself from "Mamie," but there should've been more chemistry between them.
--All the chemistry in the film is with Jane Russell and the audience...a good thing!
Jane sings "Keep Your Eyes on the Hands!"
--I only learned recently that this was the last film Joan Leslie made in her career.
--From all that I knew about the Hotel Street life and brothels beforehand, some of the film's treatment of that was really quite comical to me. I mean, I knew the film was made in 1957 and wouldn't deal with it explicitly, but the brothel depicted in this film was more of a bar/nightclub and the girls who work there all "hostesses" whose primary mission was to get the guys to buy more drinks. When individual guys were escorted to a room with their "girl of choice" it seems they were there to talk, play cards, drink more, or maybe write a letter back home...LOL! There was no sign of a bed or even a cot anywhere for the real purpose of these places. In actuality hundreds of servicemen lined up at these places daily to spend three minutes having sex with a female. I was wondering...did most people in the audiences at the time not realize what was really going on there? It all semed so wholesome!
--Though I had known about the movie, I hadn't researched it much and so it was a surprise to me that Agnes Moorehead, a blonde Agnes Moorehead, was in it and she's a favorite. She played the house Madame, with a mundane title in the film, and she was quite excellent. There's one scene where she fires an employee and on his way out he starts to call her "an old..." and I'm pretty sure in the context of the scene he was going to say "dyke," but she interrupts him with "...don't say it."
--I really love the musical score to this film and am glad it's a separate extra on the release.
--The Time Tunnel is a favorite 60's program and I knew that some footage used for historical purposes in many episodes came from Fox films set in those periods, but I had not known what film the Pearl Harbor footage they used came from until seeing it in this film.
Has anyone else seen this film?