dual personalities

Tag: Rock Hudson

October 2, 2015

Friday movie pick: “He’s the last guy in the world I woulda’ figured.”*

by chuckofish

Thirty years ago today, Rock Hudson died after a 15-month battle with AIDS . He was only 59.

Annex - Hudson, Rock_01

So in his memory, I suggest we watch one of his movies tonight.

We could go with Rock Hudson and John Wayne in The Undefeated (1970)

Rock_Hudson-John_Wayne_in_The_Undefeated

or Rock Hudson and Doris Day and Tony Randall in Pillow Talk (1959)

doris-day-pics09

or Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida in Come September (1961).

49fe04924010d68690277047582c28e2

His 1950s melodramas are a little heavy-handed for my taste but they’re not terrible. And he was great in his later career playing stand-up military types like Cdr. Ferraday in Ice Station Zebra (1968). But I like his romantic comedies best. He was perfect in them.

Indeed, he was just kind of perfect.

Have a great weekend! You go, Mike Matheny!

4a69690074b2412891ec1fc6863c85e9-3d3a18b955ce44b581584a9944c088dd-1

Yes, the Cardinals clinched their third straight division title, their fifth straight playoff appearance and their 12th postseason trip in the past 16 seasons. 100 wins. Central Division champs! Home field advantage!

*Fred in Lover Come Back (1961)–Hudson’s comedies are peppered with lines like this, as if his gayness was one big private joke in Hollywood (wink wink). I guess it was.

7 Comments
June 12, 2014

“I’ve had hangovers before, but this time, even my hair hurts.”*

by chuckofish

Here’s some good news: Rock Hudson is the Star of the Month on TCM in June!

handsome-rock-hudson

Every Thursday TCM will show a fabulous line-up of Rock’s greatest films. Most of them are eminently watchable. Here are the movies that will be shown this month.

Our mother was a fan of Rock Hudson and so I grew up watching his movies on television. My all-time favorite, of course, is Pillow Talk (1959), his first pairing with Doris Day.

pic114

It airs Thursday, June 19 at 8:00 (EST) p.m. Doris Day was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar and Thelma Ritter, who plays her hard-drinking housekeeper, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. As I have said before, both ladies were robbed. Rock may have lost the title role in Ben-Hur that year, but he was a huge hit in this best of all rom-coms. His career got a big boost and took a new and very popular direction.

Send Me No Flowers (1964) will also be shown that night. It is also wonderful and, like Pillow Talk, stars Tony Randall as well as Doris.

Send-Me-No-Flowers-Poster-3

I am not such a big fan of Rock’s overblown 1950’s soap operas, such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows and Giant–which are all on tonight–but he is stalwart and handsome in all of them. And they are certainly better than most offerings on summer television!

So mark your calendar and/or set your DVRs for Rock Hudson.

*Brad Allen in Pillow Talk (1959)

4 Comments
January 10, 2014

Great God! this is an awful place.*

by chuckofish

Preoccupied as I am with snow, I got to thinking about a movie pick for Friday that is snow-related.

The first film that came to mind, of course, was one of my favorite musicals, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), directed by the great Stanley Donen and featuring the best-ever dance in the snow.

Then there is the entertaining Cold War thriller Ice Station Zebra (1968) starring a studly all-male cast that includes Rock Hudson, James Brown and Patrick MacGoohan. Who cares if the sets are terrible?

icestationzebraart

If you like Robert Mitchum (and I do), you could watch Track of the Cat (1954), a film noir western wherein “complex and dangerous family dynamics play out against the backdrop of the first big snowstorm of winter.”

TrackoftheCatLobby

Or there’s Scott of the Antarctic (1948)–the true story of the British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his ill-fated expedition to try to be the first man to discover the South Pole. All the Brits have stiff upper lips (which become frostbitten) in this very sad rendering of a tragic tale.

scott

Jeremiah Johnson (1972) with Robert Redford has a lot of snow in it and it is a much better movie than Downhill Racer (1969) which also boasts Robert Redford and lots of snow. I vote for Jeremiah Johnson.

jeremiahjohnson1

Other movies that come to mind: The Shining (1980), The Grey (2011), The Pink Panther (1964). Can you think of any good movies that take place in a snowy locale? Did Elvis make a ski-bum movie?

*Scott at the South Pole

4 Comments