RIP Gloria Stuart

I have to start this post by saying that I really do hate James Cameron's Titanic. Overlong and overwrought, it made its millions by appealing to teenage girls who saw it over and over because of it's "romantic" storyline. Well I say "Bullcrap!" Only slightly more contrived than the plot of Cameron's Avatar, Titanic exploits a real-life tragedy for a lame romance not even worthy of the worst Harlequin Romance novel. How sad then, that an actress with a 7 decade career is best remembered for a supporting role in it?

Stuart made her film debut as Doris in 1932's Street of Women, a cheesy soap opera about a cheating doctor. She went on to appear in several Universal classics, including James Whale's The Old Dark House and Whale's 1933 version of H.G. Welles' The Invisible Man.

She appeared in the Shirley Temple classic Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and almost 50 years later in Richard Benjamin's hilarious salute to 50's TV, My Favorite Year. In 1991, in a nod to her role in the original film, she guest starred on the short-lived TV series "The Invisible Man" and also appeared in guest spots on "Murder, She Wrote;" "Touched By an Angel" and "General Hospital."

Ms. Stuart never garnered the fame of many of her contemporaries, but then not many of them had careers as long as hers. We should all be so lucky to do what we love for as long as she did. Gloria Stuart was 100 years old and the only cast member of Titanic who was actually alive when the ship sank.

More, anon.

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Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Revered stage and screen actress Patricia Neal passed away today at age 84. Ms. Neal won an Academy Award for her performance in Hud and was nominated for her performance in The Subject Was Roses; both terrific movies featuring performances by an amazing woman who fought her way back from a series of strokes, the first of which left her unable to speak or walk.

Most of the major news outlets have covered only that much of her career, failing to mention her performance as Mrs. Keller in the original production of The Miracle Worker; her marriage to children's author Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Matilda) or her role opposite future President Ronald Reagan in the romantic comedy John Loves Mary. Personally, I will remember Ms. Neal best as Helen Benson in director Robert Wise's (The Haunting) thoughtful 1951 Sci-Fi drama, The Day the Earth Stood Still.

WWII had recently come to an explosive (to say the least) end and the threat of nuclear annihilation was on almost every American's mind as the Cold War started it's 30+ years of scaring both children and adults. School kids were taught to "Duck and Cover" via partially animated films (as if that would actually help) and personal bomb shelters were all the rage when Wise and screenwriter Edmund H. North made their iconic movie about an alien named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and his robot Gort, who were sent to Earth to warn us that unless we stopped our evil, war-like ways, we risked destruction at the hands of the peace-loving aliens throughout the galaxy. Ms. Neal was the human envoy who made personal contact with Klaatu and managed to deliver the classic line (without giggling) to Gort, thereby stopping his pre-programmed destruction of the planet.

Forget the godawful 2008 Keanu Reeves remake and take the time to watch this thoughtful and surprising anti-war film, which still pops up now and then on AMC and TCM (though I imagine it will get some play, now that Ms. Neal has passed). You won't be disappointed.

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Dan O'Bannon (1946 - 2009)

Dan O'Bannon died yesterday at the age of 63. He was the cousin of my college friend Brian, and one of the screenwriters (along with Ronald Shusett) of Ridley's Scott's 1979 masterpiece of space horror, Alien. He directed 1985's zombie comedy Return of the Living Dead and worked on the screenplays for Lifeforce and Total Recall, among other films.

But the movie for which I will most remember him is his and Shusett's follow-up to Alien, 1981's Dead & Buried. Starring James Farentino; Melody Anderson (Flash Gordon); Jack Alberston and Robert (Freddy Kreuger) Englund, Dead & Buried is set in the small Rhode Island town of Potter's Bluff. When a series of strange murders starts to take place, the local sheriff (Farentino) starts to become suspicious of the kindly undertaker/coroner (Albertson). As directed by Gary Sherman, D & B is shot through a dream-like foggy filter, making its strange events seem even more surreal.

I saw Dead and Buried with my sister (who will always be my favorite movie companion, even if it's been years since we actually went to the movies together) at a long-gone movie theater in the Quakerbridge Mall and we were both freaked-out by it's slowly building, quiet sense of doom (not to mention the freaky murders).

Thanks for the movie memories, Dan. I hope the projects you had in development come to fruition.

More on Dan O'Bannon's career on tomorrow's Zombie Zone post.

More, anon.
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