Post by davidmorrocco on Jul 5, 2021 12:42:04 GMT -6
I was watching 1971. What’s the matter with Helen on TCM this past weekend. It stars Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters. I was able to find some information on the internet that made me think of Joan Crawford. Writer Henry Farrell was catapulted into the spotlight when his novel, "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" was turned into a hit film starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Director Curtis Harrington and producer George Edwards were impressed with "Baby Jane" and sought out Farrell for a project. Farrell went on to write the screenplay for "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte," a movie that was supposed to reunite Davis and Crawford, but Crawford only shot a few scenes, feigned an illness and was replaced by Olivia DeHaviland. Nonetheless, "Charlotte" too was a success. The story finally wound up in the hands of Harrington and Edwards at the very end of the '60s. They worked closely with Farrell and immediately changed it from a contemporary film to a 1930s period piece. Working with Shelley is extraordinarily challenging. She is extremely difficult to work with. I found that not to be helpful for my work. She said I was better because she was difficult. I say it would have been easier or better for my health to have a little less turmoil on the set... But I'm very fond of Shelley," Reynolds sweetly insisted. Harrington had a different recollection about Winters' and Reynold's working relationship, stating that the two got along "just barely.... It was rather inevitable that they would have a conflict occasionally. Shelley imagined a rivalry with Debbie.... Debbie still had a very youthful figure and by this time Shelley was already dumpy and heavy. It was that sort of thing, a kind of female jealousy." (Sounds like Bette and Joan.) The trouble with Winters doubtlessly stemmed from her anxiety. Her psychiatrist told her not to play a woman having a nervous breakdown because at the time she was having a nervous breakdown!" Reynolds later revealed. "But nobody knew that, and so all through the film she drove all of us insane! Reynolds picked up Winters on her way to the studio each morning, and one day Winters' mental status became perfectly clear. "I was driving one morning on Santa Monica Boulevard and ahead of me was a woman wearing only a nightgown, trying to flag down a ride. Well, it was Shelley! I couldn't believe it! I said, 'Shelley, why aren't you at home waiting for me?' She said, 'I thought I was late. "Poor Debbie -- they'd better not give me a real knife," Winters joked to The New York Times in 1971. Reynolds had her apprehensions about the scene, but a nightmare the night before the scene was filmed turned out to be serendipitous. "I went in and the prop knife, which recesses into itself when you stab someone, was gone and a real knife was there," Reynolds revealed. When Reynolds confronted the prop man, he was completely oblivious to the switch. "I had the prop man check the knife Shelley held every time just before we shot it because I knew she was going to go for me for real! She'd gotten so into her character, she became it."'"Debbie Reynolds plays Adelle, who falls in love Lincoln Palmer (Dennis Weaver), he gives her a gift box. She opens it and said, “Oh gardenias! Joan Crawford’s favorite.” She has a big sincere smile and is so happy. I loved that all of Hollywood knew that about Joan Crawford’s favorite flower. I try to have fresh gardenias at home. I have two bushes of them and a nice neighbor who has a gardenia bush and let’s me cut them when they bloom. I also keep a bottle of gardenia perfume for watching my Joan Crawford movies. A couple of squirts does the trick. I love the smell of them. I think Joan would approve.
