Ducks and Geese in Movies - Fowl in Film

Ducks and Geese in Movies
Short List of Animals in Film, Feathered Characters

Already having covered some chicken in film, it seems only fair to look at ducks and geese who've appeared in films that we love. I'm going to look at bird scenes instead of reviewing or the films. While Donald Duck is included, these are live-action feature films. 

In 1986, Howard the Duck, a Marvel Comics comic book character starred in his own film alongside Lea Thompson, Jeffrey Jones and Tim Robbins. Howard isn't a toy figure or a real animal. It's a great costume, though.

1) Friendly Persuasion 1956
Gary Cooper, Dorothy McGuire, Anthony Perkins, Richard Eyer, Robert Middleton and Phyllis Love and Samantha the Goose.

The screenplay was adapted by Michael Wilson from the 1945 novel. The film was originally released with no screenwriting credit because Wilson was on the Hollywood blacklist. 

His credit was restored in 1996. (Screen World Annual 1997 has information on blacklisted screenwriters whose credits were restored. Please see below.)

Gary Cooper and Dorothy McGuire are Jess and Eliza Birdwell, a couple with a great family name to start off. Their sons are Josh (Perkins) and Little Jess (Eyer). Samantha the Goose is Eliza's pet. The family members are pacifists amidst the escalating war.

When the father is away Confederate raiders storm the farm. Eliza tells them there is food inside and tells them to take what they want. They tear the place apart taking their farm animals. But when one of the soldiers grabs Samantha, she has had more than enough. 

She goes after them with a broom, telling them that goose is a pet not meant for a meal! Happily, maybe amazingly, the soldier apologizes. He didn't know the bird was a pet. After they've left Eliza tells her children not to let Jess know what happened. Even though Samantha is safe, she isn't proud of what she did.

The squawking, Samantha saving broom whooping scene is one of the most memorable bits in this movie.


2) Journey to the Center of the Earth 1959
James Mason Arlene Dahl, Pat Boone, Diane Baker, Thayer David, Peter Ronson, Alan Napier and Gertrude the duck. From a Jules Verne story.

Gertrude the Duck 
Image from movie trailer

This movie is a Steampunk lover's delight, particularly the early parts with its design and its gadgets. The Lost City of Atlantis is only one of the thrills you'll encounter in this film. 

Gertrude is the pet and great pal of Hans Belker (Ronson) and she accompanies him on his adventures. She wears a sporty black ring around one eye, walks with a no-nonsense waddle and she's got a penchant for danger.

Gertrude the Duck was apparently not in the original novel and there are certainly other differences. As the group flees from giant boulders, falls into traps and such we might wonder if Gertrude isn't the smartest one in the bunch. She didn't go on this trip voluntarily. 

But Gertrude isn't so big after all and she's no match for the bad guy who has followed the team of explorers into the cavernous underground "grotesque petrified jungle, crude subterranean caverns never beheld by human eyes." In a 2008 remake, there's no duck. I don't think Gertrude was acting anymore.

Bachelor Mother Ginger Rogers
David Niven Donald Duck Disney Toys

3) Bachelor Mother 1939 (Donald Duck)
Ginger Rogers David Niven, Charles Coburn and Donald Duck toys 

Ginger Rogers' character gets laid off at Christmastime. She's worked at a department store toy department where we saw her at the counter with wind-up Donald Duck toys. 

Duck illustrations also figure into the opening credits of the movie.

Hard to believe how new the character of Donald Duck was in 1939. He'd just appeared in some RKO short features. He made his first appearance in 1934 and first film appearance in 1938.

Just a couple of years before 1937 Disney produced its first full length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The scene where David Niven tries to return a broken headless duck to the store is pretty funny. The film was remade years later with Debbie Reynolds under the title Bundle of Joy.

Donald Duck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame which he received August 9, 2004. He's one of very few animated characters with stars. This may have been a combination of product placement and featuring a hot current trend in your movie.


4) His Kind of Woman 1951
Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price

Now from a famous but fictitious duck, we move to a, well.... When there's

His Kind Of Woman
Art Poster Print

nothing else to do, and you can't mumble... I usually paraphrase John Cleese in times like these.

This next duck is no more. It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late duck! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! It..... Vincent Price is going to cook this goose. 

At the very least, Vincent Price is going to manhandle and tickle this goose. Did he ever cook it?

Price, as Mark Cardigan, is getting ready to cook a bunch of what looks like small geese or ducks. He picks one up and, as a conversation goes on and on and on, his handling of that bird becomes as interesting as their discussion.  

The Most Mysterious handling of a raw duck in a film in 1951 award certainly goes to Vincent Price. That was something else. By all rights, Alfred Hitchcock would have been there to present the award.

Mr. Price was a gourmet chef in real real life and he was having some fun with his screen persona in this movie.

His Kind Of Woman Vincent Price, Master Chef

"The His Kind of Woman mutual admiration society also included the erudite and amusing Vincent Price thoroughly enjoying himself in a self-mocking performance as the film's vain, Shakespeare-spouting thespian. 
 
"'Jane as a lovely, funny girl with a great attitude,' said Price, 'and Bob was just hilarious.' Many a time Price a gourmet cook, hosted the other two for lunch, serving fabulous meals he had whipped together from scratch. 

"Some days they would all remain on the perfectly pleasant Morro's Lodge set during the noon break, spread a blanket on the faux sand beach and have a family picnic, Reva delivering baskets of chicken and potato salad, bottles of wine and beer. 'We had a lot of fun on that picture," Vincent Price recalled. 'At least in the beginning before it got so ... crazy.'" 
-- Robert Mitchum: "Baby I Don't Care" by Lee Server





"What would you think of roast goose stuffed with apples?"
Rudy from The Shop Around the Corner gets to have goose for Christmas in the James Stewart Margaret Sullavan film.

5) The Marx Brothers: Duck Soup, The Cocoanuts, You Bet Your Life

The phrase duck soup meant it was simple, easy peasy. In their first film The Cocoanuts 1929, Mr. Hammer (Groucho) has an exchange with Chico. He doesn't speak English very well. Here's a segment of the Viaduct/Why a Duck sketch from The Cocoanuts:

Hammer: Well, we'll Passover that...You're a peach, boy. Now, here is a little peninsula, and, eh, here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland.

Chico: Why a duck? 

Hammer: I'm alright, how are you? I say, here is a little peninsula, and here is a viaduct leading over to the mainland. 

Chico: Alright, why a duck? 

Hammer: I'm not playing "Ask Me Another," I say that's a viaduct. 

Chico: Alright! Why a duck? Why that...why a duck? Why a no chicken? 

Hammer: Well, I don't know why a no chicken; I'm a stranger here myself. All I know is that it's a viaduct. You try to cross over there a chicken and you'll find out why a duck.  

Harpo Marx communicated with a honk from an old automobile horn. Kind of goose-like now that you think about it.  Honk, Honk in his honor.

Why a Duck? is the name of one of the books about the Marx Brothers that I own. It's by Richard Anobile, with an introduction by Groucho Marx.

As Long As They're Laughing
Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life

You Bet Your Life was a comedy quiz show hosted by Groucho that aired on radio and television. If contestants said the Secret Word of the night, Hooray for Captain Spaulding would play and a duck would drop from the ceiling. Much of the humor still holds up today.

Costume Designer Edith Head is on You Bet Your Life.





6) Theodore Case Sound Test: Gus Visser and his Singing Duck

This short film from 1925 is a part of the National Film Registry. You can see it on a recent post on this blog, Film Registry, linked below. What a talented duck! Theodore Case made several early sound recordings with other birds, a squirrel and even a ukulele, close to our hearts as my husband has apprentices learning to build them.

Interestingly Mr. Case also made a recording with the Vaudeville comedy team of and Gallagher and Shean in 1925. Al Shean was an uncle of the Marx Brothers.

 
7) Duck and Cover 1951

Duck and Cover was a 1951 educational film put out by the US Government.

This film had nothing to do with ducks or waterfowl of any kind. Duck used as a verb.

It was to educate people, children in particular, what to do in the case of a nuclear attack. 

The phrase was memorable and the film is historic. Created as part of the Civil Defense branch public awareness campaign, Stewart the spokesturtle. 



8) Mentions/Appearances in movies and TV: Duck, Duck, Duck.... A Honk and a Quack 

When Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant's characters are arrested in Bringing Up Baby, to get in good with the guards, Cary Grant puts the finger on, "Mickey the Mouse" & "Donald the Duck." These two Disney characters were very popular in 1938 when Bringing Up Baby came out. This film also featured a dog and a couple of leopards.

Scrooge / Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Get me the biggest goose in the window! Which is your favorite version of Dickens' Christmas Carol?

In 1916, there were at least two versions of the story produced. Paramount made A Christmas Carol.

Bluebird Studios made The Right to Be Happy featuring Rupert Julian, John Cook and Claire McDowell.

The Right to Be Happy 1916 Bluebird

If memory serves, someone actually says, "Lord love a duck!" in Foreign Correspondent.

Cary Grant Father Goose Original glossy Photo

 
The Magnificent Ambersons, a 1942 Orson Welles film, has talk of "The queer looking duck." Which is, I believe, right from the 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize.

Laura (1944) Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb): "I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." He's also seen sitting in a bathtub typing on his typewriter. Lydecker is referred to as an imperious, charismatic newspaper columnist an imperious, decadent dandy who became Laura's mentor. He provides the memorable first lines of the movie, "I shall never forget the weekend Laura died...."

Freaks: There is debate about the creature that Cleopatra becomes at the end. Is she part duck? How it happened is complete speculation. Costume originally created for Lon Chaney in director Tod Browning's West of Zanzibar (1928).

In Suspicion (1941), when Lina McLaidlaw Aysgarth (Joan Fontaine) is upset by her husband Johnnie's (Cary Grant) behavior, he and buddy Beaky (where did he get that bird-like nickname anyway?) (Nigel Bruce) try to cheer her up by making faces, tickling her and making sounds like a duck.

Question about The Birds:
Are any of those birds stuffed?
Alfred Hitchcock: 
"No. I'll tell you what we did. We rented 500 ducks and sprayed them gray. We started off with chickens but the neck movement gave them away.
-- From the book, Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews
 
In 1994's Four Weddings and a Funeral, Anna Chancellor's character Henrietta was called Duckface by the friends of her (former) boyfriend, Charles (Hugh Grant).

The Vicar of Dibley: In the Series 2 episode Celebrity Vicar, as part of a show to raise money for a new nursery school, Owen Newitt (Roger Lloyd-Pack) did a stage act with a performing duck.

While Cary Grant, Leslie Caron and Tevor Howard were in a film called Father Goose I don't recall there being a goose in it. If you saw one, let me know. 

What other prominent duck or goose actors
or other scene-stealers are missing? 

Majestic 3-Dimensional White Swan Costume Kids can climb into this majestic three-dimensional white Swan! Maybe it's Swan Lake, you want to let out your inner Bjork or it's holiday time for a Princess : 7th Day of Christmas?

Henry Fonda and Joan Bennett in Wild Geese Calling 24x36 Poster

The Bennett Sisters did their share of films with Goose, Geese in the title.

Constance Bennett appeared in two silent films in 1925:
The Goose Hangs High, a comedy other stars include Myrtle  Stedman, George Irving, Esther Ralston and Gertrude Claire.

She was in the well-known Goose Woman alongside Louise Dresser and Jack Pickford. There's  a scene where a feisty goose follows Dresser's character down the road to the scene of a murder.

As seen in the poster above, Joan Bennett was in Wild Geese Calling with Henry Fonda..


Geese vs Ducks, what's the difference?
Here are a few differences
Geese tend to be larger than ducks
Geese Honk
Ducks Quack






Final sequence from ... "Werner Herzog's classic film Stroszek (1977). The location for the closing sequence is in a strange fun-house where chickens dance, play the piano, a duck plays the drums and a rabbit is blowing the horn on a fire-engine!"
-- from description


Blacklisted Writers (re: Friendly Persuasion)

"Because of the blacklisting outrage brought on by the so-called McCarthy Era several screenwriters were denied final credit on films they worked on, starting in 1947 and continuing into the 1970s. 

"The Writers Guild of America recently voted to reinstate the correct writer credits on several motion pictures. The following are the corrected credits listed according to the corresponding volumes of Screen World in which they originally appeared..."
-- Screen World:1997 Film Annual: Volume 48 Expanded Format

Vincent Price standing in lake hair standing up
Very aquatic

Related Pages and Resources:

The National Film Registry : Incl. Gus Visser and His Singing Duck

The Top 5 Hitchcock Chicken Scenes

Animated Characters on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers) by Sidney Gottlieb






There are some public domain images on this page

Ernest T Bass Dan Aykroyd and The BassOMatic

Ernest T. Bass, Dan Aykroyd and
The Bass-O-Matic: Together at last

Dan Aykroyd Explains the Bass-O-Matic:


Saturday Night Live was still a new show and already Not ready for prime time player, Dan Aykroyd was providing us with hilarious commercial spoofs. ''Fast and easy and ready to pour!''

Dan Aykroyd delivers his classic Super Bass-o-matic sales pitch 1976

Kitsch Vintage Magic 'Fortune Fish' Shirt by blackandwhiteonly
Custom print shirts online at zazzle.

Howard Morris was originally seen in the 1950s on Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows. One of his films was Mel Brooks' High Anxiety. In 1962, Morris married a woman named Dolores Wylie.

A lesson on saying "How do you do?" to Mrs. Wiley:


On this episode Ernest T. finds a soul mate in Ramona. He and she may be able to giggle, run and leap-frog through life together.

They tell Mrs. Wiley that Ernest T. is from Raleigh. She talks to him a while and thinks he's really from Boston. Dan Aykroyd used to play Beldar a Conehead on Saturday Night Live. He said he and his family were from France. That wasn't exactly true.

Get your own DVD set to experience Howard Morris as My Fair Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show in full and without the watermarks

National Film Registry Save the Films- These Amazing Shadows

National Film Registry

 These Amazing Shadows

At the 45th Academy Awards The Godfather received

Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather Signed
11X14 Photo

three of the ten Oscars for which it was nominated. Albert S. Ruddy took home the Oscar for The Godfather Best Picture. Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola won Best Writing Adapted Screenplay. 

In the category of Best Actor in a Leading Role, Marlon Brando won but declined the award. Today the film is influential, revered by many and seen as a classic.

These Amazing Shadows, a 2011 production created, written and directed by Paul Mariano and Kurt Norton, showcases the Film Preservation Act and the creation of the National Film Registry. 

We see The Godfather held up as an example. A 1972 film, is recent if you look at the history of film in general. 

The original negative of that film was in bad shape. It isn't just age, mishandling or the material a film is printed on that takes a toll. The more popular the film the worse condition the original negative will be in the more copies that have been made. Who is there to do the necessary restoration when a film has "been loved to death?" 

So if a relatively recent, award winning classic film like this could have been deteriorating what about all the other films that came before, particularly those lesser known and not as prominent?  

All About Eve Movie Poster (1950)
(Bette Davis)(Anne Baxter)(George Sanders)(Celeste Holm)(Gary Merrill)(Thelma Ritter)

In 1988, the Film Preservation Act was passed and, through the Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board, brought about the National Film Registry. It's impressive to know that an arm of the US Government is saying that film is an important part of our history. The Library of Congress will be involved and it's our duty to restore it and see that it is recognized.

"It's a different form of honor than Academy Award," said author and film historian Leonard Maltin. "It's a more cumulative retrospective honor. It says your film has stood the test of time."

"The Academy Awards preserve the consensus within the industry at the time. Sometimes history proves them right. Very often history proves them wrong," notes Film critic, blogger and author, Mick LaSalle.

Films, their respective actors, directors and other professionals whose work did not receive an Academy Award may get the more lasting respect deserved when honored in this way.

The Film Registry began choosing films in 1989. Their criteria is that the film must be, "Culturally, historically or aesthetically significant." 

Films have to be at least 10 years old. They choose 25 films per year beginning with a solicitation

Little Caesar Edward G. Robinson

of public ballots. 

The documentary touches on certain key topics while covering a lot of ground in about an hour. Censorship, the roles of women, African Americans and Native Americans in film. 

We see the diverse types of films on the registry; from old and newer big screen films to documentaries, newsreels and home movies. 

Perhaps most of all, the documentary shows the importance of preservation and restoration of all of this, our history.

These Amazing Shadows: The Movies That Make America is a good documentary and it covers a lot of ground. PBS may cut it down from its original time which is about 90 minutes. I really like documentaries and most that I watch are between an hour 45 minutes and two hours. If you have Amazon Prime you get unlimited viewings.

Included are discussions on movies like Topaz a 1945 documentary film showing life in the Japanese internment camps. The people on board to narrate the different topics are interesting. They may be associated with The Film Registry and may not. 

Actor George Takei is among those discussing Masaharu Tatsuno's film, Topaz. Takei and his family were among those Japanese Americans who were interned for no reason but that they were of Japanese heritage. The Takei family was first taken to the Rohwer War Relocation Center in rural southeastern Arkansas.

Abraham Zapruder's famous home movie of the assassination of John Kennedy was inducted in 1994. 

Historical films, art films even Cold War propaganda are included. How about the bumper film that came between features at the drive-in, Let's go to the Lobby. There is discussion of the 1980s debate of colorization.

B and Z movies are included. Invasion of the Body Snatchers was inducted

Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter
Carolyn Jones
Invasion of the Body Snatchers

in 1994. 

There's a long history of writers and directors making a message more palatable or getting through the walls of censorship by cloaking it in the world of fantasy or science fiction.  

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has critics and film-goers debating whether or not it has an intended anti-McCarthy message as it was released in 1956 during the height of the Red Scare.   

What is agreed on is that the creators of the film didn't do much to stop people's associating the two.



I just wrote about Joseph L. Mankiewicz's People Will Talk from 1951. It's not science fiction but is a film that appears to pretty clearly tackle the issues of their day. 

"These Amazing Shadows reveals how American movies tell us so much about ourselves... not just what we did, but what we thought, what we felt, what we aspired to, and the lies we told ourselves." 
-- from the film web site

Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, Notorious 1946
[public domain img from trailer]

Censorship blocks the free expression of an era talking to another era, the documentary reminds us. When you watch a movie from the past you're involved in a dialogue.

"Every movie that's popular captures the ideas, something popular at the time. Very often the ideas that they capture make them
acceptable to the public are lies." Mick LaSalle

Once in a while when watching old movies with friends someone will pipe up, "How could they do that?! How could they say that?! I guess in 1940 that was funny to people?" The watching brings good discussion, an examination of ourselves, our past as it really was, how and who are we now? What we want to hide is probably one of the most important things to show future generations. Learn not to repeat.

Boyz N the Hood Movie Poster 1991
Laurence "Larry" Fishburne Ice Cube
Cuba Gooding Jr. Nia Long Morris Chestnut

D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation was inducted into The Film Registry in 1992. The Searchers, in 1989. John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood (inducted 2002). This is our history and it's important to see where we came from and where we are going. 

These films show something about race relations in the US. Look at other mainstream films for the way minorities are portrayed if they are included at all. This tells you something, too. 

You're hard pressed to find a hero in a film who wears glasses, let alone a hero who has any sort of disability. What's the predominant age, weight, gender? Who is underrepresented?

The important role of women in film making is discussed with mention of early female directors such as Lois Weber and Dorothy Arzner. The 1939 film, The Women was inducted in 2007. Directed by George Cukor, all actors were women, it's said that even every animal featured was female. Authors of any books shown were female.

Lois Weber's contribution in the Film Registry is the 1916 Where are My Children is included in the set Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film 1900-1934. Her film was inducted in 1993. We'll learn how similar we are to those who came before us, and maybe have even more respect for those who came before us.

A rare unedited version the 1933 Barbara Stanwyck film Baby Face was

Babara Stanwyck, from Baby Face trailer
public domain, WikiMedia Commons

discovered and is compared to its edited and better known counterpart. 

They noticed that they had two negatives of the film, one was larger -- it was the unedited version. The differences between the two tell us about film making, about censorship and our history. 

The film was inducted in 2005 and having both versions makes it even more valuable. The Production Code also known as the Hays Code was just coming into Hollywood in the early thirties. 

The film is described as being about an attractive young woman who uses sex to advance her social and financial status. The censors would cut several minutes before it would be shown.

It's a funny time now as we're seeing so many television shows begin with disclaimers. Don't even talk about the PBS programs about native peoples in far off lands, I saw a show where mannequins' body parts digitally obscured. Not sure what's going on today. At the same time the freedom to broadcast has never been as it is today, particularly when you include the Internet. 

Cold War public safety propaganda films are on the Registry. Duck and Cover was produced by the federal government's Civil Defense branch. It was directed primarily at kids showing what to do in case of a nuclear attack.



 
Also included is the dramatic House in the Middle. It's a 1954 film implying that you may survive a nuclear attack if your yard is clear and your home always has a fresh coat of paint. 

The sponsor is The National Clean Up-Paint Up-Fix Up Bureau. That sounds like a mysterious group of people my Mom & Dad would've threatened me with when I had a messy room. But turns out the Bureau is actually part of the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association. 

Freaks 1932- Movie Poster Inducted 1994

Checking out who created and who is repeating or publicizing the information you're hearing is important to this day. A fancy sounding name may be a cover for something else.

The segment on colorizing films is interesting. Ted Turner purchased the film studio MGM/UA Entertainment in 1986. He set about colorizing some of the black and white classics.

"The last time I checked, I owned the films that we're in the process of colorizing," said Ted Turner. "I can do whatever I want with them, and if they're going to be shown on television, they're going to be in color." 
-- Los Angeles Times October 23, 1986

A rationalization was that colorizing the films would get a whole new audience, people who wouldn't be open to viewing a black and white movie. Apparently sales of some colorized movies showed it to be true, with VHS tape sales and rentals. The cash register was winning.

Film professionals, past and present went before Congress, appealing to them to

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
11x17 Movie Poster

stop the colorization. The value of film, America's history, was stressed. Roger Ebert, James Stewart, John Huston, George Lucas and Woody Allen were among those who testified. In 1988, the Film Preservation Act was passed and through the Library of Congress' National Film Preservation Board, brought about the National Film Registry.

The irony in this is that Turner's own television channels, particularly Turner Classic Movies, TCM, are much lauded today for its showing of classic movies uninterrupted and in as original a version as possible. 

On TCM viewers may also see old newsreels, travelogues, short features and the occasional interview or tribute. Lovers of old black and white films gravitate to channels such as TCM. 

The Film Registry has art films and those that honor and recognize early sound technology, like Gus Visser and his Singing Duck. Interesting that some of the earliest films included animals. Why didn't this duck ever become a star?
Who could have imagined this film would survive? 





Films are, as they said, our country's family album. Through film we have stories to tell, how we were as a country, what we valued then and now. And we do value our history. In 2009, Michael Jackson's Thriller became the first music video to be inducted into the Film Registry.

Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975 Tim Curry 8x10 inducted 2005

Among the impressive group people interviewed on this film you'll see Rob Reiner, Peter Coyote, Tim Roth, Wayne Wang and John Waters. They talk about how their lives were changed by films. 

I was so impressed with those who work for and with the National Film Registry, those who work to restore the films, film critics and historians, even the Librarian of Congress was interviewed. These people are dedicated to what they do, they're serious and passionate about the art form and they're fans themselves. We get a peak at their discussion process, how they debate which nominated films should be inducted. 

One film to watch would be the 1920 American Red Cross documentary Heroes All. At the centenary of World War One, it would be a good time to view this movie which examines wounded WWI soldiers who are receiving treatment at Walter Reed Hospital. They also show Washington DC as it was at that time. It's noted that some Red Cross cinematographers went on to careers in Hollywood. This Red Cross Bureau of Pictures production has historical significance and much more.

When I worked at a library a friend came back from an ALA conference wearing a T-Shirt. It said something like, "Visit your local library. There's something there to offend everybody." That's kind of the job of a library regardless of the medium, books or film. Gather the past, be the curator. 

There's an interesting article in a December 2013 edition of The Hollywood Reporter about the politics behind the National Film Registry. There are misunderstandings among some about the Film Registry, including that it is a list of popular films.

"The October government shutdown that led to the furlough of federal workers had an unusual side effect: It canceled the annual meeting of the National Film Preservation Board for the first time in its 25 years of existence.

"Instead, the 44 members (20 active, 22 alternates, two seats vacant) who help decide which 25 films will be added to the 600 titles on the National Film Registry met via email. .... 

"'This is not a popularity contest,'" says National Preservation Board chairman and former MGM film exec Roger L. Mayer. "'It's an attempt to tell people about the history of film and the way film portrays history.' ....

"Of the 42 active board members, 30 are men. The members are submitted by the organizations (including the MPAA, AFI, AMPAS and DGA) that hold chairs on the board, while some at-large members are invited directly by the Librarian. After meeting, each board member submits his or her final 25 picks. 

"Then Billington -- sworn in as the 13th Librarian of Congress in 1987 and the only person to ever have this role and responsibility -- finalizes the list.

"'"We are the sole custodians of the copyright composite of the most creative people in human history," Billington says. "An ordinary person assumes that if it's a museum or it's in an archive, it's going to be there forever. They assume it's something that somebody else will do -- well, we're that somebody else.'"
 -- excerpted from The Hollywood Reporter December 6, 2013 

The National Film Preservation Board Films Chosen 1989-

Learn how to nominate a film to The Film Registry

A list of films that are Not Yet Named, give you some ideas (from the Film Preservation Board)

Celebrity Family Members/Spouses with Hollywood Walk of Fame Stars near one another

Barbara Stanwyck & Robert Taylor Their Wristwatches & Sapphires, wedding & delayed honeymoon


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Jessica Tandy Claude Rains Hitchcock Ventriloquist Stories

Two Film Stars, Two Ventriloquists
with unconventional dummies
on Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Do you think Lydia Brenner (Mitch's mother in The Birds) and Alex Sebastian (a Nazi spy in Notorious) would be scared of some ventriloquists' dummies?

Fear is only one of the emotions dancing around the heads of the characters played by Jessica Tandy and Claude Rains in a couple of my favorite episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. 

Tandy played Lydia in The Birds and Rains was Alex Sebastian in Notorious.

This article will be riddled with spoilers since everything I'm talking about was aired or screened well over 50 years ago. If you don't want to be spoiled, please enjoy the movies and/or shows now. ...I'm happy to wait.
 

Claude Rains in Notorious
from Wikipedia Commons

 Do you remember the end of the film, Notorious?


    Devlin (Cary Grant): No room Sebastian.
    Alex: But you must take me. They're watching me.
    Devlin: That's your headache.
    [They drive off to the hospital]
    Nazi: There is no telephone in her room to call the hospital.
    Eric Mathis (Ivan Triesault): Alex, will you come in, please? I wish to talk to you.

These stars of Alfred Hitchcock films each appeared in more than one of the director's television shows, but I'm focusing on just two.

I read somewhere that an acceptable and modern form of ventriloquism is karaoke. What do you think of that?

And So Died Riabouchinska     Claude Rains February 12, 1956

Rains is ventriloquist John Fabian with a very lifelike female dummy. He is questioned about a murder that occurred at a vaudeville theater.

Then Fabian is questioned about a woman's disappearance years ago. Rains' performance is amazing and you'll be glad that you saw it. The video is below.

Turns out that the young woman from years ago looked remarkably like Riabouchinska, Fabian's dummy.

Detective Krovich can see that Fabian has something to hide, that he is fragile emotionally. Even though it's unorthodox, maybe Riabouchinska is the one to ask for the truth.

Also in the cast is a young Charles Bronson as the police detective who keeps on with the very unusual case until he solves it. 

With these shows, first you just have to watch to find out what happens. And then you have to watch again to get the nuances, find out more and to enjoy the performances. Those shows, movies or television that warrant rewatching are the very best.



The Claude Rains Hitchcock version may be unavailable for now on video. There was an Alan Bates version done for the Ray Bradbury Theater.


Claire Carleton is Fabian's wife, Alice. 

Virginia Gregg is the voice of the dummy, Riabouchinska. Though uncredited,  Gregg was one of the actors who provided the voice of Mrs. Bates in the original Psycho in 1960. Apparently Virginia Gregg was the voice of Mrs. Bates in the sequels of Psycho. She appeared as Emily in the famous Twilight Zone episode, The Masks, directed by Ida Lupino. 

Lupino, who had previously starred in The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine, is the only woman to have directed an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Jeanette Nolan and Paul Jasmin also provided voices for the mother in Psycho.

Since it's Oscar season, I'll add award information. Claude Rains was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor four times: for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Casablanca (1942), Mr. Skeffington (1944) and Notorious (1946).

Suspense Radio Drama - November 13, 1947 aired the Ray Bradbury story,  Riabouchinska. Listening to it is another experience.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is available on DVD or to stream episode by episode. These are in Seasons One and Three if you'd like to own them and show them to friends. Some of Hitchcock's films are available to stream but not all yet.

Automatonophobia is the fear of ventriloquist's dummies. This can include the fear of wax figures, humanoid robots, mannequins, audio animatronics, life-like dolls or other figures designed to represent humans. Agalmatophilia is sort of the opposite, may be love of human-like figures. Think of the 2007 film, Lars and the Real Girl. I've got a post in the works on films with both of these features. There are some links below.

 
The Glass Eye   Jessica Tandy October 6, 1957

Jessica Tandy 8x10
Original Hollywood Prints

A young William Shatner tells the story in flashback. Jessica Tandy's character is his aunt, Julia Lester who's since died. He finds a glass eye and explains the story of how his sister came to have it. 

Shatner's character, Jim Whitely is cleaning out her home and speaking to his wife Rosemary Harris as Dorothy Whitely.

Patricia Hitchcock appears as a saleslady. Tom Conway is Max Collodi. Conway is the brother of actor George Sanders. The video is below.

Julia is an unmarried woman who lives a lonely, sad life. One day she sees the show of famous ventriloquist name Max Collodi. 

She's immediately enchanted and becomes something of an Edwardian ventriloquist's groupie. She quits her job, using her savings to follow him around. She keeps a scrapbook and writes him letters to say how much she admires him. 

Eventually, he writes her back and finally agrees to meet her in his hotel room. He instructs her to stay at a distance and for only a brief time. She approaches and tries to touch him but finds that the man she admired who she thought was the handsome Max Collodi is actually the dummy. The man who she thought was the dummy was actually controlling a larger sized doll. 
 

Jessica Tandy, Paul Playdon
Image from Wikipedia Commons

To Julia's horror, the Max Collodi figure keels over like a store mannequin as she tries to save him. A touch to his cheek and his head pops off in her hands. Which one is really Max? The smaller man is on a table stamping his feet and telling her to leave at once which she does. 

He removes the 'ventriloquist dummy' mask he usually wears in their act. Billy Barty plays the character in the mask, the one we thought was the dummy manipulated by the larger Max Collodi. 



In 1989 Jessica Tandy became the oldest actress to receive the Academy Award for Best Actress at age 80 for her role in Driving Miss Daisy. She was again nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1991 for Fried Green Tomatoes. She was married to actor Hume Cronyn for 52 years and their daughter Tandy Cronyn is also an actress.

At age 80, George Burns became the oldest acting and Best Supporting Actor awardee for The Sunshine Boys, a record which stood until Jessica Tandy won Best Actress in 1989. For males, Burns was succeeded by Christopher Plummer, who won Best Supporting Actor in 2012 for Beginners at the age of 82.
-- some info from Wikipedia

Carnival! Playbill Program April 13, 1961 Opening Night (Anna Maria Alberghetti)

 Speaking of puppets The Funeral March of a Marionette is the familiar theme song that Alfred Hitchcock used for his television shows. He said he heard it in the 1927 film, Sunrise a Song of Two Humans. Watch public broadcasting and old film channels such as TCM. You'll be able to catch this great film periodically on television and you may be able to get it at your local library.

Have you seen War Horse, the 2011 Steven Spielberg film set before and during World War I. The film features Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, David Thewlis and Niels Arestrup? It's an adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's 1982 children's novel of the same name. The Broadway play features a life-sized horse puppets. 

If you attend the King Kong musical stage play, in Australia for instance, you'll also see a massive six-metre animatronic silverback King Kong puppet. Much like the plays The Lion King and Avenue Q, they are incorporating more and more amazing puppetry props and entire characters into theater productions for adults and families.

At the Second Tony Awards in March 1948, Jessica Tandy won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play her performance as Blanche Dubois in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. 

She shared the award with two other actresses, two other plays, Katharine Cornell (who won for the female lead in Antony and Cleopatra) and Judith Anderson (for her portrayal of Medea). 

Judith Anderson went on to film work including Laura, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Salome and of course, she played Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock's film, Rebecca.
 

Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire
Broadway 1947

"Rosemary Harris and Jessica Tandy appeared together on television in 1957 in a classic episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents called The Glass Eye.... William Shatner plays Tandy's nephew and Harris his wife. This may be the only time the two Blanches - one former and one yet to come -- appeared together."
-- When Blanche Met Brando: The Scandalous Story of A Streetcar Named Desire by Sam Staggs

If you're looking for more coincidence, Billy Barty who was in The Glass Eye and Claire Carleton from And So Died Riabouchinska appeared in a 1958 episode of Shirley Temple's Storybook: Season 1, Episode 7, Rip Van Winkle. There were several famous storybook tales in this set. A variety of actors appeared and Shirley Temple narrated them.

In 1958 Robert Stevens, the director of The Glass Eye and another favorite Alfred Hitchcock Presents that features Jessica Tandy, Toby (as well as others) won an Emmy for Best Direction 'Half Hour or Less' for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

January 25, 1949 the first Emmy Awards were held at the Hollywood Athletic Club. They were just to honor shows produced and aired locally in the Los Angeles area. The person who won the very first Emmy Award was ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale & her puppet Judy. Not only a woman but a female puppet as well. Her award was for Most Outstanding Television Personality.

Ventriloquist Paul Winchell is on the panel of What's My Line July 22, 1956
Mystery guest Chicago ventriloquist figure maker Frank Marshall. 
He is the creator of Jerry Mahoney, Edgar Bergen's Charlie McCarthy and Jimmy Nelson's Danny O'Day.




Links to Pages of Interest:

Twilight Zone Dolls, Ventriloquist Dummies, Mystic Seers and Mannequins

Scary Doll iPhone, iPad and Tablet Cases

Memorable Dolls and Puppets of Science Fiction and Fantasy Film & TV

 
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