The Getaway (1972)

McQueen, MacGraw, Peckinpah. This is a classic.The Getaway is a 1972 crime and action film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw and Ben Johnson.

The film is based on a novel by Jim Thompson, with the screenplay written by Walter Hill. A box office hit earning US$26 million at the theaters, the film was one of the most financially successful productions of Peckinpah's and McQueen's careers.

It was remade in 1994 starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
Ali MacGraw

"An Everlasting Piece"

I enjoyed this movie, very funny. I caught it almost by accident as it is several years old.


It's hard to believe that a movie about two hairpiece salesmen in war-torn Northern Ireland--a comedy, no less--could work at all, but An Everlasting Piece does work, though perhaps not in the way one would expect. Colm (Barry McEvoy, who also wrote the screenplay) is a new barber at a mental institution and bonds with his fellow barber George (Brian F. O'Byrne) even though Colm is Catholic and George is Protestant. A new patient arrives, who turns out to have been the owner of the only wig company in all of Northern Ireland. Figuring that having a monopoly means easy money, Colm and George convince the new patient to give them his client list, and they're off on a series of rambling comic adventures, aided by Colm's girlfriend Bronagh (Anna Friel, A Midsummer Night's Dream). But when a wig is found at the site of an act of IRA sabotage, the salesmen's lives get suddenly complicated. What makes An Everlasting Piece work is not that it ignores the Irish conflict, but that it pays close attention to it; in fact, the tension of civil strife is a crucial element of the movie's humor, allowing it to dip into a more serious mood without becoming preachy or pretentious. The actors are uniformly excellent; Friel is particularly charming. A comedy about wigs sounds like goofy slapstick; An Everlasting Piece is actually thoughtful and richly human. Directed by Barry Levinson (Diner, Rain Man, Wag the Dog). --Bret Fetzer

Anna Friel is lovely in it, I looked for an image of her in her traditional Nurse's uniform from the film but couldn't find one.

I'm going on record that I support a constitutional amendment requiring nurses to wear the traditional white skirts, hats and stockings.

"Weeds"

I'm officially ready for a new season. I'm sort of a Nancy Botwin groupie, even though I've never seen the first 3 seasons.



Weeds is an American comedy-drama television series created by Jenji Kohan, produced by Lionsgate Television for the Showtime network.

The show revolves around a newly widowed housewife (Mary-Louise Parker) from an affluent California suburb who becomes her neighborhood's marijuana dealer to make ends meet. The title is a play on words, referring to both the slang term for marijuana and widow's weeds. It also plays on the tendency of American suburbs to grow quickly and pervasively, with the dwellings and their residents being almost as indistinguishable as weeds. This is mirrored in the show's theme song "Little Boxes" and opening credits, and is a recurring theme of the show. The theme song changes in the second season with a different version every week.

Weeds currently comprises five seasons that began airing in August 2005. It was the highest rated series for Showtime in its first year; its fourth-season premiere attracted 1.3 million viewers to Showtime, the channel's highest-ever viewership.

Natalie Wood: American Film Actress

This one is my all-time favorite.



Natalie Wood (born Natalia Zacharenko;[2] Cyrillic: Наталья Николаевна Захаренко; July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress.


Following her film debut in 1943, Wood became a successful child actor in such films as Miracle on 34th Street (1947). A well received performance opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and helped her to make the transition from a child performer. She then starred in the musicals West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962). She also received Academy Award nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love With the Proper Stranger (1963).


Her career continued successfully into the late 1960s with lead roles in films such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969); after this she worked less frequently so that she could start a family. She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice and had two daughters, Natasha Gregson and Courtney Wagner. Wood starred in several television productions, including a remake of the film From Here to Eternity (1979) for which she won a Golden Globe Award.

Wood drowned near Santa Catalina Island, California. Her final film, the science fiction drama Brainstorm (1983) with Christopher Walken, was released posthumously.




Beautiful.

Greta Scacchi:English/Italian Film Actress

 

Ismail Merchant, of the celebrated Merchant Ivory film-making team, who made Heat And Dust, says:


'She is an eternal beauty. She has always reminded me of a combination of two actresses, Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly.'



Greta Scacchi- one of the most beautiful women ever in film, and one of my favorites.

"White Mischief" (like "Scandal") is one of my favorite flicks. A period piece based on actual historical events.

Try "White Mischief" or "A Man In Love" for more Greta.

Boulder to Birmingham-Emmylou Harris

She even does grief beautifully.

Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other highly successful, well-known artists.



A seminal track off the 1975 album Pieces of the Sky by Emmylou Harris. It has served as something of a signature tune for the artist and recounts her feelings of grief in the years following the death of Country-Rock star and mentor Gram Parsons. The song is famous for its chorus "I would rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham/I would hold my life in his saving grace/I would walk all the way from Boulder to Birmingham/If I thought I could see, I could see your face."

From a German television show, circa 1975.
If it weren't for the English and Germans, there would be virtually no quality video to chronicle a lot of classic music from the 60s and 70s. (Unless it was Woodstock or the Last Waltz)

Bad girls need love too

 

You know what's conspicuously absent from this picture? That happy glow Brides get just before their Wedding Day.

Sometimes the Highway Patrol just needs to lighten the hell up and let one slide.

Yvonne Elliman

The one and only Mary Magdalene (from Jesus Christ Superstar), a great singer and beautiful woman.

You know not to judge me, right?

Yvonne Elliman (born Yvonne Marianne Elliman, December 29, 1951, Honolulu, Hawaii[1]) is an American singer and actress.
Elliman's singing career began in 1969 in London where she performed as a vocalist at various bars and clubs. This led to a recording contract and later, in Miami, a close association as a backing vocalist for Eric Clapton. She performed on many of his 1970s hits including "I Shot the Sheriff" and "Lay Down Sally". She sang the role of Mary Magdalene in the original album of Jesus Christ Superstar and in the subsequent Broadway and film version, and achieved her first hit single with the ballad "I Don't Know How to Love Him".

Know Your French Actresses: Audrey Tautou

I've been remiss in posting French Actresses lately, so here you go:

Audrey Justine Tautou; born 9 August either in 1976 or 1978 is a French film actress, known to worldwide audiences for playing the title character in the award-winning 2001 film Amélie, Sophie Neveu in the 2006 thriller The Da Vinci Code, and more recently Irène in Priceless (2006). She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in Venus Beauty Institute (1999).


If you haven't seen "Amelie", I highly recommend it. It is a visually stunning fable with really spectacular cinematography, and if you don't fall in love with Audrey Tautou watching it there's something wrong with you.

Rosanne Cash: American Singer/Songwriter

Rosanne Cash is one of the few artists among my absolute top ten favorites that I've never seen live.(another is JD Souther) Fortunately both still perform a few shows, so it's not over yet. It's pretty apparent I'll have to travel to catch up with either of them as no local venues seem interested. (I promised I wouldn't say anything bad about WorkPlay)


Rosanne Cash (born May 24, 1955) is an American singer-songwriter and author. She is the eldest daughter of the late country music singer Johnny Cash and his first wife, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin.

Although she is often classified as a country artist, her music draws on many genres, including folk, pop, rock and blues.

Since 1991 she has released four albums, written two books and edited a collection of short stories. Her fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Oxford-American, New York Magazine, and various other periodicals and collections.(WIKI)


"September When It Comes"

Lee Remick: American Stage/Film Actress

Central to Lee Remick's complex and fascinating screen presence during the first phase of her career is a sense of erotic warmth, an irreducible sensuality, capable (when combined with her remarkable gifts as an actress) of the most diverse inflections, depending on the degree to which it is allowed or denied free expression. Consider two of her finest performances, in the two finest films in which she appeared, made within a year of each other: Anatomy of a Murder and Wild River. The former is built upon the character's sexual knowingness, seductiveness, promiscuity, the latter on the character's sexual deprivation and subsequent reawakening. Preminger uses Remick's sensuality as one aspect of his detailed, multifaceted exercise in sustained ambiguity: she plays a woman ready deliberately to exploit her attractiveness as a means of manipulation, yet the erotic charge she communicates is so strong that its genuineness is never in question. The character's uninhibited sensuality, which might have been presented as merely degenerate (the Hollywood stereotype of the "nymphomaniac"), becomes in Remick's performance engaging, oddly touching. ROBIN WOOD

Breasts and bottoms look boringly alike. Faces, though, can be quite different and a damn sight more interesting!
Lee Remick

I make movies for grownups. When Hollywood starts making them again, I'll start acting in them again.
Lee Remick

I'm not an oddball.
Lee Remick

You can compare me with Greta Garbo. I have big feet, too.
Lee Remick




Lee Remick became my imaginary girlfriend the moment I saw Otto Preminger's "Anatomy Of A Murder".

Joanne Whalley: English Television/Film Actress

Joanne Whalley (born 25 August 1964 in Salford, Greater Manchester) is an English actress.She met the American actor Val Kilmer filming the fantasy adventure Willow,[2] whom she married in 1988 and after which she used the name Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. She continued filming, making more films in Hollywood than the UK, including the mystery noir Shattered and, in 1989, the role of Christine Keeler in Scandal alongside stars John Hurt and Sir Ian McKellen. In 1994 she became only the second actress to play Gone with the Wind heroine Scarlett O'Hara when she appeared in a made-for-TV adaptation of the sequel novel, Scarlett.(Text lifted from wikipedia)





Joanne Whalley-Kilmer was my imaginary girlfriend for several months after I saw "Scandal".

Dana Delany, American Film/Television Actress

Dana Welles Delany (born March 13, 1956) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is known especially for her two-time Emmy Award winning role as Colleen McMurphy on the ABC television show China Beach (1988–91), in more recent times as Katherine Mayfair on Desperate Housewives and as Lois Lane in the DC Animated Universe as well as the TV series The Batman. Delany has been active in film, television, and stage since the late 1970s.


Dana Delany is only slightly older than me, but is aging much more gracefully. She is the only "Ginger" among my imaginary girlfriends.

Pattie Boyd Harrison: British Model/Actress

Who: Pattie Boyd Harrison(Clapton)

Notable For: Inspiring two of the greatest songs in the history of recorded music: Something (in the way she moves) by George Harrison, Recorded by the Beatles and Layla by Eric Clapton, Recorded by Derek and the Dominos.

She was also the subject of the song Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton, but it qualifies as near-great at best.

Pattie was also my imaginary girlfriend at one point, i'm not sure when.

Nancy Allen, American Film Actress

Who: Nancy Allen

Notable For: Brian DePalma films, including Carrie, Blow Out, Dressed to Kill
Also noteworthy for being my imaginary girlfriend for much of the early 1980s