Things You Always Wanted To Know About Charles Laughton

I have been succesful in my plan to do nothing today, for the most part.  Oh, I did the usual tidy-up-the-place things but other than that?  Nada.

I did, however, engage in my guilty pleasure of indulging in a Classic movie that I am now thinking is toward the top of my Top Ten list of favorite classic movies.

I have talked here about my love of Billy Wilder movies.  Today, I watched Witness For The Prosecution that I had DVR’d one day this last week. 

You talk about suspense and a surprise ending?  I’m not going to even talk about how it ended.  Unbelievable.  

They say this was Agatha Christie’s favorite adaptation of any of her work to film.  I can see why. 50 years after its release, this movie has stood the test of time in a big way. You just gotta see it.  If I get started on the plot, I’ll spoil it.  Just rent it off Netflix.  Trust me on this one.

Tyrone Power, (probably the Clooney of his day and this was his last movie.  Died in ‘58 of a heart attack. Probably playing this character contributed.  He was quite on-edge in this role. Veins a’poppin’ out of his neck like crazy)  Marlene Dietrich are like buttah as Leonard and Christine.  Dietrich wasn’t a young babe when she made this movie but she was still hawt.  How cool is it we see Dietrich play accordion and sing in this?  Ok, so Streisand she was not, vocally….

I always get little happies when I spot familiar faces in movies and in this one, I spotted John Williams who was the second Mr. French on Family Affair and (squee!) Phillip Tonge who was Mr. Shellhammer in another of my Top Ten’s, Miracle On 34th Street.

For me though, the ones that totally make this movie so fabulous are Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester.  These two were such great actors with great chemistry, but, it’s no wonder cause they were married in real life, in spite of the fact that Laughton was gay.  They both got Oscar nominations for their performances as Sir Wilfred and Miss Plimsoll.  Hysterical.

And ya know, the Internets are so full of interesting things.  There is a blog devoted to Charles Laughton.  It’s true.  That’s where I found this picture of Charles, Elsa and their cat! God is so good to give me more useless, uneccesary things to have in my brain.  Remember her? She was the Bride of Frankenstein and a bunch of Disney movies.

~ by sistasmiff on September 28, 2008.