SUPERFICIALITY INDULGENCE GLAMOUR AND LUST. FOR HOLLYWOOD AT ITS BEST, CAMP AND KITSCH SUPREME. “Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.” MARLENE DIETRICH.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

TYRONE POWER: HOLLYWOOD GREAT: Post 1: Son of Fury (1942) with Gene Tierney




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This is one of my favorite films. Tyrone Power plays Benjamin Blake,  the illegitimate son of a British aristocrat, and its about his struggle to claim his birthright and family fortune. He is forced into servitude by his wicked Uncle (George Sanders) and beaten for falling in love with aristocrat (Frances Farmer). He escapes and stows away on a ship bound for the tropics. He jumps overboard and finds himself on an uncharted tropical island looking for pearls with fellow shipmate (John Carradine) He falls in love with a beautiful island girl (Gene Tireney) Years later a boat finally passes by, and he returns with his pearls in a bag, a very rich man, to claim his inheritance. I love this film because of the great cast of leading actors and great character actors. The film is very well done, and is very memorable for its storytelling. Also at the very end...I love when Benjamin finds out for himself that with all his wealth.. he was much happier on the island...and returns to the beautiful native girl Gene Tierney.  Gene Tierney has the ability to make me weep openly...and this final scene...and her final scene in the Ghost and Mrs Muir do just that..... In the Ghost and Mrs Muir.... Gene as Mrs Muir had bought Gull Cottage and fallen in love with the sea Captain ghost that inhabited it. There's was a great love affair..but she was alive and he was a ghost..so it was not fulfilled. At the end of the film, after many adventures she is an old lady drinking tea. She passes away and all of a sudden the Captain is standing there with his hand reaching out to her. Her hand reaches up and clasps his, she is young and beautiful again.  Arm in arm in a beautifully magical scene, he leads her out of the cottage and through the mists of time and towards the light of the afterlife. That scene always leaves me howling...I'm a romantic I suppose. 

1 comment:

Mrs. R said...

I think the final kiss at the end of that movie is one of the sexiest kisses ever! What a gorgeous couple they were!