Beautiful you are when you can see a child’s point of
view and optimism is your warmth, there is beauty in getting up after a fall
and breaking someone else’s, when you catch another eye in understanding, it’s
beautiful. A stomach that cannot handle injustice and intolerance is a stomach stretched
in childbirth, and it’s beautiful Joan Blondell said.
Love, and a little murder are timeless subjects in the
movies, and Joan Blondell’s movie career spanned for five decades, including 1927s
silent movie, “Wings,” to 1977s, “Star Wars,” Matthew Kennedy said in his 2007
book, “Joan Blondell, A Life Between Takes.” She appeared in at least 100 movies.
Blondell’s, starring role in “Gold Diggers of 1933,” showcased
her acting skills along with her luscious figure and real-life Betty Boobish
face.
In 1931s, “Other Men’s Women,” Blondell’s cameo
appearance as the waitress Marie was the best scene in the movie because she said
she was APO to a certain man.
Marie
(Blondell)
That’s right, I’m APO. Ain’t Putn’ Out!
From 1930-1934, Hollywood was in its so-called
pre-code era, and Blondell was still in her 20s establishing her talents and arousing
the pleasures, we lightly call physical.
Before she was 30-years-old, Joan Blondell was
supporting her parents and her younger brother and sister during The Great Depression
of the 1930s.
Joan Blondell was sentimental without being sappy and naughty
without being cheap, and 1941s “Topper Returns” is a comedy that still makes me
laugh out loud. Blondell is Gail in ‘Topper Returns” and she is murdered in a
mansion, and her ghost helps solve her own murder in a bizarre and funny manner.
Blondell starred in the sex comedy, “Convention City.”
The movie hit the masses in December 1933, and sometime in 1934, prints of “Convention
City,” including the original was destroyed on the order of Jack L. Warner, who
ran the studio at the time. The movie was deemed too racy for the mainstream
media. To this day, “Convention City,” is one of the most sought after lost
movies from the Hollywood archives. In the 1960s, Blondell owned a 16mm print
of the film, and said she screened the movie in her house for various guests
and joked that the movie was basically soft-core porn for its day.
“I’m a staunch lover in every sense of the word. I
love people, husbands, children, grandchildren and dogs. I’m a great appreciator
of the good things, the veins in the leaf of a tree, roses, the look of morning
and the smell of babies. I try to forget the bad things,” Blondell said.
Blondell was married three times and had two
daughters. In 1972, she was spending $150.00 a week on books. She read voraciously
on all subjects, thus fueling my appreciation for her even more.
One of her daughters had a history of schizophrenia,
suicidal tendencies and a bout with manic depression.
“There’s a lump inside you always, lumps of sorrows,
griefs and failures, but with a little effort you can make them stay in the background,”
Blondell said.
Three and a half stars for the book, “Joan Blondell, A
Life Between Takes,” by Matthew Kennedy.
Mark Izzy Schurr
