Bad Movies We Love

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Were you at Malice when Rosemarie and Vince Keenan accepted their award? They described their manuscript as a mystery featuring Edith Head. Wow. The entire audience swooned. All agreeing it was a fabulous idea, and I can tell you, the wave of “why didn’t I think about that” washed over the entire crowd. Led by me.

Well, that book, DANGEROUS TO KNOW, is an Agatha nominee for Best First now! And hurray. And of course it’s deeply and fabulously rooted in old Hollywood.  So what better for the Keenans (writing as Renee Patrick) to talk about—than movies!

They DO Make ’em Like That Anymore…

                  Rosemarie and Vince Keenan

Return with us now to the Second Golden Age of Movie Magazines, the early 1990s—which was twenty-five years ago, and doesn’t that give one pause? Using the standard boy band system of classification, Premiere was the serious one, Entertainment Weekly the cute one, and Movieline the scruffy, pouting troublemaker. Movieline ran blind items, just like Hedda Hopper used to do. And each issue ended with the column that was our shared guilty pleasure: Bad Movies We Love.

BMWL cast its net fairly wide, taking aim at disaster films (the entire Airport series, The Swarm), films that were disasters (Myra Breckinridge), and even Academy Award-worthy fare like The Greatest Show on Earth, Butterfield 8 and Fatal Attraction. (Also making the failing grade: not one but two movies in which half of our sleuthing duo, costume designer Edith Head, appeared as herself: Lucy Gallant and The Oscar.) The spotlighted titles came from a range of eras and genres, but each possessed some element that captivated—a hypnotic atmosphere, a galvanizing performance. They fascinated despite, and often because of, their flaws.

They were, in short, bad movies we love.

And they’re still making them, though Movieline is no longer around to keep track of them. Permit us to share a pair of favorites, joined in a number of ways. They’re both show business biopics from 2004 with leading men named Kevin that employ the same unusual—some would say baffling—structure. And we watch them over and over.

Vince’s choice is Beyond the Sea, a passion project for Kevin Spacey who co-writes, directs and stars as singer/actor Bobby Darin. 

Funds for the movie were cobbled together from several European sources, which accounts for the staging of the title song on what looks like a blustery afternoon in Bavaria with Spacey in a canary yellow suit crooning to Kate Bosworth as Sandra Dee, so cold you can see her breath. Spacey is several years too old for the role—a fact the movie clumsily acknowledges—and hits a few clams when he recreates Darin’s singing. But his enthusiasm for a bygone era of entertainment when the nightclub was king lends this cracked pinwheel of a movie an undeniable verve.

Rosemarie, meanwhile, harbors a soft spot for 

De-Lovely, which chronicles the life of Cole Porter. Most of the maestro’s songs are sung by what K-Tel used to call ‘contemporary artists’ with varying degrees of success. Robbie Williams tosses off the title song with such élan it’s mystifying he never became a bigger star in America, while the less said about Sheryl Crow’s “Begin the Beguine” the better. 

The more traditional musical numbers are uniformly dreadful—Louis B. Mayer singing “Be A Clown”?—but the movie has a refreshing openness to using the tunes in different ways. Anchoring it all is Kevin Kline’s performance as Porter. He’s wholly believable as a man who wears his genius lightly. His talent brings him joy, and it brings him joy to know it brings others joy. Kline may find himself in the middle of cacophonous chaos, but the twinkle in his eye cannot be faked.

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Both movies use the same framing device, taking place in the afterlife with the protagonists telling their own stories in formats they understand: Darin’s as a movie, Porter’s a Broadway musical. And it’s this risky metaphorical gambit—life as a show, and the show as life—that accounts for the films’ strange hold over us. Darin, knowing that illness would eventually claim him early, develops a hunger for performing that sustains him—and is matched by Spacey’s own zeal for the spotlight. And De-Lovely’s ending, with every figure from Porter’s life appearing onstage to serenade him to the Pearly Gates with a rendition of “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” never fails to reduce Rosemarie to tears. Hokey? Absolutely. But it also succeeds in dramatizing the totality of a person’s existence, all the missed chances and found love, in a single rousing sequence.

 There was a third show business biopic in 2004. Ray was a critical and commercial hit, earning a Best Picture Academy Award nomination and a deserved Oscar for Jamie Foxx’s turn as Ray Charles. We enjoyed the movie, but we never revisited it. Maybe it’s not bad enough.

Or perhaps it needed a Kevin.

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HANK:  So Reds, what bad movies do you love? (I loved De-Lovely.) And um, French Kiss. And Speed. And best/worst of all, Point Break.  

(Yesterday's winner of an advance readers copy of You'll Never Know, Dear is Finta! Send me your mailing address: hallie "at" hallieephron "dot" com.)

Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington. Learn more at reneepatrickbooks.com

Dangerous to Know

Los Angeles, 1938. Former aspiring actress Lillian Frost is adjusting to a new life of boldfaced names as social secretary to a movie-mad millionaire. Costume designer Edith Head is running Paramount Pictures’ wardrobe department, but only until a suitable replacement comes along. The two friends again become partners thanks to an international scandal, a real-life incident in which the war clouds gathering over Europe cast a shadow on Hollywood.

Lillian attended the Manhattan dinner party at which well-heeled guests insulted Adolf Hitler within earshot of a maid with Nazi sympathies. Now, secrets the maid vengefully spilled have all New York society running for cover – and two Paramount stars, Jack Benny and George Burns, facing smuggling charges.

Edith also seeks Lillian’s help on a related matter. The émigré pianist in Marlene Dietrich’s budding nightclub act has vanished. Lillian reluctantly agrees to look for him. When Lillian finds him dead, Dietrich blames agents of the Reich. As Lillian and Edith unravel intrigue extending from Paramount’s Bronson Gate to FDR’s Oval Office, only one thing is certain: they’ll do it in style.

You Are What You--Wear?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Scarlett O’Hara’s curtain dress, of course. When you’re talking about the best and most memorable movie costumes ever, that’s on the list. 

EVERYTHING Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window, including that little cosmetic bag.  



Slinky exec Faye Dunaway in Network, and always-icy-chic Miranda Priestly, and Rita Hayworth’s black strapless Gilda dress, and Ilse’s slouchy Casablanca hat, and …well, I’ll going to have to stop myself.

My very favorite move costume ever, though, is the dress Audrey Hepburn wore in the tennis court dance scene of Sabrina.

Or wait, maybe Julie Christie’s furs in Dr. Z?  Or Rene Russo’s backless gown in the new Thomas Crown Affair. Remember that? Anyway. Enough from me.

But that is why I also swoon over “Renee Patrick’s” new novel—featuring Edith Head! Ah. Such a brilliant idea!

So we’ll let Renee—who is really Rosemarie and Vince Keenan—tell all.

REAL OR REEL, CLOTHES MAKE THE CHARACTER

by Rosemarie Keenan

Ask any costume designer and she’ll tell you costume design is all about character. As a writer, I can get behind that. Characters become living, breathing people on the page when we convey their thoughts, their words, their actions. And of course, when we describe their clothes.

In Design for Dying, we spend a fair amount of time describing what our characters are wearing. It’s not just because we love clothes. (OK, I love clothes. Vince is largely indifferent.) It’s because one half of our detective team is the legendary costume designer Edith Head. How legendary was she? Edith had a Hollywood career spanning seven decades. She was nominated for thirty-five Academy awards and took home eight of the statuettes, the most of any woman.

The diminutive designer, consistently clad in her trademark tailored suits with dark bangs and tinted glasses, knew that character could be revealed by costuming. “The story is your Bible,” she wrote in her 1959 memoir The Dress Doctor. “First and above all, what kind of character are we dressing?”

Take Double Indemnity (1944) for example. In that film the character Edith outfitted was a manipulative woman with murder on her mind. Barbara Stanwyck plays the scheming Phyllis Dietrichson, intent on entrapping Fred MacMurray’s Walter Neff. Phyllis’ seduction of Neff is executed through wardrobe. Stanwyck’s form becomes more concealed as the film progresses; how could it not when the movie begins with Phyllis clad in a towel? In the “honey of an anklet” scene she flashes her gams. Phyllis later arrives at Neff’s apartment in a not particularly daring skirt-and-sweater ensemble—except her brasserie is visible beneath the angora, a brazen reminder of her agenda. By the time of their supermarket rendezvous, Phyllis is armored in a long-sleeved blouse with a tailored checked vest.

Poor Walter didn’t understand what Edith knew and practiced. She states it plainly in The Dress Doctor: “Clothes not only can make the woman, they can make her several different women.”

Edith didn’t save her sartorial smarts for movie murderesses or even the beautiful people of Hollywood. She offered advice to the average woman through her books, newspaper columns and regular appearances on Art Linkletter’s radio and television shows. Edith diagnosed the fashion faux pas of the ladies in the audience, teaching them how to camouflage flaws and accentuate strong points.

Such style tips provide a connection between Edith and her detecting partner, Lillian Frost, in Design for Dying. While investigating the murder of an aspiring starlet, found in a costume stolen from Paramount Pictures, Edith teaches Lillian a few things about dressing, including how to use a belt to create a makeshift peplum top, lending the illusion of curves to Lillian’s somewhat boyish frame.

“The way you dress – or package yourself – is the one thing over which you have absolute control. You can’t change the size of your feet, the shape of your legs, the color of your eyes or the texture of your hair – but you can change the way you look as easily as an actress does each time she plays a new role.” Edith Head, How To Dress For Success

I’ve certainly packaged myself in different ways over the years, changing styles more often than a con man changes IDs. Pink jeans and a leather jacket during my New Wave phase, a black mini-skirt and glossy red lipstick in the late 80’s (remember Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love video?), khaki-casual through much of the 90s (I know, what was I thinking?). Once I hit my forties though, and now entering my debut author phase, I finally know my type. These days I’d describe it as “as close to Amal Clooney as I can afford.”

 From time to time I still want to change those unchangeable aspects of my appearance that Edith catalogued but as always, she was right. No matter how often I try on the size eight slingback pumps I always walk out of the store with the size nines.

And what of my co-writer? Some of Edith’s style savvy has rubbed off on him too. I mean, just look at these shoes.

HANK: Love this! And VInce, very very fancy forties.  So Reds, let’s talk about movie clothing! What do you love and remember? What worked for you, and why?

DESIGN FOR DYING

Los Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl ... until she discovers she’s a suspect in the murder of her former roommate Ruby Carroll. Party girl Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head.

Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she’s barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian’s name and save Edith’s career, the two women join forces. Unraveling the mystery pits them against a Hungarian princess on the lam, a hotshot director on the make, and a private investigator who’s not on the level.

All they have going for them are dogged determination, assists from the likes of Bob Hope and Barbara Stanwyck, and a killer sense of style. In show business, that just may be enough…

RENEE PATRICK

Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington.

You can friend Renee on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ReneePatrickAuthor), follow her on Twitter (RPatrickBooks) or find more information at her website: http://reneepatrickbooks.com