I will start at 11:45 p.m. and ends at 1 a.m.
It's following "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" then will be followed by "Trog". What a lineup!
I've never seen "Della", so I'm very curious.
*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***
I watched both. Should have totally been studying, but I couldn't help it. "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" was just too good to pass!
shareI DVRd it last night and will watch it this afternoon after work. I'm really looking forward to seeing a Joan Crawford movie I've never seen before!
"What do you want me to do, draw a picture? Spell it out!"
I hadn't seen it either. The plot was thin and pretty ludicrous, but Joan looked fabulous. The soft makeup, wardrobe, and even the ombre grayish hair did her a world of good. She looked amazing.
shareHow was it ludicrous? There IS such a disorder. She merely protected her daughter for as long as possible, perhaps hoping that this situation would never come about.
I loved the statues in the garden. It made it like a fairytale, with her the enchanted princess. He was the prince who had wandered into the scene, enthralled at first sight.
Joan Crawford did look wonderful (as usual, at least to my eyes), and the haircolor is so becoming. She was so regal and imperious, making the audience wonder if she was "a good witch of a bad witch", so to speak. I liked seeing Diane Baker and Joan Crawford together again.
Again: How is their reclusive state "ludircous"? I found it intriguing especially because I am a night owl to the extreme, living most of my life during the night and hating to go out in the daylight. I usually go out only if it's overcast and suffer when it isn't. Being in strong sunlight is physically painful; my photosensitivity also is from an illness. Sadly, I don't have the remarkable surroundings the ladies have in "Della". What a dream! Except, I would have had cats! What a wonderful cat sanctuary that would have been! Purrrrrfect=}
*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***
I said the plot was thin and ludicrous, not their reclusive state. I am well aware the disorder is real. A woman and her daughter holed up in a mansion had many promising story lines, and there were many ways to go with this, and they went a way I didn't find totally plausible. This woman could have moved anywhere in the world to avoid maximum sunlight but chose to stay in, what, California or Florida or wherever the movie was set? With maximum sunshine? The daughter couldn't have gone to night school? Become a night nurse? Done something other than stayed indoors during the day and frolicked in the moonlight only? She had to stay in the house with mommy 24/7? I thought it lacked imagination.
shareI don't think those suggestions amount to much because, if she could live normally, there would be no story at all. It would be a big bore. So, she can go out any time she wants? So, her mother doesn't live as a recluse and nocturnally? There's no story then. You'd have to write an entirely different scenario that wouldn't be cloaked in mystery.
This is a modern fairytale with a very sad ending. It's the "girl" who tries to leave Shangri-La~and failing. It's "Rappaccini's Daughter". It's Rapunzel, only with the captive girl suffering a bleak fate, not her would-be rescuer. She's lived a fantasy existence~the telescope, the garden with its sculptures, the huge library, the sprawling mansion. She's never really lived normally, even if she didn't have the illness.
It reminds me of the response to "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence". Many people hated it. I was prepared to. Then, when I finally watched it, I realized that it was a fairytale, just one with a sci fi setting. I loved it on first sight.
While I can't say that I love "Della", I do like it very much and wish that I had taped it as I planned to. My fibrofoggy brain didn't remember to start the VCR. I do hope they'll air it again someday.
I was thinking that I would have been only 12-13 when this aired, meaning that I am quite an old lady now. My mother teasingly calls me "Peter Pan", so I imagine that I look at things through younger eyes; I tend not to be as picky and jaded as many people seem to be nowadays if I'm to judge from reviews. I vividly remember the mindset of the time period. Remember that this was for a proposed series.
*** The trouble with reality is there is no background music. ***
I agree, LadyJane (why does your username seem familiar?), the plot was weak and lame and the film could have gone in several far more interesting directions, but instead fell flat. While it wasn't the 24/7 world back then that it is now, the daughter still had a number of options in which to live and enjoy her life other than being homebound with her mother (and her eyebrows) night after night, year after year. Jenny had the money and the means to live anywhere she chose and even if she chose to remain where she was, she could have taken in local restaurants or movies, dated, taken some night courses or an evening position, volunteered evenings at the hospital, etc., etc. -- even vampires get out and about at night and don't hang around their coffins, and the song isn't titled "I Love the Nightlife" without good reason! Evidently the writer wrongly believed that Jenny's character would be more interesting and sympathetic if she were portrayed as this doomed, tragic, hopeless figure whose life was severely limited by her affliction; the only thing the writer succeeded at dooming and limiting was the plot. Then again, this film was made during a time when melodrama was far more popular than uplifting, enlightening or even realistic story lines.
shareMaybe the MadMen Board? I'm over there too.
Right, this is what I meant by thin and ludicrous. The rich woman has several avenues open to help her daughter live better with her disorder but instead chooses to do basically nothing. The disorder is not ludicrous, it's where the plot went with it. Frankly, it might have been improved if Joan's character had been a neurotic mess who is ashamed/afraid of her daughter and they live in a kind of symbiotic dependence/hate cycle. But instead the mother is portrayed as sympathetic and altruistic, which makes no sense since the daughter basically exists without any kind of effort made to enhance her existence. That might have worked better if the movie was fantasy or horror, but not with the realistic slant the movie had.