Slander (1957) on TCM

Marjorie Rambeau appears with Ann Blyth in the above movie still photo from Slander (1957).  Turner Classic Movies is showing it today at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

Van Johnson co-stars as Ann's husband, a performer on a child's TV show who has a checkered past, and is blackmailed by a scandal magazine to rat on another celebrity, to protect himself.  A very timely and controversial subject in the 1950s, when scandal mags were first hitting Hollywood.  Careers and lives were destroyed.  Van Johnson and Ann Blyth have to make some hard choices, and suffer monstrous consequences.  Steve Cochran plays the magazine publisher who calls all the shots.

You can read more about Slander here at my Another Old Movie Blog.  Don't forget to tune in to TCM this afternoon!

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Noir Publicity Shot for Swell Guy

Ann Blyth in a 1946 publicity still, around the time she filmed Swell Guy with Sonny Tufts and Ruth Warrick.  This was the period of her career, following in the wake of her Best Supporting Oscar nomination for Mildred Pierce, when she played a string of devious or troubled women with chips on their shoulders and axes to grind, when she was compared to a young Bette Davis.

More on Swell Guy here at my Another Old Movie Blog post.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Signing Autographs

For the celebrity, autograph hounds are a part of life, even if they are not part of the job.  Here's Ann Blyth signing for three teenaged boys in a photo taken from Hollywood Life Stories of 1954, one of the many fan magazines of the day.  She would have been about 25 years old in this photo.

She was reportedly a patient and agreeable signer of autographs throughout her career.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.

Chip Off the Old Block Poster

Here's a "full sheet" poster for Chip Off the Old Block (1944), which was Ann Blyth's first film.

We discussed the movie in this post at my Another Old Movie Blog.  Ann's first four movies were a string of musicals for Universal, which signed her to a seven-year contract when she was 14 years old.  She had been on tour with the play Watch on the Rhine, when she was spotted by Universal execs when the drama played in Los Angeles.

Donald O'Connor and Peggy Ryan were a most dynamic duo, when Ann's arrival turned them into a trio.  Universal showcased the talent of many teens in that period during the late 1930s and early 1940s, even more than the other studios, Deanna Durbin undoubtedly foremost among them.

The "full sheet" posters are huge, of course, about 41 inches tall by 27 inches wide, spectacular for display if you have the room.  It's not always easy to come by them in pristine condition these days, but now and again you hear of someone discovering a stash of classic film posters discovered in some theater storage space, or possibly in the home of a collector who had a connection with one of the great old downtown movie houses. 

Most of the posters were an attempt to summarize the story and yet not give anything away, but in their way, I think they were more creative and entertaining, and storytelling, than today's slicker posters, which are less about plot tags and more about "branding" an image for merchandising.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.

Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.