bruno-32

After a wonderful intro from Rex Reed, an entertainer columnist, of announcing Hedy Lamarr's 'career', Cavett said that he had never met 'this lady'. She was in ner mid '50's, and looked exotic even at that age, and it was one of her rare interviews she made while she lived in NYC. This was at the time of her so called biography, written by Ghost writers, called "Esctasy and Me". And then Hedy, who was in a strange mood, chastised Dick for ignoring her one time at a store on Lexington Avenue, NYC. The audience murmured...This was the time when the youths were demonstrating about everything...the war, the government and etc...something missing today. After Dick made some comments about that, not to Hedy's liking, Hedy said in their defense, they are young and want to be heard, where she received a nice applause. Dick started to mention about her book and she politely said that she did not write it and that she was in the process of sueing the writers. Apparently, fans of Hedy sided with her and Dick on the very next show the following day, made a comment " All is well between Hedy and me." and the audience applauded.

I remember seeing this at the time of its release and was not too impressed with it then, and after watching it again, recently, I was right the first time. Danny Kaye at that time was almost at his peak, the only redeeming part of his career is the way he twisted the words of the songs that his wife at that time wrote for him. One great notable actor, Sir Lawrence Oliver was so taken the way he rattles off those singing lyrics, then when they met, they allegedly had an affair of some sorts. His falling all over the place was too ridiculous in order to get laughs, and made it very tiresome. But as a New Yorker was impressed with the NYC at that time, that I appreciated it more after viewing this movie, than i did then. Those colorful taxi's were a welcome sight, and it was obvious that some of those scenes were actually filmed in NY at that time. ..and lets not forget the glorious technicolor that is so solely missed today. The differences in today's technicolor movie is not the same to my eyes. The girls will swoon over some of those gorgeous clothes the women wore, and a beauty like Virginia Mayo, wearing them.

When Paramount signed Hedy to do "Samson & Delilah", it was with stipulation that she had to do 2 more films for them. This one and the one with Bob Hope in "My Favorite Spy". Unfortunately, it didn't do much for her career. MGM, the biggest Studio, after 7 or 8 years of having Hedy under contract, never had her filmed in a Technicolor movie. You would have thought that their "most beautiful woman in the movies' actress would have florished her in Technicolor. She did make a few movies for them that beckoned for Technicolor..."BoomTown" and "White Cargo" to name the obvious. So Paramount immediately gave her two, and mind you, she was not at her prime at this time, she was 35 yrs old , though she looked sensational as Delilah, and even in this mild western. Her role here was more for decorative and a small ambiguous role. Milland, wasn't bad, but, Randolph Scott would have been a better choice.I suspect had they left the tune in the movie, especially during the square dance scene, it might have made it a bit more enjoyable. Why they omitted it, is puzzling.