Hollywood Without Make-Up

This starts with a near-miss. I was hoping for baby Carrie Fisher with Debbie Reynolds, but according to IMDB, it's baby Todd Fisher. Ken Murray is the host and provides much of the home video of the Hollywood stars. The footage has other people's home videos including the stars themselves. It's a lot of stars of yester-years and I recognize about half of the silent era ones. Murray visits the Heast San Simeon estate and it looks grand. It does end with something both magnificent and poignant and a bit sad. It's Marilyn Monroe who had died a year earlier. That is this movie. It's old Hollywood. It's Hollywood that is now only flickering images on the screen.

Even though it was released in 1950, Ken Murray offers a wonderful perspective on Hollywood. We're all used to the scandalous depictions so easily reported, but finally someone has done what has been truly needed from this wild town. Ken has assembled one-of-a-kind videos of some of Hollywood's elite, portraying fun-loving and even gracious stars in somewhat private settings, intimately revealing their more personal side. Your opinions of the old Hollywood will soften as Ken narrates his experiences with famous stars. Most memorable scenes are with Kirk Douglas and Walt Disney. Most notable and revealing is the presentation of the great mansion, the Hearst Castle. You'll enjoy watching the stuffy upper-crust goof-off in a way we all can relate with. If you can hear me, thank you Ken for sharing all those wonderful memories. Memories I too, now enjoy!

Ken Murray came to Hollywood in the late 20's to be one of the many stage stars trying to make a go of it in the talkies. His acting career never took off as he never really made an impression on the big screen and costarred in only a handful of films. However, he did take the career lemons he was handed and make lemonade. He realized his talent lay as a host and emcee and archivist - getting those who did have the public eye to open up. This compilation of home movies televised nearly fifty years ago is an eye into early 60's TV and its audience as well as the stars shown.

As for the film itself we have footage of Laurel and Hardy in the early sound era, Cary Grant poolside at home as well as on location filming Gunga Din, guests at William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in its heyday, and footage from the 30's through the 50's of most of the major Hollywood lots. The footage ranges from a kiddie car race between the Marx Brothers on the Paramount lot to Lucille Ball both in the 30's and the 50's to Walt Disney taking Ken's own daughters on a tour of his studio. There is no sound on these home movies, so Mr. Murray narrates the footage himself and does a good job of it. Ken does get some things wrong, though, and I don't know why since he was a witness to all of this history. He shows Cecil B. DeMille on location shooting "Cleopatra" and says it was De Mille's first talkie. As this was 1934 that would have been way past the beginning of talking pictures. DeMille's first all-talking picture was 1929's "Dynamite".

As for the values of the 50's and early 60's, there was one thing I noticed - Ken would "clean up" some of the narration for what was the squeaky clean landscape of TV 50 years ago, especially when he is at San Simeon. Where there was Hearst, Marion Davies was usually not far away, and such is the case in these home movies. Of course Ken never mentions that Marion was Hearst's mistress. He also talks about Marion Davies' niece, who also appears in the film. That young lady was actually Marion Davies' daughter by Hearst.

Another thing to note about the TV audiences of 1960 - they actually knew and cared something about these stars who were, in some cases, from 35 years in the past. Although in many cases the movie stars of the 30's and 40's became the TV stars and hosts of the 50's and 60's such as with Groucho Marx, Dick Powell, and Lucille Ball.

If you're at all interested in film history I'd recommend you give this one a look. I think you'll find it fascinating.

Great fun for old movie fans. Seeing all those familiar names from the 30's and 40's at leisure, sometimes frolicking, sometimes mugging, is revealing. Murray's got an easy way about him that probably helped access. After all, clowning around can undercut screen image-- Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, Irene Dunn, et.al. And get a load of the fabled San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst's palatial little get-away. Looks like a castle on a mountain top where his Hollywood friends luxuriated as guests. No wonder they appear happy and relaxed. Some of my favorites also appear—Bogart looking like Bogart, Mae West looking like Mae West, and Cary Grant acting like a torpedo fish. And furnishing a lot of eye candy, even minus studio make-up, are starlets like Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Donna Reed, et. al.

True, you do have to look quickly as some celebrities flash by. Also, the subjects and sites succeed one another in no particular order. But then this is supposed to be a "home movie", so I guess we have to recognize the value of the spontaneous. All in all, if you're like me, you tend to forget these screen stars are talented people but basically like everyone else. It's happily this kind of home movie that can furnish an entertaining reminder. So sit back and enjoy real folks behind the big names, along with Ken's relaxed commentary.

These are fun Hollywood home movies assembled by Ken Murray. Some of them are fascinating, such as film of stars at the Hearst castle, some are fun, like Kirk Douglas' appearance on television with Murray, and some for this viewer went on too long, such as the cowboy section. The clip of Murray introducing a young Marilyn Monroe is marvelous, however, and ends the film.

Murray takes a drive down the old Hollywood Boulevard so we can see it as it was, and it sure has changed. There are clips of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Cary Grant swimming, Charlie Chaplin playing tennis, and an almost unrecognizable Norma Shearer at an outdoor gathering. And Walt Disney takes Murray's daughters on a tour of his magic kingdom.

This is worth picking up if you see it on ebay.