October 18, 2007

The eternal kiss.



Rest in everlasting ecstasy, Deborah Kerr:
Throughout her career, Miss Kerr worked at being unpredictable. She was believable as a steadfast nun in Black Narcissus; as the love-hungry wife of an empty-headed army captain stationed at Pearl Harbor in “From Here to Eternity”; as a headmaster’s spouse who sleeps with an 18-year-old student to prove to him that he is a man in “Tea and Sympathy”; as a spunky schoolmarm not afraid to joust and dance with the King of Siam in “The King and I”; as a Salvation Army lass in “Major Barbara”; and even as Portia, the Roman matron married to Brutus, in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”

She could be virginal, ethereal, gossamer and fragile, or earthy, spicy and suggestive, and sometimes she managed to display all her skills at the same time.
Oh, can't we all? Just for today? Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive — all at the same time.

22 comments:

Bob said...

Sounds like the overblown prose used for wine writing.

ricpic said...

What a womanly woman she was. RIP

rcocean said...

Don't forget the "Life and Death of Col. Blimp" where she plays:

1) spunky Edwardian Governess;
2) classy 1920s wife and former army nurse; and
3) earthy WWII British WAC.

Just a wonderful actress.

Trooper York said...

Karen Holmes: Don't try to be gallant, Sergeant. If you think this is a mistake, come right out and say so.... Well, I guess it's about time for me to be heading home, isn't it?... Well, isn't it?
Sergeant Milton Warden: What's the matter? What started all this, anyway? You think I'd be here if I thought it was a mistake? Taking a chance on 20 years in Leavenworth for making dates with the company commander's wife? And her acting like - like Lady Astor's horse, and all because I got here on time!
Karen Holmes: Well, on the other hand, I've got a bathing suit under my dress...
Sergeant Milton Warden: Me too!
(From Here to Eternity 1953)

Darkbloom said...

Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive

I suppose these are the seven possible conditions for a woman. Given the twelve possible body types, that means a total of 84 possible combinations! If you switch daily, you can go almost three months before repeating one.

The Pretentious Ignoramus said...

The word gossamer needs to be put to rest. It is about as fresh as one of Bob Seger's Greatest Hits.

Laura Reynolds said...

Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive

I'll suggest that we reveal too much of ourselves these days, for those terms to be used.

James Wigderson said...

How does the New York Times avoid mentioning "An Affair to Remember?"

Anonymous said...

Robert E. Lee "Prew' Prewitt: A man should be what he can do.

Karen Holmes: Which isn’t me, Cpt. Dixie, so recalibrate your aim. I'll have better.
(The Eternal Kiss-off, 2007)

reader_iam said...

Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive — all at the same time.

Given that are some things on that list I can't be, period, it seems I've flunked the "all at the same time" test before even starting it.

George M. Spencer said...

What a vase!

She also starred with Burt Lancaster (and Gene Hackman) in The Gypsy Moths, a 1969 John Frankenheimer movie about skydivers who put on a show in a small Kansas town.

rhhardin said...

Guys going to the lobby is how the movie theaters make their money.

Unknown said...

Little known fact:

When she was a young girl, she had a strict "Victorian" grandmother who made her lie on her back, on the floor, for long periods of time, in order to "straighten her back" and ensure good posture.

Tim said...

Total Classic Babe.

None like her in Hollywood since.

Pity, that - except, of course, that's part of her charm.

RIP.

Bissage said...

Please note the video starts with a blast of surf on the communal naughty bits.

To anyone who’s ever been to Long Beach Island, NJ, . . . in early August . . . during a jellyfish run . . . with a storm offshore . . . well . . . let’s just say it’s an experience one never forgets.

Cedarford said...

Kerr? Impact player in Tinsletown.

I am amazed that they forget how good Kerr was in "An Affair to Remember"

Dead in her mid-80s...time passes...

But Hollywood, like pine resin trapping life and turning to amber, both killing and immortalizing its pawns...sure delivered with the immortalizing Hawaii beach scene 55 years ago with Kerr and Lancaster.

Two vital, attractive Hollywood elite holding nothing of their passion & charisma back in the surf. Burt Lancaster is as hot for women viewers, in my experience...

Essence captured in amber, essence caught in living art on film Hollywood occasionally, more times than not accidentally, reaches true majesty.

rhhardin said...

Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive — all at the same time.

[the dancer] sums up the subject
through her divination mingled with pure, disturbing animality, designating at every turn uncompleted allusions, just as she invites, before any step, with two fingers, a quivering fold of her skirts and simulates an impatience of plumes toward the idea ... Then, through a kind of commerce whose secret her smile seems to pour forth, without delay she imparts to you, through the last veil that remains forever, the nudity of your own concepts, and silently proceeds to write your vision in the manner of a Sign, which she is.

-- Mallarme

Suzie Nolen Bennett said...

Shall... we... DANCE???

warren said...

Oh, can't we all? Just for today? Be virginal, ethereal, gossamer, fragile, earthy, spicy, and suggestive — all at the same time.

Hell, I'm still trying to get past "intermittently flatulent."

Anonymous said...

"Never try to trick me with a kiss"

MarkW said...

It's hard for me to describe all the ways that clip doesn't work for me, I mean AT ALL. The music, the poses, the running and flinging oneself on a blanket, the dialog -- it all seems so cheesy, so fake, so stagy...so ridiculous. Take the way Burt Lancaster stands up and then crouches in a forward lean before he runs -- no real person ever does that, but it seems like 50's actors all did. Did somebody actually *teach* that to actors? And if so, why?

Methadras said...

Seriously... That is still hot in my book. Oofa!!!