Being the classic film buff I am, from time to time, I feel like I just have to post about some of my favorite old matinee idols. And it’s that time again.
I’m not sure if I’ve dedicated a post to him in the past, but I’m dedicating a post to him now:
Mr. George Brent.
George Brent is an example of one of the film stars that finds me, rather than me finding him. Allow me to explain.
In my mind, I have a set list of actors and actresses I love. Names that I drop everything I’m doing for, just to see them if one of their films comes on:
Jimmy Stewart, James Cagney, Leslie Howard, Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, Olivia De Haviland, Kay Francis, Constance Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck…the list goes on and on.
One of my very favorite actresses has always been Bette Davis. I react to a Bette Davis picture coming on like a Michael Jackson performance. Don’t call my phone, don’t ring my doorbell. Do not bother me when Bette is on! It’s like committing a sin.
Anyway, for about a week beforehand, Turner Classic Movies--my home for all the good oldies--had been making a big to-do about films from the year 1939.
Nineteen thirty-nine is heralded as the year of grand, classic movies, such as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and The Women--films I’ve seen about a hundred times each.
I kept hearing mention of this film Dark Victory which starred Bette Davis. And people kept saying has the film come out a year before or after the likes of GWTW, it most likely would have swept the Academy Awards. Bette gives a tour de force performance as Judith Trehune, a young socialite who is slowly dying from a brain glioma.
Going into the picture, I already knew Bette was going to die, as Robert Osborne very kindly let the cat out the bag.
But I watched the movie anyway and I really thank God I did.
About 10-15 minutes into the film, after Judith is thrown from a horse because her vision tripled, you see a doctor--Dr. Steele-- cleaning out his office, getting ready to move to Vermont.
As I sat watching this being, in a tweed vest and trousers graced the screen.
This tall, thick bodied, broad shouldered man. Dark of hair, pale of skin, light of eyes. Eyes so beautiful, they sparkled, even in a black-and-white picture. Careful, chiseled features. A thin, strip of a mustache over a pert set of lips.
I hadn’t heard angels sing like that since I had first seen Jimmy Stewart in Harvey.
This sorely handsome creature, starting to do a medical exam on Bette Davis, was George Brent.
Before the film was over, I knew I was a fan of this man and had to see more of his films. And I wanted to be sick just to have him as Dr. Steele practice on me.
And thank God for the people at TCM, every few weeks a George movie is on. Over the last few years, I’ve seen scores of films featuring him. He was quite the popular man in the Pre-code Era (films released prior to July 1934. The “code“ being the Hays Censor Code.)
I’ve seen him such pictures as Baby Face with Barbara Stanwyck (my fave BS picture aside from Stella Dallas), Female with Ruth Chatterton (whom Brent was married to briefly.) and Jezebel with Bette.
(With Stanwyck--top-- and Chatterton)
Though I forget the name of it, I was fortunate enough to see George in a color film from the ‘40’s and was able to marvel at his blue-green eyes. (He’s Irish, another reason I like him as I’m part Irish too--way down the line of course.)
George is another one of those men who fits into the criteria of what I like--tall, dark, handsome and witty. (Okay, I realize Leslie Howard was blonde as a Barbie doll and James Cagney was a Ginger, but give me a break!)
I suppose I appreciate him because he represents a breed of men that no longer seems to exist. The gentlemanly, suit-wearing types that always opened a door and pulled out a chair for a lady.
That breed died out long before I was even born. They just don’t make men like that any more. (Michael Jackson was perhaps the last of that type, and alas, he is no more, too.)
Maybe I do cling to the past, and a past I’ve never known at that. But I do miss that sort of way, a man being kind and not always out to get naked in five minutes.
I just treasure that in the old actors.
Especially George Brent.
