More Hollywood Fun

Amusing headline from nypost.com: “Cop turned OnlyFans star makes $2M a year, fears men only want her money: ‘I’m scared of gold diggers’.” Cue messers Bowie and Lennon: “Fame, fame, fame, fame…”

Interesting headline from newsmax.com: “What Happened to Russia’s Air Force? US Officials, Experts Stumped.” So far it has seen limited action.

Last night Movies!, channel 5–2 on OTA in NYC, ran a western I’d never seen, Westward the Women (1951), starring Robert Taylor as a tough, uncompromising trail boss leading more than a hundred females on a long trek to California and the prospective husbands awaiting their arrival. I was surprised at how hardboiled it was. It pulled no punches in the depiction of the hardships and violence those hardy folks faced. About one-third don’t make it. Many in the cast very only vaguely familiar. Hope Emerson always stands out because of her size and gruff manner. John McIntyre is solid as can be. Denise Darcel is charming, using French whenever angry. It’s hard to believe she appeared in only ten films and four TV shows. Did she refuse to play ball with predators or was she a diva to the max, or perhaps both? Maybe the fact that she was married and divorced five times answers that question. She did much better on the stage, in dinner theaters and night clubs. According to her bio at IMDb, she later made ends meet by working as a dealer in Vegas. She passed away at 86 in 2011… Also surprising was my lack of recognition of Naples-born Renata Vanni, who played a widow. Her career spanned 1949-’89. She was a star on Italian radio and theater in NYC, which led to a Hollywood contract. She was at home on the big or small screen. There are 87 titles under her name, many of her characters names ending in a vowel. She passed away at 94 in 2004… Westward… was directed by four-time Oscar nominee William Wellman, who was at the helm of one of my favorites, Battleground (1949), and the classic The Ox-bow Incident (1942) and the original version of A Star Is Born (1937), for which he received his Academy Award in the category of Screenplay, shared with co-writer Robert Carson. There are 81 titles under his name. He passed away at 79 in 1975… I wonder why this fine film was not a staple on the independent stations back in the day. That is the case with many of the flicks running on Movies! Maybe it was a rights issue or, in this case, a running time just shy of two hours. Here are Darcel and Vanni in character:

Gorgeous day to sell stuff curbside. My thanks to the two ladies who donated books, and to the couple who bought Lock Every Door by Riley Sager; and to the gentleman who purchased Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner aka Data; and to the one who took home a travel guide on Thailand; and to the folks who combined to buy four books in Russian.

My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts

Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza