Tag: Richard Egan

Children's · Classic Films

Pollyanna

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Image credit: Pollyanna, 1960

Sometimes, it can be challenging to play the “glad game”. I’ve been thinking about this recently as I approach the one-year anniversary of my novel Follow the Sun being published. I look back on those photos of my launch party and my smiling face as I finally saw my book on a shelf, and I want to go back in time and tell this person: enjoy it because this might be the only day you’ll feel like you’re “enough”. As I wrestle with my thoughts about a book that never really found its audience, and contemplate getting back on the roller coaster again, I think about what Richard Egan says in this week’s pick Pollyanna (Disc/Download): “What this girl really needs is a good shot in the arm of hope.”

In Disney’s first venture into live-action cinema, Hayley Mills plays the perpetually sunny orphan Pollyanna, who is sent to live with her rich spinster aunt Polly. In a town full of jaded, disgruntled people, this little girl is a bright light of positivity. She convinces Agnes Moorehead that it’s far too early to be picking out a coffin, she shows Adolphe Menjou that his knowledge of refracted light is actually really cool, and she helps Jane Wyman find a second chance at love with Richard Egan. With a cast like this, and a heavy dose of melodramatic music, I’m a little shocked this film was not directed by Douglas Sirk. It feels very Sirk, with a dash of Frank Capra. Just like George Bailey, Pollyanna will realize that when the chips are down, and her little white-stocking’d legs are paralyzed after a bad fall off the roof, it’s her community who’s really there for her. They are what she can be glad about, just like I’m glad for mine.

One thing I can say about Harrington (sorry, “Gladtown”) is that the residents really like their ice cream. I didn’t even know ice cream was such a thing at the turn of the century, let alone variations like Sorbet and Frappes! This week, let’s enjoy this sweet pink riff on the Strawberry Frappe, a Ladies Aid.

Ladies Aid

2 oz Beefeater Pink Gin

1 scoop Vanilla Ice Cream

3/4 oz Lemon Juice

1/4 cup Milk

3-4 Strawberries, sliced

3/4 cup crushed ice

Strawberry (garnish)

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass with one large ice cube, and garnish with fresh strawberry.

I am all too aware of how many wonderful manuscripts never make it out of an agent’s slush pile, and therefore I’ll always be glad mine miraculously made it through the gauntlet of luck, timing, and craft to land with a major publisher who put so much care into the editorial and design process (not to mention the stellar audiobook version, which totally made me cry happy tears!!!). I am also glad that the wonderful people who did read Follow the Sun have reached out with their positive reactions and let me know my work meant something to them. I’m glad I still have this blog, which brings me so much joy and stress-relief week after week. I’m glad that by publishing this book, I saw my Cinema Sips community grow even more, because as it turns out, people who like to read also like movies and cocktails. I’m glad I have people in my life encouraging me to try, try again. Maybe, just maybe, I’m playing the game after all. Cheers!

Classic Films · Dramas

The Revolt of Mamie Stover

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Image credit: The Revolt of Mamie Stover, 1956

It took all of ten seconds to get me hooked on The Revolt of Mamie Stover (Disc), a campy 1950s melodrama directed by Roaul Walsh. As we watch Jane Russell step out of a police car to noirish music, the camera zooms in just as she turns to face the screen with a scowl of defiance. Talk about an entrance!!!!

Set in Hawaii on the cusp of the Pearl Harbor attack, this DeLuxe Color soap opera features strong female characters, romance, tiki drinks, and vinyl records. In other words, just a typical Sunday night in my living room. As sex-worker Mamie Stover, Jane Russell is smart, acerbic, and focused on one thing and one thing only—money. Although tempted into the straight life by writer Jim Blair (Richard Egan), Mamie understands sex is her ultimate weapon. If a guy can’t handle that, then aloha, buddy. Don’t let the bamboo door hit you on the way out. Sure, she makes a legit fortune buying up cheap properties in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack (shot in an incredibly moving, realistic way), but she still can’t relinquish the power that comes with her regular dance hall gig. Mamie is the star attraction, and club owner Agnes Moorehead (!!!) will stop at nothing to prevent her meal ticket from leaving.

If there was ever a movie that begs for a tiki cocktail, it’s this one. I’m taking inspiration from our red-headed star seductress for this drink, which goes up in flames just like Mamie’s love life. While watching The Revolt of Mamie Stover, I recommend drinking a Flaming Mamie.

Flaming Mamie

3 oz Jamaican Rum

1 oz Brandy

1 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Cinnamon Syrup

½ oz Velvet Falernum

2 dashes Angostura Bitters

½ Fresh Lime

1 oz 151-proof Demerara Rum

Combine first seven ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until chilled. Set aside. Fill a scorpion bowl with crushed ice, then strain cocktail into it. Place a hollowed-out 1/2 lime in the center reservoir, fill with 151-proof rum, and light on fire. Serve with two straws.

This spicy cocktail is a lot like Mamie herself- complex, hot-headed, and dangerous if you get too close. As much as I love to think of Mamie in a tropical paradise, cashing those rental checks forever, a part of me is glad she eventually decides to head back to her small, judgmental hometown. It means this revolt isn’t over yet. Cheers!

Classic Films

A Summer Place

LizLocke1 Comment

Image Credit Warner Bros, 1959, A Summer Place
Image Credit Warner Bros, 1959, A Summer Place

True confession: I’m a sucker for any movie with Sandra Dee in an A-line dress. I’m also a sucker for melodramatic movies of the 1950’s, the type that would have been playing at a drive-in movie theater. This week’s Cinema Sips pick, A Summer Place (DVD) fulfills both criteria. I must have caught this movie on AMC back in high school (when they actually showed classic films) and from the moment I laid eyes on Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue as two star-crossed teenage lovers, I was hooked. Throw in cardigan sweaters and preppy boat shoes, and well, we may as well just call this a perfect movie.

A Summer Place is about two teens who find themselves together on an exclusive New England resort called Pine Island for the summer. Troy Donahue plays the son of the innkeeper, and Sandra Dee is the daughter of a family that comes to stay. As it turns out, Sandra Dee’s father (played by Richard Egan) used to be involved with Troy Donahue’s mother (played by Dorothy McGuire) when he was the lifeguard there as a teenager, and even though each married other people, they never forgot each other. As you can guess, romance rekindles between the parents as it blossoms among their children. The writers of this film’s script make the ensuing adultery pretty convenient, since she’s married to an alcoholic and he’s married to a racist. OF COURSE they’d have affairs. Admittedly, it’s a soap opera, complete with wonderfully melodramatic music, kooky supporting characters, and hysterical overacting. But the scenes of ocean waves crashing against craggily rocks, afternoon sailing, and a cocktail hour where everyone dresses up make me swoon. It’s what summer should be.

This film was an easy choice for Cinema Sips because it features some great drunk scene-stealing by actor Arthur Kennedy. He tells it like it is, even when “it” happens to be that his wife is sleeping with her former lover again. He’s an alcoholic for sure, but a dignified alcoholic. None of those bar fights or crying meltdowns that movie alcoholics are traditionally known for. So in his honor, I’m mixing up a great standby WASPy summer drink- a Pine Island Gin & Tonic.

Pine Island Gin & Tonic

1.5 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin

3 oz Fever Tree tonic water

Lime wedge

Sprig of Rosemary for garnish

Build ingredients in a tumbler full of ice. Squeeze a bit of the lime juice into the glass, stir, and garnish with rosemary and lime wedge.

Pine-Island-Gin-and-Tonic

I’m adding a sprig of rosemary to this because it mirrors the pine trees surrounding the inn. And it fancies up a drink that, admittedly, is pretty simple. But in summertime, when it’s hot out, this is the drink that I make more often than anything else. It’s easy, delicious, and really hits the spot. Be sure to use the best ingredients though, because when you’ve got a simple drink, it’s abundantly clear when you’ve skimped on quality. I like to fix one of these and imagine I’m sitting at Richard Egan’s Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home bar, as I listen to the ocean waves crashing and watch Troy Donahue stroll down the beach in his short shorts and cardigan sweater.   Très jolie, as the French would say. Très, très jolie. Cheers!