We briefly interrupt this celebration of all things Jane Austen to bring you a few lovely pictures of Alan Ladd. And to celebrate the fact that it was one year ago today that I first watched Whispering Smith (1948) and fell "in love" with him.
I've seen seventeen of his films now, and own another nine that are waiting for me to watch them. Trouble is, I keep rewatching the ones I've already seen (and there are a whole bunch I want to watch yet again to review here), so seeing new ones goes slowly. Which is how I like it, because you know I love to savor things I enjoy.
I've never before had an actor rise so quickly up my list of favorites. While John Wayne is still my #1, Alan now runs him a close #2, which means Hugh Jackman has fallen to #3. What's crazy to me about that is that it took me almost ten years to decide Hugh Jackman was my second-favorite and displace Harrison Ford from that spot, where Harrison had reigned second only to John Wayne for almost twenty years. And then along comes Alan Ladd and, within six months, there he is, firmly ensconced near the top of my heart.
So here's to you, Alan Ladd, the quiet man who played so many hard-hitters, but was by all accounts a very sweet and soft-hearted person in real life. And here's to the year to come and all the movies of yours I will watch in it.
That is a very, very good-looking man.
ReplyDelete*nods sagely*
I especially like the 3rd photo from the top . . .
Speaking of movies, I haven't watched any new ones since my semester started. I WANT to, but I want to write even more; so I've been using all my free time doing that. Maybe in a week or two I'll try watching another movie. I have my eye on "Chariots of Fire" because I've wanted to see it for a long, long time.
Oh--and I can't wait for Beauty and the Beast!!! One month from today. YAS.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah, that third pic is pretty devastating. He was almost impossibly handsome, especially when he was young.
DeleteChariots of Fire is amazing. Oh my word, I can't wait for you to watch it!
Haha, I keep forgetting BATB is coming out in March too. My brain is just doing dances about Logan.
Now I need to see my first Alan Ladd!!!
ReplyDeleteAha! Well, I would be more than happy to recommend something. Do you like westerns? Film noir? Kinda actiony war movies? "Women's stories"?
DeleteWesterns and Film noir are always fun.
DeletePerfect :-D ::rubs hands together with glee:: I happen to love his westerns and noirs the mostest. Shane is what he's most famous for, and it's a beautiful western. Plus, it's fairly easy to find at libraries and cheap to buy copies of. I also really love Whispering Smith and Branded. (I'm linking all these titles to my reviews so that you can read more about them if you want to.)
DeleteFor film noir, my favorite is the one that gave Alan his big break: This Gun for Hire. I also really love The Blue Dahlia, and The Glass Key is very enjoyable as well.
Hope that helps! If you try any of those, please leave me a comment to let me know what you thought of it :-)
Oh fun! I defenetly will have to try those!!! :D And thank you for linking them to your reviews!
DeleteYou're welcome, MC :-)
DeleteHappy Alaniversary Hamlette! Quite a few great photos too! The third one is probably my favorite--he looks like Dan Holiday in that one. :)
ReplyDeleteHe's certainly one of the best "strong and silent" types and made a great cowboy. Whispering Smith is such a good film of his, I'm glad you introduced me to it!
Thanks, Annie! He does have a certain Dan Holiday thing going on there. I've got a pic somewhere of him recording radio, presumably Box 13.
DeleteI'm glad you like Whispering Smith so much! Really my favorite role of his :-)
Hello! I want to thank you, Hamlette, for sharing so much of your Alan Ladd appreciation with the world through your blog. I 're-discovered' him last summer when I happened to listen to Box 13 during a stressful time and was pleased to enjoy and find comfort in that radio series. Since then I have been attempting to watch and review an Alan Ladd movie once a month, but I don't blog, so I can't share with as many people as I would like! I believe that I've seen 25 or 26 of his performances, but many of them before I was really watching out for him. (Some I would have seen when I was a kid and probably not paying much attention to anything!) Since last September, nine. Time for another soon! Reading your Alan Ladd posts is a joy of recognition of a shared passion - we even plant dahlias for the same reason! It is nice to know that there are other fans out there in the world - and that some are fans of our generation, too. Please keep writing, and wishing you all the best with your creative work as well - VT Dorchester
ReplyDeleteHi, VT! Thanks for the comment! I'm so glad you've been enjoying Alan's performances. Box 13 is an awesome little show! Even before I was a Ladd fan, I was a fan of it. Is that weird? Well, it's true.
DeleteWhere do you record your reviews, if you don't blog? Just curious.
Just yesterday, I learned that a fellow blogger is hosting a blogathon for Alan's birthday in September. She's willing to post other people's reviews on her own blog if they want to contribute but don't have a blog, so if you're interested in that, here's the sign-up post.
I planted dahlias yesterday! Found some really pretty burgandy ones this year. I have to have some in my containers every year, just in his honor :-)
Thanks for stopping by! If you feel like commenting on any of my posts about his films, I'm always happy to go back and discuss things I posted about in the past. It's always so good to "meet" another Alan Ladd fan :-)
I have to admit I haven't had much luck with getting dahlias to actually grow yet, but, well, we try again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about the blogathon. Not sure I'll participate but I've made a note about it and am considering asking about sending in a review or two.
At the moment all I'm doing with my reviews is sending them out to people I know in the mail. (One of my hobbies is sending people mail, I have about a dozen correspondents at any one time.) I've also tried posting a couple of reviews to rottentomatoes, but have had a lot of technical trouble with posting to the site, and have concluded it's not really worth the bother at the moment.
I'm trying to focus on developing as a creative short story teller these days, and Alan Ladd is distracting me.
A couple of days ago I went on youtube to look up something completely unrelated, and the youtube algorithm, which is clearly on to me, probably, in this case due to my repeat listening to the song clip from The Big Land, suggested an interview with Virginia Mayo -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBqJO5cMiE4
It's all kinda interesting, but the part 10m50s to 12m45s is the part where she talks about working with Alan Ladd. Have read her thoughts on working on The Iron Mistress before, but it's nice to see/hear it, too. Just thought I'd throw that out there in case you haven't seen it yet and are looking for a quick Alan Ladd fix!
And I don't really regret the half hour distracted by the interview when I was "supposed to be" doing research for an unrelated story. That's the sort of terrible I'm happy to live with.
I might well comment on a couple of your past posts in the near future.
Oh, just a quick comment on one - I read your review of Red Mountain (which I don't think I've seen) and I laughed at your comment "Is it weird I can recognize Alan Ladd from how he walks and stands?" because it reminded me that when I watched the 1941 version of The Black Cat, in which there is a scene where "someone" reaches out from behind a curtain at one point, and you only see hands and maybe an arm and who it is is supposed to be a mystery, I had no doubt at all. I said out loud "that's Alan Ladd." And it was his character. And then in my notes/review I ask if maybe I'm watching too much, because this can't be normal. (Now someone is going to tell me that even though it's meant to be Alan Ladd's character, it wasn't actually him, and I'm going to be crushed. :-) And impressed by movie tricks.)
Nice to "meet" you too. - VT
VT, Rotten Tomatoes never worked for me either, so I gave up on it after a few tries.
DeleteAlan Ladd can definitely be distracting :-) Though I find that if I put him IN a story, playing a character, so to speak, he can also be very helpful! In fact, he's in basically everything I write these days.
Thanks for that clip! I'll watch it soon.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who can recognize just random small parts of Alan :-) I haven't seen The Black Cat yet, but one day! I think it's on YouTube. Maybe for Halloween.
Hmmm...so you... cast him into your stories? I might have to try that sometime!
ReplyDelete-VT
Goodness, yes. He's been in just about everything I've written since I fell for him. Most especially, he played Hauer in my book Cloaked and Sheriff Walbridge in my book Dancing and Doughnuts, though he's got a small part in the book I'm working on now too. In fact, I dedicated Cloaked to his memory. I figure if Louis L'Amour could write a book in his honor, I could too :-)
DeleteSheriff Walbridge, eh? :) (Has anyone noticed that?)
ReplyDeleteI've added Cloaked to my "to be obtained and read" list. Might take awhile to get to it, though. It comes first in your series, right?
-VT
VT, well, I don't know if anyone else caught that, though my bff knows cuz I told her ;-)
DeleteCloaked is the first, but the books don't go in a specific order, as they're each separate stories with separate characters. I've got some free short stories that tag along with the books too -- you can get those as ebooks on Amazon, B&N, and Kobo.
Hi Hamlette! Just wanted to let you know that I now have a copy of Cloaked in my pile-o-books beside my desk. It's five or six down, so it might take a month or two for me to get to it.
ReplyDeleteAwww, how cool! I hope you enjoy it when you get to it :-)
Delete