795 thoughts on “Site Index”

1. 1 HI STEVE you and the Industrious One are certainly shaking my nostalgia tree this morning with new profiles of two “Big” girls whose heyday or part thereof was in my beloved 1950s. However whilst Mamie was an unashamed Monroe copycat Jane Russell who pre-dated MM was an original of sorts whatever one thinks of her acting skills. There is though a Dan-like link between Jane and Mamie because the latter had an uncredited role in the Russell/Mitchum His Kind of Woman which Joel mentions in a post on this site today.

   2 Mamie might not be a great artistic subject to profile but this video of her is a cracker, in fact deserving a 96% rating. Eye popping POSTERS are in abundance and include those for The Candidate [tagline My bed is for Sale] Born Reckless, Running Wild, The Beat Generation, Aint Misbehaving, Vice Raid and The Girl in Black Stockings. Mamie is the first actress of whom I know who has openly admitted to being the nymphomaniac that is implied in your video’s opening quote

   3 Excellent STILLS are those of Mamie smoking[was that one of thosepopular “after” cigarettes?] her and monkey friend, with Bernie Schwartz in The All American [aka The Winning Way] and the beautiful closing color photo of Mamie in her physical prime.

   4 When Mamie’s contract with Universal expired in 1956 she made a number of films that at the time some might have been regarded as bordering on soft porn like Sex Kittens Go To College. To the best of my knowledge Russell didn’t continue to exploit her body in that way but she did take to lucratively advertising brassieres on TV. Mamie had an uncredited role in Wayne’s notorious Jet Pilot (1957) which its maker Howard Hughes loved and watched continually because of its politics though the latter was seen as so Gung Ho by the US Republican Party that they had the release of the movie [further] delayed in case it cost incumbent President Ike the votes of moderate Americans.

   5 WH has no movie page on Mamie yet and as in the case of Jayne Mansfield he seems to have not rated too many of Mamie’s movies elsewhere which often were “junk” and/or had no important stars in them. However your No 1 ranked Van Doren movie the Gable/Doris Day Teacher’s Pet he rates as 73.3% compared with your 76.2% I wonder what Joel thinks though.

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   1. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing my video of the original Atomic Blonde – Mamie Van Doren – appreciate the rating, info, trivia, comment, observation and comparison!

      I thought since I had done a video on blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield it’s only fair I also do a video on the other Marilyn wannabe Van Doren.

      I’ve only seen one of her films – Teacher’s Pet.

      Mamie has two films scoring 8 out of 10 from my sources – Teacher’s Pet and the western Star in the Dust. And 10 films scoring less the 5, whoa! There are porn actresses with better scores than this. [wink]

      “Well, when I got my contract at Universal, Jayne Mansfield wasn’t known yet. Marilyn Monroe was at 20th Century Fox. When I started at Universal, it was James Bacon who put the publicity out that my name was Mamie Van Doren and I was Universal’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. That really launched my name. I took a bunch of sexy pictures, and then they put me in The All American (1953). My next picture was Yankee Pasha (1954) with Jeff Chandler, which was a very sexy role as a slave girl. If you do one movie after the other, and you’re out there all the time, and out doing publicity and romancing the stars of the top studios, you become known. That is the way it was.

      There was a screenplay written for me called Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), which I turned down because it was a satire on Marilyn Monroe and I didn’t want to be compared to her anymore. Well, they got Jayne Mansfield, who was an unknown, and that made her famous.”

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      1. STEVE/WORK HORSE
         1 “Better late than never” with WH’s Jane page and at last I can compare your Jane Russell Top 5s. Actually you both have the exact same main 5 in very slightly different order. They seem to have been largely the Russell ones that Hirsch liked best so I can only hope that Steve too is not coming under Joel’s spell.

         2 Surprisingly you both rank Son of Paleface above the more popular forerunner Paleface. Maybe Steve plumped for that one because Roy Rogers was in it and Bruce went for it because Trigger was naturally with Roy, and Trigger too was certainly a Work Horse with all those movies he was in.

         3 I have no preference because the song Buttons and Bows was in both and when I was 11/12 years of age I loved that song and drove adults wild by singing it night and day. Anyway as always the Jane video and Cogerson page beautifully complement each other.

         4 I always enjoy any backchat Steve has to offer and I noticed that in the case of Mamie he mentioned Star in the Dust (1956). That was one of those lush Technicolor westerns that Universal used to churn out but which sadly are no more. It was Mamie’s last movie under her Universal contract which she would not renew because she apparently felt that Universal were not giving her good parts. It’s other claim to trivia fame is that its star and hero was John Agar better known through marriage as Mr Shirley Temple just as Bruce is known to regulars on this site as Mr W o C.

         Paras 1 to 3 have been copied to Jane’s new page

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      2. Steve

         “There was a screenplay written for me called Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) which I turned down because it was a satire on Marilyn Monroe and I didn’t want to be compared to her anymore. Well, they got Jayne Mansfield, who was an unknown, and that made her famous.”

         This whole quote is very inaccurate. I would take it with a grain of salt. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter was first a stage play on Broadway. It was a big hit and ran over a year starting in late 1955 when it made Mansfield a star. She was already appearing as the mystery guest on What’s My Line while performing in the play. Info on the play can be found at the Internet Broadway Database. Mansfield’s co-stars were Walter Matthau, Martin Gabel, and Orson Bean. In 1956 Mansfield starred in the movie The Girl Can’t Help It, which was a top ten box-office hit.
         And then came Rock Hunter in 1957. It is very difficult for me to believe that Mamie at this point would have been in the running for the role unless Jayne was not available.
         One thing about Mansfield. She made a legitimately big splash in 1956 and 1957. The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter were top ten movie box-office hits, and Hunter run for over a year on Broadway.

         *Mansfield’s appearance on What’s My Line while appearing in the play version of Rock Hunter in 1956 is on you tube. The first of several appearances.
         **Mamie also appeared as the mystery guest on What’s My Line in 1957. That is also on you tube.

         The reason I know all this trivia is that I stumbled on the you tube tape of Mansfield’s 1956 appearance on WML and was frankly surprised that she was first a Broadway star as is revealed in the questioning, and so did research on the IBDB.

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2. HI STEVE
   1 You certainly caught me by [albeit a pleasant] surprise today as I hadn’t thought about Jayne in years and had therefore obviously not expected a video from you about her. I’m in good company though as the Work Horse has not thought of doing a page on her so far.

   2 Indeed I’ve been wondering lately if his multi activities are not getting too much for even that magnificent grinder as I felt that he was possibly slipping behind in producing new profiles. For example despite you and I dropping many hints over the weekend no Cthulhu page has materialised and in the Old Days that might not have been the case.

   3 Kiss Them for Me your video’s cover movie was blamed by Cary Grant for being the only flop in his fine run of box office successes from To Catch a Thief in 1955 to Father Goose in 1964 and he couldn’t resist a public tirade against Mansfield whom he blamed for its failure.

   4 Jayne had a relatively short career having been sadly killed in a car accident in 1967 at the age of 37 but her mainstream Hollywood career was in decline well before that, so you’ve done well to create a profile of her. Few if any of your provocative POSTERS left much to the imagination but from the artistic viewpoint the best in my opinion and worth an overall 96% rating to this video were The Female Jungle, Primitive Love, It Happened in Athens, Panic Button Dog Eat Dog and Playgirl.After Dark.

   5 Best STILLS were I thought (1) a happy Jane with the automobile, sadly ironic in view of her cause of death (2) all lovey dovey with her sternest critic sailor Archie Leach (3) with Brit Joan Collins in The Wayward Bus a nostalgic one for me because I recall that at the time we were told that my Richard [Widmark} was going to be in the eventual Dan Daily part (4) and it is hard to resist that final closing one of Jayne wrapped in nothing but fur!

   6 I’ll probably be told off again for saying this but I couldn’t immediately identify more than a couple of WH ratings for Jayne’s movies probably because the majority of them were unimportant/non-mainstream and/or contained only minor co-stars. I mean would the Work Horse with even his massive movies knowledge and sources have heard of Trax Colton?

   7 However the Work Horse certainly agrees with his idol about the 1957 Kiss Them for Me being a big flop because he gives it just a 51% rating and though you were more generous with a 60% one Bruce’s adjusted gross for the movie is a mere $55.9 million whereas Cary’s average Cogerson adjusted domestic gross for the other 12 movies that he made between 1955 and his 1966 retirement was a massive $187.5 million. No wonder Archie went ballistic over Kiss Them for Me.

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   1. Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my Blonde Bombshell video, appreciate the extra info and trivia on this Hollywood sex symbol who I’m sure still has a fan following 50 years after her death in a car crash. Glad you liked the posters and stills.

      She was ‘tastefully’ nude in a couple of movie posters and I couldn’t include them on the video in case I incurred the wrath of the youtube moderators.

      Even more voluptuous than Marilyn Monroe though not as talented I was only really familiar with a couple of Jayne’s films – The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

      There are no 10 out of 10 scores in Mansfield’s filmography (from my sources), but there are a couple of 9’s – Rock Hunter and Guide for the Married Man, both ratings from Leonard Maltin who wasn’t impressed with The Girl Can’t Help It (arguably her most famous film though not the chart topper here).

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      1. Hey Steve….just commented on your latest video….and shared it here. Thinking I need to give you your own page….so we can share the links there. And the comments will have a better home for the stars I have not done yet.

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   2. Hey Bob….good breakdown on Steve’s latest video…which can be seen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpqoLvkJyug

      Kiss Them For Me….is one of my least favorite movies….and easily the worst one he made after briefly retiring in the early 1950s. So the limited box office is not shocking at all.

      I do find it interesting that Cary got to work with the biggest blonde bombshells of all-time…Mae West (two times), Marilyn Monroe (two times) and Jayne (one time).

      Since school let out….I have been generating a new page every 2.15 days (love stats…can you tell?…lol)…..they just might not be the pages you want….so the grind is not getting to me….but I only have about 3 more weeks of summer bliss….before school starts.

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      1. Thanks Bruce. You have been productive the past few weeks. At least you’ve done pages on all the really famous movie people. How many are left?

         I haven’t really started rating the modern movie stars yet, just a handful, so I have about another years worth of videos to get thru before I start running out of subjects. I might do a yearly thing, similar to what you were doing but with a twist, not necessarily the highest rated films of the year, or the highest grossing.

         The next lady on my list is even bigger than Jayne, if such a thing is possible. Who can it be? [bites fist]

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         1. Hey Steve….I think the list is endless. When I look at my banner….and see all the recent UMR subjects…I shake my head in disbelief that I have reached a point that I actually have pages on Bryan Cranston, Roddy MacDowall, Peter Falk and Joel Hirschhorn. I remember back in 2011 when the possible subjects were Cary Grant, Clark Gable, William Holden….the star wattage has gone down for sure.

            I bet the modern stars might not be as popular. The competition with the classic stars is not as fierce as it is with the modern stars. My pages go from first page Google search results to 5th or 6th page the younger the subject.

            I am betting….when you say “bigger” we are talking about a physical characteristic so I will put my money on Jane Russell.

            🙂

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      2. HI BRUCE

         At least unlike Mae chronologically Jayne and Marilyn couldn’t claim that they “made” Cary though they probably would have done so if it had been practical as they both got up to all kinds of publicity gimmicks particularly Jayne. As Mr Mumbles once said during his feud with Hope “Bob loves publicity so much that if he saw three people queuing at a telephone booth he’d be over trying to impress them with funnies,” to which the always articulate Hope replied when someone confronted him with Bud’s quip “Marlon wouldn’t know ajoke if he tripped over it.”

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         1. Hey Bob….my final comment for awhile…as I have a training class that I am required to attend. Yeah….Jayne and Marilyn could not even remotely make that claim. Fun story about Hope and Brando.

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3. Hey Steve and Bob….good conversation about Sandra Dee and her movies. Lots of good stuff here. Makes me think I need a Sandra Dee page…and need it quick.

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   1. HI BRUCE

      Please regard this post as an “official request from a regular” as Steve’s nostalgia invoking video has sharpened my interest in Sandra’s stats career.

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      1. But Bob…I would have to research 8 whole movies….lol. She is now on my mental request list.

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4. HI BRUCE:

   1 When I bemoaned the fact that you had “let us down” over coverage of Sandra Dee’s movies I was not thinking too poorly of you because I was referring to only Steve’s TOP FIVE and realised that you had covered other movies outside the Top 5 on other actor’s pages.

   2 However I still owe you an apology as I hadn’t picked up your previous reference to If a Man Answers and when you have time I’d be grateful if you could direct me to the page that mentions it. Meanwhile you have given me a bonus with the mini rundown of Sandra’s films and grosses.

   3 I’m also on the verge of transferring to my database the Jean Simmons stats you’ve now helpfully provided though when I completed my initial reading of that new page my first thought was one of great relief that you hadn’t again inflicted upon us Joel’s pontificating about the movie Desiree. However though it pains me to say it Jean actually seems to have agreed with Joel because as I think I’ve mentioned before when she was signed for the part of Desiree she told a close friend “They’ve given me another of those poker up the *** roles.”

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   1. Hey Bob
      1. I thought you were talking about all of her movies…I understand now.
      2. Actually If A Man Answers made the database when I was doing the Top Stars of 1960 page….but I did not mention the movie in that page….just it was part of her 1960s total.
      3. According to my page…Sandra Dee was 83rd biggest box office star in that decade.
      4. Joel gave Simmons three stars for her role in Desiree….so maybe he did not dislike the movie as much as he said in his Brando page.
      5. Funny quote from Ms. Simmons.
      🙂

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5. 1 HI STEVE. For me your Sandra Dee video is a lovely nostalgic trip down Memory Lane. You’ve illustrated that Sandra made more stand-alone movies than I actually remember so the video has been a learning curve for me as well as a source of enjoyment.

   2 Though popular Sandra never really made the big time among female stars in the way that Doris Day and Shirley MacLaine did and in recent times she has been regarded largely as a throw-back to maidenly purity in the more circumspect times of the likes the Doris, Jane Powell and the young Debbie Reynolds. Indeed Travolta’s 1978 Grease mocked both Doris and Sandra in the same song-
   “Hey look at me I’m Sandra Dee,
   I’m lousy with v*******y……
   And Rock Hudson keep you paws
   Of my silky d*****s
   Hey! Hey! – I’m Doris Day.”

   3 However some of the racy pictorials that you have shown in your video makes me wonder if we all missed something when we watched Sandra’s movies. Anyway down to the business end of my post and of course I was delighted that Cthulhu opened the proceedings albeit with the lowest marks in the video [5.8]

   4 Other POSTERS that I admired were Stranger in My Arms [aka And Ride a Tiger] reminding me vividly of my many trips to Jeff Chandler movies in the 1950s, The Wild and the Innocent co-starring Audie, Tammy, The Reluctant Debutant and Portrait in Black the Quinn movie that enabled Tony to announce to his friends that he had just become a 1950s millionaire [never broke the Big Guy’s magic 100 million barrier though!]

   5 Excellent STILLS were Sandra with George Hamilton, Tony Franciosa, Dee in Jimmy Stewart’s Take Her She’s Mine [consigned to bottom half of double bills over here] with young John Saxon, sadly another likeable actor who never made the Big Time, and motorcycling in a scene with Rock and Bobby Darin that reminded me of the opening scene from the 1953 initially partially banned The Mumbling One

   WH has let us down a bit this time with no Dee page and no coverage that I could immediately find elsewhere on the site of all but 2 of your Top 5. However he gives those two Come September and Imitation of Life your No 3 and 1 respectively reasonable ratings of 74.5% and 80% again respectively. You give Imitation of life 85.7% and although your video was short I learned a lot from it and it was worth 95% to me. Keep up the good work

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   1. Hey Bob…good breakdown on Steve’s latest video…which here is the link…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YedwFWSF2As

      You disappoint me…..we have more than two Dee movies in the database and out there in UMR pages. Besides the two you mentioned, Portrait of Black on Lana Turner and Anthony Quinn pages, Tammy and the Doctor on the Adam West page, The Reluctant Debutante on the Angela Lansbury page, Gidget on the 1959 page, A Man Could Get Killed on the James Garner page, and Rosie on the Rosalind Russell Page….So of the 21 Steve listed…we have 8 or 38% already on UMR.com.

      Actually….you do not disappoint me…you know what we have better than anybody else….and many times you even surpass me. My first thought was there were 3 movies…instead of the 2 you mentioned….then I looked it up in my database to get the other 5……so I had some major help making my list….lol.

      Good feedback as always

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      1. Have a total of 12 Sandra Dee Movies in the database.

         Movie (Year) Adjusted BO Domestic (mil) Critic Audience Rating UMR Score
         Come September (1961) / $217.70 / 74.50 / 66.02
         Romanoff and Juliet (1961) $20.50 / 68.00% / 35.14
         If A Man Answers (1962) $72.50 / 67.00% / 42.73
         That Funny Feeling (1965) $22.90 / 66.00% / 34.57
         I’d Rather Be Rich (1964) $22.40/ 65.00% / 34.02
         Tammy Tell Me True (1961) $33.30 / 61.00% / 33.83
         Rosie! (1967) $10.30 / 61.00% / 30.27
         Portrait in Black (1960) $125.40 / 59.50% / 47.40
         Take Her She’s Mine (1963) $93.40 / 58.33% / 41.90
         Tammy and the Doctor (1963) $57.50 / 58.00% / 36.17
         Doctor You’ve Got to Be Kidding! (1967) $24.80 / 54.00% / 29.22
         A Man Could Get Killed (1966) $18.70 / 43.00% /23.11

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         1. Good stuff Bruce, that’s most of her films! Surprised Imitation of Life isn’t on there, I’m sure you have a Lana Turner page. Gidget was a popular film of hers, she became identified as Gidget and she only played the role once. Other actresses took over in subsequent films.

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            1. Did not have that one listed with Sandra Dee….but I do now….which means I am only 8 movies away from having her complete…I know you are thinking….”what are you waiting for?”.

               Imitation Of Life (1959) $264.40 million / 80.00% critic audience score / UMR score of 69.40.

               When looking at it’s rank for all the movies in my database….Imitation of Life comes in at number 520…..pretty good considering there are over 30,000 movies in my database.

   2. Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating, comment, trivia, info, censored song lyrics, mention of Cthulhu the unmentionable, observation, comparison, appraisal and evaluation, always appreciated.

      Happy to see the visual presentation has met with your approval.

      I thought Sandra Dee would make an interesting video, presenting a more wholesome screen image than Carroll Baker, and she looks great in a bikini too. 🙂

      Making the video has been a learning curve for me too, I’ve only seen two of her films – The Dunwich Horror and A Summer Place. I wouldn’t mind checking out more of her films, the James Stewart and Rock Hudson movies might be fun.

      Max Steiner’s ‘Theme from A Summer Place’ is a big favorite of mine, Percy Faith’s version of the theme was a massive hit, 9 weeks at no.1 in the US charts, which was a record at the time. If you’re not sure if you’ve heard it go to youtube and type in ‘theme from a summer place percy faith version’ it will be very familiar.

      Sandra Dee appeared in three films with John Saxon, Saxon starred in Enter the Dragon with the legendary Bruce Lee and it’s from that film I knew him most. I’ve seen Enter the Dragon well over a hundred times.

      Believe it or not Dee does have a movie scoring 10 out of 10 from my sources [cue gasps and a fainting in the back row] – Imitation of Life. Gidget managed 8 from another source.

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      1. HI STEVE

         1 Interesting backchat as usual.

         2 Theme from a Summer Place,Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Green Leaves of Summer from Duke’s The Alamo are probably my 3 favourite instrumental themes from movies so I have long been familiar with them.

         3 I loved the movie A Summer Place and in it Sandra and Troy Donahue were at their physical peak and were both great to look at. They were then seen as superstars of the future but it was not to be although Troy was twice listed among the Top Box Office stars of the US in 20th and 24th positions and Sandra a few more times than that and in higher positions even breaking into the Top 10 for a brief period from 1960-63.

         3 Troy later opined that he had arrived on the movie scene too late because as soon as he found fame his image was on the way out as he put it. Sadly he died of a heart attack at 65 in 2001 while Sandra was not far behind him died at 62 of kidney disease in 2005 after years as an alcoholic recluse and suffering from ill health.

         3 What bittersweet memories I get from these videos of yours and the Work Horses pages! and you can maybe see why they have such a hold on me.

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