Last week they screened the perfect Sunday afternoon movie.
On a Sunday afternoon:
Pocketful of Miracles (1961) ticks a lot of boxes. Directed by Frank Capra, starring Bette Davis, costumes by Edith Head.
The potential of that last combo alone is worth it. Prepare for Bette's first appearance, though.
It isn't exactly what you'd expect:
Bette plays Apple Annie, a downtrodden alcoholic/lucky charm to Glenn Ford's bootlegger, Dave the Dude.
In short: Bette's been writing to her daughter overseas, pretending that life is rosy; daughter's marrying nobility and is coming to visit:
Cue breakdown, followed by a serious makeover courtesy of worried bootlegger.
I do love a movie makeover. And who better to perform such a feat than Dave's girl, Queenie (Hope Lange, gorgeous) and Pierre (Fritz Feld), the obviously gay fashion designer?
Ta dah:
Apart from being charming and funny and breezy it has other notable attractions, not least of which is Ann-Margret's cinematic debut:
(Is it just me or does that look a little like Nicole Kidman's old face?)
The film also features Peter Falk as Dave's sidekick, Joy Boy.
Apart from his character's name, I got a kick out of seeing the Columbo cigar-in-hand-on-forehead look a decade before Columbo appeared:
As luck would have it, the movie's gangster milieu means the screen is often packed with henchmen, at least two of whom I recognised from Some Like It Hot (and yes, one is Mike Mazurki).
The problem is, he was 6' 5" so they put him in the background of almost every shot.
That's his chin, top middle:
And of course, there are the names in the secondary credits:
You might be interested to know that Doodles Weaver wasn't his real name.
It was Winstead Sheffield Glendenning Dixon Weaver.
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