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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely book traces the life and career of a legendary lady,
By
This review is from: The Films of Myrna Loy (Paperback)
This gem was originally published by Citadel Press in 1980 to coincide with Loy's 75th birhday. As the author states in the opening passage '...this diamond anniversary is a fitting time to recapitulate her extraordinairy life and her unique contribution to films.'. It is obvious from this statement that Quirk is an avid admireer of Loy's and that this book should not let her down in any way. The opening chapter is a brief biography charting Loy's childhood in Montana, her early years in Hollywood, her star years at MGM, her UNESCO days and her latter years as a character actress and features many wonderful and candid shots of Myrna dated from 1905 to 1980. Then starting on page 31 is a comprehensive list of all of her film appearances from 1925 onwards featuring cast and crew listings and the author's own essay (not to mention some great black and white stills). All of her classic roles are here, from her days as a chorus girl extra in 'Pretty Ladies' to Alan King's long suffering secratery in 1979's 'Just Tell Me What You Want'. Of course the last years of Loy's life are not included - she made her last screen appearance in the 1981 TV film 'Summer Solstice' and had her autobiography published in 1987. She was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1988 and finally won a much deserved special oscar early in 1991, less than three years before her death in December 1993. This makes a fitting tribute to a wonderful lady who became a great Hollywood star and humanitarian.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Astonishing Collection of Rare Stills of Myrna Loy Put This Film Compendium Over the Top!,
By
This review is from: The Films of Myrna Loy (Hardcover)
Amazon readers should never hesitate at grabbing reasonably priced Citadel Press movie books on their favorite stars. In this case, "The Films of Myrna Loy", indefatigable movie writer Lawrence J. Quirk exceeds his usual high standards, giving us literally hundreds upon hundreds of rare stills from Loy's earliest career as a beginning actress appearing in dozens of long-forgotten minor films. To say Loy's early images are frequently breathtaking is a major understatement. Along with Louise Brooks and Anna May Wong, the dark-haried vixen Loy started out as remains one of the great female icons of the late Twenties and early Thrities, and it's only Loy's later fame as a more subdued, domesticated box office persona for MGM that obscures her ravishing and striking beginnings. Looking through these early films is like a peek inside the wild diary pages of a showgirl who settles down to a life of respectability, marries a judge, and acts if if she had no past!
Quirk's book floods the reader with page after page awash in marvelous shots of Loy as she looked as a young aspiring starlet. Excellent quality originals, the only drawback to the images in the book is that they're reproduced on simple paper, and not top stock. Loy appeared in 120 plus films - over two thirds of these before her breakthrough role as Nora, Mrs. Nick Charles, in 1934's "The Thin Man". Most fans of the actress know her from later roles, but Loy most dazzles us pictorially as a young woman in mostly obscure unknown films. (Not that Loy never appeared in a famous film before becoming herself a star - she all but began as an extra in the silent "Ben Hur", had a bit talking part in "The Jazz Singer", and was a lanky nymphomaniac in Mamoulian's sensational musical, "Love Me Tonight".) Nice opening pages of the book give a biography, and the coverage of the post Thin Man films is well done as our almost all these Citadel film bio/filmographies. But this merely whets the appetite for the rediscovery of Loy's first ten years. From the book's very first full page shot among her filmography, of Loy in "Pretty Ladies", it's clear Loy was a photographer's dream - a tall, kittenish 19 year old Myrna poses with petulant directness in a preposterous heavily beaded, pleated short skirt, her long legs exposed, Loy's striking face dominating, framed in a heavy full dark Cleopatra wig hanging below her shoulders. Publicity shots for "Cave Man" and "The Third Degree" offer a look at the longest legs ever seen in any stills from the Twenties, an era crazy about long-legged girls. Loy could also carry off fashion as well. In "The Gilded Highway" Loy carries off "a silk banded cloche hat with flying net, a flowing satin gown with train." Numerous other shots prove the book's real value is not just the discussion of Loy's movies, but these early glimpses of Loy, one of the most fashionable creatures of the age. In 1928 Natacha Rambova, Rudolph Valentino's ex-wife, remembered Loy from an unsuccessful test given Loy for a small part in Valentino's 1923 film "Cobra". The then 18 year old Loy was too raw, but now Rambova wanted her for a part on a fashion film, "What Price Beauty". Loy appears in what Loy describes as "A red velvet tunic, black pants, a tight little wig, all designed by Adrian", and Quirk's book gives us two looks at the outfit, including a long shot featuring the entire fashion show. The film flopped miserably, but pushed Loy into playing a series of exotic types, first as an Asian girl (Louise Brooks played a French girl) under Howard Hawks in "A Girl in Every Port", crazily playing opposite an authentic Anna May Wong as another Asian in Archie Mayo's "Crimson City". As we peruse Loy's early career we discover a temporary return to more appropriate type-casting, with Loy's clothes-flattering willowy figure gracing Twenties fashions like nobody else could. But her obvious mystique kept pulling her into 'exotic' roles - such as her first talking role as "Azuri", a native girl in a film version of the hugely popular musical, "The Desert Song". This was immediately followed up with Loy playing 'Yasmimi', a mystery woman worshipped by Indian rebels - as in Bombay/Calcutta Indians - in John Ford's "The Black Watch". Decked out in endless silly costumes, the film gives Loy a full role, which she handles quite well, with her remarkable poise balancing the basic silliness. No sooner free of this, Loy is thrust into a ghasty film directed by a rookie director, Alexander Korda, and continues the exotic stuff as a gypsy with wildly frizzled hair. Turning through all these early films it's astonishing how often the pert, straight-talking Loy of the famous films seems buried alive under stagy unnatural parts. Victor Fleming has her playing a harem girl to none other than Bela Lugosi in "Renegades"! And there's a majestically garbed Loy as a haughty Morgan le Fay in the Will Rogers "A Connecticut Yankee". In 1931 Loy goes blonde, and Quirk shows her in a series of stills taking on - thankfully - modern roles! She first appears in a minor little film, "Skyline", and then, her now blonde hair lightly curled and looking quite natural, in "Consolation Marriage". Then Loy returns to her natural dark hair color when John Ford gives her a small role in an excllent Ronald Coleman film, "Arrowsmith". Loy's next film starts off her famous stint at MGM. After one film with Marie Dressler, Loy has to go blonde again! MGM is obviously totally unsure what to do with Loy, and Quirk chronicles it all with stills as MGM twice loans her out. Clearly, as we follow along, there seems more endless twists and turns to Loy's career then the highway to Mendocino: the career path for the Myrna Loy people fondly recall and enjoy in her popular films continues to be a wandering aimless series of hit and miss directions. After the wonderful "Love Me Tonight", Loy is farmed out again to RKO, turned back to her exotic self as a sinister rather racist-conceived murderess in "Thirteen Women". If that wasn't bad enough to pigeon-hole Loy, things go far worse with her next feature, MGM's blatantly racist "The Mask of Fu Manchu", where, as Quirk correctly puts it, Loy is "outrageously stereotyped Fah Lo See," daughter of Boris Karloff in the lead role. The extraordinary overdone and unnatural costumes and her repellent character must have caused Loy to finally put her foot down with Thalberg. Her outrage kept her free from such nonsense the rest of her career - her next ten films all have Loy largely free to be a modern woman - though a few exotic locales still linger. A great book for all film buffs, and a remarkable diary of the long, long career journey often necessary for actors who offered confusing, complex personas not easily type cast and merchandised. Only in 1934, after countless false starts and dead ends, when MGM stumbled on a smart domesticated Loy in "The Thin Man" did Loy's basic screen persona fall into place. Sadly, much of this make-over discarded qualities never given a real chance to emerge under a great director. Quirks' terrific overview helps redress this loss of a strikingly beautiful, fresh-faced, and often astonishingly sexy Loy, and much of this 'other' not always so domestic Myrna Loy now can be seen in stills from the over eighty films Loy made before "The Thin Man". A good Myrna Loy biography, if one veering toward hagiography, can be found at - Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely book traces the career of a legendary lady,
By
This review is from: The Films of Myrna Loy (Hardcover)
Another gem in the Citadel film series, this was originally published in 1980 to coincide with Loy's seventy-fifth birthday. As the author states in the opening passage 'this diamond anniversary is a fitting time to recapitulate her extraordinairy life and her unique contribution to films'; you can tell from this statement that Quirk is an avid admirer of Loy's and that this book will not let her down in any way. The opening chapter is a brief biography charting Loy's childhood in Montana, through her star years at MGM, her UNESCO days and her latter years as a character actress and features many wonderful and candid shots of Myrna dated fronm 1905 to 1980. Then starting on page 31 is a comprehensive list of all her film appearances from 1925 onwards featuring cast and crew listing and the author's own essay (not to mention some great black and white stills). All of her classic roles are here from her days as an extra in 'Pretty Ladies' in 1925 to 'Just Tell Me What You Want' in 1980. Of course the last years of Loy's life are not included - she made her last screen appearance in the 1981 TV film 'Summer Solstice' and published her autobiography in 1987 before she finally won a much deserved special oscar in 1991 less than three years before her death in December 1993. This is a fitting tribute to a lady who became a great Hollywood star and humanitarian.
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