Glynis Johns is Dead

[Art]

British actress who worked up to the end of the last century was 100.

She was always a favorite of mine, today she is mostly remembered for her role as the feminist mother in "Mary Poppins" but was nominated for an Academy Award as a feisty bar keeper in "The Sundowners" with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. I believe I first saw her in "The Court Jester" which also starred Danny Kay and Angela Lansbury in the mid 1950s when I was seven or so in Orange Texas. I also thought she was pretty good in "No Highway in the Sky," one of her many "good girl" movies, with Jimmy Stewart, Marlena Dietrich and Jack Hawkins.

She was an incredibly accomplished dancer and pretty decent singer as well. She was certified to as a dance instructor in the UK at age 10. Stephen Sondheim wrote "Send in the Clowns" in "A Little Night Music" especially for her, she won a "Tony" for that one. I wanted to see that show, with her in it, while I was working in New York City in the early/mid 1970s but never got around to it, oh well. Her obituary reports that when asked what it was like to turn 100 she said "I don't care, I look good for my age at any age," well definitely cheeky at any age .

[Phloating Phlasher]

R.I.P. Ma'am.

[dogtag]

Loved that Mermaid. She was a quiet beauty.
I have several of her movies - Miranda, Court Jester, Mary Poppins
"Poison's in the vessel with the pestle"

[Art]

Loved that Mermaid. She was a quiet beauty.
I have several of her movies - Miranda, Court Jester, Mary Poppins
"Poison's in the vessel with the pestle"

"The flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true."

One of her movies I loved and forgot to include above was "Shake Hands with the Devil" set in the Irish rebellion of the 1920s. It also starred James Cagney, Don Murray, and Dana Wynter. Excellent drama and, I think one of Cagney's better movies, he always played psychopaths well.

[dogtag]

I never like that little shortarse Cagney.
He was always so obviously Acting, and badly.

[Art]

I never like that little shortarse Cagney.
He was always so obviously Acting, and badly.

Not one of my favorites either, almost always type cast as gangsters, and usually nutty gangsters at that, but when he rose above type he was often good and he could be very, very good. His portrayal of "Bull" Halsey in "The Gallant Hours" was excellent. In "Shake Hands with the Devil" he takes a different tack on his traditional bad guy roll. He is introduced as a kindly jocular professor of surgery. It is revealed through the movie that he is an officer in the IRA who is, co incidentally a sadistic psychopath who kills Glynis John's character for nor real reason at all and is only barely stopped from murdering a hostage (Dana Wynter) after the peace treaty has actually been signed...it is then revealed that he plans to keep the war going indefinately. In what other way does he have a license to kill folks.

[dogtag]

I'm glad he didn't murder Dana Wynter as I like her.
I avoided Cagney movies and Steve Martin movies who
thought the height of comedy was when his trousers fell down.

[Mike]

Hi, not to get off target, but I thought that Cagney was good in the anti-Communist comedy, “one, two, three” YMMV, regards, Mike

[dogtag]

Another short guy was Alan Ladd. He was shorter than
his leading Ladies so they dug a trench for him, to
stand in. (True). Reminded me of the Monty Python skit.

[Allen]

Another short guy was Alan Ladd. He was shorter than
his leading Ladies so they dug a trench for him, to
stand in. (True). Reminded me of the Monty Python skit.

Wouldn't that be a trench for the ladies to stand in?

[dogtag]

Whoops, you're right. If he stood in the trench, all
you'd see would be his eyes.