The Barbara Stanwyck Appreciation Thread

I've been watching Christmas movies and watched a few with Barbara Stanwyck (Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night) and was inspired to start this thread. Not only was she easy on the eyes, but had tremendous range as an actress, INHO. SHe could just as easily play a good girl or bad girl, but usually played characters that were a little of both. Like many people of my generation, I first saw her in The Big Valley, still vibrant at almost sixty.

 

She is incredible in several films. Her performances in "The Lady Eve", "Double Indemnity" and "Ball of Fire" are among my favorite performances by any actor, any time, in any film.

 

Always enjoyed her roles in film and TV.

 

Check her out in Baby Face from 1933. A very "sexy" film for the time.

 

She sure was a looker in her day. Beautiful.

 

A great actress who may be gone from the Earth, but her legacy is shown on TCM (many of the movies), reruns of The Big Valley on many cable channels, etc.

 

Bravo to the thought of a Barbara Stanwyck appreciation thread. What an actress! So good in so many different roles. I think of her range as running from "Double Indemnity" to "The Lady Eve," in which she gave undoubtedly one of the greatest golden-age comic performances.

Did anyone tackle the new biography out last year? At 1000 pages for the first half of her life, I don't mind admitting I was a bit intimidated as a reader.

 

As usual over the holidays I got on a Barbara Stanwyck kick and watched a number of her movies and started to read the biography that Sean refers to. I am not crazy about the writers style, and it sometimes seems that she is more interested in writing about the history of Vaudeville, Broadway theater and Hollywood as she has a tendency to go off on a tangent about people and events not really connected to Barbara, but it is still very interesting. She also refers to her as Ruby Stevens (her real name) most of the time even after her name is officially changed, but will randomly refer to her as Barbara every now and then for no apparent reason.

Has anybody else read it?

I also watched The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which has the first starring role for Kirk Douglas.

 

I recently saw Meet John Doe, a great underrated gem which she was great in

 

One tough sensuous cookie

 

'Drum Boogie' from "Ball of Fire" with Gene Krupa (and Martha Tilton's dubbed vocal)

 

I watched her last night in The Furies, a very strange Anthony Mann western. I couldn't tell how consciously Mann was depicting a border society based entirely on violence, duplicity and shady money but Barbara was right at home in it.

 

I'll watch pretty much anything Barbara Stanwyck was in, good or bad. She puts in a good performance and elevates any movie she is in, no matter how bad everyone else is.

Plus, she was hot as hell.

I recently only caught the last half of The Miracle Woman. Svengoolie recently showed The Night Walker, and that was great.

My favorites are probably Double Indemnity and Clash by Night.

 

Indeed......

 

I'd like to recommend this TCM set for some of her early films.

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film4/dvd_reviews_58/frank_capra_the_early_collection.htm

http://shop.tcm.com/detail.php?p=37...ID=11403611&PID=3628627&pa=affcj&PCID=2800380

You can't go wrong with Stanwyck and Capra.

 

It's strange, but as sexy as she was as a very young woman, she was never - to me - beautiful. It's more that she was interesting looking
and very charismatic. Loved her voice too. I think she was about the sexiest thing going in The Lady Eve (possibly my favorite movie of all time).
By the time of Double Indemnity, I think she'd kind of hit the wall; she was still Barbara Stanwyck, but for some reason I couldn't ever buy the stupid lengths
Fred McMurry went to in his obsession with her. This thread inspired me to purchase Ball Of Fire; I'll report back.

 

I also think she was a great actress. All of her movies are worth seeing. Extremely good looking female in her young days and still a fine looking women into her 60s. I actually don't know that much about her life and need to seek out more information. The only work of hers I've seen that I don't like is "The Big Valley". I always figured she did it strictly for the money and she always seemed either too cold or over acting in the series for me. I'm glad she is still being appreciated. Thanks for starting this thread.

 

She's my favorite actress of the classic era, not only because she was one hard-boiled dame in noir, but she was also quite at home on the range. I don't think there was ever a star actress who looked so natural in westerns.

 

When I was young, I didn't care for her because all I knew of her was her TV work. Then I discovered her entire career.

She was simply amazing.

 

Thanks for reminding me about that one! I've got the Criterion DVD but haven't watched it in years... I remember enjoying it a lot, but it's just one of those movies that I never got around to giving a second viewing. I'll have to dig out my copy one of these days.

Another film of Barbara Stanwyck's that I haven't seen mentioned yet is the 1953 version of Titanic.