Dueling Divas Smackdown: Jean Brodie vs. Sandy: Teacher Gets Schooled!

This is my entry in the Dueling Divas Blogathon, hosted by Lara at Backlots. Click Here for more delicious diva behavior.

And now, let the battle begin. Ladies, try to keep it clean.

In this corner, Jean Brodie

Jean Brodie is a teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls in Edinburg. Assembling a group of impressionable admirers, the Brodie Set, who she calls the creme de la creme of her students, she proceeds to influence them with her views on learning, life, love and global politics. Miss Brodie dallies with the married music teacher, but allows herself to be courted by the very ordinary, but very eligible music teacher. She encourages her girls to experience the beauties of life in the forms of art, nature and the flesh.

Strengths: Utterly charismatic, stunning in fashionable clothes, enthusiastic and a woman of elevated taste.

Weaknesses: Arrogance, pride, narcissistic and morally dangerous. Worst of all, a phony. She does not have the courage of her convictions.

In this corner, Sandy

Sandy is one of Miss Brodie's inner circle - and her confidant and spy. She is not the prettiest, but Miss Brodie praised her for her insight. She had no idea how right she was. 

Strengths:Clear-eyed, clear-thinking, exceedingly smart, morally straight

Weaknesses: Her youth, her sneakiness, her seeming coldness

The Brodie vs. Sandy duel has 2 outcomes for me, each dependent on my age at the time I viewed their story.

As a young, impressionable girl, I adored Miss Brodie. Her artistic flair, her liberal view of love and bravery seemed brave. I loved that she took on the headmistress, Miss Mackay, tweaking her nose at every turn. I viewed Sandy's "betrayal" as one borne of jealously - a peahen's envy of the peacock's brilliance. A bright and shiny object, Miss Brodie decries the ordinariness of Sandy and her ilk. Her sacking by the headmistress seemed another example of those without imagination crushing the artistic soul.

Now that I am older and wiser, I see the mortal danger of Miss Brodie. She is a fraud. She encourages her protege, Jenny, to have an affair, but she keeps the art instructor at arms length all the while cultivating a respectable relationship with a most ordinary man. She encourages poor Mary McGregor to  follow her brother and fight with Franco. This sends Mary to her death. All the while Miss Brodie stays put in the safety of her tenure.

It is the ordinary, unextraordinary Sandy who sees, step by step, the danger of this teacher. The lives and the futures of the Brodie girls were entrusted to Jean Brodie. Instead, she played out her foolish, selfish fantasies and used her girls as props. She cared not for their future in the real world. Mary's death was the last straw for Sandy. Via the very willing Mrs. Mackay, she put a stop to Jean Brodie's influence. 

Watch the great confrontation between these 2 heavyweights:

Maybe Sandy's motives were not so pure. Maybe she was jealous of the art teacher's unending devotion to Jean Brodie even though he bedded young Sandy (a crime in itself) and maybe she was hurt because Miss Brodie preferred the lovely Jenny. It could never be black and white between those two and Sandy could never forget the great joys of being part of the Brodie Set, but in the end she did the right thing. She was ready to face the world as a responsible, if much less glamorous, adult.* 

Therefore, the winner, ultimately, must be: Sandy

Jean Brodie ignored the cardinal rule of the fight: "Protect yourself at all times." She let the person of her undoing into her inner circle.

Maggie Smith won a well-deserved Oscar for her towering and compelling performance. However, Pamela Franklin as Sandy was her equal every step of the way. When compiling the names of those who were overlooked by Oscar, Pamela Franklin's name belongs on that list.

* in Muriel Spark's novel of the same name, Sandy eventually becomes a nun.

MIRIAM HOPKINS: FULL STEAM AHEAD IN "CARRIE"

This is my entry in the Miriam Hopkins Blogathon, hosted by Silver Screenings and a Small Press Life. Click HERE to read more, more, more about the saucy Miss Miriam.

Miriam as Julia Hurstwood: she's not taking
 a philandering husband laying down

Your suave and elegant husband leaves you for a younger woman and takes the money, too. What is a woman to do? Cry or put on her big girl panties and set forth like a steamship on the ocean crushing everything in its wake? If you are Miriam Hopkins as Julia Hurstwood in 1952’s “Carrie,” it is the latter. Oh, and add some jewels and choice words for the husband and the chippie, too.

The men in Carrie's life: there really is no competition

See this film if you can for one of Laurence Olivier’s greatest, most romantic screen performances. Based on Theodore Dreiser’s novel, “Sister Carrie”, published in 1900, William Wyler’s  film version, “Carrie,” tells the story of a dumb, young lovely (Jennifer Jones) who leaves the farm for the big city (Chicago) to live with her sister. Sis lives in a cramped apartment with her husband and children and makes it clear to Carrie that she needs to get off her pretty little behind and earn her keep. Carrie soon decides factory work is not for her and allows herself to be picked up by flirty traveling salesman, Charles Drouet (played with oily charm by Eddie Albert).  The next thing you know they are playing house and Carrie has new duds and a kitten. Charlie is often gone, so Carrie has lots of time on her hands.  She takes an interest in amateur theatre and George Hurstwood (Laurence Olivier), the manager of an upscale watering hole.

Carrie loves the lifestyle George gives her - at first

George is everything Charlie is not: he is refined and cultured. Unfortunately, he is also married. And not just a little married, but a lot married – to the formidable Julia Hurstwood.  She is presented as such a bitch that you really do feel sorry for George. Sorry enough to forgive him stealing money, lying to Carrie to whisk her away to New York, marrying her while still married to Julia, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

George tries to hang on to Carrie,
but he knows his star is falling and hers is rising

Olivier is the whole show here. His descent into homeless despair while Carrie's star rises is heartbreaking. He risked all for love and ended up empty-handed. Carrie feels remorse, but loves the materialism of the new century. In that, she is not unlike Julia Hurstwood. I'll bet Julia was not such a bitch so very long ago, but when George tells her he means to have some happiness she says no - not if it hurts her. Sir Larry is at his best, but Miriam is not to be overshadowed. When she steams into New York to find George and Carrie living together she looks her younger rival up and down and drawls, ice cubes laced with molasses, "I thought you'd be prettier." Well, she kept the money and got rid of the future bum. Good going, Julia. Like they say, if she were a man she'd be ruthless and strong, but as a woman, she's just a bitch.

All for love: his old life is gone and so is Carrie

Check out Julia giving George what for:

I also found this very touching video someone made about George and Carrie's romance.

Tragic Star: Beautiful Olive Borden

2015 is the year of the Tragic Star at A Person in the Dark. January's Tragic Star is Olive Borden.

Beautiful Olive Borden had it all, but she ended up making beds, washing dishes and scrubbing floors at a mission for destitute women. How did this happen?

This striking beauty was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1906. Raised by her mother, Sibbie (her father had died when Olive was a baby), lovely Olive convinced her mama that she had the stuff to make it in Hollywood. Sibbie believed in her girl and Olive proved her right. By 1922 she was appearing as a bathing beauty in comedy shorts and by 1925 she was named a WAMPAS Baby Star. Signed by the Fox Studio, Olive quickly became one of the studio's highest paid stars and one if its most popular.

By all accounts, Olive loved being a star. She spent lavishly, loved to party and engaged in a 4-year affair with one of Hollywood's hunkiest stars, George O'Brien. She was renowned for her beauty, her form, her style and even her acting.  Between 1925 and 1927 she appeared in a string of successful films for Fox.

Beautiful in pearls and basic black

Fig Leaves: Directed by Howard Hawks with fashions by Adrian
and one of Olive's biggest hits

Olive Borden models Adrian's fashions in "Fig Leaves"

Olive and George O'Brien were one of Hollywood's most beautiful couples

The Joy Girl (1927)

In 1927 Fox starred Olive as "The Joy Girl," a successful comedy that gave Olive the same nickname. In 1927 Hollywood's Joy Girl was on top of the world.

The film that gave Olive her short-lived nickname

The Joy Girl looking lovely

And then, suddenly, it all went wrong. Apparently Fox, who had a lot of high-paid stars, began to experience financial difficulties. As a result, they attempted to reduce some of the highest salaries, including Olive's.  Olive refused and walked out on her contract. From there, things went from bad to worse. O'Brien, tired of her hard partying ways, ended their relationship. Talking pictures and the lack of studio support put the nail in the coffin. Her last film was 1934's "Chloe, Love is Calling You," directed by fellow alcoholic and former great, Marshall Neilan. It was not a success. She was 28 years old.

Olive made a couple of bad marriages and attempted some vaudeville work, but nothing seemed to click. In 1941 she was broke and finished. She worked as a nurses aid and an army chauffeur and served as a WAC during the war.

After the war she tried to reestablish herself in Hollywood, but all doors were closed. During the last years of her life she found religion and joined Mama Sibbie at the Sunshine Mission, a refuge for homeless and poverty stricken women. In 1947 she fled the mission and was found by her mother in a motel. Olive was close to death. Sibbie brought her back to the mission, but Olive died soon after from complications arising from pneumonia and alcoholism.

Olive as she should be remembered

For much more about the lovely Olive Borden, please check out these informative sites:

OLIVE BORDEN: Silent Star - a completely comprehensive site about all things Olive - you will learn a lot here.

Looking for Mabel: A stunning site about Mable Normand and her world.

There is also a well-reviewed bio by Michelle Vogel called Olive Borden: The Life and Films of Hollywood's "Joy Girl" that I just bought with one click at Amazon!