In her first movie, she kissed Marlon Brando. And then she won an Oscar. How many actresses get that kind of a debut? But then, how many actresses are as wonderful as Eva Marie Saint?  A performer (and woman) of elegance, vulnerability, charm, beauty, intelligence and great wit, Miss Saint remains, not just a movie star, but a real actor, one of the innovators. And she's still a powerful presence on screen.

 

A woman who has worked with talents ranging from Kazan to Wenders, Brando to Shepard, Preminger to Mulligan, Frankenheimer to Singer, Hope to Segal, Clift to Beatty, Grant to Grammar and then, a man named Hitchcock, Miss Saint has enjoyed sixty years of experience, and more to come. With the 50th Anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense, action, sex-tastic classic North by Northwest, the funny, personable Miss Saint took the time to talk to me about her beautiful, brilliant career. And shopping with Hitchcock. Now that would be something.

 

 

Where do I start, Miss Saint?

 

"Take a deep breath..."

 

On North by Northwest remaining so timeless:

 

"When I think of North by Northwest as 50 years old, I just can't believe it. It seemed to me, 20 years ago. But 50 years ago is half a hundred!  One reason it seems timeless: Hitch had this thing with not coming to work with what people were wearing at the time.  He thought that it dated the movie. And at the time, we were wearing these dresses without any belts; I think we called them sheaths.  I went to rehearsals, went to the studio that way.  And he sent everybody home. I think it was the auction scene, and they scheduled that day for another shooting and another scene because it dated the film. He said, 'Come back with a more classic look, a suit, a sweater, a skirt.' Ladies were wearing trousers...so anything that I wore even the red dress or the black dress with the roses could be worn today. People ask me, 'Did you get that black dress?' I said, 'No. It's a little like maternity clothes -- once you get out of them, you don't want to go back, and I was in that dress a long time.'  [There was hair and costume] but Hitchcock, he did oversee everything, of course.  And the makeup, and the jewels and the shoes and the bags, and the dresses. I loved it! Because he had this idea about this sexy spy lady and it helped me compose my character and all of that. It's not only the internal, but the external always helps. Costumes are of such importance to an actor."

 

 

Working with Hitchcock:

 

 "I'm not sure what he saw me in, where he saw me as a sexy spy. I don't know...well she's a human being first... I did a program a few years ago; they should have taped it or filmed it, and all the Hitchcock blondes were there, and Suzanne Pleshette too [from The Birds]. And all of us were on the stage taking questions and talking about him and our experience working with him. And everyone had a different story. I couldn't believe we were talking about the same man!  And I remember in the middle of the discussion, saying to the audience: 'I really feel like we're all talking about the same husband -- and all of us are the different wives.' And you know, Tippi was very vulnerable at the time when she was shooting with him, but I was married. I had just given birth a few weeks back, it was my second child. I was very happily married, still am (I just had my 58th wedding anniversary last night). And so I was at a different place from the other actresses."

 

Shopping with Hitchcock, Vertigo style:

 

"I called him my sugar daddy. I did! I've never called anyone my sugar daddy, not even my husband. [Laughs]. He wasn't happy with some of the clothes they had given me [on the movie] so he took me to New York, took me to Bergdorf Goodman and we sat down and he had arranged some clothes he had seen and picked them out. The beautiful models came out and I'd say [in an excited hushed voice]: 'Oh I do like that black dress with the red roses!' And he'd say [imitates Hitchcock's famous voice]: 'Fine. Wrap it up in this case.' And that was the beginning of that famous dress. [Laughs] That was quite a shopping trip. I have never had it before and I have never had it since." [Laughs]

 

 

On working with so many different actors through the years:

 

"I'm from the Actor's Studio. You don't depend on anyone else but yourself and all the other actors you're working with. With On the Waterfront, the Kazan set was pretty much closed -- it was very quiet. He would whisper in your ear when he had a bit of direction which was very precise and just the perfect few words. You never heard him talk to other actors, he would whisper in their ears.  But then I stepped on the Bob Hope set [for That Certain Feeling] and the first day we were filming, I saw a whole football team watching [laughs]. I mean, right on the set. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and sort of swallowed hard and thought, 'OK, this is going to be a challenge.' But it was fine! And the days we didn't have people watching, I missed the audience!  But I went from Marlon to Bob Hope and that's what you're supposed to. You're supposed to work with different people, you're supposed to find what you like about them, what you don't like about them and just work with them. Now, with Cary Grant, it was hard to not find things to love about him."

 

 

So...working with Cary Grant:

 

"Whatever you think about him is correct. He was larger than life and beautiful and wonderful. And he was very, very kind and sweet. He himself said he created himself, he started in the circus! He created Cary Grant... Before he died, he was giving back. He was going around the country with his wife to little theaters and wonderful audiences would clamor to see him in person. He wasn't living somewhere on a hilltop, he was giving back. He was an amazing man."

 

 

Her famous ingénue debut as young Edie in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront:

 

"I had done theater and mostly live television and again, I was from the Actor's Studio, so I wasn't intimidated. I was intimidated by making a movie because I had never made a movie. And I remember, my husband and I, we lived on 29th West 9th Street in the village, and as I was leaving, they were picking me up to go the set -- I was crying! Because I had never made a movie. It all seemed a little overwhelming. And my dear, sweet husband put his arms around me and said: 'Honey you're in good hands. Kazan is directing. Marlon is in it. You know all of these people. Lee Cobb, Karl Malden, Nicky [Nehemiah] Persoff, you know them, you've seen them at the Studio, you're going to have a wonderful time!' So by the time they opened the door and whisked me away to Hoboken, I was feeling really good about it all. My husband was absolutely right, and so the first day I felt very comfortable and had a wonderful time." 

 

 

On winning an Oscar for her first movie role:

 

"Young actresses ask me 'Oh did you know that you were going to get an Oscar?' And I  say, 'My god, you're just there to do a job and do the best you can and you don't' think about those things!' And no one does."

 

 

That glove scene with Brando and how it remains of cinema's sexiest moments:

 

"I know, I know, I know! I could just see Marlon and hear him right now. The way Kazan worked, you were always rehearsing on set, so none of the actors were left to their own devices....we were always rehearsing in another room for the next scene up. And Kazan would be still filming a scene and when they were doing the lights, he would leave that scene and watch what we were working on for the next scene. It was a difficult scene. Why the girl from the Waterfront? Why the girl from the convent, the Catholic School and all that? Why would she stand there?  Well, in the rehearsal, I dropped my glove.  [Says slowly and delicately] Marlon picked up the glove, put it on his hand, started sort of fondling the glove, and it was very sensual. Edie had to get the glove, she had to go on her way, and so that sort of detained her.  We could play the scene. We told Kazan how it happened and he loved it, and so he said 'Keep it in.'"

 

 

On Brando the actor:

 

"He was always in the moment, while rehearsing or on the set. We both were. And that's from the workings of the studio. It really is. [The glove scene], it showed what a brilliant actor Marlon was. Most actors would have picked it up in rehearsal, given it back to me and then we would have started from the beginning. He didn't do that. You just use all of these wonderful things that happen -- you don't disregard them. You don't take the straight line.  He was one of the best actor's we ever had. I don't know what happened. I think he was in wonderful spirits when we made the movie. And some people change, and things happen in your life, and I think he lost the joy of acting. I still have it. Even at my age, after all these years. But he seemed to lose it."

 

 

The great, under-seen movie, John Frankenheimer's All Fall Down:

 

"It's one of my favorites!  And when people come up to and say 'Oh! Miss Saint. There's a movie...' And I always say, 'I know. All Fall Down.'  Everything is timing in this business and I guess we had competition for bigger, more money making movies, whatever they were. And so it didn't' get the publicity. But look at the cast! I mean Angela Lansbury, Karl Malden, Warren Beatty, Brandon DeWilde. Johnny Frankenheimer directed us in that [I also worked with him in Grand Prix], and it's such a dear, sweet movie. He was a very nice man, he died too early." 

 

 

Montgomery Clift in Edward Dmytryk's Raintree County...his shyness, his eyes:

 

"He was very, very quiet. Except when we had the dialogue on the set. And I remember in one of the dressing rooms over at MGM (we all had our own dressing rooms) and so I invited him to lunch and to go over lines. And we were sitting there waiting for them to bring the lunch from the commissary. He didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. It was very quiet. He was so shy. And I used to be shy....but I'm Episcopalian and Quaker and I can be shy. So We didn't say a word. I didn't get to know him. I didn't get to know anything about him. With someone at that time who was that painfully shy, I would fall right into being painfully shy too. And nowadays, if someone is shy, I try to help them and to bring them out. However, Elizabeth [Taylor] and Monty were very close, and they were such a beautiful team. She adored him, he adored her. If Elizabeth had been there for the lunch, it would have been a whole different situation.  Although, when we were working, and I looked into his eyes, he looked a little frightened.  Not from a scene, not from acting. But, as a person...maybe he had demons.  His eyes. Haunted. I can see it in my mind's eye right now as we speak. Haunted. Maybe not troubles, maybe not demons, haunted is the word."

 

 

The notorious Otto Preminger:

 

"I only worked once with him in Exodus and that was a huge undertaking...all those people! Preminger did do an incredible job keeping it all together, and it was not easy because it was like 115 degrees. I have never been so hot. But he had a temper and it would come maybe once a day, so before it came people were a little nervous and then after the explosion, people were nervous. He never yelled at the stars (Paul, yes his eyes were that blue...). He would scream down at the extras if someone was doing something incorrectly, or not the way he liked. There were a lot of extras and many of them had been on the real Exodus and they said that   was easier than working with Preminger!" [Laughs]

 

Sam Shepard's tooth:

 

"Oh yes, I loved playing that lady [In Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking]. I met Sam and Wim and he said, 'Well do you want to do this?'And I said, 'Sam Shepard, I'm so happy but I don't feel like you're mother!' He's so attractive. [Laughs] And one day at set, he was smiling and I said, 'Now about that tooth.' And he said, 'What about that tooth?' And I said, 'Oh come on! What do you mean about that tooth? That's the sexiest thing I've ever seen! [Laughs] and it is! I said, 'Don't ever have that fixed!' He's a very interesting man."

 

 

 

How have movies changed? Read here.

Werner Herzog's approach to "the truth" has always been a fascinating one and I love his grand  yet entirely down-to-earth theories about "reality." A firm believer in what he calls

"ecstatic truth," Herzog claims that his approach toward filmmaking, whether in his

documentaries (like "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" or "Grizzly Man") or biographical pictures (like

"Aguirre: The Wrath of God" or "Fitzcarraldo") reveals, as he said: "Something deeply inherent, where you recognize yourself as a human being again, where you find images that have been dormant inside of you for so many years and all of a sudden it becomes visible and understandable for you -- you read the world differently, your perceptions change."

 

From documentary to fictional feature to biopic to eating a shoe for Errol Morris,  the great Herzog is more than adept at conquering any type of movie, any type of obstacle any type of eccentricities.

 

With the un-hinged, gloriously debauched, hilarious, and strangely beautiful "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" (one of the best films of the year so far), add "re-make" to his calling card. Only, this isn't a re-make at all (of Abel Ferrara's classic cult film starring Harvey Keitel). Instead, this is a fascinating portrait of a man (a brilliant Nicolas Cage) rotting and raving in a decimated land -- that of post Katrina New Orleans -- a place that well covers Herzogian themes -- the violence, the beauty, the destruction of nature. And on top of that, it's a cracker-jack police procedural that muses on racial and class division, joyful sin turned to a joyless jungle, and it features shots of iguanas that only Herzog could make so poetic -- they reminded me a bit  of the chicken at the end of "Stroszek." You're looking at one of the most inventive movies of the year.

 

Here's the picture's first TV spot. I hope there are more. I hope people go see it. And I hope both Herzog and Cage are nominated. I hope a lot, I know.

 

 

 

 

So someone was cast in some movie that's somehow being made by some person to be released by some studio and...huh? Ladders? Pretty ladies and those things you climb when you're painting?

 

Once again, Starlet Showcase has gotten me entirely off track by posting a gallery entitled "Ladder Day Saints." The subject is, not surprisingly, starlets with ladders. That's some major dedication to form and function.

 

Could I love this blog anymore?

 

 

I like this. I like this a lot. Bravo Oscars:

 

Breaking with tradition, a pair of hosts -- Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin -- will serve as co-hosts of the 82nd Academy Awards, Oscar telecast producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman announced today.

 

"'We think the team of Steve and Alec are the perfect pair of hosts for the Oscars,' said Shankman and Mechanic. "Steve will bring the experience of having hosted the show in the past and Alec will be a completely fresh personality for this event.'"

 

"'I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin,' said Martin.

 

"'I don't play the banjo but I'm thrilled to be hosting the Oscars -- it's the opportunity of a lifetime,' said Baldwin."

 

Read a nice piece that echoes my excitement at the LA Times. Here's a bit of it that's spot on:

 

"Once professionally frenetic, Martin has recently taken roles that played upon an almost psychotic sense of calm.

 

"And Baldwin has never been afraid to do anything, be it David Mamet, 'The Cat in the Hat' or 'Nip/Tuck.' Even if what surrounds him tanks, he remains a pillar of entertainment, capable of surviving even the horror of having his ill-chosen phone messages replayed ad nauseam.

 

"Together, they have played to virtually every sort of house in every sort of role -- if nothing else, they will no doubt be the most unflappable hosts in Oscar history."

This looks pretty great. After reading about the movie, checking out the cast, the director and the source material, it looks like it could be a potential masterwork. For now, we've got a first look at the picture's poster. The movie? "Green Zone."

 

Director Paul Greengrass ("The Bourne Ultimatum," "United 93") adapted the 2006 non fiction book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (a journalist for the Washington Post) with screenwriter Brian Helgeland collaborating. The political thriller takes place in the 'Green Zone' in Iraq pre U.S. surge with the great Matt Damon portraying Roy Miller, a warrant officer who aids an older CIA officer to search for weapons of mass destruction.

 

The talented cast is rounded out by Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson and Antoni Corone. The movie is set to open in March 2010.

 

I, for one, cannot wait.

Empire Online runs a lovely gallery of some of cinema's mot iconic movie stills. From "Ben Hur" to "Alien" to "American Beauty," these are some potent, gorgeous, sometimes grotesque cinematic images -- images that have either been stamped on our brain forever, or we need to remember.

 

Above is one of my favorites, Tippi Hedren suffering blood-thirsty, sociopathic birds in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."

 

Empire writes:

 

"Tippi Hedren went through hell to get the perfect shots that Alfred Hitchcock wanted in his tale of nature gone mad. She had birds actually tied to her clothing on nylon threads over a week-long period, and was actually pecked in the face hard enough to draw blood at least once. On the bright side, we got a convincing sense of terror and attack that made the film even more unsettling."

 

Check out the entire gallery here.

From the New York Times profile on Penelope Cruz and Pedro Almodóvar in relation to their newest work together, "Broken Embraces." Great stuff here: 

 

"Mr. Almodóvar’s films with Ms. Cruz have often found the sweet spot where the ornate trappings of melodrama eventually fall away to reveal deeper and more complicated emotions and motives. They’ve also offered Ms. Cruz some of her richest opportunities. In the 1997 thriller 'Live Flesh,' she dominates the first 10 minutes, playing an impoverished prostitute in 1970 Madrid who gives birth on a city bus.

 

"Two years later, when he was casting 'All About My Mother,' which would win the Oscar for best foreign-language film, Mr. Almodóvar called upon her again, this time to play a nun. Even as she falls into an affair with a transvestite and becomes H.I.V.-positive, she remains the film’s sweetest, purest presence. 'It surprised me when he told me what the role was,' she recalled. 'But I thought, ‘Only Pedro could make this real, because he has no judgment against any of these characters.’ ”

 

"And in the 2006 drama 'Volver,' Ms. Cruz earned her first Academy Award nomination for playing a determined widow who was an amalgam of women from Mr. Almodóvar’s childhood in La Mancha, albeit with a little Sophia Loren thrown in to place her within the fabric of movie history that is woven through all of his work.

 

“'Someone asked me, ‘Is she a muse for you?,’ said Mr. Almodóvar, whose long-term collaborations with actresses, beginning with Carmen Maura through the 1980s, have been famously fruitful and sometimes just as famously volatile. 'Well, yes. She is a muse for me in the sense that a muse is someone who makes you better than you are. I think I am a better director with her, because she believes that I am better than I am, and that blind faith gives me a lot of strength.'”

 

Read the entire piece here. And here's a trailer for what is sure to be one of my favorite films of the year:

 

 

I unabashedly adore Tom Ford. A fashion designer who turned around the house of Gucci before starting his own label, and a man who gamely filled in for a shy Rachel McAdams after she refused to strip down for a now famous Vanity Fair cover (Ford was clothed -- knowing full well nibbling on a nude Keira Knightley's ear and Scarlett Johansson in the buff, was enough), I love that he's added movie director to his resume.

 

His debut movie, "A Single Man," adapted from a novel by Christopher Isherwood, follows a 1960's English professor (Colin Firth) who is getting his life in order before readying to...kill himself. The death of his longtime lover (Matthew Goode) has devastated him.

 

It's a sad, beautiful story, starring top notch actors (including the great Julianne Moore) with terrific buzz (it apparently packs quite the emotional wallop). Though I haven't seen it (which kind of amazes me), I'm expecting some wonderful style here. This is Tom Ford, after all. Tom Ford, Renaissance man.

 

With that, I proudly debut the picture's poster here (above, quite obviously). I can't wait for this one. Did I mention I love Tom Ford? I think I did...

 

The movie opens December 11, in select theaters.