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Dana Dunbaugh Burnell

~ I write. I drift my gossamer way, eyes averted, through your keyboard. . . on my way to the refrigerator. Shall we make a pie, darling?

Dana Dunbaugh Burnell

Tag Archives: Norma Shearer

A Star is Born Part II: Backstory (& Foreshadowing)

01 Tuesday Feb 2022

Posted by Dana D. Burnell in Film & Storytelling, Golden Age Hollywood

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Barbara Stanwyck, Irving Thalberg, Norma Shearer

sib poster

Well, it’s been months, darling. Time when contemplation of the past kicks in. . .when you wonder, have I got bitter, have the stars have lost their glitter?  We’ve had a storm here in New York and I’m cozying inside in a half-melancholic February nostalgia.

I’m as pure as the driven slush, Tallulah Bankhead once said, and having watched the original Selznick-produced A Star is Born (1937), one gets the feeling that it was only family money that allowed her such honesty–rare in a business built on selling dreams.  Selznick’s A Star is Born is all about Hollywood and about the syruped poison of success.  Continue reading →

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The Great and Powerful Roz

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by Dana D. Burnell in Film & Storytelling, Golden Age Hollywood, Uncategorized

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Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell

Hey, Brother–Can You tell ’em I’m no Lady?

Just now, while flicking Jungle Red fingernails through the spammed questions I receive for this blog, I noticed the sort of query I usually relish (since it would lead us straight to Kenneth Anger territory– I am worryingly familiar with that dirty turf).   The question was: “Could you tell me more about classic Hollywood’s grubby underbelly?” 

Why yes, friend, I could.  I absolutely could be a tour guide though Hollywood Babylon, leading you by your soft hand as we stroll by the “Hollywood” sign, where Peg Entwhistle jumped from the “H” to her death in 1932.  Then we’d wander near the house David Niven and Errol Flynn shared, which some wag* nicknamed “Cirrhosis by-the Sea.”  I could talk about Harlow’s Hubby’s death dildo and Jeff Chandler’s yen to wear polka-dot dresses.  Or about how Bogart used to hide under tables while his wife Mayo got into bar fights.  I could talk about all kinds of salacious useless crap, and quite often do.

But, dear reader, not today.  Today my nails are sharp but my spirit is yielding. Today I choose not to focus on the weary negativities of life, the injustices, imbalances, and the thrush-inducing mornings-after the night before.  So I won’t do a tour of syphilitic Hollywood, and not only because that’d be one lo-ong essay to write of a lovely October day.

Today I want to talk about lighter and rarer things than a rollicking dose of the clap.  Instead I want to discuss a truly great comic performance:  A great Female comic performance that is more balls-to-the wall than any other piece of acting in that annus mirabilis of 1939, and which should’ve put all that sexist nonsense about “Are Women Funny” to rest before WWII.  As if Mabel Normand herself didn’t do it decades before. . . Continue reading →

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Recent Posts

  • The Beauty of Your Youth: Clara Bow Receives a Kindness.
  • A Star is Born Part II: Backstory (& Foreshadowing)
  • A Star is Born, Again and Again
  • The Life of a Sex Zombie
  • Judy Garland: The Blue Bird Has Flown

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