Hell is the Absence of Wienie King
Being a decent little chappy, I properly joined my voice with John Hogan's to defend the honor of Mary Astor's performance in The Palm Beach Story. But was it proper, I wondered later, for me to have described her character as a "nymphomaniac"? "Horny," yes, but why be so clinical?
Intense self-analysis suggests I was influenced by second-time-as-tragedy Written on the Wind:
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Joel McCrea
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Poor but righteous hunk
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Rock Hudson
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Claudette Colbert
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Practical glamour girl
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Lauren Bacall
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Rudy Vallee
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Feckless rich kid
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Robert Stack
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Model airport on a table
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McGuffin dreams are made of
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Model oil derrick on a desk
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Mary Astor
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Worthless sleeparound sister
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Dorothy Malone
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From this we learn:
- Marry the poor righteous hunk first.
- Weird wizened indulgent old guys make better inexplicable strangers than they do fathers.
