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Posted: |
Feb 15, 2015 - 5:18 PM
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By: |
Ralph
(Member)
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Smoothie Louis Jourdan never meant to but managed anyway to give friends of old films a case of the creeps. Slick and debonair, comfy in period garments and jabots, his appeal had cautionary limitations: the longer we watched him with his hands on his hips the greater the danger because we began to wonder if he was courting the wrong sex. Can’t think of a single movie in which he was certifiably straight; if he didn’t quite topple over as counterfeit male, it’s possible that in walking in beauty he was one of the earlier metrosexuals, very clear in “Madame Bovary.” In all my years watching him I’ve wondered why he was never cast as a sinister homosexual, though movie pals argue he was close in several roles, especially “Octopussy.” His Vitalis’d-to-the-max director in “The Best of Everything” needed to be late 50s hiding-in-the-closet to make sense of the indelibly American knockout and thoroughly sane Suzy Parker going warpy. Conversely, he might have triumphed as a happy gay in “La cage aux folles.” (He was no slouch in elocuting the fey lyrics in “Gigi” and “Can-Can.”) Probably one of his least convincing roles was in “The V.I.P.s,” in which he was no threat to Burton. As a male whore he hadn’t even heated the sheets with Liz, so about all he could offer the (then) world’s biggest celebrity was comb-out services between visits to Alexandre’s salon. Louis wasted his prettiness as dupery, arguably his primary attraction.
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Smoothie Louis Jourdan never meant to but managed anyway to give friends of old films a case of the creeps. Slick and debonair, comfy in period garments and jabots, his appeal had cautionary limitations: the longer we watched him with his hands on his hips the greater the danger because we began to wonder if he was courting the wrong sex. Can’t think of a single movie in which he was certifiably straight; if he didn’t quite topple over as counterfeit male, it’s possible that in walking in beauty he was one of the earlier metrosexuals, very clear in “Madame Bovary.” In all my years watching him I’ve wondered why he was never cast as a sinister homosexual, though movie pals argue he was close in several roles, especially “Octopussy.” His Vitalis’d-to-the-max director in “The Best of Everything” needed to be late 50s hiding-in-the-closet to make sense of the indelibly American knockout and thoroughly sane Suzy Parker going warpy. Conversely, he might have triumphed as a happy gay in “La cage aux folles.” (He was no slouch in elocuting the fey lyrics in “Gigi” and “Can-Can.”) Probably one of his least convincing roles was in “The V.I.P.s,” in which he was no threat to Burton. As a male whore he hadn’t even heated the sheets with Liz, so about all he could offer the (then) world’s biggest celebrity was comb-out services between visits to Alexandre’s salon. Louis wasted his prettiness as dupery, arguably his primary attraction.
Could this, I wonder be the same 'Ralph' who berated James Mason on the 'Blue Max' thread for his 'thin neck' and, what was it, sexual inadequacy and effeminacy?
By Jove, I think it is, the very man.
I got tore into that one and I'm going to do the same with this.
Are you, perchance, a budding film critic? The type who wears all black collarless shirts for late night TV, oh, please yes, tell me so.
So far, your critiques of deceased male performers seem to centre round their rating on some sort of ghastly 'macho/effeminacy' sliding scale that only you are tuned to. I'm wondering if you know how unsavoury this not-so-knowing brand of 'knowing' cock-waving commentary actually is.
Jourdan was masculine all right, but not by the strange Neanderthal checklist of hairy nonsense that you seem to have a complex about. All genuine masculinity involves a degree of elegance, and Jourdan had that in spades. To call him effete is absurd. What testosterone-swamped planet exactly are you living on? No, come to think on it, make that 'testosterone-deprived and overcompensating' planet.
'Sorry if this sounds confrontational, folks, but it's just instalment two of some bizarre agenda of cock-measuring of deceased male icons, and it's frankly very odd. Jourdan was a fine sctor and a real musketeer, hardly less admirable for not being a caveman. I actually know a chap whose mum was so enamoured of Louis that she named her son 'Jourdan'. Let's allow the ladies to tell us whether Louis was manly or no, shall we?
A sweaty armpit, even when dressed up in the perfume of Barry Norman-esque late night pseudo-aesthetic critique is still a sweaty armpit. Louis was one of the boys. And loved by the girls.
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Posted: |
Feb 15, 2015 - 8:54 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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Wow! It appears that "Ralphie" has some serious personal issues of his own......
As for Louis Jourdan, his appearances on the screen were of a type we rarely see in films anymore......suave, sophisticated, elegant, erudite, romantic, man-of-the-world, and yes, even debonair, too!
Cary Grant had it, Melvyn Douglas had it in the '30s and '40s and there were others, once upon a time---in another age.
Beyond THE PARADINE CASE other films I particularly remember Jourdan for are LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, BIRD OF PARADISE, THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN, THE SWAN, GIGI (of course), and menacing Doris Day in JULIE. (Sadly, I think his pre-Hollywood European films are very difficult to find now, though I'd like to search them out to see what intrigued David O. Selznick enough to bring him to this country in the 1940s and give him a long-term contract.)
In recent years I saw a video on the internet of Jourdan receiving the Legion d'Honneur of the French government presented to him by a French embassy official in Los Angeles in 2010.
Jourdan was seated and with a cane, and looked very frail, and I remember that it made me quite sad, because you knew he was aging and the end was likely near.
But 93 is not a bad age to leave, and Jourdan apparently had a very successful marriage for 60-plus years to a French wife, always referred to as "Quique", and a fulfilling career and life---pleasing a lot of audiences in the process---and was generally considered to be a "good guy" and never known to be difficult within the business.
At my age, now 75, Jourdan's death is more poignant because I am of a dwindling generation who remembers when he started, at least in American films. The last remnants of those stars of the Golden Age who I always admired have now left, or are leaving us at an alarming rate, and there aren't really many around anymore. Also gone are the directors, producers, staff people who created the sound and visuals of the movies of those days, and in reality, the style and creative ethos of the original studios themselves.
Look for it now only in books (and on Warner Archive  ), for it is a world "gone with the wind".
RIP, Louis Jourdan
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