Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #102 - Pocketful of Miracles (1961) - Superstitious bootlegger Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford) won't make a move without the good luck apples he gets from street person Apple Annie (Bette Davis). But Annie has gone off the rails — her young daughter Louise (Ann-Margret, in her debut role), who has been educated abroad, is engaged and coming to the U.S. to meet her mother for the first time. And Louise thinks her mother is a socialite, Mrs. E. Worthington Manville. The Dude can't do business without Annie, and Annie can'r sell apples when she's on a bender. The Dude's girlfriend Queenie (Hope Lange) tries to fix up Annie while his right-hand man Joy Boy (Peter Falk) tries to salvage his business — and steals the movie. It's all very silly and sentimental and lots of fun. Fun fact: Director Frank Capra had filmed the story once before, as Lady for a Day, in 1933.
Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford) and Joy Boy (Peter Falk) pick up one of Annie's (Bette Davis) apples
Annie tries to pick up her letter from Louise at a fancy hotel
Queenie's nightclub act
Hope Lange as Queenie
Peter Falk as Joy Boy
The dude still needs Annie's apples
Ann-Margret as Louise
Holiday connection: Louise's visit takes place during the Christmas season.
Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #15 - All About Eve (1950) - the crackling dialogue in this movie never quits - everyone has something to say about the “theatah” and it’s usually catty and delicious. Bette Davis is amazing in this, I think, her best role. But the supporting cast is choice, too - Thelma Ritter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm, a very early Marilyn Monroe, and especially Anne Baxter as Eve (in the voice of Margo Channing): “There goes Eve. Eve evil, Little Miss Evil.”
I'm interested in checking out Sarah Michele Gellar's new show this fall, Ringer. It's a mystery/suspense show where she plays twins. I'm glad she's back on television and I hope this series is fun for her and the audience.
Doesn't every actor want to play their evil twin? Not so sure audiences clamor for twin stories, but they do make for quirky, sometimes campy classics. Here are some of my favorites:
Bette Davis plays sisters Margaret (rich and bad, a husband murderer) and Edith (good and poor) in Dead Ringer. This is not a great movie, but it is compellingly watchable. Bette has to vie with good guy cop suitor Karl Malden and naughty boy toy Peter Lawford in this sordid '60s murder mystery. Apparently Bette played twins in another earlier film, A Stolen Life, which I have yet to see.
Eddie Murphy as movie star Kit ("Keep it Together, K-I-T") Ramsay and his nerdy brother Jiff in Bowfinger, a sarcastically funny take on Hollywood from Frank Oz and Steve Martin. This movie is just as funny whether you're watching it for the first or fifteenth time and Murphy is truly great at two very different, wacked out twins. He has always liked to play multiple characters, and did that to perfection in The Nutty Professor, his riff on Jerry Lewis's '60s version.
Jeremy Irons as creepy twins in the creepy Dead Ringers, directed by creepy David Cronenberg, who always seems to make creepy movies. They play twin gynecologists, who both start messing around with the wonderful Geneviève Bujold, who deserves much better.
Nicolas Cage plays screenwriter Charlie Kauffman and his nebbish brother Donald in Spike Jones's Adaptation, a surreal take on Susan Orleans's bestseller about the orchid industry in Florida. Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton and Chris Cooper are along with the Cage (s) for the ride.
Twin-age is not limited to comedy and arty films. Action-adventure's own Jean Claude Van Damme beats himself up in Double Impact- what's not to love about that? Well, a lot actually, but it's still pretty fun.
If you were expecting the classic twinfest The Parent Trap, I'm sorry, but I don't like either version, Mills or Lohan. But I do love the concept of identical cousins, which isn't exactly a twin scenario, but it's wacky enough to fit this theme, and has that unforgettable theme song, to boot.
