Carole Lombard

Pencil Portrait by Antonio Bosano.

Shopping Basket

The quality of the prints are at a much higher level compared to the image shown on the left.

Order

A3 Pencil Print-Price £45.00-Purchase

A4 Pencil Print-Price £30.00-Purchase

*Limited edition run of 250 prints only*

All Pencil Prints are printed on the finest Bockingford Somerset Velvet 255 gsm paper.

P&P is not included in the above prices.

Comments

Last Update : 23/5/15

Before Goldie Hawn and Meg Ryan there was Carole Lombard. The original ditzy comedienne, she combined vulnerability with purposefulness, striding through every turbo charged scene like a whirlwind, whilst her adoring public revelled in the explosive chemistry she enjoyed with each and every co-star.

Talented, funny and indubitably attractive, with a wonderfully warm and clear speaking voice, she was equally at home with physical and verbal comedy. At one point, Hollywood’s highest paid female star, she broke the stereotype mould in private, swearing amongst friends like a trouper, and would die tragically young at the age of thirty three in a plane crash.

Recommended viewing

In name only (1939)

Alec Walker (Cary Grant), is a Connecticut squire married to Maida (Kay Francis), his heartless wife, who hooked him for his money and position. If he was ever unsure of this fact, then a letter written by her to a former lover just prior to their marriage offers indelible proof. Jilted in favour of an affluent lifestyle, the former suiter kills himself; his mother seeing fit to forward the all important piece of correspondence to Alec. Walker makes the early mistake of presenting the evidence to his wife, without reclaiming the letter.

When he meets and falls in love with Julie Eden (Carole Lombard), a widowed artist, he asks his wife to divorce him, and she agrees to go to Paris to do so. Confident of her word, Alec and Julie prepare for their life together. unfortunately, Maida prolongs her stay in Paris, causing Julie understandable anguish, and finally returns home on Christmas Eve, without a divorce and without any intention of getting one.

Furthermore, she threatens to sue Julie for alienation of affections and to drag her young daughter into court as a witness, if Alec attempts to divorce her. So Alec and Julie agree to part, and the intolerable situation continues with Alec drowning his sorrows in a bar.

Lombard plays her poignant role with all the fragile intensity and contained passion that had lifted her to dramatic eminence. Kay Francis, on the other side of the fence this time, is a model cat, suave, superior and relentless. When Alec develops pneumonia, all appears lost for the couple, yet hope springs eternal.

A box office failure in its day – critics bemoaning the wasted talents of two screwball comics – hindsight reveals hitherto unseen depths to their acting. The generally excellent cast also contribute in making this one of the most adult and enjoyable pictures of the 1939 season. Of particular note, is Helen Vinson in her role as Suzanne, the treacherous friend of Alec and Maida. Equally at home making a play for Alec – who rebuffs her advances – and then aiding and abetting Maida in her efforts to destry her husband’s new found love, she is the female scorpion we all fear. Venemous in the field of conflict yet quick to seek refuge under a shaded rock, she merely wants Alec because she can’t have him. Unlike Maida, who we can understand, if barely forgive, for her devotion to the green backed dollar, Suzanne, is the very epitome in feminine, devilish, treacherous, doublecrossing complicity, content to derive enjoyment from living vicariously through other’s lives.

I hadn’t seen the film in more than forty years, but I came across a double feature DVD in ‘The Cary Grant Collection’ featuring “Once upon a honeymoon” (featuring Ginger Rogers,) and “In Name Only.” £1.45 lighter in the pocket, the disc was soon home and in the possession of my wife, who loves Cary Grant more than me. That’s okay, I can handle it………………….