Movies for the Rest of Us with Bill Newcott: A Fond Farewell to Doris Day

Bill Newcott says goodbye to Doris Day. He also reviews a startling sci-fi movie, revisits Woodstock 50 years later, and sits down for a chat with actor Crispin Glover.

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Bill Newcott says goodbye to Doris Day. He also reviews a startling sci-fi movie from Sweden Aniara, revisits Woodstock 50 years later, and sits chats with actor Crispin Glover about his new thriller, We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

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Comments

  1. Bob Taylor’s comments here are excellent, particularly on Doris Day and Debbie Reynolds!! I mentioned in the current ‘News of the Week’ how Doris had been brutally swindled by her 3rd husband (Martin Melcher’s) Beverly Hills lawyer, James Rosenthal.

    Debbie Reynolds 2nd husband, Harry Karl gambled away her fortune during their marriage, and 3rd husband Richard Hamlett (in 1993) unsucessfully tried to lure her onto her 12th floor Las Vegas apartment balcony “just to chat.” He’d taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy on her, and was going to toss her off to cash in on it! Fortunately she tricked him, but had to hide for 24 hours in terror.

    Ironically this same feature also discusses Woodstock, which only further increased the American zeitgeist away and against both women, and the kind of entertainment they represented; ushering in the times of today filled with tasteless, ungrateful slobs (& foul-mouthed ‘entertainers’) who don’t deserve such wonderful entertainers as Doris and Debbie, and wouldn’t appreciate them as Bob stated.

    I JUST watched the May 24, 1959 edition of “What’s My Line?” and it’s great! A really fun look at Debbie’s talents, and equally importantly, the dignity and class of the people and times of my parent’s and grandparent’s generation; completely gone now. (I like vintage episodes of this show as well, and recommend the August 4, 1957 edition with Jayne Mansfield I saw recently).

    I’m definitely going to see Doris Day’s “Storm Watch”, “Love Me or Leave Me”, “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and “Midnight Lace” soon. Thank you Bill, for your film tribute here to the incredible Doris Day.

  2. I can’t speak for the movie yet, but “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” is one of my favorite novels. Merricat is one of fiction’s most memorable characters, to say the least.

    As for Doris Day, someone once pointed out that only two of the big band singing stars later became major movie stars, and one was Doris Day. The other was Frank Sinatra. Had the American zeitgeist not changed so suddenly in the mid 60s, we might have been the beneficiaries of many more Doris Day films.

    Debbie Reynolds and Doris Day are both dead. Both women had genius as performers. If you haven’t seen Debbie Reynolds as the mystery guest on the May 24, 1959 edition of “What’s My Line,” YouTube can fix that for you, and don’t die without letting it do so.

    Such performers are irreplaceable, because they helped to create the very art forms they brought such distinction to. As for the United States, it’s become a nation filled with tasteless, ungrateful slobs, who don’t deserve to be blessed with performers of such talent, and who wouldn’t appreciate them if they appeared on the scene.

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