Killer Tomatoes Quotes

“The only way to conquer Barbara Stanwyck was to kill her, if she didn’t kill you first. Lynn Bari wanted any husband that wasn’t hers. Jane Russell’s body promised paradise but her eyes said, “Oh, please!” Claire Trevor was semi-sweet in Westerns and super-sour in moderns. Ida Lupino treated men like used-up cigarette butts. Gloria Grahame was oversexed evil with an added fey touch—a different mouth for every role. Ann Sheridan and Joan Blondell slung stale hash to fresh customers. Ann Dvorak rattled everyone’s rafters, including her own. Adele Jergens was the ultimate gun moll, handy when the shooting started. Marie Windsor just wanted them dead. Lucille Ball, pre–Lucy, was smart of mouth and warm as nails. Mercedes McCambridge, the voice of Satan, used consonants like Cagney used bullets. Marilyn Maxwell seemed approachable enough, depending on her mood swings. And Jean Hagen stole the greatest movie musical ever made by being the ultimate bitch. These wonderwomen proved that a woman’s only place was not in the kitchen. We ain’t talkin’ Loretta Young here.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“Joan [Blondell] had always kept it real, always kept her priorities straight. “I wasn’t that ambitious. I enjoyed a home life more than a theatrical career. I just took what they gave me, because I wanted to get home quickly.” Joan, said one writer, personified everyone’s “good friend,” on- and off-camera. “Of all the stars I have interviewed,” wrote Charles Higham, “I have liked Joan Blondell the best. She is unique in my experience in being an actress who is devoid of ego, self-congratulation and self-pity, and would not dream of quoting a favorable review of herself. She is down-to-earth and human and real. This is almost unheard of in Saran-wrapped Hollywood.” Her accessibility, straightforwardness and her quick-with-a-comeback attitude was her appeal, and it never diminished as she got older.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“If any actress best represents the snappy 1930s dame, it’s Joan Blondell. During that era she played a lively assortment of chorus girls, waitresses, golddiggers, reporters and secretaries in a total of 53 movies, 44 of them for Warner Bros. “Yet, for all that overwork,” Mick LaSalle writes in Complicated Women, “Blondell hardly ever had a false moment. Self-possessed, unimpressed, completely natural, always sane, without attitude or pretense … the greatest of the screen’s great broads. No one was better at playing someone both fun-loving yet grounded, ready for a great time, yet substantial, too.” She was fun-loving, but sometimes there were limits. As a flip waitress in Other Men’s Women (1931), Joan puts the breaks on a fresh customer:

BLONDELL: Anything else you guys want?

CUSTOMER (checking her out as she bends over): Yeah, give me a big slice of you—and some french fried potatoes on the side.

BLONDELL: Listen, baby, I’m A.P.O.

CUSTOMER (turning to friend): What does she mean, A.P.O.?

BLONDELL: Ain’t Putting Out.

“I was the fizz on the soda,” she once said. “I just showed my big boobs and tiny waist and acted glib and flirty.” While that’s a fair assessment of most of her early roles, it wasn’t the whole story.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“When I was a kid I adored Katharine Hepburn, especially when she played Jo, the ballsy sister in Little Women. All the kids in school started calling me “Jo.” I also loved Barbara Stanwyck, Ann Sheridan, Bette Davis, Claire Trevor—I didn’t know them but after seeing them in so many movies, I felt like I knew them. They weren’t feminists, they were just strong women, and I always admired anyone who had some guts. All those sweet, quiet, polite, ladylike little things just bored me to death. Back then there were so many wonderful women’s stories being filmed, and so many strong actresses. But by the time I started doing movies they were mostly making men’s stories. It has always saddened me that I never got to work with directors like George Cukor and William Wyler, directors who could really pull such marvelous performances from actresses." - Jane Russell”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“The vocal credits for Singin’ in the Rain are interesting, and rather confusing. In the film, Debbie Reynolds has been hired to re-dub [Jean Hagen]’s dialogue and songs in the latter’s first talking picture. We see the process being done in a shot of Reynolds, back to camera, matching her dialogue to Jean’s and synchronizing it while watching the sequence on film. But the voice that is used to replace Jean’s dialogue is not Reynolds’, but Jean’s own quite lovely natural voice. Director Stanley Donen explained, in Hugh Fordin’s The World of Entertainment: “We used Jean Hagen dubbing Debbie dubbing Jean. Jean’s voice is quite remarkable and it was supposed to be cultured speech, and Debbie had that terrible western noise.” To further confuse matters, the voice we hear as Jean sings “Would You?,” also supposedly supplied by Reynolds, is that of yet a third girl, unbilled studio singer Betty Noyes.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“Yes, she was probably the most blatantly carnal vixen ever filmed. And yes, she led a private life of considerable vitality and color. But let it not be forgotten that she was a stage-trained actress of greater power and range than moviegoers saw. Under all the Hollywood frou-frou, and her own misguided insecurities, Gloria Grahame was one killer tomato.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“A point often ignored in cinema history studies of [Bette] Davis,” wrote Jim Parish and Don Stanke years later of Housewife, “is that Ann Dvorak, who plays the film’s title role, was established as a strong dramatic actress long before Bette, and it was she who set the standard for battling with the studio for better roles. In her quiet performance as Nan Wilson Reynolds, it is Miss Dvorak and not the already mannered Bette, who woos the audience’s attention and affection. It is Dvorak who provides the proper artistic control for the feature…” The big difference between the two actresses was maturity. Bette, in these early movies, was very rough around the gills; she became polished, but always tended to slip into campy tirades. Dvorak was a natural; she was intense, but always in control, even in highly emotional situations.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“In typical [Joan] Blondell fashion she dreams of “being respectable, to live up there with those fine people, to be a civilized human being. I don’t want to be a gambling house gal all my life. I want to be quality folk.” But, again, she ultimately realizes she’s better than the snobs. “I’m Jenny Blake,” she defiantly announces at the conclusion, with pride in her voice, “and no lady.” Few but Blondell (and Barbara Stanwyck) could make dialogue like that work.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“The Depression was at its peak in 1933, and so was Blondell. She exemplified the average woman of that dismal period. Audiences could relate to her honesty, her drive, and her humor and strength in the face of adversity. She came across as one of them—a down-to-earth gift she never lost. “I related to the shopgirls and chorus girls, just ordinary gals who were hoping. I would get endless fan mail from girls saying, ‘That is exactly what I would have done, if I’d been in your shoes, you did exactly the right thing.’ So I figured that was my popularity, relating to the girls.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“[Lucille Ball]'s such a TV icon it’s hard for some to separate the two Lucys—the gorgeous, snappy actress of film and the wacky, slapstick queen of television. On TV she was a middle-aged housewife, on film she was a dazzling beauty. The difficulty with her movie career wasn’t that she was bad or not up to the roles. Quite the contrary: They were rarely up to her.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“I regret the passing of the studio system,” Lucille Ball once said. “I was very appreciative of it because I had no talent. Believe me. What could I do? I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t sing. I could talk. I could barely walk. I had no flair. I wasn’t a beauty, that’s for sure.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“So here they are, a gaggle of highly skilled and utterly unique actresses whose pre-feminist strength and independence were awesome to behold. Whether with gags, glares or gats, they railed, they ranted, they raved, they rode roughshod. They ruled.”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames

“Her face gave her away: the half-smirk, her shadowy eyes and that look were sure signs that she was up to no good, even if she wasn’t. You somehow suspected her motives might just be tainted. Not an asset for an actress who wants to play traditionally romantic leading roles, but great viewing for her fans who wanted her to be bad, wanted her to gun down the next dope who came along. Marie Windsor was at her best when she was ruthless or just plain tough; she made her roles interesting—heck, she looked interesting—giving them a visceral, raw energy many of them didn’t deserve. Yeah, she couldn’t be trusted, what of it?" - Laura Wagner on Marie Windsor”
― Ray Hagen, Killer Tomatoes: Fifteen Tough Film Dames