She’s the Baroness, bitches! From The Sound of Music. Except she’s so much more, including a three-time Oscar nominee. Let’s run down mid-century actress Eleanor Parker’s (1922-2013) frock flicks resume:
Escape Me Never (1947)
Set in early-20th-century Venice, and about a fictional family of “musical geniuses.” Parker plays a wealthy English heiress involved in an affair.
The Woman in White (1948)
An adaptation of the 1860 ghost story. Parker plays the main character, Laura, as well as the ghost.
Valentino (1951)
A biopic about silent film actor Rudolph Valentino. Parker plays the actress that Valentino falls in love with.
Scaramouche (1952)
An 18th-century-set swashbuckler. Parker plays the actress in love with the titular Scaramouche, and competes with the virginal Aline (Janet Leigh) for his affections.
Escape from Fort Bravo (1953)
A Western set during the Civil War. Parker plays Carla, who helps some Confederate soldiers escape.
The Naked Jungle (1954)
Oh god, this sounds potentially very racist: “The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.” Set in 1901. Parker plays a newly arrived and married American dealing with said army of ants.
Many Rivers to Cross (1955)
A Western set in 18th-century Kentucky. Parker plays Mary, who rescues a trapper and falls in love with him, but he pushes her away.
The King and Four Queens (1956)
A vaguely-19th-century-set Western. Parker plays a woman whose family are outlaws; Clark Gable arrives, and things get scrappy yet romantic.
The Sound of Music (1965)
THE BARONESS, BITCHES. 1930s Austria. Allegedly.
The Kent Family Chronicles: The Bastard (1978)
Parker plays the bitchy step-mother who refuses to acknowledge her dead husband’s bastard, setting off a ridiculous chain of events in late 18th century France, England, and the American colonies.
What’s your favorite of Eleanor Parker’s frock flick roles, and why is it The Sound of Music?
The Naked Jungle is a very good movie, praised by great french critics such as Bertrand Tavernier. It is difficult not to fall in love with her in this movie
I remember watching this film as a child, scared me to death and you can’t watch it without feeling itchy all over
+1
Same!!! I had forgotten but the picture and description reminded me. Terrifying, all those close ups of ants. They’re scary.
Escape Me Never may be mostly set in Venice, but I can’t help feeling that that first still is of a scene set in the south Tyrol or some other part of the Alps; I can’t otherwise account for the leather-braces-with-breast-strap the man is wearing.
It’s the same family of musicians (Sanger) from ‘The Constant Nymph’.
Coupla things: The makeup artist who did “Valentino” did a brilliant job. That actor’s looks is near perfect. 2. You may know that the scary ant story comes from “Leiningen Verses the Ants” a short story we read early in high school. All I remember is being terrified.
It’s not makeup in VALENTINO– Anthony Dexter just had a really close natural resemblance to Valentino, and was cast because of it.
Even though the “biofilm” had to fictionalize most of the people involved in Valentino’s life, due to a refusal by survivors to sanction the film– Eleanor Parker’s playing a fictional character– the film was hit by defamation lawsuits from former co-star Alice Terry and Valentino’s brother and sister, and the producer’s plans for a remake of THE SHEIK starring Dexter were quickly scrapped.
What seemed like a bankable gimmick turned into a liability, and Anthony Dexter wound up in a series of low-budget films– largely really bad “historical” action films and wretched sci-fi films like FIRE MAIDENS FROM OUTER SPACE and 12 TO THE MOON– before dropping acting and his screen name and finishing life as a HS teacher.
Among his “historical” films are the merely crappy THE BRIGAND (1952, more “dumb-ass” than “Dumas”) and CAPTAIN KIDD AND THE SLAVE GIRL (1954, with Eva Gabor as half the title) and the downright horrendous CAPTAIN SMITH AND POCAHONTAS (1953)– which should probably have resulted in not only the Powhatan nation but the entire state of Virginia suing for defamation. (Tidewater Virginia suddenly has the Blue Ridge Mountains flanking the James River– Wikipedia says this was shot on location in Virginia– and the Powhatan people are stock-costumed like it’s a Western– because “Injuns” are “Injuns.”)
These films– he also took on Billy the Kid and Columbus, in addition to another “pirate” movie and ended his career with a small part in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE– constitute such a consistently bad body of work that Anthony Dexter might warrant a Snark Week profile– except that having to watch more than one of these in too short a span of time might constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
In Escape from Fort Bravo, I think the friend with the odd hat is wearing a dress made with the leftover muslin from Scarlett’s barbecue dress! Thanks for this–I had no idea that Eleanor Parker had such an illustrious career!
I wish I had known the term “shoulder loufa” in the 80s and early 90s, when it would have been so useful in conversations about bridesmaids’ dresses I was being forced to wear in the name of friendship.
Preach sister!
I know this post is about Eleanor Parker, and I love her, but does anyone else feel that Clark Gable got typecast as a heroic romantic lead long after it became kinda gross? I mean, I know there were/are glaring age differences between male and female leads in many movies, but in “The King and Four Queens” and “The Misfits” looking at Gable kinda reminds me of my curmudgeonly 80-year-old neighbor when I was a kid.
One day, someone will do a mirror image Sound of Music from the perspective of the scintillatingly awesome Baroness who watches as an allegedly naive young ingenue, freshly thrown out of the convent, arrives on scene and steals her fiance.
With music. And nazis.
I’d totally watch that.
Even with a Napoléon who can not put his hand properly in his waistcoat…
The 50s were very cruel dealing with the 18th century…
The “noble Confederate officer” that Parker is embracing is a Union officer portrayed by William Holden and his character was the main protagonist.