She was one of those people who lit up the screen; one of those people you felt as if you knew; one of those people that could make a mediocre film worth watching simply because she was in it. She could be sexy and funny at the same time; her dramatic roles were effortlessly natural and believable.
Sad to say, I wasn’t shocked when I read that Suzanne Pleshette had died. Supermarket checkout lines put all those ratty scandal-and-sensation newspapers at eye-level, and sometimes it’s pretty hard to avoid noticing a headline. The one I happened to catch a few weeks ago was “Suzanne Pleshette Planning Her Funeral.” I hoped it wasn’t true, but I’ve seen those kinds of “soon to die” headlines before, and unfortunately, they’re often correct.
It’s no secret that Walt Disney himself had a major crush on Pleshette. Suzanne flirted with Disney when she was on the lot, something Disney seemed to enjoy. I guess the empire would have crumbled if Disney ended his less-than-fulfilling marriage, but it’s interesting to speculate about the ways in which history might have changed…
She made three pictures at Disney’s: The Ugly Dachshund, which one might reasonably expect to be a major Disney dud, but is delightful and funny; Blackbeard’s Ghost, which I’ve never seen; and The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, which is far from a great movie, but a wonderful showcase for Pleshette.
Suzanne Pleshette appeared in two films released in 1963.
One, of course, was Hitchcock’s The Birds, where her Annie Hayworth had ten times the life and appeal of Tippi Hedrin’s Melanie Daniels.
The other ‘63 film, Wall of Noise, is a hoot. Suzanne gets to play the (very) bad girl in a horse racing saga. (‘Wall of noise,’ for those who may not know, is the expression for the roar of the crowd as the horses make the turn into the home stretch. The ‘wall of noise’ sometimes spooks even experienced horses).
Wall of Noise is not out on DVD; I’m not even sure if it was ever out on VHS.
It’s one of those mid-sixties Warner Brothers black and white programmers where they’d grab a few of their TV stars (in this case, Suzanne, Ty Hardin, and Dorothy Provine) and make a quick picture and a quick buck. If you see Wall Of Sound pop up on TCM, set the Tivo. I have an old 16mm print of the film, and it’s a huge hit with friends whenever I run it.
But Suzanne Pleshette’s major – and often overlooked – claim to Disney fame is that she appeared in the first feature film ever to be shot in Disneyland: 40 Pounds of Trouble. Who would have thought that Disney would allow Universal to use Disneyland as a background for a chase scene? But he did, and the footage of Disneyland seen in 40 Pounds is like a time capsule from the park circa 1961-2, featuring many scenes of many now-extinct attractions… as well as fabulous footage of nearly the entire park. It’s terrific.
Suzanne looks lovely, as always. Walt Disney wasn’t the only guy who had a crush on her. We miss you already, Suzanne.
[2025 note: Universal had YouTube take down Don's Forty Pounds of Trouble clips.]
A couple of questions about the clip:
Did they really think that they could get away with re-arranging Disneyland geography? Did they think no one would notice that they have the monorail drop Tony Curtis, Suzanne Pleshette, and Claire Wilcox off at the Main Street U.S.A. train station?
Did they ever sell masks of JFK, Castro and Krushchev at somewhere near Hook’s Pirate Ship in Fantasyland?
Over at YouTube, under the quickly-thought-up sobriquet SandySoup, I’ve posted quite a few videos (some of them with Sandy Becker and others with Soupy Sales). Some have appeared here on ILT, others have not.
This email arrived via YouTube today:
Before 1964, my twin brother and I clearly remember seeing this weird sci-fi puppet show (no, not “Thunderbirds” Or “Fireball XL 5.” It was supposed to take place on Venus and its queen was this howingingly funny “queen” who looked like a stalk of celery with a crown on. Does that spark any memories for you? Also, can you find any of the old “Space Angels? Dig those real human mouths superimposed over barely moving animated figures!
The celery-stalk Venusian Queen… funny, you’d think you’d remember something like that. Sounds familiar, but offhand, I can’t think of what it might be. Anybody around here know?
In Jerry Beck’s “Cartoon Dump” show in NYC (see below), one cartoon selected for presentation was Captain Fathom, one of those Cambria Productions “live lips supered onto drawings” shows. Jerry also mentioned something I never knew – that ALL the lips – ALL of them – belonged to Margaret Kerry, who was married to the producer. She lip-synched recordings of the male voices and did a few of her own. And she was, and many of you know, the model for Disney’s Tinkerbell.
Here’s some trivia: Conan O’Brien’s writing staff calls their comedy bits where superimposed lips are placed over pictures of politicians their “Clutch Cargo” segments, a reference to another of the Cambria “lips-only” animation titles.
Think of [your blog's] readers as laboratory animals in an experimental cage that’s equipped with a bunch of levers. If the lever you control dispenses a tasty morsel each time it’s pushed, the animals will keep coming back for more. If you forget to provide a treat for the animals’ effort, the animals will stop pressing your lever and look for a more reliable source of nutrition. That’s why it’s good to post at least one blog entry a day, because people will get used to the idea that your blog will deliver a treat each time they visit.
- Tip Number 4 for running a popular blog, from Rule The Web, Mark Frauenfelder’s guide on ‘How to do anything and everything on the internet – better, faster, and easier.’
Long ago, I recommended Mark’s book to anyone and everyone who uses the internet, giving it the highest possible praise by suggesting its title could have been, and should have been, The Junior Woodchuck’s Guide to the Internet. It was nice to read that this pleased Mark.
Mark’s very first blogging tip says that:
…I’m surprised at the number of people who post things just because they think they will attract more readers to their site… if you aren’t passionate about the things you’re writing about, readers will quickly become bored and never return.
And there, fellow lab animals, lies the problem. I think Mark Frauenfelder is exactly correct, and up until quite recently, I’ve tried to provide a morsel per day.
Future morsels will be just as tasty, but new ones will probably appear on a less-than-daily schedule. I expect that the ones that do find their way here will be all the more tasty, given the added prep time.
Please come and press the lever every so often, even though I admit defeat in balancing Mark’s first and fourth tips on a daily basis.
Spencer Tracy characterized Katherine Hepburn once by saying “There ain’t much meat on her, but what’s there is cherce [sic].” Less posts here, but what goes up will be cherce, and that’s a promise.
Cartoon Dump is presented exclusively on the West Coast. Usually, it’s the West Coast of the country, but last night, it was the West Coast of Manhattan, and it further infuriated the New Yorkers who read about Dump (and other upcoming animation-related events) on Cartoon Brew by confirming our worst fears: we’ve been missing out on great entertainment because we insist on living in this backwater town.
Oh, sure, you can go over to the Cartoon Dump section of YouTube and see snippets of the show, and the hysterically awful semi-animated cartoons Jerry Beck has selected to showcase. But this is live theater we’re talking about here, with very talented, deeply funny performers. I’m telling you, I’ve seen Young Frankenstein on Broadway, and it’s strictly for tourists and chumps. Rent the DVD. Cartoon Dump packs twice the laughs into half the time.
Erica Doering is a relentlessly chipper comedic powerhouse; her cartoony voice and condescending showmanship suggest Hillary Clinton on helium. Frank Conniff gives a great deadpan performance (and had some great ad libs) as Moodsy, the Clinically Depressed Owl. This guy could just look at the audience and get a laugh. Kathleen Roll reminds me of Paula Prentiss (and that’s high praise); her Buff Badger not only provides angry historical context for the cartoons, but also fully explains the furry phenomenon for those who don’t quite get it. And of course, there’s animation legend Jerry Beck. (There is not a single animation legend anywhere in the 2 1/2 hours of Young Frankenstein, by the way).
I’m just hoping there was a Saturday Night Live scout somewhere among us who decides to sign the whole team up and keep Cartoon Dump in New York, where they belong.
EBay seller Tiqu has these photos are up for auction – but none of those pictured are identified. I can’t put my hands on my copy of Illustrated Field Guide to Disney Personnel, so – can anybody make a positive ID?
“Disney artists earn while they learn the profession of animation. To them are entrusted the inconsequential bits of action. They are directly supervised by one of the regular animators.”
“Comparable to a set designer in a live-action studio is this man – a layout artist in Disney terminology. He is one of the artists who design the watercolor backgrounds used in the animated productions.”
“A corner of the sound effect department. Thousands of sounds, from frog croaks to train wheels, are filed away in little drawers.”
“The sound effects boys are on the verge of giving the pictured crates a tumble. The result will probably be a sound effect of Donald Duck taking a spill.”
Dr. Dafoe quarantined the Dionne Quintuplets “to keep the germs away.” That meant keeping people away, too – like the Quints’ parents and the rest of their family. There’s a film clip that shows the result: Jean Hersholt, who played a version of Dr. Dafoe in the three 20th Century Fox features, presents a puppy to the sisters. They’ve never seen a puppy before (dogs have germs, except when Hollywood needs a puppy scene), so the sisters are frightened and back away. It was supposed to be a cute scene. It was a disaster. They stopped the camera, probably had a talk with the girls, then started again. It clearly demonstrates their isolated existence – yet it was used in the feature.
Quintland was the world’s first theme park. It’s estimated that three million people made the trip to see the Quints in person. Often, over two miles of stop-and-go traffic “clued everyone in” that they were getting close.
The Dafoe Hospital had an outdoor playground. Surrounding it on three sides was an enclosed, horseshoe-shaped viewing area. Supposedly, the darkness inside the viewing area, coupled with screens of some sort, would make it impossible for the Quints to know that they were being observed. But the quints caught on quickly – they might not have been able to see the tourists, but they certainly could hear them.
What’s missing in the story of the Dionne Quintuplets… is a hero. Someone who rides to the rescue. Someone who says “This is wrong and it has to stop.”
It wasn’t Dr. Dafoe, who commandeered the quints, was celebrated by the press as a savior, and made a lot of money.
It wasn’t Oliva Dionne, whose initial reaction to the birth was to “sell the Quints,” in order to make a lot of money.
It wasn’t Father Daniel Routhier, from whom Oliva Dionne sought guidance and who suggested that, since the children were a miracle from God, 7% of the money should be given to the church.
It wasn’t Elzire Dionne, who had married at 16 and was the embarrassed mother of 10 at age 25.
It wasn’t Dr. W.E. Blatz, who headed the team from St. George’s School for Child Study at the University of Toronto, who cataloged every move the Quints made but either did not see, or did not want to see, the big picture.
It wasn’t Mitchell Hepburn, the premier of Ontario, who arranged for the Quints to be taken from their parents legally, via a “guardianship” act that officially gave the government and Dafoe full charge.
Yvonne, Marie, Emilie, Annette and Cecile had to become their own heroes.
They didn’t all make it through… but as this ‘behind the scenes’ production video for the TV movie “Million Dollar Babies” shows, Yvonne, Cecile, and Annette Dionne lived to tell the tale.
The picture above is titled “First Dates.” There probably had been no “first dates” for any of the Dionne Quintuplets at the time it was painted. The artist has taken certain small liberties in his rendition, one of which was the decision to ignore reality, not only in what the sisters were doing, but also what they looked like.
Search the web, search the collectible market, and you’ll find baby pictures galore, adolescent pictures a-plenty, but very few photos of the sisters when they were in their teens. It’s a shame, in both senses of that word.
I’m in the process of pulling together Dionne video clips, and with any luck at all, I’ll post them tomorrow.
Meantime, lest you think that the Dionne Quintuplets were exploited exclusively by Dr. Dafoe, the Canadian government and the general public (hundreds of whom appear in the clip tape; an estimated 3 million people traveled to “Quintland” in Ontario to see the Quints in person at one of the daily showings) let me point out that the medical community turned their childhoods into one long observation period. An adoring public wanted to know everything about “their quints;” the medical community did, in fact, know everything about them. A few exhibits will suffice. The only two-year-olds who need a Dayplanner: Those watching even watched what each quint watched:
Click Here for Part 3 – some truly astounding clips, including footage of three of the sisters coming back to look over the “hospital” where they were incarcerated for nearly ten years.
"Isn't Life Terrible" is a Charley Chase short from 1925. The title was derived from a 1924 D.W. Griffith film, "Isn't Life Wonderful?" Other Charley Chase film titles that ask questions are "What Price Goofy?" (1925), "Are Brunettes Safe?" (1927), and "Is Everybody Happy?" (1928). Chase abandoned his titles with question marks for titles with exclamation points during the sound era.
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She was one of those people who lit up the screen; one of those people you felt as if you knew; one of those people that could make a mediocre film worth watching simply because she was in it. She could be sexy and funny at the same time; her dramatic roles were effortlessly natural and believable.
It’s no secret that Walt Disney himself had a major crush on Pleshette. Suzanne flirted with Disney when she was on the lot, something Disney seemed to enjoy. I guess the empire would have crumbled if Disney ended his less-than-fulfilling marriage, but it’s interesting to speculate about the ways in which history might have changed…
Wall of Noise is not out on DVD; I’m not even sure if it was ever out on VHS.
