SUZANNE PLESHETTE, JAMES FRANCISCUS and EVA GABOR in "YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE" (1964)
Have you ever seen a dream walking?
Well I have.
Have you ever seen a male soap opera?
Well I have.
TEXT MESSAGE CONVERSATION:
FRIEND: Are you watching the Martin Luther King dedication?
C-MAVEN: Naaaah, I’m watching a sudsy old soap opera on TCM.
FRIEND: Don’t you want to see Obama?
C-MAVEN: Hey, I haven’t seen ‘Youngblood Hawke’ in 40 years.
FRIEND: LOL!
C-MAVEN: I’m a movie buff.
...And I was a
happy camper, too.
“YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE” was on Sunday morning. I saw it so long ago, I remembered none of it, but enjoyed
all of it. Wow! They stuffed a lifetime of events in two and a half hours. And yes, it was a male soap opera. The film has a male lead, but the film has a female presentation. The gorgeous James Franciscus plays Youngblood Hawke and I swear he was filmed like any other blonde bombshell.
JAMES FRANCISCUS.
Such a focus on him. He
is the focus...the
object of desire. But it’s not quite with the same focus you’d look at Mitchum, Ryan, Peck or Matthew Mc
Ickyhay. (That’s for you, Jackaaay
![Razz :P](./images/smilies/icon_razz.gif)
but we’ll leave him off that list, though I
do think he could pay a modern day “HUD” ). At first I missed the Sirkian-saturated technicolor of a true soap opera, but I very quickly changed my mind; that might turn him into a pin-up...a thinking woman's Troy Donahue. (And who wants that? Besides, NYC sometimes looks
better in black & white). By Delmer Daves making Franciscus the object of our gaze, it's like looking at Gene Tierney or Jeanne Crain. Or Esther Williams. Everything’s inverted as Franciscus plays Youngblood Hawke, a blonde babe in the woods in the big bad city of 1960’s New York. He’s the hot new sensation in the publishing world and two sexy sharks with husky voices swim around him. Sharks not sexy? Ha! Au contraire when they're in the guise of...
SUZANNE PLESHETTE, story editor: ( smart as a whip, maternally patient...
but interested ) and
GENEVIEVE PAGE, patron of the arts: ( sophisticated, damaged...and insatiably devouring ).
Well, if a guy’s gotta go...
Maybe the sets were Hollywood, but the beautiful cinematography films
1964 New York City. Oooh, that black and white is as clean and a sharp as an Autumn day. I recognized a couple of New York sights...the main one being the promenade of Brooklyn Heights. I recognized the entrance they went through and the little lip of the promenade they were standing on. I squealed when I heard the rent for his little East River garret was
$60.00. I would kill for that apartment in Brooklyn Heights. The rent now in that very same spot, is probably a good $3,500. And
that would be on the cheap side. The music is by Max Steiner...big and bombastic!! It presents itself and every situation it underscores. (Korngold ain’t got nuthin’ on him!) The movie is peopled with a great supporting class and character types, including: John Dehner, Lee Bowman (
finally I like him in something), Eva Gabor, Mildred Dunnock, Don Porter, Werner Klemperer, Edward Andrews and the great Mary Astor as sharks, vamps, butterflies, bimboes and career girls and grande dames.
What is Youngblood up against? Love at first sight and lust at first sight. A typical choice and friendly nemeses in films. Genevieve Page has a great voice, like Hildegarde. She’s got a glamorous wardrobe and wears it damn well. She knows the right people and can help his career. But she’s also saddled with a husband and three kids: two little girls curtsying like twin fairies in "Godzilla" (or is that "Mothra"?) and a sickly son who looks like he won’t survive a rousing game of stickball on the streets of Sutton Place, much less the military school he’s being sent to. (Hollywood Child Actors! Bah! There oughta be a law. Nothing real like young Desmond Tester in “Sabotage”). Page’s husband is played by sad-sack, second-stringer, Kent Smith. Just seeing him is such a short hand. You
know he’s not making Page happy. She’s a girl with baggage and no guy wants that.
Then there’s Pleshette with her blazing eyes and dark beauty. She looks very sultry here in a good clean way. She’s a career girl. Smart. Knows the ropes. She gets a ringing endorsement from Youngblood’s mother (played by Elizabeth Taylor's "BUTTERFIELD 8" mother Mildred Dunnock) when she tells Pleshette:
“You seem too pretty to have so much brains.” HA! And Pleshette’s character went to Stanford. What a waste, ey Mom? Pleshette can help Youngblood with his career. More accurately, she can help him become a better writer. Oh she
wants him alright. We see this the very first time she sees him. But she hangs back a bit. Darn it...if
only Youngblood would make the first move like a fella’s supposed to. Why won't he step up to the plate? ('Cuz Page already has him by the bat). Pleshette's boss waits in the wings to scoop her up. He’s very kind and very handsome (played by Mark Miller of “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” fame and the handsomest tv father of the 60’s). But she's a career girl:
"I'm proud of the help I can give a fine writer, but my life is my own!!" Yet still...it’s Youngblood that makes Suzanne’s typewriter go pitter patter. She tells him
“My emotions are becoming a little too obvious. I can’t continue to work with you. Night after night.” Reasonable. Sensible. Quietly sexy. A big come-on.
Being a red-blooded American male, there’s no doubt which moth Youngblood’s attracted to. He picks the gal with the baggage. Well...I hope it's at least Louis Vuitton.
Much swirls around the “hawke” in this movie. Feted by the hoi polloi, dropped by a publisher, breach of contract, suicide, pneumonia, lawsuits, being catnip to women, Pulitzer nominations...and his mother entering his room without knocking. Whew!! It’s a never ending series of events, Steiner musical cues and sophisticated 60's Mad Men banter in "Youngblood Hawke." And I ate it up hook, line and sinker!!! Franciscus did a good job as the lead. He emoted convincingly, is born to a tuxedo, and can dive into a pool as good as Greg Lougainis.
I think I'll relive some of the movie by going down to Brooklyn Heights on this cloudy 21st century New York day...and walk the Brooklyn Promenade. I’ll look for the ghosts of James Franciscus and Suzanne Pleshette...and maybe show you some pictures of what the promenade looks like today.