Lee Remick

Lee Remick, the actress, was born December 14 1935 in Quincy, Massachusetts.  She made her Broadway debut at age 18.

Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd (1957).  She portrayed Betty Lou, a teenage baton twirler, who marries the protagonist, played by Andy Griffith.

Remick came to prominence portraying a rape victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959).  I consider this to be the best courtroom drama.

When her husband goes to bed early one evening after work, Laura (Remick), feeling bored and lonely, goes to a local bar to drink and play pinball.  Leaving, she is offered a ride by the proprietor who had previously befriended her and her husband.  On their way, he rapes and assaults her.

After arriving home, Laura tells her husband what happened.  He then goes to the bar and kills the rapist.  

Laura has several key scenes both before the trial and during it.  She flirts with her husband's attorney, Paul Biegler (James Stewart), and is intimidated by the prosecutor, Claude Dancer (George C. Scott).

In 1962, Lee Remick stars opposite Jack Lemmon in the romantic drama film Days of Wine and Roses.  They portray a couple who become alcoholics.  

There is a line in the movie that alcoholics often demonstrate obsessive behavior, pointing out that Kirsten's (Remick) previous passion for chocolate may have been the first sign of an addictive personality.  That doesn't apply to me.

Remick was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the above film, but it was won by Anne Bancroft for The Miracle Worker.  

Remick died of kidney cancer in 1991 at the age of 52.  Que pena!    

 

Behold a Pale Horse

Behold a Pale Horse is a 1964 American drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann and starring Gregory Peck, Omar Sharif and Anthony Quinn.  The story relates to the period in Spain and France twenty years after the Spanish Civil War.

Artiguez (Peck), a member of the defeated Republican forces, lives in exile in France and formerly conducted raids against the Franco government in Spain.  Vinolas (Quinn), a Spanish police officer, desperately wants to capture or kill Artiguez.  

A message is sent to Artiguez to come visit his dying mother in Spain.  It is a trap.  A priest (Sharif) is sent by the mother to tell her son not to come.  Artiguez comes any way.

On Saturday night, September 26, 1964, my brother Paul and I attended a screening of Behold a Pale Horse at a movie theater in Center City Philadelphia.  Just before the movie began, four large men sat down in the row directly in front of us.

Directly in front of me was Dick Modzelewski, a member of the Cleveland Browns football team that would play the hometown Eagles the next day.  Even though I only saw him from the back, I recognized him from his brush hair cut.  I was familiar with Modzelewski from his time with the New York football Giants, my favorite team.

The Browns beat the Eagles that Sunday.  I was in attendance at Franklin Field and saw Modzelewski a second time.  The Browns went on to win the NFL championship that year, 1964, the last time they did so.

I did not know that Modzelewski and I shared the name Blair, my first, his middle.  I also didn't know that he went to the University of Maryland, class of 1953, where my son Bret went, class of 2007.

Modzelewski died in 2018 at the age of 87.

I was reminded of all this when I saw Behold a Pale Horse recently on YouTube for the first time in more than 60 years.