{"id":2458,"date":"2013-06-18T14:03:49","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T18:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=2458"},"modified":"2014-08-12T21:07:11","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T01:07:11","slug":"sophia-loren-in-a-gown-of-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tr10023.com\/?p=2458","title":{"rendered":"Sophia Loren in a Gown of Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The German Poster for “Houseboat.”<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

First of all, I want to make it clear that I do not recommend “Houseboat” (Paramount, 1958) as a good picture (which it isn’t), nor as a good and tiresome example of a late-era Production Code Hollywood hybrid of Family-Values\/Peek-a-Boo Sex Comedy (which it is), nor even as an enjoyable piece of fluff (which it isn’t). It’s mostly excruciating. But there are at least two good reasons I want to bring “Houseboat” to your attention. \u00a0They are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sophia Loren; and<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Sophia Loren in a golden dress.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If it were not for la Sofia e il suo abito d’oro<\/em>, I wouldn’t bother you with “Houseboat,” not even for the juicy off-camera gossip that goes along with it. \u00a0I was a little kid when I first saw “Houseboat.” We had a black and white TV, so I didn’t know la Sofia’s amazing dress was made of gold fabric. But even in black and white, the impression she made on me was unforgettable. When I first saw “Houseboat,” I was about ten — the same age as Charles Herbert in the picture below. Every time I see the sequence where she ends up in a row boat with a ten year-old kid, I remember how the scene shook me to my core when I first saw it, and how poignantly I wished I were in Charles Herbert’s place — he never seemed to realize how lucky he was, the ungrateful little rat bastard.<\/p>\n

    \"Charles<\/a>

    Charles Herbert, Sophia Loren: Row, row, row your boat . . .<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

    Even with Sophia Loren at her most beautiful and charming, “Houseboat” sorely tried my patience when I saw it a dozen years ago, but I kept watching it just to see her walk out onto the deck of the houseboat in that incredible dress of gold. I was not disappointed: whenever I return to the scene after a long absence, I always laugh at the sight, but also get a lump in my throat. I confess to having an appetite for certain kinds of crummy, meathead entertainment, but my tolerance for adorable moppets is about zero. Every so often, a child’s performance is so conspicuously terrible that I find myself transfixed by it — Judy Nugent’s stupendously bad performance in “Magnificent Obsession<\/a>” springs horribly to mind — but in this one, the kids aren’t terrible enough to hold my interest. They’re merely badly trained and directed and stuck with idiotic, non-human dialogue. Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose were nominated for Best Original Story and Screenplay (they lost to\u00a0Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith, who wrote “The Defiant Ones”). La Sofia transcends all the coarse banality and insipid sentimentality of “Houseboat”; she makes it all irrelevant when she shows up in that gold dress. She’s so delicious, she makes you feel sorry for Cary Grant, who could not win her.<\/p>\n

    I consider Sophia Loren the sexiest movie star of them all, and one of the most agreeable presences in the history of the movies. She hasn’t been in a lot of very good pictures, but every time she’s onscreen, I’m reminded of what I like so much about the whole idea of the movies. In Stella Adler’s class, whenever a student said some performance was “bigger than life,” Stella always interrupted. “Darling: nothing<\/em> is \u00a0<\/i>bigger\u00a0than Life.” Well, maybe. \u00a0If so, Sophia Loren is the exception that proves the rule. \u00a0Sophia Loren is bigger than Life. \u00a0And a lot better<\/em> than Life, too. She’s so spectacularly beautiful that she barely makes sense in most pictures: how can she be anything but an internationally famous movie star? She can’t really be a housewife or a clerk or an average person. \u00a0She can’t be anything but what she is — an impossibility who somehow .\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0is<\/em>. I cannot look at her or hear her musical voice without being filled with joy and gratitude.<\/p>\n

    “Houseboat” is terrible in the way that “The Brady Bunch” is terrible. It’s coy, it’s idiotic, it’s phony, it’s sentimental, illogical, preposterous .\u00a0. .\u00a0and it features atrocious, cutesy-pie kiddies who act in the studio-approved, devoid-of-the-human-experience style that only recently seems to have disappeared. Mind you, I don’t blame the kids: they were taught to act artificial and over-emphasize their words. But that they’re blameless doesn’t make them any easier to watch.<\/p>\n

    A little background about the three clips I’ve selected. Runaway Italian socialite ends up working as a maid for widower Cary Grant on a houseboat. (Don’t ask.) Grant is on the brink of marrying American socialite, Martha Hyer, the sister of his late wife. \u00a0(Don’t ask.) Loren falls for Grant, but he doesn’t know she’s alive. (Don’t ask.) Loren is about to return to her glamorous life, when Grant gives her a parting gift — a golden dress with big purple flowers sewn on to it. It was chosen by Martha Hyer, who foolishly believes she can embarrass Loren and hurt her feelings. \u00a0Harry Guardino is a local Romeo, who’s got the hots for Loren, but is not interested in settling down . . . ever.<\/p>\n

    First clip: Cary Grant gives the vulgar dress to la Sofia, not realizing how potentially insulting it is.<\/p>\n