My 2009 Online DVD Rentals Continued

Last Christmas a coworker of mine gave me the Turner Classic Movies book Leading Men: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actors of the Studio Era and I promptly used a Barnes and Noble gift card from my family to get the companion book Leading Ladies. I knew most of the men but just over half of the ladies. Browsing the indexes now, it's sad how many more films the men starred in and the how many decades their careers lasted compared to the ladies. It's funny, I can name you my top five favorite classic sirens off the top of my head, no problem: Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, Ava Gardner, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly. Ask me to name my top five male actors and I can only think of one: Cary Grant. I've probably seen more movies with him than movies with all my top five sirens combined.

Anyway, when researching for "My Starting Point for American Film Appreciation" post, I ran across many more movies than I mentioned in my last "2009 Online DVD Rentals" post. There were three actresses that kept coming up, two of which appear in the Leading Ladies book. Gene Tierney I completely glanced over in the book, Judy Holliday didn't appear therein, and the young Shirley Maclaine, who I didn't really discover until I saw Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960) this year. Watch it if you haven't already because it gives a whole new perspective on her recent work going back to The Turning Point (1977). These three actresses don't fit the sirens' mold of the ones on my top five list. Here are the movies I decided to add to my Blockbuster Online queue, five for each actress, focusing mostly on the decade when they were most prolific:

Tierney in the '40s
The Return of Frank James (1940)
Heaven Can Wait (1943)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Dragonwyck (1946)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Holliday in the '50s
Born Yesterday (1950)
The Marrying Kind (1952)
It Should Happen to You (1954)
The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)
Bells Are Ringing (1960)

Maclaine in the '60s
The Matchmaker (1958)
The Children's Hour (1961)
My Geisha (1962)
What a Way to Go! (1964)
Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970)

OUT TODAY ON DVD: THE DARK KNIGHT