The gift of love
Anybody seen this movie from 1958? Lauren Bacall plays a lady who’s dying from a heart problem. She doesn’t think her husband will be able to cope with her loss so she adopts a young girl from an orphanage and trains her to take care of her husband after she’s gone.
The opening scene shows Bacall massaging the neck and shoulders of stack in what is rather a bizarre montage before the opening credits.
The movie is sort of like a car crash that I couldn’t keep from watching. It’s sort of douglas Sirk-lite but even more contrived. Bacall is an interesting choice for this nice, maternal lady, while stack seems a bit miscast although hunky in this role; his character is a sexy, awkward, smouldering physicist, with a nice chest, who seems to have anger management issues. In one scene he pushes the young girl into a wooden desk and later sends a tray of breakfast crashing to the floor because he doesn’t like a flower she brings him because it reminds him of his dead wife.
the film is pure melodrama and a little hokey at the end but it’s worth it to see Bacall playing a softer role than usual and stack as mentioned is very handsome in this one.
Any fans of this?
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 29 | July 28, 2022 10:14 AM
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How creepy! Manbaby won't be able to manage on his own without mommy-wife, so she, ever the good geisha, adopts him a new child-bride?? And that's the film you're recommending us, OP??
by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 27, 2022 9:20 PM
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Yes, I have seen this, when you said he played a physicist I remembered. He was Brilliant and doing Important Work so he had to be cosseted. I don't remember much else.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 27, 2022 9:26 PM
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I LOVE THE GIFT OF LOVE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you OP Bacall is sort of human in it, of course she makes ruth Gordon in rosemary's baby look like mary poppins, but she manages to convey warmth and is really touching in the end. I ADORE BOBBY STACK. adorbz. The first scenes are priceless. So sexy When lauren falls down the stairs I LOLed, I know it was supposed to be tragic, but because it's her it was fun
by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 27, 2022 9:26 PM
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It's on YouTube, for those interested. People in the comments liked it a lot.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 5 | July 27, 2022 9:39 PM
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Stack made a string of soapy films around this time - written on the wind, the tarnished angels and this one. He really was a handsome guy it’s a wonder his career wasn’t bigger. He could have played characters in those Tennessee Williams or William inge pictures.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 27, 2022 9:40 PM
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R6 it's no wonder. SOMEONE destroyed his career
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 7 | July 27, 2022 9:44 PM
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I prefer "The Look Of Love", myself.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 27, 2022 9:46 PM
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I remember this movie. I recall there was a scene where the little girl erased the physicist's chalkboards and he yelled at her.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 27, 2022 9:47 PM
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it's such a sweet movie. The little girl is annoying, but when she brings him coffee to bed after the chalkboard debacle, she's hilarious
by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 27, 2022 9:49 PM
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Yeah, Robert Stack was dreamy and sexy, Elliott Ness on TV reruns, one episode had him wearing nothing but a skimpy towel right out of the shower as he's answering the telephone, I was about 8yo and knew I liked what I saw, my pulse rate increased, my eyes widened, he was all man, all sex appeal!! I knew I was gay around that time circa1972. Wow!!
by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 27, 2022 9:49 PM
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This movie ripped off my 1946 movie.
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 12 | July 27, 2022 9:50 PM
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[quote] Yeah, Robert Stack was dreamy and sexy,
FUCK YEAH
Offsite Linkby Anonymous | reply 13 | July 27, 2022 9:51 PM
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rOBERT sTACK REPRISING A jOHN pAYNE ROLE;;;MY mOVARIES EXPLODE
by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 27, 2022 9:52 PM
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So he hung out with rock Hudson. I wonder if it means he was gay friendly then. One can hope.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 27, 2022 9:54 PM
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Robert Stack was a big DL Icon a few years back, I'm glad he's having a resurgence
by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 27, 2022 9:59 PM
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This movie could be remade/recycled today. Here are my suggestions.
-Sofia Vergara stars as a kooky but well meaning social worker who is married to a popular personal trainer played by Joe Manganiello. Sofia finds out she has terminal breast cancer and then decides to adopt a pair of foster siblings so her personal trainer husband isn't alone. Sofia dies and hijinks ensue with the trainer has no idea to raise the pair of foster siblings.
-Tig Notaro stars a high school gym teacher who is five years post breast cancer and is happily married to an uptight business executive played by Kate McKinnon who badly attempts a serious role. Tig's character's cancer returns and it's stage 4. Tig's character convinces her uptight wife to adopt a foster teen who also attends Tig's school. Tig dies and the uptight business exec has to learn to be a mom quickly.
-Scarlett Johanson and Colin Jost star as a couple based on themselves. But, in the movie they don't have kids. Colin's character is head writer/producer of a sketch comedy show that runs year round.. Scarlett gets terminal brain cancer and buys an orphan from China before she dies. Colin is tasked with caring for the orphan and there's a dramatic scene in which the orphan accidentally destroys scripts that Colin's working on.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 27, 2022 10:03 PM
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I didn’t know Bacall had this side to her. that being said, she was wholly unbelievable as a Nebraska farm girl who had grown up milking cows.
“You know how to milk a cow, don’t you? Just wrap your hand around its teat and squeeze.”
by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 27, 2022 10:32 PM
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Look, I know Bacall is DL archvilain, but she's a terrific actress, I also love her in a movie called north frontier or something , of flames over India or whatever, she can be very maternal and warm
by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 27, 2022 10:37 PM
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Any movie where Lauren Bacall dies is a gift of love.
by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 27, 2022 11:08 PM
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The tension in the scene where the autistic adoptee erases Stack’s chalk-written nuclear equations is rivalled only by that in a similar scene in Torn Curtain where Paul Newman, also a brilliant physicist, trades nuclear equations at the chalkboard with an East German scientist.
by Anonymous | reply 24 | July 28, 2022 8:16 AM
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Later he takes his frustrations out on the orphan by pushing her out of his way gratuitously when he hears the news about his wife’s collapsing. I don’t think anyone is safe with that unbalanced man.
Also do you think his wife’s illness had anything to do with her triple martini sleeping cure and her cigarette smoking?
by Anonymous | reply 25 | July 28, 2022 8:59 AM
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R25 CONTEXT! don't go all dylan farrow on OP, it's just a movie, not a social services enquiry
by Anonymous | reply 26 | July 28, 2022 9:01 AM
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Would these 1950s stars who were born in the 20s have been cut or uncut?
by Anonymous | reply 27 | July 28, 2022 9:25 AM
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Bobby S. was technically american, but he came from a very artsy family, they were in Opera, and quite famous too, so he grew up in Italy, he didn't even speak american when they relocated in the US, around his 8th birthday, so I would say uncut
by Anonymous | reply 28 | July 28, 2022 9:33 AM
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Evelyn Rudie Who plays the little orphan is still alive. I wish she could tell us how it was working with Bacall and Stack on this movie. Bet she has some scoop.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | July 28, 2022 10:14 AM
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