I could watch Trevor Howard (above) eat a bowl of Weetabix. Incredible actor. Last night, TCM showed David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), and was compelling, as usual, as a doctor, married, who falls in love with Celia Johnson, married. The film was based on a Noel Coward play, which gives it an impeccable British pedigree. I could not overcome, however, Celia Johnson having to deliver her lines from beneath some that have not aged well.

As long as we’re being shallow, it also struck me that the British drink so much tea that they may well have the largest bladders in Europe. May that helped win the War.

Then there was His Kind of Girl, with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. I could watch Mitchum eat a bowl of Wheaties, and I know Russell (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, with her close friend MM), but her performance equaled Mitchum’s—she gave as good as she got—and he got to rub suntan lotion on her back.

Russell’s elegant jawline struck me, too and, yes this isn’t what she was known for. This film was produced by Howard Hughes, who so famously displayed Russell’s chestly endowments in The Outlaw. Russell was devout, and Mitchum teased her about it, and when one critic asked her how she reconciled her religion with her racy scenes, she replied “Who says Christians can’t have big breasts?” (Thank you, TCM, for that anecdote.)

She sang twice in this film, and here she is, with Marilyn, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes:

She lived in her later years in Santa Maria, and used to sing at the Radisson Hotel near the airport. Her accompanist, if I’m not mistaken, was Mr. Lee Statom, our much-loved local music teacher.

I wish I had seen those two perform.