Tuesday Weld: The Marathon Stars Blogathon

 Happy Saturday from Tuesday Weld and me!

via 60sgroove

This post is part of The Marathon Stars Blogathon hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema, In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and Musings of a Classic Film Addict. It's running through Saturday, so make sure you click here to see all of the other posts!

Onward.

So here's how I settled on Tuesday Weld: I've seen her name in passing reading old Photoplays of the era, and I knew I wanted to focus on a '60s star, and when I looked through her filmography I realized I've only ever seen one of her films, I'll Take Sweden, a Bob Hope comedy. I loved the set design and how goofy it was overall, so when I was looking for an actor to focus on for this blogathon and I stumbled upon Tuesday again, I knew I had to watch her films!

Tuesday got her start in small roles, often playing a teenybopper or the girl next door, and though she came up in the era where Sandra Dee and Connie Stevens were getting mint roles, she never truly transcended. A part of this seems like it was by choice, since in most of the Photoplay magazines I read from the era, she's quoted as saying she wants her privacy and doesn't want to be famous. 

Later in the '60s, she would grow more famous for turning down plum roles (Bonnie and Clyde comes to mind) because she could tell those movies would be big and she didn't want to be attached to them. You have to wonder how much of that is hindsight, but Tuesday was committed to making the types of movies she wanted. I watched five of her earlier films for this blogathon, though it must be noted that as she grew older, she appeared to take more risks. In 1977, she received an Oscar nomination for Looking for Goodbar. 

Her acting appearances grew sporadic in the '80s, tapering off in the '90s, and totally ending in the early 2000s. Tuesday is still alive, now 80, and lives in retirement in California.

Without further ado, here are the new-to-me films I watched for this blogathon. Enjoy!

Bachelor Flat (1962)

via koz-mo

I didn't realize at the time that this was a remake of Susan Slept Here, literally by the same director, until I looked it up afterwards. I did love the attempts to modernize it (and I loved the lack of Dick Powell). It's a testament to the revisions that you can't really tell it's a remake (if anything, it feels inspired by, since the gross age gap relationship is gone here, spoiler alert).

And just like the original, the set design is enviable! Look for an Apartment Therapy post on Bachelor Flat soon!

Tuesday is wholesome yet troublesome in this movie, playing a role previously played by Debbie Reynolds. She's engaging with the whiplash material provided by the script, and you have to imagine that if she'd gotten a chance with the material Sandra Dee had to work with, she would've truly been a star as well. 

Pretty Poison (1968)

via jeannemoreau

Tuesday is truly terrifying in Pretty Poison as a high school senior with a penchant for murder. She more than holds her own against Anthony Perkins, who plays a mentally ill man convinced he's working as a secret agent. Just your classic story of boy meets girl, boy brings out the murderous tendencies in girl, everyone is changed for the worse by the time the credits roll. 

Watching this, compared to the other teenybopper movies I watched, you get the sense that Tuesday relished playing a complex character like this. 

Rock! Rock! Rock! (1956)

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Golly gee, Dori's just gotta get a prom dress! That's basically the story for this jukebox musical, where the day's most popular singers perform throughout as Tuesday (using Connie Francis's singing voice) tries to scheme and scam in the most wholesome way possible, to get her prom dress!

The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960)

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Oh boy, this movie. This has been on my Letterboxd watch list forever because it sounds like campy, trashy, fun. Like, the kind of movie you'd watch at 2 am on television with a bunch of commercial breaks, because why would it be fun to watch this in theatres? Did this play in the theatres? It must have, but I can't imagine it doing well at the box office. 

At any rate, this movie is about a bunch of people on a bus to Reno (including Tuesday as Vangie, a teen runaway who falls in love with Paul Anka), but then it swaps to a shared dream of Mamie van Doren and Martin Milner's, where they're in the Garden of Eden as Adam and Eve, and the people on the bus represent other biblical characters. Mickey Rooney plays the Devil, which, honestly... 

Anyways, it's trash but if you're looking for an hour or so to kill, what's the harm? 

Rally 'round the Flag, Boys! (1958)

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I mean, you can't exactly steal scenes from Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Joan Collins or Jack Carson, but you can try in the side story! In her second film, Tuesday plays a teenager named, and I'm not making this up, Comfort Goodpasture, who has a boyfriend...until the military comes to town and brings the young recruits. 

This is fun on the whole, including Tuesday's scenes. I'd definitely recommend it. 

High Time (1960)

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I'm going to be honest, I barely remember seeing Tuesday in this movie, that's how large of a presence Bing Crosby is. This was a fun musical nonetheless, and if you're a fan of Fabian's, make sure you check it out!

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After watching these Tuesday Weld movies, I know I'm going to want to watch more in the future. If you've seen any of Tuesday's films, which ones are your favourites? Give me recommendations in the comments!