Changes

From my adolescent years, I still [[remember ]] my passionate reaction to [[seeing ]] Vincente Minnelli's [[Father ]] of the Bride, in which Joan Bennett plays the [[mother ]] of the young Elizabeth Taylor. Although Taylor was the star, my immediate reaction was: Wait a minute, the mother here is much more exciting! OK, the daughter is striking, but in a rather cold and conventional way, while it is the mother who radiates the unconditional attraction! Bennett's great late [[role]], that of the housewife in Max Ophuls's supreme The Reckless [[Moment ]] (where she gets emotionally involved with the wretched [[James ]] Mason), confirmed not only the allure of her mature beauty but also the unique way her appeal remains the same whether she plays the [[evil ]] [[femme ]] fatale, the anxious housewife or the vulnerable bride (in Fritz Lang's [[Secret ]] Beyond the Door).

Two further details from Bennett's personal [[life ]] helped to sustain my daydreaming: Politically, she was reported to be leaning toward the [[left ]] (so it was politically correct to fantasize [[about ]] her); plus she was very short-sighted, unable to discern more than the contours of the [[people ]] around her without glasses or lenses, so maybe even an ugly guy like me has a [[chance ]] with her... So when I saw her in her ultimate [[femme fatale ]] role, in Lang's The [[Woman ]] in the Window, the only question that bothered me was: Did Lang do it with her or not? To [[satisfy ]] that [[obsession]], I was for years perusing biographies and even talked with people who knew people who knew her or Lang. Today, she still reigns supreme in my [[imagination]].