Those Lips, Those Eyes, Billie Joe, and Glynnis O'Connor

Those Lips, Those Eyes (1980)

This film is set in a regional theater somewhere in 1951.

It was written by David Shaber and directed by Michael Pressman. 

It is a kind of a routine boy becomes a man out in the world story. Tom Hulce plays a working class kid who has medical school hopes but becomes enamored with the local theater where he gets a job as a prop man. Excellent working class pop character created by Jerry Stiller.

Frank Langella plays the star of the show. He is a New York actor frustrated in being stuck on the road in the type of plays that sell on the road. But he tries to keep positive and is most of the time but certainly not always. Langella is very good in this and beings something to this familiar character type. 

Langella’s character takes the kid under his wing and conspires in helping him hookup with an dancer/actress in the company and this is where the movie took off for me. 

The love object is played by Glynnis O'Connor and the character written for her is quite interesting in that she keeps making moves on the boy, is eager in fact, but he keeps messing things up by romanticizing the whole thing way out of proportion to what the more sophisticated, from NYC, young woman has in mind. At the most she is looking for a run-of-the-show lover while he fantasizes about moving to NYC to be with her. 

Glynnis O'Connor is great in this. I was not aware of her before. She does a fine job bringing to life a few nice scenes she is given. In particular when she confesses doubt, frustration, and puzzlement about the meaning of it all, the work to get to a thankless role. The type of “success” one settles for not shoots for. 

Glynnis O'Connor age 25 when this was shot is also very physically attractive and uses her body and face to create this character that I didn’t want to take my eyes off. 

Therefore:

Ode to Billie Joe (1976)

This movie happened to be on TCM the very next day. I like to check out what is coming up before hand and was excited to see that Glynnis O'Connor is in this too. Of course I had to watch it.

That turned out to be an excellent idea because it is a very interesting movie. I wasn’t expecting much. I mean, it was directed by Jethro Bodine. No, really! Max Baer Jr from The Beverly Hillbillies directed it. There is some logic to that I guess.
I can see a cigar chomping Hollywood executive,
“Hillbilly movie? Get Jethro!”
Well, fine but he also hired a real screenwriter, Herman Raucher, and apparently Bobble Gentry was actually involved in the process.
Spoiler Alert!

Anyway we find out what they threw of the damn bridge, FINALLY! I’ve been wondering for like 45 years. But this thing is far from done because the there is a big surprise of a bisexual element in the story. 

I thought this was really interesting and made is a rather good movie over all. 

Glynnis O'Connor is really the star of the movie. And here again she is very good. She was just 20 when this was shot. I much more innocent character. Around the same time 1950, but a country girl without electricity and indoor plumbing. This is a girl becoming a woman character, not like the woman in Those Lips.

So the question in my mind is why have I never heard of her before this? She has kept working, a lot of TV of the sort I never watch. Yet she is not one of the stars we all know. By the evidence of these two movies she should have been a Jennifer Jason Leigh, or Julia Roberts level star. 

But like the speech so so believably delivers in Those Lips, Those Eyes, you do a lot of great work and bust yourself to stay in the game and the payoff isn’t much

A lot of the time anyway. 

I’m not finished digging through the Glynnis O'Connor catalogue. She delivers what I want acting to be.