1961 Bette Davis is Apple Annie in Ann-Margret's Debut
Apple Annie (Bette Davis) makes her living as a gin-sauced, basket-carrying, apple-selling NYC street woman. This motion picture is in color which makes Davis' famous facial expressions, especially her eyes, all the more effective.
The people Apple Annie hangs out with are other street vendors who are social misfits of various sorts; but, they have one thing in common: poverty.
Apple Annie is well connected with a mobster known as Dave the Dude (Glenn Ford). Fortunately, he's superstitious. The tough mobster believes Apple Annie's apples bring him daily good luck because she says, "God Bless You," to everyone who buys from her.
All along Apple Annie's been writing her daughter, Louise (Ann-Margret, in her film debut), on stationary from an upper-crusty NY city hotel-apartment complex, in order to pretend that she's a well-to-do lady. When Louise writes that she's coming to the city with her potential fiancé, whose father is a Spanish count, Apple Annie's pretense is not only about to be exposed but it could ruin her only child's chance for marrying well enough so that she'll never live in poverty like her mother.
The rest of the story is fabulous: humorous, ingenious, well-casted, scripted & acted. It's anything but a typical mob story with a spectacular ending.
For me, the priceless scenes are between the veteran actor Bette Davis, Glenn Ford & upstart Ann-Margret. Imagine being able to claim that in your 1st film you starred as Bette Davis' daughter? Ann-Margret gives a fine 1st film performance face-to-face with the Queen of the Silver Screen.
The supporting cast couldn't be more befitting with Edward Everette Horton as a butler interacting with Glenn Ford and Peter Falk as gangsters. Peter Falk does a classic mobster version of "Columbo," in top comedic form. Davis, in Technicolor, with her famous turquoise eyes, portrays one of the most realistic, heart-felt, truly dramatic metamorphosis characters I've seen. What film genre to categorize this in is baffling! Comedy, fantasy, drama, romance or all of the above?
It's no accident or coincidence that Frank Capra chose this film and cast for his final one. It's a delightful success~Read full review
