Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck, who died during the weekend, made her last film in 1964, but she found a new generation of fans with her television roles, including her portrayal of the matriarch in the Western series "The Big Valley. " Although nominated four times for Academy Awards during her 36-year big screen career, Stanwyck never won an Oscar for her acting. She was awarded a special Oscar in 1982 for lifetime achievement, and she earned three TV Emmy awards. Stanwyck, whose films included "Double Indemnity," "Stella Dallas," "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "Ball of Fire," died Saturday of congestive heart failure at 81. The actress displayed a versatile talent in her 83 movies and was reputed to be one of the easiest stars to work with.

When Barbara Stanwyck delivered lines in a film, they were hard to forget. Like a riveter, she drilled them home. And tonight at 8 (and throughout the week) on cable's TNT, you'll hear a slew of great ones, delivered by a real pro. "Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire," hosted by Sally Field, kicks off the Stanwyck retrospective. It's an excellent, full-blown highlight-filled compendium of the late actress' 60-year career. If you're a Stanwyck fan, you'll revel in this hour. But quite honestly, fresh-faced Field, with her high-pitched voice, is not the person I'd pick to narrate a film about the gal whom director Frank Capra once called a "porcupine.

When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, Barbara Stanwyck was even better. No grande dame she, the film and television pro who died Saturday at the age of 82 was the gamest dame in show business. Born into poverty as Ruby Stevens and orphaned at 4, she pulled herself up by her ankle straps and trained as a vaudeville chorus girl. By the time she was 18, the trim entertainer scored a lead in a Broadway play, The Noose. Before she turned 21, Stanwyck was in Hollywood, where she would make some 83 films.

Bleeding from a bullet wound, Walter Neff staggers from his car into an office and begins telling his story to a dictation machine. What he has to say gives us the perfect film noir about an attempt at the perfect murder in Double Indemnity. The 1944 movie fulfilled the promise of its imposing credits. Directed by Billy Wilder from a James M. Cain story adapted for the screen by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity is also perfectly cast. Among the long parade of Hollywood femmes fatales, no one was more drop-dead effective than Barbara Stanwyck, in one of her finest roles as Phyllis Dietrichson.

Barbara Stanwyck, born Ruby Stevens on July 16, 1907, has played proles and princesses - from Stella Dallas to the Cattle Queen of Montana - in a career during which she deftly conquered Broadway, Hollywood and the networks. Along the way, Stanwyck received an honorary Oscar and two Emmys (for her TV show The Barbara Stanwyck Theater and her portrayal of matriarch Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds), and yet, and yet . . . Stanwyck is a member, along with Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Cary Grant, of a very prestigious Hollywood club: screen giants who never won a competitive Oscar.

Barbara Stanwyck, born Ruby Stevens on July 16, 1907, has played proles and princesses - from Stella Dallas to the Cattle Queen of Montana - in a 65-year career during which she deftly conquered Broadway, Hollywood and the networks. Along the way, Stanwyck received an honorary Oscar and two Emmys (for her TV show The Barbara Stanwyck Theater and her portrayal of matriarch Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds), and yet, and yet. . . . Stanwyck is a member, along with Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Cary Grant, of a very prestigious Hollywood club: screen giants who have never won a competitive Oscar.

You know the scenario: not a sou in her satchel but looks to kill. She's a cold-blooded dame indicted for hot-blooded murder, and the D.A. would rather romantically examine the person he's supposed to cross-examine. The gal is Barbara Stanwyck, grandest of dames. The D.A. is Wendell Corey. The movie is The File on Thelma Jordon (1949), an unusually moody film noir that goes to show that even a white knight can fall for a black heart. Tonight and tomorrow, 7 and 9:30 p.m., Temple University Cinematheque, 1619 Walnut St. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE Stephen Frears' comedy about white thugs and Pakistanis in the slums of south London.

Enjoyably nasty Double Indemnity (1944) stars a blond Barbara Stanwyck as the fatalest femme ever imagined: Phyllis Dietrichson, whose sassy manner and brassy anklet snares none-too-swift insurance man Fred MacMurray. Adapted by writer/director Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler from James Cain's hard- boiled novel, the influential film noir chronicles the pair's plan to murder her husband and make away with the insurance money. A brilliant study of desire and revenge. It will be shown tonight at 7:30 on the Pennsylvania State University Ogontz Campus.

"Snakes are my life," explains herpetologist Henry Fonda to cardsharp Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve. "What a life!" she exclaims, proceeding to steal his money and his heart in the 1941 comedy, a sassy laugh marathon from writer/director Preston Sturges. Set in the Eden of a luxury liner, Eve suggests that the expulsion from paradise was due to too much wisecracking. "They say a moonlit deck is a woman's business office," Stanwyck smiles, getting her proposal. When Fonda jilts her because she's a con woman, Stanwyck plots exquisite revenge: "I need him like the ax needs the turkey!"

In addition to MCA's release of several well-known older films, the highlights among last week's video releases were a dark drama and a shimmering opera. MONA LISA (1986) (HBO/Cannon) $89.95. 104 minutes. Bob Hoskins is in brilliant form as a minor underworld figure in over his head in a film noir about a tarnished knight who discovers that he has no armor when he tries to protect a lady of the evening in London's sleazy Soho. Neil Jordan's film lives off the collision of dreaming and drabness and plays like a fairy tale in a place in which the frogs remain frogs and the princesses sell their favors by the hour.

Here's Edward G. Robinson from The Woman in the Window: "There are only three ways to deal with a blackmailer. You can pay him and pay him and pay him until you're penniless. Or you can call the police yourself and let your secret be known to the world. Or you can kill him. " At a certain point in the taut Down Under thriller The Square, Ray Yale (David Roberts), a husband guilty of considerably more than cheating on his wife, faces the dilemma of what to do with a blackmailer.

In his years in Catholic high school in northern New Jersey, Christopher Durang was never the class clown. But by the time he got to the Yale School of Drama, he had audiences laughing. For his young-unknown classmate Meryl Streep, Durang and fellow playwright Albert Innaurato penned a comedy they titled The Idiots Karamazov. Streep was cast as a crabby 80-year-old translator of classic Russian novels. "She did this educated British accent and looked like Margaret Hamilton [the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz]

Bleeding from a bullet wound, Walter Neff staggers from his car into an office and begins telling his story to a dictation machine. What he has to say gives us the perfect film noir about an attempt at the perfect murder in Double Indemnity. The 1944 movie fulfilled the promise of its imposing credits. Directed by Billy Wilder from a James M. Cain story adapted for the screen by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, Double Indemnity is also perfectly cast. Among the long parade of Hollywood femmes fatales, no one was more drop-dead effective than Barbara Stanwyck, in one of her finest roles as Phyllis Dietrichson.

If when you think of Fred MacMurray, you think Flubber, then think again. According to a popular tale, MacMurray was visiting Disneyland with his daughters when an elderly lady walked up to the father figure of My Three Sons, then among the most successful TV sitcoms on the air. "I always liked you until I saw The Apartment. Now I hate you!" she declared, pummeling him with her handbag. The perplexed fan understood something primal about MacMurray, who died of pneumonia on Tuesday at the age of 83. Although the low-pressure actor was cast as the genial All-American hero of Disney fare such as The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)

Fred MacMurray, who defined fatherhood for America through his role on the television series My Three Sons, died yesterday of pneumonia. He was 83. In the tape libraries of television, there are several notable fathers, kind men with a vision of how their children should grow. Danny Thomas was one on Make Room for Daddy in the 1950s. Michael Landon was one on Little House on the Prairie in the 1970s. But Mr. MacMurray was the dad of the decade in the 1960s. His film career, although extensive, had never been stellar.

When Barbara Stanwyck delivered lines in a film, they were hard to forget. Like a riveter, she drilled them home. And tonight at 8 (and throughout the week) on cable's TNT, you'll hear a slew of great ones, delivered by a real pro. "Barbara Stanwyck: Fire and Desire," hosted by Sally Field, kicks off the Stanwyck retrospective. It's an excellent, full-blown highlight-filled compendium of the late actress' 60-year career. If you're a Stanwyck fan, you'll revel in this hour. But quite honestly, fresh-faced Field, with her high-pitched voice, is not the person I'd pick to narrate a film about the gal whom director Frank Capra once called a "porcupine.

Mortal Passions opens with a psychiatrist (David Warner) staring with an air of bored incredulity at the husband and wife he is counseling separately. It doesn't take much of this dim film noir before the viewer comes to share his attitude. Andrew Lane's overwrought and over-plotted movie lacks many things, but the most conspicuous absentee is the macabre sense of humor that illuminates such fine recent contributions to the genre as Blood Simple, The Hit, Prizzi's Honor and Heathers.

When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, Barbara Stanwyck was even better. No grande dame she, the film and television pro who died Saturday at the age of 82 was the gamest dame in show business. Born into poverty as Ruby Stevens and orphaned at 4, she pulled herself up by her ankle straps and trained as a vaudeville chorus girl. By the time she was 18, the trim entertainer scored a lead in a Broadway play, The Noose. Before she turned 21, Stanwyck was in Hollywood, where she would make some 83 films.

Barbara Stanwyck, who died during the weekend, made her last film in 1964, but she found a new generation of fans with her television roles, including her portrayal of the matriarch in the Western series "The Big Valley. " Although nominated four times for Academy Awards during her 36-year big screen career, Stanwyck never won an Oscar for her acting. She was awarded a special Oscar in 1982 for lifetime achievement, and she earned three TV Emmy awards. Stanwyck, whose films included "Double Indemnity," "Stella Dallas," "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "Ball of Fire," died Saturday of congestive heart failure at 81. The actress displayed a versatile talent in her 83 movies and was reputed to be one of the easiest stars to work with.

Barbara Stanwyck, born Ruby Stevens on July 16, 1907, has played proles and princesses - from Stella Dallas to the Cattle Queen of Montana - in a career during which she deftly conquered Broadway, Hollywood and the networks. Along the way, Stanwyck received an honorary Oscar and two Emmys (for her TV show The Barbara Stanwyck Theater and her portrayal of matriarch Mary Carson in The Thorn Birds), and yet, and yet . . . Stanwyck is a member, along with Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Cary Grant, of a very prestigious Hollywood club: screen giants who never won a competitive Oscar.