Claire LaZebnik Remembers A Visit from Patricia Neal

Posted on June 18, 2013 at 8:00 am

Claire LaZebnik wrote a beautiful piece in the Wall Street Journal about a visit from the late Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal. The first movie I ever reviewed — for my high school paper — was Neal’s comeback film, “The Subject Was Roses” (with a very young Martin Sheen as her son). Neal was at the top of her profession, starring with Gary Cooper and Paul Newman, happily married to author Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach), and pregnant with their child when she suddenly suffered a severe stroke. Her recovery is a testament to her determination and Dahl’s.

LaZebnik writes about finding out that her home was where Neal and Dahl were staying in 1965 when she had the stroke. Neal visited them there.

She looked more like a grandmother than a movie star, but the voice was as husky and gorgeous as ever. And those eyes. They were large and luminous and expressive. You could drown in those eyes….She was funny, wicked, charming, spellbinding. Every one of us fell in love with her that day. We didn’t want her to leave and we begged her to come back. She promised to return soon for a night of parlor and board games, which she said she loved.

But she became ill with cancer soon after and was not able to return. Many thanks to her for sharing this lovely story.

Related Tags:

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Posted on December 8, 2008 at 8:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	4th - 6th Grades
MPAA Rating:	G
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Theme of possible world destruction, guns, sci-fi violence
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	1951
Date Released to DVD:	2008
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00005JKFR

In the 1951 version of The Day the Earth Stood Still, a spaceship landed in front of the Washington Monument to warn the people of earth that they were on the path to destruction. The problem then was the Cold War and nuclear arms race. In 2008, the remake has a space orb land in New York City and once again a humanoid-looking creature from another planet comes to earth because of another impending doom. “If the Earth dies, you die,” he says. “If you die, the Earth survives.”

Jennifer Connelly, who seems to enjoy sharing the screen with super-smart crazy guys (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Hulk”), plays Helen, a scientist brought in to try to help assess the threat level from the two beings to come out of the orb. The first would have done better to have had a scientist to assess his own threat level because as soon as it stepped out of the orb someone shot him. The second is a silent, colossus-like giant of a robot with an ominous glow through the eye-slit, standing as sentry.

Klaatu has assumed human form (Keanu Reeves) so that he can speak to the world leaders at the UN. But a suspicious Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates) decides to treat him like a galactic terrorist, so soon Klaatu, Helen, and her stepson (Jaden Smith, the son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith), are on the run. They make the obligatory visit to the Wise Man in the Woods (John Cleese, terrific as a Nobel award-winner for “altruistic biology”) and try to evade the efforts of military and law enforcement to capture them while Helen tries to demonstrate that humans are worth saving.

Director Scott Derickson is a committed Christian, and he has given the original story themes of sacrifice and redemption that will resonate with those who are open to a spiritual message. There is a reference to Noah’s Ark. Klaatu has the power to heal. He brings a dead man back to life and even walks on water. The most important themes are deeply spiritual as well, stewardship, respect for the interdependence of all things, and hope.