Netflix Update No. 88: “Cookie’s Fortune.”

PATRICIA NEAL

The dysfunctional family is a tried-and-true topic for a novel or a movie, and it was put to good use in the 1999 film Cookie’s Fortune.

The movie was written by Anne Rapp and filmed on location in Holly Springs, Mississippi; the ensemble cast includes Glenn Close, Charles S. Dutton, Julianne Moore, Liv Tyler, Patricia Neal, Chris O’Donnell, Ned Beatty, and Lyle Lovett.

As Easter approaches in a small southern town, widow Jewel-Mae “Cookie” Orcutt (Patricia Neal), who has never reconciled herself to the death of her husband, Buck, has decided that her own death will reunite her with him. She uses one of her revolvers as the instrument for this transition. Her body is discovered by her daughters Camille Dixon (Glenn Close) and Cora Duvall (Julianne Moore). Camille, a half-mad playwright, cares only that news of the suicide will disgrace the family so she forces the dotty but lovable Cora to help her in a clumsy attempt to make the death look like murder.

GLENN CLOSE and JULIANNE MOORE

This scheme has an unintended consequence when the police come to suspect and arrest a black man, Willis Richland (Charles S. Dutton), who lives on Cookie’s property, does odd jobs around the place, and is her closest friend in town. Camille, who has a tenuous grip on sanity, knows better, of course, but her fear of scandal and her desire to become the grande dame of Cookie’s house keep her lips sealed. Among those who find it unlikely that Willis killed Cookie is Cora’s funky prodigal daughter,  Emma (Liv Tyler), who has just returned to town after going AWOL. Unlike her mother and aunt, Emma shared a mutual affection with Cookie, and she is confident of Willis’s integrity — and that’s without knowing that Willis has deeper ties to the family than anyone but Cookie was aware of.

LIV TYLER and CHARLES S. DUTTON

This is an oddball, engaging story, and the outstanding cast lives up to expectations. I, for one, couldn’t get enough of Liv Tyler. This film is billed as a comedy, and it has plenty of comic moments. Still, portrayals of madness always give me a little chill, and Glenn  Close — particularly in the last few moments — inspires a full-blown shudder.

Don’t let the bedbugs bite

Every year at this time, and during the run-up to Valentine’s Day, the public-radio station I listen to runs sponsorship announcements from an outfit known as Pajamagram. Their deal is that you can contact them and have pajamas delivered to someone in the same manner in which you might send flowers if flowers didn’t require a second mortgage. I’ve being hearing these seasonal announcements for years, but today for the first time the information that Pajamagram can provide footie pjs reminded me of a name I haven’t thought of in decades: Dr. Denton. When I was a kid, “Dr. Denton” was a euphemism for pajamas with feet. My brother and I wore them, and that’s what we called them. These “blanket sleepers,” as they were more formally known, were manufactured by the Dr. Denton Sleeping Garment Mills of Centreville, Michigan. The company was founded in 1865 as the Michigan Central Woolen Company and operated through the first half of the twentieth century.

It wasn’t just in our household that footed pajamas were called Dr. Dentons. In fact, the usage was so common that the brand name became the generic term for the garment, what is technically known as a “genericized trade mark.” The design was patented by Whitley Denton, an employee of Michigan Central. His patent application emphasized that the garment, including the feet but sans the soles and arms, would be made in one piece with a minimum of cutting and stitching and seams, rendering the sleepers more economical to manufacture and more comfortable for wearers. Like the classic “union suit” the sleeper had a “trap door” in back so the user could go to the bathroom without having to disrobe.

You can see Denton’s patent application, including the drawings of the original design, by clicking HERE. Denton took on the honorary doctorate, at least for purposes of the  brand name, to create the impression that there was some medical wisdom behind the pajamas. Although the original manufacturer is gone, other companies have used the trade mark, including Simplicity, which for a while was selling Dr. Denton patterns to what I imagine was a limited market.

Jane Russell: There’s more to the story

JANE RUSSELL

We saw the movie Philomena last night, and I was intrigued by the reference to Jane Russell. I think it’s well known by now that the movie deals with the practice of some convents and other institutions in Europe to force single young women to surrender their children for adoption and to require a large donation from American couples to take those children to the United States. The movie has to do with a particular instance in which a woman named Philomena Lee, whose child was taken from her in that manner, attempts decades later to find out what became of the boy.

Dame JUDI DENCH

In the more or less true account, Dame Judi Dench plays Philomena, who — in the company of a freelance writer — visits the convent where she was left by her father after becoming pregnant at the age of 18. The reporter notices among the photographs hanging in the reception room at the convent an autographed, provocative photo of Jane Russell. He asks a nun about the photo, and the clear implication is that Jane Russell was among the wealthy Americans who “bought” a child at this convent. That caught my interest because I met Jane Russell in 1971 when she was appearing here in New Jersey in a production of Catch Me If You Can. In fact, I had coffee with her in Manhattan and one of the topics of our conversation was adoption.

JANE RUSSELL

Jane Russell told me that during her first marriage, which was to Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Waterfield, she visited orphanages and similar institutions in five countries in Europe and was frustrated to find that it was nearly impossible for an American couple to adopt the children who were languishing there. She eventually did adopt three children, but her experience in Europe also inspired her in 1952 to found the World Adoption International Fund which eventually facilitated tens of thousands of adoptions. She became an advocate for adoptive parents and children, testifying before Congress in 1953 in favor of the Federal Orphan Adoption Bill which allowed American parents to adopt children fathered by American troops overseas. And in 1980 she lobbied for the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act which provides financial assistance based on the particular circumstances of foster and adoptive parents and adoptive children.

From what I have read so far, I deduce that Jane Russell did not adopt a child from the convent that is the focus of Philomena. I did read an account of an interview in which she told a reporter that after having failed to adopt a child in England, she was going to try her luck in Ireland. Whether any of her eventual adoptions amounted to “buying” babies, I cannot tell. I do notice that news stories that refer to her as one of the wealthy Americans alluded to in Philomena do not go on to report her work on behalf of adoptive parents and children.