Top Ten Tuesday Weld Movies Review

Tuesday Weld remains one of the most underrated actresses of the '60s and '70s, and one of my personal favorites. I wanted to name our daughter Tuesday Ann-Margaret, but my wife wasn't having it. "I'm not naming our child after some '60s actress!" she told me. Eventually, we settled on the name Lola.

Luckily, my wife had never heard of Lola Albright.

Tuesday Weld made her mark in some of the best films of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, yet remains more of a cult figure today. Probably because she turned down roles in Lolita, Bonnie & Clyde, and The Great Gatsby. My Top Ten Tuesday Weld Movies contains some movies that you can buy on DVD or add to your Netflix queue, as well as some that you'll  have to seek out, all featuring incandescent performances by Miss Weld.

1. Lord Love a Duck  (1966): Weld plays "Barbara Ann, whose deepest and most heartfelt yearnings express, with a kind of touching lyricism, the total vulgarity of our time."
Weld has called this her best performance, and I won't argue. Her Barbara Ann is the All-American Girl, shallow, materialistic, too beautiful. "Everybody has got to love me. Everybody. This is my year. My horoscope says I'm going to be famous. I am a Capricorn and I can't miss. I deserve it, too. I've been good. I haven't done bad things with boys. Well, a little. But not really bad. And only if I liked a boy." Classic mid-'60s satire from writer-director George Axelrod. With Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon, and Lola Albright. MGM Home Video.

2. Play It As It Lays (1972): Tuesday is all-too-convincing as a troubled actress in Frank Perry's adaptation of Joan Didion's novel, ably supported by her Pretty Posion co-star Anthony Perkins. If ever a film captured the malaise of the late '60s/early '70s, this is it, and ahead of the curve in a lot of other ways as well.

3. Who'll Stop the Rain (1979): Tuesday is once again harrowingly real as a woman who finds herself in danger, thanks to her spineless husband (Michael Moriarty) and his Neal Casady-like Viet Nam vet buddy (Nick Nolte), while at the same time having access to pure heroin. Strung-outedness ensues. Great performances by Weld, Nolte, Moriarty and Anthony Zerbe. MGM Home Video.

4. Pretty Poison (1968): Weld convincingly portrays a psychotic high-school girl who meeets a mental case played by Tony Perkins and manipulates him into murder. Directed by Noel Black, from a screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on the novel She Let Him Continue by Stephen Geller. Filmed in and around Great Barrington, Massachusetts. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

5. The Cincinnati Kid (1965): King of Cool Steve McQueen shares the favors of Tuesday Weld and Ann-Margaret in Norman Jewison's classic poker movie, from a script by Ring Lardner Jr. (M*A*S*H) and Terry Southern (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider). Somehow the women take a back seat to the card-playing. MGM Home Video.

6. A Safe Place (1971): Tuesday plays a neurotic young woman with a vivid fantasy life in Henry Jaglom's little-seen film. I saw this in the '80s on a gray-market VHS, and found it worthwhile, mostly because Weld has rarely been photographed more lovingly, and for Jack Nicholson's and Orson Welles's cameos.

7. F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood  (1976) Weld is the definitive Zelda Fitgerald in this made-for-television bio of American Lit's favorite fun couple going to pieces in '30s Tinseltown.

8. Once Upon a Time in America (1984): Weld is very good in Sergio Leone's epic crime drama, opposite Robert DeNiro and James Woods. Warner Home Video

9. I Walk the Line (1970): Tuesday plays an all-too-believable backwoods tramp who messes up Gregory Peck's mind to a soundtrack by Johnny Cash. Sony Pictures.

10. Falling Down (1993): For those of us who knew Tuesday back when, her physical appearance as Robert Duvall's emotionally disturbed wife came as a bit of a shocker. When Duvall's cop buddies give him shit about his wife, we know what they don't know: that she was once a great beauty. Warner Home Video.

Honorable Mention:

Rock, Rock, Rock (1956)

Rally Round the Flag, Boys (1958)

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1962): Tuesday made her name as the lovely but unattainable Thalia Menninger opposite Dwayne Hickman's Dobie in the classic sitcom created by Max Schulman.

Sex Kittens Go to College (1960): With Mamie Van Doren and Brigitte Bardot's sister. Produced by Albert Zugsmith.

Because They're Young (1960) with Dick Clark, Michael Callan, and Duane Eddy.

Return to Peyton Place (1961) with Carol Lynley, Jeff Chandler, and Mary Astor.

Wild in the Country (1962) with Elvis Presely.

Soldier in the Rain (1963) with Steve McQueen and Jackie Gleason

I'll Take Sweden (1965) with Bob Hope and Frankie Avalon.

The Crucible (1967) TV, with George C. Scott.

Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) with Diane Keaton and Richard Gere

Thief (1981) with Ryan O'Neal

Serial (1981) with Martin Mull and Tom Smothers.

The Winter of Our Discontent (1983) TV, with Donald Sutherland.

Feeling Minnesota (1993)

Chelsea Walls (2001)