Tandy on Tape

Jessica Tandy’s career spans more than 60 years, yet she has made surprisingly few movies. Some of her best film work is available on video, however. After watching Tandy as “The Story Lady,” viewers may want to check out some of these movies at the local video store:

Tandy stars opposite James Mason in the stirring 1951 military drama The Desert Fox (CBS/Fox), which recounts Field Marshall Rommel’s defeat in Africa during World War II and his subsequent tragic return to Germany. Although “Desert Fox” is Mason’s movie, Tandy offers strong support as his wife.

Tandy and her husband, Hume Cronyn, had a long relationship with director Alfred Hitchcock. Cronyn made his first screen appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 thriller “Shadow of a Doubt,” and he and Tandy appeared in several episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” during the 1950s. In 1963, she co-starred in one of Hitch’s most popular chillers, The Birds (MCA). Tandy makes the most of her supporting role as Rod Taylor’s loving mom who discovers her house is being overrun by thousands of winged creatures. Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette also star.

In 1982, Tandy teamed with Cronyn for a hilarious cameo as Garp’s (Robin Williams) stuffy, highbrowed grandparents in The World According to Garp (Warner Home Video), director George Roy Hill’s fanciful version of John Irving’s bestseller.

Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn may be the stars of the 1982 comedy Best Friends (Warner Home Video), written by then “best friends” Valerie Curtin and Barry Levinson, but Tandy and Bernard Hughes steal the film from under their noses. Reynolds and Hawn play a screenwriting team who marry and then visit their respective parents during Christmas. Tandy and Hughes get the biggest laughs as Hawn’s aging, meddling folks. The best scene: Tandy and Hughes in the car on a snowy day.

Tandy received her second of three Tony Awards for her wonderful turn in D.L. Coburn’s comedy-drama The Gin Game (RKO), about the relationship that develops between two senior citizens as they play bridge to pass the time at an old-age home. In 1981, director Mike Nichols taped a performance of “Gin Game” on the London stage for Showtime. Tandy’s co-star? Of course, Cronyn.

Cocoon (CBS/Fox) was a surprise hit of the summer of 1985, as young audiences flocked to see such old-timers as Tandy, Cronyn, Maureen Stapleton, Wilford Brimley, Don Ameche and Gwen Verdon. Ron Howard directed the sentimental fantasy about a group of friends living at a senior citizen’s community in Forida who quite literally discover the fountain of youth, thanks to some benevolent aliens. Don Ameche received an Oscar for his role. Tandy and Cronyn turn on the charm as a long-married couple who find the zing is put back in their marriage. Steve Guttenberg and Brian Dennehy also star.

Unfortunately, there was little zing or box-office return in the 1988 sequel, Cocoon: The Return (CBS/Fox), a silly affair that reunited the “Cocoon” cast as the friends return to Earth for a visit.

Tandy and Cronyn shine in 1987’s fantasy batteries not included (MCA) as an elderly couple who live in a New York tenement facing demolition. The couple find salvation in the form of cute little aliens. The big-budget special-effects-laden production came from Steven Spielberg.

At 80, Tandy became the oldest actress to win the best actress Oscar when she received the 1989 Academy Award for her performance in in the multi-Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy (Warner Home Video). The delightful comedy-drama based on the hit off-Broadway play is about the friendship between a proud, stubborn Southern Jewish matron (Tandy) and her black, illiterate chauffeur (Morgan Freeman).