Battle Royale #6: Battle of the Bitter Sisters (The Results)

Another Battle Royale and another tight race from beginning to end.  This time we pitted a pair of long-estranged Hollywood sisters against each other in an all-out death cage match.  Okay, at 96 and 94 respectively, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine may be a bit past the cage match age (because, as I am sure you are well aware of, these two were once very adroit cage match fighters), but here they are anyway.  In fact this is the first of our Battle Royales where we have living opponents.  But I digress.  The question here is not who is battling, but who came out the victor once all the proverbial smoke did all its equally proverbial clearing.  Was it Olivia, the woman who shared the screen multiple times with Errol Flynn and who put Clark Gable in his place, or was it Joan, the woman who would woo Charles Boyer and Orson Welles with her feminine wiles, and who gave Hitchcock his first great leading lady?  Well, oh curious readers, with 28 votes cast, our winner, by a score of 15 to 13, or 51% to 49% for the statistical-minded among you, is baby sis Joan Fontaine.  Even though she won my vote as well (but only by a narrow margin), it did kind of surprise me to see Fontaine take down her sister.  De Havilland may have won two Oscars to Fontaine's one, but here, in what is obviously the ultimate battle, the poor little girl who was forced to change her last name (by their mother's request/demand), brings it all home.  There it is folks.  So be it.

And speaking of voting, I would like to thank everyone who came out to vote in our latest Battle Royale (voting is good, you should try it in other walks of life too - like maybe this November my American friends) but the numbers could definitely be better kids.   Lets look at the numbers.   Our first five Battle Royale's had voter turnouts of 50, 66, 40, 41 & 38 respectively, most of them tight races throughout (four won by just two votes, one a tie, and one with a final spread of five votes), so it does not take a genius to figure out that this most recent battle was the low turnout on the ole totem pole - though still a tight race (again by just two).  I guess what I am trying to say here is that we need to get the word out and up these numbers.  Let's not even bother with the baby steps here, let's make a goal of 100+ votes cast with the next Battle Royale.  And speaking of that next Battle Royale, the combatants will be announced sometime this week-end - and this one is going to be slightly updated from the classic era where the past battles came from.  A newer wave of opponents if you will.  Congrats again to the lovely Miss Fontaine, and see ya in a few.  I have included a couple of my fave pics of our Battle Royale champ.  They are not the typical Hollywoody glamour shots, but I just love her look in these.  I know, I am weird - get over it. See you in a few days with Battle Royale #7.