together! at last!

Janice Rule and Kim Novak (with Jimmy Stewart and Pyewacket) - Two "Picnic" leading ladies who later joined forces in "Bell, Book and Candle" (1958)

Here's a new parlor game - a connect-the-movie-dots, along the lines of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

My version deals with two actresses who played the same role - one on stage, one in the film version - and who subsequently appeared opposite one another in another film. OK, admittedly it's the kind of useless information that lurks in the mind of someone who has spent way too much time in the dark watching way too many movies, but it's fun.

Here goes...

Kathy Bates caused something of a sensation when she starred on Broadway in Terrence McNally's "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune." But when Garry Marshall adapted McNally's piece into a film, he shortened the title to "Frankie and Johnny" and passed on Bates. He hired Michele Pfieffer to play the role created so indelibly by Bates.

Flashforward 15 years and Stephen Frears' makes a film called "Chéri" starring ... Michele Pfeiffer and Kathy Bates. Hmmm. Makes one wonder how they got along on the set of "Chéri," what they talked about, right? Well, they apparently liked each other because Bates and Pfeiffer subsquently teamed on David Hollander's "Personal Effects."

And then there's...

Janis Paige starred in "The Pajama Game" on Broadway, Doris Day played in the movie version and they subsequently appeared together in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies." (To complicate matters here, Day made her film debut as the second female lead in Michael Curtiz's "Romance on the High Seas." The film's female lead was Paige.)

Janice Rule starred in "Picnic" on Broadway, Kim Novak played in the movie version and they subsequently appeared together in "Bell, Book and Candle" on screen.

Anne Bancroft starred in "Two for the Seesaw" on Broadway, Shirley MacLaine played in the movie version and they subsequently appeared together in "The Turning Point" on screen.

Lauren Bacall starred in "Cactus Flower" on Broadway, Ingrid Bergman played in the movie version and they subsequently appeared together in "Murder on the Orient Express" on screen.

Oddly enough, this game seems restricted to women exclusively. The only two actors who seem to have stage-to-film link are David Wayne, who created Ensign Pulver in "Mister Roberts" on stage, and Jack Lemmon, who won the Oscar for the film version. Some 20 years later, the two teamed in Billy Wilder's remake of "The Front Page."

Can you think of any others?