The weather is getting cooler and the leaves are continuing to turn and fall. So, what better time to pull up a chair, grab a cup o’ cider, and join me as I serve up a heaping platter of noir-related goodies that I’m thankful for? Here goes . . .
Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity
The expression on Phyllis Dietrichson’s face in Double Indemnity (1944) as her hapless hubby is murdered by her lover, inches away from her. She doesn’t flinch or gasp, or look afraid or even repulsed. Her eyes are cold and emotionless – and the faintest of smiles curves her lips as the deed is done.
The crafty badassery that Myra Hudson (Joan Crawford) employs in Sudden Fear (1952) after learning that her husband (Jack Palance) and his lover (Gloria Grahame) are plotting her murder. Her initial reaction upon learning of the scheme is understandably unhinged, but once she gets a good night’s sleep, she goes on the offense, and it’s a beautiful thing to see.
Nora Prentiss (1947) and its unique plot, which centers around a man faking his own death in order to be with the woman he has fallen for.
The many, many great lines in Detour (1945). Here’s one of my favorites: “Not only don’t you have any scruples, you don’t have any brains.”
Richard Conte, The Big Combo
Richard Conte in anything, but especially in The Big Combo (1955), where he plays a mobster so ruthless that he doesn’t even need a first name – he’s simply Mr. Brown. He’s scary. He’s cruel. He’s cold-blooded. And he doesn’t care about anybody. Except Mr. Brown.
Noirs that don’t have a happy ending – I’m looking at you, Scarlet Street (1945), The Breaking Point (1950), and The Killing (1956). I love a lot of elements about film noir, but one of my favorite things is an absolutely and completely downbeat ending. The last words uttered by Sterling Hayden’s character perfectly capture this feeling: “Eh, what’s the difference?”
First-rate neo-noirs like Body Heat (1981), Blood Simple (1984), One False Move (1992), The Last Seduction (1994), and A Simple Plan (1998).
Supporting characters like Marty Waterman and Mrs. Kraft (Elisha Cook, Jr. and Esther Howard) in Born to Kill (1947). The stars of this film are the murderous and aptly named Sam Wild (Lawrence Tierney) and Helen Trent (Claire Trevor), who is Sam’s equal in the depravity department. But Marty and Mrs. Kraft are unforgettable standouts in their own right. Marty is the kind of friend anyone would want to have – loyal, understanding, and literally willing to kill for you. And Mrs. Kraft may be a beer-guzzling matron who cheats at cards, but she’s not one to cross – not as long as there’s a hatpin in the vicinity.
Percy Helton.
The fabulous ensemble cast of The Asphalt Jungle (1950). This feature has so many characters who are memorably and distinctively drawn, not to mention excellently brought to life, from the main characters like the mastermind of the heist, Doc Reidenschneider (Sam Jaffe), and Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden), the hooligan who serves as the muscle for the operation, to lesser-seen characters like the cat-loving hunchback Gus Minissi (James Whitmore) and the child-like mistress (Marilyn Monroe) of the lawyer charged with fencing the stolen diamonds. Every single character was both necessary and noteworthy.
The Asphalt Jungle
The fact that I don’t really know what’s going on in The Big Sleep (1946) half the time, but that never stops me from watching it every chance I get.
Discovering offshoots of classic noir, like western noir (The Violent Men, 1955; Man of the West, 1958), British noir (It Always Rains on Sunday, 1947; Odd Man Out, 1947), and Gaslight noir (So Evil, My Love, 1948; and Blanche Fury, 1948). There are so many excellent titles within these genres, and it’s so much fun unearthing them.
The scene in Gun Crazy (1950) where Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins) and Bart Tare (John Dall) eat a hamburger at a diner. I don’t even eat red meat, and those burgers look mouth-wateringly delectable.
Iconic moments like the scalding coffee thrown in Gloria Grahame’s face in The Big Heat (1953), Gene Tierney watching her brother-in-law drown in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), and Gloria Swanson’s film-ending close-up in Sunset Boulevard (1950) – moments that I knew and appreciated long before I ever saw the films.
Shield for Murder
Noirs that are accessible for free on streaming platforms like YouTube, Pluto, and Tubi. Here’s just a fraction of the gems you can watch right now at no cost: Leave Her to Heaven (1945), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Brute Force (1947), Cry of the City (1948), Pitfall (1948), House of Strangers (1949), Shakedown (1950), Pickup on South Street (1953), Shield for Murder (1954), Private Hell 36 (1954), and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). You can’t go wrong with a single one of these, trust me. Treat yourself!
Happy Noirvember and happy Thanksgiving!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
I’ve shown a lot of comedies to my lifetime learners
over the years, but I’ve rarely heard an audience laugh as uproariously as they
did during a recent screening of My Favorite Wife (1940), which we
watched as part of a series featuring Cary Grant. The peals of laughter prove
that Grant and his costar, Irene Dunne, can still enchant an audience with
their screwball antics more than 80 years later, even if the original
production of the picture was marred by Leo McCarey’s unexpected absence and
problems with the preview version that required last-minute corrections. You
don’t need to know about any of that to enjoy My Favorite Wife, and you
don’t need to know about the personal histories of the major players, either,
but the knowledge does add some fascinating layers to this wacky, fast-paced
romp about a couple who get a second chance at being a family.
Nick (Cary Grant) repeatedly tries to explain to his bride, Bianca (Gail Patrick), that her predecessor has returned, but he loses his nerve.
Irene Dunne stars as Ellen Arden, whose disappearance
in a shipwreck leads her husband, Nick (Cary Grant), to have her declared
legally dead seven years later so that he can marry a new wife, Bianca (Gail
Patrick). Ironically, Ellen returns from being marooned on an island on the
same day as the declaration and wedding, which creates problems for the
confused and now bigamous Nick. Ellen pressures Nick to break the news to
Bianca but fails to mention that her companion on the island was the ruggedly
handsome Stephen (Randolph Scott), whom she refers to as “Adam.” Seething with
jealousy over his first wife, but unable to tell his second wife the truth,
Nick suffers comedic torment inflicted by Ellen, Bianca, and Stephen as they
force him to confront the situation he has inadvertently created.
Nick is deeply concerned that Ellen’s companion on the desert island for seven years was the handsome Stephen (Randolph Scott).
My Favorite Wife
is the second of three pictures starring Grant and Dunne, following their first
successful pairing in The Awful Truth (1937), which Leo McCarey had
directed. A car accident sidelined McCarey and led to Garson Kanin stepping in
as director, but the cast and crew felt the strain of worrying about McCarey
during production. McCarey was able to return for the editing process, and he
helped create a new third act to address problems with the preview cut. None of
those issues are apparent in the final version of the movie, which showcases
both the onscreen chemistry and the comedic talent of the two leads. The movie
also marks the second and final screen pairing of Grant and Randolph Scott, who
had first met when they made Hot Saturday in 1932. Grant and Scott then
moved in together and were housemates off and on for the next decade, leading
to much speculation about the nature of their relationship. You can read a
great deal more about that in David Canfield’s 2024 Vanity Fair article,
“Cary
Grant and Randolph Scott’s Hollywood Story.” Knowing about
their shared history adds another layer of interest to the movie’s depiction of
them as romantic rivals, especially when Nick obsessively imagines the swimsuit
clad Stephen turning somersaults and demonstrating his attractive physique.
Nick and Ellen also have to figure out how to tell their two children (Mary Lou Harrington and Scotty Beckett) that Ellen is actually their mother.
Because my lifetime learners and I live in Alabama, we
also find the movie’s cluster of Southern actors noteworthy, especially because
both The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife include scenes with
Irene Dunne speaking in an exaggerated Southern drawl. In the earlier picture,
Dunne mimics the over-the-top accent of Dixie Belle Lee, played by Lexington,
Kentucky native Joyce Compton, but Dunne herself was born nearby in Louisville.
In My Favorite Wife, Ellen causes Bianca to sniff at her assumption of a
Southern accent while pretending to be an old family friend of the Ardens, but
Gail Patrick, the actress who plays Bianca, was born in Birmingham, Alabama,
and actually studied law at the University of Alabama before embarking on her
Hollywood career. Randolph Scott was born in Virginia, grew up in North
Carolina, and attended both Georgia Tech and the University of North Carolina,
making him quite the embodiment of Southern gentility, and of the three
Southern stars in My Favorite Wife he’s the only one sporting a natural
sounding regional accent. In both pictures, Dunne seems to flirt with being
Southern while also perpetuating Hollywood stereotypes about how Southerners
talk, and that’s both fascinating and frustrating to those of us whose accents
are being simultaneously erased and parodied in classic Hollywood films.
In classic screwball style, Ellen keeps Nick floundering until the very end of the picture.
My Favorite Wife earned three Oscar nominations, with nods for Original Story, Art Direction, and Original Score, but it went home empty-handed. 1940 was a big year for Cary Grant, with His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story also coming out that same year. Irene Dunne picked up her third Best Actress nomination for The Awful Truth, and in 1940 she earned a fourth for Love Affair (1939), but, sadly, her five career nominations never produced a win. Grant and Dunne’s third and final collaboration would be the domestic melodrama Penny Serenade (1941). Randolph Scott is, of course, best remembered as a Western star in films like 7 Men from Now (1956), The Tall T (1957), and Ride the High Country (1962), but you can find both Scott and Gail Patrick in Murders in the Zoo (1933). Patrick eventually became the executive producer of the iconic TV series, Perry Mason (1957-1966), but you’ll also find her in memorable roles in My Man Godfrey (1936) and Stage Door (1937).
As classic movie fans, we’ve all had those “wow” moments with actors we may not expect to see in a film as in “Wow! Is that (fill in the blank) …” Or “Wait – I think that’s …” This usually happens in their early films and it’s always fun to make that connection.
One of my favorite “wow” moments was in the great sci-fi film It Came from Outer Spacewhen I excitedly said out loud (to an empty room) – “Hey, that’s the Professor!”
Yes, it was Russell Johnson in a film made a decade before he would become cemented in pop-culture history as the Professor on the CBS hit comedy Gilligan’s Island. And instead of wondering aloud if it was Russell Johnson, I indeed called him Professor, the character he is most remembered for playing.
Russell Johnson is best known for playing Professor on Gilligan’s Island, but he also played roles in three great sci-fi films of the 1950s.
While the series made household names out of the seven actors playing the castaways on an uncharted island, it also made it difficult for them to separate themselves from those distinct TV characters. It was almost like the work they did before Gilligan’s Island didn’t exist; then, after the series ended, they were typecast as those characters.
For Johnson, that meant he would always be recognized as Professor Roy Hinkley – shorted simply to Professor – an amiable and intelligent man who used his skills to create all sorts of interesting gadgets.
But before he played that iconic role, he appeared in three notable sci-fi films of the 1950s and I thought the centennial of his birth – he was born Nov. 10, 1924 – is a good time to celebrate that legacy.
A lobby card for Attack of the Crab Monsters shows Leslie Bradley, left, Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan and Russell Johnson.
In It Came from Outer Space (1953), Johnson was a telephone worker whose body was borrowed by aliens to share messages with clueless humans. In This Island Earth(1955) he was a scientist chosen by an alien race to help them survive, and in Attack of the Crab Monsters(1956) he was a Navy radio specialist trapped with others on an island by the title creatures.
Those weren’t lead roles, but his characters were integral to the plot. Plus, the three films are noted for their technological advances and feature such lauded names as directors Jack Arnold and Roger Corman and producer William Alland.
Before getting to
the films, here’s a very brief look at the life of Russell Johnson.
* * * * * *
Russell Johnson was
born Nov. 10, 1924 in the small borough of Ashley, Pa. (near Wilkes-Barre). The
oldest of seven children, he took on a lot of responsibility in caring for his younger
siblings. After his father died, he was sent to a private school/orphanage with
his brothers.
Following high
school, Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Air Force where he had a decorated
military career. He flew 44 combat missions during World War II and received a
Purple Heart and Bronze Star after his B-52 was shot down and he broke both of
his ankles.
He used his G.I. Bill to study acting at the Actors Lab in Hollywood where other students included Audie Murphy, who would become a good friend, plus Marilyn Monroe, Hume Cronyn, Dorothy Dandridge and Leo J. Cobb. His first role was in the 1952 noir “For Men Only,” directed by Paul Henreid, and he followed that with four more films that year.
Johnson continued acting for nearly 40 years, starring in a healthy mix of film and television. He made three early Westerns with Audie Murphy: Tumbleweed (1953), Column South (1953) and Ride Clear of Diablo(1954); co-starred with Gilligan’s Island pal Alan Hale Jr. in the Western Many Rivers to Cross (1955) and the TV series Casey Jones (1957); and had guest spots on a large number of popular TV shows including Gunsmoke, The Californians, Wagon Train, The Real McCoys and Tales of Wells Fargo. Other guest roles were on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits and two episodes of The Twilight Zone (Execution and Back There).
Russell Johnson as Professor on Gilligan’s Island.
He starred for two seasons on Black Saddle and fittingly appeared multiple times on the military documentary anthology series, The Silent Service (1957), that told true stories about the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet. Other films included the epics The Greatest Story Ever Told(1965) and MacArthur(1977).
The early 1960s brought Gilligan’s Island. The series ran only from 1964 to 1967 and if you thought – like me – that it aired much longer, that’s because it never really went away. Even today, we can watch the comedy series on MeTV and streaming services such as Tubi. Plus there are there are three Gilligan’s Island made-for-TV movies – Rescue from Gilligan’s Island (1978), The Castaways on Gilligan’s Island (1979) and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (1981) – and two animated series.
Johnson died Jan. 16, 2014 at age 89.
While it’s an achievement to be known 60 years later for a role as Johnson is for Gilligan’s Island, we are here to celebrate him for his performances battling aliens and giant telepathic crabs. Following are capsule looks at the three films and Johnson’s roles in them.
* * * * * *
Richard Carlson, left, and Barbara Rush are puzzled by the odd behavior of their friend played by Russell Johnson in It Came from Outer Space.
John (Richard Carlson), a writer and amateur astronomer, and his fiancée Ellen (Barbara Rush), a teacher, are first on the scene after a meteorite crash in the desert. When they discover to their shock that it’s a spaceship, they try to convince town residents of what they’ve seen. Instead, they are ridiculed for their outlandish claims.
Johnson plays George who is working the lines along the desert highway with his partner Frank (Joe Sawyer) for the Sand Rock Telephone Exchange. These two average guys have a big, and at times, creepy role to play. When we first meet them, handsome George’s mind is on his big date that night, while Frank is checking out a phone line up a pole. When John and Ellen arrive while their looking for proof of aliens, Frank lets them listen to the strange sounds he’s hearing. Though they pass it off as probably nothing, the two parties split up to investigate and that’s when George and Frank have a close encounter of the alien kind. (Note to self: If you hear high-pitched sounds and see a big creature resembling an eye, you should run in the other direction.)
Joe Sawyer, left, and Russell Johnson play telephone repair men who are under an alien influence in a very creepy scene from It Came from Outer Space.
The next time the
men meet John and Ellen they are a shadow of their former selves, speaking in
monotone with glazed eyes and slow, zombie-like movements. Something is clearly
wrong. George and Frank will provide the movie’s most chilling moment when they
appear as shadowy figures in a doorway after John chases them down an alley. He
asks questions but learns he may not like the answers.
It Came from Outer Space ultimately shows itself as a very thoughtful film that touches the surface of how we treat those who aren’t like us. When the townsfolk finally believe there are aliens, they are afraid of the “other,” and John is surprised to find himself trying to protect the aliens by fighting off the angry mob bent on destroying them.
The film is
directed by Jack Arnold and based on a Ray Bradbury story.
Three well-dressed atomic specialists (Russell Johnson, left, Faith Domergue and Rex Reason) are brought together to help another planet in This Island Earth.
Johnson has a smaller part in this film, but it’s a key role in whether the Earth’s survives or not. He is Dr. Steve Carlson, one of three exceptional (as we’re told multiple times) U.S. atomic scientists chosen by aliens to save their planet. The other two are played by Rex Reason and Faith Domergue. Jeff Morrow is the mysterious platinum-blonde Exeter, a scientist from the distant planet of Metaluna who guides them. (Morrow and Reason would co-star the following year in The Creature Walks AmongUs.)
Exeter has tested
scientists from around the world to find the ones who can create desperately
needed nuclear energy to save Metaluna from a dangerous ongoing assault. But
convincing the scientists to do that work is another thing as the characters –
and viewers – must decide whether Exeter is telling the truth or will use their
skills to turn on the people of Earth. (It doesn’t help that the aliens have a
machine called the “thought transformer” that is like mind-control for those
who don’t obey.) Just know that Johnson’s Dr. Steve is integral in learning the
answer.
Joseph Newman is
the film’s official director, but Jack Arnold directed most of the Metaluna
sequences. The film was widely hailed for its use of Technicolor and special
effects, being called “imaginative, fantastic and cleverly conceived” by
Variety at the time. The influential film pops up in various ways in films
including E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Explorers (1985), UHF
(1989) and Looney Tunes Back in Action (2003) as well as in song and
video. You’ll know the movie from its images of a mutant with a giant head (it
doesn’t appear until late in that film) that is said to be one of the
inspirations for the work done by artist H.R. Giger for his work with aliens
(and Alien).
Pamela Duncan is happy to see Russell Johnson making progress on fixing the radio in Attack of the Crab Monsters.
Gosh, this is a fun film with the eye-raising hypothesis that not only giant crabs exist, but that they can speak the thoughts of humans. Roger Corman produced and directed this film that finds a group of scientists and sailors – including Johnson as a radio technician – arriving on a remote Pacific Island to find members of a previous expedition that seems to have disappeared.
But there’s not a body – alive or dead – to be found. Not even bones, if we want to be gross about it. And the journal left by the lead researcher has puzzling notes about a giant worm before the entries abruptly end. (They’ll soon wish it was just a worm.)
Soon, the new group is being killed off (the seaplane explodes, a sailor is quickly decapitated after falling into the water), and there are multiple earthquakes that open cavernous holes and send parts of the island into the ocean. A core group of five must fend off those strange occurrences and be wary of voices calling to them that are of the missing or dead. (These crabs have strange powers.) Perhaps that ominous clickity-click sound – described by one unnerved character as like a “kid dragging a stick across a picket fence” – is a warning of what’s to come.
Johnson’s character, who did TV and radio repairs with the Navy during the war, becomes the only hope for those left alive. While they fend off giant, intelligent crabs and the island continues to break apart, he races against time to cobble together a radio to get a distress signal out. Can he do it? Don’t forget he was later called the Professor.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at
The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a writer
and board member of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs.
She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the
spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can
find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Valeska Suratt was born on June 28, 1882, in Owensville,
Indiana, to Ralph and Anna Suratt. When Suratt was six years old, her family
relocated to Terre Haute, Indiana. By 1899, she dropped out of school to work
at a photography studio, later moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, to work as an
assistant in a department store millinery.
Suratt had an interest in performing, and eventually began
working as an actress onstage in Chicago, Illinois. She began by working in
vaudeville and was part of a duo act with Billy Gould. The two of them had an
Apache dance number. Gould and Suratt married in 1904.
Suratt made her Broadway debut in The Belle of Mayfair, followed by additional roles. In 1908, Suratt
and her husband had separated and ultimately divorced in 1911. During this
time, she started a solo singing act, wearing intricate gowns. In 1910, she
gained notoriety for appearing in a show called The Girl with the Whooping Cough which was deemed “salacious” by
New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor and was shut down due to its suggestive
themes.
The Girl with the Whooping Cough
In the same year, she partnered with Fletcher Norton for
another duo act. She and Norton married in 1911 and remained together for eight
weeks before divorcing.
Suratt self-proclaimed herself as “Vaudeville’s Greatest
Star” but was more known for the high-fashion clothing she wore onstage. For
this reason, she was nicknamed “Empress of Fashions.” Moreover, she is
purported to be one of the models for Gibson Girl sketches.
In 1915, she turned to film roles, signing with Fox. She was
portrayed as a vamp, cast as a seductive character in her film roles. Her first
film appearance occurred in The Soul of
Broadway (1915), in which she reportedly wore more than 150 gowns. In 1916,
she traveled internationally to France for the purpose of buying costumes and
motion picture equipment; to Great Britain as a special representative of
William Fox; and to Monte Carlo to select motion picture locations. Altogether,
she performed in 11 silent films during her film career. Today, all of them are
considered lost films.
Jealousy
In 1920, her career waned due to vaudeville’s decline and
the vamp image no longer being popular among moviegoers. To complicate matters,
she and scholar Mirza Ahmad Sohrab sued Cecil B. DeMille for purportedly
stealing the scenario for The King of
Kings (1927) from them. The case was ultimately settled without publicity
and Suratt was unofficially blacklisted following the lawsuit.
In the 1930s, Suratt was living in a cheap New York City
hotel, nearly destitute. Novelist Fannie Hurst discovered her situation and
organized a benefit for her, raising $2000. Soon after receiving the funds,
Suratt spent the funds while gambling and was penniless again.
Suratt tried to restore her career and funds by selling her
life story to newspapers, but one reporter who read the manuscript noted that
Suratt was writing about herself as the mother of God. Suratt’s career was
never revived in any capacity.
Suratt died in a nursing home in Washington, D.C., on July
2, 1962. She was a member of the Bahai faith and her ashes were interred at
Highland Lawn Cemetery in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was 80 years old.
Today, few places of relevance to Suratt remain. In 1910,
she resided at 47 E. 44th St., New York, New York. This location no
longer remains.
However, her 1925 home at 306 W. 76th, New York,
New York, remains.
306 W. 76th, New York City
In addition, in 1931, she lived at 240 W. 98th
St., New York, New York, which also stands.
240 W. 98th St., New York City
For 60 years, Suratt’s grave was unmarked. A local fundraising campaign led to the grave finally being marked in 2022. In addition, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett declared June 28 Valeska Suratt Day in Terre Haute during a proclamation. Presently, this is the most significant tribute to Suratt.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
I had an
amazing time again this year at the annual Lone Pine Film Festival held in Lone
Pine, California.
This was the 34th festival, of which I’ve attended around
10. As has become our habit in recent years, we arrived in town a day ahead of
the four-day event so my husband could prepare for his volunteer work guiding
three horseback movie location tours.
Lone Pine, as I’ve written about here many times, was a
filming location in hundreds of Westerns. The festival focuses mainly, though
not exclusively, on movies shot in the Lone Pine area, and it includes numerous
movie location tours along with screenings and discussions.
Below is a plaque in the Alabama Hills outside town,
located at the intersection of Whitney Portal Road and Movie Road. It
commemorates the extensive filming which has taken place here and was dedicated
by Roy Rogers in 1990.
The festival got underway on Thursday, October 10th, with
its annual opening night barbecue in the parking lot of Lone Pine’s Museum of
Western Film History.
Festival guests seen at the barbecue included actor Bruce
Boxleitner; Joel McCrea’s grandson Wyatt and his wife Lisa; and stuntman
Diamond Farnsworth, son of actor-stuntman Richard Farnsworth:
Bruce Boxleitner, Wyatt and Lisa McCrea, and Diamond Farnsworth
Another opening night shot of film historians Scott Eyman
with his wife, Lynn Kalber; Alan K. Rode; and Michael Blake.
Scott Eyman, Lynn Kalber, Alan K. Rode, and Michael Blake
Additional guests at this year’s festival included Patrick
Wayne, Robert Carradine, Darby Hinton, Rory Flynn (daughter of Errol), Cheryl
Rogers Barnett (daughter of Roy Rogers and stepdaughter of Dale Evans), Sandra
Slepski (niece of actor Tom Tyler), and Jay Dee Witney (son of director William
Witney).
The very congenial Rory Flynn is seen here with Rob Word
before a screening of her father’s Rocky Mountain (1950) on
Friday evening.
Rory Flynn and Rob Word
After the barbecue it was off to the Lone Pine High School
auditorium for the opening night movie, a 75th anniversary screening of John
Ford’s classic She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), starring John
Wayne.
Prior to the movie moderator Rob Word interviewed Wayne’s
son Patrick and Michael Blake. Blake, the son of actor Larry Blake and a
renowned movie makeup artist in his own right, is also a film historian whose
latest book is The Cavalry Trilogy: John Ford, John Wayne, and the
Making of Three Classic Westerns. One of that trio, of course, is She
Wore a Yellow Ribbon.
Patrick Wayne, Michael Blake, and Rob Word
This year, in addition to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
I enjoyed watching two episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel filmed
in Lone Pine – “The Outlaw” and “The Bride” – along with a
28-minute short, The Prospector (1998), and four feature
films, Rip Roarin’ Buckaroo (1936), The Arizona Ranger (1948), Cattle
Empire (1958), and Trail of Robin Hood (1950).
Below, filmmakers Owen Renfroe and Jeremy Arnold with
moderator C. Courtney Joyner after the screening of their very enjoyable short
silent movie The Prospector, which was filmed entirely in the
Alabama Hills:
Owen Renfroe, Jeremy Arnold, and C. Courtney Joyner
Rip Roarin’ Buckaroo was accompanied by
an interview of Tyler’s niece, Sandra Slepski, by Henry C. Parke; Tyler had
lived with her family in his last years and she knew him well. Tyler also had
supporting roles in two other films seen over the weekend, She Wore a
Yellow Ribbon and Trail of Robin Hood.
Sandra Slepski and Henry C. Parke
Cattle Empire included Steve
Latshaw interviewing Wyatt McCrea about the movie’s star, his grandfather Joel
McCrea. It’s always a great pleasure to hear Wyatt’s remembrances of his
grandfather.
Wyatt McCrea and Steve Latshaw
In what Latshaw later told me was a “pinch me” moment, he interviewed Cheryl Rogers Barnett, Jay Dee Witney, and Republic Pictures expert Bart Romans at the Trail of Robin Hood screening. Barnett and Witney were both on the film’s set as young children, and Barnett even had a bit role with a line of dialogue asking costar Jack Holt for his autograph.
Bart Romans, Cheryl Rogers Barnett, Jay Dee Witney, and Steve Latshaw
Trail of Robin Hood is a charming Western Christmas film which I wrote about here back in 2018. The movie is greatly loved by many, including director Quentin Tarantino; I find his love for this innocent movie a bit ironic given the types of movies he makes! In fact, when Tarantino filmed Django Unchained (2012) in Lone Pine he even used Trail of Robin Hood director William Witney’s clapperboard, which is on display in the museum:
I also had the pleasure of hearing Michael Curtiz
biographer Alan K. Rode interviewed by Henry C. Parke regarding Curtiz’s The
Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), which filmed in Lone Pine and
starred Errol Flynn.
Alan K. Rode and Henry C. Parke
One of my favorite experiences during the festival was an
evening at Cuffe Ranch, which I’d never visited in previous trips to Lone Pine.
George Montgomery filmed the Zane Grey tale Riders of the Purple Sage (1941)
there, and a “waterfall” was created at the ranch in the location
seen here.
What was a bit mind-blowing was that a water hose and
plaster of Paris used by the production company are still in place on this rock
over 80 years later! The hose is held here by Lone Pine tour guide coordinator
Greg Parker.
Speaking of George Montgomery, he was also a talented
artist, and his sculpture of Randolph Scott is one of my favorite things in the
Museum of Western Film History. The chance to spend considerable time exploring
the exhibits and memorabilia in the museum is another wonderful aspect of the
festival.
Randolph Scott sculpture by George Montgomery
Of course, it wouldn’t be the Lone Pine Film Festival
without going on at least a couple of movie location tours! In addition to
exploring the Alabama Hills with friends, we took two official festival tours
this year, Don Kelsen’s Have Gun, Will Travel tour and Dennis
Liff’s Nevada (1944) tour.
Below, a group can be seen investigating where Robert
Mitchum filmed Nevada early in his career, on his way to movie
stardom:
Here’s a beautiful Sunday morning shot of festival guests
Jeremy Arnold, Diamond Farnsworth, and Wyatt McCrea, with Lone Pine Peak and
Mount Whitney in the background. Mt. Whitney, seen in the deep background to
the right of center, is the highest point in the contiguous United States.
Jeremy Arnold, Diamond Farnsworth, and Wyatt McCrea
Finally, a favorite photo of this author with some of the
great people I was privileged to spend time with in Lone Pine this year, Alan
K. Rode, Scott Eyman, and Bruce Boxleitner.
Alan K. Rode, Scott Eyman, Laura Grieve, and Bruce Boxleitner
I’ve covered the festival and Lone Pine locations here
numerous times over the years, and I invite anyone interested in Lone Pine’s
history – or planning a trip! – to visit the past Western RoundUp columns
linked below.
As can be seen from all of the above, the Lone Pine Film
Festival is absolutely packed with many wonderful movie-related experiences,
and I hope to see more of my readers there in 2025!
The photographs accompanying this article are from the author’s personal collection.
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
October is a
month for ghosts and goblins, bats and jack-o’-lanterns, black cats and
skeletons. Not necessarily the characteristics that come to mind when one
thinks of film noir.
But there’s one
thing that’s common to both October and noir – scary characters.
In the spirit
of the month, I’m taking a look at four of my favorite scary folks from the
classic film noir era – men and women who embody the concept of “looking out
for number one.” They have no arc, as they possess no redeeming qualities; it’s
their sociopathic self-absorption, their mercenary self-indulgence, and their unyielding
sense of self-preservation that makes them so darn scary.
…..
Mr. Brown
(Richard Conte) in The Big Combo (1955)
Richard Conte, The Big Combo
The Big
Combo stars Cornel Wilde as police lieutenant Richard Diamond, who has a
single-minded determination to bring to justice a mobster by the name of Mr.
Brown. He also happens to be obsessed with Mr. Brown’s troubled girlfriend
(played by Wilde’s real-life wife, Jean Wallace).
Mr. Brown is
one of the most ruthless dudes you’ll ever want (or don’t want) to encounter – we
see him methodically arranging the elimination of anyone possessing information
that might lead to his downfall, and that includes his right-hand man (Brian
Donlevy) and his two devoted underlings, Mingo (Earl Holliman) and Fante (Lee
Van Cleef). They’re all completely disposable. And Mr. Brown has even less
regard for Lt. Diamond; in a typical demonstration, he has his minions abduct
Brown, then proceeds to torture him by blasting music in his ear and pouring
hair tonic down his throat. He’s not a nice guy.
…..
Margot
Shelby (Jean Gillie) in Decoy (1946)
Jean Gillie, Decoy
The plot of Decoy
is one of noir’s most unique: convicted criminal Frankie Olins (Robert
Armstrong) is sentenced to death for knocking off an armored car and making off
with a cool $400,000. He refuses to divulge where he’s hidden the money, but
his devoted (and I use the word loosely) lover, Margot, has a plan – to team up
with a local doctor, arrange for Frankie to be resuscitated after his execution
. . . and then get her hands on that money.
Margot is a
classic femme fatale; she’s an expert at employing her wiles to get her way.
She applies a combination of sweet talk, promises of favors (you know the
kind), and hard-boiled street smarts to ensnare and juggle three men at the
same time: Frankie; his henchman, Jim Vincent (Edward Norris); and the hapless
doctor (Herbert Rudley), using each of them and then, like Mr. Brown,
discarding of them when they’ve served their purpose. She even manages to wrap
the local detective (Sheldon Leonard) around her finger – no male is safe with
her around.
…..
Charlie
Oakley (Joseph Cotten) in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Joseph Cotten, Shadow Of A Doubt
Young Charlie
Newton (Teresa Wright) is bored with her humdrum life in picturesque Santa
Rosa, California, but she’s delighted when her family gets a visit from her
beloved uncle, after whom she was named. Unfortunately, before long, Young
Charlie’s jubilance turns to dread as she begins to suspect that her uncle is
the “Merry Widow” serial killer being sought by police.
Uncle Charlie
is charming, affable, sophisticated – everything admirable to a young girl. But
it doesn’t take long for us to see that there’s something very wrong with Uncle
Charlie; there are numerous clues, like when he roughly grabs his niece after
she discovers a newspaper article he’s tried to hide, or when he starts talking
about wealthy widows, calling them “horrible, faded, fat, greedy women.” It
soon becomes apparent that Uncle Charlie views the entire world with contempt –
and his namesake is no different.
…..
Vera (Ann
Savage) in Detour (1945)
Ann Savage, Detour
Tom Neal stars
as Al Roberts, a piano player who gets more than he bargained for when he
hitchhikes from New York to California to join his singer-girlfriend. First,
Roberts catches a ride with a well-heeled gambler, Charles Haskell (Edmund
MacDonald), but when the man winds up dead, Al panics, leaves Haskell on the
side of the road, and takes his car. And when Al picks up a hitchhiker of his
own – Vera – things really kick into high gear.
Unlike Margot, Vera
isn’t your typical femme fatale. When we first meet her, she’s dusty from
travel, with an unkempt hairdo and a simple pencil skirt and blouse, and she
falls asleep soon after she and Al get back on the road. But when she wakes up,
she’s got fire in her eyes and accusations on her lips. She knows Al’s car
belongs to Charles Haskell and she suspects that Al “kissed him with a wrench.”
From that moment on, Vera is in charge; she doesn’t utilize feminine charms,
but aggression and threats, forcing Al into a series of actions that he’s too
afraid to challenge. And we don’t blame him. Vera is one scary dame.
Who are some of your scariest noir characters? Leave a comment and let me know!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
It’s probably the most
famous, most sought-after lost silent film of all time: London After Midnight (1927), starring the screen legend Lon Chaney
and directed by the macabre-minded Tod Browning. Despite constant attempts to
track it down, it remains stubbornly elusive–in spite of the classic film
community’s annual April Fool’s Day gags claiming, “It’s resurfaced at last!”
But even though no footage currently exists, you might be
surprised to know that the original 1927
continuity script survives in full–giving us a shot-by-shot view
of precisely what the film is like.
When we examine this script along with surviving stills and reviews, we find
that London After Midnight was
perhaps less of a horror film and more of a convoluted murder mystery drama.
Still, it remains tantalizing to imagine the Gothic atmosphere and imagery that
we might never get to experience.
Lon Chaney
Nicknamed the “Edgar Allan Poe” of classic cinema, Tod Browning was certainly the right fit for this ghoulish story. A veteran of carnivals and circuses, he started performing in films in the mid-1910s and soon became a director. Specializing in crime films and mystery stories, he had a deep interest in the macabre and enjoyed revolving his plots around “freakish” characters. Happily, the multi-talented Lon Chaney had both the acting and the makeup skills to bring such twisted characters to life, and he would make a number of classic dramas with Browning.
After the release of The
Unknown (1927), Browning worked with scenario writer Waldemar Young to
craft an original murder mystery story revolving around vampires. The cast
would include Chaney, the beautiful Marceline Day (who would soon costar with
Buster Keaton in 1929’s The Cameraman),
the dignified Henry B. Walthall, clean-cut Conrad Nagel and slapstick
comedienne Polly Moran. It was filmed at MGM Studios and Culver City for the
approximate cost of $152,000.00.
Apparently, a lot of creativity went into the spooky atmosphere. Scenes in and around the Balfour mansion included owls and armadillos–much like Browning would use in Dracula (1931)–as well as bats. Chaney’s eye-popping makeup was achieved by holding back his eyelids with wires fitted around his eye sockets. The mouthpiece he wore with its signature sharp teeth was painfully uncomfortable and he only kept it in a few minutes at a time. His character’s long-ish hair, beaver hat, and lantern-carrying evidently made such an impression that similar-looking “crypt keeper” costumes are common around Halloween today.
Lon Chaney (Man in the Beaver Hat) and Edna Tichenor (Bat Girl)
So, what was the plot
of London After Midnight?A rough summary: Roger Balfour is
found dead in his London mansion of a gunshot wound, and Inspector Burke of
Scotland Yard investigates the death and declares it a suicide. But Sir James
Hamlin, the executor of Balfour’s estate who lives next door, says the man
wasn’t suicidal. Hamlin takes in Balfour’s teenaged daughter Lucille, who grows
up to be a lovely young woman.
The Balfour house sits
abandoned for five years and then two strange renters move in: the freakish
“Man in the Beaver Hat,” and his ghoul-like companion the “Bat Girl.” Hamlin
suspects the two were involved in Balfour’s death and brings Inspector Burke back
on the case. Soon creepy events start happening: Balfour’s body disappears from
its tomb, the maid is frightened by the Man in the Beaver Hat, Burke sees a
ghoulish figure trying to enter his room and wounds it with a gunshot, and the
undead Balfour himself is somehow spotted inside the mansion.
Burke believes hypnosis
can make murder suspects relive past events, and tries putting the suspects
into a trance. Then Lucy is kidnapped and whisked off to the spooky mansion.
Burke sends Hamlin to the house and the mysterious Man in the Beaver Hat puts
him into a trance. This turn of events actually winds up solving the mystery of
Balfour’s death–and we learn just who the spooky tenants are, too.
This doesn’t cover all
the details of the confusing plot, which was frequently criticized at the time.
In their review, the New Yorker
wrote: “…It strives too hard to create effect. Mr. Browning can create
pictorial terrors and Lon Chaney can get himself up in a completely repulsive
manner, but both their efforts are wasted when the story makes no sense.” Variety wrote similarly: “Young,
Browning and Chaney have made a good combination in the past but the story on
which this production is based is not of the quality that results in broken
house records.” However, not all the reviews were lukewarm. TheFilm
Daily’s review just might make your longing for this film to turn up even
stronger: “If [sensitive patrons] don’t get the creeps from flashes of grimy
bats swooping around, cobweb-bedecked mystery chambers and the grotesque
inhabitants of the haunted house, then they’ve passed the third degree.”
LondonAfter Midnight was clearly part of the “eerie mansion” mystery
movie trend of the 1920s, other examples being The Bat (1926), The Gorilla
(1927) and The Cat and the Canary (1927).
These types of films abound with murder mysteries and mansions haunted by
ghouls. Interestingly enough, in the U.S. silent films supernatural
explanations were never involved. Maybe this served to keep from offending
religious groups, or maybe “actual” ghosts were deemed too scary.
London
After Midnight’s box office is
thought to be over $1,000,000–not bad for its budget. And then it seemed to
drop out of sight. One print was known to have existed in the MGM vaults until
1965. The last people who viewed it were likely historians David Bradley and
William K. Everson, who watched it in the early 1950s (they said that much of
the film revolved around Burke’s detective scenes and Polly Moran’s comic
relief). Sadly, in August of 1965 the storage vault caught on fire, completely
annihilating the print and many others.
But in spite of that
abrupt end the memory of this strange Browning film stayed alive, mainly
through the efforts of Forrest J. Ackerman, the editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Ackerman featured stills from London After Midnight in several issues,
helping it to achieve the status of the Holy Grail of Lost Silents ever since.
In more recent years, books on silent horror have covered the film and Turner
Classic Movies featured a reconstructed version using the existing continuity
and surviving stills. And fans and historians continue to hold onto hope that
in the not-too-distant future, footage of Chaney in that startling makeup will
somehow, someday make it back to the big screen.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
I fell in love with the wacky low-budget horror films
of the 1950s and 60s as a kid, when public domain chillers aired late at night
and I secretly stayed up to watch them on the tiny black-and-white TV in my
room. I didn’t pay much attention to the filmmakers behind them then, but by
the time Matinee (1993) hit theaters I was in college and knew enough to
recognize a tribute to horror king William Castle, who never met a gimmick he
didn’t like. House on Haunted Hill (1959) is probably the most famous
and widely available of Castle’s horror pictures, and it’s a great favorite at
my house, especially around Halloween. What could be more fun than Vincent
Price and Elisha Cook, Jr. in a spooky house full of possible ghosts and at
least one very real murderer? It’s not particularly scary by modern horror
standards, but House on Haunted Hill has all the charm of an old school
haunted house ride, with jump scares, skeletons, bleeding ceilings, and lots of
macabre humor.
Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) is unhappily married to Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), who returns his hatred in equal measure.
Vincent Price takes the lead as wealthy Frederick
Loren, who invites a select group of guests to spend the night at a supposedly
haunted house. Although his wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart), dislikes Frederick’s
plans, the rest of the party agree to attend because Frederick promises to pay
each of them $10,000 if they stay until morning. The owner of the house, Watson
Pritchard (Elisha Cook, Jr.), warns the others that the ghosts are eager to add
to their number, and soon enough strange happenings set everyone on edge,
especially young Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig). When Annabelle is found hanged
in the middle of the night, the guests realize that a murderer must be hiding
among them.
Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook, Jr.) tours the house with Ruth (Julie Mitchum), Nora (Carolyn Craig), and Lance (Richard Long).
House on Haunted Hill
boasts a surprisingly good cast for a low-budget horror movie, with Price in
fine form as the sardonic party host. Carol Ohmart radiates ice cold beauty and
malice as Annabelle; she and Price have some delightfully scathing scenes
together early in the picture, and it’s great fun to see how much they loathe
one another as they trade pet names and barbed remarks. Elisha Cook, Jr. cracks
up brilliantly as the traumatized Watson, who serves as the keeper of the
house’s gruesome history and a true believer in its supernatural residents.
Julie Mitchum, sister of the more famous Robert, drinks her way through a
series of scotches as Ruth Bridges, while Alan Marshal frequently opines about
hysteria as the psychiatrist David Trent. There’s a budding romance between
Carolyn Craig’s Nora and Lance, a dashing pilot played by Richard Long,
although their all-American normalcy is threatened by the weird things that
keep happening to an increasingly terrified Nora. While Castle even credits the
skeleton for playing itself, I have to give props to silent film veteran Leona
Anderson, here making her final screen appearance as the aptly named Mrs.
Slydes. She has no lines, but she sure can make an entrance.
Mrs. Slydes (Leona Anderson) might be the scariest thing in the whole movie.
The solid cast and Castle’s trademark gimmicks breathe
new life into the familiar “old dark house” genre that springs from classic
Gothic tales of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In its original
theatrical run, Castle rigged “Emergo” effects that flew a skeleton over the
audience at key moments (feel free to have a friend throw a plastic skeleton
over the couch if you need to recreate this effect at home). House on
Haunted Hill continues the tradition of films like The Cat and the
Canary (1927), The Old Dark House (1932), The Ghost Walks
(1934), and many others that depict a group of people spending the night in a
spooky mansion, although the crowning achievement of the genre would come a few
years later with The Haunting (1963). Without spoiling too much of the
plot, I’ll point out that House on Haunted Hill is also an example of a
type of Gothic first mastered by the novelist Ann Radcliffe, in which the
appearance of the supernatural is eventually explained to the reader/audience. Radcliffe’s
1794 novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, is still a great read if you want
to dive deep into the genre’s history.For the original old dark house
in Gothic fiction, you have to go even farther back to Horace Walpole’s 1764
novel, The Castle of Otranto, which involves such spectacular
supernatural events that I wish William Castle had made a film adaptation of
it. Walpole and Castle would have been a match made in spooky Gothic heaven,
and Vincent Price could even have played the villain.
A menacing skeleton confronts Annabelle in the basement.
Castle actually directed his own version of The Old
Dark House in 1963, but of his other films I especially enjoy The
Tingler (1959), which also stars Vincent Price, and 13 Ghosts
(1960), just because it’s bonkers. If you want even more, try Mr. Sardonicus
(1961) and Strait-Jacket (1964). Several of Castle’s pictures have been
remade, but I much prefer the originals, even if the 1999 House on Haunted
Hill features Geoffrey Rush looking a lot like Vincent Price. If you love
campy classic horror but haven’t yet seen it, I absolutely recommend tracking
down Matinee, in which John Goodman plays the showman inspired by
William Castle.
Turning 80 is a big deal for anyone – or anything for that matter and that includes movies.
We’ve lost thousands of films through the decades and never for a good reason. Some because they were shot on highly combustible nitrate film, others from neglect, because of old age or even because they were thrown out.
That’s reason to celebrate when we are able to watch films old enough to have their own AARP card. Movies from 1944 turned 80 in 2024 and we shouldn’t take it for granted that we can still watch them today. Yes, some may look their age, but then there’s a restored gem like the atmospheric ghost story The Uninvited that looks as beautiful as it did 80 years ago (at least in my eyes).
Eight of the horror films that turned 80 in 2024.
Among other horror films turning the Big 8-0 are two Mummy films released within months of each other, a fun Universal monster mash-up and a well regarded take on Jack the Ripper. You’ll notice the names of Chaney, Carradine and Zucco show up multiple times.
Here’s a quick look at just eight films from 1944. All deserve their own story, and all deserve to be watched. Have fun.
Nina Foch suffers from a family curse in Cry of the Werewolf.
Nina Foch was only 20 at the time she made this film about a young woman plagued by a curse. It deserves high marks stylistically and for spinning a good old-fashioned monster yarn. It makes great use of the creature being a woman, especially in a closeup that shows female legs in high heels that become the feet of an animal as her human shadow turns into a beast.
The film opens like we’re listening to a ghost story around a campfire but we’re inside the LaTour Museum in New Orleans where our tour guide is weaving tales about “werewolfism, vampirism and voodoism.” One story is of the former mistress of the house, Marie LaTour, thought to be a werewolf who disappeared after killing her husband. Young Celeste LaTour is their daughter who was raised by gypsys and finally learns about her “matriarchal inheritance” (i.e. curse) that is her destiny.
Destiny yes, but it also keeps poor Celeste from the man she loves, and we can’t help but empathize with her even as she wants his fiancée to suffer, like she is. “Since I am forbidden to love him, so shall you be. You will learn to live as I must live – apart – beyond the reach of men and mortals.” Yes, the movie is fun that way.
Simone Simon returns in ghostly form as Irena who looks over young Amy (Ann Carter) in The Curse of the Cat People.
This “sequel” to Cat People has three of the same characters and producer Val Lewton, yet it’s often said that the two films don’t have much in common. I disagree. It picks up the story of Oliver (Kent Smith) and Alice (Jane Randolph), carries the same dreamlike beauty of the original and has the specter of the late Irena (Simone Simon) hanging over the film.
Now married, Oliver and Alice have a 6-year-old daughter named Amy (Ann Carter), a sweet, withdrawn child who would rather play with butterflies than her school mates, and loses herself in a world of imaginary friends. Amy is a “sensitive” girl, which worries Oliver who sees similarities with Irena whose belief that cats were her friends led to her tragic death. He blames himself and won’t let the same thing happen to his daughter.
Amy is gifted a ring from a strange old actress named Julia (Julia Dean) and, believing it to be a wishing ring, asks for a friend and Irena appears. We don’t know if Irena is really there, but there is a peaceful feeling to these scenes with Irena often appearing in rays of light like an angel. Darkness comes at Julia’s garish Victorian home, especially when her stern daughter Barbara (Elizabeth Russell) appears covered in shadows. Here’s the rub: Julia believes her daughter died at age 6 – yes, the same age as Amy – and calls Barbara an imposter. Questions like how the child died and what it has to do with Amy are never answered, but this subplot does add a sense of danger for young Amy.
“Curse of the Cat People” is an intriguing psychological thriller that asks what is real, what is imagined and what is supernatural. It’s up to viewers to decide and I always believe the supernatural choice.
Boris Karloff resurrects Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) in House of Frankenstein.
Three monsters – and four favorite actors – all in in one film! Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange), Dracula (John Carradine) and the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) are linked together by the nefarious Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) who continues the work of Victor Frankenstein after he breaks out of prison and seeks revenge.
To do that, he uses other people who tend to suffer tragic outcomes like Professor Lampini (George Zucco) whose traveling Chamber of Horrors includes Dracula’s skeleton with dirt from Transylvania and a stake in the heart. (Hmm, what happens if you remove the stake?). There’s the sad hunchback Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) who he promises to cure. And finally, the saddest of the sad, poor Lawrence Talbot (Chaney), our wolfman. Each character has something Niemann wants in his quest to resurrect Frankenstein’s monster who he has found in an icy grave. (See the 1943 film, Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man for how that happened.)
Throw in some pathos as our heartbreaking werewolf and hunchback both fall in love with the same woman, a young gypsy dancer played by Elena Dervugo who later would star in Marcus Welby, M.D. Bonus: There’s a return to Frankenstein’s castle with angry villagers.
Is he or isn’t he? You won’t know until the end of The Lodger if Laird Creager is Jack the Ripper.
This taut thriller is a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film of the same name, that was based off the 1913 novel by Mrs. Belloc Lowndes about Jack the Ripper. The story focuses on a landlady who fears her new boarder could be the man behind the Whitechaple murders.
It has a great cast starting with Laird Creager as the title character. The actor’s naturally imposing stature – he stood 6′ 3″ and weighed more than 300 pounds – would seem to take away the mystery of whether he is or isn’t the Ripper, but Creager does well in keeping us guessing. Merle Oberon plays Kitty, the landlord’s niece who is a music hall performer. (Shame on her – we know how Jack the Ripper feels about women who show their body!). George Sanders is the elegant inspector on the case who, of course, will fall for Kitty.
The Lodger is one of multiple films in this list that benefits from great cinematography. Lucien Ballard (whose later work included The Wild Bunch), gave the movie a noirish look that added to the tension-filled drama. Ballard and Oberon married after meeting on this film and would go on to make four more films together.
Lon Chaney Jr. returns as Kharis the mummy who searches for his princess in The Mummy’s Ghost.
The Universal Mummy films began in 1932 with the Boris Karloff classic and spawned multiple sequels in the 1940s. The sequels all carry on the story of Imhotep who was cruelly mummified alive after attempting to resuscitate his beloved Princess Anck-es-en-Amo. He will spend eternity searching for her if he must. Each subsequent film starts with yet another discovery of the mummy, his search for his princess, and a race between scholars and devoted Egyptian high priests to find him for their own reasons.
The plots are really that simple. Sometimes the names change – Imhotep becomes Kharis and the princess is Ananka – but the story remains formulaic, easy to digest and quick to move (each film is only about an hour long).
The Mummy’s Ghostis set in Mapleton, Mass. where the events of the 1942 film The Mummy’s Tomb took place, leaving the town in terror. Professor Norman (Frank Reicher) is sharing the background of the mummy with his students (and the film viewers so we know what’s going on), which of course they don’t believe. Tom, one of his students, visits his girlfriend Amina who is of Egyptian descent and goes into an almost trance-like state at talk of Egypt or the mummy. Hmm, wonder where Ananka’s soul has been reincarnated? Lon Chaney Jr. returns as Kharis for the second time, John Carradine is Yousef Bey and George Zucco is High Priest Andoheb.
The Mummy’s Curse comes 25 years later and is “set” again in Mapleton. If it feels more like Louisiana to you, it’s OK. That’s what French accents, talk of bayous and a character named Cajun Joe will do. An engineering company is trying to drain the swamp that was the setting of the end scene in The Mummy’s Ghost. Terrified workers believe the mummy and his princess haunt the area, leaving bodies in their wake. When bodies do start to appear, it confirms their worst fears. What sets this film apart from the others is an unsettling and effective sequence involving the resurrection of Anaka (Virginia Christine) who rises from underground and stumbles while her body jerks to life. It’s an exceptional performance that was ahead of its time (see the TV series The Walking Dead). An interesting note about the exotic looking Virginia Christine: she is best remembered for her role as Mrs. Olson in a series of Folgers coffee commercials.
The haunting – and hauntingly beautiful – supernatural film The Uninvited stars Ruth Hussey and Ray Milland.
The Uninvited is the most unexpected of ghost stories, one with grace and beauty along with chills. Though there are scary moments, it haunts me most with its gorgeous score that uses the song Stella by Starlight to great effect and the moody, atmospheric cinematography by Charles Lang.
The plot is a brilliant mix of ghost story, mystery and romance. Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey are siblings who buy an house on a seaside cliff in Cornwall that they will learn comes with an inhabitant or two. Unusual sounds and sobbing will be heard, there is a strange draft on the stairs, and other odd things happen. The new owners meet some of this with fascination and wonder, but even so, they know what it means when pets won’t go in certain areas of a house.
But it’s not until young Stella (Gail Russell) visits and her strong connection to the house plays out that the film takes some terrifying turns. Her grandfather (Donald Crisp) will finally share why he wants her to stay away. There will be a séance, a ghostly possession and a sanatorium.
I never tired of watching The Uninvited. It hasn’t aged for me since
the first time I saw it and looks stunning on the restored Criterion Blu-ray
release. I suggest putting it on and curling up on the couch with the lights
off. Then be prepared to want to watch it again.
George Zucco, background, works his voodoo magic to try and bring the wife of a doctor (Bela Lugosi) back to life.
Bela Lugosi gives a surprisingly touching performance as a doctor trying to bring his beloved wife back from the dead – although death in her case looks like she’s sleeping with her eyes open. (She’s been dead for 22 years, yet barely looks 22.) But Lugosi isn’t the Voodoo Man of the title: That would be George Zucco as filling station owner Nicholas who dons a black cape and speaks gibberish as he attempts to draw the life essence out of young women and into the doctor’s wife.
He gets his test subjects by pointing unsuspecting innocents asking for directions toward the doctor’s house where they’ll hit a “detour” and be kidnapped. Three times he’s tried, but it hasn’t worked, so the women, all in flowing long dresses, are kept in a catatonic state in strange phone booth-like rooms to await the next try. Up next is Betty (Wanda McKay) who is on her way to her best friend’s wedding. Before reaching the staged detour, she comes upon a man who has run out of gas. Surprise – he’s the groom. (You never know who you’ll meet on lonely country roads.) Mr. Clueless doesn’t help her from being kidnapped but now that there’s a witness to her disappearance, a search is set in motion that will lead to the truth. Whether our bereft doctor will get his cherished wife back in time is part of the film’s climatic tension. (I’m rooting for him.)
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor
and writer at The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her
blog, Watching Forever
and is a member of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie
Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in
the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You
can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
Audrey Cotter was born on February 8, 1922, in New York, New
York, as the youngest of four children (two girls and two boys). Her parents
were Reverend Francis James Meadows Cotter and Ida Miller Taylor, who worked as
Episcopal missionaries in Wuchang, Hubei, China. While she spent her early
years in China, the family returned to the United States.
There, she attended the Barrington School for Girls in Great
Barrington, Massachusetts. After her high school years, Cotter expressed an
interest in performing and sang in the Broadway musical Top Banana. She regularly appeared on The Bob and Ray Show on television. She would also take on the
stage name of Audrey Meadows by this point.
Ultimately, her claim to fame would be playing Alice Kramden
on The Jackie Gleason Show after Pert
Kelton, who originated the role, was forced to leave the show due to the
blacklist. By far, the biggest success of The
Jackie Gleason Show was its “Honeymooners” sketches.
Interestingly, the part of Alice was a role that Meadows
wanted very much; however, she was initially dismissed because she was deemed
too pretty to play Alice. In response, she arranged for an “ugly” photo shoot
and changed her look drastically, resubmitting photos of herself to Gleason.
Gleason was interested and ultimately baffled that this was the same gorgeous
actress who had previously auditioned for him. As a result, the part became hers.
Jackie Gleason and Audrey Meadows, The Honeymooners
Eventually, The
Honeymooners became its own half-hour situation comedy on CBS. Even after a
hiatus, Meadows would return to the role when Gleason produced Honeymooners specials during the 1970s. She
also reprised the role on The Steve Allen
Show, as Allen was her brother-in-law; Allen was married to her sister,
Jayne Meadows. Additionally, she appeared as Alice on The Jack Benny Program during a parody sketch.
During the course of The
Honeymooners’ run, Meadows was married to Randolph Rouse, a real-estate
businessman. They were married in 1956 and divorced in 1958. In 1961, she
married Robert F. Six, who was president of Continental Airlines, in Honolulu,
Hawaii. They were married until his passing in 1986.
In addition to her work in entertainment, Meadows was
director of the First National Bank of Denver for 11 years and was the first
woman to secure the distinction. She was also an advisory director of
Continental Airlines from 1961 to 1981, working in marketing programs that
dealt with flight attendant and customer service agent uniform designs, in
addition to aircraft interior design, and the designs of Continental’s airport
lounges.
Of the core Honeymooners
cast members from the classic 39 episodes, Meadows was the only one to earn
residuals from the show when it began airing in syndication. Her brother,
Edward, was a lawyer and added a clause to her contract calling for her to be
paid if the shows were ever rebroadcast, leading her to earn millions over the
years.
Audrey Meadows, Take Her She’s Mine, 1963, (c) 20th Century Fox Film Corp. All rights reserved.
Beyond The Honeymooners, Meadows made guest appearances on other shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents; The Red Skelton Show; and Murder, She Wrote. She also voiced a character named Bea Simmons, girlfriend to Grampa Simpson, on an episode of The Simpsons. Additionally,Meadows published a memoir in 1994, entitled Love, Alice: My Life as a Honeymooner.
Meadows smoked and developed lung cancer in 1995. She was
given one year to live and declined all but palliative treatments. She passed
away on February 3, 1996, in Los Angeles, California. She is at rest at Holy
Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, next to her second husband. She was
73 years old.
Today, there are some places of relevance tied to Meadows’
life. Her family’s 1930s home at 70 Barnes St., Providence, Rhode Island,
stands today.
70 Barnes St., Providence, Rhode Island
In 1948, she resided at 615 Hauser St., Los Angeles,
California, which also remains.
615 Hauser St., Los Angeles
She also had a property at 50 E. 72nd St., New
York, New York. This building still exists.
50 E. 72nd St., New York City
In 1962, she lived at 1009 Park Ave., New York, New York,
which stands.
1009 Park Ave., New York City
Her 1973 home at 350 Trousdale Pl., Beverly Hills,
California, has since been razed.
Finally, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
honoring her work in television. It is located at 6100 Hollywood Blvd., Los
Angeles, California.
Annette Bochenek of Chicago, Illinois, is a PhD student at Dominican University and an independent scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the Hometowns to Hollywood blog, in which she writes about her trips exploring the legacies and hometowns of Golden Age stars. Annette also hosts the “Hometowns to Hollywood” film series throughout the Chicago area. She has been featured on Turner Classic Movies and is the president of TCM Backlot’s Chicago chapter. In addition to writing for Classic Movie Hub, she also writes for Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, and Chicago Art Deco SocietyMagazine.
,
