Noir Nook: Must-See Marie

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry

Noir Nook: Must-See Marie

We need to talk about Marie Windsor.

She was gorgeous. Talented. Adept at playing dames from the deadly side of the tracks, but able to hold her own in comedy as well.

And she once held the title of Miss D. & R.G. Railroad.

But for my money, Windsor is most worth celebrating for her presence in the world of film noir, with memorable roles in several pictures from the era, including two of my all-time favorite, absolutely must-see noirs. But more of that in a bit . . .

Marie Windsor
Marie Windsor

Born Emily Marie Bertelson in December 1919, Windsor was a native of Marysvale, Utah, and was captivated by acting as a child, once recalling that, at the age of eight, she decided that she wanted to be “another Clara Bow.”

“No one in the family ever said, ‘Oh, don’t be silly’ or ‘You can’t,’” Windsor said. “If that’s what I wanted, they were going to help me.” And help they did; her parents’ support included driving her to a town 30 miles away for weekly dancing and drama lessons. After high school, she studied drama for two years at Brigham Young University, and after winning the aforementioned Miss D. & R.G. Railroad beauty contest, Windsor used her prize of 99 silver dollars to buy a set of luggage and make her way to Hollywood. Once there, she sought out famed actress Maria Ouspenskaya – memorable in such films as Dodsworth (1936) and Kings Row (1942) – who took her on as a student.

Windsor paid for her room and board by working as a cigarette girl at the popular Mocambo nightclub, a job that wound up leading to her first big break. One night at the club, she was assisting producer Arthur Hornblow with his coat when he asked her, “Are you working at this job because you want to be an actress?” Windsor replied that she was and Hornblow responded, “You don’t belong here.” He arranged for her to have an audition and a short time later, she made her big screen debut as “Miss Carrot” in the Frances Langford starrer, All American Co-ed (1941).

After bit parts in a series of pictures, Windsor moved to New York where she appeared on more than 300 radio shows and was seen on stage in plays like Follow the Girls, which attracted the attention of an MGM exec and led to a two-year contract with the studio. But despite appearing in 15 films alongside such luminaries as Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, and Frank Sinatra, Windsor failed to make a splash until 1948 when she entered the shadowy noir realm with Force of Evil, earning nearly unanimous praise for her performance as the predatory wife of a syndicate king. She would go on to appear in several more noirs, including the two that I love best: The Narrow Margin (1952) and The Killing (1956).

Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin with Charles McGraw
Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin with Charles McGraw

The Narrow Margin stars Charles McGraw as Det. Sgt. Walter Brown, a Los Angeles law officer who’s tasked with secretly escorting a mobster’s widow, Mrs. Frankie Neall, from Chicago to L.A. via train so that she can provide grand jury testimony about her late husband’s “payoff list.” The need for secrecy and the danger involved are made glaringly apparent early on, when Brown’s partner (Don Beddoe) is gunned down in Mrs. Neall’s apartment stairwell with a bullet that was intended for her.

Windsor plays Mrs. Neall and gives us a pretty significant peek at her persona from her first appearance. It comes when Brown and his partner arrive at Neall’s apartment to take her to the train. She’s smoking a cigarette and listening to music (which, judging by the reaction of the cop who’s been guarding her, must have been playing non-stop). When she’s introduced to her escorts, she blows smoke in Brown’s face and derisively inquires, “How’s Los Angeles? Sunburn wear off on the way out?”

And that’s just the first of many wisecracks and smart alecky jabs served up by Mrs. Neall. Once safely inside her train compartment, she’s needling Brown non-stop, from complaining about the meals (“The food stinks and so does your company!”) to vehemently urging him to accept the bribe he’s been offered to turn over the payoff list. “You’re a bigger idiot than I thought,” she tells him. “Wake up, Brown – this train’s headed straight for the cemetery. But there’s another one coming along. The gravy train. Let’s get on it.”

Sadly, for the viewer, Windsor’s character takes her leave about halfway through the film. While she’s still around, though, she steals every scene, more than holding her own with the gruff and growly Charles McGraw and spitting out her lines like they leave a bad taste behind. The release of the film was delayed for 18 months by RKO head Howard Hughes, but that didn’t stop critics from noticing Windsor’s standout performance – she was singled out by several reviewers, including one who praised her ”splendidly incisive” performance and said she “looked capable of halving a railroad spoke with her teeth.” He wasn’t wrong.

Marie Windsor in The Killing with Elisha Cook, Jr.
Marie Windsor in The Killing with Elisha Cook, Jr.

My other favorite Windsor film, The Killing (1956), tells the tale of a motley crew of regular Joes who unite to pull off a crafty racetrack payroll heist. The group is led by recently released ex-con Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and includes a beat cop (Ted de Corsia), a bartender (Joe Sawyer), and a mousy racetrack cashier named George Peatty (Elisha Cook, Jr.). Despite the intricate and nearly foolproof scheme, it goes the way of many a well-laid plan and winds up in the crapper – but it’s a great ride while it hangs together.

As Sherry Peatty, Windsor is the wife of the aforementioned mousy cashier, and believe me when I tell you, she’s a real piece of work. She clearly married George solely because of the lofty promises he made to her: “Something about hitting it rich and having an apartment on Park Avenue and a different car for every day of the week,” Sherry reminds him. “Not that I really care about such things, understand, as long as I have a big, handsome, intelligent brute like you.”

Sporting a blonde wig that puts Phyllis Dietrichson’s coiffure to shame, Sherry is a fascinating character. She’s an unabashed gold-digger and a remorseless two-timer who wouldn’t think twice about double-crossing her hubby in favor of a younger, stronger, more handsome model (Vince Edwards). But she’s no fool. On more than one occasion, she not only demonstrates her intelligence, but also her ability to maintain grace under pressure and think on her feet. One of my favorite examples of this comes when she gets caught snooping around Johnny’s apartment as he meets with the men involved in the heist. Johnny knocks her unconscious and when she comes to, she first tries flirting with him and then she makes up a whopper about finding his address in her husband’s pocket and suspecting him of stepping out on her. And then, for good measure, she goes back to playing the coquette. Even Johnny has to admit that he’s impressed: “You’re a no-good, nosy little tramp. You’d sell out your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you’re smart along with it.”

No matter how many times I see Windsor’s performance in The Killing – and I’ve seen it so often I lost count long ago – I’m positively mesmerized. She gives a master class in bringing the femme fatale to life; whether she’s merely applying cold cream to remove her make-up or using her feminine wiles to extract secrets from George, you won’t be able to take you eyes off of her. Interestingly, Windsor got the role of Sherry after director Stanley Kubrick saw her performance in The Narrow Margin. “The minute he picked up the paperback that became The Killing, he told [his partner] that he wanted me for Sherry,” Windsor recalled. She would later count the film as one of her favorites.

I must say, she certainly had good taste.

…

– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

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:

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Silver Screen Standards: Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Jennifer Garlen

Silver Screen Standards: Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Humphrey Bogart might be the most iconic version of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, but Dick Powell gives a surprisingly perfect take on the character in the 1944 noir classic, Murder, My Sweet, adapted from Chandler’s 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely. If you’ve only seen Powell as a hoofer in early musical hits like 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), and Footlight Parade (1933), it can be something of a shock to find him embodying a quintessential tough guy like Marlowe, but his success in the role allowed him to part ways with his musical comedy past and embrace darker, more dramatic parts in middle age, when youthful dancers no longer suited him. Powell gets ample support from the rest of the cast in this crackling noir caper, with Claire Trevor and Mike Mazurki in particularly fine form as two of the shady characters Marlowe encounters, but it’s Powell himself who really leads with his convincing take on the classic detective.

Murder Sweet Powell cops
The picture opens with a blinded Marlowe (Dick Powell) being questioned by the police about his involvement in a tangled web of crimes.

The mystery begins when Marlowe is hired by recently released convict Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), who wants to track down his former girlfriend, Velma. Moose still loves Velma even though she stopped writing during his prison term, but a lot can happen in eight years, and Velma proves elusive. Meanwhile, Marlowe is also hired by Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) to help retrieve a stolen jade necklace for Marriott’s married lady friend, Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor). When Marlowe and Marriott are jumped at the meeting spot, and Marriott ends up dead, Marlowe feels obligated to salvage his business reputation by tracking down the killer. His investigation lands him in trouble with the cops as he becomes entangled in the schemes of psychic swindler Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger), but Marlowe is also drawn in by Helen’s pretty stepdaughter, Ann (Anne Shirley), who hates Helen but is determined to protect her beloved father, Leuwen (Miles Mander).

Murder Sweet Trevor
Claire Trevor plays the sexy but unscrupulous Helen Grayle, who asks Marlowe to help her after Marriott is murdered.

Powell’s Marlowe has a scrappy, wry charm, though he’s rarely seen at his best in this story, which takes particular delight in abusing its protagonist. He suffers repeated blows to the head, falls into dark pools of unconsciousness, is attacked by Moose, gets kidnapped and drugged out of his mind for three days, and opens and closes the picture with damaged eyes wrapped in bandages. Even when he isn’t being roughed up he looks ragged, like a guy with a lot of miles behind him but not much to show for it. I’m especially struck by the scene with Marlowe in his undershirt, partly because we had so memorably seen Powell in the same state of undress back in his younger days in 42nd Street. In Murder, My Sweet, it looks like Powell has been wearing the same undershirt for the last eleven years; it’s stretched out and ill-fitting, but Marlowe isn’t going to waste money on new undershirts as long as the old ones hold together. Instead of a proper belt he wears a piece of cloth to hold up his pants, probably because it’s 1944 and there’s a war on, with a leather shortage leading to rationing, but also because even without a war Marlowe can’t afford the luxury of a new leather belt. Powell is a perpetually broke, middle-aged Marlowe who looks like it. When Helen makes love to him we know it’s phony, and so does he, because only a romantic kid like Ann could actually fall for a cash strapped, forty-something private eye whose personal codes – of honor, justice, or sheer contrariness – constantly land him in danger. These are the qualities that make Marlowe such a perfect noir hero, and Powell really digs into the character and makes us believe in him.

Murder Sweet drugs
Marlowe suffers frightening hallucinations after being kidnapped and drugged by a group of criminals.

Everything else about the picture supports that perfect noir mood. Director Edward Dmytryk treats us to reflections and shadows, looming blackness, and drug-fueled hallucinations. We see Moose, huge and menacing, reflected in Marlowe’s office window, and Helen smoking in the dark, a cloud of cigarette smoke rising in the moonlight above her head. They are all inhabitants of Dark City, the nighttime world of secrets, lies, and murder where Marlowe is a battered knight errant in search of a damsel in distress but just as likely to find a femme fatale. It’s fitting that he begins and ends the movie blinded, noir’s own figure of a certain kind of Justice, because Marlowe is always in the dark himself, groping for pieces of the truth while everybody lies to him. This theme reaches its peak in the delirious drug scene, with a helpless, panicked Marlowe running through imaginary doors like a Gothic heroine while the faces of his tormentors rise up before him. That feminization of a tough guy might seem strange, even contradictory, but it gets at the heart of noir by highlighting the powerlessness of the disenfranchised individual against a corrupt system that seeks to abuse, control, or destroy those who oppose it. Personally, I think that’s one of the main reasons I love classic noir, because I see myself in characters like Philip Marlowe just like I see myself in Gothic heroines like Jane Eyre. A film like Murder, My Sweet stays with the viewer, and remains relevant decade after decade, because so many of us can look at Dick Powell’s outsider hero and see ourselves reflected in his world-weary face.

Murder Sweet Powell Shirley
Still blind, Marlowe ends the picture with Ann Grayle (Ann Shirley) keeping him company instead of the cops.

If you’re eager to experience more of Dick Powell’s darker roles, try Cornered (1945), Johnny O’Clock (1947), and Pitfall (1948). For a lighter take on the Marlowe type, catch Powell as a reincarnated dog turned private detective in the weirdly delightful fantasy, You Never Can Tell (1951). Edward Dmytryk’s other noir films include Cornered (1947), Obsession (aka The Hidden Room, 1949), and Crossfire (1947). In addition to Bogart and Powell, other actors who have played Philip Marlowe are Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake (1947), George Montgomery in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), James Garner in Marlowe (1969), Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973), and Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978). Most recently, Liam Neeson took up the role for the 2022 film, Marlowe, but the movie garnered poor reviews and little success at the box office.

…

— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub

Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

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Silver Screen Standards: Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Jennifer Garlen

Silver Screen Standards: Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Murder, My Sweet (1944) Dick Powell blindfolded cops
The picture opens with a blinded Marlowe (Dick Powell) being questioned by the police about his involvement in a tangled web of crimes.

Humphrey Bogart might be the most iconic version of Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled detective, Philip Marlowe, but Dick Powell gives a surprisingly perfect take on the character in the 1944 noir classic, Murder, My Sweet, adapted from Chandler’s 1940 novel, Farewell, My Lovely. If you’ve only seen Powell as a hoofer in early musical hits like 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), and Footlight Parade (1933), it can be something of a shock to find him embodying a quintessential tough guy like Marlowe, but his success in the role allowed him to part ways with his musical comedy past and embrace darker, more dramatic parts in middle age, when youthful dancers no longer suited him. Powell gets ample support from the rest of the cast in this crackling noir caper, with Claire Trevor and Mike Mazurki in particularly fine form as two of the shady characters Marlowe encounters, but it’s Powell himself who really leads with his convincing take on the classic detective.

Murder, My Sweet (1944) Claire Trevor
Claire Trevor plays the sexy but unscrupulous Helen Grayle, who asks Marlowe to help her after Marriott is murdered.

The mystery begins when Marlowe is hired by recently released convict Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki), who wants to track down his former girlfriend, Velma. Moose still loves Velma even though she stopped writing during his prison term, but a lot can happen in eight years, and Velma proves elusive. Meanwhile, Marlowe is also hired by Lindsay Marriott (Douglas Walton) to help retrieve a stolen jade necklace for Marriott’s married lady friend, Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor). When Marlowe and Marriott are jumped at the meeting spot, and Marriott ends up dead, Marlowe feels obligated to salvage his business reputation by tracking down the killer. His investigation lands him in trouble with the cops as he becomes entangled in the schemes of psychic swindler Jules Amthor (Otto Kruger), but Marlowe is also drawn in by Helen’s pretty stepdaughter, Ann (Anne Shirley), who hates Helen but is determined to protect her beloved father, Leuwen (Miles Mander).

Murder, My Sweet (1944) Dick Powell hallucination
Marlowe suffers frightening hallucinations after being kidnapped and drugged by a group of criminals.

Powell’s Marlowe has a scrappy, wry charm, though he’s rarely seen at his best in this story, which takes particular delight in abusing its protagonist. He suffers repeated blows to the head, falls into dark pools of unconsciousness, is attacked by Moose, gets kidnapped and drugged out of his mind for three days, and opens and closes the picture with damaged eyes wrapped in bandages. Even when he isn’t being roughed up he looks ragged, like a guy with a lot of miles behind him but not much to show for it. I’m especially struck by the scene with Marlowe in his undershirt, partly because we had so memorably seen Powell in the same state of undress back in his younger days in 42nd Street. In Murder, My Sweet, it looks like Powell has been wearing the same undershirt for the last eleven years; it’s stretched out and ill-fitting, but Marlowe isn’t going to waste money on new undershirts as long as the old ones hold together. Instead of a proper belt he wears a piece of cloth to hold up his pants, probably because it’s 1944 and there’s a war on, with a leather shortage leading to rationing, but also because even without a war Marlowe can’t afford the luxury of a new leather belt. Powell is a perpetually broke, middle-aged Marlowe who looks like it. When Helen makes love to him we know it’s phony, and so does he, because only a romantic kid like Ann could actually fall for a cash strapped, forty-something private eye whose personal codes – of honor, justice, or sheer contrariness – constantly land him in danger. These are the qualities that make Marlowe such a perfect noir hero, and Powell really digs into the character and makes us believe in him.

Murder, My Sweet (1944) Dick Powell and Anne Shirley
Still blind, Marlowe ends the picture with Ann Grayle (Ann Shirley) keeping him company instead of the cops.

Everything else about the picture supports that perfect noir mood. Director Edward Dmytryk treats us to reflections and shadows, looming blackness, and drug-fueled hallucinations. We see Moose, huge and menacing, reflected in Marlowe’s office window, and Helen smoking in the dark, a cloud of cigarette smoke rising in the moonlight above her head. They are all inhabitants of Dark City, the nighttime world of secrets, lies, and murder where Marlowe is a battered knight errant in search of a damsel in distress but just as likely to find a femme fatale. It’s fitting that he begins and ends the movie blinded, noir’s own figure of a certain kind of Justice, because Marlowe is always in the dark himself, groping for pieces of the truth while everybody lies to him. This theme reaches its peak in the delirious drug scene, with a helpless, panicked Marlowe running through imaginary doors like a Gothic heroine while the faces of his tormentors rise up before him. That feminization of a tough guy might seem strange, even contradictory, but it gets at the heart of noir by highlighting the powerlessness of the disenfranchised individual against a corrupt system that seeks to abuse, control, or destroy those who oppose it. Personally, I think that’s one of the main reasons I love classic noir, because I see myself in characters like Philip Marlowe just like I see myself in Gothic heroines like Jane Eyre. A film like Murder, My Sweet stays with the viewer, and remains relevant decade after decade, because so many of us can look at Dick Powell’s outsider hero and see ourselves reflected in his world-weary face.

If you’re eager to experience more of Dick Powell’s darker roles, try Cornered (1945), Johnny O’Clock (1947), and Pitfall (1948). For a lighter take on the Marlowe type, catch Powell as a reincarnated dog turned private detective in the weirdly delightful fantasy, You Never Can Tell (1951). Edward Dmytryk’s other noir films include Cornered (1947), Obsession (aka The Hidden Room, 1949), and Crossfire (1947). In addition to Bogart and Powell, other actors who have played Philip Marlowe are Robert Montgomery in Lady in the Lake (1947), George Montgomery in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), James Garner in Marlowe (1969), Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973), and Robert Mitchum in Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and The Big Sleep (1978). Most recently, Liam Neeson took up the role for the 2022 film, Marlowe, but the movie garnered poor reviews and little success at the box office.

…

— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub

Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

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Classic Movie Travels: Colleen Moore

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Annette Bochenek

Classic Movie Travels: Colleen Moore

Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore

Kathleen Morrison, later known as Colleen Moore, was born in Port Huron, Michigan, to Charles and Agnes Kelly Morrison on August 19, 1899. Moore’s family moved frequently, residing in cities like Hillsdale, Michigan; Atlanta, Georgia; Warren, Pennsylvania; and Tampa, Florida. Additionally, her family would typically spend summers in Chicago, where Moore’s Aunt Lib and Uncle Walter Howey lived. Howey, in particular, was well connected, as he was the managing editor of the Chicago Examiner, owned by William Randolph Hearst.

At age 15, Moore already had dreams of starring in films. Moore kept a scrapbook in which she would paste various pictures of her favorite actors after clipping them from motion picture magazines. However, Moore kept a page blank, reserved for when she would one day become a star. Reportedly, she and her brother began their own stock company, performing on a stage created from a piano packing crate. Incidentally, Chicago’s Essanay Studios was located fairly close to the Howey residence. Moore appeared in the background of several Essanay films, typically as a face in a crowd. Since film producer D.W. Griffith was in debt to Howey for helping him get both The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) through the Chicago censorship board, he was able to secure a screen test for Moore. Her contract with Griffith’s Triangle-Fine Arts was conditional, as Moore possessed one brown eye and one blue eye. Her eyes photographed favorably, so Moore left for Hollywood with her grandmother and her mother as chaperones and began her film career.

Moore’s first credited role was in The Bad Boy (1917), for Triangle Arts. This appearance was followed by An Old Fashioned Young Man (1917) and Hands Up (1917), gradually allowing Moore to develop her career and become noticed and enjoyed by audiences. She later signed a contract with the Selig Polyscope Company, appearing in films like A Hoosier Romance (1918) and Little Orphant Annie (1918), leading her to become popular among moviegoers. Moore also performed with Fox Film Corporation, Ince Productions—Famous Players-Lasky, and Universal Film Manufacturing Company, before completing the next stage of her career with the Christie Film Company.

Colleen Moore 2

Moore was married to producer John McCormick from 1923 until their divorce in 1930.

Moore starred in Flaming Youth (1923), solidifying her image as a flapper; however, Clara Bow soon became a rival to Moore with a similar image. Moore continued her film career with appearances in comedies and dramas. When Moore worked in The Desert Flower (1925), she injured her neck and spent six weeks in a bod cast. After her recovery, she finished filming and was able to leave for a publicity tour throughout Europe.

Two of Moore’s key passions were dolls and films; each of these interests would become prominent throughout her life. Though approximately half of her films are now lost, Moore is, remembered as a delightful silent film actress by film aficionados. Moore’s films would often feature her as a good girl putting on a bad girl façade, and always carrying out her roles with panache. Her aunts, however, took care to indulge her in another great passion, which is the focus of this article: dollhouses. They frequently brought her miniature furniture from their many trips, with which she furnished the first of a sequence of dollhouses.

In 1928, Moore enlisted the help several professionals to help build a massive dollhouse for her growing collection of miniature furnishings. The professionals included Moore’s father as chief engineer, set designer Horace Jackson, and interior designer Harold Grieve. Cameraman Henry Freulich worked on the lighting, which was installed by an electrician. This dollhouse has an area of nine square feet, with the tallest tower standing several feet high and the entire structure weighing one ton. This eventually became known as Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle.

By 1929, the advent of sound had taken the film industry by storm, leading Moore to take a hiatus from acting. She married stockbroker Albert P. Scott in 1932 and they resided in Bel Air together until their 1934 divorce. Moore’s final film appearance occurred in that year in The Scarlet Letter (1934). 

In 1937, Moore married stockbroker Homer P. Hargrave, remaining with him until his passing in 1964. Hargrave would ultimately provide much of the funding for her dollhouse. Moore adopted Hargrave’s children, Homer and Judy, to whom she remained devoted throughout her life. In the 1960s, Moore formed a television production company with King Vidor and published two books: How Women Can Make Money in the Stock Market and Silent Star: Colleen Moore Talks About Her Hollywood. She remained a popular interview subject and frequent quest at various film festivals, discussion the silent film era.

Older Colleen Moore

Moore married for the last time to builder Paul Magenot. They remained together until her passing on January 25, 1988, in Paso Robles, California, from cancer. She was 88 years old.

Moore’s childhood home stands at 817 Ontario St., Port Huron, Michigan.

Huron Colleen Moore home
Moore’s childhood home, 817 Ontario St., Port Huron, Michigan

Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle survives to this day. The dollhouse made its public debut at Macy’s in New York and traveled throughout the United States, raising approximately one half-million dollars for children’s charities. The dollhouse showcases ornate miniature furniture and art as well as the work of beyond 700 different artisans, and has been a featured exhibit at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry since the 1950s. The museum displays the dollhouse in its own exhibit hall, which features additional miniature items from Moore’s collection, items used to store and transport pieces for the dollhouse, and information about her film career. The Museum of Science and Industry is located at 5700 S. DuSable Lake Shore Dr., Chicago, Illinois.

Castle Colleen Moore
Colleen Moore’s Fairy Castle

In 1923, Moore and McCormick resided at 1231 S. Gramercy Place., Los Angeles, California. The home remains virtually unchanged on the exterior.

Gramercy Colleen Moore home
1231 S. Gramercy Place., Los Angeles, California

In 1925, Moore and her husband lived at 530 S. Rossmore Ave., Los Angeles, California. This home also exists today.

Rossmore home Colleen Moore
530 S. Rossmore Ave., Los Angeles, California

By 1929, Moore and her husband resided on a three-acre estate at 245 Saint Pierre Rd., Los Angeles, California. The home remains today.

Pierre home Colleen Moore
245 Saint Pierre Rd., Los Angeles, California

In 1964, Moore co-founded the Chicago International Film Festival, which is held annually to this day.

CIFF Chicago International Film Festival

Moore has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, honoring her work in motion pictures. The star is located at 1549 Vine St., Los Angeles, California.

Colleen Moore Hollywood Walk of Fame Star
Moore’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Moore’s prints can be found in the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre, located at 6925 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, California.

Colleen Moore handprints Graumans
Moore’s hand and foot prints at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood

…

–Annette Bochenek for Classic Movie Hub

Annette Bochenek pens our monthly Classic Movie Travels column. You can read all of Annette’s Classic Movie Travel articles here.

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.

Posted in Classic Movie Travels, Posts by Annette Bochenek | 2 Comments

Monsters and Matinees: Move over Westerns and Make Way for Texas-sized B-Movie Horrors

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Toni Ruberto

Monsters and Matinees: Move over Westerns…

Cowboys and horses and Texas.

That’s been a winning hand for moviegoers and the film industry since 1910 when the state’s first film studio was opened in San Antonio by Gaston Méliès, brother of visionary filmmaker Georges Méliès.

For more than a century since then, the state’s photogenic and distinct landscapes have been seen in some of the greatest Westerns ever made like The Searchers, Giant, Sons of Katie Elder, Hud and The Alamo.

Vast plains, open ranges, mountains and sprawling ranches made the perfect backdrop for herds of cattle, cowboys, wagon trains and a giant lizard meandering down a lonesome road.

No, that’s not a mistake.

Though Westerns are synonymous with Texas, the Lone Star State also was the surprising home of a unique little cottage industry of horror and sci-fi B-movies by men like Larry Buchanan, Edgar G. Ulmer and Gordon McLendonn.

So, the horses and cattle ubiquitous in Texas-made films, share the landscape with such Texas-sized horrors and sci-fi treats as that giant lizard (The Giant Gila Monster), oversized killer dog-like beasts (The Killer Shrews), and evil aliens (Zontar: The Thing from Venus).

Actor Ken Curtis produced two films in Texas: The Killer Shrews, in which he also acted (above) and The Giant Gila Monster.

And you can’t talk Texas and horror without The Texas Chain Massacre, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 film that changed the face of horror.

There’s more. The Eye Creatures (AKA Attack of the Eye Creatures), a low-budget film even by low-budget standards, found John Ashley and his teen buddies trying to get someone to believe they saw aliens. The Amazing Transparent Man was a thief who spends time traveling the lonesome highway after he’s broken out of jail to carry on the nefarious deeds of a demented general.

The films are nearly 70 years old but haven’t been forgotten. They inspired author, artist and director Bret McCormick to become a filmmaker and write the 2018 book Texas Schlock. A new classic horror streaming service and vintage film restoration company called Film Masters has chosen Giant Gila Monster and Killer Shrews to debut its home video collection.

And they are being celebrated at the inaugural It Came from Texas Film Festival, Oct. 28-29 at the historic Plaza Theatre in Garland, Texas. While future festivals will showcase various genres, the first event will pay homage to horror and sci-fi films often shown at the drive-in during the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.

Celebrating B-movies

The festival schedule reads like a watch-list for B-movie horror fans: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amazing Transparent Man, Beyond the Time Barrier, Don’t Look in the Basement, Don’t Look in the Basement 2, The Eye Creatures, Giant Gila Monster, Killer Shrews, Manos: The Hand of Fate, Zontar: The Thing from Venus. Also included is a short film compilation by student filmmakers in the Garland High School Reel Owl Cinema film program.

Tom Neyman and his oversized robe star as The Master in Manos: The Hands of Fate.

As a B-movie fan, I recommend watching these films any way you can, but there’s no escaping the appeal of seeing them on the big screen.

“You’ve probably seen these films in your house on your TV or computer, but how many people are sitting with you and jumping at a scare or laughing? It’s such a different experience in a theater,” said festival director Kelly Kitchens, a longtime film festival publicist and a classic movie fan who added she is looking forward to seeing these films for the first time on the big screen and with an audience.

The festival’s B-movie focus came together organically. The festival dates happen to fall on Halloween weekend, plus organizers and members of the Garland Downtown Business Association felt that Texas Chainsaw Massacre had to be included – it has Texas in its title after all.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre changed the face or horror.

“Texas Chainsaw changed everything in the horror genre,” said Kitchens, who calls the festival “a perfect little petri dish” to show the evolution of horror films before and after Texas Chainsaw.

While horror films of the 1950s and ‘60s are based on fears of the time such as nuclear horrors and invading countries that manifested in giant creates and alien invasions, Texas Chainsaw Massacre gave us the masked killer as the horror, creating the slasher genre and leading to such film franchises as Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street.

Film historian, educator and author Gordon K. Smith, who will be introducing films and showing trailers from the movies at the festival, said Texas Chainsaw Massacre remains hard to watch even today.

“It has a feverish quality that horror filmmakers have tried to do since and few have achieved,” Smith said in a telephone interview.

The festival is also the first time that the movies Don’t Look in the Basement (1974) from director S.F. Brownrigg and the sequel Don’t Look in the Basement 2 (2015) by his son, writer-director Tony Brownrigg, will be shown together. Both were filmed in Tehuacana.

“Don’t Look in the Basement 2 is a real representation of what a Texas filmmaker can do. It’s well made and has a lot of great actors from Texas,” Smith said.

Another highlight is Rondo and Bob, a 2020 documentary by Joe O’Connell about Robert A. Burns, art director for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and his fandom for 1930s and ‘40s actor Rondo Hatton, whose career was built around his unique facial features that were a result of acromegaly. This will be shown before a 49th anniversary showing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Kitchens and Smith previously worked together on a long-running fundraiser for the Dallas Producers Association called It Came From Dallas where only short clips of Dallas-made movies were shown. That led to the idea of a festival showing full films that were made throughout Texas.

B-movie star John Agar and Susan Bjurman have to deal with Zontar: The Thing From Venus.

Embracing the shlock

Often when these films are mentioned it is with the descriptors campy and schlock. Some have even been riffed on as part of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K). Others are found on streaming services under the banner “Shlock Classic.” But if you use that term with Smith, he’ll laugh and say “Yes – and what’s your point?”

“I know the difference between Giant Gila Monster and Schindler’s List. I’m not strictly devoted to B-movies,” he said. “Of course, there’s lots of low budget garbage in horror and sci-fi, but the ones we’re showing are classics of their own kind. They are fun and have substance for a lot of reasons.”

Kitchens agrees.

“It’s very much the way we are embracing it. It’s having like-minded people who think of campy and quirky as a term of endearment,” she said, sharing that the first time she saw some of these films was on MST3K. “I am looking forward to experiencing these with an audience and an audience that will absolutely be fans of the genre, the time period or classic films. I think it will be transformative and many of these will be new favorites.”

To that point, the festival will show The Giant Gila Monster with a live riff from The Mocky Horror Picture Show, an interactive movie mocking comedy troupe based out of Texas.

The sci-fi B-movies The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews were released as a drive-in double feature in 1959. Both were produced by Texas businessman Gordon McLendon who owned a series of drive-ins.

Texas B-movie masters

The independent “pioneers” in Texas helped build a film industry by simply showing people it could be done, Smith said. “They made it feasible to make low-budget films.”

Giant Gila Monster (1959) and Killer Shrews (1959) were produced back-to-back by Texas businessman and radio pioneer Gordon McLendon who also owned a Dallas drive-in chain and movie theaters throughout the south. He also co-starred in the films, both directed by Ray Kellogg and also produced by actor Ken Curtis (Gunsmoke, who also starred in Shrews), were often shown as a double feature.

The Eye Creatures and Zontar: The Thing from Space were directed by Larry Buchanan. Smith shares an interesting story about those alien costumes that looked like an art project made with bubbles (to give off the appearance of eyes).

“They only had two full suits and one monster head,” said Smith, adding they would keep them hidden behind a bush. “They had to keep using them over and over.”

To illustrate how close the Texas film community was, The Eye Creatures was filmed at McLendon’s ranch outside of Dallas. And S.F. Brownrigg, director of Don’t Look in the Basement, worked with Buchanan as the film editor of The Eye Creatures and sound supervisor for Zontar.

Noted director Edgar G. Ulmar was drawn to Texas by oil barons who wanted to be movie producers. For Beyond the Time Barrier and The Amazing Transparent Man, he used the Texas landscape to his advantage with long travel shots of open flat land and roads. For Time Barrier, he also used Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth and Eagle Mountain Marine Corps Air Station, along with Fair Park in Dallas, in telling the story of a test pilot who is accidentally sent into the future world of 2024.

While these films haven’t improved with time as some films do – those poor Eye Creatures costumes will never be in style – they have withstood a different test of time by holding their own long enough to be discovered by new audiences who don’t mind, as actor-producer Ken Curtis once said, that the killer shrews looked like a dog covered in a “shag carpet.”

– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.

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.

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Western Roundup: Destry (1954)

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Laura Grieve

Western Roundup: Destry (1954)

Destry Rides Again is a classic Western novel by Max Brand. It was filmed by Universal Pictures multiple times, including a 1932 version starring Tom Mix and the best-known version, a 1939 release with James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

George Marshall directed the James Stewart version, and he was again at the helm when Universal remade the story once more in 1954. Audie Murphy was chosen for the lead role of Tom Destry.

DESTRY movie poster

The 1954 version, simply called Destry, has just been released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber Studio Classics; to my knowledge this is the first time it’s been available for home viewing. Destry is part of the three-film Audie Murphy Collection II along with Sierra (1950) and Kansas Raiders (1950).

Audie Murphy Collection

I’ve periodically reviewed Murphy’s films here, as he’s both a great Western star and a personal favorite. I reviewed his Seven Ways From Sundown (1960) in 2020 and wrote about Hell Bent For Leather (1960) early last year. Since it’s been a year and a half since my last Murphy review, this new release is a perfect opportunity to visit another of his films.

This was my first time to see this version of the Destry story, and it’s interesting to note at the outset that with the exception of lead character Tom Destry, the characters have different names in each of Universal’s three versions.

While I’ve yet to see the Tom Mix edition, I’ve seen the one with Stewart, though it’s been a few years. While perhaps not a classic on a level with the Stewart film, I felt the Murphy version stands on its own feet as delightful Western entertainment. Murphy comes off extremely well in the title role, and he’s backed by a terrific cast.

In the familiar story, crooked Decker (Lyle Bettger) and his henchmen run a very wild little Western town and kill the sheriff (Trevor Bardette) who gets in their way.

Destry Thomas Mitchel and Lyle Bettger
Thomas Mitchell and Lyle Bettger

They appoint alcoholic Rags Barnaby (Thomas Mitchell) as sheriff, and Rags immediately sends for Tom Destry (Murphy), son of his late friend, who was a famed lawman.

Rags hasn’t met the adult Destry and when imposing cattleman Larson (Alan Hale Jr.) steps off the stagecoach, Rags is thrilled, only to learn he has the wrong man. Rags is then shocked when the diminutive Destry gets out of the stagecoach, assisting a pretty young lady (Lori Nelson) with her parasol and a birdcage.

Destry Audie Murphy and Lori Nelson
Audie Murphy and Lori Nelson

Nonethless, Destry ends up serving as Rags’ deputy. He doesn’t wear guns and prefers friendly discussions to battle, which initially shocks both Rags and the townspeople; over time, Destry’s positive, trusting attitude causes a number of people in town to reform. Rags stops drinking, saloon girl Brandy (Mari Blanchard) wakes up to realizing her life as Decker’s girl isn’t a good one, and combative Larson learns to deal with his problems in a more peaceable manner.

Destry Mari Blanchard
Mari Blanchard

Only the most hard-bitten character town, Decker, doesn’t change, along with his cronies.

The townspeople are later shocked to learn that Destry is actually an expert marksman — Bettger’s expression at this reveal is hilarious — but even this disclosure is strategic on Destry’s part. He’s learned about new-fangled ways to analyze which guns have shot which bullets, and he’s emptied the townspeople’s guns out for research into the murder of the previous sheriff.

Destry was the perfect role for Murphy, who was only 5′ 5″ and could seem unassuming — yet both onscreen and off, underneath the mild-mannered exterior was a very determined and even dangerous man.

Destry Audie Murphy and Mari Blanchard
Audie Murphy and Mari Blanchard

Murphy also proves himself adept at comedy, whether it’s his good-natured line deliveries or his reactions to Martha (Nelson), who clearly has a crush on the young deputy. I’ve seen many of Murphy’s films and found this a particularly winning performance.

Murphy has a host of great character actors to interact with; in addition to names mentioned above, the deep cast boasts Edgar Buchanan, Wallace Ford, Mary Wickes, and John Doucette.

Nelson is very personable as Martha, engaging in some delightful repartee with Murphy. The film’s other leading lady, Blanchard, shines as the saloon gal, performing several songs. Blanchard bears a strong resemblance to Lynn Bari in this — which isn’t a bad thing, as I’m a big Bari fan.

DESTRY poster 3

The script by D.D. Beauchamp and Edmund H. North, adapted from Felix Jackson’s story for the 1939 version, moves along well at a nicely paced 95 minutes.

Marshall, who by 1954 had directed countless Westerns, does an excellent job managing his large cast and drawing a fine performance from Murphy, who had been in films for a half dozen years at this point.

The movie was filmed in Technicolor by George Robinson. It was shot at Universal Studios and the Janss Conejo Ranch in Thousand Oaks.

Destry Blu Ray

The new Kino Lorber Blu-ray print looks terrific, with excellent sound. Extras consist of the trailer; a gallery of five additional trailers; and a commentary track by Lee Gambin and actor Gary Frank (Family).

I’ve previously seen one of the other films in this set, Sierra, and can confidently say that the Audie Murphy Collection II is a “must” for Western fans.

Thanks to Kino Lorber for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray.

…

– 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.

Posted in Films, Posts by Laura Grieve, Western RoundUp | 5 Comments

Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At – Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Posted on August 21, 2023 by Lea Stans

Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At – Orphans of the Storm (1921)

Lillian and Dorothy Gish in Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Lillian and Dorothy Gish in Orphans of the Storm (1921)

The early 1920s in the U.S.A. was a time of changing tastes and fashions, when society was trying to bounce back in the aftermath of World War I and focus on enjoying life to the fullest. Flapper culture was starting to make waves and young people were enjoying the freedom and excitement brought by the automobile. Moviegoing was nearly at its peak, with tens of millions of Americans flocking to the theaters every week.

In the midst of this transitional period, director D.W. Griffith was trying to deal with a transition of his own. Having moved his studio from Los Angeles to Mamaroneck, New York, he was facing increasing debts and needed to keep churning out hits to stay in business. This probably seemed doable at the time. He still employed some of the industry’s most talented actors and was still riding high on his reputation for ambitious epics like The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), although his earnest moralizing was starting to appear old-fashioned. He had received accolades for the artistic Broken Blossoms (1919) and in 1920 had triumphed with the rural-themed blockbuster Way Down East. Perhaps a new historic epic was in order, one that would take a cue from Way Down East and elevate a cliched old melodrama to something operatic.

D.W. Griffith Studio, Mamaroneck, NY
Mamaroneck studio from above (from the New York Public Library Digital Collections).

After mulling over his options and listening to the advice of his star player Lillian Gish, Griffith hit upon making an adaptation of The Two Orphans (Les deux orphelines), an 1874 French play by Adolphe d’Ennery and Eugène Cormon. It told the story of two sisters, Henriette and Louise, who travel to Paris to find a cure for Louise’s blindness. Henriette is kidnapped by a loutish marquis, leaving Louise to wander the streets alone until a family of beggars take her in to sing in the streets for coins. A huge success, The Two Orphans would be one of the most popular plays of the 19th century. To “sophisticated” audiences in 1921, it was certainly a prime example of an old-fashioned “melodrammer.”

An 1879 poster for the play, The Two Orphans
An 1879 poster for the play, The Two Orphans

Wanting to give this relatively simple story an epic gloss, Griffith decided to set it right in the thick of the French Revolution, which also gave him an opportunity to bring to life historical figures like Robespierre and Georges Danton (who would be rather hyperbolically described as the “Abraham Lincoln of France”). The roles of Henriette and Louise would be played by Lillian and her sister Dorothy, a popular star who was mainly in light comedies at the time. Supporting actors would include Joseph Schildkraut in the role of the Chevalier de Vaudrey, who rescues Henriette (Dorothy would joke that his powdered wigs and satin costumes made him look prettier than she was). The wild-eyed Lucille La Verne played the beggar matriarch Mother Frochard. Audiences today might know her as the voice (and model) for the wicked queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Frank Puglia, Sheldon Lewis and Dorothy Gish, Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Frank Puglia, Sheldon Lewis and Dorothy Gish

Under the guidance of art director Edward Scholl, the Mamaroneck studio went to work building giant sets representing Versaillies, the Bastille, Notre Dame, and other famous locations befitting a historical spectacle. Old photos of Paris streets were consulted by the head carpenter “Huck” Wortman, and costumes and props were carefully researched. French director Abel Gance apparently visited Mamaroneck during the American premiere of his film J’Accuse. The inspiration from seeing Griffith’s sets would result in his mighty feature Napoleon (1927).

Leslie King and Lillian Gish, Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Leslie King and Lillian Gish

To get in the proper frame of mind, the main cast studied A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and History of the French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle. Their acting would be a bit more stylized in the film, with characters having more exaggerated postures and attitudes (such as the pigtailed Creighton Hale serving as comic relief). This was a nod to the gesturing in the 19th century stage play of yore, and perhaps was also inspired by old illustrations. Huge crowds of extras were hired to play the wild mobs in the revolution scenes. The guillotine scene in particular was filmed on a Sunday so as many locals as possible could join in for $1.25 and a picnic lunch.

Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Orphans of the Storm (1921)
Dorothy and Lillian Gish

Having so many large-scale features under his belt by then, Griffith kept the filming running smoothly, even as its expenses increased (his main bank even refused to give him any more loans). As a whole, Orphans of the Storm became a tidy amalgamation of everything he did best: capturing the epic scale of the settings, reveling in historic details, adding little heart-tugging moments, and of course, choreographing several highly dramatic scenes, especially the ones tailored to the Gish sisters’ talents. The dramatic finale, where Henriette is taken to the guillotine, uses his famous cross-cutting techniques familiar from similar sequences in his 1910s epics.

Orphans of the Storm (1921) extras
Extras on set

While we might be tempted to think of Orphans of the Storm as a well-made but quaint drama today, it might surprise us to know that Griffith intended it to serve as modern political commentary. He was disturbed by the rise of bolshevism following the 1917 Russian Revolution, seeing explicit parallels with the violent crowds of the French Revolution. No fan of aristocratic tyranny, he was equally critical of mob rule, and made this clear when he wrote his film’s synopsis: “Orphans of the Storm shows more vividly than any book of history can tell that the tyranny of kings and nobles is hard to bear, but that the tyranny of the mob under blood-lusting rulers is intolerable.” He made his point with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer in several title cards, including mocking Robespierre by deeming him “the original pussy-footer!”

Orphans of the Storm (1921) poster
Orphans of the Storm (1921)

At the time, critics hailed Orphans of the Storm as Griffith’s finest work to date. But while it did reasonably well at the box-office, it wasn’t quite the blockbuster that Way Down East was. Following 1921, Griffith’s style of film would seem less and less fashionable to 1920s audiences. His Revolutionary War epic America (1924) would be a flop and his financial troubles would continue to mount. Today, Orphans is considered a lesser Griffith film than Broken Blossoms or Intolerance. But perhaps it’s best to view it with fresh eyes and an appreciation for how earnestly it tried to capture not just the look, but the feel of the drama of this historical period.

…

–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.

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.

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Silver Screen Standards: The Seven Year Itch (1955)

Posted on August 15, 2023 by Jennifer Garlen

Silver Screen Standards: The Seven Year Itch (1955)

The Seven Year Itch (1955) Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe
Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe take a tumble together in The Seven Year Itch (1955), in which Ewell plays a married man fantasizing about infidelity.

News of summer heatwaves naturally put thoughts of The Seven Year Itch (1955) and undies in the icebox into my mind, so it seemed like the perfect time to revisit this sweltering sex comedy from director Billy Wilder, which stars Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe as two New Yorkers going slightly mad in the unrelenting heat. Everything in the movie is overheated, from the temperatures in New York City to the imagination of Richard Sherman (Ewell), and with our real-world temperatures soaring into triple digits it’s easy to sympathize with the kind of craziness that comes over Richard as he fantasizes about cheating on his wife, even if there’s a troubling “boys will be boys” attitude toward marital infidelity that hangs over the whole story. The dated bits of the movie (like that bizarre opening gag) might complicate a modern viewer’s enjoyment, but they don’t outweigh the deliriously meta comedy of the film, which still has a very modern quality to it almost seventy years later.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) Tom Ewell and Carolyn Jones Nurse
Richard (Ewell) concocts a steamy noir fantasy about his appendectomy in which the nurse (Carolyn Jones) offers to run away with him.

Ewell had already played Richard Sherman in the original stage version of The Seven Year Itch, even winning the Tony Award for Best Actor for the role in 1953, so it’s not surprising that he seems so at home in the character. As iconic as Marilyn Monroe is, especially in the billowing white dress, this movie really belongs to Ewell, who has numerous long scenes where he’s only talking to himself or being carried away into another of his fever dream fantasies. The stage roots of the story show through this setup, but Richard’s imagination helps to transport us out of the confines of the cramped apartment. Richard himself possesses an odd mix of personality traits, a nervous wreck one minute and a preening narcissist the next, but his most consistent quality is his absolutely uncontrollable imagination. He’s barely connected to reality, and the absence of the apartment’s other residents – his wife (Evelyn Keyes) and son (Tom Nolan) – allows him to whirl away into delirium without check.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe Piano
Richard’s daydreams about the Girl (Monroe) cast her as an elegant vamp, whom he seduces with his skill in playing Rachmaninoff.

As an imaginary version of Helen, Richard’s wife, observes in one early reverie, Richard imagines “in CinemaScope, with stereophonic sound.” It’s clear that Richard has spent a lot of time at the movies, as most of his fantasies revolve around cinematic tropes of various kinds. Each one winks and nods at the viewer, who is also, one must assume, spending a fair bit of time watching movies. Richard remembers his appendectomy recovery as a scene from film noir, with Carolyn Jones as the nurse who offers to break him out of the hospital and together make a run for the border. He also imagines his wife shooting him when she finds out about his infidelity, which would be a very noir ending to his affair. He imagines himself as the suave seducer from a sophisticated romance, playing Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on the piano for a vampish version of Monroe’s Girl (the classical music is itself a nod to its use in the 1945 film Brief Encounter). We even see Richard imagine himself taking Burt Lancaster’s place in the iconic beach scene of From Here to Eternity (1953), loyally trying to fend off yet another smitten female (Dolores Rosedale aka Roxanne). In other scenes he refers to Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), proving that his moviegoing tastes are widely varied. This is a movie about a man who has watched so many movies that he now imagines his own life as a series of cinematic scenes, and the meta humor of the situation is only truly appreciable by people who have also watched all of those movies and are now watching this movie, as well.

The Seven Year Itch (1955) Tom Ewell and Marilyn Monroe Beach
Richard imagines sex on the beach with a beautiful woman (Dolores Rosedale) in the style of From Here to Eternity (1953).

The surreal nature of the experience reaches its high point when Richard is finally asked directly about the attractive blonde visitor he claims to have in his apartment and replies, “Maybe it’s Marilyn Monroe!” Of course, it IS Marilyn Monroe, playing the unnamed Girl who has so unhinged Richard’s already unstable imagination, but we suddenly realize that Richard might be imagining her, too. Perhaps she’s just another of his CinemaScope fantasies (The Seven Year Itch is, of course, itself shot in CinemaScope). The only other person who has seen her is the janitor, the leering Mr. Kruhilik (Robert Strauss), but Richard’s imagination is completely capable of conjuring him, too. We remember how real Richard’s previous visions have been; the ghostly quality of his first vision of Helen has given way to fantasies of much more substance. We’re left, at the end, wondering if anything we’ve just seen was “real” within the world of the film, or if a lonely, overheated, middle-aged man has imagined the whole thing to compensate for being left alone in the city while his wife and son enjoy the cool pastimes of the countryside. It sounds like a movie Christopher Nolan or Rian Johnson might make today, and it’s that startlingly modern approach to surreal experience that makes The Seven Year Itch such a great picture.

For variations on the theme, see Tom Ewell with Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), or Tony Randall with Mansfield in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957). In The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), Danny Kaye plays another dreamer carried away by his imagination, while other cinephiles get lost in the movies in The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and The Last Action Hero (1993). For a sizzling double feature, continue to Wilder’s second and final collaboration with Marilyn Monroe, the aptly named Some Like It Hot (1959)

…

— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub

Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.

Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.

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Monsters and Matinees: Revisiting the shades of fear in ‘The Leopard Man’

Posted on August 12, 2023 by Toni Ruberto

Revisiting the shades of fear in ‘The Leopard Man’

We’ve all been there.

There’s a noise behind us.

A rustling of bushes.

Or a movement in a dark street corner.

Is someone there? We casually walk a little faster while telling ourselves it’s just our imagination – or is it?

Yes, we’ve all been there (admit it, guys) and that’s why a similar scenario playing out in a movie feels so real.

Every sound and movement is intensified for Consuelo (Tula Parma) one of multiple women in peril in The Leopard Man.

I was reminded of this recently after stumbling on the 1943 film The Leopard Man on TV. It had already started and the atmospheric scene that was unfolding caught my attention.

A young woman named Teresa, on an errand for her mother, is anxiously walking through an arroyo at night. The wind picks up and it sounds like someone – or something – is walking behind her. She knows a leopard is on the loose and she hesitates and turns. The sound reveals itself to be, of all things, a tumbleweed. But there’s not relief on her face, only fear.

I have felt that uneasiness while walking alone on an unfamiliar street or through a parking lot at night so I kept watching.

A trip to the store is fraught with terror for Teresa (Margaret Landry) in The Leopard Man.

It wasn’t just because I could identify with the “little girl who’s afraid of the dark,” as she was called when she reached the shop to buy corn meal.

Nor did I watch to learn what was going on. I had seen the film and knew it was about murders in a small New Mexico town that are blamed on an escaped leopard.

It was because I was pulled in by the unexpected eloquence of the storytelling of the young woman’s journey into fear, a trademark of films by producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur.

The Leopard Man is one of three movies made by Lewton and Tourneur who were known for creating gorgeous, psychological horror films told through a poetic lens.

Their three films also required viewers to use their imaginations. The monsters – or whatever they were – weren’t seen, but their presence was felt and in a very terrifying way.

In Caligari’s Children The Film as Tale of Terror, author S.S. Prawer fittingly described Tourneur as being among the directors who “liked to work through suggestions that allowed the audience to piece together what they had only half-seen with their own horrendous imaginings.”

Here’s how it started.

* * * * *

RKO was going through a rough time with the fox office disappointments of its mysteries, detective stories and even Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. The studio asked Lewton to head a new horror division with three prerequisites: His budget was limited to $150,000, the films could not be longer than 75 minutes, and he had to work from a title that was audience tested. (He would have to figure out a story to match.) To save money, Lewton also had to utilize what the studio already had on hand, like sets and contract players. His salary was reported to be a paltry $250 a week.

RKO was expecting B-movies; the films it received deserved an A.

The first was Cat People (1942) starring Simone Simon as a bride who believes she is a descendant of an ancient tribe of cat people. It became an instant hit and earned $4 million on its way to becoming RKO’s biggest moneymaker of the year.

Lewton and Tourneur used their winning formula again in 1943 with I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man. (Lewton would also produce The Seventh Victim and The Ghost Ship that year with other directors – he worked fast.)

* * * * *

The Leopard Man is based on the novel Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich. The screenplay was credited to Ardel Wray with dialogue by Edward Dein, but Lewton was involved, too. He cut down the number of characters, increased the role of the dancer Clo-Clo and changed the setting from South America to New Mexico.

An ill-advised publicity stunt in a night club involving a leopard goes doesn’t go well in The Leopard Man.

A promoter named Jerry Manning (played by Dennis O’Keefe) “rents” a leopard to gain attention for his client/girlfriend Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks).

Of course, it’s a terrible idea. Kiki enters the night club in a black gown that matches the leopard she has on a leash. The audience is aghast but Clo-Clo (played by Margo) sees through the stunt and scares the leopard away with her castanets. (The sound of the castanets is brilliantly used to unnerve viewers – and characters – throughout the film.)

This is where the film becomes a mystery, thriller and horror noir (watch the play of light and shadows throughout the movie) as the murders begins.

First, it’s young Teresa on her fateful journey. Jerry and Kiki feel guilty that their publicity stunt leads to her death, but that’s only the start. (Guilt is a big theme here that will also be felt by Teresa’s mother, a shop keeper and others throughout the town.)

Consuelo (Tula Parma) is taking her birthday flowers to her father’s grave at a cemetery where she’s also sneaking off to meet her boyfriend. Lost in thought, she gets locked in (it has a stone wall surrounding it) and we follow a scene eerily reminiscent of Teresa in the arroyo.

The fear is palpable on the face on Conseulo (Tula Parma) who is trapped inside a cemetery in The Leopard Man.

As she frantically searches for a way out, a howling wind picks up, moving every bush and tree as if there is something in them. “Let me out,” Consuelo screams recalling Teresa’s cries for her mother to “let me in.”

Tourneur moves our imaginations again as leaves begin to swirl, a long tree branch slowly drops down like there is a weight on it and then it violently snaps back into the air. There are screams.

When Consuelo and the cemetery keeper are found dead, everything points to the leopard: claw marks on the tree as if it descended the branches, leaves on the ground (they don’t fall this time of year, we’re told), and hair and a claw found near the bodies.

Charlie, the cat’s keeper (he travels in a wagon with the words “Charlie How-Come The Leopard Man” on the side), insists his leopard is innocent. “Cats don’t go looking for trouble,” Charlie says.

Dynamite, who plays the leopard in The Leopard Man, first worked with Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur in Cat People.

Manning doesn’t buy it either. Why is the cat lingering around town and going after people instead of fleeing to the safety of the wilderness?

But our scientist and historian Dr. Galbraith (played by James Bell) has other ideas. “Caged animals are unpredictable, they’re like frustrated human beings.”

We’ll hear a few conversations like this between Manning, Galbraith and the authorities. Manning doubts the cat is the killer and wonders if a man could kill like this; Galbraith shares his scholarly knowledge of cats (the personification of force and violence) and men like Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper who killed for strange pleasure. The cops just want to find the killer cat before it kills again. Too late.

In a very noirish scene in The Leopard Man, Clo-Clo (played by Margo) applies lipstick on a dark street thinking that who – or what – is approaching her is friendly.

Clo-Clo should have listened when fortune teller Maria kept drawing the “death card,” warning that something black was coming for her.

On another of those atmospheric and tense night walks that this film does so well, Clo-Clo eventually arrives home (whew!) but realizes she lost money and runs back into the night.

This next intense scene could be inserted into almost any noir. The wet street, which was busy with cars and people just a few minutes earlier, is now empty except for lights and shadows. There is a sound like shuffling footsteps behind Clo-Clo. The camera focuses on her face with only her eyes visible. Her initial fear briefly changes to a smile and she begins to apply lipstick. Suddenly there is a realization on her face and she drops the lipstick. Again, there are screams.

* * * * *

The Leopard Man has historically been considered some type of ugly sister to the two extraordinary films that came before it: Cat People and I Walked with Zombie. That’s hard to fathom with the unusual beauty found throughout the film in images such as puddles reflecting on a young girl’s face, shadows painting the background and a smoldering cigarette burning on the street.

Too much, you think? Would you believe director William Friedkin, who was also captivated by the imagery?

The sudden lights and sounds of a train overhead scare young Teresa (Margaret Landry). It’s a jump-scare technique called the “Lewton bus.”

Let’s go back to that early scene of Teresa. Now clutching the bag of corn meal on her way home, she timidly walks into a short tunnel under a train bridge. The silence is only interrupted by soft drips of water. Then comes the “Lewton Bus,” named after what is considered the first jump-scare in movies. It was created by editor Mark Robson for Cat People in the famous scene where the quiet tension of a woman being stalked at night is shattered by the unexpected hiss of bus brakes.

As used in The Leopard Man, the “Lewton Bus” is a train traveling over the tracks that brings a high-pitched sound and a very noirish flashing display of light and shadow. Then it quickly falls quiet and Teresa steps into the open where the real horror is waiting.

The scene ends with her screaming outside her home for her Mamacita. But the lock is stuck, and her mother and little brother are too late. Blood seeps under the door, filling the grout lines of the tile at their feet. In typical Lewton-Tourneur style, we don’t see what’s on the other side of the door, but we can imagine and that’s just as horrifying.

Blood seeps under a door in a scene from The Leopard Man that is highly lauded by filmmaker William Friedkin.

Friedkin holds The Leopard Man in such high regard, that he made an audio commentary for it. He called this sequence – from Teresa’s walk to the blood pooling on the floor – “a strange journey that will lead to what I believe is one of the greatest horror sequences ever filmed.”

High praise from the man who directed The Exorcist.

– Toni Ruberto for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Toni’s Monsters and Matinees articles here.

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.

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Noir Nook: Five Things I Love About Jane Palmer

Posted on August 11, 2023 by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry

Noir Nook: Five Things I Love About Jane Palmer

In addition to being a cracking good movie, Too Late for Tears (1949) holds a special place in my heart because it’s one of my younger daughter’s favorite noirs, and with good reason: it boasts a fine cast headed by Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, and Don DeFore; an appropriately dramatic score from Oscar-nominated composer Dale Butts; and a first-rate tale based on Roy Huggins’s Saturday Evening Post serial about a housewife (Scott) who’ll do anything to hold on to a cache of cash. And it’s that very determined housewife, Jane Palmer, that’s the very best thing about Too Late for Tears.  In this month’s Noir Nook, I’m taking a look at five things I love about this unforgettable dame. (But watch your step – there are spoilers dead ahead!)

Lizabeth Scott as Jane Palmer in Too Late for Tears (1949)
Lizabeth Scott as Jane Palmer in Too Late for Tears (1949)
  1. Jane’s introduction. In the span of just a few minutes, we learn quite a bit about Jane. When we first meet her, she and her husband, Alan (Arthur Kennedy), are driving to a dinner party, but Jane has changed her mind about going and wants Alan to turn the car around. Her reason? The dinner’s “diamond-studded” hostess, according to Jane, “[looks] down her nose at me like that big, ugly house up there looks down on Hollywood.” You might not realize at first that Jane is serious – after all, her voice is pleasant, her words are mannerly, and she’s actually smiling. But seconds later, she tries to literally remove the keys while the car is in motion, and we suspect that this is a gal who means what she says.
Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott in Too Late for Tears (1949)
Arthur Kennedy and Lizabeth Scott
  • Jane’s grace under pressure. Jane and her husband don’t make it much further down the road when a man in a passing car tosses a satchel full of money into their vehicle. Minutes later, the rightful recipient appears on the road and Jane takes off, steering the vehicle through the winding Hollywood Hills like a seasoned vet at the Indy 500. She’s not a bit ruffled by the dangerous situation – in fact, a slight smile plays about her lips as she confidently speeds through the darkened streets and before long, she manages to lose their pursuer. A few days later, when a stranger by the name of Danny Fuller (Duryea) shows up at Jane’s door, she’s cooler than the other side of the pillow. Danny initially claims to be a law officer, but he soon reveals that the money is his and he accuses her of already starting to spend it when he finds a hidden stash of new clothes and furs. “Spending it?” Jane repeats in a voice as smooth as butter. “I’m sorry, but you’re not making sense.” The next time Jane encounters Danny, we see more of the same; Danny breaks into her apartment while Jane is still in bed, but she doesn’t scream or hide. Instead, she asks him, “Did you think of knocking?”, and then, after brushing her hair, she calmly offers him a drink. Even Danny has to admit that she’s “got quite a flair.”
Dan Duryea and Lizabeth Scott Too Late for Tears (1949)
Dan Duryea and Lizabeth Scott
  • Jane’s cleverness. Once it becomes clear that Alan isn’t going to allow Jane to keep the money, she comes up with a practically foolproof plan to remove him from the picture. And that’s just the beginning; with every obstacle that’s tossed in her direction, Jane manages to leap over it with aplomb. When she visits the train station to retrieve the money that Alan checked into the baggage claim, she correctly surmises that she’s being watched and pays a stranger to pick up the satchel for her. Suspicious of the man who shows up claiming that he served in the war with Alan (DeFore), she arranges for one of Alan’s actual Army buddies to refute his story. And once she’s finished using Danny, she kills him – after craftily convincing him to purchase the poison!
Lizabeth Scott as Jane Palmer in Too Late for Tears (1949)
“Chances like this are never offered twice. This is it.
I’ve been waiting for it, dreaming of it all my life. Even when I was a kid.”
  • Jane’s self-awareness. Jane knows exactly who and what she is. She’s not kidding herself that she’s some noble character – she’s aware that she won’t be satisfied until she has enough money to go where she wants, buy what she wants, and be who she wants. And not only that, but she knows why she’s the way she is, as she explains to a rather clueless Alan: “You’ve got to let me keep that money. I won’t let you just give it away,” Jane tells him. “Chances like this are never offered twice. This is it. I’ve been waiting for it, dreaming of it all my life. Even when I was a kid. And it wasn’t because we were poor – not hungry-poor, at least. I suppose, in a way, it was far worse. We were white collar-poor, middle-class poor. The kind of people who can’t quite keep up with the Joneses and die a little every day because they can’t.”
Don DeFore and Lizabeth Scott Too Late for Tears (1949)
Don DeFore and Lizabeth Scott
  • Jane’s humanity. It can’t be denied or swept under the rug – Jane Palmer is a straight-up sociopath, a cold-blooded killer. And for most of the movie, she demonstrates a total lack of conscience and a single-minded sense of purpose that supersedes everything else in her life – she’ll lie, connive, and even resort to murder, if need be. But to her credit, there’s one scene where she shows that she’s not completely ruthless. She and Alan are in a boat on a lake, where she plans to shoot him and throw his body overboard. But to our surprise (and her own), she’s seized with an attack of conscience (“I feel… chilled,” she whispers). She abruptly tells Alan she wants to return to the shore – and that she wants to mail the claim check to the police. Unfortunately for Alan, he actually laughs at Jane, dismissing (or not even noticing, really) her troubled demeanor, which leads to a series of ill-fated actions that end with his death. If only Alan had listened to her… but he didn’t, and once the deed was done, there was no turning back for Jane. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. But at least she tried.

And there you have it – the top five reasons why I can’t get enough of Jane Palmer in Too Late for Tears. Are you a fan of this fatal femme? Leave a comment and let me know!

…

– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

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:

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