HIS KIND OF WOMAN: Face the Music!

Ever see a movie that seems like a typical genre flick, but as you watch it, you realize it’s got a mind of its own, and it’s so wild and crazy and all-but-off-the rails that you can’t help loving it? Well, the 1951 RKO comedy-noir His Kind of Woman is my kind of movie! John Farrow (The Big Clock, Wake Island, and Hondo, among many others) gets the directing credit, though Richard Fleischer was responsible for considerable tweaking—re-shoots, even! Lots of writers involved, too, including Frank Fenton and Jack Leonard, with Gerald Drayson Adams’ original story getting credit as well. Seems like everyone gets a little credit here!
 
In His Kind of Woman, Robert Mitchum is at his ",So-hot-he’s-cool, so, so cool he's hot, with his hot bedroom-eyed best as Dan Milner, a rambler and a gambler, literally. Dan’s easy to like; how can you not trust a guy who sticks with milk or ginger ale instead of booze? (Of course, it’s implied that Dan has gotten in trouble with liquor in the past, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Dan is the kind of likable lug who really should get in the habit of looking before leaping. He seems to have been pretty successful at making a living from gambling (wish Dan was a real guy who could’ve given my late dad pointers), but Lady Luck hasn’t been returning his calls lately (dames—sheesh!). Dan has a funny feeling there’s more to his recent string of nigh-Kafkaesque mishaps than cold dice, especially when he’s accosted by a couple of smooth-talking, suit-clad jaspers: Corley (the uncredited Paul Frees, whose voice is well known to Team Bartilucci from both animated and live-action films, including another RKO classic, The Thing from Another World) and Thompson (Charles McGraw from The Narrow Margin and The Killers, who also narrates the film in early scenes). Corley and Thompson offer Dan a cool fifty grand to go to The Morros Lodge, a fabulous Mexican resort (filmed in Baja California) and await further instructions, no questions asked (well, few questions, anyway). Dan’s not entirely comfortable with the arrangement, but he sure can use the dough. Wonder if Dan’s ever heard a little story about a Trojan horse….?

Dan rubs Lenore the right way!

While waiting for his plane to Mexico, tough guy Dan is smitten in spite of himself when he meets the lovely, sassy, ostensibly rich Lenore Brent (Jane Russell). She’s waiting, too, passing the time by displaying her great pipes, among her other charms (producer Howard Hughes never missed an opportunity to showcase the ravishing Russell’s pulchritude). I always enjoy hearing Jane Russell sing; she has a nice snappy way with a song, and she’s both sultry and jaunty as she sings “Five Little Miles from San Berdoo” and the torchy “You’ll Know.” Despite their characters’ mutual cat-and-mouse routine, you can see the electricity crackling between Russell and Mitchum. There they are, sexy and playful as all get-out, and nobody’s naked (though they sometimes come close, at least by late 1940s/early 1950s standards)! By all accounts, Mitchum and Russell were good friends offscreen, and only friends. (In fact, after Mitchum’s death in 1997, Russell and Mitchum’s wife Dorothy scattered his ashes at sea.)

With that hat, Lenore can't help bewitching Dan!

Back at the ranch, er, lodge, the fun in the sun apparently includes role-playing games as well, because each vacationer Dan meets at this gorgeous resort seems to be trying to be someone else! Lenore may or may not be an heiress, and her real name may or may not be Liz Brady; Bill Lusk (Tim Holt of The Magnificent Ambersons and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) might be a drunken tourist, or he might be a wily Fed. Myron Winton (Jim Backus, whose many roles included Rebel Without A Cause and TV’s Gilligan’s Island, not to mention the voice of Mr. Magoo) is a businessman who turns out to be a card sharp, or maybe just a plain old cheater. Then there’s mysterious author Martin Kraft (John Mylong) who only seems interested in playing chess with himself (“Maybe he hates to lose,” Dan suggests).

"Who's the rat saying I look like David O. Selznick?"

I also like that Dan is basically a decent guy with a kind heart underneath his sleepy-eyed shrewdness, like when he helps the young newlywed couple win their money back from sneaky so-and-so Winton. Maybe that’s why Lusk finally ditches his lush routine and reveals to Dan that he’s an immigration officer pursuing underworld kingpin Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr in one of his juiciest over-the-top bad-guy roles before Perry Mason made him a TV star). Turns out the only thing Kraft writes is prescriptions: he’s really a plastic surgeon who was himself deported, like Nick. Seems Dan’s role in all this is the ultimate face-off: the doc’s supposed to put Dan’s face on the evil Nick so he can sneak back into the U.S., after which Nick and his boys will bump Dan off so Nick can keep his secret! Yikes!
  

Dan's snooping has the blinds leading the blinds!

I’ll admit the mix of film noir suspense and zany comedy gets a bit lopsided at times, but I was so caught up in HKoW that it seemed churlish to quibble! I liked the nice background details, too, like the sarcastic radio announcer ragging on Ferraro. Lots of our favorite uncredited supporting players and bit players are in HKoW, too, such as Mamie Van Doren, Robert Cornthwaite (clean-shaven and almost unrecognizable from his role as the exhausted, going-mad scientist in The Thing from Another World), and Anthony Caruso (The Asphalt Jungle, among others) as one of Nick’s vicious strong-arm boys. On a related note, it’s interesting to see the difference between early 1950s and 21st-century beefcake. As I said in my I Wake up Screaming post, today’s muscular hunks are so ridiculously ripped, you'd cut yourself if you touched them!

Dan and Mark saved Lenore the balcony seats!

Ironically, one of the most sincere characters in HKoW is Vincent Price’s character, the flamboyant movie star Mark Cardigan. He thinks he’s gonna run off with his mistress Lenore. Surprise! Wifey Helen (Marjorie Reynolds of Ministry of Fear) shows up, with her attorney in tow. Price is clearly having a blast, and I don’t just mean with his hunting rifle! Even with Mark’s goofy airs, he saves the day, bless him (with a few hilarious fits and starts along the way). Every cast member is great fun to watch, though there’s no denying that Price steals the show as Mark. He basks in the spotlight and he’s a big ham, but a tasty one. Even better, Mark truly puts his money where his Shakespeare-trained mouth is when Dan’s in danger. The scene where Mark tries to squeeze every volunteer at the resort into the boat to rescue Dan is laugh-out-loud funny!

Got a gambling problem? Don't call these guys!

Over at the TCM Web site, Price wrote that Mitchum was “heaven to work with...one of those diamond in the rough types in whose character you can’t find any sort of holes because he’s so open and honest...He’s a complete anachronism. He claims he doesn’t care about acting, but he’s an extraordinary actor. He’s one of that group of people in Hollywood who are such extraordinary personalities that people forget they’re marvelous actors.” Moreover, Mitchum was generous on the set, treating about twenty members of the cast and crew to lunch in his bungalow every day, and “on several occasions when he realized his stand-in had had a rough night, he stood in for the stand-in.” Don’t you love it when actors you like turn out to be decent folks, too?

"Don't you picturesquely pass out on me when I'm trying to torment you, young man!"

"Here's looking at you, Dan!"

"I'll pass, Nick, thanks anyway."

Profiles in hotness!

Dan and Lenore have their love to keep them warm! (Artificial fur optional.)

Our own Ivan G. Shreve of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear also did a wonderful blog post earlier this year about His Kind of Woman, with special emphasis on Vincent Price; by all means, read it and enjoy!

http://thrillingdaysofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2011/05/alas-why-must-i-be-plagued-by-yammering.html

More fun and clips from TCM here:
http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/336625/His-Kind-Of-Woman-Movie-Clip-You-re-Being-Paged.html

"I tell you, Dan, I was THISCLOSE to having that Sierra Madre treasure...."

REAR WINDOW: Neighborhood Watching

Lisa's goodnight kisses keep red-blooded Jeff wide-awake!

L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (James Stewart) is a man on the go, a globe-trotting photographer who’s no stranger to danger. But when he breaks his leg in a speedway accident, Jeff finds there’s no place like home — for sweltering in non-air-conditioned discomfort, and discovering what just might be a murder taking place across the way in his Greenwich Village apartment complex. Who’s responsible for the sinister events over at 125 West 9th Street? Alfred Hitchcock, who else?  One of Hitchcock's most beloved and brilliant films, Rear Window (RW) brims with The Master of Suspense’s trademark wit, suspense, and romance kissed by tension, thanks to John Michael Hayes’s witty, suspenseful script. It’s also a brilliant technical achievement, one of Hitchcock’s best crafted, cleverly staged movies. In fact, even though RW is based on the great Cornell Woolrich’s 1942 story It Had To Be Murder, I can’t imagine this tale being told as effectively in any medium but film. Little details mean a lot here, like DP Robert Burks’s sinuous camerawork, and the popular tunes woven into Franz Waxman’s score, heard wafting from other apartments in the courtyard.

Upside to wheelchair: Lisa gets to sit on Jeff's lap!

According to the IMDb, RW’s utterly convincing Greenwich Village set was the biggest indoor set built at Paramount Studios at that time. The set was so humungous, Hitchcock’s crew had to excavate the soundstage floor. Ironically, this meant Jeff’s second-floor apartment was actually at street level! One thousand arc lights were used to simulate sunlight. Thanks to extensive pre-lighting of the set, the crew could make the changeover from day to night in less than 45 minutes. It was said that Hitchcock felt like he had his own giant doll house to play with.

Right neighborly of Mr. Hitchcock to drop by so late to fix Mr. Seville's metronome!

However, RW’s technical achievements (explained entertainingly in the DVD's documentaries) would be nothing without its engaging characters. Hitchcock’s gift for visual storytelling is on display from the start with Jeff’s photos telling his life story — literally, with the Life-like magazine cover (also seen in photo negatives; a touch of symbolism, no?) of the fashion spread where Jeff presumably met his soignee fashionista sweetheart Lisa Fremont. As Lisa, the luminous Grace Kelly in her gorgeous Edith Head fashions proved again why she became one of Hitchcock’s favorite leading ladies. Lisa gets one of cinema’s most sensual introductions, kissing the sleeping Jeff awake in glorious slow-motion. Of course, this being a Hitchcock thriller, we see a somewhat sinister shadow before the kiss. That Hitch—such a tease! Thelma Ritter steals her scenes as Stella, Jeff’s cynical yet lovable insurance company nurse, and Wendell Corey makes a fine foil as Tom Doyle, Jeff’s skeptical police detective pal.

Jeff, are you peeking at Lars' law exam test answers again?

Jeff’s neighbors are interesting enough to warrant their own movies, and I don’t just mean the secretive murder suspect Lars Thorwald, played with a fine blend of menace and pathos by Raymond Burr just before Perry Mason made him a TV star. Reportedly, Hitchcock deliberately made Burr look like David O. Selznick as a tiny tweak of revenge for the agita Selznick gave Hitchcock when they worked together in the 1940s on Rebecca, Spellbound, and The Paradine Case. In addition to providing a wry microcosm of New York City life (the only dated thing about it is the lack of air conditioning), they all reflect possible outcomes for the tug-of-war romance between Jeff and Lisa. There’s a hot young honeymoon couple (Rand Harper and Havis Davenport); Miss Torso (Georgine Darcy), a ballet dancer with a seemingly active love life; Miss Lonelyhearts (Judith Evelyn), a lovelorn Woman of a Certain Age with a drinking problem; a couple (Sara Berner, and Frank Cady of TV’s Green Acres and Petticoat Junction) who dote on their little dog and sleep on their fire escape to beat the summer heat; hard-of-hearing sculptress Miss Hearing Aid (Jesslyn Fax); and our favorite, the frustrated composer played by Ross Bagdasarian, a.k.a. David Seville of Alvin & The Chipmunks fame. The tunesmith gets a visitor: Hitchcock in a cameo about 26 minutes in, fixing the composer’s clock!

Lisa, you vixen, you'll use any excuse for a slumber party!

Sorry, couldn't resist adding this! Besides, I liked Disturbia, so there!

It's a paranoid day in the neighborhood, a paranoid day for a neighbor; won't you be mine?

As Brent Spiner said while hosting a showing of RW on TNT several years ago, the real perversion of the film is Stewart's reluctance to commit to the irresistible Kelly! I was rooting so hard for Jeff and Lisa to stop being so damn stubborn, I felt like smacking them (but only because I cared about them). In fact, one of the things I like about the movie is the way it shows these two very different people gradually learning to compromise and work together. I love how Lisa and Jeff are all smiles and exhilaration after Lisa’s initial triumph of slipping in and out of Thorwald’s apartment. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about the piquant final shot. (Spoiler Alert!) To me, it shows that a woman can have a happy relationship with a man without abandoning her own interests or submerging her own personality; refreshing for the 1950s!