X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES: I’m Looking Through You

In honor of the Roger Corman Blogathon, created by fellow blogger Nathanael Hood of Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear, Team Bartilucci is blogging about X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963).

Dorian's View:
The X... DVD includes a great commentary track by the sepulchral-voiced Corman himself, as well as the movie’s trailer and its original prologue, which comes across like a well-done documentary about people and their senses. Vinnie quipped, “This could turn into a nudist flick any minute!” In voice-over, we learn how people compensate when any of their senses no longer function (we see a deaf man using sign language and a blind man with his Braille Reader). Suddenly Ray Milland stumbles onto the screen, and we’re startled to see that his eyeballs are pitch-black—not as freaky as the opening Corman eventually opted for in the theatrical release, a long tight shot on a bloody eyeball, but either way, X… grabs your attention and doesn’t let go!

 

I can see for miles and miles: Ray Milland

Ray Milland had always said that The Lost Weekend and X… were the films that he’d been the most proud of during his long acting career. I can understand why; both movies hit you in the gut, the heart, and the mind. Milland plays Dr. James Xavier, a dedicated doctor and medical researcher. As is often the case in Corman’s movies, Jim’s an outsider, a maverick. His unorthodox but brilliant experiments in ophthalmology attract wary looks and accolades in equal measure. He’s developing an eye-drop formula that could bring human eyesight to another level, one that would enable physicians to help their hospital patients by literally “seeing inside them, as if they were windows…seeing their sicknesses with a clarity that would make X-rays a tool fit only for witch doctors.” Jim and his supportive, attractive colleague Dr. Diane Fairfax (stage actress Diana Van der Vlis) test Jim’s eye-drop formula on a cute little monkey in their lab—but the poor critter dies after getting, um, super-vision. “What did he see? What did he see?” the worried Diane wonders. She and their friend and colleague Dr. Sam Brant (Harold J. Stone) are supportive, but the skittish higher-ups who run their hospital cut off Jim’s funding. Jim decides to eliminate the middleman by experimenting on himself. Didn’t he learn anything from The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll, Andre Delambre, and so many other well-meaning but ill-fated scientists who came before him?

It’s all fun and games when Jim is able to see through party guests’ clothing thanks to the magic of Spectarama, a photographic gimmick that makes Jim’s X-ray viewpoint look kinda like those colorful crystal prism suncatchers you find in New Age novelty shops. Kudos to Diane for having a sense of humor about this wacky episode! (I got a kick out of the doctor guests using syringes to mix their cocktails.) Milland and Van Der Vlis have a charming, sophisticated chemistry together, making them a delightfully urbane couple. But when a fatal accident propels Jim into the life of a fugitive (director of photography Floyd Crosby does a great job here, especially with the suspenseful, claustrophobic scene where Jim flees down flights of stairs), X… becomes increasingly tense and thought-provoking. Jim doesn’t have a moment’s peace one way or another; he can’t even close his eyes to sleep because of his X-ray vision (note the progressively larger, darker, clunkier sunglasses he wears over the course of the film). When Jim snaps, “Get out of my sight,” you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, because that’s literally impossible for him now! The peril of playing God is a time-honored trope, but Corman and screenwriters Robert Dillon and Ray Russell do a great job of blending parables, suspense, and science fiction. Les Baxter’s quicksilver musical score ably covers the many moods of X… In addition to being a box-office hit, X… won the 1963 Best Film Award, The Silver Spaceship, at the First International Festival of Science Fiction Films.

This tight, tense, thought-provoking science fiction thriller packs a wallop, with excellent performances all around. Don Rickles was a revelation in a rare dramatic role as Crane, a sleazy carnival barker who makes the most of our beleaguered hero’s X-ray vision by casting him as “Mentallo” in a mind-reading act. Keep an eye out for Corman regulars Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze in the Mentallo scene, as well as an earlier scene with uncredited bits by character actors Morris Ankrum (I Wake up Screaming, Lady in the Lake) and John Hoyt, the most angular man in show business (My Favorite Brunette, When Worlds Collide, The Bribe, TV’s Gimme a Break).

How Dr. X. sees the world: This is Spectarama!

Vinnie's View:
This is rather an interesting change for us, 'cause it's the first time The Wife and I are writing about the same film. While her milieu is more the noir films, tongue-in-cheek thrillers, and other more respectable genres of film, I lean more towards the science fiction and fantasy areas, with a sub-major in comedy. So upon hearing about the Corman-a-thon, I took the initiative and suggested this film. I knew there'd be a dogfight for Little Shop, but X had always held a place in my heart for being a great example of what can be done under the guise of a simple B-picture.

After quite a bit of television work, Ray Milland made three films in rapid succession over two years for American International: The Premature Burial, one of Corman's Poe adaptations; Panic in the Year Zero, a classic Cold War thriller in which the bomb drops on L.A. and the people must do the best they can afterwards (which Milland also directed, and another film which I could go on about for quite a while) and the film we're discussing today, X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes. Milland took to the fast-paced world of independent film-making easily; Corman describes him as a good man to work with, and utterly professional.

Co-writer Ray Russell came out of the gate with a first script that was also a far better film than it's remembered being, William Castle's Mr. Sardonicus, based on Russell's own novella. He followed this up with The Premature Burial, and another all-but-forgotten madcap classic for Castle, Zotz! So he came onto X with a short but solid resume. Corman's initial concept was for a jazz musician to gain the titular powers after excessive illegal drug use; the final idea of a research scientist experimenting on himself gave them the ability to examine the question without being forced to portray the drug as "evil".

Milland does not play Dr. Xavier as a "mad scientist." His experiments are solely for the benefit of mankind, as he displays early in the film, where he corrects John Hoyt's diagnosis of a young girl's heart ailment by looking into her and finding a tumor that escaped being caught on x-rays. The implication is that continued use of the drops may cause mental instability, which seems the case when in a fit of anger he knocks his friend and fellow Doctor Sam Brant (played by character actor Harold J. Stone) out a window.

A theme throughout the film are the ways that people would use the ability to see beyond the visible spectrum. Diane has to ask what the practical uses would be; Xavier uses them to save the young girl's life. It's only after he's forced to play the fugitive that he explores the more mercenary advantages of the power. He hides out in a carnival, hiding in plain sight as a mentalist; people naturally assume his ability to see people's secrets is a simple sideshow con. One carny presumes that the power couldn't be real; if it were, such a person could rule the world with it. But Don Rickles (who damn near steals the film as the carnival barker Crane) realizes that the trick is no trick at all, and has an idea on how to exploit it. He opens up an office in the Skid Row area and lets the word spread that Xavier is a "healer", and doesn't charge for a consultation, but will happily take "Donations." It's an interesting scenario; he's taking advantage of the poor people's simplicity and fear of hospitals, but Xavier is giving them solid medical info. Dr. Fairfax tracks him down after a number of people come to her practice with exactingly correct diagnoses for their ailments. As he grows more desperate, only then does he use his abilities where everyone else would have gone first: Las Vegas. By this point the pressure is getting to him, and he grows swaggering and arrogant as he wins hand after hand. Bad move, as when they challenge him on his skills, he loses his protective goggles and reveals his transformation, shown through a pair of Sclera lenses that must have hurt like hell.

This film was shot in a mere 15 days of principal photography, a schedule Corman describes as luxurious for him, as most of the time he would shoot in 10. But even there, he had the time to make the film look bigger than it had a right to be. He drove to Vegas and the Long Beach carnival pier with his cameraman to get enough B-roll footage to make the end of the film look like the cast were there as well. To show the way Xavier saw the city, Corman got second-unit footage of buildings still under construction, cutting them together to make it look like the doctor was seeing the facades vanish, revealing the girders beneath.

Corman is legendary for his work, and for the people he's mentored into Hollywood's upper echelon. Ron Howard got to talk about him when he got his honorary Oscar in 2009. I include the speech here as a testament to a man who can squeeze a nickel and get two dimes, and take an idea about a guy that can see naked people and get a classic.


2009 Governors Awards - Ron Howard toasts Roger... by dreadcentral

ALL ABOUT EVE: How Do You Like Those Apples, Eve?

The Antoinette Perry Awards, a.k.a. the Tony Awards, are taking place this coming Sunday, June 12th, 2011 (easy for me to remember, since the Tonys are always awarded sometime around my birthday :-))! What better film to write about this week than All About Eve (AAE)? Writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s wickedly witty, silkily cynical, sumptuously sophisticated comedy-drama, based on Mary Orr’s story and radio play “The Wisdom of Eve,” is one of the juiciest, most entertaining films about show business ever made. The movie begins with a close-up on an award trophy, described in voice-over by theater critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders, the King of Suave himself, at his droll, unflappable best in the role he was born to play) as the “highest honor our theater knows: the Sarah Siddons Award for Distinguished Achievement.” By the way, although Sarah Siddons was indeed a much-admired Welsh stage actress, Mankiewicz in fact created the award itself specifically for AAE. Life imitated art in 1952 when a group of eminent Chicago theater-goers began giving notable Chicago actors an award modeled on and named after the one in the film. Need I say that AAE stars Bette Davis and Celeste Holm were eventually among the Sarah Siddons recipients? I wonder why they didn't use the Tony for Eve’s triumph, though? After all, it had been around since 1947. Rights issues, maybe? But I digress….

In flashbacks, we see how well-meaning Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), the wife of Broadway playwright Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), found young Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter, who’d won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1946’s The Razor's Edge), a down-on-her-luck fan and hopeful ingénue, waiting outside the stage door night after night for a glimpse of her idol, Broadway diva Margo Channing (the one and only Bette Davis). Once Karen brings Eve inside Margo's dressing room after a performance of her current hit play, Aged in Wood, Eve is encouraged to relate her poignant story to them: she was an only child who loved acting and make-believe. She grew up to be a secretary in a Milwaukee brewery who fell in love and married a radio technician named Eddie, only to lose him as a casualty of World War 2. Since then, Eve’s only joy has been going from city to city to watch Margo’s plays from the cheap seats. In today’s stalker-centric age, many folks might find that kinda creepy, but in the innocent early 1950s, who could resist a sweet, lonely, self-deprecating waif who loves the theater so? Almost everyone in the room is moved to tears by Eve’s life story except Margo’s tart-tongued dresser Birdie (Thelma Ritter, one of Team Bartilucci’s faves from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and so many others), whose assessment comes off as a tad cynical: “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin’ at her rear end.” But even the jaded Margo is touched by Eve’s poignant tale, taking “the kid” under her wing and into her home as her assistant. Ah, but who’s really being taken in?

As theater diva Margo Channing stands next to a caricature of the Southern belle she plays in her current Broadway smash Aged in Wood, she’s stunned when theater critic Addison DeWitt informs her that her adoring young fan/assistant/protégée Eve Harrington has insinuated herself into yet another aspect of Margo’s life. It seems Eve has become Margo’s new understudy, and her line readings are, as Addison puts it, “full of fire and music.”  Oh, yeah, that’s just what an insecure Broadway diva of a certain age wants to hear!

  

Margo and her Broadway pals shouldn’t have been so quick to scold Birdie. As AAE continues on its merrily jaundiced way, it becomes increasingly clear that fresh-faced ingénue is Eve is more like that tempting snake in the Garden of Eden. As New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther said in his 1950 review, “the self-seeking, ruthless Eve (makes) a black-widow spider look like a lady bug.” Baxter’s subtle transformation from seemingly selfless sweetheart to ruthless predator is magnificent, with that throb in her smoky voice and that figurative stiletto in her dainty hand.

Superb though Baxter is, I must admit I was particularly touched by Davis’s performance as Margo, whose imperiousness and diva demeanor mask her heartbreaking insecurity. Margo’s constantly worried that her lover, director Bill Sampson (played with no-nonsense charm and sympathy by Gary Merrill, who became Davis’s real-life husband for the next ten years), who happens to be eight years Margo’s junior, will leave her for a younger woman. Of course, Eve would be only too happy to fill Margo’s shoes in every aspect of her life! You want to smack Margo one minute for having temper tantrums and making cutting remarks that only make it easier for Eve to slither in with her soothing pseudo-sympathy and forward passes, yet you can’t help wanting to hug and comfort Margo once you remember all the cracks beneath her armor (shown here in a lovely scene where Margo lets her hair down). Davis has her signature delivery and gestures, yet her portrayal of Margo never turns into caricature. By turns, she’s poignant, powerful, and self-deprecatingly witty. Davis had always claimed she based her portrayal on the great Tallulah Bankhead, but I strongly suspect there’s plenty of Davis herself in there, too, and it works beautifully. Oh, and that actress playing stage hopeful Miss Caswell from “The Copacabana School of Dramatic Arts” who was reluctant to call the party waiter “butler…somebody’s name might be ‘Butler’” was quite the scene-stealer, too. Maybe you’ve heard of her—a cute blonde starlet named Marilyn Monroe? According to the IMDb, audiences got a taste of budding star Monroe in several films that year: AAE, The Asphalt Jungle, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Right Cross, and The Fireball—busy gal, and rightly so!

Watching AAE multiple times is just as fun as watching the film for the first time, if not more so! Once you’re onto Eve, AAE is like watching one of Alfred Hitchcock’s wittier thrillers, with a soupcon of Barbet Schroeder’s 1992 suspenser Single White Female. We see the calculated scheming hiding behind Eve’s gimlet eyes while those poor jaded theater folk are lulled into trusting this alleged innocent. Once we viewers realize the truth about Eve, we want to yell warnings to Margo: “Run, Margo! The little bitch is trying to kill your career, not to mention your happiness!” Wow, Hitchcock’s Stage Fright should have been like this!

Every character in this scintillating Broadway satire gets a chance to shine and a kick in the ego to one degree or another. Each line of dialogue sparkles, including Davis’s immortal “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” In fact, it’s another one of those great movies in which writing down all of the stars’ best lines would result in me transcribing pretty much the whole damn script! AAE won six out of its record-setting 14 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Costume Design for the ever-awesome Edith Head (black-and-white division), Best Director and Best Screenplay for Mankiewicz, Best Sound, and last but far from least, Best Supporting Actor for George Sanders. (Fun Fact: The all-time Best Picture Oscar-nominee runners-up to date are 1939’s Gone with the Wind and 1953’s From Here to Eternity with 13 nominations each.)

I only wish everyone else nominated for acting awards in the film could have won, too, even if it would’ve meant ties for Best Actress nominees Davis and Baxter as well as Best Supporting Actress nominees Thelma Ritter and Celeste Holm. The Academy ought to institute some kind of Best Ensemble Cast Oscar, like they have at the Screen Actors Guild awards. To be fair, I can’t complain about the wonderful actors who did win: Best Actress Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday, and Best Supporting Actress Josephine Hull for Harvey. Tough choices that year, with other worthy Oscar nominees including Sunset Blvd., The Third Man, Adam’s Rib, Father of the Bride, and King Solomon’s Mines; we need more Oscar years like that!

There’s Something About LAURA

Welcome to the House of Spoilers! Enter at your own risk!

Private investigator Sam Marlow: “Dana Andrews was swell in Laura, but what if Bogart had played Lt. McPherson? Yeah, Bogart... smoking a cigarette and looking up at that portrait, thinking Laura was dead, but still in love with her. What a love scene. And neither of them naked!”
The Man with Bogart’s Face by Andrew J. Fenady

When Vera Caspary’s romantic suspense tale Ring Twice for Laura proved to be a popular serial in Colliers in 1942, Houghton Mifflin published the serial as a best-selling novel, now simply titled Laura.  In 1944, the movie version of Laura hit the silver screen, fated to be movie bait against all odds (more about that in a moment)!  The film and David Raksin's haunting theme song were so popular, they were affectionately parodied with much gusto in many ways, including a spoof by no less than Spike Jones and his City Slickers, an honor akin to Weird Al Yankovic's song parodies (much beloved here at Team Bartilucci H.Q.).  

The film starts off on an appropriately ominous note with the voiceover, “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died.” These are the words of Waldo Lydecker, a waspish New York columnist (blogs hadn't been invented yet :-)), played by scene-stealing former silent film actor/ballroom dancer/stage actor Clifton Webb in the role that made him a full-fledged movie star and Oscar nominee. In case you had any silly notions that Waldo was the shy retiring type, he allows Detective Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) of the NYPD to grill him as he sits in the bathtub of his opulent bathroom. (Perhaps Waldo hoped Mark might want to take a dip in the tub himself, the old slyboots!) Waldo multitasks, typing one of his devastatingly sharp columns on a tray in his bathtub while answering Mark’s questions about lovely, smart advertising executive-turned-murder victim Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), found violently killed with a double-barreled shotgun blast at close range
.

Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) is glad to assist Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), as long as it doesn't interfere with his daily ablutions. Good thing electric typewriters weren't invented yet; we can't have Waldo accidentally electrocuted so early in the movie!

But by all accounts, to know Laura was to love her, and why not? Even her maid Bessie (the uncredited but memorable Dorothy Adams) adored Laura, not only “on account of the thousand sweet things she done for me; it was because she was so sweet herself!” Laura was as winsome as she was beautiful; sophisticated, yet hard-working and down-to-earth.  Who’d want to kill her? Someone who loved her too much, perhaps? Maybe Waldo, her longtime mentor and friend? Or could it be Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price, then best known as a stage actor; his great horror films came later), Laura’s fiancé and colleague at the advertising firm Bullitt & Company (how eerily appropriate, considering how she died), who Waldo sneeringly characterizes (not unfairly) as “a male beauty in distress”? Mark’s investigation brings him into Laura’s glamorous world, and quickly discovers it’s also a world of ambition and danger, obsession and desire. In spite of himself, tough detective Mark realizes he’s getting so deep into the case that he’s falling in love with Laura—her portrait, anyway, all that’s left of her. Or is it? When Mark falls asleep while on stakeout in Laura’s apartment, he’s awakened by Laura herself! But if the shocked, bewildered Laura isn’t dead, then who is? (Fun Fact: The famous portrait of Laura was originally painted by the wife of Rouben Mamoulian, who’d been chosen to direct before producer Otto Preminger opted to direct as well. The portrait was touched up to make it look more like an actual painting of Tierney.)

"Now that is aht!"

It turns out the murder victim was Bullitt & Company model Diane Redfern, who dropped by Laura’s apartment for a heart-to-heart with Shelby while our heroine was away in the country trying to thaw out the cold feet she’s developing about marrying him. I don’t blame her, considering Shelby was apparently two-timing Laura (in his Southern-gentleman way, the rake!), as well as the ever-awesome Dame Judith Anderson as Laura’s aunt, Ann Treadwell (Susan Treadwell in the novel). Ann may or may not have an agenda of her own, considering she’s only too happy to “lend” Shelby large sums of money at the drop of her stylish hat, and she can obviously afford him. I guess that’s what happens when you know too many good-looking layabouts with too much time on their hands—get a job, you moochers! But now that Laura’s not dead after all, the police consider her a suspect in Diane’s murder!  Can Mark get the real culprit, as Waldo would say, “trundled off to the hoosegow” before it’s too late? Come to think of it, why is Waldo so eager to get his grandfather clock back ASAP? Funny how it’s just the right size to hide a double-barreled shotgun….

"Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies..."

It amazes me that nobody wanted to make this witty, suave, suspenseful adaptation of Caspary’s classic mystery novel! Even when it got the green light, it was initially slated to be a throwaway “B” picture for 20th Century-Fox. I’m also flabbergasted to hear that the bewitching Gene Tierney, who had the amazing ability to be at once approachable and exotic, wasn’t the first choice to play the title role; Jennifer Jones and Hedy Lamarr both turned it down. Their loss! It just goes to show what the right polish and the right talent can do, with Tierney and tough-yet-tender Andrews up against that fabulous cast. Like Witness for the Prosecution and other favorite films of mine, discovering who really dunnit doesn’t spoil the fun of watching Laura again and again, especially with those beautiful clothes, the Oscar-nominated set design/decoration, and of course, listening to composer David Raksin’s rapturous music (which also deserved an Oscar nod, if you ask me)! Indeed, if you pay closer attention to real killer Waldo on a second viewing, you’ll catch more of the clues to his true nature that you were having too much fun to notice the first time around. For example, during Waldo’s flashback-laden dinner conversation with Mark about Laura, you suddenly realize how truly obsessed and self-centered Waldo really is. Note that everything he says about Laura really ends up being more about him than about her: “She deferred to my tastes...the way she listened (to me) was more eloquent than speech….” 

"Mark, get me away from these wackos!"

As Waldo, acid-tongued Webb’s bon mots are so delightful you want to commit them to memory. He steals the show with his viciously witty lines—and just as important, the angry heartache underlying them. (He does this to superb effect in The Dark Corner, too.) If I start quoting Webb’s best lines, I’ll be transcribing almost every word out of his mouth! Still, the great nest-of-vipers cast hits all the right notes in Preminger’s spellbinding adaptation of Caspary’s novel. The book told the tale from the respective perspectives of Waldo, Shelby, Mark, and eventually Laura herself. In the movie, like in all the best book-to-film adaptations, Laura stays faithful to the novel while keeping it tight to fit the movie’s sleek 87-minute running time—89 minutes in the restored version on DVD, with Waldo narrating over a montage of Laura being made over into a society glamor girl. Supposedly, that footage stayed out of the film for years because the studio was afraid the sequence’s allegedly “decadent” focus on luxury wouldn’t sit well with 1944’s wartime audiences, who were doing without many things they’d once taken for granted. (Suddenly I’m imagining Laura and Waldo double-dating with Vertigo’s Scottie Ferguson and Judy Barton after Judy gets Madeleine Elster’ed!) Webb, Price, and Anderson make wonderful wolves-in-chic-clothing among Laura’s circle of friends and hangers-on. Andrews and Tierney’s chemistry sends sparks flying even before they actually share the screen after the Act 2 twist. Tierney is quite convincing as a sophisticated yet soft-hearted young woman whose kindness almost does her in; as Andrews aptly points out, “For a charming, intelligent girl, you’ve certainly surrounded yourself with a remarkable collection of dopes.”  Amen to that! On a related note, this might sound odd, but I’ve often felt that Laura is almost a dark precursor to the 1998 modern comedy classic There’s Something About Mary! Think about it: both films are about magnetic women who don’t realize how much their looks and charm drive men mad, sometimes literally.

Laura was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director for Preminger; Best Supporting Actor for Webb; Best Adapted Screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt, with an uncredited assist by Ring Lardner Jr.; and Best Interior Decoration.  But it was Director of Photography Joseph LaShelle who went home with an Oscar for his atmospheric black-and-white camerawork. Incidentally, Tierney and Webb were reunited in The Razor’s Edge (1946), for which Webb earned another Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Webb didn’t win, but co-star Anne Baxter snared a Best Supporting Actress Oscar, four years before her Best Actress Oscar nomination for All About Eve.  No nomination for Tierney, alas; she got her only Best Actress nomination earlier for the psychological thriller Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

"I coulda been a contendah!"
Laird Cregar, The Man Who Would be Lydecker

I must admit there’s only one thing about this otherwise perfect romantic suspense film that makes me think, “Oh, what could have been!” When Rouben Mamoulian was going to direct the film, he wanted Laird Cregar to play Waldo Lydecker! (I can hear my fellow Cregar fans sighing and squealing longingly even now!) Much as I adore Clifton Webb’s performance, I must admit Cregar would have been fabulous, too, with his silky voice and imposing bulk; the nattily-dressed fat man (yes, Waldo was indeed described as fat in the novel, unlike whippet-thin Webb in the movie) hiding his resentment and heartache under a veneer of venom-tipped quips. Alas, Zanuck ultimately decided that since Cregar was already best known as a smooth-talking yet physically imposing villain, casting him as Waldo might have tipped off the audience to his true evil too soon. Yeah, I see their point, but still….  In any case, Webb and Laura’s screenwriters re-teamed in 1946 for The Dark Corner, which had enough elements in common with Laura to be considered as sort of a Laura 2—and I mean that as a compliment!

By the way, Carly Simon does a gorgeous live rendition of David Raksin's Laura theme:
http://youtu.be/Baj5Q7H5q6s

THE DARK CORNER: You Picked a Fine Time to Meet Me, Lucille

Watch your step—you might trip over a spoiler or two!

At times, 20th Century-Fox’s 1946 thriller The Dark Corner (TDC) plays like a greatest-hits collection of classic ’40s suspense films, but to me, that’s part of its charm. The talents involved include: co-star Clifton Webb, again playing a witty, urbane, snobbish Manhattanite fascinated by a beautiful brunette and her portrait like Laura; The Glass Key’s co-star William Bendix, who’s always fun to watch whether he’s playing a lovable mug or, in this case, a hissable thug; and Laura’s co-screenwriter Jay Dratler, along with Bernard C. Schoenfeld and Leo Rosten of The Joy of Yiddish fame! Indeed, the versatile Rosten wrote TDC’s original 1945 Good Housekeeping serial under the nom de plume Leonard Q. Ross. Ever prolific, Rosten also wrote many other stories, novels, and movie scripts, including two of my favorites, All Through the Night (1941) and Mystery Street (1950). Even the film’s Gershwin-esque opening theme music, a piece by Alfred Newman titled "Manhattan Street Scene," had been used before, in Fox’s first neo-noir thriller I Wake up Screaming (1941). (Fun Fact: Newman's Oscar-winning family of composers includes nephew Randy Newman, another of our household faves!)

TDC’s engaging cast, sharp dialogue, and compelling plot elements work wonderfully under Henry Hathaway’s direction.Critics and audiences agreed that Lucille Ball shines in this early dramatic role of hers, long before I Love Lucy made her a comedy icon. According to both the TCM Web site and the entertaining DVD commentary by film historians Alain Silver and James Ursini, Hathaway was such a tough taskmaster that Ball had a nervous breakdown during the filming. It doesn’t show onscreen in her assured, appealing portrayal of smart, loyal secretary Kathleen Stewart, originally Kathleen Conley in the Good Housekeeping serial (in fact, the DVD’s package copy mistakenly identifies Kathleen’s last name in the film as Conley, not Stewart). Kathleen's falling in love with her P.I. boss, Bradford Galt (no relation to John Galt), and the feeling is mutual.

As Brad, Mark Stevens makes a fine Dick Powell-like transition from musicals to tough-guy parts. Brad’s starting out fresh in New York City after being framed for manslaughter and nearly killed in California by his corrupt ex-partner, lawyer Tony Jardine. As a favor to his Cali colleagues, local cop Lt. Reeves is keeping tabs on Galt to make sure the “impulsive youth” stays out of trouble. In the role of Reeves, fans of the March of Time newsreels will recognize Reed Hadley’s commanding speaking voice; he’s got great screen presence and a formidable air of authority. Nevertheless, it seems Brad’s past is coming back to haunt him. When Brad catches a big lug (Bendix) on his tail wearing a white suit (who does he think he is, Roy Scheider in Last Embrace?), he’s shocked when the guy claims Tony Jardine hired him. The plot thickens as vulnerable but determined Brad sets out to see if Tony’s aiming to finish what he started out west.

"Working conditions are certainly looking up around here." And how!

Meanwhile, on the swankier side of the city, art dealer/collector Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb) drums up business for his posh art gallery and celebrates his third wedding anniversary at an elegant party for about a hundred of his closest friends and loved ones, including his beautiful young wife, Mari (Cathy Downs, who played the title role in My Darling Clementine and became the future wife of The Amazing Colossal Man). Hardy jokes that as a couple, Mari and Hardy are “the perfect picture of Beauty and the Beast,” though Mari charmingly disagrees. A close friend of the Cathcarts joins the celebration—none other than Tony Jardine himself (Kurt Kreuger, who excelled at playing smooth-talking Nazis and other shady Continental types), who’s apparently moved his law practice to The Big Apple! But Tony himself is still a bad apple, seducing and blackmailing vulnerable women of means.

"Beauty" Mari & "Beast" Hardy celebrate their 3rd anniversary. Tradition says leather is the gift of choice. Who'd have thought the Cathcarts were into leather?

We also find that Hardy’s burning love for Mari is like his passion for his paintings; he sees her and everything in his lavish home as treasured possessions. “I never want you to grow up,” Hardy coos to Mari as they waltz at the party. “You should remain ageless, like a Madonna, who lives and breathes and smiles, and belongs to me.” How’s that for an unsettling bit of sweet talk? Later, Hardy proudly unveils his newest acquisition, a painting he’s been obsessed with for years: a 19th-century portrait of a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Mari. It’s no coincidence: Hardy admits that when he met Mari after coveting the portrait for so long, “I felt as if I had always known her—and wanted her.” Although Hardy keeps Mari in the lap of luxury, the novelty of this marriage-cum-ownership is wearing off for his restless young wife. She and Hardy even have separate bedrooms (what did she expect with Clifton Webb and the Production Code?). No wonder Mari has the hots for Tony, unaware he’s a blackmailing gigolo. The script and Downs’s portrayal show Mari in a sympathetic light throughout TDC.  At a rendezvous with Tony at his luxe bachelor pad, Mari tells him, “Tony, I tried. I made a bad bargain, and I tried to stick it out with him, but I just keep sitting, listening to his paintings crack with age.” With the conflicting emotions flitting across Tony’s face as Mari gets more insistent that they run away together, we viewers can almost hear him thinking, “What about my career? How will I keep my seduction-and-extortion racket going after she dumps her rich husband to marry me?”  But that’s the least of their problems when these worlds of high society and low crime finally collide, as Hardy uses trickery and White Suit’s strong-arm tactics to fit Brad for a frame and Tony for a pine box.

To complicate matters further, Brad can be his own worst enemy at times, especially since Tony’s near-fatal double-cross shook Brad’s confidence in himself, leaving him prone to drinking and despair. Good thing Kathleen always thinks on her feet when trouble rears its nasty head. She has a knack for dragging Brad out of his periodic pity parties and helping him focus on clearing himself while also rebuilding his shattered confidence. If you ask me, Kathleen is underpaid! The chemistry between Ball and Stevens deliciously blends banter, tenderness, and sexual smolder. Though Kathleen deftly keeps Brad from going all the way because she “plays for keeps,” the lovebirds still get into some pretty hot kissing, especially in a great scene showing the couple reflected in a mirror as they embrace.



A murder frame-up is no laughing matter to Lucille Ball and Mark Stevens


I like the whole “haves” vs. “have-nots” element running through TDC, with little details like the running gag about Brad scoring nylon stockings for Kathleen, and the crucial clue Brad gets from the slide-whistle-playing urchin (the uncredited Colleen Alpaugh) in White Suit’s building. Keep an eye out for two other uncredited but memorable character actors: Minerva Urecal, best known to Team Bartilucci as Mother in the 1960 season of TV's Peter Gunn and the harridan who gets briefly turned to stone in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), playing one of Brad’s clients; and Douglas Spencer of The Thing from Another World as one of several deli customers gawking as Brad almost becomes a hit-and-run victim. In one scene between Hardy and White Suit, there’s this highbrow-to-lowbrow translation that always cracks me up as Hardy instructs White Suit to phone Brad and trick him into a deadly rendezvous:

Hardy (whispering to White Suit):
“Tell him you need two-hundred dollars to leave town.”

White Suit (to Brad on phone):
“I need two yards, powder money!”

Getting back to clues, I love that something as prosaic as dry cleaning helps our heroes crack the case!  Another nice bit: Brad is dropping Kathleen off at the movies near his apartment, where he’s going to face off with White Suit. Worried, Kathleen pouts, “I never thought I’d have to beg you to take me up to your apartment.” Brad replies, with a grin, “You’ve been there...” The box office gal (Mary Field from Dark Passage, another uncredited scene-stealer) has the most priceless look on her face as she strains to hear the rest of the conversation!

TDC has plenty of superb writing and acting woven skillfully through the film noir tropes. I particularly liked this wonderful emotional scene between Hardy and Mari a little over an hour into the film, in which the couple talks around their marital situation in that “friend of a friend” way. Hardy reveals that Tony (who’s been murdered by now, unbeknownst to Mari, who’d planned to run off with Tony that very night), has been dallying with rich women, including Lucy Wilding (Molly Lamont from The Awful Truth and Scared to Death), who we (but not Mari) saw Tony blackmailing earlier. Mari doesn’t want to hear it:

Mari (near tears): “It’s not true! He’s always loathed her.”
Hardy: “He loathed her rather intimately, I’m afraid.”
Mari: “But he couldn’t! I mean, she’s too old for him.”

The distraught Mari rushes off to her bed, her figure shown off lusciously yet tastefully by the light shining through her filmy negligee (thanks to ace Director of Photography Joe MacDonald, amping up the moody film noir feel with his beautifully stark use of shadows and light) as she slips under the covers. Hardy’s expression is both cold and wounded. “Love is not the exclusive province of adolescents, my dear,” he says quietly. “It’s a heart ailment that strikes all age groups, like my love for you. My love for you is the only malady I’ve contracted since the usual childhood diseases—and it’s incurable.”

There’s a bracing street feeling to TDC’s periodic outbursts of brutal-for-the-era violence. None of this Marquis of Queensbury rules stuff—the combatants really clobber each other! Even Hardy commits a murder so sudden and shocking that I gasped in spite of myself. White Suit’s ambush in Brad’s apartment even has a touch of (unintentional?) humor; watch William Bendix’s head, and you'll see his toupee come loose, hanging onto his scalp by a thread!

The film was shot in both NYC and L.A., but it all looks convincingly like Manhattan. The NYC second-unit work is especially good, including shots of the Third Avenue El and an exciting car chase. In addition to the nifty commentary track, the DVD’s extras include swell vintage trailers for TDC and other Fox crime flicks. If you love films noir but don't have time to sit down and give all your favorites your undivided attention, watching TDC is the next best thing!

Brooks Alumn-O-Rama: FATSO and THE FRISCO KID, by Team Bartilucci

My husband Vinnie and I have our Team Bartilucci blogging caps on again! One of the many reasons he and I and our families have always loved Mel Brooks’ movies is that Mel and most if not all of the writers, directors, and actors he worked with came from ethnic families and grew up in multicultural New York. Vinnie and I did, too; I grew up mostly in the Bronx and also lived in Manhattan for many years, while Vin grew up in Elmont, Long Island. Our combined ethnic heritage includes Italy, Ireland, and Scotland, as well as France and, I’m told, possibly Spain. We’re a regular U.N.!

The two movies we’ll be covering this week feature regulars from Brooks’ movies. While only the first was produced by Mel’s company, Brooksfilms, you’ll see plenty of familiar faces in the casts of both movies. Enjoy!

Dorian’s Pick: Fatso (1980)

This comedy-drama—or dramedy, as they say nowadays—was Oscar-winning actress Anne Bancroft’s only foray into writing and directing that we know of, but it was fantastico!  Having grown up in New York City in a food-loving family that was Italian-American on Dad’s side and Irish-American on Mom’s side, our clan identifies so closely with Fatso’s characters that it almost feels like a documentary to us!  Heck, I still remember the movie poster from its original theatrical release: a mournful-looking Dom DeLuise standing against a long list of foods under the bold heading “Do Not Eat:” Weight-loss solutions have come a long way since then, but human nature and emotional family members haven’t changed all that much—and that’s one of the things that has always endeared Fatso to our family and friends.

DeLuise is best known as a hilarious member of Mel Brooks’s stock company of zanies, but it was great to see him at last in a leading man role—a romantic leading man, at that! He plays our hero Dominick DiNapoli, an overweight 40-year-old bachelor living in NYC’s Little Italy. His happy life revolves around his boisterous Italian-American family, all living together in apartments in their two-family walk-up. Dom’s sister Antoinette (Bancroft) lives in one apartment with her husband and kids, while Dom shares his apartment with his “baby” brother Frankie, a.k.a. "Junior" (Ron Carey, who’d been best known and loved in our household as chauffeur/sidekick Brophy in Brooks’ hilarious Hitchcock spoof High Anxiety. What a shame that all three leads are no longer with us, though I’m glad we have Fatso and other fine films of theirs to remember them by. But I digress…)  Dom’s countless cousins include his big-hearted and just plain big cousin Sal (Manny Medina), who loves food, glorious food, as much as Dom. Having been doted on and overfed by his worried, well-meaning mom (tragically, Dom’s two  previous baby brothers died before the age of 2), Dom’s life has revolved around eating, drinking, and being merry more often than not. But when 39-year-old Sal dies of a massive heart attack, the grieving Antoinette and Junior frantically beseech Dom to tackle his own weight problem before he follows in Sal’s footsteps to the graveyard (pitch-dark humor abounds at the funeral).

Dom’s misadventures on the road to weight management begin with the support group Chubby Checkers, recommended by neighborhood friend Mrs. Goodman (played by Estelle Reiner, the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene-stealer from her director son Rob Reiner’s modern classic …When Harry Met Sally).  Dom tries to stick to the nigh-draconian diet, in which the diet doctor pretty much recommends that he eat and drink only the basic food groups and none of the rich dinners and desserts he adores, since this takes place in 1980! It reminded me of a wisecrack Joan Rivers made in one of her early books, Having A Baby Can Be A Scream: “If it tastes good, spit it out.” Antoinette and Junior try to help Dom stick to his weight-loss plan. Alas, their well-intentioned but overzealous haranguing only makes poor Dom feel worse about himself.

Then he meets the new shopkeeper in town, a voluptuous, sweet-natured blonde named Lydia Bollowenski (Candice Azzara). It’s clear that down-to-earth, huggable, adorable Lydia is perfect for Dom, and as Dom works up the courage to ask her out, they slowly but surely fall in love. Although Fatso was rated PG, Dom and Lydia’s romantic scenes together are still pretty darn romantic and sensual. I bet Dom DeLuise never got so much kissing and clinches in all of his movies combined, bless his heart!

Our family’s favorite scene is when Dom tries to head off a midnight binge with the help of two Chubby Checkers members. Of course, the trouble with controlling eating is that unlike alcohol or drugs, we all need food to survive. So when the subject inevitably turns to food, the situation soon erupts into the most spectacular binge of all time for all concerned! It always cracks us up when Dom and his partners-in-weight-management rhapsodize dreamily about the many ways to enjoy a jelly doughnut, turning the innocent phrase “Get the honey, Junior” into a threat/chant.

By turns zany, warm-hearted, and bittersweet, Fatso may be too shrill for some tastes, but my family and I loved it from beginning to end, and still do!  Born Anna Maria Italiano, triple-threat Bancroft’s Bronx roots show throughout. The volatile yet endearing characters and the loving details about their lives ring true, kind of like Martin Scorsese on laughing gas. While many of the film’s ideas about the best approaches to battling the bulge are dated now, it was surprisingly ahead of its time in portraying emotional eating and its tragicomic aspects, making it all the more devious that Bancroft and Director of Photography Brianne Murphy filmed the tempting, luscious-looking foodstuffs in an inviting, sensual fashion reminiscent of the 1978 comedy-thriller Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?  Can you imagine what Fatso would have been like if The Food Network had existed back then? Yikes! It would be utter food porn!

Bancroft and her cast sprinkle many nice little character touches throughout, like the way Dom stirs a huge pot of sauce during Sal’s wake at Antoinette’s apartment, weeping while at the same time sampling the sauce and adding his own seasonings. I also love the romantic moments and easy conversations between Dom and Lydia. Having waged my own “battle of the bulge” during much of my adult life (and succeeding thanks to the new-and-improved Weight Watchers Points Plus program, not to put the whammy on it!), I could absolutely identify with Fatso. It’s like a lively Sunday dinner with my Grandma Josie and/or our other food-loving drama queen relatives and Italian-American pals in our old Bronx neighborhood—and I mean that as the highest of compliments. Fatso sometimes shows up on The Fox Movie Channel (letterboxed!) and HBO Comedy, but I wish some enterprising company would release it on DVD or Blu-Ray sometime!

Vinnie tosses some spice in the sauce on Fatso:The dialogue in the film is solid and authentic, with moments of brilliance.  The phrase "You ate the 'ony'!" cannot be sufficiently explained; it must be experienced. Later, Dom laments to Lydia that he's failed twice now on his diet, and she replies, "Christ fell THREE times...and he was Christ!" And at the climax of the film, Dom speaks to Lydia on the phone; all we hear is the word "yes," 17 times.  He runs the gamut of emotions in that conversation, and it's a wonderful moment. 

Vinnie's Pick: The Frisco Kid (1979)
A Jewish cowboy. Sounds groan-worthy doesn't it?  That was how The Frisco Kid was pitched to the public, and pretty much what most people know about it.  But if you take the time to sit down and watch it, it's a solid comedy with two very good actors as its tentpoles.
Gene Wilder plays Avram Belinsky, a Polish rabbi (who just barely came out 38th in a class of 39) who is selected to travel to America, specifically to San Francisco (which, according to the chief Rabbi, is "near New York") to head a new temple.  To say that his trip is not smooth is an understatement.  After the ship to California leaves early without him, he arranges passage in a wagon train with two brothers who eventually roll him for his cash and throw him out of the wagon.  He finds a group of Amish farmers, mistaking their black clothes for Jewish garb.  The farmers help him to a train, which, while Avram is in the washroom, is robbed by Tommy Lillard (Harrison Ford)  He and Tommy meet up again officially later in Avram's journey, and Tommy quickly realizes this poor schmuck won't make it ten miles without his help.

They forge a friendship which is tested by, among other things, a harsh winter, Indians, peyote poisoning, Tommy's revelation to Avram as a bank robber, and Avram's continued refusal to ride on the Sabbath, even though they're being chased by  a posse. Further west they meet up with the trio who stole Avram's money, one of whom is wearing the decorative breastplate from the torah as a necklace.  A short and embarrassing fight later, Avram has his money back, and three new enemies.  They follow the pair to a beach and attempt to gun them down, but Tommy shoots the brothers' crony, and Avram fires a gun for the first time, killing one of the brothers. 

After they arrive in San Francisco, Avram has a crisis of faith, and decides he cannot be a Rabbi anymore. Not because he killed a man -- it was in the act of saving a life, and in such extreme circumstances, many acts are considered permissible -- but because when he had the choice to come and help Tommy or save the Torah from the campfire, he ran to save the Torah. He is shattered that "I chose a piece of paper over the life of my best friend."  The hesitation is short-lived as the members of the congregation find him at the restaurant he and Tommy are eating at...and so does remaining robber-brother Matt Diggs (character actor William Smith). The final gunfight ends with no further blood being spilled, and Avram takes his place as the head of the temple, a wiser man than when he left Poland.
While there are the requisite ethnic jokes peppered throughout the script (Clyde Kusatsu has a short part that would NEVER be allowed in a film today), the film flies high on the wings of its leading men.  Wilder takes what could be a schticky trope of a character and fills him with a quiet strength, playing him not as comically naive, but honest and trusting, both in his fellow man and his God.  This was one of Harrison Ford's first starring roles after Star Wars, and he gets to play Tommy with bombast and bluster, taking the limelight that Wilder courteously vacates with his subdued turn. Wilder spends a great deal of time succeeding through that quiet strength and a lot of passive-aggressive "I'm not ASKING you to do anything", and Ford responds with wonderful slow burns.  The film is deftly directed by Robert Aldrich (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, et al) as a traditional Western with no glib Brooksian anachronisms. Ford was called stiff in his performance; I saw it more that he was playing a traditional Western bushwhacker. Similarly, William Smith gets to give a classic Western "You killed my brother" performance, and he nails it.  Don't blink, or you'll miss score composer Frank DeVol ("Happy" Kyne himself) as the piano player in the Red Dog saloon.
Apparently, John Wayne was originally courted for Harrison Ford's role.  I think that would have changed the balance of the film entirely.  While Wayne could certainly do comedy (surely we've gone on about The Quiet Man before, haven't we?), it would have absolutely become a John Wayne Movie, and Wilder and his character would have taken a back seat, or at least would have given up the seat with the cushion. 

Fans of Quincy, M.E. will recognize Val Bisoglio as, of all things, an Indian chief who shares with Wilder the single greatest descriptions of God, especially the Jewish interpretation of Him, ever put to screen.  Suffering from a drought and holding a rain dance, the chief asks Avram why "his god" won't just make it rain.

Chief Gray Cloud: What does he do?
Avram: He... He can do anything!
Chief Gray Cloud: Then why can't he make rain?
Avram: Because he doesn't make rain. He gives us strength when we're suffering. He gives us compassion when all that we feel is hatred. He gives us courage when we're searching around blindly like little mice in the darkness... but He does not make rain!
[a flash of thunder, followed by a downpour]
Avram: Of course... sometimes, just like that, he'll change His mind.

One of the subtle themes through the film is that Avram becomes friends with and receives assistance from all sorts of people, including Indians, Amish and a Christian monastery (with Vincent Schiavelli as a monk who has taken a vow of silence).   Everyone gets along, regardless of creed.  Nice touch. It's a charming little film, far from the spoof masterpieces of Brooks.  Like Fatso, it's a film about people.

Dorian kibbitzes on The Frisco Kid:

The Frisco Kid was as funny as I expected, with Gene Wilder and Harrison Ford’s odd couple team-up working very well. I especially liked the surprising subtlety and nuance that Wilder brought to his endearing performance as the gentle rabbi. His Wild West adventure teaches him how to be the best rabbi he can be—and triumph over bad guys without going against his own teachings!

CMBA Movies of 1939 Blogathon - IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD: The Original Colbert Report!

Welcome to Edwina Corday's Poetry Corner! Here's her poetry-chart-topping rhyme, "It's A Wonderful World":

The night will be here when we are gone,
Though we are gone, the stars will be here,
And other throats will sing in the dawn,
It’s a wonderful world, my dear.

Don't rack your brain trying to remember Edwina's lovely poem from your English class; you'll find her verses in the Hollywood school of poetry. This charming if somewhat ditzy and eccentric poetess (that’s what they call her, a poetess, not a poet. It’s a 1939 thing) is played by that luminous, long-running Oscar-winner Claudette Colbert in It’s a Wonderful World (IaWW). With that title alone, you’d have every right to expect IaWW to be a wonderful screwball comedy-mystery. It’s got a heck of a pedigree. For starters, the director is none other than Oscar-nominee W.S. Van Dyke, who brought us San Francisco (1936) as well as The Thin Man (1934) and several of its sequels. The script was a collaboration between talented, versatile screenwriters Ben Hecht and Herman J. Mankiewicz (the latter being part of the Mankiewicz filmmaking family, including his grandson Ben Mankiewicz of TCM fame), whose combined resumes included such classics as Nothing Sacred, Twentieth Century, Dinner at Eight, Citizen Kane, The Front Page and its distaff remake His Girl Friday, and several of Alfred Hitchcock’s best films. Now team up Claudette Colbert with a pre-Oscar James Stewart (note that Colbert’s name appears onscreen in a larger font than Stewart’s, since she was the bigger star at the time). It didn’t hurt that the film’s title brought to mind the stars’ beloved films It Happened One Night and It’s a Wonderful Life (even if …Life took audiences quite a while to get into film fans’ hearts. I won’t lie to you, folks: we of Team Bartilucci have always found It’s a Wonderful Life infuriating for myriad reasons. But I digress….). The action is set in both New York City and upstate New York, which is a plus for a native New Yorker like me. On top of that, keep in mind that the year was 1939, a banner year for great movies! With all that going for IaWW, the resulting collaboration should be a real crowd-pleaser, right?

Well…almost. IaWW wasn’t bad, but for much of its 86-minute running time, I found it amiable at best, as opposed to actually wonderful, laugh-out-loud funny, or nail-bitingly suspenseful. Make no mistake, the film has its moments, but as a whole, it didn’t truly grab my undivided attention until about the last 40 minutes or so, when there was shooting, tension, and clever scheming to unmask the villains. But I’m getting ahead of myself! Stewart plays a NYC private eye with the manly-man name of Guy Johnson. Showing his range just as he did in After the Thin Man (1936), Stewart’s Guy is no folksy charmer here, but a cynical tough guy who thinks dames are dopes, and isn’t afraid to cuff ’em one if they start squawking. (If Guy tried that today, he’d be in for a lawsuit!) Come to think of it, the role of Guy was probably good practice for the darker, more emotionally complicated roles Stewart played under the direction of Hitchcock and Anthony Mann in the 1950s.

Guy works with his older, more seasoned partner “Cap” Streeter (Guy Kibbee) for a private investigation firm called, appropriately enough, Private Inquiries. Their biggest client is the much-married souse and tobacco heir Willie Heyward, a.k.a. “Willie the Pooh” (played by Ernest Truex, great as put-upon milquetoast types in His Girl Friday, Whistling in the Dark, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, among others). Having previously worked “demonstrating electric belts in drugstore windows,” Guy’s determined to hang onto his meal ticket: “Willie the Pooh’s my dream man, and I’m gonna keep fishing him out of manholes just as long as he keeps paying off.” Too bad Willie gets himself framed for the murder of Dolores Gonzales (Cecilia Callejo), a “Broadway nymph” and bubble dancer a la Sally Rand who was all set to sue Willie for allegedly jilting her. The only clue to her killer is a dime mysteriously cut in half. Our perplexed P.I. finds himself framed by Vivian Tarbel, a.k.a. the newly-minted Mrs. Heyward (Frances Drake of Mad Love and the 1935 version of Les Miserables) and her honey, Al Mallon (Sidney Blackmer, the great character actor who’s graced everything from Charlie Chan in Monte Carlo to Rosemary’s Baby). Before you can say “Nick Charles,” Guy is charged with conspiracy and sentenced to a year in Sing Sing.

I'd swear by my eyes if I could
see through these glasses!

On the train to prison, Guy is handcuffed to Sergeant Koretz (Nat Pendleton, Thin Man alumnus and one of Team Bartilucci’s favorite wrestlers-turned-actors), accompanied by Lieutenant Miller (Edgar Kennedy, Mr. Slow Burn himself) as they pass the time playing poker. Guy notices a personal ad in a nearby newspaper: “Why don’t you come to Saugerties Theater Wednesday evening, and see your long-lost husband? HALF-A-DIME.” (For you readers unfamiliar with upstate New York, yes, Saugerties is a real town.) Guy tricks Koretz into leaving their compartment for a smoke, and *SPLASH!* Guy manages a watery escape under cover of night. But our perky poetess Edwina happens to see the whole thing. Before you can say “I swear by my eyes,” (Edwina says that through the whole picture, not unlike Little John in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon Rabbit Hood), Guy takes Edwina hostage, and wacky hijinks ensue, including Guy's hilarious attempt to pass himself off as a scoutmaster. Elsewhere, in one of my favorite bits, Koretz tries to convince the local police that he was jumped by a mob instead of Guy tricking him and knocking him out singlehandedly. I must say, Guy could be so obnoxious sometimes, I wouldn’t have minded if someone had punched his lights out!



How do you like them apples?
Isn't this how Stockholm Syndrome starts?

 Bit by bit, the comedy starts to percolate as Guy and Edwina find themselves obliged to join forces out in the wilds of upstate New York, with Edwina alternately helping and unwittingly hindering Guy as he tries to prove his innocence and save Willie from the electric chair. As I said, the first two-thirds of IaWW were watchable if not exactly full-tilt hilarious—but then a miracle happens, as described by my husband Vinnie: “Suddenly Claudette Colbert shifted the plot into reverse psychology!” Quick thinking, comedy and suspense suddenly blend together beautifully during the climax at the Saugerties County Theatre’s production of the Maxwell Anderson/Laurence Stallings play What Price Glory? Slowly but surely, Guy warms up to Edwina, who’s already falling in love with him despite the bickering you'd expect in such a situation (just ask Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll of The 39 Steps, among others). They infiltrate the theater when scene-stealing grand dame theater director Cecil Cunningham hires Guy as the play’s new Southern-accented actor “Cyril Hemingway.”

Cap comes to help Guy, only to become a human Whack-A-Mole as Edwina’s well-meant attempts to help both men keep backfiring. (I was starting to worry that poor Cap would be brain-damaged before this dizzy tale was over!) Vivian’s long-lost actor hubby turns up, unaware he’s got a target on his back, the poor slob! The stage cast within the movie cast includes Team Bartilucci faves Hans Conried, George Chandler (nervous bartender Louis Ord in Dead Reckoning) and Grady Sutton (who I always remember from the Odd Couple TV series episode “The Flying Felix” with Tony Randall’s attempt at lip-reading: “I…sense…much… trouble…in…the…fuselage…Frederick!” I know, I know, I’m digressing again! J)  There’s genuine suspense in the urgently-whispered conversation between Cap and Guy as we’re reminded that Willie’s life is at stake. There’s even a nifty little catfight between Edwina and Vivian at the end!

As Frank Miller explains in his article on the TCM Web site, Claudette Colbert had looked forward to getting MGM’s legendary glamour treatment. However, her hopes “were dashed when director W.S. Van Dyke was assigned to the picture. Although he had helped create the screwball genre as director of The Thin Man in 1934, he was popular with studio head Louis B. Mayer mainly because he worked quickly, earning the nickname ‘One-Take Woody.’ His female star was appalled at how quickly he threw the film together, being used to the more leisurely pace at her home studio, Paramount, where great care was always taken to showcase her beauty.” Anyway, Colbert got more opportunities for glamour roles at MGM in films like The Secret Heart (1946)

Dorian’s Mother’s Day Smorgasbord: a Four-Course Meal of Fiction, Food, and Fond Memories

Me and Mom on Team Bartilucci's wedding day,
July 14, 1989

 With Mother’s Day coming this very weekend, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to run items about some of the memories and happy things that our family, a.k.a. Team Bartilucci, happens to enjoy. My late mom, Jacqueline Kehoe, enjoyed movies and fiction as much as I do. Once I began writing my own original fiction, which I write simply as Dorian Tenore to give the world’s typesetters a break (presuming typesetters still exist in today’s rapidly-changing publishing world), Mom was thrilled to read it, and I must admit her own lively life was among my inspirations. I’m currently editing my first novel, and I’m almost finished writing my second. I can almost hear Mom now, editing over my shoulder, saying, “I like this character, he’s got spunk…that character seems like a goody-two-shoes, but she’s got a wild past, I can tell….”  Mom and I had discussed writing a comedic novel inspired by her own and our family’s wacky, witty, glamorous exploits, but alas, Mom died of pulmonary fibrosis in December 2009 before we could really get into it. Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and find the notes Mom said she’d written down. But at least we have memories and anecdotes to pass down to loved ones and friends. Let’s get this Mother’s Day Smorgasbord started!