Have Yourself an SF-Film Noir Christmas! LADY IN THE LAKE and TRANCERS

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours from Team Bartilucci! When genres collide during the holiday season, you know you’re in for one of our double-feature blog posts. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

Adrienne Fromsett in The Big, Big Phone!

Director /star Robert Montgomery's advice:
Don't look directly into the tomato-cam!

Whaddaya mean, I'm mugging?

Dorian's Pick: Lady in the Lake (1947)

In Lady in the Lake (LitL), the durable Robert Montgomery not only played author Raymond Chandler’s tough but noble P.I. Philip Marlowe, he also made his solo directorial debut, having previously helped director John Ford to finish the 1945 war drama They Were Expendable when Ford broke his leg on location. Marlowe draws on his life of detection and crime-fighting to write a short story, “If I Should Die Before I Live.” (“They tell me the profits are good,” Marlowe says dryly. Wow, how can I get in on this gig?) Marlowe submits his work to Kingsby Publications, home of such pulp fiction mags as Lurid Detective and Murder Masterpieces. (Maybe Marlowe can go out to lunch with Walter Mitty and pick up pulp fiction tips!) Before he can say “byline,” editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter in her first major leading role after her memorable appearance in The Postman Always Rings Twice) has Marlowe up to his neck in murder, dirty cops, and missing dames, including Chrystal Kingsby (or “Crystal” if you believe the wire from El Paso in Adrienne’s apartment), the wife of Kingsby Publications’ head honcho Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames from The Postman Always Rings Twice, Meet Me At St. Louis, They Were Expendable, and so much more!). To top it off, you can see things Marlowe’s way, literally!

Between LitL and the rueful Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall noir drama Dark Passage, 1947 seemed to be The Year of the Subjective Camera. Before all those slasher movies came along during the last few decades, LitL used the subjective camera treatment; hell, the camera was practically a character in the flick!



Throughout most of LitL, we see everything exactly as Marlowe sees it; the only times we see Marlowe/Montgomery’s mug is when he looks in a mirror, as well as in a brief prologue, an entrè-acte segment, and an epilogue. In the trailer featured on the spiffy DVD version of LitL (along with an enjoyable and informative commentary track by ace film historians Alain Silver and James Ursini), MGM’s publicity department did its best to push the film as the first interactive movie experience: “MGM presents a Revolutionary motion picture; the most amazing since Talkies began! YOU and ROBERT MONTGOMERY solve a murder mystery together! YOU accept an invitation to a blonde’s apartment! YOU get socked in the jaw by a murder suspect!” 

YOU occasionally start snickering in spite of yourself when the subjective camera gimmick teeters dangerously close to parodying itself, like when Adrienne moves in for a smooch with Our Hero The Camera. As Totter’s Adrienne spars verbally with Marlowe in the first half of the film, some of her facial expressions are pretty funny, too, though I’m not sure all of them were meant to be. Totter uses the arched eyebrow technique done so much more effectively later by Leonard Nimoy on Star Trek; Angela Lindvall in CQ, Roman Coppola’s affectionate salute to 1960s pop art films; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; and one of Team Bartilucci’s favorites, sexy Eunice Gayson from the early James Bond thrillers Dr. No and From Russia with Love.

Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, a gigolo? Say it ain't so!

Happiness is a warm gun for Christmas!

The mirror has one face and a beautiful babe!

In Totter’s defense, I’d like to point out that she and the rest of the cast had quite

Adrienne gets close-up and personal with Marlowe

a challenge on their hands, considering that they all pretty much had to re-learn how to act in front of the camera for LitL. As Jeff Stafford wrote in his article on the TCM Web site, “A good deal of the budget went toward elaborate camera set-ups and breakaway sets. ‘The real challenge was the filming itself,’ Montgomery told writer John Tuska in his book, The Detective in Hollywood. ‘We had to do a lot of rehearsing. Actors are trained not to look at the camera. I had to overcome all that training. I had a basket installed under the camera and sat there so that, at least, the actors could respond to me, even if they couldn’t look directly at me.’”

Having said that, I felt that the subjective camera technique in LitL worked more often than not. In particular, I thought the fight scenes and a harrowing sequence where an injured Marlowe crawls out of his wrecked car worked beautifully. It helps that Steve Fisher provided a good solid screenplay for Chandler’s novel, though Chandler purists were annoyed and disappointed that the novel’s pivotal Little Fawn Lake sequence was relegated to a speech in the recap scene in the middle. Apparently, Montgomery and company tried to film that scene on location, but the subjective camera treatment proved harder to do in the great outdoors back then, so they gave up. I’d love to see how today’s filmmakers would do it, with all the different equipment and resources available! I also liked David Snell’s music (with an assist by an uncredited Maurice Goldman), and the way he made the Christmas background music sound increasingly foreboding. According to the IMDb, Goldman said, “I never got credit for being the composer of the choral score for Lady in the Lake. In those days, young, unknown composers who were hoping for a career writing film scores got their foot in the door by letting someone else take credit for their work. We had to agree, as long as we received some musical credit for our part in the film’s music.”

However you feel about the subjective camera approach, all the performances are top-notch, including supporting players Tom Tully (Oscar-nominee for The Caine Mutiny) as honest cop Captain Fergus X. Kane; Lloyd Nolan as Lt. DeGarmot, a conniving cop who knows more than he’s telling; and an intense dramatic turn by young Jayne Meadows SPOILER ALERT…who essentially plays three characters!...END SPOILER ALERT. I also love the little throwaway bits here and there, like the phone chat Marlowe overhears in the Press Room (“Palm Springs? What’s the matter with Anaheim?”); the coroner’s mild disappointment when he’s told that the corpse in question, Lavery, is a man; and my favorite, Captain Kane’s phone conversation with his wife and child as he prepares to play Santa Claus for his “little dumplin’ darlin’.” Montgomery’s sardonic snap mostly works well for cynical Marlowe, though he sometimes forgets to tone it down during tender dialogue with Adrienne, making him sound like cinema’s crankiest Marlowe! Totter eventually tones down her mugging and becomes genuinely affecting as her Adrienne, after trying to be “the bright, hard lady,” lets down her guard and her hair (almost literally), with love growing between Marlowe and Adrienne at last. You may love or hate this Lady..., but if you enjoy Chandler’s mysteries and film noir in general, and you’re intrigued by offbeat movie-making techniques, I urge you to give her a try! Don’t forget to watch it on Friday, December 23rd at 10:00 p.m. EST

"Mommy, that man shot Santa Claus!"
There are Christmas movies and there are Christmas movies. Some movies are about Christmas itself, and usually involve a young child helping someone regain the spirit of Christmas; usually a relative, or if you're really lucky, a bear or an alien or something. Then there are the films that merely happen AT Christmas, which are usually more fun as they become holiday perennials almost by accident, much in the same way that the classic and controversial song "Baby it's Cold Outside" has become a de facto Christmas song, presumably because it involves snow.
Trancers is one of the latter. It takes place in Los Angeles at Christmastime, which means you wouldn't be able to tell at all save for the occasional holiday greeting, the punk band singing "Jingle Balls" and the zombie Santa trying to kill our hero with a set of mounted reindeer antlers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is a policeman in the 23rd century of Angel City, a city built after The Great Quake sank most of California into the ocean. After losing his wife to psychic cult leader Martin Whistler, he dedicates his life to bringing Whistler down, as well as his near-zombie mind slaves, known as Trancers. When Trancers are killed, the promptly disintegrate, leaving behind nothing but a scorch mark on the floor, hence the term for their execution; being "singed". The film starts off seeming to be an...oh, let's go with "homage" of Blade Runner, but very quickly reveals itself to be more of a Terminator pastiche. Whistler is revealed to be alive, surviving his last battle with Deth and has escaped into the past, planning to kill the ancestors of the city's High Council. He's already destroyed one of the three when Jack is called in to go after Whistler.

They have interesting time-travel rules in the film - they can send back small inanimate objects, but not people. Instead, one takes a drug which sends you back "down the line" into one of your genetic ancestors. They'll watch over his body in the future, along with that of Whistler, who they found in a secret hideout in the desert, having already escaped down the line. The plan is to capture Whistler and return him to their time so he can be tried. Jack offers another plan - he singes Whistler's body, making sure that when he finds him, there'll be no coming back for the madman.

They send Jack back to 1985, where his ancestor is a journalist, and Whistler's is a high-profile police detective. Jack arrives after what was apparently a very successful one-night stand with Lena (Helen Hunt), who he drives to work at a local mall, where she's a photographer for the Santa Claus booth. Whistler has apparently been quite busy amassing an army of Trancers - when they enter the mall, Santa recognizes Jack and attempts to kill him, resulting in a exciting yet hilarious battle in Santa's workshop. Jack ends up shooting Jolly Old Saint Nick and runs off with Lena, to whom he hastily explains his situation.
His job is relatively simple - protect the ancestors of the remaining council members. Well, simple unless you count the fact that all he has to go on is a photo of one, a baseball card of the other, a gun (with two doses of the time-drug antidote in the handgrip) and a funky watch that slows time for a few seconds, and Whistler has the LAPD at his command, and a growing army of Trancers. Indeed, by the time Deth catches up with one of the Council's great-times-your-age-grand-father, he's already been Tranced. They track down the last remaining ancestor, former baseball player and now drunken Sterno-bum Hap Ashby.
As pleasant as Helen Hunt is to look at (especially at this age...woo), this film, indeed the entire series rises and falls at the awesome charisma of Tim Thomerson. A solid stand-up comic and busy character actor, he plays Jack Deth like an old school street P.I. - no surprise when he starts surfing the channels of 1985 he becomes enamored of Peter Gunn reruns. It's a shame he never got the same level of Geek fame as a Bruce Campbell. It's likely the folks they got to work with - Bruce partnered with Sam Raimi who has gone on to do great things, and Tim never really advanced past the mid-low budget of Band and New Moon.
The plot is solid, and pretty original, with moments of great dialogue. The film is played fairly straight until the first After being saved from nearly being roasted alive in a turned-up-to-11 tanning booth, Jack's first words as he comes to is "How's my tan?" You know things are gonna be fun shortly after the fight in the mall starts and Mrs. Claus calls security with an ominous "There's trouble at the North Pole". It's hard to ride the balance between a straight sci-fi film with moments of comedy and an out-and-out parody, but they do it well here. The film also features Telma Hopkins, half of Tony Orlando's Dawn who built up a solid acting resume in the 80s and 90s and well-recognized "That Guy!' character actor Art laFleur.
First appearing at Charles Band's Empire Pictures and the franchise moving with him to New Moon, they made 5 Trancers films, two of which written by talented comics and sci-fi writer Peter David. One of the most successful series they had, along with the Puppet Master series, they tried to make a new film a few years back, but without Thomerson, and suffered a deserved failure. As is true of a lot of the low-budget horror flicks, if you don't blink you'll see people who went on to really be somebody. Look in the credits, down in the art team, you'll find one Frank Darabont.
The first two films are on Netflix Instant, and are well worth your time. The last film's for squids.

Have Yourself an SF-Film Noir Christmas! LADY IN THE LAKE and TRANCERS

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours from Team Bartilucci! When genres collide during the holiday season, you know you’re in for one of our double-feature blog posts. Hope you’ll enjoy them!

Adrienne Fromsett in The Big, Big Phone!

Director /star Robert Montgomery's advice:
Don't look directly into the tomato-cam!

Whaddaya mean, I'm mugging?

Dorian's Pick: Lady in the Lake (1947)

In Lady in the Lake (LitL), the durable Robert Montgomery not only played author Raymond Chandler’s tough but noble P.I. Philip Marlowe, he also made his solo directorial debut, having previously helped director John Ford to finish the 1945 war drama They Were Expendable when Ford broke his leg on location. Marlowe draws on his life of detection and crime-fighting to write a short story, “If I Should Die Before I Live.” (“They tell me the profits are good,” Marlowe says dryly. Wow, how can I get in on this gig?) Marlowe submits his work to Kingsby Publications, home of such pulp fiction mags as Lurid Detective and Murder Masterpieces. (Maybe Marlowe can go out to lunch with Walter Mitty and pick up pulp fiction tips!) Before he can say “byline,” editor Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter in her first major leading role after her memorable appearance in The Postman Always Rings Twice) has Marlowe up to his neck in murder, dirty cops, and missing dames, including Chrystal Kingsby (or “Crystal” if you believe the wire from El Paso in Adrienne’s apartment), the wife of Kingsby Publications’ head honcho Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames from The Postman Always Rings Twice, Meet Me At St. Louis, They Were Expendable, and so much more!). To top it off, you can see things Marlowe’s way, literally!

Between LitL and the rueful Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall noir drama Dark Passage, 1947 seemed to be The Year of the Subjective Camera. Before all those slasher movies came along during the last few decades, LitL used the subjective camera treatment; hell, the camera was practically a character in the flick!

The mirror has two faces!

Throughout most of LitL, we see everything exactly as Marlowe sees it; the only times we see Marlowe/Montgomery’s mug is when he looks in a mirror, as well as in a brief prologue, an entrè-acte segment, and an epilogue. In the trailer featured on the spiffy DVD version of LitL (along with an enjoyable and informative commentary track by ace film historians Alain Silver and James Ursini), MGM’s publicity department did its best to push the film as the first interactive movie experience: “MGM presents a Revolutionary motion picture; the most amazing since Talkies began! YOU and ROBERT MONTGOMERY solve a murder mystery together! YOU accept an invitation to a blonde’s apartment! YOU get socked in the jaw by a murder suspect!” 

YOU occasionally start snickering in spite of yourself when the subjective camera gimmick teeters dangerously close to parodying itself, like when Adrienne moves in for a smooch with Our Hero The Camera. As Totter’s Adrienne spars verbally with Marlowe in the first half of the film, some of her facial expressions are pretty funny, too, though I’m not sure all of them were meant to be. Totter uses the arched eyebrow technique done so much more effectively later by Leonard Nimoy on Star Trek; Angela Lindvall in CQ, Roman Coppola’s affectionate salute to 1960s pop art films; Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson; and one of Team Bartilucci’s favorites, sexy Eunice Gayson from the early James Bond thrillers Dr. No and From Russia with Love.

Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, a gigolo? Say it ain't so!

Happiness is a warm gun for Christmas!

The mirror has one face and a beautiful babe!

In Totter’s defense, I’d like to point out that she and the rest of the cast had quite

Adrienne gets close-up and personal with Marlow

a challenge on their hands, considering that they all pretty much had to re-learn how to act in front of the camera for LitL. As Jeff Stafford wrote in his article on the TCM Web site, “A good deal of the budget went toward elaborate camera set-ups and breakaway sets. ‘The real challenge was the filming itself,’ Montgomery told writer John Tuska in his book, The Detective in Hollywood. ‘We had to do a lot of rehearsing. Actors are trained not to look at the camera. I had to overcome all that training. I had a basket installed under the camera and sat there so that, at least, the actors could respond to me, even if they couldn’t look directly at me.’”

Having said that, I felt that the subjective camera technique in LitL worked more often than not. In particular, I thought the fight scenes and a harrowing sequence where an injured Marlowe crawls out of his wrecked car worked beautifully. It helps that Steve Fisher provided a good solid screenplay for Chandler’s novel, though Chandler purists were annoyed and disappointed that the novel’s pivotal Little Fawn Lake sequence was relegated to a speech in the recap scene in the middle. Apparently, Montgomery and company tried to film that scene on location, but the subjective camera treatment proved harder to do in the great outdoors back then, so they gave up. I’d love to see how today’s filmmakers would do it, with all the different equipment and resources available! I also liked David Snell’s music (with an assist by an uncredited Maurice Goldman), and the way he made the Christmas background music sound increasingly foreboding. According to the IMDb, Goldman said, “I never got credit for being the composer of the choral score for Lady in the Lake. In those days, young, unknown composers who were hoping for a career writing film scores got their foot in the door by letting someone else take credit for their work. We had to agree, as long as we received some musical credit for our part in the film’s music.” 

However you feel about the subjective camera approach, all the performances are top-notch, including supporting players Tom Tully (Oscar-nominee for The Caine Mutiny) as honest cop Captain Fergus X. Kane; Lloyd Nolan as Lt. DeGarmot, a conniving cop who knows more than he’s telling; and an intense dramatic turn by young Jayne Meadows SPOILER ALERT…who essentially plays three characters!...END SPOILER ALERT. I also love the little throwaway bits here and there, like the phone chat Marlowe overhears in the Press Room (“Palm Springs? What’s the matter with Anaheim?”); the coroner’s mild disappointment when he’s told that the corpse in question, Lavery, is a man; and my favorite, Captain Kane’s phone conversation with his wife and child as he prepares to play Santa Claus for his “little dumplin’ darlin’.” Montgomery’s sardonic snap mostly works well for cynical Marlowe, though he sometimes forgets to tone it down during tender dialogue with Adrienne, making him sound like cinema’s crankiest Marlowe! Totter eventually tones down her mugging and becomes genuinely affecting as her Adrienne, after trying to be “the bright, hard lady,” lets down her guard and her hair (almost literally), with love growing between Marlowe and Adrienne at last. You may love or hate this Lady..., but if you enjoy Chandler’s mysteries and film noir in general, and you’re intrigued by offbeat movie-making techniques, I urge you to give her a try! Don’t forget to watch it on Friday, December 23rd at 10:00 p.m. EST

"Mommy, that man shot Santa Claus!"
There are Christmas movies and there are Christmas movies. Some movies are about Christmas itself, and usually involve a young child helping someone regain the spirit of Christmas; usually a relative, or if you're really lucky, a bear or an alien or something. Then there are the films that merely happen AT Christmas, which are usually more fun as they become holiday perennials almost by accident, much in the same way that the classic and controversial song "Baby it's Cold Outside" has become a de facto Christmas song, presumably because it involves snow.
Trancers is one of the latter. It takes place in Los Angeles at Christmastime, which means you wouldn't be able to tell at all save for the occasional holiday greeting, the punk band singing "Jingle Balls" and the zombie Santa trying to kill our hero with a set of mounted reindeer antlers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson) is a policeman in the 23rd century of Angel City, a city built after The Great Quake sank most of California into the ocean. After losing his wife to psychic cult leader Martin Whistler, he dedicates his life to bringing Whistler down, as well as his near-zombie mind slaves, known as Trancers. When Trancers are killed, the promptly disintegrate, leaving behind nothing but a scorch mark on the floor, hence the term for their execution; being "singed". The film starts off seeming to be an...oh, let's go with "homage" of Blade Runner, but very quickly reveals itself to be more of a Terminator pastiche. Whistler is revealed to be alive, surviving his last battle with Deth and has escaped into the past, planning to kill the ancestors of the city's High Council. He's already destroyed one of the three when Jack is called in to go after Whistler.
They have interesting time-travel rules in the film - they can send back small inanimate objects, but not people. Instead, one takes a drug which sends you back "down the line" into one of your genetic ancestors. They'll watch over his body in the future, along with that of Whistler, who they found in a secret hideout in the desert, having already escaped down the line. The plan is to capture Whistler and return him to their time so he can be tried. Jack offers another plan - he singes Whistler's body, making sure that when he finds him, there'll be no coming back for the madman.
They send Jack back to 1985, where his ancestor is a journalist, and Whistler's is a high-profile police detective. Jack arrives after what was apparently a very successful one-night stand with Lena (Helen Hunt), who he drives to work at a local mall, where she's a photographer for the Santa Claus booth. Whistler has apparently been quite busy amassing an army of Trancers - when they enter the mall, Santa recognizes Jack and attempts to kill him, resulting in a exciting yet hilarious battle in Santa's workshop. Jack ends up shooting Jolly Old Saint Nick and runs off with Lena, to whom he hastily explains his situation.
His job is relatively simple - protect the ancestors of the remaining council members. Well, simple unless you count the fact that all he has to go on is a photo of one, a baseball card of the other, a gun (with two doses of the time-drug antidote in the handgrip) and a funky watch that slows time for a few seconds, and Whistler has the LAPD at his command, and a growing army of Trancers. Indeed, by the time Deth catches up with one of the Council's great-times-your-age-grand-father, he's already been Tranced. They track down the last remaining ancestor, former baseball player and now drunken Sterno-bum Hap Ashby.
As pleasant as Helen Hunt is to look at (especially at this age...woo), this film, indeed the entire series rises and falls at the awesome charisma of Tim Thomerson. A solid stand-up comic and busy character actor, he plays Jack Deth like an old school street P.I. - no surprise when he starts surfing the channels of 1985 he becomes enamored of Peter Gunn reruns. It's a shame he never got the same level of Geek fame as a Bruce Campbell. It's likely the folks they got to work with - Bruce partnered with Sam Raimi who has gone on to do great things, and Tim never really advanced past the mid-low budget of Band and New Moon.
The plot is solid, and pretty original, with moments of great dialogue. The film is played fairly straight until the first After being saved from nearly being roasted alive in a turned-up-to-11 tanning booth, Jack's first words as he comes to is "How's my tan?" You know things are gonna be fun shortly after the fight in the mall starts and Mrs. Claus calls security with an ominous "There's trouble at the North Pole". It's hard to ride the balance between a straight sci-fi film with moments of comedy and an out-and-out parody, but they do it well here. The film also features Telma Hopkins, half of Tony Orlando's Dawn who built up a solid acting resume in the 80s and 90s and well-recognized "That Guy!' character actor Art laFleur.
First appearing at Charles Band's Empire Pictures and the franchise moving with him to New Moon, they made 5 Trancers films, two of which written by talented comics and sci-fi writer Peter David. One of the most successful series they had, along with the Puppet Master series, they tried to make a new film a few years back, but without Thomerson, and suffered a deserved failure. As is true of a lot of the low-budget horror flicks, if you don't blink you'll see people who went on to really be somebody. Look in the credits, down in the art team, you'll find one Frank Darabont.
The first two films are on Netflix Instant, and are well worth your time. The last film's for squids.

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...."

THE FALLEN SPARROW: Surrender to Dorothy!

Before we begin, here's a NEWS FLASH for folks playing Page's Six Degrees of Separation game: our awesome fellow blogger Monty of All Good Things passed the baton to me, since the next Six Degrees involved linking Gert Frobe to Goldie Hawn. To my surprise, I got it in one stroke: Frobe and Goldie Hawn were both in the 1971 caper comedy "$" (a.k.a. Dollars). So I picked Myrna Loy and Danny Kaye for the next challenge for awesome fellow blogger Lara from Backlots. Thanks!

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Author Dorothy B. Hughes

And now for our feature presentation,  the subject of this week’s blog post, the 1943 film version of Hughes’ paranoid wartime thriller The Fallen Sparrow (TFS)!  Novelist Dorothy B. Hughes knew how to build a good head of paranoia and suspense in her novels. No wonder Hollywood knocked on her door after her first novel, The So Blue Marble (1940), became a best-seller! Three of Hughes’ 15 suspense thrillers were made into classic movies, including In a Lonely Place in 1950; Ride the Pink Horse in 1947; and of course, TFS. RKO skillfully and faithfully adapted Hughes’ novel for the silver screen. Director Richard Wallace (this versatile director’s wide variety of films included Captain Caution, Framed, and It’s in the Bag!), screenwriter Warren Duff, and editor Robert Wise had their hands full trying to condense the novel’s complicated relationships and events without watering it down. Hughes’ thrillers were brilliant, with memorable characters, but her plots are also quite complex, keeping readers on their toes as well as on the edge of their seats. It was worth it; all concerned did a masterful job of bringing TFS to the big screen!

Don't you love film/book tie-ins?

Set in November 1940, TFS starts with the quote “...in a world at war many sparrows must fall....” The film brings us into the mindset of troubled yet determined hero John “Kit” McKittrick (John Garfield). Lt. Louie Lepetino, Kit’s boyhood friend, had helped him escape the Spanish prison where he’d been tortured for two agonizing years after the Spanish Civil War. Returning to New York City from a ranch rest cure, Kit’s stunned to discover that Louie’s been killed in a 12-story fall from a window at a swanky party for two wartime refugees, Dr. Skaas (Walter Slezak) and his nephew Otto (Hugh Beaumont before his TV stardom on Leave it to Beaver). Hell-bent on proving Louie’s death was neither accidental nor a suicide, Kit starts sleuthing, with help from pal Ab Parker (the likable Bruce Edwards, who earned his first film credit in TFS after many uncredited roles). Kit’s grim goal: killing Louie’s killer.

Does that look like the
French Connection movie ad, or what?

Hughes sure knew how to grip a reader with suspense while evoking the feeling and atmosphere of wintertime World War 2 Manhattan, even if some of her turns of phrase (such as a reference to one character’s “wrathy eyes”) looked a little odd to this modern reader. Her portrait of the era’s upscale café society characters and their milieu is presented with both glamour and bitterness as seen through war veteran Kit’s eyes. His viewpoint is especially intriguing because, it’s indicated, he’s had trouble fitting in for some time, having been raised in a working class environment only to be shoehorned into the glamorous life when his policeman dad came into money, which only turned into more money when his mother became a widow and married into the upper crust. When I first watched the movie version, I was glad to see the film got that right.

"Dear Louie: I'm out of my hed. O hurry or I may be ded...."

FF #1 Barby Taviton: rich, hot refugee den mother

Kit’s suspects include just about everyone in his upscale circle of friends, especially the women, since he’s gotten it into his head that surely only a dame could’ve gotten close enough to Louie to shove him out a window. The trio of gorgeous suspects include:

FF #2:  Whitney Parker, The "Content Imp" 

Femme Fatale Candidate #1: Patricia Morison as Kit’s alluring old flame Barby Taviton. Stunning brunette Morison may not look like the blonde Barby described in Hughes’s novel, but she’s got the right sophistication and entitled attitude. Ironically, Morison’s many films included The Song of Bernadette and Song of the Thin Man, but she never sings in TFS! That honor went to:

Femme Fatale Candidate #2: Martha O’Driscoll as Whitney Parker, Ab’s young chanteuse cousin, affectionately nicknamed “The Imp.” The appealing O’Driscoll got plenty of work in the 1940s, including roles in Reap the Wild Wind and The Lady Eve, as well as playing Daisy Mae in the first film version of Li’l Abner from 1940. By the way, Whitney’s name was actually “Content Hamilton” in Hughes’ novel (she was the one with the aforementioned “wrathy eyes”), but I prefer Whitney’s new movie-friendly name. I must admit that as I read the book, my eyes kept tripping over the name “Content”! For all I know, “Content” might have been a popular name for girls back in the early 1930s and ’40s, but to my 21st-century eyes, reading “Content” as a person’s first name looked odd, yanking me out of the story several times before I finally resigned myself to it.

FF #3: Mysterious refugee Toni Donne. God bless America!

Femme Fatale Candidate #3: Team Bartilucci favorite Maureen O’Hara as  lovely, guarded, sad-eyed refugee Toni Donne, who’s falling in love with Kit despite her wariness (admittedly, Kit's a convincing, persistent fella), but there’s some terrible hold over her. O’Hara’s performance is a big change from the fiery, strong-willed redhead we all know and love from The Quiet Man and so many other great films. Somehow I think Toni and House of Cards’ Anne de Villemont should get together and start a support group for women in sinister neo-Gothic households!

At least Kit doesn't have to sit with Bruno Antony!

But Kit’s biggest obstacle is that he has what we now call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He’s still haunted by the memory of the mysterious man from Franco’s elite Nazi squad, a limping man (called “Wobblefoot” in the novel; in the film, he’s simply “The man who limps”) who tortured Kit relentlessly in his dark cell, trying to make our troubled but determined hero reveal where he’d hidden his regiment’s battle standard. (In the novel, the MacGuffin was a set of fabulous Babylon goblets the defiant Kit took from the enemy. The goblets are in the film, but Duff’s script emphasizes that battle flag and the symbolism behind it.) Even now, Kit struggles against fear as he imagines hearing the drag and thump that signaled his sadistic tormentor’s arrival—or is he imagining it? Terror mounts as Kit slowly realizes his enemies may have followed him home, maybe even planting their spies into every aspect of Kit’s life, placing not only himself in danger, but also his friends and loved ones. Even the innocent Whitney’s accompanist Anton is suspect—especially considering he’s played by young John Banner in his pre-Hogan’s Heroes days!

Kit has a Bernard Herrmann moment. Next time, he should play some nice, soothing violin music!

The role of Kit fits John Garfield like a glove (no, not a boxing glove, though Garfield seemed able to handle himself despite his real-life health issues). Even when his character is fighting his fears, he commands the screen as a working-class, self-described “mug” in gent’s clothing, with a heart full of determination and all-but-shattered ideals. Garfield’s toughness, tenderness, and humor have us rooting for Kit immediately. As in the book, Kit spends lots of time and energy trying to convince himself he’s not afraid, only to be proved wrong, to his frustration. Author Hughes’s haunting descriptions of Kit’s memories of his horrific Spain ordeal in the book are conveyed well in Garfield’s powerful monologue, enhanced by the camera’s slow close-up on his expressive face. The sweat on Garfield’s brow and the twitch in his cheek as he finally faces his enemy during the climax speaks volumes. If you ask me, TFS showcases one of John Garfield’s finest performances; he should have gotten an Oscar nomination!

Smooches, balloons, and plush penguins?
I totally want to know more about Kit and Toni's date!

Lovely Maureen O’Hara tries to downplay her Irish accent, but it still lurks in certain words. While our family adores O’Hara, I’ll admit she wouldn’t have been our first choice as a femme fatale, but Toni’s inner fear and regret come through in O’Hara’s poignant, soulful portrayal, winning my sympathy. O’Hara also has great fire-and-ice chemistry with the intense Garfield. When Kit kissed Toni in the novel, she never kissed back with any kind of enthusiasm, especially considering her cautious-bordering-on-icy reserve. But in this film version, Kit and Toni finally share longing kisses and tender embraces—much more fun to watch!

Walter Slezak’s performance as Dr. Skaas is silkily sinister, though I felt that his true evil nature was telegraphed much earlier than in the book, with his interest in “the cruelties of men towards other men” and “comparing modern scientific torture with the methods of the ancients,” who apparently didn’t mess with victims’ heads enough for Skaas’ liking! An avuncular hybrid of Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Clifton Webb, Slezak is one of 1940s cinema’s most memorable villains.
TFS keeps the paranoia percolating and the suspense simmering. I was especially glad to see that the filmmakers included much of the novel’s best dialogue, with only minor tweaks. They truly evoked the feeling and atmosphere of wintertime World War 2 Manhattan, underscored by Roy Webb and Constantine
Bakaleinikoff’s Oscar-nominated score. Today’s audiences might not understand Kit’s obsession with the battle flag, even with the explanatory scene at Toni’s home. Then again, I bet the men and women now fighting overseas will get the significance of a battle standard and what it symbolizes!

Kit's crowd has the swankiest suspects this side of The Thin Man movies!

Otto and Dr. Skaas dish new tips from Popular Torture Monthly
(Can you believe that's young Hugh Beaumont on the left?

Although Dorothy B. Hughes’s mysteries were best-sellers in her heyday, they seemed to be all but forgotten after she retired to focus on her family. Luckily, the film version of TFS captures her tale of terror beautifully. If you want to read the book, Amazon.com has both new and used paperback editions available so you can rediscover her. Interestingly, the 1988 paperback edition I read had cover art with an uncanny resemblance to, of all things, the movie poster for The French Connection!

On the TCM Web site, writer Andrea Passafiume wrote, “RKO bought the rights to the novel in 1942, but the political backdrop involving Nazi villains and Spanish Fascists was a bit of a hot-button issue at the time. RKO executive William Gordon fired off a memo to producer Robert Fellows that stated his three ‘areas of concern’ about the story’s content: ‘1. Desire of State Department to maintain friendliest relations with present Spanish government. 2. Possibility of Spain as ally. 3. Offensive to most Latin Americans.’ He even suggested that the film’s reference location should be changed from Spain to Nazi-invaded France. Similarly, Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration wrote to RKO saying, ‘We strongly urge that you consult your Foreign Department as to the advisability of the Spanish angle contained in this picture.’ Fellows chose to not be deterred by such warnings and moved forward with the film keeping all political angles and locations intact.”

"Talk treason to me, baby."

TFS brims with ambiance even apart from its palpable paranoid atmosphere. An otherwise decidedly mixed review in The New York Times (and it wasn’t even by the ever-picky Bosley Crowther! The only identification in the Times’ review from August 20th, 1943 were the initials “T.S.”) said, “What lifts the film above the merely far-fetched and macabre is largely the skill with which Director Wallace has used both soundtrack and camera to suggest the stresses upon (Kit’s) fear-drenched mind. A street lamp shining through a fire escape throws a lattice across a sweating face; in a shadowy room, the remembered footsteps mingle with the tinkle of a bell and become the sound of dripping water from a leaking faucet. And again, when the climax is being quietly prepared at a refugee gathering in a mansion, the strident strains and swirling skirts of a gypsy dance brush momentarily across the silence between the warring opponents. Through these scenes and others Mr. Garfield remains almost constantly convincing, and without his sure and responsive performance in a difficult role, Mr. Wallace’s effects would have been lost entirely.”  Happily, The Fallen Sparrow is available from Warner Archive for all to enjoy on DVD and downloads!

Who knew John Banner of
Hogan's Heroes was dapper?