Coming up very soon– my special tribute “Piper Laurie: The Girl Who Ate Flowers”
Quote of the Day! (1952) if you want to play with matches that’s your business
SCANDAL SHEET (1952)
Directed by Phil Karlson with a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman, Eugene Ling and James Poe. Based on the novel by Sam Fuller. With a score by the prolific George Dunning and gritty cinematography by Burnett Guffey (All the Kings Men 1949, From Here to Eternity 1953, Birdman of Alcatraz 1962, Bonnie and Clyde 1967).
Broderick Crawford is the new editor Mark Chapman of a New York newspaper who manages to grow the circulation of the ailing paper. But he sacrifices morality when it comes to increasing the range of his audience. He winds up turning the newspaper into a trashy tabloid rag, “pandering to the passions of the base moron.” John Derek plays top reporter Steve McCleary and Harry Morgan is wonderful as a wise cracking photographer Biddle, both who are chasing down a sensational front page grabber about a lurid murder. At the center is a Lonely Hearts Club dance sponsored by Chapman’s wife (Rosemary DeCamp) whom he deserted years ago. When Charlotte Grant (DeCamp) threatens to cause Chapman trouble in a fit of rage he accidentally kills her. He stages her death to look like she slipped in the bathtub, hitting her head on the faucet. McCleary senses something isn’t right and convinces the cops that it’s a case of murder. In order to avoid getting caught Chapman must plan to kill again to cover his tracks, so he enlists McCleary hoping to divert his attentions away from the truth. The film also co-stars Donna Reed as McCleary’s more traditional colleague, Henry O’Neill, and a cast of great character actors.
Biddle: “You know that wasn’t a bad looking dame. Too bad the guy used an axe on her head. Spoiled some pretty pictures for me.”
Steve McCleary “Very rare items. Pictures of a dame with her mouth shut.”
CLASH BY NIGHT (1952)
Directed by Fritz Lang with a screenplay by Alfred Hayes based on the play by Clifford Odet. The film stars Barbara Stanwyck as Mae Doyle D’Amato, Paul Douglas as Jerry D’Amato Robert Ryan as the volcanic Earl Pfeiffer, Marilyn Monroe as Peggy, J. Carrol Naish as Uncle Vince.
Clash By Night is a moody piece of noir with Barbara Stanwyck playing the world weary and cynical Mae Doyle, who returns home to her fishing community after her disillusionment living in the city. “Home is where you come when you run out of places.” Fisherman Paul Douglas is the kindhearted lug who winds up falling for Mae though he knows she’s filled with a fiery discontentment. Once Jerry introduces Mae to his friend Earl, an alienated woman-hater, the sexual tension develops. Earl spends his time getting drunk and obsessing about his stripper wife. At first Mae feels an instant aversion toward the gruff misogynist. Escaping the gravitational pull by the sexual attraction she feels with the dangerous Earl pushes her closer to marrying the clueless Jerry who is confounded by his sudden good fortune. Unfortunately this does not keep Earl away from Mae as he pursues her, who is by now disenchanted with playing the dutiful housewife and mother. Stanwyck is powerful as the unfaithful but guilt-ridden Mae. The film co-stars Marilyn Monroe as Peggy who idolizes Mae’s independent streak. J. Carrol Naish plays Paul Douglas’ no good Uncle Vince who mooches off his nephew. More of a dark Soap Opera than noir for it’s lack of crime, the film’s moodiness and gloomy edginess holds for me a place for Clash By Night in the noir cannon.
Mae Doyle D’Amato: “What do you want,Joe, my life’s history? Here is is in four words: Big ideas, small results.”
Peggy: “Weren’t you ever in love, Mae?”
Mae Doyle: “Once.”
Peggy: “Where?”
Mae Doyle: “Saint Paul. He was big too, like Jerry. I’ll say one thing. He knew how to handle women.”
Peggy: “Is that what you want from a man?”
Mae Doyle: “Confidence! I want a man to give me confidence. Somebody to fight off the blizzards and floods! Somebody to beat off the world when it tries to swallow you up! Me and my ideas.”
DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952)
Directed by British horror maestro Roy Ward Baker he brings a taut psychological spring waiting to be uncoiled. With a screen play by Daniel Taradash based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong. Cinematography by Lucien Ballard (The Killing 1956, The Wild Bunch 1969, The Getaway 1972) who creates closed in frames and a sense of paranoia and claustrophobic dread.
Marilyn Monroe is quite revelatory as Nell Forbes a very disturbed young woman who lives in a fantasy world and is a dangerous psychotic staying in a New York City hotel. Elisha Cook Jr. is the hotel elevator operator who is keeping an eye on his mental patient sister and tries to keep her out of trouble. He recommends that she babysit Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle’s daughter. This turns out to be a very very bad idea!
In the mean time Richard Widmark is Jed Towers the hard-hearted airline pilot who has just been dumped by his torch singer girlfriend (Anne Bancroft). Towers sees Nell through the window and gets the idea that the two can get together and share a drink. When Nell starts having delusions that Jed is her dead boyfriend, he realizes that something is wrong with this beautiful waif.
Jed Towers: “Are you the girl in 809?”
Nell Forbes: “Why, yes. Who’s this?”
Jed Towers: “I’m the guy in 821. Across the court. Can I ask you a question?”
Nell Forbes: “I don’t know. I suppose so. Are you sure you want me?”
Jed Towers: “Yeah. You’re the one I want, alright. Are you doing anything you couldn’t be doing better with somebody else?”
Nell Forbes: “I guess I’ll have to hang up!”
Jed Towers: “Why? You cant get hurt on the telephone.”
Nell Forbes: “Who are you?”
Jed Towers: “I told you. The man across the way. A lonely soul”
Nell Forbes: “You sound peculiar.”
Jed Towers: “I’m not peculiar. I’m just frustrated. I got a bottle of rye. And as I was saying, what are you doing?”
Jed Towers: “You and your wife fight, argue all the time?”
Joe the Bartender: “Some of the time she sleeps.”
THE NARROW MARGIN (1952)
Directed by Richard Fleischer with a screenplay by Earl Felton from a story by Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard. With the polished, compelling and claustrophobic cinematography by George E. Diskant. (They Live By Night 1948, On Dangerous Ground 1951).
Charles McGraw plays the tough Det. Sgt. Walter Brown who is assigned to protect a mobster’s widow Marie Windsor as Mrs. Frankie Neall, who is traveling by train from Chicago to Los Angeles, while the vicious assassins try with fervor to take Frankie Neall’s wife out of commission so she can’t testify. Aboard the train is Jacqueline White as Ann Sinclair who Detective Brown fears will be mistaken for mobster’s widow.
The sarcastic Windsor and rough edged McGraw possess there usual grit and there’s a memorable scene where the corpulent actor Paul Maxey is blocking the train’s passageway he comments amiably that “Nobody loves a fat man except his grocer and his tailor.”
Det Sgt Gus Forbes: “What kind of a dish?”
Det Sgt Walter Brown: “Sixty-cent special. Cheap. Flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy.”
Walter Brown: “Sister, I’ve known some pretty hard cases in my time; you make ’em all look like putty. You’re not talking about a sack of gumdrops that’s gonna be smashed – you’re talking about a dame’s life! You may think it’s a funny idea for a woman with a kid to stop a bullet for you, only I’m not laughing!”
Mrs Neall: “Where do you get off, being so superior? Why shouldn’t I take advantage of her – I want to live! If you had to step on someone to get something you wanted real bad, would you think twice about it?”
Walter Brown: “Shut up!”
Mrs Neall: “In a pig’s eye you would! You’re no different from me.”
Walter Brown: “Shut up!”
Mrs Neall: “Not till I tell you something, you cheap badge-pusher! When we started on this safari, you made it plenty clear I was just a job, and no joy in it, remember?”
Walter Brown: “Yeah, and it still goes, double!”
Mrs Neall: “Okay, keep it that way. I don’t care whether you dreamed up this gag or not; you’re going right along with it, so don’t go soft on me. And once you handed out a line about poor Forbes getting killed, ’cause it was his duty. Well, it’s your duty too! Even if this dame gets murdered.”
Walter Brown: “You make me sick to my stomach.”
Mrs Neall: “Well, use your own sink. And let me know when the target practice starts! “
This is your EverLovin’ Joey, just sayin’ in a noir world– if you play with matches you’re liable to get burned!
Quote of the Day! Holiday Affair (1949)
HOLIDAY AFFAIR (1949)
Connie–“It’s an awfully little train to carry enough dynamite to change a person’s life.”
Carl ” Anything can change a life that’s ready to be changed.”
Holiday Affair is a delightful romantic comedy with great dialogue and more than just a few humorous scenes to make you feel good this holiday season. directed by Don Hartman, with a screenplay by Isobel Lennert based on the story Christmas Gift by John D. Weaver.
It’s a few days before Christmas. Janet Leigh plays Connie Ennis, a secret shopper who gets the philosophical and straight talking Steve Mason (Robert Mitchum) fired when he neglects to turn her in after she tries to return the train set she purchases for her employer. Connie is a single mom, who is raising a wonderful little boy named Timmy (Gordon Gebert) but living in the shadows of her dead husband who was killed in the war. She is being romanced by Carl Davis (Wendell Corey) but once Steve enters Connie’s life, her whole world is thrown upside down.
This is your EverLovin Joey wishing you a wonderful Holiday Affair!
From the Vault: Christmas Holiday (1944) “You can let go now Abigail”
Love…was her crime! Love…was her punishment!
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY is Based on the screenplay by W. Somerset Maugham and the novel by Herman J. Mankiewicz and directed by the underrated Robert Siodmak who directed two of the most powerful film noirs of the 1940s- Phantom Lady 1944, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry 1945, The Spiral Staircase 1946, The Dark Mirror 1946 and The Killers 1946.
Starring Deanna Durbin, Gene Kelly, Dean Harens, Gail Sondergaard who brings that signature artfully subdued menace (The Letter 1940, The Spider Woman Strikes Back 1946) , Gladys George and Richard Whorf.
It’s Christmas Eve and Army Lt. Charles Mason’s (Dean Harens) flight to San Francisco is forced to land in New Orleans. He is forced to spend a lonely Christmas there after receiving a telegram from his fiancée Mona that she has married another guy. Lt. Mason is heartbroken after being dumped and stranded by the bad weather. He winds up at a nightclub/brothel run by the amiable Valerie De Merode (Gladys George) where he meets sultry singer Deanna Durbin, named Jackie Lamont. Richard Whorf plays reporter Simon Fenimore who first introduces Jackie to Lt. Mason. Simon tells Jackie- “Isn’t that the way things always seem to happen. You’re getting along alight and suddenly boom! you have to make a forced landing.”
Jackie asks Lt. Mason if he’ll take her to midnight Mass, where she begins to break down. Jackie begins to to relate her story told in flashback of how she wound up feeling so despondent. Her real name is Abigail Martin/Mannette from Vermont. She tells him how she fell in love and married Robert Mannette a charming but troubled gambler with an Oedipal complex who is ruled over by his domineering and overly protective mother (Gail Sondergaard).
Jackie/Abigail tells Lt. Mason “He was so gay, so charming, so different.”
The newlyweds spend six months in bliss until Robert’s weakness and violent tendencies lead him to be arrested for the murder of his bookie.
Overnight their life changes. Robert comes home with an unexplained wad of cash and blood on his trousers, which his mother quickly burns in the incinerator out back, telling Abigail it’s her old dress she’s tired of. Lying to protect her son, all the time knowing he’s done something horrible, she even sews the cash inside the seams of the curtains. But Abigail burns the money before the police come with their search warrant.
Abigail calmly- “I burnt the money mother.” Mrs. Mannette-“Abigail I swear to you by all my love for him and for you that Robert did not kill Teddy Jordan.” Abigail-“You know, and I know mother… that he did.” Mrs. Mannette turns on Abigail maniacally –“Are you going to turn against him too. From the day you married him, I think now from the day you met him, you closed your eyes to what it was all about, to what he was all about. Selfishly just so you could be happy. He needed your strength that’s why I let him marry you. And all you gave him back was his own weakness!”
“I love Robert” Mrs. Mannette- “No you don’t. It’s I who love him and keep on loving him.”
The film has a creeping sinister Siodmak atmosphere with it’s dark spaces and psychological narrative. Sondergaard hovers over the house like a lurking spider knitting a web of preservation for her son.
In a telling scene she gives her blessing to Abigail to marry her son thinking that she will be his strength and keep him out of trouble and make him, “stronger”.
Mrs. Mannette-“Just one last thing. I want to be completely honest with you. There are certain traits in Robert that you may not… they’re nothing really evil. Believe me. He just sometimes forgets his sense of responsibility, that’s all. And that’s why I’m so glad that you’re the kind of person you are. Between us, we will make him strong.”
As the the story unwinds, and Robert winds up in prison doing a life sentence, Mrs. Mannette blames her daughter in law for making Robert weak. Mrs. Mannette, “You killed him!!!”
Abigail feeling guilty about failing her husband, throws herself into self imposed exile by taking up at the bordello filled with self hatred and longing for Robert.
Jackie/Abigail tells Lt. Mason as he walks up and down the hotel room, thinking about Mona in San Fransisco,- “What is there about pacing back and forth like a caged lion that makes a man feel better? I tried it myself once didn’t do me any good.”
Once Jackie/Abigail finishes her story to Lt. Mason, the two part wishing each other luck. But the story does not end there. The beauty of the film is partly the lead actors being cast as doomed lovers both doing a fabulous job at playing against type. The music throughout the film is wonderful, in particular Durbin’s moving rendition of Irving Berlin’s Always, and the simply beautiful song I’ll Remember April performed as background music by the nightclub band.
Here it is December 17th and a perfect time to publish a tribute to this taut little noir gem that was originally performed on “Lux Radio Theater” broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on September 17, 1945 with Loretta Young as Jackie/Abigail, William Holden as Lt. Mason, and David Bruce as Robert Manette.
Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz changed the setting from a Paris brothel to a nightclub in New Orleans and the main character was changed from a prostitute to a more ambiguous nightclub singer and hostess, when adapting the 1939 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, due to the Hays Code.
This is your everlovin’ Joey saying have a lovely!, flaming!, brilliant!, dramatic! Christmas Holiday!
Enduring Grace: Barbara Rush
Tribute to the great Barbara Rush — saraismyname
I’ve loved Barbara Rush for as long as I can remember. In every role where she graced the screen she left a lasting impression on me. I’ve followed her career from major motion pictures to wonderful dramatic television programs. To me, she is one of the great screen stars of all time — there is no one quite like her and her subtle emotional layers of acting that get peeled away with each scene. Barbara Rush possesses an inimitable grace and fine beauty. She has a transcendent gracefulness and a speaking voice that pours like honey. And when her words are meant to cut it’s not with knives or claws but with a feather quill carefully placed, an intelligent stroking, a gentle lash across the heart to cause the hurt. She has the finesse of diamond cut. She moves with great poise of a dancer, a beautiful gazelle stirring in the gentle quiet spaces of silent woods. A smile that beams like the sunniest of days.
When I think of Barbara Rush I think of a versatile acting style and an ability to draw out deep emotions. She delivers all of her lines with a deft swiftness that is subtle in all directions, ironically, witty, seriously thoughtful and always deeply from the heart.
When I see Barbara Rush I see beauty personified by elegance and an emanating dignity. Barbara Rush will always remain in my eyes, one of the most gentlewoman of the screen. No matter what role she is inhabiting, she brings a certain kind of class that is not learned, it’s inherent. The actress also is the most kind and generous with her compliments and her fond rememberances of her fellow actors and colleagues. She worked with some the finest actors in Hollywood, stage, and television, co-starring with the most notable actors such as James Mason, Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Richard Burton and Kirk Douglas. Her roles were diverse– from savvy independent society girls, and disillusioned house wives, to an Irish spitfire and an iconic science fiction heroine.
She was born in Denver, Colorado in 1927 and graduated from University of California in 1948. Then she joined the University Players, taking acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse School for Performing Arts in Pasadena, California.
By Susan King Los Angeles Times: “She talks about everybody she’s worked with — even the notoriously difficult Joan Crawford — with an endearing sweetness that makes you feel like you’ve known her forever.
And in a way, we have…She fondly recalls her time on the set with Niven and others. “I was just this foolish young girl,” she said of her character. “David Niven, he made me laugh so hard. They couldn’t [shoot] me because I was laughing so hard. I kept apologizing. He was a raconteur, always telling stories about what he did. Nunnally Johnson made me laugh all the time. I was really hopeless.”
Rush worked with Frank Sinatra in the 1963 comedy Come Blow your Horn and in the 1964 Rat Pack musical “Robin and the Seven Hoods.” She admitted she was nervous about working with Sinatra because she learned he didn’t rehearse. “I am from the stage,” she said. “I really can’t do [a scene] unless I rehearse. I didn’t know what to do.”
Rush talked to an actress (Carolyn Jones) who had just worked with him. “She said, ‘This is what you do, Barbara. You go up to him and say, ‘Mr. Sinatra?’ He’ll say, ‘Call me Frank. Now what I can do for you?’
So, she asked Sinatra if they could rehearse their first scene just one time. “He said, ‘Baby doll, of course. I’ll do that with you. Clear the stage. Get everybody to leave. Barbara and I are going to go over the scene.’ We went over the scene just once. From then on, he said, ‘Are you OK? Do you want to go over it again?’ He was just wonderful to me. And he gave me my wardrobe by Edith Head [from the film]. I wore the most wonderful clothes.”
Paramount signed Barbara her to a contract in 1950. She debuted with The Goldbergs (1950) as Debby Sherman, acting with Gertrude Berg as Molly Goldberg. The Goldbergs became a popular television show that deals with the human interest story of famous Jewish Bronx radio & TV family the Goldbergs, their typical struggles and hilarious moments. The show co-stars David Opatoshu and Eduard Franz.
Barbara Rush met actor Jeffrey Hunter and they fell in love. The ideal pair became one of Hollywood’s most beloved couples at 20th Century Fox. Barbara Rush and Jeffrey Hunter were married in December of 1950 until their divorce in 1955. Tragically Hunter died of a stroke due to a head injury in 1969.
Barbara Rush also turned to work on the stage. She garnered the Sarah Siddons Award for her starring role in Forty Carats. Making her Broadway debut in the one woman showcase, “A Woman of Independent Means” which also subsequently earned her the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award during its tour. Other showcases included “Private Lives”, “Same Time, Next Year”, “The Night of the Iguana” and “Steel Magnolias”.
Barbara starred in director George Templeton’s Quebec (1951) with John Drew Barrymore and The First Legion (1951) directed by Douglas Sirk co-starring along side Charles Boyer.
Barbara Rush in When Worlds Collide (1951)
During her time at Paramount, Barbara Rush appeared in the science fiction catastrophic end of the world thriller directed by Rudolph Maté —When World’s Collide 1951 co-starring Richard Derr, Peter Hansen and John Hoyt. Then came her role as Nora Logan in Flaming Feather (1952).
Sterling Hayden, Barbara Rush and Forrest Tucker Flaming Feather (1952)
Barbara Rush in Jack Arnold’s It Came From Outer Space (1953)
In (1953) she appeared in Prince of Pirates co-starring John Derek. That same year she would take on the role of heroine Ellen Fields in Jack Arnold’s sublime It Came from Outer Space that would become an emblematic performance of a smart and self sufficient leading lady in a science fiction masterpiece, that would leave a legacy for years to come. Ellen-“I just wish we had found just one of them really. Just one little monster to toss into the principles bedroom!”
In it, she co-stars with Richard Carlson who discovers an alien ship has crash landed in the side of a mountain. From the beginning Ellen supports him and doesn’t cower from the threat of extraterrestrials taking over her small desert town. She’s a strong feminist figure whose alien double wields a nifty ray-gun.
Then she starred as Oona in Taza, Son of Cochise (1954), In 1954 Barbara Rush appeared in director Douglas Sirk’s Magnificent Obsession co-starring Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson and Agnes Moorehead. Barbara plays Jane Wyman’s step daughter Joyce. Rock Hudson is a playboy who is seriously injured in a boat crash indirectly causing the death of Jane Wyman’s husband. When he tries to ingratiate himself into her life she becomes blinded. He spends the rest of his life trying to find a deeper understanding of life and the two fall in love.
That same year she appeared in director Rudolph Maté’s The Black Shield of Falworth with Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. In 1955 Barbara Rush played Aga Doherty in Douglas Sirk’s Captain Lightfoot starring along side Rock Hudson, and acting with Jack Palance in the epic period piece Kiss of Fire (1955).
Barbara Rush in The Black Shield of Falworth (1955)
Barbara Rush and Jack Palance in Kiss of Fire (1955)
Captain Lightfoot 1955 takes place in 1815 Ireland struggling with the ordinary people of Ireland trying to separate themselves from the British Dragoons and seek their independence. Barbara is fiery and beautiful as Aga Doherty the daughter of an Irish Rebel Captain Thunderbolt played by Jeff Morrow. She falls for Rock Hudson a strong willed highwayman who strives to be like his hero Captain Thunderbolt. There is great chemistry between Hudson and Rush, as Aga adds a fiery spirit to the role, again exuding intelligence and that distinct sensibility to deliver lines in her sparkling cheeky manner.
Jeff Morrow, Rock Hudson and Barbara Rush in Captain Lightfoot 1955
Barbara Rush and James Mason in Bigger Than Life (1956)
In Bigger Than Life, mild-mannered schoolteacher Ed Avery (James Mason) suffers from severe headaches and blackouts. He is diagnosed with a rare inflammatory disease of the arteries. With death looming over him, he agrees to an experimental drug, cortisone. And at first he makes a remarkable recovery, but Ed begins to abuse the drug which causes wild mood swings and delusions of grandeur. Eventually he has a complete psychotic break and endangers the life of his family. Barbara Rush gives an emotionally heart wrenching performance as Ed’s beleaguered wife Lou who must support him through the madness.
Between 1954-1956 she appeared in 4 separate episodes of Lux Video Theater’s theatrical playets for television. Then in 1956 starred in World in My Corner with Audie Murphy and Jeff Morrow in this lesser known boxing noir. In 1956 Barbara also starred in the emotionally riveting drama Bigger Than Life with co-star James Mason as a teacher who progressively grows psychotic after trying a new drug.
Barbara portrays the sexy Pamela Vincent in the slick film noir Flight to Hong Kong with Rory Calhoun directed by Joseph M. Newman. Barbara appeared in director Nunnally Johnson’s hilarious romantic romp Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) co-starring David Niven, Ginger Rogers and a quirky debut by Tony Randall. Afterwards Barbara appeared in director Martin Ritt’s No Down Payment (1957) co-starring Joanne Woodward, Sheree North Tony Randall and Jeffrey Hunter.
Bigger Than Life (1956)
Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957)
In Flight to Hong Kong 1956 she plays an independent, sophisticated writer from San Fransisco who pursues a fling with the swarthy smuggler Rory Calhoun because he is wild and different than any other man she usually meets. Pamela is smooth as she maneuvers through the plot leading him on. But, she exploits their passionate fling to write another best selling book and goes back to living a high society life, leaving Tony to flounder after hiding out for a year on steamers. Barbara is good at being cool, collected and coy in this film noir. She plays a very unconventional femme fatale.
1957 Barbara appears as the flighty Myra Hagerman in Oh, Men!, Oh! Women. The scene with her emptying her purse is hilarious and showcases Barbara’s comedic timing. Myra is no stranger to dating men which throws the stiffly composed therapist into a tizzy because of her past. She’s set to marry psychiatrist David Niven who shows off his talent for finesse and comedic fortitude and it’s a delight to watch the banter between Barbara and Niven.
You can tell the actors were having fun with their roles, and you can almost see Barbara Rush holding back the laughter in her scenes with David Niven. They had to do many takes, as she tried to keep a straight face with him.
in director Martin Ritt’s No Down Payment 1957 Barbara does a fine job of playing housewife Betty Kreitzer married to Herman (Pat Hingle) with an ensemble cast in a film concerned with 1950s collective aspirations toward the American Dream and upcoming middle class white suburban families with frailties and secrets that’s get aired out over nightly BBQs. Barbara’s character is the steady rock in the community. She goes to church, isn’t a drinker, and is devoted to her husband Pat Hingle but she does not push him to strive for anything more than being mediocre and mainstream. Barbara Rush as Betty plays this type of middle class American housewife with an expert amount of reserved.
Barbara then appeared with Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, and Dean Martin in The Young Lions (1958) about the intersecting lives of 3 soldiers, two Americans and Brando as a sympathetic Nazi soldier during WWII. Then cameHarry Black and the Tiger (1958) with theatrical television roles on Lux Playhouse “The Connoisseur” and Suspicion’s “A Voice in the Night.”
Marlon Brando and Barbara Rush in The Young Lions (1958)
In The Young Philadelphians (1959) Paul Newman plays Anthony Judson Lawrence an up and coming lawyer who is trying to navigate social pressures and balance his ethics while trying to make a place for himself in Philadelphia. Barbara Rush is wonderful as Joan Dickinson, the bright independent society girl who planned to marry Anthony. She wants him to stick to his morals, yet through misdirection by her father and the misunderstanding that ensues she becomes disappointed in the direction his career goes. The two part ways but fate brings them back together once again. Directed by Vincent Sherman.
Joan Dicknson “At least you have someplace to go.
Anthony Judson Lawrence “Haven’t you?”
Joan Dickinson “Are you kidding? I have no talents. Nothing. I was very well educated to be an idiot. And I was a good student.”
“I think Paul has made some really great films, he won Academy Awards and all kinds of things and he’s done some wonderful work. But you know just as far as an audience watching a film likes to hear a good tale told, I think this is one of his most enduring films. And I think of all the films that I’ve done the best one that’s played the most on AMC and Turner Classic Movies , they play it over and over again and I still get at least 20 letters about The Young Philadelphians. They love the story. And when I go on cruises and we play films and so forth they always want to see the young Philadelphians and it wasn’t even in color, that was a black and white film but the love story is enduring and they seem to like it a great deal. Towards the end of the film Paul wanted certain changes with the script and I think Vincent Sherman was amenable to that and Stewart Stern was brought in and so he came in and did certain scenes and I think it just kind of spiced the picture up a little bit. You know who else was in the film that I loved her… so often when I worked in film I worked with people that I admired a great deal so it was such a happiness to work with them to be able to work with them to be around them, was Alexis Smith. She was a wonderful woman. And I loved her scenes with him. And Otto Krueger, I worked with him on Magnificent Obsession, but I thought he was such a good actor. You know they have these wonderful character actors in it.” –Barbara Rush
Barbara commands the screen in The Young Philadelphians. She plays a substantive role once again, delivering intelligent dialogue with swift splinters of her humor and intellect running throughout. When Anthony asks her “how bout a hamburger” she briskly replies “I’m a chili girl” to show that though she is entrenched in high society she is her own girl and has a down to earth nature at heart. Joan is a likable character who is unfortunately mislead by her father (the wonderful character actor John Williams). She is gracious and thoughtful and not a spoiled ingénue. Instead, she exudes integrity. Joan had her heart set to marry for love. Throughout the film it is clear the powerful range of acting by Barbara Rush allows her emotions to build toward the films conclusion. As in each of her varied roles, her pacing temporally rises, finally to express her inner turmoil with beautifully achingly poignant moments.
No one cries quite like Barbara Rush. Though the film is a commentary on class and the focus is predominantly about the male relationships. Barbara’s contribution works perfectly to condemn the masculine stubbornness she maintains a dignity throughout the picture never losing her sense of belonging to the narrative.
In 1959 Barbara appeared in Sunday Showcase “What Makes Sammy Run? as Kit Sargent.
Barbara then appeared in The Bramble Bush 1960 directed by Daniel Petrie co-starring Richard Burton. The film deals with mercy killings and small town morals. Richard Burton plays a young doctor Guy Montford who comes back home to his small New England town in order to see his dying friend (Tom Drake) through his last days. Larry is suffering and begs Dr. Guy Montford to help him end his suffering which he does by overdosing him on morphine. Guy is haunted by the mercy killing and finds solace in the arms of Larry’s wife, Margaret, portrayed with a beautiful sensitivity by Barbara Rush. The chemistry is palpable and especially potent in the love scene when Burton and Rush kiss on the boat.
Margaret tells him “That’s the worst part of it. You know we had a passionate relationship our marriage was founded on it. It wasn’t so bad when we could still make love. Now he’s a stranger. A cold white sheet.”
From 1957-1960 Barbara appeared in Playhouse 90 “Alas, Babylon (1960) and “The Troublemakers” (1957). In 1960 Checkmate (TV Series) she plays Margaret Russell/Nikki - The Dark Divide, a disturbed young women with split personality. She makes a wonderful transition from repressed mouse to sexy femme fatale, giving a stellar performance of a woman conflicted by repression and self-possession. Barbara Rush then appeared in television’s Sunday Showcase, “What Makes Sammy Run?”
Barbara then plays Eve Coe in Strangers When We Meet 1960. Kirk Douglas portrays Larry Coe a suburban architect who loves his wife Eve. This is a role that Barbara once again summons versatility to switch gears and play the epitome of middle class etiquette and decorum. Larry becomes weighed down by his “perfect” marriage and his mundane work, until he meets the sexually frustrated Maggie (Kim Novak) whose husband is not only keeping her in a lovely marriage but wields a big dose of morality on his desirable wife. The two start a passionate affair which leads to a question of complacency, morality and the dilemma of self fulfillment.
As Kirk Douglas’s wife Barbara plays the “pushy housewife” who is practical and uptight and wants Larry to conform. But Larry falls for Kim Novak. Neighbor Walter Matthau finds out about the affair and feels emboldened to try to have his way with Eve on cold rainy afternoon. Coming close to an assault, Eve’s reaction is intense and brutal and Barbara Rush pulls it off without being overwrought yet believable as a woman who has been violated and frightened all while being processing the incident.
It’s a very intense scene played very well by Barbara. Afterwards she realizes why Felix might have felt empowered to make a pass, Eve telling Larry about the attempted assault- “I’ve been sitting here thinking what gave Felix the peculiar notion that I’d be an easy mark.” Barbara does an excellent job of playing the middle class housewife who fits a certain mold, but eventually catches onto the affair and her raw emotions begin to surface. It shows her range, serious and vulnerable.
She appeared in the 1960 episode of Theatre ’62, “Notorious”, and also in 1962 General Electric Theater’s “A Very Special Girl.” She appeared in four episodes of Saints and Sinners– “New Lead Berlin” 1963, “The Home-Coming Bit” 1963, “Luscious Lois 1962” “Dear George, the Siamese Cat is Missing” 1962. And she appeared in a Ben Casey “From Too Much Love of Living,” directed by Mark Rydell.
The Eleventh Hour episode “Make Me a Place” to me is one of Barbara Rush’s stand out performances. Wendell Corey plays a psychiatrist in the series who helps his patients find their way through the maze of problems. Barbara Rush gives an extraordinary performance as Linda Kinkaid, a fragile woman who has had a breakdown. And is under the impression she might be trying to kill herself again. Barbara plays the role carefully restrained without appearing hysterical relating some of the most powerfully emotional scenes I’ve experienced anywhere. Her performance will rip your heart out, and leave you in tears. She should have won an Emmy for that acting feat. The episode co-stars David Janssen.
1963 Come Blow Your Horn, Tony Bill plays Buddy Baker who leaves his parent’s (Molly Picon and Lee J. Cobb) stifling home and goes to live with his swinging stylish brother Alan (Frank Sinatra) who has a slew of women. Barbara plays the one steady classy lady in Alan’s life, the sophisticated mature Connie who wants a commitment from the playboy and teaches him what love really is. The chemistry between Sinatra and Rush is once again very dynamic.
In 1964 she appeared in The Outer Limits “The Form of Things Unknown” as Leonora Edmund co-starring Vera Miles. A powerfully atmospheric fairy tale written by Joseph Stefano. Barbara Rush and Vera Miles play Leonora Edmond and Kasha Paine who are at the mercy of a ruthless blackmailer Andre (Scott Marlowe). When the two women flee after poisoning him they stumble onto a mysterious house during a rain storm. There they meet the butler Sir Cedric Hardwicke as Colus who tends to the house belonging to the brooding young inventor Tone Hobart (David McCallum) obsessed with his time machine made up of clocks.
Both Barbara Rush and Vera Miles turn in outstanding performances amidst this dark fairy tale landscape. Both women’s very antithetical roles play off each other brilliantly. Stefano’s writing is layered with psychological maelstroms and the cast interpret the story magnificently without reducing it to a simple hour long television fantasy yarn.
Barbara continued to make several significant television drama appearances in 1965, including Kraft Suspense Theatre “In Darkness, Waiting,” Vacation Playhouse, Convoy, The Barbara Rush Show, Checkmate “The Dark Divide”, Dr. Kildare “With Hellfire and Thunder” and “Daily Flights to Olympus” co-starring James Daly, and in 1966 Laredo, Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater.
Then came Robin and the 7 Hoods where she plays Marian, a classy vamp who’s outfits are divine. She’s cheeky, sophisticated, funny, and also cunning and deliciously mercenary as a mob boss who runs circles around all the hoodlums in the city.
In The Fugitive she plays Barry Morris’ wife Marie Lindsey Gerard in the episode Landscape with Running Figures (1965). It’s a dramatic performance as the wife of the man so driven to catch wrongly accused Doctor Richard Kimble that his obsession drives his wife away and into a dangerous situation. Barbara Rush conveys a woman who is repulsed by her husband’s mad course to bring the fugitive in. While leaving Gerard behind, she is injured in a bus accident and of course Dr Kimble is there. It is up the good doctor to get her the help she needs. Barbara plays the situation with pathos and intensity she is temporarily blinded and doesn’t realize that it is the man her husband has been pursuing who is helping her to safety. It’s one of the best episodes of the series. not least of which is due to Barbara Rush’s compelling, intuitive performance. “I should explain my marriage to you Mr. Carver (Richard Kimble’s alias) What you see before you is the losing end of a triangle. I lost my husband to a Will O The Wisp who drifted in and out twisting our lives. The little man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. He’s never there.”
in 1968 Barbara starred in Hombre with Paul Newman directed by Martin Ritt. In the Batman (1968-69) television series Barbara played villainess Nora Clavicle and the Ladies’ Crime Club and Nora appeared again in “Louie’s Lethal Lilac Time.”
She starred as Marsha Russell in the popular dramatic television evening series Peyton Place, appearing in over 75 episodes of the show until it’s end.
Barbara also appeared in four distinctive Medical Center episodes. A Life is Waiting (1969) is a very feminist episode that challenges the idea that a women’s body is her husbands property. Barbara Rush gives a powerful performance as Nora Caldwell, a woman who recognizes the tenuous hold she’s had over her identity and her place in her husband’s world. Barbara delivers thoughtful cutting oft dark comedic lines while giving an emotionally potent portrayal of a women fighting to be heard. In Awakening (1972) Barbara plays Judy whose husband has woken from a coma after three years. Judy has moved on from her marriage and blames him for the death of their 9 year old daughter. She gives a tour-de-force as a woman torn between her own needs, and ties to the past.
I would never resort to objectifying the great actress by reducing my commentary to just how beautiful she looks but I am bound to mention this or I’ll bust… Aside from her tremendous acting, I love her signature hair styles and her incredible fashion sense that has followed her throughout her career, on and off screen and to this day. And she carries it well.
Other television appearances during the 1960s-70s include Love, American Style 1970, The Mod Squad 1971 the television movie Suddenly Single 1971, Night Gallery 1971 “Cool Air” Cutter 1972 tv movie, Marcus Welby M.D. episodes “Silken Threads and Silver Hooks 1960”, & “Don’t Talk About Darkness 1972” McCloud 1972, The Eyes of Charles Sands 1972 tv movie, Cade’s County 1972, The Man 1972, Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law 1972. Barbara Rush plays Louise Rodanthe in the tv movie Moon of the Wolf 1972, Maude 1972 “Maude’s Reunion” Barbara plays old school pal Bunny Nash. Ironside 1971-72 episodes Ring of Prayer” &”Cold Hard Cash”, Crime Club 1973 tv movie, The Streets of San Francisco 1973 “Shattered Image”, Of Men and Women 1973 tv movie, The New Dick Van Dyke Show 1973-74, Medical Center 1969-1974 episodes “A Life is Waiting”, “Awakening”, “Impact”, & “Choice of Evils”, In Police Story 1974 “Chief” Barbara plays John Forsyth’s smart and stunning wife. She manages swift and clever lines quoting Shakespeare and being a dutiful and intelligent partner.
Fools, Females and Fun 1974 tv movie, The Last Day 1975 tv movie, Cannon 1975 “Lady on the Run”, Mannix 1968 episodes “A Copy of Murder”, & Design for Dying” 1975, Ellery Queen 1975-76 episodes “The Adventure of the Sinister Scenario”, & “The Adventures of Auld Lang Syne” 1975, The Bionic Woman 1976 as Jaime’s mother, ABC Weekend Specials 1977 “Portrait of Grandpa Doc” The Eddie Capra Mysteries “Dying Declaration” Death Car on the Freeway 1979 tv movie, The Love Boat 1979 2 episodes.
Barbara Rush also turned to work on the stage. She garnered the Sarah Siddons Award for her starring role in Forty Carats. Making her Broadway debut in the one woman showcase, “A Woman of Independent Means” which also subsequently earned her the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award during its tour. Other showcases included “Private Lives”, “Same Time, Next Year”, “The Night of the Iguana” and “Steel Magnolias”.
Barbara Rush still possesses that transcendent talent, beauty, poise and grace. She will always be someone special, an actress who is memorable.
Though Barbara Rush skill shows incredible range and depth in her performances, the one great role of a lifetime never seemed to come her way, though what ever she has appeared in is brightened immensely by her presence. To think of what might have been had there been even MORE substantive scripts offered to her, what she could have accomplished like many fine actresses, in addition to her already impressive career, it makes you wonder of the missed opportunities Hollywood made by not taking advantage of Barbara Rush’s marvelous talent.
Television became a wonderful avenue for Barbara Rush’s acting, and her performances are no less effective and adept than those in her major motion picture roles. To every performance, she brings an authentic reality to her characters with her bright engaging smile, the wisp of seriousness to her tone, streak of comedic talent within her ironic lilting mannerisms. Barbara Rush is an iconic actress who shows a special quality, spunk and spirit that begs to be cherished. I love you Barbara Rush, and will continue to enjoy the legacy of your work. You make me smile.
Barbara talking about starring in The Old Pros Radio Shows like Inner Sanctum at age 88!
Barbara Rush as adorable and kind as ever answers questions at the Aero Theater 9-29-2010
Barbara Rush still possesses that transcendent talent, beauty, poise and grace. She will always be someone special, an actress who is memorable.
What A Character! Blogathon 2019 Thelma Ritter “Always a bridesmaid and never the bride”
It’s here again, my favorite blogathon that honors those unsung actors we love to see inhabit films and most often enhance them immeasurably !
I want to thank Paula’s Cinema Club, Once Upon A Screen… and Outspoken & Freckled for hosting this important event that brings to light those essential personalities that populate memorable films and television programs with their own rare brilliance. This year I am honoring the great Thelma Ritter!
With her warm and weather worn face, Thelma Ritter is the quintessential expression of a working class dame, the working class mother, the everywoman. And no one can deliver a snappy quip quite like Thelma Ritter. Between her mournful tones of better days or raising a stink about this or that, you can almost see the cleaning rag over her simple brown hairdo hanging out the window in Brooklyn just chatting it up with the neighbors. Thelma Ritter, with hands on hip, spouts barbs and verbal gems from an endless fountain of every day wisdom.
And I want to make this clear from the start, Thelma is no plain, dowdy or shabby spinster, she’s a beautiful woman. So there’ll be no agism or misogynistic observations in this tribute.
“Usually looking like a cross between Mother Courage and a cafeteria lunch lady, [Mankiewicz], who would repeatedly explore the theme of the effects of ambition on his characters, was blessed with Ritter‘s presence in allegedly subservient roles as truth-tellers disguised as maids in… All About Eve (1950).” —Moira Finnie Streamline, The Filmstruck Blog
Thelma Ritter’s legacy is that of the wise-cracking and world weary characters who informs us in any role that she is just a regular gal like you or me. We feel empathy for her, and we laugh along with the sharp witted come backs she so famously utters. When ever she shows up on screen she enlivens what ever plot she was sent out in to explore with that cynical and bold approach to life offering that dialogue that had razor sharp teeth.
Ritter was one hell of a character actor/comedienne who worked on radio then quickly established herself in top billed supporting roles in post-war Hollywood. She was nominated 6 times without winning a single Oscar between 1950-1962. She tied with Deborah Kerr for the most nominated without winning the award. It is a crime that she never won a statue or a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
As writer Paddy Chayefsky wrote in his New York Times tribute for her death: “She was never properly publicly recognized as an actress. […] She was a character actress, which means only that they don’t write any starring parts for middle-aged women.”
Frank Capra called her “the best of all character actresses.”
Even in her performances of the most plain of women, she exuded sophistication, often classier than the upper class people that satellite around her. She often played characters who had the answers and the gumption to say it like it is, the truth that circulates through each story, driving sanity, stability, clarity, and compassion into the narrative.
None of her roles could ever be considered ordinary. Her characters always exuded her own brand of humanity. The people she played were immediately relatable to all of us.
Thelma Ritter was born in Brooklyn New York in 1902 on St Valentine’s Day on Hart Street in South Brooklyn. Born of a Dutch immigrant father and a Scottish mother. Thelma would have to rely on her wits as the family was not of an advantaged background. Maybe that’s why she has a keen witty charm, lovable persona and a certain pluckiness and curt wisdom that doesn’t allow for quick comebacks by the other actors. Though cast as a supporting actress, her name always appears on the bill or right up in the title close to the stars often being the more memorable in the picture. She brought cracking wise to a whole other level of artistry.
She attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts, the class of 1922, but did not graduate with her class as she had to quit to earn money. She made her Broadway debut in a comedy called The Shelf, costarring with other notable character actors Jessie Ralph, Lee Patrick and Donald Meek. She appeared in 32 performances before the show closed in 1926. Then she was in Times Square (1931) which didn’t have a very long run on Broadway. She took some time off to raise her children then went back to work initially in radio. Her daughter Monica Moran is an actress, they appeared together in the 1966 road company of Bye Bye Birdie co-starring Tab Hunter.
Thelma Ritter was actually 41 at the time of her wonderful film debut as the uncredited harried Christmas shopping mother in Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Ritter left such an impression on director George Seaton and 20th Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck that they lengthened her small part in the film and decided to cast her in other pictures. This sparked a career where she wouldn’t make a multitude of films, but a film a year from 1947 until her retirement in 1969. The films she did appear in were extremely popular and received well by the critics.
Ritter’s uncredited role of Captain’s secretary in Call Northside 777 (1948) was left on the cutting room floor. The credits were left in, but she is nowhere to be seen in the film. Though again uncredited she appeared as the sharp tongued maid Sadie Dugan in director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1949 melodrama A Letter to Three Wives starring Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Southern.
In A Letter to Three Wives, Thelma Ritter plays the maid Sadie Dugan who works for an upper middle class couple George (Kirk Douglas) and Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern). Kirk Douglas plays an English teacher and his wife Rita is a writer for a radio soap opera, played by Ann Sothern. Sadie ingratiates herself into the family feeling right at home telling Rita “The cap’s out. Makes me look like a lamb shop with pants on” when Rita asks her to wear a frilly hat while serving dinner to important guests. Ritter has wonderful lines that she expresses with ease. The writing was handpicked for her brand of comedy that cuts through the melodrama of the film. While describing her disdain for Rita’s radio program she comments, ”Do you know what I like about your program? Even when I’m running the vacuum, I can understand it.”
Ritter’s first major role as a lady’s companion was Birdie Coonan in All About Eve (1950). Director Joseph L. Mankeiwicz was so taken with Ritters style, that she was first choice to play Birdie, the edgy ex-vaudevillian maid to theater Diva Margot Channing (Bette Davis in her Oscar-nominated role). He claimed he wrote the screenplay with Thelma Ritter in mind. Aside from Addison Dewitt (George Sanders), Birdie is the only one who isn’t fooled by Eve (Ann Baxter). Ritter’s character has a keen understanding of the realities of life and is honest and gruff with the waif-like manipulative and ambitious Eve. Her role was so impressive that she received her first of six nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
When Eve first recounts her sad background to Margot, Birdies reacts with the infamous line “What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end.” The original line used was ‘ass’ instead of ‘rear end.’ But Joseph Breen’s office was clamping down on “morals” and found the original word too vulgar.
All through the film All About Eve, Birdie tries to inform Margot of Eve’s duplicitous nature, while everyone else is also taken in by the ‘kid’. Margot asks, “Birdie, you don’t like Eve, do you? Birdie answers, “You looking for an answer or an argument?” Margo, “An answer.” Birdie, “No.” Margo, ”Why not?” Birdie, “Now you want an argument.”
Thelma Ritter’s most significant trademark is her sassy streetwise meddling, to offer her wisdom and advice even when not being asked for it. After All About Eve, she would be cast in strong supporting roles for the rest of her career.
The next year she would once again be nominated for the wonderful picture directed by underrated directed Mitchell Leisen’s The Mating Season (1951) co-starring Gene Tierney, followed by With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953) as Moe Williams (A film she should have won the Oscar for her outstanding performance) then came Pillow Talk in 1959 and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962).
While most older female character actresses go loveless in their films, Thelma Ritter is one who manages to not always fly solo in the story lines. She often gets to have a love interest. The Mating Season (1951) directed by M. Leisen, is a satirical look on class culture, and a hilarious story of mistaken identity. Thelma as Ellen McNulty runs a small hamburger joint in Jersey and when the bank forecloses she goes to Ohio to be with her son Val (John Lund), who has just married socialite Maggie (Gene Tierney). Maggie is not a snob, but Ritter’s son is embarrassed by his humble background. Miriam Hopkins plays Tierney’s mother and former ambassador’s wife and pretentious elitist, Fran Carleton.
Robert Osborne called The Mating Season a delightful romantic comedy that most people don’t know about. The film brought Thelma at age 48 “the closest to inheriting the mantle of the great Marie Dressler than anyone in Hollywood since Dressler’s death in 1934.”
Ellen secretly works to make enough money to buy an $18 hat to wear when she meets her daughter-in-law. The way Thelma Ritter uses the hat as a prop in the storyline adds an endearing touch in the film. Thelma drops in unexpectedly to meet her new daughter-in-law and is mistaken for a domestic that the new bride has hired to cook and serve at her dinner party. Her son’s boss, Mr Kalinger (Larry Keating) falls for Ellen after she rubs liniment on his chest while he is sick. She finds out he’s much like her dead husband— the kind of guy stray dogs take to.
Ellen –“If you’re a chicken, you can fool people about your feathers. But when you start laying eggs all over the place, they know you’re a chicken.”
Ellen: “You don’t know what it was like working with her yesterday. I felt like I was 21 again.”
Val: “Oh Malarky”
Ellen: “Look wiseguy, I didn’t feel like I was 21 when I was 21.”“Despite the fact that she usually played variations of a Shakespearean “wise fool”, she often played a person whose keen awareness of her place in our supposedly classless society made her secure enough in it to voice her opinions without fear.” -Moira Finnie
Ritter finally receives above the title star billing in George Cukor’s delightful romantic comedy starring Jeanne Crain and Scott Brady, The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) Another highly underrated picture. Director Cukor’s adds a sensitive touch to this endearing film creating a world with plenty of witty dialogue and quirky characters. The cast is filled with lonely hearted misfits including Nancy Kulp, Zero Mostel, and Dennie Moore. Ritter plays good hearted, wryly witted yet sympathetic matchmaker Mae Swasey who just doesn’t want anyone to be alone after her own husband had left her for another woman years before. Mae goes on a mission of mischief to fix up Matt Hornbeck (Brady) with model Kitty Bennett (Jeanne Crain) though Hornbeck initially puts up a good fight saying he has no intention of getting married… that is until he meets Kitty.
Mae to Mr. Wixted (Zero Mostel) about planning a date with Nancy Kulp, “A real live wire, low voltage but steady.”
“Anybody with four pints of blood that can stand on their two feet long enough to say I do is in a position to get married.”-Mae
Dan Chancellor (Jay C. Flippen) “Beautiful up here, isn’t it? Those trees. I’ve always liked that poem that said, “Only God can make a tree.”
Mae Swasey, “Yeah, but on the other hand, you gotta figure, who else would take the time?”
As Young as You Feel (1952) Monty Wooley, Allyn Joslyn and Thelma Ritter
Following the romantic comedies Ritter appears in one of the most extraordinary and evocative noir masterpieces by director Samuel Fuller, Pickup on South Street (1953).
In Pickup on South Street 1953 directed by Samuel Fuller, Ritter plays Moe Williams the best pick pocket stoolie in the business. A police informant who sells neck ties on the street corners and wants a fancy funeral and a nice plot out on Long Island. Robert Osborne couldn’t have stated it better, “Moe Williams lives in the underworld and ekes out a living by selling secrets and information for a price. It’s a far cry from the kind of roles Thelma usually plays. More sinister than lovable.”
Moe is streetwise and world weary. She’s broken down by her years getting by on the rough streets of New York City selling ties and secrets to the police. She’s also cares about what happens to Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) one of the local petty thieves who picks pockets and chills his beer in the river.
Jean Peters is fantastic in the role of Candy, and Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street.
As Moe Williams In Pickup on South Street (1953), Ritter inhabits a darker world than we’re used to seeing her in. Worn down by life on the street as a tie hustler and informant to the law, her weakness for telling the truth puts her in harms way. It’s one of the most gloomy and heart-rending roles in any of her films as it takes a hardened dismal look at crime, postwar greed, and the fear of Communist infiltration. Throughout the picture Moe is fatalistic about her future. She is a character we feel empathy for, and I think it’s one of Ritter’s finest performances.
In a heartbreaking tour de force Ritter gives a performance that should have garnered her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Director Sam Fuller created a role just typed for Ritter’s blood, as she poured every ounce of her soul into the character that’ll make you hold your breath, then weep.
She appeared in the 1953 version of Titanic with Barbara Stanwyck. She plays affluent Maude Young who once again, is mistaken for a domestic, with some of the best lines in the picture added for the comic relief.
Maude Young: [after Richard (Clifton Webb) has rejected his son Norman and refused to play in the shuffleboard match with him] “It certainly clouded up. Well, word’ll do it faster than a hickory stick any time.”
Maude Young: “Where I come from this is either a revival meeting or a crap game.”
Maude Young: “I’ve seen that look before. He’s a runaway. Earl Meeker: From what, some woman?Maude: No, he’s running too fast for that.”
Ritter made several significant appearances on the small screen between 1953 and 1962. In 1955 she played Mrs. Fisher in The Show-off, Agnes Hurley in Paddy Chayefsky’s The Catered Affair (Bette Davis played Agnes Hurley in the film version a year later). Playwright Paddy Chayefsky was so taken with Thelma Ritter that he wrote about the 1955 television play, “The Catered Affair was an unfocused piece in which the first act was farce and the second was character comedy, and the third was abruptly drama. There aren’t a dozen actresses who could make one piece out of all that; Miss Ritter of course, did.”
The Farmer Takes a Wife 1954 as Lucy Cashdollar plays Betty Grable’s friend on the Eerie Canal Lucy Cashdollar- “Don’t forget, I’m a five time widow, and when they died they all left me everything they owned. Rest their souls.” Fortune Friendly “What do you want with me I’m broke?” Lucy Cashdollar-“Well, I figure after five rich husbands, the next one would be on the house.”
Also in 1955, Thelma Ritter played Abby in 20th Century-Fox Hour’s television adaptation of Sidney Howard’s play, Christopher Bean. Thelma is often compared to the great Marie Dressler, who played the same role in the 1933 film Christopher Bean. Thelma Ritter takes on the ironic and poignant role of a woman who’s worth is seen through the eyes of an alcoholic artist who paints a portrait of her.
Ritter finished her 6 year contract with Twentieth Century Fox in 1955, playing Alicia Pritchard in director Jean Negulesco’s Daddy Long Legs. Ritter did return in The Second Time Around in 1961.
When explaining why her contract had not been renewed, Ritter joked that “I don’t look so good in a toga.” Referring to Fox’s preference at the time for epics filmed in CinemaScope centered around all things ancient.
Rear Window 1954 Thelma plays the feisty wisecracking nurse, Stella. The scenes with Thelma and Jimmy Stewart were marvelous. Her character’s voice delivered both reason and common sense, and in their scenes we learn about Jimmy Stewart’s character. Thelma brought her comic flair to the role of Stella. As Pat Hitchcock explained “The humor that Thelma Ritter brought to Rear Window was absolutely wonderful. And my father, he loved that because he knew that you couldn’t keep going and keep going. You had to give the audience a break. You had to have them laugh at something. His whole life was the importance of having a sense of humor with whatever you do.”
After twenty-six years away, Thelma returned to Broadway in 1957 to play Marthy in the hit musical New Girl in Town, based on Eugene O’Neill’s play Anna Christie. For her part she won a Tony Award (in a tie with Gwen Verdon who won for Anna). This was the first time in history that two actresses won from the same show.
Cameron Pru’Homme, Thelma Ritter and Gwen Verdon –On the set of New Girl In Town
At the Tony Awards with Robert Preston Thelma RItter Helen Hayes Ralph Bellamy
She went on to appear in the hit romantic comedy Pillow Talk (1959). She played the supportive lead with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, exchanging her usual barbs this time with Doris Day about her love life. “If there’s anything worse than a woman living alone its a woman saying she likes it.”
She continued to act in successful roles in the 1960s in films like John Huston’s The Misfits in 1961 (playing Isabelle Steers, co-starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, and Eli Wallach). Then, in How the West Was Won in 1962, and then she was once again paired with Doris Day and James Garner in Move Over, Darling in 1963.
Ritter also appeared on television shows like General Electric Theater in 1960 and the popular westerner Wagon Train in 1962. She appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Presents in a very chilling, nail-biting episode called The Baby Sitter.
In director John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1963) Thelma Ritter delivers quite a drastic departure from any of her other roles. She portrays the numb and obsessive mother, loyal to her son Robert Stroud (Burt Lancaster) in one of his most lucid performances. The movie creates a claustrophobic relationship between mother and son, as she is stricken with a miopic vision of championing for him while he is locked away in prison. Axel Nissen calls it “one of the most emotionally ugly characters in her filmography she is cold and uses stillness brilliantly.”
Ritter received her last Oscar nomination or her performance as Burt Lancaster’s controlling mother. She lost to Patty Duke for The Miracle Worker.
In 1963 she was in A New Kind of Love (1963) starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Ritter plays Leena, who wears a perfume called “My Sin” and is a buyer at Bergner’s Department Store. Leena is attracted to her boss, George Tobias.
She also appeared in the disastrous Broadway production of UTBU 1966 with Margaret Hamilton and Tony Randall.
Coming full circle, Ritter made her last big screen appearance in a small role in George Seaton’s What’s So Bad About Feeling Good? 1968 In Feb 1968 she co-starred with Tab Hunter and her own actress daughter Monica in a stock production of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park at the Papermill Playhouse in New Jersey, before retiring. She did not live long enough to enjoy her retirement.
Thelma died of a heart attack in New York City just nine days before her 67th birthday. Thelma Ritter was very beloved amongst her colleagues and co-stars, and also critics adored her.
“On screen Ritter projected a wonderfully sanguine and calm acceptance of human frailty and need. It is this quality, combined with her rueful humor and notorious wisecracks, that give depth to her finest performances…{…} Though she played a few middle-or upper class women towards the end of her career, Ritter was obviously best suited to playing women on the lower echelons of the social ladder…{…} She represents the legion of women who keep the wheels of the world turning”– Alex Nissen
CLIPS
Miracle on 34th Street (1949) Peter’s mother
A Letter to Three Wives (1949) Sadie Dugan the maid uncredited
City Across the River (1950) Mrs. Katie Cusack
Perfect Strangers (1950) Lena Fassier
All About Eve 1951
I’ll Get By 1951 Miss Murphy
The Mating Season 1951
The Model and the Marriage Broker 1951 as Mae Swayse
As Young as You feel 1952 as Della Hodges
Titanic 1953
Pickup on South Street 1954
The Farmer Takes a Wife 1954 as Lucy Cashdollar
Rear Window 1955 as Stella
Daddy Long Legs 1955
Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1956 The Baby Sitter Lottie Slocum
The Proud and Profane 1956 as Kate Connors
A Hole in the Head 1959 as Sophie Manetta
Pillow Talk 1959 as Alma
The Misfits 1961
Birdman of Alcatraz 1962 as Elizabeth Stroud
Move Over, Darling 1963
The Incident 1967 as Bertha Beckerman
FILMOGRAPHY & AWARDS
Thelma Ritter won a Tony Award on Broadway in 1957 for the hit musical New Girl in Town, for which she won a Tony in a tie with Gwen Verdon in 1958. She won an Emmy (in 1956), Nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the Goodyear Television Playhouse production of The Catered Affair. A Golden Globe Awards Nominated for Best Supporting Actress for: All About Eve (1950) The Mating Season (1951)) With A Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953), Pillow Talk (1959) and Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and nominated for a Golden Globe for All About Eve, The Mating Season and Boeing Boeing (1965)
- Miracle on 34th Street (1949) Peter’s mother
- A Letter to Three Wives (1949) Sadie Dugan the maid uncredited
- Call Northside 777 (1949) captains secretary uncredited her scene was left on the cutting room floor
- City Across the River (1950) Mrs. Katie Cusack
- Perfect Strangers (1950) Lena Fassier
- Too Dangerous to Love 1951
- All About Eve 1951 as Birdie Coonan —companion to theater Diva Margot Channing the only character aside from George Sanders’ Addison Dewitt who isn’t fooled by conniving Eve.
- I’ll Get By 1951 as Miss Murphy
- The Mating Season 1951 as Ellen McNulty
- The Model and the Marriage Broker 1951 as Mae Swayze
- As Young as You feel 1952 as Della Hodges
- Radio Broadcasts 1953 Theater Guild on the Air “A Square Peg”
- With a Song in my Heart 1953 as Clancy
- radio shows such as Radio Broadcasts Theater Guild on the Air “A Square Peg” (1953).
- Titanic 1953 as Maude Young playing a version of the Unsinkable Molly Brown done up to the nines again mistaken for a housekeeper or maid.
- Pickup on South Street 1954 directed by Samuel Fuller as Moe Williams the best pick pocket stoolie in the business
- The Farmer Takes a Wife 1954 as Lucy Cashdollar plays Betty Grable’s friend on the Eerie Canal
- Rear Window 1955 as nurse Stella
- Lux Video Theatre 1954 Christmas in July theatre guest
- The Best of Broadway The Show Off 1955 Mrs. Fisher
- Daddy Long Legs 1955 as Alicia Pritchard
- Goodyear Playhouse 1955 The Catered Affair as Mother created the role that Bette Davis adapted to the screen.
- Repertory Theatre 1955 The Ghost Writer as Muriel
- Lucy Gallant 1955 as Molly Basserman
- The 20th Century Fox Hour 1955 “Christopher Bean” as Abby
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1956 The Baby Sitter Lottie Slocum
- The Proud and Profane 1956 as Kate Connors
- New Girl in Town (1957) on Broadway
- The United States Steel Hour 1957 The Human Pattern as Ma Garfield
- Telephone Time 1957 plot to save a boy as Mary Devlin
- A Hole in the Head 1959 as Sophie Manetta
- Pillow Talk 1959 as Alma plays her housekeeper who likes to drink she’s hilarious
- General Electric Theater 1960 Sarah’s Laughter as Doris Green
- Startime 1960 The Man as Mrs. Gillis
- The Misfits 1961 as Isabelle Steers
- The Second Time Around 1961 as Aggie Gate
- Birdman of Alcatraz 1962 as Elizabeth Stroud plays Burt Lancaster’s mother
- Wagon Train 1962 The Madame Sagittarius Story as Madame Delphine Sagittarius
- How the West Was Won 1962 Agatha Clegg a middle aged woman looking for a husband on the wagon train heading west across America
- For Love or Money 1963 as Chloe Brasher
- A New Kind of Love 1963 as Lena O’Connor
- Move Over, Darling 1963 as Grace Arden plays James Garner’s mother, a wealthy upper class woman which is an atypical character for her
- Boeing, Boeing 1965 as Bertha
- The Incident 1967 as Bertha Beckerman
- What’s so Bad about Feeling Good? 1968 Mrs. Schwartz
This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying you may have thought you were often only a bridesmaid but to so many of us, you’ll forever be the Queen of character actors and unrelenting quips! We love you Thelma Ritter…
Quote of the Day! “Thieves’ Highway (1949)
THIEVES’ HIGHWAY (1949)
Directed by Jules Dassin with a screenplay by A.I. Bezzerides. It’s beautifully photographed by Norbert Brodine and features one of the most impressive scenes where a truck carrying apples rolls down a hill.
Film noir regular Richard Conte (Cry of the City 1948, The Big Combo 1955,The Brothers Rico 1957) takes the lead role as Nick Garcos in director Jules Dassin (The Canterville Ghost 1944, The Naked City 1948, Night and The City 1950, Rififi 1955) Thieves’ Highway, a film about the struggles of truckers and the harsh life they must endure. A shameless and crooked racketeer Lee J. Cobb as Mike Figlia swindles them out of their produce and their hard earned money. Nick returns from the army to find that his father has been crippled by the unscrupulous criminals who strong-armed his father into selling his produce. Nick takes on the thugs who ultimately caused a trucking accident in which his father loses his legs. He meets Rica, a prostitute, played by the sultry Valentina Cortez. There’s a sensuality and lonely hunger that both Conte and Cortez radiate as believable chemistry.
Conte has always been able to straddle both the dark side of noir and the deeply emotional depths making him an effective hero in Dassin’s visual masterpiece.
Nico ‘Nick’ Garcos: Hey, do you like apples?
Rica: Everybody likes apples, except doctors.
Nico ‘Nick’ Garcos: Do you know what it takes to get an apple so you can sink your beautiful teeth in it? You gotta stuff rags up tailpipes, farmers gotta get gypped, you jack up trucks with the back of your neck, universals conk out…
Rica: I don’t know what are you talking about, but I have a new respect for apples.
Happy Halloween 2019 🎃
THIS IS YOUR EVERLOVIN’ JOEY WISHING YOU A VERY HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE LAST DRIVE IN!!!!!
MonsterGirl Asks Writer, Film & Television Historian: Gary Gerani 🎃
Gary Gerani is one of the writers of (Pumpkinhead 1988, creative consultant on Pumkinhead II Blood Wings 1993, writer on Vampirella 1996, the short story Convention 2017, and Trading Paint 2019 with John Travolta)
PUMPKINHEAD combined gritty verisimilitude with the landscape of a dark evocative allegory. “I loved the demon creature Stan Winston and his guys created so much, I actually have him created from the original mold standing in the corner of my living room!” … listen once a MonsterKid always a MonsterKid” says Gary Gerani to this MonsterGirl!
“Gary Gerani is a screenwriter, author, noted film and TV historian, and children’s product developer. He is best known for his contribution as co-writer of the Stan Winston-directed horror classic “Pumpkinhead,” and his groundbreaking 1977 nonfiction book “Fantastic Television.” This book is a real treasure, and there was and still is absolutely nothing like it out there as a bountiful of info for us nostalgic fans of vintage fantasy, sci-fi and horror television!
Over the years he’s created various comic books and a record number of trading card sets, working for the famous Topps Company. His graphic novels include “Dinosaurs Attack!” (inspired by his own Topps cards) and “Bram Stoker’s Death Ship,” an untold story of the Dracula legend. He also has his own publishing unit, Fantastic Press, in partnership with the popular comic book company IDW.”
Gary Gerani also contributes his humorous and thoughtful commentaries on several television anthology Blu-ray editions for The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Boris Karloff’s Thriller.
From Top 100 best horror films intro. What makes a good horror film special?
“Let’s look at the genre itself, and how our most imaginative filmmakers have approached and defined it. Whether an artist is working in color or black and white, silent or sound, widescreen or the latest version of 3D, he faces an infinite number of creative ways to involve and ultimately terrify a movie audience. Sometimes viewers are rudely jolted by visceral shocks, as with Terence Fisher or William Friedkin thrillers, other times they are gently escorted into darkly unsettling, dream-like environs that confound, intrigue and captivate (think Roman Polanski or Val Lewton) What all these approaches have in common is that they somehow manage to replicate the fragile, visceral quality of nightmares, transcending reality and touching us intimately in a way that no other genre can.’’-Gary Gerani
From the intro by Paul H. Schulman-“As a writer of science fiction articles and a collector of television art. Gary is recognized in New York Sci-Fi circles as the last word on the subject…(…)… Fantastic Television is the most complete and detailed treatment of the occult and science fiction TV shows existing anywhere. If you caught these shows the first time around, this book will be a visit from old friends. If you were too young to stay up that late, Fantastic Television will introduce you to a world of new friends!”
Incredibly concise and informative. Gary lists the credits for each of the series episodes. Extensive and valuable to any fantasy, sci-fi horror fans. There is nothing quote like this book released at that time, nor currently. Gary Gerani’s incredible book published in 1977 Fantastic Television -A Pictorial History of Sci-Fi, The Unusual and the Fantastic from Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond is filled with wonderful images. It is a complete overview of a precious world so many of us feel a longing and nostalgia for.
This fantastic book, covers some of my favorites The Twilight Zone, Boris Karloff’s Thriller, The Outer Limits, One Step Beyond, Irwin Allen Productions, Batman, Star Trek, The Invaders, The Prisoner, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, Kolchak, The Night Stalker, Made for TV Movies, British Telefantasy, (The Avengers ) American Telefantasy. (Dark Shadows)
Highlighting concise backstories and filled with descriptive plot summaries for each episode! Gary has added his voice to some of the most enigmatic, innovative and engaging television shows of fantastical historical relevance. Since it’s publishing in 1977 there has been nothing like this collection in print…
FANTASTIC TELEVISION -A Pictorial History of Sci-FI, The Unusual and The Fantastic from Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond…
With an introduction by Roger Corman!
Top 100 Horror Movies by Gary Gerani (Nov 9 2010)
🎃
THE STRIKING RETRIBUTION OF PUMPKINHEAD (1988) Fairy Tale vérité
“That old woman scares the piss out of me!”
“For each of man’s evils a special demon exists…”
Directorial debut by creature creator & special effects guru Stan Winston (Winston who passed away in 2008 was a frequent collaborator with director James Cameron, owned several effects studios, including Stan Winston Digital. Winston’s expertise were in makeup, puppets and practical effects, and owned his studio which branched out to include digital effects as well… creating work in the Terminator series, Jurassic Park films, Aliens, the first two Predator movies Iron Man and Edward Scissorhands. Winning four Academy Awards for his work.)
With a screenplay by Gary Gerani and Mark Patrick Carducci, based on a story by Carducci, Winston and Richard Weinman. The origin of the story was a poem written by Ed Justin. Film Editor Marcus Manton. Cinematography by Bojan Bazelli (Body Snatchers 1993, Kalifornia 1993, Sugar Hill 1993, The Ring 2002), set direction by Kurt Gauger and music by Richard Stone. Creature effects designed and created by Alec Gillis, Richard Landon, Shane Patrick Mahan, John Rosengrant, and Tom Woodruff Jr.
Critical Reception
“A pleasant surprise is the characterization, which are well-developed for this genre… Even the teenagers, usually little more than cardboard monster horror fodder in horror movies, have shades of performance…”Louis B Parks, “Pumpkinhead brings new life to Spook Shows-The Houston Chronicle, October 14, 1988
“It does have heart. If you like your monster movies with a touch of sweetness, Pumpkinhead may be just your cauldron of blood … Henriksen has some affecting moments as the bereaved father.”–Philip Wuntch “If You Dig Homespun Horror, Check Out Pumpkinhead”-The Daily Morning News, October 14, 1988
Credits:
Cast: Lance Henriksen (The Right Stuff 1983, The Terminator 1984, Aliens 1986, Millennium 1996-1999 ) as Ed Harley, Jeff East as Chris, John DiAquino as Joel, Kimberly Ross as Kim, Joel Hoffman as Steve, Cynthia Bain as Tracy, Kerry Remssen as Maggie, George Buck Flower as Wallace, Brian Bremer as Bunt, Billy Hurley as little Matthew Harley, Lee De Broux as Tom Harley, Peggy Walton Walker as Ellie Harley, Richard Warlock as Clayton Heller, Devon Odessa as Hessie, Joseph Piro as Jimmy Joe, Greg Michaels as Hill Man, Madeleine Taylor Holmes as Old Hill Woman, Mayim Bialik as Wallace kid, Jandi Swanson as Wallace kid, Mary Boessow as Mountain Girl, Robert Frederickson as Ethan and Tom Woodruff Jr. as Pumpkinhead.
IMDb Trivia fun facts:
The dog actor, Mushroom, who played Ed Harley’s dog, Gypsy, also played Barney in Gremlins (1984).
Lance Henriksen gathered all of the silver dollars himself by visiting several pawn shops. He said that most of them fell through the floorboards of Haggis’ shack, where they may still lie.
Lance Henriksen had a set of dentures made to give him a more rural look. He also gathered all of his own props and wardrobe, including a WWII pump-action shotgun, his cap worn throughout the film and the silver dollars which he gives to Haggis.
The costume Florence Schauffler wore as Haggis weighed about 65 pounds.
The one scene that made Lance Henriksen most want to take the role was where the deceased Billy sits up and asks his father what he’s done.
Because of Stan Winston‘s request, the screenwriters made both Pumpkinhead and Haggis (the old woman), much darker than in the original script.
Stan Winston‘s two children can be glimpsed as members of the Wallace clan.
Pumpkinhead doesn’t really resemble a pumpkin. It gets its name from the fact that summoning it involves digging up a corpse that’s been buried in a pumpkin patch.
‘Fun’ was, in fact, the prevalent mood on the Pumpkinhead set. Despite many additional burdens and responsibilities, Winston brought the same sense of humor and lighthearted spirit to directing Pumpkinhead as he had to his creature effects assignments. “Stan was a blast as a director,” recalled Alec Gillis. “He was fun and completely relaxed on the set, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. I remember one day when we were in this cramped cabin set, and I was very tense and tired because Shane and I had just spent three hours applying makeup to the actress playing the witch. But then I looked over and saw Stan standing across the room, staring at me, with his glasses cocked at a weird angle on his head — just to make me laugh. There was my director, making an idiot of himself for nobody’s benefit but mine. That isn’t something most directors would do!”
From the sculpture, studio artists and mechanics created a suit and head, which was worn on the set by Pumpkinhead performer, Tom Woodruff Jr., To avoid wear and tear on the suit, Woodruff was glued into it at the start of the shoot day, and remained in the foam rubber construct for up to eight hours at a time.
The incantation:
“For each of man’s evils, a demon exists. You’re looking at vengeance. Cruel, devious.. vengeance.” Haggis (Florence Schauffler )the witch introduces Ed Harley (Henriksen) to the demon
The legacy of the demon of vengeance to be reborn with each time it’s called upon. Pumpkinhead is a meditation on vengeance, tragedy and loss within a darkly spun fairy tale.
Pumpkinhead is merely the hand of retribution and fate and a lesson in “be careful what you wish for”. Pumpkinhead is a well written, Americana Gothic mountain magic mythology, and if you love Boris Karloff’s Thriller episode – The Hollow Watcher– you’ll be mystified and moved by this contemporary telling of a rural boogeyman!
Pumpkinhead is a beautifully crafted story that merely illustrates what happens when the humble and quiet lives of innocent people who inhabit a world far from the city, and whose lives are shattered by the sudden intrusion of irresponsible and rude outsiders, who happen to be teenagers.
In the 1980s it is the given aesthetic that teenagers are the fodder in the slasher film or monster movie, they make for fun victims. Once again the teenagers wind up being the victims here as well with no differentiation between accountability or innocence. It is Pumpkinhead’s mission to purge the menace of outsiders.
When Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen who is a marvelous and underrated actor) was a boy in 1957 he caught sight of a mythical folklore creature called Pumpkinhead, a thing of local legend that can be summoned up in the name of vengeance. In the present, Harley wishes to call up this vengeful demon to exact retribution against the reckless teenagers who accidentally kill his little boy. When the irresponsible dirt biker Joel (DiAquino) runs down Harley’s son Billy, all hell will break free from the top of a rustic hill.
Harley pays a visit to the old witch Haggis (Schauffler) to help her bring his boy back to life. Haggis rasps and whistles as she incants using Harley’s blood to resurrect the demon, for she cannot raise his dead son, Haggis: Who are you? Ed Harley: Um, Ed Harley. I’ve come… Haggis: I’m afraid raising the dead ain’t within my power.
But she sure can conjure up the spirit of retribution in the form of Pumkinhead, who manifests the rage and wrath Harley feels. Haggis tells him to go to the old graveyard in the pumpkin patch and dig up the corpse of the body that is buried there, which she can use to embody the vengeful demon. Be careful what you wish for, as Harley unleashes a creature that is unstoppable and leaves bodies in the wake of it’s ire. It’s a bloody night of fate coming to bear when Pumpkinhead begins to kill everyone in sight. And because Ed Harley’s blood has been infused with the creature, he feels it in his soul every time it kills, he is doomed to a sorrowful fate. Ed Harley: God damn you! God damn you! Haggis: He already has, son. He already has.
It’s too late once Ed Harley realizes that he has become transformed himself, a certain symbiosis has occurred between him and Pumpkinhead, and that his actions have consequences. Once summoned Pumpkinhead cannot be sent back to the pits of dark justice and and the hell fire of reprisal makes no distinction between the teens who are truly guilty of killing the young boy and the others who are complicit by proximity.
Not unlike a Grimm Fairy Tale or a great rendition of backwoods boogeymen and American folklore does Pumpkinhead evoke a nightmarish landscape of cause and effect. Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead is a superb cautionary tale that warns against being thoughtful of others but moreover not allowing our blood lust for revenge to take control of our moral guidance Lance Henriksen is a good father and mild mannered until the swell of hatred takes hold and he develops an appetite for retribution. The film contemplates the unacceptability of death and a parents inability to mourn the loss of their child. The loss becomes a monster itself that inhabits Ed’s consciousness. In that way Pumpkinhead is just a manifestation of Ed Harley’s grieving. Like Walter Pidgeon’s Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet (1956) Ed Harley has unleashed his rural id.
The early scenes show him as kind and gentle, quiet and peaceful, almost living a dreamy life far away from the fast pace of the city –the torrid and declining American morality of urban living. This can seen when Ed and his son Billy are sitting at the kitchen table a poignant scene that sets up contrast from the brutality to come. When it comes to invade their quiet space, it sparks the series of events that spiral out of control.
Pumpkinhead is fatalistic law, not really about evil, or a demon, that is why he took on the face of the person who chose to raise him up for their purpose. Ed Harley has a psychic connection with Pumkinhead. The colors are a fairy tale palate of vibrant strokes. The set pieces are extremely well thought out. The film is painted with the coldest blues and the hottest reds, that lend to the grim atmosphere and fantastical alternative surrealism. Gary Gerani was truly inspired by the work of the maestro director Mario Bava!
The sets designed by Kurt Gauger are perfectly creepy and effectively moody as with the old cemetery with it’s backwoods Gothic ambience. Pumpkinhead rises from a mound of putrid grass, his rustic grave covered pumpkin patch with its gnarled torment of trees and decaying earth lend to the moodiness of the film.
About GARY’S ANTHOLOGY COMMENTARIES:
The TV SERIES commentaries, being monster kids AND Gary Gerani sounds just like Gary Gerani
Jo: I figured I’d just ask you a few things and then you called me and I thought WOW he sounds just like Gary Gerani (having listened extensively to his commentaries on dvd box sets–We both Laugh hysterically)
Gary: And we determined that’s a very good thing…
Jo: And we determined that’s a very good thing. And I get to continue to listen to you (as he referred to himself as the living commentary) talk when I just re-watch the episodes. That’s the beauty of these anthology shows is that you know you can watch them over and over again you always get something else it just brings you back to a place that just makes you feel, you know, good and familiar.
Gary: that’s probably where it starts right… we want to be in a place where we feel comfort and at home and what ever peculiar person we are we find that place for ourselves. You know all of us who found our way into horror and monsters, let’s face it we were mostly outcasts.
Jo: We’re outsiders yeah.
Gary: We related to the monsters cause they were outcasts.
Jo: That’s exactly it.
Gary: We got Frankenstein immediately.
Jo: I sympathized with him, I knew his pain. I knew we were both ‘the other’ You know when you become the other, then you start to relate to the characters that are outsiders and that’s why we start to fit in and we put ourselves in those stories, those spaces. You know because we belong there. We found a place for ourselves so….
Gary’s enormous knowledge has a way of cutting through any extraneous detail and manages to bring you not only into the story but provide so many interesting background tidbits, making history and insight accessible. With Thriller I never knew the staff of the show used to call the graphics that open the show “The Sticks” I hadn’t read that Douglas Heyes had doubts about Boris Karloff hosting the show initially because the first episodes were more crime based. It wasn’t Richard Widmark’s Thriller it was Boris Karloff’s Thriller. And they were competing with Alfred Hitchcock’s formatted suspense series. I knew from reading Stephen Jacob’s incredible authorized biography of Boris Karloff that Alfred Hitchcock was not too happy about Thriller that much I did know.
Douglas Heyes either based episodes on Robert Bloch’s stories or episodes he wrote. Hr told them it wasn’t working (the show) because the first episodes weren’t hosted by Richard Widmark. That’s when they brought Douglas Heyes in to make the show work. To get away from Hitchcock’s province of crime/suspense. They transformed Thriller into creepy tales and it evolved into the show with it’s original macabre vibe. 1) Hitchcock was pressuring the studio. 2) Twilight Zone at the time was perhaps fantasy 3) and ratings were suffering and no one was happy with the original approach.
There was such a confusion about the identity of the show, that they producer Hubbell was upset and embarrassed. Finally they brought in Robert Bloch and what they decided on was horror tales with a supernatural underscore and violent crime thrillers. The first was produced by recruiting Maxwell Shane for the crime stories and William Frye for the horror tales. And it worked…
Boris Karloff’s THRILLER: anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC
Gary added his commentary to the following Thriller episodes…
The Prediction with Lucy Chase Williams, The Hungry Glass with Marc Scott Zicree, Well of Doom with David Schow, Trio of Terror with David Schow, Mr. George with Lucy Chase Williams, Pigeons from Hell-solo commentary, The Grim Reaper with Ernest Dickerson, Tim Lucas and David Schow, The Weird Tailor with Daniel Benton, The Return of Andrew Bentley with David Schow, Waxworks with Ron Borst, La Strega with Steve Mitchell and Craig Reardon, The Hollow Watcher with Larry Blamire and David Schow and The Incredible Doktor Markesan with David Schow.
In talking about THE CHEATERS...
I love referential commentary and analysis. Gary compares the story of The Cheaters with Winchester ’73 in the way that both stories center around an object that flows from one character to the next and their individual outcomes. How we follow those peculiar glasses and how we follow the trail of the gun in each person’s possession. It’s a fascinating point and I love how he picked up on that. You can watch a beloved episode 100 times and you’ll always find your own slight slant on it at times, but commentaries imparted to us by historians like Gary Gerani help bring an even wider perspective.
It’s obvious to me, that Gerani is a huge fan of writer Robert Bloch. But who isn’t right. So another interesting point that Gary Gerani brings out, is that Robert Bloch’s story didn’t have the alchemist in the opening, the way Thriller adapted it showing veteran character actor (with the unusually carved rock features), Henry Daniell as inventor/alchemist Dirk Van Prinn creating the lenses that would become The Cheaters. The glasses that give the wearer the ability to see the truth about themselves. They also give the wearer the power to hear the thoughts of those around them. Which winds up being not only problematic but murderously fowl!
In Bloch’s actual written story, there’s a series of accounts by the people who wore the cheaters who met their deaths by wearing them. Their accounts are virtually told from beyond the grave. Again Gerani in his artful insightful way compares it to Joe Gillis (William Holden) in Sunset Blvd. Thriller changes this perspective by working in these graveside accounts by allowing Harry Townes the writer Sebastian Grimm to tell the story. He discovers the true powers of the cheaters, and writes a book about the origin and the ultimate end to the journey of these magical lenses marked Veritas on the bridge. He tells their stories to his wife surmising exactly what happened as we see it on screen.
In addition Gary Gerani mentions that people compare The Cheaters to Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray. Essentially because Gray’s painting told the real story of what was lying beneath the surface of the man who never ages. It shows the truth about yourself. “And that truth isn’t very pleasant”- as Gary Gerani says. But Gerani says one of the main differences between this teleplay and “Bloch’s original story was even “bleaker” There is the same suggestion that the glasses and the painting tells the true nature of the person. “In Bloch’s story it’s much more universal, it’s made very clear it’s not just like Dorian Gray where there’s just one sinner–this is in all of us… It is perhaps the most dire perception of the human condition ever done, during a prime time show certainly here in this period…It seems to suggest that knowing thyself is knowing evil… within yourself or even the people around you…. Pretty much what Block is saying is that WE ARE THE MONSTERS… That’s essentially what The Cheaters is about-and There is no hope!
The Outer Limits original series 1960s (broadcast on ABC from 1963 to 1965)
Gary Gerani’s commentaries include:
The Architects of Fear, The Man with the Power, The Man Who was Never Born, The Zanti Misfits with David J. Schow, and The Special One with Michael Hyatt.
The Twilight Zone original Series (anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964.)
One For the Angels, The Lonely, The Four of Us are Dying, A Stop at Willoughby with Marc Scott Zicree and A Passage for Trumpet.
Gary Gerani and I had a pleasant conversation on Sep 18th after I watched Pumpkinhead, I emailed him and we instantly hit it off, carrying on an exchange. Gary commented on a piece I wrote at The Last Drive In about one of the episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller, in which Gary has done numerous commentaries as you now know, he’s added his voice to some of the BEST television anthology box sets. We share a mutual love of Thriller as well as The Outer Limits.
A hell of a nice guy with a very keen mind and wonderful sense of humor. I wish we had known each other as little monster kids we could have enjoyed the same kinds of fantastical indulgence without me getting called MonsterGirl said with a pejorative connotation and being locked in a basement all day by a neighborhood bully! Don’t get me wrong it helped mold me into the sympathetic person I am who developed empathy for others. It’s always nice to discover another person out there who could wear Monster Kid as a badge of honor!
Gary Gerani had stumbled upon my blog by accident. and told me he was struck by the intelligence of my piece on The Cheaters. I of course was extremely flattered by this. He told me Pumpkinhead was influenced by Thriller, with the rural spookiness and atmosphere. Also The Outer Limits’ episode The Galaxy Being as Pumpkinhead also sort of gave off “psychic turbulence” very much like The Galaxy Being, with his electro magnetic windstorm.
Both are creatures who are what they are. One accidentally falls out of it’s orbit which is forbidden on his planet, as he winds up being transported on earth by radio basement scientist Cliff Robertson. Pumpkinhead however is summoned by the pain and lust for vengeance by Lance Henricksen after a band of outsiders riding their dirt bikes kill his beloved little boy. The local witch knows how to raise up Pumpkinhead who’s job it is to exact the law of revenge and judgement. He is a creature who serves the cosmic law.
I private messaged Gary on Facebook after I saw his lovely comment on The Last Drive in. I told him that I was a HUGE fan of his 1988 Pumpkinhead a moody atmospheric rustic boogeyman morality play. It had traces of our mutually inspired The Hollow Watcher for Thriller. A bucolic Boogeyman who exacts vengeance on the sinners of a small minded and tucked away rural town with it’s own creepy mythology.
I suspect Jeepers Creepers (2001) was influenced by Pumpkinhead which I believe is one of THE best dark fairy tale, cautionary tales of the 1980s. Pumpkinhead is a self contained dark little Americana Gothic story with it’s color filters that frame scenes that are at times a cold cold blue or a fiery red.
I stumbled onto the outrageously unusual film Pumpkinhead (1988) as most of us Monster kids do, we are lured by the uncanny on film since we were wee Monster folk. One of the true statements that can be said about Gary Gerani’s somber and atmospheric film, the American Gothic arcane back woods allegory is that it still embodies what made classical horror films work on an empathetic level and unlike today’s films that are like a buzz-saw to the synapse & sympathetic nervous system with all it’s pageantry of various body violations and torture. Back in the day even the gore somehow managed to set apart the artistic narratives with a story and at times the kernal of the moral message that lies withing the tale still came through. Pumpkinhead, attracts the monster lovers in us. Though Lance Henriksen regrets his brand of punishment, which cannot bring his little boy back to life, we somehow still cheer for Pumpkinhead as he acts as cathartic release for us.
I remember feeling excitement when Pumpkinhead coming to life as a little Pumpkin baby then rose out of his dirt hill grave, Stan Winston imbues him with a sort of gargoyle like smile. Does it look like Gary Gerani and Lance Henriksen or perhaps Stan Winston — Gary supposes!
Gary-“We got really lucky with Pumpkinhead, in that everyone was on exactly the same page about what we wanted to achieve. “Deliverance in the daytime and Mario Bava at Night. Was our idea an attempt to combine gritty reality with evocative dark fairy tales. I loved the demon creature Stan Winston and his guys created so much, I actually have him made from the original mold standing in the corner of my living room!’ Once a Monster Kid, always a Monster Kid!
MONSTERGIRL ASKS:
About Stan Winston, Lance Hendricksen, and the colors of Mario Bava:
Gary: “Basically when we did Pumpkinhead originally Stan Winston wasn’t involved we had Armand Mastroianni director (He Knows Your Alone 1980, the Clairvoyant 1982, Tales from the Dark Side 1984-1987, Friday the 13th 1989-1990) he did a few other movies including several horror movies and he was our direct and it was like okay um, and one day the producers decided to go with Stan Winston partially because it was like Stan wanted to direct, we’ll let you direct this it’ll be your directorial debut just give us a state of the art monster that would normally be in a big budgeted film and if you can pull that off that would be great, well, that was part of the reason why they really wanted Stan is that they knew they would get a creature on the level of an alien or what ever. But Stan had shot second unit on Aliens and demonstrated his ability so we kind of felt oh okay he’s a great monster maker and he knows how to film too so oh so great so and then the next thing we heard was that Lance was gonna play Ed Harley. And Mark Carducci and I were ecstatic as I said anyone from The Right Stuff (1983) astronauts at any rate he was one of them and he had just been in Aliens and he made a real impression in that film so we were really ecstatic to get Lance. Uhm after that it really was finishing the script working with Stan Winston we really didn’t interact at all with Lance and not only that we were New York based at that point and uh so were our producers they were New York producers who did Pumpkinhead so we worked with Stan and he came out and we flew out and he came to see us and and we did all that and the next time that we got involved with Lance on the set of this film. Um Mark had come to L.A. to spend more time in L.A. to be around the production of the film I still had my full time job at Topps so I was limited in my time so I finally got out there at least for a week or how ever the hell long it was to at least be on the set and that’s when I met Lance and again a very very warm friendly complimentary empathetic kind of an individual.
We spent time just kind of walking with him around the set and he said uh “guys I wanted to congratulate you on the script I see a lot of scripts and this one I felt had something that really spoke to me and I wanted to tell you it doesn’t happen that often” He was saying all kinds of stuff like that. And we were so like Oh Thank you!! We were so so flattered So he instantly established himself with us as a guy that we really liked as friends and of course his performance was spectacular. Here’s the thing with Pumpkinhead this is something that has come up a few times uh there are people the people who have, the people who have problems with Pumpkinhead who have issues with it don’t really get it what we wanted and what Stan delivered was kind of an almost pseudo documentary kind of flavor and overview and almost objective and emotionally detached overview of an event of what happens when a crime occurs out in the “sticks” how do people deal with it, what goes on in this other little world? We almost wanted a procedural so we wanted the camera or the soul of the movie as it’s looking at these events to almost be impartial otherwise whenever you have a story of a man losing his son, it’s always very sentimental heavy with the emotions I said no no no no we wanted it almost to be dry that way it doesn’t slip into the pathos of the over sentimental plot it’s so easy to happen to a picture it will retain it’s dignity and be special.
And Stan, was a perfect director for that because Stan god bless him Stan was something of a cold fish in a lot of ways he was he was kind of a dry guy okay and it was perfect! for Pumpkinhead Ironically the second movie he made he was exactly the wrong guy emotionally he did the Gnome Named Norm aka Upworld which was an E.T rip off warm and fuzzy and (emphatically) he was the exact wrong guy and that’s exactly what we didn’t want in Pumpkinhead we wanted to be like I say an overview and let those emotional events just happen as you observe them and you can be able to react to them. We didn’t want to push that sentimental angle so Stan was perfect. And in keeping with that Lance played it that way too it wasn’t a big blubbery “oh my son” no he internalized all of that stuff and that’s why it’s powerful. When his son dies in his arms it’s really could have been an opportunity to be John Williams type music soar and the sadness to hit you over the head and no no it’s underplayed and the little boy just dies in his arms and says ‘daddy’ and he just kind of dies and ya know Lance caresses the body and you see his eyes looking outward and you say this is exactly right, it’s just what you need to feel, what you need to feel without being overdone or sentimental and Lance kept it that way all the way through and I think in my opinion that’s why the movie is good. Because of that angle it could have just degenerated into a Charles Band emotional over done or one of these other movies but because Stan wasn’t a guy like that and because we wrote it that way.
We sat down and discussed that with Stan because that’s what we had in mind. Originally in the script Ed Harley was out of the story in the first third after the accident happened he goes to witch sets it in motion and then it’s just a procedural you almost wanted it to be that detached . Finally I said no no it’s about this guy it’s about a story we got to bring him back and this will be about him. Uh but yeah and Stan was right on the same page with us, and that’s the movie being made. And we’re grateful to Stan in sense for being Stan you know every movie that’s being made is the director’s soul and persona and essence that comes out. I have a theory that the story, every time you see a movie that what ever personality or tone of the movie is, not only is it the director coming through but if he’s doing his job right I always felt it’s the id of the main character that determines the personality of the movie.
If you watch a Star Trek episode it’s Captain Kirk’s souls his id, it’s like a dream that the Captain is having in that particular adventure. So I always felt the main character in any story kind of determines you’re almost in his head and that determines the personality the story. And with Lance with this character it all fit together perfectly. And you have the right director, his personality was so right for it, so that was kind of lightning in a bottle. It isn’t like it hit the whole world in that way, you know people who love it, love it within the context of a fairly limited kind of universe but we’re very very proud of it. After we saw it we thought, we got so lucky, that we had all that in place in that point in time. We had the essence of the James Cameron troupe those guys when they were hot as a pistol. When they were the thing that was happening. Back then those were the guys within a horror picture a supernatural story, they’d been doing their science fiction stuff Aliens and Terminator. Here is the horror version of that whole flavor. And the fact that our creature even resembles the alien kind of idea. I loved that I said look he’s a life form we didn’t want anything melodramatic or phony or the devil in a traditional way, no he’s a creature, it’s suggesting that he comes from a different environment and maybe Hell art of rules but there’s a physicality there you can recognize as opposed to just a demon with the horns or usual bullshit. It was Lovecraftian having a creature like that walking around farm houses. How cool is that!”
Jo: It’s very cool. I love him (Pumpkinhead) And the interest thing is you know there’s a sympathy, you know, we cheer for him. When I first saw the film I fell in love with him. I said, you know I really like this guy. It’s true he’s picking off these teenagers but who cares! (laughs from the guts, Gary howls) They’re invading this quaint space. They’re intruding on this very closed universe , they’re invading the world. They came in and they brought their noise and their disrespect and they invaded this beautiful quaint little world and now they’re gonna pay for it. It doesn’t matter who ran Billy down. It really just mattered that they were all there in the way. And Pumpkinhead was just a manifestation of the rage. And it’s like a fairy tale. To me it’s a fairy tale. But I do see what you’re saying.”
Gary: You’re absolutely right that fairy tale thing it’s kind of interesting because on the one hand we really wanted a sense of reality in the daytime, we tell people we wanted deliverance in the daytime and Mario Bava at night. Where that whole otherworldly fairy tale beautiful horror kind of stuff can shine. But in the day as real and gritty as possible, so it winds up being a dark fairy tale and that kind of what it is and yet it was a nice mixture of gritty realism and also the way our cinematographer ( Bojan Bazelli )lit the film, our cinematographer lit the witches hut with oranges and all that.
Jo: Oh yeah the hottest reds and the cold blues they were beautiful.
Gary: Ohhhh god isn’t that beautiful! We had said listen our big influence was the tv series Thriller and The Outer Limits. If you can give us Conrad Hall’s photography in color we’d be so appreciative. That’s why you got those episodes that were noir, Orson Welles type compositions you know the beautiful black and white– all that kind of thing. And then The Outer Limits flavor comes through too because it was kind of like The Galaxy Being who brings his own lightning by accident sort of having a little bit of that flavor.
Jo: Right he comes out of an alternate space.
Gary: (after running into Lance at the florist in L.A.) –The next significant thing that happened with Lance he was giving an interview with somebody and they were talking and he mentioned that the thing that convinced him to do movie was one particular scene, okay, that when we wrote the picture when you’re collaborating with your writing partner in the script you’re both constantly pulling ideas back and forth and the end result is a combination of your thoughts and your partners thoughts. Some scenes he came up with, some scenes you came up with.
The scene that convinced Lance to do the movie happened to be a scene that I came up with I was so tickled. And the particular scene we’re talking about is when Ed Harley is driving back and he sees his little boy sit up, his dead little boy sits up in the car and says “What’d you do daddy?”
You know it’s a little hallucination and then he looks and of course the body of the boy is, and all that his conscience is rearing, it’s like his little boy is saying what have you done you know and that was my idea you know what ever and that was the scene that convinced Lance to do the picture. Good old Lance I’m so happy it was a scene that I came up with… And I remember coming up with it thinking how cool it would be to show his guilt by having a little shot of his son like that and the fact that that made the difference in Lance’s mind was like how cool is that.
And this is funny, the whole thing where the kids, the boy and the girl are getting into a car and what ever they’re doing they’re and the guy shows up with the shotgun. And basically tells them that they’re marked and that’s when they first think “marked” what do you mean whatever and then all of a sudden Pumpkinhead shows up, yeah it’s the guy with his dog right okay yeah the guy with his dog he fires a shot you know and says something like ‘empty your hands son’ or what ever which is he line he stole in reverse from True Grit where John Wayne say’s “Fill your hands you son of a bitch” I don’t know if that’s ever been said (laughs) but anyway, that guy with the shot gun no matter how many times like a dozen takes the gun wouldn’t fire and the gun expert was there and it just wouldn’t work and finally it finally worked and it’s amazing when you make a movie like half a night can be taken up with problem’s like this. Actually Lance comes into that scene and he fires at the creature but he wasn’t in that particular scene.
Jo: Where was it filmed?
Gary: it was in the Hollywood hills somewhere We managed to find locations that looked rural enough I just remember at the time that we just went all the way out to the hills there. Actually it’s amazing cause it does it does seem authentic. I though we faked it pretty nicely.
Jo: And I love the set designer, whoever designed the mound with the pumpkin patch and the gnarled trees
Gary: Isn’t that great talk about something out of a Mario Bava movie. You have the swirling mists you have It’s like Black Sunday
Jo: Or Black Sabbath, the composition of colors in Black Sabbath
Gary -Oh yeah the colors in Black Sabbath. The cinematographer knew how to use color the way you use black and white with darks and lights and all that stuff we were very lucky with Bojan Bazelli our cinematographer who went on to do very important movies not that this isn’t important but you know what I mean…
Jo: Yeah, Pumpkinhead’s important!
Gary: I feel much of what makes that movie good is that look that he gave us. In all fairness to Stan you think about that mound that we’re talking about, the burial mound and the grave yard and all that the shot that introduces that is this fantastic shot that starts the camera on Lance and this was Stan right umm obviously the cinematographer is achieving this shot for Stan but you got Lance walking almost knee level you’re on the level with the ditch coming toward you and then eventually he comes into sort of close up looks up and then the camera which is following him then rises high high high high so you see what he’s looking at which is the mound and then it keeps rising until you’re almost in the trees looking down at the mound —all in one shot and it was Stan who wanted that shot. And the cinematographer gave it to him. Fantastic shot absolutely beautiful shot. And in the burned out church with the camera following Pumpkinhead as the kids are running out of the church as the camera remains and you see through the slats in the side of the building as something is entering as one beautiful long continuous shot there are a few of those gorgeous camera moves throughout the picture. And that I give credit to Stan.
I HAD A FEW MORE QUESTIONS!
JO GABRIEL — Question #1) Since you’re basically still a Monster Kid in an adult’s body like me, is there another interesting character, science fiction themed, mythological or fairy tale based that is burning a hole in your brain waiting for you to bring it to life on screen? A departure from PUMPKINHEAD of course but as potentially ICONIC in its design (although sadly Stan Winston is no longer with us.)
GARY GERANI– About fifteen years ago, I tried to sell an animated musical based on THE GOLEM, with music by Billy (DUEL) Goldenberg. The theme of oppressed people resonated, and the amount of black magic involved really made it a great supernatural tale… kind of like FAUST meets FRANKENSTEIN. The Golem itself gradually takes on demonic features the longer it remains in existence after fulfilling its primary function as a super-warrior for justice. The creature’s relationship with Rabbi Lowe’s little boy provided the story’s emotional punch. Another classic demon I wanted to re-visit was Guy de Maupassant’s THE HORLA, which had been adapted into a reasonably effective 1963 Vincent Price movie, DIARY OF A MADMAN.
“So glad you enjoyed my THE OUTER LIMITS chats. “Architects of Fear” turned out well, I thought. The ZONES were a ball to do. The ol’ Blu-ray sets won both Rondo and Saturn awards, so I guess fans were happy with them.”
JO GARBIEL — Question 2a) You’ve done commentaries for the groundbreaking 1960s anthology series The Outer Limits, Boris Karloff’s THRILLER and Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. What is your favorite episode for each and what makes it special for you?
PUMPKINHEAD has that wonderful rural boogeyman atmosphere like The Hollow Watcher episode of THRILLER which you lent your insightful commentary to!
Question 2b) Would you ever take a story from either of those three shows and put your own spin on it or adapt it in a more contemporary manner using sock puppets (just kidding) or feature film?
GARY GERANI –“Twilight Zone: Probably a toss-up between “Eye of the Beholder” and “Walking Distance.” They were so many, many good episodes. “Eye” hit all major ZONE areas: great central set-up, relatable, heartfelt humanity explored, social comment, incredible twist. “Distance” gets right into your soul, and Gig Young, who was sorta burned-out in real life, was fantastic. On top of everything else, both have brand new Bernard Herrmann scores to die for.
THRILLER: 1a)“The Cheaters” and “Pigeons from Hell.” “Cheaters” is a tight, episodic scary tale, brilliantly executed, and with one hell of a horrific payoff. “Pigeons” is atmospheric and dreamlike from beginning to end, a one-of-a-kind experience (although director John Newland’s “I Kiss Your Shadow” for BUS STOP around the same time comes close). Once seen with her hatchet-arm raised, the zvembie is never forgotten!
THE OUTER LIMITS: “The Forms of Things Unknown” (final episode of S1 OL) is probably my favorite because it pushed cinematic storytelling to the max. It was where Stefano’s sensibilities were going after a year of OL, as it was the pilot for a never-launched anthology. If I had to pick a full-fledged OL, it would probably be “The Man Who Was Never Born.” I differentiate between Seasons 1 and 2, by the way, since they were almost different shows. Harlan Ellison’s “Demon with a Glass Hand” would be my favorite S2 show, followed by the two-part “The Inheritors.”
2b)-When I was the West Coast Editor of Topps Comics in the 1990s, we were developing an OUTER LIMITS comic book in connection with UA. The idea was to create sequels, prequels and remakes of classic episodes. “The Galaxy Being Returns,” “Spawn of the Zanti Misfits,” “The Seventh Finger” and others were just some of the possible concepts I suggested. Also in the 90s, my late writing partner Mark Carducci had briefly gotten the rights to WEIRD TALES magazine, and I was set to write a new version of “Pigeons from Hell” for a TV anthology along the lines of TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Nether one of those projects came to fruition, sad to say.”
JO GABRIEL – Question #3-The 3rd question addresses what you said the other night when we chatted, that struck me as one of the truly interesting themes running through PUMPKINHEAD
PUMPKINHEAD is a self contained dark little Americana Gothic tale with it’s color prisms that frame the ethereal landscape at times –a cold cold blue or a fiery red.
I loved the way you talked about your vision of PUMPKINHEAD as ‘Deliverance’ by day and Mario Bava by night combined to make a gritty reality with a dark evocative fairy tale.’ So maybe you could expand on how that came together and/or working with Stan’s creation.
GARY GERANI – “Mark and I sat down with Stan Winston and discussed the project. We were all monster kids, so we understood the old movie references instantly. We all wanted that atmospheric look; I asked for “Conrad Hall-style cinematography, but in color,” and we had fun thinking of PUMPKINHEAD as a kind of OUTER LIMITS meets THRILLER in color. It even had a main monster that, like the Galaxy Being, gave off his own lightning storm, what we called “psychic turbulence,” as he prowled the area. Our original version of the witch was a bit more normal and seductively verbose (think “Jess-Belle” from TZ), but Stan wanted the primal, basic essence of a witch, more of a symbol than a real person, and asked that we reduce Haggis’ dialogue to what we wound up with (“Now it begins, Ed Harley”). When we talked about Pumpkinhead appearing in the doorway of the burned-out church, Stan said, “I want The Thing in the doorway,” referring to the iconic silhouetted moment in the 1951 sci-fi classic. Like I said, we all knew the movies. Our very talented cinematographer fully understood the special flavors we were trying to achieve, and delivered big-time.”
TRAILER
A Trailer a Day Keeps The Pumpkinhead Away! (1988)
This has been your EverLovin’ MonsterGirl saying it’s been an absolute gas getting to know Gary Gerani, a regular guy with an enormous wealth of knowledge and nostalgia tucked into that endearing voice. And say — this Halloween–don’t avoid that pumpkin patch… if you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about that is…!
A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! The Devil Bat (1940)
THE DEVIL BAT (1940)
He’s Trained His Brood of Blood-Hungry Bats to Kill on Command!
Directed by Jean Yarborough, The Devil Bat stars Bela Lugosi at his best as a scientist Dr. Paul Carruthers who develops formulas for a cosmetic empire that makes two families their fortunes– the Heaths and the Mortons, while he remains a measly worker in his lab.
To exact revenge he creates a race of giant bats to attack and kill off those who have slighted him. Anyone who wears his strong smelling after shave lotion is doomed to die!