Hysterical Woman of the Week! Louise Sorel in The Fugitive from (1965)

As of late, I am finding myself drawn to David Janssen, his quiet charisma and sexy self-restrained smile that just kind of makes me swoon. I’ve been devouring as much of his work as I can, guilty pleasures like Once is Not Enough 1975, and tv movies like The Golden Gate Murders 1979, Warning Shot 1967, and his other tv persona as cheeky private eye, Harry O.Each night I coil up with an episode of that quintessential noir television thriller, The Fugitive to waltz me into slumberland.

And so, in honor of this wonderful actor who left us way too early …I’m kicking off this new Last Drive-In offering, Hysterical Woman of the Week, with one of the most powerful episodes from the series about the man who runs away a lot… the valiant and zen Dr Richard Kimble.

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So with just a little further MG ramblings here’s a little ‘hysteria’ god how I resent, no!…abhor this archetype which is why I harp on it perhaps way too much, The Hysterical Woman…!

Louise Sorel

Here’s the pretty and unsung Louise Sorel  portraying Edith Waverly getting a little upset with mother Edith (Ruth White)

*years later she would do hysterical brilliantly yet again as Velia Redford in one of my favorite episodes of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery’s The Dead Man.

from television series ‘The Fugitive’: episode The Survivors (2 Mar. 1965)

Ever Hysterically Yours-MonsterGirl

Just in time for Yule & Christmas… The Last Drive In warns: Beware of Bad Santas!

A moment from Freddie Francis’ Tales From The Crypt (1972)

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Pay back is a psychotic escapee from the local asylum when Joan Collin’s whacks her husband with a fire iron to get his large life insurance policy. In the 1st segment called  And All Through The House

Just one of the five stories told by the crypt keeper Ralph Richardson, to the five guests who learn of the ways in which they have met their deaths. Based on E.C. Comics, it’s Classic horror at it’s very best!!!!!

And remember…Don’t open the window, door or chimney flue to anyone in a red flannel suit and phoney white beard unless it’s your jolly uncle Stanislaw-MonsterGirl

A trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman away! Wicked, Wicked (1973)

“See the hunter, see the hunted – both at the same time!”

WICKED, WICKED (1973)

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Directed and written by Richard L. Bare who usually wrote for television offers us this classic schlocky & obscure little horror thriller from the 70s boasting the technique of ANAMORPHIC DuoVision, employing the use of split- screen to tell the story about a psychotic killer in a creepy fright mask dismembering blondes at the Grandview Hotel. Starring Tiffany Bolling (The Candy Snatchers 1973, Kingdom of the Spiders 1977) as singer Lisa James, Scott Brady plays Police Sgt. Ramsey and Edd Burns (77 Sunset Strip) is ‘Hank’ Lassiter a sleazy lifeguard. With appearances by Madeleine Sherwood, Arthur O’Connell and Roger Bowen.

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Tiffany Bolling singing Wicked Wicked, wish I could have a guy playing bass that looks like this dude…wow

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It’s been wicked fun!- MonsterGirl

A Trailer a day keeps the Boogeyman Away! Between Two Worlds (1944)

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (1944)

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Produced by Jack L Warner and Mark Hellinger and directed by Edward A.Blatt, with a screenplay by Daniel Fuchs and based on Sutton Vanes play “Outward Bound” this story is a journey with an extraordinary ensemble cast, featuring John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor. Parker, Edmund Gwenn, George Tobias, George Coulouris, Faye Emerson, and Isobel Elsom.

With an beautifully evocative score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Kings Row 1942,The Sea Wolf 1941)

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The film begins with an air raid during WWII, in which several people are unable to seek shelter. As the film transcends it’s earthly boundaries, it emerges as a mystical and melancholy tale of lost souls thrown together on a mysterious ship, trying to grasp the meanings of their lives, as they reflect and react to each other.

Aboard this strange ship which acts as a traveling Pergatory the players must wait and see if their final destination will either be heaven or hell, as their paths become clear to them, and they awaken to their final destinies.

Tom Prior: I read a great epitaph once, I’m gonna steal it for myself.
Scrubby: Sir?
Tom Prior: Here lies Prior, died a bachelor. Wifeless. Childless. Wish his father’d died the same.

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Here in this world, saying be happy-MonsterGirl

Quote of The Day!-The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI 1947

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Orson Welles is the black Irish seaman chump Michael O’Hara who falls head long into a web of desire, subterfuge and murder, when he stumbles across (Everette Sloane) Arthur Bannister’s wife Mrs. Elsa Bannister (the exquisite Rita Hayworth) out for a carriage ride in the park one night. With one of the most staggering climaxes in Film Noir!

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“I never make up my mind until it’s over and done with.”- Michael O’Hara

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-MonsterGirl

Twelve Neglected Characters from Classic Film.

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1) The tragically poetic Pete Krumbein in Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley 1947 played by Ian Keith.
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2) The flamboyant Franzi Kartos in Caught 1949 portrayed by Curt Bois ‘darling’
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3) Stauffer, alias Fred Foss in The Dark Corner 1946-played by the wonderful William Bendix in the white linen suit…
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4) Good-hearted kite hanger, Brenda Martin in Women’s Prison 1955 – the eternal pixie Jan Sterling.
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5) Jeff Corey, as the cringing, cowardly informer ‘Freshman’ Stack in Brute Force 1947.
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6) Beulah Bondi as spiittin’ Granny Tucker in Jean Renoir’s The Southerner 1945 ‘Ah shuckity’
Ma Stone- Jane Darwell, The Devil & Daniel Webster
7) Ma Stone in William Dieterle’s The Devil and Daniel Webster 1941– the grand Jane Darwell.
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8) Cecil Kellaway as Harry Wills and Mary Astor as Jewel Mayhew in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte 1964.
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9) Cliff the jazz sexed drummer in Phantom Lady 1944– the ubiquitous Elisha Cook Jr.
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10) Quirky sisters Louisa and Emily Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941Edith Barrett & Elsa Lanchester.
11) The wonderful stoolie Mo whose saves for her headstone and plot out on Long Island played with that razor-sharp wit of Thelma Ritter in Pickup on South Street (1953).
12) Jack Oakie as Slob in Jules Dassin’s realism masterpiece Thieves’ Highway (1949).

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