Fifty Years Into The Future!–The Most Fantastic Expedition Ever Conceived by Man!
Director Lesley Selander with a screenplay by Arthur Strawn (The Black Room 1935, The Man Who Lived Twice 1936) Selander it seems is more known for his work with westerns both on the big screen and television set. The film stars Marguerite Chapman as Alita, Cameron Mitchell as Steve Abbott, Arthur Franz as Dr. Jim Barker, Virginia Huston as Carol Stafford, John Litel as Dr. Lane, and Morris Ankrum as Ikron who became an incredibly familiar supportive player in many of these fantastic films of the 1950s, (Rocketship X-M 1950, Red Planet Mars 1952, Invaders from Mars 1953, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers 1956, Beginning of the End 1957, Kronos 1957, The Giant Claw 1957, Zombies of Mora Tau 1957, Half Human 1958 and How to Make a Monster 1958.)
With special effects and art direction by Edward S. Hayworth,Jack Cosgrove, and cited by Fantascene Irving Block (matte artist for Invaders from Mars 1953, Forbidden Planet 1956, Kronos 1957, The Giant Behemoth 1959) was responsible for the impressive design and over all look of the picture with cinematography by Harry Neumann (The Land of Missing Men 1930, Vanity Fair 1932, The Thirteenth Guest 1932, When Strangers Meet 1934, The Mysterious Mr. Wong 1939, The Fatal Hour 1940, Doomed to Die 1940, The Face of Marble 1946, The Maze 1953 in 3D!, A Bullet for Joey 1955, My Gun is Quick 1957, The Wasp Woman 1959)
Flight to Mars offered little pesky problems, like weightlessness, meteor showers, a contemplative pipe smoking Arthur Franz as scientist Jim Barker who spends so much time calculating their trip to Mars that he can’t see that Carol Stafford (Virginia Huston) is hopelessly in love with him. Cameron Mitchell plays newspaper man Steve Abbott, who is the ‘man’s man’ there to act as brawn and counter-balance to the intellectual egg-headedness of the brainy types on board including Dr. Lane (John Litel) and Professor Jackson (Richard Gaines) also scientists on board.
“You listening Carol, I think you are a prize package and VERY feminine… {…} I sure do Mr. engineer and I don’t have to look in a test tube to find out.”– Steve
The extent of Steve Abbott’s philosophizing “Close enough to the man in the moon to talk to him.”
As Bill Warren writes, “It’s as if a law (the law of the box office) was laid down for makes of science fiction films of the 1950s; a man could not be both brilliant and amusing ; he couldn’t be both a genius and a lover, both a scientist and a sinner.; both skilled with his brains and with his fists. Wisecracks, sexual drive and heroics were usually allotted to one or two other characters. The scientist was almost always a loner with the faraway look of dreams in his eyes., never also a down to-Earth regular Joe who was also a brilliant researcher.
It stands to reason then that Carol would run straight into the arms of the hero, Steve Abbott, who notices that she’s “really feminine.”
When the ship crash lands on Mars, and the sky burns a brilliant orange things get pretty exciting for the crew and us when they spot strange structures as part of the landscape. Enter steady science fiction player Morris Ankrum as the duplicitous Martian named Ikron, who not only looks very human but is quite eloquent with his use of the English language due to the fact that he has studied us from our radio and television broadcasts, and have know of their impending arrival. Ikron takes the earth men underground to their city dwelling with cars and air ships (animated) to show how advanced their civilization is.
OSA MASSEN Character(s): Dr. Lisa Van Horn Film ‘ROCKETSHIP X-M’ (1950) Directed By KURT NEUMANN 26 May 1950 CTW88028 Allstar/Cinetext/LIPPERT PICTURES
Incidentally Alamy has mis-marked this photograph as Osa Massen when clearly it is Flight to Mars…
The truth is that the Martians are running out of their precious resource of Corium and without the planet will become uninhabitable and they will perish. The Martians plan on hijacking the Earth rocket, use their technology to produce more rockets like ours and then conquer the Earth! But among these nefarious Martians are those who want to help them escape, like Tillamar played by Robert Barrat (Captain Blood 1935, The Life of Emile Zola 1937, Relentless 1948, and his last appearance as the kind father Stoney Likens in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s incredible episode Return of Verge Likens 1964) and his beautiful daughter Alita played by Marguerite Chapman (Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum 1940, Appointment in Berlin 1943, Strange Affair 1944, The Green Promise 1949, The Seven Year Itch 1955)
Ikron finds out about the little insurrection taking place as he has a pretty spy Terris (Lucille Barkley) who alerts him to everything that is going on. Alita who has also fallen in love with brainy boy scientist Dr. Jim Baker (Arthur Franz) is a true heroine and helps the crew lift off Mars and away from her treacherous father and his evil plans.
Steve Abbott: Dr. Lane, I once heard of a man who climbed a higher mountain than anyone else alive, but he was never able to get down again. What’s left of him is still up there.
Dr. Lane: The point is, Steve, he made it.
Steve Abbott: [looking at the Earth through the port hole of the spaceship] Ah, the Earth seems so big when you’re on it… from out here so small and nothing. It’s like closing your eyes in the dark and suddenly you’re alone with your soul.
Directed by Sam Newfield (The Terror of Tiny Town 1938, The Mad Monster 1942, Dead Men Walk 1943, I Accuse My Parents 1944) starring Cesar Romero as Maj. Joe Nolan, Hillary Brooke as Marla Stevens, Chick Chandler as Lt. Danny Wilson, John Hoyt as Michael Rostov, Acquanettaas ‘Native Girl’, Sid Melton as Sgt. Willie Tatlow, Whit Bissell as Stanley Briggs and Hugh Beaumont as Robert Phillips. Cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh and Augie Lohman (Barbarella 1968) in charge of visual effects and stop motion animation.
Let’s just get Hillary Brooke out of the way now, as she doesn’t crash land on the Lost Continent, as Marlashe only gets to dance with Cesar Romero before his flight leaves for parts unknown!
Somehow dinosaurs seems to go along with rocket ships and exploration of lands without and within. So naturally a lot of fantasy/adventure films are considers little lost continents amidst the Sci-Fi genre. According to Bill Warren, dinosaurs were actually a potential plot mechanism thought of by Robert Lippert for Rocketship X-M, thank the space-gods that the film maintains it’s integrity with just a civilization of savages wiped out by nuclear holocaust.
As Bill Warren cites in his bible for the 1950s genre there was a “tradition of blending phony Old Native Legends with some new, science fictional story elements.”
An atomic powered rocket craps out over the South Pacific, and so a rescue mission led by Maj. Joe Nolan (Cesar Romero) is sent out to find the crew, aided by his co-pilot Danny (Chick Chandler) and cracking wise Sergeant Willie Tatlow played by Sid Melton who adds the comic-relief (Sophia Petrillo’s smart-alecky Sal, ‘May he rest in peace til I get there’) Along is Ward Clever, no wait he was a Sea-Bee, teehee Hugh Beaumont as top scientist Robert Phillips and scientists Michael Rostov played by the other ubiquitous supportive actor John Hoyt and Stanley Briggs played by the other very familiar face Whit Bissell who is terrified by a giant lizard one night and falls off the side of the mountain.
Major Joe Nolan: Look at the size of that footprint! I’ve never seen anything like it before!
Robert Phillips: I have. Once… in a museum.
The crew crash lands just coincidentally in the same spot as the prior ship, and they find themselves on an Island (tinted in glorious green at the mountain top ) not only filled with volcanic activity but is radio-active AND it’s inhabited by the sultry Acquanetta (Captive Wild Woman 1943, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman 1946) a native girl who remained after all the others fled when they saw the great fire-bird fly over head and made the earth tremble.
Acquanetta born Mildred Davenport of Ozone, Wyoming.
Here she is in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman 1946
She also warns them not to climb the mountain as it is a ‘sacred mountain taboo’ which is the home of her gods. The crew is also getting a bit mistrustful of Rostov after all he is a Russian ex-patriot and has ice water in his veins. Joe gives him a dig after Briggs falls to his death pondering if he in fact just let the poor man fall, “another one of your–unpredictables?”
The island or Lost Continent is a pressure cooker of vapors, clouds, greenery and uranium fields that might just blow! All this radioactivity must have been what brought down both rockets. and as one of them points out as “powerful as a stockpile of hydrogen bombs…”
The crew shoot a flying reptile minding it’s own business, there’s a gratuitous dinosaur fight between horned beasts and a brontosaurus ( which I thought were leaf eaters hhm, I’ll have to look that up) chases Phillips up a tree. The crew is befuddled by the presence of prehistoric dinosaurs, but Hollywood isn’t so they’ll just have to deal. Phillips asks, “Who can explain it?… it’s an impossibility, yet here we are right in the middle of it!”Â
The film even gets to stick some anti-red sentiment in there as the stranded crew from the rocket-ship come to find out that Rostov not only didn’t sabotage the rocket but is a regular ‘Joe/Mike’, who lost his wife in a concentration camp and considers some of his Russian countrymen ‘villains’ who he wants to go back and fight against them ‘pushing buttons on more rockets.’
Finally they find their ship nose down in the earth, but they can’t get near it because there is a large brontosaurus and a triceratops hanging around, and Willie winds up getting gored to death. Then the earthquakes begin but the survivors make it out to sea on a raft just as the whole mountain blows up!
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (People on Sunday 1930, The Black Cat 1934, Detour 1945, The Strange Woman 1945, Ruthless 1948, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll 1957, The Amazing Transparent Man 1960)
Written by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen (The Secret of Convict Lake 1951, Captive Women 1952, Port Sinister 1953, The Neanderthal Man 1953, Five Bold Women 1960.)
Though this is a very low budget film, I have an affection for it’s unassuming and atmospherically charming tone and I actually had an action figure of the alien as part of a series released in the late 60s, early 70s which included the winged angel from Barbarella!
Okay enough meandering down nostalgic Warren Drive, Long Island USA.
The sets were left overs from Joan of Arc (1948) at Hal Roach Studios. Ulmer designed the ship that resembled less of a space craft and more like ‘diving bell that was lowered into our dense atmosphere -Bill Warren. The film’s use of low lighting hides that fact that set and the interior ship design was constructed out of plywood. Inside the alien suit it is suggested was a little person or person of short stature actor possibly Billy Curtis. According to Warren, as described in the script, his face had the look of being distorted by pressure, or as if similar to a ritual mask belonging to a primitive tribe. The lighting adds to the unique quality of his expressionless face.
The film opens with American reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke-The Astounding She Monster 1957, The Hideous Sun Demon 1959) narrating in voice-over his panic over the well being of both Professor Elliot and his daughter Enid who have been taken back to a space craft by the alien from planet X. As he paces the observatory tower floor he begins to relate the strange story that has unfolded in the past few days. He fears for their lives as well as his own.
Lawrence was sent to a remote Scottish Isle Burray in the Orkneys, to see Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond) after a wandering planet called ‘X’ is spotted in our solar system and is approaching Earth, estimated coming close to the Orkneys. John Lawrence stays with Dr. Mears played by extremely likable and oft seen William Schallert, although in this film he plays a rather suspicious and brooding character who has a mistrust of Williams. John Williams also meets his lovely daughter Enid played by Margaret Field. This science fiction gem has a sub-plot as most do where love gets to blossom, as Enid and John they take a foggy drive then a cozy walk along the moors, they encounter a small metallic object and eventually stumble upon an object that they establish is a probe.
As Anthony Newley sings from his and Leslie Bricusse’s song from their award winning musical The Roar of the Greasepaint –the Smell of the Crowd—“Look at that Face, just look at it!”
Later that night Enid gets a flat tire and walks back across the moors in the shrouded mysterious late night fog where she comes upon a sphere with an observation glass and she looks in, a strange face peers out at her!
Enid runs and gets her father, and when they arrive back at the ship to inspect it, a light shines in her father’s face and becomes temporarily submissive. The laser gun creates a calming light zone where people not only comply, but can understand the droning language of the alien from X. When Lawrence and Mears go back to investigate the Man from Planet X comes out once again to greet them. In a very interesting scene, this adorable alien attempts to judge whether these earth men can be trusted, so he turns off his air supply until Lawrence realizes what he is doing he turns his air back on and from that point he sees that Lawrence can be trusted.
Dr. Mears is another matter entirely. The Man from Planet X has not come to Earth meaning any harm, and only turns defense and hostile after the greedy Mears bares his viciously aggressive teeth–bad scientist, bad bad scientist!
The alien follows both men back to the tower where they’re staying, but he’s left with the greedy Mears who only wants to exploit the poor little gray guy in the cutest little space suit ever. He discovers great cosmic secrets from Mr. alien X conversing within the universal language of mathematics. The nasty Mears tries to subdue him by turning his oxygen source on low but once he revives and takes Mears and Enid with him back to the ship, later taking Professor Elliot and several villagers along with him putting them in the same hypnotic trance forming a wall around his ship.
Dr. Mears:[to the Man from Planet X –laughing] Dr. Mears: To think – a fantastic gnome like you had to hurdle out of space to put this power in my hands. Well, now that we’ve made contact, I’m gonna tear out every secret you’ve got!
Planet X is drawing nearer to Earth… Roy Engle as Tommy the Constable calls in the military. John Lawrence manages to awaken the sleep walkers and get them safely away from the ship, while the evil Dr. Mears runs back in the direction of military fire. The space craft and sadly, the alien are blown to smithereens. Planet X in it’s wake creates terrestrial winds, and bright lights — and then disappears into the vastness of outer space once again, perhaps dooming Earth to bad weather?
Whether or not The Man from Planet X was an innocent drifter who found himself in a kerfuffle on Earth just trying to survive being in the wrong place at the right time or as Lawrence feared might have been trying to invade the planet… because of his ‘otherness’ he had to be destroyed.
Dr. Mears-” How may we know what processes of thought run through his head? How may we assume he thinks as we do? How may we anticipate what a bizarre and fantastic organism might or might not do?”
Down on the ground Alien X has turned off his oxygen to test the earthling’s response. He’s about as aggressive as a kitten going belly up! John turns his air back on.
I have to admit that I am one of the ones who finds Edgar Ulmer’s work fascinating and worthy of it’s cult following as he’s done everything from moody b horror films to film noir. Some more lavish budgets like The Black Cat 1934, and Bluebeard 1944, to film noir masterpieces like Detour (1946) Some poverty row flicks with titles like Girls in Chains, Isle of Forgotten Sins and Jive Junction all made in 1943.
In an interview with film maker Peter Bogdanovich in Kings of the Bs, Ulmer said that he had to do it all for the sake of the money, “I admit to myself that I was somehow schizophrenic in making pictures. On one hand, I was absolutely concerned with the box office and on the other, I was trying to create art and decency with style. I could not completely get out of the commercial though I knew it limited me.”Â
But as Bill Warren says, what ultimately wound up happening because of Ulmer’s hand in The Man From Planet X resulted in ‘the first science fiction gothic horror film.”
An Austrian implant who had a knack for set design. And the lustrous and atmospheric demur of The Man From Planet XÂ just sets this curious and obscure little gem apart from all the other Sci-Fi films of the 1950s.
Enid Elliot:When I got close to it, it looked like a giant glass ball girdled with something like a steel belt. Three of them, I think. When I got close enough to look in – there it was.
Professor Elliot: It? What?
Enid Elliot:That face! Right on the other side of the glass looking right into mine! I was terrified!
Professor Elliot:A face? A human face?
Enid Elliot:A ghastly caricature like something distorted by pressure. I can’t think how else to describe it – a horrible, grotesque face looking right into my eyes!
Professor Elliot:Your statement has the tinge of fantasy.
Enid Elliot:You know, I think that creature was friendly. I wonder what would have happened if… if Dr. Mears hadn’t frightened him.
 John Lawrence: Who knows? Perhaps the greatest curse ever to befall the world, or perhaps the greatest blessing.
Folie à deux (/fäl? ä ?d?,f??l? ä ?d?/; French for “a madness shared by two”), or shared psychosis, is a psychiatric syndrome in which symptoms of a delusional belief and hallucinations are transmitted from one individual to another.
or
Amour fou (ämoi)
1. uncontrollable or obsessive passion.
“The puzzle and threat of random violence is one of the defining tropes of true-crime”-Jean Murley
Scott Wilson as Dick Hickock and Robert Blake as Perry Smith.The real killers were Perry Smith and Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock.
In Cold Blood (1967) is director Richard Brooks’s (The First Time I Saw Paris 1954, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958, Elmer Gantry 1960) masterpiece of modern nightmarish nihilistic ‘horror of personality.’
Columbia Studios actually wanted Paul Newman and Steve McQueen to play the roles and wanted it shot in color. Newman went on to do Cool Hand Luke that year and McQueen starred in The Thomas Crown Affair and Bullitt in 1968. Thank god Brooks got his way and got to do his treatment in Black & White, on location and with lesser-known actors, who both went on to earn Oscar nominations for their chilling performances of the murderous pair.
Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, and director Richard Brooks on location for In Cold Blood (1967).Author Truman Capote and director/screenwriter Richard Brooks.
A post-war true crime thriller, what author Elliot Leyton terms Compulsive Killers: The Story of Modern Multiple Murder, the film is steeped in expressive realism about two thugs Robert Blake as Perry Smith a dark and damaged swarthy angel of death & Scott Wilson (In the Heat of the Night 1967, The Gypsy Moths 1969, The New Centurions 1972, The Great Gatsby 1974, The Right Stuff 1983) as Dick Hickock, who inspire in each other a sense of anti-establishment negativity.
These two drifters, having heard about a wealthy wheat farmer from a fellow inmate, think there is a safe in the house filled with $10,000. The two dark souls take siege upon the rural Holcomb Kansas Clutter family in the middle of the night, hogties them, and look for the money, only to find this clean cut humble family has nothing to steal but $43, a bible and pasteurized milk in the icebox. The two proceed to shotgun murder and cut the throats of the entire household so there are… “No witnesses.” –Dick Hickock. There are two surviving daughters, Beverly and Eveanna that were spared this horror.
Robert Blake as Perry Smith, John Forsythe plays Alvin Dewey head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and Scott Wilson as Dick Hickock… being brought in…
John Forsythe plays Alvin Dewey head of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who goes on the hunt collecting clues and tracking down the killers involved in this sensational crime.
Alvin Dewey (John Forsythe) Reporter Bill Jensen (Paul Stewart) who writes for the weekly magazine. Reporter Jensen tells Dewey that it’s a strange coincidence that Herb Clutter writes his first insurance check and that the policy paid $40,000 which pays a double indemnity of $80,000. Dewey-“You’re not here to write something new, what is your interest?” Jensen “Fairly basic” Dewey-“What’s basic about a stupid senseless crime… A violent unknown force destroys a decent ordinary family.” Jensen-“No clues, no logic. Makes us all feel frightened, vulnerable” Dewey- “Murders’ no mystery. Only the motive…{…} Someday, somebody will explain to me the motive of a newspaper. First, you scream, “Find the bastards.” Till we find them, you want to get us fired. When we find them, you accuse us of brutality. Before we go into court, you give them a trial by newspaper. When we finally get a conviction, you want to save them by proving they were crazy in the first place.”
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In this semi-documentary police procedural post-noir crime thriller Alvin Dewey studies the bloody bootprint left at the Clutter murder scene.
Dewey tracks down these two bad boys, who have fled to Mexico where Perry (Robert Blake) loses himself in fantasies and painful flashbacks of his childhood with a violent father, whoring mother, of buried treasure, and prospecting for gold. Dick (Scott Wilson) gets tired of languishing around listening to Perry’s dreams and convinces him to head back to the States, passing bad checks along the way and winding up in Las Vegas. The police finally catch up with the murderous anti-social duo, where the men are finally broken of their alibi, and they are sentenced to die by ‘the big swing’ hanging.
Alvin Dewey takes Perry back to the night of the terrible crime…
Mrs. Clutter calmly asks –“Please don’t hurt the children.”
Dick-“Make one move, holler once and we’ll cut their throats.”
Herbert Clutter: “Why do you boys want to do this? Dick: “Shut up!”Perry-“Floyd Wells lied to you. There isn’t any safe.”Perry morbidly superstitious and brooding, while Dick entertains a working girl in the bed across the room, has flashbacks to the night his father (Charles McGraw) finds his drunken whoring mother playing around. Perry’s father proceeds to beat her in front of him and his siblings. Painting a picture of Perry Smith’s traumatic beginnings.
In the clothing store, Dick who often refers to Perry as hon or some such affectionate diminutive–wipes the sweat off Perry’s brow and says “Easy baby… look casual.”the charming and fast-talking Dick passing around bad checks.Perry tells Dick- “You’re good you’re really good. Smooth. No sweat no strain You’re an artist boy.”buying supplies for the robbery/murder.Dick: “Did you see those guys? They coulda robbed us!” Perry: “What of?” Perry: “That was stupid – stealin’ a lousy pack of razor blades! To prove what?”Dick: “It’s the national pastime, baby, stealin’ and cheatin’. If they ever count every cheatin’ wife and tax chiseler, the whole country would be behind prison walls.”
Perry is superstitious he watches the nuns with a sense of foreboding… it’s a lurking bad omen for sure. stealing cars and changing plates.
Holcomb, Kan., Nov. 15 [1959] (UPI) “” A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged… There were no signs of a struggle, and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut.
— The New York Times
the real Perry Smith led by police into the Garden City Kansas courthouse on Jan. 6, 1960 charged with first degree murder.
The film is based on Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel that started the True Crime trend. Capote was looking to write a non-fiction novel and had been inspired by the shotgun murders of the Clutter family when the sensational crime hit the news in 1959.
Defense lawyer Duane West in court with real killer Richard “Dick’ Hickock.Capote, Wilson, and Blake are on the set of In Cold Blood in Kansas…The Herbert Clutter family portrait.
The two were arrested on January 2, 1960, in Las Vegas and then executed by hanging on April 14, 1965. For the five years the two remained on death row they exchanged letters with Capote twice a week. Capote actually lived near the prison in Garden City and became very close in particular with Perry Smith and Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock. According to Ralph F. Voss in his book Truman Capote and the Legacy of ‘In Cold Blood,’ he writes that Smith had the idea that talking with Capote would spare him from the noose. But when he learns of the working title of the manuscript he winds up confronting Capote, who manages to manipulate him into confessing about the night of the Clutter murders.
Real-life killers Perry Smith and Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock… the mug shots…
Capote tells Smith that “The world will see him as a monster if he doesn’t open up and tell Capote what Capote wants to know.” Eventually, Perry Smith does open up and relates that brutal night in a vivid confession to Capote that winds up being “memorable lines that appear in the book”. As Voss tells us, “It is during this confession that this film, like the book and like both Richard Brook’s and Jonathan Kaplan’s film’s before it portray the brutal murders of the Clutters. Capote marks the fourth time Herb, Kenyon, Nancy, and Bonnie die in artistic representations of their tragedy–once in Capote’s pages, and three times on screen.”
The film doesn’t necessarily convey the emotional conflict that Capote felt for his subjects which is more obvious in his novel, he also created a connection with the killers that would be shared by the reader. According to writer Jean Murley from The Rise of True Crime: The 20th Century Murder and Popular Culture, “The simultaneous evocation of compassion for the murderer and horror at his deeds makes In Cold Blood a new form of murder narration… Capote’s narrative treatment of his subject would draw the reader into an uneasy and unprecedented relationship with killers, creating a sense of simultaneous identification and distance between reader and killer.” Murley asserts that there is a comfortable distance the reader experiences, “a vicarious thrill, a jolt of fear, and a comforting reassurance that the killer is contained.”
The specter of the rope behind Perry.
Just one more point about Capote’s novel that Jean Murley makes which I think is pretty revelatory about the killer (Perry) referred to as ‘sweet, suave and fascinatingly fatal’… ‘ who was at once a devious and dangerous loner and a sensitive wounded man within that is the notion that Murley distills the ‘ambiguity and intensity of the reader/killer relationship that allows the writer to interrogate notions of good and evil, self and other.” The film while starkly angled from the killer’s point of view for a good deal of the film, doesn’t quite evoke that same sympathetic enigma, though Robert Blake does an incredible job of portraying a wounded soul.
The real-life angry mug of Richard ‘Dick’ Hickock
However, Dick Hickock is described and masterfully pulled off by Scott Wilson as “vulgar, ugly, brutal and shallow; he looks like a murderer (the real Hickock looks like a vicious punk) and he wants to rape Nancy Clutter before killing her. Perry Smith is sensitive, handsome, artistic, a dreamer; sickened by Hickock’s lust(there is a scene in the film while the two are in Mexico where Hickock is drinking & carousing with a local working girl in the room with Perry) in the film Perry prevents the rape. And in keeping with the book, Perry almost loses his nerve to even go through with the robbery, getting sick in the gas station right up to the time they drive up to the Clutter’s property. There is some emphasis on Dick’s relationship with his cancer-ridden father (Jeff Corey) which showcases the only genuine connection he has to humanity.
While Dick visits with his sick dad, he takes the opportunity to steal a rifle from the barn.(Dicks dad watching the news about the murders ) Mr. Hickock “Terrible thing that happened”Dick replies like this… “I’ve never been so hungry in my life.”
Dewey comes to interview Dick’s father (Jeff Corey) who is dying of cancer and he tells them the last thing Dick ever said before he left was “Pa, I ain’t never gonna do anything to hurt ya. And he meant it too.”
Dewey (Forsythe) shows Perry’s dad (McGraw) a photo to confirm his son’s identity.Perry’s father worked in the rodeo back in the day.
Mr. Smith “Well then I guess I haven’t seen him for 5 or 6 years, that’s no surprise though he’s a lone wolf. You guys can rest easy on one thing for sure you won’t be having any more trouble with Perry. He’s learned his lesson for sure. He wrote me from prison I wrote him right back pronto. I taught the boy is you take your punishment with a smile. And I didn’t raise you to steal. So don’t expect me to cry. just because you got it tough behind the bars. Perry’s no fool. He knows when he’s beat you fella’s got him whipped forever. The law is the boss. He knows the difference between right and wrong. You can bet on that because I taught my kids the golden rule. Always tell the truth, always wash in the morning, always be sober and independent. And I showed him how. How to prospect how to trap fur how to carpenter how to bake bread how to be his own boss. Yes, he’s a chip off the old block”¦.”
In particular, Capote became very attached to Perry Smith, and struggled with demons about his execution, believing that both men’s natures were impacted by their early roots in poverty. Capote was tormented because he sold his soul to the devil, in order to write this ‘real’ book fueled by a tragic story that ultimately results not only in the murders of the Clutters but in the deaths of his subject of interest Perry Smith who went to the gallows. As Voss calls it, “the cost of literary non-fiction”. He also came to the conclusion that neither man was by himself a mass-murderer, but linked together they fed each-others egos and compensated for their inadequacies, as John McCarty says, “by constantly arousing and bolstering certain expectations of one another, they evolved into a potentially violent third party that was more than capable of murder.” Â
Eventually, Capote would publish his true crime tome in The New Yorker in four installments between September and October of 1965, published as a book in 1966, and becoming a huge success adapted to film in 1967.
As Jean Murley points out in Rise of True Crime, The 20th-Century Murder and American Popular Culture “Capote brought together and perfected the nascent conventions of what would become true crime, and his basic formula has been copied ever since.”
The film is elevated to a level of intense and searing reality due to brilliant cinematographer Conrad L. Hall’s (Edge of Fury 1958, The Outer Limits television series 1963-64, Harper 1966, Cool Hand Luke 1967, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid 1969, The Day of the Locust 1975, Marathon Man 1976, American Beauty 1999) incredible eye for scoping out a palpable environment filled with dread, tension, and instability in the normally ordinary settings. Either mastering the closed-in spaces between figures who shape the narrative, he also captures the alienation in the scenes when the duo is driving through the dirty dusty openness of the Great Plains. The additional moody atmosphere is lent a heightened sense of anxiety by Quincy Jones’ cool score. The film cast includes; John Forsythe as Alwin Dewey, Paul Stewart as Reporter Jenson, Gerald S. O’ Loughlin as Harold Nye, Jeff Corey as Mr. Hickock, Charles McGraw as Mr. Smith, Sammy Thurman as Mrs. Smith, Will Geeras The Prosecutor.
The incredible opening scene is when Perry is sitting in the dark of the bus, strumming his guitar, and the little girl watches for a brief moment…
In the beginning scene, Perry calls his friend Reverend James Post who tells Perry that he’s already broken parole because he quit his job, and did not dare enter Kansas. It is a warning that Perry still has time to redeem himself before there is no turning back.Perry gets off the bus and calls from the terminal waiting for his friend who is getting paroled that day and meeting Perry there. Reverend Jim Post tells Perry “Whatever you do don’t cross that river into Kansas.” This scene acts as a premonition while Perry shivers, tears up, and just assigns himself to his fate. He was supposed to meet Willy J there. “Can you tell me where he went?… please Jim.”his voice quavers sweaty crying as if he knows that his life is about to turn for the worse. “It’s very important, maybe the most important thing in my life,”Rev. Jim Post tells him “˜Go back why not see your father.” Perry hangs up. It is his first fateful decision in the film”¦
The film opens with a starkly gloomy night scene, Quincy Jone’s slick score leading us into the scene, as a Greyhound bus heads toward the camera. Inside, Robert Blake dark and brooding is sitting with his guitar. Conrad L Hall lights Perry’s intense face with the strike of a match he uses to light his cigarette. In a powerful moment, it accesses our full attention. Perry blows the little flame out and all at once the scene is wiped out in one puff! The film begins to peak our sense of danger in much the way Robert Siodmak’s masterpiece of film noir The Killers (1964)opening had led us into the plot.
As Jürgen Müller eloquently says it in his overview of 1960s cinema –“In Cold Blood opes with a flash and stealthily proceeds to trap its prey in a fog of eerie cinematic expression, born of its black and white photography and Quincy Jones’ dark jazz score.”
In November of 1959 Kansas, two ex-cons and social outliers, the quiet, yet brooding Perry Smith (Robert Blake) and hyper-kinetic egotist Dick Hickock (Scott Wilson) conspire to go out on an adventure to travel 400 miles in a beat-up old Chevy, in order to rob the Clutter family farmhouse. The film is a part genre of the dark road trip film as the two maneuvers, scheme, and machinate on their dark road trip toward their fate. True crime flashback, neo-noir, police procedural, the shades of gray between good vs evil, and a moral commentary on the death penalty, allowing the narrative to elicit sympathy and a vision from both murderers’ point of view, the ‘outlaws perspective’. It is still a very sobering view into the minds of the human offal of society.
Perry Smith’s most infamous statement about the crime, “I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.”Â
Perry talks about his cellmate Willy Jay referring to him (Perry) as being ‘unstable, explosive’ and him laughing about it being true. Dick comments that Willy Jay was a flaming faggot, Perry says he was the best friend he ever had…
Dick had been fed some gossip by an inmate friend, that Herbert Clutter (John McLiam) a wealthy farmer keeps a fortune, $10,000 stashed in his safe at the house. The two decide that it would be an easy job to grab the loot and head for Mexico, leaving their hard lives behind them. What becomes a spiraling coil of nerves, is fed from both Perry’s apprehension about the plot working and Dick’s cock sure attitude. In the twist of fate, it is Perry’s growing inner aggression that becomes the catalyst for the final annihilation of the family. Though Dick acts the part of punk, saying ‘No Witnesses he is not only priming Perry to be the one to have blood on his hands but by this time it is Perry who at first seems hesitant and adverse to violence, explodes in the cold nuclear fission of seemingly senseless bloodshed.
The way In Cold Blood is constructed, it begins to release the tightly wound coil as the two draw nearer to the Clutter home, we are introduced to this clean-cut American family in their daily life, in the light of the day, showing the family as an ordinary close and loving bunch right before they are about to be slaughtered. By the time the two men arrive, it is the dark and ominous shadow of night cloaking the ranch. Perry and Dick begin to wrangle the family bringing the men down to the basement tied up. But it is the day after the murders once the police arrive and are told later on in flashback that we get hints of the savagery, that we could only imagine was about to happen the night before.
The officer standing-“There’s two more in the basement.”
Officer Harold Nye (Gerald O McGlaughlin) asks Alvin Dewey (Forsythe) in the basement of the Clutter Home crime scene “The old Kansas myth. Every farmer with a good spread is supposed to have a hidden black box somewhere filled with money” He also asks if he thinks it’s the work of just one man. Dewey “It could be one man”¦ a mad man”¦”
The Kansas police begin their search in vain, as Perry and Dick make it to Mexico to hide out. Dick who is interested in partying with the senóritas Perry lives half in surreal flashbacks to his bleak beginnings as a child with several siblings and his mother a beautiful Native American woman who liked her alcohol and other young men and committed suicide. His brutal father drew a shotgun on him and chased him out of the house. Perry had a grim, sad, and claustrophobic life, and thus he fantasizes. Perry makes a reference to digging for gold just like Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madra 1947. The irony of him finding empty bottles in the desert that only yield a few cents, which he shares with a young homeless boy and his grandfather is a particularly humanizing scene in the midst of the fatalistic outcome that is inevitable. Perry never meant to amount to anything but a lost dreamer with no home.
Perry tells Dick -“I think”¦ you’re a bastard…”
Not only is Perry a dreamer, but Dick is an egomaniac and also has delusions of grandeur. Once the two figure out having to come back to Nevada in order to get some cash, they are quickly picked up by the authorities and charged with the murders. Soon after, they realized they will be facing the death penalty.
Perry revisits that night at the Clutters, flashing moments of the night on the screen. We see them fumbling for the non-existent safe. The mass murder only yielded them a mere $43. We see Perry and Dick rummaging through the house looking for anything valuable. Hall’s camera finally settles on the family coldly bound, gagged, and positioned in a certain way that sends chills up the spine. Ultimately it is here that it is revealed that it’s the reluctant and quietly brewing fury inside Perry that goes on a single rampage and executes each family member calmly and cold-bloodily.
“I guess the only thing I’m gonna miss in this world is that poor old man.” referring to his father.
Once again, Jürgen Müller-“The contradictions of the characters give the audience an inkling of what might have led to this senseless act of ultra violence.”
There is an element of homo-erotic attraction between Perry and Dick. It is unspoken yet it’s palpable to me, amidst the warm beer, faded treasure maps, dark brooding antagonism, prison scars, tattoos, sweating, greasy hair, aspirin popping, peacockery, wise-cracking resentment toward society, and the morally driven nuclear family of the mid to late 50s.
From Movie Psychos and Madmen-Film Psychopaths from Jekyll and Hyde to Hannibal Lecter by John McCarty- McCarty’s chapter on Killer Couples points out how Capote’s film was the most “famous example of this type of lethal psychological interrelationship.” And though Smith had boasted to Hickock that he wasn’t a stranger to killing before that fateful night where his pent-up aggression turned violent and he cold-bloodily killed four innocent people. Hickock was the one who “earmarked the Clutters for robbery, and it was he who engineered the heist by passing bad checks to buy the materials needed for the job. More important, it was Hickock, who was the dominant half of the pair.” Hickock appears as the alpha male who uses the term ‘faggot’ too easily and Smith is the submissive lover within the dynamic of their odd relationship. McCarty goes on to write, “Smith looked up to him and slaughtered the defenseless Clutters, toward whom Smith admitted later he never felt any anger, as a way of proving himself to his more glib, brash, and manipulative buddy.”
“You’re good. You’re really good! Smith tells Hickock who moves with ease as he proceeds to con a bunch of store owners passing bad checks. And on the flip side, Hickock is also impressed once Smith kills the helpless Clutters whose only provocation to violence is that they are ordinary. McCarty’s insight points out that like Leopold and Loeb, the same function worked for that killer pair, the less dominant wound up being the one who perpetrated the murder, while the more controlling “partner lent immoral support.”
Will Gear as the Prosecutor: “Mercy for them. The killers. How fortunate that their amicable attorneys were not present at the Clutter house on that fateful evening. How very fortunate for them that they were not present that evening to plead mercy for the doomed family, because otherwise, they would have found their corpses too. If you allow them life imprisonment, they will be eligible for parole in 7 years. That is the law. Gentlemen, 4 of your neighbors were slaughtered like hogs in a pen by them. They did not strike suddenly in the heat of passion but for money. They did not kill in vengeance, they planned it for money. And how cheaply those lives were bought. $40. $10 a life. They drove 400 miles to come here. They brought their weapons with them. [picks up a shotgun]… This shotgun. [picks up a knife] This dagger[picks up a rope] “This is the rope they hogtied their victims with. [picks up a vial of blood] “This is the blood they spilled. Herb Clutter’s. They who had no pity, now ask for yours. They who had no mercy, now ask for yours. They who shed no tears, now ask for yours. If you have tears to shed, weep not for them, weep for their victims.” [picks up a copy of the Holy Bible] “From the way the Holy Bible was quoted here today, You might think the word of God was written only to protect the killers, but they didn’t read you this: Exodus 20:13: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Or this: Genesis 9:12: ‘Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man, shall his blood be shed.’
Here is a recently released article in the Smithsonian about Capote’s long-time friend and writer Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird).
From the Smithsonian.Com Reprinted here for the first time, the article was published five years before Truman Capote’s best-selling book. Dick: [to Perry, just after arrest] “Hey, Buddy, put in a call for that big, ol’ Yellow Bird!”Dick begins to flip on Perry.
The Big Yellow Bird he is referring to is a symbol, a warrior angel that comes to him in his dreams It is his savior, a protector he had during his dark days. He describes the bird as being “taller than Jesus, yellow like a sunflower.”Â
The irony of the film plays itself out in little subtle commentaries like the insurance salesman who wishes Herb Clutter the night before he is murdered “A very long and healthy life” or the moment in Las Vegas, Dick at the wheel of the car wanting to gamble because he’s feeling lucky, at that split second the police car pulls up next to them and the scene cuts away to the Perry and Dick being brought in to the station.
Dick: “I don’t know gold dust from diarrhea!”… Dick: [to Perry] “I’m SICK of it, maps, buried treasure, ALL OF IT! So ship it, burn it, and get RID of that ton and a half of garbage! There AIN’T no buried treasure, and even if there WAS, boy, hell, you can’t even swim!”Perry says to Dick-“You know, there’s got to be something wrong with us to do what we did.”Dick: “Next move… Mexico. Once we beat it out of the country.” Perry: “On what? $43 and a smile and bullshit.” [First use of the word ‘bullshit’ in a Hollywood film] Perry: “It’s true! Really true! We’re on our way and never coming back. Never! And no regrets.”Dick: “For you. You’re leaving nothing. What about my old man… and my mother? They’ll still be there when my checks start bouncing.” Perry: “It’s nice the way you think about your folks. Dick: “Yeah! I’m a real thoughtful bastard.”part of the opening sequence once Perry gets off the bus and heads to the men’s room to wash up.
While in the bathroom mirror, Perry fantasizes about being a huge celebrity playing the circuit in Las Vegas.
Dick: “You guessed it, chief. It’s the smile that does it. Like it says in the commercials, the family that sticks together lives forever.” Perry: [to himself, looking in a bathroom mirror] “Stick ’em up!” Perry: “Hey, buddy!” Perry: [realizing he’s being watched] “How long you been standin’ there?” Dick: “Long enough to catch your late late show.” Perry: [quoting his father] “Look at me, boy! Take a good look! Cause I’m the last living thing you’re ever gonna see!”Dick-“Hey Andy, does it tell anywhere in those big books what happens when you take the big drop?”Andy-“Well your neck breaks… and you crap your pants.”
Dick-“Hey Andy say hello to Mr. Jenson he’s writing the story of my life.” Andy asks “Why?” and Dick giggles and tells Jenson how Andy killed his entire family. “Andy’s a nut but I like him!” Jensen asks“What about Perry don’t you get along?” Dick says, “Heck there ain’t nobody get along with him. There’s 5 guys waiting in here for the big swing. Little Perry’s the only one yapping against Capital Punishment” Jensen surprised asks, “Don’t tell me you’re for it” Dick answers, “Hanging will only get ya revenge. What’s wrong with revenge? I’ve been revenging myself all my life…”Perry to the guard “I’ve got to go to the toilet.” Guard-“We can’t remove the harness there may not be time.” Perry-“Please” Guard-“Try to control yourself.”Perry-“But that’s it when you hit the end of the rope… your muscles lose control. I’m afraid I’ll mess myself.” Guard-“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. They all do it”… Perry-“I despise people who can’t control themselves.”And the most senseless gist of the whole story… Perry explains: “It doesn’t make sense. I mean what happened. It had nothing to do with the Clutters. They never hurt me. They just happened to be there. I thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman… I thought so right up to the time I cut his throat.”
Jensen: “I see, the hangman’s ready. What’s his name?”Perry: [his last words] ‘I’d like to apologize, but… who to?’
The bewitchingly beautiful Audrey Dalton was born in Dublin, Ireland who maintains the most delicately embroidered lilt of Gaelic tones became an American actress of film in the heyday of Hollywood and the Golden Age of television. Knowing from early on that she wanted to be an actress while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts was discovered by a Paramount Studio executive in London, thus beginning her notable career starring in classic drama, comedy, film noir, science fiction, campy cult classic horror and dramatic television hits!
Audrey Dalton as the lovely Louise Kendall in Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel (1952) directed by Henry Koster.
Recently Audrey Dalton celebrated her birthday on January 21st and I did a little tribute here at The Last Drive In. Visit the link above for more great info and special clips of Audrey Dalton’s work!
Since then I’ve had the incredible honor of chatting with this very special lady whom I consider not only one of THE most ethereal beauties of the silver screen, Audrey Dalton is a versatile actress, and an extremely gracious and kind person.
While I’ve read a few interviews one in particular in a division of USA TODAY: The Spectrum Audrey Dalton survived a sinking, a ‘Serpent’ and a stallionby Nick Thomas.Â
The article in USA Today asked about Titanic, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, designer Edith head, the pesky mollusk and her appearances in several notable film and television westerns.
Naturally they inquired about Audrey Dalton’s monumental contribution to one of the biggest beloved 1950s ‘B’ Sci-Fi treasures and she deserves to be honored for her legacy as the heroine in distress, pursued by a giant Mollusk, no not a Serpent nor giant caterpillar it be!
She is asked… eternally asked about this crusty bug eyed monster, and why not! it’s part of a fabulous celebration of what makes films like The Monster that Challenged the World (1957) memorable for so many of us!
The love for these sentimental sci-fi films are still so much alive! Early this year, Audrey Dalton joined Julie Adams to celebrate with fans both their iconic legacies for starring in two of the most popular monster films of all time… The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) and The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954).
She’s been asked about her wonderful performance as Annette Sturges in Titanic (1953) with focus on her co-stars Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb, and of course about one hilarious anecdote around her role in several westerns, including TV shows like The Big Valley, Gunsmoke, Bonanza and Wagon Train, and her fabulous fear of horses! Even more than that giant drooling crustacean? "That monster was enormous!" –Audrey commented in her interview with USA Today.
I don’t have a video of Ms Dalton on a rambunctious horse, but here she is giving a fine performance in the television hit series that ironically reunites Stanwyck as the matriarch of the Barclay family and Audrey together again…tho Stanwyck is not in this scene, she works well with actor Richard Long in an episode called ‘Hazard’ in The Big Valley (1966). Audrey went on to do one more episode as Ann Snyder in season one called Earthquake.
I am most taken with Audrey Dalton’s wonderful nostalgic joy and her earnest appreciation for the collaborations off camera and on the set- having a true sense of warmth, togetherness and a passion for her craft and fellow cinema & television artists, crew and players. I’ve used the term “players” when I refer to actors, something that Audrey Dalton pointed out to me was not only a very endearing description, but in addition, something I hadn’t known and felt an adrenaline rush to learn that Boris Karloff was known to do as well. Perhaps he is my grandpa after all. I can dream can’t I?
Alan Ladd and Audrey Dalton on a horse in Delmer Daves’ western Drum Beat (1954)
Audrey told me that she had a fear of horses, having expanded on it when interviewed by USA Today“I hate horses!” she admitted. “I mean I’m really scared to death of them. In one show I had to ride down a very steep hill and felt sure I was going to fall. I got through it, but when the scene was over the director asked, “Could you do it again, this time with your eyes open?”
My little conversations with Audrey seem to drift more toward our mutual appreciation of her experience working with Boris Karloff in some of the most evocative episodes of that ground breaking television anthology show THRILLERÂ hosted by the great and dear Boris Karloff.
Audrey plays the beautiful woman/child Meg O’Danagh Wheeler a mail order bride from Ireland married to Warren Oates the son of a bully played masterfully by Denver Pyle, Meg is a jewel trapped in a tortured space of rural repression and hounded by a folk lorish Boogeyman called The Hollow Watcher released in 1962-Link to past post above.
I hesitated asking one question which this feature is usually founded on. Because of my great admiration for years that I’ve held for Ms.Dalton, I couldn’t put restrictions on this wonderful opportunity to listen to the wisdom and sacred reminiscence by such a special actress.
Normally I call this particular feature MonsterGirl Asks, where I put one specific question to someone special in the entertainment industry, arts or academic world instead a full blown interview asking predictable or possibly stale musings that are often over asked or just not inspiring for all concerned. I’ve had several wonderful chances at getting to ask a question here or there. But I have to say, THIS feature is centered around a very heart-warming exchange between myself and Audrey Dalton, yes the sublimely beautiful, versatile & talented actress of film & television.
So I took a chance and asked if she would agree to do my MonsterGirl Asks feature. What happened was she generously shared some very wonderful memories with me so instead of calling it MonsterGirl Asks, I defer to the much lauded star and changed the title special feature as I humbly open myself up as MonsterGirl Listens to a great star who has had the graciousness and kindness to allow me to share these reminiscings with you.
For years I have been such a fan of this otherworldly beauty, not just from watching Boris Karloff’s Thriller where Audrey graced three of the BEST episodes, nor is it her attractive self-reliance in defying Tim Holt’s priggishness as Lt. Cmdr. John ‘Twill’ Twillinger or showing shear guts in the midst of that giant Mollusk, that Monster That Challenged the World, nor is it just her ability to stare danger and death in the face, the very frightening face of Guy Rolfe otherwise known as Mr. Sardonicusin William Castle’s eerie cheeky masterpiece. Audrey Dalton has appeared in two of the most iconic treasures from exquisitely better times in the realm of Sci-Fi & Classical Horror film. She is still beloved by so many fans!
Tim Holt and Audrey Dalton in director Arnold Laven’s memorable & beloved sci-fi jaunt into the giant creature movie of the 1950s!Audrey Dalton and Ronald Lewis are unfortunate prisoners of the sadistic Mr. Sardonicus (1961) brought to you by the great showman of cult horror William Castle!
Though Audrey Dalton may have graced the world of cult horror & ‘B’ Sci-Fi phantasmagoria, she is quite the serious actress having been one of the main stars in Titanic (1953). Here she is shown with Robert Wagner.
Audrey Dalton co-stars with Robert Wagner in Titanic (1953)
Then Audrey brings a delightful bit of class to director Delbert Mann’s Separate Tables 1958, Audrey is provocative, self-reliant and wonderfully flirtatious as Jean who joyfully seduces Rod Taylor, keeping him charmingly distracted and constantly on his toes! Though this gif has him pecking her adorable nose!
Audrey with Don Taylor in her first film The Girls of Pleasure Island (1953) Alamy Stock Photo. Audrey Dalton co-stars with Rex Reason in Thundering Jets (1958)
Audrey played the lovely Louise Kendall quite enamored with Richard Burton in Daphne du Maurier’s romantic thriller My Cousin Rachel 1952 also c0-starring Olivia de Havilland as the cunning Rachel.
Audrey Dalton co-stars with Richard Burton in My Cousin Rachel (1952)-photo: Alamy Stock Photo.
Audrey’s been the elegant Donna Elena Di Gambetta co-starring in the romantic comedy with Bob Hope and Joan Fontaine in Cassanova’s Big Night (1954),
Audrey Dalton, Bob Hope and Joan Fontaine in Cassanova’s Big Night : Alamy Stock Photo.Here’s Audrey in Drum Beat (1954) as Nancy Meek who must be escorted by Indian fighter Johnny MacKay played by Alan Ladd
Audrey Dalton as the sensuous Nancy Meek in Delmer Dave’s Drum Beat (1954) co-starring with dreamy Alan Ladd. :Alamy Stock PhotoAudrey plays Louise Nelson in this superb British film noir The Deadliest Sin (1955).
I am so touched by Audrey Dalton’s kindness. She not only possesses a beauty that could be considered otherworldly, and up there in the ranks of so many of the great beauties of that Golden Age of Hollywood, it turns out she is one of THE most gracious and kind people in an industry filled with egos and eccentrics.
I shared a bit about why I call myself MonsterGirl, that I am a singer/songwriter and how much I’ve loved her work in film and television for as far back as I can remember. I mentioned that I had heard so many stories about how kind and gentle Boris Karloff was in real life. That I wished Boris Karloff had been my grandfather. My own was a real "˜meanie' and so around here we often joke and say Grandpa Boris.
I was so glad that I got the chance to tell her how much her contribution to THRILLER elevated the episodes to a whole new level, including Boris himself who brought to life a confluence of genius, the immense collaborative efforts of some of the most talented artists and people in the industry. Audrey Dalton worked with directors– Herschel Daugherty on Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook, with John Brahm on The Prediction starring along side Boris Karloff and director William F. Claxton and co-starring with another great actor Warren Oates in The Hollow WatcherÂ
The series has never been imitated nor surpassed in it’s originality and atmosphere. We conferred about our shared love of THRILLER and it's impact on television as a visionary program and a wonderful working space off camera.
Audrey Dalton has a fay-like smile, a pair of eyes that are deep & mesmerizing with a sparkle of kindness besides…
MonsterGirl Listens-
Audrey Dalton– “Here's some thoughts for you on my most beloved work as an actor.”
“I was on a lot of Westerns (despite my fear of horses) but my most favorite show was the Thriller series. I had an agreement with Boris to do one a season. Boris Karloff was a lovely, gentle man who was loved by the crew. Many of them had worked with him years before. That was nice to see. The Thriller set was a wonderful place to be. We all had so much fun working with one another. When we filmed Hay-Fork, we would all go out for late dinners after filming. Alan Napier was very tall and had a wonderful sense of humor about it. He would tease Boris that he should've played Frankenstein's Monster because of his height and strong features. But Boris was the best Monster of all. He was always a gentleman and genuinely enjoyed listening to everyone talk. He was a true actor and director. He watched people and life around him with huge eyes.”
On BORIS KARLOFF and his iconic anthology television series THRILLER:
It must have been wonderful working with Boris Karloff on this remarkable series that possessed an innovative and unique sense of atmosphere, blending mystery & suspense, the crime drama and some of the BEST tales of terror & the supernatural!
Joey– “I'm glad to see that you enjoyed working with him {Boris} on the show THRILLER"¦ It was not only ahead of it's time, and I’m not just trying to impress you, it IS actors like yourself and the quality and the true passion that you brought that helped make the show a very special body of work. It's so nice to hear that you enjoyed the experience behind the scenes as well"¦ It is one of my favorite classic anthology series. I can re-watch it over and over because it's so compelling and well done!”
Audrey- “I feel very fortunate to have been working when the film industry was still relatively small and run by creative producers, writers and directors who had the studio solidly behind them, and not by financial conglomerates for whom film making was just one more way to make money. Boris could just call up his favorite film colleagues to work on Thriller, and that made it a wonderful experience. Film making today is a more complicated business with so much more emphasis on the business side and on ratings. We told stories because we were passionate about them. I'm not sure that passion is the same any more.”
“I watched some Thrillers last month after my daughter first saw your website. They are creepy even for someone who acted in them. It was such a well-done, well-made show.”
“Thriller is such a gem that it would be wonderful if you wrote more about it. It does not get the attention it deserves. Boris really considered it his masterpiece of so much talent in each episode.”
Joey-“I laughed out loud, at your comment that Thriller was “even creepy for someone who acted in them.” I suppose it would be creepy, and I often wonder how the atmosphere of the set and the narrative might influence a performance just by the suggestion of the story and the set design! And the musical score is yet another defining element of the show. Jerry Goldsmith, Pete Rugolo and Mort Stevens’ music is so extraordinary! Moody and evocative. Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Hollow Watcher is just incredible, it added to the emotionally nuanced scenes you had as the stirring character of Meg secretly married to the conniving Sean McClory in The Hollow Watcher. I will be covering very soon, your two other fantastic appearances in Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook and The Prediction.”
Audrey- “Boris would love to know you think of him as Grandpa Boris. He had a huge heart and I do so love remembering how kind and gentle he was. I am so grateful to have been one of the lucky few who worked with him.”
On working with Barbara Stanwyck & starring in the classic hit TITANIC (1953)
Audrey- “My other most cherished project was Titanic. I worked with Barbara Stanwyck and Clifton Webb. Clifton was a little bit like snobbish and mostly kept to himself, but he was very funny with a sharp wit. Barbara Stanwyck was a dream "“ the ultimate pro, always prepared to act and ready to help the rest of us.”
Joey-“I loved your performance in Separate Tables! It's obvious you were having fun and it was a lovely and playful characterization. As well as pretty modern which I loved! Did it send Rod Taylor running back to the Time Machine because you were such a strong and confident gal"¦”
Audrey -“Another favorite role of mine was "Separate Tables" with David Niven, Burt Lancaster, Rita Hayworth and Deborah Kerr. It was such a fun little film. We rehearsed for 3 weeks and shot it in sequence, which was very unusual. Niven was a wonderful, funny man, a great raconteur. It was great to just sit quietly in a chair and listen to his wicked sense of humor. Rita was incredibly nervous during filming and was literally shaking. We all had to be quiet to help her get over it. She was such a sweet person, but I think she was having health problems by then.”
Joey-“You were wonderful in Separate Tables! The old gossips like Glady's Cooper (who –from her performance in Now Voyager, I wouldn't want to be my Grandma or mother for that matter!) I adore her as an actress though"¦ and Cathleen Nesbit they were hilarious as they watched nosily at your goings on with Rod Taylor"¦ you both brought a very nice bit of comedic lightness to the underlying sad tone of Deborah Kerr and David Niven's characters.”
Audrey –“Now I might have to watch Separate Tables again.”
On ELSA LANCHESTER-Â
I did wonder if The Girls of Pleasure Island co-star Elsa Lanchester had left an impression on Audrey Dalton, a seemingly feisty character I wondered if she had experienced anything memorable acting in her first feature film along side of another of my favorite actresses.
Audrey- “I don’t remember a lot about Elsa Lanchester. When we filmed “The Girls of Pleasure Island” it was on the Paramount backlot and I remember she always had a camera with her. She was an avid photographer and she had a wonderful sense of humor.”
On WILLIAM CASTLE and Mr. Sardonicus!
Ronald Lewis, Audrey Dalton and Guy Rolfe in William Castle’s macabre Gothic masterpiece Mr. Sardonicus (1961)
I read William Castle's bio and it was quite a hell of a read! The stories about his childhood are wild. Like Audrey said, “he is a legend for good reason”, and Mr. Sardonicus (1961) is quite a macabre masterpiece in so many ways. Castle was considered a master of Bally-Hoo but he truly had an eye for creating weird spaces and stories. Although considered low budget, it doesn't matter to so many of us, because he left a legacy and Audrey Dalton is part of that"¦
Joey-“I imagine working with William Castle on Mr. Sardonicus, there must have been a great deal of creepy moments because of that horrific mask that Guy Rolfe wore! and Oskar Homolka and his awful leeches, horrid man"¦ (the character not the actor of course!) I hope it was as enjoyable working with William Castle as it was with Grandpa Boris. You were wonderful in the film!”
Audrey-“Bill Castle was another incredible director I was fortunate to get to work with. He’s a legend for good reason; I don’t think I have ever met someone so creative and driven about his work. You are right that the mask that Guy wore in Mr. Sardonicus was chilling. I have not seen that film in years but I can see that image as clearly as if it were yesterday.”
Audrey– “I noticed you wrote a bit about Beverly Garland. She was such a dear friend of mine. She was in Pretty Poison with Noel Black who just passed away last year.  Bev died years ago and even though she remained active in the Scarecrow and Mrs King for so long, she loved acting in “B” films the most.”
Joey-“I am a big fan of Beverly Garland! I think she was a versatile and extremely accessible actress! Just wonderful to watch. Even her outre cool 1950’s police show DECOY: Police Woman!"¦ Of course she'll always be beloved for her ‘B’ movies with Roger Corman.
It's so wonderful to hear that you both were good friends. I'm sorry she's gone. So many wonderful people we've lost. It’s so great to know that she enjoyed being known as a "B" movie actress in addition to her other incredible body of work. I loved her in director Noel Black’s Pretty Poison (1968). I forgot that she played the psychopathic Sue Ann Stepaneck’s (Tuesday Weld’s) mom!”
Beverly Garland not only exuded a gutsy streak in every role she took, she shared the notable distinction of starring in one of Boris Karloff’s THRILLER episodes called Knock-Three-One-Two co-starring with the wonderful character actor Joe Maross who has a gambling problem and will be beaten to a pulp if he doesn’t pay his bookie. So he enlists the help of a psychopathic lady killer to murder his wife Beverly for her tightly held purse and large savings account!
On ED NELSON– Like the wonderful Audrey Dalton, Ed Nelson exudes an inner light and sort of tangible kindness.
Joey– “One very endearing thing that happened in August 2014 after Ed Nelson passed away, when I wrote a little something about the ubiquitous actor, his son wrote to me in particular to thank me for saying such nice things about his dad. It's ironic Ed worked on several of Boris Karloff’s THRILLERs too! When he had passed on, I hoped he knew how many fans he had and could have had the opportunity to enjoy a nice tribute from me for all the work he had done.”
Ed Nelson and Linda Watkins in The Cheaters episode of Boris Karloff’s anthology television show Thriller!
I just watched the 70s television show Police Woman with Angie Dickinson as Pepper Anderson "”Audrey Dalton starred in the episode called “Shoefly.” It was so nice to see her playing the wife of actor Ed Nelson, since they both starred in several roles of Thriller! and the chemistry between them was very genuine. And I told her so, and did ask about him.
Ed Nelson plays Lieutenant John Hess married to the loving Rose in Police Woman episode ‘Shoefly” 1974
Audrey–“I did know Ed Nelson quite well, by the way. We lost touch over the years, but during the time we were first filming Killers in Paradise and then again while filming Police Woman. He was a kind man and very smart. And he was a very busy actor.”
COMING SOON: Boris Karloff’s anthology television show THRILLERÂ featuring Audrey Dalton in 2 memorable & evocative episodes– HAY -FORK and BILL-HOOKÂ and THE PREDICTION!
Audrey Dalton in Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook shown here with Doris Lloyd as Mother Evans. There’s witchcraft afoot in the Welsh moors.
Audrey- “Your website brings back wonderful memories and I have enjoyed reading it so very much. It is such a treasure.”
Joey- With all my sincerest gratitude and ever lasting admiration, it’s been one of the greatest thrills of my life, speaking to you, the amazing Audrey Dalton!
Actress Audrey Dalton attends a wedding Los Angeles 1955 courtesy of Getty images photograph -Michael Ochs Archives Collection
Audrey Dalton is exquisite, dreamy, even otherworldly. When I try to find the perfect words to describe the essence that makes her uniquely beautiful these are the words that come to mind. Part of her allure includes her clear and enchantingly liquid voice, a subtle vision of classical beauty with a light that shines from her deep and mercurial eyes. Make no mistake, she is not just a pretty face, Audrey Dalton is an extraordinarily genuine actress who has been one of my favorite unsung heroines for many years. In my opinion she possesses a transcendent kind of beauty and talent that can be seen in other screen idols, Jean Simmons, Jennifer Jones, Gail Russel Ella Raines Jean Peters and Joan Bennett.
Born in Dublin she was destined to become an actress from early on and once her family moved to London she joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Audrey is the daughter of Irish war hero and producer Emmet Dalton. She appeared in his filmThis Other Eden (1959)directed by Muriel Box, it’s the story of small town in Ireland during the 1920s who want to erect a monument to an IRA rebel, and the son of an English colonel who is against the plan. Audrey plays Maire McRoarty co-starring with fine British actor Niall MacGinnis.
It was while she was attending RADA that a Paramount executive saw her and arranged an audition for an upcoming picture The Girls of Pleasure Island (1953) She got the role as one of Leo Genn's three daughters Hester Halyard along side the great Elsa Lanchester. Audrey also got a contract with Paramount Pictures, and so she came to the U.S. in 1952 to start shooting for "Pleasure Island'
Audrey Dalton co-stars as Louise Kendall in My Cousin Rachel (1952) also starring Richard Burton and Olivia de Havilland
Paramount studios would eventually loan Audrey out to 20th Century Fox to co-star in the adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's My Cousin Rachel (1952) with Olivia de Havilland and Richard Burton and in director Jean Negulesco's Titanic (1953) with Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck's and Robert Wagner. Dalton was wonderful in both parts, giving a richly emotional performance as Annette Sturges.
In 1955 Audrey Dalton starred in The Deadliest Sin aka Confession a taut film noir where she plays sister Louise Nelson whose brother Mike (Sydney Chaplin) is a cold blooded thief and murderer.
She was wonderful in the romantic & feisty role as Jean whom Charles (Rod Taylor) has a hard time pinning her down for marriage. Co-starring in director Delbert Mann's Separate Tables (1958) along side an incredible ensemble the likes of Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, David Niven Wendy Hiller Burt Lancaster Gladys Cooper and Cathleen Nesbitt. Amidst the collection of wonderful characters from writer Terence Rattigan, Audrey Dalton's portrayal of the independent Jean shines through brilliantly.
Now being a child of the 60s who earned the name MonsterGirl first as a way to tease me now I wear as a badge of honor, because I was so drawn to classical horror and sci-fi pictures, I can't neglect the fact that Audrey Dalton starred in one of the most iconic giant creature features from the 50s-The Monster That Challenged the World (1957) where giant Mollusks terrorize a California coastline.
Not only is this one of my favorite sci-fi/horror films, Audrey Dalton brings a lot of class to the film, acting opposite the hyper-manly bratty Tim Holt ( I can't stop thinking of him as Georgie Minafer! in The Magnificent Ambersons) This is one of the more superior giant creature films that ran amok during the 50s, and I'm sure many of Audrey's fans will remember her as Gail MacKenzie whose little girl Sandy (Mimi Gibson) turns up the heat on one of the tubs in the lab and helps one of the giant mollusks to grow and break loose! It's a hoot of a scene though I always find myself saying just before the monstrous mayhem, "Save the bunnies, save the bunnies!"
Sorry kid, that’s what you get for turning up the heat on the cooker! That’ll teach ya… oh those poor bunnies!Audrey Dalton and Guy Rolfe in William Castle’s truly macabre masterpiece Mr. Sardonicus (1961)
In 1961 the master of artful ballyhoo and gimmickry director William Castle cast Audrey Dalton as the woman in peril -the Baroness Maude Sardonicus who is a prisoner to the gruesome Baron Sardonicus/Marek Toleslawski played with a morbid conviction by Guy Rolfe in the Gothic Grande Guignol horror masterpiece Mr. Sardonicus. Â A man who's face has been frozen in a terrifying grimace after digging up his father's corpse to retrieve a lottery ticket, the death mask of his father causes his facial muscles to be stricken with a Sardonic grin"¦ Maude is used as blackmail to persuade Sir Robert Margrave (Ronald Lewis) to try his new techniques in curing paroxysms of the muscles. Audrey's character again in the midst of terrible circumstances maintains her sophisticated composure even whilst the sadistic Krull (Oskar Homolka) tortures young girls from the village with leeches. She brings that air of class and elegance to this better than average B-movie shocker!
There are times when you love film and television so much you are able to revisit episodes or memorable scenes because they never lose their power for you. In particular, I periodically watch Boris Karloff's anthology show THRILLER because of the confluence of talent that manages to create something so beautiful, memorable, and burned into the psyche as it gives off innate sparks of genius. A show that today is still a work of art that is original and charismatic. One of the major influencers for me constantly revisiting the show, has been due to the incredible acting and characterizations that make this fantasy/horror/thriller/noir fusion come to life, including all it's various actors who made their roles seem effortless and memorable.
The Hollow Watcherwas not only a rustic tale of the boogeyman in the form of a scarecrow, but it also brought out a few sociological implications, like fear of foreigners, as Meg was from Ireland, misogyny and small mindedness that leads to hate. Audrey's character Meg, while at times plays a hell cat, okay and a murderess, though Ortho Wheeler was a belligerently evil bastard, balances this fiery role, with a delicate portrayal of vulnerability, self possession and self preservation. She gets my sympathy as an anti-heroine, and it takes true inner strength to project that perfect balance.
Beautiful and tragic, Audrey Dalton’s presence elevates the story to a higher level, than just a scary bed time story about a bumpkin boogeyman. I think the reason the episode never loses it's potency, nor does the simplistic scarecrow appear sophomoric is perhaps the way it transforms these elements into pure revelation– that at times, the things that frighten us are truly very simple and primal fears.
In the episode The Prediction, Audrey performs with Boris Karloff in one of the few stories where Karloff doesn't just lend his hosting prologues. Audrey plays Norine Burton assistant to stage mentalist Clayton Mace. Her father (Alan Caillou) is a drunken wretch and Clayton is more of a loving guardian to her. She wants to get married, but Clayton starts having real visions of danger and insinuates himself into the couples plans, resulting in a tragic end. Audrey is wonderful in the role, bringing that believable kindness and light that shines from her emotional eyes. I plan on covering both The Prediction & Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook as a continuing tribute to this series that was both far ahead of it’s time and timeless.
In director Herschel Daugherty's Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook she plays Nesta Roberts who's husband (Kenneth Haigh)Â is a Scotland yard detective trying to solve a murder in the Welsh moors where the people at The Inn of the Dark Woods are a closed community bound by superstition and fearful of witchcraft. They believe Nesta to be a witch because she is beautiful and that’s always dangerous and she has seen the elusive black dog.
Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook is another mysterious piece from THRILLER. Dalton plays Nesta a new bride to a police inspector who stumble onto a horrific murder case on the Welsh moors where there is a suspicion of witchcraft about. Nesta not only doesn't sit idly by like a complacent pretty wife waiting to be protected by husband, Kenneth Haigh. The couple come upon the clues, and contend with the villagers frightened by superstition. Nesta assists her detective husband to solve the uncanny events, like the vision of a strange black dog and confronts the mystery head on, exuding a sense of smarts.
Dalton in all three episodes of THRILLER possesses a range of emotion that make her a perfect heroine, with a dimension of emotional fortitude, vulnerability and perseverance.
In Douglas Heyes’ Kitten With a Whip (1964), Audrey Dalton manages to avoid all that tawdry exploitation orgy that her husband John Forsythe gets tangled up when he befriends psychopath Ann-Margaret. She lends her lovely portrait to the film as counter-balance to Margaret's wildly amoral Dvorak Jody who marks up the photo with lipstick by drawing a sloppy pair of lips mocking her lovely mouth. Audrey also lends her worried minute to a phone call that turns chaotic on the other end. Audrey is too classy to be mixed up in this mess Forsythe has got himself into"¦
In 1965 Audrey appeared with Dan Duryea in the gritty spaghetti western The Bounty Killer.
Audrey Dalton appeared in various television dramas and westerns to name a few, Kraft Suspense Theater, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Dragnet, The Wild Wild West, Bonanza, Wagon Train, episodes of Police Woman.
Audrey Dalton in the television series Wagon Train 1958
"Acting always seemed honest and straightforward. The characters portrayed had a purpose, and I loved the unspoken communication between the actor and his audience" -Audrey Dalton
Well that explains why every one of Audrey Dalton’s performances appear honest and with purpose. She manages to give a bit of herself with every role. Never the same, she taps into the part and becomes that person with grace and ease of movement. We can see it in her expressive eyes and with that candid smile of hers.
I get excited to see her every time I'm watching one of her films or television performances. It's like seeing an old dear friend.
Actors like Dalton who frequented THRILLER , popular television shows and major motion pictures make us feel comfortable because she’s easy to like and appears to be a "˜real' person, authentically accessible and believable.
A tremendous thank you to her daughter Vickie who was gracious enough to take the time to comment on my blog with kind words from she and her incredible mum!
With deep affection & admiration, wishing her a very very wonderful birthday- love Joey
The winsome & sultry Lauren Bacallsteps out of character as a screen legend, noir goddess & trend-setting icon…
To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Key Largo (1948) Dark Passage (1947) Young Man with A Horn (1950) Designing Women (1957) and so much more!
… And embarks on a role as the icy cold psychologist/Animal Behavioral Researcher, and a Praying Mantis that Dr. Edwina Beighley (pronounced Bailey) She’s a female Caligari who has experimented with her dangerous drug on animals as her subjects in Africa, conducting unorthodox experiments now on human subjects, in Shock Treatment (1964)
She’s always griping in her condescending highfalutin way- at the hospital board members that she can’t continue her (exploitative and nefarious) research the way she’d like, driven by her mission she craves money. Using mental patients now, not tigers, to continue her scientific analysis of how certain drugs effect the criminal mind and the resulting catatonia that follows.
A seedy psychological thriller with oddballs and opportunists and one hell of a great cast, wasted?… Maybe, but deliciously fun to watch anyways! The film has its moments and if you’re like me and love a great jaunt into the exploitative- then indulge yourself!
Films like The Snake Pit, Lilith, David and Lisa, ( Bacall was also in a film about an exclusive psychiatric clinic- The Cobweb 1955, and earlier in 1950 she embodied the conflicted Amy North who struggled and studied to become a psychiatrist in Young Man with a Horn)…
… show reversibility of a plot narrative that usually exists in other film genres. The role is interchangeable with the sane and the mad. the outside or insider, which suggests that there is no good outcome or moreover, no clear solution to the film's "˜problem' and that the film's world is veritably unstable with Dr. Edwina Beighley at the center of the disorder!
Cinematographer Sam Leavitt (Anatomy of a Murder 1959, The Defiant Ones 1958) weaves in noirish shadowscapes & creates odd frames where one of the main characters will be relegated to the extreme edge while it allows the camera to focus all its power on the other of the central or peripheral actors/characters, creating the appearance of an off-balanced conversation, that perpetuates the ‘offness’ of the story and its atmosphere…
In a similar vein but far superior social commentary as Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor 1963, it's a story of an actor Dale Nelson (Stuart Whitman) willing to fake insanity and take money to infiltrate a mental hospital in order to get close to a homicidal maniac Martin Ashley (Roddy McDowall) who claims to have burned to cinders, the millions, he has hidden of his victim’s fortune, now buried somewhere on her estate.
“The most dramatic expression of psychiatry as a mechanism of enforcing conformity is seen in the film depictions of ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) or commonly known as electroshock Treatment
in the 1960s and 70s ECT was recast in movie theaters as a torturous, barbaric, medieval practice in which individualistic mental patients were literally shocked into conformity. Vivid depictions of electroshock were depicted in films such as Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor 1963 and Shock Treatment 1964.”
— Psycho Thrillers: Cinematic explorations of the mysteries of the mind by William Indick.
In fact, anti-conformity is Dale’s method of breaking into the hospital system by railing against conformity in the guise of intellectually and physically disturbing the social order. He smashes the window fronts of a department store.
During Martin Ashley’s (Roddy McDowall) trial for killing and beheading his employer, Dr. Edwina Beighley is the defense’s go-to specialist on mental illness and key witness, their sympathetic psychiatrist who manipulates the court into allowing her to observe him at her State Psychopathic hospital for observation.
On the stand Edwina- “I'm a fellow of the American Psychiatric Society..and the author of two textbooks now in use.-Psychiatry in Relation to Crime and Modern Usages of Hypno-Analysis" At present I'm an assistant medical director at State Psychopathic Hospital."
When asked if she's familiar with the philanthropic organization known as The Townsend Foundation, Townsend is the old woman that Martin decapitated. Edwin answers with swift and self-important confidence…
"More than acquainted as Mr Manning knows for the past several years I've been trying to get a grant from them to expand my research… ( deep sarcastic Bacallesque pause) I'm still trying."
Then the public defender asks if she was present when Mr. Manning suggested that the defendant burnt up more than a million dollars. And does she agree with that accounting of the story…
"No, I don't, the amount of money certainly is unusual but the act of destruction isn't. Martin Ashely is a lonely secretive young man. Desperately in need of understanding friendship. This type of schizophrenic often is"¦ He became convinced that (Amelia Townsend) was an enemy who was using her wealth to destroy his garden and return him to our hospital where he had been a patient merely three years ago. To his disordered mind, the decision was a simple one. Destroy the persecutor and her weapon"¦ her money"¦"
Dr. Edwina Beighley is a cool, manipulative operator who is working on getting Martin a plea of insanity so he’ll be sent to her hospital under her care, that way she can make certain she’s up close and personal with him in order to access his secret… where he hid the fortune.
During Martin’s trial, Mr. Manning who has been an executor of the estate asserts that the old woman was eccentric and hid huge sums of cash in her home, he tells the prosecuting attorney, “I couldn't believe that anyone even a madman could bring himself to burn up more than a million dollars.”
Manning who testifies that the old lady had millions, also despises Dr. Beighley.
After Martin gets sentenced to a mere 90 days for observation. Manning confronts Beighley in the courtroom. "Dr. Beighley I hope you'll feel proud of yourself Dr!" Dr. Edwina Beighley not seeming rattled in the least- "And what is that supposed to mean?"
Manning- " Why did you have to go out of your way to help that faker get away with murder and a million dollars?"Â
She threatens to sue for liability so that she'll collect enough from him, never having to apply for a grant again"¦ He tells her that he's “sick and tired of psychiatrists who try to play god, who tell us our mothers and fathers made us neurotic, and psychotic!”
"Mr. Manning I've gone through analysis, all psychiatrists do, Now I suggest you try it!"
Dr. Edwina Beighley has the warmth of a cobra about to strike the jugular.
This psycho-thriller also stars Stuart Whitman as struggling actor Dale Nelson who is going to be paid $10,000 by Harley Manning (Judson Laire) to impersonate a mentally disturbed man, an incorrigible anti-social bad boy who then purposefully gets arrested for destruction of personal property and disturbing the peace.
IMDb notes that Anthony Perkins wanted the Stuart Whitman role
At the police station- Dale (Stuart Whitman) puts on quite a show as a crazy guy with a wad of cash in his pocket that he refuses to explain how it got there- he won't cooperate and goes off on a tirade that is deliciously absurd…" The disciples of conformity are bleeding from the narrowness of your mind."Â
Manning figures that once Dale gets committed to the state asylum, he can befriend the psychopathic handyman/gardener Martin Ashley (Roddy McDowall with his usual flare for the overly-dramatic, deliciously deliriously overindulgence. ) who is just mad about roses and decapitates his employer Amelia Townsend (Beatrice Grenough) with a pair of garden shears when she interferes with his beloved garden.
Naturally, Dale Nelson succeeds in getting sent to Dr. Beighley’s State Psychopathic Hospital. He even learns about roses and horticulture in order to get close to Martin, hoping he’ll tell him where the money is hidden. Once Dale arrives and is interviewed. Edwina looks him over a bit, and she catches something about his performance, so she has her assistant do a background check on him.
Dale gets Dr. Edwina Beighley to assign him to the garden as his work detail. There Dale finally meets Martin the gardener. At first, he antagonizes him, but soon after they become good friends with a love of flowers in common.
Martin argues about his ability to raise beautiful roses and that he didn't get to see flowers until he was 16. "˜You don't get flowers at the orphanage Mister!… I’m the guy who crossbred the Pinocchio with the Fuselier"¦ and it won the first show at the Pasadena in 1962."
With no intention of trying to cure Martin Ashley of his homicidal criminal nature, Dr. Beighley finally gets him to confess his crime in detail, by subjecting him to hypnosis and pentathol for days where he finally winds up telling her where Mrs Townsend’s money is…
Edwina is rancorous, scornful, and arrogant and by the end of the film, her mania to find the money might either be a sign that she herself is insane or is the catalyst for pushing her off the deep end… Another version of the inmates has taken over the asylum! And Dr. Edwina Beighley might just belong there BUT as the patient and not the doctor"¦.
Edwina eventually finds out that Dale Nelson was paid and is planted in her hospital by her nemesis Haley Manning, who is determined to get her license revoked for her unethical practices.
When she discovers Nelson’s con game, the sadistic Edwina Beighley prescribes electroshock therapy, then injects a concoction of psychotropic drugs into his jugular vein to induce catatonia, causing him "˜horrible twisted images’in order to render him useless and get him out of her hair so she can be the sole keeper of the fortune…
Believe it or not this over-the-top psycho-melodrama was scripted by Sydney Boehm who penned such great noir films as -High Wall 1947, Mystery Street 1950 Side Street 1949, and The Big Heat 1953.
The film also co-stars marvelous character actors who play various archetypal characters, the troubled nymph with a mother complex Carol Lynley as Cynthia Lee Albright’s “Don’t touch me, I don’t like to be touched!”
Olive Deering as Mrs. Mellon-“You're stupid stupid do you hear me stupid.”
Ossie Davis plays Capshaw, who used to be an intern in the hospital and is now one of its residents. Paulene Meyers as Dr. Walden, and Timothy Carey as high-strung and marvelously hulking & nutty as usual.
Shock Corridor &Â Shock Treatment deal with the outside/inside structure which ends with pessimism as the main characters descend into madness"¦
From Part-Time Perverts: Sex, Pop Culture, and Kink Management by Lauren Rosewame she cites Peter Cranford a psychologist during the 1940s who said that for many patients in asylums "The words "˜punish' and "˜shock treatment' were often synonymous"
This is where the narrative and Dr. Edwina Beighley converge on a social truth behind the institutional edifice of mental health"¦
She shows her fellow colleagues the results of her research on a projector. Footage from when she had her own facility where she could use zoo animals in her experiments. On film, she shows a tiger being injected with her drug and how it effects their aggression. She seeks to find out more about the chemistry of the mind.. to solve its mysteries. So that one day… her drug “will control mental illness as well a drug does Diabetes.”
This brings out a great point of the story though it may be accidental since the film seems to be more about sensationalist entertainment than thoughtful reflecting on mental illness the way it was let’s say in Tennessee William’s Suddenly, Last Summer 1959.
In the scene where Edwina shows her footage, and the few scenes where both Capshaw (Ossie Davis) and Dale (Stuart Whitman) are subjected to shock treatment- it makes a strong connection between punishing the patient and the arousal of the sadistically inclined practitioners.
In her autobiography, Bacall refers to Shock Treatment as “truly tacky.” when asked about the film she, commented, “You have no idea what Roddy and I went through making that movie."Â Â Â
Here's what Time Magazine had to say about the film Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam-March 13, 1964 “Shock Treatment is more than a slip, it’s a Freudian pratfall. It makes a shambles of psychiatry and brings the art of film close to idiocy.”
It is definitely not one of Lauren Bacall’s memorable roles, it borders more in the realm of the Grande Dame Guignol films that actresses were becoming famous for in the 60s… Yet, anything Bacall inhabited is like Midus’ golden touch, because she brings an inimitable flavor of sophistication and savvy even if it’s surrounded by trashy lunacy!
Let’s not end on an insane note! Let’s celebrate Lauren Bacall as she really was… an icon.
Headshot of actress Lauren Bacall pictured with her chin resting on her right wrist, USA, circa 1945. (Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)
                                       By Heather Drain
Love. Lust. Crime. Pointy metal bras. Abnormally large breasted women named "Baby." All this and more and I know that you’re already wooed. You are, after all, only flesh and blood and if you have the red stuff running in your veins and a strong muscle thrumming beat after beat in your chest, then 1968’s SHE MOB will have you feeling revved up like a Southern Baptist preacher who just tap-danced the devil right out of some rube’s soul.
SHE MOB is a film full of fabulously wild women and one handsome-grease stain of a man named, what else, Tony (Adam Clyde), but the brightest star is one Marni Castle. This lead actress pulls off a tour-de-force dual role as both Brenda, a successful business woman who is single, rich and spoils her gigolo lover (that would be, quelle surprise, Tony) rotten and Big Shim. When you read a character name like Big Shim it feels like an act of love, because the writer is obviously giving you something you don’t expect. Especially in 1968, where "Big Shim" could be the name of some male mob honcho or ex-con. Making Shim not only a female but a tough, beautifully butch anti-heroine now would be great but for the mid-late 60’s, perfect.
Shim, with her alpha-swagger, black boots and bra-as-a-weapon, despite being technically the villain of the film, is the one you want to see the most of. This is a character that does not just merely live outside the parameters of status quo society but douses gasoline on said parameters and takes a military-grade flamethrower to that business. All with nary a shit given. Shim has bigger business to worry about.
She has her girl-gang of prison escapees, including the Beach-Blanket-ultraness-go-go-dancing Twig (who is literally credited as "Twig"), and ends up setting her sights on Tony as a means to the financial end of Brenda. Her plan of taking low crime into high crime via blackmail is full of torture and man-relief for her sex-starved vixens. But a successful woman like Brenda gets what she wants and when she enlists the services of Sweety East (Monique Duval), who is a Texan-fried, butt-crack rocking version of Honey West, things go from nutzoid to putting out fire with gasoline.
To say that Castle owns both roles is like saying creamed corn is the expectorant of evil itself. In other words, this is a supreme understatement. She exudes authority, whether Castle is rocking some lingerie or chomping on a cigar. This is a lioness who is begging to be held up as a true feminist icon. Be an independent CEO with your own hairy chested uber-male love slave or run a girl gang full of the sexiest future Waffle House hash-slingers/current convicts. You have options. Marni Castle’s Brenda/Big Shim shows that women can be whatever they want. Humiliate a gigolo and dress him up in fine underthings? Why not! The patriarchy needs a Big Shim to pierce its rugged skin with her needle sharp metal bra. Let’s all strap on some black garters, ogle weird-breasted women and go-go dance for gender equality together. Viva la revolution, viva la Big Shim and viva la Harry Wuest for blessing the world with this joyful, demented 1960’s gem from The Lone Star State.
Note from Joey here at The Last Drive In: OOh watch out where you’re going with that pointy steel bra!- that metal sling could be a very dangerous thing ya know- Your Ever Lovin MonsterGirl saying Thank You Heather Drain of Mondo Heather for bringing your mod & ÃœBER-Culty expertise to this humble little retro midway….
It’s Saturday, day One of the Anti-Damsel Blogathon 2015! And Fritzi of Movies Silently who will be taking over on Sunday… and I are SO knocked over by the amazing turn out! We’re glad to see you so raring to go just like those women who kicked down doors, crossed boundaries and forged a wholly unique path for themselves and other women who are empowered and inspiring and unrestrained to be gloriously-themselves.
So I’ll not wasted any further time with ‘cheap sentiment’ as Bette so effectively impresses upon us… and just get on with the show!
Our host Fritzi chooses a ‘new’ kind of women Miss Lulu Bett who as she explains the wonderful Lulu and her story as “throwing off the gloomy shackles of Victorianism and making her own way in the modern world! And Lulu’s not so easy to bully!
A true legend, not just because she was considered the most beautiful woman in the world, but because of her enduring spirit to express her genius and the profound contributions she made to science!
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures pays tribute to one of the most versatile mavericks Ida Lupino. Actress, writer, director, producer. An Emmy-nominated actress and as Lindsey points out, the second woman ever to be admitted to Hollywood's Director's Guild. To look at her long impressive career & body of work is to behold a legend that took the reigns and made her life in the shape of Ida Lupino!
The mind of Levine comes up with a title that makes me feel all warm inside because she conjures up a bold title that I can grab onto. As of late, I’ve been devouring every film I can on the incredible Carole Lombard, who tragically died in a plane crash. What would she have accomplished in a lifetime if she had survived?
She has a pantheon place here at The Last Drive In. Irreverent, hilarious, gorgeous, sublime, and one step ahead of her male leads. A comedic timing and genius that shook up a studio system that couldn’t handle her verve. Well just read this amazing contribution to the event in Stacy LeVine’s own words… Carole Lombard is forever a legend, and an Anti Damsel if there ever was one!
Nitrate Glow offers us a beautiful gem from 1968… directed by Isao Takahata. Hilda is the little songstress who was way before her time in terms of animation heroines. Nitrate Glow offers an incredibly eloquent and insightful look at a unique film!
Kristina’s offbeat & clever insight =Cobra Woman and it’s a hell of a choice. It’s got the good twin/bad twin paradigm and Maria Montez, a warrior woman in charge! Here’s just a tidbit of Kristina at Speakeasy’s perspicacity!
It is said that "no drug-soaked brain could dream up the horrors of Cobra Island," ‘but this movie dreamed it up and brought it to vivid life. This is fantastic entertainment and pulpy comic book spectacle bursting at the seams with fantastic things:’
Fantastic things like Maria Montez and Anti Damsel for sure…I know what I’m watching later!
When you think of a woman who is less imperiled you think Jessica Walter as Evelyn Draper or as The Joy & Agony of Movies did, Tuesday Weld is spine-chilling as Sue Ann Stepanek, a pretty sociopath who lets nothing get in her way! She is the epitome of the ‘pretty bad girl’ It’s a great addition to the Anti Damsel Blogathon!
Leave it to Dorian of Tales of the Easily Distracted to offer us a witty and apropos tribute to the Anti Damsel Audrey Hepburn as Regina Lampert in Charade (1963) Just because Hepburn exudes a delicate finery and elegance, she has always manifested a power that strikes out like a lioness! Charade is a wonderful romantic comedy that showcases why the versatile Audrey Hepburn is a legend!
CrÃtica Retrô talks about one of the great Anti-Damsel legends Katherine Hepburn as Tess Harding the epitome of the strong & independent gal in Woman of the Year (1942).
Frieda Inescort plays Lady Jane Ainsely in The Return of the Vampire in 1943. Now it’s no small task to play it empowered alongside Bela Lugosi! Lady Jane Ainsley: “Your eyes look like burning coals. Don’t come any nearer. Don’t touch me.”
Serendipitous Anachronisms pays tribute to the great Kim Hunter and her memorable character as Dr. Zira in Planet of the Apes 1968. It’s a passionate piece about brave and brilliant women who command an entire civilization of men, oops I mean apes with her strong leadership style and wisdom… Couldn’t have an Anti-Damsel Blogathon without her!
The prolific Karen has to say about our lovable Joan “downtrodden Depression-era woman who transforms her existence from bleak oppression to indisputable triumph. Using her wits, her nerve, and her determination” We couldn’t have an Anti Damsel party without inviting one of the most effervescent gals Joan Blondell!
Who better than to pay tribute to an immensely empowered, and I do mean immense! 50 feet worth of empowered woman, than Aurora from Once Upon a Screen. Nancy Fowler Archer will remain indelibly in our secret voyeuristic yearnings to grow tall enough to kick the crap out of the finks who dare betray us!
Old Hollywood Films does this Anti Damsel Blogathon proud to showcase one of the greatest legends, Lillian Gish brings to life one of the strongest, pure hearted gun totin’ characters Rachel Cooper in Charles Laughton’s Masterpiece Night of the Hunter (1955) And says… this is a gif that just keeps giving!!! Thanks, Old Hollywood Films for sharing this fabulist heroine!
Moon in Gemini has also honored this grand bash with yet another legendary figure of empowered women-ness! We can’t neglect Barbara Stanwyck and this post will make all you Stanny fans happy with…
The Furies: The Anti-Damsel with a Daddy Fixation! I would have liked to take one of those Dr. Taylor classes. And as Debbie so aptly puts it- “Is there any character that Barbara Stanwyck played that COULDN'T be classified as an anti-damsel?”
I’d say no! it wasn’t possible for her to be non-empowered or in peril. She didn’t have those strong shoulders and that gritty voice for nothing. Even if Bogie was poisoning her milk, or she was bedridden or stalked by a dream lover or even a witness to a murder, she never quite seemed like a weak woman. Just a strong one in the wrong place at the right time. So dive in now to Moon in Gemini’s brilliant perspective on quite an interesting Stanwyck film!
BNoirDetour showcases the talent of Linda Darnell in this highly charged film of social criticism that explodes on the screen in No Way Out (1950)! As Edie Johnson is caught in the crossfire of racism, she’s got a lot of guts to rise above the chaos and come out kicking!
When CineMaven’s Essays from the Couch writes that her heart skips a beat because of our Anti Damsel-themed Blogathon, I want to return the compliment and say how grateful both Fritzi and I are for the overwhelming response to this tribute to empowered women! And CineMaven, you couldn’t have picked someone better to cause pangs in my heart than the underrated Ella Raines in what I think is one of THE most incredibly intricate psychological film noirs Phantom Lady, with gutsy Carol (Ella) as our heroine!
You’ll never get anything but unique and mind-expanding insight from Goregirl’s Dungeon. I was sooo thrilled to have her join in and offer her take on an Anti Damsel. Read her fascinating overview of Anna Karina in the films of Jean -Luc Godard…
Nick Cardillo of Sacred Celluloid gives us a glimpse into Hammer’s heyday and the birth of the Gothic Anti Damsel female vampire archetype, as he covers Ingrid Pitt in The Vampire Lovers (1970)
Defiant Success has made this Anti Damsel Blogathon that much better for having covered Deborah Kerr as Karen Holmes a woman who speaks her mind in From Here To Eternity (1953) Kerr is the consummate anti damsel and she always wields that classy composure!
As Virginie from The Wonderful World of Cinema says- “Movie heroines are not always princesses waiting for a prince to rescue them, they are not always victims or damsels in distress. Female movie characters can be strong, they can have guts, determination, and many other wonderful qualities” Shirley Booth had a powerful stamina and warmth that couldn’t be extinguished. We’re so happy to have her as a part of our Anti-Damsel Blogathon!
Carole & Co. devotes a journal to the groundbreaking versatility, beauty, and comedic genius of Carole Lombard. We’re so glad to have her join us for the Anti-Damsel Blogathon! Taken away from us too soon, journey through this insightful post and read about Lombard as a producer!
Karavansara has done the honor of taking up my wish list and paying tribute to one of THE most iconic sexy and strong female role models of the 60s. I am with them. Diana Rigg & Emma Peel both left a huge impression on me growing up. And yes I couldn’t resist having one of my first crushes either… Read this well-written tribute to one of the finest examples of empowerment…!Â
“Emma Peel, as portrayed by Dame Diana Rigg, is one of the icons of the 1960s, a sex symbol, and one of the earliest strong, empowered female leads in television entertainment.”
Heather Drain of Mondo Heather explores the Uber mod & deviant world of the Cult & Exploitation 60s paying tribute to a pretty formidable Anti-Damsel Big Shim (Marni Castle) sporting a steel bra that could be registered as a lethal weapon. The film includes other divinely demented Anti Damsels’ as Heather writes- “Sweety East (Monique Duval), who is a Texan-fried, butt-crack rocking version of Honey West, things go from nutzoid to putting out fire with gasoline”
PS: You gotta love a reference to Honey West (Anne Francis) that sexy private eye with her groovy house ocelot Bruce!
Naturally, we couldn’t do this empowering bash without spotlighting the great Joan Crawford. And Wolffian Classic Movies Digest does a wonderful job of reminding us why Crawford the Legend and Mildred Pierce the Anti Damsel are so timeless… Here’s a quote from their fabulous piece –“Joan Crawford starting out as the happy housewife breaks free of that mold becoming her own woman as She carries the movie on her Broad shoulders”
Smitten Kitten Vintage did one hell of a bang up job covering not only the incomparable Bette Davis but her iconic portrayal of Margo Channing in All About Eve 1950. The film that put her back on track in Hollywood! Read this insightful piece here. Because no Anti Damsel Blogathon would be complete without the legendary Bette ‘hold onto your seatbelts it’s gonna be a bumpy night’ Davis
Superfluous Film Commentary shares the sublimely bold Gene Tierney as Lucy Muir, a steadfast widow who is fiercely independent and isn’t afraid of ghosts either! A beautiful film and a wonderful contribution to our Anti-Damsel bash! As they so eloquently put it Tierney is “positively radiant Gene Tierney, likewise fits the definition of empowered.”
I’ll think I’ll go get a banana split until we’re back with Fritzi on Sunday for more Empowered Lady Love!- Your everlovin’ MonsterGirl
THE SILENT YEARS: When we started not giving a damn on screen!
THE GODLESS GIRL (1929) CHAIR SMASH courtesy of our favorite genius gif generator- Fritzi of Movies Silently.
In celebration of our upcoming Anti Damsel Blogathon on August 15 & 16, I had this idea to provide a list of bold, brilliant, and beautiful women!
There was to be no indecent exposure of the ankles and no SCHWOOSHING! Not in this Blogathon baby!
From the heyday of Silent film and the advent of talking pictures to the late "˜20s to 1934 Pre-Code Hollywood, films were rife with provocative and suggestive images, where women were kicking up a storm on screen… The end of the code during the early 60s dared to offer social commentary about race, class, gender, and sexuality! That’s our party!
In particular, these bold women and the screen roles they adopted have become legendary. They sparked catchy dialogue, inspired fashion trends, or just plain inspired us… Altogether there are 111 of SOME of the most determined, empowered, and uniquely fortified femmes of classic film…!
First of course I consulted the maven of all things splendid, shimmery, and SILENT for her take on silent film actresses and the parts that made them come alive on the immortal screen…. Fritzi at Movies Silently has summoned up thesefabulous femmes…
1) Rischka (Pola Negri) in The Wildcat (1921) Ernst Lubitsch’s hyperactive Dr. Seussian comedy is worth seeing for the sets alone but the best part is Pola Negri’s Rischka, a young bandit queen who is terrorizing the mountains. She meets the local Lothario during a robbery and by the end of the scene she has stolen his heart. And his pants. 2) The Countess (Pola Negri) in A Woman of the World (1925) Anyone who thought going to Hollywood would tame Pola Negri’s wild side had another thing coming. In this film, she plays a countess whose skull tattoo causes an uproar in Anytown, USA. The film also features a romance between Negri and the stuffy local prosecutor, who soon finds himself on the receiving end of her bullwhip. Not a metaphor. 3) Lulu (Lois Wilson) in Miss Lulu Bett (1921) Independent women weren’t always given to violence and thievery. In the case of Lulu, she is a single woman trapped in two Victorian social conventions: spinster and poor relations. During the course of the film, she rejects both titles, learns her own self-worth, and empowers herself to enter into a healthy relationship with the local schoolmaster. Tasty feminism!4) Zaida (Bebe Daniels) in She’s a Sheik (1927) Silent movie audiences enjoyed reversals of gender tropes. The Rudolph Valentino vehicle The Sheik (1921) had been a smash hit and had spawned many rip-offs and parodies. (kidnapping = love = box office!) In this case, a warrior princess falls for a French officer and decides the most sensible course of action is to abduct him for the purpose of marriage. Sadly, this comedy seems to be one of many silent films that are missing and presumed lost.5) Eve (Leatrice Joy) in Eve’s Leaves (1926) Another gender reversal comedy, Eve’s Leaves features twenties fashion icon Leatrice Joy as a tomboy sailor who finds the perfect man while ashore on business. She ends up saving the day– and her favorite dude in distress– through quick thinking, a knowledge of knots, and a mean right hook.6) Ossi (Ossi Oswalda) in The Doll (1919) Ernst Lubitsch featured another feisty heroine in this surreal comedy. Our hero wishes to dodge marriage but cannot gain his inheritance without a bride. A plan! He will buy a lifelike doll from a famous toymaker and marry that. What he doesn’t know is that the doll was broken, the toymaker’s daughter has taken its place and she means to teach the reluctant bridegroom a lesson. Oswalda’s mischievous antics are a delight.7) Molly (Mary Pickford) in Sparrows (1926) Mary Pickford was America’s Sweetheart during the silent era and audiences adored her fearless heroines. Molly is one of her boldest. She’s an orphan raised in a Southern swamp who must rescue a kidnapped infant. The epic final race across the swamps– complete with alligators– is still harrowing to behold.8) Helen (Helen Holmes) in A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916) Helen Holmes was an action star who specialized in train-related stunts and adventure. In this 1916 serial, she saves the day on numerous occasions and even saves her love interest from peril on the train tracks. (It should be mentioned that the Victorian “woman tied to the train tracks” cliche was incredibly rare and usually treated with ridicule in silent films.) This is another movie that is missing and presumed lost.9) Diana Monti (Musidora) in Judex (1916) Not all the empowered women in classic films were heroines. In the case of Musidora, her most famous roles were as criminal. She was the deadly thief/hit-woman Irma Vep in Les Vampires and then took on the titular caped crusader in Judex. Smart, stealthy, and likely to slip a stiletto between the ribs… in short, a woman not to be trifled with.10) Helen (Miriam Nesbitt) in The Ambassador’s Daughter (1913) This short film from Thomas Edison’s motion picture studio features espionage and a quick-thinking heroine. She tracks down spies at the embassy, follows her suspect, and manages to steal back the documents that he purloined from her father. Not at all bad for a film made seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.11) Cornelia Van Gorder (Emily Fitzroy) in The Bat (1926) It’s a dark and stormy night and a murderous costumed villain means to recover stolen loot in an isolated mansion. What is an elderly woman to do? Take up her trusty pistol and investigate, of course! She also wields a dry wit and keeps cool under pressure. The Bat doesn’t stand a chance.12) Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser) in The Eagle (1925) As mentioned above, Rudolph Valentino specialized in aggressive wooing but he finds the shoe on the other foot in this Russian romance. Louise Dresser is a kick as the assertive czarina who knows what she likes and goes for it.
Now to unleash the gust of gals from my tornadic mind filled with favorite actresses and the characters that have retained an undying sacred vow to heroine worship… In their private lives, their public persona and the mythological stardom that has & still captivates generations of fans, the roles they brought to life, and the lasting influence that refuses to go away…!
Because they have their own unique rhythm to the way they moved through the world… a certain kind of mesmerizing allure, and/or they just didn’t give a hoot, a damn… nor a flying fig!
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud”-Coco Chanel
Stars like Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Ida Lupino managed to keep re-inventing themselves. They became spirited women with an inner reserve of strength and a passion for following their desires!
Barbara Stanwyck posing with boxing gloves!
The following actresses and their immortal characters are in no particular order…!
13. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) Double Indemnity (1944) set fire to the screen as one of the most seductive femme fatales"” a dame who made sunglasses and ankle bracelets a provocative weapon. She had murder on her mind and was just brazen enough to concoct an insurance scam that will pay off on her husband’s murder in Double Indemnity (1944). Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is the insurance guy who comes around and winds up falling under her dangerous spell"¦ Walter Neff: "You'll be here too?" Phyllis: " I guess so, I usually am." Neff: "Same chair, same perfume, same ankle?" Phyllis:  "I wonder if I know what you mean?" Neff: "I wonder if you wonder?" 14. Marie "Slim" Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944) Lauren Bacall walked into our cinematic consciousness at age 19 when Howard Hawks cast her as Marie "Slim" Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944). A night club singer, (who does a smoking rendition of Hogie Carmichael's "˜How Little We Know") She's got a smooth talking deep voiced sultry beauty, possesses a razor-sharp wit to crack wise with, telling it like it is, and the sexiest brand of confidence and cool. Slim has the allure of a femme fatale, the depth of a soul mate and the reliability of a confidant, and a fearless sense of adventure. Playing across Bogart as the jaded Captain Harry Morgan who with alcoholic shipmate Eddie (Walter Brennan ) runs a boating operation on the island of Martinique. Broke they take a job transporting a fugitive running from the Nazis. Though Morgan doesn't want to get involved, Slim is a sympathizer for the resistance, and he falls in love with her, while she makes no bones about wanting him to with all the sexual innuendo to heat things up! Slim: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow.”15. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) All About Eve (1950) In all Bette Davis' films like (Jezebel (1938) Dark Victory (1939) The Letter (1940) Now, Voyager (1942)), she shattered the stereotypes of the helpless female woman in peril. Davis had an unwavering strength, fearlessly taking on the Hollywood system and embracing fully the moody roles that weren't always "˜attractive.' Davis made her comeback in 1950, perhaps melding a bit of her own story as an aging star in All About Eve. Margo must fend off a predatory aspiring actress (Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington) who insinuates herself into Margo's territory. Davis manifests the persona of ambition and betrayal which have become epic… “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night." 16. Margaret DeLorca / Edith Phillips (Bette Davis) plays the good twin/bad twin paradigm in Dead Ringer (1964). Edith is a struggling working-class gal who owns a nightclub, and Margaret is her vein and opportunistic twin who stole her beau Frank away and married into a wealthy lifestyle. On the night of his funeral, Edith shoots Margaret in a fit of vengeful pique, then assumes her identity with ironic results. Davis again proves even though she commits murder, she can manifest a pathos like no one else"¦ Margaret DeLorca: You really hate me, don’t you? You’ve never forgiven me in all these years.” Edith Phillips: “Why should I? Tell me why I should.” Margaret DeLorca: “Well, we’re sisters!” Edith Phillips: “So we are… and to hell with you!”
17. Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is a forgotten alcoholic former child star living in a faded Hollywood mansion with her invalid sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), herself an aging Hollywood star. They punish each other with vicious mind games, temper tantrums, and repressed feelings of revenge and jealousy. Jane is a tragic tortured soul whose life becomes "˜ugly' because she’s been shunned and imprisoned by a fatal secret to which sister Blanche holds the key. What makes Jane such an empowered figure are the very things that have driven her mad. Jane's itching for a comeback and is ready to dance and sing her way back into everyone's heart! Jane has a child-like innocence that gives her that ambition and pure drive to see herself back on the stage. She believes it. While other people might laugh at her behind her back, Jane's repressed rage also leaves room for joy. She's an empowered aging actress who refuses to give up the spotlight"¦ Good for you Jane, now put down that hammer and feed Blanche something edible"¦ Davis delivering yet another legendary line… Blanche: “You wouldn’t be able to do these awful things to me if I weren’t still in this chair.” Jane: But you *are*, Blanche! You *are* in that chair!” 18. Alma Brown (Patricia Neal), in Hud (1963): Playing against the unashamed bad boy Hud Bannon (Paul Newman), Alma is a world-weary housekeeper who drips with a quiet stoic sensuality and a slow wandering voice that speaks of her rugged womanly charm. The philandering Hud is drawn to Alma, but she's too much woman for him in the end… Hud Bannon: “I’ll do anything to make you trade him.” Alma Brown: “No thanks. I’ve done my time with one cold-blooded bastard, I’m not looking for another.”19. Sugarpuss O'Shea (Stanny) in Ball of Fire (1941) is just that, a sexy ball of fire and a wise-cracking night club singer who has to hide out from the mob because her testimony could put her mobster boyfriend Joe Lilac (Dana Andrews) away for murder! Some nerdy professors (including Gary Cooper) want to exploit her to study slang and learn what it's like to speak like real folk and does she turn their world upside down? Sugarpuss O’Shea: [needing help with a stubborn zipper] "You know, I had this happen one night in the middle of my act. I couldn’t get a thing off. Was I embarrassed!" https://thelastdrivein.com/2013/07/21/edward-dmytryks-walk-on-the-wild-side-1962-at-the-doll-house-when-people-are-kind-to-each-other-why-do-they-have-to-find-a-dirty-word-for-it/
20. Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck) in Walk on The Wild Side (1962). Jo runs the New Orleans bordello called The Doll House with an iron hand"” when anyone steps out of line she knows how to handle them. Stanwyck had the guts to play a lesbian in 1962, madly in love with Hallie Gerard (Capucine). Stanwyck's Jo Courtney is elegant, self-restrained, and as imposing as Hera in tailored suits. Having to be strong in a man’s world, her strong instinct for survival and the audacious will to hold onto Hallie brings her world to a violent conclusion"¦Â "Oh, you know me better than that Hallie. Sometimes I've waited years for what I wanted."   21. Marie Garson (Ida Lupino) in High Sierra (1941) Roy “Mad Dog" Earle has been pardoned from a long prison term. Marie, a rough around the edges taxi dancer, finds herself resisting her attraction to this brutal gangster, forming a very complicated dynamic with a second mobster who wants to pull off a high-stakes robbery. Marie is a force of nature that bristles from every nerve she purely musters in this tale of doom-fated bad boys, but more importantly here"¦ A woman can raise a rifle with the best of them! Marie Garson “Yeah, I get it. Ya always sort hope ya can get out, it keeps ya going.”
22. Lilli Marlowe (Ida Lupino) in Private Hell 36 (1954) This rare noir gem is written by the versatile powerhouse Ida Lupino who also plays Lilli Marlowe. Lilli has expensive tastes. After getting caught up in an investigation of a bank heist, she falls in love with the blue-collar cop Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran). Cal has secretly stashed away the missing money from that bank heist and then begins to suffer from a guilty conscience. Lilli's slick repartee is marvelous as Cal and his reluctant partner Jack Farnham (then husband Howard Duff) focus on her, hoping she'll help them in their investigation. Lilli's tough, she's made it on her own and isn't about to compromise now"¦ Cal may be falling apart but Lilli knows what she wants and she always seems to keep it together! Lilli Marlowe: “Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed I’d meet a drunken slob in a bar who’d give me fifty bucks and we’d live happily ever after.”23. Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) in Lifeboat 1944. It's WWII and Connie is a smart-talking international journalist who's stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with an ensemble of paranoid and desperate survivors. Eventually, her fur coat comes off, her diamond bracelet and expensive camera get tossed into the sea. But she doesn't give a damn, she can take the punishment and still attract the hunky and shirtless (yum) John Kodiak"¦ survival's just a state of mind"¦ and she does it with vigor and class and a cool calm! Connie Porter: “Dying together’s even more personal than living together.” 24. Berenice Sadie Brown (Ethel Waters) The Member of the Wedding 1952. Berenice doesn't take any crap. She’s in charge of the brooding, temperamental tomboy Franky Addams (Julie Harris) who feels like an outsider. Berenice’s kitchen is a place of wisdom as she tries to bestow some life lessons, to a child who is a wild and longing little soul"¦ Berenice is the only steady source of nurturing and a strong pair of shoulders to lean on"¦ Thank god Franky/Harris didn't start having her droning inner monologues until The Haunting (1963). Frances ‘Frankie’ Addams: [throws the knife into the kitchen door] “I’m the world’s greatest knife thrower.” Berenice Sadie Brown: [when Frankie threatens her with a knife] “Lay it down, Satan!” 25. The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) Bride of Frankenstein (1935) The Bride might be one of the first screen women to rabidly defy an arranged/deranged marriage. She's iconic,  memorable, and filled with glorious hiss!.. because The Bride may have come into this world in an unorthodox way, but she'll be damned if any man is going to tell her who to love! James Whale isn't the only one who brought about life in this campy horror masterpiece"¦ Elsa Lanchester manifested The Bride with a keen sense of fearsome independence. No matter whether the Monster demands a Mate, The Bride isn't ready and willing. Lanchester always took daring roles that were larger than life because she had a way of dancing around the edges of Hollywood conventions. Charming, hilarious, and downright adorable even with the wicked lightning-struck hair and stitches and deathly pale skin! the bride-"Hiss"¦Scream"¦”26. Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) in His Gal Friday (1940) Hildy is a hard-bitten reporter for New York City's The Morning Post. She's just gotten back from Reno to get a divorce from her louse of a husband who happens to also be her boss Walter Burns (Cary Grant). Hildy's anxious to break ties with her manipulative ex-husband who just isn't ready to let her leave the job or their marriage so she can marry straight-laced Bruce (Ralph Bellamy)"¦ and he'll do so by any means. But she's nobody's fool"¦ and if she stays it's because she's made up her mind to embrace Walter's crazy antics"¦ Hildy Johnson: [to Walter on the phone] “Now, get this, you double-crossing chimpanzee: There ain’t going to be any interview and there ain’t going to be any story. And that certified check of yours is leaving with me in twenty minutes. I wouldn’t cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up. If I ever lay my two eyes on you again, I’m gonna walk right up to you and hammer on that monkeyed skull of yours ’til it rings like a Chinese gong!” https://thelastdrivein.com/2014/04/23/when-the-spider-woman-looks-two-glorias-wicked-love-close-ups-old-jewels-the-sympathetically-tragic-villainesses-of-sunset-blvd-1950-and-draculas-daughter-1936/
27. Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard (1950) There's just no one quite like Norma Desmond. It's 1950's decadent Hollywood, the heyday of the Silent Era long gone"¦ and a true screen icon, a sympathetic soul, fights her way to a comeback. brought to life by Gloria Swanson. Swanson, who knew very well what it was like to be a screen goddess railing against fading away, creates an atmosphere of fevered madness. She's a woman whose desires are punished by an industry and the men who hold the reigns. But Norma doesn't give a damn she'll always be ready for that eternal close-up"¦ Yet another memorable phrase is turned and a legend both on and off screen is reborn. Joe Gillis: “You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.” Norma Desmond: “I *am* big. It’s the *pictures* that got small.” 28. Karen Stone -(Vivien Leigh) in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) Karen Stone has the misfortune of being a 50-year-old actress. There's no place in the theatre for an old woman of 50. On the way to Italy with her husband who is much older than she, he dies of a heart attack on the plane. Karen decides to settle in Rome and live a quiet life of solitude in her magnificent villa. Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales (Lotte Lenya) is an opportunistic Madame who employs charming young gigolos to wine, dine, and bleed dry wealthy older women. She introduces Paolo di Leo (Warren Beatty) to Karen in hopes that it will bring about a showering of riches from this great American lady. Karen has no use for her old theatre friends, the status, and the game of staying on top. She enjoys the serenity of her life at the villa. Yet she is shadowed by a young Italian street hustler's mysterious gaze. At first, Karen is reserved and cautious but soon she allows Paolo to court her, and the two eventually begin an affair. Karen is aware Paolo is using her for her money, but her passion has been released. She is using him as well. But when his mood begins to sour and he turns away, Karen finds him with a younger wealthy upcoming starlet that he is already sizing up as his next meal ticket"¦ The fling ends but Karen has taken back the power of attraction and sexual desire, and turns the usual stigmatizing dichotomy on its head, while it was okay when she was a younger woman married to a much older man, she takes a younger male lover Karen Stone: “You see… I don’t leave my diamonds in the soap dish… and when the time comes when nobody desires me… for myself… I’d rather not be… desired… at all.” 29. Maxine Faulk (Ava Gardner) in Night of the Iguana (1964). Maxine is a personification of the loner. She is sexually, morally, and socially independent from opinion. When Ava was cast as the "earthy widow" the director said her "feline sexuality" was perfect for one of Tennessee Williams' "hot-blooded ladies." Maxine runs a quiet out-of-the-way tourist oasis in Mexico. When a busload of provincial middle-aged ladies break down, Maxine has to host Judith Fellowes (Grayson Hall) a repressed lesbian, her gaggle of ladies who lunch, and Sue Lyon, a Lolita who is chasing Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton) a defrocked alcoholic priest, that Maxine would like to become better acquainted with. Once Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr) and her elderly grandfather arrive, the atmosphere seems to shift and Shannon is confronted with questions of life and love. Everyone at the hotel has demons and the rich and languid air seems to effect everyone"¦ Maxine waits patiently for Lawrence to realize that they could have a passionate life together if he'd stop torturing himself"¦ Gardner’s scene dancing in the ocean with the two young men is daring and provocative and purely Ava Garnder- Judith Fellowes: [Yelling at Shannon] “You thought you outwitted me, didn’t you, having your paramour here cancel my call.” Maxine Faulk: “Miss Fellowes, honey, if paramour means what I think it does you’re gambling with your front teeth.” Ava Gardner | Maxine Faulk in Night of the Iguana 1964.30. Maude (Ruth Gordon) in Harold and Maude (1971) There is no one quite like Ruth Gordon. She's a sage, a pixie filled with a dreamy light that shines so bright from within. You can't help but believe that she was as effervescent off-screen as she was on screen. Maude has a transcendent worldview and a personal dogma to live life to the fullest and not waste time with extraneous matters. She believes everyone should be themselves and never mind what other people think"¦ What else can you say about a character that vocalizes as much wisdom as any of the great and insightful spiritual leaders? Maude and Ruth both have tenacity, vivacity, and perspicacity"¦Â Maude: “Harold, *everyone* has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can’t let the world judge you too much.” — Maude: “I should like to change into a sunflower most of all. They’re so tall and simple. What flower would you like to be?” Harold: “I don’t know. One of these, maybe.” Maude: “Why do you say that?” Harold: “Because they’re all alike.” Maude: “Oooh, but they’re *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, and some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are *this.”
34. Catherine ‘Cay' Higgins (Ruth Roman) in Tomorrow is Another Day (1951). Catherine is a tough dance hall girl who isn't afraid to get herself dirty. She goes on the lam for the sake of self-preservation when her new love interest Bill Clark (Steve Cochran) is wrongfully accused of killing her abusive pimp"¦ and geez he's just gotten out of prison after a long stretch. Cay is ballsy, extremely earthy, and exudes an inner strength that is so authentic it's hard not to believe she could take one on the chin and still keep going. She embodies an indestructible sort of sex appeal, a powerfully passionate and self-assertive woman you'd want to be with you if you're ever on the lam"¦ Catherine ‘Cay’ Higgins: “You worked a whole day just to dance a minute at Dream Land? Bill Clark: It was worth it.” 35. Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) Pitfall (1948) Mona is a sultry dewy blonde fashion model with a low simmering voice in the greatest tradition of the noir femme fatale. Forbes falls for her, and they begin to see each other, though she unwittingly starts the affair without knowing he's married. It's a recipe for disaster because ex-cop turned private dick J B MacDonald (Raymond Burr) is psychotically obsessed with Mona and will set things up so Forbes goes down. Mona is a tough cookie, who unfortunately keeps attracting the wrong men. But she can take on any challenge because she's got that noir frame of mind. She's a doll who can make up her own mind and can hold a gun in her hand as easily as if it were a cigarette. Mona "You're a little man with a briefcase. You go to work every morning and you do as you're told."36. Lady Torrence (Anna Magnani ) in The Fugitive Kind (1960) Lady is an earthy woman whose passions run like a raging river & her emotions and truths flow freely on the surface clear and forceful. She is a shop owner in Louisiana who is stoically existing in a brutal marriage to her cruel and vindictive husband Jabe (Victor Jory) who's bedridden and dying of cancer. Lady dreams of building a confectionary in the back of the store. Along comes Marlon Brando as Valentine "Snakeskin' Xavier, a guitar-playing roamer who takes a job in the shop. Lady's jaded loneliness and Valentine's raw animal magnetism combust and the two begin a love affair. And Lady suddenly sees possibility again and her re-awakened passion empowers her to live her dreams. Lady-"Let's get this straight, you don't interest me no more than the air you stand in."37. Egle (Anna Magnani) "¦ And the Wild Wild Women (1959) Egle is the toughest inmate at this Italian prison for women. When Lina (Giulietta Masina) is convicted of a wrong felony charge, Egle takes her under her hardened wing and tutors her in the ways of crime. Egle is an instigator, she's volatile and inflammatory and stirs up quite a riot at times. She's got no fear. She is a tougher-than-nails, armpit-washing dame who just could care less about anyone else's comfort or freedom. She's a woman who has built up a tough exterior long enough that she truly is made of steel. The only thing that may betray that strength is at times the past sorrow or suffering that swims in her deep dark eyes.38. Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani) in The Rose Tattoo (1955) As the tagline states "˜Seething with realism and frankness!"You can't get any other kind of performance from Magnani, her passionate soul is right up front, on her face, and in her movements like a wild animal, she moves so freely. Serafina is a perpetual grieving widow filled with fire, playing against another actor (Burt Lancaster) whose bigger-than-life presence comes her way to bring about a lighthearted romance"¦ Serafina is a seamstress in a small New Orleans town. She lives with the memory of her dead husband as if he were a saint. She mourns and wears black to show she is still committed to her man, even after he's been killed by police while smuggling drugs for the mafia hidden in the bananas in his truck. With the presence of the local Strega or witch (Serafina gives deference to these things illustrating that she is of an older world of ancient feminine magic and empowerment), and her wandering goat, the town of fish wives & gossips who point, stare judge, wail and cackle with their unkind insults put Serafina it forces her to fight for every last bit of dignity. Serafina gives deference to these things illustrating that she is of an older world of ancient feminine magic and empowerment. Once she learns her dead husband Rosario Delle Rose (who had a rose tattoo on his chest) was having an affair, the spell that leaves her imprisoned by mourning, breaks and awakens her will to celebrate life once again. She is stubborn, & passionate, and she has a strength that commands the birds out of the trees. Serafina “We are Sicilians. We don't leave girls with the boys they're not engaged to!” Jack "Mrs Delle Rose this is the United States.” Serafina “But we are Sicilians, and we are not cold-blooded!”39. Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Martha who is the archetypal Xanthippe and George (Richard Burton) are a middle-aged couple marinated in alcohol, using verbal assaults, brutal tirades, and orgies of humiliation as a form of connecting to one other. All the characters spew biting blasphemous satire and are each neurotic in their own ways. But Martha is a woman who spits out exactly what she wants to say and doesn't hold back. It's an experiment in at-home couple's therapy served with cocktails, as they invite Nick and Honey (George Segal and Sandy Dennis) to join the humiliating emotional release. In the opening of the film Martha arrives home and does a nod to Bette Davis while also condemning her own personal space and the state of her marriage, as she says "What a dump.""I swear to GOD George, if you even existed I'd divorce you.”– Martha: "You're all flops. I'm the Earth Mother, and you are all flops."
42. Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) in The Bride Wore Black (1968) Julie Kohler is on a mission of revenge for the men who accidentally shot her husband on their wedding day outside the church. It was a short marriage"¦ Julie finds a maniacal almost macabre sort of presentation to her theater of revenge, she moves through the film with the ease of a scorpion. But there's dark humor and irony (in François Truffaut’s homage to Hitchcock) running through the narrative. Like a good mystery thriller, it utilizes very classic iconographic motifs. Julie is a captivating figure of sadness and passion put out at the height of its flame. Once passion for her late husband, and now passion for revenge. It's playful and sexy and Moreau is utterly brilliant as the resourceful Julie Kolher who creates a satirically dire & elaborate, slightly Grande Guignol adventure of a vengeful woman on a crusade to exact poetic justice where the system has failed. Coral: “Permit me to make an impossible wish?” Julie Kohler: “Why impossible?” Coral: “Because I’m a rather pessimist.” Julie Kohler: “I’ve heard it said: “There are no optimists or pessimists. There are only happy idiots or unhappy ones”. —Julie-"It's not a mission. It's work. It's something I must do" Priest"“"Give it up""¨ Julie"“"That's impossible, I must continue til it's over""¨Priest"“"Have you had no remorse in your heart?"¦ don't you fear for your soul?""¨Julie-"NO"¦ no remorse, nor fear.""¨Priest-"You know you'll be caught in the end""¨Julie-"The justice of men is powerless to punish, I'm already dead. I stopped living the moment David died. I'll join David after I've had my revenge." 43. Alraune ten Brink -Brigitte Helm as Alraune 1928. A daughter of destiny! Created by Professor Jakob ten Brinken (Paul Wegener) Alraune is a variation on the Shelley story about a man and his womb envy- which impels him to create a humanoid figure from unorthodox methods. A creation who does not possess a soul. He dared to violate nature when he experiments with the seed (sperm) of a hanged man and the egg of a prostitute. Much like James Whale's Frankenstein who sought the secrets of life, Alraune is essentially a dangerous female whose origin is seeded from this socially constructed "˜deviance’ of the hanged criminal and the whore (the film proposes that a whore is evil- I do not) Mixing the essence of sin with the magical mandrake root by alchemist ten Brinken he is seeking the answer to the question of an individual’s humanity and whether it be a product of nature or nurture. Alraune stumbles onto the truth about her origin when she reads the scientist's diary"¦ What could be more powerful than a woman who isn't born with the sense of socially ordered morality imposed or innate? Is she not the perfect femme fatale without a conscience, yet"¦ A woman who knows she is doomed to a life without a soul, she runs away with her creator’s love-sick nephew, leaving Professor ten Brinken, father figure, and keeper- alone.44. Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) in Night of the Hunter (1955)"I've never been in style, so I can never go out of style."–Lillian Gish. There are certain images that will remain with you long after seeing masterpieces like Night of the Hunter. Aside from Harry Powell and Mitchum's frightening portrayal of an opportunistic sociopath, beyond the horror of what he is, the film is like a childhood fairy tale. It's a cautionary tale about the boogeyman but it's also a story about the resilient spirit and far-reaching imagination of children. And those who are the guardian angels of the world. One of the most calming and fortifying images- is that of Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) protecting the children from harm, holding the rifle, and keeping watch like a wonderful fairy godmother elected by fate to guard those little ones with her powerful brand of love"¦ There's just something about Gish's graceful light that emanates from within and the character she manifests in the righteous Rachel Cooper"¦. Rachel Cooper: “It’s a hard world for little things.”
54. Kelly (Constance Towers) in The Naked Kiss (1964) The opening of the film is one of the most audacious entrances in early exploitation cinema, as Kelly confronts her pimp who has shaved off her hair and stolen her money. Kelly brutally pummels the rat with her handbag. Stripped of her hair she looks like a mannequin signifying her as the "˜object' She is introduced to us from the opening of the narrative as a fighter. Kelly manages to fit into the quaint new town of Granville she's made her home until the perverse true nature of Granville's benefactor is exposed. Grant (Michael Dante) possesses a dark secret that Kelly stumbles into and ultimately explodes into scandal. The story is a minefield of social criticisms and hypocrisy that allow Kelly to rise above her persecution by the local cop Griff (Anthony Eisley) who isn’t averse to taking Kelly to bed himself or frequenting Madame Candy's (Virginia Gray) high-class "cat house' yet he's above reproach. Griff tells Kelly it’s a clean town and he doesn't want her operating there. But Kelly wants out of the business. She's great with disabled children at the hospital and just wants a fresh start. Until she exposes the truly deviant secret about Grant and winds up accused of his murder. Kelly initially walks the fine line of being the "˜whore' of the story, the one who needs redemption only to have the narrative flip it around and more importantly it's the town that must be redeemed because of it is jaundiced complacency from the long-kept secrets of the wealthy Patriarchal family that owns and run it. Kelly is a powerful protagonist because she kicks down the door of hypocrisy and judgment. Kelly also shatters the limitations that are placed on women. There exists a displaced female rage that started to become articulated later on with ‘feminist parable’ films during the late 60s and 70s. In the end, she no longer is labeled or objectified, or persecuted. She is embraced as a savior. Kelly's got a reserve of strength and a great sense of self. To me, she ends up being a heroine who rather than redeems herself becomes the catalyst for cleansing the "˜white middle-class' town of its hypocrisy… Kelly (talking to Capt. Griff Anthony Eisley)"I washed my face clean the morning I woke up in your bedroom!"
55. Velma (Agnes Moorehead) in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964) Velma is Charlotte's trusted companion. She shows a lot of gumption when Cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland) shows up trying to gaslight poor Charlotte who's suffered enough at the grotesque and tawdry way she lost her fiancee, and how she lived under the oppressive thumb of her father (Victor Buono). Velma wasn't nary shy a bit to face off with Cousin Miriam, that intimidating gold-digging she-devil in Park Avenue clothes. (From de Havilland’s own wardrobe) Velma always says it like it is, and tries to be a trusted friend to Charlotte even when the whole town shuns her as a crazy axe murderess. We all need friends who would either help you hide the body, or at least defend you against an accusing mob"¦ either way. I'm pretty sure Velma could have taken Miriam if she didn't have Joseph Cotton’s help on her side"¦ And we can't forget Mary Astor's firebrand performance as Jewel Mayhew"¦ Jewel Mayhew: “Well, right here on the public street, in the light of day, let me tell you, Miriam Deering, that murder starts in the heart, and its first weapon is a vicious tongue.”– Velma Cruther talking to Cousin Miriam: “O you’re finally showin’ the right side of your face. Well, I seen it all along. That’s some kinda drug you have been givin’ her. Isn’t it? It’s what’s been making her act like she’s been. Well, Ah’m goin’ into town and Ah’m tellin’ them what you have been up to.”
This post is a collaboration between Fritzi of Movies Silently and me, Joey, here on the Last Drive In.
We offer you a spirited sampling of totally empowered, take-the-reigns film characters who were anything but damsels in distress! Â
1. Helen (Miriam Nesbitt) in The Ambassador’s Daughter (1913)
1. Helen (Miriam Nesbitt) in The Ambassador’s Daughter (1913): This short film from Thomas Edison’s motion picture studio features espionage and a quick-thinking heroine. She tracks down spies at the embassy, follows her suspect and manages to steal back the documents that he purloined from her father. Not at all bad for a film made seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.
2. Helen (Helen Holmes) in A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916)
2. Helen (Helen Holmes) in A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916): Helen Holmes was an action star who specialized in train-related stunts and adventure. In this 1916 serial, she saves the day on numerous occasions and even saves her love interest from peril on the train tracks. (It should be mentioned that the Victorian “woman tied to the train tracks” cliche was incredibly rare and usually treated with ridicule in silent films.) This is another movie that is missing and presumed lost.
3. Diana Monti (Musidora) in Judex (1916)
3. Diana Monti (Musidora) in Judex (1916): Not all the empowered women in classic film were heroines. In the case of Musidora, her most famous roles were as criminals. She was the deadly thief/hit-woman Irma Vep in Les Vampires and then took on the titular caped crusader in Judex. Smart, stealthy and likely to slip a stiletto between the ribs… in short, a woman not to be trifled with.
4. Ossi (Ossi Oswalda) in The Doll (1919)
4. Ossi (Ossi Oswalda) in The Doll (1919): Ernst Lubitsch featured another feisty heroine in this surreal comedy. Our hero wishes to dodge marriage but cannot gain his inheritance without a bride. A plan! He will buy a lifelike doll from a famous toymaker and marry that. What he doesn’t know is that the doll was broken, the toymaker’s daughter has taken its place and she means to teach the reluctant bridegroom a lesson. Oswalda’s mischievous antics are a delight.
5. Lulu (Lois Wilson) in Miss Lulu Bett (1921)
5. Lulu (Lois Wilson) in Miss Lulu Bett (1921): Independent women weren’t always given to violence and thievery. In the case of Lulu, she is a single woman trapped in two Victorian social conventions: spinster and poor relation. During the course of the film, she rejects both titles, learns her own self-worth and empowers herself to enter into a healthy relationship with the local schoolmaster. Tasty feminism!
6. Rischka (Pola Negri) in The Wildcat (1921)
6. Rischka (Pola Negri) in The Wildcat (1921): Ernst Lubitsch’s hyperactive Dr. Seussian comedy is worth seeing for the sets alone but the best part is Pola Negri’s Rischka, a young bandit queen who is terrorizing the mountains. She meets the local Lothario during a robbery and by the end of the scene she has stolen his heart. And his pants.
7. The Countess (Pola Negri) in A Woman of the World (1925)
7. The Countess (Pola Negri) in A Woman of the World (1925): Anyone who thought going to Hollywood would tame Pola Negri’s wild side had another thing coming. In this film, she plays a countess whose skull tattoo causes an uproar in Anytown, USA. The film also features a romance between Negri and the stuffy local prosecutor, who soon finds himself on the receiving end of her bullwhip. Not a metaphor.
8. Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser) in The Eagle (1925)
8. Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser) in The Eagle (1925): Rudolph Valentino specialized in aggressive wooing but he finds the shoe on the other foot in this Russian romance. Louise Dresser is a kick as the assertive czarina who knows what she likes and goes for it.
9. Cornelia Van Gorder (Emily Fitzroy) in The Bat (1926)
9. Cornelia Van Gorder (Emily Fitzroy) in The Bat (1926): It’s a dark and stormy night and a murderous costumed villain means to recover stolen loot in an isolated mansion. What is an elderly woman to do? Take up her trusty pistol and investigate, of course! She also wields a dry wit and keeps cool under pressure. The Bat doesn’t stand a chance.
10. Eve (Leatrice Joy) in Eve’s Leaves (1926)
10. Eve (Leatrice Joy) in Eve’s Leaves (1926): Another gender reversal comedy, Eve’s Leaves features twenties fashion icon Leatrice Joy as a tomboy sailor who finds the perfect man while ashore on business. She ends up saving the day– and her favorite dude in distress– through quick thinking, a knowledge of knots and a mean right hook.
11. Molly (Mary Pickford) in Sparrows (1926)
11. Molly (Mary Pickford) in Sparrows (1926):Â Mary Pickford was America's Sweetheart during the silent era and audiences adored her fearless heroines. Molly is one of her boldest. She's an orphan raised in a Southern swamp who must rescue a kidnapped infant. The epic final race across the swamps"“ complete with alligators"“ is still harrowing to behold.
12. Zaida (Bebe Daniels) in She’s a Sheik (1927)
12. Zaida (Bebe Daniels) in She’s a Sheik (1927): Silent movie audiences enjoyed reversals of gender tropes. The Rudolph Valentino vehicle The Sheik (1921) had been a smash hit and had spawned many rip-offs and parodies. (kidnapping +Â love = box office success!) In this case, a warrior princess falls for a French officer and decides the most sensible course of action is to abduct him for the purpose of marriage. Sadly, this comedy seems to be one of many silent films that is missing and presumed lost.
12. Gilda Carson-Erickson (Dorothy Mackaill) Safe in Hell (1931 pre-code
13. Gilda Carson/Erickson (Dorothy Mackaill) Safe in Hell (1931): Gilda is a complex cigarette smoking call girl who is laid back about her status as a working girl. When a friend calls her up to meet a guy whose wife is out of town she tells her "Okay, I'll go right into my dance." When Gilda is accused of murdering the man who rapes her, she flees New Orleans and seeks refuge in the Caribbean. But even there she is surrounded and must fend off criminals and sleaze balls especially the local police chief who threatens her freedom. On and off the screen actress Dorothy Mackaill pushed against the boundaries of virtue and stirred up a lot of social-incorrectness.
"Who has the good times, the swell clothes, the excitements"¦ We do! And not because we're portrayed as nice girls, no! because we're smoking, drinking, dancing and being made love to."
13. The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
14. The Bride (Elsa Lanchester) Bride of Frankenstein (1935): The Bride might be one of the first screen woman to rabidly defy an arranged/deranged marriage. She's iconic, Â memorable and filled with glorious hiss!.. because The Bride may have come into this world in an unorthodox way, but she'll be damned if any man is going to tell her who to love! Elsa Lanchester manifested The Bride with a keen sense of fearsome independence. No matter whether the Monster demands a Mate, The Bride isn't ready and willing. Lanchester always took daring roles that were larger than life because she had a way of dancing around the edges of Hollywood convention. Charming, hilarious and downright adorable even with the wicked lightning struck hair and stitches and deathly pale skin!
"Hiss"¦Scream"¦.”
15. Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) in His Gal Friday (1940)
15. Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) in His Gal Friday (1940): Hildy is a hard-bitten reporter for New York City's The Morning Post. She's just gotten back from Reno to a get a divorce from her louse of a husband who happens to also be her boss Walter Burns (Cary Grant). Hildy's anxious to break ties with her manipulative ex-husband who just isn't ready to let her leave the job or their marriage so she can marry straight-laced Bruce (Ralph Bellamy)"¦ and he'll do so by any means. But she's nobody's fool"¦ and if she stays it's because she's made up her mind to embrace Walter's crazy antics"¦ Hildy [to Walter]: “Now, get this, you double-crossing chimpanzee: There ain’t going to be any interview and there ain’t going to be any story. And that certified check of yours is leaving with me in twenty minutes. I wouldn’t cover the burning of Rome for you if they were just lighting it up. If I ever lay my two eyes on you again, I’m gonna walk right up to you and hammer on that monkeyed skull of yours ’til it rings like a Chinese gong!”Â
16. Charlie (Teresa Wright), in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
16. Charlie (Teresa Wright), in Shadow of a Doubt (1943): Charlie is tired of small-town life with her parents and annoying younger sister. She's a longing for something exciting to happen, & overwhelmed with joy when her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton) decides to pay the family a visit. But something isn't quite right with her idol, he begins to exhibit a strange sort of underlying hostility and troubling secret nature"¦ Her mother's younger brother is actually a sadistic serial killer who preys on rich widows by marrying them, then strangling them! But young Charlie begins to see through his facade. She may be a girl who indulges in romantic fantasy she’s got a strong resource for self preservation and since no one else in the family believes her suspicions that he's The Merry Widow killer. And she might just have to wind up killing him in self-defense"¦
“Go away, I’m warning you. Go away or I’ll kill you myself. See… that’s the way I feel about you.”
17. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) Double Indemnity (1944): set fire to the screen as one of the most seductive femme fatales"” a dame who made sunglasses and ankle bracelets a provocative weapon. She had murder on her mind and was just brazen enough to concoct an insurance scam that will pay off on her husbands murder in Double Indemnity (1944). Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) is the insurance guy who comes around and winds up falling under her dangerous spell"¦ Walter: “You'll be here too?"
Phyllis: " I guess so, I usually am."
Walter: "Same chair, same perfume, same ankle?"
Phyllis: Â "I wonder if I know what you mean?"
Walter: "I wonder if you wonder?"
18. Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) in Lifeboat 1944.
18. Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead) in Lifeboat (1944): It's WWII and Connie is a smart-talking international journalist who's stranded in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with an ensemble of paranoid and desperate survivors. Eventually her fur coat comes off, her diamond bracelet and expensive camera gets tossed in the sea. But she doesn't give a damn, she can take the punishment and still attract the hunky and shirtless (yum) John Kodiak"¦ survival's just a state of mind"¦ and she does it with vigor and class and a cool calm!Â
“Dying together’s even more personal than living together.”Â
19. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) All About Eve (1950)
19. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) All About Eve (1950): In all Bette Davis' films like (Jezebel (1938) Dark Victory (1939) The Letter (1940) Now, Voyager (1942)), she shattered the stereotypes of the helpless female woman in peril. Davis had an unwavering strength, fearlessly taking on the Hollywood system and embracing fully the moody roles that weren't always "˜attractive.' Davis made her comeback in 1950, perhaps melding a bit of her own story as an aging star in All About Eve. Margo must fend off a predatory aspiring actress (Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington) who insinuates herself into Margo's territory. Davis' manifests the persona of ambition and betrayal which have become epic…Â
“Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night."Â
20. Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) in Night of the Hunter (1955)
20. Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) in Night of the Hunter (1955): There are certain images that will remain with you long after seeing masterpieces like Night of the Hunter. Aside from the frightening portrayal of an opportunistic sociopath, the film is like a childhood fairy tale. It's a cautionary tale about the boogeyman but it's also a story about the resilient spirit and far reaching imagination of children, and those who are their guardian angels of the world. One of the most calming and fortifying images is that of Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) protecting the children from harm, holding a rifle and keeping watch like a wonderful fairy god mother elected to guard those little ones with her powerful brand of love"¦ There's just something about Gish's graceful power that emanates from the righteous Rachel Cooper"¦.
“It’s a hard world for little things.”
21. Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani) in The Rose Tattoo (1955) As the tagline states "˜Seething with realism and frankness!"Magnani’s her passionate soul is up front, on her face, and in her movements. Like a wild animal she moves so freely as Serafina, who is perpetual grieving widow filled with fire. Serafina, a seamstress in a small New Orleans town, still mourns her dead husband Rosario Delle Rose (who had a rose tattoo on his chest) as if he were a saint, even after he was killed by police for smuggling drugs for the mafia. Burt Lancaster’s bigger-than-life presence comes her way bringing about lighthearted romance.
Serafina honors an older world of ancient feminine magic and empowerment), so the local Strega (or witch) with her wandering goat, and the town full of wives and gossips who stare and judge, cackling with unkind insults, forces Serafina to fight for every last bit of dignity. Once she learns her dead husband was having an affair, the spell that imprisoned her with mourning breaks and she awakens to celebrate life once again. She is stubborn, passionate, and she has a strength that commands the birds out of the trees.
Serafina: "We are Sicilians. We don't leave girls with the boys they're not engaged to!" Jack: "Mrs Delle Rose this is the United States."
Serafina "But we are Sicilians, and we are not cold-blooded!"
22. Anna Lucasta (Eartha Kitt) in Anna Lucasta (1958)22. Anna Lucasta (Eartha Kitt) in Anna Lucasta (1958): Young Anna is rejected by her sanctimonious father Joe played to the hilt by Rex Ingram. While the rest of the family wants Anna to come home, her self-righteous father can't resist demonizing his daughter, with an underlying incestuous desire that he is battling. Anna takes the cliched road of the fallen woman and becomes a good time gal who meets Danny (Sammy Davis Jr.) a cab driving sailor who is as smooth as silk and as fiery as molten lead. Though there is an underlying sadness because of the estrangement with her father, Anna possesses a strong sense of self, and exudes a fiery passion that cannot be denied"¦ She isn't a bad girl, she had to find her own way and again, it often leads to taking control of who you love and how you love. She and Sammy have a smoking hot chemistry on screen, and Kitt is a powerful woman who made that road her own"¦
23. Kelly (Constance Towers) in The Naked Kiss (1964)
23. Kelly (Constance Towers) in The Naked Kiss (1964): The opening of the film is one of the most audacious entrances in early exploitation cinema as Kelly confronts her pimp who has shaved off her hair and stolen her money. She brutally pummels the rat with her handbag. Stripped of her hair, looking like a mannequin (signifying her as an "˜object'), ahe is introduced to us as a fighter. She manages to fit in to her quaint new town of Granville until the perverse secret about the Granville's benefactor is exposed. Kelly stumbles onto Grant’s (Michael Dante) dark secret that ultimately explodes in scandal.
Kelly is persecuted by local cop Griff (Anthony Eisley), who assumes she’s still a prostitute. Griff tells Kelly that it's a “clean town” and he doesn't want her operating there, although he isn't adverse to taking Kelly to bed himself or frequenting Madame Candy's (Virginia Gray) high class "cat house' acting like he's above reproach. But Kelly wants out of the business. She takes a job at a children’s hospital and brings joy and a special brand of love. Grant woos her, but before they reach their wedding day, Kelly stumbles onto Griff’s deviant secret and winds up accused of his murder. The story is a mine field of social criticisms and hypocrisy. Kelly initially starts out as the "˜whore' of the story; as the one who needs redemption. But it's the town that must be redeemed of it is jaundiced complacency. Kelly is a powerful protagonist, because she kicks down hypocrisy and judgement, shattering the limitations that are placed on women. In the end she no longer is labeled or objectified or persecuted. She is embraced as a savior, a heroine who becomes the catalyst for cleansing the "˜white middle-class' town of it's hypocrisy…
"I washed my face clean the morning I woke up in your bedroom!"
24. Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) in Rosemary's Baby (1968): Rosemary has a fearless defiance in an ordinary world that becomes an unsafe space of paranoia. Aside from guarding her body and motherhood against intruders, Rosemary has an open mind, a delicate brand of kindness although troubled by a catholic upbringing that haunts her, she is still "˜too good' and too independent to taint. She winds up taking life and the life of her baby on her own terms. Mia Farrow’s Rosemary Woodhouse is an indomitable image of striking resiliency. A heroine who takes on an entire secretive cult of devil worshipers entrenched in the high society of NYC. That takes a lot of guts, people!"¦ And Ruth Gordon is a meddling old New York busybody who just happens to be a modern day witch. As Minnie Castavets she does what she wants. She is empowered with her quirky style and her beliefs, as wicked as they may be"¦And her wardrobe is bold, kitschy, and fabulous! “Pain, begone, I will have no more of thee!”
25. Julie Kohler (Jeanne Moreau) in The Bride Wore Black (1968): Julie Kohler is on a mission of revenge for the men who accidentally shot her husband on their wedding day outside the church. Julie has a maniacal almost macabre sort of presentation to her theater of revenge, she moves through the film with the ease of a scorpion. But there's dark humor and irony running through, like a good mystery thriller. Julie is a captivating figure of sadness and passion put out at the height of it's flame. Once passion for her late husband, and now passion for revenge. It's playful and sexy and Moreau is utterly brilliant as the resourceful Julie Kolher. She creates a satirically dire and elaborate, and slightly Grande Guignol adventure of a vengeful woman on a crusade to exact poetic justice where the system has failed.
Coral: “Permit me to make an impossible wish?” Julie: “Why impossible?” Coral: “Because I’m a rather pessimist.” Julie: “I’ve heard it said: There are no optimists or pessimists. There are only happy idiots or unhappy ones.”
Here’s to those Empowered Women of Silent & Classic Film! — Your Ever-Lovin’ JoeyÂ
![Anna Lucasta (1958) | Pers: Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis Jr | Dir: Arnold Laven | Ref: ANN040AE | Photo Credit: [ United Artists / The Kobal Collection ] | Editorial use only related to cinema, television and personalities. Not for cover use, advertising or fictional works without specific prior agreement](https://i0.wp.com/thelastdrivein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/tumblr_lvnaeyvi341r1a8w8o1_500.jpg?ssl=1)
