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HAVE A VERY SAFE & HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM YOUR EVERLOVIN’ MONSTERGIRL!!!!!!
Special appreciation for several of the fabulous images courtesy of Dr. Macros High Quality photos!
HAVE A VERY SAFE & HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM YOUR EVERLOVIN’ MONSTERGIRL!!!!!!
You could say that Evelyn Ankers is still the reigning queen of classical 1940s horror fare turned out by studios like RKO, Universal, and Monogram. But there was a host of femme scream tales that populated the silver screen with their unique beauty, quirky style, and/or set of lungs ready to wail, faint, or generally add some great tone and tinge to the eerie atmosphere whenever the mad scientist or monster was afoot. Some were even monstrous themselves…
For this upcoming Halloween, I thought I’d show just a little love to those fabulous ladies who forged a little niche for themselves as the earliest scream queens & screen icons.
I’m including Elsa Lanchester because any time I can talk about this deliriously delightful actress I’m gonna do it. Now I know she was the screaming hissing undead bride in the 30s but consider this… in the 40s she co-starred in two seminal thrillers that bordered on shear horror as Mrs. Oates in The Spiral Staircase 1945 and a favorite of mine as one of Ida Lupino’s batty sisters Emily Creed in Ladies in Retirement 1941
I plan on venturing back to the pre-code thirties soon, so I’ll talk about The Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Gloria Holden (Dracula’s Daughter, Frances Dade (Dracula) and Kathleen Burke (Island of Lost Souls) Gloria Stuart and Fay Wray and so many more wonderful actresses of that golden era…
ANNE NAGELÂ 1915-1956
The depraved mad scientist Lionel Atwill working with electro biology pins gorgeous red-headed Anne Nagel playing June Lawrence, to his operating slab in Man Made Monster 1941. Lon Chaney Jr. comes hulking in all aglow as the ‘Electrical Man’ which was his debut for Universal. He carries Anne Nagel through the countryside all lit up like a lightning bug in rubber armor. Man Made Monster isn’t the only horror shocker that she displayed her tresses & distresses. She also played a night club singer named Sunny Rogers also co-starring our other 40’s horror heroine icon Anne Gwynne in the Karloff/Lugosi pairing Black Friday in 1940.
She played the weeping Mrs.William Saunders, the wife of Lionel Atwill’s first victim in Mad Doctor of Market Street 1942. And then of course she played mad scientist Dr Lorenzo Cameron’s (George Zucco’s) daughter Lenora in The Mad Monster 1942. Dr. Cameron has succeeded with his serum in turning men into hairy wolf-like Neanderthal monsters whom he unleashes on the men who ruined his career.
Poor Anne had a very tragic life… Considered that sad girl who was always hysterical. Once Universal dropped her she fell into the Poverty Row limbo of bit parts. Her brief marriage to Ross Alexander ended when he shot himself in the barn in 1937, and Anne became a quiet alcoholic until her death from cancer in 1966.
MARTHA VICKERS- 1925-1971
Martha was in noir favorites The Big Sleep 1946 & Alimony 1949. This beauty played an uncredited Margareta ‘Vazec’s Daughter’along side Ilona Massey as Baroness Elsa Frankenstein and the marvelous older beauty Maria Ouspenskaya as Maleva the gypsy! in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man 1943. Then she played heroine Dorothy Coleman in Captive Wild Woman 1943 and Miss McLean in The Mummy’s Ghost 1944.
Originally Martha MacVickar she started modeling for photographer William Mortenson. David O Selznick contracted the starlet but Universal took over and put in her bit parts as the victim in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and in other ‘B’ guilty pleasures like Captive Wild Woman & The Mummy’s Ghost. She was also the pin-up girl for WWII magazines.
Martha also starred in other noir features such as Ruthless 1948 and The Big Bluff 1955. She was Mickey Rooney’s third wife.
Though Logan made very few films including Opened By Mistake 1940, her contribution to women who kick-ass in horror films and don’t shrink like violets when there’s a big bald baddie coming after you with a net and a bottle of chloroform, makes you a pretty fierce contender even if you are only 7 inches tall! As Dr. Mary Robinson (Janice Logan), Logan held it all together while the men were scattering like mice from the menacing google eyed Dr. Cyclops played superbly by Albert Dekker.
FAY HELMÂ 1909-2003
Fay Helm played Ann Terry in one of my favorite unsung noir/thriller gems Phantom Lady 1944 where it was all about the ‘hat’ and she co-starred as Nurse Strand alongside John Carradine in Captive Wild Woman. Fay played Mrs. Duval in the Inner Sanctum mystery Calling Dr. Death with Lon Chaney Jr. 1943
Fay Helm plays Jenny Williams in Curt Siodmak’s timeless story directed by George Waggner for Universal and starring son of a thousand faces Lon Chaney Jr in his most iconic role Larry Talbot as The Wolf Man 1941
Fay as Jenny Williams: “Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.”
Fay was in Night Monster 1942. Directed by Ford Beebe the film starred Bela Lugosi as a butler to Lionel Atwill a pompous doctor who falls prey to frightening nocturnal visitations. I particularly love the atmosphere of this little chiller with its swampy surroundings and its metaphysical storyline.
Dr. Lynn Harper (Irene Hervey- Play Misty For Me 1971) a psychologist is called to the mysterious Ingston Mansion, to evaluate the sanity of Margaret Ingston, played by our horror heroine Fay Helm daughter of Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan) a recluse who invites the doctors to his eerie mansion who left him in a wheelchair.
Fay gives a terrific performance surrounded by all the ghoulish goings on! She went on to co-star with Bela Lugosi and Jack Haley in the screwball scary comedy One Body Too Many (1944).
Irene Hervey as Dr. Lynn Harper –Night Monster 1942.
LOUISE CURRIE 1913-2013
Bela Lugosi as half ape half man really needed a shave badly in The Ape Man 1943, and Louise Currie and her wonder whip might have been the gorgeous blonde dish to make him go for the Barbasol. One of the most delicious parts of the film was its racy climax as Emil Van Horn in a spectacle of a gorilla suit rankles the cage bars longing for Currie’s character, Billie Mason the tall blonde beauty. As Bela skulks around the laboratory and Currie snaps her whip in those high heels. The film’s heroine was a classy dame referred to as Monogram’s own Katharine Hepburn! She had a great affection for fellow actor Bela Lugosi and said that she enjoyed making Poverty Row films more than her bit part in Citizen Kane! And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that she appeared in several serials, from both Universal & Republic like The Green Hornet and Captain Marvel.
Tom Weaver in his book Poverty Row HORRORS! described The Ape Man as “a Golden Turkey of the most beloved kind.”
Louise Currie followed up with another sensational title for Monogram as Stella Saunders in Voodoo Man 1944 which again features Lugosi as Dr. Richard Marlowe who blends voodoo with hypnosis in an attempt to bring back his dead wife. The film also co-stars George Zucco as a voodoo high priest and the ubiquitous John Carradine as Toby a bongo-playing half-wit “Don’t hurt her Grego, she’s a pretty one!”
The incomparable Fritzi of Movies Silently and I are so THRILLED at the turn out so far for our Chaney shingdig in November. And we can’t wait to see it all come to life like Henry Frankenstein’s creation on that slab. Speaking for myself I’ve already shouted to the lightening permeated skies and bayed at the full moon with great ‘fangs’, I mean ‘thanks’… to everyone joining us!!!
But you know… there’s still films and television serials up for grabs, so don’t be shy, listen to the sound of my voice, you’re getting anxious, you’re getting excited, you’re ready to pick one of these fantastic unclaimed works by one or both of the great Chaneys!!!!
The makers of this post & The Last Drive In are not responsible for those of you susceptible to hypnosis -who find themselves walking into walls, or late nite raids on the refrigerator…. thank you- the staff at The Last Drive In (meaning me)
And say… don’t forget to grab one of the fabulous banners for the Chaney Blogathon in November!
Just look at these terrific unclaimed performances just waiting to be written about! There’s more at IMDb!
NOW TAKEN !
NOW TAKEN !
HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13th- Hope you have a truly lucky day-MonsterGirl
JUST A REMINDER THAT WE’RE EVER GRATEFUL TO DAVID ARRATE AND WENDY CHRISTENSEN FOR FOR THEIR INCREDIBLE BANNERS WHICH MADE THIS WHOLE SHINDIG A SMASHING SUCCESS
This is the last gasp of air we’ll all be able to settle down from the week’s excitement! No more buzzers under your seats, or skeletons in the cellar. No more Ballyhoo and Fanfare… at least until the next time… You’ve all been so swell, I feel all tingly inside… uh oh. Nah it’s just the warm glow of appreciation to so many wonderful and brilliant bloggers who turned out to help Terri and I celebrate the greatest showman of em all… I hope you all had fun. I know we did. And please, keep William Castle in your hearts and every once in a while dust off one of his fabulous motion pictures and make a night of it with the entire family. He lived to entertain you, I hope we did the same…
Here at The Last Drive In I’ll be featuring the fabulous Dorian from Tales of the Easily Distracted – with a zany romp: The Spirit is Willing (1967)
Fritzi (Gwen) from Movies Silently is going to wow us (silently from the projection booth of course) with, After the Silents: Chills! Thrills! William Castle Special!
Then Jeff Kuykendall of Midnight Only is going to be all creepy crawly with his feature on Bug (1975)
David Arrate of My Kind of Story "“is going to dazzle us with ‘Its a Small World Malcolm Shanks’
Classic Film and TV Cafe A William Castle Double Feature: The Tingler and Mr. Sardonicus- An Undertaker Is Standing By In Case You Die Of Fright!
Misty of Cinema Schminema is going to thrill us with Project X (1968)
and finally The Nitrate Diva -is getting all mysterious noir on us with Castle’s Betrayed aka When Strangers Marry (1944)
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures wants to show appreciation for some of her fellow bloggers with ‘recommended reading’
A little something for your Nightmare’s from The Phantom Erik  Episode 048: The Tingler (1959 Podcast
With Love to you Mr. William Castle-From all of us and your ever lovin’ MonsterGirl- Joey! Good Night-
Aurora at Once upon a screen… The Night Walker (’64)
Rich at Wide Screen World: Top 5 William Castle Gimmicks
Le at Critica Retro: Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven (’48) ‘Live Dreaming’
Furious Cinema: William Castle: Mad as Hell Movie Showman
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Favorite Things About… House on Haunted Hill
Forgotten Films: Macabre (’58)
Barry at Cinematic Catharsis: 13 Ghosts (’60)
Joey at The Last Drive In: House on Haunted Hill (’59) ‘Only the ghosts in this house are glad we’re here’
Goregirl’s Dungeon: Fun with GIFS: The William Castle Edition
David Arrate of My Kind of Story  It's a Small World (1950) ‘Image Gallery’
The Last Drive In– William Castle’s Villains & Victims! Scream-O Vision…
Ivan of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear & Radio Spirits: The Whistler, Mark of the Whistler, Voice of The Whistler
Heather Drain at Mondo Heather: 13 Frightened Girls! (1963) & Hullabaloo & Horror: A Tribute to William Castle
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Matinee (1993) A Cinematic Love Letter to the films of William Castle
Karen at Shadows and Satin: Mysterious Intruder (1946)
Kristina at Speakeasy: The Houston Story (1956)
Ray at Weird Flix: Slaves of Babylon (1953)
The Metzinger Sisters at Silver Scenes: Busy Bodies: Promoting Castle’s Camp” & The Films of William Castle!
Ivan G. Shreve at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear: The Chance of a Lifetime (1943) {Boston Blackie}
Goregirl's Dungeon:The Women of Castle
Brian Schuck at Films From Beyond The Time Barrier:Strait-Jacket (1964) ‘Mommie Dearest please put down that axe!”
Joey that’s me at The Last Drive In: Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)
Rob Silvera at The Midnight Monster Show: Double feature Homicidal (1961) & House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Macabre (1958)
Goregirl’s Duneon– Goregirl’s Dungeon on YouTube: Alex North & Vic Mizzy‘
Steve Habrat at Anti Film School: Mr Sardonicus (1961)
Classic Movie Hub: The Busy Body (1967)
John LarRue at The Droid You’re Looking For: William Castle Gimmick Infographic
Paul Lambertson at Lasso the Movies: The Tingler (1959)
Goregirl's Dungeon: Favourite Five Series: William Castle
David Arrate at My Kind of Story/Images Masterson of Kansas (1954)
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Tribute to “The King of the Corn” William Castle
Scenes From The Morgue: Showcase of newspaper ads for William Castle films
Stacia at She Blogged By Night: Let’s Kill Uncle (1966)
Ruth- R.A Kerr at Silver Screenings: The Old Dark House (1963)
Ivan G. Shreve at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear: I Saw What You Did (1965)
Ray at Weird Flix: The Saracen Blade (1954)
Toby Roan at 50 Westerns: The Law vs Billy the Kid (1954)
Misty Layne at Cinema Schminema: Project X (1968)
Jenna Berry at Classic Movie Night: Ghost Story/Circle of Fear
Classic Film and TV Cafe A William Castle Double Feature: The Tingler and Mr. Sardonicus- An Undertaker Is Standing By In Case You Die Of Fright!
Kristen at Journeys in ClassicFilm: Spine-Tingler: The William Castle Story
Joey at The Last Drive In: Back Story: What Ever Happened to William Castle’s Baby? (Rosemary’s Baby)
Jeff Kuykendall at Midnight Only: Bug (1975)
LIndsey The Motion Pictures: ‘Recommended Reading-William Caslte Blogathon’
Gwen Kramer at Movies Silently: After the Silents: Chills! Thrills! William Castle Special!
David Arrate at My Kind of Story-Images: ‘It’s a small world Malcolm Shanks part one’
The Nitrate Diva: Betrayed aka When Strangers Marry (1944)
Dorian Tenore Bartilucci at Tales of the Easily Distracted: The Spirit is Willing (1967) William Castle in Duo-Vision! The Spirit is Willing and ZOTZ!
Vinnie Bartilucci at Tales of the Easily Distracted: ZOTZ! (1962 William Castle in Duo-Vision! The Spirit is Willing and ZOTZ!
Sam at Wonders in the Dark: Krzysztof Komeda’s Score, Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Today is going to be a humdinger with some offbeat features to tantalize and titillate and make you whistle!
I felt inspired here at The Last Drive In by all the ballyhoo and pageantry to do a ‘William Castle’s Villains & Victims! Scream-O Vision...’
David Arrate from My Kind of Story is sharing a particularly special little feature called It's a Small World (1950) ‘Image Gallery’ I dare you not to fall head over heals for Harry Musk!
Ivan of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear & Radio Spirits: is whistling at us with his fabulous series:
I’ll also be featuring Ray at Weird Flix -as he mesmerizes us with the Slaves of Babylon (1953)"¨
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures -brings us an interesting take on the film Matinee (1993) A Cinematic Love Letter to the films of William Castle
Ivan’s got more over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear –The Chance of a Lifetime (1943)
Karen at Shadows and Satin, our wonderful Dark Pages gal will titillate us with –Mysterious Intruder (1946)"¨
And my partner in crime at Goregirl's Dungeon -is bringing us a fabulous bevvy of–‘The Women of Castle’Â so head over there and ogle those beauties!
Aurora at Once upon a screen…: The Night Walker (’64)
Rich at Wide Screen World: Top 5 William Castle Gimmicks
Le at Critica Retro: Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven (’48) ‘Live Dreaming’
Furious Cinemas: William Castle: Mad as Hell Movie Showman
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Favorite Things About… House on Haunted Hill
Forgotten Films: Macabre (’58)
Barry at Cinematic Catharsis: 13 Ghosts (’60)
Joey at The Last Drive In: House on Haunted Hill (’59) ‘Only the ghosts in this house are glad we’re here’
Goregirl’s Dungeon: Fun with GIFS: The William Castle Edition
David Arrate of My Kind of Story  It's a Small World (1950) ‘Image Gallery’
The Last Drive In– William Castle’s Villains & Victims! Scream-O Vision…
Ivan of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear) & Radio Spirits: The Whistler, Mark of the Whistler, Voice of The Whistler
Heather Drain at Mondo Heather: 13 Frightened Girls! (1963) & Hullabaloo & Horror: A Tribute to William Castle
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Matinee (1993) A Cinematic Love Letter to the films of William Castle
Karen at Shadows and Satin: Mysterious Intruder (1946)
Kristina at Speakeasy: The Houston Story (1956)
Ray at Weird Flix: Slaves of Babylon (1953)
The Metzinger Sisters at Silver Scenes: Busy Bodies: Promoting Castle’s Camp” & The Films of William Castle!
Ivan G. Shreve at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear: The Chance of a Lifetime (1943) {Boston Blackie}
Goregirl's Dungeon: The Women of Castle
Brian Schuck at Films From Beyond The Time Barrier:Strait-Jacket (1964)
Joey at The Last Drive In: Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949)
Rob Silvera at The Midnight Monster Show: Double feature Homicidal (1961) & House on Haunted Hill (1959)
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures: Macabre (1958)
David Arrate My Kind of Story-Images: It’s a Small World (1950)
Goregirl's Dungeon: Goregirl's Dungeon on YouTube: Alex North & Vic Mizzy
Steve Habrat at Anti Film School: Mr Sardonicus (1961)
Classic Movie Hub: The Busy Body (1967)
John LarRue at The Droid You’re Looking For: William Castle Gimmick Infographic
Paul Lambertson at Lasso the Movies: The Tingler (1959)
Goregirl's Dungeon: Favourite Five Series: William Castle
Lindsey at The Motion Pictures:Tribute
Scenes From The Morgue:Showcase of newspaper ads for William Castle films
Stacia at She Blogged By Night: Let’s Kill Uncle (1966)
Ruth- R.A Kerr at Silver Screenings: The Old Dark House (1963)
Ivan G. Shreve at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear: I Saw What You Did (1965)
Ray at Weird Flix: The Saracen Blade (1954)
Toby Roan at 50 Westerns: The Law vs Billy the Kid (1954)
Misty Layne at Cinema Schminema: Project X (1968)
Jenna Berry at Classic Movie Night: Ghost Story/Circle of Fear
Kristen atJourneys in Classic Film: Spine-Tingler: The William Castle Story
Joey at The Last Drive In: Back Story: What Ever Happened to William Castle’s Baby? (Rosemary’s Baby)
Jeff Kuykendall at Midnight Only: Bug (1975)
Gwen Kramer at Movies Silently: After the Silents: Chills! Thrills! William Castle Special!
David Arrate at My Kind of Story-Images: Shanks (1974) & Masterson of Kansas (1954)
The Nitrate Diva: When Strangers Marry (1944)
Dorian Tenore Bartilucci at Tales of the Easily Distracted: The Spirit is Willing (1967)
Vinnie Bartilucci at Tales of the Easily Distracted:Zotz! (1962)
Sam at Wonders in the Dark: Christopher Komeda’s Score, Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
When I found out that Rachel from The Girl With the White Parasol was hosting a Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon, I chomped at the bit to participate. I love Stanny, pure and simple. She not only changed the way women demonstrated their power in the film, but she’s also gutsy, gorgeous, and persuasive in a very unconventional way.
Barbara Stanwyck, unlike some of her other vice-ridden murderous roles, plays Sally Morton an archetypal woman in peril, although not as individuated as ‘hysterical’ or pathetic like Leona Stevenson in Anatole Litvak’s Sorry, Wrong Number 1948.
Stanny brought a unique kind of dynamism to the Suspense & Noir landscape. She’s got a face bred with burning spirit and animal coolness, that exudes a subtle psychology ferocious independence, and dramatic intelligence.
The Stanwyck role was originally performed by Elisabeth Bergner in Martin Vale’s stage play. A suspense-thriller that fits within the realm of noir with Gothic tinges of horror. Humphrey Bogart appeared in the classic horror film The Return of Doctor X 1939. Bogart plays the subdued, yet sinister malefactor Geoffrey Carroll. He’s a cynical, eccentric, and alienated artist. Stanny plays Sally the woman he kills his first wife for, poisoning her with glasses of milk just like in Hitch’s Suspicion 1941.
The Two Mrs. Carrolls is also the second pairing of Humphrey Bogart and Alexis Smith, who plays Cecily Latham the ‘other woman.’ She first acted opposite Bogie in Conflict 1945 where he played Richard Mason pursuing his wife’s sister Alexis Smith’s Evelyn Turner.
Produced by Mark Hellinger for Jack Warner and directed by Peter Godfrey (Cry Wolf 1947 also starring Stanny & The Woman in White 1948) The Two Mrs.Carrolls is a woman in peril, female victim story à la Hitchcock.
Stanwyck’s role diverges from some of her more famous female villains, the noir femme fatale who embodies the unacceptable archetype of the sexually aggressive woman. In this film she plays the more marginalized ‘good woman’ who is worthy of being a wife and often the victim, contrasted by the lustful and conniving Cecily (Alexis Smith) who embodies treachery and a freely expressed sexuality.
The film co-stars Nigel Bruce as Dr. Tuttle, Isobel Elsom (Ladies in Retirement 1941, Monsieur Verdoux 1947) as Mrs. Latham Patrick O’Moore as Charles Pennington (Penny), Ann Carter as Beatrice Carroll, Anita Bolster (The Lost Weekend, Scarlet Street 1945) as Christine the maid, and Barry Bernard as the blackmailing chemist Horace Blagdon. There’s a welter of melodramatic music by Franz Waxman, plenty of Gothic shadows by cinematographer J.Peverell Marley (Hound of the Baskervilles 1939, House of Wax 1953) & gorgeous fashions by Edith Head.
Made in 1945 Warner Bros. most likely held back the release of this film as it was very close to Bogart’s role in Conflict that same year. Bogart the quintessential scruffy cigarette smoking everyman equipped with a trench coat fedora and gritty sneer is very capable of playing complex characters with a disturbed pathology of inner turmoil. I think of his role as the controlling and ill-tempered script writer Dixon Steele in Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place 1950, or Captain Queeg in The Cain Mutiny 1954.
In The Two Mrs. Carrolls, Bogart is cast as Geoffrey Carroll a Bluebeardesque psychotic who first feels driven to paint his muse, the object of his desire, only to feel compelled to destroy her once he’s done exalting her essence using poisoned milk as his method of murder. He is not unlike Vincent Price’s anachronism of a Hudson Valley nobleman driven by an insane need for an heir in Dragonwyck 1946, in an extension of the Bluebeard mythos as he kills his wives who are incapable of giving him, sons.
Certain Noir films are the manifestation of psychosis, emerging in the form of the ‘mad artist’  most notably Edgar Ulmer’s Bluebeard 1944. Franchot Tone was the obsessively deranged sculptor in Phantom Lady 1944, and Architect Michael Redgrave in Fritz Lang’s incredible depiction of noir psychosis in The Secret Beyond the Door 1947 which had suggestive imagery of a dream-like atmosphere with its overt Freudian fairy tale patterns tied to psychoanalytical interpretations of childhood trauma and sexual significance. Joan Bennett refers to her own ability to purge these ‘repressed poisons’ because she is so chatty and exorcizes her demons by talking too much.
Peter Godfrey’s The Two Mrs. Carrolls and Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond the Door 1948 are ideal examples of a leading man portraying creativity and obsessiveness driven to madness. In the former Barbara Stanwyck plays Sally Morton who has a whirlwind romance with painter Geoffrey Carroll (Humphrey Bogart) only to learn that he is actually married to an invalid wife. Though Carroll is desperate to possess Sally as he claims she has ‘saved’ him so that he can now paint again. Before they had met, his work suffered. When Sally finds out that Geoffrey is married she flees their romantic sojourn leaving Carroll in a cave showing dismay and turbulence on his face. Carroll goes to London and sees a chemist, signing a fictitious name. After several glasses of milk, the first Mrs. Carroll is dead, and Sally becomes the second Mrs. Carroll.
Sally becomes his new ‘subject,’ a replacement as the artist’s inspiration and love object. But once the wealthy and decadent tigress Cecily Latham (she wears animal print) aggressively pursues him to paint her and become her lover, Sally’s fate is sealed. Carroll transfers his fixation to his new object, Cecily Latham, played by the gorgeous Alexis Smith (I saw her on Broadway in the 70s. She won a Tony award for her performance in the hit Broadway musical Follies… what a treat!)
The film is an odd and edgy thriller that opens in a pastoral setting in Scotland where Sally and Geoffrey are having a quaint picnic by the lake, while Geoffrey sits upon a rock and sketches her. The initial loveliness and serene atmosphere sets out to misdirect us as a place much like Eden. The couple we learn have been dating for two weeks. Everything bares the most ordinary of appearances, as Geoffrey and Sally’s budding romance seems filled with a lighthearted joyfulness in alliance with the surrounding paradisal scenery.
McGregor tells him he’s caught a fish, and Geoffrey yells to him, “Well from this distance that takes real talent. Throw that whale back, the way I feel today I don’t want even a fish to be unhappy!”
Geoffrey Carroll tells Sally, “Two weeks of the only real happiness I’ve ever known"¦ I love you Sally, I love you.” As soon as Geoffrey utters these words and the couple embraces, the sky begins to well up with uneasy clouds. Accompanied by old man McGregor who has the typified Scottish accent warning them of the rough weather brewing.
As the opening serenity is quickly broken by the foreboding torrential rainstorm, this symbol of strife and disturbance oppresses the joy and becomes a metaphor as the film ends with a similar rainstorm that besets Sally’s world.
This will inevitably turn into a nightmarish landscape for Sally but the serene local diverts us from the darkness to come, as we soon discover that Carroll is a disturbed artist who constantly needs fresh female inspiration in order for his art and sexual gratification to thrive. His art depends on it, and he is willing to kill the women he once desired to sustain himself.
The couple seeks refuge from the rain in a nearby cave. As Geoffrey goes to get his fishing gear and picnic basket from McGregor, Sally remains behind holding his jacket. As she calls after him, a letter falls out of her pocket. She picks up the small white envelope and is horrified to see it is addressed to Mrs. Carroll. The extraordinary range of emotions Stanwyck is capable of reflecting within a single frame is cogent and palpable, as she shifts from content glances to an interior that aches. Her eyes glimmer with a crushed spirit. Franz Waxman’s dramatic score confronts the moment as Sally is framed by the dark outline of the cave.
Once Geoffrey returns to the cave he finds Sally suddenly unyielding and in emotional distress.
Sally breaks down and flees the cover of the cave crying ‘No… no’ Not wanting to hear Geoffrey’s excuses she runs out into the pouring rain.
He gives a tortured look as symbolic bars of rain obfuscate his figure. As Waxman’s music acts like a buzz saw in his twisted psyche he looks down at the letter lying at his muddied feet he grips his head.
The scene switches to Blagdon (Barry Bernard) the cash chemist sealing up a package with wax. He’s an unsavory character with a scar that gives him an added edge of sleaziness. Bladgon hands Geoffrey the register, “You’ll have to sign for this sir.” Blogdan answers the phone, he’s lost a bet on the horses.
Geoffrey Carroll returns home to his London flat where he greets his daughter Beatrice. He takes the little white package from the chemist and puts it in his pocket. Geoffrey asks how her mother is doing, and she tells him about the same.
He says, “What are you talking about, well of course she’ll live. What do you mean?”
“Don’t get excited father. We both want her to live because we love her so much. That doesn’t mean she will live does it?”
A bell rings, it is time for Mrs. Carroll’s milk. Beatrice goes into the kitchen to prepare the hot white liquid for her mother. Geoffrey enters the room and takes the saucepan and glass from his daughter pouring the milk himself. Standing outside the bedroom door, holding the glass of warm milk a queer look sploshes over his face like waves of disequilibrium. He suddenly tells Bea that starting tomorrow she’ll be going away to school.
Two years later, Sally now the second Mrs.Carroll and Geoffrey are living in Ashton in Sally’s Gothic manor house inherited from her father.
Charles Pennington (Patrick O’Moore) or Penny is greeted at the door by Christine (Anita Bolster) the housemaid. As he waits for Sally, he studies the painting of the first Mrs. Carroll, not noticing Beatrice sitting in the armchair. She tells him the painting is tremendous.
Ann Carter as Carroll’s precocious daughter Bea figures prominently in the film as sort of the lens in which the conscience of the story reveals its moral code. Ann Carter exudes a mature seriousness reminiscent of Curse of the Cat People 1944 with her otherworldly air. She possesses a no-nonsense touch to the mixed-up morality she’s surrounded by that contributes to the pervasive despair and instability.
Barbara Stanwyck looks stunning as she enters the room. Sally tells Bea she needn’t leave, that Penny is a dear old friend. Bea tells her they’ve already met, and he’s ‘nice, quite nice.’Â Penny asks how old she is ’45 or 50?’ “She does give that impression, but she’s sweet.”
Penny is kind and obviously still very much in love with Sally. In a very evolved and civil manner, he hasn’t forgiven her for running out on him. She feels terrible about it and says she should have given him some words. But when she met Geoffrey, when he came back it was as if nothing else mattered. He tells her that all a disappointed suitor needs do is look at her. He asks if she’s as happy as she looks. Sally tells him “he’s good to me.” “He better be. Purely out of morbid curiosity, I should like to meet him.”
She tells him that Geoffrey is working upstairs in his studio and that she’ll call on him. Penny tells her that he’s not the only visitor. Mrs. Latham and her daughter Cecily are expected any minute. They’re friends and clients of his.
Sally runs up the staircase excited about her guests, she addresses the vinegary Christine.
Waxman’s dynamically turbulent score breaks the witty moment, as Geoffrey paces his studio. Throwing down his paintbrush and grabbing the canvas, he begins to rub the oil with turpentine wiping away what he has painted with hostility.
Continue reading “The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) The ‘Angel of Death’ and a nice glass of warm milk!”
Of all the notorious rivalries identified with Hollywood celebrities, the most enduring in the public consciousness is that of legendary Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. As the documentary ‘Bette and Joan: Blind Ambition‘ (2005) insightfully decries ‘Betty Davis was the screens great Sadist and Crawford was the screen’s great Masochist.’
“If equally matched adversaries are bound to create sparks and flames of conflict, then Bette Davis and the late Joan Crawford should offer a good battle.” -Â Publisher’s Weekly
Bette Davis on Joan Crawford:Â “Her eyebrows are like ‘African caterpillars’ and her best performance was "Crawford being Crawford."
Joan Crawford on Bette Davis:Â "She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that."
I want to preface this piece by qualifying something. With all that’s been written about the infamous feud, there are also those who try to dispel it as a myth, stating that rather than loathing each other Bette and Joan were actually cordial to each other-even chatting on the phone occasionally from the 30s until the making of Baby Jane? And that contrary to what’s been asserted, Davis wasn’t threatened by Joan’s coming to Warner Bros because she felt they were suited to playing different types of roles so there was no conflict there.
When Joan Crawford started to gain momentum with her best melodramas at the studio where Bette Davis’ was queen, Davis was already planning an exodus anyway. Finally in regards to Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte when Joan Crawford saw that Bette Davis was acting more like the director taking control and adding more of her own presence in the script while cutting Crawford’s dialogue to shreds, she decided to bow out of the picture claiming illness so she could be let out of the contract.
Some people assert that while they never became close friends, the two stars only wound up being not so friendly to each other in the end. But, for the sake of my theme of the feuding divas, I felt like putting the more sordid version of the saga out there.
The notable feud, fueled by rumor, gossip, falsehoods, and dished-up dirt, drew so much juicy attention to these fierce Divas whose careers and lives often traversed each other in ironic and titillating ways giving us a peek into the tumultuous allure of Hollywood.Â
Both were incredibly talented, super ambitious, independently driven, and possessing strong personalities. They were each on divergent paths to stardom, Crawford gaining her power remote from the proverbial casting couch "She [Joan Crawford] has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie." –Bette Davis. Most of Crawford’s leading men found her sexual magnetism hard to resist.
But she proved she could command the screen with an invincible vigor and facility to emote and Davis who had a determined streak of flair manifested itself into an unyielding spirit and incomparable depth. Both are ironically similar indomitable, independent, and possessing great fortitude. Both married four times, and both were at the receiving end of hostile and vengeful children ultimately ending up as reclusive alcoholics.
Aldrich’s iconic offbeat Gothic thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) brought these two legends together culminating in the classic pairing of two bitter adversaries not only on screen but behind the scenes as well. Baby Jane? would forever consign their iconic images engaged in dramatic conflict and defining their rancorous relationship for an eternity.
The film cannily exploited the genuine animosity between both stars who had been competing for good roles in the 40s. Michael Musto of the Village Voice says this – “They just didn’t get along. Bette thought of herself as a real actress she thought of Joan as just kind of a flashy movie star without any depth.”
Was their long drawn-out public war due to Crawford’s marrying co-star Franchot Tone allegedly stealing him away from Bette? Or was it the competitiveness for good roles in the 40s that drew a wedge between them? These two women were the most illustrious female stars of their day, successful at playing ordinary working-class gals with at times questionable reputations. But good roles were something they both had to fight to get. So was it a case of unrequited love or fierce competition? Either way, for both stars it was a genuinely personal and delicate affair.
On Davis’ last trip to London two years before her death, she revealed that the love of her life was Franchot Tone, but she could never marry him because he was Crawford’s second husband. “She took him from me,” Davis said bitterly in 1987. “She did it coldly, deliberately, and with complete ruthlessness. I have never forgiven her for that and never will.” Crawford already dead for ten years, was still the recipient of an eternal hatred on the part of Davis now 80 years old and desiccated from her stroke.
Bette Davis was filming Dangerous 1935 a role that would win her first Best Actress Oscar. Warner Bros. cast her to play opposite the handsome Franchot Tone. In this fabulous melodrama, Davis portrays Joyce Heath an egomaniacal actress considered to be box office poison living in obscurity in the throws of alcohol addiction. Tone plays Don Bellows a playwright who tries to rehabilitate her. The story is loosely based on Broadway star Jeanne Eagels who died of a drug overdose at the age of 35
Davis wound up falling in love with her leading man, unaware that he was already involved with Joan Crawford who was recently divorced from the dashing Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This began the legacy of love jealousy, and possession. At the time Davis was married to musician Ham Nelson. Everyone on set could see that Davis was attracted to co-star Franchot Tone.
Years later she recalled “I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners.”-Bette Davis
Crawford first entertained Franchot Tone at her Hollywood home. When he arrived he found her tanned and completely naked in the solarium. According to friends and neighbors, he did not emerge from the seductive sojourn until nightfall.
“He was madly in love with her,” Davis confessed, “They met each day for lunch… he would return to the set, his face covered with lipstick. He made sure we all knew it was Crawford’s lipstick.”-Bette Davis
“He was honored that this great star was in love with him. I was jealous, of course.”-Bette Davis
But instead of Crawford retaliating she reached out to Davis hoping to be friends, but it was too late by then her heart was broken, and she was furious. Crawford announced her engagement to Tone during the filming of Dangerous and they married soon after the film wrapped.
Both actresses were present at the Oscar ceremonies. Davis was nominated for Best Actress. The hostility showed its ugly face when Bette wearing a modest navy blue dress stood up when they announced she’d won the award. Franchot Tone enthusiastically embraced Davis calling her ‘darling” which caused his wife to take notice. Crawford wearing a spectacular gown herself, looked Davis over and coldly said “Dear Bette! What a lovely frock.”
Interestingly if you consider the inherent veracity of unrequited love that was systemic to their discord we may also consider the allegations that Crawford was herself a promiscuous bisexual in love with Davis, supposedly making several sexual advances toward Davis which were rebuffed with expressed amusement. Davis was an avowed heterosexual. “Gay Liberation? I ain’t against it, it’s just that there’s nothing in it for me.” “I’ve always liked men better than women.” –Bette Davis
Davis also proposed that Crawford used her body and sex to get ahead in Hollywood, “She slept with every star at MGM” she alleged later “of both sexes.”
Some of the women that allegedly were Crawford’s lovers included Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, her friend Barbara Stanwyck & Marilyn Monroe.
The years of hostility and jealousy were only galvanized later by the battle that ensued on the set of Baby Jane? where Davis upended Crawford by endearing herself to director Aldrich. Davis got the Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but Crawford did not. only to have Crawford undermine Davis at the award ceremony sabotaging Davis by accepting the award for Ann Bancroft who won for The Miracle Worker.
Allegedly Joan shoved Bette aside to grab the coveted statue at the podium. Shaun Considine’s book ‘Bette & Joan The Divine Feud’ relates how when Ann Bancroft’s name was announced Davis felt an icy hand on her shoulder as Crawford said, “Excuse me, I have an Oscar to accept.”
Davis recalls “I will never forget the look she gave me.”It was triumphant. It clearly said ‘You didn’t win, and I am elated!”
Making matters worse the newspapers paraded the image of Crawford holding the golden idol that Davis failed to win. According to Bette Davis, Joan was bitter and conspired to keep her from winning the Oscar.
Crawford managed to insinuate herself into accepting the Oscar for Ann Bancroft in case Ann won. The night of the awards Bette Davis shows up fairly confident she could take home the Oscar. She was waiting in the wings with her purse ready to walk on stage when they announced the winner. But Joan Crawford was also hovering in the wings waiting to take her revenge.
From an interview in ’87 -“I was furious. She went to all the New York nominees and said if you can’t get out there, I’ll accept your award. And please do not vote for her. She was so jealous.” Crawford’s scheme worked, it was a terrible slap in the face for Bette Davis.
“The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”
“There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I’m not going.”– Bette Davis
And how much does the media fuel this rivalry? Is it partly the paradigm of a film industry that engenders a climate of sexism and ageism that feeds tabloid culture devaluing women’s self-worth and antagonizing the rift that already existed between the two actresses? Consider the symbiosis that occurs between the press and female celebrities, their exploitative and predatory hunger to devour them whole, and the co-dependent dysfunction pervasive in the film industry. You have to wonder how much of the nasty fodder that kept the feud burning was fact and how much of it was a myth the media created.
It isn’t hard to see how both these aging stars were forced to fight for screen supremacy. An irreconcilable difference that put Aldrich in the sad and awkward position of having to fire Joan Crawford from her role as Cousin Miriam in his second feature with the dynamic duo in his Gothic thriller Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Despite their feud the box office success of Baby Jane? encouraged Aldrich to change the story and characters but reunite the same controversial and quarrelsome stars. Originally called “What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?” written once again by Henry Farrell. Crawford agreed to get back on the screen with her familiar enemy. But when Aldrich asked Bette to star in a second picture with Joan she loathed the idea of ever acting with Crawford again.
Davis used to say that she and Crawford had nothing in common. She considered Crawford “a glamour puss” who depended on her fabulous looks alone, though Crawford did wind up working with some of my favorite auteurs like Michael Curtiz, George Cukor, Robert Aldrich, Nicholas Ray, Otto Preminger, and Jean Negulesco.
Both were very strong women who had to scratch and claw their way through a mire of misogyny to achieve their stardom. Crawford was always playing the formulaic vulnerable ‘girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Born in poverty she reaches for a dream and strives through hard work to make good. Stories reflecting the struggles of the Depression Era and World War II appealed to audiences of the 30s & 40s.
Based on Bette’s early stage performances critics said she was made of lightning filled with fantastic energy. It was George Arliss who decided Bette would be perfect for his next film The Man Who Played God 1932. He became a bit of a mentor, Bette said he played god to her. In September 1931, she felt finished with her career in Hollywood and was packing her things with her mother ready to return to New York when George Arliss came along and saved her.
Joan Crawford had been married to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. at the time and learned everything about Hollywood royalty and how to become pretentious. When Crawford first arrived in Hollywood she was a dancer, an it-girl flapper for MGM throughout the late silent & early sound eras working alongside Clark Gable.
She didn’t have those signature eyebrows yet. At some point in the 30s, she started changing her look which embraced the heavily arched eyebrows, the wider mouth, and the notorious shoulder pads which became her iconic trademark. She left MGM and joined Warner Bros in 1943.
Robert Aldrich is one of my favorite directors with numerous memorable films that transcend a restrictive genre tag. He always brings us a cynical and gritty story with very flawed characters who are at the core ambiguous as either the protagonist or the antagonist. Aldrich took economics in college, then dropped out and landed a very low-paying job at first as a clerk with RKO Radio Pictures Studio in 1941.
He studied with great directors like Jean Renoir. It was his training in the trenches that made him the auteur he is, delving inside the human psyche and questioning what is morality.
Aldrich has a flare for the dramatic. He likes to break molds and cross over boundaries. He also has a streak of anti-authoritarianism running through the veins of his films. There aren't just traces of his ambivalence toward the Hollywood machine in his film philosophy, he also conflates the ugly truths beneath the so-called American Dream and the "real" people who inhabit that world.
He died in 1983, and while he remained inside the Hollywood circle, he maintained an outsider persona. He memorialized the misfits and outcasts by making them the anti-heroes in his work, all of which ultimately were destined to fall because they refused to play the conformity game.
Aldrich partnered with Joseph E Levin to purchase the rights to the British writer John Farell's Hollywood horror book in 1961 but at first no one seemed interested. Aldrich got Seven Arts Pictures curious about the film and so Warner Bros agreed to distribute the film but didn't allow it to be made on the Warner lot.
Aldrich relates in an interview that "Eliot Hyman at Seven Arts read the script, studied the budget, and told him candidly: "I think it will make a fabulous movie, but I'm going to make very tough terms because it's a high-risk venture."
Baby Jane? was not an easy sell, even with the double billing, both the actress’s box office draw had diminished by then. Later on, Aldrich said that the problem with Jane was that "the topic was perceived as controversial and not a built-in moneymaker which would alienate portions of the public"
Jack Warner was quoted as saying he "Wouldn't give a plug nickel for either one of those old broads" Warner was an asshole!
It has been noted in interviews with Aldrich that his working relationship was already very good with Crawford having worked with her on Autumn Leaves (1959). However, with Bette Davis, he had to do a little more convincing. Eventually, she was on board with the project.
By the time Aldrich bought out Levine the story price had gone from $10,000 to $85,000 and no one seemed interested. But Aldrich relates in an interview that "Eliot Hyman at Seven Arts read the script, studied the budget and told him candidly: "I think it will make a fabulous movie, but I'm going to make very tough terms because it's a high-risk venture."
It was Aldrich's persistence and his faith in the project that made Davis enthusiastic about the film. Crawford had already expressed a desire to work with Bette Davis in a film. For Bette to take on such an unattractive role was pretty gutsy for her.
I choose to focus on Baby Jane? and Sweet Charlotte, as they are not only my favorites of his, but also they are 2 incredible pieces of film art with the allure of the dynamic pairing of two of THE most legendary actresses from the silver screen.
What's most fabulous about the film is that it has both Bette and Joan, which gives it such a dynamic double billing. The film really was a seminal work because nothing quite like it had been done earlier. Films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Autumn Leaves (1959) set some groundwork for older actresses to wax crazy dramatic in film. But ultimately the pot boiled over with Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Joan Crawford has the more glamorous role of an aging movie starlet, while Bette Davis must inhabit the role of the decrepitude has-been child of vaudeville.
And while Aldrich has a notable filmography to his credit like his Cold War scare noir masterpiece Kiss Me Deadly, his film that exposes the flawed Total Institution of the penal system, The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds, and his iconic war ensemble, The Dirty Dozen ’67. There’s his other psychological thriller with Joan Crawford playing wife to the psychotic Cliff Robertson in Autumn Leaves ’56 and the two Hollywood ventures exposing the darker side, The Big Knife ’55 with Jack Palance and of course Kim Novak in The Legend of Lylah Clare ’68.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Directed by Robert Aldrich is based on the novel by Henry Farrell with a screenplay by Lukas Heller. Cinematography by Ernest Haller (Gone With the Wind ’39, Mildred Pierce ’45, Rebel Without a Cause ’55) Art Direction by the fabulous William Glasgow Norma Kotch won an Oscar for her costume design on Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte as well as Aldrich's The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965).
Co-starring: The main players–Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg, Marjorie Bennett as Dehlia Flagg, Anna Lee as Mrs.Bates, Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt, and Barbara Merrill (Bette’s daughter) as Liza Bates.
The film premiered on October 26, 1962. and released on Halloween of 1962. Davis was nominated for Best Actress and Victor Buono for Best supporting actor.
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? is filled with grotesque melancholy, the wasteland of forgotten womanhood, and abject psychosis drenched within the portrayal of a repressed woman-child born of rage and delusion. It’s also a striking condemnation of sexism and ageism rampant in Hollywood. Another reason I want to talk about Aldrich's' two seminal films is that both motion pictures set the tone for a whole cycle of films to follow. Aldrich's two Grande Dame Guignol films started a cinematic trend.Â
For the 50s and 60s, melodramas consisting of plots about mental illness weren't typically conventional, and a film as extremely grotesque as Baby Jane? could be considered very disturbing. Even as groundbreaking as Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) was, released the same year as Baby Jane? Psycho's narrative veiled Norman Bates as a mild-mannered young man with an Oedipus complex. In Baby Jane? her flagrant derangement is glaring.
Perhaps films like Val Lewton's Bedlam 1946, Anatole Litvak's The Snake Pit 1948, and Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor 1963 addressed the systemic institutional problems surrounding mental illness, but Aldrich's films are very intimate ventures.
This lurid pulp melodrama of abject madness is superb particularly because of the uninhibited performances by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. It was pretty courageous of both starlets to leave the glamor behind for such a ghastly and unpleasant ceremony.
First of all, I LOVE Bette Davis with a passion, the actress and the woman herself. Have you ever seen the fabulous Dick Cavett interview? if not you should track down a copy. Bette is an enduring icon and one of a kind. She has a distinct style, a unique "hitch to her git along", as Andy Griffith would say, and is a true Hollywood legend, thoroughly intrepid, dynamic, and just downright glorious!
And I adore Joan Crawford as well. She was unbelievably beautiful when she first started out in motion pictures, before her signature crazed galvanized eyebrows took over her face and that shoulder pads her wardrobe. It makes me sad to think that these women might have truly despised each other. It's truly a shame.
Aldrich directed this film with crude veracity leaving us to dwell on some feelings of ambivalence toward these particular characters. I was with Jane even at her cruelest, although I pretend that the bird died of natural causes and the rat was found that way"¦ I never warmed up to Blanche even though she was an invalid, I got the sense from her that she was not what she appears to be.
To reduce Davis' performance to histrionic camp would diminish the moments when she is starkly in control of the serious meter of Jane's growing madness. The oscillation between Jane's childish tantrums and musings and the all-out fury and retaliations are an artful feat delivered by Davis quite masterfully. She must have enjoyed the role immensely. It must have also been challenging. Jane's dissipated drunken swagger, the way she literally slouches around the house, and her irritable disposition might be the culmination of not only 30 years of taking care of Blanche, but also a sign that she is inappropriately uninhibited by her years of the undigested bile of animosity, hostility and ultimately her malicious outbursts of paranoia, that lead to her aggression and violence.
In the end, Jane's macabre corpse’s white makeup, painted like a mask with a heart-shaped beauty mark, Kewpie-doll lipstick, and blond wig of a massive ringlet gives Jane an extra bizarre persona. While Jane is supposedly a vain character, ironically she is under the impression that she is fashionable, she is a vaudeville clown with caked-on face powder, and slouchy dresses that are adult versions of the Baby Jane stage outfits she wore as a child. When Jane goes out in public wearing the fur and wilted corsage and antique jewelry, it represents her attachment to the past, although it is not flattering to her at all, when in fact she is perceived as pitiful. Apparently, it was Davis herself who created the chalky pale freakish make-up that Jane puts on when she starts to plan her comeback. It's almost a decrepit version of the artist-painted face of Geisha culture. In Peter Shelley's book Grande Dame Guignol Cinema- A History of Hag Cinema from Baby Jane to Mother, he compares the way Blanche looks at the end, with her pasty death mask and dark rings to the actress Irene Papas. It was definitely the dark imposing eyebrows.
“Ryan was unfailingly powerful, investing his tormented characters with a brooding intensity that suggests coiled depth. Cut off from the world by the strength of their ‘feelings’ his characters seem to be in the grip of torrential inner forces. They are true loners. Ryan’s work has none of the masked, stylized aura of much noir acting. He performs with emotional fullness that creates substantial, complex characters rather than icons.” –Foster Hirsch-FILM NOIR: The Darker Side of the Screen
Clearly Robert Ryan’s infinite presence in film and his numerous complex characters manifest an embracing universal ‘internal conflict’ of masculinity. I tribute certain roles the actor inhabited during his striking career. Though he was cast more often in the part as the imposing heavy, the depth and breadth of Ryan’s skill with his rough-hewn good looks should have landed him more roles as a lead male capable of such penetrating levels of emotion. He had a depth that suggests a scarcely hidden intensity smoldering at the surface.
A critic for the New York Times reviewing Act of Violence (1948)  wrote about Robert Ryan’s persona as the madly driven veteran bent on revenge, Joe Parkson calling him “infernally taut.”
Frank Krutnik discusses ‘Masculinity and its discontents’ in his book In A Lonely Street, “In order to make the representation of masculinity in the noir thriller, there follows a schematic run-through of Freudian work on the determination of masculine identity.” Claiming Freud’s work can be co-opted into film with an emphasis of its relevance to analysis of the cultural machinery of patriarchy.” He discusses patriarchal culture which relies heavily on the maintenance of a gender-structured ‘disequilibrium’ with its roots in the myth of the Oedipal Complex. Involving not only the power-based hierarchy of male service to masculine power but the established normative gender values which inform both the male and female figure.
Many of the characters in Ryan's noir world are informed by a cultural ‘determinacy of the phallus’ that authorizes toughness and strips the limits of desire as an obligation to masculine identity. The patriarchal power structure predetermines a fixed and limited role that creates a destiny of submission and impotence in Ryan's characters. But within the framework of these extreme male figures lies an intricate conflict of varying degrees of vulnerability and fragility.
Ryan manifests this duality within hyper-masculine characters. Outwardly physical, confrontational, and hostile, Ryan is a master at playing with men who suffer from alienation and inferiority surrounding their own ‘maleness’ and self-worth. He was never just a dark noir brute or anti-hero but a complex man actualized through layers of powerful dramatic interpretation. His performances suggest a friction of subjugated masculinity bubbling within.
The trajectory of the male through the Oedipus Complex encompasses male subjectivity which is a principal issue in the noir ‘tough-thriller.’ The ‘existential thematic’ link to the Oedipus myth concerns questions of male desire and identity as they relate to the overarching law of existing patriarchal culture substituted for the original fearsome ‘divinity.’ This element is one of the driving psychological themes underlying any good classic film noir.
In this post, I put my focus primarily on Ryan’s characters within the framework of each film and while I discuss the relationship between him and the central players I do not go as in-depth as I usually do discussing his co-stars or plot design.
I apply this thematic representation to many of the roles engendered in the films of Robert Ryans‘ that I’ve chosen to discuss here. A patriarchal power structure establishes the tragedy of man’s destiny, a fixed and limited role in the character’s own destiny as there is a predominant power that threatens them into submission and sheds light on their own impotence. So many of the noir characters in a Robert Ryan noir world are shaped by a cultural authority structured through ‘determinacy of the phallus’ that authorizes toughness in the male identity that strips away the limits of desire, as an obligation to ‘masculine identity.’
I’m focusing on particular Ryan’s roles within a noir context that depict archetypal hyper-masculine tropes and the problematic strife within those characters. Whether Ryan is playing the deeply flawed hero or the tormented noir misfit, his characters are afflicted with an inherent duality of virility and vulnerability, inner turmoil, alienation, persecution, and masochism. It’s a territorial burden that Robert Ryan so effortlessly explores.
These films show Ryan’s trajectory through forces of menacing restraint and poignant self-expression. Within a noir landscape, the schism of stark virility and tenuous masculinity exposes the complexity of alienation, masochism, and frailty. Robert Ryan’s performances are a uniquely fierce and formidable power.
I’m discussing: The Woman On the Beach (1947) haunted & emasculated coastguardsman Lt. Scott Burnett, Caught (1949) neurotic millionaire Smith Ohlrig, The Set-Up (1949) noble over-the-hill boxer Bill ‘Stoker’ Thompson, Born To Be Bad (1950) misanthropic & masochistic novelist Nick Bradley, Clash by Night (1952) cynical misogynist projectionist Earl Pfeiffer, Beware, My Lovely (1952) morose psychotic vagrant handyman Howard Wilton, On Dangerous Ground (1952) unstable, alienated violent cop Jim Wilson, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) racist persecuted ex-con Earle Slater.
Within the framework of these ‘extreme’ male figures lies an intricate conflict with varying degrees of vulnerability & fragility within the male psyche. The narratives don’t necessarily flesh out this conflict plainly, but Ryan’s performances certainly suggest and inform us about the friction of this subjugated theme bubbling to the surface as he manifests the duality within his hyper-masculine characters. Robert Ryan was a master at playing men who suffer from alienation and inferiority surrounding their own ‘maleness’ and self-worth.
Ryan is never just a dark noir ‘brute’ or anti-hero but moreover, a complex male who is actualized through layers of powerful dramatic interpretation. A complexity of stark virility and ‘tenuous maleness’ as the narrative witnesses Ryan’s trajectory transforming him through various dynamic forces of menacing restraint and poignant self-expression. Outwardly physical, confrontational, hostile, and ultimately masculine, and the schism that is inwardly emotional, alienated, self-deprecating, masochistic, and fragile within the film noir landscape. Robert Ryan’s performances still maintain a uniquely fierce and formidable aesthetic of the ‘suffering-marginalized man.’
Continue reading “Hyper-Masculinity/Hidden Frailty: The Robert Ryan Aesthetic in Film Noir”
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