Postcards from Shadowland No. 8

Ace in The Hole 1951 — Billy Wilder’s Ace in The Hole (1951) Starring *Kirk Douglas* and *Jan Sterling*

***Jules Dassin’s* prison noir masterpiece-Brute Force 1947 starring *Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, and Charles Bickford***

citizen kane- — Orson Welles- Citizen Kane (1941) also starring *Joseph Cotten*

devil and daniel webster — *William Dieterle’s* The Devil and Daniel Webster 1941

hangover square — Directed by *John Brahm*-Hangover Square 1945 starring *Laird Cregar , Linda Darnell and George Sanders*

House by The River — ***Fritz Lang’s* House By The River 1950 starring *Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman and Jane Wyatt.***

i cover waterfront-1933 — I Cover the Waterfront 1933- *Claudette Colbert, Ben Lyon and Ernest Torrence*

Jewel Mayhew and Wills Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte — ***Robert Aldrich’s* Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte 1964 starring *Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotton, Mary Astor, Agnes Moorehead and Cecil Kellaway***

***John Huston’s* Key Largo 1948 Starring *Edward G Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall***

***Stanley Kubrick’s* Killers Kiss 1955 Starring *Frank Silvera and Irene Kane.***

Lady from Shanghai(1947) — ***Orson Welles* penned the screenplay and stars in iconic film noir The Lady from Shanghai 1947 featuring the sensual *Rita Hayworth*, also starring *Everett Sloane***

lady in cage james caan++billingsley — Lady in a Cage 1964 directed by *Walter Grauman* and starring *Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, and Jennifer Billingsle*y.

long dark hall — The Long Dark Hall 1951 Starring *Rex Harrison and Lilli Palmer*

lorre M — ***Fritz Lang’s* chilling M (1931) Starring *Peter Lorre***

Mark Robson The Seventh Victim — ***Mark Robson* directs, *Val Lewton’s* occult shadow piece The Seventh Victim 1943 Starring *Kim Hunter, Tim Conway and Jean Brooks***

Meeting leo-Ace in the hole with leo 1951 — ***Kirk Douglas* in Ace In The Hole 1951 written and directed by *Billy Wilder***

mifune-and-yamamoto in Drunkin Angel 48 — ***Akira Kurosawa’s* film noir crime thriller Drunken Angel (1948) starring *Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune***

Panic in the Streets — ***Elia Kazan’s* socio-noir Panic in The Streets 1950 starring *Jack Palance, Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes and Zero Mostel***

persona — ***Ingmar Bergman’s* Persona 1966 starring *Liv Ullmann and Bibi Andersson***

The Queen of Spades 1949 directed by *Thorold Dickinson* and starring *Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans and Yvonne Mitchell*

Saint Joan of the Angels 1 — **Director Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s beautifully filmed Mother Joan of The Angels 1961 starring Lucyna Winnicka.**

shanghai express — *Josef von Sternberg’s* Shanghai Express 1932 Starring *Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook* and Anna May Wong

***Robert Wise’s* The Haunting 1963. Screenplay by *Nelson Gidding* based on the novel by *Shirley Jackson*. Starring *Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn***

the Unsuspected_1947 — ***Michael Curtiz’s* The Unsuspected 1947 starring *Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield and Audrey Totter***

**Luis Bunuel’s Viridiana 1961 Starring Silvia Pinal, Fernando Rey and Fransisco Rabal**

**Robert Aldrich’s cult grande dame classic starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford-What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? 1962**

Twelve Neglected Characters from Classic Film.

nightmare-alley-edmund-goulding1947 — 1) The tragically poetic Pete Krumbein in *Edmund Goulding’s* **Nightmare Alley 1947** played by *Ian Keith.*

2) The flamboyant Franzi Kartos in Caught 1949 portrayed by Curt Bois ‘darling’

Fred Foss- The Dark Corner 949 — 3) Stauffer, alias Fred Foss in **The Dark Corner 1946**-played by the wonderful *William Bendix* in the white linen suit…

Jan Sterling in Women's Prison -Brenda — 4) Good-hearted kite hanger, Brenda Martin in **Women’s Prison 1955** – the eternal pixie *Jan Sterling.*

Brute Force Jeff Corey Freshman Stack — 5) *Jeff Corey*, as the cringing, cowardly informer ‘Freshman’ Stack in Brute Force 1947.

6) *Beulah Bondi* as spiittin’ Granny Tucker in *Jean Renoir’s* **The Southerner 1945** ‘Ah shuckity’

Ma Stone- Jane Darwell, The Devil & Daniel Webster — 7) Ma Stone in *William Dieterle’s* **The Devil and Daniel Webster 1941**– the grand *Jane Darwell.*

Wills and Jewel talk at tea-Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte — 8) *Cecil Kellaway* as Harry Wills and *Mary Astor* as Jewel Mayhew in **Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte 1964.**

Elisha Cook Jr. Jazz wild drummer Cliff-phantom ladyjpg — 9) Cliff the jazz sexed drummer in **Phantom Lady 1944**– the ubiquitous *Elisha Cook Jr.*

(Ladies in Retirement) — 10) Quirky sisters Louisa and Emily Creed in **Ladies in Retirement 1941**–*Edith Barrett & Elsa Lanchester.*

11) The wonderful stoolie Mo whose saves for her headstone and plot out on Long Island played with that razor-sharp wit of Thelma Ritter in **Pickup on South Street (1953).**

12) Jack Oakie as Slob in Jules Dassin’s realism masterpiece **Thieves’ Highway (1949).**

Fiend of The Day! Hope Emerson as Matron Evelyn Harper: in the prison-noir classic Caged (1950)

“You may be just a number to them, but you’re more than that to me…here pull up a chair it’s nice and roomy.”

CAGED (1950)

Writer Virginia Kellogg (White Heat 1949) offers us a doozy with this story directed by John Cromwell (Dead Reckoning 1947)

Eleanor Parker is Maria Allen, thrust into the prison system run by a well-meaning warden Ruth Benton played by the inimitable Agnes Moorehead. As in any good women in prison flick, it requires the sadistic matron to roil the exploitation brew with lots of dehumanizing antics like a good head shaving or dare I mention it, a kitten killing. So here’s to Hope Emerson’s mean-spirited Evelyn Harper, kitten killing, bon bon eating, Midnight Romance reading, prison caboose with a mean on, that makes Ida Lupino look like Saint Joan. Also starring one of my new favorites and a staple to these great gritty noirs the sprite Jan Sterling, Betty Garde, Ellen Corby, and Jane Darwell.

CapturFiles_4 — **Pull up a chair…it’s nice and roomy!**

CapturFiles_10 — **the head-shaving matron from hell!**

From The Vault: Female on The Beach (1955)

"A lone female on the beach is a kind of a target "” a bait, you might say"¦"

FEMALE ON THE BEACH 1955

The immortal Joan Crawford is Lynn Markham, a widow who longs to be left alone at her beach house, where the previous tenant, Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn) had fallen to her death. Lynn’s neighbor turns out to be the gorgeous male specimen in the form of Jeff Chandler, playing Drummond Hall (Drummy), who might have had something to do with Eloise’s fatal fall off the porch. Of course, Drummy starts to move in on Lynn. Along for the ride are the marvelous duo of Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway who play Drummy’s crafty aunt and uncle, Osbert and Queenie Sorenson. And then there are the frequent visitations by realtor Amy Rawlinson played by the always effervescent Jan Sterling who is of course gaga over Drummy, the slick and sleazy gigolo with a rough past. Directed by Joseph Pevney (prolific in great television series’ spanning the 1960s-80s, not to mention THE STRANGE DOOR 1951, andÂ PLAYGIRL 1956 starring Shelley Winters.

The film is filled with the right amount of 50s kitsch and camp and delicious vulgarity under the sensationalized surface. An obscure Crawford goodie that enthusiasts of the actress and genre should add to their ‘must see’ list!