Category: Joan Crawford

A Trailer a Day Keeps the Boogeyman Away! Halloween A-Z

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The Unknown 1927

LINK HERE: TO CHANEY BLOGATHON & my tribute to The Unknown

A glimpse at The Lon Chaney Blogathon and some fantastic submissions HERE:

The Unknown is a compelling 1927 silent horror film directed by Tod Browning, starring the great Lon Chaney in a memorable and transformative performance. It is based on the uncredited novel of Mary Roberts Rinehart, with visual poetry photographed by cinematographer Merritt B. Gerstad (The Man Who Reclaimed His Head 1934, Night at the Opera 1935, Watch on the Rhine 1943, noir Conflict 1945).

The film tells the story of Alonzo the Armless, a criminal on the run who disguises himself as a circus performer. Alonzo is a criminal on the run who pretends to be armless, hiding his double-thumb deformity so as not to be recognized by the authorities who know his unmistakable trademark. In the circus, he falls in love with the beautiful Nanon, played by Joan Crawford, a young woman with a fear of being touched by men’s hands and arms due to a traumatic experience in her past that is never touched upon. Alonzo goes to extreme lengths to win the love and loyalty of Nanon who feels safe in his presence and safe with his friendship. He gets an ironic kick in the thumbs after he journeys to secure her love when he learns she has fallen in love with Norman Kerry as Malabar the strong man.

Tod Browning knows how to shock the audience with his unorthodox narratives, (Freaks 1932). I will be delving into Browning’s fascinating work further down the road here at The Last Drive In.

Lon Chaney’s performance in The Unknown is nothing short of extraordinary. Known as the “Man of a Thousand Faces,” Chaney was renowned for his ability to physically transform himself for roles. In this film, he goes to great lengths, strapping his arms tightly to his body and contorting himself to create the illusion of armlessness. His physicality and expressions convey the torment and obsession of his character, making Alonzo a haunting and sympathetic figure.

As the story unfolds, Alonzo’s twisted obsession with Nanon and his desperation to win her love lead to a series of shocking and macabre events, culminating in a horrifying climax.

“The Unknown” is celebrated not only for Lon Chaney’s remarkable performance but also for its dark and disturbing narrative, which explores themes of obsession, identity, and psychological horror. The film is a classic of silent cinema and stands as a testament to Chaney’s unparalleled talent for bringing complex and tortured characters to life.

Lon Chaney’s performance as Alonzo the Armless in “The Unknown” is widely regarded as one of the highlights of his illustrious career. Chaney’s portrayal of this complex and tormented character is a testament to his extraordinary talent and dedication to his craft. Chaney’s commitment to his roles was legendary, and in “The Unknown,” he physically transformed himself to an astonishing degree. He bound his arms tightly to his body to create the illusion of armlessness, a feat that required incredible discipline and contortion. This dedication to authenticity is a hallmark of Chaney’s performances, and it adds a layer of realism to the character.

Despite the absence of dialogue in silent films, Chaney was a master of conveying emotions and intentions through his facial expressions and body language. As Alonzo, he effectively conveys the character’s inner torment, obsession, and desperation. His ability to emote without words is particularly striking and contributes to the depth of the character. Alonzo the Armless is a deeply complex character. He is a criminal on the run, but he also harbors a twisted obsession with the object of his affection, Nanon. Chaney’s performance brings out the character’s dark and multifaceted nature, making Alonzo simultaneously sympathetic and unsettling. This complexity adds layers to the film’s psychological horror elements.

The Undying Monster 1942

The Undying Monster is a 1942 Gothic horror film directed by John Brahm and based on the novel of the same name by Jessie Douglas Kerruish, originally published in 1922 and often hailed as one of the finest works in the werewolf genre. The screenplay was written by Lillie Hayward and Michael Jacoby.

Released by 20th Century Fox in 1942, The Undying Monster is a classic B-movie that stands out for its exceptional craftsmanship. Directed by John Brahm, who would later make a name for himself with a brief stint in A-list cinema (known for films like “The Lodger,” “Hangover Square,” and “The Brasher Doubloon”), showcases Brahm’s talent for infusing an A-level sensibility into a B-movie experience. He would eventually venture into the medium of television.

The Undying Monster distinguishes itself as a well-executed gem because of John Brahm’s eye for drawing out a plausible mystery on screen, combined with a talented cast including James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather, and Halliwell Hobbes.

The film tells the story of the Hammond family, with Heather Angel as Helga and John Howard as Oliver who live in a remote English mansion that has been plagued by a mysterious and deadly curse for centuries.

John Hammond is the descendant of a fated lineage plagued by a malevolent curse, one that has long cast a shadow over his family, claiming the life of the eldest heir in each generation. Faced with the impending doom of this dark legacy, John enlists the assistance of a trusted friend to delve into the haunting mystery that has tormented the Hammonds for centuries.

Their relentless pursuit of the truth leads them down a winding path of discovery, unveiling an age-old Viking curse that dooms the Hammond men to transform into insatiable beasts once they reach a certain age.

The Hammonds are no strangers to tragedy, as each male member of the family has met a gruesome and untimely death. When the curse strikes again, killing the family’s patriarch, the authorities become involved.

John Howard, (renowned for his role as Paramount’s Bulldog Drummond) plays Oliver an unwitting “victim” of the ominous family curse when his beloved canine companion meets a tragic end at the hands of an unseen killer on fog-laden night, soon thereafter, a person is killed by the same unknown force prompting the intervention of Scotland Yard to delve into the sinister mysteries that shroud the Hammond family’s dark history. Hammond’s delicate sister Helga is the woman in peril, and Walter the butler (Halliwell Hobbes) is definitely hiding something. Dr. Jeff Colbert (Bramwell Fletcher) is a suspicious character too, perhaps he has his eye set on Heater Angel though her love interest is James

is he just jealous of Robert Curtis’s (James Ellison) attraction to Heather Angel, or is there something more going on? He is certainly hiding something.

The Undead 1957

The Undead is a 1957 American horror film directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna who wrote Attack of the 50ft Woman in 1958.

Pamela Duncan plays prostitute Diana Love, enlisted by two psychic researchers to undergo a hypnotic regression conducted by a psychologist, Dr. Pendragon (Richard Garland), Under hypnosis, Diana is transported back in time to the Middle Ages, where she assumes the identity of Helene, a condemned witch facing execution by beheading.

As Helene, Diana becomes embroiled in a complex and perilous plot involving witchcraft, sorcery, and a vengeful sorceress named Livia, played by 50s scream queen Allison Hayes. Throughout the film, Diana/Helene experiences a series of trials, facing both supernatural and human threats, as she tries to find a way to alter her fate and escape her impending execution.

Mel Welles plays Smolkin the Gravedigger, Dorothy Newman plays the witch, Meg Maude, Bruno VeSota plays Scroop the innkeeper, Billy Barty is an animated mischievous imp, Dick Miller is a leper, and Richard Devon is Satan himself.

Corman is known for his resourcefullness – filmed in 6 days, the sets for the film were all built inside a converted supermarket.

This was one of a handful of reincarnation films in the late 50s to be inspired by the book ‘The Search for Bridey Murphy’ by Morey Bernstein

The prop bats were left over from Corman’s It Conquered the World 1956.

 

This is your EverLovin Joey Sayin’ U are safe with me here at The Last Drive in! Now let’s veer off toward the letter V for voracious, villains and vampires! But no Voldemorts or Voorhees, Jason or his crazy ass mother Pamela!

 

BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 1

This special The Last Drive in Halloween Feature will conclude with Part 4 and it’s primary focus exclusively on the great Barbara Steele!

‘through the complex changes in society surrounding traditional female roles using the ambivalence of the horror genre’ – Claudia Bunce

The 1960s were plagued by controversy and convulsed with violence. Horror cinema with the exception of Hammer Studio and European filmmakers’ colorful pageantry of Gothic tales, and the colorful dreamlike poetry of Mario Bava, mainly transitioned from classical themes. In the 1950s, B-horror movie narratives were concerned with outside hostile forces, alien invasions, and fear of nuclear war, but the new decade began to explore more interior horror that originated in the home and within ourselves. And many of these movies stand out as women-centric protagonists…

“Widely interpreted as a pivotal moment in the horror genre. Suggestive that monstrosity must be defined as inherent to the bourgeois family structure rather than an arcane social aberration: the crimes of Norman Bates can be read as the consequence of the sexually active mother, not unlike Marian Crane. The film is profoundly subversive.” – source unknown

After Riccardo Freda abandoned Black Sunday, the project went to cinematographer Mario Bava and became his directorial debut. The film was the start of the director’s momentous contribution to the genre with his masterful grasp of mise en scené composition, allegorical visual symbolism imagery, and the bold use of expressionist color, vivid tones, and spectrum of light. Bava directed Kill, Baby Kill! 1966 features a ghostly little blonde girl (actually a boy actor) with a white ball that is the creepy harbinger of a series of violent deaths.

Mario Bava unleashed on us his very dark-hearted black & white Black Sunday in 1960 with jolting scenes of death and a new horror goddess, the provocative, wide-eyed- Barbara Steele. During the decade of the 60s, Steele's ascendance within the genre was part of a broader trend in horror cinema that echoed the real world. Her strong presence and instinct to captivate our gaze, stood head to head with male horror stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing during that period of horror cinema. Barbara Steele inhabited the haunted screen with such a formidable primacy, there's no disputing she is the ultimate scream queen.

The Italian movie industry of the 1960s saw a wave of Italian gothic chillers. Bava's Blood and Black Lace 1964 is best remembered as the first "˜Giallo' a particularly savage trademark of murder mysteries.

Riccardo Freda directed The Horrible Dr. Hichcock 1962 and The Ghost 1963, Margheriti's beautifully orchestrated, eerily atmospheric ghost story Castle of Blood and Ciano's Nightmare Castle 1965. All starring Barbara Steele.

Roger Corman established himself as a successful director. Of course, maverick filmmaker Corman showered us with some of the best campy low budget sci-fi/horror films of the 1950s, and in the 60s we were reintroduced to the splendid Poe adaptations in a series of vivid films of glorious terror and dread, with Daniel Haller's gorgeous hallucinogenic art direction. These films are a series of Gothic masterpieces, – House of Usher 1960, Pit and the Pendulum 1961 and Masque of the Red Death 1964, featuring Hazel Court, another icon of 60s horror, who would command the screen with her fiery sensuality, flexing her bloodlust to offer herself up as Satan's bride in Red Death.

Corman established himself as a successful director with his landscapes as Rodrick Usher says are a "˜feverish and deranged mind' with his colorful more substantial yet still low-budget homages to Poe's series of horror tales. With screenplays by Richard Matheson and cinematography by Floyd Crosby. Reaching its artistic peak with the Masque of the Red Death. Many of the women in his Poe series feature a more incendiary female character. The horror genre especially from the 60s forward would prove to have more provocative roles for women since the femme fatale reigned during the time of film noir.

Instead of the restrained earlier decades, the 60s held up a mirror to the decade’s social turbulence and reflected back to us, with subversive storytelling, its edgy gore, and taboo-breaking narratives that fed a whole new audience who were hungry for more realistic and challenging scenarios. A new vanguard of filmmakers shattered traditional boundaries that restrained on-screen violence and sexuality.

Women's roles in classical horror films of the 1930s & 40s (to my memory for now), with the exception of Elsa Lanchester as the Bride, and Gloria Holden as Countess Marya Zaleska in Dracula's Daughter, initiated most of the leading ladies and supporting actresses, as easily fainting from fright, who screamed with hollow innocence, projecting reductive nuances of helplessness.

Still, there were established directors such as Alfred Hitchcock who caught wind of the changes, inspired by Clouzot's le Diabolique 1955 and impressed by William Castle's popular run of low-budget horror formula (albeit with its use of gimmickry).

Psycho 1960 would be set in safe and secure American suburbia instead of the imposing castles of Europe. The clean-cut serial killer would eclipse the caped swarthy vampire as the screen's new boogeyman. Yet Marion's ascendancy is as much a major element of the narrative as Norman Bates' psychopathy!

Hitchcock offered us the bold cautionary, The Birds, a film Fellini referred to as "an apocalyptic poem" featuring a beautiful woman perceived as a she-devil that ushered in the natural world's revolt.

FROM BARBARA CREED THE MONSTROUS FEMININE:

"Melanie Daniels in The Birds is a single woman in her thirties drifting – who must go through a trial by fire which she suffers, is humiliated and lectured to lower her defenses. She is an outsider who is being shown how social behavior becomes physically agonizing."

The stark black & white Psycho 1960 based on a real-life serial killer, Ed Gein, pushed the boundaries of the Production Code with its shocking scenes of murder and inflected frames of Janet Leigh's bra and slip. Leigh's 30-minute on-screen persona of the immoral Marion Crane was a diverging representation of the traditional leading lady.

The decade also signaled a multitude of black & white psychological thrillers. Hammer split off some of its focus on the gory period pieces- translations of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Mummy, and jumped on the Psycho bandwagon with films like Scream of Fear 1961, Maniac 1963, Nightmare 1964, Hysteria 1965, Die! Die! My Darling! 1965 starring Tallulah Bankhead as the menacing Mrs. Trafoil, not a Medieval crone but a modern-day unleashed psychopath. And, The Nanny 1965 with Bette Davis, coming off of her pair of shockers by director Robert Aldrich, plays a sinister governess terrorizing young William Dix.

After Baby Jane, the industry was rife with menacing Hollywood starlets. I'll be writing about the shattering of the myth of Hag Cinema, down the road. Robert Aldrich set in motion a trend of psychological horror films after he paired Bette Davis and Joan Crawford together in what is considered campy, outrageous at times, sickening – What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962. It was a watershed moment for the genre.

Crawford and Davis in particular in Aldrich's films made the bold and courageous decision to act under harsh white lights, in grotesque makeup, and willing to immerse themselves into a character -eccentric, cringingly childish, and utterly sadistic.

After Baby Jane, Aldrich followed up with Davis, de Havilland, and Agnes Moorehead in Hush"¦ Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964. Crawford worked with William Castle on Strait-Jacket 1964, and Geraldine Page played a greedy murderess in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? Co-starring Ruth Gordon. Shelley Winters appeared as the maniacal villainess in the fable-like Who Slew Auntie Roo? 1969 and Winters, Debbie Reynolds, and Moorehead in 1971 topped it off with Harrington's What's the Matter with Helen? A personal favorite of mine.

The second wave of the feminist movement and its emergence and impact began with Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, giving 50s suburban housewives a different vision of domestic enslavement and began to disassemble the myth of that decade's family values. The quaint and complacent sentiment of post-WW2 comfortability became subverted by empowered women who broke free and found new independence reigniting the Monstrous Feminine giving permission to women as represented more freely in film, with more prominent parts, especially fostered in"¦ the horror genre.

The 60s subverted the expectations surrounding the traditional housewife roles. Witches could be well-bred housewives like Janet Blair in Burn Witch Burn 1962 or a malevolent ingénue, Sharon Tate in Eye of the Devil 1966.

“The housewife witches of Burn, Witch, Burn and Season of the Witch use witchcraft to escape the confines of the domestic sphere and subvert their husbands' patriarchal power. Then there is the cult leader witch of Eye of the Devil who uses her femininity to intimidate traditional societal gender roles” – Claudia Bunce

Significant films like Robert Wises' The Haunting 1963, which were suggestive of lesbianism and repressed sexuality, star two very significant central female characters, Julie Harris and Claire Bloom who give intensely complex and reflexive performances. Bloom as the stylish and extraordinarily self-composed Theo is a truly independent woman who lives life on her own terms. There isn’t anyone who wouldn’t shiver while at the mercy of the malevolent forces of Hill House. Director Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face (The French title Les Yeux sans Visage) 1960 has perhaps one of the most graphic scenes of horror, a gruesome fairytale with its medical experimentation with facial transplantation and a lead actress, Edith Scob with her macabre blank mask who floats around the halls like a lost princess swallowed up inside a night terror. The film also stars a stoic Alida Valli, a strong ally to the twisted plastic surgeon in search of a new face for his daughter.

Jack Clayton's adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, became a screenplay by William Archibald, The Innocents 1961' lead actress Deborah Kerr lies wide open with her distillation of a woman tortured by her sexual paranoia. Dressed in classical clothes, unlike Deneuve's role in Repulsion, where her character Carol's neurosis is flayed and hung out naked on display.

And most significantly, the female-centric role of Mia Farrow as the allegorical heroine Rosemary Woodhouse, hunted down by a coven of upper west side devil worshipers in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby 1968. Farrow's performance is a striking denunciation of control over women's bodies, a slow burn of paranoia, and a strong instinct for survival.

"but when he (Guy Woodhouse) took control of her reproductive functions, he asserted his dominance over her in the darkest way possible.

Assertion of dominance reinforced his masculinity and the traditional role that men had in relationships. Guy's taking control assuages the fear of women gaining too much independence." – From Jenna Labbie damsels in Distress Analyzing gender in horror movies of the 1960s and 70s

Polanski's earlier released Repulsion 1965 strayed from Hitchcock's black humor drizzled about in Psycho. Repulsion rather has a sense of nightmarish realism and a protagonist, Catherine Deneuve who goes down a rabbit hole of repressive seizures.

Repulsion is an extremely disturbing contemplation on the destructive forces of loneliness, isolation, and paranoia seen through the lens of a sexually repressed young woman, Carol who suffers a homicidal breakdown while her sister and married lover leave her alone for a long weekend. An exit from the cheeky dark humor of Hitchcock's Psycho, Repulsion brushes the screen with strokes of Carol's existential misery.

Michael Powell's groundbreaking shocker Peeping Tom is a hauntingly twisted mood piece about serial killer Karl Bohm who films his victims in the last moments of their death to capture their fear. It features two very strong female leads, Anna Massey and Maxine Audley.

Mexican fright flicks abound with atmospheric gems like The Curse of the Crying Woman 1963, The Brainiac 1961, and The Witch's Mirror 1962, featuring strong female-centric characters played by Rosita Arenas and Rita Macedo. And in Jack Hill's oddball black comedy Spider Baby 1967 benefitted from the quirky presence of both Beverly Washburn and Jill Banner as two bizarre, homicidal sisters.

Luana Anders features significantly in the genre, highlighted in Coppola's Dementia 13 as the independent yet ruthless Louise Halloran and as prostitute Sylvia in Robert Altman's psycho-sexual thriller That Cold Day in the Park 1969. The film stars one of my favorite underrated actors, Sandy Dennis who gives a stunning performance as the disturbed Francis Austen, who holds Michael Burns hostage.

George Romero broke ground with the brutal realism of Night of the Living Dead 1968 which has not so indirect social relevance. 60s horror films were breaking away from Hollywood and being forged by gutsy independent filmmakers with smaller budgets, and an imaginative longing to experiment with diversity, artistic style, and a divergent way to visualize and process gender roles outside traditional cultural norms.

Barbara Shelley

The Queen of Hammer

Ryan Gilbey, in her obituary in The Guardian, praises Shelley’s acting in the Hammer films, considering that she had “a grounded, rational quality that instantly conferred gravitas on whatever lunatic occurrences were unfolding around her.”

The world lost Barbara Shelley in January 2021 at the age of 88. With hair like paprika, Barbara Shelley was born Barbara Kowin. A glamorous gothic leading lady was considered the "˜Queen of Hammer' during the studio's golden age of Gothic horror. A classical beauty, with an air of elegance and self-assuredness, she has co-starred with other Hammer royalty Christoper Lee and Peter Cushing. Shelley was an actress with such integrity and beauty that she transcended the horror genre.

The London-based production company was founded in 1934 by William Hinds and James Carrera who made a string of hit Gothic horror films from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Inspired by classic horror characters like Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy and appeared in 104 films and television series until 2000. She was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1975 and 1977.

From Wiki-
{Hammer reintroduced to audiences by filming them in vivid colour for the first time. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies, as well as, in later years, television series. During its most successful years, Hammer dominated the horror film market, enjoying worldwide distribution and considerable financial success.}

"Hammer was like a family, a very talented family"¦ with a wonderful atmosphere on the set and a wonderful sense of humour"

"When I first started doing Hammer, all the so-called classic actors looked down on the horror film. All the other things I did, nobody remembers those. But for the horror films, I'm very grateful to them because they built me a fan base, and I'm very touched that people will come and ask for my autograph. If you went to see a [Hammer] film in the cinema, the gasps were interspersed with giggles because people were giggling at themselves for being frightened, they were frightening themselves, and this is what made Hammer very special."

With her success as a teenage model, she made her minor film debut in Hammer's motion picture Mantrap in 1952 directed by Terence Fisher and starring Paul Henreid and Lois Maxwell.

Shelley took her screen name from Italian actor Walter Chiari who saw something in the actress and suggested that she use the last name as a tribute to his favorite English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. She wound up living in Rome for four years and appeared in nine Italian-speaking films.

She returned to the UK in 1957, starring that year for British Lion Film in her first starring role within the horror genre as Leonora Johnson née Brandt in Cat Girl (1957), directed by Alfred Shaughnessy who set out to borrow from Jacques Tourneur's superior, and innovative Cat People (1942.) Leonora Johnson returns to her ancestral home that is beset with the family curse, that she will be possessed by the spirit of a leopard. The film was a collaboration between American International Pictures and the British Anglo-Amalgamated.

Her first starring vehicle was Cat Girl (1957), Alfred Shaughnessy's offbeat variation of Jacques Tourneur's influential Cat People (1942), and A.I.P.'s first co-production with the UK's Anglo-Amalgamated. The following year she made her first major appearance in a film for Hammer The Camp on Blood Island.

In 1958, she co-starred as a woman in peril at the hands of mad scientist Callistratus (Donald Wolfit). In Blood of the Vampire, Shelley is the picture of fainting beauty chained to the wall, a garish period piece in line with the days of Universal's classic horrors though scattered with gory scenes satiated by fake blood and understated cleavage.

In 1880 Transylvania Dr. Calistratus is brought back to life by his one-eyed hunchback assistant Carl after he'd been executed as a vampire. At the same time, Dr. John Pierre (Vincent Ball) is on trial for killing one of his patients whom he tried to save with a blood transfusion. He is found guilty and sentenced to life. Barbara Shelley plays fiancee, Madeleine, set on finding the truth behind the incriminating letter allegedly proving his guilt, forged by Calistratus.

He is brought to prison for the criminally insane by the mad doctor's hunchback Carl. John is put in a cell, a menacing place guarded by vicious dogs, where Calastratus experiments and tortures his human subjects. In order to prove John's innocence Madeleine poses as Calastratus' housekeeper who winds up chained to a wall and strapped to an operating table!

Shelley was against her body being exploited or appearing in any nude scenes while being menaced by Wolfit. She warded off this endeavor by producers Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman by writing the word "STOP" on her chest. She threatened to sue the studio if it even used a body double.

"I had one or two dissertations on horror sent to me by students, and all the discussion ever seems to be concerned with is exploitation and the licking of blood and a scene of people making love, and it's not right. It annoys me intensely because my career was not built on exploitation and sex. It was built on working very hard."

In 1960, she is marvelous in the heartbreaking role of the tragic mother Anthea Zellerby who has given birth to an unfeeling monstrous alien boy who has uncanny dangerous powers along with the rest of the children of Midwich. All the mothers in Midwich have conceived during a strange blackout where they wind up giving birth to a breed of malevolent telepathic sociopaths.

Shelley's character is earnest in the role of a woman torn between motherhood and sheer terror in director Wolf Rilla's incredibly unsettling moody classic blend of science fiction and horror-Village of the Damned (1960) based on John Wyndham's science fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The film co-stars George Sanders as Shelley's altruistic husband Gordon, who seeks to understand the menacing children with their freaky white hair and piercing eyes and his creepy son David played by Martin Stephans. These dangerous little progeny can get inside people's minds and make them do anything they want, as in making Shelley's character stick her hand in a pot of boiling water. The screenplay written by Stirling Sillipant is quite a disturbing potboiler it total.

She went on to star in John Gilling's turn-of-the-century old dark house mystery Shadow of the Cat (1961)

Some of the outstanding pictures that put her upon the thrown as the reigning Queen of those splendid years of Gothic horror are Dracula: Prince of Darkness 1966, Rasputin the Mad Monk 1966 with Christopher Lee, and The Gorgon 1964 with Peter Cushing. The monstrous Gorgon is portrayed by Prudence Hyman.

"She really was Hammer's number one leading lady and the Technicolor queen of Hammer.
"On-screen she could be quietly evil. She goes from statuesque beauty to just animalistic wildness"¦ She adored Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and loved working with them, that was very dear to her."-Agent, Thomas Bowington

What truly established Barbara Shelley's esteemed reputation as the First Lady of British Horror in the mid-1960s is her collaboration with Terence Fisher. Leaving behind the more exploitative persona of the luscious heroine with inviting bosoms Shelley portrayed the sympathetic character of Carla Hoffman in Fisher's mood piece The Gorgon. Carla is the assistant to Dr. Namaroff (Peter Cushing) and a tortured soul possessed by an ancient evil spirit with serpents for hair and the ability to turn whoever gazes upon her to stone, and Shelley conveys the bleakness of a woman who is held captive by her monstrous alter ego.

Before Shelley turns into the blood-sucking bride of Dracula, she plays her first woman transformed into a monster in The Gorgon (1964). She told the studio "I wouldn't need any makeup"¦ just a green face and the headdress of real snakes." Shelley absolutely let down when she saw what the special effects department conjured up, “They came up with these terrible sorts of rubber snakes dancing around and it just looked awful. It wasn’t frightening at all.” She had said that it was “probably the biggest regret I’ve had in any film I ever made.”

She was absolutely dejected when they chose to substitute Prudence Hyman in the part of the Gorgon, "They came up with these terrible sorts of rubber snakes dancing around, and it just looked awful. It wasn't frightening at all." She called it "probably the biggest regret I've had in any film I ever made" though she admired the look of the picture, noting that "every shot "¦ resembles a Rembrandt painting."

In Dracula: Prince of Darkness 1966, Christopher Lee resurrects the count from Horrors of Dracula 1958. Shelley plays Helen the heroine whom we empathize with as she is trapped by her circumstances, when her stubborn husband Alan (who dismisses Helen's panic), and his brother Charles, both refuse to leave the creepy unwelcoming Castle Dracula after stumbling onto the unattended mausoleum.

They want to stay and partake in a meal laid out for them, but Helen is justifiably spooked by its strange undercurrent. "Everything about this place is evil".

Once Christopher Lee's resurrection, Helen goes through a diverging transformation from the archetypal repressed female to an unrestrained raptorial vampiress liberated from her proper English breeding, in high contrast to her tight up swung hair in a provincial hat, was now wide open with unwound flowing hair and unequivocal breastage. Shelley loved how distinct her character's trajectory was in Dracula: Prince of Darkness. From inhibited, startled gentlewoman to the monstrous feminine as one of Dracula's brides. When she appears at Karlsbad Castle, telling Suzan Farmer, “Nothing’s wrong” through hungry red lips and baring fangs. "Come sister, You don't need Charles"¦" she tempts, with inviting arms outstretched to the innocent Suzan Farmer as Diana. Shelley's virtuous woman who reveals to her Diana that she is now a vampire is lauded by Gilbey in The Guardian as having “traumatized and tantalized” viewers.

Shelley's scream in Dracula is actually dubbed by fellow actress Suzan Farmer (Die Monster Die! 1965 with Boris Karloff) who appeared with her in Dracula: Prince of Darkness and Rasputin The Mad Monk.

A terrifying scene perhaps inspiring Stephen King's Salem's Lot, has Helen tapping on the window in the middle of the night. "Please let me in," she pleads. "It's cold out here. So cold. Everything's all right now."

She was delighted by one of her most potent scenes -when she contends with her adversaries – monks who lie her on a table and hammer a stake through her undead heart.

Shelley told Mark Gatiss in his 2010 documentary series A History of Horror, “The scene that I’m most proud of is when she is staked that’s absolute evil when she’s struggling and then suddenly she’s staked and there is tremendous serenity. And I think that is one of my best moments in the film.”

"… and then suddenly she's staked, and there is tremendous serenity. And I think that is one of my best moments on film."

“Christopher Lee, who was an eloquent Gothic figure of pure evil in 1958’s first adaptation of Stoker’s vampire, had now evolved into a hissing fiend. But Shelley had this to say about the actor -“He brought dignity and veritas. It’s a difficult thing to bring to a fantasy like a vampire. And that is just Chris’ appearance and his personality. He did all that. He used to walk onto the sent and I’d say to him it’s an extraordinary performance, cause we know each other so well and you could hypnotize me. But it was brilliant because he completely dominated the film without a word. Talk about silent movies!”

Shot at the same time was another Hammer horror, Rasputin the Mad Monk with Christopher Lee has dialogue in a more colorful, lurid role, as the mad mesmerist in contrast to his silent, blood-eyed fiend. Shelley falls under the spell of Rasputin. While not willing to do a nude scene in Blood of the Vampire, she was however up to laying bare a seduction scene with Christoper Lee. “That scene was in the script when I read it. The scenes I refused to do was when they would suddenly say to me ‘Oh, you take your clothes off here’ The answer to that was always no” – From an interview with Fangoria Magazine 2010.

One of her beloved roles is her last Hammer feature in Roy Ward Baker's adaption of writer Nigel Kneale's (The Quatermass Experiment 1955, First Men in the Moon 1964, The Witches 1966, The Stone Tape 1972 TV movie) Quatermass and the Pit 1967.

In Quatermass and the Pit, Shelley portrays scientist Barbara Judd who along with paleontologist Doctor Roney (James Donald) and a team of scientists discover an ancient alien race whose spacecraft is found buried in the underground station at Hobbs End during an expansion of London's Underground transport system. Shelley develops a psychic link to the aliens and is taken over by the inhabitants of the alien spacecraft.

She is subjected to images of green gooey decomposing locust-like alien carcasses that in the process of being removed from the tunnels cause her brain to succumb to the electromagnetic influence of the spacecraft, causing her to writhe in pain. She is so totally reasonable as an actress that she brings credibility to her character. Shelly had claimed that director Roy Ward Baker was her favorite of all the filmmakers she worked with.

The way he felt about her goes like this. He told Bizarre Magazine in a 1974 interview that he was "˜mad about her. "Mad in the sense of love," he said. "We used to waltz about the set together, a great love affair. It puzzles me about her. She should be much bigger than she is, but I don't think she really cares whether she is a star or not. She can act, God, she can act!"

In The Avengers 1961 image: Studio Canal

Barbara Shelley would eventually do guest appearances on popular television shows including the British television series Doctor Who playing Sorasta in the episode "Planet Of Fire," starring Peter Davison as the fifth incarnation of Doctor Who. She would also appear on The Saint, The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, and Route 66. Later she would play Hester Samuels in "EastEnders."

Shelley's final role in horror films was in the old dark house mystery Ghost Story 1974 directed by Stephen Weeks and co-starring Marianne Faithful.

Her final role on screen was in the Uncle Silas mini-series in 1989. A sinister character brought to life on screen by Derrick De Marney in 1947 with Jean Simmons in the role of Caroline.

Although Shelley ultimately felt framed within the horror genre by the late 1960s, retiring two decades later, she always embraced her devoted fanbase and left behind a substantial legacy. “I realized that my work had been appreciated and that I had – through those horror films – actually reached a far bigger audience than I would ever have done if I’d stuck to the theater.”

The actress was modest about her achievements but happy with her legacy, as she conveyed with typical aplomb to Marcus Hearn: "There's a lovely saying "“ we're given memories so we can have roses in winter. When I look back over my various rose gardens, I'm only sorry I didn't enjoy them more".

"No one told me I was beautiful. They said I was photogenic but no one said I was beautiful. If they had I would have had a lot more fun!"

In an interview with the Express newspaper in 2009, she said she was told at a convention by female fans that they loved her for her strong roles. "Which I thought was a brilliant thing to have said about one. I never thought of it in that way. The fact that I'm still getting mail from my horror fan base really touches me."

TRIVIA

While making the 1961 TV film, A Story of David, she met Hollywood star Jeff Chandler and they began a relationship. Chandler died suddenly the following year. Shelley is later reported to have said that he had been the love of her life

So convincing was Shelley's violently realistic struggle against the stake, she swallowed one of her stuck-on fangs.

With no spares at the ready and a tight shooting schedule, it is reported that she kept drinking salt water until she puked it up.

After the scene in Dracula: Prince of Darkness where she struggles with the monks at the end with her demise, it was so physically demanding on Shelley, that she suffered from chronic back pain.

Barbara Shelley would recall how she and Lee, prided themselves on being "un-corpseable", and would compete to make one another laugh during takes.

Cat Girl 1957, Blood of the Vampire 1958, VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED 1960 THE GORGON 1964,  DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS 1966, RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK 1966, QUATERMASS AND THE PIT 1967

Continue reading “BRIDES OF HORROR – Scream Queens of the 1960s! – Part 1” →

Chapter 1: Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

"I wish to join the Legion of Decency, which condemns vile and unwholesome moving pictures. I unite with all who protest against them as a grave menace to youth, to home life, to country and to religion. I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land… Considering these evils, I hereby promise to remain away from all motion pictures except those which do not offend decency and Christian morality."

"”Catholic Legion of Decency pledge

And now here at The Last Drive In, the subject of “The Third Sex in the Shadows of Cinema.”

Clifton Webb as Hardy Cathcart in The Dark Corner 1946 directed by Henry Hathaway. Waldo Lydecker: “I’m not kind, I’m vicious. It’s the secret of my charm.”

“Oh, it’s sad, believe me, Missy, when you’re born to be a sissy without the vim and voive…” -Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Growing up as a gay woman, though gender and sexuality are fluid, there was not a well spring of characters in film or television that I could grab onto as a buoy for my burgeoning self-awareness – I was ‘different than the others.’ Though there are the obvious icons who became heroes and heroines to many of us because of their peerless image. And while films could not overtly represent ‘queerness’ directly, they could posit mixed messages and a whole generation of us could understand the subtext, unsheltered from an array of homophobic language.

We still had Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Garbo, who gave us immortal androgyny– there was no one who could shatter the silence, and ceremoniously ring the bells out in the open. There were no ‘obvious’ gay role models. We had to create that worship ourselves through iconography and a variety of sublime, convention-smashing signals. For those of us who knew how to look in the dark corners, right under your nose, corners, or should I say coded corners.

There’s one thing I want to be very clear about. I am not asserting that the actors themselves were gay in their personal lives, but that what was coded was merely the particular characters they played in the film. Or that the narrative might seemingly be ‘queer’. Which I will go on to explain. Particular actors or directors’ private lives are not up for conversation unless they were clearly open about themselves and their influences on their artistic work.

For instance, I am not saying that I suspect Doris Day is a lesbian, just that the character of Calamity Jane is throwing out messages for those of us ‘in the life,’ to feel a special affinity. Using comforting symbology gives us a place in the universe, especially when the story is presented by the stars we most admire. Not all coded gay characters are portrayed by gay actors, and not all coded comedy, jokes, or situations denotes that the character themselves are gay, just that the humor is cannily made to be queer at the moment. It can be an off-the-center remark that speeds by almost unnoticed except for the sake of the hurried laugh or two. Sometimes it’s all subjective and at times it’s pretty obvious which way the deliberate wind blows.

(Stacey) categorizes her range of material into several kinds of identification broadly dividing them into two categories. "Cinematic identifcatory fantasies" "”devotion, worship transcendence, inspiration are proper to the act of spectatorship and appear to be based primarily on difference from the star ideal and "extra-cinematic identifactory practices" "”imitation and consumption "”attempt to close the gap between subject and star even as they take place outside cinema.

The worship of Doris Day is not surprising, she was one of the top box office draws of the 1950s. Day performs a cross-dressing role in the biopic of a legendary lesbian. Indeed, Day and Calamity Jane in particular in which the star sings both "Secret Love" and a duet with another, feminine character called " a woman's touch" are regularly cited by lesbians as crucial cinematic texts. (Jackie Stacey’s Star Gazing)

There was a period when Peter Lorre, George Sanders (and his equally effete brother Tom Conway), Anne Revere, Judith Anderson, and Agnes Moorehead played movie villains, fanatics, or oddballs. Each of these actors suggested queerness in their androgynous personas. Each became an iconic character actor of classic cinema.

Characters like Ernest Thesiger as Dr. Pretorius, Clifton Webb’s Waldo Lydecker in Laura (1944), Judith Anderson in Rebecca (1940), or Gloria Holden as Countess Zaleska in Dracula’s Daughter (1936), stood out to us, though they were despicable and unwelcoming characters. Although I see Gloria Holden’s character as strangely sympathetic. Usually, queerness that was veiled behind a coded role, exhibited a disturbed or desperate personality. They might be a person who is ambiguous in their maleness or femininity. And at times, they were full-on, deadly.

However, there was so little for those of us who are part of the ‘hidden audience’, we needed to catch sight of something familiar. That meant grabbing onto whatever little crumbs were thrown to us. So whether those characters were inherently insensate evil had nothing to do with our empathy or revulsion. The real power lay in the ability to identify with the essence of ‘otherness’ and more to do with familiarity and belonging. I longed to find that ‘something‘ that signified a relative identification of their sexuality. To see that subtle finger motioning, come closer, you’re in the right place kiddo, you’re one of us. Andrea Weiss writes: “[In the 1930s] for a people who were striving toward self-knowledge, Hollywood stars became important models in the foundation of gay identity.”

The films I have uncovered throughout my endeavor to write this immense blog post, either commonly fall within the queer canon or can be liberally dissected and/or challenged. We can read into any film if we so choose. I am merely putting it out to you that these films do seem to meet the criteria for coded queer paradigms. I also began this piece thinking that in order to understand the evolution of coded characters, you first have to look at the origin of the queer presence in silent and Pre-Code films, and how the Code influenced and constructed the way being queer had to be hidden in plain sight.

I echo Susie Bright, in her feelings that we (the queer community) would hang on to anything close to a hint of gayness, and it would change the whole world of the motion picture, just to see that famously analyzed moment when Marlene Dietrich plants that sensuous kiss on a woman’s lips in Josef von Sternberg’s Morocco 1930. Or the first cinematic lesbian romance when vamp Louise Brooks slinks on the dance floor with her androgynous female admirer Alice Roberts as Countess Anna Geschwitz in director GW Pabst’s Pandora’s Box (1929).

The boldly androgynous Marlene showcased another masculine appearance when she ascends the throne at the end of The Scarlet Empress (1934).

Greta Garbo portrays the Swedish monarch who declares herself not an “old maid” but “a bachelor” in Queen Christina (1933)

Because of the social relationship between non-normative gender and sexuality and the symbology of fashion and the role of work, women only had to dress like their male counterparts and be employed in a man’s job to seem queer. In the movie directed by George Cukor, What Price Hollywood? (1932), the very drunk filmmaker notices a woman having lunch at a fashionable Hollywood restaurant. The drunks inquiry goes like this, “I beg your pardon, old man… who’s your tailor?

In Victor Fleming’s Red Dust (1932), Jean Harlow is adorable as Vantine as she handles the heat and hands out the jibes.

Other members of the lesbian parade inhabit spaces that, as with the men, connote queerness. Consider the lesbian couples in the Greenwich Village dive in Call Her Savage (1932), seated alongside male same-sex couples while pansy entertainers, dressed as maids, perform for their amusement. Mannishly garbed women barflies, sometimes wielding cigars, often pal around with men, or sometimes confuse and emasculate them, in Lawyer Man (1932), Grand Slam (1933), and Blood Money (1933). (Lugowski)

Blood Money (1933) Rowland Brown’s atmospheric jaunt that embraces the gritty underworld, includes racy subjects like sadomasochism, empowered women, and fluid sexuality. Kathlyn Williams credited as the “Nightclub Woman Wearing Monocle”, is a beautiful androgynous off-cut in the film. In one notable scene George Bancroft as Bill Bailey enters Ruby Darling’s (Judith Anderson) nightclub and comes across a young woman at the bar, dressed in a man's tuxedo and sporting a monocle. Baily offers her a cigar. She smells it and nonchalantly mocks the husky guy, “Why, you big sissy!” and hands it back to him. The nature of this adventurous passage into a subversive world generated a lot of sexual tension. With Blood Money, the subject of homosexuality is a non-issue, belonging to a subculture that invites those who are outsiders.

In Blood Money and Call Her Savage, "¨homosexuality is just another pocket of an underworld that exists outside the law. When George Bancroft warns a timid taxi driver not to betray his destination to the police, he threatens, “Lissen fag” -and is rebuked by Judith Anderson for “scaring the little fellow half to death.”

Keeping along the lines of the connection between women working at men’s jobs, within a wide range of social status, you can see this example in Heat Lightning (1934) starring interestingly handsome actress Aline MacMahon when she, covered in grease, working on cars in her desert garage/gas station wearing a filthy jumpsuit and hair wrapped in a bandana. She sheds her desire to be desired by men, and exudes a solitary quality, as if she has given up on, performing femininity for men. She seems independent and strong and in her ‘male’ attire, you can see her projecting a queer attitude, though the film deposits a past love interest with bad boy Preston Foster as a distraction. The attraction is doomed from the start.

Olga (MacMahon) balances the duality of loving Preston Foster, donning her "˜womanly' dress when she decides to submit to a heterosexual liaison which goes wrong. Then she shuns the idea of her femininity, re-asserting her hyper-masculine posture in greasy mechanics overalls and once again hiding her ravenous hair under her bandana, to protect herself from performing as a straight woman again.

To be clear it is not my belief that she’s not “all woman,” even using these props to represent masculinity. She is not truly changing her gender but for the purposes of the narrative, in the movie’s time period, it suggests a superficial interpretation of gender for our spectatorship.

In Jame’s Whales’ The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) there is a sophisticated female lawyer Hilda Frey (Jean Dixon) who is stern and stiff-backed, and is dressed in severe clothing, a “new kind of woman” which allows for an undercurrent of lesbianism.

In The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933), Nancy Carroll as Maria Held is a career-oriented lawyer, who wears men’s suits and considers herself a “new woman.” There are tinges of heterosexuality, which serve to shield her character from scrutiny. But, she does appraise heterosexuality in vaguely cynical terms. She talks to another woman about a case where the husband has murdered his wife, “At least no one will ever murder me.” She also responds to, “What are you? A lawyer, or a new kind of woman?” by saying, “By day, I’m a lawyer. At night, well, you might be surprised.” Either it went undetected by the SRC (Studio Relations Committee) or they felt that the connotations of her lesbianism were ambiguous enough to slip by an unsophisticated audience.

We learn to watch out for signs that there are ‘others’ out there on the screen – those we can relate to. A young person exposed to old films, as I grew older and dove head first into classic film with a critical eye, I could read those sign posts and cues that led me to become consciously aware of the invisible affinity laid out in plain site for me, and those of us who knew the secret whispers behind the storyline.

Women wearing men’s apparel, like Dietrich’s wonderful drag performance, kissing a woman in Morocco in 1930. Or Clifton Webb’s often effete superiority as with his character, Waldo Lydecker in Otto Preminger’s Laura 1944, or his role as Hardy Cathcart’s with a pathological objectification of his wife Mari’s aesthetic beauty in Henry Hathaway’s The Dark Corner. Greta Garbo in Queen Christina 1933– “I shall die a bachelor!” Gloria Holden’s vampiric desire to embrace the necks of beautiful young female models in Dracula’s Daughter 1936.

Nan Gray and Gloria Holden in Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

The Production Code Administration (PCA) saw the obvious connection between vampirism and lesbian sexual desire in Dracula’s Daughter (1936) They only gave two warnings concerning the ‘queerness’ of Countess Zaleska and her thirst for young female victims. Universal, even hyped the idea that women were not safe from unnatural desire using this publicity catchphrase, “Save the women of London from Dracula’s Daughter!”

Throughout these films coded lesbian characters, scattered their rose petals of longing for their dead lost loves or the nymphs just out of their reach. There was tragedy within the tragedy of the horror story! As long as these queer women monsters also became victims, the PCA could negotiate its release, being comfortable with the narrative in that form.

The most overt representation of lesbians was her stylized look, a severely tailored suit, monocle, slicked back or bobbed short hair, or staunch, with a strait backed, severely repressive temperament. The coded dyke is typically less seen on screen than the pansy who enjoyed more of a character actor’s trademark in popular films. However, it could be said that covert lesbians are more subtle in their presence than their queer male counterparts – the sissy.

Major female stars could be seen as having indirect lesbian undertones, though their ambiguous sexuality might be camouflaged by their independent streak, their strong spirit or shaded by their exotic, mysterious nature. Thus we find some of our lesbian icons like Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Clara Bow, Greta Garbo, and Barbara Stanwyck. Lesbian vibes can often be signaled by a playful tomboyishness. And what we have is a diametrically opposed result, the pansy is perceived as failed manhood, but conversely the lesbian performing manhood is perceived as a threat.

And if they weren’t tomboys they could be man-less shrews, castrating viragos, or in need of a man, who can make her come to her senses, and give up her career and her disruptive way of life. The threat of strong women is still equal to the threat. The gay man elicits a laugh.

Thus, discourses about queer sexuality in this period are never purely homophobic against men. To a sizable extent, they have their basis in sexism against women, for it is the power of femininity, the “feminization” of 1930s culture mentioned, and the threat of working women “wearing the pants” that are being policed.

The metaphorical nature of the pants-wearing, money-earning woman attaining independence from men connoted lesbianism as a complete break from the interwoven financial and sexual economies of patriarchy. Thus, if “clothes make the man,” the wearing of pants in and of itself suggested a link to lesbianism that films of the time simultaneously offered as spectacle and punishment. (Lugowski)

In particular classical horror and science fiction films spoke to the sense of "otherness" installed in my psyche. That does not mean that I viewed things through a dark lens, but classical horror and science fiction are effusive metaphors and inherently philosophical. When some of us, like Frankenstein’s monster were figuratively chased with flaming torches, horror, and sci-fi movies afforded us shelter from the angry mob. Their use of mythic undertones and symbolic context provided for so many of us, psychic release and catharsis.

It’s also why I love and identify with the monster in classical horror films. The iconic or tragically fated monster has always been portrayed as the ‘other’. Gay people understand what it means to be an outsider. And filmmakers encoded that sui generis into our beloved classical horror genre. It worked like waving that meaningful finger at the audience, saying, you found us, we’re here.

WHAT IS A CODED GAY CHARACTER?

CODED–verb [with object] 1 convert (the words of a message) into a particular code in order to convey a secret meaning: "¢ express the meaning of (a statement or communication) in an indirect or euphemistic way: (as adjective coded)

films allude to homosexual meanings in more of less coded ways. From today’s perspective, one can view these films as excellent examples of the very discourse of the closet-they employ connotative and symbolic meanings to signify homosexuality for those ‘in the know’ while ostensibly being about something else. Such connotative meanings were the way homosexuality could be signified under the dictates of the Hollywood Production Code.

Although it was continually challenged throughout the 1950s (by films such as The Moon is Blue 1953 and Baby Doll 1956) The Production Code still exerted a profound effect on the content on Hollywood film, especially in relations to homosexual themes. The Production Code Administration (PCA) edited queer backstories and subtexts of the film adaptations of Tennessee William’s plays A Street Car Named Desire (1951) , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Vincente Minnelli’s film of the Broadway hit Tea and Sympathy… (Jeffrey Sconce)

 

Continue reading “Chapter 1: Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:” →

3 Strong Anti-Heroines of 1950 Film Noir: Life’s Rough “You see kid, in this cage, you get tough or you get killed. Better wise up before it’s too late!”

Life's Rough: Three Strong Anti-Heroines of 1950 Film Noir

“You see kid, in this cage, you get tough or you get killed. Better wise up before it’s too late!" – Kitty Stark, Caged (1950)

The 1950 film, Caged!, The Damned Don't Cry, and The File on Thelma Jordon, contain three women performing female masculinity. A common thread these characters possess is "˜metamorphosis.' They are forged by male institutions and they must adapt to survive. Each woman is thrust into a noir narrative.

In Caged!, Eleanor Parker leaves innocence outside the prison bars and is transformed into a hardened, jaded criminal in order to survive. Joan Crawford, a poverty-stricken mother in The Damned Don’t Cry rises as a high-powered opulent underworld mistress to prevail and support herself. Barbara Stanwyck is predatory, manipulating a weak man to gain access to her Aunt’s fortune in The File on Thelma Jordon — Stanwyck ultimately becomes a fallen figure of remorse and redemption.

Like their noir male counterparts, they become anti-heroines as past actions come back to haunt them.

Film noir of 1950 desired realism, decadence, and transformation. Femme-fatales thrive using sexuality to claim independence from weak, damaged, sexually-obsessed men, unable to resist dangerous influences. These women master patriarchal organizations, taking control of their bodies and identities to avoid gender enslavement in a male hetero-driven society.

In most noir films men are the central figures–isolated from their surroundings, closed in by circumstances beyond control, but married to fatalistic visions with stoic passivity. By flipping this trope on its battered head, these women invoke female masculinity driving their characters. As anti-heroines, they adopt masculine armor to navigate masculine institutions. They're placed in situations that impose a definition of what a woman is and should be. They adopt feminine masculinity to survive.

"Female masculinity is framed as the rejected scraps of dominate masculinity in order that male masculinity may appear to be the real thing"¦ Masculinity in this society inevitably conjures up notions of power and legitimacy and privilege; it often symbolically refers to the power of the state and to uneven distributions of wealth." "” Halberstam, Female Masculinity

Caged! (1950)

You don’t know women until you know them without men!

Directed by John Cromwell, Caged! is set in a women's prison and plays out like a savage dance with "unremitting pessimism" (Crowther) with the women performing masculinity to gain power. It is a "Dames in the Hoosegow" film (New York Herald Tribune), indicative of socially conscious 1950s noir. The women are demeaned in prison, and to prevail they appropriate masculine primacy.

Caged! boasts an incredible ensemble. Eleanor Parker's persuasive performance as Marie Allen, a delicate young woman subjected to cruelty by the sadistic degenerate Matron Evelyn Harper (punctuated to the hilt by imposing 6' 2" Hope Emerson).

Wonderful character actors include Betty Garde as Kitty Stark, Ellen Corby as Emma Barber, Jan Sterling as Jeta Kovsky (aka Smoochie who loves to kite checks, buys pretty shiny things, and can't stay out of prison), Olive Deering as June Roberts, Gertrude Michael as Georgia, and Lee Patrick as "˜vice queen' Elvira Powell.

American actress Eleanor Parker acting in the film ‘Caged’. USA, 1950 (Photo by Mondadori Portfolio via Getty Images)

The film opens with the police van door swinging open "”"Pile out, you tramps. This is the end of the line""” to reveal the "˜new fish' in the fatalistic incarceration cycle. The central figure is a timid, pregnant, and nervous 19-year-old Marie who gets the book thrown at her for helping her husband commit armed robbery- "For that forty bucks I heisted I certainly got myself an education." Her role as an accomplice, sitting in the car waiting for the bum, lands her 15 years in prison. With a doe-eyed shocked gaze, she is thrown into a primal world. The intake nurse's examination reveals she is "˜expecting company' "” with her dead husband's child. Marie, number 93859, is sweet candy for the cold-blooded, menacing Matron Harper.

Marie doesn't fall for Harper's charms, thus she is subjected to dehumanizing torture by Harper, the bon-bon-eating, romance novel-reading dyke who enjoys personal comforts and flaunts luxuries (as a grotesque phony femme) to the women prisoners who don't have any privileges.

Harper brutally beats Marie causing her to lose her baby, thus her motherhood is taken away.

Removing her femininity, and her identity, Harper shaves Marie's hair. When vice queen Elvira distributes lipsticks at Christmas, Harper cruelly takes them away. Harper, embedded in the masculine system, creates an environment where the weakest women must become predatory cons, shedding their femininity.

Sympathetic warden Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorhead) allows them to keep cosmetics as a connection to the outside world. Believing in rehabilitation, Benton bucks bureaucracy, but her altruism blinds her from the vicious brutality.

The mood at the prison heats up and Kitty kills Matron Harper. Marie is worn down by the inhumanity of prison life and disillusioned by Harper's corrupting influence over inmates. She changes from a shivering innocent to a smart-mouthed hard-bitten con. Her efforts to go straight are sabotaged by the sadistic Harper. Marie learns the hard way how to earn parole, but she's already stigmatized and changed by the system.

Jan Sterling, Ellen Corby, Marjorie Crossland, Olive Deering, Betty Garde, and Eleanor Parker in Caged (1950).

Through Marie's eyes, we experience dehumanization and objectification, from the moment she is processed, to her release. Influenced by other miscreants and malcontents Marie evolves into a criminal by the system constructed to rehabilitate. She sheds her victimhood and takes on a powerful masculine approach, but not with the ruthlessness of a femme fatale. Marie becomes a criminal. She's independent, as only a man could be in 1950.

When released at the gates, she gets into a fancy sedan with shady characters. She's become a prostitute for her butch mentor Elvira who has given up on men completely. "If you stay in here too long, you don't think about guys at all. You just get out of the habit." –Elvira

Warden Benton keeps Marie's file open as she watches out the window "Keep it active, She'll be back" summarizing the Sisyphean absurdity of prison, hardening and transforming women without any hope.

THE DAMNED DON'T CRY (1950)

“Call me CHEAP?” Nothing’s Cheap When You Pay the Price She’s Paying!

Directed by Vincent Sherman, with a screenplay by Harold Medford and Jerome Weidman. Cinematography by Ted D. McCord  (The Treasure of the Sierra Madres 1948, Johnny Belinda 1948, I Died a Thousand Times 1955, The Sound of Music 1965) (wardrobe Sheila O’Brien who worked on all of Joan’s pictures, Sudden Fear 1952, Flamingo Road 1945, Female on the Beach 1955)

Stars Joan Crawford as Ethel Whitehead, David Brian as George Castleman, Steve Cochran as Nick Prenta, Kent Smith as Martin Blackford, Hugh Sanders as Grady, Selena Royle as Patricia Longworth, Jacqueline deWitt as Sandra, Morris Ankrum as Jim Whitehead, Edith Evanson as Mrs. Castleman, Richard Egan as Roy.

Joan Crawford is Ethel Whitehead/Lorna Hansen Forbes, a woman from harrowing poverty, who leaves her husband, Roy, after their son Tommy is tragically killed. She starts over in New York City first as a cigar store clerk and model for a cheap fashion wholesaler. She eventually climbs to the top of the high society/criminal underworld wearing a facade of respectability. While usually men abandon families, Ethel is the one to leave. Crawford perfectly performs the role of power and masculinity.

The Damned Don't Cry portrays a bleak, dark, corrupt world. The story is told in flashbacks. Directed by Vincent Sherman (All Through the Night 1942, Mr. Skeffington 1944, Nora Prentiss 1947, Affair in Trinidad 1952, The Garment Jungle 1957) The film co-stars Steve Cochran as Nick Prenta, David Brian as George Castleman, and Kent Smith as Martin Blackford, and Jacqueline de Wit as Sandra.

Ethel begins as an unsophisticated modest woman, married to an oil field worker, dirt poor, plain looking, and beaten down. An oppressed housewife and mother, judged harshly by her misogynist father, and husband Roy who says "You'll never do enough for her." She becomes an elegant ambitious society climber who dismisses suggestions her life is corrupt and immoral. Crawford manifests her signature cunning in the ferocious pragmatic transformation.

Ethel lives with her parents and beloved son Tommy, who wants a bicycle but Roy says it's too much money. Wanting her son to be happy, she makes a down payment on the bike. Furious, Roy demands it is returned. On his way to the store, Tommy rides down the road and is hit by a truck, and killed. His death ends their marriage, and Ethel leaves.

Roy says he's "done the best he could." Ethel answers "Well it ain't good enough."

Unlike male protagonists with more choices, in this narrative, Ethel can only be a model or prostitute.  She performs female masculinity by adopting independence. Ethel creates the power to choose her own fate, possessing what Hirsch calls "˜a lonely man' trope.

Another model, Sandra, introduces Ethel to a new world, convincing her to go out with wealthy businessmen. She becomes the glamorous mistress of gangster George Castleman, showered with riches"” fur coats, diamonds, and haute couture. George helps Ethel's metamorphosis into a wealthy socialite, Lorna Hansen Forbes, and she enters the inner circle of gangsters.

Ethel now known as Lorna, exploits her beauty, relying on rich men to pay for the privilege of her company. She learns she must selfishly grab for herself. Negotiating her body for wealth is a means to an end. Lorna’s selfishness emerges.

Lorna surpasses Sandra's petty schemes to aim for the brass ring of ultimate luxury.

She befriends mild-mannered Martin Blackford, an account who falls for her. Encouraging him to become Castleman's bookkeeper, she uses him to get ahead. Martin brings a dark brooding presence into Lorna’s life which is visually actualized in a scene where Lorna is sunning herself at the pool, Blackford casts a symbolic dark cloud over her light-hearted sexually carefree embodiment. The closeup shows Ethel's face as the sun's rays emblematically reflect in her sunglasses. Taking them off, she turns off the sunlight and is confronted with Blackford's bitterness.

The jaded Lorna tells the neutered Martin "You're a nice guy, but the world isn't for nice guys. You gotta kick and punch and belt your way up cuz nobody's going to give you a life. You've got to do it yourself. Cuz nobody cares about us except ourselves"¦ It's that stuff you take to the bank, that filthy buck that everybody sneers at but slugs to get." Martin is afraid he'll lose self-respect. "Don't tell me about self-respect!" Ethel snaps. "That's what you tell yourself when you got nothing else!"

Her glamorous life ultimately comes at a price. Castleman wants to use Lorna to spy on Nick Prenta, as he suspects Prenta of killing one of his men Grady (Hugh Sanders), and making it look like a car accident by planting a bottle of alcohol at the scene. Castleman fears Nick Prenta is organizing the men against him. He sends Lorna to insinuate herself with Nick Prenta in order to find out what he is up to and report back to him. Setting him up for a hit. Instead, Lorna starts falling in love with the handsome rogue gangster who has a reputation for his womanizing. Lorna winds up defying Castleman by not staying in touch and actually falling for the guy instead.

Martin then shows up telling Lorna, (though he still refers to her as Ethel out of spite) that George Castleman has sent him to check up on her, he hasn’t heard from her in a while. The moment we see Martin’s scruples have eroded is during the pool scene which illustrates Martin’s own transformation from a nice decent guy to one of George’s thugs, with his smug tone and his dark sunglasses. He warns Lorna not to hold out on George. He boasts about how powerful he’s become and that people listen to him. He offers her some ‘sound advice’ “Has he promised you the world too!?”  referring to Nick Prenta and sneaking in a good dig at how she used him at one time. “He means nothing to me, except he’s a human being.” “Don’t tell me that disturbs you.” Martin has become so jaded and embittered.

Later Nick Prenta asks Lorna to marry him, she is moved to tears as she embraces him. Lorna asks, “Do I really mean that much to you?” Nick tells her, “Everything, why is that enough?” Lorna –“Then get out of this, Nick, I’m scared about what you’re doing, what you’re planning, what it will lead to, if you don’t give this up.” “If that’s what it takes to get you, you’ve got a deal. I can get out of this inside a year” “No, it’ll be too late then” “But I can’t get out now Lorna, this is a big jump I’ve got to see it through.”

Lorna begs him to give it all up, but he kisses and sends her back to her hotel room where she finds Martin and Castleman waiting for her. Castelman is sitting in the dark, giving off a sense of menace from the shadows. “Hello Lorna” he puffs on his cigar then rises from the couch. “Aren’t you glad to see me?” Suddenly he begins grilling her about Nick Prenta’s meeting, but she tells him that she doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Castleman tightens his fist and smacks Lorna across the face, his paranoia about the meeting and his gang aided by Prenta out to get him is driving him into a frenzy.

In his fury, even Martin gets worried about Castleman’s sudden violent outburst. Then he hits Martin and knocks him down, and begins beating Lorna brutally as she tries to convince him that she’s not in love with Nick Prenta, it’s just that she doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. She tells Castleman that she’s still in love with him.  But he growls at her, “You’re lying, you’re so used to lying and cheating and double-crossing that you almost make it seem good.”

Castleman throws Lorna into the glass window that shatters. Martin tries to defend her, and calm Castleman down, telling him it’s enough. Castleman says “She’s no good, not even to you” yet Martin thinks fast on his feet, “But she is to you, she can still help, she can still be useful.” Castleman tells Martin looking down at the battered Lorna,  “There’s only one thing to do with dirt, sweep it up.” Martin tells him, “Listen to me, you want Nick don’t you? She can get him” Castleman responds, “You got a brain Marty, best kind, the kind you don’t get to go out and buy.”  As Castleman says this he looks disdainfully at poor Lorna lying in a pile of broken glass all bruised and sobbing.

Martin convinces Lorna to call Nick Prenta and get him over to the hotel room. Prenta shows up already knowing her true identity, he must have heard it from Eddie Hart. She is lost in shadow, beaten down and crying, Prenta sarcastically tells Lorna, “I want to apologize for busting in on you like this Mrs. Forbes, but a friend of yours, Eddie Hart said it would be okay, he said Castleman might not like it, but Ethel Whitehead would go for anything.”  But when he sees how badly beaten Lorna is he comes to her side, until he is confronted by Castleman, who emerges out of the shadows and tells him that while Prenta likes to be in the headlines he’s gonna move him over to the obituary column. Prenta turns to Lorna, “You dirty tramp!”

A fight breaks out and Castleman shoots and kills Prenta. In the turmoil, Lorna takes off in her car. Castleman tells Martin that they’ll have to dispose of Prenta first and then “I want her.”

Once Lorna fails to stop Castleman she is transformed once again through resignation and redemption having gone full circle through her own journey of hell.

Martin tries to protect Lorna from Castleman, by telling the police that it was George Castleman who killed Nick Prenta. In the meantime, Castleman wants her dead. And he knows the truth about where Lorna comes from, where she was probably heading and he’s on his way there.

Lorna now home in Bakersfield, arrives at the broken shack with her fur coat and her Ray Foreman coif. Her parents first reject her. The bitter Martin has shed his anger by now, hopelessly in love with Lorna, and he shows up to try and protect her from the vicious Castleman. In the film’s ironic rhythm of fate, she symbolically comes full circle, winding up on the same road where her son died.

Martin tells her that she needs to move on and keep running before Castleman catches up with her, but she’s worried that he’s unfinished business now too since he’s turned on Castleman. He reminds her “We do what we do– what was it you once said?, because we can’t help ourselves.” 

Castleman shows up at Lorna’s home. She quietly walks out of the house, so as not to endanger her mother and father and Martin who are talking in the kitchen.

In the brutal climax Lorna calmly, stoically and courageously confronts the vicious George Castleman.

He asks for Martin but Lorna lies and covers up for him, saying she hasn’t seen him. She boldly with new resolve walks right up to George Castleman. He asks if she’s been waiting for him. “Strangely enough George there was a time when I did wait for you. And no one else. but that’s over now.”

In a struggle to take the gun away from Castleman, Lorna gets shot and wounded, lying in the dirt wearing her fur coat, –hows that for symbolism! Then Martin comes out of the house and shoots Castleman down and his getaway car leaves without him, while he’s lying there dead.

The police and the press show up pushing for all the answers to Lorna’s (Ethel’s) involvement.

Two cops outside the house start talking about the case. Cop one-“Pretty tough living in a place like this” Cop two–”Tougher to get out” Cop one– “Wouldn’t you?”  Cop two shakes his head “Yes!”

Having traveled through her journey performing the code of female masculinity she has reclaimed herself, found her empowerment, and emerged as her own woman again. We are left wondering what the future holds for Lorna/Ethel, now not only emancipated, if not redeemed, as the anti-heroine of The Damned Don’t Cry!

THE FILE ON THELMA JORDON (1950)

Thelma Jordon: "I’m no good for any man for any longer than a kiss!"

Directed by Robert Siodmak, written by Marty Holland with a screenplay by Ketti Frings. Cinematography by George Barnes (Rebecca 1940, Jane Eyre 1943, Spellbound 1945, Mourning Becomes Electra 1947, Force of Evil 1948, War of the Worlds 1953) Costumes designed by Edith head

Starring Barbara Stanwyck as Thelma Jordon, Wendell Corey as Cleve Marshall, Paul Kelly as Miles Scott, Joan Tetzel as Pamela Blackwell Marshall, and Stanley Ridges as Kingsly Willes.

Barbara Stanwyck plays Thelma Jordon who uses a gullible attorney to cover up her crimes of murder and larceny, secretly in cahoots with her sleazy husband. As in Double Indemnity, Stanwyck masterfully plays a "˜vice-ridden murderess.' She performs female masculinity, playing the aggressor"” pursuing lovers, greed, and power.

Directed by Robert Siodmak, the film opens with Thelma in a small-town district attorney's office reporting burglary attempts at the mansion she shares with her aunt. She begins an affair with DA Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey), who is in a loveless marriage. Thelma is also married to the sinister Tony Laredo. An icy femme fatale who desires danger, she's drawn to Tony's equally nefarious nature and devours Cleve who is weakened by her magnetism. Thelma starts out the femme fatale, her fatal flaw is falling in love with Cleve, feeling remorse, and sacrificing herself to become redeemed in the end.

Thelma's aunt is murdered in an apparent robbery and her emerald necklace is missing. Fearing Tony will be implicated, she cleans up the evidence and calls Cleve to help. Thelma is cold and calculating, casting Cleve as her lover and accomplice known only as Mr. X. Cleve tells her to shut the lights and pretend she was asleep when the police arrive. Cleve leaves, making sure to be seen but unrecognized by the butler who discovers Aunt Vera's body.

When Tony's alibi checks out, Thelma is arrested for murder. While the police try unsuccessfully to prove her guilt, she and Tony plan to leave town. By now Cleve has uncovered Thelma's checkered past.

He accuses her of duplicity and Thelma admits he was part of the plot. When Cleve confronts her, Tony's dark presence looms. The camera shows both men juxtaposed in the room, Tony's dark presence looms"” he is too irresistible to let go. Cleve is too normal and unselfish to be stimulating for her deviant desires. With both men framed in contrast, Thelma realizes she belongs with the dark and dangerous Tony. Tony beats Cleve to a pulp, leaving with Thelma.

But driving down a winding mountain road, Thelma's pang of conscience gets the better of her, and she causes the car to plunge off the cliff. It's a darkly romantic gesture, suicide by a flaming car crash is her attempt at redemption. She hopes with her death, Cleve can repair the ruination of his life. But this is noir, and he cannot wake from the nightmare.

Tony dies but Thelma lives long enough to confess her crimes. She does not give away Cleve as Mr. X, but Miles (Paul Kelly) is suspicious. His career in shambles, Cleve walks off into the uncertain shadows of noir. Thelma dies, redeemed. It’s noir universal justice, Thelma cannot get away with her Aunt's murder and continue her affair. She must be brought down by fate's hand.

Miles: "She’s confessed everything except who her Mr. X is."

Cleve looks at her “Why don’t you tell him?"

Thelma: “I love him, that’s why. I couldn’t go on with him Cleve. You did that for me. I’m glad I told. All my life struggling, the good and the bad.”

Cleve: “Save your strength darling."

Thelma: "Willis said I was two people, he was right. You don’t supposed they could just let half of me die?"

This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying, it’s great to spend time in the darkness of noir’s shadows & under the influence of fate’s pointed finger, but you gotta come out into the light til the next time around!

Happy NoirVember!, Joey

Vintage Everyday! Shares some Halloween treats for the eyes! –

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35 Amazing Vintage Photos of American Actresses with Their Halloween Costumes!

 Halloween with vintage American actresses.

American actress and singer Virginia Bruce, 1932

Ann Rutherford serves up made to order Halloween pumpkins, ca. 1940s

Anne Gwynne, 1941

Anne Nagel, ca. 1940s

Audrey Young as a black cat for Halloween, 1946

Ava Gardner dressed as a witch, 1944

Barbara Bates and Penny Edwards, 1950

Barbara Bates, 1945

Barbara Britton, Ella Neal, Eva Gabor, and Katherine Booth, 1941

Bessie Love, ca. 1920s

Clara Bow, 1929

Classic Hollywood actress Colleen Moore, ca. 1920s

Classic Hollywood actress Myrna Loy, ca. 1930s

Debbie Reynolds Halloween pinup, 1950

Dorothy Dare in 1928 Halloween

Dorothy Dix in Halloween costumes, ca. 1930s

Dusty Anderson as a black cat, 1945

Helen Bennett in spider dress, 1939

Ida Lupino in the 1930s Halloween

Joan Blondell in a cat costume, ca. 1930s

Joan Crawford as a funny clown, ca. 1920s

June Preisser carving pumpkins for Halloween, ca. 1940s

Lillian Wells, ca. 1940s

Linda Darnell, ca. 1940s.

Lynn Barri, ca. 1940s

Maila Nurmi as a vampire, 1954

Margaret Hamilton as the Wizard of Oz in the 1930s Halloween

Marjorie Reynolds, Frances Brix and Mitzi Uehlein, 1940

Myrna Dell, ca. 1940s

Olga San Juan, ca. 1940s

Paulette Goddard, 1939

Phyllis Kirk, ca. 1950s

Shirley Temple in Halloween, 1935

Silent film start Mary Pickford, ca. 1910s

Vera-Ellen, 1956
Thank You Vintage Everyday for sharing these gorgeous gals getting into the ‘spirit’ of Halloween!
Your EverLovin’ Joey

It’s Saturday and the Anti-Damsel Blogathon 2015 is (HER)E!!!

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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!

Saturday’s –Anti-Damsels

Movies Silently | Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Milton Sills: How Miss Lulu Bett Struck a Blow for the New Woman

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!

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The Last Drive In  |    Hedy Lamarr : from Ecstasy to Frequency- A Beautiful Life

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!

Glamorous portrait of movie actress Hedy Lamarr wearing white fox fur short jacket.1938

The Motion Pictures | Ida Lupino: An Anti-Damsel On Screen and Off

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!

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Mind of Levine | Profane Angel, Boss Bitch: The Madcap Badassery of Tragic Carole Lombard

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!

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Nitrate Glow  | Hilda of Horus: Prince of the Sun (1968)

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!

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Speakeasy | Cobra Woman (1944) Maria Montez as Tollea/Naja

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!

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The Joy & Agony of Movies | Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld) in Pretty Poison (1968)

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!

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Tales of the Easily Distracted | Charade (1963) The tale of four men and the woman who loves him

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!

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Critica Retro | Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) in Woman of the Year

Crítica 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).

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The Hitless Wonder | Lady Jane Ainsley (Frieda Inescort) in The Return of the Vampire (1943)

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 | Zira (Kim Hunter) in Planet of the Apes 1968

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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!

shadowsandsatin | Blondie Johnson (1933) Joan Blondell

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!

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Once Upon a Screen | Attack of the 50 Foot Woman  Allison Hayes

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!

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Old Hollywood Films | Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish) in Night of the Hunter

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!

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Moon in Gemini | Vance Jeffords (Barbara Stanwyck) in The Furies

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!

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bnoirdetour | Edie Johnson (Linda Darnell) in No Way Out 1950

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!

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CineMaven's Essays from the Couch | Carol Richman (Ella Raines) in Phantom Lady

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!

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Goregirl's Dungeon | Anna Karina in the films of Jean-Luc Godard

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…

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Sacred Celluloid | The Vampire Lovers (1970)

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)

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Defiant Success | Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity 1953

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!

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The Wonderful World of Cinema | Lola Delaney (Shirley Booth) in Come Back Little Sheba 1952

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!

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Carole & Co. | Carole Lombard as producer and feminist

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!

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Karavansara | Emma Peel in The Avengers

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…! 

“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.”

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Mondo Heather | Marni Castle as Big Shim in She Mob 1968

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!

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wolffian classic movies digest | Joan Crawford as Mildred Pierce 1945

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”

Yeah, Joan Crawford just spewed Anti Damsel!

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Smitten Kitten Vintage | Bette Davis as Margo in All About Eve 1950

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

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Superfluous Film Commentary | Gene Tierney in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

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.”

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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

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Enduring Empowerment : Women Who didn’t Give a Damn! …in Silent & Classic film!

THE SILENT YEARS: When we started not giving a damn on screen!

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THE GODLESS GIRL (1929) CHAIR SMASH courtesy of our favorite genius gif generator- Fritzi of Movies Silently.

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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 these fabulous femmes…

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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
Ossi The Doll
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.
Molly Sparrows
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.
Helen Lass of the Lumberlands
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.
Musidora Judex
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.
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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.
Cornelia The Bat
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.
Catherine The Eagle
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!

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“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!

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Barbara Stanwyck posing with boxing gloves!

The following actresses and their immortal characters are in no particular order…!

Double Indemnity
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?"
Bacall Slim To Have and Have not
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.”
Bette as Margo Channing in All About Eve
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."Â 
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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!”

Grande Dames/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part II: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962: “You mean all this time we could have been friends?”

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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!”
Neal and Newman
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.”

Ball of Fire (1941) Directed by Howard Hawks Shown: Henry Travers, Oscar Homolka, Gary Cooper, Leonid Kinskey, Aubrey Mather, S.Z. Sakall, Richard Haydn, Tully Marshall, Barbara Stanwyck
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!"
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Killer Jo Walk on the Wild Side
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."Â Â Â 
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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.”

The Dark Drawer: Four Obscurely Fabulous Film Noir Fare…

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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.”
Tallulah Lifeboat
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.” 
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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!” 
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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"¦”

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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!” 
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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.” 
Vivien Leigh in The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone
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.” 
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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.”
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 Ava Gardner | Maxine Faulk in Night of the Iguana 1964.
HAROLD AND MAUDE, Bud Cort, Ruth Gordon, 1971
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.”

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31. Ma Kate Barker (Shelley Winters) in Bloody Mama 1970: You know that Roger Corman was going to get the BEST woman who didn't give a damn to play Ma Barker, the machine gun-wielding matriarch of a notorious gang of bank robbers. She'll do anything for her boys"¦ Four boys only a mother could love. She’d kill for them! Ma Barker was irreverent and as mean as a bear backed into a beehive. A bold and brazen nature that delves into a whole other level of "˜no fucks given.'  Holding up a bank with her machine gun in hand "Alright everybody now reaches for the nightgown of the lord, REACH!"Â 
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32. Pepe (Grayson Hall) in Satan in High Heels (1962). Pepe is the owner of a posh burlesque house in mod-yet-gritty 60s New York City. Pepe is an incessant smoker and savvy, domineering woman who brings the story about a new ‘singer’ Stacey Kane (Meg Myles) who joins the club, to a boil"” even as she stays as cool as the center seed of a cucumber. Pepe tilts her head sizing up all the various patrons who inhabit her club with just the right mix of aloofness and self-possession as she puffs on her cigarette. She's always ready with the quick lash of her tongue like a world-weary drag queen.  “Bear up, darling, I love your eyelashes.” — “You’ll EAT and DRINK what I SAY until you lose five pounds IN THE PLACES WHERE!”
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33. Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne), The Awful Truth (1937) Before the ink on the divorce papers is dry Jerry (Cary Grant) and Lucy Warriner (Irene Dunne) torture each other and sabotage any chances of either of them getting re-married. Both Lucy and Jerry carry on monologues to themselves throwing out quick-witted repartee so that we can see both sides of the story. One evening, when Jerry is flirting with the idea of marrying into a high society family, Lucy impersonates his sister, playing at it like a cheap bimbo. At one point she does a fabulous drunken Hoochie dance, wiggling around with a provocative sway falling into her ex-husband’s arms in a way that should definitely put a dent in Jerry's plans. Lucy is hell-bent on driving Jerry crazy, yet becomes flustered herself when the tables are turned on her as she tries to carry on with her new fiancé (Ralph Bellamy). Jerry Warriner: “In half an hour, we’ll no longer be Mr. and Mrs. Funny, isn’t it.”  Lucy Warriner: “Yes, it’s funny that everything’s the way it is on account of the way you feel.”  Jerry Warriner: “Huh?”  Lucy Warriner: “Well, I mean, if you didn’t feel that way you do, things wouldn’t be the way they are, would they? I mean, things could be the same if things were different.”  Jerry Warriner: “But things are the way you made them.”  Lucy Warriner: “Oh, no. No, things are the way you think I made them. I didn’t make them that way at all. Things are just the same as they always were, only, you’re the same as you were, too, so I guess things will never be the same again.”

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Ruth and Steve
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.”
Lizabeth Scott and Raymond Burr in Pitfall 1948
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."
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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."
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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.
The Rose Tattoo
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!”
Virginia Woolf Liz
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."

Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss (1965): Part I: “There’ll be no later, this town is clean”

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40. Gloria Wandrous  (Elizabeth Taylor) in Butterfield 8 (1960). Gloria is a fashionable Manhattan beauty who’s part model, part call girl–and all man-trap. She grew up during the Depression and couldn't escape the sexual advances of her uncle. New York City was for her a great escape. Gloria becomes an independent, sexually free woman who wants to get paid for her time. She hits the bottle a lot because she has those dark troubling memories from her past that make her want to drown her thoughts. She winds up meeting a wealthy business executive who's married, Weston Liggett, (Laurence Harvey) instantly he becomes entranced by her. She's thrown off course and headed toward a fateful end because she sees a kindred soul in the disillusioned Liggett who isn't happy in his marriage. Their passion breathes new life into both lonely people. Though we can admire her sexual liberation, in cinema, women in the 60s ultimately had to be punished for their willful freedom, though it's a double standard of course. Liz Taylor is another screen goddess who never shied away from bold & provocative roles. Gloria Wandrous: “Command performances leave me quite cold. I’ve had more fun in the back seat of a ’39 Ford than I could ever have in the vault of the Chase Manhattan Bank.”
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41. Severine Sevigny (Catherine Deneuve) in Belle du Jour (1967) A whole new world opens up to Severine, a repressed housewife married to a doctor when she decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute. While she can not seem to find any pleasure or intimacy with her husband, she blossoms in the brothel run by Madame Anais (Geneviève Page) and adopts a persona that can experiment with her secret desires of being dominated, her sexual appetites flourish during the day, when often she runs into more rough clients. But, sexual freedom has a price and ultimately, a relationship with a volatile and possessive John (Pierre Clémenti) could prove to be dangerous. Severine breaks free of the confines of convention, like marriage, and explores a provocative even deviant kind of sexual behavior. She allows herself to go further and explore the most secret desires by indulging them, it is quite adventurous and risky and Deneuve masters it with a transcendent elegance. Madame Anais: “I have an idea. Would you like to be called “Belle de Jour?”  Séverine Serizy: “Belle de Jour?”  Madame Anais: “Since you only come in the afternoons.”  Séverine Serizy: “If you wish.” 

The Bride Wore Black 1968: Jeanne Moreau… Goddess of the Hunt

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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."
Brigitte Helm Alraune
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.
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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.”

Chapter 3 – Queers and Dykes in the Dark: Classic, Noir & Horror Cinema’s Coded Gay Characters:

Lucille Ball in The Dark Corner
45. Kathleen Stewart- (Lucille Ball) in The Dark Corner (1956) Kathleen Stewart is the always faithful and trustworthy secretary of private investigator Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) She's the right amount of snarky and just a sexy bundle of smarts"¦ Bradford Galt: “You know, I think I’ll fire you and get me a Tahitian secretary.”  Kathleen Stewart: “You won’t like them; those grass skirts are a fire hazard.”  Kathleen just won't quit her boss. She knows he's in trouble and wants to help him face it head-on. She keeps pushing Galt to open up that steel-safe "heart", of his and let her help. Once she's in on the intrigue, she's right there with him, putting her secretarial skills aside and getting into the fray with her love interest/boss. She shows no fear or hesitation, doesn't look down on Galt's past, and is quite a versatile sidekick who really helps him out of a dangerous setup! She’s that other sort of film noir heroine Not quite the "˜good girl' nor a femme fatale. A strong sassy woman who doesn't shy away from danger and when she's in"¦ She's in it ‘for keeps.’ And say"¦ isn't that empowering!. Kathleen tells it like it is, sure she dotes on the down-and-out guy and is the strong shoulder to lean on, whenever things get frenzied or rough. Doesn't make her a sap, it makes her a good friend and companion! Kathleen: “I haven’t worked for you very long, Mr. Galt, but I know when you’re pitching a curve at me, and I always carry a catcher’s mitt.”  Bradford Galt: “No offense. A guy’s got to score, doesn’t he?”  Kathleen: “Not in my league. I don’t play for score, I play for keeps.”
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46. Lady Lu (Mae West) in She Done Him Wrong (1933) In the Gay Nineties, Lady Lu is a voluptuous nightclub owner/singer (she sings-A Guy What Takes His Time) who has men falling all over themselves. One is her ex-lover who just escaped from prison, and a few waiting in the wings. Lu is interested in the handsome Captain Cummings (Cary Grant) who runs the temperance league across the way. Lady Lu loves to be bathed in and dazzled by diamonds, lots of diamonds. But Lu is also determined to seduce missionary Cary Grant… who is more interested in her soul than in her body-Marvelous Mae tells him- “Maybe I ain’t got no soul.” Mae had a hand in creating the woman who didn't give a damn! She gave us the immortal line"¦ “Come up’n see me some time. I’m home every evenin’–“Lady Lou: “Listen when women go wrong, men go right after them.”  Captain Cummings: “Well, surely you don’t mind my holding your hand?”  Lady Lou: “It ain’t heavy – I can hold it myself.” 
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47.  Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret) in Diabolique (1955) Simone Signoret is a torrent of sensuality (Room at the Top 1959, Ship of Fools 1965) Christina Delassalle (Véra Clouzot) plays the wife of a sadistic husband Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) the controlling headmaster at their boarding school for boys. Nicole is the mistress of the cruel Michel, who has formed a special bond with Christina. Nicole incites the timid and weak woman to kill the bastard by drowning him in a bathtub and dumping his body in the school's unused mucky swimming pool. Nicole is determined and forceful in her mission to rid Christine of this abusive beast and the two women go through with the plan.  Nicole Horner: [to Christina] “I won’t have any regrets.”  In short, the pool is drained, and the body isn't there. And then there are numerous eerie sightings of the dead man which eventually drives the murderesses into a panic"¦Â  Is Nicole in on an even more nefarious scheme to drive Christina crazy? For now, the main focus is how Nicole summons a thuggish type of power that is riveting.  What's remarkable about the film, aside from Clouzot's incredible construction of a perfectly unwinding suspense tale, Signoret’s performance exudes grit and an unrelenting audaciousness. Nicole.  Christina Delassalle: “Don’t you believe in Hell?”  Nicole Horner: “Not since I was seven.” 
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48 Mia Farrow is Rosemary Woodhouse in Rosemary's Baby 1968.
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48. Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) in Rosemary's Baby 1968. Rosemary has a fearless defiance in an ordinary world that becomes an unsafe space and a deep well of paranoia. Beyond guarding her body and motherhood against all intruders, Rosemary has an open mind, and a delicate brand of kindness although troubled by a catholic upbringing that haunts her, she is still "˜too good' and too independent to taint. And she winds up taking her life and the life of her baby on her own terms. No one could have manifested the spirit of Rosemary Woodhouse like Mia Farrow. It's an indomitable image of striking resiliency. A heroine who braves an entire secretive cult of devil worshipers entrenched in the high society of NYC. That takes a lot of guts people!"¦ Ruth Gordon as well personifies a meddling old New York busybody who just happens to be a modern-day witch. Minnie Castavet also does what she wants -as she is empowered with her quirky style and her beliefs, as wicked as they may be"¦And her wardrobe is bold, kitschy, and fabulous! Rosemary Woodhouse: “Pain, begone, I will have no more of thee!”
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49. Alexandra Del Lago (Geraldine Page) in Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) Alexandra Del Lago is a decadent, soaked in boozed, and fading film star who is picked up by a drifter by Chance Wayne (Paul Newman) for a tumble in the sheets. He's been trying to break into the film biz for years, and hoping that Alexandra can help him get a screen test. He also wants to be reunited with his old flame Heavenly Finley (Shirley Knight). Chance Wayne: “I had my picture on the cover of Life magazine!… And at the same time, I was… employing my other talent, lovemaking.”  Alexandra Del Lago: “That may be the only talent you were ever truly meant for.” The roles that Geraldine Page would often take were filled with an intellect that transcends the strong female archetype. As Alexandra, she has a unique sort of cynical romanticism that exudes, a bit of alienation, a touch of longing, and a penetrating intensity. She might be a washed-up film star but she's also a philosopher with a grasp of vocalizing the ironies and tragedies of life. She wants to drown her sorrows in liquor so she can escape from the pain of her life, and the uncertainty the future holds. But within that internal tumult is the soul of a great lady. Narcissistic, world-weary, and a spirit stoked by those heartaches.

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
50. Anna Lucasta (Eartha Kitt) (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 just powerful as a woman who made that road her own"¦Â  Danny- “Tell her who Papa is” (speaking about the little carved wooden Haitian idol he's given her) Lester – “That's the model of Agwé the Haitian god of the sea. Seems he's good to sailors” Anna- “Looks like Papa and me’s got something in common"¦”
https://thelastdrivein.com/2011/01/05/phantom-ladyforgotten-cerebral-noir/

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51. Carol Richman (Ella Raines) in Phantom Lady 1944 Carol Richman risks her life to try to find the elusive woman who can prove her boss (Alan Curtis) didn’t murder his wife. The unhappy guy spends a fateful evening with a woman he has picked up in a bar. He doesn't know her name but she wears an unusual hat, which might be a clue for Carol to try and track down. Carol's got so much guts, she puts herself in harm’s way so many times but she's fearless just the same. Even when she meets the super creepy jazz drummer Cliff Milburn, who obviously is manic and might just be a sadist in bed, (if his drumming is any indication.) Plus there's always the deranged sculptor Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) who seems to be a menacing force.  Cliff Milburn (Elisha Cook Jr) “You Like Jive?” Carol "˜Kansas' Richman "You bet, I'm a hep kitten."Â 
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52. Pam Grier is Coffy 1973  Okay okay tho I’m sneaking in past the 1970 cut-off"¦ I'm a woman who doesn't give a damn and nods to one of the greatest ’70s icons"¦ Pam Grier set the pace for strong female heroines that laid the groundwork for all the others to follow… so she gets a nod from me! She plays a nurse who becomes a vigilante in order to get justice against the inner-city drug dealers who are responsible for her sister's overdose"¦ Coffy sets the bar high for strong female characters who wouldn't back down, and who possessed a strength that is meteoric and a force to be reckoned with. A beautiful, resourceful, intelligent -a strikingly irrepressible image that will remain in the cultural consciousness for an eternity. Arturo Vitroni: “Crawl, n*gger!” Coffy: [pulls out gun] “You want me to crawl, white mother fucker?” Arturo Vitroni: “What’re you doing? Put that down.” Coffy: “You want to spit on me and make me crawl? I’m gonna piss on your grave tomorrow.”
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53. 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 girl starved for new adventures, longing for something exciting to happen, to stir up her life. Careful what you wish for"¦ She's 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 (Patricia Collinge) younger brother is actually a sadistic serial killer who preys on rich widows by marrying them, then strangling them! He's so charming and charismatic that women can't help being drawn to him. But young Charlie begins to see through his facade. Why would he cut out the news headline in the paper about a murderer who kills rich women? It all begins to take shape, and unfortunately, Uncle Charlie can't afford to have his favorite niece spill the beans.  What's remarkable about young Charlie is that for a girl who fantasizes and indulges herself in things of a more romantic nature, she's pretty darn brave in the self-preservation department since no one else in the family believes her suspicions that he's The Merry Widow killer. And she might just have to go rogue and wind up killing him in self-defense"¦ Young Charlie: “Go away, I’m warning you. Go away or I’ll kill you myself. See… that’s the way I feel about you.”
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Constance Towers & Virginia Gray.

Sam Fuller’s The Naked Kiss (1965): Part I: “There’ll be no later, this town is clean”

Constance Towers The Naked Kiss
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!"

Grande Dame/Guignol Cinema: Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema Part V: Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964 “You’re my favorite living mystery” “Have you ever solved me?”

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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.”

Continue reading “Enduring Empowerment : Women Who didn’t Give a Damn! …in Silent & Classic film!” →

Film Noir ♥ Transgressions Into the Cultural Cinematic Gutter: From Shadowland to Psychotronic Playground

"Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways."
"• Sigmund Freud

"Ladies and gentlemen- welcome to violence; the word and the act. While violence cloaks itself in a plethora of disguises, its favorite mantle still remains sex." "” Narrator from Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965).

Faster Pussycat
Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams in Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! 1965
Cul-de-Sac
Françoise Dorléac and Donald Pleasence in Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac 1966.
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Constance Towers kicks the crap out of her pimp for shaving off her hair in Sam Fuller’s provocative The Naked Kiss 1964.
Shock Corridor
Peter Breck plays a journalist hungry for a story and gets more than a jolt of reality when he goes undercover in a Mental Institution in Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor 1963.
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Bobby Darin is a psychotic racist in Hubert Cornfield and Stanley Kramer’s explosive Pressure Point 1962 starring Sidney Poitier and Peter Falk.

THE DARK PAGES NEWSLETTER  a condensed article was featured in The Dark Pages: You can click on the link for all back issues or to sign up for upcoming issues to this wonderful newsletter for all your noir needs!

Constance Towers as Kelly from The Naked Kiss (1964): “I saw a broken down piece of machinery. Nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle for the rest of my life. That’s what I saw.”

Griff (Anthony Eisley) The Naked Kiss (1964): “Your body is your only passport!”

Catherine Deneuve as Carole Ledoux in Repulsion (1965): “I must get this crack mended.”

Monty Clift Dr. Cukrowicz Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) : “Nature is not made in the image of man’s compassion.”

Patricia Morán as Rita Ugalde: The Exterminating Angel 1962:“I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.”

Ann Baxter as Teresina Vidaverri Walk on the Wild Side 1962—“When People are Kind to each other why do they have to find a dirty word for it.”

The Naked Venus 1959–"I repeat she is a gold digger! Europe's full of them, they're tramps"¦ they'll do anything to get a man. They even pose in the NUDE!!!!”

Darren McGavin as Louie–The Man With the Golden Arm (1955): “The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn.”

Baby Boy Franky Buono-Blast of Silence (1961) “The targets names is Troiano, you know the type, second string syndicate boss with too much ambition and a mustache to hide the facts he’s got lips like a woman… the kind of face you hate!”

Lorna (1964)- “Thy form is fair to look upon, but thy heart is filled with carcasses and dead man’s bones.”

Peter Fonda as Stephen Evshevsky in Lilith (1964): “How wonderful I feel when I’m happy. Do you think that insanity could be so simple a thing as unhappiness?”

Glen or Glenda (1953)– “Give this man satin undies, a dress, a sweater and a skirt, or even a lounging outfit and he’s the happiest individual in the world.”

Glen or Glenda
Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda 1953

Johnny Cash as Johnny Cabot in Five Minutes to Live (1961):“I like a messy bed.”

Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) Island of Lost Souls: “Do you know what it means to feel like God?”

The Curious Dr. Humpp (1969): “Sex dominates the world! And now, I dominate sex!”

The Snake Pit (1948): Jacqueline deWit as Celia Sommerville “And we’re so crowded already. I just don’t know where it’s all gonna end!” Olivia de Havilland as Virginia Stuart Cunningham “I’ll tell you where it’s gonna end, Miss Somerville… When there are more sick ones than well ones, the sick ones will lock the well ones up.”

Delphine Seyrig as Countess Bathory in Daughters of Darkness (1971)– “Aren’t those crimes horrifying. And yet -so fascinating!”

Julien Gulomar as Bishop Daisy to the Barber (Michel Serrault) King of Hearts (1966)–“I was so young. I already knew that to love the world you have to get away from it.”

The Killing of Sister George (1968) -Suzanna York as Alice ‘CHILDIE’: “Not all women are raving bloody lesbians, you know” Beryl Reid as George: “That is a misfortune I am perfectly well aware of!”

The Killing of Sister George
Susannah York (right) with Beryl Reid in The Killing of Sister George Susannah York and Beryl Reid in Robert Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George 1960.

The Lickerish Quartet (1970)–“You can’t get blood out of an illusion.”

THE SWEET SOUND OF DEATH (1965)– Dominique-“I’m attracted” Pablo-” To Bullfights?” Dominique-” No, I meant to death. I’ve always thought it… The state of perfection for all men.”

Peter O’Toole as Sir Charles Ferguson Brotherly Love (1970): “Remember the nice things. Reared in exile by a card-cheating, scandal ruined daddy. A mummy who gave us gin for milk. Ours was such a beautifully disgusting childhood.”

Maximillian Schell as Stanislaus Pilgrin in Return From The Ashes 1965: “If there is no God, no devil, no heaven, no hell, and no immortality, then anything is permissible.”

Euripides 425 B.C.–“Whom God wishes to destroy… he first makes mad.”

Davis & Crawford What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Bette Davis and Joan Crawford bring to life two of the most outrageously memorable characters in Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 1962.

WHAT DOES PSYCHOTRONIC MEAN?

psychotronic |ˌsīkəˈtränik| adjective denoting or relating to a genre of movies, typically with a science fiction, horror, or fantasy theme, that were made on a low budget or poorly received by critics. [the 1980s: coined in this sense by Michael Weldon, who edited a weekly New York guide to the best and worst films on local television.] Source: Wikipedia

In the scope of these transitioning often radical films, where once, men and women aspired for the moon and the stars and the whole ball of wax. in the newer scheme of things they aspired for you know"¦ "kicks" Yes that word comes up in every film from the 50s and 60s"¦ I'd like to have a buck for every time a character opines that collective craving… from juvenile delinquent to smarmy jet setter!

FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…

THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NOWHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!

I just got myself this collection of goodies from Something Weird!

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There’s even this dvd that points to the connection between the two genres – Here it’s labeled WEIRD. I like transgressive… They all sort of have a whiff of noir.
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Grayson Hall -Satan in High Heels 1962.
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Gerd Oswald adapts Fredrick Brown’s titillating novel — bringing to the screen the gorgeous Anita Ekberg, Phillip Carey, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Harry Townes in the sensational, obscure, and psycho-sexual thriller Screaming Mimi 1958.
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Victor Buono is a deranged mama’s boy in Burt Topper’s fabulous The Strangler 1964.
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Catherine Deneuve is extraordinary as the unhinged nymph in Roman Polanski’s psycho-sexual tale of growing madness in Repulsion 1965.

Just like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, Noir took a journey through an even darker lens"¦ Out of the shadows of 40s Noir cinema, European New Wave, fringe directors, and Hollywood auteurs brought more violent, sexual, transgressive, and socially transformative narratives into the cold light of day with a creeping sense of verité. While Film Noir pushed the boundaries of taboo subject matter and familiar Hollywood archetypes it wasn't until later that we are able to visualize the advancement of transgressive topics.

Continue reading “Film Noir ♥ Transgressions Into the Cultural Cinematic Gutter: From Shadowland to Psychotronic Playground” →

The Unknown (1927) Lon Chaney- “Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!”

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“Ancient traditions, when tested by the severe processes if modern investigation, commonly enough fade away into mere dream; but it is singular how often the dream turns out to have been a half-waking one, presaging a reality.”
-T.H.Huxley; The Book of Beast

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“Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!” –Nanon Zanzi

or… Mad Love Among the Limbless!

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Lon Chaney Sr as Alonso the Armless

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Directed by Tod Browning

Screenplay by Waldemar Young, (Island of Lost Souls 1932). Story by Tod Browning, based on a novel by Mary Roberts Rindhart. (The Bat 1959). Cinematography byMerritt B. Gerstad  (Watch on the Rhine 1943). Edited by Harry Reynolds, & Errol Taggart. Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons & Richard Day (On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire) and Lucia Coulter, wardrobe.

Cast: Lon Chaney immortalizes the role of Alonzo the Armless, Joan Crawford plays Nanon Zanzi Norman Kerry plays the strongman Malabar, John George is Alonzo’s side-kick Cojo, Frank Lanning as Costra. Nick De Ruiz as circus owner and Nanon’s ruthless father, Zanzi.

The Unknown is a beautifully disturbing film that gains a savage momentum the more you peer into the face of it’s ugly story. As writer/historian David J. Skal states of the stage contraption at the film’s climax “the Unknown itself is a perfectly constructed torture machine and arguably Browning’s most accomplished film.”

I’d like to use the term “gothic embodiment” from Lena WÃ¥nggren‘s May 22, 2013 article Gothic Embodiment: Lon Chaney and Affective amputation because of her astute insight of the overreaching theme of The Unknown which taps into the fear of castration and the horrific aspect to this bizarrely sensational L’amour Fou, that which is both grim and grotesque.

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Chaney and Crawford.
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Alonzo and Cojo enter the operating room. The sterile environment envelopes the two men.

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Alonzo blackmails the surgeon for the mob into amputating both his arms. Showing him his signature double thumbs.

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For me, it was an unnerving, disquieting piece of the puzzle when I first watched Alonzo enter the stark surgical room to blackmail the surgeon into amputating both his arms and thereby cutting off his ability to embrace Nanon, his arms an extension of his entire male body. The castration anxiety was fulfilled.

WÃ¥nggren asks what is a Gothic body? Here she cites a few examples-

“Various scholars have theorized Gothic embodiment and physical difference in Gothic works, such as Judith Halberstam's Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (1995) Recently, the collection Demons of the Body and Mind: Essays on Disability in Gothic Literature (2010), edited by Ruth Bienstock Anolik, fruitfully employs the framework of disability studies to study monstrosity in the Gothic. The collected essays focus on the ways in which Gothic texts respond to "˜human beings who are figured as inhuman because they do not align with the physical or mental standards of their society'.

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The beautiful Joan Crawford all of eighteen and Lon Chaney Sr in Tod Browning’s striking disturbing The Unknown 1927

Lon Chaney has inhabited so many memorable roles with the use of theatrically exaggerated Gothic embodiment or characters who are ‘other’ on screen. What quickly comes to mind of course is Erik in Phantom of the Opera or Quasimodo in 1925 as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and of course the cruel yet redemptive Phrozo in The Penalty.

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Lon Chaney as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Chaney possessed the ability to express his innermost desires not only through an intuitively emotional expressiveness, alongside his elaborate make-up, he also possessed the commanding physicality his roles put on his body.

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Alonzo the Armless showing his arms

Chaney was heavily inspired by clowns as a young man, being fascinated by the duality of their personae. Alonzo is a particularly complex character as Chaney offers us with most of his performances, a man who can be simultaneously loathed and yet often wears a strata of sympathetic layers as we see into his intricate psyche, a sympathetic yet hateful man. Alonzo is a violent misanthrope yet he finds a tenderness in his love for Nanon ironically a woman who repels any love from men. The duality of the character exists in this… Chaney deftly balances his ill-spirited belligerence toward the world and his internal emotionalism for the object of his love, the elusive and troubled Nanon.

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Side-Kick Cojo is the only one privy to Alonzo’s secret identity hiding out in the gypsy circus and the fact that he does in fact have two good arms

Chaney is drawn to these roles like moths to the flame of men who suffer their difference at the hands of societal norms, exacting a sort of rule of vengeance, while completely cruel he still manages to convey a deep and abiding pathos.

In one of my other favorite performances of his, he brings to life the complex Blizzard in The Penalty 1920. Both legs had been amputated as a child by an inept surgeon. This sets his character’s trajectory off into a cruel space, one of abuse and a life of crime due to the hardship he endured by being an amputee.

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a scene from the hat factory Chaney as the cruel Blizzard in The Penalty

He is referred to by his foes as ‘the cripple from hell’. Blizzard’s pursuit is to exact revenge on the man who left him a cripple, and the absolute objectification of evil. Blizzard’s body has been left imperfect, filling him with a taste for vengeance for those ‘mangled years’ of his childhood. Years of being forced to live with his ‘physical difference.’

It is this desire for retribution that drives the narrative so strongly. In this narrative of Gothic difference through the embodiment of amputation, Blizzard conceives of a grotesque way of punishing this doctor by having the doctor amputate the legs of the daughter’s fiance, then attach them to his own body.

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Ethel Grey Terry and Lon Chaney in The Penalty 1920-Chaney wearing fitted leather stumps that were painful in order to hide his legs.

While Chaney’s performance as Blizzard the criminal mastermind does create a compelling set of nuances with his character as the criminally insane boy grown out of years of resentment and lust for revenge, it is his performance as Alonzo that truly hits the mark for me.

The Unknown creates a bizarre romantic notion that Alonzo the Armless can choose to have his arms removed for the object of his desire Nanon which elevates this Gothic Embodiment into the realm of what our contemporary critics and filmmakers like David Cronenberg would call ‘body horror.’

Alonzo is also maliciously encouraged by his minion Cojo who acts like a devil imp, egging Alonzo down a more dangerous path of self-destruction. As many classical horror films make use of the expressly contemptuous ‘little’ evil side-kick as nefarious as the monster themselves.

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Cojo is the personification of the characteristic little evil side kick
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Cojo reminds Alonzo that he doesn’t have to use his feet in private to do all the things he can do with his two good hands

The idea that Nanon (Joan Crawford) suffers from a carnal phobia of having anyone touch her is a vastly more complex and grotesquely misshapen love story than that of The Penalty. The circus performer named Alonzo the Armless goes to the extremes of amputation so that Joan Crawford’s character Nanon won’t feel threatened by his touch.

Ironically he is rejected at the end of this queasy and quite grim story of unrequited love that turns in on itself.

The Unknown can be considered an allegory of sexual repression and traumatized masculinity. Going all Freudian on the film one could relate the act of Alonzo’s amputation to that which is symbolic of Freud’s castration anxiety.

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Professor & Author Rick Worland refers to The Unknown and the idea of Alonzo’s amputation both faked and eventually actualized as “fantastic work of psycho-sexual grotesquerie’ it’s amputation plot presenting a ‘fever dream of phallic symbolism, castration anxiety and sexual terror.”

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Alonzo has rendered himself virtually impotent in a sexual way in order to satisfy Nanon’s need to be untouched.

Essentially the idea of Gothic Embodiment and the fetishistic use of amputation in a psycho-sexual context can not overlook the idea of the act of simple ‘touch.’ The idea of Gothic Embodiment or ‘difference’ is inextricably linked to the act of touching and therefore an indirect link to frustrated intimacy. The human hands best embody this dual nature of touching and the sense of ‘feeling’ Both explore that which we touch and act as the tool in which to explore or express one’s emotions in kind with another human. What I’d like to call, ‘body dialogue.’

The Unknown released by MGM in 1927 and directed by Tod Browning in the horror genre popularly known for (Dracula 1931, & Freaks 1932) takes place at Antonio Zanzi’s ‘gypsy circus’ in old Madrid. The story involves a bizarre love triangle between circus folk Alonzo the Armless (Lon Chaney) Nanon Zanzi (Joan Crawford) and Strongman Malabar the Mighty (Norman Kerry) Alonzo uses his feet to fire guns and throw knives at Nanon.

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The circus act itself is a destructive spectacle of masochism as Nanon Zanzi assists Alonzo in his death-defying act. Nanon is the daughter of the circus owner Antonio Zanzi. Alonzo secretly desires Nanon. As part of their dangerously erotic act that resembles contact, furthermore penetration, but only in its flare for tease and excitement, the moving target Nanon is strapped to a board that spins. With each shot of the gun, the bullets remove one more article of Nanon’s clothes. Next with his feet, Alonzo throws the penetrating knives that outline Nanon’s bikini-clad body perfectly.

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Alonzo the Armless – the devil to his left side.

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Alonzo the Armless can use shotguns to fire bullets that disrobe the beautiful Nanon.

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Alonzo is described by the circus owner as "˜the sensation of sensations!', and as the "˜wonder of wonders!'

Chaney collaborated with real-life armless double Paul Dismute whose dexterity in the remarkable scenes where he uses his feet to handle objects such as strumming guitars, pouring wine, throwing knives, or lighting cigarettes. Within the shot frame, Tod Browning and cinematographer Merritt Gerstad (who also worked on Freaks) would use Chaney’s upper body and face. It was a brilliant use of body choreography and timing to give the illusion that Chaney was manipulating these objects by himself, while Dismute remained off-camera handling the objects.

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Here are some selected critiques of the film cited in Dark Carnival the secret world of Tod Browning David J. Skal & Elias Savada Chapter- "Murderous Midgets, crippled thieves…"

“Reflecting the growing public alarm over the moral tone of films in the late twenties The Unknown was the first film to be frankly and aggressively attacked in the press for it’s melodramatic  morbidity.” The New York Sun assured readers that “the suspicion that the picture might have been written by Nero, directed by Lucretia Borgia, constructed by the shade of Edgar Allan Poe and lighted by a well-known vivisectionist was absolutely groundless…. The Sun admitted that The Unknown “may be just what the public wants. If it is- well, the good old days of the Roman Empire are upon us” The New York Daily Mirror suggested that “if you like to tear butterflies apart and see sausage made you may like the climax to The Unknown. … typical Chaney fare spiced with cannibalism and flavored with the Spanish Inquisition.”

The New York Evening Post observed that “Mr Chaney has been twisting joints and lacing himself into strait-jackets for a long time- so long, in fact that there is almost nothing left for him now but the Headless Horseman. The Evening Post called The Unknown ‘a remarkably unpleasant picture.{…} a visit to the dissecting room in a hospital would be quite as pleasant and at the same time more instructive.”

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Flesh and Blood- Lon Chaney

Richard Watts Jr of The New York Herald Tribune said of the film, “The case of Mr. Tod Browning is rapidly approaching the pathological. After a series of minor horrors that featured such comparatively respectable creations as murderous midgets, crippled thieves and poisonous reptiles, all sinister and deadly in a murky atmosphere of blackness and unholy doom… the director presents us now with a melodrama that might have been made from a scenario dashed off by the Messrs. Leopold and Loeb in a quiet moment”

Watts conceded that given cinema otherwise so completely devoted to red blooded values and ‘general aggressive cleanliness’ films of the sort Browning championed might provide a ‘valuable counteracting influence” Obviously he felt repulsed by The Unknown.

The conservative Harrison’s Reports wrote “One can imagine a moral pervert of the present day, or professional torturers of the times of the Spanish Inquisition that gloated over the miseries of their victims on the rack and over their roasting on hot iron bars enjoying screen details of the kind set forth in The Unknown. but it is difficult to fancy average men and women of a modern audience in this enlightened age being entertained by such a thoroughly fiendish mingling of bloodlust, cruelty and horrors. … Of Mr. Chaney’s acting it is enough to say it is excellent of it’s kind. Similar praise might well be given the work of a skilled surgeon in ripping open the abdomen of a patient. But who wants to see him do it?”

There does seem to be a Sadomasochistic tone pervading Browning/Chaney collaborations that begs the question about their private machinations that collaboratively generated such cruel public spectacles.

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Joan Crawford eighteen at the time recalled Chaney’s ordeal with wearing the leather harness as agonizing a self punishing behavior. Mr Browning would say to him “Lon, don’t you want me to untie your arms?” ‘No, the pain I am in enduring now will help with the scene. Let’s go!” That’s how he was able to “convey such realism” and emotional agony that made it shocking and fascinating.“Chaney projected the image of physical suffering as both the definition and price of his stardom; exactly why he chose to is not so clear and since he left no revealing journals or correspondence on the matter, may forever remain obscure” Crawford said about Chaney, “When he acted, it was if God were working, he had such profound concentration. It was then I became aware for the first time of the difference between standing in front of a camera, and acting.”

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on the set of The Unknown

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"˜Armless Wonders' were among the most spectacular and well-paid performers in turn-of-the-century American freak shows who would perform tasks and feats (no pun intended) to entertain the onlookers.

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Violetta the limbless beauty.
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Frances Belle O’Conner was featured in Freaks.

While Freud had his pseudoscience fix for every mental ailment boasted, but discontents but Tod Browning favored themes of a visceral sexually charged plot surrounding resentment and revenge. He screened overt manipulation of disturbing sexual symbolism in order to shock his audience into consciousness. The threat of castration is a particularly violent notion and repressed emotional impulse. Freud's Uncanny (which I seem to love films that echo this work), the idea of disembodied limbs, severed heads, and hands cut off at the wrists all have something particularly uncanny about them. Especially when they are shown as capable of independent movement. It all springs from the castration complex. Browning's fascination with sexually motivated mutilation, like that of Cleopatra being turned into a chicken or ‘duck’ lady in Freaks annihilating her beauty, that quality which she used to lure Hans.

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Olga Baclanova as Cleopatra the trapeze beauty turned into the Chicken Lady by the avenging Freaks

In Freaks was Francis the armless woman, and actually there were two armless girls- Martha Morris and Francis O’Conner. Richard Watts Jr film critic for the New York Herald Tribune said of Browning- "Browning is the combination of Edgar Allan Poe and Sax Rohmer of the cinema. Where every director save Stroheim, breathes wholesomeness. out-of-door freshness and the healthiness of the clean-limbed, Tod revels in murkiness… His cinematic mind is a creeping torture chamber, a place of darkness, deviousness, and death."

After Freaks, "In Browning's next project, the Freudian theory would be bizarrely literalized into a weird and spectacular circus attraction Based on an original story by Browning. Alonzo the Armless was a vehicle for Lon Chaney that would prove to be one of the darkest carnivals of the entire Browning canon."

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Boxing Helena is a 1993 modern-day grotesquely romantic melodrama that debuted by director Jennifer Chambers Lynch, (daughter of David Lynch) Utilizing the mechanism of amputation as what I’ll call ‘seductive symbology’. The film stars Julian Sands and Sherilyn Fenn as the object of his desire a surgeon who will keep his love closest to him by any means.

David Lynch’s Daughter did an incredible job of blindsiding my expectations of horror while utilizing an outre grotesque bit of violent eroticism with Surveillance (2008) coming a long way off from Boxing Helena which initially I thought was a woman’s pugilist film, much to my surprise and stomach-turning angst. The scene in Surveillance where the little girl in pajamas is wandering the desert I believe is more than a coincidental great nod to the scene in THEM (1954). Lynch’s work has some truly dynamic horror moments… I can’t say more about the film without giving away some of the ingenious plot twists and mechanisms. Another modern classic that is reminiscent in its use of eroticism conflated with amputation is Alejandro Jodorwosky’s masterpiece Santa Sangre 1989. The Gothic Embodiment again takes place in a traveling circus and showcases the sexualization of Concha’s violent amputation of both her arms by her volatile sword-throwing philandering Neanderthal husband played by Guy Stockwell. Where the crossover imagining of mythos and psycho-sexual stimulation of violence and armless saints blend into a nightmarish wander-land for the son Fenix.

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Guy Stockwell in Alejandro Jodorwosky’s Santa Sangre
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the illusory masterpiece that is Santa Sangre

The Unknown is a profoundly bizarre love triangle with the sense and symbolism of touch tethering the players together in an immortal context of specific reliance on the importance of contact. Using Nanon’s abject horror of being touched and her repulsion of the male physique. Hands and arms are the active normative use of the physical expression of intimacy at odds with the difference of Gothic embodiment. To the extent that Alonzo is willing to ‘castrate’ himself in order to possess Nanon fully.


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This is how the opening title goes. We are placed down into an altered world of reality and the fantastical lifestyle of circus life.circus

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The circus features an armless entertainer named Alonzo. He is a knife thrower who could split the hairs on two flies dancing in unison. His claim to fame is that he handles both bullets and blades with his bare feet. In the film's opening scene, Alonzo performs showing confidence of his perfect aim by flinging phallic knives at his beautiful assistant Nanon who is at the receiving end of his knife throwing while seated on a rotating platform. With each delivery, he picks off one more article of Nanon's clothing that dangles there boasting of his sexual competence. Through this performance, Alonzo can sublimate his own feverish sexual urges for Nanon.

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The secret lies in the fact that Alonzo actually does have two strong capable arms, a fact that only his dwarf assistant Cojo (John George) is privy to. Each day Cojo laces Alonzo into a punishing leather corset. Alonzo dons this apparatus to create the appearance of amputation. A disguise he perpetuates because he is on the run from the law, and it also brings him closer to the object of his fixation the beautiful but sexually constrained Nanon. Nanon is consumed with a phobia surrounding the male anatomy, in particular their hands. She is repulsed by men's upper extremities, "Men! The beasts! God would show wisdom if he took the hands from all of them!"

Although Alonzo possesses arms, he does exhibit a freakish anomaly as he possesses a double thumb on one hand. In the original story, Browning and screenwriter Waldemar Young had envisioned a claw as his deformity. But the phallic charge of the double thumb is more in keeping with the influence Freud's The Uncanny had made on cinema.  According to writer/historians Skal & Savada "˜doubling' is viewed by Freud as an imaginative defense against the feared loss of the self, or a part of the self.

Alonzo suffers in silence over his immortal love for Nanon, keeping their relationship strictly platonic, he still attracts negative attention from Nanon's father the circus owner. On a dark and rainy night, Alonzo strangles the man, as Nanon peers outside her window yet does not see the killer's face. The one thing that she does notice is the unmistakable double thumbs as it grips her father's throat.

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While Alonzo quietly broods over his unrequited love, the strong man Malabar (Norman Kerry) pursues her with all the traditional male prowess of a proud peacock. Of course, this sends Alonzo into fits of irrational jealousy. He blackmails a surgeon into actually removing his arms so that Nanon would assuredly run to him being the safe male.

Malabar’s sexual advances only push Nanon closer to Alonzo’s friendship. But Alonzo’s sidekick Cojo ( John George whom Browning used several times throughout his career) warns his friend that he shouldn’t let Nanon get so close as to be able to feel that he truly does have arms that are strapped down.

But when he returns to the circus after the surgery he discovers that Nanon has miraculously overcome her fear of manly chests, bulging muscles, and arms with which to hold her in ecstatic embrace. And the two are also engaged.

There is a sad ironic scene when Nanon asks Alonzo if he is thinner before she tells him of her love for Malabar. The moment is filled with a typical Tod Browning sense of timely perversity misdirection and emotional pain.

She declares to her old friend that she even LOVES Malabar's hands: "˜Remember how I used to be afraid of his hands? "¦ I am not anymore. I love them now.'

I'll leave the climax to those who haven't seen this violently intoxicating film yet.

The film is filled with cruelty, irony, and obsession. While the story is more like a wickedly grotesque fairytale it observes a journey of its own nightmarish reasoning but intricate as it is repulsive.

What is Nanon’s strange and horrible fixation on men’s hands? She is terrified by the thought of their hands on her!

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"˜Alonzo, all my life men have tried to put their beastly hands on me"¦ to paw over me.'

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Malabar approaches Nanon.

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She has "˜grown so that [she] shrink[s] with fear when any man touches [her]"˜ with their "˜beastly hands'. Nanon's fear becomes apparent when she is courted by the circus weight-lifter or strongman Malabar.

When Malabar boasts to Nanon of incredible strength, flexing his arm muscles and grabbing at her hands and her wrists while telling her of how his "˜hands that long to caress you', Nanon struggles to get away experiencing sheer terror.

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What frightens her more is the ‘ideal’ of Malabar’s physique. To Nanon, the object of Gothic horror seems to be the normative body, and strangely enough not the body is emphasized as different. Malabar’s body encompasses an extremely forceful ideal of the masculine body.

Nanon is traumatized by Malabar’s aggressive touch and grasping hands. She finds him abhorrent "˜Hands! Men's hands! How I hate them!', and indeed wishes that "˜God would "¦ [take] the hands from all of them'.

She finds comfort in Alonzo who poses no threat to her as he has no arms or hands that can either challenge her desire or harm her.

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the surgeon has no choice but to do Alonzo’s gruesome bidding.

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Nanon tells Alonzo that he feels thinner.

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Norman Kerry and Joan Crawford in Tod Browning’s The Unknown Nanon finally embrace Malabar’s hands.

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The Unknown (1927)-The Armless Wonder.

By MORDAUNT HALL.
Published: June 13, 1927

“Although it has strength and undoubtedly sustains the interest, “The Unknown,” the latest screen contribution from Tod Browning and Lon Chaney, is anything but a pleasant story. It is gruesome and at times shocking, and the principal character deteriorates from a more or less sympathetic individual to an arch-fiend. The narrative is a sort of mixture of Balzac and Guy de Maupassant with a faint suggestion of O. Henry plus Mr. Browning’s colorful side-show background.{…}

“The rôle of Alonzo, who poses as the Armless Wonder with a Spanish circus, is one that ought to have satisfied Mr. Chaney’s penchant for freakish characterizations, for here he not only has to go about for hours with his arms strapped to his body…{…}

“This tale is prefaced as if it were a circus legend, and soon one realizes that Alonzo is not only expert in the use of his feet when serving himself, but he is also supposed to be a crack shot and an unerring knife thrower. The girl who risks her life daily before Alonzo’s bullets and knives is Estrellita, impersonated by Joan Crawford. She becomes interested in Alonzo because most men in the circus without provocation invariably want to caress her.”

Revisiting Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Part II ” I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire!”

As part of the Dynamic Duos of Classic Film Blogathon hosted by Once upon a screen… and Classic Movie Hub

Joan and Bette

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.” - Publisher’s Weekly

Bette Davis on Joan Crawford: “Her eyebrows are like ‘African caterpillars’ and her best performance was "Crawford being Crawford."

Joan Crawford on Bette Davis: "She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that."

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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.

Bette Davis, photographed by Maurice Goldberg in 1935 for Vanity Fair
Bette Davis, photographed by Maurice Goldberg in 1935 for Vanity Fair.
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the gorgeous Joan Crawford.

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.

Bette and Joan on the set of Baby Jane

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. 

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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.

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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.”

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Crawford and Tone
Crawford and Tone

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.

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Bette Davis and Franchot Tone in Dangerous ’35.

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.

Tone and Crawford
Franchot Tone and Joan Crawford.

“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

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Franchot Tone and Joan Crawford-a dynamic couple.

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.”

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"Joan Crawford and I have never been warm friends. We are not simpatico. I admire her, and yet I feel uncomfortable with her. To me, she is the personification of the Movie Star. I have always felt her greatest performance is Crawford being Crawford."

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

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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.

Joan accepts oscar for Anne Bancroft

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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!”

Joan accepts the oscar for Bancroft

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.

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“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

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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.

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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.

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Davis & Crawford on the set of Baby Jane.
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Davis & Crawford on the set of Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte with Aldrich.

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.

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“I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she was on fire.”

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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.

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Bette Davis and George Arliss’s The Man Who Played God.

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.

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Crawford before her legendary eyebrows took over her face.
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Bette and those big beautiful blues.

Continue reading “Revisiting Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema: Part II ” I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire!”” →