British-born redhead Jane Asher started out as a child actress who worked extensively in television and film. Her contribution to the horror genre is that of her character, Francesca the unflinching heroine peasant girl who out of six is the only one to survive the plague and begs Prospero to spare her father and brother. She is thrust into the hedonistic Danse Macabre of the castle, as Prospero’s unwilling mistress, in Edgar Allan Poe’s story directed by Roger Corman THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 1964.
From Roger Corman’s How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime –
“Masque was the most lavish of the Poe films…(part of what made the film so visually stunning with it’s vibrant color scheme is the work of cinematographer by Nicholas Roeg)
Masque was a surreal, philosophical tale set in medieval Italy with Vincent Price playing Prince Prospero, a sadistic debauched Satan worshipper who retreats into his castle and hosts a lavishly decadent ball as his land is ravaged by the Red Death…{…} I had started going out with my Masque leading lady, Jane Asher, and we were having coffee on a Friday. But Jane showed up with a young companion. “Roger”, she said, “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine from Liverpool, Paul McCartney. Paul’s never been on a movie set and he’d like to see what’s happening.” … Jane had been dating Paul but because he was constantly away on tour, she was seeing me in London.” -Roger Corman
She was Paul McCartney’s muse for much of the 1960s; “Here, There And Everywhere” and many other songs were written with Jane in mind. They were engaged for seven months until finally separating in July 1968. -IMDb tidbit
She appeared in the television series – Journey to the Unknown 1968 episode Somewhere in the Crowd. And went on to star in the psychological thriller Deep End 1970, The Buttercup Chain 1970, and the television movie, The Stone Tape 1972. Most notable is her performance in the major motion picture Alfie 1966 co-starring with Michael Caine. IMDb tidbit-By the time she was fifteen, she had appeared in 8 films, made 9 television appearances, over 100 radio appearances, and was in five plays-
Personal quote – “Of all the things I do, acting is the thing that grabs most, but there’s another level on which it strikes me as being a little silly. In the end you’re dressing up and deciding to be somebody.”
British actress noted for her perfect diction and for her excellent acting range in classical plays on stage, on television, and on radio. Her contribution to the 60s horror genre is her marvelous performance as Mrs. Stephens in Michael Powell’s subversive Peeping Tom, who can see Mark Lewis’ psychopathic personality clearly though she is blind. She has the instinct to feel that she and her daughter are in terrible danger.
Peeping Tom 1960, The Brain 1962, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed 1969.
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
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, Steeleās 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, thereās no disputing she is the ultimate scream queen.
The Italian movie industry of the 1960s saw a wave of Italian gothic chillers. Bavaās Blood and Black Lace 1964 is best remembered as the first āGialloā a particularly savage trademark of murder mysteries.
Riccardo Freda directed The Horrible Dr. Hichcock 1962 and The Ghost 1963, Margheritiās beautifully orchestrated, eerily atmospheric ghost story Castle of Blood and Cianoās 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 Hallerās 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 Satanās bride in Red Death.
Corman established himself as a successful director with his landscapes as Rodrick Usher says are a āfeverish and deranged mindā with his colorful more substantial yet still low-budget homages to Poeās 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.
Womenās 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 Draculaās 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 Clouzotās le Diabolique 1955 and impressed by William Castleās 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 screenās new boogeyman. Yet Marionās ascendancy is as much a major element of the narrative as Norman Batesā psychopathy!
Hitchcock offered us the bold cautionary, The Birds, a film Fellini referred to as āan apocalyptic poemā featuring a beautiful woman perceived as a she-devil that ushered in the natural worldās revolt.
FROM BARBARA CREED THE MONSTROUS FEMININE:
āMelanie 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.ā
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 Leighās bra and slip. Leighās 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. Iāll 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 Aldrichās 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 Hushā¦ 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 Harringtonās Whatās the Matter with Helen? A personal favorite of mine.
The second wave of the feminist movement and its emergence and impact began with Betty Friedanās The Feminine Mystique, giving 50s suburban housewives a different vision of domestic enslavement and began to disassemble the myth of that decadeās 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 inā¦ the horror genre.
“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 husbandsā 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 Wisesā 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 Franjuās 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 Claytonās adaptation of Henry Jamesā The Turn of the Screw, became a screenplay by William Archibald, The Innocents 1961ā lead actress Deborah Kerr lies wide open with her distillation of a woman tortured by her sexual paranoia. Dressed in classical clothes, unlike Deneuveās role in Repulsion, where her character Carolās 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 Polanskiās Rosemaryās Baby 1968. Farrowās performance is a striking denunciation of control over womenās bodies, a slow burn of paranoia, and a strong instinct for survival.
ābut 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. Guyās taking control assuages the fear of women gaining too much independence.ā –From Jenna Labbie damsels in Distress Analyzing gender in horror movies of the 1960s and 70s
Polanskiās earlier released Repulsion 1965 strayed from Hitchcockās 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 Hitchcockās Psycho, Repulsion brushes the screen with strokes of Carolās existential misery.
Michael Powellās 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 Brainiac1961, and The Witchās Mirror 1962, featuring strong female-centric characters played by Rosita Arenas and Rita Macedo. And in Jack Hillās 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 Coppolaās Dementia 13 as the independent yet ruthless Louise Halloran and as prostitute Sylvia in Robert Altmanās 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.
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 āQueen of Hammerā during the studioās 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.}
āHammer was like a family, a very talented familyā¦ with a wonderful atmosphere on the set and a wonderful sense of humourā
āWhen 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, Iām very grateful to them because they built me a fan base, and Iām 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.ā
With her success as a teenage model, she made her minor film debut in Hammerās 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.
Her first starring vehicle was Cat Girl (1957), Alfred Shaughnessyās offbeat variation of Jacques Tourneurās influential Cat People (1942), and A.I.P.ās first co-production with the UKās 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 Universalās 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 heād 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 doctorās 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 Johnās innocence Madeleine poses as Calastratusā 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 āSTOPā on her chest. She threatened to sue the studio if it even used a body double.
āI 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 itās not right. It annoys me intensely because my career was not built on exploitation and sex. It was built on working very hard.ā
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.
Shelleyās character is earnest in the role of a woman torn between motherhood and sheer terror in director Wolf Rillaās incredibly unsettling moody classic blend of science fiction and horror-Village of the Damned (1960) based on John Wyndhamās science fiction novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The film co-stars George Sanders as Shelleyās 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 peopleās minds and make them do anything they want, as in making Shelleyās 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 Gillingās 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.
āShe really was Hammerās number one leading lady and the Technicolor queen of Hammer. āOn-screen she could be quietly evil. She goes from statuesque beauty to just animalistic wildnessā¦ She adored Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing and loved working with them, that was very dear to her.ā-Agent, Thomas Bowington
What truly established Barbara Shelleyās 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 Fisherās 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 āI wouldnāt need any makeupā¦ just a green face and the headdress of real snakes.ā 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, āThey came up with these terrible sorts of rubber snakes dancing around, and it just looked awful. It wasnāt frightening at all.ā She called it āprobably the biggest regret Iāve had in any film I ever madeā though she admired the look of the picture, noting that āevery shot ā¦ resembles a Rembrandt painting.ā
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 Helenās 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. āEverything about this place is evilā.
Once Christopher Leeās 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 characterās trajectory was in Dracula: Prince of Darkness. From inhibited, startled gentlewoman to the monstrous feminine as one of Draculaās brides. When she appears at Karlsbad Castle, telling Suzan Farmer, “Nothing’s wrong” through hungry red lips and baring fangs. āCome sister, You donāt need Charlesā¦āshe tempts, with inviting arms outstretched to the innocent Suzan Farmer as Diana. Shelleyās 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.
Shelleyās 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 Kingās Salemās Lot, has Helen tapping on the window in the middle of the night. āPlease let me in,ā she pleads. āItās cold out here. So cold. Everythingās all right now.ā
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.”
ā… and then suddenly sheās staked, and there is tremendous serenity. And I think that is one of my best moments on film.ā
“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 Bakerās adaption of writer Nigel Knealeās (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 Londonās 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 āmad about her. āMad in the sense of love,ā he said. āWe 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 donāt think she really cares whether she is a star or not. She can act, God, she can act!ā
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 āPlanet Of Fire,ā 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 āEastEnders.ā
Shelleyās 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: āThereās a lovely saying ā weāre given memories so we can have roses in winter. When I look back over my various rose gardens, Iām only sorry I didnāt enjoy them moreā.
āNo 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!ā
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. āWhich I thought was a brilliant thing to have said about one. I never thought of it in that way. The fact that Iām still getting mail from my horror fan base really touches me.ā
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 Shelleyās 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 āun-corpseableā, 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,Ā DRACULA PRINCE OF DARKNESS 1966, RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK 1966, QUATERMASS AND THE PIT 1967
10th July 1970: Studio portrait of American actor Lee Grant, wearing a flower-patterned dress in front of a light backdrop, (Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The audio version of our wonderful chat-
LEE GRANT at the 63rd annual Writers Guild Awards at the AXA equitable Center 2-5-11-Photo by John Barrett/Globe Photos, INC.2011
Jo: Hi, Lee. Itās Jo, howāre you doing?
Lee: Hi Jo!
Jo: Whatās going on? Howās your day?
Lee: Good so far.
Jo: So hopefully itāll just even get better now. [laughs]
Lee: Of course!
Jo: Are you ready to talk a little bit?
Lee: Sure!
Jo: Ok, great! Um, God, I donāt even know where to start because Iām just really excited and very grateful that youāre spending time talking to me.
Lee: Sure!
Jo: Um, so, before I start asking you any questions, I mean I guess I could just start asking you some questions. We spoke a little yesterday, and you know how much I love your work. Iāve just followed you for such a long time. And Iām kind of in awe of you, so Iām a little starstruck. [laughs]
Lee: Oh, good! [laughs] Youāre so cute and I donāt think there are many people who would say that anymore. So itās yummy.
Jo: No, thatās not true, let me tell you, youāve got fans! There are so many people who just adore you. You are memorable! You are a beautiful spitfire. Youāre complex, youāre powerful, youāre evocative, and very memorable. So donāt think Iām the only one. [laughs]
Lee: Ok, I give in!
Jo: Ok, you give in!
Lee: I give in, I am memorable!
Jo: You are memorable, you really really are. I mean, seriously, itās like every time something would come on TV, a show or a movie, and I would say āOh, Lee Grant is in this!ā I would get so excited. No matter what it was, I would watch it. If it was like a television program, even if I wasnāt familiar with the show or the film, Iād be like āWell, Lee is in it, Iāve got to see this now!ā So Iām going to start asking away and hopefully, theyāre good questions.
Lee: Whereās Wendy?
Jo: Oh, Wendyās here, too.
Wendy: Iām actually here, Lee. Hi! Iām the technical person so Iām here to make sure everything goes ok.
Lee: Hi Wendy. Ok!
Wendy: And I do have a question for you at the end, too. I couldnāt resist!
Jo: The sociologist in her!
Lee: You know, Iām just glad to hear from you girls. You were so alive and interested and interesting when we met, and here we are, what is it 3 months later? You meet someone on an airplane and you see somebody and you sit and you talk for 6 hours and then you get off and you never see them again. So this is nice!
Jo: It was really amazing to just walk into this big room with all these people fluttering about, swarming about like a hive. And then to see you standing there [Lee laughs] and youāre like this legend. This utter legend, stuck in the corner of a room!
Lee: Yeah, and you know, Iāve been writing a lot. And that deserves its own story.
Jo: It does. It definitely does… To walk over and just talk to you like thatāI wanted to grab a big pot of coffee and a couple of chairs and just sit. So now weāre doing it, really.
Lee: Weāre doing it! And I have the coffee, too. Iām not sure it counts, though.
Jo: So, Iām going to just start asking questions. And I think I told you yesterday that I do these little setups because it helps me bridge to the question.
Lee: Whatever, just go honey!
Jo: You were in films with diverging mainstream audience appealā¦ showing the wide range and versatility of your acting such as In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger which dealt with racism. Valley of the Dolls became a cult pop sensation, and Plaza Suite where you were sublimely hilarious in Neil Simonās timeless comedy at its best. What is it that makes you such a versatile actress?
Lee: Well, I was a very compelled actress. You know I was blacklisted for 12 years, and those were the years from age 24 to age 36. I couldn’t work in film or television because I was married to a writer who was called a communist and therefore I was asked to name my own husband in front of the Unamerican Activities Committee, and my loathingāI was going to say fear and loathing, but there was no fear. My loathing for that kind of activity and McCarthyism. You know, I can feel it in my stomach as Iām talking to you, itās so great. Itās the feeling I have about Trump and that little lawyer Roy Cohn. You know, I was taken out of the acting system for the most important years of my life, I thought at the time. So when I came back, you know, they hired me for Peyton Place, and let me see, it wouldāve been 1952-1964. Peyton Place at that time was the biggest television show in the country.
Jo: Yes, I just finished binge-watching it.
Lee: I went from near obscurity to being the bad girlāStella Chernackāon Peyton Place which was seen by America three times a week. And not the same show three times a week. The appetite for it was so great that they did three new shows each week. So all of a sudden I was everybodyās bad girl. You know, and my hunger for work, for acting, for reestablishing myself, for getting back at the bad guy was so intense, that all the film or TV show had to say was āDo you want to?ā And I said yes. That was the title of my book, I said yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes because the appetite was unfillable, to work, to act. And with each part, you know you talk about my first movie, the movie that Norman Jewison directed, the one with Sidney Poitier and Rod Stieger.
Jo: Of course, In the Heat of the Night…
Lee: You know, when Norman interviewed me, he knew my background. This was a decade of intensely liberal filmmakers in Hollywood. Intensely liberal filmmakers. And the producer of Peyton Place, too. It was like they couldnāt wait to hire me. They couldnāt wait to make up forāand it makes me cry a little bitāall the years I didnāt work. Their generosity, their kindness, their focus, their need to say āYouāre ok now, we got you.ā And for them to see that as an actor I was ready to take on the kind of roles that they were ready to give me. And I was.
Jo: And with an extra fierceness. You probably had an extra fierceness to show yourself because you had this fuel, this anger. This impetus.
Lee: It wasnāt to sell myself, it was to act. It was to drop into that character and live that new life. After all, Iām a method actress. And I was starved to act. So I just couldnāt get enough after wanting to act for all those young years. And I had to lie about my age because I was 36 when I got back in, so I got Mayor Yorty to change my driverās license. We had no computers then so nobody would know. You know, it was like everything to get back that they took away.
Jo: Everything that they stole from you! You mentioned being a method actressā¦
When you act what are you tapping into, beyond the acting Method you studied, and beyond the imagination of little Lyova Rosenthal? You take words in the script and make them come to life like no other actor. Lee Grant has her own unique way of expressing herself. You bring a unique identity to each role. Did it come from starting out with Meisner, or teaching at Uta Hagenās studio working with improvisation? Where does your genius come from?
Lee: It absolutely came from Meisner, because I was 17 when I went into the neighborhood playhouse. I was a failing high school student, and all I wanted were boys, boys, boys, and all I did was flirt, flirt, flirt. And when I went into that class and he gave me an objective. Jo, you know what an objective isāitās to want something.
Jo: Oh yeah, yeah.
Lee: And the situation he set up with another boy in class was to get him out of the room, that heād been a boyfriend and he wanted to get him out of the room. Well, this, thereās a Jewish word for itāa guerilla, a goomba, whatever it is, came out of me so this boy had no chance. The rage that I never knewāI never knew I had– this impulse, this fierceness, of carrying out that objective to get that poor guy out of the room. With my voice, with my hands, it overwhelmed me. It overwhelmed him. And my strength was born. My strength was born in that first improvisation at 17. And to be given the benefit of saying āI want to do thisā and then within safe circumstances, which is the play, you get to carry it out. You may not carry it out in life, but in that room, for that moment you can do anything because you have the objective.
Jo: Thatās incredible. Thatās an incredible background story. And I understand itās like that moment, that epiphany when there it is, itās born.
Lee: That was it. And that became my life. That was it.
Jo: Well thank god for that because weāve enjoyed the outcome of that.
Lee: Thank god for that is right! I couldāve gone anyway, I couldāve been breaking up marriages.
Jo: Well, now I have a fun questionāYou are our favorite Columbo murdererā¦ you were also in the Balcony with Peter Falkā¦
This is a 2 part question. You worked with Peter Falk in several roles, from plays like Prisoner of 2nd Ave. to an emotional episode of Ben Casey (you both gave a wonderfully passionate and heart-wrenching performance!), to the very post-modern The Balcony, and then, famously, as our favorite Columbo murderer the lady lawyer Lesley Willams in Ransom for a Deadman. What was it like to work with him? How did you end up working with him so much?
Columbo was one of those shows that were set up in such an interesting way because there were certain murderers who were āsympatheticā, and you were one of them. You could tell Columbo had a lot of respect for your characterās savvy. Did you enjoy playing cat and mouse with each other (like when you say to him āItās always the jugular heās going forā and then when you take him for that terrifying joy ride in your airplane and he doesnāt want to talk for a while, and youāre enjoying his discomfort)? How much fun were you both having on the set?
Lee: Oh, youāre so funny! [laughs]
Jo: And I promised myself I wouldnāt ask you about Shelley Winters (co-star in The Balcony), but maybe if we have time Iāll ask you about Shelleyā¦ [laughs](back to Peter Falk)
Lee: It was a good marriage.
Jo: Thatās a good way to put it.
Lee: Yeah, it was a good marriage. All of the parts we played, or were thrown in to play together, since it certainly wasnāt planned. Peter was in it and I was hired, or I was in it, and then Peter. And we found ourselves each time within a new situation with a new role to play with each other. Never the same role. And we were not friends.
Jo: You werenāt? Oh, thatās what I was curious about because it almost seemed like you had such a natural flow together.
Lee: I think that’s one of the things that worked for us. That we were familiar as actors and felt each other as actors, but we had no history that would get in the way of whatever that character was. Whoever he was playing went through many versions certainly, and in his big show, I was the enemy. So it was fun to attack him freshly in whatever character he was and whatever character I was at the timeāfriend, enemy, enemy, friend. And at each time find an actor who could spar with you, you know, fence with you.
Jo: And you did it so well. I mean itās funny because with Columbo there are several instances in the series where there are sympathetic murderers. And Wendy and I both think that youāre one of them. You, and Joyce Van Patten, I loved her character. ( actually, Lee was one of the more ‘ruthless’ murderers – maybe I just love her so much that I was on her side!)
Lee: Oh, Joyce is one of my best friends.
Jo: Ah, love her! And Ruth Gordon, we love the one with Ruth Gordon. If Ruth were here Wendy and I would try to get you three to sit and have lunch with us and celebrate the best Columbo murderers.
Lee: I would do it any time, to have lunch with Ruth Gordon any time. And Joyce is one of my three very very very very best friends.
Jo: We love her. Sheās another one, we just light up when we see her. Sheās so wonderful. Thatās so nice to hear that you are such good friends. Tell her we said hi.
Lee: I knew Joyce Van Patten when I saw her on stage as a child actor. I saw her on stage when she was about 13 or 14.
Jo: Really? Wow, so you have a long history together.
Lee: We have a long history.
Jo: Awwww thatās wonderful. And itās interesting that you both were that sympathetic murderer, and he really had that kind of respect for you. Because no matter what hell you put him through, like flying in that plane and making him suffer, you can tell he says, āDonāt talk to me for a few minutes.ā
Lee: Well the thing is also that Iām the worst driver in the world. I have no sense of direction. So getting me to fly a plane like I knew where I was going and I knew what buttons to push was such a kick for me.
Jo: Oh, thatās great! This is an interesting question and something I really wanted to know.ā¦
Do you feel that your roles in non-mainstream films (pause) or television series like Peyton Place Do you feel like they were less constrained for you as an actor?
Lee: Than what?
Jo: Thank doing a major motion picture. The smaller television series.
I wish there were more roles for you like Stella Chernak or the wandering mother/wife in The Neon Ceiling. Or Mrs. Enders, the mother in the Landlord, or Marilyn Kim Novakās neighbor in Middle of the Night. One of my favorites and you’re going to laugh at this, but sassy Edna from Storm Fear. They were very complex, and reflexive, quirky, and substantive roles for women?
Jo: Storm Fear directed by Cornel Wilde. It was that… ok Iām glad youāre laughingā¦ Iām going to ask you about that now.
Lee: [laughs] Where did you ever get to see it?
Jo: Well Iāve seen most all your work anyway, but because I knew I was going to talk to you I started re-watching a lot of your films again because I just wanted to spend time with Lee Grant.
Lee: Oh honey, thatās funny.
Jo: Ok, I have my question about Storm Fearā¦ this will make you laugh even moreā¦
I get the sense Cornel Wilde didnāt give a lot of direction in Storm Fear. But Edna was a very bright light in an otherwise conventional heist movie. Edna was rough around the edges, likable, and kind. Thereās a great scene where sheās walking in the snow, in her fancy boots and snow shoes, swinging her purse. And she says about her mink coat āIf it gets left behind, Iām gonna be in it.ā And in the end, they leave Edna dying in the snow with her two broken ankles, a wad of cash, and her mink coat. We were so upset at the end for you! Is Edna still out there in the snow? What was your experience working on that film?
Lee: āIāll kill ya!ā Do you remember his reading of āIāll kill ya!ā? Cornel Wilde would say āok, cut. Now listen to me Steve (Steven Hill), āIāll kill you.ā āIāll kill you. Now you try it.ā And Steve goes āIāll kill you.ā And Cornel would say āok, youāve got it, Steve. Alright, and action!ā And Steve would say āIāll kill YA!ā āIāll kill YA!ā [laughs]
Jo: [laughs] Thatās too hilarious! So I suspected rightā¦ that you two did your thing and were the highlight of the film. Thereās the great sceneāyouāll remember thisāwhere youāre walking in the snow in your fancy shoes. And youāre swinging your purse and youāre wearing the mink coat. And you say āIf this gets left behind Iām going to be in it!ā And thatās exactly what happens. They leave you dying in the snow with two broken ankles and a wad of cash in your mink coat.
Lee: [laughs] Falling down into the ravine.
Jo: You had fallen into the ravine. And Wendy and I are ā Iām the kind of person, I yell at the television setāAnd Wendy and I were like āWhereās Edna?ā Iām like āWhat about Edna?!ā
Lee: Thank you! Thank you! I needed that!
Jo: I’m like all upset, what are you leaving her down there in the snow for? Give some closure. Where is she? Rescue her! Dammit! Rescue her! Sheās got broken ankles!
Lee: That is so funny.
Edna-“I hate you, you creep! I hate you!!!!”
Jo: But you were great in that. And those are the kind of roles that I really do love.
Lee: Well you know the thing about that is, historically speaking, that was an absolute crossover moment in my life because I was still blacklisted. Cornel Wilde who was a really, really decent guy hired me as a blacklisted actress in an important part in which he wanted to introduce his wife, the non-actress, as the lead. With Dan Duryea, who is no small pickings. Dan Duryea is one of the great character actors of all time.
Jo: Yes, I love him.
Lee: Now Cornel hired me when I was still deep on the blacklist and nobody else would hire me. And we made enough money to have my daughter. She was conceived in Hollywood at that time because we had enough money to have another baby, and to have my baby, as I had two stepchildren. So you know it was a ridiculous thing, stomping in the snow with these big snowshoes and a black satin dress, and my blistered scalp because they dyed my hair from dark red to platinum blonde. So my head was all blistered. But bless Cornel Wilde. He did a remarkable and wonderful thing, and I had the most important thing in my life. Dina saved me through that whole blacklisted period. Having a little girl to take care of and to be there. And she was the best, the funniest, the sweetest, the most interesting. So she saved my life, and that came out of Storm Fear. I mean, itās so interesting when you think about it.
Jo: It really is. And your performance is almost bright and glowing. Thereās something emanating from Edna. I just love Edna. And maybe thatās what I was picking up on.
Lee: Oh yes, sweetheart. But having daughter Dina was the thing that held me together through the whole thing.
Jo: And sheās a hoot.
Lee: Sheās the best. The best. I just came back from being with her.
Jo: I love that sheās in that episode of The Golden Girls when Blanche, Rue MacLanahan, keeps slamming the door in her face. It is just so hilarious. The comedic timing between the two of them is brilliant. I mean, sheās got yourā¦ sheās got the gift.
Lee: Yes, she does.
Jo: Itās in her genes. Ok, now weāll move on and Iāll ask you another questionāIām glad we had a good laughā¦
I loved the scene in Hal Ashbyās film The Landlord when you and Pearl Bailey are getting drunk on pot liquor, and you walk out with the ham hock in your bag. Mrs. Enders is such a fabulous character, did you have any particular inspiration for her character? Did you enjoy working with Pearl? And, do you have any great stories from that film? Heās a great director, and Mrs. Enders is another fabulous character that youāve played.
What was the inspiration for her characterā¦?
Lee: Yes! [laughs] Well, my mother and my aunt, yes. And I had just finished doing In the Heat of the Night which was all about losing my first husband who died of a heart attack, Norman Jewison knew that and Hal Ashby was his editor at that time, so they knew that I would come in to do In the Heat of the Night with an experience that they knew I had, and Sidney and I really improvised that scene. But thatās how they knew me. And then as a friend they let me read The Landlord, and I said I can do that part and their whole image of me was of the grieving widow. And I said, āLet me just do it for you because thatās my mother, thatās my aunt.ā And they told me that they had Jessica Tandy attached to it and I found some blonde wig, and I stood under the lights in the hallway so that I looked older. And I did it for them and they got it. And they gave it to me. So you know to go from the first, In the Heat of the Night, to Mrs. Enders was just everything I ever wanted. To plumb both of those things. So it was just thrilling for me. First of all, the movie is a masterpiece. And it was Halās first directing job.
Jo: So it Was his first movie.
Lee: Yes, then he did the one with Ruth Gordon.
*Hal Ashby on the set of Harold and Maude with Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon.*
Jo: Wendy and I were sold on him after he did Harold and Maude.
Lee: Harold and Maude is one of the great masterpieces ever made.
Jo: It absolutely isā¦
Lee: And I wanted to do Ruth Gordonās part, too. It shows you how hungry and stupid I was at the same time.
Jo: I wouldnāt say stupid.
Lee: Well, how hungry and ambitious.
Jo: Right.
Lee: Not ambitious, how starved I was. I was so starved that when you showed a piece of marrow bone, like Ruth Gordonās part, I was like āLet me have it, let me have itā but I never saw a piece of work as brilliant as herā¦
Jo: Oh yes, she is a whole other subjectā¦ sheās something else!
Lee: She is. She is to be worshiped.
Jo: I think so. But I mean so are you, really!
Lee: Oh, ok!
Jo: Weāre worshiping you today! [laughs]
Lee: Worship away! [laughs]
Jo: Ok Iām going to ask you about Shampooā¦ I think there shouldāve been more of youā¦
You won an academy award for Shampoo. Weāre huge fans of the brilliant filmmaker Hal Ashby. People experience this movie as the 1970s, romanticized, sexual freedom film.
I experience the film as a deification of Warren Beattyās insatiable sexual prowess running around with his phallic blowdryer. I just think there should have been a lot more of you. Do you think the film wouldāve benefited from more development of the women characters and their sexuality? You also mention in your wonderful book that Warren Beatty tried to direct you and you almost quit the film. Do you think the film needed more of your vision and direction to bring the women characters more into focus?
Lee: Well I think there shouldāve been more of me!
Jo: I think so!
Lee: I think there shouldāve been a lot more of me in everything that Iāve ever been in. But unfortunately, there are other actors and there is a plot and there are other ramifications. So while I always think there should be a lot more of me, practically speaking itās not the thing to do. I think that the woman I played was sound. I think her needs, her bitterness. The rejection of her within the Hollywood framework of that time. And that glowing gorgeous daughter played byā¦
Jo: Carrie Fisher.
Lee: She was the most beautifully white-skinned little girl, Carrie Fisher. And for me to be a mother who was hungry and rejected and to have that child right downstairs in the house. My character was just filled with conflict and unfulfillment. And all I seem to care about in that film was my coat and my hair and getting shtupped. And grabbing at whatever I could that would fill this emptiness. I hated Hollywood at that time.
Jo: But you were more interesting and intricate than Warren Beattyās character. I didnāt find his character as complex as I did yours.
Lee: I don’t think that he intended to beā¦ to beā¦ you know, Warren wrote that with Robert Towne. A great, great, great writer. And the character he wrote was a very simple guy who likes to please. He likes to please everyone. He likes to please the Jack Warden character as much as he does with the women whose hair he does, his customers. He is guaranteed to please. Because certainly, heās not that attracted to me. Right before he goes to bed with me, my daughter seduces him. And you know one of the real arguments that Warren and I had in that film was that right before the scene when I come home and I go to Carrieās door, and Iām expecting him to be there. Iām expecting him to go upstairs and make love to me. The day before we do that scene he sits me down at the table and says āYou know Lee, Felecia (which is the character I played), Felicia does not know when she opens the door to her daughter’s room that the daughter and he hasā¦ā And I was so enraged that he would tell me what to think before I open that door that I quit the next day.
Jo: I read that in your book!
Lee: Yes, I quit the next day. And of course, he apologized and we moved on with the scene but I said āIf you ever tell me what Iām supposed to think, I wonāt be there.ā But the thing was, that I opened the door and of course I knew that they had gone to bed. I mean, Iām no dummy!
Jo: Of course!
Lee: And my own need was so ferocious that it didnāt matter! And thatās the way I played that scene when I went upstairs. I kept on my coat. I kept on my curlers in my hair. I just pulled down my stockings and pulled him over to me. You know, it was my need.
Jo: Right, yes. And itās a powerful scene and a powerful role. And thatās why you won the Academy Award for it!
Lee: Well, you know Iād been nominated a lot of times.
Jo: Oh, I know.
Lee: So usually when youāre nominated and you donāt win then youāre just a thing in the way after that. At first, itās like āLee, Lee, look this way!ā And then when you donāt win, they want you out of the way.
Jo: Thatās rotten!
Lee: But I knew even when I went up to get the award finally that I was now at the age where they wouldnāt hire me. That I was going into 50, and this was probably the last big movie.
Jo: But it wasnāt.
Lee: Only one more.
Jo: What was the movie after?
Lee: Oh, the Jewishā¦ the boatā¦
Jo: Oh, yes, Voyage of the Damned.
Lee: Yes, Voyage of the Damned.
Jo: I watched the scene where you cut your hair. Itās a very difficult movie for me to watch. And, I had a relative on the ship.
Lee: What?
Jo: Yes, she was a child and she survived it. She made her way back.
Lee: Where?
Jo: Eventually she made her way to France and she is now a biochemist and a professor at Harvard. I lost relatives in the Holocaust but she was on the ship and I donāt have her name in front of me. This is terrible. My brother has been doing historical research to find our relatives and where we came from in a small town that is now part of Poland.
Lee: Thatās where my father came from.
Jo: Yes, and it was Austria at the time.
Lee: Weāre little strong Polish Jews!
Jo: Yes, yes, and we came to New York and it made us even stronger.
Lee: Oh yes.
Jo: Weāre tough.
Lee: Something about us makes us tough.
Jo: And my mother was Russian.
Lee: So was mine! My mishpocha, honey! [laughs]
Jo: My mishpocha, yes! [laughs] Thatās why I called you Bubbie (short for bubbles-friend not grandmother) yesterday and then felt bad. I said, āIāll talk to you later, bubble!ā [laughs] And then I was like āOy, should I have said that?ā
Lee: [laughs] Iāll be your bubbie!
Jo: Oh, good, good! Ok, so now Iām going to ask you about Stella Chernack because we were talking about that bad girl you played. Again, you won a much-deserved Emmy for that. And I did watch the entire show, because of you, and I knew you were in it. So I watched Peyton Placeā¦ now, Stella is amazing. An amazing character.
Again, you won a much-deserved Emmy for your portrayal of Stella Chernak. Stella leaves her working-class background in Peyton Place to become a biochemist, returning when her brother gets into trouble. This is when the writing and the show were the most cohesive and well thought out. Itās one of my favorite roles. Stella is very complex and there are lots of layers to your performance. She is a bit of a Tennessee Williamās character, even in the way she struts the dusty streets of the town. Did you channel any of that feeling in her character? It was an intense character study and one hell of a performance. What did Stella mean to you?
Lee: Well, the whole thing was like stepping into heaven. First of all, Stellaās an angry girl.
Jo: Yes
Lee: And I was an angry girl. And Stella was fighting the unfairness of the things around her. And I had been fighting. So this was a funnel through which all of Lee and Stellaās resentment and anger and feeling of unfairness in the world around her could go. It was like made for me.
Jo: It gave you a place to channel that anger.
Lee: It channeled it. It channeled everything. And donāt forget that I went from obscurity into Americaās favorite program.
Jo: Right, and one of the greatest characters, I think. Very complex. She was angry but she was also very sympathetic. You understood where she was coming from, you know?
Lee: Yup.
Jo: And thatās what I loved about her. Thatās what you brought to the show. The show is really good. After you left, things just kind of went a little crazy but still I watched the whole thing. I love Barbara Parkins, and I love a lot of the actors on the show, too.
Lee: Barbara Parkins was given her first shot in that movieā¦
Jo: Yes, Valley of the Dolls
Lee: Valley of the Dolls, where I played Stella again as Sharon. You know, and Patty Duke. Those were their first shots after television. And of course, it went down like a log.
Jo: The film is such a pop culture icon. I mean, people are fanatical.
Lee: Thatās because itās so bad.
Jo: Did you know that it was going to become a pop religious experience for some people?
Lee: [laughs]
Jo: It is, Iām telling you!
Lee: Because itās so bad. [laughs]
Jo: But it is and it isnāt. I mean, yes, it is. [laughs] But itās bad in a good way.
Lee: [laughs] It could be worse, but people embrace those things and raise them up.
Jo: I can see why. You do need that kind of alternative to the heavy stuff thatās out there. You need that counterbalance of the delicious–
Lee: It was pop.
Jo: It was pop. And the acting was still good!
The name of your book is āI Said Yes to Everything.ā And you did say yes to films like Visiting Hours, The Swarm, and Airport ā77ā the last two big-budget disaster films. I was sad you ended up floating face down in Airport ā77. Did you at least have fun making these films and working with actors like Olivia de Havilland and Jack Lemmon? Do you have any good stories to tell?
I watched you in Visiting Hours with the parrot.
Lee: Oh no! tisk tisk tisk! Donāt even talk about it!
Jo: Ok, I wonāt talk about it. I wonāt talk about Visiting Hours. Weāll bury it. Can I talk about The Swarm and Airport ’77 where you played Christopher Lee’s wife who’s a lush?
Lee: Ohhh, absolutely! [laughs]
Jo: Ok [laughs]
Lee: Visiting Hours was what made me absolutely shut down as an actor and turn to directing.
Jo: I understand why.
Lee: You know, one of my very best friends, a writer, I took to see it in the movie house. And he wouldnāt talk to me on the way homeāāYou canāt need money that much.ā And I knew that I couldnāt doā¦
Jo: Look, every actor has done that. Every single actor has done a movie like that.
Jo: I mean, you ended up floating face down in the water. And again, Wendy and I were yelling āNo!ā
Lee: [laughs] Well I have to tell you I had it in my contract that I didnāt have to jump in the water. They had a double. But, when the water scene came up, 60-year-old Olivia de Havilland raised her hand and said āLet me be the first! Let me!ā
Jo: [laughs] Oh my god!
Lee: I was so shamed that when it came time for me to do it
Jo: You had to do it!
Lee: They said āWell letās get Leeās doubleā and I went āNo no no I donāt have a double!ā I didnāt want them to know what a coward I was.
Jo: [laughs] So you did it.
Lee: So I just jumped! Because I wanted to be like Olivia, you know. Sheās just so amazing.
Jo: Yes, she is.
Lee: What a hero Olivia de Havilland is. I mean, think about it.
Jo: We share the same birthday so every time itās my birthday I always toast Olivia. Because, wow we have the same birthday and she loves cats.
Lee: I do too.
Jo: Oh, you do? I thought you were a dog person.
Lee: Yes, we have 2 cats. But what a woman, what a spirit! Let me be the first, she said, climbing down from the rafters.
Jo: [laughs]
Lee: All through Airport ā77 she sat in the rafters with the lighting guys and chatted with them.
Jo: Do you know Wendy was a lighting designer before she was a sociologist.
Lee: Of course she was! Wendy the lighting designer sociologist, of course!
Jo: Same thing, right?
Lee: Same thing! Shed the light someplace!
Jo: Exactly, beautifully put. See, leave it to you. I have a few more questions, is that ok?
Lee: Iām just lying here on the chaise lounge in my nightgown as comfortable as somebody who just woke up.
Jo: That sounds lovely!
Lee: And having a wonderful time with you.
Jo: Oh good! Weāre having a blast, too! There are several performances of yours Iāve never seen and that makes me upset because Iām a completist. I want to see everything you did. And in your book, you write about the show The Defenders. I love the show, but that episode is unavailable. The particular episode that you did is not out, or not yet at least.
Like a few others, there are several performances of yours that I havenāt been able to see because theyāre unavailable. For example, thereās an episode of The Defenders in which, as I read in your book, director Stuart Rosenberg lit you in a way that was your favorite. There was The Doctors and the Nurses, another incredible dramatic television series. And then there is the motion picture An Affair of the Skin (1963) where you co-starred with the brilliant Diana Sands, who died tragically at 39. I would love to see your work in that film. Can you tell me about the film and about working with Diana?
Lee: I know, she was inā¦ Raisin in the Sun.
Jo: Raisin in the Sun
Lee: Yes, and the other movie with Pearl Baileyā¦ The Landlord
Jo: Yes! She was The Landlord, too, thatās right. So you worked with her twice. What did you think of the film Affair of the Skin, because I donāt know much about it?
Lee: I donāt remember it. Vivica Lindfors was in it. And I just donāt remember it. I donāt remember what I did or anything.
Jo: Maybe somebody will find the film.
Lee: I hope not!
Jo: Ok, then maybe they’ll find a way to get it buried so it never comes out. Did you enjoy working with Diana I love her work and I find it so tragic that she died so young. She was kind of one of the first Black women who had a much different kind of persona. She wasnāt doing the rolesāwell maybe Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson didābut she wasnāt playing the maids and she wasnāt playing the nurses.
Lee: Well, also Hal Ashby didnāt get them maids and nurses to play. The Landlord was a brilliant script and it highlighted the difference between the Long Island whites and Harlem. And Bo Bridges, I mean he was astonishing in it. His sweetness, his openness. You know, that was a script for the ages. And I personified again that kind of closed-minded rich stupid mother.
Jo: Well, insulated maybe.
Lee: Yes, totally insulated. You know no idea beyond the house and the garden and the friends what life was about at all. And itās such an astonishing piece of work.
Jo: Yes, it was. Did you get to work much with Diana in that?
Lee: Yes, well, we hung out. And after the film was over I gave a party at the apartment in New York, as we all stayed in New York, and Diana and I were sitting there waiting for Hal because we both had a crush on him. And his girlfriend, who he later married, at the time she would not let him come.
Jo: Possessive! Oh really [laughs]
Lee: So Diana and I sat and drank wine and talked about how mean she was and how much we loved him. [laughs]
Jo: Did he help you pick out clothes, did I read that right?
Lee: Yes, he did. In the Heat of the Night.
Jo: Yes, in the Heat of the Night he helped you pick out the clothes. He was the editor on the film.
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jo: Ok, you might not want to talk about this movie either, and if you donāt want to you donāt have to. But first, I noticed recently you did an interview for a documentary on Boris Karloff. You worked with him on āEven the Weariest Riverā on the Alcoha Hour. And I havenāt been able to see it. A lot of the Alcoha Hour and those dramatic television performances from the 50s are hard to get. But Boris Karloff is my idol. Iāve always said I wanted him to be my grandfather because heās the most gentle soul. And I met his daughter Sarah and sheās just wonderful.
You worked with Boris Karloff in 1956 on the Alcoa Hour āEven the Weariest Riverā It hasnāt been released so thereās no way to see it. I have to ask you what was it like to work with him? Do you have any stories about working with him?
Lee: Well, you know, I just remember that when I was blacklisted and he was playing on Broadway, maybe it was St. Joan, I donāt know but there was something so gracious and so magnanimous, and so grandfatherly, and beautiful about him. And he would always sign all my petitions. I was the little girl who couldnāt work. And, you know, it was dangerous to sign petitions, you know you couldnāt work either if you did. And Kim Stanley and Maureen Stapleton were the ones who were always working on Broadway and also signed my petitions. But you know I hadnāt remembered working with him in this television movie. I know they brought it to me, and the people in itā¦ I was the only girl. And it was during the blacklist so the director had to be a very very brave guy. A very brave guy. Because I was the only woman and he cast me in it.
Jo: So you stood out.
Lee: Yes, it was with Boris Karloff and Christopher Plumber. Itās a terrible movie.
Jo: Oh is it really? [laughs]
Lee: Yes, but very interesting. I mean because itās all packed. In those days you shot on set. There wasnāt a closeup. You kind of walked into the shot.
Jo: Right, it was live theatre, really, right?
Lee: Yes, it was shooting live theatre. So it had that kind of rushed feeling. But the story was meaningful, and I was just so surprised to see me there. And Iāve just forgotten a lot of what I did.
Jo: Well I didnāt even realize you had done something with Boris Karloff.
Lee: I didnāt, either. [laughs]
Jo: [laughs] Well, you know heās so iconic, and thinking of you and him together is such an interesting confluence. Ok, so Iām going to ask you about a movie you might not want to talk aboutā¦
Lee: Which could that be?
Jo: Ah, The Mafu Cage?
Lee: [laughs] Oh, yes!
Jo: Because you worked with Carol Kane. Sheās brilliant, sheās such a noodlehead. Sheās just something else.
Lee: Yes, she is.
Jo: I thought that The Mafu Cage, directed by Karen Arthur, is a very primal and dark film. It seemed like a difficult and disturbing narrative for both you and Carol Kane to step into. Itās a psycho-sexual minefield, almost filmed like a stage play, about captivity and dependency. It must have been a tough movie to film. Was it difficult for you two seasoned actors? Can you tell me what the process was like for you?
Lee: Oh, of course! Oh, I donāt know, there mustāve been some spare time to do it. And it was a woman director, Karen Arthur. And I donāt remember what year it was. But I know I thought, why not? It was Carol Kane, who was a delicious friend. And it was an absurd concept. You know, for her to have this relationship with aā¦
Jo: An orangutan maybe?
Lee: It was a gorilla, you know, Carol and the gorilla. So I mean it was absurd enough to say why not? It didnāt take very long and so it was like going to a bad nightclub, you know what Iām saying?
Jo: Yes! [laughs]
Lee: Oh, letās go in there and see what happens.
Jo: Yes, dark and scary and thereās a little journey in there.
Lee: Yes, yeah. It was a why not, you know?
Jo: But the thing is itās an interesting, disturbing film but thereās a lot in it. And your performances, you made it a good film. I think itās really kind of an unsung horror/ psychological thriller. I donāt think itās a bad film at all, maybe it couldāve been a stage play.
Lee: The thing is that Karen Arthur conceived it and directed it and she got Carol Kane and me, and James Olson, to do it. Wow! I would like to be able to say that I did that. That I pulled it off and made that movie. So itās really Karen Arthurās triumph.
Jo: Yes sure.
Lee: And any time a female directorāespecially at that timeāwith that concept, to pull it off and make that movie. You know, my hat off to her!
Jo: Yes, absolutely! She did a really amazing job because I walked away from the film kind of speechless. And thinking about things, and when a movie sends you away thinking about something, speechless, you know that thereās something going on there.
Lee: Yes and donāt forget there were no women directors then. There were like 2 in New York and thatās it.
Jo: Right, thatās another reason to applaud the film, the fact that her vision was realized. Itās very good. And then, this is one is probably one of my favorite performances of yours, The Neon Ceiling, where you play the mother who leaves her husband and just drives into the desert. Itās a special filmā¦
In The Neon Ceiling, you play a mother who leaves her husband and just drives ā winding up in the desert with her teenage daughter. Itās a very unusual and special little film co-starring Gig Young and Denise Nickerson, a talented young actress. Wendy and I were really enchanted by it. I found your performance as Carrie Miller profoundly moving because it was so un-selfconscious and powerful. At the risk of sounding contrived, what was your inspiration for bringing that character to life?
Lee: Well, first of all, that character was the part of me I never got to play.
Jo: In real life?
Lee: In real life, yeah. The part of me in my first marriage where my husband fault with me, that I wasnāt this enough, or that enough, or, or, I was never enough. And I wasnāt smart enough. And so that whole beginning with the husband that I run away from. Where I canāt do anything right, I canāt even shop for groceriesā¦
Jo: It kind of paralleledā¦
Lee: Yes, yes, and I had a daughter. I had Dina. So Denise was Dina. And so if I couldāve known how to run away, in my early years I would have. And going into the desertā¦ the desert was a very new experience for me as a person. Iād never been in the desert. And the peace. Sitting on the back porch of this gas station and just looking out at the desert became, it became a totally new experience for me. And something that I needed but didnāt know that I need. And there was an Indian tribe there who would come and ask for the lunch that we had every day. It was like the small remnants of what 20 people didnāt eat. And a woman in the tribe who was leading the tribe became a mentor. So she was so strong and so calm. And the things that she asked for were so real. That she became somebody I admired and wanted to be like. And she gave me a puppy.
Jo: Thatās right, I read about the puppy Nusski given to you by the Sioux.
Lee: Yes!
Jo: Who was with you for many many years?
Lee: Yes, who came with us to New York. And Gig, he was so attractive and so hurt someplace.
Jo: I know, itās so tragic.
Lee: He needed caring for. You know, and so did Denise in her way. She asked for it, he didnāt. And somehow me, tickled as I was, I felt a soul there that I connected with. And it was so beautiful and the writer created something that nobody else created.
Jo: Was that Carol Sobieski who also wrote for Peyton Place?
Lee: Yes, Carol Sobieski. She was extraordinary.
Jo: Yes, sheās a great writer.
Lee: Sheās a great writer and I felt it was a privilegeāa privilege of all the things Iāve doneābeing able to go there.
Jo: Yes, thereās somethingā¦ I guess thatās what weāre doing, witnessing a lot of your transformations on screen. Weāre seeing, you know, youāre in the desert and youāre having this transcendence. And itās coming through to your character, Carrie.
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jo: Itās such a beautiful performance. Itās so subtle and so quiet and so beautiful. And so painful.
Lee: Yes.
Jo: You convey all of that and thatās hard to do and you do it. You just pull it off like nobody else could. And thatās the thing I love are these other women that you play, are these roles and these women that deserve to be looked at. And Iāve certainly been having a great time delving into your work.
Lee: And have you! Wow!
Jo: Maybe Iāve been digging too deep!
Lee: Youāve found things Iāve forgotten. That one I knew is just so special. Itās interesting because Frank who directed itāFrank Pierson. A very very close friend, too. He also, much later did The Life of Roy Cohn.
Jo: Oh, Frank Pierson.
Lee: Yes, Frank Pierson. On HBO, he called me then and he said āDo you want to be Roy Cohnās mother? Or do you want to be the one who was killed? The spy.ā Anyway, he was the writer who became the director, because he had nothing to do with writing that, Carol wrote it. And he came to be the night before and said, āYou know, Iād like to do some changes in this. And you know she really isnāt as good as all that.ā And I said, āWell, hire another actor. Because if you touch this script. (The Neon Ceiling) ā You know why would you do that? Why, why? And he said āOh, Iā¦ā and I said āYou donāt like women. You donāt like women.ā And in that particular incidence, he didnāt. And in everything elseābecause I worked with him many timesāheās a great writer and a great directorābut this was too simple for him.
Jo: I know of his work and have seen a lot of it. So they kept it the same way?
Lee: Absolutely, he took it back. And we left the next day.
Jo: We just have a couple more questions. And Wendy wanted to talk with you. You know, I saw a scene you directedāweāll get into your directing in a minuteāI watched a scene from Tell Me a Riddle with Melvin Douglas and Lela Kedrova that you directed. And just the little scene that I saw ripped my guts up. I just—
Lee: Mine too.
Jo: Itās so heartbreaking. I know that youāre a wonderful director and I know itās probably not hard to direct Melvin Douglas and Lela Kedrova, but you absolutely created this poignant journey. But Wendy here is a sociologist who teaches social movements and she shows documentaries in classes and has used your documentaries in classes. And she wanted to ask you about the documentaries that you did, you know back in the day when they became movies of the week and there was a wide audience for them. And you started asking socially relevant questions.
Wendy: Hi Lee, I teach sociology classes and I use documentaries all the time. So Iām always looking for ones that are good and well done. And I was really intrigued by the ones you did in the 1980s. The ones that really gave voice to marginalized individuals. So you did the film about povertyāDown and Out in Americaāwhich is still unfortunately relevant today.
In the early 1980s, you started directing documentary films, specifically films that give voice to marginalized individuals way before others were doing so Down and Out in America (the poor, transgender individuals WHAT SEX AM I, women in prison who killed their abusive husbands in self-defense, the Willmar 8, etc.). Some of these were released as movies of the week to very large audiences. What led you to start making these kinds of documentaries? Were there social and political triggers?
Lee: Yes, unfortunately, itās still relevant.
Wendy: And it was also, to me, when it came out in the mid-80s, very much a response to Ronald Reaganās trickle-down economics. You can really see it situated in that.
Lee: You put your finger right on it.
Wendy: And I talk about that when I teach inequality so itās good to give students that context and history. Then thereās the documentary you did in the 1980s on transgender individuals, which no one had really done yet.
Lee: Yes, What Sex Am I?
Wendy: The Women in Prison, the Willmar 8, about women bankers who went on strike and I cannot find that one anywhere but I would love to use it because I teach about activism and social movements so Iām always looking for things about activism and I couldnāt find that one anywhere so I havenāt seen it. I was just curious about what made you switch, to not just directing, but directing these documentaries about marginalized populations. Like what were the social and political triggers of that for you?
Lee: Well, you know during the early years and not being able to say anything. And even when I was in LA, I was careful about what I said about it. You know, I acted in things that said things. And I have a best friend, Marybeth Yarrow, who had been married to Peter Yarrow. And in her small town in Willmar, there were 7 women who went on strike at the bank because the bank president there would have them train these boys in the bank, and then have them be the womenās bosses. So these little boys that they would train would suddenly tell them what to do and get a higher salary. So the women went out on strike. And Marybeth read that to me, and I had just been at AFI and had taken a womenās directing workshop. Their first womenās directing workshop. I said letās go there and make a documentary. And that kicked open the whole tunnel. Her husband, Peter, raised like 30,000 dollars and went to Willmar. It was the middle of the winter. So cold that you couldnāt open your mouth to ask a question.
Jo and Wendy: [laugh]
Lee: I mean your mouth froze. And those 7 women were out there on strike in front of the bank. They could hardly walk it was so cold. And you know it kicked open a door in me that had said, donāt talk, be quiet. You know, save yourself, donāt talk, be quiet. And I thought you know, thank God, I can do this. I can get away with this. I can put it on film. Finally, Iāve found my voice. I have found my voice. And it just meant everything to me. Finally, Iād landed on my feet and there was no fear. So I was just starved for that. And I made one after another after another after another. I loved that I had to go to all different places and open all kinds of doors. You know our second film was in the prison system
Wendy: Yes, we saw parts of it.
Lee: You know, what a revelation! I was free! I was free! I was really free of the blacklist finally! And not only that, I had tools that could fight the blacklist. I could show what the truth was.
Wendy: Right, which is why I love showing documentaries because it shows students individualsāgives voice to individualsāwho I canāt bring to the classroom.
Lee: Right, exactly.
Wendy: Especially the women in prison film, I donāt think anybody was talking about whether or not women should be in prison for killing an abusive spouse in the 1980s no one was covering that. And Down and Out in America is also unfortunately still relevant but also shows how devastating politics was in the 1980s while we tend to misremember it as being some golden era in America, right? Well compared to what we’re living in nowā¦
Lee: Well, I donāt know whether you were able to get hold of my Texas film?
Wendy: I donāt think so.
Jo: Noā¦
Lee: HBO was sued so it was only shown once.
Jo: Oh, about the children being taken away from their mothersā¦?
Lee: It was judges in Texas who took children away from the mothers and gave them to the fathers who were suspected of abusing them.
Jo: Oh my God! Wow.
Lee: Yeah.
Jo: You were sued for that?
Lee: HBO got sued, and that show was only on one time.
Wendy: I wonder if itās in any college libraries someplace still?
Lee: I have it! So at some point, I can lend it to you to make a copy of and you can use it.
Wendy: Oh that would be wonderful.
Lee: But also if and when this documentary thing happens in October and my films are shown.
Jo: Yes, the retrospective!
Lee: Yes, I canāt wait for the documentaries to be shown.
Wendy: And I have so many sociologist friends in and around NYC who would totally be there for it. Weāre all big fans of well-made interesting documentaries.
Jo: And weāll be there.
Wendy: Yes, I love to nerd-out on documentaries. Jo watches her classic films and Iām watching 13th on Netflixā¦
Jo: Yes, sheās watching her serious and depressing documentaries. I mean, Iām just so dark because of whatās going on in the world in politics, because itās like a Stanley Kubrick nightmare that you imagine would never happen in real life.
Lee: Yes, itās so disturbing, this nightmare. Itās like having Roy Cohn as president, you know, becauseā¦
Jo: Itās dystopianā¦
Lee: Yes, and there arenāt words and thereās just no way to describe itā¦ This is a nightmare.
Jo: And thereās a collective depression and angst that people are feeling in their lives.
Lee: And there is. It is.
Jo: And thatās whatās tragic and itās Americaās Id so then youāve got the people that support himā¦
Wendy: I like to focus onābecause I study social movements and activismāI like to focus on activism.
Jo: Yes, sheās the glass-half-full person.
Wendy: Yes, I focus on the people making the change. Thatās what my research is about and thatās what I try to teach my students to raise some hell. And voting. Because otherwise, Iād just lose my mind.
Lee: Yes, all of us. I mean living within this screenplay, being a character within a screenplay that we loath and detest and want to get out of. And are trapped in.
Jo: Yes, Well, is there an end in sight? When will we get out of this madness? We need relief.
Lee: Yes, itās madness.
Jo: We need to be able to breathe again!
Lee: And Iām overwhelmed. Itās overwhelming. Everywhere I look is horror. And itās not like oh this is something that really has been addressed, itās not like we need to just shake this or show peopleā¦ this is horror.
Jo: Yes, it’s organic horror.
Lee: And itās death. Itās killing people.
Jo: If not only in body but also in spirit.
Wendy: And actually in the body.
Lee: Yes, itās killing people. All over the world. Yesterday I was listening to the television and Saudi Arabia hires African soldiers to kill other Arabs. Instead of doing it themselves, they hire African soldiers into that Arab conclave thatās leftāYemen. It was like wow, hired professionals.
Wendy: We would just sleep better if we knew there were people in the office trying to make things better instead of worse.
Jo: I just donāt understand, how we got here.
Lee: We got here in a minute.
Jo: Yes.
Lee: And watch out for this. I feel that the way Bernie Sanders treated Hillary Clintonā¦
Wendy: Oh yeah donāt even get me started.
Lee: It was the beginning of the end. Kicked open the door for Trump.
Jo: Yes. When I saw his scowling face at the convention, I wanted to smack him.
Lee: Bernie, yes. He was so abusive to her. And of course, all my leftie friends are like āBut Bernieās the best, Bernieāsā¦ā But look how heās treating her. It was like how my communist husband treated me. Like sheās a dummy, sheās Wall Street.
Jo: Yeah, weāre in agreement!
Lee: And I think there was a democratic disaffectionā20% of democrats voted for Bernie and thatās what pushed this bullyā¦
Wendy: Yup, and we can thank them for the Supreme Court and a lot of crap.
Lee: Thatās right. Youāre the only ones who get it!
Wendy: There are others that get it, but it seems like weāre few and far between. There are a lot of us who are not Bernie fans for good solid reasons. Iām happy Bernieās light seems to be dimmer this time around and heās not polling as well as he did before. People donāt seem as excited about him now.
Lee: Iām just worried about it.
Wendy: Yeah, like are we going to get our acts together on the left?
Lee: Yes, are we?
Jo: Oh, but we should not totally veer off into politics. We should close with a good film or acting question! I wanted to ask you about your performance in Electra. I was reading your book and almost peeing my pants laughing as youāre describing wearing that crimson red velvet gown. And itās raining and you get drenched in the rain.
I read in your book about how you worked with Joe Papp on Shakespeare in the Park, playing Electra by Sophocles. I can visualize this powerful performance, the method training, that rainy day, you dragging Theoniās Aldridgeās crimson gown, the heavy fabric soaked through across the stage. And thereās the audience floating away in the deluge as devoted as ever. You said it was the most risky, challenging role. Alfred Ryder a wonderful actor played Hamlet before this and his performance was televised, but it was a disaster, and it nearly ruined his acting career. Do you regret that your performance of Electra was not televised and recorded so that we could see it today? I wouldāve loved to see you on stage, even in the flood.
Lee: And the whole audience is drenched!
Jo: And the papers are floating away, and youāre out there shouting. And the showās ended and theyāre still out there clapping in the rain.
Lee: Talk about a switch from bleak and bad, to emboldened and powerful playing Electra!
Jo: Yes, we needed some Electra!
Lee: Jo Papp gave me Electra and saw that I was ready to spew and all lessons he gave me, the teachers who came in to correct my language so that I was ready to take on that role. And to let go of all that rage and fierceness, under the cover of the state at Central Park. It was such a release for me to play that.
Jo: Yeah, you said it was a very risky role for you. Challenging.
Lee: Very. And he handed it to me.
Jo: Wow.
Lee: And what a thing to do.
Jo: A gift.
Lee: Yes, what a gift. What a thing to do. The most powerful theatre man in New York and the most liberal and radical, and gorgeous.
Jo: Gorgeous?
Lee: Gorgeous, gorgeous [laughs]
Jo: He knew you could do it. So in your book, you mentioned that Alfred Rider had done Hamlet. And when they televised it and it didn’t go over very well. Electra… It doesnāt exist. Do you regret that there is no visual evidence of that performance?
Lee: No, no.
Jo: I wish I couldnāt see you on stage. Even in Prisoner on Second Avenue I wish I couldāve seen you on stage. So you’re really not sorry that they didnāt televise it?
Lee: No. No, itās an experience.
Jo: Itās one of those moments it exists like a firefly.
Lee: It was a live experience. Like a marriage. And you know it lifted me.
Jo: So youāre laying on your chaise, did you finish your coffee?
Lee: Oh, itās half finished. Iām still in my nightgown. [laughs]
Jo: I could talk with you all day like this!
Lee: I know!
Jo: What is a great way to end this?
Lee: Whatās a great way to end this?
Jo: Is there something you want to talk about? That we didnāt cover. Youāve got such an impressive career in theatre, film, and television. On both sides of the camera. Youāve worked with amazing people. You have great friends.
Lee: How about Alāwhoās the one who was thrown out of office? Al Franken? How about Al Franken? He didnāt have a choice to leave but I want him back. And thatās what I want to write about.
Wendy: What are you working on for writing?
Lee: Iāve just been writing in spurts, just things that I have to get out of my system, as you can hear when I talk to you. There are things I have to spew, and get down on paper to get it out of me. And so whatās Iām going to do, Iām going to write about the stupidity and short-sightedness of getting rid of the only one in Congress that I know of who could go up against Trump and just demolish him, with his humor and his knowledge. That was the stupidest action that could be taken.
Jo: I was so mad at him for messing up because we needed him. And so mad at him for stepping down.
Lee: He was pushed out. He was forced out. Did you read that New Yorker article about the woman who came to his defense?
Jo: No, we havenāt seen that one.
Lee: Itās like 2 weeks ago. So you can read it.
Wendy: Iāll look it up. I keep more up on the political stuff than Jo does. Jo likes to live in her classic film bubble.
Jo: I like to live in my classic film world and if I donātā¦ Iāll go mad.
Lee: Oh, I understand. And Iām sorry to break through that.
Jo: No, no. Itās fine. And I donāt want to give the impression that Iām not proactive. I do what needs to be done.
Lee: Oh, Iām not accusing you, Iām just opening my arms and pulling you into my world.
Jo: Oh I love your world, and I know that. And itās Wendyās world. I hear about itā¦ all about it, and friends who are very active.
Wendy: And we have friends who go to the TCM movie festival and a couple of years ago you were there and made a speech, and they were all tweeting and texting about it, saying oh my God, this is so awesome! And I was like, of course, itās Lee Grant! And that makes her even more amazing that you would give this really political speech!
Lee: It does, girls, it just makes me more amazing! Every single day.
Wendy: Hell yeah! People have to speak out!
Lee: On that note, we will end this.
Jo: Ok.
Lee: But Iāve had such a great time and I love you.
Jo: Oh, we love you too, Lee!
Lee: And Iāve had fun. And so we may not be still doing your thing, but we can still talk and still have a relationship.
Jo: We would love to stay in touch.
Wendy: And if you have copies of any of your documentaries, I would love it. If they would be easy for me to copy because I would show them in class.
Jo: Maybe someday soon we could come into the city and have coffee with you.
Lee: Yes, maybe you can do that and take things and make copies if you know how to do that. Because I donāt know how to do anything.
Wendy: Ok, Iām good with the technical stuff.
Jo: So next time, we’ll come into the city and do it.
Lee: Yes, weāll do that. Youāre both adorable.
Jo: Lee speaks truth to power and wants to be heard.
Wendy: Great, so weāll be in touch.
Lee: Have a good day, girls!
Jo: Take care, Lee!
This has been YourEverlovin’ Joey saying what more is there to say… but I love you, Lee Grant!
It’s that wonderful time of the year when we all get to celebrate those unsung actors with loads of character, thanks to Aurora of Once Upon a Screen, Paula’s Cinema & Club& Outspoken and Freckled who are hosting the Fifth Annual WHAT A CHARACTER! BLOGATHON 2016… This will be my fourth time contributing to this fantastic event, having covered Jeanette Nolan, Burgess Meredith, and last year’s Agnes Moorehead. As many of you know, it’s often the actors on the periphery of some of our favorite films that fill out the landscape with their extraordinary presence, a presence that becomes not only essential to the story but at times become as memorable perhaps even larger than life when compared with the central stars themselves. I’m thrilled to be joining in the fun once again and am sure that it’s going to be just as memorable this year as ever before!
“The earth is my body; my head is in the stars.”-Ruth Gordon as Maude
Maude: “A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they are not dead, really. They’re just backing away from life. *Reach* out. Take a *chance*. Get *hurt* even. But play as well as you can.”
I’ve been waiting to write about my love of Ruth Gordon for quite some time and felt that this would be the best way to get off the pot and just start singing those praises for this remarkable lady of theatre, film, and television. Ruth Gordon in so many ways channeled her true personality through the character of Maude, in life –she too always projected a spirit that played as well as she could…
“Choose a color, you’re on your own, don’t be helpless.” –Ruth Gordon -An Open Book
There’s a vast dimension and range to Ruth Gordon’s work both her screenwriting and her acting, the effects leave a glowing trail like a shooting star. With her quirky wisdom and sassy vivacity that plucks at your heart, Ruth Gordon stands out in a meadow of daisies she is emblazoned as bright and bold as the only sunflower in the field. No one, just no one has ever been nor will ever be like this incredible personality.
For a woman who is impish in stature she emanates a tremendous presence, a smile like the Mona Lisa, sporting a unique and stylish way she expresses herself with a poetic & fable-like language. Ruth Gordon is a character who dances to a different rhythm — how she sees herself and how she performs *life* is uniquely mesmerizing as it is burgeoning with all the colors of the universe.
Ruth Gordon is a dramaturgical pixie, with a curious hitch in her git-along… an impish dame who rouses and fortifies each role she inhabits with a playful, mischievous, and almost esoteric brand of articulation.
In a field of different daisies Ruth Gordon is that sunflower that Maude soliloquies poetically to Harold —
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-“Ooooh, but they’re *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow come from people who are *this”, (pointing to a daisy) yet allow themselves to be treated as *that*.” (she gestures to a field of daisies)
From the Arlene Francis 1983 interview with Ruth Gordon– actress, screenwriter and playwright…
Ruth Gordon 1975 photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt
Ruth Gordon never wanted to be told how to write nor be instructed on how to act… from her autobiography An Open Book- “I don’t like to be told how to act either. When I’m left alone thoughts come… ‘Don’t try to think’ said our New England philosopher, Emerson, leave yourself open to thought. If you find out stuff for yourself, you get to know what you believe; what you like, how to live, how to have a good time. It’s important to have a good time.”
from Hugh Downs Interview
ā I did grow up to have character. And Iām always doing some damn thing that uh I donāt wanna do but I know itās right to do. And I finally thought of something in my next book and Iām gonna have it in there and itās a very important thing to remember. Just because a thing is hard to do doesnāt make it any good. You tackle something and you work at it and slave at it and say now Iām gonna do this Iām gonna do it and when youāve done it better think it over and see if it was worth itā¦ some easy things like falling off a log and stuffĀ those easy things probably just as good but a New Englander has to do it the hard way. ā
Arlene Francis āYou once said ānever face factsā how can you avoid it?ā
Ruth Gordon-āOh my god look, weāre not facing facts now surely cause I might dry up and not have a thing to say in the world and then where would you be, you knowā¦ [ā¦] it would be stupid there are enough hazards in the world, Iām 85 now and Iām at my very best peak of my looks which might be an interesting thing to anybody because you figure, 18 why wouldnāt I be better looking than now?…Ā āDonāt lets anyone tell their symptoms, it would be the most boring thing, even though everybody has so manyā¦ so the ādonāt face your factsā is if you face whatās the matter with you, you know weād open a window and say goodbye everybody like tinker bell and take off and hope you could fly (she laughs) Donāt face the facts you know, I was 18 years old I was going on the stage didnāt know anybody in New York and I didnāt know anybody on the stage, and I wasnāt beautiful and I wasnāt tall which everybody was in those days, and uh I didnāt have any money and how was I gonna do this, so if I didnāt ‘not face those facts’ Iād say too bad she wanted to be an actressā¦ā
Ruth Gordon, who always dreamed of becoming a ‘film’ star, beside an astonishing stage presence talks about winning awards for her work–ā The main award that I really value is the award I give myself and people say Oh you donāt know when youāre good you know, the audience knows, people know but you donāt know Well thatās stupid I know when Iām good for myself You might not like it, they might not like it, the public might not like it, but I know that wonderful performance that doesnāt happen too often, when anticipation and realization come together because that night when itās all perfect and is great and you know ā¦ that youāve just taken offā¦ thatās my awardā¦āĀ
Ruth Gordon is bold and vibrant and an actress who never shied away from taking the quirkiest and most eccentric roles. From irreverent Ma in Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and the poignant Becky Rosen in Boardwalk (1979) to the perspicacious Maude in Harold and Maude (1971) George Segal’s Tushy biting batty mother-Mrs. Hocheiser in Where’s Poppa? (1970) and of course the queen of campy kitschy New York City’s enigmatic coven hostess with the mostest– Minnie Castevet in Rosemary’s Baby (1968) …
Once Ruth Gordon personified the unforgettable Minnie Castevet in āRosemaryās Babyāin 1968 she manifested a lasting and unfading, enigmatic character that only Ruth Gordon could infuse with that unforgettable energy.
Minnie is perhaps one of the most vividly colorful film characters with her sly and farcical mispronunciations and a wardrobe that is distinctly tacky. Part cosmopolitan part menacing, no one could have performed Minnie Castevet quite like Ruth Gordon, that next-door meddling neighbor who befriends an American housewife, who is secretly waiting to become the godmother to the devil’s unborn son.
Gordon appears as if she was cut from a mold that makes her seem like a rebel to the inner workings of Hollywood. And as extremely unconventional as she can be, there is always a depth and authenticity to the wackiest of characters she’s portraying. From the lyrically loving and life-devouring Maude in Hal Ashby’s different style of love story.
ā Well itās a very good movie, I was absolutely wonderful Collin Higgins wrote a great movie Bud Cort was sensational, Hal Ashby became one of the top directors so how do you account for that, well it just happened. But, you see, some guy in Cambridge Mass. he wrote from the YMCA he wrote me a letter and he said, āIāve seen Harold and Maudeā I donāt know how many times heād seen it, and he said Iām at a loss to know why it means so much to me and I think about it , I think about it a lot and I finally came to the conclusion that itās because to get through life you have to have somebody to tell it toā thatās a very profound remark. Iāve had lovers Iāve have friends Iāve had family and I didnāt exactly tell it to them but Garson Kanin I tell it to him whether itās bad whether Iām a failure whether Iām going grey. Somebody to tell it to. And itās a very very necessary part of life. And in Harold & Maude Harold who was a kind of helpless geek with looks riches money everything he had ā¦ except knowing how to live. And Maude who didnāt have anything except she knew how to live. And Harold could tell it to her. he could tell it to her. She didnāt always have the answer. But he could pour it out. And so it was wonderful really, just pour it out, I said once even if Iām wrong agree with me because you know to Gar, have somebody you know would stand up for you.ā
Ruth and husband Garson Kanin… super writing team!
Bud Cort remained very close friends with Ruth Gordon. Here he is talking about her tremendous influence on This is Your Life television show honoring the extraordinary actress/writer.
Ruth Gordon and Hal Ashby on the set of Harold and Maude 1971.
from the Dick Cavett interview from September 19, 1969 expressing how if you had never seen Ruth Gordon on the stage “You would lament that factā¦ a lady who is one of the incomparable ladies of American Theatre. There have been cults about Ruth Gordon for years and years and years. When great performances on Broadway are discussed, Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie or Mildred Dunnock in Death of a Salesman, or Vivien Leigh or any of the classics are referred to Olivier in Oedipus, Ruth Gordon in *The Matchmaker* is always brought up as one of the masterpieces of all time. And she has been a wondrous presence in the theatre for over 50 years. Splendid comedian and a splendid comic writer.ā
Ruth Gordon Jones was born October 30, 1896, in Quincy, Massachusetts. āgrowing up with the brown taste of poverty in her mouth.ā As a child, she wrote fan letters to her favorite film stars and received a personal reply from Hazel Dawn. So struck with stage actress Hazel Dawn after seeing her perform in āThe Pink Ladyā in Boston, Ruth Gordon decided to go into acting. After high school, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City and was an extra in silent films made in Fort Lee, New Jersey making $5 in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in 1915 as one of the Lost Boys later that year in Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldnāt Grow Up as Nibs. She garnered a favorable review by Alexander Woolcott, who at the time was an extremely influential theater critic eventually the two became close friends and he was her mentor. Gordon was typecast in ābeautiful but dumbā roles in the early 20s.
Ruth Gordon began to hone her craft and push the range of her acting ability which she revealed in Edith WhartonāsĀ Ethan Frome, the restoration comedy The Country Wife in which she appeared at the influential theater–Londonās Old Vic. She eventually found her way to Broadway and landed a role in Henrik Ibsenās A Dolls House during the 1930s.
Severely bow-legged, in 1920 she spent time in a hospital in Chicago where she had her legs broken and straightened.
Ruth Gordon as Edward G. Robinson’s wife in director William Dieterle’s Dr. Erhlich’s Magic Bullet 1940.
Ruth Gordon with the great Greta Garbo in director George Cukor’s Two-Faced Woman 1941.
Ruth Gordon (1931)
She was married to actor Gregory Kelly from 1921-1927 when he died of heart disease. In 1929, she had a child (Jones Harris) with Broadway producer Jed Harris. She starred in plays in New York City and London, not doing another film until she played Mary Todd in director John Cromwell’s Abe Lincoln in Illinois 1940, co-starred with Edward G. Robinson in director William Dieterle’s Dr. Ehrlich’s Magic Bullet 1940 and appeared as Miss Ellis in director George Cukor’s film starringĀ Greta Garbo film Two-Faced Woman 1941 and co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in Action in the North Atlantic 1942.
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Ruth Gordon plays Ann Sheridan’s mother in director Lewis Milestone’s story of a small fishing village in Norway and the resistance to the Nazi occupation, Gordon playsĀ Anna Stensgard the unassuming wife and neurotic mother who lives too much in the past in Edge of Darkness 1943.
In 1942, active on Broadway again, she married writer Garson Kanin and started writing plays. Together with her husband she wrote screenplays for Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy like A Double Life 1947, Adam’s Rib 1949, and Pat and Mike 1952. She also wrote an autobiographical play “Years Ago”, that then became a film directed by the great George Cukor starring Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, and Teresa Wright in The Actress 1953 about her life growing up and getting into the theatre.
Ruth Gordon and her husband were included in a round-up of theatre actors questioned by the House on Un-American Activities in 1947 and flown to Washington for questioning. Nothing came of the investigation.
In the 1960s she returned to Hollywood with roles in films and television adaptations–
The television movie version of Noel Coward’s 1941 play Blithe Spirit—Ruth Gordon manifests the spiritual medium Madame Arcati in the 1966 tv version.
Ruth Gordon as Stella Barnard co-starring with Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld in Lord Love a Duck 1966.
Playing Mrs. Stella Barnard in Lord Love a Duck 1966 The film stars Tuesday Weld as the innocent attention-seeking teenager from a broken home who aspires to become loved by everyone wears 12 colorful cashmere sweaters given to her by friend and mastermind Roddy McDowall (who was 36 at the time playing a teen!) Director George Axelrod’s biting satire that pokes fun at teen beach movies of the 1960s, elitism, and the adults that satellite around their machinations …
Stella Bernard: (Ruth Gordon) “You lied to me, Miss Greene. You permitted me to believe your father was dead.”
Barbara Ann: (Tuesday Weld) “Well, they’re divorced.”
Stella Bernard: (Ruth Gordon) “In our family we don’t divorce our men; we *bury* ’em!”
Where’s Poppa? 1970 In director Carl Reiner’s black comedy- Ruth Gordon lets it rip as the irreverent Mama Hocheiser whose senile antics are driving New York attorney Gordon Hocheiser (George Segal) to the brink. When he finally meets the loving and naive nurse Louise Callan (Trish Van Devere), worried his mother’s idiosyncrasies will ruin his budding romance, he grasps at any means to finally get rid of her! Ron Leibman is hilarious as Brother Sidney!
Ā
Inside Daisy Clover 1965, for which Ruth Gordon returned to the screen after almost 20 years -was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe as Supporting Actress… One of my favorite directors Robert Mulligan creates a portrait of a tomboy (Natalie Wood) who dreams of being a singer, lives in a trailer, and runs a beachside concession stand where she forges the autographs of Hollywood stars — suddenly discovered Daisy rises to stardom herself, falls in love with Robert Redford, only to turn her back on the viciousness of the business.
Ruth Gordon plays her quirky card-playing mother whom she calls ‘Old Chap’ who lives in her own world. Daisy loves her dearly, but the studio heads force her to hide Old Chap/Mrs. Clover is in an old age home and tells the public she’s dead in order to project her star image without an eccentric & batty mother in her life. Ruth Gordon once again plays batty to the poignant level of art form.
Police (Harold Gould)-“You waited seven years to report your husband missing?” Mrs. Clover-‘The Dealer’“I just started missin’ him this morning.”
Natalie Wood grew so fond of Ruth Gordon after working on the film Inside Daisy Clover that she made her the godmother to her daughter Natasha Gregson Wagner
Gordon plays Alice Dimmock involved in a dangerous battle of wits with the menacing Clare Marrable who buries her victims in her lovely rose garden–Geraldine Page hires companions who have nice savings built up and no relatives to come around looking for them in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice 1969.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? 1969 directed by Lee H. Katrin was Produced by Robert Aldrich Music by Gerald Fried.
In this taut Grande Dame Guignol horror thriller Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice 1969, Ruth Gordon portrays Alice Dimmock who sets out to uncover the truth behind her companion’s (Mildred Dunnock) disappearance after she takes a job with the austere and cunning Clare Marrable, a prolific serial killer who sows the seeds of her rose garden with her victims.
Director Lee H. Katzin and Bernard Girard’s psychological thriller positions two powerful actresses in a taut game of cat and mouse…
Geraldine Pages plays the ghastly & audacious serial killer Claire Marrable, whose husband left her penniless. In order to keep living a life of luxury and comfort she begins offing her paid companions who have stashed doe and no family to come looking for them. When Edna Tinsley played by Mildred Dunnock goes missing and becomes part of Mrs Marrableās wondrous garden of roses, Ruth Gordon pretends to be Pageās companion in order to get to the truth about her missing friend.
Ruth Gordon was amazed at the showing of What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? She figured that by playing the part of a woman in peril at the mercy of the ruthless and calculating psychopath, performed perfectly by Geraldine Page, at the final moment of confrontation her split decision to for self-preservation and become a murderer herself or be true to her inherent goodness allowing herself to be a victim. Ruth Gordon believed that it was this defining moment the goodness that ruled Alice’s heart and head would be the most powerful moments in the film. Yet, when the audience responded to this critical scene, to her surprise they screamed out “Kill her, kill her!” The audience wanted Ruth’s character to live so badly…
from director Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971).
A 79 old woman and a twenty-year-old lost soul meet at a funeral and find love and life together in a darkly light comedy. Bud Cort creates an iconic figure of a young privileged young man disillusioned by life, who gets a kick out of antagonizing his priggish mother Mrs. Chasen (Vivian Pickles) with creative faked suicides. Once Harold is exposed to the wisdom and insight that Maude imparts, she manages to open up his heart and teaches him how to reach out and embrace the substance of life’s beauty.
“You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing… oh my, how the world still *dearly* loves a *cage.* “-the inimitable Maude
Harold: “Maude” Maude: “Hmm?”Harold: “Do you pray?” Maude: “Pray? No. I communicate.” Harold: “With God?” Maude: “With *life*”
Every Which Way But Loose 1978.
Ruth Gordon plays the impertinently, uninhibited Ma to Clint Eastwood as trucker Philo Beddoe & Orville (Geoffrey Lewis) who travel around the West Coast looking for the street-style prize-fights. Along for the ride are Beverly D’Angelo as Echo, and evasive love interest Sondra Locke as country singer Lynn Halsey-Taylor. There’s a hilarious assorted misfit motorcycle gang members and Philo’s pet Orangutan Clyde who’s always stealing Ma’s Oreo cookies!
Ruth Gordon reprised her role as the cantankerous Ma in Any Which Way You Can 1980.
Ma after Clyde has eaten her bag of Oreos-“Ohh! Stop that, ya goddamn baboon. No respect! No privacy! No nothing!”
Ā
co-staring with Lee Strasberg in Boardwalk 1979.
Lee Strasberg plays David Rosen and Ruth Gordon portrays his wife Becky who own a wonderful little diner, a loving older couple who have lived in their Coney Island Jewish neighborhood for 50 years until a gang moves in and changes the communities quality of life by threatening the local store owners with violence if they don’t pay ‘protection’ money. When David defies them, they burn down the diner and desecrate the synagogue. Janet Leigh also co-stars as Florence Cohen.
Ruth Gordon manifests a marvelously warm and poignant chemistry with master actor/teacher Lee Strasberg.
She personified the unforgettable role of Minnie Castevet in āRosemaryās Babyāin 1969. Manifesting an unfading, enigmatic character that only Ruth Gordon could perform.
Ruth Gordon started to get more regular film and television roles. Reprising the role of Minnie Castevet in the made for tv fright-flick Look What’s Happened to Rosemary’s Baby (1976) and played the devouring Jewish mother Cecilia Weiss in the television movie The Great Houdini 1976. And the television movie The Prince of Central Park 1977.
Ruth Gordon was cast in the feature film The Big Bus (1976) among a terrific ensemble of actors. She appeared as Arvilla Droll in Scavenger Hunt 1979 and the very touching film about growing up and friendship- My Bodyguard 1980 in -Maxie (1985) Ruth Gordon plays Chris Makepeace’s kindly but rascally grandmother, while he finds a way to school bully Matt Dillon from beating him to a pulp, he finds an outcast that everyone is afraid of to be his bodyguard in Adam Baldwin. The film also co-stars John Houseman.
Ruth Gordon co-stars with Chris Makepeace in 1980s My Bodyguard.
Ruth Gordon co-stars with Glenn Close in Maxie 1985.
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As the eccentric Marge Savage in the ABC tv Movie of the Week directed by John Badham starring Alan Alda- Isn’t It Shocking (1973) Gordon possessed the seamless ability to oscillate between a delightfully aerated conviviality and acerbic snapdragon capable of delivering the most colorful tongue lashing!
Alda plays a small-town sheriff with his quirky secretary/sidekick Blanche (Louise Lasser) who is daunted by a string of mysterious deaths that are plaguing the elderly town folk. Edmund O’Brien plays Justin Oates an odd serial killer who is holding a lifetime grudge against his old friends who humiliated him in high school. Marge was his great love who might have done him wrong! Co-stars Lloyd Nolan, and Will Geer and the county coroner who uncovers the weird details that connect the murders.
Lynn Redgrave stars with Ruth Gordon in the stage production of George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession.
Ruth Gordon was nominated for Broadway’s 1956 Tony Award as Best Dramatic Actress for playing Dolly Levy in Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker.” Ruth Gordon says that Wilder had been a tremendous help and influence to her, having ‘picked him up in front of The Booth Theater’ way back when. She won a Golden Globe award as Best Supporting Actress as Natalie Wood’s mother she calls Old Chap in Inside Daisy Clover and a much-deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Rosemary’s Baby.
She was nominated for a Golden Globe for playing Maude in Harold and Maude in 1971.
In the 1970s and 1980s she played parts in well-known television shows like Kojak as psychic Miss Eudora Temple in Season 2 “I Want to Report a Dream”, Rhoda, and Taxi(which she won an Emmy for.)
and in the superb episode of Columbo as mystery writer Abigail Mitchell one of the most sympathetic murderesses’ of the series as she avenges the death of her beloved niece with unrelenting Lt. Columbo dauntlessly nipping at her heels. And though Abigail finds Columbo to be a very kind man,Ā he tells her not to count on that. He must stay true to his calling as a homicide detective though we wish he would just Abigail get away with murder– in “Try and Catch Me.”
Ruth Gordon as mystery writer Abigail Mitchell: I accept all superlatives.
Ruth Gordon also had the distinguished honor of hosting Saturday Night Live in 1977.
Ruth Gordon died of a stroke at 88 in Massachusetts with her husband Garson at her side.
“She had a great gift for living the moment and it kept her ageless.”Ā
ā Glenn Close
Ruth Gordon had quite a unique way of expressing herself on stage, screen, and in person, and as Dick Cavett had said about the great actresses’ ability to always project her incomparable persona, what we get!Ā —Ā āItās a lesson in something that only Ruth Gordon can teach.ā And as she would say, she had “a lot of zip in her doo dah.”Ā
I’ll end by saying this about this astonishingly iconic character whose sagacity and spark will never dim when asked that particularly interesting question, ‘If you had 3 people you could meet in Heaven who would you choose?’ Ruth Gordon, you would be one of them!- With all my love, MonsterGirl
Aired December 11, 1973, as an ABC Movie of the Week.
“Beware the seal of Kah-ub-set, for he who dares to remove it will open the gates of Hell.”
The Cat Creature was directed by horror film icon Curtis Harrington— Night Tide (1961), Queen of Blood (1966), Games (1967), How Awful About Allan (1970) tv movie, What’s the Matter with Helen (1971), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo (1972), The Killing Kind (1973), Killer Bees (1974) tv movie, The Dead Don’t Die (1975) tv movie also directed by Curtis Harrington, Ruby (1977), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978) tv movie.
The Cat Creaturewas scripted by Robert Bloch based on a story by producers Douglas S. Cramer, Wilfred Lloyd Baumes, and writer Bloch himself.Ā
From Nice Guys Don’t Work in Hollywood written by Curtis Harrington -talks about how different television executives’ mindsets for telefilms are than major motion picture executives.
Director/writerĀ Curtis Harrington master at ‘horror of personality’
“I found out just how different on a television movie called The Cat Creature. The scriptĀ was written by Robert Bloch, based on an old story he’d published in Weird Tales. In fact, he was one of the horror writers I had discovered in the pages of Weird Tales during my teen years in Beaumont. It was a nice pulpy story about a girl who is the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian cat goddess. In casting the actress to play the modern incarnation of this beautiful goddess, I got my first nasty taste ofĀ TV executive thinking. I discovered that this new set of black suits was always very involved in the casting of leading roles in the network TV drama. Unlike movie executives whose primary interest was ‘box office appeal’ they were concerned with something they called TVQ” This meant the ratings the stars other television appearances had received. The connection between a star’s suitability for a role meant absolutely nothing, and this was the case of The Cat Creature… […] I recalled that Egyptian women supposedly used henna to dye their black hair red, so we put a dark red wig on Meredith Baxter, and she agreed to darken her eyes with green contact lenses… […] Bloch had written an important supporting role, the proprietor ofĀ a magic shop, for a man. I suggested that he rewrite the role for a woman and that we try to get Gale Sondergaard for the part. Sondergaard was an actress I remembered vividly from my childhood. She had been memorable as the sinister Oriental [sic] woman in The Letter and in the title role of The Spider Woman, a Basil Rathbone/Sherlock Holmes adventure in 1937…
“I had wanted the proprietress of the occult shop to be played as a lesbian to lend a bit of spice to the show. But Standards and Practices , the office of the network devoted to removing any element to a script that might offend Mrs. Grundy, sent a memo after that there must be ‘NO SUGGESTION WHATSOEVER THAT THIS CHARACTER IS A LESBIAN.’ However, my natural propensity toward subversion was given its due when Douglas Cramer allowed me to add a dwarf hooker to a scene in a cheap hotel where Stuart Whitman as the detective interview John Carradine, who plays the hotel clerk. The dwarf lady of the evening is shown seated on the counter in the hotel lobby. Swinging her short legs and batting her eyelashes, she says to Stuart, “How’s tricks, baby!” This was left in, and Cramer was very pleased when the incident was singled out for comment in a New York Times review of the show. It wasn’t the sort of thing they were used to seeing in the bland medium of television.”
An estate appraiser Frank Lucas (Kent Smith) comes to catalog a private collection of Egyptian relics, the inventory at an estate –among the deceased’s possessions is an Egyptian mummy adorned with splendid regalia –wearing a large amulet around its neck and topped the golden head of the cat Goddess Bast.
Just to be clear as a person who worships cats–The story of The Cat Creature is a creation for a horror teleplay that has no foundation in historical fact. Bast was not a murderous cat nor an evil deity. Bast represents protection and is a sacred symbol of that protection toward cats… She is not a monster!
From Wikipedia–Bastet was a goddess in ancient Egyptian religion, worshiped as early as the 2nd Dynasty (2890 BC). As Bast, she was the goddess of warfare in Lower Egypt, the Nile River delta region, before the unification of the cultures of ancient Egypt. Her name is also translated as Baast, Ubaste, and Baset.[1] In Greek mythology, she is also known as Ailuros.
The uniting Egyptian cultures had deities that shared similar roles and usually the same imagery. In Upper Egypt, Sekhmet was the parallel warrior lioness deity. Often similar deities merged into one with the unification, but that did not occur with these deities having such strong roots in their cultures. Instead, these goddesses began to diverge. During the 22nd Dynasty (c.ā945ā715 BC), Bast had transformed from a lioness warrior deity into a major protector deity represented as a cat.[2] Bastet, the name associated with this later identity, is the name commonly used by scholars today to refer to this deity.
Shortly after Lucas leaves, a thief Joe Sung played by Keye Luke steals the amulet, and the mummy disappears setting off a series of uncanny events and several mysterious murders. Frank Lucas is found dead and Lt. Marco (Stuart Whitman) calls in Prof. Roger Edmonds (David Hedison) as an expert to help identify the missing amulet. Joe Sung tries to pawn this ancient amulet at The Sorcerers Shop an occult shop owned and run by Hester Black (Gale Sondergaard). After Black’s young salesgirl is murdered in the same fashion as Frank Lucas, she hires a new girl to work in her shop. Enter, Rena Carter (Meredith Baxter) who gets pulled into the mysterious happenings and begins a romance with Prof. Edmonds.
The strange killings show the victims all baring the marks of a giant cat attack as if they’ve been clawed to death. Is it the resurrection of the Goddess Bast who is committing these murders?
This ABC Movie of the Week showcases the actress whose popularity was rising at that time, Meredith Baxter, who plays the mysterious Rena Carter who may be somehow involved in these strange ritual killings. David Hedison plays Prof. Roger Edmonds an archeologist who is called upon by the detective on the case, Lt. Marco (Stuart Whitman) to assist him in solving the murders. Just a note… I am absolutely crazy about Stuart Whitman, down the road I plan on doing a feature on his work –his credits too long to mention, so see the link to IMBd, I also really want to do a feature on the incredibly mesmerizing actress of the 70sBarbara Parkinswho appears in another ABC Movie of the Week Snatched that I’ll be covering in just a bit…
Prof. Roger Edmonds-“Marco is on his way here to arrest you”
Rena Carter āWhat!”
Prof. Roger Edmonds-“Donāt you see Everything about you adds to Marcosā suspicious no previous address no social security number A girl who covers her tracks A girl who stops at the shop not by accident but with deliberate purpose. Marcos thinks that you destroyed everyone who stood between you and that amulet.”
Another bonus of this creepy telefilm is that it co-stars the wonderful Gale Sondergaard. as Hester Black the occult shop owner.
In an interview actor David Hedison commented, “All in all, it was a very happy experience. Meredith was a joy to work with, and a fine human being. Stuart Whitman and I talked and laughed a lot about our early contract days at 20th Century Fox in the late 1950s and 1960s. And of course, Gale was a lovely woman and shared so many wonderful memories with me about her early films. And I should add that all the felines behaved beautifully–even in one of the more violent scenes with me at the end of the film. I managed to escape without a scratch!” –“One other memory was of the first screening of the film before it aired. There was a small invited audience at a screening room on the lot. My wife, Bridget, had not read the script or seen any of the shooting, and at one point when the Cat Creature suddenly jumps out to attack, she got such a fright she let out a scream- much to the delight of the producers and director”
From Television Fright Films of the 1970s by David Deal-“here he (Curtis Harrington) successfully recreates the moody thrillers of Val Lewton of the 1940s. Relying on creepy atmosphere and suspense.”
Deal points out one of the prevailing great elements of The Cat Creature, it’s the fabulous casting, of course, Stuart Whitman is a tremendous actor, his appearances go all the way back to the early uncredited 50s classics like When Worlds Collide (1951) and Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Whitman was nominated for an Academy Award for his startling performance in The Mark 1961, as a tormented man dealing with his repulsive impulse to molest children and his ultimate redemption. It was a risky role, that he inhabited with dignity and pathos. A prolific supportive actor and leading man he appeared in the Cimarron Strip tv series from 1967-1968. One of my favorite films of his Shock Treatment (1964) was another powerfully nuanced portrayal of Dale Nelson an actor who is paid to infiltrate a mental hospital to expose a crazy psychiatrist Edwina Beighly played by the silky and sly Lauren Bacall. Stuart Whitman has appeared in stinkers too, like Night of the Lepus (1972) about giant mutant bunnies, eh not so much… in Jonathon Demme’s Crazy Mama 1975with Cloris Leachman, and a very slick Italian cop thriller called Shadows in an Empty Room aka Blazing Magnums (1976). And since we’re celebrating these ‘tele-fright’ films of the 70s let’s just mention his other supporting roles, he plays a psychic looking for a missing husband in Revenge! (1971) with Shelley Winters as a deranged mother who lost her daughter and The Woman Hunter (1972).
David Hedison of course was popular with horror fans for his campy over-the-top performance as a altruistic scientist who loses his head over his discovery to transport matter in the fantastical classic Sci-Fi hit, The Fly 1958(which is part of my series to follow Keep Watching the Skies -coming up The Year is 1953) starred in the hit television show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964)
The supporting cameos are such a treat! Seeing Gale Sondergaard who is terrific as the occult shop owner Hester Black while reading Professor Edmonds his tarot cards gets into a battle of the wills between skepticism and fanaticism. Sondergaard received the first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in Anthony Adverse (1936) I adore her as Emily in the Abbott & Costello romantic comedy The Time of Their Lives (1946) even then she was open to the spirit world! Sondergaard was one of the unfortunate actors who were targeted by HUAC, brought before them she refused to testify and was blacklisted from the industry for over 20 years. She returned in 1969, and The Cat Creature was her first ‘tele-fright’ (as writer David Deal puts it) of the 1970s.
The Deputy Coroner (Milton Parsons) looks like a corpse himself, just one of the macabre details that Harrington likes to throw into his ‘horror of personality’ films and teleplays.
The busy-working actor Kent Smith has appeared in so many film and television supportive roles. Best known by horror fans for his roles in Val Lewton’s Cat People (1942) and The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
Here he plays Frank Lucas the cat creature’s first victim. Ironic isn’t it? His other tele-frights include director Curtis Harrington’sĀ How Awful About Allan (1970) starring Anthony Perkins, Julie Harris, and Joan Hackett. He was also in The Night Stalker (1972) and The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974). One of my all-time favorites is the lovable, ubiquitous theatrical acrobat like Burgess Meredith who could inhabit the role of a vagabond to thespian at times quixotic poetic tongued –the sharp, and saturnine character actor John Carradine who plays the manager of a sleazy hotel clerk. Carradine can make the smallest part enormously unforgettable and has graced many a tele-fright– Crowhaven Farm (1970), The Night Strangler ((1973), and Death at Love House (1976) Next to Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, I have such a sweet tooth for John Carradine and he’s another icon I’d love to feature here at The Last Drive-In.
From David Deal’s terrific Television Fright Films of the 1970s a movie of the week companion –“Charlie Chan’s number one son Keye Luke is the amulet thief in his only telefright appearance of the decade but most curious is Peter Lorre Jr. who appears as a dying pawn broker Lorre Jr. was really German born Eugene Weingand a notorious imposter who was once taken to court by Lorre for using his name. Lorre died before his case against Weingand was settled, allwoing the impersonation to continue. Relative newcomer but top billed Meredith Baxter was fresh off the Bridget Loves Bernie sitcom and would soon marry her co-star David Birney, where she would heifeenate her name and has become a fixture to television.”
Composer Leonard Rosenman is responsible for the score, he has won Oscars and Emmys for his compelling music, for instance, Fantastic Voyage (1966), A Man Called Horse (1970) Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)Race with the Devil (1975), Bound for Glory (1976) and supplied the poignant music for the dark disturbing psychological mini-series starring Sally Field–Sybil (1976). He also added his music to other tele-fright films such as Vanished (1971) The Phantom of Hollywood (1974) and The Possessed (1977) starring wonderful supporting actress of the 1970s Joan Hackett.
Though I am a huge fan of the director’s body of work, I have to look away from Harrington’s predilection to either kill off cats or make them look sinister in his films, so avoid The Killing Kind (1973)with Ann Southern or if you love rabbits lets not forget the poor bunnies in What’s The Matter With Helen (1971).
Also, the sound the cat creature makes doesn’t sound anything like a growling menacing cat, it sounds like an old man who smokes too many cigars and needs to spit up his oatmeal and prunes.
Directed by Jeannot Szwarcand the screenplay was written by writer/director Collin Higgin’s whose credits include the cult film starring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon and one of my personal favorite films–Harold and Maude (1971), he also penned the memorable feminist comedy classic Nine to Five (1980) starring Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda.
Busy 70s television Canadian-born actress –with the girl next door beauty –Belinda J. Montgomery plays Diane Shaw, whose mother has died, leaving her with the revelation that she is actually the daughter of Satan. Diane’s mother Alice Shaw (Diane Ladd) had carnal knowledge of the prince of darkness and Diane is the product of that unholy union. Alice was also friends and worshiped Satan with Lilith who befriends and lures our wayward devil waif into a web of suspense as she spirals toward her fate.
Naturally, as the working formula would suggest Diane is then pursued by devil worshipers headed by Lilith Malone played by the grand lady herself, Shelley Winters. Of course, there are elements that pay tribute to the far superior classic pre-occupation with devil cults and paranoia in the city Roman Polanski/William Castle’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) brought to life by the stunning performance by Mia Farrow, and the presence of such greats as Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, and Maurice Evans.
Shelley Winters having a Ruth Gordon/Minnie Castevet moment!!!
Feeling trapped by her destiny, she soon meets and falls in love with Steve Stone (another tele-fright favorite-Robert Foxworth). Steve asks Diane to marry him so life is possibly good again. Well maybe not so much…
Lilith-“Dear, You mustn’t disappoint your mother’s old friends.”
Alikhine-āYou are your motherās daughter!”
Lilith- āSHE WAS ONE OF USā
Mrs. Stone (Martha Scott) “She got religion, and turned away”
Alikhine-āYou are your father’s daughter!”
Diane –“NO! NO!”
Alikhine- āHe is the evil one.”
Mrs. Stone-Ā āThe all-seeing… he is Lucifer”
First off, The Devil’s Daughteris still entertaining to watch, I adore Belinda J. Montgomery and I could watch Shelley Winters bring in her mail. She’s been lighting up the screen since she played the neurotic Jewish mother Faye Lapinsky in director Paul Mazursky’s sublime Next Stop Greenwich Village (1976)to watch her as Belle Rosen who swims under treacherous waters in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), as she envisions Ma’ Kate Barker in Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama (1970) or the tragic Helen Hill/Martin in Curtis Harrington’s gruesome horror of personality thriller What’s the Matter with Helen (1971)Ā as the bellicose Mrs. Armstrong in Bernard Gerard’s The Mad Room (1969) as the vengeful and deranged mother in the tele-fright film Revenge! (1971) going back to the luckless love-sick and doomed Alice Tripp in A Place in the Sun (1951), as the delightful singer Binky Gay in Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), the sympathetic Terry Stewart in William Castle’s Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949) or the gutsy and classy torch singer –Joy Carroll alongside Frank Sinatra in the dazzling musical noir film Meet Danny Wilson (1951)…! there it is I just adore Shelley Winters!
Belinda J. Montgomery was one of the more prevalent actresses in the 70s teleplays, like Season Hubley who looked fresh scrubbed, and awfully pretty but could play it all damaged and less than pure if you know what I mean.
The Devil’s Daughterplays like a dark comedy, with a surprisingly pessimistic or should I say fatalistic ending, not unlike its finer forerunner Rosemary’s Baby.
Directed by Jeannot Szwarc had started out his career working in television and has directed many popular contemporary television series link to IMBd to see his complete credits, in the late 60s and 1970s he worked on Rod Serling’s television horror anthology series from 1969-1973 Night Gallery.
If you’re familiar with the series you’ll recognize the painting of Satan that emblazons Lilith’s living room wall, could be a tout to the series that utilized artwork of art directorĀ Thomas J. Wright who painted all of the paintings used to introduce each story.
Szwarc directed the ‘telefright Night of Terror (1972) and in 1973 directed the Lovely But Lethal episode of Columbo starring Vera Miles. Some of his notable theatrical releases – Are Bug (1975), Jaws 2, and the romantic fantasy Somewhere in Time (1980).
What makes The Devil’s Daughter the most interesting to watch are the familiar character actors that populate the film. The nefarious characters are not quite as they seem to be on the surface. Of course, there’s the mentioned Diane Ladd as the profane mother who slept with the devil in the first place but in her waning years found religion but was executed by the cult for her transgression. There’s the wonderfully perspicacious Ian Wolfe whose presence always adds extra depth to any story, here he plays Father MacHugh a kindly priest who while he doesn’t believe the gossip about Lilith would rather see Diane move out of Lilith’s house and live with a girl her own age. When Diane does decide to move in with a friend, Lilith blows her stack…
Fans of Dan Curtis’ cult television horror soap opera of the 1960s Dark Shadows will recognize Jonathan Frid as Lilith’s mute ‘chauffeur companion.’
Film star Joseph Cotten plays Judge Weatherby, Martha Scottas Mrs. Stone, Lucille Benson ( a quirky character actress who was great at playing batty old ladies) as Janet Poole and Thelma Carpenter as Margaret Poole’s curious twins, a pair that reminds me of the odd relationship between Sylvia Miles as Gerde Engstrom and Beverly D’Angelo as Sandra in Michael Winner’s The Sentinel (1977) which I am highlighting this Halloween month of October! The Poole sisters dress alike, Janet is white and Margaret is black, and they have cats with opposite colors.
The persnickety Abe Vigoda (the irascible Detective Fish from tv’s Barney Miller) plays Alikhine an expert in the ancient art of dance, Robert Corthwaite (the fanatical scientist intent on idolizing the superiority of the super carrot in The Thing from Another World 1951) plays pastor Dixon.
Some of the dialogue is as campy and hilariously high-brow as all get out–“You are promised in marriage to the Prince, the Demon of Endor.”
And much like the climax of Rosemary’s Baby, there is the ensemble of Satanists seen in Lilith’s scrapbook of yesteryear, the cult standing around in living rooms in their robes posing for the photograph.
Diane struggles to fight back against her legacy as the Devil’s own daughter as she struggles with nightmares, manifests her inherited evil nature, and wears her ring with the strange insignia, mentally impels a young boy to walk out into traffic, nearly getting him run down by a car.
There’s a nice touch as she meets her roommate’s horse and they become frightened by her presence bucking and whinnying, a sign that they can see her evil essence. When Alikhine (Abe) leads the ‘ancient dance’ at the party Diane has an instinctual rhythm that guides her movements. Will Diane succumb to her legacy or will she use her power to fight her destiny? I won’t tell… “They actually refer to me as the Devil’s daughter.”-Diane
“Sally, Sally, Sally… We want you, we want you. It’s your spirit we want, your spirit we need… When will they come to set us free… there’s time enough we have all the time in the world.”Ā
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is one of the most remembered television horror films of the 1970s. It no doubt has left a lasting impression on so many of us. Enough so, that director Guillermo Del Toro remade it with more teeth and polished effects in 2010, renewing a whole revitalized generation of fans of the story and mood of the piece in all its palpitating unreality. That’s why it has maintained such a cult status all these years. The creepy atmosphere is partly credited to director John Newland who wasn’t a stranger to stories of the macabre and uncanny as he developed the late 50s series One Step Beyond. which dealt with real-life experiences with the uncanny and the supernatural. He also had a hand in directing several of Boris Karloff’s anthology series that blended mystery, horror, and noir in his 60s series Thriller.
I love the color palate by set designer James Cane–the purple and blue tones, the reds and pinks, the golds and browns, the lighting and set design is a rich visual set piece to work within the modern āthings that go bump in the nightā trope.
Felix Silla, Tamara De Treaux & Patty Malone as the creatures: on the set of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Newland worked steadily through the 60s and 70s with Karloff on Thriller and then with Rod Serling on Night Gallery. In Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, director Newland has a grasp on what is eerie and spooky in the classical sense and delivers an atmosphere that is rich with a wonderful color pallet. He produces a simple story with spine-tingling chills, that are often missing today. Newland’s device works great often due to the lighting and the quick glimpses, as you just catch aspects of these little menaces, rather than have them appear for long periods of time on camera. Another creepy mechanism that I find startling is a device within the make-up developed by Michael Hancock Ā (The Omega Man 1971, Deliverance 1972, Altered States 1980, Se7en 1995). where the creatures speak but their mouths do not move, it is as if the voices come from behind their faces.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) Directed by John Newland
It’s an odd effect, and though it lacks the virtual ‘teeth’ that Del Toro’s savage creatures have, I am filled with such nostalgic shivers for the old look of things. The kitschy decorating for instance. The creature masks also remind me of something you’d see in The Twilight Zone, an episode ofEye of the Beholder, in the same way, makeup artist William Tuttle created masks where their mouths didn’t move when they spoke. The effect just works. The three little devil imps with their shriveled scowling faces and piercing eyes and creep-tastical voices are among the most iconic and remembered creatures from the 1970s.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Darkis “lit like a horror movie–pools of light glow amidst shrouds of darkness and mysterious shadows abound” “Even a darkened party scene is justified as reticence to reveal the house remodeling underway. The truth is fear of the dark is universal., especially when prune-face goblins tug at our bedclothes.”- David Deal: Television Fright Films of the 1970s.
Alex (Jim Hutton) and Sally Farnham (Kim Darby) inherit an eerie old Victorian house from Sally’s grandmother that holds a dangerous secret legacy, as it harbors the spirits of little devil imps who need to be set free by a designated person whose soul they aim to possess. Once Sally moves into her grandparent’s garish and secretly ghoulish old house, Sally discovers these little creatures living down in the pits of hell behind the bricked-up fireplace in the creepy, musty den. Like her grandfather before her, Sally is next in line to ‘set them free’ by being their chosen sacrifice. She now must convince her success-driven husband Alex that she isn’t crazy or a hysterical, bored housewife. Alex refuses to listen to Sally’s pleas to leave the house, or that the strange happenings and sightings of antagonistic little demons are real and not born out of her imagination or a way for her to sabotage the budding career that takes him away a lot. The only person who not only believes Sally but has tried to warn her not to meddle in things she doesn’t understand is William Demarest as cantankerous handyman Mr. Harris, who worked for Sally’s grandparents. He knows about the little evil gnomes bricked up behind the fireplace and tries to no avail to get Sally to leave the creepy den as is, “Some doors are better left unopened.”
Sally pushes on the bricks of the old fireplace, Mr. Harris the handy walks in, in his
sour-puss scowling manner-
Mr Harris-āIt wonāt work.! Sorry Miss I didnāt mean to make you jumpā
Sally-āItās alrightā¦ well why wonāt it work? I mean surely all it needs to be is smashed open”
Mr. Harris- āthose bricks are cemented 4 deep and reinforced with iron bars. Thereās no way of opening it up.ā
Sally-ānow whoās idea was that?ā
Mr.Harris-āYour grandmother had me do that twenty years ago.ā
Sally-āWhy?ā
Mr. Harris-āWell, it, it was after, er (he stops and looks at the fireplace)
Sally-āafter what?ā
Mr. Harris- āI just canāt open it up.”
Sally-āNow Mr. Harris surely youāre not afraid of a little hard work, hhm?ā
Mr. Harris-āIts not the work itās just that some things are better left as they are.ā
Sally-“Whats this?”
Mr. Harris-“Thatās for cleaning out ashes.”
Sally-“itās been bolted shut.”
Mr. Harris-“By me, and thatās the way it should stay!”
Told by both Alex and cranky pants Harris to leave the fireplace alone, naturally, she unbolts the ash pit, releasing the creatures who proceed to torment her, making it look like she is crazy, torturing her, gas-lighting her, as we hear whispered tones of
āNo donāt hurt her, not yetā¦ āBut I want to I want to…”
Oh, there’s plenty of opportunity and time to torment, hurt and drag Sally down to hell. Sally, it’s too much fun to drive her mad, messing with the lights whiles she’s taking a shower, then leaving the straight razor on the dark bathroom floor, poking out from behind curtains and bookcases, peaking out of the floral arrangement at the Haute dinner party intended to impress Alex’s boss, placing a chord across the steps hoping she’ll fall down the long staircase. Sally sees these little menaces everywhere but no one else does. Alex doesn’t even believe that it’s mice, the place was fumigated right before they moved in. After Alex has a fit and fires Mr. Harris for filling his wife with dread, he finally reaches out to him wanting to hear about the history of the house.
Apparently, Mr. Harris tells Alex, that Sally’s grandfather was heard screaming in the study the night he disappeared presumably as he was being dragged down into the pits of hell. After that, the fireplace was bricked up and the ash pit bolted shut. The wicked little imps have been waiting all this time to be set free.
In the simplistic story, everyone at one time has been afraid of the darkness and the unseen terror that it holds, and the beauty of this enduring film moves along at a very quick pace that doesn’t seem rushed, or empty. Each scene while at times frustrating from the standpoint of stupid things you don’t do if you feel you’re in danger, like at the height of the danger drawing ever so near, just lie down on the bed and take a nap, okay you’ve been drugged with the sleeping pills slipped into your coffee by those little creeps. You will forever ask yourself, go to a hotel, why not just get out of the house? If you feel like you want to scream at Sally, get the hell out… now for the love of Mike! And by the end, it tickles you to finally see her being dragged and daunted.
It’s hard to make out in the darkly lit scene but the goblins are climbing the stairs like a mountain.
Sally -“It was something like this little ferocious animal grabbed at my dress… Alex’s irritated voice scolds Sally like a child--āLook Sally youāve got to stop this!!!āĀ
I must admit, it’s too delicious to see these little nasty creatures bounding up the stairs, rigging them with a chord in order to cause one to trip, fall and break one’s neck, and pop out of the luscious darkness wielding what is to them a giant a straight razor. These little evil imps inhabit our world view perfectly of those ‘things that go bump in the night.’
Kim Darby is plain and perfectly whiny within the horror version of Diary of a Mad Housewife, but that works to the film’s sense of go ahead drag her down the stairs already feeling, though I cheered for Carrie Snodgrass in the aforementioned film of the 70s. ” Sally trips into a surreal world of gloom and although she never really gets a grip on things, she still shows some resolve.” Buying flashlights and candles instead of a room at a Hotel. sure Sally sure…
Alex and Sally experiencing martial woes and little devil imps in the suburbs!
As Sally puts it when having a heart-to-heart with her only friend Barbara- āMost of the time she feels like a reasonable adjunct to his getting aheadā
Barbara tells Sally that she knows exactly what itās like to be āleft by yourself to broodā āMaking imaginary mountains out of imaginary molehillsāthatās exactly what her friend Barbara thinks the breaking of the ashtray by the side of the bed and the sounds of something lurking behind the kitchen garbage merely wasā¦
This 70s tele-fright film could work as a horror story that embroiders the dismissal of women, their needs, their perceptions, and their entire world into an adult fairy tale/nightmare. How a woman can become discounted when what she thinks and feels is chalked up to being merely her ‘imaginationā or emotional distress, and/or an unreasonable emotional dependency on her man who is trying to make it. Or… she is just plain exuding hysteria. Donāt Be afraid of the Dark consists of blunt hyperbole of the hysterical woman not in its undercurrent but rather, right out in plain sight a contrast to the āshadowsā and goblins that lurk in the dark. A metaphor for womenās desire to be set free? Iāll leave that to scholarsā¦
Kim Darby looks better than ever… no frowzy Sally here!
Actually, I read that originally actor George Hamilton was cast as Alex. The chemistry would not have been as well suited as Hutton’s disbelieving soul. Hamilton is too sharp an actor for Darby’s frowzy simple girl next-door style. William Demarest gives a well-suited supportive performance as the cranky handyman Mr. Harris who knows all to well about the secrets of that bedeviled house with its ancient wicked creatures lurking about. It is Sally’s friend Joan played by Barbara Anderson who finally believes Sally isn’t going mad. At first, she suspects that it is a mad housewife deal, sexual frustration, marital woes, and just plain hysteria. Anderson won an Emmy for her role on Ironside as Officer Eve Whitfield.
Writer Nigel McKeand was sometime actor and was one of the demonic voices in the film. Prolific composer Billy Goldenberg (Columbo) is adept at both classical and pop music and has been in demand, providing music for film and television since the mid-60s. His tele-fright scores include Ritual of Evil (1970), Duel (1971), Terror on the Beach (1973), Reflections of Murder (1974), The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), The UFO Incident (1975) and One of My Wives is Missing (1976).
One of the great aspects that work in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is the set direction by James Cane, the big old Victorian that creates the mood of a ‘chamber piece’ is so creepily garish with colors that clash, and a mix of neo-gothic, Louis VI and contemporary styles that even Sally decides to hire decorator Francisco Perez (Pedro ArmendĆ”riz Jr.) whom the dastardly gnomes accidentally cause to fall down the steps killing him. Still, Alex doesn’t quite see that something is wrong with the house.
Even after Joan (Barbara Anderson) begins to believe Sally, the efforts made to protect her friend are sluggish and frustrating, just to make our skin crawl with anxiety as these wicked little things chant “We want you, we want you, we want you, we want you”, while Sally is destined to go the way of her grandfather. This special Movie of the Week chiller is brimming over with an eerie atmosphere.
Felix Silla, who played one of the creatures also played Cousin It in The Addams Family.
Directed by Philip Leacock with a screenplay by Richard Masterson. (I Am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man) This iconic writer/visionary has too many credits to list them all, link to IMBd to see the breadth of this genius’ work.
She’s Alone. No One Believes Her. And There’s No Way Out!
While driving across the desert Bob and Jean Mitchell (Dabney Coleman and Cloris Leachman) stop at a desolate roadside diner late one night. When Bob goes to the gent’s room, he doesn’t return, just vanishes completely! The locals including Ned Beatty as Tom King, the wonderful Louise Latham as Vi, and Ron Feinberg as Lou McDermott all appear unfriendly and downright menacing. The worst of all is diner owner Jim Cutler who considers people like Jean and Bob ‘moron city folk’ (Ross Martin who does sinister really well!)
Jean āYou must have seen where my husband went.”
Jim Cutler-āAre you telling me I did?”
Jean āHe was sitting right there at that table. Right there.”
Jim Cutler-āAnd I was right there at that griddle, with my back turned how would I know where he went. Maybe he got sore at ya and just lit out. Cause your husband aināt here aināt no fault of mine.”
One of the most underrated character actresses Louise Latham!
These uncooperative folks deny even seeing her husband at all. Then as the paranoia and panic build someone drives off with her car, stranding her there and now are coming after her. Jean goes to the sheriff played by recognizable character actor Dana Elcar but she has no proof of a crime and tries to get him to believe her protect her from the danger she is in and of course, find Bob.
This familiar theme of the missing husband had been seen in tele-fright flicks such as Honeymoon with a Stranger 1969 starring Janet Leigh, and And No One Could Save Her 1973 starring Lee Remick.
Richard Matheson’s teleplay, from his short story, strikes that universal chord of paranoia, alienation, helplessness and abject fear stuck in the middle nowhere, working like a claustrophobic stage play Dying Room Only puts our heroine in an environment surrounded by hostility with authority figures who don’t believe you all while stuck in the middle of a lonely unforgiving desert.
Cloris Leachman is one of THE most talented comedic actresses, just brings to mind her iconic role as Mary Tyler Moore’s narcissistic and fashionable friend Phyllis Lindstrom from 1970-1977 and her outre brilliant performance as Frau BlĆ¼cher in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein (1974).
Ross Martin is best known for Artemus Gordon of popular television series The Wild, Wild West, and as Garland Humphrey ‘Red’ Lynch Blake Edwards striking suspense thriller Experiment in Terror 1962, and his pretentious art critic Dale Kingston in Suitable for Framingon Columbo’s 1971 episode co-starring Kim Hunter. Ross is just superb as a menacing figure, showing up in another tele-fright film Skyway to Death, before his death of a heart attack in 1981.
Ned Beattyis another marvelous character actor whose creepy statement to Jean is chilling a complete departure from the cowering victimized Bobby out of his element in Deliverance1972 who goes through his own ordeal with local hostile types here plays a slovenly cretin, Jean asks for change to use the pay phone, Jim Cutler (Ross Martin) tells her he’s fresh out and Tom (Beatty)- looks straight at her, jingles coins in his pocket and walks over to the pinball machine to play a few rounds. One of his more menacing lines–“The only thing I’m gonna regret, lady, is that I’ll only have ten minutes alone with you before I kill you.”
Dabney Coleman has a few lines like this for instance– “These two men happen to be jerks and this… is a dump.”Not quite Bette Davis…
Dana Elcar appears to be a well-meaning but powerless sheriff… Is he part of the conspiracy?
From David Deal’s Television Fright Films of the 1970s –“This story of frustration has the feel of dream logic at first as Jean’s world suddenly turns into a series of unexplainable roadblocks.
Dying Room Only is a film that pushes the trope of paranoia and no one will believe me. Director Philip Leacock keeps the film tautly wound, especially during the first half. Leacock worked on many popular television shows of the 1960s. His tele-fright films in the 1970s include When Michael Calls (1972), and Killer on Board (1977).
Composer Charles Foxwas twice nominated for Oscars The Other Side of the Mountain, and Foul Play, and won two Emmys both for Love American Style. Among his credits are Barbarella 1968, The Green Slime 1968, and The Drowning Pool 1975. I just learned that he wrote Killing Me Softly with His Song with lyrics by Norman Gimbel in collaboration with Lori Lieberman in 1972, made famous by amazing songstress Roberta Flack, who gives the most stunning rendition.
Ā If there are devils, there must also be gods. I don’t know. I have no thoughts…
Aired on February 13, 1973, as the CBS Movie of the Week
With a teleplay by Ron Austin and Him Buchanan -and music by Mort Stevens who worked on many Boris Karloff’s anthology series Thriller… Horror at 37,00 Feet is directed by David Lowell RichĀ
Television Fright Films of the 1970s by David Deal– “Horror at 37,000 Feet is either a meditation on the inherent savagery of the human race on the primal fears and ancient behaviors that tether us to the past, no matter how far we advance with our technology or just a silly horror movie.”
Alan O’ Neill –āYou know I think Iām gonna put some black stone on the floor here around the altar”
Sheila O’Neill-āVery nice if youāre planning to use it as a bar”
Alan O’Neill -(laughs) āThatās a little nastyā
Architect Alan O’Neill (Roy Thinnes) appropriates the remains of a cursed abbey from his wife’s familial state in England, and loads them onto a plane with the intention of flying them to America and using them in their home. During all this time it also happens to be the night of the summer solstice and I might add, a full moon. A foreboding glowing moon shines over Heathrow Airport. Once the stones and pieces of the abbey are stowed away safely in the cargo hold, ten passengers board the red-eye flight.
Buddy Ebsen as millionaire Glenn Farlee, Tammy Grimes as Mrs. Pinder, Lynn Loring as Manya Kovalik, Jane Merrowas Alan O’Neill’s wife Sheila, France Nuyen as model Annalik, William Shatner as faithless minister Paul Kovalik, Paul Winfield as Dr. Enkalla, H.M Wynant as Frank Driscoll, a little girl Jodi played by Mia Bendixsen who is flying alone with her doll. And then there’s the crew Chuck Connors as Captain Ernie Slade, Will Hutchins as cowboy Steve Holcolm, Darleen Carras flight attendant Margo, and Russell Johnson as Jim Hawley.
Once everyone settles in, the spirits of the long-dead druids break free in the cargo hold and threaten to take over the plane in order to claim their human sacrifice. The tension among the passengers starts to unfold as they try to figure out what the menace is, and what it wants.
Horror at 37,00 Feet is the only credit for V.X. Appleton whose story the film was based on. It was Emmy-winning director David Lowell Rich’s first supernatural film for television but he would go on to make the cult favorite Satan’s School for Girls,Runaway! (1973) and another frightening flight film called SST-Death Flight (1977). Rich also made Madame X(1966)with Lana Turner and Eye of the Cat (1969) with Michael Sarrazin, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Eleanor Parker, and lots of felines…
People might make a comparison with some of the elements of Horror at 37,000 Feet and Cruise Into Terror1978 on a rival network. While the basic framework, is passengers board a cursed ship daunted by supernatural powers, Horror at 37,000 Feet just has a campier, creepier more atmospheric mood and sensational theatrics because of its cast. In that film, the passengers of a boat are threatened by the son of Satan. Horror at 37,000 Feetutilizes a more nuanced menace, the spirits of ancient druids, which is a totally more unique narrative, as they howl and cause an eerie frosty freezing burning cold throughout the cabin of the airplane as they hunger for their sacrifice. Barry Thomas in charge of the sound department creates some authentically chilling aural scares as the wailing, groaning old ones, and the supernatural static that encircles them…
The ensemble of this horror film might not be too proud of it but it is quite a diverse cast indeed. Tammy Grimes is deliciously eerie in her unbounded knowledge of ancient cults, and Lynn Loring as usual is perfectly intense and tightly wound. It’s all so outlandish and campy. Jane Merrow from Hands of the Ripper (1971) plays architect O’Neill’s wife, Sheila. Among the other great actors is millionaire Glen Farlee played by Buddy Ebsen, a Mrs. Pinder Tammy Grimes, who seems too in sync with all things supernatural and sort of sympatico with the druid mythology. There’s a man of god, who has fallen and is having a crisis of faith- drowning himself in alcohol and self-pity. Who else could play that without breaking a sweat by the brilliant to happily hammy master most likely hand-picked just to re-visit his role as the tormented man on a plane William Shatner as Paul Klovalik… Shatner is not at all a stranger to being terrorized on a plane by strange creatures–if we just think back to a decade before on The Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet that aired 10 years before in 1963. Shatner played Bob Wilson crazed by his visions of a monster on the wing of the plane, daunted by a gremlin who is tearing the wing and tinkering with the engine of a plane when no one, not even his wife will believe him much to the fate of the flight.
A film like Hitchcock’s Lifeboat (1944), creates a world of tension as the variety of personalities each respond to the crisis in their own way, not to compare this Movie of the Week with the masterpiece of cinema, Horror at 37,000 Feet is itself an ensemble morality play as much as it is a supernatural story. The tensions, conflicts and personal dynamics are tested by the imminent danger and the doomed fate they are faced with.
Alan (Thinnes)Ā āAre you beyond fear or are you just drunk?ā
Paul (Shatner)Ā –āBoth but if I were you Iād worry more about your fellow passengers than what ever it is you brought on boardā
Things start to go wrong as soon as the flight leaves London as the plane is mysteriously suspended in mid-air going around and around in circles. The mysterious and uncanny entity smashes out of its crate in the cargo hold and freezes Mrs. Pinder’s dog, Damon. The cold then begins to manifest itself inside the cabin. A green boiling oozing Lovecraftian kind of menace reveals itself.
When Captain Slade and Hawley investigate, Hawley is quick-frozen like a bag of organic cauliflower. The evil power rips through the carpeted floor of the plane and an ugly greenish brown ooze bubbles and smokes as ancient unintelligible voices chant. That is how the malevolent entity shows its presence.
Co-Pilot Jim Hawley “Look at this there’s something like moss on the bulkhead.”
An evil unspeakable horror that you cannot really see. From the old school of less is more, and it’s what you don’t see that creates more dread. It’s more creepy and effective that way. Sheila O’Neill (Jane Merrow), whose family built the abbey passes out and speaks Latin and hears voices that torment her, calling her name, which prompts Mrs. Pinder to explain a bit about what’s going on.
Paul- āDo you remember what you said when you fainted? (he speaks a Latin phrase)
Sheila āYes I heard that, one of the voices what does it mean?ā
Alan – āWell do you know or donāt ya?”
Paul āItās from a Black massā¦”
Alan āa prayerā¦ to the devil?ā
Manya-“or to that thing back there!”
Alan āMy wife is imagining things thatās allāØ
Manya āSheās hearing voicesā¦Paul says she was reciting a black mass.ā
Paul –āI was probably wrong I was a worse scholar than I was a priest.ā
Mrs.Pinder āIt was a manās voice wasnāt it?ā
Sheila -a crazed look in her eyes-āYesā
Mrs. Pinder “Do you know who that was my dearā¦ ? In 1407 Lord Compton the owner of the land in which the Abbey stood, your ancestor was burned at the stake for heresy and murder. He worshiped the Druid gods. Offered human sacrifices. Members of your own family.ā
It seems the abbey was built on a sacred grove of the druids who had performed human sacrifices. Every hundred years at the solstice, the spirits of the ancient druids come back demanding their sacrifice. Mrs. Pinder asserts that it’s Sheila they want. The panic sets in as everyone jumps to wild conclusions for self-preservation’s sake, They decide to make a pseudo-Sheila, attaching her fingernail clippings and strands of her hair to the little Jodi’s creepy doll. They paint its lips red with Sheila’s lipstick. It’s a grotesque site. They try offering that to the spirits who are drawing nearer, only being held off by a fire the passengers have lit, and their safe space is growing smaller with each hour. They try to substitute the doll for Sheila as their sacrifice. The druids aren’t buying it!
Glen Farlee (Buddy Ebsen) has a soliloquy “Maybe she’s right. What other explanation could there be? Everything’s gone crazy!”Ā The plan doesn’t work so the group decides to light a fire on the plane to keep the evil spirits away, and soon the fire burns out and all looks grim. Of course, Shatner stands out in this film as the faithless, pessimistic, nihilist-defrocked priest Paul Klovalik as he drinks heavily and tries to shut off the chaos surrounding him, feeling helpless and hopeless. “The closer to heaven, the more discordant” and generally dismisses the rest of the passengers bitterly as fools and barbarians.
Paul Kovalik: “You don’t need a priest, Mr. Farlee. You need a parachute…I’m going to open a bottle of it right now. It might not make me happy. But it will amuse me to think of all of you back here worrying about your lives… as though they were of some importance.”
Shatner certainly isn’t playing this kind of guy, that’s for sure!
At the end Paul Klovalik does find a flicker of faith left and rises to the occasion. But will the ancient old ones, the druids get what they want?
Her task is clear, to find and confront her own murderer!
Aired November 5, 1973, ABC Movie of the Week.
From David Deal’s book Television Fright Films of the 1970s-“Producer-director Dan Curtis had his hand on several intimate productions in the early 1970s, which were shot on videotape in Canada. The Invasion of Carol Enders is one of these. Carol Enders (Meredith Baxter) and her fiance Adam Reston Christopher Connelly are attacked while spooning in lover’s lane and Carol is seriously injured when she attempts to escape. Meanwhile, Diana Bernard (Sally Kemp) the wife of a doctor, is fatally injured in an automobile accident. Both patients are sent to the same hospital. and Carol makes a miraculous recovery just as Diana dies. Upon Awakening, Carol claims in very convincing terms to be Diana. When the police determine that Diana was murdered, Carol/Diana leaves the hospital to find the killer. This mild-mannered story of possession will not appeal to those with a fancy for the macabre. It plays more like a soap opera mystery that happens to have a kernel of the supernatural driving the action.”
The story is by Merwin Gerard whose list of credits includes tele-fright films, The Screaming Woman (1972) starring the great Olivia de Havilland, The Victim (1972) and She Cried Murder (1973) The story was adapted by Gene Raser Kearney. Kearney wrote several Night Gallery episodes for Rod Serling and my cult favorite Games (1967) starring Simone Signoret and Katherine Ross, directed by Curtis Harrington, and Night of the Lepus (1972) —Giant killer bunnies, eh not so much…
Meredith Baxter was in the midst of her breakthrough television series Bridget Loves Bernie in 1972 when she did this film. She also appeared in Ben in 1972 and the other film I covered directed by Harrington, The Cat Creature. Her most famous roles aside from tele-films were as Nancy on the thoughtful nighttime drama Family 1976-1980 starring Sada Thompson and Kristy McNichol then she went on to play Elyse on Family Ties in the 80s.
Peyton Place alumnus the handsome Christopher Connelly plays Adam Reston and familiar character actor Charles Adiman plays Dr. Peter Bernard both are good at playing the perplexed husband routine. Connelly’s Adam Reston even helps the police in their investigation, playing an important part in solving the mystery. Dan Curtis’s favorite John Karlen plays Diana’s ex-husband, David Hastings, the number one suspect in her death. George DiCenzo plays Dr. Palmer and Sally Kemp is Diana Bernard.
Carol-āI knew Diana, probably better than anyone. She was hard on you David, a lot harder than you deserved.ā
Dan Curtis has an executive producer credit on this film. and an un-credited nod for direction because several snippets of footage–including Diana’s car crash are taken from his tele-fright The Norliss Tapes, which aired the same year. Some sources list the film as having aired on March 8, 1974, some claim it was released in 1973. I’m choosing to include it in my feature here as a 1973 release.
Director Burt Brinkerhoff was an actor, mainly on television in the 50s and 60s and this was his first film as director. He would go on to make the horror film Dogs and yet another television adaptation of Frankenstein in 1987.
The film plays more like a murder mystery/thriller, but you cannot escape the supernatural narrative that exists, references to India whereĀ the air was “thick with the spirits of the dead, it was like incense.”
The Possession of Joel Delaney came out in 1972 and The Reincarnation of Peter Proud came out in 1975, Audrey Rose came out in 1977. The subject of reincarnation was threaded throughout the 1970s as an appealing and uncanny, almost taboo trend.
THE SILENT YEARS: When we started not giving a damn on screen!
THE GODLESS GIRL (1929) CHAIR SMASH courtesy of our favorite genius gif generator- Fritzi of Movies Silently.
In celebration of our upcoming Anti Damsel Blogathon on August 15 & 16, I had this idea to provide a list of bold, brilliant, and beautiful women!
There was to be no indecent exposure of the ankles and no SCHWOOSHING!Ā Not in this Blogathon baby!
From the heyday of Silent film and the advent of talking pictures to the late ā20s to 1934 Pre-Code Hollywood, films were rife with provocative and suggestive images, where women were kicking up a storm on screen… The end of the code during the early 60s dared to offer social commentary about race, class, gender, and sexuality! That’s our party!
In particular, these bold women and the screen roles they adopted have become legendary. They sparked catchy dialogue, inspired fashion trends, or just plain inspired us… Altogether there are 111 of SOME of the most determined, empowered, and uniquely fortified femmes of classic film…!
First of course I consulted the maven of all things splendid, shimmery, and SILENT for her take on silent film actresses and the parts that made them come alive on the immortal screen…. Fritzi at Movies Silently has summoned up thesefabulous femmes…
1) Rischka (Pola Negri) in The Wildcat (1921) Ernst Lubitsch’s hyperactive Dr. Seussian comedy is worth seeing for the sets alone but the best part is Pola Negri’s Rischka, a young bandit queen who is terrorizing the mountains. She meets the local Lothario during a robbery and by the end of the scene she has stolen his heart. And his pants. 2) The Countess (Pola Negri) in A Woman of the World (1925) Anyone who thought going to Hollywood would tame Pola Negri’s wild side had another thing coming. In this film, she plays a countess whose skull tattoo causes an uproar in Anytown, USA. The film also features a romance between Negri and the stuffy local prosecutor, who soon finds himself on the receiving end of her bullwhip. Not a metaphor. 3) Lulu (Lois Wilson) in Miss Lulu Bett (1921) Independent women weren’t always given to violence and thievery. In the case of Lulu, she is a single woman trapped in two Victorian social conventions: spinster and poor relations. During the course of the film, she rejects both titles, learns her own self-worth, and empowers herself to enter into a healthy relationship with the local schoolmaster. Tasty feminism!4) Zaida (Bebe Daniels) in She’s a Sheik (1927) Silent movie audiences enjoyed reversals of gender tropes. The Rudolph Valentino vehicle The Sheik (1921) had been a smash hit and had spawned many rip-offs and parodies. (kidnapping = love = box office!) In this case, a warrior princess falls for a French officer and decides the most sensible course of action is to abduct him for the purpose of marriage. Sadly, this comedy seems to be one of many silent films that are missing and presumed lost.5) Eve (Leatrice Joy) in Eve’s Leaves (1926) Another gender reversal comedy, Eve’s Leaves features twenties fashion icon Leatrice Joy as a tomboy sailor who finds the perfect man while ashore on business. She ends up saving the day– and her favorite dude in distress– through quick thinking, a knowledge of knots, and a mean right hook.6) Ossi (Ossi Oswalda) in The Doll (1919) Ernst Lubitsch featured another feisty heroine in this surreal comedy. Our hero wishes to dodge marriage but cannot gain his inheritance without a bride. A plan! He will buy a lifelike doll from a famous toymaker and marry that. What he doesn’t know is that the doll was broken, the toymaker’s daughter has taken its place and she means to teach the reluctant bridegroom a lesson. Oswalda’s mischievous antics are a delight.7) Molly (Mary Pickford) in Sparrows (1926) Mary Pickford was America’s Sweetheart during the silent era and audiences adored her fearless heroines. Molly is one of her boldest. She’s an orphan raised in a Southern swamp who must rescue a kidnapped infant. The epic final race across the swamps– complete with alligators– is still harrowing to behold.8) Helen (Helen Holmes) in A Lass of the Lumberlands (1916) Helen Holmes was an action star who specialized in train-related stunts and adventure. In this 1916 serial, she saves the day on numerous occasions and even saves her love interest from peril on the train tracks. (It should be mentioned that the Victorian “woman tied to the train tracks” cliche was incredibly rare and usually treated with ridicule in silent films.) This is another movie that is missing and presumed lost.9) Diana Monti (Musidora) in Judex (1916) Not all the empowered women in classic films were heroines. In the case of Musidora, her most famous roles were as criminal. She was the deadly thief/hit-woman Irma Vep in Les Vampires and then took on the titular caped crusader in Judex. Smart, stealthy, and likely to slip a stiletto between the ribs… in short, a woman not to be trifled with.10) Helen (Miriam Nesbitt) in The Ambassador’s Daughter (1913) This short film from Thomas Edison’s motion picture studio features espionage and a quick-thinking heroine. She tracks down spies at the embassy, follows her suspect, and manages to steal back the documents that he purloined from her father. Not at all bad for a film made seven years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified.11) Cornelia Van Gorder (Emily Fitzroy) in The Bat (1926) It’s a dark and stormy night and a murderous costumed villain means to recover stolen loot in an isolated mansion. What is an elderly woman to do? Take up her trusty pistol and investigate, of course! She also wields a dry wit and keeps cool under pressure. The Bat doesn’t stand a chance.12) Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser) in The Eagle (1925) As mentioned above, Rudolph Valentino specialized in aggressive wooing but he finds the shoe on the other foot in this Russian romance. Louise Dresser is a kick as the assertive czarina who knows what she likes and goes for it.
Now to unleash the gust of gals from my tornadic mind filled with favorite actresses and the characters that have retained an undying sacred vow to heroine worship… In their private lives, their public persona and the mythological stardom that has & still captivates generations of fans, the roles they brought to life, and the lasting influence that refuses to go away…!
Because they have their own unique rhythm to the way they moved through the world… a certain kind of mesmerizing allure, and/or they just didn’t give a hoot, a damn… nor a flying fig!
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud”-Coco Chanel
Stars like Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Ida Lupino managed to keep re-inventing themselves. They became spirited women with an inner reserve of strength and a passion for following their desires!
Barbara Stanwyck posing with boxing gloves!
The following actresses and their immortal characters are in no particular order…!
13. Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) Double Indemnity (1944) set fire to the screen as one of the most seductive femme fatalesā 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 spellā¦ Walter Neff: āYouāll be here too?ā Phyllis: ā I guess so, I usually am.ā Neff: āSame chair, same perfume, same ankle?ā Phyllis: Ā āI wonder if I know what you mean?ā Neff: āI wonder if you wonder?ā 14. Marie āSlimā 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 āSlimā Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944). A night club singer, (who does a smoking rendition of Hogie Carmichaelās āHow Little We Knowā) Sheās 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 doesnāt want to get involved, Slim is a sympathizer for the resistance, and he falls in love with her, while she makes no bones about wanting him to with all the sexual innuendo to heat things up! Slim: “You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and… blow.”15. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) All About Eve (1950) In all Bette Davisā 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 werenāt always āattractive.āĀ 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 Margoās 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.āĀ 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 elseā¦ Margaret DeLorca: You really hate me, don’t you? You’ve never forgiven me in all these years.”Ā Edith Phillips: “Why should I? Tell me why I should.”Ā Margaret DeLorca: “Well, we’re sisters!”Ā Edith Phillips: “So we are… and to hell with you!”
17. Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is a forgotten alcoholic former child star living in a faded Hollywood mansion with her invalid sister Blanche (Joan Crawford), herself an aging Hollywood star. They punish each other with vicious mind games, temper tantrums, and repressed feelings of revenge and jealousy.Ā Jane is a tragic tortured soul whose life becomes āuglyā 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. Janeās itching for a comeback and is ready to dance and sing her way back into everyoneās 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, Janeās repressed rage also leaves room for joy. Sheās an empowered aging actress who refuses to give up the spotlightā¦ Good for you Jane, now put down that hammer and feed Blanche something edibleā¦ Davis delivering yet another legendary line… Blanche: “You wouldn’t be able to do these awful things to me if I weren’t still in this chair.” Jane: But you *are*, Blanche! You *are* in that chair!” 18. Alma Brown (Patricia Neal), in Hud (1963): Playing against the unashamed bad boy Hud Bannon (Paul Newman), Alma is a world-weary housekeeper who drips with a quiet stoic sensuality and a slow wandering voice that speaks of her rugged womanly charm. The philandering Hud is drawn to Alma, but sheās too much woman for him in the end… Hud Bannon: “I’ll do anything to make you trade him.” Alma Brown: “No thanks. I’ve done my time with one cold-blooded bastard, I’m not looking for another.”
19. Sugarpuss OāShea (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 itās like to speak like real folk and does she turn their world upside down? Sugarpuss O’Shea: [needing help with a stubborn zipper] āYou know, I had this happen one night in the middle of my act. I couldn’t get a thing off. Was I embarrassed!ā https://thelastdrivein.com/2013/07/21/edward-dmytryks-walk-on-the-wild-side-1962-at-the-doll-house-when-people-are-kind-to-each-other-why-do-they-have-to-find-a-dirty-word-for-it/
20. Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck)Ā in Walk on The Wild Side (1962). Jo runs the New Orleans bordello called The Doll House with an iron handā 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). Stanwyckās 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 conclusionā¦Ā āOh, you know me better than that Hallie. Sometimes Iāve waited years for what I wanted.āĀ Ā Ā 21. Marie Garson (Ida Lupino) in High Sierra (1941) Roy “Mad Dogā 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 hereā¦ A woman can raise a rifle with the best of them! Marie Garson “Yeah, I get it. Ya always sort hope ya can get out, it keeps ya going.”
22. Lilli MarloweĀ (Ida Lupino)Ā 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.Ā Lilliās slick repartee is marvelous as Cal and his reluctant partner Jack Farnham (then husband Howard Duff) focus on her, hoping sheāll help them in their investigation. Lilliās tough, sheās made it on her own and isnāt about to compromise nowā¦ Cal may be falling apart but Lilli knows what she wants and she always seems to keep it together! Lilli Marlowe: “Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed I’d meet a drunken slob in a bar who’d give me fifty bucks and we’d live happily ever after.”23. Constance Porter (Tallulah Bankhead)Ā in Lifeboat 1944. Itās WWII and Connie is a smart-talking international journalist whoās 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 doesnāt give a damn, she can take the punishment and still attract the hunky and shirtless (yum) John Kodiakā¦ survivalās just a state of mindā¦ and she does it with vigor and class and a cool calm! Connie Porter: “Dying together’s even more personal than living together.”Ā 24. Berenice Sadie Brown (Ethel Waters) The Member of the Wedding 1952. Berenice doesnāt 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 soulā¦ Berenice is the only steady source of nurturing and a strong pair of shoulders to lean onā¦ Thank god Franky/Harris didnāt 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.”Ā Berenice Sadie Brown: [when Frankie threatens her with a knife] “Lay it down, Satan!”Ā 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. Sheās iconic, Ā memorable, and filled with glorious hiss!.. because The Bride may have come into this world in an unorthodox way, but sheāll be damned if any man is going to tell her who to love! James Whale isnāt the only one who brought about life in this campy horror masterpieceā¦ Elsa Lanchester manifested The Bride with a keen sense of fearsome independence. No matter whether the Monster demands a Mate, The Bride isnāt 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-āHissā¦Screamā¦”
26. Hildy JohnsonĀ (Rosalind Russell)Ā in His Gal Friday (1940) Hildy is a hard-bitten reporter for New York Cityās The Morning Post. Sheās 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). Hildyās anxious to break ties with her manipulative ex-husband who just isnāt ready to let her leave the job or their marriage so she can marry straight-laced Bruce (Ralph Bellamy)ā¦ and heāll do so by any means. But sheās nobodyās foolā¦ and if she stays itās because sheās made up her mind to embrace Walterās crazy anticsā¦ 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!”Ā https://thelastdrivein.com/2014/04/23/when-the-spider-woman-looks-two-glorias-wicked-love-close-ups-old-jewels-the-sympathetically-tragic-villainesses-of-sunset-blvd-1950-and-draculas-daughter-1936/
27. Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in Sunset Boulevard (1950) Thereās just no one quite like Norma Desmond. Itās 1950ās decadent Hollywood, the heyday of the Silent Era long goneā¦ 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,Ā creates an atmosphere of fevered madness. Sheās a woman whose desires are punished by an industry and the men who hold the reigns. But Norma doesnāt give a damn sheāll always be ready for that eternal close-upā¦ 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.”Ā Norma Desmond: “I *am* big. It’s the *pictures* that got small.”Ā 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. Thereās 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 hustlerās 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 ticketā¦ 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,Ā 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.”Ā 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 āearthy widowā the director said her āfeline sexualityā was perfect for one of Tennessee Williamsā āhot-blooded ladies.ā 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 everyoneā¦ Maxine waits patiently for Lawrence to realize that they could have a passionate life together if heād stop torturing himselfā¦ 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.”Ā Maxine Faulk: “Miss Fellowes, honey, if paramour means what I think it does you’re gambling with your front teeth.”Ā Ava Gardner | Maxine Faulk in Night of the Iguana 1964.30. Maude (Ruth Gordon) in Harold and Maude (1971) There is no one quite like Ruth Gordon. Sheās a sage, a pixie filled with a dreamy light that shines so bright from within. You canāt help but believe that she was as effervescent off-screen as she was on screen.Ā 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 thinkā¦ 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 perspicacityā¦Ā Maude: “Harold, *everyone* has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You just can’t let the world judge you too much.”Ā — 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?”Ā Harold: “I don’t know. One of these, maybe.”Ā Maude: “Why do you say that?”Ā Harold: “Because they’re all alike.”Ā Maude: “Oooh, but they’re *not*. Look. See, some are smaller, some are fatter, some grow to the left, some to the right, and some even have lost some petals. All *kinds* of observable differences. You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world’s sorrow comes from people who are *this.”
34. Catherine ‘Cayā Higgins (Ruth Roman) in Tomorrow is Another Day (1951). Catherine is a tough dance hall girl who isnāt 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 pimpā¦ and geez heās just gotten out of prison after a long stretch. Cay is ballsy, extremely earthy, and exudes an inner strength that is so authentic itās 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 youād want to be with you if youāre ever on the lamā¦ Catherine ‘Cay’ Higgins: “You worked a whole day just to dance a minute at Dream Land?Ā Bill Clark: It was worth it.” 35. Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) Pitfall (1948) Mona is a sultry dewy blonde fashion model with a low simmering voice in the greatest tradition of the noir femme fatale. Forbes falls for her, and they begin to see each other, though she unwittingly starts the affair without knowing heās married. Itās 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 sheās got that noir frame of mind. Sheās 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 āYouāre a little man with a briefcase. You go to work every morning and you do as youāre told.ā36. Lady TorrenceĀ (Anna Magnani )Ā 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) whoās bedridden and dying of cancer. Lady dreams of building a confectionary in the back of the store. Along comes Marlon Brando as Valentine āSnakeskinā Xavier, a guitar-playing roamer who takes a job in the shop. Ladyās jaded loneliness and Valentineās 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-āLetās get this straight, you donāt interest me no more than the air you stand in.ā37.Ā Egle (Anna Magnani) ā¦ 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, sheās volatile and inflammatory and stirs up quite a riot at times. Sheās got no fear. She is a tougher-than-nails, armpit-washing dame who just could care less about anyone elseās comfort or freedom. Sheās a woman who has built up a tough exterior long enough that she truly is made of steel. The only thing that may betray that strength is at times the past sorrow or suffering that swims in her deep dark eyes.38. Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani) in The Rose Tattoo (1955)Ā As the tagline states āSeething with realism and frankness!āYou canāt 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 romanceā¦ 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 heās 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.Ā Serafina “We are Sicilians. We donāt leave girls with the boys theyāre not engaged to!” Jack āMrs Delle Rose this is the United States.” Serafina “But we are Sicilians, and we are not cold-blooded!”39. Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) in Whoās 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 doesnāt hold back. Itās an experiment in at-home coupleās 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 āWhat a dump.āāI swear to GOD George, if you even existed Iād divorce you.”– Martha: āYouāre all flops. Iām the Earth Mother, and you are all flops.ā
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 marriageā¦ 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 thereās dark humor and ironyĀ (in FranƧois 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. Itās 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-āItās not a mission. Itās work. Itās something I must doā PriestāāGive it upāāØ JulieāāThatās impossible, I must continue til itās overāāØPriestāāHave you had no remorse in your heart?ā¦ donāt you fear for your soul?āāØJulie-āNOā¦ no remorse, nor fear.āāØPriest-āYou know youāll be caught in the endāāØJulie-āThe justice of men is powerless to punish, Iām already dead. I stopped living the moment David died. Iāll join David after Iāve had my revenge.ā 43. Alraune tenĀ BrinkĀ -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 Whaleās Frankenstein who sought the secrets of life, Alraune is essentially a dangerous female whose origin is seeded from this socially constructed ādeviance’ 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 scientistās diaryā¦ What could be more powerful than a woman who isnāt born with the sense of socially ordered morality imposed or innate? Is she not the perfect femme fatale without a conscience, yetā¦ A woman who knows she is doomed to a life without a soul, she runs away with her creator’s love-sick nephew, leaving Professor ten Brinken, father figure, and keeper- alone.44. Rachel CooperĀ (Lillian Gish) in Night of the Hunter (1955)āIāve never been in style, so I can never go out of style.ā–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 Mitchumās frightening portrayal of an opportunistic sociopath, beyond the horror of what he is, the film is like a childhood fairy tale. Itās a cautionary tale about the boogeyman but itās 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 loveā¦ Thereās just something about Gishās graceful light that emanates from within and the character she manifests in the righteous Rachel Cooperā¦. Rachel Cooper: “It’s a hard world for little things.”
51. Carol RichmanĀ (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 doesnāt know her name but she wears an unusual hat, which might be a clue for Carol to try and track down. Carolās got so much guts, she puts herself in harm’s way so many times but sheās 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 thereās always the deranged sculptor Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) who seems to be a menacing force.Ā Cliff Milburn (Elisha Cook Jr) “You Like Jive?” Carol āKansasā Richman āYou bet, Iām a hep kitten.āĀ 52. Pam Grier is Coffy 1973Ā Okay okay tho I’m sneaking in past the 1970 cut-offā¦ Iām a woman who doesnāt give a damn and nods to one of the greatest ’70s iconsā¦ 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 sisterās overdoseā¦ Coffy sets the bar high for strong female characters who wouldnāt 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.” 53. Charlie (Teresa Wright),Ā in Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Charlie is tired of small-town life with her parents and annoying younger sister. Sheās a girl starved for new adventures, longing for something exciting to happen, to stir up her life. Careful what you wish forā¦ Sheās overwhelmed with joy when her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton) decides to pay the family a visit. But something isnāt quite right with her idol, he begins to exhibit a strange sort of underlying hostility and troubling secret natureā¦ Her motherās (Patricia Collinge) younger brother is actually a sadistic serial killer who preys on rich widows by marrying them, then strangling them! Heās so charming and charismatic that women canāt 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 canāt afford to have his favorite niece spill the beans.Ā Whatās remarkable about young Charlie is that for a girl who fantasizes and indulges herself in things of a more romantic nature, sheās pretty darn brave in the self-preservation department since no one else in the family believes her suspicions that heās The Merry Widow killer. And she might just have to go rogue and wind up killing him in self-defenseā¦ 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.” Constance Towers & Virginia Gray.
54. Kelly (Constance Towers) in The Naked KissĀ (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 āobjectā 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 sheās made her home until the perverse true nature of Granvilleās 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 Candyās (Virginia Gray) high-class ācat houseā yet heās above reproach. Griff tells Kelly it’s a clean town and he doesnāt want her operating there. But Kelly wants out of the business. Sheās 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 āwhoreā of the story, the one who needs redemption only to have the narrative flip it around and more importantly itās 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. Kellyās 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 āwhite middle-classā town of its hypocrisy… Kelly (talking to Capt. Griff Anthony Eisley)āI washed my face clean the morning I woke up in your bedroom!ā
55. VelmaĀ (Agnes Moorehead) in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964) Velma is Charlotteās trusted companion. She shows a lot of gumption when Cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland) shows up trying to gaslight poor Charlotte whoās 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 wasnāt 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 mobā¦ either way. Iām pretty sure Velma could have taken Miriam if she didnāt have Joseph Cotton’s help on her sideā¦ And we canāt forget Mary Astorās firebrand performance as Jewel Mayhewā¦ 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.”
![Anna Lucasta (1958) | Pers: Eartha Kitt, Sammy Davis Jr | Dir: Arnold Laven | Ref: ANN040AE | Photo Credit: [ United Artists / The Kobal Collection ] | Editorial use only related to cinema, television and personalities. Not for cover use, advertising or fictional works without specific prior agreement](https://i0.wp.com/thelastdrivein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/tumblr_lvnaeyvi341r1a8w8o1_500.jpg?ssl=1)
