Iconic actress Julie Adams has left a special legacy fondly remembered by so many of us!
I will miss your vibrant smile. You helped this MonsterGirl grow up with one of the most lasting gilled Heroes & gorgeous Heroines. And all the other appearances you made especially in classic television remain in my heart.
“I refuse to be stereotyped. Look at me. Never mind my color. Please look at me!”
WHY ISN’T THERE A BIOPIC OF DIANA SANDS’ LIFE?
I can’t help being drawn to Diana Sands’ startling equilibrium, her fire. Her complex and multi-layered performances. I see her as a Black Woman. I see her as a woman. I see her as ubiquitous. Diana Sands refused to be typecast in roles that were confining and dishonest. I can imagine that she forged an inroad that would later influence incredible dramatic Black actresses like Alfre Woodard or Angela Bassett, women who exude that similar fire and vibrancy from the depths of their souls.
I think of Diana Sands and I think of an inner strength that burns its way to the surface until it’s so bright you feel it pierce your skin. There is an essence of a powerfully self-possessed woman who broke ground with her captivating performances in the early 1960s to the mid-1970s. I don’t like the phrase “color blind” it evokes an irresponsibility not to see inequality. But that is not what Diana Sands is saying in her quote. That’s not what she is asking of us.
So I am using her own words but want to be clear about how I feel in this post honoring one of the great actresses of all time during Black History Month. We need to recognize each other. It’s essential not to try and erase any aspect of who we are and we need to be conscious of those differences in a positive way, while we embrace what we all have in common and can relate to universally.
Diana Sands had to fend off the offensive scrutiny, the “mysogynoir‘ of being referred to by some 70s critics -one whose name I refuse to even give a moment’s attention to here except to pluck out two terms from the ignorant context of his entire, misguided and disrespectful review. Who referred to her role as “cute” in terms of her being a Black woman trying to find herself and “Afrocentric” in her performance as Beneatha Younger (A Raisin in the Sun). She was a dynamic, courageous woman who aspired to become a doctor. That isn’t cute. That is the story of real passion and possibility and a God-given right.
Diana Sands as Beneatha Younger, seen here with Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier and Ivan Dixon.
As a white woman writing this post, I want to just say one more thing. We need to see our own privilege and not be afraid to acknowledge that racism exists. I hope I am a good ally and when I pay tribute to a person of color, I remain mindful to honor them fully and respectfully. I do see Diana Sands’s color. I see it as a strength and dignity in all her pioneering roles. I see her emerge from a sea of white faces. She will not be marginalized, stereotyped, and shut out of the conversation.
I began to follow Diana Sands’ career years ago, compelled by her dramatic, electrifying presence in film and in television. Growing up in New York, I wish my theatre mother would have taken me to see her on stage. She is remembered for her striking performance as Beneatha Younger in Lorraine Hansberry‘s play A Raisin in the Sun about the struggles of a poor black family from the side south of Chicago who have to decide about the direction their lives will take- “What Happens to a Dream Deferred?”
What happens to a dream deferred? by Langston Hughes
      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore"”
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over"”
      like a syrupy sweet?
      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.
      Or does it explode?
The title A Raisin in the Sun was inspired by Langston Hughes’ powerful poem. The inspirational masterpiece that is A Raisin in the Sun is made all the more remarkable by the performances of the ensemble cast and standing out for me, though Poitier always grabs me by the guts and strums my heart strings, is his progressive sister Beneatha brought to life by Diana Sands with instinctual contemplation that was her acting style.
She was marvelous as sassy Fanny Johnson, married to a Black activist Copee (Louis Gossett Jr.) in Hal Ashby’s (Harold and Maude 1971, The Last Detail 1973, Being There 1979) The Landlord 1970. The story of Elgar Enders a young wealthy white New Yorker (Beau Bridges) who buys a tenement building in a low-income neighborhood afflicted by white flight and going through gentrification. Elgar Intends to evict the black residents so he can turn it into a luxury apartment building and live there all by himself. The cast is rich with superb performances by Pearl Baily, Mel Stewart, Lee Grant, Louis Gossett Jr, and Marki Bey as Lanie. In Ashby’s thought-provoking method, it’s an interesting meditation on race during the close of the 1960s.
Diana appeared in innovative television dramas, such as the innovative socially conscious series East Side/West Side 1963-1964 that dealt realistically with social problems. The gritty series starred Cicely Tyson, George C. Scott, and Elizabeth Wilson as social workers in 1960s New York City. Sands appeared on several episodes of the 1960s series The Doctors and the Nurses which I am desperately waiting for it to somehow be released on disc. The groundbreaking series surrounded the lives of nurses who in their daily lives confront socially relevant issues. Diana Sands even graced one of my favorite television series The Outer Limits in 1964 as Dr. Julie Harrison in the episode “The Mice”. She also played Dr. Marylou Neeley who went head to head with Chad Everett (who always wore clogs and his scrubs 2 sized too small, but who would mind!) in Medical Center’s episode “The Nowhere Child”. She appeared as Nurse Helen Straughn having an affair with Richard Crenna in George Schaefer’s pulpy Doctors’ Wives 1971 and as Cora in Willie Dynamite 1974 the title played by Roscoe Orman, a nasty piece of work who has a license plate that says Willie on the front and Dynamite on the back! As Cora, Diana Sands played a prostitute turned social worker who helps other prostitutes get out of jail and find a better life, while also trying to battle the badass pimp Willie who is smacking women around.
I am trying to track down a copy of An Affair of the Skin 1963 co-starring Viveca Lindfors and Lee Grant, LOVE them both, and Georgia, Georgia 1972 written by Maya Angelou. If anyone has a lead on where I can purchase either film please drop me a note here at The Last Drive In.
Diana Sands Broke Barriers In Theater and On The Big Screen
“If youÂ’re familiar with SandsÂ’ work at all, itÂ’s probably owing to her memorable portrayal of Beneatha, the Younger familyÂ’s willful, progressive aspiring doctor, in the 1961 film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’Â’s A Raisin in the Sun. But by then, she had already established herself as a living walking testament to the power of risk-taking. Sands grew up in the Bronx with working class parents, her father a carpenter, her mother hatmaker. After high school graduation, she toured with a carnival before returning to New York and joining Greenwich Mews, a multicultural theatre repertory. She worked night jobs to survive, before scoring her first theatre roles (one of the earliest was the stage production of A Raisin in the Sun). By 1964, her star was rapidly rising. She won an Obie for the play, Living Premise, and a Tony nomination for her role in James BaldwinÂ’s Blues for Mr. Charlie.
This was also the year that Sands became a pioneer in colorblind casting as one of the first ever actresses to earn a role intended for a white actress, without any line rewriting to explain or accommodate her race. She played opposite Alan Alda as his love interest as a would-be actress to his would-be writer. When the film was adapted for screen, Barbra Streisand was cast in her role, but by that time, sheÂ’d already garnered a great deal of positive press and audience notice. Television came a-courtinÂ’ and she eventually earned two Emmy nominations. Sands acted through the sixties in various theatre and TV roles. In 1970, she scored her first costarring film role in Hal AshbyÂ’s The Landlord. But the early Â’70s would mark the end of a steady and promising rise toward superstardom.”
Diana Sands was born in New York City, the Bronx to be exact, on August 22, 1934. She was a student at the New York City High School for the Performing Arts and a member of the Actor’s Studio. Nominated twice for a Tony Award and twice for an Emmy. She took risks and challenged racial barriers taking on roles that traditionally would have been performed by white actresses. She also fought against a system that marginalized black actors and their roles, becoming a driving force that saw an integration of the cast members.
In 1953 Diana made her debut in the off-Broadway play “An Evening with Will Shakespeare” She went on to appear in George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara” in 1954, also performing in the theatrical production of “The World of Sholem Aleichem.”
Her striking work is notable as she is the first Black actress to be cast in a major Broadway play. Cast in “Land Beyond the River” in 1957 and then appeared in “The Egg and I” in 1958.
It was in 1959 that Diana Sands made her memorable debut as the astonishingly nuanced Beneatha Younger in Raisin in the Sun, in which she won the Outer Circle Critics’ Award, eventually manifesting that magnetic performance in director Daniel Petrie’s (Resurrection 1980) film adaptation co-starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Ivan Dixon.
And I want to give a shout-out to the incredible contribution of fine actress Claudia McNeil(Bernice Sadie Brown in Member of the Wedding 1958for The Dupont Show of the Month, Mrs. Quincy in The Last Angry Man 1959, Mrs. Hill in television series The Doctors and The Nurses 1963, Madam in There Was a Crooked Man 1970, Odessa Carter in Incident in San Francisco 1971 tv movie, Granny Marshall in Tv’s Mod Squad 1972, Sara in Moon of the Wolf 1972 tv movie, Mu’ Dear in Black Girl 1972, To Be Young, Gifted and Black 1972 tv movie, Ethel Hanson in Cry Panic 1974 tv movie, Big Ma in Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry 1978, Sister Will Ada Barnett in Roots: The Next Generation 1979) as the matriarch, Lena Younger in A Raisin in the Sun. An extraordinary actress herself who deserves the spotlight too. Partly what worked for Hansberry’s story is the chemistry and confluence of the entire cast.
Diana Sands returned to the stage in 1962 appearing in “Tiger Tiger Burning Bright.”
In 1964 she took on two outstanding roles onstage as Juanita in James Baldwin’s “Blues for Mr. Charlie” She was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She co-starred with Alan Alda as Doris W. in The Owl and the Pussycat, originally offered to Kim Stanley another actress I find mesmerizing to watch, when Stanley was unavailable, with the script intentionally not re-written for a Black woman went to Diana Sands and once again she nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
In 1968, she was back on stage at the Vivien Beaumont Theater as the first Black woman to play Saint Joan of Arc in George Bernard Shaw’s play “St. Joan.”
In the beginning of the 1970s Diana Sands among other notable Black actors such as Ossie Davis and Brock Peters, wanted to feature more positive roles for African-Americans in films, and so they founded Third World Cinema. One of their first productions was the film Georgia, Georgia written by Maya Angelou. Diana Sands plays Georgia Martin a Black woman artist struggling to find herself.
From a New York Times article printed in Feb 1971, A.H. Weiler writes that Third World Cinema Corporation founder and President actor/director Ossie Davis planned on filming The Billie Holiday Story which would have starred Diana Sands. How incredible would that have been?
In hopes of creating an independent film corporation, Sands and her colleagues hoped to ensure that there would be better opportunities for positive portrayals of African-American and People of Color, that would ensure films that presented Black actors with outstanding roles that were versatile and representational rather than stereotypes and limiting. “A group of black and Puerto Rican actors, writers and directors, backed by union leaders and public officials, have joined to form the minority"controlled Third World Cinema Corporation, an independent company that plans to produce feature films and train minority group members in the film and television fields.”
Above image from the movie, Georgia, Georgia 1972.
In 1974 Diana Sands was ready to take on the role of Claudine, tragically suffering at this point with pancreatic cancer she was too ill by this time, and the part went to friend Diahann Carroll.
Theatre Roles:
As Beaneatha Younger in 1959 A Raisin in the Sun, as Adelaide Smith in Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright 1962 (Theatre World Award), The Living Premise 1963 (Obie Award Distinguished Performance), Doris W. The Owl and the Pussycat 1964, Juanita in Blues for Mr. Charlie 1964, The Premise 1965, Ruth in We Bombed in New Haven 1968, Cassandra in Tiger at the Gates 1968, as Joan in Saint Joan 1968, The Gingham Dog 1969.
Television Roles:
As Dr. Julie Harrison in The Outer Limits “The Mice” 1964, in East Side/West Side 1963-1964 as Jane Foster’s “It’s War, Man and Ruth Goodwin in “Who Do You Kill?” As Sara Harris in Breaking Point 1964. As nurse Ollie Sutton in three episodes of The Doctors and The Nurses 1962-1964 and Andrea Jagger in the episode “Night Shift”. In four episodes as Irene Rush alongside James Earl Jones (whose wife she played in East Side/West Side episode Who Do You Kill?) In Dr. Kildare 1964, as Dr. Rachel Albert in I Spy 1966 “Turkish Delight”, Davala Unawa in The Fugitive 1967 “Dossier on a Diplomat” as Mrs. May Bishop in Bracken’s World 1970 “Will Freddie’s Real Father Please Stand Up” as Cousin Sara in 5 episodes of Julia 1970-1971, as Dr. Marylou Neeley in Medical Center 1971 “The Nowhere Child.”
As Nurse Ollie Sutton from the episode “Imperfect Prodigy” – The Doctors and The Nurses 1964 television series
As Ruth Goodwin in the episode “Who Do You Kill?” from the television series East Side/West Side 1963
As Davala Unawa in The Fugitive 1967 “Dossier on a Diplomat
As Dr. Julie Harrison in The Outer Limits episode “The Mice” 1964
As Irene Rush in Dr. Kildare “The Hand that Heals” 1966
As Dr. Marylou Neeley in Medical Center 1971 “The Nowhere Child.”
As Fanny in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord 1970
As Helen in Doctors’ Wives 1971
As Cora Williams in Willie Dynamite 1974
Film Roles:
Appearing in two extraordinary films, Diana Sands still stood out…
Uncredited as a homeless woman in Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd 1957, uncredited as a club hostess in Odds Against Tomorrow 1959, as Beneatha Younger in A Raisin in the Sun 1961, as Janice in An Affair of the Skin 1963, as Mila in Ensign Pulver 1964, as Fanny in The Landlord 1970, Helen Straughn in Doctors’ Wives 1971, as Georgia Martin in Georgia, Georgia1972, as Nancy Newman in The Living End (tv movie) 1972, as Cora Williams who co-stars with Thalmus Rasulala (Dr. Gordon Thomas in Blacula 1972) in Willie Dynamite 1974 and as Laura Lewis in Honeybaby, Honeybaby 1974.
Thank you, Diana Sands… You touch me with your powerful presence and I am deeply saddened that you left us at age 39, so young, too soon, and I wonder what might have been.
“Five Characters in Search of an Exit” Season 3 Episode 14-Stars William Windom, Susan Harrison, Murray Matheson, Kelton Garwood aired December 22, 1961 Teleplay by Rod Serling.“The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” Season 1 episode 4 aired October 23rd 1959-stars Ida Lupino and Martin Balsam, Jerome Cowan, Ted de Corsia and Alice Frost as Sally. Written by Rod Serling“Black Leather Jackets” Season 5 Episode 18 aired January 31st 1964-stars Lee Kinsolving, Shelley Fabares, Michael Forest, Denver Pyle, Tom Gilleran, Michael Conrad and Irene Hervey.“Elegy” Season 1 Episode 20 aired on February 19th, 1960 directed by Douglas Heyes and written by Charles Beaumont. Stars Cecil Kellaway, Jeff Morrow, Don Dubbins and Kevin Hagen“Eye of the Beholder” Season 2 Episode 6 aired on November 11th, 1960 directed by Douglas Heyes and written by Rod Serling. Stars Maxine Stuart, William D. Gordon, Jennifer Howard, George Keymas, Joanna Heyes, and Donna Douglas -revealedNOVEMBER 11: Twilight Zone episode ‘Eye of the Beholder’, written by Rod Serling. makeup by William Tuttle. Originally broadcast on November 11, 1960. Season 2, episode 6. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)“Nothing in the Darkness” Season 3, Episode 16 aired January 5th, 1962. Stars Gladys Cooper Robert Redford and R.G. Armstrong“Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” Season 5 Episode 3 aired October 11th, 1963 directed by Richard Donner written by Richard Matheson, Starring William Shatner, and Christine White
“The Howling Man” Season 2 Episode 5 aired November 4, 1960 directed by Douglas Heyes written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling. Stars John Carradine, H.M. Wynant, and Robin Hughes
“It’s a Good Life” Season 3 Episode 8 aired aired November 3rd, 1961. teleplay by Rod Serling based on a short story by Jerome Bixby. Stars John Larch, Cloris Leachman, Don Keefer, Bill Mumy as Anthony, Alice Frost as Aunt Amy, Max Showalter, Jeanne Bates, Lenore Kingston and Tom Hatcher.
“A Most Unusual Camera” Season 2 Episode 10 aired December 16, 1960. Starring Jean Carson, Fred Clark and Adam Williams written by Rod Serling“Little Girl Lost” Season 3 Episode 26 aired March 16, 1962 directed by Paul Stewart and written by Richard Matheson. Stars Sarah Marshall, Robert Sampson and Charles Aidman“Living Doll’ Season 5 Episode 6 aired November 1, 1963 written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling. Stars Telly Savalas, Mary LaRoche and Tracy Stratford
“The Midnight Sun” Season 3 Episode 10 aired November 17, 1961 Written by Rod Serling. Stars Lois Nettleton, and Betty Garde“Mirror Image” Season 1 Episode 21 directed by John Brahm written by Rod Serling. Stars Vera Miles, Martin Milner, Joseph Hamilton and Naomi Stevens “Mr. Garrity and the Graves” Season 5 Episode 32. Aired May 8th, 1964 directed by Ted Post, with a teleplay by Rod Serling. Stars John Dehner, Stanley Adams, J. Pat O’Malley, Norman Leavitt, Percy Helton and John Mitchum“Mr. Denton on Doomsday” Season 1 Episode 3 aired October 16th 1959 written by Rod Serling Stars Dan Duryea, Martin Landau, Jeanne Cooper, Malcolm Atterbury, Ken Lynch, Arthur Batanides, Robert Burton and Doug McClure“A Stop at Willoughby” Season 1 Episode 30 aired May 6, 1960 directed by Robert Parrish written by Rod Serling. Stars James Daly, Howard Smith and Patricia Donahue, Jason Wingreen, and Mavis Neal Palmer. “Nick of Time” Season 2 Episode 3 aired November 18, 1960 Written by Richard Matheson and Rod Serling Stars William Shatner and Patricia Breslin“Night Call’ Season 5 Episode 19 aired February 7, 1964 Directed by Jacques Tourneur written by Richard Matheson and Rod Serling. Stars the great Gladys Cooper, Nora Marlowe and Martine Bartlett.“Nightmare as a Child” Season 1 Episode 29 aired April 29, 1960 written by Rod Serling. Stars Janice Rule, Sheppard Strudwick and Terry Burnham as Markie “Twenty Two” Season 2 Episode 17 aired February 10, 1961 Directed by Jack Smight written by Rod Serling from Famous Ghost Stories- Stars Barbara Nichols, Jonathon Harris, and Fredd Wayne“One for the Angels” Season 1 Episode 2 aired October 9, 1959 Written by Rod Serling. Stars Ed Wynn, Murray Hamilton as death, Dana Dillaway as Maggie“A Penny for your Thoughts” Season 2 Episode 16 aired February 3, 1961 Written by George Clayton Johnson and Rod Serling. Stars Dick York, June Dayton, Dan Tobin, Cyril Delevanti, and Hayden Rorke“People are Alike All Over” Season 1 Episode 25 aired March 25, 1960 Stars Roddy McDowall, Susan Oliver and Paul Comi“Long Live Walter Jameson” Season 1 Episode 24 aired March 18, 1960 Written by Charles Beaumont. Stars Kevin McCarthy, Edgar Stehli, Estelle Winwood and Dodie Heath“Queen of the Nile” Season 5 Episode 23 aired March 6, 1964 directed by John Brahm written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling. Starring Ann Blyth, Lee Phillips, and Celia Lovsky
“Spur of the Moment” Season 5 Episode 21 aired February 21, 1964 directed by Eliot Silverstein written by Richard Matheson. Stars Diana Hyland, Marsha Hunt, Philip Ober and Roger Davis. “The After Hours” Season 1 Episode 34 aired June 10, 1960 directed by Douglas Heyes written by Rod Serling. Stars Anne Francis and Elizabeth Allen“The Dummy” Season 3 Episode 33 aired May 4, 1962 directed by Abner Biberman teleplay by Rod Serling. Stars Cliff Robertson, Frank Sutton, George Murdock, John Harmon and Sandra Warner.“The Fear” Season 5 Episode 35 aired May 29, 1964 directed by Ted Post written by Rod Serling. Stars Hazel Court and Peter Mark Richman“The Grave” Season 3 Episode 7 aired October 27, 1961 Written and Directed by Montgomery Pittman Stars Lee Marvin, James Best, and Strother Martin, Elen Willard and Lee Van Cleef“The Hitch-Hiker” Season 1 Episode 16 aired January 22, 1960 Teleplay by Rod Serling based on a radio play by Lucille Fletcher. Stars Inger Stevens, Adam Williams, Lew Gallo and Leonard Strong as The Hitch-Hiker“The Invaders” Season 2 Episode 15 aired January 27, 1961 Directed by Douglas Heyes written by Richard Matheson. Stars Agnes Moorehead in a completely dialogue-less performance.“The Lonely” Season 1 Episode 7 aired November 13, 1959 Directed by Jack Smight written by Rod Serling. Stars Jack Warden, John Dehner, Jean Marsh and Ted Knight“The Man in the Bottle” Season 2 Episode 2 aired October 7, 1960 directed by Don Medford written by Rod Serling. Stars Luther Adler, Vivi Janiss, and Joseph Ruskin“The Masks” Season 5 Episode 25 aired March 20, 1964 Directed by Ida Lupino written by Rod Serling. Stars Robert Keith, Milton Seltzer, Virginia Gregg, Brooke Hayward and Willis Bouchey“The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” Season 1 Episode 22 aired March 4, 1960. Written by Rod Serling. Stars Claude Akins, Barry Atwater, Jack Weston, Jan Handzlik, Amzie Strickland, Burt Metcalfe, Mary Gregory, Anne Barton“The New Exhibit” Season 4 Episode 14 aired April 4 1963 Directed by John Brahm written by Charles Beaumont and Rod Serling. Stars Martin Balsam, Will Kuluva, Margaret Field William Mims“The Shelter” Season 3 Episode 3 aired September 29, 1961 directed by Lamont Johnson written by Rod Serling. Stars Larry Gates, Joseph Bernard, Jack Albertson, Peggy Stewart, Sandy Kenyon, Michael Burns, Jo Helton, Moria Turner, and Mary Gregory“Time Enough At Last” Season 1 Episode 8 aired November 20, 1959 Directed by John Brahm and teleplay by Rod Serling based on a short story by Lynn Venable. Stars Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis“To Serve Man” Season 3 Episode 24 aired March 2, 1962 Teleplay by Rod Serling based on a short story by Damon Knight. Stars Lloyd Bochner, Susan Cummings and Richard Kiel“A Passage for Trumpet” Season 1 Episode 32 aired May 20, 1960 Directed by Don Medford written by Rod Serling. Stars Jack Klugman and John Anderson“Walking Distance” Season 1 Episode 5 aired October 30th, 1959 directed by Robert Stevens and written by Rod Serling. Stars Gig Young, Frank Overton and Irene Tedrow and a young Ronny Howard“Two” Season 3 Episode 1 aired September 15, 1961 directed by Montgomery Pittman written by Montgomery Pittman and Rod Serling. Stars Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson“Third from the Sun” Season 1 Episode 14 aired January 8, 1960 Teleplay by Rod Serling based on a story by Richard Matheson. Stars Fritz Weaver, Edward Andrews, Joe Maross, Denise Alexander and Lori March “What You Need” Season 1 Episode 12 aired Deccember 25, 1959 Stars Steve Cochran, Ernest Truex, Read Morgan and Alrene MartelSeason 1 Episode 1 aired October 2nd 1959. Written by Rod Serling. Stars Earl Holliman, James Gregory, and Paul Langton,“Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?” Season 2 Episode 28 aired May 26, 1961. Directed by Montgomery Pittman written by Rod Serling. Stars John Hoyt, Jean Willes, Jack Elam, Barney Phillips, John Archer, William Kendis, Morgan Jones, Gertrude Flynn, Bill Irwin, Jill Ellis and Ron Kipling
Your EverLovin’ Joey saying The Last Drive In is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge!
Fifty Years Into The Future!–The Most Fantastic Expedition Ever Conceived by Man!
Director Lesley Selander with a screenplay by Arthur Strawn (The Black Room 1935, The Man Who Lived Twice 1936) Selander it seems is more known for his work with westerns both on the big screen and television set. The film stars Marguerite Chapman as Alita, Cameron Mitchell as Steve Abbott, Arthur Franz as Dr. Jim Barker, Virginia Huston as Carol Stafford, John Litel as Dr. Lane, and Morris Ankrum as Ikron who became an incredibly familiar supportive player in many of these fantastic films of the 1950s, (Rocketship X-M 1950, Red Planet Mars 1952, Invaders from Mars 1953, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers 1956, Beginning of the End 1957, Kronos 1957, The Giant Claw 1957, Zombies of Mora Tau 1957, Half Human 1958 and How to Make a Monster 1958.)
With special effects and art direction by Edward S. Hayworth,Jack Cosgrove, and cited by Fantascene Irving Block (matte artist for Invaders from Mars 1953, Forbidden Planet 1956, Kronos 1957, The Giant Behemoth 1959) was responsible for the impressive design and over all look of the picture with cinematography by Harry Neumann (The Land of Missing Men 1930, Vanity Fair 1932, The Thirteenth Guest 1932, When Strangers Meet 1934, The Mysterious Mr. Wong 1939, The Fatal Hour 1940, Doomed to Die 1940, The Face of Marble 1946, The Maze 1953 in 3D!, A Bullet for Joey 1955, My Gun is Quick 1957, The Wasp Woman 1959)
Flight to Mars offered little pesky problems, like weightlessness, meteor showers, a contemplative pipe smoking Arthur Franz as scientist Jim Barker who spends so much time calculating their trip to Mars that he can’t see that Carol Stafford (Virginia Huston) is hopelessly in love with him. Cameron Mitchell plays newspaper man Steve Abbott, who is the ‘man’s man’ there to act as brawn and counter-balance to the intellectual egg-headedness of the brainy types on board including Dr. Lane (John Litel) and Professor Jackson (Richard Gaines) also scientists on board.
“You listening Carol, I think you are a prize package and VERY feminine… {…} I sure do Mr. engineer and I don’t have to look in a test tube to find out.”– Steve
The extent of Steve Abbott’s philosophizing “Close enough to the man in the moon to talk to him.”
As Bill Warren writes, “It’s as if a law (the law of the box office) was laid down for makes of science fiction films of the 1950s; a man could not be both brilliant and amusing ; he couldn’t be both a genius and a lover, both a scientist and a sinner.; both skilled with his brains and with his fists. Wisecracks, sexual drive and heroics were usually allotted to one or two other characters. The scientist was almost always a loner with the faraway look of dreams in his eyes., never also a down to-Earth regular Joe who was also a brilliant researcher.
It stands to reason then that Carol would run straight into the arms of the hero, Steve Abbott, who notices that she’s “really feminine.”
When the ship crash lands on Mars, and the sky burns a brilliant orange things get pretty exciting for the crew and us when they spot strange structures as part of the landscape. Enter steady science fiction player Morris Ankrum as the duplicitous Martian named Ikron, who not only looks very human but is quite eloquent with his use of the English language due to the fact that he has studied us from our radio and television broadcasts, and have know of their impending arrival. Ikron takes the earth men underground to their city dwelling with cars and air ships (animated) to show how advanced their civilization is.
OSA MASSEN Character(s): Dr. Lisa Van Horn Film ‘ROCKETSHIP X-M’ (1950) Directed By KURT NEUMANN 26 May 1950 CTW88028 Allstar/Cinetext/LIPPERT PICTURES
Incidentally Alamy has mis-marked this photograph as Osa Massen when clearly it is Flight to Mars…
The truth is that the Martians are running out of their precious resource of Corium and without the planet will become uninhabitable and they will perish. The Martians plan on hijacking the Earth rocket, use their technology to produce more rockets like ours and then conquer the Earth! But among these nefarious Martians are those who want to help them escape, like Tillamar played by Robert Barrat (Captain Blood 1935, The Life of Emile Zola 1937, Relentless 1948, and his last appearance as the kind father Stoney Likens in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s incredible episode Return of Verge Likens 1964) and his beautiful daughter Alita played by Marguerite Chapman (Charlie Chan in the Wax Museum 1940, Appointment in Berlin 1943, Strange Affair 1944, The Green Promise 1949, The Seven Year Itch 1955)
Ikron finds out about the little insurrection taking place as he has a pretty spy Terris (Lucille Barkley) who alerts him to everything that is going on. Alita who has also fallen in love with brainy boy scientist Dr. Jim Baker (Arthur Franz) is a true heroine and helps the crew lift off Mars and away from her treacherous father and his evil plans.
Steve Abbott: Dr. Lane, I once heard of a man who climbed a higher mountain than anyone else alive, but he was never able to get down again. What’s left of him is still up there.
Dr. Lane: The point is, Steve, he made it.
Steve Abbott: [looking at the Earth through the port hole of the spaceship] Ah, the Earth seems so big when you’re on it… from out here so small and nothing. It’s like closing your eyes in the dark and suddenly you’re alone with your soul.
Directed by Sam Newfield (The Terror of Tiny Town 1938, The Mad Monster 1942, Dead Men Walk 1943, I Accuse My Parents 1944) starring Cesar Romero as Maj. Joe Nolan, Hillary Brooke as Marla Stevens, Chick Chandler as Lt. Danny Wilson, John Hoyt as Michael Rostov, Acquanettaas ‘Native Girl’, Sid Melton as Sgt. Willie Tatlow, Whit Bissell as Stanley Briggs and Hugh Beaumont as Robert Phillips. Cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh and Augie Lohman (Barbarella 1968) in charge of visual effects and stop motion animation.
Let’s just get Hillary Brooke out of the way now, as she doesn’t crash land on the Lost Continent, as Marlashe only gets to dance with Cesar Romero before his flight leaves for parts unknown!
Somehow dinosaurs seems to go along with rocket ships and exploration of lands without and within. So naturally a lot of fantasy/adventure films are considers little lost continents amidst the Sci-Fi genre. According to Bill Warren, dinosaurs were actually a potential plot mechanism thought of by Robert Lippert for Rocketship X-M, thank the space-gods that the film maintains it’s integrity with just a civilization of savages wiped out by nuclear holocaust.
As Bill Warren cites in his bible for the 1950s genre there was a “tradition of blending phony Old Native Legends with some new, science fictional story elements.”
An atomic powered rocket craps out over the South Pacific, and so a rescue mission led by Maj. Joe Nolan (Cesar Romero) is sent out to find the crew, aided by his co-pilot Danny (Chick Chandler) and cracking wise Sergeant Willie Tatlow played by Sid Melton who adds the comic-relief (Sophia Petrillo’s smart-alecky Sal, ‘May he rest in peace til I get there’) Along is Ward Clever, no wait he was a Sea-Bee, teehee Hugh Beaumont as top scientist Robert Phillips and scientists Michael Rostov played by the other ubiquitous supportive actor John Hoyt and Stanley Briggs played by the other very familiar face Whit Bissell who is terrified by a giant lizard one night and falls off the side of the mountain.
Major Joe Nolan: Look at the size of that footprint! I’ve never seen anything like it before!
Robert Phillips: I have. Once… in a museum.
The crew crash lands just coincidentally in the same spot as the prior ship, and they find themselves on an Island (tinted in glorious green at the mountain top ) not only filled with volcanic activity but is radio-active AND it’s inhabited by the sultry Acquanetta (Captive Wild Woman 1943, Tarzan and the Leopard Woman 1946) a native girl who remained after all the others fled when they saw the great fire-bird fly over head and made the earth tremble.
Acquanetta born Mildred Davenport of Ozone, Wyoming.
Here she is in Tarzan and the Leopard Woman 1946
She also warns them not to climb the mountain as it is a ‘sacred mountain taboo’ which is the home of her gods. The crew is also getting a bit mistrustful of Rostov after all he is a Russian ex-patriot and has ice water in his veins. Joe gives him a dig after Briggs falls to his death pondering if he in fact just let the poor man fall, “another one of your–unpredictables?”
The island or Lost Continent is a pressure cooker of vapors, clouds, greenery and uranium fields that might just blow! All this radioactivity must have been what brought down both rockets. and as one of them points out as “powerful as a stockpile of hydrogen bombs…”
The crew shoot a flying reptile minding it’s own business, there’s a gratuitous dinosaur fight between horned beasts and a brontosaurus ( which I thought were leaf eaters hhm, I’ll have to look that up) chases Phillips up a tree. The crew is befuddled by the presence of prehistoric dinosaurs, but Hollywood isn’t so they’ll just have to deal. Phillips asks, “Who can explain it?… it’s an impossibility, yet here we are right in the middle of it!”Â
The film even gets to stick some anti-red sentiment in there as the stranded crew from the rocket-ship come to find out that Rostov not only didn’t sabotage the rocket but is a regular ‘Joe/Mike’, who lost his wife in a concentration camp and considers some of his Russian countrymen ‘villains’ who he wants to go back and fight against them ‘pushing buttons on more rockets.’
Finally they find their ship nose down in the earth, but they can’t get near it because there is a large brontosaurus and a triceratops hanging around, and Willie winds up getting gored to death. Then the earthquakes begin but the survivors make it out to sea on a raft just as the whole mountain blows up!
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (People on Sunday 1930, The Black Cat 1934, Detour 1945, The Strange Woman 1945, Ruthless 1948, Daughter of Dr. Jekyll 1957, The Amazing Transparent Man 1960)
Written by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen (The Secret of Convict Lake 1951, Captive Women 1952, Port Sinister 1953, The Neanderthal Man 1953, Five Bold Women 1960.)
Though this is a very low budget film, I have an affection for it’s unassuming and atmospherically charming tone and I actually had an action figure of the alien as part of a series released in the late 60s, early 70s which included the winged angel from Barbarella!
Okay enough meandering down nostalgic Warren Drive, Long Island USA.
The sets were left overs from Joan of Arc (1948) at Hal Roach Studios. Ulmer designed the ship that resembled less of a space craft and more like ‘diving bell that was lowered into our dense atmosphere -Bill Warren. The film’s use of low lighting hides that fact that set and the interior ship design was constructed out of plywood. Inside the alien suit it is suggested was a little person or person of short stature actor possibly Billy Curtis. According to Warren, as described in the script, his face had the look of being distorted by pressure, or as if similar to a ritual mask belonging to a primitive tribe. The lighting adds to the unique quality of his expressionless face.
The film opens with American reporter John Lawrence (Robert Clarke-The Astounding She Monster 1957, The Hideous Sun Demon 1959) narrating in voice-over his panic over the well being of both Professor Elliot and his daughter Enid who have been taken back to a space craft by the alien from planet X. As he paces the observatory tower floor he begins to relate the strange story that has unfolded in the past few days. He fears for their lives as well as his own.
Lawrence was sent to a remote Scottish Isle Burray in the Orkneys, to see Professor Elliot (Raymond Bond) after a wandering planet called ‘X’ is spotted in our solar system and is approaching Earth, estimated coming close to the Orkneys. John Lawrence stays with Dr. Mears played by extremely likable and oft seen William Schallert, although in this film he plays a rather suspicious and brooding character who has a mistrust of Williams. John Williams also meets his lovely daughter Enid played by Margaret Field. This science fiction gem has a sub-plot as most do where love gets to blossom, as Enid and John they take a foggy drive then a cozy walk along the moors, they encounter a small metallic object and eventually stumble upon an object that they establish is a probe.
As Anthony Newley sings from his and Leslie Bricusse’s song from their award winning musical The Roar of the Greasepaint –the Smell of the Crowd—“Look at that Face, just look at it!”
Later that night Enid gets a flat tire and walks back across the moors in the shrouded mysterious late night fog where she comes upon a sphere with an observation glass and she looks in, a strange face peers out at her!
Enid runs and gets her father, and when they arrive back at the ship to inspect it, a light shines in her father’s face and becomes temporarily submissive. The laser gun creates a calming light zone where people not only comply, but can understand the droning language of the alien from X. When Lawrence and Mears go back to investigate the Man from Planet X comes out once again to greet them. In a very interesting scene, this adorable alien attempts to judge whether these earth men can be trusted, so he turns off his air supply until Lawrence realizes what he is doing he turns his air back on and from that point he sees that Lawrence can be trusted.
Dr. Mears is another matter entirely. The Man from Planet X has not come to Earth meaning any harm, and only turns defense and hostile after the greedy Mears bares his viciously aggressive teeth–bad scientist, bad bad scientist!
The alien follows both men back to the tower where they’re staying, but he’s left with the greedy Mears who only wants to exploit the poor little gray guy in the cutest little space suit ever. He discovers great cosmic secrets from Mr. alien X conversing within the universal language of mathematics. The nasty Mears tries to subdue him by turning his oxygen source on low but once he revives and takes Mears and Enid with him back to the ship, later taking Professor Elliot and several villagers along with him putting them in the same hypnotic trance forming a wall around his ship.
Dr. Mears:[to the Man from Planet X –laughing] Dr. Mears: To think – a fantastic gnome like you had to hurdle out of space to put this power in my hands. Well, now that we’ve made contact, I’m gonna tear out every secret you’ve got!
Planet X is drawing nearer to Earth… Roy Engle as Tommy the Constable calls in the military. John Lawrence manages to awaken the sleep walkers and get them safely away from the ship, while the evil Dr. Mears runs back in the direction of military fire. The space craft and sadly, the alien are blown to smithereens. Planet X in it’s wake creates terrestrial winds, and bright lights — and then disappears into the vastness of outer space once again, perhaps dooming Earth to bad weather?
Whether or not The Man from Planet X was an innocent drifter who found himself in a kerfuffle on Earth just trying to survive being in the wrong place at the right time or as Lawrence feared might have been trying to invade the planet… because of his ‘otherness’ he had to be destroyed.
Dr. Mears-” How may we know what processes of thought run through his head? How may we assume he thinks as we do? How may we anticipate what a bizarre and fantastic organism might or might not do?”
Down on the ground Alien X has turned off his oxygen to test the earthling’s response. He’s about as aggressive as a kitten going belly up! John turns his air back on.
I have to admit that I am one of the ones who finds Edgar Ulmer’s work fascinating and worthy of it’s cult following as he’s done everything from moody b horror films to film noir. Some more lavish budgets like The Black Cat 1934, and Bluebeard 1944, to film noir masterpieces like Detour (1946) Some poverty row flicks with titles like Girls in Chains, Isle of Forgotten Sins and Jive Junction all made in 1943.
In an interview with film maker Peter Bogdanovich in Kings of the Bs, Ulmer said that he had to do it all for the sake of the money, “I admit to myself that I was somehow schizophrenic in making pictures. On one hand, I was absolutely concerned with the box office and on the other, I was trying to create art and decency with style. I could not completely get out of the commercial though I knew it limited me.”Â
But as Bill Warren says, what ultimately wound up happening because of Ulmer’s hand in The Man From Planet X resulted in ‘the first science fiction gothic horror film.”
An Austrian implant who had a knack for set design. And the lustrous and atmospheric demur of The Man From Planet XÂ just sets this curious and obscure little gem apart from all the other Sci-Fi films of the 1950s.
Enid Elliot:When I got close to it, it looked like a giant glass ball girdled with something like a steel belt. Three of them, I think. When I got close enough to look in – there it was.
Professor Elliot: It? What?
Enid Elliot:That face! Right on the other side of the glass looking right into mine! I was terrified!
Professor Elliot:A face? A human face?
Enid Elliot:A ghastly caricature like something distorted by pressure. I can’t think how else to describe it – a horrible, grotesque face looking right into my eyes!
Professor Elliot:Your statement has the tinge of fantasy.
Enid Elliot:You know, I think that creature was friendly. I wonder what would have happened if… if Dr. Mears hadn’t frightened him.
 John Lawrence: Who knows? Perhaps the greatest curse ever to befall the world, or perhaps the greatest blessing.
The clever & cheeky Barry of Cinematic Catharsis has summoned this great and powerful idea for a Summer Blogathon! Whether it’s the weather, or giant mutant bugs, blood hungry sharks, large animals run amok, or the elements gone awry–Nature’s Fury can be seen in so many fascinating and awe inspiring feature films and those lovable B movie trends that showcase the natural world in chaos. I immediately thought of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds as it is a film that has stayed burned in my mind since I first saw it as a child. Certain scenes will never lose their power to terrify.
And in celebration of this event, I’ve actually written a song and made a film/music mash up to tribute Tippi Hedren in The Birds, with a montage from the film featuring my song Calling Palundra…
“The Birds expresses nature and what it can do, and the dangers of nature. Because there’s no doubt that if the birds did decide, you know, with the millions that they are, to go for everybody’s eyes, then we’d have H.G.Wells Kingdom of the Blind on our hands.”-Alfred Hitchcock
“Why are they doing this? They said when you got here, the whole thing started. Who are you? What are You? Where did you come from? I think you’re the cause of all this… I think you’re evil EVIL!”–Actress Doreen Lang playing the hysterical mother in the diner!
This tribute video features my special song written just for this blogathon…. Here’s Melanie Daniels & the birds– with my piano vocal accompaniment, ‘Calling Palundra’
The children’s song “Risseldy Rosseldy” heard at the school when the crows began to unite as a gang is the Americanization of an old Scottish folk song called “Wee Cooper O’Fife”
Image courtesy of: Jürgen Müller’s colorful Movies of the ’60s
On it’s face The Birds can be taken literally as a cautionary tale about the natural world fighting back against the insensitivity & downright barbaric treatment of nature’s children and the environment at the hands of humankind. Is it a tale of simple unmitigated revenge against the town for the killing of a pigeon? Or is there something more nefarious & psycho-sexual at work? Once you peel back the top layer of the visual narrative there are multi metaphors at work.
From Dark Romance: SEXUALITY IN THE HORROR FILM by David J. Hogan- “Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) is probably the ultimate expression of this sort of nameless dread. It is a film that cheerfully defies description: it is horror, it is science fiction, it is black comedy, it is a scathing look at our mores and manners. It is a highly sexual film, but in a perversely negativistic way.”
Before the release of The Birds in 1963, Tippi Hedren made the cover of Look Magazine with the heading “Hitchcock’s new Grace Kelly.”
Tippi Hedren in Marnie (1964) What Grace Kelly had in pristine beauty and sophistication, Hedren possesses an undertow of sensuality that pulls you into that gorgeous mystique.
As with Hitchcock’s other, worldly beautiful blonde subject — the strong-willed socialite Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly) in Rear Window (1954)The Birds features the stunning Tippi Hedren as the coy, confident, and a bit manipulative Melanie Daniels a San Fransisco socialite who descends upon Bodega Bay with a similar uncompromising will. Stiff, stolid, and cocky Lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meets Melanie in a pet shop where the two share shallow, faintly romantic barbs and repartee. Mitch is shopping for a pair of love birds for his sister Cathy’s eleventh birthday and Mitch pretends in a condescending manner to mistake her for the clerk. Melanie goes along with the mistaken identity as a way to flirt until his slightly mean-spirited joke backfires when she accidentally lets a canary loose while it lands in an ashtray Mitch throws his hat on it and places it back in its cage smugly saying “Back in your gilded cage Melanie Daniels.”revealing that he not only knew who she was from the very beginning and has quite a snotty preconceived notion about this socialite whom he appears to judge as running with a ‘wild’ crowd and is amoral. He manages to make a bit of a fool out of Melanie. The contrast between the flirty glib and calculating Melanie Daniels and the less interesting, judgemental, and arrogant Mitch Brenner kicks off a chemistry that really isn’t as vital to the story as what the two personalities represent.Â
As Melanie is about to enter Davidson’s Pet Shop, she hears and sees a tremendous gathering of Seagulls in the sky. It is a foreboding moment of things to come…
So the whole idea is to feel good right? Well I think a lot of us would agree that any Rankin/Bass production is going to put a smile on your face… I couldn’t resist revisiting the children’s & adult animated feature that embraces Boris Karloff as an animagic puppet and a lot of campy inside cheeky humor, that’s not just for the kiddies, as the New York Times review from 1967 says it’s for ‘The monsters in all of us!”
“When I was nine, I played the demon king in “Cinderella” and it launched me on a long and happy life of being a monster.”- Boris Karloff
Presented by Executive Producer Joseph E. Levine and Directed by Jules Bass (Return to Oz 1964, Rudolph, the Red -Nosed Reindeer 1964, The Daydreamer 1966, Frosty the Snowman 1969, produced The Last Unicorn 1982, The Sins of Dorian Gray 1983, The Wind in the Willows 1987)
Mad Monster Party? (1967)is a wonderfully cheeky animagic feature filmed in Eastman color, was released on March 8th, 1967. This puppet comic horror gem stars the voices of Boris Karloffas Baron Boris von Frankenstein, Allen Swift lends his voice to these hairy scary characters Felix Flankin (Swift does a very obvious take off on actor James Stewart) / Peter Lorre character ‘Yetch’ / Dracula / the Invisible Man / Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde / Chef Machiavelli / the Captain / First Mate / Mr. Kronkite / Mail Man / The Monster and a skeleton band called the Little Tibias and the Phibbianswho are wearing those groovy Beatle wigs.
Gale Garnett is the voice of the Baron’s lovely assistant, the fiery red-headed temptress Francesca, Phyllis Diller is not called the Bride, she is referred to as The Monster’s Mate!
Music by Maury Laws, with cinematography by Tadahito Mochinaga and animation/puppet department by Jack Davis, an illustrator for EC comics in the 1950s, a fellow contributor to Mad Magazine and During the 1970s, he did concept art and storyboards for television commercials (‘Lectric Shave, Utica Club, Cask Mt. Wine, Unispin, Gillette, Sominex, Dodge Boys) animated by the Phil Kimmelman and Associates animation house. He was also the poster artist for the brilliant “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (1964)
Plus uncredited Art Direction by mind blowing artist, music albums, poster art and graphic comic books Frank Frazetta.
Mad Monster Party? (1967) is an offbeat stop-motion animation feature made by Rankin/Bass Productions. It's a parody of classic monster movies more aimed at adults than children though it was badly marketed to the wrong audience, the weekend matinee for kids. It blends the art of slapstick with the nostalgia of Universal & RKO monster greats. Harvey Kurtzman, who wrote the script, was a co-creator of Mad Magazine. The characters were designed by Jack Davis, one of the illustrators of Mad Magazine. It explains the element of racy, campy, quirky and delightfully droll humor, and why it has remained a cult classic, since the days of Saturday afternoon programs like Creature Features! Oh those were the days…
“Certainly, I was typed. But what is typing? It is a trademark, a means by which the public recognizes you. Actors work all their lives to achieve that. I got mine with just one picture. It was a blessing.”-Boris Karloff
The film is a feature length ‘animagic’ gem but because they could not get the licensing to homage the actual classy trademarked monsters, they resorted to a parody of the characters using similar names instead. The Bride of Frankenstein is called "the Monster's Mate"and is brought to life by the superb impersonation of the batty and biting Phyllis Diller rather than the surreal & sensual Elsa Lanchester. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is called "Creature." And King Kong is referred to as “IT.”
Boris Karloff himself did the voice for Baron Boris von Frankenstein. Karloff recorded his dialogue in England at the sound stage, which was a much more comfortable job for Boris Karloff made easier on his body, by that time he was suffering from debilitating arthritis and trouble with his lungs.
I know what I’m getting for my birthday this year!
Composer Maury Laws said of the great Karloff, “Boris Karloff was the perfect gentleman.” Producer Arthur Rankin Jr. said “He was suffering from an illness at the time, but he gave us a great performance in Mad Monster Party? (1967) and The Daydreamer (1966) as well!”
Boris Karloff plays the voice of The Rat in Rankin/Bass’ The Daydreamer (1966) stories by Hans Christian Anderson
And let us not forget that Boris Karloffplayed the voice of The Narrator & Grinch in director Chuck Jone’s adaptation of the Dr. Seuss story How The Grinch Stole Christmastv movie (1966)
Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Boris Karloff and Chuck Jones
The party guests also include The Wolf Man, Quasimodo, various zombies that appear to pay homage to the dreaded flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, and a deranged chef named Mafia Machiavelli.
Allen Swift does a great take on Peter Lorre who pines after Francesca… Yetch- “It’s me, Your Don Juan” Francesca, “I Don Juan to look at you!”, and if it’s not my imagination, I could swear that what remains to be seen of the Invisible Man looks and sounds like Sydney Greenstreet’s fez wearing character Signor Ferrari in Casablanca (1942) a coincidence… I think not! And I could swear that monocle wearing version of Dracula bears a striking resemblance to pioneering live show of the ’50s Your Show of Shows, brilliant comedian Sid Caesar.
In the movie, Baron Frankenstein who is equip with a laboratory that would make Kenneth Strickfaden proud, invites his noodle headed, perpetual throat spraying annoyingly allergic nephew Felix Flanken who dreams of being a pharmacist, to take his place as the head of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters to be run at his tropic hide away ‘The Isle of Evil.’
There his uncle will be bestowing on Felix his last great creation, a secret formula capable of destroying all matter. When the Baron announces this to the organization of his new successor, the monstrous guests plot to get rid of the nerdy Felix so they can take over the organization and grab Dr. Frankenstein's secret formula. The Baron's assistant, Francesca, falls in love with Felix, and is kidnapped by the monsters. Boris gets Francesca away from those greedy ghouls, and Felix and Francesca are able to leave the island, rowing away in their tiny row boat, with perhaps a delicious twist ending in store for you!
Singer Garnett creates the voice of the curvy red head Francesca that adds a wonderful spark to the character who radiates Ann Margret & Ann Francis with Mamie Van Doren’s twists & boobs!
Although the film came out in 1967, the distributor Embassy Pictures relegated it to kiddie matinees, instead of reaching older audiences that would've appreciated the human and references. The film got virtually no attention until 1969’s (read here )☞ New York Times review.
Howard Thompson writes, “In this peppery and contagiously droll little color package, a collection of animated puppets scamper across some clever miniature sets, exchanging sass and barbs and occasionally warbling some sprightly tunes.”
Rankin/BassProductions (who brought us those memorable claymation Christmas feel-goods) in affiliation with Avco Embassy found the intended audience for the film in the 1970s and early 1980s by showing it on the small screen. They also made a 1972 prequel called Mad Mad Mad Monsters.
Mad Monster Party’s soundtrack includes 60s songstress Gale Garnett who sang the catchy hit pop song “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine.”Â
The film also includes songs the opening song rendered by jazz great Ethel Ennis with- “Mad Monster Party”, “One Step Ahead” (sung by Boris Karloff) Our Time to Shine & Never Was a Love Like Ours (sung by Gale Garnett) music and lyrics by Maury Laws and Jules Bass, also lets not forget, “You’re Different” sung by Phyllis Diller
Mad Monster Party? (1967) The making of a classic
“My dear old monster. I owe everything to him. He’s my best friend.”-Boris Karloff
Here’s a truly compelling Blogathon hosted by two of the most insightful bloggers you’ll ever find! Fritzi of Movies Silently and Sister Celluloid ! They’re featuring a subject that is endless in it’s offerings. The Backstage Blogathon 2016!
What is most challenging, eye opening and delicious for me is what I discovered not only about the films I chose that have a ‘Backstage’ theme, but how in fact, I uncovered the volatile backstage world within the backstage world. The back story of both screen & stage sirens, Kim Novak and Jeanne Eagels, the directors -particularly Robert Aldrich who made ‘Lylah Clare’, and the artists involved in molding the historic perceptions of all of it!
I’m thrilled to have been invited to join in, and couldn’t resist the temptation to do yet another double feature, cause I’m a child of the 60s & 70s & and I like it like that…!
This time spotlighting three? legends, one a symbolic artifice of that intoxicating mistress that is… ‘celebrity’ and two true legends– both portrayed by Hollywood goddess Kim Novak in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) & Jeanne Eagels (1957) with a little bit about the real tragic legend Jeanne Eagels herself.
Director Alfred Hitchcock and Kim Novak in the an earlier film where Novak plays an eerie dual role, a story of fixation & fear of heights in the classic thriller Vertigo (1958).Kim Novak Vertigo (1958) courtesy of Nick & Jane at Dr Macro’s
[on her role in Vertigo (1958)] “I don’t think it’s one of my best works, but to have been part of something that has been accepted makes me feel very good…{..} They’ll always remember me in Vertigo (1958), and I’m not that good in it, but I don’t blame me because there are a couple of scenes where I was wonderful.”-Kim Novak
Novak as Judy in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).Kim Novak as Madeleine -Scottie (James Stewart’s obsession) in Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
Kim Novak ‘The Lavender Girl’ like many Hollywood hopefuls went to L.A to become an actress, discovered by an agent who got her a screen test with Columbia Pictures who signed her to a contract. Harry Cohn marketed her as a ‘sex goddess’, something she resisted from the beginning.
“I think it will be helpful to people because I know the expectations that are put on you as a sex symbol, and how MarilynMonroe suffered and so on, and I was able to get free of that.” –Kim Novak
She made her first motion picture at age 21, getting the lead in the film noir gem Pushover (1958) co-starring Fred MacMurray. Novak received a Golden Globe nomination for “Most Promising Newcomer” in 1955.
That year she made three successful pictures, Otto Preminger’s controversial film about drug addiction The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) starring Frank Sinatra as a strung out junkie and Novak as Molly.
Frankie Machine:“You got any money, Molly?… I feel so sick. I hurt all over”… Molly: “Jump off a roof if you’re gonna kill yourself but don’t ask me to help ya…”
She then followed up with Pal Joey (1955) again co-starring with Sinatra.
Bill Holden and Kim Novak dance in director Joshua Logan’s Picnic (1955) adapted from William Inge’s play, boasts a great cast! Kim Novak as prostitute Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1964) image courtesy of The Red List.Kirk Douglas and Kim Novak smoke on the screen in Strangers When We Meet (1960) image courtesy of Dr Macro
Sadly with the way Columbia hyped their young star, she continued to make box office flops that halted her career, playing the other woman in love with Kirk Douglas in Strangers When We Meet (1960) then cast as prostitute Mildred Rogers in the remake Of Human Bondage (1964) with co-star Laurence Harvey, and Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid(1964). Novak made several films with director Richard Quine with whom she dated, was married to actor Richard Johnson for one year, still remaining friends afterwards. But Novak never truly fit into Hollywood, was disillusioned by the pressures & politics of being framed as a sex goddess and not really getting film roles that were to her liking.
“I don’t feel that I was a Hollywood-created star.”-Kim Novak
“The head of publicity of the Hollywood studio where I was first under contract told me, “You’re a piece of meat, that’s all”. It wasn’t very nice but I had to take it. When I made my first screen test, the director explained to everyone, ‘Don’t listen to her, just look’.”-Kim Novak
Pyewacket and Kim Novak in 1958 Bell, Book and Candle
She never quite broke through and lived up to her potential. With various cameo appearances and a few stints on television, she gave it up for good– married a veterinarian and lives in Oregon with her horses, her love of nature and animals. Kim Novak still the goddess!
Kim Novak the sultry lavender haired beauty is well known for Hitchcock’s beautiful mirror image as Madeleine Elster & Judy Barton in the psychological thriller Veritgo (1958), but I’ll always have a thing for her portrayal of Lona Mclane in Richard Quine’s noir film Pushover (1954).
Kim Novak as Lona Mclane in Richard Quine’s film noir Pushover(1954) co-starring Fred MacMurray
She was great as Kay Greylek in 5 Against the House (1955). And though it possesses a terrific cast of stellar talent, I’m less enthusiastic about Novak (not her fault) cast as Madge Owens opposite William Holden in Joshua Logan’s Picnic (1955). Other notable films featuring Kim Novak are as– Molly in Otto Preminger’s Man With the Golden Arm (1955), Marjorie Oelrichs in another George Sidney film biopic The Eddy Duchin Story (1956), Linda English in Pal Joey (1957), My Favorite as Gillian Holroyd in Richard Quine’s Bell, Book and Candle (1958), Betty Preisser in Delbert Mann’s Middle of the Night (1959), She was excellent as the conflicted ‘Maggie’ Gault in Richard Quine’s Strangers When We Meet (1960) She is wonderful as Mrs.Carlyle Hardwicke in Richard Quine’s hilarious romantic comedy with Blake Edward’s screenplay, The Notorious Landlady (1962)with lovable Jack Lemmon , Polly the pistol in Billy Wilder’s Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) Mildred in Of Human Bondage (1964), Moll Flanders, and in Terence Youngs’ The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965).
Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak in The Notorious Landlady (1962).Kim Novak as Jeanne in the biopic Jeanne Eagels (1957). Kim Novak with director Robert Aldrich on the set of the 60s deviant trashy melodrama The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968).
“The same characters that keep reappearing bigger than life, find their own integrity in doing what they do the way they do it, even if it causes their own deaths.”–Robert Aldrich
Over his extensive career director Robert Aldrich has always pollinated his film world with losers, outcasts, deviants and ego maniacs, that collectively form a certain archetypal group which goes against the grain of a ‘civilized’ & ‘moral’ society. One just has to think of his eternal cult hit What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962)
Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film- by David J Hogan –“In the sixties director Robert Aldrich released a number of pictures that popularized Grand Guignol, and shaped Hollywood myths into stylish decadent burlesques. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) is the best-known, but The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) is the most grotesque. Peter Finch played a washed-up film director whose chance for a comeback is a biopic of his ex-wife Lylah Clare, a German actress whose wanton bisexuality and taste for high living led to her accidental death. The director is amazed when he meets (Elsa) Kim Novak), a young actress who is the image of Lylah. Elsa is cast in the role and gradually assumes the dead actress’ personality and voice. Her relationship with the director grows more brutal and pernicious as Lylah’s influence becomes stronger…{…}
… it is tacky, vulgar and full of improbable circumstances. Lylah’s odyssey to stardom began in a brothel; her death occurred on her wedding day, and was caused by a fall from a staircase during a struggle with a female lover. Her reincarnation, Elsa inspires a number of sexual advances-lesbians and otherwise-from people who had known the actress. Lylah consumes Elsa, and finally assumes control of her body. Kim Novak’s blankness of demeanor perfectly expressed Elsa’s suggestibility. An un-credited actress provided Lylah’s throaty Germanic voice, and though the effect is hard to swallow at first , the film’s campy tone makes the device seem appropriate. In this gaudy movie, anything is possible.”
Here’s a snippet of historian/writer Alain Silver’s interview with filmmaker Robert Aldrich who is perhaps one of my favorite non-Hollywood directors… talking about Lylah Clare & Kim Novak.
Silver:Some years after the fact, are you still dissatisfied with The Legend of Lylah Clare?
Aldrich:I think it has a number of flaws. I was about to bum rap Kim Novak, when we were talking about this the other day, and I realized would be pretty unfair. Because people forget that Novak can act. I really didn’t do her justice. But there are some stars whose motion picture image is so large, so firmly and deeply rooted in the public mind, that an audience comes to the move with a preconception about that person. And that preconception makes “reality’ or any kind of myth that’s contrary to that preconceived reality, impossible. To make this picture work, to make Lylah work, you had to be carried along into that myth. And we didn’t accomplish that. Now, you know you can blame it on a lot of things, but I’m the producer and I”m the director. I’m responsible for not communicating to that audience. I just didn’t do it.
Novak as Elsa/Lylah in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968).
Robert Aldrich on the set of The Killing of Sister George (1968) starring Beryl Reid and Suzannah York.
Just a brief discussion about another Aldrich film that bares its frenzied teeth at the entertainment industry The Killing of Sister George (1968), which possesses the same problematic themes that emerge from show-biz which are transferred to June Buckridge (Beryl Reid) a middle-aged BBC soap opera star named Sister George who happily rides her bicycle throughout the town helping the quaint folk. She is quickly being phased out of the show, in other words she is going to be killed off!Â
Reid gives a startlingly painful performance as the belligerent June– a lesbian and a raging alcoholic. Abrasive, vulgar and absolutely a challenging anti-heroine to like as she will cause you to cringe yet at times feel sympathy for. Her internal conflict, volatile, poignant, alienated and transversing a heteronormative world as a nun on a popular television show of all things is quite a concoction. The conflict between the character on television and the actress’ personal life both connect as they renounce the morally & socially acceptable code that is splintered by the queerness, the vulgarization of her actual self, which is daily eclipsed by the illusion of her cheery onscreen persona as George, the bicycle riding do gooder tootling about town in the popular series, as a nun –this mocks June’s private life.
She’s a belligerent vulgarian, foul mouthed, domineering alcoholic who has a vein of sadism she inflicts on her infantilized lover Alice ‘Childie’ McNaught (Suzannah York) who is ultimately set free from her present overpowering lover, only to be seduced/abducted by another strong Sapphic figure, Coral Browne. At the end, June is left to sit and reflect on the sound stage as she is about to play the cow in a children’s show, she yields to her professional and personal demise as she ‘moos’… a pathetic coda, yet a telling one about the industry. Aldrich creates a satirical version of Hollywood within the television workings of the BBC with all its trifling regulations and intolerance that can drive anyone to ‘moo.’ at the end.
actress Beryl Reid learning to smoke a cigar for her role in the play picture-courtesy of Getty Images.Photo by Everett Collection / Rex Features ( 534946B ) THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE, (ctr) Susannah York, Beryl Reid, Coral Browne – 1968The loneliness of Sister George- Beryl Reid as June who plays Sister George on the popular BBC soap opera. The last moments of the film, sums up her alienation as she reflects back on the sound stage. As James Ursini & Alain Silver point out the location in Aldrich’s Hollywood vision is a place where his characters find most comforting and ‘real’ from Charlie Castle to Jane Hudson.
And, including this post that includes lesbianism/bi-sexuality in The Legend of Lylah Clare.
Elsa“She’s dead and I’m alive so you’ll have to get used to me.”Rossella- “That can be arranged.”
Lylah Clareis an unnerving journey, with very unattractive show-biz types… And it's supposed to be. Aldrich wants you to despise everyone who inhabits the Hollywood chimera, inhabited by outliers and egocentrically driven characters.
From the beginning of the film the ‘legend’ is set up by revealing to us, flashbacks, slides, a grand portrait, and vocal recordings of Lylah’s speaking style, wardrobe archived, fashion sense, body language and attitude.
The dangerously iconographic staircase, that tells the death of Lylah Clare in three separate yet altered flashbacks
Aldrich himself an outsider to Hollywood has made a name for himself as an irreverent auteur who creates high melodrama germinating in the realm of show business, stage & film. With cut-throat, and malignant sorts, parasites who feed on the desperately narcissistic, delusional and addictively determined to succeed.
There isn't anything poignant or warm-hearted about Aldrich's view surrounding any of the characters in the narrative itself as seen through the lens of The Legend of Lylah Clare.It's imbued with noxious gasoline– giving off fumes just waiting to be thrown onto the smoldering fire, as he depicts this love/hate story about the myth and the illusion that is Hollywood.
You'll start to feel the bile rising from your stomach, as every predatory, cynical and egomaniacal neurotic seeks to feed off the dreams of others trying to do the very same, like a snake devouring it's own tail. It's a quite unflattering look at fleeting power, bottomless fame, self-worship and the seduction of celebrity… deviant cannibalistic & venomous.
Novak plays both the fictional screen siren Lylah Clare and her doppleganger Elsa in Robert Aldrich’s toxic orgy of Hollywood indulgences in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968).Rosella Falk plays the sapphic Rossella obsessed with both Lylah and Elsa as the reincarnation of her lost love… Lylah.
The Legend of Lylah Clare is one of director Robert Aldrich’s crassest indictments of Hollywood, using brutal symbolism -exploring a visual narrative of an industry that is narcissistic, chaotic, duplicitous, superficial, devours the soul, and cannibalizes it’s own.
From James Ursini & Alain Silver’s wonderful book, What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich?–“Real emotions and real events are clouded in ambiguity. Elsa and Zarken are not ‘simple-minded stereotypes’, they are the expressive components of The Legend of Lylah Clare which begins in setting up a standard genre expectation then they goe to consciously excessive lengths to frustrate and altar those expectations.”
As pointed out in Ursini & Silver’s insightful biography, Aldrich is one of Hollywood’s rebels & great auteurs, they also point out that Zarken (Peter Finch) & Elsa’s (Kim Novak) are industry victims by their own doing and because of the cut throat nature that permeates within its closed universe. They both come to an end by death, physical, emotional & career. “Their fates are as fixed as that of Joe Gillis, floating face down in Norma Desmond’s pool.”- Ursini & Silver- (they are referring to Sunset Boulevard 1950)
Kim Novak as Elsa filming the final scene in the film within a film’s biopic film about the life and death of Lylah Clare.
Kim Novak stars as Lylah Clare /Elsa Brinkmann/ Elsa Campbel, with Peter Finch as egomaniacal director/ Lewis Zarken/Louis Flack, Ernest Borgnineis the studio bigwig. Barney Sheean,wonderful character actor Milton Selzer is agent Bart Langner and Jean Carroll plays his wife Becky. Giallo queen & 8 1/2 star Rossella Falk is Rossella, Lylah’s lover, the dreamy Gabriele Tinti plays Paolo the Adonis gardener, Valentina Cortese is fashion designer Countess Bozo Bedoni and Coral Browne who was incredible in The Killing of Sister George that same year, does her thing as the scathing, acid tongued film critic and virulent gossip mongering columnist Molly Luther. Ellen Corby has a small part as the script woman.
Teleplay by Robert Thom and Edward DeBlasio, with the screenplay by Hugo Butler, and Jean Rouverol Music by Aldrich regular Frank De Vol… Filmed on location at Grumman’s Chinese Theater and MGM Studios. Aldrich consistently used masterful Cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc
George Reeves with cinematographer Joseph Biroc Biroc served as cinematographer on the “Adventures of Superman” He also received several Emmys for his work and in 1989 received a lifetime achievement award from the Society of American Cinematographers.
The camera work in Lylah Clare is perhaps one of the standout aspects of how the film is skewed & washed over by reality vs illusion. Here’s just a few of the amazing films credited to Biroc… a master at film noir, fantasy & suspenseful landscapes. Joseph F.Biroc has lensed some of my favorite films.
The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), Cry Danger (1951), The Glass Wall (1953) Vice Squad (1953), Donovan’s Brain (1953), Down Three Dark Streets (1954), Nightmare (1956), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Born Reckless (1958), Home Before Dark (1958), The Bat (1959), 13 Ghosts (1960), Toys in the Attic (1963), Kitten with a Whip (1964), Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), Enter Laughing (1967), Tony Rome (1967), The Detective (1968), The Killing of Sister George (1968), The Grissom Gang (1971), Emperor of the North (1973), Blazing Saddles (1974), The Longest Yard (1974)
William Glasgow who had worked on Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) is responsible for the stunning art direction.
“Overnight, she became a star…Over many nights, she became a legend.”
“The entire film might be classed as a reincarnation fantasy or murder mystery” –Alain Silver & James Ursini; What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich?
Agent Bart Langner (Milton Selzer) who is dying of cancer wants to finally produce a film before he dies. He discovers Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak) a meek horned rimmed glasses wearing movie fan who is the spitting image of the dead screen goddess Lylah Clare, a legendary actress who died 30 years ago in 1948 by mysterious means on her wedding night to director Lewis Zarken. Her husband/director has vowed that he'd never direct another picture again.
But when Bart brings Elsa (Novak) to the egocentric who ‘lifted his name from a Hungarian magician who slit his own throat’ director Lewis Zarken/Louis Flack (Peter Finch) who has been isolating since the death of his star/wife, he begs Lewis (Finch) to come out of hiding, so they can make a movie about the life and death of the legendary Lylah Clare. Bart has been tirelessly molding Elsa (using slides and voice recordings of Lylah) into the personification of the dead starlet to entice Zarken to make the picture.
Milton Selzer as Bart is running through a series of slides with his wife Becky, showing Elsa bits and pieces of Lylah’s past.A slide shows the image of brooding ego-maniacal director Lewis Zarken played by Peter Finch.
The wedding of Zarken and Lylah Clare.Becky Langner shows Elsa Lylah’s dress.Elsa lacks confidence to take on such an intimidating role.
Kim Novak inhabits two roles, the title of the film which is the ‘dead’ screen goddess Lylah Clare seen in various flashback. And, her other character, that of Elsa Brinkmann who starts out as a shy star-struck neophyte, clumsy and appearing frightened at times until she emerges from her cocoon. The film almost alludes to the idea that Elsa is either a  ‘reincarnation’ of Lylah Clare or is under a spell, like soul possession.
Bart Langner to Elsa –“You can’t imagine what a big star she was, I mean really big Everybody loved her, worshiped her.”Elsa-“She had a strange kind of appeal didn’t she.”The Legend of Lylah Clare uses many touches of Neo-Noir as part of it’s flare. This is outside Elsa’s lonely motel room.
Elsa starts the circular pattern of the film, starting out walking down Hollywood Boulevard looking at famous star footprints and winding up in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The film will end in front of the landmark.
In Lylah Clare, Kim Novak portrays the flip side of two women once again…Â Elsa Brinkmann a star struck timid girl who is discovered by agent Bart Langner. The brash studio head who represents the business end of the world, is played by Ernest Borgnine who calls Bart (Milton Selzer) a ‘lousy ten-percenter.’
Because Bart knows he is dying of cancer, and his days are numbered he figures that introducing Elsa to the world as the second coming of the legendary actress Lylah Clare a sort of Dietrichesque screen goddess who died 30 years earlier shrouded in mystery will allow him to leave his legacy as a filmmaker and not just a crummy agent.
Finding Lylah’s doppelgänger would give him the opportunity to finally produce a picture, putting Elsa on the big screen in a biopic version of the legendary Lylah Clare.
Elsa goes through an evolution from insecure fan whose bed is cluttered with movie magazines, to the vigorous narcissist who embodies the passion and recklessness of the dead starlet. However the catalyst… Elsa becomes TRANSFORMED into either a surrogate Lylah or the real deal. Of course Zarken and Elsa become lovers, but it is not made clear whether he is in love with the new actress or living out old patterns with a replica . Elsa however has fallen for the director and is tortured by the conflict Lylah’s memory/incarnation that has been rekindled.
She begins to feel her own ascendance beyond Zarken, who utters the line, “You’re an illusion. Without me you don’t exist!” In response she shows Zarken to himself who was originally Louis Flack a hack magician. Shouting in defiance, Elsa holds up a make-up mirror that distorts his reflection. “Look you are a God… and I’m created in your image!”
“Look you are a God… and I’m created in your image!”
Let’s turn the reel back a bit… Bart brings Elsa to meet Lylah's director/lover Lewis Zarken who has been in seclusion since the tragic death of his protege Lylah Clare. Once Lewis sees Elsa and watches the time she's put into studying her guttural accent which she intermittently uses as cackles with other throaty Germanic utterances that is eerie and off putting. This is to give her a streak of supernatural irreverence. Zarken sees a spark of potential to resurrect not only his own career, but to bring back from the dead, his lost love and worldwide idol or perhaps just his art piece to mold and exploit once again"¦ or a combination of all of the above.
The camera shows only Zarken’s back To Bart. Setting up the idea that Zarken is a deity in his own mind, unreachable force who commands deference and obedience. Portraits and memorabilia of the enigma that is Lylah Clare are all around Zarken’s house, like a shrine to the dead goddess.
Zarken sits in his swivel chair with his back to us and the camera spouting his arrogant and cryptic sense of humor, which already alienates us from his character right from the beginning. As Ursini & Silver point out, it also sets him up as a mythic figure himself. He is congratulated and warned about having a second chance. “You’re getting a chance to live a part of your life all over again… Lewis be careful with this girl… remember, it’s not everyone who gets two chances.”
Zarken, originally named Louis Flack a professional magician plays like he's a megalomaniac in the vein of Svengali. Elsa winds up living in the shadow of the "˜myth' of a great mysterious woman much like Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca feeling as if she is NOT nor will ever be the late great idol of passion.
Zarken aggressively pulls up Rossella’s sleeve to show the track marks on her arm. Each character in The Legend of Lylah Clare has obsessions and demons of their own making.
Now living isolated in his decadent old mansion (reminders of the Hudson sister's house in Baby Jane?) he shares the isolation with friend Rossella the beautiful Italian dialect coach and Lylah's lover who is a dope addicted lesbian. She inhabits her scenes with a love/hate relationship toward Zarken as she haunts the house like part of his conscience for both characters the memory of Lylah won’t rest.
Zarken is a psychopathic megalomaniac who lives in the odd mansion like Norma Desmond. He plays life/death tricks with a gun, and is an abrasive egoist, and an elitist, A maudlin auteur from the first moment we meet him. After Bart works with Elsa, playing recordings of Lylah’s Voice and teaching her the walk etc. Bart is ready to bring Elsa to meet Zarken.
Zarken makes Bart play the gunshot trick/game with him. He is impervious to bullets. A God like man…
Elsa arrives at the mansion and begins walking up the staircase looking at the extravagant portrait of Lylah.
As Elsa is paraded in front of Zarken he depersonalizes her.The 1st flashback which suggests Lylah was assaulted by a crazed fan with a knife. There is a struggle. The use of red to soak the screen in blood.
Both Lylah and her assailant wind up dead at the bottom of the great staircase.“We’re moving like a deeply offended Tibetan yak!" Lewis tells Elsa as he watches from below the absurd staircase that plays a very significant role in the film.Lewis Zarken: [Talking about choosing a stage name for Elsa] Elsa Brinkmann. “John Foster Brinksmanship.” It’s horrible. We’ll have to change your name.” Elsa: “Thank you, but I’m happy with the name I have.” Lewis Zarken: “Well, I’m not! And neither will the public be! Anyway, what’s in a name? Why are you so sensitive? If it’s any consolation to you, I rejoiced in the name of “Flack.” Louie Flack, F-L-A-C-K, Flack. How does *that* grab you? Then one day I saw this magician: “Zarkan the Magnificent.” He was a terrible act. I think he finished up cutting his throat in a Hungarian boarding house. Anyway, I lifted his name. Sounds a bit like a Transylvanian pox doctor, but it serves to impress the natives. We’ll do the same for you.”Lewis Zarken: “I’ve never seen a woman yet who didn’t have a whore locked up somewhere deep inside her.”
As Elsa is paraded in front of Zarken he depersonalizes her. Zarken is offensive and rude and downright abusive. Eventually Elsa is imbued with the essence of the dead actress and the possession, or the spell Elsa falls under begins to manifest the abrasive more bravura persona that apparently was Lylah, losing Elsa all together. She falls in love with Zarken of course, but is he in love with Elsa?, or the image of Lylah that has been molded as if by Madame Tussauds, or intoxicated by the idea of being able to control Elsa/Lylah all over again, creating her image on screen for the sake of art and his supposed genius. Lewis tells Elsa in his preachy condescending way. Lylah has died under very curious circumstances on their wedding night, that only begins to unfold as the film's flashbacks start to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Elsa sits in the screening room watching old film’s of the dead goddess Lylah Clare.
Jean Carroll as Bart’s wife Becky Langner, Valentina Cortese as Countess Bozo and Rossella Falk as Rossella are gleefully admiring their make over –an anti Pygmalian transformation. No grace, no grammar just guts and glamour.
Elsa is created to look like a carbon copy, down to the rose and blonde hairstyle as the huge portrait by the staircase.Coral Browne as the cynical and acerbic Molly Luther is lying in wait to offend & grill the young actress!
Elsa must past inspection by the harpy like critic Molly Luther played by Coral Browne. Elsa manifests Lylah’s contemptuous maniacal laugh and nasty tongue. Demeaning Luther by almost molesting the disabled woman’s private parts by putting her cigarette out in the ashtray on her crotch. Then banging her leg brace with her own cane in front of the crowd of party guests.
Molly Luther–“I presume you know what kind of an establishment Lewis' last performer came from? Are we to take it that your background is equally unfortunate? Oh come along child, surely you're not retarded. I am asking you Do you sleep with him?!”Elsa (Manifesting Lylahs throaty German voice) "Why you miserable son of a bitch. What makes you think that because once Yes Miss Luther just once (she puts her cigarette out in Luther's lap) you spent a cozy hour with Lew Zarken… that you have the right to be jealous of him…"
“Do you really believe that you have a license to ask any dirty question that slides into that snake nest between your ears"¦ And nobodies jealous of you why! Because they're gentleman? NO… I'll tell you why. Molly Luther's magic wand. (Elsa holds Molly’s cane in her hands) It keeps her safe from (smacking Molly’s leg brace) dragons!… (she cackles) Luther's personal guarantee that she has the right of God almighty… Now get out and don't come into this house again!”
Elsa ultimately professionally and psychotically reincarnates or uncannily manifests herself as Lylah. She seems almost possessed by the spirit of the dead screen goddess. This suggests an element of the supernatural perhaps that the films doesn't bother to dissuade or convince us of. Elsa’s intermittent vocalizations arise at times as M.J Arocena says in their IMBd review —“talks with the grave tones of a hybrid, part Lotte Lenya part Mercedes MacCambridge. Outrageous!” I remember reading that Mercedes MacCambridge had done the voice of the demon possessing Regan (Linda Blair) in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973).
Once an agreement is set with the studio to allow Zarken to make his picture and Lewis Zarken agrees that he can mold Elsa in the image of Lylah and cast her in an epic biography about the lost screen goddess and her tragic mysterious death, we meet the mouthy studio head ' Barney Sheean played by Ernest Borgnine. Who is wonderfully belligerent and not all too enthusiastic to revisit another Lylah Clare with auteur Zarken helming the project.
Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) is invited to come to the unveiling, where Elsa is coached even how to walk down the long staircase at Zarken's mansion to greet her public and more importantly the press, in particular that harpy-like gossip columnist Molly Luther played by brilliantly by Coral Browne, as the archetypal scandalmonger in the vein of the great Louella Parsons.
Molly asks what Lewis has to say about being thrown out by Elsa. “I've always been told that a director should never under cut their actors big scene. I'm afraid I must ask you to leave!”With Lewis Zarken taking sides with his new actress, Rosella and Countess Bozo do their version of a spit take! Rosella drinks to it and Countess Bozo gags on her cigarette smoke!
Bart, in a panic chases after Molly making excuses “she’s really a nice girl”pleading with her to wait for Barney (Ernest Borgnine).
Molly- “She’s a degenerate swine!”
As she descends the oddity that is Zarken's high and open ended staircase symbolically a decent with no safety bars attached, Elsa seems bent out of joint by Molly's questioning so rather than succumb she assaults her using that thick throaty German Lylah voice in order to make the intimidation more grandiose!
On the day of Elsa's big unveiling, she manages to conjure Lylah so well that she has a cat fight with columnist Molly Luther (Coral Browne) who calls her a ‘degenerate swine’ in which she inappropriately mocks and attacks not only her physical disability, but her identity as a woman by banging her own cane against her leg brace to demean her in front of the gathered crowd at the party. Elsa goes as far too call her a ‘freak’.
Director Lewis Zarken's Svengali like preoccupation with molding Elsa in Lylah's own image creates a sort a Monstrous Feminine, a beautiful Frankenstein who begans to desire it’s own primacy rather than be mastered, while he is trying to re-create what he has lost, he loses all control over his creation yet again.
Lewis Zarken: [Upon nearing a large greenhouse, while giving Elsa a walking tour of his estate] “You might say that that greenhouse is something of a memorial to her. We had a Japanese gardener that used to look after it. Nice little fellow – quiet as a cherry blossom. Worked out here the best part of ten years, then suddenly one day we were at war. And the Government – who know a dangerous man when they see one – gave him a few hours to pack up before they shipped him off to some god-forsaken concentration camp in the middle of a desert. Lylah was so upset, she came down here to say good-bye to him. You can take my word for it, that gardener had the most *unexpected* going away present he ever had in his life.” Lewis Zarken: [pauses, noticing that Elsa looks somewhat taken aback] “Don’t look so shocked… She wasn’t married at the time.”
Barney Sheean: “Films”? “Films”? What the hell ever happened to movies? What do you think you’re in, the art business? I make movies, not films!
Under the shadow of the great Lylah, Elsa is driven hard to bring forth the same enigmatic persona by Zarken. During the film we're not even sure if Elsa is either, becoming possessed by the dead star, truly talented at stepping into character or absolutely mad. Is she driven by a desire to be a great actress, or is she trying to please her lover Lewis who only sees her as an object, and the subject that is "˜Lylah'.
What's like a rollercoaster ride is how Elsa suddenly bursts into one of Lyle's vulgar tirades perfect pitch German accent, once when Lewis tries to grab her she spews venom at him shoving him away, "keep your filthy hands off me!"
I've read that Novak's voice was dubbed post-production as a last minute idea- something that purportedly caused the actress much embarrassment at the film's premiere. This was based supposedly on the idea that Aldrich realized that Elsa could not have known so many private details of Lylah's intimate life and so the idea of "˜possession' became more viable when she would manifest the guttural laugh and tirades she would go off on in that German accent. But due to this maneuver after the film was shot, the possession scenes come across as even more surreal or otherworldly and off-putting & creepy.
The 2nd flashback a different version of the assailant/lover is revealed to be a woman played by a very young Lee Merriwether.
Along the for the ride in this ensemble excursion typical of an Aldrich narrative, is Rossella Falk, who plays assistant Rossella, Lyle's heroine addicted lover.
There aren't any characters that have an attractive, compelling or empathic role, as they are all in this mission to resurrect the dead Lylah for an agenda each one has. Zarken desires to destroy the woman all over again, Bart just wants to produce one great film before the cancer kills him, and Rossella is still hopelessly in love/lust with Lylah, which she easily transfers to the now well groomed Elsa.
During the exhausting studying down to each movement and inflection, Elsa begins to lose her identity slipping more and more into Lylah's personality off the film set.
Elsa kisses Bart on the cheek, even his wife Becky is starting to see the transformation and the shy Elsa is becoming more flirtatious like Lylah Clare Even Bart’s wife Becky sees the change in the mild mannered girl who is now flirting with her husband.I doesn’t escape me, the use of the re-occurring iconography -the use of ‘the mirror’ to represent the splintering of personalty.
The film becomes an almost surreal fruit salad of moments that are a journey for several archetypal figures who are destined for self-destruction in the literally dog-eat-dog world of show-biz. Also a film within a film within a film.
What's hard to know or what is not meant to be discovered is whether Elsa becomes possessed, whether Lewis is using Elsa to resurrect a woman that he might have also driven crazy or in fact killed, and the strange romance between the two. It's hard to define it as a love relationship rather than one of opportunity obsession and need.
Zarken is re-shooting the death scene on the staircase where Lylah was either attacked by a true assailant, a female lover playing dangerous foreplay with a knife, or in fact if the fall was caused by the jealous & possessive Zarken.
Ellen Corby plays the script woman. Watching the volatile scene on the staircase
One plot line concerns the actress and her possession by the spirit of the late Lylah Clare, and the other subplot concerns the romance between the actress and the director, and the burgeoning promiscuity (hearkening back to Lylah) as Elsa begins to explore sex with Rossella the voice coach and the hunky gardener played by Tinti.
An interesting confluence, Kim Novak's character Lylah too suffers from vertigo as did James Stewart character in Hitchcock's film. In flashback we see three possibilities of what happened the night that Lylah Clare died, but it doesn't unfold until it has been strained through a few different psychedelic versions to get to the likely truth behind her death. Photographed by the great Josef Biroc he creates a mesmerizing color palate that reminds me of some of the best Giallo films from Italy.
At the climax of the film when Elsa is filming the last scene as Lylah, she is up on a trapeze being able to still capitalize on Lylah’s fear of heights (a scenario that never happened but Lewis envisions this campy exhibition as a metaphor to her real death, also signifying that Hollywood is a circus!), Elsa shouts to Zarken, “All right, Lewis we will see if I am an illusion!”
Lewis Zarken is one of Robert Aldrich’s typical film megalomaniacs, with a measure of psychopath added to the mix. Bart (Milton Selzer) berates Zarken, “You think you created her, can create her again!”The combative Zarken tells him- “The public will continue to believe what we tell them… We make the legends and the legends become truth!”
Bart is getting increasingly disparaged by Zarken’s controlling ego trip and mistreatment of Elsa.
This maxim that the illusion becomes the reality is re-articulated in Aldrich’s The Killing of Sister George (1968)as June (Beryl Reid) tells her lover ‘Childie’ (Suzannah York) about her quaint & extremely popular soap opera gig, “It’s real to millions of people, more real than you or I.”
Once the filming begins the blustering studio head Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) begins to oversee the picture and vocal coach Rossella (Rossella Falk) and staff, designers etc are on board. Novak starts embodying the very essence of Lylah's persona as she further immerses herself into the character. Is she possessed? or merely going mad from the pressures. Everyone begins treating her as if she is the late screen goddess to tragic results as history repeats itself again…
Elsa as Lylah Clare: “Just tell ’em Lylah’s coming, soon as she gets her harness on… Lylah Clare: [to Barney Sheean] Squat and wait!”
The 3rd flashback gives more of an impression that Zarken either caused or purposefully made Lylah fall off the staircase when he finds out that her lover is a woman.
Up on the trapeze the final flashback -one of the dream sequences be it real or fantasy of Lylah's death, the predatory male suitor with a knife is now a young woman who is shot by Lewis falling off that ridiculous staircase with no railing"”it is Lee Meriwether (Catwoman in Batman 1966) and former Miss America. "” playing a lesbian suitor/lover dressed in male drag wielding a knife as deadly phallic weapon or just s&m foreplay–all of it that precipitates Lylah's fall to her death.Elsa looks down, and winds up missing her cue, as she too falls to her death for real, not just written into the script as a feature.
Ironically the film premiers at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the very place that Elsa playfully walks around in the very beginning of the film.Rossella waits… she loads a gun. Will she kill Lewis Zarken? That is left up for grabs…Molly Luther at the premier of the ‘degenerate swines’ movie… Life goes on in HollywoodZarken reflects on what has happened.Zarken is interviewed about the film, but it is quickly cut to a Barkwell dog food commercial…
In the end, Elsa in a struggle of power to maintain her identity falls to her death from the trapeze, dying in an eerie similarity to Lylah. She might as well have slipped inside Lylah’s skin.
The filming catches every nuance. The extras gather around her body. It is a bizarre scene… until Aldrich leads us out with the dog food commercial freeze framed under the rolling credits. We are also left to wonder if Rossella will finally shoot Lewis in a jealous rage for having caused her beautiful lover to die yet again… Molly Luther shows up to the premier of Zarken’s film at the legendary Grauman’s Chinese Theater smiling as none of this scandalous affair has tainted her career and Zarken himself brooding & reflecting about the premier while being interviewed by a reporter until he is cued away on television to a Barkwell dog food commercial, phasing out Zarken’s soliloquy in front of Grauman’s Chinses Theater. All is back to normal in the world of Hollywood and with its short attention span syndrome.
Aldrichs’ way of ‘vulgarizing Hollywood showing that nothing is sacred, nothing lasts. The camera pulls away and goes to the commercial. The symbol of the dog food (incidentally used in Baby Jane? when the dog food ad interrupts one of Blanche’s classic films re-run on tv) is a grandiose show of contempt as a pack of wild dogs pile into a kitchen through a dog door and in a frenzy, sharp fangs bared, tear each-other apart over a bowl of meat. Leading out to the final freeze frame of the snarling teeth, as De Vol’s theme song for Lylah plays over the rolling credits.
An ugly Grand Guignol Guilty Pleasure stylized by Aldrich’s animosity toward the film industry-wonderfully vulgar in the same way as was his What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962). It’s another poison love letter to Hollywood that is perhaps even more absurd, and almost as grotesque as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
The two iconic ideals of the vulgarization of screen goddesses worship and ruination, as the Hudson sisters Blanche and Jane. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The exemplar of Grande Dame Guignol theater.
The Legend of Lylah Clare(1968) was a failure in the sense of a box office hit it could have been, even with the collaboration of Novak's star quality, the studio MGM's money machine, the successes Aldrich had with The Dirty Dozen in 1967 and the stellar casting, it came across as an convoluted oddity.
Aldrich created a quirky uncomfortable campy indictment of Hollywood, and not a grand action adventure or high melodrama that never sank too low in decadence for it's audience.
a similar film theme that precedes Aldrich's film by 16 years!
Tagline: from THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL (1952) – “The story of a blonde who wanted to go places, and a brute who got her there – the hard way!”
Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner star in The Bold and The Beautiful (1952) directed by Vincent Minnelli.
Aldrich gathered his usual ensemble of outliers in a world gone mad and literally let the dogs loose. If people are looking for his edgy noir touch he used in Kiss Me Deadly, or the gang of men fighting against all odds in The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), or The Longest Yard (1974), the taut melodrama of the older woman loving back to sanity a younger psychotic male like his Autumn Leaves (1956) starring Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson, they will not find this kind of linear style of story telling in Lylah Clare.
The film does fit somewhere in the realm of pulp like- Jacqueline Suzanne's Valley of the Dolls (1967) or other auteur Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud (1970).
Unfortunately what was to be Novak's return to the big screen, wound up being her swan song, because the film was not the critical success she had hoped for nor a flattering dramatic exercise for the actress.
But the film also acts as a corollary for the glamorous days of Hollywood and the death of the industry that was a dynasty. The late 60s didn't deal with dreams anymore, but brutal realism and social awakening to a different kind of story on screen and backstage"¦. In that way, the film itself is a queer swan song to those golden days, much in the way Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard was in 1950.
In Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) Novak also was called to embody the roles of two separate yet identical archetypes of the enigma that is "˜the male gaze' of the "˜objectified female body.'
Aldrich's film will immediately grab you as something campy with a bit of that offbeat vulgarity that he's known for. Peter Finch who plays the Svengali like director Lewis Zarken who tries to transform Elsa both physically and psychologically into the very being that was his actress/star/wife Lylah Clare.
Amidst the transformation in the film we are shown three different versions of how Lylah met her death. The flashbacks are psychedelic with a hazy focused lens using bold color washes and weaves of slow motion and blood splatter on screen to obscure what we see.
When Elsa is seemingly channeling Lylah it sort of works as a reincarnation piece draped in the mod quality of the late 60s and the make-up job by veteran William Tuttle and Robert J. Schiffer create the look of Nancy Sinatra, Karen Dors or Mamie Van Doren which are all good things but it's not quite the look of the Golden Age glamour of Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich.
It’s also never clear within the story whether Elsa is rational or descending into madness. Similar to Jack Palance’s actor Charles Castle in The Big Knife (1955) who is a victim of his own inflated ego subject to box office ratings, betrayal and his fear of failing. Betrayal, which was also at the turbulent core between the Hudson sisters in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
“The film has moments of self-conscious ‘parody and stylization.’… whether she merely continues to act at being Lylah off the set or is actually ‘possessed’ by her. The Legend of Lylah Clare is neither pure satire nor pure melodrama, but a difficult integration of real and unreal.”–Silver & Ursini.
on set Elsa (Kim Novak) is playing Lylah Clare in the story of her life and death… a film within a film…Jack Palance and Ida Lupino in Robert Aldrich’s very intense film The Big Knife (1955).
The Lavender haired actress is wearing a more mod 60s icy white coif and velvety pale pink lips and Twiggy style eyeliner that just doesn't say screen goddess of a bygone era. More-so cheesecake, groovy, and eerily out of place, perhaps this is what Aldrich intended as he is apt to vulgarize what he touches.
Lylah Clare might also be said to contain fragments or composites of great actresses of long ago, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Garbo, Dietrich and Harlow. all icons of the 1930s.
Aldrich also didn't miss his commentary on the struggles of studios to make the almighty buck, clawing to get that money making actress, and film. The conflict between the studio system and the directors who want to make art. And the servitude they must surrender to– the media and piranha like Molly Luther who can immortalize or annihilate with their power of the press. Ernest Borgnine as the studio head Barney Sheean says in one scene, “I don’t want to make films. I want to make movies. What do you think we’re making here, art?”
Kim Novak too remains a legend shown here in this iconic allegorical imagery from Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
The ending is irreverent, trashy, campy and is the lead up to the cynical climax. Absolutely the weirdest of all Aldrich's dark show-biz operas, as Lylah Clare and Kim Novak both remain a legend.
IMBD TRIVIA–Although this was her first film in three years, Kim Novak found that she had little enthusiasm for her character. Director Robert Aldrich found it increasingly difficult to elicit a viable performance from her. This was Kim Novak’s last starring role in an American-made feature film. When Kim Novak walks along Hollywood Blvd, a theater she passes by is playing The Dirty Dozen (1967), a film Robert Aldrich made a year earlier, and whose commercial success made it possible for the director to start his own production company and make movies like this.
When MGM executives finally screened the film, they decided to market it as being “deliberately campy”, but audiences in 1968 were not yet ready to embrace the idea of going to see something trashy on purpose, and the movie proved to be a box office bomb despite this trend-setting marketing ploy. This film is listed among the 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson’s book THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE® MOVIE GUIDE.
Ages from the famous ‘boiler scene’ as the tormented Aunt Fanny in Welles’ superior to Citizen Kane’s The Magnificent Ambersons. Fanny to the self-obsessed & spoiled Georgie “It’s not hot!!! it’s cold, the plumbers disconnected it… I wouldn’t mind if they hadn’t…! I wouldn’t mind if it burned!!!”
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A simple and wholesome beginning… Agnes Robertson Moorehead was born on December 6th, 1900 in Clinton, Massachusetts. Her mother was a mezzo-soprano and her father was a Presbyterian minister whose work eventually moved the family to St. Louis, Missouri. She started her acting career on stage at the age of 3, and by the time she was 12, she was active in the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer. She went to college for biology at Muskingum College in Ohio but remained active in acting. After college, she moved to Wisconsin (her family was now in Reedsburg, Wisconsin), and taught drama and English at local schools. She earned a Masters in English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Agnes eventually would earn a doctorate from Bradley University.
My partner Wendy and I happened to have lived in Madison for a wonderful 8 years while she was in grad school at the University of Wisconsin. I wrote my favorite album Fools & Orphans while living on Starkweather Creek on the East side of town. So Agnes’ presence there is all the sweeter to me…
To earn the money she would need, not only to eat but to build toward her dream of heading to New York City and acting school, she taught English, Speech, and Ancient History at Centralized High School in Soldiers Grove. Teaching was something she maintained a strong affection for.
When she eventually saved enough money to get to New York City she audition for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the summer of 1926- she was accepted. I’m reading Charles Tranberg’s wonderful book, she talks about starving herself, being grateful for enough loose change to buy a buttered roll from the Automat "¦
Afterward, she moved to New York City and enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Agnes studied with Charles Jehlinger at The (AADA) American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he taught people that ‘imagination’ is the key!
Not making it on Broadway during the 30s, she used her marvelous voice to make a name for herself in the media of radio. She began performing as many as six shows each day. During her radio performances, she met Orson Welles, and Joseph Cotton and the three formed the famous Mercury Players Theatre. Agnes made her film debut in 1941 in Orson Welles' "˜Citizen Kane'. She went on to play vital, high-spirited saucy & strong female roles in film and television eventually landing the iconic role as "Endora"on the popular & timelessly beloved television show "Bewitched" (1964-1972). She was married twice but eventually lived alone, enjoying solitude. She died quietly away from friends and the public, from lung cancer that had spread from her Uterus, she succumbed in 1974 in Rochester Minnesota. With Agnes’ work ethic, she had maintained a busy schedule though drained and tired from the illness, performing hours on the stage and doing television appearances until she could no longer manage.
IMDb tidbit- Agnes’ death from cancer is often linked to other actors and crew members who worked on The Conqueror (1956). Including Susan Hayward, John Wayne and director Dick Powell, to name a few. The conspiracy theory behind the strong beliefs are that they were exposed while on location at the site which received heavy fallout from nuclear testing at the (then) Nevada Proving Grounds.
Fiercely private. Considered not beautiful because of her ‘hawk-like’ face. I would boldly beg to disagree. Agnes Moorehead has a beauty that transcends the quaint and lovely upturned nose. She has a regal beauty as if royalty runs in her veins, with a sage otherworldliness and a voice like a chameleon that can change its tone and tenor to fit her myriad characterizations. I wish she and hope she knew that although she was THE consummate character actress for the ages, she too was as beautiful as any other leading star with a deep & fiery magnetism that draws you in ~
Agnes had that spark in her since she was a very little Agnes, embodying, manifesting & emoting like the characters from the books she read and from the theater. Her adoring father or mother would find her re-enacting scenes in her room!
Here’s a beautifully written snapshot of Agnes Moorehead by The Red List– data base by Romuald Leblond & Jessica Vaillat
“Wanting to become a comedian from a young age – her mother had become accustomed to discovering her daughter in her imaginary world and often asked her: "˜Who are you today, Agnes?' - Agnes Moorehead appeared regularly on Broadway stages during the late 1920s. She rapidly became a celebrated radio actress and joined Orson Welles's Mercury Theater on the Air from 1940. In 1941, Orson Welles offered the "˜Fabulous Redhead' her first film role in Citizen Kane as the cruel and bitter mother of the lead role. The part soon shaped the other roles Agnes Moorehead would be offered while they privileged heartless authoritarian or neurotic women such as the menacing aunt of Johnny Belinda, in 1948. In 1943, on the radio, the American comedian delivered one of her most legendary performances in Sorry, Wrong Number for which she created an exhausting and dynamic presentation – "˜radiant and terrifying'. In 1964, she was cast as Samantha Steven's sarcastic and buoyant mother, in Bewitched and, although she disliked the rapid pace of television series, the show helped install the actress in the pantheon of American pop culture icons. Quite an irony for a woman who didn't "˜particularly want to be identified as a witch.”
Agnes Moorehead went on from her imaginative childhood musings to play some of the most colorful characters on stage, radio, film, and television- perhaps her persona had been ‘shaped by Citizen Kane’but Agnes obviously had a range of emotions and archetypes she could readily tap into as she is a natural, authentic artist… making her a cultural icon recognized by so many people & an even a new generation of avid fans!
Agnes -[commenting on the “Method” school of acting] “The Method school thinks the emotion is the art. It isn’t. All emotion isn’t sublime. The theater isn’t reality. If you want reality, go to the morgue. The theater is human behavior that is effective and interesting.” –from Charles Tranberg’s book I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead
Tranberg’s book is a wonderful read, he discusses from the beginning, the wealth of material he found at the historical society at the University of Wisconsin’s Historical Society. It is a marvelous place with marble floors worn down by years and the warm & musty smell of bygone years, the building holds the archives of so many historical documents and films. For Agnes Moorehead, 159 boxes of material to be precise. He was not just a fan of Endora but her performances on old-time radio in which she really shined. His book hints that her fire and brimstone Rev. John Moorehead with his sermons had a bit of the frustrated actor in the man, and why Aggie felt drawn to theater in the first place. He also read Shakespeare to the children. Her mother Molly was the boisterous outgoing flamboyant one who lived to be 106 and died in 1990"¦ always saying what was on her mind, unless it was a strictly personal subject… sound familiar?
He also writes about Agnes' spirituality and religious devoutness. That is "˜wasn't a gimmick or publicity stunt'she really was a devoted Christian. It might cause heads to tilt, how such a fundamentalist woman would pick a career where she would be surrounded by creative types, often gay people that would become her friends. And though she was not thrilled with the idea of playing a witch, she certainly conjured the most iconic embodiment of the vexing & colorful Endora.
Elizabeth Montgomery and Agnes Moorehead publicity shot Bewitched -courtesy of The Red List
“Lavender is just pink trying to be purple” she paraphrased Proust… by Quint Benedetti from his book- (My Travels with) Agnes Moorehead: The Lavender Lady: (more BEWITCHING than Endora)– he goes onto to say, “And now I can see all the hues of her personality in that statement: the royalty, the naivete, the selfhishness, the piercing intuition and sometimes the astonishing lack of it (her two marriages), the phoniness and the irrepressible humanity it contained, the coldness and the longing to be warm and sometimes the warmth, the insecurity and the yearning to be loved, the human simplicity touching greatness. Agnes Moorehead in a way did what so many actor and actresses never did. She left her mark on society both as an actress and as a person.” Benedetti knew Agnes Moorehead for ten years and was her personal assistant for five of those years.
In her long & unforgettable career – Agnes Moorehead’s film debut as Charles Foster Kane’s picture of stoic motherhood, the bitter and icy cold Mary Kane.
Stoic Motherhood-Mary Kane in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941).
She went on to play the emotionally tortured Aunt Fanny in what Charles Transberg rightly refers to Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons as "˜a mangled masterpiece' I would give anything to see the footage that RKO hacked to pieces"¦ and the ending that should have been, where Fanny is playing cards in the boarding house with the other old maids. The more nihilistic coda that RKO feared would turn the public off in the midst of WWII.
Aunt Fanny-“I know what you’re gonna do… you’re gonna leave me in the lurch…”The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) directed by Orson Welles co-starring Joseph Cotton. Agnes Moorehead plays poor Aunt Fanny-Image courtesy of The Red List.Georgie (Tim Holt), Uncle Jack (Ray Collins), and Aunt Fanny- The milk and cake indulgence scene. Jack tells Georgie later after teasing her “Can’t think of anything Aggie does have except her feelings for Morgan.”Fanny-“Can't you see that I approve of what you're doing?” Georgie (Tim Holt)-“What the heck is wrong with you” Fanny-“Oh you're always picking on me, always"¦ ever since you were a little boy.” Georgie-“Oh my gosh”Fanny- “You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like this, except old Fanny Old Fanny you say nobody but Old Fanny so "¦ I'll kick her! Nobody will resent it. I'll kick her all I want to and you're right, I haven't got anything in the world since my brother died. Nobody nothing.”
Agnes Moorehead as the heartless & cruel Mrs. Reed who sends young Jane away to Thornfield in Jane Eyre-aside from mothers, aunts spinsters & old maids, Moorehead performs her first evil character! in director Robert Stevenson’s adaptation of Jane Eyre (1943).
Agnes Moorehead in Mrs. Parkington directed by Tay Garnett, 1944- courtesy The Red List.Humphrey Bogart and Agnes Moorehead in Dark Passage directed by Delmer Daves, 1947.Agnes Moorehead in The Women in White directed by Peter Godfrey, 1948-courtesy of The Red List.James Stewart, Agnes Moorehead, and June Allyson in The Stratton Story directed by Sam Wood, 1949- courtesy The Red ListAgnes Moorehead for Government Girl directed by Dudley Nichols, 1943-courtesy The Red List.Agnes Moorehead as Countess Zoe and Hedy Lamarr as Princess Veronica in Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945). Agnes Moorehead publicity shot for The Lost Moment directed by Martin Gabel, 1947.courtesy of-the red list-Edward G. Robinson and Agnes Moorehead in Our Vines Have Tender Grapes directed by Roy Rowland, 1945.Agnes Moorehead with Moira Shearer in Story of Three Loves: The Jealous Lover directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, 1953.Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, and Agnes Moorehead in All That Heaven Allows 1955 directed by Douglas Sirk.Agnes Moorehead and Tallulah Bankhead in Main Street to Broadway directed by Tay Garnett, 1953. Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead as mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder in The Bat directed by Crane Wilbur, 1959.Agnes Moorehead and Tyrone Power on the set of Untamed directed by Henry King, 1955-courtesy of The Red List.Agnes Moorehead and Kim Novak in Jeanne Eagels directed by George Sidney, 1957.Agnes Moorehead as the kindly Warden Bond and Eleanor Parker in Caged directed by John Cromwell, 1950 One of THE best women in prison films : courtesy of The Red List.Agnes Moorehead as the irascible Velma Cruthers in Robert Aldrich’s Grand Dame Southern Gothic follow-up to What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962).
Stage: Agnes began touring in George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell (1951) & revival 1973, Gigi 1973 co-starring with Alfred Drake.
Charles Boyer, Agnes, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the stage production of Don Juan in Hell.Agnes Moorehead in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway, 1952- Image courtesy of The Red List.
Agnes Moorehead in Don Juan in Hell on Broadway, 1952-Image courtesy of The Red List.Agnes Moorehead in the stage version of the musical Gigi, 1973-image courtesy of The Red List
Selected Radio:– Mercury Theater founded with Orson Welles- Mysteries in Paris, The Gumps, The New Penny, The March of Time (1967-38), The Shadow (1937-39), The Mercury Theater of the Air (ensemble) The Campbell Playhouse, The Cavalcade of America (1938-41), Mayor of the Town
Lionel Barrymore and Agnes Moorehead for The Mayor of the Town, NBC Radio, 1943. For 7 years Moorehead would perfect her persona as the Mayor’s grousy housekeeper Marilly, a little of Marilly would emerge again as part of her Velma in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964.
(1942-49), Suspense (1942-1960.) And of course, in 1945 she played the women-in-peril-(in bed) Mrs. Stevenson in the CBS radio mystery program Suspense- Sorry, Wrong Number, which became “radio’s most famous play.”Â
According to Charles Tranberg, Agnes was offered a supportive role in the film version starring Barbara Stanwyck, saying that she wisely turned it down, coming to understand that she would always be considered a ‘character actress’ and not a leading lady. This would influence her decision to focus more on the stage, beginning with her affiliation with the acclaimed Don Juan in Hell and later her very popular one-woman show.
On December 10, 2008 Celebrating Moorehead's 108th anniversary on Turner Classic Movies- Moira Finnie writing for Movie Morlocks published a wonderful interview with Tranberg when asked if Agnes enjoyed both the mediums of radio and stage, he answered "I think she liked the challenges offered by all he mediums she worked on. The stage because it's proximity in front of an audience. Radio because she had to create a complex characterization without being seen and could use her voice in many different ways. Film because it offered her the opportunity to visualize a characterization. Television because of its intimacy."
Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles with The Mercury Theater’s radio production of Dracula
Moira Finnie’s piece is wonderfully insightful and witty. While watching David O Selznick's Since You Went Away (1945) "It struck me for the hundredth time that the presence of Agnes Moorehead in many classic and not so classic films was often what gave a movie a spine."
"She proved her versatility throughout her career. She arranged her aquiline features accordingly to convey a believable briskness, sometimes comforting, sometimes disapproving. She most often appeared as a pragmatic presence in many films that have etched themselves on our collective memory."
Moira Finnie aptly says it perfectly, honing in on the essence of what truly makes Agnes Moorehead such a powerful performer, "The actress could shift her characterizations easily from vinegary disapproval to warmly compassionate to richly detailed portraits of good and evil women."
Selected Films– Citizen Kane 1941 (Mary Kane), The Magnificent Ambersons 1942 (Fanny), The Big Street 1942 (Violet Shumberg), Journey into Fear 1943 (Mrs. Mathews), Jane Eyre 1944 (Mrs.Reed), Since You Went Away 1944 (Mrs. Emily Hawkins), Dragon Seed 1944 (Third Cousin’s Wife), The Seventh Cross 1944 (Mme. Morelli), Mrs Parkington 1944 (Baroness Aspasia Conti), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes 1945 (Bruna Jacobson) Dark Passage 1947 (Madge Rapf) The Lost Moment 1947 (Juliana Borderau), Summer Holiday 1948 (Cousin Lily), The Woman in White 1948 (Countess Fosco), Johnny Belinda 1948 (Aggie MacDonald-nominated best supporting actress) The Great Sinner 1949 (Emma Getzel), Caged 1950 (Ruth Benton progressive Prison Warden), Captain Blackjack 1950 (Mrs. Emily Birk), Fourteen Hours 1951 (Christine Hill Cosick) , Showboat 1951 (Parthy Hawks), Magnificent Obsession 1954 (Nancy Ashford), All That Heaven Allows 1955 (Sara Warren), The Left Hand of God 1955 (Beryl Sigman), The Revolt of Mamie Stover 1956 (Bertha Parchman), Jeanne Eagels 1957 (Nellie Neilson), Raintree County 1957 (Ellen Shawnessy), The Story of Mankind 1957 (Queen Elizabeth I), Night of the Quarter Moon 1959 (Cornelia Nelson), The Bat 1959 (Cornelia van Gorder) Pollyanna 1960 (Mrs. Snow), Twenty Plus Two 1961 (Mrs. Eleanor Delaney) How the West Was Won 1962-(Rebecca Prescott), Who’s Minding the Store? 1963 (Mrs. Phoebe Tuttle), The Singing Nun 1966 (Sister Cluny)
Nominated four times for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Mrs. Parkington (1944),Johnny Belinda (1948), and of course as Velma in director Robert Aldrich’s Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Velma Cruthers and Charlotte Hollis in Robert Aldrich’s Grand Dame Southern Gothic thriller Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964.
It is the vitriolic, cantankerous yet loyal & righteous companion Velma to Bette Davis’ tragic Southern Gothic has- been belle Charlotte that won my heart. Moorehead brought to life a raw and rugged plain quality of humanness that touched me so deeply, as did Davis’ incredible performance.
How impressed I was with her pantomime in The Invaders credited as "˜The Woman' in Rod Serling’s sociological anthology fantasy series Twilight Zone"¦ Moorehead had no dialogue in the episode yet she demonstrated so much art and emotion from her ‘primal woman’s body language.
Credited as The Woman… here Agnes plays The Primal woman in Rod Serling’s The Invaders episode of The Twilight Zone aired on Jan. 27, 1961.Moorehead’s use of body language and her knowledge of pantomime brought to life primal undomesticated women from ‘a’ planet terrorized by invaders who didn’t need to speak one word to convey her fear or instinct self-preservation.
She did win a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress -Laurel Award 2nd place for Top Supporting Performance for Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte 1964.
For many people, she will be remembered as Endora, Samantha, and Darrin Steven's (the fabulous Dick York) caustic ill-provoking mother-in-law from the netherworld. who hands down the legacy of being Bewitched"¦ from 1964-1972. Initially, Moorehead had turned down the role of Endora, and it wasn’t until Elizabeth Montgomery herself asked the actress to join the cast, never expecting it to last more than one season!
Agnes Moorehead, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Dick York in Bewitched.
Moorehead did her string of horror films in the 70s that featured many fine actresses who had played fine ladies in their day, only to find Grand Dame Guignol roles waiting for them on the other side of fabulous fame…
What’s The Matter With Helen 1971 Curtis Harrington’s wonderful horror of personality psycho-drama where Aggie plays an Aimee Semple McPherson-type character called Sister Alma co-starring with friend Debbie Reynolds and the incomparable Shelley Winters!
Here’s Aggie as Delilah the ill-tempered heiress whose relatives all want their grimy hands on her millions! It’s a 70s horror gem
And then there’s always the campy & gruesome Dear Dead Delilah 1972 she plays Delilah Charles, and appeared in Night of Terror 1972 a tv movie of the week… & Frankenstein: The True Story 1973.
Some very special clips of the immortal Aggie!
The much talked about ‘boiler scene’ Agnes as Aunt Fanny from The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Mary Kane the picture of stoic motherhood in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941)
Agnes as Baroness Conti in Mrs. Parkington (1944)
Agnes as Aggie MacDonald in Johnny Belinda (1948)
Agnes as Warden Bond with poor Eleanor Parker in prison noir classic Caged (1950)
Agnes as mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder in The Bat (1959)
Agnes as Madame Bertha Parchman in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)
Agnes as Mme. Morelli in The Seventh Cross (1944)
Agnes as the indomitable Velma Cruthers in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Agnes as The Primal ‘Woman’ in a short clip -The Invaders ep. of The Twilight Zone 1961
Agnes as the vexing but always colorful Endora in television’s popular series Bewitched
With all my love & admiration, Agnes Moorhead… You are one of a kind! -Love, Joey
Horror cinema was at it’s spooky peak in the 1930s~ the era gave birth to some of the most iconic figures of the genre as well as highlighted some of the most beautiful & beloved heroines to ever light up the scream, oops I mean screen!!!!
We all love the corrupted, diabolical, fiendish and menacing men of the 30s who dominated the horror screen- the spectres of evil, the anti-heroes who put those heroines in harms way, women in peril, –Boris, & Bela, Chaney and March… From Frankenstein, to Dracula, from The Black Cat (1934), or wicked Wax Museums to that fella who kept changing his mind…Jekyll or was it Hyde? From the Mummy to that guy you could see right through, thank you Mr. Rains!
Last year I featured Scream Queens of 40s Classic Horror! This Halloween – – I felt like paying homage to the lovely ladies of 30s Classic Horror, who squealed up a storm on those stormy dreadful nights, shadowed by sinister figures, besieged by beasts, and taunted with terror in those fabulous frisson-filled fright flicks… but lest not forget that after the screaming stops, those gals show some grand gumption! And… In an era when censorship & conservative framework tried to set the stage for these dark tales, quite often what smoldered underneath the finely veiled surface was a boiling pot of sensuality and provocative suggestion that I find more appealing than most contemporary forays into Modern horror- the lost art of the classical horror genre will always remain Queen… !
Let’s drink a toast to that notion!
The Scream Queens, Sirens & Heroines of 1930s Classic Horror are here for you to run your eyes over! Let’s give ’em a really big hand, just not a hairy one okay? From A-Z
A British beauty with red hair who according to Gregory Mank in his Women in Horror Films, the 1930s, left England for Hollywood and an MGM contract. She is the consummate gutsy heroine, the anti-damsel Irena Borotyn In Tod Browning’s campy Mark of the Vampire (1935)co-starring with Bela Lugosi as Count Mora (His birthday is coming up on October 20th!) Lionel Atwill and the always cheeky Lionel Barrymore… Later in 1958, she would co-star with Boris Karloff in the ever-atmospheric The Haunted Strangler.
Mark of the Vampire is a moody graveyard chiller scripted by Bernard Schubert & Guy Endore (The Raven, Mad Love (1935) & The Devil Doll (1936) and the terrific noir thriller Tomorrow is Another Day (1951) with sexy Steve Cochran & one of my favs Ruth Roman!)
The film is Tod Browning’s retake of his silent Lon Chaney Sr. classic London After Midnight (1927).
The story goes like this: Sir Karell Borotin (Holmes Herbert) is murdered, left drained of his blood, and Professor Zelin (Lionel Barrymore) believes it’s the work of vampires. Lionel Atwill once again plays well as the inquiring but skeptical police Inspector Neumann.
Irena (Elizabeth Allan) and Professor Zelen (Lionel Barrymore) hatch an intricate plot to trap the murderers!
Once Sir Karell’s daughter Irena ( our heroine Elizabeth Allan) is assailed, left with strange bite marks on her neck, the case becomes active again. Neumann consults Professor Zelin the leading expert on Vampires. This horror whodunit includes frightened locals who believe that Count Mora (Bela in iconic cape and saturnine mannerism) and his creepy daughter Luna (Carroll Borland) who trails after him through crypt and foggy woods, are behind the strange going’s on. But is all that it seems?
Elizabeth Allan (below center) and Carroll Borland as Luna in Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire (1935).Elizabeth Allan and Carroll Borland in Mark of the Vampire (1935).
Directed by the ever-interesting director Maurice Elvey(Mr. Wu 1919, The Sign of Four, 1923, The Clairvoyant 1935, The Man in the Mirror 1936, The Obsessed 1952) Elizabeth Allan stars as Daisy Bunting the beautiful but mesmerized by the strange yet sensual and seemingly tragic brooding figure- boarder Ivor Novello as Michel Angeloff in The Phantom Fiend! A remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s first film about Jack the Ripper… The Lodger (1927) starring Novello once again.
Ivor Novello is the strange & disturbing Michel Angeloff. Elizabeth Allan is the daughter of the landlords who rent a room to this mysterious fellow who might just be a serial killer. Daisy Bunyon falls captivated by this tormented and intense young man…A.W. Baskcomb plays Daisy’s (Elizabeth Allan)father George Bunting and Jack Hawkins is Joe Martin the regular guy in love with Daisy.Michel Angeloff (Ivor Novello) to Daisy Bunting (Elizabeth Allan) “Stay away from me… don’t ever be alone with me…{…} -You trust me, no matter whatever I’ve done?”
There is a murderer loose in London who writes the police before he strikes with a sword cane, he signs his name X. It happens that his latest crime occurs on the same night that the Drayton Diamond is stolen. Robert Montgomery as charming as ever, is Nick Revel the jewel thief responsible for the diamond heist, but he’s not a crazed murderer. The co-incidence of the two crimes has put him in a fix as he’s now unable to unload the gem until the police solve the murders.
Heather Angel is a British actress who started out on stage at the Old Vic theatre but left for Hollywood and became known for the Bulldog Drummond series. While not appearing in lead roles, she did land parts in successful films such as Kitty Foyle, Pride and Prejudice (1940), Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943), and Lifeboat (1944). IMDb notes -Angel tested for the part of Melanie in Gone with the Wind(1939), the role was given to Olivia de Havilland.
Heather Angel possessed a sublime beauty and truly deserved to be a leading lady rather than relegated to supporting roles and guilty but pleasurable B movie status.
The L.A Times noted about her death in 1986 at age 77 “Fox and Universal ignored her classic training and used her in such low-budget features as “Charlie Chans Greatest Case and “Springtime for Henry.”
Her performances in Berkeley Square and The Mystery of Edwin Drood were critically acclaimed… More gruesome than the story-lines involving her roles in Edwin Drood, Hound of the Baskervilles or Lifeboat put together is the fact that she witnessed her husband, stage and film directer Robert B. Sinclair’s vicious stabbing murder by an intruder in their California home in 1970.
Heather Angel in Berkeley Square (1933) Image courtesy Dr. Macro
Heather Angel is Beryl Stapleton in this lost (found negatives and soundtracks were found and donated to the British Film Institute archives) adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes thriller Originally serialized in The Strand magazine between 1901 and 1902.
In this first filmed talkie of Doyle’s more horror-oriented story, it calls for the great detective to investigate the death of Sir Charles Baskerville and solve the strange killing that takes place on the moors, feared that there is a supernatural force, a monstrous dog like a fiend that is menacing the Baskerville family ripping the throats from its victims. The remaining heir Sir Henry is now threatened by the curse.
Douglass Montgomery as Neville Landless and Heather Angel as Rosa Bud in the intensely superior rare gem The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935)
Mystery of Edwin Drood (played by David Manners) is a dark and nightmarish Gothic tale of mad obsession, drug addiction, and heartless murder! Heather Angel plays the beautiful and kindly young student at a Victorian finishing school, Rosa Bud engaged to John Jasper’s nephew Edwin Drood. The opium-chasing, choir master John Jasper (Claude Rains) becomes driven to mad fixation over Rosa, who is quite aware of his intense gaze, she becomes frightened and repulsed by him.
The brooding & malevolent Rains frequents a bizarre opium den run by a menacing crone (Zeffie Tilbury), a creepy & outre moody whisper in the melody of this Gothic horror/suspense tale!
Valerie Hobson plays twin sister Helena Landless, the hapless Neville’s sister. (We’ll get to one of my favorites, the exquisite Valerie Hobson in just a bit…) When Neville and Helena arrive at the school, both Edwin and he vies for Rosa’s affection. When Edwin vanishes, naturally Neville is the one suspected in his mysterious disappearance.
Though I’ll always be distracted by Baclanova’s icy performance as the vicious Cleopatra in Tod Browning’s masterpiece Freakswhich blew the doors off social morays and became a cultural profane cult film, Baclanova started out as a singer with the Moscow Art Theater. Appearing in several silent films, she eventually co-starred as Duchess Josiana with Conrad Veidt as the tragic Gwynplaine, in another off-beat artistic masterpiece based on the Victor Hugo story The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Tod Browning produced & directed this eternally disturbing & joyful portrait of behind-the-scenes melodrama and at times the Gothic violence of carnival life… based on the story ‘Spurs’ by Tod Robbins. It’s also been known as Nature’s Mistress and The Monster Show.
It was essential for Browning to attain realism. He hired actual circus freaks to bring to life this quirky Grand Guignol, a beautifully grotesque & macabre tale of greed, betrayal, and loyalty.
Cleopatra (Baclanova) and Hercules (Henry Victor) plan to swindle the owner of the circus Hans, (Harry Earles starring with wife Frieda as Daisy) out of his ‘small’ fortune by poisoning him on their wedding night. The close family of side show performers exact poetic yet monstrous revenge! The film also features many memorable circus folks. Siamese conjoined twins Daisy & Violet Hilton, also saluted in American Horror Story (Sarah Paulson another incredible actress, doing a dual role) Schlitze the pinhead, and more!
Anyone riveted to the television screen to watch Jessica Lange’s mind-blowing performance as Elsa Mars in American Horror Story’s: Freak Show (2014) will not only recognize her superb nod to Marlene Dietrich, but also much reverence paid toward Tod Browning’s classic and Baclanova’s cunning coldness.
( BTW as much as I adore Frances McDormand, Lange should have walked away with the Emmy this year! I’ve rarely seen a performance that balances like a tightrope walker, the subtle choreography between gut-wrenching pathos & ruthless sinister vitriol. Her rendition of Bowie’s song Life on Mars…will be a Film Score Freak feature this Halloween season! No, I can’t wait… here’s a peak! it fits the mood of this post…)
“You Freaks!!!!”Gooba Gabba… I guess she isn’t one of us after all!
here she is as the evil Countess/duchess luring poor Gwynplain into her clutches The Man Who Laughs (1928).
