See ya soon folks
Joey
Of all the notorious rivalries identified with Hollywood celebrities, the most enduring in the public consciousness is that of legendary Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. As the documentary ‘Bette and Joan: Blind Ambition‘ (2005) insightfully decries ‘Betty Davis was the screens great Sadist and Crawford was the screen’s great Masochist.’
“If equally matched adversaries are bound to create sparks and flames of conflict, then Bette Davis and the late Joan Crawford should offer a good battle.” -Â Publisher’s Weekly
Bette Davis on Joan Crawford:Â “Her eyebrows are like ‘African caterpillars’ and her best performance was "Crawford being Crawford."
Joan Crawford on Bette Davis:Â "She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that."
I want to preface this piece by qualifying something. With all that’s been written about the infamous feud, there are also those who try to dispel it as a myth, stating that rather than loathing each other Bette and Joan were actually cordial to each other-even chatting on the phone occasionally from the 30s until the making of Baby Jane? And that contrary to what’s been asserted, Davis wasn’t threatened by Joan’s coming to Warner Bros because she felt they were suited to playing different types of roles so there was no conflict there.
When Joan Crawford started to gain momentum with her best melodramas at the studio where Bette Davis’ was queen, Davis was already planning an exodus anyway. Finally in regards to Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte when Joan Crawford saw that Bette Davis was acting more like the director taking control and adding more of her own presence in the script while cutting Crawford’s dialogue to shreds, she decided to bow out of the picture claiming illness so she could be let out of the contract.
Some people assert that while they never became close friends, the two stars only wound up being not so friendly to each other in the end. But, for the sake of my theme of the feuding divas, I felt like putting the more sordid version of the saga out there.
The notable feud, fueled by rumor, gossip, falsehoods, and dished-up dirt, drew so much juicy attention to these fierce Divas whose careers and lives often traversed each other in ironic and titillating ways giving us a peek into the tumultuous allure of Hollywood.Â
Both were incredibly talented, super ambitious, independently driven, and possessing strong personalities. They were each on divergent paths to stardom, Crawford gaining her power remote from the proverbial casting couch "She [Joan Crawford] has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie." –Bette Davis. Most of Crawford’s leading men found her sexual magnetism hard to resist.
But she proved she could command the screen with an invincible vigor and facility to emote and Davis who had a determined streak of flair manifested itself into an unyielding spirit and incomparable depth. Both are ironically similar indomitable, independent, and possessing great fortitude. Both married four times, and both were at the receiving end of hostile and vengeful children ultimately ending up as reclusive alcoholics.
Aldrich’s iconic offbeat Gothic thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) brought these two legends together culminating in the classic pairing of two bitter adversaries not only on screen but behind the scenes as well. Baby Jane? would forever consign their iconic images engaged in dramatic conflict and defining their rancorous relationship for an eternity.
The film cannily exploited the genuine animosity between both stars who had been competing for good roles in the 40s. Michael Musto of the Village Voice says this – “They just didn’t get along. Bette thought of herself as a real actress she thought of Joan as just kind of a flashy movie star without any depth.”
Was their long drawn-out public war due to Crawford’s marrying co-star Franchot Tone allegedly stealing him away from Bette? Or was it the competitiveness for good roles in the 40s that drew a wedge between them? These two women were the most illustrious female stars of their day, successful at playing ordinary working-class gals with at times questionable reputations. But good roles were something they both had to fight to get. So was it a case of unrequited love or fierce competition? Either way, for both stars it was a genuinely personal and delicate affair.
On Davis’ last trip to London two years before her death, she revealed that the love of her life was Franchot Tone, but she could never marry him because he was Crawford’s second husband. “She took him from me,” Davis said bitterly in 1987. “She did it coldly, deliberately, and with complete ruthlessness. I have never forgiven her for that and never will.” Crawford already dead for ten years, was still the recipient of an eternal hatred on the part of Davis now 80 years old and desiccated from her stroke.
Bette Davis was filming Dangerous 1935 a role that would win her first Best Actress Oscar. Warner Bros. cast her to play opposite the handsome Franchot Tone. In this fabulous melodrama, Davis portrays Joyce Heath an egomaniacal actress considered to be box office poison living in obscurity in the throws of alcohol addiction. Tone plays Don Bellows a playwright who tries to rehabilitate her. The story is loosely based on Broadway star Jeanne Eagels who died of a drug overdose at the age of 35
Davis wound up falling in love with her leading man, unaware that he was already involved with Joan Crawford who was recently divorced from the dashing Douglas Fairbanks Jr. This began the legacy of love jealousy, and possession. At the time Davis was married to musician Ham Nelson. Everyone on set could see that Davis was attracted to co-star Franchot Tone.
Years later she recalled “I fell in love with Franchot, professionally and privately. Everything about him reflected his elegance, from his name to his manners.”-Bette Davis
Crawford first entertained Franchot Tone at her Hollywood home. When he arrived he found her tanned and completely naked in the solarium. According to friends and neighbors, he did not emerge from the seductive sojourn until nightfall.
“He was madly in love with her,” Davis confessed, “They met each day for lunch… he would return to the set, his face covered with lipstick. He made sure we all knew it was Crawford’s lipstick.”-Bette Davis
“He was honored that this great star was in love with him. I was jealous, of course.”-Bette Davis
But instead of Crawford retaliating she reached out to Davis hoping to be friends, but it was too late by then her heart was broken, and she was furious. Crawford announced her engagement to Tone during the filming of Dangerous and they married soon after the film wrapped.
Both actresses were present at the Oscar ceremonies. Davis was nominated for Best Actress. The hostility showed its ugly face when Bette wearing a modest navy blue dress stood up when they announced she’d won the award. Franchot Tone enthusiastically embraced Davis calling her ‘darling” which caused his wife to take notice. Crawford wearing a spectacular gown herself, looked Davis over and coldly said “Dear Bette! What a lovely frock.”
Interestingly if you consider the inherent veracity of unrequited love that was systemic to their discord we may also consider the allegations that Crawford was herself a promiscuous bisexual in love with Davis, supposedly making several sexual advances toward Davis which were rebuffed with expressed amusement. Davis was an avowed heterosexual. “Gay Liberation? I ain’t against it, it’s just that there’s nothing in it for me.” “I’ve always liked men better than women.” –Bette Davis
Davis also proposed that Crawford used her body and sex to get ahead in Hollywood, “She slept with every star at MGM” she alleged later “of both sexes.”
Some of the women that allegedly were Crawford’s lovers included Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, her friend Barbara Stanwyck & Marilyn Monroe.
The years of hostility and jealousy were only galvanized later by the battle that ensued on the set of Baby Jane? where Davis upended Crawford by endearing herself to director Aldrich. Davis got the Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but Crawford did not. only to have Crawford undermine Davis at the award ceremony sabotaging Davis by accepting the award for Ann Bancroft who won for The Miracle Worker.
Allegedly Joan shoved Bette aside to grab the coveted statue at the podium. Shaun Considine’s book ‘Bette & Joan The Divine Feud’ relates how when Ann Bancroft’s name was announced Davis felt an icy hand on her shoulder as Crawford said, “Excuse me, I have an Oscar to accept.”
Davis recalls “I will never forget the look she gave me.”It was triumphant. It clearly said ‘You didn’t win, and I am elated!”
Making matters worse the newspapers paraded the image of Crawford holding the golden idol that Davis failed to win. According to Bette Davis, Joan was bitter and conspired to keep her from winning the Oscar.
Crawford managed to insinuate herself into accepting the Oscar for Ann Bancroft in case Ann won. The night of the awards Bette Davis shows up fairly confident she could take home the Oscar. She was waiting in the wings with her purse ready to walk on stage when they announced the winner. But Joan Crawford was also hovering in the wings waiting to take her revenge.
From an interview in ’87 -“I was furious. She went to all the New York nominees and said if you can’t get out there, I’ll accept your award. And please do not vote for her. She was so jealous.” Crawford’s scheme worked, it was a terrible slap in the face for Bette Davis.
“The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”
“There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I’m not going.”– Bette Davis
And how much does the media fuel this rivalry? Is it partly the paradigm of a film industry that engenders a climate of sexism and ageism that feeds tabloid culture devaluing women’s self-worth and antagonizing the rift that already existed between the two actresses? Consider the symbiosis that occurs between the press and female celebrities, their exploitative and predatory hunger to devour them whole, and the co-dependent dysfunction pervasive in the film industry. You have to wonder how much of the nasty fodder that kept the feud burning was fact and how much of it was a myth the media created.
It isn’t hard to see how both these aging stars were forced to fight for screen supremacy. An irreconcilable difference that put Aldrich in the sad and awkward position of having to fire Joan Crawford from her role as Cousin Miriam in his second feature with the dynamic duo in his Gothic thriller Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Despite their feud the box office success of Baby Jane? encouraged Aldrich to change the story and characters but reunite the same controversial and quarrelsome stars. Originally called “What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?” written once again by Henry Farrell. Crawford agreed to get back on the screen with her familiar enemy. But when Aldrich asked Bette to star in a second picture with Joan she loathed the idea of ever acting with Crawford again.
Davis used to say that she and Crawford had nothing in common. She considered Crawford “a glamour puss” who depended on her fabulous looks alone, though Crawford did wind up working with some of my favorite auteurs like Michael Curtiz, George Cukor, Robert Aldrich, Nicholas Ray, Otto Preminger, and Jean Negulesco.
Both were very strong women who had to scratch and claw their way through a mire of misogyny to achieve their stardom. Crawford was always playing the formulaic vulnerable ‘girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Born in poverty she reaches for a dream and strives through hard work to make good. Stories reflecting the struggles of the Depression Era and World War II appealed to audiences of the 30s & 40s.
Based on Bette’s early stage performances critics said she was made of lightning filled with fantastic energy. It was George Arliss who decided Bette would be perfect for his next film The Man Who Played God 1932. He became a bit of a mentor, Bette said he played god to her. In September 1931, she felt finished with her career in Hollywood and was packing her things with her mother ready to return to New York when George Arliss came along and saved her.
Joan Crawford had been married to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. at the time and learned everything about Hollywood royalty and how to become pretentious. When Crawford first arrived in Hollywood she was a dancer, an it-girl flapper for MGM throughout the late silent & early sound eras working alongside Clark Gable.
She didn’t have those signature eyebrows yet. At some point in the 30s, she started changing her look which embraced the heavily arched eyebrows, the wider mouth, and the notorious shoulder pads which became her iconic trademark. She left MGM and joined Warner Bros in 1943.
READ PART 2 OF REVISITING ALDRICH’S HAG CINEMA HERE:
Robert Aldrich is one of my favorite directors with numerous memorable films that transcend a restrictive genre tag. He always brings us a cynical and gritty story with very flawed characters who are at the core ambiguous as either the protagonist or the antagonist. Aldrich took economics in college, then dropped out and landed a very low-paying job at first as a clerk with RKO Radio Pictures Studio in 1941.
He studied with great directors like Jean Renoir. It was his training in the trenches that made him the auteur he is, delving inside the human psyche and questioning what is morality.
Aldrich has a flair for the dramatic. He likes to break molds and cross over boundaries. He also has a streak of anti-authoritarianism running through the veins of his films. There aren’t just traces of his ambivalence toward the Hollywood machine in his film philosophy; he also conflates the ugly truths beneath the so-called American Dream and the “real” people who inhabit that world.
He died in 1983, and while he remained inside the Hollywood circle, he maintained an outsider persona. In his work, he memorialized the misfits and outcasts by making them the anti-heroes, all of whom ultimately were destined to fall because they refused to play the conformity game.
In 1961, Aldrich partnered with Joseph E. Levin to purchase the rights to the British writer John Farrell’s Hollywood horror book, but at first, no one seemed interested. Aldrich got Seven Arts Pictures curious about the film, and so Warner Bros. agreed to distribute it but didn’t allow it to be made on the Warner lot.
Aldrich relates in an interview that “Eliot Hyman at Seven Arts read the script, studied the budget, and told him candidly: “I think it will make a fabulous movie, but I’m going to make very tough terms because it’s a high-risk venture.”
Baby Jane? was not an easy sell, even with the double billing, both the actress’s box office draw had diminished by then. Later on, Aldrich said that the problem with Jane was that “the topic was perceived as controversial and not a built-in moneymaker which would alienate portions of the public.”
Jack Warner was quoted as saying he “Wouldn’t give a plug nickel for either one of those old broads.” Warner was an asshole!
In interviews with Aldrich, it has been noted that his working relationship with Crawford was already very good, having worked with her on Autumn Leaves (1959). However, with Bette Davis, he had to do a little more convincing. Eventually, she was on board with the project.
By the time Aldrich bought out Levine, the story price had gone from $10,000 to $85,000, and no one seemed interested. But Aldrich relates in an interview that “Eliot Hyman at Seven Arts read the script, studied the budget, and told him candidly: “I think it will make a fabulous movie, but I’m going to make very tough terms because it’s a high-risk venture.”
It was Aldrich’s persistence and his faith in the project that made Davis enthusiastic about the film. Crawford had already expressed a desire to work with Bette Davis in a film. Bette taking on such an unattractive role was pretty gutsy for her.
I choose to focus on Baby Jane? and Sweet Charlotte, as they are not only my favorites of his, but also they are 2 incredible pieces of film art with the allure of the dynamic pairing of two of THE most legendary actresses from the silver screen.
What’s most fabulous about the film is that it has both Bette and Joan, which gives it such a dynamic double billing. The film really was a seminal work because nothing quite like it had been done earlier. Films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Autumn Leaves (1959) set some groundwork for older actresses to wax crazy dramatic in film. But ultimately the pot boiled over with Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
Joan Crawford has the more glamorous role of an aging movie starlet, while Bette Davis must inhabit the role of the decrepitude has-been child of vaudeville.
And while Aldrich has a notable filmography to his credit, like his Cold War scare noir masterpiece Kiss Me Deadly, his film that exposes the flawed Total Institution of the penal system, The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds, and his iconic war ensemble, The Dirty Dozen 1967. There’s his other psychological thriller with Joan Crawford playing wife to the psychotic Cliff Robertson in Autumn Leaves 1956 and the two Hollywood ventures exposing the darker side, The Big Knife 1955 with Jack Palance, and of course, Kim Novak in The Legend of Lylah Clare 1968.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Directed by Robert Aldrich is based on the novel by Henry Farrell with a screenplay by Lukas Heller. Cinematography by Ernest Haller (Gone With the Wind 1939, Mildred Pierce 1945, Rebel Without a Cause 1955), Art Direction by the fabulous William Glasgow, Norma Kotch won an Oscar for her costume design on Baby Jane? and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte as well as Aldrich’s The Flight Of The Phoenix (1965).
Co-starring: The main players–Victor Buono as Edwin Flagg, Marjorie Bennett as Dehlia Flagg, Anna Lee as Mrs.Bates, Maidie Norman as Elvira Stitt, and Barbara Merrill (Bette’s daughter) as Liza Bates.
The film premiered on October 26, 1962. and released on Halloween of 1962. Davis was nominated for Best Actress and Victor Buono for Best supporting actor.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is filled with grotesque melancholy, the wasteland of forgotten womanhood, and abject psychosis drenched within the portrayal of a repressed woman-child born of rage and delusion. It’s also a striking condemnation of the rampant sexism and ageism in Hollywood. Another reason I want to talk about Aldrich’s two seminal Grande Dame Guignol films is that both motion pictures set the tone for a whole cycle of films to follow.
For the 50s and 60s, melodramas consisting of plots about mental illness weren’t typically conventional, and a film as extremely grotesque as Baby Jane? could be considered very disturbing. Even as groundbreaking as Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) was, released the same year as Baby Jane?, Psycho’s narrative veiled Norman Bates as a mild-mannered young man with an Oedipus complex. In Baby Jane? her flagrant derangement is glaring.
Perhaps films like Val Lewton’s Bedlam 1946, Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit 1948, and Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor 1963 addressed the systemic institutional problems surrounding mental illness, but Aldrich’s films are very intimate ventures.
This lurid pulp melodrama of abject madness is superb, particularly because of the uninhibited performances by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. It was pretty courageous of both starlets to leave the glamor behind for such a ghastly and unpleasant ceremony.
First of all, I LOVE Bette Davis with a passion, the actress and the woman herself. Have you ever seen the fabulous Dick Cavett interview? If not, you should track down a copy. Bette is an enduring icon and one of a kind. She has a distinct style, a unique “hitch to her git along”, as Andy Griffith would say, and is a true Hollywood legend, thoroughly intrepid, dynamic, and just downright glorious!
And I adore Joan Crawford as well. She was unbelievably beautiful when she first started out in motion pictures, before her signature crazed galvanized eyebrows took over her face and those shoulder pads in her wardrobe. It makes me sad to think that these women might have truly despised each other. It’s truly a shame.
Aldrich directed this film with crude veracity, leaving us to dwell on some feelings of ambivalence toward these particular characters. I was with Jane even at her cruelest, although I pretend that the bird died of natural causes and the rat was found that way. I never warmed up to Blanche, even though she was an invalid; I got the sense from her that she was not what she appeared to be.
Reducing Davis’s performance in histrionic camp would diminish the moments when she is in stark control of the serious meter of Jane’s growing madness. The oscillation between Jane’s childish tantrums and musings and the all-out fury and retaliations is an artful feat delivered by Davis quite masterfully. She must have enjoyed the role immensely. It must have also been challenging. Jane’s dissipated drunken swagger, the way she literally slouches around the house, and her irritable disposition might be the culmination of not only 30 years of taking care of Blanche, but also a sign that she is inappropriately uninhibited by her years of the undigested bile of animosity, hostility and ultimately her malicious outbursts of paranoia, that lead to her aggression and violence.
In the end, Jane’s macabre corpse’s white makeup, painted like a mask with a heart-shaped beauty mark, Kewpie-doll lipstick, and blond wig of a massive ringlet gives Jane an extra bizarre persona. While Jane is supposedly a vain character, ironically, she is under the impression that she is fashionable; she is a vaudeville clown with caked-on face powder and slouchy dresses that are adult versions of the Baby Jane stage outfits she wore as a child. When Jane goes out in public wearing fur, wilted corsage, and antique jewelry, it represents her attachment to the past, although it is not flattering to her at all, when, in fact, she is perceived as pitiful. Apparently, Davis herself created the chalky, pale, freakish makeup that Jane puts on when she starts to plan her comeback. It’s almost a decrepit version of the artist-painted face of Geisha culture. In Peter Shelley’s book Grande Dame Guignol Cinema- A History of Hag Cinema from Baby Jane to Mother, he compares the way Blanche looks at the end, with her pasty death mask and dark rings to the actress Irene Papas. It was definitely the dark, imposing eyebrows.
Gee-I’ve been excited about Bill Castle ever since I saw his skeleton who is billed as ‘himself’ in House on Haunted Hill ’59 down in the wine cellar with Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart.
First of all, I can’t even begin tell you how incredibly grateful I am to all the amazing contributors who are joining me and Goregirl (who’s got a lot of high spirited fun in store for us) in celebrating one of THE most iconically entertaining auteurs. William Castle reached across many genres not just the B-movie spine tinglers that some people remember him for.
Thanks again to all of you who are joining in the fun. You will not only ensure that it’ll be a week of fabulous thoughts, themes and thrills. I just know in my heart that Mr. Castle would glow with pride to see how many people’s lives were touched by his inimitable style and purely delicious ballyhoo!
Don’t forget to grab yourself a banner or two, thanks to my versatile and lovely partner Wendy Christensen and David Arrate for designing such great graphics for the event…!
See ya soon gang- Joey
“Ryan was unfailingly powerful, investing his tormented characters with a brooding intensity that suggests coiled depth. Cut off from the world by the strength of their ‘feelings’ his characters seem to be in the grip of torrential inner forces. They are true loners. Ryan’s work has none of the masked, stylized aura of much noir acting. He performs with emotional fullness that creates substantial, complex characters rather than icons.” –Foster Hirsch-FILM NOIR: The Darker Side of the Screen
Clearly Robert Ryan’s infinite presence in film and his numerous complex characters manifest an embracing universal ‘internal conflict’ of masculinity. I tribute certain roles the actor inhabited during his striking career. Though he was cast more often in the part as the imposing heavy, the depth and breadth of Ryan’s skill with his rough-hewn good looks should have landed him more roles as a lead male capable of such penetrating levels of emotion. He had a depth that suggests a scarcely hidden intensity smoldering at the surface.
A critic for the New York Times reviewing Act of Violence (1948)  wrote about Robert Ryan’s persona as the madly driven veteran bent on revenge, Joe Parkson calling him “infernally taut.”
Frank Krutnik discusses ‘Masculinity and its discontents’ in his book In A Lonely Street, “In order to make the representation of masculinity in the noir thriller, there follows a schematic run-through of Freudian work on the determination of masculine identity.” Claiming Freud’s work can be co-opted into film with an emphasis of its relevance to analysis of the cultural machinery of patriarchy.” He discusses patriarchal culture which relies heavily on the maintenance of a gender-structured ‘disequilibrium’ with its roots in the myth of the Oedipal Complex. Involving not only the power-based hierarchy of male service to masculine power but the established normative gender values which inform both the male and female figure.
Many of the characters in Ryan’s noir world are informed by a cultural ‘determinacy of the phallus’ that authorizes toughness and strips the limits of desire as an obligation to masculine identity. The patriarchal power structure predetermines a fixed and limited role that creates a destiny of submission and impotence in Ryan’s characters. But within the framework of these extreme male figures lies an intricate conflict of varying degrees of vulnerability and fragility.
Ryan manifests this duality within hyper-masculine characters. Outwardly physical, confrontational, and hostile, Ryan is a master at playing with men who suffer from alienation and inferiority surrounding their own ‘maleness’ and self-worth. He was never just a dark noir brute or anti-hero but a complex man actualized through layers of powerful dramatic interpretation. His performances suggest a friction of subjugated masculinity bubbling within.
The trajectory of the male through the Oedipus Complex encompasses male subjectivity which is a principal issue in the noir ‘tough-thriller.’ The ‘existential thematic’ link to the Oedipus myth concerns questions of male desire and identity as they relate to the overarching law of existing patriarchal culture substituted for the original fearsome ‘divinity.’ This element is one of the driving psychological themes underlying any good classic film noir.
In this post, I put my focus primarily on Ryan’s characters within the framework of each film and while I discuss the relationship between him and the central players I do not go as in-depth as I usually do discussing his co-stars or plot design.
I apply this thematic representation to many of the roles engendered in the films of Robert Ryans‘ that I’ve chosen to discuss here. A patriarchal power structure establishes the tragedy of man’s destiny, a fixed and limited role in the character’s own destiny as there is a predominant power that threatens them into submission and sheds light on their own impotence. So many of the noir characters in a Robert Ryan noir world are shaped by a cultural authority structured through ‘determinacy of the phallus’ that authorizes toughness in the male identity that strips away the limits of desire, as an obligation to ‘masculine identity.’
I’m focusing on particular Ryan’s roles within a noir context that depict archetypal hyper-masculine tropes and the problematic strife within those characters. Whether Ryan is playing the deeply flawed hero or the tormented noir misfit, his characters are afflicted with an inherent duality of virility and vulnerability, inner turmoil, alienation, persecution, and masochism. It’s a territorial burden that Robert Ryan so effortlessly explores.
These films show Ryan’s trajectory through forces of menacing restraint and poignant self-expression. Within a noir landscape, the schism of stark virility and tenuous masculinity exposes the complexity of alienation, masochism, and frailty. Robert Ryan’s performances are a uniquely fierce and formidable power.
I’m discussing: The Woman On the Beach (1947) haunted & emasculated coastguardsman Lt. Scott Burnett, Caught (1949) neurotic millionaire Smith Ohlrig, The Set-Up (1949) noble over-the-hill boxer Bill ‘Stoker’ Thompson, Born To Be Bad (1950) misanthropic & masochistic novelist Nick Bradley, Clash by Night (1952) cynical misogynist projectionist Earl Pfeiffer, Beware, My Lovely (1952) morose psychotic vagrant handyman Howard Wilton, On Dangerous Ground (1952) unstable, alienated violent cop Jim Wilson, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) racist persecuted ex-con Earle Slater.
Within the framework of these ‘extreme’ male figures lies an intricate conflict with varying degrees of vulnerability & fragility within the male psyche. The narratives don’t necessarily flesh out this conflict plainly, but Ryan’s performances certainly suggest and inform us about the friction of this subjugated theme bubbling to the surface as he manifests the duality within his hyper-masculine characters. Robert Ryan was a master at playing men who suffer from alienation and inferiority surrounding their own ‘maleness’ and self-worth.
Ryan is never just a dark noir ‘brute’ or anti-hero but moreover, a complex male who is actualized through layers of powerful dramatic interpretation. A complexity of stark virility and ‘tenuous maleness’ as the narrative witnesses Ryan’s trajectory transforming him through various dynamic forces of menacing restraint and poignant self-expression. Outwardly physical, confrontational, hostile, and ultimately masculine, and the schism that is inwardly emotional, alienated, self-deprecating, masochistic, and fragile within the film noir landscape. Robert Ryan’s performances still maintain a uniquely fierce and formidable aesthetic of the ‘suffering-marginalized man.’
Continue reading “Hyper-Masculinity/Hidden Frailty: The Robert Ryan Aesthetic in Film Noir”
The William Castle Blogathon is hosted by The Last Drive In and Goregirl’s Dungeon.
I’ll be covering: House on Haunted Hill, Johnny Stool Pigeon, and Backstory: “Whatever Happened to William Castle’s Baby? (Rosemary’s Baby)”
Dynamic Duos in Classic Film Blogathon hosted by Once Upon a Screen and Classic Movie Hub.
I’ll be covering Robert Aldrich’s Hag Cinema:Â Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford, plus Whatever Happened to Baby Jane & Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
The Barbara Stanwyck Blogathon hosted by The Girl with the White Parasol
The Two Mrs Carrolls (1947) & Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
And a special mention for Movies Silently’s Funny Lady Blogathon!
It’s Blogathon mania!!!!
Jean Stapleton dies at 90. All I can say right off the bat, is she brought to life one of THE most memorable characters in television history. It’s no easy task to create a personality that not only transcends the medium of entertainment but continues to touch your heart with a profound level of empathy and straightforward kindheartedness. Pure genius!
Edith Bunker is that person you wish was your Aunt or your neighbor. Jean Stapleton imbued her character with a life force that was at times hilarious and other times agonizingly honest. A great actress of stage and film and an all around sweet heart… We’ll be watching a marathon of All in the Family in this home in tribute to her passing and I’ll raise a glass of cling peaches in heavy syrup to you Jean… “Everybody’s someone when you love them”
‘You’re a pip’-MonsterGirl
Because I’m in such a celebratory mood due to our upcoming William Castle Blogathon, I thought I should take his memoirs off the shelf and start devouring it along with watching the fabulous documentary Spine Tingler: The William Castle Story. I just wanted to say a few words about the first few chapters of Bill Castle’s compelling life story Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare the Pants Off America: Memoirs of a B-Movie Mogul, and I’m hoping that his wonderful daughter decides to produce a serious biopic about her father’s incredibly captivating life. It would make one hell of a fascinating and titillating journey of what led up to his iconic legacy amidst some memorable figures that inhabited the glamorous and often tumultuous Hollywood of yesteryear. If our blogathon turns even one more person into a new William Castle fan, I’ll feel satisfied that I’ve done right by him.
It’s a hell of a read. From the first few chapters, you feel like Bill is an old friend on a marvelous adventure that you’re rooting for all the way. I have always been such an avid fan of his movies, and the charming way he made us all feel like we were helping participate in the process of making each thrill & chill, gimmick and diversion such a sensational part of the movie experience. That’s what mattered most to him, to entertain all of us. Even if most of his films were considered B-movies they had a lot of heart, and he always dreamed one day to do an A-List film like Hitchcock or Welles, that would garner critical acclaim.
He certainly had a great eye for artistic property, considering he spotted the story for what would become The Lady From Shanghai (1947)
He found the novel and obtained the rights to, ‘If I Should Die Before I Wake’, bringing it to his new friend Orson Welles at Columbia. Yet ultimately Cohn insisted on having Welles direct the story which turned into the classic Film Noir paragon with Rita Hayworth. Castle was sad about this, but ultimately knew Welles would do an incredible job and thus settled into being co-director on that film. I wonder how many people realize that he was associated with that iconic piece of noir?
Then, seeing Hitchcock’s success with Robert Bloch’s Psycho (who borrowed a little from Castle’s ballyhoo to concocted his own gimmickry to get the audience to line up around the block) Castle took writer Robb White’s gender bending psycho thriller story and turned it into Homicidal (1961) in response to Hitchcock’s ‘deviant’ genre hit. He drew from the same master of the macabre, Robert Bloch (Psycho 1960) which fueled the graphic shocker Strait-Jacket (1964) with Joan Crawford once again in response to the success of Aldrich’s What Ever Happened To Baby Jane (1962) Eventually Castle spotting the greatness in Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby!
Purchasing the rights to Ira Levin’s script ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ a film which came the closest to elevating him from The Carnival Barker/Maestro of Schlock to Cinema Auter. He wanted so badly to direct himself but Robert Evans head of Paramount at the time insisted on having the young and wildly imaginative director Roman Polanski take the reigns.
But Bill was gracious once he saw Polanski’s vision. And so he did what he was great at and facilitated the film’s process from behind the scenes, trying to keep things moving within the studio’s budget and time constraints. Let’s just say their collaboration created one of THE most gripping pieces of film-making in cinematic history, and my favorite film of all time. Rosemary’s Baby is an irrepressible and timeless masterpiece that transcends any genre.
And I’ll talk about that in depth during the upcoming William Castle Blogathon, with my entry Back Story: What Ever Happened to William Castle’s Baby?
And I wish we hadn’t lost him at age 63. Although he started having doubts about his contribution to the art of film-making, the relevance of all his showmanship, and the fan’s lives he imprinted his trademark on, he would have seen how much of a precious legacy he left behind and how we all still gravitate to his pictures with the same enthusiasm. There’s so many of us who appreciate him and understand that there would be a gaping hole in history if he hadn’t headed out to Hollywood to follow his dream with his incomparable brand of hutzpah!
Even if you’re not familiar with William Castle’s work, you’d be surprised at how much his bigger-than-life presence had influenced Hollywood, and the actors, film-makers and writers he crossed paths with. He was beloved and still is. His stories are fascinating, real or inflated with just a little spice and embellishment about his experiences in the business. He touched so many lives with his exuberant lust for ideas and blithe spirit, always looking for that applause, just an overgrown happy kid.
I could watch his films over and over. They just never gets stale for me and the high spirited imaginings that radiate from all his pictures taps into that nostalgic adrenaline that flows through my veins.
From his first encounter with Bela Lugosi as a young man who went to see Dracula on stage repeatedly, to meeting the wonderful Everette Sloane who was working with Orson Welles in the theatre, to being suddenly thrown into the midst of great stars like Barbara Stanwyck and Cary Grant when he first got to Hollywood, his life is as interesting as any good melodrama.
He ingratiated himself into working under director George Stevens on the classic Penny Serenade and actually got along with Columbia Studio head Harry Cohn who was considered to be up in the there in the ranks of ornery with Hitler and Mussolini! And he was even controlled and bullied by Joan Crawford on the set of Strait-Jacket as he struggled to appease her every whim. But he always remained gracious and kind to everybody.
So get hold of a copy of this great book, and here’s to the man who started out as an orphan in New York. A man who just didn’t fit in and was teased at camp until he showed that he had the unusual talent of being double jointed. Then he was touted as ‘The Spider’ saving him from constant beatings and turning him onto the lure of applause and circus side show ballyhoo. That endearing and infectious charm made the great Bela Lugosi, while acting in the stage production of Dracula, give him his first break in theater.
Eventually he met actor Everett Sloane and had the moxie to arrange a meeting with new sensation, Orson Welles. He impressed the artistically distilled cigar smoker so much that he convinced Welles to let him take over his Stoney Creek Theater in Connecticut while he left to film Citizen Kane.
Castle adopted the ritual of smoking a big fatty from watching Welles pace the floor with one. Castle had a ‘twinkle in his eye’ and that taste for risk-taking, pulling a play out of thin air over a long weekend. He made up a pseudonym of a famous German Playwright, gave it a German title translated into ‘Not For Children’ and got one of Germany’s top actresses Ellen Schwanneke (Madchen in Uniform) to star in it.
Ultimately he carried off a publicity stunt that went as far as sending a telegram to Germany telling Adolf Hitler himself that ‘his’ actress would not be coming back to Nazi Germany. Thanks to Bill Castle, Schwanneke became known in the press as the ‘girl who said NO to Hitler…’
That solidified the beginnings of his career and gave him the momentum that would launch him into the world of that grand ‘show business’ and into our collective hearts.
And that’s just the first few chapters…!
With love to dear Bill Castle- From Joey (MonsterGirl)
Director José Mojica Marins inhabits the role of Zé do Caixão, better known as Coffin Joe, a diabolically creepy gravedigger with wicked nails like claws who sports a top hat and cloak as he terrorizes the villagers with his evil desires. Set in a small, superstitious village, the film follows the blasphemous undertaker Zé, who is obsessed with finding the “perfect woman” to bear his child and continue his bloodline, scorning religion and morality along the way.
Zé’s reign of terror includes murder, sexual violence, and relentless cruelty, all justified by his nihilistic, Nietzschean worldview.
His lover, Lenita, can not bear him a child. He begins to pursue Terezinha de Oliveira (Magda Mei), who is engaged to his friend, Antonio. Zé do Caixão murders Lenita & Antonio. He rapes Terezinha, hoping to get her pregnant, but she commits suicide instead. Comes the Day of the Dead, as he mocks the supernatural and torments the townsfolk, he is warned by the local gypsy that his deeds will come back to haunt him and the spirits of his victims will avail themselves at midnight and send him to hell! The film climaxes in a nightmarish sequence of ghostly revenge, with Zé pursued by the dead and ultimately destroyed by his own guilt and paranoia.
Zé do Caixão: “What is life? It is the beginning of death. What is death? It is the end of life! What is existence? It is the continuity of blood. What is blood? It is the reason to exist!”
At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1964) is a landmark in horror cinema, recognized as the first Brazilian-produced horror film and the debut of the infamous Coffin Joe (Zé do Caixão). Marins’s film is a brutal and surreal journey into a nightmarish landscape… shocking audiences with its violence, blasphemy, and transgressive themes, launching Coffin Joe as a cult icon and opening the door for a new era of Brazilian horror.
