New must sees ...

Now the festival season is over and winter settling in, the new Award Season should be underway for the next Oscar ballyhoo in February. Three I particularly want to see are the new Luca Guadagnino CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, Annette Bening (surely leading the Best Actress nominations) as Gloria Graham in FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL and PADDINGTON 2- my lofty film buff friends turned up their noses at the first one, boy are they missing out ... 

Gloria Grahame

Gloria Graham (1923-1981) is being celebrated by a two-part season at London's BFI. 

The season will tie in with the release of FILM STARS DON'T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (Paul McGuigan, 2017), about the passionate relationship between British actor Peter Turner and the Academy Award-Winning actress, starring Annette Bening and Jamie Bell. (Bening should be ideal here - I read the book some time ago, so looking forward to seeing it).

As the perceptive notes by programmer Jo Botting, say:

Although Grahame never reached the heights of major stardom, she excelled at playing complex, damaged women. Her innate ability to tap into the psyche of troubled characters imbued them with an emotional depth that hinted at a troubled past, and a doomed future. Crossfire (Edward Dmytryk, 1947) offered Grahame one of her earliest substantial roles; her portrayal of a dance-hall girl who witnesses a murder earned her an Oscar®-nomination and set the mould for her screen persona. Nicholas Ray’s beguiling blend of murder mystery and love story In a Lonely Place (1950) is one of the finest American movies of the early 50s, which sees a Hollywood scriptwriter (played by Humphrey Bogart) become the prime suspect in the murder of a young woman, that is, until his neighbour played by Grahame provides him with a false alibi. As the pair embark on a romance, his volatile temper makes her wonder whether he might have been guilty. In a Lonely Place is rereleased by Park Circus on Friday 24 November, and plays on extended run; also re-released on the same day is The Big Heat (1953), Fritz Lang’s stark thriller about a cop fighting city-wide corruption. Lang’s film is pacy, unsentimental and to the point in exploring the thin line between the law and rough justice. The robust direction, terse script and unfussy performances ensure the movie feels strangely modern. Grahame read Macbeth in preparation for the role of Irene Neves in Sudden Fear (David Miller, 1952) – looking to Lady Macbeth to locate the emotional drive to manipulate a man to murder, as she does with actor-cum-fraudster Lester Blaine. Joan Crawford is at the film’s core and plays the melodramatic angle to perfection, but Grahame is compelling as the driving force behind the murderous plot. 

Alongside the noir titles, part one of the season in November will also include Vincente Minnelli’s classic Hollywood take on the movie business The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), which tells the tale of a ruthless producer and the effect his dealings have on his friends and colleagues. Grahame received the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for the role despite being on screen for only nine minutes.

Part two of the season in December further explores Grahame’s femme fatale finesse, but also showcases some of her lighter roles including Vincente’s Minnelli’s lush melodrama The Cobweb (1955) in which she plays the neglected wife of a doctor, frustrated by his dedication to his work and stifled by the small-town mentality of those around her.  Although she was not a natural singer (her singing was dubbed in Naked Alibi) Grahame’s naïve, endearing vocal style in the classic Rogers and Hammerstein musical western Oklahoma! (Fred Zinnemann, 1955) brings genuine charm to her portrayal of the flirtatious The selection of films screening in the season illustrates Gloria Grahame’s great acting talent and reveals a scintillating screen presence and effortless glamour. Her scandalous and turbulent private life has intensified her legendary status, but this shouldn’t distract viewers from her most important legacy: her uniquely compelling performances.

Joan and sudden fear somewhere in the night ...

A 1950s Joan Crawford movie I had not seen: 1952's SUDDEN FEAR begins well but limp to an unstisfactory ending ..... I actually like Joan Crawford's 1950s output more than that of her main rival Bette Davis, who after the enormous success of 1950's ALL ABOUT EVE was soon back in routine programmers; well so was Joan of course but they were more fun that Bette's: TORCH SONG in 1953, JOHNNY GUITAR in '54 (the first film I saw, aged 8 as per reports on that, see label) and those campy lurid items like QUEEN BEE, FEMALE ON THE BEACH, AUTUMN LEAVES, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO up to her cameo in 1959 "as Amanda Farrow in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING - Bette too was cameo-ing in 1959 (two of them, a scene or two with Alec Guinness in THE SCAPEGOAT and coming on for the last five minutes as Catherine The Great in the otherwise turgid costumer JOHN PAUL JONES, hardly seen now. Of course 1962's WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BAY JANE? got them back in the limelight again ...). But back to Joan in 1952.where Woman's Picture meets Film Noir:

Actor Lester Blaine has all but landed the lead in Myra Hudson's new play when Myra vetoes him because, to her, he doesn't look like a "romantic leading man." On the train from New York to San Francisco, Blaine sets out to prove Myra wrong...by romancing her. Is he sincere, or does he have a dark ulterior motive? The answer brings on a game of cat and mouse; but who's the cat and who's the mouse? 

Myra is an essential Crawford role, the middle-aged wealthy woman looking for love and thinking she has found it. Palance is ideal with his odd looks, and add in Gloria Grahame at her bitchiest .... 

It plays like a delicious antique now: those early Dictaphone machines where Myra overhears the plot against her, her odd wardrobe of buttoned-up tops and showing her legs and nylons and high-heels as well as those long white gloves both ladies wear. The plot though as she counterplots against her attackers could have ended better ....... cue large close-ups of Joan agonising, suffering, suffering, suffering, yearning as she conveys the fear and rage at the duplicity of others ...... Directed by David Miller, but those empty streets of San Francisco do not look realistic. 

Now back a decade for another Noir thriller: Mankiewicz's SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT from 1941, his second feature as director. 
My friend Leon describes it thus:

Somewhere In the Night dates from 1946, the same year Mank's second directorial effort Dragonwyck was released and it's well up to snuff. A lot of 'amnesiac' films are, by definition, forgettable, but not this one. Mank assembled as tasty a supporting cast as had ever been shoehorned into one film ranging from Whit Bissell through Harry Morgan, Jeff Corey to the standout Josephine Hutchinson. Leading from the front are the slightly wooden John Hodiak - marriage to Ann Baxter didn't improve his acting -, newcomer Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan and Richard Conte and Mank keeps the balls spinning in the air leaving little time for awkward questions - like why would Conte - who'd got away with murder for three years, introduce Hodiak to a detective friend (Nolan) knowing that Hodiak was trying to get to to bottom of the very murder for which he, Conte, was responsible. This the kind of movie, popular at the time, in which a protagonist who is possibly a murderer is befriended by a girl/woman who's never met him before - for example Alad Ladd and Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia and/or in which a street-wise gal like Guild here, has to have the expressions 'private eye' and 'shamus' explained to her. None of this detracts from an enjoyable ride and it's one to add to your Blockbuster shopping list.
Leon was quite right, its a zippy intriguing little meller, essential for anyone keen on 1940s noir and Mankiewicz's style. Pleased I found it. 

John Hodiak (1914-1955) was an interesting guy, of Polish descent he was one of the second-tier actors who came to prominence during the early Forties - like Dana Andrews - when the big hitters were away during the war. He only lived to be 41 though, and had some big hits at the time, and even married Anne Baxter for several years (right). I saw him again the other day in Hitch's LIFEBOAT with Tallulah, and he is the male lead in the entertaining THE HARVEY GIRLS with Judy in 1946. We particularly like his DESERT FURY here, from 1947, one of the great camp Hollywood movies, where he and Wendall Corey are an intriguing pair, plus Lizabeth Scott and Mary Astor playing her mother, and a young Burt Lancaster - its a delirious 1940s concoction as per my review (Hodiak label). 

Coming up: A '60s Kim Novak double-bill, and then its off to THE RITZ in THE GAY METROPOLIS.

People we like: Glenn or Gilda ?

I had Glenn Ford pegged as one of those new post-war guys who came along after World War II - like Peck, Lancaster, Douglas, Mitchum - but, like his pal William Holden, Ford stole a march on them as he and Holden were in movies by the late 1930s - by 1946 Ford, after a busy time in genre movies, had worked his way up to co-starring with not one but two Bette Davis sisters in A STOLEN LIFE - then, came GILDA !

GILDA is a noir riot now - a fusion of sexual heat, jealousy, fear and hatred - terrific stuff!
Johnny Farrell is a gambling cheat who turns straight to work for sinister casino owner Ballin Mundson. But things take a turn for Johnny as his alluring ex-lover Gilda, whom he has come to hate, appears as Mundson's wife, and Mundson's machinations begin to unravel.

Ford's Johnny Farrell comes over like a sleazy punk on the make, down Argentina way, as he falls in with nightclub owner and racketeer George Macready - the two men seem to have an odd almost homoerotic relationship, and then Mundsen returns from a trip with his new wife: Gilda, an old flame of Farrell's and the sexual tensions build up, to that delirious climax. Rita is in her element here, and Glenn matches her all the way. It remains a key film noir set in that mythical 1940s world of nighclubs and casinos.

Ford has always been a person we like here, amiable (usually), unassuming, keeping busy shifting effortlessly between dramas, westerns, comedies - looking equally at home in a suit, military outfits or cowboy gear - but not in a toga or tights, like Bogart he just looked too modern for period films.  He seems curiously under-appreciated now, usually ignored by the fan mags, but was a busy actor right through the Fifties and into the mid-Sixties - and was effective as an ordindary, everyday hero.

Lang's THE  BIG HEAT in '53 and Brooks' THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE in 1955 were two of the major dramas of the era, as well as more routine items like TRIAL, RANSOM, and the romantic INTERRUPTED MELODY. He and Gloria Graham were also back with Fritz Lang for HUMAN DESIRE in '54. His westerns included THE AMERICANO, JUBAL, THE VIOLENT MEN, 3.10 TO YUMA, COWBOY, THE SHEEPMAN, CIMARRON in 1960, and then there were comedies like TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON (with Brando playing Japanese), two with Debbie Reynolds: THE GAZEBO and I remember IT STARTED WITH A KISS  being very funny.  He continued into the Sixties with two for Minnelli: the 1962 odd re-working of THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE and the charming THE COURTSHIP OF EDDIE'S FATHER in 1963. He was effective as the FBI agent in Blake Edwards' EXPERIMENT IN TERROR with Lee Remick, also 1962 - see Ford label, and the 1964 airline crash drama FATE IS THE HUNTER.  He was re-united with Bette Davis too (in a supporting role this time) in Capra's schmaltz-fest A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES in 1961, before BABY JANE revived her career.  
I did not get a chance to see Delbert Mann's DEAR HEART in 1964, it played the lower half of double bills here, but it seems well regarded, with Geraldine Page and Angela Lansbury. (I've just had to order it ....). Ford's later westerns like THE ROUNDERS also ended up as the lower part of double features.  There were also several more with Rita Hayworth, though not quite in the GILDA class: AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD, THE LOVES OF CARMEN, and THE MONEY TRAP in 1965 - poor Rita did not last long in that one.  

Ford (1916-2006) lived to be 90, had a long career, with over 100 credits - his last major role being Superman's earth father in SUPERMAN in '78. His first wife was dancer Eleanor Powell and it seems he romanced a lot of hollywood ladies .... and was a decorated war hero too - receiving the French Legion of Honour medal.
Next: The Hardy boy .... and then "Mitchell Leisen - Hollywood Director"

1950: In a lonely place

Nicholas Ray's IN A LONELY PLACE remains a brilliant noir from 1950 - it should be as well known as that year's other major movies like SUNSET BOULEVARD, ALL ABOUT EVE, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE or WINCHESTER '73.  

Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?

Poor Mildred - quickly murdered and forgotten about, so it seems. Even who did it is immaterial, as it is not about that at all, but the tortured relationship between Dixon and Laurel who provides his alilbi that night he quickly gets Mildred out of his apartment after she has told him the story of the novel he is supposed to read by morning. Laurel's apartment overlooks Dixon's and she sees Mildred leave alone .... 

They get to know each other at the police station, and things quickly develop between them. Laurel is initially attracted to him, but his violent temper, like when he beats up that car driver and almost kills him, soon causes her to have doubts .... By the time the police confirm it was not Dixon, it is too late for them ..... By turns charming, cold, romantic and remorseful, Dix Steele is as unpredictable a character as Bogie has ever played - an abusive man with a quick temper. It is a joyless view of love and fate.

Laurel is Gloria Graham, director Nick Ray's wife at the time, and it is one of her better roles. She remains one of the underrated great US actresses of the 50's (THE BIG HEAT, OKLAHOMA!), and has an electrifying chemistry with Bogie. Frank Lovejoy heads a fantastic supporting cast. The reasons for Mildred's murder are never satisfactorily made clear, but it doesn't matter. Laurel witnesses how Dixton treats his old friends and starts to worry for her own safety. The more she tries to escape from Dixon the more trapped she becomes and the more violent he gets ..... until that last telephone call. 

This is a noir that focuses on romance rather than crime and is a gut-wrenching love story,and should be so much better known, A perfect noir/twisted romance complete with those big cars driving by night, nightclub scenes and lots of shadows. One of Rays best too - up there with REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and JOHNNY GUITAR.