Arturo

*I wish all the anti-Santa Barbara people would come out of the closet, so that I don't have to carry that important and enormous burden alone!* At first I thought you meant the city in California, which I've always liked. Though the people are considered kinda snooty, I've never exprrienced it; but then I've never hung out in Montecito. PS - I won't get into the time I dissed Santa Barbara, or rather the Santeria personage behind the saint, and had a run of bad luck the rest of a road trip to San Francisco and back, at least until I apologized.

With her career upswing in 1945, Linda Darnell still faced some daunting challenges. She was becoming a heavy drinker, having been taught by her husband Pev Marley to drink her whiskey straight. She was also beginning to have a problem with weight, which her starch-heavy diet and drinking ascerbated. This would be most noticeable on her face, which could go from rather gaunt to quite full in a short time. The studio was constantly on her regarding this, but her voluptuous figure fit in well with her sexy new image. When Linda went to her home town Dallas TX for the premiere of FALLEN ANGEL in November 1945, friends and former neighbors noticed that she always seemed to have a drink in hand, and that her language was downright salty. Her drinking also allowed her to lose certain inhibitions, and could get into vicious arguments with her husband. This she seemed to inherit from her mother. Her drinking would never interfere with her work, and she was always known for her professionalism and consideration while on a movie set.

*When during this period was she seeing JFK?* Tierney was involved with JFK in 46-47. At the time of BLACK WIDOW, she had just finished an affair with Prince Aly Khan, which had her at the edge of a nervous collapse. Khan had recently been divorced from Rita Hayworth, and his father forbade another marriage to a movie star.

Linda Darnell in 1945 was going through a career upswing. At 21, after five years as the girl next door, she was now considered a sex symbol, and her roles reflected this. Her studio, 20th Century Fox, considered Linda for the female lead in AMERICAN GUERRILLA, playing a Spaniard in the Philippines. John Payne, newly returned from war duty, was to have the title role. However, with the impending end of the war, the studio shelved it, later resurrecting it as a Tyrone Power vehicle. Instead, the studio gave Linda a prime role in FALLEN ANGEL, a film noir, director Otto Preminger's followup to his breakththrough of the previous year, LAURA. Linda played Stella, a sultry waitress that has men buzzing around her and the cafe where she works in a small coastal California town. In comes drifter Dana Andrews, who soon joins the queue for Stella. She refuses to go off with him without a ring on her finger, and better prospects than those in which he arrived in town. So he cooks up a plot to romance rich spinster June Mills, hoping to fleece her. June is played by musical star Alice Faye, as a change of pace for her. But then Stella is murdered, and guess who is the prime suspect? FALLEN ANGEL is a classic noir IMHO. Also in the cast are Charles Bickford, Percy Kilbride, Anne Revere, John Carradine, and Bruce Cabot, among others. The small town milieu is well caught, andhe story is quite compelling. Already discussed in earlier posts was Alice Faye's decision to leave films when she saw the completed movie, as her part was cut, supposedly to favor Darnell with the footage.

*No love here for These Wilder Years ? I'd never seen Cagney and Stanwyck together before, and I thought they hit it off perfectly. IMO this film was very much like The Search or Stella Dallas, in that while on the surface they might be accused of sentimentalism, the underlying sincerity of the acting and the underlying truth of the message made These Wilder Years not only bearable but beautiful. And on top of Cagney and Stanwyck, there was also a fine performance by Betty Lou Keim, whom I'd never even heard of before, as the unwed teenaged mother.* Betty Lou Keim was in the Broadway play "A Roomful of Roses", and was signed by Fox to do the movie version, with the somewhat misleading title TEENAGE REBEL. She plays a 15 year old sent to stay with her mother, who she resents for leaving her and her fathe years earlier to go off with another man.

*Greta Garbo's final movie appearance was Two-Faced Woman in 1941.* Well she didn;t originally "vant to be alone". Even though TFW was a flop, she hadn't planned on retiring; the plan was to wait out the war for her movies to be able to be distributed again in Europe, where she still had a large following which helped put her movies in the black. Over the years in the late 40s-early 50s, several projects were anounced for her. For various reasons they came to naught.

molo14 wrote: I'll probably be the lone voice here but I would love to see "The Jones Family" films from Fox and the "Henry Aldrich" films from Paramount get a revival . *I agree with all your suggestions, but especially these two!* *Neither of those series have been shown on TV anywhere for decades!* *I'd LOVE to see them on TCM.* At least one of the Jones Family movies has been shown on FMC in the last couple of years or so.

Topbilled, Where is this thread to be found? Or is it one to be started by you?

The vast majority of this movie was filmed in Taxco. I've been there twice in the last three years, and at least ten other times over the previous 20 years. I have always wanted to look for the cable cars, but I never have seen them. I've heard they are there, and that there is access to a hotel complex, but if there is a town there, and if it resembles that in the movie, thn it dates to the colonial period, and therefore would have had to have access some other way. Maybe just some trails that pack animals could be utilized to bring supplies.

*I watched both films. I liked them both, of course.* *Linda does not play a very prominent role in THE 13TH LETTER, and I shall comment about that in my new thread on January 1st.* *HOTEL FOR WOMEN is certainly a vehicle for her talents and charms. Of course, she and Ann Sothern would work together again a decade later on A LETTER TO THREE WIVES.* Linda was one of a large cast of principals in THE 13TH LETTER, so her screen time wasn't that prominent, despite being top-billed. This was Charles Boyer's first role in awhile, and his first where he is no longer the romantic lead. Michael Rennie, as the object of romantic accusations, doesn't measure up IMO, but is effective nonetheless. Constance Smith, a new signee at Fox, got the role originally assigned to Maureen O'Hara; not surewhy Maureen didn't do it, but I think her shared contract with the studio might've been up. Ths is a low-key, somber, but compelling melodrama. HOTEL FOR WOMEN, Linda's debut at age 15, shows her in the first bloom of her success. Her age was added to by the studio so she could successfully play a romantic lead. Ann Sothern was offered a contract by Fox at this time, as did MGM. When Ann accepted the MGM deal, her footage in HFW was reputedly cut quite a bit. Who knows how she would have fared at 20th, but methinks she would have gotten mostly Bs and programmers, as she did at Metro.

I too enjoy this movie at any time of year. So far it has escaped me this sseason.

Gene Tierney, Hedy Lamarr and Ingrid Bergman.

I forgot to program to record SMART BLONDE, and when I woke up it had already started. I'll try to record the rest of the series.

*For beauty, she is sure damn near the top. Breathtaking!* Yes I agree. As did Look Magazine in 1944, when they named Linda Darnell one of the four most beautiful women in Hollywood.

Well what I find dated is that self-sacrificial mother who would give up her child due to circumstances, snobbery, or whatever, which was so common back in 1930s movies. Alos, by dated I'm underscoring what you said about audiences nowadays not able to watch movies from the 30s; they find the values as dated. Edited by: Arturo on Dec 29, 2012 12:03 AM

Filmgoddess wrote: Eugenia: I'm curious as to what about STELLA DALLAS you find dated? It's certainly anachronistic but I don't find anything dated about it. It's of its time which, of course, is not what dated is all about. *Nah, I can't think of more than 3 or 4 films made in the 30s or 40s that would be popular today. Maybe not even that many.* *Today's filmgoers, for the most part, are not interested in that kind of stuff. They want action, lots of nudity, four letter words, and stars who are hot but can't. Not too much of that in the 30s and 40s.* Seems you gave the perfect definition of why STELLA DALLAS is dated, it's of another time in its values; those values are therefore dated.

Linda Darnell's second movie of 1945 was THE GREAT JOHN L., which she made on loanout to UA, the third time in less than two years. This time it was for Bing Crosby's production company. The film was a biography of boxer John L. Sullivan, played by Greg McClure. Linda was a showgirl who plays one of the two loves in his life, the other being Barbara Britton. Again Linda's role fit her new image, as she wore some skimpy outfits which again allowed her to show her legs; one reviewer of this or her previous movie HANGOVER SQUARE mentioned that she had the most expressive thighs on the big screen. And as in the previous movie, Linda got to sing in TGJL.

*The studios were trying to recycle the gangster picture and they were breeding it with noir and creating these new film children.* This doesn't seem right. At this time (the mid 50s), noir was just then being defined as such by the French. What we know as noirs were known as Crime Dramas by the studios, and many of these had all along incorporated elements of the gangster pics. They weren't breeding anything, but hoping these genres would continue to appeal to those movie audiences they still had.

*As for the original, kudos to the suit who hired THELMA RITTER. As a kid, I fell in love with her in Rear Window and have been a fan ever since.* If I remember correctly, Ritter was George Seaton's neighbor. An ordinary housewife, she did the part as a lark, When the rushes came in, the studio had her miniscule role built up, and she was offered a contract.

*Watch the first 15 minutes of BELLE STARR, and look at how much it looks like a continuation of GONE WITH THE WIND, with Gene Tierney as Scarlett. Note the same kind of sun bonnet and clothes, the same type of old-plantation set., etc, etc.* Fred, Gene's character was put upon by circumstances, so she had to flee her genteel existence. Fox was trying to go for another JESSE JAMES with this one. Originally, it was to have been Alice Faye in that role, but she became pregnant. The studio tried to borrow Barbara Stanwyck, but she was unavailable. So they cast their relatively new leading lady, Gene Tierney, who valiantly struggled with the Southern accent. Other role flips in this film include Henry Fonda backing out, so pre-fame Dana Andrews was cast in his place. Then the studio switched his role with that of Randolph Scott, since he was a bigger name.

I totally agree with you on this movie, with its assured place as one of the top Christmas classic. It is also notable as the movie that intoduced the great Thelma Ritter to movie audiences, just one of a whole slew of character actors, as were most of the films from that era.

Linda started 1945 with a new image, which 20th Century Fox finally utilized in her first release of the year. HANGOVER SQUARE is a period thriller taking place in the gaslit London of the turn of the last century. Based on a popular novel by Patrick Hamilton, the writer of "Gaslight", Fox changed the story from the present in order to capitalize on such recent successes as the movie version of GASLIGHT and the studio's own THE LODGER. In fact, that film's director, John Brahm and two of its stars, Laird Cregar and George Sanders, were also on hand for HANGOVER SQUARE. This movie had Linda as Netta Langdon, a sexy singer who befriends and bewitches a classical composer (Cregar) to write pop songs for her. Smitten as he is with her, he stops work on his concerto to concentrate on her songs, unaware that she is only using him. Unfortunately for Netta, he is deranged and becomes a killer when loud dissonant noises cause him to black out. SPOILER: He kills LInda and tosses her body onto a Guy Fawkes pyre. I give this away to mention that Linda would get burned slightly while filming this, one of several times this was to happen; ironically she would die in a fire some 20 years later. And one more, immediate tragedy; Laird Cregar would die shortly after completing this film, due to a weakened heart from extreme dieting. He had lost much weight between the time of THE LODGER and this film, in order to be considered for romantic leads. Also in this film were Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan and Alan Napier. Bernard Hermann composed the music that is used for the concerto. This movie is a classic gothic thriller (if that's what they're called). And as I stated, it gave Linda a great role for her new image, and an opportunity to show off her shapely legs.

*I want to go back to BLACK WIDOW now. This is a different kind of noir because it is geared to the upper class movie goers. .... But now Nunnally Johnson was giving audiences a more sophisticated type of product, the kind that could be appreciated by people with advanced degrees. So this is another way movies are changing-- they are being niche marketed to people of certain economic classes and educational backgrounds.* Well, this has always gone on, with movies geared for certain audiences. In the 50s, the main niche marketing was to teenagers, with many of the movies about rebels, as well as rock an roll and sci-fi, bringing kids to movie balconies and drive-ins.

*A lot of noir in the late 1940s and early 1950s probably appealed to people with high school diplomas.* And to Francois Truffaut and other French critics . . ..

*But you say don't watch Gwenn in Foreign Correspondent. In fact, that's one of the things Hitchcock does -- fools us by taking an actor who signifies goodness and sweetness and makes him an assassin.* Well, FC came out some 5 years or so before MIRACLE.... Gwenn was not then someone signifying goodness and sweetness. That's us looking back at him in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, APARTMENT FOR PEGGY, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, MR. 880, etc. all of which postdate FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. *Back to BS: Dare I inject Bette Davis into this: Mildred is NOT Charlotte (twice) is NOT Empress Carlota is NOT Baby Jane is NOT Henriette, etc. It's NOT the same dame.* I always liked, and agree with, the statement by a classic movie writer, who stated something along the lines of "While Stanwyck was never as good as Bette Davis at her best, she was not nearly as bad as Davis at her worst". I love Bette Davis, but Davis' mannerisms permeate all of her films from the late 30s on. Edited by: Arturo on Dec 28, 2012 12:54 AM