…and its famous Engine No. 3, which is said to be “the most
frequently filmed locomotive in the world.”
(That’s my husband waving at the camera.)
Engine No. 3
Although the engine is sometimes “dressed” for specific
periods, its familiar No. 3 can be spotted in many films. Just the other day my
husband was watching a Western and called me in for a look at Engine No. 3! It’s pictured on these park brochures.
There’s a small museum which details some of the railroad’s
movie history.
Among the many films shot at Railtown were The Virginian
(1929), Sierra Passage (1950), The Cimarron Kid (1952), Kansas
Pacific (1953), The Return of Jack Slade (1955), The Big Land
(1957), Man of the West (1958), and The Long Riders (1980). That list is just a small handful of the movie
and TV titles shot there over nearly a century.
The museum includes a poster for one of the most famous
movies filmed at Railtown, High
Noon (1952).
There’s a dusty roundhouse which holds several more train
engines and passenger cars.
We took a Sierra Railway train trip which lasted a little
under an hour…
…and saw scenery which has appeared in countless Westerns!
From Railtown we went on to nearby Columbia State Historic Park. Columbia was a Gold Rush town whose authentic
Western streets later appeared in many movies and TV shows.
Columbia State Historic Park
That’s my husband Doug beginning our exploration of Columbia;
he’s holding a sheaf of screen shots he put together from movies filmed in the
town.
There’s plenty of Western atmosphere in town, including a
stagecoach.
Using the screenshots my husband had prepared, we were able
to find Columbia locations for a handful of movies, including the Hopalong
Cassidy film Rustlers’ Valley (1937) and the Randolph Scott film Rage
at Dawn (1955). Rage at Dawn also filmed a robbery sequence on the
Sierra Railway.
Below are a couple of the locations we found for Rustlers’
Valley. Hoppy was here!
These are some of the buildings we found which appear in Rage
at Dawn. I’ve included our rough-looking screenshots for comparison.
This was my first visit to this part of the state, and I
hope there will be many more such trips in the future.
The photographs accompanying this article are from the author’s personal collection.
…
– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
Mankind dreamed of going to the moon and
flying through the stars long before the actual rocket ships were invented. And
at the turn of the 20th century, these dreams had a distinct tinge of Victorian
whimsy. Poetry, fantasy stories, and the popular stage traditions of musical
extravaganzas and “fairy plays”–which often emphasized spectacle rather
than storylines–would directly influence some of our earliest science fiction
films. And what better examples could there be than the films of George Méliès?
Starting in the late 1890s, Méliès made
several motion pictures involving either trips to outer space or fanciful
depictions of the stars and planets. With their charming hand-painted sets,
careful in-camera effects and hand-operated props, they contain some of the
most iconic imagery of the earliest years of cinema.
The Astronomer’s Dream (1898)
After becoming enraptured by motion pictures
while attending one of the Lumière brothers’ famed 1895 showings in Paris,
Georges Méliès soon became a filmmaker himself. Starting in 1896, he began
incorporating his own films into his Paris stage shows. These were very brief
an heavy on simple special effects, such as stopping and restarting the camera
to make characters disappear or transform at will.
Soon Méliès was experimenting with longer,
more elaborate stories, starting with The Haunted Castle (1896) and the
lost The Laboratory of Mephistopheles (1897). The Astronomer’s Dream (1898)
was the third of these lengthier films, running about three minutes long today.
In the film, which is apparently set in a
vaguely-medieval era, we see a bearded astronomer (played by Méliès himself)
studying his books. He’s in his castle-like observatory complete with a
gigantic telescope, all brought to life through the magic of trompe-l’œil
painting. The devil appears in a puff of smoke, but then a moon goddess (which
may be Diana) appears and banishes him. Struck by inspiration, the astronomer
draws a globe and the moon on the board, but to his surprise the drawings start
coming to life. When he attempts to study the moon through the telescope it
appears in his observatory as a giant grinning face–and eats the telescope!
Other oddities keep occurring, culminating with the reappearances of the devil,
the moon goddess who defeats him once and for all, and the grinning oversized
moon.
The Astronomer’s Dream was based on a sketch Méliès created for his stage magic show.
Apparently the original print divided it into three parts: 1) L’observatoire;
2) La Lune; and 3) Phœbé. “Phoebe” was one of the Greek goddesses and her name
was sometimes used as an epithet for moon goddesses like Diana. Méliès, along
with other artists and filmmakers at the time, often incorporated mythological
references into their work, and audiences would’ve been very familiar with
them.
A Trip to the Moon (1902)
Méliès’s most famous film as well as one of
the most famous films of all time, the roughly fifteen-minute A Trip to the
Moon followed the adventures of several scientists as they embarked on a
rocket expedition to the moon–a grinning, blinking, papier-mâché moon, to be
precise. To audiences at the time, “the moon” didn’t merely have to be a rocky
orb but a poetic concept, an unattainable dreamworld where any strange
landscape or fantastical creature could be possible. Thus, Méliès’s scientists
(named Professor Barbenfouillis, Nostradamus, Alcofrisbas, Omega, Micromegas,
and Parafaragaramus, if you’d like to know) find a magical forest of giant
mushrooms, encounter a race of alien beings (called the Selenites), and see the
stars and planets visualized as beautiful women. Original prints were
beautifully hand-tinted, bringing out the details of each set’s elaborate
compositions.
Today, with its aliens and its stubby rocket
ship, A Trip to the Moon is usually given the title of “first science
fiction film.” While technically other space-themed films came first, Méliès
did hit a kind of artistic jackpot with this short, creating images that stick
with us while dozens of others from 1900s films can fade.
The Merry Frolics of Satan (1906)
This modern-at-the-time take on the
Mephistopheles legend follows the comic story of engineer William Crackford and
his assistant, who are planning a trip around the world. They’re invited to the
laboratory of Alcofrisbas, who has the power to move and transform objects.
Alcofrisbas cooks up some magical pills that grant wishes when you hurl them to
the floor, and Crackford gets so excited that he signs a contract for the pills
immediately. Naturally it turns out that he’s sold his soul to Mephistopheles
(who is of course played by Méliès himself). The Merry Frolics of Satan is
the English title, but the original French title literally translated as The
400 Tricks of the Devil.
Unabashed, Crackford and his assistant head
out on their excursion in a magical train. They encounter Mephistopheles again
and flee in a horse and buggy, but it gets transformed into an “infernal
carriage” pulled by a strange, skeletal horse represented by a whimsical giant
puppet. They’re chased to the summit of a volcano where an eruption blows their
carriage into space, and they continue their bizarre journey among
brilliantly-colored stars and planets. Even more dreamlike than A Trip to
the Moon, Merry Frolics was apparently intended to be part of a
stage play, Les Pilules
du diable, which
explains at least some of its fearless use of whimsey.
Eclipse: The Courtship of the Sun and
Moon (1907)
In 1907 Méliès blended whimsey with a
surprising bit of naughtiness to give his take on a scientific phenomenon. At
least some scenes were apparently filmed for a Paris cabaret. We see a group of
rather stuffy medieval astronomers, individual telescopes in hand, gather in a
castle to watch a solar eclipse. The sun is shown as a grinning, devil-like
face, while the moon is a “dainty Diana,” as film catalogues would describe.
The sun and moon are shown sliding closer and closer, making suggestive winks
and even licking their lips, until the sun slips behind the moon. More goofy,
naughty expressions ensue.
Following the eclipse we’re treated to visions
of the stars, visualized as mythological figures and beautiful women, a
highlight being the well-known shot of a comet portrayed by actress
Mademoiselle Bodson. The sight of all these wonders excite one of the
astronomers so much that he topples out of the castle, landing in a
fortunately-placed rain barrel.
These little, supposedly more “primitive”
Méliès films were all a long way from today’s technical space expedition films
or detailed fantasy worlds. Yet unlike more than a few of these modern special
effects extravaganzas, their imaginative imagery has managed to endure.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
Stranger than Fiction – Part 2 (Leon Ames and Ruth Roman)
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Mark Twain once informed
us, “but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth
isn’t.”
This month’s Noir Nook serves up the next installment in my series
that looks at “stranger than fiction” lives of actors and actresses from the
noir era. This time around, I’m taking a look at two performers: Leon Ames and
Ruth Roman.
Leon Ames
When you think of Leon Ames, do you envision the authoritative
patriarch of the Smith clan in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)? Or maybe Doris
Day’s father in On Moonlight Bay (1951) and By the Light of the
Silvery Moon (1953)? Not me. In my book, Ames’s standout roles were the
calculating attorneys he played in two first-rate noirs, The Postman
Always Rings Twice (1946) and Angel Face (1953). He
also contributed memorably to three additional films from the era: Lady in
the Lake (1947), The Velvet Touch (1948), and Scene
of the Crime (1949).
The Postman Always Rings Twice, Leon Ames and Hume Cronyn
Away from the silver screen, Ames opened a Studio City Ford
dealership in the mid-1940s that he later expanded into one of the largest
automobile franchises in the west. It was this successful business that indirectly
led to the actor’s real-life stranger than fiction encounter.
The incident began on the morning of February 12, 1964, when
21-year-old Lynn Wayne Benner – later described as handsome and “cool as a
cucumber” – forced his way inside the Ames home, held the actor and his wife,
Christine, at gunpoint, and demanded $50,000. Also held captive was a
houseguest, Herbert Baumgarteker, who was visiting the Ames family. Ames later
told reporters that he pretended to be sick, planning to try and grab Benner’s
gun, but “then I realized that was silly.”
Instead, Ames played it safe and contacted Ralph Williams,
the manager of his Encino dealership, instructing his employee to bring the
money to his home. While they were waiting for Williams to arrive, Ames later
recalled, Benner “drank six cups of coffee and he smoked all my cigarettes. [And
my] bulldog just sat there licking the guy’s hands.”
When Williams arrived with the money, Ames was bound with
surgical tape and Benner locked Benner and Baumbarteker in the trunk of Ames’s
car. Benner then drove off in his own car, with Christine Ames as a hostage.
But he didn’t get far. Before arriving with the cash, Williams had tipped off a
bank manager, who’d notified police, and Benner was stopped by police just a
few blocks from the Ames house. Also arrested was Benner’s wife, Patricia
Louise, who was waiting in a car nearby. In the vehicle with her was the
Benners’s three-year-old daughter.
“I was frightened,” Christine Ames said later. “When he saw
the police closing in, he pushed the gun into my side. I said, ‘Please don’t do
that.’ He dropped it and put his hands up. . . . He didn’t look like the type
at all. I told him so.”
Benner later pleaded guilty to the robbery-kidnapping and
was sentenced to life in prison. His probation report indicated that Ames and
his wife had promised to communicate with Benner in prison “in order to
encourage him to become a useful citizen.”
By the way, a few hours after the traumatic incident came to
an end, Leon Ames was able to make light of his experience, telling the press:
“I’ve played a lot of these parts before.”
Ruth Roman
In the shadowy realm of noir, Ruth Roman is probably best known
for her role as Farley Granger’s fiancée in Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on
a Train (1951), and the distaff half of a murderous married couple in The
Window (1949). She also left her mark in several other noirs, including the
Bette Davis starrer Beyond the Forest (1949) and Tomorrow is Another
Day (1951).
Strangers on a Train, Ruth Roman
But in the summer of 1956, Roman was on the pages of
newspapers nationwide for more than just reviews for her movie performances. In
July, she was traveling from Italy with her three-year-old son, Dickie, via the
SS Andrea Doria luxury liner. On the evening of July 25th, Dickie was in
bed in the family’s stateroom and Roman was reportedly dancing in the ship’s first-class
lounge as the ship sailed through a thick fog. Suddenly, Roman later recalled,
she “heard a big explosion, like a firecracker.” But it was no firecracker. The
sound she heard was caused by a collision between the Andrea Doria and the
MS Stockholm off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The Stockholm
struck the Andrea Doria on its starboard side, causing the ship to
list heavily and rendering many of its lifeboats inaccessible.
Seeing smoke coming from the area near her cabin, Roman
removed her high heels and found her way to her son, telling him that they were
going on a picnic. Meanwhile, numerous boats and ships headed for the area to
assist, including a United Fruit freighter, a Navy transport, and the SS Ile
de France. With rescue efforts underway, Dickie was lowered into a lifeboat
by a seaman, and Roman began climbing down a rope ladder – but when she was
only halfway down, her son’s lifeboat pulled away. She was put on another
lifeboat and wound up on the nearby Ile de France, while Dickie was
taken to the Stockholm. The mother and son were reunited in New York; a
total of 46 passengers and five crew died aboard the Andrea Doria –
Roman and Dickie were among the 760 survivors.
Ruth Roman reunited with her son Dickie
And despite her frightening experience, Roman didn’t avoid
shipboard travel – just four months later, she was aboard a Norwegian freighter
called the Beranger, travelling with her soon-to-be husband, talent
agent Bud Moss.
Stay tuned for the next entry in the Noir Nook’s look at noir performers with lives that were Stranger Than Fiction!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
Horror films to Celebrate National Classic Movie Day
The “national day” trend of recent years can be fun. National Doughnut Day (June 5) is something I celebrate every day, but I do take advantage of doughnut specials offered for this day. National Go Barefoot Day (June 1) is a big no for me (I always wear my socks), but you can go ahead and take off yours if you must.
Then there’s National Classic Movie Day (May 16), a date that has been gaining international recognition over the past few years since it was created by Classic Movie Blog Association founder Rick Armstrong. While I celebrate classic movies daily, this is a great excuse to talk about them with friends who don’t share my enthusiasm and share suggestions of my favorites.
As you would expect, many of the films I see are classic horror. I don’t watch much that’s new because they are too graphic, too creepy, too realistic for me. I believe in the evil of possessed dolls like Annabelle and haunted houses like the Conjuring franchise because they’re based on true events! Devils and exorcisms scare the heck out of me – don’t event talk about them. (For the record, I don’t watch the masterful 1973 William Friedkin film The Exorcist either.) I have tried to watch The Curse of La Llorona because a sequel was filmed recently in my hometown of Buffalo, but the creepy trailer is too much for me.
One of the giant ants towers over people in Them!, one of the greatest of the big-bug movies.
Others can celebrate those newer films for National Horror
Movie Day on Oct. 23, a date that is visionary horror director Sam Raimi’s
birthday and works as a lead-up to Halloween. Meanwhile, I will share the classic
horror films that are a part of my DNA for National Classic Movie Day.
* * * * *
Where did my preoccupation with classic horror movies come from? There’s the family “legend” that my parents saw a Peter Cushing–Christopher Lee film when Mom was pregnant with me. They always joked that’s why I was so obsessed with horror films growing up. While that’s a fun story, that’s not why.
Nothing gets the imagination going like the giant crab attack in Mysterious Island.
We know our movie interests are often related to what we watched
with our family growing up. Well, Dad fed me a steady diet of horror movies. Universal
Monsters, science-fiction films and giant creatures were my early education. While
my parents were careful of what I watched (I will always remember not
being allowed to see Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, which in retrospect was
a good thing) they understood these films spurred my imagination.
There were two qualities about our favorite films: they had
low budgets and giant creatures. Give us giant everything! Nothing was sacred
or safe from becoming super-sized, usually from a well-meaning scientist trying
to help humanity or nuclear testing.
The giant title creature of my nightmares approaches a house in Tarantula.
A benevolent scientist trying to solve world hunger created the giant arachnid In Tarantula (1955), our all-time favorite. No matter how many times we watched it (too numerous to remember), Dad always reminded me to look for those few seconds when Clint Eastwood appeared as the jet pilot. He loved to share that trivia. Tarantula gave me nightmares as a kid that a house-sized arachnid would crush our home, but I still watched – as I do today.
Then there was Ray Harryhausen’s giant octopus in It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955). The beast was so large that it could wrap itself around the Golden Gate Bridge as thousands ran to escape its lengthy tentacles. Not everyone succeeded.
It was exciting to watch the giant ants in Them!. That high-pitched sound signaling they were nearby remains effective. More trivia: the fact that James Whitmore had Buffalo connections was always mentioned. (He was born in White Plains, N.Y., but went to school here so that counts.)
The attention-grabbing (not for a good reason) big hand in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.
The giant people movies weren’t as interesting as the big-bug films but we watched. The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) reminded me too much of Mr. Clean in TV commercials. Those pedicured paper-mache hands of the title character in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman (1958) aren’t the greatest, but they are attention grabbing.
The ultimate Ruberto family
favorite that has been passed down for generations is Mysterious Island (1961). This adaptation of
the Jules Verne novel has the unforgettable giant triumvirate of an oversized
crab, chicken and bees. One after another they would appear on screen, delighting
us while they threatened the characters. We knew the film so well that we would
look at each other in anticipation right before the big creatures appeared. The
thought of being caught in the crab’s claw still gives me chills. And I must
admit to devising plans to escape from a giant honeycomb – because you just
never know when you’ll need to do that.
On the wall in my home are two prized possessions: My Mysterious Island DVD cover autographed by Ray Harryhausen and the drawing done by a nephew of us watching the film.
We were excited to introduce my twin nephews to “Mysterious Island” and it became a family weekend tradition. Years later, we introduced their kids to the film. One nephew drew a picture of the DVD cover that I still have hanging on a wall. His younger brother, who recently graduated college, still mentions “the giant crab” movie and smiles. In a time when CGI controls our movies – and our imaginations – that speaks volumes about the enduring power of the classics.
* * *
* *
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee fight the terror aboard The Horror Express.
For National Classic Movie Day, here are three topics worth exploring.
Watch a Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee collaboration. While they individually starred in an impressive 200-plus movies, it was the 22 films Cushing and Lee teamed up in that made them horror icons. Begin at the beginning with Curse of Frankenstein(1957). It was their first collaboration and the first in a string of four eclectic films they made over two years for Hammer, all directed by Terence Fisher: Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula (1958), Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) and The Mummy (1959). They are all well worth watching. I also recommend Horror Express (1972), a fun movie with a morbid sense of humor that finds Cushing and Lee working together (at times) to fend off the terror on a train. (There will be brain surgery and one of my favorite film quotes: “The brain has been drained. The memory removed like chalk from a blackboard.”)
Vincent Price fights off the zombie/vampires in Last Man on Earth, based on a Richard Matheson novel.
Take your pick of a Vincent Price film – or two. Price may be synonymous with horror, but his roles were surprisingly varied. Watch him as the wronged sculptor going to extremes to replicate his Marie Antoinette in House of Wax(1953, see it in 3D if possible); as the millionaire having fun in William Castle’s entertaining House on Haunted Hill(1959); and the sympathetic main character in the tragic vampire/zombie film The Last Man on Earth(1964). Finally, you may be surprised to learn that Price was a Universal monster, playing the title character in The Invisible Man Returns (1940).
Michael Redgrave and friend in a creepy segment from the horror anthology Dead of Night.
Get more with an anthology. Why watch one movie when you can get three or more in the same film that are boosted with impressive star power? Twice Told Tales(1963) showcases three short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne.Black Sabbath(1963) is a three-part anthology from horror master Mario Bava with Boris Karloff. Twice Told Tales (1963) has three short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Amicus film The House That Dripped Blood(1971) shares the fate of inhabitants of a British cottage and stars Cushing and Lee. In Dead of Night(1945), a man insists he knows the strangers in an old house who each has a story to tell. The most famous of the tales is the unforgettable The Ventriloquist’s Dummy, starring Michael Redgrave and his creepy doll.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at
The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a
member and board chair of the Classic Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of
the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo
Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old
movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your
Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto or on Bluesky at
@watchingforever.bsky.social
They say
good help is hard to find, but Gary Cooper’s frontier marshal in High Noon
(1952) experiences a life and death example of how difficult it is to get
people to show up for you, even when it’s in their own best interest to do so.
The iconic Western has long provoked debate about its political message, which
originated in the era of McCarthyism and screenwriter Carl Foreman’s
confrontation with the House Un-American Activities Committee, and most fans of
the Western genre already know that John Wayne and Howard Hawks so disliked the
themes of High Noon that they made Rio Bravo (1959) as a direct
rebuttal. Despite such well-noted disapproval, High Noon has aged
beautifully and still offers a powerful narrative about how willingly “good”
people abandon their obligations to one another when standing up means facing
certain danger. It asks us, as viewers, to examine our own commitment to our
principles and community and honestly consider what we would do if Will Kane
came knocking on our doors to ask us for help in a desperate time.
We first see Will Kane (Gary Cooper) and Amy (Grace Kelly) at their wedding, but their happiness will not last even for an hour.
Cooper
plays the aging Marshal Will Kane, looking rather worse for wear and preparing
to hang up his gun as he weds a much younger Quaker bride, Amy (Grace Kelly),
on a hot Sunday morning in the frontier town of Hadleyville. News comes that a
dangerous outlaw, Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), is out of prison and arriving
on the noon train that very day to avenge himself against Kane and everyone
else he blames for his arrest. Kane’s friends urge him to leave town with Amy
immediately, but Kane realizes that they will never be safe as long as Miller
has a score to settle, and he returns to town with hope of raising the local
men to stand with him against Miller’s violent gang. Unfortunately, nobody
seems to share Kane’s concerns, and as noon draws near it looks like Kane will
have to stand alone against four ruthless killers.
When newlyweds leave town in order to escape before the noon train brings Frank Miller, the decision doesn’t sit well with Kane.
The
narrative probes the nature of courage and cowardice through Kane’s
interactions with his fellow citizens, showing us different facets of both
traits. Kane himself is no glib action hero; he is a man past his prime, ready
for peace and family life, and all too aware of the odds against him in an
unfair fight against Miller’s gang. When he makes out his will just before
noon, it’s clear that he does not expect to survive the hour, but that doesn’t
stop him from doing what he feels is both necessary and right, even though the
people he thought were his friends have abandoned him. His brash, ambitious
deputy, Harvey (Lloyd Bridges), would rather fight with Kane than help him, and
his mentor, Martin (Lon Chaney Jr.), pleads age and arthritis as his excuse.
The same friends who stood with Kane at his wedding mere minutes before betray
him. Sam Fuller (Harry Morgan) makes his wife lie to Kane about being at home,
while the mayor (Thomas Mitchell) first praises Kane and then condemns him when
Kane disrupts the Sunday morning church service looking for volunteers. Some of
the townspeople at the church argue on Kane’s behalf, but none of them actually
join him, and his only successful recruit eventually backs out when no other
volunteers appear. They have plenty of excuses for their behavior, and they
point a lot of fingers, but they waste Kane’s precious minutes with their
useless words. Only a few individuals show themselves to be worthy of Kane’s
regard, even if they are the least suited to the task at hand. A grizzled,
half-blind drunk and a teenager both beg Kane to let them help, but Kane knows
neither of them would survive the fight. Kane’s former lover, Helen (Katy
Jurado), can’t protect him, but she despises the town for its cowardice and
urges Amy to fight for her man. Luckily for Kane, Amy ultimately takes Helen’s
advice, even though her Quaker faith opposes violence.
Helen (Katy Jurado) doesn’t think much of her current lover, Harvey (Lloyd Bridges), especially when he behaves childishly about Kane.
The
citizens of Hadleyville offer all kinds of justifications for their cowardice,
but the most specious is that this is not their fight, that it’s a private
matter between Kane and Miller that doesn’t concern them. We know from the church
debate that Miller’s gang once made Hadleyville unsafe for women and children,
and we see at the train depot at the very beginning that men also fear Miller’s
lackeys. Like Helen, we viewers can see that the town’s failure to support Kane
now will mean the collapse of the whole community, with Miller and his friends returning
the town to a violent, drunken state of chaos where lawless men are free to
wreak havoc. The townspeople obey Miller’s will in advance out of fear that he
will turn his wrath on them; they see him as an unbeatable strong man with
armed thugs to do his bidding, and they refuse to risk their immediate safety
to protect Kane or their own long-term survival. Although he is a marshal, Kane
never presents himself as a figure of unquestionable authority just because he
wears a badge. He does not issue commands because he understands himself to be
a public servant and a member of the community, and Kane’s ethical perspective
of the law also means that he cannot preempt it by arresting Miller’s gang
before they actually commit any crimes. Over the course of the film, which
unfolds in real time as the omnipresent clocks tick toward noon, Kane’s
increasingly haggard looks convey not only his grief at facing death but his
disillusionment as he comes to realize how little his supposed friends are
willing to risk to help him or save themselves from a grim future under
Miller’s rule. Because of their cowardice, High Noon has one of the
unhappiest happy endings you’ll ever see in a film, but it challenges us to be
better than the people of Hadleyville when the call for help comes to us, lest
we betray the ideals we claim to cherish and the people who most embody them.
If we let the Will Kanes of our own time be gunned down, there will be no one
left to protect us when we inevitably become targets of the same violent men.
Kane hopes that his lifelong friend and father figure, Martin (Lon Chaney Jr.), will offer him useful assistance, but Martin is bitterly disillusioned.
As a
result of his refusal to cooperate with HUAC officials, screenwriter Carl
Foreman was blacklisted in Hollywood and left the United States for England,
where he wrote a screenplay draft for The Bridge on the River Kwai
(1957). He later wrote and produced The Key (1958), The Guns of
Navarone (1961), and Mackenna’s Gold (1969). Gary Cooper won the
Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Will Kane, and the picture also won
Academy Awards for Editing, Score, and Song. For more from director Fred
Zinnemann, see From Here to Eternity (1953), Oklahoma! (1955),
and A Man for All Seasons (1966). If you appreciate the way composer
Dimitri Tiomkin uses the theme song, with lyrics sung by Tex Ritter, throughout
the picture, listen to his other Western scores in Red River (1948), Gunfight
at the O.K. Corral (1957), and Rio Bravo (1959). High Noon is
often included in lists of revisionist and psychological Westerns, so try
pairing it with other, similarly thoughtful films like The Ox-Bow Incident
(1943), The Gunfighter (1950), Shane (1953), or 3:10 to Yuma
(1957).
It’s time for another of my periodic tributes to Western
filmmakers through sharing visits to their final resting places.
This is one of the ways I reflect on what each person’s work
has contributed to the Western genre, giving all of us many happy hours of
entertainment.
On Easter Sunday this year I paid a visit to Forest Lawn
Hollywood Hills, where by pure chance I stumbled across the grave of the great
Western screenwriter Borden Chase. A
special plaque on a nearby wall called my attention to his gravesite.
Borden Chase wrote the screenplays for some of the greatest
Westerns ever made, including Red River (1948), Winchester ’73
(1950), Bend of the River (1952), and The Far Country (1954).
I’ve written about many of his films here over the years, including listing Bend
of the River as one of my all-time favorite Westerns in my very
first post here, back in 2018. I also wrote about a TCM Classic Film
Festival screening
of Winchester ’73 in 2019.
Actor David Carradine is also at Forest Lawn Hollywood
Hills. His entire family has quite a legacy in Westerns, including his father
John appearing in John Ford’s classic Stagecoach (1939). David’s Western
work included appearing with his brothers Keith and Robert in The Long
Riders (1980), in which David played Cole Younger. Robert, who was a
regular guest at the Lone Pine Film Festival, sadly passed away earlier this
year.
Another actor who played Cole Younger was Frank Lovejoy, who
starred in the title role in Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958). Lovejoy, a prominent radio actor along with
starring in movies, also appeared in the Westerns Black Bart (1948) and The
Charge at Feather River (1953). Sadly, Lovejoy was only 50 when he died
unexpectedly of a heart attack. He’s buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver
City, California, alongside his wife, actress Joan Banks. Joan appeared in a
small handful of TV Western episodes.
Another highly regarded screenwriter, Nunnally Johnson,
whose remains are interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park, wrote several
Westerns, including Jesse James (1939), Along Came Jones (1945),
and The Gunfighter (1950).
Johnson’s wife Dorris Bowdon, who is memorialized at his
final resting place, had a brief screen career, including appearing in three
John Ford films, one of which was The Grapes of Wrath (1940).
The Grapes of Wrath was written by Bowdon’s husband
and costarred David Carradine’s father John.
Bowdon and Carradine were also both in Ford’s Revolutionary War era Drums
Along the Mohawk (1939), set on the New York frontier. As readers of past
Final Resting Places columns may have noticed, there are endless connections to
be found among the classic era filmmakers remembered here.
Tyrone Power’s leading lady in Jesse James (1939),
written by Nunnally Johnson, was Nancy Kelly; she is memorialized on a plaque
at Westwood Village Memorial Park. Kelly won a Tony Award for the Broadway
production of The Bad Seed (1955) and was the older sister of Jack
Kelly, who starred as Bart Maverick on TV’s Maverick.
Robert Lowery – who coincidentally made at least one film
with Nancy Kelly — was a busy working actor for three decades ahead of his
early passing in 1971, aged 58. Lowery
appeared in numerous “B” Westerns alongside stars such as Don “Red” Barry and “Wild
Bill” Elliott, including I Shot Billy the Kid (1950) and The
Homesteaders (1953). Later in his career Lowery appeared in some of the
‘60s “Geezer Westerns” produced by A.C. Lyles, who I wrote about in a column
last year. Robert Lowery is buried at Valhalla Memorial Park in North
Hollywood, California.
Another veteran of Lyles’ “Geezer Westerns” was Bill
Williams, who is buried at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills under his real name,
Herman A. W. Katt. Williams had a long
career in Westerns, including The Cariboo Trail (1950), a Randolph Scott
film which I wrote about here 2020.
He met his wife, actress Barbara Hale, when they filmed the “B” Western West
of the Pecos (1945), which starred a young Robert Mitchum.
As of my last visit to Forest Lawn, Barbara Hale’s gravesite
alongside her husband was unmarked, as seen above. Hale, best known as a star of TV’s Perry
Mason, appeared in many Westerns, including The Lone Hand (1953)
with Joel McCrea, which I wrote about here
after it was shown at McCrea Ranch in 2023.
Williams and Hale’s three children include actor William Katt (The
Greatest American Hero).
In 2019
I included Hale’s Perry Mason costar William Talman in my column on
“Unexpected Western Leads” thanks to his role in the enjoyable Two-Gun Lady
(1955), which costarred Peggie Castle and Marie Windsor. Talman also appeared with Dana Andrews in Smoke
Signal (1955).
Our final visit in this column honors character actor Griff Barnett, whose film career began with the serial The Lone Ranger (1938). Over the course of his 20-year career Barnett appeared in a great many Westerns of all types, with favorites including Cattle Drive (1951) and The Duel at Silver Creek (1952). His 1954 appearance in a Lone Ranger TV episode brought his career rather “full circle”! Barnett is buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California.
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
In 1927, cinema was famously experiencing a
time of transition from the silent to talkies, kickstarted by the popularity of
Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927). Directors and stars would soon be
faced with a decision, whether deliberate or inadvertent: which silent would be
their last before the move to recorded sound? Would they be lucky enough to
make a final silent film worthy of praise in that uncertain time? In Lillian
Gish’s case her final silent did not seem like a triumph at first, thanks to
being a flop at the box office in spite of some critical praise. But its
reputation would grow steadily over time, and today it’s widely considered one
of the great masterpieces of the late 1920s.
One of the silent era’s top American
actresses, Gish had left the stage in 1912 to act in Biograph films along with
her sister Dorothy. The two would work closely with director D.W. Griffith for
a number of years, especially the dedicated and driven Lillian, who some would
consider Griffith’s “muse.” As the industry began to change in the 1920s, Gish
would star in The White Sister (1923) for Metro, which soon became part
of the brand-new MGM studio. She would remain with the prestigious MGM until
the end of the silent era.
Gish had considerable influence on her
pictures at MGM, being known for her dedication to artistry. She would even
turn down a $1 million-per-picture deal in favor of getting a percentage of
film profits, wanting to ensure more of the budget would go towards hiring
talented writers and actors. It was her idea to make The Wind, based on
a dramatic novel by Dorothy Scarborough. It told the story of a young woman who
goes to live on a ranch in the Texas plains that’s plagued with constant wind.
She marries a Texan out of necessity and also fends off advances from a
different man, all while the blasting wind slowly drives her mad. The gritty
setting and elements of psychological horror excited Gish’s imagination, and The
Wind would go into production in late April of 1927.
Lillian on location.
The distinguished Swedish director Victor
Sjöström was hand-picked by Gish for the new project. She had previously worked
with him on The Scarlet Letter (1926) and had been impressed by his
meticulous nature and encouragement of subtle acting. One of her co-stars was
be Lars Hansen, another Swedish import who was also a co-star from The
Scarlet Letter–The Wind was very much a reunion of several fine talents.
The Australian-born Dorothy Cumming and frequent screen villain Montagu Love
rounded out the rest of the cast.
Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson.
Much of the film was shot in the Mojave
desert, which even in the spring was growing unbearably hot. By the time
shooting ended in late June temps were nearing 120 degrees and the completed
film reels had to be frozen to keep the coating from melting. Gish would
remember the shoot as the most difficult one she had ever experienced, even
more difficult than the icy river scenes in Way Down East (1920).
Crewmembers had to wear tall boots to guard against rattlesnakes and goggles to
protect their eyes from blowing sand. But the actors were not always so lucky.
To simulate the blasting Texas winds, eight airplane propellers were brought in
and sawdust and pots of sulphur helped add to the illusion of billowing sand.
Gish recalled the sulphur nearly ruining her hair and being constantly worried
about getting blinded by blowing debris.
Fortunately, all the hardships resulted in a
stunningly memorable film. Sjöström magnificently blended the psychological
aspects of the drama with the film’s harsh natural surroundings and rustic
buildings. The wind is as much of a character as Letty or Lars Hansen’s Lige,
its relentless blasts echoing the characters’ inner turmoils and desires. The
exceptionally strong “norther” wind is represented by a ghostly horse during
the film’s most dramatic moments, an effect that can be nearly sublime.
Gish, of course, handled the tragic aspects of
the story with her renowned skill. In some scenes, such as a frightening moment
where she peers through a window, her emotions were conveyed entirely through
her eyes. These skills were well-matched with Sjöström’s thoughtful “show,
don’t tell” touches, such as a scene where different shots show Letty and
Lige’s feet pacing the floor just before a dramatic moment.
One bit of trivia about The Wind turned
out to be folklore. Gish would always recall that they filmed an ending that
was faithful to the novel, showing the heroine running out into the sandstorm
and being whirled away by the wind. She would say that MGM insisted on shooting
a happier ending, certain that audiences would be turned off. Apparently no
such tragic ending was actually shot, possibly pointing to a lapse in Gish’s
memory. In any case, the happier ending may seem trite at first glance but may
have been considered more modern at the time, if a little cliched.
The Wind received
a decent amount of critical praise but produced little box office luster in the
U.S. Most audiences were already intrigued by the new talkies and silents were
starting to look passé. Gish would leave MGM after The Wind’s financial
disappointment and in subsequent years she would start to favor the stage over
the movies. But her masterpiece would truly stand the test of time. We know
today that the late 1920s produced some of the era’s finest silent films, and
while it would take many years for that fact to be recognized, The Wind is
now considered an unmissable highlight of the silent era. Lillian was–and
likely still is–justly proud.
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
Diving into ‘The Monster That Challenged the World’
Oh, the horrors of 1950s B-movies. And I’m not talking scary good, but scary bad.
So many of the creative ideas for monsters were never realized because of low budgets and ridiculously short shooting schedules. Viewers accept that the creatures in these films might look cheap and even laughable, perhaps because that’s considered part of the charm.
But sometimes a low-budget creature can be interesting enough to grab your attention. That’s what happened when I saw photos of the title creature in The Monster That Challenged the World (1957).
The creature rises from the ocean in The Monster That Challenged the World.
It was a giant slug with two big eyes and was surprisingly intriguing. I can’t put my finger on why it looked interesting instead of cheap or ridiculous, but it did. So I went with my gut, watched the film and wasn’t disappointed. Even the writing surprised me in a good way with a touch of humor, characters with some depth and the many tropes we love from ‘50s horror films.
The Monster That Challenged the World follows the horror B-movie formula: An opening narration to set the scene, some type of research/experiments, natural disaster, mysterious deaths and a plucky group of officials and townsfolk who will save the world. Lest not forget grand proclamations which, in this film, include “I’ve never seen anything like this!” and my favorite, “From the moment they’re born, they’re hungry!!” Cue the dramatic music and the warning for humanity. This is why we love these films.
That opening voice-over is usually done by a deep-voiced narrator who holds our attention with his serious tone. Not here. This guy speaks in an odd monotone like a school principal making an announcement on the loudspeaker. By the end of the film, I realized the deadpan tone may have been on purpose since the movie has an unexpected dry sense of humor. (More on that later.)
A mysterious gooey substance is left behind when people go missing in The Monster That Challenged the World.
Our narrator sets the scene in Southern California at the Salton Sea, a strange (and real) phenomenon of 400 square miles of salt water in the desert. So it’s also the site of secret experiments and a Naval research base. Jump-starting the story is a small earthquake, a parachute jumper and two sailors in a patrol boat. We’ll quickly have our first three victims and plenty of questions, like what is that gooey substance on the boat?
Never fear, we’ll get answers along with talk of radioactivity, ancient waterways and prehistoric eggs that means there’s more than one creature, plus explanations of how the dead are drained of blood and water.
It even has the educational nature film scene, also common in these horror movies, where the smart guy explains what’s going on. He’s found that whatever is killing people is like a prehistoric mollusk (think snails). We see one genus, the gonaxis, that has “scissor-like teeth” to shred the flesh off its victims. They are such tiny little teeth that the gonaxis is somehow cute and creepy at the same time.
Two eyes and tiny little teeth – how cute. A nature film shown during The Monster That Challenged the World shows the small mollusk known as the gonaxis that is now growing taller than a human.
Beaches will be quarantined and patrols will roam the highways, but the body count continues. It’s up to Dr. Rogers (played by Hans Conried), Commander John Twillinger (Tim Holt) and Dr. Tad Jones (played by familiar face Max Showalter who is billed here as Casey Adams) to use their varied skills to get to the bottom of everything.
Also in the mix are Gail MacKenzie (Audrey Dalton), a widowed secretary at the research facility, and her adorable little daughter Sandy (Mimi Gibson) who just wants to spend time with the bunnies in the lab. What could go wrong? Exactly what you might expect, so be prepared for a tense scene as one of the creatures looks for its next meal.
An oversized mollusk attacks a child in this terrifying scene from The Monster That Challenged the World.
I think the creature scenes work well because they don’t show too much. We don’t see it “walking,” for example. When it shows up, it makes a statement like when it rises out of the water to tower over a boat or when one tears apart a door with its sharp teeth.
In an interview with Tom Weaver for his book Return of the B Science Fiction and Horror Heroes, producer Arthur Gardner said the creature was made by special effects man Augie Lohman. It stood about 10 feet high and weighed about 1,500 pounds. with a Fiberglas exterior. It took three men – Lohman and two assistants – to control it through a series of air pressure valves.
As tragedy strikes, Commander Twillinger (Tim Holt) softens up to others including Gail (Audrey Dalton).
Unexpected humor, even depth
Since scripts for B-horror movies are so formulaic, there’s usually not much to say about them. But screenwriter Pat Fielder has done a nice job that raises the film up a notch. Her characters have backstories and I like how Commander Twillinger lightened up from being a terse military dude in early scenes to become more patient and likeable.
There’s a low-key humor that allows viewers to smile and even laugh. Case in point is a scene at the morgue:
“The lieutenant said there was something unnatural about the condition of one of the bodies,” says a doctor.
“There was – it was shriveled,” deadpans Commander Twillinger, which made me laugh.
Wait until you meet museum archivist Lewis Clark Dobbs, played by Milton Parsons. It’s a small role that is uncredited in the film, yet it takes over the two scenes he is in. Navy officials visit the museum seeking maps of underground rivers to find more creatures. There, they meet the droll archivist who puts an odd emphasis on words as he speaks, drawing raised eyebrows.
Milton Parsons, left, plays a museum curator with a hilariously droll personality. He may be the best thing about The Monster That Challenged the World.
Credit Parsons, a character actor who played more than 150 roles, for the portrayal. But also thank Fielder who smartly gave him a running joke about the failure of “Proposition 14A” (it would have allowed the museum to add a room for maps and other documents). Dobbs repeatedly brings it up, to reinforce the fact that the museum doesn’t have maps because Proposition 14A failed.
“Every once in a while, somebody dies and leaves us a whole lot of documents for our room – the one [room] we didn’t get, you understand. Proposition 14A was defeated,” the archivist says.
I wanted more of this character, but realize too much of him would have spoiled it. He would have been a great recurring character on television sitcom.
Background and trivia
Fielder and director Arnold Laven also worked together on The Vampire (1957), The Return of Dracula (1958) and Geronimo (1962). Her name was all over television from the late 1950s through the early 1980s. She wrote multiple episodes of The Rifleman, Baretta, The Eleventh Hour and McMillan & Wife, plus the 1981 mini-series Goliath Awaits with Christopher Lee, and single episodes of everything from Starsky and Hutch to The Love Boat and B.J. and the Bear and The High Chaparral.
In 1951, Laven formed a production company with Jules V. Levy and Arthur Gardner which eventually became Levy-Gardner-Laven. He came up with the concept for the television series The Rifleman and was an executive producer on The Big Valley.
Look for Jody McCrea, son of Joel McCrea and Frances Dee, in the brief role as doomed Seaman Fred Johnson.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at
The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever and is a member
and board chair of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and led the offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs.
She is proud to have put Buffalo and its glorious old movie palaces in the
spotlight as the inaugural winner of the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can
find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto or on Bluesky at @watchingforever.bsky.social
One of my many favorite
podcasts is Front Row Classics – the host, Brandon Davis, covers a wide
variety of classic films, with a spate of first-rate guests, and in such
interesting ways. An episode I heard recently centered on villains in classic
films, and one of the characters in the spotlight was Veda, brought to life by
Ann Blyth in the 1945 classic Mildred Pierce. I’ve long seen Veda as a
villain myself – she possessed a deceptively attractive exterior that masked a
self-absorbed sociopath – but during the podcast discussion, the theory was
posited that it was Veda’s hard-working mother, Mildred (played by Oscar-winner
Joan Crawford), who made Veda the way she was.
And that gave
me pause. A long pause.
Joan Crawford and Ann Blyth, Mildred Pierce
You may already
know that Mildred Pierce is one of my top 10 noirs, and that I’m quite
fond of the film’s titular femme (and not just because she’s the divorced
mother of two girls and loves to bake! Twinning!). She’s flawed, sure, but is
she the root cause of her daughter’s villainous conduct? In this month’s Noir
Nook, I’m taking a deep dive into this notion. (And watch your step going
forward – spoilers abound!)
The film opens
with the murder of the dapper Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), and while we don’t
see the responsible party, we clearly hear Monte’s last word: “Mildred.” The
story leading up to this deadly deed is told mostly in flashback, focusing
squarely on Mildred – wife to recently unemployed Bert (Bruce Bennett), stay-at-home
mother to Veda and her younger sister, Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe), and pie-baker
extraordinaire. When Bert spends a bit too much time with the attractive neighborhood
divorcee, Mrs. Biederhof (Lee Patrick), Mildred gives him the boot, making ends
meet by working as a waitress, and later parlaying her talents in the kitchen
into a chain of popular restaurants. Others in Mildred’s sphere include her
closest friend Ida Corwin (Eve Arden); Wally Fay (Jack Carson), Bert’s former
business partner and an investor in Mildred’s restaurant business; and Mildred’s
second husband, the ill-fated Monte. And speaking of ill fates, we learn in the
film’s riveting climax that the purveyor of bullets in the first scene was none
other than Veda – who, we also discover, had been carrying on an affair with her
mom’s handsome hubby. (I told you there’d be spoilers!)
Eve Arden
But other than being
a homewrecking murderess, who is Veda, exactly? Let’s take a look.
When the movie first
flashes back, we meet Veda on her way home from school, as she and Kay watch
their father load a suitcase and an armful of clothes into his car and drive
away. Veda and Kay, incidentally, couldn’t be more different – Kay is a tomboy
who wears pigtails and plays football in the street with the neighborhood boys,
while Veda wouldn’t be caught dead in pants and exudes an air of sophistication
and superiority, even as a young teen. Within a matter of minutes, Veda gives
us three salient and revelatory clues to her personality. First, Veda snootily
informs her sister that she acts like a “peasant,” adding, “I think you ought
to take a little more pride in the way you look.” Second, Veda tells Mildred that
she’s learning a new piece from her piano teacher called “Valse Brilliante,” and
offers an imperious translation: “That means “Brilliant Waltz.” And finally,
after Mildred delivers a vague explanation for the split between her and her
husband, Veda responds, “If you mean Mrs. Biederhof, Mother, I must say my
sympathy is all with you. She’s distinctly middle class.”
Ann Blyth, Zachary Scott and Joan Crawford
These examples
are just the tip of the Veda iceberg; throughout the film, we continue to see
just what kind of person she is, even if her mother doesn’t. And we also see
the lengths to which Mildred is willing to go in her futile attempt to secure
Veda’s happiness. But the question lingers: could Mildred have chosen another
way? For one, she certainly could have called Veda on her snarky comments and
disrespectful asides, like in the scene where Mildred overhears Veda
complaining about her new dress. (“I wouldn’t be seen dead in this rag. It’s
horrible. How could she have bought me such a thing?”) Instead of getting all
in her feelings, Mildred should’ve snatched that dress off of Veda and told her
she could get a babysitting job and buy her own damn clothes. Or the scene where
Veda makes it clear that she’d want her mother to marry a man she doesn’t love
if it would result in material gain – although Mildred doesn’t let the comment
completely slide, she certainly could have been more forceful in confronting
Veda’s selfishness and illuminating the moral deficiency of her sentiments.
Instead, we seldom
see Mildred chastising Veda, questioning her motives, or exacting punishments,
except in the scene when Mildred learns that her daughter has engaged in an
extortion scheme by falsely claiming to be pregnant. She memorably orders Veda to
leave their home – “Get out before I kill you,” she tells her – and we
practically cheer. As it turns out, though, Mildred later reverts to form and,
ironically, marries a man she doesn’t love (Monte Beragon) in order to give
Veda the type of upper-crusty lifestyle she craves.
But is this
kind of behavior on Mildred’s part the cause of Veda’s villainy? In my opinion,
absolutely not.
In my view, the
relationship between Mildred and Veda is reminiscent of those cases where
someone marries a partner who has exhibited clear red flags, hoping that love
can “change” them. Mildred, I think, believes that Veda’s happiness can be
secured through material means, and that this will translate into daughterly love
and respect. But it’s not Mildred’s viewpoint and resulting actions that make
Veda who she is – nor does Mildred degrade Veda’s character by buying her a car
or installing her in a renovated mansion. Veda is simply Veda from the
beginning.
An exchange
between Mildred and Bert shines an illuminating light on this entire matter.
When Bert picks up the girls for their trip to Lake Arrowhead, Mildred explains
her plans to file for divorce – ostensibly for financial reasons and for the
sake of the children, but especially for Veda, since Kay “doesn’t need so much
thinking about.” Bert responds that Kay is “twice the girl Veda is and always
will be. She thinks you’re wonderful.” And Mildred’s reply is telling: “Maybe
that’s why I keep trying to please Veda.”
In this brief
conversation, Mildred recognizes that she is more fully valued by her younger
daughter, and that her persistent drive to win Veda’s approval shapes her actions.
Bert, for his part, demonstrates a clear-eyed understanding not only of his
daughters’ qualities but of the family dynamic as a whole, warning Mildred that
she will “always get kicked around” in her efforts to win Veda over.
One might speculate
that Veda could have wound up on a different course if Mildred had dispensed a
few more slaps, as she did in the scene where she reveals her waitressing job.
Or that Veda would have reformed if Mildred had directly challenged her
daughter about her bad behavior instead of blaming Monte’s influence and
showering Veda with more gifts. But I don’t think so. From Day One, Veda was exactly
what Mildred called her after learning about her extortion scheme – cheap and
horrible. I don’t know what took Mildred so long to acknowledge that, but I
certainly don’t think she was the cause of this flaw in Veda’s makeup. Veda’s
contempt and disrespect for her mother, and her sociopathic self-absorption,
were qualities that were present long before Mildred dispensed her first present
or overlooked her first nasty comment. (Don’t get me started on nurture vs.
nature – Kay was an absolute doll.)
And just one
more observation. Near the end of the film, where Veda is seen desperately begging
her mother not to turn her in to the police, she finally stops Mildred in her
tracks with the claim, “It’s your fault I’m the way I am.” I’m certain that
this single line can be regarded by many as a transparent truism, but not for
me. It was tossed out by Veda in a last-ditch effort to secure Mildred’s aid
following Monte’s murder, but I don’t swallow it any more than Mildred should
have. Instead, I look at another declaration offered by Veda – this one earlier
in the picture, when Mildred encounters Veda at Wally’s riverfront dive and
begs her to return home. Without missing a beat, Veda declines the offer,
telling Mildred that the way her mother wants to live “isn’t good enough” for her,
and, most significantly, affirming: “You know how I am.”
Jo Ann Marlowe, Ann Blyth and Joan Crawford
For my money,
that says it in a nutshell. Along with the viewer, Veda knows exactly how she
is. Bert does as well, and Ida. And Wally. And although it takes Mildred a long
while, eventually she, too, has to admit what kind of person she’d brought into
the world – and that there’s nothing she could do about it.
And that’s all
I have to say about that.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
…
– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
James
Saburo Shigeta was born in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, on June 17, 1929, to Satoko
Tamura Shigeta and Howard Koichi Shigeta. His father was a contractor who
immigrated from Japan.
Shigeta
was a third-generation Japanese American, graduating from President Theodore
Roosevelt High School and studying drama at New York University. When
completing ROTC, he enlisted in the Hawaii National Guard’s 258th
Infantry, ultimately enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War.
He served for two-and-a-half years, achieving the rank of Staff Sergeant.
Prior to
enlisting in 1951, he won first prize on Ted Mack’s The Original Amateur
Hour television show in 1950. He soon embarked on a singing career, teamed
with Charles K.L. Davis, a Hawaiian operatic tenor. Their agent gave them the
“non-ethnic” stage names for Guy Brion (Shigeta) and Charles Durand (Davis).
They performed at superclubs in the United States, singing at the Mocambo, Los
Angeles Players Club, and more.
During the
war, he entertained troops in California. While on the way to Korea, the
ceasefire led him to Japan. He was discharged from the Marines and hired by the
theatrical division of Japan’s Toho Studios. He did not speak Japanese until
Toho Studios invited him to be a musical star, working under his real name. He
soon became a success and was dubbed “The Frank Sinatra of Japan.”
In 1958, Tokyo’s Nichigeki Theater starred
Shigeta as the lead in their Cherry Blossom Show, bringing the show to
Australia. The production toured throughout the country and Shigeta received
many positive reviews.
Shigeta
returned to the United States to perform on The Dinah Shore Show and
later performed in Holiday in Japan at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino
in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Shigeta
made his screen debut in Crimson Kimono (1959). This role was
progressive for its time, as Shigeta, an Asian American, portrayed an Asian
American detective with typical American speech patterns, rather than a
non-Asian actor passing as Asian American and speaking in broken English.
He also
appeared in Walk Like a Dragon (1960) while also continuing his Holiday
in Japan performances. He was even transported by ambulance from his last Holiday
in Japan show to Paramount’s studio to ensure that he would arrive on time.
Additionally,
Shigeta appeared in Cry for Happy (1961) alongside Glenn Ford, Donald
O’Connor, and Miyoshi Umeki. He also appeared as Wang Ta in the Academy
Award-nominated film version of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s Flower
Drum Song (1961) with Nancy Kwan and Umeki. He appeared in Bridge to the
Sun (1961) with Carroll Baker and Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1965)
with Elvis Presley.
Miyoshi Umeki and James Shigeta, Flower Drum Song
He also
secured the lead in The King and I, touring the United States as part of
the production in 1969.
Shigeta
carried out many guest appearances and recurring roles on television, including
a guest appearance on Perry Mason and a recurring role in Medical
Center. He continued his film work with Midway (1976), Die Hard (1988),
Cage II: The Arena of Death (1994), and a voice role in Mulan (1998).
His final film role was in The People I’ve Slept With (2009).
Shigeta
passed away in his sleep on July 28, 2014, in West Hollywood, California. He
was 85 years old. His funeral service was held at the First Congregational
Church of Los Angeles, and he was interred in the National Memorial Cemetery of
the Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii.
In 1930
and 1940, the family resided at 1625 Liliha St., Honolulu, Hawaii. Shigeta’s
father worked as a plumber and pipefitter at this time. In 1950, the family
moved to 419A Liliha Court Ln., Honolulu, Hawaii. At this point, Shigeta’s
father worked as a shop foreman for an engineering company and his mother
worked as a salesperson at a bakery. Both homes no longer stand.
President
Theodore Roosevelt High School continues to operate and is located at 1120
Nehoa St., Honolulu, Hawaii.
President Theodore Roosevelt High School
The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific is located at 2177 Pūowaina Dr., Honolulu, Hawaii.
Annette Bochenek, Ph.D., is a film historian, professor, and avid scholar of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She manages the “Hometowns to Hollywood” blog, in which she profiles her trips to the hometowns of classic Hollywood stars. She has also been featured on the popular classic film-oriented television network, Turner Classic Movies. A regular columnist for Classic Movie Hub, her articles have appeared in TCM Backlot, Silent Film Quarterly, Nostalgia Digest, The Dark Pages Film Noir Newsletter, and Chicago Art Deco Society Magazine.
