Lola Lane was borne Dorothy H. Mulligan on May 21, 1906, in Macy, Indiana, to Lorenzo and Cora Mulligan. Her father worked as a dentist in addition to renting out parts of their 22-room home to Simpson College students. Her mother was a former reporter with dreams of becoming an actress, but her Methodist parents prevented her from pursuing a career in entertainment. Dorothy was one of five siblings, including Leotabel, Martha, Rosemary, and Priscilla.
Over the years, Dorothy grew up in Indianola, Iowa, where
she accompanied silent films on the piano and sang in a flower shop. In fact,
all of the Mulligan girls were fond of music. A rebellious child, she once
shocked townspeople with a Charleston dance in front of a church that was
concluding its Sunday service for the day. Her vocal talents were later discovered
by Gus Edwards and she soon gained professional experience thereafter, including
education at Simpson College’s conservatory.
It was Edwards who would change her name to Lola Lane and incorporate her in his touring production of Ritz Carlton Nights. By 1926, she and Leotabal—now Leota—worked in the Greenwich Village Follies. Leota was the first sister to leave home for New York, in pursuit of a career in entertainment. Dorothy soon followed and the sisters toured vaudeville circuits, later working on Broadway in The War Song. The Broadway show led to a screen test and Lane made her film debut in Speakeasy(1929).
On-screen, Lane adopted a tough persona in films like Convicted Woman (1940), Gangs of Chicago (1940), and Miss V from Moscow (1942). Her final three films were an attempt to move on from typecasting, which included roles in Why Girls Leave Home (1945), Deadline at Dawn(1946), and They Made Me a Killer(1946). Lane retired from acting in 1946.
Lola Lane, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, and Gale Page in Four Daughters (1938)
Interestingly, Lane’s name served to inspire another
on-screen character. The comic book writer Jerry Siegel named Lois
Lane—Superman’s girlfriend—after Lane.
In 1961, Lane converted to Catholicism, later receiving a Pope Pius medal for her dedication to the religious training of mentally challenged individuals.
Lane passed away on June 22, 1981, due to arterial disease and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Santa Barbara, California. She was 75 years old.
Today, there are some locations of relevance to Lane’s
personal life.
In 1910, the Mulligan family lived at 307 N. B St. in
Washington, Iowa, which has since been razed.
By 1920, they moved to 405 W. Ashland Ave., Indianola, Iowa.
The home stands to this day.
405 W. Ashland Ave., Indianola, Iowa
Simspon College remains at 701 N. C St., Indianola, Iowa.
Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa
In 1929, Lane lived at 6626 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles,
California. The home has been subdivided into apartments.
6626 Franklin Ave., Los Angeles, California
Lane and her sisters are well remembered through their filmography, either working together or apart.
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.
No actor better represents American decency than James Stewart. In both his military and movie career, Stewart was the everyman, the humble hero who managed to get the job done through sheer force of will. He was someone you innately rooted for, and his most iconic roles emphasize this special connection.
That said, likability only goes so far. Stewart would not have been one of the greatest actors of all time were it not also for his staggering range and surprising adaptability. In a career that spanned seven decades, Stewart excelled in every genre imaginable. He was a convincing cowboy, a charming love interest, and in the case of Call Northside 777 (1948), a crusading reporter with a hot lead.
The film’s crusading poster.
Call Northside 777 is unique in that it’s one of the few documentary-style films noir to feature a star-studded cast. The common practice, at least as far as 20th Century Fox was concerned, was to make tough crime films based on true stories, starring reliable B-players like Dennis O’Keefe and Mark Stevens. They were cheap, profitable, and grounded by their refreshing lack of glamor. The less recognizable the face, the more believable the faux “documentary” angle.
Stewart’s casting may have violated the practice, but it also arrived at a crucial point in his career. While he’d scored an Oscar nomination for It’s a Wonderful Life two years earlier, the actor was at a professional crossroads, and fearful that his postwar output had paled in comparison to his earlier work. The fact that both It’s a Wonderful Life and Rope (his first Hitchcock collaboration) flopped at the box office didn’t help matters. He was trying to find parts that suited his older, less naïve presence, and Chicago newsman PJ MacNeal was perfect.
“They make the wrong picture.”
MacNeal is a Windy City veteran who gets assigned to the case of convicted murderer Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte). The latter’s mother has placed a $5,000 ad in the newspaper, urging people to come forward to clear her son’s name, and the novelty of the ad leads MacNeal down a rabbit hole of reconsidered evidence and fresh leads. He discovers that Wiecek’s innocence may be more than a pipe dream, and sets about trying to make a case in his favor.
There’s nothing particularly fancy about Call Northside 777. It’s economically directed by Henry Hathaway, who pioneered the documentary-style noir with The House on 92nd Street, and it sheds light on a real-life case that was begging to be dramatized. What really makes the film stand out, however, is the conviction of the acting.
Stewart and Cobb in a promotional still.
Lee J. Cobb and Helen Walker are terrific as MacNeal’s editor and wife, respectively. The former is fun as a pipe-smoking cynic who clashes with the reporter’s burgeoning righteousness. He wants Weicek cleared, sure, but he wants to sell papers a little bit more. Smaller, potentially forgettable roles are salvaged by colorful bit players like Charles Lane, E.G. Marshall, and John McIntire.
Richard Conte is perfectly cast as Weicek, a man who’s quietly rotting away for someone else’s crime. The actor taps into the pained humility that a decade in prison would instill, but there’s still an underlying bite to his words. One gets the sense that he could be guilty, even though he’s not. Conte’s career skyrocketed following the release of the film, and he would go on to perfect his coiled machismo in classics like Thieves’ Highway (1949) and The Big Combo (1955).
Richard Conte shines in a downbeat role.
Then there’s Stewart, who gives one of his most underrated performances as MacNeal. The aforementioned everyman quality is present, but he’s careful to underscore it with an obsessive streak that borders on manic at times. The Wiecek case grows increasingly more important as the film wears on, and Stewart manages to communicate so much through minimal body language. MacNeal is a character of action rather than reflection, and most of his scenes consist of him rifling through photographs or interviewing old witnesses.
A lesser star would have gone the showier route, and tried to dominate their scene partners, but he’s selective about his “big” acting moments, preferring to cede the floor to others. It works like a charm. Few actors are as compelling as Stewart when it comes to watching them think. It also gives him the chance to recontextualize his screen persona as he turned 40. MacNeal is a bit more skeptical than his past characters, and it’s precisely because of this weathered quality that his path to crusader feels so earned. He’s the same American hero we know and love; he just wants to be sure of a cause before he backs it.
Stewart added shades of complexity to his screen persona.
Stewart regained his confidence (and his box office clout) soon after the release of the film, and would go on to have arguably the best run of his career in the 1950s. That said, it’s tough to imagine the dense, ambiguous performances he gives in Broken Arrow and Vertigo were it not for his foundational work here.
I won’t bore you with a rundown of the various beats that MacNeal has to navigate, for experiencing them firsthand is one of the film’s distinct pleasures. There are no great twists or profound revelations about humanity to be found here; just good storytelling and great execution. Sometimes, that’s all we need. Dial up Northside 777 if this sounds like the noir for you.
TRIVIA: Thelma Ritter was cast as a police secretary, but most of her scenes were cut from the final release. As a result, her lone interaction with Stewart went uncredited.
Danilo Castro is a film noir aficionado and Contributing Writer for Classic Movie Hub. You can read more of Danilo’s articles and reviews at the Film Noir Archive, or you can follow Danilo on Twitter @DaniloSCastro.
A few years ago I shared photographs of the final resting places of several Western stars who served in our armed forces.
Over the last few years
I’ve been honored to pay my respects at the gravesites of numerous Western
stars in multiple states, so I thought I’d return to that topic this month and
share some additional photographs.
I’ll begin with the biggest Western star of all, John Wayne. For many years after his 1979 passing his gravesite was unmarked, presumably for security reasons. Today his grave at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar, California, has what I consider the loveliest marker of all. It’s exquisite.
John Wayne
There’s a beautiful view
of the Pacific Ocean from the gravesite, marked in the photo below by the
yellow flowers. Wayne, who lived in nearby Newport Beach, was so revered
locally that Orange County Airport was renamed in his honor after his passing.
Pacific View Memorial Park
I’ve written here in the past of my admiration for Wayne’s film Angel and the Badman (1947), which he produced and starred in with Gail Russell. A decade later, producer Wayne again hired Russell for a leading role, in the Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott classic 7 Men From Now (1956). She’s buried at Valhalla Cemetery in North Hollywood.
Gail Russell
Moseley, the last name seen on Russell’s grave marker, was the real last name of Guy Madison, to whom Russell was married from 1949 to 1954. Madison, who starred in many Western films, is at Forest Lawn Cathedral City, near Palm Springs. His marker references both his birth and acting names, along with noting his TV Western role as Wild Bill Hickok.
Guy Madison
John Wayne’s costar in another film I’ve written about here, Tall in the Saddle (1944), was Ella Raines. She’s buried at Glen Haven Memorial Park, found at the end of a long, winding road in Sylmar, California. The trees on the marker are perhaps a reflection of her outdoorsy childhood in Washington. Raines’ filmography also included the “modern Western” The Walking Hills (1949) with Randolph Scott, Singing Guns (1950) with Vaughn Monroe, and Ride the Man Down (1952) with Rod Cameron and Forrest Tucker.
Ella Raines
Jeffrey Hunter, Wayne’s costar in the John Ford classic The Searchers (1956), is also buried at Glen Haven. Both his birth name and his acting name are on the marker. Hunter died tragically young, in 1969; over two decades later his wife, General Hospital star Emily McLaughlin, was buried next to him.
Jeffrey Hunter
Cathy Downs played the title role in another John Ford classic, My Darling Clementine (1946). She’s buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica. Downs also starred with Rod Cameron in Panhandle (1948), which I wrote about here in my very first Hidden Gems column, and with Guy Madison in Massacre River (1949).
Cathy Downs
George Bancroft, who played Marshal Curley Wilcox in Ford and Wayne’s Stagecoach (1939), is also at Woodlawn Cemetery, in the mausoleum.
George Bancroft
One of my favorite Western stars is Bill Elliott. I loved seeing that his movie nickname “Wild Bill” made it onto the marker at his final resting place in a mausoleum at the Palm Downtown Cemetery in North Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wild Bill Elliot
Another favorite “B” Western star is William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd, who is interred at Forest Lawn Glendale. The mausoleum there is not easily accessible to the general public so I was fortunate to visit. Hopalong Cassidy is noted alongside Boyd’s name, while next to his wife Grace Bradley Boyd’s name it reads “Mrs. Hoppy.”
William Boyd
Andy Clyde, who played California Carlson in some of the Hopalong Cassidy films, is buried outdoors at Forest Lawn Glendale. He’s next to his son, who tragically died young. His brother David Clyde, a bit player, and David’s wife, actress Fay Holden of the Andy Hardy movies, are also nearby.
Andy Clyde
Dan Duryea was only 61 when he passed on in 1968. He’s at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills next to his wife, who had died the previous year. Duryea’s many Westerns included the classic Winchester ’73 (1950) and one of my favorite Audie Murphy Westerns, Ride Clear of Diablo (1954). He also appeared with Audie Murphy in Night Passage (1957) and Six Black Horses (1962).
Dan Duryea
Talented actress Wanda Hendrix was briefly married to Audie Murphy, but his suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder helped lead to their divorce after just a year. Hendrix and Murphy co-starred in the Western Sierra (1950). Wanda Hendrix also appeared with Joel McCrea in Saddle Tramp (1950), which I wrote about in my very first Western RoundUp column. Like Dan Duryea, she’s at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
Wanda Hendrix
Actress Susan Cabot costarred with Audie Murphy and Dan Duryea in Ride Clear of Diablo; she also appeared in two other favorite Murphy films, The Duel at Silver Creek (1952) and Gunsmoke (1953). She’s at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.
One of Winters’ costars in Untamed Frontier was the tragic Suzan Ball, who died of cancer at 21. She also appeared in the Westerns War Arrow (1953) and Chief Crazy Horse (1955). She was survived by her husband, actor Richard Long. She’s at Forest Lawn Glendale.
Suzan Ball
I’ll conclude with the impressive marker for Gene Autry at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. He was both a Western star and the founder of the Autry Museum of the American West, which I wrote about here in January 2019. As alluded to on the gravestone, Autry was also a World War II veteran, a TV and radio star, the one-time owner of Los Angeles TV station KTLA, and the owner of the California Angels baseball team. What a life!
Gene Autry
I have many more such
photos and may return to this topic again in the future. One of the interesting
things illustrated above is the way the lives, careers, and even the final
resting places of Hollywood actors interconnect.
I always feel a great sense of history visiting these cemeteries, and I also appreciate the opportunity to reflect on the joy each filmmaker has brought to my life, along with the lives of countless others.
…
– 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.
Silents are Golden: What Were Films Like in The Nickelodeon Era?
We’re all at least somewhat familiar with nickelodeons, the tiny 1900s-era theaters where patrons paid a nickel each to watch some films. And we all know that these quaint little storefronts evolved into the familiar neighborhood theaters and big city “movie palaces.” But not everyone knows exactly what nickelodeon-era motion pictures were like, at least beyond the usual Méliès films, clips of ladies dancing, and famous early works like The Great Train Robbery(1903).
A typical neighborhood nickelodeon.
Many nickelodeon films had originally played
in traveling picture shows, the humble ancestor of the “movie house” era.
Traveling from town to town armed with films, slides, and projectors,
neatly-dressed entertainers would set up shop in a school, church, or even a
tent and sell tickets for an evening’s worth of entertainment. Many of the
films they showed would also end up in nickelodeons, mixed in with the newer
films that were being churned out like crazy to meet the public demand.
So if you could travel over a century back in
time and pop into the nearest nickelodeon, what films were you likely to see?
The subjects were as endless back then as they are on YouTube today–everything
from travelogs to comedies to military films to, yes, films of funny animals.
Heroic animals too, as in Rescued by Rover (1905).
The majority of 1900s films have disappeared, but fortunately, some catalogs of rental films survive. These include descriptions of the films and their lengths–that is, the lengths of the physical strips of films themselves. (Being an era of rampant copyright infringement, dates were seldom included.) A minute’s worth of film was about 100 feet long, and a standard reel of film was 1000 feet or about ten minutes. Many films at the time were under 500 feet long or even less than 100. So for every 10-minute single-reel production, you could find a few dozen little films like the popular The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog (1905), which was 300 feet, or The Four Troublesome Heads (1898), which ran about 75 feet.
The Four Troublesome Heads (1904)
The largest group of films fell under the “comic” label. Many of the titles are pretty self-explanatory: How Mike Got the Soap in His Eyes (1903), Firing the Cook (1903), Lady Plumpton’s Motor Car (1904), The Bull and the Picnickers (1902). A number of very short films simply illustrated old jokes, like How Bridget Served the Salad Undressed (1898), a 28-foot film showing how a maid “mistakes the order and brings in the salad in a state of dishabille hardly allowable in polite society.” There were even riffs on well-known films, like Something Good–Negro Kiss (1898), described as a “burlesque on the John Rice and May Irwin Kiss” (this film was rediscovered only a couple of years ago).
Something Good–Negro Kiss (1898)
Popular comic situations included clashes between maids and cooks, run-ins with tramps, dignified ladies and gentlemen in undignified situations, romantic rivalries, and sometimes ladies getting back at annoying suitors. One popular film was The Insurance Collector (1903), showing the titular character attempting to woo a woman’s pretty daughter, who “rejects the collector’s advance and shoves him into the [wash] tub, where he flounders while the two women douse him with water.” Another very popular comic genre revolved around the “bad boy” or “Mischievous Willie” character, already familiar from comic strips. These mischievous boys were always playing rather violent pranks on their elders. In Tommy’s Trick on Grandpa (1900), “Tommy has filled his grandpa’s big Dutch pipe with powder, and the old gentleman sits down to the enjoy his evening smoke. A terrific explosion occurs.” Similarly, A Ringer Joke on His Pa (date unknown) involved the “Bad Boy” tying a cord to his napping father’s chair and attaching the other end to a clothes wringer. When the mother starts wringing out the laundry the dad’s chair tips over. Doubtless, these simple films were geared towards the delighted kids in the audience.
Kids at the movie theater (circa 1923).
Many other comic films were unapologetically
surreal, like A Jersey Skeeter (1900)
which showed a giant mosquito trying to bite a farmer, “and after sharpening
its bill on his grindstone, seizes the farmer by the seat of his trousers and
carries him away.” Others, like Michael
Casey and the Steam Roller (1902), make
you wonder what kind of primitive effects were involved: “The engineer does not
see him, and the great machine weighing several tons passes over his body,
flattening it out like a piece of sole leather. Other workmen rush to the
rescue and discover Casey in his flattened condition, and about twice his
normal length…One of the workmen procures a barrel, and standing upon it he
pounds Casey upon the head with a great mallet until he has driven him down to
his proper height and circumference.”
Non-comic genres were common too, of course, especially travel films with such varying locations as Panorama of “Miles Canyon” (1903), Fijian Fire Walk or Fire Dance (date unknown), Niagara Falls in Winter (date unknown), or From Monte Carlo to Monaco (1902). Even mundane scenes were interesting since they showed bits of life in exotic locations, such as Street Cleaning in Porto Rico (date unknown) or A Ferry in the Far East (1904), which showed how “unlike other ferries, the Eastern people hung an immense raft on cables across the stream and the raft is pulled across.”
From Monte Carlo to Monaco (1902)
Shots of naval ships and military drills were also standard fare at nickelodeons, as were recreations of various battles. These recreations sound pretty modest today, although they were thrilling at the time. The popular Advance of Kansas Volunteers, Caloocan (1899) showed U.S. troops in the midst of a battle: “This is one of the best battle pictures ever made. The first firing is done directly toward the front of the picture, and the advance of U.S. troops apparently through the screen is very exciting; the gradual disappearance of the fighters sustaining the interest to the end.” Advance was a mere 60 feet long!
Advance of Kansas Volunteers, Caloocan (1899)
There were several other popular genres in the
nickelodeon era, of course, including the religious genre and one intriguingly
called “mysterious.” I’ll be covering them more in next month’s post–stay
tuned!
–
Information on the films in this article is from historian Darren Nemeth’s reprint of the 1907 Chicago Projecting Co’s Entertainer’s Supplies Catalog No. 22, a very rare catalog from his collection. It’s a wealth of information for anyone interested in the very early days of film and is highly recommended! IMDb.com and loc.gov were also consulted to help figure out the dates of the films. Some films may have been released under different names, making it difficult to determine the year.
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.
Like many classic movie fans, I just love discovering interesting connections and fun little tidbits of trivia while watching my classic movie favorites. That said, I’ll be sharing some quick and fun facts about Father’s Little Dividend 🙂 .
Father’s Little Dividend (1951), directed by Vicente Minnelli, Starring Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor
…..
1) Yes, we all know it’s a sequel, but…
I would imagine that – given we’re all classic movie fans here – we already know that Father’s Little Dividend was the sequel to 1950’s Father of the Bride (incidentally one of the year’s top-grossing films). But perhaps we all didn’t know that ‘Dividend’ was also very well received by audiences and critics alike, and financially successful to boot.
To quote the original New York Times review from April 13, 1951:
“It is not very often that the sequel to a successful film turns out to be even half as successful or rewarding as the original picture was. But we’ve got to hand it to Metro: its sequel to “Father of the Bride” is so close that we’ll willingly concede it to the humor and charm of that former film.”
…..
Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor and baby Donald Clark
2) Mother and daughter share a birthday
Joan Bennett and Elizabeth Taylor, who play mother Ellie Banks and daughter Kay respectively, were both born on February 27 — although 22 years apart, with Joan being the elder (of course). Joan and Liz also have another classic movie connection in that they both played youngest sister Amy in Little Women (Joan in 1933 and Liz in 1949).
…..
Glinda the Good Witch 🙂
3) The Good Witch and the Magic Mirror
Billie Burke and Moroni Olsen play Doris and Herbert Dunstan (father-to-be Buckley’s parents). Burke appeared in so many delightful classics from Topper to The Man who Came to Dinner, but she is probably best remembered for her iconic role as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. Moroni, on the other hand, might not be so well recognized, but you can hear his booming voice as the Magic Mirror in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and as Senior Angel #1 in It’s a Wonderful Life.
Rags cannot hide her gentle grace. Alas, she is more fair than thee. -Moroni Olsen as the Magic Mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Clarence, you do a good job with George Bailey and you will get your wings. -Moroni Olsen as Senior Angel in It’s a Wonderful Life
…..
Russ Tamblyn, West Side Story
4) Dancing Younger Brother
Kay’s younger brother Tommy is played by Russ Tamblyn, who later went on to dance as brother Gideon in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Riff, the leader of the Jets, in West Side Story (1961)! If musicals are not your ‘thing,’ you may remember Russ as Luke Sanderson in The Haunting (1963). P.S. Russ Tamblyn’s daughter is actress Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).
…..
5) Spencer Tracy and Milwaukee
So, how could I do a post about Father’s Little Dividend and leave out Spencer Tracy, who plays Liz’s dad, Stanley Banks? Well, I can’t. That said, did you know that you can visit some sites in Spencer’s birth town, Milwaukee? You can read about them here.
…..
Well, those were my five facts, but here are a few extra bonuses, for those so inclined 🙂
Creature Feature Fans owe a Debt to ‘The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms’
With its thick legs, protective scales, spiked back and laser-sharp teeth, the 200-foot-long fictional Rhedosaurus is a terrifying creature.
As the title character of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), it carries one of the most entertaining and important films in horror/sci-fi history.
How important? It’s the film that laid the groundwork for the creature features, big bug and B-movies that defined the 1950s and inspired films for decades (and me for life).Them!, Tarantula and evenGodzilla may never have been made without Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
A glorious shot of the 200-foot-long lizard-like creature in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
That’s why this story about The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms will focus more on those accomplishments and other interesting facts than it will about the film plot. Oh, we’ll share how the beast was rudely awakened by a darn atomic blast, then traveled along the Arctic current to Canada and down the East Coast of the U.S. How it crushed lighthouses and boats; destroyed entire city blocks and left a trail of contaminated blood that was lethal to humans. And finally, how the wild ride ends on an amusement park roller coaster.
But first, here’s what we owe to The Beast from 20,000
Fathoms.
The success of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms gave Ray Harryhausen the chance to create unforgettable creatures and characters like the living skeleton from The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts.
THE LEGACY
It lifted Ray Harryhausen into the spotlight
The film was the first solo feature by stop-motion animation wizard Ray Harryhausen, finally bringing him out of the shadows of being an apprentice and assistant to start his path as the groundbreaking “auteur” we consider him as today. The success of this film gave Harryhausen the credibility to create more amazing creatures in a string of movies including It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) with its giant octopus, 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957) and its Ymir from Venus, and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and a delightful array of creatures including the Cyclops and the unforgettable Skeleton army.
It Came From Beneath the Sea is one of the films made following the success Ray Harryhausen had with The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
Beastly genres, themes
It revitalized one monster theme and led to the creation of a new genre.
The “monster on a rampage” was popularized by King Kong (1933), the movie that inspired a young Harryhausen to create his own monsters. Twenty years later, Beast revived the theme and inspired one of the greatest creatures in cinema, Godzilla. That film’s original title was The Giant Monster from 20,000 Miles Under the Sea and Harryhausen, it is well documented, was not happy and considered Godzilla a rip-off of his movie. The rampaging beast was such a popular subject, that even Beast’s director Eugene Lourie would reluctantly go on to make two other similar movies, The Giant Behemoth and Gorgo.
The idea that the Rhedosaurus was awakened from its lengthy slumber by nuclear testing was so popular that it led many, including its producers Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester, to research similar ideas for movies. Within a year they came up with a doozy – Them! That 1955 film about ants made gigantic from atomic testing started the big-bug film craze and remains one of the finest examples of the genre today. The effects of nuclear testing brought horrific results on people, too, from small ways (The Incredible Shrinking Man) to big (The Amazing Colossal Man). Double the movie fun by combining those themes in films like It Came from Beneath the Sea,The Beginning of the EndandAttack of the Crab Monsters.
Technology Ray Harryhausen created for the film allows the monster to look like it’s walking among people.
The creation of Dynamation
On Beast, Harryhausen created a process he would later call “Dynamation” that, in overly simplified terms, used rear-screen projection to help combine stop-motion animation and live action footage. The result would be the appearance that a creature and actor were interacting in the same place. He would continue to use this process to great effect in at least 15 movies including Mysterious Island (think of the great fight between the castaways and the giant crab) and Clash of the Titans.
THE MOVIE
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms opens with the ubiquitous voice-over narration that accompanies many 1950s sci-fi movies. We are introduced to “Operation Experiment,” the code name for a secret base set up north of the Arctic Circle.
Two months of preparations have led to this day – X-Day, which is counted down in the film’s early minutes. (“H-R minus 52 minutes,” the narrator says in a bland but super serious voice.
A plane is on the way on a mission where, “There can be no
margin for error. There can be no second chances.”
The seconds count down: 10, 9, 8 …. Then a giant explosion.
Glaciers fall, ice chunks crash in the water and then, worst of all, a mushroom
cloud appears. The images are terrifying.
Then something strange appears on the radar screen – a foreign object that disappears quickly and is brushed aside just as fast.
An atomic explosion frees the title character of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms who been frozen in suspended animation.
A team led by professor and physicist Tom Nesbitt (played by
Paul Christian) and George Ritchie (Ross Elliott) goes out to check an
observation point. A blizzard moves in fast and cuts the trip short, but not
before George see the terror that Operation Experiment has uncovered – a
200-foot-long dinosaur – and falls into a crevice a few feet deep. Tom arrives
to help and sees the dino before he’s injured by an avalanche that kills
George.
From here, Tom will be the familiar character no one
believes.
Not the people at the base who hear him mutter “the monster,
the monster.”
Not the psychiatrist in the big city who tells him his
visions are from the shock of seeing a friend die.
Not even his friend Col. John Evans (Kenneth Tobey) who was with him as part of “Operation Experiment” but says his investigation into the “monster” didn’t yield even a footprint.
That’s a lot of people who don’t believe Tom and he’s almost ready to give up until he learns a ship has been attacked by a giant creature.
It’s always good to see Cecil Kellaway’s familiar face in a movie.
He visits famed paleontologist Dr. Thurgood Elson (played by wonderful character actor Cecil Kellaway) for help, but even the kind doctor can’t believe a 100-million-year-old dinosaur is alive.
Tom even uses the doctor’s own theories about the Mesozoic age turning to ice to ask him: “Couldn’t an animal have been caught in the ice and the bomb heat melted it?”
No, the good doctor still can’t buy it.
But his smart assistant Lee Ryan (Paula Raymond), who is familiar with Tom’s work, thinks he could be on to something. A second account of a sea monster finds Tom and Lee researching the possibilities over crustless sandwiches and coffee in dainty cups in her apartment as they peruse dinosaur pictures. (It is such an idyllic scene.)
Over coffee and crustless sandwiches, professor Tom Nesbitt (played by Paul Christian) and paleontology assistant Lee Ryan (Paula Raymond) scour dinosaur drawings to identify an on-the-loose prehistoric creature.
Finally Tom spots the monster of his nightmares in one of the drawings and once it is corroborated by a survivor of a boat attack, he is finally believed.
The hunt is on.
Tracking the sightings, Dr. Elson believes the creature is heading to the Hudson River, the area where the only Rhedosaurus fossils had been found. He goes down in a small undersea “bell” to find evidence of the creature which he (sadly) does, marveling “It’s tremendous” when he sees it.
On land, the army is no match for the beast. Bullets can’t penetrate the thick scales on its body and they can’t allow its contaminated blood to get into the atmosphere. Good thing Professor Tom has a plan. All he needs are radioactive isotopes and a roller coaster to carry us along to the end of this beastly ride.
THE BRADBURY CONNECTION
Today, we know The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms as a
film.
But in 1951, that was the title for a short story published in the Saturday Evening Post by master science-fiction author Ray Bradbury. It’s a sad, forlorn story of a prehistoric sea creature, the last of its kind, that takes an arduous, months-long journey toward a sound in hopes of finding a similar creature. Instead, it’s the fog horn of a lighthouse and the creature physically unleashes its pain.
Soon after, Bradbury was asked to look over a script for a movie his friend Ray Harryhausen was working on that was called Monster from Beneath the Sea. Bradbury immediately noticed a similar scene between the two of a sea beast destroying a lighthouse. The studio bought the rights to his story and changed the title of the film. Bradbury’s original short story would be republished under the name of The Fog Horn.
The movie’s trailer acknowledges this relationship as it touts “The importance and impact of the Saturday Evening Post thriller.”
TRIVIA
There is much fun trivia about this film.
The “dinosaur bones” from Bringing Up Baby were brought out of retirement to be used in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms starring Paul Christian, left, and Cecil Kellaway.
* If that impressive dinosaur skeleton at the university looks familiar, there’s a reason: Those fake dinosaur bones were originally used in the comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938) and were brought out of storage for the new role.
Also repurposed: Avalanche footage from She (1935)
was used in the opening sequences.
One of the real dinosaur drawings by famed artist Charles R. Knight used in the film.
* The dinosaur drawings that Tom and Lee look over in her apartment are by Charles R. Knight, a paleoartist known for his work on dinosaurs and an inspiration to Harryhausen.
* The film has two connections to the great classic horror film, The Thing (1951): the use of its arctic station set and Kenneth Tobey, who starred in both movies.
You may recognize Lee Van Cleef, left, who shows up late in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms as a military sharpshooter. Actor Paul Christian is to the right.
* A youthful Lee Van Cleef plays Corp. Stone, the sharpshooter who helps Tom fire a radioactive isotope at the beast.
* The trailer features actress Vera Miles who does not appear in the film, but warns us “Who knows what waits for us in nature’s no man’s land.”
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 of the Classic
Movie Blog Association. Toni was the president of the former Buffalo
chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads 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.
Noir Nook: Five Things I Love About Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)
If you’ve read my past posts here at the Noir Nook, you might know that I’ve been participating the last few years in a film group that meets virtually once a week to talk about classic movies available on YouTube. In a recent meeting, we discussed the 1959 noir Odds Against Tomorrow, starring Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, and Ed Begley. The plot is a simple one; former cop Dave Burke (Begley) plans a bank robbery and hires two men, ex-con Earle Slater (Ryan) and musician Johnny Ingram (Belafonte) to help him carry it out. Each of the men harbor their own desperate reasons for agreeing to participate in the scheme, but the relatively uncomplicated plan is made more tenuous because of the seething racial tensions between Slater, who is white, and Ingram, who‘s black. This being noir, and in the tradition of such predecessors as The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Killing (1956), and Rififi(1955), you can reasonably expect that, despite the well-laid plan, things won’t exactly turn out the way they’re designed.
Because of the
dark and sometimes unpleasant nature of Odds Against Tomorrow, several
participants in the movie discussion group admitted that they didn’t plan on any
repeat viewings. But one member said she’d seen it numerous times – and would
gladly welcome the opportunity to see it again. I’m with her – the more I see Odds
Against Tomorrow, the more I love it, and this month’s Noir Nook is
dedicated to the top five reasons why.
The
On-Location Shooting
The gritty realism of the film is heightened by the location shooting in New York. The action begins on a rain-swept, trash-laden gutter on West 143rd Street, where Robert Ryan passes by the Norcit Hotel, which was an actual New York hotel at the time. Another scene briefly shows the Majestic, a landmark apartment building located on Central Park West that was once the home of such luminaries as Milton Berle and Walter Winchell. Other scenes are shot in front of an apartment building on East 26th Street, and at the carousel, the Wollman ice skating rink, and the zoo in Central Park. And to serve as the city of Melton, where the heist took place, scenes were shot in Hudson, located in upstate New York.
The Music
The film’s
score is strictly cool jazz – the kind of music that evokes dark, windowless
nightclubs filled with smoke and perfume, punctuated by the tinkling sounds of
ice in a glass of scotch. It was composed by John Lewis, who was the founder
and musical director of the famed Modern Jazz Quartet. And the movie includes
two singing numbers that will have you patting your feet and wishing you had
them on a CD – My Baby’s Not Around, sung by Harry Belafonte, and All
Men Are Evil, sung by Mae Barnes (who, incidentally, is credited with
introducing the popular Charleston dance to Broadway in the early 1920s in the
all-black revue Running’ Wild).
Ed Begley, Robert Ryan, and Harry Belafonte
The Characters
Odds Against Tomorrow’s characters are endlessly fascinating to me – they include Shelley Winters as Earle’s girlfriend and Gloria Grahame as their too-hot-too-trot neighbor – but Johnny and Earle are especially complicated and intriguing. Johnny suffers from a gambling addiction; even though he’s thousands of dollars in debt, he can’t stay away from the racetrack. He has a beautiful girlfriend who he neglects, a daughter he adores, and an ex-wife he’s still in love with. And Earle, who clearly demonstrates his bigotry in the film’s very first scene, alternately clings to his wife (Shelley Winters) with childlike neediness, treats her with contempt, or desperately strives to be the family’s breadwinner by any means necessary. These are interesting, fully formed characters who vacillate between earning your sympathy and securing your disdain.
Gloria Grahame and Robert Ryan
The Familiar
Faces
Speaking of characters, numerous characters in the film are played by actors and actresses who are recognizable from other films or TV shows – I love spotting them in this vehicle before they became better known. Making his film debut, there’s Wayne Rogers, of TV’s MASH fame, playing a soldier who has an unexpected encounter with Earle in a bar. And Zohra Lampert, as the soldier’s girlfriend; I remember her best in her role as Warren Beatty’s wife in Splendor in the Grass. An elevator operator is played by Mel Stewart, who was George Jefferson’s brother on All in the Family and had a recurring role on the 1980s TV series Scarecrow and Mrs. King. James Earl Jones’s father, Robert, is seen slipping a gun to Johnny in a nightclub; he played the ill-fated mentor of Robert Redford in The Sting (1973). Barney Martin, who played Jerry’s father on Seinfeld, can be seen for a couple of seconds as the driver of a car who gets into an accident in Melton. And in her second big-screen appearance, Cicely Tyson has a few lines as a nightclub bartender.
Robert Ryan
The Ending
I don’t want to
spoil the film’s conclusion, but let’s just say it ends with a bang and not a
whimper, capped off by a line that’s fairly brimming with irony and serves as
the absolutely perfect noir finish.
Odds Against
Tomorrow can be found for free on YouTube – if you’ve never seen it, do
yourself a favor and check it out. And if you love this gem as much I do, treat
yourself to a rewatch.
You won’t be sorry.
…
– 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:
Adapted from the 1945 bestseller by Betty MacDonald, The Egg and I (1947) depicts the misadventures of newlywed couple Betty and Bob (Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray) as they struggle to transform a dilapidated farm into a successful chicken business. It’s a very funny, if problematic, comedy about city people who move to the country without knowing anything about rural life, much less the isolation and hardship of farming, and it inspired the same plot for the classic TV series Green Acres. Like Green Acres, The Egg and I isn’t always fair in its depictions of the locals, but for rural people, there’s still a lot of humor in watching the clueless newcomers make all the obvious mistakes while assuming they know better than their neighbors. The Egg and I certainly has its flaws, but it also has more than enough going for it to hold modern viewers’ attention, even if they’ve never heard of MacDonald or her book.
Blissfully unaware of her future trials, Betty rides with Bob toward the remote farm he has bought without consulting her.
The imbalance of 1940s marriage is one issue that
rapidly becomes apparent. My family and I were barely five minutes into our
most recent viewing before we were shouting, “Divorce him!” at Colbert’s
character, Betty, whose husband informs her on their wedding night that he has
1) quit his job, 2) sunk all of their money in a remote farm, 3) decided to
take up chicken ranching, and 4) planned to start immediately. Betty gamely
agrees to this nonsense because she thinks it’s a wife’s duty to follow her
man, even when he could have brought this scheme up any time before she
went through with the wedding. An annulment would be perfectly reasonable, but
then we wouldn’t have a story. The alarm bells, however, keep ringing all
through the movie, and in spite of the film’s ending nobody who watches it will
be surprised to know that the real Betty MacDonald left her first husband, the
Bob on whom the character is based, after five years and moved back to the city
with their two young daughters. The movie obscures that element of the story by
using the first name of Betty’s first husband and the surname of her second,
whom she married in 1942, partly because Universal didn’t want to draw
attention to the divorce. For those interested in learning the messy,
unvarnished truth about MacDonald’s life, there’s Looking for Betty
MacDonald: The Egg, the Plague, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and I, a 2017 biography
by Paula Becker, which charts the events that led to the book and movie
versions of The Egg and I as well as MacDonald’s life and work after
them.
Bob and Betty inspect the abandoned farmhouse that is supposed to be their home, even though it’s a wreck with a leaky roof and no running water.
Stars Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray manage to have ample romantic chemistry despite those ringing alarms, largely because their onscreen relationship lasted a lot longer than Betty MacDonald’s first marriage. The pair’s first film together was The Gilded Lily (1935), and they went on to costar in six more pictures, including The Bride Comes Home (1935), No Time for Love (1943), and Family Honeymoon (1949). The Egg and I was their sixth movie together and by far the best remembered today. As Betty and Bob, they have an easy rapport that keeps their scenes light and lively, especially in the funniest bits, most of which involve their novice efforts on the farm. Their romantic dinner date, when they dress up in their wedding clothes and imagine a night out on the town, is one of the movie’s sweetest scenes, interrupted as it is by the sour-faced Donald MacBride as Mr. Henty. The third act hurries over an important upset to their marital bliss and its resolution, but when they’re onscreen together they work really well.
Ma Kettle has trouble remembering the names of her many children, but she keeps them all fed and even invites Betty to join them.
As good as Colbert and MacMurray are together, the real stars of The Egg and I are Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride as Ma and Pa Kettle. Main even earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as the rough but kindly matriarch of the expansive Kettle clan, and the Kettles went on to star in their own series of films. The movie’s depiction of the family falls back on many negative stereotypes about poor rural farmers, including laziness, dirtiness, unchecked reproduction of children, lax parenting, and lack of ambition to do any better, but Marjorie Main in particular brilliantly transcends those stereotypes to create the warm, lovable, loyal character of Ma Kettle. Having grown up on a farm in rural Indiana, Main had a deep well of experience to draw on for Ma Kettle, even though she never had any children and eventually left the farm to graduate from Hamilton College when she was 19. I adore Marjorie Main in just about every role she plays, but her Ma Kettle is the lynchpin that makes this movie work. Overwhelmed as she is by her chaotic family, she manages to keep them all fed even if she can’t keep their names straight, and Main invests her with resolution, generosity, and clear-eyed practicality that cut through the clutter. It’s no wonder that audiences fell in love with Ma Kettle and wanted more stories about her and her rambunctious family. If you, too, fall for Ma’s eccentric charm, you can see more of her in the subsequent Ma and Pa Kettle films, including Ma and Pa Kettle (1949), Ma and Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950), Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1953), and The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm (1957), but don’t miss Main’s other great performances in The Women (1939), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), and The Harvey Girls (1946).
Ma and Pa Kettle proved irresistible to audiences and went on to star in their own series of films, including Ma and Pa Kettle at Home (1954).
The Egg and I is also noteworthy for memorable supporting performances from Richard Long, Louise Allbritton, and Billy House, as well as a delightful appearance by Ida Moore as the little old lady who wanders into Betty’s kitchen. While it’s mostly acceptable for family viewing, be aware that it includes offensive caricatures of Native Americans. Chester Erskine only directed seven films in his career and was more prolific as a writer; in addition to directing The Egg and I, he also produced and wrote the screenplay. If you’re keen to see more comedy with Claudette Colbert, some of my favorites are It Happened One Night (1934), Midnight (1939), and The Palm Beach Story (1942). Fred MacMurray is best remembered now for his performance in the noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944), as well as his starring roles in live-action Disney films like The Shaggy Dog (1959), The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), and The Happiest Millionaire (1967), but his long-running role on the TV series My Three Sons (1960-1972) made him a television icon.
Classic Movie Travels: John Fiedler – Wisconsin and New Jersey
John Fiedler
A longtime actor, John Fiedler made his mark upon the stage, film, and radio, in addition to notably voicing the beloved Piglet in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh. Fiedler was born John Donald Fielder on February 3, 1925, in Platteville, Wisconsin, to beer salesman Donald Fiedler and wife Margaret. He also had a brother named James Fiedler. The family relocated to Shorewood, Wisconsin, in 1930, where Fiedler would continue his education and graduate from Shorewood High School in 1943.
After his graduation, Fiedler enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served through the end of World War II. Following his discharge, he pursued an acting career in Manhattan, appearing on radio in The Aldrich Family. He also carried out early television performances in the 1950s, namely portraying meek or nervous individuals. His film debut occurred in 12 Angry Men(1957), while a departure from his usual anxious roles would be in True Grit(1969) as a lawyer.
Glynn Turman, Sidney Poitier, and John Fielder in A Rasin in the Sun (1961)
Among his distinct performances in his participation as an original cast member of the stage play A Raisin in the Sun (1961), in which he portrayed a housing representative. He would execute the same role in the 1961 film and the 1988 television version. He also appeared in The Odd Couple(1968), Harper Valley PTA(1978), and The Cannonball Run(1981). Fiedler made many television guest appearances in Twilight Zone, Columbo, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Munsters, and more.
In the 1970s and beyond, Fiedler collaborated frequently with Walt Disney Productions. He first lent his voice to Disney in Robin Hood (1973) as the church mice, among additional characters; The Rescuers (1976), The Fox and the Hound (1981), and The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), in addition to two live-action appearances. He also voiced Piglet in The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), The Tigger Movie (2000), Piglet’s Big Movie (2003), and Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005).
John with Piglet
Fiedler passed away on June 25, 2005, in Englewood, New Jersey, while residing at the Lillian Booth Actors Home. He was 80 years old. Interestingly, Paul Winchell, his co-star, and voice of Tigger passed away the previous day. Fiedler was cremated and scattered on Long Island. Since then, voice actor Travis Oates has carried on voicing the role of Piglet.
In relation to Fiedler’s life, his alma mater of Shorewood
High School remains. It is located at 1701 E. Capitol Dr., Shorewood,
Wisconsin.
Shorewood High School
Additionally, the Lillian Booth Actors Home is now the
Actors Fund Home, continuing to assist American entertainment and performing
arts professionals. It is located at 155-175 W. Hudson Ave., Englewood, New
Jersey.
Lillian Booth Actors Home
While few locations of relevance to Fiedler remain, his legacy lives on through his voice talent.
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.
Paul Newman is the quintessential movie star. Some were more iconic, or more quotable, perhaps, but no actor has managed to compete with Newman’s impeccable blend of good looks, talent, and longevity. He came from the mold of classic Hollywood in the 1950s, and yet helped to break the mold of the New Hollywood movement in the 1970s. He was nominated for an Oscar in five different decades, including three nominations (and a win) after he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985!
This is all worth noting because Newman’s single greatest talent, more than good looks or longevity, was his adaptability. The actor never fell into a slump for long because he could always recognize when he needed to change up the characters he played or the filmmakers he worked with. As such, these slumps can be hard to pick out. They were often introduced and corrected within the course of a single film, and the film that exemplifies this best is 1975’s The Drowning Pool.
The film’s international poster.
The film, based on the Ross Macdonald novel of the same name, is a Newman outlier for several reasons. It was the only sequel he appeared in during his lifetime, and it marked a crucial transitional moment in the midpoint of his career. The end result isn’t terrible so much as it is messy, and incongruous in terms of what the story is trying to achieve.
The origins of the film are muddled as the scripted mystery. Newman had scored a major hit with the first installment in the series, Harper (1966), which cast him as the heir apparent to Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946). Harper’s screenwriter, William Goldman, quickly penned a sequel, but Newman’s busy schedule was prioritized and the franchise was shelved. The character of Harper (changed from “Archer” in the novels) was revived in 1973 when Walter Hill was hired to direct an adaptation of The Drowning Pool.
Harper revisited: Newman steps back into the role a decade later.
Initially, the Harper role was to be recast, and Hill, a burgeoning talent, was to strip away the silliness of the original film for a tougher approach. It was the age of Dirty Harry, and the plan was to put “a little more muscle” behind the private detective. The producers were eventually scared off by the new direction and Hill walked, but the sting of his departure was leavened by the fact that Newman agreed to reprise his role. Newman’s return bolstered the profile of the film, and Lorenzo Semple, Jr. was brought in to rewrite Hill’s script.
Semple was an accomplished wordsmith in his own right, with credits including the classic thrillers The Parallax View (1974) and Three Days of the Condor (1975). He relocated the setting of the novel from California to Louisiana in an effort to distinguish the film, and at one point considered changing the name of the Newman character to Dave Ryan. The latter suggestion was vetoed, though only a few weeks before production. The overriding narrative is that all were eager to distinguish the film from Harper, which is ironic given how similar the two films are when viewed in tandem.
Newman and Francoisa in one of the film’s many action scenes.
The Drowning Pool has a nearly identical plot to the first film, which sees Harper get dragged into the tangled web of a wealthy family. There’s another aging matriarch (Joanne Woodward), another vivacious daughter (Melanie Griffith), and another suspect male (Anthony Franciosa) who may or may not feed into the family’s criminal dealings. All of the story beats involving the characters play out the way they did in Harper, save for the matriarch character; who strikes up a deeper bond with the detective than her predecessor.
Newman and Woodward’s chemistry should come as no surprise to fans who’ve seen them together, and it stands out as one of the film’s subtle highlights. There’s a weathered quality to their dynamic compared to other detective-client relationships, and while largely unspoken, it gives The Drowning Pool a forlorn quality that was perfect for the Watergate era.
The other standout component of the film is Newman’s performance. The actor is repeatedly teased for being too old in the film, and the moments where he confronts (and mocks) his age quietly introduces a new trope in noir storytelling. There have been dozens of over-the-hill detectives since, but Harper, with his graying hair and grizzled pace, was the first of his kind (Robert Mitchum’s senior turn in Farewell, My Lovely arrived a month later).
“I have my moments.”
These tonal innovations are what make the script so frustrating. There are traces of Hill’s original draft in the scenes involving Louisiana henchmen and the main set piece (which involves a literal drowning pool), but they clash with Semple’s intimate, expository conversations. Both writers have a distinct vision for the story, which they’d go on to perfect in later films, but here, fused without a sense of harmony, they sabotage one another. Harper is too vulnerable to be an action hero yet too deadly to be an aging detective. He feels disconnected from the man he was a decade prior.
The frustration ratchets up further when one considers the source material. Ross Macdonald started off as a Raymond Chandler knockoff, aping the verbiage and tone of his idol in an attempt to develop his own style. The Moving Target (the basis for Harper) and The Drowning Pool were Macdonald’s first two novels and therefore the most derivative. When one looks at later efforts like Black Money or The Chill, however, it’s clear the author distinguished himself as a master in his own right. These novels were rife with aphorisms and inventive structures, and would have made for more thoughtful sequels had Warner Bros. adapted them instead.
The direction by Stuart Rosenberg does little to help the structural shortcomings. Rosenberg had proven himself a capable hand for Newman vehicles like Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Pocket Money (1972), but he had fallen on hard times and was reportedly “desperate” for the gig. Sources later claimed that director Jack Garfein was being coveted for the film before Newman made the push for his longtime friend.
Newman said Harper was one of his favorite characters to play.
Rosenberg does manage to evoke the intrigue of his Louisiana setting, and the decision to filter most of the scenes through a muted green color palette actually proved to be influential on the neon noir wave that followed (spearheaded, fittingly, by Hill’s The Driver). The biggest knock against Rosenberg here is that he fails to drum up any real tension.
The predictable beats are made all the more predictable by the fact that the director mounts them in the most straightforward manner possible. When compared to something like Cool Hand Luke, which prioritized character, one has to wonder whether Rosenberg’s commitment to plot stifled his eye for presentation. He delivers a hollow, albeit handsome product.
The Drowning Pool barely made a splash upon its release. The response from critics was muted, and the box office returns weren’t much better. Newman seized upon the elements of the film that worked (the aging, the reflecting) and transitioned, without missing a beat, to older roles in Slap Shot (1977), Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981), and The Verdict (1982). The Drowning Pool is little more than a footnote today, but it remains a fascinating pivot point between Newman the superstar and Newman the elder statesman.
TRIVIA: Newman, Woodward, and Francoisa had previously appeared together in The Long, Hot Summer (1958).
Danilo Castro is a film noir aficionado and Contributing Writer for Classic Movie Hub. You can read more of Danilo’s articles and reviews at the Film Noir Archive, or you can follow Danilo on Twitter @DaniloSCastro.
