By David in TN
Friday, December 14, 2018 at 12:05:00 A.M. EST
TCM's Film Noir of the Week for Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET (and 10 a.m. ET Sunday Morning) is Talk About a Stranger (1952).
It features George Murphy and Nancy Davis as a couple whose adolescent son (Billy Gray) adopts a stray dog, whereupon the dog is poisoned. The boy suspects a new neighbor (Kurt Kasznar).
Film Noir Guide: “This is a disquieting film, in which the lead character, a young boy, is so deeply disturbed by what he perceives to be a terrible injustice that he seeks an adult-like vengeance on the perpetrator.” And “...there are some scenes that might startle even the hardened horror fan.”
N.S.: George Murphy was a U.S. Senator from California, beating JFK's press secretary, Pierre Salinger, in 1964 and losing the seat to heavyweight champ Gene Tunney’s son, John Tunney, in 1970. Nancy Davis became Nancy Reagan. Billy Gray played the son, “Bud,” on Father Knows Best, the long-running TV sitcom. Postscript, October 12, 2021: This is a “Goldstein movie,” in defense of communism.
Lewis Stone was a Hollywood veteran, going back to the silent era, best-known for playing Judge Hardy in the long-running Hardy Family movie series, starring Mickey Rooney, which was originally conceived in terms in terms of either B-pictures or cheapie A-features, but which quickly grew into a cash cow at MGM, thanks largely to Mickey Rooney.
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TCM's Film Noir of the Week for Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight ET (and 10 am ET Sunday Morning) is Beware, My Lovely (1952), starring Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan, supported by Taylor Holmes and Barbara Whiting.
Robert Ryan plays a psycho, not exactly cast against type. Ida Lupino plays a woman who hires Ryan's character without knowing he's on the run after a murder.
Film Noir Guide: "A paranoid-schizophrenic handyman (Ryan) hops a freight train after killing a housewife and lands a job with homeowner Lupino in a nearby town. He isn't on the job five minutes before he starts behaving strangely, turning the widow's Christmas holiday into a film noir nightmare. Homes plays Lupino's boarder and Whiting is her annoying teenage niece. Although Ryan is chilling, and Lupino is convincing enough, 'Beware' is a bit dated, managing only an occasional fright. The film was based on the successful Broadway play 'The Man,' which starred Dorothy Gish."
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