By David in TN
friday, june 30, 2023 at 11:33:00 p.m. edt
TCM’s Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Jean Negulesco’s Deep Valley (1947) with Ida Lupino, Dane Clark, Wayne Morris, Henry Hull and Fay Bainter.
Film Noir Guide: “Lupino plays a shy farm girl disabled by a stutter because, as a child, she witnessed her father brutalize her mother. Her parents haven’t slept in the same room for seven years, and Lupino has been suffering the consequences of their mutual disdain.
“Near their farm, a new highway is being built by a chain gang from San Quentin, and Lupino enjoys spying on the cons from the woods. She particularly enjoys watching one muscular prisoner (Clark) as he swings his pick. After Clark escapes, thanks to a convenient landslide, Lupino runs into him at her secret hideaway, an abandoned cabin in the woods, and the two fall in love.
“Before long, Lupino’s stutter disappears and the blissful couple make plans to run off to San Francisco to get married. As a posse searches for the escaped con, the romance-minded highway engineer (Morris) asks Hull to fix him up with Lupino.
“A top-notch tearjerker, thanks to a sterling performance by Lupino, Deep Valley originally was planned as a vehicle for Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, and Ann Sheridan. It was Lupino’s last film for Warner Brothers, and it won her critical acclaim. When she turned down Warner’s offer of an exclusive four-year contract, the studio mogul swore she’d never make another movie for Warner Brothers. After playing second fiddle to Warners’ top star, Bette Davis, for seven long years, Lupino couldn’t have cared less.”
So sex cured Ida Lupino's stutter.Strangely enough,Marlene Dietrich must have CAUSED Jimmy Stewart to stutter after 1939--from all reports--FROM sex.
ReplyDelete"Wh-wh-well--I seemed to have de-de-developed a st-stutter."
"Most men do after I'm done with them in bed.You'll be fine--it will be your signature trait in your acting career."
"B-b-but I wa-wanted to be an auc-auctioneer."
"Well,you'll have to be a full time actor now,James.Good luck."
"Ya,ya mean we're through?"
"Afraid so.Too many men,so little time."
And that's GRA's theory of why Jimmy Stewart stuttered.
--GRA
On Wednesday July 5, TCM is showing anti-Communist movies during the day, starting at 6:45 a.m. ET. They are in succession: The Steel Fist (1952), The Whip Hand (1951), Arctic Flight (1952), The Red Danube (1949), Woman on Pier 13 (1950), Blood Alley (1955), Big Jim McClain (1952), The Phinx (1970).
ReplyDeleteThe Whip Hand has Raymond Burr as one of the bad guys. The Red Danube is an A picture with Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, and Janet Leigh as a ballerina trying to avoid being sent back. Woman on Pier 13 is a good noir. Blood Alley has John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. Big Jim McClain features John Wayne investigating a communist terror ring in Hawaii.
TCM probably calls this Red Scare Day.
TCM's Film Noir of the Week Saturday Night-Sunday Morning at Midnight and 10 a.m. ET is Arthur Lubin's Impact (1949) with Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Helen Walker, Charles Coburn, Anna May Wong.
ReplyDeleteFilm Noir Guide: "This is an interesting yarn about a ruthless businessman (Donlevy), the Double Indemnity-type victim of his scheming wife (Walker) and her lover (Clarence Kolb). The tables are turned, however, when Donlevy survives but is believed to have been killed."
"Starting a new life in a small Idaho town, he meets gas station owner and war widow Raines, who hires him as an auto mechanic. The fresh Idaho air soon has Donlevy falling in love and trying to forget his former life. Meanwhile, Walker is in a heap of trouble as the prime suspect in his 'murder' Will he do the right thing and reveal that the reports of his death were greatly exaggerated?"
"The acting is good and the plot intriguing, but the ending is a big letdown. Donlevy is terrific, as is Walker, who gives Barbara Stanwyck a run for her money in the femme fatale department. Coburn, who should have spent more time perfecting his Irish brogue, plays the elderly cop who breaks the case, and Wong is Donlevy's frightened housekeeper. Gossip queen Sheilah Graham makes a cameo appearance as herself."