Christmas Holiday (1944): Have Yourself an Edgy Little Christmas or Respite From the Heatwave

Christmas Holiday. The name sets forth images of festive shoppers, skirting past lavishly decorated store windows, Yuletide parties, both hip and homespun, trees, lights, carols and mistletoe. Given these impressions, a film by such a title might seem to be filled with music, laughter and/or a warm hearted message of hope and happiness. Anyone who has ever seen Christmas Holiday (1944), knows that assessment is dead wrong, dead being the operative word. In fact, the production from low key, low cost Universal Studios, is a dark and brooding film noir directed by Robert Siodmak, no stranger to the genre.

Based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham, the story centers around the relationship between a handsome and seemingly affable young man (Gene Kelly) and the pretty young woman (Deanna Durbin) he meets and marries. But it soon becomes clear that the young man, Robert, is a gambling, psychopathic mama’s boy, who murders a bookie. His naïve and trusting wife, Jackie, continues to love and believe in him, even after she discovers his shady alter ego. With hints of incest and gossamer veiled prostitution (Jackie’s self inflicted punishment for not “helping” her screwed up husband enough), Christmas Holiday is a psychoanalyst dream, complete with a mysterious, possessive mother (Gale Sondergaard, who was born to play such a part).

Casting the leads was the real surprise for moviegoers who saw the film in 1944. Deanna Durbin was the reigning sweetheart at Universal since she signed on almost a decade before. Unknown Durbin had made a short film called “Every Sunday” in 1936 at MGM with then also unknown 14 year-old Judy Garland. It was a screen test of sorts for the two young hopefuls. Metro kept Judy and Deanna signed with Universal. It is said that the lively Durbin’s popularity saved the struggling studio from bankruptcy. Her films were light as a feather and always featured her lilting operatic voice. Christmas Holiday was chosen as her first dramatic role and it was reportedly her favorite.

Like Durbin, Gene Kelly was cast strongly against type. Getting his start in musical theater on Broadway, Kelly had only been in films a couple of years, mostly starring in musicals. The role of Robert Manette was a complete about face for him. An interesting turn though and one that showed a different facet to a growing film star. The novelty of an already intriguing film was the casting of such fluffy and pleasant musical celebrities as dark downers in an offbeat offering.

Contrary to what one might think, the musical lilting heard by Deanna (after all, this IS a Durbin picture), has nothing to do with Yuletide yearnings but instead love ditties by lyric powerhouses including "Spring WIll Be A Little Late This Year" written by Frank Loesser and “Always” by Irving Belin. No dancing though, Kelly saved plenty of that for his other 1944 photoplay, Cover Girl, also on loan-out.

Fallen Angel (1945): Fox Film Noir

With Laura (1944), 20th-Century Fox had a certified hit, both commercially and critically. Stylish and sexy, it also certified full fledged stardom for it’s leading lady, Gene Tierney, and propelled the status of it’s director, Otto Preminger. As always in Hollywood, the studio was eager to build on and duplicate the success of a film by using similar elements to potentially create a new one. This was the case with Fallen Angel, produced the year after the Tierney success. Laura’s male star, Dana Andrews was cast in the lead and Preminger assigned as it’s director.

Unlike Laura, the characters in Fallen Angel aren’t glamorous and wealthy eastern urbanites with razor sharp wit. They are denizens of a small podunk hamlet on the California coast. Although the characters reside on both sides of the tracks, the main focus is on the seedier “wrong” side. Down on his luck drifter Eric Stanton (Andrews) is kicked off a night bus bound for San Francisco, for lack of payment, landing in the burg of Walton, population 23 (an exaggeration, but it is a small, slow moving town). Drowning his sorrows in a cuppa joe at a late night diner, he happens upon Stella (luscious Linda Darnell); waitress, leggy lovely and local slut. As mercenary as she is beautiful, Stella, as Eric discovers within ten minutes of film footage, has a penchant for picking up admirers as quickly and handily as she does the day’s blue plate special.

Impetuous boy that Eric is, 24 hours later, he finds that he’s fallen head over heels with our girl Stella. She on the other hand has other plans. Being burned by Johnny-Come-Latelys before, she wants more than a chop suey dinner and a good time. Determined to give the sultry hash slinger the material possessions she craves, Eric sets his sights on local spinster June Mills (Alice Faye), attractive and financially well off. The plan: Marry June, grab her dough and take off with his viperous vixen. But when Stella is found murdered, Eric finds a target on his back.

Not only was Fallen Angel supposed to follow in the successful, noir-ish footsteps of Laura, but it was also supposed to be the dramatic debut of film songstress, Alice Faye. Longtime Fox musical star, Faye wanted to take her career in a different direction and was excited when her boss, head of Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, chose this for her dramatic break-out (Olivia de Havilland and new Fox lovely Jeanne Crain were also considered for the role. DeHavilland specifically might have done well in it, as she successfully played a similar role in Paramount’s Hold Back the Dawn, two years earlier). Although not a flop, the film didn’t come close to the box-office powerhouse, Laura had been, and Faye was very unhappy with the way the film had been edited. After visiting the screening room to see the final product, she reportedly left the studio and retired from films (she would return to both films and Fox in 1962 for a remake of State Fair, in a secondary mother role).

Dana Andrews was riding a career high, starring in the aforementioned Laura, the hugely popular ‘45 version of State Fair, and headlined the following year’s Oscar winning Best Picture, The Best Years of Our Lives. But the big winner in Fallen Angel was Linda Darnell. Based on her strong performance in Hangover Square, also released in 1945, she was cast yet again as a dark vamp and the persona suited her. Her early roles had consisted of very young and virginal ingenue parts, but as the middle of the decade approached, she began being cast as naughty girls and her dark good looks only enhanced her burgeoning sexpot image. Stella can actually be viewed as a precursor to her acclaimed role as beautiful gold-digger, Lora Mae Hollingsway in the highly successful A Letter to Three Wives (1949). According to Darnell biographer Ronald L. Davis, there was even talk about an Oscar nomination for her performance in Angel.

Famed playwright Tennessee Williams recommended the movie, albeit denouncing the “awful” title, but the overall impression was that it just didn’t live up to it’s expectations. The fast pace of the relationships were inane, with Andrew’s character falling madly in love with a loose woman, meeting and marrying an upstanding lady and attempting to bilk her of her fortune, all in a very small town, and all in less than a week. But the noir elements, overall good performances by not only the three principals but also fine character actors, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere, Bruce Cabot and Percy Kilbride, and striking cinematography by Joseph LaShelle, make for a film from the golden age that can be enjoyed, if not wholly believed.
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Ringing Out the Old: 15 Posts from 2009

Classic Movies Digest went online in late March of 2009 and in the nine months since its inception, much has been covered in the way of classic movies, so much more has not....yet. Great response has been given by the blogs readers and as a reflection on the past year as it concerns CMD, I wish to offer you the highlights from 2009.

The following are 15 posts which were deemed some of the more popular, by way of feedback through blog comments, Facebook and/or Twitter comments, notes sent via e-mail and page hits. They also include some of my personal favorites. The order in which they are listed is random and each title is clickable in order for you to easily catch any post you may have missed.

• The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938): In Like Flynn
  One of the most memorable films since its release in 1938, The Adventures of Robin Hood cemented the stardom of Errol Flynn and made a bundle for Warner Brothers. Technicolor extraordinaire!
  


• The Glass Key (1942): Lake and Ladd in Hardboiled Hammett
  A classic crime drama from Paramount, the film re-teamed Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, a red hot pairing who became an iconic Hollywood on-screen couple.
  


• The Many Faces of Those Glorious Character Actors
  By far one of the most popular posts of the year, Character Actors showcases some of the marvelous supporting players who make the films from Hollywood's Golden Age, the well rounded, multi faceted stories they should be.
  


• Black Narcissus: Technicolor Masterpiece
  A cinematic masterpiece from British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus is brilliant in almost every way. Even if nuns in a remote convent aren't your cup of tea, you might be surprised.
  


• 42nd Street: Brother, Can You Spare a Dame
  "You're going out there a youngster, but you've got to come back a star." That's the famous line Warner Baxter said to dancer Ruby Keeler in this classic Depression-era musical, and she did! Both on screen and off.
  


• George Sanders: A Scoundrel for All Seasons
  Readers either love to hate this suave cad or hate to love him but regardless they made this post spotlighting the urbane actor very popular.
  


• Bride of Frankenstein: A Toast to Gods and Monsters
  Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester make electricity of the most morbid sort in this classic horror flick from Universal Studios. One of the most creative and intriguing films of its genre.
  


• 13 Classic Movies I've Never Seen ...But Really Want To
  A post with a personal slant, it arguably got the most response than any other Classic Movies Digest entry in 2009. A final update on this post is planned for January 2010.
  


• Scarlet Street (1945): Classic Film Noir
  Film noir at its finest. A femme fatale, murder, sex and Edward G. Robinson in a frilly apron. You gotta see this one.
  


• My Darling Clementine: An American Classic
  John Ford's poetic western, climaxing at the legendary OK Corral. Fonda, Mature and Darnell are great but Ford's direction and the gorgeous photography are the stars here.
  


• Laura (1944): Sophisticated Murder
  Gene Tierney became synonymous with her title character in Laura. The most stylish murder mystery of the 1940's, it made a star of Tierney and didn't hurt Dana Andrews or Clifton Webb either.
  


• Judy Garland: Before the Yellow Brick Road
  With all that's been written about the superstar, this post touches on her early innocent days, before booze and pills took their toll. A young girl on the cusp of stardom.
  


• A Letter to Three Wives: Is It Your Husband?
  With A Letter to Three Wives, master screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz put dialogue and direction together to create a sublime slice of middle class Americana. Sharp and witty, Mankiewicz' Wives set the stage for his greatest work the following year, All About Eve.
  


• The Innocents (1961): Spectres of Complexity
  The classic ghost story based on Henry James' novel. Deborah Kerr gives one of her finest performances as a timid governess who may or may not be seeing spirits. Classy and spooky in every respect.
  


• The Awful Truth: Grant, Dunne and a Dog Named Smith
  One of the funniest and most clever screwball comedies to come out of the genre, The Awful Truth stars comedic greats Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as perfect foils for one anothers mishaps. As a divorcing couple still in love, they are A #1.

There you have it. It's been a fun year (or should I say nine months) here at Classic Movies Digest and I hope the coming year will be even more so. Check out the next post to find out some great stuff CMD has in store for 2010. Happy New Year!

Scarlet Street (1945): Classic Film Noir

Walter Wanger was a successful independent producer who in the 1940's was married to actress Joan Bennett. Bennett was in several Wanger productions from the the late 30's to 1940, when the pair married and the actress signed a non-exclusive contract with 20th Century-Fox studios. One of her first films under her Fox contract was Man Hunt (1941), an anti-Nazi yarn directed by German director Fritz Lang. Bennett, always a popular actress and when given the opportunity, one able to rise to the occasion in a challenging role, didn't have the acting credentials of many of her peers (though she came from a respected family of actors). However, under Lang's direction she blossomed and three years after Man Hunt she and Lang re-teamed to make The Woman in the Window, a sophisticated and stylish film noir co-starring Edward G. Robinson.

In early 1945, Wanger formed his own production company with Bennett and Lang as his partners in the venture. Named after Joan's eldest daughter, Diana Productions was created as an artistic outlet for Lang to direct and Bennett to star while Wanger handled the financial end. The films made under the Diana moniker would be released through Universal Studios. Thanks to her previous work with Lang, Joan Bennett was being taken much more seriously as an actress and her reputation as a sultry femme fatale was being established. This period was a high point for Joan, as her contract with Fox had just ended and she was an independent artist with part ownership in a production company developing films for her to star in.

As the company's premiere project, a remake of the French film La Chienne (1931) - The Bitch - was chosen. Directed by Jean Renoir, La Chienne was a dark story of a prostitute and her pimp taking advantage of a middle aged milquetoast. The new version was titled Scarlet Street and it was the perfect choice to showcase Bennett's new femme fatale image and a classic example of film noir, a genre of film growing in popularity. The roots of film noir are found in brooding crime dramas of the 1930's. They developed in the 1940's as stylized suspense thrillers, dark and dangerous, depicting society's underbelly and highlighted with murder and sex. Scarlet Street had all of the above with Fritz Lang's meticulous direction to boot.

The Woman in the Window had been a hit, so the films male stars, Edward G. Robinson and Dan Duryea, joined forces with Bennett and Lang (pictured above on the set) again in Scarlet Street. The story revolves around the relationship between Christopher "Chris" Cross (Robinson) and Katherine "Kitty" March (Bennett). Chris is a meek cashier, married to a shrill harridan out of loneliness, whose only solace is painting pictures every Sunday (an act his shrewish wife only allows him to do in the bathroom of their small New York flat). On his way home one night in Greenwich Village, he rescues Kitty from an attacker, who, unbeknownst to Chris, is actually her boyfriend/pimp, a scuzball named Johnny Prince. After a late night drink and a little conversation, Chris takes Kitty for an actress instead of the tramp she is and becomes enchanted with her. She, in turn, mistakenly thinks Chris is a wealthy artist. At Johnny's prompting, Kitty tries to bilk her innocent admirer out of money he doesn't have. Believing the harlot loves him and afraid of losing her, Chris embezzles from his boss to keep her in the style to which she has become accustomed. Deceit, betrayal and greed only lead to tragedy for all involved.

Like Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson's career was also in full swing, having completed The Woman in the Window and another classic film noir, Double Indemnity the previous year. Christopher Cross was a variation on his Woman in the Window character, a married middle aged innocent who becomes entangled in a web of intrigue and murder because of a beautiful brunette of questionable character (also played by Bennett). Along with The Whole Town's Talking (1935), it was a great example of Robinson's acting range, being on the opposite end of the spectrum from the tough guy gangster roles that made him famous. Dan Duryea also reprised a similar role to his Window character. His Johnny Prince is wiry weasel of a brute who likes to knock his "girlfriend" around and with strong hints of sado-masicism, Bennett, as the girl, seems to be drawn to him all the more for it. To pass the board of film censors, the relationship between Bennett and Duryea's characters as prostitute and pimp was watered down as much as possible while still getting the point across.

Rumor has it that Bennett and Fritz Lang were lovers during this period. With the actress married to the films producer and the business partnership of the trio taken into account, it made form an odd venture. Still a highly successful one for all involved, particularly Joan Bennett. In Scarlet Street, she gives a solid performance, one of the best of her career. Kitty March is arguably the definitive role of the brunette portion of her long Hollywood tenure. *

*For more on how hair color played a role in Joan Bennett's career, read Joan Bennett: Do BLONDES Have More Fun?

Laura (1944): Sophisticated Murder

Gene Tierney was "undeniably the most beautiful actress in movie history" according to her boss at 20th Century-Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck. Indeed, she was one of the screen's most gorgeous stars, with a persona of elegance and cool sophistication. It was this graceful elegance which lent itself perfectly to Laura (1944), the stylish and sophisticated murder mystery that made her a star and is the movie with which she is most readily associated. Unusual in one respect, compared to most films of its time, the main character, Laura, doesn't appear on screen at all for the first quarter of the movie, except in the representation of a portrait above her fireplace, and for the next quarter, only in flashback.

The film begins in the plush New York City apartment of Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), an acid tongued, poison-penned columnist and radio personality who is being questioned by detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) while typing his newest column in his ornate bathtub (Thank goodness its not an electric typewriter....say, what's a typewriter). Detective McPherson is investigating the murder of beautiful Laura Hunt (Tierney), successful ad executive and protegee of Lydecker. McPherson's investigation finds a menagerie of decadent, amoral Manhattenites with various relationships to Laura. As the case progresses, the tough talking, hard boiled detective becomes infatuated with the portrait of the victim and obsessed with her via personal interviews and the dead woman's private papers. Falling asleep one night in Laura's apartment, under her mezmorizing portrait, he is awakened by none other than the object of his obsession. Laura is alive and it turns out that the dead woman, whose face was obliterated by the gunshot, is a model at the ad agency who was using Laura's apartment the night of the murder. So who tried to kill Laura and is she now safe?

The film was wrought with problems and delays from the outset. According to Tierney's autobiography, Jennifer Jones was originally offered the title role but refused (as did Hedy Lamarr). Stylistic director Rouben Mamoulian was originally assigned to oversee the picture but fired well into production. Producer Otto Preminger was then allowed to produce and direct the film, a job that was first denied him by boss Darryl Zanuck, due to an old grudge between the two. It turned out to be, what some call, Preminger's finest work, and the bald headed Austrian was nominated for an Academy Award.

Prissy and effete stage actor Clifton Webb was Preminger's choice for the prissy and effete character of Waldo Lydecker. Zanuck, however, didn't care for Webb, a known homosexual. After a test revealed that Webb's mannerisms were perfect for the character, Zanuck relented and the actor won both an Oscar nomination for the role as well as a long term contract with the studio. It is hard to believe that Webb's aging dandy would actually lust after the young and nubile Tierney~and even harder to believe that she would have any physical attraction to him. His interest would be seen as having more of a controlling rather than romantic nature, despite what the script might try to imply. It is also hard to imagine Laura's romantic involvement with her fiancee, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), a weak, sponging Southern gigolo, who plays pattycake with Laura's wealthy aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson). Her vitality and vivaciousness is much more suited to the virile detective McPherson and an immediate attraction can be felt between these two. Both Tierney and Andrews had rather mediocre careers before they made the noir classic, but the films popularity made instant stars of both.

Besides the Oscar nomination for Preminger and Webb, the movie also raked in nods for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction (B&W) and Best Cinematography (B&W). The latter won the coveted prize for Joseph LaShelle. Composer David Raksin's score was also very notable including the haunting title tune which became a beloved standard. On the strength of her performance in Laura, Tierney was cast in the plum role of Ellen in the dark Leave Her to Heaven, the following year and received her own nomination from the Academy.

The Glass Key (1942): Lake and Ladd in Hard Boiled Hammett

As one of the 1940's memorable romantic duo's, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake were both icy cool blondes, whose passive, almost emotionless acting styles were a perfect match to the other, but their good looks and on-screen chemistry sparked red hot hits at Paramount where both were under contract throughout the decade. In 1942 the two made The Glass Key, a remake of a 1935 crime drama/mystery which starred George Raft. Based on the classic novel by famed mystery author Dashiell Hammett, the film was actually the second pairing of Ladd and Lake, whose first venture, This Gun For Hire, hadn't yet been released when production on Key began. The magnetism they showed in This Gun For Hire was duplicated in The Glass Key not purposely but by chance. Largely forgotten actress Patricia Morison was originally cast as the female lead and actually shot a few scenes when she was deemed too tall as Ladd's paramour. Ladd was a rather diminutive leading man at roughly 5' 6", so petite Lake was cast instead. The studio tried to pair the stars publicly, though they were merely friends and Ladd married actress Sue Carol the same year Key was released. Professionally however, the two fair haired actors went on to make a total of four films together at Paramount, including The Blue Dahlia (1946) and Saigon (1948).

The Glass Key is an early example of film noir, gritty crime drama peppered with romantic liaisons, murder and plenty of hard boiled dialogue. It's a complex crime thriller with moments of genuine edge of your seat excitement. As Ladd and Lake hadn't yet proved themselves the firecracker team they would eventually become, veteran Brian Donlevy was top billed. He plays shady and obnoxious crime boss Paul Madvig, whose attraction to sleek Janet Henry (Lake), causes him to back her father, Ralph Henry, as the reform candidate for governor in their state. Janet tolerates the oafish Madvig to help her ambitious father. Ladd plays Ed Beaumont, Madvigs right hand, who oversees everything pertaining to his boss, including Madvig's younger sister Opal (Bonita Granville), who is secretly seeing the would be governors shiftless playboy son Taylor (Richard Denning). When the no good Taylor is found dead outside the house he shares with his father and sister, Madvig is the number one suspect, since he went to the home to discuss Taylor's involvement with his kid sister Opal (told you it was complex). The story segues with Madvigs enemy, thug Nick Varna (Joseph Calleia) trying to pin the murder on him while Varna's beefy and sinister henchman Jeff (William Bendix) gives Ed a beating the likes the silver screen had never seen to that time, when Ed tries to find evidence to clear his boss and comrade Madvig of the crime.

Hulk of a man Bendix had just made his film debut the same year as this film. He also won an Oscar nomination in one of his very first roles in Wake Island also released in 1942. He is more than memorable as the sadistically smiling heavy (literally!) knocking the soup out of Ladd in the grueling and realistic beating scene which ends with Ladd falling several stories from a window and crashing through a skylight onto the dinner table of horrified diners. Former child actress Bonita Granville (These Three, Nancy Drew) is always good but she's not given a chance here to do much more than cry over her murdered lover, but she does it looking lovely. The screenplay is riddled with great dialogue like Bendix fellow goon bragging on his cooking skills: "My first wife was a second cook in a third rate joint on Fourth street."

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake would become iconic figures of the 1940's. Ladd as a stone faced tough talker, Lake as the gal with the peek-a-boo hairstyle that wreaked havoc in war munition factories when girls who copied the look, got their long locks caught in factory machinery. The Glass Key proved a success for Paramount and a launchpad for the two comely personalities who charged the film with their high voltage electricity.

Joan Bennett: Do BLONDES Have More Fun?

Remember pretty and pert Amy March in 1933's Little Women? Remember darkly seductive Kitty "Lazy Legs" March in the 1945 classic noir film Scarlet Street? Both were played by beautiful actress Joan Bennett. Bennett essentially had two phases in her nearly 50 year feature film career. The first as a pretty blonde in mostly lightweight fare during the 1930's and the second as a raven haired vamp in some of the best examples of the film noir genre of the 1940's. Surprisingly, the 180 degree career change took place quite by accident.

In 1938 Joan Bennett had been a popular blonde ingenue in Hollywood for a decade, already appearing in over 30 films, like Disraeli and George Cukor's Little Women. Her career had been steady if uneventful. In late summer she began work on a romantic comedy called Trade Winds with Fredric March. The films producer, Walter Wanger, had put Bennett under personal contract after seeing her in Little Women (Bennett and Wanger would marry in 1940). In the film, Joan's character changes her hair color from blonde to brunette as part of a disguise. Earlier that year Wanger had produced Algiers, which featured Austrian beauty Hedy Lamarr in her successful American debut. He and Trade Wind's director Tay Garnett noted the uncanny resemblance the brunette Joan had to Lamarr. The change was popular with film goers and according to Bennett she began getting better parts. Her new sultry look was so appealing she decided to keep it (Cole Porter even noted the hair change in the song "Let's Not Talk About Love" with the lyrics "Let's speak of Lamarr, that Hedy so fair; why does she let Joan Bennett wear all her old hair?" ).

One producer who took notice of the "new Joan" was friend David O. Selznick. He was so impressed with Bennett's new sultry look that he had her test for the highly coveted role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. She became one of the four leading contenders for the role along with Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur and Vivien Leigh, who eventually won the part.

Even though she continued in a few less than demanding roles in films like The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), eventually filmmakers began to appreciate Bennett's darker countenance and her career took a dramatic turn. In 1941 she was cast as a streetwalker in the espionage drama Man Hunt. It was the first of four films she would make for German director Fritz Lang. Her next two Lang films, The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945) were excellent examples of the film noir genre that had become popular with wartime and post war audiences and cemented Bennett's persona as a femme fatale. Joan Bennett never went back to being a blonde, either personally or professionally, and capped off her career as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the gothic vampire soap opera, Dark Shadows.