Jerome Charyn (NYU Press, 1996) wrote in "Movieland: Hollywood and the Great American Dream Culture": "Among the Dolly Sisters and Errol Flynn, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour—all the fluff and exotic pastry that Hollywood could produce—appeared a very odd animal, the dreamwalker, like Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and Lizabeth Scott, whose faces had a frozen quality and always looked half-asleep. The dreamwalker seemed to mirror all our own fears." Lizabeth Scott could have had a future as a model, especially after she began appearing in the pages of Harper's Bazaar at the same time as Betty (Lauren) Bacall. Elizabeth Scott considered herself an actress; her first dramatic lead was Sadie Thompson, Jeanne Eagels's signature role, in W. Somerset Maugham's Rain. Since Rain was performed in what was then the equivalent of off Broadway, it went unreviewed. Irving Hoffman, who worked for columnist Walter Winchell, was impressed by her range.
Producer Hal Wallis knew even earlier that Lizabeth Scott should not be subjected to the kind of portraiture that would make her look exotic but unreal. An editor from Conde Nast, struck by Lizabeth's publicity shots, advised Wallis that she was "something special, what every man in uniform wants his girl friend to look like, a new type of movie girl, and potentially a fine actress." While Lauren Bacall never became a noir icon (never a real femme noire), Lizabeth Scott did, joining the pantheon that included Gloria Grahame, Ann Savage, Jane Greer, and Barbara Stanwyck. In fact, according to Film Noir: An Encyclopedia Reference to the American Style, seven of her twenty-two movies qualify as film noir:
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946),
Dead Reckoning (1947),
I Walk Alone (1948),
Pitfall (1948),
Too Late for Tears (1949),
Dark City (1950), and
The Racket (1951). Ironically, her best:
Dead Reckoning, Pitfall, and
Too Late for Tears, were loanouts. Typecast as the dark lady, Lizabeth Scott never had the chance to display her gift for comedy, which was evident in
The Skin of Our Teeth. But that was theater, not film. And theater was the medium for which she was yearning. Source:
—"Hal Wallis: Producer to the Stars" (2004) by Bernard F. Dick
Brian Hannan (film researcher for Turner Classic Movies): "In
Madcap: The Life of Preston Sturges, author Donald Spoto wrote that Sturges managed “to retain an amusing shot in the early part of the film, an intercut from Dick Powell and Ellen Drew on the rooftop to two snuggling rabbits in a corner cage. This particular visual allusion had been attempted by filmmakers and rejected by censors so often that virtually no director bothered to try to include it any longer. At the preview screening, however, someone nodded and it remained, to the censors’ later chagrin.”
Christmas in July (1940) was, in many ways, a breakthrough role for Dick Powell. No longer the boyish singer/dancer of Warner Bros. musicals as
Gold Diggers of 1937 and not yet the tough private eye of
Murder, My Sweet (1944), Powell was in a career limbo, struggling to redefine his screen persona. Powell emerges in
Christmas in July with a new style, one that balances his naive, all-American wholesomeness with bitter cynicism. Powell’s Jimmy MacDonald is just as memorable and iconic as James Stewart’s George Bailey in
It’s a Wonderful Life, and his chemistry with Ellen Drew as tender as Stewart's with Donna Reed." Source: cinemasojourns.com
Lizabeth Scott's favorite noir film was Pitfall (1948), co-starring Dick Powell. Although Pitfall now ranks as classic noir (French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier considers it one of the genre's masterpieces), producer Hal B. Wallis could not have known that in 1948; he simply believed that Lizabeth appearing opposite Dick Powell, who showed his macho side in Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945), was right for a movie about a woman who ensnares a respectable married man in a web of deception and murder, from which he emerges repentant but estranged from his wife (Jane Wyatt). Pitfall (1948), directed by Andre de Toth, is an even more caustic examination of the American dream than Double Indemnity, chiefly because its subject is the post-war nuclear family. By February 1953, Lizabeth Scott's stage fright was such that she even hid from her friends. Scott did not renew her Paramount contract in 1954, even before the "Lizabeth Scott in the Call Girls' Call Book" libelous article was published by Confidential magazine's chief editor Howard Rushmore. Between the end of her contract and the damaging exposure by Confidential magazine, she had turned down numerous scripts, including Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo (1955). —Source: "L.A. Noir: The City as Character" (2005) by Alain Silver and James Ursini
French film historian Bertrand Tavernier, in the bonus-disc of The Prowler DVD, refers to the film's "metaphysical decor" and considers The Prowler (1951) “one of the ten best films of the noir genre,” in the 20-minute featurette “The Masterpiece in the Margins: Bertrand Tavernier on The Prowler”. If you listen carefully, you will hear Eddie Muller lobbing questions to Tavernier from behind the camera. "The Prowler" can also be listed as a "film gris" ("grey film"), a term coined by American film critic Thom Andersen, which is a type of film noir that categorizes a series of films (released between 1947 and 1951) in the context of the first wave of the communist investigations of the HUAC. Film gris differs from film noir in the fact the gris films tend to blame collective society rather than the individual.
Robert Rossen's first experience of directing came when he was called in by Harry Cohn at Columbia to write the script of "Johnny O'Clock" (1947), and when Harry Cohn and the star Dick Powell asked Rossen to direct it. Bertrand Tavernier argued, discussing "Johnny O'Clock", that the film exhibits a 'directorial grace' and 'an invention not shown' in Rossen's later career. Tavernier saw the film as reflecting Rossen's 'Jewish pessimism and idealism,' a combination that was 'perfect for film noir'. Johnny O'Clock played by Dick Powell seems invulnerable, an echo of Bogart's wartime prototype. Yet, he's another Rossen protagonist who will finally have to reconsider the meaning of winning. Rossen's world is pessimistic, and there is no explicit affirmative vision, as in Polonsky's work. Yet, every scene of the film is directed with imagination, hinting at the romanticism beneath the surface, the reluctant altruism that Michael Wood sees as characteristic of the hardboiled American antihero. Dick Powell is the eponymous antihero, a cagey casino manager juggling shady relationships around the roulette. His subzero veneer starts to melt after meeting equally cynical Evelyn Keyes, whose younger sister just got mysteriously offed around Powell's joint. Packed with unexplored existential gambling, conflict, and implacable detective figures, the dramaturgy here is as Dostoevskian-like as his more famous
Body and Soul is Odetsian-like.
Nancy Hobson is one of the sexiest roles played by Evelyn Keyes, who looks like a vestal Lana Turner (acting in a delicate, sorrowful way). Her chemistry with Dick Powell is notable, and some of their scenes together dangerously steamy. Both Johnny and Nancy are individualist personalities trying to deny their romance in its initial stage while wisecracking in an atmosphere of gloomy betrayal. -Nancy: "I like you, Johnny O'Clock, if that's what you want to know". -Johnny: "Put it in writing and I'll paste it in my scrapbook".
Johnny O’Clock's suave gambler added urbanity to Powell’s tough image, combining a streak of sarcasm with a hint of chivalry in a similar way to Bogart's.
In
Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir (2001), Eddie Muller recounts Evelyn Keyes showing him a film poster from
Johnny O'Clock hanging on her bedroom's wall, "featuring a youthful golden-maned Evelyn being manhandled by Dick Powell." Evelyn Keyes, like Claire Trevor in
Murder, My Sweet, seemed to harbor a big crush on Dick Powell. Keyes alludes in her memoirs to a brief affair with Powell, but, unlike other actors she had dalliances with, she doesn't offer specifics. While they shooted
Mrs Mike in 1949, Dick Powell was reportedly burn-out due to the rumors spread by Confidential magazine of an affair between his wife June Allyson with Dean Martin.
Vaguely, Keyes insinuates that Powell felt regretful of the affair and "resented it." Anyway, it doesn't sound very serious on neither side, and it was probably only a one time fling. The London Film Review's film critic Derek Winnert (whose articles appeared in The Times and The Guardian, author of
The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Movies in 1995) also mentioned in 2017 the affair between Powell and Keyes in his reviews of
Johnny O'Clock and
Mrs. Mike, writing: "Dick Powell most memorably played Philip Marlowe in
Murder, My Sweet (1944).
To the Ends of the Earth (1948) is another outstanding Dick Powell noir. In her 1977 autobiography, Evelyn Keyes said
Mrs Mike was her best film. She admitted she had to fend off studio boss Harry Cohn’s advances during her career at Columbia. Among the many Hollywood affairs she recounted was one with Dick Powell."
Eventually Keyes realized Powell's true love was June Allyson, like Lauren Bacall was Bogart's. Keyes' last role was a small part as Tom Ewell's vacationing wife in Billy Wilder's
The Seven Year Itch (1955), which starred Marilyn Monroe. Keyes said: "It was nice to see Marilyn Monroe again. I had often met her at Sam Spiegel’s, but I never really knew what the audience saw in her to make her such a big star. To me, she was just another blonde with a perfect figure and a funny walk. But she turned out to be a wonderful actress." Evelyn Keyes officially retired in 1956. Source: www.derekwinnert.com
At the time to cast Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe appeared absolutely bizarre, and yet when you watch
Murder, My Sweet (1944) you cannot imagine anyone else would have done a better job, and indeed Powell was Raymond Chandler's favourite incarnation of his protagonist. Philip Marlowe was able to handle himself to a point, but he was also vulnerable, and Powell could adeptly convey both sides of this personality. The classic milieu of the film noir is so well realised here that newbies can be forgiven for thinking everything is a cliché, but that is simply because they got it so right as it all falls perfectly into place. There's a short speech Ann Grayle gives our hero that sums him up as "some kind of nut," because he stumbles into these dangerous situations without knowing exactly what is going on. Yet we stick with him, we trust him, because Marlowe strikes us as the one individual with integrity when all around him (except Ann) are out for their own selfish gains, and for that at least, this film deserves its status as a noir classic. Source: www.thespinningimage.co.uk
Some of Evelyn Keyes's best performances in film noir were:
Face Behind the Mask, Ladies in Retirement, Johnny O’Clock, The Killer That Stalked New York, 99 River Street, and
The Prowler. However, Keyes' favorite film was
Mrs. Mike, a 1949 drama film set in the Canadian wilderness during the early 1900s, co-starring Dick Powell, and directed by Louis King. Dick Powell was one of the co-producers of
Mrs Mike through his company Regal Films. It was also Powell who had personally requested Evelyn Keyes for the leading female role of Kathy Flannigan, after their successful pairing in the previous
Johnny O'Clock. Powell is perfect as the noble Sgt. Mike Flannigan.
Mrs Mike, released on December 23, 1949, is a beautifully crafted depiction of love, commitment, and duty in the face of great hardships. —"Film and Politics in America: A Social Tradition" (1992) by Brian Neve
Evelyn Keyes' autobiography
Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister: My Lively Life In and Out of Hollywood was published in 1977. In 1947 a survey of theater owners placed her first on a list of the 10 most promising box‐office personalities. Elizabeth Taylor was in fifth place. Miss Keyes just shrugged: “I had the world by the tail. I could have been an important actress. But I didn't pay my dues.” She said in 1977 that the Columbia Studio head Harry Cohn withdrew his support when she refused to be intimate with him. Cohn was furious after having declared "I love you" to Keyes, whilst she proceeded to needle him by telling Cohn her romances with other actors. Keyes also wrote in her memoir she underwent an abortion just before filming
Gone with the Wind, and the experience left her unable to have children.
"You can't go back and make a movie like they made in 1940," she said in 1977. "They blew ‘The Jolson Story’ up to 70 millimeters [wide high-resolution] and tried to bring it out again. It didn't work. Look at People magazine. This whole country is one big gossip column. I suppose I was most influenced by Erica Jong, although my book was also partly written out of my psychoanalysis. I thought, ‘What do I have to offer that would be of interest?’ I'm an American product, the American dream of a few million people. I always played the girl who got the boy in the end." Keyes was protected first by Cecil B. De Mile, who signed her to a personal contract, then by Charles Vidor, who made sure the predatory executives who lunched with Harry Cohn understood that Evelyn Keyes was private property. As her career started to climb, she was more able to protect herself. “As you got more successful, you got more untouchable. God knows, I've never been homesick one day since I left Atlanta. I have no roots. I deliberately set out to destroy them, and did. If there's any such thing as hometown for me, it's Hollywood. I was formed here as an adult.”
Evelyn Keyes expressed her opinion that
Mrs. Mike (1949) was her best film. Among her many love affairs in Hollywood she recounted in
Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister, were those with film producer Michael Todd (who left her for Elizabeth Taylor), actors Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Dick Powell, and Kirk Douglas. She had to regularly fend off Columbia Pictures studio head Harry Cohn's advances during her career at the studio. Keyes was married to businessman Barton Oliver Bainbridge from 1938 until his death from suicide in 1940. Later, she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), director John Huston (1946–1950), and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985). Keyes said of her marriages in 1977: “Actually, none of them were real marriages, they were legalized love affairs.” Then she reconsidered: “No, I was married once. With Artie Shaw, it was really a marriage.” About her four husbands and dozens of lovers, she said: “I wrote about them all with affection.” The only malice in the book, she added, was directed toward Fredric March, with whom she had a small role in her first picture,
The Buccaneer (1938). She recoiled with disgust relating an incident in which March invited her to his dressing room with a pretext and then proceeded to harass her. Except for March, Miss Keyes said she was careful not to mention explicitly the name of a man who was married at the time [Dick Powell] or who might be embarrassed by the notoriety. Keyes also became involved with flamboyant producer Mike Todd during the filming of
Around the World in 80 Days (1956), playing a cameo role in the movie.
Before dating Evelyn Keyes, Mike Todd had been married to Dick Powell's ex-wife Joan Blondell (1947–1950). After the filming of
Around the World in 80 Days, Todd broke up with Keyes after falling in love with Elizabeth Taylor, whom he married in 1957. The positive thing that came out for Keyes was that she had invested good money in the Todd picture and was financially set for life as a result. Keyes had quit her career when she married Artie Shaw in 1957. The couple separated in the 1970s but did not divorce until 1985. In 2005, Keyes sued Artie Shaw's estate, claiming that she was entitled to one-half of Shaw's estate pursuant to a contract to make a will between them. Shaw died in 2004. In July 2006, a Ventura, California jury unanimously held that Keyes was entitled to one-half of Artie Shaw's estate, estimated in $1,420,000.
—Sources: nytimes.com, wikipedia.org
Despite Matthew Kennedy's research in
A Life Between Takes (quite a biased biograhy, partly an updated rewrite of Blondell's novel
Center Door fancy)
, not much information seems to be known about the reasons behind the sudden breakdown in the mid '40s of the Powells' previously happy marriage, but Joan Blondell's infatuation with Mike Todd, who would become her third husband, seems to have been a key factor. Incidentally, years later, at the time of Powell's death, Blondell would lament she should never have divorced Powell. In an interview that Glenda Farrell gave to Robert Franklin at Columbia University in 1959, she talked about the differences between comedy and drama, the social and cultural life in Hollywood, her impressions of Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Mervyn LeRoy and Paddy Chayevsky, among others.
Farrell considered Blondell "my best friend from Warner studios" and explains both "never fighted over our lines or roles." Blondell co-starred nine times with snappy Glenda Farrell, usually as a street-smart gold-digging duo. Blondell playfully called her friend Bette Davis's four ex-husbands "The Four Skins" since they were all gentiles. The Warner crew thought Blondell had romantic designs on James Cagney and Clark Gable. According to Farrell, the marriage between Blondell and Powell happened due to the many hours both actors shared working at the Warner Bros lot. Also, Blondell mainly craved security by marrying Powell and Farrell called their relationship "a love affair." But she stresses how difficult is to make a marriage between two stars so defined by their careers work out. So Glenda Farrell chose to marry a doctor (Dr. Henry Ross) instead. Source: www.library.columbia.edu
Joan Blondell was finally able to leave her Warner Brothers in 1939. She returned to Broadway in 1943, starring in Mike Todd’s production
The Naked Genius as Honey Bee Carroll, a comedy written by Todd's ex-girlfriend, burlesque artist Gypsy Rose Lee. Blondell would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in
The Blue Veil (1951), despite Bosley Crowther of the New York Times calling the film "a whoppingly banal tear-jerker that will lure multitudes of moviegoers who like nothing better than a good cry." Blondell herself said of
The Blue Veil: "That was the worst piece of trash I ever made." When Blondell received news of Mike Todd having died in 1958 in a flight accident, she caustically commented, “I hope the son of a bitch screamed the whole way down.”
In 1965, Blondell was in the running to replace Vivian Vance as Lucille Ball's sidekick on the hit CBS television comedy series
The Lucy Show. Unfortunately, after filming her second guest appearance as Joan Brenner (Lucy's new friend from California), Blondell walked off the set, accusing Lucille Ball of having criticized her performance in front of the studio audience. Probably, Lucille Ball (a long time friend of June Allyson) was fed-up with Blondell's sense of entitlement.
During years, Blondell had ranted that Powell had left her for June Allyson, with some insiders saying: "Can you imagine? I mean no offense but, yuck. I think it's like trading a diamond pendant for this beige Ann Taylor skirt.” Ironically, June Allyson became temporarily the stepmother of Blondell's daughter Ellen Powell (who'd suffered mental breakdowns), which exacerbated Blondell's animosity. Jane Wilkie (Allyson's maid of honor) was angry about Blondell's bad attitude towards Allyson, since Blondell (who had to wait two years to marry Mike Todd, after his first wife conceded him a divorce), now was bent on winning Powell back, which was impossible. "June Allyson was Dick Powell's true love," remarked Wilkie. "He had many chances of two-timing her, but as far as I know, I think he was faithful to Junie."
—Source: "Confessions of an ex-fan magazine writer" (1985) by Jane Wilkie
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Great post. Those old Hollywood people led such fascinating lives, thank you!
ReplyDeleteyou are very welcome, echox, I'm glad you liked it!
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