Actresses with Pale Gold Hair & The Imaginary Blonde (fragments by Ross MacDonald)

Jayne Mansfield
Mamie Van Doren
Rita Hayworth
Lana Turner
Alice Faye
Jean Harlow
Joan Caulfield
Evelyn Keyes
Lucille Ball
Veronica Lake
Ann Sothern
Betty Grable
Claire Trevor
Mary Beth Hughes
Carole Landis
Audrey Totter
Marilyn Monroe
Marie Wilson

THE IMAGINARY BLONDE ©1953 by Ross MacDonald

I backed away from her righteous indignation: female indignation is always righteous, and went out to my car. The early spring sun was dazzling. Beyond the freeway and the drifted sugary dunes, the bay was Prussian blue. The road cut inland across the base of the peninsula and returned to the sea a few miles north of the town. Here a wide blacktop parking space shelved off to the left of the highway, overlooking the white beach and whiter breakers. Signs at each end of the turnout stated that this was a County Park, No Beach Fires. It was a long black Cadillac nosed into the cable fence at the edge of the beach. I braked and turned off the highway and got out. There was no registration on the steeringpost, and nothing in the glove-compartment but a half-empty box of shells for a .38 automatic. The ignition was still turned on. I untied the slip, which didn't look as if it would take fingerprints, and went over it for a label. It had one: Gretchen, Palm Springs. It occurred to me that it was Saturday morning and that I'd gone all winter without a weekend in the desert. I retied the slip the way I'd found it, and drove back to the Siesta Motel.

Ella's welcome was a few degrees colder than absolute zero. "Well!" She glared down her pretty rabbit nose at me. "I thought we were rid of you." "So did I. But, I just couldn't tear myself away." She gave me a peculiar look, neither hard nor soft, but mixed. Her hand went to her hair, then reached for a registration card. "I suppose if you want to rent a room, I can't stop you. Only please don't imagine you're making an impression on me. You're not. You leave me cold, mister.' "Archer," I said. "Lew Archer. Don't bother with the card. I came back to use your phone."

I made a snap decision, the kind you live to regret. "All right. I'll take a fifty-dollar advance. Which is a good deal less than five hundred. My first advice to you is to tell the police everything you know. Provided that you're innocent." Palm Springs is still a one-horse town, but the horse is a Palomino with silver trappings. Most of the girls were Palomino, too. The main street was a cross-section of Hollywood and Vine transported across the desert by some unnatural force and disguised in western costumes which fooled nobody. Not even me. I found Gretchen's lingerie shop in an expensive-looking arcade built around an imitation flagstone patio. In the patio's centre a little fountain gurgled pleasantly, flinging small lariats of spray against the heat. It was late in March, and the season was ending. Most of the shops, including the one I entered, were deserted except for the hired help. It was a small cool shop, faintly perfumed by a legion of vanished dolls. Stockings and robes and other garments were coiled on the glass counters or hung like brilliant treesnakes on display stands along the narrow walls.

"I met a girl," I said. "Actually she was a mature woman, a statuesque blonde to be exact. I picked her up on the beach at Laguna, if you want me to be brutally frank." "I couldn't bear it if you weren't. Married woman, eh? What do you think I am, a lonely hearts club?" Still, she was interested, though she probably didn't believe me. "She mentioned me, is that it? What was her first name?" "Fern." "Unusual name. You say she was a big blonde?" "Magnificently proportioned," I said. "If I had a classical education I'd call her Junoesque."

"Fern Dee. She wasn't a bad little nightingale but she was no pro, Joe, you know? She had it but she couldn't project it. When she warbled the evening died, no matter how hard she tried, I don't wanna be snide." "Where did she lam, Sam, or don't you give a damn?" He smiled like a corpse in a deft mortician's hands. "I heard the boss retired her to private life. Took her home to live with him. That is what I heard. But I don't mix with the big boy socially, so I couldn't say for sure that she's impure. Is it anything to you?" "Something, but she's over twenty-one."

The iron finger, probing my back, directed me down a lightless corridor to a small square office containing a metal desk, a safe, a filing cabinet. It was windowless, lit by fluorescent tubes in the ceiling. Under their pitiless glare, the face above the gun looked more than ever like the dead man's face. I wondered if I had been mistaken about his deadness, or if the desert heat had addled my brain. My mind was still partly absent, wandering underground in the echoing caves. I couldn't recall the voices, or who they were talking about. I had barely sense enough to keep my eyes closed and go on listening. I was lying on my back on a hard surface. The voices were above me.

A sickness assailed me, worse than the sickness induced by Gino's fists. Angel breathed into my face: "Fern Dee is a stage name. Her real name I never learned. She told me one time that if her family knew where she was they would die of shame." He chuckled dryly. "She will not want them to know that she killed a man." I drew away from his charnel-house breath. The building stood on a rise in the open desert. The last rays of the sun washed its walls in purple light and cast long shadows across its barren acreage. It was surrounded by a ten-foot hurricane fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. Palm Springs was a clutter of white stones in the distance, diamonded by an occasional light. The dull red sun was balanced like a glowing cigar-butt on the rim of the hills above the town. A man with a bulky shoulder harness under his brown suede windbreaker drove me towards it. The sun fell out of sight, and darkness gathered like an impalpable ash on the desert, like a column of blue-grey smoke towering into the sky. The sky was blue-black and swarming with stars when I got back to Emerald Bay. A black Cadillac followed me out of Palm Springs. I lost it in the winding streets of Pasadena. So far as I could see, I had lost it for good. The neon Mexican lay peaceful under the stars. The office door was open behind a screen, throwing a barred rectangle of light on the gravel. I stepped into it, and froze. Behind the registration desk in the office, a woman was avidly reading a magazine. Her shoulders and bosom were massive. Her hair was blonde, piled on her head in coroneted braids. She looked me over coldly. "What happened to your face, anyway?" "I had a little plastic surgery done. By an amateur surgeon." She clucked disapprovingly. "If you're looking for a room, we're full up for the night. I don't believe I'd rent you a room even if we weren't." Under her mounds of flesh she had a personality as thin and hard and abrasive as a rasp.

Yellow traffic lights cast wan reflections on the asphalt. Streams of cars went by to the north, to the south. To the west, where the sea lay, a great black emptiness opened under the stars. Ella made a decision. I could tell a mile away what she was going to do. She dropped the gun on the blanket. Her mouth had grown softer. She looked remarkably young and virginal. The faint blue hollows under her eyes were dewy. She was wrong. Something crashed in the kitchen. A cool draft swept the living room. A gun spoke twice, out of sight. Donny fell backwards through the doorway, a piece of brownish paper clutched in his hand. Blood gleamed on his shoulder like a red badge. I stepped behind the cot and pulled the girl down to the floor with me. Ella Salanda ran across the room. She knelt, and cradled Donny's head in her lap. Incredibly, he spoke, in a loud sighing voice: "You won't go away again, Ella? I did what you told me. You promised." "Sure I promised. I won't leave you, Donny. Crazy man. Crazy fool." "You like me better than you used to? Now?" "I like you, Donny. You're the most man there is."

She held the poor insignificant head in her hands. He sighed, and his life came out bright-colored at the mouth. It was Donny who went away. His hand relaxed, and I read the lipstick note she had written him on a piece of porous tissue: "Donny: This man will kill me unless you kill him first. His gun will be in his clothes on the chair beside the bed. Come in and get it at midnight and shoot to kill. Good luck. I'll stay and be your girl if you do this, just like you always wished. Love. Ella." She was rocking his lifeless head against her breast. Donny had his wish and I had mine. I wondered what Ella's was.

* * * *

Philip Marlowe describing Eileen Wade: "She was slim and quite tall in a white linen tailormade with a black and white polka-dotted scarf around her throat. Her hair was the pale gold of a fairy princess. There was a small hat on it into which the pale gold hair nestled like a bird in its nest. Her eyes were cornflower blue, a rare color, and the lashes were long and almost too pale. She reached the table across the way and was pulling off a white gauntleted glove and the old waiter had the table pulled out in a way no waiter ever will pull a table out for me. She sat down and slipped the gloves under the strap of her bag and thanked him with a smile so gentle, so exquisitely pure, that he was damn near paralyzed by it. She lifted her glance half an inch and I wasn't there any more. But wherever I was I was holding my breath." -"The Long Goodbye" (1953) by Raymond Chandler

Jake Gyllenhaal "End of Watch" Interview

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a police officer in the upcoming thriller End of Watch. We recently sat down with Jake at the Toronto International Film Festival, and he opened up about what drew him to the project and his friendship with his onscreen partner, Michael Peña. Jake also revealed why he gets nervous after finishing a film and even weighed in on his directorial aspirations. End of Watch hits theaters Sept. 21. Source: www.popsugar.com

John Payne ("Strauss" classical music) video

John Payne in Kid Nightingale" (1939) directed by George Amy


John Payne video featuring photos of John Payne and stills from his films with co-stars Maureen O'Hara, Mary Murphy, Claudette Colbert, Margaret Lindsay, Betty Grable, Joan Caulfield, Sonja Henie, Arlene Dahl, Alice Faye, Gloria Dickson, Rhonda Fleming, Lynn Bari, June Haver, Gail Russell, Coleen Gray, Ellen Drew, Jan Sterling, Jane Wyman, Gene Tierney, Carmen Miranda, Susan Hayward, Mari Blanchard, Linda Darnell, Donna Reed, Natalie Wood, Evelyn Keyes, Shelley Winters, Faith Domergue, Donna Reed, Mona Freeman, Dona Drake, Jane Wyman, Cobina Wright, Florence George, Doe Avedon, Mary Healy, etc., and his wives Anne Shirley, Gloria DeHaven and Alexandra Crowell Curtis. Soundtrack: "Deutsche motette" op.62 by Laurence Equilbey from the Album "Strauss, A Cappella".

"Foxy Lady: The Authorized Biography of Lynn Bari" by Jeff Gordon

Lynn Bari (1919–1989)

Practically every Fox stockgirl went before the cameras of Pigskin Parade (1936). Stock players at Twentieth Century Fox were not nurtured to become movie stars. And, indeed, none would attain stardom — with the exception of Lynn Bari. Zanuck would only be indirectly responsible for Bari’s progression, but it would be his remarkable steerage of his studio that would afford her the opportunity to succeed.

She was prominent in Roy Del Ruth’s On the Avenue, where she backed up Alice Faye in several Irving Berlin music sequences, spoke a line as a guest at a party, and had her portrait framed on Dick Powell’s dressing table.

Lynn Bari: Claire Trevor was the star [in "Walking Down Broadway"], a wonderful actress and a helluva nice girl. I was a bridesmaid at her first wedding. Claire Trevor had been Fox’s premiere ‘B’-picture actress for the past five years. By the time Walking Down Broadway was released, Trevor and the studio had parted ways. This break would prove most fortuitous for Lynn, for she’d instantaneously inherit her friend’s position at the Western Avenue lot. Lynn Bari had been a bit player in almost all of Claire Trevor’s Fox vehicles. While working in that minor capacity, she had come to be befriended by the star.

Claire Trevor, Phyllis Brooks and Lynn Bari in "Walking Down Broadway" (1938) directed by Norman Foster

Claire Trevor: “I couldn’t tell you when I first noticed Lynn; it was a gradual thing. She was a darling and we became good friends. As I’ve said, there wasn’t much time for a social life; so, there was never a chance to develop a big friendship. I liked Lynn enormously, though — well enough to have her as my bridesmaid. She wasn’t a pushy, self-centered actress like a lot of them were; that’s one of the things that I liked about her. I thought she had great potential. She was a serious actress and a good actress. I was crazy about her as a person and I thought her work was terrific.”

Lynn figured much more prominently in the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle, "Always Goodbye", the first ‘A’ fi lm in which she would be cast as a second lead. She would continue to appear in this light, with occasional frequency, through 1941. Being a second lead in ‘A’ pictures was a two-sided affair for a young actress. In a positive respect, it afforded one the opportunity to work with top-notch talent on films that would gain them greater exposure. The downside of this casting was that the roles themselves were limited in nature, usually being one of three types: girlfriend to the female principal, someone’s sister, or “the other woman.” Bari herself would almost always portray the third kind.

Darryl Zanuck would deal with Lynn in an uncharacteristically sympathetic manner for the better part of her tenure at Fox. Perhaps their “maternal bond” helps to explain why this would be so. Of course, Zanuck was also impressed by Bari’s professional dedication, her engaging personality — and her looks. Lynn Bari: Zanuck was terribly nice to me, he really was. At first, all I did was say “hello” to him. Being just a stockgirl at the studio, he really gave me my first break. He was always very kind. I liked him and I loved being at Fox.

You couldn’t tell Howard Hughes anything. He pretended not to hear when he didn’t want to. He was interesting if you were talking to him about his field of aviation. But I wouldn’t know how to fly a kite. I spent as little time with him as possible. However, he was very kind to me, I must say. When we would talk he’d kind of laugh at me in a nice way. He liked to dance with me, too. I can’t say that there was anything wrong with him. There were things about him I observed that I didn’t agree with, but everybody to their own taste. You hear all these wild stories about Hollywood and jumping in and out of the sack with this guy and that. They always treated me as a lady. None of that ever, ever happened to me at the studio. Oh, maybe they tried to make a pass or kiss me, but nothing else. I’m sure people participated in all those things when they wanted to. But I don’t think that anybody was forced.

"Hotel for Women" was a big production. I enjoyed working on it and had a lot of fun. I really got along with everyone — except Elsa Maxwell. She never spoke to me. She only spoke to “God” or lovely ladies like Princess Grace, who banged every guy in Hollywood — (laughing) if you’ll excuse the expression.

"Kit Carson" was released through United Artists in August 1940. Under the direction of George B. Seitz, it proved to be a moneymaker. The oater gave second-billed Lynn a substantial part, one which she handled in a winning way. Playing heroine here also served to introduce her to Dana Andrews, who would go on to become a lifelong friend. (Dana was an awful nice guy.) The actor was also under long-term contract to Fox, working on loanout to Small. Dana Andrews had been but one of many additions to Fox’s stable of players during 1939 and 1940. Included among the newly-signed were Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, Laird Cregar, George Montgomery, John Payne and John Sutton.

Bari’s career had so far encompassed many breaks, but "Sun Valley Serenade" came to be her luckiest one. The fates were truly working in Lynn’s favor here, for she was rushed into the film as a last-minute replacement for starlet Cobina Wright, Jr. The role she took over was that of blues singer Vivian Dawn. The temperamental Vivian descends upon Sun Valley at its outset, during a session at a New York recording studio. This setting is where the songbird develops a crush on Ted Scott (John Payne), the pianist in Phil Corey’s (Glenn Miller’s) orchestra. Next to Glenn Miller, no one benefited more from appearing in Sun Valley than twenty-one-year-old Bari.

Lushly captured by cinematographer Cronjager (a wizard) and sumptuously clothed by Travis Banton, she was finally being accorded the full movie-star “treatment”. By presenting her in such an alluring manner, Sun Valley highlighted the striking contrast between Lynn and the film’s leading lady, Sonja Henie.

Every time the two were framed together Bari’s sexy, womanly qualities became more apparent — as did the diminutive Henie’s coquettish and cloying tendencies. The skater did have her charming ways, but those faded in Lynn’s presence. As Vivian Dawn, Bari punched up a formula “other woman” role with a special dynamism and shadings of vulnerability. Her performance would, in effect, make one question why a piano player would dump a woman of substance for a “Scandinavian Hillbilly” (as Vivian tagged her rival in a fit of pique).

Preview audiences reacted most favorably to Lynn’s appearance as Vivian. So did Zanuck. He sent Bari out on her first multi-city promotional tour, coinciding with Sun Valley’s release. Lynn was accompanied by costar John Payne, her brother’s childhood friend. The two gave countless radio and press interviews, in addition to attending local premieres of their film. Both experienced a moment of personal glory when they stopped off in Roanoke and were greeted by an ardent mob of hometown fans.

Lynn Bari, John Payne and Alice Faye in "Hello, Frisco, Hello" (1943) directed by H. Bruce Humberstone

Cornel Wilde and Lynn pose with Daisy, one of the four-legged players of The Perfect Snob" (1941) directed by Ray McCarey

Lynn Bari: He [Cornel Wilde] was anything but wild; a very serious person. He was married to a real little Puritan girl. Some of us were playing poker on location one day and he came up to me and said, “You gamble?” The Perfect Snob was Cornel Wilde’s debut film at Fox and his first lead assignment.

The picture’s second lead, Anthony Quinn, would be signed by the studio once the film wrapped, remaining under contract for three years. Already a veteran of ‘B’ pictures, Quinn’s career rise would be even more protracted than Lynn’s, encompassing tenures at five different studios over a period of sixteen years (1937-53). His long climb to international acclaim would entail over sixty stepping stones, two of which (Blood and Sand and Snob) he shared with Bari.

The source of 'The Falcon Takes Over' was the first-rate Raymond Chandler novel, 'Farewell, My Lovely'. None of the bite of the Chandler work was, however, to be found in its Falcon incarnation, a lackluster hodgepodge of mystery and comedy. Lynn played reporter Ann Reardon, a role that was too vapid for her to mold into something interesting. She was not at all a dominant presence here but, nonetheless, she received star billing alongside Sanders.

Lynn Bari: I had worked on bits and small parts in George’s films before this. We were very friendly. The Falcon Takes Over was remade as "Murder, My Sweet" (1944) right after that; it brought Dick Powell into the limelight again. I liked Robert Siodmak tremendously. He was a very interesting guy. Mary Beth Hughes was good in it, but the studio never gave her a fair shake.

Bari hadn’t even finished shooting "The Night Before the Divorce" when she embarked upon what she considers her worst film, "Secret Agent of Japan" (1942).

Lynn Bari married Sidney Luft on November 23, 1943, only two days after divorcing his first husband Walter Kane

Lynn had met Sid Luft in the latter half of 1942 and they became a steady item during Bari’s filmmaking hiatus. Luft was four years older, born November 2, 1915. The ruggedly attractive six-footer had an outgoing, enthusiastic personality that Lynn found appealing.

Lynn Bari: An autobiography would be too painful — I really couldn’t do it. I’ve thought about it, but I just couldn’t go back into that — the thing with my mother and the thing with Sid, and this last husband Dr. Nathan Rickles (whom she had divorced in 1972) — he was the worst and that’s too near. You know, the only good autobiography I read was Doris Day’s.

Lynn went on to give numerous interviews during her final trimester, none particularly noteworthy. Something far more fascinating — and revelatory — was an article she herself had written for a summer issue of Movie Mirror magazine. Under the title, “How I Feel About Hollywood,” Bari penned the following: "When I first went into pictures, I was a 13-year-old youngster fresh from Roanoke, Va. And I was terrified. After working in pictures for more than 10 years, I’m still frightened.

Every day brings a new problem, a new experience. I don’t think an actress is ever truly happy. The ambition that drives us all may bring us to sheer ecstasy one moment — and make us miserable the next. But I’m used to the roller-coaster feeling by this time. I’ve never been sorry that I chose this career. I’ve never been bored with my life in Hollywood. So many people find themselves in a rut. They become complacent and contented with their narrow outlook on life. Maybe they are happier than we are — if you call that happiness." -"Foxy Lady: The Authorized Biography of Lynn Bari" by Jeff Gordon (2010)

A Short Story Inspired By John Payne: "Johnny Goes To Selten Radio Nightclub"

John Payne has been one of my most appreciated screen idols for a long time, his gentle ruggedness seduced me on the first filmic incursion of his I watched ("Kansas City Confidential"), his unequivocal determination and moral fortitude have inspired me to dedicate him this short story I wrote - that reads like a noir poem:

JOHNNY GOES TO SELTEN RADIO NIGHTCLUB

"Johnny left his last work shift in the nick of time, now his boss didn’t look at his direction, installed inside his metallized office. Johnny was trusting in being capable of recovering the production next week.

He put on his denim cotton grey jacket and a black Fedora hat, his heart suddenly pumping intensified, so he decided to smooth it at a different place, a neutral atmosphere. Walking he looked towards a showy billboard which was winking at him. He previously had ignored the advertising panel in his extrarradio route for years. Leaving his car and approaching Selten Radio nightclub.

-One bustling soirée shouldn’t be advertised in such an ostentious way, he mumbled to no one in particular at his sight.

Sinister showgirls and imported liquors were ballyhooed on the entrace's glossy cartels.

The brunette waitress behind the bar labeled him immediately as an average Joe out of his element. Another waitress (a blonde) recognizes him on the spot.

Blonde Waitress: -What are you drinking, Mr? -she professionally asked him, barely making eye contact

-I’m looking for a gallant atmosphere but this looks like too much tense for a sudden distension, too looney for putting up with an insolent companion. I want to placate my thirst, though.

His response is overlooked by the blonde klutzy waitress.

Waitress: (suddenly reacting to him while serving him a Gin fizz)

-How was your job?

-Which job? gee, just tolerable

Waitress: -your last girlfriend, did she call you at last?

-she called me... an idiot!

-but you're not such!

-I swallowed her alibi...

Johnny examines his Gruen watch sphere, taking a breath of cigarette smoke and perfume vapor inside this iniquity den.

One middle age guy all dressed up in a tailored zoot suit, whispering in a confidential tone to the waitress: (heated air striking Johnny's face)

-I made the decision to stop smoking last Christmas, you know?, Johnny protests irritated

Fop type guy: -Uh? Sorry, Mr. Factory guy (smirking with superiority)

-true, I work at that Gruen factory, good guess... I suppose my cheap shirt cannot compete with your haute couture attire, so if the girl (now the waitress, a little tense and expectant, observes both men) had to choose a bed partner, you would be the lucky guy, unless she has an awful fashion taste

Fop type guy: -I've seen worst dressed guys making it big in the coxcomb racquet, just relax, pal

-thanks for the advice, but I'm here because this club has zatfig and the waitresses are a blaze, they don't need my Thunderbolt around!

Johnny stands up straight and leaves the bar before the vigilant look of the crook and the blonde waitress, darting from the lounge towards a darker corner of the club. His eye pupils alert him of lack of luminosity, but he doesn't feel any more nervous.

He finds the exit door and opens it tentatively, a gust blows outside merciless but he likes the wind's slapping turbulence.

The blonde waitress (a wannabe actress) runs after him in haste. Breathless and doleful she says to Johnny:

-you're such a badload, a girl just forgets how much alcohol has gone down your throat when she's busy anticipating her next mistake

-You know what Selten means?, it's "strange" in German -Johnny explains to her

-You fit more than me in that spot, she sneers

-You're too pretty for that kind of clubs, Johnny slowly utters

-That club is a dime a dozen nightclub that fills with dime a dozen hearts, she laughs unwittingly

Johnny takes her face closer to him, holding her cheek gingerly toward his intoxicated eyes

-thanks for inviting me, that lemon ice drink was refreshing... and very acid!

She slides her tongue like a cat, licking her upper lip in a gesture that Johnny had never noticed throughout these years before".

FADE IN

Copyright (c) 2011 by Elena Gonzalvo

"99 River Street": a noir gem directed by Phil Karson, starring John Payne

Karlson’s 99 RIVER STREET (1953) is truly a forgotten gem on Phil Karlson's résumé, a brutal and hostile jeremiad set entirely at night about a bitter, failed boxer (John Payne) whose unhappy wife gets mixed up with a diamond heist; that initiates a fall of dominoes that gets so despairingly twisted, you can’t imagine how the luckless hero will ever punch his way out. Twitching with rage, Payne finally obliterates the memory of his nice-guy lawyer from Miracle on 34th Street, and as his new love interest, Evelyn Keyes, playing a strangely impulsive actress, flits in and out of the darkness like a neurotic moth. But Karlson fills in the margins so beautifully: imperturbable buddy Frank Faylen, smiling scumbag Brad Dexter, faithless slut Peggie Castle, Yiddishe diamond fence Jay Adler, bullet-headed hitman Jack Lambert, and so on, all biting at one another like lab rats left to starve in their maze. -Michael Atkinson (Boston Phoenix)

John Payne as Ernie Driscoll in "99 River Street" (1953) directed by Phil Karlson

"John Payne stars in Phil Karlson’s two-fisted thriller as a down-on-his-luck boxer reduced to a night shift cab hack, the easy target of his disappointed wife’s enduring scorn. His wife’s sudden murder, in a dark fulfillment of his unspoken wish, only brings bigger problems as he must move quickly to clear his name while staying one step ahead of the law and the criminal underworld. Karlson’s direction is extremely lean and sophisticated, as he plays with a Chinese box structure of hidden perspectives and brilliantly stages one of the most unexpected and cruelest jokes in film noir.

John Payne as Joe Rolfe in "Kansas City Confidential" (1952) directed by Phil Karlson. "Kansas City Confidential is a gem in the rough, a condensed roller-coaster of vengeance, betrayal, deception, the fluidity of identity, the microscopic line between guilt and innocence, and the power of luck, both good and bad." -David N. Meyer

"Little known today, John Payne was, like Dick Powell, an extremely popular song and dance man who grew tired of the sunny side of the street and rejected lucrative assignments to seek out tougher roles after the war." Source: hcl.harvard.edu

"Mentioning John Payne and Film Noir in the same sentence is virtually an oxymoron considering his main claim to fame is as the leading man to Alice Faye and Betty Grable in 1930s musicals, and playing opposite Maureen O’Hara in one of the most beloved Christmas films of all time, “Miracle on 34th Street”. And even though he was one of the most handsome men ever to grace the silver screen, Tyrone Power and Robert Taylor often overshadowed Payne, leaving him less remembered than he deserves.

Although John Payne is better remembered for his singing pipes and college-boy good looks, Payne proves here to be a formidable noir hero, as equal to the task as Robert Mitchum or Dana Andrews. Quintessential bad man Lee Van Cleef and wild eyed Jack Elam co-star. Featured on the same bill is “99 River Street”, also directed by Phil Karlson. Payne is a heavyweight boxer who has lost a championship match, and now drives a taxi for a living much to the scorn of his nagging wife and winds up involved with underhander business with less than reputable men. He matches wits with Evelyn Keyes and Brad Dexter as they maneuver their way through the machinations of an underground machine. This film is considered by Film Noir Of The Week as 'One of the most hardboiled, brutal, and inexplicably forgotten films of the noir cycle'. Source: www.filmjerk.com

So what’s a guy like Ernie Driscoll, stumbling through life in a daze and hating himself for it, choose for a dream? A gas station. Saving up his tips to buy one is an absurd an ambition for a man who recently stood toe to toe with the champ, but even Ernie knows he’ll probably never make it happen. Driscoll is a man who feels sorry for himself and can’t get over it. Payne’s performance sweats with pathos and verisimilitude. Source: wheredangerlives.blogspot.com.es

John Payne studied acting and singing and even wrestled for a bit. He's one of those guys you might call a "big lug," and is best known for believing in Kris Kringle and romancing Maureen O'Hara in Miracle on 34th Street. In his later career, he's best known for his tough guys in lower-budget noirs and Westerns. He eventually became the father-in-law of screenwriter Robert Towne. According to some sources, Payne and Karlson both contributed to the screenplay for 99 River Street, their second film together.

Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is a washed-up boxer who was on the verge of becoming champ until he injured his eye in the ring.

He's married to the gorgeous Pauline (Peggie Castle), who was hoping for the good life, and now spends her time being angry and disappointed. But she has chosen a way out; her new lover Victor Rawlins (Brad Dexter) is a thief who has just stolen a batch of diamonds and hopes to trade it for enough cash to skip town.

Meanwhile, Ernie decides to help a friend, Linda James (Evelyn Keyes), an actress hoping for a break on Broadway. Through a complex series of circumstances and coincidences, the cops are soon hunting Ernie for an assault and battery charge (which is real) and a murder charge (which is false).

"99 River Street" is notable for its frank, brutal violence, which doesn't stop at images of men smacking around women. Andrew Sarris wrote that one of Karlson's themes was the outbreak of violence in a world controlled by criminals and the corrupt. The film opens on an absolutely astonishing boxing sequence, close-up, ringside and off-kilter, that Martin Scorsese surely studied before he made Raging Bull. Karlson continues this low-angle violence throughout, and even echoes certain key shots over the course of the film. Many small moments further establish his agenda, such as when Rawlins simultaneously takes a belt of liquor and slugs a man in the jaw. In another scene, Linda plays out a lengthy post-murder scene in panicked close-up, with no cuts or cutaways.

"It's an example of the kind of humble brilliance that often emerged from the American genre cinema." -Dave Kehr

Great Line: "There are worse things than murder. You can kill somebody an inch at a time." Source: blog.moviefone.com

John Payne: "Brown-eyed Handsome Man"

John Payne ("Brown-eyed Handsome Man") video featuring photos of John Payne and stills from his films with co-stars Alice Faye, Betty Furness, Joan Caulfield, Claudette Colbert, Betty Grable, Ellen Drew, Shelley Winters, Coleen Gray, Jan Sterling, Mary Murphy, Maureen O'Hara, Linda Darnell, Arlene Dahl, Rhonda Fleming, Sonja Henie, June Haver, Gloria Dickson, Margaret Lindsay, Lynn Bari, Susan Hayward, Faith Domergue, Donna Reed, Mona Freeman, Gail Russell, Evelyn Keyes, Mari Blanchard, Dona Drake, Jane Wyman, Cobina Wright, Doe Avedon, Mary Healy, Gene Tierney, Natalie Wood, etc., and his wives Anne Shirley, Gloria DeHaven and Alexandra Crowell Curtis.

Soundtrack: "Brown-eyed Handsome man" by Buddy Holly, "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley, "Only the Lonely" by Roy Orbison, "I take to you" performed by John Payne & Alice Faye from "The Great American Broadcast", "Here She Comes" by The Darlettes, "Goodnight sweetheart, it's time to go" by The Platters and "Then He Kissed Me" by The Crystals.