June Allyson and Dick Powell: Celebrating their 10th Anniversary (Photoplay magazine article)

JUNE ALLYSON AND DICK POWELL'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY 

Rumors of an impending separation in the Powells household persist. To read the papers, you’d think that Dick Powell and June Allyson have left the rumors disturb their seemingly idyllic marriage. You'd think divorce is a simple matter, that love’s too uncertain to be believed, that marital vows may be recalled as a mere exchange that happened to take place one day. But you can’t crowd ten years of memories into a sentence. You can’t know the meanings of those memories unless they belong to you. You can’t cut the roots of a marriage with sharp, insinuating words. When a couple has worked day by day, year after year, to build and strengthen their marriage, it’s unlikely that they’ll suddenly turn their backs upon it and call it worthless. A marriage doesn’t end so easily. A real marriage doesn’t end at all. And though no one seems to have thought of it as yet, this may be the very reason that June Allyson and Richard Powell have chosen to be still together. On August 19, 1955, they celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary. Along about the first of last August, due to the force of a long-time habit, Mr. Powell inquired as to what Mrs. Powell might like for a gift. “A pink Thunderbird,” she said. 

“That’s what I’d like. With a Continental kit on the back.” “A Continental kit is too much,” replied her husband who, on a hunch, had already placed an order for a Thunderbird in her favorite color, pink . . . with a Continental kit on the back. “I drove it home a couple of days before our anniversary,” he smiles. “June ran out and danced around it and you’d have thought she was Pam’s age.”  After ten years, he still delights in delighting her. Also, after ten years, she goes shopping for gowns and stands before the store mirror staring critically at her reflection. “Do you think my husband will like this one?” she asks anyone who happens to be standing nearby. 

She still adds softly, “I want to look glamorous. For Richard.” All might have been different if Richard had lacked his ever-present wisdom and patience and understanding, if June had failed to find the courage to grow up. Even Richard had his doubts during their courtship. June Allyson was a cute kid whom he’d met casually when she was doing a show on Broadway. They’d met again when they made “Meet the People” at M-G-M. And once again when June and Nancy Walker were sent to New York for theatre appearances. Richard was in town at the time and he caught their show. The girls were good, but there wasn’t a great deal they could do with said material. Afterwards, he went backstage. “Bad, huh?” said Nancy. “If I tell you I’ll only depress you more,” he said. “Impossible,” said June. So he sat down for a while and tried to cheer them up. June Allyson was only a kid, of course, but she was such a sweet kid that once back in Hollywood, he thought he’d call her. June’s housekeeper, who doubled as chaperone, told him that June was in bed with pneumonia. 

“Tell her to be a good girl and get well, and I’ll take her to dinner sometime,” said Richard. “Sometime,” muttered June when she received the message. And the more she said it the more distant it seemed to her. How do you circle “sometime” on the calendar? A few evenings later, Richard stopped by the apartment with an armful of roses. Several of June’s friends were there and Richard spent the evening playing bridge with the housekeeper. “That’s when June started flirting with me,” Richard says. “As I recall, you were the one who flirted with me,” corrects his wife. Richard doesn't object to her correction. Eventually she recovered and he took her out to dinner. They liked being together and, as the weeks went by, they found themselves together quite often. However, confusion set in the night he delivered her to her doorstep and leaned down to kiss her good night. June drew away. “I have something to ask you,” she said. And it took every ounce of her nerve. “All right,” said Richard. “Just what are your intentions?” He looked at her standing there so primly. “Had any other offers?” he inquired. “Two,” she snapped and stepped inside and closed the door. He went home, but that night he couldn’t sleep. He tried counting sheep, but they turned into proposals from two other guys. 

What if she were serious about accepting one of them? How could she tell him so when she was in love with him?“ As it turned out I had to ask her to marry me several times,” he says. “She became quite coy.” “I liked to hear you ask,” she says. The wedding was at the home of their friends Bunny and Johnny Green. They’d set the time for 7 P.M., but around noon June began to worry. Her maid of honor wasn’t ready. To save her sanity, they shoved a book at her and commanded her, “Read. Don’t talk.” When it was time to leave for the Greens’, June insisted on taking the wheel. And talking. “Out of the way,” she crowed to the evening traffic. “I’m on the way to my wedding!” There were tears in her eyes and she walked down the stairs to stand beside Richard. “And those eyes were four times bigger than her face,” he remembers. When the ceremony began she hardly heard it. Then the judge’s voice got through to her. “Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” “Do I what?” said June coming out of the trance. The statement was corrected when the laughter stopped. “I do,” said June. “Yes, I do.” After the honeymoon on Richard’s boat, the Powells moved into an apartment to await the completion of their new home.

Mrs. Powell not only tried to look good for Richard. She also tried cooking. The first time, they sat down to what the cookbook said was a well-balanced meal. Technically, it was true. However, the meat shriveled, the potatoes would have required identification by an expert, and the salad turned out terribly tired. “Who cares?”, waved her husband. Richard was a man of many interests. She’d never had time for hobbies or sports. He loved planes. She didn’t like them even when they were standing still, on the ground. So she’d grit her teeth, climb into his plane and they’d be in Palm Springs before she’d breathe again. Richard was nuts about golf. She’d get up early and head for the golf course. About sundown she’d stagger home, having had such encouragement from the caddy as, “You’re doing fine. In a couple of years you’ll really have the game down.” The idea was to go around the course with Richard occasionally. She’d never lived in a house before. There had always been apartments. One day she went shopping for furniture for the den. The next day it was delivered and put into place. June took a good look at the results. “It’s awful,” she wailed.

The room was Tudor and the furniture was Early American. And somehow the combination failed to turn out as she’d expected. “Say it, Richard,” she requested. “It does look awful.” “Well, yes,” he said. “It does.” And the furniture went back the next day. With each mistake, she felt more foolish, became more afraid to accept the responsibility that she already feared. She began to shy away from it again. How could she make a mistake if he did everything? “She was scared in the beginning,” says Richard. “Her fear of responsibility magnified the mistakes.”  “When we redid the house for the first time, I had to do all of it. She wanted the same next time. And I said, ‘No, dear.’ “It took her a month, but she did it,” he grins. “And she did a good job of it.” Richard's friends terrified her. “They were all well-established people who had achieved their goals,” says June. “I just was starting a whole new life. Mentally I was a good deal younger. They all seemed so well-organized and put-together and I never thought I could be. “But mostly I worried about the fact that they might not think I was right for Richard. But they accepted me from the start. And I was grateful. I learned a lot from them.” There were the Justin Darts and the Leonard Firestones, among others. June recalls: “Polly Firestone would just say, ‘Let’s go sit in the house and see what would be pretty where.’ “She steered me into doing things she knew Richard would like. I always thought I’d done them. Now I know I never really did!”

Her career had been the most important thing in her life, until her marriage. “Richard taught me that the picture business is actually a business, not a thing you play with,” says June. “And he’d remind me of a fact that would sometimes escape me—that you’re only as good as your last picture.” “Richard taught me. . .” is a phrase June still often uses. Richard was gentle, but he never pulled punches. “His basic honesty was one of the things that attracted me to him,” says June. He understood her moods. He’d come home and find her in a black one. “You’re not for me tonight,” he’d tell her. “I’ll go away.” The scowl would disappear. “Don’t you dare,” she’d grin. The Powells had one another and they had their work. But after two years of marriage, there were still no children. “When the doctor told me I probably couldn’t have a baby, I was so full of tears I could have flooded a battleship,” says June. She wanted to adopt a baby. But Richard balked. “Anything new frightens her. I din’t think she realized the responsibilities of motherhood.” Finally he gave in and they put their names on the waiting list at the Tennessee Children’s home. Then came the Hollywood gossip. There had been rumors before, but the Powells had shrugged them off. Now they threatened to do real damage. June had to go to New York for radio shows. Richard couldn’t go with her. And the rumors flew again. When they reached Richard he realized that they might cost them their baby. He knew that those in charge of the home might hear the irresponsible talk and postpone or cancel the adoption. He called Tennessee to reassure the officials that all was well. And he convinced them.

Dick Powell's next project was to direct June Allyson in “It Happened One Night” remake "You Can't Run Away from It". June returned one day with a bad cold and the doctor put her to bed. The next evening the telephone rang. “Hello, Mrs. Powell?” “Yes,” said June. “Mrs. Powell, your baby is here. You have a daughter,” the voice went on. “Richard,” she said. “Our daughter has come.” He took the receiver from her hands, held a brief conversation with the party on the other end of the line and discovered he was going to be a father. They had eight days to prepare for Pam’s arrival. En route to and from the studio June would detour past the local stork shops. She’d come in with her arms loaded. “What now?” Richard would ask. “More diapers,” she’d say. He’d grin. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember such practical things. I got some, too.” But she remembered everything—sheets, blankets, bottles, the delicate little gowns, the booties. She was at the studio when the nurse arrived with Pam. Richard called. “Hurry home,” he said “She’s here.” June raced from the studio. She ran up to the nursery. She peered into the crib. “Oh,” she said. Then suddenly, “Richard, she smiled at me!” When Dick had to leave town on business, he’d call with advice. One time the phone rang in the middle of the night. It was Western Union. “I have a message for you, Mrs. Powell,” said the operator in a bewildered voice. 

“Go ahead,” said June. “The telegram reads, ‘Darling, hold the bottle up straight when you feed her so she won’t swallow air. Love, Richard.” “Thank you,” June told the operator. When Pam came along, life changed in strange little ways. “Before,” says June, “it seemed I was always sick. I’d have a cold or an ache or pain and be certain I had some disease or other. “When Pam arrived, I found I didn’t catch as many colds. I felt fine. When you have a child, you forget about yourself. You put your energy into other things. It’s a great, wonderful responsibility. A responsibility I wanted with all my heart.” There were the usual disagreements about discipline. Pam had a habit of picking up everything within her arm’s length. And she didn’t really care just where she put it down. One night she grabbed an ash tray. “No, Pam,” June told her. “I’ll find something else for you, but you may not have the ash tray.” “Don’t be silly, June,” said Richard. “At Pam’s age, you can’t expect her to know what she can or can’t have.” “She can learn,” said June. “She’s too young,” said Richard. “And you don’t want me to tell her any more?” “No.”A few nights later, Richard walked into his den and June heard a bellow. “June!” She came running. He was standing in the middle of the room. At his feet were all the things that should have been on his desk. The floor was sticky with soft candy. “June,” said Richard. “You must talk with Pam. You’ve got to tell her there are things she mustn’t touch.” “Yes, Richard,” sighed his wife. “June tells me I’m too soft with the kids,” says Richard. “But when I come home at night I want to play with them!” 

He’s proud of the way the mother of his children has taken over. He likes it when she puts her foot down, orders him to bed when he has a cold, and hovers over him like a pint-sized angel of mercy. There was no happier man on earth the time she flew to the Utah location of “The Conqueror” to be with him. Only when June arrived was the situation well in hand. She added her feminine touch to make it more like home. When he returned evenings, the laundry was done and June was there looking as if she’d stepped out of Saks Fifth Avenue and had never seen a clothesline. He thought about the day at the table when little Pam asked him, “Daddy, is Mother a young girl or a lady?” He’d smiled. “Sometimes, Pamela, I really don’t know.” Richard thought about how he had been the one who had seen June through the jitters of Pam’s arrival. When the doctor announced that they might expect Ricky, it was Richard who needed a calm, steady influence. The baby, said the doctor, would be born on January 12. June thought differently. “I’m going to give you a little boy for Christmas,” she told her husband. “And he’s going to look just like you.” Two days before Christmas, she said, “I ache.” Dick patted her on the head. “Wife,” he said. “You don’t know what a labor pain is. Just put your trust in my judgment.” “Call the doctor,” said Dick's wife. He did. “June aches,” he told the doctor. “But it can’t be labor pains. I’ve been timing them.” He began to tell how he’d been timing them, but he never finished. The doctor was shouting something about getting June to the hospital. That’s when Richard officially became a nervous wreck. “You’d have hardly known my usually cool, calm and collected husband,” says June. 

Richard says, still amazed: “Ricky was born on Christmas Eve day. They’d given her something to ease the pain and make her sleepy. But the only effect it had was to wake her up. “She never stopped talking or laughing. She came out of the delivery room grinning and waving to everyone in the hall and calling, ‘Merry Christmas!’ ” Ricky weighed in at 4 pounds, 10 ounces and they kept him in the hospital for several weeks. When it was time for him to come home, Richard and Pam went to get him. They’d told Pam about her own adoption, how they’d gone to a big building and had chosen her especially. Now Pam was going to a big building to get her brother. There was only one thing that marred her happiness. “Ricky ought to be adoptinated,” she told them. “Please adoptinate Ricky.” June aged a hundred years during Richard’s near-fatal illness. He hadn’t been feeling well and the doctor had put him to bed. June nursed him for three days and on the third evening fell asleep from exhaustion. She was awakened suddenly. Richard had collapsed at the foot of the bed and was moaning, “Help me, June.” Somehow she managed to get him back into bed. She called the doctor who rushed him to the hospital. Richard, they found, was allergic to the drugs that might save him. The first operation was unsuccessful. There was another. Richard was on the critical list. 

June was told that it was doubtful that he would live. She waited. And she prayed. Every so often she’d rush home for a moment to see Pam and Ricky, to smile and reassure them daddy would be all right. She was in the waiting room at the hospital when she was told, “You’d better go in.” She walked into her husband’s room. She sat beside the bed and began to talk to him, to tell him that he must live. She had no way of knowing whether he could hear her. She’ll never forget when he finally opened his eyes. There was a tube in his mouth and he gave her a weak smile. “This is a heck of a way to quit smoking,” he said. “That’s when I knew he would be all right,” she smiles. They know what it’s like to come close to losing one another. Could they voluntarily say goodbye and walk away? Could they leave their home, cold and dark and empty and blot out the memories that would haunt it? 

In the summers, the Powell family increases. Richard’s daughter, Ellen, lives with them. She’s a teenager now. She was seven when they were married, and she thoroughly approved. She’d watched as her brother Norman had given the Powells a book as a wedding gift and she refused to be outdone. Disappearing for a minute, she’d returned with a hastily wrapped package. “I want to give you a book, too,” she’d said. It was “The Adventures of Superman.” Her allowance was modest, but the thought was there. As the rumors went on, the Powells began working together in the remake of “It Happened One Night.” The picture stars June and Jack Lemmon. Richard is producing and directing. Fireworks were predicted when Richard felt Lemmon was flirting with his wife. The crew gossip had it many a night Richard and June would finish the shoot with a row. “Anybody at M-G-M or Universal can tell you that Allyson is temperamental,” said one expert. Proof may be found on at least one office wall at Universal studio. Thereon is tacked an elaborately printed card alluding to her mood changes. As for the rumours of her flaring temperament, June says, “Some people think others are temperamental because they’re definite.”

June had to learn to be definite. Richard helped teach her. And he drank a toast to her when she announced that she was going to take the part of the wife in “The Shrike,” despite the fact that he thought it might be a mistake. "Tarnish the illusion and the public can refuse you," Richard advised her. As for their working together, when the script of "You Can't Run Away from It" was finished, they began discussing one of the scenes at home. There was a slight difference of opinion as to how it should be played. June listened as Richard described his ideas. “But . . .” she began. Then she sighed, “Who am I to tell you?” “But I value your opinion,” Richard assured her. 

“I know, but you’re such a wonderful actor,” she told him. Richard looked flattered. Suddenly they were grinning again. Instead of tossing furniture they were tossing verbal bouquets to each other. “How could anyone think that we could ever resign from such a mutual admiration society?” laughed June. A ten-year membership is certainly a worthy one. “It seems more like ten minutes,” says Richard, a bit startled. And it’s very doubtful that Mrs Powell of today will ever forget the uncertain young girl of yesterday who, as a bride, prayed “Please, God, give us a long life together.” —Article by Beverly Ott for Photoplay magazine (December 1955)

Lying to appear honest: Murder My Sweet, Johnny O'Clock, Cry Danger (Dick Powell and Film Noir)

Intense Emotions and Emotional reactivity promote more happiness. Researchers R. J. Klein and colleagues, in a paper in the June 2023 issue of Emotion, reached a surprising conclusion: More intense emotional responses, even negative emotions, are linked to happiness and better mental health. Happy people, compared to those with a mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression), are better able to adapt because they experience emotional reactions that are appropriate for the stimulus—avoidance when facing unpleasant or threatening stimuli, and approach when facing pleasurable stimuli. Specifically, the goal was to investigate “behavioral phenomena that could link higher levels of emotional flexibility to higher levels of well-being.” The researchers’ predictions were “rooted in the idea that emotional reactions exist because they motivate solutions to problems from our evolutionary past.” Another study conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of California Los Angeles was published recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Lying to appear honest. Believe it or not, people lie in order to maintain a good, honest reputation -- even if it hurts them to do so, or means they lose money. "Many people care greatly about their reputation and how they will be judged by others, and a concern about appearing honest may outweigh our desire to actually be honest," explains Shoham Choshen-Hillel, senior lecturer at the School of Business Administration and Center for the Study of Rationality. "Our findings suggest that when people obtain extremely favorable outcomes, they anticipate other people's suspicious reactions and prefer lying and appearing honest over telling the truth and appearing as privileged." Source: www.apa.org

As played by Dick Powell, and drawn by Robert Rossen in a screenplay based on a story by co-producer Milton Holmes, the titular character keeps abreast of the criminal nonsense going on around him. Be it dealing with a surly cigar-smoking homicide inspector (Lee J Cobb), standing his ground and refusing to take lip from a crooked cop (Jim Bannon), condescending to his casino’s senior partner (Thomas Gomez), meting out justice to a disloyal personal assistant (John Kellogg), rejecting the advances of a former lover (Ellen Drew) or surviving an assassination attempt – no task is too daunting for this noirish anti-hero. Johnny O’Clock’s unwavering nerve, which has not gone unnoticed in some critical circles, with US filmmaker and cinema historian Jim Hemphill – on the audio commentary included with Powerhouse Films’ Blu-ray issue of the movie – conceding this crime opus does indeed diverge from  classic noir archetypes.

Variety magazine gave the film kudos in 1947: "This is a smart whodunit, with attention to scripting, casting and camerawork lifting it above the average.The film has suspense, and certain quick touches of humor to add flavor. Ace performances by Dick Powell, as a gambling house overseer, and Evelyn Keyes as the conflicted blonde also up the rating. Dialog is terse and topical, avoiding the sentimental, phoney touch. Unusual camera angles come along now and then to heighten interest and arrest the eye. Strong teamplay by Robert Rossen, doubling as director-scripter, and Milton Holmes, original writer and associate producer, also aids in making this a smooth production." 

Richard Brody from The New Yorker noted: "This terse and taut film noir is centered on the romantic and professional conflicts of the title character, the criminal mastermind (played by Dick Powell) behind a posh illegal casino. The film’s writer and director, Robert Rossen, sets up a multidimensional chess game, for mortal stakes, between Johnny, his boss (Thomas Gomez), his boss’s wife (Ellen Drew), a cagey police inspector (Lee J. Cobb), and a scuffling actress (Evelyn Keyes) whose sister (Nina Foch) worked at the casino and dated a corrupt detective. The caustically epigrammatic script, the cast’s suavely controlled gestures of love and menace, and Rossen’s thrillingly restrained and stylishly assertive images (as well as his political conscience) make this pugnacious yet intricate spectacle a hidden classic of the genre." 

“Dick Powell doesn’t play Johnny with a lot of insecurities – he’s pretty confident, and that goes a little against the grain of film noir as it’s typically understood,” he notes. Additionally, Jim Hemphill highlights the fact the late US screenwriter/producer Carl Macek didn’t see the Rossen movie as being strictly noir when he wrote: “The film is emotionally detached, and the character played by Dick Powell was not obviously vulnerable. It is through a sense of the protagonist’s weaknesses that most films of this nature approach the noir classification. But Johnny O’Clock is not privy to this important attitude, although the motivations of several characters are not clearly defined. This becomes apparent early in the movie when O’Clock catches the cheating roulette dealer Fleming (Matty Fain) but, for practical reasons, lets him keep his job. 

He also acts as a confidant to hat check girl Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch), who is romantically tangled up with the corrupt policeman Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon) – a relationship which essentially sets the whole thing in motion. There’s the moment when it is revealed the traitorous Charlie, thinking he has helped orchestrate the assassination of Johnny O’Clock, and employs a Lugar as his weapon of choice. Being a German side arm, one can arguably reach the conclusion his treachery is akin to that of the Nazis during the Second World War, suggesting – for American civilised society at least – the enemy is not the home grown underworld, but in fact remains fascist Europe.” —"Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style" (1999) by Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward

Edgar Chaput (contributor to the British Film Institute): Johnny O’Clock benefits from fine low-key B&W cinematography by Burnett Guffey, a true noir stylist. Although Guffey would later excel in the more realistic lighting of the 1950s, he and director Rossen manage a moody tone even inside the bright cafes and swank sitting rooms. Evelyn Keyes never looked lovelier and Ellen Drew is irresistibly seductive. Nina Foch’s role is much smaller, yet she still makes a sympathetic impression. Suave and unflappable, Dick Powell’s Johnny does daily business with the city’s crooks. He knows better than to be totally honest with anyone. Catching one of his croupiers stealing money, Johnny keeps him on with the reasoning that the next man hired might be smarter with his thievery. Johnny’s personal assistant Charlie (John Kellogg) is an ex-con who otherwise wouldn’t have a job.

Johnny makes a strong contrast with his partner Marchettis, an unschooled brute frustrated that he can’t hold on to Nelle, his trophy wife. Given his poor standing with the police, Johnny is surprised that the intelligent and caring Nancy should choose to stick with him. Women have been trouble for O’Clock’s in the past, but now Nancy might help him find a future. The faults hinge on an unresolved ending, and the story lacks content to explore certain aspects that help build the characters' background, forgoing other equally important elements that would make the final product a more unified whole. At first, John and Nancy seem to cross paths for the wrong reasons, and, true to film noir tropes, the temptation to try to remain together only seems to worsen their lot, but the chemistry between the two has that the viewer will want to see them spend more time with one another. 

Their heads say one thing, their hearts another, the end game of which can easily alter their lives forever. It is a case where the blame lays squarely at the feet of the writer-director. For a filmmaker who would be nominated for Best Director by the Academy only 2 years later, Rossen’s effort in Johnny O’Clock is short on morality or sentimentality of sorts. There’s a dependence on convoluted plotting which seems more than a little arbitrary, which prevents the characters from taking on much autonomous dramatic life. On the other hand, the actors should be spared any of the blame. Co-stars Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes are superb separately and together onscreen, which is thankfully most of the time once the latter enters into the fray. Dick Powell, no stranger to playing cool cats who can use words like whips, is exceptional. It may even be among his best performances despite the occasionally lackluster script. Source: friday-film-noir/johnny-oclock

Considered by many critics to be the definitive detective film noir, director Edward Dmytryk’s adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel Murder, My Sweet stars Dick Powell as tough hard-cracking private eye Philip Marlowe. ‘I felt Powell was quite nervous at the start of photography,’ said director Edward Dmytryk, who came up with some notions on how the star’s self-confidence could be boosted. ‘One was to involve him in the technical aspects of the film, some of which were unique. I would ask him to look through the camera while it captured the motions.’ Dick Powell observed a few of these test run-throughs, which would later serve Powell when he became a director himself. 

Dmytryk rated Powell as ‘the best of all the Philip Marlowes,’ and although not impartial he made a good case for his star – who would later be followed by Humphrey Bogart’s work on The Big Sleep. ‘Spade was tough,’ noted Dmytryk, ‘and that’s what was wrong with Bogey doing Marlowe. He made him Spade.’ Dmytryk saw Marlowe as ‘kind of an Eagle Scout in the wrong business. I think Eagle Scouts are good, and that’s exactly what I patterned him on.’ Aware of his lack of social grace, ‘Marlowe tries to make up for it by getting all the goddamned merit badges he can possibly get and getting all the things off his chest to prove he’s a superior man.’ Dmytryk also saw Marlowe as ‘a very American character,’ duty-bound to continue with the case because he has accepted money and given his word. ‘Even though it’s a couple of hundred bucks and no more than that. It’s not ten thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars, but it's his job.’ 

Philip Marlowe: I don’t know which side anybody’s on. Helen Grayle: It’s a long story and not pretty. Philip Marlowe: I got lots of time and I’m not squeamish. Time magazine considered Murder, My Sweet: ‘as good a piece of mystery thriller as the famous Double Indemnity,’ in a review on 14 December 1944. ‘In some ways it is more likeable, for although it is far less tidy, it is more rigorous and more resourcefully photographed. In addition, Dick Powell is a surprise as the hard-boiled copper. His portrayal of Philip Marlowe is potent and convincing.’ No wonder Powell claimed Marlowe as his favorite role. —"Film Noir: A Critical Guide To 1940s & 1950s Hollywood Noir" (2016) by Eddie Robson 

"I confess that Dick Powell has become one of my favorite film noir actors. His performance in Cry Danger (1951) is no less impressive than his turn as Philip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet. Powell had the audacity to pivot from light-weight song-and-dance man to tough but likable film noir protagonist, and he nails it in this noir thriller. Rocky Malloy (Dick Powell), an ex-con who was sentenced to life for a crime he didn’t commit, is released from prison after a one-legged retired Marine named Delong (Richard Erdman) provides him an alibi. A fake alibi, prompted by sheer greed, as Delong hopes Rocky will share the spoils of the robbery he allegedly committed—$100,000 of spoils. Since Rocky really is innocent, he has no spoils to share after his five-year stint in prison. Furthermore, Rocky hopes to find out who framed him. Along with the location shooting and great casting, the film is notable for its snappy dialogue." —"I Found it at the Movies: Film Noir Reviews" (2015) by Debbi Mack

Hollywood Actress: Lizabeth Scott, Evelyn Keyes, Joan Blondell, June Allyson & Dick Powell

In The Actress: Hollywood Acting and the Female Star, (2006), author Karen Hollinger writes: "Cynthia Baron characterizes studio acting as an eclectic mix of pragmatic acting strategies that centered around three major concerns: the actor's adjustment from stage to screen, the development of 'silent thinking' as a way to help formulate appropriate reactions, and the building of a character through careful script analysis, extensive preparation, and often dispassionate execution. She proposes that studio actors developed their craft, not by using a single acting method, but rather by drawing on a complex integration of techniques taken from theater, dance, vaudeville, literature, instinct, and the theories of Stanislavski. With the revival of interest in film noir and its corresponding acting style, beginning in the 1980s, Lizabeth Scott's reputation has risen among critics and film historians."

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

"Edited by the gifted Ellsworth Hoagland (Holiday Inn, Union Station), Christmas in July is a perfectly paced experience. There is not a single scene in the film which feels out of place. While many films can blossom during the first or final act of the story while sagging in the middle section, there is nothing of the sort on display throughout Christmas in July. Each and every frame is with purpose. Featuring stunning black and white cinematography by Victor Milner (Reap the Wild Wind, The Love Parade), Christmas in July is a gorgeous production. From the roof-tops of the opening scenes to the outdoor environments, there is something magical going on here that is truly awe-inspiring. Preston Sturges (Sullivan Travels, Unfaithfully Yours) wrote and directed the film and succeeded in creating another classic. Viewers will easily find the charming love story between Jimmy MacDonald and Betty Casey irresistible. When Jimmy and Betty arrive at the tenement with a caravan of cars bearing gifts, the distribution of presents provides some of the most touching moments in the film such as a wordless shot of a young girl receiving a doll (probably her first one) is one of those little cinematic moments that you'll never forget. At the same time, there's also a wonderful message throughout the film which is perfectly clear: pursue dreams and maybe they could become reality. Christmas in July is a beautiful masterpiece to cherish each Christmas season." Source: www.blu-ray.com

Illustrious film critic James Agee praised greatly It Happened Tomorrow (1944), writing “Students of cinematic style will find many shrewdly polished bits in It Happened Tomorrow to admire and enjoy; and Dick Powell’s graceful sportiness and Linda Darnell’s loveliness are two arresting samples of what wise directing can do. Powell had changed his tuned appearing in Preston Sturges' classic Christmas in July (1940), on his way to his best-known work in film noir. He's wryly funny here, especially when he believes he may be doomed, and has excellent chemistry with Darnell. In the last half-hour, cinemaddicts will know for sure that this film is the work of René Clair, the French cinemagician whose films are among the most inspired screen comedies ever made.” René Clair did admit that, “The last twenty minutes are the best thing I did in Hollywood.” According to the American Film Institute, Frank Capra had purchased the story It Happened Tomorrow from Hugh Wedlock and Harold Snyder and then sold the rights to producer Arnold Pressburger who asked René Clair to take over the project. 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