Some more interesting careers ?

Another selection of thumbnail career portraits, in the style of one of our Sixties favourite magazines "Who's Who in Hollywood". 

Don Murray. In his late 80s now (born 1929), Murray started out in 1950, and got his big break co-starring with Marilyn Monroe in Logan’s BUS STOP in 1956 – he may have been fine, but it’s the character of the cowboy who is so annoying. He met his first wife Hope Lange here. He followed this with two I have not seen: BACHELOR PARTY and A HATFUL OF RAIN, and then two westerns which I liked as a kid: the engaging FROM HELL TO TEXAS in ’58, and the more sprawling THESE THOUSAND HILLS in 1959, with young Lee Remick, and that other 20^th Century Fox boy, Stuart Whitman. 
Gritty realism followed with THE HOODLUM PRIEST and the very Irish saga SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL in 1959. Maybe his last interesting role was as senator Brig Anderson in Otto’s ADVISE AND CONSENT in 1962, who commits suicide when his wartime gay affair is about to be exposed – and we get that first look at a gay bar in American film, as Brig reels back in horror, leaving his wartime buddy lying in the gutter. (review at Murray label).

He was back with Lee Remick in BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL in 1965, but now Steve McQueen was the lead, and it was the era of the new boys like Beatty and Redford. He did a rubbish British film in 1967: THE VIKING QUEEN – we avoided it at the time, but I have now ordered a copy as it seems delirious fun, a certified Trash Classic. Murray continued in a long career, in lesser films and lots of television (like KNOTS LANDING), but like many others had a good late Fifties era.

Richard Beymer, now in his late Seventies (born 1938) was a child actor – he was Jennifer Jones’ son in De Sica’s INDISCRETION OF AN AMERICAN WIFE in 1954, and then after a lot of television, came his run of 20^th Century Fox movies in the late Fifties and early Sixties: George Stevens’ THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK in 1959, WEST SIDE STORY, Fox comedies HIGH TIME and BACHELOR FLAT (which we liked at the time), THE STRIPPER with Joanne Woodward and Carol Lynley in 1963 (review at Woodward label) and the lead in HEMINGWAY’S ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG MAN in 1962, as per recent review, below), plus FIVE FINGER EXERCISE and THE LONGEST DAY in 1962. Perhaps Beymer wasn’t distinctive enough, and Fox already had the likes of Robert Wagner and Jeffrey Hunter under contract …. He continued keeping busy, returning to the limelight in David Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS in 1990, and it was interesting seeing him ageing well in items like MURDER SHE WROTE.

Dean Stockwell. Another child actor, born 1936, has clocked up over 200 credits according to IMDB. He was in ANCHORS AWEIGH with Gene Kelly in 1945, Losey’s THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR in 1948, KIM with Errol Flynn, then came those “sensitive” roles in COMPULSION in 1959, SONS AND LOVERS in 1960, LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT in 1962, RAPTURE in 1965, as well as TV roles in the likes of WAGON TRAIN, DR KILDARE. Later films include that terrific thriller AIR FORCE ONE, PARIS TEXAS, DUNE, TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., BLUE VELVET, THE PLAYER and more.

Brandon De Wilde (1942-1972). Another child actor, but less fortunate, in that he was killed in a traffic accident when aged 30, after being a child actor on Broadway when aged 9 in THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, which role he repeated in the 1953 film.. We have already covered his career in detail, at label, and those films we like, such as ALL FALL DOWN and HUD, and those westerns like SHANE and NIGHT PASSAGE where he has some nice scenes with James Stewart.

Pamela Tiffin. Pamela, born 1942, was the delightfully daffy and attractive alternative to those blondes like Sandra Dee or Carol Lynley, and had some good years in the early Sixties. She started as a model and came to attention in SUMMER AND SMOKE in 1961, when we loved her in Billy Wilder’s ONE TWO THREE. Some zany comedy roles followed in COME FLY WITH ME, THE PLEASURE SEEKERS, STATE FAIR, THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL and HARPER in 1966. She the decamped to European comedies in Italy, co-starring with the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, before giving up acting to concentrate on family life.

Carol Lynley. Another young model, also born 1942, had a longer career, starting with Walt Disney in THE LIGHT IN THE FOREST in 1958, and then at Fox in that favourite, HOUND DOG MAN with Fabian and Stuart Whitman, THE STRIPPER, HOLIDAY FOR LOVERS, BLUE DENIM with Brandon De Wilde, RETURN TO PEYTON PLACE, THE LAST SUNSET. I did not want to see UNDER THE YUM YUM TREE where she co-stars with Jack Lemmon, and she was also in Otto’s THE CARDINAL in 1963, and the lead in his BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING in 1965, with Olivier (right) and Keir Dullea (also featured here, see label). She was later in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE in 1972 in hotpants, and was a long time companion of David Frost’s. She kept busy in lesser films (THE SHUTTERED ROOM wasn’t too bad), but then there was that 1965 cheapo version of HARLOW … reviews of some of these at Lynley label.

Vera Miles. Now in her late 80s and retired for years, Vera Miles is probably the biggest name featured here – it was a long if fairly ordinary career but her two each for John Ford and Hitchcock will ensure she is long remembered, as THE SEARCHERS, THE WRONG MAN, PSYCHO and THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALLANCE will always be screened somewhere. She began in 1950 and early roles included some routine westerns, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS television shows (he had her under personal contract – like he had Tippi Hedren – and was building VERTIGO for Miles, but she had got pregnant by husband Gordon Scott – she had done one of his TARZAN pictures. She wears that unflattering wig in PSYCHO as she had done a downbeat war movie FIVE BRANDED WOMEN for Martin Ritt in Italy and had her head shaved for it. She is glamorous though in A TOUCH OF LARCENCY in 1960, and suitably nasty in AUTUMN LEAVES with Crawford in 1956, and BACK STREET in ‘61. Other leads included 23 PACES TO BAKER STREET, HELLFIGHTERS with Wayne in 1968, and lots more television.  

Next lot to include Tuesday Weld, Carolyn Jones, Paula Prentiss, Barry Coe, Farley Granger, Earl Holliman,  and some Europeans and British ....

Some interesting careers ....

Hope Lange / Tom Tryon / Keir Dullea / Lola Albright. 

We are fascinated here at The Projector as to how some acting careers pan out, who gets the breaks and who keeps working into old age.  Here are some interesting ones .... maybe more later. 

If you were asked who co-starred with Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, would you come up with the answer? And if told it was Hope Lange would you be any the wiser?

Hope Lange (1933-2003) was one of 20^th Century Fox’s players who came to prominence in the mid-50s and had a good career into the 1960s, maybe not individual enough to be a top line star, but a pleasing presence (rather like Vera Miles) in several hits of the time. She studied dance with Martha Graham, and was the young ingénue in BUS STOP in 1956, having scenes with Monroe, and then was Selina Cross in the Fox hit PEYTON PLACE in 1957, when she was also in the western THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES, with Robert Wagner and Jeff Hunter,  and in IN LOVE AND WAR, and then Montgomery Clift’s love interest in THE YOUNG LIONS in 1958. She was the lead and top-billed in a favourite of ours, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING in 1959, teamed with Stephen Boyd, with Joan Crawford in the supporting cameo role as her boss. 

She was the main lead opposite Elvis in the Fox meller WILD IN THE COUNTRY. Her scenes were cut out though from HOW THE WEST WAS WON in '62. Then Bette Davis had a supporting role in the 1961 A POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES  where Lange starred with her then amour Glenn Ford, after her marriage to BUS STOP star Don Murray. She then married directed Alan J. Pakula, and had a successful TV series from the film of THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, among other television roles. Later films included the 1974 DEATH WISH and BLUE VELVET.

Keir Dullea, born in 1936, now 80, was a very individual young actor with those striking looks and eyes, and in interesting films like DAVID AND LISA in 1962 (for which he won the Golden Globe as “Most Promising Male Newcomer”), THE HOODLUM PRIEST, the comedy western WEST OF MONTANA and the lead in Preminger’s BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING in 1965 (where co-star Noel Coward famously said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow"), plus the Lana Turner classic MADAME X in 1966, and THE FOX in 1967. He is immortalised for posterity as Dave Bowman, the surviving astronaut in Kubrick’s 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY (and certainly looks better now than his co-star Gary Lockwood – see below). 

The 1969 DE SADE (see review – Dullea label) is a hoot now,

Dullea also did several stage roles and we saw him on stage in London in 1976, as that annoying cowboy in a revival of BUS STOP, with Lee Remick as a world-weary Cherie. - right.

He has kept busy with 84 credits and is still working now. Like Michael York, Terence Stamp and others he shows how actors can keep working as they get older, and the next crop of actors take over.

Tom Tryon (1926-1991) aged 65, clocked up 39 acting credits before becoming a best-selling author. The tall dark and handsome actor was very individual in early roles like I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE in 1958, and in THE UNHOLY WIFE, THREE VIOLENT PEOPLE, THE STORY OF RUTH (see below), MARINES LETS GO, THE LONGEST DAY. 
He was the lead as THE CARDINAL for Otto Preminger in 1963, and also in Otto’s IN HARM’S WAY in 1965. There were lesser roles after that for the gay actor, who had been a marine in the South Pacific during the war, but his novels which were filmed including THE OTHER, HARVEST HOME,  CROWNED HEADS – a great read, which included the short story FEDORA (which became Billy Wilder’s last interesting film) brought him a lot more success and money than acting! He would have been the sailor marooned on a desert island with Marilyn Monroe in SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE, in 1962 – if the film had been completed.

Lola Albright, born 1925, now in her early 90s – Considered one of the most stylish, sultriest and beautiful actresses in Hollywood, with one of the throatiest, smokiest and most distinctive voices in the business, she starred with Kirk Douglas in the 1949 hit CHAMPION, after uncredited appearances in THE PIRATE and EASTER PARADE, and a bit part in THE TENDER TRAP in ‘55. From 1958 to 1961 she played nightclub singer Edie Hart in the popular TV series PETER GUNN. She also made TV guest appearances on ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS (1955) – he should have made her a Hitchcock blonde. She played Constance McKenzie in the TV series PEYTON PLACE (1964) after Dorothy Malone became ill. Lola received critical acclaim for her performances in A COLD WIND IN AUGUST in 1961, and was in Rene Clements’ LES FELINS with Alain Delon in 1964, and was terrific as Tuesday Weld’s mother in the hilarious LORD LOVE A DUCK in 1966. A great example of a stylish actress under-used by Hollywood, but who kept busy with lots of television work.

Next:  Richard Beymer? Don Murray ? Tuesday Weld? Carol Lynley? Pamela Tiffin ? Vera Miles ?

2001 time again ...

Its on television again tonight - 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY: I can't wait, despite having the Blu-ray and seen it so many times since that first time in 1968 in Cinerama, with my hippie friends, and yes, we were all on acid. It remains for me maybe the best film of all time, I simply never tire of it. At least now with widescreen HD it still looks good on TV. 

Kubrick's seminal sci-fi classic is nearly half a century old, but its eerie voyage through the galaxies of human experience remains timeless. And that soundtrack ...... total perfection.  The core of the film of course is that long voyage to Jupiter with astronauts Bowman and Poole and the HAL 9000 computer .... "Open the pod doors, Hal" - "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that ...." The ending still mystifies us but leaves us with a feeling of awe ... 

Astronauts do age though .....

London, 1965: Bunny Lake is missing

Ann Lake has just moved to London with her daughter, Bunny. When she goes to retrieve her daughter after the girl's first day at school, no one has any record of Bunny having been registered. When even the police can find no trace that the girl ever existed, they wonder if the child was only a fantasy of Ann's. When Ann's brother backs up the police's suspicions, she appears to be a mentally-disturbed individual. Are they right? 

Missing children stories crop up regularly - there is a current one here in England. Otto Preminger's 1965 thriller is an interesting variation on this newspaper staple - is there really a missing child? Who is making it appear as if the mother is mentally unbalanced?  The solution here is rather too obvious and we spend too long with one of our leads in mad mode ... but its a great cast and has some good London locations. Just like John Ford used London for his GIDEON OF SCOTLAND YARD thriller 1958, now Otto choose Hampstead - the posh part - and another great cast of British regulars for his thriller. Spot them all here:  Anna Massey, Finlay Currie, Richard Wattis - even the smallest parts are filled by the likes of Fred Emney, Victor Maddern, Delphi Lawrence, Suzanne Neve, Lucie Mannheim, Megs Jenkins etc. 

Carol Lynley is the distraught mother after not being able to find her daughter at the school where nobody seems to know anything about the child, Keir Dullea is her concerned brother, whizzing around London is his sports car. They are Americans new in London. The selling point here is Laurence Olivier as the police detective, looking more or less like himself (this was the era when he was blacking up for OTHELLO, KHARTOUM etc) and its a role he plays perfectly as he begins to doubt if there really is a child, as all her belongings and passport have also vanished and there is nobody who has actually seen Bunny. 

There are some interesting red herrings too: Martita Hunt (Miss Havisham, that was) is the retired head of the school with her tape recordings of childrens' bad dreams, while Noel Coward potters around as the rather decadent landlord. Interesting seeing old pals Olivier and Coward here, and Larry's scene with Richard Wattis reminds one of their scenes in THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWGIRL ... That 60s pop group The Zombies are seen on a pub television. The ending is rather protracted but of course the police arrive in the nick of time, and yes there really is a Bunny, but I can't reveal more.

Lee Remick & Keir Dullea BUS STOP, 1976

Carol Lynley probably has her best role, and this was the movie where Coward made that witty comment: "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow". Keir though had a rather good career - in several offbeat movies including that 1969 piece of trash DE SADE (review Trash label), and of course 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY will play forever (its his co-star there Gary Lockwood who has disappeared). I saw him on stage too as that annoying cowboy (above) opposite Lee Remick's Cherie in BUS STOP here in London in 1976 (Lee Remick label). BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING though is quite a good thriller, as scripted by John and Penelope Mortimer. Otto went on to HURRY SUNDOWN next - we will have to re-see that at some stage too.

Shades of exploitation ...

THE UNHOLY WIFE – Here’s a thing: in 1956 England’s J Lee Thompson directed the gritty drama YIELD TO THE NIGHT with blonde bombshell Diana Dors in her best role as the woman facing the death penalty for shooting her lover, while John Farrow was directing BACK FROM ETERNITY with Rod Steiger and blonde bombshell Anita Ekberg. Fast forward to 1957 and now its Farrow directing Steiger and Dors as another blonde bombshell who ends up facing the death penalty… Diana went to America in the mid-50s and made a few movies there before returning to become an esteemed character actress and all-round tv personality in the UK – here she almost literally glows in the dark in those skintight costumes with that mane of blonde hair in lurid Technicolor. She seems curiously impassive at times as the femme fatale but is never less than sympathetic as the blonde picked up by wine maker Steiger. Diana and pal Marie Windsor make a great pair of dames on the make –

soon though she is bored back in the wine country as Steiger leaves her alone a lot (he has a 'Korean war wound' too….). Why did he marry her? Well she has a young son, and he needs an hair for his vinery…. Diana takes up with lunk Tom Tryon while being observed by interfering mother-in-law Beulah Bondi who is very annoying here. There is a murder, Diana is in the dock, will she get off? Did she do it? Its intriguing and nicely exploits Diana at the height of her looks, before gravity and weight took their toll, and its perfect 1957 from RKO.

NIGHT OF THE QUARTER MOON - Of course, when you put schlockmeisters Albert Zugsmith and Hugo Haas together as producer and director, you aren't going to end up with something approaching A-list quality but this 1959 shocker provides some amazing viewing now. It is another of those race relations dramas of that year – IMITATION OF LIFE was the successful one, one of Sirk’s best melodramas that’s still marvellous now, and Basil Dearden’s SAPPHIRE was a neat British twist on the same, but this one somehow got backed by MGM! John Drew Barrymore is the spoiled high society playboy Chuck meets and falls for Ginny (Julie London) on a vacation down south. She, it turns out, has a quarter Portuguese-Angolian blood which makes her a ‘quadroon’ as the newspapers gleefully headline when they are back in San Francisco. Nat King Cole and Anna Kashfi are Julie’s relatives who run a night club (Nat gets to sing) and Agnes Moorehead scores as Corneila, the overbearing mother who tries to break up the marriage.Turned out of their hotel, harassed by neighbours, and treated harshly by police, the couple are separated by Cornelia who uses drugs and brainwashing to bring about an annulment on the grounds Ginny concealed her heritage from Chuck. During a sensational courtroom trial with everyone against her, Ginny is forced to strip before the judge to see if she's tan all over...

Julie London was not very animated in those westerns she did – MAN OF THE WEST with Gary Cooper and SADDLE THE WIND with Robert Taylor – but she is a revelation here and plays with passion as she struggles to get her husband back. It has a cheap and tawdry feel rather like a superior B film, but quite interesting to see now even if it is a sordid exercise in exploitation.

GIRL OF THE NIGHT - This film, directed by Joseph Cates, tells the story of a girl (Anne Francis) who becomes a high priced call girl. She is exploited by her pimp (John Kerr) and madam (Kay Medford) until she finds a tough yet caring therapist (Lloyd Nolan) and straightens herself out. Probably considered very daring in 1960, this film offers a prostitute as the main character and it really does not judge her and that lovely actress Anne Francis is quite convincing as the vulnerable Bobbie caught up in a sleazy, ugly, sadistic world . Lloyd Nolan is effective as the shrink, while Kerr in a change from those bland leads whines as the worthless pimp. Kay Medford looks like a painted gargoyle in that nightclub scene. Bobbie is finally able to walk away from her sordid past. The movie draws upon Film Noir for much of its atmosphere shot in real locations, Francis and Kerr were also teamed in 1960 as air hostess and co-pilot in that good “doomed flight” drama THE CROWDED SKY. A more sanitised look at prostitution was provided by Paramount’s A HOUSE IN NOT A HOME in 1964 where Shelley Winters was a very jolly madam, as reviewed on here a while ago (Shelley Winters label). 

Prostitution was big in 1960: Liz in BUTTERFIELD 8, Melina in NEVER ON SUNDAY, Gina in GO NAKED IN THE WORLD, Nancy Kwan in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG, Shirley Jones (best supporting actress) in ELMER GANTRY, and Anne Francis here..

THE DETECTIVE – the late ‘60s saw exploitation taken to new levels with the new freedoms on offer as cinema could finally get to grips with more adult themes. This hard-boiled detective drama by old hand Gordon Douglas finds Frank Sinatra at the detective seeking promotion and finds it in convicting the wrong man for the murder of a prominent gay figure. Frank impassively watches the unstable suspect fry in the electric chair...
‘One Take Frank’ strides through it without much emotion – the real performance is by Lee Remick as his wife, creating a real person from the under-written part of the discarded wife who it seems is a nymphomaniac in her desires. The very cool Jacqueline Bisset (replacing Mia Farrow) is the boyish wife of a man who commits suicide who asks the detective to investigate the cause of the suicide.
It turns out the two cases are linked and there is wholesale corruption at the police department. Good roles here for Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Al Freeman Jr (who strips suspects naked like those Nazis did!) and homophobic Robert Duvall. Frank’s investigations takes him into the gay underworld – those trucks down by the harbour! – and that gay bar (perhaps the first since ADVISE AND CONSENT?) and that pick-up that turns ugly. Gays are routinely described as “fags” and are presented as sad lonely individuals who lead loveless lives, outcasts from society – the killer would rather be considered a murderer than a homosexual! This is all rather tame now but was considered racy and gritty at the time.

3 IN THE ATTIC - A modern Don Juan pays the price when he two-times three different women. Christopher Jones is Paxton Quigley the campus Casanova who sleeps with Caucasian co-ed Tobey (Yvette Mimieux), the black beauty Eulice (Judy Pace) and the Jewish hippie Jane (Maggie Thrett). The three women discover Paxton’s extra-curricular activities and they seek revenge by locking him in an attic where they try and kill him with sex! Soon Paxton goes on a hunger strike as maybe his sexual desires may lead to his downfall, or even death. What a way to, eh! Chad and Jeremy provide the music which includes the title track with lines like “Is it possible for a woman to be Jewish and psychedelic at the same time?”

It’s a companion piece to American-International’s WILD IN THE STREETS, also 1968, and reviewed here recently. Chris Jones is quite animated here and it caused some attention at the time in being one of the first mainstream movies to feature male nudity (see also Zeffirelli’s ROMEO AND JULIET and Clive Donner’s HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH). Its quite amusing actually – with that nice late ‘60s preppy look [as in THE STERILE CUCKOO (or POOKIE as it was called in the UK) or LAST SUMMER]. AIP were of course exploiting the youth explosion and the new freedom of the counterculture era, but here its nicely played out, as directed by Richard Wilson.

DE SADE - One can hardly say the same for their DE SADE in 1969, American-International’s foray into costume drama, an odd mix of arthouse and expoitation – well the costumes don’t stay on very long as that orgy sequence seems endless as De Sade (Keir Dullea) romps with those strumpets in various states of undress. One trusts Lilli Palmer collected a large paycheck for her icy Madame de Montreuil making that marriage contract with De Sade to marry her daughter.
Keir thinks he is getting luscious Senta Berger but finds he has to marry her sister, English actress Anna Massey! John Huston though has a whale of a time as the decadent Abbe de Sade. Directed by reliable Cy Endfield and scripted by Richard Matheson but its just dull dull dull with the hilarious mix of psychedelia and costume drama, very 1969! As for Keir at least he had just finished 2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY which will play forever while this has sank without a trace.