Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: Hollywood - It's Murder!, Part 2 of 3

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies: 

Hollywood - It's Murder!

Part 2 of 3

Ah, show biz. It's a hard life. Between the casting calls and the casting couches? Why, it's enough to drive anyone to... murder!

Today, we start a three-part series all about the potential toil, trouble and terror faced by those in the cutthroat industry we all know and love: Show Biz!

Really, now... somebody has got to stop giving these actresses weapons.

That said, let's not waste another blood-curdling scream, and dive right into this spine-tingling edition of Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies.

Careful not to choke on your popcorn, kiddies!

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The Death Kiss

(1931)

While filming the closing scene of  The Death Kiss, the leading man is actually killed. Having seduced, or been married to, most of the women connected with the movie studio, there are lots of suspects. When his former leading lady is arrested for the killing, her boyfriend, a screenwriter, starts to investigate the killing in order to prove her innocence.

This pre-Code mystery was directed by Edwin L. Marin and stars David Manners, Adrienne Ames, and Bela Lugosi.. The thriller features the three leading players from the previous year's Dracula (Lugosi, Manners, and Edward Van Sloan), and was the first film directed by Edwin L. Marin.

Since this film features much of the principal cast of the previous year's wildly profitable and successful Dracula (1931), the studio sought to emphasize this connection, most notably by giving Lugosi top billing despite his small supporting role.

Adrienne Ames was borrowed from Paramount for this picture.

The 'Tonart Studios' where the story takes place were actually locations within the California Tiffany Studios in Hollywood where the production was filmed in November of 1932.

The Death Kiss was originally scheduled for a national release on December 25, 1932. However, the release was delayed due to the addition of hand-tinted sequences to the film, and was not released until January 8, 1933. The scenes weren't tinted in the traditional sense, but by hand-coloring each frame a la the early method used by such pioneers as Georges Melies.

Talk about a crime! How perverse is this? MGM purchased Tiffany's nitrate original film negative library and burned the entire collection during the burning of Atlanta sequence in Gone with the Wind (1939).Kino Lorber films has released a Blu-Ray version of this film from an existing 35 mm print with missing scenes and the color hand-tinted segments restored.

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely and badly edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation copies of the film.

You can watch this one for free on YouTube!

David Manners and Adrienne Ames

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Dressed To Kill

(1941)

A detective and his girlfriend are on their way to be married when a scream from a nearby hotel room draws his attention to a pair of theatrical murders.

Based on The Dead Take No Bows, a mystery novel by Richard Burke, this crime mystery was directed by Eugene J. Forde and stars Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes and Sheila Ryan. 

This is one of seven B-movies 20th Century-Fox produced in the 1940s featuring the Michael Shayne character as played by Lloyd Nolan. The same character had previously been featured in several novels and a weekly radio program, and would be made into a TV series in the 1950s. This was the third in the series of seven. Later, The Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) would release an additional five such films, starring Hugh Beaumont (Leave It To Beaver) as the Shayne character. There were also an additional three radio shows (1944–1953) and a television series (1960–1961).

You can watch this one for free on YouTube! 

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The Velvet Touch

(1948)

While trying to break up with her producer/lover, a Broadway actress unintentionally kills him. In a flashback, she recalls meeting a new flame and the events leading to the fatal argument. The next day, it appears that the Broadway star's former rival is the prime suspect. Or is the suave police captain simply playing cat-and-mouse with her?  Catty dialogue with style to spare, will our diva be found out?

Produced and distributed by RKO Picture, this film noir drama was directed by Jack Gage and stars Rosalind Russell, Leon Ames, Leo Genn and Claire Trevor. Frederick Brisson, Russell's real life husband, served as the film's producer.

The play within the film is Hedda Gabler, which is a title The Velvet Touch was sometimes promoted under.

One of the first films to mention the 'New Look', with which Dior had altered all of fashion the year before. As Valerie leaves the theater, an extra is heard to say, 'She's got the New Look, it sure suits her.'

One of the few sympathetic roles ever played by Sydney Greenstreet.

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Murder Most Foul

(1964)

Although the evidence appears to be overwhelming in the strangulation murder of a blackmailer, Miss Jane Marple's sole "not guilty" vote hangs the jury 11-1. She becomes convinced that the real murderer is a member of a local theatrical troupe, so she joins them in order to gather information. The clues lead back many years to a single disastrously unsuccessful 1951 performance of a dreadful play written by the group's hammy director. Although at that time, several of the current cast members were only children, more murders follow before Miss Marple ultimately exposes the killer.

Loosely based on the 1952 novel Mrs McGinty's Dead by Agatha Christie, this film was directed by George Pollock and stars Margaret Rutherford, Charles (Bud) Tingwell, Megs Jenkins, and Stringer Davis (Rutherford's husband). 

Like Murder at the Gallop (1963), this movie was adapted from a Hercule Poirot novel, the 1952 book Mrs. McGinty's Dead, though the story in the film bears only a superficial resemblance to the original. Aside from Mrs. McGinty and the murderer, none of the characters in the film appear in the book.

There are various references to the work of William Shakespeare: the title hails from  Hamlet Act I, Scene V (lines 27-28) where the Ghost speaks: "Murder most foul, as in the best it is;/But this most foul, strange, and unnatural."; a key phrase in this movie hails from Romeo and Juliet: "What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet" (Act II, Scene II); and H. Driffold Cosgood alludes to Macbeth's line "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care" (Act II, Scene II, lines 34-35).

Lots of little in jokes throughout the film. The music playing at the opening of the hospital scene is a reference to the television show Dr. Kildare (1961), right down to the shot of the doors to the ward. The score also alludes to the theme music from the series, Three Stars Will Shine Tonight, composed by Jerry Goldsmith. While inspecting the contents of the victim's suitcase, Miss Jane Marple finds fliers for a theatrical production of Dame Agatha Christie's Murder She Said; this is the title of the first movie in which Dame Margaret Rutherford appeared as Miss Marple.

Ron Moody and Margaret Rutherford both starred in The Mouse on the Moon (1963) and both Ron Moody and Megs Jenkins appeared in Oliver! (1968); Ron Moody as Fagin and Megs Jenkins as Mrs. Bedwin.

This was the penultimate production in the franchise of four movies with Dame Margaret Rutherford as Miss Jane Marple. The last is Murder Ahoy (1964). After the series concluded, Rutherford and her husband Stringer Davis reprised their roles of Miss Jane Marple and Mr. Jim Stringer only once more, for a brief cameo appearance in The Alphabet Murders (1965).

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The Morning After

(1986)

A washed-up actress wakes up with a hangover and no memory of how she ended up in bed with a dead man. She flees, convinced that she has had another blackout and stabbed someone. Her only support is an ex-cop and recovering alcoholic who is unsympathetic to her plight. She could believe that it is as simple as a violent act committed while drunk, except the body keeps reappearing.

This psychological thriller was directed by Sidney Lumet and stars Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, and Raul Julia.

Jane Fonda dropped out of The Accused (1988) to make The Morning After. The Accused was later made with Jodi Foster and Kelly McGillis, with Foster walking away with an Academy Award as Best Actress for her work in that film.

Jane Fonda later admitted that she was actually drunk in several scenes.

Actor James 'Gypsy' Haake appears in drag in this movie as the drag queen Frankie.

Fonda's performance in this film has often been likened and compared to her performance  in her earlier film Klute (1971). Fonda won the Academy Award for Best Actress for that film and was similarly Oscar-nominated in the same category for this one, losing out to Marlee Matlin for Children of a Lesser God (1986).

This was the only film that director Sidney Lumet ever made in Hollywood, a place that he distinctly disliked. He directed Fonda's father, Henry Fonda, in 12 Angry Men (1957) - it served as Lumet's feature film debut.

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel.

The Morning After - Trailer

1986