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

Wonderland Burlesque's

Let's All Go To The Movies:

Hollywood - It's Murder!

Part 3 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.

Actors! They will do anything for a bit of attention... even die.

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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Studio Murder Mystery

(1929)

A philandering actor is murdered at a movie studio. His jealous wife , his director, and a girl he mistreated, all have substantial reasons for having wanted him dead.

Released on June 1, 1929, by Paramount Pictures, this mystery was directed by Frank Tuttle and stars Neil Hamilton, Doris Hill, Warner Oland, Fredric March, Chester Conklin, Florence Eldridge and Guy Oliver.

Fredric March and Florence Eldridge

Florence Eldridge and Fredric March were married to each other and remained so from May 30, 1927 until his death on April 24, 1975.

Neil Hamilton and Doris Hill

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Fingers At The Window

(1942)

An unemployed actor in Chicago aims to solve a mystery! Gripped by an axe murderer, the streets of Chicago are empty at night as there have been six murders and six people have been caught, but they are lunatics. Only one person has lived to tell about it and she turns out to be as dumb as a brick. If it were not for the actor, she would have been number seven. When there is a second attempt on her life,  the actor realizes the crimes are not random and that someone is hypnotizing these people to do his bidding, but the police remain skeptical.

Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, this mystery was directed by Charles Lederer and stars Lew Ayres, Laraine Day and Basil Rathbone.

Lew Ayres career took a nosedive when he declared himself a conscientious-objector. He  changed his military status to non-combatant in April of 1942, causing great consternation at M-G-M, which had already reshot the Dr. Kildare film he'd  just completed, removing him from the cast completely. By the time this film was released, the furor had died down and it opened without incident. In fact, one reviewer noted the business was brisk, possibly because of Ayres' honesty and courage in jeopardizing his movie career for the sake of his principles. However, in the end, Ayres did end up volunteering to serve as a medic and chaplain's aide in the Pacific during WWII.

This was Ayres last film for MGM and his last film until The Dark Mirror (1946) - after his service as a medic and chaplain's aide in the Pacific during WWII.

When Ayres goes to the psychiatrist convention he says his name is Dr. Stephen Dedalus from Ireland. Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses.

Basil Rathbone, Lew Ayres, and Laraine Day

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In A Lonely Place

(1950)

A screenwriter, faced with the odious task of writing the screenplay for a trashy bestseller, has the hat-check girl, who wrote the book, tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, she is murdered and the writer becomes the prime suspect due to his his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor. Fortunately, his lovely female neighbor gives him an alibi. She proves to be just what the writer needed, as their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and the writer's inner demons come between them?

 

Based on the 1947 novel of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes and produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. In a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray and stars Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.

The film's original working title was Behind The Mask. 

 

The story is a mordant comment on Hollywood mores and the pitfalls of celebrity and near-celebrity, similar to two other American films released that same year, Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's All About Eve.

John Derek was considered for the role of Steele because in the novel the character was - originally - much younger. 

 

Lauren Bacall and Ginger Rogers were considered for the role of Laurel Gray. Bogart naturally wanted his wife to play opposite him, but Warner Brothers refused to release her from her contract. Rogers was reportedly the producers' first choice, but Nicholas Ray convinced them that his own wife, Gloria Grahame, would be the right choice for the role.

Gloria Grahame, at the time, was estranged from her husband, Director Nicholas Ray. She would subsequently go on to marry her stepson, Ray's son from a previous marriage.

Producer Robert Lord was worried about having Nicholas Ray and Gloria Grahame, then husband and wife whose marriage was on the rocks, working together. He made Grahame sign a contract stipulating that "my husband shall be entitled to direct, control, advise, instruct, and even command my actions during the hours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., every day except Sunday. I acknowledge that in every conceivable situations his will and judgment shall be considered superior to mine, and shall prevail." Grahame was also forbidden to "nag, cajole, tease, or in any other feminine fashion seek to distract or influence him."

 

Though the title and characters are based on Dorothy B. Hughes' novel, the biggest difference between the book and the movie is that in the movie, Dixon Steele, though violent, is only accused of being a murderer, while in the book, he is a serial killer and rapist. Director Nicholas Ray claimed that he made the change because he was "more interested in doing a film about the violence in all of us, rather than a mass murder film, or one about a psychotic." Hughes was never bothered by the changes from her novel, and praised Gloria Grahame's performance. 

When Edmund H. North adapted the story, he stuck close to the original source. North's treatment was not used, and Andrew Solt developed the screenplay with regular input from Producer Robert Lord and Director Nicholas Ray. The end result is quite different from the source novel. Solt claimed that Humphrey Bogart loved the script so much, that he wanted to make it without revisions. Solt maintains that the final cut is very close to his script, but further research shows that Ray made regular re-writes, some added on the day of shooting. In fact, only four pages of the one hundred forty page script had no revisions.

In the original ending and the final shooting script, Dix actually did kill Laurel in the heat of their argument. Martha comes and discovers the body as Dix silently types his script. Later, when his detective friend comes to arrest him, Dix says that he's almost done with his script. There is a close-up of the last page of the script, echoing the words Dix said in the car to Laurel: "I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I live a few weeks while she loved me." It is said that this scene was filmed, but before it could be shown to a test audience, Director Nicholas Ray shot a new ending because he wasn't pleased with the scripted ending. 

Halfway through the shooting schedule, Ray hated the ending he had helped write. Ray later said, "I just couldn't believe the ending that Bundy (screenwriter Andrew Solt) and I had written. I shot it because it was my obligation to do it. Then I kicked everybody off stage except Bogart, Art Smith and Gloria. And we improvised the ending as it is now. In the original ending we had ribbons so it was all tied up into a very neat package, with Lovejoy coming in and arresting him as he was writing the last lines, having killed Gloria. Huh! And I thought, shit, I can't do it, I just can't do it! Romances don't have to end that way. Marriages don't have to end that way, they don't have to end in violence. Let the audience make up its own mind what's going to happen to Bogie when he goes outside the apartment."

 

Ray didn't want to think that violence was the only way out of this situation. He cleared the set, including Lauren Bacall, who was visiting her husband on-set at the time, except for Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, and Art Smith, who ended up not being used in the final scene filmed, plus the camera and sound men. They improvised the ending that is seen in the final cut.

 

In her essay Humphrey and Bogey, film historian Louise Brooks wrote that more than any other role that Humphrey Bogart played, it was the role of Dixon Steele in this movie that came closest to the real Bogart she knew. "Before inertia set in, he played one fascinatingly complex character, craftily directed by Nicholas Ray, in a film whose title perfectly defined Humphrey's own isolation among people. In a Lonely Place gave him a role that he could play with complexity because the character's pride in his art, his selfishness, his drunkenness, his lack of energy stabbed with lightning strokes of violence, were shared equally by the real Bogart."

Robert Warwick and Humphrey Bogart worked together in 1922 in the stage play "Drifting." Producer and star Bogart never forgot the kindness Warwick showed to him as a young actor, and made Andrew Solt write a role for Warwick, who was then struggling.

The thespian Charlie Waterman (Robert Warwick) is quoting from Shakespeare's Sonnet 29 when he comes over to Dixon Steele's (Humphrey Bogart's) apartment.

There is a thematic line in the movie when Steele says "I was born when she kissed me. I died the day she left me, but I lived while she loved me" Laurel then repeats the last part of the phrase as the final line in the movie.

The film was one of two Nicholas Ray films to be scored by avant garde classical composer George Antheil. 

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart

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The Mirror Crack'd

(1980)

In 1953, the small English village of St. Mary Mead, home to Miss Jane Marple, is delighted when a big American movie company arrives to make a movie telling of the relationship between Jane Grey and Elizabeth I, starring famous actresses Marina Rudd and Lola Brewster. Marina arrives with her husband and director Jason, and when she discovers that Lola is will be in the movie with her, she hits the roof, as Lola and Marina loathe each other. Marina has been getting death threats, and at a party at the manor house, Heather Babcock, after boring Marina with a long story, drinks a cocktail made for Marina, and dies from poisoning. Everybody believes that Marina is the target, but the Police Officer investigating the case, Chief Inspector Dermot Craddock isn't so sure. He then enlists Miss Jane Marple, his aunt, to investigate.

This mystery was directed by Guy Hamilton from a screenplay by Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple 1962 novel The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. It stars Angela Lansbury, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, Edward Fox, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, and Elizabeth Taylor.  

Natalie Wood reportedly accepted the role of Marina Rudd without reading a script, consequently rejecting the role upon reading one. The role went to Elizabeth Taylor.

At this time of her career Elizabeth Taylor's career was in the doldrums. In 1977, she had semi-retired from acting, following her starring performance at the notorious flop A Little Night Music. She was now 48 years old, hadn't had a decent hit film for several years, her marriage to US politician John Warner was struggling, she was taking anti-depressants and had put on weight. When Rock Hudson was approached to do the film he said he would only do it if his long time friend Taylor could also be cast. The producers had assumed that Taylor's salary demands would put the film well over budget and were lining up Donald Pleasance as a possible alternative to Hudson. However Hudson said that he could get Taylor to agree to star with him for the same salary he was being offered. Hudson convinced Taylor that coming to England for a few weeks to do a mainstream film with him, Lansbury and Tony Curtis (people Taylor had known for about thirty years) would be beneficial for her mental health plus give her a chance to catch up with old friends who lived there.

After Elizabeth Taylor's casting as Marina Rudd, screenwriter Barry Sandler suggested Debbie Reynolds for rival diva Lola Brewster, referencing the two actresses' supposed feud over Reynold's first husband Eddie Fisher becoming Taylor's fourth husband. The role went to Kim Novak.

This movie marked a return to the silver screen of Kim Novak, who, by this time, was only making rare appearances in movies. Novak mentioned in interviews that she thoroughly enjoyed working on this film. She explained that in a rare moment for her career, "I didn't have a studio executive breathing down my neck, dictating my every move".

Production of this movie was delayed by about a year due to Angela Lansbury appearing in the Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, which was a big box-office success, and the producers wanted Lansbury for this movie. In a 1998 interview, Lansbury stated that playing Miss Jane Marple was "terrific" and that she "enjoyed" it very much, but thought this movie was "dreadful". Angela Lansbury's contract bound her to star as Miss Marple in a trilogy of films. Since the first film was poorly received, plans for the two sequels were scrapped.

The title comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson's celebrated Victorian poem The Lady of Shalott: "Out flew the web and floated wide; / The mirror crack'd from side to side; / 'The curse is come upon me,' cried / The Lady of Shalott."

Angela Lansbury

Elizabeth Taylor

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Night Moves

(1975)

Private detective and former football player Harry Moseby gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case. A former Hollywood actress, whose only major roles came thanks to being married to a studio mogul, wants Moseby to find and return her daughter. Harry travels to Florida to find her, but he begins to see a connection between the runaway girl, the world of Hollywood stuntmen, and a suspicious mechanic when an unsolved murder comes to light.

This neo-noir film, directed by Arthur Penn, stars Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Susan Clark, Melanie Griffith and James Woods.

Arthur Penn, an early contender to direct The Stunt Man (1980), borrowed elements from that film's source, the Paul Brodeur novel of the same name, for this film's story.

Fay Dunaway was originally cast as the female lead. However, she left the film just as it went into production in October of 1973 to star in Chinatown (1974), which also went into production in October 1973. Coincidentally, she had broken up with one of the film's stars, Harris Yulin the year before after a two-year relationship.

Marks the credited film debut of Melanie Griffith. This is the second neo-noir Private Eye movie that  Griffith appeared in that was released in 1975. The other was The Drowning Pool (1975) starring Paul Newman. Griffith says her appearance in this movie was ''kind of an accident. "I thought it was a modeling job call. I had done commercials when I was little, but I didn't really want to act at all. Of course, I had watched my mother on the set, but I was too shy, Griffith recalls. "And then I went into 'Night Moves' and I got hooked, but I didn't really know what I was doing. I would just do it, and I guess that's some kind of gift, too, but you've got to take it further - you have to have some concept of what you're acting.''

As initially shot, the sex scene between Gene Hackman and Jennifer Warren was longer, and vividly intense (in an interview, Warren described the scene as "intimate emotionally as well as physically.") But to enormous (within the production) controversy, Arthur Penn decided to delete the more elaborate encounter and go instead with the truncated version. Screenwriter Alan Sharp fought for the longer scene's inclusion, describing his "huge disagreement with Penn" over the issue and how he was "offended" by the decision.

Originally titled Dark Tower, it was changed to avoid confusion with The Towering Inferno (1975) and to give a nod to Hackman's character's obsession with chess. The chess game on which the title of the film was based was a real game. The game was K. Emmrich (White) vs Bruno Moritz (Black), played in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany in 1922. In the film, we see the position after White's 26th move. As Moseby showed Paula, Black could have finished the game with a queen sacrifice followed by three knight checks, but he played something else and lost.

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

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I Hadn't Anyone Till You - Jeri Southern

Theme from the 1950 motion picture In A Lonely Place