Woman on the Run, 1950 Original Half Sheet

Woman on the Run, 1950

Directed by Norman Foster

Holy Roller Coasters! Run Lady Run!

?????? What? Why isn’t Ann Sheridan running? Why is she standing around goading the cops?

Batman director, Norman Foster purposely re-titled the story Woman on the Run in order to capture the “essence” of a woman racing against time to retrieve her lost love. Yeah, sure. That’s what I get from the picture.

Confessions of a Nazi Spy, 1939

Confessions of a Nazi Spy, 1939

Edward G. Robinson was the living embodiment of the saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

After his spectacular success as Rico in Little Caesar, Robinson spent lavishly on himself, his family and everybody and anything that needed a chunk of change. In the 1940′s alone he made more than 850 contributions totaling more than a quarter million dollars.

But in 1947, inglorious ex-communist turned “Red” Hunter (and future Confidential Magazine editor and wife slayer) Howard Rushmore,  fingered Edward G. Robinson as a fellow “traveler” or commie before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Edward G. Robinson, who had enjoyed almost twenty years at the top in Hollywood, imploded and his career never recovered from the accusations.

(please read my abbreviated bio on Rushmore below.)

The Two Mrs. Carroll's

The Two Mrs. Carrolls, 1947

Directed by Peter Godfrey

Key Largo, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Dark Passage, Knock on Any Door, Dead Reckoning, The Big Sleep. Bogie was really cranking out the  hits for Warners in the late forties. He also managed to sandwich in epic benders and brawls with wifey #3, Mayo Methot; a notorious affair and marriage to teen dream Lauren Bacall; and a few weeks shooting for The Two Mrs. Carrolls’.

Unfairly considered a piece of crap at the time, The Two Mrs. Carrolls’ is worth watching. In The Two Mrs. Carrolls’ Bogie plays a painter that gets to menace, sneer and romance la la Picasso in an uber gothic mansion. Picasso of course, wreaked more havoc than this guy, but no matter.

The Naked Kiss, 1963 original Half Sheet

The Naked Kiss, 1963

Written and Directed by Simon Fuller

Lured by the skanky title and the promise of a trashy time I hit the play button. Swack! Swack! Swack! A pocketbook is swinging like a propeller blade. Behind it a black bra-clad bald hooker appears, hell bent on kicking the s**t out of a drunken pimp. I’m hooked.

The Naked Kiss, a pulpy title with a creepy connotation, is a divine send-up of female melodrama and saint/sinner cliques. The hooker with a heart of gold. The Sleezy cop. A perfect, yet hypocritical small town. Only a master could spin a tale this wacky and not let the plates crash. Only a master could teeter between Cheeze and Arteeze. Bravo Simon Fuller.

Criss Cross, 1949 Original Half Sheet

Criss Cross, 1948

Directed by Robert Soidmak

 ”All woman are bitches,” I said. She smiled at me. Her eyes were deep and black. “All woman are cheats and liars and bitches,” I told her.
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m a whore.”
“You’re different,” I said. “I mean real women.”

Criss Cross, 1934 by Don Tracy

Spicy.

Don Tracy’s double-crossing armed robbery caper about a down on his luck, love-struck, ex-boxer and his trampy ex-wife gets the “Hollywood” treatment by Soidmak in 1949.