All About Eve, Original Window Card, 1950
All About Eve, 1950
Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz
Finally tossed the Christmas trees to the curb. No more Twinkle Twinkle. Sigh. Need something to keep the winter gloom away. How about a Twinkle Trifeca? Bette Davis, George Sanders, and Marilyn Monroe. So un-Noir. But, who cares. Ladle this trio with some cocktails and you got yourself a sparkly little show.
Bette Davis was only 42 when she made All About Eve, and the bloom was definitely off the rose. But the thorns were sharper than ever. Oscar nomination numero Ocho. Every fiftyish single lady who bypassed kids and a husband on her way up the ladder can identify with Ms. Channing. Money, men and melodrama. And plenty of gators snapping at your heels.
Somewhere in the Night, Half Sheet
Somewhere in the Night, Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Hollywood loves movies about amnesiacs. A klunk on the head can turn a snarling shrew into a panting geisha. Slinky sirens with murky motives turn up claiming to be your wife. Gangsters shoot first and east block sociopaths attach electrodes later…. Dull sitcoms are reborn. Momentarily.
While The City Sleeps, Window Card
While The City Sleeps is based on a 1952 novel by Charles Einstein, The Bloody Spur. Charles Einstein is a famous “Einstein”. Not the smart Einsteins. Not the bagel Einsteins. The secret Hollywood Einsteins. One half-brother, Bob Einstein, is Super Dave Osborn, and the other half-brother, Albert Einstein, is Albert Brooks. Pretty Cool. Charles Einstein (no secret identity) was a Chicago sports writer that specialized in writing about gambling and baseball. But in 1952, he took a leap and wrote a book about the lurid Chicago Lipstick murders. At one murder scene the killer left a message scrawled in red lipstick:
For heavens
sake catch me
before I kill more
I cannot control myself.
The book was a mega- hit.
Hollywood came knocking. Fritz Lang signed a 2-picture deal with Einstein. However, by the time he and his screen writer were done in 1956, changes were made. Less emphasis on the murderer (John Barrymore, Jr.*), more on the rakish news crews.
Lang skewers the media mercilessly with his accomplished cast of newsy narcissists. By the end of the film most feel more sympathy for the wacko sex crazed killer than the line-up of back-stabbing reporters in a killer finding contest. So TMZ!
Witness to Murder – Original Half Sheet. (Click here to enlarge)
Two of my faves, Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders pair up in this thriller. Noir Cinematography god John Alton crafted the black and white world. Need to find it and rent it. Or download it, stream it . . . something.
The graphics in this poster are tres smokin’! Check out the the Vertigo-ish yellow and orange square spiral . And the black and white photo with the pale blue mezzotint overlay effect looks like rain. I don’t know why they repeated the same graphic on the left side of the poster under the movie title, surely they could have come up with something new. Other than that, a super cool poster.
Near Mint. This poster was folded at one time, but the fold lines are nearly invisible. It was originally displayed in a frame, and there are faint ripples in the paper that would be easily flattened out either by mounting to an acid-free backing or a proper framing. No pin-holes, tears, stains or fading present.
The Lodger-- Window Card -- Click for an enlarged image
Before there was Freddie Krueger, there was Jack the Ripper. But, more importantly, before there was Botox, there was the Obie!
In London, in 1937, Merle Oberon was in a near-fatal car accident that left her exquisite and exotic facial features with significant and in movie terms career ending scarring. To make matters worse, an allergic reaction to make-up in 1940 left her skin pitted and more scarred. Luckily, Merle was married to mega-producer Alexander Korda and all the stops were pulled in terms of lighting and procedures at the time to bring her flawless complexion back. Still….
Enter Lucien Ballard. Protege of Von Sternberg (The Devil is Woman, Morocco); art director for Howard Hughes (The Outlaw); etc., etc. Ballard knew how to make a woman look good. On the set of The Lodger, Ballard developed a flat light that mounts next to the camera that lights the subjects face head-on and reduces unflattering facial lines. This light is still used today in movies and fashion photography and is nicknamed the “Obie”– Merle Oberon’s nickname.
