On Dangerous Ground, Original Half Sheet
On Dangerous Ground, 1952 Directed by Nicholas Ray, Produced by John Houseman
Continued from Ida Lupino, Part I:
Lupino was a multi-generation vaudeville brat. Instead of the 3 R’s, Lupino learned acting, scriptwriting, and tumbling. At 13 Ida’s early stint at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art was cut short when she snagged her first part as a “hooker”* in 1933′s Her First Affaire.
As a teenager her hair was dyed blond and she continued to specialize in slatternly roles earning the nickname, the “Jean Harlow of England”. The dye wasn’t necessary. Even later as a brunette, Lupino was never destined to be the girl next door– like Gloria Grahame she shined when her motives were shady.
Private Hell 36, Original Vintage Half Sheet
“Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed I’d meet a drunken slob in a bar who’d give me fifty bucks and we’d live happily ever after.”
Boozy floozy torch singer, Lilli Marlowe in Private Hell 36
Film fanistas gush over Ida Lupino. Auteur. Indie producer extraordinaire. Gutsy Feminist film futurist. Well, whatever. She sure knew how to write some smoking dialogue. Private Hell 36 was directed by Don Siegal (Dirty Harry fame) but Lupino starred, wrote and produced the nasty noir tale of two-timing greed.
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!
The Hitch-Hiker, Half Sheet
It’s nice to see one of film noir’s most under-rated posters finally getting some attention. The Hitch-Hiker, from 1953, has been popping up on a few best poster lists lately. This is the half sheet version of the poster. It’s different, and that’s a good thing. If they had just copied the graphic from the one sheet it would have looked askew in the half sheet. Instead the killer is shown off to the side casting a large shadow hitching diagonally across the poster. The headlights on William Talman are spot-on. Eerie. Foreboding. Excellent execution. Overall Color — What else? Blood Red.
Near Mint. Never folded. Never restored. No pin holes. One half inch tear at upper right corner. Very faint yellowing, far less than would be expected for age of poster. A rare find.
