The Unseen, Window Card
Two actors whose personal lives could not have been more different star in this 1947 thriller, Joel McCrea and Gail Russell.
Joel was born in swanky South Pasadena to a utilities executive. Cecille B. DeMille was on his paper route. At 6’3″ with eyes of blue, Joel made the ladies swoon. He wanted to make movies to earn money for a ranch. In a wink he was signed to MGM.
McCrea is now fondly remembered for starring in Preston Sturgess comedies, Foreign Correspondant, and a slew of westerns. But prior to that his early pre-code parts were pure beefcake– shirtless, even bottomless! Bird of Paradise shot in 1932 is a great example. Island life is authentically recreated when McCrea and co-star Delores del Rio playfully swim in the nude in their private paradise. Check out the lobby card* for a clothed shot of our stars.
Early in his career McCrea became fast friends with fellow ranch lover Will Rogers. Rogers adviced McCrea to invest half of his earnings every year not only to save up to buy a ranch, but to have something to fall back on since “he wasn’t that good an actor”. McCrea took this to heart. He and wife Frances Dee bought up large chunks of real estate in Ventura County. It is now, due to their donation of the land, Thousand Oaks, California.
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!
Woman in the Window, 1944, Window Card
The noir world is filled with dangerous femme fatales. Unscrupulous. Scheming. Seductive women. And the men? Just innocent putty in their hands. Often driven crazy by love, longing and jealousy to do things they would normally never do.
The scene: A stunning brunette temptress meets up with her agent for an afternoon rendezvous. A few hours later the lovers linger at her car before they separate for the day. Suddenly, her jealous husband appears and shoots her lover’s nuts off — Bang! Bang ! Bang!…
Opphs. I forgot. That’s Joan Bennett’s story — NOT the plot for Fritz Lang’s, The Woman in the Window. Oh well, sometimes it’s hard to keep all these story lines straight. Back to my tale.
Official PR version: Joan’s agent is recovering nicely from gunshot wounds due to this “mis-understanding”. Joan swears nothing was going on. They were just having a business meeting. After hubby spends some time in jail, the couple remain married another 14 years.
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.
Window Card
The right pairing on the movie screen can elevate the unexceptional to the sublime. Fred and Ginger. Redford and Newman. Powell and Loy. And, the Laurel and Hardy of intrigue and creep, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
Lorre and Greenstreet were teamed up in nine films for Warner’s beginning with 1941′s The Maltese Falcon. The Maltese Falcon was the first film Greenstreet ever made at the age of 62. Quite an amazing debut. But wait–to top that off, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his effort.
Background to Danger was made as a fast follow-up to cash in on Casablanca’s success in 1943. W.R. Burnett and William Faulkner were brought in to work on the screenplay for Ambler’s novel, Background to Danger. Pretty big guns, huh? The movie was directed by Raoul Walsh (High Sierrra, White Heat). The duo from Casablanca shows up again in another Ambler-based film, The Mask of Dimitrios, in 1944.
Note that on the window card that Greenstreet is given top billing. For some reason, after their first picture together, Lorre was not allowed to be billed over Greenstreet no matter what. Even if Lorre’s part was much bigger. I don’t know the reason for this. Lorre had been in films for nearly twenty years, and had starred in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece M and the Mr. Moto series. So, if anything, Lorre should have received top billing. Is is due to the Warner studio head’s disdain for Lorre’s legendary practical joking?** Did Greenstreet’s Academy Award nomination go to his head? Alphabetical order? A little mystery to ponder. (As a tip of my hat, I have given Lorre top billing in my post.)
FINE: An original poster with bright colors, clean, with general signs of use. Background has sustained some yellowing due to age, mainly at edges of cardstock.
**Apparently Lorre’s pranks knew no bounds. When called to stand before the infamous McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee and name names, he did just that. He named names and names and names. Everyone he knew including childhood friends back in Hungary. Eventually the committee tossed him. –I have a new Hero!!
