Movie review - "Calcutta" (1947) **** (rewatching)

 Just really loved this. Backlot Calcutta. Full of allusions to Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. There's even a Sydney Greensteet type - a woman. Gail Russell's sweet femme fetale grows on me every viewing. I didn't mind June Duprez. William Bendix great. Perfect Alan Ladd vehicle. Love how he assume's he'll investigate the murder of his friend and the boss of the airline shrugs it off.

Thoughts on Michael Callan (1935-2022)

 I was thinking of doing a piece on Callan but I'm not sure there's one in me at the moment. Still, I felt I should jot down a few thoughts.

An interesting quasi-star, was Callan. He had looks and the backing of a Hollywood studio but the studio system was in decline. 

He was born "Martin Calinoff" in Philadelphia in 1935 - dad ran restaurants - and was something of a showbiz baby, taking singing and dancing lessons at an early age, and appearing on local radio shows. He was a very good dancer, later saying his idol was Gene Kelly. “I thought unlike Fred Astaire, Mr Kelly has that double whammy of sex appeal… Not that I even knew what sex appeal was, but I liked athletics and he moved like an all-star athlete.”

By the age of fifteen he was dancing professionally in local nightclubs. Two years later, when he graduated from high school, he moved to New York, got work in summer stock in St Louis, performing under the name "Mickey Calin".  Callan/Calin/Calinoff successfully auditioned for a small part on Broadway in The Boyfriend with Julie Andrew (you might've seen the Ken Russell film version), playing various parts over seven months; he was then in Catch a Star. He also danced on television and in nightclubs. 

Then came the big big break - Riff in West Side Story. "“There were a great many kids like me up for that part,” said Callan. “I was told I was too cute! Imagine! But I really wanted it, I was asked if I could backflip, so I did a backflip, and eventually, after a year of rounds, I got it. Riff set me on my way.”

Riff is one of the best parts, if not the best part, in one of the greatest musicals of all time and really established Callan, who was in it for seven months. During the show's run he was spotted by Joyce Selznick a famous casting director (her discoveries included James Darren) and she signed Callan to a seven year contract to Columbia off the back of his appearance. 

The studio system was dying off but there was a bit of a revival of signing young talent in the late 1950s, especially at studios that made a lot of television and continued to make B pictures, like Columbia. The studio also signed Evy Norlund, Glenn Corbett, Carol Douglas, Jo Morrow, Margie Regan, Joby Baker, Rian Garrick, Joe Gallison, and Steve Baylor... not a big list of future stars.

Callan was, however, given what those actors weren't - a nice support part in a big budget film, They Came to Cordura, playing one of several seemingly heroic soldiers escorted through the Mexican desert by Gary Cooper along with Rita Hayworth. The studio put him in a low budget circus picture for Sam Katsman, The Flying Fontanes. They also put him in a Dick Clark teen film, Because They're Young (as a delinquent trying to go good who romances Tuesday Weld) and he danced in Pepe. In Oct 1960 he left Columbia's record arm to sign with Paramount (see here) but he never enjoyed Darren's success as a singer.

Callan had looks, and could move, and act. But I think the main thing holding him back was he gave off a sort of intense swaggering self-love vibe. I'm not saying he was like that in person, not at all - but he lacked the sensitivity of say a Tony Curtis or Rock Hudson. He had charisma and was a potential star but needed careful handling.

Callan auditioned for the film version of West Side Story but didn't get it - possibly due to his Columbia contract, possibly they wanted a fresh slate. But he did dance in the film Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), opposite Deborah Walley as Gidget. He was one of the troops in Mysterious Island .

He was well cast as a thug tormenting a puffy Alan Ladd in 13 West Street and romanced Deborah Walley again in Disney's Bon Voyage! The latter film demonstrates the issue with Callan - he lacked the affability of Tommy Kirk and when he rough houses Deborah Walley it's really scary. As I wrote in a piece on this film "he was a good looking guy, Callan, who could act, and dance, but his performances often had a strand of cruelty about them, he looked like a villain, and I really didn't want him and Walley to wind up together."

However he had a big hit with The Interns as a compromised doctor. Callan was in this alongside a lot of other Columbia contract talent like Cliff Robertson. It was a fun role with some meat in it - Callan plays a super ambitious intern, who dates a rich girl but also sees an older nurse on the side so she'll help his career; this gives him a packed schedule which leads him to take drugs... it's very well done and handled, leading to Callan breaking down at the end. The film was a hit and would have rejuvenated Columbia's faith in him. 

David Merrick offered Callan the lead in a Broadway musical, I Can Get it for You Wholesale, but they couldn't agree over money apparently so Elliot Gould took the part instead - and wound up marrying his co-star Barbra Streisand.    In November 1962 he talked about how he had his own publicist - see this here.

Callan had a showy small part as a pimp in Carl Foreman's cynical war picture The Victors - he's not in the film for very long and the leads went to other new faces (George Hamilton, George Peppard), and Callan presumably thought "hey why not me" but at least the film was a big hit.

The did The The New Interns, one of the few to return (along with Stefanie Powers and Telly Savalas with Dean Jones playing James MacArthur's role). He didn't have as much to do in this one, which hurt the film - in the original his character was comic and romantic but also serious, here he's just comic (in drag for one sequence) and romantic (Barbara Eden); the film hints it's going to deal with his character's past as a druggie, which would've been great, but throws it away. It's a NAGOATO sequel (not as good as the original).  Still it encouraged Columbia to sign him to a new six picture contract. Jack Lemmon had started his film career at Columbia and many pieces from this time would refer to Callan being a new Jack Lemmon.

Callan was announced for a film musical remake of Cover Girl which was never made and a Broadway musical Kelly. See here. But Callan was lucky to miss out on the Broadway Kelly which shut after one night

There was talk of Callan starring in King Rat from the novel by James  Cavell about a smooth operator in Changi during World War Two.He would've been perfect. But he lost out to George Segal who was also in The New Interns which must have really really hurt. Because that film, while considered something of a commercial and critical disappointment, kicked up Segal to a higher plane that he never really left. In fairness, Segal had more acting chops than Callan - he'd done heaps of Broadway and TV.

 It wasn't over yet - He did guest stints on television, Breaking Point and Twelve O'Clock High, then had his biggest hit to date as Jane Fonda's love interest in Cat Ballou but most of the attention for that movie went to Fonda and Lee Marvin. 

He was sent to England for You Must Be Joking, a farcical army comedy for Michael Winner - Callan was cast at Columbia's insistence but didn't do much for the film's box office. He doesn't fit in the movie, he sticks out - the whole film is like a trial run for Winner's better The Jokers.

In August 1965, Callan signed a four-picture deal with Columbia. Jackie Cooper, former actor turned exec at Columbia's TV arm, Screen Gems, offered Callan the lead in a pilot for a sitcom Occasional Wife. Callan asked Cooper what he needed TV for: Cooper replied, "This year we're asking you to do the series. In three years you may be asking us?" The deal was a good one -  $100,000 a year plus a percentage according to this. This didn't last long.  TV Guide did a profile on him here which refers to a partying lifestyle, "a reputation along the Sunset Strip-Vegas axis as one of the great new swingers. He had a Sinatra-like coterie of hangers on and regularly made the columns."

A1967 interview with him is here. Occasional Wife only lasted a season but marked a major shift in Callan's private life as he left his wife for his co star, Patricia Harty. 

After the sitcom was axed Callan might've been expected to return to movies or television but instead he appeared in a musical in Las Vegas, That Certain Girl. See here

In 1968 he was in a TV version of Kiss Me Kate with Robert Goulet.

By the late 60s Callan was out of fashion, Ric Dalton style - he no longer had the film offers or television lead offers. It was a very very quick fall, especially considering The Interns and Cat Ballou had been so popoular and not that long ago. I wonder if there were behaviourial/temperament issues. I have no proof of that - it's just conjecture.  But it does seem odd that a good looking, charismatic performer, who could act and move, didn't get any more leads. This was the time of spaghetti Westerns, war films in Yugoslavia, and telemovies. There were star parts going for former contract stars. But Callan didn't get any.

Not that he was unemployed. Callan kept busy on episodic TV like The Mary Tyler More Show,That Girl, The Name of the Game, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Ironside, Marcus Welby, M.D., Griff, McMillan & Wife, Barnaby Jones, 12 O’Clock High, Quincy, M.E., Charlie’s Angels, Simon & Simon, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Bionic Woman, four episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and eight episodes of Love, American Style. Callan also made the occasional feature like Frasier the Sensuous Lion, The Magnificent Seven Ride, Lepke and the Cat and the Canary. He did have the lead in 1974's The Photographer which was kind of remade as 1982's Double Exposure - in both Callan plays a psychotic photographer. See trailer here.  

He appeared in theatre around the country - a lot of musicals like Anything Goes, The Music Man (program here), George M, Bar Mitzvah Boy plus plays like Absurd Person Singular. He produced some musicals.

I don't think Callan was a great lost star. He was unlucky in that Hollywood made less musicals when he hit down  - at least less dancing musicals. He would've been fantastic as Riff in West Side Story  - too cruel to be Tony though.  The tide went out really quickly for him though. I mean, to go from a sitcom to being a permanent guest? I wonder if something else happened.

Callan appears as a character, in a way, in the novel version of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Agent Marv talks to Ric Dalton about Dalton's Western, Tanner, directed by Jerry Hopper, in which Dalton appeared alongside Ralph Meeker and Callan, and Dalton criticised Callan for "sounding like  a Malibu surfer".

TV Guide

The Good and Bad Luck of Veronica Lake

Veronica Lake wasn't among the top tier of 1940s film stars - not in terms of box office status, or publicity, or earning power. Yet she's lingered in the public memory in a way few of her contemporaries have. Part of this is due to her legendary peek-a-boo haircut, immortalized by Jessica Rabbit,  Kim Basinger in LA Confidential (1997), and a sight gag in The Major and the Minor (1942). Part of it is her personal narrative of immense tragedy - from extra to film star to bankrupt alcoholic has-been in little over a decade. Part of it is the fact that more than a third of the movies she starred in were masterpieces - no kidding, more than a third, which is a pretty amazing ratio.

Veronica Lake had some of the best luck of any movie star in history.

And some of the worst.

She was born in 1922, and given the name Constance Ockelman. Her father died in an accident when she was ten; mom remarried and Constance took her stepfather's surname, Keane. The family moved to Los Angeles in 1938 where the teenager became interested in acting, appearing as an extra in a number of films, and doing some plays.

Her surge to stardom was almost absurd in its rapidity. Paramount producer Arthur Hornblow Jr was searching for an unknown to play the part of a night club singer in a military drama, I Wanted Wings (1940). He was shown footage of Constance performing a scene in a play, and was intrigued; she was tested, cast and signed to a long-term contract with Paramount, who changed her name to "Veronica Lake".

I Wanted Wings was a forerunner to Top Gun (1986), focusing on the lives and loves of air force cadets at flight school, and is homoerotic as anything in that Tom Cruise classic. The plot focuses on the friendship between aspiring pilots William Holden and Ray Milland; Holden loves Milland so much that he’s willing to marry Lake, the hussy set on nabbing Milland and wrecking his air force career and relationship with a feisty photographer (Constance Moore); of course if helps that Holden once loved Lake (until she destroyed him and sent him off to enlist).

The movie is an entirely decent piece of 1940 Hollywood hokum, mostly worth seeing today for Lake. She doesn’t appear until more than half-way through but it’s a spectacular entrance – singing in a nightclub under a spotlight - and she lifts the entire movie: pint-sized, seductive, mischievous, with a delectable voice and mien. She plays a temptress (Holden calls her "a cheap little jig"), but a sympathetic one – Lake genuinely thinks she falls pregnant to Milland and freaks out. And you feel sorry for her at the end –  when it looks as though Holden might get back in the air force, she turns up announcing she’s killed someone (!), asks Holden to help her, and winds up hiding in a plane just before it takes off on a bombing run; then when she’s on board she freaks out and sets off a flare, almost crashing the plane; she later dies in a crash, a martyred, story-generating, empathetic minx. It's a fantastic part and Lake is sensational in it.

Constance Moore, the other lead female lead, plays an unusually strong female character for the time. She's glamorous, works as a photographer, tells Milland she doesn't want to give up her enjoyable single life unless it's worth it, scolds Milland for his bad treatment of Lake (who he's slept with and then pays off with a check). But no one really remembers Moore today, or paid much attention then; while talented and beautiful, she lacks what the former Constance Keane had - X factor.

Lake had two other strokes of good fortune while making I Wanted Wings. First, during the shoot her long blonde hair accidentally fell over her right eye during a take and created a "peek-a-boo" effect - a hairstyle which subsequently swept the nation and launched a copycat craze. Secondly the movie was released just as audiences in then-neutral America were ravenous for stories about how prepared their armed services were for war (eg Dive Bomber, Buck Privates). I Wanted Wings was a huge hit, Lake stole the notices and was launched a movie star.

She hadn't even turned twenty.

Then she went and made every aspiring starlet in Hollywood have even less realistic career aspirations by starring in five classic movies in a row.

First was Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941), about a wealthy director (Joel McCrea) who decides to pretend he is homeless in order to experience "real life". Lake was the girl - billed as The Girl - he meets on his travels. She is captivating, magical, and extremely sexy, whether sitting on McCrea's lap in a bathrobe and combing his hair or walking along the road in a hobo overcoat (Lake was six month's pregnant during production). She wasn't great with all her dialogue but Sturges made her spit it out at rapid-fire pace, and protected her limitations. It's a performance for the ages.

Paramount then put Lake in a thriller, This Gun for Hire (1942), where she once again plays a night club singer; this time she's a goodie though, helping fight Nazis. She's engaged to Robert Preston but most people forget that bit - what they remember, deservedly, are the scenes she shares with a gunman played by Alan Ladd, an actor who been paying dues for around a decade until This Gun for Hire catapulted him to stardom. He gives an electric debut star performance - cold, blonde, tough, mysterious, ruthless, cat loving, redeemable - and stole the film, but a lot of this was due to Lake, who matches him beautifully (at five foot two, she was one of the few female actors shorter than him); poor old Robert Preston is completely overshadowed. Like Sullivan's Travels, there's a scene where Lake dons her male co-star's overcoat and hat - she does look like a cutie but it's interesting she was already repeating her iconic scenes. The movie was her third huge success.

The studio promptly reunited Ladd and Lake in The Glass Key (1942), based on a novel by Dashiell Hammett and directed by the un-renowned Stuart Heisler. It's another superb film noir, achingly gorgeous to look at, and less weighed down by patriotism than This Gun for Hire. Lake is clearly inexperienced but is so beautiful and enigmatic you overlook her flaws, and she once again teams marvelously with Ladd - two blonde shorties, full of mutual smirking/contempt/admiration. The core of the film is a platonic love story between Ladd and Brian Donlevy - but these actors don't have chemistry; Ladd and Lake do. She gets to go off with Ladd at the end in this one (although watching it you feel she would be better off hooking up with Donlevy who, after all, not only has money and ambition but hid the identity of a murderer to protect her - but then fans weren't clamoring for Lake-Donlevy teamings).

Lake returned to comedy with I Married a Witch (1942), playing the title deity who ensnares Fredric March in matrimony. Directed by Rene Clair, this is wickedly funny, an absolute delight - due greatly to Lake who was never more alluring, strutting around in men's pajamas, casting spells, chasing after Marsh and causing devilry. This was her only fantasy movie and it beggars belief that Paramount never tried her again in that genre - she had a vaguely "otherworld" appearance (that hair, that voice) perfect for it.

After making a cameo in Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) Lake appeared in her fifth classic, So Proudly We Hail (1943), a melodrama about American nurses during the Battle of the Philippines. She was billed after Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard, but still had a juicy part as a traumatized nurse who kills herself in a suicide bombing attack against the Japanese. Lake's breakdown scene shows her limitations but over all it's a splendidly effective performance, with a spectacular on-screen death - she should have played more death scenes in her career, she had a very good track record in that department.

By now, Lake had become one of Paramount's biggest stars, effective in comedy, thrillers and drama. It hadn't been an entirely smooth ride  - there were rumours of a bad temperament and a drinking problem; Joel McCrea had been originally cast in I Married a Witch but refused to work with her again; March disliked her; the US government asked her to change her hairstyle because women who imitated it were getting their tresses caught in factory machines. But she had enjoyed a dream run.

Then things started to go wrong.

Very wrong.

Paramount cast her in The Hour Before Dawn (1944), as a Nazi spy who marries a conscientious objector (Franchot Tone). Despite being based on a story by Somerset Maugham and directed by Frank Tuttle, who did This Gun for Hire, the film was egregious, flopped at the box office, and Lake copped a lot of the blame.

It wasn't really her fault.  Yes, she's not very good, uncomfortable with an accent and not really capable of conveying too much depth, but lots of other people in the movie are even worse:  Tone is less convincing as an Englishman than Lake is as an Austrian refugee, David Leland is truly shocking, John Sutton is horrendous and the actors playing Lake's fellow agents all ham it up. There is novelty in Tone playing a conscientious objector but it also means he's passive for most of the running time, unaware his wife is up to no good. There's no chemistry between him and Lake - you never feel he loves her, or she feels anything for him other than contempt.  Tuttle's direction lacks atmosphere. And what's with that ending where Tone murders Lake? Okay, yes, she's tried to kill him but she's run out of bullets so it is murder - then they cut to Tone happily flying in a bomber? Yuk. This film gets more irritating the longer it goes on. (Aside: I'm going to start spoiling the endings of the bad Lake movies from now on because I'm assuming no one's seen them or is going to. End of aside.)

On the personal front things got really rough. Lake's second child was born prematurely and died after a few days. Her first marriage ended in divorce. She began to drink heavily.

Paramount gave her a few months off then put her in a musical, Bring on the Girls (1945), about a millionaire (Eddie Bracken) who joins the navy anonymously; he is chaperoned by a friend (Sonny Tufts) and falls for a slinky dame (Lake). Sidney Lanfield directed.

After the debacle of The Hour Before Dawn and the traumas of her private life Lake was carefully protected in this film - not given too much action, not having to carry the bulk of the plot, being cast in a role which is the variation of the one she played in I Wanted Wings - to wit, a gold-digging night club girl (though Lake doesn't sing). Her character supposedly ripped off Tufts back in the day and to be honest the movie would've been better had this been true - but then it turns out, gee, she only did it because she thought he was married and wanted to send money back to his kid. She's a good girl after all! Lake winds up with Tufts and Bracken is palmed off to Marjorie Reynolds and none of it's very interesting - an opinion shared even by the movie-mad public of 1945 who turned this into a flop, Lake's second in a row

There were reports of bad behavior by Lake at a war bond drive in Boston, resulting in Paramount giving her the third lead in Out of This World (1945), supporting Diana Lynn and Bracken. This was a musical spoof of Frank Sinatra's popularity among bobby soxers, directed by Hal Walker. Lynn steps in to a role meant for Betty Hutton and her  casting throws off the whole movie - she's only nineteen, too young to be romantically matched with Bracken in a non-icky way, too pretty to be matched in a believable way, and too fresh faced and smart to be believably enmeshed in wacky schemes.

Lake is completely wasted in her part; they set her up as this unscrupulous PR person who hypes Bracken... but then she completely disappears from the movie for the middle section. The film cries out for Lake's character to be used more - to be a rival to Lynn, to romance Bracken, to cause trouble, something... But she just kind of hangs around. As if aware of the script and casting problems, the filmmakers shove in a tonne of production value - singers, dancers, pianists; there's even a cameo from Bing Crosby's kids. But the picture is appalling. Flop number three.

In both Bring on the Girls and Out of this World Lake's character should have been bad but wasn't. I'm assuming this was due to Lake's whingeing - "I don't want to be unsympathetic, my fans will hate me", etc, etc, - although it may have been studio incompetence. Whoever was to blame,  it meant she played these weird half-and-half roles - people who should have been bad, but weren't, but weren't that sympathetic, either.

Things turned around a little with Miss Susie Slagle's (1945) an utterly delightful look at a boarding house for medical students in 1910. It was produced by John Houseman, who normally made films of quality, directed by first-timer John Barry, and features charming performances from Sonny Tufts and Joan Caulfield (not making that up, both are genuinely beguiling). Lake is top billed, but it's not a very big part, as a nurse who falls for a doctor student who dies. She isn't very good: she never seems comfortable and, painful as this is to admit, is one of the worst things about the movie. But at least it didn't flop.

Paramount tried her with Bracken a third time in Hold That Blond (1945), a picture which was originally conceived as a Bob Hope vehicle and looks it. Directed by George Marshall, this is the sort of movie that should have been great fun but just isn't; Bracken flails about, Lake is dull and lacking sexiness, and together they lack the chemistry of, say, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. You could always see what Hope and Goddard saw in each other - both had so much energy, she was super pert and pretty, he was smart despite his cowardice and looked good compared to the villains they would come up against. In this film Lake is cute but bland; Bracken is an anxious kleptomaniac who is a pain in the backside - they're not good for each other, he has a mental health issue that isn't dealt with by the end, neither are fun to hang out with. The film was not popular.

Lake's acting seemed to be getting worse the more she did it. What was going wrong? The drinking, divorce and trauma of losing her child could not have helped. I also think Lake had a natural quality that her first films caught like lightning in a bottle, but which she lost as time went on. Untrained, she had no technique to fall back on, and really floundered without a strong script.

She could still be effective, though, if handled in the right way. After five bad performances in a row in four dud movies, her career was revived when reunited with Alan Ladd in The Blue Dahlia (1946), produced by Houseman and directed by Marshall, based on a script by Raymond Chandler. It's a fantastic film noir, full of atmosphere, intrigue, crackling dialogue and sensational performances, which was recognized as a classic almost immediately and made a tonne of money. Lake's part is relatively small, though effective, as a slinky dame who you first think might be bad but turns out to be good.

Lake then made her first film outside Paramount since she became a star: Ramrod (1947), a Western directed by Andrea de Toth, who was her second husband. Lake is a tough dame living on the range who is picked on by nasty tycoon Preston Foster, so she hires gunslinger Joel McCrea as her "ramrod". But McCrea isn't the only hero - that duty is split with Don De Fore as a ruthless drifter who also fights on Lake's side, and, to be honest, overshadows McCrea.

This is a story full of shades and moral ambiguities - Lake is kind of a goodie but also a baddie. She's keen to flirt with men to get them to do what she wants and encourages De Fore to create a stampede so McCrea will be more on her side; she genuinely falls for McCrea but he ends up dumping her because she's a bad girl.. even though she's not really bad, she just did what she had to do to defend her ranch (mind you, that was typical of Hollywood during the post war years, when independent women had to be put in their place). As a result, the movie is a bit out of kilter - you have more sympathy for Lake, who has more at stake than McCrea, who is just a hired hand. It also might have more impact if McCrea had genuine feelings for Lake but he seems quite happy to go off at the finale with bland Arleen Whelan. Ramrod isn't perfect but it is interesting, and it's fun to see Lake in a Western, riding a horse, ordering cowboys off her land and the like; it's one of her best later performances. The picture was a box office success.

Back at Paramount she was reunited with Ladd and her old hair style in Saigon (1948).  Directed by Leslie Fenton, it's the least effective of the four films they made together (not counting the all-star musicals where they both cameo-ed as themselves - Star Spangled Rhythm, Duffy's Tavern, Variety Girl) which starts off excellently but tails away in its second half. The storyline feels cobbled together from elements of previous Paramount hits, particularly ones starring  Ladd: he's a war veteran in the third world (as in Calcutta, China); he's a pilot tight with members of his bomb crew (Calcutta, The Blue Dahlia); one of the flyers is terminally ill (You Came Along); there's a dodgy criminal, his henchman and mysterious police chief (The Blue Dahlia, The Glass Key); Ladd is kind of in love with his best male friend and they also both love the same girl (The Glass Key). There are some superb support performances and Lake's acting is solid - she totally suits the world of backlot studio exotica, with its back projection, smoke-drenched nightclubs and intrigue. Saigon is commonly referred to a flop but it actually performed reasonably well at the box office and demonstrated Lake still had appeal with the public.

Her next film at Paramount, however, was abysmal. To understand why Isn't It Romantic (1948) was even made in the first place you need to know that nostalgic family pieces in historical settings were all the rage in the 1940s - Meet Me in St Louis, Life with Father, I Remember Mama, etc. This load of old codswallop is set in Indiana during Reconstruction, and focuses on three sisters - Lake, Mona Freeman and Mary Hatcher - whose idiotic father is obsessed with the Civil War (he runs around in a Confederate uniform) and won't get a job; I think he's meant to be lovable ol' dad but he just comes across as a lazy, racist separatist, uncharmingly played by Roland Culver. We're supposed to feel for him at the end when he realizes he got swindled; I wanted him to shoot himself, like that Confederate officer in The Ox Bow Incident (1943). These sort of movies are hard to pull off for directors - Henry King and John Ford could do it, but it's beyond Norman McLeod here. Lake seems awkward. Maybe with colour and more elaborate musical numbers it might have gone over. But it doesn't.

Lake followed this with The Sainted Sisters (1948), directed by William D. Russell, which  sounds like it could be fun - the tale of two female con artists on the lam in the 1890s (more nostalgia!). Okay the 1890s isn't an inherently funny period, but female con artists is at least different, and Richard Maibaum wrote the script, and maybe this would've worked if Betty Hutton had been able to play the lead, as originally intended. Instead Paramount went with Lake who is disastrously miscast, lacking sparkle and verve in a part that needs, well, Hutton - or even Diana Lynn.  Joan Caulfield has some game as her sister but is mostly just pretty. Mind you, neither have much of a character to play - you never get the sense these two are con artists or how they came to be con artists.

Why do the filmmakers introduce the millionaire scammed by the girls (Harold Vermilyea) at the beginning and never see him again? Why don't they have the local bitch (Belulah Bondi) do something really bad? Why don't they have someone chasing after the girls - a detective, say? They set up a sheriff (George Reeves) but he never seems to suspect the girls - he just falls in love with both and struggles to make up his mind between them, which makes him an idiot and ensures the love story is unsatisfactory. They establish Lake as the more ruthless and greedy of the sisters, which is fine, but instead of making her a villain and Caulfield the goodie, as they should, Lake again is a-bit-bad-but-really-good in a way that undermines the story's drama; she comes good, falls for Reeves (no chemistry, no build up, he's clearly better suited to Caulfield), and Caulfield has a conveniently invented alternate love interest. If you haven't seen the movie, and I'm guessing you haven't, none of this will make any sense but trust me - it's not worth seeing, another misfire from Paramount who subsequently refused to renew Lake's contract.

Lake had some incredible luck early in her career, but karma came around and got her back in spades. Yes, she wasn't a very good actor. Yes, she had to be carefully used. Yes she had a problematic private life and no doubt an erratic attitude. But most of the Paramount films she appeared in during the second half of her career were simply ineptly made - they helped killed the careers of Eddie Bracken, Joan Caulfield and Diana Lynn as much as Lake.

It's a shame she wasn't teamed with Ladd more - she could've easily slipped into, say, OSS  (1946) (as she did on radio) or Wild Harvest (1947) or Calcutta (1947). She may have refused these parts, to be fair, I don't know - it's just a pity since Ladd was rarely as effective with another girl.

There was also a curious reluctance from Paramount to use her as an out-and-out vamp. Lake looked like a bad girl but rarely played one - there was always some excuse or redemption for her behavior. Sometimes this made the film more interesting (eg The Blue Dahlia) but often it weakened the drama - several of her pictures would've been better had she played a flat-out villain eg The Sainted Sisters, Bring on the Girls, Out of This World, Miss Susie Slagle's. She was a natural femme fetale who they kept trying to soften.

Maybe it was simply bad luck. But it's as hard to slog through Lake's last films at Paramount as it is a pleasure to watch her first few. And that's a shame because for all her many flaws she still had more individuality than the bulk of starlets under contract to the studio at the time like, say, Mona Freeman or Wanda Hendrix.

Lake didn't immediately slide into obscurity once she left the studio. De Toth cast her as the second lead in Slattery's Hurricane (1949) at Fox, playing a woman who is kind-a-sort-a meant to be a drug addict, but it's hard to tell due to censorship. Lake, billed third after Richard Widmark (channeling Dana Andrews) and Linda Darnell (good value), gives a poor performance  - the sexy bombshell of Alan Ladd pictures looks like a bland wallflower doormat - she's got no spunk or life, she's a colorless nothing.

She appeared in Stronghold (1951), an independently financed Western shot in Mexico with Zachary Scott and Arturo de Cordova - a film that has a good story buried underneath confused execution. Lake is wooden but at least looks fine. That was her last Hollywood-ish movie.

Lake's last few decades were sad. She and De Toth filed for bankruptcy (the IRS seized their home for unpaid taxes), and got divorced; she was sued by her mother for financial support; she left her children in the custody of their fathers and became estranged from them. She did a little TV and a lot of theater, was arrested for public drunkenness, worked as a waitress, and got married and divorced again. She wrote her memoirs and did the interview circuit, not always appearing sober; and made two last films, Footsteps in the Snow (1967) and Flesh Fiend (1970).  She had mental health issues that were not always properly dealt with, did a lot of traveling and too much drinking. There were some good times. She died in 1973 of kidney failure and hepatitis.

Her career as a star is fascinating, because it began with such a bang and ended with such a whimper. Films such as Sullivan's Travels, I Married a Witch, This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, So Proudly We Hail and The Blue Dahlia retain their power to enchant and delight. Her appearance in I Wanted Wings remains captivating. She and Alan Ladd formed one of the all time great screen teams.

She was never a good actor - she could be downright terrible - but was a star.

Movie review - "Le Samourai" (1967) ***1/2

Famous action film which I've wanted to see for a while because it was so influential on the works of filmmakers like, notably Walter Hill and Michael Mann. You can see it all over this - the minimal dialogue, the wide framing, the taciturn hero.

I was surprised how much this seemed to borrow from This Gun for Hire - it's basically got the same plot: a hitman does an assassination, is chased by a cop, crosses with a girl, is double crossed by his bosses and goes looking for revenge.

The role of the girl is split between black Caty Rosier, a singer, and the seriously gorgeous Nathalie Delon. I feel this was a mistake and splits the film's focus.

The cops are very professional and solid.

I think I would have liked this more had it not been copied so much. Delon looks a little silly in his fedora and trenchcoat. It is a realised piece though - the whole film I mean.

My Top Ten Depictions of Australians in Hollywood films

1 - “Donovan’s Reef” (1963)

The last feature film teaming of John Wayne and John Ford which I’d always thought was a buddy film between Wayne and Lee Marvin is actually more a “Quiet Man”/“McClintock”/“Taming of the Shrew” Rom com between Wayne and the (surprisingly good but little known) Elizabeth Allan - which ends like many Wayne rom coms with him spanking her on his knee for comedy.

It’s set In French Polynesia and Aussies appear at the end - a visiting ship from the Australian navy turns up, resulting in the crew chasing the local women down the Main Street in a pack (not making that up) and a couple of lower ranks starting a brawl with Wayne and Marvin. They all have Irish accents - the playing is v typical of the sort of comic drunken sergeants played by Victor McLaglen who turned up in Ford movies (McLaglen was dead by this stage and Chips Rafferty off making Mutiny on the Bounty so Ford got Dick Foran to play the main Aussie) Wayne’s son Patrick turns up as an Australian officer. They all sing Waltzing Matilda and Wayne snr brings up the fact we were all on the same side during the Battle of the Coral Sea.

Well at least we were in it (at a time when v few films were made in Australia)

Nb Ford later agreed to the casting of Australian Rod Taylor as Irish playwright Sean O’Casey in Young Cassidy in part bc he figured as an Aussie Rod might be part Irish.

 2.. "Botany Bay" (1953)

Starring Alan Ladd as an American who , in the 18th century is unjustly convicted of a crime in England and sentenced to the brand new penal colony of Botany Bay... on a ship that just follows the first fleet. The director (John Farrow) was Australian and one or two bit players were as well as a few imported koalas but that's it. Some African Americans play indigenous Australians who pop up at the end to spear baddies ("they're like our Indians," says Ladd, "if we don't bother them they won't both us"). James Mason is a sadistic captain and Cedric Harwicke is Governor Phillip. Based on a novel by Nordhoff and Hall, who wrote the novel on which "Mutiny on the Bounty" was based - like that, this has sadistic captains and heroic sailors and a mutiny.

Judged by the standards of its day it's not that a great movie (the Farrow/Ladd sailing film "Two Years Before the Mast" is more interesting) but it remains the only First Fleet movie ever (I think) and it's got Dr Smith from Lost in Space in it!

3 - Captain Fury (1939).

Hal Roach, best known for comedies, occasionally made other films like this bushranger epic. Brian Aherne, a sort of poor man's Errol Flynn, the actor you'd cast when you couldn't get George Brent, Pat Knowles or Ian Hunter, plays the title role, an Irish convict sent to Australia who escapes to become a good bushranger who helps the local settlers fight against a villainous land owner (George Zucco). The Australian setting is not really emphasised, it's just the usual immigrant settlers and evil land baron that you'd see in the old West. The cast includes Victor McLaglen, John Carradine, Paul Lukas and Douglas Dumbrille, which is cool. It's awkwardly directed but interesting - bushranger films were absurdly banned in NSW for several decades so its interesting to see Hollywood's take.

Part 4  - Million Dollar Mermaid (1953) and Interrupted Melody (1955)

I grouped these together because they're both biopics of Aussies made at MGM within years at each other, both had opening scenes in Australia but drop the country pretty quick into the story after depicting it as a kind of version of England (to be fair, the films are set in MGM land rather than anywhere else), both ended up being among the best movies their stars ever made - Esther Williams plays Annette Kellerman in Mermaid, with Walter Pigeon as her dad and a cameo from a boxing kangaroo... In Melody, Eleanor Parker plays singer Marjorie Lawrence with Cecil Kellaway as her dad and Roger Moore as her brother (!).... Both are superior to other biopics of Aussies around this time made by foreigners -to wit, Sister Kenny (1946) and Melba (1952)

5- "The Man from Down Under" (1943)

To understand why this film was made, you need to know that Wallace Beery was once a film star: Beery was a beefy, big actor who specialised in playing lovable lunks who got up to comic antics with character actors and cute kids; often there was a woman who wanted to marry him. He had the vibe of James Gandolfini . Anyway for a long time his act was very popular and he was often ranked in the top ten box office stars in the US and MGM originally developed this story as a vehicle for Beery.

It's an original story but I'd love to know where the writers got their inspiration - I have a theory it might be the tale of Digger Tovell, a French orphan adopted by diggers during WW1 who was smuggled to Australia and grew up to be a young man (tragically dying in a car accident). If it wasn't that exactly it probably was a similar real life tale.

This is about Jocko Wilson, an Aussie digger who at the end of the war decides to smuggle to Belgian orphans back to Australia and raise them as his own. Then the film leaps forward twenty years or so and the kids are grown up - the girl is sent to finishing school, the boy is a boxer.

The subsequent plot goes all over the shop, in a manner reminiscent of more than a few MGM star vehicles with it's feel of a producer going "oh we should add this... and that... and I saw this movie last night and it was great and we should put that in as well." The boy/man, called Nipper, participates in a big fight and wins but is injured; his winnings enable Jocko to buy a pub in the country... really Australia's north, thus enabling it to be bombed by the Japanese when the Pacific War starts; the girl and boy have hots for each other but can't do anything about it because they think they're related; an American journalist sniffs around the girl but her "brother" jealously punches him out; there are some Catholic Priests near the pub ("quick, Catholic priests are popular, put that in"); a barmaid abandoned by Jocko in France turns up to torment him; World War Two starts and Jocko tries to enlist but is too old and unhealthy, so joins the Land Army; then the Pacific War starts and the pub is turned into an orphanage (I think) which is bombed by Japanese and the Japanese crash and some pilots attack the orphanage ("quick Mrs Miniver had them fight off enemy pilots put that in") but luckily Jocko and Nipper turn up and help fight off the Japanese (along with their friend Ginger who machine guns one to death!); Nipper and the girl discover they're not blood relatives and hook up; Jocko gets a commission in the army thanks to the intervention of the former barmaid.

It's a complete mess really, with the film never settling on what it wants to be about. I felt the real focus should have been on Jocko smuggling the kids back into Australia - there's a movie in just that - but that was only the starting point. There's all this narrative, the big romance plot being yucky because most of the time Nipper and the girl believe they're related but still want to hump each other. I so didn't want them to get together.

Still it is a perfect role for Wallace Beery - ex boxer, brave, rowdy, tough, prone to brawling, irreverent, running away from a woman who wants to marry him (the Marie Dressler part), doing lots of schtick with kids and dodgy mates, gambling, running pubs, mugging.

The only problem is Charles Laughton plays the role. Now Laughton was a brilliant actor, and his Aussie accent attempt here isn't bad, and he makes a decent rogue. But he's never convincing as an ex boxer, or successful former soldier (I know Laughton was one in real life but he doesn't look like the tough two fisted hero described here). Throughout the whole movie he feels like a superb performer who is miscast.

No one has a decent Aussie accent though people do try - mostly people sound cockney, though the priests are Irish. For Aussies this is fascinating because of it's depiction of Australia and Australians - most of the movie is set in Australia: Melbourne at first, where Jocko has a pub, then where Nipper fights his bout, then somewhere in north Australia. We get to see some pubs, a boxing venue, the country, lots of priests.

Dramatically it's a mess. There are lots of good actors and decent production values so it's easy to watch. Historically its fascinating. (And you know something, at least Hollywood made a film set in Australia during the war - Australians hardly ever did).


6 - Random Australians Who Pop Up in War Films

Mark Hartley would never forgive me if I didn't bring up Richard Harris' accent-strangling performance as the RAAF pilot at the beginning of "Guns of Navarone" but he was only one of a series of Aussie characters who popped up in war films of the 50s and 60s... a little reminder of our contribution. Most of you have probably seen James Coburn in "The Great Escape" (1963) (accent wrong but dialogue and attitude first rate... maybe the contribution of Aussie Paul Brickhill who wrote the book?) there was also John Gregson in "Above Us the Waves" (1955)... sometimes real Aussies would play them too like John Meillon in "Guns at Batasi" (1964)... and we get a whole film about an Australian platoon in "The Desert Rats" (1953) (although it focuses on two Poms, Richard Burton and Robert Newton), Chips Rafferty in "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" (1960), Peter Finch in "The Wooden Horse" (1950), Michael Pate as the coastwatcher who rescued a young JFK in PT 109 (1963)

It wasn't much of an acknowledgement, but then that's why we need our own industry - and it was a lot more recognition than that given to say, African or Indian troops who fought for the Allies

7 - Australia as a place to escape to

In the mid 1940s there was a subgenre of American war film called "stories of glorious defeat" - for the one time in Hollywood history it made a series of movies about a bunch of battles that America lost, mostly because during the early days of the war America lost all its battles (something the film constantly puts down to "treachery"). And in the bulk of these movies you had the characters trying to escape to Australia - "So Proudly We Hail" (1943) (which has Allied nurses as suicide bombers), "Air Force" (1943), "The Story of Dr Wassell" (1944). Australia does feature at the end but pretty much just as a back drop.

(A flip side to this - "The Sea Chase" (1955) which features John Wayne as a German sea captain (!) fleeing Sydney in 1939 to escape the allies.)

8 - Famous Australian Stars

Prior to Mel Gibson, the biggest Australian film star was probably Errol Flynn who only played an Australian twice on screen in his career - "Desperate Journey" (1942) a war film, where he plays an Australian pilot shot down in occupied Europe. He whistles "Waltzing Matilda" and at the end of the film says "now for Australia and a crack at those Japs". That's about as Australian as it gets. In "Montana" (1950), a Western, he plays a sheep farmer who grew up in Australia. In his one Australian film, "In the Wake of the Bounty" (1933), he played the British Fletcher Christian.

The biggest star after him was Rod Taylor who only played an Australian on screen four times in his entire career (which went for over fifty years) - "The VIPs" (1963), "The High Commissioner" (1968), "On the Run" (1982) and "Welcome to Woop Woop" (1996). He made three Australian films where he played foreigners - "King of the Coral Sea" (1954), "Long John Silver" (1954), "The Picture Show Man" (1977) (I write about this at length in my book on him).

The big star after him was Peter Finch, who got to play Aussies a bunch of times, in Australian movies and overseas - notably "A Town Like Alice" (1956) and "The Shiralee" (1957)... I think because he was based in Britain, which cared a little more about Australia than the US.

Of course along with other Aussie stars at the time (eg Judith Anderson, Mary Maguire, Ron Randell) it's still fun to hear the Aussie accent slip in no matter what role they're playing.

9 - Unfilmed Australian stories.

Very very occasionally an Australian novel/play will get the Hollywood treatment - "Stingaree" (1934), "On the Beach" (1959), "Summer of the Seventeenth Doll" (1959), "The Sundowners" (1960)... (I'm talking stories set in Australia, not films based on novels by Australians which are a separate thing, eg The Great Escape, The 7th Dawn, The Shoes of the Fisherman)

But several novels were contemplated back in the day. 

"The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney" by H H Richardson, that classic novel a lot of Australians feel guilty about not having read yet, was bought by MGM who wanted to turn it into a Greer Garson vehicle in the late 1940s. The film never happened (though MGM did turn another Richardson novel into the Elizabeth Taylor film "Rhapsody" in 1954.) 

Diane Cilento bought the rights to Darcy Niland's novel "Call Me When the Cross Turns Over" in 1962 and Fox were going to film it with her then husband Sean Connery but it didn't happen. 

Neither did a proposed version of "Careful He Might Hear You" which Josh Logan wanted to make with Elizabeth Taylor in the 1960s (it was later filmed in the 1980s). 

Joseph Kaufman wanted to make a film of "Come in Spinner" in the 1950s (it was filmed in the 1980s).

Its fascinating to wonder what these films would have been like and how they would have depicted Australia - in the hands of a good director, as in "The Sundowners" it probably would have been good - I'm more inclined though to think they would have grabled it... which is why its important to have our own industry, etc etc

10 - Point Break

There's a lot I could have chosen (the Aussies in "Pacific Rim") but I thought I'd end with my favourite... the bit part actor at the end of Point Break (1991 of course) when it goes to Bells Beach Australia... No not Peter Phelps but the cop at the end who goes "What the f*ck, Utah? You let him go!" Gary Roberts and Owen Rutledge are listed in the credits as cops. I don't know who said what line but honestly these two should be household names.

Book review - "Girl Next Door: The Life and Career of Jeanne Crain" by Rupert Alistair

Crain is one of those movie stars whose reputation has not aged well, to put it mildly. She was a big star in her day and appeared in some genuine classics: State Fair, Leave Her to Heaven, Pinky and A Letter to Three Wives. She was nominated for an Oscar. She worked with Joe Mankiewicz, Elia Kazan and Otto Preminger.

But when the tide turned her career went downhill very fast and she never got it back - she went to work on stage and TV and as a character actress, but there was no late career appearance to make people appreciate her.

Crain was very pretty and not very good as an actor. I get the impression even Alistair felt this after analysing her career but was too polite to say so (I may be completely wrong).

But she had a look that was perfect for the time - the war and post-war era. This period is better remembered for its sultry film noir stars like Ava Gardner, or feisty heroines like Kate Hepburn, or exotic actors like Dorothy Lamour, or musical legends like Judy Garland, and they were definitely around, but so too "good girls" like Crain, June Allyson and Janet Leigh. Wholesome types who GIs could dream about on the front, who reassured people in a world gone mad that there were still nice, clean decent people out there.

Crain's dad shot through at an early age, and she wound up in California and started entering and winning beauty contests. She was spotted by a talent scout and her rise was fairly rapid. Orson Welles, of all people, seriously considered her for the role of Lucy in The Magnificent Ambersons, of all things before going with Anne Baxter. She was signed to 20th Century Fox who gave her a small part in The Gang's All Here then she was given the lead in Home in Indiana and - bang - she was away.

In hindsight Fox was ideal for her because Zanuck liked making Americana (eg Kentucky, State Fair) - you can imagine Crain would've played Will Rogers' daughter a lot had Rogers still been alive. State Fair remake was a huge hit as was Leave Her to Heaven (even though you might be likely to forget she was in it) and Margie. She made some unsatisfactory films with Otto Preminger and wound up in Letter to Three Wives because Zanuck insisted. Zanuck also refused to let her play the role of Clementine in My Darling Clementine because she was too big a star (a shame, I think she should have done it, but not doing it didn't hurt her career).

Pinky was a massive hit and she was in another Mankiewicz film People Will Talk but then in the early 50s her career hit a snag - Dangerous Crossing, Vicki, City of Bad Men - and she left Fox. She never regained her career momentum, being relegated to "the girl" parts like in Fastest Gun Alive and Guns of the Timberland. She did some TV (including a version of The Great Gatsby with Rod Taylor) and theatre and cabaret, as well as the obligatory films in Italy.

What happened? Admittedly Crain lost out on some roles because she was pregnant a lot - seven kids! She had four then she and her husband separated, then they got back together and had three more! She often lost roles to Anne Baxter, and missed some parts which would've suited her like the Jean Simmons part in The Robe. She wasn't suited for musicals, not really being a singer or dancer. I also think she was hurt by the emergence of Susan Hayward, who became Fox's go-to star for dramas.

I think the big thing is she wasn't very good. No actor could ask for more than a part in something like Pinky, Letter to Three Wives or People Will Talk. Crain always gave a similar performance - nice, polite, pert. When she was young and fresh she brought those qualities as well; over time they faded and she didn't have anything else.

Maybe that's unfair - she seems to have been a professional and worked hard. I'm sure she was a decent actor. She's not terrible in her films. But she never had the fire or spark of the great stars. (Admittedly I haven't seen every Crain performance.) Both Mankiewicz and Kazan disparaged her ability in their memoirs.

She could have been distracted by her love life. This book is good on Crain's career but fascinating on her marriage - she married Paul Brickman, a businessman so handsome he was briefly under contract to Warner Bros as a back up to Errol Flynn. They were together a long time, until her death, but it was not an easy marriage. They almost got divorced - she claimed he drank and hit her several times. He had affairs; he claimed she did too with friends (which seems true - doesn't excuse the hitting). They got back together. Despite seven kids they constantly went to parties and worked all over the place.

I don't think they were particularly focused parents - maybe that's not true but two of their children predeceased her, one a son who drank himself to death, the other son (a musician who would jam with the founder of Jane's Addiction!) who died of a heroin overdose. Crain and her husband did separate towards the end and lived in separate residences for the last part of their lives, but they never divorced. It's like something out of Mad Men - all those nannies looking after kids while the parents go to parties, drink and have affairs over cocktails.

It's an interesting book - probably more interesting than Crain on screen.

Book review - "Behind the Door: The True Story of Loretta Young" by Edward Funk (2015)

Loretta Young was one of those stars easy to mock - pretty, conscious of being a star, famously devout Catholic (she would refuse to do certain scenes/play certain roles, had a swear jar on set), hosted her own TV show where she entered a door every week with a new gown, always having crushes on co stars, participants in one of the juiciest scandals in Hollywood (having Clark Gable's love child), featuring in so many decorative roles.

But you don't have careers as long as successful as hers for no reason, and she had plenty of positives: ferocious work ethic, great dignity, street smarts (she knew about camera angles, lighting, dresses, etc). She could act as she occasionally got the chance to show. Fellow stars like Robert Mitchum would mock her gently but also had great respect for her.

Young was a child star - mum was a stage mum (most female stars of this era seem to have one), and Loretta and her two sisters went into the biz. Loretta became the biggest star of the three - she was very pretty, took direction well, and found consistent work. Most of her parts were decorative but she occasionally got a meaty role like in Platinum Blonde and she enlivened several pre-Code movies like Man's Castle.

Her career stepped up a notch when she went over to 20th Century Fox - who did use her as a clothes horse to look at the leading man a lot but also gave her some good chances: Ramona, The Story of Alexander Graham Bell. Her career kept going when she left Fox in the 40s and stepped up towards the end of the war when she was given some meaty roles and became a real box office draw: The Stranger, Rachel and the Stranger, The Farmer's Daughter (which won her an Oscar - Dore Schary was a big fan of Loretta ).

The tide started to go out in the 1950s but Loretta stayed ahead of the curve moving into TV where she enjoyed great success, and also creative fulfilment, playing all sorts of roles on her show. She had a dodgy second husband who fleeced her for a lot of cash (all these stars seem to have dodgy husbands) but she held on to enough to have a comfortable life. One of her sons became a pop star in the Moby Grape! (Like Jerry Lewis' son.)

She spent retirement doing a lot of charity work and socialising and lived to a ripe old age. She admitted herself she was never a great actor like Bette Davis, or even a top rank star, but she had a pretty good career with impressive credits.

She was a participant in one of the most famous Hollywood scandals: having Clark Gable's love child. This book reveals that Gable actually date raped her - something which I didn't want to believe but was all too easy to believe considering the time. Young had crushes on most of her male co stars - she's constantly falling in "love" with Spencer Tracy, with Jeff Chandler, with all of them - but not actually doing anything about it. She was a true "actress", who enjoyed the romance of infatuation with her costars - and Gable took it to another level. It would have been hard for Young to prove and/or do anything about - she had the baby and adopted it herself.

In many respects Young was an exasperating ninny - hopeless about men (she let her second husband get away with a lot of money), overly interested in clothes, didn't push herself as an artist - which made this book frustrating for me. But there was much to admire as well. Funk knew Young and at one stage this was going to be a memoir, so there's plenty of terrific material, mostly from her. If you're even only vaguely interested in Young you should read this.

The odd career of Veronica Lake

I don't think anyone had better luck than Veronica Lake when starting out. Her first decent part was a choice, showy support role in a big hit, I Wanted Wings - a military romantic drama released just as America was gearing up for a war.

She followed this with great parts in five fantastic films:
* Sullivan's Travels - a classic Preston Sturges comedy;
* This Gun for Hire - an exciting thriller which teamed her with Alan Ladd;
* The Glass Key - another top thriller with Ladd;
* I Married a Witch - delightful Rene Clair comedy with Lake at her sexiest as a witch;
* So Proudly We Hail - gripping war story with a very flashy part for Lake as a Bataan nurse.

Lake made a notable contribution to all five films - being effective, her limitations protected.

Then the tide turned. She cut her hair, lost a baby, developed a bad reputation, and was in a series of duds:
* The Hour Before Dawn
* Bring on the Girls
* Hold That Blonde
* Out of This World

Things turned around a little with Miss Susie Slagle's, The Blue Dahlia and Ramrod. But then it was back to crap:
* Saigon
* The Sainted Sisters
* Isn't it Romantic?

Then she left Paramount, and could never recover her previous position.

What happened? Was it inevitable?

Well, Lake wasn't a very good actor - she had to be carefully used. She couldn't survive bad material (unlike, say, Alan Ladd).

You could say "Paramount shouldn't have put her in comedies" - but she'd had success in Sullivan's Travels and I Married a Witch.

Most of the films she appeared in during the second half of her Paramount career were simply ineptly made - they helped killed the careers of Eddie Bracken, Joan Caulfield and Diana Lynn as much as Lake.

It's a shame she wasn't teamed with Ladd more - she could've easily slipped into say OSS (as she did on radio) or Wild Harvest or Calcutta. (She may have refused these parts, to be fair - it's just a pity since Ladd was rarely as effective with another girl.)

There was also a curious reluctant to use her as an out and out vamp. Lake looked like a bad girl but rarely played one - there was always some excuse or redemption for her behaviour. Sometimes this made the film more interesting (eg The Blue Dahlia) but often it weakened the drama - several of her films would've been better had Lake played a flat out villain eg The Sainted Sisters. Also she would've seemed a natural for film noir as a femme fetale, but she didn't - noirs, yes, but as good girls.

Maybe it was simply karma. But it's as hard a slog to get through Lake's last films at Paramount as it is a pleasure to get through her first.

So anyway a Lake top ten

1) I Wanted Wings
2) This Gun for Hire
3) Sullivan's Travels
4) The Glass Key
5) I Married a Witch
6) So Proudly We Hail
7) The Blue Dahlia
8) Ramrod
9) Miss Susie Slagle's
10) Saigon (not very good but at least with Ladd)

Movie review - "Captain Caution" (1940) ***

Hollywood doesn't make many films about the War of 1812, for a number of reasons: it's not very well known, sensitivity towards the British market, the fact that the Americans lost (or at the least tied). Their Navy had some exceptional victories though, which inspired Kenneth Roberts to make it the focus of a best selling novel, which was filmed by Hal Roach in 1940.

Roach is best remembered for his comedies but around this time he was turning out some interesting non-comedy features: One Million Years BC, Of Mice and Men, Captain Fury. The latter was, like this, an action tale - only with the twist that it was set in colonial Australia. This is a swashbuckler with the twist of the War of 1812 so I wonder if that was a conscious decision on Roach's part when taking on the majors - to make genre pictures with odd backgrounds

This features Roach's discovery, Victor Mature, in his third film. He's the co lead along with Louise Platt, best known as the pregnant wife in Stagecoach. She's the daughter of a ship's captain (Robert Batty) who is horny for first mate (Victor Mature) but he's reluctant to marry. They are returning from the Far East, not knowing the two countries are at war, when the English attack, killing dad. She vows vengeance and takes over the ship.

This is a fascinating movie. It's a pretty good story, with a great star role for Platt - but she's not up to it. She's dull and uninspiring. Once of the best female parts in a swashbuckler, ever and it's wasted. To think of all the female stars at the time who could've played it! Even Roach contractee Carole Landis would've been better. Maybe Claire Trevor? (I'm trying to think of realistic names here).

(I should add the film isn't exactly a feminist treatise - Platt is hoodwinked by Cabot and spends the second half of the film being a passive victim; at the end she doesn't join in on the big fight, she just watches.)

The guys are better. Bruce Cabot is charismatic as the slaver who works for Platt. (This American character, a Benedict Arnold type, is far more of a villain than the British.) Mature was too odd looking at this stage of his career  - it was before he grew into his looks - but at least is virile; he doesn't do that much in the first half except express caution. He and Platt don't have great charisma.

Alan Ladd pops up in a small but showy role as an American sailor captured by the British; it's actually one of Ladd's best pre-stardom parts, with his blonde hair sticking up, skin covered in dirt and a bad case of PTSD and hatred for his captors.

There is decent action with two big ship battles (at the beginning and the end) and an enjoyable uprising from prisoners - the filmmakers had clearly seen Captain Blood. Some awkward amateurish moments but this was an entertaining film, a solid swashbuckler - just like Captain Fury was, come to think of it.

Documentary review - "The Last of the Gentleman Producers" (2004) ***

Entertaining look at the career of Euan Lloyd, best known for his late 70s and early 80s guys on a mission action films, notably The Wild Geese. He worked in publicity, befriended Alan Ladd during his Warwick days, got a job with Warwick via Ladd's influence, became an associate producer, then producer.

Lloyd's output was fairly unremarkable - Shalako, Catlow, Paper Tiger - but he hit a sort of golden run with those aging hero action films. I wish Who Dares Wins had been better. Obviously a cultured nice chap who thrived in the 70s; the mystery why his career faded from the mid 80s isn't really explained. Lloyd does a good interview; people like Roger Moore and Joan Armatrading (of all people) chip in their ten cents worth.

Movie review - "Appointment with Danger" (1951) **1/2 (re-viewing)

A not-bad Alan Ladd thriller which could've been much better. He plays a postal inspector investigating the murder of a colleague - that's a little different, a postal inspector as hero, though really there's probably not much you can do with the mail, and soon becomes the regular guy going undercover story (NB I feel this movie was influenced by the success of Tony Mann's undercover movies at Eagle Lion).

What makes this really different is the fact a key witness is a nun, played by Phyllis Calvert. The movie should have been about her relationship with Ladd, a la Heaven Knows Mr Allison, but she disappears for the middle segment - I think the filmmakers struggled with the undercover story vs the nun story i.e. getting a nun in an undercover tale (Random thought - I wonder if this was two different scripts mashed together?).

Ladd is ideally cast and there are some great moments - a memorable opening, Jack Webb's performance as a hired goon, Webb killing Harry Morgan, Ladd knocking out Webb on the squash court, some obnoxious baby boomer kids yelling at gangsters, Paul Stewart as the baddie. Lewis Allen's direction has vigour for the most part. This is another Ladd gangster film where he uses his sexuality to distract a blonde moll.

Movie review - "Branded" (1950) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Paramount had a hit putting Alan Ladd into a colour Western in Whispering Smith so they did it again for Branded. This could have been a minor classic because it's got a solid story and Ladd is very well cast - he's a gunfighter who is persuaded to impersonate the child of rancher Charles Bickford, abducted when he was four.

All the appropriate subplots are there - Charles Bickford wants an heir, Ladd has a partner keen to kill Bickford so they can cash in, Mona Freeman is the son's hot sister who Ladd falls in love with, Selena Royle is mom, there's the people from Ladd's past who are out to get him, he tracks down the missing son who turns out to be raised by a Mexican bandit...

But the film never gets the juice out of them. The script badly needed scenes of Ladd bonding with Bickford, Royle and Freeman, becoming a better person through knowing them; his character needed to improve somehow.

Even worse, the family disappears in the second half of the film which is about bringing back the son. Bickford and/or Freeman needed to go on the trip to get the son, and someone needed to go after Ladd. There's no real villain once Robert Keith is out of the picture since Joseph Calleila is basically benign.

Bickford is terrific, Royle a wet blanket, Robert Keith an engaging rogue, Peter Hansen terrible as the genuine missing son (blonde hair, Mexican accent), Joseph Calleila a decent bandit. Rudy Mate's handling isn't terribly vigorous. There is however some impressive colour photography and location work in Arizona.

Movie review - "Chicago Deadline" (1949) ** (warning spoilers)

This was based on a novel written in 1933 but it didn't get made until over a decade later, changed into a vehicle for Alan Ladd with an eye, no doubt, on the box office receipts of Laura, which it resembles. It's a fascinating comparison because while Laura works this doesn't.

Dana Andrews in Laura was a cop so it was his job to investigate the crime. There were only a handful of suspects who we got to know well - Judith Anderson, Vincent Price, and particularly Clifton Webb - meaning we got to dig in to their characters. Andrews found himself falling in love with Laura, who then appeared half way through... so the story then had massive stakes.

Here Alan Ladd is a reporter so he really doesn't have to investigate. There's a whole bunch of people he talks to (54!), none of whom we get to know well - brother Arthur Kennedy, blonde June Havoc, gangster Sheppherd Strudwick, rich dude Barry Kroeger, her first husband... they kept coming and coming and coming and I got confused.

Donna Reed is too girl next door to be that interesting as the dead girl. (You know who would've been good? Veronica Lake.) And she remains dead, so there's no romance or point, no acceleration or twist. I found it hard to follow then I got bored for all the other people who were knocked off.

Movie review - "Beyond Glory" (1948) ** (re-viewing)

An odd sort of movie - part tribute to West Point, part courtroom drama, part analysis of PTSD. Three writers are credited, including the impressive Jonathan Latimer, and I wonder if each writer took a completely different approach to the material. But this lack of focus on a specific story hurts the film. It goes all over the place - we meet Ladd at West Point, then there are these charges against him, then we flash back, then we flashback again.

There are all these plots - Ladd romancing Donna Reed, the widow of his former officer; Ladd's initial dislike of the army then becoming an officer; Ladd dealing with life after the army; Ladd being accused of hazing by a rich man's son; Ladd thinking he was a coward.

So you take what you get: John Farrow's brisk direction, the novelty of Alan Ladd as a student at West Point, some documentary like touches of life at West Point, a particularly strong support cast including George Colouris (a worthy baddy, a ruthless lawyer), Donna Reed (noble widow), Henry Travers, Tom Neal and Audie Murphy (who actually would've been ideal in Ladd's role had they ever decided to remake this).

But really this isn't a very good movie. It's too unfocused, Ladd doesn't seem that interested, and the climax is based on a contrivance (i.e. that Ladd would think he was a coward).

Movie review - "Salty O'Rourke" (1945) ** (warning: spoilers)

For this movie to work it helps to know that it was originally envisioned as a vehicle for Mickey Rooney and that Stanley Clements was an upcoming name at the time due to Going My Way. Because although it's technically an Alan Ladd film, Clements is the hero as much as anyone.

The set up is complicated - Ladd owes $20k to Bruce Cabot, which means he needs to buys a horse, which means he needs a jockey, Clements, which means Clements needs to pretend he's 17, which means he has to go to school, which means his teacher is Gail Russell who expels him on day one for being fresh, which means Ladd has to romance Russell.

This is the sort of movie that should be fun but isn't, despite the presence of William Demarest as Ladd's sidekick. Clements look like a prematurely aging old man and he got on my nerves; Ladd never gets to be a colourful Damon Runyon gangster; Gail Russell's doe eyed beauty is touching but she really falls for Ladd which makes his disdainful attitude kind of mean. It's also really nasty that Clements gets shot dead. That's full on - I found a similar problem in the other Ladd "comedy", Lucky Jordan which got very serious at the end.

Movie review - "Whispering Smith" (1949) *** (re-viewing)

Alan Ladd later became known for his Westerns - particularly Shane - but was a star for seven years before making one. This was his first, at least his first since becoming a star, and Paramount seemed determine to ensure it was a hit - they gave him colour, a big budget, strong support cast, and a franchise property: railroad detective Whispering Smith.

I'm used to railroad detectives being the villains of films eg Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Jesse James so it's kind of different to see a heroic one. The part fits Alan Ladd like a glove - tough, taciturn, silent, pining for the One Who Got Away (bland Brenda Marshall), investigating a spate of robberies. Little wonder he was subsequently cast the saddle so often.

There is a strong central dramatic situation here: Ladd is best friends with Robert Preston but loves Preston's wife Marshall; and Preston turns to crime. There is also a superb support cast: William Demarest, Donald Crisp (as a chilling villain), and that old reliable, an albino assassin.

Truth be told though Paramount probably wasted money building a small town and shooting this in colour - there's not much spectacle apart from a train robbery. At it's heart this is a low budget Western, more of a character/suspense piece. I'm glad it looks good and all it's just not an epic.

Movie review - "Lucky Jordan" (1942) ** (re-viewing)

Many contemporary reviews of this referred to it as a "melodrama" which is interesting, because to me at any way it was clearly meant to be a comedy in the Damon Runyon style - a gangster tries to do everything he can to avoid the draft, but turns patriot when Nazi agents get involved. And the thing is, a lot of it is comic, even though Alan Ladd wasn't known at the time - and would never be known - for this comedy.

It really should have been a comedy, for all the tropes are there - a shonky lawyer who tries to help him, the treacherous 2IC, a decent USO girl, a boozy old lady who agrees to be his mother in exchange for money. But the filmmakers don't commit, and pull their punches - so a lot of this is straight mystery. I feel it needed more broad characters eg turn Jordan's moll into someone really trashy, have him play off some urchin to be his "kid" - go for the laughs.

But I get the feeling they didn't trust Ladd and made sure there was plenty of suspense and action. As a result the movie kind of falls between stools - too silly to be a thriller, not funny enough to be a comedy. Ladd's not bad - he plays it straight as he should, but he needed a stronger support cast.

Also some things that happen are quite black eg he hires a person to be his body double and the poor kid is shot dead!

Mabel Paige is alright - this sort of role is a gift, and she does okay rather than shines, though I did like the affection between her and Ladd after she's beaten up by Nazi agents. Helen Walker is pretty and efficient as the female lead - but once I heard Paulette Goddard was meant to play it, I couldn't stop wishing that she was in the role.

Movie review - "Wild Harvest" (1947) ***1/2 (re-viewing) ***1/2 (re-viewing)

You'd think a movie about wheat harvesters could only be so interesting and contemporary reviews didn't think much of this, but I found it a lot of fun. It's more an old Warner Bros style movie, about a bunch of guys who like to work hard and play hard, brawl, muck around, betray their friends, fall in love with the same woman - you could see it with Bogie, Cagney, Raft etc. Paramount rustled up a decent equivalent sort of cast - Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, Lloyd Nolan, with Dorothy Lamour as the gal.

In its way it is a kind of a western - with harvesting wheat instead of a cattle drive, a wheat fire instead of a cattle stampede, brawls at the saloon, skimming instead of rustling, tough heroes. But the wheat setting gives it freshness.

Ladd is animated and comfortable as he would often be in "guys world" atmosphere. There is an uncomfortable strand of misogyny throughout the film - Lamour is a no good tramp who seduces Preston because she wants Ladd but it's ok because Ladd and Preston go off into the sunset together.

Maybe ***1/2 is too much but its fun and they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Movie review - "O.S.S." (1946) *** (re-viewing) (warning: spoilers)

Paramount had Richard Maibaum bang this out quite quickly in order to beat two other OSS movies being made in Hollywood at the time and it got their first. It's not a bad film - not outstanding, episodic, but historically interesting. Alan Ladd isn't quite entirely well cast in the lead - stars make great spies when the bulk of their work consists of action and romancing but in this more (presumably) realistic depiction Ladd is required to blend in to the crowd and he's not exactly believable as someone who could pass himself off in France as a local.

However he's got charisma and something of a character arc - he's reluctant to work with Geraldine Fitzgerald (who is more believable as a spy), comes to fall in love with her, learns the importance of sacrifice and women as spies (he is a bit of a dill to not think this in the first place but Ladd often played misogynists), and helps win the war.

There are some WW2 gadgets which is interesting considering Maibaum would later write so many James Bond movies. There are also a number of effective moments - Ladd cracking the shits when Patrick Knowles asks him to stay on and insists Knowles order him; discovering a Gestapo agent wants to be a traitor (was Tarantino inspired by this for Inglorious Basterds?); the death of Fitzgerald; the death of another agent. Actually come to think of it the death toll here of the Allies is quite high - it adds a level of gravitas and seriousness.

The plot itself is episodic - training, initial mission, the stuff on the train, meeting the Gestapo agent, a final mission. Once I knew that I didn't mind as much on re-viewing.

Movie review - "The Great Gatsby" (1949) *** (re-viewing)

A fascinating movie that was hard to see for a long time, which was a shame because there were plenty of good things about it and it was a decent enough 40s Hollywood attempt to tackle F Scott Fitzgerald. It was a passion project for writer-producer Richard Maibaum who had made OSS with Alan Ladd and became convinced he was just the guy to bring Gatsby to life - and you know what he was right. Ladd is very well cast as an insecure guy with a ruthless streak who could become a gangster and pine after a long lost love, and feel ill at ease among high society.

As an actor he had his limitations, there's no denying it - he needed a better director than Elliot Nugent, someone who could protect him more. I wish this had been directed by John Farrow who apparently left the film after a disagreement with Maibaum over casting - Farrow wanted Gene Tierney not Betty Field, and I feel he was right. Field has her moments but got on my nerves; Tierney would've been just right.

Maibaum had to make dumb script things to get this pass the censor - the opening scene at Gatsby's grave with Carraway quoting proverbs, Nick Carraway doing a lot of "voice of conscience" acting. Others are simply shoddy writing such as the exposition when we first meet Daisy and they talk about Tom's past.

Other bits of this are clunky too - Ruth Hussey got on my nerves as Jordan (all that female golfing and apparent cynicism; I never believed she was into MacDonald Carey for a second); I wasn't sure what was the point of Gatsby's lustings over the wife of his mentor Henry Hull (it cheapened his love for Daisy showing this). (I would've loved to have seen more of Gatsby's rise to riches via being a gangster).

But much of it is superb - MacDonald Carey is perfect as Nick Carraway, Howard da Silva moving as George Wilson, Tom Sullivan is very good as Tom, Shelley Winters perfect as Myrtle, Ed Begley Jnr is great as Lupus and I always enjoy Elisha Cook Jnr. There's fantastic moments like Gatsby's reuniting with Daisy, the death of Myrtle and revenge of Wilson, and the climax. It's very much a half-good adaptation but it should've been better known and I wish Ladd had made more films along this line.