Classic Movie Man’s Guilty Pleasure: “Devotion”

In 1943, Warner Brothers set out to film an account of the Brontë siblings, focusing mainly on the lives of authors Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights). In the 1930s and 1940s, the studio produced many successful historical biographies. Film versions of both Wuthering Heights (1939) and Jane Erye (1943), produced by rival studios, hit box office gold, so wouldn’t a movie on the lives of the authors and real-life sisters be a hit too?  That was part of the thinking behind Devotion, a production that seemed to be doomed from the beginning, but succeeds in spite of itself.

Lupino and DeHavilland Set To Star
Before production started, Warner Brothers had hoped that movie star sisters Joan Fontaine and Olivia DeHavilland would play Emily and Charlotte respectively. Fontaine wasn’t available, so Warner Brothers replaced her with Ida Lupino, who was already under contract to the studio, as was DeHavilland. Nancy Coleman played youngest sister Anne, and Arthur Kennedy played Branwell, the only boy in the Brontë brood. The cast was rounded out with Paul Henried as the Reverend Arthur Nicholls, Sydney Greenstreet as William Makepeace Thackery, and Montagu Love, in his last film role, as Rev. Brontë, patriarch and widowed father of four gifted and complex children.

From left to right: Olivia DeHavilland, Ida Lupino, Nancy Coleman

Top Production
The studio employed some of its top talent for the film’s production. Curtis Bernhardt (Possessed, 1947) was tapped as the director. Oscar-winner, Ernest “Ernie” Haller (Gone With The Wind, 1939) was assigned the cinematography duties, and Perc Westmore was on hand for makeup. The lush score was composed by Erich Wolfgand Korngold who won an Academy Award for scoring The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

Don't Know Much About History
One of the major criticisms of the film is that it plays fast and loose with the facts, although Hollywood biographies of the period were hardly known for their absolute accuracy. As is often noted, the Brontë sisters were not famous for their attractiveness, but Lupino, DeHavilland, and Coleman are all quite beautiful in the movie. But come on, it’s Hollywood where there are no plain Janes.

For “poor” girls, they sure have some great clothes!

Poor, But Nicely Dressed
The Brontë’s weren’t wealthy by any stretch; in fact, they were quite poor. Jane Erye’s Lowood school was partly based on the four older sisters’ experiences at the Clergy Daughter’s School at Cowan Bridge, where the eldest Brontë daughters, Maria and Elizabeth became ill and died. Charlotte and Emily returned to Howarth, England, and were homeschooled by their father. The movie version hints at their lower economic circumstances, but the sisters Brontë are always beautifully, if simply, dressed and coiffed.

In the film, older sister Charlotte, as portrayed by DeHavilland, is somewhat self-centered and a bit snobby compared with Lupino’s more cerebral and serious portrayal of Emily. As the youngest sister Anne, Coleman doesn’t have much to go on. Her character has minimal screen time and no real story line to follow. Kennedy’s Branwell is a tortured self-destructive soul. The real Branwell struggled with drugs and alcohol, so Kennedy’s portrayal does seems close to the truth.

Lupino and Paul Henried starred together
in In Our Time (1944)

A Faithful Setter Dog?
As melodrama, Devotion is quite satisfying. Lupino and DeHavilland obviously took their roles seriously and give excellent performances, as does Kennedy. Henried is fine as Nichols, although some critics at the time didn’t find him at his best. Bosley Crowther in his New York Times review said, “Paul Henreid plays Arthur Nicholls with the air of a faithful setter dog.” In the broader context of his review, that was actually a compliment, since Crowther didn’t like the film overall. But Crowther and many other critics couldn’t get past the liberties the screenwriters took with the facts.

A Love That Never Was
In the film, Emily and Charlotte are both in love with Nicholls; however, there is no evidence that Emily was involved with her father’s curate or even had any feelings for him. Charlotte eventually married Nicholls, but she refused his first proposal and some Brontë historians believe Charlotte, although fond of Nichols, was never really in love with him. In the film Charlotte is infatuated with Professor Heger while studying in Brussels. Again there is no evidence that any romance took place. Events are out of order, which bothered purists like Crowther, but for lovers of classic film, Devotion is fun to watch.

DeHavilland starred with John Lund in Too Each His Own,
at Paramount after she successfully sued Warner Brothers.

Loving Lupino and DeHavilland
I love Lupino’s brooding, wistful Emily. When she shows Nicholls the moors and the house in the distance that she calls Wuthering Heights, with Korngold’s score at full tilt, it’s wonderful. Emily’s dream sequences are artfully done, too. The dark mysterious man on horseback haunting Emily looks quite spectacular on the screen. DeHavilland’s snobby and bossy Charlotte can be obnoxious, but she’s far from unlikable. When she professes her love for Profesor Heger, she’s convincing and sincere. Who cares if it didn’t really happen? It’s effective filmmaking.

Three Years on the Shelf

When the film wrapped, Warner Brothers held back its release. There are a few stories explaining their decision. Some say the studio delayed the release because they felt a costume drama wouldn’t play well during the height of World War II. The studios were sensitive about showing too much opulence on the screen during the war years, but rival Twentieth Century Fox released Jane Eyre in 1943 to great reviews and good business. The other, and more intriguing explanation, involves DeHavilland and her lawsuit against the studio. During the studio era, stars signed long-term contracts, typically for a period of seven years. Under that system, actors were paid a weekly salary and expected to perform in movies assigned them. If a star refused a role, they were put on suspension without pay until production of the film they refused to star in was completed. In addition to not paying the star’s salary, studios added time spent on suspension to their contracts, potentially extending them almost indefinitely. DeHavilland was fighting this practice in court.

Banned From the Premier
The story goes that so angry was the studio with DeHavilland that they refused to promote her career during the litigation. Whether or not their anger would go so far as to shelve a big-budget movie like Devotion to make a point, seems over the top. However, movie moguls from the period could be vindictive and spiteful. When the film was finally released, DeHavilland was under contract to Paramount. Warner Brothers wouldn’t let her attend the premier. Even worse, they gave her third billing behind Henried, which would never have happened had she been in the good graces of the brothers Warner. Considering how hot DeHavilland’s career was after she left Warner Brothers, it would have made sense, from a business perspective, to have let her participate in the film’s publicity. Hard to tell if we’ll ever really know the story behind Devotion’s delayed release, but it’s fun speculating.

The Classic Movie Man’s Verdict
Devotion may not be an accurate portrayal of the lives of the most famous of the Brontë sisters, but as film entertainment, it’s a lot of fun. Lupino, DeHavilland, Henried, and the rest of the cast are such pros, they make you care about their characters. Would it have been a better film if they spent more time on historical accuracy? Perhaps, but did audiences complain that both the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights and the 1943 version of Jane Eyre left out major plot points and characters? Hardly. That’s one of the reasons Devotion remains one of my favorite guilty movie pleasures.

What do you think? Is there a classic movie that you love, but the critics hate? Please feel free to share your favorite guilty movie pleasures here.

Ida Lupino: A Lasting Legacy in Hollywood

Ida Lupino was a major movie star during Hollywood’s Golden Age. Born in England to a show business family with roots going back to the Renaissance, she came to Hollywood in 1933 as a bleached blond Jean Harlow look-a-like. After a breakout performance in The Light That Failed (1939), Lupino moved on to starring roles at Warner Brothers as one of their top contract players. When she left the studio in the late 1940s, she began thinking about working behind the scenes as a director. Lupino eventually formed her own production company and directed a series of low-budget melodramas. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was the only female director of note working in Hollywood.

The story goes that Lupino was signed on at Warner Brothers to keep the lot’s top female star, Bette Davis in line. The truth behind that tale is open to speculation, but Lupino bolstered it by self-deprecatingly calling herself “the poor man’s Bette Davis.” It’s true that some of the roles Davis turned down went to Lupino, but this type of thing happened regularly during the height of the studio system.

In 1940, Lupino starred in They Drive By Night alongside Warner heavy-hitters George Raft and Ann Sheridan. The film also starred Humphrey Bogart, but he was billed fourth behind Lupino. As Lana Carlsen, the unfaithful wife of Alan Hale, Lupino literally tore up the screen. So compelling was her characterization, that movie audiences supposedly applauded when her character breaks down in front of a packed courtroom. With that performance, Lupino showed she was a talent to be reckoned with.

As one of the hottest new stars in the movies, Lupino was cast next as Marie, a hard luck dame with a soft spot for career criminal, Roy “Mad Dog” Earle (Humphrey Bogart ) in High Sierra (1941). So hot was Lupino that she received top billing over Bogart who played Earle. The movie is credited with making a major star out of Bogart, but Lupino gives a multi-layered performance that showed she could hold her own opposite anyone. As the film progresses and Marie’s love for Earle grows, Lupino’s characterization becomes more complex. We see her vulnerability, her tenderness. A classic that holds up today, High Sierra’s success owes as much to Lupino’s performance as Bogart’s. And you gotta love her close-up at the end, looking luminous in her grief, tinged with happiness for her love who is free at last in death.

Lupino starred in three other films in 1941: The Sea Wolf, Out of the Fog, and Ladies in Retirement on loan to Columbia. Once again, she proved that she could hold her own against the bigger-than-life Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield in The Sea Wolf and Garfield again in Out of the Fog. And like Davis, she wasn’t afraid to immerse herself into the character she was playing even if it meant downplaying her looks, as she did in Ladies in Retirement. Of her performance in that film, The New York Times wrote, “Give Ida Lupino the largest measure of credit, for her role is the clue to the suspense. Perhaps she is too slight to portray the stolid threat that lay in Flora Robson’s original [stage] performance, but she is none the less the thin ribbon of intensity that makes the film hair-raising.”

In 1942 Lupino was loaned out to Twentieth Century Fox for two films. The first was Moontide, costarring French star Jean Gabin, making his American movie debut. The second, Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, costarring Monty Wooley. Both films featured stronger male than female roles, but Lupino’s presence in both did not go unnoticed. Of her performance in Moontide, The New York Times’s Bosley Crowther had this to say: “Miss Lupino makes a taut and sleazy slattern who is prettily revivified by love.” And as Wooley’s handicapped daughter in Life Begins at Eight-Thirty, Crowther said, in his December 10, 1942 review in the Times, that “Miss Lupino plays the crippled daughter with compassion and simplicity.” In 1943, Lupino would star in a film that would bring her great critical acclaim.

The Hard Way (1943) is a tough tale of two sisters trying to escape their dreary and impoverished existence. Ironically the mining town from which they want to escape is called Green Hill, where there is nothing green or leafy. Under the sharp direction of Vincent Sherman, Lupino gives one of her most complex and nuanced performances as Helen Chernen, Joan Leslie’s pushy success-driven sister. Lupino is Leslie’s “stage sister,” exploiting the younger Leslie’s talent while vicariously living through her. So compelling was Lupino’s performance that she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943. For some unknown reason, she was overlooked come Oscar time. (Lupino was never nominated for an Academy Award.) In the hands of a lesser actress, Helen would have been merely a villain. The beauty of Lupino’s performance is that while you don’t necessarily like her actions, you understand them. She isn’t perfect for sure, but neither is her sister or the others in the rough and tumble world of show business that they inhabit.

Now an established star at Warner Brothers, Lupino was not always offered the best roles on the lot. Bette Davis was still the queen of the studio and had first refusal on the choicest scripts. Not one to take just any role, Lupino was often put on suspension by the studio. It was during these periods that she became interested in working behind the scenes. A naturally friendly individual, calling everyone she knew “darling,” Lupino learned from the contract directors, cinematographers, and others about the technical side of filmmaking. It would be a while before Lupino would move behind the camera.

In the mid-to late 1940s, Lupino starred alongside some of the top talent at the studio, including Errol Flynn, Olivia DeHavilland, and Paul Henried. One of her best roles during this period was as Petey Brown in The Man I Love (1947), directed by the legendary Raoul Walsh. As the tough-talking club singer, her Petey is the epitome of independence. As the take-charge career woman, Lupino showed she could carry a picture. The Man I Love was popular enough for Jack Warner to offer the actress a four-year exclusive contract. Lupino decided to try her hand as a freelance artist and turned down Warner’s offer.

Her first role after leaving Warner Brothers was the enjoyable and popular success Road House (1948). Released by Twentieth Century Fox and directed by the underrated Jean Negulesco, the film costarred Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, and Richard Widmark at his loony best. Lupino plays Lily Stevens, a torch singer from Chicago, slumming at Jeffty’s road house and bowling alley, owned by Widmark’s character. A predatory Widmark stalks Lupino when he finds out that she favors his “best friend,” Wilde, over him. As interesting as this triangle is, some of the film’s most enjoyable moments are when Lupino sings and plays the piano. Her modest gravely voice has an appealing style that is hard to resist.

As the 1940s came to a close and with good roles harder and harder to come by, Lupino formed her own production company with second husband Collier Young. She produced and directed a series of low budget films utilizing the skills she gleaned from working with the male directors at Warner Brothers. The movies Lupino made during this period were gritty and for the time, groundbreaking. Not Wanted (1949) dealt with unwanted pregnancy and Outrage (1950) told the story of a young woman raped on her way home from work, hardly popular themes at the time. Lupino was now the only working woman director and the second to become a member of the Director’s Guild. When television came on the scene, Lupino hit her stride. She directed numerous episodes of popular TV series, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman, The Untouchables, and Lupino has the distinction of being the only woman to ever direct and star in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Not only did she direct in television, she guest starred on many TV shows herself, staying busy throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Ida Lupino is the only woman to direct an episode of the classic  TV series.

Ida Lupino’s legacy is a long one. As an actress, she has a body of work that holds up alongside the best of her contemporaries. As a director, she paved the way for future generations of women. It’s amazing that the small fragile-looking Lupino had such a strong and wide-reaching influence that continues today. Lupino died of a stroke while being treated for colon cancer on August 3, 1995. She was 77 years old.

This Island Earth: 1950s Science Fiction Classic

During the 1950s, a new genre emerged in Hollywood: the science fiction film. There were science fiction films before the 1950s, but after World War II, they really flourished. Many of these films were low-budget second features shot in black and white with sub-par special effects. But in 1955, Universal International Pictures produced a big budget science fiction epic in three-strip Technicolor.

The movie  poster tells the story.

What's an Interocitor?
This Island Earth, based on the novel by Raymond F. Jones, is the story of a dying planet, Metaluna and its inhabitants. In an attempt to save their race, the Metalunans have decided to settle on Earth. To facilitate their plan, they enlist the help of the top scientific minds our planet has to offer. They test these scientists with a task: assemble an interocitor, a complex multi-purpose communications device. One such scientist, Dr. Cal Meacham (Rex Reason), along with his assistant, successfully assemble the interocitor and are immediately congratulated (via the device) by Exeter (Jeff Morrow) an alien leader from Metaluna. Now thoroughly intrigued Cal agrees to fly to a secret location to participate in Exeter’s “research project.”

Scientific Retreat
The secret location turns out to be an estate in Georgia where Exeter has assembled scientists from around to world. One of the scientists is Dr. Ruth Adams (Faith Domergue), someone Cal is sure he’s met before. Ruth says Cal has mistaken her for someone else, which just adds to the mystery. Another scientist at the compound is Steve Carlson (Russell Johnson*). The trio become fast friends, especially when they begin to suspect that the research may have a sinister edge and not the peaceful purpose Exeter has lead them to believe. It's at this moment that Ruth admits to Cal that she didn't acknowledge knowing him out of fear.

Cal, Ruth, and Exeter on their way to Metaluna

Death of a Planet
Exeter and his main assistant Brack both have distinctively large foreheads, white hair, and tan complexions. These odd features give our trio pause as they plan an escape before they are put under the “sun lamp,” a thought control device used by the aliens. Ruth, Steve, and Cal have avoided the thought transformer for reasons unknown to them. As the scientists make their escape, Brack sets out to kill them. Steve sacrifices himself for Cal and Ruth, who escape the compound in a small plane. After taking off, Cal and Ruth’s plane is captured by a flying saucer captained by Exeter. The scientists journey with the aliens to Metaluna, which is under continuous attack by the evil Zagons. Cal and Ruth realize the desperate situation the Metalunans face; their planet is dying.

Cal and Ruth prepare for the return trip to Earth

Sole Survivor
Upon their arrival, Exeter introduces Cal and Ruth to the leader of the Metalunans, known as the Monitor. He orders Exeter to put the scientists under the influence of the thought transformer. Exeter finds that he cannot comply with the Monitor’s order. He defies his leader and takes Cal and Ruth back to Earth. As they leave the atmosphere of Metaluna, they witness its destruction. Exeter is his planet’s sole survivor.

Home Sweet Home
Exeter returns Cal and Ruth safely to Earth, but refuses the earthlings’ invitation to remain with them. With his spaceship running low on fuel, Exeter crashes it into the ocean where it is destroyed and with it any memory of the advanced civilization of which he was a member.

Joseph Newman directed Jeanne Crain and Michael Rennie in Dangerous Crossing.

Impressive Production
This Island Earth directed by Joseph Newman (Dangerous Crossing 1953), received almost overwhelmingly good reviews when released. The special effects, which were dazzling to audiences and critics in 1955, received the most acclaim. H. H. T. writing for The New York Times said the “panoramic vista of the doomed planet ‘Metaluna,’ should leave anyone bug-eyed.” He also noted the “reasonable acting and plucky, even literate, writing.” The film’s special effects reportedly were in production for over two years. For the film’s stars and director, all of whom are not and never were household names, This Island Earth is a high-water mark.

This Island Earth influenced Forbidden Planet released in 1956.

Enduring Influence
An enjoyable and groundbreaking movie, This Island Earth has a strong narrative flow that sets it apart from the other science fiction films made during the 1950s. The sets, including the interior of the space ship influenced another science fiction classic movie released the following year, Forbidden Planet, as well as TV shows like Lost in Space and Star Trek.


Product of the 1950s
The film isn’t perfect and it did resort to some pretty tried and true B-movie cliches. For example, as Cal and Ruth are returning to Earth with Exeter, a stowaway alien mutant monster (a giant bug) infatuated with Ruth, chases her around the ship before being killed. And of course, Ruth is wearing a skin-tight spacesuit! Considering the bulk of the movie isn’t this blatantly exploitative, we’ll let it pass. After all it was the 1950s, right?

If you’re a science fiction fan, you owe it to yourself to give this film a try. You’ll see that many of the genre’s conventions, popular today, emerged with This Island Earth.


*Trivia: Russell Johnson who plays Steve Carlson went on to greater fame playing another scientist, Roy Hinkley, otherwise known as "The Professor" on TV's Gilligan's Island.

Films From My Father

Child of the Depression
My dad grew up during the Great Depression. Like many kids his age, he went to the movies at least once a week. Back in the late 1930s, a Saturday at the movies might have included several films. The main attraction was generally an A-picture, one with major movie stars, a second feature or B-film with lesser stars, a cartoon, a serial, and a newsreel. If you lived in a relatively large city, you may have experienced some live entertainment. And on some other days, you may have gotten a free gift like Constance Bennett makeup (to give to your mom) or an ice cream cup.


A Love of the Movies is Born
Part of the reason I love the movies, is due to my father’s influence. In the days before cable, old films would routinely show up on television on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. My dad and I often watched movies together. Dad seemed to know every actor in every movie we watched, right down to the character actors who uttered but one line. In those days my favorite movies were the Abbott and Costello comedies, Buck Privates, Keep ‘Em Flying, and Hold That Ghost. My dad enjoyed these films too, but he also had a fondness for two classics released in 1939: Gunga Din and The Four Feathers. Most classic film buffs have seen Gunga Din at least once, but the same cannot be said for The Four Feathers, my father’s favorite film when he was a young man.

June Duprez and John Clements

Third Time is a Charm
The third movie version of the A. E. W. Mason novel is considered the best of the bunch. Produced by Alexander Korda and directed by brother Zoltan, The Four Feathers is an epic production, filmed in Technicolor when the process was still a bit of a novelty. Like Gunga Din, it portrays the British Empire, during the late 19th century, in the best possible light, but we won’t take issue with that here. As an adventure and melodrama, The Four Feathers is hard to beat.

Impeccably British
Starring an impeccable British cast, including John Clements as the conflicted aristocrat Harry Faversham, Ralph Richardson as his commrade and rival John Durrance, and the always enjoyable C. Aubrey Smith as General Burroughs, who constantly reminds everyone how he single-handedly won the Crimean War.

Harry Faversham's Dilema

A publicity still promoting the film

The plot revolves around Harry’s decision not to follow in the family tradition of serving in the army. He very dramatically resigns his post on the eve of his regiment’s journey to the Sudan. Their mission: To recapture Khartoum. Branded a coward by his demanding father, friends —the four white feathers given to Harry by his comrades are emblems of cowardice—, and his fiancée played by the lovely June Duprez. As a result, Harry becomes a tormented soul. In an attempt at redemption, he disguises himself as an Arab to rescue his friends, who are imprisoned by Egyptian rebels, and prove that he isn’t a coward. As you might expect, Harry is successful in the end, reclaiming his honor, his friends, and his fiancée. A good story supported by a superior production, The Four Feathers holds up remarkably well. The on-location color cinematography is remarkable. The spectacle of the battle scenes combined with the dazzling red uniforms of the British soldiers still impress today. I remember how awed I was when I saw How The West Was Won, shot in Cinerama, in the theater. I think my dad, then barely 16 years old, must have been similarly impressed by the scope of The Four Feathers upon its initial release.

"Explosively Cinematic"
Many of the scenes shot on location, give the film a polish unmatched by its contemporaries. Osmond Borradaile (I Was a Male War Bride) shot the scenes in the Sudan and Georges Perinal (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp) shot the rest of the film. What seems remarkable is the almost entire lack of process photography. Even The New York Times film critic was impressed, (no easy task then as now) calling it “explosively cinematic” and overwhelmed by the “sheer weight of size and width of camera field.”

An Overwhelming Year
The Four Feathers had the misfortune of being released in 1939, the year of Wuthering Heights, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, and the Civil War epic, Gone With the Wind, which swept the Oscars that year. Nominated for a single Academy Award (best color cinematography), The Four Feathers was one of many great films vying for attention in 1939, perhaps the most remarkable year in motion picture history.

No matter what its reputation today, The Four Feathers will always hold a special place in my heart because it reminds me of my father and those lazy afternoons of movie watching that we shared.

Jeanne Crain: More Than Just a Pretty Face

A Fan's Perspective
I’m an unabashed fan of Jeanne Crain. Today is her birthday; if she were still with us, she’d be 86 years old. Crain was a beauty for sure, but she was also a talented movie actress who doesn’t get the credit she deserves. On screen she had a unique quality. Film fans loved her. During the war years, her fan mail was second only to Betty Grable's.

A studio photograph of Jeanne Crain

Home at Twentieth Century Fox
Signed to an exclusive contract with Twentieth Century Fox in 1943, Crain went through the star making machine. Cast in small roles at first alongside bigger stars, Crain made Home in Indiana and In the Meantime Darling in 1944. A hit with the public from the start, Crain received her best critical notices that same year in Winged Victory. But bigger roles and greater fame were on the horizon.

From Second Lead to Major Star
In 1945, Crain starred as Margy Frake in the hit musical, State Fair opposite Dana Andrews. That same year she played Gene Tierney’s stepsister in the box office blockbuster, Leave Her to Heaven. The film was a triumph for Tierney, earning her a best actress nod, but Crain had the film’s final closeup, beautifully photographed in Technicolor by non other than Academy Award winning cinematographer, Leon Shamroy. Next up for Crain was another musical, Centennial Summer (1946). Fox’s answer to M-G-M’s Meet Me in St. Louis, featured original music by Jerome Kern. But it would be her next film that would make her a household name and pop culture icon.

Crain made the cover of Life in 1946.

Historic Bubble Bath
With hers the only name above the title in Margie (1946), studio chief Darryl Zanuck propelled Crain to movie superstardom. As Margie MacDuff, a shy high school student during the roaring twenties, Crain was pitch-perfect. Noting Crain’s increasing popularity, Life magazine did a feature on the young actress, calling her “…one of Hollywood’s most talented young stars.” The feature goes on about the movie magic required to film a bubble bath scene that required “…a specially designed machine which could blow 250 [bubbles] per second out of a mixture of soap and glycerine…the small army of technicians present agreed that this was a scrubbing sensational enough to make Claudette Colbert’s historic 1932 milk bath in The Sign of the Cross look like Saturday night along Tobacco Road.” They don’t write publicity pieces like that anymore!

William Holden, Crain, and Edmund Gwen starred in the classic Apartment for Peggy.

Neglected Classic
In 1948, Crain starred in Apartment for Peggy with William Holden and recent Academy Award winner, Edmund Gwen. One of the neglected post-World War II films, Apartment for Peggy explores the housing shortage veterans encountered, among other issues, upon returning home. Directed by George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street), Crain received some of her best reviews ever. The New York Times’s Bosley Crowther had this to say about the film: “It is the true demonstration of a GI student, which William Holden plays, and, especially, the vivid characterization, by Jeanne Crain, of his wife… Anyone who doesn't see it will be missing one of the best comedies of the year.”

Crain received her one and only Best Actress nomination for Pinky.

One Amazing Year!
On a winning streak and with world-wide popularity, Crain made three successful films released in 1949: A Letter to Three Wives, directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, The Fan, directed by Otto Preminger, and Pinky, directed by Elia Kazan. The latter earned Crain her one and only Best Actress Academy Award nomination, playing a light-skinned black woman passing for white. The controversial movie was the top grossing film of the year. All this success brought Crain to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the honor of immortalizing her hands and footprints in cement.

Crain's hands and footprints at Grauman's Chinese Theatre

 

Pregnant Pauses
Other successes followed Crain into the 1950s, but the actress was growing tired of playing teenagers when she was in real life a wife and mother. Seemingly forever pregnant, Crain missed out on several top roles Zanuck had lined up for her. Supposedly, he “punished” Crain by casting her in some B-pictures that did nothing to move her career forward. Frustrated, Crain bought out her contract and left Fox where she had been a major star for 10 years. Unfortunately, Crain’s freelance work never equaled the success she attained at her former studio. The movie business was changing and the studios were dropping major stars and hiring new (and cheaper) talent.

One of Crain's last films for Fox

Enduring Popularity
Crain’s film career pretty much ended in the early-1960s, but her popularity with movie fans continued until her death in 2003. Liked and admired by her costars as well as the public, Crain left a tremendous body of film work that is a testament to both her talent and radiant beauty.

Fred MacMurray: Nice-Guy Movie Star

Fred MacMurray (1908-1991) was a popular movie star during Hollywood’s Golden Age. He was so popular, that in 1943, MacMurray was the highest paid movie star in the world. For most of his career, MacMurray played likeable characters in comedies, musicals, and dramas. The few times MacMurray played heavies or “bad” guys, he surprised audiences and impressed the critics. In the 1960s and 1970s, MacMurray was America’s favorite dad on TV’s My Three Sons.

Illinois Born
Born Frederick Martin MacMurray in Kankakee, Illinois. His parents, Frederick MacMurray and Maleta Martin, eventually settled in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, where Martin was born.

Music Scholar and Broadway Star
MacMurray studied music in school and was talented enough to win a full scholarship to Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. In the early 1930s, he was part of an orchestra. He eventually ended up on Broadway working alongside the likes of Sydney Greenstreet and Bob Hope. In 1934, he signed with Paramount where he was groomed for movie stardom. In 1935, MacMurray appeared in seven movies, starring opposite some of the most popular leading actresses of the day, including Claudette Colbert and Katharine Hepburn. But it was his star turn opposite Carole Lombard in Michell Leisen’s Hands Across the Table that made him a bonafide movie star.

Box Office Success

Hands Across the Table was a breakthrough for both Lombard and MacMurray. The Lombard-MacMurray on-screen chemistry was a big hit with movie audiences. Paramount was quick to capitalize on their popularity by costarring them in three more films over the next two years. Lombard and MacMurray starred in two majors successes in 1937, Swing High, Swing Low (Paramount’s biggest success that year) and True Confession. Had it not been for Lombard’s untimely death in 1942, there might have been more pairings.

A "Paramount" Leading Man
During the late 1930s and 1940s, Paramount cast MacMurray opposite all of it’s top female stars, including Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard, and Barbara Stanwyck. MacMurray starred with Stanwyck in the Preston Sturges scripted, Leisen directed classic, Remember the Night (1940), but it would be 1944’s Double Indemnity that would forever link the two together.

Icon Status
Cast against type as insurance salesman Walter Neff by director Billy Wilder, MacMurray showed a darker side the public had not seen before. Playing opposite Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson and Edward G. Robinson as Barton Keyes, MacMurray, who was topped billed, more than held his own. The film was a hit with the public and most critics of the day. Over the years, the film’s reputation has grown. In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Double Indemnity 29 on its list of the 100 best American Films, which was nine spots higher than when the poll was taken in 1998.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in the Billy Wilder classic Double Indemnity

Popular Costars
MacMurray continued his winning streak throughout the 1940s. He developed a reputation around Paramount as the perfect leading man. Never overpowering the leading lady, MacMurray costarred in seven films with Colbert, four with Stanwyck as well as starring in several films with Goddard and Madeleine Carroll. MacMurray could carry a film on his own as evidenced by the successful Murder, He Says (1945), directed by George Marshall.

MacMurray and Claudette Colbert starred together in seven movies.

A Turn in the Road
In 1953, his wife of 17 years passed away, leaving him with two children: 13-year old Susan and seven-year-old Robert. The following year, he married June Haver; they adopted twin daughters Katherine and Laurie in 1956. During the mid-1950s, MacMurray, like James Stewart, stayed busy starring in mostly western movies. As the 1950s came to an end, MacMurray’s career took yet another turn.

MacMurray in The Absent-Minded Professor

Disney Legend
In 1959, Walt Disney tapped MacMurray for a starring role in The Shaggy Dog. The low-budget film was a monster hit for the studio, which led to the title role in The Absent-Minded Professor in 1961 and its sequel, Son of Flubber in 1963. Disney’s top director, Robert Stevenson (Jane Eyre, Marry Poppins), turned both films into box office gold.

MacMurray caused a stir by playing a philandering husband in The Apartment.

Wilder Called Again
Director Billy Wilder called on MacMurray once again to play against type in 1960’s The Apartment. Starring alongside Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, MacMurray played wife-cheating executive Jeff D. Sheldrake. His performance was jarring to many filmgoers, who were now used to his persona as a Disney star. The Apartment would be the last film in which he would play a heel.

The first season of My Three Sons featured William Frawley as Uncle Charlie.

 TV Star
Along with his new career at Disney, MacMurray entered series television in 1960 starring as widowed father Steve Douglas on My Three Sons. One of the most popular TV series of all time, it ran for 12 years and cemented MacMurray’s place in American popular culture. MacMurray, always the shrewd businessman, arranged his TV filming schedule so he could continue making films. Between 1959-1973, MacMurray starred in seven movies for Disney, with Charley and the Angel (1973) being his last.

Well Remembered

MacMurray's star is at 6421 Hollywood Blvd.

MacMurray had a natural, comfortable acting style that was often overlooked. His comedic timing was as good as anyone’s and his dramatic performances gain new respect and appreciation with each passing year. In 1987, MacMurray was the first person honored as a Disney Legend.


A true movie legend, MacMurray earned his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.



Trivia: MacMurray worked with two of his My Three Sons co-stars long before the series debuted. William Frawley, who played grandfather Bub, co-starred alongside MacMurray in The Princess Comes Across (1936). And William Demarest, who replaced the ailing Frawley as Uncle Charley, was one of Carole Lombard's prospective boyfriends in Hands Across the Table (1935).