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.

Farley Granger, Star of Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" Dies at 85

Farley Granger (1925-2011), star of the Alfred Hitchcock classics Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951) died on Sunday. He was 85. 

The North Star was Farley Granger's first movie role.

Teenage Movie Star
Plucked from obscurity by a talent scout representing Samuel Goldwyn, Granger starred along side Dana Andrews, Anne Baxter, and Walter Houston in his very first film, The North Star (1943). The plot revolved around the residents of a Ukrainian village preparing for a Nazi invasion in the early days of World War II. Lewis Milestone directed the movie written by playwright Lillian Hellman. Milestone directed the anti-war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). 

The Purple Heart was Granger's second film.

Navy Blue
Granger’s boyish good looks made him an instant hit with film fans. After The North Star, he again starred alongside Andrews in The Purple Heart (1944). After completing that film, Granger went into military service in the Navy. 

Granger, James Steward, and John Dall in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope

Post-War Movie Career
Upon his return to Hollywood after the war, Granger was loaned out to Hitchcock for Rope (1948) starring James Stewart. The film about two young men who murder a former schoolmate for the thrill of it was quite jarring for post-World War II audiences. Considered a classic today by many modern critics, the film wasn’t well received when originally released. Granger went on to star as Bowie in the Nicholas Ray classic They Live By Night (1949).  

Most Famous Role
Probably his most famous role was that of tennis pro Guy Haines in the Hitchcock directed Strangers on a Train (1951). In the film, Granger is manipulated by an obsessed, opportunistic fan (Robert Walker) who concocts a plan to “swap murders.”  The climax on a run-away carousel is one of the most famous in the history of cinema. 

Granger, left, with Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train

Stage Struck
Being under contract to Goldwyn was confining for Granger, who found himself constantly suspended for turning down film assignments. Eventually he bought himself out of his contract so he could pursue a career on Broadway. While he was learning how to navigate the stage world, Granger supported himself by starring on TV during its Golden Age in the 1950s. During this period, he made the occasional film like The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955), but Granger remained a mainstay on the small screen well into the 1960s. Although the stage career never turned out the way he had hoped it would, Granger did have some memorable roles. He starred as the king in The King and I at New York's City Center in 1960 and played John Proctor in the 1964 Broadway production of Arthur Miller's the Crucible.

In 2007, Granger published his autobiography, Include Me Out: My Life From Goldwyn to Broadway, written with his longtime companion, Robert Calhoun.

Classic Movie Man's Guilty Pleasure: "Elephant Walk"

Part of the fun of loving movies, is loving the ones that don’t quite hit the mark, the ones that are sometimes so bad they’re good. One of my guilty movie pleasures is 1954’s Elephant Walk. A big-budget spectacle from Paramount studios, it’s a mixed bag of movie cliches with several allusions to better films.

From London Bookshop to Ceylon Tea Plantation
The plot surrounds a tea planter, John Wiley from Ceylon (Sri Lanka), who comes to England at the end of World War II to find a bride to take back with him. The tea planter is the serious and sober Peter Finch, his young bride is the breathtakingly beautiful and young Elizabeth Taylor (she was 23 when the film was released). From the film narrative, we find that this was some kind of a whirlwind romance, with Ruth, a bookstore clerk, (Taylor’s character) hardly knowing anything about her new husband or his family (kind of like Liz Taylor's real life).

Mandalay in South Asia

South Asian Mandalay
As you probably already guessed, Ruth is at first swept off her feet by John. When she arrives at Elephant Walk, the family mansion, a kind of South Asian Mandalay, its beauty and opulence awe Ruth. She learns that her new home was deliberately built on the path the elephants used to get to their water source by John’s father, alternately known as the “Old Master” and “the Guv’nor.” Apparently, the Old Master, even though long passed away, seems to be the force behind Elephant Walk. Two minutes cannot go by without someone talking about the Guv’nor. You know almost immediately that the elephants will be causing trouble and boy do they ever.

Appuhamy: Mrs. Danvers with a mustache

"Didn't I See You in Rebecca?"
When Ruth arrives at Elephant Walk, an army of servants headed by Appuhamy, the estate’s majordomo, greet her. Sinister and reserved, Appuhamy is a male version of Judith Anderson’s character in Rebecca. The welcome home scene is similar to the Hithcock classic. Even though he is a servant, Appuhamy looks at Ruth with suspicion and disdain. If we jump ahead two years, Mercedes McCambridge’s Luz Benedict, is a female Appuhamy, giving Taylor’s character, Leslie the same kind of treatment in Giant (a much better film for sure).

Bicycle polo at Elephant Walk

Bicycle Polo, Anyone?
At a party to meet John’s friends and associates, Ruth is introduced to Dick Carver, (Dana Andrews) the plantation boss. Carver is instantly attracted to Ruth, and who wouldn’t be? Taylor’s character is sewed into some pretty remarkable Edith Head creations, showing that 23-year-old body off to its best advantage. When Taylor realizes that she’s the only white woman within miles of Elephant Walk, she begins to wonder if she made a mistake by marrying John. When John and his friends stay up to all hours of the night drinking and playing bicycle polo inside the house, Ruth is distraught. As the film progresses, she feels more and more isolated. And then there’s the secret room that only Appuhamy has the key to. It’s the key to the Old Master’s room, a virtual shrine to the dead man, just like the first Mrs. DeWinter’s room in Rebecca. And just like Rebecca, the Old Master’s presence permeates the film. Jeepers, his crypt is in the backyard, just outside Ruth’s bedroom window!

Paris or Bust
While John is confined to bed with a leg fracture from his bicycle polo exploits, Ruth spends time with Dick. As the only one at Elephant Walk who doesn’t worship the Old Master, he becomes Ruth’s confidant. Dick makes a pass at Ruth, but she tries to resist his advances. As time goes by, Ruth plans to leave Elephant Walk and go to Paris with Dick, something Dick was planning to do before Ruth arrived.

Elizabeth Taylor (Ruth) and Dana Andrews (Dick) in a publicity still for the film

But then, a cholera epidemic breaks out and Ruth decides she cannot leave her husband, even though we’re not exactly sure what she sees in the bore. Dick, as played by Andrews, is a much warmer and sympathetic character; it isn’t hard to understand why she (or any other woman under the same circumstances) might want to run off with him. Dick’s character is dressed elegantly in white and khaki suits, often wearing a lightweight fedora. He looks like the tropical version of detective Mark McPherson from Laura, a role Andrews played ten years earlier.

That Pesky Epidemic
Oh, yes, the cholera epidemic. Servants all of a sudden start passing out, falling down and the whole area is put under quarantine. This keeps Ruth from running off with Dick to Paris (rats!). After about two seconds, Ruth throws herself into helping the natives fight the epidemic. Looking like Myrna Loy in The Rains Came, she spends her days cutting pieces of cloth, filling jugs with water, disinfecting things, and constantly wiping the sweat off her brow while Appuhamy, her new best friend, tells her to rest. Just when you think things can’t get any worse, the elephants come back, reclaiming their pathway while the estate is left unguarded.

Tyrone Power and Myrna Loy in The Rains Came (1939)

Elephants Rule!
The elephants stampede Elephant Walk, demolishing the wall that surrounds it. They enter the house, upending the furniture, knocking over burning candles and chandeliers. And they maul Appuhamy, Ruth's new BFF right in front of her eyes (she closes them of course) while she screams in terror. As the elephants destroy the house, it catches fire. Ruth tries to outrun the elephants and escape, but finds herself trapped. Her husband back from burying the dead cholera victims rescues Ruth from the fire and the elephants, but Elephant Walk is no more. As the mansion burns to the ground, Ruth recommits herself to John, just like, oh, yeah, Rebecca (and Jane Eyre too)! Dick coming back for Ruth, sees her on a hill with her husband. Realizing that he and Ruth have no future together, Dick decides to go to Paris by himself since Ruth was the only reason he stayed at Elephant Walk for as long as he did. The End.

The Classic Movie Man's Verdict
Even with all the cliches and sometimes hackneyed dialogue, I still find this film incredibly compelling. Maybe it’s the cast, although my favorite New York Times critic, Bosley Crowther, had these kind word for the three stars: “Miss Taylor's performance of the young wife is petulant and smug. Mr. Andrews is pompous as the manager. And Mr. Finch, as the husband, is just plain bad.” Oh, my. On the plus side, the movie looks good. The on-location cinematography isn’t too bad. The score by Franz Waxman is lush and beautiful. Taylor’s Edith Head costumes are stunning and show the actress off to her best advantage. On the negative side, the process photography looks cheap. There’s a scene where Ruth and Dick are riding horses. The horses are at a slow trot, but the background is practically racing by. Perhaps, audiences in 1954 were more forgiving than we are today, but it looks really fake. The direction by William Dieterle can be described as plodding at best; nothing seems to flow very smoothly. But fortunately, those stampeding elephants save the day by adding some much needed action and excitement.

I mentioned Rebecca earlier in this piece and I think it tries to borrow some of the tension and suspense that movie engendered, but with limited success. The comparisons, some already noted are too obvious: Appuhamy as a male Mrs. Danvers, the room that is a shrine, and the climatic fire that destroys the mansion and the memory of the Old Master. But that’s what films do, borrow from each other. Some do so successfully some not so. Elephant Walk falls into the not so category. Still as mentioned before, it’s somehow compelling. It’s one of my classic movie guilty pleasures. And that’s okay. In spite of it all, enough people went to see Elephant Walk in 1954 to make it a box office hit.

What are your movie guilty pleasures? I’d love to hear from you.

Maverick in the Making: Otto Preminger at Twentieth Century-Fox

Otto Preminger at work

Otto Preminger (1905-1986) was born and educated in Vienna, Austria. He earned a law degree, but only tried one case. Instead of pursuing a career in law, Preminger became the assistant to Max Reinhardt, the famous European stage producer/director. In the mid-thirties, Preminger made his way to Broadway where he caught the attention of movie executive Joseph M. Schenck. Schenck offered Preminger an unusual apprenticeship at the newly formed Twentieth Century-Fox film studio.

At Fox, Preminger directed a few B-films before a dispute with Darryl F. Zanuck found Preminger back on Broadway alternating between acting and directing. During this time, Preminger also established himself as a capable actor in films. With his severe looks and Viennese accent, Preminger made a successful career for himself on stage and in film playing Nazis. Preminger leveraged this success to get back into film directing.

Preminger's most famous film during his association with Fox

With Zanuck overseas during World War II, Preminger was asked to take over the producer-director roles for the film Laura since the original director, Rouben Mamoulian, had been fired. Preminger not only rescued the film from disaster, but turned it into one of the top films of the 1940s.

"Daisy Kenyon," considered a "woman's picture" dealt with racism and child abuse, among other things.

At Fox Preminger directed many film genres: light comedies, melodramas, musicals, and costume epics. Often neglected, Preminger’s work at Fox holds up remarkably well. The themes explored during his Fox tenure (adultery, child abuse, racism, police corruption) foreshadowed his later foray as an independent producer-director, often pushing the envelope and going against the oftentimes prudish conventions and film censorship of the day.

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Preminger was a celebrity, which sometimes worked against his considerable talent as an important director in the history of American film.

Tierney is Tops!

A radiant Tierney in "The Return of Frank James"

Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century Fox, thought Gene Tierney was the most beautiful woman in movie history. During the 1940s, Tierney’s face was on the covers of countless magazines; women copied her look and wore clothes and accessories inspired by her movie roles.

From the moment she first appeared on the big screen, Tierney was a star. The critics weren’t always taken with her performances, but audiences loved her mix of exotic and girl-next-door beauty. She had a slight overbite, which Tierney refused to correct, when she came to Hollywood. In fact, she had it written into her contract that she had “control” of her teeth and hair. A clause like that may seem odd to us today, but during the reign of the major Hollywood studios it was unusual for an actor or actress to have those kinds of exceptions written into their contracts.

Tierney was far from a diva or prima donna when it came to performing on the set. Known for her professionalism and kindness with both cast and crew, her first husband, Oleg Cassini said Tierney wanted everyone around her to “be happy.”

Tierney helped sell a lot of hats in the 1940s.

Gene Eliza Tierney was born in Brooklyn, NY, on November 19, 1920. Tierney’s father, Howard Sherwood was a successful insurance broker. Her mother, Belle Lavina Taylor was a former physical education instructor. Gene had an older brother, Howard Sherwood Jr. and a younger sister, Patricia.

The Tierney family eventually settled in Connecticut where all seemed ideal. Gene attended the best private schools in the state. At the age of 15, she spent two years attending the Brillantmont school in Lausanne, Switzerland. At Brillantmont, she learned to speak fluent French, a skill she would display in several future film roles.

Tierney’s film career might have started earlier had it not been for her father. In 1938, Gene and her family took a trip to Hollywood. On a tour of the Warner Brothers studio, she was “discovered” by Anatole Litvak. The studio wanted to give the seventeen-year-old a contract, but her father didn’t think the salary was very good and that ended that, or so it seemed.

Tierney is a Technicolor dream in "Heaven Can Wait."

Instead of going to Hollywood, Tierney struck a deal with her father. She would pursue an acting career on the legitimate stage. It was Howard Tierney’s belief (and hope) that his daughter would soon tire of a career, marry well and settle down. But that was not to be.

On the cover of "Life" in 1941

Tierney’s stage debut was inauspicious at best: she carried a pail of water across the stage in What a Life! (1938). Larger roles soon followed and influential critics like Brooks Atkinson from The New York Times took notice. Her real break came when she played Patricia Stanley in the Male Animal (1940). Her reviews were terrific and all of Broadway was at her feet.

One evening, Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Twentieth Century Fox studios, attended a performance of The Male Animal. He thought Tierney had movie star potential and soon she was on her way to Hollywood.
Tierney’s first movie was The Return of Frank James starring Henry Fonda and directed by Fritz Lang. The movie was a hit, but Tierney’s performance was panned. The Harvard Lampoon went so far as to call  her “The Worst Female Discovery” of 1940. Tierney took that slight in stride, but she didn’t like the way her voice sounded. She said she sounded like an “angry Minnie Mouse.” Someone suggested she take up smoking cigarettes to lower the register of her voice. Smoking did lower her voice, but it would also contribute to health problems later in life.

Tierney in "Tobacco Road"

Tierney may not have impressed the critics with her acting ability, but the public was enthralled with her beauty. As the new Hollywood “it girl,” Tierney made five movies in 1941, including Tobacco Road directed by John Ford, Sundown directed by Henry Hathaway, and The Shanghai Gesture directed by Joseph von Sternberg. Nineteen forty-one was also the year Tierney defied her family and studio by marrying a young fashion designer named Oleg Cassini. She and Cassini eloped against the advice of her parents and the brass at Fox.

The next year, Tierney starred in four movies, including Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake opposite Tyrone Power, Fox’s top male box office draw.

In 1943, Tierney starred in Heaven Can Wait with Don Ameche, directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch. The classic comedy filmed in Technicolor showcased Tierney’s radiant beauty. In the movie, her character aged from a young teenage girl to a middle-aged woman and mother. It was her performance as Martha Strabel Van Cleve that convinced Otto Preminger that Tierney had the right qualities to play the title character in the new movie he was producing.

A studio portrait

During the filming of Heaven Can Wait, Tierney discovered she was pregnant. On October 15, 1943, Tierney gave birth to a baby girl, Antoinette Daria Cassini. Born premature, Daria had several handicaps: she was deaf, partially blind, and severely retarded. This devastated Tierney and may have been the beginning of her struggles with mental illness.

After the birth of her daughter, it wasn’t a surprise that Tierney was reluctant to get back to the studio for the next assignment they had lined up for her. The role of Laura Hunt did not appeal to Tierney. Originally conceived as a vehicle for Jennifer Jones, producer Otto Preminger wanted Tierney and lobbied Zanuck hard for her services.

Hired as the producer, Preminger constantly clashed with Rouben Mamoulian, (The Mark of Zoro ,1940) the studio-assigned director. After viewing early footage that Mamoulian directed, Zanuck fired him and hired Preminger to both produce and direct. Preminger had directed several films before, but none had brought him any great success or acclaim. Laura was based on a novel by Vera Caspary, a popular novelist and screenwriter ( A Letter to Three Wives,1949).

Tierney, as Laura Hunt, surrounded by Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, and Clifton Webb

Set among New York’s Park Ave. set, the movie is populated with society’s “upper crust,” if you will, a group that fascinated Preminger. Casting Tierney as the mysterious Laura was a risk. The audience had to believe that she was able to captivate all three of the male protagonists. The director was sure he had made the right choice and felt the same about casting Dana Andrews as detective Mark McPherson. At this point in his career, Andrews was still playing second leads. Zanuck’s first choice for the role was John Hodiak. Laura gave Andrews his first big role and it made him a star.

When the film was released in late 1944, it was an instant hit. Tierney was more famous than ever. And she would be forever identified with the film and its haunting musical score penned by David Raksin.

Laura was nominated for five Academy Awards, including one for Best Director (Preminger) and Best Supporting Actor (Clifton Webb). Preminger and Webb lost that year, but cinematographer Joseph LaShelle won for his masterful black and white photography.

Tierney’s performance, as well as Andrews’s, was neglected at Oscar time. Today Tierney’s performance is appreciated as one of the best of the actress’s career. The American Film Institute named Laura the fourth best film in the mystery genre in 2008.