Archives for September 2011

Film noir’s feline stars: The Siamese cat in ‘Hangover Square’

September 20, 2011 by

More on the most famous kitties in film noir …

The Cat in “Hangover Square” 1945

Name: Clawdette Montgomery

Character Name: Amaretto Sourpuss

Clawdette Montgomery led a very different offscreen existence from her character in "Hangover Square."

Bio: With all their scheming and double dealing, femmes fatales occasionally need a helping hand. Well, make that helping paw. A case in point is singer Netta Longdon (Linda Darnell) in “Hangover Square,” directed by John Brahm.

Netta has a lot going on, trying to get noticed in the competitive field of 1900s London music halls. To advance her career, she calls on the talents of composer George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar).

Turns out, George is a pretty good cat-sitter too. So Netta relies on him to help her multi-task, ie George can stay home and have a cozy cocktail with high-strung and quick-to-claw Amaretto Sourpuss (Clawdette Montgomery) while ambitious and quick-to-claw Netta tackles the tasks of singing, schmoozing and staying out all night. Unfortunately, George has a tenuous relationship with reality and eventually both Netta and her feline counterpart succumb to George’s madness.

Offscreen, however, Clawdette Montgomery led an entirely different, and joy-filled, existence. Born to a wealthy litter in Siam, Clawdette’s parents saw that she and her twin sister Laurette traveled the world and enjoyed an unusually cosmopolitan upbringing. As an adult cat, Clawdette dabbled in acting, art collecting, philanthropy and yoga. In her third life, she invented her own form of yoga, Furvasana, which took the radical approach of resting in child’s pose for the entire session.

Though extremely popular with other felines and enlightened humans, Furvasana never gained widespread acceptance in the world of mainstream, Westernized yoga. Nevertheless, Clawdette’s teaching philosophy was respected and revered abroad. And secretly many Hollywood stars sought private consultations so that they might emulate her inner peace and calm.

Image from http://catsinsinks.com

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‘Drive’ is full of killingly well-executed action scenes, sharp acting, ironic dialogue and ultra-snazzy visuals

September 16, 2011 by

Drive/2011/100 min.

By Michael Wilmington

“Drive” is a gut-twisting LA action movie, stripped to the bone, but also drenched with visual style. It’s about a driver played by Ryan Gosling who falls in love with the woman down the hall in his building, nervous Irene (Carey Mulligan), whose husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) just got out of jail and is being forced into another heist by shady moneymen Nino (Ron Perlman) and Bernie (Albert Brooks).

Albert Brooks

The show is full of killingly well-executed action scenes, sharp acting, ironic dialogue and ultra-snazzy visuals – all of which won Nicolas Winding Refn the Best Director prize at the last Cannes Film Festival. Hossein Amini wrote the script based on James Sallis’ novel.

It’s a movie built largely out of our memories of other movies, but that’s not necessarily bad. We know where this movie is coming from as soon as we know Gosling’s character has no name but The Driver – just like Ryan O’Neal in Walter Hill’s 1978 “The Driver.”

Neo-noir is this picture’s middle name, and its forebears include “The Driver” (of course); John Boorman’s 1968 “Point Blank” with Lee Marvin; Peter Yates’ 1968 “Bullitt” with Steve McQueen; and Michael Mann’s outlaw movies “Thief” (1980) and “Heat” (1995). As you’d expect from a movie with that kind of lineage, “Drive” begins with a great chase and gives us a little dip under Gosling’s opaque exterior by letting us know that he’s a movie stunt driver by day and a getaway driver at night. (He allows his robber/clients only five minutes to get back to his car).

He’s also a prospective race car driver, for whom his auto shop owner/patron Shannon (Bryan Cranston) wants to get sponsorship. Shannon turns to the very same criminal financiers, Nino and Bernie, who want Standard to pull a job for them, for which Standard wants The Driver to drive. And The Driver does, mostly because he’s in love with Standard’s wife, Irene, and his little son Benicio (Kaden Leos).

The movie alternates its always-thrilling action scenes with more emotional character stuff – including a brilliant turn, Oscar-worthy really, by Brooks as the falsely good-natured gangster and ex-movie producer Bernie. (In the ’80s, says Bernie, he did action stuff that some critic called “European.”) The classy cast sometimes seems to be getting paid for holding it all back, especially Gosling, whose minimalism here makes vintage Eastwood or McQueen look like John Barrymore.

As the film goes on, it gets more violent. The violent scenes are short but extremely bloody. Since the movie plays some of its carnage with razor-sharp comic timing (especially Brooks’ scenes), it becomes more and more disturbing as well. There’s something sinister and icily detached about that comic violence. “Drive” suggests a world where brutality is rampant, where greed rules, where immorality thrives.

Though Refn may not have really made a classic neo-noir, it’s a very good effort. A little more Albert Brooks maybe. Not too much. Five minutes or less.

Albert Brooks photo by Jim Spellman/WireImage/The New York Times

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The Falsies Volum’ Express offers benefits without the bother

September 16, 2011 by

The Falsies: What's wrong with a little trickery?

You can always count on Hollywood for high-drama makeup. False eyelashes were reportedly invented by legendary director D.W. Griffith, the man Charlie Chaplin called “the teacher of us all.” During the making of 1916’s “Intolerance,” Griffith wanted actress Seena Owen’s lashes long enough to graze her cheeks.

Obviously, the idea caught on. If you happen to be going to a ’60s party à la Twiggy and you have tons of time on your hands as well as unlimited patience, falsies are great. But if you want stand-out lashes for everyday, Maybelline has a product that offers benefits without the bother. The Falsies Volum’ Express mascara gets you fat in a good way as it creates plump, thick, clean lashes.

Twiggy turns 62 on Sept. 19.

According to the company, the product’s patented spoon curler brush and flexible wand separates and lifts lashes while the “Kera-fiber” formula builds volume. I’ve been using it for several weeks now and it makes my lashes look thick and well defined. I had no problems with flaking or smudging and, at $8 a tube, it’s a fantastic value.

The Falsies Volum’ Express is contact-lens safe and ophthalmologist-tested. It’s available in washable and waterproof formulas. For best results, do not dry between coats.

Product Source: I received a review sample from Maybelline. I did not receive compensation for this post.

P.S. If you want to catch up with Fashion Week, you can watch highlights from Maybelline here.

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Earthy, sexy and wry, Marie Windsor was born to play fatales

September 14, 2011 by

Let’s be fair. Marie Windsor as femme fatale Sherry Peatty in “The Killing” by Stanley Kubrick may seem venal, treacherous and manipulative. And yes she hatches a scheme to feather her nest that’s a bit dangerous. But is it right that she’s punished for being as smart, decisive and daring as the men?

Sherry is married, need I say unhappily, to George (Elisha Cook, Jr.), a nervous, Milquetoast cashier at a racetrack. Through George, she gets wind of a heist taking place at the track by Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden) and his gang. Sherry tips off her lover Val (Vince Edwards) and comes up with this idea: let George and his friends do the heavy lifting, then she and Val can take off with the stolen cash, about $2 million.

In "The Killing," Marie Windsor as Sherry Peatty is so over her dreary husband George (Elisha Cook, Jr.).

Of course, you could argue that the deeply flawed Sherry is downright immoral. And so are the men. But Sherry only gets as far as she does because of George’s colossal ego. Or perhaps it’s his tremendous capacity for denial. Clearly, she’s been after money all along and she’s tired of George not coming through with it. C’mon, George, did you really think she was into your swagger? (Offscreen, Windsor and Cook were chums. She said of him in a 1992 interview, “Elisha Cook was a darling and full of the devil.”)

Earthy, sexy and wry, Windsor was an actress born to play femmes fatales – with her huge, restless eyes, slightly cynical smile and lean but curvy body. Regardless of how many lines or how many scenes Windsor was in, she had a quality both luminous and tawdry, an expressiveness bordering on vulgarity that meshed perfectly with noir sensibility.

Windsor won an award from Look magazine for her role in "The Killing."

Born and raised in Utah, Windsor was especially popular with directors of Westerns and of noirs (in particular, “Force of Evil,” 1948, by Abraham Polonsky; “The Narrow Margin,” 1952, by Richard Fleischer; and “The Sniper,” 1952, by Edward Dmytryk). Once Windsor had been cast, the director had one less thing to worry about, knowing that she’d nail the character.

Kubrick so wanted Windsor for “The Killing” that he delayed filming until she had wrapped up 1955’s “Swamp Women” by Roger Corman. She was worth the wait; for playing Sherry in “The Killing,” Windsor was rewarded with a 1956 Best Supporting Actress award from Look magazine, a prestigious honor at the time.

Windsor worked steadily in movies and TV through the early 1990s. She was married to Jack Hupp for 46 years, from 1954 until her death in 2000.

Despite Sherry’s, um, blemished character, I prefer her gumption to Johnny’s girlfriend, the desperately needy Fay (Coleen Gray). As Fay tells Johnny: “I’m not very pretty and I’m not smart so please don’t leave me alone any more. I’ll go along with anything you say, Johnny. I always will.”

Ever heard of a spine, lady? Well, Sherry has.

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Kubrick creates his defining template with ‘The Killing’

September 13, 2011 by

The Killing/1956/United Artists/85 min.

A DVD copy of “The Killing” from Criterion is this month’s Film Noir Blonde reader giveaway. Newly digitally restored, the two-disc set contains many extras, including Kubrick’s 1955 noir, “Killer’s Kiss,” also reviewed below.

By Michael Wilmington

It takes guts and brains to pull the perfect heist. Or to shoot the perfect heist movie.

In 1956, at the age of 28, Stanley Kubrick, a New Yorker who grew up in the Bronx, traveled to Hollywood and San Francisco to direct the movie that would not only make his reputation but would provide the template – the clockwork nightmare with humans caught in the machinery – that defines most of the films he made from then on.

A Kubrick self-portrait, 1950

Those later films include acknowledged masterpieces: “Paths of Glory” (1957), “Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964), “2001: a Space Odyssey” (1968), “A Clockwork Orange” (1971). But none of them is more brilliantly designed or more perfectly executed than that inexpensive film, “The Killing.”

Kubrick and nonpareil pulp novelist Jim Thompson (“The Killer Inside Me”) wrote the script, based on Lionel White’s neatly plotted crime novel “Clean Break.” The great cinematographer Lucien Ballard (“The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond”) photographed the film.

That cast – a Who’s Who of noir types – includes Sterling Hayden (“The Asphalt Jungle”), Coleen Gray (“Kiss of Death”), Elisha Cook, Jr. (“The Maltese Falcon”), Marie Windsor (“The Narrow Margin”), Ted De Corsia (“The Naked City”), Timothy Carey (“Crime Wave”), James Edwards (“The Phenix City Story”), Joe Sawyer (“Deadline at Dawn”), Vince Edwards (“Murder by Contract”), Jay Adler (“Sweet Smell of Success”) and Jay C. Flippen (“They Live By Night”).

Perhaps inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 art-house classic “Rashomon,” Kubrick’s movie repeatedly circles back to the fictional Lansdowne race track (actually the Bay Meadows in San Francisco) during a fictional race. It’s a “jumbled jigsaw puzzle,” as one character calls it, that will supposedly end with a $2 million score of Lansdowne’s Saturday gambling receipts.

Immaculately orchestrated by a brusque criminal mastermind named Johnny Clay (Hayden), the heist kicks off when crack rifleman Nikki Arcane (Carey), shoots the favorite, Red Lightning, from a parking lot outside the track, at one of the turns. Thanks to Johnny, the robbery has been cleverly designed and planned to the last detail with each of the participants keenly aware of his part, executing it with precision and together getting away with the cash.

But like almost all great movie heists, like the robberies in “Rififi” and “The Asphalt Jungle” and “Le Cercle Rouge,” the one in “The Killing” has to unravel. And it does. The flaw in this system is the dysfunctional marriage between mousy cashier George (Cook, Jr., in his archetypal role) and George’s lazily sexy, unfaithful wife Sherry (Windsor, in hers).

Vince Edwards and Marie Windsor as the lovers.

George, desperate to keep his wayward wife interested, hints at an upcoming windfall. Sherry shares the leak with loverboy Val Cannon (Vince Edwards) – that has to be one of the great adulterous boyfriend movie names – and we can feel doom coming up fast on the outside.

The show clicked. It conquered audiences, especially critics. “The Killing” was immediately hailed by many as a classic of its kind, the very model of a high-style, low-budget thriller. “Kubrick is a giant,” said Orson Welles and it was the young Welles, of “Citizen Kane,” to whom the young Kubrick was most often compared.

If anything, his third feature’s reputation has grown over the years, as has the stature of the type of movie it embodies: the lean, swift, shadowy, cynical, hard-boiled crime genre we call film noir.

Also includes: “Killer’s Kiss”/1955/United Artists/67 min. This was Kubrick’s second feature and his first collaboration with producer James Harris. One of the most gorgeous-looking B movies ever, Kubrick shot in a style that effortlessly mixes the street-scene poetic realism of movies like “Little Fugitive” and “On the Waterfront” with film noir expressionism.

Jamie Smith plays a boxer in "Killer's Kiss."

But Kubrick’s script is subpar, mostly in the dialogue. It creaks, while his cinematography soars. A nearly washed-up boxer (Jamie Smith) falls in love with the woman across the courtyard (Irene Kane, aka Chris Chase), a dance hall girl who’s tyrannized by her obsessively smitten gangster boss (Frank Silvera).

The story sounds trite and that’s how it plays. But Silvera is good and the classy visuals give “Killer’s Kiss” a power that holds you. All Kubrick needed was a writer and a cast, and in “The Killing,” he got them.

Stanley Kubrick photo from Vanity Fair, courtesy of the Look Magazine Photograph Collection/The Library of Congress.

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The perfect pencil skirt? Cross it off your list with No. 2

September 12, 2011 by

Great ideas spring from necessity and what’s more crucial than a perfect-fitting skirt?

That’s the thinking behind Los Angeles designer Kristen O’Connell’s latest venture, No.2, a site where couture shopping becomes easy and affordable. You pick the color, style and details of your dream skirt, then enter your measurements and wait for the skirt to arrive on your doorstep.

The Measure Yourself page shows how to obtain accurate measurements and you’ll have a chance to select a surprise lining, which means O’Connell chooses a special contrast fabric to line the skirt. If you need help, or need a measuring tape, O’Connell will walk you through the process and send you a tape. A skirt runs about $88, depending on what you choose.

I recently caught up with O’Connell to learn more.

Kristen O'Connell wants to end dressing-room disappointment.

Q What is it about providing this service that appeals to you?
A I want to see more skirts in the world! I think every woman looks absolutely stunning in a skirt.

Skirts can be fun, sophisticated, casual, formal and funky all depending on the user. Wearing a skirt that fits your body well and represents your personal style is quite possibly the greatest feeling in the world. I want to spread this feeling and eliminate torturous shopping excursions of searching for skirts and not finding the right style or color.

I want to end dressing-room disappointment by providing women with skirts that fit, skirts that are made specifically for their measurements. I want women to turn to No.2 to provide them with skirts that they love; skirts that make them feel confident and comfortable. I want to offer every woman something that represents her unique style and body.

Q Why do you think clothing manufacturers have been slow to recognize that, as you say on your site, we are much more (and less) than sizes 2-12?
A This can get deep . . . Most companies are doing their best. But, times and bodies have and are changing and this is the one of the biggest challenges facing the fashion industry. It is totally unrealistic to put every possible size combination into production; companies must narrow their size focus down to an average that they feel represents their customer.

They do lots of research on body types and measurements in order to come up with that average that they feel best represents the women they are targeting. With all this averaging it should work for some, but mostly it works for none. It’s something I give a lot of thought to, and I’m trying to help the best I can one skirt at a time.

O'Connell shows some of her work.

Q What is the best part and hardest part about owning your own business and creating something that is unique?
A I very much enjoy drinking coffee in my pajamas while organizing my production schedule for the day.

Creating something unique is the best part for me. I’m a nonstop dreamer and ideas, creation and design are constantly running through my mind.

The hard part for me is to stop creating and concentrate on one creation long enough to nurture it and turn it into a reality or a product – preferably, a profitable one that people like.

Q Any advice for transitioning a pencil skirt from a daytime look to evening?
A The perfect thing about the pencil skirt is it needs no transitioning, it is always appropriate and always in style. In general, exchange the flats for heels, add jewelry, spray perfume, swipe on eyeliner, and add lipstick.

Q Who are your favorite designers and/or style icons?
A I love everything that is fashion! Fashion is my art. Tom Ford is my King, John Galliano paints my dreams and I love the trampy princess feel of Betsey Johnson.

Q What inspires you on a creative level?
A Absolutely everything. The colors of my torn-up mail in the trashcan, my boyfriend playing guitar, train graffiti and the sound of owls outside my bedroom window are a few of my favorites.

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‘Barracuda’ heroine puts justice in the driver’s seat

September 9, 2011 by

Christy Oldham

When Christy Oldham moved to LA from Louisiana 13 years ago to be an actress, she hadn’t heard of the Screen Actors Guild. “I was very green and naïve,” she says. “But I realized that if I was going to be successful, I would have to write, produce and make my own movies rather than waiting on someone to call me in for an audition.”

Fast-forward to today and she has three movies under her belt. Her latest, “Barracuda,” is a dark comedy about a phone-sex operator’s mission to bring sex offenders to justice, tracking them in her 1966 Plymouth Barracuda. Oldham wrote, produced and stars in the work; Shane Woodson directs.

“My film exposes the secret and often criminal sexual lives of normal, professional men,” Oldham says. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, there are nearly 740,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S.

“Barracuda” is part of the 2011 Burbank International Film Festival’s women’s night. It screens Thursday, Sept. 15th, at 10:30 p.m. at the AMC 16 movie theater in Burbank. “Barracuda” was nominated for three awards at the Burbank festival including Best Picture and received an Excellence in Filmmaking award at the 2011 Las Vegas International Film Festival.

“Barracuda” taps veteran editor Robert Pergament, cinematographer Marco Naylor and composer Emir Isilay. The film was shot in California, Kentucky, Louisiana and Indiana; the cast includes 200 actors.

Oldham and Woodson previously collaborated on the 2007 screwball comedy “Cain and Abel,” starring rap icon Flavor Flav. Oldham plans to make her directorial debut with a film that she wrote about the victims of a serial killer in southern Louisiana.

The Burbank film fest is open to the public. You can buy tickets to “Barracuda” ($13.41 each, including service fee) here.

“Barracuda” will also screen in New Orleans and Mississippi film festivals in October. For more information on the film and the filmmakers, go to: barracudamovie.tv and mercuryrisingfilms.com.

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Out of the Shadows: An interview with David J. Haskins, creator of ‘The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse’

September 9, 2011 by

I recently interviewed David J. Haskins about his Black Dahlia play, “The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse,” which runs through Oct. 1 at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles. Haskins is a writer, director and musician, formerly a founding member of the band Bauhaus. He lives in Hollywood.

The production uses three interwoven devices: a dramatization; live music from Haskins, Ego Plum and Ysanne Spevack; and butoh dance by acclaimed performer Vangeline. Central to the story is real-life singer Madi Comfort, whose lover was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case.

Here is the first part of our discussion. I will continue to post video on FNB and YouTube.

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‘The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse’ combines music, dance and drama to explore infamous Black Dahlia case

September 7, 2011 by

Elizabeth Short

“She’s a very noirish character,” says musician/writer/director David J. Haskins of Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia. “She’s a blank screen on which anything can be projected. She was a mysterious, glamorous, romantic figure.”

Indeed, very little is known for sure about the brief life of the Black Dahlia, who in death attained the fame she dreamt of in Hollywood. Some say she was an aspiring actress; other accounts portray her as a confused drifter.

Her brutally mutilated and severed body was found, artfully arranged, in a vacant lot near Crenshaw Boulevard and West 39th Street in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 1947; she was 22. The mystery of her death remains unsolved, though there have been numerous theories and potential suspects.

David J. Haskins

Haskins (formerly a member of the band Bauhaus as well as Love and Rockets) puts forward his contention about the murder in his new play, “The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse.” It opens Thursday at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles.

The production uses three interwoven devices: a dramatization; live music from Haskins, Ego Plum and Ysanne Spevack; and butoh dance by acclaimed performer Vangeline. The songs were originally composed for Ramzi Abed’s 2007 film about the Dahlia called “The Devil’s Muse.”

Madi Comfort's boyfriend lived in this house on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.

Central to the story is real-life singer Madi Comfort (played by Daniele Watts with Tracey Leigh making special appearances throughout the run). Comfort’s lover was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. Douglas Dickerman plays cop Frank Jemison, a straight arrow determined to get to the bottom of the slaying.

A longtime fan of German Expressionism and film noir, particularly its “very clipped, smart, sharp dialogue with fast delivery,” Haskins names “The Maltese Falcon” as one of his favorite movies and Orson Welles as a much-admired director.

“The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse” runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. through Oct. 1 at the Bootleg, 2220 Beverly Blvd., 213-389-3856; tickets are $25, $18 for students and seniors. Run time is just under one hour.

Stay tuned – I’ll be posting video snippets from my recent interview with Haskins.

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Free stuff: Win ‘The Killing’ and try Cafecito Organico

September 6, 2011 by

The winner of the August reader giveaway has been selected. For September, I am giving away a copy of Criterion’s new DVD release of “The Killing” (1956).

Stanley Kubrick directed this racetrack-robbery noir; pulp novelist Jim Thompson wrote dialogue. The impressive cast includes Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Timothy Carey, Elisha Cook Jr., and Marie Windsor.

Criterion’s new digital restoration features a slew of great special features, namely:

*a new interview with producer James B. Harris

*excerpted interviews with Hayden from the French TV series “Cinéma cinemas”

*a new interview with author Robert Polito about Thompson

*restored high-definition digital transfer of Kubrick’s 1955 noir feature “Killer’s Kiss” and a video appreciation of “Killer’s Kiss” featuring film critic Geoffrey O’Brien

*trailers and a booklet featuring an essay by film historian Haden Guest as well as a reprinted interview with Windsor.

Additionally, I am giving away a T-shirt and 12-ounce bag of Espresso Clandestino from Los Angeles-based Cafecito Organico. Their coffee is sustainably grown and locally roasted, which results in a rich, robust flavor that’s also uncommonly smooth – there’s no trace of bitterness or harsh acidity.

Perfecting summing up how many noir denizens feel first thing in the morning, Cafecito’s motto is Café o Muerte (Coffee or Death).

To enter the September giveaway, just leave a comment on any FNB post from Sept. 1-30. The winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early October. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck!

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