Oscar, Oscar, Oscar II: Texas Blood Money

One of the reasons why I love Danny Peary’s Alternate Oscars so much is that in his book, he singles out for Academy Award trophies motion picture actresses who rightfully should have taken home prizes.  Here are a few of the creative choices that are my absolute favorites:

1928-29: Lillian Gish for The Wind

1929-30: Louise Brooks for Pandora’s Box

1936: Jean Harlow for Libeled Lady

1940: Rosalind Russell for His Girl Friday

1941: Barbara Stanwyck for Ball of Fire

1942: Carole Lombard for To Be or Not to Be

1943: Jean Arthur for The More the Merrier

1945: Joan Bennett for Scarlet Street

1947: Deborah Kerr for Black Narcissus

1953: Gloria Grahame for The Big Heat

1959: Marilyn Monroe for Some Like It Hot

1963: Leslie Caron for The L-Shaped Room

1968: Tuesday Weld for Pretty Poison

1969: Shirley Knight for The Rain People

1980: Ellen Burstyn for Resurrection (her second, to go with Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore)

1991: Lili Taylor for Dogfight

Overall, I firmly believe that many of Peary’s “alternate” Oscars are miles and away better picks than the ones that were handed out in real-life.  Danny also relieves a few winners of their cumbersome trophies: both Shirley Booth and Jessica Tandy, he argues, were better known for their work on stage and therefore their Academy Award victories have a bit of a tarnish.  (He makes the same argument with Helen Hayes—who won in 1931-32 for The Sin of Madelon Claudet—but I’m of the opinion she just won the prize for the wrong movie: she’s fantastic in 1934’s What Every Woman Knows.  I’m guessing until he releases a book that addresses Best Supporting Oscars Helen can keep her statuette for Airport.)

In addition, the future Princess of Monaco forfeits her Oscar for The Country Girl (1954).  I don’t have to tell you that Peary agrees with most people that that statuette should have been Judy Garland’s and Judy’s alone…though if you’d like to argue about it in the comments section, I’ll have ClassicBecky (the muse for this article) hold our coats.  (Remember that Groucho Marx sent Judy his regrets, stating her loss at the Awards “was a bigger robbery than Brink’s.”)  At the time Danny wrote the book, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences hadn’t bestowed Oscars on two of my bête noires—Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow—so I’ll include them in this paragraph of “WTF, Academy?”

I had a lengthy list of actresses who won Oscars for the wrong movies…but I did a little pruning so I could provide a tidy ten:

Marie Dressler – Marie is one of those actresses that makes me tear up every time she does a serious scene—I even get misty when I watch the movies she’s in with Polly Moran, and they’re supposed to be comedies.  Dressler was a sentimental favorite the year she won a Best Actress Oscar for Min and Bill (1930) …but I think she’s even better in the underrated Emma (1932).  I’d even argue in favor of her work in Dinner at Eight (1933), though that might be considered more of a supporting turn.

Katharine Hepburn – Kate is still the champ when it comes to the Best Actress category; she won four trophies (she was nominated twelve times…but Meryl Streep has her beat on that score with 16) for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and (ugh) On Golden Pond (1981).  Wrong on all counts.  The films for which she received nominations are better choices; if Hepburn is to win all that Oscar largesse I’d personally prefer it be for Alice Adams (1935—AO pick), The African Queen (1951), Summertime (1955), and The Rainmaker (1956—Kate’s second AO).  As for the movies Hepburn didn’t get noms for, Sylvia Scarlett (1935) and Holiday (1938) surely must be on the list.

Bette Davis – When Bette won the first of her two Oscars in 1936 for Dangerous (1935), it was widely accepted that that trophy was for her superior performance the previous year in Of Human Bondage (1934—AO’s choice)—a role that did get nominated via a write-in campaign when both Warner Brothers and RKO refused to submit Bette’s name for a certified nom.  She’d win a second statuette for Jezebel (1938), and while I could be persuaded that she keeps that one, any of the other films for which she received nominations would be better substitutes for the first one (Dangerous simply isn’t that great): The Letter (1940—my pick), The Little Foxes (1941), All About Eve (1950), and The Star (1952).  (I also have soft spots for Marked Woman [1937] and The Catered Affair [1956].)

Joan Fontaine – Joan’s Best Actress Oscar win in 1942 was for Suspicion (1941) …and in the case with Bette Davis, was considered a consolation prize for losing out the previous year with her nomination for Rebecca (1940).  Rebecca is a much better showcase for Fontaine, as is The Constant Nymph (1943), her third and final AA nomination.  But I agree with Danny Peary that Fontaine’s performance in Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) is the one for which she should have been able to put the prize on her mantle.

Ingrid Bergman – The legendary actress would win three Oscars during her career: a second Best Actress prize for Anastasia (1956), and a Supporting Actress trophy for Murder on the Orient Express (1974).  I’ve not seen Anastasia, a “cinematic vegetable” I hope to get around to one of these days, but as far as her Best Actress Oscar goes I think Ingrid’s turns in either Casablanca (1942) or Notorious (1946) are superior to her work in Gaslight (1944).

Jane Wyman – After Wyman won her Oscar for Johnny Belinda (1948), her husband (future U.S. President Ronald Reagan) joked during their contentious divorce that he should name the film as “co-respondent.”  I personally think Wyman’s win for Belinda was one of the weakest choices in the history of the Oscars, particularly since she’s so much better in the earlier The Yearling (1946—she was nominated for this) and the later All That Heaven Allows (1955).  (Of the two, I’d go with Heaven…even though I’m still convinced the best acting Janie ever did was her wicked homage to Reagan’s second wife as Angela Channing on TV’s Falcon Crest.)

Judy Holliday – Holliday’s win for her superb comic turn in Born Yesterday (1950) is kind of going to violate my long-standing gripe with the Academy that they’re prejudiced against comedy performances.  But I cannot deny (and Peary feels the same in Oscars) that Judy was at her very best in the underrated The Marrying Kind (1952), a film that deserves more attention that it usually gets.

Audrey Hepburn – I’m also going to agree with Danny that rather than receive an Oscar for Roman Holiday (1953), the lovely Audrey gives a far better performance in another neglected film, Two for the Road (1967).  (I also have a soft spot for The Nun’s Story [1959].)

Joanne Woodward – Woodward’s Best Actress Oscar win for The Three Faces of Eve (1957) is copacetic with Peary in Alternate Oscars…but truth be told, it’s a movie I’ve just never warmed up to.  My personal fave among Joanne’s performances is in Rachel, Rachel (1968); she was nominated for that as well as the underrated Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams (1973).

Sissy Spacek – Peary gives Sissy two statuettes in AO: one for Carrie (1976), and the other for the underrated Raggedy Man (1981—not the strongest of motion pictures, but Spacek is phenomenal in it).  Either of these is a better choice than her celebrated turn in Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980); I’d also go with Missing (1982—what can I say; I love this movie and was crushed when it lost Best Picture to Gandhi) or The Long Walk Home (1990), the movie that inspired these two Oscar-themed posts in the first place.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar…

The gratuitous back-patting known as the Academy Awards will get underway in less than a month (February 26th this year), and though I haven’t really given the ceremony that much thought, a stray comment from my fellow classic movie pal ClassicBecky on my recent The Long Walk Home review set in motion an idea for a post:

I was particularly interested in your view of actors winning Oscars for the wrong movies. Made me think of Russell Crowe winning the Oscar for "Gladiator", in which his predominant line of dialogue was the monotonal "I am Maximus." Then the very next year, losing the Oscar for his truly remarkable performance in "A Beautiful Mind." Huh?

There was a time (don’t be frightened by the wavy lines—it’s just a flashback) when I would await the arrival of the Academy Awards with eager anticipation.  That enthusiasm disappeared in 1995, when the Best Picture Oscar went to Forrest Gump, a film that beat out far superior movies like Quiz Show and Pulp Fiction for the top prize.  (I apologize to any Gump fans out there…but that odious piece of fromage gets the 1960s counterculture so wrong it elevates my blood pressure just thinking about it.  Hell, even the other two features nominated—the romantic comedy trifle Four Weddings and a Funeral and the so-popular-it’s-stupefying The Shawshank Redemption—would have been better choices.)  To add insult to injury, Tom Hanks won a second Best Actor Oscar for that travesty; I always think of that purported observation by Alma Reville to her husband Alfred Hitchcock that Oscars weren’t too much of a big deal because “after all, Luise Rainer won two of them.”

It wasn’t long after this that I purchased and read with delight film historian Danny Peary’s wonderful book Alternate Oscars.  Published in 1993, Peary argues that throughout the history of Academy Awards, the films that should have been recognized aren’t for a variety of reasons—mostly having to do with Hollywood politics.  (Look, I love How Green Was My Valley as much as the next person…but is it really a better film than Citizen Kane—despite Orson Welles’ on-the-record reverence for John Ford?)  Danny attempts to rectify the many mistakes Oscar has made throughout its history; sometimes he’s okay with the choices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences…other times he questions as to whether its membership was passing around a crack pipe.  If you don’t have this invaluable reference on your movie bookshelf, you need to do so at your earliest opportunity; it’s available from a number of used bookstore both online and off (it’s OOP, sadly—Peary seems to be more comfortable writing sports books these days) but in case you’re curious about its contents, you can find the complete list from the book at one of my favorite movie sites: FilmFanatic.org.

In Alternate Oscars, Danny advocates the taking of many of the trophies from those individuals who won Academy Awards and reallocating those prizes to actors/actresses more deserving.  I agree with many of his choices: how thesps like Clark Gable (a particular bête noire of mine), Paul Lukas, and Broderick Crawford ever won Oscars is a mystery to me.  (And I say this as someone who loves All the King’s Men.)  In other instances, Peary argues that actors frequently receive Oscars for the wrong movies.  A great example of this is Mary Pickford, the best actress winner in 1928/29 for Coquette.  You people know the story: they gave “America’s Sweetheart” the acting prize because she wanted one (the Academy was an organization created to bust unions—you know this as well).  Mary is much better in My Best Girl (1927), and Danny argues she should have had a statuette for what was her final silent film.

The chief culprit to consider when you say to yourself out loud during an Oscar telecast—“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—surely they’re not giving him/her an award for that?”—is that these honors are often handed out for an outstanding body of work…not because they were really, really good in a particular film.  Even people who defend the Academy Awards will cop to that.  There’s no greater example of this than Henry Fonda, who finally nabbed a Best Actor trophy in 1982 for playing the “get-off-my-lawn-you-damn-kids” crank in On Golden Pond (1981)—then Hank went on to an even greater reward a few months after (when he snuffed it).  I don’t think Fonda ever gave a better performance onscreen than as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) …but they didn’t give him that Oscar because they were too busy giving his bosom buddy James Stewart the Best Actor prize for The Philadelphia Story (1940).  The general agreement was that Stewart got his Oscar that year for being ignored previously for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

I’m not a fan of The Philadelphia Story, chiefly because the romantic problems of rich people rarely register high on my personal Give-a-Damn-O-Meter.  I’d argue that Jimmy is much better in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946—this gets Stewart his “Alternate Oscar” in Peary’s book) and if he was shut out that year by The Best Years of Our Lives juggernaut, the Academy could have always waited for Vertigo (1958) or Anatomy of a Murder (1959).  By that same token, Henry Fonda gave first-rate performances in The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), The Wrong Man (1956), Fail-Safe (1964), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).  My personal Fonda fave is Fort Apache (1948); a journalist once asked Hank’s son Peter what his famous dad was like off-screen and Pete asked him if he’d ever seen Fort Apache.  When the reporter applied in the affirmative, Fonda remarked: “That’s what he was like off-screen.”

Speaking of John Wayne (well, he’s in Fort Apache as well)—the Duke got his “Atta boy” from his peers for True Grit (1969) …even though he was just being John Wayne in an eyepatch.  To be frank, John Wayne pretty much played John Wayne in every movie he was in…but he could occasionally step up to the place and hit one out of the thespic park.  It’s no coinky-dink that these performances were in films directed by the aforementioned Mr. Ford: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949—my personal favorite), The Quiet Man (1952—Peary’s pick in AO), The Searchers (1956) …and even The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). (I always forget how splendid that movie is until I take the time to sit down with it again.)

Here’s a short list of some more actors who won Oscars for the wrong movies.  I didn’t include actresses on this list—not because I’m being chauvinistic, but because I was racing a deadline for this post and decided it would be better tackled in a follow-up next week.

Humphrey Bogart – Despite my love for Bogart, most of his movie roles were, like John Wayne, variations on his established persona—including The African Queen (1951), the one that earned him his Oscar.  But Bogie gives much more interesting (and in my opinion, better) performances in films like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and In a Lonely Place (1950).  My sentimental favorites are Deadline – U.S.A. (1952) and Humphrey’s swan song, The Harder They Fall (1956).

Rod Steiger – Speaking of The Harder They Fall, I think Steiger’s turn as the autocratic mobster Nick Benko is sensational; Steiger is a difficult guy to pin down because…well, let’s not mince words: he could chew up the scenery when inclined (which is why his serial killer in 1968’s No Way to Treat a Lady should have been Academy Award-worthy—it plays perfectly to this handicap).  Rod got his Oscar for In the Heat of the Night (1967), but my personal pick is his role in The Pawnbroker (1964).  (I would also have accepted his psychiatrist in The Mark [1961] as an answer.)

Sidney Poitier – I truly think Poitier gives the better performance in In the Heat of the Night as Virgil Tibbs, but the Academy had already given Sidney honors for 1963’s Lillies of the Field.  I have never been able to understand why this great actor got overlooked for A Raisin in the Sun (1961—my choice).  Other outstanding Poitier choices include Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), Edge of the City (1957), and Something of Value (1957).

Burt Lancaster – I’ve said it many times in the past: Burt Lancaster’s acting got better and better with age.  You can see the genesis of this in my favorite of his films, The Swimmer (1968) …but he was really on fire by the time he made Atlantic City (1980—this is the one I’d hand him an Oscar for), Local Hero (1983), and Field of Dreams (1989).  Peary takes Burt’s trophy for Elmer Gantry (1960) and gives it to Anthony Perkins for Psycho (ignoring the fact that Perkins played variations on Norman Bates pretty much the entirety of his career).  Not even an honorable mention for Sweet Smell of Success (1957—maybe he thought Burt was a supporting actor in this one)!

Charlton Heston – You might have seen the gag in Wayne’s World 2 (1992); an inconsequential bit player (Al Hansen) finds himself switched out with a “better actor”—none other than Heston himself.  I probably laughed harder at the irony of Charlton being considered a good actor because…I don’t think he was all that and a bag of chips.  Heston won for Ben-Hur (1959), but if we consult The Blind Squirrel Theory of Film™ he was at his very best for the titular role of Will Penny (1968).  (I once had a dream where I was trapped in an elevator with Charlton Heston, and all I could do was mock him at every turn: “Get your stinking paws off me—you damn dirty ape!”)

Paul Newman – Newman was nominated for an Oscar six times before the Academy decided to give him a special trophy…and then the following year, he got the Best Actor prize for The Color of Money (1986).  Paul would score two more nominations following this (one of them a favorite of mine, 1994’s Nobody’s Fool) …but how he got overlooked for The Hustler (1961—Peary’s choice), Hud (1963), or The Verdict (1982—this is for me his Oscar-winning performance) is a mystery for the old man on the mountain.

Jack Lemmon – Lemmon already had a Best Supporting Actor Oscar on the mantelpiece for Mister Roberts (1955) when his peers decided to throw a Best Actor prize his way for Save the Tiger (1973).  No, sir.  I don’t like it.  If he was going to win a Best Actor Oscar it should have been for either Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), or Missing (1982—my personal favorite).  Jack received nominations for all three of those films, not to mention Some Like it Hot (1959—picked in AO) and The Apartment (1960).  (He’s also first-rate in 1992’s Glengarry Glen Ross—though this might be considered a supporting turn.)

Jack Nicholson – Another multiple winner, Nicholson got his first Oscar for 1975’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest—a movie I revisited not too long ago, and was disappointed that it has not aged well.  (Danny Peary has a dissenting opinion…but he also argues that Jack’s comic turn in Prizzi’s Honor (1985) should have been honored, and I side with him on this completely.)  I can’t believe Jack got ignored for three better performances (all of them nominated): Five Easy Pieces (1970—Peary’s pick), The Last Detail (1973), and Chinatown (1974—my choice…though it was a tough year with all that Godfather II-ing going on).  (Nicholson later won a Best Supporting for Terms of Endearment [1983] and a second Best Actor trophy for 1997’s As Good As It Gets.)

Al Pacino – The Rod Steiger of his era.  I paid good money to see the film for which they finally gave Pacino an Oscar, Scent of a Woman (1992).  (The only positive thing to come out of that experience was that I spotted soap stars Bill and Susan Seaforth Hayes in the theatre lobby.)  Any of the 70s films that Al received noms for—The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, …and justice for all (my favorite)—would have been better choices.  (Future nominations stopped with his Scent Oscar, yet despite his propensity for scenery chewing, Al’s given some wonderful performances in the twilight of his career: Donnie Brasco [1997], The Insider [1999], Insomnia [2002], etc.)

Denzel Washington – They passed on giving Denzel a second Oscar (he had won a Best Supporting for 1989’s Glory) in 1993 because everybody liked the way Pacino constantly hollered “Hoo-hah!” in the previously mentioned Scent of a Woman.  Denzel should have been the winner that year, but he’d have to wait until his name was called for a Best Actor Oscar for Training Day (2001).  (He even got snubbed for the excellent For Queen and Country [1988].)

Disclaimer: the preceding were my opinions and mine alone—if you disagree with me, I welcome your input in the comments section.  (All that I ask is that you remember that my parents are married.)

B-Western Wednesdays: Heart of the Rio Grande (1942)

You might recall my mentioning earlier that Rancho Yesteryear was the beneficiary of a Starz/Encore/Movieplex “freeview” over the Thanksgiving holidays, and this allowed me to grab some goodies from both their respective On Demand outlets (for the record, I adore how Movieplex allows their movies to play all the way through—just like those on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™’s On Demand—because I’m kind of anal when it comes to closing credits) and the channels themselves.  I tried my darndest to grab The Lone Star Trail (1943) from Encore Westerns On Demand, but it vanished before my suckass Windstream connection could download it.  (Bill Crider got to see it, and mentioned in a recent comment that he may get around to reviewing it one of these days; I suggest we start picketing his blog immediately until he acquiesces to our demands…though I cannot stress enough the importance of staying on the sidewalk because he has a thing about people in his yard.)

While I was denied a dandy Johnny Mack Brown-Tex Ritter oater, I did grab a couple of Buster Crabbe-Fuzzy St. John PRC B’s and a slew of Republic-Columbia programmers starring “America’s favorite singing cowboy,” Gene Autry hizzownself.  (Including 1940’s Melody Ranch, which was reviewed back on the blog in 2011.)  So, don’t be surprised to see a few of Gene’s moon pitchers turn up in this Wednesday space in the future—including today’s entry, Heart of the Rio Grande (1942).

You’ll find when you watch enough B-Westerns that there’s usually a wealthy bidnessman character out to screw over the townsfolk until the hero steps in to put a smackdown on those shenanigans.  Heart has such a rich character, but he’s surprisingly benign when it comes to making life miserable for the disadvantaged; in this movie, Randolph Lane’s (Pierre Watkin—billed as “Pierre Watkins”) only vice is that he’s been a little delinquent in the parenting department—which is why his daughter Connie (Edith Fellows) is spoiled rotten.  The students at the private school Connie attends will be spending two months at the Smoke River Dude Ranch—accompanied by chaperone Alice Bennett (Fay McKenzie)—and Connie would rather make other plans.  Father Randolph exercises his parental veto and Connie is soon on a train heading West.

The Smoke River Dude Ranch is technically a horse ranch—but mismanagement from ex-foreman Hap Callahan (William Haade) has necessitated that owner “Skipper” Forbes (Sarah Padden) open the place up to tourists to pay the bills.  Hap never stops pissing and moaning about this…though it probably has more to do with the fact that Skipper has hired a new foreman in Gene Autry.  Gene and loyal sidekick “Frog” Millhouse (Smiley Burnette) meet Ms. Bennett and her charges at the depot (Frog immediately falls—literally—for Alice), just in time to see Connie continue on to San Francisco.  Autry and his horse Champion catch up to the Frisco Express, and he pulls her off the train because…damn it, she’s there to have fun.

Connie behaves…how should I put this?  Well, I’ll spell it out in case there are any kids in the room: she’s a proper P-I-L-L.  She steals a truck from the ranch to make another desperate bid for freedom but the vehicle has no brakes, and she ends up crashing it in a ditch.  (She insists on walking all the way back to Smoke River even though Gene offers her the use of Champion.)  Later, she marks up her back with lipstick to look as though she’s being whipped during her stay (she sends the photos to her father, and believe me, they will come back to bite her in the derriere).  When Gene gives Connie a lecture on doing things for others without expecting anything in return, the girl gets the bright idea to tamper with the cinch on Hap’s saddle so he’ll lose a riding contest with Autry.  (Connie apologizes when Hap is seriously hurt, and when Hap draws a gun on Gene during an exchange of fisticuffs, Autry tells him to hit the road.)

Eventually, Connie begins to understand that being a rich bitch will not win friends and influence people (well…maybe not in good ways), and she starts to enjoy herself at Smoke River.  Then her old man turns up, wanting to know why his daughter is being abused (those damn pictures!) …and Gene finds himself having to teach Papa Lane a lesson as well.

If you’ve expressed concern that all these teachable moments Gene must impart adversely affects his duties at the ranch…allow me to assuage your fears.  Gene likes nothing more than being a scold; there’s even a scene where he speechifies to some of the ranch hands (played by the Jimmy Wakely Trio, including Wakely and Johnny “Ten Little Bottles” Bond) that they should be spending their hard-working wages on war bonds instead of liquor and card games…because damn it, there’s a war on.  Gene’s tendency to be a bit bossy is one of the reasons why I prefer Roy Rogers’ movie western output—I’m not saying Roy wasn’t guilty of a little preaching now and then, but he seemed to conceal it better.

That having been said, I got a kick out of Heart of the Rio Grande.  I know, I’m on the record as affirming that my preference for Autry movies are the more adult ones he made at Columbia (with serials veteran John English directing), but Heart is a great little oater, and I think it’s due to the fact that the character played by Edith Fellows (whom you may remember from those Five Little Peppers movies) is more than just a one-dimensional brat.  Fellows really makes Connie unlikable in the early frames of the movie…and yet when she realizes what an unpleasant person she’s been, her conversion to regular gal is quite realistic.  (She and Gene become great pals—he even teaches her some roping tricks!)

I know you’re going to wonder if I’ve developed a fever—but the other kiddie thesp in Heart, Joe Strauch, Jr., also didn’t cause me to retch violently like I usually do (see She Who Shall Not Be Named).  Strauch has some amusing moments as Frog Millhouse’s younger brother Tadpole (that’s a joke, son!—he’s even decked out in the same “Frog” clothing, just a Mini-Me version)—a role he initiated in the Autry oater Under Fiesta Stars (1941) and continued in three additional Autry vehicles after that (Strauch also appeared in Beneath Western Skies [1944] with Smiley and Bob Livingston).  Strauch’s main movie fame was as George “Spanky” McFarland’s double in the Our Gang comedies—he even appears onscreen (as “Tubby”) in the Our Gang short Fightin’ Fools (1941).  When I was watching Heart of the Rio Grande, I heard what I thought was one of the female students refer to Frog as Tadpole’s father and had to run it back to make sure I hadn’t heard incorrectly.  (As it turns out, I did.  Frog is a bachelor, so that family arrangement would have been very interesting.)

Heart of the Rio Grande gets a few extra points for integrating the musical numbers much better than your usual Gene Autry outing; Gene performs Deep in the Heart of Texas (the movie’s original title was to have been Heart of Texas) and one of my favorites, I’ll Wait for You, while the Wakely Trio tackle a Johnny Bond composition in Cimarron.  Even Fellows is allowed a number (I’ve previously joked that she was Columbia’s answer to Deanna Durbin…though this is a Republic release) in Rainbow in the Night.  Directed by longtime film editor William Morgan (who helmed quite a few of Gene’s Republics, including Home in Wyomin’ that same year) and scripted by Lillie Hayward & Winston Miller (from Newlin B. Wildes’ story “Sure, Money Folks, But—“), Heart of the Rio Grande is a lovely little B-oater.  It’s available for purchase (I love how Gene’s westerns have been painstakingly restored) or for rent at your friendly neighborhood ClassicFlix.

Book Review: 101 Horror Movies/101 Sci-Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die

Because life can often be as serendipitous as the movies, the news that two books edited by film critic-scholar Steven Jay Schneider—101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die and 101 Sci-Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die—have been re-released this October after languishing in publishing limbo for the past seven years seems like an incredible coinky-dink.  I’m sure it isn’t, of course, but nevertheless this is fantastic news for those of you who have been searching high and low for the perfect gift for that special someone this Halloween.  (Hey…I’m sure there are folks out there who exchange Halloween gifts.  Stop looking me like I’m crazy.  Well, more than you usually do, at any rate.)

The name “Steven Jay Schneider” may be familiar to many of you movie mavens out there: he’s the general editor of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die—a hefty reference tome that has influenced a good many movie websites and blogs out there in NetLand, to be sure.  Schneider has since turned to movie producing (he produced the latest Blair Witch reboot, among many films), but maintains an affection for horror movies; his previous books include Horror Film and Psychoanalysis: Freud's Worst Nightmares and Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe.  Publicity material for 101 Horror/101 Sci-Fi states that S.J.’s three favorite horror movies are The Haunting (the 1963 version), Rosemary’s Baby, and The Shining.  (Well…two out of three ain’t bad, I suppose.)

As someone who unabashedly prefers older movies, 101 Horror Movies features essays on many Thrilling Days of Yesteryear favorites—ranging from silent cinema (The Golem, Nosferatu) to the Universal classics (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man) to cult essentials (The Masque of the Red Death, The Devil Rides Out).  I was particularly impressed with how the book approaches cinema horror from a wider standpoint than just American movies; you’ll find a lot of entries like Ringu, The Devil’s Backbone, and Onibaba (this will make the rounds on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ in December) …as well as foreign classics like Eyes Without a Face, Black Sunday, and Viy.

Of course, the handicap with these kinds of books is that they encourage folks (let’s use me as an example) to invariably ask “But what about…?”  You won’t find The Mummy (the 1932 Karloff version) in this book, nor Son of Frankenstein (if you include the first two, why not the third?).  Night of the Demon is glaringly absent, and I’m puzzled by the inclusion of entries like M and Diabolique—while suspenseful, I don’t think I would classify them as horror movies.  And at the risk of having to fight off everyone in the comments section, I’m still bewildered by the popularity of The Shining, one of the most critically-overrated films in the history of cinema.  (Do what damage you must; I only ask that you refrain from insinuating my parents aren’t married.)

Here’s the explanation why owning both books are essential: 101 Sci-Fi Movies lists movies that could be considered horror, but were probably placed in this volume because of their emphasis on science.  (Science!)  Movies like Them! and Invasion of the Body Snatchers are horror movies to me, though I should stress it’s always troubling to try and box in a movie to just one category.  Just as with 101 Horror Movies, Sci-Fi features silent movie entries (A Trip to the Moon, Metropolis) and some vintage classics like The Invisible Man (the 1933 version) and Things to Come.  (There’s a fifteen-year gap between Things and The Thing from Another World, suggesting that there was a dry spell when it came to science-fiction on the silver screen.)  101 Sci-Fi makes room for some of my genuine favorites: Seconds, Quatermass and the Pit, and Sleeper (it’s in there, honest to my grandma!).

Both 101 Horror and 101 Sci-Fi are larded with rich illustrations, and the essays themselves in both books are clear and concise.  Unfortunately, these entries are not immune from the occasional error; my favorite is this one from Dracula: “Tod Browning made a series of psychologically twisted, cult-like films with Lon Chaney (the actor originally cast as Dracula).  Chaney played a “disturbed” corner of a little love triangle—he was a horribly deformed suitor in Browning’s 1932 Freaks.”  Considering Lon died in 1930 and Freaks came out in 1932…that is quite a feat.  Here’s the thing: Freaks is listed as one of the 101 Horror Movies, and a glance at the cast list reveals no mention of The Man of a Thousand Faces.  (You’d think Schneider would have caught this…maybe he was distracted by being called to the set.)

So here’s the $64 question: are the 101 films in both the Horror and Sci-Fi book releases really movies you must see before departing to that Great Multiplex in the Sky?  Yes.  Yes, they are.  (I’ll be around to check on your progress in about another hour.)  Okay, I’m just being a little facetious; these books should be accepted solely as a guideline for recommendations in case you’re presented with the ultimate movie-watching dilemma: “What haven’t I seen already?”  (Since I was able to check off most of the older movies, I should really seek out more recent titles as The Descent, Let the Right One In, and It Follows.)  I enjoyed poring through both of these books; the only Steven Jay Schneider publication with which I had a previous passing familiarity was 101 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die (I picked this one up for change at Hamilton Books), and while it was a breezy read it can’t hold a candle to the Danny Peary trilogy (Cult Movies, Cult Movies 2, Cult Movies 3).  I’d highly recommend a purchase of 101 Horror Movies You Must See Before You Die and 101 Sci-Fi Movies You Must See Before You Die; they’re digest-sized, and would fit snugly in that significant other’s Halloween stocking or Trick-or-Treat bag.  Many thanks to Steve Roth at Quatro Publishing for providing TDOY with review copies.

Book Review: Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Gorilla!

I’ve acquired a reputation as a Luddite when it comes to certain forms of technology.  For example, I’m the last remaining person on Earth not to own a cellphone.  I’ve never had a desire for one, even though I readily admit they come in handy from time to time.  To put this into perspective—both of the ‘rents own cellphones, and yet the only time they’ll explore the features on the DISH satellite system is when they inadvertently screw up something I tried to DVR.  (I have noticed this has happened a lot lately.)  In my former career as a night auditor/hotel clerk, I was constantly having to answer the telephone—and that might go a long way towards explaining why a ringing cellphone is the last thing I near my person.

But I’d like to say a good word or two about Kindle.  I think being able to store a library on my tablet is a pretty cool thing, particularly when storage space seems to get smaller and smaller with each new house we rent.  I have a few friends on Facebook who view Kindle (and other forms of electronic bookage) with disdain, rhapsodizing about how reading books just isn’t the same unless you’re able to lovingly caress the paper pages and enjoy that new book smell (or old book smell, depending on the vintage).  If this brings you pleasure in life…have at it.  I still have a good many tomes on my bookshelf that I like to pore through from time to time—but I can do it faster (and it’s less cumbersome) with Kindle.  The electronic book industry seems to be a thriving one; my fellow CMBA members Rupert Alistair and John Greco are just several people who have had luck with the e-book format, and I myself have even contributed to e-books.  (Don’t think I started building a swimming pool from all this, though—the proceeds go to worthy charities.)

One of the first e-books I bought for my Kindle was Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Gorilla!—a collection of movie reviews penned by my Facebook compadre John V. “Jay” Brennan.  The content originally appeared as essays written for a number of websites maintained by Jay, including The Secret Vortex, The Stuff You Gotta Watch, and Laurel and Hardy Central (he’s one of the co-founders).  (Note: if you click on any of these links and get a “Traffic Quota Exceeded”—there is nothing wrong with your computer.  Jay is just a very popular guy.)  It’s a fun movie book to peruse, because you can devour with relish the subjects that appeal to you…and skip over those that do not.

Jay and I share a mutual appreciation for certain types of movies: his likes include vehicles featuring Laurel & Hardy (natch), W.C. Fields, Abbott & Costello, The Marx Brothers, and the Bowery Boys.  Films with Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Popeye also rate highly with Mr. B, and I was also tickled that he shares the same disdain for Roger Moore as 007 as I do.  (Not a fan.  Sorry.)  His favorite filmmakers are Billy Wilder, Akira Kurosawa, and Alfred Hitchcock, and in addition, Gorilla is sprinkled with humorous personal anecdotes, including his attendance at a Chiller Expo in 2008 (where he insulted a Ferengi) and his lifelong affinity for schlock-horror movies like The Incredible Melting Man and Q: The Winged Serpent.  (“That one had Michael Moriarty, Candy Clark, Richard Roundtree, and David Carradine.  Wow!  A nutjob, a cutie, an action star and a Carradine all in the same movie.  You would think with that cast, they wouldn’t need a winged serpent to spice things up.”)

The title of the book is explained by Jay in a review of the Bowery Boys romp Spook Busters (1946): “Spook Busters breaks what, to me, is a cardinal rule of slapstick comedies: never kill the gorilla.  If you’re going to use a gorilla in a comedy, killing it at the end leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  In a horror movie like Murders in the Rue Morgue, fine—kill the gorilla.  But in a comedy, he should triumph at the end, as in Laurel and Hardy’s Swiss Miss, when he makes a surprise reappearance after Stan and Ollie believe he had plummeted to his death.  In Spook Busters, after being cooped up in a cage for most of the picture, the gorilla escapes and is shot to death by Douglass Dumbrille and the cops.  It might be a little thing, but it just spoils the final moments of the film for me.  I have my movie rules, and I don’t like to see them broken.”  Brennan’s advocacy in protecting celluloid gorillas did not go unnoticed by the African Wildlife Federation, who honored Jay with its “Activist of the Year” Award in 2012.  (Okay, I made this last part up.)

What I enjoy most about Jay’s book is that his essays are clear, concise and to the point; he doesn’t go in for a lot of the frilly profundity that pockmarks a lot of film criticism but rather writes in a fashion that John Q. Moviegoer can easily comprehend.  Okay, I should say that’s the second thing that I like most about Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Gorilla!—the real selling point is that the price of this delightful collection of movie essays is only $4.99…a mere bag of shells.  Drive by Amazon (you’ll know it when you see it—it’s that huge place that resembles a penitentiary) and grab yourself a copy for hours of reading pleasure.

From the DVR: Lured (1947)

It’s a familiar story in classic movies: a talented girl, practiced in the terpsichorean arts, is determined to make it big as part of a show…but the production folds unexpectedly, leaving our would-be star stranded and badly in need of work to keep body and soul together.  This is the case for Sandra Carpenter (Lucille Ball), who has been forced to take a job as a taxi dancer to make ends meet once she’s been left high and dry in the city of London.

One night, a representative for producer Robert Fleming (George Sanders) invites Sandra to audition for a new show that Fleming is producing with partner Julian Wilde (Sir Cedric Hardwicke).  Sandra tries to coax her pal Lucy Barnard (Tanis Chandler) into auditioning as well, but Lucy is determined to quit show business in order to travel with a mysterious individual she’s met through a newspaper personal column.  Not a particular smart move on Lucy’s part; she vanishes from the scene and during a chance meeting with Scotland Yard’s Inspector Harley Temple (Charles Coburn), Sandra and Temple piece together enough suspicion to suggest that Lucy is a victim of a serial killer known only to the gendarmes as “The Poet Killer.”

Sandra is pressed into service to act as bait for the killer—answering various personal ads in an attempt to locate the poet murderer, which brings her into contact with suspects like Charles van Druten (Boris Karloff), a demented dress designer.  As her investigation continues, the finger of suspicion slowly starts to point toward Fleming, with whom Sandra is falling in love.  Qué lástima!

I recorded Lured, a 1947 melodrama directed by future cult director Douglas Sirk and written by Leo Rosten (from a story by Jacques Companéez, Simon Gantillon, and Ernest Neuville), the day The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ scheduled a day of films featuring Thrilling Days of Yesteryear idol Boris Karloff.  I’d never seen the film, and because I had heard a few positive things about the movie I decided to take a peek.  To be frank…other than functioning as a red herring (is Karloff’s character the “Poet Killer”?) Boris isn’t too particularly well-served in this vehicle—which is why I’ve always been curious as to why his presence is as played up as it is (he’s prominently featured on the cover of the DVD release from Kino Lorber).

I didn’t dislike Lured—watching it won’t be a waste of time—but I have to agree with one online reviewer who described the film as “a delicious plum pudding of a cult movie.”  It’s nice if you’re partial to plum pudding…but for those viewers who’d like a little meat to go with their melodrama (after all—how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?) it’s going to come up a bit short.  For a modest-budgeted independent film (released by United Artists), Lured boasts a sumptuous sheen…and I admire some of director Sirk’s exquisite touches (the faux Victorian look of cobblestone streets and gaslights), particularly the inventive opening credits sequence.  Lured’s raison d'être seems to be to showcase Lucy’s character as a clotheshorse…which I wondered about constantly throughout the film—how does a taxi dancer afford a wardrobe like that?  (Perhaps the tips at the dance hall are better than I thought…)  The clothes in the film come courtesy of designer Elois Jenssen, who was also in charge of the redheaded comedienne’s wardrobe on I Love Lucy until she was unceremoniously pushed out in favor of R-K-O veteran Edward Stevenson, a longtime Ball crony.

The other aspect of Lured that bothered me is that the Sandra Carpenter character is inducted as a member of Scotland Yard’s police force rather quickly; her only qualification appears to be the ability to keenly observe her surroundings (she’s asked by Temple for a description of his office despite not having spent much time in it).  I don’t discount that scrupulous scrutiny is an integral part of police work but I just had trouble buying how easy it was for Sandra to join The Thin Blue Line.  (“You previously worked in a dance hall, eh?  Congratulations—you’ve got the job!  Have a revolver!”) 

I know, I know—it’s nitpicking; Lured is mostly about style than substance.  The strong cast in the film is Lured’s major asset; it’s one of Ball’s best cinematic showcases, and you know I’m up for anything featuring George Sanders (who receives billing over his co-star).  (Sanders, in speaking to one of his girlfriends in the picture, even admits that he’s “an unmitigated cad.”  True dat.)  The list of old pros also includes Coburn, Hardwicke, Karloff, Joseph Calleia, Alan Mowbray, and Alan Napier…but for me, the real joy was having George Zucco on hand as Lucy’s “handler.”  Zucco put the “sin” in “sinister” throughout his film career, so it was a treat to see him in a lighter vein; there’s a running gag throughout Lured in which he asks Lucy for the answer to a crossword puzzle entry…and while claiming she doesn’t know, she inadvertently gives him the solution through a perfectly chance remark.  The duo’s interactions are among the highlights of a movie that midway during its U.S. release became Personal Column because the bluenoses thought Lured sounded too much like “lurid.”

At one time, motion pictures like Lured were known as “women’s pictures” but their dark, melodramatic content has apparently influenced today’s critics to classify them as film noir.  If Lured is noir, it’s a fat-free one; I prefer to watch Lucy in 1946’s The Dark Corner (which might very well be my favorite of her feature films) where she plays a secretary determined to help her private investigator employer (Mark Stevens) beat a murder rap.  (A smart secretary would let her boss fry for criminal blandness…but who am I to judge?)  Be that as it may, Lured is an enjoyable time-passer despite its weaknesses, so I don’t hesitate to give it the TDOY seal of approval.

CMBA 2015 Fall Blogathon – Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The Tall Target (1951)

The following essay is Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s contribution to the Planes, Trains and Automobiles Blogathon—a Fall 2015 event hosted by the member blogs in the Classic Movie Blog Association.  For a complete list of the participants and the movies/topics discussed, click here.

New York City police sergeant John Kennedy (Dick Powell) is a man on a mission: he has obtained information that Abraham Lincoln, who’s just been elected as the sixteenth President of the United States, is to be assassinated during a speech in Baltimore, MD on his way to his Washington, DC inauguration.  Kennedy has contacted both the Secretary of War and the newly elected Lincoln about what he’s learned…but his superior on the police force, Simon Stroud (Tom Powers), dismisses his concerns.  Unable to persuade either Stroud or militia colonel Caleb Jeffers (Adolphe Menjou) of the danger Honest Abe is facing, Kennedy resigns from the police force, determined to go it alone.

Kennedy’s throwing down of his badge in disgust is probably not the smartest move he could have made in this situation.  Since he’s no longer a cop, he technically has little authority in his intention to arrest the conspirator(s) involved in the plot.  Furthermore, a confederate in the form of Tim Riley (Regis Toomey), who was enlisted to secure Kennedy a ticket on the “Midnight Flyer” to Baltimore, has disappeared.  As the Flyer pulls out of the station toward its destination, Kennedy locates Riley…he’s been murdered.  And when Kennedy returns to his seat on the train, it’s now occupied by a stranger (Leif Erickson) who’s co-opted Kennedy’s identity and credentials.

By the 1950s, director Anthony Mann was starting to embark on his successful career in movie westerns; Mann would borrow elements from the series of gritty film noirs he had previously directed to use in these oaters…but he hadn’t completely abandoned noir at this time.  He helmed 1950’s Side Street, a taut little suspenser that featured the stars of They Live by Night (1948)—Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell—and a year later rode herd on an interesting vehicle that introduced elements of noir and suspense in a period piece: The Tall Target (1951).  (Mann had performed the same task two years earlier with Reign of Terror [1949—a.k.a. The Black Book], an offbeat entry that features the background of the French Revolution as a film noir.)

The idea for Target was inspired by an incident known as “the Baltimore Plot”—Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency (“We never sleep”) purportedly learned of an attempt on Lincoln’s life as Abe traveled to D.C. for his first inauguration in 1861.  Scholars to this day argue as to the validity of the plot—and even Lincoln felt sheepish about “sneaking” into the Nation’s capital; his line about attending his inauguration “like a thief in the night” is present in Target—but whether or not the details are true, you can’t deny that it makes for a crackerjack movie plot…particularly in light of that whole unpleasantness at Ford’s Theatre four years later.  (The movie’s title, The Tall Target, comes from a line in the film spoken by one of the conspirators: “Mr. Lincoln’s a tall target…there’ll be another day.”)

The story for Target was concocted by George Worthing Yates and Geoffrey Homes; Homes, who also went by “Daniel Mainwaring,” is famous for writing the quintessential film noir Out of the Past (1947). Yates, who would wind up writing Target’s screenplay with Art Cohn, had a movie resume that included the original 1938 serial of The Lone Ranger and vehicles like Sinbad, the Sailor (1947) and This Woman is Dangerous (1952).  (Both men would gravitate to science fiction-themed flicks as the fifties wore on: Homes wrote the screenplay for Invasion of the Body Snatchers [1956] and Yates’ sci-fi contributions include Them! [1954] and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers [1956].)  The two scribes do an admirable job of embellishing on the details of “the Baltimore Plot,” turning the proceedings into a first-rate thriller.

The star of The Tall Target is Dick Powell, an actor whose fortunes in the movies changed overnight when he was cast as Raymond Chandler’s literary sleuth Philip Marlowe in RKO’s Murder. My Sweet (1944).  In the 1930s, Dick was Warner Brothers’ resident chorus boy, appearing in scads of that studio’s sprightly musicals…usually alongside Ruby Keeler.  Powell eventually tired of doing what he called “the same stupid story” (the Warner musicals also lost a lot of their zip once the Production Code went into effect) but a job change to Paramount by the 1940s didn’t satisfy him, either.  With the Marlowe role in Murder, Powell refashioned himself as a tough guy in movies like Cornered (1945) and Johnny O’Clock (1947); the actor even showed off his new image on radio, headlining series like Rogue’s Gallery and Richard Diamond, Private Detective.

By the 1950s, Powell would starting to cut back on his appearances in front of the camera (I blame The Reformer and the Redhead [1950], which he made with wife June Allyson) to tackle assignments behind the device, directing movies like Split Second (1953) and The Enemy Below (1957).  (Powell also embraced that newfangled upstart called television, joining with three of his other Hollywood pals to form Four Star Productions while later hosting the successful Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater.)  So I’ve always thought it interesting that the actor explored the parameters of his tough guy persona in 1951; first by starring in this interesting thriller and later appearing in You Never Can Tell, a fantasy comedy in which Dick is the human form of a dog returned from the Great Beyond to solve the mystery of his murder.

Powell’s role in Target is one of my favorites…and to be honest, I think it’s one of his best.  His John Kennedy (yes, don’t think that hasn’t caused an eye or two to bug out among those who watch the film for the first time) is an intelligent, resourceful cop who’s not above resorting to fisticuffs when his life is threatened.  Modern day moviemakers could learn a lot from Target in that while the protagonist is frequently placed in tight situations they’re never the kind that induce eye-rolling and cries of “Oh, come on!” like any number of Bruce Willis vehicles I won’t sully this blog by naming.  Kennedy is able to extricate himself from peril several times in the film because he manages to stay one step ahead of his adversaries (though admittedly, luck plays a part in one of his escapes—but not of the implausible kind).

Kennedy’s intense interest in protecting the President stems not from politics, but simply a personal one: Kennedy had been appointed as Lincoln’s bodyguard while Abe campaigned in New York, and after only two days of being in Lincoln’s company, Kennedy walked away believing “I was never so taken with a human man.”   One aspect of The Tall Target that fascinates me is that the politics in the film isn’t the usual cut-and-dried “North good, South bad” dichotomy that permeates movies of this type.  There is spirited discussion, pro and con, on the eve of Lincoln’s inauguration and the events that will result in the War Between the States; one of my favorite minor characters in the movie is played by OTR veteran Will Wright, a Hartford, CT building supplies bidnessman named Thomas Ogden who’s no fan of Lincoln because Ogden’s sussed out his company stands to lose a lot of money if there’s a war.

Wright’s character, along with many others, serves as a red herring because as in any good suspense thriller, Kennedy’s adversaries are often difficult to spot.  Throughout Target, individuals believed to be allies will turn on the hero, just as those people who are hostile or indifferent to his plight later come through in the clutch.  At the risk of spoiling any of the events in the movie, the one clear villain is the mysterious stranger (Leif Erickson) who tries to pass himself off as Kennedy by appropriating John’s hat and coat (containing his credentials and other personal effects—like his gun).  The character who gives Kennedy a much-needed assist in his investigation is a slave maid named Rachel, played by the amazing Ruby Dee in one of her earliest film roles.  Rachel is not some uncomfortable Butterfly-McQueen-in-Gone-with-the-Wind stereotype, but a three-dimensional individual who admittedly is torn between helping out Kennedy and her loyalty to the mistress she serves, a Southern belle named Ginny Beaufort (Paula Raymond).  Ginny and Rachel are on their way back to their plantation, “Tall Trees,” with Ginny’s brother Lance (Marshall Thompson)—a West Point grad—in tow.

Moviemakers learned early on (beginning with 1903’s The Great Train Robbery) that setting dramatic conflicts against the background of a moving train was a surefire way to generate suspense and excitement.  In Target, there are many nods to one of the granddaddies (or is it grandmammas?) of the genre, The Lady Vanishes (1938), in that the events in the beginning of Target resemble the missing-person plot of Lady (just where did Riley get to?) and later in Target, a vital clue in the assassination plot is scrawled in the soot residue that’s collected on a train window.  Target also acts as a warm-up for The Narrow Margin, released the following year; the claustrophobic atmosphere of Target (thanks to the striking black-and-white cinematography of Paul C. Vogel) is quite reminiscent of that memorable Chicago-to-L.A. train excursion featuring TDOY faves Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor.

The real reason why you watch The Tall Target: that's noir icon Percy Helton in the bottom-right corner as a minor character named "Beamish."

Save for a snatch of The Battle Hymn of the Republic at the closing credits of The Tall Target, there is no music score in the film—something I’m sure was rather innovative at the time, as the soundtrack features nothing but the sounds of the train and the various bells and whistles that accompany such locomotives.  Target does, however, feature a plethora of beloved character actors that’s become a hallmark of this blog: Florence Bates and Katherine Warren are quite good in their roles, and Will Geer and Victor Kilian provide comic relief as the train conductor and engineer, respectively—they’re not all that concerned about rumors of assassination, they just want to make sure the train runs on time.  That’s future Leave it to Beaver mom Barbara Billingsley as the mother of the little brat who makes himself a nuisance on the train, and you’ll also spot the likes of Robert Easton, Jonathan Hale, Frank Sully, and Emmett Lynn.  (I like how the indestructible Regis Toomey continues the tradition of appearing in his pal Powell’s movies, by the way—in this one, he plays the doomed Riley.)  One actor who’s difficult to spot (he appears in the early scene where Powell’s Kennedy is making his case to investigate the assassination rumors) is Ken Christy—but that unmistakable voice gives him away every time.  And yes, Honest Abe even makes an appearance…in the form of actor Leslie Kimmell.