The Silver Screen Oasis

ChiO wrote: Whereas Fuller portrays American society as an insane asylum, Conrad focuses more on the individual's pursuit of the American Dream as a form of insanity.

I have to wonder, Owen, if the themes of this plot might have been at least a small part of the media-culture inspiration for Norman Mailer's novel "An American Dream", especially as his protagonist, secretly responsible for the manslaughter demise of his wife, manages to sidestep acceptance of his own guilt for her death, and the nearly syncronous affair with his immigrant housekeeper, by forging it all into his new Life Plan for dominating everyone through belligerent self-justification.

"Shockproof" is a film directed by Douglas Sirk from a Samuel Fuller script. It involves Cornell Wilde as a parole officer that falls in love with one of his parolees played by Patricia Knight, his then real wife.

A rather misleading title gives us what happens when a man can't live by the rules he expects others to abide by. Everyone winds up in a world of trouble that no one could see coming but should have. Not nearly as tense as I was expecting but held up better as straight drama more than a real noir film. And then there was that ending. For me it undid all the film goodwill it had built.

A real fine performance from Knight in what must be the highlight of a very short career. I think she does a better job than Wilde. I think he plays a sap.

Compact and quickly paced it has some parts that are hard to buy. It also has one of the worst decorated houses I've seen in a film. I couldn't decide if it represented the confusion in the house or whether they had a load of wallpaper they had to use. Come on, who papers the ceiling?

It's worth it just to watch Knight.

On Sunday night I saw “Johnny Apollo” (1940). This Noir directed by Henry Hathaway was a pleasant surprise for my wife and I (she loved it). Tyrone Power plays a rich young lad who has to come to terms with his father’s (superbly impersonated by Edward Arnold in a performance that deserved an AA nomination) conviction for embezzlement and the ostracism to which he is subjected by his father’s circle, which leads him to the dark side of life; enter Gangster Lloyd Nolan and his peers: some menacing hechmen, an alcoholic lawyer expertly played by Charley Grapewin and Nolan’s sweetheart, nightclub entertainer Dot Lamour. An engrossing film which features one of Tyrone Power’s finest performances.

I thought that Let Us Live was a bit too similar to Lang's proto-noir, You Only Live Once (1937) with Fonda and Sylvia Sidney, but I have a real soft spot for Maureen O'Sullivan and her plaintive, tremulous voice that slides so easily into a giggle, so I stayed with it and found it beautifully acted by the leads (even if Maureen and Ralph do go OTT a bit).

I love the quiet air of Let Us Live (1939) in the opening sequences. It almost makes me wonder if Columbia's Harry Cohn pulled one of his fast ones on John Brahm and brought in another director to goose the story along for the latter part of the movie. Cohn reportedly used to do that to everyone but Frank Capra!

I agree, it just fell apart and got predictable.

I'm glad someone else loves Maureen. She's near the top of my favorites list because she could make any role, no matter how stupid or trivial, convincing and in fact, charming. She worked very hard and seems to have appeared in everything from top notch productions to B's, all with the same energy and dedication.

JackFavell wrote:I agree, it just fell apart and got predictable.

I'm glad someone else loves Maureen. She's near the top of my favorites list because she could make any role, no matter how stupid or trivial, convincing and in fact, charming. She worked very hard and seems to have appeared in everything from top notch productions to B's, all with the same energy and dedication.

I have the feeling that she might have been fun to know. In between working very hard for a very long time, she was also married to talented but fairly profligate director John Farrow, (who appears to have had a rampant case of satyriasis), had seven children, nursed Mia through polio as a child, buried her eldest son in 1958 after he died in a plane he was piloting, and worked for years with "that damned Cheetah," whom she also called "that ape son of a b***h," (her words, not mine). According to one quote about the Tarzan experience, "Cheetah bit me whenever he could. The [Tarzan] apes were all homosexuals, eager to wrap their paws around Johnny Weismuller's thighs. They were jealous of me, and I loathed them."

While she may have found them tedious, I've been enjoying the recent number of Tarzan movies on TCM on Saturday. There's a very healthy sensuality between Johnny Weismuller and O'Sullivan, even after the Production Code made them wear more duds and get hitched. She, Weismuller, and Johnny Sheffield were great together...though I am tempted to advise marital counseling for the pair at times while watching repeated rifts between the couple when those stuffed shirts from civilization pop up beneath their jungle tree house--tempting Jane away. Here's an interesting article on Salon about their match.

Oh! And after both their spouses had died, Robert Ryan and Maureen O'Sullivan were reportedly quite happy together for a spell. Once again, fate was unkind, after Ryan died much too early in 1973. Maureen went on to marry a "civilian," James E. Cushing.

Two favorite Maureen movies:

Woman Wanted (1935): McCrea and O'Sullivan had phenomenal chemistry together from the first scene, when he mimes asking her for a date through the window--not realizing that she is on trial for her life.


The Tall T (1957): Loved her character's discovery of her own spunkiness, thanks to circumstances and Mr. Scott.

That first picture is beautiful. I didn't recognize her at first.

That's one of my favorite pictures! She looks like such a hothouse flower in it. Here's another quite different one:



I LOVED Woman Wanted..I agree, her chemistry with Joel was wonderful (whose wasn't?), I especially liked the scene when they are in the closed up diner making hamburgers.

Her stories of the loathsome Cheetah are pretty hilarious, I suspect a much more sharp tongued and ambitious woman hid under the sweet, youthful characterizations of Dora in David Copperfield and Nick Charles' despairing niece, Dorothy Wynant.

She had a surprising range - I was shocked watching The Tall T, because I had spent at least 30 to 45 minutes watching the film before I realized that the bland Mrs. Mims was O'Sullivan. Wasn't she also a sad, rather dull young woman whose friends all turn out to be fortune hunters in some other movie? I wish I could remember. But anyway, she was equally adept at playing flibbertigibbets.

I love her in Tarzan movies, Her mischievous, sexy side really makes Johnny Weissmuller look even better than he already does.

Hey, I'm really kinda loving visiting here. Moira, you are quite a riot...and JackaaaAaaay your descriptions of stars are gentle and lovely and subtle. ("A hothouse flower"). Maureen always looked and sounded delicate and tremulous. Her Jane days she looked pretty good. She must've brought out "something" in John Farrow.

Thanks! You ain't so bad yourself!

I remember the movie I was talking about - It's Maisie Was a Lady, with Lew Ayres, and Ann Sothern as Maisie. One of my favorite entries in the series. She's really super in it.

Moira, very interesting post and the Salon article is great. I recently saw the three first entries of the MGM Tarzan, which IMO are the best and I had lots of fun watching them. Maureen looks so beautiful in these early films, she was quite a knockout beauty with class. I recently saw her perform in the MGM B picture "Sporting Blood" (1940) with Bob Young and I liked her spirited performance as Lewis Stone's daughter, falling in love with the "wrong man" impersonated by Young, whose father ran away with O'Sullivan's mum some 20 years ago. Good flick. I also liked her very much in Bob Montgomery's "The Hide Out" (1934), looking equally lovely and tacking a different role, as the naïve daughter of a simple, honest, hard-working and good-natured country couple, who falls for this other Bob -impersonating a Cad.

Hide-Out is awesome!

Thanx Jack. D'ya think Maureen O'Sullivan has enough of film oeuvre to make her TCM's "Star of the Month"? If so, what would you want them to program?