From Those Were the Days:

1946 - Mutual Radio debuted The Casebook of Gregory Hood. The show was the summer replacement series for Sherlock Holmes. The mystery series became a regular weekly program in the fall of 1946.
11:07:41 PM    comment []  trackback []  

“There was never a woman like Gilda!”

Because I was off from work last night (and believe me, if my employers could find a loophole that would allow them to work me seven days a week without having to pay overtime, they would) I grabbed the opportunity to get caught up with a few outside projects that I had been putting off for some time now. Having finished those, I decided to reward myself with some DVD time, so I selected a couple of movies from the oeuvre of actor Glenn Ford.

The reason for this stems from a comment made by fellow blogger and cineaste Pete M. about a remark I had made regarding Cornel Wilde. According to Pete, he would apply the patented Blind Squirrel Film Theory™ to Glenn Ford’s performance in The Big Heat (1953), noting that he didn’t think much of Ford as an actor. I had never really given the matter much thought, but I think Pete may be onto something here. A viewing of the 1946 film noir classic Gilda in the wee a.m. hours has swayed me to his way of thinking.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Gilda, and after seeing it again this morning the bloom is definitely off the rose. In the liner notes to the DVD (a version that was restored by the UCLA Film and Television archive a good many years back), director Charles Vidor remarks that when filming began on September 4, 1945, “We didn’t have a finished script—we never knew what was coming next—and we started the picture without a leading man.” Well, the script still seems unfinished; with both choppy continuity and a deux ex machina ending tacked on to end the movie on a positive note. Still, it does feature Rita Hayworth at her sexiest, doing the semi-striptease to “Put the Blame on Mame” (which Rita lip-synchs to the warbling of Anita Ellis, who at one time was the featured vocalist on The Red Skelton Show)—and great supporting work from George Macready, Joe Sawyer and Joseph Calleia (Gerald Mohr of radio’s The Adventures of Philip Marlowe has a small role, also). Personally, I think Ford and Macready’s “romance” is much more interesting than that of Ford and Hayworth’s.

After Gilda, I chose 3:10 to Yuma (1957)—which is my pick for Ford’s Blind Squirrel Theory film. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Big Heat—but I like it more for Gloria Grahame and radio fave Jeanette Nolan than anything else (particularly Nolan, whose “Bertha Duncan” is essentially a riff on her Lady Macbeth in the 1948 Orson Welles movie version). Two things in Ford’s favor: one, he became a much better actor as he got older (his surprisingly good performance in Superman will bear this out). His early film roles demonstrate a not-too-endearing callowness—though an effort like The Man From Colorado (1948) actually uses this to Ford’s benefit. Secondly, Ford’s métier was essentially the Western, as his roles in Jubal (1956) and Cowboy (1958) will attest. 3:10 to Yuma is one of my all-time favorite oaters; a nail-biting suspenser with Ford as a captured outlaw and Van Heflin (who’s sensational) as the poor schmuck who’s volunteered to get him on the title train, even though Ford’s gang plans to gun him down. Ford really hit his stride as Ben Wade, a charming but dangerous rogue who constantly baits and goads Dan Evans (Heflin) every step of the way as the two men nervously await the train’s arrival. I love Heflin’s character because he’s taken the job only to get the necessary funds to prevent his ranch from succumbing to a drought, but even after Ford attempts to bribe him (and he’s told he doesn’t have to go through with it) he insists on carrying on with the assignment as a matter of principle. Last Train From Gun Hill, a 1959 western in a similar vein (which should be released on DVD—stat!), is also a fave of mine though Yuma is clearly the better film; Kirk Douglas’s situation of having to bring back a murderer (the son of his old friend, cattle baron Anthony Quinn) isn’t quite as suspenseful as Heflin’s.

After the movies, I went and pulled an episode of the radio series The Adventures of Christopher London out of the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives and gave it a listen. Christopher London was a crime drama that starred Glenn Ford which came and went on NBC Radio from January 23-April 30, 1950, an attempt by the medium to attract “big-name stars” in an effort to stave off its eventual demise due to television. There are only three episodes of this show extant today; the one I listened to from February 26, 1950 (“The Price of Sugar”) wasn’t particularly inspired, although it did have a good supporting cast in Barton Yarborough, Joan Banks, Virginia Gregg, Ted de Corsia and Alan Reed. Though Christopher London had a fairly impressive pedigree—it was created by Perry Mason author Erle Stanley Gardner and produced/directed by William N. Robson—it died a relatively quick (and hopefully painless) death.
10:58:19 PM    comment []  trackback []