Tag: Movies

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Movies ‘48

Movies ‘48 #2

Movie News – January 8, 1948

Deanna Durbin, twenty-five-year-old film star, parted company with Felix Jackson, her forty-five-year-old film-producer second husband. The couple divorced in 1949.

After the divorce, Deanna Durbin was inundated with film and stage offers including a Broadway role as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. However, she rejected them all, packed her bags and set off for France where, in 1950, she married producer-director Charles Henri David. The couple moved to a farmhouse near Paris and remained together for forty-nine years.

Movie News – January 9, 1948

Showing in British cinemas, Hedy Lamarr and John Loder in Dishonoured Lady, aka Sins of Madeleine, a noir drama. Lamarr and Loder were married when they made the film, but they divorced later in the year.

Movie News – January 10, 1948

Hollywood Ten Plead Not Guilty

Ten Hollywood writers and producers (not named in this report), accused of refusing to tell the House Committee on un-American activities whether they were members of the Communist Party, pleaded not guilty and were ordered to stand trial separately beginning on February 9th.

Members of the Hollywood Ten and their families in 1950, protesting the impending incarceration of the ten

Movie News – January 11, 1948

Secrets in Their Contracts

Ingrid Bergman uses an onion to produce tears in weepie scenes.

Bing Crosby wears a wig.

Peter Lawford agreed not to marry within the next three years.

The studios provide Greer Garson, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford with a maid, and a “first class drawing room” whenever they film on location.

Hedy Lamarr has a clause that states that “she must wear her own underwear, unless such underwear is to be filmed, then it will be provided by the producer.” She must also return all the dresses she wears in her films to the studio.

Movie News – January 12, 1948

Bangs are back in fashion. In unrelated news, Margaret Lockwood was mobbed in Glasgow. A large crowd gathered at Glasgow Central Station to cheer and present her with flowers on day one of her three-day visit. The crowd was so large that Miss Lockwood required a police escort and took ten minutes to travel the short distance from the railway station to the Central Station Hotel.

Movie News – January 13, 1948

Recommended by June Allyson and nine out of ten movie stars, the Lux massage technique “brings quick new loveliness”.

Movie News – January 14, 1948

Gene Autry receives more fan mail than any other star in Hollywood, over 100,000 letters a month. Most stars average “only” 30,000 letters a month. Autry has a private post office in Hollywood where five clerks handle his mail. He can expect more letters due to the release of his latest film, The Last Roundup.

Book News

Ten years after publication, I’m delighted to say that Sam’s Song is once again #1 on the Amazon Private Investigator charts.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

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Movies ‘48

Movies ‘48 #1

My latest Golden Age of Hollywood article for the Seaside News appears on page 42 of the magazine.

Movie News – January 1, 1948

A party to announce the engagement of Lana Turner (pictured) to tinplate millionaire Henry J. Topping was hastily cancelled when Topping discovered that he couldn’t make the event. Four hundred invitations had been sent out to “the cream of Hollywood society and the international social world”.

Topping had proposed to Lana Turner at the 21 Club in New York City by dropping a diamond ring into her martini. The couple married in April 1948, and divorced in 1952.

Movie News – January 2, 1948

Film critics in New York named Deborah Kerr as the actress of the year for her performances in Black Narcissus and The Adventuress, a Second World War spy movie with comic touches. Released in Britain as I See a Dark Stranger, The Adventuress also featured Trevor Howard.

Movie News – January 3, 1948

Bing Crosby (pictured) was the silver screen’s box office favourite for the fourth successive year, Motion Picture Extra announced, after polling exhibitors. The runners up: Betty Grable, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Bob Hope, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck, Claudette Colbert and Alan Ladd.

Movie News – January 4, 1948

Evacuated from London to Pasadena during the Second World War, and now taking Hollywood by storm after her appearance in National Velvet. many in the film industry, including Mickey Rooney, predicted that Elizabeth Taylor would be the “sensation of 1948”.

Movie News – January 5, 1948

“Only about fifteen percent of film made in Hollywood in 1948 will be based on original stories. The remainder will be based on ‘sure-fire successes’ – sixty-five percent will be remakes of old successes and the remaining twenty percent will be new versions of successful stage plays.”

One of the sure-fire successes, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, an adaptation of B.Traven’s 1927 novel of the same name.

Movie News – January 6, 1948

Films showing in British cinemas this week included The White Unicorn (also known as Bad Sister in America) starring Joan Greenwood and Margaret Lockwood, Duel in the Sun starring Jennifer Jones, Desert Fury starring Burt Lancaster, Uncle Silas starring Jean Simmons and Ivy starring Joan Fontaine.

Movie News – January 7, 1948

Sunday’s double feature at the Grand Theatre, Banbury: Tarzan’s Secret Treasure starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Man From Music Mountain with Roy Rogers.

My Latest Book News

Amazon charts. Betrayal, Ann’s War Book One, is #1 this weekend, Tula, The Golden Age of Hollywood Book One, is #12, and Sunshine, The Golden Age of Hollywood Book Two, is #10 on the Hot New Releases chart.

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 38 occasions.

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #220

Dear Reader,

Tula, my latest audiobook, featuring a wonderful narration by Amelia Mendez.

I never wanted to be a star. I just wanted to act in movies. I just wanted to get away from the impoverished streets of Brooklyn and live in relative comfort.

Now, at the close of the 1920s, I was the biggest name in Hollywood. My movies were the highest grossing in the business. Investors depended on me, producers depended on me, my fellow actors depended on me, and maybe the strain of that dependence triggered my emotional collapse.

Actually, I knew what trigged my emotional collapse—my father’s death. I found myself in an asylum, in the care of Dr. Brooks. Along with my fiancé, fellow actor Gregory Powell, Dr. Brooks was convinced that an underlying issue triggered my collapse, and he wanted me to record my life story, so that he could identify that issue.

Gregory had faith in me. He said he’d wait for me, and that he knew I’d make a full recovery. But to make that recovery, I had to address the underlying issue that had placed me in the asylum.

So, I offer you the notes that I prepared for Dr. Brooks. To the best of my ability and memory, I recorded the important events that made up the first 25 years of my life. And within these notes, I discovered the true reason for my emotional breakdown.

https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Tula-Golden-Age-Hollywood/dp/B0CN1PT2ZN/

My latest translation, the Dutch version of Operation Overlord, Eve’s War Heroines of SOE book nine.

From The World Film Encyclopaedia, 1933, a map of Hollywood movie studios and notable landmarks.

I’m delving into 1948, researching material for two novels scheduled for 2024 – Eve’s Peace, a sequel to my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE series, and Dana, book three in my Golden Age of Hollywood series.

On January 7, 1948, 25-year-old Captain Thomas F. Mantell died when his P-51 Mustang fighter chased a UFO. Due to Mantell’s death, this incident marked a sharp shift in both public and governmental perceptions of UFOs. Now they were seen as not only extraterrestrial, but potentially hostile as well.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was released in January 1948. The movie contained a number of scenes shot on location outside the United States – in the state of Durango with street scenes in Tampico, Mexico – which wasn’t common at that time.

Sue Carol and George O’Brien in The Lone Star Ranger, 1930. Sue Carol was a friend of Virgina Cherrill, who made City Lights with Charlie Chaplin. Later, Sue Carol became an agent and promoted Alan Ladd to stardom. Reader, she also married him.

The Film Daily’s annual critics poll of 1930 produced the following result:

  1. All Quiet on the Western Front 271 votes
  2. Abraham Lincoln 167
  3. Holiday 166
  4. Journey’s End 151
  5. = Anna Christie 141, The Big House 141

The votes were cast by 333 American film critics.

Columbo

Pilot Episode #2: “Ransom For a Dead Man”. This episode featured Lee Grant as the murderer. Lee Grant is a highly gifted and award-winning actress who was blacklisted for twelve years during the McCarthy period.

“Because Eddie Dmytryk named her husband, Lee Grant was blacklisted before her film career even had a chance to begin. Of course, she refused to testify about the man to whom she was married, and it took years before anyone would hire her for another picture.” – Kirk Douglas.

A Hollywood Murder

I’m pausing my investigation here while I pull together the various threads of the story. I reckon one of Charlotte Shelby, Carl Stockdale, or Mary Miles Minter murdered movie director William Desmond Taylor in February 1922, but which one? I will let you know when I find out…

I’m researching my family in 1921, starting with my ancestor Annie Noulton (1881 – 1963). In 1921, Annie was a widow. Her husband, Albert Charles Bick, died at the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915 when the idiotic generals, using gas on the battlefield for the first time, gassed their own men. 

Annie and her seven children, five girls and two boys, lived in four rooms at 19 Springfield Place, Lambeth. The national demographics for 1921: 47.8% male, 52.2% female. In Lambeth: 46.6% male, 53.4% female. The carnage of the First World War obviously impacted on those figures.

📜 Annie’s signature 

May 1925, a taxi driver, a neighbour of my ancestor Annie Noulton, fined for reckless driving at 15mph.

Looking at the records and seeing my ancestor, First World War widow Annie Noulton, working as an office cleaner to provide for her five daughters and two sons, and I’m taken by how hard her life was. Yet, her mother, also known as Annie, but born Nancy (it’s a long story) lived on one of the poorest streets in London, so war widow Annie was actually moving her family forward in her own quiet way. Indeed, according to Charles Booth’s poverty map, she was living in a “fairly comfortable” – “well-to-do” neighbourhood – circled in yellow.

Social media https://toot.wales/@HannahHowe

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #219

Dear Reader,

Some exciting news. Tula, book one in my Golden Age of Hollywood series, will be an entry in the Literature Wales Book of the Year Award 2024. Although the story is set in America, I’m from Wales so the book qualifies 🙂

Picturegoer, January 1940, mentioning Nancy Olson’s first four films, all made within a year – Canadian Pacific, Sunset Boulevard, Union Station and Mr Music.

To Brush or Not to Brush? Hair care advice offered to budding movie star, Nancy Olson.

Sunset Boulevard: Notes on a Classic

From 1936, Billy Wilder (pictured with Gloria Swanson) and Charles Brackett collaborated on sixteen films, all critical or commercial successes. Before the filming of Sunset Boulevard, they decided this movie would be their final creative collaboration. They didn’t realise it at the time, but they were about to go out at the top.

The working title for Sunset Boulevard was A Can of Beans. Billy Wilder chose that title because he wanted to keep the studio in the dark about the movie’s Hollywood premise.

Before casting Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder considered Mae West for the role. However, Mae West wanted to change her dialogue, and Billy Wilder was obsessive about his scripts, so that idea was a non-starter.

Columbo

Pilot Episode #1: “Prescription: Murder”. Adapted from a stage play in 1968, the first pilot episode revealed Columbo as a more sartorial, more aggressive character. Columbo’s trademark raincoat was present, although he tended to carry it. When questioning suspects, he sometimes displayed anger. The character was finding his feet. Gene Barry guest-starred in this episode, playing a suitably suave murderer.

A Hollywood Murder

Mary Miles Minter (born Juliet Reilly; April 25, 1902 – August 4, 1984) was a child actress who also enjoyed success as a young adult. She appeared in fifty-three silent movies from 1912 to 1923.

Even though he was thirty years older than her, maybe because he was thirty years older than her, Mary was madly in love with William Desmond Taylor. However, as with Mabel Normand and other actresses who professed their affection, Taylor did not return that love, preferring a working and friendly relationship.

Mary’s mother, Charlotte Shelby, changed Mary’s name from Juliet Reilly when some states in America deemed that Mary was too young to appear on stage. Charlotte used the name and birth certificate of a dead relative who was older than Juliet/Mary.

Many critics did not rate Mary as an actress. “Mary Miles Minter was far prettier than Mary Pickford, but she, unlike Miss Pickford, could not act. Although it must be admitted that when a star is as lovely to look at as Mary Miles Minter, acting does not really matter.” – Director, Edward Sloman.

Mary Miles Minter was a suspect in the William Desmond Taylor murder scandal. However, District Attorney Woolwine was a close family friend, so the investigation into her possible guilt did not go anywhere.

My latest Hollywood article for the Seaside News appears on page 41 of the magazine.

I’m delving into 1948, researching material for two novels scheduled for 2024 – Eve’s Peace, a sequel to my Eve’s War Heroines of SOE series, and Dana, book three in my Golden Age of Hollywood series.

In 1948, Warner Brothers released the first colour newsreel, which featured the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl Game. Pictured, the Warner brothers Albert, Jack, Harry and Sam.

1948, “the year sex was invented”. Actually, it was the year when Alfred Kinsey published the first of his two reports into sexual behaviour. His second report followed in 1953. Controversy ensued.

Director Robert Z. Leonard enjoying a close-up view of Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady, 1933.

I’m researching the Wilder branch of my family tree, which begins with my 6 x great grandfather Richard Wilder Stokes. Richard’s father was a cordwainer and he apprenticed others in the trade. There is no record of Richard’s trade or the children he fathered in his twenties. Richard’s father died a few months before him, his mother a year later, and his wife two years after that. Smallpox was rampant in the 1700s, so maybe that was the cause.

My 7 x great grandmother Lucy Wilder was baptised on 8 December 1714, the middle child of nine. Her father Richard was a prosperous boat builder and, as a churchwarden, a leading member of his community. Lucy gave birth to three children, probably more – not all the parish records have survived. Most married women of the period gave birth every two years, but Lucy gave birth every three years. She married her husband Thomas on a Friday.

Social media https://toot.wales/@HannahHowe

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 38 occasions.

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Dear Reader

Dear Reader #218

Dear Reader,

I’m pleased to say that the writing of Sunshine, book two in my Golden Age of Hollywood series, is going well, and that we hope to bring the publication date forward from April 2024 to earlier in the year. Watch this space 🙂

Sunset Boulevard: Notes on a Classic

”No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.” – Norma Desmond, just before shooting the man who rejected her, Joe Gillis.

📸 William Holden as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.

Along with H.B. Warner and Anna Q. Nilsson, Buster Keaton (pictured) appears as himself in Sunset Boulevard, as one of Norma Desmond’s bridge players. In a derogatory comment, Joe Gillis refers to the bridge players as “the waxworks”.

A Hollywood Murder

Continuing my investigation into the 1922 murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor.

Edward F Sands (pictured) worked as William Desmond Taylor’s valet prior to his current valet, Henry Peavey. A known embezzler and forger, Sands was also a serial deserter from the the U.S. military. In the summer of 1921, while Taylor was in Europe, Sands forged the movie director’s cheques and wrecked his car. Shortly after the murder, Sands disappeared and was never seen again. 

One theory suggests that Sands knew about Taylor’s past life as William Cunningham Deane-Tanner, antique dealer and wife deserter, and was blackmailing him. Another theory suggests that Sands knew that Taylor was bisexual (an aspect of Taylor’s life strongly hinted at, although not definitively proved) and was blackmailing him over his affairs with men.

As with Henry Peavey, one is tempted to ask why did Taylor employ such a person in the first place?

Nancy Olson

Nancy Olson made her movie debut in a Western, Canadian Pacific (1949). In a curious piece of casting, this colour movie featured Nancy, a blue-eyed blonde with her family’s roots firmly entrenched in Scandinavia, as a ‘half-breed’ Indian. Furthermore, her fiancé, Randolph Scott, was old enough to be her father. Welcome to the wonderful world of the movies, Nancy Olson.

August 1948. Nancy Olson “discovered”.

Nancy Olson certainly put her heart and soul into her movie debut playing Cecille Gautier in Canadian Pacific (1949). She appeared in ten scenes (plus minor continuity scenes) where she either hugged Randolph Scott or was involved in feisty exchanges with the other characters. In the whipping scene with Victor Jory (Nancy held the whip), she literally left her mark.

Why Nancy Olson became an actress, August 1948.

Columbo

Season One, Episode Seven: “Blueprint for Murder”. Patrick O’Neal played the murderer in this episode and Forrest Tucker the victim. The murder was not depicted, which led me to think that the “victim” would reappear later in the episode. The story contained a neat plot centred on a construction site. This was the only television episode of any series that Peter Falk directed.

Social media https://toot.wales/@HannahHowe

As ever, thank you for your interest and support.

Hannah xxx

For Authors

#1 for value with 565,000 readers, The Fussy Librarian has helped my books to reach #1 on 38 occasions.

A special offer from my publisher and the Fussy Librarian. https://authors.thefussylibrarian.com/?ref=goylake

Don’t forget to use the code goylake20 to claim your discount 🙂