The Silver Screen Oasis

I really started to like Preston Foster after seeing Kansas City Confidential (1952) and Heat Lightning (1934). I'm not sure how good he was in the 1930's, I'd have to go and take another look, but by the fifties he seems to be very good at acting roles with a little ambivalence, walking a line between good and bad, or teasing you into thinking he's something he wasn't.

He is such a charming 'baddie' in The Harvey Girls. I like his voice, and the way he uses it. I always have the feeling when watching one of his villains, that he would flash that toothy smile at you while plunging in the knife!

[u][color=#FF0000]ROBERT REGAN[/color][/u] wrote:...Incidentally, Losey and his contemporary Nicholas Ray both liked to include in their movies songs sung by African-American women. They sure needed the work.

( and )

Speaking of which Bob, I think we touched upon Hadda Brooks when we moviechatted about "IN A LONELY PLACE." The other pianist that readily comes to mind is Perri Lee Blackwell in "PILLOW TALK" when she gives Rock Hudson a piece of her mind in the only way she could... behind a piano. Which reminds me...I want to see Sade in front of the camera again.

Knitty, You are so right! I forgot about The Harvey Girls! It's interesting in that it has several bad guys in it, not really like most musicals at all. Although I have a hard time taking my eyes off of John Hodiak for even a moment to look at Preston Foster...

I've come to like Foster more, too, and Kansas City Confidential was the movie that did it! I also liked him with Carole Lombard in Love Before Breakfast.

Now if I can just stop confusing him with Robert Preston and Brian Donlevy.

HARVEY GIRLS is a cute little show. It's not the kind of thing I remember for years to come. But it's light and colorful, bouncy and breezy. Fun!

Theresa, don't forget Your Red Wagon (almost the title song) in They Live by Night sung by the little known Marie Bryant.

Not only have I forgotten it...I don't think I ever knew it. What IS it?

Guess I've got to see "THEY LIVE BY NIGHT" again. ( Ha...like I need a reason for this good movie! ) I don't remember Ms. Bryant at all. Right now I barely remember my name. I've been immersed in the sick twisted world of Giallo over at the Anthology Film Archives. Whew!

Don't forget the tissues, T!

It's when they go to the city for a night out, right before he gets spotted by the guy in the bathroom. They watch the people dancing, and yearn to dance themselves but are self conscious about fitting in as a normal couple.

Uh-oh...you're bringing something back to me. The dancing, the trying to fit. My choking up a bit. Gotta see it again.

Guess I've got to see "THEY LIVE BY NIGHT" again. ( Ha...like I need a reason for this good movie! )

Here's a reason. It's one of the coldest, least pretentious, crime films around. The very definition of noir.

Aaaaah....good reason Red. But being a girl, their love story is KILLER!

Hugo Fregonese's ONE WAY STREET (1950), although uneven, is worth the 79 minutes it takes to unfold.

Cynical and fatalistic Dr. Frank Matson (James Mason) is a gang doc. While the gang -- leader John Wheeler (Dan Duryea), Ollie (William Conrad), and Grieder (King Donovan, who doesn't last long having crossed Wheeler) -- are holed up with a ton of cash from a bank heist and waiting for two others to evade the cops and join them, Doc gives Wheeler aspirin for his headache. He then grabs the loot and Wheeler's gal, Laura (Marta Toren), tells Wheeler, et al., that's he's given him poison, and gives Wheeler the choice of an agonizing death in 90 minutes or a phone call with the antidote in 60 minutes. Doc and Laura leave and head for Mexico. When Wheeler realizes that the poison really was aspirin, the manhunt for the couple on the run begins.

The couple charters a plane in Tijuana for the journey to Mexico City, but the pilot has to make an emergency landing near a small coastal town due to a bad fuel pump. While waiting in the village, Dr. Matson returns to the practice of medicine -- on people and a horse -- and Laura falls for him and the village. When the plane is repaired, she chooses the village and, at the last second, he chooses Laura. Eventually he is fully integrated into village life and, it is then (after rumbles with bandits and a friendship with a local boy and priest) that he realizes he must go back with the money. Laura goes with him.

He calls Wheeler and arranges the drop-off at Wheeler's apartment. When he walks in, Wheeler is fatally wounded (Tell me, Doc, how's Laura? Well, at least it wasn't "Tell Laura I love her.") and now Ollie's gun is aimed at Matson. As Matson pulls the cash out of his satchel, the last thing he grabs is a pistol, which he fires through the bag, killing Ollie. Leaving the money behind, he walks out into the torrential urban nighttime rain and asks Laura to wait for him there. He steps into the street.

Sssscccrrreeecccchhh!

Dead Doc. Laura: He had an appointment. THE END

The scenes in Mexico, which are most of the movie, are bit slow. But we do see Mason's attitude toward Life change. And as he becomes less fatalistic in philosophy, he becomes arguably more fatalistic in behavior, intentionally putting himself in a dangerous situation. And he's saved, in effect, by a bad guy (Conrad -- as marvelous as ever). But Mason, having meted out Noir Justice, is doomed. Duryea -- what can one say? He's a treasure. Watching him and Conrad, mostly at the start and finish (there are a few short scenes in-between to show how the manhunt is going) justify sitting through the middle.

Uncredited appearances by: James Best, Jack Elam, O.Z. Whitehead and...Rock Hudson.

Back to Hugo Haas, this time producing, co-writing, directing and starring in THE GIRL ON THE BRIDGE (1951).

Older jewelry shop owner, David (Haas), sees a woman on a bridge near his shop, staring into the water one night. He talks her, Clara (Beverly Michaels), out of jumping. The next day, Clara and her nine month old daughter stop by the shop to thank him. In need of day care while she works -- she has no husband and the baby's father, Mario, a night club pianist, travels and doesn't know about the child -- David volunteers because, as Clara tells him, he's so good and decent. After a while, to keep her from taking a new job out of town, he proposes. Clara tells David that she doesn't deserve someone as good and decent as he, and he responds that that may be true, but the baby does. They marry and bing-bada-boom she's pregnant. Passing through town, Mario and his scuzzy cousin and agent, Harry, discover that Clara is in town. Mario goes to the shop, David tells him of the marriage and offers him money to stay away from Clara. Mario refuses the money. He tells Harry about this. Mario says that he is finally turning over a new leaf and is going to be good and decent to make up for the mess he's made of his and Clara's lives. Harry says he's a fool. They argue and Mario threatens to kill Harry if he bothers Clara and David.

Harry goes to David -- aaah, the noir begins -- demanding money to keep Mario away. As Harry steps into the room where Clara is sleeping, David bashes his head with a heavy candlestick. He disposes of the body in the ocean. When the body is discovered, the circumstantial evidence points to only one person...Mario. David's conscience drives him crazy because he is good and decent. His friend, to whom David confessed, urges him to turn himself in, but David is not quite that good and decent. David compromises with himself: if Mario is convicted, David will confess to the police; if Mario is acquitted, David will remain silent. Mario is acquitted, but David's conscience -- at first relieved -- still gnaws at him. One night, Mario appears at the shop. He tells David that he knows who killed his cousin -- an ex-business partner that Harry had framed and had resulted in a prison term. He also tells David how thankful he is that Clara and the baby have found someone as good and decent as David and that he is going to try to be just as good and decent. Despite no fingers pointing at him except his own, David's conscience won't let up. Clara professes her continuing love for him because he is so good and decent.

That night, Clara wakes up and finds David's bed empty. Running outside, she goes to the bridge where a crowd has gathered and she is told that David apparently fell in and drowned. And Mario -- as David likely suspected -- appears to propose to Clara. Clara: But I'm carrying his child. Mario: He cared for mine. I will care for his.

All of the performances are fine, but especially Haas'. He captures a man at odds with his nature. He, at heart, is as good and decent as he is constantly reminded throughout the film. But David can't bring himself to confess to the police, telling himself (just as Clara tells him) that he must stay free for her and the babies' sakes. But he can't live with himself violating his conscience. And that is resolved only when he is convinced that someone -- Mario -- is now truly as good and decent as he used to be and will be there to care for the family.

James Ursini speculates, quite reasonably, that the movie is about survivor's guilt. A Czech Jew, Haas escaped upon the rise of the Nazis. His father and brother died at Auschwitz. When Clara first sees David's attraction to the baby, she asks if he has any children. He tells her that they were lost in the war. At the time, it seemed like a throwaway line, but it may have been the defining moment.