The Silver Screen Oasis

I never really followed the Cummings show. Once or twice, maybe (as LOVE THAT BOB in syndication). But not enough to know characters and storylines. I missed his later series, MY LIVING DOLL, too. Though, a ten year-old boy who doesn't want to watch Julie Newmar should have his eyes examined!

moira finnie wrote:Hmmmm....I never really thought that ChiO would be an Ann B. Davis follower, but I did like her in that interview. She was so down-to-earth no matter what role. None of what she said about Mr. Brasselle was too surprising. Hey, at least he never put a hit on Ann.

I was doing some research on the Keefster and one source speculated that he couldn't have been too heavily connected, as his career never really went anywhere.

Watched the Ann B. Davis interview. She is so down-to-earth. You'll never get any "secrets" outta her. This ain't her first time at the rodeol. I liked when she said she and Nancy Kulp and Kathy ( Kathleen ) Freeman were friends. I'd have loved to have a drink with them.

Another martini, Miss Hathaway?

Oh man, I would have LOVED to go out with those three actresses! You could probably have learned more about acting hanging out in a bar with those three than by taking all the acting lessons in the world.

kingrat wrote:Speaking of Bad Movies We Love: are there many movies as miscast as Walk on the Wild Side? I saw the last 20 minutes or so and was struck again by the bizarre choices:

The boy from the sticks hoping to write the great American novel - Laurence Harvey
His hometown girlfriend - Capucine
A Mexican spitfire - Anne Baxter
Trailer trash Suthun gal - Jane Fonda

Barbara Stanwyck is not miscast as the lesbian madam, but to me she seems uncomfortable in her role and is less committed than usual.

Walk on the Wild Side is best known for its credit sequence and its main theme, and rightly so.

I actually liked Jane Fonda in this movie. She seemed to be having more fun than she usually did in her early career. I don't know how we were supposed to accept Capucine as a Texas-bred whore, but maybe I missed the part where she went to Paris for training or something? Was she supposed to be a French creole, perhaps? The worst casting may have been Anne Baxter's desperate Mexican gal, but poor Karl Swenson played his awful part with zip (esp. on that little cart)...

Stanwyck's spiel about "what do you know about love?" to her hubby was pretty powerful, though I suspect that Babs didn't really want to be there on the set when she delivered it. From what I have read, Edward Dmytryk enjoyed working with her.

Btw, A Walk on the Wild Side (1962) is available on the Internet Archive and can be accessed by clicking on the image of that slinky cat below:

Moira Finnie wrote:
I don't know how we were supposed to accept Capucine as a Texas-bred whore, but maybe I missed the part where she went to Paris for training or something? Was she supposed to be a French creole, perhaps?

She was from Paris, Texas.

clore wrote:

Moira Finnie wrote:
I don't know how we were supposed to accept Capucine as a Texas-bred whore, but maybe I missed the part where she went to Paris for training or something? Was she supposed to be a French creole, perhaps?

She was from Paris, Texas.

Oh, now it makes sense.

Could someone please tell me why I should care about the career arc of Allison Hayes other than her role in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman? TCM seems fixated on her today. The lady seems to have a remarkable chassis in all the Grade C movies they are showing today, but not a whole lot of energy (okay, so the last one is a zombie movie, so "energy" is not a prerequisite). Just wondering if I am tone deaf and missing something vital in '50s films. Thanks for any advice.


Above: Miss Allison Hayes studying her craft.

Here are the movies being shown today:

7:30 AM
STEEL JUNGLE, THE (1955)

A convict¿s loyalty to the mob is when they threaten his pregnant wife.
Dir: Walter Doniger Cast: Perry Lopez , Beverly Garland , Walter Abel .
BW-87 mins,

9:00 AM
MOHAWK (1956)

When a Boston artist is commissioned to paint landscapes, he gets caught up in a land war between settlers and the Mohawks.
Dir: Kurt Neumann Cast: Scott Brady , Rita Gam , Neville Brand .
C-79 mins,

10:30 AM
HONG KONG CONFIDENTIAL (1958)

Secret agents set out to rescue a kidnapped Arab prince.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn Cast: Gene Barry , Beverly Tyler , Allison Hayes .
BW-68 mins,

11:50 AM
CUBAN RHYTHM (1941)

From the rhumba to the conga, this short film provides a Cuban dancing lesson.
Dir: Will Jason
BW-9 mins,

12:00 PM
PIER 5, HAVANA (1959)

An American in Cuba tries to thwart a bombing plot aimed at Castro.
Dir: Edward L. Cahn Cast: Cameron Mitchell , Allison Hayes , Eduardo Noriega .
BW-68 mins, CC,

1:15 PM
COUNTERPLOT (1959)

While hiding in Puerto Rico, a man framed for murder dodges the police, his girlfriend and the real killer.
Dir: Kurt Neumann Cast: Forrest Tucker , Allison Hayes , Gerald Milton .
BW-77 mins,

2:45 PM
DISEMBODIED, THE (1957)

African explorers discover a voodoo cult in the heart of the jungle.
Dir: Walter Grauman Cast: Paul Burke , Allison Hayes , John E. Wengraf .
BW-66 mins, CC,

4:00 PM
ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (1957)

Sailors try to salvage a sunken treasure guarded by zombie seamen.
Dir: Edward Cahn Cast: Gregg Palmer , Allison Hayes , Autumn Russell .
BW-69 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

5:15 PM
HYPNOTIC EYE, THE (1960)

A city is stricken by a wave of self-mutilations performed by beautiful women who appear to be in a hypnotic trance.
Dir: George Blair Cast: Jacques Bergerac , Merry Anders , Marcia Henderson .
BW-78 mins, CC,

6:45 PM
ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN (1958)

A space visitor's touch turns an unhappy heiress into a vengeful giant.
Dir: Nathan Hertz Cast: Allison Hayes , William Hudson , Yvette Vickers .
BW-66 mins, CC,

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is one of my favorite sci-fi C's from my early teens, as well as Attack of the Puppet People, which in the sixties was called I Was A Teenage Doll. when I saw it on the afternoon movie.

As for Walk on the Wild Side, I never could accept Lawrence Harvey as a cowboy/farmboy/hick from the sticks. But I agree with you, Moira, that Jane was more relaxed or able to settle into her role more. Stanwyck was so good in her scenes. But I saw this when I was 10, it confused me to no end. Mom struggled to answer all my questions, and she said they all lived in the "bad" part of New Orleans where good girls didn't go.

I loved the music, so, for some reason, Mom bought me the piano music to play.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman - has a cult following in my hometown and back in the 60's; I know a man that started a fan club based on Allison Hayes and that group grew to almost a hundred people and the last time I heard about this group was back in 1982. It a popular movie for PBS in my hometown to put on a lazy Saturday afternoon. And, it's a favorite of mine too, like Sue Sue said in previous post.

I saw this when I was 10, it confused me to no end

Such innocence. I watched something about "You slept with that woman? How could you sleep with that woman?" I didn't get it. Maybe they were tired! You should have seen my parents attempt to explain that one!

You guys are so funny! Allison Hayes certainly had the bod to be a giant, but I had never seen all of Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman until yesterday, only parts. The special effects were hilarious (loved the giant hand in the bedroom and the fact that you could see through the giant aliens), but I can see why people have read a certain amount of proto-feminism into the storyline, especially since the men were such unsympathetic losers and the women all seemed hysterical or shrewish.

Poor Allison. I kept hoping that she would stomp on the two doctors--Dr. Cushing & Dr. van Loeb, who were so smug about describing her marital issues and "time of life." I was especially chagrined to see that Dr. Heinrich van Loeb was played by Otto Waldis, who also played an ex-Nazi turned Commie medico in the comical The Whip Hand (1951). Poor Otto. In between appearing in tiny roles in much better movies (A Foreign Affair, Border Incident, Dark City, Judgment at Nuremberg), he eked out a living in sci-fi like this, Schlitz Playhouse and Gomer Pyle. Even artists must eat.

Thank you for your delightful responses.

The lady has a channel on youtube devoted to her, in case anyone's not aware of it...

https://www.youtube.com/user/ALLISONHAYESCHANNEL