Hollywood Stalwarts & More
Last night at ten Movies!, channel 5–2 on over the air antennas in NYC, ran another film I’d never seen in its Noir To Die For series. The Locket (1946) is a tale laden with psychology. Whether its use is sound or not I’ll leave to those versed in it. I thought it was interesting. It’s the story of a woman whose subconscious is traumatized by a childhood incident to a point where she is oblivious to her dubious behavior, not the typical femme fatale who embraces the dark side. Told largely in flashback, it was directed by John Brahm, a combat veteran of WWI who fled the Nazi domination of Germany in 1934 and landed in the USA in 1937. There are 76 titles under his name at IMDb, the most notable The Lodger (1944), which some dub a masterpiece. From 1952 on he worked largely in television, directing hundreds of episodes of popular prime time fare such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, Naked City, Dr. Kildare, both The Man and The Girl from Uncle, and The Twilight Zone, including the awesome Shadow Play, starring Dennis Weaver as an accused killer suffering a recurring nightmare, and Time Enough at Last, starring Burgess Meredith as a bookish survivor of a nuclear attack. The prolific auteur passed away in 1982 at 89. Here he is:
The star of the movie is Laraine Day, who had a substantial career on the big and small screen. Although she never received an award nomination, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her performance in The Locket is probably the highlight of her career. According to her bio at IMDb, it’s her personal favorite. She had three other big roles on the silver screen: in Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (1940), opposite Joel McCrea, Cecil B. DeMille’s The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944), opposite Gary Cooper, and William Wellman’s The High and the Mighty (1954), opposite John Wayne. She was also the co-star of the Dr. Kildare film series, opposite Lew Ayres. A Mormon, she had an interesting life off-screen. She was married to legendary baseball manager Leo Durocher for 13 years and dubbed The First Lady of Baseball. An ardent Republican, she displayed the American flag outside her home every day weather allowed, and inside when it didn’t. Here’s a fun quote attributed to her: “I recall playing practical jokes with John Wayne. I once got a whole bunch of keys and had little tags made that said, “If lost, please return to John Wayne, RKO Studios. Reward.” And I just dropped them all over town. He got a lot of phone calls, people showing up at the studio. He never learned who did it.” She passed away in 2007 at 87.
Ricardo Cortez was born Jacob Krantz in NYC, the son of Jewish immigrants. Although there are 103 titles under his name at IMDb, I believe this was my introduction to his work, although his name was familiar because I heard it mentioned hundreds of times through the years by the Kramdens in an episode of The Honeymooners. Early on he was groomed to be another Rudolph Valentino. His career spanned 1917–1960, culminating with a guest shot on Bonanza, his only TV appearance. He also directed seven films, none of them notable. He passed away at 76 in 1977. Here he is:
2200+ users at IMDb have rated The Locket, forging to a consensus of 7.2 on a scale of ten. It’s running time is 85 minutes.
For those able to keep an open mind, here’s a link to an article by talk radio host Mark Simone titled Why the President’s Idea About Using Light or Disinfectant Wasn’t Crazy:
https://710wor.iheart.com/featured/mark-simone/content/2020-04-24-why-the-presidents-idea-about-using-light-or-disinfectant-wasnt-crazy/
What a relief that the mainstream media is being just as objective regarding the allegations against Joe Biden as they were toward Justice Kavanaugh.
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