Nora & Talk on the Street
Movies!, channel 5–2 on OTA in NYC, ran another treat last night, Nora Prentiss (1947), starring the Oomph Girl Ann Sheridan at her most luminous. I’d never heard of it. It didn’t move into film noir territory until an hour or so of its 1:51 running time. Until then it seemed a domestic drama, a doctor whose marriage has become routine falling for a nightclub singer. She is not a femme fatale but simply a woman who has been unlucky in love. It is entertaining, although it strains credulity in the last third. Kent Smith co-stars. Bruce Benedict, Rosemary DeCamp, Robert Alda and John Ridgely lend support. Among the rest of the cast, I was interested in the lively beauty who played the physician’s daughter. I did not recall having ever seen Wanda Hensdrix. Born in Florida, she was discovered while working in her hometown’s theater troupe. There are 48 titles under her name at IMDb in a career that spanned 1945-’74. War hero Audie Murphy was the first of three husbands she divorced. She developed a drinking problem. Sadly, she was taken by double pneumonia at 52 in 1981. Her most notable credit is Nora Prentiss, her second film, rated 7.1 on a scale of ten at IMDb. It was directed by Vincent Sherman, whose also acted and wrote, career spanning ‘33-’83. His most notable work is Mr. Skeffington (1944), starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains, who each received an Oscar nomination. Sherman passed away at 99 in 2006. Nora Prentiss was written by N. Richard Nash, Paul Webster and Jack Sobell. For the latter two, it was their only screen credit. Nash had a great career: twelve screenplays, four Broadway plays including The Rainmaker; two works of non-fiction; a volume of poetry; and eight novels including Cry Macho, which was adapted to the screen by Clint Eastwood and scenarist Nick Schenk in 2021. Married three times, Sherman was a dad of three. He passed away at 87 in 2000. Here are the leads of Nora Prentiss in character, photo from Google Images:
Wanda Hendrix, photos from GI:
N. Richard Nash, photo from GI:
Tom Stiglich cartoon:
I was back at my usual book nook for the first time in a week. Fortunately, the outgoing equaled the incoming. My thanks to the donors and to the ladies who combined to buy five hardcovers in Russian, and to my Constant Benefactress who, although she donated five books, insisted on paying for The Man from St. Petersburg by Ken Follett; and to the mom and daughter who purchased Predator by Patricia Cornwell and The Pretty Good Joke Book by Garrison Keillor… The session also included amusement. Candy noticed the pictorial on Tallulah Bankhead and said her mom worked for the diva’s senator/father and that she has pictures of her by Sheepshead Bay from the ‘30’s. She also learned Bankhead enjoyed her reputation as an oddball, crushed aspirin into powder and pretended to snort it as if it were cocaine just to shock people, long before Madonna did similar things… Lou played a phone message from a frequent customer of mine, Alice. She capped it off saying: “And you have a nice…” 83, Lou tells women he’s 73 and keeps his use of Viagra a secret so they’ll marvel at his age-defying prowess . “But don’t tell nobody,” he tells me… And a local guy, 62, joint in hand, told me of books he read during his three prison stretches for marijuana dealing. One claimed Hitler was abducted by aliens, which explained his behavior. Unfortunately he couldn’t recall the title. Just another day on the street in Brooklyn.
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