No one can dispute that contemporary Hollywood has little room for movies with leading roles for female movie stars.  And, those few that do exist are treated as anomalies, as though it is completely strange for a film with a woman protagonist to be of interest to any movie-goer. Most of the time, female stars are stuck in badly written romantic comedies, which are giving the genre a bad name. I am movie-sick (like being “homesick” except it’s a longing for certain types of movies) for the studio days when films showcased a variety of actresses who looked older than 18, weighed more than 90 pounds, and had more than one facial expression.

In addition to enjoying the onscreen talent of the likes of Hepburn, Davis, Crawford, Hayward, Loy, Grable, Harlow, Russell, and countless others, the roles and storylines developed for female movie stars in past Hollywood eras serve as a window into the issues and problems of the women of the day. One of my favorite periods for women’s roles is the post-WWII era, when the film noir and melodrama genres offered some fascinating glimpses into living in a man’s world, circa 1950. My thoughts on the dismal state of contemporary cinema and longings for past leading ladies were stirred up recently when I watched My Name Is Julia Ross, a notable, little b-movie directed by Joseph H. Lewis in 1945, years before his string of well-known noirs such as Gun Crazy and The Big Combo.

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Moonrise (1948), which has its TCM premiere this evening, Feb. 3rd, at 10pm EST, is a film that is as hard to categorize neatly as the rest of the movies in director Frank Borzage’s long career. Despite the fact that many movie buffs might associate Borzage with a gauzy, passé sentimentality in classic silent films such as Street Angel (1928), this movie begins with a dramatic sequence that tells the tragic background of the leading character Danny Hawkins (Dane Clark) in one of the most powerful opening sequences I’ve seen. I don’t normally tell people to watch something only from the beginning, but with this movie, you would be missing a dynamic part of the movie as well as an introduction to the compelling dreamlike atmosphere of this most modern of Frank Borzage’s movies.If spoilers are not something you want to know before seeing a movie, you may want to stop reading now.

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My dictionary gives the definition of a cri de coeur (krēt kër′) as “a cry from the heart, an impassioned protest, complaint, etc.” If you really want to see that term translated onto film, the Warner Brothers movie, Two Seconds (1932) could fill the bill.

Crude, raw and disturbing, Two Seconds (1932) is being broadcast on TCM on Thursday, Jan. 21st, at 11:45am. First released in the middle of 1932, audiences flocked to see this financially successful but dramatically grim tale about the thoughts and memories that flash through the mind of a man just as he is about to die in the electric chair. Perhaps some of them felt as though they were walking the last mile too. After Americans had witnessed 13 million jobs evaporating into thin air since 1929, watching nationwide unemployment rise to 23.6 %, wouldn’t logic tell us that most people might want to go to the movies to escape a reality they could not control? Apparently not, especially when Warner Brothers had the good fortune to have several talented individuals involved in this film. READ MORE

It’s time to stagger into the new year with eyes thrust forward. No more list-making and list-arguing and dwelling on the decade that was. Let us break free from our immediate history and nostalgia’s uncomfortably warm grip to embrace the rambunctious year to come. We’re going to squeeze out its tender juices one month at a time, with a touch too much enthusiasm that will emit a pungent, ripe scent of dreams yet to be dashed. Yes, these are the images I will rush to imbibe in the first quarter (and a bit more) of 2010:

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“There is no such thing”, my friend Alan K. Rode pointed out to me, “as a bad Robert Ryan performance…”

As a culmination of a week that celebrated the versatile Robert Ryan’s contributions to film, this evening at 7:30 PM the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater in Los Angeles will host an event with the perceptive author and film historian Alan K. Rode, featuring two of Ryan’s best films, The Set-Up (1949-Robert Wise) and The Naked Spur (1953-Anthony Mann). Alan will be joined on stage for a discussion of these films and the career of this leading character actor by Lisa Ryan, the actor’s delightfully articulate daughter, and the legendary actress, Marsha Hunt, a friend of Ryan’s who shared his artistic concerns as well as many of his sincere hopes for the future of society. Please click here for more details about tonight’s program and tickets.

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In celebration of the 100th anniversary of actor Robert Ryan’s birth on November 11th, 1909, the Movie Morlocks are initiating a blogathon devoted to the masterful actor, beginning today. This tribute will last through the coming week with contributions from each of the regular contributors to this blog. In addition to our words, TCM will be offering cinematic proof of the reasons for this event with two days of Robert Ryan movies on November 10th and 11th (a link to the complete rundown of upcoming movies is at the end of this blog).

From what the actor’s generous only daughter, Lisa Ryan, tells me, he might have been surprised and, in his rather shy way, perhaps a bit embarrassed by all the attention. Believing that her father probably didn’t know what this “Film Noir” thing was, Lisa once mentioned that her “mother told a hilarious story about being in Paris with my Dad in the early 70’s [after] being approached by a group of kids who turned out to be film students. They got down on their knees, on the sidewalk, in front of my Dad, bowing down to him as if he were some religious figure. My Dad’s comment reportedly was: “What the f—- is WRONG with these French people? Are they all INSANE?”

While I would have loved to see the expressions on the faces of those French cinephiles if they heard this outburst from their icon, maybe it’s a good thing Mr. Ryan isn’t around today to read the paeans his still fresh film performances are earning for him these days.

As the years lengthen between his life and our own time, the long shadow of this singular actor’s body of work has only deepened. The popularity of film noir, which provided Ryan with some of his most memorable roles in Crossfire (1947-Edward Dmytryk), Act of Violence (1948-Fred Zinnemann), and On Dangerous Ground (1952-Nicholas Ray), among others, is partly responsible for the lasting interest in his work, but his career encompassed much more. Appearing in everything from gritty urban dramas, heist films, psychological tales, westerns, war films, some pretty strange potboilers like The Love Machine and even, by a some all too rare fluke of casting, a few stories with a romantic touch. Perceptive viewers can sense something more in his work.

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Ever wonder if the universe might be sending you a secret message? I’m not one to read tea-leaves or Tarot cards, but sometimes think numerology can be fun. So today I woke up wondering if there could be any significance to it being the first day of the eleventh month of the year. Taking a cue from the popular internet meme that asks people to turn to a specific page in the book nearest them to share an excerpt, I decided to see what films the cosmos might be suggesting I add to my Netflix account by pulling down from my bookshelf all the film books I had that I figured would have plenty of poster art. Then I counted the stack. I’m not making this up: there were exactly eleven books! I was off to a good start. How to proceed? Since it’s the first day of the eleventh month of the year I went to page 11, and from there let my finger fall on the very first film image that followed. With that in mind, I now dedicate the following eleven films to the month of November: READ MORE

Careening across the countryside in a gypsy wagon, a lovesick hunchback cries out piteously for release from his twisted form. A hardworking Jewish-American father tries to appease his young son on his birthday, seeking to interest him in a baseball bat rather than an expensive violin.

A tired general on the Western frontier finds a few moments of solace in soldiers’ singing. An Italian soldier, willing to do anything to get back to his wife and baby, is stranded in the war-torn desert. A stoic Indian chief joins a wild west show, finding a way to keep his dignity despite his reduced circumstances.
A broken matador tells an up and comer some hard truths. A Mexican dictator regretfully but decisively goes to war. A Japanese editor tries to correct his American-educated son’s corrupt Western ways.
A half-monkey, half-man broods endlessly about his plight, especially since he’s stuck being a houseboy for his creator.

What do each of these diverse (and sometimes pretty outlandish) characters and at least 200 more have in common? Character actor and changeling J. Carrol Naish (1896-1973). I can’t possibly touch on the range of Naish’s roles in this blog, but his remarkably productive career includes an enormous range of characters, far beyond the roles as heavily accented types he is often best remembered for today.

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In the second of four weeks devoted to character actors in classic films, my blog this week looks at an actor who had the authenticity of a pair of old shoes, but whose versatility indicated a man with a strong commitment to his art:

I had to laugh a bit when I saw Of Mice and Men (1939) on TCM recently. My amusement was not because of the still tender spot that this very American story touched on in the course of the film. Themes of loneliness, the longing for new beginnings and a home of one’s own are evergreen, but few would have predicted that this seventy year old tale is still controversial. The film, based on the novella and play by John Steinbeck, was critically hailed when it first came to theaters, receiving four Academy Award nominations, including that of Best Picture in that celebrated movie year of 1939.

At the same time, in its day, the novel, play and film were all dismissed by one unnamed critic in the conservative publication, The Catholic World, who wrote that “The first few pages nauseated me [so much] that I couldn’t bear to keep it in my room over night.” In June, 1939, the Providence, Rhode Island’s police bureau refused to license the film for exhibition in that city, describing the story as “lowdown”. A Christmas Eve showing of the movie at Ft. McClellan in December, 1939 prompted an Army chaplain to condemn this story as “morbid and degenerate”.  February, 1940 saw Of Mice and Men banned from the entire continent of Australia. Even in the 21st century, Steinbeck’s story Of Mice and Men is still being banned periodically by some library system or school board. A high school in St. Louis recently discussed the removal of the book from their reading lists because the language in the book included words that we would describe as “politically incorrect” today.  I couldn’t help wondering how amused one of the actors in this film, Roman Bohnen, (seen at left) a veteran of one of the more politically controversial acting troupes in American history up to that time, might have been to see this fresh controversy. Swimming against the prevailing tide was all in a day’s work for Bohnen.

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