Farewell to a Few Film Favorites

With every year, a few familiar film faces pass into history. As 2015 comes to an end, I want to recognize four actors who made an impression on me, in one way or another. Maybe it was their look or attitude. Perhaps it was a single film. Maybe it was what they represented in my young film-going mind. In any case, they are four very different performers who shaped my love of movies, and I want to share them with you.

Omar Sharif
“I’d rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie.”

After nearly a decade as a famous Egyptian film actor, Omar Sharif broke out with his appearance in David Lean’s 1962 epic “Lawrence of Arabia.” As Sherif Ali, the friend and eventual confidante of adventurer T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole), Sharif became an international film sensation.

But for me, it’s his starring turn in “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) that made the biggest impact. The film is one of my all-time favorites, a sweeping historical epic about the Russian revolution. Sharif’s subtle performance is quiet and small, adding to the power of an otherwise big movie.

Sharif exudes awe and wonder
as Zhivago.

Sharif’s richest period was the 1960s, when he appeared in a range of historical epics, westerns, biographies, and even the musical “Funny Lady” (which made Barbra Streisand a movie star). By the end of that decade, however, his star began to fade. Meanwhile, he was developing a reputation as a professional gambler, and began taking roles to support that reputation. So after making such a splash, many of his subsequent films were, in fact, quite bad.

But if he’d only made one movie, “Doctor Zhivago” would have been enough. What makes an impression in his performance as the eponymous Russian doctor is what he says with his eyes. The quiet way in which he registers delight or sadness goes straight to the heart.

Omar Sharif died on July 10 at the age of 83. (Read this article to get a glimpse into the real, rather complicated, man.)

Drake looking more serious
than she typically was in her films.

Betsy Drake
“For goodness sakes, why would I believe Cary was homosexual when we were busy f*cking?”

Not many people remember Betsy Drake today. She was one of a roster of cute, well-scrubbed ingenues who started popping up in Hollywood films after the end of World War II. Her filmography is quite short—just nine films between 1948 and 1965—and none of them are particularly remarkable.

It’s her first film, however, in which she appeared opposite Cary Grant, that stands out for me. “Every Girl Should Be Married” is emblematic of Hollywood’s post-war reassurance that everything is going back to normal—a very patriarchal, confining normal—and contains then-current attitudes toward gender roles, sex, and morality.

Drake plays sprightly and slightly air-headed Anabel Sims, who develops an instant crush on a bachelor pediatrician (Grant). Through the course of the movie, she does everything she can to woo him, and he does everything he can to avoid her overtures. While Drake is delightful, some viewers today might find her obsessive behavior strange. In essence, she is the stereotypical stalker. But her efforts are played for laughs, and the men in the film are so paternalistic towards her that any implication of a psychiatric problem is brushed off.

While Drake's Annabel is tasked with uttering every manner of clichéd expectations for men and women of the era, you get the impression watching Drake that there was probably more to her in real life.

They were happy in the beginning.

And indeed there was. To prove there is life beyond Hollywood (which Drake hated), she left acting and focused on neuropsychiatry. (Maybe she wanted to examine what would motivate a real-life Annabel Sims.) She was an early proponent of the mental health effects of LSD, earned a Master of Education degree from Harvard University, and published a novel.

After "Every Girl Should Be Married," Drake's subsequent films were forgettable. I’ll always remember her wide-eyed, goofy Anabel in “Every Girl Should Be Married,” her hair bobbing as she walks down the sidewalk, waxing poetic about the overstuffed “crunchy” chair she wants to buy for her someday dream home—once she snags her doctor. You just can't watch the film today, though, without being reminded that it's 1948, and society has clear-cut ideas about what a girl should do.

In real life, Drake and Grant married a year after the film was released. Ten years later, she wrote the screenplay for Grant’s 1958 hit vehicle, “Houseboat,” in which she was to co-star—until Grant began an affair with Sophia Loren. You can guess what happened; Grant cast Loren instead. So Drake and Grant split up, and finally divorced in 1962. They remained friends.

Up until Drake died on October 27 at age 92, she vehemently—and with rather salty language (see quote above)—denied rumors that Grant was gay.

Sometimes acting is for the birds.

Rod Taylor
“There's a still of me looking terrified with a bandage on or something, and I'm looking at this bird. That's real terror. I hated that bird!”

Hunky Rod Taylor has always been a favorite of mine, mostly for one particular movie: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1962 thriller, “The Birds.”

It’s a cold film. Observe the distant coastal vistas, the total lack of a musical score (outside of the sound of the birds), and the chilly interplay among the three female leads (Tippi Hedren, Suzanne Pleshette, and Jessica Tandy as Taylor’s icy mother). Watch and you’ll see what I mean. Taylor’s virile male presence is the film’s only real touch of warmth.

An Australian, Taylor had been acting in American films since the mid-1950s, appearing in small roles in big movies like “Giant” (1956) and “Raintree County” (1957), as well as substantial parts in smaller ensemble dramas like “The Catered Affair” (1956) and “Separate Tables” (1958).

In 1960, he landed the lead role as H.G. Wells’ time-traveling hero in “The Time Machine," and a star was born. The movie captured the imaginations of kids as he moved through millennia in his Victorian time machine.

Taylor didn't think he was
good-looking. I beg to differ.

The remainder of the 1960s, his most productive period as a movie star, was dotted with historical epics, war adventures, westerns, spy pictures, soap operas and comedies (a genre in which he was particularly adept). He co-starred with everyone from Liz Taylor and Doris Day to Julie Christie and Jane Fonda, and even lent his voice as one of the pups in Disney’s “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (1961).

Always rugged yet affable, Taylor seemed comfortable in any genre and was just one of those guys who is a pleasure to watch in nearly anything, making everything seem natural and effortless. But it's his role as a regular guy up against nature in “The Birds” that will remain eternal for me.

Quentin Tarantino, the ultimate film geek, was a big fan of Taylor’s heroics in the two-fisted adventure movies he made in the 1960s, so he cast the veteran in his own two-fisted adventure, in a small guest role as none other than Winston Churchill, in 2009's “Inglourious Basterds.” That was Taylor’s last appearance; he died on January 7 at the age of 84.

(Related note: I discuss "The Birds" in my August 2015 post.)

Signed photo from O'Hara.

Maureen O’Hara
“Above all else, deep in my soul, I'm a tough Irishwoman.”

What can I say about Maureen O’Hara? As one of the last of the great leading ladies of the Golden Age of Hollywood, she’d been around so long I just figured she always would be.

She got her auspicious start in Hollywood’s so-called 'greatest year' of 1939 as Esmerelda in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” In it, she demonstrates the beauty and passion that would become her trademark over a 30-year career.

Although her Irish accent was often masked in her movies, director John Ford—with whom she’d work five times—brought it out in his brilliant, sentimental 1941 film, “How Green Was My Valley,” about a poor family in a Welsh mining village in the early 1900s. O’Hara was part of an ensemble cast that couldn’t be beat.

As was typical in the ‘40s, O’Hara made a wide range of movies, from westerns and film noir to comedies and the occasional musical. Perhaps she made her biggest mark in a long line of fun Technicolor swashbucklers, in which she appeared with the likes of Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Paul Henreid. She matched their undeniable good looks with her stunning red-headed beauty, but showed her own athleticism and prowess with a sword. (O’Hara was beautiful, but she was never afraid to take a spill on camera.)

In addition to those swashbuckling heroes, O’Hara’s list of male co-stars reads like a Who’s Who of Golden Era leading men: Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda, John Garfield, and James Stewart were just a few. Somehow she had chemistry with all of them.

O'Hara in "The Quiet Man"

Watching her in two bonafide classics makes you appreciate her and her place in American film—and cultural—history: 1947’s “Miracle on 34th Street” has her in what I see as an early feminist incarnation, tempered, of course, by the mores and societal expectations of the post-war years; and 1952’s “The Quiet Man," which exemplifies everything she cherished about her Irish heritage. While she is a little stiff in the former (Santa Claus is the real star, after all), she is dynamic, fiery, and funny in the latter, magnified by the glorious color photography. You can't take your eyes off her.

While she had a big family hit with Disney’s 1961 “The Parent Trap,” her career wound down in the 1960s (as it did for many actresses of her generation). Fortunately, she refused to go the horror movie route, as was fashionable for many of her female peers at the time; instead, she made a few more family-oriented movies, with the occasional western to show she could still spar with the best of them.

To me, O’Hara represents the type of Hollywood lady they just don’t—or can’t—make anymore. She had spunk and spirit, fire and humor. She could bound energetically about a tall ship, weep as the world was at war, comfort little Natalie Wood and believe in Santa Claus again, get dragged through the mud by John Wayne, and maintain her jaw-dropping beauty, undeniable class, and inspiring dignity through it all.

Maureen O’Hara died on October 24 at age 95. I’m gonna miss that lass.

In fact, I'm going to miss them all. But the wonderful, magical thing about the movies is, the light in the stars never really goes out.

As Black as Steel and Twice as Strong

Hattie McDaniel as she looked
when she wasn't playing a maid.

The old Hollywood studio system of the 1930s and '40s thrived on typecasting, molding actors into archetypal roles. There were the suave men-about-town, the rugged cowboys, urban gangsters, blue collar guys, and so on. The white female stars were usually cast as the hard-boiled dame, the good girl next door, the spoiled socialite, etc.

If a studio needed a British elder statesman type, they had someone under contract to fill that role. If they needed a stuffy mother-in-law, they had plenty of middle-aged women under contract that would fit the bill. Comical Irish drunk? Check. Greasy Italian right off the boat? Check. Mexican spitfire? Check.

But when it came to typecasting, African Americans had it even worse. Hollywood’s “Golden Age” of the 1930s and ‘40s, the studio-dominated era, was a rich period for white actors as long as they didn’t mind the typecasting; but it was not particularly fulfilling for black actors. (One could argue that it was still worse for Asians, since many of those roles were actually played by white actors in heavy makeup.)

Most black actors were stoic about the narrow definition they were given on film at the time; it was work in an industry that paid much better than work they could get outside of Hollywood—maids, shoe shines, man servants, porters or other menial jobs. As Hattie McDaniel—the movies’ first black Oscar winner—famously said, "Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week being one.”

In this blog post, I’m looking at four black actors and a single film in their repertoire that made a strong impression on me personally, for one reason or another. They range in style from modest to towering; but above anything else is the characterization, comic timing, and presence each of them project—whether they dominate just a single scene, several scenes, or play a prominent part throughout the film that augments an ensemble cast.

Louise Beavers
"I am only playing the parts. I don't live them.”  

Beavers holds Lombard's hand as she 
dispenses sage advice. White girl better listen.

In 1934, Louise Beavers co-starred opposite one of the biggest white actresses of the time, Claudette Colbert, in the original, ground-breaking “Imitation of Life.” She plays the mother of a girl who goes to extreme lengths to pass for white—even at the expense of her relationship with her mother. Beavers was a heartbreaking revelation in the film.

But despite the movie’s success, it was the very prominence of Beavers’ role—relating as an equal to Colbert—which caused controversy for some in the white community. And the black community reacted negatively to what they still viewed as a stereotyped role. After all, she was still playing more or less a maid.

Aside from this pseudo-success, there is another title in Beavers’ filmography that stands out. In 1939's “Made for Each Other,” she plays Lily, a cook hired by a young married couple, played by Carole Lombard and James Stewart. While the couple have advantages (they can afford a cook), their marital struggles are the crux of the film.

There is nothing earth-shaking about “Made for Each Other,” or Beavers’ role in it. What stands out for me is the dynamic that plays out between Lombard and Beavers. They are not only employer and employee, but friends. The film contains one of the only scenes in a film of this era in which a white person and a black person relate to each other as adult equals. They actually have a conversation with each other.

In that scene, they sit on a park bench as Beavers gives Lombard sage advice and, understanding Lombard’s current struggles, stands up behind her and rubs her head to soothe her worry. The scene is played in a way in which two real people who respect each other, despite their racial and economic differences, would behave.

In a later scene, set at New Year’s Eve, Lily stops by to drop off a gift, and Lombard embraces her. When I first saw this scene, it struck me that I’d never seen another film of this period in which black and white adults touch each other with such genuine affection. Today the gesture would seem negligible, but it was a definite first in film, to my eyes.

Unbelievably, even after her triumph in “Imitation of Life” five years earlier, Beavers’ role in “Made for Each Other” went uncredited. Despite the seeming carelessness of her lack of billing, she imbues Lily with great warmth, and makes a lasting impression.

As a footnote, the remainder of Beavers’ career—30 years—had her relegated to a succession of maid roles. However, she broke ground by being the first black star of a television series, “Beulah,” in which she played—you guessed it—a maid.

Canada Lee
“I had the ambition…to work like mad and be a convincing actor.”  

It seems bizarre that Canada Lee
doesn't even appear on the poster.

Orson Welles gave Canada Lee his first acting break, auspiciously appearing as Banquo in the 1936 all-black stage production of Macbeth. It's on the stage that Lee really made his mark.

However, he did make a handful of feature films between 1939 and 1951, all of which gave him significant supporting roles.

For me, one stands out in particular. “Lifeboat” is Alfred Hitchcock’s 1944 film about a group of disparate individuals who must band together after their ship has been sunk by a German U-boat. Lee, as the bombed ship’s cook, joins British and U.S. service members, a merchant marine, a haughty white female journalist, a delusional British woman, an Army nurse and a wealthy industrialist.  Also aboard the lifeboat is a German survivor, on whom the group takes pity. (They regret it later.)

At first, the survivors work together in an effort to make it to safety in Bermuda. But as time passes, conditions worsen, rations run out, and drinkable water becomes scarce. They become desperate and eventually resort to violence in the cause of self-preservation.

The film is really an examination of the disparities and inequalities of wealth, class, race, gender and nationality. Tallulah Bankhead, as the regal journalist who initially appears on screen wearing a fur coat and surrounded by luggage, is the nominal star of the picture; but she's really just part of an ensemble cast. And if Lee’s character isn’t fully developed, this is still a film that depicts him as a three-dimensional human being—something that movies of the 1940s didn’t often do.
 
As Joe Spencer, he brings a dignity not often seen by black actors in films of this time. He relates as a human being with the other characters—not as a servant. It helps that everyone on this tiny lifeboat is now equal.
 
Still, author John Steinbeck, who wrote the original screenplay, didn’t like how Lee’s character was depicted, calling the role a "stock comedy Negro." In viewing the film today, I disagree—perhaps it was Lee’s natural dignity that rises to the surface despite any limitations placed upon him by the film’s producers or studio. “Lifeboat” is a fascinating combination of wartime propaganda, filmic experiment, and social commentary.

Hattie McDaniel
“I'd rather play a maid than be one.”


As Malena, Hattie McDaniel steals this scene from 

Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray.

Hattie McDaniel is legendary for being the first black actor to win an Oscar, as Mammy in 1939’s “Gone with the Wind.” While her role and the film itself have been controversial for decades due to seemingly racist depiction of blacks who didn’t really mind being slaves, my feeling is that the epic remains a brilliantly-mounted spectacle about a divisive period in American history.

And, by the way, McDaniel’s Mammy is the only character in the film with any common sense. And that makes her the heart of the film--not Scarlet, not Rhett, not any of the other white folk who fight or flee, give in or give up as the Civil War tears their world apart.

But it’s another role, in a much smaller film from 1935, that I want to focus on.
 
“Alice Adams” examines a middle-class girl’s efforts at social climbing in small-town America. Katharine Hepburn is Alice, whose ambition exceeds her means. When she meets a wealthy young man (Fred MacMurray), she falls for him hard.

In an attempt to impress him, she invites him to dinner at her parents’ modest home, scrambling to pull together a meal of what she imagines rich people eat, insisting that her parents wear formal wear, and hiring a maid named Malena (McDaniel) to serve the dinner just for that night. Everything that could go wrong does, including Malena’s incompetence in both the kitchen and the dining room.

Forget for a moment that McDaniel is playing a maid, and watch her brilliant comic timing. The scene during dinner is played almost wordlessly and with no background music to tell us when to laugh—but McDaniel owns it, squeezing every ounce of hilarity out of her seemingly menial role.

Her timing is impeccable, as are her movements and gestures. Her balletic balancing of a dish and the door, the perfectly timed slipping of her wilted maid's hat, and her sidelong glances never belie an expression of abject boredom. Malena clearly does not care whether these silly people impress their guest or not.

I’d like to think that director George Stevens—who knew from comedy—grasped that he was working with a brilliant professional. After all, by 1935, McDaniel was a respected actor and comedienne, a veteran of vaudeville, the legitimate stage, radio and film.

I mentioned Louis Beavers' television show "Beaulah." It was Hattie McDaniel who originated the character, but in the earlier radio version.

Rex Ingram
“I was persuaded that I was just what was needed to play a native of the jungles in the first Tarzan pictures."

Unlike Canada Lee, Ingram is the
most prominent person on the movie poster.
(And rightly so.)

In the 1930s and ‘40s, anything produced by the Korda brothers of England (Alexander, Vincent, and Zoltán) guaranteed prestige. They worked with large budgets to create spectacles, often in expensive Technicolor, with beautiful sets, scenery, and stars.

In 1940, they released “The Thief of Bagdad,” a spectacular Arabian fantasy that starred Sabu as Abu, the young thief of the title. (Sabu was the only "out" Indian actor to achieve mainstream success in British or American films during this era.) While the rest of the main cast of “Arabian” characters is populated by a German (Conrad Veidt as the villain Jafar) and young and beautiful white English actors John Justin and June Duprez, the actor of color I’m recognizing here is the singular Rex Ingram.

Like Canada Lee, Ingram was a respected stage actor by the time this film was made, but had dabbled in films dating from 1918. (That's when he was cast in an early "Tarzan" movie.) In “The Thief of Bagdad,” he gives a literally towering performance, and steals the film as the remarkable special effects create a giant Djinn, or genie, whose hearty laugh fills the screen as much as Ingram’s physical presence.

Abu finds a bottle and inadvertently sets free the Djinn, who roars with anger at having been confined for milennia. Abu puts the Djinn back in the bottle; but, the Djinn agrees that, for letting him back out, he will grant the boy three wishes. From there, the Djinn becomes Abu’s friend and guardian.

Ingram has a field day with this role, and it’s thrilling to watch him dominate the movie, both in presence and characterization. He is literally bigger than life.

Ingram made only a handful of film appearances over a career that spanned nearly 50 years, but in his sporadic appearances, he made the moments count. Two standout roles include runaway slave Jim in 1939’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and Sgt. Major Tambul in one of the best war movies made during WWII, 1943’s ensemble drama “Sahara,” which starred none other than Humphrey Bogart. Ingram also featured prominently in several all-black movies of the pre- and post-war years, such as “The Green Pastures” in 1936 and “Anna Lucasta” in 1949.

Ingram revisited genie territory in the American-made adventure film “A Thousand and One Nights” in 1945, this time billed as The Giant. Obviously the role was hardly a stretch for him. Perhaps in another era, we could have seen more of Ingram in roles that played up his soaring voice, magnetic presence, and considerable talent, rather than limiting him due to his skin color.

When I watch old movies, I always take note of how minorities are represented. It’s just one of the many layers of details I observe to help me understand the time in which they were made. Sometimes black actors are merely part of the backdrop—a porter placing a suitcase on a train as a pretty white lady boards, for example. Other times, yet rarely, they have a more prominent role.

And I pay attention to those black actors and how they present themselves, understanding how they were limited by circumstances that were likely beyond their control at the time.

While many of the roles for black actors during the 1930s and ‘40s were subservient, I still respect the actors themselves, for their dedication, professionalism, humor and talent. They were making their way in a world that was mostly stacked against them, yet worked in an industry in which they could advance in ways not available to them most anywhere else.

Perhaps Louise Beavers, Canada Lee, Hattie McDaniel, and Rex Ingram had to be the ones to go through this period, either playing a succession of one-dimensional parts or limiting their own careers to avoid those types of parts. In any case, they paved the way for better opportunities for future generations. Whatever the case may be, I love them for being the ones that were there at the start.

Psychotic Reaction

There are film scholars who have devoted their entire area of film study to the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. I don’t pretend to be a Hitchcock scholar, although I’m a huge fan of his 1960 masterpiece, “Psycho,” which inspires this blog post.

In the 1930s, horror films focused on iterations of the Dracula and Frankenstein stories. In the ‘40s, we had the horror of a devastating world war, although the Wolf Man and various mad scientists got screen time. In the ‘50s, the space race encouraged movies about nefarious aliens, while the threat of atomic war and radiation spawned drive-in fodder about giant insects on the rampage.

“Psycho” came at the turn of a new decade, a departure from the more conservative ‘50s. While stark sexuality and violence in film were still unusual, “Psycho” broke the molds. Based on the grotesque murders of real-life killer and cross-dresser Ed Gein, "Psycho" was a new kind of thriller that played on the audience’s psychological fears.

The success of “Psycho” spawned a number of movies that either attempted to cash in on its shock value or told similar stories that plumbed the darker aspects of the human psyche. Like “Psycho,” most of these imitators depict the murder, abduction, and/or torture—physically and mentally—of women. You could say it all started when Janet Leigh took that fateful shower.

“Midnight Lace” (1960) – This big-budget Hollywood product would have been in production around the same time as “Psycho,” but I include it here because it follows the burgeoning psychological bent of thrillers of the ‘60s.

Doris Day plays a woman being antagonized by a strange, disembodied voice that threatens her in person and via telephone. She has various brushes with death; but is she really being terrorized, or is it all in her head?

This is a Douglas Sirk production, so it is quite sleek and genteel in its design, despite the harrowing experiences its star must go through. You can juxtapose its high Technicolor gloss with the more stark look and presentation of “Psycho.”

Still, “Midnight Lace” is an effective chiller as America's sweetheart Doris Day convincingly unravels—while wearing the height of 1960 fashion.

“Peeping Tom” (1960) – Mark (Carl Boehm) works as a cameraman for a British movie studio. He indulges his wish to become a professional filmmaker by recording the murders of women in first person so he can document their expression of fear at the moment of death. We learn that, as a child, Mark’s renowned psychiatrist father used him in psychological experiments about fear in children—which the father filmed. 

The implication is that the effect of this abuse manifested itself in Mark’s need to kill. Often called “The British Psycho,” this movie was very controversial in England, destroyed by critics and ignored by audiences. It ruined the career of famed director Michael Powell, and its release in the U.S. was delayed by two years. Now considered a classic, it’s an unsettling experience watching Mark’s voyeuristic obsession unfold.

“Homicidal” (1961) – Director William Castle fancied himself another Hitchcock, but he possessed more hucksterism than Hitch’s artistry. The films he directed or produced tended toward gimmickry and are famed for outrageous marketing campaigns.

In “Homicidal,” he takes an obvious spin on (read: rip-off of) “Psycho.” The film opens with a strange blonde woman named Emily murdering a justice of the peace. We’re then introduced to Miriam Webster and her brother Warren.

Warren, who has just returned from a trip abroad, tells Miriam that Emily is his wife. But why does Miriam never see Warren and Emily at the same time? One surprising murder scene involving a mute old lady on a stair lift gives Castle a chance to revel in “Psycho”-inspired macabre.

“The Sadist” (1962) – Maybe the least well-known, but most disturbing, film in this post is “The Sadist,” a low-budget B-movie that is based in part on the early 1950s killing spree of Charles Starkweather. Three buttoned-up school teachers on the way to a baseball game get sidetracked at a remote roadside stop. While there, they discover the bodies of the family that owns the property. And then they meet the murderer: an insane young man and his seemingly mute, but just as crazy, girlfriend. The film immediately takes a very violent turn, as the sadist murders one teacher and systematically hunts and tortures the others. Although the acting is amateurish at first (it reminded me of educational films of the period), the performers soon come into their own as the shocking moments pile on. The bland civility of the teachers is stripped away to match the raw depravity of the killer, a twist that influenced future films in which civilized people, stuck in a remote location, must fight for their survival.

“Experiment in Terror” (1963) – In this fairly conventional Hollywood thriller, which obviously takes cues from Hitchcock's style, director Blake Edwards still makes a convincing movie. A psychotic killer targets an unsuspecting bank teller, Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), to steal $100,000 from the bank for him, threatening to kill her sister Toby (Stephanie Powers) if she doesn’t do it. The bank teller contacts the FBI, which puts an agent (Glenn Ford) on the case.

As the FBI investigates, the killer claims another victim, revealed in a grisly moment that serves as the film's 'set-piece' murder. Meanwhile, he gives Kelly a specific time and date to steal the money, but kidnaps Toby as bait to ensure she does the job. Toby's ordeal of confinement—stripped almost bare—is jarring and may remind you of “Silence of the Lambs.”

“Strait-Jacket” (1964) – This time, William Castle capitalizes on the early-‘60s trend of casting aging movie queens in horror films. After the success of Robert Aldrich’s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” in 1962, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford found renewed careers. In “Strait-Jacket,” Castle casts Crawford as a middle-aged woman who has just been let out of prison for the axe-murder of her two-timing boyfriend and his lover two decades before. But suddenly, there is a new spate of killings. 

Has she relapsed, or is someone trying to pin the gruesome new deaths on her? While the chopping off of heads is not convincing, especially these days, Crawford gives the role her all. The movie entered the realm of camp long ago, but would certainly not have been produced if not for the success of “Psycho.” It is emblematic of the more sensationalistic horror films that were made in "Psycho"'s wake at this time.

“Lady in a Cage” (1964) – This sordid psychological tale preys on an invalid woman (Olivia de Havilland) who gets stuck in an elevator in her apartment due to a power failure. Three thugs break in to steal her pricey possessions and generally taunt and torment her in her “cage.” While de Havilland doesn’t exemplify the empowered woman depicted in similar-themed films of today, she does turn the tables on her attackers (specifically, the leader of the gang, played by a very young James Caan).

The claustrophobic and menacing atmosphere of the film was reflective of audience members’ fears of the wild, reckless, and violent “younger generation.” But besides the generation gap, the film captures other then-timely themes: An increasingly disconnected society, fast-changing attitudes toward morals, urban decay, and a growing sense of nihilism in America.

“I Saw What You Did” (1965) – Two teenage girls living in picture-perfect suburbia prank call unsuspecting people by whispering suggestively, “I saw what you did… and I know who you are” and then hanging up in a hail of giggles. But when they inadvertently call a psychopath who has just murdered his wife (Joan Crawford—again), they get themselves into a heap of trouble.

William Castle’s least gimmicky, and perhaps best, thriller of the 1960s mimics the famous shower scene from “Psycho” by (spoiler alert) thrusting top-billed Crawford through a glass shower door when you least expect it. With the slick, over-lit, stage-bound look of a typical 1960s sitcom, “I Saw What You Did” possesses a discomfiting air of joviality, and even innocence, amidst the dark proceedings and violent moments.

“The Collector” (1965) – This film concerns a lonely young man named Frederick (Terence Stamp), who abducts an art student named Miranda (Samantha Eggar) and imprisons her in a secluded stone cellar. (Shades of "Silence of the Lambs" again.) The film depicts Frederick’s sick obsession with a girl who is as pretty as the butterflies he pins to a board in his collection. As Miranda attempts to negotiate release from Frederick, she uses her own wiles to try to escape. 

Like Norman Bates’s calm narration at the conclusion of “Psycho,” the end of “The Collector” is a matter-of-fact voice-over from Frederick. William Wyler, who made a number of respected classics over a 30-year career, was criticized for the sordid subject matter and downbeat conclusion of this film. But, as the popular Petula Clark song went, it was a sign of the times.

“Targets” (1968) – A clean-cut Vietnam veteran returns home to a loving family. Then one day he shoots his wife and mother point-blank with a high-powered rifle, and continues killing indiscriminately. Meanwhile, a veteran movie star—played by the legendary Boris Karloff (basically playing himself)—is considering retiring, as he realizes that his harmless horror opuses can’t compete with the real-life horrors he sees happening all around him. These two disparate plot threads culminate at a drive-in theater where Karloff is making a personal appearance, which is interrupted by the sniper picking off unsuspecting customers as they sit in their cars watching the show. (Shades of the Aurora movie theater shootings.)

An early film from director Peter Bogdanovich, “Targets” was inspired by actual snipers Michael Andrew Clark, who in 1965 killed or wounded 13 people driving on a California highway; and Charles Joseph Whitman, who in 1966 killed 16 people at the University of Texas (including his wife and mother). Additionally, the movie was released shortly after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, so it was certainly topical. Meanwhile, the Zodiac killer was beginning his killing spree and a year later Charles Manson and his ‘family’ would close out the decade with a murderous rampage of their own. “Targets” reflects an America gone mad, underscoring seeming societal degradation. The casting of Karloff, a real-life movie monster, juxtaposes his movie artifice with the reality of modern fear and loathing.

By 1970, so much had changed in America—there was so much new to be afraid of—that, from a cinematic perspective, a glossy movie like “Midnight Lace” or a silly, comparatively innocent William Castle frightfest were considered anachronistic.

In the wake of “Psycho,” the movies took a different approach to what it meant to scare and be scared. Without it, would there have been “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” "Halloween" or “Friday the 13th”? For better or for worse, “Psycho” opened the door to a more grim view of human nature and encouraged an increasingly accelerated level of graphic violence in the horror genre. Today, in a hyper-violent world, it seems to require a greater level of gore, torture, and nihilistic hopelessness to frighten us at the movies.

[Side note: This blog post's headline was inspired by Count Five's 1966 single “Psychotic Reaction.”]

Dean Jones's Animal Instincts

When Dean Jones passed away at age 84 on September 1, there wasn't much fanfare. For many, like me, he was a childhood memory of The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights. Although he hadn’t been very active in films for many years, and his leading man days were over long ago, at one time he was the very visible face of the live-action Disney films of the mid-to-late 1960s.

He got his start in Hollywood in 1956, landing small and uncredited roles until finally breaking through in 1957 as the disc jockey Teddy Talbot in Elvis Presley’s third film, the now-iconic “Jailhouse Rock.”

From there he continued to get larger parts, usually in supporting roles. As the 1960s took shape, Jones, along with other young male stars like Jim Hutton and Jeffrey Hunter, became a sort of figurehead of the streamlined mid-century man, handsome in slim-fitting suits, white shirts, skinny ties, perfect hair, and beguiling smiles a girl (or guy) just couldn't resist.

Older male stars who'd gotten their start in the 1930s but were still active in the '60s, such as James Stewart and Henry Fonda, had a more old-fashioned, home-spun persona; but by updating that unpretentious, boy-next-door quality to a younger generation and bracing it for the more freewheeling '60s, Jones became the everyman persona's heir apparent.

Jones smooches a surprised Jane Fonda
in "Any Wednesday."

At this time, he took top billing in a couple of light comedies that are emblematic of the period in look and attitude, including “Under the Yum Yum Tree” (1963), with pretty Carol Lynley; “Two on a Guillotine” (1965), with bubbly Connie Stevens; and “Any Wednesday” (1966), with Jane Fonda. These three co-stars are emblematic of '60s leading ladies.[1]

Most people today would find these fluffy romances fairly dated, and maybe even sexist; but they are entertaining diversions indicative of their time. In them, Jones represents the glib, charming, glossy modern ladies’ man as seen through the lens of Hollywood. In between television appearances, he also had the chance to do a few dramatic roles as part of an ensemble cast, such as "The Young Interns" (1964)--which, no surprise, also cast him opposite some hot ladies of the era, including Stefanie Powers, Barbara Eden, and Inger Stevens.

In 1965, his fortunes changed. Walt Disney Studios was trying to find new ways to cash in on the teen market. They already had a money-maker in Hayley Mills, but she was growing up and no longer the little girl from “Pollyanna.” So they found a vehicle that would capitalize on her existing marquee value, but help make Jones their avatar for live-action comedy. Plus, he enabled them to add a little clean-cut male sex appeal.

Hayley Mills and Jones paws
for a moment to think about the crime.

Jones’s first Disney movie was “That Darn Cat!” (note the exclamation point), which gave Miss Mills the chance to be adorable, yet grown-up. Meanwhile, Jones was able to capitalize on his charisma and proven comic ability. (It’s worth noting that the studio wasn’t quite ready to make Mills his leading lady; in this comedy, Jones falls for her sister.)

An unequivocal hit, “That Darn Cat!” led to a series of Disney movies that cast Jones opposite other then-current leading ladies who basically played second fiddle to whatever the animal of the moment happened to be. There was “The Ugly Dachshund” (1966), with Suzanne Pleshette; “Monkeys Go Home!” (1967), with Yvette Mimieux; and “The Million Dollar Duck” (1971), with Sandy Duncan.

In 1968 alone, he appeared in three Disney films, including “Blackbeard’s Ghost” (with Pleshette again); “The Love Bug,” with Michelle Lee (and a Volkswagen); and “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit,” with Diane Baker—and a horse, of course.

Jones's most popular and well-remembered
Disney feature co-starred an adorable car.

But by the end of the sixties, the Walt Disney-Dean Jones formula was wearing thin and audiences were losing interest. Perhaps it was the grim realities of the fast-changing Vietnam era that made these films seem out of step with the times.

And as if in response to the excesses of the ‘60s, Jones’s personal life took a turn. He had grown weary of the Hollywood way of life and some of its more self-destructive aspects. While his film career foundered, in 1970 he was cast as Bobby in Steven Sondheim’s “Company,” and although he had a magnificent singing voice, he quit the production just two weeks into its initial run due to marital problems. You'll be wowed, and perhaps surprised (as I was), by his powerful rendition of "Being Alive," an emotional performance that indicates the true depth of his talent (and seems to indicate what was going on in his personal life).

It was around this time that he hit a point of crisis that led to him becoming a born-again Christian. His presence in films from then on would never reach the level it had been in the 1960s, yet he would continue to act in parts small and large, in feature films and television. He made his last film appearance in 2009.

Periodically, he returned to Disney territory, including two mediocre features that attempted to follow on the success of the studio’s earlier films. “The Shaggy D.A.” was a 1976 sequel to 1959’s “The “Shaggy Dog” (which had starred another Disney leading man, Fred MacMurray). “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” was a meager 1977 follow-up to the original Love Bug movie. (I remember going to the theater to see it when it came out.)

As if hanging onto his most popular and iconic film, Jones participated in other retreads of the cute Volkswagen storyline, including the short-lived television series “Herbie the Love Bug” (1982) and the television movie “The Love Bug” (1997). Neither made much of an impression, nor did his appearance as the villain in 1997’s remake of “That Darn Cat.” (Note that this 1997 take on the 1965 title dispensed with the exclamation point, as if to underscore that the ‘90s was a decidedly less lighthearted decade.)

With that smile and those boyish good looks, he just seemed like a
nice guy--the perfect Disney hero.

Jones was a bright, engaging presence who sleekly represented his era. His modern look, affable demeanor, and easy-going charm helped balance the slight scripts of those popular Disney comedies. He never complained about their formulaic nature, and knew they were innocuous light entertainment. Yet his deft handling elevated the material and indicated a true professional who understood his appeal.

In a career that spanned nearly 60 years, Jones made his mark in those relics of a different era’s snappier, less complicated approach to entertainment. The Disney movies in which he co-starred with a cat, a dog, a horse, a duck, even a ghost and, most iconic, a cute little car, are the ones for which he’ll be best remembered.

[1] Granted, Fonda's career went much further than Lynley's or Stevens', and changed significantly into the 1970s in lockstep with the anti-war, anti-nukes, and women's rights movements.