Posted on 10/31/2011 1:20:55 PM PDT by Sick of Lefties
NoFamily enjoyed "Vicki" (1953) last night, a Film Noir goody starring Jeanne Crain, Jean Peters, Richard Boone as a nut-job cop, and a host of non-descript actors.
It's not a great movie. But, like most Noir, it's a thoroughly entertaining one. Crain captivates, as she does in everything Noman has seen her in.
Whenever the camera is on her face, which is often, the mind turns to mulling what it is that makes her so infernally beautiful. Is it her lips, nose, eyes, hair, profile, their combination? Who knows? It works, though.
Vicki (Peters) is Crain's younger sister, a waitress who gets discovered in a NY diner by a good natured publicist and his columnist friend. Vicki's got what it takes, and few scruples about using it to get ahead and leave her newfound friends and devoted sister behind. On her way to the top, however, she gets murdered.
The whodunnit gets interesting with the entry of Boone, a murder investigator who in fifteen years on the force has never been wrong. That should suffice to make the viewer suspicious.
This is the kind of movie that makes you thank God for Miranda warnings, search and seizure laws and the minute code of federal criminal procedure promulgated without authority by the Supreme Court.
Special mention should be made of whoever selected Crain's wardrobe. With the exception of a couple of funny hats, Noman spent the movie admiring the taste, fit, design, look, etc. of nearly everything she wore. A return to 1953 movie fashions could effectuate a social revolution comparable to that provoked by the mini-skirt.
Noman first saw Crain in "Dangerous Crossing" (1953), a very good mystery also starring Carl Betz and Michael Rennie. She was absolutely stunning in this thriller, as the linked pictures indicate.
She is also a competent, if not stellar actress. (FYI, Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a detractor of Cain's.) You're with her as she wonders if she's going crazy, and as you realize that she's in mortal danger.
The multitude of stills available on Google simply don't capture the phenomena of Crain, which video reveals. She looks the way Donna Reed would if Clarence the angel granted her most fervent wish to look her most stunning.
Crain is beautiful without being ornate, delicate without being fragile, serene without being boring, elegant without being aloof, classy without being pretentious, engrossing without being obtrusive, wholesome without being cliche...
Noman was impressed enough to view a number of her films: "Cheaper by the Dozen" (1950 & 1952's sequel "Belles On Their Toes"); "State Fair" (1945) with Dana Andrews; "Letter To Three Wives" (1949), a marriage drama starring Linda Darnell, Kirk Douglas, Ann Sothern and Paul Douglas; and one of his favorites, "Leave Her to Heaven" (1945) a psycho-thriller with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Vincent Price.
This latter film is an engrossing character study of a truly deranged person starring two of Noman's favorite Hollywood starlets. Scenes featuring both Tierney and Crain are nearly maddening as the eye moves from one to the other engaging the mind in an irresolvable debate over which actress is the most beautiful, and why.
Crain was an oddity in Hollywood: the mother of seven children (born between 1945 and 1965) with one husband to whom she remained stormily married until death did them part. He predeceased her by two months in 2003. They divorced briefly in 1956, but were reconciled months later. She was a devout Catholic.
Her bio also states that she stumped with a list of Hollywood luminaries including Walt Disney and Jimmy Stewart for the Republican cause in 1960. The length as well as composition of the list is eye catching. Would that Hollywood were so diverse today.
Quite a woman; quite a beauty; quite an actress. Noman hopes that you enjoy Crain's oeuvre as much as he does.
I am watching the 1930 something version of “Dracula” right now. It holds up surprisingly well. In fact I would say it is clearly the definitive version tho I liked the fairly recent one too.
Most movies made in the last 20 years are just awful. I guess my tastes vary from most but some that have been really popular just amaze me with how dreadful they are.
Didn't know her marriage was stormy. Still, she stuck it out as few do nowadays.
In any case, I'll have to check out "Vicky".
Tierney 
Crain
Jean Peters wasn’t bad either.
It sometimes seems like she was in every movie of the 40s and 50s era.
Gene Tierney may have been the most beautiful actress ever.
Tierney was a love interest to John F. Kennedy, and yes she was very beautiful.
Jeanne Crain, a mother of seven! Would such outstanding Catholic devotion exist today around the world, let alone Hollywood, the Christians would not be so entirely overcome by Muslim populations. There was a day when no churches forbade birth control. One by one they have fallen off, while the Catholics still oppose it, the laity has joined the culture. Turns out God was right and now we pay the fiddler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pcVDmX4ho4
Oops...wrong person. /s
In A MAN CALLED PETER, among others. And while we're on the subject of Jeans, how about Jean "I love you Spartacus" Simmons?
You must have esp as I was actually thinking of Jean Simmons when I typed Jean Peters. Actually I think I had them confused in my mind because I do recall Jean Peters in “A Man Called Peter”.
I think she starred in the film PINKY, about a black woman passing for white. Quite beautiful there, also.
IIRC “Pinky” was about the daughter of a black/white couple. The director was a controversial guy, can’t remember the name off hand, and the movie was reported to have caused quite a stir.
“Would such outstanding Catholic devotion exist today”
We’ve got 8. And, we’re normal in our little pocket of Ann Arbor. Rejoice!
She might have been nominated for an academy award for this role.
Our library doesn’t have it, and that’s where I get most of her movies.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043915/combined
>>> I am watching the 1930 something version of “Dracula” right now. It holds up surprisingly well. In fact I would say it is clearly the definitive version
I'd say Bela comes in second to the rarely seen German silent "Nosferatu". Bela's style of overacting almost turns his movie into a comedy. The later pairing of Dracula with Abbott and Costello underlines that. "Nosferatu" may have been an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula but it captures the evil much more directly then the American films.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0013442/combined
” We’ve got 8. And, we’re normal in our little pocket of Ann Arbor. Rejoice! “ <<<<<
THANKS BE TO GOD for you! Congratulations to you and your entire family! Your cost analysis will be done in Heaven.
As a late but happy convert I missed entirely the burden and the joys your life represents, and am in awe of your devotion. I will be thinking of Jeanne Crain tomorrow. ;) And of you and yours.
Thanks.
We haven’t done anything special. We’re just open to life. God does the rest. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
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