Tag Archives: Lynn Bari

She Can Do It! And so Can Janet and I!

1940s mystery, A Moment After Dark, Always Play the Dark Horse, Bait and Switch, Bait and Switch, Dark Passage, Film Actors, Film Noir, Janet Raye Stevens, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, Lisa Lieberman, Long Time, Lynn Bari, Lynnfield Library, massachusetts, My Sweet, mystery, Nocturne, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, Smart-Talking Gals, suspense, Time Cop, World War II, writing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I first met sister-author Janet Raye Stevens when my friend Lisa Lieberman (another mystery author) asked me to join her and Janet to do a ZOOM program on the importance of clothing and fashion in the development of our mid-century mysteries.  This was my initial chance to read Janet’s Beryl Blue time cop series and her stand alone, A Moment After Dark.  I was hooked.

Janet and I both love the 1940s, especially the era’s sharp and challenging mysteries, which inspire our own writing.  We are especially taken by the “smart-talking gals” populating 1930s-40s mysteries, neither femme fatale not babyish innocent:  a woman who has been around, learned the ropes, but has not lost her integrity.

We loved the sharp wit and clever cracks of the likes of Joan Bennett, Claire Trevor (when they were playing on the side of the angels), Lynn Bari, Lauren Bacall, Ella Raines and many others.  We especially loved how they were usually the ones who set the noir’s anti-heroes straight, pulled together and made sense of the disparate threads of clues, and weren’t above skirting conventions and the law to see fairness prevail.  So, it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows us and our smart talking heroines Jessica Minton (me) and Beryl Blue and A Moment After Dark’s Addie Brandt (Janet) that we put together our heads and came up with a presentation:  “She Can Do It!  Real/‘Reel’ Women and Mid-Century Mysteries.”

We did our initial run at the Lynnfield Library, thanks to the go-ahead from Assistant Library Director Marita Klements. Our space was a loft area in the former schoolhouse, now library, where we set up a multi-media show.  We started by introducing the fact that with the war, women now had opportunities to put their considerable talents to work in factories, in the air, in battlefield hospitals, etc.

However, you can’t talk about the influence of movie smart-talking gals without showing some clips, can you?  For fun, we showed a clip from a 1938 Nancy Drew movies, where a teenage Nancy not only recognizes a kidnapping and tracks kidnappers in her car, only thwarted when her car has a flat – which she changes herself without missing a beat. Sisters were doing it for themselves in 1938, and we talked about how the wave of independence continued through the 1940s, in real and reel life.

Janet and I broke down the presentation into three sections, first showing a clip (talking about it a little), then showing its influence on our development of our heroines by each doing a related reading from her own text that reflected what went on in the scene.  Murder suspect Lynn Bari’s snappy but cool exchange with detective George Raft in Nocturne illustrated a woman with substance, unintimidated by authority. Dark Passage’s Lauren Bacall revealed a gal resourcefully rescuing Humphrey Bogart from persecution by unjust law.  Finally, Anne Shirley, in Murder, My Sweet, showed our gal calling out both men and women who misjudge or threaten her. After reading related, short excerpts from our books, Janet and I explained how these smart-talking gals influenced our heroines

We had a lot of fun, watching our audience get into our writings as we read. (It’s always great when people laugh in the right places!)  It was just as neat to see them enjoy the smart-talking gals tell it like it is, be unflummoxed by adversity – on the screen or on our pages.  We also got thoughtful questions about our research, background on the films and the actresses, and the influence of these films on women’s changed roles during and after the war.

So, if you think this evening sounded like fun, get in touch with Janet (janetrayestevens@gmail.com) or me (syang@worcester.edu) and maybe we can make an appearance at a library, senior center, or other venue near you.

(P.S. Yang made my suit based on an actual 1940s suit that I own!)

 

 

 

 

Smart Talking Gals Part 3 Lynn Bari

Bait and Switch, Edward G. Robinson, Film Actors, Film Noir, George Raft, Lynn Bari, Nocturne, Randolph Scott, Smart-Talking Gals, Sweet Homicide, Tampico, , , , , , , , ,

Blog 15  Smart Talking Gals Part 3

Lynn Bari:

Home Sweet Homicide, Nocturne, Tampico, Sleepers West, The Amazing Mr. X

Lynn Bari, of the apple cheeks, sweet but knowing smile, dark hair, and warm, throaty voice is one of my favorite smart-talking gals. Like some of the other females in this hall of cinematic fame, she could play a fourteen-karat stinker. Think of Sun Valley Serenade and Margie. Still, when she was on the side of the angels, with a little pitch fork to keep things hopping, she could be a great one to have in your corner. HomeSweetHomicideIn Home Sweet Homicide, Bari plays an attractive widow with a brood of kids whom she supports through writing murder mysteries. When there’s a real murder on her block, the kids plot to solve it to get their mother publicity for her books and to match her up with police detective Randolph Scott. Lynn gets off some nifty quips while taking guff from no one, not even Randolph Scott (cue the celestial choir in Blazing Saddles). When he tries to imply she’s an inadequate mother who has raised a passel of overly imaginative, disingenuous children, she sets him straight without being the least flapped. First she smoothly calls him on his right to pass judgment with the smiling query, “How many children have you raised?” then puts a nifty finish on his criticism with this amused inquiry to his response, “Do you know anything about children, except what you read in books?” When he tries to offer evidence that her children aren’t telling the truth by recounting the unlikely stories they’ve given him about being born in Peru, China, and other foreign points, she affably reveals his need not to be bound by limited expectations with the information that she had traveled the world with her newspaper-man husband. She finishes with a show of her strength, adventurousness, and open mindedness by turning back his pity for her difficult life with the warmth in her eyes and words as she tells him, “It was heaven, and I wouldn’t have traded it for all the tea in China.”

TampicoIn Tampico, Bari plays a survivor of a U-boat attack whom merchant marine captain Edward G. Robinson fishes out of the South Atlantic. After some nifty verbal exchanges, the two fall in love and marry. All is not peaches and cream after that, as Robinson is led to suspect Lynn of being a Nazi fiver. Is she? Would those big brown eyes and apple cheeks serve de Fuhrer? Watch the movie and find out.

Lynn5The best of her smart-talking roles, though, is  aspiring actress Frances Ransome, opposite police detective George Raft in Nocturne. Tough guy Raft is on his mettle to match her self-confidence and smooth but mordant wit. This gal is unflappable. When Raft demands of her, “Why did you kill him?” she shoots back nonchalantly, with a hint of a smile “Which one?” A pushy date tries to top off, “Gee, Baby, it’s been a swell evening,” by forcing a kiss. Bari Lynn2 deftly checks him with, “Why not let it stay that way?” followed by a gentle shove and a sarcastically sweet, “Good night.” Raft tips his hat to her prowess  by dryly admiring, “As good a block as I’ve ever seen. Ever thought of playing for the Green Bay Packers?” Bari’s Frances keeps Raft’s Detective Warne firmly in place, at one point telling him, “I have a late date. And even if I hadn’t I still wouldn’t go out [with you]. Is that clear enough for you?” Later, on the set of a movie in which she’s an extra, he tries to pull off a threatening bluff to force her to come clean about the murder. With perfect control, she cuts him dead: “Why don’t you hop on your scooter, sonny boy, and blow. I’ve got to emote.” And she doesn’t care what people think about her as long as she knows the truth. Raft tries to take her down a peg by inferring from her fancy digs and couture that he sees her as a kept woman. Instead of angrily or affrontedly protesting the truth, that she’s borrowing both from a pal (hinted to be Ginger Rogers), she plays along with his misjudgment for her own amusement, responding with mock innocence, Lynn9“Can I help it if people like to give me things?”  Needless to say, Warne thinks she’s swell, doesn’t believe she’s the real killer, and takes the needling in stride, even fun, enjoying the challenge rather than looking for a crushing conquest.

And those outfits! Especially the sequined cocktail dress – which leads to another great quip. Her sister comments on liking the ensemble, and Frances indirectly twits Detective Warne with, “This isn’t bad considering I ran it up on a sewing machine salesman.” Lynn6 Still the Detective gets a kick out of, admires, her smart sauciness, her self-confidence, and the good heart he can see keeping both company. He also has a healthy respect for how she fills out a bathing suit, as well. Lynn1 Appearances in Sleepers West and The Amazing Mr. X deserve honorable mention in the smart-talking gal category.

I’d love to think up a plot for a mystery where Lynn could be inspiration for my heroine.  I’ll have to get cracking.  Maybe at some point she could help out Jessica and Liz in one of my sequels to Bait and Switch?  Suggestions from any Lynn Bari fans?

Last updated 1/06/23