Tag Archives: Smart-Talking Gals

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 Gal #4: Susan Hayward

Film Actors, Film Noir, Heat of Anger (1972), House of Strangers (1949), Rawhide (1949), Smart-Talking Gals, Susan Hayward, Top Secret (1957), Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Susan Hayward

One of my favorite of all the smart talking gals is that lady with the baby face, biting talk, and magnificent mane of auburn hair, Susan Hayward.  Hayward started out specializing in types meaner and more inventively spiteful than a pack of Heathers:  Sis Hopkins, Adam Had Four Sons, And Now Tomorrow, I Married a Witch, and Forest Rangers.  She persecuted the dickens out of Judy Cannova, Ingrid Bergman, Loretta Young, Veronica Lake (the real witch), and Paulette Goddard.  Yet she had something that almost made you root for her.  Actually, many of us probably were rooting for her in Forest Ranger, where she set out to fix Paulette’s wagon after the latter unknowingly stole boyfriend and big dope Fred MacMurray.  More than one critic found unbelievable the feisty Susan wimping out in the midst of fire so Paulette could prove herself by saving her.
Filmmakers came to see that spark of something special in Hayward, upgrading her to roles where she might connive but still definitely win our admiration for her smarts and heart.  That snappy wordplay, that piercing insight into the heart of things, that defiant glare and tilt of her auburn-crowned head were combined with tenderness and integrity that had to be earned.  The men impelled to this Susan aren’t allured by a femme fatale but drawn by her strength, clear sight, and straight talk.  In They Won’t Believe Me, she snares philanderer Robert Young, but insists on a commitment to match her own .  Deadline at Dawn shows her tossing off cracks as a dancehall girl blowing away creeps, outfoxing a deceptive dame, and going toe-to-toe with gangsters. Still she ends up helping a näive sailor on leave who’s gotten himself caught in a murder frame.  She may dismiss him as “only a baby,” but she sticks around to show him the ropes and clear his name.  Then, Robert Montgomery in The Saxon Charm finds her too much for his slick, con artist charm when she coolly stands up to him and calls out his phoniness for her writer husband.
Three Hayward films that especially show that tough and smart look good on a gal are House of Strangers (1949), Rawhide (1950), and Top Secret Affair (1957).  In the first film, Hayward may initially seem to be your typical vamp, sporting slinky sequins and silks, lush red tresses, and clever with her cracks, especially when she temps tough-guy lawyer Richard Conte away from his Italian banking family and docile fiancée.  However, she’s the best thing that ever happened to him, getting him away from a family that has always been a hotbed of resentments and manipulations. When Conte goes to prison for trying to bribe a juror to save the father he’s defending for fraud, the fiancée promptly ditches him for one of his brothers.  Completely blind to having brought on his fall through oppression and disrespect of his other sons, the father (Edward G. Robinson), feeds the imprisoned Conte a steady diet of hatred and vengence in letters.  Our Susan sees right through things and marches straight past the portals of the father’s hollow mansion, to give Edward G. Robinson hell for destroying that son.  Finally, it’s her tough love that inspires Conte to leave behind his self-devouring family.  In fact, she’s independent enough to follow through on her promise to leave for good – his choice whether to wise up and join her.  One of my favorite of her lines comes early in their relationship. Conte tries to keep her in her place by bragging he’s too much for her to handle. Defiantly she retorts,  “Nothing hurts me.  That’s one of my complications.”
Rawhide is an especial favorite of mine.  In the mid-1800s, Susan is traveling cross- country by stage, on her own, with her toddler niece.  When at one stop she’s told a recent jailbreak makes it too dangerous for a woman to be allowed to go on with the stage, she not only refuses to disembark, but it takes two guys (including Tyrone Power) to get her off that stage.  Our Red is some determined woman.  Later, she insists on taking Powers’ gun with her when she goes for a bath in a hot spring.  He snidely comments, “What are you afraid of, coyotes?” and she shuts him up with, “Yeah, the ones with boots on.”  He tries to imply she’s a weak little lady by challenging if she knows how to use a gun, and our smart talkin’ gal of the West puts the man in his place with cool understatement, “I’ve seen them around.” Susan’s stay gets tougher as the jail breakers take over the waystation, but she is undaunted.  One guy tries to rough her up, and she smacks him good. After the jail breakers shoot Powers’ partner when he tries to escape, she sneers at the leader, “We won’t run away.  We’d hate to get shot in the back.”  She stays cool and strong and smart throughout, taking over from Power in secretly digging a hole in the adobe of the room where they’re being held prisoner. When the knife accidentally flies outside, she grabs the baby and pretends she has to take the kid outside to “do her business.”  That also inspires one of her smart cracks.  To her, “Got to take the baby out,” Zimmerman, the leader growls, “Where?”  She growls right back, “Where do you think?” Best of all, our smart talkin’ gal proves she’s smart actin’ at the end, as she reveals what she meant by “having seen guns around.”  Power is helpless under the gun of lowlife Jack Elam, so she manages to by grab a rifle and plug Elam, saving the day.
Top Secret Affair comes later, in 1957, and there is some talk from Hayward’s Dottie Peele about always wanting to meet a guy she could respect, marry, and have a family with.  Still, the only guy who can go toe to toe with her is Kirk Douglas’s general.  As the top of a media conglomerate that drives public opinion, but mostly for the better (no female Rupert Murdoch, she!), Susan gives us a smart, strong, articulate woman.  A newsreel featuring the general leaves her unimpressed with military propaganda, as she dismisses him with, “Look at him apple polishing the President (FDR).  I bet he voted for Wilkie.” Or “Bang, bang.  Like a kid with a space gun.”  The oversized image of his face doesn’t cowe her as the army might intend, as she instead dismisses him with, “Get back in your tank, turtlehead.”  The director gives us an intriguing cut to emphasize that Dottie Peele is no weak woman to be cowed by military might.  Right after General Goodwin tells his adjutant, “There’s only two kinds of women in this world: mothers and the other kind,” we cut to Dottie saying, “There’s only two kinds of men in this world – and I can handle both of them.”  Of course, the two end up together, but not before they have to plow through misunderstandings and reconciliations, the latter from mutual respect rather than deceit or submission.  Some remarks from Dottie let us know that even if she retires from media in marriage, she’ll not retire from speaking her mind and maybe a plunge into politics, though perhaps indirectly.

All the way to 1972, and our red-haired dynamo is still taking charge with wit, integrity, and insight.  In Heat of Anger, Hayward plays lawyer Jessie Fitzgerald, “the Portia of the Pacific.”  An established defense lawyer who’s not afraid to partner with rebel lawyer James Stacey for defending cantankerous Lee. J, Cobb, Susan is still on her toes, zipping around in her sports car and working the system with verve and smarts.  When the prosecutor attempts to cowe her with a sarcastic, “Your integrity overwhelms me,” she shuts him up with, “Well, I’ll embroider that on a pillow in needlepoint.” Partner Stacey tries to call her on snowing a jury into freeing a murderer, and she sets him straight:  “You win with the best case.  Juries decide.”  If Jessie raises an objection in court, it sticks. If the prosecutor tries to spring newly discovered information about her client in court, she turns it into evidence that could win jury sympathy and respect with, “No more coddling. Straight to the nerve.”  She even beats James Stacey at pool, as well as presses him to come out with what he hates about the client so that he finally gets on board with her.  And you better believe that client Lee J. Cobb, as much as he lumbers over her and snarls his anger, backs down under her steady and determined personality.  Yep, our auburn-haired whirlwind still had it!

Maybe the quip that best sums up Susan Hayward’s smart gal screen personae comes in one of her earlier films, Tulsa (1949).  Her character, Cherokee Lansing, becomes partners in wildcat oil drilling with Robert Preston.  When he calls her by her Native American name, Seenotawnee, her friend Jim Redbird replies, “In Cherokee, it means redhead.”  She correct Jim and says to Preston, “But to you, Mr. Brady, it means boss!”  This smart talkin’ red head will always be boss with us!

 

 

Color Image cover art for Alpha Video (2003)Tulsa
Black and white photographs of Susan Hayward from The Films of Susan hayward (Eduardo Moreno, Citadel Press, 2009)
Screen Shots from the following films:  Top Secret Affair (Warner Brothers, 1985, 2009) and Heat of Anger (Quality Video, DSSP, Inc, 2002)

 

Tell Me Another

I suppose I had thought that a person accumulated her experiences over the years and then, when retirement afforded her the leisure to go through her diaries, miscellaneous writings, and correspondence, she would have all that she needed to write her memoirs. I, that is, not she. All those boxes of papers I haven’t organized going back to the year dot, they could all wait until I had the time to go through them. Once I had the time, I had supposed, the floodgates of memory would simply open, and all the flotsam and jetsam of life would more-or-less fall into place. I realize now that I was counting on it. But as it turns out, events are conspiring to present a wholly different picture. 

For one thing, my mind seems to have gone completely blank. After all, over twelve-plus years Tell Me Another has accumulated more than…

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“My Smart-Talking Gal Mystery Heroine: A Joan Bennett Birthday Tribute”

1940s mystery, Bait and Switch, Dark Shadows, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Film Actors, Film Noir, Jessica Minton, Joan Bennett, Letter from a Dead Man, mystery, Sharon Healy Yang, Sharon Yang, suspense, The House Across the Bay, The Man I Married, The Scar, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“My Smart-Talking Gal Mystery Heroine: A Joan Bennett Birthday Tribute”

It’s only natural to honor Joan Bennett on her birthday by explaining her powerful influence on my writing. A lot of this influence goes back to my earlier years watching old movies. As a kid, I started out hooked on Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, and the rest of the stable of Universal and RKO horror films – God Bless Val Lewton! The mystery and otherworldliness of black and white film, the smart dialogue, the clever twists of plot that other forties and thirties film genres shared with horror lured me into a liminal world like a perpetual deep summer night. I was further captured by classic films’ biting wit, challenging plots, and independent women – especially in what I came to know as film noir. And who showed herself the queen of this world? Above them all, Joan Bennett.

I must admit that I first came really to know Joan when she appeared in Dark Shadows. Her Elizabeth Collins Stoddard was formidable, reminding me of my mother when I was in deep trouble. How could vampires, werewolves, and witches withstand her powerful, regal stare? Still, like my Mom, there was deep feeling and love for her daughter and her family. However, only in film did I discover Joan displaying one of the traits I loved best about my Mom: that witty, smart-talking-gal sense of humor. In outright comedy, Joan could drop a clever line with style and intelligence, but even in some of her darkest dramas that wit came through. What a delight to see her wield that humor to put firmly in their places anyone trying to crush or bamboozle her. In The House across the Bay, she undercuts a smart-mouth chorine who harangued her, “Cheep, cheep, cheep,” with “Where’s the birdseed?” When the obnoxious woman tries to go after her physically, Joan rakes her over the coals with, “Just a minute, Miss Dimwit.  I was silly enough to apologize, but now that you want to make something of it, I’ll give you a good reason. You’re a phony, you’ve got a voice like four panes of cracked glass, and about as much appeal as a can of embalming fluid. I could go on, but that ought to give you a rough idea of how I feel about you.” Eight years later, when Paul Henreid tries to disparage her cynicism towards him in The Scar with a deprecating, “You’re a bitter little lady,” she puts him in his place with a world-weary but tough, “It’s a bitter little world, full of sad surprises, and you don’t go around letting people hurt you.” In The Man I Married, Joan’s not even daunted by Nazis, telling her husband-turned-fascist, “Heil heel,” when he promises to dump her and take their son. Her feistiness isn’t limited to verbiage, either. Take a gander at this picture.
Like my Mom, Joan played women of wit, strength, humanity, and confidence – not just what the New York Times dubbed her gallery of “hydrochloric dames.”
So, in my twenties, when I decided to take my writing more seriously than developing Victoria Holt knock-offs or spoofs of Dark Shadows, I turned to 1940s style mysteries to inspire my own adventures of romance, danger, suspense, and wit. Interestingly, as a writer influenced by film, I found I could better create distinct, believable characters by casting them as actors with whom I was familiar, blending their traits with some of the people I knew (including myself!). I also knew that I didn’t want my heroine to be wimpy, weepy, and inclined to faint in the final reel or pages, which, unfortunately, did often happen on the page or screen in the ’40s and ’50s. Guess whom I saw as perfect for the role of Jessica Minton, a smart, independent, quick-with-a-quip forties gal? Someone who had a sensitive heart and a strong sense of responsibility, but didn’t take guff from anyone – and would smack said guff out of the ballpark with whip smart humor.
Surprise!
I do see a lot of myself in Jessica – and in Joan’s less nasty roles – or maybe an idealized version of myself, anyway. I know that mischievous banter with those I love and pointed barbs for those I don’t is something I share with Jess, which Joan plays to perfection. However, I doubt that, like Jessica, I’d have the guts to hold onto a mysterious package left by a mysterious and handsome British stranger at the risk of being liquidated by Nazi fifth columnists – to disguise myself as a maid to get into a criminal’s apartment while he’s still there (!) to retrieve a gun used to frame a friend – to grab a gunsel by the lapels and threaten to turn him into a soprano if he ever threatened my cat again – to show up in a shadow-draped room and wittily bargain with a gun-toting femme fatale and her hired gun to trade stolen jade for my friends’ lives – or to slip into a cove and explore a beached and rotting ship while layers of ocean fog swept in around me. I might dare to weaponize a banana-cream pie, but I can’t guarantee my aim would be as good as Jessica Minton’s. I can guarantee you that any fans of our Joanie could picture her carrying off these adventures with verve and wit, though not without human trepidation.
Those of us who love Joan Bennett and appreciate her talents would also, as Sam Fuller writes, see her as “a sensitive actress” enough to also believe her playing Jessica’s distress at being torn between loyalty to an old boyfriend and to a new man who brings her adventure and love; a sister who gets annoyed with her older sibling’s foibles leading them into danger but sticking by her to the end (though not without a smart quip or two exchanged between them); a sweetheart waiting to hear news of a fiancé lost in the war, then a wife supporting her husband’s struggle with memories from that war. And Jessica loves her cat. I know Joan was a dog person, but heck, there’s still part of me in Jessica Minton. So, she’s a cat person!
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say on the subject, but if you’d like to take a peek at some passages from Bait and Switch or Letter from a Dead Man, click on the links on the titles and have fun picturing Joan working her magic as Jessica Minton. Oh, and by the way, I cast her sister Elizabeth as Rosalind Russell (and my sister-on-law). Can you imagine what a grand ride it would have been to catch Joan and Roz trading quips with each other, then marshaling their humor to take on Nazis, criminally corrupt American aristocrats, femme fatales, underworld crooks, and crooked cops? And I’ve got two more books on the way! Viva Jessica Minton and Joan Bennett!
If you love mysteries on the screen or on the page, especially centered on the golden era, click here to go to my web page where you can find lots of interesting stuff – including my Joan Bennett tribute page!

 

 

Photos: Author’s collections