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Ida Lupino

It’s Alive!

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You ever have one of those Dr. Frankenstein moments? Maybe even a Young Frankenstein moment?

You know, when you pinch yourself because you just can’t believe that you and Igor have actually succeeded?

Well, it happened to me on Friday. The ARCS (advanced reading copies or galleys) of Nox Dormienda arrived. Did I think of a snappy, noirish line from one of my favorite movies? Did I raise an eyebrow like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, or sing “Put the Blame on Mame”?

No.

Two lines occurred to me … the aforementioned “It’s Alive!” as uttered by the imitable Colin Clive, and those immortal words of Teri Hatcher’s, when she guested on Seinfeld:

They’re real–and they’re fabulous.

So now Mondays are the new Sundays, as we assemble press kits, reviewer addresses, and requests from relatives into mass mailings of what looks like a book with my name on it … nah, couldn’t be. This isn’t real … is it?

It’s a landmark along the road, another reason to celebrate. Your book is real, like parenthood, when you hold the responsibility for it in your hands. Even an advanced reading copy. And it’s necessary to celebrate, as I’m reminded when I read the wonderful Write Free newsletter, which should be a must read for everyone who writes or wants to write, or really, anyone who is trying to fit creativity into her life.

Check it out, give it a try. You’ll be glad you did.

Something else I’m reading? Well, I just finished an advanced reading edition of another author, Jordan Dane. Jordan is going to be everywhere very soon — her first book, No One Heard Her Scream, pubs in March — so I’d suggest ordering now before they sell out, and don’t forget you heard it here first.

She’s got three books pubbing back to back this spring, all in the romantic suspense genre, but really–they cross over into thriller, mystery, police procedural categories. Vivid characterization, intense suspense, creepy and all-too believable villainy … you owe it to yourself to check these out! The next two coming up are No One Left to Tell and No One Lives Forever.

Another fine author (who also happens to be a real heroine — an emergency-room pediatrician) is CJ Lyons, who is launching Lifelines in March. I’ve read a sneak preview of the first chapter, and if you like medical thrillers and shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy … well, you’re in for a treat. I’ll be picking up my copy at Left Coast Crime.

CJ, Jordan and I — and my guest blogger, whom I’ll be discussing in a minute — are all members of the Thrill Begins, the International Thriller Writers Debut Authors Group. We’ve all been on this journey together. So my enthusiasm is doubled–first, because the books are tremendous, and secondly, because we’re part of the same class, so to speak. That’s a terrific feeling, and a relatively new one in publishing circles, spearheaded by the Killer Year group of authors. KY, incidentally, has a killer anthology out … another recommendation.

Now, what about that guest blogger? Well, I’ll be posting for Declan Burke’s Crime Always Pays when we get to Denver. And fellow debut author and historical noir writer Rebecca Cantrell will be stepping over here, to Writing in the Dark, to share her observations about all kinds of things … including how to write noir in sunny Hawaii, where she lives, and how to channel early ’30s Berlin when you’re sipping mai tais in 90 degree weather. Becky’s book, Even Smoke Leaves a Trace, will be debuting in 2009, and I’m already in line for an ARC … it’s haunting and elegiac, the kind of poetry that noir inspires in the best of writers … and she is one of the best.

Speaking of noir … I saw Ida Lupino’s favorite film the other day. Ladies in Retirement (1941), another example of period-setting noir. The environment is a lonely house on some rugged, decayed looking English moor, circa the 1880s. Ida co-stars with her husband at the time, Louis Hayward, noir stalwart Evelyn Keyes, Elsa Lanchester, and a great supporting cast.

Charles Vidor (Gilda) directed; the story is based on a stage play popular the year before. Essentially, Ida plays a woman willing to do anything — emphasis on the anything — to keep her barmy sisters happy and out of the insane asylum.

It’s a marvelous film, owing something to Night Must Fall, but Vidor’s angles, the starkly contrasting cinematography, and the cat-and-mouse game Ida plays with Hayward’s character make it, in my opinion, even better. Lupino was one of the greatest actresses of the golden age … and never nominated for one of those glittery and sexless statuettes they call an Oscar.

Unfortunately, Ladies in Retirement isn’t on DVD or VHS … I caught it on TCM. Watch your listings, which is almost as good a sign-off as “That’s the way it is.”

See you next week, with my last post before Denver and Left Coast Crime!

One More for the Road …

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Noir City 6, to contradict good ol’ T.S., who was something of a noir poet himself, ended not with a whimper, but a bang.

Kids, anytime Richard Widmark and Ida Lupino show up in 35 mm, it’s the Big Bang.

Widmark — the man who patented the giggling yet somehow charismatically cute psychopath — is still with us, at 92. We lost Ida in the ’90s. Thank God for film.

A couple of years back, I saw the creamiest print of Night and the City you can imagine, out at the warm and wonderful Balboa Theater during Noir City 3. The print had only been shown twice before, to some VIP in the Greek government. Don’t ask me to recount Eddie’s story, it was a midnight showing.

Anyway, the film made an indelible imprint on my brain cells, going down in my little noir book as a favorite. So this year … as tempting as it was … I skipped it, because, yes, I am a working girl and it was a Sunday.

No primer in why noir is the most satisfyingly entertaining, visually rich and just plain gutsiest film genre around is complete without Night and the City, so do yourself a favor, chum … rent the DVD if you can’t see it on the big screen. This is Greek tragedy, Noir City style, and Richard Widmark’s swan song for the genre. He goes out but good.

So I did make it to the Castro for Roadhouse, throwing deadlines to the wind for the sake of Ida Lupino, Widmark, and Cornel Wilde. God, were they worth it.

Roadhouse (a Fox gem from 1950) showcases why Ida Lupino was one of the most talented, hard-boiled, toughly glamorous, vulnerable, and seductive actresses around. That voice, full of cigarette smoke and too many late nights, empty Scotch bottles and second-class train tickets. That face, filled with the pain of life, but still hoping to find something worthwhile to live for. She epitomizes and idealizes the dame that’s as hard as nails and as soft as silk … for the right guy.

Widmark was great, of course, as the jealous, spoiled owner of Jefty’s Roadhouse, a juke joint with a bowling alley attached, the hot spot of a rural community somewhere near the Canadian border. But as much fun as it was watching Widmark tick and waiting for him to explode, Ida walked off with the movie.

She plays the piano. Really. And she sings, including one of my all-time favorites, “One for the Road.” And after she croaks out the last line about that “long, long road,” you will echo Celeste Holme’s amazed and admiring line: “She does the most with no voice than anyone I’ve ever seen!”

Of course, noir denizens recognize Ida for her directing talents (The Hitchhiker) in addition to her unforgettable roles. But Roadhouse shows why this lady — and Gloria Grahame — remain enshrined as the holy women of Noir City.

Cornel and Celeste were excellent, too. I can’t wait to get this baby on DVD.

So another year, another January, another Noir City. I realized this year that I mark my life by this festival … it was three years ago, during a Noir City, that I realized the direction I wanted to take for the novel I was writing. It was just last year, during Noir City, that I received word of my publication for the same novel.

We’re entwined now, like scotch and soda, or Bogart and trench coats, or dark, rainy streets flooded with neon. Next year, another passport, another festival. With Noir City, I will always take one more for the road.

An Opening Night in Noir City …

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Noir City … where the damned not only don’t cry, but have a damned good time.

This weekend, I’ve not only been writing in the dark, but living in it … ’cause it’s that time of year, folks, when the Czar of Noir pulls out all the stops for the rip-roarin’ hell town at San Francisco’s famed Castro Theater … when fatales rub elbows (and other parts) with suckers and fall guys, and the whole audience looks like it could use a good frisking.

Yup, Noir City. This is my fourth detour into the cinematic mainline of darkness, and January wouldn’t be the same without it. It’s been inspiration, escape, master class and a trip back home. Noir City … I was born there, baby. 😉

So what happened? Two great films, Repeat Performance and The Hard Way, Joan Leslie starring in both (and in the second with Ida Lupino, noir stalwart and hell of a broad). Ms. Leslie was in the audience — I was three rows down– and what a thrill it was to see her speaking with Marsha Hunt, who was sitting behind her. Two grande dames of the real Hollywood, still beautiful, still energetic, still incredible.

I had a chance to thank the still effervescent and gentle Ms. Leslie and say hello again to one of my idols, Ms. Hunt — a more gracious, gorgeous, talented, courageous and intelligent woman you’ll never meet, and at ninety she can out dress and out class women half her age.

You’ve heard it before, but it’s the sad truth: they don’t make ’em like that anymore … the movies or the ladies.

Joan spoke to Eddie “the Czar” Muller about working with Coop and Bogie (Gary Cooper and you’d better know who Bogie is), Ida Lupino, Jimmy Cagney (in Yankee Doodle Dandy) and growing up as a child entertainer in the Depression. It was a conversation to savor. And in a wonderful moment, Eddie led the entire audience in singing “Happy Birthday” to Joan, who was 83 on January 26th. It’s dark in Noir City, but that’s because underneath the burnt-out street lights shines a big, vulnerable heart.

The movies were terrific. Repeat Performance also starred one of Ida’s husbands, Louis Hayward, and featured an incredible, brilliant debut by Richard Basehart, who played, as only he could, a gentle soul just a few seconds off from the rest of the world. A madman and a poet … but that’s a redundancy.

The plot was about a woman who got a chance to live a year of her life over again, one fatal New Year’s Eve. Yeah, it’s holiday noir, all right, but Destiny wasn’t wearing a Santa suit.
A favorite line? Here’s Richard Basehart: “Paula shouldn’t be allowed to drink. Paula shouldn’t be allowed. Paula shouldn’t be.”

Priceless!

Second film: Ida is the Stage-Sister who does whatever is necessary to get kid sibling Joan into the show business big time. She does, in fact, do it the Hard Way, and ’cause it’s Noir City and this was the ’40s (and all about warning those ambitious women who might not want to give back all the jobs to the menfolk), well, Ida pays the price … and it was more than the admission, brother.

Dennis Morgan and Jack Carson round out the cast. Morgan is attractive as a cynical, skirt-chasing cad, playing against his wholesome Irish good looks, and Jack’s dramatic acting prefigures what he does in Mildred Pierce.


How hard is show biz in The Hard Way? Here’s an exchange between a twin sister act and a theatrical agent:
The Morgan Twins: [in unison] Mr. Wade? We’re playing in Jersey City. Can you catch our act? We’re the Morgan Twins.
Max Wade: When you’re triplets, come back and see me.

Ida shows why she was nobody’s second string Barbara Stanwyck, in a role with similarities to the Stanwyck pre-code classic Baby Face.

That’s it from your intrepid reporter at the only film festival that really matters … NOIR CITY. I’ll be back with a report on the second evening, which promises to be the most exciting Saturday in Noir City history.

Who needs Cannes?