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Call him strange, but CineSavant is fascinated by ‘women’s films’ that advance a consensus role template for American women. Then they ask questions like, “Is Hilda Crane a . . . Tramp?” Ladies attending these films may have sought to stir up fantasies with a racy romantic adventure — but not too racy. What a tough nut to crack within the Production Code: ace screenwriter Philip Dunne chose this as his third writing-directing assignment. Jean Simmons gives it her best shot, but the screen is stolen by everybody’s favorite harpy, Evelyn Varden.

Hilda Crane

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 87 min. / Street Date , 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Jean Simmons, Guy Madison, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Judith Evelyn, Evelyn Varden, Peggy Knudsen, Gregg Palmer.

Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald

Film Editor: David Bretherton

Original Music: David Rakson

From the play by Samson Raphaelson

Produced by Herbert B. Swope Jr.

Written and Directed by...

Canadian-born actress Alexis Smith (born 1921) would have turned 96 years old today, June 8. Turner Classic Movies is celebrating her birthday by presenting nine of her movies, mostly during her time as a Warner Bros. contract player. In addition to Michael Curtiz's box office hit Night and Day, a highly fictionalized Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a heterosexual version of the famed gay composer. Night and Day is being shown as part of TCM's Gay Pride Month celebration. Alexis Smith died on June 9, 1993, the day after she turned 72. After her film career petered out in the 1950s, she went on to receive acclaim on the Broadway stage, making sporadic film appearances all the way to the year of her death. Smith's last film appearance was in a minor supporting role in Martin Scorsese's overly genteel period drama The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder.

We've waited long enough: Bogart's take on Raymond Chandler's tough guy Philip Marlowe is finally on Blu-ray, with Lauren Bacall hyped as his provocative leading lady. The fascinating 1945 pre-release version is also present, with an uncut copy of Bob Gitt's versions comparison docu. Somebody tell Elisha Cook Jr. not to drink that stuff. The Big Sleep Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 114 min. / Street Date February 23, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone, Peggy Knudsen, Regis Toomey, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook Jr., Louis Jean Heydt, Sonja Darrin, Tommy Rafferty, Theodore von Eltz. Cinematography Sidney Hickox Film Editor Christian Nyby Original Music Max Steiner Written by Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, William Faulkner from the novel by Raymond Chandler Directed by Howard Hawks

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep became...

'Humoresque': Joan Crawford and John Garfield. 'Humoresque' 1946: Saved by Joan Crawford Directed by Jean Negulesco from a screenplay by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold (loosely based on a Fannie Hurst short story), Humoresque always frustrates me because its first 25 minutes are excruciatingly boring – until Joan Crawford finally makes her appearance during a party scene. Crawford plays Helen Wright, a rich society lush in love with a tough-guy violin player, Paul Boray (John Garfield), who happens to be in love with his music. Fine support is offered by Paul's parents, played by Ruth Nelson and the fabulous chameleon-like J. Carroll Naish. Oscar Levant is the sarcastic, wisecracking piano player, who plays his part to the verge of annoyance. (Spoilers ahead.) Something wrong with that woman The Humoresque scenes between Paul and his mother are particularly intriguing, as the mother conveys her objections to Helen by lamenting, "There's something wrong with a woman like that!

Humphrey Bogart movies: ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘High Sierra’ (Image: Most famous Humphrey Bogart quote: ‘The stuff that dreams are made of’ from ‘The Maltese Falcon’) (See previous post: “Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Movies.”) Besides 1948, 1941 was another great year for Humphrey Bogart — one also featuring a movie with the word “Sierra” in the title. Indeed, that was when Bogart became a major star thanks to Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. In the former, Bogart plays an ex-con who falls in love with top-billed Ida Lupino — though both are outacted by ingénue-with-a-heart-of-tin Joan Leslie. In the latter, Bogart plays Dashiel Hammett’s private detective Sam Spade, trying to discover the fate of the titular object; along the way, he is outacted by just about every other cast member, from Mary Astor’s is-she-for-real dame-in-distress to Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Sydney Greenstreet. John Huston...