Poseidon Quickies: The Meeker the Better

We're thisclose to having our satellite/DVR service yanked out over the never-ending rate increases (and diminished product), but while it's still there, I occasionally record something. A recent item was the 1952 film Shadow in the Sky. I was drawn to it for a couple of reasons; its obscurity, its abbreviated running time (78 minutes) and the presence of certain performers I was curious to see. The movie, a mostly serious psychodrama, was uncharacteristically released by MGM and it lost them a bundle of money. I actually enjoyed it much more than I anticipated, though. I think it was badly marketed. This poster is practically unrelated to the content of the film! Even worse, the iffy artwork seems to be depicting a brother and sister in a romantic clinch, though it could be amalgams of the performers (i.e. - Nancy Davis' face drawn on Jean Hagen's body.) The figure at the door? Who in hell knows... 

The movie opens with the seemingly blissful life of a suburban couple being interrupted by the arrival of a concerned woman driving a Jeep. The woman is played by Jean Hagen, immortal as Lina Lamont of Singin' in the Rain, which came out this same year. (She was Oscar-nominated for that, losing to Gloria Grahame in The Bad and the Beautiful.)

The couple is played by James Whitmore and Nancy Davis (later Reagan.) Hagen has come to inform them that Davis' brother, whose been a mental patient at the Veterans Hospital due to shell shock from WWII, is on the verge of being released. Whitmore served with the brother and was a close friend. 

During their next visit to the VA Hospital, we meet the brother, played by strapping Ralph Meeker. Believe it or not, he isn't about to play "Dick in the Box" here. 

As part of his therapy, he's handcrafted a model sailboat for Whitmore to give to his son. Meeker, who was Marlon Brando's replacement in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway and who played the studly drifter Hal in Picnic, has a panther-like quality throughout this movie. Always pacing, stretching, posing...

Making his first credited film appearance as a fellow patient and friend of Meeker's is John Lupton. he would proceed to a pretty lengthy and prolific film and television career. 

Though Meeker seems all right (in my opinion, he tends to be one of the more normal and sensible people in the movie!), Whitmore and Davis have their small children to think about. While they might wish to have him live with them, they have concerns. 

As it happens, they don't immediately step up and have the doctor release him right away, but allow him to cool his heels a bit longer.  

During a later visit, Whitmore witnesses Meeker's demeanor change once it begins to rain outside. What Meeker has is now known as PTSD. In 1952, there was no such name for it and far less comprehensive understanding and treatment for it. Considering the way Meeker's denims fit and where they cling, I couldn't help wondering if he had anything on under them...!

When the rain continues, Meeker winds up taking shelter under a ping-pong table and soon begins to think he's still in the deluged Guadalcanal in the heat of battle. 

Later, at one of the hospital's Thursday night dances, Hagen attempts to get Meeker to join her at her father's farm. Clearly smitten with him, she hopes he can stay with them and earn a living. Thing is, the farm is in Oregon! Nah, no pesky rain to worry about there...!

At the same dance, Meeker has to rescue a mousy young lady from Lupton's grasp. He claims he "just wanted to hold on to someone." He's never seen again in the movie, though I would have happily watched him bond more with Meeker, who has his arm around the boy as Hagen looks on. 

Eventually, he does move in with his sister and her family, prowling around in a sleeveless top.

I regret that the print was blurry for this moment in the kitchen but, again, I questioned what he was (or wasn't) wearing under those jeans. 

"See what I mean, Vern?"

When Meeker meets his niece and nephew, their horseplay has him on his back with his li'l shirt ridden up, revealing a then-risque belly button. 

The purported climax of the movie was still a long way off, but this sequence served as the climax for me, premature or not! Ha ha! He and Hagen are enjoying a day at the beach. They're playing cards here, with his chest serving as the table!

As much as I love the skimpy 1950s suit he has on, he cruelly keeps his right thigh up, in the way, as the dialogue plays out. 

Game Over.

If you haven't noticed, top-billed Meeker is almost never given a close-up in his own movie! And when he is, it's often very dim or even darkly-lit. So we take what we can get in two-shots. 

At least the director had the good sense to show us his body from time to time, such as this right flank when he rolls over onto his side. 

Today's young men could only gasp if requested to wear the teensy, barely-there swimsuit he has on here, which was altogether normal at the time.

When he sits up to remove his shoes, we at last get a better look at his chest. 

And his ruggedly handsome face.

As she continues to apply pressure for him to move away with her and not go into business with his friend and brother-in-law Whitmore, he gets up to head towards the water. 

And she isn't finished yet. 

She grapples with him and brings him crashing to the ground...

...next to a strategically-placed piece of driftwood. 

Pre-dating From Here to Eternity (1953) by one year, this beach scene has Hagen as the pursuer with Meeker a somewhat willing captive. 

Meeker escapes her clutches and heads out into the surf. 

There, we're treated to the muscular strokes of our protagonist as he reaches a buoy. Hagen, by the time she joins him, is spent and has to be helped back to dry land. 

Davis can't bring herself to fully trust her brother's sanity and mental well-being. One day while shopping in town, it starts raining and she can't reach Meeker or the children by phone. She swings by Whitmore's service station and makes him take her home to see what's happening. 

Fortunately, it hasn't been raining on that side of town. Meeker is merely working on the mast of a sailboat he's recently purchased for rehabbing.

Later on, Meeker does become erratic and upset, eventually tearing open Whitmore's dress shirt in a panic. He flees the house to go to his boat, which is by now moored at a local marina. 

Said boat does figure into the actual climax of the movie, when a rainstorm hits. At last Meeker gets a close-up, though it's brief and dark. If you like him, I have composed a full on tribute to the actor with, natch, many photos, which can be seen here.

As I mentioned earlier, Meeker has troubles, but the people around him often act as, or even more, neurotic as he does! Whitmore tends to be the most sane of them. He gives a good performance, as usual, bringing sincerity and gravity to a somewhat colorless role. 

Hagen was a gifted performer who was saddled with a drinking problem, even early on. Apart from her iconic role in Singin' in the Rain, she was nominated three times for an Emmy with The Danny Thomas Show (losing to Audrey Meadow of The Jackie Gleason Show and, oddly, twice in the same year for different categories, to Lucille Ball on I Love Lucy and Nanette Fabray on Caesar's Hour.) Heavy drinking for a time cost her her children and her career and the accompanying smoking led to her death from esophageal cancer in 1977 at only age 54.

Because she was never a major movie star, I always expect Davis to be awful when I see a movie of hers, but she was actually decent. Her character is a bit fraught and melodramatic - of the era, but she does well. I also thought that the movie's direction was capable and creative, with moody lighting and unusual camera angles. 

I just don't think audiences were up for this type of picture, especially when it was marketed completely inaccurately. Still, how could people resist a photo like this one?! I watched it a second time here, but it's also available on TCM.com in a nice print.  

Not your everyday slicked-down movie idol. 

The sight of Meeker in his trunks seems to have made quite the impression on members of the MGM art department....!

 

Which just about brings us to...

The End!

TV Movie Time Tunnel: Ain't Nothin' But a "Hound" Dog!

Today's featured TV-movie gets things wrong right out of the gate, for reasons I will explain in a moment. But this doesn't mean that it isn't without its campy rewards. A 1978 offering, its generally well-handled by directer Curtis Harrington and provides a sort of cook's tour of every occult horror project of the day. At the time, movies like The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976) and many others were making religious thrillers the "in" thing. This may as well have been titled "Rosemary's Puppy!" Ha ha!  

 

For fatties like me, this is a Devil Dog! 

The inspiration for Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell sprang from a 1974 episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, in which Tom Skerritt played an ambitious politician who's made a deal with the devil and can transform into a savage dog in order to eliminate his enemies. A plan to continue the story with a TV-movie sequel was scuttled when rights became an issue and Skerritt found himself cast in an upcoming feature film. As the feature was Alien (1979), I doubt he mourned the situation at all...! 

Enter Richard Crenna and Yvette Mimieux and a whole different sort of storyline. 

Things kick off with staggeringly prolific character actor Bill Zuckert as a kennel owner with some mysterious buyers. They are looking for a particular type of dog for their purposes. 

The group's leader is played by a nefarious looking Martine Beswick, who some of you will recall from From Russia With Love (1963), Thunderball (1965) or a number of other things. The script refers to her as "Red Haired Lady," though she retains her usual raven locks. 

Soon enough, with the selected pooch retrieved, we find her at a Satanic hoedown. 

On site is instantly-quirky character actor R.G. Armstrong among the minions. Note the deluxe aluminum foil each Satanist has around his or her candle to avoid those pesky drippings...! 

I don't know many any in real life, but these folks are so often presented as not only singularly unappealing, but also not much fun to be around...!

Beswick has chosen a German Sheperd, a herding breed, not a hound, to mate with Satan (or something) and generate a litter of evil canines. (I'm not making this up.) 

Cut to Crenna, an aerodynamics expert...

...and his wife Mimieux, who volunteers as an art therapist at a local veteran's hospital. They are permitted about 45 seconds of happiness before they're hit with tragedy. 

As they near their suburban home, they discover their beloved family dog (which appears to be a true hound) dead in the street. 

As a distraught Mimieux clings to her husband, their next-door neighbor reveals that he saw it happen. A black station wagon hit the poor animal then drove off. 

Said neighbor is played by yet another very prolific character actor, Lou Frizzell. 

The couple's young daughter, dressed in the latest fashion from the "House of Wednesday Addams," is played by Kim Richards. It's her birthday (she's supposed to be 10, but was nearing 14 in real life!) The party is canceled after the death of her pet, Skipper.

Her brother is played by Ike Eisenmann. Yes, you read that right.

These two had played siblings in the Disney sci-fi movie Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) and its sequel Return from Witch Mountain (1978.) They were cast in Devil Dog without the producers realizing they'd famously been siblings on screen twice before. The kids also didn't realize that they'd been placed in this TVM together until arriving on set.

About to take a spin on their bikes to get their minds off the loss of their dog, they are met at the end of the driveway by a peddler. 

It's Armstrong, one of Beswick's Satan worshipers! He offers them some apples at first. 

Then he shows them something else in the back. 

It's the dog that was bred with the devil and some of her litter (which was ten pups in all!) Off topic, would you buy produce - corn and lettuce(!) - from a vendor who had a dog and puppies riding amidst it?!

Feeling it's "too soon," Richards declines the pooch at first, but ultimately changes her mind and takes one. 

All four family members are happy enough to take in the little guy, now named Lucky, though no one ever asked him if he wanted to live in a house with such violently ugly wallpaper.

Friendly neighbor Frizzell shows up with his own canine Prince, along with a present for Richards. 

Right away his Great Dane takes a look at Lucky and there's trouble. 

Lucky makes his presence known in his own special way.

In a huff, Prince decides to exit stage right in a very Stanley Kowalski-like way, "clearing the table" in the process! 

Enter the family's housekeeper Tina Menard.

Richards shows off her new acquisition.

But the cross-wearing Menard is instantly uneasy. 

I don't rightly know if Mimieux's poodle perm hairdo is a deliberate in-joke or just a coincidence.

As the days continue, Menard continues to feel unhappy about the new arrival. 

She appeals to Crenna to get rid of it, and, while he hears her out, he's disbelieving of her concerns. 

The family heads out to see a play, leaving Menard on her own with the threatening beast.

Look out!!

She lights an array of candles and begins reciting prayers. This does not end well...

Months later, Crenna and Eisenmann are in the yard working on their faulty lawn mower. 

Crenna begins working on the blade. 

But he's not alone. The now-grown Lucky is watching!

Crenna becomes strangely mesmerized as the blade of the mower (which is not on!) begins whirring around. 

Against his will, in a rather petrifying scene, he can't seem to prevent himself from inserting his hand into the blade!

Somehow he manages to snap out of it just in time. 

Eisenmann and Richards are now acting weirdly, too. They get up in the middle of the night and traipse through the house by candlelight. 

And they are enraged when they find Mimieux in Eisenmann's room, with her just having discovered some drawings along with blood-like paint on his writing desk. He explains it away as an art project they wanted to surprise her with. 

Uneasy after another tiff with the children, Mimieaux settles into her living room with the latest copy of Redbook magazine. 

But she's not alone...!

Somehow two fires break out in the kitchen, which she's able to extinguish. But then she begins wending her way through the house to avoid the inaccurately-named Lucky. 

Crenna makes his way home from work after a very long day. 

He finds his wife out in the backyard...

...Smoking!

She's not only smoking, but she's also "in the mood." 

All this is being keenly observed by their household pet.

She's different now. Sultrier and edgier. She tells Crenna she wants to take a midnight swim in Frizzell's next-door pool. 

She drops her robe and hits the water, au naturel. 

Crenna is startled by such brazenness... 

...but soon drops trou and dives in for his own skinny dip! 

Crenna does his own dive. And while he may have been wearing some skimpy, sheer panties...

...they become transparent in the water and provide what would likely be the closest thing he ever did to nudity. 

There's even something dark going on in front. Quite a moment, albeit split-second, for late-1970s network television.

Prince, upset about Lucky, not the skinnydippers, will not stop barking! Mimieux suggests to Frizzell that he be put down. Needless to say, he's having none of that.

Later, Crenna is jogging and comes home to a squabble on the street. (Speaking of streets, check the name of theirs!)

Crenna's family and Frizzell are in a fight over Prince and Lucky. 

Frizzell is convinced that Lucky is responsible for the slaughter of his beloved Prince. But there's no proof. 

The next day, as Crenna tries to chat with Mimieaux about the situation, the kids are impishly laughing obnoxiously. 

This is why. It's Frizzell!

Crenna takes note of a huge campaign button on Eisenmann's shirt. It seems he's running for class president. 

A while later, the family is paid a visit. 

It's Dallas' Ken Kercheval, from Eisenmann's school. 

Over coffee, he explains that there's been a situation at school in which Eisenmann's chief rival for class president was disqualified over the suspected theft of a watch.

His parents, especially Mimieux, have trouble believing that their son engineered a setup. 

From the other room, the children - and Lucky - listen in. 

The next night, Crenna is stunned when Mimieux comes sauntering in late in a low-cut dress, having come from a meeting with Kercheval. (Is that perfume or bourbon on her vanity!? Ha ha!)

He derides her for employing such a tactic in order to rescue their son from disciplinary action at school until she informs him that "it worked!"

Or did it? Kercheval is awakened in the middle of the night by the appearance of...

...THIS!

Crenna is appalled at how utterly unconcerned his family is about the fate of his friend Kercheval. They blithely carry on as if he'd suffered a mere hangnail. 

One night, he's drawn to the home's attic. (Note the nativity scene lamp!)

Everyone else is suddenly there...! Including Lucky.

He unveils their artwork and, though it concerns him, he for some reason doesn't run out of the house and down the street screaming...!

Instead, he makes an appointment with his doctor to make sure that he doesn't have something wrong going on with himself.

His doctor (Jerry Fogel of The Mothers-in-Law) has trouble comprehending the sort of far-fetched instances Crenna is relaying and offers him some tranquilizers. 

At home, he tries to get through to the "new" Mimieux, who now would rather shop than give art lessons to the veterans at the hospital. But she's not having a bit of that. He decides that it's time to rid themselves of Lucky. 

When a woman being interviewed for a TV news story tells of her husband's violent behavior and how she blames their dog, Crenna feels he has no choice. 

Despite his family's protestations, he drives Lucky to a remote location and aims his handgun at the canine. 

The bullets end up having no effect!

Crenna, who I must say is all in and gives great face throughout this tale, cannot believe what he's seeing. He drives away, leaving Lucky there.

Yet when he finally gets home, the dog is already there waiting! 

Now at his wit's end, he visits an occult bookstore and spills his guts to the owner. She has information about what he's up against; a barghest. It's a beastly demon who can only be seen in his true form at night. She proves helpful when she finds a book with mention of a demon like the painting he has having been found on the wall of a cliff in Ecuador. 

The bookshop owner is played by Gertrude Flynn who, among other things, ...

...portrayed the ladies room attendant in 1967's Valley of the Dolls! It's tough to notice anything else besides Patty Duke and Susan Hayward during their catfight, but I always enjoyed Flynn's hooty line, "What an awful thing to do to a great star like you." 

One thing Flynn advises is holding a mirror up to someone who is feared to be possessed. That night, Crenna creeps into Richards' bedroom to give her a look. 

Nope. Nothing unusual here... Ha ha!

We next find him at that cliff wall in Ecuador. All he can do is stare at the painting until his taxi driver says he can get him to a local shaman. 

Crenna waits for the shaman to weave his way down from the mountain. 

At last has someone who understands what he's been enduring and also may be able to lend some assistance. 

The shaman is played by none other than Victor Jory, who you might recall as the despicable overseer Jonas Wilkerson in 1939's Gone with the Wind. 

Advising Crenna that such a thing may banish the beast for one-hundred years, he paints a religious symbol into the palm of his hand. 

Back home, Crenna has a final showdown with said beast. 

And there's no truth to the rumor that the animal's look was designed by Wayland Flowers and/or Madame...! You may view this "Halloween Howler" - as it was advertised - right here in a beautiful print. Till next time, li'l doggies!