Poseidon Quickies: "Crane" Your Neck This Way a Minute.

Somewhere along the line I'd at least heard of this movie, Hilda Crane (1956), because the name was familiar, but I can't recall the last time I ever saw it air on television of any kind.  Based upon a Broadway play that ran for two months in late-1950, it concerns a young lady who's returning to her hometown after being away in New York City. During this period, she's managed to marry and divorce... twice! This raises an eyebrow or two amidst some of the residents of her small Illinois hamlet. A real nice widescreen print of the film has emerged on YT and for fans of the stars or this genre will likely enjoy watching it.

Posters for the film wanted to point up Crane's "many" loves, but there are only two...! Random faces are slipped in of elusive other gents (unless the dude on the train, who appears for about 2 or 3 seconds, is meant to be one!)

Jean Simmons was generally a reliable cinematic leading lady, and a pretty one, while Guy Madison, drew me in as this is not his usual milieu. (More often, Madison could be found in westerns by this stage.)

Overly-lit promotional stills such as this one are a far cry from the richly-textured and atmospherically-lit sets of the film, as you'll soon see.

Simmons, as the title character, returns home on the train from The Big Apple, sporting a mink coat. Her mother (Judith Evelyn) wastes no time in discovering that the coat's lining is beginning to wear out, signifying that its been around a lot, just like its owner!

Back home, we learn of Simmons fixation on her now-deceased father. His chair (and pipe) still maintain a position of prominence in the family abode. By the way, people simply read older back in the day. Simmons wasn't yet 27 when she made this movie!

Though she's styled to emphasize an older look, Evelyn was 47 (!) when she played Simmons' mother. She and her daughter were never too close. Though she wanted happiness for Simmons, she was too focused on how things appeared than in exploring much in the way of feelings of satisfaction in a relationship.

Simmons meets up with construction contractor Madison, who was in love with her prior to her flight to New York and is clearly still smitten with her now.

The casting of Madison presents a bit of a problem. Simmons isn't sure she loves him and waffles significantly over his proposal of marriage. Um... No one in her right mind could resist the fit and handsome Madison, who also happens to be quite wealthy thanks to his gumption in the construction biz! (In the play, a wildly dissimilar actor named John Alexander essayed the part. He played the Teddy-Roosevelt-obsessed cousin in Arsenic and Old Lace, 1944, so reticence is far more understandable!)

There's another contender for Simmons' affection, a former college professor of hers who still gives guest lectures at the school. He's played by Jean-Pierre Aumont.

I wouldn't say that Aumont is repellent, but for me there's no contest when it comes to the men. I don't get the allure surrounding Aumont, but perhaps as a Frenchman there is something he provides that we as the viewer aren't privy to (in 1956 anyway! Ha ha!)

So she's torn between the arty, seductive Aumont, who principally wants her just as a sexual partner if the truth be told...

...and the secure, reliable Madison, who adores her, but possesses a level of scintillation about on par with Professor Roy Hinkley of Gilligan's Island, who he vaguely resembles here. Nevertheless, for me the choice is clear.

But as Popeye the Sailor used to often say, "There's a fly in the oinkment!" Madison has a burly, brash, highly-controlling mother in the form of Evelyn Varden, who, needless to say, does not approve of her son's choice in a bride.

I love, worship and adore old-fashioned, disagreeable, controlling old biddies like this (think Mary Astor's Roberta Carter in Return to Peyton Place, 1961) and as far as I'm concerned Varden IS the movie...! Though she likely wouldn't have taken a part this small in 1956 as she was still starring in movies, I could very well see Bette Davis playing this part. And Varden does augment her voice to sound much like Davis as a matter of fact.

Varden only shares only very brief scene with her son Madison, seen here in their mansion.

Nevertheless, she looms large thanks not only to her hilariously memorable portrayal, but also due to the huge portrait of herself that hangs over the family living room.

At the wedding rehearsal... how does the ditty go? "One of these things is not like the other..." Varden has her back turned during all the thank yous and congratulations.

Then she gets up and trundles through the participants like a fleshy bowling ball with the wedding party as pins, never uttering a word or even looking at anyone!

Basically everything and everyone in this "women's picture" is beautiful, including the bride and groom's friends, ever-elegant Peggy Knudsen and Gregg Palmer, looking like a sibling to Rock Hudson before weight gain led him into character roles.

Seizing an opportunity to get the bride-to-be alone, Varden closes in for the kill.

First, she takes a gander at the rock her son has given Simmons as an engagement ring.

Then she facetiously compliments Simmons' suit before announcing that she got it from some other man.

Varden's sense of "style" is almost a living example of the "before you leave the house, remove one item" school of thought.

More than once she reminded me of Popeye's Alice the Goon character!

Anyway, she's got a whole laundry list of things that Simmons has done in her brief life that would bring nothing but shame to her son. Simmons, a bit of a pre-Feminist in that she sees little-to-nothing wrong with her past behavior, stands firm and still intends to wed Madison.

The day of the wedding, she comes barrelling into Simmons' home again. I couldn't love her weary, common, blunt manner any more if I tried!

This time, she's armed with $50,000 in government bonds! She's ready to do practically anything to rid herself of the scarlet woman her son is so attracted to.

Also, having been known to feign illness when it might aid her in her pursuits, she collapses into Simmons' father's chair and begins to moan in agony.

Simmons is unmoved and by this time has really had it with the future gorgon-in-law. The wedding will take place no matter what!

By the way, Evelyn and Simmons aren't exactly destitute. They have their own housekeeper! The performer, Marie Blake, may seem familiar to you? Eight years later, billed as Blossom Rock, she portrayed Grandmama Addams on The Addams Family. 

Anyway, one way or another, Varden is not going to let Simmons have her way. This leads to a variety of hurdles for the newly-married couple.

I mentioned earlier the bright, unappealing lobby cards for this movie. I think you can see that they don't represent the splendidly moody cinematography found in the actual film.

Though the movie never comes near his level, this is Douglas Sirk-ian territory and there were occasional bits of artfulness in its presentation. The director, Phillip Dunne, was most successful as a writer (How Green Was My Valley, 1941, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, 1947, and The Agony and the Ecstacy, 1965, to name a few.)

The movie's "heroine" makes a few foolish decisions and isn't always understandable (and Simmons over-accentuates some of her dialogue at times), but fans of the actress would surely enjoy seeing her here, looking lovely and being featured heavily.

But my greatest thrill, clearly, was seeing the often bubbly and amusing Varden (you might recall her from The Night of the Hunter, 1955, or The Bad Seed, 1956?) barging around as this menacing battle-axe. It's the sort of part that, were I in charge of such things, would have merited an Academy Award nomination. And why shouldn't she have mastered the role?

She had already assayed it 70 times on Broadway! She was the only cast member who made it into the movie adaptation.

I'm actually quite a fan of Jessica Tandy, whose husband Hume Cronyn directed her in the Broadway production, but as you can see, there's a pretty big difference in how she appeared as Hilda and how Simmons did as Hilda.

As is often the case, foreign posters, in this instance French, offered more striking artwork than the US ones.

The film came close to breaking even, which makes it a box office "miss," but I felt it was worth a look. At 87 minutes it certainly wasn't oppressive to sit through. Probably my biggest disappointment was that Madison was underutilized. He really got no real closeups (there's little-to-no reason for this film to have been done in Cinemascope except that it was 20th Century Fox's claim to fame at the time.) And he had no shirtless scenes or anything even close to that. He couldn't have been shown washing up in the construction trailer or something....?! LOL But I will remedy that by leaving you with a few nice pictures of him in his hey-day. He's been featured here in the Underworld multiple times, but there's always room for more.

:::BONUS PICS:::

An apple a day couldn't keep Henry Willson away...!

Designer Double-Dip: Think Pink!

Today we're offering up another one of those fascinating instances in which a costume piece was reused after its initial purpose. We especially enjoy these when they have something to do with particularly favorite movies of ours, as in this case. First, though, we must travel back in time to the Napoleonic era. The 1954 movie Désirée told the tale of a rather simple young girl who falls in love with Napoleon Bonaparte, but is crushed when he winds up engaged to the extravagantly wealthy Josephine. In the photo shown here, deliberately in shadow, the girl is all gussied up as she heads to the palace to see Napoleon and Josephine for the first time since their marriage.

Riding beside our "pink lady" are costars Cameron Mitchell and Elizabeth Sellars.

After she pulls the carriage drapery aside, we can at last get a better look at the title character, Désirée, as portrayed by Jean Simmons. Her cotton candy pink satin cape with white fur trim is the piece in question for this post.

Upon her arrival at the soirée, the cape is taken from Simmons by a doorman and properly stowed away for the evening.

Here we can see what Simmons is wearing underneath as she joins Mitchell and Sellars for their entry into the ballroom. In the inset, Simmons meets Josephine, played by Merle Oberon.

In this shot, Simmons is reunited with Napoleon, portrayed by Marlon Brando. She is dejected by the fact that they cannot be together and is spirited away from the party by another man.

We see the cape once more now that she has departed the palace and is out in the cool night air.

The gentleman who has taken her away from the party and Napoleon is Michael Rennie, who she later marries in the film. This shot gives us a good look at the jewelry Simmons wears with her glamorous ensemble.

Their moonlight exchange on the bridge affords us a look at the back of the cape, which will be a key part of how it will be shot the next time it appears in a movie.

I don't know if it is tall, dapper Rennie or the provocative decoration on that urn (or perhaps both!) that gets Simmons romantic juices flowing, but...

Before it's all over, the two are engaged in a passionate embrace! Costumes for the exquisitely presented film Désirée were done by René Hubert and Charles Le Maire. They couldn't have dreamed then that thirty years later, the pink satin and fur confection shown here would find its way into the top-grossing film of the season.

Alert the media. Jean Simmons' cape is about to make a grand return to the cinema! Have you remembered (or figured out) which film it reappears in?

The throngs of people shown above are all gathered near the red carpet in order to celebrate the gala grand opening of the tallest building in the world, The Glass Tower. Yes, the movie is 1974's The Towering Inferno, a disaster blockbuster which was so gargantuan it required (a historic) two studios working together in order to make it. Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox (the makers of Désirée) teamed up for the project. The arrival of San Francisco mayor Jack Collins and his wife Sheila Matthews (soon to be Sheila Allen) is when we at last glimpse the cape.

Perhaps it's indelicate to mention, but the cape has a tad more trouble staying closed on Ms. Matthews than it did on Ms. Simmons. Matthews was the girlfriend of "Master of Disaster" Irwin Allen and appeared in many of his TV and movie projects. They wed after this.

Here we see the back of the cape as the Mayor and his wife make their way through the crowd of reporters on the red carpet.

Inferno's costume designer was Allen's longtime associate Paul Zastupnevich, who presumably designed a pink gown to coordinate with this cape (or who later picked the cape from Fox's considerable supply of costume archives because it went with the dress.)

It is the mayor's duty to cut the ribbon at the ceremony and he's given a huge pair of gold scissors with which to perform the task.

Matthews looks on proudly as her husband dedicates The Glass Tower as "Tallest building in the world!"

You know I scrutinized Matthews' earrings to see if they were also the same ones Simmons wore three decades prior, but they are not.

The brand new scissors aren't exactly sharp and Collins has trouble getting the ribbon cut! ("Whoa ho ho... We'll make it!")

Happy times. But they aren't to last...

Here we get our first good look at the shocking pink schmatte that Zastupnevich put together for Matthews. (God knows she wasn't going to be slipping into Simmons' old gold number!) Everyone's looking up because the tower has been lit from top to bottom as part of the ceremony.

Another glimpse of the cape just before Matthews (shown here with Susan Blakely) enters the scenic elevator. 

The ride up in the scenic elevator is a hell of a lot more comfortable than the ride down, and - though exciting - it's also far less eventful! This is the last (known) time that we ever see this cape. Judging by its condition, it's clear that the wardrobe department at Fox took considerable care of their pieces in order for this twenty year-old item to still look this good.

The Towering Inferno is a Top 5 favorite film of ours so we're going to continue on for a little bit longer, even though we've already exhausted the point of this post! Now in the Promenade Room, Matthews' cape is presumably tucked away in a coat check someplace. Note at far left, the lady in red. She was "bun lady" in The Poseidon Adventure (1972) in which she wore yellow chiffon. In Inferno, she escapes death in the scenic elevator in a brief scene that was cut from the movie, but appeared in the four-hour expanded TV version.

Here, builder William Holden explains to the crowd that there is a fire, fifty floors below them. At far right is Leoda Richards, our very favorite movie extra!

Long after this, Sheila Matthews Allen liked three-dimensional floral appliques on her clothing such as what was done on this gown.

Why do you always make me prove everything?! LOL (This was at a premiere of the execrable Poseidon, 2006, which Ms. Allen executive produced...)

In the movie, this scene between Collins and Matthews come before she is called up onto the roof for a (bungled) helicopter rescue yet her hair is not as stiffly coiffed as it was and her earrings are gone. Not sure what she went through that we didn't witness.

After the fiery and ferociously windy helicopter rescue attempt, we see a visible change in her appearance. Now she's set to head down to the ground in the scenic elevator, which is working merely from gravity after most of the power has gone out.

Nice try, but no one's going to outdo Faye Dunaway in the portentous worry department!

Note that even before the elevator is knocked off its track by an explosion, Matthews' dress is already dirty and mangled. (She was barely on the roof and not anywhere near the flames of the copter crash.)

Anyway, she gets a primo spot behind La Dunaway once the elevator is hanging helpless with only the inept facial musings of Mike Lookinland to compete with.

With him having given up trying to remain in character, she is free to try to out-ham Miss D. with her fretful emoting, but I for one have never been able to look away from Dunaway at any point of her screen time in this movie. Ha ha!

Once safely on the ground, it takes a battery of firemen to get Matthews out of the chamber of doom. By now her dress has really had it, along with her hair.

This sequence has wind machines pounding the cast, with hair and chiffon whipping around.

As Matthews is lowered onto a gurney, she's got one final opportunity to act with Dunaway before being wheeled off.

Suddenly the air is dead calm!! No more blowing wind as these two have a moment with one another...!

Anyway, this concludes our presentation on the pink satin cape with white fur trim which diligently did its duty in two films made two decades apart from one another. By the way, I tried desperately to somehow connect the two, either through Jean Simmons and Sheila Matthews or any other way, and the best that I could do was take note that both Matthews and Simmons' carriage-mate Cameron Mitchell had roles (not together) in Viva Knievel! (1977.) Matthews was a nun running an orphanage and Mitchell was a bad guy! LOL (And no, I don't think that's Debbie Reynold's habit from The Singing Nun, 1966, that Matthews is wearing!)

Pink chiffon and Napoleonic finery have been traded in for starched white linen and denim with puka shells...! (That's cuckoo Marjoe Gortner with Mitchell, not Evel Knievel.)