1957 Oscar Viewing Project

One of the biggest regrets I had with finishing the blog was that I wasn't going to do one last season of ballots for the OVP.  The series that basically started this blog was going to get ignored, and while I cheated a bit by having the Halloween blogathon serve as a "placeholder" for the Oscar Viewing Project goodbye, that wasn't enough.  I'll be honest-October has been really challenging on a personal level (one of the main reasons that I'm ending the blog is because I had a wake up call about my personal life), but I have pushed myself in the past couple of days to finish the four remaining films I hadn't completed from 1957 so that they were done, and I can officially unveil the 27th completed season of the series (a truncated version, as I didn't have the bandwidth to write a full twenty articles, but at least I got something!).  For those who have enjoyed this (including me), I want you to know that I have started to transpose all of the previous OVP winners from past seasons onto my Letterboxd lists, and will continue to do the winners on there going forward, so if you want to continue to see what I'm picking (I'm ending the blog-the Oscar Viewing Project continues to see another day), you can find me here.  My brother is trying to help me figure out the best way to present the My Ballots (I didn't have time to finish that for 1957), but I promise as soon as he figures out a way to do this (he's better at such things than I am), I will continue posting those on Letterboxd as well.  But below, you will find the ranked from first-to-last choices for the 30th Academy Awards.

That's enough shop talk.  Now it's time to go back to an era of Sputnik & the Little Rock Nine, of Althea Gibson & Mamie Eisenhower.  And of course, let's remember the movies...

Picture

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. 12 Angry Men

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The Bridge on the River Kwai has been a part of my life since I can't remember when-it was my grandfather's favorite movie, and one that played in the background (along with Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!) on repeat after he had a stroke.  The only one of these movies that really approaches its grandeur is Witness for the Prosecution, which honestly is kind of a miracle and the best Christie adaptation I've ever seen.  12 Angry Men is very well-done, and a masterpiece but one that might (unfairly) have lost some luster it's been done so much since, and the other two are handsome-but-dull (Sayonara) or a total snooze (Peyton Place).

Director

1. David Lean (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Billy Wilder (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)

4. Joshua Logan (Sayonara)

5. Mark Robson (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Even more than the Best Picture field (if you hadn't noticed, these are carbon copies of each other), David Lean takes the lead here.  Oscar Winner Sydney Pollack once said that a director's job is "less artist, more damage containment expert" and that might be what is drawing me to Lean to a degree.  He has the more challenging job, particularly given that Wilder & Lumet are largely staying in the same locations, and are bringing to life staged plays, but it's more than that.  Think of the ending of The Bridge on the River Kwai, having so many storylines come together with staggering precision-you only get that from thinking meticulously, even in a gigantic epic.

Actor

1. Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Charles Laughton (Witness for the Prosecution)

3. Anthony Franciosa (A Hatful of Rain)

4. Marlon Brando (Sayonara)

5. Anthony Quinn (Wild is the Wind)

The Lowdown: This is entirely down to the British actors (Guinness & Laughton).  Franciosa (who is in lead, Shelley Winters' memory be damned), gives a good performance but is in an underwritten movie, while Brando is a fabulous actor in a stuffed shirt sort of role.  Guinness gets my vote over Laughton primarily because he's playing so specifically to this character.  Laughton's role is appropriately loud-and-boisterous, he's typecast but in the best way possible.  Guinness isn't initially who I would guess in 1957 for this role (he was better known for comic work in movies before this), but that works to his advantage as Colonel Nicholson is a man obsessed, whose madness toward the end as he realizes what he's done is a crucial component to the entirety of Lean's epic.

Actress

1. Anna Magnani (Wild is the Wind)

2. Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve)

3. Deborah Kerr (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison)

4. Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County)

5. Lana Turner (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Here's where I'm going to confess something-I have never gotten the hype around Joanne Woodward's performance in The Three Faces of Eve.  I think part of why she got this award (and so many plaudits since) is because it was such a revolutionary idea onscreen-a woman playing three characters in one.  But it isn't as impressive as some of her peers were, and while Woodward is a good actress, this isn't her best work, and she's only as high as she is on this list because this is a weak field.  Magnani stands out more for me-she's a more obvious actor compared to the organic Woodward, but the way she plays this woman is so three-dimensional and felt.  I love it.  Kerr is lovely-but-not-stretched in Heaven Knows, while Taylor & Turner both have their best (sultriest) instinct muted in their dull pictures.

Supporting Actor

1. Sessue Hayakawa (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

2. Red Buttons (Sayonara)

3. Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place)

4. Arthur Kennedy (Peyton Place)

5. Vittorio de Sica (A Farewell to Arms)

The Lowdown: Hayakawa, at one point a major leading star of the Silent Era, made a comeback with this role very late in his career, and it's easily the best of this quintet.  The way that his Colonel Saito creates a humanizing aspect to his villain is years ahead of what you'd normally expect from such a part, and stands up against what Guinness & Holden are doing.  Buttons' heartbreaking work is a worthy runner-up, and I like that Russ Tamblyn got a nomination here (he's my favorite part of Peyton Place), but Hayakawa is the best choice of the bunch.

Supporting Actress

1. Elsa Lanchester (Witness for the Prosecution)

2. Miyoshi Umeki (Sayonara)

3. Carolyn Jones (The Bachelor Party)

4. Hope Lange (Peyton Place)

5. Diane Varsi (Peyton Place)

The Lowdown: Man is this a rough one.  Given 3/5 of these are in movies that underwhelmed me already, and The Bachelor Party is just an odd picture, thank the lord for Elsa Lanchester.  Her doddering in Witness for the Prosecution is marvelous, and would've made a fine winner (I would've found room for her costar Una O'Connor, and will in my My Ballot).  The rest, though, are uninspired in a field that could've been great had they invested more in musicals in 1957.  Umeki's groundbreaking win isn't the worst thing to happen to this category (there's an understanding in her work that I liked), and seeing Carolyn Jones outside of the Addams mansion is a change of pace, but man...Lanchester is the only truly acceptable winner of the bunch.

Original Screenplay

1. Funny Face

2. The Tin Star

3. I Vitelloni

4. Designing Woman

5. Man of a Thousand Faces

The Lowdown: It's weird, given the weak point of most of Fred Astaire's films is a cobbled together by scotch tape plot, that I'm giving his film this statue.  In a perfect world, you'd probably see a few of the Foreign Language Film nominees included in this lineup, but the only subtitled film of this bunch is Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni, where the screenplay is one of the weakest parts in an otherwise really attractive movie.  Funny Face is well-structured, and if you get past the fact that the 30-year age difference should be more of a plot point (let's be real, though, Fred Astaire & Audrey Hepburn are such ageless figures it's hard to think of them as anything more than ephemeral tricks-of-the-light), the only movie that comes close is The Tin Star, a well-structured morality tale that's admittedly a bit predictable and guided by strong work from Henry Fonda & Anthony Perkins.

Adapted Screenplay

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. 12 Angry Men

3. Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: The real battle here is between The Bridge on the River Kwai and 12 Angry Men, both impeccable screenplays.  12 Angry Men it's sometimes hard for me to tell if I should dock points for it clearly being a filmed play or if that works onscreen.  Since I can never quite tell, I'm going to go with Bridge, which has a stronger end game, and also manages to tell a lot of subplots without losing focus (harder than it sounds).  Kudos to Heaven Knows in third, particularly in the way that it handles the complicated (for 1957) romantic angles of the story that otherwise could've been abandoned by a different writer.

Foreign Language Film

1. Nights of Cabiria (Italy)

2. Gates of Paris (France)

3. The Devil Strikes at Night (Germany)

4. Nine Lives (Norway)

5. Mother India (India)

The Lowdown: In the early years of this category, you'd get masterpieces from renowned filmmakers like Fellini, which makes it really hard to judge in some ways because how do you compete with something like Nights of Cabiria, one of the all-time great pictures and featuring a beautiful performance from Giuletta Massini?  It's a pity, though, as there's some treasure trove films here too.  Gates of Paris is a wonderfully dark French crime film (with a romantic subplot that'll rip your heart out), while The Devil Strikes at Night gives you a really strong look at the rise of fascism from a film noir perspective. The only one of the bunch I couldn't get into was the unfathomably long Mother India, a well-regarded Bollywood picture that was at least two hours too long.

Score

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. An Affair to Remember

3. Raintree County

4. Boy on a Dolphin

5. Perri

The Lowdown: Any of the Top 3 here would be a worthy prize (Boy on the Dolphin feels like it got nominated based on the composer, and Perri ranks as one of the sillier films to ever be cited for an Academy Award since it's just a children's nature documentary about a squirrel).  Even with the most famous cut of the score being a non-original piece (the "Colonel Bogey's March" is not original to the picture), I think that Bridge does the most with its music, and it will get my nod.  Either Affair or Raintree would make good choices, though, both of them lush & filled with a lot of romance (I'm still finalizing my My Ballot Awards, as I mentioned above, but as of this writing all three of these films would make my nominees).

Original Song

1. "Wild is the Wind" (Wild is the Wind)

2. "All the Way," (The Joker is Wild)

3. "An Affair to Remember," (An Affair to Remember)

4. "Tammy," (Tammy and the Bachelor)

5. "April Love," (April Love)

The Lowdown: A genuinely terrific group of songs-there's not a bad one in the bunch, and in many cases, we're getting some big-deal singers' signature tunes.  The Top 3, in particular, is pretty immovable, and my pick of "Wild is the Wind" might be a little cheat given my favorite version of the song is by Nina Simone (not, as sung in the movie, by Johnny Mathis, though Mathis is also marvelous).  It's such a creepy love ballad.  Sinatra's classic "All the Way" and Marni Nixon belting out the standard "An Affair to Remember" (through Deborah Kerr) are totally acceptable answers here too, though.

Sound

1. Pal Joey

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Sayonara

4. Les Girls

5. Gunfight at the OK Corral

The Lowdown: I will be honest-every single one of these films will be getting replaced when I do my My Ballot.  That's not to say there isn't good stuff happening (Pal Joey has some solid musical numbers and the dialogue is crisp, Witness has the great final courtroom scene & Marlene singing), but nothing here stands out in a big way.  The shootout in Gunfight, for example, is a disappointment (the best part of it is the Frankie Lane title song), and Les Girls is a great movie, but not one that has a lot of super memorable musical numbers (it works better on its plot).  The Bridge on the River Kwai is clearly missing.

Art Direction

1. Les Girls

2. Funny Face

3. Raintree County

4. Sayonara

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: Gorgeous sets abound here, but in particular for the Top 2 (in another year Raintree County's elaborate and epic southern looks would be a serious contender for the win, here it has to settle for the bronze).  I'm going to go with Les Girls for the statue because it plays more with the beautiful looks of Paris than Funny Face does, and the sets have a bit more color and personality, but honestly they're both so good this is splitting hairs.

Cinematography

1. Funny Face

2. An Affair to Remember

3. The Bridge on the River Kwai

4. Sayonara

5. Peyton Place

The Lowdown: This one comes down to the romances for me-this is the one area where I think Bridge is good but isn't necessarily breaking the bank except for the final sequence, and so I'd put this between Affair and Funny Face.  Funny Face probably benefits a bit from its plot-there film is literally about catching the exact right photo of Audrey Hepburn, and you get gorgeous scenes and fashion shots of her to accompany that.  I do like the intercontinental glamour and radiant CinemaScope beauty of An Affair to Remember, but if forced to pick, I'd end with Funny Face.

Costume Design

1. Funny Face

2. Les Girls

3. Raintree County

4. An Affair to Remember

5. Pal Joey

The Lowdown: With costume design, sometimes you get contests where you were never going to win.  There are really good nominees in this category (for my money, the best lineup Oscar pulled together in 1957), and some are extraordinary.  That exquisite orange & white dress Deborah Kerr wears in An Affair to Remember, the plunging bodices sported by a never-more-beautiful Elizabeth Taylor in Raintree County, the monochromatic swimsuits & matching chapeaus of Les Girls...all grand.  But when Audrey Hepburn in a strapless scarlet dress & matching scarf walks down the steps of the Louvre in Funny Face...that's what makes movies, movies-it simply has to win.

Film Editing

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai

2. Witness for the Prosecution

3. Gunfight at the OK Corral

4. Pal Joey

5. Sayonara

The Lowdown: I feel like too many of these categories are Bridge on the River Kwai facing off against Witness for the Prosecution with the latter coming up short.  This is true here, even though it's close-Bridge sometimes sags in the middle (maybe its weakest aspect even if the beginning and end are so well-conceived), and you can't deny that Witness builds its tension masterfully.  Still, the ending of Bridge is just too good to ignore, and neither Marlene Dietrich or Dennis Hopper's very effective final scene in Gunfight at the OK Corral can really compete with it.

Special Effects

1. The Spirit of St. Louis

2. The Enemy Below

The Lowdown: Our only category with only two nominees in the bunch, this is a battle between two war pictures.  The Spirit of St. Louis is really impressive when you keep in mind this is a special effects category, and so therefore the plane stunt effects and trick flying should be part of your calculation.  It helps that Jimmy Stewart was a pilot in WWII and actually knows what he was doing.  The Enemy Below is both a lesser movie, and honestly has lesser effects by comparison (Lindbergh gets my win).  It's not bad-the water effects toward the end all are strong & believable in a world without CGI, but it's nothing you wouldn't see in a dozen other war films of the era.

Portrait in Black (1960)

Film: Portrait in Black (1960)

Stars: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee, John Saxon, Ray Walston, Anna May Wong

Director: Michael Gordon

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Sandra Dee: click here to learn more about Ms. Dee (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

I missed last week for Sandra Dee (I was traveling out of town and didn't quite have time to get this written as I was having too much fun on my trip), so we'll find a way at some point this month to make up with a double feature on a Saturday, but not today.  Today we're going to talk solely about Portrait in Black, a movie that was part of an effort for Dee to be taken more seriously as an actress.  Coming after her success with Imitation of Life, she was teamed with Lana Turner (this time playing her stepmother) in another glossy sudser, but critical success did not come to Dee.  Like most of her attempts at drama, critics didn't want to sign up for the film, and they wanted her to be more like Gidget, not getting the dramatic fare that some of the other young actresses at the time (like Natalie Wood) were getting that came with Oscar nominations.  Instead, she got more financial success-Portrait in Black was a big hit, getting her into the Top 10 biggest box office draws of the year, and led to her eventually renewing her contract with Universal (which would give her the eventual distinction of being the final major star under contract to a studio under the old Hollywood system).

(Spoilers Ahead) Portrait in Black is a classic soap opera movie, one that would go out of fashion as actual soap operas became more prominent.  Turner plays Sheila Cabot, a trophy wife caught in a loveless marriage to a dying, wealthy old man.  She's having an affair with her husband's doctor, David Rivera (Quinn), and the two eventually plot to kill him, making it look like an accident.  The only problem is that she's being blackmailed-someone seems to know that they knocked off the old man & are planning on running away together.  Is it Sheila's stepdaughter Cathy (Dee) or perhaps Howard Mason (Basehart), the other man that's madly in love with Sheila, or her servant Tawny (Anna May Wong, in her final screen performance).  More murder and soliloquies follow, until we get the bizarre kicker that it was Sheila herself, worried that David was going to leave her, who started the blackmail plot that would lead him to kill again...and eventually fall off the roof to his death in a fit of madness.

Portrait in Black is not a great movie-critics of the era got it right.  But I have kind of a soft spot for this type of melodrama, all torrid embraces & fashionable crime, and so I was into it.  I tend to really like Lana Turner, even if she's not a great actress, and this uses her well, giving us a fashionable, aging beauty who will do anything to get what she wants...though maybe a little bit more malice would've made this a proper femme fatale sort of figure, which is what the role is begging for it to turn into.  Anthony Quinn is less my cup-of-tea, but this fits-his tendency for hammy overacting lean into David's need to clear his conscience, which ain't happening given he, well, killed someone.

As for Dee-she's good, though not great.  This isn't the type of part that generally gets you plaudits (Turner & Quinn get better roles as the leads), but she does find some interesting corners to this character.  She's so naive, I really wanted more scenes between she and Sheila, giving us two generations of beauties, but one that (due to the virtues of youth) is the more desirable one in the construct of the story, and would feed Sheila's jealousy.  Weirdly that's not where this goes-Cathy is meant to be more plot point than hurdle, but Dee does make sure we know by the end that she's an option for David, the writing just isn't good enough to go there.

Saturdays with the Stars Season 2 Finale

Two of our legendary Stars of 2020,
Sophia Loren & Jayne Mansfield

Yesterday with The Three Musketeers we hit the finale of our second season of "Saturdays with the Stars," and before we start the new year (and a new season, devoted to Hitchcock's leading ladies), I wanted to take time to celebrate another season, and one I treat as a success.  We never missed a Saturday (there was one close call, but that was really it-being stuck at home made at least this part of 2020 easier), and I saw a lot of new movies & now have a better understanding of twelve stars, some of which I knew next to nothing about before this year.  And I hope you learned something as well!

It's always fascinating to me to focus on an actor's career, rather than as we typically do in film discussions on a director's.  Watching these women, particularly under the guise of "Sex Symbols" was intriguing to me because Hollywood had different attitudes toward these beautiful women as the public began to find their sexuality passé, or eventually, absent.  It is kind of heartbreaking to watch someone like a Jayne Mansfield or Raquel Welch, who clearly chose poorly at select moments of their careers & paid the price for it, and fascinating to watch a figure like Sophia Loren or Ann-Margret who was able to rise above their studio-forced persona and eventually gain mainstream critical recognition in their lifetimes.

Every film I watched this year was a movie I was seeing for the very first time, as well, so once again I was blown away by the expanses of Classic Hollywood, rich with westerns and noir and musicals that I'd never been exposed to.  Next year we'll do our third and final tour of Classic Hollywood actresses (after that, if we continue the series, we're going to either add men or a more modern element for a fourth season), so we'll continue to mine this well, but before we do that, let's hand out some superlatives for this year's leading ladies.

Favorite Performance from Each Star

January: Jean Harlow-Red Dust

February: Betty Grable-I Wake Up Screaming

March: Lena Horne-Cabin in the Sky

April: Rita Hayworth-Separate Tables

May: Lana Turner-The Postman Always Rings Twice

June: Marilyn Monroe-The Misfits

July: Jayne Mansfield-Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

August: Sophia Loren-Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

September: Gina Lollobrigida-Come September

October: Nancy Kwan-The World of Suzie Wong

November: Ann-Margret-Carnal Knowledge

December: Raquel Welch-The Three Musketeers

5 Favorite Actresses of the Year (Alphabetical)

Jean Harlow

Rita Hayworth

Sophia Loren

Marilyn Monroe

Lana Turner

5 Favorite Performances of the Year (Alphabetical)

Rita Hayworth, Separate Tables

Sophia Loren, Two Women

Sophia Loren, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Marilyn Monroe, The Misfits

Lana Turner, The Postman Always Rings Twice

10 Favorite Films of the Year (Alphabetical)

Cabin in the Sky

Cover Girl

I Wake Up Screaming

Imitation of Life

Libeled Lady

The Misfits

The Postman Always Rings Twice

Red Dust

Separate Tables

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Top 10 Performances of the Year (Not By Our Leading Ladies)

Clark Gable, The Misfits

David Niven, Separate Tables

Eli Wallach, The Misfits

Ethel Waters, Cabin in the Sky

Eve Arden, Cover Girl

Jennifer Jones, Beat the Devil

Juanita Moore, Imitation of Life

Laird Cregar, I Wake Up Screaming

Susan Kohner, Imitation of Life

Thelma Ritter, The Misfits

Madame X (1966)

Film: Madame X (1966)
Stars: Lana Turner, John Forsythe, Ricardo Montalban, Burgess Meredith, Constance Bennet, Keir Dullea
Director: David Lowell Rich
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Most discussions of the career of Lana Turner end where we left it last week, with the three-part punch of Peyton Place (and her sole Oscar nomination), the trial of her daughter Cheryl Crane for the death of Johnny Stompanato, and then her seismic return-to-glory with the blockbuster Imitation of Life.  But Turner lived for over thirty years after Imitation of Life, and a lot of that time she was acting, albeit in smaller and less-memorable roles.  So we're going to end our discussion of her career not in 1959, but instead in the 1960's, with Turner's last starring role in a major Hollywood production, Madame X.  By this time, Turner was in her mid-forties, still gloriously beautiful but clearly a woman whose hard life (and smoking & drinking) had started to wear on her once porcelain demeanor.  She'd picked up two more husbands since Imitation of Life, and her daughter Cheryl was no longer living with her.  She'd had several hits, none as big as Imitation of Life, but she was hardly hurting for work, when Ross Hunter came along and brought her this script.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film unfolds in three acts.  The first is a romance between Holly Parker (Turner), a woman who has recently married Clay Anderson (Forsyth), the crown jewel of a very 'old school money' American family, managed by her disapproving mother-in-law Estelle (Bennett, in her final screen role-she'd die of a brain hemorrhage before this movie was released).  As Clay is constantly away, Holly becomes involved with a local playboy (Montalban), whose death she inadvertently causes when she pushes him in self-defense after she wants to end the affair.  Estelle finds out, and blackmails her daughter-in-law into faking her own death in exchange for covering up the "crime."  Holly does this, moves to Europe, and essentially becomes a wonton woman (there's strong insinuations that she's making money as a prostitute, though it's never fully confirmed), and is` blackmailed by a local drunk Dan Sullivan (Meredith) when he finds out her real identity.  In a twist-of-fate you'd only find in a movie, her attorney ends up being the son she left behind, now played by Keir Dullea, who begins to love this woman not realizing she's his mother.  She dies before the verdict is known to the audience, but not before her husband realizes who she is (she has gone in the press simply as "Madame X," hence the title), not telling his son that he has just tried to save the life of his own mother.

Madame X is kind of a bizarre crossroads of two major trends, one of the 1960's and another of the 1980's.  In the 1960's, the concept of the Grand Dame Guignol films were all the rage, with former beauty queens like Joan Crawford & Bette Davis forced to debase themselves in less glamorous roles, essentially showing that they had in fact aged, and the public could look at them and gawk that youth doesn't last forever.  This certainly happens in Madame X.  Initially it feels like Turner isn't willing to show that she's in fact in her mid-40's, but as the film progresses, vanity goes aside as we see caked on makeup being used to show the passage of time, aging not only in the way she does her hair, but instead by having the gaul to exhibit crow's feet.

This might confuse Madame X with some other films of the era like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Elizabeth Taylor throwing her vanity to the wind, but Madame X is not Virginia Woolf.  This is a pretty heavy melodrama with little to advise it other than if you love voyeuristically looking into the world of the rich-and-damned and a particular type of intense scenery-chewing (this is a genre that's a guilty pleasure for me, hence why it's getting a 3-star rating when it easily could be lower).  Turner is so good at this sort of thing though.  This isn't great acting, but man is it great star-performing.  She sinks into her Holly, and all of the nasty turns her life takes, with aplomb.  Few actresses of her generation would have taken on such a role, their vanity potentially being at stake, but Turner had already had her dirty laundry aired so fervently in real life, what could a fictionalized character do to her legacy?

In a lot of ways, this film is a fore-bearer to the nighttime soap operas of the 1980's, when screen stars of Turner's era such as Barbara bel Geddes and Joan Collins would be forced into continually ridiculous dialogue & chicanery, albeit with the backdrop of obscene wealth & glamour.  Turner would be a part of this world, in fact.  After Madame X, Turner never made a movie of this sort of pedigree again, working in lesser-and-lesser films from smaller studios, trying (and struggling) to establish herself in TV and theater in a way that would be comparable to her time in movies.  The closest she came was a brief stint on Falcon Crest where she went to toe-to-toe with Jane Wyman.  Turner died of throat cancer at the age of 74, with her daughter Cheryl by her side.  She had a hard life, but it was at least a relatively full one.  Next month, we're going to talk about a different Hollywood sex symbol whose life was comparatively brief, but whose death made her immortal.

OVP: Imitation of Life (1959)

Film: Imitation of Life (1959)
Stars: Lana Turner, Juanita Moore, John Gavin, Sandra Dee, Susan Kohner, Dan O'Herlihy, Troy Donahue, Mahalia Jackson
Director: Douglas Sirk
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Supporting Actress-Juanita Moore, Supporting Actress-Susan Kohner)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

This series is focused on not just sex symbols, but also on films that I haven't seen made by said sex symbols.  As a result, we're going to be skipping over a major part of Lana Turner's career post-Green Dolphin Street.  After the film, she enjoyed a couple of years of success, but bad decisions by the studio (Lana Turner was not meant for musicals) and the constant headache of her personal life got in the way, despite occasional successes like The Bad and the Beautiful (which I've seen before, otherwise I'd have included it as it's the only noteworthy Turner film in the early-1950's).  MGM eventually dropped her, and while many actors in that position would have been on the downhill slide of their career, Turner managed to get two major roles immediately after.  The first (another film I've seen, hence it's lack of a profile), was Peyton Place, a massive hit for Fox, which won Turner the only Oscar nomination of her career.  However, Turner's life would be turned upside down afterward when her daughter would be charged (and then acquitted) of the murder of her mobster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato (you can read more about this here).  This was a huge scandal in an era where Turner wasn't signed to a studio that might have helped her with the press in the wake of a hit like Peyton Place, and she was badly in need of a follow-up hit considering the legal bills she'd incurred on behalf of her daughter, and was potentially unemployable due to the scandal.  Thankfully for Turner, producer Ross Hunter had a role that would be perfect for her in Imitation of Life.

(Spoilers Ahead) A loose remake of the 1934 Best Picture of the same name starring Claudette Colbert & Louise Beavers, Imitation of Life is about two women who are afforded very different paths, and the complicated relationships that they have with their daughters.  One of them is Lora Meredith (Turner), a beautiful woman who has a daughter she has to raise, but dreams of stardom on the stage.  She gets just that through a chance encounter with a photographer (Gavin) who becomes her off-and-on lover, and then a producer, and stands out in a small part on stage which graduates to a decade of stardom on Broadway.  This leaves her daughter Susie (as a teenager, played by Dee), without an obvious mother-figure.  This is solved in the opening scene when Susie, having ran off from her mother, is found by a destitute woman named Annie (Moore), who is there with her daughter Sarah Jane (played by Kohner as an adult).  Susie & Sarah Jane are quick friends, but Sarah Jane struggles deeply in life because she's biracial-her mother, Annie, is black, but her father was very light-skinned and she passes as white unless she's forced to acknowledge her mother.  The film watches as these two women must acknowledge the realities they bring as mothers to these growing girls, and the film unfolds with these two lifelong partners struggling to find a place in their daughter's lives when they become adults.

Imitation of Life is one of several major melodramas of the 1950's that had Douglas Sirk's signature branding, alongside other pictures like Written on the Wind and Magnificent Obsession.  This one might be the best of the bunch, for my money, mostly because it leans in the heaviest into the melodrama.  The tearjerker scenes between the four principle actresses are splendid, even if they are occasionally uneven.  Susan Kohner alternates between eyebrow-raising histrionics to just brilliant screen work-it's uneven, but when she's on, she's sensational.  There's that scene where she dances on tables and clearly enjoys being desired, discarding her racial identity-it's tough to watch, the inner-hatred she brings, but she manages to find it as a learned hatred in a way other actors might have tried to simplify the performance.  Kohner in real-life was not black, but she was biracial (her mother was Mexican actress Lupita Tovar, known for her work in the Spanish-language Dracula) which may lend more credibility here.

Moore is also splendid (both actresses won Oscar nominations for their work here, and kind of steal the picture).  She grounds her character in kindness, but also pragmatism.  Yes, she's playing a maid, but she's playing a maid who knows she's a better mother to Susie than her one-time friend, but more often employer, is.  There's a great moment late in the film where Annie is discussing her funeral with Lora, and Lora wonders how Annie has so many friends she'd want to invite, and why she never mentions them.  "You never asked," Annie says knowingly, and it's as much an indictment of the audience as it is of Lora; we assume that Annie's whole world are the two white women who get top billing in the film, but she's got her own life & it actually takes over the ending of the film as the final scenes are her funeral.  The film's best, and most devastating moment comes before that, though, when Annie & Sarah Jane say goodbye, and Sarah Jane pretends that Annie is her childhood nanny rather than her mother so as to continue to pretend to be white in her new job.  It's heartbreaking, and the sort of thing that results in easy tears, but man is it effective.

As for Turner, she's not given as interesting of a part as the other two women, but it probably doesn't matter as written.  Her Lora has heavy-lifting in the first half of the film (making us believe that a nearly 40-year-old woman would be given the time of the day by an agent without experience), but the rest of the movie she's meant to mostly just be an ice queen that occasionally thaws.  Turner's most noted aspect in this film is the wardrobe & jewelry that she wears.  The Bill Thomas gowns are hyper-glamorous, and the jewelry in the film was valued at some $1 million, as the producers assumed that if no one wanted to see a film about the Civil Rights Era in 1959, they'd at least want to gawk at Turner wearing gorgeous gems.

But the thing is, people did want to see Imitation of Life.  The film would be Universal's biggest hit ever, and hold that title until 1970's Airport.  Turner turned down her regular salary for the film (likely because the producers were worried about risking their necks on a celebrity who'd just got through a murder trial), and took a cut of the profits instead, making by some estimates to be $2 million (adjusted for inflation, that's nearly $18 million today) for the film as a result, a sum that set her up for life and briefly made her the highest-paid actress in film history.  Most looks into Turner's career end with Peyton Place/Imitation of Life, but as we have five Saturday's this month, we're going to go a few years further into her career next week, in one of her last starring roles, and discuss the end of Turner's very long time in the spotlight.

OVP: Green Dolphin Street (1947)

Film: Green Dolphin Street (1947)
Stars: Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed, Richard Hart, Frank Morgan, Edmund Gwenn, May Whitty, Gladys Cooper
Director: Victor Saville
Oscar History: 4 nominations/1 win (Best Cinematography, Special Effects*, Sound, Film Editing)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Last week we talked about the film that graduated Lana Turner from playing the "random beautiful love interest" to a proper leading lady, someone who might be able to handle meatier roles after her triumph in The Postman Always Rings Twice.  This lasted only for a little while, but it did result in a number of high-profile films (and hits) in Turner's career, one of which we're going to talk about today.   A year after Postman, Turner emerged in one of the new, "more quality" roles that was now being afforded her, Green Dolphin Street, which would prove that she was at her peak in terms of financial viability for the studio (the movie was MGM's highest-grossing picture of 1947), but it also showed some of the limitations of Turner's acting ability, never quite understanding the woman who had sizzled across movie screens the year earlier.

(Spoilers Ahead) At 142 minutes, Green Dolphin Street (it gets the name from the ship in the film and a street in the town where the film is set) is a long movie, so I'll try and summarize the plot in a paragraph but might gloss over some points.  Essentially, you have two sisters, Marguerite (Reed) and Marianne (Turner), who fall in love with the same man William (Hart), who happens to be the son of their mother's former lover, played here by Frank Morgan (Edmund Gwenn is their father, Gladys Cooper their mother, and Dame May Whitty a Mother Superior in a pretty star-studded supporting cast).  The two sisters similar names get them in trouble when William, after being branded a deserter in the navy (he fell for an Asian prostitute in a problematic scene in the film, as she then robs him & leaves him out-in-the-cold to die), gets drunk and proposes to Marianne, when he means to propose to Marguerite, whom he claims is his true love.  Marianne goes, and convinced by his friend Tim (Heflin), who is in love with Marianne & doesn't want her dishonored, William proposes to her.  You can see where this is going-Marguerite becomes a nun, Tim shares his love for Marianne, but she rejects him because she loves William, and William realizes in the end that it was Marianne he was meant for.  Oh, and there's an earthquake.

That earthquake is what the film is most famous for.  The film was nominated for four Oscars, and won one, and boy did it deserve it.  In an era prior to computer-generated effects (and location shooting, apparently because that could not look more like California if it tried), the film manages to have a gigantic earthquake sequence that shows the ground shifting, trees crashing, and then follows it with a spectacular flash flood that nearly drowns Richard Hart (I left quite petrified, and it was said in reviews of the film at the time that the audience could practically feel the earth shake from the movie).  The Oscar is richly-deserved, but it's the only nomination I'm getting behind.  The cinematography is fine (it's nice to be outdoors, I guess), but not all that compelling (mood lighting on a woman as beautiful as Lana Turner isn't groundbreaking), the editing is clumsy (the film drags on too long, and they use at least one shot twice during the earthquake scene), and the sound, outside of the earthquake scene, isn't important at all (also, it's not entirely clear during that scene who is screaming).

This is all to say that Green Dolphin Street is probably the type of movie that Turner was hoping for, but it's not what she wanted.  She's taken seriously as an actress here-it's easy to see a more storied thespian like Bette Davis in the role that Turner plays here, and she gets big, meaty speeches.  But the movie doesn't care much about defining her Marianne, and she doesn't either.  This is a woman who is strong, but also needs to be taken down a peg according to the script...but is constantly credited for being strong.  Turner gets off better than Reed, who is just there to look pious, and it's never clear exactly why Hart's William is in love with her since they barely spent any time together, and it's obviously Marianne who challenges & intrigues him.  Heflin is the best part of the film (and let's be honest, the best actor of the main four quartet in general), but he's inconsequential to the plot, and it's never clear again why he's fallen for Marianne, since an early scene shows he doesn't like strong women.  All-in-all, this is a lousy film with one truly great sequence in its center, the kind of "important" film that scoops up awards & box office, but feels utterly disposable afterward.  Turner was better off with the lower-budget but higher-quality Postman.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Film: The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Director: Tay Garnett
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

By 1946, Lana Turner would have been forgiven for being tired of her career.  She had been a star at MGM for years at this point, and had gone a long way from where we saw her in Love Finds Andy Hardy last week.  Turner, who collected husbands with the frequency people usually only reserve for birthdays & filing their taxes, had been married three times during her early years at MGM, and given birth to her only child, Cheryl.  Her film work was less inspired, though.  She starred opposite major leading men of the era (Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, & James Stewart), to name a few, but with the exception of 1942's Johnny Eager, none of them are well-remembered today, and it's probable that Turner herself wouldn't be either were it not for today's film, which started an entirely new career for Turner as a more serious actress.  Today, we go to the film noir classic The Postman Always Rings Twice.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows drifter Frank Chambers (Garfield), a man who shows up one day at a gas station where he meets a gruff old drunk Nick (Kellaway), who is married to an alarmingly beautiful, much younger woman Cora (Turner).  Cora and Frank, away from Nick's drunken gaze, start a passionate love affair that results in them eventually wanting to kill Nick.  The two have a half-hearted attempt that goes awry when a cat knocks out the power, scaring Cora from murdering her husband and just injuring him.  Nick doesn't remember the attack, but this puts them in the crosshairs of the law.  Despite this, they go ahead and actually kill Nick, trying to make it look like a traffic accident but are discovered by a district attorney who arrests Cora for both Nick's death and for attempting to kill Frank (who is injured in the car accident).  Her sleazy lawyer (Cronyn) manages to trick her into signing a confession, but doesn't give it to the DA, and instead just proves to her that she's capable of turning on Frank (as he has already done with her).  She get off on a technicality, getting manslaughter (that turns into probation), and the two continue living together, eventually marrying to try and ebb simmering gossip about the two, but they despise one another.  The two both seem like they're on the brink of killing one another, and then Cora has a change of heart, giving Frank the opportunity to let her drown, but he doesn't, and they are about to start a new, cooler life together when a car accident (a real one this time) results in Cora dying, and Frank being charged with her murder.  Even though he's innocent this time, he accepts that he was guilty of murdering Nick, and this is a fitting punishment, especially without the woman he loved.

The film, as you can tell, is thickly-plotted (as is the wont of most noir, where body counts are high & the betrayal is omnipresent).  However, up until the last ten minutes or so, you won't give a damn because Postman is glorious.  It's seedy, ruthless, and sexy-as-hell.  Turner & Garfield have a smoldering chemistry that works miracles onscreen, and while Kellaway is miscast (you never really understand why Cora married such a louse in the first place or why she doesn't particularly like him since he seems like he's been like this forever), Cronyn is superb and nasty in the supporting role.  If this was the type of film that got Oscar nominations, he would have been on the Academy's shortlist for sure (I suspect he'll be on mine).

The ending I didn't love.  I have not read the classic novel by James M. Cain (I'll probably give it a couple of years before I do so that it feels at least a little new & fresh), so I don't know if the ending is that much different from the film's, but I don't entirely buy that Cora, as portrayed here, would have forgiven Frank, and it feels like a rushed ending after so much cruelty and plotting back-and-forth.  Shouldn't Cora, always ready with the upper-hand (or the world ready to give it to her) have lived through the finale, or at least have run off with Cronyn's lawyer, tricking Frank into taking the fall for a murder that didn't happen?  I guess I just kept hoping we'd found out she made it, as it's hard to imagine a car accident would have felled such a spirit.

That's because Turner is amazing in Postman.  I've seen a few of Lana Turner's movies, including her Oscar-nominated work in Peyton Place, and I have to say-she's never been better.  We don't need the saucy melodrama of Turner's real life to sell this movie-it's all just a great performance from an actress at the top of her field.  Turner has never looked more radiant, and never been more sexy.  The femme fatale trope has been a savior for other actresses, and the downfall of more still, but Turner not only gives us a great performance, it's a genre-topping one.  She quickly joins the ranks of Jane Greer in Out of the Past or Gloria Grahame in In a Lonely Place as one of the better femme fatales in the genre.  It's no wonder MGM saw this performance and thought, "maybe we're under-serving this actress."  Next week, we'll see what happens when Turner gets a more traditionally "awards bait" role as she encounters one of the giant epics of 1947.

Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)

Film: Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938)
Stars: Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Cecilia Parker, Fay Holden, Lana Turner, Ann Rutherford
Director: George B. Seitz
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Lana Turner-click here to learn more about Ms. Turner (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Despite urban legend, Lana Turner was not discovered in Schwab's Pharmacy.  The definitive version of how the screen icon was discovered will probably never be definitively known, but we can chart the earlier part of her filmography regardless.  She worked briefly at Warner Brothers, but her career was going nowhere, and so director Mervyn LeRoy, her mentor, brought her with over to MGM with little complaint (akin to the Red Sox trading Babe Ruth, if film fans were akin to such analogies).  While at MGM she got her first real break as a screen actress in the oddest place of all-Love Finds Andy Hardy, a movie that didn't quite catapult her to stardom, but did put her into a newer echelon of actress-someone whom studio executives suddenly knew the name of and wanted to see her stretch in more substantial parts.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film focuses on Andy Hardy (Rooney), an all-American boy who is trying to save up enough money to take his girl Polly (Rutherford) to the dance.  However, when Polly can't go to the dance, Andy still wants to go by himself, and continues saving for the car.  When a friend convinces Andy to date his girlfriend Cynthia (Turner), in hopes of making sure Cynthia isn't swept off-her-feet by other boys, Andy has to trick Polly, a problem that is compounded when it turns out Polly can go to the dance.  Andy thus has to find a way to please both girls, and is aided in this by Betsy (Garland), who is a few years younger than Andy but is terribly smitten with him.  This all happens while Andy's mother (Holden) is off caring for his ailing grandmother, and so for much of the film Andy is being raised by his father Judge Hardy (Stone) and his older sister Marian (Parker)

Love Finds Andy Hardy is an odd film to associate with Lana Turner's eventually sexy, blonde goddess persona for a variety of reasons, but first of all it's a strange picture in general for us to profile here because it's the fourth film in a series of movies I haven't seen any of the other movies.  I normally wouldn't do something like that (I tend to favor seeing the story in the original order), but these serials were so popular in the days before television, and aren't really like the sequels we encounter today.  Instead, they're more like an episode of television, and so checking in on the Hardy family (the series would ultimately have sixteen excursions, as well as a short) seems more like seeing an episode of I Love Lucy or The Dick van Dyke Show out-of-sequence than missing Empire before going into Jedi.

The movie itself is kind of frothy.  This is wholesome family entertainment in a way we'd almost exclusively associate with television (think Ozzie & Harriet or The Donna Reed Show for context), but it's not particularly rapid fire and the jokes are far too genial to be funny years later.  Some of them are a little gross (there's a crack about Andy kissing Polly, even when she doesn't want to, that will have your antennae up pretty quickly), and there's not a lot of great slapstick or sight gags to make these compelling.  That said, it's not a bad movie either.  Rooney is fun as Andy-you see pretty quickly why this series made him a household name, and Garland is winning as Betsy, getting to sing a few ballads and the two have smashing chemistry with each other.  I'm going with 3-stars here because if you don't attach a genre to the movie (like, "comedy," and suddenly expect a laugh riot), it's fun.  It's just not the sort of thing that exists on-screens today where first you pitch the trailer, then the movie.

As for Turner, I'm going to be honest-I'm at a loss how she became a star off of this.  Her part is small, and while she's fun as a girl who will "let you kiss her all she wants" (Turner is basically the "trampy girl" trope where you know she won't end up with sweet-hearted Andy), it's hard to imagine what she'd graduate to just a few short years later.  Turner's so young here (just seventeen), and there are even cracks about the future sex symbol's appearance being less than ideal (particularly about her "red hair")-it's an odd chapter in the career of such a major star, and such a complete departure from what we'd normally associate with her that I'm glad we took this early detour in her career.  Next week, though, we'll get to one of the quintessential Lana Turner roles.

Saturdays with the Stars: Lana Turner

Each month of 2020 we will be looking at the movies of some of Hollywood's most famous sex symbols, women whose intense beauty frequently overshadowed their filmic careers.  Last month, our focus was on Rita Hayworth, the quintessential pinup girl of World War II who managed to become a major player at Columbia throughout the 1940's.  This month we head across town to the MGM lot, where one of the biggest names in show business rose to prominence based not just on her films, but also her blonde allure, many (many) husbands, and penchant for (ahem) sweaters.  This month, our star is Lana Turner.

Born Julia Jean Turner in (probably) 1921 (like many actresses of the era, Turner's true age may forever be a mystery) in rural Idaho, she became the daughter of a single-parent household at only the age of nine when her father was murdered when the family relocated to San Francisco.  Her childhood was horrendous, involving physical abuse and abject poverty, with Turner being forced to live off scraps from families she'd live with while her mother tried to make enough money for them to survive.  Turner was discovered sometime around the mid-1930's, though despite Hollywood legend, it was not at Schwab's Pharmacy while drinking a milkshake, but (according to the actress herself) it was a different shop on Sunset Boulevard where she eventually got her big break when a reporter referred her to Zeppo Marx (a talent agent as well as the straight man in the Marx Brothers pictures), who got her a contract at Warner Brothers.

It was at Warner where she met Mervyn LeRoy, who cast her in They Won't Forget, where she earned the nickname "the Sweater Girl" due to the way her bust looked in form-fitting attire (a nickname that would stick despite Turner hating it-it was literally in her New York Times obituary), and when LeRoy moved to MGM, Turner came with him.  She found stardom in Love Finds Andy Hardy opposite Mickey Rooney, and would become an MGM fixture for the next decade, starring in classics of the era ranging from The Postman Always Rings Twice to The Bad and the Beautiful.

Turner's career has many chapters, and we're going to try and look at as many of them as possible this month as we can, though it'll be a struggle to get to them all.  Few of the sex symbols we will profile had quite the offscreen life that Turner did.  After all, in addition to marrying eight different times (to seven different men) she had affairs with everyone ranging from Clark Gable to Frank Sinatra to Howard Hughes to her infamous offscreen dalliance with Johnny Stompanato (which we talked about more here).  Turner, despite her time at MGM, might have had her biggest years as a star in the late-1950's with the combination of Peyton Place and Inherit the Wind giving her gargantuan box office at an age when most sex symbols would have vanished from movie screens (thanks in no small part to public fascination with the actress in the wake of the Stompanato homicide).  This month, we're going to take a look at her career (and talk about her extraordinary life), but most importantly we'll focus on the filmography she left behind, which oftentimes gets lost when discussing the legend of one of Hollywood's most notorious glamour girls.

12 More Famous Unsolved Holllywood Deaths

It is Halloween, and I had every intention this month of doing another mini-series devoted to something spooky (and film-connected), but alas time got away from me and I will probably pocket the idea until next year.  But I don't want to leave you hanging, so I'm going to be talking about something else sinister, and conclude a trilogy of articles we started way back in April: our look at some of the most famous of unsolved Hollywood murders.

If you're behind please check out the first two installments in this series here and here, as they're definitely up your alley if you're interested in either Hollywood or true crime (or both!).  I could arguably continue this series indefinitely, as there's countless crimes in the Los Angeles area that would have connections to the movies, but I feel a trilogy is the best way to sum this up.  Starting to look at whom or what I might include in a fourth article, I realized we were getting more just into local crimes, rather than finding a proper Hollywood connection, and as this is a film blog rather than one associated with crime articles exclusively, I figured it would be appropriate to finish this series in three acts.

Since this is our finale on Hollywood homicides, we're going to get to eight crimes that I think are lesser-known, but fascinating.  They involve an Oscar-winning actress who (might) have had some connection with her husband's death, an Oscar-winning actor who (might) have killed a comedy pioneer, and the strange death of an Oscar-winning actor who (might) have been killed on the orders of a dictator; we'll also look at a death of a famous adult film star who almost certainly wasn't murdered, but whose whereabouts (and questions around whether she's alive or dead) are too bizarre not to discuss.  And since this is the final installment in our series, I'm going to acquiesce and include in the article four of Hollywood's most famous deaths, all of whom have inspired conspiracy theories for years, and we'll discuss why I don't entirely buy them (even if the deaths might have some intriguing unanswered questions).  As I mentioned in our past installments, this obviously involves some heavy subject matter, so if you're light-of-heart I suggest you read at your own risk.

Nick Adams

The Hollywood Connection: Adams was a bit player in Hollywood that stayed on the periphery of fame while never become as iconic as some of his costars.  Among his best-known work is The Rebel, an ABC western that ran for two seasons & Twilight of Honor, where he plays an alleged killer obsessed with Joey Heatherton.  Twilight won him an Oscar nomination, but Adams is best remembered today for his friendships with (and rumored romances with) two 1950's superstars: James Dean & Elvis Presley.
The Murder(?): On February 7, 1968, Adams was found dead by his attorney Ervin Roeder at his home in Beverly Hills.  Well-known coroner Thomas Noguchi (he'd also perform the autopsies on Marilyn Monroe, Sharon Tate, & Natalie Wood) performed the autopsy, and said Adams died of "accident/suicide/unknown" due to excessive amounts of sedatives and drugs in Adams's system.
Why It's Unsolved: Occam's razor dictates that Adams killed himself or accidentally overdosed on drugs.  This seems to be what Noguchi discovered in his medical reports, and is backed up by actress Susan Strasberg (who saw Adams the night he died) who said he was despondent over his failing career and marriage.  However, rumors persist to this day that Adams death was more nefarious.  There was gossip at the time that Adams was going to write a tell-all (his career was going nowhere, so a tell-all would have been a source of cash for a work-strapped actor), and considering his potential romantic entanglements with people like Presley & Dean (never mind any other better-kept secrets), there would have been a considerable amount of sway to keep his knowledge of Hollywood's closeted community a secret...potentially at all costs.

Arthur Farnsworth

The Hollywood Connection: Farnsworth himself had no connection to Hollywood-he had been just a normal New Hampshire innkeeper before his death.  However his wife happened to be one of the most famous women in the world when they married: screen legend & two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis.  Farnsworth was Davis's second husband, and her only marriage that didn't end in divorce, though it may have ended in something more nefarious: murder.
The Murder(?): Farnsworth died on August 25, 1943.  Initial reports at the time were that he had died of a brain hemorrhage, possibly as a result of falling on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard.  However, after Farnsworth died, Davis was questioned by police about whether or not an accident had occurred earlier involving Farnsworth.
Why It's Unsolved: Despite initial media accounts at the time (including in the LA Times), stating that Farnsworth died as a result of falling on the sidewalk on Hollywood Boulevard, it's probable that Farnsworth died as a result of an accident he'd sustained a few weeks earlier, when he had fallen down a flight of stairs in the couple's New Hampshire home.  Davis at the time claimed that Farnsworth had fallen when he rushed too quickly to answer the phone, but there are some who believe that Davis and Farnsworth had been fighting at the time, and that Davis during the fight had pushed Farnsworth down the stairs, ultimately leading to his death.  It does seem odd, especially considering initial reports about the Hollywood Boulevard incident (where Davis was not in attendance) that Davis was questioned by police investigators at all in the inquest of Farnsworth's death if they had assumed it was simply a brain hemorrhage caused by an accident.  It's worth noting that 16 years later Joan Crawford, Davis's longtime rival, also had a husband (Alfred Steele) who may have died as a result of being pushed down a flight of stairs, though those allegations from from her daughter Christina Crawford, whose stories about her mother have varied through the years, and as a result have a question of credibility.

Sean Flynn

The Hollywood Connection: Flynn briefly worked as an actor and singer in the early 1960's.  He had a small role in Where the Boys Are opposite George Hamilton, and made a number of films in Europe, most notably The Son of Captain Blood, a sequel to a film his father, actor Errol Flynn, made into a smash hit for Warner Brothers in the mid-1930's.
The Murder(?): By the late 1960's, Flynn's acting career was going nowhere, and it seemed like his passion was more for photojournalism than entertainment anyway.  He was gaining fame as a war correspondent in both Vietnam and Israel.  On April 6, 1970, Flynn and CBS News photojournalist Dana Stone were headed out on intel that the Viet Cong were manning a checkpoint on Highway 1.  The two were never seen again.
Why It's Unsolved: Flynn and Stone were likely two of 25 journalists that were captured during the initial invasion of Cambodia by Richard Nixon in 1970; but according to people who were there that day like AP correspondent Jeff Williams, there's even some speculation over whether or not they were even captured.  Several of the 25 journalists were executed by the Khmer Rouge, but there has never been any evidence as to whether or not Flynn & Stone were killed, arguably the most well-known figures to disappear at the time (but by no means the only ones).  Journalist Tim Page, who was Flynn's roommate (and the inspiration for Dennis Hopper's character in Apocalypse Now!) is still searching for Flynn's remains, with frequent and constant trips to Cambodia.  In 2010, a body was found, but members of the Flynn family (including Sean's sister Rory) were tested and the DNA was not a match, so it's still not known what happened to Sean Flynn, how he was killed, or even if he's dead at all.

Ted Healy

The Hollywood Connection: Healy enjoyed a long career as a comedian and vaudeville performer, but he is best remembered for creating the Three Stooges.  He starred with them in the film Soup to Nuts, but after a contract dispute, Healy abandoned the comedy group, and signed a contract for MGM, where he worked alongside Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, and Peter Lorre before his death.
The Murder: On December 21, 1937, Healy died while out celebrating the birth of his son, the only child he'd ever have.  Official reports at the time were that he died of acute nephritis, triggered by his chronic alcoholism, but a lot of questions surround Healy's death and the events that happened immediately before he died, enough so that over 70 years after his passing, some still wonder if he was the victim of something more sinister.
Why It's Unsolved: According to reports at the time, Healy had been in a fight the night of his death, and had injuries on his face, including a cut near his right eye.  Reports were that Healy had been in a fight with some men at the Trocadero, then a well-known Los Angeles night club.  These reports were initially that Healy had fought with three anonymous younger men, but later reports indicated far more famous individuals had fought with Healy: Oscar-winning actor Wallace Beery, producer Albert Broccoli, and Broccoli's cousin, another film producer Pat DiCicco (whom you may remember for his connection to another well-known unsolved Hollywood crime, the death of actress Thelma Todd).  Enough questions surrounded Healy's death that his personal physician refused to sign the death certificate, and if you believe Hollywood lore, MGM fixer Eddie Mannix covered up the incident (Beery was under a star contract to the studio at the time) to save face for one of their leading men.  While Beery & DiCicco have never confessed to seeing Healy that evening, Broccoli has-he admitted to being at the Trocadero, and that he fought with Healy but denied it being particularly aggressive.  If Healy's death was in fact triggered by the fight, rather than his chronic alcoholism, it's entirely possible one of these three men were responsible for his death.

Christa Helm

The Hollywood Connection: Helm was a bit player in Hollywood, making guest spots on shows like Starsky & Hutch and Wonder Woman.  However, her offscreen life reads like a who's who of Hollywood elite; among her paramours were Mick Jagger and Warren Beatty, as well as famous (non-movie star figures) like the Shah of Iran.
The Murder: Helm died on February 12, 1977 at the age of just 27.  She had been stabbed and bludgeoned to death outside of her agent's home in West Hollywood.  Actor Jon Gries, then just 19, lived nearby, and later described hearing a noise coming from near where Helm was being murdered similar to "a screaming baby or a cat being killed," but frightened, he didn't call the police or go to investigate.
Why It's Unsolved: At the time, the press were more enamored with the connections between Helm and another Hollywood murder, that of Sal Mineo exactly one year prior to Helm's (at the time, Mineo's murder was still unsolved).  However, the press soon lost interest in the Mineo angle, and focus then turned onto the most salacious & mysterious aspect of Christa Helm's death: her sex diary.  Helm, who as we already stated had a number of famous lovers, had kept a sex diary and a collection of sex tapes that were not found after her death.  Police have alleged that Tony Sirico (the actor who played Paulie Walnuts on The Sopranos), then a small-time criminal, was hired by someone to remove the tapes, either to protect Helm or to protect someone who would be implicated in the diaries/videos.  Suspects in the killing range from Sirico to Helm's agent Sandy Smith to drug dealer Rudy Mazella (with whom Helm was allegedly involved romantically) to another lover, backup singer Patti Collins (DNA evidence under Helm's fingernails from the night of the murder came from a woman) to even Lionel Williams, the man who murdered Sal Mineo (it seems that initial rumors that Williams was arrested at the time of Helm's murder were inaccurate, and so the alibi that is allotted to him on some articles about Helm's death isn't real), but no one has ever conclusively proven who killed Christa Helm, despite decades of investigation.

Bruce Lee

The Hollywood Connection: Lee is noted as a major star of martial arts films of the 1970's, including the landmark Enter the Dragon.  In Hollywood, he didn't make his mark before his death, though he did have a role on the ABC comic book series The Green Hornet as Kato.
The Murder(?): Lee died on July 20, 1973, officially of a cerebral edema at the age of only 32.  He had had dinner earlier that evening with actor George Lazenby, and after dinner Lee had complained of a headache.  He was given a painkiller (Equagesic), and according to doctor's later, had something of an allergic reaction to the drug, causing the cerebral edema, which killed him.
Why It's Unsolved: On the facts, this is how Lee died.  Just a few months earlier he'd suffered another cerebral edema while on the set of Enter the Dragon, and so there was clearly a medical history here that would indicate this was an unfortunate accident involving a man who already had health problems.  But in the decades since, rumors have persisted that Lee was murdered, though the culprit depends on whom you ask.  Some think that his business partner Raymond Chow did it (Chow did see Lee the day he died, for what it's worth), while other think it was actress Betty Ging Pei, with many positing that Lee was having an affair with her.  Others have blamed gangs like the Chinese Triads, upset that Lee was sharing long-held martial arts secrets.  These all seem fanciful to me, particularly since Lee clearly had a medical history that would support his tragic death at such a young age.  But it's impossible to read about Lee, particularly after the equally tragic death of his son Brandon on the film set of The Crow, without someone bringing up his death as "mysterious," so I include this because no list of "unusual" Hollywood deaths would be complete without Bruce Lee.

Jenny Maxwell

The Hollywood Connection: Maxwell is best-remembered today for her small but memorable role in the Elvis Presley musical Blue Hawaii.  She also starred with Jimmy Stewart in Take Her, She's Mine, and had guest appearances on Father Knows Best, The Twilight Zone, and The Joey Bishop Show.  Maxwell's celebrity never took off, and she retired from the movies in 1963, essentially become a "trophy wife" to the much older Ervin Roeder, a wealthy attorney.
The Murder: On the afternoon of June 10, 1981, Maxwell and Roeder were shot in their Beverly Hills condo.  Police at the time assumed it was a botched robbery, with the young actress dead at the age of only 39.
Why It's Unsolved: Little is known about the crime, probably because there's not much evidence to indicate that Maxwell or Roeder were specifically targeted by someone they know.  Most people assumed that the murders were part of an apparent robbery, but that's speculation-based on newspaper reports of the time and according to articles afterward, there doesn't appear to be any indication that anything was actually taken from the home.  What is worth noting, in the confines of this article, is that Roeder also had another very famous client at one point, Nick Adams, so both men ended up dying in unusual circumstances.

Marilyn Monroe

The Hollywood Connection: Forgetting the fact that she starred in films like All About Eve, Bus Stop, Some Like It Hot, and The Misfits, Monroe essentially is Hollywood at this point, her visage being on everything from slot machines to doormats.  More than pretty much any other star, she encompasses a type of glamour that is synonymous with the Golden Era.
The Murder(?): Monroe died on August 4, 1962, at her Brentwood mansion.  She was found dead by her housekeeper Eunice Murray and psychiatrist Ralph Greenson the following die, and the coroner's report eventually stated that she had died of acute barbiturate poisoning, with the coroner ruling her death a suicide.
Why It's Unsolved: Marilyn Monroe probably committed suicide.  It's the most likely scenario, and considering the troubled life the starlet had led, one with a good deal of credibility.  But Monroe was SO famous, it's hard for anyone to imagine her taking her own life, and so it's worth noting that conspiracy theories abound about her death, so since we're closing out this series about Hollywood True Crime, I couldn't ignore the most famous "what happened?" death in Hollywood history.  The most common conspiracies center around Monroe's relationships with John & Robert Kennedy, who were President and Attorney General, respectively, when Monroe died, and legend has it that both had a sexual relationship with Monroe at some point.  Allegations that Bobby Kennedy in particular either used his connections at the CIA/FBI to have Monroe assassinated, or that someone murdered Monroe to get to the Kennedy Brothers have been rumored for decades, being shared by everyone from Norman Mailer to British journalist Anthony Summers.  While there is enough smoke there to assume that an affair with at least one Kennedy brother probably occurred, the legend of Monroe potentially being murdered (a fate that would eventually befall both brothers) continues to persist nearly sixty years after her death.

Haing Ngor

The Hollywood Connection: A former doctor who survived for years in Cambodian prison camps, Ngor made his film debut portraying journalist Dith Pran in 1984's The Killing Fields, which won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, with him beating longtime thespians like John Malkovich and Ralph Richardson for the trophy.
The Murder: Ngor was shot to death on February 25, 1996, in Los Angeles near his home in Chinatown.  According to prosecutors, three men held him at gunpoint and after he gave them his gold Rolex, they murdered him because he wouldn't give them a locket which held a photo of his deceased wife.
Why It's Unsolved: In some ways, it's not-unlike every other crime on this list, we actually have a conviction and know who killed Haing Ngor, as the three men who shot him (Tak Sun Tan, Jason Chan, & Indra Lim) were convicted and are currently serving their sentences for his murder.  However, there are enough strange questions around Ngor's death to include him on an "unsolved" list, namely as to why he might have been murdered seemingly at random.  For starters, Ngor still had nearly $3000 on him after his death, making a robbery by the three men seem at the very least very poorly executed.  Ngor also didn't typically have the locket visible (he usually wore it under his clothes), so how did the men, who claimed they didn't know who he was, know that he would be wearing it & demand he give it to them?  Some have speculated that Ngor was killed on Pol Pot's orders for his involvement in the film The Killing Fields, a theory posited by former Khmer Rouge leader (and, it should be remembered, war criminal) Kang Kek Iew.  It seems a stretch that Pol Pot, who was still alive when Ngor died and was still ordering executions (in 1997 he ordered the murders of his associate and his entire family), might want to kill a man who had been in a movie critical of him twelve years prior, but considering the questions surrounding Ngor's death, it's worth wondering.

Nicole Brown Simpson & Ronald Goldman

The Hollywood Connection: As if I need to tell you this, but it's not Nicole Brown Simpson or Ronald Goldman who had the connection to Hollywood, but instead Brown Simpson's ex-husband OJ, who would go from being a Heisman Trophy winner to star Buffalo Bills running-back to one of the more successful athlete-actor crossover stars, appearing in movies/television as varied as The Towering Inferno, Roots, Capricorn One, and The Naked Gun franchise.
The Murder: On June 12, 1994, Brown Simpson and Goldman were stabbed to death outside of her home in Brentwood.  Both individuals had been stabbed repeatedly, with Brown Simpson nearly decapitated from the homicide, and Goldman's cut shoes indicating he had tried (but failed) to overcome his assailant.  Over 25 years later, no one has ever been convicted of their deaths, and the case remains officially unsolved.
Why It's Unsolved: I avoided talking about Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Lee, and Johnny Stompanato because I feel that the most-likely answer to these questions is that they're solved, with the former two having died tragically but not as the result of homicide, and the latter dying in an act of self-defense.  Nicole Brown Simpson & Ron Goldman, though, were definitely murdered, but I have kept their murders out of previous installments because this is a case (if you lived through it) you know by heart.  In many ways this was the birth-place of the 24-hour news cycle as something to be mocked, constant discussions of the crimes dominating cable news in a harbinger of things to come.  For those who have lived under a rock or are under thirty, the question of what happened to these two boils down to if you believe OJ Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend (and potential lover).  Simpson was headed to Chicago the night of the crime, but his limousine driver claimed that he couldn't get ahold of Simpson right away, and that while he was waiting for the football player Simpson's Ford Bronco had moved (thus affording Simpson opportunity to commit the crimes).  Simpson had a history of abuse toward his ex-wife, and had claimed that he'd "thought about killing her" in the past, but he was not convicted after an extensive trial (I could devote an article this length just to the Simpson case, but you can find a hundred books on it if you wish to learn more).  Jurors on the trial claimed afterward that they thought Simpson had been involved in the murders, but that the prosecution had failed in making their case.  Public perception in the years since has favored the idea that Simpson got away with his wife's murder, particularly after the release of the book If I Did It, where Simpson posited how he might have killed his ex-wife, but double jeopardy is in place even if he did kill the two individuals.  Simpson would go on to be charged with armed robbery, serving a ten-year sentence, and would continue to maintain his innocence, as would a number of others (the most common alternate theory being that Brown Simpson & Goldman were connected to a drug trafficking crime that also was connected to the death of Michael Nigg, whose murder we looked at in Part 2 of this series).  Whatever your beliefs, the deaths of Brown Simpson & Goldman stand as one of the most discussed crimes in Hollywood history, and remain (officially) unsolved.

Johnny Stompanato

The Hollywood Connection: Stompanato had very little himself to do with Hollywood, as he was a former Marine who was part of Mickey Cohen's crime syndicate when he died.  However, in 1957, Stompanato began a relationship with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, Lana Turner.  Turner, at this point in her career, had been a major player in Hollywood for 15 years, having starred in movies such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Bad and the Beautiful, and Peyton Place.
The Murder: Leading up to the night of the Academy Awards in 1958, Stompanato's behavior toward Turner had turned extremely violent, with him choking her.  At the Oscar ceremony (where Turner was nominated for Best Actress for her work in Peyton Place), Turner decided to take her daughter Cheryl Crane instead of Stompanato, which caused him to be angry when she returned, and he beat her again.  Eight days later, on April 4, 1958, according to reports at the time, Stompanato was again violently attacking Turner, even threatening to slice up the beautiful actress's face with a razor (which would have ended her career), when Crane stabbed Stompanato through the stomach while he was attacking her mother.
Why It's Unsolved: Here's the thing-it's not.  I wrote up-top that four of these stories I wanted to discuss because they were too big to leave out before we concluded our look at unsolved Hollywood crimes, but the Stompanato case came back with Crane being exonerated, a case of justifiable homicide.  This is the most likely scenario, considering Stompanato's history of abusing Turner, and threatening both she and her daughter with violence.  However, there are those who believe that the crime was premeditated, a way for Turner to get Stompanato out of the picture without having him (who was reportedly blackmailing her with nude photos he'd taken without her consent) expose intimate secrets about her life, thus ruining her career.  There are also those who believe that Crane took the fall for her mother, believing that a teenage girl would be more easily exonerated.  If this is indeed the case, the only person who would know is Cheryl Crane, still alive at 76 and recently married to her longtime partner Joyce.  Despite the bad press at the time (with the skeptics claiming Turner "acted" on the stand), her stardom was back at a high point a year later, when the actress would act in the biggest hit of her career, Imitation of Life.

Bambi Woods

The Hollywood Connection: Woods's connection to Hollywood is not because she was a star or even bit player at a Hollywood studio, but because she came to fame during the 1970's heyday of pornography playing in mainstream cinemas.  Woods starred in one of the era's best-remembered films, Debbie Does Dallas, which would go on to become the best-selling pornographic film of all-time.
The Death(?): As stated above, I wanted to profile one Hollywood disappearance/death that has a lot of questions behind it, but almost certainly didn't end in murder-that would be what happened to Bambi Woods.  Woods completely disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1980's, and her fate has never been revealed.
Why It's Unsolved: It's not entirely clear at this point if Woods (who would be 64) is still alive or not.  According to an Australian newspaper entitled The Age Woods died in 1986 from a drug overdose (they did the article to mark a musical version of the movie Debbie Does Dallas being released).  A later documentary from the British Channel 4 claimed that a private investigator had found the actual Woods, and that she was living an ordinary life in Des Moines, Iowa, under a different name where people didn't know her connections to the porn industry, but this was rebutted by internet site Yes But No But Yes that interviewed a woman claiming to be Woods who was not from Iowa, but said the rest of the story was largely true-that she was living under an assumed name.  Suffice it to say, no one has ever come up with conclusive proof of what happened to Woods or if she's even still alive, and the film's director has never revealed what her real name was.  The mystery surrounding her death is amplified by other nefarious aspects of the film (one of Woods's costars, Arcadia Lake, died of a drug overdose, and the film was produced by mob boss Michael Zaffarano), but even by itself-the fate of Bambi Woods is a really odd mystery that has persisted for over thirty years.