Tagged: 1940s
Kiss of Death: Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo
Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947)
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Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo, psychopathic mob hitman
New York City, Spring 1947
Film: Kiss of Death
Release Date: August 13, 1947
Director: Henry Hathaway
Wardrobe Director: Charles Le Maire
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Born 110 years ago today on December 26, 1914, Richard Widmark made his explosive and Academy Award-nominated screen debut in Henry Hathaway’s 1947 noir thriller Kiss of Death, filmed on location that spring in New York City and the surrounding area. Though Hathaway had fought Darryl F. Zanuck on casting Widmark, the director and actor developed a mutual respect for the other that would lead to five additional cinematic collaborations and Widmark serving as pallbearer during Hathaway’s 1985 funeral.
After a Christmas Eve jewelry heist gone wrong, Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) shares a jail cell with the sadistic Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark), a psychopathic criminal “picked up just for shovelin’ a guy’s ears off his head…. traffic ticket stuff.” Refusing to name his accomplices, Nick is sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing, handcuffed on the train to Tommy who remembers that it’s his birthday… making this an especially appropriate post for today!
Joseph Cotten in The Third Man
Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins in The Third Man (1949)
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Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, moderately successful writer
Vienna, Fall/Winter 1948
Film: The Third Man
Release Date: September 1, 1949
Director: Carol Reed
Wardrobe Credit: Ivy Baker
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
I’m lurking in the shadows of moody, war-torn Vienna today to kick off #Noirvember with The Third Man, one of my favorite films noir. Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, The Third Man was directed by Carol Reed from a screenplay by Graham Greene.
American pulp novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) travels to the British sector of Allied-occupied Vienna to accept a job working for his old pal Harry Lime (Orson Welles), only to learn upon his arrival that “the best friend he ever had” is reported dead and buried after an automobile accident on his street. (“Is that what you say to people after death? ‘Goodness, that’s awkward’,” Holly responds to a new acquaintance’s platitudinous condolences.)
As a mostly penniless writer of “cheap novelettes”, Holly has little else to do but remain in Vienna and try to discover what happened to Harry, whom he soon learns from Royal Military Police officer Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) was “about the worst racketeer to ever make a living in this city.” Despite a contentious relationship with the major, Holly discovers he has a fan in his assistant, Sergeant Paine (Bernard Lee), who apologizes for having to subdue the writer and assures him that he’s read a few of his Western novels after helping him back to his feet. His personal investigation plunges him into the duplicitous underworld of the Austrian black market with characters ranging from Harry’s shady colleagues to his refugee girlfriend Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli).
With its iconic score by zither player Anton Karas, Welles’ memorable performance with his “cuckoo clock” monologue, and Academy Award-winning black-and-white cinematography by Robert Krasker, The Third Man remains not just one of the most acclaimed examples of classic film noir but also considered one of the greatest movies of all time. Continue reading
A Bridge Too Far: Sean Connery in British Battledress and Denison Smock as Roy Urquhart
Sean Connery in A Bridge Too Far (1977)
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Sean Connery as Major General Roy Urquhart, courageous British Army officer
Holland, Fall 1944
Film: A Bridge Too Far
Release Date: June 15, 1977
Director: Richard Attenborough
Costume Designer: Anthony Mendleson
Background
Operation Market Garden commenced eighty years ago this week through late September 1944, a daring yet ultimately ill-fated Allied attempt to secure key bridges throughout the Netherlands and advance into Germany. This major World War II operation was immortalized in the star-studded 1977 war epic A Bridge Too Far, directed by Richard Attenborough and adapted by William Goldman from Cornelius Ryan’s nonfiction volume of the same name.
Among the film’s ensemble cast, Sean Connery’s charisma commands the screen as Major General Roy Urquhart, the British officer tasked with leading the 1st Airborne Division (“Red Devils”) during the operation. Despite Connery’s star power, the real General Urquhart had no idea who Connery was, though his daughters were thrilled at the casting. Attenborough chose Connery not only for his acting chops but also for his striking resemblance to a younger Urquhart.
In a memorable scene before the airborne assault, Connery’s Urquhart reveals to General Browning that he’s never actually jumped out of a plane—an amusing confession for the man leading an airborne division. The moment becomes even more ironic as they spot asylum escapees laughing at them from the roadside, prompting Urquhart to quip, “Do you think they know something we don’t?” Continue reading
Battle of Britain: Christopher Plummer’s RCAF Uniform and Flying Jacket
Christopher Plummer in Battle of Britain (1969)
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Christopher Plummer as RAF Squadron Leader Colin Harvey
France and England, Spring to Summer 1940
Film: Battle of Britain
Release Date: September 15, 1969
Director: Guy Hamilton
Wardrobe Credit: Bert Henrikson
Background
Battle of Britain Day is commemorated in England on September 15th and in Canada on the third Sunday of September. Both dates coincide this year, making it the perfect time to review the dashing style of Canadian actor Christopher Plummer’s portrayal of a Royal Canadian Air Force officer in Guy Hamilton’s 1969 war epic, Battle of Britain.
Plummer stars as Squadron Leader Colin Harvey, whom we meet while commanding Squadron No. 188’s retreat from France in May 1940. After finding out the following month that he’s been assigned to a position in Scotland, he joins his wife, Section Officer Maggie Harvey (Susannah York) at a country pub in Denton to discuss the opportunity. He enjoys a “large Scotch”, perhaps to get into the spirit of his upcoming command, but it’s hard for him to feel spirited rather than disappointed when he learns that Maggie can’t apply for a job near him, responding to her with “What have we got? What the hell is this? Is it a marriage or a flaming Air Force committee?”
Colin’s new command distinguishes itself in battle after Adlertag (“Eagle Day”), the first day of the Luftwaffe’s attempted air invasion of the United Kingdom, though he and Maggie fail to reconcile before he’s badly burned during the climactic air battle over London on September 15, 1940, 84 years ago today.
The resulting British victory that day likely prevented a full-scale German invasion of the UK, prompting Prime Minister Winston Churchill to famously declare:
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Trevor Howard’s Swiss Holiday Sportswear in The Passionate Friends
Trevor Howard in The Passionate Friends (1949)
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Trevor Howard as Steven Stratton, romantic biology professor
Switzerland, Summer 1948
Film: The Passionate Friends
Release Date: January 26, 1949
Director: David Lean
Costume Designer: Margaret Furse
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Based on H.G. Wells’ 1913 novel of the same name, The Passionate Friends was director David Lean’s second film in four years to star Trevor Howard as a dignified and dashing gentleman who sweeps a bored housewife off her feet. In this case, the woman in question is Mary Justin (Ann Todd), pleasantly—if dispassionately—married to respected financial advisor Howard Justin (Claude Rains).
The Passionate Friends begins with Mary’s arrival in Switzerland for a long overdue holiday, traveling with her husband’s dutiful secretary Miss Layton (Betty Ann Davies) with Howard himself to follow later. (Though set in Switzerland, these sequences were actually filmed just across the French border at Lac d’Annecy in Haute-Savoie.)
As Mary drifts to sleep in her luxurious suite at the Hotel Splendide, she recalls her previous romances with biology professor Steven Stratton (Trevor Howard), whom she last saw nine years earlier in London when their reunion resulted in an extramarital affair that nearly destroyed her marriage to Howard. Little does she know, coincidence—or fate—has brought Steven not only to the same lakeside luxury hotel but indeed the adjoining room. Continue reading
The Longest Day: John Wayne’s M1942 Jump Uniform as Benjamin Vandervoort
John Wayne as Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Vandervoort in The Longest Day (1962)
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John Wayne as Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin H. Vandervoort, commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, U.S. Army
England to France, June 1944
Film: The Longest Day
Release Date: September 25, 1962
Directed by: Ken Annakin (British & French sequences), Andrew Marton (American sequences), and Bernhard Wicki (German sequences)
Wardrobe: John McCorry (uncredited)
Background
Eighty years ago today on June 6, 1944—a date immortalized as “D-Day”—the Allies began landing hundreds of thousands of troops in Nazi-occupied France, laying the foundation for liberating the continent and ending the European theater of World War II within the year.
D-Day often conjures images of daring Allied troops storming the beaches at Normandy under heavy German gunfire, but there were many other elements within Operation Neptune, from aerial and naval bombardments and local resistance operations to the airborne invasion preceding the famous amphibious assault.
Irish-born war correspondent Cornelius Ryan captured all of these aspects when he published The Longest Day, his definitive chronicle of D-Day pulled from his firsthand experience during World War II and his own exhaustive research to follow. Three years after the book was published in 1959, Ryan co-adapted his volume into an epic film that would pull together a wide international cast and crew, with Ken Annakin directing the sequences among the British and French, Andrew Marton directing the American sequences, and Bernhard Wicki directing the sequences from a German perspective. Actual D-Day participants from both the Allied and Axis powers served as consultants for the film, which also starred a number of World War II veterans like Eddie Albert, Henry Fonda, Kenneth More, Rod Steiger, and Richard Todd.
The Longest Day was a commercial and critical success, garnering five Academy Award nominations and setting a then-record as the highest-grossing black-and-white film to date. Among its star-studded cast was John Wayne, portraying the real-life 82nd Airborne parartooper Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin H. “Vandy” Vandervoort (1917-1990). Though Duke was nearly 30 years older than the real Vandervoort, his ruggedly macho screen persona instantly communicated Vandy’s reputation among no less than General Matthew B. Ridgway, who described the officer as “one of the bravest, toughest battle commanders I ever knew.”
The real Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Vandervoort during Operation Overlord in June 1944, with the broken left ankle that didn’t stop him from leading his battalion in defending Ste.-Mère-Église.
A Bridge Too Far: James Caan’s M-1943 Combat Uniform as Staff Sergeant Dohun
James Caan in A Bridge Too Far (1977)
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James Caan as Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, determined U.S. Army paratrooper
Holland, Fall 1944
Film: A Bridge Too Far
Release Date: June 15, 1977
Director: Richard Attenborough
Costume Designer: Anthony Mendleson
Background
Established in the United States after the Civil War, Memorial Day honors the memory of American military personnel who died during their service. This year takes on additional poignancy as the 80th anniversary of many pivotal World War II campaigns that cost American lives, from D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge.
My great-uncle, Sergeant Joe Kordas, was among these fallen troops when he was killed in action on October 4, 1944 while serving in Holland with the 82nd Airborne. As I was born 45 years later, I naturally never had the opportunity to meet my uncle, but his memory is among those I honor on Memorial Day.
My understanding is that Uncle Joe was part of the 82nd Airborne Division’s fourth and final combat jump, parachuting into Holland in September 1944 as part of Operation Market Garden. This Allied offensive was designed to create an invasion route into the Netherlands as a combined force of American and British airborne forces (“Market”) would seize nine bridges, which British land forces (“Garden”) would then follow over. The largest airborne operation of the war to that point, Operation Market Garden was not an Allied victory and criticized by one of its planners as attempting to take “a bridge too far,” a phrase borrowed by historian Cornelius Ryan for his 1974 volume of the operation that was subsequently adapted for the screen by William Goldman.
More than a decade after he starred in his own star-studded World War II screen epic, The Great Escape, Richard Attenborough was again behind the camera for A Bridge Too Far, his third directorial feature. Chronicling the operation from the American, British, Polish, Dutch, and German points of view, A Bridge Too Far boasted a talented international cast including—but certainly not limited to—Dirk Bogarde, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell, and Liv Ullmann.
Most of this cast played real-life figures or composites of them, with one of my favorite performances being James Caan’s portrayal of Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun, a noncommissioned officer in the 101st Airborne based on the real-life Sergeant Charles J. Dohun, to the extent that A Bridge Too Far was the first of Caan’s films I chose to rewatch after learning of the actor’s death in July 2022. Continue reading
Here Comes Mr. Jordan: Robert Montgomery’s Belted Leather Jacket
Robert Montgomery in Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941)
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Robert Montgomery as Joe Pendleton, prizefighter and pilot known as “The Flying Pug”
En route New York City, Spring 1941
Film: Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Release Date: August 7, 1941
Director: Alexander Hall
Costume Designer: Edith Head (gowns)
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Perhaps one of the first true “Renaissance men” in Hollywood, Robert Montgomery was born 120 years ago today on May 21, 1904 in New York’s Hudson Valley. Montgomery displayed a versatile range across movies and television, his comedic and dramatic abilities resulting in two Academy Award nominations and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was also an inventive director, pioneering an unusual but daring first-person narrative style for his 1947 directorial debut Lady in the Lake, adapted from Raymond Chandler’s pulp novel of the same name.
When World War II began in Europe, Montgomery enlisted for the American Field Service in London and drove ambulances in France up through the famous Dunkirk evacuation. After the United States entered the war a year and a half later, Montgomery joined the U.S. Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant commander.
Amidst all this, Montgomery received his second Oscar nomination for his performance as the charismatic, saxophone-playing boxer Joe Pendleton in the smart supernatural comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan, based on Harry Segall’s 1938 play Heaven Can Wait. Continue reading
Desert Fury: John Hodiak’s Suede Loafer Jacket
John Hodiak as Eddie Bendix in Desert Fury (1947)
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John Hodiak as Eddie Bendix, smooth gangster and gambler
Nevada, Spring 1947
Film: Desert Fury
Release Date: August 15, 1947
Director: Lewis Allen
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Background
John Hodiak was born 110 years ago today on April 16, 1914 in Pittsburgh. The actor’s first prominent role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s seagoing 1944 drama Lifeboat, followed by a brief but memorable career—consisting largely of war movies and westerns—before his October 1955 death of a heart attack at age 41.
One of Hodiak’s screen credits was the 1947 crime drama Desert Fury, a “color noir” among the likes of Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and Niagara (1953) that maintain the themes, style, and story elements frequently associated with traditional film noir. Continue reading
Allied: Brad Pitt’s Flight Jacket and RCAF Uniform Gear
Brad Pitt as Max Vatan in Allied (2016)
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Brad Pitt as Max Vatan, Royal Canadian Air Force intelligence officer
London and Dieppe, Spring 1944
Film: Allied
Release Date: November 23, 2016
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Costume Designer: Joanna Johnston
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The 2016 World War II romantic thriller Allied centered around Brad Pitt’s character Max Vatan, an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)—the high-flying branch of the Canadian armed forces that was officially founded 100 years ago today on April 1, 1924.
I’ve read simplifications of Allied‘s plot as “Casablanca meets Notorious“, with Joanna Johnston’s Oscar-nominated costume design maintaining much of the 1940s elegance from both of those acclaimed classics. And indeed, the romantic and action-packed first act of Allied is set in Casablanca, where Max’s dangerous mission for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) pairs him with the alluring French Resistance circuit leader Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard).
Upon returning to England, Max receives clearance to bring Marianne into the country, where they marry despite Max’s boss, British Army Captain Frank Heslop (Jared Harris) advising him that “marriages made in the field never work.” (In fact, there were a few real-life spies who served the British during World War II that would later marry, such as SOE officers Peter Churchill and Odette Sansom, both of whom had been imprisoned and brutally interrogated by the Germans and whose service and relationship formed the basis of the 1950 film Odette. That said, Frank may have been onto something as the two divorced in 1955 after eight years of marriage.)
The newlywed Vatans in October 1942.
With their newborn daughter, the couple lives in domestic bliss—and domestic Blitz—for over a year until Max’s superiors alert him to their suspicions that Marianne is a German spy! Though he reluctantly agrees to follow the SOE’s plan to test Marianne’s allegiance with a “blue dye” procedure, Max remains convinced of her loyalty and sets out to prove it. Continue reading
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