TCM is at it again – serving up another overflowing platter of noir, for your shadowy pleasure!
Enjoy!
Tune in on Tuesday, January 13 (my younger daughter’s 28th birthday!) to dive into these goodies. The line-up of seven noir features is below, and if I’ve already covered them here at Shadows and Satin, just click the link to read all about it! (Well, not all about it, but some of it. You get the drift . . .)
Back in August, I started a new series here at Shadows and Satin – “Will They Stay Together?” – where I plan to look at 10 couples of noir and ponder their staying power for the duration. Part I of the series focused on Gilda Mundson (Rita Hayworth) and Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) – who, I concluded, were going to make it. For Part II, I’m shining the spotlight of love on Mildred Pierce Beragon and her first husband, Bert, played by Joan Crawford and Bruce Bennett.
The loss of Kay.
One of my favorite and most often-seen noirs, Mildred Pierce tells the story of the title character, a California homemaker with two daughters and an unemployed husband, who gives her hubby the boot after he pays one too many visits to their neighbor, Mrs. Bierderhof (Lee Patrick). Finding herself in a financial bind, Mildred pulls herself up by her support hose, gets a job as a waitress, makes ends meet by selling homemade pies, and eventually becomes a restaurant mogul with a string of popular eateries. Meanwhile, after one of her daughters sadly passes away, Mildred devotes her life to pleasing the one who’s left – the snooty, self-absorbed, and sociopathic Veda (Ann Blyth), who’s been a pill from way back. And between these goings-on, Mildred falls for ne’er-do-well playboy Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), who winds up (1) spending a bit too much of Mildred’s hard-earned money and (2) spending a bit too much time with the very impressionable Veda – wow, it is really hard to write a pithy synopsis of this movie! Look – the bottom line is, in the opening scene, somebody murders Monte, at the end (SPOILER ALERT!!!), we learn that Veda is responsible for the dirty deed, and in the final reel, Mildred and Bert walk off together into the sunset (er . . . the sunrise, actually).
Bert was kind of a jerk in the beginning, amirite?
But will they stay together?
When we first meet Mildred and Bert as a couple, Mildred comes off as a bit of a long-suffering saint, and Bert appears to be a total jerk – he’s got more attitude than a diner waitress working the third shift. He’s lost his job, he’s short-tempered, bitter, and resentful toward Mildred, and by the time Mildred tells Bert to “pack up,” you practically want to leap through the screen to help him with his luggage.
“One man’s meat . . .”
We see Bert sporadically during the course of the film – there’s the scene where he’s arrested for Monte’s murder, and the sequence that ends with the death of the Pierce’s younger (and completely adorable) daughter, Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe). Then there’s the brief confrontation between Bert and Monte, where Monte proposes a toast, remarking that “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” and Bert angrily knocks his glass from his hand. Oh, and the scene where Bert reveals to Mildred that Veda is singing in a waterfront dive, and later, when he takes Veda to Mildred’s house for their tearful reunion. But what does all this tell us – anything?
I think it does.
They had history – not hostility.
If nothing else, these varying encounters show us that Mildred and Bert have a history – and that no matter what happens, they manage to muddle through without anger or hostility. Perhaps their relationship was strengthened after the death of Kay (for which – surprisingly, and to her credit – Mildred didn’t blame Bert). And it could be that Bert pitied Mildred’s desire to secure Veda’s love and affection, as well as her penchant for ignoring Veda’s increasingly atrocious behavior. And it’s quite possible that being abruptly thrust into the role of sole breadwinner for her family gave Mildred an appreciation and understanding for Bert that she hadn’t possessed when she ended their marriage.
Regardless of the underlying motives, I think it’s clear that Mildred and Bert managed to maintain a civility following their divorce that was refined and enhanced as the years went by, providing the perfect foundation for their reunion after Veda’s arrest. In the last line of the James M. Cain novel on which the film is based, Mildred and Bert exit the police station together, with Mildred proposing, “Let’s get stinko.” The screen couple may have elected to engage in a similar activity, but in my estimation, they did far more than this – it’s my belief that these two definitely stayed together.
Will they? I think so.
What do you think? Did Mildred and Bert go the distance? Or did they knock back a couple of shots and go their separate ways? Leave a comment and let me know your take on the future of these two.
And join me next time for Part III of “Will They Stay Together?”
TCM is bringing the noir this January (Janu-NOIR-y?), starting on January 9th with a quintet of first-rate features. I’ve covered each of these here at Shadows and Satin, so I’m providing a link to each of these posts and strongly encouraging you to tune in to this great lineup of shadowy treats.
Back in 2024, I recorded the first of three audio commentaries for Blu-ray releases from Film Masters. The first two films, The Emperor Jones (1933) and The Red House (1947) were released earlier in 2025, and I’m pleased to share that the third Blu-ray, Lady of Burlesque (1943), is now available! Starring the always fabulous Barbara Stanwyck, the cast also includes an abundance of familiar faces that make this film a delight. I hope you’ll check it out — and that you’ll have as much fun watching it as I did commenting on it!
Welcome to The Film Noir Files, the noir series here at Shadows and Satin and over at Speakeasy, the blog authored by my pal Kristina, where each month we recommend a film noir feature for you to watch on TCM. We never know what the other has selected until we post, and part of the fun is trying to never pick the same movie!
January 2026 is serving up a tasty buffet of film noir gems, including The Locket (1946), Mildred Pierce (1945), Johnny Eager (1942), Nora Prentiss (1947), and my all-time favorite, Double Indemnity (1944). But I’ve covered all of these here at Shadows and Satin, so this month I’m recommending an underrated feature headed by a trio of noir nets: Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, and Raymond Burr.
Kathy believes in standing by her man.
Stanwyck is Kathy Ferguson, who works as an advice columnist at a San Francisco newspaper and is certain that she will never get married: “For marriage, I read ‘life sentence.’ For home life, I read ‘TV nights, beer in the fridge, second mortgage.’ Not for me. For me, life has to be something more than that.” Despite her conviction, however, she falls hard for L.A. detective Bill Doyle (Hayden) when she works with him to nab a local murderess. Her role in finding the killer results in an offer from a New York newspaper, but Kathy turns it down, and before you can say “Bob’s your uncle,” she and Bill are hitched. Overnight, Kathy professes to have only one goal in life: to make Bill happy. (“I hope all of your socks have holes in them, and I can sit for hours and hours darning them!” she declares.)
But she can’t take much more of these dames.
Unfortunately for Kathy, Bill’s holey socks aren’t enough to keep her satisfied, and neither are the frequent dinner parties the couple attends with Bill’s colleagues and their spouses, who are like the Stepford Wives of Law Enforcement – if they’re not chatting about someone’s new 36-inch TV set, or praising each other’s husbands, they’re swooning over that tasty new cream cheese and olive dip. And worst of all, Kathy not only learns that her beloved hubby is woefully lacking in ambition, but that his partner, Charlie (Royal Dano), is the Golden Child in the the eyes of their boss, Inspector Tony Pope (Burr). Ever the determined little woman, Kathy makes up her mind to ensure that Bill gets everything she thinks he deserves – no matter what it takes; like Scarlett O’Hara, if she has to lie, steal, cheat, or kill . . . well, you get the idea.
Other Stuff About Crime of Passion
Several familiar faces play supporting parts in the Crime of Passion cast, including Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Jay Adler and, in one scene as a laboratory technician, Stuart Whitman.
Hey! That’s not Bill!
The film was helmed by German director Gerd Oswald, whose best-known film was the Robert Wagner starrer, A Kiss Before Dying (1956).
Singer Peg LaCentra plays a small, uncredited role as one of the policemen’s wives. LaCentra sang early in her career with Artie Shaw and later dubbed the singing of actresses Susan Hayward in Smash Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) and Ida Lupino in The Man I Love (1946). She was married to actor Paul Stewart from 1939 until his death in 1986.
Tune into TCM on January 11th to catch Crime of Passion; I won’t say it’s the best noir ever made, but it’s definitely worth your time – and you’ll get to see Stanwyck and Burr in their final noirs before they focused their sights on the small screen.
And don’t forget to pop over to Speakeasy to see which film noir gem Kristina has chosen for this month – and see if our streak is still intact!
Pre-Code Crazy is the monthly series here at Shadows and Satin and over at the blog of my pal Kristina, Speakeasy, where each month we recommend a pre-Code film for you to watch on TCM – we never know what the other has selected until we post, and we try to never pick the same movie!
Happy new year, y’all! My motto is “Everything is going to be fixed in 2026!” (Sorry. That’s all I got.)
Anyway – here we go again, and I’m delighted to recommend an underrated little gem to kick off Pre-Code Crazy for the new year: Smart Woman (1931), which boasts a pedigree that practically guarantees a first-rate production – the cast features Mary Astor and Edward Everett Horton, it’s directed by Gregory LaCava, and the cinematographer is a young Nicholas (so young he’s credited here as “Nick”) Musuraca, who would go on to impact the atmosphere on such classics as Cat People (1942), Out of the Past (1947), and Blood on the Moon (1948). And for my money, this comedy-romance (rom-com?) lives up to its promise.
The premise of the film is relatively simple. Returning to her New York home from Paris by ship, Nancy Gibson (Astor) befriends “Britain’s richest bachelor,” Sir Guy Harrington (John Halliday), and we (along with Sir Guy) learn that Nancy is anxious to reunite with her husband, Don (Robert Ames), with whom she is still head-over-heels in love. (Please excuse that sentence.) But Nancy doesn’t experience the homecoming she’d expected – instead, she’s informed by Don’s business partner, Bill (Horton), and her sister-in-law Sally (Ruth Weston) that Don has “gone haywire” for another woman – Peggy Preston (Noel Francis) – and wants a divorce so he can marry her. Quickly recovering from her initial reaction of anger and despair, Nancy determines to take Bill’s advice and “play Peggy’s game.” The remainder of the film centers on Nancy’s clever machinations designed to secure her husband’s return, which includes inviting Peggy and her ever-present mother (Gladys Gale) for a weekend visit, as well as obtaining assistance from Sir Guy, who she passes off as her new lover.
Nancy’s desperate to hang on to this guy . . .
Watching Nancy’s clever scheming is a treat – for example, she completely throws Don off balance with her calm, even pleasant, response to his news about the divorce. “Don’t be early Victorian. . . . I know you expected me to cry my eyes out and make a scene,” she chides. “But you see, modern women don’t act like that. We say, ‘Oh, my husband wants to go, does he? Very well, then. Let him. Maybe next time, we’ll have better luck and get a really good one.’” There are lines like this throughout the movie, and I am here for every one of them. (Another thing I love about the film is that, in addition to Nancy, almost every single character is plotting in one way or the other, with the exception of Don, who’s basically a bit of a tool.)
Adding to the fun is Horton’s character, who – rightfully so – is given the film’s best quips. Early on, he’s shown downing a few capfuls of a “beef and iron” tonic that he keeps in his briefcase, and when Sally reads the label, she notes that it also contains “no more than” 40% alcohol. “Why, the idea – 40?” Bill queries. “Well, that’s probably to keep the iron from rusting.” (Har!) Speaking of tonic, Bill describes Peggy as “Bad medicine. One of those blondes. With a mother. They hunt together. What the girl shoots down, Mama drags home.” And Bill is also a veritable font of pull-no-punches guidance where the sexes are concerned; after breaking the news to Nancy about Don’s affair, he informs her that it’s her fault: “A wife should stick to her husband,” he warns. “If she doesn’t, some other woman will.”
. . . so she pretends to be in love with this one!
Keep your eyes peeled for the early scene when Nancy’s ship docks; according to the IMDB, Dennis O’Keefe plays an uncredited role as one of the departing passengers. I’ve yet to be able to spot him – if you do, let me know!
Smart Woman airs on TCM on January 12th – treat yourself and tune in! And be sure to pop over to Speakeasy to find out what pre-Code gem Kristina has selected, and see if our Pre-Code Crazy streak is still intact!
On Christmas Eve 2024, my Pre-Code Crazy/Film Noir Files/Dark Pages pal Kristina (author of the Speakeasy blog) invited me to participate in a cinematic scavenger hunt of sorts. Like the fellas (and lady) on TV’s Mission Impossible, it was my mission, if I chose to accept it, to select 12 movies from categories created by Kristina, and then write about them here at Shadows and Satin.
I accepted this challenge – of course! – and as of early December, I’d written about four of the 12 films from the scavenger hunt. But I watched the calendar zoom toward the end of the year, I found my scrambling to fulfill my mission!
I’m happy to say that in the last few weeks, I managed to watch the remaining films – but between preparing for my annual Christmas holiday, completing my holiday gift shopping, and wrapping up the annual giant Dark Pages, I hadn’t been able to carve out a single free minute to write about them. (Wow, that was some sentence!) But the party is now over, Christmas 2025 is in the books, and the end-of-year giant Dark Pages is in the hands of the USPS, so I’m finally getting around to this post, where I’m going to cover all eight of the films I have left to finish up the hunt. Here goes!
ONE NON-HORROR HAMMER FILM: Hell is a City (1960)
There’s so much to love about this film, including the lead character’s life outside of his job.
In case you didn’t know, a Hammer film – according to the World Wide Web – is a movie from Hammer Film Productions, a British studio famous for its influential, vibrant, and often bloody gothic horror films from the 1950s to 1970s. If you know me – and Kristina definitely does – you’ll know that I’m no horror film fan, but I am a big lover of British films, so this category was right up my alley. I have to share that, in April of this year, as an assignment for the Classic Movie Meetup group of which I’m a member, I watched Cash on Demand (1961), a first-rate British crime drama. It wasn’t until much later that I realized this was a Hammer film and, therefore, could count toward fulfilling the requirement for this category. But in the last day or so, I decided that this was cheating, since I hadn’t sought out the movie as part of the scavenger hunt. So, I started searching and came up with Hell is a City – and, boy, am I glad I did.
And did I mention the cinematography??
In a nutshell, the film tells the tale of convicted criminal Don Starling (John Crawford), who escapes from prison intent on getting his mitts on the stolen jewels he’d hidden before his arrest – no matter what he has to do to get them. What he does involves a number of people from his past, including his former criminal comrades, a pair of old flames, and the owner of a furniture store he’d broken into shortly before his capture. Hot on his trail is inspector Harry Martineau (Stanley Baker), a highly intuitive, take-no-prisoners veteran of the police force, who just happens to have ties with Starling that date back to their childhood days.
Of all my discoveries during this year’s scavenger extravaganza, this film was my favorite. It’s tensely riveting and undoubtedly noir – I was practically on the edge of my seat and there was more than one scene that had me muffling a gasp with my hand (or letting out an audible, “Dayum!”). Also, while it’s definitely a straightforward story illustrating a case to be solved and criminals to be nabbed, there are numerous circumstances and characters that make it so much more interesting than a cut-and-dried procedural. There’s the depiction of Martineau’s home life – he wants to start a family, but his unhappy wife, Julia (Maxine Audley), is not a fan of the idea and shrewishly berates him on a regular basis for his late nights and never-calls. Meanwhile, Martineau is attracted to a local barmaid (Vanda Godsell), who makes no secret of the fact that she’s got the hots for him. And Martineau’s young partner, Devery (Geoffrey Frederick), is drawn to the deaf-mute granddaughter of the furniture store owner, a white-haired fellow whose Geppetto-like appearance belies his steely and courageous persona. (“Anyone around here will tell you I’m a man of my word,” he says when Starling calls him, looking for a place to stay. “I’ve got a gun and I’m not too old to use it. So you keep away from here!”)
Guess who???
This one is free on YouTube. Treat yourself. (And one more thing I just had to share – when I watched the end credits, I saw that Donald Pleasance was a member of the cast, and I couldn’t figure out who he was. Even when I saw his character’s name – Gus Hawkins – I was clueless. It wasn’t until I saw Gus’s wife (Chloe) in the credits that I knew exactly who he was, and I couldn’t believe I’d gone through the entire movie without recognizing him! He’s in the photo on the right, by the way.)
The newspaper ad that started it all.
TWO MARGARET LOCKWOOD MOVIES:
Bedelia (1946)
I happened across this one in a roundabout way; I was doing some research on a different project and I spotted the movie section from a 1940s newspaper – back when the many theater options were laid out like a patchwork quilt. One movie in particular stood out, and that was Bedelia – and based solely on that ad, I was determined to see the movie. The fact that it starred Lockwood was a serendipitous bonus!
Lockwood plays the title role, and the entire story is a flashback, narrated by Ben Chaney (Barry K. Barnes), an American artist who likens Bedelia to a “poisonous flower.” The tale begins in Monte Carlo, where Bedelia is honeymooning with her new husband, Charlie Carrington (Ian Hunter). All is sweetness and light, sunshine and buttercups – but it doesn’t take long for red flags to start popping up, showing us that Bedelia isn’t the charming, happy-go-lucky newlywed that she first appears to be. And as the story unfolds, and Chaney digs deeper and deeper into Bedelia’s past, we learn that she’s not only a smooth and calculating liar – but something far more sinister, as well. (Incidentally, the film is based on a 1945 novel by Vera Caspary, who was also the author of the source material for the 1945 film noir, Laura.)
Lockwood alone was worth the price of admission.
This one held my interest from start to finish, if only because I wanted to find out what Bedelia had done and what would happen to her as a result – but, overall, it didn’t quite live up to the promise I’d gleaned from the newspaper advertisement. I haven’t seen Lockwood in many films, but I was a definite fan of her work in The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich (1940), and Cast a Dark Shadow (1955). I liked her, as well, in Bedelia – she is, in fact, the best thing about the film – but there was something about the pacing of the story (or perhaps just the story itself) that kept me from loving it like the previous Lockwood films I mentioned.
Man of the Moment (1935)
One of Lockwood’s few smiles . . .
For my second Lockwood film, I’d wanted to watch The Wicked Lady (1945), which had been recommended to me several years ago, but it was only available via rental, and at the time, I wasn’t in the mood for forking over the fee. Instead, I wound up with one of the actress’s earliest films, Man of the Moment, a 1935 comedy where she played the second lead. Outside of the Lockwood factor, I selected this feature because it starred Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who I’d enjoyed in pre-Codes like Little Caesar (1931) and Love is a Racket (1932), and Laura LaPlante, the subject of a lovely pair of photos I received a few years back from my pal, Dail. (It’s worth noting that this film is one of LaPlante’s last movies and shows her in her final starring role.)
. . . because she usually looks like this.
The film’s rather unusual plot centers on LaPlante’s character, Mary Briany, a secretary in love with her boss (who, frankly, seems like a jerk to me). Near the start of the film, Mary learns that she’s being demoted and replaced by another woman in the office, and literally the next thing we know, she’s trying to drown herself in a nearby pond. Luckily, before she can complete the deed, she is saved by Tony Woodward (Fairbanks), a handsome young man who is deep in debt, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that he drives a sporty roadster and lives in a mansion. (And has a dog named Fredrick Ainsworth Chumlee Stone Martin and a butler named Godfrey, in case you’re interested.) Tony is scheduled, the following day, to marry heiress Vera Barton (Lockwood), but if you can’t guess that those nuptials never come to pass, and Tony eventually winds up in the arms of Mary, you just don’t know your 1930s comedies.
“I’ll rescue you if I have to kill you to do it!” Har har.
I labeled the film’s plot as unusual because the topic of suicide (first on Mary’s part and then on Tony’s) is an overarching theme – yet the picture is a screwball comedy. I didn’t find it very funny, though – and, unfortunately, Lockwood’s character was the least appealing part of the proceedings. In one of her first scenes, we learn that she plans to “surprise” Tony by completely reforming him after their marriage: “I’m going to treat him like a small boy. A very naughty, adorable little boy,” she explains in a childish tone to a friend of Tony’s. “And he’ll have to do everything I tell him, or I shall be very cross, and then he’ll be sorry, won’t he?” This turns out to be the high point of Lockwood’s performance in the film – in every other scene, her Vera is engaged in an annoying, over-the-top (I mean REALLY over-the-top) series of crying jags. Blecch.
Skip this one, y’all. You only owe it to yourself.
TWO “NEW TO YOU” MOVIES FROM 1939
It took me a while to get used to Fonda’s voice coming out of this face.
Young Mr. Lincoln
I chose this Henry Fonda starrer because it was a previous selection of my Classic Movie Meetup group. The film was highly praised by the other members during our discussion, but I kept mum about the fact that I didn’t care for it and, what’s more, didn’t even get past the first 15 minutes. During my scavenging for films that would fit this category, I realized that this one was released in 1939, so I decided to give it another try. The film covers a span of less than 10 years in the early adulthood of the future president, showing his introduction to the field of law; the death of his first love, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore); and his relocation from New Salem, Illinois, to Springfield, where he opens his first law practice and defends a pair of brothers accused of murder. (The mother of the two young men was played by Alice Brady in her last screen role; she died at the age of 46, just four months after the film’s release.)
The court case was my favorite part of the film.
While it’s not necessarily one of those movies I plan to see again, I did enjoy it – once I got past the effect of Henry Fonda’s voice coming out of this character with a prosthetic nose and modified hairline. I’ve always been fond of courtroom scenes (in my previous life as a reporter in Michigan, one of my beats was the 52-1 District Court in Novi), so I was especially interested in the court proceedings, and even more fascinated to learn that they were inspired by a real-life case. I’m glad I decided to revisit this one – it was worth the time.
Golden Boy
Stanwyck and her protégé.
Speaking of revisiting, my second movie from 1939 was another one that I’d tried to watch more than once before but gave up after the first few minutes. It stars William Holden in the title role of Joe Bonaparte, a young man from a New York Italian immigrant family, who possesses a talent for the violin but longs to become a prize fighter. Others in the cast are Adolphe Menjou, as Joe’s manager, Tom Moody; Barbara Stanwyck as Lorna Moon, Tom’s fiancée who falls in love with Joe; Lee J. Cobb as Joe’s father; and Joseph Calleia as the ruthless gangster who takes over Joe’s career.
Cobb was just six years older than Holden.
Golden Boy was Holden’s first credited big screen role and famously, he was so inept that he was almost fired from the production. Co-star Stanwyck convinced the head of Columbia Studios, Harry Cohn, to give the young performer another chance, and she committed to working with Holden on his lines. This story was in my mind throughout the film and it was interesting to think of Holden in films like Sunset Blvd. (1950) and Stalag 17 (1953), and compare these with his performance in Golden Boy. All things considered, the film didn’t knock me off my feet, but I’m glad I finally saw it. (BTW, I just learned, while working on this post, that Lee J. Cobb was only 27 years old when he played Joe’s father in the film.)
Bonus 1939 film: Mad Youth
I’m not sure why I started watching this exploitation film, but once I started, I just couldn’t stop. And since it was released in 1939, I figured, why not include it here? It begins with a focus on Marian Morgan (Mary Ainslee), a rebellious teen, and her divorced mother, Lucy (Betty Compson), who spends her money on escort services as part of her quest to recapture her youth. But after several scenes relaying the antics of the young people and Lucy’s growing attachment to her latest paid escort (Willy Castello – who’s kind of a cross between Ricardo Cortez and George Brent), the film takes a turn. Instead of strip poker and entertaining jitterbug exhibitions, we’re abruptly treated to a creepy tale of white slavery! It’s typically low-budget and neither the acting nor the script are anything to write home about, but with a running time of only 64 minutes, it’s worth checking out – just because. If you dig movies like Reefer Madness (1936), you’ll want to give this one a look. It’s a hoot.
Gere and Adams are lovers posing as siblings.
ONE MOVIE WITH MUSIC BY ENNIO MORRICONE: Days of Heaven (1978)
Whenever I hear the name Ennio Morricone, I automatically think of his music in the Sergio Leone-directed spaghetti westerns like For a Few Dollars More (1965) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Until I got this scavenger hunt assignment, I had no idea that he’d scored more than 400 movies, including The Untouchables (1987), Cinema Paradiso (1988), and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015). He also did the score for Terence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), earning the first of his six Academy Award nominations. Because I’d heard good things about this film, I decided to watch it for this category.
The cinematography was top-tier.
Set in the Texas Panhandle near the beginning of World War I, the film shines the spotlight on Bill (Richard Gere), Abby (Brooke Adams), and Bill’s younger sister (Linda Manz), who are itinerant migrant workers. Bill and Abby are lovers, but they pose as siblings while working on the land owned by “the farmer,” played by Sam Shepard – and when Bill learns that the farmer has a fatal illness, he convinces Abby to marry the farmer for his money, resulting in a tragic ending for all concerned.
Morricone’s score provided an ideal backdrop.
Throughout my viewing of this film, I felt like I was constantly waiting for something to happen (literally, more than once, I said aloud, “Oh my gosh, come ON!!!!”). There was little dialogue and not very much going on until the last 20 minutes or so. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I can’t deny, though, that the cinematography by Oscar winner Néstor Almendros was absolutely amazing, and Morricone’s lilting, variegated score was a perfect accompaniment to the visual delights on the screen, so there was that. Also, just scant moments before writing this sentence, I learned that Days of Heaven will be screened at the 2026 TCM film festival, and I might just try to see it. Now that I know what to expect, perhaps I’ll be able to appreciate it more on the big screen. Maybe.
TWO POWELL AND PRESSBURGER MOVIES:
I Know Where I’m Going (1945)
Joan is perpetually headstrong and single-minded.
This is the third film of which I’d previously seen at least a part. Unlike the other two, though, I actually reached the end of this film, but I wasn’t actively watching it. It was playing while I was working on a blog post earlier this year, but I really wasn’t paying attention. And it just so happens that a few weeks ago, I was in a Zoom meetup for classic movie bloggers and one of the members spoke so highly of this film that I decided then and there to give it another try. The film stars Wendy Hiller as Joan Webster, a purpose-driven young woman who we meet shortly before she departs on a journey to Scotland to marry her fiancé, a wealthy businessman. However, her journey is not as straightforward as she’d intended. Early on, she encounters naval officer Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), and when the last leg of her trip is delayed by inclement weather, she is not only increasingly drawn to Torquil, but also to the various characters and locales she comes across. Although she’s more determined than ever to reach her fiancé, we have to wonder: is that what she really wants?
The film takes its time in developing the relationship between these two.
I was unexpectedly charmed by this movie, and it makes me smile even now when I think of it. Because I’d missed so much of it on my initial viewing, I had no idea what to expect – except I did know what happened at the very end. Even knowing that, however, did not spoil my enjoyment of the film throughout. I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of Powell and Pressburger, an influential British filmmaking team that produced a series of highly acclaimed films during the 1940s and 1950s. (Michael Powell was the director and Emeric Pressburger was director/producer.) Although I’ve seen Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948), I wasn’t that wild about either one, so I was delighted that I liked I Know Where I’m Going as much as I did.
49th Parallel (1941)
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water . . . .
I simply must share that my original coverage of the scavenger hunt assignment ended with I Know Where I’m Going, and I actually published my write-up last night, but for some (fortuitous) reason, I decided to go back and count the movies. And I found that I’d only watched 11 (not counting the bonus exploitation film released in 1939)! I reviewed the emails from Kristina and found that I was assigned TWO Powell and Pressburger films, instead of only one. So it was back to the drawing board for me! Fortunately, I found a feature that I’d previously never heard of – 49th Parallel (1941), the third film from the director-writer team – and I decided to give it a try. And once again, I hit the jackpot!
Lawrence Olivier was a standout as a fearless French-Canadian.
Set in Canada at the start of World War II, this film follows the six survivors of a German submarine bombed by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Led by Lieutenant Hirth (Eric Portman), the men strive to cross the 49th Parallel, the dividing line between Canada and the United States, allowing them to seek sanctuary in the still-neutral U.S. The film is presented in an episodic format as the men meet with a variety of characters and situations – and their number decreases, one by one. The people they encounter include a French-Canadian trapper (Lawrence Olivier) at the Hudson Bay trading post; the members of the Hutterites religious sect; and an author (Leslie Howard) who seems to be completely oblivious to the war.
An art-loving author, Leslie Howard’s character was more than met the eye.
I was so unexpectedly pleased with this movie; after the first 10 minutes or so, I’d actually written in my notes that I didn’t know what the heck was going on, but scant moments later, I was totally on board, and I became more and more engaged as the story went on. The film – which won an Oscar for Best Story and was nominated for both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay – was intended as a propaganda vehicle to encourage the United States to enter the war (although, ironically, by the time it was released in the U.S. in 1942 – under the name The Invaders – the country had already joined the Allies). I just really can’t say enough about this movie – it was so unique and so amazingly frank about the Nazis, their beliefs, and the importance of democracy. I was shocked by some of the dialogue, like when one of the Germans declared that Eskimos were “racially as low as Negroes,” who were “semi-apes – only one degree above the Jews.” And I was equally amazed by the scene where the leader of the Hutterites tells the Nazis, “You think we hate you, but we don’t. We only hate the power of evil which is spreading over the world. You and your Hitlerism are like the microbes of some filthy disease, filled with a longing to multiply yourselves until you destroy everything healthy in the world.” There’s so much more that I would love to share about the picture, and I don’t want to oversell it, but I hope that you’ll want to find for yourself why I found it to be one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. (And it’s available for free on Tubi.)
Thank you for reading!
And that’s it! (For real, this time!) If you’ve slogged through all of this, I can’t say anything but thank you! I try not to have these epically long posts, but I just had to do it this time to fulfill my mission – and I’m glad to say that I made it!
So, Kristina: I can’t thank you enough for extending this awesome challenge. I had so much fun identifying the movies and experiencing many that I would never otherwise have seen. It was the best! Bring on the hunt for 2026!
On Christmas Eve 2024, my Pre-Code Crazy/Film Noir Files pal Kristina (author of the Speakeasy blog) invited me to participate in a cinematic scavenger hunt of sorts. Like the fellas (and lady) on TV’s Mission Impossible, it was my mission, if I chose to accept it, to select 12 movies from categories created by Kristina, and then write about them here at Shadows and Satin.
I accepted this challenge – of course! – and in today’s post, I’m covering my next assignment: two Joel McCrea westerns.
Four Faces West (1948)
McCrea stars here as Ross McEwen, who robs a bank of $2,000 at the start of the film, although he does leave the flustered and frustrated bank president with an I.O.U. for the money – but he signs it Jefferson Davis. The remainder of the film basically centers on efforts of a posse – and others – to capture McEwen; the posse is headed up by real-life lawman Pat Garrett (Charles Bickford). Speaking of real life, McCrea’s real-life wife Frances Dee co-stars as a nurse, Fay Hollister, who meets McEwen on a train and eventually falls in love with him.
At heart, McEwen isn’t a bad guy – he needs the money for his mother, and he really does intend to pay it back. And in case you’re not sure how good he really is, during his flight from justice, he happens upon an isolated house where a Mexican couple and their two young sons are all ill with diphtheria. McEwen just wants to trade the bull he’s been riding for the Mexican father’s horse (he even leaves money for the animal), but he’s unable to ignore the man’s pleas for help. He winds up staying at the house, caring for the family around the clock, and even catching the disease himself.
Fay falls for McEwen despite her knowledge that he’s running from the law, but she urges him to turn himself in. Also on McEwen’s side is Monte Marquez (Joseph Calleia), another train passenger; Marquez is a fascinating character because he senses from his first encounter with McEwen that he’s an outlaw, and the viewer (at least, THIS viewer) expects numerous times for him to turn McEwen in for the reward money. Instead, at every possible turn, he’s helping to ensure McEwen’s safety, whether he’s literally tripping a young boy who gets a little too close to the truth about the fugitive or aiding him to escape when Pat Garrett shows up on the scene.
Strangers on a train.
Overall, I came away from the film with a favorable impression – although, from what I’ve read of other reviews, I wasn’t quite as enamored with it as some. My primary criticism was the amount of time spent showing McEwen (and, sometimes, Fay Hollister), riding their horses, with Garrett and his men in hot pursuit. I mean, at one point, it was almost laughable – I was like, come ON!!! Is anything going to happen, ever?? But once McEwen finally reached the Mexican family, my interest was piqued again and it was clear sailing after that. So, all things considered, I’d give this one a thumbs-up. Not an overly enthusiastic thumbs-up, but a thumbs-up nonetheless.
Stranger on Horseback (1955)
In this feature, McCrea plays a circuit judge, Rick Thorne, who arrives for his new post in a small town, only to learn that (1) everything, from the hotel to the stables, seems to be run by a man named Josiah Bannerman (John McIntire) and (2) Bannerman’s son Tom (Kevin McCarthy) recently killed a man in “self-defense” during a quarrel, and was never even arrested, let alone tried for the crime. Thorne proceeds to make it his business to ensure that justice in the case is done.
Thorne was too cool for school.
I found this feature to be rather curious – I know that things were done differently in the old West back in the day, but the way Thorne took it upon himself to find, charge and arrest Tom Bannerman, round up witnesses, and ensure that the trial took place, was a bit much. He wasn’t just a judge – he was a one-man wrecking machine; if the movie had been made in the ’90s, he’d have been played by Bruce Willis or Jason Statham. (There’s one scene, for instance, where one of Bannerman’s minions tosses a mug of water in Thorne’s face as he walks by. Without blinking an eye, Thorne halts and addresses the man in a pleasant voice, “Thanks. It’s a hot day.” Minutes later, when the same man tries to get physical, Thorne lays him flat with one smooth move, dunks him face first in the horse trough, then tips his hat and continues on his way.)
Miroslava had a tragic story off screen.
Others on hand were the town prosecutor, Col. Buck Streeter (John Carradine), an affected, uber-Southern gentleman sort, who walked a fine line between doing his job and cozying up to Josiah Bannerman, and Amy Lee Bannerman (Miroslava), a cousin of Tom’s whose attraction to the judge resulted in a change in her loyalties. (Sadly, Miroslava, who was raised in Mexico, committed suicide a few weeks before the film’s release. She was 29 years old.)
All things considered, I could take this one or leave it. I suppose it held my interest, but barely. Probably the best thing that I can say is that it had a running time of about an hour and five minutes. I think that was just about enough. (I do have to say, though, that Josiah Bannerman delivered a line that I may have to add to my own repertoire: “Every time he opens his mouth,” he says of one character, “a fool looks out.” Ha!)
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I hope you’ll join me during the rest of the month as I make more discoveries through Kristina’s scavenger hunt!
Welcome to The Film Noir Files, the monthly noir series here at Shadows and Satin and over at Speakeasy, the blog authored by my pal Kristina, where each month we recommend a film noir feature for you to watch on TCM. We never know what the other has selected until we post, and part of the fun is trying to never pick the same movie!
Wow, the film noir pickings on TCM in December are sure enough slim! But I managed to find a recommendation for y’all, and it’s a goodie – The Harder They Fall (1956), a boxing noir with a stellar cast that’s headed up by Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger.
Bogart plays Eddie Willis, a world-weary, down-on-his-luck sportswriter who is hired by boxing promoter Nick Benko (Steiger) to be the press agent for his latest acquisition – Argentinian fighter Toro Moreno (Mike Lane). It just so happens that although Moreno has an imposing physique, he’s completely clueless about the ins and outs of the fight game, and is also unaware that his boxing skills are pretty much non-existent. (As one character describes him, he’s got a “powder puff punch and a glass jaw.”) By paying Moreno’s opponents to take dives, Benko is able to create the illusion that the fighter is a nearly unstoppable shoo-in for the championship. And while Willis – an inherently decent guy – is aware of Benko’s scheme, he plays his part to promote Moreno because the paychecks are just too sweet to turn down – until they aren’t.
Our story begins . . .
I love the way the film opens. The story unfolds from the moment the Columbia Studios’ torch lady logo fades from the screen, and we’re taken on a journey that begins with the skyline of New York City. Beneath the title card and opening credits, we’re shown the excited, wide-eyed arrival by boat of Moreno and his devoted manager, Luis Argrandi (Carlos Montalban), and the introduction of several other characters, as they all converge on Feldman’s Gym. The others include Willis; Benko and two of his minions; and boxer George (Jersey Joe Walcott), who will serve as sparring partner for Moreno. During the entire sequence, which lasts nearly four minutes, the only words spoken are, “Coming, Danny,” and “We’re late, George.” But it’s absolutely riveting and piques the viewer’s interest (at least,this viewer) from the very start.
Like a well-choreographed dance.
As the ruthless boxing promoter, Rod Steiger is his usual imposing, bordering-on-terrifying self – the kind of guy you don’t want to cross and, frankly, don’t even necessarily want on your side. You just kinda want to give him a wide berth and let him do his thing – far, far away. Steiger excels in these characterizations (see his Stanley Hoff in The Big Knife [1955], for a great example); whether he’s shouting in your face, talking in sotto voce, or smiling in your general direction, he’s unquestionably the head guy in charge and he makes sure that everybody knows it. Take a look at the scene where Benko first propositions Willis – it’s like an intricately choreographed dance. He first butters up Willis like a piece of Texas Toast by calling him a “big talent . . . a real big talent – I used to read your column every day in the newspaper, and when the newspaper folded? I missed it.” Later, he gets down to brass tacks, revealing that he’s after Willis because he needs a solid contact with the working press, somebody who’s “not too big, not too small – an in-between guy.” Benko punctuates his fast-talking pitch to Willis with occasional hostile asides to his henchmen (“Did I ask you?” he queries when one of them dares to offer his opinion. “Then shut up!”), then brings it home with a dose of reality that Willis simply cannot ignore: “Don’t fight it, Eddie – what are you tryin’ to do? Hold on to your self-respect? Did your self-respect help you hold your job? Eddie, if you help me, I’ll help you.” And that’s all she wrote.
Desperate and world-weary.
More than a decade after his effortlessly cool, self-possessed performance as Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1943), Bogart turns in one of his best showings in The Harder They Fall. He manages to infuse his character with a multi-layered persona; he’s tired and desperate, but he hasn’t yet thrown in the towel (no boxing reference pun intended). He tamps down his inner sense of moral integrity in order to (1) have a steady job and (2) make more money than he’d ever earned as a sportswriter – but he’s also torn between doing what he knows is wrong and admitting that he’s actually enjoying it. He’s able to kid himself for a while – no one’s really getting hurt, right? – but at the end, his true self eclipses any surface benefits that he may have received. They’re simply no longer worth it.
Harold Stone, in a small but key role.
Directed by Mark Robson – who also helmed the Kirk Douglas boxing noir Champion (1949), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and Peyton Place (1957) – this feature is hard-hitting from the start and never lets up. And it’s also chock-full of outsanding performances by supporting players that include Jan Sterling, as Willis’s long-suffering, unapologetically principled wife; Nehemiah Persoff, Benko’s head flunky; and Harold Stone, a television reporter whose friendship with Willis causes a conflict with his responsibility to tell the public the truth.
All told, this underrated offering serves up a memorable glimpse behind the curtain shrouding the boxing game and the toll it takes on the men both inside and outside of the ring. It’s a must-see.
Other The Harder They Fall Stuff:
Carlos and Ricardo Montalban.
The character of Toro Moreno is believed to have been based on real-life wrestler-turned-boxer Primo Carnera. More about Carnera and the film can be found here.
Carlos Montalban, who played Moreno’s manager, was the older brother of Ricardo Montalban, who gained fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood in noirs like Border Incident (1949) and Mystery Street (1950), as well as glossy MGM productions including the Esther Williams vehicle Neptune’s Daughter (1949) and Latin Lovers (1953), with Lana Turner. Decades later, he attracted a new generation of fans in movies including Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982) and the Spy Kids franchise (2002 and 2003), and TV’s Fantasy Island.
Humphrey Bogart was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1955 and was suffering from the disease throughout filming of The Harder They Fall. It would be his final film; he died the year after the picture’s release, at the age of 57.
Walcott and Mike Lane.
Jersey Joe Walcott was one of several real-life fighters who appeared in the film (others included Max Baer, father of Max Baer, Jr., who played Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies; and Joe Greb, who suffered from a traumatic brain injury as a result of his boxing career, and was seen in the film being interviewed by Harold Stone’s character). A native of Merchantville, New Jersey, Walcott won the heavyweight championship in 1951 by defeating Ezzard Charles, becoming, at the age of 37, the oldest man to ever win the championship. He held that record until 1994, when George Foreman won a few months before his 46th birthday.
Tune into TCM December 13th to see The Harder They Fall. You won’t be sorry. And be sure to pop over to Speakeasy to see what film noir gem Kristina has selected for the month – and find out if we’ve selected the same movie!
Pre-Code Crazy is the monthly series here at Shadows and Satin and over at the blog of my pal Kristina, Speakeasy, where each month we recommend a pre-Code film for you to watch on TCM – we never know what the other has selected until we post, and we try to keep our lengthy streak intact by never picking the same movie!
In all the years that I’ve been writing about pre-Code – going on 15 now! – I have never done a deep dive into Call Her Savage (1932). The closest I’ve come was earlier this year, when it was one of several pre-Codes airing in one day on TCM – in my three-sentence overview of the film, I called it a “batshit crazy offering” and opined that it wasn’t “no cutesy romp in the park.” It really is quite an experience – and one that I hope you’ll check out.
“We gotta be careful of your wife!”
The movie opens on a wagon train headed west, and we’re not two minutes in before there’s some pre-Code oh-my-goshery – a woman named Molly is being pawed by Silas Jennings (Fred Kohler), the leader of the caravan, in the back of a covered wagon. She keeps protesting, but she’s laughing all the while, and right before she collapses into his arms, she comments that “we gotta be careful of your wife!” And awaaaaay, we go!
The wagon train is attacked by Indians – and one pious fella from the wagon train blames the attack and the resulting deaths (including his own impending) on Silas and his illicit relationship with “that Jezebel.” Before he kicks the bucket, he tells Silas that his behavior “brought the wrath of God” on them. Silas has a daughter, Ruth, and another member of the wagon train warns him that “a man passes his nature on to his children – and your nature’s bad.”
Ronasa taking care of Ruth.
Cut to 18 years later in Rollins, Texas – Ruth (Estelle Taylor) is now grown and married to Pete Springer (Willard Robertson), her childhood friend from the wagon train days, who is rather boring and straitlaced as an adult. When we first see him, he’s leaving Ruth alone so that he can attend a “big meeting about the railroad,” and he responds to her disappointment by telling her that a local Indian named Ronasa (Weldon Heyburn) will “take care of you.” (And indeed he will!)
The next thing you know, Ruth is giving birth to a baby daughter, Nasa, Three guesses as to who the father is – and, as always, the first two don’t count. After another time jump, we see that baby girl grown into a young woman, played by Clara Bow. It doesn’t take long for us to figure out that (1) Nasa is full of spirit and spunk, and that (2) the sins of her grandfather have continued to trickle down the family bloodline.
Nasa and the whip.
How do we know? Maybe it’s the way she jubilantly yips and hollers while riding through the woods. Or the way she fearlessly attacks a rattlesnake with a whip, after being thrown from her horse. Or the similar thrashing she gives her half-Indian friend, Moonglow (Gilbert Roland), when he laughs at the sight of her going toe-to-toe with the snake. But moments after she tires of giving the whipping to the stoic Moonglow, Nasa is bemoaning the fact that she’s not like other girls (“I hate to be angry, but I just can’t help it!”), and a few seconds after that, she’s laughing as she recalls the surprised look on Moonglow’s face when she whaled on him with the whip. She’s quite a girl. As she says herself, “There’s always a fight going on inside of me.”
We also learn early on that Nasa doesn’t like her father, who is now one of the richest men in Texas – he’s overly strict on her, obviously doesn’t understand her, and is completely incapable of reining her in. His solution is to send her away to Chicago, to a private school that “makes a business of training girls like [her.]” She’s thrilled, later telling Moonglow, “It’s so big! There’ll be so much more chance for me to do things.”
And gratuitous lingerie shots!
And Nasa wasn’t just whistlin’ Dixie – this is when the action of the story really kicks off. She’ll go from Chicago to New Orleans to New York, experiencing a variety of circumstances and situations – public brawls, prostitution, marital infidelity, miscegenation, personal tragedy – it’s a veritable smorgasbord of pre-Code pasttimes.
Call Her Savage was one of Clara Bow’s final films, and certainly one of her most memorable. Early in the film, she has a tendency to overact, and her silent film background is on full display. But as the film goes on, she seems to settle into the part and she really turns in a good performance. In one of her best scenes, she confronts her father, who comes to see her after she elopes. Although Nasa has never had a close relationship with him, she still harbors hope that things can be different. “Why don’t you like me, Dad?” she asks him. “It’s my fault. It must be. It’s my nature, I guess. I tried to overcome it. I couldn’t. . . . Won’t you be friends with me, Dad?” Throughout the scene, Bow is appropriately plaintive and she adds a touching sadness to her lines, managing to gain the viewer’s sympathy in spite of her reckless behavior.
No wonder they call Nasa “Dynamite!”
And in a completely opposite display of her talents, Bow squares off against co-star Thelma Todd, who plays Sunny De Lane, the ex-lover of Nasa’s new husband. Sunny shows up at a swanky party hosted by Nasa and wastes no time telling the hostess that she broke up her home. “I didn’t know you were in a home,” Nasa rejoins with a smile. “When did you get out?” And seconds later, the two women are embroiled in a bout of kicking and hair-pulling the likes of which I’ve never seen before.
The film was directed by John Francis Dillon, who started his career directing shorts in the early 1910s and went on to helm such pre-Code gems as Millie (1931), starring Helen Twelvetrees, and The Reckless Hour (1931), a vehicle for Dorothy Mackaill. His prolific career was cut short just a few years after the release of Call Her Savage, when he suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 49.
Tune into TCM on December 21st for Call Her Savage. It’s really a must-see. And don’t forget to pop over to Speakeasy to see what TCM pre-Code Kristina is recommending for the month – and see if our streak is intact!
shadowsandsatin 
Lady of Burlesque is on Blu-ray! (And me, too!)
•January 3, 2026 • 5 CommentsBack in 2024, I recorded the first of three audio commentaries for Blu-ray releases from Film Masters. The first two films, The Emperor Jones (1933) and The Red House (1947) were released earlier in 2025, and I’m pleased to share that the third Blu-ray, Lady of Burlesque (1943), is now available! Starring the always fabulous Barbara Stanwyck, the cast also includes an abundance of familiar faces that make this film a delight. I hope you’ll check it out — and that you’ll have as much fun watching it as I did commenting on it!
Interested in getting a copy? Click here!
Posted in Announcements
Tags: audio commentaries, Film Masters, Lady of Burlesque, limited edition blu-ray, The Emperor Jones, The Red House