Happy Late Night, my Darling,
I hope you had a nice day, as always. I didn't see you on FB, so maybe you are still doing the holiday thing (relatives, etc) or perhaps working on a project. I went over to Pearl's at noon with my sister Vickie for a post-Christmas brunch given by Pearl and her daughter Helen. We had a nice time and a lot of good food.
After getting back home I took a walk down to Northridge Libe to pick up a movie I had ordered. This evening I watched it : "Fallen Angel" from 1945, a Noir directed by Otto Preminger, who also directed last night's movie "River Of No Return". Preminger was versatile, could do many different styles, and in the Noir genre he also directed the classic "Laura", starring Gene Tierney. If I am not mistaken, "Fallen Angel" was his follow up to that film, and man is it just a little bit weird. :)
Dana Andrews (a Noir regular) stars as a flim-flam man, a wannabe promoter who gets off a bus in a small California coastal town, simply because he hasn't enough money to go all the way to San Francisco. He immediately heads for the nearest eatery (with a huge beer sign on the wall) and runs into the beautiful and tragic Linda Darnell, who works as the waitress. Many of Hollywood's famous actresses, especially in the 40s, were both beautiful and tragic, but that is another story. Anyhow, Andrews falls for her, but she shuns him because he has no money. He's a drifter. So he scams the town's Rich Lady (played by the great singer/actress Alice Faye) in order to get her money, so he can then divorce her and run off with Darnell.
How he winds up being the Good Guy is a bit convoluted, but then this is an Otto Preminger film, full of twists and psychological dialogue, and a bit of weird humor too, including a scam seance at the beginning of the film, with a cameo from the usually strange John Carradine, who was in trillions of films.
"Fallen Angel", while not as classic as "Laura", is still very good, and exceptionally weird, and it has twists and turns galore, including an ending you will never see coming. I give it a 7.5/10 and a big thumbs up.
Finally, I have just gotta say........how incredibly sad it was to hear about Debbie Reynolds. As you know, I just wrote about her less than two weeks ago, before Carrie got sick or any of this happened. I wrote about Debbie Reynolds because I had seen a movie of hers called "Susan Slept Here", in which I had found her utterly charming. I think it was made in 1954. I also remarked about the gorgeous Technicolor art direction and the overall look of the film, but none of it would have stood out as it did if not for Reynolds, who was only 22 at the time. She was the reason I was so impressed with the film, because I had not seen a lot of her early work and was not aware she was that talented. I had only just found out. She could do it all - sing, dance, act, do comedy, the works. And as I remarked on FB, she did it all with a ton of class. There was nothing trashy or even remotely so about Debbie Reynolds, which is what really struck me when watching the film, because with any other actress it could have easily turned out to be a bit prurient. It was about a 17 year old runaway who comes to live with a middle aged screenwriter and winds up marrying him. That is about as un-PC as you can get these days, but as it was made in the good old days of 1954, it is actually a clean-cut movie, and you can't get more clean cut than Debbie Reynolds.
That's why I wrote about her two weeks ago. Because of the image she put forth in that film, and it wasn't fake; she was the Real Deal, and also mega-talented.
Now we know that it's possible to die of a broken heart. She had to be with her daughter, there is no doubt about it.
And while that is incredibly sad on one hand, it is also beyond beautiful and spiritual on the other hand.
I am just kind of blown away by this year.
God Bless Carrie Fisher and her Mom. That's a love story, right there.
I don't know what else to say, but I will see you in the morning.
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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