Showing posts with label Lyle Bettger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lyle Bettger. Show all posts

No Man of Her Own (1950)

No Man of Her Own (1950) is a railroad-crash victim assumed identity paranoia and single-mother vindictive ex blackmail murder weeper noir, styled as a woman's picture and ladled with paranoia, faux feminist discourse, oppressive attitudes and bizarre gender relational aspects which rather than diminish the role of women in the 1940s and 1950s golden age of Hollywood and film noir crossover period, go to show that gender roles while not conforming to post-feminist roles do play important aspect-features in the creation of the newly birthed global organisation that was the United States.

It is one of four films Barbara Stanwyck made in 1950, and she plays a pregnant woman mistaken for the person whose wedding ring she happens by the magic of storytelling to be wearing during a train crash. 

Forbidden (1953)

Forbidden (1953) is a gangster abroad illicit love affair mobster's widow exotica romance film noir set in Macao, directed by Rudolph Mate and starring Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger.

Echoing the heights of 1940s noir theme atmosphere and exciting the dark brew with the sunlight of the 1950s Forbidden bothers itself into existence as a low-subsistence noir which is recognisable as the cinema of ideas that have come before. 

Romantic complications are the order of the day as are snippy twists and the constant colliding of three actors, often crammed into one shot — Tony Curtis, Joanne Dru and Lyle Bettger. 

The idea of dreaming the noir city into being when the city is Macao, and your film is shot on the lot — it is a big ask. Without much scenery to lean on, the actors look even closer together. The main set is a night club, the Lisbon Club, which is rather nice, but the noir city may not be entirely evident.

Union Station (1950)

Union Station (1950) is a kidnap and ransom police thriller set in and around Chicago's Union Station, and starring William Holden and Nancy Olsen.

The film was based on Nightmare in Manhattan, an Edgar-winning novel by Thomas Walsh. 

Sydney Boehm's script for the film version was nominated for an Edgar in the screenplay category.

Aside from changing the setting from New York City's Grand Central Station to Chicago's Union Station (though the Los Angeles Union Station was the actual filming location), and changing the kidnap victim from a little boy to a blind, teen-aged girl, the script was quite faithful to its source material.

Union Station is a realistic 1950 film noir police and public nuisance kidnap movie starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Jan Sterling and Barry Fitzgerald. It was released after Sunset Boulevard so by the time it came out, Holden had actually moved up another level of stardom. William Holden and Nancy Olson also appeared in Sunset Boulevard the same year.