#John Farrow

[sacredwhores]

John Farrow - The Big Clock (1948)

[citizenscreen]

Maureen O'Sullivan and John Farrow at the Hollywood preview of Cukor’s DAVID COPPERFIELD in January 1935

[gatutor]

Thomas Mitchell-Audrey Totter-Ray Milland "Alias Nick Beal" 1949, de John Farrow.

[anitapallenberg]

Where Danger Lives (1950) | Dir. John Farrow

[byneddiedingo]

Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951)

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Raymond Burr, Leslye Banning, Jim Backus, Philip Van Zandt, John Mylong, Carleton G. Young. Screenplay: Frank Fenton, Jack Leonard. Cinematography: Harry J. Wild. Production design: J. McMillan Johnson. Film editing: Frederic Knudtson, Eda Warren. Music: Leigh Harline. 

His Kind of Woman starts out as a tough-talking film noir and ends up as a knockabout action comedy. The credit or blame for that belongs to Howard Hughes, the RKO studio head and executive producer, who waited until John Farrow had finished the movie and then had Richard Fleischer re-shoot it, even recasting the villain, originally played by Lee Van Cleef, with Raymond Burr. The New York Times reviewer hated it, partly because of the shift in tone, but most people like it. Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell were never going to outdo Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in dialogue like "They tell me you killed Ferraro. How did it feel?" "He didn't say." But they're good enough at it that they give the movie a core that the flurry of oddball characters and the loony setup for the plot needs. Vincent Price is wonderful as an Errol Flynnish movie star who spouts tags from Shakespeare as he joins Mitchum in taking on the bad guys. Hughes made sure that Russell's gowns, designed by Howard Greer, were as revealing as possible, and Mitchum spends a lot of the film without his shirt, looking a little thick in the waist to contemporary viewers used to gym-toned physiques. The end product probably wasn't worth the money Hughes lost on it, but it's still fun.  

[chaoticdesertdweller]

Rest easy, Tisa 💔

Theresa Magdalena Farrow

July 22, 1951 - January 10, 2024

[rwpohl]

loretta young: china, john farrow 1943

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Big Clock (1948) John Farrow

January 13th 2024

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Where Danger Lives

There’s a wonderful melding of acting styles early in John Farrow’s WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950, TCM, Tubi). That master of minimalism Robert Mitchum has a run-in with supreme technician Claude Rains, thinking the older man his lady love Faith Domergue’s father only to learn he’s her husband. The tension between the two — with Mitchum directly demanding the older man’s blessing and Rains toying with him until dropping the truth — is so intoxicating you may wish it were Domergue who was left dead on the floor so Mitchum and Rains could run off together.

Instead, Charles Bennett’s script has doctor Mitchum running off with Domergue, whom he first treated after an attempted suicide. When Rains attacks Mitchum with a poker, the doctor knocks him out, goes to get some water to revive him and comes back to find him dead. Under the influence of too much liquor and a concussion, Mitchum allows Domergue to convince him they have to run off, leading to a tormented drive to the Mexican border and encounters with small-town eccentrics, crooked car dealers and jewelers and a burlesque troop whose manager promises to sneak them across the border. Everyone’s corrupt, and after a while you may start to suspect that includes our leading lady.

You cannot, however, discern any of that from her acting. Domergue was a Howard Hughes protegee, the new Jane Russell, though no match for beauty, bosoms or talent. It’s rather sad, actually, watching her try to tackle a complex role far out of her depth. But you may also be tempted to snicker at the way she barrels past transitions and misreads lines. Her one effective moment is really a product of cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca as she moves through a series of shadows to go to a radio broadcasting some off her deepest secrets.

Musuraca and Farrow provide the film’s greatest pleasures. They fill the scene with cinematic gingerbread, shooting through shadows, furniture and, in one stunning sequence, the crowd at a nightclub. Mitchum flourished in scenes like this, and I doubt you could come up with a shot Rains couldn’t upstage. Poor Domergue seems lost in all of it, with the camera revealing more about her character than she does. She would eventually develop enough of a personality to get by in horror films like THIS ISLAND EARTH and IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA (both 1955). But even then, she was no Allison Hayes or Beverly Garland.

[mariocki]

A Bullet Is Waiting (1954)

"I hope you don't think that I'm taking your side against Mr. Munson. All those nice things that you did, like taking care of the lamb and getting supper ready, I saw through them easily. You're probably everything that Mr. Munson says you are."

"Oh, I'm a very bad character."

[gdacb]

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)

[spryfilm]

Movie review: “Botany Bay” (1953)

[citizenscreen]

John Farrow (February 10, 1904 – January 27, 1963) 🎥

[gatutor]

Lucille Ball-Kent Taylor-Casey Johnson "Volvieron cinco" (Five came back) 1939, de John Farrow.

[anitapallenberg]

His Kind of Woman (1951) | Dir. John Farrow and Richard Fleischer

[mabusecaligari]

Strange wall paintings in Alias Nick Beal (1949) - John Farrow