#Kathryn Givney

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Joanne Woodward-Raymond Bailey-Kathryn Givney "Desde la terraza" (From the terrace) 1960, de Mark Robson.

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Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) King Vidor

February 3rd 2024

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My Friend Irma

Dive into the enchanting world of Martin and Lewis in their inaugural movie, "My Friend Irma," directed by George Marshall in 1949. With its timeless appeal and vintage charm, this movie is a must-watch for fans of classic cinema and timeless humor.

Continuing my Martin and Lewis binge, I’m looking at their FIRST movie, the 1949, George Marshall directed film, “My Friend Irma,” a romantic musical comedy. Martin and Lewis aren’t actually the stars of this movie, that honor goes to Diana Lynn and Maire Wilson. The movie is adapted from an old radio show of the same name that first aired in 1947. It must have been very popular for it to be…

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Count Three and Pray (George Sherman, 1955)

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Lightning Strikes Twice

With the exception of RUBY GENTRY (1952), King Vidor’s melodramas are mad messes. Though it has some good moments — particularly in the performances of Mercedes McCambridge, Zachary Scott and Kathryn Givney — his LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE (1951, Criterion Channel, TCM, Plex) can’t seem to make up its mind what it is, so it ends up a Southwestern Gothic romantic film noir. Actress Ruth Roman travels to Texas for a rest cure after growing ill playing Desdemona on tour. Yes, that’s foreshadowing. She becomes fascinated with recently released accused wife-killer Richard Todd. For a while she wants to find out who really did the deed, but she keeps getting sidetracked. That’s not so bad when she has to deal with romantically frustrated McCambridge (was she in love with Todd or his late wife; her lips tell me hetero, but there’s lesbian in her eyes), dissolute playboy Scott (every state has one) and female power broker Givney. But she keeps having run ins with Todd, who’s so moody he makes Heathcliff seem like Peewee Herman.

For much of the film Vidor seems to have directed most of the affectation out of Roman’s work, and she’s engagingly natural. But then it’s time to wrap the story up, so she has to decide Todd’s a killer, leading to an orgy of heavy breathing and nostril flaring. Of course, even at her best, she’s no match for McCambridge, whose acting is so fresh and original nobody else stands a chance. She manages to pull her character’s conflicting impulses together (she’d have made a great Hedda Gabler) and comes out with a performance even when the melodrama ascends to its most delirious levels.

Faced with a meandering, sometimes ludicrous script (by Lenore Coffee, from a novel by Margaret Echard), Vidor seems to have devoted most of his energy to the locations. At times, the Mojave Desert and various other locations (including the director’s own ranch) seem more compelling than the leading characters. The desert becomes a site of passion, driving people mad with desire. Vidor also does a good job contrasting the different architectural styles — the sleek modern ranch where Givney and her husband reign, McCambridge’s ramshackle dude ranch, Todd’s Spanish style house and the bleak small town plopped in the middle of all that dust and sand. It’s a pity the sets are so poorly supported by the script.

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Noir Watch: Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Watched:  02/23/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  King Vidor

The thing that might leap out at you watching Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) is that the film was written by a woman, based on a novel by a woman.  So while it's absolutely a grimy, desert noir, it's also not focused on a Dana Andrews floating into town and getting in over his head - it's Ruth Roman.  And the male characters of the film are certainly important, but they're not the show that you're here to see.*  This movie has terrific - I mean great - female characters who don't feel like they got knocked out of the "mother", "housewife", "nightclub girl" mold you may realize you've gotten too used to.

Roman has been sent to West Texas to recuperate after a standard respiratory illness, and she's a stage actress who was tired of being murdered "8 timer per week" as Desdemona in Othello.  Arriving in a small town before finding her way to her destination, the Tumble Moon Dude Ranch, she meets a savvy older woman, Myra Nolan, who takes a shine to her and sends her in her car to the ranch. Along the way she meets "Trev", who she knows was just acquitted of the brutal murder of his wife.  

She, of course, finds him dreamy and mysterious.  And maybe dangerous.

At the dude ranch, the story begins to unpack and Roman starts digging into the mystery of the murder as she thinks nothing adds up.

It's a wildly twisted story with a complete set of red-herrings and terrific performances from everyone, especially Mercedes McCambridge, who - as Muller mentions - feels entirely like an actor giving a modern performance in a 1951 film directed by someone who made his career in the silents.  But special shout out to Kathryn Givney who plays the very complicated Myra Nolan.  And, of course, my guy Zachary Scott, who doesn't get enough screentime and plays Zachary Scott.

SPOILERS

Roman's character and Trev get married, and on their wedding night the neighbors - which the movie strives to be inclusive and thoughtful in the inclusion of Latino characters - will not leave.  Like, y'all...  let these two people have a wedding night.  It should not be in a murder mystery that the thing that stresses me out the most is a jolly group of friends over staying their welcome, but here we are.

Sure, you'll think "these two people barely know each other.  Why are they in love?  This seems terrible."  But that's the story.

There's a ton more to dig into here with racial representation, religion in West Texas in 1950, gender roles, etc...  but I'll leave that for a future viewing.

Full disclosure - Ruth Roman would have made a terrific 1950's Lois Lane.  I am pretty sure I've mentioned that before, but it's true.  Good golly.

*Jamie may argue that she was fine with seeing plenty of Richard Todd

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from The Signal Watch https://ift.tt/knFDjtz

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Kathryn Givney (1896-1978)

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Bad movie I have Guys and Dolls 1955

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Operation Pacific (1951) with John Wayne, Patricia Neal and Kathryn Givney.

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AMONG THE MARRIED

1927 / 1929

Among the Married (formerly The Conflict) is a play by Vincent Lawrence. It was originally produced by Sam H. Harris and later by Philip Goodman. It was directed by Mr. Lawrence.  

The story tears the veil from a troubled week in the placid, uneventful life of a young couple of country club persuasion. Ethel Mills, the wife, spurns the advances of William Minot, though he Is attentive, and comes with a peculiar temptation of golf instruction. When she discovers sundry infidelities of her husband and he insists, in some detail, that she has "his whole love, but not his whole passion," she revenges herself with that complete abandon of which only women in love are capable. Their relations are finally resolved, if not logically, at least happily.

Among the Married opened in Atlantic City at the Apollo Theatre on July 11, 1927. It featured Louis Calhern, Helen Flint, William David, Warren William, Kathryn Givney, and Milano Tilden.  From Atlantic City, the play moved up the Jersey coast to Asbury Park. 

It was also scheduled to visit nearby Long Branch, but that engagement was cancelled.  Plans were for an October production on Broadway. Instead, it played in Baltimore in October, with the goal of opening at Broadway’s Masque Theatre (now the John Golden) on November 1, 1927. A Baltimore critic carped about the play’s propensity to use profanity, especially ones involving the diety.  

Among the Married was to be the newly opened Masque’s 5th production. But instead, that honor went to The King Can Do No Wrong starring Lionel Atwill. November came and went with no word of the play’s fate. 

Halfway through December 1927, The Daily News mentioned that Lawrence and Sam Harris were collaborating on a new play titled Possessed.  

“William Harris, Jr. emphatically denies the rumors that Vincent Lawrence's play, ‘Possessed,’ is the same which was tried out earlier this season as ‘Among the Married.’ Mr. Harris states that ‘Possessed’ is an entirely new play and was never presented before.”

It wasn’t until the first week in September 1929 that it was announced that rehearsals had begun for the new production, produced by Philip Goodman and starring Frank Morgan and Katherine Wilson. 

Without the benefit of an out-of-town tryout, the play finally opened on Broadway at the Bijou Theatre (209 West 45th Street) on October 3, 1929, just three weeks before the stock market crash that began the great depression. 

About the Venue: The Bijou Theatre was built in 1917. In 1935, it became New York's first all-cartoon cinema, beginning a rotating cycle during which the house alternated between legit and movie presentation (except when it was dark from 1937 to 1943). In 1959, the adjoining Astor was renovated and acquired a large chunk of the Bijou's space. It reopened as an art cinema in 1962. Intermittent legit productions followed until the theatre was demolished in 1982, making room for the Marriott Hotel.

“‘Among the Married’ is funny without straining for effort.” ~ DONALD MULHERN

"Things were said about the Vincent Lawrence comedy, ‘Among the Married,' for example, that led Mr. Lawrence to conclude that certain of the reviewers of his play were as sour as their comment and that they had done him and his opus wrong.” ~ BURNS MANTLE

On October 21, 1929, the play moved to the 49th Street Theatre 

About Venue #2:  The Shuberts built the 49th Street Theatre in 1921, but lost it during the Depression, when it was briefly rented by the Federal Theatre Project for three productions. In 1940, it was closed and reopened for a brief tenure as a movie house, Cinema 49. It was demolished in December 1940.

The play closed on November 9, 1929 after 44 performances. 

A production quickly opened in Hollywood starring Florence Eldridge and Edward Everett Horton. 

In 1931 a film version was released under the title of Men Call It Love starring Adolph Menjou and Leila Hyams. The supporting cast featured future gossip maven Hedda Hopper. 

The film opened in Atlantic City at the Strand Theatre, across from Steel Pier, on March 27, 1931. 

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‘Lady Godiva of Coventry’, 1955. Maureen O’Hara, Kathryn Givney, Rhodes and Rex Reason. 

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Kathryn Givney (Wisconsin, 27/10/1896-Hollywood, California, 16/03/1978).

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Guys and Dolls (1955) Joseph L. Mankiewicz

June 20th 2020

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Lightning Strikes Twice

Actress Shelley Carnes (Ruth Roman), is looking forward to an exciting vacation at a dude ranch, but she gets more than she bargained for, including a perhaps murderous new husband. Only by sheer luck has Richard Trevelyan (Richard Todd), her new husband, escaped execution for murdering his first wife Loraine. In a second trial, a single juror held out, causing him to be released. A local priest, Father Paul (Rhys Williams), and other eyewitnesses paint a deadly picture to the future bride but the actual murder was not witnessed and somehow, unbelievably, love wins out. Because of local expectation, Shelley ends up at a competing dude ranch run by J.D. (Frank Conroy) and Myra Nolan (Kathryn Givney). The picture of Richard over their fireplace suggests a close relationship. They loan Shelley their car and direct her to go to Trevelyan’s ranch. En route, she meets Trevelyan on horseback, a handsome, but damaged, and mysterious young man. Upon arrival at the ranch she finds out the dude … Lightning Strikes Twice syndicated from http://ift.tt/2rLj3l6

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The lovely and talented actress, Kathryn Givney.  Thank you for your wonderful performances on the stage, in movies and on television.

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Kathryn Givney and Fred Astaire in Daddy Long Legs (1955)