Happy Thanksgiving from Jeanne Crain, Paul Brinkman and the Classic Movie Man

I want to believe that Jeanne actually made that turkey. Jeanne Crain and her husband Paul Brinkman, an Errol Flynn look-alike if there ever was one.

 

Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan fight the Nazis in "Edge of Darkness"

Edge of Darkness (1943) is a World War II directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Errol Flynn and Ann Sheridan. Others in the impressive supporting cast include Walter Huston, Nancy Coleman, Ruth Gordon, Helmut Dantine, and Judith Anderson. The cinematography was by Sidney Hickox (Gentleman Jim, The Big Sleep, White Heat).

Gunnar Brogge (Flynn) and Karen Stensgard (Sheridan) head the Nazi resistance in their small fishing village in Norway. Against all odds, they push back against the Nazi control of their village.

Will their efforts help them gain their freedom?

Lewis Milestone (1895 – 1980) was a Russian-born American film director. He is a two-time Academy Award-winner for Best Director: Two Arabian Knights (1927) and All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Other notable films directed by Milestone include The Front Page (1931), Of Mice and Men (1939), A Walk in the Sun (1945), Les Miserables (1952), and Ocean’s 11 (1960).

Errol Flynn (1909 – 1959) was an Australian-American actor who was one of the most popular actors during Hollywood’s Golden Age. He was famous for playing in romantic swashbuckler roles, often co-starring with Olivia de Havilland. Flynn obtained screen immortality early in his career with The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Other major films include Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Dodge City (1939), and Santa Fe Trail (1940). Flynn’s hard-drinking and wild personal life seriously affected his career. He died on October 14, 1959, at age 50.

Ann Sheridan and Errol Flynn in an on-set publicity photo of them reading the novel.

Ann Sheridan (1915 - 1967) was an American actress and singer. Her movie career began in 1934 when she appeared in 19 films! Her roles were all small and mostly unbilled, but she appeared in another 20+ films before she was signed to Warner Bros. in 1938. She was given better roles and was groomed for major stardom. The studio dubbed her “The Oomph Girl,” a title she hated but helped contribute to her popularity. During World War II she was a popular pin-up girl. As a star, Sheridan starred in Angels Wash Their Faces (1939), Castle on the Hudson (1940), It All Came True (1940), They Drive by Night (1940), City for Conquest (1941), and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942). During this time she starred opposite Warner’s top leading men including John Garfield, James Cagney, and George Raft. Her biggest success during this period came with Kings Row (1942), a film in which she received top billing over Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, and Betty Field. Sheridan made the transition to television and was starring in the weekly western series, Pistols 'n' Petticoats (1966-67) when she became sick with cancer. She died on January 21, 1967, at the age of 51.

Walter Huston (1883 - 1950) was a Canadian singer, stage, and film actor. He is also the patriarch of the Huston clan which includes his writer-director son John, and his granddaughter, actress Anjelica. Huston worked in the theater, with roles on Broadway where he made his debut in 1924. Once talking pictures began in Hollywood, Huston worked as both a leading man and also a character actor. Some of Huston’s films include The Virginian (1929), Rain (1932), Gabriel Over the White House (1933), The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, directed by his son John. Huston’s last film was The Furies (1950) co-starring Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey.

Edge of Darkness trivia

• When the film was announced it was going to star Anne Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart.
• Errol Flynn went on trial for rape while the film was in production.
• Ann Sheridan's marriage to George Brent collapsed at the same time as production due to Sheridan's affair with Flynn.
• Weather problems hinder production, keeping Ruth Gordon and Judith Anderson in Hollywood longer than they wanted due to stage commitments.
• Sheridan and Flynn co-starred in Dodge City (1939) and Silver River (1948).

To watch the film on YouTube, click on the link below.

To join the discussion on October 17, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time, click here. Once you RSVP, you'll receive an invitation and link to the discussion on Zoom.

Discussion questions

1. How do you think this film ranks among World War II films you've seen?
2. Do you think the portrayals of the Norwegian freedom fighters were realistic?
3. What did you think of the film score by Fraz Waxman? Did it enhance or detract from the film in your opinion?
4. The supporting cast is exceptional. Did any one of the supporting characters stand out to you?
5. How do you think American audiences reacted to this film in 1943?

10 Things You May Not Know About Olivia de Havilland

Olivia de Havilland (1916 – 2020) was a two-time Academy Award Winner for Best Actress. She was the last remaining major movie star from Hollywood’s Golden Age when she passed away at her home in Paris, France, at 104.

1. De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father was an English professor at the Imperial University in Tokyo City at the time of her birth. Her parents were both citizens of the United Kingdom so she became an automatic citizen.

De Havilland as Alice in the Saratoga Community Players production
of Alice in Wonderland in 1933

2. She took ballet lessons at four and piano lessons at five and could read before she was six.

3. De Havilland originally planned on becoming a schoolteacher, focusing on English and speech; she received a scholarship to Mills College in Oakland, CA for this pursuit.

4. She was reluctant to become a film actress but was convinced by director Max Reinhardt (who in some respect discovered her) and producer Henry Blake to sign a contract in 1934 with Warner Bros. Her starting salary was $200 a week, an amazing sum for an 18-year-old actress.

Two perfect profiles: Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn in Captain Blood

5. At age nineteen, de Havilland starred opposite another newcomer, Errol Flynn in Captain Blood, released in 1935. The pairing of the two stars was so popular with the public that they made a total of eight films together.

6. De Havilland was cast as Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn in the Technicolor classic The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). It was one of the most popular adventure films of the late 1930s.

Hattie McDaniel, (Mammy), de Havilland (Melanie), and Vivien Leigh (Scarlett) in

Gone with the Wind

7. She managed to convince Warner Bros Studio head Jack Warner (with the help of his wife) to be loaned to David O. Selznick to play Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939). She would receive the first of five Academy Award nominations for her role. The New York Times wrote as Melanie de Havilland’s performance “is a gracious, dignified, tender gem of characterization.”

8. In 1943 she sued Warner Bros. after her contract was up but the studio contended that she owed them an additional six months for the times she had been suspended for turning down certain roles. She won her case (known today as the De Havilland Law) but Warner Bros. blacklisted de Havilland which resulted in her not working for almost two years.

De Havilland (center) played a patient in a state mental hospital in The Snake Pit (1948)

9. In 1945, de Havilland began filming To Each His Own. She played an unwed mother who gives her child up for adoption. In the film, she ages almost 30 years. She won her first Best Actress Oscar for her performance, marking a remarkable comeback.

De Havilland and Yvette Mieux in Light in the Piazza (1962)

10. She was appointed a Chevaliler of the Legion d’honneur, the highest decoration in France in 2010 by President Nicolas Sarkozy, and was appointed Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 2017 by Queen Elizabeth II.

10 Things You May Not Know About Ida Lupino

Ida Lupino (1918 – 1995) was a London-born actress and director; she became an American citizen in 1948. As a contract player at Warner Brothers, Lupino starred opposite some of their top male stars, including Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, and John Garfield. In the late 1940s she embarked on a career as a director and independent filmmaker.

Ida Lupino, Raoul Walsh, and Humphrey Bogart on the set of High Sierra

1. Her parents both had theatrical backgrounds; her father’s family’s theatrical roots date back to the Italian Renaissance.

2. She was signed to a five-year contract with Paramount Pictures in 1933 where she was dubbed “the English Jean Harlow.”

3. Wanting to be more than just a pretty face, Lupino begged director William A. Wellman to test her for the role of Bessie Broke in The Light That Failed (1939).

4. She next played the femme fatale role in They Drive by Night (1940) where she stole the picture from such established stars as George Raft, Ann Sheridan, and Humphrey Bogart.

Beautiful color studio publicity photo of Ida Lupino

5. In 1941 she starred in three movies: The Sea Wolf costarring Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, Out of the Fog costarring with Garfield again, and Ladies in Retirement costarring with her then husband, Louis Hayward.

6. During her years as a film director, she was a pioneer of product placement to help with financing.

7. She directed dozens of television episodes for popular series, during the 1950s and 1960s, including The Donna Reed Show, 77 Sunset Strip, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Have Gun Will Travel, Thriller, The Fugitive, Dr. Kildare, The Twilight Zone, and Bewitched. She is the only woman to have directed an episode of the original Twilight Zone and star in one as well.

8. Lupino learned about directing and other behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking while she was on suspension at Warner Brothers. When an actor under studio contract turned down a movie role, they were put on suspension. They received no salary during the time the movie they refused to act in was in production. Instead of sitting at home, Lupino visited movie sets and befriended directors like Raoul Walsh and Don Siegel.

Ida Lupino (third from left) on the set of The Trouble With Angels with Rosalind Russell (second from left)

9. She won the National Board of Review award for Best Actress in 1941 (High Sierra and Ladies in Retirement) and 1942 (Moontide) and a New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943 (The Hard Way), but she was never nominated for an Academy Award.

10. Her last directing job was for the 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels starring Rosalind Russell and Haley Mills.

Happy Birthday, Olivia de Havilland...100 years young!

Olivia de Havilland (1916) turns 100 today. Not only is de Havilland the last surviving cast member of Gone with the Wind (1939), but she’s also one of the last links to Hollywood’s Golden Age. Her career in Hollywood started in 1934 when she signed a five-year contract with Warner Bros.

Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marion  in The Adventures of Robin Hood, directed by Michael Curtiz

As a contract player, de Havilland performed in a variety of movies from the classical, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) to the adventure spectacle, The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). A seemingly effortless performer, she excelled in both comedy and drama. In 1935 she costarred with Errol Flynn in the swashbuckler adventure Captain Blood. Flynn and de Havilland’s classic good looks plus their on-screen chemistry made them one of the movies most popular screen teams. Other collaborations included Charge of the Light Brigade (1938), Four’s a Crowd (1938), Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941).

As Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind directed by Victor Fleming

When David O. Selznick acquired the rights to Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling novel, Gone with the Wind, every actress in and out of Hollywood wanted to play Scarlett O’Hara except de Havilland. She had her sights set on playing Melanie Hamilton. Unknown to de Havilland, Selznick wanted her for the part. Jack Warner at first refused to loan her to Selznick, but de Havilland appealed to Warner’s wife and she got the role and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress (she lost to Hattie McDaniel).

With Charles Boyer in Hold Back the Dawn, directed by Mitchell Leisen

With the success of Gone with the Wind, you’d think that Warner Bros. would have given de Havilland bigger and better roles, but she found some of her best parts on loan to other studios. She made Hold Back the Dawn (1941) at Paramount and received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, losing famously to her younger sister Joan Fontaine. Eventually, she would fight Warner Bros. in court over the terms of the typical Hollywood contract and their habit of putting stars on suspension for turning down roles. She won the case and in many ways it was the beginning of the end of the studio system.

With John Lund in To Each His Own, directed by Mitchell Leisen

With her court case behind her, de Havilland signed a contract with Paramount. Her first picture for them was the comedy, The Well Groomed Bride (1946) costarring Ray Milland. But it was her next picture, To Each His Own (1946) directed by Mitchell Leisen, that would be one of her greatest successes. The movie was a hit and de Havilland won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. More great roles followed, including playing twins—one good, one evil—in The Dark Mirror (1946). She starred in the groundbreaking film about a woman suffering from mental illness in The Snake Pit (1948). For that performance she was nominated for another Best Actress Oscar. She didn’t win that year, but her performance was honored with awards from the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup. With all the honors and new acclaim, de Havilland was in demand; all the major directors in Hollywood wanted to work with her.

Playing identical twins in The Dark Mirror, directed by Robert Siodmak

Another great role came her way when she starred in the William Wyler production of The Heiress (1949). De Havilland’s performance is a tour de force of emotion with her character starting out as an innocent and shy woman to one who becomes worldly-wise, hard and steely by the film’s end. The Academy honored de Havilland with another Best Actress Oscar. Once again, de Havilland was in demand from the best directors in Hollywood. Elia Kazan wanted her to star as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She turned that role down, saying she wasn’t able to relate to the character being too happy after the birth of her son. Ironically, the role went to Vivian Leigh, her costar in Gone with the Wind. Leigh would go on to win her second Oscar.

With David Ladd and Alan Ladd in The Proud Rebel, directed by Michael Curtiz

Other big roles came her way including star turns in My Cousin Rachel (1952), Not as a Stranger (1955), The Ambassador’s Daughter (1956), and one of my personal favorites, The Proud Rebel (1958) costarring Alan Ladd who would become a lifelong friend. After the film Libel (1959), de Havilland’s film career began to slow down. She made occasional films like the romantic drama Light in the Piazza (1962), Lady in a Cage (1964), and to the help out old friend Bette Davis, she replaced Joan Crawford in Robert Aldrich’s Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964). During the 1970s, she appeared in supporting roles in several movies. She also starred in television movies, including Roots: The Next Generation (1979) as the wife of a former Confederate officer played by Henry Fonda. The production reunited the two stars who played husband and wife in The Male Animal (1942). In 1986 de Havilland won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress playing the Dowager Empress Maria in the miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

A great beauty and a great talent, de Havilland was and is one of the true legends of classic Hollywood.


Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is honoring de Havilland as the July star of the month.