My **** Amazon.com review of KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE

My heart sank when John O'Dowd opened his acknowledgements by recognizing "The Lord, Jesus Christ, for his many blessings in my life ..." Because, truly, this kind of apparent Born Again Christianity doesn't at first glance appear to coalesce with the life, and wanton sex, of Gal About Hollywood Barbara Payton, she of the unforgettable (for all the wrong reasons) "Bride of the Gorilla." So much more my delight when Mr O'Dowd's tome turns out to be an extremely well written and thoroughly researched study of a life and career in overdrive that was more than just the infamous Barbara-Franchot Tone-Tom Neal debacle with its bruised faces, egos and careers. The author knows his stuff and the result is no fluff piece but a page turner that is highly recommended. Even, I dare say, for folks out there unfamiliar with Barbara Payton's tragic fate. This reader waited a long time for Bearmanor Media to publish the ebook version, but the results were absolutely worth the wait. Top notch entertainment!

                                

Let's hear it for GREGG PALMER!

Gregg Palmer, who previously went under his real name of Palmer Lee, toiled as a Universal-International contract player alongside the likes of Rock Hudson, Tony Curtis and Jeff Chandler. Yet unlike those three good-looking gents, Gregg never became a star. In fact, you could even say that once he allowed himself to go to seed a bit, he became much more employable than in his male starlet days. Mostly as a supporting player in TV Westerns and as a member of the unofficial John Wayne stick company. And as such, his carreer lasted into the 1980s. 

I recently came across Gregg Palmer as the cavalry officer befriending Rock Hudson's Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) in the Western of that name, one of those throwaway Universal potboilers that usually promise more than they deliver. But this one held my interest mainly because of Mr. Palmer, who actually managed to upstage a loin clothed Rock Hudson. There was something of the young Clark Gable in the young Gregg Palmer that the studio obviously missed. Too bad because Gregg could actually act and was as handsome as any in them thar Universal hills. As far as can be determined. Gregg Palmer still lives in his little bungalow in Encino, CA, enjoying his retirement at the age of 86.    

A little aside: according to the usual online sources, Palmer Lee was Gregg's birth name. Really? For some reasons, I doubt that the son of Norwegian immigrants would be named Palmer Lee. But maybe that's just me.

                                       

Doretta Johnson & THE MAGIC CARPET (Columbia, 1951)

Tonight I had the dubious pleasure of watching Lucille Ball's notorious The Magic Carpet, a hilariously bad Sam Katzman Arabian fantasy. Lucille, as most probably know, was toiling under a three-picture deal with Columbia Pictures when Cecil B. DeMille wanted her for his upcoming circus blockbuster The Greatest Show on Earth. Harry Cohn, in true miserly form, refused to let her go and instead held her to her contract and The Magic Carpet, hoping to the end that she would break the contract in disgust and he wouldn't have to pay her. But Lucy and Desi were about to launch their television series and The Magic Carpet, despite its glorious ineptitude, would earn her a hefty $85,000 for five days work and who could turn that down? The rest of course is I Love Lucy history and the onerous Carpet was soon forgotten

As was Doretta Johnson, a dancer and chorus girl who previously had decorated a Bowery Boys movie over at Monogram Pictures but little else. Here, she opens the festivities as the doomed wife if an equally doomed Caliph of Bagdad. Before her untimely demise in the hands of a surly Raymond Burr, Queen Yashima manages to send her infant progeny, and royal heir, away on the wondrous rug of the title. The child grows up to become John Agar and no one leaves the Columbia sound stages for the duration. But at least Doretta (pictured below) had a few lines, which is more than she was given in her previous appearances.   

                          

A Netflix Movie of the Week review: VICE RAID (United Artists, 1960)

Nasty Brad Dexter lures starstruck small town girls into prostitution in Big Bad LA in Vice Raid, which comes with a smidgen of vice but no actual raid if by raid you mean cops swooping in to cart whores and johns to the slammer. This, after all, is 1959 and the word "prostitute" isn't uttered by anybody. But what else would you call Mamie van Doren, the least starstruck of the starstruck girls? Mamie, who has been around the block a couple of times, willingly sets a trap for incorruptible vice lieutenant Richard Coogan, only to turn right around and finger her boss, Dexter, when her truly naive sister (Carol Nugent) gets involved with the gang. It is that kind of film, full of innuendo and doomsday narration - Film Noir made for peanuts but directed by the capable Eddie Cahn and running smoothly to a foregone conclusion. Vice Raid was produced by veteran indie stalwart Edward Small and filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood.

Among the cast members is charming Juli Reding, a starlet extraordinaire of the period here opening the film as one of the aforementioned small town wannabes. And out-Mamieing the real deal in her few moments on screen.  

                                             

The leading man is Richard Coogan, one of those typical bloodless 1950s screen and television heroes who seemed to blend into the scenery. Mr. Coogan is still with us at this writing, only a few months away from turning 100.

MAXINE ARDELL or MAVIS MURRAY

Who is this? The portrait below is designated Paramount starlet Mavis Murray with a date of 1947 but the very same picture appears in the 1946 Academy Players guide as Paramount starlet Maxine Ardell. Who is it, a Mavis or Maxine. Or are they in reality the same person? Both are listed among the chorus girls in the all-star Blue Skies (1946).  

                                  

Paramount starlet JUNE HARRIS

June Harris (1915-1993) was one of the Goldwyn Girls supporting Danny Kaye in Up in Arms (44). She did chorine duties in several other Paramount films before disappearing from cast lists around 1948.

                                                                        

Yesterday, I received a letter from Miss Harris' daughter, Miss Katey Lindley of San Diego, who contributed the following info,

"She was a model in New York (as was her brother….Larry Robbins). She signed with Fox Studios the same day as Marilyn Monroe. She dated Jim Stack (Robert Stacks brother) for many years until she met my dad at Jim’s house playing tennis (it was a weekly thing – cocktails and tennis). My dad was a camera man at Fox and did her test shots (Norman Lindley). They married and she left the industry. Norman Lindley is the brother of Audra Lindley (Yes, Mrs. Roper) – and son of Bert Lindley (silent film). She had wonderful stories to tell of early Hollywood….she even went out with Ronald Regan (her publicist set it up) but she was not a fan of his. Oh, and she was Miss Beverly Hills when she was 17 – so I guess that was 1942. There should be some record since it hit the headlines as she fell after she was crowned and the trophy went rolling away."

Paramount starlet JANET THOMAS

Paramount contract starlet Janet Thomas appeared in the background of the all-star Variety Girl (1947) and the Western California (1947).

(Illustration: a cropped snapshot of Janet Thomas taken on a night out in Hollywood with Howard Hughes' right hand man Johnny Meyer.) 

Vivian Austin and THE CHARGE AT FEATHER RIVER (Warner Bros., 1953)

Blink and you'll miss it. But if you don't blink, you shall witness something rarely shown in any classic Western like The Charge at Feather River: a cavalry officer returning to his quarters to find his wife apparently having an affair with a fellow officer. Will the rivals be heading out with the same search party to rescue a couple of white women (Vera Miles and Helen Westcott) held by the Cheyenne, their mutual distrust not exactly helpful for the mission? Why, yes! The two combatants are acted by genre stalwarts Frank Lovejoy and Don Brodie with the object of their rivalry played, briefly, oh, so briefly, by Vivian Austin. The Western in question, Feather River, was lensed in color and 3-D (which those fortunate enough to have witnessed claim was very effective), starred also-ran performer Guy Madison (playing a scout leader named, amusingly, Mikes Archer) and was produced on Warner Bros. sound stages with brief detours to Newhall and Santa Clarita. Mainly due to the-then brand new 3-D effects but also some quite good writing and solid performances, The Charge at Feather River became the highest grossing Western of 1953.

A busty blonde, Vivian Mason had been around for quite a few years by 1953, mostly performing chorus girl assignments. She was, for example, a Ziegfeld Girl in the eponymous 1941 MGM musical starring Garland, Tuner and LaMarr and there were many other such assignments. Her screen and television career lasted until 1955. Sadly, according to a Wikipedia entry, "Mason died of lanition (a lack of food and water) and dementia on August 24, 2009 in Seattle, Washington. She was a resident of the Ida Culver House-Broadview nursing home at the time of her death, and was cremated."

                                                                    

Joanne Gilbert in RIDE OUT FOR REVENGE (United Artists, 1957)

In Ride Out For Revenge, a rather plodding Western starring Rory Calhoun and pouty Gloria Grahame, Joanne Gilbert plays Pretty Willow, a Cheyenne maiden whose father, the chief, is brutally slain by one of nasty Lloyd Bridges' henchmen. Willow's brother, played, somewhat incongruously by Vince Edwards, swears revenge and Calhoun, the town's former marshal who is "tired of fighting," is caught between his none too secret love for Willow and the attentions of Indian-hating townswoman Grahame. The latter sneers and blames Calhoun for her misfortune while the wind blows hot air and the war drums sound. Miss Grahame has blonde highlights in her hair and Miss Gilbert is apparently one lucky Cheyenne with full access to Max Factor, but that, of course, is standard issue western, 1950s style. Meanwhile, can Calhoun overcome his disgust and save the town by killing his girlfriend's brother? Ride Out for Revenge was filmed in black and white at the Monogram Ranch in Placerita, CA, and in the Agoura Hills.

Joanne Gilbert was the daughter of songwriter Ray Gilbert and was always more famous for her long stint as singing at Los Angeles famous The Mocambo than any of her screen roles. Paramount, who had contracted her straight from her night club gig, let her go when the Western musical Red Garters, in which she supported Rosemary Clooney, went bust at the box office. She escaped into a brief union with screenwriter Danny Arnold and then did her fair share of television guest spots until retiring in the early 1960s. She now resides in Washington State.

                                   

Anne Sterling in BOWERY CHAMPS (Monogram, 1944)

Evelyn Brent as a femme fatale down on her luck (and wasn't that perfect typecasting?) and to a certain extend Thelma White as a dumb broad steal the feminine aspects of Bowery Champs, a Bowery Boys movie otherwise enlivened solely by Leo Gorcey's malapropisms. Nominal romantic interest, what there is of it, is provided by Anne Sterling, whose only other appearance of note came in Edgar Ulmer's noirish Bluebeard from the same year. Yet she still called herself a film and television actress when making less pleasant news in the following decade. Both photos below come courtesy of the Baltimore Sun and tell the story of a very troubled personality.