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Honored Contributor
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Registered: ‎11-08-2014

GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

When I alerted "Black Widow" the other day, I didn't realize it also streams free on youtube.  So if you'd like a stylish, 50's murder mystery set amid the Broadway theater crowd, this might be for you:

 

"Black Widow"--   Gene Tierney, Ginger Rogers, Van Heflin, Peggy Ann Garner, George Raft, Reginald Gardner

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0UBaux-ToM

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Trusted Contributor
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Registered: ‎02-19-2015

Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

@Oznell

My husband and I taped it off FXM and watched it last night. Thank you for the recommendation as it was really entertaining...and the cast...Whew! So many familiar faces, even in the smaller parts.
George Raft was outstanding. His face (and Gene Tierney's face) were made for movies.
We went back to the beginning to check the Set Direction credits...Walter M. Scott and Dorcy Howard...because those sets were so unusual to the eye.
The incredibly long couch in a very light wood that faced the NYC skyline in Heflin and Tierney's apartment was so unexpected. The Mid-Century modern design was mixed with so many interesting touches and color choices: Cloisonne vases and lamps; a very strange white abstract painting in Ginger R.'s apartment; blue lighting and so many blue clothing choices. Even a blue, gold-trimmed telephone.
Also, we had to Google "A Pupose Girl," which was a new term to us.
Loved the movie! Thanks again. First time we've ever seen it.
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Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

Just read the Wikipedia entry and the impossibly long couch may be due to the filming in CinemaScope, which stretches everything out.
Interestingly, Talullah Bankhead was the first choice for the Ginger Roger's roll.
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Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

That's Ginger Rogers' ROLE. Sorry!
Honored Contributor
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Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

Wow, thanks so much for all that, @MarnieRez3 .  I love the way you pick up on things -- you must have a vivid, highly visual memory.  Truly, those sets were amazing, the midcentury accents, and the chinoiserie. Love!

 

Many many interesting little touches.  Loved the "hat check girl" at "Sylvia's" who alerts Van Heflin to Peggy Ann Garner's "purpose girl" nature, ha.  That actress's name slips my mind at the moment, but she was active more in theater, and I think I read she was blacklisted at some point.

 

Did you notice that when "Nancy Ordway" first arrived at her uncle's Greenwich Village apartment, he quickly concealed the pair of gloves that were lying on a table?  It was a little throwaway thing, but they never made anything of it later on, unless I missed it?

 

I'm so glad Van Heflin got the "Peter Denver" part, even though he wasn't their first choice.  He's always so completely plausible in everything he did.  Apparently the film was based on a series of books featuring that character-- I'd like to hunt them up...

 

Honored Contributor
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Registered: ‎03-11-2010

Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

Did you all catch Aaron Spelling in this film?

When I lose the TV controller, it's always in some remote destination.
Honored Contributor
Posts: 18,222
Registered: ‎11-08-2014

Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

[ Edited ]

I did not until you pointed it out, @Group 5 minus 1 -- good call, it is Aaron Spelling, I'm sure!

 

Edited to add:  The guy in the gray suit in the photo in the other "Black Widow" thread, in case anyone's wondering what we're talking about!

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Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

@Group 5 minus 1

Wow! That IS Aaron Spelling...good catch!

I'm not sure who the actress was that played the hat check girl...who later spoke to Heflin in that fabulously-lit noirish bar....but Sylvia was played by the woman who played Darren Stevens' mother in the TV series "Bewitched." How's that for totally useless trivia?

There was also a guest at the party that Ginger Rogers kept insulting by calling her husband by the wrong name and confusing his profession. The guest looked SO familiar but I didn't recognize any minor names in the credits. She's a big toothy actor, but I can't place her.
How funny to see George Raft play against type as The Good Guy instead of a gangster!
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Registered: ‎11-08-2014

Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

The party guest stumped me for a bit, @MarnieRez3 but could it have been Bea Benederet?  (Speaking of trivia, she who later played "Kate" the mother on "Petticoat Junction"?)

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Re: GOOD SUSPENSE MOVIE ON YOUTUBE

Oh yes!!! Well done @Oznell....it WAS Bea Benederet! Thank you!
And she is, indeed, toothy.