ROMANTIC-SUSPENSE AND MYSTERY FANS CHECK OUT MONDAY TCM

Oznell · ‎11-08-2014

Monday is crammed full of terrific movies of this genre due to it being "Audrey Totter" Day in "Summer Under the Stars".

Audrey Totter, the exotic looking blonde film noir siren with the level, penetrating gaze and broad Slavic cheekbones, specialized in both memorable bad girls and very smart cookies.

Some of us have bewailed the dry August sabbatical of TCM's weekly "Noir Alley", so Monday offers welcome relief!

Golly, this is almost too bulky to handle, so will post the schedule, and some bare-bones recomendations, then a few fleshed-out reviews later. Sorry this will have to be so sort of piecemeal, but there's too much to cover!

Here's the schedule:

http://www.tcm.com/schedule/index.html?tz=est&sdate=2018-08-06

I'm going to recommend:

8:00 a.m. Eastern--The Postman Always Rings Twice (a no-brainer of course, with a tiny but juicy role for Audrey)

1:30 p.m. Eastern-- "Any Number Can Play"-- Clark Gable, Alexis Smith, Audrey Totter, Wendell Corey

3:30 p.m. Eastern-- "Man in the Dark"-- Edmond O'Brien, Audrey Totter

5:00 p.m. Eastern-- "The Sellout"-- Walter Pidgeon, Audrey Totter, John Hodiak, the fabulous Thomas Gomez

6;30 p.m. Eastern-- "The Set-Up"-- Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter

8:00 p.m. Eastern-- "Tension"-- Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse

10:00 Eastern-- "High Wall"-- Audrey Totter, Robert Taylor, Herbert Marshall (If you can only see one of these movies, make it this one)

Midnight Eastern-- "Lady in the Lake"-- Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter

2:00 a.m. Eastern-- "The Unsuspected" Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett

Told you it was chock-a-block! I'm going to try to post a few individual alerts on some of these later, but wanted to give the overall heads-up first.

GingerPeach · ‎03-12-2010

Ah, summer noir!

Audrey Totter:

17 Best images about Audrey Totter & Adele Mara on ...

[was Homegirl] Love to be home . . . thus the screen name. Joined 2003.

Oznell · ‎11-08-2014

That is the coolest photo of sultry Audrey Totter, @GingerPeach! I've been picturing her in her roles where she plays a buttoned-up publisher, psychiatrist, etc., but it's fun to see her sizzle too....

Oznell · ‎11-08-2014

Early in her career, she was a very effective brunette, ha. She provided a brief respite for John Garfield from Lana Turner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice". See her dark-haired look at about the 1:40 mark in the trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xupI7M-yj8U

Judaline · ‎03-10-2010

OK, I'm going to burst your bubble here. Very disheartening. If you watch, it takes a bit till she appears. I only wanted to see her so I didn't watch the full interview. I caught a tiny bit where she was saying that someone told her, 'you don't need jewels. You have jewels inside.' How beautiful is that??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH59GkQDPzo

Oznell · ‎11-08-2014

She's so grounded and cute in that interview! Despite the hyper interviewer, he was annoying me. Interesting that she dated Cesar Romero. Unlike the piece I read before, it seems there was no "romance" with Gable-- I'll have to change that in the post I did. I like that she thought so highly of Robert Montgomery, from their experience together in "Lady in the Lake"...

Thanks for posting-- if you can get past that manic interviewer, it's a fascinating glimpse into old Hollywood...

trenet · ‎03-26-2017

I love “The Unsuspected”, “High Wall” and “Tension” which may help with Noir Withdrawal!

In “The Sellout”, I love the song Audrey Totter played on jukebox and on the piano when John Hodiak asked her to play their song.

That beautiful song is ”You’re All I Need”.

I always think of the Billy Eckstine version since that is the first version I heard but, Sarah Vaughn and Carmen McRae have also recorded. I have both the Eckstine and McRae versions and was fortunate to see Carmen McRae perform it in a club in the late 70’s.