Wait while I look up who did the singing* for Gloria Grahame on the excellent and terrifying number, "Ace in the Hole," in Naked Alibi, because it was so not her. She certainly did her own her "dancing."

It was a packed house at the Castro Theatre last night for the "Bad Girls" Noir City X double feature, Naked Alibi  (1954) and Pickup (1951) and worth every yawn and creaking joint this morning. What a wacky picture Naked Alibi is. Everyone was slapping somebody or shootin' 'em or stabbin' 'em or kissin' 'em...hard.  Sterling Hayden plays a seemingly-psycho cop who is convinced that the seemingly-innocent Gene Barry, local baker and family man, has murdered a few cops (one of whom was the ubiquitous Max Showalter) and becomes obsessed with proving it even after he is dismissed from the police force for brutality. Then for some reason they all go to Mexico.

Once over the border, we learn that Gene Barry has a hot cookie on the side in the form of Gloria Grahame and that Sterling Hayden has virtually no police instincts, as he is lured into a dark alley, stabbed and robbed within an hour of arriving. Billy Chapin, shoeshine boy, becomes the catalyst for Hayden meeting Grahame so they can begin their doomed romance. Eventually everyone (except Billy Chapin) goes back over the border and Gene Barry is revealed to be the murderous heel Sterling Hayden always knew he was. Gloria Grahame doesn't make it, sad to say, and I'm sorry, but Sterling Hayden is still psycho.

Gloria Grahame to Sterling Hayden: "I don't understand you, you don't understand me. We have a lot in common."
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* The singing was done by Jo Ann Greer, says the excellent site "Movie Dubbers" and the angel who posted the song on YouTube (it starts about a minute in). 

Beverly Michaels is my new best inappropriate girlfriend who my parents think is a bad influence and forbid me to hang arround with. I can't express how much I enjoyed her performance in Pickup, a surprisingly funny, moderately suspenseful glimpse into the life of bored bad girl in a small town.

Hugo Haas starred in, wrote, and directed this picture. Apparently, this was the first in a series of films Haas made throughout the 1950s on exactly the same topic — hot, mean girl takes shlubby middle-aged man for all he's worth (this from Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir, who gives a short lecture before each movie. Muller, bless him, is kind of a toolbag, but he really knows a lot, so it's worth sitting through the smarm). I'll be trolling for more of Haas's pictures, so stay tuned.

Contrary to what the posters would have you think, Pickup, isn't especially hardboiled. Each character is believeable and flawed; their choices stupid and human. Yes, it's a B noir, but the story is ultimately about loneliness, companionship, and forgiveness — even "Betty" (Beverly Michaels) isn't completely rotten. I'm not going to elaborate, because you really should see it if you can.

Betty stepping out of Hunky's jalopy once she sees the railroad "shack" he lives in: "When's the floor show start?"

You've got your B-Girls, your Floozies, your Party Girls, your Molls, your Caged Women — everything from remorseless sinners to girls led desperately astray.

Choose which classic movie actress was the best at playing the worst, either by making a career of portraying bad girls or giving that one great hussy performance.

If we are to believe the credits, this picture has everything: it was produced by Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers (who I keep wanting to call Buddy Guy, which is so wrong), written by Leo Rosten (of all people) directed by Douglas Sirk, and starred Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, Robert Cummings, and Hazel Brooks, with a little help from Raymond Burr, George Coulouris, and Keye Luke.

Sleep, My Love is really just Gaslight with a couple of Jews and a Chinese wedding. You see everything coming for miles and miles, and for 97 minutes no one calls anyone anything cleverer than "four eyes." There's some gunplay, some sensational if improbable sleepwear, and one good long fall from a skylight, but for what? Robert Cummings comforting Colbert with the world's least satisfying, counter-climactic line: "In a little while, you'll be out of this house forever." The End. "Well, I've got a big day tomorrow, so...." Silly  movie.

Now about Claudette Colbert. I just don't see what the big fuss is about her. I couldn't care less that she's being gaslighted by Don Ameche in this picture and it would have been just fine with me if she and Joel McCrea had never got back together in Palm Beach Story. (Honestly, don't you think he'd have waaaay more fun with the Princess Centimilla?) Her comedy is mannered and self-conscious; her dramatic work is all practiced intensity and zero investment. Yappy lap dog? Probably. Rude to the key grips? Wouldn't be a bit surprised.

What I did get from Sleep, My Love is a good long gander at Hazel Brooks. And, wow, I can't remember having ever been so bored by someone so hot.

While I was waiting for Hazel's turn to stop speaking, I trolled the Internet for a little background about her and learned that she was married for quite some time to Cedric Gibbons -- Art Director of Every Awesome Movie Ever -- and designer of the Oscar statuette. They married when she was 19 and he was 51 and stayed together until his death. Gibbons had previously been married to Dolores Del Rio (also dishy and leggy), which surprised me somewhat, because I had just assumed he was gay. Just goes to show that when one assumes...

But the most important takeaway from Sleep, My Love is that thanks to Raymond Burr playing a bit part as a cop, I can now link Kevin Bacon to both Mary Pickford and Brak from Space Ghost in only three degrees. (For those of you playing at home, John Candy is the second link.)

She'd been dead for five years.*

I just finished watching No Way Out for the first time in a long time, and man, is it tedious. Sure it means well, but what a waste of Richard Widmark and Linda Darnell. He's not psychotic enough -- just thuggy and racist -- and she doesn't get enough banter time.

Now I'm on kind of a tear through as many of her movies as are available to Watch Instantly(TM) on Netflix, which does not, sadly,include A Letter to Three Wives, but does, just as sadly, offer up Brigham Young.

Aaaaany time I want.

And could someone tell me why, when I select Unfaithfully Yours, I am told I might also enjoy Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?!

According to Wikipedia (so it MUST be true), Linda Darnell had a difficult life and a hit-and-miss career, both of which ended in "a downward spiral of alcoholism, unsuccessful marriages and highly publicized or scandalous affairs," which I will so be looking into immediately upon signing off. The horrifying capper is that she died in a house fire. Well, not in the fire, as it turns out, but from the burns she sustained over 90 percent of her body after trying to leave by the door and not the window.
 
I'm now going to pretend I never read that by trying to make it all the way through Brigham Young.

I'll keep you posted.