Yesterday's afternoon double feature at Noir City 9.

A lonely, mentally unbalanced woman invents a fictitious daughter and has the "daughter" write to a Marine stationed in the South Pacific. When the soldier returns back to the States, he goes to look up his pen pal, and is told by the "mother" that the daughter has moved away. An acquaintance of the women tells the soldier the truth, and in a rage the "mother" kills her. In order to cover up that crime, she realizes she must kill the soldier, too. Written by frankfob2@yahoo.com and swiped, by me,  from imdb.

Best Line (thanks to a tweet from anniebacon): "we've got a randy dandy at the door" "what's that?" "its nurse slang for a marine."

Everybody's probably already seen this movie and most would agree that the best thing about it is Angela Lansbury, who was both devastating and scene-stealing. 

My BFF, Halliwell's Film Guide of 1994, tells me that the Bergman/Boyer version is a remake of an apparently much more suspenseful British film by the same name and that stars my boyfriend, Anton Walbrook. Halliwell's gave the movie a rare four stars, describing the story as: A Victorian schizophrenic drives his wife insane when she seems likely to stumble on his guilty secret of an old murder and hidden rubies. The newer film it called "a grossly overblown and less effective version" with "moments of power..." and gave it two stars. Which seems fair to me.

But MGM didn't want the original film to compete with its big-name version and decided to buy the rights to the British film. Then it destroyed all prints but one, which was saved on the sly by the filmmaker, Thorold Dickinson.

Not very sporting of MGM, don't you think?

My problem with gaslighting generally is that it's such an inefficient and overly elaborate way to get rid of a spouse. Just have her strangled already.

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.)