Today's Noir Birthday

[Surly]

With Doris Dowling in The Blue Dahlia

Howard Da Silva was Ray Milland's bartender in The Lost Weekend (1945), nightclub owner Eddie Harwood in The Blue Dahlia (1946), Chicamaw Mobley in They Live by Night (1949), rancher and gang leader Owen Parkson in Border Incident (1949), racketeer Carl Durham in The Underworld Story (1950), the Deputy Police Chief in Fourteen Hours (1951), and Inspector Carney in M (1951). His already brilliant career in noir was cut short by the biggest blackout of all, the blacklist. He went before HUAC in 1951, and was the first witness from Hollywood to invoke the Fifth Amendment, objecting to being called to testify against himself. Some of Da Silva's earlier credits are Strange Alibi (1941), Nine Lives Are Not Enough (1941), Blues in the Night (1941), Bullet Scars (1942), Juke Girl (1942), The Big Shot (1942), and The Great Gatsby (1949). Post blacklist Da Silva worked on the stage, before returning to film and television. He was in the legal drama series For the People (1965). Somewhat ironically, Da Silva was cast as President Franklin D. Roosevelt in The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977). Between 1974 and 1977 he was a regular on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.


Pointing the finger at the committee

[Surly]

Tyrone Power ran down Nightmare Alley (1947), one of the greatest of all films noir.

[Surly]

Alice Faye was the Fallen Angel (1945).

[Surly]

As Mike Hammer

Darren McGavin starred in was the 1950s television series Crime Photographer (1951 – 1952), based on the pulp and radio series Casey, Crime Photographer, Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer (1956 – 1959), Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974 – 1975), and The Outsider (1968 – 1969), as well as the TV movies The Night Stalker (1972), The Night Strangler (1973). His film work includes an uncredited bit as a student in Fear (1946), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and The Case Against Brooklyn (1958.)

[Surly]

Val Lewton, my favorite film producer.





All from The Seventh Victim (1943)

[Surly]

The Blue Gardenia

Anne Baxter starred in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Guest in the House (1944), Yellow Sky (1949), All About Eve (1950), I Confess (1953), The Blue Gardenia (1953), Bedevilled (1955), Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958), and Mix Me a Person (1962), .

[Steve-O]

The Seventh Victim is great. Really might be my favorite Val Lewton... behind Cat People.

[Steve-O]

Alice Faye was the Fallen Angel (1945).

Fallen Angels

Hot.

[Surly]

Fallen Angels

Hot.

Subtle? Maybe not. Still, what a great image.

[Surly]

No Man's Woman with Marie Windsor

Actor John Archer worked as a radio announcer and actor, including one year in the starring role of Lamont Cranston in The Shadow. He was in in a number of movie serials for Universal and Republic under his birth name, Ralph Bowman, before winning a radio contest which led to a RKO contract in the name of "John Archer." His films include Roger Touhy, Gangster (1944), White Heat (1949), The Great Jewel Robber (1950), Dragon's Gold (1954), No Man's Woman (1955), Rock Around the Clock (1956), Affair in Reno (1957), Budd Boetticher's Decision at Sundown (1957), and City of Fear (1959).


With Alan Hale Jr. and Harry Bartell in Affair in Reno

[Surly]

The Price of Fear

Best known for playing Tarzan in a series of films, actor Lex Barker was also in Crossfire (1947), The Velvet Touch (1948), The Price of Fear (1956), The Girl in Black Stockings (1957), Female Fiends (1958), La Dolce Vita (1960), The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961), The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962), and Scarlet Eye (1963).


With Gert Frobe in The Return of Dr. Mabuse

[Surly]

A good look at John Archer.

[Surly]

Happy birthday to Geraldine McEwan, television's Miss Marple from 2004 to 2009.

[Surly]

Margo clicked her castanets in The Leopard Man (1943).

[Surly]

Margaret Field had a bit in The Big Clock (1948), and was uncredited in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948). She was in Chicago Deadline (1949), A Modern Marriage (1950). She was in Edgar G. Ulmer's The Man from Planet X (1951), Paul Henreid's For Men Only (1952), Captive Women (1952), and Inside Detroit (1956). She was the mother of actress Sally Field.


The Man from Planet X

[Surly]

Hey, Steve-O, I think you moved a couple extra birthday posts here by mistake. Not that Charles minds the company.

[Steve-O]

Hey, Steve-O, I think you moved a couple extra birthday posts here by mistake. Not that Charles minds the company.

Fixed! I'm looking for another still for one of my favs Margo!
edit:


Margo - exotic beauty who was in Viva Zapata -- was married to Eddie Albert until his death....


thanks again.

[Surly]

And, speaking of Miss Marple, there's the delightfully droll and dithering Margaret Rutherford.

[Surly]

Kent Taylor was TV's Boston Blackie. He was in Roger Touhy, Gangster (1944), Smooth as Silk (1946), Deadline for Murder (1946), The Crimson Key (1947), Second Chance (1947), Half Past Midnight (1948), Trial Without Jury (1950), Federal Agent at Large (1950), Slightly Scarlet (1956), and many more.

[Surly]

Maxine Cooper was Velda to Ralph Meeker's Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly (1955).