Movie Monday: O.S.S.

Movie Monday: O.S.S.

Everyone loves a good spy flick, and throughout the 1930s and 1940s Hollywood put out their fair share, but as soon as World War II ended, executives scrambled produce a film about the O.S.S., the Office of Strategic Services and precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency. Paramount won the race with the May 1946 release of O.S.S. Written by Richard Maibum, a WWII veteran who later wrote twelve of the first fifteen James Bond movies. Maibum also narrates O.S.S.

The movie stars Alan Ladd and Geraldine Fitzgerald, a prolific Irish American actress who unfortunately has been long forgotten despite winning a Daytime Emmy Award and nominations for an Academy Award, a Tony award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Initially studying painting at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art, she was inspired to move into acting in 1932 by her aunt actress Shelah Richards. Relocating to London she was successful almost immediately and appeared in several films before crossing “the pond” to America where she went to Hollywood and was cast in many well-known films such as Wuthering Heights (1939), Dark Victory (1939), and Watch on the Rhine (1943). Her portrayal of Elaine Dupress in O.S.S. is strong with just enough “braininess and class to get the job done.”(1)

O.S.S. was Alan Ladd’s first film after The Blue Dahlia that released in April 1946.

, and he does a brilliant job as an undercover agent working in occupied France during the war. In intriguing twist to his character is that he is sent to work for the OSS after being arrested for espionage while attempting to steal an electric circuit from a Baltimore, Maryland manufacturing plant. Apparently, thievery was a skill in demand for the organization! His character isn’t quite Bondesque but as one source put it, the flavor of the film suggests later Bond elements.

John Hoyt, who would go on to star in many film noir, makes his noteworthy debut in O.S.S. as a darkly twisted Gestapo agent who falls for Fitzgerald and manipulates her into romantic relationship (or so he thinks). He manages to live after she attempts to kill him and spends the remainder of the movie trying to find the woman “who did him wrong.”

The movie is directed by Irving Pichel who began his acting career when studios were hiring theater-trained actors for the “new fangled” talkies. He secured a contract with Paramount and worked extensively through the 1930s as a character actor. He also performed on radio and narrated two of Hollywood’s most popular movies, How Green was my Valley and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. When acting jobs began to dry up just before WWII commenced, he turned to directing and was tapped to direct several B-movies before moving to 20th Century Fox to direct their leading actors and actresses. Many of his movies were pro-British and anti-Nazi. Tragically, he would later be part of the “Hollywood Nineteen” who refused to name suspected Communists to the House Un-American Activities Committee, were blacklisted, and saw their careers implode as a result.

Alan Ladd and Richard Benedict reprised their roles in a 60-minute adaptation for the “Lux Radio Theater” broadcast that aired on November 18, 1946.

Have you seen this classic?

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Dutch Dawn

Will they survive the 500-mile journey to freedom?

Isak Westgard is only six missions short to be rotated stateside. Then the unthinkable happens, and he crashes in the occupied Netherlands where the chances of him making it back to England are slim to none. The beautiful and tough-as-nails resistance courier begs to differ and claims she hasn’t lost anyone yet. The problem is the longer they’re together, the less he wants to escape.

 
Annaliese Claasen has escorted her fair share of refugees and downed Allied pilots to safety - too numerous to remember. Until now. There’s something different about the Norwegian-American lieutenant, and it’s more than his good looks. Can she get him out of the country before losing her heart?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/bMjoxV

Photo credits:

Movie Poster: By Unknown - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038794/, Fair use

Movie Stills: Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.S.S._(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038794/
https://mikestakeonthemovies.com/2020/02/15/o-s-s-1946/

(1) https://mikestakeonthemovies.com/2020/02/15/o-s-s-1946/

Movie Monday: The Blue Dahlia

Movie Monday: The Blue Dahlia

Released April 19, 1946, The Blue Dahlia is a classic film noir and mystery, and  author Raymond Chandler’s first original screenplay. The movie was directed by George Marshall who got his start in Hollywood as an extra in silent films. Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, and William Bendix head the cast. For those unfamiliar with the genre, film noir uses high-contrast black-and-white lighting, heavy shadows, rain-soaked streets, a cynical, hard-boiled hero, flashbacks, complex investigative plots, voice over narration, and themes of corruption, greed, and paranoia.

The plot - an ex-bomber pilot who is suspecting of murdering his unfaithful wife - features three recently demobilized U.S. Navy aviators, Johnny, Buzz, and George, who arrive in Hollywood. George and Buzz get an apartment while Johnny heads home, a hotel bungalow, to see his wife, Helen, where she is in the midst of a wild party. During their reunion, it comes out that she’s having an affair with Eddie, the owner of The Blue Dahlia nightclub on Sunset Strip. Johnny punches Eddie which brings an end to the party, and everyone leaves. In his anger, Johnny pulls a gun on Helen but eventually drops it on a chair and departs. In the bus station the following morning, he hears the radio announcement that his wife has been murdered. A variety of characters are introduced each with a motive to kill Helen. During the denouement, most end up in the Blue Dahlia which results in a shootout. The murderer is killed, and Johnny “heads into the sunset.”

Alan Ladd, primarily known for film noir and westerns, plays Johnny. “Discovered” by Paramount in

1933, he didn’t gain traction in career until nearly eight year later when he was cast in Graham Greene’s This Gun for Hire. During World War II, Ladd served in the U.S. Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit and appeared in a trailer promoted a war loan drive. As with many actors who left Hollywood during the war, films that he was supposed to appear in were either postponed or cast with other actors. After his discharge he joined the Hollywood Victory Committee and volunteered to tour in USO shows.

Veronica Lake, born Constance Frances Marie Ockelman, frequently played femme fatales in film noir and was often paired with Alan Ladd. She got her start in 1941 when produce Arthur Hornblow, Jr. was looking for a “new girl” to play a nightclub singer in his drama I Wanted Wings. Hornblow is the one who convinced Veronica to change her last name, saying, “her eyes were calm and clear like a blue lake.” Tragically, Veronica struggled with alcohol and career sputtered as a result.

According to several sources, Chandler originally intended for Buzz to be the murderer, but the U.S. Navy objected to a wounded veteran being portrayed as a killer, so the ending was changed. Chandler was not happy with the change noting in his diary “What the Navy Department did to the story was a little thing like making me change the murderer and hence making a routine whodunit out of a fairly original idea.”

The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, but Ladd’s performance was praised by all with Variety magazine saying, “Alan Ladd does a bang-up job. Performance has a warm appeal, while in his relentless track down of the real criminal, Ladd has a cold, steel-like quality that is potent.” Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, The Blue Dahlia lost to British melodrama The Seventh Veil.

Have you seen this classic?

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Norwegian Nights:

Can their marriage endure a debilitating injury, a devastating loss, and a world war?

The second anniversary of Germany’s occupation of Norway has passed with no end in sight, so Gustav Westgard and his wife are still exiled on Shetland. He’s convinced Oda’s miscarriage would have been prevented back in Norway and decides he must return to his homeland to do whatever possible to rid the country of its invaders. Will he live to see liberation?

Grieving the loss of her baby, Oda turns toward her heavenly Father as Gustav retreats inside himself. Rather than try to stop him after she discovers he plans to join the Norwegian resistance, she stows away onboard the ship taking him home. Can she convince him that they are better united in a cause than apart?

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/bwl5qv
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Sources: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Dahlia
https://users.pfw.edu/stapletm/BlueDahlia.html
https://robotswithcoffee.com/2024/10/10/movie-review-the-blue-dahlia-1946/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Blue-Dahlia
https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/the-blue-dahlia
https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/24704
https://moviemaniamadness.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/the-blue-dahlia-starring-alan-ladd-veronica-lake/

Photo Credits:

Movie Poster: By http://www.movieposterdb.com/, Fair use.

Still with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake: Paramount Pictures

Still with Alan Ladd and William Bendix: Paramount Pictures