Wickenburg, Arizona
Month: March 2017
oh dear, oh dear, I think I’m Tuesday-night-drunk. Call a cab and order a curry in a hurry.
Joan Bennett got her start in Hollywood as a lovely, demure, fair-haired ingénue but made her mark as a sexy, feisty, dark-haired femme fatale. Her transformation was atypical in Tinseltown where many natural brunettes such as Carole Lombard, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, found success after becoming bottle blonds. Bennett’s makeover happened during the production of TRADE WINDS (’38), an amusing crime-drama where she plays a woman on the run from the law who is forced to change her appearance. She looked so striking as a brunette that she was inundated with fan mail after the film’s release and got approval from national hairdresser associations who publicly admired her exotic new ‘do. Critics disapprovingly compared her to Hedy Lamarr but according to the actress’s autobiography (The Bennett Playbill), she relished the idea of escaping the “bland, blond, innocent” image that had dogged her and the change of appearance brought about a newfound personal and professional confidence. Afterward Bennett became politically active, fell in love with producer Willam Wanger and began a creative partnership with director Fritz Lang that would forever alter the trajectory of her career.
Joan Bennett and Fritz Lang first teamed-up during making of MAN HUNT (’41), a Twentieth-Century Fox WWII thriller about a British big game hunter (Walter Pidgeon) who is captured by German soldiers while attempting to assassinate Adolph Hitler. The German’s plan to kill him and make his death look like an accident but he escapes and is pursued by authorities. When he returns to England, he meets a sassy streetwise cockney girl played by Bennett who helps him avoid capture.
Joan Bennett: Fritz Lang’s Muse
Marilyn Monroe, 1960. The Daily Mail has recently reported that due to Marilyn having a bit of a belly here, she was pregnant with Yves Montand’s baby. This is FALSE.
Noir By Night 