Showing posts with label Irene Hervey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irene Hervey. Show all posts
 |
| Irene Hervey and Donald Cook on the run |
Muriel (Irene Hervey) is a wealthy woman married to a comparably poor bank teller named Barry (Donald Cook) who apparently prefers that they live on his salary. Muriel's mother (Doris Lloyd) resents the hell out of this and nags him to make something more out of himself and for Muriel to get rid of him. The weak, stupid Barry robs a bank and is captured after a high-speed chase with police. Although Muriel promises to wait for him until he gets out of jail, she quite sensibly divorces him at the urging of her mother and marries the odious and insanely jealous older man, Bill (Edwin Maxwell). And then things get even more melodramatic when Barry gets out of jail ... There's a murder, a robbery plot, a chase on the river, all of it told in mostly unexceptional fashion, but the weird thing is that seven years in jail seems to have made Barry suave. The acting isn't bad, and the movie isn't terrible, just not very memorable. Although Muriel's mother is unpleasant and snobbish, some of her attitudes toward Barry are completely justified. Irene Hervey was in Manhandled in a very different sort of role years later, and appeared sporadically as Aunt Meg on Honey West. Cook was in Frisco Jenny and Lloyd was in the 1931 Waterloo Bridge.
Verdict: Women who love not wisely but well. **.
 |
| "Play Misty for me," says the lady on the phone |
Radio DJ Dave (Clint Eastwood) plays easy listening on the night shift, and he consistently gets calls from a woman who says "Play Misty for me." One night Dave meets a woman named Evelyn (Jessica Walter) at a bar and has a one-night stand with her. She not only turns out to be the lady who requests Misty, but she seems to think this one encounter means that she and Dave are in a "relationship." Things get worse when Dave sleeps with her a second time, and she acts as if they're engaged, showing up uninvited, expecting him to act like a significant other when all he wants to do is get away from her. In spite of this, Dave shows compassion after Evelyn's suicide attempt [a doctor friend risks his license by not reporting the incident, even though it would have forced Evelyn to get help], after which Evelyn is even more deeply "attached" to the man. If anything her behavior gets worse ... Play Misty for Me is an entertaining visualization of one man's Casual Sex Nightmare, and features a striking performance from Jessica Walter with an okay Eastwood pretty much along for the ride. Eastwood also directed the film, which is well-shot by Bruce Surtees. There's an exciting, if too brief, climax wherein Evelyn tries to butcher Dave; a sequence where she stabs repeatedly at his poor maid, Birdie (an amusing and sassy Clarice Taylor) is acceptable but hardly has the "Psycho-like editing" one critic attributed to it. Eastwood, as usual, whispers all of his lines [the way a woman would if she wants to sound slinky] in a way he assumes sounds masculine and sexy. Donna Mills [Curse of the Black Widow] plays his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Tobie. In this she is sweet and fresh-scrubbed; she later successfully reinvented herself as a devious sexpot for the show Knot's Landing. John Larch ["It's a Good Life" on Twilight Zone] and Irene Hervey [Honey West] have notable bits as, respectively, a cop who comes afoul of Evelyn, and a radio producer who wants to sign Dave to a great new contract until Evelyn interferes. Duke Everts plays Tobie's gay friend Jay Jay like a stereotype, and Don Siegel has his first acting part as a bartender. A romantic sequence to the strains of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is effective, but a long sequence at a jazz festival just stops the picture dead. Although I haven't seen Fatal Attraction in a long time, I think this is a better picture.
Verdict: A zesty Walter makes this a pleasure. ***.