Showing posts with label Richard Boone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Boone. Show all posts
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| Eleanor Parker and Richard Boone |
Elizabeth (Eleanor Parker of Home for the Holidays) is a timid soul who works in a museum and receives threatening notes from someone named "Lizzie." Then Elizabeth begins hitting the bars at night, wearing sexy clothing and make-up, and affecting a lascivious attitude. A helpful neighbor, Walter (Haas), who is friends with Elizabeth's slatternly Aunt Morgan (Jane Blondell of Advance to the Rear), with whom she lives, suggests she see a psychiatrist named Neal (Richard Boone). Neal is able to determine that Elizabeth has three distinct personalities, but which one will emerge as the dominant one? I'm not certain how Eleanor Parker wound up in this B movie knock-off of The Three Faces of Eve (also released in 1957), but she gives a good performance, and the rest of the cast are all solid. Lizzie equates sexuality with "evil" in some ways, and Parker's least convincing moments are when she turns into a nostril-flaring decadent "Lizzie," eschewing a less subtle way of making each personality distinct. But it works for this movie, which is professionally done but kind of cheap and depressing. Marion Ross and John Reach each make an impression as, respectively, Elizabeth's co-worker and a man she dates as Lizzie. Johnny Mathis also makes an impression playing a pianist/singer in a saloon; he has no dialogue. As an actor, Haas also appeared in Summer Storm and others.
Verdict: Entertaining enough but lurid and unpleasant. **1/2.
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| Crain, Reid, Peters and Showalter in a tense moment |
From the start we learn that a model-actress named Vicki Lynn (Jean Peters) has been murdered, while the rest of the movie explores who might have done the deed and provides flashbacks (supposedly) illuminating the woman and her friends and acquaintances. Among them are her sister, Jill (Jeanne Crain), manager Steve (Elliott Reid), boyfriend Larry (Max Showalter/Casey Adams), ham actor Robin (Alexander D'Arcy), and even a grizzled, homely and obsessed cop named Ed Cornell (Richard Boone) who is relentless in his pursuit of one particular suspect. A nerdy room manager named Harry is a bit overacted by Aaron Spelling, who found much greater success as a television producer years later. This lower case rip-off of Laura features a low-rent cast, superficial characterizations, and an utterly mediocre performance from Boone. The other actors are okay, with Peters, who has been better elsewhere, un-riveting in the central role; four years later she married Howard Hughes and made no more theatrical films. Crain and Peters were also together in Take Care of My Little Girl. Horner also directed The Wild Party.
Verdict: Probably not even Clifton Webb could have saved this from the scrapheap. **.