As a classic film fan, and particularly as a student of Hollywood noir, I adore Linda Darnell. Her bold no-nonsense style coupled with dark, stunning looks make her an actress I find it hard to look away from. (Those lips! Those eyes! That hair!) So, when The Wonderful World of Cinema and The Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood came up with the idea for their Marathon Stars Blogathon, asking film bloggers to pick an actor and deepen our experience by watching more of their work than we’d already seen, Linda Darnell was my star of choice.
BIOGRAPHY
In prepping for this Blogathon, I watched (and in some cases rewatched) films both within and beyond the noir genre. In addition, I read the complex history of her too-short life. (Feel free to skip to “FILMS” below if the personal doesn’t much interest you.) Born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Dallas, Texas on October 16, 1923, the actress’s youthful home featured an absent father and a pushy stage mother who ignored her other children to push Monetta into stardom. With a sweet, quiet temperament and after a series of beauty pageants, she won a Hollywood contract at only 14, only to be sent back home until she was 16 and deemed old enough — only because two studios (Twentieth Century-Fox and RKO) were competing over her. By Twentieth Century-Fox’s Darryl F. Zanuck, she was put immediately into a new name and adult roles, and success soon followed. Her work with Tyrone Power cemented her early stardom, particularly in Hispanic roles, including Lolita Quintero in The Mark of Zorro (1940) and Carmen Espinosa in Blood and Sand (1941).
Like many actresses before her, Hollywood life was a roller coaster, and soon Darnell found she had lost Darryl F. Zanuck’s interest. She was cast in secondary roles and only for her looks. She took a chance and got the studio to loan her out for a seductive, bad girl role in Douglas Sirk’s Chekov adaptation Summer Storm (1944). This sparked new enthusiasm for the actress despite Zanuck’s warnings, and she got to choose her next vehicle, which was the Edwardian noir and box-office success Hangover Square (1945). This led to great acclaim in Otto Preminger’s Fallen Angel (1945), for which she was deemed Oscar-worthy by the director and critics. After a turn as Tuptim in Anna and the King of Siam, she was pushed by Zanuck immediately into John Ford’s My Darling Clementine (1946). For the forgettable role of Chihuahua, she had to lose 12 lbs. and was told by Ford she was wrong for the role.
Preminger caught hold of her again for Forever Amber (1947), where both the audition process and the changing of Darnell into a 17th-century redhead was gruelling, as was her required dieting, leading to collapses from exhaustion. When the ambitious, expensive project was finally over, Darnell took several other solid roles before she captured the public’s heart once more with her hard-edged role in A Letter to Three Wives (1949) opposite Paul Douglas. Next came the picture Darnell called the only “good picture” she ever made, No Way Out (1950), opposite Richard Widmark and Sydney Poitier.
The 1950s, however, led to television and the end of her contract. Darnell worked on several films in Europe, returned home to play several television parts, and finally took stage roles.
Darnell’s romantic life was as dramatic as her acting life. She married cameraman Peverell Marley in 1943, when she was 19 and Marley was 42. Though frowned upon by the studio and many who knew her, the two stayed together and adopted a daughter. And Darnell began to drink. Subsequently, during the shooting of A Letter to Three Wives in 1948, she began a six-year affair with Joseph L. Mankiewicz, though he would never leave his wife for her. When this ended, she dated and married several others and fought increasingly heavy drinking. Eventually, she sobered and faced the future with more optimism, planning stage work and a return to film. However, one night in 1965, after watching her 1940 film Star Dust on television at her former secretary’s home, the house caught fire and burned over 80% of Darnell’s body. She died the next day at age 41.
FILMS
Despite my best intentions, I have still watched only a handful of the 57 films in which Darnell has roles — large, small, or uncredited. I’ll focus here on the five I particularly watched and/or revisited in preparation for this Blogathon, in order of my personal preference. This small group (of four hits and a miss) offers a suggestive sampler of Darnell’s unforgettable beauty, charisma, and talent. I’ll be diving in for more soon.
1. No Way Out (1950): Though I knew her name, No Way Out is the first film featuring Linda Darnell in which I paid direct attention to the actress. Her role is compelling in this social issue-meets-crime/noir picture. Edie Johnson is a woman torn between adherence to the racism learned on the wrong side of the tracks and the enlightenment brought by meeting educated and caring people, both white and black. I particularly love that our focus is not on her beauty but her dynamic character. And I’ve written more about Edie’s role in the film here.
2. Fallen Angel (1950): The next time I watched Darnell in noir was as tough and determined Stella, utterly mesmerizing as she steals Dana Andrews’ heart and the whole picture without even trying. Top-billed Alice Faye doesn’t stand a chance. More about the film when we watched it for #BNoirDetour night here.
3. Hangover Square (1945): I originally sought out this film for its star, Laird Cregar, a fantastic mountain of an actor who chills you to the bone in I Wake Up Screaming (1950), then breaks your heart both within Hangover Square (as a composer fighting murderous madness) and without (because he died two months after crash dieting to take the film’s lead). The film also inspired Stephen Sondheim’s music for Sweeney Todd. When I watched it again, however, it was to take in Linda Darnell’s Victorian singer and ill-fated femme fatale Netta, who exploits the composer to enhance her career. She’s equal parts gorgeous and evil.
4. A Letter to Three Wives (1949): While my choice of films makes plain I enjoy Darnell best when she’s bad, her role in A Letter to Three Wives gives us much of her noir appeal outside a noir framework. Icy, determined Lora Mae aims for marriage to her wealthy, crass boss (Paul Douglas), only to find that, in the end, she actually loves the big gorilla. While Jean Crain wilts and Ann Sothern sparkles, Darnell — whose character’s tale and change of heart occupy the final third of the melodrama — burns from the inside, low and hot.
5. My Darling Clementine (1946): There are many films I could choose for my “miss,” from the musicals Darnell loathed participating in to the secondary roles that gave her little to work with (and me little to discuss). Instead, I end with Chihuahua — for which Darnell received second billing but little acting to go with it. I’m interested in what the role says about the studio system, Hollywood whitewashing, and oppressive feminine beauty norms. As noted above in the BIOGRAPHY section, Darnell found herself cast in the film without interest, forced to lose 12 lbs., and then judged wrong for the part by Ford. I watched this film long ago, and didn’t remember the character at all, much less Darnell. In revisiting with my eye out for the actress, I mostly cringed and shook my head. Darnell’s Chihuahua illustrates how secondary female characters of color were played by dark-eyed, dark-haired white women. Fear of similar cringing will likely always keep me from seeing Rex Harrison as the King of Siam and Darnell as Tuptim with Irene Dunne in Anna and the King of Siam (1946). I may bite the bullet and watch the young Darnell opposite Tyrone Power in their race-bending performances in The Mark of Zorro (1940) and Blood and Sand (1941), but only if I can watch one of the other four films above right after!
In short, Linda Darnell has become a beloved favorite for me in my ongoing exploration of classic Hollywood. And I hope this small introduction tempts you to watch (or rewatch) her dazzling work, too.
March 10, 2016 at 8:41 PM
Yeah, My Darling Clementine annoyed me, too. It’s partly because of how the men treated her. Clementine was a “lady,” so she had to be treated gently, while Chihuahua was “not a lady” and so they all felt free to toss her into a trough and generally abuse, ignore or use her. Things they would never do to Clementine. Very frustrating!
I really enjoyed your line-up of Linda Darnell films! Last year I began to consciously watch her films and really came to appreciate her work. It’s tragic that just as she was coming into her own with films like No Way Out her career had to wane. It seems like she was just at the age when actresses like Bette Davis and Barbara Stanwyck starting making their best remembered films. I feel like we never really saw everything she had to give. It would be like only ever seeing Bette Davis in films from the 1930s.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 11:51 PM
Thanks so much for your response and feedback. You express well the virgin/whore dichotomy that makes My Darling Clementine such a racist, sexist mess, and I lament that we didn’t ever get to see Darnell give the men hell in her 40s, 50s, and beyond.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 10:33 PM
Great overview of Linda Darnell’s life and the films you selected! No Way Out and Hangover Square are on my watchlist, so I’m glad to see you enjoyed those films and her performances in them. I think my favorite of her performances is in A Letter to Three Wives, though she’s equally mesmerizing in Fallen Angel.
Despite the race-bending in The Mark of Zorro and Blood and Sand, I found them both enjoyable for what they were (the latter has some beautiful Technicolor cinematography). I’ve been hesitant to watch Anna and the King of Siam for those reasons you mention though, plus Rex Harrison is a little hit or miss for me. But one film I do like him in is Unfaithfully Yours, which also features a fun turn from Darnell.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 11:52 PM
Unfaithfully Yours is on my next-up list for Darnell, though it looks like Harrison gets all the “fun.” Thanks for your feedback, and let me know what you think of No Way Out and Hangover Square. The former is on YouTube.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 11:00 PM
Nicely done, as always. I’d also recommend UNFAITHFULLY YOURS, Preston Sturges’ black comedy, where she is the apple of husband Rex Harrison’s eye until he suspects her of adultery, at which point he has three vivid revenge fantasies (one of them most noirish!).
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 11:53 PM
Thank you so much, and Unfaithfully Yours is definitely the film I plan to see next, though I’m concerned about those “revenge” fantasies and that Darnell will be the butt of all the jokes.
LikeLike
March 10, 2016 at 11:57 PM
Thanks, very informative, I will give the musicals a miss though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 10, 2016 at 11:58 PM
Go straight for No Way Out, I’d say. Glad you enjoyed the post!
LikeLike
March 11, 2016 at 12:01 AM
I will, love the title as well, noir should be completely fatalistic
LikeLike
March 11, 2016 at 12:10 AM
I always enjoy your posts just need to get better about watching your recommendations…a couple of days I had a day off and watched two Bunuel movies I had seen a million times before…I was like afterwards…ummm watch something you haven’t seen before…oh well…next week I will
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 11, 2016 at 3:14 AM
great article! I must admit I haven’t seen any of her films. Of course I’ve heard about her and the films I most often heard about was My Darling Clementine. Some interesting stuff to explore here!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 11, 2016 at 4:21 AM
Try Letter to Three Wives. I think you’ll like it. Skip Clementine 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 11, 2016 at 2:35 PM
I think Linda is very underrated. I really liked her in A Letter to Three Wives, although her “gorilla” husband doesn’t appeal to me – but I think this is all part of the plot and the character. No Way Out is a great film!
I need to pay more attention to whitewashing and female roles in classic film – this is a very interesting theme.
Don’t forget to read my contribution to the blogathon! 🙂
Cheers!
Le
http://www.criticaretro.blogspot.com
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 11, 2016 at 4:40 PM
Paul Douglas reminds me of Broderick Crawford: perfect at big lug. I like that he admits that he was going to leave Lora Mae in order to reassure the other woman. It shows he can be generous.
And yes, there are many white actresses who played women of color, and women of color who were made white (e.g. Rita Hayworth).
Thanks for commenting!
LikeLike
March 11, 2016 at 10:38 PM
Great piece. I haven’t seen all that many Darnell films as yet, and have only seen My Darling Clementine out of your choices – I don’t remember it now in detail, so should revisit bearing your comments in mind. She plays a Native American woman in Buffalo Bill, where she gives a powerful performance in a smaller role. I’m not sure what I thought about Unfaithfully Yours, where it’s hard to know whether to laugh at the revenge fantasies or not, but definitely worth seeing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 11, 2016 at 11:08 PM
I’m going to watch Unfaithfully Yours soon, with a hint of trepidation! Glad you enjoyed the post, and thanks for commenting!
LikeLike
March 12, 2016 at 12:43 PM
I absolutely love Linda Darnell!
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 15, 2016 at 4:28 AM
You have me curious about the “social issue-meets-crime/noir drama” that is No Way Out. Will definitely be looking for that film.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 15, 2016 at 4:45 AM
It’s a powerful film, meshing different genres and a statement on race worth watching. It’s on YouTube. Hope you enjoy it.
LikeLike
March 21, 2016 at 2:16 AM
So glad you’ve chosen my favorite classic actress to shine a spotlight on. I couldn’t honestly say she’s the greatest actress ever but far better than she was credited with during her career. Best actress or not she’s been my favorite since I was a kid and saw her in Blackbeard, the Pirate on the afternoon movie where she played the damsel in distress.
My order of the five you reviewed would be the same as yours with one exception, A Letter to Three Wives is my favorite of her films and her performances. Lora Mae is such a complete and well-rounded character and her work so lived in. Edie Johnson is a close second but the focus of her story is more narrowly defined, still great work.
I’ve seen all but seven of her films, all of which have proved maddeningly elusive through the years. A few are early ones, her first Hotel for Women, Rise and Shine and The Great John L. which I don’t really have high hopes for but want to see for completeness sake. Two are her Italian pictures, It Happens in Roma and Angels of Darkness, the second one sounds the most interesting co-starring her with Valentina Cortese and Giulietta Masina. But the two I’m most eager to track down are The Guy Who Came Back which pairs her again with Paul Douglas and most especially The Lady Pays Off where she reunited with Douglas Sirk just before he entered into his peak years with All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind.
Some films of hers that I’d recommend if you haven’t seen, in chronological order:
It Happened Tomorrow (1944)-A sweet fantasy directed by Rene Clair
Summer Storm (1944)-Her first time working with Sirk and really her first opportunity to show what she was capable of.
The Walls of Jericho (1948)-She’s in full devious mode in this playing a character with the exotic name Algeria Wedge.
Unfaithfully Yours (1948)-Ravishing in a series of crazy jealous imaginings of Rex Harrison.
Everybody Does It (1949)-Paired with Paul Douglas again as an opera singer in a zingy comedy.
This is My Love (1954)-This one will almost assuredly be the toughest to find but considering your love of noir it will be the one that will be of the most interest for you. Linda plays a lonely woman who lives with her sister, Faith Domergue and her wheelchair bound husband (and Linda’s former boyfriend) the bitter Dan Duryea. It’s very much a latter day noir despite being in color and she and Duryea set off acting fireworks as they tear into each other.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 21, 2016 at 2:58 AM
Many thanks for your response and recommendations. Unfaithfully Yours is next on my to-see list, and you’ve given me more to add soon!
LikeLike
March 21, 2016 at 3:00 AM
Just found This is My Love: http://www.rarefilmm.com/2015/05/this-is-my-love-1954.html
Will watch it tomorrow if I can!
LikeLike
March 22, 2016 at 3:19 AM
Just wanted to pop back and say thanks for drawing my attention to the rare films site. Don’t know how its remained unknown to me but it’s a treasure trove of titles I’ve been looking for! Including The Lady Pays Off, that Linda Darnell title I most wanted to find which I’ve already watched. It was a sweet little comedy. Thanks again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
March 22, 2016 at 6:30 PM
So glad the site is of use. I got to see several flicks I’d long been missing, too.
LikeLike