#H. Bruce Humberstone

[ibleachednirvana]

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[gatutor]

Glenn Miller-Sonja Henie-John Payne "Tú serás mi marido" (Sun valley serenade) 1941, de H. Bruce Humberstone.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[chaptertwo-thepacnw]

victor sen yung and layne tom jr. |1938|

[directorsnarrative]

I Wake Up Screaming • Director H. Bruce Humberstone

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I Wake Up Screaming (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1941) Cast: Victor Mature, Betty Grable, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar, William Gargan, Alan Mowbray, Allyn Joslyn, Elisha Cook Jr., Morris Ankrum, Charles Lane, Frank Orth, Gregory Gaye, Chick Chandler, Cyril Ring, May Beatty. Screenplay: Dwight Taylor, based on a novel by Steve Fisher. Cinematography: Edward Cronjager. Art direction: Richard Day, Nathan Juran. Film editing: Robert L. Simpson. Music: Cyril J. Mockridge. I Wake Up Screaming, in which no one actually wakes up screaming, was not one of 20th Century Fox's priority projects in 1941, witness the fact that it was assigned to one of the studio's second-string directors, H. Bruce Humberstone, who was usually in charge of B-movies like the Charlie Chan films. Even its stars were not of the first rank: Betty Grable would become famous for her "gams" as the GIs' pin-up girl during the coming war, but she had mostly been a decorative element, not a leading lady, in her previous movies. Victor Mature had been in movies for only a year, having worked with Carole Landis in Hal Roach's caveman saga One Million B.C. in 1940. The studio didn't bother with an original score for the film, instead hiring Cyril J. Mockridge to orchestrate the theme music Alfred Newman had composed for King Vidor's 1931 film Street Scene, along with a love theme adapted from the Oscar-winning song Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg had composed for The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939). Today, the reiterations of "Over the Rainbow" against the murder mystery background are among the more unintentionally unsettling things about I Wake Up Screaming, which Fox initially released under another title, Hot Spot. Given all this uncertainty, it's surprising that the movie works as well as it does, generating some real suspense and keeping its plot twists concealed until the right moment. Probably its greatest strength lies not in the performances of its leads, though Mature in particular is perfectly fine, but in that of Laird Cregar, as the sinister cop who wants to pin the murder of Landis's Vicky Lynn on Mature's Frankie Christopher. Cregar is a true heavy in every sense of the word, his bulk playing off well against Mature's own large presence. Cinematographer Edward Cronjager works well with shadows, which has earned I Wake Up Screaming a reputation as one of the first American film noirs. Humberstone unfortunately doesn't have the noir touch, and undermines Cronjager's efforts with some attempts at lightening up the mood, including a silly detour into a swimming pool scene that doesn't do much other than give Grable an opportunity to show off her legs and Mature to bare his chest. But all in all, it's a better film than most of the people connected with it had any right to expect.

[bens-things]

Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[angelstills]

Pin Up Girl (1944)

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every 1930s movie watched (32 - ∞)

If I Had a Million (1932)

dir. James Cruze, H. Bruce Humberstone, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Z. McLeod, Lothar Mendes, Stephen Roberts, William A. Seiter, Norman Taurog

I'm dying and I don't know of one man in all the thousands that I employ that's fit to leave in charge of a peanut stand.

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Caesar Romero aboard the Cunard liner 'Queen Mary' on arrival in Southampton before appearing in H. Bruce Humberstone’s HAPPY GO LOVELY (1951)

[incredibletales]

BETTY GRABLE & VICTOR MATURE as Jill Lynn & Frankie Christopher in I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[classicfilmcentral]

Carole Landis in I Wake Up Screaming (1941) dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

[gatutor]

Frances Dee-Buster Crabbe "El hombre león" (King of the jungle) 1933, de H. Bruce Humberstone, Max Marcin.

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[dr-archeville]

This weekend (Friday, June 23rd to Sunday, June 25th, 2023) at the Carolina Theatre of Durham, it’s RetroNoir!

WHAT IS FILM NOIR?

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the early 1960s. The term film noir (French for “black film”) was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the classic era. Cinema historians and critics defined the noir canon in retrospect; before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic film and crime noirs were referred to as melodramas. Latter-day works such as “LA Confidential” and “Seven” are often referred to as neo-noirs.  

Featuring

John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

John Farrow's The Big Clock (1948)

Rudolph Mate's D.O.A. (1949)

Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945)

Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963)

Raoul Walsh's High Sierra (1941)

H. Bruce Humberstone's I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946)

Otto Preminger's Laura (1944)

Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear (1944)

Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948)

Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) 

Raoul Walsh's White Heat (1949)

Movie tickets are $10.00 each, or you can get a 10-pack for $80.  Check here for schedule.

“Along with the City of Durham, we have made major investments in the Carolina Theatre for the comfort and safety of our guests during our closure,” says Randy McKay, the Carolina Theatre’s President & CEO. “That includes tens of thousands of dollars in new state of the art HVAC upgrades from Global Plasma Solutions (GPS) that remove biohazards, pollen, and other contaminants to make our air as pure — and sometimes purer — than outdoor air.”  The theater has also earned a Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ accreditation for its cleaning practices to ensure that guests have a safe and enjoyable experience.  “Together, these cleaning practices and advanced air filtration make the Carolina Theatre one of the safest spaces to attend a film or live event in the region,” says McKay.  [source]

Carolina Theatre of Durham 309 W. Morgan St., Durham, NC http://www.carolinatheatre.org/

[braineyboxd]

Classic Films on YouTube (Pt. 1)

Easy Living (1937) - Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, dir. Mitchell Leisen

Merrily We Live (1938) - Constance Bennett, Brian Aherne, dir. Norman Z. McLeod

Sun Valley Serenade (1941) - Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, dir. H. Bruce Humberstone

The Farmer's Daughter (1947) - Loretta Young, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, dir. H.C. Potter

For more classic films on YouTube, check out my list on Letterboxd.