#jeanette nolan

[countesspetofi]

Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, James Doohan appears in "Care of General Delivery," episode 33 of the single season of A Man Called Shenandoah (original air date May 9, 1966).

Doohan plays Francis Xavier O'Connell, a military historian the amnesiac Shenandoah believes will be able to reveal his true identity. However, he turns out to be an imposter; the real O'Connell died a year ago and the townspeople have been pretending he's still alive to collect his generous pension.

Other Trek connections: Robert Hamner, who was the associate producer of this and 20 other episodes of A Man Called Shenandoah, co-wrote the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon."

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Night Court S02E13 Dan's Parents.

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Alias Smith and Jones (Pilot, 1971).

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Jeanette Nolan and Glenn Ford in Fritz Lang’s THE BIG HEAT (1953)

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Abandoned (1949)

"Now, look, pal. If it were me, I'd tell you I couldn't fix it, not for love nor money."

"Who said anything about love?"

"Like all the rest. You think you can buy me for money."

"Here, Delaney."

"Well, you're right. But it takes more."

"Who said anything about no more?"

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Orson Welles and Jeanette Nolan as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (1948)

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) John Ford

February 17th 2024

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[cinevisto32]

Macbeth (1948)

[papermoonloveslucy]

“THE TEN GRAND”

June 22, 1944

“The Ten Grand” was an episode of radio’s Suspense broadcast on June 22, 1944. The script is by Virginia Radcliffe. It was her only Suspense script in a long radio writing career. She was best recognized for many years of writing for Cavalcade of America. This story was included in Suspense Magazine #3.

The program was produced and directed by William Spier.

Synopsis: A broke chorus girl inexplicably finds ten thousand dollars in her purse after it's been temporarily stolen on the subway. She's not sure what to do about it, and it soon leads to trouble. She has been set up.

Suspense was a radio drama series broadcast on CBS Radio from 1940 through 1962. One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, it was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era.

The program was sponsored by Roma Wines, a Cailfornia vintage. Schenley (the makers of Roma) sponsored Suspense from December 02, 1943 to November 20, 1947. 

CAST

Lucille Ball (Gigi Lewis) had done a previous episode of Suspense in January 1944 titled “Dime a Dance”. In 1944, Ball was entering her second decade in Hollywood. Ball’s latest film, Meet The People, had been released three weeks before this radio broadcast.  Playing a down-on-her-luck chorine was not so far afield for Ball, who was just that before being hired to be a Goldwyn Girl in Hollywood. 

In the program, Gigi narrates her own story. 

Harry Lang (Wino / Axis Agent) portrayed Pancho on Mutual Radio's "The Cisco Kid". He appeared in 87 films, mostly B pictures and shorts. 

Patrick McGeehan (The Greek) was an actor and narrator who frequently was heard on radio, television, and in films. 

In the story, Gigi calls him ‘Galahad’ till he reveals his true identity. 

John McIntire (Fat Man on the Subway) is probably best remembered for playing the Sheriff in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960). From 1959 to 1965 he was a regular on TV’s “Wagon Train”. 

Jeanette Nolan (Old Lady on the Subway / Waitress) was a television, radio and film actress whose career spans over seventy years, although she is most remembered for her performances on radio. She made her film debut as Lady Macbeth in the 1948 film Macbeth starring Orson Welles, who also directed. She provided the voice of ‘Mother’ in Psycho (1960). 

Joseph Kearns (The Man in Black) briefly played banker Rudolph Atterbury on Lucille Ball’s radio show “My Favorite Husband,” until the role was assumed by Gale Gordon, an actor who would figure prominently in Kearns’ career. He did his first episode of “I Love Lucy” playing psychiatrist Tom Robinson in “The Kleptomaniac” (ILL S1;E27) in 1952. In his second “I Love Lucy” appearance, Kearns played the theatre manager in “Lucy’s Night in Town” (ILL S6;E22) in 1957. In the fall of 1959, he created the role he would be best known for - and would ultimately be his last. Mr. George Wilson on TV’s “Dennis the Menace” appearing in 96 episodes starting with the very first. When he passed away during the show’s final season, his “Our Miss Brooks” co-star Gale Gordon took over for him, playing his brother John.

THE EPISODE

As the program opens, Gigi is standing in front of Lindy’s, a coffee shop on Broadway, dreaming of “a big t-bone steak smothered in onions.” She only has five cents for the subway in her pocket. 

Ten years later, Ricky Ricardo takes everyone to Lindy’s when he hears about getting the part of Don Juan during “Ricky’s Contract” (ILL S4;E10). 

Gigi is about to reach into her purse for the nickle to board the subway, when she discovers her purse has been snatched. The thief runs away, and a handsome man pursues him, getting the purse back for her. He gallantly returns it to Gigi. The handsome man bids her goodnight, and Gigi opens her purse for the nickle only to find a wad of cash. On the subway, a fat man strikes up a conversation with Gigi, recognizing her from the purse snatching on the platform. 

Gigi gazes up at the poster for Miss Subways 1944, dreaming of furs, an apartment downtown, and expensive perfumes. She then considers that the money in her purse might well be counterfiet. 

From 1941 to 1976, the women on the Miss Subways posters that lined subway cars and represented the diversity of New York City women: they were of all ethnicities and backgrounds, college students, secretaries, aspiring actresses and singers, as well as wartime nurses.

The fat man warns her that plainclothes policemen are in the subway car, which makes Gigi nervous. When the fat man leaves the train, she takes another peek in her purse and finds a note. 

Get off at 161st Street and follow Yankee Doodle.

Gigi realizes a man has been whistling “Yankee Doodle Dandy” somewhere in the background. A nervous little old lady sits next to Gigi. She passes out!  A man gives her a swig from his bottle and she revives. The little old lady is headed for her sister’s house on 169th Street. She reveals that five years ago someone stole her life savings - about ten grand. She tells GIgi she’ll get the money back someday becuase “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”  

Gigi is suspicious that the old lady may be the brains of the operation, and asks her to whistle “Yankee Doodle”. The lady whistles it with a florish, but Gigi realizes it doesn’t help. They hear someone else whistling “Yankee Doodle.”  A man who Gigi thinks “may have a slight case of murder on his mind.”

End of Act One

On the subway platform, Gigi keeps an eye out for the handsome stranger, and an ear out for “Yankee Doodle”. A nervous Gigi realizes that someone is ahead of her and behind her. 

GIGI: “I’m the ham behind two slices of rye.” 

She then sees that a third man is following her from across the street.

GIGI: “I’m a triple-decker sandwich now!” 

Gigi realizes the two men are following Yankee Doodle, not her. To make sure her clicking heels don’t give here away, she takes her shoes off. Gigi fantasizes that maybe famous columnist Walter Winchell will be cruising the streets with the cops, getting material for his column, and making her a star by writing about her.

Walter Winchell made his radio debut on May 12, 1930 with a 15-minute feature that provided business news about Broadway. That same year he made his screen debut (based on his column) in the Warner Brothers short film The Bard of Broadway, in which he played himself.  In 1933, he appeared as himself in Broadway Thru A Keyhole (aka Walter Winchell’s Broadway Thru a Keyhole), also featuring Lucille Ball. His voice was heard in the 1949 Lucille Ball film Sorrowful Jones and on the Desilu crime series “The Untouchables” (1959-1964).

The handsome suddenly takes her aside into an alley to avoid the two men stalking them. He tells her he is a Greek working to fund his country’s resistance to the Nazis. Gigi decides to distract the two flatfoots with a flashlight. She conks the men on the head with her shoes. 

GIGI: “I broke my heel on that heel!”  

Fleeing, Gigi and the Greek take refuge in an all-night diner. They both order t-bone steaks - rare with plenty of onions. The man says the money was meant to support the Greek underground and that the two men are Axis agents. He tells Gigi she gets ten percent for her troubles but all Gigi can think about is her t-bone steak!  When the waitress returns to their table, she tells them that she forgot it was "meatless Tuesday" so there’s no steaks! 

Meatless Tuesdays was a wartime initiative to preserve meat supplies to ensure there would be enough for the armed forces.

End of Episode

After the final commercial, Lucille Ball reports that tonight she said more words per minute than any other actress on the series - but spares a few more words to give a pitch to buy War Bonds. 

Lucille Ball appeared through the courtesy of Metro Goldwyn Meyer, producers of The White Cliffs of Dover. 

The film featured future “I Love Lucy” guest star Van Johnson, Norma Varden (Mrs. Benson), and an uncredited ten-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, who later appeared as herself on “Here’s Lucy.” 

Next week Suspense presents “The Walls Came Tumbling Down” starring Keenan Wynn. 

Two years later, in 1946, the Jo Eisenger story was turned into a film by Columbia Pictures starring Lee Bowman, who played George Cugat (later renamed Cooper) in the pilot episode of Lucy’s radio sitcom “My Favorite Husband” (1948). The film also featured Moroni Olsen, who played the Judge in “The Courtroom” (1952). In 1938, Bowman was featured in Next Time I Marry with Lucille Ball. 

[byneddiedingo]

Orson Welles and Jeanette Nolan in Macbeth (Orson Welles, 1948)

Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall, Edgar Barrier, Alan Napier, Erskine Sanford, John Dierkes, Keene Curtis, Peggy Webber, Lionel Braham. Screenplay: Orson Welles, based on a play by William Shakespeare. Cinematography: John L. Russell. Art direction: Fred A. Ritter. Film editing: Louis Lindsay. Music: Jacques Ibert. 

Orson Welles may have taken the old theatrical superstition of referring to the play not by its title but as "the Scottish play" a little too seriously. The decision to have actors deliver Shakespeare's lines with a Scottish accent was met with derision by critics, and Republic Pictures, the poverty-row studio that released the film, eventually had it redubbed without the accents after the initial release flopped. The original soundtrack has been restored, however, and it's hard to see what set the critics' teeth on edge: For the most part, the occasional flavoring of the dialogue with Scottish vowel sounds and diphthongs is unobtrusive. The one exception, to my ear, is Roddy McDowall as Malcolm, who carries the accent a bit too far -- though that may be because McDowall's conception of the character is something of a callow noodge, especially in the scene in which he's trying to persuade Macduff (Dan O'Herlihy) to cease grieving for his murdered family and take action. I must have seen the old redubbed and cut version at one point, because I remembered the film as rather glum and murky, when in fact, although it's not wholly successful, it's filled with Wellesian visual touches and some very solid performances. Welles makes remarkable use of the Celtic cross as a visual motif, for example, having the troops advancing on Dunsinane carry impossibly long staffs surmounted with the cross, a touch that dazzles the eye. His own performance is somewhat uneven -- Welles was seldom the strongest actor in his productions -- and he fails to provide Macbeth with the character arc that makes the character a tragic figure, moving from mere ambition to blind bloodthirstiness. Jeanette Nolan is a good Lady Macbeth and O'Herlihy a suitably strong adversary for Macbeth. As usual, Welles drew many performers from his Mercury Theater company, including Erskine Sanford as a dignified Duncan, something of an about-face from his broadly comic performance as the flustered newspaper editor Herbert Carter, huffing and puffing when he's ousted by the paper's new owner, Charles Foster Kane, in Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941). The low budget for the film shows, especially in the sets -- Dunsinane seems to be more cave than castle, its walls made out of Plasticine -- cobbled together on the Republic soundstage by art director Fred A. Ritter. And although Welles's keen eye served John L. Russell well, as Alfred Hitchcock's would later when he shot Psycho (1960), Russell was never a distinguished cinematographer. Still, this is a fairly distinguished effort at putting Shakespeare on film.

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Jeanette Nolan (December 30, 1911 – June 5, 1998)

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The Rescuers

The Rescuers (1977) starring Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor In The Rescuers, two mice respond to a call for help from a kidnapped young girl, Penny. She can talk to animals, and the kidnapper plans to use that ability to get the world’s largest diamond. But can two small mice help? Even with the aid of other animals? (more…)

[tparadox]

Movies of My Yesterdays: The Fox and the Hound