Happy Birthday Jane Wyatt (1910-2006)

Born in Campgaw, New Jersey, Jane Waddington Wyatt came from a New York family of social distinction (her father was a Wall Street investment banker and her mother was a drama critic). Jane was raised from the age of three months in New York City and attended the fashionable Chapin School and later Barnard College. After two years of college, she left to join the apprentice school of the Berkshire Playhouse at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where for six months she played an assortment of roles. One of her first jobs on Broadway was as understudy to Rose Hobart in a production of "Trade Winds"--a career move that cost her her slot on the New York Social Register. Wyatt made the transition from stage to screen and was placed under contract at Universal, where she made her film debut in director James Whale's One More River (1934). She went back and forth between Universal and Broadway (and co-starred in Frank Capra's Columbia film Lost Horizon (1937) on loan out from Universal). In the 1950s, she co-starred with Robert Young in Father Knows Best (1954), the classic TV sitcom chronicling the life and times of the Anderson family in the Midwestern town of Springfield. Wyatt died at age 96 on October 20, 2006.

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950).

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950). Cast: Lee J.Cobb, Jane Wyatt and John Dall.

When well to do Lois Frazer, wants a divorce from her husband, he decides that he is not going to let her get away so easy. After her husband with packed bags leaves for a trip, Lois finds a receipt for the gun he just bought lying on the floor. She believes that her husband is coming back to kill her. Crying she calls her lover Detective Cullen and asks him to rush over. While they are talking, her husband returns to the house and sneaks in through a back door. Lois shoots him twice at close range. Cullen, knowing that the husband had an airline ticket for that night (his planned alibi) dumps the body off at the airport. What follows will keep you sitting at the edge of your seat. Cullen, finds himself in the dangerous position of being assigned a case in which he was a witness. In trying to control the investigation, Cullen also has to deal with his younger brother, a new detective, by his side every step of the way.


I thought Lee J. Cobb and John Dall gave wonderful performances in this "B" film noir thriller. It is also nice to see a 20 year-old Lisa Howard, in a supporting role as Dall's new wife. I also thought that Jane Wyatt gave a wonderful performance playing the femme fatale.
Click to view : The Man Who Cheated Himself.


John Dall, is best remembered for two film roles: Alfred Hitchcock's film, Rope and the 1950 noir, Gun Crazy. He first came to fame in the film, The Corn Is Green, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.