The Second Woman (1950).

The Second Woman (1950). Film noir, directed by James V. Kern. Cast: Robert Young, Betsy Drake, John Sutton and Florence Bates.

The story begins when Major Badger, stops by one Sunday to warn Amelia Foster and her niece Ellen, that Jeff Cohalan, is a dangerous criminal. They find him unconscious in the garage, with the car engine running. Ellen remembers their first meeting: On a train to Pine Cliff, where Jeff meets Dr. Hartley, who is concerned about Jeff's problems with depression. In the dining car, he meets Ellen, who is going to visit her aunt, who lives next door to Jeff.

Later, at Ben Sheppard's office, where Jeff works there as an architect, another employee Keith Ferris, notices his forget fullness. Ellen meets with Jeff, on the beach and asks him to show her the house "Hilltop". Later, Ellen finds out that Jeff built the house for his fiancee, Vivian Sheppard, who was killed in a car accident, the night before their wedding. Ellen, finds herself attracted to Jeff, who's being haunted by unexplainable, harassment...or is it.. paranoia?

This is a better-than-average psychological thriller, where Robert Young gives a wonderful performance. The Second Woman, is a cross between the films, Rebbecca, Gaslight and Fountainhead, one of those movies you like to watch in the middle of a stormy night...

Video: Is the complete movie.

Florence Bates (April 15, 1888 – January 31, 1954) was a character actress who often played grande dame characters in her films.

Bates showed musical talent as a child, but a hand injury stopped her from continuing her piano studies. She graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Mathematics in 1906, after which she taught school. In 1909 she met and married her first husband and gave up her career to raise their daughter. When her marriage ended in divorce, she began to study law and passed the bar in 1914, becoming at the age of 26 the first female attorney in her home state.

After the death of her parents, Bates left the legal profession to help her sister manage their father's antique business. She became a bilingual radio commentator whose program was designed to foster good relations between the United States and Mexico. In 1929, she closed the antique shop and married wealthy oil baron William F. Jacoby. When he lost his fortune, the couple moved to Los Angeles and opened a bakery.

In the mid-1930s, Bates performed in Jane Austen's, Emma. When she decided to continue working with the theatre group, she changed her professional name to that of the first character she played on stage. In 1939 she was introduced to Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her in her first major screen role, Mrs. Van Hopper, in the film, Rebecca.

Bates performed in more than sixty films over the next thirteen years. Among her credits are: Kitty Foyle, The Moon and Sixpence, Mr. Lucky, Heaven Can Wait, Mister Big, Since You Went Away, Kismet, Saratoga Trunk, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Winter Meeting, I Remember Mama, Portrait of Jennie, A Letter to Three Wives, On the Town, and Les Misérables. Bates had a regular role on The Hank McCune Show and made guest appearances on I Love Lucy, My Little Margie, and Our Miss Brooks.

The Bride Walks Out(1936).

The Bride Walks Out(1936). Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Raymond and Robert Young.

The story begins when fashion model Carolyn agrees to quit her well paying job and live on Michael's small earnings as an engineer.  After their wedding ceremony, Carolyn, gets into a argument with Michael. After which, Michael gets into a fight and is arrested. While the couple is in court, Carolyn meets well to do Hugh McKenzie, who falls in love with her at first sight and pays Michael's fine.

Unable to keep up their payments, Carolyn loses the furniture on New Year's Eve and gets drunk with Donovan, the repossesser, and Hugh and Mattie Dodson, Paul's wife.Later, at a New Year's Eve party. When Carolyn and Michael arrive home, they find that Hugh has replaced all of the repossessed furniture. Carolyn, wants to repay Hugh and secretly goes back to work. Will Michael ever find out the truth and walk out on her?

In this charming film, Helen Broderick plays the sarcastic, wiser friend that sticks by the bride when things get tough.  Robert Young, character really wants to help out,  but instead makes things worse. Ned Sparks character is funny, always muttering things under his breath. This movie makes light of some of those old fashioned sexist ideas, made for a different time.

Helen Broderick (August 11, 1891 – September 25, 1959) was  known for her comic roles, as a wisecracking sidekick.

 She is best known for her performance in the film, Fifty Million Frenchmen. In the early 1930s, she performed in the films: The Band Wagon, As Thousands Cheer, Fifty Million Frenchmen, the Astaire-Rogers movies Top Hat and Swing Time. The wife of actor Lester Crawford, she was the mother of Academy Award-winning actor Broderick Crawford.

Today We Live (1933) .

Today We Live (1933). Cast: Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young, and Franchot Tone. The film is based on "Turnabout" by William Faulkner. Faulkner also provided the dialogue for the film, making it the only film version of his work that he co-wrote. Joan Crawford's character was added to the film to add a love interest. She met her future husband Franchot Tone on the set of the film. They married two years later.

In World War I, Diana, a English girl, gets caught up in a love triangle between British Naval Officer, Claude and an American fighter pilot, Bogard. A rivalry for Diana develops between the men. Claude is blinded in action, just as he realizes Diana and Bogard's true feelings for one another. A suicide mission comes up, the men all go off to fight the war. Who will come back for Diana?

Fun Facts:

Variety reported in its review that director Howard Hawks used footage from the movie, Hell's Angels (1930) for the big bomber expedition sequence, the main dogfight, and the head-on collision of two airplanes.

Film debut of Franchot Tone.

I thought this film had beautiful sets and interesting costumes. Joan Crawford's fans will find that she was at the height of her beauty and dominates the first forty-five minutes of the film. This love story is a strange one.

H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941).

H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941). Directed by King Vidor and based on a novel by John P. Marquand. Vidor co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor. Cast: Robert Young, Hedy Lamarr, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, and Van Heflin. There is also an early uncredited appearance by Ava Gardner.

Harry Moulton Pulham Jr. is a middle-aged Boston businessman, who has a wife, Kay, with whom he has settled into a too comfortable marriage, but.. it did not start out that way.

Harry finds himself in charge of organizing a twenty-five-year college reunion, he thinks back to after the end of World War I. His friend Bill King, helps him get a job for a New York City advertising company, where he falls in love with, Marvin Miles. She does not want to be a traditional wife and he cannot imagine living anywhere other than Boston. So they break off their relationship. Harry,  marries a woman with the same ideas about marriage as he has.

Many years later, Marvin, who has also married arranges to meet Harry again where sparks begins to fly and Harry is tempted to have an affair, but they both realize that it would not be a good idea.



Harry, begs his wife to go away with him on a romantic vacation, to rekindle their love. At first, she says "no", but.. will she change her mind and agree to go away with him?

This was Hedy Lamarr's favorite film and she delivered the best dramatic performance of her career. Here she is not the mysterious seductive woman, as in her other films. She is loving and kind, in her role as a career girl who falls in love with her boss. Robert was not the first choice for the role. Both Gary Cooper and James Stewart turned the role down, leading Vidor to offer the role to Robert Young.

Ruth Hussey, was encouraged by a friend to try out for acting roles at the Providence Playhouse. The theater director there turned her down, saying the roles were cast only out of New York City. Later that week she traveled to New York City and on her first day there she signed-up with a talent agent who booked her for a role in a play starting the next day back at the Providence Playhouse.

In New York City she also worked as a model with the world-famous Powers agency. She then landed a role in the film,, Dead End and toured the country in 1937 and at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles where she was spotted by talent scout Billy Grady. MGM signed her to a players contract and she made her film debut in 1937. She quickly became a leading lady in MGM's "B" unit. For a 1940 "A" picture role she was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Elizabeth Imbrie, the magazine photographer and girlfriend of Jimmy Stewart's character in the film, The Philadelphia Story.

Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in, Flight Command (1940), Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson (1942), Ray Milland in The Uninvited (1944) and Alan Ladd in The Great Gatsby (1949). In 1946 she starred on Broadway in State Of The Union the Pulitzer Prize play. In 1960 she co-starred in the film, The Facts of Life with Bob Hope.

The Enchanted Cottage (1945).

The Enchanted Cottage (1945). Cast: Robert Young, Dorothy McGuire, and Mildred Natwick. It was based on a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. The Enchanted Cottage was previously adapted for the silent screen in 1924, with Richard Barthelmess and May McAvoy as the newlyweds.

While waiting for Laura and Oliver Bradford to arrive, their friend blind pianist John Hillgrove, plays a song called "The Enchanted Cottage," for his guests: The story begins when the main house is destroyed by fire. Which leaves only one wing left standing. The original owner, an English nobleman, remodeled the wing and rented it out to honeymooners. One day, Laura Pennington, a Lonely/homely young woman, arrives looking for work at the cottage as a housekeeper. Mrs. Minnett, likes the the girl and hires her.

Oliver Bradford and his fiancee, Beatrice Alexander, decide to rent a room at the cottage but, Beatrice, is disappointed by what she sees. Laura tells her that the cottage is enchanted and shows her the window on which lovers throughout time have etched their names. When Oliver etches Beatrice's name using her engagement ring, the stone falls out of its setting, creating a sense of doom. Oliver, a pilot, is called to war before they can marry and they have to cancel their plans.

One year later, a telegram comes from Oliver, saying he would like to rent the cottage for an indefinite period of time. Expecting the newlyweds, Laura is shocked when Oliver arrives alone, horribly disfigured and disabled from an airplane crash.
Soon after, Oliver's mother, stepfather and Beatrice come to visit, but Oliver refuses to see them. Oliver receives an ultimatum from his mother.. either come home or she will move in with him. Not wanting to live with his mother, Oliver proposes to Laura and she accepts. You have to watch the movie to find out if they too fall under the spell of, The Enchanted Cottage.

This is without a doubt a very powerful touching love story, one of my all time favorite films. If you love romance films, you will love this one.

They Wont Believe Me (1947): This is more than just a trip to Montreal.

They Won't Believe Me (1947). Cast: Susan Hayward, Robert Young, Rita Johnson and Jane Greer. Film noir. Director: Irving Pichel. Produced by Alfred Hitchcocks longtime assistant, Joan Harrison.

Womanizer Larry Ballentine, is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend and wants to take the stand in his own defense. During his testimony, we learn that he married his wife, Gretta, for her money and had many affairs. He makes plans to leave his wife for Verna, withdrawing all of his wife's money from the bank. Larry's plan falls apart after Verna is killed in a car accident. This film has plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing. What will the jury decide?

Joan Harrison, worked on the screenplays for four Alfred Hitchcock films: Rebecca (1940) and produced the director's TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents as well film noirs : two with director Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady, 1944; Uncle Harry, 1945). Joining Harrison were director Irving Pichel (The Most Dangerous Game, 1932); screenwriter Jonathan Latimer, who wrote Nocturne (1946) and The Big Clock (1948); cinematographer Harry J. Wild, who worked on Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945); and composer Roy Webb, whose music scores for film noirs like The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) and Crossfire (1947).

What I enjoyed most about this film was Robert Young in the role of Larry Ballentine. I was used to seeing, Young in romantic comedies. In this Film Noir, He plays a liar, a thief, a coward who is lacking in moral character and yet it is one of his best, performances. In my opinion. :)