As we all know, there comes hectic times in all our lives. The last ten days have been one of those cases for me, so when I haven't helped out with sick cats, found out about dead cats, gone to job applying meetings etc. etc. I have put my spare time lying in bed playing Ace Attorney games on the Nintendo DS.
In other words: no time for watching movies, and no inspiration what so ever! I guess no one will blame me.
Playing as the attorney Phoenix Wright is amazingly relaxing, interesting and mind exercising. In the last few days I have noticed that my mental processes already have re-arranged all my every-day problems to sound like court room dramas.
"How do I solve this case I have on my hands? My boyfriend needs new jeans. He is working every day from 9 AM to 5 PM. When he comes home, he is too tired to shop for clothes. He does not work on Saturday, but that is however the time of his parents moving into a new apartment. He works Sunday. It looks as though I'm going to lose this case.
Objection!Circumstantial evidence proves that my waist size is in fact the same as my boyfriend's, and therefore he does not have to be at the scene of the crime where I will make the purchase!"
Something like that. Anyway, why not take a brief look at some cool attorneys, defendants and prosecutors? Or at least, some tough guys in suits. (I was going to write "no pun intended", but that's a pretty lame line, isn't it? And after realizing the pun, I thought it wasn't half bad anyway.)
"Leaving Fox was like leaving home at 28; I'd been there since I was sixteen."
Linda Darnell on 20th Century Fox
Linda Darnell was an American film actress, born Monetta Eloyse Darnell in Dallas, Texas in October, 1923. She was one of five siblings of a postal clerk and his wife. In 1934, at the age of eleven, she began to model clothes, being adressed as 16 years old. When Linda was 13 talent scouts from Hollywood came to Dallas, and her mother encouraged Linda to go to the audition. After a short look at Linda and her acting, the studio took her to California for another audition. However, her real age was revealed and Linda was sent back home, told to come back when she was 15.
Linda Darnell as a clothes model.
Two years later Linda went back to Hollywood, and her career was up and running. Her film debut was in Hotel for Women (1939) with Ann Sothern, an actress she would work with once again ten years later in Joseph L. Mankievicz's A Letter to Three Wives (1949). At the time she was 16, and the youngest leading lady in Hollywood history. She made another film in 1939 called Day-Time Wife, the first of four films she would star in opposite Tyrone Power. (The others are The Mark of Zorro and Brigham Youth from 1940 and Blood and Sand from 1941.)
Poster for Day-Time Wife (1939) with a 16 year old Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power.
American poster for The Mark of Zorro (1940).
Hir third film Star Dust (1940) brought Darnell up to the heights of the other Hollywood stars. She plays a girl named Carolyn Sayres that signs a Hollywood contract, but is later rejected because she is concidered to be too young. (Does that sound familiar...?) Her following films were not less popular, and soon she was often referred to as "the girl with the perfect face". Next year she starred in the Technicolor film Blood and Sand (1941) opposite Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth. A scene were she confronts the seducing Hayworth follows:
In 1945 Darnell starred in Hangover Square with Laird Cregar and George Sanders. The film is described on IMDb to have been a "box-office bonanza". The same year she made a film noir with Dana Andrews as the leading man, Fallen Angel. A scene from the film is included after this paragraph, and it is really interesting to see how different her character in this film is compared to the timid and innocent woman in Blood and Sand. Next year she put a great mark in cinema history, playing Chihuahua in the western classic My Darling Clementine, co-starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp and Victor Mature as Doc Holiday.
Linda Darnell and Dana Andrews in Fallen Angel (1947).
In 1947 Darnell reached the top of her career when playing opposite Cornel Wilde and George Sanders in the 17th century drama Forever Amber, where she also appeared in flaming red hair in contrast to her famous jet black.
In the following scene from Forever Amber, that I managed to hunt down (the sound is terribly unsynchronized, but it'll do!), we see Linda Darnell as Amber St. Clair, dancing with King Charles II played by the always superb George Sanders. Cornel Wilde appears as Amber's husband, Bruce Carlton.
"You're mind is like your wardrobe, madame. Many changes and no surprises."
Linda Darnell in Forever Amber (1947).
Linda Darnell made several more films, among others the earlier mentioned A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952), but her blossoming career was on it's way to die. One of the reasons was Darnell's drinking problem, which she had had during almost all of her career.
Her latest screen appearance was in the 1965 western Black Spurs. She was married and divorced three times. Her death was a sad but heroic story. 10 April, 1965 Darnell was dining at the house of her friend and former secretary. Darnell's early film Star Dust (1940) was being shown on television that night, and she saw it. However, during the night something caught fire and everyone had to evacuate the house. When Darnell noticed that one of her friend's children was missing she ran into the house again to find the girl. The child had managed to escape, but Darnell burnt 90 % of her body, dying from her injuries at the hospital the next day. At that time, at 41 years of age, Darnell had filmed a total of 46 motion pictures.
Linda Darnell on the cover of Screenland in October, 1948.
The Best Years of Our Lives is a wonderful postwar melodrama about returning war veterans and their difficulties assimilating with their old lives. The films begins with three men returning home after the end of World War II: Al Stephenson (Fredric March), Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) and Homer Parrish (Harold Russell). It is the lives, love and pain of these three men that is woven together into this masterpiece of a film.
A disabled sailor, an airman and a soldier on their way back to an American small-town life.
Al Stephenson back with his family.
First we have Al Stephenson, an older-than-average soldier, who comes home to his wife Milly (superbly characterized by Myrna Loy, in her first role since before the war), daughter Peggy (Teresa Wright) and son Rob (Michael Hall). The arrival of the family man is of course met with smiles, tears and embraces, but the home coming soon shows to have difficulties to deal with. Al is astonished when he realizes how much his children have grown up. He has also changed as a man by the war, something his wife Milly notices by his hardness and heavy drinking. However, Al is soon back at work in an influential banking position, but has difficulties there too when it comes to the civil way of thinking and making decisions.
Peggy calms Fred down after his war nightmares.
Then, there's Fred Derry. He returns to his parent's home, where he also expects to see his wife Marie (Virginia Mayo). He finds out that she nowadays has a job at a night club, and he sets off to see her. When he can't find her he visits a bar, where he meets the celebrating Al Stephenson and family. Fred and Al get awfully drunk, and gets more or less carried home by Milly and Peggy. Fred, sleeping in Peggy's bed while she occupies the couch, gets traumatic nightmares about the war, and Peggy puts him back to sleep. The morning after they eat breakfast, have a pleasant conversation and starts liking each other. Peggy drives Fred home to his wife. Marie is delighted to reunite with Fred, but the long parting seems to have damaged their marriage more than they thought. All while Fred tries to keep a job, and continues to fall for Al's daughter Peggy.
The third postwar destiny we get to follow is that of Homer Parrish, who lost his hands in a fire in the war. (The actor Harold Russell lost his hands in the war too, but in a TNT explosion.) His hands are replaced by hooks who he is trained to handle well. He is however uncertain about the feelings of his fiancée Wilma (Cathy O'Donnell in her first role not being an extra), a paranoia that is worsened by his family's obvious inconvenience with his handicap.
The wedding scene.
This is a film that easily could have felt like a patchwork, since there are three different stories told. But the script is brilliant, and the director William Wyler is too good for words. Having the three leading men characters becoming friends, and getting them to meet each other in regular intervals is a great solution for that problem. That also makes the viewer to emotionally sink even deeper into the destiny's of all the characters.
And the characters! Every single little character in the film is brilliantly cast, but the brightest shining star is (not surprisingly) Myrna Loy as the loyal wife. The scene where she brings breakfast to her husband in bed is wonderful. Her hesitation and insecurity, though she's trying to conceal it, fill the room.
In short: The Best Years of Our Lives gives a revealing and emotional insight in the relations of returning war heroes and their families, and the film could not have been made any better.
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Linda Darnell as a clothes model. 
Poster for Day-Time Wife (1939) with a 16 year old Linda Darnell and Tyrone Power.
American poster for The Mark of Zorro (1940). 
Publicity still for Hangover Square (1945). 
Linda Darnell with Victor Mature in My Darling Clementine (1946).
Linda Darnell in Forever Amber (1947).
Linda Darnell on the cover of Screenland in October, 1948. 
A disabled sailor, an airman and a soldier on their way back to an American small-town life.
Al Stephenson back with his family.
Peggy calms Fred down after his war nightmares.
Homer taking piano lessons by Butch Engle (Hoagy Carmichael).
The wedding scene.
