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    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
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      • Days of Heaven
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      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
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    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
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      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
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      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
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      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
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        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
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      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
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      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
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      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
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      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
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      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
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      • Belfast (2021)
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      • Mank (2020)
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      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
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A Kiss Before Dying

 (1956)A Kiss Before Dying

Directed By:  Gerd Oswald
Starring:  Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith
Studio:  Crown Productions (United Artists)

IMDB Rating: 7

​The week we started watching The Last Movie Stars on HBO Max.  The 6-part series debuted this past summer and recounts the careers of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who were married for 50 years, until Paul’s death in 2008.  The construction of the series is fascinating in that director Ethan Hawke took transcribed interviews conducted by Newman for a memoir he never produced and has actors read parts to tell the story.  George Clooney “play” Newman, for instance, and Laura Linney “plays” Joanne Woodward.  The original tapes of Newman’s interviews were destroyed by Newman, but in finding the transcripts Hawke creatively brings them together, paired with archival footage, scenes from the pair’s films and interviews conducted to reinforce the story and its meaning.  In watching the first two episodes, two things became evidently clear to me; Woodward’s willingness to take a back seat to Newman’s career only partially fulfilled her, and I really haven’t seen many performances by Woodward, outside several of the 16 she made with Newman.
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In telling the love story of Woodward and Newman one often forgets that Newman was previously married and had three kids with fellow actor Jackie Witte.  Newman and Woodward carried on an affair for 5 years before Newman finally relented and divorced.  Their early married life had Woodward in the spotlight career wise, with Newman struggling to break through in movies after spending most of his early career on television.  Newman’s break through was, in fact, only granted because James Dean died and Newman was given his part in 1956’s Somebody Up There Likes Me.  Woodward, on the other hand, won the Best Actress Oscar just a year later for her performance in The Three Faces of Eve.  She was viewed as an actress of great talent and potential, while Newman was characterized as “Brando light” by the press and studio executives.
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Evidence of Woodward’s talent was evident before Three Faces in her second credited film role and the focus of today’s column, A Kiss Before Dying, from 1956.  While essentially a “B” picture, released independently through United Artists, the film is a daring story of a cold-blooded killer trying to raise his station in life through his attachments to two wealthy sisters. The open scene itself tests the boundaries of the Production Code by show an obviously unmarried couple discussing first pregnancy and then raising the idea of an abortion or miscarriage, the later 2 items more hinted than named. In either case, pregnancy before marriage was rarely allowed in the restrictive production code era, let alone the idea of hoping for the fetuses demise as a positive outcome for the characters.
Robert Wagner plays the over achieving boyfriend, once feted as the “most likely to succeed” and most popular, according to clippings on his bedroom wall, but he is also an isolated mama’s boy, who keeps his romance to Woodward’s Dorothy Kingship a secret from everyone. As his nefarious plot to rid himself of the baby and then the girlfriend become thwarted by chance or stupidity, Wagner’s Bud Corliss becomes sort of a hapless Tom Ripley. When he has to continue to murder to cover his tracks, his control of the situation weakens, but not his resolve, as he seduces Dorothy’s sister and ingratiates himself with the sisters’ father.  He is evil and calculating, so he is as about an interesting character in the career of the normally stiff and dull Wagner’s career.
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for the good in Corliss as the contradiction to her father’s cruelty.  She is needy and beautiful, capable of providing Bud the social climb he desperately needs, but the pregnancy becomes too great a burden, which puts the murderous plot in motion.  Even in her innocent belief in Bud, it is still clear that she would be capable of having a pre-marital sexual relationship.  It’s a delicate balance, but her performance is a wonderful prelude to Woodward’s knowing, yet insecure, Clara Varner opposite Newman in 1958’s The Long Hot Summer.  The two characters speak to Woodward’s ability to convey depth and nuance in characters that are damaged, if not broken, and would mark what looked like a promising career; a career that was ultimately overshadowed by Newman’s.
While you can, stream The Last Movie Stars for its wonderful portrayal of the Newman/Woodward love affair because it captures the essence of any good marriage, which is compromise, partnership and self-sacrifice.  Along with The Three Faces of Eve, The Long, Hot Summer and A Kiss Before Dying, check out Woodward in The Fugitive Kind, with Marlon Brando & Paris Blues with Newman and Sidney Poitier.
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  • Home
  • Top 10 Lists
    • My Top 10 Favorite Movies
    • Top 10 Heist Movies
    • Top 10 Neo-Noir Films
    • The Top 10 Films of the Troubles (1969-1998) >
      • The Troubles Selected Timeline
    • Top 10 Films from 2001
    • Director Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Film Noir Directors
      • Top 10 Coen Brothers Films
      • Top 10 John Ford Films
      • Top 10 Samuel Fuller Films
      • Top 10 Alfred Hitchcock Films
      • Top 10 John Huston Films
      • Top 10 Fritz Lang Films (American)
      • Val Lewton Top 10
      • Top 10 Ernst Lubitsch Films
      • Top 10 Jean-Pierre Melville Films
      • Top 10 Nicholas Ray Films
      • Top 10 Preston Sturges Films
      • Top 10 Robert Siodmak Films
      • Top 10 William Wellman Films
      • Top 10 Billy Wilder Films
    • Actor/Actress Top 10's >
      • Top 10 Joan Blondell Movies
      • Top 10 Clark Gable Movies
      • Top 10 Ava Gardner Films
      • Top 10 Gloria Grahame Films
      • Top 10 Jean Harlow Movies
      • Top 10 Miriam Hopkins Films
      • Top 10 Grace Kelly Films
      • Top 10 Burt Lancaster Films
      • Top 10 Carole Lombard Movies
      • Top 10 Myrna Loy Films
      • Top 10 Marilyn Monroe Films
      • Top 10 Robert Mitchum Noir Movies
      • Top 10 Paul Newman Films
      • Top 10 Robert Ryan Movies
      • Top 10 Norma Shearer Movies
      • Top 10 Barbara Stanwyck Films
    • Top 10 Noir Films (Classic Era)
    • Top 10 Pre-Code Films
    • Top 10 Actresses of the 1930's
  • Reviews
    • Quick Hits: Short Takes on Recent Viewing >
      • Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
      • Elevator to the Gallows ('58)
      • Days of Heaven
      • Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
      • Incindies (2010)
      • In the Mood For Love (2000)
      • Last Picture Show Teaser Intro
      • Le Silence De La Mer ('49)
      • The Princess Bride ('87) Intro
      • Pulp Fiction ('94) Intro
    • The 1910's >
      • The Lubitsch German Silents
    • The 1920's >
      • The Odessa Steps Sequence as Continuing Film History
      • Sunrise (1927)
      • Wild Orchids ('29)
    • The 1930's >
      • Becky Sharp (1935)
      • Blonde Crazy
      • Bombshell ('33)
      • The Cheat
      • The Conquerors
      • The Crowd Roars
      • The Divorcee
      • Frank Capra & Barbara Stanwyck: The Evolution of a Romance
      • Heroes for Sale
      • The Invisible Man (1933)
      • L'Atalante (1934)
      • Let Us Be Gay
      • My Man Godfrey
      • No Man of Her Own (1932)
      • Platinum Blonde ('31)
      • Reckless ('35)
      • The Sign of the Cross (1932)
      • The Sin of Nora Moran (1932)
      • True Confession ('37)
      • Virtue ('32)
      • The Women
    • The 1940's >
      • Casablanca (1942)
      • The Story of Citizen Kane
      • Criss Cross (1949)
      • Double indemnity
      • Jean Arthur in A Foreign Affair
      • The Killers 1946 & 1964 Comparison
      • The Maltese Falcon Intro
      • Moonrise (1948)
      • My Gal Sal (1942)
      • Nightmare Alley
      • Notorious Intro ('46)
      • Overlooked Christmas Movies of the 1940's
      • Pursued (1947)
      • Remember the Night ('40)
      • The Red Shoes (1948)
      • The Set-Up ('49)
      • They Won't Believe Me (1947)
      • The Third Man
    • The 1950's >
      • The Asphalt Jungle Secret Cinema Intro
      • Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ('58) Intro
      • The Crimson Kimono (1959)
      • A Face in the Crowd (1957)
      • In a Lonely Place
      • A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
      • Mogambo ('53)
      • Niagara (1953)
      • The Night of The Hunter ('55)
      • Pushover Noir City
      • Rear Window (1954)
      • Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
      • Red Dust ('32 vs Mogambo ('53)
      • The Searchers ('56)
      • Singin' in the Rain Introduction
      • Some Like It Hot ('59) >
        • Some Like it Hot Intro (Beyond the Bay)
    • The 1960's >
      • The April Fools (1969)
      • Bonnie & Clyde (1967)
      • Cape Fear ('62)
      • Cool Hand Luke (1967) Intro
      • Dr Strangelove Intro
      • For a Few Dollars More (1965)
      • Fistful of Dollars (1964)
      • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1968)
      • The Hustler ('61) Intro
      • The Man With No Name Trilogy
      • The Misfits ('61)
      • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/La La Land
    • The 1970's >
      • Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
      • American Graffiti Introduction
      • Chinatown Introduction
      • The Friends of Eddie Coyle ('73)
      • Jaws Intro
    • The 1980's >
      • Blood Simple ('84)
      • A Christmas Story Intro
      • Scarface (1983)
    • The 1990's >
      • The General (1998)
    • 2000's >
      • Belfast (2021)
      • Blonde (2022)
      • Hunger (2008)
      • In Bruges (2008)
      • Joy Division
      • Mank (2020)
      • No Man's Land (2001)
      • Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
      • Wall-E
      • Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
      • The Top 10 Films I watched in 2020
  • Artists
    • Actors/Actresses >
      • Joan Blondell
      • Faye Dunaway: 1967-1976
      • The Noir Villainy of Dan Duryea
      • Clark Gable Bio
      • Jean Harlow Bio
      • Veronica Lake
      • Norma Shearer
    • Directors/Producers/Cinematographers >
      • Founders Series: Alice Guy-Blache
      • John Alton
      • Joan Harrison-Producer/Writer
      • Hitchcock & Cary Grant
      • William Wellman
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Book Review: Clark Gable by D. Bret
      • Pre-Code
      • Actor Bios
      • Film Noir
      • Director Bios
      • Studio Head Bios
      • Hollywood History
    • Studio
  • Resources
    • Sight & Sound Top 100 2022
    • NOTES >
      • American Graffiti Notes
      • Anatomy of a Murder Notes
      • The Asphalt Jungle Outline
      • Breakfast Club Notes
      • Citizen Kane Notes
      • It's A Wonderful Life Notes
      • Rebel Without a Cause Notes
      • Singin' in the Rain Notes
    • CMBA Interview/Profile
    • Bay Cinema Society Press
    • Hollywood History >
      • Production Code
      • Film Noir
  • Video Introductions
    • Video Introductions
  • Last Picture Show Notes
  • Paul Verhoeven