The Man From Laramie

'The Man from Laramie' was the last of a run of outstanding Westerns made by Anthony Mann, shortly to graduate to bigger (perhaps less interesting) projects like 'El Cid' in 1961, and James Stewart, whose angst-driven cowboys of the 1950's run parallel with his self-doubting Hitchcock heroes. The plot hook is almost noirish, prefiguring 1971's 'Get Carter', as Will Lockhart (Stewart) investigates his brother's death and gets embroiled in the Lear-like family struggle of a blind cattle baron (Donald Crisp) whose beloved son (Alex Nicol) is a sadistic weakling. Audiences in 1955 were shocked by the scene in which Nicol has his minions hold down Stewart and repays him for a wound by shooting the hero's hand at point-blank range.

Trail-boss Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy) is - as in Mann's earlier Western 'Bend of the River' in 1952 - the hero's near-equal in manliness, but turns out to be his demonic counterpart, driven by resentment of the family whose ranch he runs but will never inherit to a dirty deal involving selling guns to renegade Apaches. 'The Man from Laramie' is a taut, tragic tale with a memorable hit theme song ("The West will never see a man with so many notches on his gun") and Mann's trademarked sense of the way desperate and obsessed men relate to each other and the dangerous landscape that emphasizes their extreme psychological states.

For informed, entertaining articles about Classic Hollywood, check out http://www.hollywoodsgoldenage.com/

Gregory Peck

Gregory Peck entered movies in brooding, handsome, troubled roles, and emerged as one of Hollywood's most treasured movie stars, representing decency, conviction, intelligence and moral fortitude. He wowed audiences with his strong physique and suave good looks, and, with four Oscar nominations and one Oscar win, the critical establishment did not fail to acknowledge his talents as an actor.

He made his big screen debut in 1944, as a resistance fighter in 'Days of Glory', and then won his first Academy Award nomination for his second film role in the same year, as a priest in 'The Keys of the Kingdom'. Peck went on to star, mostly as the good guy hero, in more than 60 movies. After worthy performances in 'Cape Fear' in 1962, 'spellbound' in 1945, 'Roman Holiday' in 1953, and 'Moby Dick' in 1956, he stoically faced the end of the world in 'On the Beach' in 1959, and won the war in 'The Guns of Navarone' in 1961.

But it was his role as the small-town defense lawyer Atticus Finch in 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in 1962 that finally won him an Oscar for Best Actor.

Peck remained a star into old age, and also stuck around to do the cameos in remakes of his earlier vehicles 'Cape Fear' and 'Moby Dick' in the 1990's. He always chose his roles with great care. Also noted for being civic-minded, for his Roman Catholic faith, and for his liberal politics, he served as president of the Academy Awards body, and was active in the Motion Picture and Television Relief Fund, American Cancer Society, National Endowment for the Arts, and other causes. He won many awards, including the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1967, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American film Institute in 1989, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his humanitarian work.

Jayne Mansfield - Cartoon Pneumatic Blonde

Jayne Mansfield was a pneumatic Blonde bombshell whose few substantial film roles tended to use her as a living cartoon. Below Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak but above Sheree North and Mamie van Doren in the 1950's pinup pecking order, Mansfield was a limited but likable screen performer, lucky enough to feature in one bona fide movie classic, Frank Tashlin's rock'n'roll-packed exercise in visual va-va-voom, 'The Girl Can't Help it' in 1956. Here, she sends up her own celebrity as a gangster's girl promoted as a singing star by press agent Tom Ewell. She wobbles down the street to Little Richard's title song, driving men into Tex Avery Wolf-like frenzies of lust with her mere preence, and gamely poses for a series of juvenile
sight gags (holding a pair of milk bottles to her breasts) that exploit her image as an American sex fantasy.

Mansfield's first film roles were as dumb blonde underworld hangers-on or murder victims ('Illegal' in 1955) but she was relaunched as a comedy star after her Broadway success in 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?' which Tashlin filmed in 1957.
Wondeful as Mansfield was in Tashlin's duo, there wasn't much more she could actually do in Hollywood movies. Soon after being uncomfortably pursued by Cary Grant in the archly titled 'Kiss Them for Me' in 1957, she left for Europe, appearing as a striptease queen in'Too Hot to Handle' in 1960, before making 'It Happened in Athens' in 1961 and 'Heimweh nach St. Pauli'
the following year (Homesick for St Pauli).

Back home, she appeared discreetly nude in 'Promises! Promises!' in 1963 and was one of the "Technical Advisors" in 'A Guide for the Married Man' in 1967. Mansfield played a prostitute in the tawdry drama 'Single Room Furnished' in 1968, which wasn't completed until after her tragic death in a car crash.