This nice piece was painted by French artist Emmanuel Gaillard for Une femme dangereuse, which was originally released in 1940 as They Drive by Night. The movie, which is adapted from A. I. Bezzerides’ 1938 novel Long Haul, deals with two wildcat truckers caught in the American class struggle—you know, that thing all the millionaire pundits on television tell you doesn’t exist? The drivers want to rise above their station, but find many obstacles in their way, including leasing companies, fruit buyers, competing truckers, road accidents, injuries, fatigue, and eventually, murder. While the world-against-the-working-man aspect is interesting, the best part is watching George Raft and Humphrey Bogart play the two hard luck drivers. The movie also boasts the excellent Ann Sheridan, as well as film noir icon Ida Lupino in full-on crazy mode. But like the several trucks onscreen that veer off the road, the movie itself lurches into melodrama at the end. Une femme dangereuse had its French premiere today in 1947.

We’re back to the West German publication Illustrierte Film-Bühne today, supplementing our post from two months ago. These examples are all from American dramas or films noir produced during the 1940s and early 1950s, but which premiered in West Germany later, typically 1954 or after. You can see the earlier IFB collection here.

England-born actress Ida Lupino began in film as a bleached blonde leading lady, and eventually appeared in fifty-nine productions. A nice career by any measure. But along the way she also produced, directed, and wrote, becoming one of the first women to take complete control of film projects in Hollywood. She contributed significantly to film noir with her work on 1953’s The Hitch-Hiker, and more importantly, contributed to the cause of women in the workplace with virtually everything she did. This Paramount promo shot dates from the beginning of her career, 1934. 

Over in the U.S. this is the day that makes cows tremble in fear—July 4, or Independence Day. Since moving away from the States we’ve had to get used to a whole new set of holidays, and while those events are truly amazing, none of them involve the searing of millions of hamburgers on outdoor grills. In our own way we’re trying to change that by teaching our friends what exactly goes into a great hamburger, but working one friend at a time it may be some years before we really make an impact on the local cuisine. However, we can participate in July 4 in a more immediate way by sharing a couple of images from a July 1943 Motion Picture-Hollywood Magazine of that most beloved of golden age American stars, Rita Hayworth. Other stars inside include Norma Shearer, Jeanette MacDonald and Merle Oberon, and you also get the most famous photo of Betty Grable ever shot. Okay, our work is done. Though we can’t find a decent burger in this corner of the world (yet), we do have a wide beautiful plaza just one block away and on that plaza is a quiet bar with outdoor tables and friendly staff members that keep us well-stocked with ice cold bottles of white wine. That’s going to be the rest of our day. Enjoy the rest of yours. 

Above, another Movie Show cover, this one from April 1943 with Rita Hayworth shaking her maraca. We never heard of this magazine before last week, but it's aesthetically brilliant. Hopefully, we'll find more out there somewhere. If we do, we'll definitely share. Below are selected interior pages from this issue, featuring Ida Lupino, Anne Sheridan, Mona Maris, Mapy Cortés and others.

Above are selections from a March 1952 Adam magazine, with interesting cover art of a blonde being narrowly missed by several rounds of machine-gun fire. By the 1970s Australia’s Adam was publishing pages of fully nude women, as you can see for yourself here and here, but in this early issue there’s exactly one photograph—American actress Sally Forrest, who you see in panel two. Forrest is pretty much unknown now, but she appeared in notable films such Fritz Lang’s noir While the City Sleeps, Joseph Pevney’s horror flick The Strange Door, and Hard, Fast and Beautiful, which was directed by Ida Lupino, who as a woman director during the forties and fifties kicked open some of the doors that led to Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar win last night. More Adam magazines soon. 

We have a nice poster here for Beware, My Lovely, starring Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan. Lupino hires Ryan to do some work around her house but doesn’t know he’s a seriously deranged mental case subject to violent mood swings. Interesting as the film is, we can’t fully recommend it because of its somewhat improbable confinement scenario. Or put another way, even though reasons are presented for why the heroine can’t simply escape by running out of the house, they aren’t very convincing. But on the plus side, the movie does have the ultra-talented Lupino, who was one of Hollywood’s top quadruple threats (writer, director, actress, producer). In fact, her contributions to film noir are extensive and important. So it’s an enthusiastic yes on Lupino, but a qualified maybe on Beware, My Lovely. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1952.