NYLON RUN

The Woman from Tangier started unravelling about the time the studio signed off on the budget.

Above is a poster in six-sheet format for the adventure The Woman from Tangier, along with a nice, mystery-laden promo from Italian artist Anselmo Ballester. We talked briefly about this movie a while back, but didn’t have a copy to watch. Now we do, and we checked it out last night. It stars Stephen Dunne as an insurance investigator looking into the death of a ship’s purser gunned down trying to abscond with the boat’s earnings—fifty-thousand pounds. As viewers we see in the first minutes of the film that this tale is false, and is actually a frame-up and murder staged by the ship’s captain.

Adele Jergens co-stars as a dancer named—we’re not making this up—Nylon, who had been trying to flee Tangier for Gibraltar but is now stuck in port while Dunne’s investigation plays out. When the captain’s criminal partner, who is a murderer too, uses the unwitting Nylon to hide from the cops, she’s soon caught between the two killers and deemed a loose end. She holds the key to Dunne’s investigation, but will she go to him for help? Or run to the police? Or maybe the U.S. embassy?

To us it didn’t matter because The Woman from Tangier is a throwaway thriller too b-level to offer much fun. We’re always drawn to movies and books sets outside the U.S., particularly in exotic lands. And having been to Tangier, we hoped for at least a little authentic Moroccan flavor, but it was too much to ask from a cheapie potboiler shot by Columbia Pictures entirely in Los Angeles featuring the lightweight Dunne and his mustache in the lead role. In its favor, The Woman from Tangier is short. Sixty-six minutes. So it certainly won’t cost much of your life should you decide to queue it up. It premiered today in 1948.

Italy, Morocco, Tangier, Gibraltar, Columbia Pictures, The Woman from Tangier, Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne, Ian MacDonald, Donna Martell, Anselmo Ballester, cinema, poster art, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 25

1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs

On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.

March 25

1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.