DOLL FACE

Perry Como and Vivian Blaine

DOLL FACE (1945). Director: Lewis Seiler.

"Doll Face" Carroll (Vivian Blaine) is a top burlesque performer who tries to go legit, but when one producer, Flo Hartman (Reed Hadley), finds out who she really is he refuses to hire her. Doll Face's manager and boyfriend, Mike (Dennis O'Keefe), comes up with the dubious notion of showing that she has "class" by hiring a ghostwriter, Fred (Stephen Dunne), to pen her memoirs -- as a burlesque queen! As Fred falls for Doll Face, and singer Nicky Ricci (Perry Como) tries to get dancer "Frankie" (Martha Stewart) to warm up to him, Mike decides to turn Doll Face's memoir into a Broadway show. Can Doll Face finally go legit? And will she wind up with Mike or Frank?

Stephen Dunne and Carmen Miranda

This was adapted from a play by Gypsy Rose Lee but Doll Face should certainly not be confused with Gypsy! The script for this is no world-beater, although most of the performers are game. Vivian Blaine had her most famous role in Guys and Dolls, but in this I found her lacking in distinction. O'Keefe is as buoyant as ever, and poor Carmen Miranda is given no romance and only one catchy number, "Chico from Puerto Rico." The songs by McHugh and Adamson [Four Jills in a Jeep] are pleasant, however, with "Here Comes Heaven Again" arguably being the best. Reed Hadley is fine as the producer, who ultimately opts to work with Doll Face, and Perry Como is mildly appealing as Nicky. Handsome Stephen Dunne is billed in this as "Michael" Dunne, the name he used in his earliest appearances. He later starred as "Steve" Dunne on The Brothers Brannagan for TV.

Verdict: Acceptable but rather minor musical. **1/2. 

WHIPLASH

Unlikely couple: Dane Clark and Alexis Smith

WHIPLASH (1948). Director: Lewis Seiler.

In this chopped suey of a movie, artist Michael Gordon (Dane Clark of Paid to Kill) falls for a woman, Laurie (Alexis Smith of The Constant Nymph), who buys one of his paintings. In spite of the fact that Laurie is completely out of his league in every way possible, Michael tells her he's in love with her after knowing her for six hours. Unfortunately, Laurie has a wheel-chair bound husband, an ex-fighter named Rex (Zachary Scott of Ruthless), who convinces Michael that he could be a sensation in the ring. Then there's Laurie's brother, a doctor (Jeffrey Lynn), whom Rex somehow blames for his condition. Whiplash is less a boxing movie than an unconvincing and utterly unexceptional soap opera-melodrama with superficial characters and equally superficial performances. All of the lead actors have been seen to much better advantage in other pictures, although Lynn is generally creditable. Eve Arden adds some slight fun in her inimitable way as a friend of Michael's who wishes she were something more and S. Z. "Cuddles" Sakall is as cuddly and monotonous as ever. This is another in a long line of obnoxious Dane Clark portrayals. Clark and Smith generate no fireworks and are completely unbelievable as a romantic couple. The only good scene is when Zachary Scott gets what's coming to him. Director Lewis Seiler does nothing to help the actors or the picture.

Verdict: A "romance" with two lovers who seem to come from different planets. **.

OVER-EXPOSED

OVER-EXPOSED (1956). Director: Lewis Seiler.

"You'd use your grandmother's bones to pry open a cash register!"

The ads for this picture made it seem as if it was a behind-the-scenes story of scandal sheets such as Confidential that were popular at the time, but it's really just another lousy Cleo Moore movie. In this Moore plays Lily Krenshka, who is nearly run out of town before being befriended by an elderly photographer named Max (Raymond Greenleaf) who teaches her all the tricks of the trade. Before long she's been rechristened Lila Crane and is off to Manhattan where she shrewdly and ruthlessly rises to the top of her profession, moving from a "flash" girl snapping photos in night clubs to fashion photographer, as well as being offered photo-journalistic assignments by her boyfriend, newspaper reporter Russell Bassett (Richard Crenna). Bassett fears that all Lila is interested in is making money, and his fears are confirmed when he assumes she sold a photo of a sweet dowager (Isobel Elsom of Ladies in Retirement) having a fatal heart attack to a scandal sheet. With its one-dimensional characters and busy if dull story line, Over-Exposed just doesn't grip. It also suffers from not having a more mesmeric lead actress, although Moore certainly isn't bad, although the scene when she argues with a jealous co-worker played by a vivid and excellent Jeanne Cooper illustrates the difference between acting and merely expressing personality; Moore's chief note is one of petulance. With only a couple of minutes screen time Cooper steals the movie away from the star. Over-Exposed would certainly have been more palatable with a gripping actress like Stanwyck or Crawford in it -- or Cooper in the lead --  but even then it wouldn't have been one of their more memorable movies. Crenna is competent but uninteresting as the boyfriend so its no wonder he only became a leading man on television. Constance Towers is supposed to be in this movie as Shirley but her role is too small to make an impression. The occasional sharp bit of dialogue isn't enough to save this.

Verdict: At 79 minutes it's 77 minutes too long. *1/2.

WOMEN'S PRISON

WOMEN'S PRISON (1955). Director: Lewis Seiler.

"They never get things right in prison pictures."

Convicted of vehicular manslaughter after accidentally killing a child, neurotic Helene (Phyllis Thaxter of The Sign of the Ram) is sent to a women's prison adjacent to a men's penitentiary. Her fellow inmates include Joan (Audrey Totter of The Saxon Charm), whose husband manages to cross over to see [and impregnate] her, returnee Brenda (Jan Sterling of Johnny Belinda), Mae (Cleo Moore of One Girl's Confession), and Dottie (Vivian Marshall) who does pretty bad impressions of Bette Davis and others but does a fairly good job of imitating Ida Lupino, who just happens to play the neurotic and slightly evil Amelia van Zandt, a prison official who lords it over the women's compound. All hell breaks loose when van Zandt is told she better find out how Joan's husband, Glen (Warren Stevens) managed to get in to see her [we never find out] and she begins slapping around the pregnant woman, raising the inmates' ire and leading to a fairly exciting climax. Women's Prison is the kind of junk movie that pretends to have some kind of social conscience while parading superficial platitudes and one-dimensional characters who have little basis in reality. Ida Lupino, with her mostly arch overplaying, does the best she can with terrible material; her real-life husband, Howard Duff (Dante), comes off much better and is quite good as the compassionate prison psychiatrist who thinks van Zandt is a psychopath. Thaxter is fine, but except for scenes when she's victimized gets little chance to etch a real character, and Ross Elliott is also good in his brief turn as her husband. Sterling and Totter aren't bad and Cleo Moore is Cleo Moore. The big trouble with this picture is that it isn't even very entertaining.

Verdict: A pretty bad "Bad Girls" picture. **.