I have always
had a huge crush on Kim Novak. But this is beside the point. The attempt of
this modest tribute is to remind those who have forgotten, or to inform
those who don’t know, that she was a great deal more than an alluring beauty. She
was a terrific actress, too. In those hectic sixteen years between 1954 and
1969, she made nineteen movies in which she covered the whole range from
slapstick comedy to existential tragedy. Among her leading men were William
Holden, Frank Sinatra, Tyrone Power, Jimmy Stewart, Fredric March, Jack Lemmon,
Dean Martin, Kirk Douglas, Laurence Harvey, Peter Finch and Richard Johnson.
Basically who’s who of those glorious times for movie history. The situation is
no different director-wise: Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger,
Delbert Mann, George Sidney. Here’s looking at you, Kim!
Cast: Judy
Holliday (Nina Tracey nee Chapman), Jack Lemmon (Robert Tracey), Jack Carson
(Charlie Nelson), Kim Novak (Janis).
Screenplay: George Axelrod.
Director: Mark Robson.
Notes. Stupidly titled but utterly charming divorce comedy. Kim’s role as
Jack’s goofy blind date is small but memorable. It reveals her considerable
comic talent. Jack and Judy are at the height of their powers; it’s their show
and they know it. Great supporting role by Jack Carson (remember him as Gooper
in Cat?).
Cast: Fred MacMurray (Paul Sheridan), Kim Novak (Lona McLane), Dorothy Malone (Ann Stewart),
Philip Carey (Rick McAllister).
Screenplay: Roy Huggins, based on the novels The
Night Watch by Thomas Walsh and Rafferty
by Bill S. Ballinger.
Director: Richard Quine.
Notes. Unjustly neglected noir
thriller. It is usually dismissed as "the poor man's Double Indemnity". This is stupid. Both movies have a hot blonde and Fred MacMurray in them, but that's just about all they share. The plot and the characters are completely different. Kim and Fred steal the show, as the screenwriters no doubt intended. Their joint scenes are swift-paced and well-written, and they lack neither romance nor drama. To Kim
belongs one of the not so many truly immortal lines in movie history: “Money
isn’t dirty. Just people.” Nice supporting role by Dorothy Malone, although she
is not as gorgeous as she was eight years earlier as the bookshop gal in The Big Sleep. The supporting cast may also boast excellent performances by Phil Carrey and E. G. Marshall.
Cast: William Holden (Hal
Carter), Kim Novak (Madge Owens), Susan Strasberg (Millie Owens), Betty Field
(Flo Owens), Cliff Robertson (Alan Benson), Rosalind Russell (Rosemary Sidney), Arthur O’Connell (Howard Bevans).
Screenplay: Daniel Taradash, based on the play by William Inge.
Director: Joshua Logan.
Notes. Preposterously melodramatic and rather disappointing romance on a picnic day. The famous dance scene is beautiful, Kim is lovely in her blooming youth and fully convincing as a girl imprisoned by her beauty, and William Holden does his best with every line (nobody plays good-natured bums better than him). But they can’t save what is a poor script in the first place. Rosalind Russell steals the show with her role as a priggish old maid who is both ridiculous and tragic. The movie has its moments (the steamy and stylish dance scene is justly famous), but overall it feels like a missed opportunity.
Cast: Frank Sinatra (Frankie Machine), Eleanor Parker (Zosch
Machine), Kim Novak (Molly), Darren McGavin (Louie).
Screenplay: Walter Newman & Lewis Meltzer, based on the
novel by Nelson Algren.
Director: Otto Preminger.
Notes. Harrowing and haunting
drama about drug addiction and human weakness, this is a daring movie for 1955.
It must have been quite a shock back then. Brilliant lead performance by Frank Sinatra
as the ex-dealer, future drummer and current junkie. Kim also gives one of her
most moving performances. Her role is supporting but with ample amount of
screen time and critical for the plot. Best line: “All my life has
been “one day”. On and on and on!” The joint scenes with Frank are a joy to
watch! Subtle and nuanced acting doesn’t get better than this!
Cast: Tyrone Power (Eddy Duchin), Kim Novak (Marjorie Oelrichs),
Victoria Shaw (Chiquita Wynn), James Whitmore (Lou Sherwood).
Screenplay: Samuel A. Taylor, based on the story by Leo Katcher.
Director: George Sidney.
Notes. Fascinating tearjerker
with lots of nice piano music. The only trouble, Novak-wise, is that Kim
disappears in the middle of the movie. But in the first part she looks ravishing
and has some very effective scenes with Tyrone Power (terrific throughout the
movie). Victoria Shaw makes an excellent supporting role that almost amounts to
a lead one. And it was a pleasure to see the great James Whitmore, much better
known as Brooksie from The Shawshank
Redemption, so young.
Cast: Rita Hayworth (Vera Prentice-Simpson), Frank Sinatra (Joey
Evans), Kim Novak (Linda English), Barbara Nichols (Gladys).
Screenplay: Dorothy Kingsley, based on the musical playbook by
John O’Hara.
Director: George Sidney.
Notes. The chemistry between
Frank and Kim is just as great as two years earlier,
but the movie, a light love-triangle music-romance about a cocky bum who
happens to be a singer and fancies himself club owner, is a very far cry from
the intensity The Man with the Golden Arm.
Rita Hayworth adds a touch of her unique class, but she can’t save the
indifferent material either. The major virtues of this trifle are the glorious
colour that only movies from the 50s and the 60s can have (you’ll know right
away why one of Frankie’s nicknames was “Blue Eyes”), Kim’s performance of “My
Funny Valentine” that features some of the most gorgeous close-ups of her ever, and a great supporting role by an unnamed dog who has bagels with
coffee for breakfast.
Cast: James Stewart (John “Scottie” Ferguson
Screenplay: Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, based on the
novel D’Entre Les Morts by Pierre
Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Notes. This is a well-deserved classic with but two flaws. Two
very serious flaws! The first is that an essential part of the mystery is
revealed, in a flashback, full half an hour before the end. This is a
fundamental dramatic mistake. I don’t know why Hitchcock allowed it (if he
could prevent it). I don’t understand why the screenwriters wrote it in the
first place (if they did). Maybe a third party unfortunately interfered? You
tell me. That flashback would surely have worked so much better in the end. The
other flaw is the very end itself. It is as contrived and lurid as they come. It
is much too sudden and it feels like something put there just for the sake of
increasing the body count. It is thoroughly unconvincing. The tragic outcome is
implied in
the dialogue. We don’t need another corpse to confirm it. These
flaws aside, this is as intense, atmospheric and gripping a mystery as you
would expect from Hitchcock, beautifully shot in glorious colour, and with
outstanding performances by the great Jimmy Stewart and the ravishing Kim
Novak.
Cast: James Stewart (Shepherd “Shep” Henderson
Screenplay: Daniel Taradash, based on the play by John Van
Druten.
Director: Richard Quine
Notes. A bizarre story of modern witchcraft with the
obligatory romantic subplot. Rather heavy-handed and lacklustre. Were it not
for the charismatic presence of Jimmy, Jack and Kim, it would not have been
worth seeing. I find it strange that this movie was reportedly more successful
at the time than the released half a year earlier Vertigo. By the way, great supporting role by an uncredited Siamese
cat.
Cast: Fredric March (Jerry Kingsley), Kim Novak (Betty
Preisser), Albert Dekker (Walter Lockman), Edith Meisser (Evelyn Kingsley), Lee
Grant (Marylin), Martin Balsam (Jack).
Screenplay: Paddy Chayevsky, based on his play.
Director: Delbert Mann.
Notes. This is a remarkably
powerful cocktail of drama, melodrama and tragedy. A disillusioned old man’s
passionate relationship with an immature woman more than twice younger is
hardly the most original subject for a movie, but that doesn’t make it less
relevant – and timeless. Kim reportedly claimed this as her favourite role, and
if so I can well see why. It’s a tour de force. Fredric March is also
outstanding: “What the hell is wrong with everybody? All they want is peace,
comfort, security, no problems. But life is problems, heartache, passion, a woman. Listen, sonny boy, love, no matter how shabby it
may be, is still a beautiful thing. Everything else is nothing… I’m sick to
death, George; running with a young woman myself. The
last couple of months have been torture to me, such a sweet and wonderful
torture. I was living...”
Cast: Kirk Douglas (Larry Coe), Kim Novak (Margaret “Maggie” Gault),
Ernie Kovacs (Roger Altar), Barbara Rush (Eve Coe), Walther Matthau (Felix Anders).
Screenplay: Evan Hunter, based on his novel.
Director: Richard Quine.
Notes. Wonderful and very
unjustly neglected movie. Moving melodrama true to life. No sickly
sentimentality à la Picnic. No farcical
situations à la Pal Joey. No
soap-operish characters à la Bell Book
and Candle. Just real people coping with real dilemmas in a mature way. Kim
delivers one of the strongest performances in her career. As a general rule,
few actresses excelled at playing dissatisfied housewives trapped in
passionless marriages better than Kim did. Kirk Douglas is also fantastic,
revealing subtlety and sensitivity he is seldom given credit for. The
supporting cast boasts superb performances by Ernie Kovacs as the bohemian
writer, Barbara Rush as another pretty but unhappy wife, and Walter Matthau as
the nasty neighbour.
Cast: Kim Novak (Mrs. Carlyle “Carly” Hardwicke), Jack Lemmon
(William “Bill” Gridley), Fred Astaire (Franklyn Ambruster), Lionel Jeffries
(Inspector Oliphant), Estelle Winwood (Mrs Dunhill).
Screenplay: Larry Gelbart and Blake Edwards, based on the story “The
Notorious Tenant” by Margery Sharp.
Director: Richard Quine.
Notes. This is a strange, but effective, mixture of comedy, farce,
drama, thriller, mystery and anything else, with quite a few twists on the way.
Certainly, it doesn’t deserve the complete oblivion it has fallen into. The
title sounds like a third-rate eighteenth-century opera, but the movie is much
better than this. Jack and Kim steal the show in their joint scenes, but Fred
Astaire as Jack’s boss in the US
embassy in London
Cast: Kim Novak (Mildred
Rogers), Laurence Harvey (Philip Carey), Roger Livesey (Thorpe Athelny), Nanette Newman
(Sally Athelny), Jack Hedley (Griffiths).
Screenplay: Bryan Forbes, based on the novel by Somerset
Maugham.
Director: Kenneth Hughes and Henry Hathaway.
Notes. Not much of Maugham’s
novel is left, of course; the childhood and the Paris
Cast: Dean Martin (Dino), Kim Novak (Polly the Pistol), Ray Walston (Orville), Felicia
Farr (Zelda), Cliff Osmond (Barney).
Screenplay: Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, based on the
play L’Ora della Fantasia by Anna
Bonacci.
Director: Billy Wilder.
Notes. Very charming comedy of the “two couples cross-fertilised” type. Polly the Pistol is perhaps Kim’s best comic role. She is more than a match for Dean Martin at his debonair best and Ray Walston as the hilariously jealous piano teacher. Despite a fine performance by Felicia Farr as well, the picture on the whole is very much a male show, including the jolly nice Cliff Osmond singing the super-hit “I’m a poached egg”. Not Billy Wilder’s best movie, to be sure, but a sweet comedy that has aged well.
Cast: Kim Novak (Moll Flanders), Richard Johnson (Jemmy), Angela
Lansbury (Lady Blystone), Leo McKern (Stone), Vittorio de Sica (the Count),
George Sanders (the Banker), Lilly Palmer (Dutchy).
Screenplay: Denis Cannan and Roland Kibbee, based on the novel by Daniel
Defoe.
Director: Terence Young.
Notes.
Cast: Kim Novak (Lylah Clare / Elsa Brinkmann / Elsa Campbell),
Peter Finch (Lewis
Zarken / Louie Flack), Ernest Borgnine (Barney Sheean)
Screenplay: Hugo Butler and Jean Rouverol, based on the teleplay by Robern
Thom and Edward DeBlasio.
Director: Robert Aldrich.
Notes.
Cast: Zero Mostel (Rev. Pious Blue), Kim Novak (Sister Lyda
Kebanov), Clint Walker (Ranger Ben Quick), Claude Akins (Slade), Elisha Cook
(Jeb), Ruth Warrick (Mrs. Aplebee).
Screenplay: William Peter Blatty, based on the novel by Frank O’Rourke.
Director: Hy Averback.
Notes.
Cast: Charles Bronson (Wild Bill Hickok), Jack Warren
(Charlie Zane), Will Sampson (Crazy Horse), Kim Novak (Pocker Jenny).
Screenplay: Screenplay by Richard Sale based on his novel.
Director: J. Lee Thompson.
Notes. Kim appears for about five minutes in this tedious
Western horror.
Cast: David Bowie (Paul Ambrosius von Przygodski), Sydne Rome
Screenplay: Julius Brammer, Irving Caesar, Enio De Concini and Joshua
Sinclair, based on the story by Ted Rose.
Director: David Hemmings.
Notes. Bizarre black comedy with an absurdly young David
Bowie. Difficult to sit through. Small and not terribly memorable role for Kim.
Cast: Angela Lansbury (Miss Marple), Elizabeth Taylor (Marina Rudd),
Rock Hudson (Jason Rudd), Kim Novak (Lola Brewster), Tony Curtis (Martin N. Fenn ), Geraldine Chaplin (Elia Zielinsky), Edward Fox
(Inspector Craddock), Charles Gray (Bates, the butler).
Screenplay: Jonathan Hales and Barry Sandler, based on the novel by Agatha
Christie The Mirror Crack’d from Side to
Side.
Director: Guy Hamilton.
Notes.
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