The publicity still from Red Canyon (1949) shows Ann Blyth and costar Howard Duff on location in what was Ann's first color film (even though the publicity still is black and white), and only feature western. We discussed her work in this film on my Another Old Movie Blog:
She was 19 years old and had hit her stride.
It was a pinnacle of a kind, and the beginning of new trail. After a string of six heavy dramas that gave her intense roles to prove herself a major up and coming actress, her last film before Red Canyon, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, was a complete change that charmed the public and clued-in the studio that Ann was also athletic, and that her beauty was as much an asset to selling a film as her acting skill. Her trim body, also, could lend itself to more than posing in a crisp Noir wardrobe.
It also reminded the studio that she was young. In those dramas, from Mildred Pierce through Another Part of the Forest, Ann’s characters were increasingly poised, knowing, sophisticated, and wore a mantle of worldly experience even though in real life she was still some years away from being old enough to vote. Her characters were restless, mean, sad, tragic.
Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, because of her fanciful character and its exotic costuming, her silent communication through her expressive face, and the joyful silliness of the plot, actually managed to re-set the clock on her screen sophistication. She was suddenly much younger again. For the next several films she would play more innocent ingénues, most of them in comedies, and this one western...
For more, head on over to this post at Another Old Movie Blog.
The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.
Also in paperback and eBook from Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment