Billie: A Missed Opportunity to Promote Girl Power

Made between the second and third seasons of The Patty Duke Show, the teen comedy Billie (1965) is a best-forgotten stain on the resumes of its star and her veteran supporting cast. Indeed, the only reason to watch this ill-conceived adaptation of the 1952 Broadway play Time Out for Ginger is to see the cast. In addition to Ms. Duke, there's Jim Backus as her father, Jane Greer as her mother, Susan Seaforth Hayes (Days of Our Lives) as her sister, plus Ted Bessell (That Girl), Dick Sargent (Betwitched), Warren Berlinger, and Richard Deacon.

Jim Backus as Billie's father.

Patty--sporting a disconcerting blonde wig--plays a high school teen who can out-run, out-jump, and out-pole vault any of the boys at Harding High School. Naturally, that earns her a spot on Coach Jones' (Charles Lane) track team. Her father, a male chauvinist pig who is running for mayor, initially rejects Billie's dreams. He's not exactly sensitive to his daughter's teen problems either. When she comments in frustration that she wishes she were a boy, he mutters: "So do I."

However, Dad eventually comes around and supports his youngest daughter. He remains, however, in the dark as to why his oldest daughter Jean has decided to take a break from college. (For the record, I turned to my wife immediately and said: "I bet Jean is married and pregnant.") After some mild misunderstandings, all conflicts are neatly resolved as befits this kind of 1960s comedy.

Billie and her stuffed Wolf.

It's a shame really. Billie could have made an important statement about empowering teenage girls to pursue their dreams and break stereotypical gender molds. I thought Billie might still make that point, but the ending reverses the theme entirely and all that remains is a harmless comedy with a handful of forgettable songs.

Director Don Weis does stage one notable musical number, in which Patty sings "Funny Little Butterflies" to a stuffed wolf in her bedroom. The previous year, Weis directed Annette Funicello warbling Stuffed Animal in her bedroom in Pajama Party. You gotta love coincidences like that! By the way, Weis also helmed several episodes of The Patty Duke Show.

In the original production of the play Time Out for Ginger Melvyn Douglas played the father and Nancy Malone portrayed his daughter Ginger. Her goal was to try out for the boys' football team. I think that might have worked better for Billie. Patty Duke never resembles a track athlete, moving her head back and forth as she hears "the beat" in her head. But, hey, she could have passed for a kicker on the football team. I know...that's nit-picking...but then Billie causes one to start thinking about those kinds of details.

John Mills, Jane Greer, and Richard Basehart: It's Triple Feature Time at the Cafe!

Jim--haunted by memories of the tragedy.

The October Man (1947). A bus accident on a dark, rainy night leaves Jim Ackland (John Mills) with a skull fracture--and the tragic memory of a friend's young daughter who died while under his care. After spending a year in a hospital, Jim emerges a fragile man who still battles suicidal thoughts. He resumes his work as an industrial chemist and takes a room in the nearby Broadhurst Common Hotel. He makes no friends at the hotel, but finds love with a co-worker's sister. But, just as his life begins to brighten, darkness falls again when he becomes implicated in the murder of a hotel resident.

The luminous Joan Greenwood.

Hitchcock might have crafted a classic suspense film had he adapted Eric Ambler's novel. However, in its current form, The October Man remains a tidy "B" movie with quality performances and atmospheric direction. John Mills is ideally cast in the lead, giving a nuanced performance as a man who finally gains a foothold in society, only to begin to doubt himself again. As his fiancee, Joan Greenwood--she of the marvelous voice--projects quiet strength and determination.

The October Man marked Roy Ward Baker's directorial debut. Baker, who befriended producer/writer Ambler during World War II, never gained acclaim as a director. Still, he had a solid career behind the camera with films such as A Night to Remember (about the Titanic) and Quatermass and the Pit, the best of Hammer's three Quatermass pictures.

There's nothing surprising about the outcome in The October Man. Indeed, in Hitchcock fashion, the killer's identity is revealed well before the climax. That works well enough, but the plot falters with how Ackland's innocence is ultimately confirmed. Still, The October Man is an intriguing, well-done effort worthy of a viewing.

The alluring Jane Greer.

The Falcon's Alibi (1946). The twelfth installment in the long-running Falcon "B" detective film series has one thing the previous installments didn't have: Jane Greer. In just her fifth movie, Ms. Greer plays Lola, a nightclub singer secretly married to a disc jockey called Nick the Night Owl (Elisha Cook, Jr.). Both Lola and Nick work in a hotel building that has been the site of several jewel robberies. Rita Corday (Joan Meredith) works as a secretary to one of the robbery victims. Fearing that she may be implicated in what turns out to be a jewelry scam, she enlists the aid of Tom Lawrence, aka The Falcon. And when has the handsome and suave Falcon ever passed on an opportunity to help out a pretty lady?

Tom Conway as The Falcon.

Of the three actors who played The Falcon--George Sanders, his brother Tom Conway, and John Calvert--my favorite is easily Conway. He approached the role with a light touch, yet never mocked these "B" mysteries. He also possessed a harder edge than his brother, implying that The Falcon could get his hands dirty if he wanted to--he just didn't desire to do so.

The Falcon's Alibi is a solid mystery, but lacks the sparkle of the series' best entries (e.g. The Falcon and the Co-eds). There's also too little of Jane Greer, who sizzles softly in every frame in which she appears. Finally, the picture stretches credibility: Really, Wilbur from The Maltese Falcon (a different bird altogether) married to Kathie from Out of the Past? I don't buy it!

The Extra Day (1956). Shortly after a film production wraps and its cast members go their separate ways, the film's final reel falls out of the back of a truck and goes rolling into the English countryside. Faced with a movie with no climatic scenes, the egotistical director sends production manager Joe Blake (Richard Basehart) to round up the extras so the footage can be reshot the next day. Over the next 14 hours, Joe rescues an elderly couple from an uncomfortable living arrangement, poses as a gangster to prevent an extra from being pummeled in a boxing match, and enlists groupies to kidnap a pop singer to prevent a marriage.

Colin Gordon and Richard Basehart.

This pleasant British comedy starts slowly, but steadily improves en route to its ironic ending. The appealing cast has much to do with the film's charm, especially Simone Simon as an actress romantically interested in one of the extras (George Baker) and Colin Gordon as the uncle of the extra about to be married. Gordon was a familiar face in British cinema and television in the 1950s and 1960s. His film credits range from The Man in the White Suit with Alec Guinness to The Pink Panther and Burn, Witch, Burn. On television, he appeared twice as Number Two in The Prisoner and also guest starred in UFO, Doctor Who, and The Baron.

Simone Simon--pretty in pink.

American audiences probably remember Simone Simon best as Irena in Val Lewton's Cat People and Curse of the Cat People. However, Simon spent most of her long career appearing in French films, to include Jean Renoir's 1938 classic La Bête Humaine (later remade by Fritz Lang as Human Desire). At age 46--but not looking it--Simon gives a bewitching performance in The Extra Day. She subsequently retired from acting, though she returned for one final role in the 1973 comedy-drama The Woman in Blue.

Robert Mitchum faces his shadowy former life in "Out of the Past"

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) is living a quiet life, running a gas station in a small town. But then a stranger drives his car into town, and everything changes. It seems that someone from Jeff's past wants something from him, and so Jeff tells his girlfriend, Ann (Virginia Huston), about his shady past. Years ago, Jeff had been hired by Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas) to find his lady friend, Kathie (Jane Greer), who had shot him and ran away with 40,000 of his dollars. Jeff tracks Kathie to Mexico, meets her in a bar, and the beautiful lady helps him forget all about bringing her back to the States. The two lovers are eventually forced to part ways, and Jeff soon learns that Kathie had returned to Sterling. Now, Sterling wants Jeff to do one simple job, so that they're square, but Jeff suspects that it might be a frame.

Jacques Tourneur, who'd directed some of the Val Lewton-produced films, Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie, and The Leopard Man (both 1943), helmed this movie. Many of the Val Lewton movies were covered in shadow, with the terror merely hinted. This was for budgetary reasons, but it helped immensely to heighten the suspense. Tourneur employs a similar technique in Out of the Past (1947), in this case with a thematic purpose. All that Jeff has left behind is creeping back into his life. The shadows begin to represent impending doom for Jeff, so that it's not only a reference to the title, but is almost a literal interpretation of the man's "shady past."

When we first see Jeff, he's fishing by a pond, in the bright of day. By the time he tells his story to Ann, he's partially hidden in shadow, where he spends the majority of the film. When Jeff is introduced in the flashback, he is wearing a dark overcoat. It was a time when he was a part of the seedy underworld, and he fits right in with the disreputable Whit Sterling. The refurnished Jeff, the man who fishes and owns a gas station, is adorned in a much lighter trenchcoat. It hints at a change in the man, but this is immaterial when he is hiding in the dark, continually stepping into the shadows when trying to uncover Sterling's scheme. It's almost as if Jeff is stepping back into his old role. He must return to his past, become who he used to be, to expose the frame-up. Despite his new life with Ann, Jeff seems more comfortable as his darker self.

When Jeff sees that Kathie is with Sterling again, she comes to his room later to explain herself. Jeff tells her simply, "Let's just leave it where it all is." But even Jeff knows that cannot happen. This is why he goes to see Sterling without an argument, why he takes the job offered to him, knowing fully well it's more than likely a setup. It's a basic belief in penance. Jeff walks back into the past to face whatever consequence awaits him.

The lighting in Out of the Past helps shape the film's story and people. Heavy contrasts, like the infamous sequence in which Jeff walks down a hallway (after stealing evidence implicating Sterling), clearly express the world in which the characters reside. The brighter the lights, the deeper the shadows, and the easier it is to lose oneself in the dark. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca had worked with Tourneur previously on Cat People. He'd also photographed other Val Lewton movies, such as The 7th Victim (1943) and The Curse of the Cat People (1944).

Out of the Past was based on the book (and released in the U.K. as) Build My Gallows High. The novel and its adaptation were written by Daniel Mainwaring, both under the pseudonym, Geoffrey Homes. Mainwaring's dialogue is so sharp that a viewer might need a box of gauze handy while watching the film. The lines are witty, with a wry sense of the environment. In other words, most of the characters have accepted their lot in life, and their words are assertions of this reserved compliance. One of the film's best scenes involves Jeff's first meet with the potential victim. He arrives at the door, where Meta Carson (Rhonda Fleming) is posing as his cousin. The other man and Jeff share this bit of dialogue:

"Your, uh, cousin is a very charming young lady."

"No, he isn't. His name is Norman, and he's a bookmaker in Cleveland, Ohio."

The performances in Out of the Past are flawless. The lazy-eyed Mitchum is unparalleled as Jeff. His lines flow from his lips like water from a faucet. The beautiful Jane Greer is the quintessential femme fatale. Her performance is so strong and alluring that it's easy to see why Jeff is such a sucker for her. You want to see more and more of her, in spite of knowing what her presence means. Douglas is equally solid as Whit Sterling. He spends so much of the film smiling that you can't help but assume that his charm is genuine. In one incredibly effective scene, he approaches Kathie, and just as she enters the frame, Sterling slaps her. Greer's reaction makes you wonder if the slap was unexpected, but more than anything, it makes Sterling a terrifying menace. Even Fleming, in the small role as Meta, is noteworthy. In essence, she is the other femme fatale, but she is so appealing that her association with the bad guys is a trait that can readily be forgiven.

Out of the Past was remade in 1984 as Against All Odds starring Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward. Greer played the mother of Ward, who was portraying Greer's '47 character. Paul Valentine, who made his film debut in Out of the Past as Sterling's crony, Joe Stephanos, also had a small role in the '84 remake.

Out of the Past is often cited as a prime example of the film noir genre. Tourneur's film is dramatically sound, and at times romantic, suspenseful, and just plain cool. So many separate elements come together to form a memorable film. And, just like Jeff and the movie's seemingly endless shadows, it's easy to lose yourself in a dark, somber world.

"And then she walked in out of the moonlight, smiling..."

Jane Greer is undoubtedly best remembered for her splendid portrayal of the sexy femme fatale Kathie Moffat in Jacques Tourneur's film noir classic, Out of the Past (1947). But this classy dame, a stunning beauty with a perpetually cocked eyebrow, was a topnotch actress, holding her own against the likes of Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger in the '52 version of The Prisoner of Zenda, Gary Cooper in You're in the Navy Now (1951), and James Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957). If you haven't seen it, I would recommend 1949's The Big Steal, a fun action romp in which Ms. Greer re-teams with her Out of the Past co-star, Robert Mitchum. Later in her career, the actress starred in an Out of the Past remake, Against All Odds, playing Rachel Ward's mother (Ward herself playing Greer's character from the original) and had a small part in David Lynch's cult TV series, Twin Peaks, as the mother of Norma (the owner of the diner). The Cafe salutes this talented lady!