John Dall is the Cafe's Underrated Performer of the Month

He received an Oscar nomination opposite Bette Davis, played a key role in a Hitchcock picture, and starred in a famous cult film. And yet, John Dall never achieved stardom and, in fact, appeared in only eight films during a 15-year acting career.

Born John Jenner Thompson in New York City in 1918, he studied acting at the Theodora Irvine School of the Theatre, whose alumni include Anne Baxter, Marsha Hunt, and Cornel Wilde. (Note: The school is erroneously listed as Theodore Irvine in some sources; it's also known as the Theodora Irvine Studio of the Theatre and the Theodora Irvine Drama School).

Dall made his Broadway debut in 1941 and got his first lead role in Dear Ruth, which ran from 1944 to 1946. When Paramount made the play into a 1947 film, William Holden was cast in Dall's Broadway role as Lieutenant William Seacroft.

Dall with Bette Davis in The
Corn is Green.

In the meantime, Warner Bros. signed Dall for The Corn Is Green, which starred Bette Davis as a schoolteacher in a small Welsh mining town in 1895. Dall plays Morgan Evans, a young man in whom Davis' Miss Moffat sees the potential to earn a college degree. Dall earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance, but lost the Oscar to James Dunn for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Dall's follow-up was Something in the Wind, a Deanna Durbin musical in which he played the romantic leading man. He got a juicier part as a Civil War veteran in Another Part of the Forest, Lillian Hellman's prequel to The Little Foxes. Dall's star seemed to be on the rise when he was offered Rope in 1948.

He and Farley Granger played
murderers in Hitchcock's Rope.

Rope was based on a 1929 play, which was inspired by the chilling Loeb-Leopold "thrill murder" of 1924. Dall and Farley Granger played a pair of upper-class intellectuals who believe they can commit the perfect murder--and then host a dinner party with the corpse hidden in a trunk. With Hitchcock at the helm and James Stewart as the star, Rope has all the makings of a big hit--but it was a boxoffice disappointment. It has since become required viewing for film buffs due to Hitchcock's self-confessed "stunt" of using ten-minute takes to make the film look like one continuous shot.

Rope marked the end of Dall's Hollywood career. After a two-year hiatus, he appeared in the "B" film Deadly Is the Female (better known by its alternate title Gun Crazy). Dall stars as a young man fascinated with guns from childhood. When he meets Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins), a carnival sharpshooter, it's love at first sight. The only problem is that Annie's desire to lead the good life leads to a crime spree that leaves a few dead bodies in its wake. As the doomed lovers, Dall and Cummins generated plenty of sparks, but Gun Crazy flopped. It would take a couple of decades for it to be recognized as a classic film noir.

Dall and Peggy Cummins play newlyweds
pondering a life of crime in Gun Crazy.

Sadly, Dall's career stalled after Gun Crazy. He made just three more films: The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950); Spartacus (1960); and Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961). On Broadway, he starred in a revival of The Heiress in 1950 and the farce Champage Complex in 1955, although neither play lasted for longer than a month. He guest-starred on television sporadically, including four appearances on Perry Mason with Raymond Burr.

By 1965, his acting career was over. He died seven years later, age 52, from either a punctured lung or a heart attack (the accounts vary).

A talented actor with good looks, Dall seemed destined to become a star. Instead, he leaves us with three memorable performances and a reminder that acting is a fickle business where success can often be attributed to being in the right movies at the right time.

Underrated Performer of the Month: Ida Lupino

It's unfair perhaps to recognize Ida Lupino as the Cafe's Underrated Performer of the Month for January. She was indeed underrated as an actress, even by her own standards (having once referred to herself as a "poor man's Bette Davis"). But Ms. Lupino was more than just an actress. During the late 1940s and 1950s--when Hollywood film production was dominated by men--she carved out a successful career as a producer, screenwriter, and director.

She was born in London in 1918 to parents who both worked in show business. Ida landed her first film role when her mother, Emerald, auditioned for a Lolita-type role for 1933's Her First Affaire. Her mother didn't get the part, but director Allan Dwan was impressed with Ida and signed her for the role. She worked steadily in Britain and the U.S. throughout the rest of the 1930s, appearing in films such as The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone and The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt (an amusing turn in the best of Warren William's Lone Wolf  film series).

Lupino with Cornel Wilde
in Road House.

Ida Lupino landed her biggest role to date in 1939's The Light That Failed, a touching adapatation of a Rudyard Kipling novel about an artist (Ronald Colman) losing his eyesight. As a hard-bitten Cockney girl, Lupin earned raved notices and became a star at Warner Bros. She subsequently starred in classics such as They Drive By Night, High Sierra, and Devotion.

By 1947, Lupino found it harder to get good roles. She left Warner Bros. and co-wrote the screenplay for a B-film called Not Wanted (1949), a somewhat controversial (for the time) tale of an unwed mother. When director Elmer Clifton fell ill during the shooting, Lupino took over the directing chores.

She continued directing independent films in the 1950s, to include: Outrage (1950); Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) starring Claire Trevor; The Bigamist (1953) in which she co-starred with Joan Fontaine; and The Hitch-Hiker (1953), a taut little thriller that's generally considered her best film. Starting in 1956, she beginning working as a director in television, where she helmed episodes for dozens of TV series such as The Fugitive, Thriller, Dr. Kildare, Twilight Zone, Bewitched, The Virginian, and Have Gun Will Travel. She also formed a television production company, Four Star Productions, with Dick Powell, David Niven, and Charles Boyer.

She still appeared occasionally in films and on television. New York Times film critic Vincent Canby singled out for her fine supporting performance in the 1972 Steve McQueen Junior Bonner.

Ida Lupino was married three times: to actor Louis Hayward (1938-45), producer Collier Young (1948-51), and actor Howard Duff (1951-84). She died of a stroke in 1995 at age 77. Classic movie fans may remember her best for her acting, but her greatest contribution to the industry was as a pioneering female filmmaker. She was just the second woman to be inducted in the Director's Guild of America (following Dorothy Arzner).

Underrated Performer of the Month: Allison Hayes

Pulchritude with attitude. That's an appropriate description for B-movie actress Allison Hayes, who portrayed larger-than-life female characters on the silver screen...as in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

Born Mary Jane Hayes in 1930 in Charleston, West Virginia, she got her big career break when she represented Washington, DC in the 1949 Miss America Pageant. She took Allison Hayes as her professional name, worked in television, and eventually made her way to the West Coast in the early 1950s. She made her official film debut with a small part in 1954's Francis Joins the WACS. Further supporting player roles followed with costumers such as Sign of the Pagan (starring Jeff Chandler) and The Purple Mask (with Tony Curtis).

Hayes finally landed a promising role as a faded Southern belle opposite Van Heflin in the Western Count Three and Pray (1955). Unfortunately, critics focused on the film's other female star, a young Joanne Woodward. Instead of juicy parts in bigger budgeted films, Hayes got stuck in mid-grade fare like Mohawk and The Steel Jungle.

In 1956, Roger Corman provided her with a meaty role as the villain opposite gun-toting Beverly Garland in his fascinating feminist Western The Gunslinger. That same year, she played an alluring witch in another interesting Corman picture The Undead, which was filmed for $70,000 over ten days in a refurbished supermarket.

Hayes worked steadily in low-budget films and in television, often in thankless parts that capitalized on her looks. She was a promiscuous spouse who becomes a zombie in the camp classic Zombies of Mora Tau (1957).  In The Unearthly, she played alongside John Carradine as a mad scientist and Tor Johnson as his henchman (the film was later shown on MST3K).

But with her next sci fi film, Allison Hayes earned icon status as the title character in Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. She plays an alcoholic, mentally unstable wife with a crappy cheating husband. However, her life changes when she encounters an alien and begins to grow into a vengeful giant. The movie was understandably panned when originally released. But it acquired a cult reputation over the years, thanks to Ms. Hayes' no holds barred performance and the fantastic concept. My only problem with the film: Even with her emotional baggage, it's hard to fathom how any husband could cheat on Hayes' character. She is way hotter than Yvette Vickers as the "other woman."

In the 1960s, Hayes worked mostly in television. She appeared on Perry Mason five times with friend Raymond Burr (who co-starred in Count Three and Pray). Health problems, possibly related to lead poisoning, caused her to retire from acting by the late 1960s. She died of leukemia in 1977; she was only 46.

Underrated Performer of the Month: Peter Cushing

Peter Wilton Cushing finally achieved fame as an actor at the age of 44. Alas, his big break came in a horror film at a time when that genre was largely ignored by mainstream film critics. Hammer Films' Curse of Frankenstein, which is now regarded as a genre classic, was largely dismissed by critics when it was released. Britain's The Daily Telegraph stated simply: "For sadists only." What they missed was that the role of Victor Frankenstein was played superbly by Peter Cushing, a classically trained actor who once performed alongside Laurence Olivier.

His acting arc followed that of many of his British peers. He studied drama (at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama), performed in repertory theater, and tried his hand at Hollywood (with small roles in The Man in the Iron Mask and Laurel & Hardy's A Chump at Oxford). In 1948, he landed his best role to date as Osric in Olivier's Hamlet (1948), which featured another future Hammer star, Christopher Lee, in a bit part.

That didn't lead to bigger film roles, but did result in steady work in radio and early television. He achieved small screen success in fare such as a six-part Pride and Prejudice (as Mr. Darcy) and The Creature, an episode of the BBC Sunday-Night Theatre written by Nigel Kneale (and eventually adapted for the screen as The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas starring Cushing). When Hammer's producers decided to make a Frankenstein film--which focused on the doctor, not the monster--they knew who they wanted.

Perhaps critics didn't fully appreciate his Hammer debut, but audiences did and he subsequently landed the plum role of Van Helsing in Hammer's next film, 1958's Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula). It was a bigger smash than Curse of Frankenstein and for the next two decades, Peter Cushing would remain a Hammer Films fixture in quality fare such as Brides of Dracula, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and The Hound of Baskervilles. Indeed, his memorable turn as A. Conan Doyle's sleuth eventually led to a 1968 television series.

Cushing never talked down to horror film fans. In an interview with the magazine L'Incroyable Cinema, he said: "I don't mind at all that people may refer to me as a 'horror actor' because in this unpredictable profession, actors are awfully lucky."

In addition to his Hammer roles, Cushing also played Dr. Who in two big screen adaptations and was introduced to a whole new generation of moviegoers as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (aka Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope).

His wife of 27 years, Helen Cushing, died in 1971, causing Cushing to withdraw from Blood from the Mummy's Tomb. He eventually returned to acting and was awarded the Order of the Britisth Empire in 1989. When he died five years later, colleagues and critics sang his praises as a fine gentleman, a loyal friend, and an underrated, exceptional actor.

Underrated Performer of the Month: Peggy Cummins

Despite her unique combination of sweetness and sex appeal, Welsh actress Peggy Cummins rarely got roles that allowed her to shine. When she got her chance, though, Cummins delivered a sensational performance as sharp-shooting bad girl in the 1949 film noir classic Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female).

Born Augusta Margaret Diane Fuller in 1925, Peggy Cummins made her film debut in the now-lost 1940 drama Dr. O’Dowd. After appearing with Michael Wilding in the British class satire English Without Tears, Cummins caught the eye of 20th Century-Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck.

As part of a much-publicized star search, Zanuck brought her to Hollywood in 1945 to star in Forever Amber. The film, based on Kathleen Winsor’s bestseller, told the story of a beautiful, impoverished young woman who uses men to climb to the top of society in 17th century England. Condemned by the Hays Office before it was even finished, the production of Forever Amber was fraught with problems. Otto Preminger replaced original director John M. Stahl. Zanuck then replaced Peggy Cummins with Linda Darnell. The official reason was that Cummins was “too young” for the part.

After appearing in a string of forgettable films, Cummins starred with John Dahl in the low-budget Gun Crazy. The tale of two young people madly in love with each other—and guns—flopped when originally released. By the 1970s, though, it had become a cult favorite with film noir fans who appreciated the sexual undercurrents and the sizzling chemistry between Cummins and Dahl.

After Gun Crazy, Peggy Cummins returned to Britain and made a handful of pleasant films, one of the best being Always a Bride (1953). She and Ronald Squire played father-daughter con artists out to dupe unsuspecting men on the Riviera. Her most famous film of this period was the horror classic Curse of the Demon (aka Night of the Demon). Although the film justifies its sterling reputation, Cummins’s role is a thankless one as the love interest of Dana Andrews’ investigator of paranormal activities.

Peggy Cummins retired from acting in 1960. She spent most of her time living in Sussex with her husband Derek Dunnett, whom she married in 1950 (she had several well-publicized romances prior to marrying...one beau was allegedly Howard Hughes). She and Dunnett had two children. He died in 2000.

In 2006, when Elstree Film Classics screened Curse of the Demon as of the 50th Town Festival, Peggy Cummins made a rare appearance as the guest of honor. In her review of the festivities “A Night with a Demon,” Katherine Haynes described Peggy Cummins as looking “slim and elegant” and “nowhere near her age.”

Underrated Performer of the Month: Diana Rigg

Every time I mention Diana Rigg in a blog post, she generates a plethora of positive comments. So, for all we Dame Diana fans, I wanted to pay a brief tribute to one of the most versatile and reliable actresses of her generation—both in the cinema and on the stage.

After guest stints in a handful of TV shows, Diana Rigg secured lasting fame as Mrs. Emma Peel (the name a play on “man appeal’”) in the classic British series The Avengers. I’m convinced that if she had done nothing else, there would still be plenty of Diana Rigg fan clubs around the world. (And if you think the role was easy, watch Uma Thurman struggle with it in the 1998 big screen adaptation of The Avengers).

Regarding her famous first-season costume, she once said: “The leather catsuit I wore in The Avengers was a total nightmare. It took a good 45 minutes to get unzipped to go to the loo. It was like struggling in and out of a wet-suit….I got a lot of very odd fan mail while I was in that show, but my mum used to enjoy replying to it. Some of the men who wrote to me must have been a bit startled because she would offer really motherly advice. I would get a letter from a teenage boy, say, who was overexcited and my mother would write back saying: ‘My daughter is far too old for you and what you really need is a good run around the block.’ "

Her post-Avengers film career included the tongue-in-cheek The Assassination Bureau (with Oliver Reed), the witty theatrical satire Theater of Blood (she plays Vincent Price’s daughter), and a portrayal as the only Mrs. James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Agent (in spite of George Lazenby, this is one of my favorite 007 films). Concurrently, she gained acclaim on the stage, earning Tony nominations for Best Actress in 1972 and 1975 (she would eventually win a Tony in 1994 for Medea).

For the rest of her acting career, she moved back and forth among the theatre, the big screen, and the small screen. She earned kudos for dramatic parts in the TV miniseries In the House of Brede, Bleak House, and Rebecca (as Mrs. Danvers). She showed off her singing voice in the 1977 film version of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music (my wife and I were in London when she did Sondheim’s Follies on stage, but a ticket was not to be found). In 1982, she expertly pulled off the Marlene Dietrich role in an entertaining TV version of Witness for the Prosecution and brought sparkle to the part of a murder suspect opposite Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot in Evil Under the Sun.

The only significant blight on her stellar resume is the ill-advised 1973 American sitcom Diana, in which she played a divorcee living in New York. She has much more success with her other U.S. TV series gig—hosting PBS’s Mystery! from 1989 to 2003.

At age 71, she continues to act, most recently appearing as a nun (as she did in House of Brede) in the 2006 version of The Painted Veil.

So, Dame Diana fans, it’s your time to chime in!

Underrated Performer of the Month: Keir Dullea

Keir Dullea will probably be best remembered as "that one guy" from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 opus, 2001: A Space Odyssey. But the Cleveland born actor is a versatile performer, and his mark on the world of cinema far surpasses his psychological torment at the metaphorical hands of the malfunctioning computer, the HAL 9000.

Two of Dullea's strongest (and most popular) performances are in Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) and Bob Clark's Black Christmas (1974). In both movies, which have each achieved cult status, Dullea displays a remarkable ability to add depth to already complex characters. His boyish good looks are augmented by a playful smirk, but underneath that grin lies quiet aggression. As Steven in Bunny Lake, the brother to a woman who believes her daughter is missing (while police question whether or not the child even exists), Dullea generates warmth and sympathy. He is kind and protective, and that underlying strength is a welcome relief when the protagonist, Ann (Carol Lynley), seems to be breaking down. But this same style of performance has the opposite effect in Black Christmas. Dullea plays Peter, who spends a great deal of the movie upset over his girlfriend's decision to abort their unborn child. In this case, he is frightening, and it's not surprising that Jess (Olivia Hussey) would want him to stay away from her. It is amazing that Dullea developed such elaborate characters that contrast so distinctly, and it is difficult to imagine another actor in either role.

Dullea received recognition for his second film, Frank Perry's David and Lisa (1962), playing a man with obsessive-compulsive disorder befriending a woman (Janet Margolin) with dissociative identity disorder. The following year, Dullea won Best Actor at the San Francisco International Film Festival for David and Lisa. He also won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year (Actor), along with three other men nominated, Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif for Lawrence of Arabia and Terence Stamp for Billy Budd. (That particular Golden Globe category, for Actor and Actress, was retired in 1983.)

Dullea has made numerous appearances on television shows and made-for-TV movies, guest starring on the police drama Naked City (in 1961 and 1963, as two different characters), the long-running Western, Bonanza, and the Angela Lansbury mystery series, Murder, She Wrote, in 1989. The actor also appears frequently on stage, where he has stated that he prefers to work. In 1969, he starred in Leonard Gershe's successful Broadway production, Butterflies Are Free. He also appeared as Brick in a 1974 production (and revision) of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. In 1983, he and his wife, Susie Fuller, co-founded the Theatre Artists Workshop of Westport, Inc.

Later in his career, Dullea had a significant role in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006) and appeared in Law & Order (twice, like in Naked City), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and the pilot episode of the ABC mystery/comedy Castle. In 2010, Dullea received much praise for his performance as Tom Garrison in the Off-Broadway revival of Robert Anderson's I Never Sang for My Father.

Underrated Performer of the Month: Dwight Frye

Isn't it a shame that so many of the actors we love never knew they would live on in our hearts?  Dwight Frye would have been pleased, I think, to know we remember him well.  Born in 1899, Dwight had a decade of popular success during the 20's on Broadway, mostly in comedies and light romances.  Then he went to Hollywood.  We know him best as Renfield to Bela Lugosi's Dracula.  Dwight's bulging eyes, great shark-like grin, and that famous laugh - "Uh heh heh heh heh heh!" -- who could forget it?

Dwight's Hollywood career was a great disappointment to him.  His parts, mainly Renfield, Fritz the hunchback assistant in Frankenstein, Karl the equally unpleasant assistant in Bride of Frankenstein, Herman the village half-wit in The Vampire Bat, various uncredited torch-bearing villagers in other horror films - these were his main stock in trade.  He did a few regular movies, but not roles in which he could shine. Much of his work ended up on cutting room floors.  He always wished for legitimate acting parts, mostly hoping for comedic roles, but the typecasting curse was too strong.  In 1943, Dwight joined in the war effort by working for Lockheed Aircraft Company.  His health failed because of a coronary condition, for which he did not seek medical attention because of his devout Christian Science beliefs.  He died in that same year of 1943, only 44 years old and leaving a wife and son.  Unhappily, he was being considered for a decent role as a political figure in a film to be directed by Henry King when he died.  I don't know if he ever knew about it.  Sadly, his occupation was registered on the death certificated as "tool designer."

But we know better.  Dwight Frye will always be an important actor to lovers of the original horror movies.  Dracula alone would never have been as entertaining without Dwight as the crazy "old fly eater", as the asylum keeper called him.  So just for Dwight, let's all together: "Uh heh heh heh heh heh!"