They called Gloria Grahame, that most enigmatic and evocative of screen presences, a suicide blonde because "she dyed by her own hand." The compulsively watchable, Grahame -- Oscar winner for The Bad and the Beautiful but more widely known as the vamping Violet in It's a Wonderful Life and Ado Annie in Oklahoma! -- is the star du jour Thursday August 13 on Turner Classics Movies (TCM). The hard-to-see In a Lonely Place (1950), her best film (directed by her then-husband, Nick Ray) will show at 8 pm and Fritz Lang's white-hot The Big Heat (1953) at 9:45 pm. I can't imagine a better double-bill, one that eloquently captures sexual paranoia (Lonely Place, co-starring Humphrey Bogart as Grahame's hot-tempered lover) and social paranoia (Heat, with Glenn Ford as an honest cop rooting out mobsters and Grahame as a mob moll turned informant).
On screen Grahame, of whom a biographer claimed could trace her genealogy to Plantagenet royalty, specialized in the kind of dames no one curtsied to. She wasn't like anyone else, "the girl with the Novocaine lip," scribes wrote of her immobile upper lip that gave her a sexy overbite, this gal who gravitated to the role of the worldly, slightly naughty, woman ever looking to trade up. You know, the good-bad girl. The first time I was aware of her flirty, deadpan delivery was in Macao (1952) -- Joseph Von Sternberg's very entertaining noir comedy starring Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum -- where Grahame plays the wife of a casino owner. When Grahame sees that a gambler has used his wife's diamonds as collateral, her itchy fingers draw to the jewels. "Diamonds would only cheapen you," her husband scolds. "What a way to be cheap!" she exclaims in a line that might have been her motto.
She's warmer as Bogart's neighbor in Lonely Place, a onetime kept woman now keeping company with Bogart's unstable screenwriter. Quoting Bogart's introduced screenplay, she delivers one the best lines in film history: "I was born when he kissed me; I died when he left me; I lived a few weeks while he loved me." (While making the film, her marriage to Ray was on the rocks. Gossip was that she had become romantically involved with her stepson, Tony Ray, then 14, whom she subsequently married when he came of age.) She was warmest as Debby, former moll, in The Big Heat, coming to Ford's hotel room, looking around at the bad furniture and joking, "What do you call this style, Early Nothing?"
Grahame, like Melanie Griffith after her, brings unpredictability to her line readings and instability to a scene and is mesmerizing to watch. I very much like her in her films with Vincente Minnelli, The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and The Cobweb (1955). In the latter, she's a psychiatrist's wife who deadpans to his client at the sanitarium, "The only way you can tell the doctors from the patients is that the patients get better."
I wish every day could be Gloria Grahame day. Your favorite Gloria?
White Heat is astonishing, and she's astonishing in it. For half the film, she's in a bizarre, surreal cast because Lee Marvin has beaten her up -- yet, even thus debilitated, or maybe (sickly?) because of it, she's even more beckoning. A tremendous tragic performance that mixes wrongway tough girl, aching vulnerability, and doom.— jtimpane- CHILLY SCENES OF WINTER (aka HEAD OVER HEELS). Joan Micklin Silver's underseen film. Grahame plays the hero's wacked out mother,and she's hilarious. In a evening dress and sneakers, or giving her son's best friend an inappropriate kiss. I fell in love with Grahame in this film and then saw all her others. If you can find this great indie, check it out!— garyk
- I love Gloria Grahame, though I've always been partial to her Ado Annie. In fact, I think her weakest appearance was the one that got her the Oscar in The Bad and the Beautiful. I guess Kate Hepburn was right was she said the right people usually won Oscars, just for the wrong roles.— edwardcopeland
- Thanks, Gary, for remembering "Chilly Scenes of Winter," where Grahame busses her son's friend (Peter Riegert?) on the mouth.— carrierickey
- And her earlier less meaty roles were good too. She was good in "Crossfire". I seem to remember seeing her in a low budget cable western last weekend made in 1957 with Dale Robertson(!),can't recall the title, something like "Road to Revenge" but thought how the mighty had fallen, just two years after "Oklahoma". And "Chilly Scenes of Winter" a/k/a "Head Over Heels" is tremendous. My sister and I find ourselves constantly quoting lines from the movie like: How do you know these things? How do you not know these things? And the bathtub scene with Gloria was a hoot too. Her career really seemed to flame out after "Oklahoma". Was it the marrying her step son or what? Does anyone know? 56 seems a young age to die too. And a little trivia, Bogart's production company "Santana" named after his boat produced "In a Lonely Place" for Columbia. Bogie wanted wife Lauren Bacall in the Gloria Grahame role, but Warner's would not let her, thus Nicholas Ray's then wife got the role.— JLV3
- JLV: Grahame's career flamed out in the late 1950s as Hollywood did. She had a rep as a "quixotic" performers. A series of high-profile marriages and divorces and the quasi-incestuous relationship with Tony Ray didn't help. The plastic surgery and extensive dental work that left her upper lip immobilized may have struck some in Hollywood as a liability, but that stiff-upper lip and voice were very distinctive. She died of stomach cancer. Edward: I love GG as Ado Annie singinf "I'm Just a Girl Who Caint Say No." And yeah, Hepburn was probably right about the Oscars: The most notorious example is Al Pacino winning for "Scent of a Woman."— carrierickey
- I also thank Gary for remembering "Chilly Scenes of Winter." And, Carrie, your observation: "where Grahame busses her son's friend (Peter Riegert?) on the mouth." Not so sound perverse, but what a mouth? Whenever I watch her, I can't take my eyes off it. I'd also like to mention her Ado Annie in "Oklahoma!" (even if it did essentially end her career, although I'd debate that.) Thanks also for bowing to "The Cobweb," an undeserved overlooked film. Bottom line, however, I like Graham in everything.— Pash
- jtimpane: White Heat was Jimmy Cagney and Virginia Mayo. The film you describe has a different title, although I don't remember it offhand.— jiminy cricket
- Thanks, Jiminy: John meant "The Big Heat," the cop-versus-mob movie with Glenn Ford, later made into the TV series Bannion. it's a great movie with a great Grahame performance as the moll-turned-informant.— carrierickey
- Frank Capra said he cast Graham in "It's a Wonderful Life" because he felt audiences would believe that nice-guy Jimmy Stewart would risk everything for her!— jonc
- Yes, CHILLY SCENES was said to be Grahame's last film...but IMDB suggests otherwise. Yes, Reigert received the kiss...And Yes, to JLV3 the film is totally quotable! I find myself quoting it all the time! (I used the line about Woodstock recently...)— garyk
- Yes, CHILLY SCENES was said to be Grahame's last film...but IMDB suggests otherwise. Yes, Reigert received the kiss...And Yes, to JLV3 the film is totally quotable! I find myself quoting it all the time! (I used the line about Woodstock recently...)— garyk
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