It really seems that during the so-called golden age of cinema, directors had a crush on red hair.
Here are few of the several films on the subject. More to come.
The Red-Haired Alibi
The Red-Haired Alibi is an American pre-Code feature-length film produced by Tower Productions. The film was produced by Sigmund Neufeld.
Released on October 15, 1932, it was directed by Christy Cabanne. The movie was based on a novel of the same name written by Wilson Collison. It is the first feature-length film to feature child actress Shirley Temple in the credits.
Plot
A young woman seeks employment with a pleasant and charming man in Manhattan, only to learn over time that he is a gangster. After his crimes escalate to murder, police urge her to leave him in order to protect herself. She builds a new life in White Plains and marries a man who has a four year old daughter (Shirley Temple); however, one night, when she drops off her husband at Grand Central Station in New York, she is spotted by her former employer, who threatens to reveal her past unless she gives him a large sum so he can leave the country.
The next night, she meets her former employer at a restaurant, as they had arranged—only she refuses to pay him and fires a gun at him. A waiter who had overheard part of their conversation shares the information with police, who visit her at her home in White Plains. She confesses and hands over her gun, at which point the police realize that she is innocent, because the weapon that killed the gangster was a different caliber.
Here's the whole film
Those Redheads from Seattle
Those Redheads from Seattle is a 1953 American musical film, produced in 3-D and Technicolor, directed by Lewis R. Foster, starring Rhonda Fleming, Gene Barry, Teresa Brewer and Agnes Moorehead, and released by Paramount Pictures. It was the first 3-D musical.
Plot
A woman (Moorehead) takes her four unmarried daughters to Alaska during the 1898 Gold Rush to help their father, not knowing he is already dead. When the Edmonds women arrive in Skagway, they meet Johnny Kisco, owner of the Klondike Club, whose partner is the one who killed Edmonds, a newspaper publisher.
When the women find out Edmonds is dead and had no money, one becomes a dancer and singer, one becomes a nurse and the other two run the newspaper that was once belonged to their father, trying to run out the owner of the burlesque club. Pat, the singer, falls for Johnny and performs at his club. He is more interested in her sister Kathie, who takes exception to Johnny's ways and decides to wed a more respectable minister.
Johnny departs for Fairbanks to track down his partner, saving him from an avalanche and bringing him back to confess to Edmonds' murder. On the day she's to be married, Kathie, still in her wedding dress, runs to Johnny, realizing she is in love with him.
Here's the whole film.
The Man Who Loved Redheads
The Man Who Loved Redheads is a 1955 British comedy film directed by Harold French and starring Moira Shearer, John Justin and Roland Culver. The film is based on the play Who is Sylvia? (1950) by Terence Rattigan, which is reputedly a thinly veiled account of the author's philandering father. The film follows the play fairly closely, its main difference being the turning of Sylvia into a redhead.
Plot
Young peer and junior member of the Foreign Office, Mark St. Neots (John Justin), is obsessed with the memory of Sylvia (Moira Shearer), a 16-year-old redhead he met at a party as a boy, and vowed he would love forever. Now older and respectably married, Mark still retains his image of the beautiful young girl with the red hair, and spends the rest of his life searching for her, through a string of casual affairs.
The Red-Haired Cupid
The Red-Haired Cupid is a 1918 American silent western comedy film directed by Clifford Smith and starring Roy Stewart, Charles Dorian and Peggy Pearce.
Plot
Unhappy with William "Red" Saunders, the foreman of the Chanta Seechee Ranch in Oklahoma, its Eastern owners send a Boston tenderfoot named Albert Jones to manage the ranch with "Eastern business methods." Red prevents the angry cowboys from quitting, but they insist on making Jones the butt of their jokes and tricks. Upon learning that Jones's niece, Loys Andres, is planning a visit, the boys plan a rowdy reception for the woman, whom they expect will be an old maid. Loys's beauty, however, surprises them all, and Red's bunk-mate, Kyle Lambert, falls in love with her, and he soon proposes. When Jones tries to break up the romance, Red arranges for an elopement, but as the lovers reach the ford, a rustler called "Squint-Eye" Lucas fires at them, slightly wounding Kyle. Loys returns to the ranch for help, Red shoots Lucas, and Kyle is rescued, after which Loys and Kyle marry. Beaten, Jones gives the couple his blessing.
Red Hair
Red Hair is a 1928 silent film starring Clara Bow and Lane Chandler, directed by Clarence G. Badger, based on a novel by Elinor Glyn, and released by Paramount Pictures.
The film had one sequence filmed in Technicolor, and is now considered a lost film except for the color sequence at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and a few production stills.
Plot
A free-spirited young girl has three middle-aged admirers, each of whom sees her from a completely different perspective. Unknown to her, they also happen to be the guardians of a wealthy young man to whom she is attracted.
No comments:
Post a Comment