Two things:
1) So...a guest post yesterday. Weird, huh? Not something that happens a lot around here. In fact, it's never happened at all. Heck, I've never even allowed Delmar to guest post. Of course, it would take him a long time to put anything up, what with a tiny kitty brain and lack of fingers--keyboards aren't really designed for paws--but I'm sure he'd have something interesting to say, though it would probably boil down to some variation of HISSHISSGROWLGROWL, followed by brief purring and loud, disturbing snoring.
Anyway, thanks to all who took the time to read Katie's post. She's threatening to start who own blog, so watch out...
2) Much as I hate turning this site into a perpetual mourning area, I wanted to note the passing of the actor Richard Widmark at the age of 93. I almost referred to Widmark as a film noir mainstay, but looking at his filmography, I was struck by how relatively few true noirs he'd appeared in. His unforgettable turn as the giggling sociopath Tommy Udo in Kiss Of Death and iconic performance in Jules Dassin's magnificent Night And The City skew the curve, though he did fine work in Samuel Fuller's Pickup On South Street and Vincente Minnelli's kinda sorta noirish The Cobweb.
Another thing about Widmark--he was seldom bad (he could be, though--his dull, uncommitted performance pretty much ruins Peter Sykes' To The Devil--A Daughter, which had the makings of a horror classic), but too often he'd be the best thing about a largely forgettable movie. He would have been a perfect leading man for Robert Aldrich or Anthony Mann, but instead spent time appearing in the likes of Red Skies Of Montana or Frog Men. Good things still came his way--particularly his proto-Dirty Harry in Don Siegel's Madigan--but by the late sixties and seventies he mostly essayed bland authority figures, with the occasional colorful character part.
I've always thought of Widmark as ranking somewhere between Burt Lancaster and Sterling Hayden in my personal iconography of coolness, but really, Night And The City aside, his career is sort of a profile in frustration--a great actor in search of great roles.
