Noir Nook: Minor But Memorable

Minor But Memorable

There are
characters in film noir that are bigger than life, that are in nearly every
scene and who tower over the movie itself like the eponymous inferno.

And then there
are those that you hardly see at all – characters so minor that they often
don’t even warrant a last name (or a name at all) – and yet, they’re
unforgettable.

This month’s Noir Nook takes a look at three of these characters: Madge in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Girl at Bar in Shield for Murder (1953), and Sally in Sweet Smell of Success (1957).

…..

Madge
(Audrey Totter) in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

The Postman
Always Rings Twice tells the tale of Cora Smith (Lana Turner) and Frank
Chambers (John Garfield), illicit lovers who team up to murder Cora’s husband,
played by Cecil Kellaway. As it turns out, both Cora and Frank get off
scot-free (due to some courtroom machinations that, even after all these years
and countless viewings, I still don’t quite understand), but that doesn’t mean
there’s smooth sailing ahead. The two become adversaries, each threatening to
turn the other one in, and when Cora leaves town for a family emergency, well –
you’ve heard the old saying, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play”?

In this case,
the mouse – that’s Frank – finds a lovely plaything in the person of Madge, who
he meets in the parking lot of the train station. She was having a bit of a
problem getting her car started, but she didn’t have any problems starting
Frank’s motor, if you know what I mean. A brief mention about her thin skirt
and the hot leather of the car seat, and he was off to the races.

Madge, like
many a minor character, was only in one scene, with a handful of lines, but she
made them count. She practically purred when she was talking to Frank, even if
all she was doing was complaining about her job as a hash slinger or labeling Frank
an “outlaw [who] can’t stand captivity.” Within just a few minutes, she’d made
such an impression on Frank that he was proposing a trip with her to Tijuana,
Mexico. She made an impression on us, to – and on the critic from the Hollywood
Reporter, who wrote: “Audrey Totter, going the small part of a rather loose
pick-up . . . proves again that she has a great future, with easy command of
what made our top screen sirens stars.”

…..

Girl at Bar
(Carolyn Jones) in Shield for Murder (1953)

One of my
favorite lesser-known noirs, Shield for Murder stars Edmond O’Brien (who
was also making his directorial debut) as Barney Nolan, a police detective who murders
a bookie and relieves the corpse of a cool $25,000. But he’s not exactly pals
with Lady Luck – his back-alley homicide was witnessed by a nearby resident, the
bookie’s boss wants his money back, and the entire case is being investigated
by a young detective (John Agar) to whom Barney serves as mentor and friend.

Stressed by his
attempts to cover up his crime while evading the hoods on his trail, Barney visits
a bar in a local restaurant, where he hopes to collect his thoughts (or maybe
drown them). There, he encounters a young blonde with a knowing smile and
come-hither eyes that run up and down Barney like a searchlight (as Olga from The
Women [1939] would say). Sidling up next to Barney, she starts in with a
line of patter that can best be described as eclectic. She teaches him how to
“look tough” in the mirror. She flips her hair and confesses that her mother
always thought she had “too much spirit.” And before you can say “Jack
Robinson,” she and Barney are sitting cozily together in a booth. (By the way,
even though the film credits her as “girl in bar,” we learn when she introduces
herself to Barney that her name is Beth.)

Beth is a . . .
shall we say . . . interesting young woman; between the mysterious bruise
on her arm (“Somebody gave it to me, I guess,” she half-explains) and the way
her hand forms into a claw on Barney’s face when she kisses him, we don’t know where
this thing might end up. (We never find out, though, since Barney upends the
evening by pistol-whipping two thugs in the middle of dinner.)

Along with Marla
English, who played Barney’s girlfriend, Carolyn Jones was singled out by the
critic for the L.A. Daily News; although he misspelled her name as
“Carilyn,” he wrote that Jones and English “contribute just the right amount of
femme charms to their roles, and although they don’t get much chance to really
emote, both gals show promise.”

…..

Sally (Jeff
Donnell) in Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

In Sweet
Smell of Success, Burt Lancaster is all-powerful, Walter Winchell-like columnist
J.J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis (in what is arguably the best performance of
his career) is Sidney Falco, a sniveling, sycophantic, weasel of a man who will
do anything to get ahead. And for Sidney, getting ahead means earning the favor
of Hunsecker.

Sidney’s
“office” (which has a nameplate taped onto the door and a bedroom in the back)
is presided over by Sally, who serves as Sidney’s Girl Friday. She’s not the
kind of glamour-girl assistant you might think a man like Sidney would have; her
face is free of make-up, her clothes are ill-fitting, and her hairstyle is
unattractive. She’s certainly efficient, though, and is adept at fielding a
variety of calls, from dissatisfied clients to vendors trying to collect
past-due bills.

Unfortunately
for Sally, she’s clearly in love with Sidney – and she couldn’t have picked a
worse candidate for her affections. When Sally points out to Sidney that he’s
been left out of Hunsecker’s column for five consecutive days, Sidney snarkily
snaps, “May I rent you out as an adding machine?” When she tells Sidney she
wishes that she could help him, he responds, “You can help with two minutes of
silence.” And when he refers to her “meaty, sympathetic arms,” he actually
reduces her to tears. In just a short amount of time, Sally manages to evoke an
assortment of reactions from the viewer; as we watch her look at Sidney with
those liquidy, puppy-dog eyes, we want to simultaneously shake her, roll our
eyes in annoyance, and give her a massive hug.

In the L.A.
Examiner, Jeff Donnell was praised for her “good job” and the reviewer for
the New York Times included her along with several other minor
characters when he noted the “competent touches in their brief appearances.”

The next time
you see The Postman Always Rings Twice, Shield for Murder, or Sweet
Smell of Success, give an extra look to Madge, Beth, and Sally. All told,
their appearances in these films probably don’t occupy a total of 10 minutes, but
they’re undeniably unforgettable.

And deserve to be remembered.

…

– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
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