skydog757
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There are plenty of villains/villainesses in Disney films that fit this category; fortunaley they almost always fall to their deaths in some manner . . .
You could say it was the Production Code at that time. But then how do you explain the use of the same wildly unbelievable ending in the 1988 TV version on American Playhouse (yeah, I had to look it up) with Jane Curtin and Anthony Andrews?Could not agree more. The "code," or the studios belief that happy endings equal better ticket sales made them slap a happy ending on "Suspicion" which is not how it went in the book "Before the Fact" that "Suspicion" was based upon. . . .
Rhett Butler in Gone With The WInd. Scarlett needed him like Georgia needed Sherman.
Every single person in "Mildred Pierce." Right down to the extras.
The great Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity.
Yes, you are right, Fred's character was a likeable guy who just happened to fall for a thoroughly rotten woman, and even after he murdered her husband you still could'nt help feeling sorry for him. I have a marvellous documentary on Stanwyck in which she said that Fred was never better, and it was unfair that he was not even Nominated for an Acadamy Award, neither was Edward G Robinson who's amazing speech about the different ways to commit suicide was worth an Oscar alone, and he did that all in one take.Outstanding movie - and I love Barbara Stanwyck - but I didn't find her super scary in this. She felt two dimensional; whereas, for me, the truly scary thing was watching Fred MacMurray's slow motion decent into murder. She was a generic bad woman; he was a complex person who knew what he was doing was wrong and yet couldn't help himself. His moral decent was scary as it felt real; it felt like it could happen to someone you knew; like when somebody commits a crime and all the neighbors say what a nice guy he was, how he bought ice-cream for the kids, etc.
Outstanding movie - and I love Barbara Stanwyck - but I didn't find her super scary in this. She felt two dimensional; whereas, for me, the truly scary thing was watching Fred MacMurray's slow motion decent into murder. She was a generic bad woman; he was a complex person who knew what he was doing was wrong and yet couldn't help himself. His moral decent was scary as it felt real; it felt like it could happen to someone you knew; like when somebody commits a crime and all the neighbors say what a nice guy he was, how he bought ice-cream for the kids, etc.
Yes, you are right, Fred's character was a likeable guy who just happened to fall for a thoroughly rotten woman, and even after he murdered her husband you still could'nt help feeling sorry for him. I have a marvellous documentary on Stanwyck in which she said that Fred was never better, and it was unfair that he was not even Nominated for an Acadamy Award, neither was Edward G Robinson who's amazing speech about the different ways to commit suicide was worth an Oscar alone, and he did that all in one take.
Two years later Stanwyck played an equally ruthless woman in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which also saw the debut of 30 year old Kirk Douglas as her weak, alcoholic husband.