#roy kellino

[gatutor]

James Mason-Jude Havoc "Lady possessed" 1952, de Roy Kellino.

[lupinoschums]

A Fourth For TV

IDA LUPINO JOINS TRIO OF STARS IN FILM SERIES

Ida Lupino, who this season is the fourth permanent star--with Dick Powell, Charles Boyer and David Niven--on CBS’ Four Star Playhouse, likes to refer to herself as “the guest who came to dinner.” 

She did a one-shot for Four Star two years ago. Then she did another. Then another. “I just stuck around,” she says laconically, “and I’m still here.” This season she is doing eight half-hour dramas for the program.

At her admitted 35, Ida Lupino retains a remarkably trim “figgah,” as her British relatives like to call it, although she bewails the fact that she currently weighs 122 pounds. Frank Lloyd Wright himself, however, couldn’t have arranged them better. The “figgah” is topped by an equally trim mind that, at least in the ways of business, works like a man’s. Which is also why she works as a regular on Four Star.

“A dame,” says outspoken Dick Powell, “can stop to powder her nose at the wrong time and $3000 goes down the drain. ‘Lupe’ knows when to powder and when not to powder.”

Lupey, in fact, knows just about everything there is to know, as far as the making of pictures is concerned, and this includes an acute understanding of the budget.

“Miss Lupino,” states Four Star director Roy Kellino in clipped British tones, “is a professional. She is a trouper. She is never late. She always knows her lines. She knows how to improvise. And she will stand all day on a recently broken ankle because she knows that if the picture goes into another day of shooting, it will cost more money. I admire Miss Lupino tremendously.”

So, in point of fact, do a number of other people. Her former husband, Collier Young, is her partner in Arc Productions, an independent movie company. He also produced and helped write the pilot of her proposed TV film series, Mr. Adams and Eve. Her present husband, actor Howard Duff, is also her partner in Arc Productions and her co-star in Mr. Adams and Eve. Joan Fontaine, Young’s present wife, recently starred in a picture which was directed by Miss Lupino. The four are jolly good friend as well as business associates.

Ida Lupino is probably the only actress in Hollywood, if not in the entire world, whose theatrical geneology [sic] can be traced back some 500 years to the days when jugglers and strolling players were all the rage in England. Many of them were named Lupino. Her parents, Stanley Lupino and Connie Emerald, were performers of no little note in England, and little Ida’s backyard playhouse was literally that--a miniature theater.

Despite the Lupino history of stage activity, however, little Ida made her public debut as a bit player in a movie back in 1932. This was somewhat to the consternation of the older members of the Lupino clan, but with the hearty approval of her father. She has been appearing in or directing or writing films ever since.

Lupey fell into directing back in 1949, when she and Collier Young were producing their first picture together, “Not Wanted.” The director became ill on the first day of shooting and Lupey, who had had a hand in the script, was rushed into the breach.

“Directing is much easier than acting,” she explains. “The actor deals in false emotions, produced on cue. The director has his problems, but they’re all normal. He doesn’t have to smile into a camera while suffering through an early morning grouch.”

Lupey dismisses live TV with characteristic frankness: “I don’t want to get into Forest Lawn cemetery before my time.”

Duff lost eight pounds while doing his first live TV show on Climax! last season and the memory of his skeletonize figure continues to serve her as a horrible example.

The Duffs live a far piece out Sunset Boulevard, just beyond Brentwood, Cal., in a hidden-from-the-tourists neighborhood. They have one child, Bridget, who is now 3. Given any spare time, Duff likes to play chess and Lupey is devoted to fishing. Their marriage has lasted in spite of it.

[gatutor]

Geneviève Page-David Niven "The silken affair" 1956, de Roy Kellino.

[gatutor]

June Havoc-James Mason "Lady Possessed" 1952, de Roy Kellino.

[lupinoschums]

Peter Bryant on Twitter

““Ida Lupino goes over the script of ‘A Bag of Oranges’ with Roy Kellino, who acts as both director and producer on the Four Star Playhouse

[tvln]

the phantom light (uk, powell 35)

[classicfilmfreak]

New Post has been published on http://www.classicfilmfreak.com/2016/10/13/lady-possessed-1952-with-james-mason/

Lady Possessed (1952) with James Mason

Actor James Mason was a big star in England before coming to the United States in the early 1950s.  One of his first films – though thankfully for him not the first film- that he worked on was 1952’s Lady Possessed, a film he also produced and co-wrote with his wife Pamela.  The film was based on the novel Del Palma which was also written by his wife.

Mason, perhaps best know for his iconic voice and portrayal of rather brooding and downcast types, found himself tripped up several times during his career with fallout as a result of his married life.  For example, after taking a part in the panned 1975 film Mandingo, he admitted that he knew the production was garbage but had only taken the part because he was behind in alimony payments.  Critic Roger Ebert at the time quipped, “Surely jail would have been better.”

Lady Possessed as well was perhaps inspired by his wife given its close association with her (she also has a slight role in it).  James Mason plays singer Jimmy Del Palma, who as the film opens is removing his ill wife from the hospital out of frustration with the care she’s been getting, only to have her pass away shortly thereafter.

Distraught, Jimmy sells his house to Jean and Tom Wilson (June Havoc and Stephen Dunne, respectively).  The Wilson’s are the perfect picture of marital bliss, but soon after moving in Jean begins to form a close connection with the spirit of the deceased Mrs. Del Palma.  Part of this is due to the fact that the only thing moved out of the house was Mr. Del Palma himself.

As time passes Jean become’s more and more in sync with the dear departed, at one point even having a dream in which she assumes her role.  Thing progress in a herky jerky fashion as her friend Sybil (Pamela Mason) encourages her to set up a seance with a medium in an attempt to reach Mrs. Del Palma’s spirit.  By some odd luck they manage to get Jimmy himself to attend the service.  In one of the more dramatic sequences of the film he leans menacingly over the table yelling at the medium that he doesn’t believe in all the hocum they are spewing before finally flipping over the table over in a rage and departing.

Stranger still Jimmy strikes up a relationship with Jean, and eventually she agrees to leave her husband and go on tour with him in Europe.  Strangely, the fact that she’s living in his old house or that she’s married don’t come up until well on into the relationship, throwing another wrench into the already lurching proceedings.

But first we have to backtrack just a bit as one of the original reasons June was trying to meet Jimmy- in addition to thinking she is Mrs. Del Palma back from the dead- was to deliver a letter she found.  It’s written by his wife and was never given to him.  What on earth could it say?

Finally, just before going on for his last stateside show and the beginning of his European tour, Jimmy reads the note.  In a stupor, he wanders to the stage and performs a brief dirge on the piano while the words of the letter fill his mind.  This scene is definitely James Mason’s most dramatic in the entire affair and tries hard to rescue the film, but just comes up a bit short.  After a few minutes he closes the show and leaves, heading to June.

In a rage he tells her where she he now thinks of her (it isn’t good) and leaves perhaps hotter than he arrived.  June returns to Tom with apparently no repercussions for anything.

Whew!  What could have with a lot of work been an entertaining film falls relatively flat.  The cast outside of James Mason himself is pretty flat and unengaged.  Patricia Mason’s character is surely inserted just for some family vanity as it serve no real purpose.

As Jimmy, Mason has two excellent scenes, with those being the seance and the final performance where his moody gravitas nearly lifts the film above the “plot jambalaya” that swirls around it.  Just don’t look to closely during the short performances.  They are clearly dubbed but the voice has no similarity to Mason’s, but the intercutting of some almost spoken-word interludes is moderately effective.  In any case, it’s definitely his show and he knows it.

June Havoc is given a lot to do but most of it makes little sense.  Is she possessed or or simply obsessed or perhaps something of a celebrity stalker just looking to meet the flashy Mr. Del Palma?  We never learn what is driving her forward or what happens to these folks.

What was it in the letter that pushed Jimmy over the line?  Though we won’t share the contents of it (in the extremely rare chance you see this one), it doesn’t seem like anything that untowards.  Yet in spite of this he threatens to kill Jean.  Very odd.

In a last odd twist the film is directed by Roy Kellino, a close friend of the Masons.  So close that he was actually Patrica’s ex-husband at the time of filming.  Though she was already married to James at the time she’s still billed as Patricia Kellino.  James Mason had moved in with the Kellino’s previously and at the end of the day Patricia had exchanged the men in her life, though all three continued to share the same home.

Lady Possessed is a film that’s hard to find and will most likely stay that way as there isn’t much to recommend it outside of James Mason’s performance, though even that get overwhelmed by a disjointed plot.

[oldhollywood]

Guilt Is My Shadow (1950, dir. Roy Kellino) (via)