(Famed director Joseph Losey's long neglected masterpiece,...)
Famed director Joseph Losey's long neglected masterpiece, scripted by legendary blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, has been restored to its original bleak splendor by the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A nefarious cop stalks a lonely, repressed Los Angeles housewife and decides to win her in the traditional film noir fashion - by knocking off her husband!
(The chairman of a large automobile maker is left to find ...)
The chairman of a large automobile maker is left to find a new second in command. Believing that an executive's wife is crucial to her husband's success he examines each of the men's spouses to learn about the candidates through their relationships. Clifton Webb, June Allyson, Van Heflin, and Lauren Bacall star in this 1954 classic. Shown in 4:3 letterbox format using the highest quality source material available.
When sold by Amazon.com, this product will be manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.
Van Heflin was an American actor. He starred in numerous films for almost forty years; during the 1940s he had a string of roles as a leading man. He is particularly known for his performance in "Johnny Eager, " "Shane, " "3:10 to Yuma, " "and Gunman's Walk. "
Background
Van Heflin was born Emmet Evan Heflin Jr. on December 13, 1908 in Walters, Oklahoma, United States. He was the son of Emmet Evan Heflin, a dentist, and Fanny Bleeker Shippey. In early childhood he lived in Oklahoma City; when his parents separated, he moved to Long Beach, California, to live with his grandmother.
Education
Heflin attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School and worked as a seaman on schooners during summer vacations. Upon graduation, he sailed to Liverpool, England, working on a tramp steamer.
After attending the University of Oklahoma for two years, he shipped out again as a seaman and traveled to South America, the Far East, and other distant ports. Eventually, he earned a third mate's license.
His first appearance in the theater was in a small part on Broadway in Channing Pollock's Mr. Moneypenny (1928). Although he received good notices, the play closed after eight weeks. In 1931 he completed his final two years of academic work and graduated from the University of Oklahoma. He then studied for a year at the Yale School of Drama under George Pierce Butler.
Career
After a season in a stock company in Denver, Colorado, Heflin was an understudy in the Broadway musical, Sailor Beware (1933). His first important role on the New York stage was in The Bride of Torozko (1934) with Jean Arthur and Sam Jaffe. The New York Herald Tribune critic Percy Hammond wrote, "Mr. Van Heflin is an unreasonably bad actor. " Nevertheless, he appeared with Ina Claire and Osgood Perkins in a subordinate role as Dennis McCarthy in S. N. Behrman's End of Summer (1936), which established him as an able actor. Katharine Hepburn, impressed by his performance in this play, helped him receive a contract with RKO to appear with her in a supporting role in A Woman Rebels (1936).
He followed this with appearances in such unimpressive films as The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937) and Flight from Glory (1937) and at his request soon received release from his contract to return to New York City. While making calls at casting offices, he found work on a number of radio soap operas. In total he performed anonymously on radio about 2, 000 times.
His big break occurred when he appeared again with Katharine Hepburn, this time on the stage in the hugely successful The Philadelphia Story (1939). Brooks Atkinson, critic for the New York Times, wrote that it was "hard to improve upon Van Heflin's honest and solid description of a tough-minded writer. " During the two-year run of the play, he continued to perform on radio without a name credit in such parts as Adam in The Man I Married and Bob in Betty and Bob.
When Heflin returned to Hollywood he appeared in a number of distinctly different roles that showed his versatility as an actor. Among his films were Santa Fe Trail (1940); The Feminine Touch (1941); and Johnny Eager (1942) with Robert Taylor and Lana Turner. In this last film he was in the supporting role of a literate alcoholic who served as the conscience of a sadistic gangster.
Promoted to lead roles, he played the role of a young scientist in a police laboratory in Kid Glove Killer (1942) and a romantic star in Seven Sweethearts (1942). His next release was Tennessee Johnson (1943) with Ruth Hussey, in which he portrayed the controversial president Andrew Johnson.
During World War II, Heflin served as a second lieutenant, first in the field artillery and then as a combat cameraman with the Ninth Air Force in Europe. After the war he divided his career into motion picture, stage, and television segments. Always independent by nature, he reached an agreement with MGM to alter his contract so that he might have time to devote to other forms of entertainment in addition to motion pictures.
Heflin achieved some of his greatest film successes in the 1950s. He costarred with Alan Ladd in the outstanding Western Shane (1953), and appeared with Lauren Bacall, Fred MacMurray, Cornel Wilde, June Allyson, and Arlene Dahl in Woman's World (1954). In Battle Cry (1955), a tribute to the United States Marine Corps, he played a tough colonel with a soft heart. Patterns (1956), with Everett Sloane and Ed Begley Sr. , was the motion-picture adaptation of Rod Serling's highly acclaimed television drama about big business. Heflin appeared as Fred Staples, a young industrial engineer caught in the ruthless affairs of the corporate jungle. On the stage Heflin toured the United States in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Shrike (1952). On Broadway, he played Eddie, a tragic longshoreman in A View From the Bridge (1955). In A Case of Libel (1964) he acted the part of Louis Nizer, the real-life trial lawyer.
Heflin also narrated television shows because he liked the anonymity and did not want to become overexposed. He narrated a series of scientific specials for the ABC television network. The first was The Way Out (1965), produced by David Wolper. He appeared on the television screen in a Dick Powell Theatre drama and three Playhouse 90 productions. His best-known television performances were in Rod Serling's Certain Honorable Men and Reginald Rose's The Cruel Days. Among his later motion pictures was Stagecoach (1966), in which he played a rough marshal riding shotgun. His last film appearance was as a mad bomber in Airport (1970).
Van Heflin died at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital on July 23, 1971, aged 62. He had left instructions forbidding a public funeral. Instead, his cremated remains were scattered in the ocean.
Quotations:
"You knew when a woman loves you like that, she can love you with every card in the deck and then pull a knife across your throat the next morning. "
"Louis B. Mayer once looked at me and said, 'You will never get the girl at the end'. So I worked on my acting. "
Membership
Heflin was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity.
Personality
Since Heflin did not believe that he was sufficiently handsome for motion pictures, he said he had to concentrate on good acting.
He was six feet one and had sandy blond hair and gray eyes. He was known for his ability to get along with people.
Quotes from others about the person
Frank Sinatra called him "an actor's actor. "
Interests
An avid outdoorsman, Heflin enjoyed sailing, hunting, and fishing.
Connections
In 1934, Heflin married Esther Ralston; they divorced in 1936. In 1942 he married actress Frances M. Neal. They lived in Brentwood, California, and had three children before their divorce in 1967.