My Forbidden Past | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Stevenson |
Written by | Leopold Atlas (adaptation) |
Screenplay by | Marion Parsonnet |
Based on | Carriage Entrance 1947 novel by Polan Banks |
Produced by | Polan Banks Robert Sparks |
Starring | Robert Mitchum Ava Gardner Melvyn Douglas |
Cinematography | Harry J. Wild |
Edited by | George C. Shrader |
Music by | Friedrich Hollaender |
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 70 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1,150,000 (US rentals) [2] |
My Forbidden Past is a 1951 American historical film noir directed by Robert Stevenson and starring Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner. [3] Adapted by Leopold Atlas from Polan Banks' novel Carriage Entrance.
The events of the film take place in the 1890s in New Orleans. Dr. Mark Lucas (Robert Mitchum) wrongly believes Barbara Beaurevel (Ava Gardner) refused him and betrayed him after their previously planned elopement. Thus Mark returns from South America accompanied by Corinne (Janis Carter), a woman he married for her beauty but not for love, due to this still lingering grudge against Barbara. She feels disappointed on meeting Corinne, yet she's determined to win him back. Barbara, already having inherited a large sum from her socially of ill repute grandmother, bribes her cousin Paul (Melvyn Douglas) into seducing Corinne and thereby breaking up the marriage. Unluckily this cold-blooded plan ends up in Corinne's death by accident and Mark finds himself under strong suspicion of murder. In the end, Barbara, realizing her insidious act at the trial, empathetically confesses everything, thereby once again becoming a woman worthy of love but also losing the local gentry's consideration.
The film was to star Ann Sheridan. Under her contract she had co star approval. RKO claimed she refused all the names offered her and thus terminated the contract, replacing her with Ava Gardner. Sheridan sued RKO for $350,000. The case went to trial and in February 1951 the jury awarded her $55,162, being the minimum amount Sheridan would have earned during filming from April to August 1949 plus $5,162 for costs. It was shown that Sheridan would have approved Mitchum as a co star. [4]
The film recorded a loss of $700,000. [5]
According to Stanley Kubrick, his first film, the documentary Day of the Fight, played alongside, My Forbidden Past. [6]
Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress. She first signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew critics' attention in 1946 with her performance in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Killers. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in John Ford's Mogambo (1953), and for best actress for both a Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for her performance in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana (1964). She was a part of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Out of the Past is a 1947 American film noir directed by Jacques Tourneur and starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and Kirk Douglas. The film was adapted by Daniel Mainwaring from his 1946 novel Build My Gallows High, with uncredited revisions by Frank Fenton and James M. Cain.
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American actor. He is known for his antihero roles and film noir appearances. He received nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
Morning Glory is a 1933 American Pre-Code drama film which tells the story of an eager would-be actress and her journey to stardom, and her gains and losses. The picture stars Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Adolphe Menjou, was adapted by Howard J. Green from a then-unproduced stage play of the same name by Zoë Akins, and was directed by Lowell Sherman. Hepburn won her first Academy Award for Best Actress. Morning Glory was remade in 1958 under the title Stage Struck.
Day of the Fight is a 1951 American short-subject documentary film financed and directed by Stanley Kubrick, who based this black-and-white motion picture on a photo feature he shot two years earlier for Look magazine.
Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937) with Humphrey Bogart, Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Bogart, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Bogart, City for Conquest (1940) with Cagney and Elia Kazan, The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942) with Bette Davis, Kings Row (1942) with Ronald Reagan, Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949) with Cary Grant.
Robert Edward Stevenson was a British-American screenwriter and film director.
Barbara Hale was an American actress who portrayed legal secretary Della Street in the dramatic television series Perry Mason (1957–1966), earning her a 1959 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason made-for-television movies (1985–1995).
Jane Greer was an American film and television actress best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past. In 2009, The Guardian named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
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Blood on the Moon is a 1948 RKO black-and-white "psychological" Western film noir starring Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston and Walter Brennan. Directed by Robert Wise, the cinematography is by Nicholas Musuraca. The movie was shot in California as well as some of the more scenic shots at Red Rock Crossing, Sedona, Arizona. The picture is based on the novel Gunman's Chance by Luke Short.
His Kind of Woman is a 1951 film noir starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. The film features supporting performances by Vincent Price, Raymond Burr and Charles McGraw. The direction of the film, which was based on the unpublished story "Star Sapphire" by Gerald Drayson, is credited to John Farrow.
The Locket is a 1946 American psychological thriller film noir directed by John Brahm, starring Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum, and Gene Raymond, and released by RKO Pictures. The film is based on a screenplay by Sheridan Gibney, adapted from "What Nancy Wanted" by Norma Barzman, wife of later-blacklisted writer Ben Barzman. It is noted for its complex and confusing use of layered flashbacks within flashbacks to give psychological depth to the narrative.
Janis Carter was an American stage and film actress who performed throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s. During the mid-1950s, she began working regularly on television, co-hosting with Bud Collyer the NBC daytime game show Feather Your Nest.
The Las Vegas Story is a 1952 American suspense film noir starring Jane Russell and Victor Mature, directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Robert Sparks and Howard Hughes with Samuel Bischoff as the executive producer.
Constantin Bakaleinikoff was a Russian-American composer.
Susan Slept Here is a 1954 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Dick Powell and Debbie Reynolds. Shot in Technicolor, the film is based on the play of the same name by Steve Fisher and Alex Gottlieb. Tashlin later revised the film's plotline and reused it in 1962 for the production Bachelor Flat. Comedian Red Skelton has a minor role.
She Couldn't Say No is a 1954 American rural comedy film starring Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons and Arthur Hunnicutt. It was the last film in the long directing career of Lloyd Bacon to be released.
East Side, West Side is a 1949 American melodrama crime film, starring Barbara Stanwyck, James Mason, Van Heflin, and Ava Gardner. Based on the 1947 novel of the same title, written by Marcia Davenport, screenplay by Isobel Lennart, produced by Voldemar Vetluguin, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
West of the Pecos is a 1945 American Western film directed by Edward Killy and starring Robert Mitchum and Barbara Hale. It is the second film version of Zane Grey's novel, previously made in 1934 and also titled West of the Pecos starring Richard Dix. It is no relation to the 1922 silent film of the same name.