Showing posts with label Frances Drake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frances Drake. Show all posts

Monday, September 19, 2022

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day...

... and the Queen of Pirates is here to say:

Aileen Haley be piratin' in high heels and a bathing suit
"Ye may lead yer scurvy scallywags while wearin' 
a hat and high heels and lookin' great!"


"Ye may even learn 'em how to dance ballet!"

Frances Drake looking like a pirate
"But ye'll never have a more perfect piratin' moniker than the lady Frances Drake!"


Meanwhile, Joan Blondell is just here to hang out and look fabulous!
Joan Blondell as a pirate
Joan Blondell looking in the mirror

 

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

In celebration of Speak Like a Pirate Day

Yarr, me maties... here be pittures o' lady pirates and even some pirate booty shorts!
Maureen O'Hara
Kay English

Dorothy Sebastian
Wynn Gibson
Gwen Lee
Claudia Dell
Frances Drake (the most suitable lady pirate of all)

For more Talk Like a Pirate Day inspiration and goodies, be sure to check out this treasure chest full of novellas by Robert E. Howard, comics, roleplaying game scenarios, and some fiction vignettes from the host of Shades of Gray, Steve Miller! Click here for more!






Thursday, February 4, 2010

Peter Lorre lends a hand in the name of 'Mad Love'

Mad Love (aka "The Hands of Orlac") (1935)
Starring: Frances Drake, Peter Lorre, and Colin Clive
Director: Karl Freund
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Dr. Gogol (Lorre), a brilliant but mentally unstable surgeon (Lorre) becomes obsessed with the beautiful actress Yvonne Orlac (Drake)--obsessed to the point where he has a wax statue of her installed in his music room. When Yvonne's husband's (Clive) hands are crushed in an accident, Orlac saves them using a revolutionary surgery technique to save them... but then turns to the task of driving Orloc insane, so he can claim Yvonne as his own.


"Mad Love" is a slightly muddled movie with a confused plot (made more-so by the obnoxious comic relief character of an American newspaper reporter (played by Ted Healey). However, the film is well-acted and filmed on impressively lit sets--Gogol's large, empty house/clinic becomes a great metaphor for his his hollow soul, as shadows play throughout it--and its mixture of romance and horror is bound to entertain lovers of early horror movies. The climactic scenes are particularly chilling, as the depths of Gogol's psychopathy becomes crystal clear.

(It may even serve as part of the lineup for a Bad Movie Nite, although it's by no means a bad movie. Some of the more melodramatic elements may tickle the fancy of certain kinds of movie lovers, especially Dr. Gogol's disguise at one point in the film. It's one of those rare cinematic moments that's both scary and hilarious.)

Although not necessarily considered one of the "founding" films of the horror genre, it is certainly the first "transplanted hands take on a life of their own" movies. I can think of at least three others I've seen over the years with very similar plots. (And I think there's a fourth one lurking in my Review Pile.)