RARA-AVIS: The Maltese Fatale

From: Dick Lochte ( dlock@ix.netcom.com)
Date: 09 May 2000


Actually, the older I get, the better Mary Astor looks to me. The thing she had, that Lana Turner didn't, is the look of respectability. She's a believable con woman and sociopath. She convinces Archer that she's wealthy and awkward and vulnerable. Turner's too beautiful. Lupino, like Stanwyck, is a little too wise. I would imagine that Loy might have been out of the movie's price range. She also was with MGM. Most of the actresses Warner Bros. had under contract (Ann Sheridan, Joan Leslie, et al) were either too working class or small town naive. Alexis Smith might have been a good choice. And Olivia deHavilland. Best would have been Gene Tierney, but she went with Twentieth to make her film debut that year in Henry Hathaway's
"Sundown."

It was probably a few years too early for the greatest femme fatale of them all - Jane Greer.

Lochte

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