Poseidon Quickies: "Crane" Your Neck This Way a Minute. (2024)

Somewhere along the line I'd at least heard of this movie, Hilda Crane (1956), because the name was familiar, but I can't recall the last time I ever saw it air on television of any kind. Based upon a Broadway play that ran for two months in late-1950, it concerns a young lady who's returning to her hometown after being away in New York City. During this period, she's managed to marry and divorce... twice! This raises an eyebrow or two amidst some of the residents of her small Illinois hamlet. A real nice widescreen print of the film has emerged on YT and for fans of the stars or this genre will likely enjoy watching it.

Posters for the film wanted to point up Crane's "many" loves, but there are only two...! Random faces are slipped in of elusive other gents (unless the dude on the train, who appears for about 2 or 3 seconds, is meant to be one!)

Jean Simmons was generally a reliable cinematic leading lady, and a pretty one, while Guy Madison, drew me in as this is not his usual milieu. (More often, Madison could be found in westerns by this stage.)

Overly-lit promotional stills such as this one are a far cry from the richly-textured and atmospherically-lit sets of the film, as you'll soon see.

Simmons, as the title character, returns home on the train from The Big Apple, sporting a mink coat. Her mother (Judith Evelyn) wastes no time in discovering that the coat's lining is beginning to wear out, signifying that its been around a lot, just like its owner!

Back home, we learn of Simmons fixation on her now-deceased father. His chair (and pipe) still maintain a position of prominence in the family abode. By the way, people simply read older back in the day. Simmons wasn't yet 27 when she made this movie!

Though she's styled to emphasize an older look, Evelyn was 47 (!) when she played Simmons' mother. She and her daughter were never too close. Though she wanted happiness for Simmons, she was too focused on how things appeared than in exploring much in the way of feelings of satisfaction in a relationship.

Simmons meets up with construction contractor Madison, who was in love with her prior to her flight to New York and is clearly still smitten with her now.

The casting of Madison presents a bit of a problem. Simmons isn't sure she loves him and waffles significantly over his proposal of marriage. Um... No one in her right mind could resist the fit and handsome Madison, who also happens to be quite wealthy thanks to his gumption in the construction biz! (In the play, a wildly dissimilar actor named John Alexander essayed the part. He played the Teddy-Roosevelt-obsessed cousin in Arsenic and Old Lace, 1944, so reticence is far more understandable!)

There's another contender for Simmons' affection, a former college professor of hers who still gives guest lectures at the school. He's played by Jean-Pierre Aumont.

I wouldn't say that Aumont is repellent, but for me there's no contest when it comes to the men. I don't get the allure surrounding Aumont, but perhaps as a Frenchman there is something he provides that we as the viewer aren't privy to (in 1956 anyway! Ha ha!)

So she's torn between the arty, seductive Aumont, who principally wants her just as a sexual partner if the truth be told...

...and the secure, reliable Madison, who adores her, but possesses a level of scintillation about on par with Professor Roy Hinkley of Gilligan's Island, who he vaguely resembles here. Nevertheless, for me the choice is clear.

But as Popeye the Sailor used to often say, "There's a fly in the oinkment!" Madison has a burly, brash, highly-controlling mother in the form of Evelyn Varden, who, needless to say, does not approve of her son's choice in a bride.

I love, worship and adore old-fashioned, disagreeable, controlling old biddies like this (think Mary Astor's Roberta Carter in Return to Peyton Place, 1961) and as far as I'm concerned Varden IS the movie...! Though she likely wouldn't have taken a part this small in 1956 as she was still starring in movies, I could very well see Bette Davis playing this part. And Varden does augment her voice to sound much like Davis as a matter of fact.

Varden only shares only very brief scene with her son Madison, seen here in their mansion.

Nevertheless, she looms large thanks not only to her hilariously memorable portrayal, but also due to the huge portrait of herself that hangs over the family living room.

At the wedding rehearsal... how does the ditty go? "One of these things is not like the other..." Varden has her back turned during all the thank yous and congratulations.

Then she gets up and trundles through the participants like a fleshy bowling ball with the wedding party as pins, never uttering a word or even looking at anyone!

Basically everything and everyone in this "women's picture" is beautiful, including the bride and groom's friends, ever-elegant Peggy Knudsen and Gregg Palmer, looking like a sibling to Rock Hudson before weight gain led him into character roles.

Seizing an opportunity to get the bride-to-be alone, Varden closes in for the kill.

First, she takes a gander at the rock her son has given Simmons as an engagement ring.

Then she facetiously compliments Simmons' suit before announcing that she got it from some other man.

Varden's sense of "style" is almost a living example of the "before you leave the house, remove one item" school of thought.

More than once she reminded me of Popeye's Alice the Goon character!

Anyway, she's got a whole laundry list of things that Simmons has done in her brief life that would bring nothing but shame to her son. Simmons, a bit of a pre-Feminist in that she sees little-to-nothing wrong with her past behavior, stands firm and still intends to wed Madison.

The day of the wedding, she comes barrelling into Simmons' home again. I couldn't love her weary, common, blunt manner any more if I tried!

This time, she's armed with $50,000 in government bonds! She's ready to do practically anything to rid herself of the scarlet woman her son is so attracted to.

Also, having been known to feign illness when it might aid her in her pursuits, she collapses into Simmons' father's chair and begins to moan in agony.

Simmons is unmoved and by this time has really had it with the future gorgon-in-law. The wedding will take place no matter what!

By the way, Evelyn and Simmons aren't exactly destitute. They have their own housekeeper! The performer, Marie Blake, may seem familiar to you? Eight years later, billed as Blossom Rock, she portrayed Grandmama Addams on The Addams Family.

Anyway, one way or another, Varden is not going to let Simmons have her way. This leads to a variety of hurdles for the newly-married couple.

I mentioned earlier the bright, unappealing lobby cards for this movie. I think you can see that they don't represent the splendidly moody cinematography found in the actual film.

Though the movie never comes near his level, this is Douglas Sirk-ian territory and there were occasional bits of artfulness in its presentation. The director, Phillip Dunne, was most successful as a writer (How Green Was My Valley, 1941, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, 1947, and The Agony and the Ecstacy, 1965, to name a few.)

The movie's "heroine" makes a few foolish decisions and isn't always understandable (and Simmons over-accentuates some of her dialogue at times), but fans of the actress would surely enjoy seeing her here, looking lovely and being featured heavily.

But my greatest thrill, clearly, was seeing the often bubbly and amusing Varden (you might recall her from The Night of the Hunter, 1955, or The Bad Seed, 1956?) barging around as this menacing battle-axe. It's the sort of part that, were I in charge of such things, would have merited an Academy Award nomination. And why shouldn't she have mastered the role?

She had already assayed it 70 times on Broadway! She was the only cast member who made it into the movie adaptation.

I'm actually quite a fan of Jessica Tandy, whose husband Hume Cronyn directed her in the Broadway production, but as you can see, there's a pretty big difference in how she appeared as Hilda and how Simmons did as Hilda.

As is often the case, foreign posters, in this instance French, offered more striking artwork than the US ones.

The film came close to breaking even, which makes it a box office "miss," but I felt it was worth a look. At 87 minutes it certainly wasn't oppressive to sit through. Probably my biggest disappointment was that Madison was underutilized. He really got no real closeups (there's little-to-no reason for this film to have been done in Cinemascope except that it was 20th Century Fox's claim to fame at the time.) And he had no shirtless scenes or anything even close to that. He couldn't have been shown washing up in the construction trailer or something....?! LOL But I will remedy that by leaving you with a few nice pictures of him in his hey-day. He's been featured here in the Underworld multiple times, but there's always room for more.

:::BONUS PICS:::

An apple a day couldn't keep Henry Willson away...!