Hollywood Studios Year-by-Year – Paramount – 1946: MISS SUSIE SLAGLE’S and THE BLUE DAHLIA

There's Sometimes a Buggy

In this Paramount 1946 episode we look at two movies featuring Veronica Lake which otherwise could not be more dissimilar: Miss Susie Slagle's (directed by John Berry), about the trials of pre-WWI Johns Hopkins medical students living in a boarding house presided over by Lillian Gish; and famous Lake/Ladd noir outing, The Blue Dahlia (directed by George Marshall and written by Raymond Chandler). We discuss the potential influence of the leftists involved in making Miss Susie Slagle's on its portrayal of race and gender and debate the amount of damage done to The Blue Dahlia by the studio-mandated change to the plot. And in Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto, we take a brief look at three very different movies: Tarkovsky's Nostalghia (stolen by a German Shepherd), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives (stolen by Linda Darnell), and Douglas Sirk's All I Desire (starring Barbara Stanwyck).

Time Codes:

0h 00m 35s: MISS SUSIE SLAGLE’S [dir. John Berry]

0h 27m 06s: THE BLUE DAHLIA [dir. George Marshall]

0h 48m 13s: Fear and Moviegoing in Toronto – Nostalghia (1983) by Andrei Tarkovsky; A Letter to Three Wives (1948) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz; and All I Desire (1953) by Douglas Sirk

Studio Film Capsules provided by The Paramount Story by John Douglas Eames

Additional studio information from: The Hollywood Story by Joel W. Finler

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* Marvel at our meticulously ridiculous Complete Viewing Schedule for the 2020s

* Intro Song: “Sunday” by Jean Goldkette Orchestra with the Keller Sisters (courtesy of The Internet Archive)

* Read Elise’s latest film piece on Preston Sturges, Unfaithfully Yours, and the Narrative role of comedic scapegoating.

* Check out Dave’s new Robert Benchley blog – an attempt to annotate and reflect upon as many of the master humorist’s 2000+ pieces as he can locate – Benchley Data: A Wayward Annotation Project!

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