I'd like some alterations to this trenchcoat you made me and I'd like them right now.
This excellent shot shows Nancy Guild from her 1947 film noir The Brasher Doubloon, wearing a very square trench coat. We saw the coat before in a promo we shared several years back, but in this shot we can see how unique it is. It's as if there's an iron bar across the shoulders. And there are no buttons. We really need to get around to seeing The Brasher Doubloon just to see if Guild actually wears this garment. We'll track it down and report back.
Pronounce it wrong one more time. I dare you.
American actress Nancy Guild's name actually rhymed with “wild” not “guilt,” according to her, and since she's armed we'll call her anything she wants. She appeared in the noir thrillers Somewhere in the Night, which we talked about here, and Raymond Chandler's The Brasher Doubloon, as well as about a dozen more films before quitting show business to marry producer Ernest H. Martin. This photo was made in 1947.
You're always in the last place you look.
The war, a grenade, a head wound, and a case of amnesia bring a vet to Los Angeles in search of his identity. The only clue he has is the name of a presumed associate, not a nice guy, which makes the hero fearful, because who associates with not-nice guys but other not-nice guys? The main problem with Somewhere in the Night isn't that the amnesiac soon learns, as even a casual viewer would suspect from the beginning, that he and the not-nice associate are one and the same. The problem is that the script never provides for another possibility. This makes for minimal suspense, a sin compounded by dialogue that crosses the line from hard boiled into ridiculous—like in this exchange:
Friend: “Something smells bad, believe me. It's in the air—like an earthquake. Don't stand too close. Don't get hurt.”
Heroine: “I'm the girl with the cauliflower heart.”
Friend: "You think. You're as tough as a love song. You've got your face turned up and your eyes closed, waiting to be kissed.”
This is a little out there even by the standards of 1940s melodramas. Classics like Casablanca and Gilda didn't get too hip with the lingo, and that's a big reason why those movies remain scintillating today. Somewhere in the Night wears its age poorly. Blame not only its overly slangy dialogue, but the lame plot, wooden performances from the supporting cast, and an uninspiring John Hodiak in the lead. But the poster is an absolute killer.
