Summer Under the Stars Day 3: The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)

Well, it's been about a month since my last Netflix Monthly Movie, so here is another one that just happens to feature todays Summer Under the Stars honoree, Adolphe Menjou. The film is The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957) starring Jane Russell as "the movie star" and Menjou is her agent.

 

Looking very much like her character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) when she is dressed up as Lorelie (Marilyn Monroe) in a blonde wig, Russell plays Laurel Stevens who is kidnapped on the way to the premiere of her latest film, "The Kidnapped Bride." At first she thinks it's a publicity stunt. But when the men act rougher than they should, she realizes what is happening.

Keenyn Wynn  and Ralph Meeker play the "bad guys." I put it in quotes because this is their first kidnapping job, and they aren't very good at it. Laurel Stevens uses her feminine wiles to try and escape but nothing works.

They give her a nightgown to wear and tell her to go to bed while they wait to send their ransom note. It looks like this:

 

Not like this:

 

Publicity Photo

I wouldn't wear that fuzzy pink thing on a bet.

 

The boys then talk about ransom. They tell Laurel they're going to ask for $50,000. She becomes indignant, saying she's worth at least $500,000. She also tells them that if they don't make this look like a legit kidnapping, her fans will shun her for doing a cheap publicity stunt.

 

The next morning the boys get a visit from Sergeant McBride (Fred Clark). He's checking up on Mike (Meeker) whom he had wrongfully sent up to the big house for four years. He's about to leave when a woman's voice calls from the bedroom: Laurel. She comes out and...

 

 

Surprise! She suddenly has an Audrey Hepburn haircut! Turns out the blonde hair was a wig. She introduces herself to the sergeant as Rosie.

 

 

After the sergeant leaves, Mike starts to fall in love with the real Laurel Stevens, the one without the wig. When he realizes he's going to ruin her career that she's worked on for eight years, he sets out to make the kidnapping look as real as possible. Only now Laurel doesn't want him too.

 

 

How will they get out of this perdicament?

 

This is a movie worth watching. It's not hilarious but it's funny. The performances are good and I really liked the house and beach setting.

 

 

There was also a Fuzzy Pink Nightgown Beauty Contest. Here are some TWA stewardesses posing in their nightgowns (Wynn's character worked at TWA when he wasn't being a kidnapper).

 

 

More Production Stills  

 

A color photograph

All images found via Pinterest & Google Images

This post is part of the month-long 2015 TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon hosted by Kristen at Journeys in Classic Film. Be sure and check back all month to see all the great posts!

 

Netflix Monthly Movie: The Flight That Disappeared (1961)

 

The Flight That Disappeared (1961) is clearly a low-budget picture and has a very small scope. There's the interior of the plane (cockpit, cabin, and lounge), some shots of a plane flying - stock footage, and the interior of the control center/airport office (whatever they're called). It has three main characters played by actors that I have never heard of. It was directed by Reginald Le Borg and has a running time of 71 minutes.

The movie begins with passengers boarding Flight 60 on a small commercial plane en route to Washington DC. Three of the passengers are scientists, who have been summoned to DC to attend a classified meeting concerning a new bomb design. I enjoyed seeing the depiction of what early commercial flight was like. I don't know how accurate it was. The stewardesses seemed to be taking their time passing out the lunch trays.

The movie suddenly turns into a long episode of The Twilight Zone. The plane gains altitude in order to fly over a storm and continues to rise instead of leveling off. Then all of the engines stop running but still the plane keeps rising. No one can figure out what the problem is. The plane loses radio contact with their base and after a long time of there being no word from the plane, it is thought to have crashed. A search for the missing plane begins on the ground.

Meanwhile, in the air, the plane is still flying upwards. They are unaware of the search going on for them below. Some of the passengers start to need oxygen and the stewardesses slowly pass them out as the people begin getting light-headed or fainting one by one. They do this without supplying oxygen for themselves first, causing them to faint as well. Soon, everyone on the plane is sleeping/passed out, including the pilots in the cockpit. The only three people on the plane awake are Dr. Carl Morris - a scientist who has invented a beta-bomb, his assistant Marcia Paxton - a mathematician, and another scientist - Tom Endicott - who has invented a rocket launcher. They are played by Dayton Lummis, Paula Raymond, and Craig Hill respectively. The stewardesses are played by Nancy Hale and Bernadette Hale; I don't think they are related.

They discover that their watches have stopped and the plane does not appear to be moving. They also notice that their hearts are not beating, causing them to wonder if they are dead. While they are discussing this strange experience (in the lounge), they hear a voice from outside the plane. They exit and find themselves in a cloud and rock formation land. There they meet the people who will populate Earth in the future. These future people have summoned the scientists because they have created a bomb that could wipe out the Earth and therefore the future. They take a vote and decide to sentence them to remain in this limbo for eternity in order to give the future people a chance to live. The scientist run back to the plane which suddenly disappears.

 


The "future" people

Suddenly, everyone is back on the plane and awake. Tom discovers he hit his head and blacked out. The stewardess tells him he must have been dreaming. Dr. Morris has the other two come back to the lounge and they discover that they all had the same "dream."
When the plane finally lands, it is discovered that Flight 60 is 24 hours late! Then it wasn't a dream after all!
What do the scientists decide to do? Do they go ahead with the bomb? Or do they destroy the deadly knowledge they hold?



Dr. Carl Morris, Marcia Paxton, and Tom Endicott

The movie was a bit slow but I don't regret watching it. If you have an hour it's not a bad movie to watch, especially if you like The Twilight Zone (one of the less weird episodes). All of the main characters remind me of other, more famous actors. If this would have been a bigger budget film, it would have had Monty Wooley in the role of Dr. Morris, Barbara Hale (or Yvonne De Carlo) as Marcia Paxton, and Robert Cummings as Tom Endicott.

Here's a funny review of the movie (where I got the pictures - Netflix doesn't allow screenshots).



Plane interior



Cockpit



Lounge

 

NEXT MONTH:

Which looks nothing like this one by the way...