Gary Dennis’ New York City Movie Place

This is a nice little thriller with great direction from Ted Tetzlaff. Mr. Tetzlaff was a cinematographer who had over a hundred pictures, starting back in the silent era, to his credit. His last job as cinematographer was in 1946 when he gave Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious that special look. The story is by writer Cornell Wollrich who, among his voluminous amount of work, wrote the story that Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is based. So this picture already has a good deal going for it with this Hitchcock pedigree.

The story is a classic tale of a boy who cried wolf too many times and ultimately is punished for his misdeeds and shenanigans. Young Tommy Woodry (Bobby Driscoll), age nine, is notorious for his vivid imagination and his ability to tell tales.His latest one is his family is moving from New York to a ranch out west. When the landlord interrupts the Woodrys at dinner to show their about to be vacated apartment, his infuriated parents (Arthur Kennedy and Barbara Hale) tell Tommy enough is enough. As it is a hot night Tommy is going to sleep out on the fire escape. This was not an uncommon situation in the lack of air conditioning era of the late 1940’s. Tommy decides to sleep on the fire escape landing one flight up as it catches the breezes better. It is there, while he is trying to fall asleep that Tommy witnesses his upstairs neighbors murder some one. Of course no one believes him, not the police and certainly not his parents. The only people who believe hi are the murderous upstairs neighbors.

Bobby Driscoll was a natural talent. He was the first actor to be given a long term contract by Walt Disney. After a bit part playing the one of the Sullivan brothers as a child, Mr. Driscoll stared in, amongst other pictures, Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1948) and in 1950 he earned the special juvenile Oscar for his work in The Window. Mr. Driscoll went on to star in Disney’s version of Treasure Island (1950) and received his star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame for his work. What Bobby Driscoll is probably most famous for is his work on Disney’s 1953 version of Peter Pan. Mr. Driscoll was not only the voice of Peter but was the body model as well; a great deal of the picture was acted out by Mr. Driscoll and then the footage was rotoscoped in to the animated feature. He was Peter Pan, and the first male performer to play the role previously only played by women, both in film and on stage. As what happens to too many child stars, they grow up. Unfortunately Mr. Driscoll did not age well and was dropped by Disney not long after Peter Pan was released. The plummet from the heights of stardom was too much for Mr. Driscoll to bear. At age 17 he started using heroin. After doing time in a California prison on drug charges he could no longer find work as an actor, the only thing he knew how to be. On March 30th 1968 two kids playing in an abandoned east village tenement found a dead body, a drug abuse casualty. Buried on New York’s own Hart Island, in an unmarked grave in Potters Field, fingerprints finally identified Mr. Driscoll a year later.

Cornell Woolrich lived in the Hotel Marseilles on west 103rd street (across from Humphrey Bogart’s house) with his domineering mother from 1932 until she died in 1957. While living in the hotel, Mr. Woolrich put out an enormous body of work. By 1957 the once grand Hotel Marseilles was a rundown fire trap known more for its prostitution and heroin trafficking than its glamorous past. Sporting one of the best French Restaurants on the Upper Westside, Sara Roosevelt, Franklin’s mother called this place home for many years. William Burroughs wrote some where that he used to buy heroin on that block in the late 1950s. It would not surprise me if Mr. Burroughs had frequented the Marseilles in his quest. Mr. Woolrich moved to the greener pastures of west 72nd Street, across from the Dakota.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under Film Noir, Thriller/Suspense, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.