{"id":6711,"date":"2013-06-01T14:39:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-01T18:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=4071"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:39:31","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T18:39:31","slug":"the-strange-wily-women-of-ben-ames-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=6711","title":{"rendered":"The Strange, Wily Women of Ben Ames Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What a hot little monster.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s release of Leave Her to Heaven<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1945) on Blu brings some attention back to this superb melodrama-film noir creature, starring a strong-willed woman whose self-preservation instinct goes into scheming overdrive when she isn\u2019t the centre of attention.<\/p>\n

By a similar relation, the heroine in The Strange Woman<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1946) is a strong-willed woman who uses her cunning abilities to exploit her position as the wife of a small town\u2019s industrialist; as his riches and influence expand, so does her power, and yet instead of being purely evil, we know why she lacks the proper restraint in not chasing after her husband\u2019s younger son nor chasing and winning the love of her best friend.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called backstory, and in both of these film versions of novels by Ben Ames Williams<\/a>, the heroines are not<\/em> nice, but their backstories are emotionally tragic \u2013 which is very different from your standard noir or melodramatic thriller in which the villainess is just a shadowy, sultry, mysterious creature who perpetually threatens the masculine power of a hero whose flaws we do<\/em> know about.<\/p>\n

Jenny in Strange Woman<\/strong> grew up as the slutty daughter of the town drunk, and as eeeevil as she is, she spends her newfound riches as the wife of Mr. Poster funding the construction of a new church, and maintaining weekly temperance meetings because she truly knows the extent of alcoholism on young kids.<\/p>\n

Ellen in Heaven<\/strong> has an extreme Elektra complex, and she\u2019s never sated by being in control of everyone\u2019s attention, constantly redirecting it towards herself. As horrible as she is, we all know people who make sure conversations cycle around their experiences, and parties that are celebrations of their wonderfulness rather than a gathering of mirth and benign drunkenness with friends & families.<\/p>\n

Long ago, Ellen\u2019s family gave up disciplining and controlling their daughter, and her behaviour is almost sociopathic \u2013 she almost<\/em> recognizes there\u2019s an element of wrongness, but it\u2019s all shrugged aside because of a dominant emotional reaction and the thrill of opportunity.<\/p>\n

The sophistication within Heaven<\/strong> is wholly absent in a terrible TV remake \u2013 Too Good to be True<\/a><\/strong> [M<\/a>] (1988), and the truncation of vital material really made a mess of what was a compelling story.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just uploaded are reviews of two film adaptations of Ben Ames Williams’ novels featuring morally challenged women – the blazing Technicolor noir Leave Her to Heaven (1945) , newly released by Twilight Time on Blu; and The Strange Woman, Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1946 film screaming for a restoration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[2070,2071,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1Kf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}