Claudelle Inglish

I remember this film from the very early '60s. In those years we saw a lot of movies at the so-called "grind houses" on West 42nd Street (on both sides of Times Square); the deal, for us, was terrific: a double feature for "never more than 99 cents!" The first film to break that price barrier was Mercouri's NEVER ON Sunday. After her amazing bitchiness in A SUMMER PLACE, Constance Ford was again remarkable in this motion picture. I feel that this film, like too many others, is nearly forgotten today. But, when graduates, with a B.F.A. in Film, Theatre and Television, can look you in the eye and confess that they've "never heard of Marlene Dietrich", what can one expect?! Another one, a 2004 NYU grad, had never heard of THE GLASS MENAGERIE. Perhaps it's not the students but the schools that are failing!

Potboiler from Erskine Caldwell's novel about a Southern sharecropper's daughter, broken-hearted after being rejected by her soldier-fiancé, turning from timid girl to tramp in order to even the score. Producer-screenwriter Leonard Freeman is rather timid himself within this potentially sweaty and sinful scenario; we're never sure just how far our heroine is going sexually with the drooling males in town--or if she's just a tease (had the film been made only a few years later, it might've been a more salacious melodrama). Diane McBain is well-cast as Claudelle Inglish, and she gives a good performance, but restrictions of the era prevent her and director Gordon Douglas from exploring the character with any depth. As a result, the finale doesn't provide the emotional punch Freeman or Douglas probably hoped for. Instead of being a classic tragic figure, Claudelle merely seems guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. **1/2 from ****

DIANE McBAIN has only one claim to movie fame besides her good looks. It is her deep-down excellent portrayal of Claudelle Inglish in this strange and sensational movie that is both dime novel trash and classic drama.

The best and most powerful subject for a grab-you movie in my opinion is the power of intense love; that power which can bring joy and true happiness. Take away (or betray) that love and a person can be turned-on-a-dime into an adrenaline-filled force of self destruction. If I told you what happens in the movie you would not believe it; but I saw this near-exact drama play out in my own neighborhood some 15 years after this movie.

Too bad my 10 star rating is virtually pointless. The critics trashed this film when it came out and Warner Bros were clueless of its merits. I have no idea how you could get a copy and see it.

Warner Bros had a brigade of young contact stars and in fact their is a pic of J L Warner with most of them: Connie Stevens, Dorothy Provine, Van Williams,, Clint Walker , Natalie Wood, Edd Byrnes, Peter Brown, Ty Hardin among the many.

Diane McBain was a beautiful young actress with a penchant of getting in the gossip columns. Diane beat out a truly fine actress Shirley Knight - another WB star!-for the lead role in this film shot in black and white. WB stars Chad Everett, Robert Logan, and Robert Colbert were also in the cast. Diane plays it well as a Southern girl out to put the make on men.

Diane McBain made a few more movies such as Troy Donahue's Parrish which has Diane's opening scene sensational as the rolls out of a car and those magnetic eyes of Diane's mesmerizing! , and Raoul Walsh's A Distant Trumpet with Troy Donahue and Suzy Pleshette, with Debbie Reynolds in Mary, Mary, but left the studio rather than play a small part in WB''s big budget Sex And The Single Girl with Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall and Mel Ferrer directed by Richard Quine. Richard Quine fell in love with Kim Novak and his films with Kim such as Bell Book And Candle, Strangers When We Meet, Notorious Landlady reveal l Kim at her most lush beauty. Diane should have done Sex And The Sungle Girl with Quine; He may have made her a great star as he did Kim.

I saw this movie 35 years ago on late night TV and was totally and utterly spellbound by it -- so much so that this many years later I still remember it.

The stark quality of the movie, as shown through the dialog and other "devices" underlined the desperate nature of the characters (the fact that Claudelle knew she didn't have what she wanted but didn't know what that was or how to get it) and their suspicious natures in that someone might find what they were searching for.

A marvelous, fascinating character study. All good literature is nothing more than character study and good movies must have well-developed characters to be considered good. "Claudelle Inglish" is both.