Lenore Coffee, born in 1897, wrote 50 or more silent films and any number of studio productions in the 30s, 40s and 50s. Her most notable achievement at Warner Brothers was the Oscar-nominated screenplay for Four Daughters, co-written with Julius J. Epstein in 1938. Epstein, with his twin brother Philip and Howard Koch, wrote Casablanca. Four Daughters is not on Netflix and not conveniently available, but I'll continue to search.
In 1951, Coffee wrote Lightning Strikes Twice, directed by King Vidor and starring Ruth Roman and Richard Todd. In 1952, she authored Sudden Fear, directed by David Miller, which won both Joan Crawford and Jack Palance Oscar nominations. Both films are well worth watching
Lightning Strikes Twice starts out as though it will center on Richard Trevelyan (Richard Todd), who has just been released from prison after a jury failed to convict him for the murder of his then wife, one juror dissenting. But it rapidly becomes Shelley Carnes' (Ruth Roman) movie. It's refreshing to see a film in which a strong woman shows "agency" but I have to admit that it is a little disappointing when she falls under the romantic spell of Richard Todd, who is supposed to be charismatic and sexual but who to me is an unappealing block of wood. Trevelyan's guilt or innocence is the nominal subject but the film focuses on the struggle between two women (Ruth Roman and Mercedes McCambridge) who seek his affection. It's a noir-y melodrama with a startling conclusion.
Sudden Fear is the stronger of the two films. Once again, a conflict between two women: Joan Crawford, a rich successful playwright, and Gloria Grahame, an on-the-make unscrupulous hoyden. This time the hypotenuse of their triangle is Jack Palance, who is more expressive than Richard Todd could ever be, and a heck of a lot scarier. Joan Crawford has some fine moments: when she realizes that she's been duped by a gold-digging husband who plans to murder her, she registers terror, thoughtfulness, resistance and finally resolve using only her eyes. Unfortunately her intricate plan to save herself goes awry. There are some unanticipated and surprising twists in the complicated plot.
My guess is that the censors intervened between the author's original conception and the eventual portrayal, in which Palance and Grahame are disposed of in such a way that Crawford is left without responsibility and without guilt. I would have been much more satisfied if Coffee had let Crawford kill her antagonists with that neat little silver revolver. Revenge would have been all the sweeter.
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