Don in Niagara

[shimp scrampi]

I was watching the 1953 movie "Niagara" the other day - great, beautifully shot movie, if you didn't think they could do noir in color, you're in for a suprise if you like those movies or Hitchcock type stuff.

Don Wilson plays a Shredded Wheat executive who is obsessively enthusiastic about his product (no big stretch there). I've always thought Wilson was a little uncomfortable when "acting" - anyway, it's a rare straight part for him (not as "Don" or "radio announcer"). I wonder if someone behind the film was a Benny fan.

As further evidence, Joseph Cotten, playing a vet with mental problems, works obsessively on little model cars as an escape from his crumbling marriage with Marilyn Monroe. The car of choice? A 1907 Maxwell!

[Roman]

Don Wilson also had an untypical part in The Chase, a Robert Cummings/Peter Lorre movie from the late 1940s. I haven't seen this movie in quite a while (I'm not sure if it's on DVD or video) but the movie was really quite exciting and Don was excellent in an important role. The Chase was based on a book by Cornell Woolrich, one of the greatest mystery writers of the 20th century (another of his books is the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window).