Matinee Memories

In the heyday of Louis Bromfield's time as a popular American novelist -- a member of the post-World War I generation that produced F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway -- he quite naturally found his talent in demand in the nation's film capital, which for a period not only utilized his published fiction as source material but also put him to work on original screenplays and adaptations. Indeed, while his name was seen on screen as often as his works appeared on the bestseller lists, studios were drawn to his swift and very human tales of souls and families at odds with themselves as well as the world around them and the rotting traditions that entrap them. Many of the movies derived from his novels and short fiction could be classified as romances, the greatest of which was Twentieth Century-Fox's version of his 1937 crowd pleaser THE RAINS CAME. And some fell into the subgenre of "weepers," as evidenced with the 1934 production THE LIFE OF VERGIE WINTER...

When retired screen and television actor William Edward Phipps died June 1, 2018, at 96 in Santa Monica, Calif., most print and online sources identified him to readers as the voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disney's 1950 animated classic CINDERELLA. Not a bad thing to be remembered for, but you had to read on or dig a little further to discover that as the science fiction craze took hold of Hollywood in the '50s, Phipps was one of the more visible thespians cast in such outstanding examples of the genre as THE WAR OF THE WORLDS and INVADERS FROM MARS, as well as a lesser production, CAT-WOMEN ON THE MOON, all from 1953. To generations that grew up viewing these and other productions of the like on TV, Phipps' face and voice offered a reassuring presence amidst the otherworldly chaos that had come to visit us on Earth. Although he played his share of villains over the years, the native of Vincennes, Ind., projected the image of an all-American guy that found its way in...