Lake, Veronica

So Proudly We Hail (Universal Cinema Classics)

Sullivan's Travels - Criterion Collection

Writer-director Preston Sturges's third feature, 1941's Sullivan's Travels, remains the antic auteur's most ambitious screen effort. Having added the producer's stripe to his duties, Sturges combines breezy romantic comedy, arch Hollywood satire, and social essay into a single, screwball story line.

The titular pilgrim is John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), an Ivy League grad who's enjoyed a meteoric rise as the director behind escapist movies like Ants in Your Pants of 1938, but is now determined to raise his sights toward more exalted, serious-minded cinematic art. His proposed breakthrough, portentously titled O Brother, Where Art Thou?, elicits a studio response closer to "Oh, brother," given the director's utter lack of first-hand experience on the wrong side of the tracks.

Instead of capitulating, Sullivan sets off disguised as a tramp, ready to meet life's crueler lessons face-to-face--albeit followed at a discreet distance by a motor home filled with studio handlers and reporters. His ludicrous odyssey may give the boy director no real insight, but it gives Sturges the chance to inject some reliably fine gags and a romantic subplot featuring the luminous Veronica Lake. It's at this juncture that Sturges the writer's darker objective throws a jolting shift in tone. Suffice it to say that just when a comic, upbeat denouement seems imminent, Sullivan travels instead from the sunlit California of the comedy's early reels toward a darker, relentlessly downbeat world influenced more by the social realism of the movies the hero desperately wants to make. By the final reel, Sturges has flirted with real tragedy, turning his conclusion into a meditation on his own seemingly carefree, dizzily comic art. --Sam Sutherland

This masterpiece by Preston Sturges is perhaps the finest movie-about-a-movie ever made. Hollywood director Joel McCrea, tired of churning out lightweight comedies, decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou-a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, he hits the road as a hobo. He finds the lovely Veronica Lake-and more trouble than he ever dreamed of.

This Gun For Hire (Universal Noir Collection)

Stronghold

Stronghold was a compilation of Mexican and US ingenuity. Produced in Mexico using American film stars Veronica Lake and Zachary Scott, Stronghold was distributed in the US by Lippert Pictures. The Juarez revolution against Austrian emperor Maximillian set the scene for this Mexican-American production. Lake portrays a wealthy American visitor who is kidnapped by gentleman bandit Don Pedro Alvarez (Arturo de Cordova) and his gang. Alvarez plans to use the ransom money to help finance the revolution. The heroine manages to orchestrate governmental resistance against the scheme. In the process of time, the honor and patriotism of Alvarez is recognized by Lake's character. Don Miguel Navarro (Zachary Scott), the "heroic" overseer of the silver mine owned by Mary (Lake), is not what he seems to be. See what is brought to light in the film's spectacular finale. Bonus Features: Digitally Re-mastered| Scene Selection| Bios| Previews. Specs: DVD5; 72 minutes; B&W; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - NR; Year - 1951/1952; SRP - $14.99.

I Married a Witch

This fun and stylish Rene Clair comedy gave two big Hollywood names--Fredric March and Veronica Lake--a chance to break away from their stereotypically serious roles (as intense leading man and film noir vamp, respectively) and exercise their funny bones. The sultry Lake stars as a Salem witch burned at the stake who returns to haunt the descendants of the Puritans who let her smolder, namely aspiring politician March. Lake concocts a love potion for her victim that will get him to fall in love with her, rather than his snooty fiancée (Susan Hayward in one of her early roles). Things get a wee bit complicated when said potion works its spell on Lake instead and she falls head over broomstick for March. Blissfully hilarious and romantic, this Witch is blessed with great chemistry between March and Lake (who never looked lovelier), dryly funny one-liners, and a scene-stealing performance by Cecil Kellaway as Lake's perennially drunk warlock dad. Robert Benchley of Algonquin Round Table fame also pops up in a supporting role. Rumored but never actually confirmed to be the basis for the hit TV series Bewitched. --Mark Englehart

The Blue Dahlia