FEARMAKERS CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

Here's an image, from Dana Andrews and director Otto Preminger's LAURA followup, FALLEN ANGEL, that epitomizes Film Noir: where Dana's Eric Stanton sulks near the cheap motel's neon sign, and though his new wife Alice Faye lies in the bed nearby, he's all alone.

Dana Andrews angrily stands up to the swamp-surrounded small town bullies in Jean Renoir's first American-directed feature, SWAMP WATER, with Eugene Pallette as a crooked sheriff backing Dana's CANYON PASSAGE enemy Ward Bond.

Fifteen-years may not sound like a long time now, but from 1950 to 1965 many things changed, including the overall culture, and the Film Noir medium, in which Dana Andrews acted under Otto Preminger from LAURA to WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, were in the past; ironically, so were patriotic war films like IN HARM'S WAY as Dana played Admiral Broderick, a detested leader Wayne replaces during and after the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

Strangely enough, this gorgeous, high-cheek-boned starlet was a model... on the radio! And Doris Fesette provides a non-speaking, uncredited cameo as a "Club Patron" Dana Andrews buys a drink for, just to get her to stop flirting, in MADISON AVENUE.

Great colors in this shot from DUEL IN THE JUNGLE, a romantic adventure starring Dana Andrews as an insurance investigator from New York in London, with Jeanne Crain, and with his clothes and expressions, and those wall shadows, this shot has a touch of Noir. 

Added some sepia to Dana Andrews looking at himself as a con artist named Eric Stanton, who enters a seacoast Northern California small town on a bus, with a dollar in his pocket, and might just leave with a rich wife in Otto Preminger's LAURA followup, with even more creative camera shots and a neater Noirish title, FALLEN ANGEL.

Dana Andrews's return with director Otto Preminger after fifteen years brought him into the Pearl Harbor drama IN HARM'S WAY that included Kirk Douglas, Burgess Meredith, Brandon DeWilde and Patrick O'Neal. Like happens with former leading men, Dana would often play bad guys, but his Admiral Broderick is more an unqualified leader whom the characters talk about more than talk to.

A personal favorite scene on a personal favorite movie, and this blog's namesake, THE FEARMAKERS, when Dana Andrews tells Mel Torme how to take surveys the right and honest way.

Dana Andrews worked again with director Otto Preminger, fifteen-years after WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS; as Admiral Broderick in IN HARM'S WAY that also features Dana and Otto's DAISY KENYON actor Henry Fonda. Dana's character, pictured with Franchot Tone, is a despised Pearl Harbor admiral showing up again in a scene with Kirk Douglas, and then Kirk and John Wayne.

Katharine Smith is the daughter of Dana Andrews, and among others she grew up knowing her dad's friend and collaborator Jacques Tourneur, one of the all-time great directors, bringing perfection to Val Lewton now-iconic b-horrors and collaborating with Dana in the Western CANYON PASSAGE, CURSE OF THE DEMON and THE FEARMAKERS, and here they are on a sailing trip to Mexico. Thank you Katharine for this photograph. It's legendary. 

It's never clear what the perturbed customer was talking about in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, forcing (birthday of) Harold Russell to snap off a shirt pin with his hook-hand and Dana Andrews to hop from behind his soda jerk fountain and pummel the jerk into glass, but it's most likely the fella abhors Communists more than Nazis.

When Ronald Reagan was in The White House, his ex-wife Jane Wyman played a villainous winemaker on the nighttime soap FALCON CREST, butting heads with Robert Foxworth, who uses Dana Andrews as a senator for some kind of dramatic twist: He appeared on the series twice during the first and second season. 

In the same year, Dana Andrews plays characters whose sudden heart attacks moved the story forward. Here in TAKE A HARD RIDE it sends partner Jim Brown the titular trek, and the death in AIRPORT 1975 causes Dana's small plane to crash into Efrem Zimbelist Jr's large one: the opposite of THE CROWDED SKY.

Venturing into the New Year named after perfect vision, here's a cabin-fevered Vincent Prince questioned by Dana Andrews, who socks him in the gut later on, knowing Gene Tierney's title character is much too good for the flaky loser in LAURA.

Happy birthday to Dana Andrews, born 1909 on New Years Day, January 1rst, and here he's with Jeanne Crain in STATE FAIR, one of four total together.

"You're probably half drunk, and want me to play a song that REMINDS you of some GUY!" says bitter, blind Dana Andrews, with an inflection like no other, in NIGHT SONG with Merle Oberon.

Harold Russell strikes anew after lighting up for Dana Andrews and Fredric March, because he's never been in a plane and it's bad luck... and Happy Veterans Day from THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

In 1958, the same year as THE FEARMAKERS was another Cold War Thriller, albeit of the Disaster kind, and both featured the beautiful Marilee Earle: The first she's the leading lady opposite Dana Andrews, and in THE LOST MISSILE she's the pregnant wife of a secondary lead, extremely underused but still looking fantastic.

Dick Foran, always the movie villain, keeps on eye on secretary Marilee Earle as she sympathizes with Dana Andrews in Jacques Tourneur's desk-set late noir, THE FEARMAKERS.

Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney finished a five film team-up with Otto Preminger's WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, which might seem similar to LAURA, where a tough cop and a beautiful women are entangled in a murder, but couldn't be more different: she's protecting him this time, and yet, she doesn't even know it.

Dick Foran plays the villain in THE FEARMAKERS, making a deal with Dana Andrews, who will pretend to go along, for a while.

An uncredited Jack Warden, one day a popular veteran actor, in his youth alongside future BRAINSTORM rivals Jeffrey Hunter and Dana Andrews in THE FROGMEN.

Happy Halloween 2019 from the Dana Andrews Blog: yet another shot from the classic 1957 British Horror CURSE OF THE DEMON where Andrews, as usual, is on an airplane, and we're thus introduced to his character wearing his character on his face.

Virginia Mayo finds out about Dana Andrews's other woman by being invited by her, resulting in some great wordplay: "Say, who is this Peggy Stevenson?" "She's a girl." "Well I didn't think she was a kangaroo!!!" Here's Dana lunching with Teresa Wright at a pasta dive From THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES.

"And, having once turned round, walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread." Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, CURSE OF THE DEMON

Birthday of Linda Darnell, reoccurring Dana Andrews ingenue along with Jeanne Crain and Gene Tierney: Darnell, though, had the most edge, especially as the lusty FALLEN ANGEL waitress a decade before sitting by Dana's side as his wife in ZERO HOUR, later parodied by Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty in AIRPLANE.

So many CURSE OF THE DEMON paraphernalia to own, including every VHS and even this awesome laserdisc with the rare covers showing a disc grooving out from the artwork: herein Dana Andrews facing the titular creature that, albeit more bear than demon, is a classic monster in a classic British horror flick.

The last posted, linked here , shows the shot that really happens when Dana Andrews pulls out the (is pulling out the) ruins to match those on Stonehenge, a closeup, while here's the most famous image from the movie, a medium/wide shot that's not in either CURSE OF THE DEMON or NIGHT OF THE DEMON.

From CURSE OF THE DEMON at Stonehenge, where, mentioned in the lyrics of a ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW song, Science-Fiction, Dana Andrews's Holden jots down ruin-writing to learn what he's supposed to be afraid of, and isn't... yet.

Evil for simply being a rich, powerful man whose astronautics industry afforded him not only a mansion but a trophy wife in Anne Francis, who his employee rocket-scientist Jeff Hunter falls deeply in love with, enough to end the life of Dana Andrews's character for good in director William Conrad's Neo-Noir thriller, BRAINSTORM...

Dana Andrews has played nice guys and jerks, and in NIGHT SONG, his bitter blind pianist is intensely in-between: a romantic melodrama that, in this particular photo, looks very smoky and Noir.

Dana Andrews, Fredric March and Harold Russell return home to Boontown and see the scrap of the war they'd just fought below. A graveyard of airplanes that are now junk. Little does Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) know that he's looking at a prosperous future, and right next to his future father-in-law (Fredric March).

Stalking Dana Andrews is Walter Gotell as ship henchman Jim from DUEL IN THE JUNGLE, who'd eventually kind of replace Bernard Lee in the Roger Moore James Bond films during the late 70's until A VIEW TO A KILL in 1986, and he played heavies or serious types in movies like THE BOYS OF BRAZIL and BLACK SUNDAY.

Before the epic Waldo Lydecker flashback in detailing the backstory of Gene Tierney's seemingly dead LAURA, Dana Andrews as Lt. Mark McPherson acts the gentleman to one of his rudest and most entertaining of suspects, played by Oscar winning Clifton Webb.

Dana Andrews is not so scared of the not-yet-scary Vincent Prince in his Mystery Noir before Horror days of LAURA directed by Otto Preminger, and where Dana got famous.

The cycle of man circa LAURA; but Clifton Webb's Waldo Lydecker wouldn't agree. Although, both he and Dana Andrews's Detective Mike McPherson would be in cahoots about playboy bottom-feeder Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) filling the caboose spot.

Dames are "always pulling a switch on you" says Dana Andrews as Mark McPherson in the Otto Preminger classic LAURA after being tricked by the title character played by Gene Tierney, having a rainy rendezvous with Vincent Price's flaky playboy Shelby Carpenter.

Dana Andrews and Marilee Earle are surprised by the entrance of an office villain in an office-set Washington D.C. late noir by Jacques Tourneur, and this blog's namesake, THE FEARMAKERS.

By the 1960's Dana Andrew was either serving in big budget or reigning in low budget movies, and here he's a general behind William Holden in a pretty bad ripoff of THE DIRTY DOZEN titled THE DEVIL'S BRIGADE. Dana's b-movies were much better.

Marilee Earle welcomes Dana Andrews into his old office in THE FEARMAKERS, and like any good Film Noir dependable good-girl ingenue, has empathy right off the bat.