Kim Hunter Movies
Born Janet Cole, American actress Kim Hunter trained at the Actors Studio. At age 17, she debuted onscreen in The Seventh Victim (1943) before appearing in several subpar films. Her popularity was renewed with her appearance in the British fantasy A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and, in 1947, she created the role of Stella Kowalski on Broadway in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, reprising the role in the 1951 film version, for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. But her career was dealt a terrible blow when her name appeared without cause in Red Channels, a Red-scare pamphlet during the McCarthy Era, and she was blacklisted. Several years later, she was called as the star witness in a court case instigated by another Red Channels victim, and her testimony discredited the publication and made it possible for dozens of other performers to reclaim their careers. She returned to films sporadically after this, and also did much work on stage and television; among her roles was appearing as a female ape in three Planet of the Apes films. She also wrote Loose in the Kitchen, a combination autobiography-cookbook. Hunter was married to writer Robert Emmett from 1951 until her death in 2002. ~ All Movie Guide- 1943
- NR
Producer Val Lewton once more utilized leftover Magnificent Ambersons sets for his psychological horror piece The Seventh Victim. Kim Hunter arrives in New York's Greenwich Village in search of her errant sister Jean Brooks. Gradually, the naive Hunter is drawn into a strange netherworld of Satan worshippers. The story is a bit too complex for its own good (especially with only a 71-minute running time to play with), but editor-turned-director Mark Robson and screenwriters Dewitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal keep the thrills and shudders coming at a satisfying pace. Lewton regular Tom Conway offers his usual polished performance, while veteran character actresses Isabel Jewell and Evelyn Brent look appropriately gaunt and possessed in the "cult" sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Hunter, Tom Conway, (more)
- 1943
A bit treacly at times, Tender Comrade is nonetheless a fascinating distillation of the American mindset during WW2. Ginger Rogers is at her noblest and most self-sacrificial as Jo, whose husband Chris (Robert Ryan) is off fighting the war. Though pregnant, Jo finds a job at Douglas Aircraft, saving her money by living in a group home with several of her female co-workers. Delivering lines like "Share and share alike, that's democracy", Jo and her friends pool their salaries and divvy up responsibilities, as wait for news from the Front about their husbands and sweethearts. When news arrives that Chris has been killed, Jo delivers an impassioned cheer-up speech to her infant son, which will either leave the viewer in tears or in giggles, depending upon one's frame of mind. The "collectivism" implicit in Tender Comrade (not to mention its politically chancy title!) would later cause a lot of trouble for screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and director Edward Dmytrk during the HUAC "Communist witchhunt" era. In 1943, however, audiences didn't worry about such things, and the film posted a huge profit for RKO Radio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ginger Rogers, Robert Ryan, (more)
- 1944
Betrayed is the reissue title for the classic melodrama When Strangers Marry. In her third film, Kim Hunter plays a waitress who comes to New York to meet her husband Dean Jagger. Kim's marriage was a whirlwind affair, and as a result she barely knows her husband. She soon discovers that Jagger may be involved in a murder -- and that he very well may be a homicidal maniac. Designated by film-historian Don Miller as the finest "B" picture ever made, Betrayed is chock full of superb cinematic touches, courtesy of director William Castle. Best bits include the shot of Kim Hunter staring out her hotel window, her face illuminated by a flashing neon sign, and a "shock cut" straight out of Hitchcock's The 39 Steps. Third-billed Robert Mitchum was elevated to star status on the reissue prints of When Strangers Marry, which unfortunately tended to give away the film's surprise ending; also in the cast in a tiny role is Mitchum's future Out of the Past co-star Rhonda Fleming. One of the most convincing performances is delivered by character actor Lou Lubin, who plays a shaking-in-his-boots murder witness. Filmed in ten days, Betrayed was another box-office winner for the canny King Brothers producing team. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dean Jagger, Kim Hunter, (more)
Set not in the 14th century milieu of Geoffrey Chaucer but in wartime Britain, A Canterbury Tale begins with rural justice of the peace Eric Portman adopting a "lock up your daughters" policy when the American soldiers are stationed nearby. To escape the arbitrary edicts of Portman, British tank sergeant Dennis Price, American GI John Sweet and shopkeeper Sheila Sim head down the road to Canterbury. Each of the principals finds their lives changed by the journey. In particular, Sweet (a real-life American sergeant, rather than the usual stereotyped "yank" common to British war films) encounters genuine romance. A product of the always adventuresome "Archers" (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger), A Canterbury Tale contains some extremely creative cinematic moments, though it is the quieter scenes which work best. Esmond Knight narrates the film and shows up in a couple of amusing cameos. A ubiquitous presence on American TV, Canterbury Tale is available in two versions; the American release version, cut from 124 to 95 minutes and including several arbitrary scenes with Kim Hunter, is the lesser of the two. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, (more)
- 1945
"You can live a long time in three days -- sometimes when you're in a tight spot, you can live a year in ten seconds." US Army Air Force Major Bob Collins (Robert Cummings), Captain "Shakespeare" Anders (Don Defore), and Lt. "Handsome" Janoshek (Charles Drake) are three happy-go-lucky combat pilots, decorated heroes who are on a tour promoting War Bonds. Their public relations representative from the Treasury Department, Ivy Hotchkiss (Lizabeth Scott), finds at first that can't do much more than tag along, picking up after them and observing their carousing, especially Collins, who seems to have a wide array of female acquaintances in every city they visit. Indeed, although she says little about it, their carousing is out-of-proportion to their circumstances -- yes, their current mission involves a lot of cramped traveling cross-country. shaking hands, endless speechifying, and even more endless listening to tributes to the heroism of the air corps, all of which gets boring and tiring very fast; but these men act like they're burning the candle at both ends, almost manic in their pursuit of women and laughs, and just as devoted to the three of them enjoying anything they do together, past the point of pilots' usual comraderie. They go so far as to sneak out ahead of one extremely important rally, but eventually Ivy gets them to straighten up and fly right, at least when they're supposed to, and the trio -- who has taken a liking to her for being such as good sport -- agrees to behave, at least when they're supposed to be meeting the public. After a few more misunderstandings, some of them comical, she actually gets to like the trio; the four of them become friends, and Ivy starts getting especially close to Bob, despite his womanizing ways -- but whenever she asks Handsome and Shakespeare about Bob's story, they get very close-mouthed and vague. She doesn't think too much of it, enjoying the time she's having with them, until the truth is accidentally dumped in her lap by a well-meaning medical officer (Rhys Williams) -- that Bob, for all of his freewheeling, happy-go-lucky outlook on life and love, is terminally ill. She suddenly understands their behavior and the true depth of the friendship that Handsome and Shakespeare share with him -- she's also nearly shattered, but she dares not let Bob know that she knows, for fear of destroying what little time he has left. The trio at last becomes a true foursome, bound together around Bob and Ivy. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Cummings, Lizabeth Scott, (more)
- 1946
Also known as Stairway to Heaven, A Matter of Life and Death is the remarkable British fantasy film that became the surprise hit of 1946. David Niven stars as Peter Carter, a World War II RAF pilot who is forced to bail out of his crippled plane without a parachute. He wakes up to find he has landed on Earth utterly unharmed...which wasn't supposed to happen according to the rules of Heaven. A celestial court argues over whether or not to claim Carter's life or to let him survive to wed his American sweetheart (Kim Hunter). During an operation, in which Carter hovers between life and death, he dreams that his spirit is on trial, with God (Abraham Sofaer) as judge and Carter's recently deceased best friend (Roger Livesey) as defense counsel. The film tries to have it both ways by suggesting that the heavenly scenes are all a product of Carter's imagination, but the audience knows better. Among the curious but effective artistic choices in A Matter of Life and Death was the decision to film the earthbound scenes in Technicolor and the Heaven sequences in black-and-white. The film was a product of the adventuresome team known as "The Archers": Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Niven, Kim Hunter, (more)
In the classic play by Tennessee Williams, brought to the screen by Elia Kazan, faded Southern belle Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) comes to visit her pregnant sister, Stella (Kim Hunter), in a seedy section of New Orleans. Stella's boorish husband, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), not only regards Blanche's aristocratic affectations as a royal pain but also thinks she's holding out on inheritance money that rightfully belongs to Stella. On the fringes of sanity, Blanche is trying to forget her checkered past and start life anew. Attracted to Stanley's friend Mitch (Karl Malden), she glosses over the less savory incidents in her past, but she soon discovers that she cannot outrun that past, and the stage is set for her final, brutal confrontation with her brother-in-law. Brando, Hunter, and Malden had all starred in the original Broadway version of Streetcar, although the original Blanche had been Jessica Tandy. Brando lost out to Humphrey Bogart for the 1951 Best Actor Oscar, but Leigh, Hunter, and Malden all won Oscars. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, (more)
- 1952
An abundance of subplots are expertly woven together by screenwriter/director Richard Brooks in Deadline - USA. Humphrey Bogart stars as crusading editor Ed Hutcheson, whose newspaper is on the verge of closing thanks to the machinations of the mercenary daughter (Audrey Christie) of Mrs. Garrison (Ethel Barrymore), the paper's owner. Though he and his staff will all be out of work within a few days, Hutcheson intends to go out with a bang, exposing the criminal activities of "untouchable" gang boss Rienzi (Martin Gabel). Despite numerous disappointments and setbacks, Hutcheson achieves a pyrrhic victory as the film draws to a close. Throughout the story, the many pressures brought to bear upon a big-city newspaper--political, commercial, etc.--are realistically detailed, as is the relationship between Hutcheson and his ex-wife Nora (Kim Hunter). The cast of Deadline USA is uniformly excellent, from featured players Warren Stevens, Jim Backus, Paul Stewart Fay Baker and Ed Begley to such unbilled performers as Tom Browne Henry, Raymond Greenleaf, Tom Powers, and Kasia Orzazewski (essentially reprising her unforgettable characterization in Call Northside 777). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, (more)
- 1952
George and Helen Pasashvily's colorful memoir Anything Can Happen was delightfully brought to the screen by the Paramount producing team of William Perlberg and George Seaton. Jose Ferrer heads the cast as Eastern European immigrant Giorgi Pasashvily, whose wide-eyed innocence and uncertain grasp of the English language causes him no end of trouble during his first months in America. Things take an upward turn when Giorgi falls in love with American girl Helen Watson (Kim Hunter). The film, like the book that preceded it, is told episodically, with moments of high comedy alternating with scenes of tender pathos. As miserly-but-golden-hearted Uncle Besso, Oscar Karlweis has a death scene that is one of the best and most moving of its kind. When originally released in 1952, Anything Can Happen was heralded with a coming-attractions trailer hosted by Edmund Gwenn, which was every bit as enjoyable as the film itself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- José Ferrer, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1956
Trouble brews when a widowed, small town librarian takes a stand against censorship. The trouble begins when the town fathers ask that she remove a book from the shelf because they deem it a pro-communist tract and fear it will taint susceptible young minds. She sees the idiocy of their request and defies them. They in turn fire her and replace her with her old friend and assistant. The town judge considers the whole mess a gross miscarriage of justice and demands a trial. This gives an ambitious young lawyer, the boyfriend of the new librarian the opportunity to do a little grandstanding by publicly proclaiming the highly-principled widow a communist. The poor woman suddenly finds herself the town pariah; her only remaining friend is a small boy she used to talk to in the library. He plays a key role in restoring her good name. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bette Davis, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1956
Ex-Hollywoodite A. Edward Sutherland co-directed the British programmer Bermuda Affair with Robert J. Shaw. Gary Merrill and Ron Randell play a pair of army chums who run a postwar air transport service. Reversing the cliché, it is Merrill, the homelier of the two men, who turns out to be a rat with women. Merrill messes around with Randell's wife Zena Marshall, but makes up for all past misdeeds when he gives up his own life to save his friend from certain doom. Filmed on location, Bermuda Affair was released worldwide by Hollywood's Columbia Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1956
Harlan "Mountain" McClintock (Jack Palance) has been a professional boxer for 14 years. He's been in the ring for over 110 bouts and was once ranked number five among the world's heavyweight fighters, but age and the physical punishment of his sport have taken their toll. Now McClintock is growing too old to fight but he lacks the money to retire gracefully, as his manager Maish (Keenan Wynn) suggests he start fighting crooked or switch to professional wrestling. Ed Wynn co-stars as McClintock's corner man, and Kim Hunter plays a sweet but naïve social worker. Requiem for a Heavyweight was a television drama written by Rod Serling and originally broadcast in 1956; the story was later remade as a feature film starring Anthony Quinn. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Palance, Keenan Wynn, (more)
- 1957
Adapting a made-for-TV play that he had directed for the screen, John Frankenheimer made his feature film debut with this sensitive father-son drama. Tom Ditmar (James Daly) is a movie studio executive who has a strained relationship with his teenaged son Hal (James MacArthur). Hal is arrested after an incident in a movie theater in which he was provoked into slugging the manager, Grubbs (Whit Bissell). Hal is rude to the police officer, Sergeant Shipley (James Gregory). Tom Ditmar gets the charges dropped but doesn't believe his son's story. Hal goes back to talk to Grubbs to try to get him to tell his father what really happened. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James MacArthur, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1957
Rod Serling wasn't telling whom he based the leading character of his TV play The Comedian upon, but sharp-eyed viewers could detect traces of everyone from Milton Berle to Red Buttons. Mickey Rooney stars as a top-rated television comedian who is all love-and-kisses when before the cameras but a flaming mass of vitriol towards his coworkers. Rooney's beleaguered head writer Edmond O'Brien worries that he's on the verge of being fired, so he steals an old piece of material from a long-dead comic for Rooney's opening monologue. Meanwhile, Rooney's brother Mel Torme, fed up with being the public butt of the comedian's jokes, is goaded into an on-camera revenge. Throwing out his original intention of having the vicious Rooney get his comeuppance, Serling ends The Comedian with Rooney still dispensing nastiness to one and all, and with Torme sobbingly accepting his lot in life; O'Brien, at least, is afforded a happier denouement. Originally telecast live on Playhouse 90 on February 14, 1957, The Comedian won an Emmy as "best single program"; a kinescope of the telecast is currently available on videocassette. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1958
In this curious blend of Western and detective melodrama, Jock Mahoney plays a frontier gumshoe named Hogan. When an old prospector is murdered, Hogan takes on the assignment of finding the four heirs to the prospector's fortune. Briefly sidetracked by a romance with Mary Kingman (played by Kim Hunter in a rare Western appearance), Hogan not only finds the heirs but also the killers -- and in at least one case, heir and killer are one and the same. Money, Women and Guns was produced by Howie Horwitz, who, like screenwriter Montgomery Pittman, would go on to even bigger things in the TV industry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jock Mahoney, Kim Hunter, (more)
- 1960
Give Us Barabbas! was originally telecast in color on March 26, 1961. The story begins during the trial of Jesus, conducted by Pontius Pilate (Dennis King). Giving the populace a choice between Jesus and the thief Barabbas (James Daly) as to whom will be crucified, the crowd shouts back "Give Us Barabbas!". Following the crucifixion, Barabbas undergoes a transformation; a thief no more, he spends the rest of his life atoning to the martyred Jesus. Written by Henry Denker, the 60-minute, videotaped Give Us Barabbas was the Easter offering of the long-running anthology Hallmark Hall of Fame. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1964
In the closing months of World War II, phony spiritualist Adelaide Winters (Kim Hunter) has come up with a cruel but successful new racket. Preying upon the grieving parents of deceased servicemen, Adelaide claims to have the power to communicate with the spirits of the dead soldiers. Adelaide's elaborate forays into the next world so impresses one of her clients, wealthy Edward Porter (John Larkin), that he proposes marriage to her. Adelaide accepts, greedily anticipating a life of luxury and ease -- blissfully unaware that Mr. Porter has a morbid "crossover" plan all his own. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Hunter, John Larkin, (more)
Vincent Bruce (Warren Beatty) is a Korean War veteran who becomes an occupational therapist in a private mental hospital that cares for wealthy, schizophrenic clientele. He slowly begins to fall for Lilith Arthur (Jean Seberg), a patient who is mentally locked in her own little world. Vincent eventually begins his own psychological disintegration over his feelings for the woman and asks for help. Watch for early career performances from Olympia Dukakis and Gene Hackman in this depressing psychodrama. This was the final film from the gifted director Robert Rossen, who died in 1966. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg, (more)
- 1966
Adapted for television by Robert Hartung from the play by Barrie Stavus, Lamp at Midnight deals with the 16th-century conflict between the Catholic Church and Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. After exhaustive research, Galileo (played by Melvyn Douglas) concludes that the Aristotelean concept of the Universe is incorrect. It is Galileo's contention--like Copernicus before him--that Earth is not the center of the universe, but merely another planet, revolving around the sun. This theory is considered heresy by the Church, and before long Galileo is dragged before Cardinal Bellarmin (George Voskovec), leader of the dreaded Court of the Inquisition. Also in the cast of this impressively mounted production are David Wayne, Kim Hunter, Hurd Hatfield, and, as Pope Urban VIII, Michael Hordern. Originally telecast April 27, 1966, the videotaped Lamp at Midnight was the final presentation of Hallmark Hall of Fame's 15th season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1968
In this drama, a little orphan must work a migrant crop picker to survive. He finally finds a home when he moves to a western sheep ranch. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Originally intended as a project for Blake Edwards, the film version of Pierre Boule's semisatiric sci-fi novel came to the screen in 1968 under the directorial guidance of Franklin J. Schaffner. Charlton Heston is George Taylor, one of several astronauts on a long, long space mission whose spaceship crash-lands on a remote planet, seemingly devoid of intelligent life. Soon the astronaut learns that this planet is ruled by a race of talking, thinking, reasoning apes who hold court over a complex, multilayered civilization. In this topsy-turvy society, the human beings are grunting, inarticulate primates, penned-up like animals. When ape leader Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) discovers that the captive Taylor has the power of speech, he reacts in horror and insists that the astronaut be killed. But sympathetic ape scientists Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) and Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) risk their lives to protect Taylor -- and to discover the secret of their planet's history that Dr. Zaius and his minions guard so jealously. In the end, it is Taylor who stumbles on the truth about the Planet of the Apes: "Damn you! Damn you! Goddamn you all to hell!" Scripted by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson (a former blacklistee who previously adapted another Pierre Boule novel, Bridge on the River Kwai), Planet of the Apes has gone on to be an all-time sci-fi (and/or camp) classic. It won a special Academy Award for John Chambers's convincing (and, from all accounts, excruciatingly uncomfortable) simian makeup. It spawned four successful sequels, as well as two TV series, one live-action and one animated. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, (more)
John Cheever's "misery in suburbia" short stories, brief and to the point, have always proven excellent TV fodder. Director Frank Perry's The Swimmer, adapted for the screen by Perry's wife Eleanor, is a rare, and for the most part successful, attempt at offering a Cheever story in feature-length form. Dressed only in swimming trunks throughout the film, Burt Lancaster plays a wealthy, middle-aged advertising man, embarked on a long and revelatory journey through suburban Connecticut. Lancaster slowly makes his way to his split-level home by travelling from house to house, and from swimming pool to swimming pool. At each stop, Lancaster comes face to face with an incident in his past. Informing Kim Hunter that he once harbored a secret love for her, Lancaster is mildly upset by Hunter's indifference. Elderly Cornelia Otis Skinner is incensed at Lancaster's intrusion in her backyard and orders him to leave. At the next home, Lancaster tries to seduce the nubile Janet Landgard, who'd once baby-sat for his daughters, but she runs away in horror. And so it goes: as each subsequent suburbanite peels off his self-protective veneer, Lancaster grows more and more disillusioned with what he thought was his ideal lifestyle. The more intensely painful episode is the confrontation between Lancaster and ex-mistress Janice Rule (this scene was directed, without credit, by Sydney Pollack). Thoroughly defeated, the all-but-naked Lancaster laboriously makes his way through the Connecticut woods in a blinding rainstorm, desperately seeking out his own home where he fully expects his "loving" wife and daughters to greet him. Not this time. Dismissed as too self-consciously "arty" at the time of its release, The Swimmer's reputation increased over the decades following its release thanks to constant late-night TV exposure. The film represents the first movie work of 22-year-old composer Marvin Hamlisch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Janet Landgard, (more)
- 1968
Kim Hunter guest-stars as greedy Ada Halle, who holds a monopoly on all salt deposits in Spanish Wells. Charging exorbitant prices for her precious salt, Ada sparks a war between the haves (the wealthy cattlemen of the territory) and the have-nots (the small ranchers). Making things dicier is the fact that Ada is the fiancee of Ben Cartwright's old friend Cash Talbot (John Doucette). Originally telecast on February 4, 1968, "The Price of Salt" was written by B.W. Sandefur. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, (more)
- 1969
Vincent Edwards, four years removed from Ben Casey, enters another branch of the healing profession in the made-for-TV Dial Hot Line. Edwards plays Matt Lincoln, a community psychiatrist who is patched into a "hot line" telephone for those troubled souls unable to afford therapy. This TV movie involves three of Lincoln's call-in patients, including one potential suicide. Also featured was future Laugh-In regular Chelsea Brown as Tag, a member of Lincoln's staff. Dial Hot Line later matriculated into the brief Matt Lincoln TV series, with both Vincent Edwards and Chelsea Brown retained from the pilot. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1970
- G
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Sometime after the events of the first Planet of the Apes, the climax of which is repeated frame for frame at the beginning of this sequel, another set of astronauts arrives on the far-future Earth that is the titular planet. This time it's Brent (James Franciscus) who survives the crash landing and learns that evolved simians have taken over the world, post-apocalypse. After hooking up with Nova (Linda Harrison), the mute, fur bikini-clad beauty who spent the first film being squired by astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston), Brent confers with Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson, giving Roddy McDowall his only break during the five-film series), the ape scientists whose adherence to scientific principles makes them friendly to the possibility of intelligent human life. Something of a military coup has taken place among the apes, who dispatch an army to the desolate "Forbidden Zone" where Taylor has coincidentally disappeared. With the apes and the humans both rooting about in the ruins of 20th century civilization, it's only a matter of time before they all find out what happened to the other survivors of the nuclear holocaust. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Franciscus, Kim Hunter, (more)
