Kim Hunter Movies

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

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

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

"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

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

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