Joseph Pevney
Director Joseph Pevney died this past May 18. He was 96.
Pevney was best known — among the few who’d heard of him — for his 1950s B-movies made at Universal, though beginning in the late 1950s he went on to direct countless episodes of TV series ranging from Bewitched and The Big Valley to Star Trek and The Incredible Hulk.
Among Pevney’s 1950s efforts are the Frank Sinatra drama Meet Danny Wilson (1951), made when Sinatra’s career was in the doldrums; Desert Legion (1953), starring Alan Ladd; It Happens Every Thursday (1952), Loretta Young’s last feature film; and 3 Ring Circus (1954), with Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Joanne Dru.
Also, the over-the-top melodrama Female on the Beach (photo, 1954), which paired Joan Crawford with lover-cum-potential-murderer Jeff Chandler at his hunkiest; Istanbul (1957), starring a faded Errol Flynn as a suspected diamond smuggler; the Lon Chaney biopic Man with a Thousand Faces (1957), starring James Cagney; and the melodrama Cash McCall (1960), with James Garner and Natalie Wood.
One of Universal’s top contract players — even if that meant mostly B-movie work — Jeff Chandler starred in eight films for Pevney.
I’ve only seen a handful of Pevney’s films, none of which was very memorable. Of those, the best one was the popular light romance Tammy and the Bachelor, in which swamp girl Debbie Reynolds ("Does my lover feel what I feel when he comes near…") falls for sophisticated gentleman Leslie Nielsen.
Sydney Pollack Appreciation in the NEW YORK TIMES
SANGRE DE MI SANGRE: Q&A with Christopher Zalla
Karen Allen in the LOS ANGELES TIMES
Woody Allen in the LONDON TIMES
WATER LILIES: Q&A with Céline Sciamma
REFUSENIK: Q&A with Laura Bialis
Gloria Grahame at Bright Lights
Harrison Ford in THE INDEPENDENT
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Tags: Alan Ladd, Bewitched, Cash McCall, Classic Movies, Debbie Reynolds, Desert Legion, Errol Flynn, Female on the Beach, Istanbul, It Happens Every Thursday, James Cagney, James Garner, Jeff Chandler, Joan Crawford, Joseph Pevney, Loretta Young, Man with a Thousand Faces, Meet Danny Wilson, Natalie Wood, Star Trek, Tammy and the Bachelor, The Big Valley, Universal
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