Just "B" Claws

The victims are females alone
Slain by sicko or feline unknown
Did Lewton regret
This brutal noire bête?
Would a flick this extreme Val disown?

Apparently producer Val Lewton and director Tourneur both said that they felt the film was an artistic failure. Unlike their previous collaborations, it was not a financial success. The serial murder plot and narrative structure which shifts from victim to victim came from the source novel Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich.

Leopard Manslaughter

The daughter's dispatched to the store
She's caught--there's a scratch at the door! 
She knocks and she shrieks
Then, shockingly, leaks
Well-wrought, but unmatched in its gore.



Teresa Delgado (Margaret Landry) meets a cruel fate in The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur; 1943), an early precursor to the giallo and serial killer film.

Double Leopardy

It's released to run wild on four paws
And it feasts on a child with its jaws
But there, too, is a man
With a zoophile plan
He's a beast wielding filed metal claws. 

David Cairns

James Bell and Jean Brooks in the Val Lewton production The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur; 1943). This mystery-thriller is an early attempt at depicting what is now known as a serial killer.

Deft Leopard

Steer clear of the still of the night
A serial killer might bite
An animal act
Or man that has cracked?
This eerie blood-spiller's a sight. 

The Leopard Man (Jacques Tourneur; 1943), one of distinctive horror thrillers produced during the 1940s at RKO by Val Lewton, the new focus of our Countdown to Halloween.

Franchot Tone Poem

Tone muses on hands and their powers
The bluesman just stands there and cowers
It's all wrong, dark and bleak
From the strong to the weak
And on cue Franchot stands up and towers.

David Cairns



This is what happens when Ella Raines isn't around. Franchot Tone and Elisha Cook Jr in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak; 1944).

Drum-Sticky

His zeal at the skins is insane

The appeal of her pins makes him strain
He sure works up a sweat
Cause the jerk is all wet
What he feels as he grins is quite plain. 

David Cairns

Elisha Cook Jr. excitedly beats his drums in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak; 1944).

Sex Cymbals

This drummer's propelling the beat
He's crummy, but Ella's all reet
She's hep to the jive
And adds pep to his drive
Is it summer? He swells from the heat.



Ella Raines spurs on Elisha Cook Jr's frenzied drum solo in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak; 1944). Title by sexy David Cairns.

The Phantom Lady Menace

Till closing she sips in saloon
Gets cozy with hipster jazz goon
Playing dick on a trek
She sticks out her neck
Exposed to the grip of a loon.


Franchot Tone and Ella Raines in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak; 1944). #ellaraines100

Raines' Man

She's a swell looking, perky young frail 

But the fella she works for's in jail
Seems his alibi's riding
On a gal who's in hiding
It's one helluva a quirky noir tale.


To clear boss Alan Curtis, secretary Ella Raines turns detective in Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak; 1944).

Gulp Fiction

Unfortunate hack, this poor chap
A tortured and lachrymose sap
Sunk in gloom, wrote suspense
Full of doom, short on sense
Some scorchers, some lackluster crap.

David Cairns

By all accounts (well, the exhaustive biography First You Dream, Then You Die) noir and suspense pulp writer Cornell Woolrich had a miserable personal life.

Cornell Liquor

He knows a quite a lot about drinking
His prose comes while blotto and stinking
But while bobbing afloat
Somehow novels get wrote
Writing flows as the bottles keep clinking.

David Cairns

Alcohol figured into both the life an fiction of Cornell Woorich.

Twin, Lose or Drawers

Identical girls, one is bad.
But how can an ID be had?
The vamp's negligee
Gives her badness away
While the good girl's more modestly clad.

David Cairns

Bonita Granville plays twins in the low budget Cornell Woolrich adaption, The Guilty (John Reinhardt; 1947).

William Irish Whiskey

Black Angel's original scribe
Got deranged, hit the fridge, to imbibe
That icy cold liquor
Sufficed as a kicker
Tales most strange, unabridged he'd describe.

David Cairns



William Irish is one of the pseudonyms of noir crime and suspense writer Cornell Woolrich.

Two Creepy People

Drunk Duryea or bored Peter Lorre,
the cur who thinks gore's hunky-dory?
Whodunnit? We're sharing
that one's a red herring
Quite sure that there's more to the story.

Shady nightclub owner Peter Lorre hires composer and pianist Dan Duryea in the noir murder mystery Black Angel (Roy William Neill; 1946). Title by Donald B. Benson, a creepy people person.

Happy Hour of Reckoning

Marty reeks like a stumbling bum
He looks peaked, a glum flophouse crumb
Though he swills like a sot
He still ain't forgot
Why he seeks to be comfy and numb.

Dan Duryea stars as booze sodden songwriter Martin Blair in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946).

The Demon Run

He speeds as if chased by the past
He needs one more taste, one more blast
But this booze swilling mope
Plays the blues with no hope
In the weeds, he's a waste, sinking fast.

Dan Duryea runs for his life in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946). Title by Donald B. Benson.

Verbal Duryea

Hangdog Dan's started slurring his words
Got some brandy and gurgled two-thirds
Amnesiac? Crazy?
Post-blackout, all's hazy
This rancid liqueur's for the birds.

David Cairns

Dan Duryea drinks like there's no tomorrow in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946).

Binge Benefits

In spirits awash, I go blurry
My fears have been quashed, I've no worry
Like the grime of the day
My crimes fade away       
So, cheers! Let's get sloshed in a hurry.



Dan Duryea's drunken flashback in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946). Title by David Cairns, all business.

One Groggy Evening

How drunk can this guzzler get?
Eyes sunken, he's fuzzy and wet
What booze does he use?
The usual brews
In a funk, he get's buzzed to forget.



Dan Duryea has a drunken flashback in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946).

Black-Out? Curtains!

For his anguish he drinks: anesthesia
For a hangover, milk of magnesia
But he blacks out, gets fuddled
All cracked-up and muddled
Now he's jangled, can't think: it's amnesia!

David Cairns

June Vincent watches Dan Duryea sleep one off in Black Angel (Roy William Neill, 1946). Our title could refer to any number of tales by author Cornell Woolrich, writer of the film's source novel.