VERONICA LAKE'S SWAN SONG TO THE CINEMA: FLESH FEAST (1970)

 

I remember the first time I saw Veronica Lake.

It was in a 1943 Paramount picture called SO PROUDLY WE HAIL. The story, based on true incidents, was about a group of Army nurses serving the troops in the Philippines during World War 2. Miss Lake was third-billed after Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard. Her character, Olivia Darcy, joined the nurses' team after surviving an attack on a war ship. Olivia was aggressive and unfriendly to the other women. After a violent argument with two of them, Olivia breaks down and confesses to the head nurse, played by Colbert, the reason for her behavior. Her fiancée was killed by the Japanese, and Olivia is determined to kill as many Japs as she can get her hands on. After unburdening herself, she begins to soften towards her fellow nurses and her bitterness begins to fade. 

When the troop of nurses is under attack by Japanese forces and about to be taken prisoner, Olivia valiantly sacrifices herself to save the other women by hiding a hand grenade under her clothes and walking towards the Japanese soldiers while feigning surrender. The explosion gives her colleagues the opportunity to get away. 

This emotional scene is one of the dramatic highlights of the movie and Lake plays it perfectly. But it isn't just her fine acting that makes it memorable; there is also an important change in her physical appearance. Up to this point, Olivia has been wearing her blonde hair in braids that wrap around her head. But when she goes out to entice the Japanese soldiers, she pulls her hair loose and it falls languidly around her face, all the way to her shoulders. And there is a lock of hair nearly covering her right eye. She is a true vision of beauty. I didn't know it at the time, but this actress's hairstyle was already an icon of 1940s cinema. Veronica Lake, as I would soon learn after more afternoons spent watching old movies on the Early Show, was a major Hollywood star by the time she got around to blowing herself up with a hand grenade in 1943. 

 

Lake's star rose high and hot in the early 1940s: I WANTED WINGS (1941), SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1942), and two excellent Film Noirs with Alan Ladd, THIS GUN FOR HIRE and THE GLASS KEY, both in 1942, made her one of Paramount's most popular actresses. Lake was very talented, but it was partly her famous hairstyle that made her a sensation with moviegoers. In fact, so many women tried to imitate her peek-a-boo look that it caused a national crisis. There were so many accidents in factories with women getting their hair caught in machinery that the US government asked Miss Lake to start wearing her hair in a safer, tied back manner. This change, and a series of less suitable films as the war years pressed on, caused Lake's star to dim somewhat. However, she eventually reteamed with Alan Ladd for another classic Film Noir, THE BLUE DAHLIA in 1946. By this time, the war was over, and Veronica was once again allowed to unleash her blonde mane to its full effect.

The Hour Before Dawn (1944)

Due to a combination of personal and professional difficulties, and a gradual decline in her popularity, Lake's tenure at Paramount was over by the end of the 1940s. She made two more pictures for other studios and then spent most of the ensuing years working on television and in the theater. Her life after movie stardom is chronicled in Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake, published in 1969, and a tumultuous life it was. Suffice it to say that the personal and professional problems she had during her Hollywood years continued to afflict her. Lake had been largely out of the public eye when she was found working as a waitress in a hotel bar in 1963. The outpouring of support and interest brought a kind of resurgence in her acting career. She made a low-budget Canadian film in 1966 called FOOTSTEPS IN THE SNOW. This film, which also features American actress Meredith MacRae and Canadian actor Paul Kastner (YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW), was never released in the United States. It can be seen on Youtube, in German with no English subtitles. 

In 1970, using the proceeds from her successful autobiography, Veronica Lake co-produced and starred in her last movie, FLESH FEAST, a low-budget horror film directed by Brad F. Grinter for Viking International Pictures. Lake plays Dr. Elaine Frederick, a plastic surgeon with a rather unique method for altering someone's appearance. She uses a breed of flesh-eating maggots to eat away the skin. Yes, I said maggots. The good doctor gets involved with a gang of South American revolutionaries who want her to change the face of their "Commander". It turns out that the Commander is actually the one and only Adolph Hitler, who has been hiding out in South America since WW2. But Dr. Frederick has an agenda of her own. Her mother had been in a German concentration camp and used as a guinea pig in hideous experiments involving maggots. The doctor is determined to avenge her mother by inflicting the same fate on Hitler. When the doctor gets Der Fuehrer strapped down in her laboratory, she covers his face with the maggots, laughing maniacally as he is tortured. As he screams in agony, Dr. Frederick raises her arm in a Nazi salute and says "Heil Hitler!!!"

The plot also involves some investigative reporters infiltrating the operation to find out who the Commander is and what the revolutionaries are planning. And there are some romantic scenes between vapid characters played by equally vapid actors. The working title of the film was TIME IS TERROR, and it was not yet fully edited by the publication of Lake's book. Here's what she had to say about the final stage of her movie career:

"Someday soon, perhaps on your local television station during their daily horror film show, you'll be able to see my two latest films. Fortunately, I did not have to return to Hollywood to make these films. They were produced in Canada and Florida, and, in vogue with today's trend of putting older stars in horror movies, both these efforts are designed to turn your knuckles white, get your heart pounding and cause your girlfriend to cuddle up close in sheer terror. 

The first one was the Canadian epic. It was titled Footsteps in the Snow and deals with dope traffic and ski bums and other goodies. They paid me $10,000 for this, plus expenses. I left immediately after shooting was concluded and still have not seen an edited version. All I know is it was cold in Canada and I was happy to return to Florida.

The other film must rank as one of the great Chinese productions of all time. Its tentative title is Time is Terror.

Making movies, even low-budget ones, is an expensive and demanding chore. You'd better know what you're doing, or your low-budget job will blossom into a bankrupting one. That pretty much is what happened with Time is Terror."

According to Lake, the inept director shot over 130,000 feet of 35MM color film. But since he had failed to take enough master shots, editing the film was a huge problem. The movie was finally released as FLESH FEAST on April 8, 1970, clocking in at 72 minutes.

So, how does the legendary Veronica Lake come across in her final film? I think she is 100% professional in trying to make her character believable. She is clearly the standout element of the entire production, working with unknown actors, some of whom are also doing their best. She is stylish and attractive in many of her early scenes. In the final segment, she plays crazy quite convincingly as she laughs and slings maggots all over the place. She appears to be in control of her acting and even enjoying herself while she's doing it. You might say that she's inflicted a final blow against the villains of WW2. In SO PROUDLY WE HAIL, her character, Olivia, takes on the Japanese. In FLESH FEAST, her Dr. Frederick has defeated the Nazis.

Veronica Lake was living in England when she died on July 7, 1973, at the age of 50. Although her final screen effort was clearly unworthy of her, it takes nothing away from the excellence of her entire filmography. My advice is to check out FLESH FEAST as a curiosity item. Then rewatch THIS GUN FOR HIRE and THE GLASS KEY and immerse yourself in dreams.

This post is part of the 2nd Annual 'Favorite Stars in B Movies' Blogathon sponsored by Brian Shuck of Films From Beyond the Time Barrier. Thanks once again to Brian!!

Films From Beyond the Time Barrier