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Nancy Guild in The Brasher Doubloon

In 1947, actress Nancy Guild appeared in her second film, The Brasher Doubloon. The movie, an adaptation of one of Raymond Chandler's detective novels featuring the legendary Philip Marlowe, is actually quite entertaining. George Montgomery plays Philip Marlowe with humor and confidence and Nancy Guild does quite well displaying the innocence and naivete of her character.

Here are some newspaper clippings (advertisements and reviews) concerning The Brasher Doubloon:

Here are some images of Nancy Guild in The Brasher Doubloon (click to enlarge, if you want):

Jill Townsend and Nicol Williamson

Jill Townsend was married to actor Nicol Williamson for a good part of the 1970s, though the pair had met years earlier. In the mid-1960s, they had appeared in the Broadway production of the play Inadmissible Evidence. With a ten year age difference between them, in that play he played her father (she would return the favor years later when she briefly appeared as his mother in flashback scene from his movie The Seven-Per-Cent Solution).

Their marriage only lasted six years and apparently didn't end all that well. However, the following newspaper clipping from December 1970 is from a better time in Jill Townsend and Nicol Williamson's relationship. Take a look:

Alexis Smith in Steel Against the Sky

In 1941, Alexis Smith was top-billed in the movie Steel Against the Sky. Previously, she had only had two substantial film roles (in Dive Bomber and The Smiling Ghost). The fact that Alexis Smith was billed first here, even though she had much less screen-time than her two co-stars, was presumably good news for the actress. Following Steel Against the Sky, she would appear in a number of big movies alongside many big stars throughout the rest of the decade.

Clocking in at just over an hour in length, Steel Against the Sky was Warner Brothers programmer meant to appear on the screen as part of a double feature. The plot concerned a family of bridge builders, with two brothers fighting over the daughter of the boss. Alexis Smith is quite appealing here and, while she doesn't have all that much to do, she nonetheless does very well with her role. She also has great chemistry with her co-star Craig Stevens, so much so that the pair got married in real life a few years later.

Here are some promotional images of Alexis Smith an her co-stars (Craig Stevens and Lloyd Nolan) from Steel Against the Sky:

Here are some images of Alexis Smith in Steel Against the Sky:

Alexis Smith and Gene Lockhart

Alexis Smith during her extreme close-up

Eleanor Parker in The Mysterious Doctor

In 1943, Eleanor Parker was second-billed in The Mysterious Doctor. It was her biggest role up until that time (she had made her feature film debut the previous year in Busses Roar).

Only an hour long, The Mysterious Doctor was a B-movie programmer made to be shown as part of a cinema double feature. The story revolves around a small town in Cornwall with a supposedly haunted tin mine, with many references to the British war effort thrown in to make it current for 1943.

Eleanor Parker has several scenes in The Mysterious Doctor and her character is actually is somewhat integral to the plot, not completely superfluous as sometimes female characters in these types of films are. Still, she didn't have too much to work with here but Eleanor Parker's acting ability is quite evident throughout and she manages to breathe some life into her role. And, of course, she looks beautiful too!