Pawsome Pet Pictures: Ruth Hussey.

Personal Quotes:

"I stayed out of sight I guess. I probably didn't seek work but then producers didn't seek me out either."

Please click here to view more info on Ruth Hussey.

H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941).

H.M. Pulham, Esq (1941). Directed by King Vidor and based on a novel by John P. Marquand. Vidor co-wrote the screenplay with his wife, Elizabeth Hill Vidor. Cast: Robert Young, Hedy Lamarr, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn, and Van Heflin. There is also an early uncredited appearance by Ava Gardner.

Harry Moulton Pulham Jr. is a middle-aged Boston businessman, who has a wife, Kay, with whom he has settled into a too comfortable marriage, but.. it did not start out that way.

Harry finds himself in charge of organizing a twenty-five-year college reunion, he thinks back to after the end of World War I. His friend Bill King, helps him get a job for a New York City advertising company, where he falls in love with, Marvin Miles. She does not want to be a traditional wife and he cannot imagine living anywhere other than Boston. So they break off their relationship. Harry,  marries a woman with the same ideas about marriage as he has.

Many years later, Marvin, who has also married arranges to meet Harry again where sparks begins to fly and Harry is tempted to have an affair, but they both realize that it would not be a good idea.

 

 Harry, begs his wife to go away with him on a romantic vacation, to rekindle their love. At first, she says "no", but.. will she change her mind and agree to go away with him?

 This was Hedy Lamarr's favorite film and she delivered the best dramatic performance of her career. Here she is not the mysterious seductive woman, as in her other films. She is loving and kind, in her role as a career girl who falls in love with her boss. Robert was not the first choice for the role. Both Gary Cooper and James Stewart turned the role down, leading Vidor to offer the role to Robert Young.

Ruth Hussey, was encouraged by a friend to try out for acting roles at the Providence Playhouse. The theater director there turned her down, saying the roles were cast only out of New York City. Later that week she traveled to New York City and on her first day there she signed-up with a talent agent who booked her for a role in a play starting the next day back at the Providence Playhouse.

In New York City she also worked as a model with the world-famous Powers agency. She then landed a role in the film,, Dead End and toured the country in 1937 and at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles where she was spotted by talent scout Billy Grady. MGM signed her to a players contract and she made her film debut in 1937. She quickly became a leading lady in MGM's "B" unit. For a 1940 "A" picture role she was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Elizabeth Imbrie, the magazine photographer and girlfriend of Jimmy Stewart's character in the film, The Philadelphia Story.

Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in, Flight Command (1940), Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson (1942), Ray Milland in The Uninvited (1944) and Alan Ladd in The Great Gatsby (1949). In 1946 she starred on Broadway in State Of The Union the Pulitzer Prize play. In 1960 she co-starred in the film, The Facts of Life with Bob Hope.

The Uninvited (1944).

The Uninvited(1944). Supernatural/ mystery/romance. film directed by Lewis Allen. It is based on the Dorothy Macardle novel Uneasy Freehold. It was nominated for a 1945 Academy Award for Best Black and White Cinematography. Cast: Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey and Donald Crisp.

The movie begins with a narration by Ray Milland: They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland. Mists gather here and sea fog and ghost stories:

Rick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela, discover a beautiful, empty, cliff side mansion while walking along the cliffs. They follow their little dog " Bobby" inside the mansion, while chasing a squirrel. Pamela loves the house and convinces her composer, brother Rick, to buy the house as it be a wonderful place for him to work. When they go to see the owner, his granddaughter, Stella Meredith, tells them that the Windward House, is not for sale. Beech, agrees to sell the house only after telling the Fitzgeralds, that there have been complaints about strange occurrences in the house. The next day, a shopkeeper tells Rick that years earlier, Beech's daughter, Mary Meredith, fell from a cliff and died. Later, when Rick runs into Stella, he invites her to go sailing. While out on the boat, Stella tells Rick about how her mother, Mary Meredith, wore mimosa perfume and lived at Windward for three years after Stella was born.

Before he leaves for London on business, Rick asks Stella to visit Pamela at the house for tea, but when Rick returns with his housekeeper, he finds out that Stella did not come over. That night, Rick is awakened by the sound of a woman sobbing and Pamela says that she has also heard crying every night. It soon becomes obvious that the house is haunted and they go on a super natural journey, to solve the mystery of house.

Fun Facts:

Helen Walker and Veronica Lake were tested for the lead roles.

Some of the interior sets of Windwood Manor, such as the main staircase and parlor, were re-dressed sets from the 1942 film, I Married a Witch (1942).



It is a movie you will not soon forget... the house, the sound of the cries and that cliff.... Even with no gore, it will give you the chills. The acting is great and the music helps set the mood. The house was beautiful. It maybe one of your favorite thrillers.

Ruth Hussey (October 30, 1914 – April 19, 2005). While performing in a play in Los Angeles, she was spotted by MGM talent scout, Billy Grady. MGM signed her to a players contract and she made her film debut in 1937. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as, Elizabeth Imbrie, the girlfriend of Jimmy Stewart's character Macaulay Connor in the film, The Philadelphia Story(1940).

Hussey also worked with Robert Taylor in, Flight Command (1940), Robert Young in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), Van Heflin in, Tennessee Johnson (1942), Ray Milland in The Uninvited (1944) and Alan Ladd in, The Great Gatsby (1949), The Facts of Life(1960) with Bob Hope.

Gail Russell (September 21, 1924 – August 26, 1961) Russell's extraordinary beauty brought her to the attention of Paramount Pictures in 1942. Although she was almost clinically shy and had no acting experience, Paramount had great expectations for her and hired an acting coach to work with her.

At the age of 19 she performed in her first film, Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943). Russell performed in several more films in the early and mid 1940s, the most well known, The Uninvited (1944) with Ray Milland, and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944). Russell later performed in the more popular films, Calcutta (1947) with Alan Ladd, and two films with John Wayne, Angel and the Badman (1947) and Wake of the Red Witch (1948).

She continued working after 1947, and married actor Guy Madison in 1949, but by 1950, it was well known that she had become a victim of alcoholism and Paramount did not renew her contract. After a five-year absence, she returned to work co-starring with Randolph Scott, in the western, Seven Men from Now (1956) and in the film, The Tattered Dress (1957).

Thrillers and Chillers - THE UNINVITED (1944)

A brother and sister (Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey) move into an old seaside house they find abandoned for many years on the English coast. Their original enchantment with the house diminishes as they hear stories of the previous owners and meet their daughter (Gail Russell, now a young woman) who now lives as a neighbor with her grandfather. Also heard are unexplained sounds during the night. It becomes obvious that the house is haunted. The reasons for the haunting and how they relate to the daughter whom the brother is falling in love with, prove to be a complex mystery. As they are compelled to solve it, the supernatural activity at the house increases to a frightening level.


Solid ghost thriller that ranks right up there with The Innocents and The Haunting.


Facts and trivia:
 
The beautiful song "Stella By Starlight" was written specifically for this movie and is featured several times. In the movie Roderick Fitzgerald "writes" it for Stella Meredith.


Gail Russell co-stars with author Cornelia Otis Skinner who portrayed "Miss Holloway". That same year (1944), Gail Russell portrayed Cornelia Otis Skinner in "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay", a film based on the real-life memoirs of Miss Skinner.
 

Some of the interior sets of Windwood Manor, such as the main staircase and parlor, were re-dressed sets from the 1942 film I Married a Witch (1942).


Helen Walker and Veronica Lake were tested for the lead roles.