After the box office failure of THE SCARLET HOUR, Paramount Pictures loaned Carol Ohmart out to United Artists for a film that was financed and featuring Anthony Quinn. I purchased the "PRESSBOOK" for this film and laughed at the sensationalism used to promote it. Here is a quote from the pressbook, "Have you got the guts to see this picture?" and the other quote, "This movie you see at your own risk."
The plot of the movie was to show the harshness of the "Beat Generation' or Beatniks. The film focuses on Quinn's character Tom Kupfen who is an ex-football player and big-shot with women who has gone to seed, can't hold a job, always broke, and living on glory from the high school days. He and his buddies decide to kidnap a wealthy couple played by Carol Ohmart and Arthur Franz as Erika London and Arthur Mitchell, hold them for ransom, and score cash. Now all these friends of Quinn's hang out in smoky Jazz clubs, smoke, drink, and use the hip language of that era which now seems quite dated so it is amusing to listen too. The Anthony Quinn character Tom, decides to rape the Carol Ohmart character Erica, and that's when Tom's girlfriend in the film, Honey, played by Kathryn Grant runs Tom over with a car and kills him. In support is Nehemiah Persoff who just died this year at 102 years old plays Kicks Johnson, Gage Freeposter played by Jay Robinson and Ben Davis played by Paul Stewart. I found the film depressing and boring but holds historical evidence of a bygone time. Here is the trailer for the film.
Carol Ohmart was an actress who I think deserves more appreciation or respect. I was fascinated how Paramount had spent over 2 million dollars (an enormous sum of money for 1955 or thereabouts) to promote her. Carol was dubbed, "The Female Brando" in this article: Her debut film THE SCARLET HOUR is very good, but the movie was a box office dud, panned by critics for the most part, and within a couple years, Carol Ohmart, almost disappeared. Here is a Los Angeles Times article from 1971 posted on twitter. Paramount canceled her contract and she struggled the rest of her career. She did appear in episodes of various tv shows and she did make a total of 10 movies but her very best film in my opinion is still THE SCARLET HOUR. The film has a high rating on IMDb and people besides me want it to be released on Blu Ray DVD, THE SCARLET HOUR . I thought Carol had a dangerous and interesting look, a great figure, and had a commanding presence in the film. Very strong and inde...
Carol Ohmart has a tough life growing up as a child. Her parents were divorced when she was very young and her mom had an abusive and controlling personality which affected her 3 marriages. I mean Carol had her first husband picked for her by her mother. The 2nd husband could not stand his mother in law and stated Carol's film career was sabotaged by the actions of her mother. Her 3rd husband had Carol and her mom essentially vying for the affections of the same man. Sounds so damn crazy. These two articles are priceless. I wish I could get hold of the treasure trove of voice recordings and writings of Carol Ohmart mentioned in the two articles so I could write a book on her, or try this link https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-08-ca-255-story.html and this link https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-01-01-ca-225-story.html I wish someone would do a Carol Ohmart Biographical Motion Picture. I would cast Dominique McElligott who has a simila...
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