Thursday, September 3, 2009


Hello Friends! As promised the fabulous Annie Leibovitz images from the infamous "Killers Kill, Dead Men Die". movie that Leibovitz captured for the 2007 Vanity Fair Hollywood issue. They may have already been around the blog world and they may be a few years old, but I believe they are so beautiful and relevant that I had to share them again. Enjoy! I added some great print from the Vanity Fair issue about the original idea and film below...P.S. I am dying over the gorgeous wallpaper in the above photo!

*Sigh* a smokey nightclub filled with gorgeous and mysterious characters. The slinky gowns and a cigarette girl, and men in tuxs! What more could you ask for!?!


"A clean print of the lost film noir classic Killers Kill, Dead Men Die was miraculously discovered at a Mulholland Drive lawn sale last month, resolving a mystery that has transfixed noir fans for decades. Little was known about the film for certain, though it has been the subject of wild rumors ever since the screenplay was written, probably in 1942, by Raymond Chandler (based on “The Big Blood,” a story by James M. Cain, and later revised, as No Orchids for Oscar, by Dashiell Hammett and William Faulkner).
It is believed that Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum were originally cast in the roles of private detectives Oscar Slade and Dan O’Bannion, only to be replaced, several years later, by Sterling Hayden and Glenn Ford, and then—most intriguingly—by Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet. We know that Lauren Bacall loved the original script. But she passed her troubled-heiress role to Barbara Stanwyck when Fritz Lang replaced John Huston as director. (Lang later ceded to Stanley Kubrick, who let Joseph Losey take over when RKO sold the project to Republic Studios.) It is suspected that additional scenes were shot with Joan Crawford, Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Lee Marvin, Gloria Grahame, Ida Lupino, and Jimmy Stewart throughout the 1950s, when the picture was known by its two shooting titles, Dame Danger and He Died by Murder. After acquiring the Republic library in the 1980s, Ted Turner reportedly planned a colorized version of the film, which, curiously, is one of the few noirs actually shot in color. In this period certain scenes are also thought to have been reshot with Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, Melanie Griffith, and Michael Paré, under the direction of Brian De Palma. Based on a close examination of the newly discovered film stock (and the movie’s credit sequence, opposite), several noir scholars have even gone as far as to suggest that the picture was not completed until this year.It’s too bad, since this delay has deprived us of viewing an undeniable film noir classic. Every element of the genre is here: The Femme Fatale, sultry, scheming, and doped up on tranquilizers; The Private Dick, crawling through the gutter in search of a diamond garter; The Chanteuse and The Champ; The Doll and The Aristocrat; The Spy who knows too little and The Moll who knows too much; mistaken identity and double indemnity; high life and low society; shocking—though possibly nonsensical—plot turns; despair, lust, blood violence, and the cruel fist of fate. Finally, lurking in the shadows behind all this is the menacing figure of The Killer. And what does he do? Why, he does what all killers do: he kills.

~Excerpt from Vanity Fair


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17 comments:

  1. Wonderful collection of images - such a celebration of women, in all your posts. I have been reading several older posts - and the one called 'Let's Dance' about Repetto absolutely has my heart. Oh to climb inside the store and be the ballet dancer of childhood dreams again :)

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  2. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE these!

    And I don't even smoke, but just seeing the glamour of that smokey nightclub and the cigarette girl makes me yearn to be a part of that era!

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  3. these pictures are gorgeous...i don't remember having seen them!
    xox

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  4. Bonjour Judith! Awesome photos....the colors you find and stunning, always with hints of vintage pink. Hey, have you seen La Mome? (Sorry about not putting the accent)....it is the best movie I have seen all summer. Edith Piaf's character is chilling and so real. Hey, come on by when you can!! Bisous, Anita

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  5. What glamour! I love this time period.
    Have mentioned your Etsy site on my current post.
    Hope all is well. Have a wonderful, long, and lazy weekend, Judith.
    Catherine

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  6. Those are incredible photos. Annie is a GODDESS in my book. I love everything she does.

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  7. Ohhhhh you are a very very good ambassadors för the blog-sphere.... I love your blog!

    Regards from Agneta in Sweden

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  8. Annie never disappoints. I don't remember seeing these before either, they're really intriguing. Can't wait to see the film!

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  9. I loved your last backstage post of all those beautiful starlets getting ready for a grande performance. And I think the first photo of this Annie Leibovitz set is so lovely and fits in wonderfully with the backstage theme.
    -Tawney

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  10. I adore Annie Leibovitz. It's been around for a while, yes, but her pictures certainly are anything but disposable, as a magazine is. I think the September Issue of Vogue 2006 was the last great issue of Vogue simply because of her photography at Versailles for Marie Antoinette.

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  11. This is a GREAT layout!!! Anne is FAB!!!

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  12. annie is so talented! I'm loving these images, thank you for sharing

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