Fascinating featurette is offered on the HANGOVER SQUARE DVD of the Fox film starring Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell and George Sanders and directed by John Brahm.
This is a very informative short film that gives a detailed look at the brief film career of one of Hollywood's rising stars who met with an untimely death at the age of 28 when he attempted to lose a great amount of weight from his bulky frame.
Scenes from his early successes are shown, from films like HUDSON BAY, THIS GUN FOR HIRE, BLOOD AND SAND, THE BLACK SWAN and several others, before he made his big splash in films like THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE. The troubled actor, who won Hollywood's attention when he portrayed Oscar Wilde on stage before a Hollywood crowd including John Barrymore (who wrote him a fan letter), was conflicted over his sexual orientation and wished to play romantic leading men rather than remain playing only "heavies" at Fox, the studio that seemed to want to typecast him in future roles.
Anyone who has watched Cregar perform will truly enjoy this featurette. One of the narrators is Gregory W. Mank, who wrote an enormously effective book on screen villains aptly titled, "The Hollywood Hissables".
Well worth watching.
