Birthday Girl Kim Novak in "Strangers When We Meet"

Here's an excellent copy of the movie...

Novak was an interesting actress. If she had had some training she would have been quite good, but she never had any, so she was often amateurish.

Self-confidence was an issue, too. At times, Kim seemed visibly uncomfortable on camera, like Jennifer Jones.

She was the cool blonde. I thought that she looked better as a redhead (less washed out) in Picnic.

I always liked her. She wasn't an acting genius but she could be really good in the right role

I LOVE this beautiful movie!! A few years ago i I looked up all of the info on the real house that “Kirk Douglas” built - there are tons of current photos of it online….. When I was little my mom took me to that same Kiddie amusement park that is in the film. That is where they built The Beverly Center….. I love early Walter Matthau and Helen Gallagher in this film - plus Ernie Kovacs. ….. Isn’t there a scene where Kim Novak gets drunk and leaves her door unlocked so “Someone” could come in and ravish her? ……I haven’t seen this in years - it had that dark Mad Men feel to it. Thank you for posting about it!!!!

Her best performance is with Frederic March in Paddy Chayefsky’s “Middle of the Night.”

God damn it!

HERE’S a link that should work

I love some of the shots of West LA in the early 60's you get in this movie.

I can't look at Kirk Douglas without thinking of his vicious rape of Natalie Wood. Fucking monster.

I like Kim's more natural look in "Picnic" as well. Here's my take on that '50s fave!

It's strange that Helen Gallagher never became a big star. She was talented, she worked plenty in the theatre, but she was never a household name.

Novak has some good scenes in MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, but you can see the effort in her performance much of the time. At one point her character has a long monologue and the director had to present it in multiple shots as there's no way Novak could sustain a long scene. Gena Rowlands played that part on Broadway and I can only imagine how much better the film would have been with her, but she wasn't a star even though she had been in some films already.

My favorite Kim movie was Bell, Book and Candle. I was obsessed with it as a kid even naming my cat Pyewacket.

She's very funny camping it out in The Mirror Crack'd.

My look at "The Mirror Crack'd," great fun by a cast that were at crossroads in their lives and careers. Check it out...

Kim Novak was a horrendous actress. I don’t understand why people try to “reclaim” historically bad actors and actresses they enjoy in movies as great actors. They do this in modern times with Keanu Reeves. He’s pretty and fun to watch, but can’t act at all.

Novak could be horrendous, she could be competent, and occasionally she could be stellar! And yes R17, she was genuinely stellar in "Vertigo".

She was the Charlize Theron of her day, the cool blonde beauty who gave horrifically uneven performances, but Theron has improved with age and Novak didn't.

(Reply 17) I agree! I think Kim can be good but in very specific roles that make use of her insecurities. But Novak is not versatile and could never carry a movie on her own. And yes, movie critics/fans have gone overboard "revising" stars who couldn't cut it, Tippi Hedren is a prime example.

She's pretty good in Picnic---her insecurity fit the role and she was surrounded by pros. She also had some idea of what it was like to be the prettiest girl in town who wasn't taken seriously.

Reply 20, Bingo!

She's damn good in "Vertigo". The first time I saw the film I wasn't impressed with her, I thought she constantly struck false notes in the first half, and just wasn't as physically ethereal as the character was supposed to be. But every false note was intentional, it was a clue that nothing in that situation was what it seemed to be. And then she really shone in the second half!

Again, that was another role where she was allowed to let her real insecurities show, and well. Like "Picnic", its a role that must have had a lot of emotional meaning for her. I mean every actor has to feel like they're being used as a puppet, but Novak particularly had to feel that she was being forced into one ongoing puppet role, one that never suited her.

Kim is also very good as Frank Sinatra's girlfriend in "The Man with the Golden Arm". Very real and I'm sure Otto Preminger didn't coddle her. R22 is spot on about her Madeleine/Judy duality in "Vertigo" - her odd stilted Madeleine makes total sense once we know what is going on.

I also love her performance as Mildred Rogers in the 1964 remake of "Of Human Bondage" - she has the worst cockney accent ever but her sexiness and insecurities reveal important facets of the character. Her Mildred isn't just a nasty shrew but a genuinely sexy and self-destructive woman who is destroying herself. She is self-loathing and wants to punish anyone who dares to try to love her or help her. Philip Carey can't live with her but can't disentangle himself from her.

However, she is terrible in "Pal Joey", "The Eddie Duchin Story" and large parts of "Jeanne Eagels".

JE was an awful film. BELL, BOOK & CANDLE was decent, but I just can't buy the idea of a fox like Kim going for homely, lanky, one-note Jimmy Stewart.

Novak looked her most glam in "BB&C", and got to play a beatnicky outsider for a change. She isn't great in that film, but it's the only performance where I've seen her have a bit of sparkle, as if she were enjoying her role for once!

She really is the most uneven actor ever - great in a few roles, terrible in more, competent in others, fun in a very few... and genuine camp in at least two! I'm talking about "The Mirror Crack'd", where she plays a bitchy diva actress and has all the best lines, and in "The Legend of Lylah Clare", an underappreciated camp classic! She's awful in that film, but in a way that's more enjoyable to watch than good acting would have been. With her the movie is a hoot, with a decent actress in the role it just would have been boring.

[quote]With her the movie is a hoot, with a decent actress in the role it just would have been boring.

Fuck you, r25.

Here's my lavish take down on Kim's "Lylah Clare," one of my favorite bad movies of all time...

I've always liked Kim Novak over the years. Also, R10 beat me to it about Kirk Douglas being a POS as the violent monster rapist of a young Natalie Wood, I can't even look at him, I cringe when I hear his name, and refuse to watch any film he appears in, he is ostracized and canceled, and I hope he burning in a fiery hell for all eternity, slimy sleezy arrogant bastard.. :-/

A major misfire

Isn’t it kind of a fun kick in the pants on this crazy Valentine’s Day 2023- to know that somewhere out there as I type this that Kim Novak is out there in her bare feet with the wind in her hair and her dogs at her ankles getting ready to ride her horse? We all just have to keep on keepin’ on …… Happy Valentine’s Day, Kim!

Keep it up, Kim!

Interesting casting in the original stage production for Middle of the Night in the 1950s. Gena Rowlands starred/played opposite Edward G. Robinson!

Man, how nice to read that after so many years of playing bad guys and such in Hollywood (and yes, I know that was not every role), Robinson could return to NYC and get cast in a Chayefsky show. Also interesting to think that after so many years of working, he'd choose to do eight shows a week.

R32, in his day Robinson was considered an Actor's Actor, and was highly respected by his peers. They knew he was capable of much more than endless gangster roles, even if the viewers didn't.

Nice write up on Middle of the Night, the film.

Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra worked well with taskmaster director Otto Preminger in "The Man With the Golden Arm." Here's my take on the film, which has a hilariously hambone performance by Eleanor Parker as Frankie's wheelchair bound wife...

Kim had genuine charisma. You simply couldn't take your eyes off her onscreen, especially in her 1950s films.

Veronica Lake had a similar kind of charisma. It was not about talent in either case.

I'm not good at linking, but if anyone clever cares to take the trouble, there's that wonderful in depth interview Kim did with Robert Osborne for TCM about 10 years ago where she literally breaks down by the end. Quite affecting! Also, in a whole other vein, there's Kim's exciting appearance as the Mystery Guest on What's My Line? around the time of Picnic. She gives off genuine Golden Age Hollywood vibes even under the barbaric lights and camera work of pre-historic b&w TV.

Ther are longstanding rumors about Kim being intersex…my father used to say that.

I loved Picnic. But William Holden was totally miscast. Too old. But that had to be one of the sexiest dance scenes in movies...up to that point... Kim Novak had a compelling presence on screen...but she was a terrible actress.

Bill Holden being too old made Hal a bigger loser - but I can’t picture a younger straight male star (except Brando & Paul Newman) who could have made a sexy Hal like Holden. Holden was able to make you cringe for him - like when Roz kept hitting on him …I love it at the Picnic when everyone is sitting around talking and Hal and Madge lock eyes and exchange shy “Hi” s

Raquel Welch's death reminds me how rare the charisma of someone like Kim Novak's was. Raquel may have been as sexy AF but she had zero charisma. Very unwatchable, unlike prime Kim.

Yes, how true. it's also interesting how few celebrity tributes there have been about Raquel. Most of her male co-stars were old enough to be her father. And most of her contemporaries didn't like her. I've avoided most of the Internet/Social Media gush about how wonderful she was.

A young James Brolin starred in the made for TV version of Picnic and it was awful. Terrible. Really bad.

Kim Novak was always the real deal - she had the same unique quality that Doris Day had - she could take it or leave it. That gave them both a really natural quality on camera.

The biggest female movies stars to emerge in the 1950s:

Kim Novak

Marilyn Monroe

Elizabeth Taylor

Grace Kelly

Doris Day

Audrey Hepburn

Sophia Loren

Debbie Reynolds (debatable)

I love this movie. The depictions of the overwhelming sexual attraction, the sneaking around, going "out" where one hopes not to be noticed, moments of brazenness like riding in a car together, the foolhardiness of note-writing and concomitant disposal, the spouse's intuitive knowledge---all ring very true.

Shirley MacLaine by the end of the 50s. …. The older I get and the more viewings of their movies I feel like both Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine work way too hard and sow too many grunts, groans, eyerolls, whews :…….. But that is for lovely sometimes Somnambulant Kim.

R44 Debbie was definitely there.