Linda Darnell - Professional Setbacks

Professional Setbacks

In early 1942, Darnell filmed The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe, another film that would not do much to improve her career. Meanwhile, she realized that Darryl F. Zanuck had lost interest in her, and she was overlooked for most film roles that suited her. Instead, she was cast in roles that she loathed, including the musical Orchestra Wives (1942). Zanuck insisted that she take the role, but she was replaced by Ann Rutherford after twelve days of shooting. The press reported that "Linda Darnell and Twentieth Century-Fox aren't on the best of terms at the moment." As a punishment, she was loaned out to another studio for a supporting role in a B movie called City Without Men. According to co-star Rosemary DeCamp, Darnell nevertheless was "very polite", and she was satisfied to work at a studio which did not treat her as a child. In April 1943, she was put on suspension, which meant being replaced in the Technicolor musical film The Gang's All Here (1943). By this time, Darnell had eloped, which caused Zanuck to be in even greater fury.

In 1943, she was cast, uncredited, as the Virgin Mary in The Song of Bernadette. By late 1943, Darnell was fed up with critics only praising her beauty rather than her acting abilities. Judging her performance in Sweet and Low-Down (1944), in which she co-starred with Lynn Bari, one critic of the Los Angeles Examiner wrote, "Lynn comes off the best because she has more of a chance to shine. Linda just doesn't have enough to do – but looks beautiful doing it." Darnell was reduced to second leads and was overlooked for big budget productions. Matters changed when she was named one of the four most beautiful women in Hollywood, along with Hedy Lamarr, Ingrid Bergman and Gene Tierney in a 1944 edition of Look magazine. Afterwards, the studio allowed her to be loaned out for the lead in Summer Storm. Portraying a "seductive peasant girl who takes three men to their ruin before she herself is murdered," it was a type of role she had never before played. In a later interview, Darnell commented:

I was told that such a violent change of type might ruin my career, but I insisted on taking the chance. This is one picture on which I am setting much store for the future. For eighteen months I did nothing in pictures. I pleaded for something to do, but nothing happened. The character in the Chekhov film is a wild sort of she-devil, which any actress would go miles to play. She's devil mostly–at times angelic–and perfectly fascinating to interpret. I'm counting on my Russian girl to give me a new start.

Released in 1944, the film provided her a new screen image as a pin-up girl. Shortly after, Darnell was again loaned out to portray a showgirl in The Great John L., the first film to feature her bare legs. Darnell complained that the studio lacked recognition of her, which prodded Darryl F. Zanuck to cast her in Hangover Square (1945), playing a role she personally had chosen. The film became a great success, and with Darnell's triumph assured, she was allowed to abandon her upcoming film Don Juan Quilligan (1945), which would have been another low point in her career. In January 1945, she was added to the cast of the film noir Fallen Angel (1945), which also included Dana Andrews and Alice Faye. Despite suffering from the "terrifying" director Otto Preminger, Darnell completed the film and was praised by reviewers so widely that there was even talk of an Oscar nomination. Due to her success in Fallen Angel, she was cast opposite Tyrone Power in Captain from Castile in December 1945, on the insistence of Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Although she looked forward to the film project, believing it would be her most important to date, she was later replaced by newcomer Jean Peters due to scheduling conflicts, a decision she resented.

In 1946, Darnell filmed two pictures simultaneously, the expensively budgeted Anna and the King of Siam and Preminger's Centennial Summer. During the release of the latter, she was on location in Monument Valley for the filming of the classic western My Darling Clementine (1946), playing a role for which she lost twelve pounds. She was assigned to a negligible role by Zanuck, which displeased the film's director, John Ford, who felt that she was not suitable.