The Flickr Filmnoir Image Generatr

The very minute she caught his eye, Marlowe knew that she meant trouble. He shrugged and crossed the dancefloor, slowly proceeding towards her.

in the melting midday light, every curve of the face folds into chiaroscuro. he hides behind his shades, not from the sun, but from what it might reveal. the air hums with the silence of unsaid things, soft and burning.

(R0011175-A)

Spanish postcard by Sobe, Barcelona, no. 485. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Mark Stevens and Barbara Lawrence in The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948).

American actor and director Mark Stevens (1916-1994) was a good-looking, second-tier star during the 1940s and 1950s. He was one of four men who played the lead role in the television series Martin Kane, Private Eye (1949-1954).

Mark Stevens was born Richard William Stevens in 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio. The freckle-faced boy with the reddish hair had a father who was an American flyer. His parents divorced while he was young, and Mark was sent to England, where the rebellious boy was kicked out of several schools. He resided briefly with his maternal grandparents until a second move to Canada, where his older sister raised him. Slight in stature, Mark built himself up through athletics. A back injury, sustained while training as a Canadian Olympic diver, however, kept him from serving in WWII. He first studied to be a painter before becoming active in theatre. He then launched a radio career as an announcer in Akron, Ohio. Stevens also played leading roles at the Cleveland Playhouse. He moved to Hollywood and in 1943, at a time when the major stars were assigned to military duty, he became a contract player for Warner Brothers for $100 a week. Initially, he was billed as Stephen Richards. They gave him small parts, often unnamed, in films like Destination Tokyo (Delmer Daves, 1943), Passage to Marseille (Michael Curtiz, 1944), Hollywood Canteen (Delmer Daves, 1944), Rhapsody in Blue (Irving Rapper, 1945) and Pride of the Marines (Delmer Daves, 1945). He mostly played soldiers. Eventually, the studio let him go. He then signed with 20th Century Fox, which changed his name to Mark Stevens at the suggestion of Darryl Zanuck. The studio also darkened his hair and covered up the freckles to enhance his serious good looks. His first film for Fox was the crime drama Within These Walls (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1945), in which he played the romantic male lead. Stevens was loaned by RKO to star in From This Day Forward (John Berry, 1946) with Joan Fontaine.

Back at Fox, Mark Stevens starred in the excellent Film Noir The Dark Corner (Henry Hathaway, 1946) with Lucille Ball and Clifton Webb. In 1946, exhibitors voted him the fifth most promising 'star of tomorrow'. Fox put him in a musical with June Haver, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now (Lloyd Bacon, 1947), a biopic of the career of songwriter Joseph E. Howard. It was a big hit. So was The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948), where Stevens played an FBI agent who went undercover to arrest a gangster played by Richard Widmark. Another success was The Snake Pit (Anatole Litvak, 1948), where he played mental patient Olivia de Havilland's faithful husband. Stevens also starred in a Western, Sand (1949), and another musical biopic, Oh, You Beautiful Doll (John M. Stahl, 1949), in which he played song plugger Fred Fisher but was overshadowed by his leading lady, June Haver. He supported William Powell in Dancing in the Dark (Irving Reis, 1949). S. Stevens was loaned by MGM to play Matthew Kinston, one of Deborah Kerr's three suitors in Please Believe Me (Norman Taurog, 1950). For Columbia, he starred in the Film Noir Between Midnight and Dawn (Gordon Douglas, 1950) with Edmond O'Brien. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "Despite his good looks and abilities, Stevens was constantly (and unfairly) pigeonholed as a lesser version of John Payne or Alan Ladd. In retrospect, many of his capable performances leave viewers thinking he was a producer's casting Plan B."

Mark Stevens next signed a contract with Universal and made the War film Target Unknown (George Sherman, 1951), the romantic comedy Katie Did It (Frederick De Cordova, 1951) with Ann Blyth, Little Egypt (Frederick De Cordova, 1951) with Rhonda Fleming and Reunion in Reno (Kurt Neumann, 1951). In 1951, he starred in the DuMont series News Gal, which was later syndicated on ABC in 1957. Stevens made Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk, 1952) for the King Brothers and went to England for The Lost Hours (David MacDonald, 1952) with Jean Kent. He also starred in Torpedo Alley (Lew Landers, 1953). Stevens took the lead role in the TV series Martin Kane, Private Eye from 1953-1954. From 1954-1956, he played the managing editor of a newspaper in the CBS Television Big Town, after replacing Patrick McVey. In the 1950s, he directed several films: the Film Noir Cry Vengeance (1954) with Martha Hyer; Time Table (1956); Gun Fever (1958); Man on a Raft (1958); The Man in the Water (1963) and Tierra de fuego / Sunscorched (1966). Later, he worked in Europe in the 1960s and operated a restaurant in Spain. He was married from 1945 to 1961 to actress Annelle Hayes, and they had two children, Mark Richard and Arrelle. His rather nomadic existence eventually led him to both the divorce and bankruptcy courts in the early 1960s. He still found occasional work in Hollywood while owning and maintaining apartment buildings as well. His credits include España otra vez / Spain Again (Jaime Camino, 1968) and the Horror film La Furia del Hombre Lobo / The Fury of the Wolfman (José María Zabalza, 1972), played by Paul Naschy. Naschy wrote the screenplay as well. In the 1980s, Stevens appeared in the television series Magnum, P.I. and Murder, She Wrote. He married a second time to a Swedish woman named Hilde. In 1994, Mark Stevens died of cancer at the age of 77 in Majores, Spain. For his contribution to the television industry, Mark Stevens has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, located at 6637 Hollywood Blvd.

Sources: Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English) and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Music by Xavier Busquet.

Bar TwentySeven
Amsterdam, May 2025

Cinematic style of the 1930s glamour

Model: Irina


All of my photographs are under copyright ©. None of these photographs may be reproduced and/or used in any way without my permission.

© NGimages / Nico Geerlings Photography

Photo from the Film Noir workshop I attended Feb 8th at the RAW Photo Studio in Denver. Hosted by Eirc Brown (Upside Brown Photography) the theme was film noir, 1940's looks inspired by photographer George Hurrell.
This is from a jpeg straight out of camera, edited for cropping and a minimal edit in Luminar AI to try and soften the look.
Shot with my Nikon Z5, 24-120 mm lens, with continous led lighting.

(P1034167-A)

Music by Xavier Busquet.

Created in DALL-E 3.

"All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."

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