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May 09, 2011
Dana Wynter: 1931 - 2011
I saw Something of Value recently on DVD, having seen it once, in a pan and scan televised version. And again I was reminded of Dana Wynter's regal beauty. She wasn't in a lot of films but even the handful that I remember her by are worth viewing. My one time seeing Wynter on the big screen was John Huston's List of Adrian Messenger, and in retrospect, there seems to be no one more fitting to play a character named Lady Jocelyn Bruttenholm. Against a twinned Danny Kaye, she portrayed someone named Lady Margaret MacKenzie-Smith in the World War II farce, On the Double. Wynter also did her part in defeating the German navy in Sink the Bismarck!. And until I read up on her, I didn't realize that this seemingly most British lady was born in Berlin.
Wynter played the part of a German woman, in Fraulein, a film that I barely remember save for a scene where Theodore Bikel, boisterously drunk, smashes a guitar, in Henry Koster's film about post-war Germany.
And yes, there is also the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Dana Wynter, I would have no hesitation about running away with you.
Posted by Peter Nellhaus at May 9, 2011 03:21 AM
Comments
Thanks for such a nice remembrance of her. Few of her films other than INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS drew any comment in obituaries I read (even SOMETHING OF VALUE was missing in L.A. Times), but she contributed well in a fair number I've seen. The Henry Koster one in which she plays a German is FRAULEIN and I remember it fondly as one of the better flms of that director. It's endlessly annoying when people from the best period of American filmmaking live so many years that few remember or give any credibility to most of their work. I'm glad Dana Wynter was will at least be remembered for one deserved classic but she was poised, beautiful and always registered well in her movies.
Posted by: Blake Lucas at May 10, 2011 02:18 AM
She really was extraordinarily beautiful. Thank you for remembering her.
Posted by: Flickhead at May 11, 2011 10:38 PM