Patricia Owens
1925 - 2000Patricia Owens (17 January 1925, Golden, British Columbia - 31 August 2000, Lancaster, California) was a Canadian-born American actress, working in Hollywood. She appeared in about 40 films and 10 TV episodes in a career lasting from 1943 to 1968.
Canadian-born actress Patricia Owens moved to England with her parents in 1933, and ten years later, at age 18, she made her motion-picture debut in Val Guest's musical comedy Miss London Ltd. The following year, she had a small role in Harold French's social satire English Without Tears. Her career continued in this manner for the next few years, Owens getting ever-larger roles in generally better movies (though not always—the same year in which she worked in the Launder-Gilliat production of The Happiest Days of Your Life, one of the funniest movies ever made in England, she also appeared in the abysmal Old Mother Riley, Headmistress).
Her career took a giant step upward when she was seen by a 20th Century Fox executive while performing in a theatrical production of Sabrina Fair and was offered a screen test. The result was a contract with the studio and a move to Hollywood. Her first American film was Island in the Sun (1957) for Fox, and then Owens was loaned out to Warner Bros. to play opposite Marlon Brando in the drama Sayonara (1957), one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year. Owens spent the rest of 1957 working mostly on loan-out, but it was a 1958 Fox production that secured her place in motion picture history—as Helene Delambre, the wife of scientist Andre Delambre in The Fly (1958), co-starring with David Hedison and Vincent Price. Owens carried much of the film's story and drama, which were told in flashback from her character's point-of-view. The Fly was one of the most successful science fiction movies of the decade; the image of Owens unmasking her stricken husband and screaming at what she sees—and the shot of her horrified visage seen in a "fly's eye" view—became one of the defining moments in the genre.
Unfortunately for Owens, she never got another movie half as good as The Fly, from Fox or anyone else, and in 1961 was reduced to working in the threadbare, backlot POW/jungle chase drama Seven Women from Hell. Owens made occasional television appearances, on series such as Perry Mason and Burke's Law, but these were relatively infrequent. Owens also starred in one of the 17 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents directed by Hitchcock himself, "The Crystal Trench" (1959). By 1965, she was working in Black Spurs, one of producer A.C. Lyles' B-Westerns, renowned for their use of aging genre stars, and Owens retired from movies after portraying Richard Egan's love interest in the low-budget espionage thriller The Destructors (1968). Her last professional appearance was in a 1968 episode of Lassie.
She was the third wife of screenwriter and producer Sy Bartlett.
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Carnival Row
Don Siegel
Audie Murphy, Orlando Bloom
In a mystical and dark city filled with humans, fairies and other creatures, a police detective investigates a series of gruesome murders leveled against the fairy population. During his investigation, the detective becomes the prime suspect and must find the real killer to clear his name.
Carnival Row
The Happiest Days of Your Life
Frank Launder
Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford
Nutbourne College, an old established, all-boys, boarding school is told that another school is to be billeted with due to wartime restrictions. The shock is that it's an all-girls school that has been sent. The two head teachers are soon battling for the upper hand with each other and the Ministry. But a crisis (or two) forces them to work together.
The Happiest Days of Your Life
The Fly
Kurt Neumann
David Hedison, Patricia Owens
Industrialist François Delambre is called late at night by his sister-in-law, Helene Delambre, who tells him that she has just killed her husband, André. Reluctant at first, she eventually explains to the police that André invented a matter transportation apparatus and, while experimenting on himself, a fly entered the chamber during the matter transference.
The Fly
No Down Payment
Martin Ritt
Joanne Woodward, Sheree North
The marital difficulties of four couples living in a southern California housing development become intertwined. Among the unhappy couples are ne'er-do-well Jerry Flagg and his long-suffering wife Isabelle, flirtatious Leola Boone and her sadistic husband Troy, hard-working Herman Kreitzer and his understanding wife Betty, and newlyweds Jean and David Martin.
No Down Payment
Sayonara
Joshua Logan
Marlon Brando, Patricia Owens
Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver (Marlon Brando) is reassigned to a Japanese air base, and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily an officer who is by-the-book, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) falls in love with a Japanese woman Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki) and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.
Sayonara
Hell to Eternity
Phil Karlson
Jeffrey Hunter, David Janssen
Based on the story about Guy Gabaldon, a Los Angeles Hispanic boy raised in the 1930s by a Japanese-American foster family. After Pearl Harbor, his foster family is interned at the Manzanar camp for Japanese Americans, while he enlists in the Marines, where his ability to speak Japanese becomes a vital asset. During the Battle of Saipan, he convinces 800 Japanese to surrender after their general commits suicide.
Hell to Eternity
The Law and Jake Wade
John Sturges
Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark
Jake Wade breaks Clint Hollister out of jail to pay off an old debt, though it's clear there is some pretty deep hostility between them. They part, and Jake returns to his small-town marshal's job and his fiancée only to find he has been tracked there by Hollister. It seems they were once in a gang together and Jake knows where the proceeds of a bank hold-up are hidden. Hollister and his sidekicks make off into the hills, taking along the trussed-up marshal and his kidnapped bride-to-be to force the lawman to show them where the loot is.
The Law and Jake Wade
The Gun Runners
Don Siegel
Audie Murphy, Eddie Albert
Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.
The Gun Runners
Knights of the Round Table
Richard Thorpe
Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner
In Camelot, kingdom of Arthur and Merlin, Lancelot is well known for his courage and honor. But one day he must quit Camelot and the Queen Guinevere's love, leaving the Round Table without protection.
Knights of the Round Table
Walk a Tightrope
Frank Nesbitt
Patricia Owens, Dan Duryea
Meet Ellen Sheppard, an American living in Britain. Her English husband, Jason Sheppard, has been killed and she's under suspicion despite the appearance of a happy marriage. Jason's friend assists Ellen go over the facts to see if they can find the real killer.
Walk a Tightrope
Island in the Sun
Robert Rossen
James Mason, Joan Fontaine
On a Caribbean island, a rich landowner's son, Maxwell Fleury, is fighting for political office against black labor leader David Boyeur. As if the contentious election weren't enough, there are plenty of scandals to go around: Boyeur has a secret white lover and Fleury's wife, Sylvia, is also having an affair. And then, of course, there's the small matter of a recently murdered aristocrat.
Island in the Sun
