On TCM last night 8/6/16-Howard Hawk’s Red River (1948)- As the wagon train moves on in the background great actress Coleen Gray as Fen gives a great performance in the foreground with little screen time as the sincere love Thomas Dunson (John Wayne) chooses to leave behind. Coleen was also compelling as the loyal Nettie standing behind Nick Bianco (brilliantly played by Victor Mature) in Kiss of Death (1947) and in Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing (1956) Coleen also stands behind the great Sterling Hayden as ex con Johnny Clay asserting: “It is not that you were locked in. It was that I was locked out.” Was Coleen what I would dub as a “Femme Simpatico” specialist?
Lawrence of Cinema 