This week’s mystery movie was the 1949 movie Tulsa, with Susan Hayward, Robert Preston, Pedro Armendariz, Lloyd Gough, Chill Wills, Edward Begley, Jimmy Conlin and Roland Jack.
Screenplay by Frank Nugent and Curtis Kenyon.
Suggested by a story by Richard Wormser.
Music by Frank Skinner.
Song Tulsa, music by Allie Wrubel, lyrics by Mort Greene.
Music conductor Charles Previn.
Orchestrations by David Tamkin.
Musical director Irving Friedman.
Color by Technicolor.
Technicolor Color Director Natalie Kalmus.
Associate Color Director Richard Mueller.
Photographed by Winton Hoch.
Production supervision by James T. Vaughn.
Photographic effects by John Fulton.
Assistant director Howard W. Koch.
Edited by Terrell Morse.
Art direction by Nathan Juran.
Decorations by Armor Marlowe and Al Orenbach.
Makeup by Ern Westmore-Del Armstrong.
Costumes by Herschel.
Hairstyles by Joan St. Oegger and Helen Turpin.
Sound by Howard Fogetti.
Associate producer Edward Lasker.
Produced by Walter Wanger.
Directed by Stuart Heisler.
Further information on Tulsa is available from the AFI Catalog.
Tulsa is available on DVD from Critics’ Choice Video.
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I went searching for a well-reviewed movie in the Daily Mirror vault and it turned out to be another film about the oil business. Unfortunately the print was quite old and washed out, which made viewing rather unpleasant. Susan Hayward and Robert Preston are fine, but a little Chill Wills goes a long way, especially his introduction.
I imagine Bosley Crowther dismissed this as a noisy, messy film with a common plot (which it is).
He did not approve of such goings-on (The New York Times, May 27, 1949):
It looks as though Walter Wanger and the fellows who wrote the script for his action film called Tulsa, which opened at the Capitol yesterday, went on the old assumption that a fire is a wonderful thing to liquidate a project that would soon go bankrupt otherwise. For they’ve cleverly arranged a conflagration of vast and horrendous scope to wipe out an oil field and their foozles in the last reel or so of this film. Up to the point where an Indian (of all people!) drops a match into an Oklahoma stream running crude oil and sets a whole oil field afire, this picture makes pretty steady progress toward melodramatic bankruptcy. Its tale of an Oklahoma ranch girl who first fights the oil-land tycoons and then, overcome by oil fever, becomes a vulgar oil baroness herself, is a cheaply contrived piece of fiction and it is artificially played by a cast that includes Susan Hayward, Robert Preston and Pedro Armendariz.
For Monday, we have a mysterious fellow. His mysterious companion has been cropped out due to insufficient mysteriousness and will appear Friday.
For Friday, we add our mysterious leading lady (yes, again).
Update: This is Chief Yowlachie and Susan Hayward.
Note: This weekend, as I searched in the trades for a well-reviewed film for the mystery movie, I was once again confronted by the difficulty of finding anything that’s in the vault, that’s a decent print and doesn’t have dozens if not hundreds of screen caps on IMDB and therefore available on Google reverse image search.
A few years ago, it was easy to play cat and mouse with the film hobbyists (or whoever they are) who upload screen captures to IMDB. During Covid, this became more of a problem with people sometimes uploading every camera every setup, every one, to IMDB. At first it was the well-known films, the genre movies (horror, film noir) and actresses with large fan followings: Elizabeth Taylor has 1,472 images on IMDB; Joan Crawford has 1,341; Bette Davis has 1,252; Carole Lombard has a relatively few 641. But it gradually spread to more films. Screen captures, several duplicate photos of the DVD case, posters and lobby cards. You name it. Add in the dedicated movie bloggers who post a dozen shots from each film they write about, and you can see the problem.
The result is that I’m turning to films that are increasingly obscure because those are the only ones without spoiler images on the Internet. I think most Daily Mirror readers are honest and don’t cheat with reverse image searches, but there has been, from time to time, some questionable entries. One of the goals of the mystery movies is to draw attention to lesser-known films, but I also don’t want to traffic in obscurity.
I’m not thinking about scrapping the mystery movies, but finding a suitable film becomes more difficult every week. So tell me your thoughts: What works and what can I do better? More silents? Fewer silents? More TV shows? Fewer TV shows? More recent films (my cutoff date is generally 1960, with exceptions), more Pre-Codes? More foreign films? No foreign films?
Thanks for playing!
For Tuesday, we have a mysterious gent.
Update: This is Lloyd Gough.
Brain Trust roll call: B.J. Merholz (Monday’s mystery guest) and Anne Papineau (mystery movie and Monday’s mysterious guest).
For “Hm Wednesday,” we have a mysterious chap.
Update: This is Pedro Armendariz.
Brain Trust roll call: Mike Hawks (Tuesday’s mysterious gent) and Anne Papineau (Tuesday’s mystery guest).
For “Aha Thursday,” we have a mysterious cousin.
Update: This is Chill Wills.
Brain Trust roll call: Anne Papineau (Wednesday’s mysterious fellow!) Greg (mystery movie and all mystery guests, plus upcoming guests), Benito (Wednesday’s mysterious fellow), Stacia (mystery movie, Monday’s and Wednesday’s mysterious guests and enigmatic wallpaper) and Mike Hawks (mystery movie and Wednesday’s mystery guest).
For Friday, we have our mysterious leading man and enigmatic leading lady (yes, again, I know).
Update: This is Robert Preston and Susan Hayward.
Brain Trust roll call: Mike Hawks (Thursday’s mysterious cousin), B.J. Merholz (mystery movie, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s mystery guests), Sylvia (mystery movie and all mystery guests), L.C. (mystery movie and mysterious cast), Mary Mallory (Thursday’s mysterious cousin) and Anne Papineau (Thursday’s mystery cousin).
ladailymirror.com 
Ignore the cheaters, this is not a competition and they don’t win anything. The fun of your game is seeing a familiar face or back of the head and then trying to track down the movie. Obscure movies is not the answer: to rarefied. I enjoy being fooled by selections like Top Secret Affair. Of course, I enjoy it more when I can put a name to a face or two and make a clever guess as to the movie. Your selections over the years have been perceptive and creative. I suggest you stay with your traditional format and let the cheaters enjoy the thin pleasure of seeing their name in pixels. No h their arm is done and you will, no doubt, come to easily recognize their cribbed comments.
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Chief Yowlachie
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After I submitted my guess for today’s mystery fellow I tried an experiment and took a Google photo of your selection. Google’s suggestion is Will Sampson, so I see what you meant in your post. I was surprised that I had not thought of Sampson, but I am not going to research this any further and let the chips fall where they may.
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Never movies and TV shows would make me less likely to play. I wasn’t born when they aired or my parents would never have shown them to me. I have no idea who many of these people are, just like many upset that they don’t know who silent people. Yet more silents are on YouTube than vintage TV shows, making them easier to research. I sometimes keyword search items like atomic clouds, etc., but don’t do or know how to do reverse image search.
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That’s Chief Lowlachie, well-remembered from “Red River.” But this is Technicolor, so let’s go for “Tulsa” (1949).
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I’ve never tried reverse Google search (don’t know how for one thing and that doesn’t sound as much fun as “going on the hunt”, which I just love to do)
I agree with B.J. on keeping your current method, but broadening the scope like you’ve mentioned. Maybe make 1976 your cutoff date (that’s 50 years ago – gasp!!)
I know you’ve stuck with movies you’ve never seen, but maybe broaden that to include movies you’ve not seen in a very long time.
That’s it from me. Really appreciate that you’re willing to continue. This is really fun
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I agree with B.J. and Sylvia–ignore the cheaters and keep going. I like the fun of it and the majority of your participants won’t cheat IMO. I like the idea of the 1976 cutoff–give it a whirl. And silent films deserve our attention. You have a loyal following and we want you to have fun making the puzzles, too!
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Lloyd Gough.
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Like the other folks have said – cheaters ruin the game but the majority of us enjoy it and play honestly (You’ve told me I was wrong more than I was right!). I enjoy learning about movies I knew nothing about and end up watching a bunch of them. Don’t be discourged.
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Lloyd Gough on Tuesday.
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Compared to today’s photo, Monday’s Mystery Guest looks like he is in a different movie –like a film in a film.
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All one film. The color print is problematic.
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Pedro Armendáriz!
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The movie is Tulsa from 1949.
Chief Yowlachie, Lloyd Gough and Pedro Armendariz have already appeared with Susan Hayward, Robert Preston and Chill Wills waiting in the wings.
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a young Pedro Armendariz
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After finally realizing Monday was Daniel Simmons (Chief Yowlachie) and not Victor Daniels (Chief Thundercloud) I finally started watching clips and I think this is TULSA (1949) based on the ugly wallpaper. If I’d just looked at the Wednesday photo first before spending 45 minutes watching videos I’d have gotten it sooner because I’m pretty sure that’s Pedro Armandariz.
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Dean Stockwell Wednesday? I don’t understand how anyone can derive any enjoyment from using an image search. For me the enjoyment is spotting a familiar actor. Once I identify an actor, I do use IMDB to check their filmography, but I imagine that’s considered within the bounds of fair play.
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An excellent guess! But alas, I’m afraid not.
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Pedro Armendariz in TULSA.
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Chill Wills.
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I finally got Lloyd Gough. Along with the Chief and Chill adds up to Tulsa.
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Thanks to “Uncle Bawley”
Tulsa 1949
Mon – Chief Yowalachi. Susan Hayward is cropped for lack of mysteriousness
Tues – Lloyd Gough
Wed – Pedro Armendariz
Thurs – Chill Wills
That leaves Robert Preston and a full reveal of Susan Hayward for Friday. Read that originally Robert Mitchum was wanted for the Preston role.
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Tulsa (1949) w/Susan Hayward, Robert Preston, Chill Wills, Lloyd Gough, Pedro Armendariz, Iron Eyes Cody, Ed Begley, Jimmy Conlin…
You don’t need to change a thing. Though you make my brain hurt sometimes, I never use the reverse image search, it takes out the fun of the search. You keep me on my toes. Even though I am not up on the silent movies I would not want you to omit them. A tv episode now and then is a nice change. I love pre-code movies, so I am glad when you have them. Please don’t offer movie choices that are too recent, they are not as interesting.
Thanks Larry for all your work, I thoroughly enjoy it, even if I don’t always know the answers.
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Chill wills today. Unlike some who throw a tizzy because they claim they don’t know people in silents, I don’t throw a tizzy because I don’t know people in westerns.
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Chill Wills as Pinky
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Sylvia’s suggestion to expand our movie range to 1976, which is gulp, 50 years ago, sounds excellent. And like so many others I’m grateful you pull all this together without fail. It’s very fun and often very frustrating. There’s nothing else like it out there. Not sure what year it was but I still remember your L.A. Times blog that pulled film star portraits from the Times vaults/newspaper morgue, and I recognized Betty Bronson. There’s a lot more work put into Movieland Mystery Photo, with its daily challenges and then a Saturday summary rundown of cast, crew and the musings of those New York reviewers. If I can ever figure it out on a Monday, my week is made. Silents are golden so hoping those can continue to be represented. YouTube and IMDB help me A LOT. This week’s film, for example, is on YouTube. Call that cheating but it’s still challenging. Might “sort of recognize” an actor but never knew the name and have to think where I saw that face before. On the other hand, the familiar Pat O’Brien worked so much that his IMDB credits don’t help much. Thanks big time for all the good work.
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TULSA. Susan hayward Monday, Lloyd Gough Tuesday, Pedro Armendariz Wednesday, chill wills Wednesday, and Robert Preston and Hayward today.
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Iron eyes Cody monday.
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Salut, mon ami!
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Bob and Susan.
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There are SO many movies! My opinion is that you should continue as before. For me, the thrill is figuring out what the movie is from the actors I recognize. I don’t do a photo search – what fun is that? – but if I recognize them I DO look them up on IMDb to see if I can ascertain from their filmography what the movie is. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, lol! But if other people use all sorts of tech to ID photos, well, that doesn’t affect me. I realize that you want to acknowledge correct guesses on a daily basis, so this means more work for YOU if folks are “cheating” to guess the title. But they are playing a different game than I am, so I don’t really care if they are the “winner.” Thanks for all you do!
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Thank YOU!
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