I find it interesting that they lead off the obituary by mentioning her role in the 1959 Journey to the Center of the Earth. I would’ve thought that an aberration, not part of her ordinary run of movies, but evidently it’s one of the things she’s best known for.
No mention in the obit of her appearances in Playboy.
I have to admit, I never saw any of her other movies, but she seems to be multitalented, singing and dancing as well as acting.
And, for what it’s worth, of all the 1950s and 1960s adaptations where the shoehorned a female role in where none had previously existed, this was far and away the best done. Due in no small part to Ms. Dahl’s work.
I too remember her from Journey to the Center of the Earth. She was gorgeous with that long, flaming red hair. I couldn’t have been older than four or five when I first saw the movie, and I was smitten immediately.
I see Diane Baker was in Journey as well. She was a really hot property for a while back in the '60s, but then kind of disappeared until she turned up again on Columbo and later in Silence of the Lambs.
A quick check reveals she’s still around at age 83!
Journey to the Center of the Earth is one of many decent films in which Ms. Dahl appeared to no great impact. Even cast as a princess in Desert Legion (1953), a knock-off of Pierre Benoit’s novel L’Atlantide, she is not very memorable.
That said, she did add value to several films omitted from the article linked in the OP. She is good in Reign of Terror, a.k.a. The Black Book (1949), a beautifully lit period film noir set during the French Revolution with an excellent supporting cast. She is also very good in the obscure Inside Straight (1951) as a scheming vixen who outfoxes gambler David Brian (a.k.a. Prof. John Gill on ST: TOS) in late 19th century San Francisco. And she makes a compelling femme fatale in She Played with Fire (1957) as insurance investigator Jack Hawkins’ former flame…and current suspect in arson.
Her best performance imo, is Slightly Scarlet (1956), a film noir shot in color based on James M. Cain’s story Love’s Lovely Counterfeit in which she steals the show as the klepto bad girl sister of Rhonda Fleming. Like Fleming (and many other actresses), Dahl was better as bad girls, but rarely got the chance to play them.
The Youtube tech reviewer Techmoan posted a video review of an ultrasonic vinyl record cleaner on Sunday. The album he demonstrated it on was a spoken-word recording by Miss Dahl which seems to be some kind of party game in which people perform dialogue along with Miss Dahl.
I disagree. She made a big impression on a very young me. Being a girl, I was really impressed with her insistence on joining the expedition and holding her own - once she removed those “stays”. She and Hans made more of an impression on me than Mason or Boone.
I wasn’t aware of Desert Legion before. I’ve seen other screen adaptations of l’Atlantide (having read Benoit’s novel more than once), but somehow missed that one.
And I agree with needscoffee about Ms. Dahl in Journey to the Center of the Earth. She definitely played a decent role as a strong female lead. As I said in the OP, there was a trend of sticking female characters in movie adaptations of Verne and Wells novels where there originally were none*, and usually it’s a clumsy effort that feels unnaturally shoehorned in. But the role in Journey was far better than the usual run of these, and Ms. Dahl pulled it off properly.
As in From the Earth to the Moon or Five Weeks in a Balloon or Off on a Comet or First Men in the Moon or The Mysterious Island (even though that had the great Joan Greenwood, from the Ealing Studios). For some reason, they didn’t make movies out of ones that DID have female parts, like The Mighty Orinoco. Although they did film Around the World in 80 Days, with Princess Auoda.
I’ve seen The Black Book, and it is an excellent film. Aside from Ms Dahl, the cast included Robert Cummings (the male lead), Richard Basehart, Norman Lloyd, and Russ Tamblin. It’s one of the movies they show every night on CHCH Toronto between 02:00 and 04:00 .
