
Diane McBain starred in the title role of Claudelle Inglish (1961) with Will Hutchins, Chad Everett and Robert Logan.
Warners assigned the title role to Diane McBain, a Cleveland-born actress whom one of their talent agents had spotted on stage while she was still in high school. After playing a rich vixen out to seduce Troy Donahue in Parrish (1961) and daffy party girl Daphne Dutton on the series Surfside 6, she was assigned her first big-screen lead, as the down-home doxy who teases a pair of red shoes out of local landowner Claude Akins, gets a new wardrobe out of the rest of the town’s businessmen and inspires a fatal battle between two younger suitors.
The rest of the cast of Claudelle Inglish was comprised of young contract talent (Warners was one of the last Hollywood studios to maintain a sizable talent roster, mostly comprised of young men and women) and more experienced talent. Among her suitors were Will Hutchins, star of the studio’s Sugarfoot series, Robert Colbert, later the star of The Time Tunnel, and, in his film debut, Chad Everett. All those youthful good looks were balanced by seasoned vets in the other roles, particularly five-time Oscar® nominee Arthur Kennedy as her honest father and future soap opera superstar Constance Ford as her greedy, lustful mother, who tries to match her with Akins, then runs off with him herself.
This was a very good film. Arthur Kennedy also excellent.