Nightshade, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 25 cm, is one of four paintings I worked on in between attending multiple sessions at the recent 2026 Melbourne International Film Festival. (Blog Post Wednesday, September 2).
The glasses featured in Nightshade are based on a pair of vintage spectacles spotted several years ago in a local thrift shop and acquired with the vague idea of utilising them as a work prop. Happily, they survived my periodic declutterring purges and I finally found a purpose for them. (Also pictured above, third from top: my self-appointed supervisor, the redoubtable Alice B. Cat).
Along with its companion work, Sunshades (the focus of my next post), Nightshade takes its point of departure from the Alfred Hitchcock film, Strangers on Train (1951), which, in turn, was based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith.
For decades, I’ve been intrigued by the film’s principal bad girl, the ruthless adulteress, Miriam. She is one of two key supporting characters who wear glasses, an unusual and, as a rule, decidedly non-glamorous accessory not ordinarily associated with the Femme Fatale. As those familiar with Strangers on Train will be aware, however, glasses are a major plot point, and feature in one of its most iconic scenes.
In the film, Miriam is played by Kasey Rogers (1925-2006). I’ve long been intrigued by her portrayal of a character who is at once sexy and repellent, coquettish and sleazy. It’s a terrifically nuanced, shamefully underrated performance.
I used to wonder why I hadn’t noticed her in anything else. As it later turned out, I had, without realising it. Rogers played the second Louise Tate, wife of Larry Tate, Darrin’s boss, in the hit TV series Bewitched from 1966 to 1972. (See below).
Kasey Rogers has done much else besides. To learn more about her, go HERE.
As an aside, Marion Lorne, who memorably plays the scatty mother of the film’s chief villain, Bruno (an electrifying performance from the great Robert Walker), would also become a cast regular in Bewitched, as Samantha’s equally scatterbrained Aunt Clara. But I digress.
Nightshade is part of the current series, Flowers of the Femmes Fatales. The flower adorning my protagonist’s raven hair is a devil's trumpet, also known as jimsonweed or thornapple, a poisonous plant from the Daturae tribe of the nightshade family Solanaceae.
