Film Noir of the Week

Fear (1946)

2010-02-07T11:55:00.012-05:00

Released by Monogram in 1946, Fear is a little-remembered film noir that has all the flaws of a typical Poverty Row production, including a low budget, a less-than-stellar ensemble, and a trumped-up storyline. However in spite of the limitations it’s an inventive, exciting, and thought-provoking little movie. It takes a core film noir narrative: man desperately needs money, man commits murder to get it, man’s life falls apart — and embroiders it with a series of story developments that are either surprising, inexplicable, or just plain weird. What makes the film truly fascinating is the final plot twist, which leaves viewers wondering if the whole thing was intended to be a tongue-in-cheek gag. Regardless, Fear is put together with unexpected panache, and the results are as pleasing as they are mystifying.

Peter Cookson stars as medical student Larry Crain. (Fear is his only legitimate leading role, though he was notably married to Poltergeist actress Beatrice Straight for forty years) The film’s opening scene finds a morose Crain in his shabby one-room flat, sodden over a bizarre telegram from the medical school: “Circumstances beyond our control compel us to discontinue all scholarships.” Of all the set-ups in film noir this is one of the most absurd. As someone who has existed in the world of academia for many years, I can assure you that the chances of a school being compelled to ‘discontinue all scholarships’ is pretty ludicrous. However in Fear, such baffling developments are par for the course. Wait and see.

Compounding his troubles at school, Crain’s landlady Mrs. Williams (the ubiquitous Almira Sessions) seems to live outside his door, incessantly badgering him for the rent. Desperate to scrape together even a few dollars, Larry shambles over to see professor Stanley, who teaches at the medical college but makes extra money moonlighting as a pawnbroker. Larry’s only possession of value is an engraved watch given to him by his dead father, for which the old man offers just a sawbuck. Stanley adds insult to injury by withholding two dollars to cover the back interest on previous loans. Though it seems more than a little convenient that Stanley must open his wall safe in order to retrieve a measly eight dollars, it gives Larry the chance to scope out the wads and wads of cash camping in the professor’s strongbox, as well as a heavy set of brass fireplace tools by the mantle. Larry gets the impulse to kill the professor then and there, but manages to resist it. However he’s so enamored by the idea that he practically sleepwalks home.

Cue the girl. With his eight bucks in hand Larry grabs a stool and a hot meal at the local hangout. He spends more than expected when he has to buy coffee for a girl who appears to have everything in her purse but loose change. The money is happily spent however, when Eileen (Anne Gwynne) agrees to see him socially. The obligatory romance develops quickly, but within the structure of the film the Eileen’s role is of little importance. Female characters work to many ends within film noir, though in Fear Eileen’s purpose is banal — she gives Larry someone to talk to; and their interactions provide insight into his motivations, which in this case amounts to little more than self-justification: Larry believes that any crime is excusable providing the ends justify the means. What other films accomplish through voiceover narration, Fear provides via the girl.

Following his encounter with Eileen Larry returns home to more bad news: a huge tuition bill and an ultimatum from Mrs. Williams: pay up or hit the bricks. Larry immediately snaps back to professor Stanley and his strongbox, and decides to do the deed. The strongest segment of the film is the murder sequence, which takes place in Stanley’s tenement house. Director Alfred Zeisler establishes a tense atmosphere beginning with Larry’s nervous ascent up the apartment stairwell, wary of a black cat lurking along the stairs. At one landing he pauses outside an apartment that is being painted — the painter in the process of shimmying his ladder from one spot to another without getting down, like some grotesque insect on stilts. This turns out to be an important moment in the development of the story, as not only the freshly painted room and the painter himself become crucial players as things unfold.

When Larry finally rings Stanley’s bell the academic is reluctant to admit him, considering that the younger man was just there the previous evening. Larry offers a wrapped and tied package that he claims contains a silver cigarette case, though in actuality it’s just a glass ashtray pilfered from his own drab room. As the professor struggles to open the bundle, he chastises Larry for wrapping the damn thing so tightly. In a moment where the script really comes to life Larry apologizes, dolefully saying “I’m sorry” as he bends over, unseen by the professor, to pick up the heavy fireplace poker previously foreshadowed as the murder weapon. We never actually see Larry land the killing blow — once the camera leaves Larry’s strained face, it shifts to a vantage point directly above the table, framing the prof's trembling hands as he struggles with the bundle. It’s in this expressionistic moment and a few others like it that Fear really scores as a film noir: Just as the wrapping paper finally falls away and Larry’s ruse is revealed, the blow is struck and the ashtray drops, shattering the old man’s glass of port, which spreads against the white table cloth like so much lifeblood.

Larry escapes the murder scene, barely, and makes it back to his room where he passes out, to be roused later by a detective who takes him in for questioning — his engraved watch makes him a suspect. The man in charge of the investigation is the jovial Captain Burke (Warren William). Burke is so rakish and debonair it appears William thinks this is a Lone Wolf serial. Most of the second half of Fear is concerned with scenes of the two playing cat and mouse — with Burke attempting to trip up the younger man and Larry fending him off. Eventually Larry’s mind begins to unravel from the strain of his conscience and the pressure applied by Captain Burke. A brief but excitingly expressionistic montage finds him wandering the streets in a daze, assaulted by visions of nooses and other portents of death that loom around the city’s dark corners. Fate leads him to a train yard, where he barely avoids being struck by an onrushing locomotive. This brush with destiny convinces Larry to confess to Eileen — who decides to stand by him. When he returns home he finds Captain Burke waiting. Larry is astonished when Burke shows him the morning’s headlines: the deranged painter from the second floor apartment has confessed to bludgeoning Professor Stanley. It’s apparent that Burke stills believes in Larry’s guilt, but in light of the headlines Larry overcomes his conscience and keeps his mouth shut. Nevertheless, in film noir neither fate nor justice can be thwarted — Fear climaxes as an ebullient Larry is struck by a car and killed as he rushes to reunite with Eileen.

Hang on a second. Cue the harp music and the swirling vortex — Larry isn’t dead after all, he was just dreaming! Instead of lying dead in the street we find him lying in bed, rousing from a deep sleep by knocking at his door. It’s Professor Stanley calling, except this time the dear fellow wants to give Larry a loan to tide him over until his scholarship check, thankfully restored, arrives in the mail. As a bewildered but carefree Larry leaves his room to a brighter day he bumps into Eileen in the hallway — except her name isn’t Eileen, it turns out to be Kathy — she’s tracked him down to pay back his sixty cents, and has decided to take a room at Mrs. Williams boarding house as well! Once again, for the first time, Larry makes a date with the girl — and in a moment of Vertigo creepiness asks if he can call her Eileen. Unfazed, she remarks that he “sure must have been in love with that girl!” To which Larry replies, as the screen fades to black and the end titles, that someday he’ll “tell her all about it.”

The ending of Fear is frustrating and silly, though it still begs an interesting question: Why take a film that already closes well and tack on a coda sure to leaves audiences wagging their heads? Maybe it was simply to extend the running time — there are several moments in Fear that suggest Zeisler was trying to stretch for length rather than tension. Perhaps the reason that makes the most sense was to give viewers a surprise punch to talk about as they left the drive-in, such as in the 1944 RKO hit The Woman in the Window — after all Poverty Row films were usually as derivative as they were low-budget. It’s also clear that Zeisler was enamored of director Fritz Lang — the American-born director - producer was working in the German film industry just as Lang was making his best films there. The dreamy denouement, along with a clever smear of white paint on Larry’s jacket strongly argue that Zeisler was either inspired by or paying homage to an admired fellow filmmaker. It’s also fair to suggest that the moment of Larry Crain’s imaginary death, so steeped in the relentless fatalism that defines film noir, is only apparent to contemporary audiences as the best place to end the film, and that in 1946 the psych-neurotic dream conclusion was far more topical. Yet in spite of everything, I choose to accept the reason that conveniently allows the B-Movie fan in me to explain away all of Fear’s eyebrow-raising oddities, plot holes, and bizarre twists: Who says dreams have to make sense?

Written by The Professor

Fear (1946)
Director: Alfred Zeisler
Cinematographer: Jackson Rose
Screenplay: Dennis Cooper and Alfred Zeisler
Starring: Peter Cookson, Warren William, and Anne Gwynne
Released by: Monogram Pictures
Running time: 68 minutes

Slattery’s Hurricane (1949)

2010-01-31T09:59:00.010-05:00

Noir … or Not?

Although it was made at the height Richard Widmark’s run of noir classics, Slattery’s Hurricane, produced in 1949 at his home studio, 20th Century–Fox, is never discussed as noir. In fact, it’s rarely discussed at all; it is perhaps the most unjustly neglected film in the oeuvre of Hollywood’s most unjustly neglected director, André de Toth.

Maybe it’s the elemental title; catastrophic weather conditions rarely figure in film noir. Maybe it’s the blindingly bright Miami and Caribbean locations. Maybe it’s the involvement of author Herman Wouk, so closely associated with military dramas such as The Caine Mutiny (1954) and The Winds of War (1983) (though he was also associated with such “civilian” works as Marjorie Morningstar [1958] and Youngblood Hawke [1964]), that makes people assume this will be yet another tale of men in uniform.

In fact, Slattery’s Hurricane fits snugly into the spate of postwar films, many of them noir, that focused on disillusioned veterans unable to adjust to civilian life. It may be the most provocative and challenging of the bunch. Like virtually all of de Toth’s films, it refuses to follow genre tropes. There are crimes and betrayals throughout, but no murderous conspiracies; the only death is from natural causes. But the characters, especially Widmark’s Will Slattery, are fully dimensional—tortured, tempted, ambitious, ambiguous, cowardly, and courageous. As de Toth might say, human.

Wouk’s 1947 novel Aurora Dawn, his first, earned immediate attention from 20th Century–Fox, who entertained the 32-year-old writer’s idea for a movie called Slattery’s Hurricane. He was asked to turn it into a treatment. Wouk came back with a complete novel (eventually published in 1956). Richard Murphy and an uncredited Buzz Bezzerides translated it to screenplay form.

Will Slattery is a hotshot fighter pilot reduced to inactive duty for defying orders in a crucial battle and recklessly engaging in a solo aerial dogfight. The stunt did help secure victory, and the brass has delayed a decision on whether he deserves the Medal of Honor . . . or a court-martial. In the meantime he’s taken a job piloting cargo flights in the Caribbean for a Miami-based “candy manufacturer,” a job arranged by his loyal girlfriend, Dolores (Veronica Lake).

It’s a mundane existence for the hot-blooded Slattery until the reappearance of old flame Aggie (Linda Darnell), who’s married to his war pal Hobbie (John Russell), who’s now assigned to the Navy weather squadron. When Slattery pursues Aggie, he sets off a chain reaction that ruins the lives of everyone, most tragically Dolores. Slattery seeks atonement—or suicide—by forcibly taking Hobbie’s place on a dangerous tracking flight into the eye of a hurricane bearing down on the Florida coast.

One suspects de Toth, a pilot himself, campaigned for this assignment. His flying sequences are superior to any other similar scenes from the era. The claustrophobic confines of the cockpit, its eggshell fragility in a storm, sudden shifts of light through the windshield—de Toth captures it all with stunning verisimilitude. His intercutting of stock flying footage with freshly shot sequences is seamless.

In true noir fashion, the story is recounted in flashback, with Slattery narrating his own bitter tale in a vituperative voice-over as his plane is battered by the fast-moving storm. It’s not exactly Double Indemnity (1944), but the device gives the narrative vital urgency. By opening with Slattery’s unexplained beating of his drunken friend and the theft of his plane, the story is given a suspenseful spine it wouldn’t otherwise have, despite subplots involving adultery and drug smuggling, two noir staples.

The writers and director had running battles with the Production Code office over these elements of the story. The war was fresh enough in the public’s mind for the censors to fear sullying the reputation of the armed forces with the suggestion that a navy officer would sleep with a colleague’s wife. De Toth manages to avoid any explicitness while maintaining all the steaminess and sordidness of an affair enacted under the noses of the betrayed spouses.

The drug smuggling is dealt with just as obliquely, until it becomes essential to the plot. De Toth, thumbing his nose at “the Code,” makes the drug runners a pair of homosexuals, which slipped right under the censors’ radar. The most intriguing—and frustrating—aspect of the drug subplot concerns the strangely vague fate of Dolores. De Toth was married to Veronica Lake at the time and her casting has deep implications. For one, Lake was eager to break out of her established femme fatale persona. De Toth obliged by shearing off her patented peekaboo hairstyle and casting her against type in a role typically played by Barbara Bel Geddes: the mousy, left-behind girlfriend.

Second, it comes out that Dolores is a covert drug addict, and her response to Slattery’s infidelity is a dangerous abuse of her bosses’ product. Even though this is the crux of the story, the censors demanded that it be soft-pedaled. The only clue to Dolores’s problem is a hospital report Slattery peruses at her bedside, long enough for viewers to glimpse the words “Diagnosis: Pharmacopsychosis.”

De Toth was actually engaging in a form of shock therapy: Lake actually was a drug addict and alcoholic at the time. Slattery’s Hurricane would be the last Hollywood film she made. Her husband elicits a performance remarkably close to her true character, but it is a melancholy climax to her meteoric stardom.

Perhaps Slattery’s Hurricane would be better known—and considered more “noir”—if it had kept its original ending, in which Slattery relays the coordinates essential to saving Miami, but dies a martyr when he crashes into the sea. Dolores accepts his posthumous medal of honor, and only she and Aggie know that the “hero” was actually a selfish, drug-running rat bastard. Preview audiences hated the downer ending and Darryl Zanuck persuaded de Toth shoot a new one. (Imagine my excitement when earlier this year colleagues at the UCLA Film & Television Archive reported that they’d found “one extra reel” of Slattery’s Hurricane. Alas, it wasn’t the original ending, which sources at 20th Century–Fox say was probably not preserved.)

Although not as satisfyingly self-contained (nor as melodramatic) as the original, de Toth’s revised conclusion is wonderfully elliptical and open-ended, sharing the sad spirit of In a Lonely Place, made the following year.

written by Eddie Muller

Tread Softly Stranger (1958)

2010-01-25T23:43:00.006-05:00

“You know how it is. Some women are merciless.”

Tread Softly Stranger (1958) from director Gordon Parry isn’t a great film. It’s even a stretch to call it a good film, but this B film is worth catching for two reasons: the gorgeous Diana Dors and a plot that illustrates how a femme fatale messes with the heads of two vastly dissimilar brothers. Tread Softly Stranger was released in 2008 as part of the 6-film, 3 disc set: British Cinema Classic B Film Collection, Volume 1. While it’s great to see some of these lesser known, B tier films finally making it to DVD, Tread Softly Stranger is going to be a disappointment if you approach the film with high expectations. Approach it as a curiosity and as an intro to (or reunion with) Diana Dors, and you’ll enjoy this B noir a great deal more.

The immensely popular and well-loved British celebrity, Diana Dors (real name Diana Mary Fluck) had a lot of fans during her lifetime, and the film’s producer, George Minter, must be part of that list as he insisted on using her for Tread Softly Stranger’s femme fatale--even though it meant that filming was delayed for several months until she was available. Diana Dors was known as the British Marilyn Monroe, and if you take a look of some of her early pin-up photos, it’s easy to see how she earned that title. Dors, who died from ovarian cancer in 1984 at the age of 52, had a career that largely limited her to cheesecake or sexpot roles, but while famous for her gorgeous looks and phenomenal body, she could act--a fact that’s sometimes rather sadly overlooked. Tread Softly Stranger shows Diana Dors at the peak of her beauty, and while she plays a femme fatale, her occasionally guileless manner is enough to make the men in her life believe every word she says.

In Tread Softly Stranger, Dors is marvelously cast as nightclub hostess, Calico. Interesting nickname--makes me think of a piece of cheap brightly coloured cotton, or alternately the colour of a cat. Either projection fits well with the character--a woman who seems wildly out-of-place in the damp, dank grimy Northern industrial town of Rawborough. Diana Dors makes the screen sizzle every time she appears, and she’s certainly the most interesting element in this otherwise patchy film.

The film begins in London at the bachelor pad of immaculately-groomed gambler, Johnny Mansell (George Baker) as he eagerly plumps up pillows on his couch and turns the lights down low. He even leaves the door to the bedroom open as part of a giant hint of what’s in store. He’s expecting a date with an exotic brunette, and while Johnny is rather obviously itching to get into the passion pit, the evening is interrupted by a phone call. He owes money, and the gambling debts are about to called in. Johnny puts down the phone, and while his date sits on the couch, he enters the bedroom behind her and begins smoothly and efficiently filling a suitcase. Johnny has decided to split town and stay away until things cool down.

This scene swiftly establishes Johnny’s character. Even though he has a willing brunette waiting, he won’t waste time dallying when his hide is threatened. Another man (James Bond, for example) might stay, have sex and then leave. But to Johnny, women are easy-come-easy-go. He prizes his hide more than the promise of sex, and he knows that there will always be more women.

Johnny travels to Rawborough, his old home town, the place he couldn’t wait to escape from ten years earlier. Rawborough is the type of town that people only come back to when they have hit rock-bottom or if they need a place to hide. There are no trees, no lawns, no gardens, just the bleakness of concrete, brick, and industry. The murky black and white print complements the film’s setting of a dreary town in which huge factory chimneys bilge filthy smoke and poisonous fumes into the gloomy sky.

Johnny’s been gone so long, he doesn’t even know his brother Dave’s address, so he pops into the Rawborough Working Mans’ Club to hit up the old crowd for information. Ten years may have passed but the old faces are the same, and childhood friend, Paddy Ryan (Patrick Allen) and his father night watchman Joe (Joseph Tomelty) are playing billiards. Johnny learns that Dave has a ‘regular’ girlfriend who works as a part-time hostess in a local club. Paddy’s enthusiasm about Dave’s girlfriend reveals that “she’s a looker,” while Joe declares that she’s “no good.” These disparate descriptions serve to set the scene for Johnny’s first meeting with Dave’s girlfriend, and when Johnny enters Dave’s meagerly furnished rented rooms, one of the first things he spies is a deliciously abandoned nylon stocking.

Diana Dors as Calico is unforgettable. She first appears from a rear view bending over for stretching exercises in shorts that might fit a twelve-year-old. The rear view is just the preliminary for what’s in store when Diana turns around and faces the camera, and this scene is set so that our reaction to finding this gorgeous girl in the dung heap of Rawborough is mirrored in Johnny.

It seems incongruous that Calico should be in such a drab little town as Rawborough. She landed there due to “romance” and now can’t wait to leave. Her ticket out appears to be Dave, Johnny’s nervous bookkeeping brother. As a bachelor, and an accountant at the town’s largest employer, he’s a good catch. A good catch, that is, if you plan on staying in Rawborough for the rest of your life, but Calico is the sort of girl who wants more. Dave showers Calico with expensive gifts he can’t afford, and in order to keep Calico interested, Dave’s been dipping into the payroll at work. With an audit coming up in a few days, he has to replace the money fast or face being imprisoned for embezzlement. Of course, Calico comes up with the brilliant idea of knocking off the payroll so that Dave doesn’t get caught and that the loot will fund their get-away to all the places she’s ever dreamed of.

Johnny sniffs out that Dave has money problems, and before long he uncovers the robbery plan. Johnny, who spent his childhood keeping Dave out of trouble, realizes that the plan is flawed, and he thinks he can replace the money his brother embezzled with just one lucky day at the track….

Calico, of course, by setting up Dave as a gun-toting robber, has bet on the wrong pony. Dave might be capable of sneaking his hands in the till, but he lacks the courage for anything bold or violent. Johnny, on the other hand, enjoys taking chances, but although he’s a brazen risk-taker, he’s not an idiot. Johnny has Calico’s number from the moment he hears about her. But is this just how he views women in general? While Johnny mildly threatens Calico to treat his brother well, at one point he wallops her, and of course, she melts in his arms. What follows is one of the most flagrantly and tackily suggestive symbolic scenes of sex. No details, because that would spoil the fun, and it really does have to be seen to be believed.

Tread Softly Stranger has all the elements to make a really great noir film, but it falls down along the way. The plot isn’t bad, and there’s a fatalistic irony to the idea that Calico has the persuasive skills to lead the weaker brother down the criminal path, but those same skills only get the stronger brother as far as bed. Johnny feels Calico’s powerful sexuality; he can’t deny it, but unlike Dave, he will never check his sanity at the bedroom door. Dave’s hysteria seems to be a substitution for tension, but instead of increasing tension, Dave’s hysterical outbursts call for a slap to knock some sense into him. The fickle hand of Fate plays a strong hand in the film, and this augments the film’s basic premise, but the film becomes mired in dull exchanges just when the plot needs to pick up the pace.

The film’s best scenes, naturally, include those with Diana Dors, and throughout the course of the film, her clothes appear to either be too small, glued on, or about to fall off. With full pouty lips long before silicone, she has a healthy, clean almost luminous presence in stark contrast to the film’s murky quality. Her character becomes more complex as the plot unfolds, and whether or not you think she’s a gold digger may depend on your level of cynicism. Those tears certainly look real enough. The idea of her character set in between these two vastly different brothers is intriguing; it’s just not intriguing enough to pull the rest of the film together. Thanks to Calico’s influence, she makes a seemingly good man go bad, and a former ne’er-do-well becomes decent. It’s a fascinating premise and flips the corrupting femme fatale influence to new levels.

Tread Softly Stranger is a Northern crime film--a sub-genre in itself, and if you haven’t checked out Britain’s recent addition to the genre: The Red Riding Trilogy, (editor's note: only available on R2 DVD) based on the Red Riding Quartet novels of David Peace, do yourself a favour and go get a copy. One phrase from the first film in the trilogy leaps to mind: “This is the North. We do what we want!” And this is an idea that underscores that the North of England has a very different set of rules and behaviour from the South. While Tread Softly Stranger doesn’t explicitly explore this North vs South divide, nonetheless it’s implicit through its depiction of the opportunities and expansive horizons of London in opposition to the narrow, claustrophobic hard-scrabble world of Rawborough.

Written by Guy Savage

The Pretender (1947)

2010-01-18T13:16:00.010-05:00

We make allowances in our enjoyment of films that we withhold when considering other art forms — movies seem to operate by a different set of standards: so many disparate elements come together from so many different minds and sets of hands, not to mention competing agendas, that audiences can be incredibly forgiving if a film isn’t up to par — provided some aspect of it captivates them. It’s one of the reasons that movies are timeless — viewers can find something worthwhile in a film they would otherwise consider a failure. The Pretender, a second feature from Republic Pictures, is a good example of such a film. It offers the sort of half-baked film story that gets dreamt up in some writer’s bed during those hazy moments somewhere between awake and asleep. Its overly contrived and forces itself upon us, but it nevertheless piques our curiosity in some way that, despite the flaws, we still want to see how its particular gimmick plays out on-screen.

The Pretender stars Albert Dekker, a man whose name is familiar to film buffs but more or less forgotten by the general public. Dekker had a sturdy career in the movie business, finding his way west after making his bones on Broadway. Today he’s remembered mostly for the title role in the 1940 science fiction classic Dr. Cyclops though he did make a few crime pictures, including the essential 1946 film noir The Killers. He can also be found chewing scenery in the 1945 noir-on-ice, Suspense (essayed about here as well as at my site), and playing it mysterious in the fascinating 1941 proto-noir Among the Living. In spite of Dekker’s work in front of the camera he remains one of the unlucky souls for whom the Kenneth Anger-hyped speculation surrounding his grisly, sexualized death will forever overshadow anything he accomplished in life. It seems that whenever his name comes up writers feel obligated to rehash the details of his demise. Dekker’s corpse was discovered in the bathroom of his Hollywood apartment in 1968, hands shackled behind his back and body hanging limply from the shower curtain. For three decades conjecture involving robbery-murder, suicide, autoeroticism gone wrong, and things even more bizarre have made the rounds. The gossip is unfortunate, because it obscures the fact that Dekker was a pretty good actor — he had an intelligent and refined screen persona that was enhanced by sheer physical size. He was able to use that persona to affect either feelings of pathos or enmity from his audience. The guy had real range and he should have been a bigger star. His performance is the saving grace of The Pretender.

The movie finds Dekker in the role of Kenneth Holden, a Wall Street loser who likes to play the market but can’t pick a winner. He’s in the hole big-time, so he starts drafting five-figure “loan” checks from the accounts of one Claire Worthington (Catharine Craig), a pretty young woman — years his junior — whose sizable fortune he holds in trust. Dekker writes check after check in hopes that his luck will turn, but when it doesn’t he gets the idea to marry the girl and co-opt her funds the easy way. The problem is that Claire is already engaged to Dr. Leonard Koster (Chares Drake) — a good-looking psychiatrist she’s fallen head-over-heels for.

Holden refuses to let a little thing like love get in his way, so he arranges with local racketeer Victor Korrin (pudgy Alan Carney, scene-stealer par excellence) to have the boyfriend knocked off — which is exactly when The Pretender begins to sink under the weight of its own contrivances. It starts when Holden can’t pass along the name of Claire’s fiancé — she has conveniently kept his identity a secret. Korrin’s only option is to scan the metro society columns for her engagement announcement, and then kill the man she’s pictured with. And of course he doesn’t do the dirty work himself— he subcontracts the messy stuff, and refuses to reveal the hired killer’s identity to Holden. It’s in the scene where the killing is arranged that the filmmakers frustratingly fail to cash in on one of those moments of wicked irony that so often makes film noir a treat. Korrin wants twenty grand for the job, which obviously Holden can’t get his hands on unless he raids Claire’s accounts yet again — but the filmmakers fail to cash in on the irony of one man purchasing his rival’s death with the money of the woman they both desire. The addition of such a scene would have done much to elevate The Pretender as a film noir, yet Wilder let the moment pass. Nevertheless the scene is still the best in the film by a mile — the camera gets in tight on both actors, each cloaked in shadow. Carney, performing his ass off, does a bit with his cigar that makes the scene unforgettable.

No sooner than the Holden and Korrin seal their deal the film jumps across town to an equally critical scene, when Claire, ready to paint the town, meets Dr. Lenny at his hospital. Just as the young lovers head for the elevator he gets called to the operating room for a psychiatric consult that quickly turns into surgery, a ruined evening, and hurt feelings. In a startlingly forced 180, even for a B-movie, Claire decides she isn’t willing to share her man with the medical profession and stuffs her diamond into an envelope along with a hastily scribbled note that reads simply, “It won’t work.” She fumbles the envelope into a nurse’s hands, then slinks to a phone booth and dimes Holden: “Let’s get married…tonight!” In spite of the silliness of her character, I found Craig to be an actress with pluses. She looks like a cross between Norma Shearer and Kay Francis — classy without being aloof, sophisticated yet attainable. The camera seemed to like her, so it’s surprising she didn’t have a longer career in the movies — it lasted just ten years from start to finish, then a forty-year marriage to the Music Man himself, Robert Preston.

The story briskly shoves its way along, damn the credibility, until it gets what it wants: Claire ducks out of her engagement to the shrink and instead elopes with Holden. But before he can get in touch with Korrin to cancel the contract on her husband, the fat man’s past catches up to him and he gets bumped off, leaving a bewildered Holden with a big target on his back and looking over his shoulder for a man with a gun. The latter sequences of the film focus on Holden’s unraveling psyche as he scrambles to identify and try to stop the would-be killer. His fear of this unknown reaper causes him to come completely unglued — leaving him sequestered in his room, fittingly unable to exalt in the wealth he conspired to obtain. Holden’s paranoia overtakes him at a lightning pace, and it’s not particularly credible from a story standpoint, but Dekker is good enough to keep you intrigued. He changes his appearance, mistrusts and dismisses his servants, refuses to eat anything but canned goods, and fails utterly as a husband — next thing we know Dr. Leonard is back on the scene. The inevitable conclusion offers a fitting consequence of the noirish fatalism that permeates the movie, with an ironic, smirking postscript reminiscent of such films as Shockproof and Tomorrow is Another Day tacked on for good measure.

At 69 minutes The Pretender is so brief that it’s fair to suggest it doesn’t get made, even on Poverty Row, a few years further into the era of television. The gimmicky story, which feels more like an episode of The Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents than it does a feature film (or even a second feature), seems more suited to the smaller screen. It’s notable on the production side for two reasons. This is the moment in which famed cinematographer John Alton gets his first real crack at noir subject matter, and while his work is as uneven as the film itself, there are a few great moments — like the deal-making scene between Holden and Korrin. Also noteworthy is the use of theremin music in the soundtrack. The instrument that would give the science fiction films of the following decade their distinctive electronic sound is used with gusto in The Pretender, and while it seems somewhat foreign in a crime picture, the movie wouldn’t be the same without it.

Written by The Professor

Noir City

2010-01-11T22:49:00.003-05:00

This week's Film Noir of the Week is The Stranger.

Speaking of strangers...

NOIR CITY from Film Noir Foundation on Vimeo.

The Stranger (1946)

2010-01-11T22:05:00.012-05:00

The Stranger was Orson Welles' third film. He set out to prove that he could make a movie that could perform at the box office. His previous two directorial efforts – the absolute film classics Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons – were box office failures. His third was a more traditional film and, like one of it's movie poster predicted, was Welles' first box office successes.

Today the “programmer” is considered Welles' weakest. I don't buy it. The Stranger is an amazing looking film – and Welles first directed film noir. The most notable and memorable scene in The Stranger is an exciting chase in and on an elaborate clock tower. Foster Hirsch – in his book Film Noir: The Dark Side of the Screen– writes:

Places in noir reveal character... Settings are chosen for thematic reinforcement. Cars and trains and boxing arenas figure prominently in noir stories because they provide visual metaphors of enclosure and entrapment.

The clock tower is a dark cramped place which can only be entered by climbing rickety ladders. The clock is referenced a number of times throughout the film and you just know the hero of the story is going to end up there. The editing during the clock sequence is just amazing. Welles and Edward G. Robinson – up until that point just toying with each other by playing cat and mouse – frantically rush through the giant cuckoo clock. The scene is edited in such a way that it seems like both men – going back and forth - are mimicking each others actions. All of it taking place in a dangerous enclosed environment.

But that's the end. The setup is excellent as well.

Edward G. Robinson plays Wilson – a Nazi hunter. He convinces authorities holding a former Nazi to release a low-level war criminal (twitchy Konrad Meinike played by Konstantin Shayne) in hopes that the German will lead them to his Nazi superior. Wilson breaks his pipe when he passionately pleads for them to release the man. The little man is let go – and it's made to look like a breakout. Robinson follows him to a small peaceful New England town. Wilson is an intellectual (like Robinson himself) and not a cop. He botches the tail job and is spotted quickly – thanks to the tape around his repaired pipe. In a handsomely shot scene in a gymnasium (Welles and photographer Russell Metty are in fine form during the opening scenes) the escapee bops Wilson in the head erasing the trail Wilson was following. Meinike – losing his tail – now feels free to visit his former superior.

Loretta Young plays Mary Longstreet – the town's prep school headmaster's naive daughter that who's first seen hanging curtains on her wedding day.

Young plays “women teetering on the edge” in a few other good noirs. She's a frantic housewife in Cause for Alarm! and plays a spinster professor who tries to fulfill her sexual desires in The Accused – only to kill the man making advances on her in self defense.

In The Stranger, while waiting for her husband-to-be to come home, she is visited by Meinike. The strange man runs off when he finds her fiance Professor Charles Rankin isn't home.

Then we're introduced to Orson Welles as Professor Rankin. Welles – directing himself – is excellent. Rankin is revealed to be a former Nazi. He's approached walking down the street by Meinike and he quickly hustles him off into the woods. He kills the man while he prays. Rankin evil streak clearly hasn't stopped since the war ended. The shookup professor throws the body in a ditch just seconds before some student “paper chase” happens by. Later in the movie he kills his wife's beautiful golden retriever Red – after the dog uncovers the man Rankin killed in a shallow grave. Welles brilliantly and convincingly plays the part without a hint of a German accent.

After killing his old friend, Rankin returns home and the wedding goes as planned. Wilson suspects there may be something up with Rankin – who he finds out is new in town. Wilson – posing as an antique dealer - works his way over to the newlyweds house for dinner. It's only later in the night – popping out of bed - does he realize that Rankin is a Nazi when he remembers one of the professor's outrageous lines during dinner. Wilson reasons, “Well, who but a Nazi would deny that Karl Marx was a German... because he was a Jew?”

Methodical and intelligent Wilson doggedly investigates Charles Rankin (the alias for Nazi Franz Kindler). Rankin/Kindler – always one step ahead of Wilson - convinces his wife and the townsfolk that he's innocent. The town's mood collectively goes from sunny to sullen under the pressure of the murder investigation. Hardest to convince of Rankin's guilt is Rankin/Kindler's loyal new wife Mary. Finally, she's exposed to the atrocities of war by Wilson (in a daring scene for 1946). Mary confronts her husband and he goes over the edge. Rankin (Welles goes appropriately over the top) attempts to kill her and then flees to the clock tower – and to a thrilling conclusion to The Stranger.

The clock reminds me of another Welles film. Carol Reed's The Third Man:

Welles as Harry Lime states,

“Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

The Stranger movie has been in the public domain – meaning it's not owned but is public property- for years. Most DVD copies of the film are horrible. The best one I've viewed is the release from MGM a few years back. This movie – like another film that has fallen into the PD Scarlet Street – is probably best enjoyed when watching a clear, clean print if possible.

I suspect that The Stranger isn't considered great by film historians because it is lesser than say Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil. It also wobbles a bit in the middle too (and how could Wilson not guess he was a Nazi after that dinner conversation?) However, you couldn't make a better choice if you're looking for a conventional, fantastic looking film noir thriller.

Written by Steve-O

Broken Embraces (2009)

2010-01-03T19:42:00.009-05:00

Looking back at movies over the past decade I've come to the conclusion that film noir is no longer an American art form. Noir has been taken over. Hollywood noirs have become shallow glittery epics filled with wet city streets and fedoras. Comic book noir.

The best film noir of the last few years aren't American crime films... they were movies like Revanche, the Postman Always Rings Twice remake Jerichow, and Klopka – Guy Savage's Noir of the Week last week.

The film I want to feature this week is Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos). Almodóvar has been making movies in Spain for years and is no stranger to modern film noir. This one (unlike the darker Revanche and Jerichow and some of Almodóvar's other “noir” including Bad Education) has a light touch and humor too. Almodóvar uses muted colors mixed with bright red making it feel bold. The film – although in color – feels like noir without seeming like a tribute. That's a trick most modern American film makers apparently can't do. I've also noticed that foreign films have subplots concerning rampant unemployment, heartless heath-care coverage and ruthless bankers pretending to be “pillars of society” in their films while American movies steer wide of these subjects that are now a part of our daily lives. American movies are an escape from our problems while foreign noir seems to meditate on the issues of today.

More than anything, however, Broken Embraces is a pleasure to watch. It constantly references film noir, classic films and crime thrillers. This movie is a blast for film nuts. Clearly Almodóvar not only loves making movies he loves watching them.

There are many scenes in Broken Embraces that are reminiscent of other thrillers: Movie fans will notice when the film director (played by Lluís Homar) first meets Lena (Penélope Cruz) she turns and smiles. She looks stunning... her hair is full, dark and wavy. Her smile lights up the room... just like Rita Hayworth's entrance in Gilda (there's a bit of a comic payoff there too featuring a pest with a bowl haircut.) Then there's a squared staircase that looks just like the one in Elevator to the Gallows. Lena starts the movie as a secretary moonlighting as an “escort”. She uses the name Séverine which is clearly a nod to another film “lady of the evening” – Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour. The director in the film is named Harry Caine. Harry Lime and Citizen Kane perhaps? When Lena is pushed down a staircase a character quips later, “that only happens in movies!” which is exactly what I thought when I saw the scene. There are too many of these references to mention and part of the fun is trying to catch them all.

This is a movie about making a movie so there's lots of film talk too. When the director – now a blind writer – has his screenwriter pupil put a DVD on he goes through his collection looking for Elevator to the Gallows. Just reading off the titles on the shelf is interesting

Even a blind guy knows that the Jules Dassin and Fritz Lang film noir should not be filed with French New Wave!

Two American blockbusters this summer also referenced classic movies. The best part of the ultimately boring Public Enemies is when Dillinger (Johnny Depp) – wide eyed - watches Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama. Quentin Tarantino nearly gives his audience a film lecture about The White Hell of Pitz Palu in Inglourious Basterds. I love all the hints and mentions of other films in Basterds. It's the only recent film I can think of that has more “movie” moments than Broken Embraces.

Then there's another 2009 Spain-based thriller, Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control. About half way through a femme-fatale looking character is talking to the silent killer about the coffee switching in Hitchcock's Notorious and then goes onto say how Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai is a mess of a story but great to look at. My first thought was, “You could say the same for this film... but I'd rather be watching Lady From Shanghai.” You never think that way watching Broken Embraces. The twisty story – spaced out over 15 years via flashbacks and forwards – is mysterious and interesting from beginning to end.

Broken Embraces holds you with its story and look but what really sets it apart from other “foreign” films” is a movie star. Penélope Cruz is fantastic. The more I see of her the more impressed I am by her. Almodóvar has a lot of fun shooting her in different wigs and even shows off her Audrey Hepburn neck in the film-within-the-film. At one point in Broken Embraces she has an all-day sex romp with her elderly billionaire boyfriend. At the end he's lying on the bed looking like he just died. Cruz reacts by looking relieved and lights up a smoke. When he pops up alive Cruz shows surprise and disappointment in the same moment. Then she goes to the bathroom and puts on makeup and returns to bed with the man who owns her. Cruz is an actress playing an actress putting on a role for her sugar daddy. It's something to watch. An added bonus is she's absolutely beautiful to look at.

Most casual film goers will probably pass over Broken Embraces. It's probably too much of an art film for some – plus it has subtitles which is a deal breaker right there. But it's really not an art film. It's a smart, solid, and sometimes funny thriller. Some of the humor may be lost in translation (“I never knew I could be so emotional making gazpacho!” is probably a hilarious line in Spain.) but most of the jokes do translate well.

“I want to hear Jeanne Moreau.” says Harry Caine at one point. I'd settle for seeing Penélope Cruz in one of the best films of 2009.

Written by Steve-O

The Trap (2007)

2009-12-26T19:28:00.013-05:00

AKA Klopka

Isolation and Murder in The Trap

“I’m trying to do at least something right in the end.”

The Trap (Klopka) a Serbian noir film from director Srdan Golubovic asks the question: what’s a life worth? Main character Mladen (Nebojsa Glogovac) finds out the hard way that some lives come with a huge price tag while others are worth nothing at all. This excellent noir examines one man trapped by circumstance who accepts his fate but cannot live with the consequences. The Trap is set in modern Serbia--a society in flux, struggling to heal after years of communism, the raw open wounds of civil war, and a period of insane hyperinflation. A nation no longer a dominant component of the former Yugoslav state, Serbia’s new burgeoning economy includes the sale of state-owned companies to privately owned businesses, creating monopolies and huge profits for those lucky enough to be on the receiving end. Hard-working, honest people fight to survive while the Serbian Mafia prospers. Money appears to flow like water for some, and this is evidenced by the flashy mansions that are springing up all over Belgrade. At the same time, street urchins pester people for money by washing cars at stoplights, and this contrast in circumstances emphasizes both the upheaval of the new society and the transience of life.

The film, a frame story, opens with Mladen staring out over the vast city from his apartment balcony. He then makes a short phone call, takes a gun from the table and leaves his home. The next scene shows Mladen ringing a doorbell. Once inside, a badly bruised, jittery Mladen smokes and talks directly to the camera and an unseen audience as he attempts to explain his actions. “None of this should’ve happened,” he says as he begins his story...

The film quickly shifts to the recent past. Mladen and his wife, teacher Marija (Natasa Ninkovic) and their 8-year-old son Nemanja (Marko Djurovic) live in a tiny, modestly furnished flat in Belgrade, they drive a tatty old car, the state-owned company Mladen works for is going through a painful privatization process, and in spite of the fact that Marija and Mladen are professionals, they don’t have much money. But these problems operate at an acceptable level, and overall Marija and Mladen are happy.

Life abruptly changes when Nemanja is rushed to the hospital, and his anxious parents are told that their son needs an operation to correct a heart muscle problem. To complicate matters, they are told that the operation cannot be performed in Belgrade, and that they will need to travel to Germany for the procedure. Bottom line, they need 26,000 Euros for the operation plus travel expenses. Desperately, Mladen and Marija hit up friends and relatives for a loan, but no one in their circle has money to help.

The child’s physician, Dr Lukic (Bogdan Dicklic) suggests placing an advertisement in the paper explaining Nemanja’s story and begging for help. In one of the film’s many quiet, deceptively simple scenes hinting of the desperation of daily life in Belgrade, the paper is shown full of similar adverts--all from people hoping for the kindness and generosity of strangers to make miracles happen. But the miracle doesn’t happen for Mladen and Marija. This flush of advertising reinforces the idea of two Belgrades: the Belgrade of poverty and deprivation that Mladen, now in adversity, understands, and the Belgrade of the newly-rich with their decadent “hideous villas” who fund their lives with money wrung from suspicious circumstances. Marija pins all her hopes on the advert, and by placing the ad and checking their bank account balance, she has the false sensation that she’s ‘doing’ something about getting the money. At the same time, she berates Mladen for his inaction.

In one of the film’s clever scenes emphasizing the idea that money flows in Belgrade--just not to the right things, Marija has begun privately tutoring one of her spoiled, wealthy students. At first Marija refused due to the questionable ethics of the situation, but then agreed, bowing under the desperate pressure for money. While this becomes the extent of Marija’s moral dilemma (how far she will go to get money for her son), the scene is yet another glimpse of two Belgrades. When she visits the student, Marija spots a huge, ostentatious frame hanging empty and useless, and she discovers that the girl’s father bought the frame on a whim for 30,000 Euros--the exact sum they seek for their son.

In another scene, Mladen is turned down for a bank loan by a lowly, grinning bank teller. Mladen initially assumes the teller is insensitive since he grins while he explains that the loan has been declined. But the clerk is not unsympathetic; he whispers that this is an American-owned bank and that he’s monitored to ensure that he smiles at all the customers. If he fails to smile, he’s fired. The clerk’s explanation diffuses Mladen’s anger as he realizes that the clerk is just another working stiff like him, trapped by his humiliating need for money.

In the meantime, Nemanja’s condition is progressing. Feeling helpless and frustrated, Mladen and Marija begin fighting. And then, finally, there’s a response to the advert. Marija is sure they have a benefactor. Mladen, while more cautious than his wife, still hopes that they’ve stumbled across someone wealthy enough to help. He goes to meet the caller, a weathered, well-dressed businessman in a spacious, upscale restaurant. This is the sort of plush restaurant that Mladen and Marija could never afford, but it’s obviously a bustling business frequented by those with money to burn. The man, Kosta Antic (Miki Manojlovic) offers to give Mladen 30,000 Euros plus tickets to Germany. The catch? Mladen has to kill someone. Kosta reassures Mladen that the target is ‘bad’ for the country and that “He’ll be missed by no one.” As it turns out, the target, Ivkovic (Dejan Cukic), a man connected to organized crime, is married to Jelena (Anica Dobra) a young woman whose daughter plays with Nemanja.

Mladen at first refuses but then agrees to the murder-for-hire scheme as he witnesses Nemanja’s rapidly deteriorating physical condition and Marija’s inability to cope. While Marija comes unglued because there are no options, Mladen, who is already a quiet, introverted man, sinks deeper into himself; he has an option, a choice, but that choice is to kill another human being in order to save his son. Marija interprets Mladen’s depression incorrectly, and she sees him as indifferent. There’s one moment when he reaches out to explain, but she cuts off any exchange of confidences, and soon the two are at each other’s throats….

Taking the life of another human being is the ultimate moral decision, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that it’s one of these sneaky questions that pops up for discussion in Philosophy 101 classes. The professor asks: would you kill someone? And the answer, at first a resounding “NO!” becomes gradually shaped by extenuating circumstances and reasoning. In film, we’ve seen these plot elements a thousand times but rarely has ‘the trap’ been captured so exquisitely through the utter bleakness and isolation of the moral choice facing Mladen. The film presents Mladen’s dilemma to create maximum viewer identification. Mladen is a quiet, hard-working stiff who minds his own business and who puts in a decent day’s work, thinking that there will be a payoff for good behaviour. But there isn’t. His son is dying; his wife hates him for his inability to ‘do something,’ and meanwhile here’s this perfect stranger offering to fix Mladen’s problems with one little bullet. Perhaps some people wouldn’t quibble at murder, but Mladen does, and Mladen’s moral struggle--admirable under the circumstances--signals one man’s descent to hell.

Any moral decision of magnitude demands a certain isolation of thought and judgment, but whereas some moral decisions can be discussed, others cannot. Marija, the only person Mladen could discuss his dilemma with, cuts off any possibility of discussion, and effectively strands Mladen in an agonizing moral wasteland. Ultimately, his desire to save his son supercedes any other moral consideration, and left in isolation to make his decision, Mladen chooses to commit murder. The film captures and underscores Mladen’s bleak isolation through beautifully realized high-angled shots that emphasize Mladen’s space within the urban landscape, his insignificance in society, and his irrevocable descent into hell. Mladen becomes the sort of person who can commit murder, but it’s what happens after the crime, and not the murder itself, that makes The Trap such an incredibly good noir film.

Written by Guy Savage

Lady in the Lake (1947)

2009-12-20T18:44:00.015-05:00

To really enjoy the 1947 MGM film noir Lady in the Lake, it's crucial to accept the subjective camera angle Robert Montgomery uses, and fully give yourself to seeing things via this artificial first person lens. Allow some room for deviation, too, from the expected portrayal of Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe character. It's worth leaving such preconceptions behind as the film pulls off the rare trick of being nasty and cynical while still maintaining its studio gloss as first rate entertainment wrapped in a decidedly noir package, Christmas bow and all.

In his first directing gig (aside from some uncredited work on the set of They Were Expendable when John Ford was sidelined), Montgomery let the camera act as the audience's eyes. The advertising promised an interactive experience of solving the case alongside Montgomery, who also played Marlowe. It was perhaps questionable to use both this odd perspective and to adapt a Chandler story using a different sort of interpretation of Marlowe than what's on the page or the way he'd been played earlier by Dick Powell and Humphrey Bogart. Nonetheless, there's little reason to be particularly beholden to the rigid limitations of what a character can be. Montgomery increased the sarcasm and distrust while muting most any of Marlowe's half-buried good qualities. But, importantly, his Marlowe exists only within the confines of the film Lady in the Lake. Those who prefer their Marlowe as a hard-bitten but ultimately still safe creature can watch Dick Powell and those who enjoy Bogart's smart, cynical and movie star glistening turn will always have The Big Sleep. This isn't a competition.

As director, Montgomery skews ironic from the start. Using a Christmas carol medley across the opening title cards, images of snowy evergreens and bells and reindeer tease a warm holiday story until the final reveal of a handgun. There's also a completely made-up actress listed in the credits, a nice touch probably unrealized until at least the second viewing of the picture. Director/actor then greets the viewer in an odd introduction that again plays with expectations since we're really being addressed by the character of Marlowe, and after the events about to be seen have already taken place. Similar scenes pop up a couple of times throughout the film to add bits of information which might have been said in a voiceover had that device been used. Despite this being a 1947 release, the interruptions now play sort of like a television program returning from a commercial break. They take us out of the first person perspective, if not quite the film as a whole, but it's difficult to quibble with Montgomery's use of these brief interludes. Each time he's seen is like a small refresh, a reminder that we're seeing things through the eyes of a movie star.

It's reasonable to wonder what MGM must have thought about Montgomery, ideally the main draw of the picture, not showing his face for the vast majority of the running time. A similar, perhaps even more daring trick considering the discrepancy in stardom was adopted for Humphrey Bogart in the Delmer Daves film Dark Passage, also from 1947, though the subjective angles are ditched about halfway through that picture. There's a mirror here and there plus those direct resets, but Montgomery remains committed to showing the action through Marlowe's eyes during the entirety of Lady in the Lake. When Marlowe gets slapped around, the camera jerks, and when Audrey Totter's character Adrienne Fromsett leans in to kiss him, we vicariously experience that too, at least visually. The main complaint some have with this effect seems to be that it's a "gimmick" unneeded by the narrative, but that reaction seems a bit hasty. If used with any frequency (and it really hasn't been outside of video games) the first person point of view angle would indeed become a chore to watch. In Lady in the Lake, though, it increases the suspense and paranoia and disorientation - all of which are hallmarks of film noir. The device also makes every scene an interrogation. The viewer looks directly at who's speaking while that actor is typically alone on camera. Something accusatory arises in most all of Marlowe's conversations.

Several of these feature Totter. Her performance is very much in the femme fatale mold, albeit straddling the line nicely as a love interest so that we can't be sure until the very end which side she's actually on. Marlowe first encounters her after submitting a detective story to a magazine which she more or less runs for publisher Derace Kingsby (Leon Ames). Having Marlowe wearily and, in Montgomery's shoes, bitterly resort to writing about his past cases rather than pursuing new ones gives the entire proceeding a self-reflexive, even post-modernist spin. So, again, Lady in the Lake seems to buck tradition in favor of a knowing, though no less serious wink. Montgomery's Marlowe comes across as trapped in a cycle of getting his feet dirty despite realizing the limitations of the profession. He can't help himself because these things keep falling in his lap, even, apparently, when he's looking into other options. The calamity this time, for what it's worth, involves Kingsby's wife in some capacity. Details emerge piece by piece, with Chandler's usual complexity.

Those who frequent the world of noir rarely do so for the plots. After all, there can only be so much interest in missing persons, dead bodies, and the wrongly accused. Sure we all enjoy those things but they simply aren't the exclusive draw. Lady in the Lake seems to get this idea while still offering up a rather twisty narrative that never becomes unnecessarily convoluted. Marlowe's client initially is Fromsett but transitions into being Kingsby. He gets beaten up over and over again, left for dead once by the cop (Lloyd Nolan) who's also his chief tormentor. One woman isn't who she first claims to be while another's mostly on the level but difficult to trust and a third is little more than a ghost. Montgomery has to juggle the story enough to keep interest without completely giving way to it. That's not an easy task and it's worth praising the film for successfully balancing the plot against the dual characterizations of Marlowe and Fromsett, all the while still letting the noir elements flourish in a cynical but nonetheless playful way.

For all of the causticity shown by Marlowe, his scenes with Fromsett gradually reveal the desire to be vulnerable and start anew, with her, in a loving relationship. Again, maybe this isn't the Marlowe we're accustomed to elsewhere but Montgomery plays him as weary and stubborn and not terribly bright yet always, almost painfully, guarded. His actions indicate that he wants to believe Fromsett's not involved with any of the unsavory parts of this case but he can't give himself to her until everything's been settled. Their many encounters really strengthen the film as we see the gears of romance turn much slower and more deliberately than is the norm in Hollywood. The sequence where Marlowe seems to come around involves a very domestic situation, at Fromsett's apartment. She's given him an uncharacteristically flashy robe as a Christmas gift, but Marlowe finds a card in the pocket addressed to Kingsby, indicating the robe was bought for her boss. But before Marlowe even has a chance to mention the card, Fromsett casually admits the whole thing and tells him she left it there on purpose, that she wants a fresh start where they're honest with each other.

Part of the frustration with Montgomery's performance is that he's unable to react to most anything. We obviously can't see his face, but even Marlowe's voice and dialogue rarely allows for any change in mood. This isn't necessarily a deficiency in Montgomery's acting. It just makes the viewer approach things from a different angle, one where the lead character neglects his usual duties as a guide of the film's emotion. Totter's performance, then, has to subtly shift along the way to greet the hardened Marlowe. Where Montgomery can rely on Marlowe's actions to fill in the blanks of his behavioral arc, Totter must, with the added difficulty of looking at the camera while acting, express the growing trust Fromsett feels for such a closed man without it seeming too ridiculous. That Totter pulls this off so well as to make the entire film emotionally hinge more on the dynamic between these two rather than the central mystery is a real triumph of noir acting. There's a complexity that exists within this romance that might not be immediately recognizable, but it ends up as one of the most adult and fully developed pairings in all of film noir.

And, still, Lady in the Lake remains mostly unloved by devotees of Chandler and Marlowe and film noir. That's probably to be expected considering the liberties Montgomery takes with both the story and the portrayal of its protagonist, but it simply shouldn't be an accepted truth that Lady in the Lake is minor anything. The film is noteworthy in its adherence to noir stylistic and narrative conventions without ever really emphasizing any sense of danger or overwhelming darkness. It's an oddity full of misconceptions, assured enough to gently torture the viewer through an elaborate mystery filmed in the first person for absolutely no reason yet still so accommodating as to periodically provide entry level updates on the plot and offer up the promise of a happy ending.Those looking for a strict noir fix are better off watching Montgomery's next effort Ride the Pink Horse (which isn't easy to find), as it's far more prototypical and probably the superior film overall. Lady in the Lake, though, seems to get dismissed too quickly and partly because of the things that make it special.

Written by clydefro.

Editor's note: Make sure you check out his excellent film blog.

The Outfit (1973)

2009-12-13T16:06:00.015-05:00

Editor's note: This week's article is written by hard-boiled writer Wallace Stroby. The Barbed-Wire Kiss was one of my favorite reads a few years ago. His new novel, Gone 'til November is coming out in January. This week, Wallace tackles one of the best "Richard Stark" movies: The Outfit.

In the 1970s, revenge was sweet. At least on movie screens.

Take a look at the decade’s crime films and you’ll see a butcher’s bill of vengeance and rough justice – Death Wish, Dirty Harry, Walking Tall, Rage, Framed, Fighting Mad. And that’s not counting the blaxploitation genre or low-budget horrors like Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave. Whatever cultural influences were aswirl back then, audiences were apparently mad as hell, and eager to put their money down to watch a little vicarious payback.

John Flynn’s The Outfit has the trappings of a ‘70s revenge film, but it has a noir heart. Released in 1973, it’s based on the third of Donald E. Westlake’s “Parker” novels, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Both book and film pit a ruthless professional thief against the nationwide crime syndicate of the title. The first book in the series, 1962’s The Hunter, became the 1967 Lee Marvin film Point Blank, and Parker would return to the screen a half dozen more times, albeit under different aliases.

Of all the films based on the Stark books, The Outfit might be the most faithful (a close second is director Brian Helgeland’s cut of 1999’s Payback, also based on The Hunter, and starring Mel Gibson). In Flynn’s film, the Parker character is played by Robert Duvall, here named Earl Macklin, a professional heister just out of prison and eager to avenge the murder of his brother Eddie by mob hitmen. Macklin joins up with his former partner Cody, played by ‘70s icon Joe Don Baker, and the two cut a wide swathe through the California underworld, knocking over mob fronts, poker games and illegal casinos. Macklin ostensibly wants revenge for his brother’s death, but he also wants “$250,000 to make things right. I hit you until you pay me. What I take in-between is extra.”

As in Don Siegel’s Charley Varrick, released that same year, the mob is angry at Macklin, Eddie and Cody for having robbed one of its banks in Wichita, Kansas (only in ‘70s films do gangsters actually own entire banks). Their payback killing of Eddie then becomes the impetus for Macklin and Cody’s war of attrition, as the pair move from heist to heist, accompanied by Macklin’s girlfriend, Bett Harrow (Karen Black).

The novel had simpler motivations. The mob is after Parker because he beat them out of $45,000 in The Hunter. Parker is after the mob because they’re after him. And unlike Macklin, the single-named Parker has little backstory – he’s an existential loner battling institutional evil.

Despite these plot and character variations, Flynn’s film (he also scripted) lifts whole scenes and set pieces intact from the book, in particular an interlude in which Macklin and Cody buy a hot car from two redneck brothers, played by Richard Jaeckel and Bill (Deliverance) McKinney. Cody is based on Handy McKay, a recurring character from the Parker novels (both own diners, Handy’s in Maine, Cody’s in Oregon). Bett Harrow appears in the book as well, though only briefly (she returns as a major character in the next Stark novel, The Mourner.)

There’s a lot of Parker in Macklin, and Flynn’s screenplay often approximates Westlake’s staccato, adverb-free prose. During his robberies, Macklin, like Parker, takes the time to ask his victims their names, so as to better control and calm them. He’s cool and collected enough to disarm a gunman, beat him senseless and then send him on his way with a dismissive “Die someplace else” (a line taken directly from the book). And during the climactic attack on the mob boss’s mansion, he wards off late-responding bodyguards with a terse “Stay out of it. He’s dead. You’re unemployed” – and a silenced automatic.

Over the years, Westlake often praised Duvall’s performance. “That’s the guy I wrote,” he said more than once. In contrast to Marvin in Point Blank, Duvall’s Macklin actually feels like a living, breathing human being, with a sense of humor to boot (he and Cody laugh giddily after narrowly escaping with their lives during a shootout). Early on, Macklin fondles an antique pocket watch handed down from his grandfather. “A Justice of the Peace,” he proudly says. “Greenville, Kentucky, 1882.” At another point, he claims St. Louis as his home, and makes reference to a wife and child he never sees.

Shot in sun-bleached Los Angeles and Bakersfield locations, The Outfit sometimes feels like a slightly downmarket Sam Peckinpah film. The opening titles play over a prison sequence (not in the book) that recalls Peckinpah’s The Getaway, released the previous year. The score is by Peckinpah regular Jerry Fielding (The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs), and the cinematography by another ‘70s icon, Bruce Surtees, the DP on almost all of Clint Eastwood’s films until the mid-’80s. In its set design and costumes, The Outfit also harkens back to the Depression-era-outlaw genre, accented by Black’s pseudo-Faye Dunaway/Bonnie Parker wardrobe.

Cast-wise, The Outfit sports a full house of noir icons. Marie Windsor (The Narrow Margin), Jane Greer (Out of the Past), Timothy Carey (The Killing), Emile Meyer (Riot in Cell Block 11), and Elisha Cook Jr. (you name it) all make appearances. Jazz singer Anita O’Day is briefly glimpsed in a nightclub scene, and former world boxing champion Archie Moore shows up as well (look quick for longtime Hollywood gossip columnist Army Archerd as a butler).

But the ace in the hole is Robert Ryan, in one of his final roles. As Mailer, the boss of bosses, Ryan spends most of his screen time seething in barely controlled anger, and snarling at his trophy wife (“Shut up! Get in the car!”), played by a very fit-looking Joanna Cassidy in her first billed film role. Mailer seems disgusted by himself, everyone around him and everything he’s obtained. He almost admires Macklin, even though he knows the freelancer will more than likely be the instrument of his doom.

Westlake’s Parker went on for 21 more novels, the final being 2008’s Dirty Money. Though Westlake died last year, all the Parker books are making their way back into print via the University of Chicago Press. The film version of The Outfit is less easily found. Its only home video appearance was in a grainy, speckled fullscreen VHS print released by MGM/UA in 1996. It remains unavailable on DVD, as does Flynn’s other iconic ‘70s revenge film, the Paul Schrader-scripted Rolling Thunder.

The Outfit is not a hidden masterpiece by any means. The editing is sometimes choppy, and the pace lags a bit in spots. Black has a lot of screen time, but little chemistry with Duvall. She seems to be merely along for the ride, to provide some cliched tender moments and help humanize Macklin. “Money won’t do you any good,” his brother’s widow, played by Greer, warns him. “What do you want it for? You got a woman. You got time.”

At its best, The Outfit captures the noir universe of the Stark books, where cool professionals ply their trade in an amoral world. It proved too amoral for network television though. When NBC aired the TV version, they lopped off the final minutes of the film, and ended it with a freeze-frame of Macklin and Cody stopping to catch their breath on a stairwell after the final shootout. With sirens swelling on the soundtrack, the TV print suggests they’re willingly lingering there, knowing they’ll be caught. The VHS version (and recent TCM screenings) restored the original ending, in which the pair make their getaway in an ambulance during the resulting chaos. The film does end with a classic ‘70s freeze-frame, but not before Baker gets to deliver the ironic final line, “Hey, Earl. The good guys always win.”

Written by Wallace Stroby

Side Street (1950)

2009-12-06T08:53:00.014-05:00

In the opening voiceover of Anthony Mann's Side Street, New York is described as an "architectural jungle," and "the busiest, the loneliest, the kindest and the cruelest of cities." With its realistic on-location setting, and Mann's particular brand of visual genius, Side Street is, above all else, about the isolation, and the beauty of New York City. The film opens with a spectacular aerial view of the Empire State Building, with Broadway careening down on the diagonal, creating geometric shapes between, buildings seeming foreshortened and strange from that view. Helicopter shots of this kind were new at the time, Nicholas Ray had used them in They Live By Night which, like Side Street starred Farley Granger and Cathy O'Donnell. The helicopter shots in the beginning of Side Street are vast, impressive, showing the city, its waterfront, its grids of organized streets, from far above. From the start, we can sense the attitude of the picture: man is small, insignificant, helpless against the giant forces working against him. Indistinct.

Farley Granger plays Joe Norson, a mailman, married to a woman named Ellen (played by Cathy O'Donnell), and they are expecting a baby. After a series of financial hardships, Joe and Ellen have moved in with her parents. Ellen is due to have her baby any day, but they can't afford a proper doctor, and instead she has to go to free clinics to get her checkups. Granger doesn't play Joe as a man desperate and at the end of his rope; not in the beginning anyway. He does what he has to do to maintain his job, he suffers in silence under the nosy presence of his in-laws, and he hopes that maybe... someday... he can save up enough money so that he and Ellen can have their own place.

However, when temptation arises... in the form of $200 dropped on the floor of an attorney's office where Joe delivers the mail, he finds it hard to resist. He returns to the office later, discovers the lawyer is absent, opens the filing cabinet where he saw the money put away, and takes the envelope. Once he is alone and opens the envelope, he doesn't find only $200. He finds piles of bills, $30,000 to be exact.

So begins Joe Norson's long dark descent into trouble. The money he has stolen is part of a blackmail scheme, worked up between the corrupt lawyer (played with steely aplomb by Edmon Ryan) and a goonish ex-con named George Garsell (played by James Craig).

Joe, unaware of any of the circumstances surrounding the money, immediately becomes haunted with guilt at what he has done. Side Street depicts a deeply moral world. The impact on Joe's conscience from his theft is immediate. He can't look his in-laws in the eye, he can't confide in his wife, he doesn't know what to do. Granger, as always, plays the perfect everyday guy, not all that bright, perhaps a bit gullible, and panicked like a wolf in a trap, as he tries to find a way out of the mess.

Bodies start to pile up. The criminals are looking for Joe, and Joe is looking for them because he wants to return the money. He must return the money, if he is to have any chance at all to live a normal life again. Unfortunately, he has stashed the wad of cash with a bartender he trusts (big mistake), and when he returns to the bar he finds it under new ownership. Side Street becomes a race to the finish, as the cops and Joe, separately, try to put together the pieces of the crime. Joe's wife has her baby, and Joe confesses to her, finally, what he has done, and she begs him to turn himself in. If he could just explain what had happened ... surely they would believe him?

There is an inevitability to events here, a fatalistic sense that no matter what one does, it will not make a difference. Joe's attempts to track down the blackmailers and their co-horts, in order to return the money, only looks like guilt by association to the cops who are following him, and so the more Joe tries to do right, the worse it looks. A truly harrowing experience, if you try to imagine it. Innocent until proven guilty is only a catchphrase in this dark world, and besides, didn't Joe steal the money in the first place? His entire trauma began with an immoral action on his part.

One of the things that really struck me about Side Street was its overt awareness of financial realities and how these things operate on the characters. It exists at all levels of the film. Joe's father-in-law was just demoted at his job, forced into a lower-level position; it was either that or be fired. A cop on the beat confesses to Joe early on in the film that he is retiring the next week and hopes to move to Florida. He should be able to make do "on half pay." Even one of the blackmailers gushes excitedly that with the money they have stolen he will be able to "pay for my kid's college education." Granger's character is not alone in his desire for a better life, for some ease and comfort. He says to his wife, when he confesses:

"I had this stupid notion that a couple hundred dollars could cure everything. You wouldn't have to have the baby in a charity ward. I'd built up a feeling of shame because everywhere I turned people had things I wanted you to have. I hated to admit, I was a flop."

The final showdown of the film goes down in front of the famously recognizable Subtreasury Building in lower Manhattan, a potent evocation of the financial stresses evident in the world of Side Street. Of course it would all end there.

Granger turns in a fine performance, and his increasing guilt and panic are palpable. He spends much of the film clammy with sweat, as he tries to undo his own wrong, going deeper and deeper into the vortex. He has a beautiful closeup when he first sees his baby son, in the bassinet at the hospital, and he is in awe of the baby's tiny fingers, his beauty, the miracle of him, all of that is on Granger's face, but immediately on its heels comes guilt, loss, grief. What has he done? It's a tough closeup, and could have gone over the edge into cheeseball emoting, but Granger breathes real life and real feeling into it.

Jean Hagen has a terrific cameo as a tired drunk nightclub singer named Harriet, an old girlfriend of the goonish ex-con. Joe tracks her down, in his search to find the blackmailers. When he meets her, she sits in the restaurant where she sings, throwing back shots, alone at her table, suspicious of everyone. She is seemingly a tough dame and yet, when she realizes she has a chance to get back together with the goon, she leaps at it, even if it means betraying Joe. "We can sit around my place like we used to, can't we?" she pleads to her criminal lover, in a display of need that made me ache for her. Harriet is not a bad girl, just sour with disappointment, emptily promiscuous, full of strange memories and bizarre dialogue ("He hit me when I recited Robert Burns," she confesses, in one of the best lines in the film) and willing to do anything to get back into the charmed circle. It's a touching portrait of what it means to be forgotten in the "architectural jungle" of Manhattan. How easy it is to be lost.

Mann's style here shows the larger budget that Side Street had, the aerial shots, for example, but then there is a spectacular car chase that closes out the film. It is a masterpiece. Filmed on location in New York, in the area of what used to be Fulton Fish Market on Manhattan's far west side, it shows Mann's strength as a director, his visual style. He switches from low angles to high, creating a radical disorienting effect. The camera is low on the cobblestones, as the cars go careening by, and then, suddenly, the camera is high above, 30 stories up, looking down on the events from afar, a symmetrical depiction of New York from the first shot of the film. Only now New York does not seem grandiose and welcoming, the Empire State Building gleaming up into the air ... Now it seems claustrophobic, a huge maze, the narrow streets closing in. In Mann's shots (the cinematographer was multiple Oscar-winner Joseph Ruttenberg), the buildings fold in upon other buildings, creating an almost Escher-like effect of negative space, white buildings collapsing visually into shadowed buildings, layered over one another as far as the eye can see. Those streets in lower Manhattan are so narrow that they become veritable wind tunnels, as anyone who has strolled around down there can tell you, and Side Street captures that feeling of vast and narrow corridors. When Mann suddenly decides to change the angle, going from low to high, it's so effective (visually, as well as editorially, it highlights Granger's ultimate desperation in being so anonymous and small) that I am surprised it is not imitated more often. It's one of the best car chases I've ever seen.

In a moving scene between Joe and his wife, before she knows the truth about him, she rhapsodizes about someday getting their own place, and how nice that will be. She says, "It's so nice to know you can plan ahead a little bit ..."

Ultimately, that is Joe Norson's tragedy, combined with terrible bad luck. He didn't want to steal $30,000. As he says, "What do I want with $30,000?" But $200 would have been just perfect, a perfect amount to get his wife a good doctor, and pay for a private room in the maternity ward. Although he dreams, early on in the picture, of going to Paris and buying his wife a fur coat ("the long fluffy kind"), his dreams are modest, like most people's. He would like a house of his own, he would like to be his own man, he would like to provide for his family. Everyone else in the movie, cops, criminals, and nightclub singers, have the same modest American-dream goals. However, one step wrong on that very human road to a better life, can lead you, inexorably, into the underworld, where New York stops seeming like a gleaming place of promise, cut across by wide expansive sunny avenues like Park, or 6th. It instead becomes a dark cramped world, of windy concrete canyons, and nothing but side streets. Side streets that could, if you take the right one, lead you to escape and freedom. But which one? In that maze, how can you tell?

Written by Sheila O'Malley

Editor's note: Check out her fantastic blog, The Sheila Variations

Champion (1949)

2009-11-29T11:20:00.012-05:00

Champion is usually described as a cautionary tale about the bitter price of success and the perils of ruthless ambition. Rubbish. The character of Midge Kelly is heroic, admirable, and downright glorious. A son of a bitch? Certainly. But I envy him, and you should too.

Champion airs from time to time on TCM and has been available on DVDfor a decade, so this essay assumes the reader knows the film. Besides, Champion is difficult to consider if the ending is ignored. For those who need a refresher, the story goes like this: Michael "Midge" Kelly and his brother Connie (Arthur Kennedy) are heading west in search of their fortune when they get rolled and are forced to hitch. They cadge a ride from a pug (John Day) on his way to fight a main event in Kansas City. Hoping to earn a few bucks Midge takes a fill-in spot on the undercard. He's beaten badly but attracts the attention of manager Tommy Haley (Paul Stewart), who offers to help him become a real fighter. When Midge and Connie reach California and discover their prospects vanished they are forced to get jobs. Both are attracted to a waitress, Emma (Ruth Roman), who Midge is forced to marry in the wake of a tryst. Feeling trapped, Midge abandons Emma for Los Angeles, and takes Haley up on his offer. Midge's toughness and ambition make him a natural fighter, and after a while he rates a bout with number one contender Johnny Dunne - the same fellow who taxied him into Kansas City. Midge is ordered to take a dive in exchange for a legit title shot down the line, but he stuns everyone when he quickly knocks out an unsuspecting Dunne. Although irate gamblers viciously beat Midge, his refusal to cheat makes him a public hero and he gets a title shot anyway, which he wins. Midge the champ is able to have all the things he ever wanted, though he alienates everyone that ever helped him. When Midge gives Dunne a rematch, he takes a terrific beating - until the jeers of the crowd and the ringside announcers spur him to KO Dunne out in the last round. A triumphant Midge returns to his dressing room where he collapses and dies.

Everyone involved scores points for making a great picture about an asshole, but Kirk Douglas deserves the lion's share of the credit. His Kelly is one the most interesting and complicated boxers in screen history, which is a significant accomplishment considering how droll the character likely would have become through the interpretation of a lesser talent. Champion was a landmark film in Douglas' early career and justly earned him an Academy Award nomination. Most of what has been written about the movie praises his virtuoso performance or affirms the film's status as a morality tale of a man. While Douglas is indeed the stuff of legend, the "What Price Fame?" angle just doesn't wash. Champion is a harshly cynical movie about a hard-as-nails man; made during an era when all the little kids didn't get a trophy. If it were merely a cautionary tale it would have ended differently - after all, in those movies the hero eventually discovers the error of his ways and seeks redemption, even if in death. The character of Midge Kelly isn't redeemed at the end of Champion - redemption isn't required - if anything, he dies in a state of grace. Let's come back to that later, first Douglas deserves his due.

Kirk Douglas was a great performer who if nothing else understood what made him a movie star. He was blessed and cursed with a hyper-magnetic screen presence - everything about him was exaggerated on screen. No actress could wrench the spotlight from him, which is why he isn't remembered as one of the great romantic leads. Don't believe me? Next time you watch him in a romantic scene and things start to heat up, take note of who grabs your attention. I'm betting your eyes will be fixed on Douglas. That was his great gift - he was bigger than the story, bigger than his cast, bigger than his directors. While this occasionally kept him out of some parts normally played by the pretty boys, it made him ideal for others - the grittier roles - the guys who exist closer to the razor's edge and maybe even tread it from time to time. Spartacus, Vincent Van Gogh, Chuck Tatum, Doc Holliday - and Midge Kelly.

Let's get back to Midge. Here's a kid who came up tough - physically and emotionally. His father took a powder when he was a small child. His mother, unable to care for both sons, sent Midge to the orphanage and kept the Connie at home. Midge grew up abandoned and institutionalized. When he reached adulthood he did what every other young man did: he fought the war - and eventually returned home to what? A loving family? What could he possibly owe to them or anyone else? Midge had been dumped on all of his life. He'd been rolled, robbed, cheated, chastised, taken for granted, and swindled. How was he expected to treat others? Still, Midge took on the thankless role of provider for his mother and brother, and bore them no grudge. Sure, he stepped on people along the way, but didn't he get stepped on first? Didn't he just treat people as life taught him to treat them? Remember this as well: We are the ones who have a problem with Kelly's behavior, not him. He didn't agonize or feel guilt, didn't beat himself up. He's probably the most upbeat character in the film. He raised himself out of a hellish upbringing through his own grit and force of will to become champion of the world. All he wanted out of life was the respect of other men, which success in the ring offered. Boxing exacts a steep price in exchange for that success, and Midge knew better than those around him that he alone had to pay it.

Who gets hurt? The story places Midge in three romantic entanglements. First with Emma, the waitress who he deserts after being forced to marry. Of the film's three women she's the most innocent and most deserving of happiness. She eventually finds it - though with Connie, who pined for her since they first met. Although she gave herself to Midge she knew he didn't love her. Her mistake with him caused much short-term distress, but it was through him that she met Connie and eventually found what she was looking for. Midge's second woman was the aptly named Grace Diamond (Marilyn Maxwell), a good-time girl who treats fighters like Kleenex. She is an opportunistic user who meets her match in Kelly. The idea that he could wound someone who herself is so despicable is silly. His final girlfriend is Palmer Harris (Lola Albright), the naïve, spoiled, and slumming wife of Kelly's fight promoter. Their romance is brief, and ends when Kelly barters their relationship for a bigger percentage of the gate. Undoubtedly one of his more cold-blooded choices, but it bears repeating Midge is poorly equipped to make a woman happy, especially not one already married. Quite frankly, Midge is a pig when it comes to women and he never tries to hide it. All the women in the story are well rid of him, and none were so far gone as to suffer enduring harm.

That leaves the brother and the trainer. Arthur Kennedy's Connie is the sympathetic conscience of the film. And while he seems perpetually exasperated with his brother, he displays little gratitude for the one who paid his ticket, and shows even less guilt for having not been sent to the orphanage. Hell, Connie survives the film and gets the girl - what does he have to grouse about? As for the trainer, Tommy Haley is the only guy in the picture who knows the score all along. He knows that he'll be dropped when the bigger purses come, yet still returns to train Midge for his climactic title defense. As he says time and again, "I can't keep away from it, I like to watch a good boy in action." The idea of a fighter leaving one trainer for another happens as often on screen as it does in real life. It's a cliché in both worlds. It's important to realize that both Connie and Tommy want Midge to take the dive, they want him to cheat. Champion is a noir film in which none of the characters come away clean.

If the movie has a flaw it's that it doesn't fully depict the harsh realities of the prizefighter's life. The fight scenes themselves are beautifully photographed, but the story's preoccupation with the crooked aspects of the sport doesn't do justice to the extraordinary talent and effort required of fighters. The film features a Rocky-esque training sequence, but the tone is surprisingly comic. In Champion the victories and accolades seem to come quickly and easily to Midge, while in reality the achievement of a world's championship, or even a spot on the undercard of a championship bout, was a pipe dream for most pugs. Take for instance the story of Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. The real-life LaMotta is somewhat similar to the fictional Midge Kelly (though LaMotta really did throw his fight), a not-so-nice guy whose exploits were credited more to the ferocity of his will than to his talent. Yet for all LaMotta's grit and tenacity, it still wasn't enough to exceed Sugar Ray. To achieve at such a level required a man of extraordinary talent and will - especially in those days when boxing was king. Champion's failure to give boxing its due damages Midge in the eyes of the audience. It's hard to generate sympathy for a character when we aren't fully aware of what he must endure.

Douglas is miraculous in his final scene. Bloody and victorious, having returned to his dressing room after ferociously pummeling Dunne, he leers and gesticulates at the camera, his battered face a desperate reflection of his maimed but resilient soul. Kelly's life comes full circle with his defeat of the man who opened the door to a life in the ring - a dichotomous life that offered not only the illusory pleasures of fame, fortune, and women; but more importantly the respect and legacy Midge craved. Cinematic convention keeps us expecting that he'll see the light and turn a Scrooge-like corner at the end, yet he never does. His refusal to compromise or live on anything but his own terms is a worthy valediction, and imbues his life with a strange and unexpected integrity. It also makes him an iconic hero of film noir. It's fitting that Midge's should die after he wins the final fight; he has nothing in the world left to prove. We can see as plainly in Champion as in Raging Bull that some men are not meant to suffer old age.

Written by The Professor

Without Warning (1951)

2009-11-22T10:37:00.013-05:00

“In the annals of crime of any great city, there is always one case that for sheer savagery will never be forgotten. No professional criminal could ever match its fury, for it is the record of murder without reason, of fear and of terror of a killer who strikes without warning.”

So begins the story of the garden shear wielding love-killer, at large in 1951 Los Angeles, who has a murderous penchant for blondes.

Originally released through United Artists, on DVD by Dark Sky Filmsas part of their “lost noir” series, directed by Arnold Laven, this is a little-known gem that I find unique for many reasons, which I will be discussing below.

Opening outside a motel with blaring jazz music, the police are investigating the murder of a lovely blonde who was killed by a large pair of gardening shears. It is determined that the woman was in her twenties and married, although her husband is clearly not in the picture. As the cops probe the scene, our love-killer, boyish gardener Carl Martin (Adam Williams, North By Northwest), collapses into bed, awakening the next day to head to a local gardening supply store, where he spots the owner’s comely daughter Jane (Meg Randall) who is helping out her dad while her husband is overseas. (And let me just add, there is a little girl, Carmencita, who has the tendency to show up in some of the most inopportune moments for Carl). The police, meanwhile, think that the latest murder is linked to one a month earlier – the similarities are striking. While the authorities do everything and anything they can to stop and identify the murderer (including having pretty blonde decoys accompanied by plainclothed cops in an attempt to lure the psycho into a trap, studying torn fabric from the suit he was wearing at the time of the motel killing), Martin is still able to claim two more victims, but not before the police psychiatrist makes his diagnosis. The love-killer is a less than confidant guy who fell head over heels in love with, and married a woman (you guessed it, a blonde) who left him high and dry for another man. So the women he chooses as victims are prototypes of his ex-wife. Blonde, attractive, married but estranged from their husbands for whatever reason. He was unable to punish his wife so instead he punishes other women. Although Martin does pick up one of the decoys, while driving to an out of the way place, he notices that they're being followed and promptly drops her off - alive - but not before delivering a quick little speech regarding morals. It seems that he may be cunning enough at times to stay one step ahead of the law, but he's bound to be found out or exposed - it's just a question of when and how. By the time the detectives discover Martin’s identity and that he is a gardener by profession, it may be too late for Jane, who finds herself alone with Carl as his murderous rage is about to explode – again.

Adam Williams spent most of his career in television, and I can’t help but think that had he had more film roles, if his portrayal here is any indication, he may have become a star in the Richard Widmark mold. His smile could go from sweet to chilling within seconds, his demeanor and facial expression drastically change just by spotting a gal with blonde tresses or noticing any trace that could lead to his capture. When Carl searches for prey in shady nightclubs, or when he stalks Jane, you can feel his eyes on his targets. When he finally tells Jane that she reminds him of his wife, she (and the viewers) know that it's not a term of endearment. You don't know what will set him off, and that makes for on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense.

Without Warning is also a very interesting viewing experience because it introduces some investigative techniques that have become much more prevalent and advanced in recent years – analyzing crime scenes, fabric fibers, cigarette butts, soil and criminal profiling. While not exactly what you’d see on CSI today, the determining of the type of suit the perpetrator was wearing and what motivates him to commit his crimes makes this early 50s noir a cut above the rest that I’ve seen. Also, Martin seems to get a perverse kick out of reading about his savage mayhem in the papers, and along with his clean-cut, seemingly “normal” exterior his inner rage simmers, his murderous intent could explode suddenly or could have him meticulously planning his next move. I couldn’t help but think of Ted Bundy in that respect – Martin, like Bundy, seems on the surface to be last person you’d suspect to be capable of such savage killings.

Of course, I can’t review this film without addressing what critics and fans of the genre have debated – whether Without Warning should be considered film noir or not. And I’m going to answer that as honestly as I can – yes and no. At times, it seems that the movie can’t decide what it wants to be – a noir, a detective story, or a documentary-style thriller. It has very strong elements of all three, but I do think that it does earn the title of noir, even if it is missing some of the better known ingredients (femme fatales, hard-boiled detectives), and only a handful of scenes take place at night – which is usually considered a noir staple. The rest of the action (including a dramatic chase as Martin evades police after claiming his third victim, and the climax) takes place in broad daylight. The police detectives, while dedicated to their jobs, seem to be rather average Joes apart from it and there is no insight into their personal lives. Even Martin’s primary target, Jane, is a regular gal who just wants to help out her father and innocently bide her time until her husband returns. However I suppose it doesn’t matter that Jane is not a two-timing dame, because all attractive blondes of that age are the same in Carl Martin’s eyes. The narration is on hand pretty much throughout, giving the story an air of realism.

The DVD transfer looks very good, crisp and clear for the most part, although one of the night time sequences shows some specks in the top corners. English subtitles are provided on the disc menu along with a photo gallery of lobby cards. The cover art (taken from one of the original posters) and the synopsis on the reverse side of the case made me think of the detective magazines of the era (which I was lucky enough to find in flea markets and/or second-hand stores).

In conclusion, Dark Sky films did an excellent job in restoring and making this “lost noir” available. Check it out if you can.

Written by NoirDame

Riffraff (1947)

2009-11-15T16:35:00.014-05:00

There's an intimidating number of books written about classic film noir. One of the most underrated is Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir. Arthur Lyons lists only B-movies – skipping over major-studio classics like Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon and others. He concentrates on mostly forgotten, low-budget films. Over the past few years I have managed to dig up copies of most of the movies written about in the book. Many of these cheapies are probably best forgotten by all but the most serious noir completest. Others are absolute gems. One of Lyon's picks in the book stood out. Riffraff.

"… This all-around entertaining film has … exceptional cinematography. In the first five minutes of the movie, one of filmdom's absolute classic beginnings, not a word of dialogue is spoken!"

After reading about it I impatiently tracked down a copy of the movie. (it's been released on Laser Disc and VHS in the past) I was blown away by the intense opening dialogue-free 6-and-a-half minutes. Riffraff starts during a middle-of-the-night rainstorm at a small airport. The storm makes Slattery's Hurricane look like a summer day. As the rain drowns out all other sounds, men wait in quiet anticipation for the second of two passengers to arrive. He finally does – clutching a briefcase he's clearly protecting. The drenched pilots board, start the engines, and muscle the prop plane – carrying supplies including live chickens as well as the two men – through thundering clouds heading toward Panama. A man is killed in the most dramatic way possible on a plane slicing through a 3am rain storm. Eddie Muller calls the open “as good as any in noir” and I agree.

After the rainy night opening, director Ted Tetzlaff down-shifts gears. The movie becomes a very familiar detective story. Every 40s-private-detective cliché is used in a story involving a missing map showing the locations of rich oil deposits in South America. A rogues gallery of familiar RKO faces are after the map that was taken off the plane the night of the storm. Private detective Dan Hammer (Pat O'Brien) – donned in a wrinkled white suit, fuzzy panama hat and matching white shoes- is hired by Charles Hasso (Marc Krah) as a body guard. Hammer doesn't know anything about the valuable map and certainly doesn't know Hasso killed a man to steal the document. When Hasso first met Hammer he hides the map in plain sight in Hammer's unlocked dump of an office when Hammer isn't looking. (Lyons' book points out that this is “the old Purloined Letter gag”) Hammer drops Hasso at a local hotel. Only hours later the detective is hired by a second man -shady oil businessman Gredson (Jerome Cowan)- to find Hasso and the map. Before the thrifty Hammer – now playing both sides for the biggest pay out- can return and cash in on his client, Hasso is tracked down by hired killer Eric Molinar (played with spice by Walter Slezak). Hasso is killed and his corpse is found by Hammer in the hotel bath tub. Gredson – not trusting Hammer with the priceless map -- orders his girlfriend Maxine Manning (Anne Jeffreys) to get close to Hammer. The nightclub singer gets too close and the two start up a romance. Molinar- who turns out to be also hired by Gredson who was clearly covering all his bases -sees the value of the map ends up killing his employer and beating Hammer to a pulp. Eventually Hammer comes out on top thanks to the fact that everyone in Panama City knows him and owes the detective favors.

Hammer is helped along the way by his scruffy dog and a loyal taxi driver Pop (Percy Kilbride). These characters and several other light touches makes Riffraff a breezy film noir. One running gag about private dicks wearing ties has a satisfying payoff too. The snappy dialogue – especially when delivered by O'Brien - and some amazing visuals makes Riffraff one fun film.

Pat O'Brien made a name for himself in the 1930s when Warner Bros. were churning out fantastic gangster films. O'Brien was usually second banana to guys like Bogart and John Garfield – and most often and successfully with James Cagney. O'Brien and Cagney appeared in many films together including Angels With Dirty Faces and Cagney's swan song Ragtime in 1981. In the 30s O'Brien was usually seen in movies playing cops, priests, newspaper editors and wardens. O'Brien brought a strong sense of morality and strength to his characters. In the hands of lesser actors his WB characters would probably come across as horribly pious. O'Brien could always be relied on to deliver when playing beneficent men. In 1947 O'Brien was past his prime and certainly an unlikely leading man. O'Brien – balding a looking much older and heavier than Bogart who was born the same year – is charming in Riffraff. He delivers his lines with just a hint of the Irish brogue – which is no doubt part of his charm. It's also surprising to see O'Brien play a bit of a con man so convincingly.

His chemistry with co-star (and almost 25 years his junior) Anne Jeffreys is fun to watch. Alan Rode recently talked to Jeffreys about her role in Riffraff:

“The climatic fight in Pat O'Brien's office took three days to film. Anne Jeffreys told me that she had fun jumping on top of Walter Slezak although that bookcase falling down almost got both of them. She also recalled a wrap party at O'Brien's house where he jumped into the swimming pool and capsized everyone who was riding on a pool raft. She enjoyed making the film and it shows.”

Jeffreys was the long-time wife of veteran actor Robert Sterling. They were probably best know together playing a pair of debonair ghosts in the 1950s sitcom Topper.

Riffraff was Ted Tetzlaff's second picture as director. His first feature -a comedy filmed before WWII - was apparently a stinker. Just a year before making Riffraff Tetzlaff was cameraman for Alfred Hitchcock's classic Notorious. Clearly some of Hitch's style rubbed off on Tetzlaff. Going into Riffraff Tetzlaff had a reputation as a good technician but it was not known if he could make the transition to being a creative and competent movie director. Riffraff proved that he was a capable film helmsman. His background as an exceptional cameraman is apparent too. There are some beautiful black-and-white visual images including some playful shots of Venetian blinds transitioning from one location to another. The drip of bath water leaking from a floor above onto a dead man's signature on an open hotel registry is also clever. The first image in the film is of a brave Texas horny toad perched on a rock just outside a rainy airstrip. Some credit for the unique visuals should probably also go to veteran lensman George E. Diskant who was no stranger to shadowy film noir (Port of New York, Desperate, They Live by Night, The Narrow Margin and so on).

Tetzlaff's best film as director (and best noir) is The Window -filmed the same year as Riffraff's release but held for release for two years by RKO chief Howard Hughes. Tetzlaff gets a decent performance out of wide-eyed child star Bobby Driscoll. However besting all is Tetzlaff's use of Paul Stewart as the creepy villain. The Window– about a boy with an overactive imagination who witnesses a murder but no one believes him – is a wholly original film. Not long after its release Hitchcock made Rear Window similar in plot to The Window. Both films were based on stories by Cornell Woolrich. Was Hitchcock inspired by his former cameraman's film?

Riffraff is a good candidate for the Warner Bros DVD archive. It's a great film noir but it doesn't have any major stars or known talent behind the cameras making it a nearly forgotten film. If you see Riffraff playing at a film festival or on late night TV do yourself a favor and catch it.

Note: Noir fans probably wonder if Dan Hammer has any connection to the eerily similar Mickey Spillane detective Mike Hammer. Riffraff was released in the summer of '47, the same year the first Mike Hammer book I, The Jury was published.

Also, the movie posters for the film calls the movie Riff-Raff... but it's one word in the movie's opening credits.

Written by Steve-O

Romeo Is Bleeding (1993)

2009-11-08T09:38:00.015-05:00

Hell is the Choices We Make

“You ever wonder what hell is like?
Maybe it ain’t the place you think.
Fire and brimstone?
Devils with horns poking you in the butt with a pitchfork?
What’s hell?
The time you should’ve walked…but you didn’t.
That’s hell.
You’re looking at it.”

How right Al Capone was when he said, “Once corrupted always controlled,” and this maxim comes into play in the marvelous 1993 neo-noir film, Romeo Is Bleeding. The film is from director Peter Medak who created the phenomenal film The Krays (1990), the true story of the infamous Kray twins, who ruled London’s East End crime world until things spiraled out of control. Medak also directed Let Him Have It (1991), the back drop story of Derek Bentley who was executed in 1953. Both The Krays and Let Him Have It are examinations of British crime viewed through a working-class point-of-view. While at first glance, Romeo Is Bleeding may seem quite different from The Krays and Let Him Have It, it’s a portrait of a working-class egoist who becomes trapped in a web of corruption and sex through his lust for wealth.

Romeo Is Bleeding is a frame story, and the film opens with a character named Jim Dougherty (Gary Oldman). It’s May 1st and Jim sits alone in the Holiday Diner, a café stuck out in the middle of the Arizona desert, and he reminisces through a photo album about “a guy” named Jack Grimaldi. The film then flashes back to the past and the life of its New York protagonist, a cocky, corrupt police sergeant named Jack (Gary Oldman):

“Jack was a romantic guy. Big dreams. Problem was there was always a little daylight between his dreams and his wallet. He was a working stiff. 56 Grand a year and never made it past sergeant.”

Using a strong narrative voice-over, the script written by Hilary Henkin, shows that Jack’s problems stem from exposure to the lavish sex-soaked world of gangsters. These are men with expensive tastes who wear designer suits, live in palm-tree lined estates, and sport with beautiful women. Jack envies these men and the lives they lead, and as he watches the orgies between middle-aged, grey-haired gangsters and gorgeous, scantily clad women, Jack thinks he deserves that kind of life too. After all, he reasons, what do these men have “that old Jack ain’t got?” The voice-over makes the point that while most men would stop at envy, Jack goes beyond that: “Inside he wasn’t like anybody. He was doing something about those big dreams.” And when the film begins, Jack isn’t on the slippery moral slope-- he’s thoroughly corrupted.

A sense of admiration radiates towards Jack from his fellow cops, and they’ve nicknamed him Romeo. He regales them with tales of his latest conquests with a deadpan, self-assured manner that generates more than a little envy. One of the cops asks: “How come nobody loves me like that?” and Jack’s sarcastic reply underscores his notions of superiority. But Jack’s private life is overly complicated, and it’s about to become impossible. Not only is he terminally unfaithful to his sexy, beautiful wife, Natalie (Annabella Sciorra), but his simple-minded, pathetically eager-to-please mistress, waitress Sheri (Juliette Lewis) is trying to pressure Jack for more than a quick grope. Sheri is in love with Jack, but she’s wasting her time. Someone should have told her that Jack’s biggest love affair is with himself. Jack thinks he’s really something--from his back street affairs, his joking with the boys, to the way he’s on the payroll of local heavy, Sal (Michael Wincott), trusted henchman of mobster, Don Falcone (Roy Scheider).

Jack’s problems begin when he informs Sal of the whereabouts of Nick Gazzara (Dennis Farina). Nick, safely stashed and busy stuffing his face at the Monte Carlo Hotel, is about to sing for the feds about Don Falcone in exchange for immunity and a new identity in the witness protection program. Jack’s job is simple; he tells Sal where Nick is and is then amply compensated for his trouble: “a quarter goes into a phone booth and 65 grand comes out.” To Jack, it’s all about “feeding the hole” in the back garden where he keeps his payola from the mob. But this time the hit against Gazzara is carried out by “that Russian bitch” Mona Demarkov (the gorgeous, gravel-voiced Lena Olin), a woman who “don’t give a fuck about nothing.” According to Sal, Demarkov is “very modern” and “she wants it all. You know the kind.” Demarkov is now in custody for the hit on Gazzara, and that makes her a liability. Sal offers Jack his usual 65 G to inform on Demarkov’s location…

The film establishes that Jack has two vulnerabilities--women and money--although just which vice is number one to Jack can be argued. But while he has a healthy respect for money and the things it can buy, Jack sees women as brainless playthings to be toyed with and then discarded. Some women go along with that attitude, and some women don’t. Sheri for example, works hard at brainstorming sex fantasies for Jack’s self-centered needs--dancing, stripping, a little B&D--all interspersed with plaintive, disappointed, and tired questions, such as “is it hard yet, baby?” The plot cleverly juxtaposes the lavish sex fantasies of the rich with Jack’s working class version--an overworked waitress pretending to be a lusty Budweiser girl during her coffee break.

Jack accepts all of Sheri’s efforts with an air of boredom and entitlement, and while he’s moderately nicer to his wife, Natalie, there are dangerous undercurrents in their trivial conversations. In one scene, Jack arrives home (late as usual), to dinner and a bottle of wine sitting on the table. He bitches about the meal mumbling that he wishes she’d stop reading those cooking magazines and ending with, “whatever happened to meat and potatoes?” And this is, of course, a dangerous leading question that Natalie zones in on as she edgily replies: “I don’t know Jack, you tell me?”

Jack’s love affair with himself allows him to operate in the grime and the double cross with the idea that he’ll come out ahead because he’s surrounded by idiots. While this may be true in the case of Sheri, it isn’t true about the other women in his life, and when he becomes involved with Mona Demarkov, “he wondered how smart she was.” He should have stuck with that thought, because against Demarkov, Jack is wildly outclassed. Not only is Mona Demarkov extremely intelligent, she’s a lethal, irresistible combination of Jack’s two vices: money and sex. When the amazingly sexy Demarkov makes her moves on Jack, it’s impossible to say whether he’s ultimately seduced by a case full of money or her garter belt. Since Demarkov drapes herself half-dressed over the money, she knows quite well that Jack cannot resist the double lure--and predictably Jack is mesmerized by the sight of the greenbacks and her black lace stockings.

Since Jack lacks a moral core, he isn’t capable of making a decision based on morality, and as an egoist, Jack is only concerned with his own self-interest. Falcone, like Demarkov, understands Jack and makes the point: “You know right from wrong. You just don’t care.” And Falcone’s assessment of Jack is dead right. Jack makes his decisions based on what he thinks is best for Jack, and unfortunately, he interprets that to feeding his self-interest with women and money. Of course with that operating principle it’s just a matter of time before Jack lands so deep in the muck, he can’t climb back out. As the story continues and Jack switches employers, he fails to see the warning signs, underestimates his enemies, and fails to ask himself the appropriate questions.

Jack gradually slips from his power spot as corrupt cop, unfaithful husband, and much-envied Romeo. His physical deterioration parallels his loss of power and control. Whereas in the beginning of the film the males appear to hold the power roles (Sal, Jack and Falcone), with the females trapped in the roles assigned to them, the appearance of Demarkov subverts male dominance. The script hints that Falcone and Demarkov were once romantically involved, and of course, it’s impossible to imagine Demarkov in any sort of relationship--let alone one with a male as the power broker. Once Demarkov is unleashed, and Jack begins to lose control, all the other female roles shift in an unspoken revolt of sorts. Sheri takes a stand (or tries to), and Natalie, the long–suffering wife has some surprises of her own.

In classic noir, women are usually seen as trapped in the roles assigned to them by the males in their lives, and of course then bored and sexually frustrated, women turn to seduction and enroll men as muscle in the plan for murder (Too Late for Tears, Double Indemnity). Sheri and Natalie accept the roles assigned to them by Jack--not that they are happy about it, but they continue to function in relationships in which they exist solely to keep Jack fed, pleasured and in clean laundry. Sheri, in spite of being cast as the floozy girlfriend, isn’t the femme fatale. Instead she’s just seen as another one of Jack’s sad little victims, shoved into an unsatisfying role. Romeo Is Bleeding offers an updated femme fatale in Dermarkov--an intelligent psychopath, a lone she-wolf, who prefers to do her own killing. Jack’s wife, Natalie is also intelligent--far more intelligent than Jack realizes. Jack’s pathetic double-life as a Lothario was never as secret as he imagined, but he was too busy admiring himself to stop and wonder what went on in her head. While Natalie is supportive, faithful and fairly docile up to a point, her subsequent actions counterbalance Demarkov’s extraordinary violence and explosive power-grab.

Romeo Is Bleeding is non-stop neo-noir action complete with flash-forwards and a nightmare sequence. It’s a morality tale of sorts--a man who had everything--except it wasn’t enough, ends up with exactly what he deserves. By the end of the film, in a conclusion that echoes shades of Sartre’s No Exit, Jack is left to rot in a living hell full of memories. Stuck at the Holiday Diner--the planned destination for Nick Gazzara, he’s “better off dead.” The voice-over, sometimes a belated conscience and sometimes a vehicle of regret, makes the point that “A man don’t always do what’s best for him.” And in Romeo Is Bleeding’s character-is-fate scenario could Jack have done anything differently?

Written by Guy Savage

Fallen Angel (1945)

2009-10-31T14:33:00.016-05:00

Alice Faye Noir and Brooding Darnell as Femme Fatale

The 1945 film noir drama Fallen Angel was seen by Twentieth-Century Fox’s boss Darryl F. Zanuck as an opportunity to show a new Alice Faye as a transformation to dramatic star from her hugely successful previous career as the studio’s premiere leading lady of musicals.

Alice Faye’s meteoric rise to stardom beginning as a Great Depression is the stuff of which inspiration is generated. Young Alice Leppert, daughter of a New York City policeman, used her smooth, mellow voice to become a network singing sensation before Twentieth Century-Fox came calling and cinema stardom along with it.

A big assist for Faye becoming a great international superstar goes to the first American crooner, Rudy Vallee, for giving the blonde actress her major show business break. Author and former actor Robert Kendall, a friend of Faye’s for years, described the important Vallee link and what it meant to her.

“Alice’s career began as a chorus girl in the Broadway production of ‘George White’s Scandals,’” Kendall explained. “At a cast party when the show closed Alice chanced to make a recording of the song ’Mimi’ just for fun. Rudy Vallee heard her sing that number.”

Vallee was slated for an engagement at a Cleveland Hotel. He invited her to accompany him. Vallee wanted to see how she would be received by a nightclub audience.

“When Alice sang the audience responded with thunderous applause,” Kendall related. “It was then that Vallee knew that Alice Faye was star material.”

Vallee was then star of The Fleischmann Hour, a popular network radio show. It was his practice to introduce talent discoveries. One was Kate Smith. Another, ironically enough, was the man who would eventually become Alice Faye’s husband, Phil Harris. He introduced Alice with huge audience reaction the result.

When Vallee was called by Fox to come to Hollywood to film George White’s Scandals (1934) as Faye starred alongside the crooner and comedian Jimmy Durante. She became a rarity in two respects, starring in her first film effort and doing it while still in her teens.

The thirties and forties achieved major results for Darryl F. Zanuck at Fox with Alice Faye becoming the number one female star on the lot. Musicals were her forte as she appeared alongside Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and John Payne in such major hits as In Old Chicago (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Rose of Washington Square (1939), Tin Pan Alley (1940), That Night in Rio (1941), Week-end in Havana (1941), and Hello Frisco, Hello (1943).

With Faye films raking in solid profits Zanuck pushed his star full throttle into a whirlwind pace. When asked about the surge of activity Faye delivered her friendly laugh and exclaimed, “They didn’t call it Twentieth Penitentiary Fox for nothing.”

Conversion to Drama and Film Noir

At the age of 29, at a time when Faye had introduced more hit songs into films than anyone before or after her, Zanuck decided to move her into a more concentrated dramatic role. She diligently rehearsed one song, which was to be her lone musical contribution to the film, and therein a controversy surfaced that has not diminished speculation better than six decades later.

Arthur Nicholson, who until his recent death was president of the British based Alice Faye Appreciation Society, revealed that she was supposed to sing the hit tune “Slowly” in a beach scene with leading man Dana Andrews.

“The idea was to have Alice sing the song with Andrews and for the popular male vocalist of the forties Dick Haymes to be heard singing it from a jukebox,” Nicholson explained. “The reason is that the film’s other female star, Linda Darnell, wanted to listen to ’Slowly’ on the jukebox and it was her favorite song. This furnished a contrast since Linda and Alice were the two women in Dana Andrews’ life.”

After Faye had worked diligently on the song it was decided by Zanuck and director Otto Preminger to eliminate her rendering of “Slowly.” The reason generally given for the decision was that, given Faye’s full-fledged introduction into straight drama, it would be better not to remind audiences of her musical star status. The decision upset Faye to the point that it is given as at least part of the reason why she retired from films after Fallen Angel and did not return until almost two decades later when she starred with Tom Ewell, Pat Boone, and Pamela Tiffin in the 1962 Fox release State Fair.

Strong Supporting Woman, Femme Fatale of Sorts

Dana Andrews begins Fallen Angel as a drifting con man seeking to chisel a dollar whenever and wherever he can. The first scene finds him being caught by a bus driver pretending to be asleep so he can ride beyond the price of his ticket to San Francisco.

In the novel by Marty Holland the character Andrew plays, Eric Stanton, is forcibly evicted by the driver. In the film the driver gives him a gesture reminiscent of an umpire tossing an arguing manager from a game, and so fate connects fast buck artist Stanton with the small town of Walton, located a hundred miles south of San Francisco.

Andrews’ Eric Stanton needs fast money. His agile brain connects him to fellow con artist John Carradine, who is a circuit traveler claiming to connect love ones to the dead. Andrews performs with such public relations gusto that, after he fills the local auditorium for Carradine, he is offered a regular job traveling the circuit with him.

Under other circumstances Andrews might have accepted as Carradine clearly admires his talents and the prospect of some impressive money looms in the future, but by then he has set his sights on a local woman with a contingent of local admirers. The object of Andrews’ fascination is dark-haired, voluptuous, and tough as nails Linda Darnell.

Darnell works as a waitress at the local restaurant run by Pop, played by Percy Kilbride, who would in the fifties click big opposite Marjorie Main in the successful Ma and Pa Kettle series from Universal. Pop has a crush on the younger woman as does another regular patron, a former New York City police detective played by Charles Bickford, who has come to California allegedly to improve his health. Meanwhile Darnell is also seen dating traveling salesman Bruce Cabot.

Andrews experiences Darnell’s toughness in his first visit to Pop’s restaurant. The gentle and accommodating Kilbride tells new man in town that he does not have to pay for his coffee. Darnell tartly demurs, telling her boss that he had provided a coffee for the town’s new visitor and that he should have to pay for it.

Far from being repulsed by Darnell’s toughness, Andrews is instead instantly smitten. He feels a camaraderie. She is, like him, someone from the wrong side of the tracks and he can relate to her, which means that Darnell has picked up one more male admirer in Walton, and this one is determined to proceed to great length to win her over.

Alice Faye emerges as a designated financial pigeon for Andrews. Her deceased father has left his two daughters financially secure, Alice and older sister Anne Revere. A far more skeptical Revere is dubious about Andrews’ motivation when he begins dating her sister.

The wily Revere has every reason to be skeptical. Tough girl Darnell, after telling Andrews about her impoverished youth in San Diego, delivers an ultimatum. She wants marriage to a man of means, not a drifter who will move her from town to town. Andrews will either obtain sufficient funds to keep her in style or she will have nothing to do with him. She had earlier coldly abandoned Bruce Cabot for not measuring up to her expectations.

A dramatic contrast is established between two women, a gentle trusting soul in Alice Faye not about to give her heart without purposeful sincerity and a tough opportunist in Linda Darnell. When Faye begins seeing a good side in Andrews that he at one point tells her does not exist, she assumes the role of the strong supporting woman, determined to convince him to see a side of him that she knows ultimately exists.

Faye’s character is reminiscent of Jane Wyman in another 1945 release, The Lost Weekend. Wyman is certain that a man of purpose and meaning exists beyond the alcoholic fate into which Ray Milland has fallen. Faye sees similar good in the drifting con artist, look after oneself Andrews. They both see different men beyond those that people of lesser vision and patience observe, including, ironically enough, the men themselves.

Faye fits into the classic definition of the strong supporting woman of film noir, but what about Darnell? Can she be classified as a femme fatale? She is definitely tough, uncompromising, and selfish. Darnell feels no compassion for Faye after learning that Andrews’ game plan revolves around a brief sham marriage to grab her money.

If Darnell is a femme fatale then it is one without the noticeable deadly sociopath’s demeanor of classic noir leading ladies Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity and Jane Greer in Out of the Past. Murder is an intrinsic part of doing business to Stanwyck and Greer. Tough Darnell could therefore be called a femme fatale with qualification. She is a femme fatale of sorts.

Darnell Killed, Andrews a Prime Suspect

Andrews was seen and heard arguing with Darnell the very night that she was killed. He is fingered as a murder suspect by former New York City detective Charles Bickford, who was called upon by local Walton police authorities to take charge of the investigation.

While in San Francisco with Faye, Andrews is convinced that he needs to continue his traveling ways, telling his wife about his long pattern of scruples deficiency.

At that point Faye’s inner strength and persuasiveness rises to the fore as she convinces Andrews that just because he has experienced tough times in the past is no reason that he cannot improve his character. She convinces him that continuing to run will only bury him in a deeper mire, asserting that he needs to go back to Walton and clear himself.

Andrews is very shrewd. It is just that previously his intelligence had been put to negative rather than positive results.

When he begins his own investigation he discovers that Bickford is anything but the former upstanding police officer he represented himself to be. He ties Bickford’s past record to his permanent fixture status at Pop’s Restaurant and his shared zeal with Stella to play her favorite song “Slowly” on the jukebox.

Fallen Angel is a noir gem with characters sharply delineated by Marty Holland in the novel and Harry Kleiner with his screen adaptation. As was the case in her famous musical roles opposite Tyrone Power, Don Ameche, and John Payne, her quiet strength propels Dana Andrews in the right direction.

Written by Bill Hare

Editor's note: Bill has a new book about Film Noir coming out very soon!

Suspense (1946)

2009-10-25T19:22:00.020-05:00

1946 was a big year for film noir. Two years earlier Double Indemnity was a smash. The-yet-to-be named film-noir style was the rage in Hollywood. All American movie studios scrambled to put out the next big Cain-like crime thriller. After the '46 release of the classic noirs The Postman Always Rings Twice and Gilda came Monogram's biggest budgeted film, Suspense.

Suspense – with a storyline that's almost exactly like Gilda released a month before – was put together by the King Brothers after their huge success Dillinger with Laurence Tierney a year before. Monogram was one of the Poverty Row movie companies. Monogram films always looked cheap. Even good films like Decoy and The Guilty are a challenge to appreciate when many of the actors are unprofessional and the sets appear to be ready to fall down. Only Suspense would be different. The notoriously thrifty King Bros. threw a million into the project. They hired This Gun For Hire director Frank Tuttle to helm the project. The solid and unique sets were constructed - instead of reusing old ones. The legendary Karl Struss was brought on as the cinematographer and the writer of Dillinger – just nominated for an Oscar for the work – Philip Yordan worked on the script. Yordan (one of the great noir writers - penning many thrillers including The Harder They Fall and The Chase) was nominated again for an Oscar later in his career for the yawner Detective Story - but The Big Combo in 1955 would be his best noir work.

Barry Sullivan was hired in his first leading role and young figure skater Belita was brought in as the female lead. Did I mention Suspense is a figure-skating film-noir hybrid?

The story is pure film noir

Joe Morgan (Sullivan) – looking like a street bum- stumbles into town and cons his way into a job. After a shave he become a peanut vendor for Frank Leonard's ice skating night club. Joe moves up quickly and is soon managing the place while Frank is out of town. He also comes up with a very dangerous skating routine for Frank's much-younger wife Roberta (Belita). Joe starts making the moves on Roberta and soon they're having an affair. When Frank takes Roberta away for a romantic getaway Joe finds an excuse to drive up to the snowed-in cabin and invite himself over for the weekend – much to the annoyance of Frank. While Joe watches the beauty queen practice her routine on a frozen pond the next day, jealous Frank tries to shoot his rival with a big-game gun. Unfortunately an avalanche kills him before he can kill Joe. Or did it? With Frank gone Joe is now clear to pursue Roberta. However, complications make things tough for him. His ex-girlfriend shows up (Bonita Granville) and she's crazy-obsessed with him. Meanwhile Roberta is convinced that her husband is still alive and stalking her. The unexpected twists that follow puts Suspense firmly in the film noir category.

Not a total success

Suspense isn't a classic film noir for several reasons. Even with all the talent hired for the film Tuttle did not have a great story to work with – unlike This Gun For Hire based on the Graham Greene book. However, the dialog is snappy and the film looks great. Karl Struss isn't known as a film noir lensman (although he did do the handsome Journey Into Fear with Orson Welles) which is a shame because his work here is fantastic to look at. I would have liked to see more noir from him. His best work is one that probably influenced all noirs during the classic period – 1927's Sunrise. Struss uses shadows to great effect in Suspense.

A few of the standout moments in Suspense include a trip to the zoo that looks like it was cut straight from Cat People; Belita jumping through jagged swords; and a scene in the woods (the set designers create a cozy atmosphere in the cabin then the camera peals back to reveal a crazy ornate spiral staircase going up to the bedroom. Every set and backdrop in the film look surreal.)

The actors

Barry Sullivan is good in the lead role but he was just not a leading man. Sullivan found much more success as a second banana in films like The Bad and the Beautiful.

Sullivan is just about forgotten today. Even his later roles on TV he is unrecognizable. He never became a star he probably hoped he would after Suspense but he was a reliable film supporting actor until his retirement in the early 80s. Some of his noir roles that followed were interesting. Jeopardy with Barbara Stanwyck, No Questions Asked and Loophole are all worth watching.

Belita – who's unique bio is featured this month at the Film Noir Foundation – wasn't the greatest actress but the camera loved her and she looked like a movie star. She seemed to only show any range of emotions when she was skating.

The skating numbers are a bit of a problem as well. They look great – in a strange Salvador Dalí-like way. How many figure skating acts feature the female lead smoking? As corny as the first skating number is I found it sleazy – and somewhat entertaining. However, whenever subsequent numbers popped up in the film the story comes to a screeching halt. Belita would star again with Sullivan in The Gangster a year later – without her skates. When she died in 2005 obituaries mentioned mainly her skating career (Belita did represent England at the 1936 Olympic games at the age of 12) but mostly ignored her acting. She only made a handful of films but today – looking back- she's seen as one of the queens of noir thanks to potboilers Suspense, The Gangster, and The Hunted. I have to say she successfully mimicked an American accent perfectly in her films.

Albert Dekker plays Roberta's husband. He's most famous for playing Burt Lancaster's rival in The Killers released only a few months later in '46. Dekker is basically George Macready in Gilda. (Deckker's death in the film Suspense can't top how the actor died in real life as Bill Hare notes in his review of The Killers.) Dekker is also in the classic Mike Hammer film Kiss Me Deadly.

Bonita Granville is excellent (maybe the best performance in the film) as Joe's ex. Granville became famous for playing teenage Nancy Drew in the 1930s. As she grew up she tried to shake that good-girl routine in Monogram thrillers like Suspense and The Guilty. Later she would have her greatest success as a Television producer with her producing partner and husband.

Joe's beefy mentor Harry is played by Eugene Pallette. Pallette is familiar character – and voice- in classic films. Suspense would be Pallette's last film.

Frank Tuttle

After Suspense, film directing veteran Tuttle would continue to work regularly in and out of Hollywood – many times getting projects based on the reputation of the classic This Gun for Hire. Some of Tuttle's later films are excellent action thrillers – even if they are as rare as Suspense. A Cry in the Night, Gunman in the Streets and (re-teaming with Alan Ladd – in color!) Hell on Frisco Bay are three standout films.

Not Top Shelf but enjoyable

There's a lot to like in Suspense. In the past the film - despite being a box office success in its day - was only seen by noir collectors trading copies of the film or at film noir festivals. Now that it's available on DVD (through the Warner Bros. Archive) it will no doubt find a larger - and possibly cult- audience. Just don't expect it to be a top-shelf noir and you'll enjoy yourself. Suspense isn't suspenseful but the tale told on cold hard water is a fun watch.

Written by Steve-O

Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)

2009-10-18T20:28:00.008-05:00

“You worked a whole day just to dance a minute at Dreamland?”

“It was worth it.”

Woody Allen’s most sentimental gesture comes at the end of The Purple Rose of Cairo, when Mia Farrow, kicked around by men and by life, finds joy in the fleeting images of Fred and Ginger dancing across the screen. In that moment, so wonderfully free of dialogue, Allen speaks directly to the audience more poignantly than in all the times he ever tossed witticisms through the fourth wall. For me Tomorrow Is Another Day, a film noir light on crime and laden with emotion, recalls that moment at the end of Allen’s film. There has been little written about this astonishing movie, and what there is criticizes the ending as too upbeat and “studio” to be taken seriously. I disagree. Like Mia’s Cecilia I find in movies entertainment and escapism; and like her I live vicariously through the characters, imagining myself in similar situations. That’s my personal attraction to film noir — watching flawed people in trouble try to get out from under, and hoping they’ll make it. There’s something so desperately American in that notion that it stands to reason the best film noirs (and Westerns) were made in that brief period after the war when America quite possibly stood its tallest. If movies can teach us about redemption there’s no better model than the morality plays of film noir.

Tomorrow Is Another Day is an intelligent, very well acted film that explores paths to redemption — whether or not change is possible, if people are damned by their pasts, if grace even exists. It’s a movie about two troubled souls who somehow save one another. The first is Bill Lewis (Steve Cochran), who at thirteen shot his father and went to prison. Bill is a unique noir hero — he shot an abusive drunk in order to protect his mother, leaving his soul free of stain but suffering from a severe case of arrested development. Cochran is a surprise — what he lacks in physical expressiveness he makes up for through a deep understanding of character. There’s a moment in the opening scene, when Bill meets with the warden prior to his release, where this comes through loud and clear. Bill is nervous, fidgety — swimming in a prison-issue suit. Though the warden is supportive, Bill’s got eighteen year’s worth of chips on his shoulder. When scolded to make good choices lest he end up back behind bars, Bill responds, “Nobody’ll ever put me in a stinkin’ cage again.” This is where Cochran shines — although trying to sound tough Bill can’t make eye contact with the older man — and pauses before summoning the guts to add the word “stinkin’.” Cochran understands that even though Bill is now a “free,” he remains a kid in a man’s body, mad at the world for punishing a guiltless crime, equally terrified of returning to prison and of being set free. Bill’s standoffishness springs from his inability to grasp that the older man, an authority / father figure, may actually care for him. Cochran nails the part — Bill reenters society with a bitter heart and hardly more maturity than when he left it.

The film convincingly depicts the first moments of freedom for such a man-child. Bill’s age is incalculably significant — in spending his formative years behind bars he missed out on the life experiences that turn boys into men, including the one in particular that defined his generation. No only has Bill not kissed a girl; he’s never even spoken to one. He missed the vital school-age interactions that we take for granted, instead spending those years with hardened criminals. He’s never driven a car, voted, or taken a drink. He has no friends, and with a prison record instead of a war record, he has little in common with men his age. We see Bill’s first walk on the streets of his hometown through the eyes of a newshound who shadows him. He’s drawn first to automobiles — he can’t help but lean into a convertible and test the buttons and knobs. Then he notices a woman and does a quick one-eighty, falling into lockstep behind her. Again Cochran’s portrayal rings true. When she pauses to meet a friend Bill thrusts into her personal space, studying her as if she were a sculpture. She nervously flees and Bill skulks into a hamburger joint, where he does what any kid would do: he orders not one, but three pieces of pie, as well as his very first beer. It’s here that the reporter introduces himself. Although he doesn’t reveal his intentions, he admits making Bill as a jailbird and draws him into conversation. The following day Bill is furious to see his mug splashed across the front page, and he departs for the anonymity of New York City.

In Manhattan we encounter the film’s other main character, peroxide blonde dime-a-dance girl Cay Higgins (Ruth Roman). Although Cay’s job as a taxi dancer at Dreamland is meant to suggest that she’s really a prostitute, I’ve long been fascinated by this precursor to the burlesque club and choose to interpret the scenario at face value. The taxi dance craze swept America between the wars and dance halls sprang up from coast to coast. Patrons bought a ticket for a dime, which entitled them to one dance with the hostess of their choice. The system was mutually beneficial: in keeping a nickel on each ticket, a girl could do well — provided she was pretty and light on her feet. For the customers the dance halls afforded the chance for social outcasts to buy time with a girl of their choice. As with all things that bring the sexes together it fell prey to vice, and by the early fifties the dance halls were fading. Nevertheless, a few remained in New York, and Tomorrow is Another Day portrays them accurately. Someone like Bill would naturally gravitate to a dance hall, which serviced his need to interact with women he wouldn’t have access to if left to his own social skills.

Cay came to New York to pursue a ballet career. “I started out on my toes and ended up on my heels” (or back, if you prefer). Now she’s a taxi dancer (pro) with a cop boyfriend (pimp) when Bill Lewis enters her world. Cay sees him as a yokel and an easy mark, though she finds herself unexpectedly charmed by his boyish naiveté. She accepts his gifts and even agrees to a sightseeing date, afterwards inviting him to her room. There they find detective George Conover, Cay’s beefy beau. In the ensuing fight Conover knocks Bill out before turning on Cay, who shoots him in self-defense. Injured, Conover shambles out in search of a clandestine physician. When Bill awakens, unaware that Conover was shot, he finds Cay leaving for her brother’s place in Jersey, where she intends to hole up. He learns of the shooting later via the evening newspaper, and heads south for a confrontation with Cay. It’s in New Jersey that the story takes a crucial turn. Bill confronts Cay with his knowledge of the shooting and asks, “How did it happen?” Cay realizes that Bill has no memory of the shooting she decides to convince him that he pulled the trigger. She also drops the bombshell that Conover has died. This is the moment in the film where Cay becomes something like a femme fatale. Her character can best be summed up as morally ambiguous. Always the schemer, she figures that an innocent like Bill will fare better with the cops than her, and that he’ll beat the rap by claiming self-defense. Bill refuses this idea and shows Cay the recent clipping from his hometown paper, finally exposing his prison record. Realizing that the cops are unlikely to believe either of them, Bill and Cay decide to run. They borrow a car (Cay driving, Bill doesn’t know how.) and head for the state line.

The turning point in the film comes at a rural motor lodge. Bill and Cay check in pretending to be married, though the jaded Cay recognizes that the proprietors couldn’t care less. This is the moment, far from Manhattan, when they have the chance to separate — yet choose not to. Bill departs for a time but returns with a cheap wedding ring. This romantic gesture causes Cay’s tough façade to crumble, and in a heartbeat their antagonistic relationship becomes tender. Bill then discovers that during his time away the blonde has become a brunette. Cay’s physical transformation is the climax of the middle of the film, and is symbolic of the deeper change in her character. The tramp from Dreamland is gone, replaced by a wholesome and demure portrait of fifties womanhood. Though this transition seems fatally abrupt on paper, Roman pulls it off — she makes us believe the old Cay was an illusion, easily discarded when Bill discovers the woman within.

Through marriage Bill experiences sex and intimacy, and he begins to open up. However Cay, fearing that she’ll lose him, remains unable to come clean about Conover’s shooting. The newlyweds’ Joad-ian odyssey ends at a California farm camp, where he finds work in the lettuce fields and she keeps house amidst a community of shanties. They ingratiate themselves with the other workers and begin to live a relatively normal life. It all comes crashing down when Bill’s mug shot and a substantial reward offer appear in a Confidential-style crime rag, and a neighbor in desperate need of cash reluctantly informs on the couple. Sensing their impending doom, Cay summons the courage to tell Bill that it was she who really shot Conover, but he doesn’t believe her. Whereas earlier Cay set Bill up as a fall guy because she thought he’d get off easy, he now thinks she’s trying to take the blame for the same reason — that her recently discovered pregnancy will rate a soft sentence. When the police come knocking Bill, remembering his vow to the warden, prepares an ambush. In one of the most ironic moments in all of film noir Cay grabs Conover’s revolver and shoots Bill with it. The symbolism here is critical — in shooting Conover Cay was selfishly trying to protect herself, but now she shoots Bill in order to save him. As the police take him away, Cay pleads, “I couldn’t let you get into more trouble on account of me.”

Tomorrow Is Another Day is a film of mirrored halves, of repeated acts imbued with new meaning — it ends as it began, with an authority figure summoning Bill to his office through the intercom. In that first scene Bill moves from one prison to another — without walls, yes, but a prison just the same. The final time, with Cay, he is truly set free. The scene is the Manhattan DA’s, with Bill and Cay clumsily trying to take the blame for each other. In attempting to sacrifice herself for the man who loves her, Cay is able to overcome the sins of her past, while Bill is able to consummate adulthood by assuming responsibility for the life of another. Here is revealed possibly the most ironic twist in the entire story, but I’ll leave it up in the air. As I wrote earlier, the film ends well. Redemption indeed.

Written by The Professor

Editor's note: The Professor's film-noir blog is a great read.

Director: Felix Feist

Cinematographer: Robert Burks

Story: Art Cohn

Screenplay: Guy Endore

Starring: Steve Cochran and Ruth Roman

Released by: Warner Bros.

Running time: 89 minutes

The Fallen Idol (1948)

2009-10-11T11:29:00.016-05:00

Secrets and Power in The Fallen Idol (1948)

“It’s a great life if you don’t weaken.”

I can’t remember the exact year I saw The Fallen Idol for the first time, but I wasn’t much older than Phile (Bobby Henrey), the child star of the film. While I identified with the child’s point of view, the film had an even greater significance for me as my grandparents were life-long professional servants, and they worked, coincidentally, in a mansion complete with a marble staircase very like the staircase in The Fallen Idol. The life of a domestic servant--was, according to my grandparents, a difficult profession--one that required certain behaviour based on discretion, correct deportment and the ability to be invisible at the right moment. While servants certainly had private lives, personal problems weren’t supposed to interfere with daily life. Servants were hostage to those-crucial-to-the-profession references, and if a household servant lost his job, he lost his home too.

And that brings me to The Fallen Idol--a quiet masterpiece that delves into the strange insular world of servants, and their difficult, murky relationships with their employers.

The Fallen Idol is the first of three films from a fusion of the minds of author Graham Greene and director Carol Reed. The Third Man followed in 1949, and Our Man in Havana was released in 1959. Of the many film adaptations of Greene’s work, he was apparently most pleased with The Fallen Idol. The film is based on the short story The Basement Room, and Greene acknowledged that converting a novel into a film called for “compromise.” He surmised that perhaps The Fallen Idol was so successful an adaptation because it was based on a short story. Indeed the plot is simple and takes place over the course of a weekend.

Some interpretations of the film label it as a tale of the ‘loss of childhood innocence.’ Since the film’s focus is the relationship between the child, Phile and the butler, Baines (Ralph Richardson) the title, The Fallen Idol infers that Phile learns that his idol, Baines, has feet of clay, and while that is true, just how innocent Phile is remains debatable. Reactions to the film may depend on how viewers see Phile and childhood in general, so it’s a good idea to keep in mind that Graham Greene’s novels explore the amazingly complex grey areas of morally ambiguous territory.

The film’s setting--with the exception of a few scenes--is the embassy of an unspecified Francophone country. When the ambassador departs for the weekend, he leaves his son, Phile in the care of the faithful butler, Baines (Ralph Richardson) and his formidable wife, the housekeeper, Mrs. Baines (Sonia Dresdel). Baines has a soft spot for Phile, and in return, Phile adores Baines. The opening scene is seen from the bird’s-eye position through Phile’s eyes. Staring through the banisters of the embassy’s top floor, he sees things he’s not supposed to see, and in the film’s very first scene he witnesses a strange incident between Baines and the embassy secretary, Julie (Michèle Morgan). When the ambassador and the rest of the household servants leave, a holiday atmosphere reigns with a feeling that perhaps all the formality--along with the rules--will relax a little. The ambassador will return on Monday along with his long-absent wife. Details about her absence are vague, but there is reference to an ‘illness.’ There’s something fishy--something that indicates a problem, and it’s ugly enough to be covered up. Has the ambassador’s wife had an affair, or has she been locked up in rehab somewhere? But these questions are never answered and remain open to speculation. Nonetheless, the remoteness and distance between Phile and his father are established in this very first scene. Only Baines seems to intuit Phile’s despondency and loneliness, and it’s immediately clear that Phile’s primary relationship is with the butler.

Phile, an effete, fey child, slight and blond, who speaks English with a slight lisp, has a strange, confused position in the household. On one hand, he is just beginning to grasp the notion that he has a position of some importance, but then again he’s subject to the authority of the servants. He’s relegated to the top floor of the huge embassy and is restricted to just a few rooms in a strange, lonely exile and confinement. Embassy business is conducted on the first floor, and Mr. and Mrs. Baines, butler and housekeeper, live in the basement flat.

In the kitchen, Baines entertains the lonely, bored child with heroic tales of his days in Africa when he fought off the ‘natives’ in various uprisings. These make-believe stories keep Phile enthralled while Baines assumes the role of substitute father, deftly avoiding the complex moral questions continually lobbed at him by his small charge. Baines even keeps the existence of Phile’s pet snake, MacGregor from the neurotic Mrs. Baines. Mrs. Baines has ordered Phile to ‘dispose’ of it, but both Baines and Phile know that the snake is still alive. With a bond of solidarity in the presence of the tyrannical Mrs. Baines, the message between Phile and Baines seems to be that the less Mrs. Baines knows the better.

With Phile’s continual spying from the vantage point of the top floor, he watches Baines leave the house, and so he follows, only to discover Baines in a near-by teashop with the embassy secretary, Julie. Baines introduces Julie as his ‘niece,’ and it’s clear to the viewer that Julie and Baines are in love. During this scene, Phile’s invasion of Julie and Baines’s tryst underscores the difficult relationship between the butler and the boy. The boy has the ‘right’ to invade Baines’s private life but Baines, fearful of exposure feels compelled to lie in order to keep Mrs. Baines at bay. This scene effectively conveys the restraints endured by the adults under Phile’s fidgety presence.

Sworn to secrecy about Baines’s ‘niece,’ it doesn’t take long for Phile to spill the beans to Mrs. Baines. In order to discover the identity of the other woman, and to lure Baines into a feeling of security, Mrs. Baines pretends to leave. This unexpected reprieve grants Baines an opportunity to take Julie and Phile to the zoo. While Baines and Julie try to talk, cleverly paced scenes show Phile’s continual demands for attention, and also his disappointment that he doesn’t have Baines’s exclusive attention. Subtle clues indicate that Phile regards Julie as an intruder--someone he’d rather not have included in the outing. Repeated imagery at the zoo echoes Phile’s virtual imprisonment in the embassy where the banister rails appear to form cage bars, but here at the zoo, Phile is no longer the caged animal. He’s unleashed and his demands escalate as the day continues.

The trip to the zoo is followed with a game of hide-and-seek in the embassy rooms, and in these marvelously photographed scenes, full of Dutch angles, Phile is seen scampering through rooms and under tables. But even in this familiar innocent childhood game, the minefield of the adult world--a world of deception and adultery--intrudes and is seen through the child’s excited, terrified eyes.

During the evening, just how innocent Phile becomes a subject for some debate. As Phile, Baines and Julie return to the embassy, Phile begins to drop broad hints, and if Baines and Julie were listening, they’d have serious cause for alarm. Phile asks just how important it is to keep secrets and then rather pointedly asks: “Even Mrs. Baines’s secrets?” Phile desperately wants attention, and while Baines and Julie ignore the child as much as they can, Phile continually tries to reassert himself into their lives with his hints and questions. The three adults--Baines, Mrs. Baines and Julie--have empowered him by sharing their secrets, and they’ve also taught him that the keeping and giving of secrets makes him the center of attention, so whenever Phile feels neglected, he fires up those comments.

Later that evening, Mrs. Baines ends up dead, and Phile, whose imagination works overtime, wanders the streets of London in his pajamas. In the film’s most amusing scene, a terrified and silent Phile is handed over by the police to prostitute, Rose (the great British comedienne Dora Bryan) on the assumption that a woman will reassure the boy. While Rose is limited to her usual pick-up lines, Phile responds to her femininity, and this scene accentuates Phile’s basic innocence. He hasn’t a clue that he’s in the arms of a prostitute, but of course, it’s quite obvious to the viewer. This scene of innocence acts as a bridge between Phile’s demanding behaviour at the zoo and the behaviour he’s about to show at home to the police.

Back at the embassy, Phile’s behaviour becomes even more erratic. While up to this point, Phile has been sidelined by the adults in his life, suddenly he becomes the centre of attention, and when that focus moves away, he continually attempts to get back in the limelight. It’s much too simplistic to ascribe Phile’s behaviour as an attempt to save Baines because Phile continues to pester the police, becomingly increasingly desperate to get their attention even when Baines is off the hook. By the film’s conclusion, the police, who at first couldn’t pry enough out of Phile, just want him to shut up, and when one of the police detectives declares: “Somebody take this child away,” we’re ready to see him shipped off to boarding school.

Phile has learned the hard way that Baines is no brave, romantic hero, but a shriveled, pathetic, henpecked husband, but then on the other hand, Phile is no innocent little boy. Phile’s desperate need for attention is heightened by a degree of transference he feels for Baines, and when Phile defies Mrs. Baines and tells her that he hates her, Phile is acting as a proxy for Baines. Similarly the idea that Baines wants his “freedom” haunts Phile, as Phile too wants his freedom. He’d like to be a normal little boy who plays with friends and who goes for walks in the park, but instead he’s also a captive--an idea that’s underscored by the trip to the zoo and also the game of hide-and-seek with the table and chairs forming a cage-of-sorts.

The Fallen Idol is a deceptively simple story, fleshed out by excellent cinematography, and reinforced with Greene’s superb screenplay. The film captures its audience by its heightened attention to the universal features of childhood and by its intense use of suspense. In the final scenes, the camera keeps the clue--a large tilting window--in the centre of the screen, and rarely moves from it. The Fallen Idol is a small masterpiece sadly overshadowed by the release of The Third Man in the following year and it’s often delegated to the late-night viewing slot for insomniacs. Criterion produced a gorgeous editionof The Fallen Idol in 2006, and it’s an edition that this film so greatly deserves.

Written by Guy Savage

Note: IMDB states that the child's name is Phillipe. The review refers to the boy as Phile. This is the way his name is spelled, by Baines, in the film.

Storm Warning (1951)

2009-10-03T08:43:00.017-05:00

[Editor's note: This article by the "Czar of Noir" Eddie Muller originally appeared in April 2009 as the first “Noir … or Not?” feature in the Film Noir Foundation’s bimonthly periodical, the Noir City Sentinel.]

When Jerry Wald began production at Warner Bros. on Storm Warning in 1950, his intention was to serve up a message picture disguised as a crime thriller, something along the lines of RKO’s 1947 sleeper hit Crossfire, which used an all-night murder-manhunt to sell its underlying attack on anti-Semitism. Wald even hired Richard Brooks, author of the novel upon which Crossfire was based (The Brick Foxhole), to cowrite Storm Warning with the always-reliable Daniel Fuchs, who’d penned its original story.

Somewhere during preproduction the top dogs at Warner Bros. lost their nerve, and Storm Warning’s script was declawed and defanged. Even its bark is oddly meek. The studio congratulated itself in its advertising for making a film “as startling as the screen has dared to be,” but for a purported exposé of the Ku Klux Klan the film is as hard-hitting as 40 lashes with a wet noodle. To “take on” the Klan and then omit any mention of its racism or religious bigotry—presenting instead cracker Fascists as garden-variety goons keeping their town clean of “Northern” influence—smacks of cowardice. Especially compared to another film made across town at virtually the same time, Fox’s No Way Out (1950), an unflinching take on racism that reaches far beyond the Mason-Dixon Line.

Not to suggest that Storm Warning is bad. The script may be spineless, but overall it is brilliantly made and utterly engrossing; it may be Stuart Heisler’s best work as a director. He and director of photography Carl Guthrie transform a rural Southern town (actually Corona, California) into a pestilent noir nightscape. Think Road House, only peopled with ignorant, armed peckerwoods. The visual punch is so strong that over the years Storm Warning has nudged its way onto numerous lists of vintage film noir.

But is it noir?

It certainly feels like Noirville, right from the jump. In an opening that plays like a distaff version of Fallen Angel (1945), dress model Marsha Mitchell (Ginger Rogers) steps off a bus in Rock Point to pay a visit to her newlywed sister. Depot and diner patrons give the brush-off to this out-of-town dish, instantly arousing audience suspicion. Clicking her big-city heels through gorgeously chiaroscuro’d streets, Marsha walks smack into a murder scene. Hooded Klansmen shoot and kill a trussed-up man, and from the shadows our hidden heroine catches an eyeful of the ringleaders, who have conveniently doffed their dunce hoods to pose for close-ups. After reuniting with sister Lucy (Doris Day), Marsha is stunned to discover that her new brother-in-law, Hank Rice (Steve Cochran), is one of the hooded killers.

So far, so noir: stranger in town, murder cover-up, familial conflict, guilty consciences, evil lurking beneath the town’s placid surface. But right at the tipping point, when the story could become either a full-blown descent into darkness or a conventionally “well-balanced” story of right versus wrong, the script introduces laconic county prosecutor Burt Rainey (Ronald Reagan), an Upright Joe determined to rid Rock Point of its “hoodlum” element. He’s a Southern cousin of Crossfire’s Detective Finlay (Robert Young), a man who has never in his life suffered a twinge of moral or ethical doubt.

Two things quickly cause Storm Warning to lose credibility as hard noir. Reagan gets so much screen time (to his credit, he gives an easygoing performance that, if anything, is a shade too amiable) that Marsha’s predicament—will she inform against the man her sister loves?—loses its urgency. From a storytelling standpoint, the distinguishing characteristic of a hard noir is that the tale almost always hews—subjectively, empathetically—to its central character. As a protagonist, however, Marsha has too little at stake. She testifies or she doesn’t . . . either way she’s on a bus and back into an orderly life at the end of the day. It’s her sister who is the trapped character, living the noir life. If the film had instead focused on her (as in the similarly plotted, if ultimately stupid, 1988 Joe Eszterhas-scripted Betrayed), it might have had a stronger dramatic thrust.

Secondly, the murder victim should have been black. Instead he’s a “nosy reporter” looking to expose the Klan, a “good man” who “didn’t deserve to die.” For all the film’s righteous huffing and puffing, it never works up a sweat-bead of genuine moral outrage. That’s because the victim is just one more dead white plot device in a Warner Bros. melodrama. If they’d been brave enough to show a bunch of buffoons in bedsheets graphically killing a black man—and then have the characters treat the incident as nothing more than fodder for their southern-fried sex drama—that would have been genuinely disturbing, morally outrageous . . . and more authentic. Instead, the Klan’s most vile act is to gang-whip Ginger Rogers while she writhes around in her underwear. Exposé? Or exploitation? Jack Warner probably jacked off in his private screening room.

But back to what’s right about the film. For starters, the quality of the acting. If you’ve put off watching it because the cast—save Cochran—seems resolutely lightweight, think again. As noted, Reagan’s performance is actually good; it’s just a shallowly conceived character. I have never liked Ginger Rogers. Her brassy-dame routine single-handedly prevents Tight Spot (1955) from making my list of Phil Karlson’s best films. Here, however, she’s terrific. She underplays throughout, conveying inner turmoil quietly and convincingly. There’s a wariness in her eyes and a weariness on her aging face, which Rogers rarely allowed on-screen. We are left wishing her character was more complex, since she seems up for a challenge, and inspired by Heisler’s ability to conjure tossed-off, character-building bits of business. Her first scene with Lloyd Gough (as her salesman sidekick) is a marvel of efficient character setup, perfectly executed.

Rogers and Doris Day are utterly believable as sisters, and Day delivers a great character, full of beguiling spunkiness that suddenly curdles into hurt and anger. As written, her “shocking” demise is a routine plot device. With Day in the role, the twist feels truly tragic.

The film is at its best when it sticks with its nasty Streetcar Named Desire–inspired dynamics: two wily women dominated by a lustful lout, a character Steve Cochran renders with his usual canine mix of hangdog charm and attack-dog ferocity. The Streetcar similarities veer dangerously close to plagiarism when Cochran tries to rape his sister-in-law. But the way Cochran plays Hank Rice, you won’t think of Stanley Kowalski. You might, however, mistake him for Elvis Presley, if the Big E had never gotten hooked on “race” music and found his calling.

The biggest pleasure of Storm Warning is watching Heisler at the top of his craft, directing the hell out of what he thought was sure to be a hot, controversial film. His shot selection is spot-on, the camera moves always accentuating the play without intruding on it, and the match-cutting on action (a Heisler trademark) is not just flawless, but thrilling. Heisler obviously schemed many of the cuts in advance, not too common for a studio director of that time. Watching this film is a primer on when to cut into action, and how far into or out of the action the camera can move before becoming obvious.

Heisler’s other noir hybrids—Among the Living (1941), The Glass Key (1942), Smash-Up (1947)—give little indication of a noir-infused visual sensibility—not like what you see in Welles or Mann or Siodmak, for example. Much of the film’s visual allure must be attributed to director of photography Carl Guthrie, a man who spent the bulk of his career shooting TV shows before an untimely death in 1967 at age 62. Guthrie isn’t often associated with noir, but here his work is exemplary.

His framing always maximizes the contributions of the art director and set decorator, without displaying them. And the lighting is simply spectacular: The enticing gleam of the town’s bustling bowling alley, the hot dead air of the jailhouse, the musky funk of Lucy and Hank’s clapboard love nest, and, most memorably, the nocturnal postcard shots of Rock Point’s hash houses and bus stations are, I believe, the primary reasons Storm Warning feels so much like noir. Closer analysis reveals it to be a deftly made “issue” drama, but one whose sagging spine and diluted social conscience are greatly invigorated by its deep, dark, noir patina.

Written by Eddie Muller

Chicago Deadline (1949)

2009-09-27T19:37:00.015-05:00

Chicago Deadline is one more entry into that sub-genre, the newspaper noir. You know the story; hard-boiled reporter follows a hunch and uncovers layers of corruption.

This time the story starts innocently enough with Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) chasing down a runaway girl in a cheap hotel. Just so happens while the girl agrees to return to her home and her worried mother, the girl occupying the room next door is found dead by the cleaning lady. So what would any reporter worth his salt do, of course go snooping around in the dead girls room. While foul play is nowhere to be seen, Ed lifts the girls address book from her purse just in case.

Soon the cops and coroner are on the scene and the cause death, which must be a first in noir, is given as a hemorrhage caused by TB.

With nothing to indicate anything more than death by natural causes, once back in the newsroom Ed begins the process of non-systematically calling each of the 54 names listing the girl’s book. Rather than staring at the first name, Ed asks his sidekick, Pig (the always watchable Dave Willock) to pick a name at random. This leads nowhere until a number with just the initials G.G.T. is called. Pig correctly surmises the initials stand for one G.G. Temple, V.P. of a major financial house, or as Pig tells Ed; “He’s a big shot, a four handicap man.”

Thank goodness there’s some snappy dialogue and boat load of bodies piling up along the way to hold ones interest because the stories harder to unravel than the Gordian knot. Fortunately a couple times along the way Ed explains what’s going on to whomever he happens to be with at the time. Near the end he pretty much sums up the whole plotline so the viewer can make sense of the whole mess.

Once on the trail of the dead girl with the unlikely moniker of Rosita Jean D'Ur, Ed gets to pump out more zingers like when asked why he’s so interested in Rosita he shoots off these:

“Simply routine. A kid dies alone in a cheap hotel without friends, relatives, or any one caring whether she’s buried in a cemetery or an ashcan”

“When you mention the name of Rosita D'Ur people run and hide”

“So far I’ve just been digging but I’m beginning to get a pretty dirty smell in both my nostrils.”

Somewhere around the 24 minute mark, we finally get to see the reason for the dirty smell, the mystery woman Rosita D'Ur (Donna Reed) via a snapshot shown to Ed by her brother Tommy (Arthur Kennedy). This is also when the first of several flashbacks begin, complete with the use of the wavy screen method of transporting the viewer back in time.

This one starts with Tommy meeting up with Rosita at a roller skating rink in San Francisco. So now I’m thinking, oh no not another of those noir roller rink pictures! Fortunately the film doesn’t head off in that direction but what is somewhat amusing is the large picture window in the rink with the view of the bay. It’s quite obvious the folks from OSHA hadn’t done an on site inspection of this joint. There’s really nothing that complements roller skating like a huge panel of glass!

Anyway, Rosita’s run away from the farm in Texas and met up with the man of her dreams, Paul D'Ur. He’s a budding architect and soon he and Rosita are married and off to New York. Sadly, Paul ends up the victim of an auto accident and becomes the first of many who end up biting the bullet after encountering the lovely Rosita. Fade back to present and Tommy’s telling Ed; “There always seemed to be a wrong guy around,” which seems something of a misnomer given the bodies that start stacking up it should be “the wrong gal’s around’”

Let me digress here a moment and mention the raft of colorful characters, all with major speaking parts, we encounter during the 86 minute run time; Bat, Belle, Blacky, G.G., Hotspur, Leona, Minerva, Pig and Solly, really!. The cast itself is made up of much more recognizable names, for in addition to Ladd, Reed, Kennedy and Willock we get; June Havoc, the always slimy Berry Kroeger, Tom Powers (for once not playing a cop), Roy Roberts and several other “I’ve seen that guy in something” faces.

Mean while back to the story; after Paul’s death Rosita makes her way back to Chicago where she bunks in with Leona (June Havoc) and begins dating the somewhat shady Blacky Franchot (Shepperd Strudwick). All seems fine until Rosita ends up meeting the aforementioned G.G. Temple at a party and he’s of course smitten by her and must have her as his next play thing.

To make sure Blacky’s out of the way, several charming fellows stop by and rearrange his face and convince him the climate elsewhere would suit him better than Chicago. The connection being Temple is financing the illegal actives of one Solly Wellman (Berry Kroeger) and these nice fellows are working for Solly. Once Blacky’s out of the picture, Temple begins throwing gifts and other things (while it’s not made clear it does appears he and Rosita are sharing living quarters) to entice her.

As noted, following the storyline is somewhat difficult as some key characters are never seen and only after their actions are we clued in as to what took place. For example, how Rosita breaks away from Temple and ends up as a housekeeper for the wheelchair bound uncle of one of Solly’s thugs is never shown and is only much later explained in one of Ed’s conversations.

While on conversations, let me share a few more bits of dialogue:

Ed; “Look Solly I don’t care how many are killed or who does it.”
Solly: “Naturally not, you being a reporter.”

Wonder what the censors thought of this one from Ed to Leona (who becomes his love interest)

“Don’t lie to me baby, you know I’m going to get it out of you.”

And from the prophetic police detective Anstruder to Ed;

“Somebody’s going to shot you sooner or later.”

But my favorite is from Pig to Ed when speaking of Rosita;

“You got a lot of seeing to do brother. She was as loose as ashes”

Pig’s words ring true as along the way Rosita continues getting men stuck on her like flies to flypaper. In addition to her husband, Blacky and bedding down with Temple, there’s one of Solly’s thugs, and a prize fighter by the name of Bat Bennett. At least he escapes the fate of the others but does end up getting clobbered in his fight on the way to the championship because of his remorse over hearing of her untimely demise.

As noted above by the police detective, Ed does get plugged but not before getting roughed up a couple times by Solly’s boys too. But you can’t keep the wavy hair reporter down and from his hospital bed he rises and with the faithful Pig by his side confronts Solly for the final showdown in a downtown parking garage. During this final bit of mayhem, one of Solly’s boys is plowed into by a speeding car being driven by the one armed Ed. At last, Solly himself is taken in by the old, no more bullets, when in fact there’s one left, ruse by Ed. He ends up taking a sole slug right in the gut and face plants himself in the oily mess left from a used Studebaker on the floor of the garage.

To sum it up, in the end you’ve got something less than perfect. A pretty confusing story (although I think part, if not all of it may be attributed to TV editing) to go along with some nice exteriors of Chicago. These go from the opening montage, to the elevated train platform, to the final cab chase near the end. In addition you’ve got a dandy final body count of 7 as Rosita and virtually every man she comes in contact with meets their maker. For those without a scorecard, in order they are: Rosita, Paul, Blackie (Shot dead), John Spingler (found in ditch), Temple (shot dead), Solly’s henchmen (run down by car), and lastly Solly (shot dead). All that said, one thing that is perfect is the title Chicago Deadline which doesn’t conger up the idea of making the “deadline” in connection with getting a Chicago newspaper out on time but rather the line of dead bodies left in the wake of Rosita Jean D'Ur as she made her way through Chicago.

Written by Raven

Journey Into Fear (1943)

2009-09-20T18:13:00.016-05:00

Magician, burlesque dancer, ballistics expert and assassin: Like Norman Foster's taut thriller, Journey Into Fear, all of these professions rely on excruciatingly good timing.

"The terror of waiting for the final revelation, not the seeing of it, is the most powerful dramatic stimulus toward tension and fright." Curtis Harrington, Hollywood Quarterly 1952.

Timing is the essence of this particular journey into fear.

The year of the film's release is 1943, and presumably, that is the time period indicated in the story line.

"Nineteen forty-three was a year of intense war effort in the United States. Industrial production reached a figure it wouldn't match again until 1951. The war marked all civic activity." (A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953)by Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton, page 39.)

Both actors and movie-goers could relate to the experience of dire "real-time" pressures and deadly consequences during the ongoing fight against the Nazi regime. Much of the world's focus was on which side would win.

Our story unfolds in Europe, as our characters arrive at the exotic locale of Istanbul.

Promptly after their arrival in Turkey, Howard Graham (Joseph Cotten) and his wife Stephanie (Ruth Warrick) are greeted by an associate, Kopeikin (Everett Sloane).

Kopeikin ends up taking Graham for a boys night out to a nightclub with burlesque and illusion performances. During a magician's disappearance act, Graham is persuaded to participate. Graham is tied to a cross and the magician nails himself into a coffin-like box. The lights go out in the nightclub. We hear a gunshot. The lights go on. The act has ended successfully, as the magician is now tied to the cross and Graham is in the box. But tragically, the magician has been shot. It is clear that the intended target was Graham.

"I knew that shot was meant for me. You know how many months I spent for the company on the Turkish navy. Well time counts in this war, and with me out of the way it'll take all that time and more with somebody else out here, before Turkey can get any more guns. That's why they're after me." (Much of the tale is revealed to us in this voice-over, Graham reading a letter he is writing to his wife.)

An imposing Colonel Haki (played by Orson Welles, notably showcasing one of the only believable foreign accents in the film), is head of Turkey's secret police, and legendary not only for being a womanizer, but also his ability to drink two buckets of whiskey without becoming intoxicated. Under the circumstances of the attempted murder, the Colonel rushes Graham to board a cargo ship transporting cattle, to ensure a safe return to the United States.

So, naval engineer Howard Graham commences a terrifying voyage across the Black Sea. The real "noir" triumph of the film at this point, is that the viewer is suspicious of EVERYONE. All of the supporting characters (with the exception of Graham and his wife) could potentially be in alignment with the Nazis seeking Graham's death.

In one scene on the ship, Graham comes face to face with Banat the hitman, sitting across from him at a meal. Shocked and scared, realizing that the cold-blooded killer is his fellow passenger, Graham tries to concentrate on his food. As Banat violently crushes crackers for his soup, Graham reaches for the salt and spills it. Here we see the mythic, superstitious quality of the noir protagonist. While keeping eye contact with said killer, a trembling Graham reaches for some of the salt and proceeds to toss some over his shoulder.

A few comic jewels relieve this kind of deadly tension throughout the plot.

There is the Turkish captain of the ship (Richard Bennett), a stereotypical salty drunken seafarer, who is thoroughly amused at Graham's paranoia that a murderer is on board. He does not speak English, but knows how to point and teasingly says "Bang, bang" every time he encounters Graham.

There are Graham's weak attempts in the voice-over/letter to wife, justifying his blossoming friendship with Josette Martel (Dolores del Río), a fellow passenger and a dancer in the nightclub where the magician was murdered. "I was lonely!!"

Then there is one of the ship's passengers, Mathews (Frank Readick), who explains to Graham that he has "tamed" his disagreeable shrew of a wife (Agnes Moorehead) by publicly making outrageous claims about his own political beliefs. The most hilarious moment occurs when the ship makes its final stop in Batum. Mathews is surreptitiously "arming" Graham with unlikely weapons, a pocket knife and an altered umbrella, then Mrs Mathews walks in. "Discreet?!" She looks on disapprovingly. "What is there to be discreet about?"

Mathews replies, without pausing, "Ahhh. You may ask! Mr Graham and I are going to blow up the bank of England, seize Parliament, shoot the gentry and set up a Communist government."

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One aspect of this film that I found to be most intriguing from a technical perspective is the rumor that Orson Welles took over the directing of Journey Into Fear, which he vehemently denied. Welles stated instead that he did not direct any part of the film and his friend (Norman Foster) was the director. I do not want to disregard the talent of Norman Foster, whose filmography also includes two other noirs, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) and Woman on the Run (1950).

However any fellow Orson Welles fans watching Journey Into Fear would agree with me, without a doubt, that significant creative input from him is evident in this film. It has all of the marks of an "Orson Welles project." The camera angles and visually detailed arrangement of the shots have Welles's distinct thumbprint. In addition, it is coincidental that the cast of characters has many of the same actors that starred in Citizen Kane (1941).

Orson Welles, like Tim Burton, apparently liked to cast the same actors over and over again. Both Citizen Kane and Journey Into Fear starred: Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Joseph Cotten, Ruth Warrick and Welles himself.

Orson Welles produced and designed Journey Into Fear, and co-wrote the script with Joseph Cotten. Apparently this is the only script that Cotten is credited with writing despite his long career in film. Welles's stand-out contribution was the beginning pre-credit sequence. The camera slowly glides up to his apartment room from outside, mimicking the style of crane shots in Citizen Kane. It depicts the portly assassin listening to a phonograph; the record begins to skip, as he prepares for his next murder. The sound of the skipping record is creatively and strategically used in other scenes of the movie to emphasize the murderer's proximity to Graham.

In the 1992 autobiography he wrote with Peter Bogdanovich, This is Orson Welles,Welles was documented as saying that he thought he was the first to come up with a scene before the credits but that he later learned that there were a few films that did this in the late thirties.

In any case, the godfathers of noir (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) profess that Journey Into Fear, "bears the signature of Norman Foster....Welles collaborated on the scenario, and the exceptional breeziness and subtlety of his style emerge in the precision of the shooting script and the plastic beauty of the photography. Basing the film on a spy case that's only a pretext and visibly turns into a hoax, Foster and Welles have rediscovered the chief laws of the noir genre: an oneiric plot; strange suspects; a silent killer in thick glasses, a genuine tub of lard buttoned up in a raincoat, who before each murder plays an old, scratched record on an antique phonograph; and the final bit of bravura, which takes place on the facade of the grand hotel of Batum." (A Panorama of American Film Noir (1941-1953), page 39.)

And the final bit of exciting "bravura", played out in a slippery downpour, made that slow journey by boat to Batum worth the wait!

Written by Phantom Lady Vintage

Her entertaining website is here

Our Man in Havana (1959)

2009-09-13T08:40:00.012-05:00

If you have ever wondered how to turn your vacuum cleaner into a satirical film noir, then this movie is for you.

British novelist and screenwriter Graham Greene and director Carol Reed, who brought you Harry Lime, The Third Man (1949), team up again for Our Man in Havana (1959). Shot on location, it’s noir in the tropics with a strong rip current of dark humor.

It’s a cross genre flick. Although my library classifies it as a comedy, the movie has elements of film noir.

Expatriates and Amateur Espionage

The story is about a British expatriate living in Havana, Cuba in the late 1950s. Set against a backdrop of political instability, James Wormold (Alec Guinness) unwittingly and gradually slides into a dangerous world. The stakes are high; it’s Cuba on the brink of revolution in the cold war.

In the first act, Greene and Reed introduce us to Wormold and his difficulty. He faces money troubles. His only teenage daughter, Milly (Jo Morrow), has expensive tastes: horses and country clubs. An ordinary expatriate, Wormold sells vacuum cleaners in Cuba, but does not produce enough money for his daughter’s expensive tastes and his ambitions for her.

As sure as the trade winds blow, opportunity blows Wormold’s way. The British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) needs a man in Havana. Spymaster for the Caribbean, Mr. Hawthorne (Noël Coward) offers Wormold a job - to spy in exchange for money. Wormold accepts the offer.

Wormold’s task is to recruit local agents to work for MI6. But without training and experience in the art of spy craft, the hapless amateur does not know what to do. So to keep the spy cash flowing, our man in Havana invents a list of phantom agents who include local country club elites and strippers.

And to add to the untruth, Wormold draws what is supposed to be a secret military installation in the mountains of Cuba, inspired by a vacuum cleaner design. The drawing gains the attention of the top clandestine directors at MI6 and the British Prime Minister. Wormold also attracts the attention of the enemy. Cold war paranoia gets everyone believing Wormold.

As we enter the third act, the story turns noir. Folly leads to dark results and transforms our man. The satire is dark, and the circumstances and choices are existential.

A prolific writer who wrote critically acclaimed and popular novels, Graham Greene served in the British Secret Service in World War II. In this satire, he delivers insight about the murky world of espionage and political paranoia. Faulty thinking and confusion run amok.

In a general way, the theme of Our Man in Havana reminds of Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There (1979) staring Peter Sellers, as Chance the gardener who gives metaphorical advice to world leaders. Our Man in Havana is about amateurs duping professionals. And, as Graham Greene illustrates, being misled by disinformation in the espionage business is dangerous and embarrassing. And, material for dark satire and film noir.

On Location Cinematography

Carol Reed guides us through the streets, clubs, and bars of 1959 Havana with excellent cinematography.

The on location shooting is a remarkable tour. We see the city as it looked just after Castro overthrew the Bautista regime - the transfer of power of one strong-arm dictator to another. We see Havana in its heyday - sleazy, corrupt, and beautiful. A hot town in a cold war.

Throughout most of the flick, Reed delivers daylight cinematography paralleling the lighthearted humor in the early part of the movie. But, as the story turns dark towards the end, he gives us night scenes, long shadows, back alley streets, seedy bars, and gunfire. It’s typical expressionist film noir. Some of the camera shots and angles are reminiscent of Vienna in The Third Man.

But Reed gives us only a few snapshots of noir Havana; he could have given us more. Only about 10 to 15% of the cinematography contains noir features: dark scenes, wet streets, long shadows, sleazy hangouts, offset camera angles, mayhem, and tough dialogue.

Greene’s book was darker than the movie. I suspect a corrupt, crumbling, and revolutionary Havana in the late 1950s was not a lighthearted place laced with British reserve, understatement, and double entendre.

Satirical Dialogue

Greene’s dialogue throughout is largely satirical. It’s not the hard-boiled dialogue of James M. Cain, Art Cohn, Cornell Woolrich, or Raymond Chandler, but Chandler would have probably appreciated the wit.

While sitting in Sloppy Joe’s bar (Ernest Hemingway’s favorite Havana bar), here is how Hawthorne lures Wormold into the spy business:

Hawthorne, “Where’s the gents?”

Wormold, “Through there.”

Hawthorne, “You go in, and I’ll follow.”

Wormold, “But I don’t want the gents.”

Hawthorne, “Don’t let me down. You’re an Englishman, aren’t you?”

Overall Convincing Acting

Alec Guinness does a notable job portraying the amateur spy…a buffoon, who gets nasty in dark alleys when he has to.

Noël Coward plays a persuasive British spymaster; his performance almost steals the show from Guinness. Hawthorne warns Wormold spying is a dangerous business, but Wormold doesn’t grasp that fact until it’s too late. Coward and Guinness interactions are some of the flick’s high points.

Burl Ives plays the rotund Dr. Hasselbacher, a German expatriate friend of Wormold, who gives Wormold the idea to invent spy stories. And, although Ives plays the character well, one wonders what the impact of Orson Welles playing the character would have had on the film. Welles’ influence on The Third Man is undeniable.

Comedian Ernie Kovacs plays a strong supporting role as the smooth Captain Segura, a corrupt sleaze-ball and double-dealing cop who wants to marry Wormold’s daughter - Milly. Kovacs has several bits of dark satirical dialogue, including a debate about torture, which he delivers in deadpan style. Captain Segura believes torture is for the lower class.

Maureen O’Hara makes an acceptable appearance as MI6’s appointed assistant to Wormold. Her character adds some mild tension to Wormold’s problems, but she under delivers in the romantic role.

Bland and blonde, Jo Morrow plays the teenage Milly. Her acting is uninspiring. The other cast members and the strength of the story carry her along. She is not a femme fatale, but rather an innocent catalyst. Wormold’s need for money to satisfy her lifestyle sets the plot in motion.

Paul Rogers plays the stuttering enemy agent, who has trouble talking to women, even in pick-up joints.

As Entertaining as Gin and Tonics in the Tropics

The movie is entertaining.

Although the flick does not have the emotional impact of The Third Man, which is one of the all-time film noir greats, Our Man in Havana is well worth the watch, just to see how Greene and Reed create. They are master artists.

For film noir addicts, sorting out the out the noir from the satire is half the fun. And for students of cinema, Reed is an expert director, stylist, and expressionist.

At the very least, Our Man in Havana has given me new respect and ideas for my vacuum cleaner.

Written by Hard-Boiled Rick

City That Never Sleeps (1953)

2009-09-06T09:56:00.017-05:00

There's a lot to like in 1953's City That Never Sleeps. Unfortunately there's plenty off unintentional laugh-out-loud scenes as well.

City That Never Sleeps is one of the last Noir documentaries – a noir film filled with newsreel-like location shooting and “voice of God” narrations – also known as semi-documentaries. The 1953 film is clearly modeled after the best noir doc The Naked City released five years earlier. Noir documentaries were popular for a short time during the classic noir period. Following World War II and the popularity of documentaries, film critics predicted that Hollywood films would become more “realistic” and “show the real truth” by shooting movies in a documentary style. The prediction came true – at least partly in 1945 with the release of The House on 92nd Street. Conservative film critic Bosley Crowther in 1949 praised the use of location shooting and naturalistic photography and wanted to see it become a lasting style in Hollywood. By that time the Noir documentary was already on it's way out. Lasting only until the early 1950s the style at the end was seen as more of a fad; and the most obvious elements were dropped from realistic films that followed. In particular the films' opening and closing “voice of God” voice overs – once done brilliantly and poetically by an obvious New Yorker Mark Hellinger in The Naked City- didn't play well in other films. Noir documentaries – unlike The Naked City with its simple murder plot – when seen today appear unbearably preachy (instead of the original intention to be “real” and “truthful”) when they focused on topics like Nazis/Communism (House on 92nd Street), problems with corruption (The Street with No Name), flaws in the legal system (Boomerang), bad cops and juvenile delinquency. Sometimes film studios had to backtrack on its supposed “truth” by tacking disclaimers onto films. One of the best examples is Richard Conte looking into the camera and praising New York's Bellevue Hospital at its doctors at the beginning of The Sleeping City after public outcry and industry reaction after seeing the film. The juvenile delinquent film City Across the River toned down the unflattering opening voice over and stripped any mention of Brooklyn in the film's advertising after citizens' groups protested the film's depiction of their neighborhood.

City That Never Sleeps is a film about a gloomy night in 1950s Chicago. After a laughable opening voice over by folksy cowboy actor Chill Willis the film kicks in. Willis – the spirit of the city who inexplicably becomes a "guardian angel" cop early in the movie that shatters any attempt at reality – introduces the viewers to a number of people in the city that are all trying to escape their own world and be something else. A cop who wants to quit and move to California; a failed actor working as a “mechanical man” in a night club that wants to run off with an uninterested burlesque dancer; a punk bell boy that wants to join the mob; a stripper who wanted to become a ballerina; a former pickpocket who once had dreams of becoming a magician; a famous lawyer who is more attracted to power and the criminal element in his city than justice; and his wife who wants his magician friend and all her husband's money – all are interconnected and play a part in the story. Come to Chicago: where your dreams are never fulfilled!

The best film noir focus on “a struggle with powerful inner forces” like the characters in Double Indemnity and Sorry, Wrong Number. Noir documentaries instead give us lots of characters and a external voice to tell us what's happening and what's wrong. The main character in City That Never Sleeps is a cop (Gig Young) that wants to quit the force and his wife. He's nagged by his wife and mother in law. Even his stripper girlfriend is pressuring him to do something. His story – the main story – isn't all that interesting when compared to others in the film. It's the use of the documentary style, however, that makes the story even less engaging. I suspect that if the story was shot as a straight noir drama it would have been more successful.

So what's to like about City That Never Sleeps? Plenty. First of all, the Czar of Noir Eddie Muller, in his list of the top 25 film noir, praises director John Auer for at least having the chutzpah to use the city as a narrator and hits the nail on the head when he says “Plus, it's got Marie Windsor and William Talman as lovers. That's noir.” Talman (the magician) and Windsor (wife to lawyer Penrod Biddel played by Edward Arnold) are absolutely great in the film. They're the only actors that show any spark in the film. Bug-eyed Talman – who got his ass handed to him by Raymond Burr every week on Perry Mason – is always good in film noir. Earlier that same year he had his best role as the unblinking killer in The Hitch-Hiker. Windsor – 5' 9” of sexy – was just too tall and intimidating to be a movie star. Instead she killed every time she played the untrustworthy and vicious black widow. Her part is too small in City That Never Sleeps but she's one of the best parts of it.

Psycho's cinematographer John L. Russell's night-for-night camerawork is amazing too. Sweaty nightclubs and back alleys never looked so nice in a noir. Gig Young chasing William Talman through the streets of Chicago is a wow too. Pickpocket Talman slipping between trains until the final confrontation on a raised rail is something every film noir fan should see.

City That Never Sleeps doesn't do for Chicago what The Naked City did for New York. The colorless leads are overshadowed by Talman and Windsor. The obvious production values that marred most Republic Pictures does the same here at times. While the cheap studio sets and some performances are stale film noir fans, however, should be able to overlook these flaws and appreciate some of the supporting cast and amazing on-location camerawork. City That Never Sleeps is worth a look.

Written by Steve-O

Private Hell 36 (1954)

2009-08-28T08:40:00.009-05:00

Editor's note: This week, hardboiled writer Megan Abbott takes on the criminally overlooked cop thriller Private Hell 36. Edgar-winning Abbott's latest page turner is Bury Me Deep

“A policeman, unlike most men, lives close to evil and violence. He can, like all men, make his own private hell. The good pass through it with minor burns. The evil stumble and fall. And die in strange places.”

Private Hell 36 is one of that special brand of B noir that just revels in the claustrophobic tawdriness of its characters. But it’s also one of those—like Crime Wave and Pushover—that is at least twice as smart and potent as its gears-turning plot first reveals. Shot through with the 50s-noir nihilism of Kiss Me Deadly, it’s also a film very much of its moment—that 50s midpoint that, arguably, summons up the world of standard love-gone-wrong big-city noir only to smash it against Eisenhower-era ideals: suburbia, security, family.

Directed with grim, artful efficiency by Don Siegel (with a young Sam Peckinpah as dialogue director), Private Hell 36 was one of the last films to come from The Filmmakers, the independent production company created by Ida Lupino and producer Collier Young, Lupino’s second husband. The couple coscripted Private Hell 36, but by 1954, the year it was released, the company was on its last legs and Lupino and Young had divorced. Completing the roundelay, the movie boasts Lupino’s new husband, Howard Duff, as one of the leads. Don Siegel reports a set suffused with alcohol and misery, which seems perfectly suited for a film drunk on its own darkness. It’s hard to watch the nightclub interview scene with Lupino, Duff and Steve Cochran talking in front of three enormous, novelty bottles of booze and beer and not wonder if Siegel is making a winking aside. (An equally great meta moment has Duff’s wife scold him for drinking too much, to which a guilt-ridden, sneering Duff replies, “It’s supposed to be a party, isn’t it?”)

Private Hell 36 is a tale of two Los Angeles cops, Farnham (Duff) and Bruner (Cochran) investigating a robbery with the reluctant help of Lilly, a nightclub singer (Lupino). Bruner falls hard for Lilly and, when the two cops uncover a portion of the stolen money, he suggests that he and Farnham split the money. Farnham reluctantly gives in and the two stash money in a trailer park, unit #36. The rest of the film witnesses the two men circling each other, Farnham tormented with self-disgust and Bruner turning more and more rancid—cop to criminal in a heartbeat.

On the surface, it’s just a nasty little movie ripe with noir pleasures, including Lupino singing “Didn’t You Know,” bare shoulders swaying, Dorothy Malone in full-on ’50s house wife mode, as Duff’s worried wife and magnificent location shooting at the famous Hollywood Park Racetrack—you half expect The Grifters’ Lilly Dillon to stroll by.

You can probably guess most of the plot turns, hear the gears clicking, but that’s part of its efficiency. It’s putting a group of characters through the noir iron-maiden. But what characters, and what a world they live in.

Among its greatest, grittiest pleasures is seeing Lupino and Cochran spark off each other. Has any actor ever so consistently made seedy cunning so seductive as Cochran, his eyes glittering with mayhem? (On a personal note, Cochran was the actor I could never stop picturing when creating my own version of the “homme fatal” in my novel Queenpin). Throughout the film, you find yourself begging for Cochran’s character to sink lower and lower just for the erotic kick he gives it. His scenes with Lupino crackle and buzz, dirty up the story. Their been-around slyness with each other—Cochran untying and tying the straps on her halter dress—and their frank shallowness feels like lost pages from a James Ellroy novel, rank with self-loathing, romantic in its view of love as shared irredeemability.

Seeing Cochran and Duff together is nearly as intriguing. The film delights in linking the two as opposites-attract lovers. “Sometimes I wonder why we go steady,” Duff jokes with Cochran early on, to which Cochran replies, “Because I’m irresistible.” (He is.) Later, when the robbery tears them apart, Lupino notes archly, “You two having a lovers’ spat?.” Another cop refers to Duff as Cochran’s boyfriend. The jokes are more than jokes. They cleverly link the pair to not just other cop partner movies but to countless noir lovers who turn against each other when money and guilt enter the picture (it’s important that, as much as Cochran desires Lupino, it never feels like she is his only, or even primary motive. The film is subtler than that. Cochran, unconsciously or otherwise, is looking for the rabbit hole from the very start. And he turns out far worse than you could guess.)

As for Duff, it’s easy to dismiss his whimper-faced, eyebrows-knitted expressions as simplistic—is this what self-loathing really looks like?—but it actually works perfectly with Cochran’s wheels-always-turning, slick-eyed cunning. “You’re sick, Cal,” Duff tells his partner, late in the film. “I should’ve known that a long time ago. You don’t care about anything or anybody. You’re sick.” It’s the kind of cop world partner dynamic Ellroy and others will both deepen and dissect in the years to follow, but that makes it no less compelling here.

As noted (see “Domesticity That Never Sleeps”), the movie offers very timely contrast between the urban noir sleaze of Lupino and Cochran’s scenes together, in nightclubs and in Lupino’s moderne L.A. apartment, and the rising suburban domesticity represented by Duff’s family, his sunny blonde wife, the care with which she keeps her home, her mother’s pride in her child. Cochran and Lupino are drawn to each other by a shared distaste for just this kind of world. “Rice is for eating, not throwing,” Lupino notes. Cochran replies, “That’s how I feel. We’re a lot alike, Lilly. We won’t settle for just anything. We want the best. And we’re going to get it.” Their dream is the big gold one—but the film asks how different that is from the one represented by Duff’s overstuffed faux-colonial home.

The two worlds are thrown together in a dinner party scene at the Duff household. Guilt-ridden Duff, who has been forced to straddle the line between the two worlds, stumbles through his own house, drunkenly knocking his own furniture around as if a stranger in his own home. When she wants to bring out her baby, Duff refuses angrily. He does not want to contaminate his child with the presence of Cochran, the grinning reminder of his own sin. Meanwhile Cochran and Lupino seem cool, relaxed—and equally out of place, Lupino kicking her shoes off and lifting her feet for Cochran to rub. It’s sexy and cheap and delicious and the movie’s all the better for having Malone not bat an eye. She doesn’t mind. And when Cochran, in a moment so slight it seems like it could have been ad-libbed, grabs Malone around the waist for a goodbye kiss, it’s jarring. He manhandles her like he does Lupino, or like he might a whore (late in the film we see him exchange silent greetings with a likely streetwalker as if he knows her quite well). But it’s a cunning move—lining up Duff and Cochran this way. Instead of hoisting Duff up as the noble do-gooder, it shows how both men are driven by the same longings. How is Cochran’s desire to live the good life with his diamond-hungry girl so different from Duff’s desire to keep his suburban family on the track to the American consumer dream?

Ultimately, Private Hell 36 is a film that refuses tidy answers. It’s comfortable in messiness, and slippery truths. The story is book ended by what first appears to be an authoritative, Dragnet or Naked City-style voiceover. But it’s Dragnet–Meets-Sartre, or Freud. While a kind of order is restored at the end, what kind of order is it? Whether in the balmy burbs or the gaudiest of nightclubs, the drive is there. The hunger. It’s inside us and it’s hoisted upon us by the Big Dream, the American one. Who are we to stop it?

Written by Megan Abbott