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NOTW: September 17, 2007
THE INNER SANCTUM

Posted by Dan in the MW

“The Inner Sanctum” is an inexpensive offering from Film Classics, a short lived studio that reassembled a few of the off screen talents who formerly labored on Poverty Row for Producers Releasing Corporation.

A point of clarification is necessary. Universal released six films with Lon Chaney which utilized “Inner Sanctum” as the series name, with the permission of the Simon & Schuster publishing company. The Universal films occasionally veered in the direction of noir, but this individual film has no relation to those other pictures apart from a shared screen credit acknowledging permission from the same publisher for the use of its title.

Marie Kembar (Eve Miller) is a passenger aboard a railroad train. This vain, fifty cent blue plate special is en route to a nameless big city where she plans to get hitched to her hapless dupe of a fiancée. During the journey, she strikes up a conversation with Doctor Valonius (Fritz Leiber), a curious chap with the uncanny ability to make astute observations about future events. Marie is spoiled and totally self absorbed. She pays little attention to minor details as Valonius returns her dropped nail file to her. The good doctor relates an ominous tale to her about a murderer who tried to outrun his fate. The scene shifts as the tale unfolds:

As the train pulls to a stop in an anonymous tank town, a man exits the train and is followed by an irate woman. They argue, struggle and the woman is killed. The man throws her lifeless body from the freight platform onto the train as it departs the station and looks about furtively. It is a dark and stormy night and he seems confident that his crime has gone undetected.

While leaving the freight depot, the man stumbles upon the local juvenile delinquent, Mike Bennett, who has stolen away from his house to watch the raging river flood the countryside. The little loudmouth engages the stranger in conversation and mentions that he saw someone across the railyard throw a bundle onto a passing train. The stranger politely dissuades the punk as to anything serious having occurred and sends him on his way home.

The man gamely makes his way to the nearest road and tries to hitch a ride. He is picked up by the garrulous McFee, the editor and publisher of the local weekly newspaper. McFee (Billy House) is happy to have a companion to ride with him. He is making the late night rounds to report on flood damage and to check to see which roads are passable. The passenger introduces himself as Harold Dunlap (Charles Russell). The drive follows a circuitous route. The bridge has been washed out and for the time being Dunlap is stranded somewhere in this outpost of civilization located between Nowhere and Oblivion. McFee delivers him to the local boarding house, the only available lodgings in the metropolis.

Comic relief is provided by two boarders, Willy (Roscoe Ates) and Barney (Eddie Parker), who drop their beer cans down the stairs while under the watchful eye of their landlady (Nana Bryant), who has been trying to settle her newest lodger into a room. Oddly enough, the new roomer does not have a suitcase or an additional set of dry clothes. Dunlap cannot catch a break as it turns out that he must share a bedroom with the pesky Mike, who lives in the same boarding house with middle aged mother. Mommy Bennett (Lee Patrick) seems to have designs upon the new arrival.

Dunlap simply wants to take it on the Arthur Duffy, but the roads are impassable and he appears to be stuck indefinitely. A hot blonde, Jean Maxwell, played by the captivating Mary Beth Hughes, is also in residence and quite interested in making Dunlap’s closer acquaintance. McFee who is in the habit of taking his coffee and meals at the Shady Rest interrupts the proceedings at the communal breakfast table. Jean mocks his importance by calling him Westbrook (a dated period reference to the nationally syndicated journalist Westbrook Pegler). McFee reports to the assembly that a woman’s body has been found onboard a freight car of a train that passed through Hooterville sometime late last night. The out of town authorities are pressing the coroner to fix the time of death, so that they may consult the train schedule and estimate where the killing occurred according to the timetable.

Dunlap is getting increasingly anxious to leave Mayberry, but Jean is equally interested in packing her suitcase and joining him in his hasty getaway. Further complicating matters is the fact that the goofy kid is beginning to look Dunlap over more closely. The locals filling the sandbags have not managed to contain the raging river and Dunlap is trying to find a way to silence the obnoxious kid without drawing more suspicion to himself.

I have to put on the brakes, so as to avoid spoilers. For whatever reason, this cheap “B” is quite effective in its own way. While it may not have attained the distinction and status of “Detour,” it has its moments. One almost expects John Newland or Rod Serling to turn up at any moment to assume narrative chores.

Lew Landers (originally known as Louis Friedlander) was a competent, if somewhat uninspiring director. He is probably best remembered for “The Raven,” which paired Karloff and Lugosi, and “Return of the Vampire,” which featured Lugosi’s final turn in a serious vampire role. In this offering, Landers manages to keep the cheap sets sufficiently dark and murky enough to be passable. The boarding house is claustrophobic and creepy at times.“The Inner Sanctum” packs a lot into its running time of sixty-two minutes.

Dale Belding is quite possibly the most annoying brat to appear on celluloid. At times, you will be cheering for him to be killed. The youngster makes the always unctuous Eddie Haskell seem as smooth as silk by comparison. Of course, a bleached blonde Mary Beth Hughes rates highly in my book. Billy House is familiar to noir fans who enjoyed “The Stranger,” but one wonders how such a tiny town can rate its own weekly newspaper?

While most of the PRC personnel took part in the merger with the Rank Organization that resulted in the creation of Eagle-Lion Studios, which produced several memorable noirs including “T-Men,“ “Raw Deal,” and “He Walked By Night,” a handful of individuals regrouped and briefly produced films under the Film Classics label. “For You, I Die,” “Money Madness,” “C-Man,” “Blonde Ice,” “Guilty Bystander,” and “The Inner Sanctum” were a few of the notable penny dreadfuls released by Film Classics. An unbilled Ida Lupino substituted for Elmer Clifton on another Film Classics release “Not Wanted.” It was her first directorial assignment.

“The Inner Sanctum” is one of those enjoyable timewasters that Hollywood cannot manage to make any longer. Leon Klatzkin’s moody musical score is adequately moody and depressing. One can only wonder how Edgar G. Ulmer may have managed with the script for “The Inner Sanctum” if he had been given the directorial assignment? Ulmer also worked for Film Classics for a time, but he ended up directing Louis Hayward in “The Pirates of Capri” a derivative swashbuckler filmed on location in Italy.

Get on board the train and see "The Inner Sanctum" for yourself!

NOTW: September 10, 2007
MURDER WITHOUT CRIME

Posted by Gord Gates

A top-flight noir from the UK.

Dennis Price is a down on his luck aristocrat forced to rent out rooms to maintain his former lifestyle. Derek Farr and Patricia Plunkett play the couple that has moved in upstairs. One night after a rather loud argument the wife grabs her suitcase and storms out. Farr decides to hell with the wife and heads to the bar to get blasted. Watching them both leave is Price who could not help but hear the dispute. Farr gets himself good and plastered at the local pub.

While at the pub he cuddles up to Joan Dowling. Dowling is a party girl always on the prowl for a good time. They leave together and head for Dowling’s room. There they find the lack of alcohol a definite hindrance to the proceedings. Farr suggests a move to his place where there is a ready supply. A couple of belts later as the two are getting to the clinches the phone rings.

It is Plunkett. She wants to come home and make up. Farr agrees. Now he must get Dowling to leave but she has other ideas. She does not intend to have her night spoiled and refuses to go. Farr offers her some cash. Dowling throws it in his face along with a slap. Farr responds in kind and down goes Dowling in a heap knocking her head on a table in the process. “The wife is coming home and I have a body in the front room!”

Farr dumps Dowling into a clothes closet and heads off to intercept the wife. Downstairs the whole time of course has been Price listening in on the fight upstairs. He uses his passkey to enter and have a quick look around.

A quick cut to the street and we see Plunkett arrive having been missed by Farr on the corner. She enters the flat and quickly notices the glass with the lipstick. She begins her own look around just as Farr returns and confesses all.

Plunkett decides to stick with her man and they discuss how to get rid of the body. Farr then remembers he had left his gloves at Dowling’s flat. Plunkett goes off to retrieve the gloves while Farr is to load the body into the car’s trunk. Farr opens the closet and finds it empty. Nothing! What is he to do!

Farr decides the only way out is suicide. He mixes himself a drink and adds a lethal dose of poison. As he is mixing the deadly cocktail there is a knock at the door followed by Price entering. Price suggests that a little chat is in order. A slight increase in the rent of say 50 fold a month will be needed to maintain his silence. He hints he knows everything and a call to the police would send the couple to the gallows.

Farr agrees to the terms just as the phone rings. He answers. It is the wife calling from Dowling’s flat. Dowling is not dead! She had simply been knocked unconscious and had revived while Price had been looking through the flat. Price is simply pulling a fast one!

As Farr is listening to his wife he watches Price help himself to the glass of sherry mixed with poison. He says nothing. He then tells Price to get stuffed. Farr watches Price leave knowing full well Price will be dead within 5 minutes. He could care less.

Excellent film directed by J. Lee Thompson and based on his own stage play, DOUBLE ERROR. Thompson’s UK credits include, THE YELLOW BALLOON, BLONDE SINNER, THE WEAK AND THE WICKED, ICE COLD IN ALEX and TIGER BAY. In the U.S. he is know for THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, MACKENNA’S GOLD and the original CAPE FEAR. The cast is all great in this film with Price stealing the show as the upper class slime- ball. A real treat!!!!!!

NOTW: September 3, 2007
HANGOVER SQUARE

Posted by Chi-Bob

Hangover Square (1945)
Director: John Brahm (The Lodger, Guest in the House, The Locket, The Brasher Doubloon, Singapore, Bengazi)

Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle (Laura, Fallen Angel, Road House, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The 13th Letter, Dangerous Crossing, Storm Fear, Crime of Passion)

Screenplay: Barre Lyndon (The Lodger, The House on 92nd Street, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Man in the Attic)

Cast: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Glenn Langan, Alan Napier, Faye Marlowe.

Hangover Square was made soon after The Lodger. They both have the same director and screenwriter, two of the same male leads, and use a London location in a story about a killer with an uncontrollable urge.

As handsome-looking as The Lodger is, Hangover Square is, imo, a more impressive achievement. In a fast moving 77 minutes, the main plot is sandwiched between opening and closing scenes that are testaments to the craftsmanship of the 1940s studio system. The opening shot is taken from a crane over looking a crowded back street in London at night. As the camera pans to the left it slightly tilts up as a gas street lamp is lit and continues upwards into a second story of an antique shop. The shot continues through the window as we see the face of a frightened man, and in a point of view shot a killer’s hand reaches out and plunges a knife into the man’s chest, and then flees the scene.

In 1903 London, George Harvey Bone (Cregar) is a young composer with a world of promise. There is only one slight problem to a successful musical career – he’s a deranged killer. Whenever he hears a harsh discordant sound, he goes into a blackout phase where he acquires a homicidal impulse. He meets a gorgeous, young music hall singer, Netta Longdon (Darnell), and becomes obsessed with her in a l’amour fou sort of way (who wouldn’t – Darnell is ravishing and all of 21). She manipulates poor George in writing songs for her so she can advance her career, and promptly drops him when he is no longer of any use. Netta becomes his next victim, but Scotland Yard psychiatrist (Sanders) pieces together various clues to determine that Cregar has been responsible for multiple murders. He convinces Cregar to turn himself in, but not until he plays his new piano concerto at a concert that evening.

In the concert performance, Brahm and La Shelle create a perfect amalgamation of audio visual expressiveness. Swooping and panning from a high angle, the camera prowls around the small concert hall in a large mansion with a series of long takes, as Cregar pounds out a musical piece (by Bernard Herrmann) that contains all the introspective torment of a young composer who is clearly unhinged. With the police and Sanders closing in, Cregar stops in mid performance to be taken into custody. Refusing to go quietly, he throws a gas lamp that starts a fire in the concert hall. As every one flees, Cregar sits at the piano and completes a one man concerto as the flames slowly engulf him.

This was Laird Cregar’s last film. He died due to the complications of weight loss surgery two months before the film’s premiere. The somewhat svelte Laird portrays Bone as a complex man, part disturbed “monster”, and part sensitive artist, who, perhaps, just feels too much for his own good. Linda Darnell is the embodiment of a two-legged bon-bon. A duplicitous thrush who is at the center of Cregar’s rage. Before that murderous rage plays itself out, Laird was fortunate enough to get some serious smooch time with Linda. The disposing of Darnell’s body on a burning pyre on Guy Fawkes Day prefigures her demise 20 years later in a house fire in suburban Chicago.

The real “star” of Hangover Square is the entire group of professionals behind the camera at Twentieth Century Fox. Brahm, LaShelle, art directors Lyle Wheeler and Maurice Ransford, and the musical score by Herrmann all outdo themselves.
?The mixture of chiaroscuro lighting, the use of high and low camera angles, the long takes, and the sets of a lamp lit, foggy London in 1903 evoke a time long past. If there is such a thing as the “genius” of the studio system, this artificially created world on the backlots of Southern California can stand as exhibit A.

Fortunately, in a few months , Fox is issuing this film as well as two other John Brahm directed films – The Lodger and The Undying Monster in a three volume set.

Noir of the Week: 8/27/07
THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH (1947)

Posted by Don Malcolm

Directed by Jean Renoir

Screenplay by Frank Davis and Jean Renoir from the novel “None So Blind” by Mitchell Wilson

Cinematography by Leo Tover and Harry J. Wild

Lead actors: Robert Ryan (Scott), Joan Bennett (Peggy Butler), Charles Bickford (Tod Butler)

Supporting actors: Nan Leslie (Eve), Walter Sande (Otto Wernecke), Irene Ryan (Mrs. Wernecke)

What The Woman On The Beach might have been had Jean Renoir not made drastic cuts is something we will never know; what remains, however, is an intriguing transplant of the emotional landscapes in French poetic realism into the crevices existent between 40s American melodrama and film noir.

Poetic realism, especially as practiced by Renoir, is heavily triangular. Love, the love triangle, and its many phases of emotional/sexual torment, ecstasy and dislocation drive the themes and plots in these films, and The Woman On The Beach is solidly positioned within this tradition.

Robert Ryan is a soldier returned from the war serving out his tour of duty as a military police officer patrolling a sparsely populated area of beach. He’s clearly not over his shell shock—Renoir stages an especially graphic ocean-based nightmare that symbolizes his mental state.

He’s in love with a local girl (Nan Leslie), and his impulsive, reckless, almost hysterical need to push forward their planned marriage creates a strain in the relationship. (Leslie, a young RKO contract player, is luminously shot by Renoir, often looking like a blonde version of Anne Baxter: despite an affecting performance here, she would languish in B-westerns for the remainder of her film career before shuttling over to television in the mid-50s.)

Ryan’s only solace is in his lonely horseback patrols of the foggy, barren beachfront. It is on one of these patrols that he encounters a bored, world-weary but incurably beautiful woman (Joan Bennett), who innately senses a kindredness rooted in anomie.

But as the sparks begin to fly in this initial encounter, Bennett’s husband (Charles Bickford) suddenly appears, and things take an odd turn. Bickford is a world-famous painter who was accidentally blinded by Bennett a few years earlier, and their marriage has been slowly disintegrating.

Bickford takes an immediate liking to Ryan, but it is clear that he is, in effect, throwing his wife at Ryan as part of some elaborate emotional/sexual game. He seeks out Ryan at his post on a rainy night, and forces Ryan to take him home—where dinner is waiting, and where the main course is, of course, his wife!

Ryan and Bennett consummate their affair, but Ryan is plagued by guilt and suspicion, worrying that Bickford is setting them up. He begins to believe that Bickford is faking his blindness, and decides to devise a test that could well have fatal consequences. In the meantime, he is discovering that Bennett has perviously thrown herself at other local males, and that her relationship with Bickford is far more violent and abusive than he’d realized.

Torn by these discoveries, he is revisited by his earlier nightmare, where the ship he is serving on is sunk, and he drowns while being mockingly beckoned to by a siren-like mermaid. Only this time the mermaid’s face is not Leslie’s, but Bennett’s!

The issue of Bickford’s paintings—the ones he’s hoarded as a financial hedge after his blinding—soon becomes central to subsequent events. His anger at Bennett’s removal of her portrait brings Ryan to the point of attempting to engineer Bickford’s death—and, of course, this avenging, liberating murder is set to occur in a roiling sea, where the struggle between two driven and desperate men might well make Ryan’s nightmare come true.

While the above might well sound overwrought, and almost certainly would be in the hands of a lesser director, Renoir somehow keeps control of the visual and narrative elements, and what we have on our hands here is a darker, more poisonous, Americanized version of La Bete Humaine.

How noir is The Woman On The Beach? The “noir-o-meter” brings it in at 105, which just gets it over the “noir threshold” according to its scale. It is yet another late-40s film that shows how noir insinuated itself into melodrama, darkening love triangles and pushing the psychosexual boundaries into full-blooded triangular obsession.

The characters in the film, thanks in large part to fine performances by the leads (especially Bickford, who is terrific), show strong noir attributes, tortured and battered by their past, lashing out against a world that they grasp at but cannot come to grips with. Ultimately the film is a fascinating, atmospheric reminder of how potent the strain of poetic realism was in fashioning a protean undercurrent in the themes that would flow into noir as it erupted as a kind of cinematic geyser in the context of post-WWII American film.

Noir of the Week: 8/20/07
NAKED ALIBI

Posted by Jefty (Noirdowell)

TAGLINE” “THE STORY OF A LOVE WITH THE LAW AT IT'S HEELS"”

Dir: Jerry Hopper “Square Jungle”, “The Atomic City”, but best know for his countless western directing credits.

Cast” Sterling Hayden...the hooligan “Dix” from “The Ashalt Jungle”...plays tough as nails Chief of Detectives “Joe Conroy”

Gene Barry as Baker/Big Operator “Al Willis”, perhaps best remembered ?as attorney Amos Burke in 80+ episodes of “Burkes Law” but who also was featured in several ?noir and sci fi roles, e.g. “Thunder Road”, War of the Worlds” “Atomic City”

Gloria Grahame as Marianna. GG’s noir icon status and countless noir credits need not be recounted here.

Max Showalter, (Casey Adams)...as Det LT Fred Parks, ..Niagara, Down 3 Dark Streets, Vicki, and several other memorable character roles in noir.

The Story:
To be flippant, this film could have been titled “The Baker and the Border City Bad Girl” as it somewhat succeeds only as a minor noir B film at best. (Pardon my penchant for alliterative titles)

Al Willis (Barry)a local small businessman (a baker) of good local repute has one too many and is hauled into the local cop shop on a drunk and disorderly charge. The cops rough him up a bit and Willis swears vengance against the arresting officers.

Within hours, Parks(Showalter) is shot dead in the street and Chief Joe Conroy(Hayden) is convinced of Willis’s guilt and hounds him with self-righteous zeal. The next day two more of Conroy’s detectives are blown up as they start their car. Conroy is now downright adamant of Willis’s guilt and pursues and harasses him further...so much so that he is promptly accused of police brutality and persecution by the commisioner and fired from the force.

This doesn’t slow Conroy down a bit as he steps up his surveliance and harrassment of Willis, only now as a private citizen. Willis, shaken by the hounding by Conroy tells his mousey house frau wife Helen he needs to get away for a few days and leaves to resume his clandestine double life in Border City.??Conroy shadows Willis to Border City, a typical seedy bordertown along the Mexican border where Marianna(Grahame) is a sultry chanteuse in a local beanery.

Conroy has a rough time in BC where in quick succession he gets mugged, hugged and drugged while trying to determine Willis’s whereabouts. While only a baker in his hometown, Willis has been living a double life with Marianna in Border City for years where he’s established as a big operator with a lots of dough(sic) and criminal connections.

He uses those contacts and some of his henchmen to give Conroy, intent on getting his man, as much trouble as he can handle. Finally awaking from a drugged stupor, Conroy with the aid of a boy Petey(billy Chapin) is helped to regain his senses and rekindle his fiery pursuit of Willis. After a beating at the hands of Willis, Marianna also puts her money on Conroy and helps him find WIllis.

They succeed in “kidnapping”: Willis and steal away from Border city first in Conroys car then in a 18 wheeler making their way back into town where crazed cop killer Willis makes a break for the church where he hid the “Mauser” pistol that he used to kill detective Parks.

A rooftop chase ensues that is suspensful, exciting and skillfully filmed. Conroy does indeed get his man, but not before the green eyed Willis cowardly shoots Marianne in the back. Perched on a rooftop, Willis runs out of ammo and is shot dead by Conroy and high falls into a deli awning. Marianne utters her last words of wishing she and Joe had met earlier in life and dies in Conroys arms. Conroy walks away and we are left to wonder whether he is reinstated to the force or has our world weary cop worked his last case.

My Take:

An interesting noir, but not without its share of problems. GG’s singing scene are too obviously dubbed and are accompanied by her rather arythmic shimy shake..she does show a lot of skin which is worth the price of admission... and then there’s GG talking through her chewing gum..and the song she “sings” is “Ace in the Hole” ...hmm I wonder if the song is also known as “The Big Carnival”?

Gene Barry in one scene is pursued by the cops down the street actually chewing his nails (and some of the scenery) and in many of the physical sequences appears stiff and awkward. Young and crew cut Chuck Connors, fresh up from the major leagues (Dodgers I think) is trying his hand at acting..he would get somewhat better before becoming a household word as “The Rifleman”.

I’m a big Sterling Hayden fan and while he may have had sailing the pacific on his mind during this shoot, he still delivers a credible performance as the cop too long on the force and too long in the tooth, perhaps fed up with dealing with those on the margins of society. When he walks away at the end, you want to hope it’s to retire to a chicken ranch in the valley...he’s seen and done his share of life on the mean streets and needs to quit before he cracks wide open.

Why Noir: All three major characters are flawed...Willis for trying to live a “Double Life and being a crazy jealous cop killer with a short fuse”...Marianne...a well traveled gun moll attempts redemption by helping Conroy but is killed for her troubles...and Conroy, a cop turned viciously brutal by too many years on the force dealing with the Al Willis’s of the world... but reaps redemption through confirmation of his belief in WIllis’s guilt. That, and apparently retirement as well will be his reward.

Despite the provocative and enticing title, commonly used in the fifties to lure people away from their TV sets and some classic noir sequences like the rooftop chase and the backroom beatings and some nice alley and street shots, "Naked Alibi" comes up a little shy to make it into the big leagues of noir. The plot devices, flawed characters, and seedy locales are those we’ve seen in many other films throughout the noir cycle, now some 13-14 years old.

While far from lackluster, “Naked Alibi” provides evidence that the noir cycle in on the wane. It has one salvation however, it being one of the first films to bring the issue of police brutality to the fore.

It would take a much better film 4 years later to put a positive exclamation point to the end of the classic noir period, that being 1958’s “Touch of Evil”, another “bordertown noir” of immensly better calibre.

Despite the differences of opinion between actor/director Orson Welles and the studio VPs and Welles personal disdain for star Charlton Heston it remains the best example of bortertown crime, flawed and crooked cops and their misguided loyalties, and crazed characters. “Naked Alibi” pales in comparison but is certainly watchable and I urge you to see it and judge for yourself.

Noir of the Week: 8/13/07
GOODNIGHT MY LOVE

Posted by Gord Gates

The time-1946, the place- Los Angeles

Richard Boone and Michael Dunn play a pair of world-weary private detectives in this superb television movie of the week from 1972. They are down to their last nickel and wondering where their next meal is coming from. There is a knock at the door and in strolls Barbara Bain.

“Would it be possible to hire you?” She inquires. It seems her husband to be, Gianni Russo, is missing and Bain wants to find out why. A quick cash advance and Boone and partner are on the job. They head for the missing groom’s room where not two steps inside Boone’s head is on the receiving end of a pistol butt.

Once Boone has recovered, they pay a return visit to Miss Bain. While a simple case of finding a man is ok, a pistol whipping is not what they signed up for. They quit! Bain doubles their fee and back on the job the two go.

A little digging and they find that Gianni is mixed up with a mobbed up club owner, Victor Buono. Buono pulls out all stops as he gives a great Sydney Greenstreet imitation. Someone has bumped off a mob courier and helped himself to a suitcase with $400,000. And it seems that Bain’s missing beau is the prime suspect. The mob is not amused and has a contract out on Gianni. Boone and Dunn find that double cross on top of double cross is the order of the day with this bunch.

Buono is short of cash due to some large gambling losses. He hires Gianni to bump off the courier with the suitcase and return it to him. Gianni instead takes the suitcase and goes into hiding. Every time Boone gets close to finding Gianni he finds himself on the wrong of various fists, boots and gun barrels. Boone is not amused.

When the boys do find Gianni it is after he has taken a 6 story fall. Witnesses describe a woman who sounds a lot like Bain leaving the area just after her now ex’s failed flight.

Now it all comes clear to Boone. Bain was in on the scam with Gianni. Buono crosses the mob, Gianni crosses Buono, then Bain crosses Gianni. The only problem for Bain is that the suitcase was empty. Buono, assuming that he was going to get the suitcase back had given the mob courier an empty suitcase. When Gianni returned, Buono intended to dispose of him and use the cash to pay his gambling debts.

Buono's perfect plan goes all to hell because of a dame. Soon Bain is added to the body count and the mob tumbles to Buono’s play. He is next on the list for the long sleep. Boone and Dunne return to their office to wait for the next fool to walk in.

This is one great film! The dialogue is superb. The back and forth between Boone and Dunn is priceless.

Directed by Peter Hyams whose work includes, Outland, Time Cop, Sudden Death , Narrow Margin, (the remake) and the strange P.I. film Peeper.

Noir of the Week: 8/6/07
DECOY

Posted by Haggai

When I first started posting here on the Blackboard about a year and a half ago, out of all the B-movies I heard about that were previously unfamiliar to me, one of them quickly became the most intriguing one of all. A femme fatale so cold-blooded that she ran over her victims with a car, played by an elusive actress whose life was tragically cut short just three years later? A movie so hard to see that the only copy in existence had Croatian subtitles? What kind of craziness would await when I could finally see this legendary...thing? Some tantalizing clips from it appeared in the documentary in the Warners Noir Vol. 3 boxset, and when it was announced that it would definitely be included in Vol. 4, I knew exactly what would be going into my DVD player the second I could get my hands on that collection. This past Wednesday night, that's exactly what happened, so here are the thoughts of a Decoy newbie, who's still trying to recover from the...experience.

Some spoilers will follow farther down, but to start, here's the plot overview from Glenn Erickson's review:

Police Sergeant 'Jo Jo' Portugal (Sheldon Leonard) follows a trail of dead bodies back to the posh apartment of Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie) and finds her dying on the sofa, shot by Dr. Craig (Herbert Rudley), himself now dead on the floor. As she dies, Shelby confesses how she goaded crook Jim Vincent (Edward Norris) into helping her with a plot to separate her boyfriend, convicted killer Frankie Olins (Robert Armstrong) from the proceeds from a successful bank robbery. Olins is due to be executed and claims he'll take the secret of the location of the loot to the grave unless someone breaks him out of jail. Margot seduces Dr. Craig, who claims Olins' corpse without an autopsy and revives it with a dose of a chemical called Methelyne Blue. Now Margot's problem is how to separate three boyfriends from the money, a task to which she's perfectly suited. She has no compunctions about double-crossing all of them.

This movie certainly comes exactly as advertised: if a more cold-blooded femme fatale ever existed, I'm not sure I could even handle seeing anything she might be a part of.

The denouement of this movie might very well be the most black-hearted 10 minutes in the history of noir. And it's not just the legendary murder via car flattening, which apparently also exists in an even more sadistic version that features multiple passes over the hapless victim. No, folks, that's not even the half of it. I knew about that scene going in, though it still packs a mighty wallop even when you know it's coming. But I still wasn't prepared for the further tsunami of evil that follows, which I'm able to review here only because I somehow managed to retrieve my jaw from the floor after my first viewing a few nights ago:

-- After retrieving the map, the car jack, and the pistol from the dead body on the side of the road, she returns to the car to find the mortified doctor exclaiming, "I'd like to kill you."? Whereupon she calmly hands him the pistol, waits for him to lose his nerve, and takes the pistol back with a sly grin on her face. If there was any doubt that she completely owned him before that point, there certainly isn't any left once it happens.

-- When she locates the spot where the money is buried, she calls on him to come over and start digging. He looks like he's about to brain her with the shovel, but again he loses his nerve and starts digging instead. Leaving nothing to ambiguity in the familiar noir intermingling of sex and death, she exhorts him while he digs: "Quickly, Lloyd, quickly! Dig for it! Deeper! Faster! Quickly, Lloyd! They killed for it. They all killed for it. Frankie, Vincent, I killed for it. And you. You too! You killed for it!"

-- Then she pulls out the pistol and pumps him full of lead, just as he holds up the buried strongbox, and she laughs maniacally while yelling, "Get off, get off it! It's mine! It's all mine now!!
Wow. And if that wasn't enough, when the flashback structure comes back to her on the brink of death in her apartment, she sweetly beckons "Jo-Jo" to "come down to my level"? (a reference to an earlier exchange between them), and when he leans in for what he presumably anticipates to be one last moment of tenderness, she laughs in his face just before kicking the bucket.

As for everything that comes before the mind-blowing finale, there's no doubt that this was not a big studio A-level effort, but the sets are pretty well constructed, as Erickson points out in the DVD commentary track with original story writer Stanley Rubin. It comes across as a competently made B-movie, with some snappy dialogue and a few amusing supporting characters. The oddball reincarnation plot point plays out like a noir version of Frankenstein, especially in the suspenseful scene where the doctor's machinery completes the revival. Frankie's return to life includes a couple of nicely effective details, as he realizes that he's come back to life via the simple acts of pulling a window shade and lighting a match. Robert Armstrong's performance also adds a surprisingly moving touch to the scene. One thing I probably would have liked better is if the charismatic Armstrong could have lasted longer in the movie than he does, preferably at the expense of the colorless Edward Norris, who shows about as much acting range as the pre-revived corpse of Frankie Olins. And imagine if that most infamous murder scene could have been even more shocking, if it had been the raised-from-the-dead Frankie going back to the graveyard underneath those car wheels...

A few corny scenes inject an occasional unintentional comedy factor, like when the doctor reacts to Margot's cold-blooded explanation of how he's irreversibly involved in their murderous plot by pounding his desk right in the middle of the fatally violated Hippocratic Oath. One earlier scene between Craig and Margot plays out with some pretty ripe dialogue on top of the lushly orchestrated main theme, as she laments how his small clinic's poor surroundings remind her too much of her unhappy childhood: "I can't forget your street. That street runs all over the world. I know, 'cause that's the street I came from."

But I agree with Erickson's assessment of Decoy as "a dead-serious thriller that now plays like Camp, and we like it both ways."? Scenes like the ones I just mentioned play out to me like the comically awkward attempt at social commentary in one of my favorite action movies, the legendary kung fu classic Enter the Dragon, where African-American martial arts hero Jim Kelly takes one look at the squalor surrounding the Hong Kong harbor and sagely declares: "Ghettoes are the same all over the world. They stink." All you can do is laugh at a line like that, but it has its own way of adding to the overall entertainment factor.

I like how the recurring idea of reincarnation, roughly speaking, plays out in a few different spots of Decoy. Aside from the central event of reviving Frankie, there's also the opening scene. Even though we don't quite realize it during a first viewing, Craig is essentially returning from the dead himself when we first see him, fully realizing what he needs to do only when he seems himself in an ominously broken mirror:

Also, at the very end of the movie, having lost her life at the hands of the left-for-dead Craig, Margot ends up losing the one thing she thought she had achieved, although she dies before realizing it. The vengeful hand of Frankie, reaching from beyond the grave once more in what almost amounts to a final act of reincarnation, reveals her "last laugh" to be a completely hollow triumph. The crooks who cheated each other in life continue swindling each other even in death.

On the commentary track, Rubin and Erickson salute Gillie and director Jack Bernhard for having her play the character as 100% bad (which Rubin appreciates, since he wrote it that way!), as opposed to the more common occurrence where leading ladies of the time would try to bring at least a touch of sympathy to even the most wicked femme fatale. As Erickson says, even Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity still wants the audience to love her, if only just a little bit. Not that there's anything wrong with that: I think the fact that Kathie Moffat, for instance, is a well-rounded character who wants to go straight but just can't seem to help herself adds a poignantly tragic element to Out of the Past. But when Ann and Jeff in that movie have the exchange of "She can't be all bad. No one is," "Well, she comes the closest," it's obvious that neither of them had ever come across Margot Shelby!

And that's about it. It's tough for anything with the reputation of a "cult classic" to live up to its advance billing, but this lean 76 minutes packed with double-crossing and homicide sure does, thanks to a top-notch femme fatale and an utterly gobsmacking finale.

Noir of the Week: 7/30/07
WITHOUT WARNING

Posted by Chi-Bob

Director: Arnold Laven ( Vice Squad, Down Three Dark Streets, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue)

Story and Screenplay : Bill Raynor

Cinematography: Joe Biroc

Cast: Adam Williams, Ed Binns, Meg Randall, Harlan Warde, John Maxwell, Angela Stevens.

For years WITHOUT WARNING was mentioned here and there in a tantalizing fashion ?in various articles about film noir, but seemed to be totally unavailable for viewing. Never shown in retrospectives, and never on the tube, it seemed to be that rarity, a virtual “lost” film that was made in the somewhat recent past. Even THE FILM NOIR BIBLE, in over 700 pages of idiosyncratic, and, at times, willfully perverse, opinions doesn’t even mention the film. While the subject matter is lurid, it is about as bloodless a film about a psycho killer as you could ever imagine. Fortunately, a couple of years ago it appeared on DVD in a beautiful print, so now we can see Adam Williams in his 77 minutes of fame.

This was Arnold Laven’s first directorial effort. The screenplay at various times was called “The Slasher” and “The Ripper.” Made with a cast of virtual unknowns, it cost a paltry $100,000, and yet looks as much of a polished and professional film as one that costs ten times that amount. There is not one ounce of “fat” in its 77 minutes. Every scene is a necessary component in propelling the story line. I’m sure¸ because of budget restrictions, some scenes were done with a hidden camera, like when Williams walks the streets outside the dance halls, cafes, and burlesque houses of downtown LA at night, and when he flees the police through LA’s Produce Market among the surprised produce workers. It gives the film a documentary feel.

Filming in seldom used locations (such as now vanished neighborhoods and among the newly built freeway system), it essentially is a police procedural, with voice over narration that never ventures into the motivation (except in passing) of the serial killer. The emphasis is more on the dogged persistence of a couple of detectives, and the grunt work involved in piecing together the various clues to narrow it down to a logical suspect.

Adam Williams has the lead as Carl Martin, a gardener who was jilted by his wife, which has caused him to go off his “rocker” and kill blonde married women using his tool of choice – garden shears. Williams just died last year after having a busy career in films and TV in secondary roles for over 25 years – most notably as Larry (“I’m a rebound man from way back.”), the car bomber in THE BIG HEAT, Bev Michaels boyfriend in CRASHOUT and the strong arm guy for James Mason in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. He even wrote for TV, writing an episode of THE RIFLEMAN and M SQUAD (appropriately title “The Twisted Way”).

Carl is a modern day “underground man,” not terribly dissimilar to Basehart in HE WALKED BY NIGHT. Essentially working alone as a gardener, seemingly without any social acquaintances, living on a hilly dead end street in a shack with exposed 2x4s in the Chavez Ravine section, and prowling the night streets, showing very little emotion, except for a dopey grin, as he looks for fresh prey. At times, Williams makes Carl look about as menacing as a USC frat boy the morning after a Friday night kegger. His character is in direct opposition to that of Ed Binns as LA police detective Pete Hamilton. Binns displays a thrill of the “hunt” and a fascination for the forensics behind detection in such an enthusiastic manner that he makes Joe Friday’s ramrod up the arse demeanor a laughable dull boy.

One of the things that attracts me to noirs after WWII was the amount of location shooting done in larger cities. Whether it’s Bunker Hill and downtown LA in CRISS CROSS, HE RAN ALL THE WAY, and CHICAGO CALLING, the New York of THE NAKED CITY, the Chicago of THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS, or the San Francisco of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI and THE LINEUP, the noirs of this era provide a valuable historic document of urban America, and at the same time brings back pleasant memories for many of us.

WITHOUT WARNING certainly fits into this category. It came out the same year as THE SNIPER, so it’s very easy to compare the two films which are so similar in theme. Both films used extensive location shooting in their respective cities. Much of the San Francisco neighborhood of Telegraph Hill, where Arthur Franz in THE SNIPER lives and does much of his “handy” work, still looks essentially as it did 55 years ago. Whereas, Adam Williams’s tar papered crib in WITHOUT WARNING was up a dirt road in Chavez Ravine, a neighborhood that resembled nothing more than a hill town in Mexico that has totally vanished. Filming there, for me, gives the film its special character. While the film was being made, and after many years of community resistance, the long time residents of Chavez Ravine were, in many cases, forcibly removed to make way for “progress” – Dodger Stadium. During extra inning night games it’s said that Carl Martin’s ghost still haunts the right field bleachers.

In viewing this film again after a hiatus of two years, it occurred to me “Who was this?film made for”? It’s not family fare, nor is it something a guy wants to take his date to (unless he’s into sharp objects that glisten). How many soldiers on leave, minimum wage retail clerks living in single room occupancy, or bored pensioners would have seen this film in a big city grind house for it to turn a profit? The only conclusion I can come to is that WITHOUT WARNING was made for the future - made for us. That way we can look back and realize how an efficient little programmer could deliver the “goods”, and all for the price that it costs a modern production company for the luncheon budget.

Noir of the Week: 7/23/07
DEAD RECKONING (1947)

Posted by Don Malcolm

Directed by John Cromwell

Cinematography by Leo Tover

Screenplay by Olver H.P. Garrett and Steve Fisher from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams and Sidney Biddell

Lead actors: Humphrey Bogart (Rip Murdock), Lizabeth Scott (Coral Chandler)

Supporting actors: Morris Carnovsky (Martinelli), Marvin Miller (Krause), Wallace Ford (McGee), William Prince (Johnny Drake), Charles Cane (Lt. Kincaid)

Bit players: James Bell (Father Logan), George Chandler (Louis Ord)

Make no mistake--this film is not one of the great noirs, but it is highly enjoyable thanks in large part to an in-the-pocket performance from Humphrey Bogart.

Bogie is so good that virtually all of the film's flaws--ragged plot, often ham-fisted acting from the minor characters, and a drastically uneven performance by Liz Scott--can be bypassed for what we like to call "pure noir enjoyment."

The basic plot goes like this: Rip Murdock (Bogart) goes after his pal Johnny (William Prince) after he disappears on the way to a Congressional medal of honor. Murdock traces him to Gulf City, a southern town where he has returned to confront a shaky past and rekindle things with an old flame, Coral Chandler (Scott). It soon becomes clear that a web of deceit and murder that began before the war is still being spun, as Johnny's charred body shows up in the morgue.

Rip and Coral meet and spark, but Murdock is suspicious of her relationship to an urbane mobster named Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky). Things get increasingly complicated--and downright fiery--as Rip tries to get at the truth.

Bogie is clearly drawing upon his Marlowe and Spade characterizations here, but it's refreshing to see him step outside the gumshoe role while still retaining much of the same attitude and mannerisms. He gets solid support from Carnovsky, who is appropriately oily, and from Marvin Miller, at his sadistic best as Krause, Martinelli's muscle man.

So "how noir" is Dead Reckoning? Let's turn to the noir elements:

CHARACTER ELEMENTS (60)

Femme/homme fatale or doom/peril-inducing characters (15)

Dead Reckoning plays it fast and loose with Coral Chandler, but the end result of all the monkeying around with the character might be to produce the most accurate understanding of the "erotic frenzy" associated with the femme fatale. (Many will leap out of their chairs to suggest that Liz Scott is not the best exemplar of such frenzy, but bear with me for a minute.)

The fatal female comes in several distinct flavors, but one primary variant is the girl who flits from man to man, taking what she can get and giving each man something of what he seems to want or need before moving on. The fickleness of the forties femme fatale can be contrasted to the "gangster's moll"--who, despite her tough exterior, is more vulnerable and more monogamous.
Chandler is clearly a "flitter," though as portrayed by Scott she shows a strong tendency to get lost in an erotically-charged emotional aura. It's not quite cleared up whether Coral killed Johnny: Murdock thinks so, but it could've been Martinelli's henchmen trying to put a lid on an inconvenient problem.
It's clear, though, that Coral wants to be in love with love--as she sings early on, "there's no compromise." Her conflict between being in love's thrall and being in control of events, however, is ultimately irreconcilable.

All in all, she's pretty nasty, even if she tries hard to do her dirty deeds with a cloying sweetness. Docked a point for a series of wooden scenes from Scott that too clearly show the seams in the character. (11/15)

Morally ambiguous protagonists (5)

Bogie's morals are mostly above reproach, though we wonder about his past a bit. Everyone else, however--Coral, Martinelli, etc.--is seriously tainted. (4/5)

Alienated protagonists (5)

Rip is in alien territory ("Gulf City") and he's increasingly in mental peril as well as physical danger. Still, the role is a bit too tailored to Bogart's style and delivery to focus prominently on alienation per se. (3/5)

A fall guy (5)

Johnny is the original fall guy, and Rip is being groomed to take his place. (5/5)

Violence relative to character development/interaction (10)

Rip slowly builds up to a particularly fiery display of macho avenging, and there's real relish in the way he dishes it out, especially after suffering under the thuggish "ministrations" of Krause (Marvin Miller). (9/10)

Characters trapped by past events (10)

Murdock discovers a web of intrigue that is entirely tied to events in the past, and that no one can escape. (10/10)

Degree of character triangulation (10)

Once you get past the scenes with Bogie/Scott, there's a lot of triangulation going on here, often with minor characters providing some kind of perspective on the love relationship. (7/10)

CHARACTER ELEMENTS TOTAL: 49/60 (8.1 out of 10)

MISE-EN-SCENE (VISUAL) and SETTING ELEMENTS (75)

B&W cinematography (10)

Check. (10/10)

Low angle shooting/expressionistic techniques (5)

Not a lot, mostly confined to tight spaces (the hotel hallway where Bogey disposes of Louis Ord's body, a few scenes in/around Martinelli's office). (2/5)

A sense of fatalism (either spoken or visual) (20)

Solidly fatalistic in the first half, with the in media res opening and long flashback, the tautness of the hushed, tight-jawed voiceover, and Murdock's growing realizations concerning in the intricacy of the mess that his pal Johnny had walked back into. Less so, of course, when the action becomes "in the present," but the undercurrent of dread associated with the past is still an underlying tone in the film as it plays itself out. (14/20)

Use of extreme mise-en-scene (claustrophobic/barren) (10)

Only intermittently. (4/10)

Use of mise-en-scene to portray alienation (5)

Fairly strong in the first part of the film, then things drift a bit as we go through the long thrust-and-parry between Bogie and Scott. (2/5)

Odd camera angles or visual effects/sequences (5)

Sparingly, but done effectively when used, especially the wonderful "metaphorical" shot at the end of the film. (2/5)

An urban setting (degree of emphasis) (10)

Too set-bound to be an emphatic use of the urban environment; a lot of the film takes place in interiors that distance us from the effects of the urban environment. (6/10)

Exotic/remote/barren location setting (5)

The trip to the beach qualifies, but it's just window dressing. (1/5)

Night club and/or gambling setting (5)

The key to the tale resides at Martinelli's club, and the action keeps returning there. (5/5)

MISE-EN-SCENE/SETTING ELEMENTS TOTAL: 46/75 (6.1 out of 10)

PLOT/SCREENWRITING ELEMENTS (65)

A convoluted story line (5)

Aside from the flashback sequence, the narrative is reasonably linear. The events in the story, however, are murky. (3/5)

Use of flashbacks (10)

One long flashback that takes up a bit more than half of the film, and is extremely well placed. (10/10)

A murder or heist at the center of the story (5)

Three murders--one in the fairly distant past (Coral's husband), one in the recent past (Johnny), and luckless Louis Ord for good measure. (5/5)

A betrayal or double-cross (5)

Johnny gets betrayed twice: first set up as the killer of Coral's husband, then sent to a fiery death when he comes back home. (5/5)

Story told from the perspective of the criminals (5)

Only occasionally, and mostly in dialogue recounting past events. (1/5)

Sexual relationships in relation to plot development (10)

Highly correlated to "amorous frenzy", Dead Reckoning pushes Scott's charms to the forefront in order to propel the action forward.. (9/10)

A spoken narrative (5)

In the first half of the film, and nicely done by Bogart. (3/5)

Hard-boiled dialogue/repartee (5)

Archetypal Bogart cheekiness, lots of tough-guy patter, and a great slang sequence between Bogie and the ever-reliable Wally Ford. (5/5)

Noir vs. gris denouement (10)

High body count overcomes the fact that Bogie survives. The atmospheric closing shot is unique in the noir lexicon and remains memorable even if it seems somewhat out of place with what has preceded it. (7/10)

PLOT SCREENWRITING ELEMENTS TOTAL: 47/65 (7.2 out of 10)

TOTAL NOIR ELEMENTS SCORE: 142/200 (7.1 out of 10)

So it's the character and story elements that rank highest on the ol' "noir-o-meter" here. And it's the noir characters who give this film its distinctive flavor--from Bogart's in-the-pocket performance all the way to veteran bit player George Chandler, who shines in his brief role as doomed bartender Louis Ord. (Interestingly, Chandler, with over 400 film credits, would eventually become president of the Screen Actor's Guild, serving from 1960-63).

Noir of the Week; 7/16/07
HUMAN DESIRE/LA BETE HUMAINE

Posted by Gary G.

Several times in past years here at the Blackboard, the subject of "remakes" has been brought up...and the general consensus has always been that there has never been a remake of an original film noir from the classic period that was superior to the original.

I know it's cheating a bit, as the original film in this case isn't really film noir...it's actually from the French poetic realism period...but anybody who has watched LA BETE HUMAINE and not seen the many elements of film noir just isn't paying close attention!

HUMAN DESIRE...1954 LA BETE HUMAINE...1938

Director: Fritz Lang Director: Jean Renoir

Screenplay: Alfred Hayes, from the Screenplay: Adaptation by Jean Renoir novel LA BETE HUMAINE, by Emile Zola

DP: Burnett Guffey DP:Curt Courant

Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jean Gabin, Simone Simon, Fernand ?Broderick Crawford Ledoux

I state early on in this review that I'm a huge fan of the film HUMAN DESIRE, and in fact, it resides firmly in my top five films noir, probably only behind OUT OF THE PAST, CRISS CROSS, and a few from a guy called Bogie. However, I don't think I'm being hard on the earlier French film in any way, as I'm also a huge fan of many of the films directed by Renoir, and certainly a fan of virtually anything starring Simon Simone and Jean Gabin.

There is little question that the earlier film stays closer to the novel (so I've been told, I haven't read the book)...Renoir even begins his film with a quote from Zola that somewhat explains the fits that Gabin's character suffers from ("bad blood from generations of alcohol abuse," or something like that)...and herein lies the problem with LA BETE HUMAINE...apparantly staying so close to the novel produce plot holes large enough to drive a locomotive (so prominate in the film) through. Alfred Hayes' (he also did the script for CLASH BY NIGHT)script for HUMAN DESIRE solves the major plot hole of the original film very easily...basically, an incriminating letter is kept as leverage...and this adds much to the motivation of our femme fatale in the later film.

I've never really felt it fair to compare the "look" of films done in the 30's to those that came after about 1940...for example, just compare about any Bogart film from the 30's with anything that came after 1940...better makeup, lighting, a sharper image (and generally better direction and acting). In the case of LA BETE HUMAINE (translated: THE HUMAN BEAST, and henceforth referred to as HB)the film seems to have held up well (my print is from THE SUNDANCE CHANNEL), and for the most part doesn't betray its age...pretty much sharp as a tack, thanks likely to the efforts of director of photography Curt Courant (this guy had been making films for almost 20 years before HB, and he also lensed the noirish LE JOUR SE LEVE/DAYBREAK the next year...before taking a long hiatus).

The film has atmosphere to burn, and in my estimation, as many darkly lit scenes as any of the classic films noir. The acting is also very strong for a film of this period, with virtually none of the "stagey" mannerisms often seen in American films of the same vintage...and absolutely none of that alwful "kabuki" makeup that American film actors had to endure. The two leads, Jean Gabin and Simone Simon, went on to iconic status in France, especially Gabin...he made at least one film a year from the 30's through the early 70's (missing only one year due to WWII), but wasn't very successful in his handful of Hollywood films made during the war. Simone was also less than successful in Hollywood, and is now mostly remembered for the cult film CAT PEOPLE...and that casting was purrrfect! As good as she is in HB, and she is good, perhaps the best example of early femme fataldom...I couldn't get the cat imagery out of my head as I watched the film! It is also interesting to note that director Renoir has Simone go from just "cute" to smokin' hot during the films run.

The overall standing of THE HUMAN BEAST almost 70 years along, generally speaking, is that it is minor Renoir (hey, this guy has some REALLY highly regarded films, one that often shows up on lists as the greatest ever!)...and it is generally considered superior to the remake HUMAN DESIRE.

I COULDN'T DISAGREE MORE!

As mentioned above, I've always found HUMAN DESIRE to have everything that a film noir fan could ask for...a subtle but determined femme fatale, a perfect everyman she can lead astray, a vicious murderer, atmospheric lighting, and a plot/storyline that is believable. This same group (Lang, Grahame, Ford) made a more famous film the year before (THE BIG HEAT), but I find HUMAN DESIRE to be much more noirish, better paced, and more realistic. Most of the criticism I've found of HUMAN DESIRE (primarily at IMDB) seems to stem from the so-called "wooden" acting of Glen Ford...and I just don't see it at all.

For my money, Ford is the perfect everyman here, and while Gabin may take acting honors while playing somewaht the same role, the differences are so extreme that it is unfair to compare them here. In fact, while the two films have many VERY similar scenes, and a plot that is close to the same, I'm not really sure if it's fair to call this a remake (then again, OUT OF THE PAST and CRISS CROSS, when remade, bore little resemblance to their respective original sources, either).

Perhaps my favorite comparison in the two films is the contrast of the femme fatales...as I mentioned, Simone Simon's turn in the earlier film may well have been the best early example of a femme fatale, but 16 years late, Gloria Grahame took what Simon started and really turns up the heat. Gloira is justifiably famous for her several turns as a bad girl in film noir, and her work in HUMAN DESIRE is my favorite. Her first scene in the film, where she models new stockings for hubby Brod Crawford is guranteed to get the attention of Grahame fans! Add to this the absolutely stunning Kathleen Case, playing the "good girl" in Ford's life, and this is one of the few times that Gloria Grahame may not be the sexiest woman in a film! Regardless, Grahame steals this film with ease.

If THE HUMAN BEAST is considered minor Renoir, the general consensus (at least at imdb and a few noir books) seems to be that HUMAN DESIRE is VERY minor Fritz Lang. Well, I don't see it that way, and I urge all Blackboarders to try both films. The Renoir film is generally available on dvd, and shows up somewhat often on the TCM, SUNDANCE, etc. HUMAN DESIRE, on the other hand, almost never plays on tv, and to the best of my knowledge, is only available commercially in a film noir 4 pack.

I don't give plot summaries in my NOTW reviews, as I find it to easy to inadvertantly give away plot points...suffice it to say, both films take place around railroad yards, with Gabin, Ford, and Brod. Crawford all railroad employees...and these two films, along with John Frankenheimer's THE TRAIN just have to be the best "train films" ever made. (Has there ever been a more noirish setting than around trains?... throw in THE NARROW MARGIN, and you've got a great theme for an exceptional weekend of films).

I hope to garner some opinions on these two films from Blackboarders who have seen them, and to urge those that haven't seen them to do so asap...you're in for a treat!

Noir of the Week: 7/9/07
711 OCEAN DRIVE

Posted by Marie

I thought it would be fitting as this film just aired on TCM Friday.

Larceny lurks in the inner heart of working-stiff telephone repairman Mal Granger (Edmond O'Brien). Somewhat of a small-time bettor, he gets hooked up with a bookie operation. With his electronics acumen and his bright idea of connecting bookies all over California with a wireless service, he soon becomes the technical brains of the operation. (This was before cell phones, folks). There is a smattering of technical dialogue with lots of clunky instruments showing how it's done. Soon everyone is rolling in cabbages, taking in thousands, but our genial repairman becomes ambitious and ruthlessly rises up the ranks to head the organization, alienating his former friends and flames and generally becoming unpleasant. Along the way he acquires a Malibu beachfront pad (presumably 711 Ocean Drive) from where he controls his illegal empire.

Even though consistently warned he's getting too big for his britches, the "Big Boys" (Cleveland gangsters) are indeed impressed with his success and descend upon Granger to wrest control away from him. Then despite his aversion to marriage, he acquires a yen for waif-like Gail Mason (Joanne Dru) unhappily married to one of the higher ups of the Syndicate, and plots to go away with her. Only of course, after he bilks the Syndicate for thousands of dollars so they can go to Guatamala and live happily ever after. Murder and mayhem ensue, and it becomes a cat and mouse game between Granger and the head honcho, played by Otto Kruger, simply exuding well-bred menace as he goes about giving orders for executions while arranging visits to his grandchildren.

It all culminates as the lovebirds flee to Boulder Dam (Hoover Dam), in a finale reminiscent of Hitchcock. The giant edifice of the Dam and its labyrinth internal tunnels dwarf the fleeing criminal, and his ignoble ending reflects the prologue & epilogues, solemn warnings to the public about the vice of gambling and it's dangerous criminal element. Indeed the poster for this film announces it was "Filmed Under Police Protection!" as apparently the shadowy underworld threatened violence to its production. A moot point, as the movie is prescient when a character grumbling about California courts legalizing gambling mutters, "The State will be taking our gravy!"

It's an easy to watch, quick-paced film with snappy dialogue and nifty location shots of L.A. in the early 50s. It's always great to see Edmond O'Brien play a crook, as he is so believable. The noir element comes in when you see the transformation of the Matt Granger character, who starts out basically likeable, then goes a little power mad and turns into a greedy, girlfriend-slapping thug. Even though he thinks he can "get over" on them, he's doomed to be crushed under the heel of the omnipotent Syndicate like the bug that he is. The movie sends a subversive message when this invisible group of master criminals, well-heeled Wasp businessmen, get off scot free, unnerving in their cloak of respectability and invisibility.

As an aside, this film falls handily into my "Beach Houses in Noir" category. Though you would think it's something of a contradiction, beach houses figure prominently in a lot of noir (Due I'm sure, to the fact they were filmed in L.A.) Others that come to mind are: Nobody Lives Forever, Slightly Scarlett, Woman on the Beach, Female on the Beach, The Devil Thumbs A Ride, and the most obvious, Mildred Pierce. Let me know what others I've left out, I'd like to make a list.

Beach houses in noir:

711 OCEAN DRIVE
NOBODY LIVES FOREVER
SLIGHTLY SCARLET
THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH
FEMALE ON THE BEACH
THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE
MILDRED PIERCE
MURDER, MY SWEET
POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE
TENSION
KISS ME DEADLY
CRISS CROSS
RAW DEAL
DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD
THE SPIRITUALIST aka AMAZING MR. X
SHACK OUT ON 101
THE RECKLESS MOMENT
THE BREAKING POINT
WHIPLASH (opening scenes, at any rate)
DANGER SIGNAL
LOOPHOLE
HIGH TIDE
VOICE OF THE WHISTLER
CHAMPION
I LOVE TROUBLE
LARCENY
IN A LONELY PLACE
MY NAME IS JULIA ROSS (OK, English beach scene!)
NIGHT EDITOR
THE NIGHT RUNNER
NIGHT UNTO NIGHT
PITFALL
RAGING TIDE
BORN TO KILL (Elisha tries to bump off Esther on the SF sand dunes)
WOMAN ON THE RUN
THE ACCUSED
THE BLUE DAHLIA (Ladd and Lake do some sparking in Malibu)
THE BRIBE
CLASH BY NIGHT
DEAD RECKONING (Bogey and Liz take a trip to the beach as they size each other up)
THE FLAME
HELLBOUND
HELL's ISLAND
HIS KIND OF WOMAN

Noir of the Week: 7/2/07
STRONG ROOM/CALCULATED RISK

Posted by Gord Gates

Due to the fact I'm going to be without a computer this weekend I need to post today. We'll just pretend it is July 1st.

First up is 1962’s STRONG-ROOM. Three minor league crooks have planned the perfect heist. They are going to knock over a small bank just before a long weekend. They have spent months keeping track of the bank’s employees and their schedule. Needless to say the day of the planned robbery the bank manager and his secretary stay late to do some paperwork. Their plan had been to grab the manager just as he was leaving and force him to open the strong-room. After which they would tie him up and leave him to be found when the bank opened.

The crooks decide to go forward. One of them poses as a postman making a late delivery and forces his way in. He lets the other two in and they proceed with the rest of their plan. Only differance will be that they leave two people trussed up. They empty the vault and are just about ready to leave when the janitors come in upstairs. Now what do they do? They gag the two employees and lock them in the safe. They then exit through the front entrance. They take the bank manager’s car along so nothing will look out of place.

The gang splits up with one taking the manager’s car to dispose of while the other two take the cash. A success!

For all of half a hour that is. The gang member with the car gets into a head-on crash is killed. On the body of the man the police discover the bank manager’s keys. They start to trace the man and the keys.

The other two crooks are counting up the loot and dreaming of what to spend it on. One of them though is having second thoughts about leaving the bank people in the airtight vault. Well they have enough air? Right now it is just robbery if they are caught. But it is murder if the bank employees die.

They decide to return and drill a small hole in the safe for air. They were right to worry about the supply of air for the two within. They are dying. Just as the two crooks begin on the vault door the cop arrive. The police believe they caught them in the act of breaking in to rob the vault. Valuable time is wasted convincing the police they are there to get people out of the vault. Now they are fighting the clock to get the door open.

This is a great plan gone awry film with a real nail biter of a ending. The last 20 seconds hit you like a hammer.

Directed by Vernon Swell who keeps the pace flying and the action to the point. Starring Derren Nesbitt, Colin Gordon Ann Lynn and Jack Stewart.

CALCULATED RISK – 1963

This is another neat little perfect plan gone wrong. At first one thinks you are watching a low rent re-hash of The Asphalt Jungle. It is not, there are more than enough changes to keep it interesting..

A con just out of prison needs some cash to set up the perfect heist. He goes to a fence he knew from his early days. The fence agrees to finance the set-up and get a crew together. The target? A bank which is next door to several houses that had been bombed during the war. They plan to dig through the foundations of the ruins and right into the bank’s vault.

The plan goes perfect except for one thing. After digging all the way through to the vault, they find an unexploded 1000 lb bomb. Where is the bomb? Sitting right in front of where they need to use their explosives to get into the vault.

They figure the bomb must be a dud and decide to continue. They blow a hole into the vault and fill their bags with the cash. As they are getting ready to leave they hear a ticking. The bomb! It’s timer has started. They look at the bomb, then at the way out and then at each other!

Need I say more.

Real nice hour and a bit thriller. The cast and crew is made up by a bunch of people I’ve never heard of. Director – Norman Harrison. Cast – William Lucas, John Rutland , Dils Watling, Shay Gorman.

Noir of the Week: 6/25/07
THE BIG NIGHT (1951)

Posted by Chi-Bob

Directed by Joseph Losey

Screenplay by Hugo Butler, Ring Lardner Jr., Stanley?Ellin and Joseph Losey; based on the novel DREADFUL SUMMIT, by Stanley Ellin.

Cinematography by Hal Mohr

Lead actors: John Barrymore Jr., Preston Foster, Howard St. John

Supporting actors: Joan Lorring, Howland Chamberlain, Dorothy Comingore, Philip Bourneuf, Emile Meyer, Mauri Lynn, Myron Healey

Bit player: Robert Aldrich (as the spectator with the pint of booze at the boxing match)

THE BIG NIGHT was Joseph Losey's last American-made film (as well as Dorothy Comingore’s last film before she was blacklisted, and off to a life of alcohol abuse). Losey found out that he had been blacklisted while on location in Italy filming STRANGER ON THE PROWL.

He intended THE BIG NIGHT to be told as a long flashback, but when he went to England in the early 1950s he saw the film and found that it had been altered to fit into a chronological narrative.

In his five American features, Losey chose projects that demonstrated an interest in those who operate on the margins of society: THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (a young lad who looks different from his peers); THE LAWLESS (a minority group); THE PROWLER (a bored, lonely housewife and an embittered rogue cop); M (the most extreme outsider imaginable, a serial child killer); and then we have THE BIG NIGHT, with poor, ungainly George La Main.

The opening shows great promise--a deserted street in the industrial area of a large city with an oil tank looming in the background, all under gray skies. John Drew Barrymore intrudes into the frame, panic stricken, running desperately away from something undefined, all this with the opening credits playing over a musical score filled with a cacophony of anxiety and menace.

When we first are introduced to teenager George La Main he is outside of his father’s tavern (Handy Andy’s Bar and Grill) being teased and cuffed around by his peers on his birthday. For years George has been raised by his father (Foster) living upstairs from a dingy hole in the wall that makes the tavern in WICKED WOMAN seem like a yuppie fern bar. In the midst of George’s birthday celebration (serenaded by derelicts and the local bar fly) in comes lame sports writer Al Judge (St. John) hobbling on his cane. He summarily tells Foster that “I wanna see some skin”, and makes the burly tavern keeper strip down to his waist and kneel on the floor. As the other bartender (Chamberlain) restrains George, Judge administers a severe caning to Foster, who meekly accepts his “punishment.” As Foster’s hand rises from the floor into the frame and grasps the stair railing, we witness, as George does, the bloody welts on Foster’s back.

George, angry and confused that his dad didn’t defend himself, and seeking retribution for his father’s horrific beating, finds a gun in the cash register and goes out looking to exact his revenge on Judge. In one scene George preens in front of a mirror, gun in hand, mouthing what he’s going to do with Judge when he finds him. One wonders whether Paul Shrader wrote the scene in Taxi Driver with De Niro in front of the mirror with this scene in mind.

For the next hour George wanders through the city at night, the “big night” of his birthday. Before the night is over he will have gone from an innocent, sheltered in the cloistered environment of a proletarian tavern in a desolate part of the city, to a young man, who encounters a mixture of duplicity, sympathy, and the narrow minded insensitivity of his upbringing all in the space of about 12 hours.

When he finally confronts Judge (who is so universally disliked that one of the workers at his newspaper “fingers” Judge for George), George finds that Judge was holding up his family’s “honor”. Foster refused to marry Judge’s sister so she overdosed on a bottle of pills. In a scuffle over his gun, George shoots Judge. He makes a mad dash through the city during the dawn hours through vacant streets back to the only safe harbor he knows – Handy Andy’s Bar and Grill. When the cops arrive, George and his father learn that Judge was only slightly wounded, and it being an accident, George most likely will receive a suspended sentence.

The film is shot in mostly natural lighting, with the only scene that had any familiar noir-like shadows happening in the key confrontation when George confronts Judge. It’s a maddening film that attempts to say too much about a teenager’s rite of passage for its 75 minute programmer length. Imo, Barrymore is quite good as the callow youth (too bad his career was squandered in decades of substance abuse) who goes from picked upon wimp to a young man the next morning who has gained a bit of wisdom, and perhaps the beginnings of a calloused heart. It is inhabited by a wide variety of characters, all of whom assist George in his “maturation” process.

The first stranger George meets on his nocturnal jaunt to a boxing arena is a debauched drunk of a college professor (Bourneuf) from a college “up north” who leave his wife and comes to town periodically to liaison with his sweetie (Comingore). George who is used to seeing the folks at Andy’s pound down boilermakers doesn’t catch on to Bourneuf whose drinks of choice are shots of Metaxa and Martell. How can a guy who orders shots like that be on the level? This is someone not to be trusted, who, when George needs him the most, basically tells George to “take it on the arches.” Also along for the ride, as a grifter, is Emile Meyer, warming up for his sadistic role in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, strong arming George for $10. Comingore’s sister (Lorring) takes a big sister liking to George, but even her saccharine ineffectiveness can’t stop George from running away from the cops after he’s shot Judge.

There are three top notch unforgettable moments in the film. The first is the beating of Foster, a scene of stunning brutality and study in group cowardice that the rest of the film can’t quite live up to. One of the others takes place when Bourneuf takes George to a night club where he sees a beautiful black singer (Lynn) belt out a song. Afterwards, a tipsy George runs into her in front of the club and blurts out “I think you’re the most wonderful singer in the whole world, but that isn’t all, cause also you’re so beautiful, even if you are a ………” The hurt shown on Lynn’s face and George’s shame and embarrassment is a wonderful shorthand guide to American race relations circa 1951. The other scene is at the end when Andy confides to George that his mother had left him and George for another man, and he could never marry Judge’s sister because, speaking about his wife he says, “That’s how it is with some men. There’s only one woman in the whole world for them. If that’s the wrong one, that’s tough.” Positively great stuff. It has the makings of the lyrics to a torch song. Too bad Losey didn’t make Andy the bartender the central character. It would have made for an unforgiving noir.

Noir of the Week: 6/18/07
TOUCH OF EVIL [1958]

Posted by Don Malcolm

Directed by Orson Welles

Screenplay by Orson Welles from novel "Badge of Evil" by Whit Masterson

Cinematography by Russell Metty

Lead actors: Charlton Heston (Miguel Vargas), Janet Leigh (Susan Vargas), Orson Welles (Hank Qunilan)

Supporting actors: Joseph Calleia (Pete Menzies), Akim Tamiroff (Joe Grandi), Mort Mills (Al Schwartz), Ray Collins (Adair, District Attorney), Valentin de Vargas (Pancho), Dennis Weaver (night manager, Mirador Motel)

Bit roles: Marlene Dietrich (Tanya), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Strip-club wner),Joanna Moore (Marcia Linnekar), Victor Millian (Manelo Sanchez), Joseph Cotten (Coroner), Mercedes McCambridge (gang leader), Lalo Rios (Risto) Joi Lansing (Zita)

So much has been written about Touch of Evil that its absence from the NOTW list makes sense: what can possibly be added to such an abundance of critical commentary?

The answer: not much. We will have to wait for Simon Callow to finish his three-part Welles biography before having what will likely be the definitive account of the film, its production history, and its ongoing legacy. In the meantime, there is an avalanche of written materials to sift through, and three versions of the film to compare. (Amongst all his other accomplishments--heroic and/or nefarious--Welles must also be given "credit" for the evolution of the "director's cut" concept, even though he never, in fact, issued one. As we will see, there is continuing controversy over the so-called "director's cut" of ToE that was issued in 1998.)

So herewith are just a few impressionistic snapshots of ToE.

STRENGTHS

--A well-knit (albeit baroque) screenplay from Welles, with characters well-defined by dramatic type and by use of language

--Masterful performances from character actors and bit players, especially Joseph Calleia and Akim Tamiroff

--An exceptionally effective musical score by Henry Mancini

--A fearless portrait of grotesque humanity and pathetic evil by Welles as Hank Quinlan

--Uniquely gritty and evocative cinematography from Russell Metty, who is inspired by Welles (his flamboyant "camera angle sense" is all over the place) to do what is probably his best work.

WEAKNESSES

--Performances from the other two leads (Heston and Leigh) are a bit soft. The consensus is that Heston was miscast, but it's hard to think of a contemporaneous Hispanic actor who could have managed to at least gamely mimic the Wellesian gravitas called for in the part. (In fact, one senses that Vargas was a role best suited to the younger version of Welles.)

--A tendency to make some of the violent scenes too stagy and artificial, creating an impression of needless technical virtuousity for it's own sake

THE PROBLEM OF THE THREE VERSIONS

The 1958 version of ToE released by Universal was even more baroque than Welles had planned, because it was chopped up and cut to just 95 minutes. A preview version with 13 additional minutes and some rearrangement of scenes to fit Welles' suggestions (in his now-famous 58-page memo after seeing the studio's first cut) became commercially available in the mid-80s, which clarified things a good bit.

Not quite satisfied with this version, however, Welles proponents lobbied for another transformation of the film via a strict adherence to the 58-page memo. This version, assembled by noted film editor Walter Murch, was released to great fanfare in 1998. In the years since, however, there has been an escalating backlash over the Murch version (the re-release poster trumpeting the tagline "Restored to Orson Welles' Original Vision"). A summary of those points can be found in the following article at the Bright Lights film journal blog (called Bright Lights After Dark):

http://brightlightsfilm.blogspot.com/2007/02/why-murchs-touch-of-evil-doesnt-make.html

There is a strong case to be made that the "preview version" (which, among other things, kept Mancini's score and the opening credits intact in the first four minutes of the film) is the "best" available version. (The only "definitive" version, of course, would be the one that Welles himself would have edited, but he was banished from the cutting room in yet another fiasco of public relations that has cemented his reputation as a "skittish" filmmaker.)

For the true aficionado of Welles and noir, the solution to ToE's multiple version dilemma is simple: as with Mr. Arkadin, the differing versions should be bundled together into a DVD set with as many extras as possible to permit each viewer to evaluate all of the versions and make their own decision. Or, better yet, issue all of the footage on an editable bonus disk so that enterprising fans who are frustrated filmmakers can assemble the film into their own "definitive" version.

Part 2 contains a "noir elements/"noirmetrics" breakout of ToE.

"NOIRMETRICS" AND TOUCH OF EVIL

Below is an application of those infinitely controversial "noir elements" to the burning question of "how noir is Touch of Evil"?

CHARACTER ELEMENTS

Femme/homme fatale or doom/peril-inducing characters (15)

Quinlan as homme fatale? Conventional noir theory wants sexual attractiveness to reign supreme in this formulation, and Quinlan is no sexpot. He is, however, a man of fatal impulses, and he does induce doom--ultimately for himself in his attempt to create it for others. His physical and moral monstrousness make him a solid if unorthodox representative of the character type. (10/15)

Morally ambiguous protagonists (5)

We are not in a total moral cesspool, but the one that Quinlan and Joe Grandi manufacture is fragrantly foul enough to create peril for anyone with a trace of scrupulousness (Vargas and his buxom blonde bride). (4/5)

Alienated protagonists (5)

Vargas is literally a man out of his element (Mexican cop trying to operate in a corrupt American border town). Quinlan is lonely and haunted, which drives him to a series of reprehensible acts (of which the ones he commits in ToE are only the tip of the iceberg). Gangs of kids abound, looking for kicks. There's plenty of alienation here. (4/5)

A fall guy (5)

There are several, and in ToE it sometimes seems that the sobriquet of "fall guy" is encompassed in a vast, shifting game of "pin the tail on the donkey." (5/5)

Violence relative to character development/interaction (10)

What continues to make ToE so compelling and extreme as we approach its fiftieth anniversary is its prescient use of violence to drive character. Welles was ahead of the curve here, and the notion of violence driving character takes a kind of "red shift" as a result of this film. As with The Big Sleep, this legacy to more "modern" and lazy filmmakers is has hardly been a net gain for the quality of filmmaking, but it has had its breathtaking successes. (10/10)

Characters trapped by past events (10)

As noted, Quinlan is haunted to the core by the past, and Welles the actor does some of his finest, least showy work in bringing that character element to the fore. While Quinlan is really the only character with such a relationship to the past, the specter of that past looms over the action like a large, menacing shadow. (10/10)

Degree of character triangulation (10)

Welles is more of a "two-shot" type of director--there is only a faint amount of triangulation in the film, mostly between Quinlan, Vargas and Menzies. As this plays a significant role in how the action in the film plays out, we'll add a point or two for this prominence in the story arc. (4/10)

CHARACTER ELEMENTS TOTAL: 47/60 (7.8 out of 10)

MISE-EN-SCENE (VISUAL) and SETTING ELEMENTS

B&W cinematography (10)

Check. (10/10)

Low angle shooting/expressionistic techniques (5)

As always in Welles, in abundance. (5/5)

A sense of fatalism (either spoken or visual) (20)

Still a nebulous category--I'll try to articulate it better. Formalist narrative analysis (for literature and film) emphasizes a sense of strangeness that comes from the subtext (literary and/or visual) of a work. Strangeness is a slippery term, but if you remember your subatomic theory you know that in that infinitesimal world there are tiny objects doing things that make no sense. The feeling that things are out of place, out of kilter, and that they are leading to some unexpected but still somehow inexorable ending is how "strangeness" ties itself to "fate" or "fatalism" as an undercurrent in a novel or film.

If you buy that notion, you'll probably see that while "fate" as we usually define it is only a peripheral theme in ToE, the way that fate (and its portents) operate in the film are like tiny charged particles bouncing from scene to scene. It's something that Welles had a hankering for in all of his films, and here, in his most lurid of all works, it’s operating on all cylinders. (19/20)

Use of extreme mise-en-scene (claustrophobic/barren) (10)

While Welles didn't invent this, he certainly took it to places no one else could (or maybe should) think of. (10/10)

Use of mise-en-scene to portray alienation (5)

If only for some of the insanely unflattering shots of Quinlan... (4/5)

Odd camera angles or visual effects/sequences (5)

Are you kidding? (5/5)

An urban setting (degree of emphasis) (10)

Mostly an border swamp town, with a few brief excursions into outlying territory (where things are supposed to be "safe," but if anything are even more fraught with peril, as at the "idyllic" Mirador Motel). (9/10)

Exotic/remote/barren location setting (5)

As noted, only a few of these in the film, but all highly evocative. (4/5)

Night club and/or gambling setting (5)

Extended, as always, to include other "night life" establishments. These are central to the plot dynamics and to Quinlan's backstory (especially Tanya and her pianola). (4/5)

MISE-EN-SCENE/SETTING ELEMENTS TOTAL: 70/75 (9.3 out of 10)

PLOT/SCREENWRITING ELEMENTS

A convoluted story line (5)

Yes. (5/5)

Use of flashbacks (10)

No, and it's the only one of Welles' Hollywood films to eschew some use of this technique (though it's muted in The Magnifcent Ambersons). (0/10)

A murder or heist at the center of the story (5)

Murder in three parts--at the beginning (Lynnekar and his girl with "the ticking" in her head), in the middle (Grandi) and at the end (Quinlan and Menzies). ToE should get bonus points here. (5/5)

A betrayal or double-cross (5)

What part of the film isn't about some betrayal or double-cross? (5/5)

Story told from the perspective of the criminals (5)

Mostly. (4/5)

Sexual relationships in relation to plot development (10)

What hasn't been written about regarding ToE and many late noirs is how sexual relationships trend toward outright psychological kinkiness or are otherwise subsumed or thwarted in response to other imperatives. Quinlan wants to destroy Vargas' marriage both as a way of rendering the Mexican good guy (seen as committing the "sin" of mixed marriage); this is motivated in large part because of his own sexual oblivion (he's a widower, and he's too physically grotesque to interest any woman). So while romantic entanglements are almost totally peripheral in ToE (except for the mirroring of the "mixed couple" situation with Sanchez and Marcia Lynnekar), deeper sexual undercurrents, more akin to seismic motion, are at work here. (6/10)

A spoken narrative (5)

Only in an odd, Wellesian tribute to radio and its evolution toward technological trickery, when Vargas is tape-recording the "confession" that Menzies is drawing out of Quinlan. Otherwise, no. (1/5)

Hard-boiled dialogue/repartee (5)

In abundance--even Janet Leigh cracks wise. Great dialogue work from Welles, Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Marlene Dietrich, and the sadistically charismatic Valentin de Vargas. (4/5)

Noir vs. gris denouement (10)

It's a bloated baroque tragedy, with only Vargas and his wife emerging alive (but not totally unscathed). There is an air of strange resignation in the air as Tanya, the gypsy sibyl, wanders off into the night with a deadpan "adios." (9/10)

PLOT SCREENWRITING ELEMENTS TOTAL: 39/65 (6.0 out of 10)

TOTAL NOIR ELEMENTS SCORE: 156/200 (7.8 out of 10)

A score of 150 or more in the method indicates a film that is "intensely noir." As we'd expect, ToE grades out best in the visual elements (rated against a 200 scale, the visual/setting elements project to 186, and there are no noir films whose overall rating is that high). ToE is in the top five noirs in terms of its "visual noirness".

ToE boasts a solid score in terms of noir characters, but it is more conventional in terms of its plot'/screenwriting, eschewing narrative dislocation for what has turned into narrative "shock tactics." If you're looking for an "oneiric" noir, you should look elsewhere. For explosive, ironic, baroque late noir, however, you are in the right wrong place--along with Hank, Mike, Susie, Menzies, Uncle Joe and Tanya.

Adios!

NOIR OF THE WEEK (6/3/2007): DOWN THREE DARK STREETS

posted by Noirdowell

DOWN THREE DARK STREETS (1954)


TAGLINE: “Down this street raced dead-end violence...Down this one stretched excitement taut as silk.”

--Don’t ask me what happend to the 3rd street (??)

CAST & CREW:

Directed by Arnold Laven

Lead actors: Broderick Crawford) Also Starring Ruth Roman, Max Showalter, Martha Hyer.

Supporting actors: Claude Akins. Jay Adler.

Lensed by prolific noir cinematographer, Joesph Biroc:

STORY:

Down Three Dark Streets is a not so much noir as a neatly interwoven trio of crime stories facing FBI man John Ripley (Crawford). After the shooting of one of his subordinate agents during a visit to one of his three open cases, Ripley takes on the 3 cases which include a car theft ring, a murderer on the lamb and the most recent case, the extortion of a young widow.

No sooner does Ripley begin to interview probable witnesses, but another body turns up, that of a young woman, Brenda Ralles, found rather ignominiously, stuffed in a back alley garbage bin. 3 cases and already 2 bodies.

Somewhat saccharine is the need to make the alleged car thief’s wife blind. This mawkish plot device makes her beating at the hands of the real car thief, “ Pavelich" (a young Claude Akins) all the more craven. But Pavelich was proven to be out of town for the FBI agent and Ralles killings, but he cops to the stolen car rap. Ripley remains frustrated despite the full cooperation of the LAPD on the two open cases.

Meanwhile, back at Orbachs where Kate Martell(Ruth Roman)is a buyer, she is worried about the possible abduction of her daughter by a plethora of potential kidnappers; her husbands sleazy uncle with a background in bunco(Jay Adler) who shares their home, a too interested male neighbor, and a supposed friend of her dead husband and Johnny-come-lately suitor, Dave Milson(Showalter).

Meanwhile, back at Connie Anderson's (Hyer) smart apartment, more visits by the Feds and a juicy recording from her murderous beau’s philandering in Denver, enflame and induce jealous Connie to try to meet her true love, Joe Walpo at his out of suburban hideaway. She is followed by the Feds and when Joe Walpo (Bassett) makes a break for it,he is shot,
2 down and 1 open case to go.

Somehow, the still unrevealed extortionist is aware of the FBI involvement and tells Kate to get the money but leave the cops behind. In a most overtly stylish and iconic shot, the kidnapper, who turns out to be the “friend of the Family” Dave Milson(Showalter) grabs the “grisibi” under the “W” in the Holllywood sign. Ripley engages Milson, who has admitted to Kate Martell the Agent Stewart and Brenda Ralles killings; but he dodges the gunplay and gets away to his car, only to run into a police roadblock, set up just around the corner from the sign.

MY TAKE:

Down Three Dark Streets is a well concieved composite of three FBI cases, all in themselves made interesting enough to hold suspense while seamlessing moving betwen them. The beefy Crawford is tough enough to carry on after losing a good agent and going head to heard with a killer, but sensitive enough to show his admiration of the courage of Angelino's blind wife (Marisa Pavan).

Perhaps more police procedural than noir, the suspense, is none the less papable as you move from story to story. No back alley chases, no shadows on the fire escape, or swanky night club scenes, this is a no nonsense crime story(ies) from the sun-drenched streets of fifties Los Angeles. There are many great location shots...one of Hill St (of "Hill St Blue" tv fame), the “Subway” which was merely an underground/tunnel street car station, and of course some great shots from high atop the Hollywood Hills showing the vastness of the LA Basin (Oh! All that undeveloped real estate!)

As mentioned earlier, the most memorable shot is an up angle shot of the Hollywood sign and our 3rd story principals, but this alone is not enough to include the film in the noir canon. The cops are doing their job with no particular axe to grind and only pedrestrian competency. They show only steely resolve and little emotion over the killing of their fellow agent. Connie Anderson is no femme fatale, only a jealous bimbo who yearns for her Joe, but will settle for the next joe who knocks on the door. Angelino and his wife are the “innocents” swept up in mistaken circumstances, but the plight of the sightless wife gives clues to an eventual uplifting outcome. Emotion is rare here with only Angelino losing control when he learns that Pavelich beat up his wife so he attacks him, only to be quickly subdued by the cops. The kidnapping itrself is only threatened if the $10 grand isn’t delivered and the childs life never seems to be in real jeopardy and besides the FBI are following close behind.

That’s not to say this wasn’t an entertaining 85 minutes. It just didn’t have the “props” or the attitude to be noir. More like an early 50’s TV movie made up of several cop show episodes...only with very good writers( the Gordons...Experiment in terror) and a great editor (Grant Whytock). What do you think?