Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Black Angel.
DVD Review
Black Angel, starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, directed by Roy William Neil, Universal Pictures, 1946
Here is the skinny. Not all crime noirs are equal. The proof? Now over a score of reviews in this space on the genre. Some speak for themselves, some are unspeakable, and some like the one under review here, Black Angel, need a little prodding. In this case the prodding is in paying kudos to the director, Roy William Neil, for great photography in service of a lukewarm plot and so-so performances by the lead performers, very so-so in the case of veteran actor Peter Lorre as a night club owner with a past to hide.
Here is the story. Martin Blair (played by Dan Duryea) had a wayward wife as some men will, a frill songstress who liked jewels and lots of them from any source willing to provide them. Catherine Bennett (played by June Vincent) had a wayward husband, as some women will, who found his way to Martin’s wayward wife. Said wife along the way is foully murdered and Ms. Bennett’s husband fits the bill. Fits the frame neat, very neat, almost all the way to the electric chair. Except that Mr. Blair, a talented drunken piano player and Ms. Bennett a stay at home chanteuse team up as a song and, ah, piano duo, to figure out who really did commit the murder. All the portents point to Marko (played somewhat stiffly by Peter Lorre, no stranger to this type of role). But that is just a ruse. The real killer is well, see the film.
You can see where the problems are just by this rough outline of the plot. A plot that suspense disbelief- not- with anyone who has taken a glance at a newspaper and the likelihood that such a pairing would ring true. But such is Hollywood. The only thing that keep this one from the "has been" bin is the directing/ photography by Neil. Some of the shots just jump out, crime noir jump out at you. Too bad the plot line (which was based on a novel by the great crime story writer, Cornell Woolrich) didn’t add to those fine shots.
Showing posts with label black and white film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black and white film. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1940s Night- Free, Ya, Free- High Sierra- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, High Sierra
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, and, of course, Pard, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Funny how a character, or performer, in one film will lead you to remember about or to investigate another. Recently I viewed and reviewed a film in which Ida Lupino starred, a kind of off-beat sweet fluff working-class thing in its way from 1942 entitled, Moontide, where she played alongside French actor, Jean Gabon, as down-at-the-heels hash-slinger seeking a little white house with a picket fence. In that role there was no question of her being a femme fatale-type that guys get all, well, nervous over but just a reliable dame when the deal goes down, good or bad. A rare thing in crime noir world, especially with dames. Here in the noir classic, High Sierra, Ms Lupino picks up some of the down-at-the heels aspects of that role of hash-slinger as she plays along side Humphrey Bogart as that reliable shoe good guys and bad guys both use for their own purposes
Of course at this stage of his career Bogart was the king hell actor getting choice roles as the grizzled whatever from Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon to Captain Morgan in To Have Or Have Not so his presence is the driving force of the film. Ms. Lupino is just along for the ride, and to pick up the pieces when the deal goes south. Here Bogart plays the three-time loser, Roy Earle, just out of prison and heading west to get some fresh air, and maybe a new start. A new start in his old racket, armed robbery, big-time armed robbery. Along the way west he is befriended by an Okie-type family heading to California just like the Joads before them. But Roy gets hung up on the young daughter, some lame Janie, and helps fund her operation to fix her foot. Naturally Janie is nothing but ungrateful and spoils Roy’s rehabilitation program. Needless to say, also along the way, brought along by one of the confederates, Marie, the role Ms. Lupino plays, is the smitten dish- rag gangster’s girl who stands by her man, although why with Roy the way he treats her is not apparent on the face of it.
As always in these crime noir adventures, in the end, crime doesn’t pay. In this case the big-time resort heist is fouled up by the inside man and Roy his confederates have to go on the run. Moreover Roy and Marie are forced to split up. Law enforcement keeps crowding Roy. One thing a three-time loser knows, knows deep in his bones, if he goes back to prison he ain’t coming out. That knowledge drives the suspense of the last part of the film as Earle’s world becomes smaller and smaller. And, as they say, it’s a dog’s world that does him in at the end. Ya, but he was free, free like the starry nights that he had time to dream about in his prison nights. And Marie? Who knows but that some other heel may need a reliable shoe.
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, and, of course, Pard, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Funny how a character, or performer, in one film will lead you to remember about or to investigate another. Recently I viewed and reviewed a film in which Ida Lupino starred, a kind of off-beat sweet fluff working-class thing in its way from 1942 entitled, Moontide, where she played alongside French actor, Jean Gabon, as down-at-the-heels hash-slinger seeking a little white house with a picket fence. In that role there was no question of her being a femme fatale-type that guys get all, well, nervous over but just a reliable dame when the deal goes down, good or bad. A rare thing in crime noir world, especially with dames. Here in the noir classic, High Sierra, Ms Lupino picks up some of the down-at-the heels aspects of that role of hash-slinger as she plays along side Humphrey Bogart as that reliable shoe good guys and bad guys both use for their own purposes
Of course at this stage of his career Bogart was the king hell actor getting choice roles as the grizzled whatever from Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon to Captain Morgan in To Have Or Have Not so his presence is the driving force of the film. Ms. Lupino is just along for the ride, and to pick up the pieces when the deal goes south. Here Bogart plays the three-time loser, Roy Earle, just out of prison and heading west to get some fresh air, and maybe a new start. A new start in his old racket, armed robbery, big-time armed robbery. Along the way west he is befriended by an Okie-type family heading to California just like the Joads before them. But Roy gets hung up on the young daughter, some lame Janie, and helps fund her operation to fix her foot. Naturally Janie is nothing but ungrateful and spoils Roy’s rehabilitation program. Needless to say, also along the way, brought along by one of the confederates, Marie, the role Ms. Lupino plays, is the smitten dish- rag gangster’s girl who stands by her man, although why with Roy the way he treats her is not apparent on the face of it.
As always in these crime noir adventures, in the end, crime doesn’t pay. In this case the big-time resort heist is fouled up by the inside man and Roy his confederates have to go on the run. Moreover Roy and Marie are forced to split up. Law enforcement keeps crowding Roy. One thing a three-time loser knows, knows deep in his bones, if he goes back to prison he ain’t coming out. That knowledge drives the suspense of the last part of the film as Earle’s world becomes smaller and smaller. And, as they say, it’s a dog’s world that does him in at the end. Ya, but he was free, free like the starry nights that he had time to dream about in his prison nights. And Marie? Who knows but that some other heel may need a reliable shoe.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick Learns His Trade-“Killer’s Kiss”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the early Stanley Kubrick crime noir, Killer’s Kiss.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Robert Mitchum Watch Out For Berserk Femme Fatales, Will You- Angel Face- A Review
Click on the headline to link to Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, Angel Face.
DVD Review
Angel Face, starring Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, RKO Pictures, 1952
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, lets’ just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we know, we know.
The plot here takes a little something from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. The “fair damsel” (played by a young dark-eyed, dark-haired piano-playing Jean Simmons who, before seeing this film I might have taken a run at her myself, in my dreams anyway. But see I know how to take a lesson), after she gets her hooks into Mitchum, furthers her plot to get rid of her dear stepmother so she can have her father to herself (take that anyway you want but you do not have to be a Freudian to know that she is seriously hung up on her novelist father, a probable cause for some of her youthful, ah, monomania). But unlike the femme in Postman she just “forgets” to tell him he is part of the plan. Of course when the foul deed is done (the old "wire cut on the steering wheel of the car and off the cliff you go, dearie" gag that has been around, well, been around since femmes figured out automobiles aren’t just for driving) the pair are the obvious suspects. But with some razzle-dazzle legal work, including marriage to evoke the jury’s sympathy, they get off. (Ya, I know on that one too. But those were more romantic times than ours, I guess. I want the name and e-mail of that lawyer, by the way, just in case.) Of course what guy in his right mind is going to stick around and see, well, what is in store for him and his lovely bride after the court battles are over? Like I said though, this is Robert Mitchum, the guy who can’t learn a lesson.
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. And not just femme fatales. In this film, as in Out Of The Past, there is the “good” girl waiting in wings. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, to stay in that orbit but when those maddened eyes and ruby red lips call that speak to some dark adventure, well, what’s a man to do?
DVD Review
Angel Face, starring Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, RKO Pictures, 1952
Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, lets’ just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we know, we know.
The plot here takes a little something from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. The “fair damsel” (played by a young dark-eyed, dark-haired piano-playing Jean Simmons who, before seeing this film I might have taken a run at her myself, in my dreams anyway. But see I know how to take a lesson), after she gets her hooks into Mitchum, furthers her plot to get rid of her dear stepmother so she can have her father to herself (take that anyway you want but you do not have to be a Freudian to know that she is seriously hung up on her novelist father, a probable cause for some of her youthful, ah, monomania). But unlike the femme in Postman she just “forgets” to tell him he is part of the plan. Of course when the foul deed is done (the old "wire cut on the steering wheel of the car and off the cliff you go, dearie" gag that has been around, well, been around since femmes figured out automobiles aren’t just for driving) the pair are the obvious suspects. But with some razzle-dazzle legal work, including marriage to evoke the jury’s sympathy, they get off. (Ya, I know on that one too. But those were more romantic times than ours, I guess. I want the name and e-mail of that lawyer, by the way, just in case.) Of course what guy in his right mind is going to stick around and see, well, what is in store for him and his lovely bride after the court battles are over? Like I said though, this is Robert Mitchum, the guy who can’t learn a lesson.
Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. And not just femme fatales. In this film, as in Out Of The Past, there is the “good” girl waiting in wings. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, to stay in that orbit but when those maddened eyes and ruby red lips call that speak to some dark adventure, well, what’s a man to do?
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Mexican Immigration Situation-Then- Anthony Mann’s “Border Incident”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Border Incident
DVD Review
Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montaban, George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, M-G-M, 1949
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me for their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review, which deals with the American and Mexican governments’ attempts to curb illegal immigration and those who benefit from it, the 1940s black and white B-film Border Incident, offers very little of either.
It is not for lack of interesting subject matter- the question of illegal Mexican immigrant migration is still very much with us as the news headlines scream out almost daily. Certainly the “coyotes” (illegal alien smugglers) and other social relationships (complicit farm owners, governmental agents, etc.) featured in this film are very much with us as the periodic finding of clots of dead illegal immigrants in some woe begotten deserts testifies to. It is also not for lack of trying to draw attention to the importance of the issue but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way.
Probably the biggest problem, however, and one which is seemingly endemic to the police procedural crime noir B-movie genre, is that in the attempt to earnestly portray a living social problem involving governmental action takes the life out of the film and becomes mere propaganda. I would contrast this one with, let us say, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, another border town-centered film and you will in one minute both get my point and get the different. If you insist on seeing this one then it is because of the great black and white gritty cinematography of the great American West landscape and some tense character-shot moments. But again Touch has all that, and more.
film noir, be-bop nights, crime noir, black and white film, immigration, class struggle
DVD Review
Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montaban, George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, M-G-M, 1949
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me for their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review, which deals with the American and Mexican governments’ attempts to curb illegal immigration and those who benefit from it, the 1940s black and white B-film Border Incident, offers very little of either.
It is not for lack of interesting subject matter- the question of illegal Mexican immigrant migration is still very much with us as the news headlines scream out almost daily. Certainly the “coyotes” (illegal alien smugglers) and other social relationships (complicit farm owners, governmental agents, etc.) featured in this film are very much with us as the periodic finding of clots of dead illegal immigrants in some woe begotten deserts testifies to. It is also not for lack of trying to draw attention to the importance of the issue but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way.
Probably the biggest problem, however, and one which is seemingly endemic to the police procedural crime noir B-movie genre, is that in the attempt to earnestly portray a living social problem involving governmental action takes the life out of the film and becomes mere propaganda. I would contrast this one with, let us say, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, another border town-centered film and you will in one minute both get my point and get the different. If you insist on seeing this one then it is because of the great black and white gritty cinematography of the great American West landscape and some tense character-shot moments. But again Touch has all that, and more.
film noir, be-bop nights, crime noir, black and white film, immigration, class struggle
Monday, September 5, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-From Rags To Riches- John Garfield’s Blues- “Force Of Evil”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film, Force Of Evil.
DVD Review
Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.
Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.
What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.
DVD Review
Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.
Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.
What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Stuff Of Dreams- Harry’s Dreams- Richard Widmark's “Night And The City"
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Night and the City.
DVD Review
Night And The City , Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Herbert Lom, directed by George Dassin, Paramount Studios, 1946
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip- synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) Some, like the film reviewed here, Night and the City, while not strong on plot line or femme fatale-ness (ouch) get a nod for other reasons. Little reasons like having a young Harry Fabian, oops, Richard Widmark, practically scream out his grifter’s dreams with his expressive face. And have that face, the faces of other characters in the film, and places beautifully directed and captured on film. Not bad for a B-rated movie.
But now to the characterizations that make this such an interesting and well-acted (by Richard Widmark anyway) film. You know, know deep in your bones, if you were brought up in a working class or poor neighborhood, and maybe in other neighborhoods too, the grifter Harry Fabian played here by Widmark, The guy, and it was almost always a guy back in the days, who was smart, well smart enough, friendly, almost too friendly, always willing to accept a little dough, a little touch dough for his endeavor, always with a little larceny in his heart, always looking for easy street, always looking for the short cut to glory, and never quite getting there. And always, always, having to be fast of foot, and fast of sneak away to stay just the south side of the law when that surefire scheme also goes south. That’s our Harry.
And Harry was the guy that your mother warned you about from early on to not be like or you would "wind up just like him." And that was the magic mantra that held you in check, for a while anyway until you got your own Harry thoughts. And if I had to visualize my neighborhood Harrys then one Richard Widmark, a young Widmark would not be a bad way to do so. No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy wide-eyed, made for no heavy-lifting, light of foot and made to slip into small dark places Widmark would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre.
And grifter Harry had a dream which is central to the plot. The dream like those of a million other grifters, drifters and midnight sifters, hell just every poor guy looking to get out from under, to get out from under, and to, as Harry constantly put it, “be somebody.” Yes, that's the ticket, and that idea drives the story line (and Harry’s angst). See Harry’s dreams, Harry's immediate post World War II London-set dreams are not earth- shattering to say the least, at least on the face of it. Just to corner the wrestling racket market and become an important impresario to the plebeian masses that throng to such events. Problem is, as is always the grifter’s fate, the market s already cornered, already sewed up and already underworld muscle-protected.
So Harry tried an end-around using the head wrestling mobster’s (Herbert Lom) father to promote real wrestling, that is Greco-Roman wrestling which is said head mobster’s father’s specialty. Yes, I know already you can see Harry’s problem a mile away, even if he cannot. Other than about twelve hard-core Olympic Games aficionados nobody cares, wants to care, or will ever care about Greco-Roman wrestling. Certainly not against the masked marvel, bad boys, “real” wrestling that is (now) driven by teenage boys (and teenage girls, a little). But that is Harry’s opening and he is bound to take it, working his “magic” on the father who is some kind of Greco-roman aficionado maniac himself. The clash is on, including a stellar defense of Greco-Roman wrestling in the flesh by the old man.
Of course like all old men who try to do a young man’s work he overexerts himself and dies after the heat of battle. Such things happen, but for Harry this is the kiss of death because as it turns out head mobster was fond of his father, very fond. Harry’s number is therefore up. And watching the scenes and gritty faces of the actors in the process of that number being up drives the last portion of the film and makes this a true noir classic.
Note: No femme fatales here, obviously, but there are women who enter Harry’s life. One, an unhappy wife of a mid-level grafter, wants to use Harry to get out from under her own heavy burden of marriage to said grafter. More importantly, and a little incongruously, Harry has a straight girlfriend, of sorts, played by Gene Tierney, who loves/protects him through think and thin. And who Harry doesn’t have enough sense to stick by, except when he is in trouble- needing quick dough mainly. It was painful from my own knowledge of such things to see Harry rummaging through her pocketbook looking for dough to make some awry deal right, to allow him to “be somebody” for another five minutes. Whoa.
DVD Review
Night And The City , Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Herbert Lom, directed by George Dassin, Paramount Studios, 1946
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip- synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) Some, like the film reviewed here, Night and the City, while not strong on plot line or femme fatale-ness (ouch) get a nod for other reasons. Little reasons like having a young Harry Fabian, oops, Richard Widmark, practically scream out his grifter’s dreams with his expressive face. And have that face, the faces of other characters in the film, and places beautifully directed and captured on film. Not bad for a B-rated movie.
But now to the characterizations that make this such an interesting and well-acted (by Richard Widmark anyway) film. You know, know deep in your bones, if you were brought up in a working class or poor neighborhood, and maybe in other neighborhoods too, the grifter Harry Fabian played here by Widmark, The guy, and it was almost always a guy back in the days, who was smart, well smart enough, friendly, almost too friendly, always willing to accept a little dough, a little touch dough for his endeavor, always with a little larceny in his heart, always looking for easy street, always looking for the short cut to glory, and never quite getting there. And always, always, having to be fast of foot, and fast of sneak away to stay just the south side of the law when that surefire scheme also goes south. That’s our Harry.
And Harry was the guy that your mother warned you about from early on to not be like or you would "wind up just like him." And that was the magic mantra that held you in check, for a while anyway until you got your own Harry thoughts. And if I had to visualize my neighborhood Harrys then one Richard Widmark, a young Widmark would not be a bad way to do so. No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy wide-eyed, made for no heavy-lifting, light of foot and made to slip into small dark places Widmark would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre.
And grifter Harry had a dream which is central to the plot. The dream like those of a million other grifters, drifters and midnight sifters, hell just every poor guy looking to get out from under, to get out from under, and to, as Harry constantly put it, “be somebody.” Yes, that's the ticket, and that idea drives the story line (and Harry’s angst). See Harry’s dreams, Harry's immediate post World War II London-set dreams are not earth- shattering to say the least, at least on the face of it. Just to corner the wrestling racket market and become an important impresario to the plebeian masses that throng to such events. Problem is, as is always the grifter’s fate, the market s already cornered, already sewed up and already underworld muscle-protected.
So Harry tried an end-around using the head wrestling mobster’s (Herbert Lom) father to promote real wrestling, that is Greco-Roman wrestling which is said head mobster’s father’s specialty. Yes, I know already you can see Harry’s problem a mile away, even if he cannot. Other than about twelve hard-core Olympic Games aficionados nobody cares, wants to care, or will ever care about Greco-Roman wrestling. Certainly not against the masked marvel, bad boys, “real” wrestling that is (now) driven by teenage boys (and teenage girls, a little). But that is Harry’s opening and he is bound to take it, working his “magic” on the father who is some kind of Greco-roman aficionado maniac himself. The clash is on, including a stellar defense of Greco-Roman wrestling in the flesh by the old man.
Of course like all old men who try to do a young man’s work he overexerts himself and dies after the heat of battle. Such things happen, but for Harry this is the kiss of death because as it turns out head mobster was fond of his father, very fond. Harry’s number is therefore up. And watching the scenes and gritty faces of the actors in the process of that number being up drives the last portion of the film and makes this a true noir classic.
Note: No femme fatales here, obviously, but there are women who enter Harry’s life. One, an unhappy wife of a mid-level grafter, wants to use Harry to get out from under her own heavy burden of marriage to said grafter. More importantly, and a little incongruously, Harry has a straight girlfriend, of sorts, played by Gene Tierney, who loves/protects him through think and thin. And who Harry doesn’t have enough sense to stick by, except when he is in trouble- needing quick dough mainly. It was painful from my own knowledge of such things to see Harry rummaging through her pocketbook looking for dough to make some awry deal right, to allow him to “be somebody” for another five minutes. Whoa.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-Watch Out, Watch Way Out For Two-Timing Dames-“Human Desire”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the Fritz Lang-directed film, Human Desire.
DVD Review
Human Desire, starring Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, based on a novel by Emil Zola, directed by Fritz Lang, Columbia Pictures, 1954
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, as here femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1954, Human Desire, offer both those and, additionally, the pedigree of a story-line based closely on the work of 19th century French writer, Emil Zola (he of Dreyfus case fame), and directed by German expressionist film director, Fritz Lang, with his flare for great and dramatic use of black and white cinematography. This film while not right up there with the top of the line Out Of The Past, Gilda and The Big Sleep, partially for chemistry factors between the lead characters and heaviness of plot line in places, is just a notch below. In other words you had better take an hour and a half and watch this thing.
A little summary of the plot line is in order to set the stage. Obviously Zola’s work was set in 19th century emerging bourgeois society France rather than 1950s post- World War II red scare America. But the tale he had to tell of thwarted love. love gone wrong, love never on the right track, and in the end, a cautionary tale of how far certain people will go, dare I say even to murder, sums up the range of human conditions, when the human body heat is up. And the body heat rising here is nothing less than sexual desire. Of course. Simply said a certain femme fatale, a certain speedy femme fatale as it turns out, played by 1950s B-movie fixture, Gloria Grahame, tired of trying to make do behind a cigarette counter does what any girl would do in the situation, marries a "big lug," a railroad middle-level management big lug guy who loves his booze, played by Broderick Crawford (he of All The King’s Men fame), in order to get out from under. But speedy femme fatales are not built for the slow, big lug life, especially when they have a little past, a little past as they always do, here as a former, maybe former, mistress of a Mayfair swell. Needless to say he, as the plot unrolls and big lug Crawford proves to be less a catch than anticipated, gets jealous when he finds out that said wifey has two-timed him. And big lugs know only one way, or seem to know only one way too deal with their two-timing wives, kill the lover, naturally, kill him here right in front of wifey and make her complicit in the murder, holding a certain piece of evidence to put the frame on her, put the frame on her big time, if she crosses him.
All of that is so much lead-up to the real story though. Two-timing femme fatales, whether they got their start behind a candy counter, a hat-check counter or cigarette counter, do not survive in this wicked old world without being primo man-traps. Man-traps that can wrap a guy, wrap a guy tight, very tight, and get him to do anything, anything at all, including, dare I say it, murder. Enter one returning Korean War GI, played by Glenn Ford, who on returning home to small-town Anytown, U.S.A. just wants to wash the grit of that experience off and continue his prior work as a railroad engineer moving goods and passengers along the quickly declining rails of 1950s America. And dream the dream of finding a good woman and grabbing a slice of the little white house with a picket fence, 2.2 kids and a dog, named Rover, probably. And, of course, she is there in the background.
But enter one two-timing femme fatale trying to get out from under a possible murder rap, out from under a loser husband, and who, well, looks like she might be a very nice little adventure, a very nice little adventure, indeed, especially once Glenn gets a whiff of that perfume, lights that cigarette, and takes dead aim at those ruby red lips (I assume they are ruby red, this is after all a black and white noir). Ya, she has him hook, line and sinker. Has him that is until “crunch time.” Then we shall see.
Naturally, in these crime noir melodramatic plots the need to put a big gap between good and evil is usually served up by there being a “good girl” counterposed to the femme fatale. That is the case here and is, in the end what stops old Glenn from going over the edge. But still I blame Glenn for most of the problems here. Yes, sure I wouldn’t have minded taking dead aim at those Grahame lips, who could blame a guy, a small town America guy, especially once she put on the full-court press with that cooing voice. Whee! But see Glenn has already been down this road before. He played Johnny to Rita Hayworth’s Gilda in the 1946 movie of the same name so he knows, or should be presumed to know, what happens when you take dead aim at those femme fatale lips. Here’s the “skinny” though- average joes, very average train engineer joes included, should keep fifty yards, no fifty miles, away from blonde (although they are not always blondes) femme fatales when they get that “come hither” look in their eyes. You have been warned.
DVD Review
Human Desire, starring Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, based on a novel by Emil Zola, directed by Fritz Lang, Columbia Pictures, 1954
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, as here femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1954, Human Desire, offer both those and, additionally, the pedigree of a story-line based closely on the work of 19th century French writer, Emil Zola (he of Dreyfus case fame), and directed by German expressionist film director, Fritz Lang, with his flare for great and dramatic use of black and white cinematography. This film while not right up there with the top of the line Out Of The Past, Gilda and The Big Sleep, partially for chemistry factors between the lead characters and heaviness of plot line in places, is just a notch below. In other words you had better take an hour and a half and watch this thing.
A little summary of the plot line is in order to set the stage. Obviously Zola’s work was set in 19th century emerging bourgeois society France rather than 1950s post- World War II red scare America. But the tale he had to tell of thwarted love. love gone wrong, love never on the right track, and in the end, a cautionary tale of how far certain people will go, dare I say even to murder, sums up the range of human conditions, when the human body heat is up. And the body heat rising here is nothing less than sexual desire. Of course. Simply said a certain femme fatale, a certain speedy femme fatale as it turns out, played by 1950s B-movie fixture, Gloria Grahame, tired of trying to make do behind a cigarette counter does what any girl would do in the situation, marries a "big lug," a railroad middle-level management big lug guy who loves his booze, played by Broderick Crawford (he of All The King’s Men fame), in order to get out from under. But speedy femme fatales are not built for the slow, big lug life, especially when they have a little past, a little past as they always do, here as a former, maybe former, mistress of a Mayfair swell. Needless to say he, as the plot unrolls and big lug Crawford proves to be less a catch than anticipated, gets jealous when he finds out that said wifey has two-timed him. And big lugs know only one way, or seem to know only one way too deal with their two-timing wives, kill the lover, naturally, kill him here right in front of wifey and make her complicit in the murder, holding a certain piece of evidence to put the frame on her, put the frame on her big time, if she crosses him.
All of that is so much lead-up to the real story though. Two-timing femme fatales, whether they got their start behind a candy counter, a hat-check counter or cigarette counter, do not survive in this wicked old world without being primo man-traps. Man-traps that can wrap a guy, wrap a guy tight, very tight, and get him to do anything, anything at all, including, dare I say it, murder. Enter one returning Korean War GI, played by Glenn Ford, who on returning home to small-town Anytown, U.S.A. just wants to wash the grit of that experience off and continue his prior work as a railroad engineer moving goods and passengers along the quickly declining rails of 1950s America. And dream the dream of finding a good woman and grabbing a slice of the little white house with a picket fence, 2.2 kids and a dog, named Rover, probably. And, of course, she is there in the background.
But enter one two-timing femme fatale trying to get out from under a possible murder rap, out from under a loser husband, and who, well, looks like she might be a very nice little adventure, a very nice little adventure, indeed, especially once Glenn gets a whiff of that perfume, lights that cigarette, and takes dead aim at those ruby red lips (I assume they are ruby red, this is after all a black and white noir). Ya, she has him hook, line and sinker. Has him that is until “crunch time.” Then we shall see.
Naturally, in these crime noir melodramatic plots the need to put a big gap between good and evil is usually served up by there being a “good girl” counterposed to the femme fatale. That is the case here and is, in the end what stops old Glenn from going over the edge. But still I blame Glenn for most of the problems here. Yes, sure I wouldn’t have minded taking dead aim at those Grahame lips, who could blame a guy, a small town America guy, especially once she put on the full-court press with that cooing voice. Whee! But see Glenn has already been down this road before. He played Johnny to Rita Hayworth’s Gilda in the 1946 movie of the same name so he knows, or should be presumed to know, what happens when you take dead aim at those femme fatale lips. Here’s the “skinny” though- average joes, very average train engineer joes included, should keep fifty yards, no fifty miles, away from blonde (although they are not always blondes) femme fatales when they get that “come hither” look in their eyes. You have been warned.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-"Come On Now, Get With The Program- Crime, I Repeat, Crime Does Not Pay"- Richard Basehart’s “Tension"-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a site that reviews and details the plot lines of crime noir films
DVD Review
Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).
A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?
The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.
But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.
Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.
DVD Review
Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).
A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?
The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.
But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.
Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Out In The 2000s Crime Noir Night-“Sin City”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Sin City.
DVD Review
Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.
Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.
All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.
But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.
DVD Review
Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.
Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.
All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.
But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night, Kind Of-“Undercurrent”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link ot a Wikipedia entry for the film Undercurrent.
DVD Review
Undercurrent, starring Katherine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, directed by Vincent Minnelli, 1947
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, Undercurrent, frankly baffles me. A pyscho-drama, no question, a famous director, no question, but also a very non-femme fatale in Kate Hepburn, and a very non-tough guy (street or detective) role for classic 1940s tough guy and a good guy to have at your back, Robert Mitchum.
A little plot look will help explain my bafflement. Robert Taylor, a ruthless, driven high-tech capitalist who made big dough during World War II is also a little mad, well, a lot mad. However he is able to cover that little problem up while courting, well not beautiful, but let’s call her handsome, Kate Hepburn. Seems he needs a trophy wife and Kate fills the bill. And that is where the problems begin because Brother Taylor has a brother whom he is insanely jealous of for the usual Freudian, or pseudo-Freudian, reasons that drive the plot lines of these pycho-dramas. Kate, however, loves the big lug Taylor until he starts going over the edge about his brother (and some other things like a little murder of an employee that goes a long way to allowing him to be that ruthless high-tech capitalist). Of course, as in all such dramas old Robert will get his comeuppance, have no fear.
But where is the noir in this noir? No femme fatale, no tough guy throwing his weight around or tilting at windmills to right the world’s wrongs, no problem that requires quick thinking to right those wrongs. Well when you go on a tear on a subject as I am on crime noir not everything will come up Out Of The Past or The Big Sleep. Not this one anyway.
DVD Review
Undercurrent, starring Katherine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, directed by Vincent Minnelli, 1947
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, Undercurrent, frankly baffles me. A pyscho-drama, no question, a famous director, no question, but also a very non-femme fatale in Kate Hepburn, and a very non-tough guy (street or detective) role for classic 1940s tough guy and a good guy to have at your back, Robert Mitchum.
A little plot look will help explain my bafflement. Robert Taylor, a ruthless, driven high-tech capitalist who made big dough during World War II is also a little mad, well, a lot mad. However he is able to cover that little problem up while courting, well not beautiful, but let’s call her handsome, Kate Hepburn. Seems he needs a trophy wife and Kate fills the bill. And that is where the problems begin because Brother Taylor has a brother whom he is insanely jealous of for the usual Freudian, or pseudo-Freudian, reasons that drive the plot lines of these pycho-dramas. Kate, however, loves the big lug Taylor until he starts going over the edge about his brother (and some other things like a little murder of an employee that goes a long way to allowing him to be that ruthless high-tech capitalist). Of course, as in all such dramas old Robert will get his comeuppance, have no fear.
But where is the noir in this noir? No femme fatale, no tough guy throwing his weight around or tilting at windmills to right the world’s wrongs, no problem that requires quick thinking to right those wrongs. Well when you go on a tear on a subject as I am on crime noir not everything will come up Out Of The Past or The Big Sleep. Not this one anyway.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-The Doctor Is Out- Robert Mitchum’s“Where Danger Lives”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Where Danger Lives.
DVD Review
Where Danger Lives, starring Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.). Having just mentioned the classic Out Of The Past allows me to segue into this 1950 crime noir vehicle, Where Danger Lives, another film starring Robert Mitchum.
No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy lazy-eyed, made for heavy-lifting, Robert Mitchum would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre. And he proved it out of box in Out Of The Past where he was “smitten” by classic bad girl, no, rotten, low-down femme fatale, Jane Greer, who, unfortunately, unfortunately for Mitchum was “owned” by a mobster (Kirk Douglas) a little further up the food chain. And paid the price for that indiscretion, paid big time. So we know two things about Robert Mitchum. He likes the lively ladies, the ones that come with bells and whistles and plenty of baggage, usually distressful baggage, and he can take care of himself in the clinches. Well almost. Actually we know three things about Brother Mitchum. He does not have enough sense to come in out of the rain, or any place else where danger lurks for that matter. Why? Well in this film he is at it again, back up against a two-timing femme fatale, although as they come in all sizes and shapes a dark-haired one this time (Faith Domegue).
A quick run through the plot line will bring us up to date on Brother Mitchum’s problem. Seems that in this one Mitchum plays a young doctor, a very good young doctor as such doctors go, but he makes the number one cardinal mistake in medical practice (he must have skipped that class in med school, the one about proper bedside manner, minus the bed)- don’t get involved personally with the patients. Especially drop-dead beautiful, alluring, capricious (yes, capricious), calculating ones who show up in the emergency room after attempted suicides. Yes, a big red flag should have been flying in Doc’s head
But see he is young, and she is drop-dead beautiful. Put those two together, and well, what is a man to do. Only problem is said drop-dead beauty is one, married, very married, to a wealthy, older, hell, ancient man, and maybe, tad bit jealous and protective (Claude Rains) and, two, is under some mental distress, hell, she is cuckoo, bonkers, crazy, okay, murderously crazy, if you really want to know. Well for me that would take a certain edge off that drop-dead beauty part but for Doc, no way, no way at all as he is well, let’s just call it smitten.
Of course the price of smitten, smitten to a crazy (sorry), married, very married woman can be very high and here is no exception. After a little bout/confrontation with hubby in which Doc got the worst of it, it seems that when Doc came to said hubby was dead, very dead. See here is where smitten gets you in trouble though. Doc is not going to be the fall guy, and he is not letting his paramour take the fall either. So they decide to high-tail it to Mexico, and freedom, or so they think like a million other people in a tight spot, although not all that crowd decide to high-tail it to Mexico. The trials and tribulations of this now on-the-run couple is what drives the rest of the film, even though Doc is pretty hazy about why he is running (except she is running), given his own medical condition. The rest you can figure out for yourself, just like, in the end Doc, had to figure things out. The hard way.
So you can see that I was not kidding about Brother Mitchum’s little femme fatale problem. But I blame the whole thing on Claude Rains. See there is no way an old guy, a wealthy old guy, or poor for that matter, is suppose to be hanging out with young, drop-dead beautiful women, crazy or not. And see worldly Claude Rains should know such stuff from back in the days when he was running around grabbing dough at Rick’s Place in Casablanca. So the next time you see a crime noir film like this one you will know what’s what.
DVD Review
Where Danger Lives, starring Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.). Having just mentioned the classic Out Of The Past allows me to segue into this 1950 crime noir vehicle, Where Danger Lives, another film starring Robert Mitchum.
No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy lazy-eyed, made for heavy-lifting, Robert Mitchum would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre. And he proved it out of box in Out Of The Past where he was “smitten” by classic bad girl, no, rotten, low-down femme fatale, Jane Greer, who, unfortunately, unfortunately for Mitchum was “owned” by a mobster (Kirk Douglas) a little further up the food chain. And paid the price for that indiscretion, paid big time. So we know two things about Robert Mitchum. He likes the lively ladies, the ones that come with bells and whistles and plenty of baggage, usually distressful baggage, and he can take care of himself in the clinches. Well almost. Actually we know three things about Brother Mitchum. He does not have enough sense to come in out of the rain, or any place else where danger lurks for that matter. Why? Well in this film he is at it again, back up against a two-timing femme fatale, although as they come in all sizes and shapes a dark-haired one this time (Faith Domegue).
A quick run through the plot line will bring us up to date on Brother Mitchum’s problem. Seems that in this one Mitchum plays a young doctor, a very good young doctor as such doctors go, but he makes the number one cardinal mistake in medical practice (he must have skipped that class in med school, the one about proper bedside manner, minus the bed)- don’t get involved personally with the patients. Especially drop-dead beautiful, alluring, capricious (yes, capricious), calculating ones who show up in the emergency room after attempted suicides. Yes, a big red flag should have been flying in Doc’s head
But see he is young, and she is drop-dead beautiful. Put those two together, and well, what is a man to do. Only problem is said drop-dead beauty is one, married, very married, to a wealthy, older, hell, ancient man, and maybe, tad bit jealous and protective (Claude Rains) and, two, is under some mental distress, hell, she is cuckoo, bonkers, crazy, okay, murderously crazy, if you really want to know. Well for me that would take a certain edge off that drop-dead beauty part but for Doc, no way, no way at all as he is well, let’s just call it smitten.
Of course the price of smitten, smitten to a crazy (sorry), married, very married woman can be very high and here is no exception. After a little bout/confrontation with hubby in which Doc got the worst of it, it seems that when Doc came to said hubby was dead, very dead. See here is where smitten gets you in trouble though. Doc is not going to be the fall guy, and he is not letting his paramour take the fall either. So they decide to high-tail it to Mexico, and freedom, or so they think like a million other people in a tight spot, although not all that crowd decide to high-tail it to Mexico. The trials and tribulations of this now on-the-run couple is what drives the rest of the film, even though Doc is pretty hazy about why he is running (except she is running), given his own medical condition. The rest you can figure out for yourself, just like, in the end Doc, had to figure things out. The hard way.
So you can see that I was not kidding about Brother Mitchum’s little femme fatale problem. But I blame the whole thing on Claude Rains. See there is no way an old guy, a wealthy old guy, or poor for that matter, is suppose to be hanging out with young, drop-dead beautiful women, crazy or not. And see worldly Claude Rains should know such stuff from back in the days when he was running around grabbing dough at Rick’s Place in Casablanca. So the next time you see a crime noir film like this one you will know what’s what.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Slumming Streets Of 1950s L.A.- Joseph Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential”
Click on the headline to link to an interview article on crime novelist
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Union Station.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-“The Dark Corner”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, The Dark Corner.
DVD Review
The Dark Corner, Clifton Webb, Lucille Ball, William Bendix, Mark Stevens, directed by Henry Hathaway, 1946
As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this crime noir genre I am an aficionado, especially of those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Dark Corner, is under that former category.
And here is why. The dialogue, even though the film itself was under the direction of Henry Hathaway a more than competent noir director, if not of the first order, is, well, way too smaltzy for a good crime noir. First off the love interest between the framed-up detective, Brad Galt (played by Mark Stevens), and his girl Friday secretary (played by Lucille Ball) is played up front and without subtly and lacks the dramatic cat and mouse build-up of classic noirs. In any case whatever Ms. Ball’s later recognized talents as a screw-ball comic, and they were considerable, here as a lower-class "good girl" with all the right morals, all the right world-wiseness for her joe, and all the right instincts to stand by her man set my teeth on edge. That lack of tension between two such leading characters spills over into the rest of the doings. This one does not even have the cutesy “Oh, you devil Sam” of Sam Spade and his girl Friday secretary, Gladys, in The Maltese Falcon.
A little summary of the plot line is in order to demonstrate that lack of tension. Said detective is being framed again in New York (and had already been framed before, although not in New York but San Francisco) by, he believes, his SF ex-detective agency partner. That, however, is merely a blind ruse used by a certain high-powered high society art dealer (played, naturally, by Clifton Webb, a central casting fit for such a role if there every were one), an art dealer with a young wife. After all the other misdirection this one was telegraphed the minute that we see the “divine” pair together, and that fact is cemented when we see said ex-partner and lovely trophy wife ready to take off right under the nose of Mr. High Society. But a high society art dealer, with a young wife or not, does not get where he is without a strong possessive desire and so the frame is on and our detective is made to fit the frame, and fit it very easily until our real culprit is discovered and dealt with. And dealt with forthrightly, as all overwrought, possessive older husbands are dealt with in noir. By the pent-up hatred of that trophy wife, after she finds out that dear hubby has killed her man. You don’t need to know much more to know what that will mean, or that the framed guy and his good girl Friday will eventually walk down the aisle together. Doesn’t this sound a little too familiar? Like, maybe a low-rent Laura in spots? Hmm.
Note: Clifton Webb, as mentioned above, seems to have been a gold-plated central casting stereotype for the repressed, possessive, and, well, psychopathic high-powered high society swell with an eye (or maybe two eyes) for lovely young women. As seen here, and more famously, in the classic crime noir, Laura. Apparently Mr. Webb never learned that those 1940s lovelies may be wily enough to latch on to a rich man for fame and fortune but are a little headstrong about being roped in, roped in completely by, well, an old lecher, high class or not. It doesn’t take a Mayfair swell to know this is not a country for old men. Any young joe could have told him that.
DVD Review
The Dark Corner, Clifton Webb, Lucille Ball, William Bendix, Mark Stevens, directed by Henry Hathaway, 1946
As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this crime noir genre I am an aficionado, especially of those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Dark Corner, is under that former category.
And here is why. The dialogue, even though the film itself was under the direction of Henry Hathaway a more than competent noir director, if not of the first order, is, well, way too smaltzy for a good crime noir. First off the love interest between the framed-up detective, Brad Galt (played by Mark Stevens), and his girl Friday secretary (played by Lucille Ball) is played up front and without subtly and lacks the dramatic cat and mouse build-up of classic noirs. In any case whatever Ms. Ball’s later recognized talents as a screw-ball comic, and they were considerable, here as a lower-class "good girl" with all the right morals, all the right world-wiseness for her joe, and all the right instincts to stand by her man set my teeth on edge. That lack of tension between two such leading characters spills over into the rest of the doings. This one does not even have the cutesy “Oh, you devil Sam” of Sam Spade and his girl Friday secretary, Gladys, in The Maltese Falcon.
A little summary of the plot line is in order to demonstrate that lack of tension. Said detective is being framed again in New York (and had already been framed before, although not in New York but San Francisco) by, he believes, his SF ex-detective agency partner. That, however, is merely a blind ruse used by a certain high-powered high society art dealer (played, naturally, by Clifton Webb, a central casting fit for such a role if there every were one), an art dealer with a young wife. After all the other misdirection this one was telegraphed the minute that we see the “divine” pair together, and that fact is cemented when we see said ex-partner and lovely trophy wife ready to take off right under the nose of Mr. High Society. But a high society art dealer, with a young wife or not, does not get where he is without a strong possessive desire and so the frame is on and our detective is made to fit the frame, and fit it very easily until our real culprit is discovered and dealt with. And dealt with forthrightly, as all overwrought, possessive older husbands are dealt with in noir. By the pent-up hatred of that trophy wife, after she finds out that dear hubby has killed her man. You don’t need to know much more to know what that will mean, or that the framed guy and his good girl Friday will eventually walk down the aisle together. Doesn’t this sound a little too familiar? Like, maybe a low-rent Laura in spots? Hmm.
Note: Clifton Webb, as mentioned above, seems to have been a gold-plated central casting stereotype for the repressed, possessive, and, well, psychopathic high-powered high society swell with an eye (or maybe two eyes) for lovely young women. As seen here, and more famously, in the classic crime noir, Laura. Apparently Mr. Webb never learned that those 1940s lovelies may be wily enough to latch on to a rich man for fame and fortune but are a little headstrong about being roped in, roped in completely by, well, an old lecher, high class or not. It doesn’t take a Mayfair swell to know this is not a country for old men. Any young joe could have told him that.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Otto Preminger’s “Fallen Angel”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film Fallen Angel.
DVD Review
Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger, 1945
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this genre sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and those shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Fallen Angel, is under that former category. This is what 1940s film noir was all about, maybe not the best but still more than passable
Once you have started to get fixated on crime noir films a key question is that of the femme fatale, although not every crime noir film had them. Fallen Angel does, although rather unusually this femme fatale (played by sultry Linda Darnell) is working in a one-arm joint (come on now you know what that is right? A hash house, a diner, a road house, a dew-drop in and the person serving them off the arm, one arm see, is none other than Darnell as the magnet waitress, Stella). Now all femme fatales, at least the ones I have seen in film (and a few that I have been run over by in life), have some kind of shady past and/or have gone wrong by hooking up with a wrong gee. Some of them have put on high class airs (like Gilda in the movie of the same name and The Lady From Shang-hai both played by sultry, very sultry, get my handkerchief out Rita Hayworth) and others like the role Ms. Darnell plays here are just hard-boiled gold-diggers from the wrong side of the tracks. And that little fact is what has all the boys crazy here, and also drives the plot line.
The Great Depression and World War II unhinged a lot of the certainties that earlier American society took for granted. Those mega-events left a lot of loose-end people struggling, struggling hard to find their place in the sun, or at least some dough to help find that place. And that notion goes a long way in explaining why down-at-the-heels Eric (played by Dana Andrews) find himself on the left coast with no dough and no prospects. But that doesn’t stop him from drawing a bee-line to femme fatale Darnell when he is unceremoniously dropped off in some backwater California ocean town. But brother Eric, take a ticket, because every other guy on the left coast, including the very unglamorous hash house owner, has big ideas, or wants to have big ideas about setting up house with this two-timing waitress. But when a man, as men will do, is smitten well there it is. There are no hoops big enough that he will not roll and that is where the plot thickens. See Stella, she from the wrong side of the tracks born, wants a home with a picket fence like all the other girls and if you don't have the cash, the cash in hand, then get lost, brother.
Needless to say old Eric is ready to move heaven and earth to get the dough for that white picket-fenced house. And here is his scam. Go where the money is. And in this one-horse town, ocean-fronted or not, it resides with two prominent sisters who have some dough left from their father’s estate. So Eric plays up to one sister, June, (the pretty one, of course, played by Alice Faye) and through a convoluted series of events they wind up married. Ms. Darnell was not pleased by this turn of event, as you can imagine. Although her not being pleased was cut short by a little problem, she was murdered on the night of Eric’s honeymoon with June. And all signs lead to him as the stone-cold killer- the frame is on, no question. But also no question is that he is not that kind of guy. But just step back a minute and remember that point about having to take a ticket to line up for Stella's affections. Plenty of guys (and at least one woman) had motive. See the film and figure who that was. Like I say not the best of the 1940s crime noirs but interesting enough. And directed by Otto Preminger so you know the black and white cinematography shadows and contrasts will be just fine.
DVD Review
Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger, 1945
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this genre sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and those shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Fallen Angel, is under that former category. This is what 1940s film noir was all about, maybe not the best but still more than passable
Once you have started to get fixated on crime noir films a key question is that of the femme fatale, although not every crime noir film had them. Fallen Angel does, although rather unusually this femme fatale (played by sultry Linda Darnell) is working in a one-arm joint (come on now you know what that is right? A hash house, a diner, a road house, a dew-drop in and the person serving them off the arm, one arm see, is none other than Darnell as the magnet waitress, Stella). Now all femme fatales, at least the ones I have seen in film (and a few that I have been run over by in life), have some kind of shady past and/or have gone wrong by hooking up with a wrong gee. Some of them have put on high class airs (like Gilda in the movie of the same name and The Lady From Shang-hai both played by sultry, very sultry, get my handkerchief out Rita Hayworth) and others like the role Ms. Darnell plays here are just hard-boiled gold-diggers from the wrong side of the tracks. And that little fact is what has all the boys crazy here, and also drives the plot line.
The Great Depression and World War II unhinged a lot of the certainties that earlier American society took for granted. Those mega-events left a lot of loose-end people struggling, struggling hard to find their place in the sun, or at least some dough to help find that place. And that notion goes a long way in explaining why down-at-the-heels Eric (played by Dana Andrews) find himself on the left coast with no dough and no prospects. But that doesn’t stop him from drawing a bee-line to femme fatale Darnell when he is unceremoniously dropped off in some backwater California ocean town. But brother Eric, take a ticket, because every other guy on the left coast, including the very unglamorous hash house owner, has big ideas, or wants to have big ideas about setting up house with this two-timing waitress. But when a man, as men will do, is smitten well there it is. There are no hoops big enough that he will not roll and that is where the plot thickens. See Stella, she from the wrong side of the tracks born, wants a home with a picket fence like all the other girls and if you don't have the cash, the cash in hand, then get lost, brother.
Needless to say old Eric is ready to move heaven and earth to get the dough for that white picket-fenced house. And here is his scam. Go where the money is. And in this one-horse town, ocean-fronted or not, it resides with two prominent sisters who have some dough left from their father’s estate. So Eric plays up to one sister, June, (the pretty one, of course, played by Alice Faye) and through a convoluted series of events they wind up married. Ms. Darnell was not pleased by this turn of event, as you can imagine. Although her not being pleased was cut short by a little problem, she was murdered on the night of Eric’s honeymoon with June. And all signs lead to him as the stone-cold killer- the frame is on, no question. But also no question is that he is not that kind of guy. But just step back a minute and remember that point about having to take a ticket to line up for Stella's affections. Plenty of guys (and at least one woman) had motive. See the film and figure who that was. Like I say not the best of the 1940s crime noirs but interesting enough. And directed by Otto Preminger so you know the black and white cinematography shadows and contrasts will be just fine.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “Kansas City Confidential”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime film noir, Kansas City Confidential.
DVD Review
Kansas City Confidential, John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Jack Elam, directed by Phillip Karlson, United Artists, 1952
I have said this many times. Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background, and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kansas City Confidential, is in the former category.
And why shouldn’t it be. One fall guy Joe (fall guys seem always to be named Joe, regular Joes I guess), played here in a understated way by John Payne, a little the worst for wear in post-World War II America, having had a few legal problems of his own, gets caught up in the dragnet after a major heist (over a million dollars, a lot of money then but just pocket change today) of a bank, in of all places Kansas City. Now all of this, aside from the criminal intent and cash reward, has been set-up by a disgruntled, vengeful ex-cop (played by Preston Foster) who masterminds the whole thing. Of course such a major heist then (as now) requires several, um, “associates”, in this case masked associates (for their own and Foster's self-protection against the dreaded “stoolie’ syndrome. Said associates are not anyone you or I would want to hang around with, these guys are strictly losers, especially one grafter extraordinaire, Pete Harris, played to manic perfection by Jack Elam. (The others are perennial bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand).
Now Joe, as one might expect, takes umbrage, yes, umbrage at having taken a beating from the cops, and also for being set up as the fall guy. So, naturally, as any crime noir hero worth his salt would do, he is going to get to the bottom of this thing come hell or high water. And the rest of the plot line centers of following the clues, and following the sun to sunny Mexico (low film budget faux Mexico, to be sure) to undo the bad guys, and maybe catch a reward. Or at least a stray gringa or senorita. Naturally he does, the gringa part anyway, although she turns out to be mastermind ex-cop’s daughter (law student daughter, by the way, played by Coleen Gray). Other than the inevitable tacky ending ( I won’t spoil your fun by telling what it is) this one moves along nicely, is filled with some nice twists, and is, as usual with black and white noir films great on those shadowy takes which reveal evil in the making. Especially those loser, grifter, chain-smoking Jack Elam takes. Some noirs you watch for the magic camera work, some for the femme fatales that drive the story line, some for the tough guys and their gaff. This one you get for the plot line.
DVD Review
Kansas City Confidential, John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Jack Elam, directed by Phillip Karlson, United Artists, 1952
I have said this many times. Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background, and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kansas City Confidential, is in the former category.
And why shouldn’t it be. One fall guy Joe (fall guys seem always to be named Joe, regular Joes I guess), played here in a understated way by John Payne, a little the worst for wear in post-World War II America, having had a few legal problems of his own, gets caught up in the dragnet after a major heist (over a million dollars, a lot of money then but just pocket change today) of a bank, in of all places Kansas City. Now all of this, aside from the criminal intent and cash reward, has been set-up by a disgruntled, vengeful ex-cop (played by Preston Foster) who masterminds the whole thing. Of course such a major heist then (as now) requires several, um, “associates”, in this case masked associates (for their own and Foster's self-protection against the dreaded “stoolie’ syndrome. Said associates are not anyone you or I would want to hang around with, these guys are strictly losers, especially one grafter extraordinaire, Pete Harris, played to manic perfection by Jack Elam. (The others are perennial bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand).
Now Joe, as one might expect, takes umbrage, yes, umbrage at having taken a beating from the cops, and also for being set up as the fall guy. So, naturally, as any crime noir hero worth his salt would do, he is going to get to the bottom of this thing come hell or high water. And the rest of the plot line centers of following the clues, and following the sun to sunny Mexico (low film budget faux Mexico, to be sure) to undo the bad guys, and maybe catch a reward. Or at least a stray gringa or senorita. Naturally he does, the gringa part anyway, although she turns out to be mastermind ex-cop’s daughter (law student daughter, by the way, played by Coleen Gray). Other than the inevitable tacky ending ( I won’t spoil your fun by telling what it is) this one moves along nicely, is filled with some nice twists, and is, as usual with black and white noir films great on those shadowy takes which reveal evil in the making. Especially those loser, grifter, chain-smoking Jack Elam takes. Some noirs you watch for the magic camera work, some for the femme fatales that drive the story line, some for the tough guys and their gaff. This one you get for the plot line.
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