The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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YnEoS
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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#601 Post by YnEoS » Sun Jul 05, 2015 3:56 pm

TCM Summer of Darkness Week 5

This was a pretty strong week with a nice mix of new discoveries and old favorites. The labeling system this week might be a little wonkie, because in theory Eddie Muller introduced 4 films tied together by a single theme, but sometimes these themes only apply only to certain films, and he changes themes part way through, so whatever here it is.

1948-1949

Johnny Belinda (Jean Negulesco, 1948) - Really glad this was shown, cause it’s a great film, though this might be stretching the noir definition a bit far. But it was nice to see Jean Negulesco, who’s been a pretty competent director of some solid noir entertainment bring those skills to some different material.

Key Largo (John Huston, 1948) – Being trapped inside during a storm makes for such a great atmosphere, and what great characters and situations to put into that environment.

Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1948) – This is an old favorite that I haven’t seen in quite a while and I’m quite happy with how well it held up. Of course it’s the things like the aquarium and final mirror maze scene that get burned into one’s long term memory. But I really loved how well the surreal feeling of the story carries through scene by scene and how even the normal scenes were well directed. For instance, the trial scene is absolutely hilarious, lots of great comedic touches.

The Bribe (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949) – I haven’t seen any other Robert Z. Leonard films to appreciate why he’s considered a generic director, and why this is considered his one standout work. There’s a lot of interesting things in here, a good supporting cast, an ambitious shot with an optical printer that doesn't quite sell, and a really cool finale. But I didn’t think everything worked together too well here. The usual jealous husband buddies up with competition as a defense mechanism wasn’t as well exploited as other films have done. Robert Taylor wasn’t nearly as good here as he was in Johnny Eager, and I had zero interest in his investigation. Still there's things here worth seeing.

Scene of the Crime (Roy Rowland, 1949) – I didn't completely engage with the plot in this one. But there was some really good character interaction between the detective, his wife, and the woman he’s using to get information for the investigation. Memorable and enjoyable but not a masterpiece for me. Anyone playing can fill a space their giant noir drink/desert bingo card though.

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They Live By Night (Nicholas Ray, 1949) – This is pretty much a lock for my number one slot. I’ve watched it several times and wrote a 20 page paper on it for a studio cinematography class back in film school. While I’m still fairly new to the genre and my tastes and opinions haven’t settled yet, its hard to imagine another film making a strong enough initial impression to completely displace my feelings for this film that I’ve watched, re-watched, picked various scenes apart of, and re-watched some more only to have my appreciation of it grow stronger and stronger.

Similar to how in In A Lonely Place, Nicholas Ray devotes much more attention to the character relationships than to the criminal investigation, here he’s much more concerned with with the young couple trying to make their way in the world and their clumsy grasps at adulthood than any of the heists.

The opening getaway is shot very simply and worked through very quickly. But then Nicholas Ray blocks and shoots the hell out of the characters back in the hideout, the plotting of the next scheme, introducing the romantic relationship, and establishing the role of how the media reports the robberies which will is a nice re-occurring detail. The characters are constantly moving around through the scene and placed various height levels, Standing, leaning forward on the table, sitting at the table, lying on the bed, and kneeling on the ground. The decisions about the various character business are also consistent with the rest of the story, with Bowie and Keechie handling the day to day chores while the adults are talking money and plotting crime. This allows for a wide variety of interesting compositions with the only close-ups of the scene being when it’s revealed that Bowie has killed a man, with Keechie’s reaction to the information and Bowie noticing how her view of him changes.

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Then we’re introduced to the character Mattie who only has a few scenes in this film but steals every one of them. She’s great in that she’s a bit of a warning for Keechie’s possible fate. There’s a bitter self-awareness to her character where she hates her situation and wishes she lived a different life but remains committed to T-dub’s brother presumably because she’s already built too much emotional attachment to break away even if she’s aware it’s the more rational choice. I may be overreaching a bit in my analysis but there's also two lovely shots here that in isolation foreshadow our younger characters being trapped by the actions of their elders.

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In the preparation for and execution of the films only on-screen heist scene, each moment is written and directed to stay focused on Bowie and Keechie’s future. When Bowie scouts out the bank, he does so by asking a jeweler for change for a watch for Keechie, the jeweler jokes that maybe he’ll be back for a wedding ring. Then when planning out the heist, Mattie comes back in and the scene revolves around her bitterness at being involved in a robbery to help her husband. She calls Bowie jailbait emphasizing that he’ll just put Keechie into the situation that she’s in now. During the actual robbery the tension is built by having the jeweler try to strike up a conversation with a Bowie, which is the start of his criminal actions preventing him from maintaining normal adult relationships.

After the heist the main focus of the film is Bowie and Keechie trying to make it on their own away from all the adults that have influenced them up to this point. Everything is directed to emphasize how completely fragile and ephemeral their happiness is. Bowie makes an awkward attempt at comforting a crying child on the bus, and when they decide to get a $20 marriage, they walk fearfully down the street as the crass neon sign beams overhead. They’re trying as hard as they can to act as adults and move towards a stable family life, but everything rings slightly false, they’re going through the motions but they’re completely lost.

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In this section they also meet a number of new adults that continue to elaborate on the films themes. We first meet the preacher who's first role isn't developed until later and when they rent a place to stay at, the landlord is a father. He's raising his kid the normal way, teaching him his trade so he can one day take over “Learn that Alvin, just married people like to be alone” “well I should think so”.

But then eventually Chicamaw and T-Dub come back into their life, and we learn that Bowie and Keechie have actually been managing their money better than any of the adults who raised them. It’s not so much they were raised to repeat the mistakes of their elders, but that they make a good effort to break away from the cycle, but the people they’re connected to and the way society is set up make this a doomed endeavor.

In most these kind of movies the characters always need to pull off one last heist that inevitably causes their downfall. But here Bowie doesn’t even want to do the heist and is only forced to because his partners haven't managed their money as well. By this point in the film, the heist isn’t even show and we learn about the deaths of Chicamaw and T-Dub offhandedly over the radio rather than directly witnessing it. This could be out of budgetary necessity, but the films strengths for me is how much more it emphasizes the relationships over the heists.

When Bowie comes back to the preacher to help him escape to Mexico it’s the first honest interaction he’s ever had with another adult. The preacher like Bowie, is someone who’s fallen into a profession that he doesn’t like out of necessity, but still holds out the slightest hope of having a positive impact on the world and all he can say to him is “In a way I’m a thief just the same as you are, but I won’t sell you hope, when there ain’t any.”

In the end of the film, the police make a deal with Mattie to get Bowie, who’s been labeled by the media as the leader of the gang due to his age and the nice ring of "Bowie the Kid". The police are convinced that he’ll be doomed to continue committing crimes over and over again, despite everything in the film showing him as the most responsible in the group. There’s not even a feign to try to capture him quietly or offer him the opportunity to reform, everyone and every aspect in society has been working against them the whole time.


The Threat (Felix E. Feist, 1949) – This film didn’t particularly stand out to me too much as being anything too special, but there was some tension between the gang leader and his followers and the police hostage. Pretty strong direction here.

White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) – I wasn’t really a big fan of this the first time I saw it many years back and all I really remembered was that there was a big crime boss with mother issues that I didn’t find particularly interesting. Seemed to me like a pre-cursor to all the psychological look into serial killer’s mind kind of movies, which I’ve never been much interested in. Re-watching it now, I was glad to find that there’s quite a bit more to the movie than that. This is a really rich and well constructed film and I can see why it has the reputation it has.

Miscellaneous, Children in Danger, and/or Repressed Memories

The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948) – Really interesting concept for a movie with a unique setting and great cast of actors. I thought I was going to die of a heart attack watching this except…

The Window (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949) – I’m pretty sure Eddie Muller is out to kill me because there’s no other rational explanation why any human being would program this right after The Big Clock. This is a tiny little masterpiece here, what wonderful pacing and clearly the cinematographer of Notorious had learned a thing or two from Hitchcock and decided to one-up him blowing up a kid with a bomb.

Shadow on the Wall (Patrick Jackson, 1950) – This was a really interesting film, though it suffered a bit having to follow up The Window. The pacing was a bit slower here but still a nice tense noir. Kind of a funny juxtaposition that in The Window no adult will believe anything the kid says, and here the adults go to great lengths to make this little girl feel comfortable talking about the murder she witnessed. I was a bit nervous about how well Zachary Scott would do playing a likable character, but he’s charming as hell and does a great job playing a Dad here. Haven’t seen any other Ann Sothern films to appreciate this departure from her usual persona, but I enjoyed her performance.

High Wall (Curtis Bernhardt, 1948) – This seemed like there were some interesting things here, but I just found it very difficult to stay interested in the whole repressed memory plot line so I didn’t get much out of the film.

Neo Noir

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973) - unviewed

Marlow (Paul Bogart, 1969) - unviewed

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#602 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 05, 2015 4:38 pm

Interesting thoughts as usual on a rather eclectic lineup (I've seen all but Shadow on the Wall and Marlowe)

Jean Negulesco is a great director in general (even if he did get sidetracked once Cinemscope came into the picture as Fox's go-to guy for middlebrow 'Scope pix) and Johnny Belinda's a great film with some of our the best character actors of the era, but I too can't quite call it a noir. Key Largo has Robinson's best performance by a country mile. Robinson is so prone to phoning in his perfs and it not mattering since he has such a strong screen presence, but here he really shows he can act, and if there was any justice he'd have gotten the Oscar attention for the film over Claire Trevor (who was an unusually popular starlet for Oscar voters despite the kind of vehicles she found herself in).

Re: the Noir Drinking Game-- I'm ashamed I didn't think to screencap that scene (of the crime)! I don't believe they named either concoction but I'm pretty sure Van Johnson is enjoying a Punch Romaine and I assumed Gloria DeHaven was just drinking brandy straight over shaved ice but now I'm second guessing myself.

Great write-up on They Live By Night. While I don't share your enthusiasm (or the Young Turks'), I still think it's a fine film, though I much prefer Lang's You Only Live Once or Gun Crazy for this kind of storyline. The Window is up there with the Strange Love of Martha Ivers and Riffraff for me as the best films I've seen in this genre since submitting my previous list, so I'm glad you enjoyed it as well. I suspect it will fare much better this time as last round it was only available in one of those ropey RKO Edition Montparnasse DVDs from France.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#603 Post by YnEoS » Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:01 pm

domino harvey wrote:Re: the Noir Drinking Game-- I'm ashamed I didn't think to screencap that scene (of the crime)! I don't believe they named either concoction but I'm pretty sure Van Johnson is enjoying a Punch Romaine and I assumed Gloria DeHaven was just drinking brandy straight over shaved ice but now I'm second guessing myself.
It wasn’t quite as surreal a moment as the drinks in They Won't Believe Me, but still worth noting I thought.
domino harvey wrote:Re Great write-up on They Live By Night. While I don't share your enthusiasm (or the Young Turks'), I still think it's a fine film, though I much prefer Lang's You Only Live Once or Gun Crazy for this kind of storyline.
I’ve mentioned my thoughts earlier on Gun Crazy , I’ll have to check out You Only Live Once, since I always found it odd that my favorite noir film is so similar to the heralded masterpiece that does the least for me. Though thinking about it now, I’m realizing that for as much as I praise They Live By Night for leaning more heavily towards character relationships over robbery scenes, Gun Crazy does kind of get the best of both worlds by having the couple doing all the robberies. As I’m getting more familiar with the genre and seeing how my tastes compare to the canon, I’m less worried about being able to participate and come up with a list of 50 films. I’m increasingly worried though, that I’ll be the person who shows up to the noir party with a list full of films with good natured, well meaning characters and happy endings.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#604 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:46 pm

For anyone looking to get a toe into the genre or seeking an alternate viewing guide to TCM's slapdash programming schedule, these are the films I screened in whole for my Film Noir Genre Studies class, in order:

Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur 1947)
Gun Crazy (Joseph H Lewis 1949)
Laura (Otto Preminger 1944)
the Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett 1946)
the Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone 1946)
the Blue Dahlia (George Marshall 1946)
Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery 1947)
Night and the City (Jules Dassin 1950)
Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick 1957)
DOUBLE FEATURE Crime Wave (Andre de Toth 1954) AND the Devil Thumbs a Ride (Felix E Feist 1947)
Leave Her to Heaven (John M Stahl 1945)
Whirlpool (Otto Preminger 1949)
DOUBLE FEATURE the Set-Up (Robert Wise 1949) AND Beware, My Lovely (Harry Horner 1952)
Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak 1944)
the Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang 1953)
Tomorrow is Another Day (Felix E Feist 1951)
Detective Story (William Wyler 1950)
DOUBLE FEATURE the Window (Ted Tetzlaff 1949) AND Two of a Kind (Henry Levin 1951)
Touch of Evil (Orson Welles 1958)

The next three were "noir elements in other genres" (though all are straight-up Noirs to me)
the Tall Target (Anthony Mann 1951) the Historical Drama
Caged (John Cromwell 1950) the Social Problem Picture
the Spiral Staircase (Robert Siodmak 1946) the Horror Film
Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich 1955)
Heist (David Mamet 2001)


My students also had to watch 2-3 additional noirs of their choosing each week (from a list of 200+ noirs I'd seen) and so by the end of the unit, my kids walked away with about forty to fifty noirs under their belt. With my students, the most popular films were, in order: Leave Her to Heaven, Sweet Smell of Success, Caged, Night and the City, and Detective Story. Leave Her to Heaven was by far the universal favorite, though.

I know essrog also teaches or has taught a Film Noir class and as I recall, our syllabuses have little to zero overlap, so maybe he'll share his as well for a different perspective (as should any other teachers/profs reading who've been there, done that)

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#605 Post by essrog » Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:33 pm

I do teach noir, but it's one unit in an intro to film class that combines an intro to film language and technique with genre studies (the other genre is the Western). My unit is called Film Noir and Neo-Noir, since I'm kind of a 1940-60 purist when it comes to defining noir (plus, since there are more modern noirs than classic ones here, I'd feel like an idiot if I called a unit with this lineup just "film noir"). Anyway, the films I show are:

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944)
Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)
Murder, My Sweet (Edward Dmytryk, 1944)
The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973)
The Big Lebowski (Coens, 1998)
Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin, 1995)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik, 2010)

Students read The Big Sleep; hence the slew of Chandler adaptations/reimaginings (which is why I start the unit the way I do, compensating with two films that don't feature a detective or detective-like protagonist, but establish the fatalism present in so much noir). Other classic noirs I've shown are Out of the Past and Kiss Me Deadly. Students have typically liked all of the classic noirs to a certain degree, but Double Indemnity has always been the most popular of them in my experience.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#606 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:59 pm

the Big Night (Joseph Losey 1951) Emasculation melodrama with John Drew Barrymore as a young twerp who loses his mind after seeing his father publicly humiliated by a local tough, sending him reeling into the night armed with a gun and seeking revenge. The film is effective at rendering the protagonist ineffectual and rather juvenile in his understanding and approach, and his wild mood swings are disarming in their untethered nature (Barrymore's approach is more method than his famous relatives). I thought it was kind of perverse to cast Philip Bourneuf as one of the supporting characters, too, since he looks a lot more like the adult Barrymores than the kid does! This is an unusual film, and while it isn't wholly satisfying (and indeed seems to revel in its frustrations), it's still worth a look.

the Crooked Way (Robert Florey 1949) Another amnesia victim finds he used to be a criminal and makes the mistake of returning to the scene of the crime, where complications predictably ensue. This one cribs quite heavily from Street of Chance, right down to the opening reveal of our hero's initial aggressors, but I found myself enjoying the super-shadowy goings on (if you are someone who judges noirs as a style and not a genre, you will definitely get your kicks here) surprisingly well for what is an extremely creaky and well-trod set-up. One caveat to my praise: this movie's finale features one of the dumbest police squads in history, who do something so stupid that it nearly ruined the entire film for me.

Also, ignoring the shootout and focusing on the shoutout, the film also has a brief look at original poster art for one of the best noirs (that strangely isn't airing via TCM's Summer of Darkness but will be on TCM July 15th at 4AM EST, so set your DVRs &c), Pitfall:

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(Noirception)

Dark Waters (Andre de Toth 1944) Nicely maneuvered gothic noir in the spirit of Swamp Water or the Red House (or a less histrionic Guest in the House), as Merle Oberon is invited to stay with her kinfolk in the Louisiana bayou only to discover they may not be what they seem. Well paced and directed, this is the kind of solid three star entertainment that's hard to write much about, but comes recommended.

the Gangster (Gordon Wiles 1947) Noir often gets a (not entirely unjust) bad rap for its treatment of women and subsequent bolstering of questionable men, but here's the best antidote I've seen yet from the genre. Every single man in this film is weak, neurotic, possessive, jealous, childish, impertinent, and/or stupid-- often simultaneously. Unlike many of the gangster films of the 30s that only paid lip service to the downsides of being a hood in the last five minutes, this movie makes the entire endeavor wholly pathetic, criminality an illusory and fleeting activity with no joy or positive outcome. Would make an unexpectedly great double bill with Albert Brooks' Modern Romance.

I Want to Live! (Robert Wise 1958) I'm working through my remaining unseen works cited in Mark Osteen's Nightmare Alley before reading and kept putting this one off, as it looked from the outside to be another example of the medicine cinema of the late 50s I described in my last Wise thumbnail. But, to my great delight, I loved this capital punishment diatribe. After four unsuccessful noms, Susan Hayward finally won her Oscar and it was well-merited (while Googling this film I horrifyingly found many commentators claiming she deserved it more for I'll Cry Tomorrow, proving that literally everyone is wrong on the internet), as this is a nicely brassy and unsympathetic portrayal of a constant fuckup who finds herself railroaded into a murder charge. Though the real life inspiration was, by Hayward's own admission, probably guilty, her on-screen counterpart is innocent, and this lends a nice sense of injustice to fuel the obvious disgust the film has for the death penalty (as seen beautifully in its documentary-style attention to detail in the last thirty minutes).

1958 was, by my own estimation as someone who's seen every film ever nominated for Best Picture, the worst year on average for the highest award (tied with 1977), and while this film managed to snag several other high-profile noms, including Best Director for Wise, it couldn't make the final tally, which is just one more black mark on the Oscars. Unbelievably, the film's strongest asset, it's gorgeous black and white cinematography (no exaggeration: this is one of the most beautifully shot Hollywood films I've ever seen) lost the Oscar to the Defiant Ones. So that's one more reason to hate Stanley Kramer too! A total masterpiece and I can't wait to see this on Blu-ray when Twilight Time finally releases it.

the Night Holds Terror (Andrew L Stone 1955) "Ripped from the headlines" hostage slash home invasion flick that is too illogical and weirdly pitched between documentary and hysteria-driven melodrama to be successful. Three young toughs force a middle class father to scrounge up some cash for them in exchange for not getting executed in the desert as they proceed to menace him and his family for what seems like forever. I liked the little docudrama details that popped up in the last half hour, but they also highlight the film's biggest problem: like a lot of late period noirs, it too closely resembles an extended TV episode of a criminal procedural.

No Man of Her Own (Mitchell Leisen 1950) Yet another Cornell Woolrich adaptation, this one concerning an unwed mother who takes over the identity of a train crash victim, only to find herself blackmailed by her child's father. This is a ridiculous movie, with Barbara Stanwyck in the usual victim mode of this stage of her career, and the villain here is so over-the-top dastardly but in a generic, flat way that doesn't make him a fun evil dude, just a tedious one. The finale's resolution to the narrative's accumulated problems is suitably bonkers.

the Strip (Leslie Kardos 1951) I think the "noir" label has never been stretched quite so thin as it is here in what is really much more a musical than anything. Mickey Rooney is a drummer with some old ties to a gangster who gets tied up with that girl from all the Ida Lupino movies. The musical numbers with Louis Armstrong and others are nice, I guess, but otherwise this is an instantly forgettable programmer.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#607 Post by YnEoS » Sun Jul 12, 2015 3:20 pm

TCM Summer of Darkness Week 6

Overall very well programmed week, not every movie was great, but none were bad. I think Eddie Muller has thrown the whole themes thing for his slot out the window, unless 'Ida Lupino was in some way involved in 2 of 4 of these films' counts as a theme. This week they also showed an additional 2 noirs from the era instead of a Neo-Noir.

1949-1950

Follow Me Quietly (Richard Fleischer, 1949) – Creepy murder investigation and the interplay between the magazine reporter and the obsessive investigator kept things interesting. Thought the reveal and capture of the murderer didn’t quite live up to the build he got. Possibly because they felt the need to throw in that freaky the dummy is actually a person gag, which didn’t ever seem to get explained.

A Woman's Secret (Nicholas Ray, 1949) – This Nicholas Ray film was new to me. Really enjoyed all the characters here, and I liked that it didn’t do too many gimmicky devices with the flashback structure and balanced interest between the past and the present day with characters like the young soldier and the investigator’s wife. The murder investigation itself, as frequently happens with Nicholas Ray, was uninteresting and unimportant, but I was always just as eager to go back to the story as I was to go back to the telling of it.

Side Street (Anthony Mann, 1950) – I've had this sitting along side They Live By Night on DVD since forever but never watched it til now. Some really great moments here, and nice play with POV and what various characters know, both in the way the main plot plays out and in small moments. For instance when the police officer walks in as Farley Granger's handing the package to the bartender and the milkman seeing the kissing in the car but not the strangling. Pretty good, but didn't get quite as much out of the characters and plot as I'd like.

The Black Hand (Richard Thorpe, 1950) – Unique for being one of the earliest depictions of the terrorist tactics of the mafia and an interesting casting of Gene Kelly out of his usual genre. There’s some good tension built up here, and the violence is pretty brutal. Still it does feel a bit like its educating the audience in some scenes and the characters are all painted very black and white morally. Everyone is either a criminal from Italy who came to America illegally, or a nice Italian-American who’s too afraid to talk to the police. Would’ve loved to see a more complex character from Gene Kelly in this genre, but it was an interesting film none the less.

Armored Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer, 1950) – Really wonderfully executed heist film from beginning to end. Nice mix of really tense scenes, character development, and interesting police investigation.

Caged (John Cromwell, 1950) – The brilliant opening shot of this film looking out the window of the prison car really sets the tone from this relentlessly bleak film. But it’s also surprisingly quotable with a great, memorable cast of characters. My favorite was the woman telling the story of how she wouldn’t be in jail for murder in the judge hadn’t let her off all the times she missed shooting her husband and given her so much practice. And of course the woman who served 40 years and has the life sentence is always a scene stealer.

D.O.A. (Rudolph Maté, 1950) - I can sort of understand why this film has a reputation for its frantic pacing, manic performances and for having what feels like the ultimate noir premise. But I’ll always prefer a typical looking film that gets the basics right over something that has the nice decorations but is lacking certain important key elements. Really there’s nothing interesting about the story here and every scene is just demanding information about characters we never see. When I’m marathoning movies like this I just don’t have the working memory to imagine all the characters they’re talking about but not showing, and when the whole plot is just easily summarized in a few lines at the end I wonder what the whole point was. Still I suppose there could be much worse film made out of this material.

Destination Murder (Edward L. Cahn, 1950) – This starts out with a great murder during a movie intermission and builds some pretty great character tension in most of its scenes with the daughter of the murder victim dating his killer. But pretty soon character psychology and the plot goes out the window and she is seemingly involved with everyone involved in the plot of her father’s murder but it was unclear to me who she was seeing for the sake of her own personal investigation and who she was earnest about trying to marry. Cap it off with the most incompetently thought out criminal plot I've seen yet in a noir and you end up with some very watchable campy fun and absolute train wreck of a film.

Tattooed stranger (Edward J. Montagne, 1950) – Another short and sweet one. A science based murder investigation that plays up the repetitive tasks and thanklessness of police work. Keeps the investigation interesting with the clash of personalities between the old street smart detective and his young college educated partner as well as a romance between the younger investigator and a botanist who’s helping them out. Lots of really fun dialog too.

Eddie Muller Presents

Red Light (Roy Del Ruth, 1949) – Well this is Eddie Muller’s favorite George Raft noir, and this time with a different director than Johhny Angel and Nocturne so I tried to be optimistic going in. This was actually a pretty enjoyable film with some stylistic flourishes and Raymond Burr doing a great job as the villain with a great final confrontation. The director also wisely leaves George Raft’s face in shadows during his big emotional scene in the beginning. Still there must be something in George Raft’s contract that says all his noir films have to have scenes of him demanding information out of people and learning nothing and flashbacks for character we don’t know and who don’t matter. Not quite a fully formed enjoyable noir film, but the least worst one I've seen with George Raft.

Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich, 1955) – I’ve seen this a few times a long while back and its hard for the ending not to make a big impression. Still great this time around and I think my appreciation for the rest of the film has grown as I’ve gained some familiarity with the genre.

On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952) - Don't have a bunch to say about this old Nicholas Ray favorite, but nice small cast of well developed characters, nice tense scenario, and good setting.

Hitch-hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953) – I like that this gets right down to the point and there’s some great tension built right off the bat. Still I felt the premise wore itself a bit thin after a while, even for a movie with such a short runtime. I know Ida Lupino interviewed the people involved and was modeling the film after neo-realist directors, so perhaps adding some more interest to the character interactions would’ve betrayed what actually happened. Still I feel even neo-realist films make more dramatic concessions to the film medium than this did.

Uncategorized

The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall, 1946) – I wasn’t breaking this down too much, but this was wonderful. Really great characters and the film did a good job of juggling what information everyone had and building tension off of what they suspected the others of doing, knowing, and thinking .

Raw Deal (Anthony Mann, 1948) – I thought the interaction between the three primary characters was all really great. I liked how they built tension with the police being the main conflict in the beginning when the social worker is trying to turn Joe in, and then as the character relationships build the external conflict shifts more towards Joe’s past catching up with him. What an intense ending too, and great use of theremin music with the voice over.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#608 Post by YnEoS » Sat Jul 18, 2015 6:45 pm

TCM Summer of Darkness Week 7

Another really great lineup, this is the first week where I every single film screened was completely new for me. Also I think I’m figuring out a bit more of the particulars with my various noir plot hang-ups as there were some interesting case studies to look at this week.

1950-1951

Tension (John Berry, 1950) – Sort of if Superman was adapted to a film noir storyline. Nerdy looking husband wants to kill the man his wife left him for. He builds an alter ego to take the fall for him, only he finds he has much more luck with women without his glasses and shenanigans ensue. Pretty fun film and Audrey Totter’s eyebrows give a good subdued performance here.

Where Danger Lives (John Farrow, 1950) – My reaction to this film was probably more negative than the film itself merits. But this was another movie that just once again highlighted my problems with certain noir plots. Yes, being on the run from the law makes a lot of social interactions really tense, and the people able to help you will try to exploit everything they can out of you, which sucks and you’re probably doomed. I just never was involved enough with any of the characters to care.
SpoilerShow
Even though this actually had a last minute twist that gave it a happy ending it didn’t make the whole thing work any better for me. So I don't think just being optimistic is enough for me to enjoy this particular storyline. More on this later.
Woman on Pier 13 (Robert Stevenson, 1950) – This was kind of fun, a lot of the communist scenes were laughable.

Lady Without a Passport (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950) – Another border patrol movie, which has some good moments but suffers the burden of having to work through a lot of expositional footwork in a very short runtime. The main relationship between Hedy Lamarr and John Hodiak’s characters is hurried through and felt awkward. There’s some cool miniature and rear projection work in the final plane chase.

Cause for Alarm (Tay Garnett, 1951) – This is a nice quick little thriller. A housewife is taking care of her sick delusional husband and then proceeds to have the worse day imaginable. This film exists purely to torture its protagonist and audience, but everything was really elevated by how much tension is built out of relatively mundane activities. I’ve never been so stressed by people discussing postal regulations before. Also some great transplanting of film noir imagery into a suburban setting.

Image

No Questions Asked (Harold F. Kress, 1951) – This movie had a cool premise and a lot of great set pieces. A lawyer helps local criminals by selling what they steal back to the insurance company for a fraction of their value, and while he’s morally hated by everyone, legally he’s in the clear. There’s tons of memorable scenes here and the film really moved and looked like a great noir, but the central love triangle that drives the drama never really grabbed me.

Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951) – Yup, Hitchcocks the best alright.

The Racket (John Cromwell, 1951) – This was a lot of fun, I enjoyed all the interactions and pressures between the police, criminals, and corrupt politicians.

Eddie Muller Presents

Too Late For Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949) – I previously mentioned that it would be difficult to uproot my #1 slot, but this film certainly takes a damn good shot at it with 2 of my favorite noir characters so far. I also thought this is a great example of how to do self-destructive characters who are completely doomed from the beginning and still keep the story interesting. Lizbeth Scott's character shows terrible judgment from the first scene in the film, but I found her completely fascinating to watch because I wasn’t sure how far she was capable of going. I get bored of the self destructive social climbers when the films seem made to hinge on you being worried about their fate when its so obvious from the beginning that they’ve gone down a path they can never comeback from. Here I’m not so much worried about Lizbeth’s Scott character as I’m watching in awe and horror wondering how much destruction she’ll cause before its all over. Dan Duryea’s character makes a perfect combination with her, because he’s starts out like many other noir protagonists so cool and in control of everything. As the film goes on I think it astutely realizes that such an attention to detail is rooted in a deep fear of loose ends and mistakes and its just so entertaining to watch him try and keep pace with Lizbeth Scott's constant pushing. The plot has so many wonderful twists without being too cluttered and I just had so much fun watching the interactions between these two characters develop through this whole ride. Its hard to tell where it will ultimately fall with some more consideration, but this just completely enthralled me.

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946) – Deep running secrets, romances and vendettas from childhood surface many years later. This has a similar structure to Out of the Past where a guy leaves his old love triangle to start a new life with a new girl, but the old relationships prove impossible to completely cut away. Plus a lot of insane melodrama that is completely sold by the dynamite cast this film has. Just pure catnip.

99 River Street (Phil Karlson, 1953) – Expecting another boxing noir, I was really taken in by some of the unexpected some of the plot turns.

Conflict (Curtis Bernhardt, 1945) – Couldn’t really get into this one. The whole being in love with the wife’s younger sister thread felt really incidental and didn't add very much beyond inciting the plot. Once again there was nothing to make the doomed protagonist interesting to watch for me here.

Neo Noir

Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971) - unviewed

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#609 Post by domino harvey » Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:53 pm

I mostly agree with your assessments (Other than for Cause for Alarm, No Questions Asked, or Too Late for Tears, which I haven't seen yet), but I'm surprised at your negative take on Where Danger Lies, which I think has some of the strongest forward momentum of any film noir. I guess I just don't see the misanthropy encountered as negatively flavoring the film-- I honestly think this is one of the most creative "And then this happens" screenplays to come out of Hollywood in this period, it's so wild with invention with regards to its episodic encounters. It was actually the last film I cut from my genre studies syllabus.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#610 Post by Satori » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:09 pm

YnEoS wrote:Cause for Alarm (Tay Garnett, 1951) – This is a nice quick little thriller. A housewife is taking care of her sick delusional husband and then proceeds to have the worse day imaginable. This film exists purely to torture its protagonist and audience, but everything was really elevated by how much tension is built out of relatively mundane activities. I’ve never been so stressed by people discussing postal regulations before. Also some great transplanting of film noir imagery into a suburban setting.
Yeah, this film kind of took me by surprise. The beginning was a bit bland but the final half of the film is structured like a nightmare as the protagonist repeatedly tries to complete a seemingly simple task (retrieving a letter by a certain time) while frustrating obstacles are compounded: visitors continually stopping by, annoying neighbours offering to help, her interactions with the Kafkaesque postal bureaucracy, etc. The banality of the events heightens the nightmarish logic of the film, as does the protagonist constantly making awful decisions even through she knows better. The film is able to juxtapose the frustration of these everyday boring social encounters with a sense of dread and panic that works really well.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#611 Post by YnEoS » Sat Jul 18, 2015 10:48 pm

domino harvey wrote:I mostly agree with your assessments (Other than for Cause for Alarm, No Questions Asked, or Too Late for Tears, which I haven't seen yet), but I'm surprised at your negative take on Where Danger Lies, which I think has some of the strongest forward momentum of any film noir. I guess I just don't see the misanthropy encountered as negatively flavoring the film-- I honestly think this is one of the most creative "And then this happens" screenplays to come out of Hollywood in this period, it's so wild with invention with regards to its episodic encounters. It was actually the last film I cut from my genre studies syllabus.
That's a good way of describing it and there were plot points and situations that I did think were creative and well designed. I think though I just might not particularly interested in "And then this happens" stories without some additional slant to hook me in. There were definitely a lot of moments that pulled me back in momentarily and made me think maybe there's more to the film than I was giving it credit for, but then it usually lost me again and eventually I just threw my arms up and wondered what the point of it all was.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#612 Post by life_boy » Tue Jul 21, 2015 1:47 am

I have 50 films I am planning on viewing for this project and an additional 10 others I am planning on rewatching. I often lose steam with these types of planned viewing efforts, though I am hopeful to follow through this time because this is a genre I have intended to study for some time but have not gotten around to doing any more than a cursory pass on most of the canonical classics. My 50 planned viewings will include both accepted genre classics and underrated tertiary noirs that deserve more love and attention. In prepping myself for this project, the work and writing done by Domino, Cold Bishop, YnEos and others in this thread has been invaluable.

While I am still getting my head around the genre itself, I know one unique focus I will be taking with these films is a particularly keen interest in the geography, location photography, and urban settings of these films. Invigorated by the geographic explorations and investigations of Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself, I am curious to see how many of these films deal with their place and how the story and locations are tied together. I am a bit of a geography nut, so this type of approach is really fascinating to me. Noir strikes me as one of the early genres that more consistently gets out of the studio into the world of urban location shooting (often Los Angeles, considering the ease of proximity), so I am very curious to see what that approach does to the films being made. Many of the films I have chosen to view were planned with this thesis in mind.

I only say all of this to give the reasoning behind why my postings on these movies will likely stray from the quick synoptic capsule format and to explain why I might spend a paragraph figuring out where a particular scene was filmed and inferring why.

Seeing as I have already dug into my viewings, I will post my 2 most recent watches.

Crime Wave (André de Toth, 1954)
Steve Lacey is a guy who just wants a quiet life. An ex-con who has done hard time and now has found a decent job at the airfield and a wife who is loyal to her reformed/reforming man, Lacey knows there is not much open to him outside of trying to build his own American dream. But he also knows even that hangs by a thread. The constant calls from guys he knew once in his life plague him – men who seek him out for the very reasons he makes a good honest citizen – he’s loyal, hard-working and always knows the score. Lacey is doomed because no matter what he does, he can’t completely hide from those he once knew (even though he tries).

The question of the reformed criminal as a myth of the justice system or a reality (if rarely seen) is a major facet of the story. Sterling Hayden’s detective can’t mask the contempt he has for ex-cons, and that antagonism between police and former criminals is the crux of all of Steve Lacey’s bad decisions throughout the film. The problem is he truly does make some bad decisions. The implication seems to be that if he made the right decision and turned in the criminals, he would never get credit for it so he decides to cheat a little just to keep himself alive. Or at least that’s Steve’s logic. It almost kills him and almost sends him to jail and almost leads to his wife getting raped (and potentially murdered)…so hindsight is 20/20, I guess. It is a little hard to buy all of Steve’s bad decisions (why not drive away at the Glendale bank heist?). But seeing Hayden’s cop come around to give Lacey the benefit of the doubt in the end is a refreshingly hopeful note for potential police reform (to reform a system, individuals must change). Still, how far can Steve get before the next person he knew in lockup comes to him looking for help or asylum or an alibi? The film ends on a happy note, but even that hope feels tainted.

Crime Wave is decidedly Los Angeles: a city of drifters, criminals and cops. The normal folk – people like Steve Lacey’s wife or the poor gas station attendant – are used and abused by those with guns and agendas. From the early moments of the film, de Toth is determined to shoot on-location in the city and to maintain a decent geographical consistency across the film. Reportedly, the movie was truly shot in Los Angeles City Hall, in the homicide division (you can tell by the reverb of the audio that this was an actual location shoot, the flat institutional lighting likely enhanced by studio lights yet trying to maintain a realistic consistency) and in the parking garage beside it. Sawyer’s Pet Hospital (where Dr. Hessler works and pontificates on the purity of animal relationships) is still standing on the corner of San Fernando and Alma Roads in Glendale (and is still an operating animal clinic). Even the chase at the end of the film, seems to maintain a geography consistent with driving from Glendale to Chinatown in 1949/1950.

For me, this is a movie made in the tiniest details. The gas station attendant happy about the Doris Day song on the radio, Sterling Hayden’s cop finding the hat of a fallen officer and tossing it on the gurney as they load up the body, Los Angeles City Hall growing slowly larger in the windshield as Lacey races back to the hideout to rescue his wife. Lacey can never completely satisfy us with his choices, but then it’s a messy movie about messy people in a messy city. And for that, I have to love it.

Union Station (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
William Holden is a good cop who works hard, perhaps too hard (that’s the wrap he gets from Nancy Olsen’s character). But the opening scene inside the station establishes that he can spot a grift from across the corridor and he tries to keep the halls of Union safe to those who are passing through. A routine check on a seemingly paranoid suspicion by Olsen triggers a series of follow-ups by Holden that uncover a kidnapping plot using his own turf as the playing field and just so happens to involve Olsen’s boss and her boss’s daughter. The sadistic kidnapper is not interested in sparing life, even if he comes out on top. He is not forced into crime but there is an enjoyment he takes in torturing his blind victim, eventually holding her unguarded around high voltage wires in an underground service rail shaft.

The police are strong and determined to come out on top, despite trying to piece as many clues together as possible without being found out by the criminals at large. Holden is never convinced that he can save the girl’s life, despite trying to do all he can to save it. The portrait of Holden’s Lieutenant Calhoun is one of extreme determination but not necessarily morality. I never believed he wanted the greater good of society or the kidnapped girl, but that he was simply committed to following the investigation all the way through to the apprehension of the criminal. (This portrait of the police career-man seems common in noir, even when the cops are the heroes there is still a pessimistic air of misplaced identity or ideology.) He is committed to being good at his job. In that vein, the quiet moment shared over rum toddies between Calhoun and Inspector Donnelly, where two career-men come in after mass and talk out their philosophies of dying for the cause. “You were in the war, Calhoun. Were you ever pinned down by mortar fire? In my time it was cannonballs…yeah, the kind they have on monuments now. But even then, there was always someone – some foolish man – who stood up and walked into it. That’s how wars are won.” “That’s how fellas wind up on slabs before their time,” Calhoun says snidely. Calhoun gets his moment to be that foolish man, as he chases Joe into the tunnels under the city. He comes out with his life, but only barely.

Speaking of the city, Union Station exists in a city that isn’t real. Some sort of Gotham-type hybrid between New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the nameless city of Union Station is not so important to the plot so much as a unique urban backdrop for the criminal activities to take place within. It must be a city; this is no small town movie. But, unlike movies like Crime Wave or The Naked City that gain energy from their location shooting and the particularity of their sense of place, Union Station has different ambitions in its city-building. Maté has filmed the movie primarily in Los Angeles (although there are reports that pieces of the elevated train sequence and urban tunnel shootout were filmed – at least partially – on location in Chicago – I am unsure how true this is but it looks like parts of it must have been – at least b-roll setup and El process shots). The eponymous train station is definitely the Los Angeles Union Station, not D.C., Denver or Chicago. I don’t know enough about the production history to know if they shot the film inside the actual Union Station, but I do know that if it was a production set, it was built to replicate in extreme detail the actual Union Station in L.A. except for one telling addition – the police/security room behind the arched lattice overlooking the main hall. This is movie fabrication but well-integrated within the design and layout (I’m sure most would not know otherwise).

Some have claimed that the city Maté is building is a flawed replication of Chicago (because of the El and Stockyards), but I doubt it. (Thom Andersen makes much of Union’s strange city signifiers in his documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, but he has a different objective.) My doubt arises from the use of the “Westhampton” train station, where the film is setup. If Maté wanted it to fully read as Chicago, he easily could’ve named the station Joliet or Gary or Waukegan or lots of other commuter lines going into urban Chicago. Westhampton suggests Connecticut, obviously, and imdb informs that the “Westhampton” station was dressed up somewhere in Pasadena. So, while many noir filmmakers are placing their films within specific urban settings (even if only superficially so), Maté is going in the opposite direction and creating an urban composite, a cinematic city unique to Union Station. All of this isn't important to the film so much, but it does present an interesting alternative approach to accepted noir city representation.

Despite this unusual urban conglomeration, interestingly, Union Station is still a film that holds to a very particular sense of place. For Maté, the important thing is the train station itself. Union Station is where the action will center, a station that must be a central hub with its own security, a pass-through point for all types of criminal activity and cons, a place always bustling with activity and people. The ambiguous nature of city life is important to all involved. The criminals find anonymity in the masses; the cops can cover their scent while they trail crooks through crowds and trains and sidewalks.

Union Station is a movie full of uncertain movements, a lack of clarity as to whether the current course of action is helping or hurting the situation. Considering there are no clear alternatives, the current course continues. Lives are lost in the fray. The poor beat cop who stumbles upon the kidnapper’s car who ends up losing his life just by doing his job a little too impulsively. There is the gangster’s moll who is disposed of easily by the sadistic kidnapper, and tries to redeem what little time she has left by telling what she knows in hopes of keeping the blind girl from being slaughtered. Wars are won by the foolish actions of people, and even the criminals intent on extorting their fortunes are brought down by people who determine they have nothing to do except their jobs.

It is a bit too early to tell, but I imagine this film charting pretty high on my final list.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#613 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jul 21, 2015 12:17 pm

Great writeups, life_boy. Union Station placed high on my own list last round, though sadly no one else voted for it. I think it's one of the "meaner" noirs, and the non-verbal opening machinations make for one of the strongest starts to any film in this genre (predating the more famous opening sequence in Rio Bravo by quite a bit)

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#614 Post by life_boy » Tue Jul 21, 2015 6:39 pm

A couple of other recent viewings...

Riffraff (Ted Tetzlaff, 1947)
Speaking of extraordinary, non-verbal introductions: how about this one? A nearly 10-minute journey from a stormy Peruvian airfield where men wait quietly and somewhat impatiently for the arrival of another man who boards a plane and then appears to jump to his death. We never know exactly what happened here, but Tetzlaff plays the scene extremely well, with Hasso (the surviving passenger) tenderly putting a chick back in the box from which he escaped before crying for help from the pilots. We learn later this is intended as his alibi and this is how he came into possession of the map. The authorities are suspicious but not in a hurry to solve anything.

Pat O’Brien plays one of my favorite noir protagonists thus far in Dan Hammer: a blunt, indifferent, pragmatic American ex-pat living in Panama who clearly lives up to his name. He is constantly bartering his way across town because he knows someone for everything and even if he doesn’t, he’s sure he can find it. He is sought out by the suspicious Hasso who wants a bodyguard with no questions asked. Hammer, ever the opportunist, takes him up on it only to soon discover that Hasso may be in possession of a very valuable oil field map that will fetch him an even higher price if he can recover it to the oil company.

Everything falls apart as Hasso is killed while Hammer is off for the evening and the triangle of terror and mistrust swarm around him, all the while missing that the map has been casually tacked to the partition in his own apartment. It is a clever device and one that almost works to deconstruct noir plotting a bit, as the machinations of the players (and the torture of the hero) take place while, in the same room, the mcguffin sits unnoticed.

This is, by all accounts, a minor noir (considering few have seen it and few ever reference it on the major lists), but it is hard for me to completely understand why. On the one hand, the story is not that novel, but there are so many things that the movie does extremely well that it is a shame fewer people are not aware of this movie’s charms. A great movie accompanied by a great Roy Webb score. Well worth seeking out.

Armored Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer, 1950)
This is about as lean as they come. Also about as fatalistic as they come.

The robbery happens less than 15 minutes in and the rest of the movie is the fallout. The careful planning of criminal mastermind Dave Purvis is unhinged by the simplest false assumption: the officers responding to the call will not be any closer than the nearest station. He has timed their response times and (it is inferred) posted several false alarms to hopefully raise their skepticism in Wrigley Field emergency calls. But the end of Dave Purvis is inevitable: you know it from the moment Cordell and Philips pick up the call only a short drive from Wrigley.

Dave Purvis is cold and calculated. He doesn’t trust people because they are malleable, shifty, uncertain creatures. He wants to be a machine but even he has a weakness. Part of his plan involves knocking off his partner Benny to take Benny’s wife. A crime of passion might fit if Dave was passionate. Benny's murder is almost simply a crime of opportunity. Dave's affection for Yvonne, the nightclub dancer, is appears to be pure lust and availability and I appreciated that the movie doesn't try and justify it beyond that. Still, Purvis finds himself half-a-beat behind the rhythm of the investigation and refuses to give up on his nightclub dancer fling. He could’ve walked away from her and been home-free. Purvis' downfall is not only the people around him, but it feels like he gets a little tangled up in his own plan. It is hard to know what was expected as part of the plan and what is a reaction to the new scenario. Either way, Purvis is doomed.

Lt. Cordell, on the other hand, is all-business. Even when he goes in to console the wife of his fallen partner, words escape him and stoicism wins out. “You get used to a guy,” he tells her. He can’t say much more than, “If you need anything, you know where to find me.” There's not much room for condolences (much less romance) in Cordell's world.

In many ways, this is a proto-Michael Mann film. Heat is an obvious connection, not simply for the updated armored car heist but also the messy entanglement of personal relationships. Neil McCauley tries to improve upon Dave Purvis’ mistakes as a mastermind, but still ends up forgetting that he cannot escape with a relationship in tact. Both cop and crook are lone wolves, forced into collaboration with others yet always against their wishes. Although, counter to Mann, you could nearly fit three Armored Car Robberies inside of Heat's 3-hour runtime!

The setting is Los Angeles and Fleischer lets us know right away with shots of downtown L.A. playing underneath the opening credits. He then gives us City Hall in the opening shot. But the action isn’t centered downtown as much as it is southside. The south part of town, as far as I have noticed, doesn’t play as frequently on film in this time period but it plays very strongly here. The south – primarily working class neighborhoods – is not as dense and picturesque in its crumbling urbanity as Bunker Hill (just northwest of downtown), which was a more popular site for noir storytelling. Wrigley Field (razed in 1969 and the space turned into the Gilbert Lindsay Recreational Center) was the minor league baseball field on the corner of Avalon and E 42nd Place frequented before the building of Dodger Stadium and the relocation of Brooklyn’s team to the west coast. Wrigley’s exterior is featured prominently as the site of the heist. An exterior b-roll shot places the USC Medical Center as the hospital where Lt. Philips dies and most of the rest of the criminal movements will be in the San Pedro area, where they have been landlocked by police roadblocks but have a boat escape planned.

Fleischer treats the L.A. area as huge and sprawling, but he keeps the geography fairly true to life. Even if Purvis has been planning to fly out of Metro Airport (to the north in Van Nuys), the inclusion of the Valley has already been subtly alluded to earlier by Purvis’ move to the Valley Motor Court. He ends up criss-crossing all over the metro area over the course of the movie and, although it works in his favor to conceal his whereabouts, it also exemplifies his own uncertain path and spiral to destruction.

I really enjoyed the movie, especially the location photography and the narrative economy, but it still feels a little lighter in comparison to some of the other stalwarts of the genre.
Last edited by life_boy on Wed Jul 22, 2015 12:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#615 Post by domino harvey » Wed Jul 22, 2015 1:50 am

If you so desire, you may now submit spotlight titles for the first post. Please limit yourself to no more than two films for the classic era noir list and one for the modern noir list

...and it seems only fitting to declare that my first spotlight will be the aforementioned Riffraff, which I wrote up here, with my other spotlight being A Kiss Before Dying, which you can read more about here

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#616 Post by life_boy » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:59 pm

Speaking of spotlight titles -- Domino: go ahead and put down Union Station as one of my spotlights.

Here are a few more recent viewings.

Beware, My Lovely (Harry Horner, 1952)
Robert Ryan plays Howard Wilton, a schizophrenic who is constantly assaulted by his mind and the gaps in his memory. It is Christmas 1918, in an unnamed town (although clearly somewhere with a warm climate). Mrs. Gordon runs a boarding house and Howard Wilton is new in town and looking for work as a handyman. He seems nice enough and he appears to know what he’s doing. But, on occasion, something switches and all the pent-up rage that he has endured is railed against by his split personality. He becomes menacing, paranoid and dangerous. The astonishing thing about Ryan’s performance is that – although clearly a role of menace and power – Ryan brings such a wounded empathy to his role that is very disarming. Even though we never trust him, we can’t help but feel sorry for him. Mrs. Gordon feels the same way.

It is clear that Wilton’s personality – although not directly created by his experiences in the military – have been harmed (or potentially exacerbated) by the derision and ridicule he has often faced for his impairment. This comes out in the scene when Mrs. Gordon’s niece comes in and, not finding him as cooperative as she wishes, turns on him and starts aggravating him. She insults his masculinity and dumps her potato chips on the floor right in front of him while he tries to wax the floor. As Mrs. Gordon learns, he is sick but you can’t tell him he’s sick.

The action takes place nearly exclusively inside Mrs. Gordon’s boarding house, evidencing the play on which the movie was based. But, lest one think this is purely dialogue-driven, the nobody Horner has quite a few subtle visual delights up his sleeves. Mirrors are common features in the house yet he only makes forefront use of them a couple of times. One of the great shots in the movie is the fractured personality of Wilton on the offensive reflected 5-6 times over in the Christmas ornaments as Mrs. Gordon turns to notice him. Another common feature of Horner’s mise-en-scene are bars. He makes use of the prominent stairway as a visual device of entrapment, and later will use the Victorian ornamentation around the stairs as an iris-like framing of Mrs. Gordon “alone” in her house.

The premise did start to run a little thin for me before the last moments, despite the breezy running time, but overall it is a highly successful movie that breaks out of the city and gives us a chamber noir of personal fragmentation and frighteningly intimate menace.

Reign of Terror / The Black Book (Anthony Mann, 1949)
An absolutely delirious genre mash-up – about as stylish as movies get. Having no real familiarity with the history of the period depicted, I have no clue how close to recorded history this is and, frankly, I don’t care. What a ride! Mann paints revolutionary France as the ultimate hive of uncertainty, fear, paranoia, doom and violence, where it seems that every single character pretends to be someone else at some point or another (sometimes doubling back on top of themselves several times over). I enjoyed all the performances but, for my money, Arnold Moss ran away with the show with his slimy portrayal of Fouché.

The violence is shocking in its brutality and frankness, allowing the romanticization that often comes from revolutionary depictions to fade a bit behind a certain contemporary relevance and surprising tangibility. I imagine the major argument on it’s status as a noir masterpiece is purely on whether or not one is willing to personally consider a historical epic a film noir. In that respect, it fits the spirit of the genre to a tee while its creation by two of the masters of the genre (in Mann and Alton) puts it near the head of the class of their collaborations. I'm still not sure exactly where I will fall on this come voting time, but it is a great film nonetheless.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (Tay Garnett, 1946)
A startling and breezy first hour give way to a more cumbersome and frustrating second. I had real mixed emotions on this one, considering how much I loved the set-up, John Garfield’s performance, the quiet moments with Nick playing guitar and the way the movie seems to just accidentally unfold. I also really loved the way the scheming of the lovers in the first half is taken over by the scheming of the lawyers in the second (Hume Cronyn is fantastic). But, in the end, I felt like it never melded into anything more meaningful than a cynical chuckle at the twists of fate and the irony of Frank’s predicament.

Some of this arises from not completely buying the central relationship. Although the initial interactions between Frank and Cora crackled with sexual tension, as the movie progressed, the relationship felt a lot more forced by the plot mechanics. It could just be Lana Turner’s limited range or noir expectations on my part, but I found myself distrusting her character yet not getting the satisfactory resolution that explained the distrust. In many ways, the story is a collection of convoluted circumstances that cover over the central rotting romance that, once attained, is bitter and completely unfulfilling to those involved. That’s a fine premise for a story, I just felt like I didn’t completely get it here.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#617 Post by A » Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:12 pm

Watched a few noirs and films that were supposed to be noirs but weren't (a prime example of the latter being Robert Siodmak's ingenious period piece and "fuck you" to the production code, THE SUSPECT [1944]), and I'm sure to see some more noirs, neo-noirs and whatnot as this project progresses.
But nothing that could make my final list so far (which will be difficult anyway, cause I've already paired everything I like down to some 80 old-school masterpieces which are dearest to my heart).

So for now I'll simply name two spotlight titles. Both are films that I consider to be excellent films of the highest order regardless of genre and both are also very typical as far as post-WWII noir goes. But for some reason they don't get as much respect and recognition as the imo deserve:

Nocturne (Edwin L. Marin, US 1946)
Non coupable "Not Guilty" (Henri Decoin, France 1947)

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YnEoS
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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#618 Post by YnEoS » Sat Jul 25, 2015 7:28 pm

TCM Summer of Darkness Week 8

I hadn’t heard anything about any of these films previously, so I had a lot of fun going in completely blind and being surprised by a number of masterpieces. Next week is the last week of TCM’s summer of darkness, so its slowly beginning to dawn on me that I'll have to start tracking my own noirs for the next few months. Going to miss having such a wide variety of classics and obscurities thrown at me every week, but it will be interesting to start sorting through all the recommendations in this thread.

1951-1953

Roadblock (Harold Daniels, 1951) – This is a low budget spin on the double indemnity premise where you have a protagonist whose an insurance investigator who has to investigate the crime he himself committed. This particular version involves the a guy falling for a girl who’s used to a wealthier lifestyle than he can provide. He decides he needs to steal to be in her league at the same time she decides she’s fine living a simple family life on an insurance investigator’s salary and of course everything falls apart from there. Well made, but nothing special.

The Strip (Leslie Kardos, 1951)
– Don’t know enough about Mickey Rooney’s films to know how much if any of a departure this is from his usual body of work. It was an interesting and enjoyable film, but not much else aside.

Beware My Lovely (Harry Horner, 1952) - This is a film I kind of hate to pick apart, because it has such a strong opening. What’s wonderful about the beginning moments is how much of Robert Ryan’s POV we get despite his character being the threat in the story. The awkward social interactions are genuinely embarrassing. Despite knowing where the plot needs to go, I’m secretly hoping the whole time that he skirts by the most awkward housekeeping job imaginable without saying anything too psychotic. I agree with life_boy that it does lose some steam in the later portions of the film. For me this seemed to happen once Robert Ryan and he becomes less relateable but the film mostly stays in his perspective and Ida Lupino’s character doesn’t have enough agency to keep everything moving forward. A good example of this is when she tries to get a message to the boy with the groceries by writing a check. I think this would’ve been really tense if we were shown her plan she decided it. But we learn about it at the same time Robert Ryan’s character learns about it, and so my hopes were dashed before I even knew to get them up. Just hoping Robert Ryan’s memory fogs enough between small children running in and out of Ida Lupino’s house before he decides to murder her isn’t much of a goal to grab onto. The film does kind of redeem itself with the last few scenes, so I almost hate to nitpick it because it's bookended by such strong material. There’s some great stuff here, but for me it falls a bit short of being the high tension masterpiece it might’ve been.

Clash by Night (Fritz Lang, 1952) – Regardless of if this actually qualifies as a noir I actually had similar problems here that I have with other noirs. Barbara Stanwyck correctly evaluates her prospects of finding a good husband and the rest of the movie is such seeing it all play out. The cast is so phenomenal though that disinterest in the plot wasn’t much of a detriment for me.

Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson, 1952)
– Really fun idea for a heist plot, I liked being put into the POV of the person who gets blamed for the heist instead of police or an insurance agent. Well done and really enjoyable to see how this all plays out.

Macao (Josef von Sternberg, 1952) – It took me quite a while to figure exactly what this film was supposed to be about, but there was enough great character interaction and hinting at future developments to keep everything interesting. Then when things finally kick into gear it does a great job paying off everything set up earlier. Just a really great set of characters to be stuck in a movie with too.

Talk About a Stranger (David Bradley, 1952) – This is kind of another take on the premise of The Window. Here a boy and his dog (named boy) is quick to accuses his weird neighbor and start stirring up suspicions without much evidence. Most of this film doesn’t really look at all like a noir until John Altman’s cinematography goes all out at the ending night scenes with bright lights behind trees aimed directly in the direction of the camera carving patterns into the thick fog. This storyline doesn’t really create the same hyper tension of some of the other child in danger noirs, but the characters and dog acting are a lot of fun, and it’s quite stylish. There are many worse ways I can think of to spend 65 minutes.

Split Second (Dick Powell, 1953) – I was surprised at how much this film did with what at first looked like a bit of a cumbersome sized cast. But all the interactions were really well managed and each characters got to interact with a surprising number of other characters instead of staying within their sub groups. It also does a good job of making the threats and stakes clears while setting goals for the characters so the hostage situation doesn't become tedious. Overall a really solid little low budget noir.

Richard Fleischer and/or Robert Mitchum

The Narrow Margin (Richard Fleischer, 1953) - Richard Fleischer showed some pretty serious talent in the previous low budget films I’ve seen of his, and his breakout film clearly deserves its reputation as a masterpiece. Sets up a great tense situation on a train and establishes a memorable set of background characters who steadily get weaved more and more into the plot. Some of the ending developments are just really top notch material in conception and execution. Really a high watermark of what can be achieved on a low budget.

His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951) – Apparently Richard Fleischer agree to fix the final scenes of this in exchange for not having to re-film The Narrow Margin with a bigger budget starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. I’m not sure the plot of this heavily tweaked and re-tweaked 2 hour Howard Hughes production is as streamlined as it could be, but wowie is this noir has some really fun material in it. Just tons of great comedic characters and lines here without deflating any of the drama and tension from the plot. Vincent price really steals the show during the finale. Definitely a film I would just turn on if I just wanted to sit around with a wide smile on my face for 2 hours.

The Locket (John Brahm, 1946) – There's a good story here, though I think too much fuss is made over the nested flashback structure. Dramatically it serves a relatively similar purpose as any other single flashback noir plot of letting the audience know how downhill things are going to go in advance. I think the story could’ve played out in chronological order and worked about as well.

Angel face (Otto Preminger, 1952)
– What really struck me about this film is that it could have such a sordid grim streak to it while also being quite melancholy at times. While that mixture doesn’t seem like it would be too uncommon I can’t really think of another film off the top of my head that hits these two notes so well for me. I really like that the film downplayed any feelings of distrust or suspicions of murder for some remarkably blunt and frank character interaction. Some standouts being the final scene between Robert Mitchum and Mona Freeman characters as well as Jean Simmons sitting alone in her house waiting to see if Robert Mitchum gets back. This movie hit on some really really interesting moods and atmosphere for me.

Neo Noir

Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle,1958) - unviewed

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knives
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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#619 Post by knives » Sat Jul 25, 2015 8:08 pm

Macao is probably so messy for you because of the mess of a production history with von Sternberg being only about 30% left in with various directors (particularly Nic Ray) picking up the rest of the movie leaving a Frankenstein of about four different movies actually present.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#620 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 26, 2015 1:16 pm

Re: Angel Face, be sure to watch Tag Gallagher's excellent piece on the film (Scroll down, it's the next to last video posted in that blog entry. Spoilers for Angel Face and Out of the Past)

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#621 Post by domino harvey » Sun Jul 26, 2015 6:18 pm

I've reconfigured my list from last round and come up with a solid new Top 45, thus planning for at least a handful of new to me classics over the next couple months to populate a full list (and then some). Modern Noirs is trickier, as the most obvious great modern noir, Veronica Mars, isn't even eligible (and while I like the film, I'm not going to backdoor in something against the spirit of the project). I've come up with a short list of post-1970s noirs based on existing viewings, though I still have some prominent titles yet to be seen (and some prominent titles are left off because I don't like them, obviously YMMV). Some of these may not be films that come immediately to mind when thinking "modern noir", but I don't have a lot of use for the modern noirs that are so heavily cliche and pastiche-driven and prefer those that embody the best aspects of the genre outside of its aesthetic concerns. Chinatown, for instance, is on this short list, but I probably won't even vote for it, especially since it won't need my support.

Anyway, here's a little over a golf game's worth of recommendations, in alphabetical order

A History of Violence (David Cronenberg 2005)
After Dark, My Sweet (James Foley 1990)
the Black Dahlia (Brian de Palma 2006)
Chinatown (Roman Polanski 1973)
Fallen Angels: the Professional Man (Steven Soderbergh 1995)
Gone Girl (David Fincher 2014)
Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson 1996)
Heist (David Mamet 2001)
Into the Night (John Landis 1985)
the Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom 2010)
Killer Joe (William Friedkin 2012)
Leon: the Professional (Luc Besson 1994)
Miami Blues (George Armitage 1990)
Nadine (Robert Benton 1987)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino 1994)
Side Effects (Steven Soderbergh 2013)
the Spanish Prisoner (David Mamet 1998)
This World, Then the Fireworks (Michael Oblowitz 1997)
U Turn (Oliver Stone 1997)
Whispers in the Dark (Christopher Crowe 1992)
Winter's Bone (Debra Granik 2010)

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YnEoS
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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#622 Post by YnEoS » Mon Aug 03, 2015 4:24 pm

TCM Summer of Darkness Week 9

Alright, so this week wraps up TCM's summer of darkness. Actually looking over the original list this didn't expose me to quite as many classic titles as I had expected it to, but none the less it filled in a lot of big blind spots I had, and I think gave me a good introduction to noir genre overall. Plus I think I'm pretty close to hitting my tolerance limit for some of these generic unexceptional noirs, so I'm welcoming the chance to just submerge myself in the remaining big name noirs I have to see and everyone else's recommendations.

This last set of films was kind of a fizzle for me, though there was still some interesting stuff here and there. Lots of Fritz Lang too, which I guess is good since I haven't seen to many of his American films.

1953-1958

The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953) – I was a little worried when I started recognizing some of the plot elements here from a bunch of later films, but the execution here seems a good deal more solid than some later iterations I've seen. Gloria Grahame’s performance here is really great.

Suddenly (Lewis Allen, 1954) – Family is held hostage by a gang of killers involved in a plot to assassinate the president. This isn’t my favorite material and I didn’t find the amorality of the antagonist as interesting as some other commentators I’ve read seem to have. But this little film is quite good at keeping its plot interesting, managing tension both with the protagonists escape plans and the assassins keeping the act up for visitors. Some pretty good dialog as well.

I Died a Thousand Times (Stuart Heisler, 1955) – Well, I thought High Sierra was mostly a bunch of good acting in a not so interesting storyline, and this was kind of the exact same storyline with some less good acting and incredibly boring cinematography. Not really in any way enjoyable.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956) – I thought this was kind of goofy fun. Perhaps if some of the end twists were spaced out a bit more it might’ve held a bit more momentum.

The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson, 1956) – I liked that this kind of elaborated on similar issues brought up in The Set-Up giving more perspective of the managers and covering a longer period of time. Definitely thought this was a great film, though the broader scope of the story makes it feel less like a noir than The Set-Ups contained story of one boxer’s hellish night.

While the City Sleeps (Fritz Lang, 1956) – I thought having the different newspapermen compete for discovering the murderer was a pretty interesting twist. I quite enjoyed this one, but overall didn’t seem particularly special.

The Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang, 1953) – For a while I thought this was going to end up being a remake of Hitchcock's Blackmail, which is one of my favorite films. It has some similar dramatic elements, but the direction of the manipulative newspaper reporting was an interesting divergence and equally as effective. I thought all the scenes with our protagonist and her two roommates were a lot of fun, and pretty atypical of the noirs I’ve watched so far. The ending felt a bit too abrupt and wasn’t completely satisfying though.

Also, the noir drinking game is less fun when it’s a plot point than when it’s a out of nowhere set decoration decision, but anyway here are the Polynesian pearl divers for posterity.

Image

Party Girl (Nicholas Ray, 1958) – I love the idea of a musical noir and this film looks wonderful and has pretty snappy plotline. Felt a bit cheated though that Cyd Charisse’s character gets so heavily sidelined after being sold as our protagonist. I thought this could’ve been something really special, and it kind of was, but it fell a bit short for me.

Producer Mark Hellinger

Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949) – I liked that this used the heist format as an extension of the out of the past love triangle format. I thought it did a really good job keeping you guessing about the femme fatale til the very end, and Dan Duryea is just so so wonderful. Not as elaborate as some other films going for this kind of thing, but I thought this was a very nice contained version of it with a great cast of side characters to boot.

Brute Force (Jules Dassin, 1947) – This is probably the most amazing cast I’ve seen assembled yet, I had my expectations high after Eddie Muller’s introduction, but I wasn’t prepared for Sir Lancelot to be included as well. There’s a lot of incredible scenes here though I’m not sure if the whole mix of prison escape, flashbacks to the real world, and scenes of savage brutality quite all worked together for me. But this feels like such a intense and unique experience I think it might play better for me just watching it on its own one night instead of squeezing it into a noir marathon. So I’m very intrigued but I may need to give it another spin.

Uncategorized

Desperate (Anthony Mann, 1947) – This was a fine little noir with some really tense well built scenes. But the character's didn't really grab me all that much.

Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950) - unviewed

The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) – The more Hitchcock films I watch the more I’m convinced the man is magic. He has such a deliberate pacing here and attention to detail that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else pull off anything quite like this. I’ll probably have to read back through this thread again and decide if I’ll be including Hitchcock films on my list or not, but regardless this was a great film.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#623 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 04, 2015 11:40 am

This was a "Classic" lineup for me in that like with their first week, I've already seen every film they screened! The Blue Gardenia is, at the end of the day, my favorite Lang, and will be in my top ten again for this list. I think Beyond a Reasonable Doubt and While the City Sleeps are pretty dire, though. I've never been a huge Party Girl believer, though Lee J Cobb is quite good (as he usually is). If you want a different take on Criss Cross' material, Soderbergh remade it as the Underneath and then buried it in the special features on Criterion's King of the Hill release (even though it's a better film than the "A" feature)-- like his Solaris, it works better in conjunction with the original than either does on its own.

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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#624 Post by YnEoS » Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:33 pm

This week I worked through more Otto Preminger noirs and watched some odd and ends I had access to. (By the by domino, thanks for the Tag Gallagher Angel Face video essay recommendation it was great!)

Whirlpool (Otto Preminger, 1949)
– This didn’t make as big of an immediate impact as Laura or Angel Face, but overall I really enjoyed this. For kind of a wacky plotline I thought it did a good job leading me step by step down its line of logic (fitting for a film about hypnosis), first setting up then assuaging any fears of the more typical blackmail setup diving into the more outlandish developments. I think I have more of a weakness for some of the atmosphere of the other Preminger's but this was top notch.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger, 1950)
– I didn’t get into this one as much as the other Otto Preminger noirs I’ve seen so far. Just not so much into Dana Andrews’s character until later on in the film. I also listened to the Eddie Muller commentary which made me appreciate some of the subtler finesse at play here in the Ben Hecht dialog and Dana Andrews shifty eye acting. I could see this one growing more on me eventually, but at the moment its my least favorite of the Premingers (but still a pretty good overall film).

Pitfall (André De Toth, 1948) – This was really outstanding! I looked through some of the old discussion on this from the first project iteration and cold bishop’s long write-up pretty much covered anything I had to say and more. But yeah, this is probably the most unsettling character I've seen Raymond Burr play yet, and this is probably my favorite Dick Powell noir as well. Lizbeth Scott continues to be in every wonderful noir, and this is another great part for her.

Slightly Scarlet (Allan Dwan, 1956)
– I dunno, this was an interesting film, but I just couldn’t really get into it don’t have much else to say about it. I’m not sure I’m all that crazy about John Payne from what I’ve seen him in so far, but I haven’t seen him in that much so who knows.

Black Widow (Nunnally Johnson, 1954) – This is a completely by the numbers color cinemascope noir, with the some nice sets but otherwise very plain cinematography. Still for whatever reason I rather enjoyed it. I’m always oblivious to the most obvious plot twists, and for whatever reason the switch in my brain never goes off to try and think ahead of the movie, and I’m always completely suckered in every time. The cast here is also a real treat, and it was nice seeing a new combination of so many familiar faces from black and white here in color. Even George Raft is rather delightful at playing the 2 emotions that the script requires of him, stoic and angry. I do think the plot is very well structured, Van Heflin innocently sets himself up for the worst noir spiral of events to happen and then the worst spiral of noir events happens and his only option is to solve the crime before the police catch up with him. But yeah there’s really nothing new or terribly compelling or any cool flourishes here. I dunno why I’ve written so much about this already, it probably won’t be on my list, it brought a smile to my face, if you have easy access to it and like all the actors in it you might like it to. Or maybe it’s just me… it’s probably just me.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

#625 Post by domino harvey » Tue Aug 11, 2015 7:18 pm

Dear God I hope love of Black Widow is just you-- Quarantine yourself! Highly recommend Two of a Kind for a fun, light-weight noir with Lizabeth Scott, though the movie's stolen by Terry Moore as the zaniest "Good Girl" in Noir history. It's in one of Sony's Bad Girls of Film Noir sets. Whirlpool will be my number one on the list this round, I can just about guarantee. I use the first ten minutes every year to teach all of the basic concepts of film language, so I'm exposed to it a lot anyways but every complete viewing just reveals how rich and full the film is, and I'm pretty sure I only thought it was just "okay" on first watch. Now it's one of my favorite films, period.

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