Review: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

February 27, 2015February 27, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Mervyn LeRoy, Paul Muni, Robert E. Burns

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is based on the book and true story of Robert E. Burns.

This movie was a commentary of the overall situation going on in America after World War I and how the veterans coming back from war were treated. This is also a look at how prisoners in the state of Georgia were treated, this was changed partly because of this book and movie. Watching this movie you can see how influential it was on future movies. This picture captured a time in history with 2 iconic elements, the blood hounds and black and white striped prison uniforms. The film is directed by Mervyn LeRoy, he also directed Johnny Eager a film I reviewed recently here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/02/16/review-johnny-eager/

The movie is overall true to fact, but one big fact, Burns really did steal the little over $5 because he needed it for food. In the film he is just an innocent bystander, which gives the film more of a noir feel. We love the average guy that gets caught up on the wrong side of the law.

Paul Muni is the star and comes across as your everyday man, perfect for this part. Glenda Farrell plays the femme fatale that wants to marry our hero, for better or worse. Helen Vinson plays another lady in our hero’s life.

This movie had a lot of impact on human rights and the way people are treated when in prison. This is also one of the first noir films, and influenced a lot of films to come in the next 3 decades. This is a very interesting story and is well worth watching. If you are a film-noir buff it is required watching.

Review: I Want to Live!

February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Barbara Graham, Film Noir, I Want to Live!, Robert Wise, Susan Hayward, Walter Wanger

I Want To Live! Is a film-noir from 1958 that looks at a story that ended a few years earlier in 1955. This is the story of real life criminal Barbara Graham. known as “Bloody Babs” in the press, Graham was a career criminal and was a known prostitute earlier in life. She kept bad company and is said to have helped break into a house with 3 men to rob a wealthy older women in a wheel chair. They ended up murdering her and were then arrested. Some say this movie is pretty true to fact, but general consensus is this is a highly fictionalized portrayal.

The reason I got to see this movie is it is 28 Days of Oscar on TCM and this is on because of Susan Hayward’s great performance. She not only won the Best Actress Award in 1959, she also won the Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

When Hayward signed on for this movie it wasn’t because she loved the script or thought it was going to be a great film. She did it to help out Producer Walter Wanger, Wanger was instrumental in starting Hayward’s career in film. Wanger was making a comeback in film at the time because he had just got out of jail for shooting a man who was having an affair with his wife. It was quite the scandal and Wanger had to reinvent himself. Hayward was glad to help him.

This film is directed by Robert Wise one of the greatest directors in Hollywood history and directed many classic films in his long career. Though Wise was never known as a film-noir director, he does a great job in this movie. The off-center angles at the beginning are amazing and prison scenes are very well done. Robert Wise really prepared well for this film, especially doing a lot of research to get the execution scene right. The way this scene is shot, edited and doesn’t use music, but keeps it very silent and sparse is amazing. The end of this movie takes this film to another level. This movie and Barbara Graham’s real life case went a long way in helping the anti-death penalty cause in California. This doesn’t have your normal twists and turns we are used to in classic film-noir, but it is very dark and startling.

Review: Johnny Eager

February 16, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Film Noir, Johnny Eager, Lana Turner, Robert Taylor, Van Heflin

Johnny Eager is an early film noir from 1941 and is about a recent parole that is working as a taxi driver, so we think. Johnny is played by Robert Taylor and catches the eye of Lisabeth, a student of sociology played by noir femme fatale legend Lana Turner. Lisabeth is the step daughter of the prosecutor that knows Johnny isn’t on the level and wants to put him back in prison. Johnny uses people more than violence to get what he wants and doesn’t mind doing it.

Though Turner is amazing as the jolted lover and Taylor plays the dapper hood well, the stand out in this film is Van Heflin. Heflin plays Jeff, the right hand man of Eager, but he isn’t the usual muscle, he is quite original, and in 1941 there wasn’t many to compare him to yet. Jeff is a well-educated man who uses big words and quotes great literature, his one weakness is he has a problem with alcohol. Jeff is Johnny’s conscience as well in this film, telling him when he is doing wrong by others or making the wrong decisions. To bad Johnny never learns or listens to Jeff, Johnny always thinks he’s the smartest man in the room, but sometimes he isn’t.

Van Heflin won best supporting actor for this portrayal and I can see why. This classic film noir is not widely watched with only 1500 votes on IMDb and a good rating of 7.1 and no Rotten Tomatoes score. This is a good film on its own, but if you’re a noir lover, I think you will really like the plot and Van Heflin and Lana Turner and worth the viewing.

Review: Scarlet Street

February 14, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Dan Duryea, Edward G. Robinson, Film Noir, Fritz Lang, Joan Bennett, Scarlet Street

Scarlet Street is another great film-noir from Fritz Lang. We have our everyday man and noir staple Edward G. Robinson in the lead. Joan Bennett as our femme fatale and Dan Duryea as a con and thug trying to get ahead. This story starts out with our hero at a company party for his 25 years on the job. He leaves drunk and sees a beautiful women getting beat by a man. He intervenes and stops it, he walks the women home and stops to have a drink with her. He is infatuated with the much younger women and she seems to like him as well. The only problem, he’s married to a battle-ax he can no longer stand. You think you might guess the plot from here, but you would be wrong. This is one of the most intricate plots, with so many twists and turns, I can’t believe they got all this story to fit into less than 2 hours of movie. One of the surprising and shocking things of this movie is the abuse towards women, the way it is portrayed makes it look common and just part of life for the time. The couple out to get ahead is very co-dependent and I found very disturbing. This movie has no truly innocent or good characters, all are willing to do anything to get what they want. None of them want the same thing, but use each other in a way that makes for one intense movie.

The other star of this movie is the art, it’s funny that this and my last film-noir review (See my review of Laura) have a portrait of the lead lady that is amazing. I didn’t realize this when I watched them a couple of days apart, but is a cool coincidence. The art in this film is very cool.

This may be the darkest classic film noir I’ve seen thus far. There is no gangsters and guns in this movie and that might be what makes this so dark. I think this is my favorite Fritz Lang film I’ve seen so far. This isn’t a widely watched noir but it should be. This film has a 7.9 on IMDb with less than 9,000 votes, and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes but with only 13 reviews. This film did fall out of copyright protection, so make sure you watch a good version of this that isn’t to cut up and distorted. I watched it on TCM, always a reliable source for classic films.

Re-watching the Classics: Laura

February 13, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Clifton Webb, Dana Andrews, Film Noir, Gene Tierney, Joseph LaShella, Laura, Otto Preminger, Vera Caspary, Vincent Price

What movie does Vincent Price say was his best movie? Laura is the answer. It’s February so it’s Oscar season and TCM is showing a lot of movies that won awards. Laura was nominated for 4 awards and won one award. We have Best Writing for a Screen Play, Best Director for Otto Preminger, Best Supporting Actor for Clifton Webb and a win for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White for Joseph LaShelle. I watched this movie years ago and took another look at it tonight. It defiantly deserved its Best Cinematography Award, I didn’t realize how cool this movie looks, and almost all the scenes are interior shots which makes it more impressive. Clifton Webb had only played a few parts in film before this and was a stage actor at the time. Preminger wanted him in this film and declined the studios choice for the part. This launched a resurgence in Webb’s career and even lead to a couple more nominations. Dana Andrews plays our hardboiled detective assigned to the case. We get his prospective and version of the story through out this movie. Vincent Price shows his great film presence in this movie, I love Price’s voice and way of talking in almost everything he does. He is hard to ignore in any scene he is in. All though all these performances are great,lets face it, the real star is Gene Tierney. Tierney is Laura and the love obsession of just about everybody in this film. This is not hard to believe, she is a beautiful, smart women with the most adorable overbite ever. Even her portrait in this film is one of the all time great film props. It is how our hero falls in love with our femme fatale and it even appears in 2 more movies after this. I will not get into much of the story because telling any of it will ruin the twists in the story. The source material is from a book by Vera Caspary. I have not read the book but it is told in 5 parts, each part is a different character’s version of what happened. The original screenplay told the story from 3 character’s versions of events, this was still to hard to do in a 2 hour film from the 1940’s. So the screenplay was reduced to one character’s version, our police detective played by Andrews. This film is required viewing for any film noir buff. It’s not on my top 10 list of all time, but it is one of the greats.

Review: The Harder They Fall

February 11, 2015December 25, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Budd Schulberg, Film Noir, Harold Conrad, Humphrey Bogart, Jan Sterling, Jersey Joe Walcott, Max Baer, Mike Lane, Primo Carnera, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Rod Steiger, The Harder They Fall

The Harder They Fall is a great noir with the most common of noir sports-boxing!(horse racing has to be a close second). This is Humphrey Bogart’s last film, he was very sick when he made this movie. To see how great an actor he was, find anywhere in the film where he looks like a sick man. If you love Bogart, you will love him in this. This movie also has Rod Steiger and Jan Sterling.

This movie is based on a book of fiction written by Budd Schulberg that is actually based on the career of pro boxing champ Primo Carnera. This movie and book are so close to true events that Primo sued to get it shelved. Primo was a giant of a man at 6’9″ and 265 lbs, good-looking and Italian, he was a huge draw at the arenas. Primo went a remarkable 76-6 on his way to winning the Heavy Weight Title in Madison Square Garden. He lost the title 3 fights later to Max Baer also at the Garden. Though nobody really knows the whole truth, but the theory is Primo’s fights were fixed by the mob without his knowledge or consent for most of his career. When he got in the ring with Baer, he was severely out matched, but his heart and pride would not let him be knocked out. He was dropped 11 times in 10 rounds and took a hell of a beating. Primo fought 17 more times with a mediocre record. Primo also went on to become a pro wrestling champion and had a great career doing so.

The character based on Primo was played by Mike Lane who physically matched Primo. Lane also had a career in pro wrestling as well as a few more movies. Lane’s character is Toro Moreno and was from Argentina instead of Italy. The Max Bear character was actually played by Max himself and went by Buddy Brannen. We also see boxing great Jersey Joe Walcott in the role of a trainer.

Bogart’s character was also based on a real person by the name of Harold Conrad, who was a colorful writer and promoter.

This movie tells an amazing story and when I found out it is based in reality, it’s even more fascinating. Though I know Requiem for a Heavyweight is not a noir film, I watched it soon after seeing The Harder They Fall and seen some similarities. Though I could not find any information to show this, I have to feel that the writers of Requiem got some inspiration from Primo’s career as well. Requiem is also a great movie worth watching.

It is a shame this movie doesn’t get its due respect, I know Bogart is one of, if not the best actor in film history, and had a lot of great movies, you really don’t hear much about this film. This movie has a great rating of 7.6 on IMDb but only has 4300 votes. It also has 100% Rotten Tomato rating, but only 10 reviews counted. I don’t know how high on the list of Bogart film I would put this, but it is a great movie worthy of your viewing.

Film Noir Foundation’s look at Lizabeth Scott

February 9, 2015 bryancyr film-noir Lizabeth Scott

Here is some great posters and videos of Lizabeth Scott at Film Noir Foundation. It’s worth a look at some of the great art posters and the beautiful Lizabeth Scott.

http://filmnoirfoundation.tumblr.com/post/110310409857/the-filmnoirfoundation-has-always-had-a-keen

Review ‘G’ Men

February 9, 2015February 9, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Ann Dvorak, Baby Face Nelson, Film Noir, Frank "Jelly" Nash, G Men, J. Edgar Hoover, James Cagney, John Dillinger, Margaret Lindsay, Public Enemies, Robert Armstrong

G Men stars noir bad ass James Cagney in the role of “Brick”. A new lawyer and new recruit for the F.B.I., Brick must go through training to become a Special Agent. This film was not liked by J. Edgar Hoover at first, because Brick was insubordinate in part of the film. He finally approved the script and was very happy with its huge success. G Men made over a million dollars at the box office, a huge return back in 1935. This film also portrays two incidents that where true in F.B.I.’s early history and where both pivotal in the formation and popularity of them. The first is the “Kansas City Massacre” where the F.B.I. were unable to have guns and one agent died along with 3 police and Frank “Jelly” Nash, who they were transporting. The second indecent was the famous shot out at the lodge against John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson and their gang. The lodge shooting was a big scene also in the more true telling of the story, Public Enemies in 2009. The other interesting thing about this movie is that the good guys, the F.B.I. Agents could use Tommy guns and other automatic weapons while the gangsters used revolvers and lever-action rifles. This was due to censorship at the time. This also starred Margaret Lindsay as the sister of Brick’s boss as well as Brick’s love interest. Ann Dvorak plays the wife of one of the gangsters, but helps the G Men catch them. Robert Armstrong plays his usual hard nose character and boss to Brick. This is a fun film noir with some historic events portrayed, and lets face it, Cagney is great. This was also re-released in 1948 with a new intro, here is the trailer for that with most of that new intro:

Review: The Asphalt Jungle

February 8, 2015February 8, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Film Noir, Jean Hagen, John Huston, Louis Calhern, Marilyn Monroe, Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, The Asphalt Jungle, W.R. Burnett

The Asphalt Jungle is one of the most famous film-noir movies of all time. There are a few reasons for this, the biggest historically would be this is the film that brought Marilyn Monroe to fame. She plays a small part and her name wasn’t even on the first posters, that soon changed as most poster for the film in years to come feature Marilyn prominently. Before Marilyn became the biggest thing in Hollywood, this movie got by on its own merits. For the 1951 Academy Awards, Asphalt Jungle was nominated for 4 awards. This film was also directed by one of the biggest directors of the era, John Huston. Huston’s eye is excellent and really gave this a great feel and look. He also helped with the screenplay, based on noir author W.R. Burnett’s book of the same name. This had other big names in the film like Sterling Hayden, as our anti-hero, Louis Calhern as our godfather type lawyer, Jean Hagen as our anti-hero’s girl. I also liked Sam Jaffe in his role as Doc, the mastermind of the crime. This film and story was later turned into a T.V. series. The series isn’t available on Netflix and I’m not sure if it is available on DVD or not. I would like to see some of the T.V. series to see if it made the transition well, I’m thinking it wouldn’t. This film was also re-made 3 times in different versions, one a western, one overseas, and one a blaxpotation movie. I have not seen any of these films but looking at their ratings on IMDb they had no where the success or are anywhere as good as the original. This movie is pretty much required viewing if you are a film-noir fan and if you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy!

In Memory of Lizabeth Scott, Review of Pitfall

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 bryancyr film-noir, Movie Andre De Toth, Dick Powell, Film Noir, Jay Dratler, Lauren Bacall, Lizabeth Scott, Pitfall, Raymond Burr, Robert Osborne

Today the noir world has learned the passing of film-noir legend Lizabeth Scott. Read the LA Times report here:

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lizabeth-scott-20150206-story.html

Lizabeth was in many film-noir movies and stared with all the big names. We will be looking at more of her movies on this blog soon. When I saw the news I checked my DVR for a classic movie with Lizabeth in it to review tonight in her honor.

Pitfall came up, so here is my review.

Scott starts as our femme fatale alongside Dick Powell in this film from 1948. Right away I can’t believe how much Scott’s voice sounds like Lauren Bacall. According to the LA Times, Scott was often compared to Bacall because of their similar look and voice. This movie has a great little plot and kind of ends where most films of this time would have started. I don’t want to spoil the story so I will stop there. I watched this on TCM and Robert Osborne had a very interesting story about how this movie was almost not released. According to the movie code at the time a bad guy can be an adulterer, but a good guy could not be one. This movie has that situation and director André De Toth used some sneaky tactics with the executives of the studio to show their hypocrisy. This film is based on a book by Jay Dratler, an author that looks to have much success as a screenwriter. I looked this book up on Goodreads and nobody has read it on there! I took a quick look and Barns and Nobel had no copy available. Has anyone out there read this book? The other high spot of this movie is Raymond Burr as a ex-cop, private investigator. He really has some presence in this part and you can see his star rising in this movie.

R.I.P. Lizabeth Scott, I look forward to watching more of her work, hope you do the same.