Movie

Review: Victim

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , ,

Victim (1961)_0

Victim is not a timeless story, in fact if taking place in today’s world it would be almost pointless, and that’s a good thing.  This is a British film, filmed in Black and White with classic film noir shots.  This film would never have been made in Hollywood in 1961.  This is a very interesting film for its time, It raised quite a stir.  This film wasn’t even allowed in the United States at first, then this film was giving an X rating upon release.  To see how times have changed, when this was released in 1986 on VHS it was given a PG-13 rating.  In Britain it currently has a PG/12 rating.  This film has no scene of violence or sexuality to speak of.  This was the first English language film to say the word “homosexual” in it.  At the time this film was made, homosexual activity between two males was illegal.  At this time in the early 1960’s the police had been really lax in enforcing this law.  That did open up the opportunity of blackmailers to take advantage of the law.  Law Enforcement was pretty lax at trying to find these blackmailers as well.  That is the basis for this film.

We start with Barrett, played by Peter McEnery running from the police.  He eventually gets caught and is questioned why he has stolen over 2,000 pounds from his employers.  He is flat broke and the detectives quickly determine that he has been blackmailed.  The whole time he is running, he is trying to get a hold of our hero, the lawyer Melville Farr played by Dirk Bogarde.  We soon find that Farr and Barrett knew each other and may have had a relationship, this is very ambiguous and depending on the editing of the version you see, may be more or less so.  Farr is married to a wife, played by Sylvia Syms, she seems pretty forgiving, especially given the times this film takes place in.  When Farr is brought in by the detectives for questioning we get some harsh news and Farr starts his own investigation to find the blackmailers.  This has some holes in the plot for sure, like if you’re a blackmailer why would you blackmail the young single working class man, instead of the rich lawyer with a wife?

This film may have been one of the things that helped get the laws for gays changed in Britain, which came 6 years later in 1967. In that way this was a very timely and very important film in the early 1960’s and is worth viewing for capturing a pivotal time in human rights.  Outside the politics of this film, we have a decent plot with some twists and turns, a red herring here and there, but not an overly satisfying mystery on its own.

Re-watching the Classics: The Narrow Margin

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , , ,

Poster - Narrow Margin, The_01

The Narrow Margin is directed by film noir great Richard Fleischer.  Martin Goldsmith and Jack Leonard were nominated for an Academy Award for best writing.  Even though this was an Oscar nominee it is very much a B-movie taking only 13 days to film.  The film stars the queen of the B movie noir Marie Windsor.  The hardboiled detective is played wonderfully by Charles McGraw.  His gravelly voice and great one liners makes for one cool character.

A line from the film as our hero describes what kind of dish our femme fatale is before he meets her: ” Sixty-cent special. Cheap, flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy”

This is also Jacqueline White’s last movie, she got married and moved to Wyoming with her husband after this film.  It was her most successful film.  Hard to say where her career would have gone if she stuck it out a little longer.

The story starts when our femme fatale is being escorted by two L.A. detectives back to L.A. to testify against the mob.  One of our detectives is shot and killed protecting our witness.  Now our hero has to out smart an unknown number of mob hitmen while protecting our femme fatale that he doesn’t really like, on a train with very few places to hide.

Favorite Tidbit:  This film was actually made in 1950 but Howard Hughes who owned the studio at the time heard good things about it and wanted to view it before its release.  He forgot about it while it sat in his projector room for over a year.  The other story of the delay is Hughes liked it so much he wanted to change it from a B-movie to an A-Movie and putting Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in it.

The Narrow Margin was remade in 1990, I haven’t seen the remake since it came out.  I’ve watched the original many times in the last few years.  I will have to re-look at the remake and compare it to the original at a later date.

This is a classic that should be seen by any film noir fan!  If you haven’t seen it in awhile go watch it right now!

Review: Inferno

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , ,

Inferno is a 3D film-noir!??!  This movie is filmed in 3D, a very popular thing in the early 50’s and 20th Century Fox was a little late to the game.  This was their first film in 3D and didn’t come out until 1953.

This has film noir great Robert Ryan playing a millionaire that is abandon in the desert and left for dead.  He has a broken leg and has to survive on his own with very little water and food.

We also have frequent femme fatale Rhonda Fleming as the wife that leaves her rich husband in the desert to die.  Her motivation for doing so, is falling in love with the desert guide 3 days before, played by William Lundigan, and a circumstance where her husband falls from his horse and breaks his leg.

This is written by Francis M. Cockrell who wrote a lot of crime and thriller stories for the big and small screen.  Inferno is directed by Roy Ward Baker who directed many crime and horror projects for movies and television.

Our hero’s thirst for survival is based on his need for revenge on his wife.  We almost have 2 films here, the survival story of our hero and out femme fatale covering up the murder she thinks she’s committed.  Both come back together for a final conclusion in the end.

This is not a traditional film-noir, being filmed in color and 3-D, with stereo sound to boot.  The effect is well done, with the beauty of the desert setting and Fleming’s red hair and blue eyes popping in vivid Technicolor.  I watched this on television so I didn’t get to watch this in 3-D.  There was a few of these 3-D noir films made in the 1950’s, it would be cool to see these released on 3-D Blu-Ray.

This is not a widely viewed film with under 600 viewer ratings on IMDb.  I actually think this would be enjoyed by a wider audience then just crime and noir fans.  I think the outdoors enthusiast as well as western fans may enjoy this as well.

Re-watching 25th Hour

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , ,

25th_Hour_Poster 25th Hour is a neo-noir from a not so likely source, Spike Lee.  This takes place in New York, so Lee isn’t a bad choice.  Lee has actually been making some great neo-noir and crime films before and since this.  I really liked Son of Sam, Inside Man and though it isn’t as good as the original, I thought Oldboy was pretty good.

This film revolves around Monty, played by Edward Norton.  Norton is one of my favorite actors in today’s films.  He usually picks pretty strong scripts and always does a great job.  Monty is going to jail tomorrow and is going out with his friends for one last night of freedom.  Monty is a drug dealer that gets busted and doesn’t know who ratted him out.

His girlfriend is played by Rosario Dawson, is she our femme fatale?  She is another actress I’ve liked in most of the things she has done.  Barry Pepper plays the sleazy stock broker that thinks he’s better than everybody else.  He plays the part well.  Our hero’s other friend is played by the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays a shy teacher with a bit of a dark side.  Other standouts in the cast are Brian Cox as Monty’s father and Anna Paquin as a high school student.  We also see Isiah Whitlock Jr. as the DEA agent and swearing like only he can.

The film is based on a book by David Benioff who also wrote the screenplay, his first. He has gone on to do many more screenplay adoptions for movies and television.

We have a lot of great stuff in this film and one of the things I forgot about was this being made in New York City in 2002, the loss of the Trade Centers is an import part of the back drop.

The movie opens with Monty and one of his mafia friends picking up an abandon dog, left on the street to die.  Monty takes the dog in as his own.  I guess this is to show our hero is a good guy at heart and a drug dealer by necessity.We flash forward to Monty’s last day of freedom and we have the occasional flash back to explain how we got to this point.  Monty needs to make a decision, go to jail for 6 years, run, or suicide, all of which, him and his friends consider on this final night.

Favorite tidbit:  Edward Norton says he believed in this project so much that he used all his earnings from Red Dragon to help make it.  This seems to fit Norton, do a few big films so he can do many small films he believes in.  I always look forward to anything with him in it, and this might not even be in his top 10 films, but it is a good film worth seeing.

A must watch for Norton, Dawson, Hoffman or Spike Lee fans, as well as neo-noir fans.  It’s a film that will make you think and stay with you awhile after you see it.  What would you do in this situation?

Review: Beware, My Lovely

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , ,

19096407_1_l

Beware, My Lovely is based on a play, based on a short story that is written for the screen by Mel Dinelli.  Dinelli was a writer on many film noir and thrillers through his career.  It is directed by Harry Horner who also directed Vicki, a film noir I plan on watching and reviewing on this site at a later date.

Of course the attraction to this film is its two leads, both film noir legends.  Ida Lupino not only starred in many film noir movies, she also wrote, directed and produced.  Something not to common for a female in the 40’s and 50’s.  Lupino is an under rated talent in the history of Hollywood and more people should know about her.   Robert Ryan known to play an intimidating tough guy in film noir, war and western movies.  In real life he had the make up of a hard man, at 6’4” and a World War II vet with boxing experience, you can see why he was perfect for a lot of the roles he played.  Though these traits got him a lot of tough guy roles, he was a pacifist in real life.

This film opens with Ryan cleaning a house, when he opens a door and sees a dead women on the floor.  He takes off on the run and ends up at Lupino’s house, hired as a handy man.  Ryan’s character is a dangerous schizophrenic that imprisons Lupino in her own home.

This is a very claustrophobic film, with a cat and mouse element.  Not sure if this is the first film of its kind but has to be an influence on future works like Misery, The Panic Room,and especially Funny Games.  This had to influence in some ways many horror movies as well.  This shot is one of the coolest shots I’ve ever seen:

BewareMyLovelyOrnament

This is slow-moving pot boiler that gets hotter and hotter as it goes.  If you’re a fan of Lupino or Ryan you need to check it out.  This is not a widely viewed film with less than 1,000 user votes on IMDb, and should be viewed more, especially by film noir, thriller and even horror fans.

Review: Crack-Up

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , ,

Crack-Up-Poster-web3

Crack-Up is a film noir from 1946 staring Pat O’Brien!

6a00d834fd7f7353ef01156fd10702970b

No, Not that one, this one:

O'Brien, Pat_01

Crack-Up is based on a short story from Fredric Brown and is directed by Irving Reis.  Our leading lady is played by Claire Trevor.  Trevor appeared in many film noir threw out her career.  Character actor Wallace Ford plays our lead detective.

The story starts out with our hero breaking into a museum and looks to be drunk and out of control.  He is followed in by a police officer who wants to arrest him for public drunkenness and for trying to take a swing at him.  The board for the museum is having a meeting at this time and recognize our hero and ask if the police officer will let them take care of him.  He isn’t drunk he is sick.  Our hero comes to and tells our detective how the last thing he remembers is being on a train when it wrecked with another train.  The only problem is there was no train wreck!  This is where the mystery takes off.  Why does he think there was a train wreck? What happened to our hero? Was he drugged? This mystery is just the beginning, as we have murder, art, money, dames, conspiracies and a twisting plot that will leave you swinging in the wind.

Another great looking film noir, this one by camera man Robert De Grasse.  The story sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense and may have some holes in it that are hard to overlook.  I really thought this movie might have a mentally ill main character, given the name of the film and the way he acts at first.  I guess in 1947 the public wasn’t ready for mentally ill main characters. As the movie goes along we find a perfectly good reason for the way our hero is acting.  Then it is made light of with our last line, “Everybody is nuts around here, but me.”

This is not a widely watched film with a 6.6 rating on IMDb from only 657 voters.  I would say this is a far rating and is worth watching for the hard-core film noir fan, but not a film I would recommend for somebody that is looking for just a few good examples of the genre.

Review: Alphaville

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir, Sci-Fi Neo Noir , , , , , ,

MV5BMjE1MDUxNDk2NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMDM5MDY5MDE@._V1_SY317_CR3,0,214,317_AL_

Alphaville is the first sci-fi neo-noir film that I’m aware of.  It is the predecessor for films like 12 Monkeys, Donnie Darko, and Predestination, but it may be closer to Matrix, Terminator and Blade Runner.  Why? you ask…, the theme.  The Theme of this movie and the other three are not time travel but machines taking over and running the humans.  This film is very strange, beautiful, unique, challenging, and trippy.  I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t understand a lot of this film.  I think each person that watches it may take something different away from the experience.  A Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution is the tag line of this film and seems to be a far assessment.

This film is written and directed by Jean-Luc Godard, a french director that started directing in 1955 and is still going strong today.  He has made a few noir type films and I look forward to reviewing some of those later on this blog.  This film is filmed in a classic film-noir fashion, black and white, interesting angles and lighting, an odd perspective that makes it interesting to watch.  It takes place in the future in the city of Alphaville, but is just filmed in than modern-day 1965 Paris.  This gives it a unique look, its futuristic for classic noir era, but probably felt old-looking to 1965 viewers.

Eddie Constantine plays Lemmy Caution in this film, he also played this character in 13 other films.  Though I have never seen any of these other movies, they look to range from traditional crime dramas in the 1950’s to musicals to a drama in 1991, also directed by Godard.  This is interesting to me and would like to see a few of these to see how the character evolves over time.

Anna Karina plays our femme fatale, we never know if we can trust her, if she is just a pawn for the computer Alpha 60, or she is working with her engineer father to take down Caution. Karina was married to Godard at this time and starred in many of his films in the 1960’s.

I still don’t know what to think of this film, it will definitely stay with you and make you think.  It may be a movie worth watching a couple of times to get all the subtleties.  I would not recommend this film to just anybody, but if you find the science fiction neo-noir movies I listed above interesting and some of your favorites, I would check it out.  Would this replace any of the above movies on my favorite 1001 movies of all time?  No, but this movie gave me some prospective of where they came from.

alphaville

Review: T-Men

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , , ,

Tmen

T-Men is a B-movie film noir from 1947.  It’s told in a documentary-drama style story.  This movie is directed by Anthony Mann and showcased his talent.  It is filmed in a low light, classic film noir style that looks amazing.  Mann directed a few more film noir B movies and then moved on to westerns and eventually full on Hollywood historic epics.  Even though T-Men was a fairly low-budget film it got nominated for an Academy Award for Sound.  The movie was written by John C. Higgins and Virginia Kellogg both of which wrote many crime films in their career.

Dennis O’Keefe plays our main hero and undercover T-man.  He definitely had a good presence is this role and did many B-movies including a few more film-noirs, he also did a lot of television work, including having his own show for a while.   Wallace Ford plays The Schemer and that describes the character well.  He is always looking for an angle and scheming for his next score. Ford played the most interesting character in the film, in my opinion.  Alfred Ryder plays O’Keefe’s undercover partner and comes across as an average every-man that may be in over his head.

I could not find anything about the story behind this movie.  It plays as a true case from the Secret Service, but I can not find if it really is.  Anybody out there shed some light on this?  If these bad guys were real, they where both incredibly brutal and smart.

This story is about two T-men or I.R.S. Agents sent undercover to break up a counterfeit ring.  The ring seems to be based in Los Angles, but anytime anybody gets close to the root of the group it leads to a dead-end.  They trace some counterfeit stamps in Detroit that are from the same group.  Are hero’s are sent to Detroit to infiltrate the ring from there.  This is where are adventure takes off.

This movie isn’t the most interesting story or have many twists and turns to it, but if it is a true story that would make sense.  I would not put this noir in my top ten, but it is worth viewing for hardcore film noir fans.

t-men-1947

Re-Watching the Classics: Heat

bryancyr Movie, Neo-Noir , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Heat-poster

Heat is 20 years old now!  That is hard to believe, I didn’t know if I should call it a classic, but after 20 years I think we are safe.  This is a Neo-Noir epic with one of the best casts in a noir film ever.

Michael Mann writes and directs, Mann is a legend of neo-noir film making.  He got his start in some great television shows and went on to make some amazing movies.  This one may be his best.

Lets start with the cast, this is the first time we see two of the greatest actors of our time on the screen at the same time with each other: Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro.  There seen together was filmed at a restaurant in Los Angles, one where you can actually sit and have a meal at the same table even today.  They did appear in another film before this, a little film called Godfather II, but were never on screen together.

heat_pacino_deniro

This is almost like two films in one, we are rooting for our brilliant thief and hoping he gets away and lives happily ever after.  We are also rooting for our hard nosed cop that has to find the violent criminals before they get away clean.  It’s a cat and mouse game that we can not pick a side on.  The trip is worth it.

Though this is enough to make any movie big, no need to have anyone else in the cast, but we do.  A lot of my favorite crime actors are in this film and I’m just going to list them here:

Val Kilmer plays a gambling addict that earns his money stealing.

Ashley Judd plays his wife and our only real femme fatale.

Jon Voight plays the ring leader of the bad guys, interesting note: his character is based on Edward Bunker, a career criminal that has appeared in many crime films and has written many noir books himself.  I plan on reading and reviewing some of his books on the website later.

A young Natalie Portman is in here as the angry step daughter, she already showed some amazing talent in this small role.

We also have an all star supporting cast of crime film regulars:  Tom Sizemore, Mykelti Williamson, Wes Studi,Ted Levine, Dennis Haysbert,  William Fichtner, Kevin Gage, Hank Azaria, Danny Trejo, Henry Rollins, and Jeremy Piven.

This movie actually is based on a real life cop and his pursuit of a career thief.  The real story is about Chuck Adamson, a real life cop in Chicago who meet in a non violent situation with the real Neil McCauley and chased him for part of his career.  Adamson also helped write on some of Mann’s T.V. shows and is also the source for one of Mann’s other movies, Thief.

At almost 3 hours long, this is a long film, but worth it.

Review: The Man with the Golden Arm

bryancyr film-noir, Movie , , , , , ,

full.themanwiththegoldenarm-1sh-20585__44788.1407792251.1280.1280

The question I had before viewing this film was “Is this a film-noir or not?”  I have no degree in film, and this doesn’t have the traditional technical aspects of a true film noir, and from what research I can find, Otto Preminger didn’t want this to be a traditional film noir. Preminger was a director that knew noir, he made quite a few, some before and some after this one. So could this be the very first neo-noir?  All I know is this is filmed in black and white and doesn’t have as much shadow play as most films of this era.  The subject matter on the other hand is very noir, it is gritty and dark.  The movie is based on the book of the same name written by Nelson Algren.

We have a convict fresh out of prison.  He was arrested as a card dealer at an illegal casino and he has a drug problem.  He comes out of prison, clean and with a new skill as a drummer.  He is looking for a fresh start, but gets pulled into his old ways.  His girl is bound to a wheel chair because of a spinal issue, she needs money to go to the doctors to help her find a cure.  She is about as close to a femme fatale as you can get.  There is also the beautiful neighbor down stairs who is the girl our hero really likes.  We have an old boss that wants to control our hero and get him back into dealing cards for him.  We got his best friend that is an honest hustler, he feels he is more honest than the criminals around him, but still a criminal.  Murder, drugs, gambling, dancing-girls, hustlers, thugs and love triangles, sounds like noir to me.

The film also pushed the boundaries of The Motion Picture Association of America’s film code and is one of the reasons the code was changed.  Because of its drug use in this film it almost wasn’t approved.  After this film, taboo subjects like drugs, kidnapping, abortion and prostitution were allowed in film.  This would of course be big for noir and neo-noir films to come.

This was nominated for 3 Academy Awards including Frank Sinatra’s one and only nomination for his portrayal of Frankie Machine.  Eleanor Parker plays Frankie’s wheel chair bound girlfriend.  Kim Novak plays their neighbor, Molly. Funny man Arnold Stang plays Frankie’s side kick Sparrow.  Darren McGavin plays the underworld boss that is trying to control Frankie.

So for those fans that have seen it, what do you think?  Is it a film-noir or a well done crime drama?  In either case it is a good film worth watching.