Review: Pickup on South Street

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Another great film noir from Samuel Fuller who wrote and directed this classic.  We have noir legend Richard Widmark and femme fatale great Jean Peters as our leads.  Throw in Thelma Ritter for a little character and we have the making of one of the top noir films from the classic era.

Our story starts with Widmark stealing the wallet out of Peters’ purse on the subway.  Peters in being followed at the time by an F.B.I. agent and goes to the police.  Enter Ritter who helps the F.B.I. and police finger Widmark as the pick pocket.  Peters goes to her boyfriend and tells him she has lost the microfilm she was carrying for him. as it was in her wallet.  Widmark has everybody chasing him for this microfilm and he doesn’t even know what it is.  Will our hero make it out alive?  What is on the microfilm?  Why is the F.B.I. interested?  Who are the bad guys that will do almost anything to get it back?

All three big stars are great in this one and I enjoyed all their performances.  You can’t go wrong with classic noir dialog like this one:

“I’ve got almost enough to buy both the stone and the plot.”

“If you lost that kitty, it’s Potter’s Field.”

“This I do not think is a very funny joke, Captain Tiger!”

“I just meant you ought to be careful how you carry your bankroll.”

“Look, Tiger, if I was to be buried in Potter’s Field, it would just about kill me.”

A must see for classic film noir fans, especially those that are fans of any of the three stars or Samuel Fullers work.  After this film Peters moved up on my list of favorite femme fatales and I plan to go back and re-watch some of the other films I’ve seen with her in it.

Favorite Tidbit:  Jean Peters was not the first choice for this role of Candy.  Names like Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Shelley Winters where all up for consideration in one way or another.  Fuller went with Peters and I got to say, he made the right choice.

Review: Atlantic City

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Atlantic City is a film from 1980 starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, both nominated for Academy Awards, the film was nominated for 5 total including Best Picture and Best Writing and Best Director for Louis Malle.

This story starts out with Sarandon making lemons sexy, Lancaster looks in on her through their opposing windows.

We then see a man watching a phone booth, he takes a package of drugs from the booth before the rightful owners can grab it.  This man is played by Robert Joy and is Sarandon’s estranged husband who has run off with Sarandon’s sister, who he has gotten pregnant.  Joy soon recruits Lancaster to help him sell the drugs and our odd love triangle, more like a love square? begins.  We also have the original owner of the drugs looking for their goods and those who have them.  Lancaster’s character is the most interesting of the film.  He starts out as a broken old man who runs numbers for one of the local mobsters.  He ends the film in a flash of old glory and you are happy for him, even as you see he is losing it mentally.

Another factor of this film is the city itself plays in this film.  This caught a time in Atlantic City, where the city was in disrepair, a shadow of its former glory.  Soon after this film, more old casinos would be demolished to make room for new casinos.  In many ways the city parallels Lancaster’s character.

Lancaster is one of my all time favorite actors and this film did not disappoint.   Sarandon was very good in this as well as maybe not a femme fatale in the classic noir sense, but she was definitely Lancaster’s femme fatale in this film.  This is a very good film for neo noir fans and if you are fans of the two main stars it is a must see.

Favorite Tidbit:  Lancaster mentions a number of mobsters and historic people his character supposedly knew in his past.  These included Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Al Capone.  He also mentions Nucky Johnson the inspiration for the Nucky Thompson character in Boardwalk Empire.

Review: Kiss Me Deadly

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Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer!  What’s not to like?  This is actually the 5th time Hammer was made into a film.  As a child of the 1980’s, Mike Hammer has always been Stacy Keach, but this classic version of him by Ralph Meeker is pretty great.  I have not read any of the books, but after watching this I will have a few on my “To Read” list.  This film is directed by Robert Aldrich, he also produced and had complete control over the production and had nobody to answer to.  This freed him up to do some new things, you will see this in some interesting angles and shots throughout the film.  All these years later and they still feel different and fresh.

If you are unaware of Mike Hammer, Ben Mankiewicz put it this way:  This is a Mike Hammer mystery, it is different then a Sherlock Holmes or Sam Spade mystery.  Where they use their smarts, Mike Hammer uses brute force, His last name Hammer is appropriate.  I am paraphrasing Ben, but you get the idea.

The plot of this is very strange and hard to follow.  I think Hammer’s secretary, Velda, played by Maxine Cooper, put it best. ” First, you find a little thread, the little thread leads you to a string, and the string leads you to a rope, and from the rope you hang by the neck.”  That quote pretty much sums up the plot of this.

This film starts out with Hammer driving his convertible along a lonely road and picks up a girl in distress.  They get through a police road block and soon Hammer finds himself knocked unconscious and the girl is basically tortured to death.  The unknown assailants put both of them in Hammer’s car and roll them off a cliff.  Miraculously Hammer survives the crash and spends 3 days in the hospital.  Back at his office he starts an investigation into why they killed the unknown girl and who she was.  We get one name which leads to a different name that leads to a different name.

This is a fun ride, even if we don’t always know where we are going.  This also has one of the most unusual endings of any classic film noir.  I think this movie is like Hammer himself, don’t over think it and just use brute force to get through this film and enjoy the journey.

This is a fun, good, classic film noir who everybody should see.  It has some twists and turns, but they don’t shock as much as some other noir.  This may be because we can’t see around those turns to see the twists coming like we are used to.

Favorite Tidbit:  I found this brief case had more than a passing resemblance to the one in Pulp Fiction and I wasn’t the only one. When asked if this was an influence, Quentin Tarantino says the similarities between his brief case and this one are accidental, but he liked this theory.

Review: Crime and Punishment, USA

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Crime and Punishment, USA is a noir from 1959 I recently caught on Turner Classic Movies.  This is a 1950’s version of the famous book by Fyodor Dostoevsky relocated to modern 1950’s Sana Monica, California.

This movie may be more of note for “Introducing” us to George Hamilton, then anything else.  This is Hamilton’s first film and he is our main star.  He had a few small television roles before this.  Hamilton is pretty good in this as a very smart law student.  He feels superior to others, because of his high intelligence and in different scenes he comes across as arrogant, humble, likable, evil, yet charming.  It’s a pretty good performance for a young actor.

Frank Silvera plays the homicide detective who believes Hamilton’s Robert is guilty of murder, but can not prove it.

Our story starts with a scene where we hear there is a murder and we see Hamilton faint in the street.  We soon find out it is a pawn shop owner that has been murdered and Hamilton’s friends feel he is sick and we see him in bed as his friends gather around his bed in concern.  We soon find Hamilton alone in his room and he pulls out a bag, we see gloves, a crowbar and a load of cash.  He hides the cash and soon leaves the apartment to dispose of the evidence.  We soon see a man in trouble, it looks like his heart.  Hamilton shows his good side and helps the man home.  He soon arrives home and finds his sister and mother waiting for him as they have come to town worried about him.  Him and his friend soon go to visit the police and we are introduced to Silvera, our head homicide detective.  Hamilton and his friend are there to retrieve a few items Hamilton has pawned at the shop of the dead women.  A cat and mouse chase between Hamilton and Silvera begins, but who is the cat and who is the mouse?

Though the two lead performances are very good, and this is based on one of the most classic books of all time, something is just off about this film.  I don’t know what it is, whether key story points from the book are not covered, or our supporting characters do not have enough character development, I do not know.  This was not a horrible film, it just seems like it could have been a lot better film.  Maybe this book isn’t the right source material for a noir film?  If you are a fan of the two stars it is worth a watch for their performances. If you want to see another adaptation of the source material you may find it interesting.

Review: Night Moves

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“Who’s wining?”

“Nobody, one side is just losing slower than the other.”

This movie is a neo noir staring Gene Hackman in all his 1970’s glory.  It has it all, the 16-year-old Lolita, the young rebel mechanic boyfriend, the aging starlet, the Hollywood stuntman, the unhappy wife and of course the ex-football player turned hardboiled private detective.  We also have some classic film noir dialog, updated for a 1970’s audience.  How about this zinger?

“What happened to your face?”

“I won second place in a fight.”

Or this great line from one of our female leads.

“Your are kind of edgy, aren’t you?”

“It’s the heat and the low wages.”

The settings are classic film noir locations, we start out in Los Angles and then go head to the Florida Keys.  We have a young James Woods just getting his career started and a 16 year oldish Melanie Griffith making her film debut.  All directed by Arthur Penn.

So with all of this, why isn’t this picture better known?  TCM’s Ben Markowitz said “This is the best movie you have never seen.”  I’m not sure why, this film just came on my radar earlier this year, and I’m glad I got to view it.

Our story starts with our private detective played by Hackman getting hired by our aging starlet to find her step-daughter(Griffin).  He is also having problems with his marriage, his wife is played by Susan Clark.  His investigation takes him into the world of Hollywood movies and stuntmen.  The case eventually takes him to the Florida Keys and he meets our real femme fatale of the film played by Jennifer Warren.  We also find the step daughter here, us as the audience and our hero believe she is our femme fatale, but she is still just in training and doesn’t fool our hero. The three see the scary remnants of a boat wreck which scares our step-daughter and she willingly goes back to California with our hero.  Our hero thinks the case is closed, but it is only getting started.

Gene Hackman was one of the biggest stars in the 1970’s, starting the decade out with The French Connection and ending it with Superman.  Check out my review of The French Connection here:

https://everythingnoir.com/2015/04/11/re-watching-the-classics-the-french-connection-2/

He also was in a handful of other box office successes and classic films from the decade.  This is right up there with some of his best, but seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think classic film noir buffs and noir fans in general will too.  If you’re fans of Hackman, it’s a must see and if you want to see a young Melanie Griffith or James Wood it’s worth a viewing.

Review: Macao

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Macao started out being directed by Josef von Sternberg but was finished up by Nicholas Ray.  Howard Hughes had his hand in making this film so a great many people were fired and hired on the writing staff and of course the original director.  It’s a miracle this film came out as good as it did.

Our story starts out with a New York police officer being killed in Macao, by getting a knife to the back.  We then meet our femme fatale Jane Russell in a ship cabin with a man who starts to get a little aggressive with her.  Robert Mitchum comes in to save the day.  Russell moves on and soon meets a traveling salesmen played by William Bendix.  Soon the three hit it off as they are on their way to Macao.  Mitchum discovers he has lost his wallet, as it was stolen by Russell.  She takes the money and dumps the wallet.  Our threesome come into the Macao port and Mitchum must report to the local police because he has no passport or identification.  The police officer is working with casino owner played by Brad Dexter and they both think Mitchum is telling a story and is really another cop from New York.  The casino becomes the center in which our 4 characters revolve, with Russell getting a job there as a singer.  We also meet Gloria Grahame as our casino owners girlfriend.  Nobody is what they seem and the plot has some interesting twists all the way to the end.

This film has a lot of star power and an unique setting for a classic film noir.  This gives us a really cool look at 1950’s Macao and gives us an interesting story to follow.  This is a fun film noir and worth a viewing for noir fans.  If you love any of the stars, you will like this film. This isn’t the best noir with Mitchum, but I haven’t seen any bad noirs with Mitchum either.

Review: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

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This movie is a spaghetti western, horror, romance, fairy tale, neo-noir, Iranian vampire movie filmed in California!?!?!  This film is a stew of classic film ingredients by first time director and writer Ana Lily Amirpour.  I really look forward to seeing more from her, what a great eye in filming and what an original intriguing story.

I seen this just based on the buzz and did not know much about this going in.  I really thought it was just a well done horror movie worth seeing.  Then I put the Blu-Ray in and was totally surprised.  I did not plan to review this for this site, until I watched it and seen more than a few simple nods to the classic film noir era.  This film has a timeless feel to it, there is a 1950’s Thunderbird, classic oil wells and factories, and timeless clothing that could fit into almost any time frame. We do have fake posters of 1980’s pop stars on the wall and our soundtrack has music from the 2000’s. If you didn’t know better you could think this was filmed in the 1950’s as easily as filmed in the 2010’s.

Sheila Vand plays The Girl and Arash Marandi gives us his best James Dean playing Arash for our two leads.  We don’t have to many characters confusing the plot here.  Marshall Manesh plays Arash’s junkie father, Mozhan Marnò plays the local prostitute, Dominic Rains as a drug dealer, and Rome Shadanloo as the little rich girl.

This movie has a lot of symbolism and references to other films, this may be all subjective and you will find things I may not and you may not agree with what I felt I seen.  That is what makes this such a great film.

Our story starts with Arash getting in to his car and drives home.  We see his Dad shooting up with drugs.  Our drug dealer enters the house and wants paid.  He takes Arash’s car for the debt.  Our drug dealer soon picks up our prostitute in his new ride and later picks up The Girl.  He takes her back to his house and soon The Girl reveals she is a vampire and kills the drug dealer.  On her way out of the house she pass Arash, going in to try to get his car back.  Arash finds the body and takes the drug suppl and gets his keys to his car back.  Our romance starts as well as we go deeper into our story from here.

For noir fans, the plot is deep in the crime world of Bad City and has some great noir nods, like a femme fatale, she just happens to be a vampire.  If your a film noir fan and don’t like vampires, you will still love the cinematography!  A couple stills from the film that shows a taste of this:

So this film is for anybody who wants to see something new and fresh and original no matter what kind of movies you like.  This basically covers every genre out there and has something for everybody.  Go enjoy this film as soon as you can!

Review: Danger Signal

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Danger Signal is a classic film noir from 1945 starring Faye Emerson as our femme fatale, or is she?  With Zachary Scott as our protagonist.   Robert Florey directs and looks to have directed not only some crime dramas and film noirs, but a bunch of movies from different genres.

This is a simple plot and well executed.  We have Zachary Scott’s character jumping out of a married women’s bedroom window as the police are at the front door.  He gets away and the authorities think it is suicide.  He gets a few bucks out of her purse on the way out.  We then go to Emerson’s character as a secretary for a doctor, she seems happy, but is looking for love.  She soon finds it in Scott the new stranger in town.  The romance seems to blossom and they are soon engaged.  Soon Emerson’s little sister comes to town on the train, played by Mona Freeman.  The little sister is going to get $25,000 when she marries and soon we see Scott’s character leaning towards the younger sister.  Emerson becomes suspicions of this and wants to kill Scott.  Will she succeed or will our lead marry the younger sister and live off the $25000 until its gone?

Like I said, this is a pretty simple plot with not a lot of twists and turns, but a bit of a surprise ending.  This doesn’t look like an overly popular film noir, but is worth watching for big noir fans or fans of Scott and Emerson.

Review: The Gambler

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The Gambler is a neo noir film from last year and I was finally able to see it on Blu-Ray.  The reviews are a mixed bag for this film.  I got to say I really enjoyed it.  I loved the noirish cinematography, the story and the performances. Reading some of the headlines for the negative reviews for this film, mention how it don’t stand up to the original.  I’m the first to jump on the” re-make is unnecessary” camp and understand where these people are coming from.  I, unfortunately have never seen the original(though I hope to someday) so I went into this film with no preconceived idea of what to expect.  Maybe this is why I enjoyed it so much.

This film is based on the original screenplay by James Toback and tweaked for a new generation by William Monahan who has done some great neo-noir and crime films.  The film is directed by Rupert Wyatt.

This film stars Mark Wahlberg as our anti-hero main character.   He is a writer and a professor, but that is second to being a gambler.  We also have Jessica Lange as his mother.  Brie Larson as his brilliant student and his romantic interest as well as perhaps his saver.  We have Michael Kenneth Williams and John Goodman as opposing gangsters. We also have Williams’ co-star from The Wire,Domenick Lombardozzi, showing up as Goodman’s top henchman.

Our story starts with Wahlberg gambling in a Korean gambling den.  He is playing blackjack and doing very well at first, he then loses.  The Korean’s want their money, Williams offers Wahlberg $50,000 to try to get even, he doesn’t.  He then goes to Goodman for a loan.  Goodman reminds him that Williams will kill him if he doesn’t pay back his debt.  We then find Wahlberg at his day job as a professor.  We take off from there as he juggles his debt, his family, and his class of students.

I really liked the neo noir filming style in this film.  One of the things you will notice while watching this is each person our protagonist owes money has their own color,the Korean’s color is green, Michael Kenneth Williams’ gang has the color black and John Goodman’s color is red. I first picked upon this in the scene where Wahlberg is waiting to be picked up by Lombardozzi.  I noticed all the cars are white, grey and black in a wash of Land Rovers and BMW’s we see Lombardozzi pull up in a bright red Porsche Cayenne.  There are a lot of beautiful noir like scenes in this from the smokey gambling halls, to a grayed out class room, to the neon lights of a casino.  I also loved the soundtrack for this film and how it was used.  Also pay attention to Wahlberg’s suit throughout the film and how it changes.

Like I said, I really liked this film, but I have not seen the original.  I think if you go into this with fresh eyes and do not compare it to the original you may enjoy it too.  I would love to hear from those lucky enough to see both of these films and what your thought on both are.

Favorite tidbit: Mark Wahlberg dropped 61lbs for his role going from 198lbs to 137lbs, to show the characters lack of caring about his health and well-being.

Review: The Wages of Fear or Le Salaire de la Peur

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The Wages of Fear is an interesting film and very good, but is it a classic film noir?  While watching this I was on the fence and looked for other people’s opinion on the matter.  Wikipedia and AMC do not list it in their full list of film noir titles.  The Film Noir Foundation does, and John Grant has it in his “A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir.”  If you don’t know about John Grant check out his blog at https://noirencyclopedia.wordpress.com/ for a ton of noir information.

My argument for it not being a film noir is there really isn’t anything illegal going on here, sure our big American oil company is immoral and all about the mighty dollar.  Sure some of the things they did in this film would be illegal today, but in the 1950’s it was probably all legit.  There is no femme fatale to speak of, Vera Clouzot is almost the anti-femme fatale.  All she cares about is the safety of her main man.  The shooting of the film is not in the classic noir style except in a few key scenes.  Hardly any shadow play is used, being most of the film takes place in the middle of the day in the desert.

My argument for it being a noir story is quite simple, a handful of characters are put in a situation they have very little hope of getting out of.  When they see their chance, they take it, even though they know their chances are slim to none.  They will almost do anything in their means for a little hope.  They are average men put in an extreme circumstance like all good noirs.  The end isn’t exactly a happy one either, another trademark of a good noir.

This movie is based on the book by Georges Arnaud and is adapted for the screen and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.   It stars Yves Montand  as our main hero, Mario.  This is Montand’s first dramatic role and what a role!  He went on to make many great films and I look forward to watching more of his work.

This story starts with Mario and some other ex-pats in a small bar in an unknown village.  We see Linda, Vera Clouzot’s character, washing the bar floor and soon crawls over and purrs like a cat as Mario pets her.  A very interesting scene as we get an idea of Linda’s situation.

A new man flies into town on the plane by the name of Jo, played by Charles Vanel.  We soon find out how it is cheap to get to this village but there is no work and it is very expensive to get out.  We have a small group of guys stuck in the village, scraping by on odd jobs, just enough to get a meal and a drink at the bar on a good day.  The opportunity arises when the big oil company has a oil well blow up and they need some nitroglycerin shipped over 300 miles to the site to extinguish the well.  Knowing the unions would never send any of their own men to do the task, they get the group to compete for one of 4 spots on driving 2 trucks to the site.  Knowing they have a 50% chance of making it, do to the lack of the right equipment and the nature of the nitroglycerin, 1 of the 2 trucks should make it.  This only gets darker and more intense from here.

After watching this, you can see why America edited out over 50 minutes of footage so they would not look to bad.  The greed of the big corporation is nothing new, but it is interesting to see this from a French prospective.  This movie is an amazing movie, every film buff should see it least once, but is it a film noir?  What do you think?

Favorite Tidbit:  Vera Clouzot only appeared in 3 films, all directed by her husband Henri-Georges Clouzot.  One of her other two films is Diabolique.  Not a bad hitting percentage.