Film Noir

Review: Act of Violence

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Act of Violence is a film noir from 1948 starring two of the genres greats, Van Heflin and Robert Ryan.  This film also stars Janet Leigh in only her fifth film, and Mary Astor in a small part as a prostitute.  This film is also an early film by director Fred Zinnemann.

This film starts out showing our World War II vet, Heflin is happily married to Leigh and a successful business owner in suburbia California.  Heflin and his neighbor are packing for a fishing trip and heading up to a mountain lake for some R and R.  We soon see our dark stranger with a limp arriving in town and trying to locate Heflin.  He comes across as deranged and scary.  He approaches Leigh at their home and finds out Heflin is at the mountain lake.  He rents a car and heads up to the lake, rents a boat and tracks down Heflin.  The cat and mouse game continues between the two as we learn their history.

The interesting thing about this film is how we start out looking at Ryan as the villain, but our alliances change throughout the film as we learn about each man.

We have some wonderful cinematography in this, I especially enjoyed the scenes where Heflin is running to an unknown destination through the empty streets of Los Angeles.

This is a very interesting film as there really isn’t a bad guy or a good guy.  We don’t even have an anti-hero to root for.  We sympathies with both main characters in this film and understand where both are coming from.  The message I got out of this is we all have made mistakes, all we can do is, try to do the best we can from here on out.  Maybe the other message is let bygones be bygones.  We also maybe getting a taste of “not everybody in the suburbs are what they seem”.

This is a very good film all noir lovers should see, and if you are a fan of any of the four stars it is well worth your time.  They are all excellent and I have already mentioned in past reviews how much I like Heflin and Ryan and they both play something different then I’ve seen them play before and both do an excellent job once again.  Astor shows her range as she was playing a hardened street-walker in this and then going across the lot to play the mother in Little Women at the same time.  Leigh was just getting started in her career, but showed she could hang with the best, giving good depth to the scared, but strong loyal house wife.

Favorite Tidbit:  Even though this had four big stars in it and the film was very good, even being entered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1949, it still lost $637,000 at the box office.

Review: Crime Wave

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Crime Wave is a classic film noir from 1954 staring Sterling Hayden as a police detective this time instead of the criminal. This film is Directed by André De Toth who made this film under budget and in only 13 days!  The studio scheduled this for a 35 day shot and De Toth said he could do it in 15, he beat that.  The studio wanted Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart, but De Toth said he could do this faster and come in under budget if he got to pick the stars.  De Toth wanted Hayden and this is how he got him.

For me Gene Nelson is the center of the story and this was his first dramatic role.  He was more known as a dancer and appeared in a number of musicals.  Phyllis Kirk plays Nelson’s wife and pretty much is just a pretty face in this.  Nelson of course is trying to keep her safe, but Kirk really is hard to read in this role as the sacred housewife.  Timothy Carey has a small uncredited role, but it stood out to me.  The biggest small role goes to Charles Buchinsky who plays one of the thugs that recently escaped prison.  Buchinsky is a scary tough guy with a hard edge to him, he later changed his name to something you may recognize,  Charles Bronson.

Our story starts out with three escaped convicts robbing a gas station.  They get away but one is shot and not doing to well.  Hayden is the lead detective on the case and one of his leads is an old prison cellmate who is trying to get his life on the straight and narrow(played by Nelson).  He is married now and has a good job, but Hayden is suspicious.  Soon the shot escapee shows up at Nelson’s apartment with a veterinarian that is known to work on the occasional injured criminal.  The doctor is too late and the man dies in Nelson’s apartment.    Soon Hayden shows up at the apartment and all hell breaks loose.

This is a very good movie all film noir fans will love.  It is also a great film for Hayden fans as well as Bronson fans who would like to see some of his early work.

Favorite Tidbit:  This movie was an inspiration for part of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and part of the screenplay is dedicated to director André De Toth.

Review: The Burglar

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The Burglar is a film based on a book and screenplay by noir great David Goodis.  Goodis went to Hollywood after the massive success of the movie Dark Passage was based on his novel.  He got flustered with the Hollywood machine and moved to Philadelphia.  Who knew the Philadelphia movie industry would come calling.  When Philadelphia wanted to showcase their city like Los Angles and New York were doing, they looked at one of their own to write a screenplay based on his book.

This movie was actually made in 1955 and shelved.  This was probably more frustration with the movie industry Goodis would feel.  Luckily Producer Louis W. Kellman cast the relatively unknown Jayne Mansfield in a role, this was based on how guys were reacting to her on the set of Pete Kelly’s Blues, where she had a small part.  Kellman was not the only one to see something in Mansfield, movie goers fell in love with her after they saw her in The Girl Can’t Help It in 1956 and her star was on the rise.  This movie was finally released in 1957 because of her new-found star power.

This was also the first film directed by Paul Wendkos who went on to direct many television projects and movies with a very long career.  Columbia bought this film as a favor, but wanted Wendkos as part of the deal.

This film also stars one of noir’s favorite actors, Dan Duryea as our title character.  This film can be argued to have two femme fatales, they both contribute to our hero’s downfall.  Of course we have Mansfield as the girl our hero has vowed to protect and we have Martha Vickers as the girl our hero picks up in a bar, she happens to be working with a crooked cop, out to get our hero.

This story starts out with our hero and his crew robbing a rich women of her priceless necklace.  The burglary is an intense scene, with our hero outsmarting some cops and using his skill to break into a fortress to steal the necklace.  They go back to their hideout to determine the value of the necklace and what the split will be.  This is where we meet Mansfield and soon see she is in danger from an over lusting member of the crew.  Our hero sends her to Atlantic City for her own safety.  Duryea picks up Vickers in a bar and goes back to her house.  While she thinks he is asleep she goes to meet the crooked cop as our hero tails her and he learns they are working him and Mansfield to find the necklace.  Our gang of burglars take off from Philadelphia to Atlantic City to protect Mansfield even though they know this will put them in danger.

This is a good film and the finale on Atlantic City’s Boardwalk with scenes in a circus and carnival settings is very good.  Did Lady of Shanghai inspire this?  Worth watching for all noir fans and especially those of Goodis’ writing.  Goodis didn’t have much luck in America, but he would soon be discovered by the French and elevated to one of the greatest noir writers ever.

Favorite Tidbit:  This was remade in France as The Burglars, the second of a string of movies made over the next three decades in France based on Goodis’ books.

Review: Mr. Arkadin or Confidential Report

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Mr. Arkadin is written, directed by and starring Orson Welles in an epic film noir.  There are 3 versions of this film floating around and if you buy the Criterion Collection release of this, you will get all three.  I caught this on Turner Classic Movies and watched the comprehensive version.  From my understanding Welles lost control of this film when it was in editing.  Nobody knows for sure what version he wanted released or if his version of the film ever really existed.

This film starts with our protagonist played by Robert Arden and his girlfriend played by Patricia Medina find a man about to die.  He has a knife in his back and the last things he says is Mr. Arkadin and a female’s name they are not sure of.  We also find Arden talking to a dying man about the whole story in flash back fashion.  Our couple decide to investigate the incident themselves and infiltrate Arkadin’s inner circle including his daughter played by Paola Mori.  Our hero soon meets Arkadin, who hires him to investgate….Arkadin.  He claims he has memory lose and can not remember anything before 1927.  This gets stranger and stranger as we go.  It is very creepy as well.   Welles looks frightful himself with a weird beard and some crazy make-up.

We also have a crazy religious ceremony where people are dressed up like KKK members. We get a strange Masquerade party that looks like something out of a strange horror movie.

Finally in one of the most interesting scenes of the film, we have a conversation with a ring master of a flea circus.  The ring master has some of the best dialog in the film.

Welles also shot this with some amazing angles and it has an interesting look.  The voice overs were a little annoying to me, but this is a minor complaint.  The story is kind of crazy with very little reasonable explanation why most of the characters do what they do. I guess you could say that for most people in real life too.  Like anything Welles does this is pretty damn good.  It isn’t my favorite Welles noir, but a strange adventure worth viewing.

Favorite Tidbit:  As if this film isn’t strange enough Orson Welles was married to Paola Mori at the time of this movie.  Yes that’s the actress playing his daughter in this film!

Review: Fourteen Hours

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14 Hours is a film noir from director Henry Hathaway and a screenplay by John Paxton based on a story by Joel Sayre.  The story revolves around a police officer played by Paul Douglas and a man on a ledge threatening suicide played by Richard Basehart.

This story starts with our police officer on the street giving out parking tickets when he notices a jumper on the ledge of a hotel.  He goes up to talk to him and is the first cop on the scene.  He talks to our jumper for a bit before the higher-ups get there and tell him to go back down on the street.  Our jumper soon says he will only talk to the original police officer so they go and find him on the street and bring him back up to the ledge. Will our hero flat foot cop be able to save the day and talk our jumper down?  Why is our jumper on the ledge?

Barbara Bel Geddes shows up as our jumpers girl and Agnes Moorhead also stands out as the over bearing mother of the jumper.

We also get some minor stories from the people down on the streets of New York.  This shows the effects of this spectacle on those folks.  One of these small sub plots is what made me so excited to see this.  We have Grace Kelly in her first film role, as a wife on her way to a lawyer’s office.  We see flashes of future brilliance here as the jumper has blocked traffic and made her late.  Then as she is across the street in the lawyer’s office she can see the jumper on the ledge out the window as she waits for her meeting to start.  I don’t know how I missed this film with her in it.  I went through a Grace Kelly phase after seeing Rear Window for the first time and had to see everything with her in it.  This one slipped under my radar some how.  I guess I still am in a Grace Kelly phase, but who isn’t?

Another sub-plot is the taxi drivers who are basically stuck in traffic and out of work for the day.  We also have a young women who would like to help but doesn’t know how.

The way this was filmed is really well done.  We have some great shots from the street up to the jumper and some from high up in the building down to the crowds on the street.  It has some very interesting cinematography worth checking out.

This is a slightly above average film and average film noir worth watching for Grace Kelly fans, even if it is a small role.  Classic noir fans will like it as well and those wanting to see what New York City looked like in the early 1950’s.

Favorite Tidbit:  Though 2012’s Man on a Ledge is not a remake, it does have a lot in common with this film.  Both take place in New York on a hotel ledge.  I also noticed a lot of the same quotes and similar actions of the New York crowd on the street.  Man on a Ledge is also a very good film I will have to re-watch and review it soon.

Review: Heat Wave or The House Across the Lake

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Heat Wave is another B-movie noir from famed British group Hammer Films.  This is written and directed by Ken Hughes based on a book he also wrote.  Hughes went to Hollywood and made some big films, his most notable isn’t even close to the dark noir he made here, a little film by the name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

This film showcases Hillary Brooke, a quintessential femme fatale in every way.  We have more than one man in her web and she doesn’t let any of those men escape through out the whole film.  She is definitely the high spot of this film and the main reason to watch this one.

The story starts with our protagonist played by Alex Nicol holed up in a cabin on the lake shore.  He is there to write his new book, but he has a bit of writers block.  He gets invited to a party across the lake where we meet our femme fatale and her husband played by Sidney James.  We soon find out our femme fatale has a boyfriend on the side and seems to be flaunting him in front of her husband and anybody else that might care.  Our protagonist and the husband become quick friends and we soon find out our husband is dying, he has about a year.  He also plans to change his will.  Our husband happily pays the bills while he is alive, but he will be damned if he will pay the bills for his cheating wife once he is gone.  His lawyer is on a trip in America and he plans to change his will as soon as the lawyer comes home.  Our protagonist writer loses his contract and is flat broke, he is also the new target of our femme fatale.  Will our hero team up with our femme fatale to kill her husband before the will is changed?  Will he save his friend from his deadly wife?  Will our femme fatale find somebody else to help her kill her dying husband before he changes his will?  He’s dying anyway and she deserves her fair share of the estate, right?

This is a pretty straight forward mid 50’s classic noir.  We are not covering new ground here by any means.  It is cheaply done, but it still has a great noir look.  The story builds for about 7/8 of the film and actually felt like an above average noir, but the story kind of falls apart at the end.  It is still worth viewing for hardcore classic film noir lovers and has its high points.  If you are new to the genre, you may want to start elsewhere, but if you see this on the tube late one night, give it a try, it may surprise you.

Re-watching the Classics: The Set-Up

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Here is a short film noir of only 73 minutes long, which takes place over those same 73 minutes.  This is Directed by Robert Wise and stars Robert Ryan as our main character.  Ryan plays Stoker, an over the hill boxer hoping to make one last run as a fighter.  Audrey Totter plays Stoker’s wife who wants him to stop fighting before he is hurt to bad. We start out with our couple in their apartment as Stoker gets ready to head to the arena.  He gives his wife a ticket to watch the fight, she makes one last effort to stop him from fighting to no avail.  Stoker gets into the locker room to start getting ready for his main event fight.  We meet a varied crew of fighters in different stages of their career.  It is almost like Stoker is reliving his past and looking into his near future as the fighter come and go, before and after their bouts.  We get to see so many great character actors of the classic noir era in this locker room.  Names such as George Tobias, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, James Edwards and David Clarke.  We have a hodge-podge of fighters, trainers, promoters and gangsters coming and going through out the night. Stoker’s team and his opponents team have agreed that Stoker will throw the fight for the gangster named Little Boy played by Alan Baxter.  The problem is, nobody told Stoker!  Will he learn before it is too late to throw the fight?  If he does learn about the set-up will he agree to do it?  Will Stoker’s wife show up to watch the bout? As I have stated before, the more I watch Robert Ryan’s films the more I like him.  He did such a wide range of characters, it is hard to believe he could be so versatile.  The only common thread when Ryan is in a film, he will always be tough as nails.  This film is so unique and so great, I think everybody should see this at least once if you are a film lover at all.  If you are a noir fan it is a must see and if you like Ryan you probably already seen this, if not drop everything and do it now! Do you think this was a big influence on Quentin Tarantino’s story line in Pulp Fiction revolving around Bruce Willis’ character?  I can’t help but see many similarities between Willis and Ryan’s characters.  What do you think?

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: 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.