Film Noir

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: 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 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.

Review: Nightfall

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I had this on my DVR from a showing on TCM and found the introduction to the movie interesting.  Now legendary noir author David Goodis wrote NIghtfall as a screenplay after his success with the film Dark Passage.  Dark Passage put him in the spotlight and he was in Hollywood putting his writing skills to use.  He wrote a screenplay with this story and nobody wanted it.  He got flustered with the Hollywood machine and turned it into a book.  Roughly 10 years later Stirling Silliphant took the book and made it into this screenplay.  He changed a few scenes and gave the bad guy heavies a little more depth and character.  This gave it another chance in Hollywood and it was made into this movie.

film noir directing great Jacques Tourneur was in the directors chair for this film.  It also stars Aldo Ray and Anne Bancroft as our romantic couple.  Brian Keith and Rudy Bond play our thug like bank robbers and we also have James Gregory as an insurance investigator.

This film starts out with Aldo Ray at a news stand looking at papers from the Chicago area.  Gregory talks to him at the corner waiting for his bus.  Then Ray walks into a bar and meets Anne Bancroft.  They hit it off and have dinner, after dinner our two thugs jump our couple.  Bancroft is sent home and Ray is taken in a car.  From here Ray and the thugs battle it out through out the film and the story is told with a few flashbacks to see how our thugs and our hero come to meet.  Our adventure goes from the classic noir streets of Los Angles to the wilderness of Wyoming.

I am surprised with the talent in this film, from the great writing and directing to some good performances from our cast, that this movie isn’t more talked about.  If you’re a fan of any of the cast or crew or just a classic film noir fan, you should check out this film.  It will be well worth your time.

Re-Watching the Classics: D.O.A.

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220px-DOA1950 ” I want to report a murder.”

“Sit down. Where was this murder committed?”

“San Francisco, last night.”

“Who was murdered?”

” I was.”

Maybe the greatest opening dialog in noir history.  D.O.A. is a classic film noir from 1950 directed by Rudolph Maté who was a director and cinematographer for many great noir films through out his career.  Edmond O’Brien plays our protagonist Frank Bigalow who runs across many characters in this film, from a needy girl friend to a blonde at the end of the bar, to shady business men and a few doctors, police and a thug or two. DOA+trio The story is a simple one but an original one. Frank has to get away and goes to San Francisco on a small vacation.  He arrives at his hotel and joins a group of salesmen for a fun night on the town.  He gets a call from his girlfriend/secretary about somebody trying to get a hold of him.  He doesn’t recognize the name and figures it’s nothing.  After his night out he wakes up in the morning not feeling well.  He goes to the doctor and finds he has been poisoned.  There is no cure and he has only a day or two to live.  He uses his time left to hunt down who murdered him and why. This is such an interesting plot device that it has been remade and reworked a number of times.  The film was remade twice, once as Color Me Dead in 1969(I have not seen this) and D.O.A. in 1988(I have seen this, but it has been years, I hope to re-watch it and review it later).  The “I’ve been murdered and only have x amount of time to find the killer” plot has been done in such movies as Crank and to a certain extent in Zift as well. Though this plot has been redone in one form or another many times, this original movie is still the best of the bunch.   This is a film who classic film buffs as well as film noir fans will both find satisfying.  It’s a fun ride and if you think about it, what would you do, if you found out you only have a few days to live?

Review: Twelve Hours to Kill

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12 Hours to Kill is a B-movie noir from 1960 that caught my eye based on Barbara Eden in a starring role.  This film is based on a mystery serial from The Saturday Evening Post written by Richard Stern.  The film is directed by Edward L. Cahn who looks to be a prolific B-movie director of mostly Sci-Fi and Horror films.  I am not to familiar with his work and don’t recognize most of his films.

Our protagonist is played by Nico Minardos who plays a Greek Immigrant fresh off the boat in New York City.  It looks like Minardos mostly worked in one-off appearances on varies television shows for the next 25 or so years.

The story starts with our hero minding his business in his hotel room late at night looking out the window when he witnesses a gangland slaying.  He goes to the cops and we have two higher-ups listen to his story.  They know they have a leak in the police force so the two keep it secret and send our hero and witness to a small town.  On the train Minardos meets a beautiful women,Barbara Eden, going to the same town.  Somebody leaks the eye witnesses identity to the press and from here we just have characters chasing each other, not knowing who to trust and who not to.

Barbara Eden is the high light of this film, though her character doesn’t ring true.  She plays a women that is helps a total stranger, that she knows is in trouble, with no questions asked and is happy to do it.  Maybe at the end of the 1950’s this single strong happy to help female existed, but to me she seems to go out of her way a little to easy.  She does light up the screen and is very likable, if not believable.

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This film has a few scenes which look brilliant.  I liked the opening scene of the gangland slaying, also the scene where our hero gets off the train and sees the bad guys waiting for him.  The movie does miss the mark elsewhere, for instance I liked some of the hand to hand fighting later in the film, but the editing doesn’t make a lot of sense.  The train scene with the little dog had potential, but doesn’t fit well with the rest of the film and seems drawn out and long.  I don’t have a degree in film and only know what I like, but I honestly feel this film could have went from a below average noir to something a bit better with some stronger editing alone.

This film doesn’t seem to have a very big following and I can understand why.  When looking at reviews on various sites, I found saying like “almost noir-esque suspense/drama” and “pretty much a by the numbers wannabe noir.”  I would say this is definitely a noir, it’s just not a great noir or even a very good one.  This is for noir fans that want to see everything or big fans of Barbara Eden. It is not a total waste but If you are new to noir, I would start somewhere else.

Favorite Tidbit: T.V. greats Gavin MacLeod and Ted Knight both appear in this movie in smaller roles, though they don’t have any scenes together.  They would of course go on to star together in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Review: House of Bamboo

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I’ve seen a few things on how great Samuel Fuller is, and I’ve not really watched or read any of his stuff before.  Hope to read some of his noir fiction soon.  I got a hold of this movie first and gave it a viewing.  Fuller wrote some of the dialog for this film and directed it.  This is actually a remake of the film noir The Street with No Name.  I have not seen Street with No Name but may have to check it out and compare it to this one.  Fuller filmed this film noir in CinemaScope and color, not many film noirs from the classic era where done this way.

This has 2 noir greats in it, Robert Ryan(quickly moving into my 5 favorite noir actors list) and Robert Stack.  We also have a fairly unique setting, this film was filmed and takes place in Tokyo.  We also have some Japanese talent in this film most notably is Shirley Yamaguchi as a kimono girl and Sessue Hayakawa as a police inspector.

Our story starts out with a train heist, a group of masked men rob the train which is protected by the U.S. Military as well as the Japanese.  They kill an Army soldier bringing in the military police to investigate.  Three weeks later we have another robbery, this time a man is shot by police and then shot 3 more times by his own team!  This is to make sure he is dead and can not get caught and talk.  The problem is he didn’t die!  They take the 3 slugs out of him and they match the bullets to the one in our dead soldier.  Even though his cohorts shot him, our suspect will not talk before he does die.  They find a picture of his wife(Yamaguchi), they keep it secret so his fellow criminals do not know about her.  They also found a letter from his friend Eddie who he tells to come to Tokyo for a cut of their new job.  Soon Eddie comes to town(Stack) and finds his friends wife.  He then falls into a crew of Americans pulling heists, run by tough guy Sandy(Ryan).  The story twists and turns from there for an enjoyable film.

This was an interesting movie with some great shots and scenes, very unique being in Japan and filmed in color.  I will definitely be looking for more stuff from Fuller to watch.  This is for any fan of film noir that does not mind it being in color, as well as fans of Fuller, Ryan and Stack.

Favorite Tidbit:  According to Robert Stack, in one scene Fuller told an actor to duck really low by a 50 gallon drum as he passed.  The actor was shocked when a real bullet went by him into the barrel.  Fuller used a sharp shooter for the scene and when the actor complained, Fuller told him the shooter know what he was doing.

Review: I Wake Up Screaming

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I Wake Up Screaming is from 1941 and is based on the book by Steve Fisher, I have not read the book yet but will keep my eye out for a copy.  The films two main stars are Betty Grable and Victor Mature and is Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone.

This film was also released in England under the title Hot Spot.

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The star who I found most interesting is Carole Landis who plays Vicky.  She was the classic beauty who was trying to get ahead, using her looks and charms to get a career in entertainment, no matter who she hurt.  She is a classic femme fatale for this story. I didn’t know much about her so I did a little research to see why I have not seen her in anything before, at least anything I remember.  Turns out after giving the entertainment business her best shot she committed suicide at the age of 29.  It’s to bad, she seemed to have some talent, maybe her character from this film was a lot like the real life Landis.

Our story starts with Vicki being the center of attention for a lot of men, men who easily fall in love with her.  Vicky lives with her more down to earth sister played by Grable in an apartment.  We find our hero played by Mature under the bright light in the integration room, but he is as cool as a cucumber.  We soon find out he is being questioned for Vicky’s murder.  The story is told with a number of flashbacks as we find out bits and pieces to why Vicky may have been killed.  We also learn about our suspects, including Mature and 2 of his friends as the main suspects.  We soon learn Vicky had more than these three men in her life. Grable soon helps Mature, who is our prime suspect as they weed through the clues.  One of my favorite character actors, Elisha Cook Jr., appears as the phone board operator in the building our sisters live in. I also liked Laird Cregar who played our hardboiled tough guy cop that is out to get our hero.

This film was remade a few years later in 1953 as Vicki.  I have not seen this one yet and hope to watch it soon and compare it to this film.  By all accounts this original film is the superior movie.

This story has some great twists and turns, some good dialog, but what stood out to me is the classic film noir style of black and white filming.  The shadow play is very interesting and visually stimulating.  I enjoyed this one and think any classic film noir fan will enjoy it too.

Review: Don’t Bother to Knock

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Don’t Bother to Knock is a film noir from Roy Ward Backer, his first for Hollywood and one of many great noir movies he did.  The movie is based on a book by Charlotte Armstrong.  This movie has superstar Marilyn Monroe as our most interesting character. Noir great Richard Widmark plays a pilot in town on an over night stay at the hotel.  We also get Anne Bancroft in her first film, as the lounge signer Widmark is in love with.

Our story starts with Bancroft sitting at a bar, telling the bartender her troubles with her boyfriend and then the spotlight hits her and she starts singing.  We soon meet her boyfriend, the pilot that comes to town from Chicago played by Widmark.  They’re relationship is on the rocks and Widmark is trying to save it.  We also meet the elevator man played by the great character actor,Elisha Cook Jr., who is taking Monroe up to the 8th floor.  We find out he is her uncle and got her a job babysitting.  Seems like a pretty average day in the Hotel, but things get stranger and stranger as time goes on.

This film is in real-time, so the events happen in the same amount of time as the film length.  This is pretty cool and done very seamlessly.  The whole movie also takes place in a high-end hotel, basically the lounge, 2 rooms and the elevator contain all the scenes.  This gives you a bit of claustrophobia as the suspense grows through out.

Marilyn Monroe was a popular star at this point.  The problem was, she was not know for her acting.  Up to this point she just played her lovable self and people ate it up.  This was her 18th movie and she made this movie to show she could act, and act she did!  This is an amazing performance of a suicidal, mentally disturbed young women, it is not over the top, very real feeling and subtle .  At the time critics loved her performance, and I got to say, I did too.  Unfortunately looking back at her life, this may have been the real Monroe and she was acting as Marilyn Monroe all the other times she was in the spot light.

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This is not as gritty as most film noir but it is just as dark, maybe even more so.  If you are a fan of any of the 3 main stars, especially Monroe you should see this.  I give it an 8 out of 10, a must see film noir.

Re-Watching the Classics: White Heat

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White Heat is a classic and should be watched by any film nut. This is directed by Raoul Walsh who did several noir films.  We have James Cagney at his best as psychopath Cody Jarrett.  Our top billed femme fatale is Virginia Mayo who uses her beauty gets men to do whatever she wants.

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Well let’s be honest, our protagonists true femme fatale isn’t his beautiful wife, it’s his mom, played by Margaret Wycherly.  He will do anything for her, from robbing trains, to killing cohorts, to going to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

This story starts with a train robbery, and it does not go as planned.  The heat is on and to get out of it Jarrett admits to a lesser crime that took place up north.  If he did that crime, he couldn’t have done the much worse train robbery.  Jarrett goes to jail, but the police are on to him.  They send Hank Fallon in undercover as the hood by the name of Vic Pardo.  This character is played by Edmond O’Brien, our good guy hero?  Pardo quickly be-friends Jarrett and they soon plan an escape.  In the mean time his wife is siding with his number two-man, Big Ed Somers, played by Steve Cochran.  They conspire to kill Ma Jarrett and soon do.

Will Jarrett and his pals escape prison?  Will he have his revenge on those that took his mom away from him?  Will the gang be able to overcome their differences and pull off another heist?  Will they figure out Pardo is really Fallon?

This movie is a must see for any film noir fan, Cagney fan or movie fan in general.  “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” maybe only #18 on the top 100 lines in movie history by the American Film Institute, but lets face it, this is the best line in film noir history if not all of film history.

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If you have not seen this yet, go do it right now!  Those that have, what did you think of this film?

Favorite Tidbit:  The relationship between Jarrett and his mom are based on real life bank robbers, Ma Baker and her boys.