A very good little documentary from PBS on the classic era of Film Noir. Worth a look, I found it entertaining. Martin Scorsese, Kathryn Bigelow, Lawrence Kasdan and more appear in it.
Film Noir
Re-watching the Classics: The Narrow Margin
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
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.
Review: Beware, My Lovely
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:
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
Crack-Up is a film noir from 1946 staring Pat O’Brien!
No, Not that one, this one:
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: T-Men
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.
Review: The Blue Dahlia
So did anybody write better classic noir dialog than Raymond Chandler? I don’t think so, his wise cracking P.I. Phillip Marlowe will always be one of the greatest fictional character of not only noir, but all of fiction. Though we don’t have Marlowe in The Blue Dahlia, we are not missing on the crackling dialog.
Clean sheets every day they tell me. How often do they change the fleas?
Seems I’ve lost my manners or would anyone here know the difference?
Joyce Harwood: Well, don’t you even say ‘Good night’?
Johnny Morrison: It’s good-bye, and it’s tough to say good-bye.
Joyce Harwood: Why is it? You’ve never seen me before tonight.
Johnny Morrison: Every guy’s seen you before somewhere. The trick is to find you.
You’ve got the wrong lipstick on, Mister.
‘Dad’ Newell: [examining Helen’s body] Been dead for hours.
Mr. Hughes, assistant hotel manager: Suicide?
‘Dad’ Newell: Could be.
Mr. Hughes, assistant hotel manager: Better be!
‘Dad’ Newell: Unh-unh! Too much gun!
I know I’ve got lots of faults, but being in love with you isn’t one of them, is it?
These are some of my favorite quotes from this film, and if it was just the dialog this would be a 4 out of 5 star film. But Raymond Chandler doesn’t just write great dialog, he can put together a pretty good plot too. This has three friends coming back from the war. Our hero is played by Alan Ladd, who goes to see his wife. She is having a party and he soon finds out that she has a new beau. The new boyfriend played by Howard Da Silva, owns the night club “The Blue Dahlia” for which the movie is named. Soon our hero’s wife played wonderfully by Doris Dowling, she is just the right amount of evil that we can see why our hero wants free of her, but also the right amount of sadness that we feel sorry for her having to be by herself while her husband was at war. She’s mad, but we understand why. She is found dead and we don’t know if it’s suicide or murder. The police start with the most likely suspects, which includes our hero. Now he has to find the killer before he takes the fall for murder. Along the way we have William Bendix playing Buzz. Buzz is a great character who has some brain damage from the war, does he also have post-traumatic stress syndrome before we really knew what it was? Then of course we have Veronica Lake who plays the night club owners wife. I would call her the femme fatale of this film, but she doesn’t try to decisive anybody, or use anybody, or try to get away with anything, she’s actually a truly good person.
Raymond Chandler had to change his original ending and was not happy about this. I will not tell you why or how it is changed here, because it is a spoiler and we don’t believe in that here, but after you watch it you can probably see what is changed and maybe even why given the time frame of when the film was made.
A couple of historic trivia bits for you.
1. Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake appeared in a number of movies together and rumors started that they where having an affair. Both always denied this, and it is not known if the rumors where true or not.
2. Elizabeth Short got her nickname The Black Dahlia from this film. She embraced her new nickname and took to wearing a black dahlia flower in her hair. She died less than a year after this. She became the subject of the classic James Ellroy book and not-so classic film, “The Black Dahlia” and part of Los Angeles lore forever.
I really liked this film for its sharp dialog and surprising twists and turns. A classic noir that all fans should see.
Film Noir: When it felt good to be bad
An interesting article on the classic film noir period over at venture galleries by author Paul Bishop.
http://venturegalleries.com/blog/film-noir-felt-good-bad/
Film Noir Class 101
I just saw this video about the history of Film Noir, very cool video and worth the 17 minutes it takes to view it.
Review: I Want to Live!
I Want To Live! Is a film-noir from 1958 that looks at a story that ended a few years earlier in 1955. This is the story of real life criminal Barbara Graham. known as “Bloody Babs” in the press, Graham was a career criminal and was a known prostitute earlier in life. She kept bad company and is said to have helped break into a house with 3 men to rob a wealthy older women in a wheel chair. They ended up murdering her and were then arrested. Some say this movie is pretty true to fact, but general consensus is this is a highly fictionalized portrayal.
The reason I got to see this movie is it is 28 Days of Oscar on TCM and this is on because of Susan Hayward’s great performance. She not only won the Best Actress Award in 1959, she also won the Golden Globe and New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
When Hayward signed on for this movie it wasn’t because she loved the script or thought it was going to be a great film. She did it to help out Producer Walter Wanger, Wanger was instrumental in starting Hayward’s career in film. Wanger was making a comeback in film at the time because he had just got out of jail for shooting a man who was having an affair with his wife. It was quite the scandal and Wanger had to reinvent himself. Hayward was glad to help him.
This film is directed by Robert Wise one of the greatest directors in Hollywood history and directed many classic films in his long career. Though Wise was never known as a film-noir director, he does a great job in this movie. The off-center angles at the beginning are amazing and prison scenes are very well done. Robert Wise really prepared well for this film, especially doing a lot of research to get the execution scene right. The way this scene is shot, edited and doesn’t use music, but keeps it very silent and sparse is amazing. The end of this movie takes this film to another level. This movie and Barbara Graham’s real life case went a long way in helping the anti-death penalty cause in California. This doesn’t have your normal twists and turns we are used to in classic film-noir, but it is very dark and startling.
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