Ray Milland

Re-Watching the Classics: Dial M for Murder

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I have been reviewing movies on this site for almost 10 months now and this is the first film I have looked at from one of the greatest directors of all time(some may say there is no question he is the greatest). I will have to say that Alfred Hitchcock is the reason I started watching classic film noir. I seen Rear Window and wanted to see more films like it and if it had Grace Kelly in it…all the better. This lead me to more Hitchcockian films and film noir. Some may argue this is not a film noir and they maybe right, it might be an early neo-noir? I’m not sure how you would classify it, all I know is it is noir.

This film is based on a play by Frederick Knott and was released in 1954. It revolves around a very small cast of characters with most of it taking place in a small apartment in England. The film starts out with Tony, played by Ray Milland and Margot played by Grace Kelly in what appears to be a happy marriage. This scene even has background music more akin to a Walt Disney movie then a Hitchcock film. After we see the kissing couple we go to the next scene with Margot kissing…a different man. This man is crime writer Mark Halliday played by Robert Cummings. This film has great dialog to tell the story as we find out Margot and Mark had an affair and Margot would have left her husband, but he has changed since Mark has been gone and now she is conflicted. In the next scene Tony has Lesgate (or is it Swann?) played by Anthony Dawson, come to the apartment to talk about selling his car. This is where Tony tells Lesgate his perfect murder and how and why Lesgate will kill his wife. When Tony and Mark go out to dinner, Tony steps away to call his boss, but he is really calling his wife so she will be in position to be murdered by Lesgate. When Margot fights back and kills Lesgate in self-defense, Tony has to change his plans, but this may still work for Tony.

When Chief Inspector Hubbard played by John Williams gets involved in the case the tension gets cranked up a notch. With Millard and Kelly at the top of their game and Hitchcock doing some of his best work I don’t think there is any question this is an all time classic and should be watched by every movie buff. I can not imagine any fan of noir not finding this film entertaining.

But, is this a classic film noir or not? This is part of the fun of the noir genre as it is a genre with a lot of different takes on how it is classified. Other genres you recognize as soon as you watch them, Westerns, Science Fiction and Horror are easy to spot. Some people will look at a film and call it a film noir and some might say it is just a crime film or a thriller or maybe a murder mystery. Here are some argument points for and against this being classified as a film noir.

FOR:

The main character of this film is a bad guy trying to pull off the perfect crime.

It has a very claustrophobic feel with most of the film taking place in a small apartment. Also both our main characters are prisoners in a marriage they do not want to be in anymore.

Characters like Margot and Lesgate have choices, but none of them are good. Tony also seems to be stuck in a situation he can not get out of, once Lesgate fails to complete Tony’s original plan.

This film does not have a happy ending for many of our characters, I will not go in-depth here because I do not want to spoil it for those that have not seen it yet.

Though Hitchcock used many techniques in filming this movie, he did go to the classic film noir well in quite a few scenes:

Like this one where he uses shadows and a fish eye point of view.

And the complete murder attempt is shot in the shadows and gives a very black and white feel.

AGAINST:

Some say film noir can not be filmed in color, though this is not the norm, I have seen a few films in color that are considered film noir by many.

Grace Kelly character isn’t a femme fatale. This is true and some say every film noir has to have one. I don’t like this rule, though I love a good femme fatale, I believe there are plenty of great film noir movies without one.

I would love to hear more points from you on FOR or AGAINST this being a film noir.  Leave your point of view in the comments below.

Favorite Tidbit: Though this is almost always shown in 2D it is actually Hitchcock’s first and only attempt at 3D and was completely filmed in stereoscopic 3D. Now this is a Blu-Ray 3D I would love to see released.

Update: This has been released on Blu-Ray 3D and is available.

Re-watching the Classics: Ministry of Fear

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Here is a classic film noir from Fritz Lang made in 1944.  It stars Ray Milland and is based on a book by Graham Greene.  How could you go wrong?  Well I would say Lang phoned this one in, if you ask me.  I’m not saying it is a horrible movie, but it isn’t the “Masterpiece of Suspense” it is advertised as.

Our story starts with Milland going to the train station and taking a detour to a carnival by the station.  He tries his hand at a game where he needs to guess the weight of a cake.  He doesn’t win the cake, so he goes to the fortune-teller.  The fortune-teller is played by Aminta Dyne but for some reason the fortune-teller changes to Hillary Brooke later in the film.  The fortune-teller tells Milland the weight of the cake, he walks out and plays that game again and wins the cake!  Another man played by noir great Dan Duryea shows up and the fortune-teller knows she made a mistake.  They try to take the cake away from Milland to no avail.  Milland gets on the train and a blind man joins him.  The blind man eventually steals the cake and runs into a bombing area.  There is a chase and the blind man(who isn’t blind) gets blown up.  Milland starts to investigate the cake incident on his own and the mystery continues.  We have a séance, followed by a murder.  We learn Milland has recently been to a mental institution for basically helping his sick wife commit suicide.  This has a lot of elements that should add up to a great noir, but for me it felt a little flat.

Marjorie Reynolds plays Milland’s love interest in this. In my opinion Hillary Brooke does a great femme fatale in this, and steals the show, she just isn’t in the film very much.

This is the second time I’ve watched this, I was not impressed the first time I seen it and thought I would give it another shot because I have become such a big fan of Fritz Lang’s stuff.  Like I said I’m not saying this is a bad movie, it’s just disappointing given the talent involved.  This is worth watching for classic film noir fans and if you want to see everything by Lang.  If you are not familiar with Lang I recommend watching some of his other work.  Scarlet Street is still one of my favorites of his.

Review: The Big Clock

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The Big Clock is an amazing noir story with all the best features of noir.  We have a femme fatale, we have a protagonist in a situation way over his head and has to out smart the enemy to get out of danger, we have adultery, murder, a rich and powerful antagonist and a claustrophobic setting that even as a viewer we want to get out of.

The film is based on a book by the same name written by Kenneth Fearing.  There have been two remakes of this film, or two more movies based on this book, depending on how you look at it.  Police Python 357 is a film made in 1976, I have not seen this one.  The other one is No Way Out starring Kevin Costner and Sean Young, I’ve seen this movie but it was so many years ago I would like to re-watch it before I make any comments about it.

John Farrow directed this, he had a storied career as a director with over 49 credits to his name.  Ray Milland plays our hero and was in many film noir movies as well as westerns and horror films.  We will look at more if his films in the future.  He is amazing in this film as our everyday man who hates his job, but is a very successful author and journalist.  He decides he is going to quit his job for two reasons, he is married and wants to go on his honeymoon and his boss has pushed him to his limit. The boss is played by the great Charles Laughton and our hero’s wife is played by Maureen O’Sullivan.  He goes out for a drink to celebrate his new freedom and runs into a beautiful blonde played by Rita Johnson. She makes him miss his meeting time with his wife, and they make the best of it by having a grand old-time.  They go back to her place and things are implied.  We soon find out our mystery blonde is dead.  His old boss and the magazine he used to write for wants him back for one last assignment, find the man who was with the blonde last night!?!?!  This has an amazing set up and the story does not disappoint.  As the trap tightens around our hero the tension grows.

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Harry Morgan, that went on to fame many years later on T.V.’s Dragnet and M*A*S*H, plays an interesting role as the silent henchman.  We also see the Bride of Frankenstein herself, Elsa Lanchester as an eccentric artist.

Favorite tidbit:  Kenneth Fearing wrote this book as revenge on publisher Henry Luce and his “Time” magazine, where Fearing worked for many years for financial reasons. The character Earl Janoth played by Laughton is based on Luce.

This is an amazing movie and should be watched by any noir fan or classic film fan in general.

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