BOGART NOIR on TCM 8/17

[ChiO]

Here were my nominees 2.5 years ago. It would be different today. Not that I condone fluidity in noir.

In a noir competition, how can there be a winner be left standing? Let's go for losers lying facedown in the refuse of this wretched world.

1. GUN CRAZY (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949)
2. TOUCH OF EVIL (Orson Welles, 1958)
3. BLAST OF SILENCE (Allen Baron, 1961)
4. THE KILLING (Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
5. HE WALKED BY NIGHT (Alfred Werker/Anthony Mann (unc.), 1948)
6. DOUBLE INDEMNITY (Billy Wilder, 1944)
7. DETOUR (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1946)
8. PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (Samuel Fuller, 1953)
9. NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Charles Laughton, 1955)
10. OUT OF THE PAST (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
11. RAW DEAL (Anthony Mann, 1948)
12. CRIME WAVE (Andre De Toth, 1954)
13. BIG COMBO (Joseph H. Lewis, 1955)
14. DIAL 1119 (Gerald Mayer, 1950)
15. THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (Peter Yates, 1973)

I throw myself on the mercy of the noir gods, Fate, Dewey, and Ark (not necessarily in that order) for shortchanging De Toth, Fuller, Mann, Tourneur, and Wilder, and failing to list FORCE OF EVIL, THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, KISS ME DEADLY, D.O.A., SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, BLACK ANGEL, THE RECKLESS MOMENT and THE WORLD'S GREATEST SINNER, and passing over all the great films of Clouzot, Dassin, Huston, Lang, Preminger, Ray, and Siodmak. Eh, what's the difference?

[Dewey1960]

As long as we're reminiscing, here's what I had back in the spring of '08
as my top 15. There would definitely be some changes made...

Here are my fifteen favorite noir films.
1. OUT OF THE PAST (1947; Jacques Tourneur)
2. KISS ME DEADLY (1955; Robert Aldrich)
3. DETOUR (1945; Edgar G. Ulmer)
4. BLACK ANGEL (1946; Roy William Neill)
5. STRANGER ON THE THIRD FLOOR (1940; Boris Ingster)
6. ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951; Nicholas Ray)
7. TOUCH OF EVIL (1958; Orson Welles)
8. THE BIG HEAT (1953; Fritz Lang)
9. PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET (1953; Samuel Fuller)
10. TRY AND GET ME (1950; Cyril Endfield)
11. NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947; Edmund Goulding)
12. THIEVES’ HIGHWAY (1948; Jules Dassin)
13. DECOY (1946; Jack Bernhardt)
14. THE BIG COMBO (1955; Joseph H. Lewis)
15. THE KILLING (1956; Stanley Kubrick)
I wish the list could have been extended to 20 or 25 so I could have included the likes of IN A LONELY PLACE, GUN CRAZY, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, FORCE OF EVIL, BRUTE FORCE, CRISS CROSS, and on and on and on...

[Mr. Arkadin]

I would add this one:

[youtube][/youtube]

BTW: I don't know where I came up with 25 movies. That was a list I'd saved and I assumed it was for the SSO contest. Mr. D. and O., please feel free to tack on a few extras (providing they meet acceptable standards of course).

[MichiganJ]

This is a very interesting thread. Thanks for reposting the Noir lists, I was having a difficult time finding them in the archive.

In regards to The Big Sleep being a noir or not, the book Hard and Fast Rules in Film Noir (Shuster & Simone Simon, 1936) distinctly states:
Rule number 27.8--If ever the stoic Private Eye visits a bookstore, the un-named proprietress must be gorgeous and be immediately attracted to the hero.

Noir or not, the film made me want a rare edition of Ben-Hur, too. And how.

[Dewey1960]

Kevin, that's my favorite scene from THE BIG SLEEP. I especially like that
thunderclap that kicks somehow kicks it off, captured here in the clip. One of
the most atmospheric moments in a film with atmospheric moments to spare.
(You'll have to follow the link, though)
[youtube][/youtube]

[ChiO]

I'm buying whatever Dorothy Malone is selling.

[RedRiver]

Hmm...I thought I posted some thoughts on THE BIG SLEEP yesterday. Now I don't see them. It's not worth attempting to rekindle the inspration. But if a seemingly incongruent post should turn up, you'll know the source! This is odd.

[CineMaven]

Seeee... that's how you make your mark in a film. Take off your glasses and let your hair down. I enjoyed just seeing her in "BASIC INSTINCT." She did the opposite of Joan Bennett. Malone went from brunette to blonde.

But not bad as a brunette, either.

[JackFavell]

My daughter watched that scene today and told me I looked like Dorothy Malone.

YES!!!!! Sometimes it's great having kids.

[JackFavell]

Oh yeah, I love Beat the Devil, too.

Red River, I am so disappointed your post got lost... if you have the energy sometime, I hope you can re-work it. I'd love to know what you were thinking.

[CineMaven]

JACK FAVELL

[MichiganJ]

In regards to The Maltese Falcon (1941), if the lighting is flat and the overall film is not visually interesting, what makes this Noir while the original 1931 version and 1936's Satan Met a Lady are not generally considered Noir?

[JackFavell]

Maven - I LOVE those glasses - I only noticed watching this time through that they have no earpieces! So cool.

That's a great question, Mich!

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Um..... I'm waiting for someone to answer it.

I don't think the film is visually uninteresting, the camera angles and set-ups are most daring. These to me spell noir... however, it is not a high contrast film, with black and white being so rigidly forced up against one another, creating a great deal of tension in the look of the movie.

[ChiO]

MichiganJ wrote:
In regards to The Maltese Falcon (1941), if the lighting is flat and the overall film is not visually interesting, what makes this Noir while the original 1931 version and 1936's Satan Met a Lady are not generally considered Noir?

One person's opinion --

Stylistically, THE MALTESE FALCON has more of the attributes of what are commonly associated with film noir than its predecessors, but I think the real reason is more historical. As Borde and Chaumeton point out in the introduction to their A Panorama of American Film Noir 1941-1953 (1955), in August 1946, when American films became available again, there was a series of films shown in Paris: THE MALTESE FALCON, LAURA, MURDER, MY SWEET, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, and THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (Note: THE LOST WEEKEND, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, and CITIZEN KANE were also around according to James Naremore). The French critics saw something in them that was different than the Ford, Wyler and Capra films they were more used to. A few months later, THIS GUN FOR HIRE, THE KILLERS, GILDA, THE LADY IN THE LAKE, and THE BIG SLEEP arrived. Voila -- a new "series", let's call it Film Noir (or, more accurately from my perspective, American Film Noir), is born.

As Naremore contends in More Than Night: Film Noir in Its Contexts (1998) -- my favorite book about Noir -- the French, in effect, invented Film Noir as a category. Its general definitional conventions were thereby established and, if one were of a quasi-cynical sort, done so as a result of historical conditions...and Fate. But as a Noir lover, I would never be cynical or use Fate as an explanation.