Noir Alley

[laffite]

Blast of Silence is the grittiest, grimiest neo-noir of them all. You could almost smell the stench of the trash-filled streets.

And a Christmas movie too.

Little boy : Hey ma, it's a Christmas movie, can I watch it, please

Mother: Uh, no, not this one, sweetie.

Little Boy: But MA, It's about Chris---.

Mother: Another word from you and no cartoons for a week.

Little Boy : But Ma, but ma, but ma---

Mother: ...and no television for a month.

Little Boy: Got it.

[mother leaves the room]

Little Boy :

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[ElCid]

This is new to me, but others may have known about it for quite some time. I went to TCM.com and noted the list on the left of home page showed Noir Alley so I went there. Has some interesting information re: what noir is, what Noir Alley is all about, lists upcoming features and so forth.

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[jamesjazzguitar]

Don't Bother to Knock (1952 - 20th Century Fox) is my favorite Monroe film; her screen persona is put to very good use by director Roy Baker. WIdmark is good, while Bancroft doesn't have much to do but looks great doing it. Also features iconic noir actor Elisha Cook Jr.

[ElCid]

Jan and Feb Schedule:
Jan 7 - Don't Bother to Knock; Jan 14 - Thunder Road; Jan 21 - The Two Mrs. Carrolls; Jan 28 - Highway 301; Feb. 4 - Hangover Square; Feb. 11- Kiss the Blood Off my Hands; Feb. 18 - Lighting Strikes Twice; Feb. 25 - Hunt the Man Down.

[jamesjazzguitar]

Hunt the Man Down (1950 RKO) might be a premier for Eddie\Noir Alley. The film features Cleo Moore in a minor role before she signed with Columbia for many low budget crime\noir films.

[LawrenceA]

I haven't seen Highway 301, Lightning Strikes Twice, or Hunt the Man Down.

[HoldenIsHere]

Don't Bother to Knock (1952 - 20th Century Fox) is my favorite Monroe film; her screen persona is put to very good use by director Roy Baker. WIdmark is good, while Bancroft doesn't have much to do but looks great doing it. Also features iconic noir actor Elisha Cook Jr.

I'm so glad TCM is airing DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK.

Marilyn Monroe's performance in this movie is amazingly subtle. Her acting talent and instincts were not recognized by the movie industry during her lifetime.
According to Anne Bancroft, Marilyn Monroe disagreed with director Roy Baker and her drama coach Natasha Lytess on how to play the final scene in DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK and ignored their advice.

Here's what Anne Bancroft said about Marilyn Monroe's work in that scene:
"The talent inside that girl was unquestionable. She did it her way and this got right inside me, actually floored me emotionally.
It was a remarkable experience! Because it was one of those very rare times in Hollywood when I felt the give and take that can only happen when you are working with good actors . . . There was just this scene of one woman seeing another who was helpless and in pain. It was so real, I responded. I really reacted to her. She moved me so that tears came into my eyes. Believe me, such moments happened rarely, if ever again, in the early things I was doing out there.”

By 1957, Anne Bancroft became dissatisfied with the movie industry and returned to New York to study acting and focus on work in the theater. She didn't return to movies until 1962 when she appeared in THE MIRACLE WORKER, reprising the role she had played on Broadway.

[ElCid]

Don't Bother to Knock (1952 - 20th Century Fox) is my favorite Monroe film; her screen persona is put to very good use by director Roy Baker. WIdmark is good, while Bancroft doesn't have much to do but looks great doing it. Also features iconic noir actor Elisha Cook Jr.

I'm so glad TCM is airing DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK.

Marilyn Monroe's performance in this movie is amazingly subtle. Her acting talent and instincts were not recognized by the movie industry during her lifetime.
According to Anne Bancroft, Marilyn Monroe disagreed with director Roy Baker and her drama coach Natasha Lytess on how to play the final scene in DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK and ignored their advice.

Here's what Anne Bancroft said about Marilyn Monroe's work in that scene:
"The talent inside that girl was unquestionable. She did it her way and this got right inside me, actually floored me emotionally.
It was a remarkable experience! Because it was one of those very rare times in Hollywood when I felt the give and take that can only happen when you are working with good actors . . . There was just this scene of one woman seeing another who was helpless and in pain. It was so real, I responded. I really reacted to her. She moved me so that tears came into my eyes. Believe me, such moments happened rarely, if ever again, in the early things I was doing out there.”

By 1957, Anne Bancroft became dissatisfied with the movie industry and returned to New York to study acting and focus on work in the theater. She didn't return to movies until 1962 when she appeared in THE MIRACLE WORKER, reprising the role she had played on Broadway.

Not sure it was a decision maker for Bancroft, but in 1957 she was in The Girl in Black Stockings. A fairly decent production from Bel Air. She was not the "girl" and in fact the girl was in it as a body for about 30 seconds or so.

[ChiO]

Highway 301 is the special one for me. I wrote about it

here on SSO on May 23, 2014.

Few things are more exhilarating than stumbling upon Noir treasure: HIGHWAY 301 (Andrew Stone 1950). I stumbled upon it about two-and-a-half years ago. It only gets better on the Big Screen.

You know it's going to be good when it opens with a stentorian voice-over narrator introducing the Governor of Virginia, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay. You know it's going to be better when the narrator then introduces the Governor of Maryland, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay. You know it's going to be the best when the narrator then introduces the Governor of North Carolina, who proceeds to endorse the film's message that crime does not pay.

It's the Tri-State gang on a rampage! (Based on a real case, so they say, but who cares.) George Legenza is the brains and the muscle of the gang. He's cold and calculating. His most exercised muscle is in his trigger finger. The body count keeps growing due to his penchant for killing, including women associated with the gang who cross him. The biggest heist in history – $2 million in an armored car – goes awry. Two million, all right...in cut money going to the U.S. Mint to be burned. The botched job leads to a break for the police, and the full force of the law is put into tracking them down. And they are tracked down and fall, one by one.

The Warners backlot has seldom looked so nightmarish. Legenza, portrayed by real-life Bad Boy Steve Cochran with intensity that is a cross between George Raft and Lawrence Tierney at their most malevolent, exudes a pervasive menace. Every encounter he has convinces you that someone – and probably not him – is about to die. Stone's direction is crisp, not flashy, but with a few nice jarring touches (thank you, Carl E. Guthrie) – alternating close-ups of Legenza and one of the women, with the faces filling the screen as he tries to convince her that she has nothing to worry about from him (don't believe it, sweetheart!), and filming Legenza through the cracked windshield of an overturned car as he tries to evade the police. Again, thank you, Carl E. Guthrie, for the menace of the night.

Stone also wrote the screenplay, which is very nicely hardboiled. What a directing career trajectory he had…fluff to STORMY WEATHER (1943) with the incomparable Lena Horne…to more fluff…to the ‘50s whereupon he discovered the dark underbelly we now lovingly call film noir. HIGHWAY 301, with the incomparable Steve Cochran, was the first of his ‘50s tough movies. Then to…well, I haven’t seen them, and I don’t think I want to.

This would make a swell double feature with GUN CRAZY, which was released shortly before, and is its inversion. But the intermission might be a problem. Annie Laurie Starr would sneer at the gals hanging with this gang, and Legenza would probably plug Bart Tare in the back (after reassuring him that they're in it together for keeps).

For those who really like their boys bad, this one would either cure you from the affliction or truly tickle your fancy (just before the slug hits you in the back or the back of the hand hits you in the jaw).

You cannot be kind to congenital criminals like these. They would show you no mercy. Let them feel the full impact of the law. The End.

I've watched it a few times since, and included it in a class on under-appreciated film noir of the '50s. It only gets better.

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[ElCid]

US Highway 301 runs from Delaware to Sarasota FL. I can remember travelling over parts of it in S.C. and GA when I was a kid. And later when I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC (Fayetteville).
Of course, the movie takes place in VA area.