Noir Films

[charliechaplinfan]

None of his movies available for rental and one of his books are available for kindle A Young Man's Heart. It's a start

[moira finnie]

I know it is only mere paper and print, lacking in that portable electronic glow, but there are many of Cornell Woolrich's books available inexpensively on Ebay in the UK, which you can see here.
You also might want to look under the names William Irish and George Hopley too, since those were two of his many pseudonyms.

I have purchased many books from Ebay in the UK without one problem getting decent used copies of rare books across the Atlantic to me, so I am hoping this will also be your experience too. I think you'll find that Woolrich can be a lyrical as well as a gritty writer--though be careful--his brand of romantic doom is highly addictive.

Once you get going on these books, there is also Francis Nevins huge bio of the author to dive into if you are interested. Please see your private messages for more info, Alison.

[ChiO]

Haven't read that one, CCF. It is his fourth novel, coming shortly before hitting his stride in noir literature. His biographer (Francis Nevins) calls it autobiographical. And a month after it was published, he asked a woman to marry him. Talk about Doom.

Looking forward to your review.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thanks guys. Ebay UK is a good place for used books. I'll check out my library too, this holiday reading will be far more up my street than other suggested titles (see advice column for more details)

[ChiO]

Given my cult-like obsession with Director-Writer-Producer-Actor Bruno VeSota over the past few years, and a recently acquired cult-like obsession with Director-Writer-Producer-Actor Hugo Haas, the air was thick with anticipation as I popped BAIT (1954) in the DVD player. Directed, produced and starring (with additional dialogue by) Hugo Haas, it also has an appearance by Bruno VeSota. It could never live up to expectations, or....

A door opens and a man enters the darkness. Suddenly there is a spotlight and it follows him as he ascends a stair. As he disappears into upper right corner of the screen, he appears through another door and is greeted by disembodied hands holding autograph books and voices asking for his autograph ("This is for my wife. She loves you." "You're my favorite." "I dream about you."). He cheerfully signs each one. Then he looks at the camera and introduces himself: I am the Devil (Cedric Hardwicke). After some exposition on how he does exist, mostly in dreams, and has just borrowed for the occasion the body of an actor (A pretty good one, I might add.), he leads us to a screening room to show us some of his work...roll opening credits!

Where do you go from there?

Ray Brighton (John Agar) rolls into a small wilderness town and go into the diner. After the requisite introductions, he tells the proprietor (Bruno VeSota) that he's here to meet Marko (Hugo Haas) and help him rediscover a goldmine that Marko claims to have discovered two years ago, but hasn't been able to find again. The proprietor tells him that Marko is not merely strange (nobody believes the goldmine tale), but evil and the killer of his previous partner. Marko enters, assumes that nasty things have been said about him, and assures Ray that there is a mine and that he didn't murder this partner (they'd been trapped in a snow storm in which the partner died, Marko had been frightened by that and a possible curse, and over the intervening two years he had forgotten the mine's precise location).

Before heading out, they get provisions at the general store where Ray meets and is immediately smitten with Peggy (Cleo Moore), allegedly the town's fast and loose woman (though she repeatedly denies it to everyone, but to no avail -- probably because she has a son, now in a Roman Catholic charity home, without benefit of nuptials), is characterized by Marko as evil. Marko and Ray, equal partners, head to the mountains. After weeks of searching, Ray is ready to quit, but Marko's continuous prayers and Bible reading suddenly pay off and Ray finds the mine. Now Marko wants to renege on the 50-50 deal, but Ray will not agree. Marko concocts a plan....

They keep mining, telling nobody about the find for fear of theft. Ray becomes more and more obsessed with the gold ("Gold fever," says Marko), nearly descending into madness. Marko, on occasion, go into town for more provisions and each time is nicer to Peggy. He proposes and she accepts. Ray has difficulty accepting that she would marry Marko. She is also puzzled because Marko never embraces her, kisses her or sleeps with her. She addresses him as "Mr. Marko." On one of Marko's excursions to town, during a snow storm, Ray and Peggy come to the realization of their affection for each other, but, before consummation, Ray realizes they are being spied upon. Ray directs Peggy to lie on the bed and look seductive. He turns out the light. Someone bursts through the door. Ray jumps him. It's Marko with a pistol, ready to shoot the adulterers...adultery that he has contrived...so that no jury would convict him and he could then have 100% of the gold!

A fight ensues. Marko is knocked to the floor, breaking his leg. Ray and Peggy grab their share of the gold and go out into the snow storm. Marko, clutching his bucket of gold, drags himself to the open front door, pleading for Peggy to come back. Ray and Peggy find their way to the highway and, presumably, a good life. Marko is at the door, lying in the snow, clutching his bucket of gold, frozen to death. There is the Devil's voiceover laughter. THE END.

What a bizarre and twisted tale Haas presents. The use of himself as the homme fatale, rather than Moore who would be the expected femme fatale, is a nice curve. The ascents and descents, in emotions and on ladders; references by each character to the others of the Devil, evil and dreams; Marko's prayers and Bible reading -- all echoes of the prologue (I'm assuming that Haas' "Additional Dialogue" is a reference to Hardwicke's prologue). And, of course, the snow -- white and pure, the cover for a murder plot, the killer of Marko and his first partner, and the savior of Ray and Peggy. Haas' goal may exceed his grasp, but he certainly provides enough on the screen to warrant multiple viewings.

[charliechaplinfan]

I just watched a Bruno DeSota film, Female Jungle produced by Burt Kaiser who plays the villan and wrote the screenplay. Lawrence Tierney stars as the cop, John Carradine as a columnist and Jayne Mansfield in an early role. It involves the murder of a movie star, strangled outside a nightclub, the coip was off duty and so drunk he remembers nothing, Jayne is a good time girl and Kaiser plays a charicaturist. It kept me guessing.

[ChiO]

On my current Noir Top 5 list, FEMALE JUNGLE comes in at #5 (just ahead of COP HATER and just after GUN CRAZY, TOUCH OF EVIL, DETOUR, and BLAST OF SILENCE).

Come join me in the Bruno VeSota cult.

[charliechaplinfan]

I've seen all those movies apart from Cop Hater. I think my favourite from that bunch is Blast of Silence, I was very impressed with that movie.

[Western Guy]

Lawrence Tierney was the quintessential noir character - onscreen and off. If I'm not mistaken "Female Jungle" was his last major screen role until he starred in the John Russo horror film "Midnight" many years later. In-between he picked up some bit parts ("A Child is Waiting", "Custer of the West"), but primarily supported himself doing odd jobs in New York, such as construction work and driving a hansom cab, and to keep things interesting, occasionally creating more controversy for himself.

Definitely a character.

[charliechaplinfan]

I haven't really come across him very much, he didn't jump out at me but he did remind me of William Holden, Lawrence Tierney was good but John Carradine was even more memorable although I'm not sure I've seen him in anything else either.

I watched The Steel Trap today, is this a noir film? I hope I'm not cluttering the thread with anything. I do recognise that films like Female Jungle, Detour, Blast of Silence have a distinct feel to them wereas The Steel Trap is a good crime movie but perhaps it's not noir, if it isn't I'll move it. I was hooked to The Steel Trap perhaps it's my banking background, perhaps because I realise it is that easy to memorise the other half of the code but there's not enough cash carried these days for any sensible person to ever take the risk. Joseph Cotten was playing a sensible person though, who got the thought into his head and decided to investigate the possibility of being able to carry it out, once he found there was no extradition treaty with Brazil it set the chain in motion. I spent 90 minutes on the edge of my seat whilst every obstacle was thrown against him, he couldn't get his passport from the consulate, he missed his booked flight at New Orleans, he couldn't get bumped onto the flight to Caracas, his $1 million booty was discovered, the story takes a suprising twist and kept me guessing to the end. Although a criminal I was rooting for him all the way through. His co star was Teresa Wright, another grand teaming of the two of them.

[ChiO]

If multiple blackmails, frame-ups and double-crosses are your thing, all in the name of critiquing win-at-any-cost ambition, then SHAKEDOWN (Joseph Pevney 1950) is right up your nightmare alley.

Jack Early (Howard Duff) is trying to break into photojournalism. He insinuates his way into a newspaper and works his way up by sweet-talking an assistant editor (Peggy Dow), hounding the editor (Bruce Bennett) and stealing a tip from another photographer at the paper. He worms his way into the confidence of the city's top businessman-mobster, Nick Palmer (Brian Donleavy), who uses Early to put the bite on a former cohort who is now Palmer's crime rival and menace, Coulton (Lawrence Tierney). Early double-crosses Palmer with Coulton and works all three sides of the fence -- both sides of the crime game and the legit journalism side. Early's star continues to rise because of the exclusive photos he gets regarding crimes-before-they-happen. Having stepped on and over everyone he comes into contact with, there is a price to pay -- and dead bodies are everywhere by the end.

Pevney cleverly uses Duff to show the dark side of blind ambition, yet still allows the audience to maintain enough empathy to think he may be redeemable. Donleavy and Tierney meet all expectations of their usual characters. A favorite (two) moment(s): When Duff meets Tierney and blackmails him for 25 grand, just as he's about to leave, Tierney gives him an excruciating backhand to the face. Later on, again in Tierney's office, Duff gives him some photos. Tierney asks how much Duff wants. Duff ponders the question and then gives Tierney an excruciating backhand to the face. That makes it even, Duff says as he leaves. I'm betting Duff didn't allow himself to be alone anywhere around Tierney for the rest of the production, or maybe ever again.

Rock Hudson and Peggy Castle have uncredited bit parts.

CCF: As Western Guy alluded to, Tierney was arguably more Noir off-screen than on, and he's about as Noir on-screen as it gets. Other performances well worth viewing (or, at least, they're favorites of mine) are: DILLINGER (Max Nosseck 1945 - Tierney's breakout role, and -- amazingly -- a King Brothers production and Monogram release that got an Oscar nomination for screenplay); DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (Felix Feist 1947 - oh, he's scary evil here); BORN TO KILL (Robert Wise 1947 - the title says it); THE HOODLUM (Max Nosseck 1951 - there are sociopaths and, then, there's Vincent Lubeck and my favorite Tierney performance); TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE (Norman Mailer 1987 - Tierney as Ryan O'Neal's daddy?); "The Jacket" episode of Seinfeld (1991 - who knew Elaine's daddy was so scary?); and RESERVOIR DOGS (Quentin Tarantino 1992 - QT wanted Timothy Carey for the role of Joe Cabot, but I forgive him).

[Western Guy]

Hey ChiO, LOVE Tim Carey and he would have been interesting in the role of Joe Cabot, though he would have been "creepy". Tierney was just plain "scary" and intimidating. Besides it's doubtful anyone would have believed beefy Chris Penn was Carey's son.

Speaking of Carey, he would have been perfect as real-life gangster Homer Van Meter in a proper "Dillinger" biography.

[RedRiver]

I didn't even recognize Tierney in SEINFELD and RESERVOIR DOGS. He looks a lot different from the old days! For all its cheapness, DILLINGER is not a bad gangster film. It's cold and brutal. The lack of frills simply adds to the effect. Tierney is fine in it.

[movieman1957]

Just at a glance it's fun seeing Duff all over the post.

[ChiO]

The stories vary as to why Tarentino decided not to cast Carey, but my favorite version: Most of the cast was set except for the Joe Cabot role. Tarentino called in Carey to discuss the role with the others in that scene. After Carey left, Harvey Keitel turned to Tarentino and said, "If he's in, I'm out. He's just too scary."

So Timothy Carey just got a dedication in the credits.

Another story is that Tierney saw Carey (how'd you like to be a fly on the wall for that meeting?!?!?!) after he'd been cast and told Carey, in effect, "You are that part."