Noir Films

[JackFavell]

Gary Cooper noir? I gotta see that. How come I've never heard of this movie?

[JackFavell]

I'm glad you liked The Big Combo, kingrat, I thought it was sensational. It made me like Cornel Wilde!

Conte scared the bejesus out of me when he was with Wallace, there was a subtle menace and a suggestion of sadism in the way he came up behind her in one scene. It's noir as it's supposed to be, strong, shocking, brutal and sexy. Love the music! I especially liked Donlevy. Noir should make your stomach sink, and Donlevy's character's plotline did that for me.

[ChiO]

Alton will be forever linked with Mann, and justifiably so, but THE BIG COMBO ranks with RAW DEAL and HE WALKED BY NIGHT.

The script is credited to Philip Yordan, sometimes a front for blacklisted writers, so who knows who actually wrote the script.

Philip Yordan: Thief, liar, scoundrel and talent. The poster child for our City on the Lake.

Best summary of his life that I've found is here. From that, the references to THE BIG COMBO are:

It is impossible to quantify Philip Yordan’s authentic screenwriting contributions. Without access to production files or living colleagues, determining the ori- gins of a script like The Big Combo is problematic. Yordan remarked to McGilligan that he’d hired a bookstore clerk named Dennis Cooper to write the first draft of When Strangers Marry (1944). Yordan further muddied the waters by lying about his work during the few interviews he gave, most notably to French director and film historian Bertrand Tavernier, who in 1962 published an extensive interview with Yordan in Amis Americains. It was only after the interview that Tavernier discovered the truth about Yordan’s “surrogates,” and that he’d been naïve to accept Yordan’s tales at face value.

“Filmmakers try to make good films, that’s their big mistake,” Yordan once remarked. He believed that anyone could make a superior film if they pushed ahead and got it done. Finishing the work and getting paid were the principle tenets of his filmmaking philosophy. His professional legacy should perhaps not be that of an accomplished screenwriter, but rather of a skillful producer. For Philip Yordan, moviemaking was always about the art of the deal.

His personality did, however, find its way into those films that reflected both his street smarts and his all-consuming ambition. Perhaps the signature Yordan line was clipped off by Richard Conte’s mob boss in The Big Combo (1955): “First is first and second is nobody.” Yordan must have savored that one; Conte repeats it several times.

[ChiO]

HELL'S ISLAND (Phil Karlson 1955) gets off to a great start as the credits are rolling. A rotund man in a wheelchair pointing a gun at some folks, one of whom is clutching something. The clutcher starts toward him, the gun is fired, the clutcher falls, we look into the barrel of the gun - CUT - the overhead light of an operating room, a doctor, two nurses and a law enforcement official are standing over the clutcher, and he tells the story of how he ended up having to have a bullet removed from his shoulder.

Cormack (John Payne) was a D.A. who turned alcoholic when dumped by his gal. Now he works security at a casino. A rotund man in a wheelchair (Francis L. Sullivan) is impressed by his resume and asks if he'd fly to a Caribbean island to find a rare carved ruby that is owed to him. Sure. And who does he find there? His ex-gal, Janet (Mary Murphy). They're immediately re-smitten with each other. But...she's married...to the guy she dumped him for...because he's rich...but he's in prison...for a crime he didn't commit! He was convicted of blowing up a plane that had a rare carved ruby on it.

After much intrigue, and to please Janet, Cormack breaks into the prison to help the husband escape. But he won't leave. Why? Prison is the only place he's safe. It's Janet who blew up the plane...in an attempt to kill him for his insurance money! And it's Janet that has the rare carved ruby! Cormack returns to her place to confront her. A native trinket accidentally breaks and something falls out. It's the rare carved ruby! And the rotund man in a wheelchair appears, pointing a gun, to take it. But after being shot in the shoulder, Cormack is able to headbutt the rotund man in a wheelchair and send him careening down a cliff into the sea. And turn Janet over to the authorities.

Although not up to the level of Payne's other Karlson movies, KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL and 99 RIVER STREET, it is a fun one. Payne is ever so world-weary, kind of like Bogart in THE MALTESE FALCON. The rotund man in a wheelchair immediately reminded me of Sydney Greenstreet, kind of like in THE MALTESE FALCON. The jewel in a trinket reminded me of a jewel encrusted bird, kind of like in THE MALTESE FALCON. And Mary Murphy (THE WILD ONE), believe it or not, was more beautiful, much sexier, and far more treacherous than Mary Astor. Very nicely played.

Written by Maxwell Shane, who wrote many a screenplay, including those for FEAR IN THE NIGHT and NIGHTMARE, both of which he also directed.

[RedRiver]

HELL'S ISLAND (Phil Karlson 1955) gets off to a great start as the credits are rolling

Again I'm reminded of our discussion of "getting to the point". Dosen't sound like any time is wasted here!

[JackFavell]

Oh my gosh, I have to see this one...but sadly it's another that isn't available on youtube.

[ChiO]

Two and a half years ago I saw LOOPHOLE (Harold Schuster 1954) when Noir City was sneaking through town. Saw it at home this weekend.

My impression in 2011: "Barry Sullivan is a bank teller who comes up $49,900 short at the close of business on Friday. Bewildered, he goes home to his wife, Dorothy Malone (that's noirish?). They go to the bank on Monday to report the shortage...but now he looks guilty. Erstwhile bonding company investigator Charles McGraw (ahh, now it's noirish) hounds him mercilessly. But we all know who took the money...that renown nefarious evil-doer and madman, Don Beddoe!...who has done the deed to keep his wife (now this goes beyond suspension of disbelief) Mary Beth Hughes happy. Enjoyable performances all around (especially Hughes), but unfortunately saddled by pedestrian directing and screenwriting."

About the same. Barry Sullivan does do angry-bewildered quite well. Dorothy Malone seems to transform herself gradually through the movie from dowdy mousewife to lovely housewife. Charles McGraw is Charles McGraw. But the Beddoe-Hughes combo is the strangest (and giving Hope to Vanilla Guys everywhere) since Helton-Michaels in WICKED WOMAN (Russell Rouse 1953). Also with Don Haggerty and Richard Reeve, both of whom seem to have been in every TV show ever made in the '50-'60s. And the introductory stentorian sermon that "This could happen to you" and that seems to go on forever becomes laughable. Until the reprise at the end...when suddenly the "anyone can be persecuted at anytime by a single twist of Fate" becomes very real. I hate it when that happens.

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[CineMaven]

Two and a half years ago I saw LOOPHOLE (Harold Schuster 1954) when Noir City was sneaking through town. Saw it at home this weekend....But the Beddoe-Hughes combo is the strangest (and giving Hope to Vanilla Guys everywhere) since Helton-Michaels in WICKED WOMAN (Russell Rouse 1953)...

HA!!! THAT got a big laugh out of me!!!



Sorry about the laughing. I cannot imagine a more intense pressure on Don Beddoe than keeping Mary Beth Hughes happy. Gosh, I wish I could see these films.

[ChiO]

Sometimes, even when the story is familiar (albeit with a twist), the dialogue is so-so, most of the acting is stiff, and the resolution is way too Hollywood Happy, the very idea of the movie - which doesn't hit you until near the end - is so frightening and traumatizing that it works, and works really well, in spite of the myriad flaws.

TALK ABOUT A STRANGER (David Bradley 1952) is one of those. It is a play on THE WINDOW (Ted Tetzlaff 1949). But what if the kid didn't see it? And what if most of the adults did give credence to the kid's story. And what if the villain is the kid? And every other kid in the movie is even crueler? And you're watching it all from the kid's point-of-view?

The stiff actors: George Murphy and Nancy Davis (not exactly one's Noir Dream Team).
Less stiff: Lewis Stone and Kurt Kasznar.
Great: Billy Gray (and, yes, his father - George Murphy - calls him "Bud").

What really gives it a sense of dread are some of the darkened interiors with high contrast lighting and shadows appearing from nowhere, and the night exteriors, some of which are the most beautiful night shots I've ever seen. Absolutely incredible. Cinematographer: JOHN ALTON. Between AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) and THE BIG COMBO (1955), he was the cinematographer for sixteen movies. Of the ten I've seen, this by far provides the best examples of his late-'40s style. As backstory, Alton was assigned to the movie as punishment by MGM for having, in the view of Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen and Arthur Freed, really messed up early in the shooting of SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (most of his scenes were re-shot). Luckily, David Bradley was a protege of Dore Schary and, instead of being humiliated, he turned a modest thriller into an ofttimes gorgeous work.

[JackFavell]

Not to doubt the classic movie law of averages, but having been a bank teller for thirteen years, I can tell you that there is no way a shortage like that could happen. If a shortage came up of $49,900 on a Friday, SOMEONE would have known about it besides the teller. Every person in the bank would have been kept there till all hours of the night. Talk about a slice of life, this can happen to YOU story... on my first day at the bank (which happened to be a Friday), a girl came up $1000 short, and the two of us who had started that day were shaking in our shoes. We stayed till ten PM when it was discovered that the teller had 'accidentally' dropped the bundle in her purse. She wasn't back on Monday.

Funny how 49, 900 dollars doesn't sound like that much anymore.

[ChiO]

Hey! Then ya got no story! But it was a pretty loosey-goosey bank operation.

Was it my imagination, or were there more bank examiners than bank employees?

[JackFavell]

I know that there are so many checks and balances that you couldn't even think about stealing without going to prison. But only if you are an underling.