Noir Films

[Western Guy]

Yes, Wendy, that's probably a more accurate description. He was certainly psychopathic in the two films I mentioned, along with "The Devil Thumbs a Ride", plus he's quite the psychotic John Dillinger. Not at all like the real Public Enemy #1 was reported to be.

[RedRiver]

Yes, I remember a hotel scene. Creepy, isolated. Is there a bug?

[CineMaven]

Hat...no hat; badass...psychopath. What has this got to do with Steve Cochran and his thumb?

And there are four "MADs" in "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."

( P.S. ) Still lovin' that Thelma Ritter avatar.

[ChiO]

The first third or so of William Castle's career as a director involved film noir, including three movies in THE WHISTLER series, three in the CRIME DOCTOR series, and the wonderful WHEN STRANGERS MARRY (high on my list of noir favorites). HOLLYWOOD STORY (1951) was his last noir and it barely falls into the category, being more of a procedural and mystery, and lacking the tone and theme of the typical noir. Nonetheless, it provides an enjoyable 76 minutes.

A producer (Richard Conte -- there's a noir element) arrives in Hollywood wanting to make a picture about the 20+ year old unsolved murder of a silent director. He buys the abandoned studio where that director had worked, which includes the office where he was shot. Most of the town, including Conte's agent (Jim Backus) and co-producer (Fred Clark), are opposed to the project -- today's audience isn't interested in an unremembered silent director, it's old news, and why dredge up dirt that is better left forgotten. Conte presses on, hiring the dead director's former story man (Henry Hull). Conte, of course, starts his own investigation of the murder, getting crosswise with a police lieutenant (Richard Egan). Everyone still alive and associated with the dead director is, of course again, a suspect. And Conte has to kill the murderer in self-defense -- right on the set replicating the office where the director was murdered.

Much of the detail is provided by voice-over narration (there's the other noir element) courtesy of Backus. And to lend authenticity to the re-creation of Old and current Hollywood, making uncredited appearances as themselves are: Francis X. Bushman, Betty Blythe, William Farnum, Helen Gibson, Elmo Lincoln and... Joel McCrea.

[JackFavell]

My gosh! I MUST see it! All those silent stars, and Jim Backus, Henry Hull AND Fred Clark in the same movie? heaven.

I love the Whistlers.

[ChiO]

Be forewarned: The Silent stars' appearances are walk-ons. It is fun, however, to hear them. Especially Bushman, ever so elegant, but jovial..

[JackFavell]

I understand...it still sounds great!

[CineMaven]

“Don’t ask a dying man to lie his soul into hell.”
_____________________________

“Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.”


What is hell compared to loving Ava.

If Dekker had two last dying breaths, he’d have given them both to Ava Gardner.

Film noir: daylight or night. Crime...trust. Manipulation...lust. Fate...death. Last Thursday afternoon, I had a double dose of all things noir, Siodmak AND Universal Studios with the screenings of “CRISS CROSS” and “THE KILLERS” at the Film Forum. Imagine, an entire movie screen filled with Burt. Early Burt. Early young Burt Lancaster. Lovesick...t-shirt... tortured. Fate’s got him by the...heart. There’s no escape. He needs one heist to be okay. One big score he’s got all figured out, to be set for life. He’ll be rich. And he’ll get the girl of his dreams.

Ava. Yvonne. Aye yi yi.

Really, can you blame him? I know. Jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge would probably be easier...cleaner...quicker. But maybe it’ll work out...this time. Maybe Ava and Yvonne will love him for him...and not the money.

Fat chance, honey. This is film noir.

I was totally enveloped by the whole experience sitting there in the second row of a darkened movie theatre; everyone there wanting the same thing: to enjoy a movie. ( ) You'll see the big galoot who is foolishly clueless but stoically and, kind of, heroically, meets his fate because he knows he "did something wrong once." He chases after fire with sticks of dynamite in both hands. The femmes fatale share a similar dark beauty, but one slightly whines while the other is...in...your face: ( "Touch me and you won't live 'till morning." ) No matter...we watch. We see what Burt sees. We see what Siodmak wants us to see Burt see: a good five minutes of Yvonne DeCarlo doing the rumba. ( Yes, with that Tony Curtis. ) Yvonne and Ava are Venus Flytraps, duplicitously and stunningly seductive especially seeing them loom before you on the screen. And you can’t get any worse than Duryea and Dekker unless you shake hands with the Devil himself. The beauty of noir is nobody wins.

“But if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”

I filmed Eddie Muller introducing “Criss Cross” at this year’s “TCM Film Festival.” He sets it up nicely to an appreciative audience. Click the “Criss Cross” photo below to check out Muller’s introduction.



It's not brussell sprouts, but it should whet your appetite to revisit both of these films. I wonder what Robert Frost would say...

“FIRE AND ICE” by Robert Frost.

[ChiO]

a good five minutes of Yvonne DeCarlo doing the rumba. ( Yes, with that Tony Curtis. )

There's a narcotics ring coming and it must be stopped! And it will be stopped in JOHNNY STOOL PIGEON (William Castle 1949).

Narcotics agent George Morton (Howard Duff) and his partner are in a shootout at the San Francisco docks. They track down the surviving bad guy''s apartment just moments after he's murdered by a young killer with a spit curl (Anthony Curtis). The dead man has a paper that provides a lead to a Vancouver, BC importer. Morton sells his boss on infiltrating the ring (need to get the kingpins, not the street folk) and he has just the guy to help him -- a crook he'd grown up with and put into The Rock, Johnny Evans (Dan Duryea). Johnny hates Morton, but Morton takes him on leave (The city's changed.) to the city morgue and shows Johnny his dead wife and the listed cause of death...narcotics addiction. Johnny relents and says he'll help, but Someday I'll get you, copper.

Off to Vancouver as a couple of guys wanting to get into the narcotics biz. They meet the importer and his former moll, Terry Stewart (Shelly Winters), who immediately has goo-goo eyes for Morton. Morton, Johnny and Terry are sent to a business meeting at a ritzy dude resort in Arizona. They're greeted by the drawlin' backslapper owner, Nick Avery (John McIntire) who, when he takes them to the back room, loses his drawl and is accompanied by a young killer with a spit curl. Eeeyup, Avery is Mr. Big. They all (except Terry) head to the border to get the pickup from Mexico, but suddenly all guns are pointed at Morton. The young killer with a spit curl had recognized him from San Francisco and Johnny, after many blows to the head, had ratted him out, Stool Pigeon that he is. The spit curl and Johnny take Morton to Mexico to finish him off. But due to the double-dealing rat Johnny, arrests are made in Vancouver, Arizona and Mexico to put an end to the narcotics ring before it's entrenched.

As an undercover operation, It's no T-MEN, made the previous year. As fine as Castle is, Mann and Alton are tops. Although one can't complain about the performances of Duff, Winters and Duryea (never can complain about Duryea), there are too many scenes for my taste of them talking (often with a brooding Curtis in the background), which slows down the action. On the plus side, it has one of noirest final scenes ever: arm-in-arm, smiling Duryea and Winters walk out to have a happy life together. Yikes!

[JackFavell]

I am soooo incredibly jealous of you, Maven, getting to spend an evening with Burt on the big screen.

[CineMaven]

Awwww man. Don't be. Gee, I'm hoping that you'll find some time to make a brief afternoon trip down to NYC before the summer's over. I think we've got a break in the weather. ( Our dog days are July. ) Come see a show at the Film Forum. On 7/29 & 30 there is a monster mash. You'd get the triple feature of Universal Studios' "The Wolf Man" "The Invisible Man" and "The Mummy." ( "Isis, save me from this mummy!!! ) Or if you prefer the wonderful world of color, there's a double feature of Sirkian guilty pleasures: we could check out "Magnificent Obssesion" and "Written on the Wind" on August 4th. One admission...a double feature.

I know...I know. Not tempted; Rock Hudson is no Burt Lancaster. And the fare is not high-brow enuf. But you would get New York, Douglas Sirk, a big screen and be on an eight o'clock train back to real life. ( Pssst! I can even promise and guarantee you that you won't see hide nor hair of...of...you know: Robert Cummings. )

[charliechaplinfan]

I just saw The Scar, aka Hollow Triumph, aka The Man Who Murdered Himself.

All I can say, is, I loved this movie!

Paul Henreid is always more interesting as a villain. His villains are usually men suffering from delusions of grandeur, attacks of overweening pride and also of sudden doubt. I kind of like him better this way... he's somehow more human and likable when he expresses that paranoia.



Henreid must have had a thing about twins or doppelgangers... first he made this movie, in which he plays a con man/robber who finds his lookalike, and then later he directed Dead Ringer with Bette Davis.



The movie really picks up when Joanie Bennett shows up. She's just flat out entertaining, gorgeous, with her standard wry line readings that mask a more fragile personality than we suspected. We don't want her to give up hope. She proves to be the underpinning of the film.



The Scar has a very good storyline, and the way it's directed is quietly absorbing....the same way that Day of the Jackal is absorbing. I found myself rooting for Henreid as I watched him pour himself into another man's persona - to escape a death sentence for foolishly stealing a mobster's money.



I very much liked the sense of humor in the writing.




The movie becomes better and better, the longer we follow Henreid, holding back the fancier camera angles (like the one seen above)for later in the movie. I really liked this subtler approach to what looks like a low budget film at the beginning. Best of all is the scene where Henreid, hiding out as a gas station attendant, suddenly realizes that the men he's been waiting on are the thugs sent to kill him. Sweating bullets, he uses the car itself to hide from them, as we see them through the rear view mirror, through the small gap between the open hood and the windshield, all the time talking about how they would recognize him anywhere! I wish I had a photo to show you how exciting the scene is, how the camera sees everything. You can't hide, you can only peek out from under. Luckily, people aren't very observant of those who serve them.

Gosh, there are so many good things about this film, it's hard to single out a few to praise here.


I loved this shot of the cigarette burning a hole in the countertop as Henreid scars his own face with acid injected into the skin.

The casting is great. Joan Bennett is really superb here and I can't tell you more about her, except she is very affecting. Veteran favorite John Qualen has a lovely cameo role as a dentist. The scenes with Qualen are funny scary, and another darkly humorous scene with a photographic negative makes your stomach sink while you smile, since a good deal of the plot's suspense turns on that scene.

John Alton's lighting is a standout of course, but I liked the way it built up, thanks to the subtle way that Steven Szekely directed the film.



Lots of mirror shots, lots of interesting lighting choices and placement, but the most interesting shots and lighting are further into the film. Ditto for the camera angles, where deep focus skews things more and more. This is not to say that we are in for a crazy world of distortion, Sekely is more subtle than that. We start out pretty normal, even plain. Then as we move into Henreid's world, the camera becomes more subjective, we are at Henreid's view, he's always looming big in the shot, close to us. We feel what he feels and see what he sees. He is big and the people around him are small, which is his character's world view.



What I most liked was the buildup of suspense. Certain scenes were extremely suspenseful, but the movie was one long taut line from beginning to end. It was all of a piece, which means basically that I liked the film overall better than I can piece it together for you here. Really, really good.

I just want to say I loved this movie too but you'd put it so well Wendy that I just had to borrow it all. My only qualm about it would be the quality of the print but Henreid is an actor who never dissappoints, it's great to see him playing a baddie.

[RedRiver]

I told my friend CRISS-CROSS is almost everything film noir should be. Dark, deceptive, desperate. I wish he'd seen it. Fat chance, honey. This is film noir Real life is not so very different. We might make healthier choices. If we don't, we get the same self destructive results!

Chio, I don't know the William Castle films you've described. My experience with Mr. Schlock is limited to aging stars running around with axes, and teenagers who "saw what you did, and know who you are"!

[CineMaven]

I told my friend CRISS-CROSS is almost everything film noir should be. Dark, deceptive, desperate. I wish he'd seen it.

Fat chance, honey. This is film noir

Real life is not so very different. We might make healthier choices. If we don't, we get the same self destructive results!

You have a NYC friend?

Real life...you're right Shane, not so different. If you had a chance to be with Ava or Yvonne, would you take it and go down in flames, or would you pass them up?

[JackFavell]

T - I don't know if I can make it for either of those showings, though I'd love to get a triple feature for my money and get to see you at the same time! I think the horror films are more my cup of tea - I'm afraid if I saw two Sirk films in a row on the big screen I'd run out of the theatre, steal a sports car and a bottle of bourbon and speed off into the night way too fast... or maybe I'd just come home and mambo to my little record player... real LOUD.

Thanks for re-posting my review Alison! I really enjoyed the movie a lot, I'm glad you did too. Henreid is most fun when he's disintegrating mentally. Now I have to watch it over again!