Noir Films

[CineMaven]

JABBA, THE HUTT / HANK QUINLAN

SEPARATED AT BIRTH???

My “evil” observations and how the movie made me feel:

* Yeah yeah, that glorious opening tracking shot. Welles tips his hat to Hitchcock when he lets the audience know something the characters do not know. Then he stretches out the tension in our nerves as taut as a drum as we watch the Caddy roll down the street, constantly in the shot with people weaving themselves in and out of its path. I know this shot has been dissected ad infinitum in cinema journals, but I had to mention it. It’s so exquisite. What's the passenger's throwaway line. "...I hear a ticking in my head."

* Planting evidence, over-lapping dialogue, half spoken sentences, slurring words -- I thought I was watching Chris Matthews’ “HARD BALL.” Good stuff.

Justice is blind. Hank put her eyes out and rapped her on the noggin' with his cane:

The actor that’s getting set up here, was excellent in this small role.

* The racism from Hank Quinlan, the other police officials. Good ol boys club. Ugh, galling!! One progressive guy who is for Vargas finding out the truth. I liked him.

* Vargas, played in dark greasepaint and Gilbert Roland-mustache by Charlton Heston. Oh brother, why didn’t they get a Latino actor? Or someone with a tan? (Montalban, Gilbertito, Anthony Franciosa, Lamas: gorgeous though he can’t really act; John Boehner, who's not gorgeous, but can act). And Vargas pulls the most bone-headed move in The History of Marriage. Leaving his wife out there to fend for herself instead of strapping her into a plane going ANYWHERE out of Mexico. Dope!!

The girl he left behind...

Oh there’ll be room service allright. And Janet Leigh's next Motel stay won't be that much better for her either...

* The insidious torturous treatment of Mrs. Vargas played by Janet Leigh. Very unsettling and she seemed kind of clueless, until it all became too crystal clear. She was going to pay for being Vargas’ wife...and for being a blonde, south of the border. Uhhhh, by that I mean Mexico.

* The Grandi Gang, man what a motley bunch of enchiladas they were; as bad as any student Mr. ‘Daddy-0’ faced. All wearing the de rigueur black leather jackets of the species: Juvenilus Delinquentus. We have the hopped up delinquent - a junkie with ants in his pants; the Rico Suave ring leader whose face I wanted to smash in. And, what the-- is that Mercedes McCambridge? “I want to watch.” HUH? Marvelously diesel and almost unrecognizable I fell off my chair when she entered the room with the fellas. Senora Vargas, you’re definitely a goner now! McCambridge looks tougher than the guys... and there's no fighting off those eyebrows!

* Joseph Calleia. Your dear dear Calleia, Wendy. When the scales were ripped from Pete’s eyes, it broke my heart. He was determined to redeem himself. Poor guy! I liked this little puppy dog.

* Heston as Vargas. When he roared like King Kong “WHERE’S MY WIFE!!!” and started to kick butt and ask questions later...aaah!!! I loved it. I hated his little mustache, but I liked his dogged investigation to prove Quinlan a dirty cop.

* Creepy hotel guy. Oooh, Dennis Weaver. Jittery jumpy creepy little ways. What a coward, what a loser, like some guy on “To Catch A Predator.”

Girls don’t make passes, at boys who...

...act like CREEPS!!!! Eeeewwwww!

I hated him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had holes bored into the bungalow bathrooms. What a k-k-k-kreep! And a good job Weaver did in totally creeping me out. I wanted Vargas to take off his glasses and grind them into dust. Was that really 'McCloud'?

* Grandi. WoW. What’d he think he was going to do, topple the power structure? No way Jose. Yeah, you can be a big man on a Mexican campus, but hombre.... Akim Tamiroff did a grand job. He made a deal with the Devil (uhmmm, that’d be Quinlan) and wants to seal it with a drink.

Quinlan doesn’t even have to finish his sentence. We know what he means when he says...

“I don’t---”

But as Tony Bennett said in “The Oscars”: “When you lay down with dogs...” In that hotel room alone with Quinlan, and a semi-conscious Mrs. Vargas, things don’t bode well for Senor Grandi.


The storm before the real bad storm

Quinlan sets him up, then savagely and brutally b****-slaps Grandi. Clawing and pulling and caning and tearing like some rough sexplay gone horribly wrong. And then the strangling. Geez, that was a rough scene. Granted rougher for Grandi than me, but rough to watch, nonetheless.

* * * *

But it’s Welles...WELLES...WELLES all the way. He plays a despicable, racist, mendacious, fat, slovenly, disloyal cop...who just tries to help justice along the best way he can. He reeks of corruption, sweat and crap.


WHAT A MAN...

He grabs each ring of Hell like a subway straphanger. Interesting moment when he gives up his badge. Did he mean it? Was he sincere? (“...After all I’ve done.”) The good ol’ boys won’t let him go. He’s the best there is. Uh-oh. And THAT doesn’t bode well for Society. Quinlan lies at the drop of a hat to make his case, sells out anybody who gets in his way. All of a sudden YOU can be GUILTY!


HANK QUINLAN...


He’s like a walking talking portrait of Dorian Gray. All his evil deeds manifest themselves on his face and body and soul. What soul. Quinlan flings fat chunks of his soul onto the fires of Hell, sweating and puffing his way deeper into the abyss. I had a smidgen of sympathy for him when he talked of his dead wife. Strangled? Did he kill his wife?


“Your future is all used up. Go home.”

I think "TOUCH OF EVIL" is Orson Welles' masterpiece and I like “Citizen Kane.” (Can a director have more than one masterpiece? Let’s ask John Ford). It must have been hard for this man to play by the big studio rules and deal with the suits. His mind was way ahead of anything. I keep loving Welles and then putting him on the backburner for other fancy schmancy easier guys like Hitchcock, Wyler etc. This was a down and dirty movie, great shots, very frank language (did I hear right: marijuana, MaryJane, mainlining??? 1958??!) overlapping dialogue (which, I know...I know, you’ve seen before...but so what!) I loved the way this film was executed. Yes, I have seen bits and pieces of this movie over the years...and heard the film was butchered by the studio. But I think TCM showed the film as Welles intended.

"Touch of Evil." Hard hitting, violent, frank motion picture. Look, I don’t know if:

* it’s Welles' lack of ego (to allow himself to look this way)
* it’s the height of ego (to chew up the scenery)

or


* Welles simply is a genius.

I was disturbed, appalled, creeped out, felt dirty, taken aback by “TOUCH OF EVIL.” I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

[MissGoddess]

Terrific write-up, T. He grabs each ring of Hell like a subway straphanger. You have such a way with words! I wish I could think of things like that.

Dennis Weaver, I saw THIS role before I ever saw him as "Chester" and I still have never watched "McCloud" so I'm working backwards you might say. Oh wait, didn't he do commercials, too? Still, his creepy, cousin-of-Norman-Bates was my first impression of the actor.

I also have always felt uneasy about Vargas leaving his wife so unprotected in such a dangerous environment and I can't watch the scenes where they're terrorizing her, I find it too difficult. But I like Heston's character, it's one of the few roles by him I do like.

I wonder if Hank Quinlan is just a closer look at the kind of examples of lawmen gone power-mad that the movies were filled with, especially in westerns. Usually you didn't get this warts-all, big-head (BIG head) close-up of the corrupt law enforcer but he now is tied up in my mind with all those sheriffs and marshals that towns hired because they were meaner than the rowdies they had to be rid of...and then they were stuck with them. OK you hired me because you needed me now I'm here to stay! Hank probably started out on the right side like Vargas, but something went awry in his character and metabolism.

[JackFavell]

That was wonderful! I have to second MissG's praise of your writing.

Hank was always right - so he didn't have to go "by the book". He had that sixth sense, and so he came to think he could simply look at someone and tell if they were guilty or not. And most of the time, he was right, which is scary. He got lazy, which is where he went deeply wrong. This last time I watched it, I felt terribly sorry for Hank, almost as sorry as I did for Pete. This is the joy of Welles' movies for me, they are always different, each time you watch. And this one is a roller coaster ride - lots of fun while we are squirming around in our seats.

As for Charlton Heston, I totally agree with everything written. Yes, I wish it had been anyone else, especially someone who was actually Mexican and could act. Yes, he does a very good job, which I am loathe to admit, since he's one of my least favorite actors. One thing I heard that lifted him in my eyes a bit was that the studio wanted to fire Welles, but Heston said he would not do the picture unless Welles was attached. I have no idea if this is true, since I think it was Heston who said it on a talk show. If it's true, then I respect him for it.

Maven, I too liked the poor guy who was getting set up by Quinlan in that scene you showed a picture from. He was excellent. I'm not sure which actor he was, I would have to look it up again, but I think he had a long steady career, if not a well known one.

Akim Tamiroff is a joy. I love him in everything. The dance he and Welles do in this movie (and many others) is worth the price of the Criterion edition alone.

[RedRiver]

I've heard Heston signed on specifically to work with Welles, foregoing his usual salary. About Quinlan's instinct, I'll bet a good cop does have that. They may not have evidence. But they know. Even in every day life, we almost always know when somebody's lying. They think they're so smart!

[ChiO]

I've heard Heston signed on specifically to work with Welles, foregoing his usual salary.

There are at least three variations on the story, depending on who's telling the tale. According to:

Welles: Universal asked Welles to direct a movie, for which a script had been written based on the novel Badge of Evil. Thinking that he could not afford to pass up a directing opportunity, he responded, "Maybe." Universal then called Heston and told them it had a script for him to read and that Welles was directing. Heston's response was that if Welles was directing, then he was on board. Universal then went back to Welles to see if he would direct. Welles said he would if he could re-write the script (which he thought was the worst he'd ever read). One of the results was that the narrative shifted from San Diego to a fictional U.S. town right on the border.

Heston: He disliked the script and said he'd be in the movie only if Welles directed (Welles, in this version, was already set to act in it).

Albert Zugsmith (Producer): Over a bottle of vodka, Welles offered to direct the worst script Zugsmith had available. He offered him the script based on Badge of Evil.

There's enough commonality to think that each has some truth (kind of like CITIZEN KANE revisited).

As for casting Heston in the role of a Mexican law enforcement official, not only does that -- perhaps only in retrospect -- add to one of the major narrative themes (a man morally compelled to act in a disconcerting, alien environment), it is hardly the only case of arguably unorthodox casting in the movie. Joseph Calleia (nee Guiseppe Maria Spurrin-Calleja), born in Malta and known for bad guy characters, portrays an American good guy. Akim Tamiroff, an Armenian born in Russia, portrays a Mexican. Good acting and direction often work.

[ChiO]

First new noir of the New Year, from Republic Pictures comes OUT OF THE STORM (1948), one of the seven movies that R.G. Springsteen directed that year for Republic.

The U.S. is churning out battleships, and the crane operators and welders and riveters are making big bucks, but Donald Lewis (Jimmy Lydon) is stuck in the shipbuilder's payroll office making $40 a week and sending $100 a month to his mother. That's not nearly enough to marry his sweetheart, Ginny Powell (Lois Collier), who is a part of the shipbuilder's secretarial pool. She, of course, is willing to continue working if he'll commit to marriage, but Jimmy's not going to let his wife support his mother.

On the payday before Christmas, the payroll office receives $125,000 in cash -- that's $100,000 as cash Christmas bonuses ($100 for every employee), and $25,000 for cashing any paychecks for employees who want to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. The $25,000 is put in the safe and the $100,000 is put in the back room so Jimmy and another employee can stuff the envelopes. Everyone in payroll goes to lunch except Jimmy, the other envelope stuffer and a security guard. Suddenly...in march three bad guys...the one stuffer says something out of line and gets knocked unconscious...Donald is told to open the safe and give them the money...the guard decides to be a hero, pulls his gun, and gets killed...and the bad guys leave saying, "so, kid, this is what $125,000 feels like."

But wait! That's right! He gave them only $25,000. There's 100 Gs in the back room and, of the only people around, one is dead and one is unconscious. We have a moral dilemma, quandary and conundrum -- do the right thing and have no movie, or take the money, report it stolen, let the insurance company make up the loss so that the employees are not out their Christmas bonus, and now be able to support a mother and a wife.

There are only four little problems: (1) Donald is not the worst guy in the world, so one senses he's never totally on board with his own plan; (2) Ginny may be the best gal in the world, trying to convince Donald to turn the money over, but sticking by his side in the meantime; (3) R.J. Ramsey (Richard Travis), insurance company sleuth, thinks someone on the inside may have been an accomplice; and, (4) the baddest of the bad guys, Red Stubbins (Marc Lawrence - YIKES!), figures out that they are missing 100 Gs, so he's going to beat it out of Donald.

Republic missed the "no-happy-endings" noir memo on this one, but it's still a snappy bit of story telling. And, every moment (unfortunately there are too few of them) that Marc Lawrence is on the screen, one knows something horrific will happen and that really keeps the story rolling along.

[JackFavell]

I LOVE the idea of having Jimmy Lydon in a noir. I can barely imagine it! And to have the poor little whippersnapper up against Marc Lawrence?

[ChiO]

Another from Republic, THE BLONDE BANDIT (Harry Keller 1950). An attractive young naive blonde gal from a good family in small-town Kansas (or is that all redundant?), Gloria (Dorothy Patrick) is in the big city train station waiting to be picked up by the man who has proposed to her. When he doesn't show, she goes to the address of his apartment building. But it is a swanky restaurant, Sapelli's. Distraught, she shows the owner, Joe Sapelli (Gerald Mohr), his picture. He had been arrested that morning...for bigamy. Now more distraught, Sapelli offers her money for a ticket home. Refusing that, she asks if there's a place where she could sell the wedding ring and he suggests a nearby jeweler. The jeweler offers her over three times the amount she thought it was worth. Now happy, she leaves. Immediately the jeweler stashes his gems in his car trunk and calls the police, saying an attractive blonde had just committed armed robbery. Sapelli posts bond for her. He believes in her innocence because, not only is she young, attractive and trustworthy, the jeweler was probably after some insurance money because he's deeply in debt to Sapelli. Sapelli, after all, runs the bookie operation in town.

The D.A. cuts a deal with Gloria -- he'll give her slack if she will get close to Sapelli. The D.A. has been wanting to take him down for years and now she's his chance. She takes the deal and becomes Sapelli's confidante and bookkeeper...and the love of his life. And she falls for him, too. He confesses that if she will marry him, he'll quit the bookmaking racket and they'll go off somewhere and run a little Italian restaurant. But...

The two crooked vice cops on Sapelli's payroll suspect she's a snitch for the D.A. To protect themselves, they swipe his books, give them to the D.A., and set her up so that Sapelli thinks she did it. They know he'll try to vamoose and they can shoot him in the back for resisting arrest (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). But true love will win.

No great art here, but the theme of loyalty and whether it is misplaced when a Good Girl does bad things for a Bad Guy who does good things is nicely handled. Add some twists of Fate and corrupt cops who try to pull a double-cross, and one has a nice corner of the Noir Universe.

This was the first movie that Harry Keller directed. Probably his best known directing credit is TAMMY AND THE DOCTOR (1963), unless one counts his redirection, at the request of Universal, of some scenes of TOUCH OF EVIL (Orson Welles 1958).

[knitwit45]

An attractive young naive blonde gal from a good family in small-town Kansas (or is that all redundant?),

[JackFavell]

Can you elaborate on the scenes he redirected? A general explanation is fine, I don't want you to go to too much trouble. If you have to look it up then don't bother.

[ChiO]

It has been a long while since I've watched the pre-reconstructed versions of TOUCH OF EVIL (the reconstructed version contains, to the best of my knowledge, only scenes that Welles directed), so I'm going from a quick review of Welles' 58-page memo:

There was a scene with Vargas & Susan in the hotel lobby that Welles did not direct (or write the dialogue) and that had been added. Welles devotes over 10 pages of his memo (pp. 13-25) to that scene.

In the memo, Welles follows his comments on that scene with:

My promise to withhold direct attack from any of the other added scenes will, I hope, give me the right to hope that you, on our side, will be willing to re-examine this sequence in the light of the objections I've laid before you. Reducing the peculiar angles and sharp edges in this early relationship between Susan and Vargas eliminates whatever might be interesting about the couple. In these opening stages, regardless of any question of individual taste, I'm convinced that one story (mine) or the other (yours) should be told. The attempt to combine them annuls the logic of both.

I also recall a scene in the Hall of Records with Vargas & Menzies that is dramatically different in choice of camera angle. I'd have to research whether that was a re-directed scene or the substitution of a Welles-directed shot that he subsequently rejected.

[ChiO]

Addendum to the above: Some Keller-directed scenes have been retained in instances where the Welles-directed scene (re-shot by Keller) no longer exists.

And thanks for the impetus to do some searching, part of which yielded: TOUCH OF EVIL was released as a B Feature. The A feature on the double bill was THE FEMALE ANIMAL, starring Hedy Lamarr and directed by...Harry Keller.

[JackFavell]

Wow! That is just too weird! I wish Welles could look back and see how well known The Female Animal is.

Thanks for the clarification. My question was posed directly because I thought that scene in the hall of records felt so different, and I hate to say it, it's one of my favorite scenes because of Joe Calleia's performance.

It is odd, I was just thinking if Calleia's performance feels so like a betrayal, because it was a retake? Just wondering.

[ChiO]

I also have some dim recollection from a Jonathan Rosenbaum lecture on TOUCH OF EVIL I attended a few years ago, or I could be making it up, but the daytime exterior scene where Susan is being driven to the original Bates Motel may have been re-shot. It is somewhat expository and not very eye-catching.