Noir Alley

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laffite
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by laffite »

jamesjazzguitar wrote: February 7th, 2023, 6:53 pm
laffite wrote: February 6th, 2023, 8:32 pm "As for Scarlet Street: I have yet to find out how that got passed the Code censors. It is one of the key mysteries of the studio \ production-code era." Jazzy James

I thought we had that all figured out. Criss is insane. He has voices in his head. He is paying for the crime.
According the Production Code, one isn't paying for their crime unless they are punished by the legal system. The Code wasn't a vague standard but a fairly massive set of specific rules.
Then Lang convinced them or paid them off. :smiley_shades:

Or his murdering was an unintended consequence. After all he is not really a criminal. And he could paint all those pretty pictures. Maybe the Panel of the Code actually felt sorry for him.

But year, it's a crux.
Sabine Azema in Sunday in the Country
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jamesjazzguitar
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by jamesjazzguitar »

laffite wrote: February 7th, 2023, 7:06 pm
jamesjazzguitar wrote: February 7th, 2023, 6:53 pm
laffite wrote: February 6th, 2023, 8:32 pm "As for Scarlet Street: I have yet to find out how that got passed the Code censors. It is one of the key mysteries of the studio \ production-code era." Jazzy James

I thought we had that all figured out. Criss is insane. He has voices in his head. He is paying for the crime.
According the Production Code, one isn't paying for their crime unless they are punished by the legal system. The Code wasn't a vague standard but a fairly massive set of specific rules.
Then Lang convinced them or paid them off. :smiley_shades:

Or his murdering was an unintended consequence. After all he is not really a criminal. And he could paint all those pretty pictures. Maybe the Panel of the Code actually felt sorry for him.

But year, it's a crux.
Well E.G. Robinson got away with something similar in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. Eddie G. is a doctor that gives criminal Bogie poison. Maybe the censors had a soft spot for Eddie G!

The doctor is ultimately caught by his friend, Inspector Lane, and placed on trial. He insists that he did everything for purely scientific reasons and claims that his book is a "sane book" and that it is "impossible for an insane man to write a sane book". His determination to show that he is sane, and therefore willing to face the death penalty, convinces the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity.
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laffite
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by laffite »

jamesjazzguitar wrote: February 7th, 2023, 7:15 pm
laffite wrote: February 7th, 2023, 7:06 pm
jamesjazzguitar wrote: February 7th, 2023, 6:53 pm

According the Production Code, one isn't paying for their crime unless they are punished by the legal system. The Code wasn't a vague standard but a fairly massive set of specific rules.
Then Lang convinced them or paid them off. :smiley_shades:

Or his murdering was an unintended consequence. After all he is not really a criminal. And he could paint all those pretty pictures. Maybe the Panel of the Code actually felt sorry for him.

But year, it's a crux.
Well E.G. Robinson got away with something similar in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse. Eddie G. is a doctor that gives criminal Bogie poison. Maybe the censors had a soft spot for Eddie G!

The doctor is ultimately caught by his friend, Inspector Lane, and placed on trial. He insists that he did everything for purely scientific reasons and claims that his book is a "sane book" and that it is "impossible for an insane man to write a sane book". His determination to show that he is sane, and therefore willing to face the death penalty, convinces the jury to find him not guilty by reason of insanity.
L.O.L.
Sabine Azema in Sunday in the Country
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Hibi
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Hibi »

Looking forward to this week's offering, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. I've never seen it and have been wanting to for so many years! I believe it's a TCM premiere.
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laffite
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by laffite »

Hibi wrote: February 10th, 2023, 10:37 am Looking forward to this week's offering, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. I've never seen it and have been wanting to for so many years! I believe it's a TCM premiere.
Ooh boy, the vampires will love this one.
Sabine Azema in Sunday in the Country
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Bronxgirl48
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Bronxgirl48 »

Sue Sue Applegate wrote: February 5th, 2023, 3:10 pm Good points, Bronxgirl and jamesjazzguitar. I relish this film for several reasons, and find the music so much a part of the intrigue. Making the setting London during Guy Fawkes Day was also a little stroke of genius. It seems with Sanders present, there is always a sinister disdain for the simple, unabashed, passions of an artist or actor set to come to blows with his characters.


Thanks, Sue Sue, although I do think jamesjazzguitar makes the better ones.

Oh my gosh. Bernard Herrmann's score almost makes the film! The Guy Fawkes scenes leave memorable impressions, that's for sure. I was sort of spooked by the MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS Halloween bonfire so you can imagine how terrified I was by HANGOVER SQUARE, lol. (I'm such a weenie)
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ziggy6708a
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by ziggy6708a »

was "mr6666" @ TCM
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Andree
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Andree »


Wow. Is this what they call auto-erotic whatsis? Got to say, it feels pretty good.


Kiss the bland off my hand. Sort of a mixed bag. Man on the run story turns into kind of a sappy love story and then into a doomed
lovers one. I never liked the old I punched a guy and he hit his noggin on a hard object and that killed him. It was an accident,
nothing more. Whatever. It gets the plot going. Burt just happens to crawl through Joan Fontaine's window and not Marie Dressler's.
Thank goodness Robert Newton is along to add a spark to this thing, playing a creepy third-rate Harry Lime. The close ups of Newton
while he is trying to put the make on Joan are really frightening. Luckily there is a pair of scissors nearby. Bye bye, Bobby. When I
see someone in a truck near the end of a crime picture I figure someone might just be killed in a crash, but not here. Burt and Joan,
what a sweet kid, decide to fess up and turn themselves in. Not sure that is a wise move, at least legally. Newton was the only one
who was after Burt for the accidental killing and he's gone. And he was the type of crook who probably had a lot of enemies who
would make better suspects than Burt. So after serving their likely brief prison terms they can get together again. Fairly entertaining,
though the movie doesn't live up to that wonderful title. This flick was a surprise hit at the box office and a sequel was planned, to be
titled Lick the Vomit Off My Wingtips, but for various reasons it never happened.
Every man has a right to an umbrella.~Dostoyevsky
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Dargo
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Dargo »

I loved reading both of the previously posted reviews up there of "Kiss the Blood Off My Hands" by kingrat and Vautrin..ahem..I mean Andree.

You guys pretty much covered every feeling and thought I had after watching Muller's latest Noir Alley offering.

(...and so I'll just add here that the more I watch of Robert Newton's various film performances, the more I think no one was ever more entertaining at playing these kinds of disreputable sort of characters as he was)
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Hibi
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Hibi »

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was definitely worth the wait! I thought it was outstanding. Gripping, suspenseful noirish tale. I was expecting a more tragic ending, but at least it wasn't a happy one when you think about it. Robert Newton was great as was Lancaster and Fontaine. Great sets, photography, score. Class all the way. The chase scene in the beginning was shot/edited so well. So many gripping sequences. Glad to FINALLY see this film!!!
Last edited by Hibi on February 13th, 2023, 11:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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jamesjazzguitar
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by jamesjazzguitar »

Hibi wrote: February 13th, 2023, 11:08 am Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was definitely worth the wait! I thought it was outstanding. Gripping, suspenseful noirish tale. I was expecting a more tragic ending, but at least it wasn't a happy one when you think about it. Robert Newton was great as was Lancaster and Fontaine. Great sets, photography, score. Class all the way. The chase scene in the beginning was shot so well. So many gripping sequences. Glad to FINALLY see this film!!!
Yea, TCM (Muller) breaks out a Universal film it rarely shows. What you state here matches my POV to a "T".
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Hibi
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Hibi »

jamesjazzguitar wrote: February 13th, 2023, 11:10 am
Hibi wrote: February 13th, 2023, 11:08 am Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was definitely worth the wait! I thought it was outstanding. Gripping, suspenseful noirish tale. I was expecting a more tragic ending, but at least it wasn't a happy one when you think about it. Robert Newton was great as was Lancaster and Fontaine. Great sets, photography, score. Class all the way. The chase scene in the beginning was shot so well. So many gripping sequences. Glad to FINALLY see this film!!!
Yea, TCM (Muller) breaks out a Universal film it rarely shows. What you state here matches my POV to a "T".

LIKE!
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Hibi
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by Hibi »

kingrat wrote: February 12th, 2023, 1:52 pm I loved Kiss the Blood Off My Hands. Outstanding cinematography by Russell Metty and a fine score by Miklos Rossa, not overbearing as some of his scores are. Good editing, too, and a brilliant opening.

Yes, there are some problematic elements, but the casting of the three leads takes care of some of this for me. Robert Newton as the oily slimy villain? Oh yes. He had some good dialogue, too. Burt Lancaster makes the protagonist much more sympathetic than he ought to be, given his actions, but this makes the story work. Russell Metty photographs Lancaster's eyes as if Burt were one of the great beauties of the screen, which he is. No wonder Joan Fontaine melts under his charm.

Which brings me to how Joan Fontaine makes the story work. Weak and lonely, but with an inner strength she doesn't recognize, including the strength to make bad choices, falling for an impossible man as she does in Rebecca and Letter From an Unknown Woman: this is one of her specialties in the 1940s. You may want to shake her and tell her to wake up and smell the coffee, but she won't do it. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like her performance in this film, but by the end of the film the improbable combination of Joan and Burt had convinced me.

Yes, the early scene where Fontaine disobeys Lancaster and goes down to the street to get the milk, is a clue she's not a pushover.
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HoldenIsHere
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Re: Noir Alley

Post by HoldenIsHere »

Hibi wrote: February 13th, 2023, 11:08 am Kiss the Blood Off My Hands was definitely worth the wait! I thought it was outstanding. Gripping, suspenseful noirish tale. I was expecting a more tragic ending, but at least it wasn't a happy one when you think about it. Robert Newton was great as was Lancaster and Fontaine. Great sets, photography, score. Class all the way. The chase scene in the beginning was shot/edited so well. So many gripping sequences. Glad to FINALLY see this film!!!
The sweetie and I watched this one and really enjoyed it.
As Joan Fontaine and Burt Lancaster were in the truck on their way to the boat, we both remarked that we didn't see how the story could not end tragically.
****SPOILER*****
I guess the ending meant they were going to go to the police and hope for the best.

I agree that the opening chase sequence was amazing.
That sequence was filmed on a set!
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