Tag: film noir

Murder Mysteries In May: The Glass Key (1935)

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It is easy to declare nowadays that Hollywood has run out of ideas, that all they do is remake older movies, or create endless sequels. But the truth is Hollywood has always bastardized itself. This is certainly true with the crime genre. There were actually two adaptations of The Maltese Falcon made before the famous one with Humprey Bogart.

Another Dashiel Hammet novel, The Glass Key was made into two films. The superior one, starring Alan Ladd, Vernonica Lake, and Brian Donlevy was made in 1942. This one was made just four years after the book was published. It isn’t bad, but if you are going to watch just one version of the book, watch the 1942 film. Actually watch the Coen Brothers Miller’s Crossing, which isn’t a direct adaptation, but it was certainly inspired by it.

Anyway, this one stars George Raft as Ed Beaumont the right hand mand of Paul Madvig (Edward Arnold) a gangster who controls pretty much everything is a smallish unnamed city. Pauls in love with Janet Henry (Claire Dodd) whose father is running for state senate. Beaumont thinks Janet is a grifter, using Paul in order to use his political sway to win her father the election. This causes tension between Paul and Beaumont.

When Janet’s brother gets murdered things get even more tense. Paul and Beaumont have it out and Beaumont seems to leave Paul for his rival.

The story is classic (like I said it greatly infuenced the Coen Brothers but it also inspired Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, which was then remade as the Clint Eastwood Western A Fistful of Dollars).

This adaptation feels more brutish than the 1942 remake. It also feels like a proto film noir. Some of the pieces of that genre are here, but not quite polished (the remake is one of the classics of the genre).

I generally like George Raft, but he’s not exactly a world class actor. He tends to be a little wooden, which works okay in his gangster pictures, but Ed Beaumont is a guy who knows all the angles and holds his cards close to his chest. Raft just doesnt’ have the nuance to pull it off.

Claire Dodd is nice, but she’s not in the same league as Veronica Lake. There is a scene in both films where Beaumont is worked over by a gangster’s goons. In the remake one of them is played by William Bendix and he’s just terrific. That scene is one of my all-time favorites. Here its pretty much forgettable.

I’d say this is worth watching if you like the Hammett story or the 1942 film. But the remake is by far the superior film so if you haven’t seen that I’d head that way immediately.

Awesome ’80s in April: Breathless (1983)

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I have a lousy memory. I can’t remember the details of things. I deal in impressions and feelings. This is especially true with movies, music, and books – all art really. There are songs I’ve heard a million times, that I’ve sung along to since I was a little boy, but if you were to ask me right now – if you were to put a gun to my head and force me to recite a lyric or tell you what the song was about you’d have a lot of cleaning up to do and be no less the wiser.

There are movies I’ve seen multiple times, that I absolutely love, but that I could not describe the plot to you any more than I can speak French to my wife. There are lots of other films that I know I’ve seen, that I remember enjoying, but the details of what and why are completely lost to me. I can remember it being joyous, or devastating. Sometimes I’ll remember images or specific scenes. I might quote a line of dialogue, but the details just disappear.

I’ve seen Jean Luc Godard’s Breathless at least twice. it is a great movie. An important one. I know it was an early entry into the French New Wave and endlessly influential. I can see Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in that little bedroom and walking down that Parisian street. That imagery is iconic. I know they have great chemistry. But I really don’t remember what happens.

All of which is to say I came to Jim McBrides’ remake of Breathless with Richard Gere and Valérie Kaprisky with a relatively clean slate. Since I can’t remember the details of the Godard film, I wasn’t constantly comparing the two.

The setting was moved to Los Angeles (versus Paris in the original) and the character’s nationalities were reversed (the man is American here, the woman French). I think the basic plot points – the story if you will – are more or less the same but I really couldn’t tell you what details were changed. Honestly, I watched this film about a week ago and I had to read the Wikipedia summary to remember much of what happened in this one.

Jesse Lujack (Richard Gere) is a Jerry Lee Lewis-loving drifter. He steals fast cars and likes to ride. He reads Silver Surfer comic books. He steals a Porche in Las Vegas and drives to Los Angeles in hopes of finding Monica Poiccard (Valérie Kaprisky) an architecture student he had a torrid affair with one weekend while she was visiting Vegas.

On his way, he zips around a traffic blockade, and accidentally (more or less) shoots a cop when he makes chase. On the run from the law he still comes to UCLA, finds Monica, and tries to convince her to come to Mexico with him.

At first, she rebuffs his advances. That weekend was fun but she has work to do. But he’s so charming, so much fun, she eventually gives in. Much of the movie is spent watching them wander around LA, goofing around. He tries to get some money owed to him, and she spends some time with her professor whom she’s also having an affair with.

I don’t remember a lot about the Godard film, but I do remember it is infused with this sense of carefree joy. Godard felt that the French films of his time lacked a certain something that could be found in the cheap American gangster films of the 1930s and 1940s. He made his own version of those films, with modern cuts, music, and filmmaking. His film went on to influence countless American movies.

McBride’s film gained modest critical praise and made a little money, but slipped into obscurity pretty quickly. Godard’s film feels very 1960s even though it mimics film noirs from two decades prior. In the same way, McBride’s film feels very 1980s and has the sheen of neo-noir on it.

I’ve been watching a lot of Richard Gere films from this period and geez that guy was a star. It simply exudes charm and sexiness even when he’s playing a creep like he is here. There is a long scene early in the film where he’s just driving down the road, talking to himself and singing along to Jerry Lee on the radio. I could watch him doing that forever. It’s no wonder Monica drops everything to run away with him.

I can’t begin to argue which film is “better” as if that designation would mean anything anyways. Both films are wonderful, even if I won’t remember any of the details in a couple of weeks.

Westerns in March: Blood on the Moon (1948)

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On a surface level Westerns and Film Noirs have very little in common. Noirs tend to take place inside the big city. Westerns are all about the wide open spaces of the American West. Noirs usually occur in the present, whereas westerns (almost by definition) occur in a specific past. Noirs are filmed in black and white. They revel in shadows and light. They take place in smoky little bars and grubby flats. Westerns make great use of the widescreen format and technicolor. Classic Westerns are about good versus evil; the differences are plain. Noirs live in the grey, the morally ambiguous, the dark nights of the soul.

It is that last bit that sometimes allows the two genres that seem so far apart to grow a little closer. While Classic Westerns often do present moral absolutes with clear good guys and bad guys, as the genre grew older it began to change. Their heroes were sometimes morally grey. They wrestled with complex questions. Dealt with complex characters. Etc. They started to feel a little more like noirs. Not always, of course, the vast majority of westerns stuck to their lane, but some of them, some of the best of them, allowed themselves into murkier territory.

Blood on the Moon is a Western Noir. It is set in the Old West, its characters are old cowboys, and its plot involves cattle and Indians, but its hero is flawed and its cinematography is pure noir.

Robert Mitchum plays Jim Garrey, a man down on his luck. When his old pal Tate Riling (Robert Preston) offers him a job he takes it, no questions asked. He soon learns he should have asked questions because Riling is up to some shenanigans.

The plot (or I should say Riling’s plot) is convoluted and too complicated to get into here. Basically, he’s setting some homesteaders against a rancher in hopes of making himself rich. He needs Garrey as a mediator to arrange a deal over some cattle.

That part of the plot doesn’t really matter. It boils down to Riley using Garrey for some pretty shading dealings. Garrey is basically a good man, but he’s done some bad things which makes him feel like a scoundrel. He’s left with a decision on whether to do the right thing and go against an old friend, or stay the course and get rich in the process.

Honestly, I got a bit lost in the machinations of the plot but Mitchum is great as usual and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca gets some great noir visuals out of his scraggly western landscape (and no wonder he shot a lot of great film noirs including Out of the Past and The Spiral Staircase). Preston seems a bit miscast to me. He’s great when he’s playing rascally con men, but he doesn’t quite exude the menace his character needs in this film.

Overall a decent example of both the Western and the film noir but there are better films in both genres.

He Walked By Night (1948)

he walked by night

Every Noirvember I spend some time searching for film noirs that I’ve never seen. Last year I saw several lists including He Walked By Night as one of the great film noirs of all time. I had this vague notion that I’d seen it before but upon checking my Letterboxd feed I saw that I had never logged it. My Letterboxd feed is sacrosanct (except when it isn’t) and so I knew I had never watched it before.

But that nagging feeling that I had seen it kept me from putting it on that Noirvember. I got a chance to review the Blu-ray for Cinema Sentries and I figured it didn’t matter if I’d seen it before or not, it is considered a classic and therefore it would be good to have it in my collection.

I put the movie on thinking I’d definitely not seen it before. There was one scene in which a robber comes through a backdoor and is lit in a really interesting way that seemed familiar but I figured there were lots of scenes like that, probably, and I definitely hadn’t seen this one.

Then there was a scene where the cops are asking witnesses what the criminal looks like and it is such a fascinating scene that I immediately knew I’d seen it before.

Sometimes I forget to log things in my Letterboxd is what I’m saying.

Now that my pointless story is over you can read my actual review here.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XVI

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Kino Lorber, the boutique Blu-ray label has been releasing these sets of three relatively obscure film noirs for a few years now. I’ve reviewed quite a few of them, and while not every film is a classic, or even that good, I always enjoy watching them.

You can read my full review of this set over at Cinema Sentries. 

Noirvember: Beware, My Lovely (1952)

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Ida Lupino plays Helen Gordon a widow living in a great big house who takes care of children after school. We see her being kind to the children, and teaching them. Loving them. She has a big heart. She takes care of an old lodger as well. She’s a practical person, but also a bit scatter-brained and not very good at the housekeeping.

One day a man pops by. He says he’s in need of work and he’d be happy to help around the house. His name is Howard Wilton and he’s played by Robert Ryan. She says she’s got plenty of work for him to do and hires him on the spot.

What she doesn’t know, but we do, is that Howard is mentally unstable. We watched him at the beginning of the film working for someone else, someone we saw lying dead in her cupboard. Someone who, when Howard saw her dead, caused him to flee in terror.

The film builds the tension slowly. Because we know Howard is unstable we know he will eventually turn violent towards Helen, but the movie is in no rush to get there. At first, Howard exhibits some little quirks towards Helen. He’ll say something a little odd, or do some little something out of the ordinary. He might even call attention to it but Helen treats him like one of her kids.

As those quirks turn more sinister she’s still polite, still kind. She should just run, but she doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. When she finally realizes she must get out, it is too late. Howard keeps her from leaving.

The movie never quite boils over in the way I wanted it to. The tension stays on a low simmer, and I wanted it to explode. But the filmmaking is good. Ida Lupino is wonderful in everything she does and she’s terrific here. Her company The Filmmakers produced it. She was an extraordinary woman, I recommend reading up on her sometime.

Robert Ryan likewise is quite good. He’s always good as the heavy. There was something menacing about his presence.

Noirvember: Brighton Rock (1948)

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Watch enough British cinema and you will eventually come across the name Graham Greene. He was a novelist whose books were often adapted for the screen. Eventually, he became a screenwriter himself. His films include The Third Man (1949), This Gun For Hire (1942), Went the Day Well? (1942), Ministry of Fear (1944), and many others. I’ve seen quite a few of them and there isn’t a bad one in the bunch.

This includes Brighton Rock, a terrific little film noir about a group of hoodlums in the titular seaside English town. Richard Attenborough stars as Pinkie the razor-wielding, sadistic leader of a small gang of hoods. He happens across Fred (Alan Wheatley) a man he thinks is responsible for the death of the gang’s former leader.

He and the rest of the gang members (including the first Doctor Who, William Hartnell) chase Fred through a carnival until finally killing him on one of those creaky horror rides.

While trying to hide at the carnival Fred meets Ina (Hermione Baddeley), for having a woman by his side might work as a disguise. She winds up playing detective as no one else seems to care what happened to him.

Looking for an alibi Pinkie latches onto Rose (Carol Marsh) whom he comes across working as a waitress in a restaurant. She’s lonely and never had a guy before and falls in love immediately. He treats her terribly but says enough sweet things to keep her by his side (when he needs her to be).

It is an extraordinary performance from Richard Attenborough. I’ll always think of him as John Hammond in Jurassic Park (1993). He’s young here, and terrifying. He’s icy cold and the way he manipulates Rose is just awful (awfully good).

This is film noir all the way through with terrifically stark black-and-white photography, pitch-black characters, and wonderfully made from start to finish.

Noirvember: Man on the Run (1949)

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A man walks into a club and finds his old Army compatriot, Peter Burden (Derek Farr) working behind the bar. Peter is a deserter and as this is post-War England that’s a bad thing to be. The man tries to blackmail Peter so he flees. We see him doing a series of odd jobs throughout the country before, desperate, he walks into a pawn shop looking to sell his Army revolver. Just as he takes the gun out of his coat, but before he can say anything a couple of actual armed robbers come in and beat the proprietor senseless. Before he dies the proprietor gives a description of the only robber not wearing a mask – our hero Peter.

As the police close in on him, a desperate Peter busts into the home of a widow named Jean Adams (Joan Hopkins). He promises not to hurt her, but begs her to let him stay. She being kindly and perhaps a bit lonely allows him overnight. While there he tells her his story and she believes him.

Together they begin searching for the two real burglars who can set the police straight and set him free.

Man On the Run is a terrific little British Noir. It doesn’t do anything new or amazing with the genre, but what it does do it does really well. During my month of watching Great British Cinema, I fell in love with this type of film.

The Brits were great at making this kind of tidy, nuts-and-bolts thriller. I don’t mean to say that there isn’t artistry to this film, because there is. The sets are fantastic, as is the camera placement, and the lighting all has that wonderful noir shadowy thing going for it. It mostly takes place in bars, police stations, and houses which gives it a claustrophobic feel. But it’s a film that doesn’t wow you with that stuff, it isn’t overloaded with style. It is a really good story told really well.

The relationship between Peter and Jean does develop a little too quickly. It is difficult to believe that she’s gonna fall for this man who just busted into her home, clearly running from the police. But that’s the movies and I didn’t mind. Both actors are quite good in it and they do make their love as believable as it can be. The thriller aspects are tightly wound and make their plight quite exciting.

It is surprisingly sympathetic the Peter’s plight as a deserter, something that was quite contentious and in the minds of its British audience at the time. He’s served four years as a soldier but when he requests some additional time off due to family members being deathly ill, his request is denied. He takes them anyway and is considered a deserter. The film puts the moral wrestling over this type of thing in the background, but the fact that it is there at all, and that it lends sympathy to a man (and men like him) who technically deserted is interesting.

The whole thing may be a little too Hitchockian for some but I found it be be delightful all the way through.

Noirvember: The Killer Is Loose (1956)

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A bank is robbed in broad daylight. Everything about it indicates there was an inside man. Lt. Sam Wagner (Joseph Cotten) is on the case. Clues lean toward bank employee Leon Poole (Wendell Corey). When they come to his apartment to speak to him Poole shouts that he’s not coming out then shoots through the door, injuring one policeman. Wagner busts in, but with the lights out he can’t see. He sees a shadow and shoots. The victim isn’t Poole but his wife, who dies instantly. Poole is convicted and vows revenge.

For two years Poole is a model prisoner and he’s sent to a work camp with less security. When he’s asked to accompany a guard to go into town to help pick up a few things he sees his opportunity. He kills the guard and escapes. But it isn’t Sam Wagner he’s after, it’s his wife Lila (Rhonda Fleming) he wants to kill. An eye for an eye, or rather a wife for a wife is his feeling.

Director Budd Boetticher filmed The Killer is Loose in 15 days. In some ways, you can feel that time (and budget) constraint on screen. It often feels like a made-for-television movie. But in all the ways that count, the film is excellent.

I’ve seen quite a few of Boetticher’s films (including all five in the Ranown Cycle he made with Randolph Scott) and I’ve enjoyed them all. He wasn’t a flashy or even stylish director, but he knew how to get the most out of his limited resources. He was a master of efficiency and that’s certainly true here.

I’m very much a fan of Joseph Cotten as well, and he falls right in step with what Boetticher was going for. His performance is perfect, not flashy. It doesn’t draw attention to itself, it’s just a good performance by an absolute pro.

But it is Wendell Corey who catches my attention. He’s not showy, either, but he plays Poole like a wounded animal. There is a scene early on at the bank where his former Sergeant (John Larch) bumps into him. It seems Poole wasn’t much of a soldier and his Sergeant made fun of him ruthlessly. Later, while holding the Sergeant’s wife (Dee J. Thompson) hostage, he tells her that everyone has always made fun of him. Except his wife. In that moment we understand what he’s doing. It isn’t that the film exempts or forgives Poole of his murderous revenge, but the script and Corey’s performance make us understand, even sympathize to some extent.

Naturally, I always want all my films to be masterpieces, but if I can’t have that then I’ll take a solidly built, professionally created film every time. This is exactly that.

Noirvember: Black Angel (1946)

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This twisty little noir finds Marty (Dan Duryea) teaming up with Catherine (June Vincent) to solve the murder of his wife. The first twist is that Catherine’s husband has already been convicted for that crime. But she still thinks he’s innocent, and Marty doesn’t particularly care for his scheming, femme fatale wife.

He plays piano and she sings pretty good so they decide to team up as an act and get a gig performing at Marko’s club. Marty saw Marko (Peter Lorre) heading into his wife’s apartment just before the murder so they figure he might be the killer.

The proof will be if Marko has a brooch that was stolen from the victim. If he’s got it then he is the killer. There are some nice, tense scenes in which Catherine tries to sway Marko into revealing something, and then later, as she tries to break into his safe.

It is a bit too relaxed to keep the tension going (there are at least two full-on musical numbers in the middle) and a giant red herring causes it to lose a bit of focus, but it is a mostly enjoyable little noir and worth seeking out.