Tag: film noirs

Bruce Force (1947) & The Naked City (1948)

image host

I review a lot of movies for Cinema Sentries. Sometimes I get stacks of them, and I have to push out reviews fairly quickly. Once in a while, I decide it is easier to bundle my reviews up, reviewing two or three movies in a single post and letting them bounce off each other a little bit.

So was the case with these two film noirs from Jules Dassin. Brute Force is a down-and-dirty little prison escape film, while The Naked City is the precursor to a lot of by-the-books procedurals like Dragnet and even Law & Order. You can read my reviews here.

Act of Violence (1948)

cover

Robert Ryan was made to play tough guys and villains. He just had that look about him. In Act of Violence, he plays a guy who is menacing another man played by Van Heflin. At first, Ryan’s character seems like a villain, he’s stalking Heflin’s character for no apparent reason. Heflin’s character seems like good guy, he’s helped the community and has an ice wife (played by a young Janet Leigh). We’ve seen that sort of thing a million times in movies.

But this film has something else in mind. Ryan’s character is more complex, he’s more justified in his acts of terror. While the seemingly nice guy Heflin is playing has a dark past.

It is a terrifical little crackerjack film noir and you can read my full review here.

Noirvember: Pitfall (1948)

pitfall

John Forbes (Dick Powell) is a regular, average guy. He’s happily married to Sue (Jane Wyatt), has a loveable son, and a decent job as an insurance investigator. He should be happy, but he’s not. He’s bored. He’d like some excitement even if he doesn’t know what that looks like, and when he gets it he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Excitement comes in the form of Lizabeth Scott who plays Mona Stevens. She’s the wife of a guy who just got sent up for embezzlement. The insurance company initially covered some of the losses from that embezzlement scheme and they are looking to get some of their money back. As it turns out the crook gave his wife several gifts with the money he embezzled and the insurance company can confiscate those things to recoupe some of their losses.

John initially sends a private detective named Mac (Raymond Burr) to take a look at the case. He immediately falls in love with Monda and tells John so. John immediately takes him off the case and goes to have a look at her himself.

He likes what he sees and they have a dalliance of sorts. When Mac finds this out he gets all tough guy on John. What’s interesting here is that John goes back to his wife. He’s seen the excitement he was hoping for and it makes him realize what he’s got.

For a time. Naturally, certain events draw him back bringing it all to a surprising conclusion.

It is interesting to place this film into context. Made in 1948 this is a depiction of America just a few years into its post-war greatness. Men like John Forbes are supposed to be the very picture of contentment. He should be happy. But he’s not. Being a cog in a large machine, living a life of utter blandness has gotten to him. And yet, an exciting life filled with sex and violence isn’t the answer either. What the film does with all this is interesting.

Pitfall is one of the definitive film noirs of its period. Yet, I could never quite get into it. Maybe that’s because it is both very similar to the classic noir plot and just different enough to throw me off-kilter. Or maybe it was something else, I don’t know exactly what didn’t excite me about it.

Dick Powell is always enjoyable and I love me some Lizabeth Scott in a film noir. It is always interesting to see Raymond Burr in these old films as the heavy when I grew up watching him as Perry Mason on the television.

So it isn’t the cast that bothers me. And it isn’t a bad film by any means, just not as good as I expected from its reputation.

Laura (1944)

laura

I am of an age when I came to know Vincent Price as the creepy voice who narrated Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I knew who he was before that – I knew he was a guy who starred in a bunch of old horror movies – but I had never seen any of those movies. As an adult, I’ve watched tons of those old horror movies. He, along with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, were staples in the Hammer Studios horror stable and I love them all.

Of course, Vincent Price wasn’t just a hammy horror actor, he made lots of other films. But it always surprises me when he does. He plays it completely straight in Laura, one of the great film noirs. He’s good in it, too, but it is hard not to watch the film and not expect him to start killing people.

Anyway, you can read my review here.