Tag: film noirs

Now Watching: Nightfall

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Nightfall (1956)

Directed by Jacques Tourneur
Starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Frank Albertson, and Frank Keith

Synopsis: An innocent man turns fugitive as he reconstructs events that implicate him for a murder and robbery he did not commit.

Rating: 8/10

I was looking for a horror movie to watch yesterday afternoon (because it was Friday), but then my wife sat down next to me, and she doesn’t like horror. So I went searching for something else.  The Criterion Channel is hosting three noirs from Tourneur, and I landed on this one mostly because it was short. And I’d seen it before and knew it was good. 

I love the way it begins. With Aldo Ray sitting by his lonesome in a bar. Ann Bancroft approaches him, says she’s lost her wallet, and can he loan her five bucks to pay for her drinks? He does, and they have a nice time. Even get a little dinner.  Then when they leave, two thugs come at them with guns and take him away. 

In flashbacks we’ll learn he was out in the mountains with his friend fishing and hunting. The two bad guys have a wreck near them. Our heroes try to help and find themselves face to face with guns. They’ve just robbed a bank, have a satchel full of cash, and need no witnesses.  Aldo Ray escapes. The bad guys accidentally mistake his bag for their money bag. By the time they realize their mistake, Aldo has split, hidden the money, and high-tailed it.

He wandered around the country doing odd jobs, biding his time until the coast was clear. He finds himself in Los Angeles when he meets Ann Bancroft.  Meanwhile insurance investigator James Gregory has been on Also’s tail since the beginning. But he’s not so sure if he had anything to do with the robbery.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a short review. There is a nice mix of dark city noir and scenes set in the wide open spaces of the mountains. Aldo Ray is a little flat, but everybody else is terrific and the story is great.

Now Watching: Deadline at Dawn (1946)

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Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Directed by Harold Clurman
Starring Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, and Bill Williams

After a woman he meets is murdered, a soon-to-ship-out sailor has until dawn to find the killer, aided by a weary dance hall girl.

Rating: 7/10

The first act of this story is quite good. A drunk sailor wakes up to find he has no memory of the last hour of his life and a wad of bills in his pocket. He has a hazy memory of the money belonging to a girl he got drunk with the night before, but when he goes to return it, he finds her dead. He enlists a dance hall girl to help him figure out what happened. He has to be on a bus to report for duty at six in the morning.

All of that stuff is enjoyable, but then they get a cab driver entangled in the mystery, and the quality dips. The character of the cab driver is actually interesting, and the performance from Paul Lukas is good, but he winds up feeling like a third wheel. He takes away from the chemistry the two leads have and muddles it all up.

I hated the conclusion. Thinking about it now, it sort of makes sense, but in the moment it felt absolutely wrong. But the filmmaking is good, and the acting is good, so it is well worth watching.

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

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.