Jaques Tourneur

berlin express movie poster

A group of strangers, from a wide variety of backgrounds and nationalities board an American Army train in France bound for post-war Frankfurt. One of the men is a German scientist headed for an important peace conference.

A bomb explodes in the scientist’s train car, killing the man acting as the scientist’s decoy. When the train stops at the next station the real scientist is kidnapped. His assistant Lucienne (Merle Oberon) convinces the other passengers (at least the ones the film has introduced us to) to help find him. An American, Robert Lindley (Robert Ryan) leads the way.

Filmed on location in a very bombed-out Frankfurt and Berlin the film blends a documentary style with film noir. This works both for and against the film. It is fascinating to see these cities lying in ruins, giving us a real sense of the utter destruction the war laid on Europe. It gives the film a heft that studio sets could never accomplish. But the film’s narration constantly comments on it taking us out of the drama and into the classroom.

The film also lays its morality on us a little thick. This is understandable as the film was made so close to the end of the war, the wounds were still fresh. It seems to be pleading with us “Can’t we all just get along?” which is a fine sentiment, but one that cheeses up the otherwise pretty terrific thriller aspects. The bad guys turn out to be underground Nazis which is a unique spin and highlights how even after the war was officially over Europe was far from a safe and peaceful place.

Director Jaques Tourneur gives it his usual noir feel with lots of great camerawork. Cinematographer Lucien Ballard keeps things locked in shadow. Merle Oberon is terrific and I always love Robert Ryan.

In the end, it is well worth watching if you are a fan of film noir and post-War thrillers, even if it doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

image host

We are halfway through November and I’ve only written about two film noirs. Truth be told I’ve only watched nine film noirs this month. Work has been physically exhausting these last few weeks and when I come home I’m often too tired to watch much of anything, and certainly too tired to write about what I watch. Then we had those plumbing issues that kept me away from the house last weekend, and I’ve had some things to watch and review for Cinema Sentries.

Things should lighten up now on all fronts so hopefully I’ll be able to get some good noir viewing in and do a little writing too.

For tonight’s horror movie, I wanted to watch something…if not an actual noir at least noir adjacent. Something that emerged in the 1940s when film noir was at its peak. Something with some great noir-ish lighting and camera work.

The Leopard Man fits those bills perfectly. It was directed by Jaques Tourneur who also directed Out of the Past, one of the great film noirs, and Berlin Express which I watched the other day and hopefully will write about soon.

There is a lot to love about The Leopard Man but it also feels disjointed – like a series of vignettes instead of a cohesive story. With a runtime of just 66 minutes, I wish they’d added another twenty minutes of story or so and fleshed it out a bit more.

Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) is a nightclub singer in a small New Mexico border town. One night her manager Jerry Mannin (Dennis O’Keefe) concocts a foolish bit of promotion and has Kiki drag a leopard out on the stage while her rival Gabriella (Margo) is performing. Wise to the shenanigans Gabriella uses her castanets to frighten the leopard causing Kiki to let go of its leash and send the leopard fleeing into the night.

Later that night a young woman is out shopping and is attacked and killed by the leopard. A night or two later another young woman is killed while visiting her father’s grave. And then even later yet another woman is killed. All of the deaths seem to be caused by the leopard, but Jerry begins to suspect a human killer. He and Kiki investigate.

The film looks great. Tourneur and cinematographer Robert De Grasse created these wonderful images bound in deep shadows and creeping light. The film creates a wonderfully suspenseful atmosphere with some excellent local color. Tourneur always seems to be sensitive to his characters of color and minorities, and here he makes his Mexican characters real people and not just caricatures. Unusual for its time he also casts Latino actors for the roles instead of white people in brownface.

The story he’s telling is quite good too. I enjoyed the mystery and the various vignettes. But like I say I wish the film had an additional half hour to tell them. All too often a character will be introduced only to be forgotten about in the next scene.

For example, the first woman who is killed has a mother and a brother. We get a nice little scene with them. The mother is fussing at the girl to go to the shop for her, and the brother teases her that she’s scared of the dark and the leopard. The girl is killed on her doorstep, banging on the door while her mother desperately tries to save her. But then we get nothing. We see the mother at the official inquest but she has no lines. Then we don’t see her again at all.

This type of thing happens a lot. There just isn’t enough time to flesh out any character stories save the leads.

But what we do get is quite good.