Showing posts with label 1940's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940's. Show all posts

Friday, March 8, 2024

Noir Lupino Watch: Road House (1948)




Watched:  03/07/2024
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  Second
Director:  Jean Negulesco
Selection:  Me

I'd seen this movie before, about seven years ago now.  

All I remembered from the movie was Lupino bowling and Widmark cackling, that they had a really good exterior set for the hotel where Lupino is staying, ad that the back half got real, real dark.  All of these things were correct/ memorable.

Re-reading my original post, I could easily echo back pretty much the whole thing here again, but I won't, so go read it before continuing on here.

New items:
  • Lupino gets top billing.  I don't really have a feel for Lupino's overall popularity, but she was riding pretty high in '48.  I feel like she's had a resurgence in popularity with noir and classic film buffs, in part because we know her career arc, but also because she translates very well to our sensibilities for what good acting looks like now.
  • There's a throughline that Lupino's character used to have a good voice, but she lost it, and is doing the best she can.  She really sounds like a 3-pack-a-day smoker through the whole movie, and her (actually Lupino's!) singing voice is better than expected, and she's got charisma to spare.  She does smoke like a chimney through the movie and I wonder if she did off camera as well to get that sound.
  • I think we're supposed to make something of the Madama Butterfly reference, but I would need to do logic pretzels to figure out what that is, other than perhaps Jefty's regressive attitudes about marriage?
  • Widmark's character is named "Jefty", which is supposed to be a clever take on the fact his name is Jefferson T. Robbins.  You will hear the name "Jefty" approximately every 20 seconds during the runtime of this film.
  • This movie led to some speculation at our house about whether people just bowled more in the 1940's so they knew they could get the shots they needed at the bowling alley (you could film me all day and I'm not sure you'd see a strike.  I suck.)
  • The drunken shooting stuff at the end of the film is unhinged.  Just terrifying.
  • In some ways this movie is about a guy who is driven to insanity by Ida Lupino existing in his orbit and one could write a thesis based on the gender roles in this movie, expectations, and class systems, and how that makes Jefty snap (and use his power to manipulate everyone).  There's a lot to dig into here.
  • I'll argue that the right thing to do at the end of the movie is for Pete, Susie and Lily to form a throuple.  Susie seems game for just about anything.
I like this movie, as simple and straightforward and with at least two major plotholes as it is.  I would have liked more papering over the flimsiness of the case presented against Pete, but I do like the execution of where the movie is headed after.  

A fun, dark romp that feels like a melodrama and then gets real weird, real fast.  Plus, Lupino in gowns, singing is not horrible.


Sunday, December 24, 2023

Christmas Watch: Miracle on 34th Street (1947)




Watched:  12/23/2023
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  George Seaton


We watch this movie pretty much every year, and I wasn't feeling great yesterday, so I put it on as something I could kind of half-watch.  

I hope you've seen the movie, and if you haven't, I recommend you do watch it.  It's a lovely bit of Christmas Magic in convenient movie form that doesn't rely on mid-life crises or devastating the audience in order to work, Frank Capra.  

But because the movie is so well known and I've written it up before here and here and here, that's not going to be what I write up here.  Instead, we're going to get weird.

Friday, December 22, 2023

Holiday Watch: It's a Wonderful Life (1946)




Watched:  12/21/2023
Format:  Amazon Prime
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Frank Capra

A few years ago, we covered this movie on the podcast.  I think Nathan and I did a lovely job of discussing the impact of the film on us as viewers and why it works.



Re-watching the film this year, I'm once again amazed at how well so much information - both plot and emotional - is conveyed in the movie and it never feels rushed or crammed.  It's only after you've seen the movie multiple times that you really process "wow, George had a whole lot happen to him on very specific days of his life", but that's also part of what makes it work.  Getting married during the week of October 28, 1929 was just a horrible time for someone in the building and loan business to have such a big event, for example.

And we aren't given a St. George for our George Bailey.  He's a normal guy with dreams that he can't pursue, and the only thing keeping him sane is probably Mary.  He's holding a lot in and holding a lot back every minute of every day, which all comes spilling out when Uncle Billy loses the money.  "Why do we have to have all these kids?" is maybe the craziest line in the movie.  But he's also already had it with Billy 15 years ago - he should have been at college if the guy could have taken over for his father.  And so-on-and-so-forth.  

It's the rare movie that acknowledges that people can break from giving up their dreams - or that they'd be put in an awful place for doing what seems right.  Hallmark movies have made a mint off selling the idea of giving up your dreams for small town domesticity - or at least shifting the dream that way.  And it's even less so that a movie allows a male character to snap after landing the house, wife and kids, especially in this era.*  This was post-war America, and we were winners!  

But I think George Bailey is all of us on some level.  Unless you're, like, Madonna, and only *think* giving your servants a second thought is magnanimous.**  There's a lot more George Baileys walking around out there than those who made it where they'd hoped, who gave up who they thought they were and dreams of where they'd be than any rando living at the top.  Even George's little corner of the living room, which goes unmentioned, where he's plugging away at drawings of bridges and buildings, still wanting to be an architect...  it's just kind of funny and sad.  And, God, that's too real.  It's no shock that he smashes it.

But at the end of the day, the movie works because the real message is just, if not *more* true - that all that matters, really, are the folks in your life and how you can help them.  It's not to say your dreams don't matter - but we also have to appreciate what we do have, and the people around us, and know that we matter to them, just as much as they matter to us.  And believing that we're not replaceable cogs is a very hard thing to process.  I imagine it was even more so in 1946, when you saw your friends drafted and shipped off.

Ironically, Stewart was a war hero, but wouldn't ever discuss it or use it in promotion.  He'd been drafted well before Pearl Harbor and exited the service as a Brigadier General.  During the war, he piloted 20 missions I believe flying B-24's.  But he also served as in command, and would remain in reserve until 1959.  He was as much Harry Bailey as George Bailey.






*I know - controversial!
**But Madonna gets a pass for whatever she's up to, here at The Signal Watch






Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Holiday Classic Watch: Holiday Inn (1942)




Watched:  12/04/2023
Format:  Prime
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Mark Sadnrich


My understanding is that this movie, released in August of 1942, landed hard with Americans as we were facing the reality of what was going to be a long and deadly war on two fronts.  More specifically, this movie features the screen debut of "White Christmas" (he's sung it on the radio post-Pearl Harbor in 1941), which Bing Crosby would turn into the best selling single of all time with 50 million copies ringing up the tils as it became a sort of anthem for wishing for a return to normalcy.  

Holiday Inn (1942) is a story about a musical trio breaking up as the singer (Crosby) and the girl are breaking off to start a new life running a farm in Connecticut when the girl runs off with the dancer (Fred Astaire) to pursue dreams of stage glory.  Crosby eventually turns the farm into an inn where he can put on shows, just on holidays, trading the dream of stardom in exchange for just having a bit of fun every once in a while.  

Along comes a new girl, and a series of shows for every holiday starting with New Year (after introducing "White Christmas" during the meet-cute).  Meanwhile, Astaire is dumped and returns to the Inn, and begins pursuing the new girl whom Crosby has fallen hard for.

Anyway, the story is just a framework for Bing Crosby to dooby-doo his way through songs and Astaire to knock your socks off.  Unfortunately, I don't think it leaves you feeling particularly great about a single person on screen except for Crosby's chef, played by Louise Beavers.  

There is mention of the war during the WWII sequence as the movie pauses to reflect on what we're fighting for in song, and shows film of our militarization and FDR at the mic.  While the film exists as light entertainment, its hard to imagine what July 4, 1942 was actually like as the country leaned into what was clearly going to be a multi-year effort in which we'd lose countless servicemen and women.  But what is apparently true is that Pearl Harbor occurred during filming and they decided to really step up the July 4th sequence.

It is likely you've heard several songs from this movie over the years.  "Easter Parade" gets trotted out.  And it's worth mentioning Crosby would team with Danny Kaye for the 1954 classic White Christmas while Astaire would beat him to the punch with 1948's Easter Parade.

I was surprised to see the version on Amazon Prime retains the blackface number (Lincoln's Birthday).  Though I remember seeing it on my TV Christmas of 1994 when I first watched the movie, basic cable cut the number decades ago.  And, yes, it is that bad.  It's also a plot point, so the movie can be marginally confusing without the number, but to keep it in...   Look, I am not going to tell you what should or should not offend you or what criteria should be used to play or not play a film.  I am fine with cable cutting the sequence to keep the film out there, and from an historical perspective, the movie is a reflection of the time in which it was made.  As film fan and historian, yes, keep it in.  As a person who knows this is f'd up, and always was - you can skip the movie altogether if you like.  There are clips of not-offensive scenes on YouTube.  Or, jump over the scene whilst watching.  You do what works for you.

We chose to ffwd through the sequence once we realized it was there.  I've seen it, don't need to see it again.  

There's a whole discussion to be had about how it seems the younger generation wants to deal with older media, and that's to stuff it down the memory hole.  And I'll argue some film historians are currently trying to make it seem that very-mainstream-Hollywood was out of step with the general attitudes of the public at the time of a film's release, something I think there's more than ample evidence to suggest is not true.  We can discuss at some point, but that's a lot to hash out.*

What it does mean is that Holiday Inn is a fascinating bit of history in a single Christmas movie.  The film spun off multiple hit singles we still know, it sold people on the idea of secular Christmas songs, it does some crazy stuff where part of the illusion in the film's final minutes is *showing* the pulleys and levers of the illusion right out in the open to create a secondary illusion (and showing how films were made in 1942).  It shows some really depressing racism, sexism, etc... and it's a time capsule containing war propaganda. 

Plus, two of the biggest stars of the era.  Happy Holidays, film lovers.





*this is 78 years after *slavery*, and 6 after Gone With the Wind.  It's not just your elderly relatives that were just wildly racist.


Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Hallo-Watch: The Invisible Man Returns (1940)




Watched:  10/17/2023
Format:  Peacock
Viewing:  First
Director:  Joe May

Well, I've seen The Invisible Man a few times and am a fan.  What I had not done is watch any of the sequels.  I thought now was maybe the time to watch another one in the series - especially as it stars a very early career Vincent Price, before he was even associated with horror.

So... this is not considered a great movie by film history.  It's... fine.  Vincent Price is clearly having a good time and is carrying most of the movie here.  

It's an excuse to try out out new Invisible Man techniques, which are mostly pretty effective, some of which is pretty great as they make good on the "what if he's seen in a fog or in the rain?" questions from the first film.  I wasn't sure how well that would work in 1940, and the answer is: surprisingly well.  Bonus:  you also get a silhouette of Vincent Price in what was likely a unitard.  

The plot is about a guy framing Price for murder, and he uses the chemicals from the first movie to get invisible, knowing madness is coming so he has to solve the crime, and he's tasked Jack Griffin's younger brother with finding an antidote while he does so.  

If the first one had any scares as well as camp, this one knows how to keep it interesting, but the fear of what a madman would do is kept to a minimum.  The film takes off - and predicts Price at his best in the coming decades - when he's given room to rant and rave as the drugs kick in, so to speak.  He's just making a meal out of his scenes and everyone else is keeping up.  

Anyway, as a Universal Horror fan, it's probably territory to check out, but won't deliver as well as other sequels.  For Vincent Price fans, it's a good look at early Price as he's also being cast as an erudite cad over in noir films.  



Saturday, August 5, 2023

Noir Watch: Shockproof (1949)




Watched:  08/04/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  Douglas Sirk

I was a bit relieved to hear Noir Alley host Eddie Muller mention Tomorrow is Another Day, a movie I'd previously seen, because it turns out that movie just decided to borrow the third act of this movie to wrap up their film.  And that's not the only similarity.  Women change hair color, folks are on the run for reasons that are maybe not entirely their fault.  And neither has a satisfactory conclusion.

But, of course, I was well into the film before the thought of similarities crossed my mind, because there is quite a bit different.  

Cornel Wilde plays a probation officer who is put in charge of a woman just released for a murder charge.  It's widely believe she took the murder rap to cover for a fella who has lived as a smooth gambler and shady guy.  Don't you know it, she's a dish, a bit hardboiled, and morally ambiguous.  

Wilde puts her up in his own home to keep her away from the guy, and begins to fall for her.  And, as luck would have it, she realizes she's falling for him.  Though it's against her parole, the two marry.  But that shady guy is about to call the cops and tell them what his ex is up to when she appears, they struggle and a gun goes off.  

Soon, she and Wilde are on the lam as he refuses to give her up and let her go back to prison.  It's a hell of a decision and what takes the film in an exciting direction.

Like a lot of these films, before they figured out they needed to bring them in for a smoother landing to appease the Breen Office, this one clearly was headed in a darker direction.  Prior to studio interference, this was headed for a Gun Crazy ending that feels the inevitable from the mounting tensions of the film. But studio chiefs demand a happy ending for their star players, and it veers into some law-and-order friendly nonsense.   The ending is both too clever for its own good and utterly unsatisfactory.

All in all, it's an entertaining and tense film, it just pivots way too hard in the last ten minutes into a different, cheesier film from Sam Fuller's intended story.  But I think Patricia Knight is a compelling co-lead, and seeing Wilde's descent is good stuff.

This is a Douglas Sirk film, but it's not what I tend to think of as Sirk.  The gorgeous palette is instead lovely black and white, and it's not a female-driven melodrama.  This is pretty well in the wheel house of what would come to be known as noir, with desperate runs for the border, guys making insane decisions for a woman, and misfired guns.  It's very well directed and never feels like less than an A picture, if not a big budget one.  It's ten years after he fled from Germany, and a few films into his American career, but six years prior to All That Heaven Allows.  

I mean, she just looks like noir



I haven't seen all that many Cornel Wilde films, but I like him.  He seems to be doing more than indicating and I buy him in every scene.  His then-wife Patricia Knight is also, honestly, pretty solid in this film, at least as much so as actors who had lengthy careers.  I'm assuming she had some baggage or was an issue in some way I don't know about, because she's great on camera/ gorgeous.  But, she was in like 10 things and then disappeared shortly after splitting from Wilde.*

It's hard to say which I like batter between this and Tomorrow is Another Day.  I guess it's even-steven for me.  Just two takes on same in their own way.  And both would have been better if they'd not let everyone off the hook in the final reel.



*Wilde had tried to leverage his stardom to get Knight into movies before their divorce, to no avail, so we have to assume there was something else at play, not that he got her blackballed



Saturday, July 22, 2023

Noir Watch: Impact (1949)




Watched:  07/17/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  Arthur Lubin

Over at Noir Alley on TCM, Eddie Muller does not guarantee that the movies are actually great.  He's providing a wide swath of the material that was offered up as what would retroactively be dubbed "noir", providing a survey of the movement's variety of offerings, the people behind those films and the forces that created the movies.  Crime stories and melodramas, mobsters, detectives, femme fatales, virtuous ladies, and well, well beyond.

Impact (1949) is a femme fatale story of *attempted* murder that has some interesting stuff bookending the film and a lot of tedious stuff in the middle, the portion of which is saved mostly by the existence of Ella Raines as human and co-star.  



I confess - I am not a Brian Donlevy guy.  He doesn't do anything *wrong*, he's in plenty of stuff I've watched and enjoyed, but he's just not someone I'd personally place as a lead in this film.  But this is an indie picture and Donlevy was a get as a former leading man of a decade prior, so I understand why they jumped at the chance to put a 49-year-old dude in the role, even if it feels like the women in the film would more likely see him as a fun uncle.

Donlevy is married to Helen Walker, who seems sweet and great and is completely two-timing him with another fella.  Posing as a long-lost-cousin of Walker, the fella hitches a ride with Donlevy where he attempts to bump him off with a crowbar to the noggin and rolling him down a hill.  In his haste to get away from the scene, he drives directly into a gas truck in the finest use of miniatures you'll see in many-a-noir.  

Donlevy recovers, winds up in Larkspur, BFE, and sulks before finding a job and life with Ella Raines.  As one does.  

Because his car done blowed up, folks think he's dead, and he's pondering let it seem that way, even as cops begin to put the pieces together and figure out what his wife was up to.  She's about to go to trial and maybe get the chair when Ella Raines convinces Donlevy to go back and get real justice.

The cops decide they were wrong and Donlevy's absence means he was trying to get his wife killed and he must have murdered the boyfriend despite any real evidence, and.... it's mildly exhausting.  And makes Ella Raines look like a jerk for putting her dude in this spot.

I dunno.  The movie is... fine?  It's not the best thing you'll see, and you can see what an indie picture could pull off in 1949.  It's not nothing.  I just suspect this thing needed some polish in the script room or in editing.  I won't think about it much after this post.  

It is definitely noir, I'll give it that.  It's got femme fatales and virtuous, wholesome women offering something else.  It's got twitchy guys and murder and bad luck.  The most novel aspect was the twist to Donlevy being held for murder, but that never feels like it'll stick.  But we do get Anna May Wong!

I just didn't love it, and that's ok.  You be you, movie. 





Tuesday, July 4, 2023

Noir Watch: Deep Valley (1947)


Watch:  07/04/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  Jean Negulesco

This one felt like it had pieces of noir mixed in with American Gothic melodrama more than what you think of when you start searching the shelves for a noir.  And that's fine.  It's not like people in 1947 were setting out to make "noir".  

As a movie featuring Ida Lupino, I was pre-inclined to give it a shot.  And she's great!  Maybe not as good as in other things, but she and Fay Bainter - who plays her mother - are both terrific in this movie.  

But I'm not sure the movie quite sticks the landing, and it's probably 15 minutes too long at an hour and 44 minutes.  It also really does echo High Sierra, which Lupino had starred in back in 1941, and it almost feels like she should have played the young naive woman of this film in 1941 and the more mature woman of High Sierra in '47.  But that's not how it worked out, and I don't have a time machine to tell them what to do.

Lupino plays a 22 year old (she's 28ish here) who has been the middle-man for her parents who have been at a stalemate for years since her father struck her mother.  Now, the two don't talk as their once grand house falls apart around them.  The mother hasn't left her room in *years* (don't ask me the logistics) having Lupino wait on her hand and foot, and the father lives downstairs and tends to the farm.  Sort of.  The entire house is falling apart and Lupino is a nervous mess, complete with a crippling stutter.

Meanwhile, a highway (the PCH, maybe?) is coming along the other side of the hill where she lives in a Deep Valley.  The road is being built with prison labor*, and each day Lupino sneaks off to watch shirtless men labor in the sun.  No, really.  It's incredibly horny.  

Anyway, she has a favorite in  Dane Clark.  One day the crew comes to the farmhouse to fill up some water buckets and while there, Clark gets in an altercation with a guard and gets sent to a shed awaiting a return to San Quentin.  A landslide occurs, and Clark escapes in the chaos. Meanwhile, Lupino sees the walls closing in on her (relating to the prisoners) and makes good her own escape into the woods.  

The pair come across each other and fall in love/ make it off camera.  

Turns our Clark has a bit of a temper, and is known to basically go into rages and deck people, which is how he ended up in jail.  But he's convinced the love of a good Lupino will fix all this.  

Lupino runs home to grab some supplies so the two can make good their escape, but first realizes in her absence, her parents figured their shit out, and also she's somewhat trapped by the posse using her house and not wanting to draw suspicion.

The movie walks some fine lines.  Clearly Lupino's naive virgin has never really known a man before and is throwing herself at the first guy to really take her fancy.  Similarly, Clark is putting way too much on Lupino as an angel who will save him from himself.  And the movie never really does anything to de-romanticize all of that.  Or address that Clark "doesn't mean it", but he sure has homicidal impulses and if Lupino were to leave with him, sure seems like she'd be dead within a year.

I *do* think the movie wants to say something about this, but it's left to a brief bit of dialog from her mother to put the seed of doubt in the audience's mind.  And I'm not sure the movie (and 1947) is aware of what it's setting up.  But like many movies of young couples caught in an impossible situation (see: They Live By Night), it's all Romeo and Juliet star-crossed romance.  People are gonna wind up dead before things are over.

According to show-notes presented by Eddie Muller, this could have been a John Garfield movie, and we might have had a marginally different picture if that had occurred.  We have to buy a lot in a short amount of time, and the movie doesn't always sell it.  I don't know how that looks with Garfield.

But, also, the movie wants us to believe Lupino doesn't look great in a blouse and jeans and that makes the movie a liar.

Still, it's an interesting movie if not a great one.  Not all of these are grand slams.  





*no, this is never addressed




Sunday, April 2, 2023

Noir Watch: Leave Her to Heaven (1945)





Watched:  04/01/2023
Format:  Criterion Disc
Viewing:  First
Director:  John M. Stahl

It's funny how certain films experience a bit of trendiness within the classic film community or film noir world.  But, here's the thing, rarely is the surge of enthusiasm unearned.  

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) was buzzy a year or so ago.  I tried to watch it on the Criterion Channel but occasionally Criterion blips when I try to watch it, and I was literally watching it the day before it left and gave up.  So I took a gamble and with the recent Criterion sale picked up the BluRay.  And I am not disappointed.  Appropriate buzzing, classic film nerds.

I have zero problem with a good, dark melodrama that bleeds into early noir, and, boy howdy, is this that.  Heck, I just like a good melodrama these days.*

The movie is about a woman (Gene Tierney) who, while going to spread her father's ashes with her mother and adopted sister (Jeanne Crain), meets an author (Cornel Wilde).  All are from Boston and find they enjoy one another's company and Wilde and Tierney fall for each other even though she's engaged to a politician (Vincent Price!) - which she breaks off long distance.  

Wednesday, March 15, 2023

WWII Watch: Watch on the Rhine (1943)




Watched:  03/12/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  Herman Shumlin, Hal Mohr (uncredited)

I had never seen Watch on the Rhine (1943), which is a bit odd.  It stars Bette Davis, who is tops in my book.  But, the real reason is: back in the early 1990's I was a high school drama kid.  In the spring of 1992, I worked tech support and understudy on Watch on the Rhine, which my school took to UIL One-Act Play competition.  We trimmed the show down to a 40 minute version of the 1941 stage play,* which I guess I ran through dozens and dozens of times.

The play was a formative experience  for multiple reasons, not least of which included pondering the content of the play every day for months on end.  But, still, I was sixteen when I read the play and just turned 17 when the experience was over.  So my perspective was widened but life hadn't come at me.  I didn't yet fully grasp the forces at work, what had happened in the decade or more before the war, how WWI led directly to WWII, and that the world is not a simple place and always 100 times more complex than you believe at first blush, ways that inform the movie and play.

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Noir Watch: The Killers (1946)





Watched:  03/10/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Fourth?
Director:  Robert Siodmak

Way back sometime in high school I read the short story The Killers by Hemingway, and like most 17 year olds reading Hemingway, it hit me over the head like a sledgehammer.*  It's a taught bit about the nature of the inevitable - by those who dole it out, those on the receiving end, and those caught up in its wake.  

About twenty years after publication of Hemingway's story, it was adapted into a film starring a fresh-faced actor by the name of Burt Lancaster.  Lancaster hadn't really acted before, but he walked into movies with a natural talent, charisma and muscley torso that kept him working long enough that I knew him as one of the retirement age gangsters in Tough Guys released 4 decades later.   

The movie also introduced Ava Gardner to mass audiences, and broke her as a major star for decades to come.  Bonus: If you need to get an idea of what to put next to "femme fatale" in the dictionary, Gardner's Kitty Collins is a phenomenal example (then put Jane Greer next to her).  

But the movie opens on an empty small-town street with two men in the forms of William Conrad and Charles McGraw entering a cafe and - for the next ten minutes the movie mostly re-creates the scene from the short story, nearly word-for-word, minus some racial slurs and some logistical stuff.  And, if you were a 17-year-old once who read Hemingway, its wild to see Nick Adams as a minor supporting character in a movie.

It's a hell of a scene.  Taught stuff that movies have been trying to recreate now for almost 80 years - almost 100 if you count back to the release of the short story.

The rest of the film has the tough chore of going back and starting at the beginning and working its way back to the opening sequence.  Eventually, it earns the sequence, but the tone never quite matches the first ten minute again.  Using the flashback-via-investigator framing made famous by Citizen Kane (released 5 years earlier) the movie relies on Edmond O'Brien to play an insurance investigator trying to find out why a man set up a woman he met once as his life-insurance beneficiary.  But I'll be dipped if I can say what he's actually investigating and why.  It seems like he answers work-related questions by the film's halfway point.  I don't know if he was looking to deny the payout or recover the money the Swede took.

What the film does do is create a good detective story infused with what would become hallmarks of noir.  Femme fatales.  Flashbacks.  Disposable hoods.  Character actors being characters.  A scramble for money.  Low-level gang bosses with more hair tonic than brains.  And all the secrets to come spilling out in the final reel as no one escapes their fate.  The only thing it's missing is Elisha Cook Jr. 

Anyway, I very much enjoyed a rewatch.  It's a kick of a movie.









*my understanding from social media is that Hemingway is no longer fashionable with the kids because (gestures at everything about Hemingway).  



Friday, February 17, 2023

Noir Watch: Kiss The Blood Off My Hands (1948)




Watched:  02/15/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  Norman Foster

Boy, they really used to know how to name a movie, didn't they?  

Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) is post-war noir, filmed in Hollywood doing it's darndest to look like post-War London, and populated by British ex-pats and Burt Lancaster.  You get Joan Fontaine!  How can that be wrong?

This film is the darkest of noir, and an interesting example of the movement.  Normally I think of noir as including either a person who is in a morally corrupt world because of their choice of job as a detective, but much more often as a person who is corrupted by a compulsion (here's where you get your femme fatales leading morally shaky fellows astray) and their world turns upside down.  But this movie has a flawed protagonist who is also the victim of what we'd now call PTSD - a veteran of the war who saw no point in going back to the U.S. and is adrift in London.  

Thursday, February 9, 2023

Period Noir Watch: Hangover Square (1945)




Watched:  02/08/2023
Format:  TCM
Viewing:  First
Director:  John Brahm

Really dug this film.  What could have been a hokey set-up is carried off without a hitch, all pistons firing on this one.  From performances of a great cast, to a score that's woven in and far more than incidental, there's astounding camera work and lighting, amazing sets, etc...  and a story that has nuance, but a clear through-line.

Honestly, I prioritized the film because it starred Linda Darnell and Laird Cregar, who I appreciate for every different reasons.  But even with the strong assemblage of parts, the film felt like it 

Laird Cregar and Linda Darnell get cozy in a cab

 
The basic story is: 

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Watch Party Watch: The Amazing Mr. X (1948)




Watched:  01/27/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Director:  Bernard Vorhaus (sp?)


This is "moral relativism, the movie".  Not often do you see a movie where you're straight up unclear why you should care about anyone in the film, but this is it.  If you believe women should be helpless dummies, I guess you can pick the two rich, guileless sisters who are shown to mostly be cotton-brained marks through 90 minutes of film, and who discuss their long history of what easy targets they've been, but when your hero of the third reel is the guy who has been outmaneuvered by the even shittier guy in the movie... woof.

These characters kind of all deserve each other.  

I dunno.  The version we watched for free on Amazon Prime was a very, very rough, dark print that hadn't been touched since being put away probably in 1949.  John Alton was the DP, and there's some gorgeous John Alton stuff in this movie that was unfortunately dimmed by time.  I will pay to see this again in a restored version just for the photography.

I was willing to see this movie immediately because it co-starred Cathy O'Donnell, who is fantastic in They Live By Night, Side Street and The Best Years of Our Lives, but here she's mostly asked to be a simp and whine a lot, and...  it's fine, but it's thankless.  Playing a gullible dummy isn't a good look for anyone.

I know Lynn Bari less.  She's in Nocturne, which is a fine film, but that's the only place I've seen her.  And while the picture was blurry and dark, she's, how does one say?  fun to watch.  

The plot is that two rich sisters live in a Manderlay like mansion on an ocean cliff.  Two years prior, Lynn Bari's husband died in a fiery car crash.  She's both mourning him and about to be engaged to a too-practical attorney.  Her sister, O'Donnell, is a character type we'd start seeing a lot in this era- the teen or young woman who is certain in her belief she's smarter and wiser than everyone around them.  

Well, Lynn is being set up by her housekeeper (who is playing a Swedish maid) and her partner, the shady Alexis (the titular Mr. X, I guess), and they basically do the spiritualism bit on her, convincing her he's magic and there are ghosts.  

The movie goes to great pains to show us how the shenanigans of a seance work, and do the job of showing us how a complex spook show convinces both sisters (O'Donnell's character predictably wants to be on Mr. X).  But, lo, and behold, the dead husband shows up as NOT dead, and begins blackmailing our scammer into partnering.  

And, honestly, the pragmatic attorney does kind of blow.  Mr. X is played by character actor Turhan Bey, who was a wildly prolific talent, but who didn't really star in much other than this movie and The Mummy's Tomb.  The film's third-reel decision to have him grow a conscience seems... iffy.  He's dedicated his whole life to scamming.  And I think there's probably a good movie in that idea, but this isn't it.

Anyway, I actually enjoyed watching the film in part due to Alton, the two female leads, and because it's completely bonkers.  Is it a good movie?  Not particularly.  But it's a great late-late-show kind of movie that deserves a better print than what we saw.



Saturday, January 14, 2023

Watch Party Watch: The Woman in Green (1945)




Watched:  01/13/2023
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Roy William Neill

I wasn't expecting much, and this movie delivered not much!

Nah, it was... fine.  Especially as it was only 66 minutes.  You're in, you're out.  

Once again Basil Rathbone plays Holmes to perfection, and once again Nigel Bruce is playing Watson as a complete weirdo boob, setting the stage for a thousand imitators after.

I wish I'd noticed this was a wartime film, because it would have explained why the men in this movie, minus Rathbone, are all at least sexagenarians or older.  

Women are turning up around London - murdered!  And missing a finger!  Is a new Jack the Ripper on the loose?  One with penchant for ladyfingers?  

Holmes is brought in, and suspects (as always) Moriarty.  Anyway - it's a kind of clever Moriarty ruse.  He's having the frankly pretty good looking Hillary Brooke lure rich, society men to her flat where she hypnotizes them.  Moriarty slips a finger into their pocket and when they wake up, they think maybe they murdered someone and fall for a blackmail scheme.  It's... woefully overly complex and there's a bodycount that was always going to draw too much attention.  

Anyway - it's pretty okay!  But I will say - it takes a long, long time to get to the usual Holmes sleuthing, really to the point where I wondered aloud "this is the weirdest structure for a Holmes mystery".  But once it kicks into gear, there you are.


Monday, January 9, 2023

Screwball Watch: Ball of Fire (1941)




Watched:  01/07/2023
Format:  Criterion
Viewing:  First
Director:  Howard Hawks  


Skewing towards the end of the screwball cycle, Ball of Fire (1941) is an absolute g-d delight and another entry in the "yes, Stanwyck is that good" file.  

You would think the movie was made during the crush of the war as the large cast of supporting males are mostly over sixty, but also features Gary Cooper (43 here), Dana Andrews and Dan Duryea also popping up (Andrews and Duryea didn't serve for legit reasons).   Directed by Hawks with his usual flair, the script and story is by Billy Wilder in part, something I spent no small amount of time pondering while watching.  

Monday, December 19, 2022

Annual Holiday-Noir Watch: Lady in the Lake (1947)



Watched:  12/18/2022
Format:  Amazon
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Robert Montgomery

I've now made it an annual tradition to at least put on Lady in the Lake (1947), the incredibly bizarre adaptation of a Raymond Chandler-penned Philip Marlowe private detective classic.

Parts of this movie have a chill that you only get when you're not in the warm embrace of home and hearth on Christmas.  Some parts are very badly conceived, pushing the conceit of the 1st Person POV to the breaking point of usefulness, and no one who worked on the movie seems to care much about the actual plot of the novel -  they reduce major scenes from the book to minor exchanges of expository dialog, and it's incredibly confusing unless you're aware of the book or listen super hard.  The idea is that the characters are so great, you want to spend time with them, and it's not an entirely misplaced notion.

But, holy cats, for being the director, Montgomery has no idea how hardboiled dialog is delivered.  I understand not wanting to imitate Bogart or Powell, but he adds a weird, wry laugh to lines that don't make any sense at times.  It's... not great.  Especially since you only hear and don't see him.

Anyway - you have to spend some time with Audrey Totter every holiday (her 105th birthday anniversary is the 20th), and this is a pretty good way to do it.

A while back, Jamie and I podcasted the film.  Give it a listen!



we should all look so good woken up at 3:00 AM


Sunday, November 20, 2022

Noir Watch: This Gun For Hire (1942)




Watched:  11/18/2022
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  Unknown
Director:  Frank Tuttle

It's probably the only Noir-vember watch party screening we were going to work in this year, but I'm glad we did this one for Veronica Lake on the week of her 100th birthday.  

Anyway, I'm positive we've written this one up before.  Go watch it.  It's ground zero for a lot of the "assassin who seems that way because he's detached from humanity" stuff you see in everything from Le Samurai to any number of American films where an assassin comes to grips with the fact they might be human.

Curiously, not many more movies where they decide "Gorton's Fisherman" is a hot look for a lady.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Noir Watch: Tension (1949)




Watched:  11/15/2022
Format:  TCM Noir Alley
Viewing:  4th?
Director:  John Berry

I've already seen this and written it up a few times, including in 2021.  

So here's several pictures of Audrey Totter in the film.









Thursday, November 10, 2022

Noir Watch: Call Northside 777 (1948)




Watched:  11/08/2022
Format:  Criterion Channel
Viewing:  First
Director:  Henry Hathaway

Criterion Channel is currently featuring a load of films they're calling "Film Noir" from 20th Century Fox, and I wanted to finally give Call Northside 777 a whirl.  

As much as I enjoy a film noir from a poverty row studio, Tuesday we made the conscious decision to see something a bit more prestige, and which had been on my punchlist for a while - a noir that starred Jimmy Stewart, who I usually associate with noirish-thrillers later in his career when he shows up in Vertigo, etc... under Hitch.  

The thing, though, is that despite the fact that I've seen Call Northside 777 (1948) referred to as film noir for two decades, much like The Damned Don't Cry, I don't think this movie actually qualifies as film noir.   It certainly *looks* like noir.  Cinematographer Joseph MacDonald, who also shot one of the noir-iest noirs - Pickup on South Street - gives John Alton and James Wong Howe a run for their money (My Darling Clementine similarly has some noir-ish stuff for a western).  But...  there's no femme or homme fatale.  There's no one in over their head because they followed an ill-advised path/ chased a skirt.  There's no one who has crossed paths with the wrong person and is now in an existential crisis.