Ann Miller/ Lucille Ball Watch: Too Many Girls (1940)

Watched:  09/08/2020

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  George Abbott

I'd forgotten this was living on my DVR and I needed something to watch on the elliptical - and it starred Lucille Ball.

Too Many Girls (1940) is a particular breed of Hollywood musical that was about big dance numbers loosely tied together with characters working through a paper-thin plot, and really an excuse to get a whole bunch of characters on screen at one time for song and dance numbers.  The better ones are the ones choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and then there's stuff like this with dancers sort of just running around a lot.

Noir Watch: The Unfaithful (1947)

 

Watched:  I dunno.  A couple of months ago.

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director: Vincent Sherman

I just totally forgot to write this one up and realized that today whilst thinking about Zachary Scott.  As you do.

The Unfaithful (1947) is essentially a domestic version of The Letter, the extraordinary William Wyler film starring Bette Davis.  This version transplants the action from rubber farms in the Maylay Peninsula to suburban Los Angeles just after WWII and puts Ann Sheridan in the lead.  None of that is a problem, and were The Letter not such a bombshell of a movie, The Unfaithful would shine brighter.  

Watch Party Watch: The Red House (1947)

Watched:  09/02/2020
Format:  Amazon Watch Party
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:   Delmer Daves

In a lot of ways, I'd categorize The Red House as "American Gothic".  The story has DNA in Jane Eyre and other books about recluses living with a mystery. 

The film stars Edward G. Robinson as a a farmer who keeps mostly to himself (he cohabitates with a niece and his sister, played by Judith Anderson of Rebecca fame).   His niece brings a classmate over to see if he can work the farm to assist Robinson, who is aging and can't do what he used to, especially as he has an artificial leg.  The teen is warned to stay away from some woods near the house, and not cut through them for an obvious shortcut.

In general - I liked the film.  It's got a sort of twisty mystery, and at least the female heroine was likable (jury is out on the male lead).  Robinson and Anderson are terrific, and Rory Calhoun is a lot of fun as a dick-swinging country boy after the male lead's girl (played by chanteuse Julie London, who seems like 10x too much woman for the male lead). 

Glad Jenifer chose it because I might have easily missed this one.

Noir Watch: Journey Into Fear (1943)

Watched:  08/25/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Norman Foster

Show on TCM as part of "Summer Under the Stars", Journey Into Fear (1943) was pitched as a Dolores Del Rio movie, and as I'd never seen a Dolores Del Rio movie and just knew who she was via a general awareness of classic film and talent. 

Well, first, Dolores Del Rio was a delight, and I look forward to watching her in more movies.  But I was also deeply curious as the film had Agnes Moorehead, my fave Joseph Cotten, and Orson Welles.  And if you're like "hey, that sounds like a Mercury Theatre production..." you are not wrong!

Honestly - this movie was terrific and I'd watch it again in a heartbeat.  It's a bit before the noir movement, but it features an everyman getting in way over his head by circumstance (but not obsession, which leaves me on the fence for calling it 100% noir).  There is a foxy dame (Del Rio) who is not his wholesome and unhelpful wife, shady characters abound, and the aesthetic kind of hollers noir. 

Cotten plays a munitions engineer on loan from the US to Turkey.  The Nazis figure if they bump him off, it sets the Turks back months or a year in Naval military advances.  And all Cotten wants to do is stay in the hotel with his wife - when he's whisked away by a cloying company man.  At a nightclub he's nearly missed as the target of an assassination attempt.  Welles, playing a bombastic head of the Turkish security forces makes moves to get him out of the city to meet up with his wife later. 

The boat which Cotten takes is full of folks who don't travel luxury class or in refined circles - and it's pretty great. 

There are a lot of really clever bits and touches that give the film character and texture.  Cotten himself wrote the screenplay, and he has a real knack for it.  The ending isn't even all that tidy, and we see his character go through a chance and arc.  But other characters are so well imagined (the businessman who became a Socialist to annoy his overbearing wife is brilliant), it's just a delight to watch.

I'd honestly love to watch it with an audience as there's plenty for classic film fans to chew on.

As a wartime movie, it's interesting none of these players served, and you get a bit of that "we're all on the same side here" stuff that makes wartime movies in non-American locales so interesting.  Before 42 and after 45, its tough to say that characters like Welles' Turkish character would be ancillary heroes of the film.  We'd return to making those characters untrustworthy and antagonistic.

Ann Miller Watch: Hit the Deck (1955) and Reveille with Beverly (1943) and The Great American Pastime (1956)

shut the hell up, Tom Ewell

Watched: 08/8 (HtD), 08/9 (RwB), 8/11 (GAP)
Format:  Ann Miller Day of TCM
Viewing:  First for all 3
Decade:  1950's, 1940's


Look, I've been clear about the whole Ann Miller thing, and I'm not going to apologize for it.

It's August, and therefore "Summer Under the Stars" time on TCM, which means 24 hours of movies from one actor each day all month.  And this last week featured Ann Miller day, and here we all are.

Three very different movies.

Hit the Deck (1955) is pretty clearly a "I like Guys and Dolls" and "wow, was On the Town a decent movie" mash-up.  I dunno.  It was fine.  Little Debbie Reynolds is cute as a button.  Ann Miller got a couple of numbers.  It's okay.  It has a lot of deeply sexist set-up that kind of unravels in a pleasant way and has a great few numbers by the women in the movie.  And it's always great to see Russ Tamblyn.  And I need to look into this Kay Armen.  She was terrific.

Reveille with Beverly (1943) is war-time spirit-boosting propaganda and was one of the movies that was essentially an excuse to do a musical variety show with everyone from Duke Ellington to Bob Crosby.  Ann Miller plays a feisty and insanely perky radio host.  The film, however, ends on a very strange pivot as they remind you, all the soldiers are going off to war - and it was this odd, incredibly sad transition, with Beverly still in her show costume watching them go.

The Great American Pastime (1956) is a post-war movie trying to recapture some of the magic of Seven-Year Itch and reminding me "I don't particularly care for Tom Ewell".   What could have been a Bad News Bears instead is kind of a sitcom dad who seems oblivious to the fact he's married to Anne Francis and that Anne Francis has decided Ann Miller is a sexual threat (she is not, which...  I mean).  Anyway - the movie felt really under-written and I kind of hated the way they wrote Tom Ewell's son.  Seemed like a dopey ingrate.


But Ann Miller looked great in all of these movies.  So.

Happy 80th Birthday, Bugs Bunny!

in which I argue this is a hero of the people

Because parents are now largely concerned their children will experience any joy that doesn't have bumpers on it,* I don't think kids really know about Bugs Bunny.  Which is a shame.

Being a 1980's latchkey kid who had a Zenith for a babysitter, like most of my generation, I had WB cartoons blasted at me day and night for my entire youth.  From my earliest memories straight through college, Looney Tunes were not just a staple, but a constant.  In a way, the cheap programming of a thousand UHF channels and basic cable options may be the truest common denominator for 2-3 decades of Americans.  All of us know "Rabbit Season/ Duck Season".  We all know the weird, hilarious poetic tragedy of Michigan J. Frog and those who find him.  We all know the best thing to do when pursued is to dress as a coquettish young blonde and flirt with our pursuer.

It's printed on our DNA.

Noirish Melodrama Watch: The Sign of the Ram (1948)

Watched:  07/20/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  John Sturges

A sort of gothic noir, The Sign of the Ram (1948) is a peculiar film.  Set in a sprawling English countryside home, a seemingly happy family welcomes a new secretary into the fold (Phyllis Thaxter).  She's to be the aid, in particular, to the beautiful, young, wheelchair bound stepmother to the family. 

The film is a showcase for actress Susan Peters who had screen success until a hunting accident left her in a wheelchair.  She's actually fantastic in the role, which is that of the antagonist.  This is, apparently, the screenplay she finally accepted after being asked to play a chipper Pollyanna overcoming adversity in offer after offer.  I'll not play armchair psychologist, but it's a hell of a heel turn for Peters to take on - but she nails it, showing tremendous range in the single role (young actors, take note: you can play all sorts of things with an angry character and none of them have to read "angry"). 

That said, there's something both entirely believable about the tension at the center of the film - a family completely dominated by the iron willed matriarch who plays everyone like puppets without them ever noticing it - and a sense of melodrama that skews a bit too much toward telegraphing where the film is headed. 

It's well shot, Peters and Thaxter are great, but I can't say it was exactly my cup of tea.  It was clearly made in the shadow of stuff like Rebecca, but never quite hits those notes.  But for a solid melodrama, you could do worse.

Ann Miller Watch: On the Town (1949)

Watched:  07/05/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1940's
Director(s):  Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly


Look, I'm not *proud* of the whole Ann Miller thing, but there it is.

Noir Watch: The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

Watched:  06/29/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM
Viewing:  third
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Orson Welles

The backstory to the making of The Lady From Shanghai (1947) is famous, gossipy Hollywood lore.  Hayworth starred alongside soon-to-be-ex husband and director, Orson Welles, transformed from the red-coiffed icon of Gilda into a platinum blonde and a femme fatale.

A bit like The Big Sleep, a lot of people talk about how this movie is confusing, but I didn't find it particularly so.  While I cop to the fact that The Lady from Shanghai isn't a pat story and that the plot wanders - it all holds together within each character's motivation, and I don't really get the complaints.  From Muller's shownotes, I'll give the credit for cohesive storytelling not to Welles, but to his editor Viola Lawrence, who took Welles' loose footage and worked with him to get it into some sort of story, and got it cut to a standard-length picture when Welles left the movie.

Noir Watch: The Woman in the Window (1944)

Watched:  06/10/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Fritz Lang

This film has a tremendous premise, a terrific cast, and is absolutely knee-capped by the Hayes Code in the final minutes.  I wouldn't say it's not worth watching, but if you're squinting at the movie and aware of the rules of the road for a movie made in 1944, and wondering "holy heck, how is *this* going to resolve?" - you may be on to something.

Noir Watch: Cornered (1945)

Watched:  06/04/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Edward Dmytryk

There's a lot to like in Cornered (1945), categorized here as Film Noir, but it's early in the movement and won't fit some people's ideas of the category.  Still, a man driven half-mad by obsession ignores common sense in pursuit of his goals, his weaknesses clobber him repeatedly and near fatally, and there are possibly scheming women, even as he sets about solving a mystery.  He's not a professional detective, but former Canadian RAF pilot Gerard (a not Canadian-polite Dick Powell) is recovering at the end of the war and learns that the French girl he met and married while hiding out in a village after being downed, was rounded up and killed by a Nazi collaborator.

Noir Watch: Mildred Pierce (1945)

Watched:  05/16/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  Unknown
Decade:  1940's
Director: Michael Curtiz


It's pointless for a schlub blogger like me to get into writing much about Mildred Pierce (1945) - it's one of the best known and most written about movies out there, still a favorite among even the most casual of classic film fans.  Anyway, there's no shortage of critical analysis out there about the film. 

Noir Watch: Fallen Angel (1945)

Watched:  05/08/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Otto Preminger

This movie sort of felt like it was all over the place, or like parts of a few movies crammed together and held together by the twin powers of Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell.  Which is a shame, because Alice Faye, with whom I am not familiar, is good in this movie as well, but her plotline feels like it's sliced and diced til it leaves what looks like an interesting role as a sort of bystander on the sideline of her own story. 

Is it a Nightmare Alley look at carnival people and illusion?  Is it a Postman Always Rings Twice story of a girl stuck in a rut of her own making and wanting out, making a sap of a guy to do so?  It is a small town drama about spinsters and a travelling huckster?  It's got all of these elements, and you can see the lines where the stories are fused, but it does stick together.

Anniversary Watch: Hiis Girl Friday (1940)

this poster does absolutely nothing to convey what this movie is about

Watched:  04/28/2020
Format:  Criterion BluRay
Viewing:  Unknown - fourth or fifth?
Decade:  1940's
Director:  Howard Hawks

First - I'm adding the director of a film to my list of stats at the top not because I particularly adhere to the auteur theory of cinema (we can talk more about that in depth sometime), but because it's a somewhat interesting stat, and easier to decipher than who produced a film.  You can look up writers on your own.  I'll retroactively figure it out for all the movies I watched in 2020, but this is at least my second Howard Hawks movie this year, and I thought it would be interesting to spot trends in January 2021 when I do my numbers round-up.

Noir Watch: I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

Watched:  04/05/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on BluRay
Viewing:  3rd or 4th
Decade:  1940's
Director: H. Bruce Humberstone

I'd already seen this, so I wasn't going to watch it, but I've been on a Victor Mature kick lately, and Laird Cregar is so damn good in this movie I wanted to at least watch his scenes.  I also hadn't really contextualized I Wake Up Screaming (1941) in the timeline of the noir movement, and it's crazy to see a movie that so thoroughly *already* has down the noir style visually when the form was just getting started. 

Victor Mature is a little cagey

Noir Watch: Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

Watched:  03/25/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

I've been meaning to read some Dorothy B. Hughes, and now I'm deadly curious.  She wrote the novel this movie - a gritty, all-in-one-night (well, two nights) - is based on, and it sounds like the book is even meaner.

But you kind of have to know that anything that's called "Ride the Pink Horse" is either a children's book, porn or something rough and tumble enough that it can have a goofy name and walk away with it.  Sort of the "Boy Named 'Sue"" effect.  I won't pretend Ride the Pink Horse (1947) is a great film, but it's different and interesting enough that I can see why it's got it's own reputation among noiristas and landed a Criterion edition release.

PODCAST! "Laura" (1944) - Noir Watch w/ JAL & Ryan

Watched:  02/22/2020
Format:  DVD
Viewing:  5th or 6th
Decade:  1940's


We welcome all-new co-contributor and longtime pal JAL to the PodCast for a new series: Noir Watch! We're kicking it off with a dreamy murder mystery, Laura (1944) - a whodunnit about a detective who falls for a painting, a venom tongued columnist and Vincent Price in his pre-Master of Horror Days. And, of course, the lovely Gene Tierney.




Music:
Laura - Dan Raskin, Laura OST

Noir Watch Playlist:





Show notes:

Whiskey:  Bonesnapper Rye

Some films mentioned:
His Kind of Woman starring Vincent Price, Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell
Kiss of Death starring Richard Widmark and Victor Mature

Laura as cover song
by Sinatra
by Charlie Parker
by Ella Fitzgerald

Laura portrait

Noir Watch: Kiss of Death (1947)

Watched:  02/20/2020
Format:  TCM on DVR
Viewing:  3rd?
Decade:  1940's

Kiss of Death (1947) was one of the first "noir" films I watched years back when I was trying to sort out "what... is noir?".   It took a second viewing a couple of years later for me to get how it fit into the category, but I do feel it is a good example of a certain kind of noir.  More importantly, it's got a great set-up that plays into a tight, engaging story, and has three fantastic performances.  And Brian Donlevy.

I kid.  Brian Donlevy is fine, but this film is famous for a ground-breaking psychotic performance by Richard Widmark as mad-dog criminal, Tommy Udo.  Flat out, that's probably what the movie is best known for - and there's no question, it's the Joe Pesci-before-Joe Pesci performance of it's day.  Maybe even the Heath Ledger-Joker performance of its day?  He's a lit stick of sociopathic dynamite who thinks nothing of killing someone's kids just to make a point, and he'd have a good laugh about it.

Noir Watch: The Woman on the Beach (1947)

Watched:  02/07/2020
Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

This film lands somewhere just on the other side of what could have been an interesting one-set play, but requires film as the medium to tell the story Jean Renoir had in mind, and we'd lose some key scenes and beautiful visuals.

Muller's intro and outro on Noir City are more than what most of the hosts on TCM provide - there's lots of contextualizing, from historical notes to researched portions that shed light on aspects of the film you might not have picked up on as a modern viewer or not knowing what was happening with the creators of the film either professionally or personally.  And the outros usually leave you with something similar, but best saved for after you've already seen the movie.  And this movie had plenty of curious stuff surrounding it, not the least of which was that I never knew famed French director Jean Renoir (Rules of the Game) was the son of the famed painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Fleeing the Germans, Renoir came to the states and made the least memorable films of his career.  There's a long and painful story behind the making and release of The Woman on the Beach (1947), but the end result was a deeply shortened final film following reshoots and months and months in the edit room.

I don't actually doubt that the film counts as noir, but it's a noir living inside a melodrama.  The stakes are almost entirely personal, and no crimes, exactly fit into the picture.

Coast Guardsman "Scott" (played by Robert Ryan) is recovering from a ship going down under him and suffering from what we'd now call PTSD.  He's found a nice girl (Nan Leslie) in the coastal town where he's recuperating, and would marry her, but they have a schedule they're sticking to.  He keeps seeing a woman on the beach (natch) collecting firewood and hanging around, and eventually finds she (Joan Bennett) is married to a well known painter who has gone blind (Charles Bickford).  The robust and younger figure Scott (Ryan) cuts is appealing, and Peggy and Scott feel a mutual attraction.  The artist, Tod, is no charmer but Peggy doesn't feel she can leave him as she's responsible for him losing his eyesight.  Apparently they used to have bursts of boozing and passion, both angry and sexual (and at the same time, I'd gather).

Scott doesn't believe Tod is blind and believes he has to rescue Peggy (Bennett), becoming an obsession - but it becomes clear that Scott isn't the first gentleman Peggy has lured in.

The movie begins with some fascinating and oddball visuals of Ryan drowning, super imposed underwater in a series of effects shots - visual representations of his PTSD-fueled dreams.  But the cinematography captures the world of the film as a desolate beachfront, sand and scrub against weather, water and sun.  And plenty of "shot on location" footage brings the movie to life - including a scene in which Scott tests whether Tod is actually blind, clearing the question for both audience and himself.

The movie isn't color by numbers, and doesn't resolve its conflicts in ways that I realize maybe I'd come to expect from the movies appearing on Noir Alley, but it does have tight ending that I still didn't really see coming til it occurred.

Robert Ryan and Joan Bennett (and some beach)

Brief at 75 minutes, it's worth a spin.  Joan Bennett is pretty great (they suggest she's aging in the film, but looks younger than her mid-30's, so.... good genes, there, Joan), as is all the cast.  Maybe the weirdest to see in the film is a pre-Beverly Hillbillies Irene Ryan, playing a colorful but not over-the-top local woman and friend to Ryan's fiancee.

According to Muller, the movie was far longer in its original cut and tested badly - which would be obvious, this isn't a movie for teens and kids and the usual folks who show up for "movie" because it's free.  Although made inside the studio system, The Woman on the Beach reads more like an arthouse film, and it's kind of amazing it hasn't been remade in the years since in exactly that context.  The sort of confused love triangles are more reminiscent of The Piano than anything I can readily think of - especially those 90's and 00's potboilers about infidelity.

Noir Watch: Raw Deal (1948)

Watched:  01/13/2019
Format:  BluRay
Viewing:  First
Decade:  1940's

A few months ago, I had purchased a BluRay collection of films, all shot by noir-famous cinematographer John Alton.*  I'd had great intentions, but never made it into the disc.  For whatever reason, I finally did crack open the case and put in the BluRay and I get what the hubbub is about.

This was my first viewing of Raw Deal (1948), a fairly staple noir film, but one that I'd just not made time for before - which is a shame, because I liked a lot of the movie, and would probably use it to illustrate some classic noir tropes and definitely as a teaching tool for the epitome of noir cinematography from the height of the movement.