Western Watch: Rio Bravo (1959)

Watched:  08/26/2023

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Howard Hawks

Sometimes a movie just works, and there's a reason that folks keep watching it, decade over decade.  Rio Bravo (1959) has a bit of a reputation as Dean Martin's best role, or at least that's what I recall hearing, and I always assumed I'd get to the movie, but just had not.  

Had I known it also stars Angie Dickinson, I would have gotten to it more quickly.  But it surprised me to learn this was Howard Hawks, not John Ford, and that Leigh Brackett had been involved with the screenplay.  So, you've got a lot of things going for the movie right out of the gate.

I'm also aware that John Wayne is now considered a terrible human by folks younger than myself, but if you want to be mad about (a) things that are likely a myth, and (b) every opinion and attitude of generations prior that do not match your own - we're going to be here all day.  

For going on a decade, I've compared the superhero film to the Western.  It's a broad category encompassing a lot of movies that share common elements, but it's also a dubious and overly broad categorization, and no indicator of quality one way or another.  Plenty of terrible superhero films are released, just as plenty of terrible westerns were made, but there are also great, thoughtful superhero film just as there are phenomenal movies made featuring characters who wear hats and six-shooters.  

Noir Watch: Dial 1119 (1950)

Watched:  05/24/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gerald Mayer

I went into this film with low expectations and finished it absolutely knocked over by the script, direction and actors - not to mention the camera work, attention to costume, etc...  It's a dynamite package of a movie, and one I'd recommend for folks thinking of character detail done economically.

The movie takes place in near real-time as an escaped psychiatric patient steals a gun on a charter bus and then winds up taking a bar and its patrons hostage while things escalate outside.  It's part of the noir subgenre of hostage-dramas that probably started before The Petrified Forest, but found footing there and worked it's way into a thousand scenarios (check our Key Largo if you haven't prior).  

The cast is mostly folks who were not mainstream stars in 1950, though some became household names.  In it's way, it's an ensemble picture, and feels influenced by theater of the first half of the 20th century, not least of which is the Pulitzer prize winning Time of Your Life.  Only interrupted by a psychotic gunman.

Noir Watch: The File on Thelma Jordan (1950)

Watched:  05/15/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Siodmak

What's not to like?  A Hal B. Wallis production, directed by Robert Siodmak, shot by George Barnes and starring Stanwyck.  No notes.  Well done.

The movie was written by a pair of women, one on story (Marty Holland) and one on script (Ketti Frings), who understand the assignment and put together characters in trouble before the action even starts.  

Wendell Corey plays an Assistant DA, an up-and-comer, whose wife has slotted him as caretaker and figurehead but who has made him a stranger in his own home by refusing to hear him on anything, but in the sweetest and dimmest way, all wrapped up with good intentions.   Meanwhile, Stanwyck - at the end of her rope - has moved in with her elderly aunt as a companion.  The two meet under boozy circumstances, and soon strike up an affair.

SPOILERS

Wrong Franchise Watch: The Fast and the Furious (1954)

Well, I finally watched a Fast and the Furious movie, but I watched the one from before F&F was cool, and absolutely not about fambily.

This movie is a Corman-produced thing about the working-est actor in Hollywood who you recognize but don't know his name (John Ireland) as a crook on the run who hijacks a very cool car that is owned and operated by the-always-a-good-idea Dorothy Malone.  He's trying to get across the border to Mexico, and a race that takes people across the border is his ticket out.

For a 1950's Corman movie, it holds together really well and when it is talky, it's all right, because Malone and Ireland are legit actors.  And Ireland was one of the directors, which is interesting (to me).  Only one of two directorial efforts.

Anyway, I watched this three months ago and forgot to mention it, so here we are.

Musical Watch: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Watched:  03/25/2023

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Howard Hawks

Just a heads-up:  this movie is streaming for free on YouTube right now.  If you've never seen it, give it a whirl.  

I'm going to keep this short because maybe 2/3rds of the way through this viewing, I realized this would be a fine movie to podcast sometime.  So, regular podcast contributors, hit me up if you want in.

It's funny - for a movie that's very, very famous, I don't see the actual story or characters of the movie discussed all that much, let alone the themes, subversions, etc...  Maybe I just hang in the wrong circles.  They focus on Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend, which, fair enough...   Monroe redefined sexiness for the Western world in a single musical number.  But the whole movie is solid, smart and @#$%ing funny.

Anyway, if you happen to think Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe are a generally good idea (and I do), this may be the movie for you.

greatest walking to a table scene ever put to film

Watch Party Watch: Strangers on a Train (1951)

this tagline is wildly misleading

Watched:  03/03/2023

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Hitchcock

Well, that was certainly a good way to get to watch a second Ruth Roman movie in a week.  

I'd been mentally abusing the watch party participants recently via my choice of movies, so it seemed like time to watch an actually good movie with the team.  And my memory of Strangers on a Train (1951) was that it was a strong film, but I couldn't remember anything after the initial train sequence but a sense of how utterly @#$%ed the guy was who was not Farley Granger (Robert Walker*).  

Hitch is the most discussed director in Western cinema, and this movie gets no small amount of ink, so I don't feel terribly compelled to weigh in.  But I will say:

1. this movie and Shadow of a Doubt certainly share a lot in common, and I'd want to dig more into that, and how he gets from here to Psycho by 1960
2. The cops are directly responsible for manslaughter as well as considerable chaos and danger to the public through ineptitude in the final scenes
3. Farley Granger's character never really has a compelling reason to not tell the cops what is happening, all things considered
4. Robert Walker is phenomenal
5. No one much mentions the dead ex-wife other than as a plot point.  Granger doesn't head home to the funeral, he doesn't mourn her in any way.  That's maybe the most suspicious bit of all, really.  
6. I appreciate that Ruth Roman's character is given reason to believe Granger but wasn't entirely unsure he didn't kill his wife.  
7. Pat Hitchcock co-stars in the film, and she's actually really good.  If your career is going to be the product of nepotism, might as well shoot for the moon

Anyway, this is what thrillers are for.  If you've never seen it, recommended.

*Walker passed shortly after the making of the film, while working on a new film. His biography on imdb is grimly fascinating

Noir Watch: Hunt the Man Down (1950)

Watched:  03/02/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Archainbaud

For good or ill, there's more movie packed into the 70 minutes of Hunt the Man Down (1950) than in your average 3-hour Oscar Bait prestige film.  And, I'll argue, this movie is actually entertaining while carrying a message about how things *should* work that seems wildly progressive and cutting edge against decades of cynicism and trying to feel wise by having the lowest of expectations of humanity.

The set up is less than simple.  A guy tries to stick up a bar at closing, and the dishwasher stops him and saves the day.  The press puts the hero's picture in the paper (against his will), and it turns out he's a guy who was about to be convicted of murder 12 years prior, but he escaped his guard and fled the day before he was sentenced.  The cops pick him up and he's set to be retried using the original testimony of the witnesses.

Hearing the story of what transpired the night in question, the public defender (Gig Young) has to go back and find the original witnesses with the assistance of his father, a former cop who is reluctant to help spring a guy.  

And, hoo boy, has history happened in the past dozen years.  Alcoholism, madness, suspicious coupling, war heroes, puppetry, mysterious deaths and murder.  It's just slapping the noir-centric fates button for the witnesses as Gig Young locates each one and determines how their futures hinged on that night.

But what's remarkable is the unshakeable belief the movie has in every man's right to a day in court with vigorous defense.  Gig Young isn't even sure his guy didn't do it - but he's going to make sure he does the leg work that didn't happen in the years prior.  It's positively wild to see a movie that's not about people with crafty defense lawyers who can bamboozle a juror's box full of rubes and get their guy off and the poor prosecutor who must see justice done.  There's a real everyman quality to both Young and his client (and especially Young's dad) that appeals to what everyone should expect, and a recognition that not everyone who winds up behind bars is actually guilty.  There's a reason we have a system that's supposed to give you a shot.  And even if that system does fail, maybe it's because we bring a lot of baggage in with us as jurors - including the media we watch.

This movie is no 12 Angry Men, but I was shocked how *good* it was for what it was.  It uses every moment to push the story forward, it contains almost a dozen characters and you know who all of them are and how they function despite minimal screentime, and manages to get it's point across while being way less soap boxy than I got in the paragraph above.  But, hey, that post WWII idealism was not the worst thing in the world.

You can expect a certain level of film - this was the B movie to help fill a double-bill.  Not everyone here is star material, but it's not distracting.  And we do get Cleo Moore as a brunette, which is not a complaint.

There are plot holes.  Why would you stay in the same town where you could run into any number of people who could recognize you?  Why - when you were in the paper - wouldn't you sprint out of town? But.

Anyway - worth a watch some time.

If I have a beef - it's that:  despite the title, no man is hunted down.  The defendant is found by accident.  The witnesses just turn up one by one.  Like, I get that maybe it's about not treating defendants as prey, but.  Sometimes it feels like they just slap a name on these movies.

Noir Watch: Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)

Watched:  02/23/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  King Vidor

The thing that might leap out at you watching Lightning Strikes Twice (1951) is that the film was written by a woman, based on a novel by a woman.  So while it's absolutely a grimy, desert noir, it's also not focused on a Dana Andrews floating into town and getting in over his head - it's Ruth Roman.  And the male characters of the film are certainly important, but they're not the show that you're here to see.*  This movie has terrific - I mean great - female characters who don't feel like they got knocked out of the "mother", "housewife", "nightclub girl" mold you may realize you've gotten too used to.

Musical Watch: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)

the movie that posits: women love being abducted and held against their will

Watched:  02/07/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  First (and possibly last)

Director:  Stanley Donen

Holy cats, y'all.

I...  I don't even know where to start.  There's so, so many angles to this thing, so I'll try and capture my thoughts as best I can.  

I want to be very clear - Until this film, I (perhaps wrongly) believed I'm *pretty good* at contextualizing the cultural differences between our social norms and mores and those of yesteryear.  I may even be able to do period-piece stuff made in prior decades, trying to grok what the people of 1954 found charming about frontier life.  

In general, I can see a film and say "yes, I understand that there were ways that we viewed gender/ race/ manners/ religion/ etc..  that no longer reflect how we'd likely feel now" and I can go on with my life.

But.  Y'all.  I am adrift.  

My take-away is that the current interest in this film by classic film buffs is rubber-necking, ironic appreciation, or just outright hate-watching.  Or not!  Classic film buffs are an unruly bunch.  In its release year, this movie was very successful, financially and critically.  So I don't know anything about mankind anymore.

I've now seen the movie, and will only watch it again if it's my opportunity to bring the madness to the people.  

Some thoughts:

Amazon Watch Party Watch: Gorilla at Large (1954)

Watched:  02/03/2023

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Director:  Harmon Jones

So, to my complete surprise, I liked this movie semi-unironically.  

I found it weird that this movie starred fairly big names for the time.  Not huge stars, but knowable names and more than one of them.  It has Raymond Burr, Lee J. Cobb, a young Lee Marvin, Cameron Mitchell (before he spiraled into camp), and Anne Bancroft here to remind you she is, indeed, a very good idea.  I was not familiar with Charlotte Austin, who plays the virginal character, but who could scream like crazy and had great hair (and was in another gorilla movie in 1958 called The Bride and the Beast, penned by Ed Wood Jr.).

At around the 70% mark of the movie, I think it was Jenifer who pointed out "this is gorilla noir", and she was not wrong.  This is absolutely murder mystery noir, set against the backdrop of a carnival, with a gorilla as a character, and plenty of intrigue to go around.  The movie is knowing enough that it constantly plays with expectations, and I had no idea how this thing would wrap up until the end.  

It's also, visually, very interesting.  Shot at Nu Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach.  I thought it was the same location as Woman on the Run/ Gun Crazy and others, and was very wrong.  My takeaway is that California had some great amusement options in the 20th century.  (The Burglar was filmed in New Jersey, so I was way off there.)  But as something shot originally for 3D presentation, and in bright technicolor, it's a fascinating bit of visual cotton candy, including a dynamic scene with a mirror maze (that I'm not clear on how it was shot without showing the crew standing behind the camera, tbh).

It's not challenging the AFI Top 100 as an underserved, underseen classic, but it's *interesting*.  Including the bizarre decisions that led to the finale.  

  

Marilyn-Noir Watch: Don't Bother To Knock (1952)

Watched: 01/10/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Roy Ward Baker

Huh.  This was not at all what I was expecting.  

Essentially a movie about post-war trauma, wrapped up in a taught 76 minute, thriller-like package, it's maybe more *real* than the well-rehearsed, twitter-friendly approaches to mental illness we'd see in a film now.  It's a thriller without a villain, even though that doesn't feel like the set-up - and the movie absolutely has empathy in spades and as a reflection of a nation on the other side of the war, doesn't really have time for your finger-wagging.

Marilyn Monroe plays a woman new to New York City, whose uncle (Elijah Cook Jr.!) - an elevator operator in a hotel - has landed her a one-night job as a babysitter for a rich couple, the husband there to collect an award for his editorials.  While they're at the ceremony, they'll have Monroe watch over their daughter.

Anne Bancroft (in one of her first roles) is the lounge singer in the hotel, and while she's tried to break up with her sometimes boyfriend in the shape of Richard Widmark playing a cocksure airline pilot, he's shown up at the hotel and is looking to ignore her plans for a split.  

Noir Watch: City of Fear (1959)

Watched:  11/19/2022

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Irving Lerner

A low-budget crime thriller noir for the nuclear age!  Now this would be stretched into eight episodes of prestige TV, but this taught 81 minute film uses short-hand and focuses on the minute-by-minute crisis that unfolds when a pair of prisoners use a riot as cover to escape, believing they've smuggled out a canister of heroin that they think was being used to experiment on prisoners (there's your exciting B-plot as a brave journalist blows the lid off this story!  But not in this movie.).  

But that ain't heroin.  Vince Edwards - our POV character and an all-around-heel - has accidentally grabbed a sealed container of the highly radioactive Cobalt-60.  

Vince Edwards was a pusher before he got popped, and now he's looking to unload what he things is a fortune in horse and make good his escape, and maybe have his frankly foxy and loyal-to-a-fault girlfriend (Patricia Blair) catch up with him.  

Meanwhile, the cops, FBI and various other federal agencies are on the hunt as Edwards has no idea what he has, or that if he manages to open the sealed container, he's going to wipe out LA (see that title, City of Fear).  

In general, the movie is better than a lot of poverty row pictures, and while it feels cheap for a movie, if this were TV in 1959, it'd look and sound swell.  It has a soundtrack by a young Jerry Goldsmith, and it is definitely Jerry Goldsmith, so it feels oddly highbrow if you've been trained to enjoy his scores.  

I don't know if this is a recommended film, but it's a great curiosity of a picture.  Kiss Me Deadly does the nuclear bit perhaps better, but this one gets the threat in front of you minute one and stays focused, making you cringe every time Edwards tries to crack the canister.  And you fully get why the cops agonize over what to tell the public as a public alarm seems necessary, but may also f'-up their search and cause undue calamity if they can find that canister first.

Anyway - not all bad!  

Halloween Watch: The Blob (1958)

Watched:  10/30/2022

Format:  Criterion Channel

Viewing:  second?  third?

Director:  Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. / Russell S. Doughten Jr.

I am 95% certain Simon and I are podcasting the 1950's and 1980's version of this film next Halloween.  But here's some early thoughts.

• Pictures for teens may actually provide a more realistic portrayal of cops than 95% of movies (ie: they walk in with a thousand assumptions, ignore all evidence in front of them, and there's a non-zero chance they're going to arrest the very people who were asking for help)
• There are numerous lengthy and pointless scenes in this movie
• Apparently just anyone can get to an air-raid siren
• The instinct to shoot at a gelatinous monster is prevalent and wild
• This movie is terrifying
• The FX are absolutely insane.  I need to read up on how they did all of this.
• That poor nurse.
• In some ways, this is a movie about a little dog no one can keep track of.
• In other ways, this is a movie about the world's shittiest first date.
• The job of a teen girl in this movie is to silently stand there and be forgotten but absolutely be in scenes standing  there hoping Steve McQueen can do something.
• Everyone in this town shows up for midnight movies.  Young, old, rich, poor.
• Weird flex to predict global warming, movie

Anyway, love The Blob.  So good.

Vincent Watch: The Fly (1958)

Watched:  10/25/2022

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  FIRST

Director:  Kurt Neuman

A while back I figured out I had never seen The Fly (1958).  Whatever I saw - which was in pieces on TV - was Return of the Fly from the following year.  Both star Vincent Price. Look, I'm not always great at knowing what I did and did not do.

I was inclined to check the movie out anyway, but October 25th marked the 29th anniversary of the passing of Vincent Price, add in Halloween shenanigans and it seemed like the time to watch it.

Look, I loved this movie.  Great cast, great story, and understood horror on a much deeper level than "oooo!  a scary monster!".  Like, there's body horror, psychological horror, existential horror...  you can see why Cronenberg was like "I have an idea of how to re-do this".

If you've lived in the world, you know "Heeeeeelllp meeeeeee!"  And I'd seen the clip on YouTube.

All this to say, this movie is as dark as anything I've seen from this era, and I've seen piles of post-1955 noir.  You don't get much more f'd up than a man-fly or fly-man.  Or a woman having to flatten her own husband to paste.

The film stars Price in a POV role as the brother to the scientist who becomes The Fly, who is played by Felix Leiter himself, David Hedison.  Patricia Owens didn't have a huge career, but she's amazing as the wife who had to learn to work an industrial press in a pinch.  Herbert Marshall as the Inspector, and a surprise appearance by Kathleen Freeman as a domestic who has no idea what is going on.

I knew Stuart was all in on this movie, so I'm glad he hyped it for me to finally get around to it.  It's a couple levels better than what I was expecting, which was William Castle adjacent.  But thought and ideas went into this, and not just schlocky fun.

Noir Watch: Hit and Run (1957)

Watched:  09/15/2022

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Hugo Haas

Eddie Muller may or may not have programmed this flick for Noir Alley, but he did host it.  I don't really know how Noir Alley selections work, to be honest.

But he seemed delighted to show a poverty row-adjacent film and talk about Hugo Haas, the producer, director and star of Hit and Run (1957), a self-made man in cinema who only made a handful of films, but did it on his own terms, including casting himself alongside Cleo Moore, one of the lesser known blonde bombshells of the mid-50's.  And there's probably a fascinating movie or prestige TV show about the shadow world of these films and their distribution in an era where the studios were still running the show and for everyone else, it was the collision of art and commerce and doing what you could afford to do.

Hit and Run plays mostly like a local theater production of The Postman Always Rings Twice, but like the local community theater producer had some ideas for revisions to juice it up a bit.  But, similarly, it features Cleo Moore as the blonde girl who, down on her luck, marries the most stable and financially sound guy in her world, even if he's older and they make a weird pair.  Rather than John Garfield wandering into the gas station, Vince Edwards (whom I like a lot, generally), is already employed there, so it's Moore who's the interloper breaking up a happy home.

This version leans (a) first into the idea that the blonde is not a willing participant in her romance with Edwards or his murderous scheme to take out her husband.  And (b) there's a previously unseen twin who appears to take the husband's place and stir things up.  Y'all, this is how you just keep plussing an idea.

Weirdly, both Moore and Edwards seem like they didn't get enough takes or just weren't that into it, and the energy level in this film, aside from Haas, is weirdly flat from beginning to end.  Which, in contrast to 1946's Postman, is weirdly odd.  But part of that is the ambiguity about what is really happening with Edwards and Moore - she seems to loathe him but melt in his arms when he forces himself on her - so what is she playing?  And Edwards is laconic and then suddenly is not.  It's weird.

There's some curious touches like a society for people to make fun of superstitions and the people who believe them, which seems mostly to be about drinking and shit-talking people you don't know, which may make me an honorary member.

And Chekhov's goldfish enter in the first act but don't really achieve any significance.  

It wasn't great, but I like all of the players - Cleo Moore has really grown on me - and was so weird as a parallax version of a well known film, I couldn't really look away.  But at film's end, I was probably more interested in the movie someone should make about Hugo Haas and Cleo Moore.

Amazon Watch Party Watch: War of the Worlds (1953)

Watched:  07/29/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Byron Haskin

It's tough to beat this sci-fi classic.  And I write about it pretty often.  So I'll be brief.

Here.  Here.  Here.  and Here.  And part of why we even have a "mars" category here at The Signal Watch.  

I own a model of the Martian craft and of a Martian.  This movie is absolutely my jam.

Anyway, you can read prior posts about that, but it was indeed a lot of fun to watch the movie with other people, some of whom had seen it, and some not.  It's a high water mark of science fiction film for a reason, and I expect that won't diminish for some time.  

Even Spielberg seemed to only bounce up against this version with his 2005 version of the story.  But I think there's room for all the interpretations.  And all the movies (see:  Independence Day) that riff on it or rip it off.  

Anyway, it disappears from Amazon Prime Monday, so you have like a day or two to watch it for "free".

Ida Watch: While the City Sleeps (1956)

Watched:  07/20/2022

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  4th?  5th?

Director:  Fritz Lang

I've written this movie up multiple times.  I really like it, and I like it more every time I watch it.  

It's a newsroom film from mid-Century America, with shades of noir - but the cast in this movie is unreal and worth checking out, and it's the last, great Fritz Lang film.  

Here's who you have in the film:

Dana Andrews, Vincent Price, George Sanders, Rhonda Fleming, Thomas Mitchell, John Drew Barrymore, Sally Forrest and...  Ida Lupino.

I mean, it's worth the price of admission just for the cast and director, but I dig the hell out of this movie. 

It's a workplace dramady, a hard-nosed newspaper/ media film, a suspense-thriller and absolutely an ensemble piece.  It moves at a newspaper movie clip, and you have to pay a bit of attention to keep up.  But if you do - the workplace drama is phenomenal, and while a fascinating look at "juvenile delinquency" as seen through the lens of the 1950's - complete with blaming *comic books* for driving a young man to murder.  

 If you're looking for how one keeps sex and shenanigans just off screen in a Hayes Code era movie, this one is a lulu.  And despite Rhonda Fleming performing calisthenics, Ida Lupino is the thing you'll keep your eyes on through the whole film. 

This was Jamie's first viewing, and she spoke up afterwards about how great Lupino's character and performance were as a nuanced character with her own agenda.  I'm in complete agreement.  Lupino takes what's on the page, which could have been words given to anyone, and absolutely elevates the role as smart, conniving, amoral and sexy as hell.

She also drinks champagne with a peach in it, and I need to look up what the actual hell is happening there.

Anyway - this is becoming one of my favorite films.  Just a good watch every time.

Watch Party Watch: His Kind of Woman (1951)

Watched:  06/24/2022

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Third?

Director:  John Farrow

In celebration of Jane Russel's 101st birthday and enduring foxiness, we watched His Kind of Woman (1951) for our Friday watch party.  

I was aware this movie was weird and goofy, coming out of the Howard Hughes-era RKO studio where things seemed more dictated by Hughes' whims and libido than proven formula,  But until you watch a movie with a bunch of other people and you're responsible for what you're all watching - that's when you go from "yeah, this is kind of wacky" to "wow, this movie is bonkers".  

I'm aware that classic film folks turn their nose up at this movie, but they are wrong.  This is a movie that has everything, and it makes me laugh consistently throughout.  If you want serious, dark film noir, keep walking, because this thing has songs, Mitchum just swinging his dick everywhere, Vincent Price showing the moxie he'd bring to his horror career, and Jane Russell just being as Jane Russell-y as all get out (that's decidedly a feature).  

I had forgotten Raymond Burr was our big bad, and that Charles McGraw had shown up as a heavy.  Anyway, I can't think of a lot against the movie except that the last ten minutes goes on for 25.  Like - there's just way too much climax in this movie and it doesn't include Russell, and that is math I can't get behind.

Anyway, here's to the birthday girl.  Here's hoping she's having a great time wherever she is out there.

Noir Watch: The Killer is Loose (1956)

Watched:  06/10/2022

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Second

Director:   Budd Boetticher

This movie is here to put the lie to the 1950's being a more innocent time.  It's dark and brutal and feels like a gritty novella of the era (which should also tell you that if you think the 1950's were what you saw on TV re-runs, you're a remarkable idiot).  This film mostly made it past censors as near as I can tell because the antagonist as the Hays Office would have seen it gets shot to hell in the final reel.  But that's missing the drifting shades of gray of *everyone* in the movie, including and especially out lead cop.

I watched this one about seven years ago, and it's interesting to return to films I haven't seen much now that I know the actors and noir a bit better.  I have a better feel for Joseph Cotten, Wendell Corey, Rhonda Fleming*, Alan Hale Jr., and even Virginia Christine.  

Anyway - it's a good ticking time bomb of a movie.  Wendell Corey plays a bank employee who seems to be trying to thwart a robbery, but the cops figure out he's involved.  When they come for him, Joseph Cotten accidentally kills his wife.  Seeing Cotten's wife, Rhonda Fleming, at his trial, he vows revenge in the form of murdering Fleming.  

He escapes (via murder) an honor farm and he begins his pursuit.  Fleming and Cotten battle over what it means to be a cop's wife and what she's going through worrying about him constantly and what he feels is his duty.  In a curious turn for the era, the movie refuses to give us an answer if either of them are right.  But as a potential target, it really brings the debate to a boil.

Give this one a shot some time.  It's a quick watch, but gets the job done.  And you'll never look at Wendell Corey the same again.

*I mean, let us be honest - I tend to say "okay" if a movie has Rhonda Fleming, and this one does.  

Sci-Fi Watch: World Without End (1956)

Watched:  04/10/2022

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Edward Bernds

From YouTubeTV:  

An astronaut (Hugh Marlowe) and his buddies land on 26th-century Earth and find men meek and women friendly

I mean, yes.  

I have no idea how I recorded this movie, but I did.  I'm guessing by accident.  I put it on to see what it was, and - while not good or great - there's a bit of The Time Machine and what we'll all know from Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes to this movie.  

Some astronauts return to Earth only to find they didn't just pass through space, they passed through time - a few hundred years.  On the surface, they find giant spiders and brutish troglodytes, and as they meet a race of subterranean people who seem much more like the people they left, they find that there was a nuclear war at some point.  While safe in their underground city, the men have turned weak and fearful, and the women - hot and mini-skirted.   And disappointed in their men.  So of course they like Rod Taylor popping his shirt off and bringing the gun show.  

Anyway, it's mostly curious in that it seems like Hollywood did watch the movie and said "we could do this better".  And they were not wrong.  Just twelve years later, Planet of the Apes - with Rod Serling and the original novel behind it - doesn't just turn the opportunity into a sex fantasy/ reinforcement of our exceptionalism as mid-Century Americans.