It's possible in fifteen or twenty years, this movie will be found and puzzled over as featuring folks who are now established stars, mixed with longtime stars. Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) features Cynthia Erivo in what I will say should have been a break-out performance and her entree into film stardom, rather than waiting til Wicked. Lewis Pullman is here. As are Chris Hemsworth, John Hamm, Jeff Bridges and a not-50 Shades-ing Dakota Johnson.
But this movie came out and tanked. That's neither here nor there, but it has meant that it's not exactly on the forefront of people's minds as few eyes saw the movie in the theater and it's not found an audience on home video.
What's odd is that Metacritic comes in at a mid-range-ish 60, and the audience score is a generous 71. And yet... no one saw this.
However, maybe in the same way of The Last of Sheila from 1973, it will find an audience that will make sure it has a cult following. Or not. (I heartily recommend The Last of Sheila.)
This movie had the unfortunate combo of plodding pacing while feeling deeply convoluted. Throw in some off-brand talent and poverty row aesthetics, and it's not exactly one of the most polished movies you're going to see.
It's a bummer, because it feels like there's probably a good story or movie in here somewhere, but this probably isn't it.
There's just so many angles and storylines, and the movie runs only 72 minutes but has enough going on for something 45 minutes longer. It also uses the framing of "wow, this is awful. How did we wind up here?" with two of our leads in a car wreck at the beach, both trapped and waiting for the high tide to come in and kill them.
We flash back to a newspaper office with a tough editor, a weak-knee'd rich boy boss and our lead - who had been fired from the paper coming back to find out why his editor pal is making him the beneficiary on his high dollar life insurance.
There's multiple dames in play, gangsters, perturbed fired reporters. It's a lot. And it's kind of hard to care about forty minutes in as things just keep happening but it feels like the movie is spinning its wheels.
I just couldn't get into it. I wish I could say I did. But... alas.
Then, at the end, when they put all the pieces together, I was like "oh, that's actually really smart and cool". Alas, I just didn't maintain much interest to get me to that point. It's so short, I'll rewatch it soon to see if I like it better when I'm in a better headspace.
I'm gonna say - I've never disliked a Sam Fuller movie. And, in fact, I like Sam Fuller movies when I watch them, and I probably need to watch more of them.
Forty Guns (1957) is a pastiche on the Wyatt Earp/ Tombstone mythos and OK Corral films, with Barry Sullivan playing the Wyatt Earp stand-in, Griff Bonnell. The three Bonnell brothers ride into Tombstone to collect a lawman who has been robbing mail delivery. But on their way in, they're passed by Stanwyck in all black on a white horse, and riding head of forty men - her Dragoons.
Stanwyck's Jessica Drummond is the hard-as-nails boss of the territory, who has helped turn Arizona into something like civilization, but rules her territory with forty hired guns who ride far and wide doing her bidding while she puppet masters politicians, judges and the law.
She has a maniacal brother, Brockie (John Ericson), who she covers for even as he causes her no small amount of trouble, this time by shooting an older lawman - who is going blind.
In some ways, this is a familiar version of the Earps and the Cowboys story from Tombstone - three brothers taking on an organized mob on the edge of civilization. In others, it's a bit different as Griff and Jessica start to fall for each other, seeing in each other that they're the kind of people it took to build the West, but now the use for people like them is coming to a close.
The cast in this thing is absolutely wild. James Spader. Peter Coyote. Aidan Quinn. Robin Tunney. Alice Krige. Matthew Davis. and, of course, Lacey Chabert.
I am guessing this was a straight-to-DVD movie. It's a kind of throwback to 1940's post-war melodrama that might have been categorized as noir, but does feel decidedly 00's. And, once again, I see the idea here, even if the execution left me mostly flat.
I can see all of the casting as being spot on. But the movie's plot itself is insane and absurd. Maybe it could have worked with a different director. Lighting. Something. What's weird is - they have the sets, they have the talent (mostly), but it feels like it was shot as a TV movie that happens to contain actors doing a pretty good job with a pretty ridiculous movie. There's one scene where a guy - I think nameless, but impacted by our villain - is *acting* and I want to be, like, my guy... it's okay. You can dial it back. You care more than the director. And that may be true of everyone in the cast.
It's no secret we're fans of stars Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, or director Robert Wise. But because Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter aren't really household names, and it's a grimy boxing picture of its surface, I'm not shocked if you haven't heard of or seen this one.
The film comes in at a taught, trim 73 minutes. And, novel for its era, the movie unspools in an approximation of real-time - taking place in one night of crisis for an aging boxer and his wife, who can't take watching him get beaten every night. Not anymore.
Look, I just like Joseph Cotten. The man is a movie star, but also can be an everyman like no one's business. And he was absolutely the right choice to be our lead.
He plays a sort of middle-management salary man at a bank, knows all the in's and out's, and is married to Teresa Wright (who played his niece in Shadow of a Doubt). They have an adorable moppet of a daughter. All is post-war happiness. Or is it?
Cotten begins realizing how easy it would be for him to rob his own bank. There's no femme fatale pushing him to do it - he just realizes he's clever enough to pull it off, and people trust him enough that he won't be found out til he's already out of the country. It's basically asking the question of "why am I playing by the rules if the rules aren't doing me much good to really get ahead?"
And, so he waits til no one is looking at the end of a Friday and clears out the vault.
What follows shows up in movies like Quick Change where the heist just will not play by your carefully sorted rules. So for about an hour we're watching every conceivable foul-up get in his way as he has to gaslight his wife (who he is taking with him, telling her he's on a business trip) to get them both on a plane. In a way, it's almost painful as the issues mount up.
By nature, I'm a planner. Jamie is well aware, my least favorite thing is a surprise, maybe even a good one, if it's going to throw off my schedule. I am *much* better about this now than I was ten years ago, where I'd just lose my shit if things got off schedule. So in a way, this movie seems designed to make me crazy.
We were warned by Eddie Muller in the intro that the writer/ directors of this movie are famous for having some bizarre and far-fetched set-ups, and this is certainly one of them. There's no ticking clock at the outset of the movie - our hero just decides he needs to rob this bank NOW instead of just planning it out and re-working the plan until he's got a clean getaway planned.
Ie: for a movie all about planning the perfect heist, what actually occurs is nothing of the sort. And we get to watch Cotten spiral into being a real jerk as the walls he created close in.
Anyway, it wasn't my favorite movie. But it did have a unique ending - that ends just before I'm pretty sure the whole thing would have blown up in his face, anyway, so - as they say - you get a happy ending depending on when you leave the story.
This Saturday (and with a replay Sunday morning), TCM is playing The Set-Up from 1949 on their signature film showcase Noir Alley.
Why watch?
People tend to think of film noir as detectives and trenchcoats and dames in slinky dresses. This movie is the opposite of all that, and is still decidedly noir. A working class story about a washed-up boxer and the woman who loves him.
An older boxer is losing fights, and on the night of what could be his final bout, his own manager has taken a pay-off to throw the fight, but hasn't told our man.
Robert Ryan, a noir staple and dynamite as an actor, stars as the boxer who can't close the door on his career.
Audrey Totter is at her best in this movie. Usually cast as the bad girl - and terrific in that position - this time she plays the tormented wife. She's absolutely heart-breaking.
The movie is directed by Robert Wise, who did every genre in Hollywood and always brought in a great picture.
I don't usually make recommendations, but this one is a favorite. If you have a chance to see it via Noir Alley on TCM or otherwise, now's the time to give it a watch.
Director: Richard Fleischer/ William Cameron Menzies
I've only mentioned this movie twice on the blog from what I can tell. Once in 2010, and once in 2018. That seems nuts, because I'm sure this was more like the 5th or 6th time I'd seen The Narrow Margin (1952).
Personally, I love this movie. I'm shocked I didn't get to it during the podcast. I think SimonUK and I talked about double-billing it with the Gene Hackman-starring remake, which I still haven't seen.
The movie is pretty straightforward. It's an RKO flick, so it's a bit more rough and tumble, a bit sexier and sassier, and the sense of danger a bit higher. There's a whole backstory to the movie that stars Howard Hughes being out of his mind and thinking Jane Russell should really be in everything and also not getting how his own movies work. You can look it up. Today is not the day I make this a film history blog.
Noir meets The Boy Who Cried Wolf when a 10 year old kid, sleeping on a balcony in a NYC tenement, sees his neighbors murder a guy through a crack in the blind.
It's a simple premise, but with the age of the protagonist - ably played by Disney star* Bobby Driscoll - the set up is deeply effective. The carefree/ consequence-free world of childhood collides headlong into the powerlessness of childhood when everyone wants to explain away what you saw with your own eyes, and your own past misdeeds are coming home to roost as your parents think they're enforcing tough love after your newest lie/ story.
The parents are played by Arthur Kennedy, who was no slouch of an actor (you likely saw him in Lawrence of Arabia and other films), and Barbara Hale, who would go on to household-name fame as Della Street on Perry Mason. Our killers are the dead-eyed "that guy" actor Paul Stewart (good in so many things, here's his IMDB) and Signal Watch fave, Ruth Roman. And if Ruth Roman killed someone, I'm sure it's not that wrong.
It's a tight, short movie, moving through some predictable beats - including what's an effective final chase sequence through darkened, abandoned tenements.
It's kind of amazing how many movies used to be based on the idea of living on top of each other in apartment situations, or had major plotpoints that require people live in multi-family set-ups, and it's just kind of gone away. But certainly the cramped quarters of New York City and what your neighbors could be up to was part of more than one decent movie over the years.
I think it's gutsy they did this with a kid, and I wonder what it would look like in a modern context. This is 1949, so this movie relies on the standard "mom and dad are busy, go play in abandoned buildings" living that hasn't seen the light of day in this century. But even back in the 1940's, I'm not sure any studio but RKO is putting this movie out.
This one has aired a few times, and I've avoided it as I often roll my eyes at things kids do in movies that are otherwise grounded, but this one feels buyable. Our lead kid isn't a super detective or genius - he's mostly relying on adrenaline and the fact he knows the buildings.
I see why this one gets brought up, which it does, because it's well-directed, edited and shot, and the story is lean and clean. It's maybe not my favorite, but it gets the job done.
There's half of an amazing character driven neo-noir in this film, and then half of an okay thriller.
I think it's the schizm of the two that makes for a frustrating viewing experience where one would be a delight and the other a pleasant enough film, but when the film shifts gears back and forth - and I usually don't mind tonal changes - it just feels like there's missed opportunity on that character study and the better film. Collateral (2004) does get to sail on Michael Mann's slick directing and visuals (look, you can hire whatever DP, but it's Mann), and stellar performances from Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise and a kick-ass set-up that feels rooted in some classic noir.
The movie also co-stars a wide array of names. Jason Statham appears for about twenty seconds. Debi Mazar as well (in our book, there's never enough Mazar). Jada Pinkett-Smith appears. Mark Ruffalo plays an LA cop uncovering what's going on in real time. Javier Bardem. Bruce McGill. Peter Berg.
Our set up is that Jamie Fox plays Max, a cabbie, who picks up a fare, who seems like a charming guy but is actually an assassin, Vincent (Tom Cruise) flown in from points unknown to take out a series of people. Max just wants to squirrel away money for his dream of starting a limo company.
At the first hit, Fox is waiting in his cab for Vincent when he's suddenly involved in the proceedings. Under threat by Vincent, he begins driving him from hit-to-hit. And that could have been enough. The relationship building between the two could have made for a taught thriller driven by the desires and motives of each - and the movie plays with that as they reveal more about themselves and get real about the weaknesses of the other.
Back when A History of Violence (2005) was in theaters, I was scheduled to see it as it’s based on a comic from a briefly lived DC Comics adult-oriented imprint. I’d read and quite liked the comic, but at showtime, one of us got sick, and we didn’t see it. And then, I never got back to it.
And that’s a shame, because 20 years later I liked it. But had I seen it back then, I doubt I would have understood how much this movie reads like a 1940’s film noir, maybe something like The Killers or a Goodis novel or movie. It kind of reflects some of that post-War noir grit where we didn't slot people into "good guy" and "bad guy" so readily.
SPOILERS
Viggo Mortensen stars as the smalltown café owner, Tom Stall, married to Maria Bello. The pair share kids aged around 16 and 5. Like many noir films, it’s about what happens when the unbridled viciousness of organized crime intersects with the mundane lives of ordinary people - and what happens when someone among the normal people isn't so average.
In a different decade, the William Hurt role is played by Raymond Burr in a B picture or Richard Conte if they had more money. Ed Harris would be played by Robert Ryan, and you can imagine Burt Lancaster in the lead role.
I saw Heat (1995) in the theater, and I am pretty sure I watched it again the next year on VHS. But, friends, it's a three-hour movie - I have not watched it at all in this century. Fortunately, Jamie had never seen it and was up for it this week.
It's a 90's film nerd's star-studded affair, famous upon release for having both Robert DeNiro - riding high on Scorsese at this juncture - and Al Pacino - still hot from his Scent of a Woman* Oscarwin (hoo-AH!). But it also has Val Kilmer, Jon Voigt, Ashley Judd, Amy Brenneman, Wes Studi, Mykelti Williamson, Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine, William Fichtner, Henry Rollins, Dennis Haysbert, Tom Noonan, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Hank Azari and a tweenage Natalie Portman. With a sprawling cast and not a ton of exposition, it doesn't hurt to be able to identify all of the characters easily by which actor we're looking at.
The movie follows a group of professional heist-men performing a string of robberies in Los Angeles, starting with an armored car robbery that goes sideways when a new member of the team decides to shoot one of the security guards because he doesn't like his face. This turns the heist from a robbery into murder charges (not wanting witnesses, they take down all three guards) and gets the attention of Pacino's relentless crusader of a cop.
I'd watched The Outfit (1973) back in 2016. But recently I re-read the book it's based on - an early Parker novel by Richard Stark - and decided it was time to watch the film again.
Most of what I say in my original write-up from 9 years ago is true. The movie is a pulp-crime movie fan's movie. It's based on a famed series of books, and features appearances from 50's-era noir mainstays like Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey, Marie Windsor, Jane Greer, Elisha Cook Jr. - and even singer Anita O'Day. This generation is paired with the 1970's stars like Robert Duvall in the Parker-role, Karen Black as his galpal, Joe Don Baker his buddy, Richard Jaeckel as a supplier, and Joanna Cassidy as Ryan's trophy wife. And, of course, more. Army Archerd even has a walk-on as a butler.
The story does loosely follow *parts* of the novel, but The Outfit is the third novel in a series (of something like 24 books), and the story wraps up the events of the first two books. So, pulling it out and making it it's own thing is kind of an odd choice. Further, the point of the novel is to show the world of thieves versus the world of the overly organized mob. Spoilers on a 60 year old novel - Parker directs all his heist-buddies to start hitting all the Outfit-owned places at once, essentially draining the mob of resources overnight and not letting them know where to direct their attention. It's pretty good, fun stuff.
This isn't what the movie does. To keep things simple and linear, the movie foregoes a lot of what would become Richard Stark staples in shifting POV's - all in third person, but caring a great deal about who we were now tracking. We're sticking with Duvall through most of the film, giving he and Joe Don Baker all the heists instead of introducing a flock of crooks, thieves and heist-men who would appear across the Parker novels for the next thirty years.
Nor does it contain the passionless inner workings of a mob that feels like it was designed by an MBA, where the boss's removal can be negotiated - this isn't the Corleones. And I kinda wish it had. Stark has a sense for what it takes to actually find closure, and this movie supposes everything is over with the murder of a single guy. Stark would know - no, that's bad for business for the mob. They're going to keep going at you - and it eventually does come to a head in the novel Butcher's Moon, that is kind of the opposite of the happy ending of The Outfit as both novel and movie.
I like the movie in its way. It's cool to see all these faces on the same screen. In general, I like seeing the book to screen, but the pacing is a little deadly at times, and since its just our Parker stand-in and Cody, it seems less likely they'd pull all of this off. I dig the back-roads feel of the movie, and that Duvall seems to get that his character is maybe wired unlike more sympathetic characters. But I just don't think it's easy to love this movie. It's absolutely a product of 1970's filmmaking, but it's also not making connections for the audience as well as it could - and feels meandering.
I watched They Drive By Night (1940)about ten years ago now, and had only vague memories of the film. My write up of it is so brief, it did not help when it came to trying to remember more than a few snips of it.
But somewhere on the internet I saw someone mention it starred Bogart, Ann Sheridan and Ida Lupino in one movie, and that seemed like a darn good reason to watch it again as I've certainly become more familiar with all of their work in the ensuing years. The film stars George Raft, and, to be honest, George Raft is not my cup of tea. I think this movie was, even 10 years ago, when I decided "I just don't think that guy is much of an actor".
The movie is almost two separate movies - the first half being about the dangers of being a truck driver pre-WWII America, driving produce from Northern California to LA. There's lousy management that will try not to pay you, guys trying to seize your truck because that manager won't pay you, and the less than stellar pre-Eisenhower road system. And so being married seems like a dumb thing to do, because you're never home.
After running through something like 10 Lacey Chabert movies during the holiday season, Amazon is now offering up additional Chabert content - which has not helped when I pondered "what if I drove everyone nuts by making 2025 the year I watch and discuss *every* Lacey Chabert movie?" Because, friends, she has 183 credits already, and is, like, 42. That's not 183 movies - she's voiced several cartoons (including Supergirl on Harley Quinn), and been on a few TV series. A glance at her IMDB suggests she's doing like 10-12 projects every year - and a heap of those are 90 minute TV movies.
Anyway - I'm not going to cover all of that. But I'm also not going to not do it. Who else will be the chronicler of Lacey Chabert's career arc?
Imaginary Fried (2012) is about eight years after Mean Girls. It's a Lifetime movie, and part of the "someone close to me is trying to kill me" fantasy that characterized a lot of Lifetime's programming at one point. Lifetime is a weird bastion of noirish programming that gets overlooked, but if these movies were black and white and the characters spoke with Mid-Atlantic accents, we'd just shrug and include them in the category as maybe B's.
I'd watched this movie years ago, and saw it available at a low price on DVD. In my quest to have a decent collection of Audrey Totter movies, I picked it up.
FBI Girl a 1951 release, and some post-WWII, pro-FBI propaganda. The entire set-up is about the fingerprint files and a Governor who is not who he seems with a prior life as a criminal, whose prints are in the FBI files. No one can hide from their past and elected leaders are clearly held to the highest standards of the law! This is what the people want! (cough cough)
The mob's attempts to retrieve those files leads to murder!
The whole movie is a story about the importance of good file management, provenance of documents, and the power of a good look-up system. And that speaks to me. I have no idea how having fingerprints on file if there's 50,000 people named "John Williams" or how millions f inky stains help anyone if they can't digitally sift through the files, but they could do it somehow! And now I want to know how this works in an analog world.
The movie is a weird huddle of second-tier stars of the era. Caesar Romero and George Brent play FBI men. Raymond Burr as (shocker, if you watch noir) a mob boss. Tom Drake from Meet Me In St. Louis appears as Totter's beau and a K-Street guy. For reasons I cannot begin to guess, the movie stops for Tom Noonan of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and his comedy partner to do their bit on TV, that our characters watch.
Speaking of blondes, not only does this movie star Audrey Totter, but Joi Lansing makes an appearance as one of her roommates. And who can be mad at a Joi Lansing appearance?
The movie is *marginally* better than I remembered. Totter is pretty great as the girl who is caught between love and country, and working against the shady Perry Mason. Files are managed, duplicates are made, dopey paper pushers save the day. Totter looks smashing, and it's a tight 74 minutes. In one scene we see what kind of tough noir this could have been with Burr and Totter, but... nope.
If I were going to program a series of movies and those movies were *about* (at least in part) music, I'd feel compelled to include Hangover Square (1945). And I think I'd really manage to freak out the squares with this oddball character study/ thriller.
Apparently the movie had a long road from book to screenplay to how it was finally shot and made. It was also the final movie of Laird Cregar, one of the most promising actors of the 1940's, who died before this movie was released - a heart-attack brought on from a speed-fueled crash diet, intestinal issues from his attempts to lose weight, and other factors. He was only 31.
Along the way, the book - which took place in modern London - was changed into a gaslight-era story about a composer, and almost nothing of the source material remained except the title. Part of me is horrified for the original author, part of me knows this is basic studio mechanics, and part of me quite likes the final result. So....
It's a bit of an odd movie because I'm not sure it has a "hero". It has a protagonist you follow, but out of morbid curiosity. After all, we know he is a killer in the first 30 seconds of the film - it's that no one else knows or wants to believe it. So what happens when he's left free? And gets cross-wise with a conniving songbird who is a walking red flag in the shape of Linda Darnell?
The score of the film is phenomenal, culminating in a diegetic performance of the concerto Cregar's character has been working on since before the film's start, The Concerto Macabre.
The concerto is worked into the film throughout, as is the use of fire, pits, and other signs of Cregar's character's madness. I really don't know how to talk about Bernard Hermann's work without gushing, or this one in particular.
And Cregar, himself is pretty terrific. This may be his finest role in a very brief, very impressive slate before his untimely death. He's sympathetic, even while you're screaming at the other characters to knock it off or stop him.
I also think Darnell is at the height of her powers here. Gorgeous, crafty, acting for the benefit of other characters while the audience knows what's up, and not making it cheesy... And, ultimately, iron willed about what she wants and how to get it...
oh no. I've accidentally posted a pic of Linda Darnell.
Anyway - it's a dated portrait of mental illness that treats it a bit like a magical curse, but is pretty good nonetheless. And manages two of the best scenes I've seen in a movie in recent years, with the Guy Fawkes sequence, and the finale, which I think is how real filmmakers should end a movie (more fire, you cowards).
At a tight 77 minutes, it's a complete story that rides like a roller coaster, ending in a huge twist and turnover at the end.
I guess my pitch is this: If the factors in a movie are imagery, sound and performances - they surely line up incredibly well in this movie. That it stars two actors who died young and tragically, and that this likely got lost a bit in the shuffle as the war wrapped up may be why it's chattered about with a subset of film nerds, but not more in the conversation. It was also not universally beloved when it came out - so maybe it just hits my sensibilities particularly well.
De Palma is a fascinating subject himself in so many ways. He bows at the alter of Hitchcock, he works within frameworks that are uniquely his own - and *boy howdy* are they on display here. He seems to think the only way to get people to show up for the movie on time is a surplus of nudity before the action begins. I'm not sure he writes great characters, but he does keep you engaged with plot and ideas.
Here in 2024, I don't know if I like watching his movies because I like a thriller, or if I like watching De Palma do his thing and try to puzzle it out. Why not both, I guess?
I've started getting 4K discs, and... holy cats, was this a good movie for that. Shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (check out this IMDB page), and with a healthy dash of De Palma's weirdo split focus (via bioptic lenses) and split screen stuff... but, the depth of field, the gorgeous lighting, wild camera angles...
It's a Noirvember to Remember, and I am way behind on my noir intake. I am also way behind on my Ida Lupino intake, in general.
I'd watched this one previously on Noir Alley, and liked it pretty well. On a second viewing, I think I appreciated it more - likely because I knew where and how Lupino was showing up, and I wasn't halfway through a movie wondering where the hell the co-star was.
I can't always account for how some movies stick with you, but certainly the imagery in this movie has come back to me in ways I wasn't really expecting from the first time I saw the movie. The film moves between a post-war noir setting of urban squalor to the snowy mountains of Colorado, shot on location. Ryan in his city-cop coat chasing down our killer in two sequences against the natural backdrop is something. As is the darkened cottage where where Lupino lives, with her tactile posts to guide her through her own home.
It doesn't hurt that both Ryan and Lupino are memorable in almost any role.
