Noir Watch: Panic in the Streets (1950)

Watched:  04/18/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Eliza Kazan

Selection:  me

Well, this was more fun before we actually had a pandemic.  

There are two movies I can immediately think of that are about plague carriers and which fit into the noir genre.  There's likely more, but the first is the Evelyn Keyes-starring thriller The Killer That Stalked New York (released this same year) and then Panic In the Streets (1950).  

This film is about a guy smuggled into the country who finds he's feeling horrible and tries to leave a card game, only to be bumped off by the guys running the game (including Zero Mostel and Jack Palance!).  What they don't know is that he's carrying the pneumonic plague.  

Richard Widmark plays a doctor in the employ of US Health and Human Services, who teams with the New Orleans PD to try to find out who the body was they find washed up, and who that guy might have been in touch with, spreading the disease through out the city.  

I wouldn't say the movie is uneven, but it pulls three separate directions:  the hunt for who may be contaminated, the domestic life of Widmark's character and him realizing that under pressure he takes it out on the ones he loves, and then the story of Palance as a would-be criminal mastermind who is reading all the signs wrong.

In the wake of the spread of COVID, it can be a little unnerving to watch a movie that's essentially about how no one will help, and no one trusts a doctor coming with bad news - and that even the bad news has to be contained - or people will do the worst possible thing.  

This is directed by Elia Kazan looking for realism, and so the casting isn't even from central.  It feels like real people straight up telling Widmark where to get off.  This isn't a stage set of New Orleans, they're running along the waterfront and walking the streets of the Crescent City.  However, it's also a New Orleans largely devoid of Black people, which...  is insane.  

But Kazan does manage to get some stark photography out of his locations, making for some great scenes and capturing of a time capsule - but really setting the noirish mood - curiously setting the final actionish sequences as Palance is taken down in broad daylight.  Sunlight a cleansing agent and all that.

On this go-round (this is my second time with the film), I was really struck by the domestic scenes with Barbara Bel Geddes and Widmark, and how delicately those scenes play out.  And how real it feels to get called on your @#$% in the middle of something else that's important as you do the wrong things with the people who actually do care about you.*

I do want to go dig up The Killer That Stalked New York.  It's been a good long while, and I no longer get an eye twitch just thinking about the reality of a very bad situation from screen winding up as a reality.

*not that I would ever

Noir Watch: The Sleeping City (1950)

This poster is a liar, and sells a movie that this movie is not

Watched:  04/15/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  George Sherman

Selection:  It is I

This has the feeling of an article or short story ripped from the headlines and turned into a movie, but I guess was an original screenplay.  Curiously, Richard Conte starts the film by  directly addressing the camera as himself, explaining that they had actual access to Bellevue Hospital where the filming occurred.

Admittedly, the location shooting provides a certain believability and grit to the movie, as does the look inside how hospitals were functioning in 1950 - with direct throughlines to how they work today.  

The film opens on a young doctor murdered by an unseen assassin as he paces near the hospital, clearly distressed.  Unable to find a motive for the murder, a suspect, etc...  the cops decide to plant their own inside the hospital.  And, here, you need to suspend disbelief.  Conte, 40 here and looking at least that old, plays a cop posing as an intern.    The hospital lets him come in as a doctor with a couple of years of "Pre-Med" under his belt and having had served in medical units during the war. 

Placed in the Trauma Unit, he partners with Coleen Grey, the head nurse, and the two hit it off romantic-stylez.

Apparently doctors would room *inside* the hospital, which seems problematic for any number of reasons, but must have been a real thing.  Conte's roommate first says he's leaving medicine and marrying Peggy Dow, which sounds like a plan, but he soon winds up dead.

SPOILERS

With the new angle, Conte digs into what's happening, and figures out that the wacky elevator operator is actually front man for a bookie.  And being a clever fellow, he knows how to set things up so that the doctors get in over their head, and have to start stealing drugs in order to pay off debts.  Once that starts, he squeezes them.  

Oh, and Coleen Grey is in on it, using her cut to pay for a sick kid's treatment and then getting in over her head.

The movie itself is... fine.  It's helped immensely by the location shooting, borrowing from The Naked City's concept of you are there! to lend credibility to the proceedings.   And the actual architecture of Bellevue is put on display.  

Buying that a hospital would allow a cop to pose as a doctor is a monumental leap of faith - the liability seems insane, not to mention the ethical lapse.  And that no one sorts out the fact he doesn't quite know what he's doing...  Like, seems folks would notice that.  Or you'd hope they would.  But Conte is a favorite around here, and I liked him in the part.

Peggy Dow is only in the film for a scene and change, but she does make an impression, and I was impressed with Grey's entire portrayal, especially her final scenes. 

I can't really say why the movie wasn't my favorite - maybe it takes too long to sort out what's happening and the mystery wasn't all that gripping.  But the location and the back 1/3rd of the movie make it worth checking out as more than a curiosity.

Noir Watch: Born to be Bad (1950)

oh, come on.  Clearly the artist forgot about the assignment til the night before.

Watched:  04/11/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Nicholas Ray

Selection:  moi

Uh.  So, this movie is not bad, no matter how it was born.  But Born to Be Bad (1950) is just not my cup of tea.  I can see how if you squint it's film noir, but it tilts much further toward just straight melodrama in my book.  

And I think it's odd I wasn't into it, even as a melodrama.  Directed by Nicholas Ray, starring Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Mel Ferrer, Joan Leslie and Signal Watch fave Zachary Scott, I thought it would be a slam dunk.  But it's like Diet Coke All About Eve or something (curiously, All About Eve is also a 1950 release).  

Joan Fontaine plays a seemingly sweet young woman who comes to San Francisco (seen in exactly one shot) who is going to rent a room from Joan Leslie, engaged to millionaire Zachary Scott.  Novelist Robert Ryan is floating around, and she goes for him, but also while undermining Joan Leslie and Scott's relationship.  

In short, there's no real crime or danger in the movie.  It's just... Joan Fontaine being a naughty person and people take a while to figure it out.  

Now, I think this movie would be a *blast* to do as a watch party or to riff.  It's very well made, but Fontaine is such a heel in this, and everyone else such a dupe, it seems like you could have some fun playing along.  It's sort of the spirit Mel Ferrer's character is engaged with the movie, anyway.

Noir Watch: Violence (1947)

Watched:  04/10/2024

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jack Bernhard

Selection:  me

This was definitely a low-budget, poverty row B-movie, but:

• It felt weirdly timely in regards to the nonsense politics and politicians backed by big business, appealing to people's worst instincts to get them to work against themselves
• It has a full amnesia plot that involved getting bonked on the head to restore memories
• Star Nancy Coleman is cute as a button
• That Guy! actor Sheldon Leonard is pretty solid as the heavy behind the politician
• Perry White (John Hamilton) himself is in this for a minute as a doctor
• I think Michael O'Shea is a good actor who was terribly miscast here
• I confess to being disappointed no one texted or called to ask what I was doing while watching to the film so I could say "watching Violence".

Maybe the most interesting thing about the film is the conflict external to that of our leads, and that's the state of living soldiers were asked to return to after 4 years in the Pacific and Europe, and the expectation that they'd just slot back in like good boys (and girls).  A movie doesn't need to be a message movie to convey the spirit of the moment, but movies can reflect what is going on at the time to illuminate what was taken for granted or being discussed in every day life.  And certainly the desire of veterans to have a better life than what they left upon their return is something we can still understand.

I didn't hate it, but it's definitely not a slick 1940's or 50's big studio picture.  But it's also not so far down in poverty row that you're worried the walls of the sets might fall over.

Noir Watch: The Damned Don't Cry (1950)

Watched:  04/08/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Vincent Sherman

Selection:  Me

First:  The Damned Don't Cry (1950) is an amazing, pulpy-perfect name for a movie.  I am not sure more movies need to do this in this age, but The Dead Don't Hurt coming soon as a Western is a pretty dang solid name, too.  Marketers, challenge yourself when selling movies!  

Criterion Channel currently has a series going on featuring noir films made in 1950 entitled "Peak Noir", and I'm going to catch all of them I haven't seen.  Honestly, shoving Joan Crawford into a movie from this series was going to get me to prioritize it, so here we are. 

Crawford plays a mother to a young child, married to a roughneck and living with her parents in near poverty.  After the tragic death of her child on a bike they couldn't afford, she splits and heads for New York.  She moves swiftly into modelling for a dress-maker, and finds it has a side-hustle that's not quite prostitution, but adjacent.  Meeting a harmless CPA, she sees a way out, and gets him better gigs working for shady operations (and I think it's assumed, they're friendly).  However, this means she meets a 50's-style syndicate boss, and she trades up to become his kept woman.  

Neo-Noir Watch: Femme Fatale (2002)

Watched:  04/07/2024

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  First

Director:  DePalma

A while back I was watching some DePalma movies, and enjoying them, and made a mental note to watch Femme Fatale (2002) sometime.  And, then, whilst watching Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which stars one Rebecca Romijn as Lt. Commander Una Chin-Riley, I was once again reminded to watch the film, and bought it on DVD via eBay for, like, $4.  

And then promptly forgot to watch it.  

Well, no more!  I have now finally seen Femme Fatale, and...  this is a tough one to discuss.  

DePalma is a curious film maker.  I genuinely like some of his work, and, at minimum, find stuff like Body Double at least worth a watch.  He's like a film studies book come to life, but he also isn't afraid of every day adult things like "people get naked" and "have sex" and gets those are pretty major motivations for people, and so can be for characters.* But he's also usually telling a thriller/ neo-noir crime story (see: Dressed to Kill or Blow Out) and so there's something to hang that on.  

Femme Fatale plays all of DePalma's greatest hits.  It has the most breathtakingly bizarre use of the concept of "doubles", it absolutely makes our kinda hero (Antonio Banderas) a voyeur, it goofs on identity, fate and concept of a femme fatale.  Heck, it opens on Romijn watching Double Indemnity.

Romijn was still a bit green when she took on the role, and I note that she was nominated for an off-brand Raspberry type award for this, but if the past few years have taught me anything, it's that those awards tend to age badly and generally show more about the awards' intolerance for anything not fitting into neat categories of that year or talent stretching beyond what the committee *thinks* they should be doing for a living (Romijn had been a model - which will shock no one watching this movie).  

I think Romijn is actually *pretty good* in this.  The character is a bit of a cypher, by necessity, and when the woman behind the face pokes her head out, it's interesting and buyable.  She's not as good as she's been on Star Trek, but - again - early days, and dealing with some material that works as an academic exercise as much or more than a coherent film.

SPOILERS

Noir Watch: No Way Out (1950)

Watched:  04/06/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joseph L. Mankiewicz

If you want to see a young actor show up with a ton of star power - and this was Sidney Poitier's real screen debut - seeing him in this film is extraordinary.  Heck, in most ways, this film is extraordinary.  

I thought No Way Out (1950) was a simpler film, but confess I didn't know anything about the plot or set-up.  Just that it starred young Poitier, the always great Richard Widmark and Linda Darnell, who is always a good reason to watch a film.  

Poitier plays a doctor just done with school on his first day as an official doctor.  He's sent to treat two criminals caught during a robbery, shot and in need of care.  One of them is displaying bizarre symptoms and while Poitier is looking into what ails him via a spinal tap, one of the crooks dies.  His horrendously racist brother (Widmark) is convinced Poitier killed him on purpose.  

While the hospital backs Poitier, Poitier still wants an autopsy, and so they go to the dead man's wife (Darnell) to get her to convince the brother that an autopsy should be performed.  Widmark convinces her that the hospital is looking to cover up the evidence of foul play, which she conveys to the residents of Beaver Canal, which is where the poorest (and apparently most racist) folks in their city live.  

Soon, a race riot breaks out, but rather than have it happen in their neighborhood, the Black men head to Beaver Canal.  Things get violent.

There's a wide array of characters in the film, from the progressive chief doctor supporting Poitier to the pragmatic hospital director to the elevator operator who sees Poitier as stepping outside of his place to the domestic who knows more than she says.  And, of course, Poitier's family, with a negative nelly of a matriarch.  It's a great way of showing some of the complexity everyone is dealing with, and even the purest of intentions gets mangled by agendas and scars (some literal).  

Noir Watch: Pushover (1954)

Watched:  04/03/2024

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Richard Quine

Selection:  Myself via Noir Alley

I vaguely recalled watching this movie several years ago, and liking it well enough.  And, sure enough, in 2011, I'd seen it during one of my noir sprints.   

The post linked above is good enough at providing a synopsis.  I would argue my appreciation for the film is probably greater at this point than in 2011.  On that first viewing I was a bit dismissive about the stakes and the scope being too small of a plot for a movie in modern terms, comparing it to a single episode of a cop show, but i feel like And that may be somewhat true:  I don't think this would be greenlit - or at least the execution would now be greatly reimagined.  But I'd walk that back to:  this is a full arc for a prestige TV show. 

What I don't think, now, is that I quite grasped exactly how noir this movie is, how much one could use it on an exam to say "now, in what ways is Novak's character a femme fatale?" and "what mistakes did Fred MacMurray's character make and why did he make them?"  The movie is like a punchlist of what makes noir, noir - right down to the contrasting story with Dorothy Malone as the bubbly nurse living nextdoor to Novak and the "good" cop slowly falling for her.

There's the obvious 50's film favorite issue of voyeurism, which I mostly previously discussed in the framework of "oh, hey, Vertigo also came out around the same time."  While it's impossible not to think of Hitch's film, this movie seems less aware of the perverse thrill of people-watching, and treats it in a "boys will be boys" way as our cops enjoy their stakeout ogling women, which only really serves as subtext and draws commentary as discussion external to the film.  

The movie is also not just beautifully shot, but I think you need to be impressed by the editing.  A good chunk of the film takes place in and around a single apartment building, in and out of doors - almost to the point of absurdity - and it's never a question for the audience who is where and what they're doing. There's some modern version of this with cameras and a split screen tracking everyone.  

I also didn't say much about Novak in the original post, but it is her first film, and she's an astounding natural talent.  She's very young here - something like 20, and she already has polish of a seasoned actor (which may be Quine's direction).  Her character is going through a lot, and I think only once did I think "is that the right reading of that line?" but it was the one that wound up in the film on purpose.  But, yeah, amazing work from Novak who is both the center and kind of heart of the film.

Anyway, I don't know that this movie will change your life, but it's better than I gave it credit for on the first viewing.  

Noir Watch: The Big Combo (1955)

Watched:  03/22/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  3rd?  4th?

Director:  Joseph H. Lewis

Selection:  'tis I

Sometime in my 20's (I'm now dangerously close to the end of my 40's) in trying to read up on and learn about film noir, I came across a single still image:

I mean, that is noir in a single frame there

Whether you are into film noir or not, it's possible you've seen this still, pulled for the final minute of The Big Combo (1955).  Upon learning the film's name, I went and found the movie.  It was one of the first things I'd call "film noir" which I intentionally watched on my path to better-knowing what we meant by "noir".  

And, hey, it was a really good picture to stumble into somewhat by accident.  If you're looking for something to tick all the boxes I tend to think of as elements of noir, it's hitting a lot of them - all except a true femme fatale.  We'll leave discussion of Out of the Past or Angel Face as prime example of the fatal-ist of femmes for another time (I have no quibble with Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, but she manages to somehow remain a bit sympathetic in her way, to me).  

We get:

• obsessed detective
• "pure" woman promising hope (and who is being corrupted!)
• you're putting everything on the line for a girl
• suffering in style, as Mueller would say

Upon a first viewing, I wasn't familiar with any of the players except Lee Van Cleef, and of course now know who Cornel Wilde, Brian Donlevy, Richard Conte and others are, and am a fan of their work on various levels (I really like Conte).  I had never heard of director Joseph H. Lewis, but more importantly, I was unfamiliar with the work of John Alton, director of cinematography.   

The story is a post-Laura tale of an obsessed cop (Wilde), but in this film, two obsessions, intertwined.  He wants to take down mobster "Mr. Brown" (Conte), but in his investigation, he's come across Brown's ladyfriend, Susan (Jean Wallace), who seems to be now more of an object or bit of property to Brown than a girlfriend, and she can't escape, constantly wrangled by Brown's two lackeys (Van Cleef and Earl Holliman).  Susan is spiraling as she deals with the hopelessness of her situation, and our cop, Diamond, is starting to crack a bit himself, as his own department thinks this is a wild goose chase and a bad way to spend funds.  And, of course, his boss says "well, you're in love with the girl," which is maybe true.  

There's an ex-girlfriend of Diamond played by Helene Stanton who only did a handful of pictures, but she's honestly really good in this movie.*  

Look, I don't want to spoil the whole story.  It's a twisty crime yarn with all sorts of good stuff, and what I think are stellar performances by everyone involved.  Wallace kills it as a Susan, I absolutely believe Wilde in this movie, and Conte is fan-fucking-tastic.  You will hate Mr. Brown!   Even if you kind of like his two pet psychos.

The movie is a really good entry point for how you got sex and violence into Hayes Code-era films, with what's clearly one of the dirtiest shots in 50's-noir (I just learned thanks to TCM's Dave Karger that Wilde was super-pissed his wife was in the scene).  And it features two gunmen who are clearly more than just pals.  

All of this is great stuff, and worthy of study.  But if I was going to tell you "watch this film" for a particular reason, it's going to be the cinematography.   This is sort of the apotheosis of noir light and shadow.  Sure, maybe Double Indemnity technically has some better tricks up its sleeve, or James Wong Howe is going to bend your mind a bit - and no shade on any of that work.  But, The Big Combo is here to show you how it's done with light and shadow, close-ups and wide shots and doing more with less.  It probably doesn't hurt that director Joseph H. Lewis was famed for finding interesting set-ups and angles, and this movie is full of them.  There's the assassination of McClure and Rita that stick out, Susan's attempts to escape, the dramatic lighting of the hospital room as Diamond tries to get to the bottom of things...  and of course the barely consensual encounter between Brown and Susan.  And of course I'd call out the entire final sequence where light is practically a character.  

Even if the story isn't your thing, or you can't hack 50's-era acting styles and narrative, it's worth seeing what John Alton did with some Klieg lights, some flags, some night shots, and a great eye.  

A lot gets thrown around as "this is noir!" by folks who have some specific ideas that are usually just scraping at the surface.  And I'm not saying you need Alton on a film or its not noir (or even the expressionistic use of light and shadow), but, got-damn, when he is the DP on one of these things, the results are stunning and it helped define a whole visual language we're still trying to grapple with.  

Anyway, no mistake he gets a big ol' credit at the head of the movie.

*and, my dude...  by the evidence presented, you may have made a mistake breaking up with Rita 

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.

Neo-Noir Watch: Sexy Beast (2000)

Watched:  03/05/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jonathan Glazer

Selection:  Me

I had a budding interest in noir and neo-noir when this movie came out, but I remember having no interest in the film.  I suppose it was a trailer or write-up or word-of-mouth that did the trick, but I couldn't say.  Now it's on Criterion, and my tastes have ebbed and flowed over the years, and as I couldn't recall why I didn't want to see this movie, I gave it a shot.

In some circles, this movie is a bit of a classic, enough so that there is a television show coming in short order (or arrived already in England, I don't know) that tells the story of the early lives of the main characters of the movie.  

The movie is a weird mix of a single-location character drama and crime movie, and I... didn't think it worked.  Which is a tough thing to say about a beloved movie with famed actors like Sir Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone and Ian McShane and which still gets referred to a lot.  But I just... didn't buy it.

SPOILERS

SF Noir Watch: The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)

Watched:  02/24/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Selection:  It is I

Director Robert Wise has never let me down.  It's amazing.  Every single one of his movies is good and a lot of them are great.  And, more than a couple of them are straight up classics - the best of the best.  It's super weird we aren't talking about him in the same breath with David Lean, Hitchcock and other famed directors.  He jumps from genre to genre with no problem, and without a stable of his favorite actors he brings in tow.  Anyway, Robert Wise.  Look into him.

This movie's biggest star - to me - is Richard Basehart, but it also has Valentina Cortese and Fay Baker - who I've seen in other things.  And William Lundigen (who I know from nothing).

The movie starts dark as hell and just keeps on going along that path to the end.  Valentina Cortese (who is Italian as the Roman Colosseum) plays a Polish woman in a concentration camp - although the movie never specifically asserts her Jewishness, so it's possible she's one of any of a number of categories that the Nazis murdered.  She is imprisoned with a good friend who sent her son to America and safety, a rich aunt in San Francisco.  

The plot involved Cortese claiming her friend's identity so she can get to the US, the possibility of her identity's exposure, meeting the boy's caretaker (Basehart) and marrying him, and then going to San Francisco to move into the Queen Anne-style mansion on Telegraph Hill.  And then things get domestic-noir dark as the house-keeper (Baker) seems threatened by Cortese's appearance, and curious hints something is amiss begin to pile up.  And, of course, the US administrator (Lundigen) who met her in teh camps and could blow the lid off her identity gets in the mix. 

It's *a lot* but it's a really solid set-up, and top-tier melodramatic tension, something I'd categorize as a noir-thriller.  Cortese is in way over her head for a number of reasons, and the threats are from all sides.  But even as Cortese and others play chess, everything is subtext.  The conversation is polite and has nothing to do with what's actually happening as the characters circle each other, Cortese trying to sort out how to survive what will surely be written off as an unfortunate tragedy.

It's beautifully shot, and the performances are solid.  The story feels ripe for an update or remake.  It's nothing earth-shattering as a film, and not going to change anyone's world, but I was impressed with what it was - and I attribute the success to Wise's direction and the casting.  This could be a forgettable B-movie, but instead I was all in watching the film.  

The ending is pretty wild, keeping the audience going right til the last moments - which could have been tedious, but just works in this roller-coaster of a plot.  

Anyway - I liked it!  No notes.  I'm still having a light chuckle over Cortese playing a Polish woman when the film could have easily found a way to make her Italian, but whatevs.  She's a really solid leading lady, and carries the film with no problem.

Ida Noir Watch: Woman in Hiding (1950)

Watched:  02/03/2024

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Michael Gordon

Selection:  Me.  

This one popped up on TCM's Noir Alley, and my memory was enjoying the film, so I gave it a spin.  Also, it had been a minute since I'd watched anything with Ida Lupino in it, and that seemed wrong.  

Anyway, I stand by the review from three years ago.  And my assertion that Ida Lupino is a good idea.

Noir Watch: I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

Watched:  01/21/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Stuart Heisler

Selection:  Me

Uh...  I don't know why this movie exists other than the fact money is a good thing to have.  

TCM's Noir Alley host, Eddie Muller, forewarned this was a remake of a personal fave of mine, High Sierra, from 1940.  That film stars Bogart and a very young Ida Lupino, is directed by Raoul Walsh, and generally kicks ass.  

A mere fifteen years later, the studio decided to remake the movie, but not in the way I'm used to remakes on Noir Alley.  Generally, studios would use the skeleton of the plot, relationships and conflicts, but reset the movie in a different place, changing circumstances, combining characters, etc...  You might have to squint, but you can tell.  

Noir Watch: Pickup (1951)

Watched:  01/07/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Hugo Haas

Selection:  Me by way of Noir Alley

As happens a lot at the start of the year, I was fired up to break the Christmas movie cycle and watch some non-Christmas-type stuff.  I've also been missing noir films, from the original period as well as everything up to today, and wanted to get back on that train.  Luckily, Noir Alley was on TCM Saturday and Sunday, so I set the DVR to record a movie I'd not yet seen.  

It's easy to say Pickup (1951) is a riff on The Postman Always Rings Twice.  And there's definitely some truth to that, but so are a number of movies from the era.  What I found interesting was that there's enough different here that it pivots the whole concept.  While we still have the remote home/ workplace, the older husband, the sexy wife and the yearning employee, this is less the story of the troubled, star-crossed lovers in over their heads, and more the story of "Hunky", the older husband.  And, it's worth saying at the outset, Beverly Michaels' Betty is not the sympathetic figure Lana Turner cut as Cora.  

Noir Watch: The Secret Fury (1950)

Watched:  09/05/2023

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Mel Ferrer

What a weird, weird movie.  

And not *good* weird.  

The movie features the great Claudette Colbert and Signal Watch fave Robert Ryan, but the story itself is a mess, leaning almost to camp.  

Part crime drama, all melodrama, The Secret Fury (1950) follows a society woman (Colbert) moments from saying I do to her beau (Ryan) when someone DOES say "I object", claiming Colbert is already married.  To her knowledge, Colbert has never been married, but when multiple witnesses claim she was married - and not that long ago - she now believes she may have gone mad, losing time.

The very premise, however, makes no sense and is based on the notion that people really get married after knowing each other for about 8 hours, which was quite the Hollywood trope for the first 70 years or so.  And it also assumes Colbert wouldn't see whomever murdered someone right before her eyes.  And that Ryan's character would make a completely unbuyable decision to leave Colbert alone with a strange man claiming to be her husband.

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

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. 

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

PodCast 246: "Out Of Sight" (1998) - A Social Bobcat / Neo-Noir Episode w/ Ryan

Watched:  06/16/2023

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Third?  Fourth?

Director:  Soderbergh

For more ways to listen

The Social Bobcat is back to dig deep into this 1990's classic of cool. Join us as we take a look at what forces were at play in the 1990's, what works in this movie that makes it okay to be cool, and that putting Clooney and JLo in your movie is not a bad idea.

SoundCloud 

The Signal Watch PodCast · 246: "Out Of Sight" (1998) - A Social Bobcat / Neo-Noir Episode w/ Ryan

YouTube

Music:

Fight the Power, Pt. 1 - The Isley Bros. 

Foley, Pt. 2 - David Holmes, Out of Sight OST 

Noir and Neo-Noir Playlist

The Signal Watch PodCast · Noir Watch