Joan Watch: Queen Bee (1955)

Watched: 06/22/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Ranald MacDougall

Jenifer was good enough to host a watch party this evening and selected Queen Bee (1955), a film from Joan Crawford's mid-40's to mid-50's cycle.  

I'd label the movie as a "Southern Gothic Melodrama", and I wouldn't be shocked to see it pop up on Noir Alley, either, but not til we've exhausted other films like Flamingo Road, which fits the bill better.   I genuinely enjoyed the film, in part because it's so bonkers and done with complete sincerity as Crawford manipulates everyone around her in a grand old house in small-town Georgia.  

The film co-stars Barry Sullivan and John Ireland, but our POV is the young cousin of Crawford played by Lucy Marlow, who arrives after her schooling to be a sort of companion/ secretary to Crawford.  But I just figured out the woman playing one smaller role was Fay Wray, aged 48 or so.  Mind officially blown.

You can't not comment on the fact that Crawford was 50 or older when the movie was filmed and is still playing a woman who is probably supposed to be no older than 35.  I can never think of anyone who pulled this sort of thing off in the studio-era for as many movies in a row who wasn't Mae West.  But casting contemporary Wray against her as a former rival for the affections of Barry Sullivan, is no mean feat.  And, look, it's not a criticism.  Crawford's make-up was more a problem by 1955 than the actual aging process, and in some shots and in some entire films from the era, it works.  Crawford herself is no less powerful an actress, and one wonders if she dialed it back how she might have appeared (although her hair in this film is the tight perm of the mid-50's that did few women any favors). 

But, yeah, it's a tidy 100-or so minutes of Crawford wreaking all sorts of havoc upon her own family and their lovers.  It's got some outstanding dialog, terrific cinematography (Charles Lang), and you can't outguess the movie as it unfolds.  

 

New Wave Watch: Breathless (1960)

Watched:  06/08/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1960's

Director:  Godard

Sigh.  

Look, I don't dislike "New Wave" exactly, but the one time I watched a Godard movie previously it was so hilariously up it's own ass, it was pretty much unspoofable (for the record, it was Godard's King Lear).  

I've also been aware that thanks to Godard and his buddies, we even have the term "film noir".  They loved the same crime melodramas of the post-war period that I tend to enjoy.  They wrote about them and got people to think about that glut of crime movies in a different way.  

Crawford Watch: Possessed (1947)

 

Watched:  06/07/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Curtis Bernhardt

I'd watched this one a few years back, and - with more Crawford pics, more Van Heflin, and more cinema in general to inform me about the movie - I very much wanted to revisit the film.  

Much like High Wall, released around the same time and with a fraction of the budget, the movie is interested in the origins, effects and possible solutions to mental disorders.  Unlike High Wall, Possessed (1947) doesn't all feel like a lot of nonsense to give gravity to a standard pulp-derived pot boiler.  

Whoops Watch: Gun Crazy (1950)

Watched:  06/05/2021

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1950's

Director:   Joseph H. Lewis

Well, I turned on the TV and Gun Crazy (1950) was on TCM and at the part where an adult Bart meets Annie Laurie at the sideshow, and the next thing I knew I was finishing the movie.  

So, yeah.

Totter Watch: High Wall (1947)

Watched:  06/03/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1940's

Director: Curtis Bernhardt

I watched this film a few years ago, and it seemed to bare a re-watch.

In the mid-40's, movies started to dabble a bit in the field of pop psychology.  Now, I'm not a psychologist and I am pretty unfamiliar with the practice, but I do recognize clunky, semi-pedantic approaches to delivering ideas.  And chucking those ideas in the 3rd reel in the name of plot.  

High Wall (1947) is a pretty solid noir mystery that wants to exploit the latest trends in exploring the maze of the human mind, but also has one foot in "I dunno, do some hand waving about some medical stuff to expedite the story" that has always been par for the course for movies (and television).  And, of course, throws medical ethics out the window when a lady gets romance-feelings for a possible murderer.  

Parker Watch: Point Blank (1967)

Watched:  05/31/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1960's

Director:  John Boorman

It's been some time since I'd revisited Point Blank (1967), and I'm glad I'd had a few years in between.  I'd seen the movie years ago while I was reading the Parker cycle of novels by Richard Stark - maybe the only series I've ever read in its entirety - and this movie is based on the first in the series, The Hunter.  

But it's been a while since I read The Hunter, a book that obviously left an impression on me as I did read the subsequent 20-odd books, and I was able to better separate Point Blank and Boorman's ideas versus constantly running a mental check of how the film and movie differed.  And they absolutely do differ, saying different things.  There's a reason Richard Stark (better known as Donald Westlake) wouldn't allow anyone to use the name "Parker" in a movie, even as he let them adapt the plot and use supporting character names.  Lee Marvin's "Walker" isn't Parker.  And that's fine... It's good, in fact.  

Now, one day I *want* a straight HBO-style treatment of the Parker novels by someone who *gets* it.  Each one is probably worth 3 episodes of something.  But I dig what Boorman did here - that rather than operating from pure rage and cold revenge, Walker may not be exactly sure why he's doing this.  Rather than coming to life and changing motivations after being shot and betrayed, he really did leave something at Alcatraz.

Maybe borrowing from the quasi-non-linear standard of both noir and the Parker novels, Boorman does some interesting stuff here with flash-forwards and flash-backs, maybe stepping it up a bit to do in shorthand what noir traditionally would do in extended scenes.  There's a lot of exposition that has to be delivered, and it's a smooth way to do it - but in the case of the film versus the book, Walker seems to have had warmth at one point and feelings for Lynn.  He attends things like "reunions" and seems to have had loyalties and friendships - all of which is not in him when he escapes death.  He may have been fearsome before, but now he's something else, unrecognizable even to himself. 

Anyway, I'm sure I've talked about Point Blank a few times.  Several years ago I attended Noir City in San Francisco where they'd invited up Angie Dickinson who spoke about the movie and Lee Marvin (and looked like a million bucks).   It's just a favorite at this point, and I definitely recommend it.

Catch-Up Neo-Noir Watch: Layer Cake (2004)

Watched:  05/28/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  2000's

Director:  Matthew Vaughn

For a moment there, Britain was exporting some hip crime movies that Americans decided were a pretty good idea.  For a number of reasons, I missed Layer Cake (2004) when it hit the States in the summer of 2005.  And just never saw it afterwards.  Which is crazy.  We're Daniel Craig fans in this house.

It's a plot-heavy, occasionally cheeky gangster movie that served as an accidentally good pairing with The Brothers Rico, which I'd watched the night before.  Both films are about guys who are doing well enough in legitimate business that they want to leave the life behind them - but in Layer Cake, we aren't there yet.  We're just considering retiring after years packaging and selling cocaine in London when our nameless lead, played by Daniel Craig (and - it's clear this is the movie that inspired someone to give him Bond), gets pulled in as an errand boy by his boss, to find a missing girl and to broker a deal with a wild-card hoodlum who has a million hits of ecstacy he's stumbled into and is looking to sell.  

Noir Watch: The Brothers Rico (1957)

Watched:  05/27/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Phil Karlson

For gangster and crime film fans, there's a lot to like in The Brothers Rico (1957), and I have to wonder how many future gangster pictures were influenced by this one.  A story about family loyalty, gang loyalty, and where the two intersect, it's a tough picture.

Fortunately, it stars Richard Conte, who plays Eddie Rico, the eldest brother, pitch perfect.  A former mob accountant, Eddie's gotten out, left NYC and is running a laundry company handling industrial jobs like hotels.  He's married to a girl from the old neighborhood who talked him into getting out - and he's domesticated and ready to adopt a child when he's reminded he's still taking orders from New York.  And on the heels of that, he finds his brothers have been involved in a hit, and aren't following the mobster playbook.  One of them fell in love and grew a conscience.  

Throw in an old school Italian mother (Argentina Brunetti) who sees her ties to the mob as a good thing for she and her family, when not genuflecting, and it's more than the usual mob story, and hints at what's coming in mob fiction.  

There's no white-knight cop in this, nor any sign of law enforcement.  Nor is there anywhere to go where the New York mob hasn't syndicated operations.  As noir, it's about a character's belief in people, despite the fact they run a system that was always murderous, violent and corrupt.  He may have walked away as a friend in his mind, but he had never truly walked away - especially with his brothers remaining entangled.

There are some phenomenal scenes in the film (Conte waiting all day with the local boss in his hotel room), and Conte's scenes with his mother.

But at the end of the day, the film has a very weird Hollywood ending that just doesn't fit everything we saw before.  And absolutely can't have been what was in the original novel by Simenon or in the original screenplay.  

Still, worth watching.  Sometimes it feels positively modern.

Noir Watch: Phantom Lady (1944)

Watched:  05/22/2021

Format:  BluRay (Arrow)

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Robert Siodmak

Producer:  Joan Harrison

I enjoyed this movie a lot the first time, but *really* liked it on a second viewing.

I just picked up the book Phantom Lady:  Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Woman Behind Hitchcock - and as I finished chapter 1, figured I might as well re-watch another of Harrison's movies.  

The "phantom lady" of the title does not refer to my Canadian girlfriend I swear I had in high school.  Instead - the film follows a man who has hit a sour spot with his wife and is out on the town having a drink, when he meets a woman who is, herself, distraught, but doesn't want to talk about it.  Agreeing not to share names, the two spend an evening on the town (there's no romance, just companionship), but when he arrives home, his wife is dead and the cops are waiting for him.  

No, I don't know how the cops knew to be there.

The man admits he and his wife were quarreling, and when the man can't turn up "the phantom lady", he's off to jail and a swift trial.  

His secretary, Ella Raines, isn't buying it and starts up her own investigation, with the support of cop Thomas Gomez and her boss's best pal, Franchot Tone, just returned from Brazil.

The movie looks great with classic noir high-contrast lighting, but also some interesting ideas in set design (Tone's apartment) and framing (the famed "erotic" drumming sequence).  I don't particularly want to list every scene and how and why it works, but the thread pulling everything together is Ella Raines' "Kansas", the intrepid secretary who won't let injustice lie, at threat to her life and limb - but she's also smarter than the average bear.  

She's no Marlowe - she's operating out of loyalty and a long-hidden love for her employer, not as a professional detective with a sense of duty.  But that makes her interest and drive all the more buyable.  And I think Ella Raines - whose career was curiously short for someone who was starring in good films - is pretty terrific here, playing some challenging stuff.

Anyhoo - glad to watch it again.

Noir Watch: Touch of Evil (1958)

Watched:  05/22/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on DVR

Viewing:  Unknown - 4th?

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Orson Welles

Jesus, this movie.  

For anyone who wants to talk about the great days of America and imagines the 1950's as some period of Leave It To Beaver simplicity, knowing that the era could also produce a movie that every corrupt cop movie has tried to stand up to since is a hell of a reality check.  In an era where even the noir films were being relit for eventual television distribution (less in content than in visuals), Welles' final Hollywood backed opus hits some of the darkest notes in a noir of the entire era.  

I've written before about how anxious Touch of Evil (1958) makes me, and that's still true.  I'd previously attributed most of that anxiety to the frustration and sympathy with Janet Leigh's young bride character who seems to be (a) the only one with a clear-eyed view of the situation, (b) in absolute peril from multiple forms of assault, and (c) utterly ignored by the macho men playing cops and robbers around her - she's an absolute prop, even to her own husband.

SPOILERS

Neo-Noir Watch: The Limey (1999)

Watched:  05/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Prime Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Steven Soderbergh

This is a catch-up watch, one of about ten crime movies from this era I didn't see because life is not always what it should be. 

Anyway, I was so distracted, I didn't know who was in the cast or that this was a Soderbergh movie - and I like Soderbergh movies.  All I knew was "Terence Stamp tearing shit up for 90 minutes".  And, indeed, that is true.  But, The Limey (1999) also features Peter Fonda, the perpetually underutilized Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzman, and an uncredited but terrific Bill Duke.  

Noir Watch: I Love Trouble (1948)

Watched:  05/12/2021

Format:  TCM Film Fest

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:   S. Sylvan Simon

I'd actually had a bit of trouble tracking down I Love Trouble (1948), a film I'd seen often referenced in writing about noir, but it just never crossed my path.  I've seen reference to the film being lost for a few decades, but TCM was able to air it as part of the 2021 TCMFF.  Honestly - the print is not great, but I've seen worse.  

The plot itself is a windy murder mystery and from the same school as a Chandler mystery, but with more than a hint of Hammett.  The cast is headlined by Franchot Tone, a guy who was a bug movie star at one point, but I tend to know as "that guy who was married to Joan Crawford in the 1930's"*.  

I absolutely cannot talk about the plot without spoiling the movie - other than it's very much a quality gumshoe caper with all the trimmings.  Tone as our shamus is actually rock solid here.  I liked what he did as "Stuart Bailey" - an enjoyable riff on a familiar sort of tune, and playing the fast-talking PI with the moral code working his way through the underbelly of society.  

He's joined by a bunch of actors you've likely never heard of - although noiristas will remember Janis Carter from Night Editor, Adele Jergens from Armored Car Robbery, Glenda Farrell from Little Caesar, Steven Geray from Gilda, and Tom Powers from... everything.  

I'd love to see this one again sometime to enjoy watching it work rather than keeping up with details of the mystery.  

*I mean, well done sir

Noir Watch: The Won't Believe Me (1947)

Watched:  05/08/2021

Format:  TCM Film Fest 

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1940's

Director:   Irving Pichel

I actually watched a cut of this film fairly recently (just in October), so I'm not inclined to write this up again.  What I will say is that this was a more fully restored cut with several extra minutes that fleshed out the characters and whatnot.  And - as happens often - while I certainly liked it the first time, I enjoyed the film even more on a second go-round, which confirmed my feelings on it from the first viewing.  

Honestly, I thought the movie flew by at the extended 95 minutes from 80 and I figure this is the cut I'll reach for if I'm watching the film again.  

Neo-Noir Watch: The Grifters (1990)

Watched:  05/08/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Stephen Frears

Just in time for Mother's Day I finally (finally!) watched the 1990 film, The Grifters.

SPOILERS

Noir Watch Party: The Blue Gardenia (1953)

Watched:  04/13/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

We'd watched The Blue Gardenia (1953) some time back, and this time I'm inclined to be kinder to the film.  It's still not my favorite, but with Anne Baxter, Ann Sothern, Richard Conte and Raymond Burr and Fritz Lang directing, you kind of expect a bit more.

Anne Baxter gets a Dear Jane letter from her solider-boy boyfriend who has met a nurse overseas, and tells her he's getting married.  She does as anyone might do, receives a call for her roommate (Ann Sothern) looking for a date, takes up the fellow on it, and meets up with Raymond Burr.  Because it's 1953, Burr is not a nice guy, and he gets Baxter drunk and takes her back to his place to take advantage of her.  

Baxter wakes up at home, unsure of what happened, but she's left her shoes at Burr's apartment, which is embarrassing enough, but also: he's been killed with a fire poker.  So.  She seems to have totally murdered a dude and left her shoes behind.

Conte plays a local reporter - a social crusading type in search of headlines, and he begins the search for the woman they dub "The Blue Gardenia".

Fritz Lang wasn't one to shy away from a good thriller, of course, and this film puts the audience in the curious spot of identifying with a woman who just killed someone, with pretty good reason, but by social mores of the 1950's - if she's arrested, who knows?  Could be the gas chamber.  And if she's acquitted for self-protection?  One can assume she'd be "ruined" by attacks on her character for having made the terrible decision to cozy up to Raymond Burr.  The film doesn't explicitly say anything about a woman's place in society in 1953, but it's not hard to understand what the assumed rules are, and how Lang and the writers used those notions to build a better mousetrap for our protagonist.  As the audience, we know it's unjust, but...

Unfortunately, Conte is written as a bit of a dingbat, apparently buying a whole lot of "I have a friend who may have done a thing" storytelling, that I'd assume anyone as old as 14 would recognize as "and I assume this friend is you?"  But it's not how it's played off.  

The movie generally *looks* great, with Nicholas Musuraca listed as Cinematographer, and who had plenty of prior experience he brought to bear in this film.  

Again, the movie is fine - it just wasn't one I'd had any particular penchant for the first time I saw it, and that was more or less how I felt on round 2.

Noir Watch: Naked Alibi (1954)

Watched:  04/12/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Jerry Hopper

Burning the last of my "it's your birthday, watch what you want" goodwill, I chose Naked Alibi (1954) - a movie I'd heard was "ehhh".  And, indeed, it was. 

But, look, I'm a Sterling Hayden stan and a Gloria Grahame nut, so this seemed like a slam dunk.  Alas.

Sterling Hayden plays a detective that in literally any other movie would be a rogue cop.or just a thug of a cop (see Hayden in Crimewave).  Here, his underlings haul in a guy for basically existing on the sidewalk after dark and seem set to pin a crime on him minus any evidence, so he loses it and slugs a cop.  But the guy is a baker, with a young wife and kids.  It makes no sense, yet Hayden decides he's a crook and hassles him.  Two of his guys get blown up by a car bomb, and he decides it must be Al the Baker, and goes about police-harassing him, including manhandling him in front of witnesses and the press, which gets him fired.

Legal Thriller Watch: Presumed Innocent (1990)

Watched  04/09/2021

Format:  HBOmax

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Alan J. Pakula

It's fair to say, that when I saw this at age 16 or whatever it was (I would have been 15 upon the film's release, and didn't see it in the theater) I followed the plot, but I didn't "get" the film.  Recently I was discussing this film with some folks who said it was a good neo-noir, and I should give it a shot, so I did.  What the hell else am I doing?

I'd literally forgotten I'd seen the film until reading the synopsis on wikipedia, and realized I had, in fact, seen it, but didn't remember which of the circa 1990-era adult court mystery dramas I was thinking of when and if details from the movie crossed my mind.  Firstly "Presumed Innocent" is as untelling a title as what often gets applied to noir.  Second, until about 1997, I think every fifth movie coming out was an actor in a suit going to court for some reason or other.

So, yeah, seeing a film about betrayal in a marriage and the fallout wrapped up in a mystery, semi-erotic thriller works far better at age 46 and with 21 years of marriage under your belt.  Also, realizing how *good* everyone is in this movie was a delight.  And goddamn the early passing of Raul Julia, who was amazing here.

Ida/ Noir Watch: Woman in Hiding (1950)

Watched:  04/08/2021

Format: BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Michael Gordon

Well, it's still coming up on my birthday, and Jamie said "watch whatever, it's your b-day."  And, with a Totter movie cleared we moved on to Ida Lupino.  Well, friends, while it may have started pre-pandemic, Jamie has thrown in with the Ida Lupino Fan train the past year, for sure.  So, this selection was saluted.

I'd not previously seen Woman in Hiding (1950), but picked it up cheap on BluRay, because: Lupino.  

I will argue that the noir movement splintered into several familiar genres, from the erotic thriller to the Lifetime Network's basic movie programming.  Film's with "women in peril" such as Sudden Fear and Beware, My Lovely - which definitely have precedents from the start of film found a home in the crime genres of the 1950's, doubling as "women's films" with plucky heroines (scared out of their minds) and some chisel-jawed dude who might come to the rescue.  By the early 00's: I mean - have you seen the names of movies on the Lifetime Network?*

Woman in Hiding follows Ida Lupino playing the daughter of a wealthy mill-owner in small-town North Carolina.  After the accidental death of her father, she marries the factory foreman, only to be met at their honeymoon cottage by a young woman informing Lupino "he was my man, he married you for the mill, and he probably killed your dad."

Freaked out, Lupino goes into HIDING (see - the title is accurate).  Here she meets Howard Duff (whom she's marry the next year) and shenanigans ensue.  

The film does contain a drinking game noir item - there's a convention in the hotel where they're staying.  

The film co-stars the lovely Peggy Dow in one of her very few film roles - she was also in the film version of Harvey that same year - and she was out of movies by 1952.  Which is a shame - she's great here and totally different from her character in Harvey.  

It also stars "that guy" actor Taylor Holmes, as well as Don Beddoe.  

This isn't my favorite Lupino role, but that's the script more than anything she's doing.  But, man, when confronted by Dow's character with what her new husband of less than a day may have done - she's got a lot to do there and nails it.  

Special nod on this one to cinematographer William H. Daniels.  He manages to get in some great stuff, especially in the sequence on the stairwell, on the bus and in the finale sequence.  Gorgeous looking noir stuff.  And letting the drafts in the stairwell kick at Lupino's skirt of her dress was pretty great (and likely a happy accident).  

*it's a parade of playing on paranoia re: domestic insecurity mixed with actual issues of domestic trauma, and it's a wild ride that Lifetime programs that shit 24/7 and then flips to "and now two months of movies about Santa being your boyfriend's dad".

Totter Noir Re-Watch: Tension (1949)

Watched:  04/07/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  John Berry

It's relatively near my birthday, and so Jamie said "watch whatever you want", and-  me being me - I'd been wanting to watch Tension (1949) again as it had been a while.  

If you've not seen Tension, which Jenifer introduced me to years ago, thereby doing me the lifelong solid of introducing me to Audrey Totter's work, you should!  It's noir, but kinda goofy, has a career high performance for Totter as the femme fatale, Richard Basehart playing Richard Basehart, and Barry Sullivan and William Conrad as two cops I would have followed in any number of movies as they strode into rooms like they owned the place everywhere they went.

Weirdly, the film stars Cyd Charisse in a non-dancing role, something MGM must have been trying on for her to see how far she could push her acting chops.  And she's pretty good!  But mostly her job is to look lovely and be concerned about Richard Basehart, so she wasn't about to give Bette Davis a run for her money at this point.  

I won't describe the movie as "camp", but it's certainly a goofier entry in the annals of noir.  From the hook of the plot to the strategy of the cops trying to sort it all out, and topped by Totter's Claire Quimby - a whirlwind of badgirl behavior - it's a dang entertaining film.  You won't compare it to, say, The Third Man, but it does reward rewatching once you're familiar with the characters.  

Claire Quimby married Warren as a way out of whatever her life was in San Diego and because he was cute in a uniform.  He seemed like he was going places - but now she's living in a dingy apartment as Warren works 12 hours night shifts 5 days a week as a pharmacist, scrimping and saving to get her to the middle class life he thinks they both want.

Watch Cyd Charisse just want to smack the living hell out of Totter (but she's too nice)

At night, she's actually cruising the lunch counter in the pharmacy, looking to get picked up by guys who can show her a good time or provide her with her next step up (and with the looks to make it happen).  She runs off with a guy with a flashy car and a beach house, and Warren's attempts to get her back flop - he's beaten up and humiliated.  

SPOILERS

Thus, Warren dares to wear 1940's hard contact lenses to change his appearance, and creates a secondary life for himself as "Paul Southern", creating a persona unrelated to Warren so that the cops will look for this Southern person instead fo Warren when the time comes to kill Barney and reclaim his wife.

But - he meets Cyd Charisse, who apparently doesn't meet many men, because despite being Cyd Charisse, she's available and latches on to the mysterious cosmetics salesman who moved in next door.  Warren kinda realizes this murder scheme is dumb, his wife isn't worth it, and... hey... new girlfriend.  

Planning to let Cyd Charisse in on his charade and double life, he returns home, and so does Claire - letting him know Barney is dead.  

Enter our cops, trying to figure out what is going on with this weird couple - and so Barry Sullivan applies... TENSION.

IE: he sweats Warren and seduces Totter.  

Going for the Clark Kent Approved method of a "no glasses, different guy" disguise, was a pretty bold move in an era where Superman was already a pretty well-known figure.  But watching Sullivan deciding to go for Claire/ Totter, you really get the feeling he's okay with however this pans out and would take equal pleasure in jailing Warren and going to Acapulco with Claire or putting Claire away.  No big whoop.

END SPOILERS

It's a well shot, tight little film that does a lot with what it is.  And, really, it's a showcase for many of the things Totter does best when she gets to play a bad girl.  But add in a windy, multi-part plot and all the parties playing against each other, and while not exactly a mystery as to who did the murdering, it is a potboiler seeing how this thing will play out.

Anyway - can't recommend enough, if for no other eason than to see Totter's character's constant irritation with Basehart's character.  She is done, y'all.

Neo-Noir Watch: Body Heat (1981)

Watched:  04/03/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Lawrence Kasdan

I'll go ahead and put this out there:  this may be the best of the neo-noirs I've seen, and most akin to the original noir movement.  

Also: finally watching Body Heat (1981) gives me a big clue as to how neo-noir took a left turn by the late 80's and saw a divergent strain that became the "erotic thriller", which, itself, had several branches on the movie cladogram.

Despite the popular vision of noir, it wasn't always sexy stuff with classy dames showing up in the offices of PI's desperate for help.  The movement encompassed a lot of takes on how things can go badly, and how lust could turn things sideways remarkably fast was just one (if a popular) angle.  Body Heat delivers a 1980's spin on the Joseph M. Cain flavor of crime melodrama that gave us Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.  No detectives here - just guys in over their head when they see a chance at romance with a woman out of their league (but aren't they all).