Noir Watch: Detour (1945)

Watched:  11/16/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Edgar G. Ulmer

Detour (1945) is a bitter, furious bit of pulp noir with no budget, no bankable stars, cardboard sets and a half-assed set-up, and it is absolutely impossible to stop watching once you start.  And, that's at least 85% Ann Savage, who doesn't even show up til the 1/3rd mark.  

It had been a while since I'd watched Detour, but Jenifer selected it for a Tuesday watch party, and I was delighted she did.  I have no idea what spawned this movie or even how it got made.  It doesn't feel like a war-time picture, but it does suggest what would come in the months and years following the war.  It's just lacking the gloss the studios would put on something like this - hard-scrabble talent working off a half-finished script and utterly buyable as drifters and wastrels of pre-War America.  

Noir Watch: The Lineup (1958)

Watched:  11/16/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  Second or third

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Don Siegel

I had seen The Lineup (1958) years ago, and remembered it was crazy and Eli Wallach was fantastic, but not much else.   It was part of a set of DVD's I was watching in quick secession, and I just didn't get back to it.  Which is too bad, it's a cool crime movie.

Bay Area residents will want to watch it just to see the locations in 1958, some of which are long gone, but most of which are still standing (something Austin would find horrifying.  We knock everything down, willy-nilly.).  As a police procedural in the years after The Naked City, the city itself is more than a backdrop, its geography and environs are crucial and inform everything, from the hook of the plot to the finale car chase.  

Meanwhile, the cast is kind of interesting.  There's the aforementioned Eli Wallach, but he doesn't enter the movie til the 1/3rd mark, along with Robert Keith (who I just learned is the father of Brian Keith) as a pair of heavies/ hit-men in from Miami.  A baby-faced Richard Jaeckel plays their driver hired on by The Man - the mastermind pulling the strings.  Raymond Bailey (Mr. Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies) a manager of the San Francisco Opera who is involved in the case and Emile Meyer who seems like he's always a cop plays one of the lead detectives.

Noir-Vember to Remember Watch Party: The Big Sleep (1946)

Watched:  11/12/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  Unknown

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Howard Hawks

This is literally one of the most written about books and movies of the last century.  Go out there and get nuts reading up on it elsewhere.

Like with the Universal Horror films, I've just been delighted to share these films with the usual gang, some of who've seen these films, some who haven't.  I try not to be a pain interjecting factoids and whatnot, tag-teaming with Jenifer.  It's definitely different watching *good* movies versus campy movies, but everyone's been terrific. 

Noir-Vember Party Watch - FRIDAY: The Big Sleep (1946)

This Friday we take on one of the two most well known DETECTIVE NOIR films.*  This one was originally written by Raymond Chandler, who we saw did scripting work on last week's offering.  The Big Sleep was one of the Philip Marlowe detective novels, with a ton of twists and turns.  

Famously, it wasn't exactly hard to bring to screen, but every once in a while someone on set would ask "wait, why is this happening?" and they'd go to the script, then the book, then call Chandler and he'd be like "I don't remember."  But they made the movie anyway.  

Frankly, I don't know why people find it so complicated.  If you can keep up with the average prestige television shows and all the twists and turns, this really isn't that big of a deal.  But it has its reputation.  

It's also what crime and detective books love to knock off.  If you can find an old, decaying man hiring a detective and there's a goof of a sexpot somehow attached, someone saw this movie or read this book (see: The Big Lebowski).  Personally, I heart this film.  It's Bacall and Bogie having a killer time, plus all the supporting players are fantastic - and it's where a million noiristas decided to love Dorothy Malone for being the most low-key thirsty girl in cinema.

JOIN US.

Day:  Friday - 11/12/2021

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 PM Pacific

Service:  Amazon Watch Party

Cost:  $3

CLICK HERE TO JOIN US 

*the other is Maltese Falcon

Noir Watch: 5 Steps to Danger (1956)

Watched:  11/10/2021

Format:  Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Henry S. Keslar

There's both too much and not enough going on this post-war roadtrip noir - that is barely a noir.  But it does star Sterling Hayden as a guy in a hat, and Ruth Roman as a dame in trouble who pulls Hayden in over his head.  

I hesitate to get into this plot-dense noir with a synopsis, because the plot isn't exactly nonsense, but how they go about it is a mess.   But the basic gist is that Hayden's car breaks down en route from LA to Texas somewhere, and Ruth Roman offers him a ride if he can help her split the drive to Santa Fe so they can keep moving.  

A mysterious nurse approached Hayden in a roadside stop and says they've been following Ruth Roman as she's an escaped mental patient or some such, but for some reason, they're just watching her? But, basically, it's a sinister spy story of former Nazis in the US (one played by Colonel Klink) trying to get ahold of some info Roman came into possession of whilst in Germany trying to get her brother out of East Germany (I think).  People keep trying to convince Hayden Roman is crazy - but she clearly isn't.  So.

Anyway, Hayden probably hated this script.  His character is kind of boring and always right about everything (which is not where Hayden shines), and Roman is fine, but a little dull here.  As is the movie.  

I did not love it.  I couldn't figure out why the CIA wasn't taking an active hand in the proceedings as so much was at stake and they were watching everything.  None of the movie's story really had much of a reason for happening.  I dunno.  I've seen worse, but this one was just kind of not my thing.  Except it's a ripoff in many ways of The 39 Steps, which I've only seen as a play, and I liked that.. so.

Noir-Vember Party Watch: Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Watched:  11/09/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party (Jenifer pick)

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Anatole Litvak

I had never seen this film, but Jenifer chose it for a Noirvember Watch Party, and it had Stanwyck, so I wasn't going to dodge.  

Based on what seems to have been a very popular radio play, Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) is deep into noir-thriller territory, and achieves its goals totally differently, but just as effectively (or more so) as Beware, My Lovely or Sudden Fear. 

Stanwyck plays an invalid rich girl who hears a conversation over crossed wires (this used to actually happen, kids.  I remember getting pulled into other people's phone calls by accident as late as high school in the 1990's) wherein the two participants are planning a murder or an unsuspecting woman.  Stanwyck is bed-bound, and her husband hasn't come home, so it's through a series of phone calls and flashbacks that we put together her background and what's going on with her husband and her.

Noir-Vember Watch: Double Indemnity (1944)

Watched:  11/05/2021

Format:  Amazon Watch Party

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Billy Wilder

We're doing a short series of Amazon Watch Parties of the ultra-famous noir films you should probably see at some point in your life.  Just three for Noir-vember.  That also means these movies have been discussed endlessly, so I'm not gonna do it.

Noir-vember Watch Party FRIDAY: Double Indemnity (1944)

 

This November, we're having three Amazon Watch Parties to take a look at a few cornerstone films that help give a great idea of what characterizes the Film Noir movement.  

You don't get Eddie Muller or Alan K. Rode, but you do get me and Jenifer, and we've seen some of these films.  

THIS WEEK:  BEST LAID-PLANS NOIR

Not all noir is detectives and whatnot.  Sometimes it's folks just getting in way over their heads. Usually because they're chasing a woman they probably shouldn't.  Or a man they shouldn't.  YMMV.  

This is *the* best-laid plans noir.  Based on a book by James M. Cain, co-written by Billy Wilder and no less than Raymond Chandler, and masterfully acted by Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson and powerhouse Barbara Stanwyck, it's the top of the mountain for noir.

So get ready for some of the greatest dialog you'll ever hear in a film.  And some of the worst people you'll see in one.

DAY:  Friday, November 5th

TIME:  8:30 Central, 6:30 Pacific

FORMAT:  Amazon Watch Party

Price:  appears to be $4

LINK HERE TO WATCH 

Noir Watch: Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)

Watched:  11/04/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Frank Tuttle

This was not at all what I was expecting.  It feels almost like a rough draft of something like Heat, where we see both sides of the cop and criminal coin.  It's a smidge longer as a result, has some complicated character stuff going on, and is shot in color, which is... very strange, honestly, for the type of movie it is.

But I also want to watch the movie with Jenifer or Tammy so they'll tell me what all of the San Francisco locations are.  This is VERY San Francisco.  You expect them to sit down and eat a bowl of Rice-a-Roni.

The story is pretty good, but the cast is pretty stellar.  Alan Ladd is an ex-cop released from prison for a manslaughter charge that he believes was a set-up.  He's been in San Quentin for five years, and despite his wife's desire to get back together, he's been refusing her while in prison and is still, for whatever reason, mad that she saw someone else while he ignored her for five years.*  The wife is played by Joanne Dru (Red River), and you're gonna think Ladd is a moron for ignoring her, especially when she performs as a songbird in a nightclub.  

Noir Watch: The Dark Past (1948)

Watched:  10/18/2021

Format:  TCM Noir Alley

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1940's

Director:  Rudolph Mate

Ellen Corby - domestic

A mash-up of two kinds of mid-20th century films, this one is quasi-noir, I guess, mostly because it echoes other films which are definitely noir.  But it's one part "trapped in a location with a criminal and his organization" which you'll know from The Petrified Forest to Key Largo, and one part "hey, kids: psychology!" - which pervaded any number of movies in this era, from Nightmare Alley to Miracle on 34th Street to Highwall. 

But, basically, a very young William Holden plays desperado Al Walker, whose gang just busted him out of prison, killing a couple of guards and a warden en route.  He and his gang (and his girl, played by Adele Jergens) hide out in the home of Lee J Cobb and Lois "Miss Moneypenny, herself" Maxwell, where they're entertaining a few guests.

It becomes a psychological cat and mouse game as Cobb tries to both save his own skin and that of his guests, and maybe cure the insane murderer, so long as he's got a few hours to hang, anyway.  

It's absolutely buckwild how both medicine and therefore psychology were seen in this era as quick miracle cures that could happen overnight.  I guess when the answer is "20 years ago we didn't have penicillin", everything seems possible.  

As a "we're all trapped in here with criminals" movie, you can do much better.  As a "mid-20th Century psychology" movie... it's just under par.  But, Lee J. Cobb makes for a convincing doctor, Adele Jergens is terrific as Holden's girl.  Holden is very good, himself, but he's early here and when you know movies where he's able to do more and with better dialog, this is definitely a less notable role for him.  

I'm fascinated with the gigantic country/ woodland getaway homes of this period.  I've seen dozens of movies with country houses like this, from Christmas in Connecticut to many-a-noir, and the movies always place actors in gigantic, spacious cabin/ houses that read as "set for a play" much more than a dwelling, and always seem bigger than anyone's actual home.

The movie also has Ellen Corby, who played a domestic in a dozen movies I've seen - and does so again here, but she's always around in some capacity as a "regular" person - be it a nurse, whatever.   I need to start an Ellen Corby tracker, because she went uncredited for years and was maybe the hardest working woman in Hollywood for decades. Yet, no one ever talks about her.  But she has 265 IMDB credits.  265!

SW Watch Party Series - Noirvember

For three Fridays this November (2021), we're going to get together and watch some of the biggest names in what came to be called the Film Noir movement.  Just like other watch parties of late, we'll be gathering via Amazon Watch Party.

Days:  Fridays

Time:  8:30 PM Central/ 6:30 Pacific

Via:  Amazon Watch Party

Movies will be about $3 - 4 to rent.

November 5th

Best Laid Plans Noir:  Double Indemnity

November 12th

Detective Noir:  The Big Sleep

November 19th

Femme Fatale Noir:  Out of the Past

Join us and catch up on the dark alleys and byways of a movement that cinema still hasn't gotten over.

Graham/ Kinda-Noir Watch: The Glass Wall (1953)

Watched:  10/09/2021

Format:  TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Maxwell Shane

I dunno if this is actually Film Noir.  It sure didn't feel like it, but Eddie showed it and brought Dana Delaney along, so who am I to argue?

The Glass Wall (1953) was a contemporary issue movie in 1953, but one that echoes in the events of today.  A Hungarian WWII camp survivor and resistance fighter has stowed away on a ship and arrived in New York.  But with no papers, he's set to be turned away and returned to Europe where he is fairly certain he will be killed.

Any of this ringing a bell?

He's stowed away under the notion that if he can find an American he saved and hid for days in a haystack, that man will support his entry to the US.  But all he knows is a first name and that he plays the coronet.  So - he makes good his escape, pursued by the law, walking through the streets of New York.

Also starring Gloria Grahame in a surprisingly small role for her at the time.  But after Bold and the Beautiful, Grahame knew she'd been good in earthier roles like in Crossfire, and so appears as a factory worker, down on her luck and knocked around by life.  (She also steals the coat of an impossibly young Kathleen Freeman, who makes a federal case out of it eve though she gets her coat back).   

Less familiar will be the stripper with a heart of hold, played by Robin Raymond - a very Americanized Hungarian transplant living with her less-adjusted mother and deeply American brother (Joe Turkel!*).  It's a great part of the film I hadn't seen coming, and rather than platitudes and Gloria Grahame looking amazing as a shop-worn girl who needs a pal - typical movie stuff - it's a look at the multiple angles of the immigrants here in the US.  And, man, in one of those shining moments of film, it feels *true*.  

In this era of dismissing the UN as useless, it's also a time capsule of what the UN was supposed to be, and what it represented to the world in the wake of the atrocities and devastation of WWII.  And as quickly as it's established, we can see how useless an empty UN is - maybe something not intended in the way you can see it now, but certainly how it was meant at the time.

Star Vittorio Gassman is exactly what the film needed - a handsome face that could look desperate.  The film wasn't shot entirely on backlots.  There's some real footage of Gassman on the streets of 1953 NYC including Times Square.  It's chaotic and dark, lit with neon.  As Gassman looks for his friend, the loneliness and alienation are stunning.  

The movie also features Ann Robinson from War of the Worlds and a handful of character actors, as well as real jazz musicians like Jack Teagarden and Shorty Rogers.  

The movie isn't great, but I have a feeling - because of it's period messages reverberating to today - I'll remember it.  

*ah, you know him from Blade Runner and The Shining.

Noir Watch: Hell Bound (1957)

Watched:  09/30/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  William J. Hole  Jr. (what a name)

Confession - I sort of 3/4ths watched Hell Bound (1957).  I watched it from beginning to end, but was checking email and whatnot.  

It's a low-budget/ poverty-rowish crime caper, complete with post-Naked City heavy-handed voice-over in a bizarre film-within-a-film conceit.  It's a heist picture, and I genuinely wish I'd paid more attention (and will rewatch at some point), as this one does a surprisingly good job of setting up "here's how the heist will go" and "here's how none of those carefully planned steps worked out" as the characters pursue their own vices and agendas.  Classic heist stuff.

In some ways, heist pictures and books speak to me as a Project Manager.  It's a funky angle, but there's always a plan you're supposed to be sticking to, and then the job becomes about wrangling cats and dealing with unforeseen complications.  You can plan, but God laughs, etc...

You're mostly not going to know the talent.  There's a "that guy" I think I know from Dark Passage, but everyone else was a bit of a mystery.  The movie does give a role to Miss January 1957, and she's good!  She went on to a long career (and married one of Ozzie Nelson's kids for a while).  

Mostly - it's got some great street-level photography of Los Angeles, some of it probably shot guerilla style.  But especially the back 1/3rd has some memorable stuff as our lead antagonist runs like hell through industrial ports and junk yard (seeing the stacked street cars waiting to be scrapped is a punishing image).  

Anyway - I'll definitely rewatch at some point.   

Neo-Noir Thriller Watch: Body Double (1984)

this scene isn't in the movie, and I don't think that lady is, either

Watched:  09/29/2021

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1980's

Director:  Brian DePalma

I have two memories of Body Double (1984) existing, although this was the first time I'd seen the film.

1.  This movie was always on the shelf at every video store and had a sorta naked lady on the cover, sporting at least slightly less clothes than a Sears underwear ad.  It's ubiquity was part of my growing recognition that grown-ups did go and see movies with skin in them that were about sexiness - and that did not equal "porn".  So, I guess this cover was part of my realization that genre included the "erotic thriller" alongside slasher flicks and Rated-R comedies.

2.  In high school I read American Psycho, which was not on the reading list.  I'm in no rush to return to the book, but the movie turns satire into straight up comedy.  I dunno.  The film felt defanged to me, but was probably the only way to get it made.  One sign of Bateman's... issues was that he belonged to a video club and would continually check out and return Body Double.  It's an ongoing concern in the book whether he has returned his tape and whether it's available.  

Like a lot of movies I felt were not going to be something I could rent as a kid, I sort of compartmentalized Body Double and just never saw it.  So, after Paul and I were talking about DePalma for reasons tied to a different film, I figured I'd take 6th grade me who'd seen this movie's cover so many times and finally just watch the thing.  

Ida Watch: Private Hell 36 (1954)

this movie was also released as "Baby Face Killers" which makes no sense and is hilarious

Watched:  09/23/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Don Siegel

I'd see this one before, one of the films from The Filmmakers, the producing company founded by Ida Lupino and her husband at the time.  Lupino had co-written the film, and co-stars in what I find an interesting role as a down-on-her-luck lounge singer who happens to be a witness valuable to two detectives (Steve Cochrane and Howard Duff) as they seek a murderer who has fled to LA and is now passing bills known to have been stolen in a murder/ robbery.  

It's a cheaper film, so it's smaller and occasionally falls into the trap of letting scenes linger on so we can make the necessary 80 minute feature run-time.  And there's a whole scene at the beginning that seems like a favor to Steve Cochrane so he can tear apart a set and do some cool action sequence stuff (there's not a ton of action, otherwise).  

But, I do like the set-up quite a bit.  Cochrane as the morally-shakey cop, Huff as the cop with a wife (Dorothy Malone in platinum hair) and kid who wants to be the one with the straight moral compass - who are assigned to track down the mysterious NY criminals.  Along the way they meet Lupino and eventually track down the criminal - and all that cash.  

Cochrane believes he needs money if he's going to keep Lupino, and Huff... is conflicted.  If the movie has a slow mid-section, it has some great moments of punctuation.  

Anyway, it's got some pure noir baked in, and something of an accidental femme fatale.

Noir Watch: Human Desire (1954)

weird.  I used that same tag line in my wedding vows.

Watched:  09/20/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM 

Viewing:  Second

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Fritz Lang

First - this episode of Noir Alley was hosted by Eddie Muller and actor Dana Delaney, and what a goddamn delight.  Delaney has a presence and intellect that fits in perfectly with the TCM vibe.  She's a total cool kid who knows her stuff.  This wasn't, as happens on TCM from time to time, some actor wandering in who kinda-sorta likes a topic or film.  She wrote articles on Gloria Grahame for this quarter's Noir City magazine - so she was more than a bit prepared.  And, as long as she's Dana Delaney, she's going to be great talking about any topic.

Human Desire (1954) has enough elements going for it that it's totally watchable, but there's a reason I haven't returned to it til now.  Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame star.  It's directed by Fritz Lang.  There's a budget behind it.  You can do worse than Broderick Crawford.  My memory of it was the last act sort of falls apart, and before the movie opened, Delaney basically explained why:  I guess they totally rewrote the last act from the book and French movie it was based upon, and for some reason give Glenn Ford's character a moral high ground he hasn't earned and Graham's character is totally thrown to the wolves despite this making no sense in the film.  

PODCAST: "Miller's Crossing" (1990) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ JimD and Ryan

Watched:  09/09/2021

Format:  BluRay

Viewing:  Unknown (well over 30x)

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Coen Bros.

For more ways to listen

JimD looks in his heart and joins Ryan to discuss a shared canon film. It's the third from the Coen Bros. and one that is seemingly being forgotten by the current generation of film fans. Join us as we twist and turn, up is down, black is white. We're talkin' about friendship. We're talkin' about character. We're talkin' about - hell. listeners, I ain't embarrassed to use the word - we're talkin' about ethics.

The Signal Watch PodCast · 160: "Miller's Crossing" (1990) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ JimD and Ryan

Music:

Miller's Crossing Opening Titles -  by Carter Burwell

Miller's Crossing End Titles - by Carter Burwell

Signal Watch Canon:

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon

Noir Watch: Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

Watched:  09/15/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:  Richard Quine

Before the movie, Muller pointed out that this film sure feels like the same story they use in The Killers from 1964.  If you asked me which to pick, I'd say to reach for The Killers, unless you have the option of the 1946 The Killers, which shares only some cosmetic similarities.  

But, Drive a Crooked Road (1954) was better than I figured, but still not setting the world on fire.  Starring Mickey Rooney as a lonely-hearts mechanic and would-be-race-car-driver, it hits all the beats of noir in a very small scale and is intended to give Rooney a new persona as far from Andy Hardy as possible. 

It doesn't hurt that a young Kevin McCarthy plays a bank-robber who sets up Rooney to fall for his girl, the Rita Hayworth-ish Dianne Foster, and get him wrapped up into a bank robbery as the get away wheelman.  

And, unlike most noir films, they do literally perform the action of the title and drive a crooked road to get away from a bank as we turn the corner into the third act.  

Foster is... okay.  She was clearly signed because she... looks good on film.  But she never quite knocks it out of the park in the charisma department or has that ineffable quality that would have made a really solid femme fatale role one for the ages.  She's not boring, and you get how Rooney's character can't believe how his fortunes have turned when she shows interest, but I can imagine the role in someone else's hands (Rhonda Fleming, honestly) and how much more they might have squeezed out of the part.

McCarthy and his pal played by Jack Kelly are a buyable counterpoint to Rooney's guileless driver.

What really struck me was the third act feeling like crime fiction of the era and earlier, with the quiet, doomed ending when I expected the usual Hayes-approved turn to escape and a happy life for our protagonist as his bad-girl turns good.

Nope.

Anyway, a great installment for this week's Noir Alley.

Brit Noir Watch: Cloudburst (1951)

Watched:  09/06/2021

Format:  Noir Alley on TCM on DVR

Viewing:  First

Decade:  1950's

Director:

There's trouble!  Right here in London City!

It's interesting that the French focused so hard on the American films they'd dub "film noir".  It's not like the British weren't making gloomy crime movies around the same time.  Night and the City, Brighton Rock and others point not just to the "noir movement" in England, but that the films made there weren't afraid to go incredibly dark.

Produced by Hammer (they did more than horror, kids), this one stars American Robert Preston as a Canadian in service to British Intelligence as a codebreaker still doing his work in the wake of WWII to help prosecute war criminals.  The film takes place just a year after the war, and Preston is married to a fellow intelligence officer whom he fell in love with during their time as POWs, where both were tortured.

They have a chance now at a happy, calm life, with a baby on the way, when - one night as they pause on a country roadside considering buying some property, Preston's wife is struck and killed by criminals escaping a murder.  

PODCAST: "Shallow Grave" (1994) - a Signal Watch Canon Episode w. MBell, MRSHL and Ryan

Watched:  08/21/2021

Format:  Amazon Streaming

Viewing:  3rd or 4th

Decade:  1990's

Director:  Danny Boyle

For more ways to listen

What happens when three narcissistic jerks combine their powers and slowly turn against each other? You get a podcast! We welcome new contributor MBell to the podcast who brings us a suitcase full of surprises as we discuss the mid-90's Scottish indie film thriller that was a crucial bit of what was going on in the 90's cinema scene. Join us as we root around the attic of our minds and recall how this movie fit in for us as young adults and our appreciation of movies!

The Signal Watch PodCast · 159: "Shallow Grave" (1994) - A Signal Watch Canon Episode w/ MBell, MRSHL and Ryan

Music:

Shallow Grave Theme - Simon Boswell

Canon Episodes

The Signal Watch PodCast · The Signal Watch Canon