Wise Noir Watch: The Captive City (1952)

Watched:  04/06/2026

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Robert Wise

So, this is the second time I watched this particular film.  Here's the first.  Apparently just before COVID hit.  

A lot of what I'd say is in that first write-up.  But to recap:

The story is about an editor at a small-ish town newspaper figuring out that (a) the mob has moved in on his town and taken over the penny ante gambling operation bringing it into a combination and (b) the people of his town are maybe way more invested in a bit of low-stakes gambling than who gets the house cut.  

Our hero, John Forsythe, is pulled in when a private detective who tried to tell him about the racketeers is killed.  Then, a key witness is murdered and its made to look like a suicide.

The power of the press is quashed when local business interests pull their advertising, threatening the paper's financial stability.  

However, good 'ol real-life Senator Estes Kefauver has established an anti-mob task force, and Our Hero sees this as his salvation.  Kefauver, a ridiculous publicity hound, signed on *after* the movie had been shot, and added himself to the movie.

I think in 2026, the movie is a curious artifact, and not just because it reminds you Kefauver may be remembered beyond his expiration date thanks to his publicity stunts.  But also, in the past decade apparently we have up on making gambling illegal and sports books exist very profitably online.  There's even sports books right inside many professional sports facilities.  

Anyway, really excited about the epidemic of sports betting that's out there ruining lives.  (We really need to take a hard look at our weirdo culture of 24/7 sports talk and sports books available at the touch of a button.)

As a Robert Wise movie, first - it's from his production company, Aspen Pictures.  The budget isn't what Wise was playing with at the major studios, but his ability as a director is still absolutely there.  He's getting the most out of the talent on hand (most of whom you won't know) and there's some great cinematography that really leans into the tension. 

It really is interesting as it sort of refuses to have a single heavy at the center of the story, and instead is more of a crippling realization that when crime gets its hands into the right places and everyone wins, rooting out the problem is incredibly hard.  Who do you even go for?  If even the clergy thinks it's impossible to get their parishioners to quit the gambling or turn away from what they make on book?  Seems bad.  And I'm not sure if the Federal Government really is the magic bullet solution the movie presents. 

Wise Sci-Fi Watch: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

Watched:  03/23/2026

Format:  YouTubeTV

Viewing:  3rd or 4th

Director:  Robert Wise

Hey!  Happy 75th birthday, Gort!

The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) is a landmark for science fiction, especially in cinema, and would help launch a thousand imitators in the years to come (thanks, Ed Wood!).  It's also an A picture, which for Sci-Fi in the post WWII era must have been something.  We're still five years before Forbidden Planet would launch the notion that would birth Star Trek.   Notably, it was released the same year as the doomsday epic, When Worlds Collide.  

A flying saucer arrives and circles Earth, eventually settling on the lawn across from the White House.  The whole world knows this is happening, and we get international news reports (is this the first use of this trope in a scifi movie?).  Hours after landing, the craft opens and a man in a space suit emerges, who a soldier waits all of about 45 seconds to shoot for no reason.  A giant, metallic robot emerges, threatening everyone with weapons - atomizing guns, tanks, cannons, etc... with a beam from its face.

Our hero, Klaatu the space man, turns out to be Michael Rennie - He looks and speaks just like a normal man.  When world leaders refuse to meet to hear him out, he becomes frustrated, steals some clothes and bolts from Walter Reed.  With great luck, he winds up in a boarding house where Patricia Neal is dwelling with her son, and he uses the name "Carpenter".

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

Watched: 03/20/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  Third

Director:  Robert Wise

I saw this one initially with JeniferSF at Noir City at the Castro.  And then gave it another spin just two years ago.  

Based on a stage play (someone should do this one) it's an interesting film that feels like, emotionally, it pulls a bit from Rebecca and a bit from Laura, what with the huge portrait hanging over the hearth that seems to stare back at the cast, a ghost judging everyone.

A Polish refugee (Valentina Cortesa) from a concentration camp steals the identity of her friend - hoping to have a life on the other side of losing everything in the war.  The friend had a rich aunt to whom she'd sent her infant son, but as no one knows what the friend looks like - she figures she could pass.  

However, by the time she makes it to the US to find the relation, the aunt has died and left everything to the boy.  A relation (Richard Basehart) has adopted the boy, and when Cortesa meets Basehart in New York, he decides she's the one for him, and marries her.

Now in San Francisco, there's a nanny for the boy who is just creepy and possessive (think Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca).  And, as a shocker, the kind US Army Major who was helping our hero at the concentration camp shows up - he's a friend of the family and an attorney in SF.  And clearly would gladly be on our hero given the chance.

Anyway - things go very sideways.

SPOILERS

Western Wise Watch: Two Flags West (1950)

Watched:  03/08/2026

Format:  YouTube link here

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Interesting premise for a film, and, in my opinion - very well executed.  

In 1864, Joseph Cotten is a captured Confederate infantry officer.  Cornel Wilde plays a wounded Union officer who won't be sent back to the front line, but which the Army of the Republic will send to the frontier.  Lincoln is offering Confederate prisoners an opportunity to join the Union Army and go protect the mail routes and interests on the US, freeing up the regular soldiers to fight in the war.  And, so Wilde recruits Cotten and his regiment, which Cotten does so he won't die or disease in a frigid Illinois prison.

Arrived, we find the Fort is headed by a semi-crippled officer, Major Henry Kenniston (Jeff Chandler).  Kenniston's brother was killed during a major battle, widowing Linda Darnell.  Darnell plays a Californian/ former-Mexican (playing Hispanic was something she did in a couple of movies, it seems) and is the object of desire for Wilde, Chandler and maybe a bit for Cotten.  She is, after all, Linda Darnell.  

Chandler's officer has a bit of a Kurtz/ Ahab vibe.  His leg is not what it was, and he has a mad-on for anyone who isn't a union soldier.  Also, he is maybe lightly holding his sister-in-law at the Fort despite her wish to get to California.  The "I hate everyone" bit is a bad fit for the arriving ex-Confederates.  And the Natives outside the Fort, with whom he is developing beef.

Wise Watch: Three Secrets (1950)

Watched:  03/01/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Apparently 1950 was the year Robert Wise made the jump from RKO and into more prestigious pictures, apparently handed a melodrama and what I'd loosely call a "women's picture" at his new studio, Warner Bros.  

Why he was tapped for this movie, I don't know.  Maybe the complexity of a multi-pronged story and everything that would need to be included meant WB decided that an ex-editor like Wise was a good fit?  But for what the movie is - he makes it work.

The story is more than half flashback.  The inciting incident is that a family has crashed their plane on top of a mountain, and only the five year old son has survived.  No one knows his true condition, but a rescue effort is mounted to retrieve him.  A bit like the 1980's incident with Baby Jessica or the soccer team trapped in the cave, the world is watching, with bated breath.  

Wise/ Totter Noir Watch: The Set-Up (1949)

Watched:  02/27/2026

Format:  TCM on my DVR

Viewing:  I have no idea anymore

Director:Robert Wise

It took me a minute to get to The Set-Up (1949) as the next film up in my Robert Wise retrospective watch, mostly because I had just watched it last April.  That said - while I don't have a list of favorite films at this point, if I did, I suppose this would be one of them.  It stars two of my favorites with Robert Ryan and Audrey Totter, who both get to do great character work.  I'm not sure you get Rocky without this movie, but maybe - though I think they share a lot in their DNA.

Ryan plays an aging boxer - he's over thirty-five, and he's still boxing the small circuit, nowhere near the top of the card.  He's still living hand-to-mouth and has a girl who - until recently - believed in him, Julie (Totter).  The night we find them, she's lost faith.  She can't stand seeing him go into the ring and get pummeled, see him after when he can't even recognize her, his brains are so scrambled.  He's wrecking his health and their future for a dream that isn't possible.

Told in real-time (no fooling - like, to the minute) the movie follows roughly 75 minutes that will define the lives of both.

What's fascinating is that this movie has That Barton Fink Feeling - it's a movie about people living on the edge.  And those people are not just Stoker Thompson and Julie.  The movie has over a dozen real characters, and everyone is going through something.  

Wise Western Watch: Blood On The Moon (1948)

Watched:  02/20/2026

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Blood On The Moon (1948) is much more of what I expect from Robert Wise as a director than our last watch - Mystery in Mexico.  

Here, Wise is directing a cast led by Robert Mitchum, with Robert Preston, Barbara Bel Geddes, Walter Brennan, Phyllis Thaxter, Tom Tully, Charles McGraw, and a host of actors you've seen in other films.

Mitchum plays a failed rancher from Texas who heads to Utah for a job offered by his buddy Robert Preston - and it seems that job is acting as a hired gun in a cold range war.  Preston has teamed with other homesteaders against big-time rancher Lufton (Tom Tully) and he's trying to screw Lufton out of his range and cattle.

It's kind of wild as I don't know if I've seen the homesteaders cast in this light before - usually it's one of the big-money ranchers bumping off homesteaders (see: Shane).  And there's certainly the idea presented the rancher has been hassling these people.

Wise Watch: Mystery In Mexico (1948)

Watched:  02/17/2026

Format:  Sketchy Russian streaming site

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

I have no idea what happened here.  It's totally fine, but a major step down from Born to Kill.  But Mystery in Mexico (1948) is also a lot lighter - frothy, really.  It feels like a B movie at 65 minutes, with a mystery that is mostly an excuse to go to Mexico.  Which - I can blame no one for wanting a little jaunt to visit our neighbors.

Insurance company detective Steve Hastings (William Lundigan) has a colleague that has disappeared with a $250K necklace (that's 1948 dollars).  He follows the guy's singer sister, Victoria (Jacqueline White) down to Mexico City - and he relentlessly pursues her as a sex pest which means he's also there to help her when she gets into trouble.  

The film is a co-production with a Mexican studio, and has plenty of Mexican talent.  It does its bit to show off Mexico and Mexico City as a place of class and adventure.  But it feels super slight.  I get the feeling they were on a vacation and occasionally took breaks to make a movie.  

It's totally fine.  For some reason I thought Ricardo Montalban was in it, but with a 65 minute run time, at 30 minutes and no Montalban, I realized I was very wrong and a bit cross.  Montalban in this era was awesome.  Well, in all eras.

There's a few decent scenes.  Nothing to write home about.  

But Jacqueline White is in two of my favorite movies (Crossfire and The Narrow Margin), so it was nice to see her here as well.  (late edit:  White is apparently still with us at 103 years old!)

No real notes on Wise here other than that this is emotional whiplash after Born to Kill and really marks what I think of when it comes to Wise - he's a chameleon.  He gets what is needed, no matter the genre.  And this one mixes genres with the light-hearted detective and some real threats of violence.

Wise Noir Watch: Born to Kill (1947)

Watched:  02/07/2026

Format:  DVD

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Robert Wise

In the world of film noir, there's movies that are a bit gritty, and then there's movies like Born to Kill (1947) that look around at the shadier movies and say "hold my beer".  

First - we don't talk enough about Claire Trevor.  Stunningly good actor who has been largely forgotten by non-classic film buffs, but who won an Academy Award the year after this movie for her remarkable role in Key Largo.  Trevor didn't just work in noir, but in noir - she's one of the most active women of the genre, and is who you give a role to when you know the character is going to get extreme and you need for them to still feel like someone you might know in real life.  She's also fantastic in Murder, My Sweet, Raw Deal, Dead End, and you might know her from Stagecoach.    

Here, she plays a woman seeking a divorce in classic 1940's fashion - by going to Reno for six weeks and then being granted her divorce.  As she's planning her return home, her neighbor is murdered by a jealous boyfriend, played by Lawrence Tierney.*  She doesn't know it was him, but she stumbles on the bodies but doesn't call the cops - wanting to stay out of whatever happened and just get home.

Wise Watch: Criminal Court (1946)

Watched:  01/29/2026

Format:  A shady Russian website

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

I have to assume this 62 minutes flick was a B-movie in the classic sense.  The term originated not to mean a cheesy movie, but the way movies *used* to work was that you would basically pay to enter the theater any time that night, and there would be the feature movie, or A-movie.  But there would also be cartoons, newsreels, etc...  and a B-movie.  And that generally meant a cheaper feature film that was not as full of stars, big sets, etc...  And usually it had a shorter run-time.  Some of those B-movies were very popular, after all - people were still trying to make something good.*

This movie feels almost like it should be part of a series, but it's not.  There are characters who we just know as "types", so the familiarity makes it feel like you've just walked in during the first Season 2 episode of an ongoing show.  The flick stars Tom Conway as a Matlock-like defense attorney who is prone to in-court antics that would more likely land him in jail than get his clients exonerated.  In fact, to prove one guy is not a credible witness, he fakes a breakdown and wields a revolver in court, threatening people.

Unless that's an approved method on the bar exam.  You lawyers let me know.

Wise Watch: A Game of Death (1945)

Watched:  01/27/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Technically I should have watched The Body Snatcher (1945) next in my Robert Wise movie marathon, but I just watched that in April, so I'm going to save it for October.  It's a solid horror entry, so let's do that in the spooky season.

So, instead, I found A Game of Death (1945) on YouTube.*

Minimal surprises here, really.  It's an adaptation of the Richard Connell short story The Most Dangerous Game, which might as well be called "the most frequently adapted/ riffed upon/ re-done plot in movies".  

A wartime-era movie, it stars people who were not part of the war effort, and the only familiar face was Audrey Long, who will also be in the movie again in two movies when we hit Born to Kill.  Our lead is John Loder, who, honestly I simply don't recognize, but he's in Now, Voyager, so.  

I give Robert Wise and RKO a lot of credit here.  They don't shy away from the implications of the film, or how psychotic everything is, even if they give our villain an out - that he's suffering some sort of mental instability since he got crosswise with a Cape Buffalo that bonked him on the head.**

But the vibe of the movie is dark from the start as we watch a ship get tricked into wrecking itself, and swiftly realize it was intentional, everyone else is dead, and what our hero has walked into.  And what plans our villain (Edgar Barrier) has for the stranded woman once he offs her brother.  

The two servants are appropriately creepy, Gene Roth playing the cruel German henchman and Hollywood utility player Noble Johnson.  

The hunt sequence makes excellent use of someone's jungle sets, and Wise puts the camera behind the hunted in some visually striking sequences.  

All in all, the movie is fine.  It feels smarter than you'd expect here and there - allowing our hero to never be an idiot or be more than a step behind the audience and what it knows, and maybe a few steps ahead.  

The one thing I'd say that could have been hilarious would have been if when the villain gives our hero a knife before sending him into the jungle, if dude would have stabbed the baddie right there and proclaimed himself the winner.   I honestly don't know why he didn't.  

*I now have a policy of "it's fine" if I watch a movie on YouTube that has been uploaded by someone unofficial.  Look, the studios are refusing to make a lot of movies available via legitimate means, which means they've abandoned both the movies and the audience for those movies.  If they want money, they need to stop letting accountants drive decisions regarding access.  They can put the movie on YouTube as easily as MovieFiend668 or whatever

**I just recently watched a YouTube on how dangerous Cape Buffalo are - and they're responsible for an absurd number of human deaths each year.

Wise Watch: Mademoiselle Fifi (1944)

Watched: 01/21/2026

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Robert Wise

Our viewing of movies by Robert Wise continues with Mademoiselle Fifi, a 1944 movie, made during the darker days of World War II, using the Franco-Prussian War as a wispy-thin analog for the German occupation of France and a clear show of support for the French Resistance.  

This is Wise's first solo directorial effort, but you'd never know.  The movie seems assured of the handling of actors as it does of camera management and tone.  

The movie is intended as an odd propaganda - yes, stateside it would be seen as pro-French Resistance, but also would have informed Americans of what it means to be occupied, and how those under the bootheel may react in ways noble, practical and cowardly.  And, that some may not see much different day-to-day, or take advantage of cozying up to the occupiers.  I cannot assume this would have been very comfortable for movie go-ers who may have wanted to have less nuanced takes on the occupation.

Wise Watch: The Curse of the Cat People (1944)

Watched:  01/14/2025

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gunther von Fritsch / Robert Wise

We're continuing on with movies directed by Robert Wise - our gameplan for 2026.   

In his first outing directing, Wise did some pick-ups for The Magnificent Ambersons while Orson Welles was out of the country.  For his second directorial effort, Wise was *again* tapped in after the first director wasn't around.  Gunther von Fritsch was let go from The Curse of the Cat People (1944) for going over time and over budget at the notoriously tight-fisted RKO.  

I don't know what work belongs to Wise and which to von Fritsch here, so we'll just talk in generalities.

Re: the actual movie - as Jamie said after the movie wrapped "that was a wholly unnecessary sequel", which is absolutely true.  I'd argue The Leopard Man is more of a spiritual sequel to Cat People than this movie - but it *does* feature our heroes from the first movie, and Irena (Simone Simon) in ghostly form.

Wise Watch: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Watched:  01/12/2025

Format:  Criterion Disc

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Orson Welles/ others/ Robert Wise - some scenes

This year we're going to try to watch every film we can find directed by American film-director Robert Wise.  We will watch the movies he helmed in order of release.

Wise is the director of innumerable, truly great movies, but it's odd how rarely he gets discussed by film fans.  From film noir like The House on Telegraph Hill to the classic that is The Sound of Music and the ever-controversial Star Trek: The Motion Picture to one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, The Haunting - our fellow has range.   

Starting our journey with The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), famously an Orson Welles directed movie, will seem odd.  However, it seems Wise first got to direct during re-shoots for the ending of the movie, something allowed him as Welles was in Brazil on behalf of the Good Neighbor program instituted during WWII by FDR shooting a different movie for RKO.