Shooting in the Dark

Target #66: Fallen Angel (1945, Otto Preminger)

2009-12-26T14:36:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Otto Preminger
Written by: Marty Holland (novel), Harry Kleiner (writing)
Starring: Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere, John Carradine

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

With Laura (1944) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), director Otto Preminger and actor Dana Andrews collaborated to produce two of the great American film noirs. Fallen Angel (1945) also features this winning combination, but unfortunately lacks something more crucial: conviction. Eric Stanton (Andrews) is the perfect noir anti-hero, an unabashed shyster with a knack for opportunism. After stranding himself in a small American town with a dollar in his pocket, Stanton falls for Stella (Linda Darnell), a vivacious young waitress who'll "befriend" any man who can offer her financial security. Stanton claims that he wants to marry Stella, but he's obviously driven by lust, and his hunger leads him to seek money through dubious means – in this case, by wooing and marrying the spinsterish June (Alice Faye). Where Preminger fumbles is in his unwillingness to punish Stanton. Instead, the irresponsibly- flirtatious Stella is murdered, and our hero's innocence – never really doubted by the audience – distracts from the character's own moral crimes.

The film, at least, is thick with atmosphere. The small-town setting creates a distinct sense of claustrophobia, as though one can't run far enough to escape the watchful eyes of the local residents. Dana Andrews, as always, is excellent in the lead role. Linda Darnell exudes a trashy but undeniably voluptuous sensuality; she's a more openly sexual character than Gene Tierney's Laura, and perhaps more along the lines of Tierney in The Shanghai Gesture (1941) or Jean Peters in Pickup on South Street (1953). The characters played by Alice Faye and Anne Revere are underdeveloped and mostly uninteresting; their innocent, righteous personalities feel as though they should have no place in the film noir style. Charles Bickford, however, is very entertaining as a cocky and sadistic retired detective charged with solving Stella's murder. For the sizzling chemistry of Andrews and Darnell, Fallen Angel is a worthy enough noir thriller, but the director and star have done better, both together and with others.
6.5/10

Currently my #10 film of 1945:
1) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder) *
2) Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock) *
3) Brief Encounter (David Lean)
4) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
5) Perfect Strangers (Alexander Korda)
6) Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl) *
7) Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang) *
8) And Then There Were None (René Clair)
9) Roma, città aperta {Rome, Open City} (Roberto Rossellini)
10) Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger) *

British Noir: Brighton Rock (1947, John Boulting)

2009-12-04T23:44:00.000-08:00

Directed by: John Boulting

Written by: Graham Greene (novel & screenplay), Terrence Ratigan (writer)

Starring: Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Harcourt Williams, Wylie Watson

In John Boulting's adaptation of a Graham Greene novel, Richard Attenborough plays small-time gang-leader Pinkie Brown, a young man with a rough temper and a paranoid mean-streak. After he murders a police informer, Pinkie happens upon a young waitress (Carol Marsh) who could shatter his alibi if she wanted to. Unable to silence her without risking arrest, Pinkie instead tries to seduce the girl, who naively falls head over heels for the man who'd like to put a bullet in her.

Greene's trademark wryness is present in a tense opening act that sees a desperate newspaper employee (hired as Kolley Kibber, a variation of the Lobby Lud character) pursued through the streets of Brighton. Rarely have bustling crowds of people felt so ominous: how can this man hope to escape detection if, in a sardonic twist, an entire readership is looking out for him? Pinkie eventually murders the man during a carnival horror ride, escaping into the throngs of oblivious day-trippers. The man in which such a heinous crime is swallowed by the clamour of everyday life recalls Dassins The Naked City (1948) and that wonderful reverse dolly shot in Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972).

This sequence is one of several – including the climax upon a foggy ocean pier – whose sheer atmosphere is intense enough to rival the very best noir efforts of Jules Dassin {Night and the City (1950)} and Carol Reed {Odd Man Out (1947); The Third Man (1949)}. Unfortunately, unlike these better films, Brighton Rock (1947) lacks a consistent tone. Director Robert Boulton is skillful at building a strong atmosphere, but intermittent interruptions from Hermione Baddeley's brassy amateur sleuth (accompanied by her own jaunty theme tune) shift the mood from that of a grim British noir to a frivolous Miss Marple outing.

Though Richard Attenborough is a small, unintimidating actor, he somehow uses his slight stature to his advantage. Like a wily mutt, his Pinkie Brown has a ferocious bark, and a bite to match. In stories of this sort, it is typical for the villain to be softened, if only slightly, by the affections of a pretty lady. Nothing of the sort happens here. Pinkie, whose sexual urges are seemingly exhausted in his lust for power, woos and weds waitress Rose purely as an exercise in self-preservation. The young woman's devotion to such a cold-blooded crook is pathetic and heartbreaking, a tragic metaphor for thousands of women trapped in loveless and abusive marital unions.
7/10

Currently my #10 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) *

2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)

4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *

5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *

6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *

7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *

8) The Web (Michael Gordon) *

9) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)

10) Brighton Rock (John Boulting) *

Bonus Noir: The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947, Felix E. Feist)

2009-09-28T02:18:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Felix E. Feist
Written by: Robert C. DuSoe (novel), Felix E. Feist (writer)
Starring: Lawrence Tierney, Ted North, Nan Leslie, Betty Lawford, Andrew Tombes, Harry Shannon, Glen Vernon

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

By all accounts, Lawrence Tierney was one mean customer. He got his break in Hollywood playing the titular gangster in Dillinger (1945), and its success saw him typecast as the ultimate bad-guy. In Felix Feist's The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947), Tierney gives a powerhouse performance as Steve Morgan, a scheming fugitive who hitches a ride with law-abiding salesman Jimmy Ferguson (Ted North). As a short, sharp low-budget thriller, the film has plenty to recommend, any weaknesses early on compensated for by a mounting air of tension that you could cut with a knife. Steve Morgan is a riveting character from the moment he appears on screen. For one, he's not afraid to speak his mind, even insulting the appearance of the gas station attendant's (Glen Vernon) baby daughter. When Morgan propositions a virginal runaway (Nan Leslie), his flattering advances sound more like threats than complements. Only fellow hitchhiker Agnes Smith (Betty Lawford) can rival his hardness, a callous tramp looking out for herself.

Given the B-movie budget, the other performances as about as good as one could expect. Ted North is almost too amiable as the main character, constantly appearing smitten by the mere thought of his pretty wife. Betty Lawford is good, playing her role precisely as Claire Trevor might have – incidentally, Tierney would co-star with Trevor that same year in Born to Kill (1947). Harry Shannon's San Diego police chief inhabits the quaint universe of B-movie law enforcement, playing poker between phonecalls and recruiting an enthusiastic boy-scout gas station attendant to come along for the ride. These idiosyncracies come with the territory, I suppose – very few low-budget noirs are without the occasional weak performance or dubious plot turn. More damning is that Steve Morgan is denied an ending that befits his mighty presence, the film cutting to the next scene without allowing his fate to sink in. At least the meagre finances allow greater freedom for risk-taking: certainly, no big-budget studio picture would have delegated the young, innocent beauty to lie face-down in a lagoon.

7/10

Currently my #10 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed)
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur)
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves)
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles)
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel)
8) The Web (Michael Gordon)
9) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
10) The Devil Thumbs a Ride (Felix E. Feist)

Post-Noir: Farewell, My Lovely (1975, Dick Richards)

2009-09-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Dick Richards

Written by: Raymond Chandler (novel), David Zelag Goodman (screenplay)

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, Sylvia Miles, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O'Halloran, Sylvester Stallone

The work of Raymond Chandler experienced a resurgence in the 1970s, thanks to Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973) and Roman Polanski's very Chandler-ish Chinatown (1974). The waning career of Robert Mitchum was also revived by two Chandler adaptations, Farewell, My Lovely (1975) {previously filmed by Edward Dmytryk as Murder, My Sweet (1944)} and The Big Sleep (1978) {previously filmed by Howard Hawks}. Though outside the traditionally-accepted film noir period (approx. 1940-1958), the 1970s provided an ideal climate for a resurgence of the style. The demise of the Production Code in the 1960s had allowed filmmakers the freedom to explore more explicit themes, usually implying an increase in language, violence and nudity. Chandler's novels – which typically dabbled in themes of prostitution, homosexuality and pornography – could now be adapted faithfully without the threat of censorship, though fortunately, in the case of this particular film, director Dick Richards doesn't overdo the sleaze. The source material is one of the few Marlowe novels I haven't read, but Farewell, My Lovely nevertheless seems a loyal interpretation of the author's style.

Philip Marlowe is the sort of role that Robert Mitchum would have nailed in the 1950s, when he always seemed to feel old and weary without actually looking it. Nevertheless – though he lacks the cocky vigour of Dick Powell, or the invincibility of Humphrey Bogart – the aging Mitchum does communicate what is perhaps Marlowe's most defining characteristic: that of a disillusioned, world-weary private dick looking for something in this world, anything, worth fighting for. In his latest case, Marlowe is hired by fearless lug Moose Malloy (Jack O'Halloran) to find his girlfriend Velma, who vanished while Malloy was serving a prison sentence. As always, what had initially seemed a straightforward assignment soon gets Marlowe embroiled in a complex patchwork of deceits, murders and double-crossings. Crucial to the mystery is Charlotte Rampling (emulating Lauren Bacall) as the adulterous wife of an old millionaire, and Oscar-nominated Sylvia Myles as an alcoholic performance artist. Also look out for small roles from Harry Dean Stanton as Det. Rolfe, and Sylvester Stallone as a lustful thug.

Farewell, My Lovely does a fine job of translating Chandler's pessimistic vision of urban decay and human depravity. The 1940s adaptations are, of course, superbly entertaining, but most of them – particularly The Big Sleep (1946) and Lady in the Lake (1947) – are clearly filmed on a pristine studio set, somewhat offsetting the grittiness of Chandler's characters and plot. Richards' film, to his credit, is incredibly ugly. Aside from Helen Grayle, whose sprawling mansion suffers next to Buckingham Palace, most of Marlowe's witnesses live in appalling squalor; even his own office is drab and bathed in shadow. Yet, despite the unpolished milieu, Farewell, My Lovely most assuredly has a heart. Marlowe's wordless interactions with the son of a penniless musician help us see beneath the detective's front of indifference, hinting at his admiration for the honest working-class, and his fervent distaste towards the decadence of the wealthy. When offered his own wealth, Marlowe unthinkingly surrenders it to someone he deems more worthy, a touching but cheerless ending to a film steeped in the unpleasantness of human existence.

7/10

Currently my #6 film of 1975:

1) One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman)
2) Dersu Uzala (Akira Kurosawa)
3) Love and Death (Woody Allen)
4) Pasqualino Settebellezze {Seven Beauties} (Lina Wertmüller)
5) Jaws (Steven Spielberg)
6) Farewell, My Lovely (Dick Richards) *
7) Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet)
8) Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones)

Bonus Noir: The Man Between (1953, Carol Reed)

2009-08-20T06:33:00.001-07:00

Directed by: Carol Reed

Written by: Walter Ebert (story), Harry Kurnitz (screenplay), Eric Linklater (screenplay) (uncredited)

Starring: James Mason, Claire Bloom, Hildegard Knef, Geoffrey Toone, Aribert Wäscher, Ernst Schröder, Karl John

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Following the release of his masterpiece The Third Man (1949), a refreshingly-offbeat amalgam of British noir and Ealing-style whimsy, director Carol Reed was heralded as one of the era's most promising filmmakers. Critical admirers anxiously awaited his follow-up effort, which was four years coming. Today, the consensus appears to regard The Man Between (1953) as little but a pale imitation of The Third Man. Certainly, the two films share similar scenarios, both involving a foreigner's espionage-tinged visit to a war-torn city (Vienna and Berlin, respectively) that has been divided by opposing powers. However, despite lacking Graham Greene's wry sense of humour, and particularly the boyish charisma of Orson Welles, Reed's follow-up picture is nonetheless an excellent drama, blending romance and tragedy with the director's usual flair for generating atmosphere and international intrigue. The fine chemistry between stars James Mason and Claire Bloom finds a life of its own amid the rubble-strewn ruins of a city still at war with itself.

Young British woman Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom, whom Chaplin had discovered the previous year for Limelight (1952)) arrives in Berlin to visit her brother (Geoffrey Toone), who has married German-born Bettina (Hildegard Knef). Through her sister-in-law, Susanne is introduced to the enigmatic Ivo Kern (James Mason), a professional kidnapper with ambiguous allegiances towards both the Eastern and Western powers. Screenwriter Harry Kurnitz had a talent for illustrating characters with hidden motives and concealed secrets (see Witness for the Prosecution (1957), The Web (1947) or either of his Thin Man features), and his screenplay spends its first half ominously exploring the intentions of Bettina, whose association with Ivo implicitly suggests a family betrayal. Interestingly, the character is effectively abandoned in the film's second half, but to the film's advantage, as Susanne and Ivo are relentlessly hunted in the Eastern Bloc following a botched kidnapping. Here, Reed narrows his dramatic focus, but the doomed romance between Bloom's young idealist and Mason's war-weary criminal remains appropriately understated, inspiring empathy without stooping to melodrama.

Despite the absence of Robert Krasker, The Man Between is a beautifully shot film, with director-of-photography Desmond Dickinson capturing, not only the atmosphere, but the foreboding personality of the crumbling German capital. John Addison's musical score is haunting and graceful, certainly a far cry from Anton Karas' zither, but nonetheless effective in its own right. One thing I've noticed about every Carol Reed film I've seen (and the tally currently sits at seven) is that all the performances are perfect – not only the main and supporting stars, but everybody down to the briefest of speaking roles. James Mason sports a convincing German accent, and Claire Bloom is simply adorable in her naive innocence, with a smile that will melt your heart. A particularly important character is young Horst (Dieter Krause), whose love Ivo instinctively rejects, for such a criminal can never allow himself to form attachments to those he must inevitably abandon. Ultimately, and tragically, it is Horst's devotion that results in Ivo's death, the final proof that love and death are never far apart.

8/10

Currently my #7 film of 1953:

1) From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann)
2) Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)
3) I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock) *
4) The Titfield Thunderbolt (Charles Crichton)
5) Le salaire de la peur {The Wages of Fear} (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
6) Roman Holiday (William Wyler)
7) The Man Between (Carol Reed) *
8) The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli)
9) Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller) *
10) The War Of The Worlds (Byron Haskin)

Target #65: Thieves' Highway (1949, Jules Dassin)

2009-08-20T05:18:00.001-07:00

Directed by: Jules Dassin

Written by: A.I. Bezzerides (novel & screenplay)

Starring: Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Barbara Lawrence, Jack Oakie, Millard Mitchell, Joseph Pevney

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) returns from a round-the-world engagement to a home that, at first glance, typifies the ideal American household. His father's working-class singing voice booms across the backyard; his mother fussily busies herself with the daily chores; his girlfriend Polly (Barbara Lawrence) bursts jubilantly into the room, embracing him in a passionate, sensuous kiss. But looks can be deceiving: a well-intended gift of Chinese slippers betrays a recent family tragedy; Polly's disappointed response to another gift hints at a fractured romance, a relationship borne not from love but the love of money. The family's facade of happiness is exposed as a sham, and it's the peeling back of this superficial skin with which Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway (1949) is concerned. A seemingly-innocuous industry, that of fresh fruit cartage and wholesale, is shown to wallow in depravity, thuggery and callous opportunism. In this way, the film might be considered a companion piece to the director's previous effort, The Naked City (1948), which similarly exposed gruelling drama within the confines of the audiences' daily lives.

Richard Conte was one of the most interesting leading men of his era. His big-shot crime boss in The Big Combo (1955) might be the decade's most charismatic villain, but he could also play the resolute hero, as in Preminger's Whirlpool (1949). To Thieves' Highway he brings a cocky self-assurance, the sort of fearless conviction that's bound to blow up in one's face eventually. Lee J. Cobb's conniving fruit wholesaler, Mike Figlia, is a small-time crook, but one who invokes the viewer's contempt through his ruthlessly-capitalist exploitation of the humble working-class American. Only the females aren't as memorably drawn: Barbara Lawrence's Polly is rather abruptly discarded as a self-seeking gold-digger, as though only to allow for a romance with possible prostitute Rica (Valentina Cortesa), who grows a heart of gold. Thieves' Highway no doubt inspired Henri-Georges Clouzot's nail-biting The Wages of Fear (1953), another classic tale of trucking peril, but unfortunately it itself lacks the French director's gritty cynicism, or at least a degree of pessimism as absolute as Clouzot's.

This slackening of tone is seen most tellingly in the film's dramatic climax, a confrontation between Garcos and Figlia. The sequence doesn't work because it's conflicted between two opposing moral viewpoints. In one sense, Dassin appears to advocate Garcos' vigilante action in subjecting Figlia to a physical beating, since he successfully reclaims his stolen payments and achieves some degree of mental closure regarding his father's crippling. However, at this moment, as Garcos collapses onto the bench in exhaustion, policemen enter the diner and arrest Figlia for his crimes – but not before one officer sternly wags his finger at Garcos for taking the law into his own hands. To have an excellent film intruded upon by such an awkward, juvenile moral lesson is bad enough, but the film could have gotten across the same message in a more powerful manner. As the police stormed into the diner, my blood had suddenly run cold with the chilling thought: what if Figlia is dead? Out of pure bloody-minded pride, a good man would have been condemned for life, the ultimate testament that vigilantism is not the answer.

7.5/10

Currently my #6 film of 1949:

1) The Third Man (Carol Reed)
2) White Heat (Raoul Walsh)
3) Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer)
4) The Set-up (Robert Wise)
5) A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)
6) Thieves’ Highway (Jules Dassin)
7) Nora inu {Stray Dog} (Akira Kurosawa)
8) The Big Steal (Don Siegel)
9) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford)
10) Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock)

Target #64: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948, Norman Foster)

2009-08-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Norman Foster

Written by: Gerald Butler (novel), Walter Bernstein (adaptation), Ben Maddow (adaptation), Leonardo Bercovici (writer), Hugh Gray (additional dialogue)

Starring: Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell, Aminta Dyne, Grizelda Harvey, Jay Novello

With such a lurid, evocative title, I entered into Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948) with inflated expectations of a film steeped in decadence and depravity. I've often considered the classic film noir mood to be the primal juxtaposition of sex and violence, and this is exactly the stuff promised by Norman Foster's film: one envisions a man's bloodied hands, tinged from murder, and a femme fatale's gentle touch, not only embracing but encouraging her man's brutality. Alas, the true meaning of the title is less literal, and certainly less salacious, and concerns the notion of redemption through love. Burt Lancaster's traumatised war veteran, a man with stunted emotions and a short fuse, leaves behind a shady past of misdeeds he'd rather forget. His salvation comes in the form of Joan Fontaine's lonely, war-grieving nurse, who offers understanding and the hope of a better life. An admittedly conventional storyline is elevated by Foster's keen visual style, with the image of an advancing, goggle-eyed Robert Newton recalling the flamboyant eccentricity of an Orson Welles picture.

Foster's film opens in a pub, as the drunken patrons are shuffled into the street at closing time. There sits Bill Saunders (Lancaster) at the bar, lonely and brooding, so utterly distanced from society that he refuses to follow his fellow drinkers out the door. When the publican becomes forceful, Bill suddenly jerks into action, striking out with a heavy fist that leaves his aggressor dead on the floor. "Chum, you've been and gone and done it," remarks one stunned onlooker (Newton) gravely; "he's dead. You've killed him." This is what film noir is all about: that fundamental moment when there's no turning back. After a thrilling chase through the London streets (though I notice that the characters still drive left-handed vehicles), Bill finds refuge in the apartment of Jane Wharton (Fontaine), whose unexpected compassion leads him to seek a relationship with her. At this point, the film quickly and inexplicably forgets that Bill is a fugitive wanted for murder. Or, perhaps more accurately, it waits for us to forget.

Only after Bill Saunders has reestablished his place in society does his past rear its ugly head, in the form of Robert Newton's grotesquely cavalier black-market fraudster. This isn't the first time in Lancaster's career that his character's past had inescapably returned to haunt him: in Siodmak's The Killers (1946), Swede Andersen accepts his fate with a kind of subdued defeatism. However, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands is less fatalistic towards its protagonist, opting instead for an open-ended conclusion that wavers between hope and resignation. That Bill is ultimately offered a second-chance at redemption is quite appropriate, given that he is a victim, not necessarily of his own sense of greed or immorality, but of the War. His unbalanced personality, unwittingly corrupted by the twisted ethics of combat, is a testament to the psychological scars of warfare, previously explored in Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and more peripherally in George Marshall's film noir The Blue Dahlia (1946).

7/10

Currently my #10 film of 1948:

1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)
2) Ladri di biciclette {The Bicycle Thief} (Vittorio De Sica)
3) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Oliver Twist (David Lean)
5) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
6) The Naked City (Jules Dassin) *
7) Macbeth (Orson Welles)
8) Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls)
9) Key Largo (John Huston) *
10) Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (Norman Foster) *

Target #63: The Naked City (1948, Jules Dassin)

2009-07-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Jules Dassin
Written by: Malvin Wald (story & screenplay), Albert Maltz (screenplay)
Starring: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted de Corsia, House Jameson

Italian neorealism, which reached its zenith with Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948), was distinguished from other cinematic styles through its use of non-professional actors, loosely-plotted and realistic story lines, and unstylised on-location photography. Jules Dassin's The Naked City (1948) is a fair Hollywood attempt at blending the styles of neorealism and film noir, both of which were at the time only beginning to receive due recognition. At first glance, the two movements appear to sit at opposite ends of the stylistic and ideological spectrum: film noir typically concerns the fate of ordinary men trapped in exceptional circumstances, whereas Italian neorealism presents its characters' struggles as decidedly unremarkable, representative of the societal norm. Where these two particular films converge is in emphasising the invisibility of drama in real-life. De Sica's bicycle-seeking protagonists, dejected and beaten, disappear amid the crowds of workers. In his desperate flight from the authorities, Dassin's Willie Garzah (Ted de Corsia) carves a disruptive path through the crowds of New Yorkers, but the city schedule is interrupted only briefly.

Underpinning The Naked City is producer Mark Hellinger's narration, which serves as both a prop and a vice. Absolutely essential is the final sign-off, which remarks "there are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them." Coming only moments after a murderer falls to his death from the Williamsburg Bridge, this narration assures us, as critic Luc Sante writes in his Criterion Collection essay, "that what we briefly experienced as a cosmic struggle up above the earth was really just another statistic." In a city of eight million people, such high-drama attains only passing significance: workers file past the apartment building where a young model was brutally murdered; children play jump-rope outside the office window of a detective embroiled in a homicide case; a street-sweeper cleans up yesterday's discarded newspaper, its headline "DEXTER MURDER SOLVED!" having since given way to more pertinent news. However, Hellinger's narration, which chimes in at regular intervals, can also be intrusive, and I disliked the cheerful, cloying manner in which it interacted with the characters, as in a contemporary newsreel.

Despite revolving around a police procedural that has many of the classic dramatic ingredients – most memorably a suave jewel thief and pathological liar (Howard Duff) – it is only when detectives Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and Halloran (Don Taylor) take to the streets that The Naked City really springs to life. Dassin filmed most of his exteriors out in the gritty urban walkways, often without the knowledge of bystanders, and the resultant atmosphere is fundamental to his storytelling style. New York simply seems so real, bustling with the minor details of activity – children playing in the streets, salesmen pushing their carts – that are impossible to duplicate on a studio backlot. However, rather than serving merely as a documentary portraiture of city life, as in Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera (1929), the film's authentic environment instead functions to solidify the immediacy of the underlying drama. While Dassin's ability to juggle these disparate elements at times appears strained, he would perfect his method for what is, for my money, the director's masterpiece: Night and the City (1950).
7.5/10

Currently my #6 film of 1948:
1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)
2) Ladri di biciclette {The Bicycle Thief} (Vittorio De Sica)
3) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Oliver Twist (David Lean)
5) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
6) The Naked City (Jules Dassin) *
7) Macbeth (Orson Welles)
8) Key Largo (John Huston) *
9) Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls)
10) Secret Beyond the Door… (Fritz Lang) *

Target #62: The Thief (1952, Russell Rouse)

2009-07-12T20:47:00.001-07:00

Directed by: Russell Rouse

Written by: Russell Rouse (writer), Clarence Greene (writer)

Starring: Ray Milland, Martin Gabel, Harry Bronson, Rita Vale, Rex O'Malley, Rita Gam, John McKutcheon, Joe Conlin

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

The Thief (1952) sets itself apart from other Cold War-era thrillers – and, indeed, from most American films released after 1930 – because it unfolds entirely without dialogue. Directed by Russell Rouse, the film uses its deliberate silence, not merely as an unusual gimmick, but as a legitimate storytelling device, to internalise the guilt, fear and frustration of its protagonist. In most films, characters get worries off their chests simply by talking to others – but to whom can Allan Fields talk? Not to his fellow Communist spies, who must never be seen in his company, and whose convictions he doesn't necessarily share. Certainly not to friends or family, whose way-of-life he is betraying to the enemy. Lonely and segregated, Fields (Ray Milland) simply goes about his painful duties, his inner torment consistently repressed behind a strained pretense of nonchalance. Only when he inadvertently murders a young FBI agent does his anguish spill forth into physical and verbal form, in a pitiful outpouring of grief and emotion.

Despite a slow first half, in which Fields' typical espionage duties are introduced via a lot of silent waiting, The Thief picks up substantially once the American authorities catch wind of his crimes. Rouse cultivates some truly thumping suspense sequences, including a magnificent stairway pursuit up the then-tallest building in the world, the Empire State. This breathless flight from the 88th floor observatory to the 102nd floor, and beyond, serves as a convenient allegory for Fields' Communist involvement. As an FBI agent rushes in pursuit, Milland's character tries repeatedly to escape through service doors on each floor, only to find them locked each time. Throughout the film, despite wishing to abandon his treasonous practices, Fields consistently finds his path to freedom blocked, his only option to continue what he's been doing, further implicating himself with each staircase he ascends. When inevitably cornered high above New York City, ironically defenseless at the pinnacle of human achievement, Fields desperately lashes out at his aggressor, and does the unthinkable.
In spite of my reservations that only a low-budget film could get away with such an anachronistic style, The Thief does, in fact, boast excellent production values. Sam Leavitt's cinematography is graceful but with an edge of documentary-realism. I particularly enjoyed the lurid confusion of Fields' nervous breakdown (perhaps a nod to Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945)), with an increasingly-claustrophobic Milland filmed from above like an insignificant pawn, as specks of blood appear to permeate the walls. Despite his Oscar, Ray Milland is one of his generation's most underrated leading men, and he handles an exceedingly difficult role with poise and empathy: just watch Fields' pang of guilt every time he glances at the Capitol Dome, a symbol of American nationalism. Despite its sympathetic portrayal of a Commie spy, the film is nevertheless patriotic, as it must have been at this time. Indeed, Fields' ultimate decision to confess everything to the FBI comes not with the realisation that he is a bad person, but the realisation that he is a bad American.

7/10

Currently my #8 film of 1952:

1) Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly)
2) Limelight (Charles Chaplin)
3) Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica)
4) On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino) *
5) The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli)
6) High Noon (Fred Zinnemann)
7) Macao (Josef von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray) *
8) The Thief (Russell Rouse) *

Target #61: The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak)

2009-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Robert Siodmak

Written by: Ernest Hemingway (short story), Anthony Veiller (screenplay), Richard Brooks, John Huston (uncredited)

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Vince Barnett, Charles McGraw, William Conrad, Virginia Christine, Charles D. Brown, Jack Lambert, Donald MacBride

Some intrepid critics have categorised Citizen Kane (1941) as an early example of film noir, owing largely to its influential cinematography and flashback narrative structure. As though consciously in support of this assertion, Robert Siodmak's The Killers (1946) – expanded from a 1927 short story by Ernest Hermingway – plays out precisely like a noirish retelling of Welles' film. After enigmatic ex-boxer Swede Andersen (Burt Lancaster) is gunned down by hired assassins in a small American town, insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O'Brien) decides to piece together the man's past using fragmented testimony from those who once knew him. In doing so, he hopes to uncover the meaning behind the dead man's final words, "I did something wrong once." The life that Reardon discovers is one tinged with tragedy, regret and betrayal, revealing details of an audacious factory heist, a treacherous dame, and a double-cross to end all double-crosses. An archetypal noir, The Killers caps an excellent year for Siodmak, who also released the Freudian psycho-thriller The Dark Mirror (1946).

The Killers opens with a superbly-thrilling prologue that sees two hired thugs (William Conrad and B-noir stalwart Charles McGraw) harass the patrons at a small-town diner on their way to assassinate boxer- turned-gangster Swede Andersen. The characters' quickfire exchange of dialogue resembles something that Quentin Tarantino or the Coen brothers would have written decades later, only better, because screenwriter Anthony Veiller (with Richard Brooks and John Huston) reproduces the conversation from Hemingway's short story almost verbatim. After Andersen is unresistingly gunned down in his bed, the screenplay then expands upon the foundations laid down by the source material, using flashbacks to fill in the empty spaces at which Hemingway had only hinted. Veiller, whose work before WWII was dominated by romantic dramas, comedies and light mysteries like The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936), appears to have been hardened by his work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda series, and the dark, cynical post-War tone he brings to Swede's tragic story is an ideal representation of the noir spirit. Burt Lancaster shows promise in his screen debut, though the film's narrative structure does keep the audience distant from his character, an issue that Welles somehow avoided in Citizen Kane. As the resident femme fatale, Ava Gardner never quite inspires the collective hatred garnered by Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity (1944) or Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947), but perhaps that speaks to her charms – that, despite her betrayal, we're still unwilling to treat her with due contempt. Good-guy Edmond O'Brien cheerfully and voyeuristically experiences the wretched life of a gangster through the intermediary flashback device – he ends the film with a cocky grin, like an audience-member emerging from a screening of the latest gangster thriller. Throughout this review, I've been making frequent allusions to Citizen Kane, but there's a very important difference between the two main characters: Charles Foster Kane had all the money in the world and got nothing out of it. Swede Andersen wasn't even that lucky; he didn't even get the money.

8/10

Currently my #4 film of 1946:

1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)

2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *

3) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)

4) The Killers (Robert Siodmak) *

5) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *

6) The Locket (John Brahm) *

7) Crack-Up (Irving Reis) *

8) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak) *

9) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *

10) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

Target #60: The Naked Kiss (1964, Samuel Fuller)

2009-06-30T22:56:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Samuel Fuller
Written by: Samuel Fuller
Starring: Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante, Virginia Grey, Patsy Kelly, Marie Devereux, Karen Conrad

In the early 1960s, few directors more enthusiastically embraced the loosening restrictions of the Production Code than Samuel Fuller. He shunned big-budget studio pictures to allow himself greater creative freedom, and the themes he tackled were often untouched, or at least poorly-explored, territory. For its first few minutes, The Naked Kiss (1964) skirts delicately around its heroine's profession, implying enough without explicitly spelling out the word "prostitute" (everyone else seems to have got it, but, stupid me, I actually did think she was a champagne saleswoman – perhaps I wasn't expecting such progressiveness). This reasonably subtle approach (by Fuller standards) suggests the sort of evasive techniques that 40s and 50s writers used to bamboozle the censors on matters of sex – take the horse-racing exchange in The Big Sleep (1946), or the curious relationship of the two murderers in Rope (1948). By the time Fuller hits full stride, however, any such delicacy is thrown out the window, and suddenly what you see is exactly what you get.

I don't want to describe this film as exploitation. It certainly is exploitative to a huge degree – Fuller, for example, wrings every ounce of empathy from the poor crippled kids – but somehow there's a sense of sincerity in how he tells the story, as though he really does believe in the possibility of redemption. Tough, independent-minded prostitute Kelly (Towers) arrives in a new town, sleeps with the police captain (Anthony Eisley), and then decides to leave her shameful past behind forever, somehow securing a job at the local children's hospital. Captain Griff is immediately suspicious of Kelly's motivations, hypocritically believing that she'll only pollute his home town, but wealthy local benefactor J.L. Grant (Michael Dante) falls in love with her. When it came to women, Fuller appears to have admired the lowly kind: Constance Towers in Shock Corridor (1963) was a stripper, Towers in The Naked Kiss was a prostitute, and Jean Peters in Pickup on South Street (1953) might as well have been one, too.

Especially in its final act, The Naked Kiss has strong elements of film noir – substituting the usual male protagonist for a woman, of course – but there's also high degrees of melodrama, exploitation, and pulpy, B-movie schlock. Fuller's ultimate message appears to be double- edged. A prominent noir motif concerns the sheer hopelessness of redemption: however hard one tries to evade their past, a man's former misdeeds will always return to haunt them. This fate does, indeed, confront Fuller's heroine, but he leaves a light at the end of the tunnel, arguably dampening the full brunt of the film's ending. Perhaps the more potently-noirish message to be gleaned from The Naked Kiss is that society is rotten: not just the mistreated prostitutes and tyrannical pimps, but the hypocritical police captain, the prejudiced townsfolk, the philanthropist with an ulterior motive in funding a children's hospital. Towers' prostitute crosses to the "respectable" side of society's fence, but finds that corruption has already pervaded to its highest levels.
7/10

Currently my #9 film of 1964:
1) Fail-Safe (Sidney Lumet)
2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick)
3) The Pawnbroker (Sidney Lumet)
4) Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson)
5) My Fair Lady (George Cukor)
6) Per un pugno di dollari {A Fistful of Dollars} (Sergio Leone)
7) A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester)
8) Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton)
9) The Naked Kiss (Samuel Fuller) *
10) Kiss Me, Stupid (Billy Wilder)

Target #59: Among the Living (1941, Stuart Heisler)

2009-06-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Stuart Heisler

Written by: Lester Cole (story, screenplay), Brian Marlow (story), Garrett Fort (writer)

Starring: Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward, Harry Carey, Frances Farmer, Gordon Jones, Jean Phillips, Ernest Whitman

Among the Living (1941) sits in the middle-ground between film noir and horror. The horror elements are obvious: the use of twins, representing the duality of man, recalls a more literal take on the themes of Stevenson's "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde." But even the "evil" twin himself is not a monster, as he is often described. Like Frankenstein's Creature, he is merely a social outcast, corrupted by the abuse of the true monsters, and who ultimately finds it impossible to assimilate into society. Like a frightened animal, Paul Raden struggles to understand the violent, cynical world in which he's been thrust, and the injustices knowingly done to him, combined with the years of abuse he endured at the hands of a dominating father, lead him to murder out of sheer terror. In many ways, Paul resembles the character of Lennie in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," a simpleton with a brutish strength that he can't reconcile with his own child-like desires.

Though one would stop short of calling this a film noir, there are certainly traces of the necessary elements. Most prominent is the theme of hidden family secrets, of a shameful past coming back to haunt wrongdoers, as in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). The corruptive influence of power is also referenced – as in the latter film, the primary sinner of Among the Living (Raden, Sr., who is dead by the film's beginning) resides in a town that bears his name. The viewer can draw two conclusions: either that only through committing sin can a man attain power, or that from power itself is borne the desire to perpetrate crime, for he now has the means to conceal his misconduct. The latter is certainly true for the otherwise-respectable Dr. Saunders (Harry Carey), who – just once – compromised his professional integrity, and, twenty-five years later, finds that this one transgression has blackened his soul and destroyed his future.

John Raden (Albert Dekker) is the film's hapless protagonist, an honest guy who unwillingly stumbles upon his family's dirty secret. Via a succession of ill-fated coincidences, implying the forces of Fate that would later pervade the film noir movement, John finds himself on trial for murder, thrust protestingly into an ad hoc mob trial that recalls Peter Lorre's judgement in M (1931). Dekker is excellent in the dual-roles of John and Paul Raden, with the "bad" half always distinguishable, not just by his grizzled beard and raggedy clothing, but by the way he carries himself: slouched shoulders, arms held awkwardly, innocent and perplexed eyes upturned at the eccentricities of this unfamiliar society. Susan Hayward plays Millie, a minor femme fatale. She's an angel when you first see her, but the way she knowingly toys with Paul's naivete is quite repulsive, and her nastiness during the courtroom trial is similarly brutal. Notably, director Stuart Heisler would progress on to full-blown noir the following year with his Hammett adaptation The Glass Key (1942).

6/10

Currently my #10 film of 1941:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2) The Maltese Falcon (John Huston) *
3) 49th Parallel (Michael Powell)
4) The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
5) Shadow of the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
6) Swamp Water (Jean Renoir)
7) High Sierra (Raoul Walsh) *
8) The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg) *
9) Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock) *
10) Among the Living (Stuart Heisler) *

Target #58: The Web (1947, Michael Gordon)

2009-06-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Michael Gordon
Written by: Harry Kurnitz (story), William Bowers (screenplay), Bertram Millhauser (screenplay)
Starring: Ella Raines, Edmond O'Brien, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer, John Abbott, Fritz Leiber

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 Only]

Michael Gordon's The Web (1947) is an obscure crime thriller, but you wouldn't have guessed it from the cast list. Edmond O'Brien can always play an unconventional noir hero – not the sort who is continually in control, but one with a accidental tendency to get into more trouble than he can handle. Vincent Price originally made his name with a string of devious supporting roles in 1940s dramas, including Laura (1944) and Dragonwyck (1946). William Bendix is, of course, a staple of the film noir movement, and here he proves that his range extends beyond playing sadistic brutes and weak-willed buffoons. Femme fatale Ella Raines is less well-known than her co-stars, but, based on this film and her comedic turn in The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947), she had quite a bit of talent. It's not just the cast that is excellent, though. The screenplay by William Bowers and Bertram Millhauser (the latter of whom penned a number of Basil Rathbone's "Sherlock Holmes" mysteries) has plenty of unexpected surprises around the corner.

Bob Regan (O'Brien) is a two-bit lawyer with the bluster of a high-price attorney. In his first scene, Regan sidles through a busy reception office, offends a secretary (Raines) with some surprisingly-forward sexual banter, before busting in on millionaire businessman Andrew Colby (Price) and demanding the sum of exactly $68.72. Impressed with Regan's passion for the job, Colby hires him for a high-paying, two-week stint as a personal bodyguard. However, when Regan guns down Leopold Kroner (Fritz Leiber), a former associate of Colby's who was recently released from prison, he finds himself in hot water with detective Damico (Bendix), who scents murder. Desperate to clear his name, Regan begins to investigate Colby's shady dealings, reluctantly exploiting the affections of secretary Noel Faraday for information. Meanwhile, Vincent Price's articulate, calculating Colby plots the coup de grâce of his high-stakes crime spree, culminating in a murder frame-up that initially seems so airtight that I couldn't imagine any way for our hero to get out of it.

Though it doesn't necessarily offer any new material for the film noir lexicon, nor does The Web feel contrived. The romance between O'Brien and Raines could easily have been squandered with melodrama, but the film always keeps their relationship edgy. Noel's affections, for one, are clearly split between Regan and Colby, whose association with her visibly extends beyond the professional realm ("I recognise him when I see him"). Regan himself, while essentially good-hearted, has a clumsy crudeness about him where women are concerned, in contrast with Colby, who always knows what to say and how to say it. There's something subtly fascinating about Price's 1940s performances; it has to do with how he speaks. When his character is telling an untruth, he does so in a manner that, to us, reeks of deception, and yet we can perfectly understand why the film's characters – say, a policeman – swallow the lie whole. He toes a fine line, and still manages to suspend the audience's disbelief. Maybe that's why Price got away with starring in so many bad movies.

7/10

Currently my #8 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) *
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
8) The Web (Michael Gordon) *
9) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
10) The Woman on the Beach (Jean Renoir) *

Target #57: The Killer That Stalked New York (1950, Earl McEvoy)

2009-06-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Earl McEvoy

Written by: Milton Lehman (Colliers Magazine article), Harry Essex (adaptation)

Starring: Evelyn Keyes, Charles Korvin, William Bishop, Dorothy Malone, Lola Albright, Whit Bissell, Art Smith

In April 1947, New York City faced an epidemic crisis. Eugene LaBar, a rug importer arriving from Mexico, had arrived in the city, bringing with him the deadly smallpox virus. He stumbled off a bus, complaining of fever and a headache, and soon died in a Midtown Hospital, but not before he had infected a dozen passers-by. The damage was already done; for the first time in decades, smallpox stalked the streets of New York. The city's health authorities acted quickly to isolate sufferers and contain the virus, enacting a free vaccination campaign that saw over six million New Yorkers immunised against smallpox. Thanks to their swift response, the virus was contained with minimal casualties. The outbreak, nevertheless, must have left an indelible mark, for several years later it was followed by two similarly-themed film noir thrillers in which doctors must track down a single contagious carrier in a city of millions: Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950) and Earl McEvoy's lower-budget The Killer That Stalked New York (1950).

McEvoy's film unfolds in an unglamorous docu-drama style. Reed Hadley's narration sounds as though it was plucked straight from a newsreel, reciting facts as if reading off the official police transcript. This technique does feel a little cheap at times, but fortunately the narration is largely restricted to the film's bookends, as well as providing some explanatory filler during breaks in the plot. The "killer" stalking New York, in this story, is not a rug importer from Mexico, but beautiful diamond smuggler Sheila Bennet (Evelyn Keyes), who has just arrived from Cuba. Within days, Sheila has two parties independently pursuing her: a treasury agent (Barry Kelley) looking to arrest her for smuggling crimes, and a team of doctors (led by William Bishop) who have identified her as the source of the smallpox outbreak. As in 'Panic in the Streets,' an otherwise routine manhunt is given a heightened sense of urgency, particularly when those in pursuit initially have no idea as to the identity or appearance of their suspect.

The Killer That Stalked New York, for the most part, manages to sidestep its low production budget. Aside from a select few lines of dialogue ("we have to stop it!" exclaims Dr. Wood at one point, as though coming to a difficult decision), the filmmakers and cast members allow the story to unfold in a realistic, engrossing fashion. Indeed, in this regard, the low budget quite possibly aids the film's intentions, necessitating a documentary style that adds to the immediacy of the outbreak scenario. Evelyn Keyes is excellent in the leading role, showing obstinate resilience in the face of unimaginable torment; by the film's end, she appears so brutally incapacitated by her illness that it's almost painful to look at her face. Aside from the virus, Charles Korvin is the main villain of the piece, as Sheila's greedy and adulterous husband who, rest assured, gets everything that's coming to him. And if all nurses looked like Dorothy Malone, perhaps catching smallpox wouldn't seem like such a bad break, after all.

7.5/10

Currently my #13 film of 1950:

5) Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger) *
6) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
7) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
8) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston) *
9) Gone to Earth (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
10) Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan) *
11) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)
12) Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa)
13) The Killer That Stalked New York (Earl McEvoy) *
14) Armoured Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer) *

Target #56: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946, Lewis Milestone)

2009-05-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Lewis Milestone
Written by: John Patrick (story), Robert Rossen (screenplay), Robert Riskin (uncredited)
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Judith Anderson, Darryl Hickman, Janis Wilson

Lewis Milestone's The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) is filled with Gothic atmosphere, the sort of hushed melodramatic whispers that follow around a household with something to hide – think Rebecca (1940) or Dragonwyck (1946). But the film never reaches its potential. Despite a running-time of nearly two hours, by the story's end, I felt as though nothing much had really happened, and that a perfectly good build-up had been smothered before reaching its climax and logical conclusion. There's no doubt that Barbara Stanwyck was cast in light of her icy Oscar-nominated performance in Double Indemnity (1944), but here it's uncertain whether her character is a tormented victim or a compassionless fiend. Such ambiguity might have been used to great effect, but here it merely suggests a confused script that can't decide whether to idolise or chastise its top-billed performer. Not to mention that Stanwyck herself doesn't appear until past the film's half- hour mark, the delay promising a colossal personality that eventually materialises only half-heartedly.

Stanwyck may be slightly disappointing, but fortunately the men are willing to hold the fort. Kirk Douglas, in his debut, does an excellent job of merging faux-authority and jittery cowardice for his role as Walter O'Neil, Martha's sycophantic District-Attorney husband. But the real surprise of the picture is Van Heflin, the last actor I would have chosen to play a noir "tough guy." As roving gambler Sam Masterson, Heflin channels the cocky vigour of Philip Marlowe, constantly stepping into trouble just for the hell of it, if only to flout the authority of those who try to rough him up. Lizabeth Scott is unfortunately weak in an undemanding romantic role. She has a bit of Lauren Bacall about her, which is regrettable because I can imagine Bacall being far better in the role {and I mustn't be the only one who saw a resemblance, because Scott was soon paired with Bogart in Dead Reckoning (1947)}. In a lengthy opening prologue, the three main characters (as teenagers) are well played by Janis Wilson, Mickey Kuhn and Darryl Hickman (from Leave Her to Heaven (1945)).

Film noirs typically unfold in the impersonal urban decadence of a large city, but here Martha Ivers' grip on a small town (appropriately named Iverstown) is used to excellent effect. Unlike Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943), in which the presence of a serial killer "pollutes" an idealistic country town from the inside, the audience realises that Iverstown may already be beyond saving. Corruption is built in the town's foundations. A self-serving District Attorney, spurred on by his dominating wife, knowingly sends an innocent man to his death, and uses hired thugs to hide his own crimes. Walter's paranoia regarding the arrival of Sam Masterson is used to good ironic effect, as he later realises that, had it not been for his impatience to get rid of him, Sam would never have uncovered their dirty secret. Martha, displaying that maddening ambiguity again, seems to be halfway between loving and hating Sam, if only because his toughness and charm reminds her of the future she might have enjoyed if she hadn't snatched that cane from the hands of her aunt.
6.5/10

Currently my #10 film of 1946:
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *
3) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
4) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *
5) The Locket (John Brahm) *
6) Crack-Up (Irving Reis) *
7) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak) *
8) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *
9) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz) *
10) The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone) *

Target #55: Mr. Arkadin / Confidential Report (1955, Orson Welles)

2009-05-15T21:22:00.001-07:00

Directed by: Orson Welles

Written by: Orson Welles (story & screenplay)

Starring: Orson Welles, Robert Arden, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina, Akim Tamiroff, Mischa Auer, Paola Mori, Katina Paxinou, Grégoire Aslan, Peter van Eyck, Suzanne Flon

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 Only]

Firstly, some administration issues: like most Orson Welles projects, Mr. Arkadin (1955) suffered from studio interference in post- production, and so there are numerous versions of the film available for public viewing. Among the possible options is the chronologically-cut print released in America, the European cut retitled "Confidential Report," and several versions released by the Criterion Collection that purport to represent, to varying degrees, Welles' original vision. For my first viewing of the film, I watched the version titled "Confidential Report," which can be found on a VHS released by distributor Connoisseur Video. The flashback structure maintained in most prints of the film, including this version, deliberately recalls the American film noir style. Of course, this comes as no surprise – Welles had already released The Stranger (1946) and The Lady from Shanghai (1947), and would soon return to Hollywood (albeit briefly) to direct his archetypal noir, Touch of Evil (1958). But Orson Welles was not one to do things by the book, and Mr. Arkadin is like no American noir you've ever seen.

If one must choose a film with which to compare Mr. Arkadin, it would probably be Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). Both pictures transplant a familiar film noir plot into a European setting, and an eccentric camera captures the personality of the exotic locales and their inhabitants. Both, of course, also starred Orson Welles in a prominent role, and playing analogous characters. In Reed's film, Harry Lime is a smug, boyish racketeer whose thirst for ill-gotten profits takes priority over the faceless victims of his black-market crimes. Gregory Arkadin might be considered an extension of Lime's character, had he emerged unscathed from the Vienna sewers and lived years more. Arkadin is undoubtedly a criminal, but one whose incredible success has pushed him beyond such a characterisation. Despite having apparently eluded his youthful years in petty crime (after erasing his former identity, much as Lime attempted), Arkadin remains plagued by the shame of his past, unwilling to acknowledge that he is just as contemptible now as he ever was.

Despite the thematic influence of American cinema, Welles' direction, stylistically, more closely resembles the work of European artists like Federico Fellini. His dynamic camera-work and editing has an air of improvisation, and a certain flamboyance that might seem overindulgent if it weren't so brilliantly effortless. The film's most interesting sequence is an early costume ball in which guests are hidden behind grotesque masks, whose massive features crowd the frame like the creatures from Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are." Though it is Welles' presence that dominates the screen, Robert Arden is an intriguing noir protagonist: Guy Van Stratten is a small-time smuggler (once again drawing a parallel with Harry Lime) who epitomises the petty crook that Arkadin once was. Infatuated with nothing but money and self- preservation, Stratten continually exploits the affections of girlfriend Mily (Patricia Medina) and Arkadin's daughter Raina (Paola Mori). He destroys the lives of both women, and, unremorsefully, manages to save his own neck. Gregory Arkadin isn't the only villain on this cluttered continent.

8/10

Currently my #5 film of 1955:

1) Du rififi chez les hommes {Rififi} (Jules Dassin) *
2) The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick)
3) Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges)
4) Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich) *
5) Mr. Arkadin {Confidential Report} (Orson Welles) *
6) The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis) *
7) Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot) *
8) Nuit et brouillard {Night and Fog} (Alain Resnais)
9) Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
10) The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton) *

Target #54: Armoured Car Robbery (1950, Richard Fleischer)

2009-05-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Written by: Robert Leeds(story), Robert Angus (story), Earl Felton (screenplay), Gerald Drayson Adams (screenplay)
Starring: Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, William Talman, Douglas Fowley, Steve Brodie, Don McGuire, James Flavin

Most noir enthusiasts would, I'm sure, agree that the modern heist thriller was basically born with John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle (1950). But it wasn't alone for long. Just one month after its release, Richard Fleischer released his own heist flick, a low-budget B-movie with no star power (unless you count supporting player Charles McGraw, who was no stranger to film noir – see Roadblock (1951)). With its very brief running-time, Armoured Car Robbery (1950) strips away all unnecessary fat, leaving hardly a moment to draw breath as the gang of thieves execute a brilliant heist, before losing out to the authorities, all in 67 minutes. The one classic crime element we're denied is the preparation for the heist itself. When the four co-conspirators first approached the intended site of attack, I thought that they were going through a trial-run as part of their planning, but, no, they went straight for the hit. As such, most of the film is concerned with how their "perfect" heist unravels, like a ball of yarn with a trailing thread.

The film's low-budget is readily seen in its production values. Rather than the shadowy, stylised noir photography with which we're most familiar, cinematographer Guy Roe instead opts for a documentary-style realism. The performances also reflect this approach, though there are some some strong actors in the mix. William Talman, as Dave Purvis, is a classic criminal mastermind, a calculating genius who engineers every movement to the nearest second. Square-jawed McGraw, whom I maintain is a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas, is also excellent as tough cop Cordell, who's eager to dish out retribution for the death of his long-time partner (James Flavin). Icy dame Adele Jergens plays an alluring exotic dancer, though her role in the film is mostly passive. A swift and blunt piece of storytelling, Armoured Car Robbery lives up to its matter-of- fact title, not putting anything new on the table, but utilising its resources well. The ending, with thousands of dollars in notes flittering across an airport runway, seems to have inspired Kubrick in The Killing (1956).

7/10

Currently my #12 film of 1950:

3) Harvey (Henry Koster)
4) In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray) *
5) Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger) *
6) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
7) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
8) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston) *
9) Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan) *
10) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)
11) Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa)
12) Armoured Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer) *

Target #53: Roadblock (1951, Harold Daniels)

2009-04-23T19:46:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Harold Daniels

Written by: Richard H. Landau (story), Daniel Mainwaring (story), Steve Fisher (writer), George Bricker (writer)

Starring: Charles McGraw, Joan Dixon, Lowell Gilmore, Louis Jean Heydt, Milburn Stone, Peter Brocco, Barry Brooks

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

Roadblock (1951) has plenty of the classic film noir ingredients, but it also recalls all those landmarks from which it borrowed them. An honest insurance detective is corrupted into defrauding his own employer – that's straight from Double Indemnity (1944). A swift, suffocating city-wide dragnet embraces the fleeing anti-hero, stifling his final chance of escape – that recalls High Sierra (1941). Even leading man Charles McGraw, typically confined to supporting roles, might credibly be described as a "poor man's Kirk Douglas." In fact, with his chiselled facial features and a gravelly voice, I occasionally found myself picturing Douglas in the role. I also saw Gene Tierney in Joan Dixon's place, but that's just me and my wishful imagination. All things considered, the two main performers do quite well in a B-movie that offers no surprises. Content to follow the already-established film noir mould – to drive the riverbed without breaching its banks, so to speak – director Harold Daniels has produced an entertaining, workman-like thriller. But why rewatch it, especially when you can instead enjoy its superior predecessors?

The film, intended as the lower half of a double-bill, jumps straight into action. A fugitive bank robber (Peter Brocco) becomes witness to a homicide, the killer taking him hostage and threatening to dispose of him. After offering his stolen loot in exchange for his life, the film pulls its first – and probably only – unexpected twist. The "killer" is, in fact, L.A. insurance detective Joe Peters (Charles McGraw), who engineered the mock murder of his partner (Louis Jean Heydt) to discover the whereabouts of the missing bank money. Peters is fiercely honest, having resigned himself to an unglamorous life on a modest detective's income, but this episode foreshadows his character's transformation into a liar, murderer and fugitive. Why do good men turn bad? In Roadblock – as in all noir – the blame is irrevocably placed on a woman. Unashamed gold-digger Diane (Joan Dixon) taunts Peters with her icy beauty, disdainfully implying that he could never afford somebody like her on such a meagre salary. If you're going to turn to crime, I guess sex is as good a reason as any.

Roadblock was directed by Harold Daniels, who doesn't appear to have much else of note to his name, but the cinematography was by Nicholas Musuraca, whose exquisite noirish work is also on display in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), Cat People (1942) and Out of the Past (1947). What I love most about film noir is how the photography so often suggests more than would otherwise be understood. For example, despite beginning the film as a questionable, if seductive, chiseller, Joan Dixon's character later takes a turn towards the uninteresting, rejecting her former prestigious life-style in favour of love and marriage (making Peters' fatal transformation ironically unnecessary). Having now settled into her new role as a slighted romantic lover, and apparently deserving of our sympathy, Diane witnesses her husband gunned down by police, and resignedly departs the scene. It's not spoken, but Musuraca's camera doesn't forget who's to blame for this tragedy: he frames her strutting purposely - almost dismissively - away from the devastation her hand has caused, like a gunman turning his back on a massacre.

6/10

Currently my #9 film of 1951:

1) Strangers On A Train (Alfred Hitchcock) *
2) The African Queen (John Huston)
3) The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick)
4) The Day The Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise)
5) The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton) *
6) The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks)
7) An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli)
8) Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen)
9) Roadblock (Harold Daniels) *
10) Behave Yourself! (George Beck)

Target #52: The Set-Up (1949, Robert Wise)

2009-04-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Robert Wise

Written by: Joseph Moncure March (poem), Art Cohn (screenplay)

Starring: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter, Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, David Clarke, Darryl Hickman, Hal Fieberling, Kenny O'Morrison, James Edwards, Phillip Pine, Edwin Max

Bill Stoker is 35-years-old, an old man in the boxing ring. Having strived for two decades to claim a title for which he simply isn't good enough, Stoker is now just going through the motions – one embarrassing knock-out loss after another. "I'm just one punch away," he tells wife Julie (Audrey Totter), who must endure every agonising blow beside him. Stoker is a loser, but he's not willing to accept it. The mood in the dressing-room before each fight is similarly pathetic: a young kid nauseously awaits his debut bout; a boxer going nowhere maintains his delusions of grandeur; Stoker restlessly mourns his absent wife, every mention of defeat striking sharply and painfully at his self-confidence. Though comparisons with Avildsen's Rocky (1976) are inevitable, Robert Wise's The Set-Up (1949) is an entirely different entity, concerned not with the glory of the boxing arena, but with the sport's seedy underbelly, of broken bones and shattered dreams. However hard these boxers try, however many fights they win, they'll never emerge from their dirty rut.

Robert Wise was certainly one of Hollywood's most versatile directors, having released excellent films from almost every major genre – science-fiction, horror, drama, musical, war. The Set-Up was produced on a low budget by RKO, with a story that unfolds in real-time (predating Zinnemann's High Noon (1952), which famously used this approach). Despite a taut 72-minute running-time, the film packs a considerable emotional punch, as the sympathetic Stoker places his dignity on the line, sticks to his guns, and winds up being punished for his nobility. Robert Ryan gives a characteristically intense leading performance, eliciting empathy, but also exhibiting a quiet, understated dignity. When his fellow boxers emerge from their bouts, either ecstatic in victory or discouraged in defeat, there's a heartbreaking sadness in Stoker's eyes, as though every time he must front the challenge of his own aging body. Among the compelling supporting performers is David Clarke as a self-deluding washed-up boxer, and Alan Baxter (looking a bit like Frank Sinatra, I thought) as a cold-eyed gangster who wears sharp suits but, unlike Stoker, hasn't any class or principles.

The Set-Up, in exposing the unglamorous side of the boxing profession, certainly served as inspiration for Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull (1980), and probably also influenced Kubrick in his early noir thriller Killer's Kiss (1955). The boxing match between Stoker and Tiger Nelson (Hal Fieberling) is an gritty four-round exchange of bludgeoning blows, and every connecting swipe sent a shudder of discomfort through my body. Even more fascinating, however, is how Wise focuses much attention on the match spectators, perhaps the most depraved selection of sadistic souls you're likely to find at any sporting event: an excited house-wife calls for a prolonging of the boxers' suffering; a blind man cries "go for his eyes," his cruel mind filling in the bloody details; the ever-composed Little Boy (Baxter) watches through shrewd, calculating eyes. The atmosphere of the boxing stadium is oppressive and stifling, the meeting-place of society's most decadent citizens. Ironically, it is only when he is defeated by this environment that Stoker can ever escape its clutches. He strikes the bottom of the barrel, his honour intact only in his eyes.

8/10

Currently my #4 film of 1949:

1) The Third Man (Carol Reed) *
2) White Heat (Raoul Walsh) *
3) Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer)
4) The Set-up (Robert Wise) *
5) A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)
6) Nora inu {Stray Dog} (Akira Kurosawa)
7) The Big Steal (Don Siegel) *
8) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford)
9) Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock)
10) Whisky Galore! (Alexander Mackendrick)

"Shooting in the Dark" Revision

2009-04-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

I've just realised that, when I originally welcomed readers to Shooting in the Dark, I completely overlooked Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) as a noir on the list that I had already seen. It took me seven months to notice this, but better late than never.

Thus, my tally to date immediately increases from 50 to 51, and the next film will be considered Target #52.

Phew, crisis averted!

Target #50: The Shanghai Gesture (1941, Josef von Sternberg)

2009-04-04T23:36:00.001-07:00

TSPDT placing: #790

Directed by: Josef von Sternberg

Written by: John Colton (play), Josef von Sternberg (adaptation), Geza Herczeg, Jules Furthman, Karl Vollmöller

Starring: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Phyllis Brooks, Albert Bassermann, Eric Blore

Having just watched The Shanghai Gesture (1941), I'm not even sure what to make of it. Was it a good film? Was it a complete mess? The 100 minutes unfolded like a drug-induced haze, the alluring scent of an opiate hanging thickly in the air. Somehow, the film's plot – whatever it may have been about – seemed totally and utterly inconsequential, with director Josef von Sternberg placing additional, almost superfluous, importance on the development of mood. Indeed, aside from atmosphere, there's little else to keep you watching the film: the characters are sleazy and grotesque, the sort you'd expect to find at a seedy casino, its employees imbued with the mock dignity of one who deals exclusively in exploiting the weaknesses of lesser men. A good cast – Walter Huston, Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Eric Blore – is not exactly wasted on such poorly-developed characters, but one gets the sense that even they are not exactly sure what they're doing in this place. But, if the film is a failure, then it's a genuinely fascinating one.

"Mother" Gin Sling (Ona Munson, in unflattering Oriental make-up) is the mysterious and ruthless owner of a Shanghai casino, where desperate men come night or day to gamble their lives and fortunes. Employee Doctor Omar (Victor Mature) does his best to charm the beautiful girls who come his way, in one night snagging both smart-talking American Dixie (Phyllis Brooks) and conceited rich-girl "Poppy" (Gene Tierney). When threatened with closure by wealthy entrepreneur Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston), Gin Sling springs into action, using her enormous influence to rebuff the challenge. The Shanghai Gesture is sometimes categorised as film noir. Certainly, other noir pictures like Macao (1952), which Josef von Sternberg directed until he was replaced by Nicholas Ray, utilised a similarly exotic Asian setting, so the non-American locale doesn't immediately preclude it from consideration. In some ways, it fits the bill: every character in the film has a weakness – something to hide – through which they can be manipulated; a shady past that has come back to haunt them.

Despite being restricted by the provisions of the Production Code, The Shanghai Gesture is one of the sleaziest films of its era, leaving a bitter, uneasy taste in the mouth, despite impeccable production values. Hollywood's interpretation of Eastern cultural values was evidently unflattering, and every Asian character is utterly devoid of morals, with particularly prominence given to the proudly misogynistic attitudes of one Chinese employee who likes to brag of his polygyny. A shocking history of sex slavery is exposed, with New Year's Eve guests treated to a recreation of these ghastly practices (or, at least, we're told that it is merely a recreation). But it isn't only the Chinese whose immorality is exposed, and even the seemingly upright Sir Guy betrays a suspect past, doomed finally to suffer for his perceived sins. Walter Huston is excellent as always, bringing conviction to a film in which everybody else seems uncertain of their roles. Gene Tierney, perhaps her most ravishing performance outside Laura (1944), isn't particularly convincing, but her falseness does strangely work, given the desperate phoniness of her character.

6/10

Currently my #8 film of 1941:

Bonus Noir: The Big Steal (1949, Don Siegel)

2009-03-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Don Siegel
Written by: Richard Wormser (story), Daniel Mainwaring (screenplay), Gerald Drayson Adams (screenplay)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Patric Knowles, Ramon Novarro, Don Alvarado, John Qualen

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

Given that The Big Steal (1949) was the only film to reunite Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer after Out of the Past (1947), one could be forgiven for expecting a dark, seedy film noir thriller. Indeed, even the title recalls some of the genre’s classic heist flicks, something along the lines of The Asphalt Jungle (1949) or The Killing (1956). But director Don Siegel was not interested in following Jacques Tourneur’s footsteps, and instead delivered a breezy, and often amusing, exotic drama in which the cross-Mexico chase almost takes a back-seat to the budding romance between its two main stars. Nevertheless, the film takes generous inspiration from film noir, particularly during an opening scene which sees Duke Halliday (Mitchum) “pull a fast one” on Capt. Blake (William Bendix), who is pursuing him for the suspected theft of military money. The exotic setting also recalls the future thrills of Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray’s Macao (1952), a picture that – probably not coincidentally – also starred both Mitchum and Bendix.

Perhaps the most prominent noir element of The Big Steal is the blurring of the boundaries between hero and villain. Duke Halliday is an American lieutenant wanted for the theft of military money, but, despite professing his innocence, has no apparent qualms about clouting his superior officer in the face. Halliday himself is in pursuit of Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles, whom you might remember from After the Thin Man (1939) or The Wolf Man (1941)), whose guilt will prove Halliday’s innocence. In Blake’s pursuit of Halliday, as you can see, the traditional theme of the innocent pursuing the guilty is disrupted, and an eleventh-hour plot-twist only does more to distort the fallacy. Jane Greer is far from her vicious femme fatale of Out of the Past, but nor is she relegated to the role of the vulnerable damsel; Joan Graham is shown to be smart, resourceful and independent, able to talk herself out of trouble and even hold her own in a high-speed car chase along a winding mountain road.

What I found most refreshing about The Big Steal was its relative forwardness about sex, an oddity given the strictness of the Production Code at the time. Greer’s character, at first apathetic to her leading man, rather quickly acquires the urge to sleep with him. Nothing explicity takes place during the film, of course, but there’s an electricity there, of the sort than Bogart and Bacall brought to the screen so effortlessly. In a moment of crisis, Mitchum wearily muses “It'll be getting dark soon. I hate the thought of spending the night with an empty revolver.” Greer’s response is unexpected and amusing in its forwardness: “there’s always me.” Even Mitchum seems somewhat surprised that his heroine has been seduced by the allure of gunfire and looming danger, replying, “tonight you gotta pick?” Though the film does occasionally try to sanitise the Mitchum/Greer romance through references to marriage and having ten children, we can understand why Mitchum looks so flustered at the suggestion. He certainly wasn’t thinking nine months ahead.
7/10

Currently my #6 film of 1949:
1) The Third Man (Carol Reed)
2) White Heat (Raoul Walsh)
3) Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer)
4) A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)
5) Nora inu {Stray Dog} (Akira Kurosawa)
6) The Big Steal (Don Siegel)
7) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford)
8) Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock)
9) Whisky Galore! (Alexander Mackendrick)
10) Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius)

Bonus Noir: Ramrod (1947, André De Toth)

2009-02-26T15:46:00.000-08:00

Directed by: André De Toth
Written by: Luke Short (novel), Jack Moffitt, C. Graham Baker, Cecile Kramer (writers)
Starring: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Don DeFore, Donald Crisp, Preston Foster, Arleen Whelan, Lloyd Bridges

I hadn't realised that Lake was so incredibly short. Having only seen her in three films opposite Alan Ladd, whose comparatively small stature made him an ideal screen partner, it was surprising to see the 6' 3" Joel McCrea positively tower above her. This must have caused headaches for the cinematographer who was valiantly trying to frame both stars into every shot. Nevertheless, Lake doesn't let her petite size get in the way of a solid performance, and, indeed, her character is surprisingly malevolent. Borrowing a leaf from the femme fatales of the film noir style, which was in full swing by the late 1940s, Lake's Connie Dickason is a feisty customer, a pugnacious ranch-woman whose determination to upset the balance of power in her small western town turns her as nasty as the male oppressors whom she so despises. She deliberately breaks the law to achieve her self-righteous ends, and attempts to rope men into her scheme through the promise of sex. Yet Connie remains a moderately sympathetic character.

If one considers Ramrod (1947) as one of the first film noir/westerns, then Connie is the ill-fated hero who knowingly chooses a path of dishonesty, and is condemned by it. McCrea's Dave Nash, on the other hand, represents the Western side of the story, a washed-up cowboy who, against all odds, chooses the path of nobility, pursuing justice strictly through honourable (and legal) channels. This blending of genres yields the film an interesting thematic tone, I think, though the story itself is so familiar that there are few surprises to be had along the way. Upon hearing of her deception, Dave shuns Connie's affections, instead choosing to marry the passive but sincere Rose (Arleen Whelan), the epitome of a dependable house-wife {I'd seen Whelan before, in the William Powell comedy The Senator was Indiscreet (1947), though I don't remember the specifics of her role}. Connie is left, alone and rejected, to ponder the men whose deaths she inadvertently orchestrated. True to the film noir spirit, she is offered no redemption.
6/10

Currently my #15 film of 1947:
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
8) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
9) The Woman on the Beach (Jean Renoir) *
10) Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery) *
11) Lured (Douglas Sirk) *
12) Bush Christmas (Ralph Smart)
13) Song of the Thin Man (Edward Buzzell)
14) The Senator Was Indiscreet (George S. Kaufman)
15) Ramrod (André De Toth) *

Target #49: Crack-Up (1946, Irving Reis)

2009-02-06T20:54:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Irving Reis
Written by: Fredric Brown (story), John Paxton, Ben Bengal, Ray Spencer
Starring: Pat O'Brien, Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall, Ray Collins, Wallace Ford, Dean Harens, Damian O'Flynn

Pat O'Brien is typically known for playing priests, the level-headed foil for James Cagney's explosive gangster. In other words, he's usually the least-interesting character in the film. Crack-Up (1946) marks a welcome change-of-pace for the actor. No longer is O'Brien the calm, collected cleric, but a confused art critic at the end of his rope, doubting his own sanity as he battles murder and conspiracy. He perhaps isn't perfect for the role – the film's lurid moments would have been even more lurid had the lead actor been able to act more deranged – but O'Brien receives good supporting back-up from Claire Trevor, Herbert Marshall and Ray Collins. Director Irving Reis (best known for his "Falcon" series, though he also co-directed the annoyingly manipulative Hitler's Children (1943) with Edward Dmytryk) does well to develop the film's mood, not afraid to dabble in a bit of surrealism to help translate the mental confusion and degradation of his main protagonist. There's also a little Freudian psychoanalysis in there, as was popular at the time, but the distraction it causes to the story is only an afterthought.

The role of WWII in shaping the film noir style should not be underestimated. In Crack-Up, combat veteran George Steele (O'Brien) remarks that his greater fear in the trenches was that his mind might unexpectedly snap "like a tight violin string." These combat-related fears are here transcribed into a society ostensibly recovering from the war, suggesting that the shadow of the twentieth century's most costly campaign was still bearing over America, a sinister spectre of uncertainty and disarray. The film's undisputed centrepiece, though it is never adequately explained, is Steele's recollection of a train crash, a sequence that almost suggests an episode of "The Twilight Zone." As Steele watches the blazing beams of an oncoming train, time appears to stand still. He sits transfixed, calm and emotionless, a deer in the headlights. In classic film noir fashion, both he and the audience know what is about to happen, but all are powerless to stop it. The train barrels towards its predestined fate, a blistering collision of light and flames. Or does it?

Perhaps drawing some inspiration from Lang's Scarlet Street (1945), this film noir concerns itself with the art of art fraud and forgery. The filmmakers' approach to the topic is strictly populist. At the beginning of the film, art critic Steele gives a lecture that openly denigrates the booming popularity of surrealism and "modern art," dismissing the style as being of use only to snobbish social-climbers {an unfair view, since Hitchcock had employed the services of Salvador Dali just one year earlier for Spellbound (1945)}. It is these very same snobs who have planned an elaborate scheme to replace masterpiece canvasses (titled "Gainsborough" and "The Adoration of the Kings," respectively) with worthless replicas, before destroying the copies – not for monetary gain, but because they're snobs, and would like to have the classic works of art all to themselves. If all of Crack-Up was as lurid as the opening sequence and train-wreck flashback, then Irving Reis would have had a masterpiece on his hands. As it is, we are left with an entertaining if occasionally stodgy thriller.
7/10

Currently my #6 film of 1946:
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *
3) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
4) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *
5) The Locket (John Brahm) *
6) Crack-Up (Irving Reis) *
7) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak) *
8) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *
9) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
10) A Night in Casablanca (Archie Mayo)

Target #48: Journey into Fear (1943, Norman Foster)

2009-01-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Norman Foster, Orson Welles (uncredited)
Written by: Eric Ambler (novel), Joseph Cotten (screenplay), Richard Collins, Ben Hecht, Orson Welles (uncredited)
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, Jack Durant, Everett Sloane, Orson Welles

Orson Welles graciously denied having any directing role in Norman Foster's Journey into Fear (1943), though his influence appears to be all over it. Citizen Kane (1941) first showcased Welles' fondness for filming people via low and high-angled cameras, a stylistic technique that distorts statures, placing the audience in a position either of power or helplessness. Here, the talented Karl Struss – who also worked on such films as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) – employs similar techniques, capturing human faces with a threatening immediacy that distorts their features and suggests imminent danger. You won't, of course, fail to notice that the film's cast also boasts more than a few Welles regulars, mostly members of his Mercury Theatre team – Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane, Ruth Warrick and Welles himself. The film's screenplay was written by Cotten, his sole attempt at writing {outside some uncredited work on The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)}, a pity since the dialogue is frequently crisp, intelligent and memorable.Journey into Fear is one of those rare WWII-themed films of the early 1940s that you wouldn't automatically class as propaganda. Indeed, the Nazis are only mentioned in passing, and the sinister agents who attempt to assassinate Cotten could just as easily be motivated by reasons other than war. Much of the story takes place on a small passenger ship, on which American engineer Howard Graham (Cotten) seeks refuge from German assassins, who are hell-bent on delaying his return home with important Allied intelligence. Silent enemy Peter Banat (played by Welles' agent, Jack Moss) watches ominously from across the ship's cabin, never saying a word, but suggesting sadistic menace through every dryly-amused smirk. Cotten is strong in the lead role, playing Graham as a frightened and confused amateur, a role reminiscent of Holly Martins from The Third Man (1949), rather than the experienced and resourceful American spy we would otherwise expect in such a film. Welles lends his mighty presence to the role of the Turkish Colonel Haki, though he is noticeably more subdued than usual. In one final manner, Journey into Evil is very much like an Orson Welles film: it was re-edited at the studio's request. According to some sources, Welles did some of the trimming himself, recutting the final reel and adding Joseph Cotten's rather awkward narration. At just 68 minutes in length, the film certainly feels as though it has been tampered with. The relationship between Graham and Rosette (Dolores del Rio) is brief and poorly explored, and certainly not worthy of the repeated reassurances that the former frequently bestows upon his anxious wife (Ruth Warrick); there's little indication that their affiliation extended beyond exchanging a few harmless pleasantries. Though the film doesn't exactly feel incomplete – as did a noir like Renoir's The Woman on the Beach (1947) – the bare-bones narrative gives the sense of a minor and inconsequential work. Even so, Journey into Evil is well worth seeking out for its terrific photography – including a superb climax on the slippery ledges of a hotel exterior – and the talents of a very talented cast.
6.5/10

Currently my #5 film of 1943:
1) Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
2) Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock) *
3) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (Roy William Neill)
4) This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir)
5) Journey into Fear (Norman Foster) *
6) The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
7) Hitler’s Children (Edward Dmytryk, Irving Reis)

Target #47: The Locket (1946, John Brahm)

2009-01-22T02:59:00.000-08:00

Directed by: John Brahm

Written by: Sheridan Gibney (written by), Norma Barzman (uncredited)

Starring: Laraine Day, Brian Aherne, Robert Mitchum, Gene Raymond, Sharyn Moffett. Ricardo Cortez, Henry Stephenson

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

The flashback has always been an essential part of the film noir formula. By showing events from the perspective of one who already knows the ultimate outcome of his mistakes, the audience is placed in a position of near-complete omniscience. Since we already know the outcome, but are powerless to change it, the story structure encourages an overriding element of fate. The hero is doomed – he knows it now, but didn't know it then. Is this the lingering disillusion left over from WWII? Where once a nation had marched proudly and patriotically into combat, it now recognised the pure folly of its enthusiasm. John Brahm's The Locket (1946) certainly boasts one of cinema's most audacious uses of the flashback narrative device, effectively utilising a "flashback within a flashback within a flashback" to tell a complex story in which three different protagonists find their lives ruined by the derangement of a single woman. This femme fatale doesn't mess around when it comes to potential husbands, and her victims – besotted lovers who are left helpless by a pretty face – are only too happy to be exploited.

John Willis (Gene Raymond) is about to marry Nancy (Laraine Day), the most charming and beautiful woman he's ever met. Just hours before the wedding ceremony, he is confronted by Nancy's former husband Dr Harry Blair (Brian Aherne), who pleads with him not to marry her, having experienced first-hand the pain of Nancy's betrayal. Just years earlier, Blair himself was a smitten newly-wed, and he, too, was confronted by one of his wife's former lovers (Robert Mitchum), who expressed the belief that Nancy was guilty of murder, a crime for she allowed an innocent man to be executed. The nature of her behaviour lies in a troublesome childhood that encouraged kleptomanic tendencies. The true beauty of this flashback technique is that the audience is treated to nothing but hearsay, and that each of these characters could just as easily be lying. Though The Locket appears to treat its flashbacks with sincerity, Alfred Hitchcock exploited this practice just a few years later in Stage Fright (1950), as did Bryan Singer long afterwards with The Usual Suspects (1995).

Laraine Day, certainly not an actress I'd associated with any sort of villainy, brilliantly utilises her innocent screen persona to paradoxically portray one of film noir's shiftiest femme fatales. Until the overly melodramatic ending, Nancy doesn't betray even a hint of malevolence. When Dr Blair first mentions Norman Clyde's name, she doesn't flinch, not even a momentary double-take that would have revealed the malice within. Is Nancy a guiltless victim being slandered by jilted former lovers, or is she everything they describe and more? The most frightening revelation is that, for most of the film, we can't even tell the difference. Despite its excellent strengths, The Locket unfortunately suffers from an obligatory ending in which the villainess receives her due, and I would have preferred a more understated approach. Perhaps, as she walks down the wedding aisle, Nancy could be perpetually tormented by the ringing melody of the broken music box, a symbol of her lifelong guilt. Or maybe – Hays forbid – she could have gotten away with everything, her next sucker already waiting at the altar.

7.5/10

Currently my #4 film of 1946:

1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *
3) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *
4) The Locket (John Brahm) *
5) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak) *
6) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *
7) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
8) A Night in Casablanca (Archie Mayo)

Target #46: Whirlpool (1949, Otto Preminger)

2009-01-19T00:12:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Otto Preminger

Written by: Guy Endore (novel), Ben Hecht (screenplay), Andrew Solt (screenplay)

Starring: Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer, Charles Bickford, Barbara O'Neil, Eduard Franz, Constance Collier

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

The second of three films that Otto Preminger directed with Gene Tierney, Whirlpool (1949) is also the least of them. Clouded by the dubious Freudian psychology that was sweeping Hollywood in the late 1940s, the film is simply too implausible to prove sufficiently effective, despite the best efforts of the director and stars. I was reasonably willing to accept that David Korvo (José Ferrer) could control Ann Sutton's (Tierney) movements through hypnosis – and, indeed, a similar idea forms the backbone of Frankenheimer's classic thriller, The Manchurian Candidate (1962). However, that the shifty psychologist could hypnotise himself into carrying out murder only hours after voluntarily offering himself for gall-bladder surgery really pushes one's credulity, inspiring laughter rather than intrigue. Perhaps somebody should have told the actors not to take the story quite so seriously, and the resultant lighter mood would have provided some surefire entertainment. As it happens, the principle members all give solid dramatic performances that they probably needn't have bothered with.Gene Tierney was, of course, one of the most stunning actresses to grace the silver screen, but she was also among the most misused. When utilised as a traditional, innocent damsel-in-distress, Tierney's acting is usually dependable without being particularly memorable. However, at least two directors realised that she was at her best when her character's intentions are either ambiguous {see Laura (1944)} or downright evil {see Leave Her to Heaven (1945)}. Given that Preminger directed the first of these, one wonders why he here decided to use Tierney in a purely conventional capacity; he repeated this offence in his follow-up picture, Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950). José Ferrer is smarmily sinister as the psychiatrist abusing his "powers," though the screenplay does him a disservice in the final act. Richard Conte is more subdued than he is in The Big Combo (1955), but nonetheless brings a likable intensity to an otherwise-passive role. Charles Bickford, whom I last saw in Renoir's The Woman on the Beach (1947) here also gives a strong performance.

Whirlpool is strongest in its middle-act, with Tierney as a wrong-accused innocent for whom every piece of evidence points to her guilt. However, since the story's conclusion is ultimately never in any doubt, much of the film's second half feels as though it is merely going through the motions. I think it would have been more effective had the audience been uncertain of Ann's innocence, just as she herself is unsure. Alfred Hitchcock did something similar just a few years earlier in Spellbound (1945), casting doubt on the virtuousness of Gregory Peck as he is hunted for a crime of which he has no memory. Hinting at the tantalising possibility that Tierney is a murderer would undoubtedly have brought out the actresses' talents, the audience meanwhile tentative about whose story they can trust. For fans of 1940s psychological thrillers, in the same vein as The Dark Mirror (1946) and Secret Beyond the Door… (1947), this is worthwhile viewing, but also a regrettable disappointment.
6/10

Currently my #10 film of 1949:
1) The Third Man (Carol Reed) *
2) White Heat (Raoul Walsh) *
3) Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer)
4) A Run for Your Money (Charles Frend)
5) Nora inu {Stray Dog} (Akira Kurosawa)
6) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford)
7) Under Capricorn (Alfred Hitchcock)
8) Whisky Galore! (Alexander Mackendrick)
9) Passport to Pimlico (Henry Cornelius)
10) Whirlpool (Otto Preminger) *

Target #45: Cornered (1945, Edward Dmytryk)

2009-01-12T16:30:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Edward Dmytryk
Written by: John Wexley (story & adaptation), John Paxton (screenplay), Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Starring: Dick Powell, Walter Slezak, Micheline Cheirel, Nina Vale, Morris Carnovsky, Edgar Barrier, Steven Geray

If it was post-war disillusionment that fuelled the booming film noir movement of the 1940s, then Cornered (1945) might just be the most bitter, disillusioned noir of them all. Though I can't claim to be Edward Dmytryk's greatest fan, I enjoyed Murder, my Sweet (1944) because of its evocative atmosphere and Dick Powell's cocky, swaggering Philip Marlowe. This film gets the atmosphere angle right, but is so utterly devoid of humour that there's little entertainment to be found through watching it. Powell, in his second and final film for the director, seems to be taking the role so seriously that he's almost bored with the material. His exceedingly grim performance has shades of the sleepy-eyed austerity that Robert Mitchum did so well – unfortunately, only Mitchum could ever pull it off correctly. Nevertheless, the shadowy photography of Harry J. Wild {who has many noirs to his credit, including The Woman on the Beach (1947), They Won't Believe Me (1947) and Macao (1952)} is predictably gorgeous and enigmatic, re-enforcing the murky themes at the film's heart.

When Canadian pilot Laurence Gerard (Powell) is released from captivity at the end of WWII, he is understandably grief-stricken to learn that his wife has been executed by Nazi conspirators. Though the man responsible, Marcel Jarnac, is presumed dead by authorities, Gerard suspects deception, and travels down to Beunos Aires to uncover the truth. What Gerard encounters is a party of dubious Frenchmen, whose continued loyalty to greed and corruption are keeping the Nazi spirit well-and-truly alive. Our hero's approach is not the most subtle of tactics – he never bothers to hide his true intentions, and so deliberately places his own life in constant jeopardy, rushing determinedly into danger without ever considering the possibility that he's walking straight into a trap. Is Jarnac's beautiful wife (Micheline Cheirel) really as innocent as she claims to be? Is the city's leading "tour guide" (Walter Slezak, in another terrific role) an impartial operator who can be trusted with secret information? Is the German collaborator Jarnac right before Gerard's very nose?

I've always found Dmytryk to be a very workman-like filmmaker, though there's little doubt that his 1940s noirs constitute the creative peak of his career. Clever stylistic touches, like the climactic bashing that slides out of focus in an adrenalin-charged delirium, complement the narrative nicely, and Wild's cinematography can do nothing but enhance the film's merits. However, the story itself dwells too long in gloomy territory, such that there's little of the usual entertainment or invigoration to be derived even from the richly-crafted atmosphere. Only in the blood-soaked climax is Dmytryk able to build up some degree of momentum, and Luther Adler's enigmatic cameo role is certainly memorable; he has a strong, deep voice that occasionally suggests that it is Satan himself speaking diabolically from the shadows. Cornered is a worthwhile film noir, with solid craftsmanship throughout, but the unrepentantly dark tone makes for somewhat empty, unsatisfying viewing. Just like the story it depicts, I suppose. Once the adrenaline of war has worn off, there's nothing left but sadness, regret… and shadows where our loved ones once stood.
6.5/10

Currently my #8 film of 1945:
1) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder) *
2) Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock) *
3) Brief Encounter (David Lean)
4) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
5) Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl) *
6) Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang) *
7) And Then There Were None (René Clair)
8) Cornered (Edward Dmytryk) *
9) Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi {The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail} (Akira Kurosawa)

Target #44: The Dark Mirror (1946, Robert Siodmak)

2009-01-09T02:05:00.001-08:00

Directed by: Robert Siodmak

Written by: Vladimir Pozner (story), Nunnally Johnson (written by)

Starring: Olivia de Havilland, Lew Ayres, Thomas Mitchell, Richard Long, Charles Evans, Garry Owen

Psychology is a dubious science as it is, but, when a Hollywood screenwriter gets his hands on it, anything even closely resembling fact is thrown out the window. In the mid-1940s, Freudian psychology reached the peak of its popularity, and films such as Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) and Lang's Secret Beyond the Door… (1947) utilised their own versions of psychoanalysis to provide easy answers for their characters' delusions. Robert Siodmak's The Dark Mirror (1946) is no different, in that we are offered a half-baked pseudo-scientific dissertation on why even identical twins can be anything but identical when it comes to personality traits. In fact, screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (who also wrote and directed The Three Faces of Eve (1957)) actively pumps the familiar but questionable notion that twins respectively represent the good and evil sides of man. This duality is similar to that explored in the earlier versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920/1931/1941), though the two sides of the human coin are here separated from their mutual shell and allowed to behave as independent entities.

Olivia de Havilland excels in dual roles as Terry and Ruth Collins, twin sisters who might just have pulled off the perfect crime, even if only one knows it. When the sisters' shared boyfriend is murdered in cold blood, two witnesses place one of the twins at the scene of the crime, while three more provide a solid alibi for the other. The only problem is that nobody can tell the pair apart. A police detective (Thomas Mitchell) is torn apart by the case: how can he charge either woman with murder if he can't decide which of the sisters is, in fact, a murderess? Only through Hollywood's good friend Dr. Freud can the true nature of the crime be exposed. The distinction between the "good" and "insane" twin is clearly drawn early in the film, with de Havilland playing one sister as a cocky dominator, and the other as more softly-spoken, with eyes always downcast and hands delicately clasped together. Clarifying the dual relationship is some convenient symbolism used in the film's climax: Terry is dressed in black, and Ruth in white.

Convincing optical effects and the use of body doubles are employed successfully to create the illusion of two Olivia de Havillands. The actress does well as both characters, perhaps channelling her dislike of sister Joan Fontaine to portray the snarling, psychotic and homicidally jealous "evil sister." Though they start out perfectly alike, it doesn't take long for the two Collins sisters to develop distinct personalities in the eyes of the audience, and Siodmak should quickly have dispensed with the obvious name-tags (either a necklace or a single letter pin) added to ensure that the audience could follow who was who. Perhaps misguidedly, the presence of twins is at first played largely for laughs, with composer Dimitri Tiomkin keeping the atmosphere surprisingly light and fluffy. Fortunately, however, the mood darkens substantially in the film's second half, as the hatred simmering slowly within the darker twin threatens to spill over into reality. Though the unlikely psychology behind The Dark Mirror tests one's credulity at regular intervals, the strong acting and unique storyline make this one worth seeking out.

7/10

Currently my #4 film of 1946:

1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *
3) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *
4) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak) *
5) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *

Target #43: Pickup on South Street (1953, Samuel Fuller)

2008-12-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #737
Directed by: Samuel Fuller
Written by: Dwight Taylor (story), Samuel Fuller (screenplay)
Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, Milburn Stone

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

Shock Corridor (1963) was my first film from Samuel Fuller, and there I was impressed with the director's astute blending of B-movie and big-budget aesthetics, even if the story itself was pure schlock. Pickup on South Street (1953) was released a decade earlier in Fuller's career, obviously produced on a larger budget from a big-name studio, Twentieth Century-Fox. Nevertheless, the visuals are still notable in that there's a somewhat raw, naturalistic element to the photography, not unlike Dassin's Night and the City (1950) and Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950) {the latter was also shot by cinematographer Joe McDonald}. In some scenes, Fuller shoves the camera so close to his actors' faces that they're out of focus, bluntly registering the intimate thoughts, emotions and brief inflections that are communicated through that most revealing of facial features, the eye. Though (unexpectedly) prone to melodrama, and with just a hint of anti-Communist propaganda, Pickup on South Street is a strong film noir that succeeds most outstandingly in its evocation of setting – the underground of New York City.When just-out-of-prison pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) snags the purse of a woman on the subway (Jean Peters), he pockets more than he'd originally bargained for. The woman, Candy, and her cowardly ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley) had been smuggling top-secret information to the Communists, and McKoy has unexpectedly retrieved an important roll of micro-film. Will he turn in the MacGuffin to the proper authorities, or sell it to the highest bidder? If Pickup on South Street has a flaw, it's that the story seems designed solely to bolster an anti-Communist agenda, reeking of propaganda like nothing since WWII {Dwight Taylor, who supplied the story, also notably wrote The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), the only propagandistic movie of the series}. For no apparent reason, every identifiable character – even the smugly self-serving Skip McCoy – eventually becomes a self-sacrificing patriot, the transformation predictable from the outset. In traditional film noir, the unapologetic criminal always gets his comeuppance, the rational punishment for his sins, but apparently not when they've served their country; patriotism wipes the slate clean.

Richard Widmark, an actor who I'm really beginning to like, plays the haughty pickpocket with composure, though always with that hint of ill-ease that suggests he's biting off more than he can chew. The opening scene on the train is the film's finest, as McCoy breathlessly fishes around in his victim's hand bag, recalling Bresson's Pickpocket (1959). Thelma Ritter is terrific as a tired street-woman who'll peddle information to anybody willing to pay for it (though, of course, she draws the line at Commies). Jean Peters is well-cast as the trashy dame passing information to the other side, playing the role almost completely devoid of glamour; Fuller reportedly cast the actress on the observation that she had the slightly bow-legged strut of a prostitute. Nevertheless, Peters must suffer a contrived love affair with Widmark that really brings down the film's attempts at realism. Fascinatingly, upon its release, Pickup on South Street was promptly condemned as Communist propaganda by the FBI, and the Communist Party condemned it for being the exact opposite. Go figure.
7.5/10

Currently my #5 film of 1953:
1) From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann)
2) Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)
3) I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) The Titfield Thunderbolt (Charles Crichton)
5) Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller) *
6) Roman Holiday (William Wyler)
7) The War Of The Worlds (Byron Haskin)

Target #42: The Woman on the Beach (1947, Jean Renoir)

2008-12-28T00:42:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Jean Renoir
Written by: Mitchell Wilson (novel), J.R. Michael Hogan (adaptation), Frank Davis, Jean Renoir (screenplay)
Starring: Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan, Charles Bickford, Nan Leslie, Walter Sande, Irene Ryan, Glen Vernon

By 1947, Jean Renoir, at least indirectly, wasn't new to the American film noir style. Two years earlier, Fritz Lang had released the first of his two Renoir remakes, Scarlet Street (1945), which was based upon La Chienne / The Bitch (1931) {the second film, Human Desire (1954), was inspired by La Bête humaine / The Human Beast (1938)}. Scarlet Street notably starred Joan Bennett in a prominent role, which makes it interesting that, despite allegedly disliking that film, Renoir himself used her in his own Hollywood film noir, The Woman on the Beach (1947). It's a visually-magnificent film, with photography from Leo Tover and Harry Wild (the latter of whom shot Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Macao (1952)) that perfectly captures the mystery and eerie calm of the beach-side setting, frequently swathed in gentle clouds of mist that foreshadow the ambiguity and uncertainty of the story that follows. When we first glimpse Joan Bennett on the fog-swathed coast, collecting driftwood at the wreck of a grounded ship, she really does look ghostly and ethereal, a premonition that may or may not be real.

Robert Ryan plays Scott, a coastguard who suffers from regular night terrors concerning memories of a war-time naval tragedy, when his ship was presumably torpedoed. His dream sequences are gripping and otherwordly, recalling the excellently surreal work achieved by Renoir in his silent short film, The Little Match Girl (1928). During his nightmares, Scott imagines an underwater romantic liaison, which, before he can get intimate, unexpectedly blows up in his face; this is an apt indication of the events that unfold later in the film. Scott is engaged to marry the pretty Eve (Nan Leslie), but his attention is soon distracted by Peggy (Joan Bennett), the titular "woman on the beach." Peggy is married to Tod (Charles Bickford), a famous blind artist who is still coming to terms with his relatively recent affliction. At just 71 minutes in length, Woman on the Beach feels far too short, the apparent victim of studio interference. Scott is obviously enamoured, and later obsessed, with femme fatale Peggy, in a manner than suggests Walter Neff's fixation with Phyllis Dietrichson, but the motivations behind his actions are inadequately explored and explained.

Perhaps as a result of the studio's trimming of scenes, many plot-twists in the film seem somewhat contrived. Scott's extreme determination in proving that Tod is faking blindness feels so incredibly illogical – why, indeed, would Tod even consider such a con? Many wonderful scenes are severely hampered by the story's lack of exposition. In the film's most dramatic scene, amid the choppy waters of the Atlantic, Robert Ryan displays a frighteningly convincing rage that borders on pure psychosis, a quality that Nicholas Ray exploited five years later in On Dangerous Ground (1952). However, because Scott's obsession and emotional transformation had previously been explored so sparsely, the sequence feels, above all else, out of context. The performances are neverthless solid across the board, with Bickford probably the most impressive. Bennett's character is tantalisingly ambiguous: throughout the film, she slowly reveals herself to be nothing but a greedy tramp, though Scott insists on treating her as a tormented victim of abuse. The ending offers little in the way of resolution, reaffirming the sentiment that perhaps this film isn't all there.
6.5/10

Currently my #9 film of 1947:
1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) *
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
8) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
9) The Woman on the Beach (Jean Renoir) *
10) Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery) *

Bonus Noir: Lured (1947, Douglas Sirk)

2008-12-26T19:32:00.002-08:00

Directed by: Douglas Sirk

Written by: Jacques Companéez (story), Simon Gantillon (story), Ernest Neuville (story), Leo Rosten (writer)

Starring: George Sanders, Lucille Ball, Charles Coburn, Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Joseph Calleia, Alan Mowbray

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Director Douglas Sirk is generally known for producing weepy melodramas, so Lured (1947) seemed like an exciting exception to the rule. The title alone has the feel of a dark and claustrophobic film noir thriller, with stark silhouettes skulking in alleyways and the shadow of gnarled fingers reaching toward a heroine's throat. The Production Code Administration apparently took a dislike to the film's name, perhaps conjuring up similar mental images to my own, and the film's title was subsequently changed to the less-lurid Personal Column, which sounds more like a Lubitsch romantic comedy. Neither title quite does justice to the film's tone, which is somewhere between thriller and melodrama, stranded hopelessly in middle-ground between the two distinct genres. An impressive cast – including Lucille Ball, George Sanders, Boris Karloff, Cedric Hardwicke, Joseph Calleia and Charles Coburn – does its best with the uneven material. The tone of the screenplay shifts markedly between the moody and sophisticated first half and the less-interesting second, when each character abandons all the traits that had made them appealing.

Sandra Carpenter (Ball) is a smart-mouthed taxi dancer, the sort of girl who doesn't take any nonsense from the opposite sex. When her colleague goes missing after answering an ad in the newspaper personals column, the police suspect that she is the latest victim of a deranged serial killer, who sends the authorities flowery poetry readings to boast of his crimes. To prevent the next murder, Sandra is unexpectedly recruited to identify the man responsible, going undercover as his next prospective victim. Among the suspects is Boris Karloff, unfortunately underused as a hilariously demented fashion designer, and George Sanders, playing one of those charmingly smug suitors that he always played so well. Veteran cinematographer William Daniel's creates a nice, moody black-and-white atmosphere, perhaps lacking the grittiness of your typical 1940s film noir, though that would hardly have worked alongside a screenplay where even the most depraved murderers speak with a high degree of elegance and sophistication. Apparently, that's just how everybody is in England.

The first half of the film delicately develops a mysterious and slightly Gothic air of uneasiness, and then something happens: Douglas Sirks' melodramatic instincts kick in, and his characters suddenly become less interesting than before. Lucille Ball's sassy and independent woman becomes enamoured with George Sanders, discarding all her saucy wise-cracks in favour of the anguished cries of a weepy and vulnerable damsel-in-distress. Sanders, likewise, is effectively neutered by the onset of love, losing his indomitable lust and becoming all quiet and contemplative. George Sanders quiet and contemplative, you say? Outrageous! Even so, Cedric Hardwicke singlehandedly rescues the film's final half, refusing to subdue his grotesque depravity even before we're supposed to guess that he's the man responsible for the serial murders. I don't know if I could confidently recommend Lured to fans of Douglas Sirk, but the excellent cast of actors means that most viewers should find some degree of fulfillment in his unusual brand of film noir film-making. This is worth a look.

6/10

Currently my #10 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) *
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
8) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
9) Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery) *
10) Lured (Douglas Sirk) *

Target #41: Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950, Otto Preminger)

2008-12-17T19:33:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Otto Preminger

Written by: William L. Stuart (novel), Ben Hecht (screenplay), Victor Trivas (adaptation), Frank P. Rosenberg (adaptation), Robert E. Kent (adaptation)

Starring: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed, Tom Tully, Karl Malden, Ruth Donnelly, Craig Stevens

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) opens, appropriately, with Dana Andrews' and Gene Tierneys' names inscribed on the sidewalk, as dirty water streams down between the bars of a sewer grate. The sidewalk represents respectability, integrity and morality – only crooks and delinquents walk in the gutter. But even the most honourable of men have a tendency to misstep on occasion, and, when the sidewalk abruptly comes to an end, sometimes it proves impossible to avoid getting one's shoes wet. Mark Dixon (Dana Andrews) was born in the gutter, his father a professional criminal, and has spent his entire life clawing his way back onto the sidewalk, perpetually balanced on the edge of the kerb. As a police detective, Dixon wants nothing more than to display the decency and integrity that his father lacked, but he possesses a mean-streak that he can't escape. When his quick temper leaves a murder suspect dead, Dixon finds himself becoming the very father whom he despised, a cheap criminal who'll cheat and lie to cover up his offence.

Where the Sidewalk Ends was the only film to reunite Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and director Otto Preminger after the superb Laura (1944), though the two films, as far as noir goes, couldn't be further apart. Whereas the earlier picture had the strong intimacy of a country-house murder tale, this film is more conventional as a gritty urban police drama. Given her ravishingly memorable performance as Laura Hunt, it's unfortunate that here Tierney is grossly underused, occupying the typical niche of the pretty, helpless romantic interest {much as she did that same year in Jules Dassin's The Night and the City (1950)}. Andrews, on the other hand, has rarely been better, exhibiting a toughness and unhinged anger that I hadn't expected of him. Gary Merrill is suitably smug as the crime boss Scalise, but he doesn't seem mean enough for the role, and I think that an actor like Richard Conte (who played Mr. Brown in The Big Combo (1955)) would have better suited the character; I hadn't realised this, but Conte appeared just one year earlier in Preminger's Whirlpool (1949).

The tension, as Dixon attempts to cover up his crime, is absolutely riveting – certainly among the most suspenseful sequences of its era – though I feel that the situation still wasn't exploited to its full potential. The taxi driver is the only person who could have decisively identified Dixon as the perpetrator, but Preminger hurriedly skims over the moment when he passes Dixon on the stairs. Had the witness been brought in as Dixon was re-enacting his own movements outside the apartment entrance, we could have had some genuine fireworks. And why, for that matter, couldn't the taxi driver's testimony have immediately absolved Jiggs Taylor (Tom Tully) from suspicion of murder? Niggling inconsistencies such as these tarnish an otherwise excellent screenplay from Ben Hecht, who infuses his gritty criminal underworld with hard-hitting cops and wise-cracking felons. Andrews' seething and implosive law-enforcer, tormented by rage and remorse, has rarely been done better, at least the equal of Robert Ryan in Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1952).

8/10

Currently my #5 film of 1950:

1) Night and the City (Jules Dassin) *
2) Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder) *
3) Harvey (Henry Koster)
4) In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray) *
5) Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger) *
6) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
7) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
8) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston) *
9) Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan) *
10) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)

Target #40: Panic in the Streets (1950, Elia Kazan)

2008-12-17T02:47:00.001-08:00

Directed by: Elia Kazan

Written by: Edna Anhalt (story), Edward Anhalt (story), Daniel Fuchs (adaptation), Richard Murphy (screenplay)

Starring: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance, Zero Mostel, Dan Riss, Guy Thomajan

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Panic in the Streets (1950) owes more to British noir that its American counterparts. Like Reed's The Third Man (1949) and Dassin's Night and the City (1950), director Elia Kazan chose to film largely on location, capturing the fresh and vibrant decadence of the New Orleans slums. In a decision borrowed from the masters of Italian neorealism, he also hired many non-professional actors for minor roles, lending an air of authenticity to the cityscape. However, any further comparisons with neorealism would be misguided, for Panic in the Streets is pure melodrama, of the best kind. A murdered illegal immigrant, fished out of the bay, is found to be infected with pneumonic plague, a deadly air-borne mutation of bubonic plague, which is transmitted from human-to-human and, untreated, has a mortality rate that approaches 100%. Clinton Reed (Richard Widmark), an officer with the U.S. Public Health Service, convinces the doubtful police-chief (Paul Douglas) to undertake a city-wide manhunt for the men responsible for the homicide, lest they also be infected with the illness.

In my younger years, I found Wolfgang Petersen's Outbreak (1995) to be among the most horrifying movies I'd ever seen. That thriller, which owes plenty to Panic in the Streets {working title: "Outbreak"}, terrified me so efficiently because it depicted the ebola virus as both an invisible and invincible killer – how does one defend themselves against such a thing? Kazan's film is the first (that I know of) to approach the subject of biological epidemics, though it has difficulty ascribing visual recognition to an enemy that is basically undetectable to the human eye; it instead uses Jack Palance as a human personification of the Plague. Despite his venturing out among the filthy dregs of human society, you never get the sense that Clinton Reed is placing his own life at risk {some viewers have noted that Reed never inoculated himself against the plague, though I think it's safe to assume that he did so at the same time as the morgue staff}. Nevertheless, there's still a strong sense of urgency in the hunt for the infected man's killers, underground street-rats who pollute the sewers with their misdeeds.

In medieval times, when the Black Death (now widely believed to have been bubonic plague) swept across the civilised world, killing a third of Europe's population, many identified the destruction as being the work of the Devil. Jack Palance's character, Blackie, serves effectively as Satan in human form: the angular-jawed thug can occasionally be charming and charismatic, but is always liable to explode into fits of violence; his two hoodlums (played by Guy Thomajan and Zero Mostel), through terror more than anything else, are constantly grovelling at his feet. When one lackey falls ill with fever, Blackie deduces that the man's immigrant cousin must have "brought something in with him" (the irony of his conclusion not passing unnoticed), and so attempts to ascertain what this presumably valuable object must be. He cradles the dying Poldi in his arms, a grotesque display of faux affection that is both pathetic and unsettling. Blackie/Satan is finally stopped – not by the authorities, but by the burden of his own infection/evil – as he attempts to board a cargo ship, the primary vessel by which the Plague spread across Europe.

8/10

Currently my #8 film of 1950:

1) Night and the City (Jules Dassin) *
2) Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder) *
3) Harvey (Henry Koster)
4) In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray) *
5) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
6) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
7) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston) *
8) Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan) *
9) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)
10) Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa)

Target #39: Lady in the Lake (1947, Robert Montgomery)

2008-12-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Robert Montgomery

Written by: Raymond Chandler (novel), Steve Fisher (screenplay)

Starring: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully, Leon Ames, Jayne Meadows, Dick Simmons

I'll get the obvious out of the way first. Robert Montgomery's Lady in the Lake (1947) is most renowned for being one of the only mainstream films to unfold almost entirely from the first-person perspective of the main character, in this case Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe. The technique had been used before, albeit on a lesser scale, in the opening five minutes of Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931). In 1947, shortly after the release of Montgomery's film, Delmer Daves would take an enormous risk by filming the first hour of Dark Passage (1947) without showing the face of Humphrey Bogart, though the star's status was such that he was eventually forced to emerge from the shadows (after which point, it must be said, the film becomes more conventional and marginally less interesting). Montgomery, in his last film at MGM, was also given the opportunity to direct, and he doesn't flinch from his chosen gimmick. Marlowe's face is seen only during several brief explanatory interludes, and whenever he happens to catch his reflection in the mirror.

Setting aside the gimmick – which MGM optimistically hailed as the greatest cinematic innovation since synchronised sound – Lady in the Lake doesn't quite measure up to other popular Chandler adaptations of the time. Robert Montgomery may have been a great actor – I honestly can't say, this being my first film with him – but his Philip Marlowe doesn't possess the toughness of Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), nor the cocky swagger of Dick Powell in Murder, My Sweet (1944). The awkwardness of the role is only accentuated by Marlowe's constantly being behind the camera, though even the occasional direct-to-camera interruptions seem to miss the mark. I don't expect that the supporting actors had much experience in speaking directly to a piece of equipment, and so their performances are capable without being particularly memorable. The chemistry between Montgomery and Audrey Totter, the potentially-villainous femme fatale, was mostly stale for this reason, as we're really only seeing one side of their conversation.

Perhaps the film's greatest weakness – and, once again, this all comes back to Montgomery's chosen gimmick – is that everything moves so slowly. One would expect those 1940s movie cameras to have been incredibly clunky, and so, in these pre-Steadicam days, Marlowe ambles from A to B with devastating sluggishness. The first-person technique, however, did work wonderfully in the sequence where Marlowe is being pursued in his car, and also when he must drag himself across the gravel to a public telephone. There are lots of prolonged silences where nothing happens, and, despite striving for realism, the film should have conceded more of a musical soundtrack to fill these voids. The one piece of music put into use, however, was an eerily effective choir song that reminded me of György Ligeti's "Requiem" from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Overall, Lady in the Lake is a fascinating film noir experiment that doesn't quite manage to pull it off. Even so, it's worth a look for its unique take on Philip Marlowe and several scenes of inarguable excellence.

6/10

Currently my #9 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed) *
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
8) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
9) Lady in the Lake (Robert Montgomery) *
10) Bush Christmas (Ralph Smart)

Target #38: Night and the City (1950, Jules Dassin)

2008-12-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Jules Dassin
Written by: Gerald Kersh (novel), Jo Eisinger (screenplay), Austin Dempster (uncredited), William E. Watts (uncredited)
Starring: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Hugh Marlowe, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Charles Farrell, Ken Richmond

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow!!!

“You did it, and now you can get rich. You’ve got Kristo stopped, you’ve got the Strangler, and Gregorius is on your side. It’s a wonderful situation, because you’ve got it all. But you can’t put the fight on because you don’t have the money, and there isn’t a man in all of London who’ll let you have a shilling. You’ve got it all, but you’re a dead man, Harry Fabian.”

Life is futile. Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) has lived his whole life in the gutter, wasting his meagre savings on creative money-making schemes that always fall through, dreaming of a life of "ease and plenty," and dragging life-long sweetheart Mary Bristol (Gene Tierney) down into the black abyss with him. Eking out a modest existence through hard work and perseverance is no option for him. No, Harry Fabian dreams big. He reaches for the stars, and, when he falls short, inevitably and painfully comes crashing back to earth. This is film noir, and film noir doesn't look too kindly upon those who dream bigger than is good for them. Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1950) was filmed in the squalid streets of London, and so appropriately represents the flip-side of the American Dream. Films like Sylvester Stallone's Rocky (1976) gained popularity precisely because they showed that dedication and self-belief can make a hero of even the most humble of men. The British don't offer the optimism of their trans-Atlantic cousins – here, success is reserved only for the corrupt.

During the film, Fabian is described as "an artist without an art." He certainly possesses the determination to strike it big, but he wields his passion indiscriminately, stepping on the wrong people's toes and so sealing his demise. One gets the sense that he wants to make an honest living, but is nonetheless prepared to take dishonest shortcuts in order to fast-track his success. Yet even among the most powerful underground figures, success is no guarantee of happiness: bulging night-club owner Philip Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan) loses his discontented wife, whose own impatience to break free from her husband's ownership inadvertently sacrifices her financial stability. The sour wrestling promoter Kristo (Herbert Lom) loses the respect of his father, who is noble at heart but living hopelessly in the past. Only in the sad, betrayed eyes of Gene Tierney – regrettably underused in this film – does Dassin appear to find virtue, and so he offers her an alternative to the damned Fabian. Mary fittingly ends the film in the arms of an ordinary but dependable artist (Hugh Marlowe).

Filmed on-location in London by cinematographer Max Greene, Night and the City has an incredibly gritty, realistic immediacy. Too often, in American noir, it's only too clear that the characters are tramping through a studio-built set, in which one doesn't expect there to be any unpleasant surprises. Conversely, Dassin's decision to film in the shadowy city streets recreates that uncertain sense of dread one feels when trudging alone through an unfamiliar urban locale, exposed to the elements and whoever might happen to cross your path. The film was shot while Dassin was facing being blacklisted from Hollywood for his alleged affiliations with the Communist Party (he was betrayed to the HUAC by fellow noir directors Edward Dmytryk and Frank Tuttle), leading a nervous Darryl F. Zanuck to urge "shoot the expensive scenes first." The American likely took some stylistic inspiration from Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949) – both of which concern wanted men who are betrayed by those they thought close to them. Reed, in turn, probably took wrestling inspiration for his own A Kid for Two Farthings (1955).

Jules Dassin passed away on March 31, 2008, having re-established his directing career in Europe with the stellar heist movie, Rififi (1955). Just one week earlier, star Richard Widmark also checked out, having lived a substantially fuller life than his on-screen persona. Widmark's manic performance is an interesting and multi-faceted one. Perfectly in tune with the character of Harry Fabian, nothing Widmark says sounds entirely convincing. There's always the slightest trace that he's bluffing – feigning toughness or otherwise stalling for time. He really is like a kid with ADHD, bouncing about with too much energy to spare and no worthwhile endeavour in which to invest it. Fabian's doom is never in any doubt. The spectre of death hovers above him for most of the film, but he stubbornly refuses to relent from his final grab at "being a somebody." Like a dead man walking, he goes through the motions, still trying to convince himself that this time he can win. He doesn't deserve, and doesn't receive, any sense of nobility… even in death.
9.5/10

Currently my #1 film of 1950:

1) Night and the City (Jules Dassin) *
2) Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder) *
3) Harvey (Henry Koster)
4) In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray) *
5) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
6) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
7) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston) *
8) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)
9) Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa)

Target #37: The Blue Dahlia (1946, George Marshall)

2008-12-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

Directed by: George Marshall

Written by: Raymond Chandler

Starring: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Tom Powers, Hugh Beaumont, Howard Freeman, Don Costello, Will Wright

The Blue Dahlia (1946) is the third of four films in which Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake co-starred, and, of the three I've seen, it's probably the weakest, although only by the slightest of margins {the pair's obscure fourth collaboration, Saigon (1948), may take a little while longer to track down}. The film, directed by George Marshall from an original Raymond Chandler screenplay, is nonetheless a tense and exciting film noir thriller, with strong characters and good performances from a talented cast. The most incomprehensible film of 1946 was certainly Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946) {adapted from Chandler's novel}, but this one still contains a genuinely baffling murder mystery, with enough red herrings to use as fishing bait. Ladd stars as Johnny Morrison, a recently-discharged bomber pilot who returns home to find out that his wife (Doris Dowling) has been unfaithful to him. When Helen Morrison winds up dead, Johnny is the prime suspect, and his predicament is only worsened by his resolve to avoid capture and solve the case himself.

Of course, Ladd is joined in the film by his previous co-stars from The Glass Key (1942) – namely, Veronica Lake and William Bendix. Lake, as usual, looks positively luminous, and her every line of dialogue sparkles precisely because she's the one saying it. Joyce Harwood is a strong character, as was Lake's role in This Gun for Hire (1942), her independence highlighted by her rather questionable decision to offer a ride to a lonely man strolling through the rain. Bendix is always entertaining to watch, and here he plays one of Ladd's sympathetic war buddies, who suffered a shrapnel head wound in the war and is plagued by incessant migraines caused by what he describes as "monkey music." Howard Da Silva lends some smarm as the conceited night-club owner who carried on a relationship with Ladd's wife, and could easily have committed her murder. Also worth mentioning is Will Wright as a sleazy, opportunistic hotel detective who knows more than he should, and is quite willing to sell what he knows.

I suppose that film noir, at its heart, is all about fate, and how it never works in our favour. If something can go wrong, it will. Audiences have always been willing to suspend disbelief on such unlikely coincidences, but I think that here Chandler bites off more than he could chew. Not only does Bendix unknowingly go off with Ladd's adulterous wife (an acceptable enough twist of chance), but, of all the rain-soaked people that Lake might have picked up off the side of the road, it happens to be the very person whose soon-to-be-deceased wife was having an affair with her husband. Had the pair met outside, say, Harwood's night-club, this happenstance might have been easier to digest, but, as it stands, the absurd coincidence only distracts from the storyline. No matter – the story itself is filled with unlikable characters and dubious motives, and with gunfire and murder in great abundance. Getting beaten up was always something that Ladd could accomplish most convincingly, and his frantic tussle with two armed gangsters is the highlight of the film.

7/10

Currently my #4 film of 1946:

1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks) *
3) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock) *
4) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall) *
5) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

Target #36: This Gun for Hire (1942, Frank Tuttle)

2008-11-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

Directed by: Frank Tuttle

Written by: Graham Greene (novel), Albert Maltz (writer), W.R. Burnett (writer)

Starring: Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, Alan Ladd, Tully Marshall, Marc Lawrence, Olin Howland

As a piece of cinema, Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire (1942) is both brief and insignificant, a throwaway crime story about a hardened assassin, a glamorous girl, a police manhunt and an international conspiracy. It's just what you'd expect from an adaptation of Graham Greene's "A Gun for Sale," one of those novels with such low literary aspirations that the author affectionately labelled them "entertainments" to distinguish from his more noble and artistic works. Greene certainly wasn't kidding – entertainment is provided in great abundance, the film delivering short and sharp thrills that keep the viewer on the edge of their seats. Alan Ladd, in his first major role, carves up the screen as an emotionally-tormented contract killer who will cradle a kitten in his arms, but won't take kindly to any woman who gets in his way. Veronica Lake, looking positively luminous, is the woman who gets in his way, but whose charms are enough to melt even the hardest of hearts. The success of their teaming spawned a fruitful partnership during the 1940s.

Philip Raven (Ladd) is afforded the introduction of a classic hard-boiled anti-hero. After waking up to lovingly greet a stray cat with fresh milk, he then rips open the dress of the landlady's daughter, who tries to disrupt the cat's breakfast, before reprimanding her with a taut slap across the side of the face. Raven is not presented to us as a hero, but neither as a villain; like all good film noir protagonists, his personality and motivations are tantalisingly ambiguous, and so our sympathies towards him are confused. Blonde bombshell Veronica Lake arrives on the scene with a lively performance of "Now You See It, Now You Don't" (her singing voice dubbed by Martha Mears) that is sure to have any male viewers quickly sitting upright. In this film, Lake has none of the frail passiveness that of her follow-up Ladd collaboration The Glass Key (1942), instead bringing an independent and subtly erotic charm that is reminiscent of what Lauren Bacall would provide two years later in To Have and Have Not (1944).

Alan Ladd here also benefits from the absence of a love interest. One of the few weaknesses of The Glass Key was the unintentionally awkward romantic sequences between Lake and himself. Ladd can surely play hard-boiled, but he doesn't do tender very well (unless the object of his affection is feline). In 'This Gun for Hire,' his relationship with Lake is first one of necessity, but gradually transforms into a mutual respect, and an understanding that hints just enough at sexual attraction without drawing attention to it. Robert Preston is adequate, though oddly insubstantial as the film's most reputable character, and Laird Cregar is interesting as the plump and cowardly villain who's inadvertently bitten off more than he can chew. The film winds down in its final twenty minutes or so, and the finale's weak attempt at patriotism – an apparent obligation under the current political climate – serves to distance the modern viewer from the engrossing and intimate thriller we had previously enjoyed. Nevertheless, if you see it on the rental shelf, this gun is very much worth hiring out.

8/10

Currently my #3 film of 1942:

1) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
2) To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch)
3) This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle) *
4) The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder)
5) The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler) *

Target #35: The Big Combo (1955, Joseph H. Lewis)

2008-10-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Joseph H. Lewis
Written by: Philip Yordan (writer)
Starring: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace, Robert Middleton, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, Helen Walker, Ted de Corsia, Helene Stanton

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

New York is a big city, and it's ruled, not by the democratically-elected politician, nor by the Chief of Police, but by the Crime Boss. Contemptible but untouchable, Mr. Brown rules the sprawling metropolis like a tyrant reigning over his kingdom, flaunting his power and success extravagantly and fearlessly, secure with the knowledge that the authorities can't lay a finger on him. Richard Conte's performance in The Big Combo (1955) is the key to the film's success. Though comparatively short in stature, Mr. Brown is nonetheless an intimidating figure, through both his complete confidence in his own eminence, and his denigration towards all those who are below him. With that charisma that apparently comes only to Italian-Americans, Mr. Brown (who, for whatever reason, frequently reminded me of Martin Scorsese) lays down the rules for determining the hierarchy of power: "Hate! Hate is the word, Benny! Hate the man that tries to beat you. Kill 'em, Benny! Kill 'em! Hate him till you see red, and you'll come out winning the big money, and the girls will come tumblin' after."

The film's plot, of an honest cop trying to bring down a titan of organised crime, is not unique; the most readily-recalled example would be Brian DePalma's The Untouchables (1987), but precursors certainly exist. Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) is such an honest cop, almost obsessive in his bid to bring down Mr. Brown, though his fanaticism could just as easily be explained by his lust for the crime boss' abused girlfriend, Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace). Diamond is supposed to be the film's driving-force, but he's too dogmatic to make an interesting hero. Unlike the countless flawed anti-heroes who have made so many film noirs memorable – take Marlowe, or Spade, or Hammer, for instance – Diamond's only flaw appears to be that he's a workaholic. Mr. Brown contemptuously describes the detective as "righteous," the word spoken with such derision that he might as well have spit on him. Indeed, so lowly is his opinion of law enforcement that Mr. Brown stubbornly refuses even to address Diamond directly, sardonically issuing threats in the third-person.

I suppose it wouldn't be entirely accurate to describe Diamond as being a complete saint. After all, we must consider his part-time girlfriend Rita (Helene Stanton), whom he treats like a "pair of gloves," offering his affection only when his life seems particularly hopeless. Ultimately, Rita is assassinated in a case of mistaken identity, and her death gives the detective added incentive to bring down Mr. Brown. This character subplot is obviously an attempt to make Diamond appear more of an anti-hero, but it's a thin attempt, and Wilde's character is best viewed as an obligatory vehicle of moral and legal justice. It is the strong performances of Conte and Brian Donlevy (as Mr. Brown's resentful second-in-command) that really make the film, in addition to the imaginative visuals. Cinematographer John Alton here constructs some of film noir's most iconic images, including the fog-swept airport finale that deliberately diverts the ending of Casablanca (1942) into darker territory. The inspired stylistic decision to show Joe McClure's death without audio also inspired Sam Mendes' rainy shoot-out in Road to Perdition (2002).
8/10

Currently my #6 film of 1955:
1) Du rififi chez les hommes {Rififi} (Jules Dassin) *
2) The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick)
3) Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges)
4) Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich) *
5) Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
6) The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis) *
7) Nuit et brouillard {Night and Fog} (Alain Resnais)
8) Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)
9) The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton) *
10) A Kid for Two Farthings (Carol Reed)

Target #34: Macao (1952, Josef von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray)

2008-10-17T02:52:00.001-07:00

Directed by: Josef von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray (uncredited)
Written by: George Bricker, Edward Chodorov, Norman Katkov, Frank L. Moss (all uncredited), Walter Newman (dialogue, uncredited), Stanley Rubin (writer), Bernard C. Schoenfeld (writer), Robert Creighton Williams (story)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame, Brad Dexter

It seems an odd thing for a film noir to be set on a small peninsula off the coast of China, but Macao (1952) nonetheless fits the bill to an extent, in a similar vein to Howard Hawks' To Have and Have Not (1944). Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum) wanders in off a ferry, looking as weary as always, and is immediately suspected by the city's resident American crime boss (Brad Dexter) to be a dangerous detective from the States. Cochran, actually a vagrant fugitive traversing the globe, accepts these accusations without batting an eyelid, thus joining the ranks of film noir "innocents" would find themselves unwittingly entangled in a messy affair in which they have no rightful business. Meanwhile, Jane Russell, with a spiteful glare that suggests utter contempt for anything that moves, works hard to avoid falling in love with Cochran; but on whom the sultry singer will ultimately bestow her affection is never in doubt. This film was made purely to bring together the two big stars again, but fortunately it also works as a exotic adventure thriller.

According to the opening credits, Macao was directed by Josef von Sternberg. In actuality, producer Howard Hughes dismissed Sternberg before production wrapped up, and so the film was completed by an uncredited Nicholas Ray. Audiences have always loved to see their favourite stars dispatched to exotic locations – however short distance they were required to travel from the studio back-lot – and the obscure Asian peninsula of Macao adds a spark of Oriental charm to an already-outlandish locale. This is a city where dangerous criminals take sanctuary and open seedy gambling joints, where mysterious Asian henchmen kill their victims with knives rather than guns. Normal societal formalities hold no sway here: Mitchum gets a luscious kiss out of his leading lady within a minute of their meeting, and, incidentally, she gets his wallet. That the screenplay is completely predictable becomes irrelevant next to the strong characterisations and seedy, mysterious atmosphere. This being my first Sternberg film, I'm unsure of his particular directing style, but the dark foot-chases along the sleazy Macao docks struck me as being characteristic of Nicholas Ray's work.

Though Mitchum and Russell carry the film pretty well – and, indeed, are the only reason for the film's existence – an unfortunately-underused supporting cast also does a good job. William Bendix, playing a likable character for once, is a friendly travelling salesman to whom there may be more than meets the eye. Brad Dexter is serviceable as the primary villain, but he's not particularly sinister or intimidating, and his spur-of-the-moment decision to leave the Three-Mile Limit, especially after learning of a plot to capture him, seems utterly contrived. Gloria Grahame (Ray's then-wife, though not for much longer) has a disappointingly-brief role as the villain's shunted lover; early in the film, she and Russell exchange glares than communicate pure mutual contempt. Overall, despite an all-too-familiar storyline, the Oriental-flavoured setting and enjoyable performances make for a film with a fair amount of suspense and intrigue, with just enough laconic humour to keep the story moving along nicely {Mitchum himself reportedly wrote a few scenes to bridge the otherwise-muddled screenplay}. If this one ever comes up on the TV schedule, it's worth a gander.
7/10

Currently my #6 film of 1952:
1) Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly)
2) Limelight (Charles Chaplin)
3) Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica)
4) On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino) *
5) High Noon (Fred Zinnemann)
6) Macao (Josef von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray) *

Target #33: The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940, Boris Ingster)

2008-10-14T03:30:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Boris Ingster

Written by: Frank Partos (story & screenplay), Nathanael West (uncredited)

Starring: Peter Lorre, John McGuire, Margaret Tallichet, Charles Waldron, Elisha Cook Jr., Charles Halton, Ethel Griffies

Watching The Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), I was conscious of being present at a birth: the birth of film noir, at least in its most readily recognisable form. As if to announce impending delivery, the film's title is superimposed over the classically noirish image of a man's figure – silhouetted behind a pair of blinds – smoking contemplatively at an apartment window. Boris Ingster's visual sensibility, with cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, is very strong, despite a relatively slight budget; the film's centrepiece dream sequence is a grippingly-surrealistic succession of nightmarish pessimism, as the story's minor hero is swept along towards execution by the cruel, indifferent hand of fate. Even so, it is still a rather shaky start for a movement that would, for the following two decades, shape and define American cinema. I don't expect that The Stranger on the Third Floor, a low-budget nonentity, had all that much influence on its successors – I suppose that The Maltese Falcon (1941) and High Sierra (1941) were responsible for most of that.

Ingster obviously filmed his picture on a very modest budget; Peter Lorre only appeared because he owed two extant days on his RKO contract, and the extra short running-time suggests a production filmed on the cheap. Perhaps fortunately, the filmmakers recognised that 64 minutes was inadequate time to attempt anything elaborate, and so the film dedicates itself towards one basic idea: the fallibility of circumstantial evidence. This notion is drilled so emphatically that its message comes across almost as a public service announcement. In many film noir pictures, there is more than meets the eye – in this one, what you see is exactly what you get. I had been hoping that the annoying neighbour's murder would ultimately be revealed as an act of violence committed subconsciously by Mike Ward (John McGuire) in his sleep, but, alas, Ingster would probably have considered even the suggestion an insult to his film's noble message.

The cast of The Stranger on the Third Floor is largely average at best, with only top-billed star Peter Lorre (in virtually a cameo role) managing to liven up the proceedings, as usual. The two main co-stars, John McGuire and Margaret Tallichet, do adequately in the film's more relaxed moments, but introduce a dramatic situation and suddenly they become wildly theatrical, exaggerating every emotion to the point of self-parody. Of course, Lorre does this, as well, but he's one of the few actors who've ever been able to pull it off. Channelling his tormented child-killer in Fritz Lang's M (1931), Lorre brings a similarly-tragic pathos to this role; not an entirely frightening character, but quite obviously insane, and liable to do anything. Elisha Cook, Jr. – the mistreated stooge that no noir should be without – attempts rather unsuccessfully to show some sincerity (though he reminded me of Mickey Rooney in a couple of scenes), but he's always been better when playing the faux tough-guy who inevitably catches a bullet in the back.

6/10

Currently my #10 film of 1940:

1) The Great Dictator (Charles Chaplin)
2) The Grapes Of Wrath (John Ford)
3) Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Fantasia (Various)
5) Pinocchio (Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen)
6) Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock)
7) The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch)
8) His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)
9) The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor)
10) The Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster) *

Target #32: Leave Her to Heaven (1945, John M. Stahl)

2008-09-27T21:54:00.000-07:00

Directed by: John M. Stahl
Written by: Ben Ames Williams (novel), Jo Swerling (screenplay)
Starring: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Vincent Price, Jeanne Crain, Mary Philips, Gene Lockhart, Darryl Hickman

I don't think I agree with those who have designated Leave Her to Heaven (1945) a film noir. This Technicolor picture – and it's surprising how much the presence of colour can distort the tone of a film – feels much closer to the claustrophobic domestic melodramas of the same period, such as Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941), and Cukor's Gaslight (1944). But there's one important difference. By reversing the gender roles, and placing the power in the hands of the wife, director John M. Stahl here creates a formidable femme fatale, personified by the lovely and luminous Gene Tierney. The vibrant Technicolor photography is certainly pleasing to the eye, and the saturated colours add a perhaps-unintended touch of the surreal, but the dazzling colour palette distracts from and obstructs the film's darker themes. As much as I wouldn't like to deprive myself of Tierney's sparkling green eyes, I think that, in terms of atmosphere, Leave Her to Heaven would have worked better in black-and-white.

The film starts off in the classic noir style: told in flashback, the story opens with popular author Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde), who meets an alluring woman, Ellen Berent (Tierney), on a train. Ellen quickly charms Richard with her dazzling looks and strong personality; soon, despite her own engagement to a prominent lawyer (Vincent Price), she has proposed their marriage, an offer he finds impossible to refuse. Here, Leave Her to Heaven takes a distinct turn in storytelling approach, abruptly shifting its attention to Ellen's perspective, at which point we begin to recognise that perhaps she isn't as lovely as her new husband has been led to believe. The new couple move to Richard's secluded lakeside lodge, where they must also care for his crippled younger brother, Danny (Darryl Hickman, giving one of those "excited boy scout" child performances that were popular in the 1940s). As the weeks go by, Ellen's near-obsessive love for Richard begins to brood anger, hatred and jealousy, culminating in the cruelest of acts.

Tierney's character initially elicits an amount of sympathy, especially given Richard's apparent inability to recognise his wife's desperate need for privacy and intimacy in their relationship. However, it doesn't take long before her behaviour, fuelled by suspicion and paranoia, becomes entirely contemptible, and there's no longer any trace of the charming enchantress we saw in Laura (1944). Ellen's psychosis is an intriguing one: she was obviously obsessed with love for her own father – what Freud called "feminine Oedipus attitude," or Electra complex – and, following his death, subsequently fell in love with Richard, who bears a remarkable resemblance to him. Such is her passion for her father, through Richard, that she cannot bear to share him with anybody; thus, her mania stems from the simple notion that "she loves too much." Ellen's murders are shocking in their own low-key simplicity, and Tierney, who received her only Oscar nomination for the role, carries out her evils with an icily-impassive face. But, geez, even this chilling portrayal can't make me stop loving her.
7/10

Currently my #5 film of 1945:
1) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder) *
2) Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock) *
3) Brief Encounter (David Lean)
4) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
5) Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl) *
6) Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang) *
7) Tora no o wo fumu otokotachi {The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail} (Akira Kurosawa)

Target #31: They Won't Believe Me (1947, Irving Pichel)

2008-09-19T03:31:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Irving Pichel
Written by: Gordon McDonell (story), Jonathan Latimer (screenplay)
Starring: Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson, Tom Powers, George Tyne, Frank Ferguson

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow!!!

Love, sex or money? This is the fatal question faced by Larry Ballentine, a compulsively adulterous husband with dollar signs where he ought to have a heart. Irving Pichel's They Won't Believe Me (1947) is a wonderful little-known film noir, a sardonic dissection of the mechanics of Fate, and a stark profile of a wretchedly corrupt, amoral and ultimately doomed personality. The film, which characterises the noir style down to the letter, is similar in tone to Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), as a sympathetic but morally-suspect man is drawn, not-altogether-reluctantly, into a destructive web of deceit and murder, though not entirely through the lure of a beautiful woman; Ballentine frequently digs his own grave here. Played with lazy cocksureness by Robert Young – a vague combination of Robert Mitchum and Ray Milland – our main protagonist may not have committed homicide, but he was still guilty of so much more. The story is told in flashback, as Ballentine, the accused in a murder trial, recounts his side of the incident, a last-ditch attempt to save his own neck.

There are three women in this story. Greta (Rita Johnson) is Ballentine's husband, an upright and charismatic businesswoman from a wealthy family, who knows both how her husband operates, and how she can control him with the promise of money. Verna Carlson (Susan Hayward), Ballentine's mistress, is a slick and crafty money-grabber. The couple, at least initially, have no delusions about their relationship: Verna is in it for his money, and he's in it for the sex (this theme, owing to the Production Code, is dealt with tastefully). Hayward plays the role to feisty perfection, and such was her cloaked malevolence that I half-expected her to crop up at the film's end, having somehow faked her own death, stolen Ballentine's money and skipped off to South America. Janice Bell (Jane Greer) is the polar converse of Hayward's femme fatale, perhaps the closest thing to love in Ballentine's life – their relationship, characterised by a mutual love of boating, apparently, seems genuinely platonic, a mutual understanding that our male hero promptly severs with his unquenchable thirst for wealth.I was surprised, given its relative obscurity nowadays, at just how strong a film They Won't Believe Me turned out to be. The main and supporting characters are played flawlessly, their traits and motivations explored with more than sufficient depth to justify their later actions, though one still wonders if Verna's apparent sincerity prior to the road accident is, indeed, genuine. As he recounts his tale to the murder jury, Ballentine frequently makes fatalistic allusions towards the inescapably of Fate – here personified in a crippled palomino horse. By the time he's finished telling his incredible story, which may or may not be true {Hitchcock pulled this false-flashback trick several years later, though I won't reveal the details}, we're left with a very raw taste in our mouths. We can sympathise to an extent with Ballentine's extraordinary run of bad luck, but much of his behaviour, even if one excludes the accusation of murder, is so utterly contemptible that he doesn't deserve to live. Yet, from the moment Ballentine catches a bullet in the back, we already know what the jury's verdict had been.
8/10

Currently my #6 film from 1947:
1) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
2) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
3) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
4) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
5) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *
6) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel) *
7) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
8) Bush Christmas (Ralph Smart)
9) Song of the Thin Man (Edward Buzzell)
10) The Senator Was Indiscreet (George S. Kaufman)

Target #30: The Glass Key (1942, Stuart Heisler)

2008-09-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Stuart Heisler
Written by: Dashiell Hammett (novel), Jonathan Latimer (screenplay)
Starring: Alan Ladd, Brian Donlevy, Veronica Lake, Bonita Granville, Richard Denning, Joseph Calleia, William Bendix, Frances Gifford, Donald MacBride, Moroni Olsen

In the early 1940s, the unofficial film noir style was only just beginning to find its feet, and much of its inspiration, at least plot-wise, was to be found in the hard-boiled detective novels of authors like Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett {whose best-known creations are probably Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles}. "The Glass Key" was originally published by Hammett in 1931, and was first adapted to film by Frank Tuttle in 1935, with George Raft in the main role. Seven years later, director Stuart Heisler brought the story into the 1940s with his slick, professional tale of nasty political scheming. Very few punches are pulled, and many characters get well and truly "beat up," but the film itself seems somewhat dispensable at the end of the day. The oddball characters are intriguing without being memorable, their surfaces only scratched as far as the complicated plot requires; likewise, the performances themselves are worthwhile, if not altogether convincing. All things considered, The Glass Key (1942) is a solid film noir, but not a timeless one.

When political boss Paul Madvig (Brian Donlevy) decides to back reform candidate Ralph Henry (Moroni Olsen), he stirs up the anger of crime boss Nick Varna (Joseph Calleia), who will be crippled by the partnership. When Henry's meddlesome son (Richard Denning) is found murdered, everybody suspects Madvig of the crime, including the victim's beautiful sister Janet Henry (Veronica Lake). It falls to Madvig's hard-edged assistant Ed Beaumont (Alan Ladd) to sort out the truth of the matter, and to ensure that Varna's gang doesn't succeed in snuffing out Madvig's candidate from the political ballot. Ladd is curiously uneven in the main role. Though he courageously takes multiple beatings with a blood-tinged grin, and talks his way through swathes of lethal encounters, it is the unnecessary romantic moments that bring him down. Whenever he meets Janet Henry, Ladd suddenly acquires this curious lopsided smirk that makes him look weak and uncomfortable – it's hardly the expression of a man who's almost always in control of the situation.

Veronica Lake plays her role with a resolute passiveness that gives her character an air of innocence. However, as any good femme fatale should, her apparent inaction radiates a very subtle suggestion of menace, implying that Beaumont would do well to keep a peripheral eye on her movements. Donlevy is assuredly smug and confident as the political man who never loses face ("I just met the swellest dame... she smacked me in the kisser!"), and Calleia is suitably ominous as his sworn opponent. Unusually violent for a 1940s film, The Glass Key features men being thrown through windows, men throwing themselves out of windows and Alan Ladd being beaten within an inch of his life (courtesy of William Bendix, whose sadistic pleasure in inflicting pain is almost frightening). Heisler's film was reportedly an inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961), though I more readily noticed parallels with the Coen brothers' Miller's Crossing (1990), in which Gabriel Byrne becomes estranged from his crime partner but nonetheless takes innumerable beatings for him.
7/10

Currently my #4 film of 1942:
1) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
2) To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch)
3) The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder)
4) The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler) *
5) The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)

Target #29: Dark Passage (1947, Delmer Daves)

2008-09-05T03:43:00.000-07:00

Directed by: Delmer Daves
Written by: David Goodis (novel), Delmer Daves (screenplay)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson, Douglas Kennedy

Dark Passage (1947) opens like a first-person shooter video game, the camera taking the main protagonist's point-of-view, and generally restricting the audience to what Humphrey Bogart can see. However, in choosing to utilise this unusual technique, director Delmer Daves does something very dangerous, almost suicidal: he doesn't show us Humphrey Bogart! This was not the first major use of the first-person perspective; Rouben Mamoulian tried it for the first five minutes of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and, even more impressively, Robert Montgomery constructed an entire detective story from Philip Marlowe's perspective in Lady in the Lake (1947). But Dark Passage feels more audacious than both of these, most of all because Daves chose, for the entire opening half of his picture, to obscure the face of Hollywood's most celebrated and recognised star. When studio head Jack Warner asked for just another Bogart-Bacall picture, he sure as hell didn't expect this. It was a gamble that ultimately failed (financially, that is), but I can respect any filmmaker who's willing to mix things up a bit.

The film noir style is well-known for its regular decline into the creepy, surreal and absurd side of human existence. Writer David Goodis originally adapted the film's screenplay from his own 1946 novel, though Daves was subsequently commissioned to satisfactorily rewrite it. Dark Passage follows escaped criminal Vincent Parry (Bogart), who claims to be innocent of his wife's murder, and who uses his tentative freedom to try to clear his name. After a sympathetic taxi driver (Tom D'Andrea) points Vincent in the direction of a demented plastic surgeon (Houseley Stevenson), he eventually accepts the accommodation of a mysterious young woman, Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall), who staunchly believes in his innocence. The supporting cast really shines here, particularly Clifton Young as a weaselly small-time crook who hatches an ambitious scheme to blackmail Irene for $60,000. Uniquely, much of the filming took place on-location in San Francisco, California, with the outdoor settings adding a vitality to the photography that is rather refreshing.

The chemistry between Bogart and Bacall doesn't quite sizzle here as it usually does, and that our hero spends much of his time behind the camera certainly doesn't help. The film is strongest when it spends time with its supporting characters, which makes me think that Dark Passage might have been a better film had it been cast with relative unknowns. Daves obviously produced the film with one eye on his prized romantic couple, and the accompanying marketing opportunities, and, consequently, the story often tries too hard to create a memorable romance. Though the plot begins to meander towards the predictable in its final reel, the opening acts prove especially engrossing, not only because of the intriguing camera gimmick, but because we absolutely have no idea where this unusual story, with its cast of incredibly offbeat characters, is trying to lead us. It's also rewarding to try and guess how long Jack Warner could tolerate not seeing Humphrey Bogart's face until he threatened to shoot somebody; I think we can safely estimate this figure to sit just beyond one hour.
8/10

Currently my #4 film from 1947:
1) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
2) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
3) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur) *
4) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves) *
5) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles) *

A warm welcome to "Shooting in the Dark"

2008-09-05T02:26:00.001-07:00

Of course, I say a "warm" welcome, but frankly I wish you the opposite. This is a blog about film noir - that means darkened midnight streets, nefarious shadows skulking in the alleyways, main protagonists clutching for wealth and immortality, only to come flailing back to earth, betrayed by the alluring women in whom they placed all their trust. It's about deceit, back-stabbing and blackmail; hard rain on slickened asphalt roads.

I was recently asked by a friend how I might describe the film noir style in one line. My response was so brilliant that I feel compelled to post it now: "It's about women. How they promise you sex, and then screw you over." My delicate turn-of-phrase (of which I'm admittedly proud) highlights one of the core themes of film noir. It's all about mistrust - of men, of women, of our own gut instinct and base passions. Eddie Muller described it thus:

"Film Noir is the flip side of the all-American success story. It's about people who realize that following the program will never get them what they crave. So they cross the line, commit a crime and reap the consequences. Or, they're tales about seemingly innocent people tortured by paranoia and ass-kicked by Fate. Either way, they depict a world that's merciless and unforgiving."
Film noir was born in the early years of 1940s, perhaps with High Sierra (1941), perhaps with The Maltese Falcon (1941) - it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Europe was already in the grip of WWII, and even citizens of the United States could glimpse a darkened shadow gradually descending over their colourful world. The optimism borne from the end of WWI had long ago faded, replaced only by memories of the Great Depression, which had crippled countries worldwide through much of the 1930s.

Film noir is all about the realisation that the human race has outlived its usefulness, is about to explode from within. With this realisation comes the recognition that one will never achieve their hopes and dreams via conventional means, and so law-breaking becomes the only alternative. What these hapless fools don't realise is that, wherever there's a man waiting to do something stupid, there's always a women who'll exploit him for it. Our man's idiocy never goes unrewarded, and either death or imprisonment - usually death - greets his spectacular downfall. In a sense, it was the influence of the Production Code (which forbade happy endings for criminals) that ensured most film noirs utilised a dark, morbid finale, a cruel end for a desperate, pitiable soul.

The good folks at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? have compiled an unranked list of the top 250 American film noir pictures from 1940-1959 (with a couple of exceptions to the rule). To complement my Shooting Lessons quest to see the TSPDT Top 1000 films, I've decided to set up "Shooting in the Dark," in which I plan to post reviews for every noir film I see from the list. I don't expect this blog to be updated quite so regularly as my other one, but, over time, I hope to accumulate quite a good selection of reviews. To date, I've seen a measly 29 films from the list - for the sake of convenience, I'll name it at 28 for now, and my recent review of Dark Passage (1947) will afterwards serve as the blog opener. The 28 films are:

* Asphalt Jungle, The
* Big Sleep, The
* Cape Fear [1961]
* Double Indemnity
* High Sierra
* In a Lonely Place
* Key Largo
* Killer's Kiss
* Killing, The
* Kiss Me Deadly
* Lady from Shanghai, The
* Laura
* Lost Weekend, The
* Maltese Falcon, The
* Murder, My Sweet/Farewell My Lovely
* Night of the Hunter, The
* Notorious
* On Dangerous Ground
* Out of the Past
* Scarlet Street
* Secret Beyond the Door
* Shadow of a Doubt
* Spellbound [1945]
* Strangers on a Train
* Sunset Blvd.
* Third Man, The
* Touch of Evil
* White Heat

As you can see, I've got a long way to go, but isn't that what film noir is all about - the utter futility of effort? In my opening comments, I've tried to give a very brief summary of what noir means to me, and it's a style of which I've become rather fond. However, I've only scratched the surface. Perhaps, as I begin to develop my viewing experience, I'll start writing up a more detailed essay on the nature of film noir.
But, for now, I'll leave you with a quote from my favourite spoof, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982):

"All dames are alike: they reach down your throat and they can grab your heart, pull it out and they throw it on the floor, step on it with their high heels, spit on it, shove it in the oven and cook the shit out of it. Then they slice it into little pieces, slam it on a hunk of toast, and serve it to you and then expect you to say, 'Thanks, honey, it was delicious.'"