Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Robert Mitchum’s Night Of The Hunter.
DVD Review
Night Of The Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum, Lilian Gish, directed by Charles Laughton, United Artists, 1955
I admit, truth admit, that given a choice I much prefer Robert Mitchum as guy who is not afraid to take a bullet of two, and gladly, from some dishy femme fatale like Jane Greer after she has led him over the hoops for a while in a film like Out Of The Past. Or as tough guy detective Phillip Marlowe not a afraid to throw his weight around a little when the bad guys try to put the squeeze on some kindly old general in The Big Sleep (1980s version). What I can’t figure, but maybe it is just a matter of taste, is him as a mad man good book preacher, who just off-handedly kills a slew of women (mainly with dough) for “god.” But maybe too that is just because I get the slightest bit nervous around guys (gals too) who have a direct pipe line to “him.”
And that dilemma pretty much tells the tale, or really the half tale, of the film under review, The Night Of The Hunter. See Preacher Man Powell, despite his apparent “credentials” is a stone-cold crazy out of the great American backwoods (1930s style) when a man could kill a few, okay, okay twenty something, women and not have a coast to coast manhunt bothering him. But Preacher Man, like all stone-cold crazies, can’t leave well enough alone and so as he is fortuitously bunked up in prison with a guy who is facing the hangman for felony murder he finds out that the guy has the dough stashed somewhere back in the hills and hollows (yes, I know, hollas) of West Virginia.
Apparently they did not have a separate death row in those days because Brother Powell is in for some chicken charge and is released shortly after the execution. Released naturally to draw a beeline to Podunk . And there he courts the widow, faux coddles the kids, and then off-handedly cuts the widow’s throat and dumps her in some convenient river. And then to the kids. But justice, very rough justice, is done in the end. End of story and time number two hundred and forty-two in film noir where we find out that crime does into pay.
I mentioned above that this was the half-tale. The other half woven into the stone-killer story is one about redemption, kind of. See the kids, knowing they are doomed if they do or don’t tell Preacher Man where the dough is, head down river, and pronto. They wind up with Aunt Betty (okay, okay, Aunt Rachael), a women who takes in the strays of great depression 1930s). So as crazy and mad as Brother Powell is Sister Rachael is the opposite, including a having a ton of folk wisdom and country goodness. So you can see where an old tough guy crime noir aficionado would be longing to see Robert Mitchum show his stuff in a less stone-crazy manner. (Although maybe some dame, some unmentioned dame, put him over the edge back in the day. Then everything would be explainable.)
Showing posts with label black and white film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black and white film. Show all posts
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Monday, December 12, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1940s Crime Noir Night- “Black Angel”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Black Angel.
DVD Review
Black Angel, starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, directed by Roy William Neil, Universal Pictures, 1946
Here is the skinny. Not all crime noirs are equal. The proof? Now over a score of reviews in this space on the genre. Some speak for themselves, some are unspeakable, and some like the one under review here, Black Angel, need a little prodding. In this case the prodding is in paying kudos to the director, Roy William Neil, for great photography in service of a lukewarm plot and so-so performances by the lead performers, very so-so in the case of veteran actor Peter Lorre as a night club owner with a past to hide.
Here is the story. Martin Blair (played by Dan Duryea) had a wayward wife as some men will, a frill songstress who liked jewels and lots of them from any source willing to provide them. Catherine Bennett (played by June Vincent) had a wayward husband, as some women will, who found his way to Martin’s wayward wife. Said wife along the way is foully murdered and Ms. Bennett’s husband fits the bill. Fits the frame neat, very neat, almost all the way to the electric chair. Except that Mr. Blair, a talented drunken piano player and Ms. Bennett a stay at home chanteuse team up as a song and, ah, piano duo, to figure out who really did commit the murder. All the portents point to Marko (played somewhat stiffly by Peter Lorre, no stranger to this type of role). But that is just a ruse. The real killer is well, see the film.
You can see where the problems are just by this rough outline of the plot. A plot that suspense disbelief- not- with anyone who has taken a glance at a newspaper and the likelihood that such a pairing would ring true. But such is Hollywood. The only thing that keep this one from the "has been" bin is the directing/ photography by Neil. Some of the shots just jump out, crime noir jump out at you. Too bad the plot line (which was based on a novel by the great crime story writer, Cornell Woolrich) didn’t add to those fine shots.
DVD Review
Black Angel, starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, directed by Roy William Neil, Universal Pictures, 1946
Here is the skinny. Not all crime noirs are equal. The proof? Now over a score of reviews in this space on the genre. Some speak for themselves, some are unspeakable, and some like the one under review here, Black Angel, need a little prodding. In this case the prodding is in paying kudos to the director, Roy William Neil, for great photography in service of a lukewarm plot and so-so performances by the lead performers, very so-so in the case of veteran actor Peter Lorre as a night club owner with a past to hide.
Here is the story. Martin Blair (played by Dan Duryea) had a wayward wife as some men will, a frill songstress who liked jewels and lots of them from any source willing to provide them. Catherine Bennett (played by June Vincent) had a wayward husband, as some women will, who found his way to Martin’s wayward wife. Said wife along the way is foully murdered and Ms. Bennett’s husband fits the bill. Fits the frame neat, very neat, almost all the way to the electric chair. Except that Mr. Blair, a talented drunken piano player and Ms. Bennett a stay at home chanteuse team up as a song and, ah, piano duo, to figure out who really did commit the murder. All the portents point to Marko (played somewhat stiffly by Peter Lorre, no stranger to this type of role). But that is just a ruse. The real killer is well, see the film.
You can see where the problems are just by this rough outline of the plot. A plot that suspense disbelief- not- with anyone who has taken a glance at a newspaper and the likelihood that such a pairing would ring true. But such is Hollywood. The only thing that keep this one from the "has been" bin is the directing/ photography by Neil. Some of the shots just jump out, crime noir jump out at you. Too bad the plot line (which was based on a novel by the great crime story writer, Cornell Woolrich) didn’t add to those fine shots.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1940s Night- Free, Ya, Free- High Sierra- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, High Sierra.
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, and, of course, Pard, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Funny how a character, or performer, in one film will lead you to remember about or to investigate another. Recently I viewed and reviewed a film in which Ida Lupino starred, a kind of off-beat sweet fluff working-class thing in its way from 1942 entitled, Moontide, where she played alongside French actor, Jean Gabon, as down-at-the-heels hash-slinger seeking a little white house with a picket fence. In that role there was no question of her being a femme fatale-type that guys get all, well, nervous over but just a reliable dame when the deal goes down, good or bad. A rare thing in crime noir world, especially with dames. Here in the noir classic, High Sierra, Ms Lupino picks up some of the down-at-the heels aspects of that role of hash-slinger as she plays along side Humphrey Bogart as that reliable shoe good guys and bad guys both use for their own purposes
Of course at this stage of his career Bogart was the king hell actor getting choice roles as the grizzled whatever from Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon to Captain Morgan in To Have Or Have Not so his presence is the driving force of the film. Ms. Lupino is just along for the ride, and to pick up the pieces when the deal goes south. Here Bogart plays the three-time loser, Roy Earle, just out of prison and heading west to get some fresh air, and maybe a new start. A new start in his old racket, armed robbery, big-time armed robbery. Along the way west he is befriended by an Okie-type family heading to California just like the Joads before them. But Roy gets hung up on the young daughter, some lame Janie, and helps fund her operation to fix her foot. Naturally Janie is nothing but ungrateful and spoils Roy’s rehabilitation program. Needless to say, also along the way, brought along by one of the confederates, Marie, the role Ms. Lupino plays, is the smitten dish- rag gangster’s girl who stands by her man, although why with Roy the way he treats her is not apparent on the face of it.
As always in these crime noir adventures, in the end, crime doesn’t pay. In this case the big-time resort heist is fouled up by the inside man and Roy his confederates have to go on the run. Moreover Roy and Marie are forced to split up. Law enforcement keeps crowding Roy. One thing a three-time loser knows, knows deep in his bones, if he goes back to prison he ain’t coming out. That knowledge drives the suspense of the last part of the film as Earle’s world becomes smaller and smaller. And, as they say, it’s a dog’s world that does him in at the end. Ya, but he was free, free like the starry nights that he had time to dream about in his prison nights. And Marie? Who knows but that some other heel may need a reliable shoe.
DVD Review
High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, and, of course, Pard, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941
Funny how a character, or performer, in one film will lead you to remember about or to investigate another. Recently I viewed and reviewed a film in which Ida Lupino starred, a kind of off-beat sweet fluff working-class thing in its way from 1942 entitled, Moontide, where she played alongside French actor, Jean Gabon, as down-at-the-heels hash-slinger seeking a little white house with a picket fence. In that role there was no question of her being a femme fatale-type that guys get all, well, nervous over but just a reliable dame when the deal goes down, good or bad. A rare thing in crime noir world, especially with dames. Here in the noir classic, High Sierra, Ms Lupino picks up some of the down-at-the heels aspects of that role of hash-slinger as she plays along side Humphrey Bogart as that reliable shoe good guys and bad guys both use for their own purposes
Of course at this stage of his career Bogart was the king hell actor getting choice roles as the grizzled whatever from Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon to Captain Morgan in To Have Or Have Not so his presence is the driving force of the film. Ms. Lupino is just along for the ride, and to pick up the pieces when the deal goes south. Here Bogart plays the three-time loser, Roy Earle, just out of prison and heading west to get some fresh air, and maybe a new start. A new start in his old racket, armed robbery, big-time armed robbery. Along the way west he is befriended by an Okie-type family heading to California just like the Joads before them. But Roy gets hung up on the young daughter, some lame Janie, and helps fund her operation to fix her foot. Naturally Janie is nothing but ungrateful and spoils Roy’s rehabilitation program. Needless to say, also along the way, brought along by one of the confederates, Marie, the role Ms. Lupino plays, is the smitten dish- rag gangster’s girl who stands by her man, although why with Roy the way he treats her is not apparent on the face of it.
As always in these crime noir adventures, in the end, crime doesn’t pay. In this case the big-time resort heist is fouled up by the inside man and Roy his confederates have to go on the run. Moreover Roy and Marie are forced to split up. Law enforcement keeps crowding Roy. One thing a three-time loser knows, knows deep in his bones, if he goes back to prison he ain’t coming out. That knowledge drives the suspense of the last part of the film as Earle’s world becomes smaller and smaller. And, as they say, it’s a dog’s world that does him in at the end. Ya, but he was free, free like the starry nights that he had time to dream about in his prison nights. And Marie? Who knows but that some other heel may need a reliable shoe.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick Learns His Trade- “Killer’s Kiss”
Out In The Be-Bop 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick Learns His Trade-“Killer’s Kiss”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer's_Kiss
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the early Stanley Kubrick crime noir, Killer’s Kiss.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer's_Kiss
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the early Stanley Kubrick crime noir, Killer’s Kiss.
DVD Review
Killer’s Kiss, directed by (and just about everything else except maybe janitor) Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1955
I have at this point run through many crime noir films, some good, some bad, some with sweet femme fatales, others with very dangerous, watch out femme fatales, and you really better take my advise on that. Some, as here in one of Stanley Kubrick’s early film, Killer’s Kiss, feature just an ordinary woman (although here with a somewhat exotic past). And the young woman (played by Irene Kane), a dime-a-dance worker in a shady Times Square seen better days walk-up dance hall run by a very, very shady gangster-ish older guy (played by Frank Silvera), is central to the plot line here. Seems said gangster is smitten, very smitten by this blonde fluff, although for my money I would just let her go. There are a million others around. Such though are the effects that some women have on guys, even tough gangster guys. But see she has turned cold on him, especially when one been-on-the-ring-floor-just-one-too-many-times boxer (and convenient next door neighbor in their walk-up cold water flat New York tenement world, played by Jamie Smith), pays some attention to her after a rough night of being pawed at by the gangster. Needless to say the world is not big enough for a small-time gangster, a small-time smitten very possessive gangster, and an ex-pug with eyes on the same woman. That “tension” drives the plot unto the final battles on the lonely warehouse back streets of black and white 1950s New York.
Ya, I know, not much of a plot, not something to throw in the crime noir classics archives. Agreed. Not like fall guy Robert Mitchum and gangster Kirk Douglas fighting it out over Jane Greer, who has them both looking over their shoulders, in the classic Out Of The Past. But hear me out. This is an early Stanley Kubrick film, almost a cinema school effort in fact, where he does all the heavy conceptual lifting (writer, director, editor, etc, and just maybe the janitor too). What is missing in plot line, dialogue, and that kind of thing that makes other films noir classics is made up for here by the feel of it. The feel of 1950s black and white New York with its all-night eateries, its trashy back alleys, and its seedy apartment buildings. This is not be-bop Greenwich Village/Soho New York, this is not Big Apple fixed-up, up-scale million/billion dollar New York, but the heart of corner boy New York, where things flare up just like that. And that is how Stanley Kubrick learned his craft, used to great effect later-on the mean streets of New York.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Mexican Immigration Situation-Then- Anthony Mann’s “Border Incident”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir Border Incident
DVD Review
Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montaban, George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, M-G-M, 1949
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me for their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review, which deals with the American and Mexican governments’ attempts to curb illegal immigration and those who benefit from it, the 1940s black and white B-film Border Incident, offers very little of either.
It is not for lack of interesting subject matter- the question of illegal Mexican immigrant migration is still very much with us as the news headlines scream out almost daily. Certainly the “coyotes” (illegal alien smugglers) and other social relationships (complicit farm owners, governmental agents, etc.) featured in this film are very much with us as the periodic finding of clots of dead illegal immigrants in some woe begotten deserts testifies to. It is also not for lack of trying to draw attention to the importance of the issue but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way.
Probably the biggest problem, however, and one which is seemingly endemic to the police procedural crime noir B-movie genre, is that in the attempt to earnestly portray a living social problem involving governmental action takes the life out of the film and becomes mere propaganda. I would contrast this one with, let us say, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, another border town-centered film and you will in one minute both get my point and get the different. If you insist on seeing this one then it is because of the great black and white gritty cinematography of the great American West landscape and some tense character-shot moments. But again Touch has all that, and more.
DVD Review
Border Incident, starring Ricardo Montaban, George Murphy, directed by Anthony Mann, M-G-M, 1949
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me for their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review, which deals with the American and Mexican governments’ attempts to curb illegal immigration and those who benefit from it, the 1940s black and white B-film Border Incident, offers very little of either.
It is not for lack of interesting subject matter- the question of illegal Mexican immigrant migration is still very much with us as the news headlines scream out almost daily. Certainly the “coyotes” (illegal alien smugglers) and other social relationships (complicit farm owners, governmental agents, etc.) featured in this film are very much with us as the periodic finding of clots of dead illegal immigrants in some woe begotten deserts testifies to. It is also not for lack of trying to draw attention to the importance of the issue but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way.
Probably the biggest problem, however, and one which is seemingly endemic to the police procedural crime noir B-movie genre, is that in the attempt to earnestly portray a living social problem involving governmental action takes the life out of the film and becomes mere propaganda. I would contrast this one with, let us say, Orson Welles’ Touch Of Evil, another border town-centered film and you will in one minute both get my point and get the different. If you insist on seeing this one then it is because of the great black and white gritty cinematography of the great American West landscape and some tense character-shot moments. But again Touch has all that, and more.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-From Rags To Riches- John Garfield’s Blues- “Force Of Evil”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film, Force Of Evil.
DVD Review
Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.
Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.
What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.
DVD Review
Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.
Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.
What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-"Come On Now, Get With The Program- Crime, I Repeat, Crime Does Not Pay"- Richard Basehart’s “Tension"-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a site that reviews and details the plot lines of crime noir films
DVD Review
Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).
A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?
The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.
But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.
Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.
DVD Review
Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).
A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?
The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.
But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.
Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Out In The 2000s Crime Noir Night-“Sin City”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Sin City.
DVD Review
Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.
Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.
All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.
But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.
DVD Review
Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.
Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.
All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.
But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night, Kind Of-“Undercurrent”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link ot a Wikipedia entry for the film Undercurrent.
DVD Review
Undercurrent, starring Katherine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, directed by Vincent Minnelli, 1947
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, Undercurrent, frankly baffles me. A pyscho-drama, no question, a famous director, no question, but also a very non-femme fatale in Kate Hepburn, and a very non-tough guy (street or detective) role for classic 1940s tough guy and a good guy to have at your back, Robert Mitchum.
A little plot look will help explain my bafflement. Robert Taylor, a ruthless, driven high-tech capitalist who made big dough during World War II is also a little mad, well, a lot mad. However he is able to cover that little problem up while courting, well not beautiful, but let’s call her handsome, Kate Hepburn. Seems he needs a trophy wife and Kate fills the bill. And that is where the problems begin because Brother Taylor has a brother whom he is insanely jealous of for the usual Freudian, or pseudo-Freudian, reasons that drive the plot lines of these pycho-dramas. Kate, however, loves the big lug Taylor until he starts going over the edge about his brother (and some other things like a little murder of an employee that goes a long way to allowing him to be that ruthless high-tech capitalist). Of course, as in all such dramas old Robert will get his comeuppance, have no fear.
But where is the noir in this noir? No femme fatale, no tough guy throwing his weight around or tilting at windmills to right the world’s wrongs, no problem that requires quick thinking to right those wrongs. Well when you go on a tear on a subject as I am on crime noir not everything will come up Out Of The Past or The Big Sleep. Not this one anyway.
DVD Review
Undercurrent, starring Katherine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, directed by Vincent Minnelli, 1947
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, Undercurrent, frankly baffles me. A pyscho-drama, no question, a famous director, no question, but also a very non-femme fatale in Kate Hepburn, and a very non-tough guy (street or detective) role for classic 1940s tough guy and a good guy to have at your back, Robert Mitchum.
A little plot look will help explain my bafflement. Robert Taylor, a ruthless, driven high-tech capitalist who made big dough during World War II is also a little mad, well, a lot mad. However he is able to cover that little problem up while courting, well not beautiful, but let’s call her handsome, Kate Hepburn. Seems he needs a trophy wife and Kate fills the bill. And that is where the problems begin because Brother Taylor has a brother whom he is insanely jealous of for the usual Freudian, or pseudo-Freudian, reasons that drive the plot lines of these pycho-dramas. Kate, however, loves the big lug Taylor until he starts going over the edge about his brother (and some other things like a little murder of an employee that goes a long way to allowing him to be that ruthless high-tech capitalist). Of course, as in all such dramas old Robert will get his comeuppance, have no fear.
But where is the noir in this noir? No femme fatale, no tough guy throwing his weight around or tilting at windmills to right the world’s wrongs, no problem that requires quick thinking to right those wrongs. Well when you go on a tear on a subject as I am on crime noir not everything will come up Out Of The Past or The Big Sleep. Not this one anyway.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-The Doctor Is Out- Robert Mitchum’s“Where Danger Lives”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Where Danger Lives.
DVD Review
Where Danger Lives, starring Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.). Having just mentioned the classic Out Of The Past allows me to segue into this 1950 crime noir vehicle, Where Danger Lives, another film starring Robert Mitchum.
No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy lazy-eyed, made for heavy-lifting, Robert Mitchum would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre. And he proved it out of box in Out Of The Past where he was “smitten” by classic bad girl, no, rotten, low-down femme fatale, Jane Greer, who, unfortunately, unfortunately for Mitchum was “owned” by a mobster (Kirk Douglas) a little further up the food chain. And paid the price for that indiscretion, paid big time. So we know two things about Robert Mitchum. He likes the lively ladies, the ones that come with bells and whistles and plenty of baggage, usually distressful baggage, and he can take care of himself in the clinches. Well almost. Actually we know three things about Brother Mitchum. He does not have enough sense to come in out of the rain, or any place else where danger lurks for that matter. Why? Well in this film he is at it again, back up against a two-timing femme fatale, although as they come in all sizes and shapes a dark-haired one this time (Faith Domegue).
A quick run through the plot line will bring us up to date on Brother Mitchum’s problem. Seems that in this one Mitchum plays a young doctor, a very good young doctor as such doctors go, but he makes the number one cardinal mistake in medical practice (he must have skipped that class in med school, the one about proper bedside manner, minus the bed)- don’t get involved personally with the patients. Especially drop-dead beautiful, alluring, capricious (yes, capricious), calculating ones who show up in the emergency room after attempted suicides. Yes, a big red flag should have been flying in Doc’s head
But see he is young, and she is drop-dead beautiful. Put those two together, and well, what is a man to do. Only problem is said drop-dead beauty is one, married, very married, to a wealthy, older, hell, ancient man, and maybe, tad bit jealous and protective (Claude Rains) and, two, is under some mental distress, hell, she is cuckoo, bonkers, crazy, okay, murderously crazy, if you really want to know. Well for me that would take a certain edge off that drop-dead beauty part but for Doc, no way, no way at all as he is well, let’s just call it smitten.
Of course the price of smitten, smitten to a crazy (sorry), married, very married woman can be very high and here is no exception. After a little bout/confrontation with hubby in which Doc got the worst of it, it seems that when Doc came to said hubby was dead, very dead. See here is where smitten gets you in trouble though. Doc is not going to be the fall guy, and he is not letting his paramour take the fall either. So they decide to high-tail it to Mexico, and freedom, or so they think like a million other people in a tight spot, although not all that crowd decide to high-tail it to Mexico. The trials and tribulations of this now on-the-run couple is what drives the rest of the film, even though Doc is pretty hazy about why he is running (except she is running), given his own medical condition. The rest you can figure out for yourself, just like, in the end Doc, had to figure things out. The hard way.
So you can see that I was not kidding about Brother Mitchum’s little femme fatale problem. But I blame the whole thing on Claude Rains. See there is no way an old guy, a wealthy old guy, or poor for that matter, is suppose to be hanging out with young, drop-dead beautiful women, crazy or not. And see worldly Claude Rains should know such stuff from back in the days when he was running around grabbing dough at Rick’s Place in Casablanca. So the next time you see a crime noir film like this one you will know what’s what.
DVD Review
Where Danger Lives, starring Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains, Paramount Pictures, 1950
No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.). Having just mentioned the classic Out Of The Past allows me to segue into this 1950 crime noir vehicle, Where Danger Lives, another film starring Robert Mitchum.
No question jut-jawed, slightly hazy lazy-eyed, made for heavy-lifting, Robert Mitchum would make the top of any crime noir aficionados idea of guy that fits the bill in this genre. And he proved it out of box in Out Of The Past where he was “smitten” by classic bad girl, no, rotten, low-down femme fatale, Jane Greer, who, unfortunately, unfortunately for Mitchum was “owned” by a mobster (Kirk Douglas) a little further up the food chain. And paid the price for that indiscretion, paid big time. So we know two things about Robert Mitchum. He likes the lively ladies, the ones that come with bells and whistles and plenty of baggage, usually distressful baggage, and he can take care of himself in the clinches. Well almost. Actually we know three things about Brother Mitchum. He does not have enough sense to come in out of the rain, or any place else where danger lurks for that matter. Why? Well in this film he is at it again, back up against a two-timing femme fatale, although as they come in all sizes and shapes a dark-haired one this time (Faith Domegue).
A quick run through the plot line will bring us up to date on Brother Mitchum’s problem. Seems that in this one Mitchum plays a young doctor, a very good young doctor as such doctors go, but he makes the number one cardinal mistake in medical practice (he must have skipped that class in med school, the one about proper bedside manner, minus the bed)- don’t get involved personally with the patients. Especially drop-dead beautiful, alluring, capricious (yes, capricious), calculating ones who show up in the emergency room after attempted suicides. Yes, a big red flag should have been flying in Doc’s head
But see he is young, and she is drop-dead beautiful. Put those two together, and well, what is a man to do. Only problem is said drop-dead beauty is one, married, very married, to a wealthy, older, hell, ancient man, and maybe, tad bit jealous and protective (Claude Rains) and, two, is under some mental distress, hell, she is cuckoo, bonkers, crazy, okay, murderously crazy, if you really want to know. Well for me that would take a certain edge off that drop-dead beauty part but for Doc, no way, no way at all as he is well, let’s just call it smitten.
Of course the price of smitten, smitten to a crazy (sorry), married, very married woman can be very high and here is no exception. After a little bout/confrontation with hubby in which Doc got the worst of it, it seems that when Doc came to said hubby was dead, very dead. See here is where smitten gets you in trouble though. Doc is not going to be the fall guy, and he is not letting his paramour take the fall either. So they decide to high-tail it to Mexico, and freedom, or so they think like a million other people in a tight spot, although not all that crowd decide to high-tail it to Mexico. The trials and tribulations of this now on-the-run couple is what drives the rest of the film, even though Doc is pretty hazy about why he is running (except she is running), given his own medical condition. The rest you can figure out for yourself, just like, in the end Doc, had to figure things out. The hard way.
So you can see that I was not kidding about Brother Mitchum’s little femme fatale problem. But I blame the whole thing on Claude Rains. See there is no way an old guy, a wealthy old guy, or poor for that matter, is suppose to be hanging out with young, drop-dead beautiful women, crazy or not. And see worldly Claude Rains should know such stuff from back in the days when he was running around grabbing dough at Rick’s Place in Casablanca. So the next time you see a crime noir film like this one you will know what’s what.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The Slumming Streets Of 1950s L.A.- Joseph Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential”
Click on the headline to link to an interview article on crime novelist
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Joseph Ellroy
Book Review
L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990
Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.
On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.
Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.
No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Union Station.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
DVD Review
Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951
No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.
Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.
The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).
So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers”- A Film Adaptation-A Second Take (1964)
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1964 The Killers.
DVD Review
The Killers, starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickerson, Ronald Reagan, Clu Gulanger, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, Universal Studios, 1964
As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this crime noir genre I am an aficionado, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. I mentioned in a review of the 1946 version of the film under review, The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster (as the smitten fall guy) and Ava Gardner (as the femme fatale, what else) that for plot line, and plot interest, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity that film was in the former category. This techno-color version pales (no pun intended) by comparison although in spots the twists in the plot line here are interesting.
Neither screen adaptation owes much, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name. The beauty of the shortness of the Heminway story is that it left plenty of room for other possibilities to expand on his plot line. But in the end the central question of all three vehicles is the question- why did two professional killers, serious, badass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless fall guy (here, Johnny North, always a Johnny somewhere in these noir things, played by a young John Cassavetes)?. And why didn’t they run when they had the chance. But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a women, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that frill I is Sheila Farr (here played by Angie Dickerson who whatever her charms for a 1960s audience pales, again no pun intended, to the earlier version’s Kitty Collins played by sultry, yes sultry, Ava Gardner, as a colleen).
As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But high or low all want some dough, and a man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities extended into the early 1960s. And duplicity is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Sheila, like Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not Johnny, at least not in the long haul and that notion will drive the action for a bit.
And if you think about it, of course Sheila is going with the smart guy, the guy with things really figured out (Jack, played here by a demure Ronald Reagan wearing a smashing greased down pompadour hair-do and looking very non-presidential). And old chump Johnny is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a race car driving (Swede was a prize fighter) past his prime and looking for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in that shoddy rooming house out in the sticks hustling for short dough on the jalopy circuit , waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Johnny. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Sheila’s come hither affections he, Johnny North, is involved along with Sheila's current paramour, Jack, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a old-timey rural U.S. Mail truck (go big, or don’t go at all, right) The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Just like with the earlier version’s Kitty and Big Jim Sheila and Jack are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until the guys who did the “hit” on Johnny (played by Lee Marvin and Clu Glanger) get all balled up trying to figure out why Johnny just cast his fate to the wind start to figure things out.
And they lead, or are led, naturally to figure out the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And take the same advise I gave in the 1946 review stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties AND also tall, leggy, brunettes with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.
Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay for and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.
Added note:
Ernest Hemingway was a prolific short story writer and I have argued in the past elsewhere in this space that perhaps some of these were his best literary efforts. Needless to say, a writer whose command of a sparse and functional style is going do very nicely when Hollywood comes a-calling. In this case the short story was indeed short. A couple of hired killers come into a lunch counter looking for someone on the run. He doesn't show and that is the end of the story. Although we presume his fate is foresworn. But not for Hollywood. In this remake of the 1946 film that starred Burt Lancaster the hired killers (played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager) remain but they are thoughtful (and greedy). They want to know why Johnny North (the guy on the run) does not run and stands for the hit. As befits a 1960's film they want to get the motive and will get it come hell or high water. Naturally, there is a woman (a young Angie Dickerson) involved that leads old Johnny astray. From there the film goes through a series of flashbacks to figure out how Johnny became the fall guy. The original is a little closer to Hemingway's sense of the dynamics that lead to the patsy's fatalism but this is an interesting take, as well.
DVD Review
The Killers, starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickerson, Ronald Reagan, Clu Gulanger, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, Universal Studios, 1964
As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this crime noir genre I am an aficionado, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. I mentioned in a review of the 1946 version of the film under review, The Killers, starring Burt Lancaster (as the smitten fall guy) and Ava Gardner (as the femme fatale, what else) that for plot line, and plot interest, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity that film was in the former category. This techno-color version pales (no pun intended) by comparison although in spots the twists in the plot line here are interesting.
Neither screen adaptation owes much, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name. The beauty of the shortness of the Heminway story is that it left plenty of room for other possibilities to expand on his plot line. But in the end the central question of all three vehicles is the question- why did two professional killers, serious, badass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless fall guy (here, Johnny North, always a Johnny somewhere in these noir things, played by a young John Cassavetes)?. And why didn’t they run when they had the chance. But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a women, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that frill I is Sheila Farr (here played by Angie Dickerson who whatever her charms for a 1960s audience pales, again no pun intended, to the earlier version’s Kitty Collins played by sultry, yes sultry, Ava Gardner, as a colleen).
As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But high or low all want some dough, and a man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities extended into the early 1960s. And duplicity is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Sheila, like Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not Johnny, at least not in the long haul and that notion will drive the action for a bit.
And if you think about it, of course Sheila is going with the smart guy, the guy with things really figured out (Jack, played here by a demure Ronald Reagan wearing a smashing greased down pompadour hair-do and looking very non-presidential). And old chump Johnny is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a race car driving (Swede was a prize fighter) past his prime and looking for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in that shoddy rooming house out in the sticks hustling for short dough on the jalopy circuit , waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Johnny. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Sheila’s come hither affections he, Johnny North, is involved along with Sheila's current paramour, Jack, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a old-timey rural U.S. Mail truck (go big, or don’t go at all, right) The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Just like with the earlier version’s Kitty and Big Jim Sheila and Jack are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until the guys who did the “hit” on Johnny (played by Lee Marvin and Clu Glanger) get all balled up trying to figure out why Johnny just cast his fate to the wind start to figure things out.
And they lead, or are led, naturally to figure out the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And take the same advise I gave in the 1946 review stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties AND also tall, leggy, brunettes with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.
Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay for and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.
Added note:
Ernest Hemingway was a prolific short story writer and I have argued in the past elsewhere in this space that perhaps some of these were his best literary efforts. Needless to say, a writer whose command of a sparse and functional style is going do very nicely when Hollywood comes a-calling. In this case the short story was indeed short. A couple of hired killers come into a lunch counter looking for someone on the run. He doesn't show and that is the end of the story. Although we presume his fate is foresworn. But not for Hollywood. In this remake of the 1946 film that starred Burt Lancaster the hired killers (played by Lee Marvin and Clu Gulager) remain but they are thoughtful (and greedy). They want to know why Johnny North (the guy on the run) does not run and stands for the hit. As befits a 1960's film they want to get the motive and will get it come hell or high water. Naturally, there is a woman (a young Angie Dickerson) involved that leads old Johnny astray. From there the film goes through a series of flashbacks to figure out how Johnny became the fall guy. The original is a little closer to Hemingway's sense of the dynamics that lead to the patsy's fatalism but this is an interesting take, as well.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers”- A Film Adaptation
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Killers.
DVD Review
The Killers, starring Edmond O’Brian, Burt Lancaster, and Ava Gardner, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, 1946
As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this genre I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they also have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity the film under review, The Killers, is under that former category.
Although the screen adaptation owes little, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name this is primo 1940s crime noir stuff. Here, although Hemingway left plenty of room for other possibilities in his plot line, the question is why did two professional killers, serious, bad-ass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless “Swede” (played by a young, rough-hewn Burt Lancaster). But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a woman, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that would be Kitty Collins (played by sultry, very sultry, husky-voiced, dark-haired Ava Gardner) as just a poor colleen trying to get up from under and a femme fatale that has the boys, rich or poor, begging for more.
As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But, high or low, all want some dough, and man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities. And duplicity, big-time duplicity, is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not the Swede, at least not in the long haul, and that notion will drive the action for a bit. And if you think about it, of course Kitty is going with the smart guy. And old Swede is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a prize fighter past his prime and looking, just like every other past his prime guy, for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in some shoddy flea-bitten rooming house out in the sticks, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.
Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Swede. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Ms. Kitty’s affections he, Swede, is involved along with Kitty’s current paramour, “Big Jim”, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a hat factory (who would have guessed that is where the dough, real dough, was). The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Kitty and Big Jim are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until an insurance investigator (ya, I know, what would such a guy want to get involved in this thing) trying to figure out why Swede just cast his fate to the wind starts to figure things out. And they lead naturally to the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.
Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so, is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Otto Preminger’s “Fallen Angel”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film Fallen Angel.
DVD Review
Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger, 1945
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this genre sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and those shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Fallen Angel, is under that former category. This is what 1940s film noir was all about, maybe not the best but still more than passable
Once you have started to get fixated on crime noir films a key question is that of the femme fatale, although not every crime noir film had them. Fallen Angel does, although rather unusually this femme fatale (played by sultry Linda Darnell) is working in a one-arm joint (come on now you know what that is right? A hash house, a diner, a road house, a dew-drop in and the person serving them off the arm, one arm see, is none other than Darnell as the magnet waitress, Stella). Now all femme fatales, at least the ones I have seen in film (and a few that I have been run over by in life), have some kind of shady past and/or have gone wrong by hooking up with a wrong gee. Some of them have put on high class airs (like Gilda in the movie of the same name and The Lady From Shang-hai both played by sultry, very sultry, get my handkerchief out Rita Hayworth) and others like the role Ms. Darnell plays here are just hard-boiled gold-diggers from the wrong side of the tracks. And that little fact is what has all the boys crazy here, and also drives the plot line.
The Great Depression and World War II unhinged a lot of the certainties that earlier American society took for granted. Those mega-events left a lot of loose-end people struggling, struggling hard to find their place in the sun, or at least some dough to help find that place. And that notion goes a long way in explaining why down-at-the-heels Eric (played by Dana Andrews) find himself on the left coast with no dough and no prospects. But that doesn’t stop him from drawing a bee-line to femme fatale Darnell when he is unceremoniously dropped off in some backwater California ocean town. But brother Eric, take a ticket, because every other guy on the left coast, including the very unglamorous hash house owner, has big ideas, or wants to have big ideas about setting up house with this two-timing waitress. But when a man, as men will do, is smitten well there it is. There are no hoops big enough that he will not roll and that is where the plot thickens. See Stella, she from the wrong side of the tracks born, wants a home with a picket fence like all the other girls and if you don't have the cash, the cash in hand, then get lost, brother.
Needless to say old Eric is ready to move heaven and earth to get the dough for that white picket-fenced house. And here is his scam. Go where the money is. And in this one-horse town, ocean-fronted or not, it resides with two prominent sisters who have some dough left from their father’s estate. So Eric plays up to one sister, June, (the pretty one, of course, played by Alice Faye) and through a convoluted series of events they wind up married. Ms. Darnell was not pleased by this turn of event, as you can imagine. Although her not being pleased was cut short by a little problem, she was murdered on the night of Eric’s honeymoon with June. And all signs lead to him as the stone-cold killer- the frame is on, no question. But also no question is that he is not that kind of guy. But just step back a minute and remember that point about having to take a ticket to line up for Stella's affections. Plenty of guys (and at least one woman) had motive. See the film and figure who that was. Like I say not the best of the 1940s crime noirs but interesting enough. And directed by Otto Preminger so you know the black and white cinematography shadows and contrasts will be just fine.
DVD Review
Fallen Angel, starring Dana Andrews, Alice Faye, Linda Darnell, directed by Otto Preminger, 1945
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this genre sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and those shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s) produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Fallen Angel, is under that former category. This is what 1940s film noir was all about, maybe not the best but still more than passable
Once you have started to get fixated on crime noir films a key question is that of the femme fatale, although not every crime noir film had them. Fallen Angel does, although rather unusually this femme fatale (played by sultry Linda Darnell) is working in a one-arm joint (come on now you know what that is right? A hash house, a diner, a road house, a dew-drop in and the person serving them off the arm, one arm see, is none other than Darnell as the magnet waitress, Stella). Now all femme fatales, at least the ones I have seen in film (and a few that I have been run over by in life), have some kind of shady past and/or have gone wrong by hooking up with a wrong gee. Some of them have put on high class airs (like Gilda in the movie of the same name and The Lady From Shang-hai both played by sultry, very sultry, get my handkerchief out Rita Hayworth) and others like the role Ms. Darnell plays here are just hard-boiled gold-diggers from the wrong side of the tracks. And that little fact is what has all the boys crazy here, and also drives the plot line.
The Great Depression and World War II unhinged a lot of the certainties that earlier American society took for granted. Those mega-events left a lot of loose-end people struggling, struggling hard to find their place in the sun, or at least some dough to help find that place. And that notion goes a long way in explaining why down-at-the-heels Eric (played by Dana Andrews) find himself on the left coast with no dough and no prospects. But that doesn’t stop him from drawing a bee-line to femme fatale Darnell when he is unceremoniously dropped off in some backwater California ocean town. But brother Eric, take a ticket, because every other guy on the left coast, including the very unglamorous hash house owner, has big ideas, or wants to have big ideas about setting up house with this two-timing waitress. But when a man, as men will do, is smitten well there it is. There are no hoops big enough that he will not roll and that is where the plot thickens. See Stella, she from the wrong side of the tracks born, wants a home with a picket fence like all the other girls and if you don't have the cash, the cash in hand, then get lost, brother.
Needless to say old Eric is ready to move heaven and earth to get the dough for that white picket-fenced house. And here is his scam. Go where the money is. And in this one-horse town, ocean-fronted or not, it resides with two prominent sisters who have some dough left from their father’s estate. So Eric plays up to one sister, June, (the pretty one, of course, played by Alice Faye) and through a convoluted series of events they wind up married. Ms. Darnell was not pleased by this turn of event, as you can imagine. Although her not being pleased was cut short by a little problem, she was murdered on the night of Eric’s honeymoon with June. And all signs lead to him as the stone-cold killer- the frame is on, no question. But also no question is that he is not that kind of guy. But just step back a minute and remember that point about having to take a ticket to line up for Stella's affections. Plenty of guys (and at least one woman) had motive. See the film and figure who that was. Like I say not the best of the 1940s crime noirs but interesting enough. And directed by Otto Preminger so you know the black and white cinematography shadows and contrasts will be just fine.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Stanley Kubrick's crime noir, The Killing.
DVD Review
The Killing, starring Sterling Hayden, Coleen Grey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1956
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this crime noir genre sure I am an aficionado, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Killing, is under that latter category.
Okay, okay we know crimes, crimes, large and small do not pay. We get our noses rubbed in that hard fact from almost infancy by parents, churches, and schools. Okay we get it, kind of. But in this little grade B crime film noir from the hills of Hollywood we are going to get our noses rubbed in it just one more time, although the way that the plot line sets up it looks like a sure thing that this time the thing will succeed. At least it had me rooting for the “bad” guys for a minute. And every kid from every misbegotten housing project, from every no dough neighborhood has secretly (or not so secretly) had to have been rooting for the caper to be pulled off too.
See here is the lay of land on the caper. Johnny (if it is not Joe in these crime noirs it's Johnny but we will let that lie, okay), fresh from stir (prison) Johnny (played by Sterling Hayden) wants to go straight, well, wants to live on easy street is more like it. And live on that easy street with neighborhood childhood sweetheart Coleen Grey. And, of course, Johnny had a little time to thing about it up in stir (prison, for those who forgot). So, naturally with that easy street goal in mind (and all that time on his hands) he plans to rob the local race track on the day of the big race for a cool couple of million. Now that might seem like pocket change today but back in those days, that was dough. Hey, I’ll take a cut of that, no problem.
But also see such a caper requires all kind of help, inside and outside, to pull it off and that is where, even if you are hoping against hope that Johnny scores big, you can see that things might get a little dicey. The cast of characters, black and white-etched film characters, is like a rogue’s gallery of every soft “hard” guy character actor that populated the be-bop 1950s television and movie screen (and at least one from the 1940s, Elisha Cook, Jr. as the insider ticket cashier, going back to Hammett’s Maltese Falcon film days, starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade). But we will let that go for now, as well. What is important once the motley crew is gathered is that the thing works like clockwork. And, from Johnny’s end, it does. The idea (a little loony in retrospect, if you thought about it) was to create a diversion to get into the track cash room where all the dough is (Johnny got that part right anyway), said diversion being the shooting of a famous race horse during the race to create the momentary confusion necessary so smart guy Johnny can get in and get all the dough. And, guess what it actually gets pulled off, and fairly easily.
But weren’t you paying attention- crime does not pay, get it. So, just as easily as the caper gets pulled off it starts to unravel. And all, or almost all, because of a two-timing dame. Figures right, figure right in a crime noir anyway. And the dame is no femme fatale like Gilda, no way, but some bar stool blonde wife that insider ticket cashier(Cook)is crazy about and blabbed the whole scene to. And said bar stool blonde tells the guy she is two-timing with and there you have it. See boyfriend is going to knock off the heist (a theme that has been done before, by the way, plenty, too plenty of times) and Ms. Two-timer and he are going to live on easy street. All this does is set up the inevitable all points police manhunt as Johnny (who still has the dough) and his honey try for easy street via the local airport. No dice, not even after such a fool-proof plan. Ya, now that I think about it though I wish Johnny had pulled it off.
Note: I mentioned above that Coleen Grey had a small role here as Johnny’s old neighborhood honey (and future easy street resident). I have now seen her in several of these film noir things starting with Kiss of Death. What I notice is that she is almost always type-cast as the angelic (yes, angelic) working class stick-with-her-guy-through-thick-and-thin-even-if he-is-a-wrong-gee gal, eternally waiting, it seems, for her guy to get out of stir (you know now what that is, right?). Ms. Grey didn’t your mother ever give to the word about wrong guys, wrong corner boy guys. Ya, I know, when you got it bad you’ve got it bad, wrong gee or not.
DVD Review
The Killing, starring Sterling Hayden, Coleen Grey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1956
As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this crime noir genre sure I am an aficionado, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Killing, is under that latter category.
Okay, okay we know crimes, crimes, large and small do not pay. We get our noses rubbed in that hard fact from almost infancy by parents, churches, and schools. Okay we get it, kind of. But in this little grade B crime film noir from the hills of Hollywood we are going to get our noses rubbed in it just one more time, although the way that the plot line sets up it looks like a sure thing that this time the thing will succeed. At least it had me rooting for the “bad” guys for a minute. And every kid from every misbegotten housing project, from every no dough neighborhood has secretly (or not so secretly) had to have been rooting for the caper to be pulled off too.
See here is the lay of land on the caper. Johnny (if it is not Joe in these crime noirs it's Johnny but we will let that lie, okay), fresh from stir (prison) Johnny (played by Sterling Hayden) wants to go straight, well, wants to live on easy street is more like it. And live on that easy street with neighborhood childhood sweetheart Coleen Grey. And, of course, Johnny had a little time to thing about it up in stir (prison, for those who forgot). So, naturally with that easy street goal in mind (and all that time on his hands) he plans to rob the local race track on the day of the big race for a cool couple of million. Now that might seem like pocket change today but back in those days, that was dough. Hey, I’ll take a cut of that, no problem.
But also see such a caper requires all kind of help, inside and outside, to pull it off and that is where, even if you are hoping against hope that Johnny scores big, you can see that things might get a little dicey. The cast of characters, black and white-etched film characters, is like a rogue’s gallery of every soft “hard” guy character actor that populated the be-bop 1950s television and movie screen (and at least one from the 1940s, Elisha Cook, Jr. as the insider ticket cashier, going back to Hammett’s Maltese Falcon film days, starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade). But we will let that go for now, as well. What is important once the motley crew is gathered is that the thing works like clockwork. And, from Johnny’s end, it does. The idea (a little loony in retrospect, if you thought about it) was to create a diversion to get into the track cash room where all the dough is (Johnny got that part right anyway), said diversion being the shooting of a famous race horse during the race to create the momentary confusion necessary so smart guy Johnny can get in and get all the dough. And, guess what it actually gets pulled off, and fairly easily.
But weren’t you paying attention- crime does not pay, get it. So, just as easily as the caper gets pulled off it starts to unravel. And all, or almost all, because of a two-timing dame. Figures right, figure right in a crime noir anyway. And the dame is no femme fatale like Gilda, no way, but some bar stool blonde wife that insider ticket cashier(Cook)is crazy about and blabbed the whole scene to. And said bar stool blonde tells the guy she is two-timing with and there you have it. See boyfriend is going to knock off the heist (a theme that has been done before, by the way, plenty, too plenty of times) and Ms. Two-timer and he are going to live on easy street. All this does is set up the inevitable all points police manhunt as Johnny (who still has the dough) and his honey try for easy street via the local airport. No dice, not even after such a fool-proof plan. Ya, now that I think about it though I wish Johnny had pulled it off.
Note: I mentioned above that Coleen Grey had a small role here as Johnny’s old neighborhood honey (and future easy street resident). I have now seen her in several of these film noir things starting with Kiss of Death. What I notice is that she is almost always type-cast as the angelic (yes, angelic) working class stick-with-her-guy-through-thick-and-thin-even-if he-is-a-wrong-gee gal, eternally waiting, it seems, for her guy to get out of stir (you know now what that is, right?). Ms. Grey didn’t your mother ever give to the word about wrong guys, wrong corner boy guys. Ya, I know, when you got it bad you’ve got it bad, wrong gee or not.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “Kansas City Confidential”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime film noir, Kansas City Confidential.
DVD Review
Kansas City Confidential, John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Jack Elam, directed by Phillip Karlson, United Artists, 1952
I have said this many times. Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background, and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kansas City Confidential, is in the former category.
And why shouldn’t it be. One fall guy Joe (fall guys seem always to be named Joe, regular Joes I guess), played here in a understated way by John Payne, a little the worst for wear in post-World War II America, having had a few legal problems of his own, gets caught up in the dragnet after a major heist (over a million dollars, a lot of money then but just pocket change today) of a bank, in of all places Kansas City. Now all of this, aside from the criminal intent and cash reward, has been set-up by a disgruntled, vengeful ex-cop (played by Preston Foster) who masterminds the whole thing. Of course such a major heist then (as now) requires several, um, “associates”, in this case masked associates (for their own and Foster's self-protection against the dreaded “stoolie’ syndrome. Said associates are not anyone you or I would want to hang around with, these guys are strictly losers, especially one grafter extraordinaire, Pete Harris, played to manic perfection by Jack Elam. (The others are perennial bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand).
Now Joe, as one might expect, takes umbrage, yes, umbrage at having taken a beating from the cops, and also for being set up as the fall guy. So, naturally, as any crime noir hero worth his salt would do, he is going to get to the bottom of this thing come hell or high water. And the rest of the plot line centers of following the clues, and following the sun to sunny Mexico (low film budget faux Mexico, to be sure) to undo the bad guys, and maybe catch a reward. Or at least a stray gringa or senorita. Naturally he does, the gringa part anyway, although she turns out to be mastermind ex-cop’s daughter (law student daughter, by the way, played by Coleen Gray). Other than the inevitable tacky ending ( I won’t spoil your fun by telling what it is) this one moves along nicely, is filled with some nice twists, and is, as usual with black and white noir films great on those shadowy takes which reveal evil in the making. Especially those loser, grifter, chain-smoking Jack Elam takes. Some noirs you watch for the magic camera work, some for the femme fatales that drive the story line, some for the tough guys and their gaff. This one you get for the plot line.
DVD Review
Kansas City Confidential, John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Jack Elam, directed by Phillip Karlson, United Artists, 1952
I have said this many times. Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background, and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good, some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, Kansas City Confidential, is in the former category.
And why shouldn’t it be. One fall guy Joe (fall guys seem always to be named Joe, regular Joes I guess), played here in a understated way by John Payne, a little the worst for wear in post-World War II America, having had a few legal problems of his own, gets caught up in the dragnet after a major heist (over a million dollars, a lot of money then but just pocket change today) of a bank, in of all places Kansas City. Now all of this, aside from the criminal intent and cash reward, has been set-up by a disgruntled, vengeful ex-cop (played by Preston Foster) who masterminds the whole thing. Of course such a major heist then (as now) requires several, um, “associates”, in this case masked associates (for their own and Foster's self-protection against the dreaded “stoolie’ syndrome. Said associates are not anyone you or I would want to hang around with, these guys are strictly losers, especially one grafter extraordinaire, Pete Harris, played to manic perfection by Jack Elam. (The others are perennial bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand).
Now Joe, as one might expect, takes umbrage, yes, umbrage at having taken a beating from the cops, and also for being set up as the fall guy. So, naturally, as any crime noir hero worth his salt would do, he is going to get to the bottom of this thing come hell or high water. And the rest of the plot line centers of following the clues, and following the sun to sunny Mexico (low film budget faux Mexico, to be sure) to undo the bad guys, and maybe catch a reward. Or at least a stray gringa or senorita. Naturally he does, the gringa part anyway, although she turns out to be mastermind ex-cop’s daughter (law student daughter, by the way, played by Coleen Gray). Other than the inevitable tacky ending ( I won’t spoil your fun by telling what it is) this one moves along nicely, is filled with some nice twists, and is, as usual with black and white noir films great on those shadowy takes which reveal evil in the making. Especially those loser, grifter, chain-smoking Jack Elam takes. Some noirs you watch for the magic camera work, some for the femme fatales that drive the story line, some for the tough guys and their gaff. This one you get for the plot line.
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