tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64285713525870065642024-03-13T03:28:43.550-04:00Tales of OdieNary MadnessFilm reviews, travelogues and life lessons from the files of The Odienator.odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.comBlogger102125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-38969491586872947892020-02-04T16:05:00.000-05:002020-02-04T16:05:35.887-05:00Noir City XVIII #7: Once Upon A Time in Mexicoby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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The last Saturday of Noir City sent us south of the border and deep into Mexican Noir. Four movies were presented, directed by the "three pillars of Mexican cinema," Julio Bracho, Emilio Fernandez and Roberto Gavaldón. Explaining the significance of each of these directors was Mexican film historian and preservationist Daniela Michel. Before each film, she spoke about the actors and the filmmakers. She also pointed out that Mexican noir existed in parallel with American noir, as evidenced by our first feature being made in 1943.</div>
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<i>Distinto amanecer (Another Dawn)</i> occupied the top half of our Julio Bracho double bill. Octavio (Pedro Armendáriz) plays a union organizer who has incriminating papers on a very famous politician. The guy doesn't take too kindly to a potential exposé, so he has Octavio tailed by a hat-and-sunglasses-wearing "energy inspector" who looks like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWBhsiBMOIo" target="_blank">Father Guido Sarducci</a>'s older brother. Eventually, Father Sarducci's bro follows Octavio to the apartment of Julieta (Andrea Palma, who reminds one of Marlene Dietrich). She's Octavio's former flame and she's also married to someone else, a civil servant named Ignacio (Alberto Galán). Octavio and Ignacio have a history, but let's not go into that here. Instead, let's focus on that "energy inspector."</div>
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Julieta notices he's following Octavio and her at a movie theater. The theater is showing a film with a catchy song that seems to never end. As that song drones on, Bracho creates a Hitchcockian level of suspense. The inspector seems to know their every move, showing up repeatedly and even telling his cohorts that Octavio is hiding in the ladies' room. (Those henchmen are pretty stupid, opting not to follow Octavio through a security exit simply because someone tells them they can't exit there.) Thinking they've ditched their tail, Julieta is surprised to find him at her doorstep holding a bag of scones.</div>
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The duo tie him up. Throughout, the inspector very convincingly begs for his life, mentioning that he has a wife. When Octavio briefly steps out, he leaves his gun with Julieta. Soon, the inspector manages to free himself and winds up being shot dead by Julieta. One of the numerous plots driving this picture involves disposing of the body. This too is presented with a good amount of suspense.</div>
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<i>Distinto amanecer</i> has too much going on for a brief summary, but like many other films in this year's lineup, it casts an accusing eye on a corrupt agency and proceeds to criticize it in the strongest terms possible. I spent so much time on the inspector character here because the movie never recovers after he's bumped off. Things just aren't as intriguing, even if the story remains watchable. However, Bracho provides a bittersweet payoff of sorts when the inspector's wife shows up at Julieta's house looking for him. She muddies the water by saying he was an actual inspector. Then she eats the scones that were probably intended for her anyway. I was left wondering if the guy were simply a cog in that corrupt political machine forced to use his actual job as a front. Or perhaps he was just as evil as he seemed initially, and his poor wife was clueless about his shenanigans. I admit that this is all tangential to the protagonists' story, but sometimes the side streets are just as interesting as the main roads here in Noir City.</div>
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Our tour through the day now takes us to twilight. Bracho's <i>Crepusculo</i> <i>(Twilight)</i> is a twisty, flashback filled tale of obsession featuring absolutely zero occurrences of sparkly vampires or Kristen Stewart. This <i>Twilight</i> concerns a surgeon consumed with guilt over a failed operation. Dr. Mangino (Arturo de Córdova) is so wrapped up in the issue that he's written a book about it called, you guessed it, <i>Twilight</i>. Expect lots of gorgeous shots of the titular event courtesy of the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006384/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr4" target="_blank">very prolific</a> cinematographer, Alex Phillips.</div>
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Dr. Mangino first sees the object of his affection, the gorgeous Lucia (Gloria Marín), at a moment where she is literally being objectified. He walks into a sculpting class where she's the model. Phillips, Marín and Bracho beautifully play up the sensual aspect of this sequence, flirting with nudity while a simulated rapture crosses Lucia's face. In that moment, we're placed inside Mangino's obsession and we feel his euphoria, and the two fall into a romance interrupted by the doctor's fame and traveling engagements. Later, when Lucia discovers that Mangino has one of the sculptures, she comments that he's still managed to possess her even though she's now married to his brother, Ricardo.</div>
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If coming home to find your obsession is now your sister-in-law isn't bad enough, imagine now having <i>her</i> sister lusting after you. This love square can only end badly, and <i>Crepusculo </i>drops a few bombshell hints early on that it will not. For starters, Lucia mentions that Ricardo is dead and Dr. Mangino is no longer practicing surgery (instead he's teaching his book). Through flashbacks and eerie dream sequences, we learn the entire story and it's more than a bit soapy and melodramatic. But you'll get no complaints here--this is my kinda stew--and even if you find the proceedings a bit unbelievable, the atmosphere created by <i>Crepusculo</i> will still draw you in. Watching it feels like slowly drowning in a dense fog of dangerous desire, hoping for it to clear just long enough for you to catch your breath.</div>
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As night fell on Noir City, the evening double bill opened with the appropriately titled <i>La Noche Avanza (Night Falls)</i>. Reuniting us with Pedro Armendáriz, Roberto Gavaldón's 1952 feature was the most noirish of the four Mexican noirs. Matinee idol Armendáriz is fantastic as Marcos, a jai alai player who, to quote Eddie's introduction, is "a real shitheel." The Czar of Noir was being polite. Marcos is one of the most hissable villains to ever delight us denizens of Noir City. The man <i>kicks a dog</i> who dares walk too close to his fancy car, for cripe's sake! Don't worry! The dog gets his revenge in one of the most gonzo final acts I've ever seen. </div>
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Marcos' jai alai prowess comes with a heaping side of braggadocio and an extra helping of cruelty. He torments his teammates and treats the women he's involved with like dirt. The women include his latest flame, Sara (Anita Blanch), his older, rich lover Lucrecia (Eva Martino) and, most troublingly, the teenaged Rebeca (Rebeca Iturbide) whose adolescent longings Marcos horribly manipulates. However, Rebeca is the biggest thorn in Marcos' side and the potential key to his downfall. She owns some scandalous information that she uses in the hopes that Marcos will marry her. Knowing this, Marcos appeals to the patriarchial hierarchy represented by Rebeca's powerful father. These scenes are damning indictments of how men saw women as toys to be played with, then discarded.</div>
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<i>La Noche Avanza</i> invites you to bear unflinching witness to its anti-hero, but you can sense an undercurrent of contempt as if the movie, like the audience, is quivering with anticipation to see Marcos get his. Nowhere is this more evident than in its final 20 minutes; the film simultaneously tightens the screws of suspense while going completely off the rails plotwise. Gavaldón and the fearless Armendáriz play the audience like a violin, eliciting gasps and applause in the process. Just when it looks like Marcos' sinister plans will pay off for him, the film reveals the ultimate surprise as justice is meted out in the coldest way possible. Indeed, the darkest hour is just before dawn here in Noir City. </div>
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Last, but certainly not least is a prime example of Mexican <i>cabaretera</i> courtesy of Emilio Fernandez. He's been here before; Noir City XIV showed his cabaretera <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2014/01/noir-city-xii-2-matinee-of-mexican-noir.html" target="_blank"><i>Victimas del Pecado</i></a>, a film that elicited the biggest bout of applause I've heard at any Noir City I've attended. <i>Salón Mexico</i> tells a similar story--par for the genre--of a woman who goes to extreme lengths to protect and support a family member. She must work in a dancehall/cabaret, a shameful profession that guarantees the movie will have some killer musical numbers, and she will suffer as only the best martyrs can to ensure her familial goal will be met. As a kid, I called this type of movie "Stella Dallas movies" because that was the first film I'd ever seen like this. </div>
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Of course, more than dancing is going on at this dancehall. The protagonists of these films is usually the "hooker with the heart of gold" whose honor is defended by her own strength and the occasional devotion of a nice guy. Here, Mercedes (an excellent Marga Lopez) is putting the sister she has raised since their parents' died through a fancy private school so that she can avoid the struggles that will befall her without an education. As the film opens, Mercedes enters a dance contest with her pimp Paco (Rodolfo Acosta). She needs the money for this month's tuition. When Paco keeps the dough instead, Mercedes steals it back, an example of her take charge nature and refusal to be a victim. </div>
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Mercedes will face trial after trial before the end credits, and she'll work through them as best she can while earning the audience's hope that she succeeds. Looking after her is a kindly widowed police officer, Lupe (Miguel Inclán), who is in love with her but can't help her out of her situation financially. He becomes a guardian angel, which makes the viewer assume that he'll buy the farm in the movie's ultimate injection of darkness. What actually happens is far, far worse. Paco gets involved in criminal activity, dragging Mercedes into it with dire results. Meanwhile, her clueless, ungrateful brat of a sister whines that Big Sis won't come to her damn school plays! </div>
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Mercedes achieves her goals, but this is no happy ending. It's bittersweet at best. As much as I like these movies, and the "weepies" Hollywood churned out, I never held much affection for the people the protagonist sacrified themselves to save. As a kid, I wanted Barbara Stanwyck to bang on that window and explain everything, and on Saturday night I wanted Mercedes to beat her sister's ass while yelling "do you know the <i>mierda</i> I've been through for your trifling behind?!!" Alas, Noir City isn't about what I want, it's about what I need. And this year's slate of International Noirs fit that bill. </div>
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See you next year!</div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-73837740037515446392020-02-02T15:38:00.007-05:002020-11-15T10:33:21.043-05:00Noir City XVIII #6: The Devil Is In the Detailsby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Cinematography is my favorite aspect of a movie. Noir cin-tog ranks high on my list of the cinematic things I love. Color may be in fashion, but nothing gets me going like crisp, silvery, shadowy and sinister black and white. Thankfully, Noir City is full of this kind of imagery as evidenced by the two films covered in this dispatch. One is from Japan, the other from Germany, and they were both presented in 35mm prints that looked handed down personally by God. I've had the privilege to visit both countries (and <i>ich spreche Deutsch</i>, believe it or not), but never like the protagonists of this duo. </div>
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Let's start in Japan.</div>
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Masahiro Shinoda's 1964 classic <i>Pale Flower</i> (Kawaita Hana) combines the popular yakuza-style films popular with audiences with a love story that's so ice-cold it's actually hot. The two "lovers" never consummate their relationship--they don't even kiss--and yet every frame they share together smolders intensely. To use the purple phrase that adorned more than one pulp novel's front cover, these two are "addicted to thrills!" The result is truly hypnotic, thanks to Shinoda, his editor Yoshi Sugihara, his sound department and the movie's MVP, cinematographer Masao Kosugi. </div>
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Kosugi's camera loves the lead actress, Mariko Kaga, specifically her gaze. She stares silently out into the distance and her stillness evokes a series of sometimes contradictory responses. Is she reflecting evil? Boredom? Lust? Vengeance? Sadness? Or is she simply just existing from moment to moment, riding the ebb and flow of life by instinct and without contemplation? Whatever she's up to, she looks into the ether (and by extension, at us) with full knowledge of the secrets she's keeping. That aura of mystery propels the narrative and the interplay between her and Muraki (Ryô Ikebe). </div>
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Kaga plays Saeko, which, I kid you not, is pronounced <i>psycho</i>. Muraki first encounters her at a gambling den where his return is warmly received. Muraki has just been released from prison after serving time for killing a rival. The crime world to which he returns looks nothing like the one he left; opposing factions are now allies and Muraki feels like a samurai without a master. Even the moll who has waited loyally for him has lost her appeal. This ronin's journey feels aimless until he meets Saeko.</div>
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Shinoda sets several scenes in the gambling den, using the croupier's incessant, rhythmic chanting as a hypnotist's tool. The sound lulls us into the seductive world of playing games for cash. Even though there's no explanation of the rules of the game, it doesn't matter. This is all about mood and sensual response. Saeko is a high-roller, a rarity for a woman in these places, and she's fearless even when losing her shirt. Nothing fazes her. She doesn't even have that "I'll win my money back next time!" vibe that most gamblers vibrate with when they're losing. Saeko is so chill she puts the laissez in <i>laissez-faire</i>. </div>
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Of course, this intrigues Muraki. The sense of danger and the unknown cements his involvement with Saeko. She drives a fast car recklessly and laughs constantly as the adrenaline rush consumes her. Meanwhile, in the background of this tale of l'amour fou is a subplot that potentially offers Muraki a return to his assassin ways, in a sense giving him an expected purpose. </div>
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All this is presented in a cool, matter-of-fact fashion that's surprisingly sparse. Eddie Muller called this "an existential noir" and that's the best description of this gorgeous must-see. While you're at it, check out the story of actor Ikebe. It's fascinating, and once you know it, you'll understand how deeply entrenched he is in portraying his character's knowledge of failure and loss.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">R</span>obert Siodmak is a staple of Noir City, a man Czar of Noir Eddie Muller considers the foremost purveyor of film noir. Though he worked in Hollywood, and was born in Memphis, Siodmak was the son of Germans who took him back to be raised in Germany. Siodmak made his bones in Paris and Hollywood after fleeing the Nazis, but in 1957 he returned to his homeland to make <i>The Devil Strikes at Night</i>, a movie whose serial killer plotline serves as an entry point into a pessimistic tale of totalitarianism.</div>
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Siodmak's film feels like an encapsulation of all the themes and tropes we've seen here in Noir City 18--groupthink, high-level corruption, low-level scapegoats, etc. The trait most specifically seen here is the timeliness of the tale--it's as if these films are elder statesmen speaking to us from the depths of an earlier time to implore that we not allow history to repeat itself. The government cover up presented here looked eerily similar to what's going on here in America right now. It's surreal that this was the film that ran on Friday evening, considering what had happened earlier in the day.</div>
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<i>Devil</i> is based on the true story of Bruno Lüdke, an alleged serial killer played here by Mario Adorf. Lüdke may have murdered 51 people between 1933 and 1944, most of whom were women. We see the horrific results of his handiwork early on when he strangles a woman in a basement. Her innocent lover is charged, but Kriminalkommissar Axel Kersten (Claus Holm) doesn't believe they have the right party. Instead, he thinks this is the work of a repeat offender. Since Lüdke isn't the most careful of killers, he's eventually caught. The movie is half over when he is.</div>
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What happens next is what makes this film so urgently important today. Lüdke's capture after a decade long killing spree flies in the face of the image the German government wants to project about itself and its "pure" Aryan citizens, all of whom are supposed to be too perfect to ever be wrong or corruptible. Lüdke's existence presents a hellish Catch-22 of nationalistic idiocy: Germans like him aren't supposed to exist <i>and</i> the federal police are so good that they would have immediately caught him <i>had he existed</i>. A scapegoat is necessary to save face while Lüdke somehow needs to get swept under the rug.</div>
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Aided immeasurably by his cinematographer, Georg Krause, Siodmak presents some of the most harrowing visuals of this year's festival, putting this right up there with the earlier Czech film <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-4-ennui-from-latin-for.html" target="_blank"><i>...and the Fifth Horseman is Fear</i></a>. There's a masterful flashback sequence that puts us in a murderer's mind and several Hitchcockian touches that up the suspense while not undercutting the suffocating pessimism that infuses every minute. The film's final line and image really hammers that feeling home. As I said before, noir is one of the genres often imbued with allegory. Couple that with the standard cautionary tale characteristics and you occasionally get a terrifying warning like <i>The Devil Strikes at Night</i>. The even scarier question is: Will we listen?</div>
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<i>Next time: Closing things out with Mexican Noir</i><br />
<i>Last time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-5-to-victor-go-spoils.html" target="_blank">To the Victor go the spoils</a></i>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-87190426189705934382020-01-30T20:55:00.003-05:002020-01-30T20:55:57.510-05:00Noir City XVIII #5: To the Victor Go the Spoilsby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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It's tradition that I get a picture with the Noir City Poster Dame every year. I make sure I'm dressed up on the day I anticipate I'll have my shot. On Friday, I shall once again be in full Noir Attire as I eagerly await receiving a signed poster from this year's star, Ms. Victoria Mature! Yes, she's the daughter of Noir City regular (and one of my Mom's childhood crushes), Victor Mature. English noir night kicked off with a great mini-movie featuring Ms. Mature opposite her dad (through the magic of cinema, of course). It opened with the soon-to-be-long-lamented 20th Century-Fox logo and fanfare and ended with a cliffhanger they better resolve between now and Sunday!</div>
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Before a strikingly beautiful 35mm print of Mature's 1957 trucker thriller <i>The Long Haul</i> unspooled, Ms. Mature told some great stories about her Dad. She also sang a song from one of his films. We denizens of Noir City also belted out a familiar ditty: We all sang Happy Birthday to Victor Mature on what would have been his 107th birthday. Lest I forget, Ms. Mature repeated one of Papa Mature's most famous anecdotes and no, I'm not going to repeat it. You shoulda been there to hear it yourself!</div>
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The last time the Matures visited Noir City, it was for the Noir City XVI screening of <i>I Wake Up Screaming</i>. You can find my piece on that (and more pics of Victoria Mature) <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-1-for-mature-audiences.html" target="_blank">right here</a>. This time, Mr. Mature plays Harry Miller, an American ex-pat who longs to return to the good ol' USA after his stint in the military. His Liverpudlian wife, Connie (Gene Anderson) however, doesn't want to go back despite a cushy job awaiting her husband. She'd rather take their son to spend a few months in her hometown. To sweeten the deal, she tells Harry that her Uncle Casey has a trucking job he can do to make ends meet while he's trapped in the Beatles' hometown. "I'm going from working for Uncle Sam to working for Uncle Casey," says Harry. </div>
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In the pantheon of uncle types, Uncle Casey is the Corrupt Uncle. And he's not the only family member whose actions remind us that one should <i>never</i> work with family. The trucking company that employs Uncle Casey also gave a job to the corrupt brother of this film's femme fatale, Lynn. Lynn is portrayed by an uber-blonde and uber-hot Diana Dors. She's the moll of company boss Joe Easy (Patrick Allen), a man whose name just screams "noir villain."</div>
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When Harry busts up some guys trying to steal contraband from Uncle Casey's truck, he discovers that Uncle Casey is in on the take. And since the fish stinks from the head, Joe Easy is also in on the fraudulent and felonious activities. Easy is also quite abusive to Lynn, leading her to run off with Harry in his truck en route to Scotland. When they have to stop at a hotel for the night, director Ken Hughes directs the sequence with maximum suspense and sexual tension. One look at vulnerable Lynn and Harry's a goner.</div>
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Harry marital fidelity isn't the only thing that's gone with the wind--so is his entire truck! Sensing that he's been, um, had by Lynn, he storms right off into unemployment. Nobody will hire him to drive, and nobody will insure him if he is hired. Nobody, that is, except Joe Easy, who not only was behind the truck theft, but also has a bigger, more dangerous shipping deal for Harry. If he drives a truckload of stolen furs through treacherous territory to a boat headed for America, he can have a free ticket to ride home. Harry turns it down, at first, but you just know he's gonna have to drive that truck sooner or later. </div>
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Considering his name, you'd think Joe would like to do things nice and easy. But it's apparent early on that Joe never ever does anything nice and easy. He does it nice and rough, two words to explain the scenes of Harry driving that huge truck through situations that evoke memories of <i>The Wages of Fear</i>. Fur doesn't explode, but enough of it is capable of crushing a man flatter than a pancake. Had Hughes directed his 1968 feature Chitty Chitty Bang Bang with the relentlessness he applies to the fur truck heist, Dick van Dyke wouldn't have gotten out of that car alive.</div>
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I was a bit surprised by how <i>The Long Haul</i> handles Harry's adultery. Connie quickly finds out and confronts her husband. Later, when she meets Lynn under the worst of circumstances, she takes a swing at her. As the man in this triangle, Mature gives a great, conflicted performance. He's tough, tender and, by film's end, resigned to the cruel fate we've come to expect in Noir City. Dors is also quite good here. Her last scene culminates in a sad lament rather than a hot bullet. </div>
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The only person who gets a happy ending is the guy awaiting the hot furs. 'Tis bitter irony indeed!</div>
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Before he was Quilty, Dr. Strangelove, Chauncey Gardiner and Inspector Clouseau, Peter Sellers was Lionel Meadows, owner of a chop shop fronting as a legitimate car business. And he was <i>evil</i>! You've never seen Sellers like this--he's so vile in 1960's <i>Never Let Go</i> that he made me think of Ben Kingsley's brilliant turn in <i>Sexy Beast</i>. Sellers isn't as good as Kingsley, but it's equally shocking to see him turn to the dark side with reckless abandon. Meadows is a rapist, an animal killer and doesn't mind using a broken bottle to go after anyone who pisses him off.</div>
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This nasty piece of work gets entangled with John Cummings (Richard Todd), a salesman for a beauty company whose car was nicked by one of Meadows' minions early in the film. Cummings' car is the key to his future success--or so he thinks. The guy is a rather incompetent dreamer who never sees things through and expects the world to bend to his mediocrity. Cummings becomes obsessed with getting his car back by any means necessary. Even after Meadows causes one witness to commit suicide, breaks into Cummings' house and menaces his family, beats him to a pulp and repeatedly threatens him, Cummings keeps coming back like a bad slasher movie killer. You almost expect him to yell "DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR!?" as he breaks into Meadows' garage.</div>
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And it's an ugly car! Good Lord! It's so ugly, Cummings doesn't even have it insured for theft. So unless the cops get it back, he's gonna spend years paying for a car he doesn't own. Of course, he can't make those payments if he's dead, but that's not going to stop this fool. While it's actually quite fun watching Todd adamantly portray his character's obsessions, I secretly rooted for him to get his ass kicked right out of the screen. Director John Guillermin seems to have some affection for single-minded beasts of burden--he directed the 1976 version of <i>King Kong</i>--and that sympathy leads <i>Never Let Go</i> to end on a hopeful note that I'm not sure it deserved. Still, Sellers is the selling point here. He keeps the tension ratcheted up to insane levels, pulling us through the type of ringer we just love getting squeezed through here in Noir City.</div>
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A few quick words on the second feature of Czech Noir night, <i>90 Degrees in the Shade</i>. This British-Czech production directed by Jiri Weiss was made with the same actors in two versions, one English and one Czech. We witnessed the English version starring Anne Heywood as a woman involved in an illicit affair with her boss. When a new auditor shows up to take inventory of the store, we slowly learn that Heywood and her sleazy lover are involved in a messy plan to make cash by selling expensive booze and swindling their parent company. Despite being the star of nunsploitaion movies (and naked in this one), Heywood is easily upstaged by Czech actor Rudolf Hrusínský as the auditor. He's the most interesting character in the film, and Weiss gives us a lot more of his backstory than one would expect. He even teases that Heywood might give this rather homely looking man something far stronger than a drink. </div>
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The story wobbles back and forth between past and present, and while the tale of the corrupt lovers fits the noir bill, I kept wanting to see more of Hrusinsky and his process. He's intimidating in a Columbo kind of way--he knows they did it but he can't yet put his finger on how--and I found my attention waning a bit when he was offscreen. It's rare that I'd choose the geeky dude over the femme fatale, but that's the direction the liquor poured from the flask here in Noir City. </div>
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<i>Next time: Japan and Germany Do the Noir Thing</i><br />
<i>Last time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-4-ennui-from-latin-for.html" target="_blank">Buona Boring, Mr. Antonioni</a></i>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-44167183174280786762020-01-29T20:45:00.000-05:002020-01-30T11:56:18.833-05:00Noir City XVIII #4: Ennui, from the Latin for BORINGby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Just before the first feature on Italian Noir night, Czar of Noir Eddie Muller described acclaimed director Michelangelo Antonioni's take on <i>Story of a Love Affair</i> by saying something to the effect of "he's more concerned with the ennui of these people than actually telling the story." I'm paraphrasing, but the Czar certainly used the word <i>ennui</i>. It's one of my two favorite privilege signifiers; the other is <i>eccentric</i>. I'd never forget any mention of either. </div>
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How is it a "privilege signifier?" Well, have you ever heard anybody with no money suffering from ennui or described as eccentric? Nope. If you're rich and crazy, you're <i>eccentric</i>. If you're poor and crazy, you're just <i>batshit</i>. And if you're hustling to make ends meet, as many of the characters who populate Noir City are, you ain't got time for what Oxford defines as <i>a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. </i></div>
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<i></i>Alas, the characters in Antonioni's 1950 debut are infused with ennui and the director most definitely isn't interested in focusing on the noirish bonafides of his story. I have stated before that I am not a fan of Antonioni's work <b>at all</b>. The only joy I've ever gleaned from his watching-paint-dry oeuvre is the montage of exploding imagery in <i>Zabriskie Point</i> and the super-cool way Jack Nicholson said "Antonioni" in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW1-zJbsf-k" target="_blank">this clip</a> of the director receiving his Honorary Oscar. In fact, I was going to use Italian noir night as the "get out of Noir City free" card I always save for one day every festival, but I was told that this was Antonioni before he was, well, Antonioni. Admittedly, I was intrigued! Like many a man in the noir movies I adore, I was a damn fool!</div>
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Though the story has echoes of <i>The Postman Always Rings Twice</i>, there isn't a moment in <i>Story of a Love Affair</i> that crackles with the electricity of the moment Lana Turner drops her lipstick and the camera gets a shot of her legs. Hell, there isn't even a glint of the 80's era absurdity soaking the remake that starred the aforemented Mr. Nicholson. At some point, we can assume that Paola (Lucia Bose) will not-so-subtly hint that former (and current) lover Guido (Massimo Girotti) should off the husband who stands between them and sheer bliss. It's even implied that, back in the day, she literally gave the shaft to her prior competitor for Guido's affections. The guy investigating that mysterious death by elevator looms in the background, as if waiting for Paola to slip up and commit another crime of passion. </div>
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We're waiting too. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. "Look lady! Just ask the man to kill yo' huzzband already!!" I wanted to shout as the ninth hour of this movie rolled along. "I got laundry to do!" Instead, we're trapped in Paola's Ennui, which sounds like a perfume that smells of the itchy feet John Garfield kept mentioning in <i>Postman</i>. The movie looks like the commercial for that fragrance, which isn't a criticism to be honest. Not even I can dispute Antonioni's visuals. But by the time the film crawls to as ending that's far more anti-climactic than ironic, I was wondering if SCTV had ever done a parody of it. </div>
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During his introduction to the first feature of Czech Noir night, Eddie mentioned another director with whom I have a long history of dislike, David Lynch. However, Lynch has made two movies that I've put on my ten best of the year lists AND he managed to fool me into watching one-and-a-half seasons of <i>Twin Peaks</i>. Lynch is many things but he is certainly not boring. Nor is ...<i>And the Fifth Horseman is Fear</i>, director Zbynêk Brynych's very political and exceptionally harrowing tale of Nazi-era paranoia set in a sprawling yet claustrophobic apartment building. It's a perfect fit for this year's festival; the groupthink-led tragedy of Brynych's film has a kindred spirit in <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-2-at-this-point-im-what.html" target="_blank"><i>Panique</i></a>, and the director's masterful use of the geography of a building is eerily reminiscent of <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-3-everybody-ought-to.html" target="_blank"><i>The Housemaid</i></a>.</div>
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This film's allegorical bonafides are aces. It makes no attempt to be period-accurate, opting instead to fool the Iron Curtain censors of the time by constantly making reference to Nazi occupation. However, any viewer watching in 1965 saw right through that ruse and knew immediately that Brynych was conducting a contemporary dissection of life in his country. </div>
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Miroslav Machácek plays docent Brown who, against his better judgment, helps a man who has been mysteriously shot. His neighbors include a kid who seems to be everywhere, a family with a maid, an excitable old lady with a dog and Fanta (Josef Vinklár), whose mousy appearance hides the potential danger that he's an informer, especially when he inadvertently witnessed the mysterious man with Brown.</div>
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<i>...And the Fifth Horseman is Fear</i> launches an unrelenting sensory assault on the viewer. There's a well-edited chaos to many scenes, most notably when sinister government officials invade the building looking for any signs of dissent. The sound design, and the nerve-shredding musical score, are invaluable assets to the film's ability to disturb. Folks who thought this year's <i>Uncut Gems</i> dragged them through the ringer should give this a look to see what true relentlessness looks like. A classic of the same Czech New Wave that first brought Milos Forman to audiences' attention, <i>...And the Fifth Horseman is Fear</i> is a must-see. And that title is just brilliant.</div>
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<i>Next time: More Czech Cinema and Evil Inspector Clouseau<br />Last time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-3-everybody-ought-to.html" target="_blank">Evil Maid, Bonkers Movie</a></i>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-50359119517221798452020-01-27T20:09:00.002-05:002020-01-29T20:45:34.801-05:00Noir City XVIII #3: Everybody Ought to Have A Maid...Except SOME Peopleby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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There's a broken heart for every light on Broadway, and a cautionary tale for every busted corner streetlight in Noir City. Lucky for us denizens, our antiheroes never learn their lessons and are thereby doomed to repeat them: They pick the wrong pocket, rob the wrong joint, stare at the wrong anklet and trust the wrong people. And boy howdy, do they pay for it! They get what's comin' to 'em! And if they're lucky, Barton Keyes delivers their eulogy while lighting their cigarette. </div>
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It's such sweet schadenfreude!</div>
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Not only did Sunday bring us a double feature of South Korean noir, it brought what is easily the most entertainingly bonkers movie I've seen at this festival since Eddie showed Robert Siodmak's 1942 kitchen-sink classic, <a href="https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/noir-city-2-thanks-for-the-haircut-delilah/" target="_blank"><i>Fly-By-Night</i></a>. That remains the most fun I've ever had watching a movie at Noir City. But now we have a competitor for that title in Kim Ki-young's 1960 film <i>The Housemaid</i>. This movie has everything! Poison! Murder! Adultery! Young Lust! Old Stupidity! Sewing Machine Exhaustion! Dangerous staircases! Piano Lessons! Greed! Class Warfare! Obnoxious Little Brat Boys! Smart, Wily Little Girls! Horror Movie Jump Scares! Juicy Mel-o-DRAMA!!</div>
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And of course, a very, very, very, VERY bad maid.</div>
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One could draw parallels between <i>The Housemaid</i> and <i>The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, Fatal Attraction</i> or any number of other thrillers featuring an individual who wreaks havoc on protagonists who aren't as blameless as they seem. But watching this rightfully classified masterpiece of Korean cinema, I thought of a cross between the middle class "woe is me" of Albert Brooks' <i>Lost in America</i> with the ever-escalating, pitch-black comic transgressions of Danny De Vito's <i>The War of the Roses</i>. As Hyun Jin Cho pointed out in her intro, the Korean middle class was taking shape and rising in 1960, and director Kim Ki-young's unsparing take on their desire to keep up with the Joneses caused a lot of moviegoers' jaws to drop. She mentioned that moviegoers were yelling "KILL THE HOUSEMAID!" at the screen. You might question some of those notions while watching.</div>
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It's best to go into this film blind. I'll keep the description brief. A married couple, Mr. Kim (Kim Jin-kyu) and his wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) have moved into a new house they can barely afford. They have two children, a bratty little boy and a sensitive, yet very astute daughter who needs crutches to get around. Mrs. Kim is a seamstress who seems to be sewing the exact same piece of material for the entire movie, and Mr. Kim gives piano and music lessons to female clientele who work with him at the factory. Of course, some of the women in his music class develop crushes on the older man, but he is quite adamant in resisting them.</div>
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Enter Myung-sook (Lee Eun-shim), a young woman with pigtails that reminded me of Pippi Longstocking and every Black girl I've ever known in my life. For reasons way too complicated (and revealing) to go into here, Myung-sook becomes the live-in maid. The Kims can barely afford to make ends meet, but as Sondheim famously wrote, everybody ought to have a maid. Sondheim didn't mean the kind of maid Myung-sook becomes, but I guarantee you his dark sensibilities would have appreciated her efforts.</div>
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Bad things happen whenever Myung-sook is around. And Kim ki-Young gets maximum mileage out of placing his camera in the house's kitchen cabinets, especially the one that has a strategically placed box of rat poisin in it. (The rat poison gets more screen time than many of the secondary characters.) Things get progressively worse, and then the characters start making decisions that would definitely get you talking to the screen in less than polite company. The screws really tighten on the viewer, to the point where you lean forward in your seat to make sure you're seeing what you're seeing. </div>
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It's such sweet schadenfreude!</div>
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To say more would be criminal. Instead, I'll quote Sondheim again: <i>The Housemaid</i> has "something appealing, something appalling, something for everyone." </div>
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Noir City regular Jean Gabin got a double feature during Saturday's day of French noir, The matinee film, <i>Razzia</i>, finds him efficiently and ruthlessly supervising the drug trade in Paris. This being 1955, Hollywood wouldn't have touched this narcotics-based plotline, let alone had one of its biggest stars oversee it. Eddie Muller compared Gabin's casting to Jimmy Stewart being cast as a drug boss which, of course, had me immediately envisioning a machine-gun holding Stewart yelling "uh, say hello to m-my little FRIEND!" from behind a moutain of cocaine. </div>
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Gabin has always reminded me of Robert Mitchum, and that stoic Mitchum presence is on full display here. He watches stone-faced as some really messed up stuff goes down, including a very questionable sequence where future Oscar-winner Lila Kedrova visits an all-Black drug den and does anything for drugs. (Soderbergh clearly saw this picture before he presented a far more vile version of this scene in <i>Traffik</i>.) Gabin's star-power and his fine acting go a long way, managing to convince us he can be heartless as well as be the object of affection of a much younger woman who immediately falls for him. (Who wouldn't?)</div>
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Adding a good deal of fun in a supporting role is Lino Ventura as one half of Gabin's enforcer duo. He's tough as nails and gets to off several people before the final credits. There's more than a bit of <i>French Connection</i>-style atmosphere here, though of course, this precedes that movie by 16 years. </div>
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It wouldn't be a French Noir City day without director Jean-Pierre Melville. He's represented here by Le Doulos, a crime drama I didn't find entirely successful but was still worth watching. Melville's usual honor-amongst-thieves ideas are at play here, featuring <i>Breathless</i>' Jean-Paul Belmondo and future painter and singer Serge Reggiani. With the idea of long tracking shots currently in vogue due to Sam Mendes' lackluster <i>1917</i>, I should point out that this film opens with a very nice long shot of Reggiani walking (and walking and walking) under bridges and on the street while the opening credits roll. </div>
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For at least an hour, <i>Le Doulos</i> does not make ONE LICK OF SENSE. Eventually, things coalesce, but your patience may have long run out before then. There are a lot of double-crosses and people come and go without much explanation. There's also a lot of testoterone soaking the screen here, and the women don't fare very well at all. One unlucky lady is brutalized for a very long time onscreen, which some member of our audience found amusing enough to laugh out loud. Usually, the audiences here are respectful and very much into the films, but on occasion, we have the type of NYC art theater idiot I come to this festival to escape from every January. While I realize this isn't the nicest way to end a dispatch, it is what it is. I hope I don't have to do this again.</div>
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<i>Next time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-4-ennui-from-latin-for.html" target="_blank">Will I Make My Peace With Boring Ass Antonioni</a>?</i><br />
<i>Last time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-2-at-this-point-im-what.html" target="_blank">Panic at the Festival</a></i>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-61694877922953895642020-01-27T14:58:00.003-05:002020-01-29T20:46:10.359-05:00Noir City XVIII #2: At This Point I'm What The French Call de tropby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Saturdays in Noir City have always been an endurance test for the faithful. Nowadays, there are two movies at the matinee, two in the evenings. It can be as exhiliarating as it is exhausting. And yet, I've been around these parts long enough to remember when there were <b><i>five</i></b> movies on Saturdays. I shall not complain about this rare bit of mercy bestowed from above by the powers that be; it's the only bit of mercy I'll be talking about today.</div>
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Last time, I said there was nothing new under the Sun. Nowhere is that more evident than here in Noir City, where themes that were presented 50, 60, or even 70 years ago feel as timely now as they did back then. This is especially true of films where a mob mentality provides the requisite levels of darkness we expect from this festival. We've seen it before in prior entries like <i>Fury</i>, <i><a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-2-monsters-are-still-due.html" target="_blank">The Well</a> </i>and the film that, coincidentally, ran on TCM's Noir Alley Saturday night, <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2013/01/noir-city-11-2-wicked-worlds-of-whale.html" target="_blank"><i>Try and Get Me</i></a>. Several hours before that excellent film hit the tee-vee, the Castro Theatre projected <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0245213/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Julien Duvivier</a>'s panic-filled <i>Panique</i>.</div>
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Duvivier, the much-respected writer-director of such classics as <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2014/02/noir-city-xii-7-last-stop-on-train-to.html" target="_blank"><i>Pepe Le Moko</i></a>, teams up with French acting legend Michel Simon to craft a heartbreaking tale of an oddball neighbor falsely accused of murder. For the source material of the first film he made after returning to France from Hollywood, Duvivier chose <i>Mr. Hire's Engagement</i>, a novel by prolific Belgian writer <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0799442/" target="_blank">Georges Simenon</a>. Simon plays the titular character, a bearded, antisocial man who likes his butchered meat bloody and his social interactions salty. His small town neighbors dislike him intensely, and the feeling is mutual. But he pays his rent on time and appears to be more eccentric than dangerous.</div>
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Everyone's perspective on Mssr. Hire changes when a woman is murdered. Duvivier tips his hand vis-a-vis how he'll visually handle the subject of mob mentality in this early scene. Practically the entire town stops to gawk at the dead woman's body, crowding it so much that the police worry that evidence may be compromised. Unlike Mssr. Hire, the victim was considered harmless, perhaps even respectable. Gossip starts to spread, but for now, cooler heads prevail.</div>
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Meanwhile, the actual murderer is being reunited with his lover Alice (the awesomely named Vivienne Romance). Alice is truly <i>ride or die</i>, to use that old hip-hop standby phrase--she just did a four year bid for her man. Honestly, I thought this guy was a slimy heel who didn't even look hot enough to do time for, but I digress. If you want to know why she did it, go ask Alice.</div>
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Speaking of asking Alice, Mssr. Hire awkwardly propositions her for a date. He's been watching her from his window and she's seen him doing so. He gives her the creeps, but eventually she acquiesces when her man devises a plan to frame Hire for the murder. Alice will string him along like a lovesick puppy before planting evidence in his apartment linking him to the crime.</div>
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What's most interesting about the dynamics of the Hire-Alice "romance" is that <i>Panique</i> doesn't make Hire a completely innocent bystander; he uses a bit of almost-blackmail to worm his way into his object of affection's good graces. Hire reveals early on that he knows Alice's lover did the murder and he uses that as a leverage point. Hire could simply turn this evidence in to the police but he doesn't because he believes it's the only way to get such a beautiful femme fatale to fall for him. In that regard, Mssr. Hire is guilty, but the resulting punishment doesn't fit the crime.</div>
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Also intriguing is how, for a time, Mssr. Hire seems to be ahead of the bad guy. He has a sense of criminal behavior more akin to an Agatha Christie detective than a socially awkward misfit who, in his words, "sells hope" to people under the guise of a fortune teller. When he's accosted by Alice's man, Hire not only outsmarts him, he physically humiliates him. There's more under the surface than we're originally led to believe, and Simon and Duvivier have fun peeling back the layers for us.</div>
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There's also more under the surface of the movie itself. Like science fiction and horror, noir has often been used for allegorical purposes. Here, Duvivier was making a thinly-veiled statement about how Nazi-inspired fear and paranoia affected many of his compatriots during WWII. The veil was so thin that <i>Panique</i> caused an uproar when released in 1946, almost derailing Duvivier's career. </div>
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When the townsfolk are finally whipped into a frenzy, partially by gossip but mostly by a self-righteous desire to oust Mssr. Hire by any means necessary, <i>Panique</i> becomes truly unsettling. By this time, we've learned a lot more about the doomed party, how he became so misanthropic and that his lovesickness is truly genuine, and we start to feel for him in much the same manner Alice does. But unlike Alice, we're not ride or die, so when the time comes for her to stand up for what's right, she stays quiet when we hope she'll speak up. The end result is one of the bigger kicks to the gut I've taken here in Noir City. It made me think of the current social media climate, especially on Twitter, where the oft-misinformed court of public opinion is always presided over by a hanging judge. Like I said, nothing new under the Sun. </div>
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I'll talk about some of the other French movies from Saturday's adventure next time, as well as the most bonkers movie I've seen at Noir City in a good long while. For now, I'll close out with one of the rare Noir City movies I outright didn't like. As part of the South Korean double feature, Czar of Noir Eddie Muller showed 1964's Lee Man-Hee mobcentric crime drama <i>Black Hair</i>. It's an important film from the first heyday of Korean cinema during the 1960's. Hyun Jin Cho of the Korean Culture Center UK brought the DCP we viewed on Sunday with her on her flight to San Francisco the night before, and she also brought to the pre-film introductions a lot of wonderful, entertaining and informative tidbits about the directors, stars and the political atmosphere during the time these films were made. My own personal opinion should take nothing away from the historical importance of a film like <i>Black Hair</i>. </div>
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However, I found myself curiously uninvolved here. It's not the fault of the lead actress, Moon Jung-Suk, whose protagonist carries a dignity and a grace that is fascinating to watch, nor is it with the sex workers subplot which, to my relief and astonishment, was handled with surprising respect for a film made in 1964. My problem was with the main plot itself, which relegated Moon to the background of her own story in favor of having the man who loves her and the man who wronged her both fight for her honor rather than allowing her to have a major stake in the story. Whenever she's offscreen, the film sags underneath the weight of dull mob machinations. Though there's some tenderness between hero and villain late in the film that complicates matters in an unusual fashion, and a shocking bit of gore, Black Hair ultimately didn't work for me. Even so, I'll take a daring failure in Noir City over a minor cinematic success anywhere else in the universe.</div>
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<i>Next time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-3-everybody-ought-to.html" target="_blank">More Fun With French Criminals and a Scary Korean Maid</a>.</i><br />
<i>Last time: <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2020/01/noir-city-xviii-1-dear-diary-youll.html" target="_blank">The opening double feature</a>. </i></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-63072565154536380332020-01-25T15:15:00.001-05:002020-01-25T15:15:51.352-05:00Noir City XVIII #1: Dear Diary, You'll Never Guess Who I Killed Today by Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Noir City is back with a vengeance...an <i>international </i>vengeance!</div>
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The world's greatest film fetival rolls back into the Castro Theatre for another year of murderous intent, vengeful lovers, unknowing victims and delectably sinister black and white cinematography. As usual, we denizens of Noir City are ready to take that plunge into the darkness that pre-emptively promises "no happy endings." And as with <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2014/02/one-stop-shopping-noir-city-xii.html" target="_blank">Noir City XII</a>, the lineup of films truly lives up to the festival's motto <i>it's a bitter little world</i>; we're gonna see how moviegoers around the world got their gigantic needle injections of noir. </div>
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Once again, our tour guide on the journey into the heart of darkness is the Czar of Noir (and host of TCM's <a href="http://noiralley.tcm.com/" target="_blank">Noir Alley</a>), Eddie Muller. Before he took the stage for the opening night double feature of Argentine noir, we were treated to a sexy and dangerous onstage tango, followed by this year's festival trailer by the always-great Serena Bramble. From there, Eddie was joined in his introduction by this year's Noir City Poster Dame, Victoria Mature. </div>
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Ms. Mature's Pa, Victor, will have his day in the sun--or rather, his shot in the dark--later in the festival. Opening night was all about the country responsible for Buenos Aires and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evita_(musical)" target="_blank">Patti LuPone's first Tony</a>. Providing some context to the fascinating world of Argentine cinema was historian Fernando Martín Peña, the man who brought these films to Eddie's attention and who was seeing these gorgeous restorations for the first time just as we were.</div>
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<i>The Besst Must Die (La Bestia Debe Morir)</i> sounds like a horror movie and, until last night's premiere, it was a title I most associated with the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071200/" target="_blank">1974 werewolf movie</a> starring Calvin Lockhart and Peter Cushing. Like that cheesy delight, this film is also a mystery, a whodunit whose victim really had it coming. Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia), patriarch of the Rattery clan, is a horrible excuse for a human being. He's so vile that the title is way too polite in its description--a stronger B-word is most definitely required for him. He openly flaunts his marital affairs, is abusive to the point of intolerable cruelty, is financially loaded and is surrounded by a group of yes-people who eagerly lean into and endorse his toxic masculinity. Sound like any politicians we know? </div>
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Adding to the misery of his long-suffering wife, Violeta (Josefa Goldar) is Jorge's evil mother, listed in the IMDB credits as "Madre de Jorge" as if the utterance of her government name would turn the listener into stone. Milagros de la Vega plays her like a coiled cobra ready to strike at any moment with verbal vitriol. She spends her screen time happily torturing Violeta by pointing out her son's affairs and chiding her for not taking his abuse like a "Rattery woman" should. Jorge's Mama makes Mrs. Danvers look like Mister Rogers.</div>
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Since it's revealed early, it's no spoiler to state that someone bumps off Jorge with the old reliable noir standby, poison. Strychnine, to be exact, the first of many allusions to the word "rat" in the screenplay by Narciso Ibáñez Menta and director Román Viñoly Barreto. Strychnine is what's being used to poison the vermin in the garage of Carpax (Nathán Pinzón), one of Jorge's cronies and enablers. Carpax is there when Jorge takes his fatal swig, as are Violeta, her abused son Ronnie, Carpax's wife and Jorge's lover Rhoda (Beba Bidart) and Violeta's sister Linda (Laura Hidalgo). Linda immediately garners our suspicion when, instead of calling 911 during Jorge's death throes, she calls Felix Lane (Narciso Ibáñez Menta).</div>
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Who is Felix Lane? And what does his seemingly incriminating diary have to do with the plot? Menta has written a juicy part for himself here--Lane's a writer (real name: Frank Carter) who specializes in murder mysteries. His book titles all begin with "Murder" and are hilariously listed off in a scene where he bonds with young Ronnie. Felix Lane has a tragic secret and an unquenchable thirst for revenge. He also has the patience of a saint, carefully biding his time as he bonds with volatile actress Linda in the flashbacks that take up most of the film. Linda becomes involved with "Felix the Cat" as she calls him in order to provide a buffer between herself and the lecherous Jorge, who can't resist pawing her every single time they're in frame together. Lane goes along because Linda may hold the key to solving the mystery of his young son's brutal murder. Yes, Jorge is involved.</div>
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In his opening remarks, Peña told us that director Barreto was known for two things in his films: they start and end with Biblical quotes and they involve the death of a child. There's also much empathy for children. <i>La Bestia Debe Morir'</i>s purest relationship is the paternal one between Ronnie and Felix, two lost souls who, for a time find kindred spirits in one another. Of course, this being noir, even that non-toxic relationship can't end happily, which is not to say <i>it doesn't end well</i>. For this, we can thank Nicholas Blake, the author whose book was adapted into this movie. Like Felix Lane, Nicholas Blake was also a pseudonym, this time for Cecil Day-Lewis. You may have heard of his kid, Daniel Day-Lewis, in your cinematic travels.</div>
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Speaking of Biblical quotes, <i>La Bestia Debe Morir</i> gets its title from that most quotable of Old Testament books, Ecclesiastes. The preacher's kid whose words you are currently reading shall now dip back into his days of holding the King James Bible to quote chapter 3, verse 19: <i>"For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other." </i>Ecclesiastes also tells us there's nothing new under the Sun, and as far as familiar plot twists and turns go, that's a rare comfort to be found here in Noir City. </div>
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The night's second feature was also directed by Barreto and has a title more suitable for a horror movie. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to describe <i>El Vampiro Negro</i> as such. This is a harrowing remake of Fritz Lang's <i>M</i>, but with a maternal slant that's absolutely fascinating. Back in 2014, when Noir City first went international, I wrote:</div>
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<i>A respect for contradictory, human personalities makes El Vampiro Negro so compelling. This respect extends to the child killer, Teodoro, a professor whose lousy luck with women has fueled his murderous tendencies toward little girls. Like Peter Lorre before him, Nathán Pinzón plays the murderer as a man fully conscious of his horrific desires but unable to control them. The sight of blood satiates his passions, and at times he resorts to self-mutilation to keep the demons at bay. But the demons usually win, and when Rita's daughter is taken by Teodoro, the audience is suitably terrified. We've come to know Rita, to like her and even be angry at her withholding her witness testimony earlier, so this development has a sick, karmic energy.<br /><br />The child-in-peril motif can be a lazy way to generate suspense, but Barreto doesn't go for easy shocks. Teodoro responds to Rita's daughter in an unexpected fashion, which may be even sicker than what the audiences fears.</i></div>
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The rest of that article can be found <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2014/02/noir-city-xii-6-grisly-death-of.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Jet lag prevented me from staying to view the new restoration in its entirety, but what I saw was drop-dead gorgeous, a deserving outcome for one of the best movies I've seen in all my years of attending this festival. In an especially noirish twist, Nathán Pinzón, the guy who plays the comic role of Carpax in <i>La Bestia Debe Morir</i> plays the Peter Lorre role in this movie. Everybody has a dark side, especially if they're working the streets of Noir City.</div>
<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-47321468173219066522019-02-02T15:29:00.004-05:002019-02-02T15:29:57.508-05:00Noir City XVII: #6: A Miracle Worker, a Broadway Baby and a Pin-Up Girl Walk Into a Noir...by Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Elaine Stritch was a Broadway legend, an irascible force who lit up the Great White Way singing Sondheim and donning a personae that, quite frankly, would have been right at home in Noir City. Her signature song, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=virv-1o2KjE" target="_blank"><i>The Ladies Who Lunch</i></a>, is a self-aware, tough-dame anthem floating in a sea of booze and cynicism. And her take on Sondheim's <i>I'm Still Here</i> remains a masterful middle finger raised toward that which does not kill you. Noir was in this lady's nightly repetoire! </div>
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So I shouldn't have been surprised when Ms. Stritch turned up in Michael Curtiz's <i>The Scarlet Hour</i>. She's the sidekick of the adulterous Paulie Nevins (Carol Omhart), and though this is Stritch's cinematic debut, she's already commanding the spotlight. Her Phyllis Rycker is a slightly more gruff Eve Arden--there's more vodka in her verbal stingers--and Stritch is a delight here. "I wore a bathing suit in that," she told Alan K. Rode when he called to interview her for his essential Curtiz book <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Curtiz-Life-Screen-Classics/dp/0813173914">Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film</a> </i>and boy, does she!</div>
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Phyllis is here to advise her pal Paulie, a gal who was in the right place at the wrong time. During an outdoor tryst with her lover Marsh (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tryon" target="_blank">Tom Tryon</a>), Paulie overhears plans for the robbery of a nearby mansion. The chatty criminals, who think they're alone in the woods, lay out the entire heist including its monetary worth, allowing for the lovers to pull it off themselves should that thought arise. Since this is a noir, that thought most definitely arises. Paulie needs that money to escape her rich husband James Gregory's clutches. Gregory is suspicious that his wife is being unfaithful, but he doesn't yet know that Paulie is keeping her affair close to home--Marsh is Gregory's right-hand man at work.</div>
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Though Paulie is the catalyst for downfall here, we don't feel any sympathy for Gregory. In fact, <i>The Scarlet Hour</i> pushes our sympathies toward Paulie by showing Gregory dispense a shockingly brutal beatdown to his wife after she returns home late. Curtiz pans the camera to their shadows on the ceiling, which makes the scene even more violent than if he'd shown the actors. Paulie's plans become even more desperate when Gregory later decides to take her away on a long trip "to save their marriage." He leaves the run of the company in Marsh's hands.</div>
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Marsh is unaware that the man he's cuckolding knows he's doing it. Gregory records a message to his secretary Kathy (Jody Lawrence) where he reveals that he's onto Marsh and that he's going to divorce the hell out of Paulie, leaving her broke. When Marsh hears this message, he deletes it, but it seals the deal for him to acquiesce to Paulie's wishes. He successfully pulls off robbing the guys who pulled the heist. </div>
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As usual, things go wrong, very wrong. Curtiz and his screenwriters Rip Van Ronkel (what a name!) and Frank Tashlin (yes, that Frank Tashlin) have lots of fun throwing out unexpected twists. For example, wait until you find out who orchestrated this robbery. And who else has heard that message Marsh thinks he deleted. And how it all plays out in the end. </div>
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<i>The Scarlet Hour</i> is an entertaining ride through the Tunnel of Noir, made all the more fun by Curtiz's little meta touches. When police lieutenant E.G. Marshall questions Marsh, Tryon reveals that Marsh is short for "E.V. Marshall." There's also a scene in a record store where an album of Bing Crosby's <i>White Christmas</i> is used as product placement for Curtiz's 1954 movie version. You think you cute, Michael Curtiz, but we see you!</div>
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One other note: Curtiz's reputation as a star-maker sort of backfired when it came to Omhart (who is actually pretty good here) and Tryon. They didn't become huge movie stars, but Tryon did have a later career as a prominent screenwriter and novelist. He even adapted his novel <i>The Other</i> into a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_(1972_film)">really warped horror movie</a> helmed by the last person you'd associate with terror, Robert Mulligan.</div>
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It's 1956 in Noir City, and Thursday night was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Goodis" target="_blank">David Goodis</a> night. The acclaimed crime fiction writer was represented by two intriguing films, one of which Goodis scripted himself. The top of the double bill featured the inspiration for Brad Pitt's name in <i>Inglorious Basterds</i> and Mrs. Robinson herself, Anne Bancroft. The bottom half features a dangerous blonde whose husband was once played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in a TV movie!</div>
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Unlike Paulie in our prior feature, Aldo Ray's James Vanning is in the wrong place at the wrong time when he becomes embroiled in a heist plot. His fishing buddies turn out to be holding a bag full of stolen loot. That bag somehow explains the two crazed killers who are constantly tailing Vanning. Things get sticky when Vanning meets up with Bancroft's clothing "mannequin" Marie Gardner in a bar. Their Meet Cute involves half a sawbuck, snappy repartee and shots of whisky. It looks like Ms. Gardner may be trying to seduce James!</div>
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Unfortunately, Marie was merely bait to keep James occupied until his fishing buddies show up. They put a hurting on James, but he's adamant he has no idea where the money is. He suspects it's still in the fishing area, under a ton of snow. Ray emanates a weary vulnerability in this scene; like Thelma Ritter's pickpocket from a prior Noir City night, his tired resignation resonates with the viewer. But James escapes his captors, returning to the one place he can think of: Marie Gardner's apartment.</div>
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Marie believes James and offers to help him. This leads to Bancroft strutting her stuff at a lovely fashion show and a tense, snowy confrontation between hero and villains. And flashbacks, lots of flashbacks! This film is a Russian nesting doll of flashbacks. Screenwriter Stirling "In the Heat of the Night" Silliphant must have gotten paid by the flashback, because it gets ridiculous!</div>
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Thankfully, we've got the great Jacques Tourneur behind the camera to keep us focused on what really matters. Eddie Muller pointed out in his intro that Columbia demanded that Tourneur make the film's cinematography far lighter and less moody than his classic <i>Out of the Past</i> had, because TV couldn't register the darkness as well as a movie screen. The result is still visually arresting, with rich work by cin-togger Burnett Guffey.</div>
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Jayne Mansfield's casting in <i>The Burglar</i> was a happy accident. Made two years before she became famous in films like the aforementioned Frank Tashlin's <i>The Girl Can't Help It</i>, this film sat on the shelves until Mansfield's star took off. Suddenly, Columbia remembered they had a movie scripted by a famous crime novelist from his own book and they rushed it out attached to a sexy poster. That poster proves that Columbia had problems with crude misrepresentations of their movies' intent long before <i>Boyz N The Hood</i>. The actress whom Ah-nuld repeatedly referred to as "Chayne" in <i>The Jayne Mansfield Story</i> is far from a bombshell in <i>The Burglar</i>. Her beauty and buxomness are present but subdued.</div>
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Mansfield plays an ace location caser working for the irreplaceable noir legend Dan Duryea. She's quite good too, holding her own against her more "serious actor" co-stars. Duryea provides a valuable assist, allowing his anguish over her character to feed their scenes. Mansfield responds appropriately with her character's romantic tension towards him. She's the daughter of the man who trained Duryea in the art of the heist (the narrated flashback to this event is given a literary feel by screenwriter Goodis), and Duryea sees her as someone to protect rather than romance. Martha Vickers on the other hand is more Duryea's speed.</div>
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With its casual diversions and its emphasis on character quirks,<i> The Burglar</i> plays like a novel unfolding before the reader's eyes. You can really feel this in the character played by Phoebe Mackay. Her Sister Sara is a celebrity, a rich woman who drapes herself in furs and diamonds yet talks about how charitable she is. Sister Sara is garish, even by noir standards, and she provides the film's MacGuffin in the guise of one of her necklaces. But this woman is unforgettably bonkers! No matter how dark the material gets, Sister Sara still hovers in a corner of the viewer's memory. That's hard to do when you have Duryea at the top of his game and Mansfield in a rare serious role. Sister Sara proves that we love all types of oddballs here in Noir City.</div>
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Next up: A festival post-mortem.<br />
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Last time: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-5-kiss-kiss-kiss-bang.html" target="_blank">Noir City XVII #5: Kiss Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang BANG!</a></div>
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<i><b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b></i><br />
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odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-86193955780428254722019-01-31T19:17:00.002-05:002019-01-31T19:17:50.741-05:00Noir City XVII #5: Kiss Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang BANG!by Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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1956 came to Noir City in screaming Technicolor on Wednesday night. The final film in what I'll call the Deadly Kiss trio played to rousing effect. Tuesday night's double-bill started the trend of titles with smooches in them, with Kubrick's <i>Killer's Kiss</i> and Aldrich's <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i> roughing up the audiences at the Castro Theatre. I'm gonna do a reverse <i>Wizard of Oz</i> here and start with the more recently seen color film before going back to Tuesday's black and white ones. Because the only thing more murderous than femme fatale kisses is Father Time's assault on my short-term memory. </div>
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Robert Wagner is probably best known to millenials for his work in Austin Powers. For my generation, he's one half of <i>Hart to Hart</i>. But in my Mama's time, he was a suave matinee idol who could have probably coasted by on those credentials well into old age. Alas, the sirens of noir beckoned him (with an assist from Darryl Zanuck) to turn to the dark side. Zanuck brought the rights to Ira Levin's first novel as a vehicle for Wagner and other Fox contract stars. When the film was ultimately made by Crown Pictures, Zanuck loaned out Wagner and his co-stars, presumably because he knew the result would be<i> </i>this deliriously lurid and mean version of <i>A Kiss Before Dying</i>. This version precedes the 1991 Sean Yong/Matt Dillon remake that's so bad it makes that 1988 version of <i>D.O.A.</i> directed by Max Headroom's creators look like <i>Citizen Kane</i>.</div>
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But I digress.</div>
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Bob Wagner plays an <u>awful</u>, <u><i>awful</i></u>, <span style="font-size: large;"><u><i><b>awful</b></i></u> </span>sociopath named Bud Corliss. He's 25, in college and dating Dorothy Kingship (Joanne Woodward), whom he has not-so-conveniently knocked up. Of course, you conldn't say "knocked up" in a movie back then, nor could you say "pregnant" or else the censors would freak out. ("I guess they still believed in the stork back then," said Eddie Muller in his introduction.) Lawrence Roman's adaptation not only enraged the censors by having Woodward utter the word, the screenplay also has Corliss pushing her off a 12-story building to her death. I bet the language-policing censors didn't have a problem with that. </div>
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Before he resorted to brute force, Corliss tried poisoning with arsenic the gal he chriestened "Dory." Director Gerd Oswald masterfully directs the suspenseful sequence where Corliss outwits a locked chemical closet's door and an absent-minded chemistry student. Oswald also handles the plot's surprises with gasp-inducing panache. The scene where Corliss discovers that Dory tolerates arsenic better than any other allegedly poisoned human being was as shocking to the audience as it was to the attempted murderer. Wagner's reaction alone is worth the price of admission. </div>
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Since Corliss has already mailed to Dory's sister a "suicide note" written unbeknownst by Dory under the guise of a Spanish language translation, he has to kill Dory before the letter arrives. What happens next is surprisingly vicious for 1956, though, to be honest, we'd seen some rather extreme censor-defying displays in <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i> here in Noir City the night before. Dory is so gullible and so in love with this heel that she never sees her demise coming. Woodward is on record saying she thought this was her worst picture, and though I think the movie is very good for the most part, I found her character to be as aggravatingly naive as Carol Marsh's character was in <i>Brighton Rock</i>. "Woman, don't you have eyes?!" I wanted to yell at the screen as Dory swooned over Bud's callousness.</div>
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Speaking of being naive, Corliss' Mom is played by Oscar-winning vet (and former femme fatale) Mary Astor. Astor sports a short hairdo that's as daring as Mia Farrow's in that other great Ira Levin adaptation, <i>Rosemary's Baby</i>. Mama Corliss is also absolutely clueless about her son's penchant for evil, though he insults her at every turn and even shames her fashion sense when she shows up for a rich family's party. That party is being thrown by Dory's dad, who has no idea that Corliss killed his daughter. He <b>does </b>know that Corliss is about to ask his other daughter, Ellen (Virginia Leith) to marry him. That's right, Corliss wants to get his hands on that Kingship fortune so much that he's now dating the sister of his former fiancee. </div>
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I told you this guy was a real <b>[CENSORED BY THE 1956 BREEN OFFICE]</b>!</div>
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Jeffrey Hunter shows up as a classmate of Dorothy and Bud. Hunter would later play the Son of God in Nicholas Ray's <i>Rock Me, Sexy Jesus</i>, I mean <i>King of Kings</i>. Here, his son of a homicide detective character looks a lot like Clark Kent. Ellen is far tougher than her sister--she pieces together that Dory's death may not have been suicide--and her slow realization of the true nature of the man she loves has some delicious Hitchcockian undertones. </div>
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A Kiss Before Dying is our only blast of color so far, presented to us on 35mm and in that format that makes the Castro Theatre screen's curtains open REEEEEEALLLL wide (aka Cinemascope here). When evil Bud finally got his, the audience's response was as loud as the film's color scheme. </div>
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You may think me as big a heel as Bud Corliss for saying this, but I am not a Stanley Kubrick stan. Granted, <i>Dr. Strangelove</i> is currently #6 on my all time best movies list and I'm a diehard fan of <i>The Killing</i> (which I <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2017/01/noir-city-xv-2-its-all-right-there-in.html" target="_blank">covered at Noir City XV</a>) and <i>Barry Lyndon</i>. But I've probably disliked as many of his films as I've liked. I consider <i>Killer's Kiss</i> one of the latter; it's a movie that looks like a pages of newspaper photos come to life. Your hands would smudge the screen if you touched it. This peril-filled tale of a boxer and his mobster's moll girlfriend was made by Kubrick after he obtained a $75,000 loan. He shot it in his hometown of NYC (probably the last time he ever shot there) and didn't bother to sync the sound, opting instead to do what we'd eventually come to expect from Kubrick, i.e., shoot miles and miles of footage. </div>
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<i>Killer's Kiss</i> is a great origin story for Kubrick. You can see his style being born right before your eyes. The story takes a backseat and lets the visuals and the editing drive the car. Kubrick wrote, edited and directed, and he gets good performances from his cast, though again, this is a picture that's more concerned with the mood it evokes than its narrative. Setting a dangerous mood is always welcome here in Noir City.</div>
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I've covered the brutal, rough and unapologetically bleak Mike Hammer movie<i> Kiss Me Deadly</i> elsewhere, so just a few brief words. Ralph Meeker's Hammer could give Wagner's Bud Corliss a run for his money in the heel department--and he's the HERO! Such anti-heroes rarely come better than this, though I admit Mike Hammer has never really grown on me, not even in his Stacy Keach TV adaptation or in the supremely nasty Larry Cohen-scripted iteration of <i>I, the Jury</i>, which was my introduction to the character. Eagle-eyed readers will look at the poster above and see where the Noir City poster designers got their ideas.</div>
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The movie that put Robert Aldrich on the map was supposed to be presented at Noir City in its truncated format <i>(suitcase opens, KABLOOEY, everybody dies, yay! Apocalypse, cue Quentin Tarantino homage machine!)</i>. Instead, it was shown with the restored 1997 ending (according to Eddie's introduction of <i>Killer's Kiss</i>--I missed the <i>Kiss Me Deadly</i> screening). In that version, Mike Hammer lives to brutalize another day, angering all those censors and the Catholic Legion of Decency and whoever else had pearls to clutch in 1955. Only in Noir City can we be presented with "a happy ending" and have that deemed a mistake. We wouldn't have it any other way.</div>
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<i>Next up: Holy Curtiz! Is that Elaine Stritch?!!</i><br />
<i>Last time: </i><a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-4-absent-minded-confessor.html">Noir City XVII #4: The Absent-Minded Confessor</a><br />
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<i><b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b></i><br />
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<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-73861553573095905402019-01-30T14:57:00.002-05:002020-03-30T13:18:44.213-04:00Noir City XVII #4: The Absent-Minded Confessorby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Fred MacMurray's acting career has lived as double a life as one can find here in Noir City. Who among us of a certain age (let's go with my age--48) doesn't remember being introduced to good ol' Fred courtesy of reruns of his sitcom <i>My Three Sons</i> or airings of <i>The Absent-Minded Professor</i> and <i>Son of Flubber </i>on <i>The Wonderful World of Disney</i>? In those features, Mr. MacMurray was so nice! Lord, he was lovey-dovey! </div>
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And then you see <i>Double Indemnity </i>for the first time. Or <i>The Apartment</i>. And then you realize that Fred MacMurray's career is a retelling of <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde</i>. Which side you like better says a lot about you! As for good ol' Fred, he proved equally adept at sunshine and darkness. But you know which side I'm here for today.</div>
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I try to give these pieces pulpy, faux noirish titles, but I'll never be as good nor as succinct as the real thing. Monday night brought us a 35-mm double-bill of corrupt cop capers, each brilliantly monikered by their filmmakers. It's 1954 in Noir City, and its denizens were treated to the aptly titled <i>Pushover</i>. Our pal, Fred MacMurray fits the description, and how could you blame him? The dame doin' the pushin' is none other than Kim Novak making her screen debut! Every Hollywood studio needed their dangerous blonde, and since the Columbia logo wasn't willing to ditch that torch and dye her hair, Harry Cohn got himself Ms. Novak.</div>
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MacMurray and Novak are joined by Phil Carey, the good cop to MacMurray's oh-so-bad cop. The police are after a criminal named Harry Wheeler (Paul Richards) who, in the film's opening sequence, robs a bank of $210,000. Richards adds murder to his wanted poster by shooting the bank's security guard. When Richards and the money disappear, police chief E.G. Marshall assigns Paul Sheridan (MacMurray) and his partner Rick McAllister (Carey) to the case.</div>
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Sheridan's first order of business is to go undercover with Wheeler's moll, Lona McClane (Novak, of course). They Meet Cute after a superbly lensed sequence by cinematographer Lester White tails McClane as she walks from a movie theater to her car. Her car has been tampered with by Sheridan, we'll learn later, so he could assist her. When the car needs servicing at an all-night garage (say what?!), Sheridan offers to entertain McLane in a more intimate setting. "Your place or mine?" he asks.</div>
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"Surprise me," she says. (The audience ate this line up!)</div>
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McLane is not unfamiliar with dealing with wolves out to use her. So it comes as no surprise that she pegs Sheridan for a cop. What she doesn't know, at least initially, is that Sheridan and McAllister are right across the way from her apartment every night, looking into her window to see when or if Wheeler will turn up at her place. But Sheridan spills the beans eventually. You see, McLane puts a bee in his boxers about knocking off Wheeler, taking the stolen loot and running off to a future that is rated at least a hard R on the MPAA ratings scale. Since MacMurray did NOT learn his lesson from that other sinister blonde Phyllis Dietrichson, he agrees to McLane's deal. "I thought I was using you!" he laments. In that department, Sheridan is <i>out of his league</i>.</div>
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As Sheridan bides his time, an interesting side plot develops during these stakeouts. McAllister becomes smitten with McLane's next door neighbor. And how could he not be--she's played by the incredible Dorothy Malone! Malone's very good as a nurse who is completely oblivious to what's going on, but she'll get involved in more ways than one. In fact, her character Ann Stewart has a Meet-Not-So-Cute with Sheridan that becomes a major plot point later on. Her budding romance with McAllister is a nice, though equally voyeuristic counterpoint to the corrupt one going on next door.</div>
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If some of this sounds familiar to you, you've probably seen John Badham's 1987 comedy, <i>Stakeout</i>, which robs several plot points from Roy Huggins' excellent script. If Huggins' name rings a bell, you've probably seen <i>The Fugitive, The Rockford Files, Baretta</i> or any number of other TV shows he either created or wrote for over his illustrious career. This man knew how to write a crime story, and while <i>Pushover </i>goes where we expected it to go, it gets there in a very clever and entertaining fashion. Hell, even Jean-Luc Godard liked it!</div>
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"We didn't need the money," McLane cries at the end of <i>Pushover</i>, figuratively pushing her fingers into the bullet holes of the sadder but wiser Sheridan. In the immortal words of Ice-T, Paul Sheridan, you played yourself. </div>
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Dante wasn't the only one putting numbers on layers of Hell. Noir City legend Ida Lupino was doing it too back in 1954! <i>Private Hell 36</i> stars Lupino, who co-wrote it with her business partner and (by this time) ex-husband Collier Young. We've got another corrupt cop and a bundle o'cash to contend with here, but this time, the woman is a far more innocent party than he is. Lupino's nightclub performer Lily Marlowe becomes embroiled in a cop stakeout after she unwittingly handles some marked bills that were involved in a bank robbery. Since she can identify the man who gave them to her, the LAPD drags her along to the racetrack so she can pick him out. This takes a while, but she eventually gets her man, pointing him out to LA detective Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran).</div>
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After an exciting police car chase and crash, Bruner steals wads of cash from the deceased criminals' take. His partner Jack Farnham (Howard Duff, Lupino's current husband at the time) is unwillingly drawn into this plan. Bruner's theft is a rather improbable one--the money is marked and couldn't be spent in America without eventually being traced--but Bruner has a plan to sell it in Mexico. Lest I forget, Bruner has also fallen for Marlowe, whom he thinks will be impressed with his riches. Bruner hides the money in a rented trailer numbered 36. </div>
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Marlowe has her own ideas on what constitutes success, and they all involve legality and making it on one's own. But Bruner has even bigger problems: Farnham is a family man whose fears of losing his wife and kids weigh heavily on him now that he's involved in Bruner's scheme. Farnham's wife is played by Dorothy Malone, who did double duty on Monday's double bill. Young and Lupino script a very good party sequence involving the four leads, with crackling dialogue and an almost suffocating sence of guilt emanating off Farnham. He truly is in a private hell and Duff milks that for all it's worth.</div>
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In addition to her acting career, Ida Lupino worked behind the camera as a director and producer (her film company, The Filmakers, has a title coined by Lupino). But <i>Private Hell 36</i> was directed by a young Don Siegel. Siegel's talents are on full display in this early feature, made two years before he'd helm the paranoia classic <i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i>. There's a gnawing sense of claustrophobia in <i>Private Hell 36</i> that only hints at the good things to come from Siegel's talents. </div>
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I love Ida Lupino so much I dressed up just for her before heading to the Castro Theatre. It was worth it.</div>
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<i>Next up:</i> <i>Kiss Me Once, Kiss me Twice, Come on Pretty Baby, Kiss me Deadly!</i><br />
<i>Last time:</i> <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-3-requiem-for-pickpocket.html" target="_blank">Noir City XVII #3: Requiem for a Pickpocket</a><br />
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<i><b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b> </i></div>
<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-9454960984635190532019-01-29T13:53:00.000-05:002019-01-31T19:20:42.427-05:00Noir City XVII #3: Requiem for a Pickpocketby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Part of the fun of Noir City is discovering whose progeny may be in the audience or on the stage. In the past, the children of Dana Andrews, Victor Mature and Glenn Ford have joined us for their parents' features, providing useful information along the way. On opening night of this year's festival, Czar of Noir Eddie Muller brought to the stage Richard Fleischer's son, Mark, who spoke about <i>Trapped</i>, <i>The Narrow Margin</i> and his Dad's friendship with writer <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0271641/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr3" target="_blank">Earl Fenton</a>. Fenton wrote several of Richard Fleischer's pictures, including the aforementioned two films and <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>. That may be my favorite of Fleischer's adventure pictures (sorry <i>Conan the Destroyer</i>--which I also like, mind you), if only because it features Kirk Douglas singing.</div>
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It's 1951 in Noir City and Michael's Da isn't singing in <i>Detective Story</i>; he's too busy making his criminal suspects hit the highest notes in their confessions. Kirk is fantastic as a rigid, jaded detective named McLeod whose notion of right and wrong is as binary as the machine language in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I" target="_blank">UNIVAC I</a>, which also made its debut in 1951. Detective McLeod has his sights on Karl Schneider (George Macready), a New Jersey doc whose medical specialty is dealt with quite frankly for the time. (He does abortions.) Since McLeod's reputation of roughing up his suspects precedes him, Schneider's lawyer Endicott Sims (Warner Anderson) negotiates a deal for Schneider to bypass McLeod and turn himself in at the 21st Precinct. This goes over as well as you'd expect, because the only thing McLeod hates worse than criminals are the lawyers who defend and "coddle" them.</div>
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But Sims is a dangerous adversary. He's the gust of wind that may knock McLeod off that tightrope of absolute righteousness he's been navigating. Both Sims and Schneider keep alluding that they're willing to turn stool pigeon over some devastating secret in McLeod's past. A hint of what that might be is cleverly hidden in an early scene between McLeod and his wife Mary (Eleanor Parker). While making out in the backseat of a taxicab, the McLeods talk about doctors and future children and so on. Mary's the only person McLeod lets his guard down for, so when her husband turns his unflinching brand of judgment on her in the film's third act, <i>Detective Story</i> becomes one of noir's most emotionally violent productions.</div>
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As the anti-hero, Douglas really leans into his character's horrifying upbringing, using it as an entry point into McLeod's inability to see shades of gray. When the camera angles weren't reminding me how eerily young Kirk looks like young Michael, I wondered if Douglas were the most psychologically astute actor in Hollywood. He brings a complexity to the roles he plays, whether heels or heroes, as if he understands their motivations internally even when he can't fully explain them. Plus, he always allowed you to see the cracks of vulnerability running through his machismo. When he cries in <i>Detective Story</i>, his face looks like a statue whose marble has suddenly undergone a metamorphosis to clay.</div>
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Though adapted from a hit play by Sidney Kingsley, <i>Detective Story</i> never feels like a filmed stage performance. Director William Wyler and his screenwriters Philip Yordan and brother Robert Wyler run a tight yet busy schedule of events across the screen, carefully weaving in the storylines both comic and tragic. This thing moves like gangbusters, and Wyler's firm handle on the film's momentum is masterful. This is one of his best movies, earning him a much-deserved Oscar nomination for direction. The script also received an Oscar nod. And since Wyler is the director who has led more actors to Academy Award nominations than any other, both Eleanor Parker and Lee Grant snared nominations for their performances as well. </div>
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Grant and Parker are the linchpins in their respective stories. Parker's tale is emotional and tragic, while Grant's tale is the comedy relief. Both make it seem effortless. Parker underplays against the volcanic Douglas, subtly hinting at the dynamics of their marriage--she's Sisyphus and he's the rock. Grant, in her stunning debut, gleefully swings for the fences, capturing every moment of her nameless kleptomaniac's wonder and awe as she awaits her night court hearing. Despite the difference in tone of their respective arcs, <i>Detective Story</i> sees these two women as kindred spirits: both of them impulsively grabbed something that looked great on the outside, only to discover that what was inside it wasn't worth the effort. For Grant, it was a purse whose monetary contents were less than the price of the purse; for Parker, it was a man whom she ultimately could not save from self-destruction. Such is the pricetag of shiny objects in the otherwise shadowy Noir City.</div>
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Maybe it's me, but almost every time I see William Holden onscreen, I want to punch him out. It's nothing personal, to be sure. He's just so damn good at playing people you want to slug (and kiss, preferably after you slug him). In <i>The Turning Point,</i> he's no different. Holden plays a cynical newspaperman constantly searching for the next big story. He may have that story when his childhood pal, attorney Edmond O'Brien returns to town to root out organized corruption on a task force. O'Brien's dad Ed Begley was a cop, so law and order is in his DNA, but Holden doesn't think his buddy's tough enough for the job. Holden thinks even less toughness exists in O'Brien's girlfriend, Alexis Smith, though she might have other more useful qualities.</div>
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We're never really sure whose side Holden is on, besides his own, that is, and it keeps <i>The Turning Point</i> intriguing. Is he undermining O'Brien or attempting to help him out by not revealing that O'Brien's dad Ed Begley is on the take from the criminal his son is trying to bring down. We certainly can deduce that he's operating as a villain when his bad boy bonafides lure Smith away from O'Brien. She and Holden have a great conversation that evokes the "let's talk killer to killer" scene in <i>All About Eve, </i>and director William Dieterle lets them smolder for a while before sealing the deal.</div>
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The Turning Point is as suspenseful as it is bleak. At times, it has a
70's paranoid thriller aspect to it, most notably in a sequence set at a
boxing match, and there's a devastating price to pay for attempting to
destroy well-structured evil at its root. The actors are all solid, especially Smith, and Holden's performance made me think of the story (possibly apocryphal) about him asking Billy Wilder to soften his very unlikable character in <i>Stalag 17</i>. Wilder told Holden to trust him and play the role as written because he's good at being a heel with whom the audience can identify. </div>
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Paramount made <i>The Turning Point</i> to capitalize on the public's hunger for the organized crime Congressional hearings that were all over the TV in 1952. So it seems ripe for a remake in today's political climate! But for now, we at least have this rarity, which Paramount provided on DCP for us to devour at the Castro Theatre. Eddie mentioned to us that while the studio refuses to print film anymore, they are at least digitizing their library of films. I'll use this good news to soothe the agita I get whenever I have to deal with getting critic screening information from them!</div>
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Finally, a few words on Sam Fuller's <i>Pickup on South Street</i>, featuring a career best performance by Thelma Ritter. It wouldn't be Noir City without at least one appearance by the guy who tormented Michael Douglas in <i>Coma</i>, Richard Widmark. While Widmark's Skip McCoy picks the wrong pocket and finds love in the midst of the Cold War, Ritter steals the movie right from under him. Her character, Moe, is memorably tough and heartbreaking; Ritter's usual no-nonsense persona, which made her unsusceptible to Eve Harrington's charm and pissed off enough to chew out the owner of Macy's, is supplemented by a world-weariness that's so potent and palpable you can almost smell the cigar smoke wafting over Sam Fuller's typerwriter as he wrote her scenes. Her final scene is so devastating that not even Fuller's camera can bear to watch it. He pans away, allowing Moe a rare modicum of grace.</div>
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For her trouble here, Ritter received an Academy Award nomination for Supporting Actress. The six-time nominee was so used to losing that she threw "come and watch me lose again" Oscar parties, according to the book <i>Inside Oscar</i>. Just because you lose doesn't mean you weren't great. Those are words we Noir City denizens can live by.</div>
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<i>Next up: A double shot of Dorothy Malone</i><br />
<i>Last time: </i><i><a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-2-monsters-are-still-due.html">Noir City XVII #2: The Monsters Are Still Due on Main Street</a> </i><br />
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<b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b></div>
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<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-73322872657837889772019-01-28T17:49:00.002-05:002020-11-11T17:57:44.946-05:00Noir City XVII #2: The Monsters Are Still Due on Maple Streetby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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By 1951, film noir had at least one major entry that commented on race and featured a race riot. Joe Mankiewicz’s <b>other </b>1950 film, <a href="http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2008/02/physician-heal-thy-enemy.html" target="_blank"><i>No Way Out</i></a>, marked the debut of Sidney Poitier as a doctor who has to deal with racism from patient Richard Widmark. It’s a jarring entry in Poitier’s studio system oeuvre, one where he gets to be angry and defiant without any Stanley Kramer sugar-coating. His last line in the film is as ice cold a kiss-off as noir has ever seen. Plus, there’s the aforementioned race riot where—and this is a bold as hell choice by Mankiewicz and his co-writer Lesser Samuels—the Black folks win.</div>
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Noir City isn’t showing <i>No Way Out</i> this year, but it is showing Sidney’s best bud, Harry Belafonte’s Robert Wise-helmed <i>Odds Against Tomorrow</i>, another pitch-black arrow in film noir’s quiver. And on Saturday afternoon, the top half of the matinee housed one of the harshest noirs I’ve seen at this festival. In fact, Saturday’s lineup was so intense that I had to cut and run after three of the four features screened. (Don’t worry! I’d seen <i>Angel Face</i> before and I hope Bob Mitchum will forgive me for being such a wuss. Otto Preminger certainly wouldn’t!)</div>
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Re: that first entry on the matinee bill: <i>The Well</i> is a rarely screened, double Oscar nominee (screenplay and editing) from director Russell Rouse and his co-screenwriter Clarence Greene. This duo, along with their producers, the Popkin brothers, liked to add gimmicky hooks to conventional stories. By the time this screenplay was written, 1951 had already had its own real-life <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_McClure" target="_blank">Baby Jessica</a>-style story about a child trapped in a well. This gave Greene an idea for his gimmick, but just the mere notion of a kid stuck in a well wouldn’t have much traction. After all, isn’t that what Lassie was barking about every week on her show? So Greene decided to really give Lassie something to yap about: The trapped kid in this story is a little Black girl, the daughter of the Crawfords (Ernest Anderson and Maidie Norman).</div>
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Keep in mind that this is 1951, when the country was still deeply and comfortably under the wingspan of Jim Crow. Rouse and Greene are shockingly frank about the subject matter here, both in language (which is as rough as you’d expect) and in viewpoint. This takes place in a town where it seems that the neighbors are living in harmony despite the unequal tenor of America’s views on race. But in reality, this place sits atop an unstable powder keg of racial tension. Interracial allegiances that appeared airtight could shatter in an instant with one misunderstanding.</div>
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That misunderstanding arrives with the arrest of an outsider named Claude Packard (the always welcome, ubiquitous citizen of noir movies, Harry Morgan), who is immediately blamed for the Crawford girl’s disappearance. He was last seen buying her some flowers and walking with her on a main street in town. Several witnesses, including a classmate, corroborate the details and even pick Packard out of a lineup. Packard maintains his innocence while also citing that he’s the nephew of the most powerful man in town, construction magnate Sam Packard (Barry Kelly). </div>
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Unlike the townspeople, viewers know that Claude is innocent; in the opening scene, we see the Crawford girl fall into a well hidden in a meadow not too far from her home. But suspicion of strangers is characteristic of small towns where all the residents know each other, so rumors of death spread in both the White and the Black parts of town. Sam Packard makes matters worse--even he thinks his nephew may be guilty of murder yet he has a reputation to uphold. Sam throws around his power, offering Claude an alibi he refuses to take. Though Sheriff Ben Kellog (Richard Rober) is unimpressed and continues to hold Claude, the Crawford family senses a cover-up.</div>
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When Mr. Crawford (Ernest Anderson) confronts Sam and Sam is unintentionally injured, White townspeople see it as breach of etiquette and vow to strike back “to put those people back in their place.” Black members of the town sense yet another cover-up that will deny them justice and also plan retaliation. The town simmers toward its boiling point. Meanwhile, residents play a ferocious game of Telephone, with the stories getting more and more elaborately false and dangerous as the information gets passed on. Numerous scenes of race-based violence follow, ratcheting up the tension to unbearable levels. </div>
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For a film made in 1951, <i>The Well</i> is surprisingly even-handed, never downplaying the anger of its Black characters nor ignoring their pain. Maidie Norman has a quiet, heartbreaking power as the worried mother. She figures prominently in the film’s tensely edited, gut-wrenching climax. Mrs. Crawford is allowed to be as memorable as Sheriff Kellog or the feisty waitress who isn’t above bashing in a head or two with her skillet in order to protect her Black cook from angry White rioters. </div>
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As if tipping its hat to Lassie, <i>The Well</i> has a dog hero who tells its owner about the kid trapped in the well. Thankfully, this news travels as fast as the falsehoods did, and the town bands together to save one of its own, regardless of her color. This turn of events will play as rather corny to the cynical viewer, but I found myself so wrapped up in the story that I bought into its hopeful conclusion. </div>
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The tagline of Noir City is "there are no happy endings." I was relieved that this was the exception. But I won’t lie—this film, with its racial slurs and its agonized scenes of violence and cruelty--ran me through the ringer and weighed heavily on me for the rest of the day. </div>
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<i>Next up: The other two movies on this tough Saturday—and a little bit of Thelma Ritter.</i><br />
<i>Last time: </i><i><a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2019/01/noir-city-xvii-1-treasury-of-sierra.html">Noir City XVII #1: Treasury of the Sierra Madre</a> </i></div>
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<i> </i><b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-9627658512544078442019-01-27T13:20:00.002-05:002019-01-27T13:23:28.531-05:00Noir City XVII #1: Treasury of the Sierra Madreby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If that old adage is true, then I am most definitely sane. Because I am once again joining my fellow Noir City denizens at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco and I expect to have the same amount of fun I've had the eleven prior times I've attended the greatest film festival in this and seven other scientifically approved universes. Guiding our descent into darkness is the one and only <b>Czar of Noir</b>, TCM superstar Eddie Muller.</div>
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The method to Eddie's madness this year was to subtitle this year's batch of goodies "film noir in the 50's." You know the 50's, the decade that everyone wearing a red hat with four words on it would love to return to, where Father Knew Best and mother <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAd5UV-Zjg4" target="_blank">twirled like Loretta Young</a> at the beginning of her show. Well, these movies are out to remind us that darker forces were far more prevalent, stuff like McCarthyism and war and segregation. I foresee a delectable series of cautionary tales that remind us what's at stake in our current, turbulent times. These films will plumb the darkest nights of the soul, because as we denizens of Noir City know, <b>it's a bitter little world</b>.</div>
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This year's Opening Night was so jam packed that I barely got a seat despite arriving an hour early <i>and</i> having my usual Passport ticket. I sat so far up in the balcony of the majestic Castro Theatre that I was practically in the projection room. But the ticket sales go toward the <a href="http://noircity.com/foundation.html" target="_blank">Film Noir Foundation</a>'s restoration of the movies we noir addicts love so much, so I couldn't have been happier--I mean, <i>more bitter </i>(happiness is verboten in noir!) to sit in the nosebleed/make out seats. One of those restorations opened Noir City XVII as the top half of our first double feature, and it proved that the sold out crowd <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmW-ScmGRMA" target="_blank">picked the right week to quit</a> happy endings.</div>
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Lloyd Bridges, aka The Big Lebowski's Da, is best known in the 1950's for <i>Sea Hunt</i>, the 1958 series where he played a scuba diver looking for adventure. Bridges has a far less respectable profession in <i>Trapped</i>. Playing the awesomely named Tris Stewart, Bridges is a counterfeiter whose money-making plates were put out of circulation by the same folks who brought down Al Capone, the Treasury Department. <i>Trapped </i>begins with a screen thanking the Treasury for allowing their money printing process to be shown to audiences in 1949. I'm sure part of that deal was to add the usual (and always hilarious) stern narration warning viewers of the dangerous pitfalls of crime. We learn that the Treasury has numerous fail-safes on their printing plates to keep money from being illegally reproduced. And yet, people will try and the consequences will be dire. </div>
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One such victim of a fake 20 dollar bill is shown in an early scene unknowingly attempting to deposit it at the bank. The poor woman, whose hat brim is as straight and strict as the banker who delivers the bad news, looks traumatized. Indeed, she could be the star of her own noir, as $20 in 1949 is $210 in 2019 money. "You people should pay more attention!" scolds the cold-hearted banker as the woman ponders her financial ruin. I'm sure this sad scene put many wannabe counterfeiters on the straight and narrow!</div>
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Tris Stewart has no such aspirations. He's an opportunist who'll use any lucky break to advance his criminal goals. Since the woman at the bank had a $20 bill that was created by Tris' plates, the Feds spring him so he can find out where the plates are and who put them back into circulation. Tris easily outmaneuvers his chaperone, which was by design, so the Feds can follow the more honest footsteps of an escaped convict. Those footsteps lead right to his sexy moll, the tough-as-nails cigarette girl, Meg (Barbara Payton). Tris' plan involves high-taling it to Mexico with Meg after getting revenge on whoever stole his forgery-based works of art. Double and triple-crosses ensue! I won't tell you if Tris makes it to Mexico in one piece, but I will say the Feds won't need to build a wall to try and stop him.</div>
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Cinematographer Guy Roe's excellent work is on full display in this gorgeous restoration, projected in 35mm glory onto the huge and loving Castro Theatre screen. <i>Trapped</i> is also well-acted by a hardened Bridges and his fiery co-star, the scandalous Barbara Payton. During his introduction, Eddie Muller only alluded to the sordid details of Payton's life. "Google it," he told the crowd. Allow me to sweeten the pot: Payton's memoir has a title best befitting the pulpiest noir paperback. She called it <i>I am Not Ashamed</i>.</div>
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Director Richard Fleischer, one of the most flexible directors in Hollywood (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fleischer" target="_blank">Google it</a>!), should also not be ashamed of his fine work on <i>Trapped</i>. But in keeping with the chastising narrators of so many films I've seen at Noir City, I must also point out that Mr. Fleischer directed <a href="http://bigmediavandal.blogspot.com/2011/02/prez-day-double-feature-mandingo.html" target="_blank"><i>Mandingo</i></a>. That deserves <u><i>plenty</i></u> of shame. </div>
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Perennial Noir City dame Barbara Stanwyck and noir's greatest director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0802563/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1" target="_blank">Robert Siodmak</a> are back with 1950's <i>The File on Thelma Jordon. </i>Made 6 years after <i>Double Indemnity</i>, this film features yet another sultry and mysterious Stanwyck anti-hero, Thelma Jordon, who pulls booze-scented DA Wendell Corey into her seductive web. They meet cute, with wonderful, sharp dialogue by then-popular female screenwriter (and Pulitzer Prize winner) <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0295786/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Ketti Frings</a>, who adapted Mary Holland's story. Jordon has a wealthy aunt who, in a suspenseful sequence, is murdered off-screen by gunshot. Whodunit? The besotten (and very married) Corey thinks Aunty's heir did it, so he starts covering up for Thelma Jordon. Jordon is also married--or so we're told--to a scary man named Tony Laredo (this was clearly a night for brilliant monikers here in Noir City). What does Tony Laredo have to do with any of this? Is he the mastermind or yet another pawn helplessly sent across the chessboard to slaughter by our beloved Stany?</div>
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Frings, who wrote the fantastic Loretta Young noir <i>The Accused</i>, brings a different perspective to her dialogue and scene construction; she highlights things I doubt most men would have even considered. (Note how Stanwyck handles a drunken Corey's advances.) With that said, I found some of <i>The File on Thelma Jordon</i> to be confusing as hell, but it was all worth it for a climactic scene that once again puts Barbara Stanwyck in a murder-filled car. In <i>Double Indemnity</i>, she was in the backseat, orgasmically surveying the carnage as an observer. Siodmak and Frings put her in the driver's seat literally and figuratively here. The shocking result drew audible gasps from the audience, proving once again that, no matter how hard-boiled and "seen-it-all" we Noir City denizens are, we can still be shaken and stirred by the Masters of Noir. </div>
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<i>Next up: A really rough trio of Saturday Noirs.</i></div>
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<b><i>(Credit where it is due: In true Noir fashion, I have stolen the poster art in these dispatches from the <a href="http://www.noircity.com/" target="_blank">Noir City website</a>. Also in true Noir fashion, the coppers won't take me alive!)</i></b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-27196733830579568372018-02-04T15:50:00.003-05:002018-02-04T15:52:38.556-05:00Noir City XVI #8: Kittens Can Still Scratchby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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We've got 2 B's and an A picture for my eighth dispatch from Noir City. Let's start with the B-side of Wednesday's <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/02/noir-city-xvi-7-murder-he-spoke.html" target="_blank"><i>The Unsuspected</i></a> double bill, 1947's <i>High Tide</i>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCnRc6-rMgjvrZfQDKHhpiFj76JKQjupEYzU6Y1aox5YpsXRQY0i3bx2bBlaZMc5TZx3GftHm5gT1XzyWMQbvdhnLFGXIseW3t0D9NGF51Zyih_gIY908Q9qwSNQsgAXKrEPaSm5RsmNar/s1600/High_Tide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="465" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCnRc6-rMgjvrZfQDKHhpiFj76JKQjupEYzU6Y1aox5YpsXRQY0i3bx2bBlaZMc5TZx3GftHm5gT1XzyWMQbvdhnLFGXIseW3t0D9NGF51Zyih_gIY908Q9qwSNQsgAXKrEPaSm5RsmNar/s320/High_Tide.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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<i>High Tide</i> stars Lee Tracy, the actor who made the fast-talking newspaperman into a beloved trope. Czar of Noir Eddie Muller told us that by 1947, Tracy's star had become submerged in the hard-drinking lifestyle most befitting the characters he played. "But he had one more great role in him," Eddie said. And this is it. Tracy is excellent here as a guy who'll do anything to get the story, including posing the grieving widow of a gangster for maximum photographic effect. </div>
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Tracy's tenacious attempts to bring down the neighborhood gangsters gets him into serious hot water. "What good editor's life hasn't been threatened?" he asks at one point. So for protection, Tracy hires detective Don Castle (whom Eddie called "the poor man's Clark Gable" with good reason). Castle's doesn't seem to have done a good job; <i>High Tide</i> opens with the duo in a car that's just gone over a cliff and landed into the ocean. Castle's pinned under it, and Tracy's got glass sticking out of unpleasant places on his person. When the high tide comes in, it'll submerge them in a watery grave.</div>
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From there, the film employs flashback to tell us how we got here. The surprising story was presented to us at the Castro on a crisp 35-mm print that made this Poverty Row picture look sparkling. Watching Tracy manipulate the news evoked thoughts of how the 24-hour
news cycle mimics Tracy's trickery on a much grander, more dangerous
scale. Reporting the news has always been a business first; it's more
about readership (or ratings) than accuracy. Such cynicism works well
here in Noir City, but there's always a nasty jolt when these old
classics feel too timely.</div>
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Let's stick with the B's and talk about the meanest man in Hollywood, Noir City veteran Lawrence Tierney.</div>
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Not to be confused with that hideous Whitney Houston-Kevin Costner horror movie, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103855/?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank"><i>The Bodyguard</i></a>, <i>Bodyguard</i> finds Tierney in a somewhat nicer role than we've come to expect here at Noir City. That's not to say he's not the insubordinate badass we know and love, he's just restrained by Lawrence Tierney standards. Tierney plays Mike Carter, a detective who isn't above punching his superiors out and violating every order they give. Carter's equally surly toward a representative of the very rich Gene Dyson. The rep wants to hire Carter as a bodyguard for Dyson, the head of the very successful Dyson Meatpacking Plant. </div>
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Carter wants no part in protecting some rich dude, and is even less interested when he finds out Gene Dyson is really an old lady who wants nothing to do with him. But after an attempt is made on Dyson's life while Carter is at her residence, Carter becomes intrigued. This leads to all sorts of mayhem, including a frame-up and some nasty, gory dealings at the meatpacking plant. The idea of a corrupt meat company as this film's villain should be catnip to any vegetarian.</div>
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Tierney is assisted by love interest Priscilla Lane, who manages to bring out his softer side. But don't be fooled! Lane is no easy pushover. "I forget that kittens can still scratch," Carter says of her wily charms. They're a good team in this fun little feature directed by Richard Fleischer and co-written by future director of <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-long-goodbye-1973" target="_blank"><i>The Long Goodbye</i></a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000265?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Robert Altman</a>.</div>
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On the A-side of the bill is one of seven pairings of Noir City vets Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. In <i>I Walk Alone</i>, Kirk and Burt are Prohibition-era booze runners who decide to split up when pursued by the law. Kirk gets away, but Burt winds up doing a 14-year bid in the pen. While Burt's rotting away, the only thing that sustains him is the thought that he owns 50% of the successful club Kirk's running. News of the club comes from Kirk's accountant and their mutual friend, Wendell Corey. </div>
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When Burt gets out, he learns that Kirk has no plans of cutting him in on this successful business venture. However, Kirk doesn't mind cutting him in on the pleasures of his moll, Noir City legend Lizabeth Scott. Scott's job is to seduce so that Kirk may destroy, but she finds herself drawn to her prey. Especially after she realizes that Kirk's just using her as a side chick; he plays to marry a wealthy older woman who brings business to his club. Suddenly, Burt's not the only one out for revenge.</div>
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Director Byron Haskin keeps things tight and tense while Charles Schnee's script manages to wring suspense out of even the most inane dialogue involving the mechanics of accounting. As the accountant caught in the middle of all this, Corey gives the film's most memorable performance, which is saying something considering this cast. Corey would return to Noir City in an even more memorable (and more sinister) role in the astonishing <i>The Accused</i>, which I'll talk about next time.</div>
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<b>Next time: Loretta Young fights back.</b> <br />
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<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-13239330597954315932018-02-02T19:40:00.001-05:002018-02-02T19:40:55.738-05:00Noir City XVI #7: Murder, He Spokeby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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<a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/42547%7C111394/Michael-Curtiz/" target="_blank">Michael Curtiz</a> graced us with his presence on Wednesday, ushered in by the informative introduction of Noir City’s very own Alan K. Rode. Rode has <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Curtiz-Life-Screen-Classics/dp/0813173914/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517615031&sr=8-1&keywords=alan+k+rode" target="_blank">written a book</a> about the director of such Noir classics as <i>The Breaking Point</i>, so the Castro Theater got a crash course in Curtiz 101. We were then treated to the thrilling rollercoaster ride that is 1947’s <i>The Unsuspected</i>. With its return of the presumed dead missing woman story and its larger than life public figure character, <i>The Unsuspected</i> owes a bit of debt to Preminger’s <i>Laura</i>. But Curtiz and screenwriter Ranald MacDougall use these familiarities as mere jumping off points for a twisty thriller whose dialogue is as dangerously sharp as its sudden plot turns.</div>
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11-time Curtiz collaborator Claude Rains stars as the awesomely monikered Victor Grandison, star of the most popular--and most macabre--show on the radio, The Unsuspected. The Shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men, and Grandison knows how that evil works its way down to their fingers. Each episode is a sordid tale of grisly mayhem such as <i>The Woman With The Missing Head</i>, with every murderous morsel described in Rains' sinister tone. This is back in television's infancy, when radio was still king. But radio programs still had to earn ratings to stay on. It's a dog-eat-dog world, especially here in Noir City, so the quest for ratings may lead to desperate measures being taken.</div>
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The plot of <i>The Unsuspected</i> sounds like something Grandison would use to entice his listeners. Grandison's secretary is murdered in an impressively shot opening sequence, her body hanged from his house's chandelier to make the death look like suicide. Whodunit? Or since this is a very twisty mystery, <i>who's involved with doin' it?</i> Could an accomplice be Althea Keane (Audrey Totter), Grandison's bad-girl sister, who telephoned the secretary just before she was murdered? Was it Jane (Constance Bennett), Grandison's assistant and co-writer of his ghoulish radio program? Or is it Oliver (Hurd Hatfield), Althea's drunk of a husband whom she stole from her biggest nemesis, Matilda (Joan Caulfield). </div>
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It's certainly not Matilda, as she's dead at the time of the murder. But, just as in <i>Laura</i>, the mysterious pretty dead girl in the painting over the mantle shows up very much alive. This really pisses off Althea! With Matilda out of the picture, she's become the grande dame of the Grandison Estate. Victor favored Matilda, and now that she's back, she's got a lot of favoring to catch up on. This makes Althea cattier than an alley filled with empty tuna fish cans. Plus, drunken Oliver is completely open to rekindling romance with the one that got away.</div>
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Matilda has bigger fish to fry. She becomes the focus of a side mystery; she can remember everything about her time being shipwrecked, but she can't seem to recall that she married a man named Steven Francis Howard (Michael North) the night she went to sea. Steven makes a credible case for their nuptials; he seems to know everything about Matilda. She knows nothing about him, but when her heart starts leaning in Steven's direction, she thinks she might be suffering from selective amnesia.</div>
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There's a good reason Matilda doesn't remember marrying Steven: The event never happened. So, now we have another mystery! </div>
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<i>This movie has more mysteries than Scooby-Doo!</i></div>
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Steven had plans on marrying the murdered secretary. And he's suspicious that Victor Grandison had something to do with her demise. Since Rains is in creepy charm mode, he's a viable suspect. He's up to no good already, secretly recording people and then editing the recordings to say things his subjects never said. He also has an incriminating recording he uses to blackmail the heavy who does all of Grandison's dirty work. Both the heavy and Grandison's edited recordings will have their reckoning before fade out.</div>
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The Unsuspected is a very suspenseful picture, so I'll say no more. It's worth seeing not just for how Curtiz and company cleverly untangle the knots they tie, but also for the delicous dialogue and performances. Most notable are the two female Noir veterans, Constance Bennett and Audrey Totter. Bennett gets some of the sharpest lines in the script, and Totter plays the mean sister to an Oscar-worthy hilt. I've always harbored an unhealthy love for Totter, but after this performance, I was ready to rob a bank for her.</div>
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<i>The Unsuspected</i> made me think of Angela Lansbury's TV show, <i>Murder, She Wrote</i>. I have a theory about that show: Jessica Fletcher was a serial killer who killed everybody on the show so she could have fodder for her numerous books. She was <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103772/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank"><i>Basic Instinct</i></a> before <i>Basic Instinct</i>. It's up to you to find out if Victor Grandison is Jessica Fletcher before Jessica Fletcher. Anything is possible on the radio that beams content into the eager ears of the denizens of Noir City.</div>
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<b>Next up: Robert Altman's '40's Noir and Burt and Kirk four decades before <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092105/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Tough Guys</a>.</b>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-91095765917832030882018-01-31T14:14:00.004-05:002018-02-02T19:40:41.865-05:00Noir City XVI #6: My Mind's Playing Tricks On Meby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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On Sunday, before <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-5-you-dont-mess-with.html" target="_blank">our date with <i>Jealousy</i>'s Dr. Monica</a>, we denizens of Noir City were plunged into the bizarro world! Up was down, left was right and Sydney Greenstreet was good while Humphrey Bogart was bad! Of course, Bogie's been the heavy before--his work in the 1930's was primarily in this vein--but after <i>Casablanca</i>, audiences probably didn't expect their romantic ideal to revert to being a heel. But here's Bogie as a wife-killer in love with his much younger sister-in-law in <i>Conflict</i>, a movie Jack Warner demanded Bogart make because Warner hated Bogie's newfound status as a romantic leading man. </div>
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Though made 2 years earlier, <i>Conflict</i> wound up on the 1945 roster of releases. In addition to presenting Bogie as a real heel named Richard Mason (whom he plays with committed enthusiasm), <i>Conflict </i>also casts Sydney Greenstreet as the film's hero, criminal psychologist Dr. Mark Hamilton. Dr. Hamilton is first seen holding court amidst a group of believers and one skeptic (much like Thomas Mitchell did earlier in <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-4-help-im-stepping-into.html" target="_blank"><i>Flesh and Fantasy</i></a>). Mason wears his disbelief on his sleeve as obviously as he wears his forbidden desire for Evelyn (Alexis Smith), the sister of his mean ol' wife Kathryn (Rose Hobart). These two emotions cross paths when Mason brutally bumps off Kathryn, then makes a critical mistake about his alibi that only Dr. Hamilton notices.</div>
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<i>Conflict</i> is very sly and very clever. Based on a story by the great Noir City staple <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0802563/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr3" target="_blank">Robert Siodmak</a>, the film starts to play us--and Richard Mason--like a fiddle. You see, despite watching Richard dump Kathryn's lifeless body into her car then push it down a mountain canyon where it conveniently becomes buried in a massive pile of logs, we're led to believe that Kathryn is not dead. She keeps showing up, first in a letter written in her handwriting, then on the phone, and then in person, seemingly disappearing into thin air when she's pursued by her murderous husband. This drives Mr. Mason bonkers, and even worse, throws a King Kong-sized monkey wrench into his plans to woo a vulnerable Evelyn.</div>
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Is Kathryn really still alive? You'll have to see <i>Conflict</i> to find out. The solution is well worth your time. And you may even reflect afterwards, as I did, on whether the roles truly are reversed for Greenstreet and Bogart. One could make a credible argument here in Noir City that Greenstreet's still the villain, albeit in a very, very dark way.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRiVgD3lHAQ-JxWl4r9LRXVs3kjqj0F959JHiqQyeQfeaNZ-0asSvv7U-d8A-2TasF1qLeK2eOSVbHdHmzZynM-ys8pk3ZnnMtc6Nyi5o_b54TH8IAR7LhzlOt_0Tq1H-kjxSoaohNMTLs/s1600/Night_Editor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="304" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRiVgD3lHAQ-JxWl4r9LRXVs3kjqj0F959JHiqQyeQfeaNZ-0asSvv7U-d8A-2TasF1qLeK2eOSVbHdHmzZynM-ys8pk3ZnnMtc6Nyi5o_b54TH8IAR7LhzlOt_0Tq1H-kjxSoaohNMTLs/s320/Night_Editor.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
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No such ambiguities about villainy are present when evaluating Janis Carter's Jill Merrill in 1946's randy radio play-turned-B-movie, <i>Night Editor</i>. Miss Thing is rotten to the core, an adulterous blonde who gets off on violence and can wrap dopey horndogs around her little finger with minimal effort. In other words, she's our kinda dame here in Noir City! She's the femme fatale in this surprisingly naughty tale based on the popular radio program created by Hal Burdick. Each tale is recounted by a newspaperman, a device the film easily adapts.</div>
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Jill's current squeeze is family man and police detective Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), whose home life is presented as the dullest episode of a bad 50's sitcom. He barely touches his wife and runs from his house like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character in order to rendezvous with Jill on a shady lover's lane. In the midst of a heated makeout session, Jill and Tony witness a brutal murder: a woman is beaten to death with a tire iron right before their very eyes. When Cochrane turns on his headlights, he gets a good look at the killer. But Jill talks him out of pursuit--after all, how will he explain to his wife what he was doing on lover's lane?</div>
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Jill gets all hot and bothered by the murder, but Tony's conscience starts to gnaw at him. The gnawing becomes a full-on shredding when Tony discovers the murderer hiding in plain sight at the victim's bank. It's here where <i>Night Editor</i> really gets interesting. Cochrane puts in his due diligence to create a case against the killer, but the guy is not only not phased by it, he provides a really tight alibi. AND he runs off with Jill, leaving Tony to stew in his own guilty conscience and overheating loins.</div>
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To say more would be criminal, but I would like to point out one thing: Look at this picture and tell me what movie this reminds you of: </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8wU9lHUv2W2tH90rZ52pVH42SV8uNLhP-TQW_sHnyxBpbzT4dz_FBeFaVHHiLDSj3hEWRpwxHtLpvjWOqro3L7Sac10W7k0t4-lEZBoyna-WUipg-5nGszuWipRMdQBAVJ-fu3PUenWg3/s1600/Night_editor2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="213" data-original-width="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8wU9lHUv2W2tH90rZ52pVH42SV8uNLhP-TQW_sHnyxBpbzT4dz_FBeFaVHHiLDSj3hEWRpwxHtLpvjWOqro3L7Sac10W7k0t4-lEZBoyna-WUipg-5nGszuWipRMdQBAVJ-fu3PUenWg3/s1600/Night_editor2.jpg" /></a></div>
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We see you, Sharon Stone, and we know where <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103772/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">your most famous movie</a> got its ideas! Like I said before, there's nothing new under the sun. (How did the censor <b><i>not</i></b> see this in 1946?!)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcx_goBWOqhQqA3fr2u_wbgY2zbIjsBJMr8xrqj0nfG5rKLVGqGOdiNb3R0OuSuxJRZCqOXtNz_efpWL5Xd6dvnep74ty0NOqRThJeFbGTD5V2bXzarzFrcRCpMaRE436gCv6bQldYtGco/s1600/blue_dahlia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcx_goBWOqhQqA3fr2u_wbgY2zbIjsBJMr8xrqj0nfG5rKLVGqGOdiNb3R0OuSuxJRZCqOXtNz_efpWL5Xd6dvnep74ty0NOqRThJeFbGTD5V2bXzarzFrcRCpMaRE436gCv6bQldYtGco/s320/blue_dahlia.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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I gotta be honest: I'm not as high on <i>The Blue Dahlia</i> as perhaps I should be. I mean, it's fine, well-acted (especially by William Bendix) and any pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is always welcome. But this thing takes its sweet old time twisting itself into pretzel after pretzel before ending with a solution that feels as if someone spun a wheel with all the characters' names on it and picked whomever it landed on as the film's killer. Regardless, one could do far, far worse than this movie, wich was written under intense pressure and in a boozy haze by literary legend Raymond Chandler. </div>
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Rushed into production by Paramount and producer John "We Earrrrrn it!" Houseman in order to use Ladd before his mandatory military service, <i>The Blue Dahlia</i> was a huge postwar hit. Ladd and Lake provided enough sexy heat to kickstart the wave of baby boomers. And Chandler got an Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for all his trouble. Getting lit off your rocker and writing a Noir is the best--and most respectable--way of getting the Academy's attention.</div>
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<b>Next time: Teased by Michael Curtiz</b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-72355861808083646302018-01-31T12:46:00.001-05:002018-01-31T12:50:12.886-05:00Noir City XVI #5: You Don't Mess With the Monicaby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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Lord Tennyson once waxed poetic about how "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." He might have written those words for Dr. Monica Anderson (a great Karen Morley). The good doctor nurses a major crush on her boss, Dr. David (John Loder), but she'd never show it. She acts like "one of the boys," and David sees her as such. When spunky lady cab driver Jane (Jane Randolph) mistakes as true romance the affectionate way David speaks to Monica on a phone call, he tells her that Monica's too sharp and too smart to hold any interest in him. Just like far too many men here in Noir City, Dr. David is WRONG!</div>
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Czar of Noir Eddie Muller called <i>Jealousy</i>, the B-movie half of Sunday's 1945 double feature, the "closest thing to an art movie we're showing." An art movie Noir sounds like a shot of bourbon followed by a chaser of castor oil, but never fear! <i>Jealousy</i> is helmed by a visual sensualist named <span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0532561?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Gustav Machatý</a>. </span></span><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name">Machatý was responsible for Hedy Lamarr's scandalous 1933 film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022867/?ref_=nm_knf_t1" target="_blank"><i>Ecstasy</i></a>, wherein Ms. Lamarr swam nude and got bizzy onscreen. While he can't go anywhere near that film's level of eroticism in post-Code Hollywood, he can still sneak some heat into tamer images. Notice how he first reveals Dr. Monica's love for Dr. David. Caught in a swoon after he leaves, Monica leans headfirst into a mirror, bumping against her own image like a cat head-butting its affection into a beloved item. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><br /></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><i><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"></span></span></i><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name">Machatý fills <i>Jealousy</i> with tactile images like that, starting with the opening scene's taxicab locations superimposed over Jane while she narrates the film's introduction. This is really her story, a tale about a woman whose exiled Czech writer husband Peter Urban (</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name">Nils Asther) misses his home country so much that his depression renders him useless. Peter crawls into a bottle of booze every night and lashes out at Jane for supporting him with her cabbie work. It's no wonder Jane seems comfort in the arms of Dr. David. Her Brahms-inspired Meet Cute leads to a whirlwind romance that has an unforeseen obstacle: Doctor Monica!</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name">At first, we think the Jealousy of the title refers to Peter. He knows about Jane and David, going so far as to threaten Jane if she tries to leave. But Peter's got stiff competition. Sure, Dr. Monica is friendly toward Jane, earning her confidence and being a kind, advice-giving girlfriend. And she's her usual supportive self where David is concerned, playing the supportive old chap role like she's the best male buddy ever poured into the female form. But the fear of losing the man she's secretly loved all these years also causes the heretofore wishy-washy Dr. Monica to grow a spine covered with spiky stegosaurus spikes. Jane and David were about to learn an important lesson: <i>You don't mess with the Monica</i>! </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name">Many times in our beloved Noir, a woman uses her wiles to convince a fella to do her evil bidding. Not here! Monica does <b><i>her own killin'</i></b>, and her plan to frame Jane for murder is so well thought out that she could easily get away with her crime. But fate is an equal opportunity demon here in Noir City, so one small detail becomes Monica's undoing. No matter! Monica goes out on her own terms, and Karen Morley's line about how killing--and killing again--is the ultimate way for a woman to show her love nearly brought down the house at the Castro Theater. As we often do when presented with something quintessentially noirish, the audience applauded lustily and rapturously. "Whoo! MONICA!!" someone yelled. Even the movie knew to end after that, leaving the fate of the accused Jane to the viewer's imagination. The things we do for love always lead to our downfall here in Noir City.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span itemprop="director" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><span class="itemprop" itemprop="name"><b>Next time: Bogie goes bonkers and Sharon Stone gets ideas.</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-54300871308398635642018-01-30T13:29:00.003-05:002018-01-30T13:31:33.104-05:00Noir City XVI #4: Help, I'm Stepping Into the Twilight Zoneby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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I'm a sucker for anthology movies. They're a lot of fun and usually full of stars or character actors earning their keep in the equivalent of a one-act play. But the problem with most of these movies is that they're hit or miss by nature. There's always one story that throws off the overall quality of the feature. And onscreen anthologies are best suited for science fiction, horror, fantasy or as a television series like Rod Serling's masterful <i>The Twilight Zone</i>. </div>
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So it was a bit of a surprise to find an anthology film gracing the screen at the Castro on Sunday. It was even more surprising to learn that the second feature on the bill was originally <i>another </i>story in that anthology. Universal Studios, home of monsters in the '30s and unforgettable trash in the '70s, separated the first story of <i>Flesh and Fantasy</i> and padded it out to a separate 65-minute feature. This was a major faux pas by the skittish studio, who thought legendary French director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0245213/" target="_blank">Julien Duvivier</a>'s dreamlike tales were far too surrealistic for mainstream audiences. So they added 28 minutes of backstory and a hideous fake ending to Duvivier's first tale and called the result <i>Destiny</i>. Universal also added some very clunky wraparound introductory segments to <i>Flesh and Fantasy</i> that so angered Duvivier that he never made another Hollywood movie.</div>
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Faced with all these unnecessary extras, we denizens of Noir City had to do some judicious editing in our heads to imagine what Duvivier's original vision would have looked like sans studio interference. One could see the exact moment in <i>Flesh and Fantasy</i> where Duvivier's section of <i>Destiny</i> would have been attached. Czar of Noir Eddie Muller gave us hope that, with the Film Noir Foundation's help, we might one day get to see these four tales as Duvivier intended. For now, however, I must play the hand I've been dealt.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJSaFfe5-JwdCh_ViNMn0BWodYriJL0fZvJ88TYfb4_fUR21y7W4n1iNRJOPv-CkzOFTVjXjfprkblBfc6CuCx9oMjb-WQEK5TQ6pNtKcTCO-GrBu_DxOett9LeyQ0jOK1W7tFwHebiQM8/s1600/Destiny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJSaFfe5-JwdCh_ViNMn0BWodYriJL0fZvJ88TYfb4_fUR21y7W4n1iNRJOPv-CkzOFTVjXjfprkblBfc6CuCx9oMjb-WQEK5TQ6pNtKcTCO-GrBu_DxOett9LeyQ0jOK1W7tFwHebiQM8/s320/Destiny.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
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<i>Destiny</i> stars Gloria Jean as a blind woman and Alan Curtis as the fugitive who enters her orbit while on the lam. Curtis' intentions are far from noble. Once he gets her father out of the way, Curtis plans to have his way with what he thinks is a helpless victim. But it's hinted that Jean's blindness gives her mysterious powers. She interacts with friendly animals as if she were a Disney princess. She is preternaturally attuned to where people are in the room. And she may or may not be able to control the weather, including lightning and rain. That last thing dooms Curtis, whose body is fished out of a river at the beginning of <i>Flesh and Fantasy</i>. </div>
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Sounds great, n'est-ce pas? Well, I've only described the part of <i>Destiny </i>directed by Julien Duvivier. We still have to contend with the parts directed by Reginald LeBorg. There's a 28-minute backstory for Curtis' felon. He's fresh out of jail for a crime he committed. He soon becomes the innocent fall guy in a bank robbery committed by his former partner. The dialogue and direction in this section is rather terrible, so when the Duvivier section kicks in, it's like night and day.</div>
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Making matters worse, <i>Destiny </i>is so adamant about redeeming Curtis that it tacks an unbelievable romantic ending on the film, not only resurrecting the dead but conveniently forgetting that the deceased attempted to rape a blind woman. Jean is clearly older in this section, a continuity error LeBorg doesn't even try to fix. The best thing I can say about <i>Destiny</i>, besides championing the great Duvivier section, is that it was presented to us in a welcome 35mm print.</div>
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Universal's tampering with <i>Flesh and Fantasy</i> is far less intrusive than in <i>Destiny</i>, but equally as unwelcome. Robert Benchley stars in the introductions to the film's stories, and though I love Benchley, Rod Serling he ain't. Thankfully, Duvivier's vision isn't diluted by these intrusions. His three tales are star-filled affairs teeming with great, imaginative visuals by the legendary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005673/" target="_blank">Stanley Cortez</a> and Paul Ivano. This hat trick pairs Charles Boyer with Barbara Stanwyck, the gorgeous Betty Field with ugly makeup and a beautiful mask and Edward G. Robinson with Thomas Mitchell and an evil version of himself who shows up in reflections imploring him to kill!</div>
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The most interesting of the three tales is Eddie G's. Based on an Oscar Wilde story, Mitchell plays a mysterious fortune teller whose soothsaying is very, very accurate. When skeptic Robinson has his palm read, Mitchell recoils from what he sees and attempts to lie his way out of the reading. Robinson persists, and is told that he's going to kill someone. Mitchell relishes playing this part, and his giddy touches are infectious.</div>
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But is Mitchell right? Slowly, Robinson starts to go insane, talking to himself via clever visual motifs. His attempts to rid himself of the nightmare are morbidly amusing in an Ealing comedy sort of way. I wouldn't dream of telling you the outcome, except to say it's as predictable as it is satisfying.</div>
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Since I'm such a big stan for Stany, I thought the best tale was the one with her and Boyer. Boyer is an acrobat whose tightrope act is dangerous and performed without a net. One night, he dreams that he falls off the rope, and as he falls, he sees Stanwyck in the audience screaming. She has on a distinctive pair of earrings, a detail that Boyer can't get out of his mind. The resulting dream causes him to chicken out of his act on the circus' last night in town.</div>
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En route to America by ship, Boyer encounters Stanwyck. He's freaked out, as he's never seen her before outside of his dream. She even has the earrings he saw in his vision. He's honest with her about everything, and though she warns him to stay away from her lest the dream become real, the chemistry is too strong for either to resist. Plus, Boyer has another dream about Stanwyck that doesn't come true, so he believes they're in the clear to be together. Unbeknownst to him, we see the second dream play out in real life, which only heightens the suspense when Boyer takes to the tightrope.</div>
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Duvivier makes this section an acrophobic's nightmare. Boyer wobbles ominously on a tightrope that seems a thousand feet in the air. The director wrings so much suspense out of this that the audience in the Castro audibly gasped at one point. Does Boyer go splat? I'll never tell.</div>
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The Betty Field segment is as visually stunning as the rest of the film but feels the most slight out of the three. It's still very good, and the only tale that has a bonafide happy ending. Those types of endings are in short supply here in Noir City, so we'll take 'em wherever we can get 'em.</div>
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<b>Next up: MONICA! WHOOOOOO YEAH!!! MY KINDA WOMAN!</b></div>
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<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-30720917164130062442018-01-29T14:00:00.002-05:002018-02-04T15:52:07.294-05:00Noir City XVI One Stop Shopping<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99cfqGCFugd2AuG_xTSMjscNHAcxKMKXdiaC_eQSbB4Uud1sgDURMMUNm7yqpaFe9_VrsnGL1HJtM36i2V_qYe2JfTHQjrCVa0JDaiM0Zvv24nbrfUuxmVZx8OlPz9wicJxsLaI4uVj8r/s1600/20160122_193044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj99cfqGCFugd2AuG_xTSMjscNHAcxKMKXdiaC_eQSbB4Uud1sgDURMMUNm7yqpaFe9_VrsnGL1HJtM36i2V_qYe2JfTHQjrCVa0JDaiM0Zvv24nbrfUuxmVZx8OlPz9wicJxsLaI4uVj8r/s320/20160122_193044.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-1-for-mature-audiences.html" target="_blank">Dispatch #1: For Mature Audiences Only</a> <i>(I Wake Up Screaming and Among the Living)</i><br />
<a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-2-fifty-shades-of-fleg.html" target="_blank">Dispatch #2: Fifty Shades of Fleg</a> <i>(Quiet Please: Murder, Shadow of a Doubt, This Gun For Hire)</i><br />
<a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-3-then-they-came-for-me.html" target="_blank">Dispatch #3: Then They Came For Me</a> <i>(Address Unknown) </i><br />
Dispatch #4: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-4-help-im-stepping-into.html" target="_blank">Help, I'm Stepping Into The Twilight Zone</a> <i>(Destiny, Flesh and Fantasy) </i><br />
Dispatch #5: <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-5-you-dont-mess-with.html" target="_blank">You Don't Mess With the Monica</a> <i>(Jealousy)</i><br />
Dispatch #6: <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-6-my-minds-playing-tricks.html" target="_blank">My Mind's Playing Tricks On Me</a> <i>(Conflict, Night Editor, The Blue Dahlia) </i><br />
Dispatch #7: <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/02/noir-city-xvi-7-murder-he-spoke.html" target="_blank">Murder, He Spoke</a> <i>(The Unsuspected) </i><br />
Dispatch #8 <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/02/noir-city-xvi-8-kittens-can-still.html" target="_blank">Kittens Can Still Scratch</a> <i>(I Walk Alone, Bodyguard, High Tide) </i>odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-84030532686849510002018-01-29T13:55:00.000-05:002018-01-29T14:02:23.429-05:00Noir City XVI #3: Then They Came For Meby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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As we chronologically navigate Noir City from 1941 to 1953, we've viewed films that were made before and after the United States became involved in WWII. As such, each movie has tried to incorporate some semblance of acknowledgement that the country is at war. So far, we've seen various mentions in passing, usually presented as a treasonous activity by the villains. But on Saturday night, denizens of Noir City were sideswiped by the timeliness of a powerful 1944 film by the legendary <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0580017/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">William Cameron Menzies</a>. </div>
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Though Menzies was commonly known for his art direction, he was also quite frequently called upon as a "director doctor," the guy who took control behind the camera to save films in trouble. As a result of both skills, <i>Address Unknown</i> is a crisply directed, great-looking feature that doesn't waste a single moment of its short 75-minute runtime. This was not made for a lot of money, but its technical proficiency resulted in Oscar nominations for music and art direction. The latter nod is interesting, as there is nothing very flashy about the art gallery, German mansion and theater where most of <i>Address Unknown</i> takes place. However, the way Menzies shoots these locales and the actors within them elevates the<b> </b>sets' status; at times an area can dwarf its inhabitants, and at other times, that same area can seem small enough to entrap and suffocate. </div>
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<i>Address Unknown</i> tells the story of the rise of Nazism in Germany through the friendship of two business partners, Max Eisenstein (Morris Carnovsky) and Martin Schulz (Paul Lukas, fresh off his Best Actor Oscar win for <i>Watch on the Rhine</i>). These two families are so close that their progeny have plans to marry. Max's daughter, Griselle (K.T. Stevens) puts the impending nuptials on hold so that she may pursue an acting career in Germany. She will accompany the German-born Martin back home for a year while Martin's heartbroken son Heinrich (Peter van Eyck) remains in Max's employ. </div>
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Once the Schulzes are back in Germany, Max starts to notice a change in his friend. These changes are shown to us but are reflected to Max in the epistolary correspondence he maintains with Martin. Martin's letters become complimentary toward Hitler, then become even more ominous in their demands that Max not say certain things against the Nazis. When Martin suddenly asks Max to stop writing, Max becomes fearful for his Jewish daughter's safety. His fears are confirmed with a heartless, cruel two-sentence letter from Martin.</div>
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<i>Address Unknown</i> refuses to sugarcoat anything. Despite showing how the German government censors content, stokes anti-Semitic hatred and governs by fear, the film does not let Martin off any hooks. Herr Schulz has clearly drunk the Kool-Aid figuratively served to him by the high-ranking Baron von Friesche (Carl Esmond). Lukas gives a daring, commendable performance. He plays the role in "I was only taking orders" mode for much of the film, only showing true cowardice in the tight closeups Menzies affords him once the powers that be finally come for him. As <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller" title="Martin Niemöller">Martin Niemöller</a>'s famous saying goes, Martin learns that there is no one left to speak for him.</div>
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Herbert Dalmas' script (adapted from the novel by Kressmann Taylor, a pseudonym for Kathrine Taylor) gets maximum mileage from the mail system, especially when Martin starts receiving "coded" letters from Max. The letters are meant to arouse suspicion--all mail is being read by the government and it's illegal to send anything they cannot decipher. While this vengeful action is firmly within the Noir tradition, <i>Address Unknown</i> has bigger fish to fry. It's a blatant statement, clear and unafraid in its straightforwardness. And it has terrifying parallels to some of the things we're seeing today. </div>
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After the film, an acquaintance of mine asked me who would have seen it in 1944. Since it's a Columbia release, I assumed it would have played in regular theaters as the bottom of the double bill. The bigger question I had in return was "who would make something like this today?" With news outlets embarrassing themselves trying to show the softer side of blatant evil, I shudder to think that a film like this couldn't be made today. At least we have <i>Address Unknown</i>, which should be shown every chance it can get. We need to see this daring movie. Cautionary tales, even ones that trade the usual frivolity for utter seriousness, are par for the course here in Noir City.</div>
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<b>Next time: A return to frivolity.</b></div>
<br />odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-59917671214734620302018-01-28T20:22:00.002-05:002018-01-29T14:02:11.596-05:00Noir City XVI #2: Fifty Shades of Flegby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i> <br />
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Saturday's double matinee at Noir City offered we happy denizens a dose of Ladd and Lake, some catnip for bookworms, a favorite of Alfred Hitchcock and the most harrowing, timely feature the festival has ever shown. That last one deserves a piece all its own, so let's talk about the other three for now. </div>
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It was inevitable that George Sanders would eventually play something feline. His voice is that of the world's most contented cat, one who so relishes his mischief that every line he utters vibrates with self-satisfaction. And while <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpC4a6jCxSA" target="_blank">Shere Khan the Tiger</a> in Disney's <i>The Jungle Book</i> appeared a tad too cutesy to house such aural malice, his species is a perfect match for Sanders' impeccable delivery.</div>
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I bring this up because Sanders has a line in the deliciously titled <i>Quiet, Please: Murder</i> that conjured up images of a cat that had not only eaten the canary, but enjoyed every single flavor-invoking burp afterward. When Myra Blandy (Gail Patrick) points out that Jim Fleg (Sanders) is a masochist looking for the right sadist to tickle his fancy, Fleg simply responds "yes." The sexy purr with which Sanders underlines the word is magnificent.</div>
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That's right, folks! Jim Fleg is into all sorts of S&M, and the dialogue in <i>Quiet Please: Murder </i>is jaw-droppingly kinky by 1942's standards. The joys of giving and receiving pain always simmer underneath the trappings of Noir, but here they bubble close enough to the surface to burn the censor. Director John Larkin and his cast get away with such deviltry by wrapping the randy proceedings in a plot that involves the theft of rare manuscripts from the Los Angeles Public Library. The plot makes absolutely no sense, but there's never a dull moment.</div>
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Fleg is a master counterfeiter of rare manuscripts. He steals the originals and makes flawless copies of them to sell to unsuspecting book collectors. His latest product is recreations of a 17th century manuscript of <i>Hamlet</i>, which he steals from the library in the film's opening scene. When the hapless library security guard tells Fleg he can take the manuscript "over my dead body," Sanders nonchalantly pulls a gun and shoots him. This is the level of subtlety we'll be on for the next 70 minutes.</div>
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Myra is Fleg's fencer, or something like that. Like Eve Harrington to Sanders' Addison De Witt in <i>All About Eve</i>, Myra and Fleg talk to each other "killer to killer." Perhaps she is the S in Fleg's S&M. Myra has an offshoot plan of her own, which involves Richard Denning, Sidney Blackmer and the Nazis in ways I wish I had enough time to explain to you. It all comes to a head when everyone is locked in the library during an air raid drill. While the lights are out, all manner of double and triple crosses occur. </div>
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The film's choice of Hamlet as the stolen text is not an accident. The melancholy Dane once said "Conscience makes cowards of us all," and Fleg has a masterful speech about how one's conscience can be the ultimate saboteur for those in love with committing evil. Sanders delivers this speech with the gusto you expect from him, highlighting the theme that one's conscience may indeed be the ultimate femme fatale.</div>
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“And introducing Alan Ladd” screamed an onscreen credit for <i>This Gun For Hire</i>, marking the first pairing of Veronica Lake with the man who would be Shane. Of course, we denizens of Noir City need no introduction; Ladd’s been here before, most memorably in the 1949 adaptation of <i>The Great Gatsby</i>. <i>This Gun For Hire</i> also marks the return of another Noir City favorite, writer Graham Greene. Greene’s story of a professional hit man gets the Hollywood treatment, slapping Robert Preston’s good-guy cop in the role of protagonist. But the film also does something unusual for 1942: It makes Ladd into the kind of anti-hero more commonly found in features from later eras. There really is nothing new under the sun, folks. <br />
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Philip Raven (Ladd) is the kind of hit man who would shoot an innocent victim through a closed door then serve a saucer of milk to the mewling kitten who visits his window every day. When Raven is betrayed by his current employer, whose treasonous dealings include selling poison gas to the Japanese, he goes on the run. Since he’s been paid with marked bills that immediately flag him as a criminal, Raven has to procure money from another source. This leads to a Meet Cute only a pickpocket could love. Raven steals a sawbuck from the purse of Ellen Graham (Lake) while she’s in the powder room of the train they’re inhabiting. Graham calls him on it—she’s sharper than he thought—so he gives it back. The casual, smoldering way Graham asks “you wanna borrow a dollar?” afterwards is a prime example of the Ladd-Lake chemistry at work.<br />
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Alas, romance is off the table for these two. Graham is betrothed to Michael Crane (Robert Preston—yes, that guy from The Music Man). He’s the copper investigating Raven’s traitorous boss and his right hand man, Willard Gates (Laird Cregar, brilliant as a man who abhors violence but isn’t below committing it). Raven’s marked bills lead Crane to Raven, and when the latter makes the connection between his prosecutor and Graham, there’s trouble with a capital T in store for all involved. <br />
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To be honest, Preston is really no match for Ladd, a sentiment echoed by the audiences who demanded to see more of Ladd after this movie. While the film doesn’t side with him, it also doesn’t blunt the rare moments of vulnerability with which Ladd shades his performance. In fact, one can say that Raven’s own downfall has an air of tragic chivalry, a price paid by a man who knows the limits of his capacity to love, but recognizes the importance of that skill in someone else. There’s an unrequited romantic quid-pro-quo between Graham and Raven that’s—dare I say it—rather sweet.</div>
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I played hooky from the Saturday evening showing of Hitchcock's classic <i>Shadow of a Doubt</i>, as I'd seen it recently on the big screen. But I've always imagined that if Hitchcock had allowed his tradmark cameos to come with dialogue, he would have been seen trading perfect murder scenarios with Hume Cronyn and Henry Travers. While these two banter amusingly back and forth, a real murderer is in their midst, Joseph Cotten's iconic Uncle Charlie. Uncle Charlie thinks he has committed the perfect murders of widowed women lonely enough to be charmed by him. He moves from widow to widow, with Hitchcock using "The Merry Widow Waltz" as Charlie's calling card.</div>
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Uncle Charlie has nothing but disdain for his victims, but his namesake niece, Charlie (Teresa Wright) has nothing but love for her uncle. That love morphs slowly into hate as she discovers Charlie's true nature, a nature Cotten barely hide in his tour-de-force dinner speech. Wright is excellent at showing the loss of her innocence. <i>Shadow of a Doubt</i> gives her and Cotten numerous scenes of scary antagonism. How does one cope with the knowledge that the person they most admired is unworthy of such worship? The adage that one should never meet their heroes applies in triplicate here in Noir City.</div>
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<b>Next time: A cautionary tale starring Paul Lukas.</b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-3625000062243516832018-01-27T23:31:00.001-05:002018-01-29T14:01:56.553-05:00Noir City XVI #1: For Mature Audiences Onlyby Odie "Odienator" Henderson <br />
<i>(for all dispatches, go <a href="https://odienator.blogspot.com/2018/01/noir-city-xvi-one-stop-shopping.html" target="_blank">here</a>)</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/home.html" target="_blank">Film Noir Foundation</a>'s 16th <a href="http://noircity.com/index.html" target="_blank">Noir City Film Festival</a> opened last Friday night at the famed Castro Theatre in San Francisco, and this year marks a personal milestone for me. This is my tenth time at the festival, and without fail I have loved every single moment of being a denizen of Noir City. I may not get the money, and I never get the woman, but I always go home satisfied. If nothing else, I have the relieved joy of knowing my luck is a lot better than the folks projected on the mighty Castro theater screen.</div>
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This year, celebrated Czar of Noir Eddie Muller has gone deep into the crates, pulling out films that I have never heard of before. The method to his madness this year is a return to the true nature of double features, that is, a bill featuring one "A-movie" and one "B-movie." The 12 double bills are presented in chronological order, highlighting the evolution of the genre. It's all right there in the Noir City subtitle: "<b>Film Noir A to B 1941-1953.</b>"</div>
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Noir City XVI opened with a double bill from 1941. Assisting Eddie in presenting the first film was Victoria Mature, daughter of the star of <i>I Wake Up Screaming</i>, Victor Mature. In addition to belting out a kickass a capella version of Alfred Newman's <i>Street Scene</i>, which figures prominently in the film, Victoria dished about how it felt to see her hunky Papa onscreen in his youthful heyday. After all, he was 64 when she was born.</div>
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<i>Eddie and Victoria talk about the star of One Million B.C.</i></div>
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<i>I Wake Up Screaming</i> sounds like a horror movie, but the only terrifying thing about Bruce Humberstone's early Noir influence is its score's near-constant use of <i>The Wizard of Oz</i>'s <i>Over the Rainbow</i>. Initially, I questioned how a song from an MGM movie found its way into a 20th Century-Fox release, but after the seven bazillionth time it cued up on the soundtrack, I was praying for Dorothy's house to fall on me.</div>
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Assault by Harold Arlen aside, <i>I Wake Up Screaming</i> is an intensely entertaining whodunit co-starring WWII pinup gal Betty Grable. Grable plays Jill Lynn, the sister of Vicky (Carole Landis), a waitress whose sudden ascent into high society ends with her murder. This murder kicks off the film, which hops between past and present with alternating narration by Jill and the accused murderer, Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature). Sports promoter Frankie is responsible for Vicky's introduction into the glamorous world of Hollywood: he makes a bet with his snooty industry buddies that he can turn the unrefined hashslinger into a perfect society dame. It's <i>Pygmalion </i>as if George Bernard Shaw had been possessed by Agatha Christie.</div>
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Dwight Taylor's adaptation of Steve Fisher's novel stacks the deck with potential murderers, including Noir City regular Elisha Cook, Jr. We can pretty much rule out Frankie's guilt, as it would be anti-climactic. But even Jill looks suspicious at one point. The most compelling suspect is Ed Cornell (Laird Cregar), the lead police detective on the case. He's first seen in a Jill-related flashback. During her interrogation by the cops, Jill remembers seeing a creepy looking man staring at Vicky through the restaurant window. When Cornell enters the room, Jill recognizes him but the cops disavow her panic.</div>
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Cornell is so convinced that Frankie is guilty that he starts stalking him, breaking into Frankie's house to watch him sleep or to surprise him. Cornell harasses Frankie mercilessly, and we start to suspect that Cornell is doing so to distract from the possibility that he's the killer. I won't give away whodunit, but I will state that Cregar gives a fearless and complex performance, especially when his motivations for torturing Frankie come to light. Cornell is in the Noir vein of determined thorns-in-the-side like Edward G. Robinson's adjuster in <i>Double Indemnity</i>, but his tenacity is emotion-based rather than detail oriented. Cornell is <i>Les Miserables</i>' Javert reimagined as a man whose desire to torment his obsession stems from a warped sense of romantic entitlement. And Cregar gives an unforgettable performance that will leave viewers conflicted.</div>
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Edward Cronjager's cinematography bathes the proceedings in the finest, shadowy traditions of the Noir features we've come to love. Many of those films seem to crib directly from Cronjager's work, either enhancing it or commandeering it. His ominous, sometimes playful use of shadows and angles are enough to send any Noir fan's heart into appreciation overdrive. Images like this are why black and white cinematography will always be better than color. </div>
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<i>I Wake Up Screaming</i> was paired on opening night with <i>Among the Living</i>, which Eddie called "a horror Noir." Its pedigree includes <i>Dracula</i> writer Garrett Fort, who infuses the proceedings with Southern Gothic terror and scary movie tropes. This one's bonkers, folks, with Albert Dekker as a set of twins, one good and one evil. The evil one, Paul, was supposedly buried at 10 years old, leaving the good one, John, to mourn the loss for decades. In reality, however, Paul had been driven insane by his mother's screams during her abuse at the hands of his father. Paul's descent is helped along by a nasty bit of head trauma delivered by his father. Rather than risk shame, the family hires Dr. Saunders (an evil Harry Carey) to fake Paul's death. Paul remains hidden in the attic for decades.</div>
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When the abusive father dies, John returns home for the funeral. John has everything going for him--he's a success married to an understanding wife (Frances Farmer). He knows nothing about the maniacal twin who likes to strangle people and then position their bodies to look like Edward Munch's painting, <i>The Scream</i>. But he's about to find out just how much trouble Paul can be.</div>
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Paul escapes from his attic prison and rents a room in town. His scraggly beard marks him as the "evil twin," so of course, he'll eventually shave it off so he can be mistaken for John. The catalyst for the close shave is Millie, an enticing, flirty troublemaker played by my favorite scenery chewer, Susan Hayward. Nothing is <b><i>ever subtle</i></b> about Susan Hayward; she makes Millie's sexuality run down the screen like a torrential rainstorm. I could imagine <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Breen" target="_blank">Joe Breen</a> looking like one of Paul's dead victims when he saw this picture.</div>
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Millie's misidentification of John as Paul leads to scary scenes of mob justice, mayhem and murder, all rendered in the perfectly noirish cinematography of Theodor Sparkuhl. Somehow all of this works. Maybe it's not as the most credible of Noirs, but <i>Among the Living</i> is one of the more fun ones we've had here in Noir City.</div>
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<b>Next time: Books, bobs and blues for Uncle Charlie.</b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-71582123213130321342017-08-28T20:22:00.003-04:002019-10-30T12:01:32.011-04:00What Was Left of Them: Tobe Hooper's Effect on my Childhoodby Odienator<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>Prologue: The Unforgettable Face of Fear</b></i></span><br />
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When I was 11 years old, my aunt Brenda took her two sons and I to see something innocent and wholesome at the now-defunct State Theater in my hometown of Jersey City, New Jersey. By virtue of the Pix Theater going under a few years prior, the State had become my hometown's official grindhouse theater. The State would be where I saw every single Italian cannibal and zombie movie released in the states, each of which my cousins and I--sans Aunt Brenda--would sneak into over the next three years. Despite my pre-adolescent love of gore, I grew so sick of these barf-worthy ventures that I developed an aversion to zombies that persists to this day.</div>
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But on this particular day in 1981, there was nothing untoward going on in the theater where we'd eventually sit. Outside, however, was a different story. While my aunt brought tickets to whatever it was we saw that day, I wandered over to the giant glass display of posters for the films currently playing at the State. The one that drew my attention filled me with an equal amount of curiosity and terror. There was a grotesque looking guy wielding a chainsaw on it, standing in front of a screaming woman who appeared to be hanging from something. Shuddering, I drew my eyes away from the image and up to the words on the poster. Unfortunately, they offered no respite. It said:</div>
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<b>"Who will survive and what will be left of them?"</b></div>
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My cousins joined me at the glass. "Whoa!" said my older cousin. "Mom," he yelled as he pointed to the poster, "can we see THIS?" </div>
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"Hell no!" she yelled back. "That movie's old. I saw it years ago and <i>it's not for kids</i>!" </div>
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"But we ain't kids!" he protested. "I'm 12!"</div>
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"Get your asses over here NOW!" Aunt Brenda demanded. I was so transfixed by the poster that my cousin had to hit me upside the head to break the spell. "Come on before my mother gets mad!" he warned.</div>
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We walked past the concession stand and into the theater area. The State was a triplex in 1981, with one theater upstairs and two on the lobby level. Our film was in third theater, which meant we passed the door of the theater playing <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>. Inside was the answer to the ominous question on the poster. As we passed, a teenage girl opened the theater door and made a terrified beeline for the concession area. In the brief time the door was open, I heard the sounds of chainsaws and screaming. It was so quick, I question if that's exactly what I heard. What was not up for dispute was the fact that the teenage girl who'd offered me that quick sneak peek had run faster than Jesse Owens from whatever the hell was making those noises.</div>
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After we found seats, I asked my aunt if we could get some popcorn. She sent me out to get a large bucket. "No butter," she said, "You hear me?" I would return with a bucket smeared with artificial butter topping, and I'd lie to my aunt and tell her they put it on by mistake. My aunt would take it back, and as punishment, would return with nothing.</div>
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Something far more upsetting happened en route to my getting that "erroneous" bucket of butter-scarred popcorn. As I walked toward the concession stand, a girl of about 16 or 17 came walking in the opposite direction. She held a large soda in one hand; in the other, a small boy. He looked about 6 or 7. With his short Afro and his chocolate colored skin, the kid bore a striking resemblance to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Allen_Rippy" target="_blank">Rodney Allen Rippy</a>.</div>
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Our paths crossed right in front of the theater showing <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>. I stopped so she could pass me and open the door, ostensibly so I could get a look inside. Unfortunately, the door swung outward, obstructing my view. </div>
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The sounds coming from beyond that door were terrifying. Chainsaws! Screaming! Unbelievable Carnage!! Someone in the audience yelled "RUN BITCH RUN!" I was so wrapped up in the noise that I didn't notice the reason I was getting more than a cursory preview: the little boy was still outside the door. He was putting up one hell of a fight to resist entering the theater.</div>
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The scene was almost comic. I couldn't see the girl, as the door obscured her body. I just saw her hand tugging at the kid, who by now was making grunts of resistance. "Urrr! Urrr!" he said as he tried to pull away. The girl said nothing. She continued to tug at his arm. Sensing that he was losing the fight, the boy started using both of his hands in protest. </div>
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Suddenly, the boy turned his head and looked at me. I saw unfiltered horror running rampant in his facial expression. Our eyes met, and a chill went up my spine. I will never forget what I saw when he looked at me.</div>
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<i>Help me</i>, his eyes pleaded. <i>Please help me</i>.</div>
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The terrifying movie noises continued to play while this transpired. I remained frozen in my tracks. There wouldn't have been much I could do anyway, as I wasn't much bigger than the kid. That girl would have flung my rail-thin ass through the wall.</div>
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Five seconds after our eyes met, the kid disappeared into the theater with a violent flourish. The door slammed shut, returning the hallway to an eerie silence. The poor kid had been consumed by the darkness as I helplessly watched. He probably became a serial killer as a result of this traumatic experience. </div>
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As I continued my trek to the theater lobby, one thought occupied my mind. </div>
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<i>"Shit! I gotta see this movie!"</i></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;"> I. Vampires Are Scary</span></i></b></div>
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Tobe Hooper, the director of <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>, was responsible for scaring the shit out of that poor kid. But before his power tool masterpiece would terrify me, Hooper directed one of the few vampire stories I found scary. I watched the <i>'Salem's Lot</i> miniseries on TV when I was 9. I had read the novel, my second venture into Stephen King, so I had a good idea what to expect when I watched. But things are much scarier for me if I know they're coming, so I got a good jolt out of watching Hutch from <i>Starsky and Hutch</i> battle some nasty looking beasties. I don't know why my mother let me watch this movie, as it came saddled with the dreaded "Parental Discretion Advised" warning Mom always took to heart. I guess she figured that, since I'd already read the book, how much worse could the miniseries be?</div>
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Well, I had nightmares about the damn thing. Barlow, the miniseries' scary villain, kept coming to me in dreams, trying to kill me or, even worse, serenading me in mid-air with 70's songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbLBmru7BoM" target="_blank"><i>Feelings</i></a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt5uNQ3FXRI" target="_blank"><i>Knock Three Times</i></a>. <b>(I was a messed up kid.)</b></div>
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<i>'Salem's Lot</i> was the first time I'd heard of Tobe Hooper.<b> </b>Despite it being made for TV, Hooper crafted a creepy, atmospheric chamber piece that didn't wimp out on the scares. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx5ccYRtlQ4" target="_blank">Barlow's death</a>, in particular, stuck with me. It takes forever for David Soul to stake him, and whenever the camera isn't on the extremely violent action, Hooper keeps the suspense consistent with the use of light from a swinging light fixture, scary vampire imagery in the background and gruesome sound effects. He gets a lot of mileage out of misdirecting the viewer's gaze, forcing them to imagine the gore the TV censors wouldn't allow much of back in 1979. The editing in the scene is also as violent as the crime. </div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">II. The Party's at the Funhouse</span></b></i></div>
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1981 was the year I saw my first Tobe Hooper film in theaters, and by virtue of coming before New Line's re-release of <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>, that film was <i>The Funhouse</i>. I remember my cousin Rena seeing it before my cousins and I did. She came back and, as was tradition in my family, told us everything that happened in the movie. This is why spoilers have never bothered me; things are a lot scarier for me if I know they're coming. </div>
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Rena talked about the "nasty" sex scene in it, and how a particularly obnoxious character met a gruesome death. She even expressed a bit a sympathy for the monster, who was, in her words, "just trying to get some booty." I asked her if the monster was as gross-looking as the creature on the <i>Funhouse</i> poster, and she said that it was worse. </div>
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<i>Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!</i></div>
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Unlike most of the horror movies I saw between ages 10-16, I didn't have to sneak into <i>The Funhouse</i>. My aunt Big Evon took us. She didn't think it was gory enough for her tastes, but I thought it was very well-done and rather disturbing. Watching it again recently, I realized how underrated it actually is. This is a bit of a gem. As a kid, I didn't have nightmares, but it certainly cured me of my desire to ever go into a carnival's spooky house ever again. </div>
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Hooper's direction is the star here as well. He gets a good performance out of his lead, Elizabeth Berridge, and he really does evoke a bit of sympathy for his killer. Despite being released at the height of the slasher craze, Hooper doesn't make the kills overly graphic, once again leaving some things to our imagination, evoking the <i>did we see what we thought we did</i> feeling that he had mastered 7 years prior. Speaking of which:</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>III. Leatherface Almost Makes Me Barf</b></i></span></div>
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The week after Rodney Allen Rippy's lookalike had his theater lobby freak-out, my 2 cousins and I snuck into <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>. Keep in mind that I grew up on horror movies, so by 1981, I was a bit of a seasoned veteran. It wasn't that movies didn't scare me, it was just that I had a higher tolerance for this stuff than a lot of kids my age. I was especially tolerant of gore. I had seen <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>, <i>Suspiria</i> and <i>Deep Red</i> by this point. What really got under my skin was what the movie <i>didn't</i> show to me, because my imagination was far worse than anything anybody could run through a projector.</div>
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Suffice it to say, I was not prepared for this movie.</div>
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Everything I learned about the history of <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>, I learned years after I saw it. So I was walking in as blindly as the audience at its original release. I had no idea that the story wasn't exactly "true" nor that I would have to wait until <i>Pieces</i> and <i>Chainsaw</i>'s sequel to get graphic chainsaw action, I just knew the reactions of that girl who ran from the theater, and the little boy whose pleading eyes haunt me to this day. But judging by the narrration and the flashes of God-knows-what that opened Hooper's masterpiece, I slowly realized I had bitten off more than I could chew.</div>
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For starters, the movie felt like some maniac's filth-speckled home movies. I had no idea what cinema verite was at 11, but the grungy mise-en-scene got under my skin. From the first frames, I started to itch, because I'm quite anal about dirt and grime, and I hadn't even gotten to Robert Burns' spectacularly gross set design for Leatherface's house. To this day, my cousin mocks me about my reaction to the pitch black comedy of the film's dinner party scene. I sat in the theater squirming as if I were being electrocuted. I wanted to peel off my skin and give it to Leatherface to wear, because this film made me feel as if I would never be clean again.</div>
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<i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> also contains the single most horrific image I have ever seen in a lifetime of horror movies. It occurs when Leatherface hits that poor guy with the sledgehammer. I knew Leatherface was going to show up, but like Sissy Spacek's hand coming up from the grave in <i>Carrie</i>, the shock arrives with a most off-kilter pacing. The shot choices and editing are masterful: Leatherface appears, clobbers the guy and then there's a shot of his body convulsing on the ground. That's what got to me--the convulsions were way too convincing. Since Hooper doesn't show the open wound, my brain imagined the damage that sledgehammer had done to that guy's head.</div>
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I almost threw up.</div>
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Closing my eyes only made the movie worse--it sounds a lot scarier than it looks--so I became defiantly committed to staring at whatever Hooper and company threw at me. TCM is edited so viscerally that the movie starts happening to you. When Teri McMinn gets hung on a meathook, rather than cut to the gory penetration, Hooper shows her facial reaction, forcing the viewer to identify with her agony. I could feel the cold, pointy hook going into my back.<br />
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I almost threw up again.<br />
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The normally rowdy State Theater audience had, for the most part, been stunned into a silence that was occasionally broken by someone yelling out "Daaaaamn!" or instructions for poor Marilyn Burns to run like hell. Leatherface's relentless pursuit of her seemed interminable, and Burns played her panic to the hilt. My cousins thought I was squirming, but in actuality, I was running in place. I was being chased in my seat. This was 4DX before 4DX.<br />
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When Burns' Sally finally escapes, I didn't know how to interpret her final screams. Were they screams of catharsis? Of relief? Or had she been driven crazy by her ordeal, her screams waving a primal goodbye to her sanity? I still don't know. But to this day, whenever I have a particularly harrowing day, I think back to Sally on the back of that truck, and I say "Gurl, I feel you."<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>IV: It Knows What Scares You</b></i></span><br />
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I don't believe that Steven Spielberg directed <i>Poltergeist</i>, but I do believe he played a major part in the final product. After all, he wrote it. And the Freelings seemed too normal to belong to Hooper's cinema--he tended to favor far more dysfunctional, parasitic families. So maybe Spielberg wielded his influence in the early scenes, which play like a parody of the perfect Spielbergian suburban family drama.<br />
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But <i>Poltergeist</i>'s scary-funny, absurdist approach to violence and trauma, especially in the relentless, corpse-filled finale, is pure Tobe Hooper. Whether it's JoBeth Williams, in her paper thin panties, sliding into a swimming pool full of gruesome dead bodies, Richard Lawson peeling off his face or Oliver Robins being strangled by his sinister toy clown, Hooper's visual ownership is never in doubt. Only upon a second viewing of <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i> does one fully see the sick humor just below the surface. By virtue of being less grueling, Hooper's unmistakable black comic fingerprints are more readily evident in <i>Poltergeist</i>.<br />
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Regardless, this movie lived up to its tagline for 12-year old me. It knew what scared me, and it proceeded to terrify me with those things. I was afraid of thunder, clowns, being separated from my family and (don't laugh) the glow that the old TVs always had when you turned them off. Poltergeist had set pieces featuring all of those.<br />
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And while TCM is clearly Hooper's masterpiece, <i>Poltergeist</i> is my favorite movie of his. It holds a special place in my heart because it was the movie I saw the day I graduated from 8th grade. My cousins--the same ones who were at TCM with me--had tried to crash my 8th grade graduation night "prom," which caused all three of us to be thrown out. So, still dressed in our suits, we went to the movies instead, and this is the movie we saw. Thanks to HBO, I saw it many, many more times.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>V: Be a Good Boy, and Let the Butt-Nekkid Lady Kill You</b></i></span><br />
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After <i>Poltergeist</i>, Hooper was kidnapped by the symbol of my
adolescent moviegoing experiences, the Cannon Group logo. The Cannon
Group Logo is like that drunk friend you have that you really shouldn't
hang out with, but you do anyway because he promises a lively evening.
Later, you feel enormous guilt and regret as you crawl from the wreckage
of the night's activities. That's what it felt like watching a Cannon
movie.<br />
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<i>Bitch, you know you love me!</i></div>
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<i>Lifeforce</i> is the Cannon movie that marked Hooper's return to the vampire movie--kinda sorta. Our antagonists are space creatures who come to Earth to suck the lifeforce out of people. The cast included <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001772/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t5" target="_blank">Captain Picard</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0706883/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t1" target="_blank">the guy who played Charles Manson</a> in <i>Helter Skelter</i>. But nobody gave a damn about those guys once they got a look at Mathilda May. The imDB credits her as "Space Girl" but that description does her no justice. Like the Terminator, Space Girl arrives on the scene butt-ass naked. Unlike the Terminator, she never asks anyone for their clothes.<br />
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It's 1985. I'm 15 and just finishing my junior year in high school. Around this time, the local theaters were slowly realizing they didn't give a shit if an underage kid got into an R-rated movie. So I think this was the first R-rated movie I bought a ticket to successfully. Nervously, I walked up to the ticket booth and, despite looking like I was 12, I cheated the MPAA. My reward was a 2-hour movie featuring boobies, boobies and more boobies. I honestly don't remember anything else, outside the fact that this movie was incredibly stupid. Oh, and the F/X work was good--those fried people were ghoulishly effective. And boobies.<br />
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Cut me some slack. I was 15.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>VI: Leatherface Tries to Make Me Barf</b></i></span><br />
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Since Tobe Hooper's next movie was <i>Spontaneous Combustion</i>, made when I was 20, my childhood experiences with the director end here. I'd talk about Hooper's Cannon remake of <i>Invaders from Mars</i>, but I didn't see that until I was 30. I saw <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2</i> when it came out, two months after I graduated high school.<br />
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Writer L.M. Kit Carson and director Hooper said this film's poster was a parody of <i>The Breakfast Club</i>'s poster, whch should have clued folks in to the fact that this is a comedic take on Leatherface's return to the screen. Folks who didn't get the memo include the MPAA who, as with <i>Re-Animator</i> before it, were shocked enough to rate this film X. My good buddy, the Cannon Group logo, surrendered the X, sending <i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2</i> to the State Theater sans rating. The State didn't care. They had played <i>Dawn of the Dead</i> and <i>Bolero</i> without MPAA lettering.<br />
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But those sons of bitches at the State DID treat the film like it was rated X, so for the last time, I had to sneak into a movie. (I was 16 when I graduated high school--and I still looked 12.) What I saw when i sat down in the theater was the quintessential Cannon Group movie. And I wasn't crazy about it.<br />
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I know that's a bit of sacrilege, as TCM 2 has a legion of fans. But though the movie is over-the-top ridiculous and slathered with the gore effects of the great Tom Savini, I couldn't reconcile this version of Leatherface. I remembered him as a terrifying figure. He's not scary at all here, which I suppose is the point. He's even overshadowed by his other family members and by Dennis Hopper, though in Leatherface's defense, it's impossible to upstage Dennis Hopper. Even when Hopper's not wielding a chainsaw.<br />
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Seeing a major figure of my parents' youth going up against one of the most terrifying figures of mine had its giddy joys, to be sure. But despite Hooper doing a very competent directorial job, and the film paving the way for other splatstick sequels like the superior <i>Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn</i>, I'm always left wishing I enjoyed this movie more than I do.<br />
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Still, it's infinitely better than any of the sequels and reboots that followed it. And it's such a grandiose, haphazard comedy it reminds me of Spielberg's <i>1941</i>. So how's this for a conspiracy theory: If Spielberg ghost-directed <i>Poltergeist</i>, perhaps he was returning the favor for Hooper ghost directing <i>1941</i>. Hey, you never know.<br />
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Epilogue: Farewell, Horror Heroes of my Youth</span></b></i><br />
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Tobe Hooper died on August 26, 2017. He was 74. He joins two other horror icons of my childhood, Wes Craven and George Romero. They were men who scared me shitless, gave me nightmares and allowed me to taste the forbidden fruits of the horror genre from which the MPAA was supposed to protect me. They contributed to my delinquency and nurtured my love of all things cinema. I shall be eternally grateful.</div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-14908818974916252662017-01-25T19:25:00.000-05:002017-01-25T19:35:10.524-05:00Noir City XV #2: It's All Right There in the Titleby Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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<a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/whos-gonna-get-me-a-beer-an-interview-with-lee-marvin" target="_blank">Lee Marvin</a> is a repeat offender here at Noir City. His steely visage is always a welcome sight, but even Lee had to question what the hell he was doing in a film like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048790/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank"><i>Violent Saturday</i></a>. According to Eddie Muller, Marvin hated the movie, saying his performance made him look like a fool. It's a rather unbelievable statement, especially when you consider that director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0281507/?ref_=rvi_nm" target="_blank">Richard Fleischer</a> cast Ernest Borgnine as an Amish person. Ernie is saddled with a beard and loads of "thee, thou, thy" dialogue. Thy cup will runneth over with laughter when you get a good look at Borgnine in full gear. As for Marvin, his awesomely garish blue ensemble is more suited for Studio 54 than 1954.</div>
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<i>Why, Lee? Why?!</i></div>
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<i>Violent Saturday</i> is two parts caper film and three parts soapy, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyton_Place_(film)" target="_blank"><i>Peyton Place</i></a> melodrama. The ever versatile Fleischer not only swings between the two disparate halves with ease, he does it in CinemaScope so the screen contains more soapy suds per square inch than the Academy ratio would allow. We meet the creepy Peeping Tom banker who ogles the pretty young nurse from outside her window as she undresses. We meet the Amish family who offers sanctuary to our hero Victor Mature. We spend time with the criminals played by Marvin, Stephen McNally and hte great J. Carroll Nash. And we bear witness to the lovely <a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/177223|143979/Sylvia-Sidney/biography.html" target="_blank">Sylvia Sidney</a>, a librarian who has spent <u><b>way</b></u> too much time checking out books about petty larceny. Her eventual Meet Cute with the Peeping Pervert is just one of the many crowd-pleasing highlights <i>Violent Saturday</i> has to offer.</div>
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Everything and everybody is connected in this small town, and the characters' dramatic interplay is as intricately and convolutedly plotted as the film's central heist. Every kind of sin is explored, countered only by the piousness of that Amish family. When patriarch Ernie B. became an avenging angel for the Lord, we denizens of Noir City understood why this played as part of the Saturday matinee. This is the stuff lazy Saturday afternoons at the cinema are made for; the Castro Theatre crowd sopped it off the screen with a biscuit. </div>
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When one thinks of noir, or of capers for that matter, director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Fellini" target="_blank">Federico Fellini</a> doesn't immediately spring to mind, though one could make a strong case for the noirish underpinnings of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047528/" target="_blank"><i>La Strada</i></a>. The Italian master lent his screenwriting skils to director Pietro Germi's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043412/?ref_=nm_flmg_wr_33" target="_blank"><i>Four Ways Out</i></a>, which played the early half of the Saturday night double feature at Noir City. It came to us in a pristine, gorgeous 35mm print whose tactile black and white cinematography highlighted the broad strokes of neorealism peering out from beneath its larcenous storyline. This time, the mark is a soccer stadium's ticket revenue take, crammed in generic-looking suitcases carried by several career criminals and one out-of-his-league teenage boy. </div>
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The young man's palpable fear of being caught leads him to make some understable yet very large mistakes that affect the rest of his crew. Though it's never clearly evident why someone so green would be in on this complicated scheme, Germi and Fellini use him as the film's desperate conscience. Though we know Noir City's advertised guarantee is "no happy endings" to its films, <i>Four Ways Out</i> offers a slight bit of respite when it comes to the young man's comeuppance. Fellini gives his final scene an operatic crescendo that would be shameless if it weren't so damn effective. </div>
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<i>Poor kid.</i></div>
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Also effective are the performances by Paul Muller as "il professore," the mastermind of the heist, and a young, unforgivably gorgeous <a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/115674%7C61604/Gina-Lollobrigida/" target="_blank">Gina Lollobrigida</a> as Daniela, a possibly duplicitous lover whose actions don't bode well for one of the criminals. For Lollobrigida's, and the filmmakers', troubles, <i>Four Ways Out</i> won the Best Italian Film at the 1951 Venice Film Festival. You'll never look at a town square fountain or a building ledge the same way after you see it.<br />
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<i>Four Ways Out</i> played on a double bill with Mario Monicelli's excellent, Oscar nominated caper classic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052216/" target="_blank"><i>Big Deal on Madonna Street</i></a>. I skipped that one, if only because I'd done three prior movies and a brief stint in the enormous protest march that took up much of Market Street on Saturday. I had a good excuse to drop out of seeing the film, but you don't. Rent it or look for it on TCM.<br />
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I was present for <i>The Big Risk</i>, which deserves its own piece later in this series. In the meantime, let's continue with yet another famous director whom people tend to forget was majorly influened by, and contributed to, film noir.<br />
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In his introduction to 1956's <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049406/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3" target="_blank"><i>The Killing</i></a>, the Czar of Noir told us that <a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/83248%7C142549/Sterling-Hayden/" target="_blank">Sterling Hayden</a> and director <a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/106014%7C141977/Stanley-Kubrick/" target="_blank">Stanley Kubrick</a> had a major falling out over the film's bouncy, memorable flashback structure. Seems Hayden thought the non-linear nature of the film screwed with his performance. Hayden couldn't have been more wrong, and Kubrick's victory over his then much more powerful lead actor proves it. The film plays as Kubrick and his screenwrier <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thompson_(writer)" target="_blank">Jim Thompson</a> intended. If you wanted to know where Quentin Tarantino got that awesome idea to fragment the robbery in <i>Jackie Brown</i> into overlapping flashbacks, here is your answer.<br />
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Hayden and his cronies knock over a race track on a very profitable day. The heist is complicated, and way too dependent upon a slew of people prone to human error and fits of uncontrollable jealousy. But the crew, and noir master Thompson, pull it off, tying every single loose end into a tightly pulled, ironic noose.<br />
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Helping to hang at least one character is <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0934798/?ref_=tt_cl_t6" target="_blank">Marie Windsor</a>. She's the gorgeous, acid-tongued wife of Noir City stalwart Elisha Cook Jr. Knowing she's at least 6 furlongs out of his league, the nervous Cook will do anything to keep her happy, including telling her private details about Hayden's heist. This is a bad idea; Windsor's been seeing another guy--a favorite to Cook's 100-1 longshot of a husband--and this new horse wants a piece of the action.<br />
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Though she's billed way under the title, Windsor runs off with the picture. Her performance is the kind that wins Supporting Actress Oscars in a more just awards-centric world. Not even Hayden can compete with her. When he rebuffs her advances and tells her to "beat it," he almost seems more wounded than she is at the rejection. She even manages to hold her own in the unforgettable department against her gloriously insane co-star Timothy Carey and Colleen Grey, who plays Windsor's complete opposite. In a film with one of the most memorably complex heists, Windsor's performance commits an even more memorable theft.<br />
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(A special shout out to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0250066/?ref_=tt_cl_t9" target="_blank">James Edwards</a>, who shares the screen with Carey yet manages to leave a stinging, karmic-filled impression in a very short time.)<br />
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Last up is <i>Cruel Gun Story</i>, a 1964 Japanese crime tale starring <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Shishido" target="_blank">Jo Shishido</a>, the only male actor to benefit from getting implants. And no, they weren't in his boobs--they were in his face. You get used to his chipmunk-like appearance pretty quickly, however, because this movie is <b>Vi-O-Lent</b>! The climactic, over-the-top shootout, featuring explosions and waves of people being mowed down, evoked the coolness of Michael Mann merged with the gonzo batshit penchant for carnage wielded by Mel Gibson. Though nowhere near as gory as anything Mad Mel threw his camera behind, <i>Cruel Gun Story</i> has Gibson's thesis statement of attempted redemption through violent suffering: Shishido is doing this heist, and all that gunplay, to help his paraplegic sister get a surgery to allow her to walk again. Of course, redemption ain't coming for <i>anybody</i> in Noir City.<br />
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The emotional pull is definitely there in director Takumi Furukawa's most notorious picture, but it comes with a heaping side of admittedly delicious nihilism. Everything you need to know about <i>Cruel Gun Story</i> is right there in the title.<br />
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<b>Next time: Lino Ventura and a Coen Brothers inspiration.</b><br />
<b>Last dispatch: <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2017/01/noir-city-xv-1-criss-cross-will-make-ya.html" target="_blank">Criss Cross Will Make Ya Jump Jump! </a></b></div>
odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6428571352587006564.post-29710672478355165452017-01-24T19:57:00.003-05:002017-01-25T11:43:15.440-05:00Noir City XV #1: Criss Cross Will Make Ya JUMP JUMP!by Odie "Odienator" Henderson<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjgqugibbGMes36gI31FgQ4WwZOnLtncbhMx7OjSE3ddsbVHMW_ZMnMnZjGzbaBktoJr-puVZUg9vgfrJpmZ7_1jMKxeRAKN35FZFVDOR-CvP7Xk8jkns8Pe0k0iYP0bdyBnsozCzZw6PY/s1600/20160122_193044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjgqugibbGMes36gI31FgQ4WwZOnLtncbhMx7OjSE3ddsbVHMW_ZMnMnZjGzbaBktoJr-puVZUg9vgfrJpmZ7_1jMKxeRAKN35FZFVDOR-CvP7Xk8jkns8Pe0k0iYP0bdyBnsozCzZw6PY/s320/20160122_193044.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org/home.html" target="_blank">Film Noir Foundation</a>'s 15th <a href="http://noircity.com/index.html" target="_blank">Noir City Film Festival</a> opened last Friday night at the famed Castro Theatre in San Francisco, and the relevance of this particular day was not lost on the celebrated Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller. Taking the stage to introduce the first double feature of our ten day tenure in Noir City, the Czar drew parallels between the topic of this year's slate and <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/fact-check-inauguration-crowd-size/96984496/" target="_blank">the event that had taken place</a> earlier in the day. This year's entries widen the net ever so slightly to include 24 tales of robberies gone wrong. </div>
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Before watching the first of these tales of cinematic folks losing their ill-gotten gains, we denizens of the United States of America bore witness to the beginning of a heist to steal the well-deserved rights of millions of our brethren. And while we denizens of Noir City relish and bask in the bitter little world that promises "no happy endings" for anybody on screen, we certainly don't want a similar outcome over the next four years. </div>
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So, many of us marched on Saturday, myself included, and like the anti-heroes we've loved and hissed at over the past 15 years of this excellent festival, we will not accept the darkest fates without a fight. We will go down swinging, but rise up stonger.</div>
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Even though they're important, I shall end my real-world statements for now. I'm here to tell you about the movies, to help you escape into the world I've taken so much comfort in for the past 9 years I've participated in this festival. This year's tagline is "<b>The Big Knockover: 24 Criminal Capers from Around the Globe. 50 Years of Hold-Ups, Heists and Schemes Gone Awry.</b>" When Robbie Burns <a href="http://www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml" target="_blank">said</a> "The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men/Gang aft agley," he was talking about the inhabitants of Noir City 15. That ol' concept of "honor amongst thieves" has credence only if you're commiting the robbery by yourself, and sometimes not even then. </div>
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Pity poor Burt Lancaster. Director <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0802563/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Robert Siodmak</a> tells ya he's doomed in the first scene of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041268/?ref_=nm_knf_t3" target="_blank"><i>Criss Cross</i></a>. After the director's camera catches a glimpse of Lancaster in a passionate embrace, it turns its gaze on the object of his affection, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001119/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Yvonne De Carlo</a>. The gorgeous De Carlo stares directly into the camera and tells Lancaster how good things are gonna be once their plans have come to fruition. The unexpected positioning of the camera startles the viewer--this gorgeous lady is talking to <i>us</i>, for Cripes' Sake--and immediately we understand that the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055798/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Birdman of Alcatraz</a> is a goner with a capital G.</div>
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<i>"I'm more than just Lily Munster, y'know."</i></div>
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De Carlo's on a "cigarette break" with Lancaster in the parking lot of the swanky hotel party attended by her criminal husband, the great <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002053/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm" target="_blank">Dan Duryea</a>. Duryea, like Siodmak, is a fixture here at Noir City; to us denizens, he's the neighbor who comes 'round every year to borrow a cup of sugar laced with arsenic. Duryea is also in on the aforementioned plan, which involves the robbery of an armored car. But he's a suspicious loose cannon, always worrying what his wife is up to (and whom she's cozying up to) when she leaves the room. Lancaster knows this, but it's damned hard to resist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yvonne_De_Carlo" target="_blank">the woman</a> who inspired Stephen Sondheim to write <i>I'm Still Here</i>.</div>
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Screenwriter Dan Fuchs, who won the Oscar for Noir City 14 entry <i>Love Me Or Leave Me</i>, (which I wrote about <a href="http://odienator.blogspot.com/2016/01/noir-city-xiv-5-lurid-confessions-of.html" target="_blank">here)</a> really puts the screws to his characters. The brilliant Siodmak, perhaps the best noir director there is, captures every last turn of the screwdriver, culminating in a closeup of an angry, damaged Duryea that's the black-hearted bookend to De Carlo's opening scene. "Hold her tight," he coldly demands of Lancaster before issuing the nasty dose of revenge we've come to expect here at Noir City.</div>
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While we're on the subject of armored car robberies, let's drag <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0668361/?ref_=tt_cl_t1" target="_blank">John Payne</a> into the conversation. He'll always have a special place in my heart for <i>Miracle on 34th Street</i>, but in Noir City, he's going to need far more help than the U.S. Post Office gave hm in that film. In <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044789/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank"><i>Kansas City Confidential</i></a>, Payne is framed by a crew of armored car robbers whose actions convince the police that Payne served as the criminals' distracting decoy. The thieves, played by Neville Brand, Jack Elam and a shockingly suave Lee van Cleef, constitute a fantastic trio of plug-uglies whose mugs director Phil Karlson can't help but caress with his close-ups. The trio know not of each others' existence; they are only given torn playing cards to identify themselves once the heat's off and the money can be distributed. This same plan will be executed numerous times this year at Noir City, and it will never go right.</div>
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Meanwhile, after the cops spend several days trying to beat a confession out of Payne, they let him go with not so much as an apology. It's a powerful sequence that still felt timely and shocking. Now defeated and angry, Payne starts following the trail to try to clear his name. He'll eventually run into the trio that left him holding the bag, with screenwriters George Bruce and Harry Essex providing some very clever ways for Payne to tussle with them. He'll also get to tussle, though in a much gentler, romantic sense, with Colleen Grey, who offers him the slim chance of a happy ending. Whenter he gets one I'll leave for you to discover. I will tell you this isn't the last we'll see of Ms. Grey on the Castro Theatre's wonderful big screen.</div>
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I covered John Huston's masterpiece, <i>The Asphalt Jungle,</i> way back at <b>Noir City 8</b>. Back then, I <a href="http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/article/noir-city-3-blondes-have-more-fun" target="_blank">wrote</a>:</div>
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<i>"<span class="loadable">Sam Jaffe is memorable, and even a little tragic,
as the German mastermind behind the heist. His gang includes Marc
Lawrence, Louis Calhern as a lawyer and Sterling Hayden, still in full
possession of his precious bodily fluids, as a shitkicker from
Ken-TUCK-ee. James Whitmore shows up in a superb supporting role as a
bar owner whose philosophy on cats results in one of noir’s greatest
lines. Jean Hagen represents the ladies, and though she has far more
screen time and is quite good, we momentarily forget about her for the
two scenes that feature Marilyn Monroe. This appearance is so early in
her career that she isn’t even credited. Huston uses her sparingly, but
effectively. She gets a heartbreaker of a scene with the cops, and looks
almost better in black-and-white than she did In color."</span></i></div>
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The film still held up at Noir City 15, where we don't mind reruns if they're as good as this one.</div>
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<b><i>Next up: Lee Marvin, Sterling Hayden and a trio of International flicks.</i></b></div>
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odienatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10926978706604468636noreply@blogger.com0