Some alternative posters for Cry Danger (1951), along with what they used to call a lobby card - there are a few others on the film’s IMDb page too. #Noirvember #CryDanger 
Contrast the American posters with these two much racier French and Italian posters, both of which foreground Fleming. #Noirvember
This was great fun. Powell plays Rocky (it doesn’t suit him), an ex-con who gets out of jail after serving 5 years for a robbery he didn’t commit and goes after the gangster who framed him. Fleming plays the wife of Powell’s supposed partner in the robbery, who’s still in jail.
It’s complicated though, because she’s also Rocky’s ex-girlfriend and they still love each other, even though she married his best friend. #Noirvember
The film is notable for several things.
1) A typically great Dick Powell performance. Sardonic wisecracks, world weary attitude, the works.
2) Some fun dialogue. I particularly liked the line, “Invite him to dinner - we’ll put more water in the soup.” #Noirvember
1) A typically great Dick Powell performance. Sardonic wisecracks, world weary attitude, the works.
2) Some fun dialogue. I particularly liked the line, “Invite him to dinner - we’ll put more water in the soup.” #Noirvember
3) Its unusual central location, in that Powell’s just-out-of-jail base is a trailer park, where Fleming lives. Weirder still - he shares a filthy caravan with the alcoholic, crippled ex-Marine (Richard Erdman) who’s given him the alibi that got him out of jail. #Noirvember
4) A *brutal* and genuinely shocking shooting scene, even if the gunmen appear to be using guns that wouldn’t shoot the way they shoot them. You can see what I mean at 0m57s and 1m38s in the trailer, here.
5) Two *great* scenes where Powell vents his frustration on Castro, played by William Conrad. First he sits on him and threatens him with a vase. You can see him getting slappy in the trailer too. #Noirvember
6) Then, later, in the film’s best sequence, he makes Castro lie down on a table and plays Russian roulette with him, trying to force a confession. The shot order is exactly as below. Look at those great angles. #Noirvember
Interestingly, according to this bit of trivia from an interview with co-star Jean Porter, Powell directed the film and gave Robert Parrish the credit. It seems plausible, given Powell’s subsequent move into direction. #Noirvember
Speaking of Porter (pictured, top left), she’s great fun as Darlene, one of several extremely flirtatious women Powell encounters. #Noirvember
Fun fact: Porter was married to Edward Dmytryk, who directed Powell as Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet / Farewell, My Lovely (my second favourite noir after Double Indemnity). #Noirvember
This is apparently one of Fleming’s favourite film roles, at least according to the IMDb trivia page for the film. #Noirvember
Here’s the entry for Cry Danger from my 1988 copy of Silver & Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember
Here are three more screengrabs and angles from that great Russian roulette sequence (referenced in the poster, with Powell loading a gun). #Noirvember
And finally, here are two lovely publicity shots of Powell and Fleming together. #CryDanger #Noirvember
Day 9 of #Noirvember: Blast of Silence (1961).
Here’s the gorgeous cover for the @Criterion DVD, illustrated by British artist @seanpphillips (Criminal, Fatale). #Noirvember
Here’s Alain Silver’s entry for Blast of Silence (1961) from my 1988 copy of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember
Blast of Silence (1961) was a real curio, an independent low budget noir, written and directed by Allen Baron, who also stars as NY hitman Frank Bono. If you squint a bit he looks a lot like a young Robert De Niro. #Noirvember
The film is notable for its unusual second-person narration, written by blacklisted writer Waldo Salt. I was struck by how much the narrator sounded like Willem Dafoe. Turns out it’s an uncredited Lionel Stander. You get a flavour of it here: #Noirvember
That previous clip is Blast of Silence’s extraordinary opening sequence. Here’s some amusingly picky Train Nerd trivia about it from the IMDb page. #Noirvember
The narration is disturbingly misogynistic. Sample lines include: “If you want a woman, buy one. In the dark, so she won't remember your face”, as well as this one. ⬇️
#Noirvember
#Noirvember
It’s been remarked upon elsewhere but this really is one of the bleakest Christmas movies ever made. Quite apart from anything else, there’s an attempted rape by a Christmas tree. #Noirvember #BlastOfSilence
The film is also notable for the way it perfectly captures 1961 New York. You half expect Llewyn Davis to show up in the bar scenes. The ultra jazzy score is pretty transportive too. #Noirvember
Things I did not expect to see in this movie:
1) A full-on bongo party.
2) The peanut-pushing scene. You don’t get many peanut-pushing scenes in film noir and this one is frankly jaw-dropping. That’s Baron defending his peanut-pushing rep on the right.
#Noirvember
1) A full-on bongo party.
2) The peanut-pushing scene. You don’t get many peanut-pushing scenes in film noir and this one is frankly jaw-dropping. That’s Baron defending his peanut-pushing rep on the right.
#Noirvember
The violence in Blast of Silence is really striking too. The highlight is a brutal fight between Baron and Larry Tucker (future co-writer of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice) as “Big Ralph”. #Noirvember
It might be just a #Noirvember coincidence, but it was really interesting watching Blast of Silence and Cry Danger back to back, because both films featured these unusual angles (upside down victim and POV shot with gun). I’d love to know if Cry Danger was a direct influence.
Here’s some interesting Storm Trivia from the film’s IMDb page. I did wonder about the impressive weather wrangling. #Noirvember
An alternate poster for Blast of Silence. #Noirvember
And here’s beloved director @joe_dante on Blast of Silence, in his must-watch @TrailersFromHel series. #Noirvember
Finally, the @Criterion edition of the DVD comes with a stunning 4-page graphic novel by artist @seanpphillips. Here are the fabulous first two pages, taken from Sean’s website here: theartofseanphillips.blogspot.com/2008/01/blast-… #Noirvember
Day 10 of #Noirvember: Backfire (1950).
Some alternate posters for Backfire (1950), all of which imply Virginia Mayo will be vamping up a storm, whereas she actually plays an extremely wholesome nurse and is never seen in anything resembling this get-up. #Noirvember
The international posters take that even further. Well, the one on the right does. #Noirvember #Backfire
Although Backfire was released in 1950, it was actually made in 1948 and sat on the shelf for two years. In the meantime Mayo made White Heat three films later and became a much bigger star. The film’s belated release duly traded on her new star status. #Noirvember
Interestingly, the writers of Backfire (Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts) went on to write White Heat, which also co-starred Mayo and O’Brien. Here’s one of the very few brief scenes they have together in Backfire. #Noirvember
Backfire was poorly received by critics. Also, according to Wikipedia: “Swedish actress Viveca Lindfors was under contract to Warner Bros. for four pictures. Unhappy with her work, however, the studio declined to pick up her option after her performance in Backfire.” #Noirvember
It’s odd that Viveca Lindfors shares the same nationality as Ingrid Bergman, as to my mind she looks a little bit like Isabella Rossellini in Backfire’s nightclub scene (her best scene). #Noirvember
Backfire’s plot involves Gordon MacRae and Mayo investigating the disappearance of O’Brien’s character after he’s wanted for murder. It’s notable for the near-parodical number of characters who get to narrate noir-ish flashback scenes, including the pair on the right. #Noirvember
One of the supporting characters delivering flashback narration is Bonnie, played by Sheila Stephens. Fun fact I didn’t know: Stephens and co-star MacRae were married. #Noirvember
Stephens was the highlight of the film for me, anyway. She has an engaging, offbeat presence and a winning way with line delivery. “Well, siddown - I’ll take the chill off some coffee.” #Backfire
The film is also notable for a fun performance from Ed Begley as Police Captain Garcia. To my mind he played it very much like Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity, right down to the rapid-fire speech patterns. #Noirvember
As for Mayo, it’s not an especially great role for her - post-White Heat audiences must have been disappointed, especially after those posters - but there is a fun sequence where she does some snooping and gets locked in a toilet. #Noirvember
The real scene-stealer in the film is “Digger”, the murder victim’s dog. Here he is looking straight at the camera and basically blowing the shot. #Noirvember #DogsOfNoir
Digger is actually directly responsible for the victim getting shot in the first place, by making him go to the window. Ruh roh! #Noirvember #DogsOfNoir
A couple of other notable things about Backfire, which is by no means essential noir but has some interesting stuff in it all the same.
1) The surprisingly strong violence. Here’s O’Brien getting beaten to a pulp in the boxing ring for no apparent reason. #Noirvember
1) The surprisingly strong violence. Here’s O’Brien getting beaten to a pulp in the boxing ring for no apparent reason. #Noirvember
Note the blood in that previous scene. O’Brien’s not even a boxer! He just needs...er...fifty bucks. It’s a very odd flashback (one of seven). There’s also a horrific attempted murder where O’Brien sustains these borderline comical injuries, like a proto-Robocop. #Noirvember
2) This surprisingly shocking shot of the mystery killer, lurking outside and spying on O’Brien and Lindfors. This is like something out of a horror movie. (It’s the eyes). It’s also quite funny in retrospect, when you find out who it is. #Noirvember
3) The lighting on this lovely noir-ish shot. There’s not much of this in the film as a whole but it’s great here. #Noirvember
Backfire’s best line? I have a soft spot for Bonnie’s coffee line, above, but otherwise it’s probably Begley yelling “Hold it! You’re liable to hit a taxpayer” as they’re shooting at O’Brien.
Here are some publicity shots and screengrabs I had left over. #Noirvember
Here are some publicity shots and screengrabs I had left over. #Noirvember
And two more screengrabs, plus a rather sweet publicity shot of MacRae and Mayo. #Noirvember #Backfire
Going back to Digger (above), here’s the murder scene. Okay, maybe he’s *indirectly* responsible, since Solly was clearly getting it anyway. But he definitely made it easier. See what you think. (Thanks to @brendonconnelly for the clip). #Noirvember
A nice #Noirvember coincidence: this was my second film noir in ten days to be scored by the splendidly named Daniele Amfitheatrof. (He also did Storm Warning).
Day 11 of #Noirvember: No Man Of Her Own (1950).
Some alternate posters for No Man of Her Own (1950), including one where it’s called The Lie, which doesn’t appear in the @IMDb’s “Also known as” section. #Noirvember
And here are the French and Spanish posters. Translations: “Chains of Fate” and “Latent Lie”. (There may be a better translation of that latter one that I’m not aware of). #Noirvember #NoManOfHerOwn
The 1950 No Man Of Her Own has no connection to the 1932 Clark Gable / Carol Lombard film of the same name. It does however have a connection to 1996’s Mrs Winterbourne, which is a direct remake. #Noirvember
Script-wise, No Man Of Her Own has strong noir credentials in that, like many other noir movies, it was based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich. Specifically, “I Married a Dead Man” (1948), which he published under the pseudonym William Irish. #Noirvember
The plot sees pregnant, abandoned Stanwyck accidentally adopting the identity of a train crash victim (she’s wearing her ring when they crash) and starting a new life with her wealthy in-laws, only to be blackmailed by her scumbag ex. Here she is being abandoned. #Noirvember
It’s not quite the same as While You Were Sleeping, but it did make me wonder if it was an influence. The plot is ridiculously contrived - it’s hard to believe no-one has ever seen a photo of the victim and that’s just the start of it. Cop-out ending too. #Noirvember
The cover of the novel is pretty hilarious, considering the synopsis: library.buffalo.edu/specialcollect… In fact, the film sticks surprisingly closely to the plot of the novel, though I prefer the subtle difference in Woolrich’s ending. (The film removes that doubt). #Noirvember
Lyle Bettger was one of the #Noirvember discoveries of last year for me, playing a proper, grade A bastard in Union Station (also 1950). It turns out that was only his second film and No Man Of Her Own was his debut, where he also plays a proper, grade A bastard. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1198279037686370304
Here he is being a total scumbag from the off, completely ignoring pregnant Stanwyck’s pleas and already shacked up with a younger woman. This is also Bettger’s first ever onscreen appearance, 1m58s into this clip. #Noirvember
Here he is in a couple of publicity shots for No Man Of Her Own. He has incredible screen presence and a sense of menace that lead to him playing a lot of heavies in his subsequent career. #Noirvember
Also, SPOILER ALERT for the next tweet, just in case.
Also, SPOILER ALERT for the next tweet, just in case.
Other than the train crash scene (more on that in a bit), this is maybe the best bit in the film, where Stanwyck goes to shoot Bettger, but finds someone has beaten her to it. Just look at his incredible death face acting. #Noirvember
I loved this sequence too. Here’s Stanwyck hatching a murder plot at her own wedding, prompted by hearing the line “Till death do you part”. (Bettger has blackmailed her into marrying him, intent on collecting her inheritance when her wealthy, elderly in-laws die). #Noirvember
Just for completion’s sake, that first sequence ends with this shot as she flicks her eyes to the Justice of the Peace and says the line. #Noirvember
The film is directed by Mitchell Leisen, who was known for his romances, often referred to as “women’s pictures”. It was the second film he made with Stanwyck, having directed her ten years earlier, alongside future Double Indemnity co-star Fred MacMurray. #Noirvember
As the posters indicate, the film is primarily known for its shocking train crash sequence. Here it is in its entirety (gif by me). Co-star Thaxter’s line immediately preceding it is “I couldn’t have bad luck”, as Stanwyck worries about trying on her wedding ring. #Noirvember
Now, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that - judging by the movement of the objects - Leisen achieved this extraordinary sequence by rotating the set with Stanwyck and Thaxter in it. Eat your heart out, Christopher Nolan.
[1 of 2] #Noirvember
[1 of 2] #Noirvember
It’s notable that it’s clearly Stanwyck and Thaxter being thrown about, anyway. No stunt doubles.
[2 of 2]
#Noirvember
[2 of 2]
#Noirvember
Leisen could do weird noir-ish angles and lighting with the best of them. The post-accident operating table POV shot is commonplace now, but rarely this creepy and disorienting. The line with the third picture is “Cut off her clothes.” #Noirvember
I also love the framing of this shot, as Stanwyck runs to the car after the Bettger scene referred to above. #Noirvember
I couldn’t find the trailer on YouTube but here it is on the IMDb. It’s worth watching, especially for Bettger. imdb.com/video/vi275374… #Noirvember #NoManOfHerOwn
Here’s a great clip of the blackmail / wedding sequence, courtesy of @dcairns. #Noirvember #NoManOfHerOwn
A bit of in-joke trivia from the IMDb page, regarding Stanwyck’s character name, Helen Ferguson. (In the novel, she’s Helen Georgesson). #Noirvember
As was fairly common at the time (see last year’s #Noirvember thread), "Screen Director's Playhouse" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie, with Barbara Stanwyck reprising her film role. Here it is in full, on YouTube.
And finally, according to Tumblr (and I’ve been burned before with photo caption “facts” on Tumblr, do pinch of salt etc), this is Stanwyck having a costume fitting for No Man Of Her Own. #Noirvember
The Wikipedia entry for the novel needs updating, by the way - it was also remade as J’ai épousé une ombre (translation, “I married a shadow”) in 1983, with Nathalie Baye. Thanks to @AnneBillson for pointing this out. #Noirvember #NoManOfHerOwn
#Noirvember [Scroll up for a thread of illustrated DVD covers].
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1326928112404344833
Also very much of interest for #Noirvember, @Academy_Arrow currently have a fabulous film noir Blu-Ray sale on, 2 for £15, from now until Nov 16. Includes the edition of The Killing, pictured above. arrowfilms.com/shop/noirvembe… (Thanks to @nigelcsmith for the link).
Annoyingly, the gif of the train crash sequence (above) in No Man Of Her Own seems to have stopped working. Here it is on YouTube instead. (No sound). #Noirvember #NoManOfHerOwn
Day 12 of #Noirvember: The Fallen Sparrow (1943).
An alternate poster for The Fallen Sparrow (1943). #Noirvember
Here are three international posters for The Fallen Sparrow, one of which emphasises a certain plot element that’s absent from all the others. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
The plot for The Fallen Sparrow is both complicated and ridiculous. It involves Garfield’s PTSD-afflicted ex-POW investigating his friend’s murder and uncovering a nest of Nazi spies posing as refugees in New York. That sounds great, right? Well...yes and no. #Noirvember
The treatment of Garfield’s PTSD is actually really good. Here he is cracking up by hearing voices in the silence and dealing with it by hammering away at a piano. Look at his face! That’s acting, that is. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
The problem is that the PTSD (and there are several similar sequences) has no effect on the plot whatsoever, other than to make him a little bit paranoid. But he’s right to be paranoid. There are spies EVERYWHERE! Here’s one now. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
Given that this was made in 1943 and the Americans were already in the war, this was obviously intended as a piece of patriotic propaganda. But the actual thing the Nazis want from him (and go to a great deal of trouble to get) makes NO SENSE AT ALL, outside of pure symbolism.
There’s a lot of fun stuff in it otherwise though, even if the plot is nonsensical and doesn’t quite pull together its disparate elements. Here’s Garfield meeting O’Hara’s character for the first time - and the look he gives her as she turns away. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
There’s a very funny scene - which feels quite out of place here - where he makes her model loads of hats at the boutique where she works, just to annoy her into going out with him. (She’s the only witness to the murder). #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow #hats
I’ve spent HOURS trying to make a decent gif of that scene, but this is the best I can do. There’s a much smoother, slightly longer version on this link. Please click that instead. giphy.com/gifs/dance-the… #Noirvember
Incidentally, according to IMDb trivia, Garfield was so short that he had to stand on a box for all his scenes with O’Hara. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
As that first poster shows, Garfield actually has three female co-stars in The Fallen Sparrow. The other two are Patricia Morison (top right) and Martha O’Driscoll, but there’s only one scene where they’re all in the same shot together. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
Of the three, Patricia Morison (as Barby, Garfield’s sort-of ex) is by far the most interesting, but her character just sort of disappears. That’s her career in microcosm - the first line of her IMDb profile says “Woefully misused while in her prime screen years...” #Noirvember
Here she is again, just because she deserves the exposure. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow #PatriciaMorison
The film is notable for a couple of other noir-ish elements too. The cinematographer is Nicholas Musuraca, who shot noir classic Out of the Past (1947) and Cat People (1942). Here he is doing some classic “boxed-in” noir framing. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
The dialogue is fun in places too. I loved this exchange, early on:
Cop: “Why do you want to carry a gun?”
Garfield: “To shoot people with, sweetheart.”
#Noirvember
Cop: “Why do you want to carry a gun?”
Garfield: “To shoot people with, sweetheart.”
#Noirvember
SPOILERS FOLLOW in the next three tweets. In the meantime, please enjoy the trailer, which sadly doesn’t have that piano scene and makes O’Hara look weirdly stiff. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
Anyway, the climax is pretty exciting and involves Garfield being DRUGGED BY NAZIS! #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
There are really no prizes for guessing who “The Limping Man” (see trailer) turns out to be. Yes, it’s dear old wheelchair-bound Walter Slezak. I love the progression into pure EVIL here as he advances on paralysed Garfield with a syringe of POISON. #Noirvember
But the real shock – and again, SPOILER ALERT – is that Maureen O’Hara chooses to side with the goddamn Nazis at the end! I stand by this reaction from watching it last night. ⬇️ #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327070799614898176
I didn’t look at the publicity stills until this morning and they’re absolutely HILARIOUS. They really are the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve never seen anything like it. What on earth is going on here? #Noirvember
They don’t stop there. Oh no. There are more. I’d love to read the story behind this photoshoot. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
Here are a couple of slightly more normal publicity stills, plus some screengrabs of O’Hara. #Noirvember
Finally, here’s a link to the Lux Theatre radio broadcast of the film (see previous examples), with Maureen O’Hara and Walter Slezak reprising their roles but Robert Young replacing Garfield in the lead. #Noirvember #TheFallenSparrow
Day 13 of #Noirvember: Impulse (1954).
Still can’t get over this #Noirvember coincidence. @TalkingPicsTV
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327164906102288384
I was looking forward to Impulse because Arthur Kennedy is one of my favourite actors, but I was caught completely off-guard by Constance Smith’s performance. I wasn’t familiar with her work at all. Turns out she has a desperately sad life story. #Noirvember #ConstanceSmith
Impulse doesn’t appear on any of the #FilmNoir sources I usually use, but there’s an entry for it in my copy of Arthur Lyons’ Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir, and that’s good enough for me. Here’s the entry, which is mostly just the synopsis. #Noirvember
Here’s a complete list of all the films mentioned in my 2000 copy of Lyons’ book, cloned from @letterboxd user Evelyn Rose. #Noirvember #filmnoir boxd.it/9kbtg
There’s barely anything on Impulse on the IMDb, just these two posters, neither of which do justice to the actors. Letterboxd uses the one on the left as its poster image, IMDb has the one on the left. #Noirvember #Impulse
Impulse isn’t really a film noir in the traditional sense but it has that post-war suburban dissatisfaction thing common to other noir movies. It’s set in the least noir place imaginable. Kennedy is happily married (to Joy Sheldon) and lives in...Ashmore, Sussex. #Noirvember
Just the idea of Arthur Kennedy living in suburban domesticity in Sussex seems incongruous and weird - he seems like an American city man through and through. I think that actually works in the film’s favour. #Noirvember
Anyway, it’s established that he feels he’s missing out on a more exciting life, so he’s understandably knocked for six when he meets Constance Smith’s nightclub singer, Lila. This is them locking eyes for the first time. #Noirvember #Impulse
His wife is away for the weekend, of course, so he takes Smith back to his place when her car breaks down in a rainstorm. It’s important to establish that she knows he’s happily married. Here they are talking about his wife. #Noirvember #Impulse
He pops out to see about her car and when he comes back, she’s in his bath. Then an over-attentive neighbour comes round to tidy Kennedy’s bedroom for some reason, so Smith has to hide in the wardrobe. #Noirvember #Impulse
That whole sequence is like French farce, but it’s sexy and funny. It ends with this delightfully playful moment (watch till the end). #Noirvember #Impulse
Incidentally, if the film had been a bigger hit, I’d think Jean St. Clair (the neighbour) was single-handedly responsible for the Americans thinking that the British all have terrible teeth. #Noirvember #Impulse
Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I get serious Audrey Horne vibes from Smith’s look here. #Noirvember #Impulse
After that, Kennedy’s wife calls and says she won’t be home that night after all, so he’s like, okay, sure I’ll drive you to London, what could possibly go wrong? #Noirvember #Impulse
To give you some measure of Constance Smith’s talent, here she is doing her own singing in the nightclub scene. (The song is called “You’re Gone”). That IMDb biography (above) just gets more and more heart-breaking. #Noirvember #Impulse
After the song, Kennedy rescues her from a gangster-type, so it’s back to her place. There’s not much in the way of noir-ish photography in the film, but I love the happy accident of the bars effect in this fade into another scene. #Noirvember #Impulse
There is, incidentally, a whole other plot involving the theft of some jewels by her brother and some gangsters and cops who think she knows where they are, but that’s not important right now. This scene’s quite good though. #Noirvember #Impulse
The film’s almost positive attitude to adultery is quite remarkable for its time. It also has quite the most blatant these-two-people-DEFINITELY-had-sex “morning after” scene I think I’ve ever seen. Here it is, along with the night before scene #Noirvember
I like this sequence before that video begins, with her smoking and watching him on her balcony before joining him. Especially the framing in that first shot. #Noirvember #Impulse
The film isn’t perfect by any means - for one thing, there’s a whole framed-for-murder plot that’s weirdly under-developed, so much so that it’s almost an aside. It was nice to see a cameo by Hammersmith Bridge though. #Impulse #Noirvember
Here are some extra screengrabs of Kennedy and Smith that I didn’t use. I guess I’ll add them all to the IMDb page at some point, seeing as it doesn’t have any. #Noirvember #Impulse #ConstanceSmith #ArthurKennedy
And three more of Constance Smith, plus her IMDb photo, just for completion’s sake. Safe to say she’s been the discovery of #Noirvember for me this year, just like Lyle Bettger was last year. #Impulse #ConstanceSmith
Well, Constance Smith and Cleo Moore, anyway. Is it coincidence they both look a bit like @sherilynfenn1? #Noirvember
Good news! Impulse (1954) is currently available on Amazon Prime. Thanks to @sumarumi for the reminder. #Noirvember #Impulse
Day 14 of #Noirvember: Act of Violence (1949). Been looking forward to this one.
Some alternate posters and a press ad for Act of Violence (1949). #Noirvember
Here’s the entry on Act of Violence from Silver & Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember
And here’s the entry on Act of Violence from my 1988 edition of Bruce Crowther’s Film Noir: Reflections in a Dark Mirror, the first book on film noir I ever read. It’s from Robert Ryan’s entry in the Noir Icons chapter. #Noirvember
“The Manhunt No Woman Could Stop!” Here’s the trailer for Act of Violence (1949). #Noirvember
Great title card too. #Noirvember #ActOfViolence
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327751974415167491
Can’t quite get over how much Van Heflin looks like David Hyde Pierce in this shot from the trailer. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
Plot-wise, Van Heflin plays a respected community figure and businessmen, happily married to Janet Leigh, with whom he has a young child. But he’s also a former POW harbouring a terrible secret. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
Robert Ryan is effectively the embodiment of Heflin’s guilt, stalking him relentlessly throughout the film, intending to straight-up murder him. He walks with a pronounced limp throughout, which is exploited nicely by the sound design. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
He’s not a very good stalker though. In fact, they only meet twice within the film. This scene, for example, is just a publicity shot and doesn’t happen in the movie. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
There’s an unintentionally funny bit early on where Ryan totally fails to kill Heflin (who doesn’t even see him) after rowing out to where he’s fishing. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
Ryan is largely underused, considering his capabilities as an actor. He’s mostly just a symbol, which is a shame, as there’s potential for this to be like Cape Fear, with Ryan in the Mitchum role. Here he is menacing Janet Leigh. #Noirvember
In fact, the movie is a little confused on Ryan’s purpose. He’s Heflin’s former best friend, the only survivor of an attempted concentration camp escape attempt that failed because Heflin was a “Nazi stool pigeon”, grassing up his men in the hopes of saving their lives.
The film tries to have it both ways - he’s both relentless would-be-Killer (there are strong Terminator vibes), but he’s also supposed to be sympathetic. The film’s need for its ending ends up holding the potential Cape Fear-style horror in check. #Noirvember
That last shot is also just a publicity shot and doesn’t appear in the film. Neither does this one. #Noirvember #ActOfViolence
Van Heflin’s character is much more interesting. Heflin excelled at a curious combination of strength and weakness (he’s most famous for being unable to protect his family without Alan Ladd in Shane). Here he almost bursts into tears before Leigh walks in. #Noirvember
There’s also this fantastic sequence where he all but cracks up in a tunnel, reliving the horror of the concentration camp decision. #ActOfViolence #Noirvember
He’s frankly terrific at - again, very UN-masculine for Hollywood in 1949 - abject terror. These are the great faces he makes after spotting Ryan in a crowded bar. #Noirvember #ActOfViolence
Full disclosure: I do very little research on these films beforehand, preferring to go in as cold as possible each time. So it came as a delightful surprise when Mary Astor - The Maltese Falcon’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy - showed up in this, playing a blowsy prostitute. #Noirvember
She’s absolutely fantastic in it, picking a drunken Heflin up in a bar and taking the plot in an unexpected - and very dark - direction. #Noirvember
Here’s that pick-up scene in full. It’s a great scene in and of itself - specifically the character notes at the end, where you sense her loneliness too. #Noirvember #ActOfViolence
Janet Leigh’s really good in it too, and the film gives her a surprising amount to do, relatively speaking. This was only her fifth film, released the same year as Little Women, which coincidentally also co-starred Mary Astor. #Noirvember
That said, they do make her do two identical scenes where she runs out of the door shouting her husband’s name. I had to check they didn’t just re-use the same footage. #Noirvember
Another nice #Noirvember coincidence - this was my second film in four days with Phyllis Thaxter in it. She plays Ryan’s sweet-natured girlfriend and has a nice scene with Janet Leigh.
Last seen - by me - getting thrown about with Barbara Stanwyck in No Man of Her Own’s shocking train crash sequence. #Noirvember (No sound on video).
The film’s stunning cinematography will be apparent from the previous images. It was shot by acclaimed Director of Photography Robert Surtees, who later shot The Last Picture Show. Here he is doing some classic noir framing. #Noirvember #ActOfViolence
Finally, the film’s Wikipedia entry contains this poorly phrased suggestion that the film’s apparent sympathy for Ryan’s character might have stemmed from director Fred Zinnemann’s own traumatic history. #Noirvember
Day 15 of #Noirvember: The Garment Jungle (1957).
Some alternate posters for The Garment Jungle (1957). I strongly suspect there was an acid throwing scene that got cut after Robert Aldrich was replaced by Vincent Sherman. It’s mentioned in the film and the trailer, as well as on this poster. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
Here’s Alain Silver’s write-up of #TheGarmentJungle, from my 1988 copy of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Aldrich more or less disowned the film after Sherman’s extensive reshoots, so it’s interesting that Silver still treats it as an Aldrich film. #Noirvember
“Based on the sensational racketeering revelations in The Reader’s Digest!” - the trailer for The Garment Jungle (1957). That first shot is from the first scene in the film. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
A couple of trailer notes:
1) Although the original intention was to shoot “on the teeming sidewalks of New York”, it was actually shot on the studio lot at Columbia (part of the dispute between Aldrich and studio boss Harry Cohn).
#Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
1) Although the original intention was to shoot “on the teeming sidewalks of New York”, it was actually shot on the studio lot at Columbia (part of the dispute between Aldrich and studio boss Harry Cohn).
#Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
2) Note the presence of a young Robert Loggia, in his first credited big screen role. Here he is again, in the film’s introduction scene for “spaghetti bender” Gia Scala. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle #GiaScala
Gia Scala is probably best known as the mute resistance fighter in The Guns of Navarone. Sadly, like Constance Smith earlier in this thread (Impulse, Day 13), she has a deeply upsetting and tragic life story. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle #GiaScala
Here’s Robert Loggia discussing #TheGarmentJungle and the dispute between Aldrich and Harry Cohn, in a post-screening Q&A with @noirfoundation’s @alancinephile (May, 2007, Los Angeles). #Noirvember #NoirCity
Once you’ve heard the Aldrich / Cohn / Sherman story, it’s impossible to watch #TheGarmentJungle without wondering how much darker and more violent Aldrich’s version would have been. In Aldrich’s words, Columbia wanted to make “boy meets girl in a dress factory”. #Noirvember
There are lots of good quotes from Aldrich and Sherman on the film’s Wikipedia page. It seems like Cobb lobbied for a softer version of the film too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garme… #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
It’s kind of ironic that the film is about unions vs bosses / gangsters and none of the cast and crew felt able to support Aldrich (out of fear of Cohn) when he was replaced against his will. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
Anyway, even though Sherman apparently reshot 60-70% of the film, the violence is still pretty strong and there’s a surprisingly high body count. This guy in particular (Wesley Addy as one of Boone’s goons) is a real bastard. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle #Boonesgoons
I’m pretty sure the finale was watered down. Either way, it’s a little anti-climactic. It does have a good extended fight sequence though. I say fight sequence - Boone (the villain) basically kicks Kerwin Mathews’ ass for five minutes. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
The violent scenes are probably the best things in the film (aside from Scala dancing). Check out the bit with the elevator in the trailer (above) - that’s properly dark and scary. In the meantime, here are some more stills. #Noirvember #TheGarmentJungle
The film could have used a couple more scenes like this, with the models all gossiping while Mathews walks behind them. Maybe there were more before the reshoots. #TheGarmentJungle #Noirvember
I like the noir-ish framing of this shot. The dynamic between them isn’t quite the love triangle this suggests, but that common “prison bars” effect is still appropriate. #TheGarmentJungle #Noirvember
Incidentally, The Garment Jungle is available on @indicatorseries’ excellent Columbia Noir box-set (Vol. 1). #Noirvember
Seeing as we’re halfway through #Noirvember, here are a few Bonus Extras.
1) This ongoing thread of #filmnoir podcast recommendations. #filmnoirpodcasts
1) This ongoing thread of #filmnoir podcast recommendations. #filmnoirpodcasts
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327083284845780992
2) This thread of introductions to film noir movies on BBC Two’s #TheFilmClub in the 1980s. (Scroll up for a few more). #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1328476332708257797
3) This great video of film critic and author Judith Williamson introducing Fritz Lang’s Human Desire (1954) on BBC Two’s 1988 film noir season, Fatal Attractions. (A lovely coincidence, given @FatalAttractPod).
There were only eight films in that season but I’ve made a @letterboxd list of them anyway because it had such a big impact on me. Click “Read notes” for transmission dates. #Noirvember boxd.it/9KPxa
As the video above suggests, Williamson did each of her intros either in a noir-style setting or dressed as a femme fatale. Sadly I could only find one of them. If anyone finds any of the other seven, please let me know. #Noirvember #filmnoir
4) This ongoing thread of stunningly gorgeous DVD / Blu-Ray covers, including several for film noir movies. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1325759282957135872
And 5) @thenoirguy’s *excellent* thread of film, comic and graphic novel recommendations for #Noirvember.
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327583959925092353
Day 16 of #Noirvember: Drive A Crooked Road (1954).
Tempted to make a Rooney Noir-a joke, but I don’t think it’ll fly. #Noirvember
90 miles an hour along a crooked road and not one of them has a seatbelt on. Tsk. #Noirvember #DriveACrookedRoad
It’s interesting to put the American and French posters side by side. One is much racier than the other. French title translates as “Fate is at the turn.” #Noirvember #DriveACrookedRoad
In fairness, some of the US posters used that second image too, and in fact took it even further, flagging it up as “ADULT ENTERTAINMENT”. Not sure what they called photoshopping back then, but that’s what they’ve done here. #Noirvember
Note also the promotion of “A new - and great - Mickey Rooney!”, both on the posters and in the trailer. This was his first serious dramatic role and, not going to lie, he smashes it. #Noirvember
Here’s the write-up of Drive A Crooked Road, from my 1988 copy of Silver and Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember #DriveACrookedRoad
The plot is pretty good. Rooney plays a lonely mechanic / racecar driver who’s seduced into driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. Dianne Foster plays the femme fatale, who’s secretly the bank robber’s girlfriend. #Noirvember #DriveACrookedRoad
The bank robber is played by Kevin McCarthy, two years before he starred in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It’s great to see him playing a bad guy as a young man. He should have played more of them. #Noirvember
The film’s biggest problem is that there’s no tension at all in the bank robbery / getaway. Rooney’s supposed to be the only man capable of driving the titular crooked road in 22 minutes, but nobody even chases them. So there’s a car chase with only one car. #Noirvember
It’s a very odd sequence. It’s excitingly shot, with a real sense of speed (albeit with obviously sped-up footage), but the script (by Blake Edwards + director Richard Quine) doesn’t even give a reason for the 22 minute deadline so the supposed race-against-time element is absent
I’m pretty sure Rooney’s character was meant to be “slow” (perhaps because of an accident that left him with a prominent scar on his forehead), in contrast to his being “fast” with a car. He’s teased by his fellow mechanics to that effect, and it’s strongly implied he’s a virgin.
However, the script stops short of making it obvious, or revealing what exactly caused the large scar. It’s there in his performance though, I think. Not, like Forrest Gump obvious, but not quite like everyone else either. #Noirvember
I like the fact that the film plays up and even accentuates the height difference between Rooney and Foster. No “vanity boxes” for Rooney! Not like that John Garfield. (See The Fallen Sparrow upthread). #Noirvember
It’s actually a really good role for Dianne Foster, last seen (by me) in The Brothers Rico, back in the Before Times. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1199287312204611584
This is her first appearance in the film. To my mind she looks a bit like Rita Hayworth here. Anyway, it’s a nicely rounded character and she gets to play flirtatious, seductive, tough, vulnerable, distressed, all the good stuff. #Noirvember
I think the climax of the film lets it down a bit. It’s decent enough but it should have been a *lot* darker. Again, I think that darkness was probably there in the early script stages. SPOILER ALERT for next post. Meanwhile, here’s Foster again. #Noirvember
In fairness, it’s nothing that wasn’t already SPOILED by the film’s trailer: imdb.com/video/vi114409…. In the car crash scene it’s ambiguous as to whether Rooney also intends to kill himself. Suspect previous versions made that suggestion clearer. #Noirvember
Anyway, judge for yourselves. The whole film is on the YouTube. #Noirvember #DriveACrookedRoad
Drive A Crooked Road (1954) is also available on @indicatorseries’ excellent Columbia Noir box-set (Vol. 1), along with my previous #Noirvember film The Garment Jungle (1957), and my next one, Escape in the Fog (1945). #filmnoir
I’ve only got Escape in the Fog to go before I’ve seen them all, but so far, Don Siegel’s The Lineup (1958) is definitely the best on the box-set. Here are my notes on it from last year’s #Noirvember thread. #filmnoir #TheLineup
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1193305974548901888
Day 17 of #Noirvember: Budd Boetticher’s Escape in the Fog (1945). I’ve told the story of when I met Budd Boetticher on here before, right? Right?
Here’s the write-up of Escape in the Fog from my copy of Arthur Lyons’ Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Noir. Even Lyons notes it as a “minor programmer”, notable only for being an early film in Boetticher’s career. #Noirvember
The press ads make the film sound much more fun than it actually is. I particularly like “A gripping story of a dream, a scheme and a SCREAM!” #Noirvember
Amusingly, of the 37 stills and screeengrabs on the IMDb, 11 of them are of Nina Foch tied to a chair. #Noirvember #EscapeInTheFog
Anyway, apologies to My Good Friend Budd Boetticher (who was still going by Oscar Boetticher Jr when he directed this), but Escape in the Fog is far from his best work. It’s painfully dull in the middle section and the whole premonition-of-a-murder bit is poorly used. #Noirvember
Foch and co-star William Wright make a very bland couple, especially by the standards of the genre elsewhere. Somehow, even the tied-to-a-chair-while-the-room-fills-with-gas climax is dull. #Noirvember
The film is notable for one thing though - an early screen appearance from a young, uncredited Shelley Winters. Here she is, playing a taxi driver enforcing wartime restrictions. #Noirvember
That bit’s actually quite funny, because the heroes and the villains end up sharing the same cab due to the restrictions. It was Winters’ ninth screen appearance, but of those nine, only two were credited - and even then incorrectly, as Shelley Winter. #Noirvember
The only other bit of note happens early on. Foch wakes up screaming (she has a pretty great scream, to be fair) from her premonition / dream and three men burst into her room to check on her. This is how she meets Wright’s character, who she’s just dreamed about, sight unseen.
In fairness, George Meehan’s cinematography is pretty great too - probably better than the film deserves. The scenes in the San Francisco fog are particularly good. This is Foch’s introduction scene - it ought to be a model for all future fog-set sequences. #Noirvember
Anyway, if you want to see it and you can’t afford that gorgeous Columbia Noir box-set, the whole thing is on YouTube. #Noirvember #EscapeInTheFog
Speaking of that Columbia Noir collection, Vol. 2 is out on Feb 15 next year and it looks great. #Noirvember @indicatorseries
Going back to Day 13 (above), I’ve updated the @IMDb page for Impulse (1954) with some stills of Constance Smith. I feel like she really deserves to have her legacy preserved. cc @TalkingPicsTV #Noirvember imdb.com/title/tt004711…
Day 18 of #Noirvember: Vicki (1953), starring Jeanne Crain and Jean Peters.
Directed by Harry Horner (who also made Beware, My Lovely), Vicki (1953) is based on the same source novel as 1941’s Wake Up Screaming, but as the portrait in the title card above suggests, it has just as much in common with Laura (1944). #Noirvember #Vicki
The press ads for Vicki (1953) taking the double meaning thing entirely too far here. For context: she “asked for” fame as a singer / model (left) and that’s what they made her (right). #Noirvember #Vicki
The plot combines the stories of both Laura and I Wake Up Screaming - Richard Boone’s obsessed cop tries to pin Vicki’s (Jean Peters) murder on her press agent. To be fair, Vicki’s sister (Jeanne Crain) does catch him literally red-handed. #Noirvember
It always amuses me in movies when suspects in murder cases just happen to have professional head shots. Weirdly, the character with the least professional head shot here is supposed to be an actor. #Noirvember #Vicki
Multiple suspects allows for the time honoured #filmnoir staple of multiple flashbacks. Here’s Jean Peters (a future Mrs Howard Hughes) doing her own singing in Jeanne Crain’s flashback sequence. #Noirvember #Vicki
I love the lighting in this shot, with the cops all in shadow while Steve (the press agent, played by Elliott Reid) is being interrogated. Cinematographer Milton Krasner, also shot several other #filmnoir classics, including The Set-Up, Scarlet Street and No Way Out. #Noirvember
Occasionally the cops resort to some decidedly less orthodox interrogation techniques. Check out the brilliant lighting at the end of this scene - it made me laugh out loud. It’s also a clever way of giving Peters a second singing scene. #Noirvember #Vicki
This is the second film I’ve watched with Richard Boone in it this #Noirvember (see Day 15 above). He’s not an actor I was all that familiar with before, but he’s properly great in this, playing the mother of all obsessive weirdo cops. Here he is being a Peeping Tom. #Vicki
He’s basically the sort of weirdo cop who will happily slip into your room of a night, just in case you talk in your sleep. That’s the excuse he gives Steve here. #Noirvember #Vicki #Boone
And here he is coming out of a cupboard! Love the way the door slowly opens in the background of this shot.
Actually, I’m starting to think Vicki might be some sort of cult classic, ripe for rediscovery. #Noirvember #Vicki
Actually, I’m starting to think Vicki might be some sort of cult classic, ripe for rediscovery. #Noirvember #Vicki
I mentioned the connections to Laura (1944) earlier. Aside from the name-as-title and the almost identical portrait (see title card), the most obvious connection is the whole cop-in-love-with-dead-girl thing. Boone even has a Partridge-style shrine! Oh yes. #Noirvember #Vicki
These shots make it look like quite a tasteful shrine, with just three photos, but there are glimpses of other pictures in other shots, including the suggestion that he’s stolen one of Vicki’s perfume ad billboards. #Noirvember #Vicki
At least Vicki is upfront about its blatant steals. The film never appears on screen but dialogue from Laura (1944) is clearly heard during this scene set in a cinema. #Vicki #Laura #Noirvember
Incidentally, poor Jeanne Crain just cannot catch a break in this film. Here she is getting hit on by a sleazy pervert in the cinema. He actually grabs her! His line is “This seat’s not taken, honey....” Also, he looks a bit like Jack Lemmon. #Noirvember #Vicki #pervert
One more thing of note. You’ll never guess who this guy is! (In real life, not in the film). Go on, have a guess... #Vicki #Noirvember
It’s only future Dynasty producer Aaron bloody Spelling! He plays a creepy weirdo hotel desk clerk, who is also obsessed with Vicki. You really can’t move for creepy weirdos in this movie. They’re everywhere. #Noirvember #Vicki
As a side note, I really enjoyed Jeanne Crain’s range of facial expressions in the murder discovery scene. Again, surely this is ripe for rediscovery as a camp classic? #Noirvember #Vicki
Here’s a random piece of trivia to accompany these publicity stills.
“On Vicki's bedroom wall is a print of the painting "Pinkie" by Thomas Lawrence. In 1949 Jeanne Crain (Jill Lynn) starred in the movie Pinky (1949).” #Noirvember #Vicki
“On Vicki's bedroom wall is a print of the painting "Pinkie" by Thomas Lawrence. In 1949 Jeanne Crain (Jill Lynn) starred in the movie Pinky (1949).” #Noirvember #Vicki
There are even a few ready-made gifs. Here’s one. #Vicki
Dialogue highlight from Boone, dismissing a potential suspect: “He couldn’t kill fleas!” #Vicki #Noirvember
“You’re not going to have a very long life, Stevie. You’re like a rat in a box, without any holes...”
The trailer for #Vicki gives you a good idea of Boone’s awesomeness. It also has the same amusing lighting bit I mentioned earlier. #Vicki #Noirvember
The trailer for #Vicki gives you a good idea of Boone’s awesomeness. It also has the same amusing lighting bit I mentioned earlier. #Vicki #Noirvember
Sadly, the only version on YouTube has a simultaneous Russian translation on it, but it’s easy enough to google a non-YouTube version. #Noirvember #Vicki #cough #ok #cough
I spent a happy couple of hours this morning putting all the films from my copy of Bruce Crowther’s “Film Noir: Reflections in a Dark Mirror” into a @letterboxd list. This was the first book I read on #filmnoir, a birthday present in 1988. letterboxd.com/filmfan1971/li… #Noirvember
I deliberately swapped round the first two films, just so I could have this as the main image. @letterboxd #listmaking #Noirvember #filmnoir #filmnoirbooks letterboxd.com/filmfan1971/li…
Day 19 of #Noirvember: Black Angel (1946).
I *love* that the @Academy_Arrow Blu-Ray for Black Angel (1946) has a reversible sleeve with two artwork options. My iPhone camera can’t really do them justice, as you can see. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
Some alternate posters for Black Angel (1946). #Noirvember
Like No Man Of Her Own (see Day 11, above), Black Angel was based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, a frequent provider of film noir source material. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
It was also the final film of director Roy William Neill, who was no stranger to murder mysteries, having made multiple Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
The set-up for the plot is unusual. Noir favourite Dan Duryea (in a rare sympathetic lead role) plays an alcoholic pianist whose estranged wife - a blackmailer, played by Constance Dowling, below - is murdered. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
When the victim’s married lover is convicted of her murder and sentenced to the electric chair, Duryea teams up with the suspect’s wife (June Vincent) to try and clear her husband’s name before his execution. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
That’s largely because they’re convinced nightclub owner Peter Lorre dunnit, since Duryea saw him leaving his wife’s flat the night she was killed. In order to investigate, they form a nightclub act, with Duryea on piano and Vincent singing. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
This is Vincent’s just-got-caught-opening-Peter-Lorre’s-safe face. #Noirvember
Now, I haven’t played a piano in close to 35 years, but to me this looks a lot like Duryea is actually hitting the right notes. Can any piano players confirm? #Noirvember #BlackAngel #DanDuryea
The description on that video suggests he learned the hand movements and is faking it. If so, he did a terrific job and my hat is off to him. (I couldn’t find anything in online biographies to suggest Duryea was musically trained). Anyway, Peter Lorre is impressed. #Noirvember
Lorre’s on great form in this, by the way. His barely coded relationship with ever-present right-hand man “Lucky” is one of the best things in the film. In case audiences missed it, Lorre’s character is also referred to in the gossip press as “famously woman-hating.” #Noirvember
The cigarette lighting photos above don’t do that sequence justice, as it happens in a more or less continuous movement - Lorre walks downstairs, briefly pauses while Lucky lights his cigarette, then carries on. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
The film is interesting on alcoholism and addiction too. Vincent’s good influence inspires Duryea to sober up and become a better person, but her continued love of her husband drives him right back to the bottle, hard. The trailer doesn’t really pull its punches there #Noirvember
“Why? Because I had a wife who needed killing and you had a husband who...took care of it?” Here’s the trailer for Black Angel (1946) in full. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
A couple more things to mention. First, Broderick Crawford (another frequent noir actor) is largely wasted as the cop on the case. See Scandal Sheet on Day 4 of last year’s #Noirvember thread for more on him. #BlackAngel
Secondly, the film opens with an early example of one of those incredible street-to-high-window-and-into-apartment dolly shots. You can see it here - it starts with the shot of Duryea on the street at 0h1m35s. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
And yes, that’s a not too subtle way of saying the whole film is on YouTube, though I would urge you all to buy the Blu-Ray, which is worth it for the remarkable image gallery alone. It has over 100 photos like this one. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
Here’s the entry for Black Angel (1946) from my 1988 copy of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Contains SPOILERS for the ending, which I really want to talk about, but it’s too spoilery. DM me if you’ve seen the film and want BONUS CONTENT. #Noirvember #BlackAngel
And here’s the entry on Dan Duryea (who’s been one of my favourite actors ever since a 1989 screening of The Burglar in a David Goodis season at the Ipswich Film Theatre) from my prized copy of Danny Peary’s Cult Movie Stars. #Noirvember #DanDuryea
Some screengrabs from the credits, plus one of Constance Dowling as “Mavis Marlowe”. Bizarrely, everyone pronounces it to rhyme with “Travis”. #Noirvember #BlackAngel #MAVis
Here’s another still of Dowling, plus a couple of lobby cards. Also, I really like the DVD cover in the last picture, which has strong L.A. Confidential vibes. (I assume that’s deliberate). #Noirvember #BlackAngel
Day 20 of #Noirvember: Behind Locked Doors (1948).
Behind Locked Doors was great fun. Weirdly, the synopsis in Silver & Ward’s book is *completely* wrong. So wrong, in fact, that I lost count of the mistakes in it. Compare it with the Wikipedia synopsis here. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
The bit about following the judge’s daughter isn’t mentioned in the Wikipedia synopsis, but that’s way off too. Someone *is* followed to the asylum, but it’s the judge’s girlfriend, not daughter, and it’s Kathy (the reporter) that does the following, not the detective #Noirvember
There’s an amusing bit early on in Behind Locked Doors where Bremer and Carlson are discussing which symptoms he should fake in order to gain access to the asylum. She jokes about his “kissing fixation”, but he really is a massive sex pest. #Noirvember
This is another one from My Good Friend Budd Boetticher, who was still being billed as Oscar Boetticher in 1948. It was made 3 years after Escape in the Fog (see Day 17 ⬆️), but it’s so much more accomplished in style, technique and especially pace. Nice angles too. #Noirvember
Anyway, it’s a lot of fun. It has surprisingly nasty violence, corruption, excitement, arson, a great collection of characters and an enjoyable back-and-forth rapport between Bremer and Carlson once he tones down the sex pest stuff. #Noirvember
The best bit involves Ed Wood favourite Tor Johnson as “The Champ”, a hulking, violent lunatic who will attack if anyone mimics the sound of a bell. Of course, Carlson ends up locked in a cell with him and it’s absolutely BRUTAL. Here’s the full scene:
I appreciate that the purpose of stills is to sell movies, but at no point in Behind Locked Doors (1948) does this happen. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
Tor Johnson’s great in it though, and Boetticher gives you this fun running-towards-the-audience / giant scary close-up moment. Wisely, he isn’t given any dialogue. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
Here’s the entry for Tor Johnson in my beloved copy of Danny Peary’s Cult Movie Stars. Surprisingly, Behind Locked Doors doesn’t even warrant a mention. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors #TorJohnson #CultMovieStars
Another good bit: Carlson getting locked up and spotting Johnson in the cell opposite. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
The shadows-as-prison-bars thing comes up a lot in #filmnoir. Obviously there are actual prison bars in Behind Locked Doors, but it’s filled with great shadows too. The cinematographer is Guy Roe, who shot noir classic Armoured Car Robbery two years later. #Noirvember
Some other great stuff in Behind Locked Doors too. First, this guy, the asylum boss’ chief orderly, played by Douglas Fowley. He’s a really nasty, sadistic piece of work, regularly beating up inmates and tormenting Johnson’s “Champ” just for his own pleasure. #Noirvember
His favourite trick is to hit you hard with his keys, preferably when you’re not looking. Or as actual torture. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
Secondly, I loved Bremer’s tough, no-nonsense journalist. Obviously she’s offscreen for most of the asylum scenes but she still gets to do fun stuff like this. #Noirvember #BehindLockedDoors
This guy is interesting too (the one on the right), a sympathetic orderly player by Ralf Harolde. The exchange in this scene - protecting the boy from the sadistic orderly - very much implies a caring homosexual attraction. The Celluloid Closet would have been all over this.
It seems very likely that Behind Locked Doors (1948) was a direct influence on Sam Fuller’s 1963 asylum movie Shock Corridor, not least because Boetticher and Fuller were good friends. (The funny story Boetticher told me was specifically about their relationship). #Noirvember
I couldn’t find a trailer for Behind Locked Doors (1948), but the whole thing is on YouTube and presumably in the public domain, given the number of copies floating about. Best of all, it’s only an hour and two minutes long! cc @90minfilmfest #Noirvember
Day 21 of #Noirvember: The Accused (1949). Not that one, this one.
I love the international posters for The Accused (1949), especially the colours and the illustration of the murder in the background in the first one. #Noirvember #TheAccused
Here’s the write-up for The Accused (1949), from my 1988 copy of Silver and Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember #TheAccused
The Accused was made two years before Cause For Alarm, but it opens in almost exactly the same way, with Loretta Young having a flashback. I love the black and white hand effect here, suggesting she’s both guilty and innocent (which she is). #Noirvember #TheAccused
Young plays Dr. Wilma Tuttle, a psychology professor. One of her students - this guy - is an obvious wrong’un. We see him callously refuse to speak to a classmate he’s obviously slept with and then he starts making eyes at Loretta. #TheAccused #Noirvember
Sure enough, the scumbag student lures Loretta to a cliff-top and sexually assaults her. The attempted rape scene is one of the most shocking sequences I think I’ve ever seen in a 1940s movie. It’s genuinely terrifying. #TheAccused #Noirvember
In case you’re wondering why the rapist is in his pants, his stated intention is to show off by doing a cliff-dive into the water below, but really, who is he kidding? It does add a disturbing edge to the scene though. #Noirvember #TheAccused
Anyway, mid-way through the assault, Loretta grabs a “steel half-spring” (whatever that is) and - quite rightly - bludgeons him to death. This is where we came in - before the flashback, we’d seen her terrified and trying to hide as she returned home at night. #Noirvember
On her way back she spots this giant billboard, for a fake movie, but a fake movie with real actors. I love the perfect noir lighting on her reaction shot here. #Noirvember #TheAccused #MURDER
Back in the present, things quickly get complicated for Loretta as she falls for the scumbag student’s guardian - who’s also investigating his disappearance - played by Robert Cummings. Here she is giving him a twirl. I love the look she gives him here. #Noirvember #GifByMe
It’s the way her eyes follow the trajectory of the twirl - a lovely little moment. Here’s a 21 second YouTube version, with a reaction shot from Cummings. #TheAccused #Noirvember
Cummings didn’t even warrant a mention for me in last year’s #Noirvember mini-thread on The Chase (1946). ⬇️ He’s much more memorable here though, and there’s good chemistry between him and Loretta. #TheAccused
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1193860153944297472
The film also features a reliably solid turn from perennial second male lead Wendell Corey, as the lead investigator. He’s also in love with Loretta and has to endure the twin tortures of her falling for his colleague and hating him as he inches closer to the truth. #Noirvember
You may have noticed The Asphalt Jungle’s Sam Jaffe doing the ‘40s equivalent of a photo-bomb in the back of that shot. ⬆️ Remember that face - it’s coming back in a big way later on. Meanwhile, here’s Corey’s appearance in last year’s #Noirvember thread. ⬇️
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1198232905379713024
Howard Hawks famously said that to make a good movie you need “three great scenes and no bad ones”. Well, oh boy, does The Accused ever have three great scenes. The first is the murder scene, as discussed above. The second occurs at a totally random boxing match. #Noirvember
Loretta has never seen a boxing match before, so she’s unprepared for the violence. Then the boxer - whose resemblance to the student has already been noted - winks at her and the film does this. #Noirvember #TheAccused
The boxer - now equated by both Loretta and the audience with the student - starts taking a pounding to the head, mimicking the murder. (They do the face swap thing again too). It’s a deeply triggering moment and it makes her blurt out his name, giving away her guilt to Cummings.
The scene is brilliant enough on its own - hats well and truly off to director William Dieterle - but in the background of the whole thing you’ve got this extra, giving a reaction to the fight that can only be described as orgasmic. It’s...it’s really something. #Noirvember
The same scene triggers a brief but effective flashback where you see what Loretta did with the body. That’s oddly shocking too. Is it weird that there’s a publicity shot from the rape scene? It feels weird. #Noirvember #TheAccused
Anyway, the film’s third great scene is even crazier. Intending to force a confession, Corey and Sam Jaffe (as the forensic scientist) MOCK-UP A COPY OF THE VICTIM’S HEAD and thrust it in Loretta’s face! It is *insane*. It gets even better though. #Noirvember #TheAccused
She’s already got the murder weapon in her hand at this point, so as Jaffe pushes the head towards her, it triggers her again and she smashes it to bits. Just look at Jaffe’s brilliant facial expressions though. That’s acting, that is. #Noirvember #TheAccused
It’s a real shame the film doesn’t spend more time on the court case, as the title suggests. There’s some strongly resonant stuff early on, with Loretta worrying about her job and reputation if she comes forward. Cummings’ climactic self-defence speech is powerful too.#Noirvember
A couple of other things:
1) The “noir bars” again. They probably didn’t put *quite* this much thought into it, but I loved how Loretta’s position in relation to the prison bar shadows made it look like she was constantly just managing to evade discovery / capture. #Noirvember
1) The “noir bars” again. They probably didn’t put *quite* this much thought into it, but I loved how Loretta’s position in relation to the prison bar shadows made it look like she was constantly just managing to evade discovery / capture. #Noirvember
Note that as Corey joins them in that same scene, the bars surround her, indicating that she’s in danger again. #noirbars #Noirvember #TheAccused
2) There’s a surprising amount of SCIENCE in this movie. I had no idea what “psychothymia” was, for example. (Still not sure if it’s the film’s corruption of cyclothymia or if that’s what it was called in 1949). Anyway, here’s Loretta doing a METAPHORICAL experiment with a rat.
3) Speaking of science, the last thing I was expecting in this film was for old Clarence himself (Henry Travers) to show up. He’s only in one scene, as Jaffe’s lab partner, and they’re both creepily enthusiastic about gory details. #Noirvember #TheAccused
4) I enjoyed this scene, which is pretty much an exact copy of a sequence in Double Indemnity - overly chatty witness shows up who could place Loretta at the scene of the crime if he recognises her. #Noirvember #TheAccused
6) The film was well reviewed at the time. Given its subject matter I’m surprised it’s not much better known today. Here are snippets from the New York Times and Variety reviews, nicked from Wikipedia. #Noirvember #TheAccused
7) Loretta and Cummings both reprised their roles in an hour-long Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of the film. I couldn’t find it on YouTube but I did find this incredible podcast that’s collected *hundreds* of Lux Radio adaptations. Here’s Double Indemnity. overcast.fm/+hekMIvFz4
I haven’t gone through the whole list yet - there are hundreds of them, as I said - but there are radio adaptations of Mildred Pierce, Laura and Strangers on a Train to name just three. They were a common thing back then, with the stars usually reprising their roles. #Noirvember
Finally, I couldn’t find the trailer for The Accused (1949), but the whole film is, once again, on YouTube. Enjoy! #Noirvember #TheAccused
Day 22 of #Noirvember: Decoy (1946).
And a couple of painted / illustrated international posters. I like the sound of Blondes LOCKVOGEL. #Noirvember #filmnoir #Decoy #BlondesLOCKVOGEL
“Use ‘em...and get rid of ‘em! That’s how to handle men!”
“She KISSES quick...and KILLS quicker!”
- Press ad for Decoy (1946).
#Noirvember #Decoy #filmnoir
“She KISSES quick...and KILLS quicker!”
- Press ad for Decoy (1946).
#Noirvember #Decoy #filmnoir
“You’ll say ‘WHAT A WOMAN!’”
More press ads for Decoy, including one with a warning about poisons. (Methylene blue is used in the movie, but not to poison anyone. If anything, the opposite, as it brings a convict back to life after they’ve been executed in the gas chamber).
More press ads for Decoy, including one with a warning about poisons. (Methylene blue is used in the movie, but not to poison anyone. If anything, the opposite, as it brings a convict back to life after they’ve been executed in the gas chamber).
I actually don’t think I can say anything about Decoy (1946) that hasn’t already been said in this brilliant blog post on the film by @NitrateDiva. So please read this instead. #Noirvember #Decoy nitratediva.wordpress.com/2013/11/22/dec…
I will just say this: “Miss” Jean Gillie deserves to take her rightful place alongside the all-time great femme fatales. She’s just phenomenal, destroying men left, right and centre. #Noirvember #femmefatales #filmnoir
This is covered in @NitrateDiva’s blog post, but there are two things about the character and performance that really make this special. 1) She’s the goddamn protagonist, narrating the story while sporting a fatal gunshot wound, just like Walter Neff. #Noirvember
And 2) She has a fantastic British accent. How many 1940s femme fatales are there with British accents? Just the one, which puts her in a class of her own. She even blames the poverty of her “small English mill town” for her rapacious greed. #Noirvember
Here are entries on the film from Silver & Ward’s Film Noir and Lyons’ Death on the Cheap. It’s interesting that both entries have misremembered the detail with the car (it happens, but just once), though I suppose Lyons could have cribbed off the Silver & Ward entry. #Noirvember
It is still deeply shocking though, so I wondered if it might be a case of remembering something as worse than it actually was, like the way people swear they saw the ear getting cut off in Reservoir Dogs. #Noirvember #Decoy
Sadly, Jean Gillie is yet another brilliant actress on this thread whose career was tragically cut short, as her brief IMDb bio shows. #Noirvember #femmefatales
I couldn’t find a trailer or the full movie on YouTube but here’s a clip of the film’s best scene. After reading the entries above I thought it might have been cut, but looking at it again, it’s clearly one continuous shot. #Noirvember #Decoy
Day 23 of #Noirvember: Railroaded! (1947).
An alternate poster for Railroaded! (1947). This was yet another great noir that was new to me. Director Anthony Mann followed this with a trio of much better known noir classics: T-Men, Raw Deal and He Walked By Night (uncredited). #Noirvember #filmnoir
The plot’s a lot of fun. A gangster (John Ireland) robs his own mob boss’ back-room gambling joint, run by his ex-con girlfriend. When a cop is killed, they frame an innocent man, so the man’s sister (Sheila Ryan, pictured) tries to get close to Ireland to investigate.#Noirvember
Here’s the entry for Railroaded from my copy of Silver & Ward’s Film Noir book, which flags up the Freudian weirdness of Ireland’s character. He perfumes his bullets! #Noirvember #Railroaded
The highlight of the film is this great catfight scene between Sheila Ryan and Jane Randolph (as the gangster’s alcoholic girlfriend), with Ireland just casually watching from the balcony. #Noirvember #Railroaded
Once again, the whole film is on YouTube and well worth your time at a mere 72 mins. Don’t watch the Cult Cinema Classics version though - for some reason that has adverts every five minutes. When did that become a thing? Poor show, @YouTube. #Noirvember
SNEAK PREVIEW: I’ve got Mann’s Border Incident (1949) pencilled in for Day 26 and I’m really looking forward to it. #Noirvember #filmnoir
Day 24 of #Noirvember: Rogue Cop (1954).
“Temptation is a thing called money and a red-lipped blonde!” Some alternate posters for Rogue Cop (1954). #Noirvember #RogueCop
Some French and Spanish posters for Rogue Cop (1954). Love the artwork on the first one - I’d have that on my wall. #Noirvember
Translations:
Spanish - Prisonero de la Traicion = Prisoner of Betrayal (great)
French - Sur la trace du crime = On the trail of crime (not so great)
Translations:
Spanish - Prisonero de la Traicion = Prisoner of Betrayal (great)
French - Sur la trace du crime = On the trail of crime (not so great)
Press ads for Rogue Cop (1954), including two sets of stills that showcase the film’s hardboiled dialogue. I wish more #filmnoir movies did this. #Noirvember #RogueCop
Here’s Alain Silver’s entry for Rogue Cop (1954) from my 1988 edition of Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. #Noirvember #RogueCop
Rogue Cop has an excellent noir pedigree. It was based on a 1954 novel by William McGiven, who also wrote the source novel for The Big Heat. The script was by Sidney Boehm, who had also adapted The Big Heat. #Noirvember #RogueCop
I never had much time for Robert Taylor as an actor before, but he’s properly great in this. He plays the titular figure, a dirty cop in the pocket of George Raft’s gangster. Here’s the trailer working hard to convince the audience. #Noirvember #RogueCop #RobertTaylor
Taylor’s younger brother (an honest cop) is set to testify against a murderer, but said murderer has the goods on Raft, so he pressures Taylor to get his brother to drop the case...or else. Taylor puts the squeeze on his brother’s girlfriend (Janet Leigh) but no dice. #Noirvember
Taylor doesn’t make things easier for himself when he beats up George Raft, after handing his henchman a solid pasting. Check out his vicious fight move at the end. #Noirvember #RogueCop
That fight scene goes on for ages but for some reason I couldn’t get the full clip to upload to YouTube with sound. It’s great though, and the aftermath, with a humiliated, furious Raft taking it out on alcoholic girlfriend Anne Francis is really intense. #Noirvember
I couldn’t find any writing on Anne Francis’ part in Rogue Cop, but it’s by far the better of the two female roles. She has an incredibly expressive face too - from the screengrabs below you’d think she was a silent movie actress. #Noirvember
The way she’s treated in the film is incredibly brutal and upsetting, even by the standards of the man who wrote The Big Heat (hot coffee, Gloria Grahame, etc). Even the publicity stills played up the fact that Raft slaps her around. #Noirvember
After the fight, Raft tells his henchman to take her to “Fonzo’s place” and she’s dragged away, screaming. The next time we see her, very much the worse for wear, she says, “He gave me to Fonzo and some friends of his”, strongly suggesting she’s been gang-raped. #Noirvember
That’s backed up by Raft’s line in the previous scene. He says, “I’m gonna pay you off good! Fix you up so I never want to touch you again!” It’s brutal, and the fact that it follows the fight nails Raft as the classic bully, taking out his humiliation on those weaker than him.
By contrast, Leigh’s character has a past - as a gangster’s moll and perhaps a prostitute - that Taylor threatens to expose to his brother if she won’t persuade him to drop the case. Here’s that scene in full. Not sure the kiss really convinces #Noirvember
There’s really not that much more to her character than that though, despite what the posters would have you believe. It’s a shame there aren’t more scenes between Leigh and Francis, considering the time they spend together after this ⬇️. #Noirvember #RogueCop
Francis, for her part, saw her role as "the one part I've been waiting for" and it led to her being signed to a long term contract by MGM. In other words, no Rogue Cop, no Forbidden Planet. Or at least no Anne Francis line in Science Fiction Double Feature. #Noirvember
Here’s the trailer for Rogue Cop (1954). If you’re on Facebook, an account called Film Noir Classic Movies has posted the whole film. I didn’t know you could do that on Facebook, but there you go. #Noirvember #RogueCop
Some more publicity stills from Rogue Cop (1954), again playing up Taylor’s tough guy performance. #Noirvember #RogueCop
Day 25 of #Noirvember: One Way Street (1950).
James Mason *and* Dan Duryea? I am SOLD. Also, looking forward to seeing how the stuff going on at the bottom of this poster fits into the film. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
And two Spanish posters, very likely South American, since this was Argentine director Hugo Fregonese’s first US film. Spanish title translates as “Walls of Silence”. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
So, it turns out this detail from the bottom of the poster is meant to be Mexico instead of the Wild West. Mason plays a doctor who robs Duryea’s gangster after a heist and hightails it to Mexico with the gangster’s girl (Toren). #Noirvember
The problem is the Mexico part lasts more than half the movie and is *really* dull. I laughed out loud when I read the Wikipedia synopsis, which writes off 50+ minutes with “After hiding out in Mexico...” #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
So the film ends up being very disappointing, spending nearly an hour on Mason discovering his worth as a doctor in impoverished Mexico. I suspect this was just an excuse for Argentine director Fregonese to squeeze in as much Spanish dialogue as possible. #Noirvember
There is a LOT of Spanish dialogue, all unsubtitled. But there’s also a lot of really painful Mexican stereotyping, as this publicity still shows. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
That said, even if the movie doesn’t really work overall, it does have some points of interest. My favourite bit is when Jack Elam shows up for just one scene - in the back of a car - menaces Mason for a bit and is then promptly killed off in a car crash. #Noirvember
Brief pause here for a JACK ELAM APPRECIATION POST from last year’s #Noirvember thread.
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1199400612481380354
The most interesting thing about the film is that it begins so deep in media res that the film could almost be over. The heist has already happened and we have no idea how Mason got mixed up with them or what his prior relationship is with Toren. #Noirvember
The problem is *that* story would’ve made for a much better movie than the one we get, which is mostly just Mason titting about in Mexico with a doctor’s bag full of cash. Would’ve been much better if it had all been Toren’s idea and she intended to double-cross him. #Noirvember
Mason’s great, obviously, but poor old Duryea is so badly under-used that all his scenes take place in one room. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
I wasn’t familiar with Marta Toren, who, it turns out, is not Spanish but Swedish. Sadly, like Decoy’s Jean Gillies above, she also died tragically young, aged just 30. #Noirvember
As indicated by its opening quote (below), the film purports to have a noir-ish streak of fatalism, but it feels out of place, given the events of the film. Consequently, the downbeat ending doesn’t feel earned at all and is unsatisfying. #Noirvember
One Way Street doesn’t have a write-up in any of my film noir books, though it is apparently included in later editions of Silver & Ward’s Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide, according to this @letterboxd list. boxd.it/3Lli #Noirvember
Anyway, if you want to see it, the whole film is on YouTube, but be warned: the quality is very poor and it goes out of sync about halfway through. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
“Kiss Laura once, just once, and you’re headed down a ONE WAY STREET”.
If this poster had been on the IMDb page I’d have used it for the introductory post. Ah well. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
If this poster had been on the IMDb page I’d have used it for the introductory post. Ah well. #Noirvember #OneWayStreet
Day 26 of #Noirvember: Border Incident (1949), directed by Anthony Mann. Looking forward to this one.
An alternate poster for Border Incident (1949). There’s only one notable female character in the film and she does not look like this. She does pull a gun on Montalban though. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
Some more alternate posters for Border Incident (1949). I like how they’ve used the same set of illustrations in each one. I wonder who did them? #Noirvember #BorderIncident
The illustrations are even more prevalent in the French poster. The Swedish poster, not so much. Swedish translation: Death Valley, a much better title, if there wasn’t already a Death Valley. It is used as a nickname for a dangerous stretch of land in the film though #Noirvember
This was the most youthful I’ve ever seen Ricardo Montalban. It came as quite the surprise. Looking at his filmography, it turns out he was in the final episode of Disney’s Zorro in 1961, so I’d seen that, but then nothing till Star Trek in ‘67. #Noirvember
Here’s a short but insightful write-up from Silver & Ward’s Film Noir book, noting how the film follows the pattern of Mann’s 1947 success, T-Men, and also how shooting the film on location in Mexico likely influenced Mann’s move into Westerns the following year. #Noirvember
The plot couldn’t be simpler: agents from both the Mexican (Montalban) and American (George Murphy) governments go undercover to expose a criminal gang exploiting illegal farm workers in Southern California. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
The film marks the fifth collaboration between Mann and his regular cinematographer John Alton - they first worked together on T-Men in 1947. Alton somehow manages to fill the Mexico deserts with more shadows than the streets of New York. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
Three great things about Border Incident:
1) There’s a lovely bit where Montalban’s carefully constructed cover is given away by his soft hands.
(Not really related, but in a different scene, someone growls, “I don’t know you from a bar of soap!”)
#Noirvember #BorderIncident
1) There’s a lovely bit where Montalban’s carefully constructed cover is given away by his soft hands.
(Not really related, but in a different scene, someone growls, “I don’t know you from a bar of soap!”)
#Noirvember #BorderIncident
2) The write-up above describes the film’s famous death scene as “one of the most grisly in this period of film history.” That’s putting it mildly - it’s horrific and terrifying. Stunningly directed too. Here it is in full. #Noirvember
Bear in mind that’s the film’s *American* hero on the ground in the scene above. You’ve been following his character and Montalban’s for the whole movie at that point. Imagine the impact that must have had at the time. I was open-mouthed with horror watching it at 3am #Noirvember
Here’s the trailer for Border Incident (1949). For context, the opening sequence here immediately precedes the death scene in the video above. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
The trailer really wants you to know that the “Badges? We don’ need no steenkin’ badges!” guy from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is in it. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
Anyway, check it out. The film is in the public domain, so it’s on YouTube, in full. #Noirvember #BorderIncident
Since they have so much in common and I mentioned it above, here’s last year’s much shorter #Noirvember thread on Mann’s T-Men. Only three posts! Oh, the brevity. #TMen
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1196407395515285506
Day 27 of #Noirvember: Woman on the Run (1950).
This was a late substitution because the Blu-Ray arrived. Thanks for this, @Academy_Arrow! #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
“As STARTLING as your OWN Scream in the Night!” Some alternate posters for Woman on the Run (1950). #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
And two international posters. The German one (left) translates as “One Knows Too Much”. I can’t find a good translation for the French title, or what I assume is the Belgian title underneath. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
The title is a bit misleading, plot-wise, because Ann Sheridan’s character is never really on the run. Rather, her husband witnesses a murder and disappears after he’s reported it to the police, afraid the killer will come after him. #Noirvember
The thing is, Sheridan and her husband have been growing apart, so she’s barely even bothered that he disappears. She only reluctantly starts to search for him when she realises he has a serious heart condition and needs his medicine. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
She’s aided in her search by cheeky reporter Legget, played by Dennis O’Keefe, who promises to help in return for an exclusive. At this point the police are after her husband too, so they have to stay one step ahead of them, shake police tails etc. #Noirvember
The script - from a 1948 short story by Sylvia Tate - is really clever, on a number of levels. At first you think there’s going to be a romance between Sheridan and O’Keefe. Here’s their very unconventional meet-cute, as she escapes her own apartment. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
Their flirtatious back-and-forth dialogue backs that up too (see trailer later on). Plus O’Keefe is a likeable actor and they have fun, sparky chemistry together. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
However, what actually happens is that each time she follows a clue to her husband’s whereabouts, she meets someone (like John Qualen, pictured) who reveals something new that she never knew about him, so she ends up falling in love with him all over again. #Noirvember
That, in turn, raises the emotional stakes for their hoped-for-reunion. However, the film ups those stakes considerably with a great twist, that it reveals relatively early on. SPOILER ALERT for next post / rest of Day 27 thread. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
Yes, it turns out that -GASP!- nice guy O’Keefe is actually the killer, and he intends to get rid of Sheridan’s husband, as he’s the only witness to the murder. One nice touch: his criminal connections are never explained. #Noirvember.
The authentic San Francisco locations really make this stand out too, just as they do with Vertigo. You can see some of them here in this fun clip of the John Qualen scene. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
The SF locations come into their own later on, because it builds to a terrific, super-tense climax involving a rollercoaster on the pier. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
I hate to say it, but the ending is a little bit of a cop-out. This is Sheridan’s movie through and through, yet she’s kind of side-lined in the actual finale. That’s sort of the point of the rollercoaster bit, but it still rankles. #Noirvember
In fact, almost all the actual violence in this film happens offscreen, and director Norman Foster does some creative things with camera angles etc when it comes to showing dead bodies. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
It’s not like Sheridan is completely isolated from MURDER and VIOLENCE in the film though. There is, for example, a nicely staged and acted sequence where Sheridan has to identify a badly beaten body that the police think might be her husband. #Noirvember
Robert Keith is great in this, as the really rather rubbish cop. I liked his increasing frustration every time he realises Sheridan is one step ahead of him, again. #Noirvember
In particular, I love the relationship Keith builds up with Sheridan’s dog, who he’s often literally left holding. Especially when he belatedly realises the dog might be quite useful when it comes to finding Sheridan’s husband. #Noirvember
Incidentally, it turns out Tate’s original short story was called MAN on the Run, which explains why the title doesn’t really describe Sheridan’s character. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
One thing I definitely wasn’t expecting in this movie was to see the word “Colchester”. (That’s basically where I grew up). #Noirvember #Colchester
Here’s the write-up for Woman On The Run, taken from my 1988 copy of Silver & Ward’s Film Noir book. Note the background on director Norman Foster. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
Here’s the trailer for the newly restored Blu-Ray / DVD. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
And here’s host @EddieMuller, introducing a screening of Woman on the Run on TCM’s @NoirAlley. (His outro should be the next video under that one). #Noirvember
The film is in the public domain, so it’s on Amazon Prime and there are a tonne of copies of it on YouTube, most of which seem to be good quality. If in doubt, go for one with a high number of views, like this one. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
Here are a couple of weird-looking publicity stills of Sheridan. I’m pretty sure she keeps her coat on for the entire movie but the photographer clearly didn’t think that was sexy enough. #Noirvember #WomanOnTheRun
Anyway, I really enjoyed this. Definitely one of the highlights / discoveries of this year’s #Noirvember. Also, I highly recommend the @Academy_Arrow Blu-Ray, currently a mere £7.50 on their site. #WomanOnTheRun arrowfilms.com/product-detail…
Day 28 of #Noirvember: The Strange Woman (1946), starring Hedy Lamarr.
Pushing the limits of what traditionally qualifies as #filmnoir with this one - #Noirgument, etc - seeing as it’s set in 1820s New England, but it’s listed in later copies of Silver & Ward’s book and on a few film noir master lists on @letterboxd. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
I’m committed to my #HedyLamarrMiniSeaon / #Noirvember crossover now though, so it stays.
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1331630070725799936
The Strange Woman (1946) is directed by Detour’s Edgar G. Ulmer (as well as an uncredited Douglas Sirk) and based on a novel by Ben Ames Williams. Here are a couple of alternate posters. #Noirvember
Okay, so The Strange Woman really isn’t a film noir in the traditional sense. But is Hedy Lamarr’s character a femme fatale? Oh, HELL, yes. That and Ulmer’s direction are almost certainly responsible for it showing up on film noir lists. #Noirvember
There’s a noir-ish tone and atmosphere to the film too, as it goes to some very dark and perverse places. Even the little girl version of Hedy’s character (played by Jo Ann Marlowe) is a MONSTER. Here she is trying to drown a little boy, for lols. #Noirvember
Early on, Hedy gets whipped by her alcoholic father, who says “I’ll give you a beating you’ll not like”, implying that she usually enjoys it. This is the face she makes, which seems to back that up. #Noirvember
The whip comes into it again in the finale, but we’ll get to that. What really stands out about the film is the extraordinary *intensity* of the seduction scenes. It’s all about the looks. My GOD, the looks. Here she is trying them out for the first time, on a sailor. #Noirvember
She really kicks things into high gear with her next target though. Here she is seducing wealthy businessman Gene Lockhart, on the pretext of fleeing her father’s whip and showing his housekeeper her scars. #Noirvember #theLOOKS
Needless to say, it works. Just look at his face! They’re married within two scenes. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman #theLOOKS
She’s just getting started though. When she discovers he has a hot son (Louis Hayward), she writes him a very saucy letter and he comes home to “meet his new mother”. Not long after that, she seduces him into trying to kill his own dad, proper femme fatale style. #Noirvember
I don’t want to give away too much, so let’s just say it goes badly for both father and son, allowing Hedy to set her sights on George Sanders (her best friend’s not-quite-fiancé) instead. Again, the looks. My GOD, the looks. This sequence is *incredibly* intense. #Noirvember
It continues here. The score is really ramping things up too. AND there’s a thunderstorm outside. Really, he doesn’t stand a chance. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
Sanders bottles it and runs outside, but she follows him. Cue an incredible lightning flash moment that lights her up by the door. Then it’s all over. They’re married just as soon as she’s told her friend all about it. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
SPOILER ALERT, but the finale is properly great too. Paranoid that Sanders and her best friend are seeing each other, she tries to run them both down with a horse and cart! It’s a brilliantly shot and edited sequence and Hedy really goes for it with the whip. #Noirvember
In conclusion, #filmnoir, no, but #femmefatale, oh hell yes.
Here are a few publicity stills. It’s a shame that shot with the candles isn’t lit like that in the film. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
Here are a few publicity stills. It’s a shame that shot with the candles isn’t lit like that in the film. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
I can’t find a trailer, but the film is in the public domain, so it’s on Amazon Prime and there are tonnes of copies on YouTube. Here’s one of them. #Noirvember #TheStrangeWoman
Forgot to mention, there’s some interesting stuff with the rather terrifying lawlessness of the whole town (Bangor, Maine, 1830ish - there’s no police force), plus a bit where she tells her saucy barmaid friend she learned her seductive ways from watching prostitutes. #Noirvember
A couple of alternate posters for A Lady Without Passport (1950) that look like they’re meant to be part of a sequence. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
A Lady Without Passport is a very minor noir, mostly notable for Joseph H. Lewis’ strongly atmospheric direction, as noted in this write-up from Silver & Ward’s Film Noir book. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
I’m fascinated again by the incorrect plot details in Silver & Ward’s book, particularly with regard to Lamarr’s character. I guess it wasn’t as easy to check that sort of thing in 1988. I hope future editions corrected the mistakes. Wikipedia has the correct version. #Noirvember
It’s not a particularly great role for Lamarr and she only made 7 more films before retiring, three of which were in Italy and one of which she got cut out of completely. She even looks bored in the publicity stills. #Noirvember
There are a few interesting things about the film though, particularly the visual reveal, mid-seduction scene, that she’s a concentration camp survivor. You can see that in the trailer, here: . #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
Incidentally, if you think trailers give away too much now, that’s nothing to 1950. That entire sequence at the end is basically the closing minute or so of the film. (She looks bored in the trailer too - I think it’s safe to say her heart wasn’t in this one). #Noirvember
That bit’s actually quite funny in context. It’s from this scene, where she’s eyed up by the concierge. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport #GifByMe
I’m being a bit unfair, because Hedy’s “bored” look is actually a deep-seated world weariness that’s entirely appropriate to the character. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
In fact, the film is especially good on the grim realities of Hedy’s situation, in particular her reluctant acceptance that she will eventually have to sleep with George Macready if she’s ever going to get out of Cuba. That’s apparent in the trailer above too. #Noirvember
And that’s also the appeal of Hodiak’s character (who has shown he’s not just after one thing), and why she feels so betrayed when she finds out he’s a cop. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
There are two more things of note about A Lady Without Passport. First, this extremely homoerotic fight scene. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
And secondly, this very impressive plane crash sequence. I still can’t figure out how they did this. I assume, from the movement during the crash, that it’s a model shot, but if it is, it’s a really, really good one. #Noirvember #ALadyWithoutPassport
Day 30 of #Noirvember: Crossroads (1942). Saved this one till last and I’m really looking forward to it. What an awesome cast. #HedyLamarrMiniSeason
Crossroads (1942) turned out to be the perfect end to #Noirvember, even though its Parisian setting (pre-WWII, at that) means most authoritative sources don’t consider it a true film noir. Here’s an alternate poster.
Crossroads is actually a remake of Carrefour, a French thriller from 1938 that also had a 1940 British remake, called Dead Man’s Shoes. #Noirvember
The title and tag-line have no bearing on the film whatsoever. There’s no crossroads (not even a metaphorical one) and there are no women waiting to seal anyone’s fate. I mean, maybe Claire Trevor, at a pinch, but not really. #Noirvember
I went into each of these #Noirvember films as cold as possible, so I was delighted to discover that it was an amnesia thriller. I don’t know about you, but I can’t resist an amnesia thriller. Also, I laughed out loud at the trailer’s phrasing here. #Crossroads
So, Powell plays an amnesiac French diplomat, happily married to Hedy Lamarr, who’s blackmailed by Basil Rathbone (with Claire Trevor as his accomplice) over crimes he committed before he lost his memory. #Noirvember #Crossroads
Aside from the amnesia angle (a common noir device), the closest the film comes to a film noir sensibility is the way kind-hearted Powell begins to believe he could be a murderer and a thief. That’s pretty damn dark and Powell really sells it. #Noirvember #Crossroads
The trailers get this bit right, at least. #Noirvember
It’s very much a supporting role for Lamarr, despite what the posters suggest, but she does have a lovely (and quite saucy) fake-out flirtation scene at the beginning, where it looks like she’s a very forward student picking him up but it turns out they’re married. #Noirvember
At least the script has the courtesy to include her in the final act. Rathbone’s predictably great in this, by the way, and it’s fun to see him menacing Powell. #Noirvember
I don’t want to give away the ending, but let’s just say that as amnesia and blackmail plots go, it’s *insanely* contrived and the end result could have been achieved just as easily by, say, kidnapping Hedy and forcing Powell to do what they want. #Noirvember
It does feel a little bit like there’s a better, much darker film lurking just under the surface. I can’t find full synopses for Carrefour and Dead Man’s Shoes, but I’d be interested to see if they had the same ending. #Noirvember
The promotional stuff for Crossroads is *wild*. Here are three publicity stills of Hedy Lamarr that have nothing to do with the film. Clearly that sculpture is meant to be her, but there’s nothing like that in the movie. #Noirvember
Actually, that winking photo with the cards is taken from this “relaxing on set” photo shoot with Powell. This in itself is glorious. I wonder if it was filmed? #Noirvember #Crossroads
There’s a similar photo story here, as Hedy Lamarr shows us HOW TO ATTRACT A MAN. #Noirvember #Crossroads
My favourite thing is this strip cartoon version by Arthur Smith, taken from what I assume is a regular series called “Now Playing”. Spoiler alert: it gives away the ending. #Noirvember #Crossroads
The film was well received in 1942 and became a commercial hit. Here’s Variety’s review, plus a still of Lamarr with supporting actor Felix Bressart, who’s probably best known for The Shop Around the Corner (1940). He’s great in this too, as Powell’s doctor / friend. #Noirvember
Here’s the 60 minute Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Crossroads. This time neither of the leads reprised their roles - Jean-Pierre Aumont replaced Powell and Lana Turner replaced Lamarr. (Or possibly Trevor, I haven’t checked). #Noirvember #Crossroads open.spotify.com/episode/0zfXu2…
Finally, here are a few more publicity stills, including two of Claire Trevor and one, bizarrely, from the final scene in the film. #Noirvember #Crossroads
I say bizarrely, but one of the world’s most famous publicity stills is also taken from the final scene in the film. They were released the same year, so maybe it was a thing in 1942. #Crossroads
That’s a wrap for #Noirvember 2020. Thank you for reading - or at least not unfollowing. I promise I’ll keep the rest of the #HedyLamarrMiniSeason tweets to just one per film. Okay, maybe two. No more than three.
Actually, if you’ll indulge me just a little bit longer, I just want to repeat some bonus extra #Noirvember stuff, seeing as these have all been added to since I posted them two weeks ago. First, this thread of #filmnoirpodcasts and #filmnoir / neo noir podcast episodes.
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1327083284845780992
2) This thread of introductions to #filmnoir movies from BBC TWO’s #TheFilmClub in the 1980s. Scroll up for a few more. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1328476332708257797
3) This, again, because it’s great, and because I live in hope that someone will stumble across the rest of the series. One down, seven to go. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1328489923704479744
4) This ongoing thread of gorgeous illustrated DVD / Blu-Ray covers, including several #filmnoir movies. Do people still use Tumblr? Because this is a Tumblr account waiting to happen. #Noirvember #coverart
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1325759282957135872
And finally, this thread of great #filmnoir graphic novel recommendations from @thenoirguy. Looking forward to checking out all of these. I’ve jumped into the middle of the thread here, so scroll up and down for more. #Noirvember
https://twitter.com/thenoirguy/status/1329233306408333312
Oh, and here’s one final link to last year’s #Noirvember thread, in case you somehow want more.
https://twitter.com/FilmFan1971/status/1190370470631219200
Coda: my #Noirvember 2020 @letterboxd list. Click “Read notes” (the pair of glasses icon) for links to:
(i) adapted versions of the Twitter notes on Letterboxd, or
(ii) the beginning of the Twitter mini-thread for each film. boxd.it/978ie
(i) adapted versions of the Twitter notes on Letterboxd, or
(ii) the beginning of the Twitter mini-thread for each film. boxd.it/978ie
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