A few favorite noirs

[randy_byers]

Yesterday kdotdammit posted a still from This Gun for Hire, and we got to talking about film noir, as you do. Film noir was arguably my gateway to becoming a film freak as an adult. (I wasn't much of one when I was younger.) At some point a few years back I decided to investigate film noir thoroughly, so I started reading about it. Pretty soon I was watching root material such as silent German Expressionist movies, gothic horror movies, French poetic realist movies, gangster movies, bizarre, overwrought Josef von Sternberg femme fatale movies, and then I started following favorite cinematographers and directors into other genres, then getting interested in those genres, and before I knew it I was watching Carmen Miranda wearing a mile-high banana hat in The Gang's All Here, which is about as far away from film noir as you can possibly get. Well, okay, it does have the hallucinatory quality of noir.

Anyway, I have watched a fair few noirs along the way, and here are some of my favorites.



Above all, Out of the Past (1947) by Jacques Tourneur, which is one of my perfect movies. A gangster hires a private dick to find the woman who shot him three times and disappeared with $40,000 of his money. He doesn't want revenge, rather he still wants her love. This is a visual masterpiece, photographed by Nicholas Musuraca, who is one of the great noir stylists. The dialogue is as snappy and Chandlerian as Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946), and a young Robert Mitchum, as the detective, and Kirk Douglas, as the gangster, vie for the affections of the enigmatic, erotic Jane Greer. Romantic, tragic, fatalistic, twisting (perhaps two or three twists too far), and hypnotizing in its dreamlike quality. Almost certainly the movie I've watched the most times.

Scarlet Street (1945) by Fritz Lang. This is a remake of a Jean Renoir movie, La Chienne (The Bitch, 1931), which I've never seen. A conman and his "model" girlfriend (Hollywood code for a pimp and his girl) try to swindle a meek, hen-pecked cashier and amateur painter (Edgar G. Robinson) who falls for the girl. Although Lang is often cited as the father of noir, this one doesn't have much of the noir visual style, despite its darkness. It's a character study of three not very admirable people who only see what they want to see, and who pay a heavy price for their illusions. It's also a fascinating look at artistic creativity and its illusions.

Phantom Lady (1944) by Robert Siodmak. Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel, this is a wrong man movie, about a man accused of murder and the efforts of his secretary to prove him innocent. Some of Siodmak's later noirs, such as The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) are probably more interesting narratively, but I love the look of this one, which like Scarlet Street is a completely stagebound recreation of the city streetscape. I love that artificiality, which is reminiscent of the stylization of German Expressionism. (Siodmak and Lang were both refugees from the Berlin film industry.) The famous jazz scene in the middle of the movie is a wild burst of sexy weirdness, with a great mugging, leering performance by Elisha Cook Jr. as a drummer in a nightclub jazz band.

The Chase (1946). Okay, this is an odd one, and I've only seen it on the crappy DVD from VCI. This is an indpendent production from Nero Films, which was the German producer Seymour Nebenzal's company. Nebenzal was the producer of many classic Weimar films, including Pandora's Box (1929), Threepenny Opera (1931), and Fritz Lang's great proto-noir crime film, M (1931). This strange movie, based on another Cornell Woolrich novel, The Black Path of Fear, is a good example of what people mean when they say that noir is hallucinatory. An amnesiac war veteran is hired to be the driver for a gangster, and he falls in love with the gangster's beautiful moll, who is played by the French actress Michèle Morgan, Jean Gabin's co-star in the poetic realist film, Le quai des brumes (Port of Shadows, 1938). The lovers flee to Havana, where she is then murdered. But is it all a dream? Peter Lorre is the gangster's jaded, fretting henchman. If there is any logic to this one, it's definitely a dream logic.

Nightmare Alley (1947) by Edmund Goulding. Perhaps not a true noir, but dripping with noir visual style thanks to cinematographer Lee Garmes, who also worked with Josef von Sternberg on Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), and Shanghai Express (1932). A young circus performer seeks to learn the scam secrets of a psychic, and is seduced by a scamming psychoanalyst as his success and sway grow. Hey, the psychoanalyst's a femme fatale, so it must be noir, right? Tyrone Power is utterly riveting as the self-deluding protagonist, and kdotdammit has argued that he's heavily coded as a gay beauty. His gradual descent into hell is unforgettable.

Speaking of descents into hell, Act of Violence (1948) is a new favorite. It begins with a bland depiction of American middle-class domestic tranquility and then slowly peels away the surface to show the hidden war crimes beneath. The sequence in which the good, suburban family man flees into the urban underworld is brilliant. There he finds Mary Astor as a washed up hooker, and she is brilliant too, almost completely unrecognizable as the woman who played the brittle femme fatale in The Maltese Falcon (1941). Robert Ryan plays the terrifying figure of vengeance, dragging his war-wounded foot behind him like a lurching gothic monster.

Raw Deal (1948) by Anthony Mann. Photography by another great noir stylist, John Alton. A guy who took the rap for a gangster boss breaks out of prison with the help of his devoted girl, and seeks revenge. The sadistic gangster boss is played by the cruel, beautiful Raymond Burr. There's a theremin in the soundtrack, lending paranoia to the doomed, fatalistic atmosphere. Mann builds to explosive scenes of gritty violence. This was made for a Poverty Row studio, but Alton turns the cheap sets into fantastic landscapes of sharp shadows and skewed angles.

Caught (1949) by Max Ophuls. Another that's probably not true noir, but rather, in this case, a woman in peril movie. But those are in some ways the flipside of noir, featuring an homme fatal rather than a femme fatale. A shop girl dreams of marrying a millionaire, and then finds herself trapped in an unhappy marriage to a sadistic monster. Cinematography by Lee Garmes again, and he draws nets of shadow across the familiar apartment sets. Robert Ryan this time plays the tormented, abusive husband, supposedly based on the meddling, monomaniacal owner of RKO studios, Howard Hughes.

In a Lonely Place (1950) by Nicholas Ray. Another homme fatal, woman in peril movie. (Okay, I'm not doing a very good job of listing true-blue noirs!) Bogart plays a screenwriter with an explosive temper who may have murdered a hat-check girl. Gloria Grahame plays the damaged goods who falls for him. I always associate this one with Sunset Boulevard, because it came out in the same year and is very much a movie about Hollywood, with Robert Warwick -- an early star of such silent films as Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915) -- appearing as an alcoholic former movie star who spouts hammy Shakespeare and leeches drinks off anyone who remembers his name. This one feels very personal for a Hollywood movie, and Bogart gets one of his chewiest roles. The novel by Dorothy Hughes is very different, very obsessive and tricky in point of view, and well worth seeking out too. Another great noir by Ray is On Dangerous Ground (1952), about a violent cop (Robert Ryan again) who chases a killer and his own demons into the countryside.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) by Otto Preminger. Another violent cop (Dana Andrews) kills a robbery suspect with an errant punch and attempts to cover up his crime while investigating it. Preminger's Laura (1944) is more famous, but this is a far darker, grittier film, set on the street rather than in penthouse suites. Who watches the watchmen? Screenwriter Ben Hecht wrote early proto-noir gangster films such as Sternberg's silent Underworld (1927) and Howard Hawks' Scarface (1932).

Okay, that's ten plus, which is plenty enough for now. This is one of those things where it seems pretty natural for you to join in with your favorites too. If anybody's reading this kind of thing on a weekend!

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I've never seen any of these films, though I have seen, and enjoyed, some later-day noirs (if it's permissible to call them that) like Chinatown and L.A. Confidential. (Do they have to take place in LA?)

The single film I've seen most often is undoubtably Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Correction, because I missed it in the listing: I have seen The Maltese Falcon, which I rented specifically because I figured I should plug this conspicuous gap in my film experience.

I didn't like it at all. For several reasons I will omit ranting about, except to note that Sydney Greenstreet was the only performer in it who seemed to be actually acting instead of mechanically spouting lines.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'm not a huge fan of The Maltese Falcon either, and far prefer John Huston's later noir, Asphalt Jungle. However, along with Greenstreet's, I do enjoy the performances of Peter Lorre and Elisha Cook Jr.

Later, color noirs are usually called neo-noir, and the two you've seen are very clearly harkening back to the old movies. (There's alot of argument about time periods, but the classic noir era is often said to end with Orson Welles' great Touch of Evil in 1958.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Archive.org is having problems, or I'd find the link the the Lux Radio Theater version of "The Maltese Falcon," with Edward G. Robinson as Spade. Damn, he's good.

Elsewhere, one can find the noncanonical sequel to the falcon, a radio show that partakes of the nature of humor somewhat. As a bonus, because the show was part of a series featuring the actor who played Philip Marlowe on the radio, there's a bit of interaction between the two detectives. It's lightweight material, obviously, but worth a chuckle.

(Me, I just finished rereading a lot of Hammett's stories, and then I reread Chandler stories, and am working my way through the Marlowe novels again.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about the two earlier movie versions of The Maltese Falcon, although apparently they aren't very good. I think they're both on the current DVD of the movie, so I should rent it sometime and watch all three versions.

I need to reread Hammett sometime too. Haven't read him or Chandler since college. Oops, that reminds me that The Chase is based on a Cornell Woolrich novel. Must add that to my post. Woolrich is somebody I haven't read at all yet, but a lot of his novels became film noir.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I read everything by those guys every couple of years.

Phantom Lady is based on a Woolrich book as well, written as William Irish. I expect you know Rear Window is based on a story of his, too.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten that about Phantom Lady. I need to add that to my notes too. Thanks!

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

I've seen the 1931 version and liked it a lot. Spade is a much nastier character.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's truer to the book, where as I recall he treats women very badly, amongst other things.

[richardthe23rd.livejournal.com]

No, but in the earliest version you do get Dwight Frye as Wilmer.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

You know, it's sounding better and better!

[e-compass-rosa.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to bookmark this post for the time (it will come... I hope) when I'm really able to dive into film again.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Not that my comments aren't especially interesting, but film noir is one of the most written-about subjects in cinema. You can find plenty of good lists on the interwebs, if you lose track of this one.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, Randy. I'm a big fan of film noir too, and I'm hugely pleased to see you've mentioned three of my favourites already - Out of the Past, In a Lonely Place and On Dangerous Ground.

I'll probably comment again later, when I've more time to write properly (Saturday evening comes with it attendant risks of fine dining and wine (FSVO 'fine')), but I just wanted to post now to link to this list of consensus film noir that I nabbed somewhere off the internet a few years ago. I imagine it'll be of little news to you, but other people reading this might find it interesting. As I recall, it has film noir starting (chronologically) with The Maltese Falcon (which I haven't seen, but I've read the book) and ending with A Touch of Evil.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! I also have several film noir reference books, including the excellent Film Noir - An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

By the way, as I think I've said to you before, I love, love, love this userpic of yours, and of course it's perfect for this thread. RKO was the greatest film noir studio, after all. I need to find a good movie-related userpic.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

It is good to have this list. I hope you'll continue writing about your faves in this genre.

I've only seen Out of the Past, and liked it well enough that I hope to see it again (I'm not including the films you cross-reference as being part of your main list, some of which I have also seen). But your enthusiasm and careful study certainly make me want to see more.

Your description of the "famous jazz scene in the middle" of Phantom Lady makes me think that a similarly wild-assed jazz nightclub scene in the middle of Kurosawa's superb noir Drunken Angel (1948) is in direct homage to the Siodmak. The jazz singer in Kurosawa belts out a song written especially for the film, with lyrics by Kurosawa! A perfect moment, totally over the top wonderful.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly embarassed to admit this, but I suspect the film I have seen more than any other is The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I saw eleven times in a three-month period in the fall of 1977 and have not seen since, nor do I wish to. But it's entirely likely that I've never seen any other movie that many times.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

You know, now that you mention it, Rocky Horror is probably in my top five in terms of times seen. I saw it ten times my freshman year in college, starting in the fall of 1978. But there are at least a couple of movies I've seen more than that, including Out of the Past and The Wizard of Oz. Maybe King Kong and Blade Runner too. Possibly even Legend, for that matter, which utterly fascinated me when it came out on DVD. I even seem to recall playing it for you at one point.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even thought of movies I saw repeatedly on TV when growing up, but Wizard of Oz was definitely the one I saw more times on TV than any other flick -- quite possibly more than eleven. And yet interleaved with commercials and with bits of footage cut and the various vicisitudes of boyhood attention, I have to wonder if all such viewings really count. I really should make a point of watching that one again.

If you hadn't said you thought you'd shown me Legend, I would have been pretty sure I had never seen it. But now I'm thinking maybe you did! Can you describe one memorable scene? (I assume there were several.)

As S.R. Delany wrote so eloquently in that novel with a misspelled surname for a title, "How many days from the last year will you never think of again?"

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

The Wizard of Oz was also my first DVD -- a gift from AP -- so I've watched it multiple times that way too. I've never seen it on the big screen, however.

As for Legend, it's a fantasy by Ridley Scott with unicorns, fairies, goblins, and Tom Cruise playing a character named Jack. You might remember Tim Curry playing a scarlet Satanic character. Very twee, but also rich and strange in its own way. Heavily influenced by Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast in visual design. I seem to recall you saying, "This is actually pretty good" at one point, followed later by, "This is actually pretty bad, isn't it?"

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I find myself quite relieved to learn that at no point during the movie did I say, "This is actually pretty memorable!" Or if I did, thank god we've both forgotten it.

As for Kurosawa's Drunken Angel, although I do think it's a great film, I realized after posting my earlier comment that I'm not qualitifed to judge it specifically as a work of film noir. I do hope you might watch it someday, because I think you'd dig it of course, but also so you can tell me if it is good noir, and whether that nightclub scene really is in direct homage to the one in Phantom Lady. Meanwhile I'll try to see the latter film myself.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to get caught up with Kurosawa's '40s films at some point. Kate and Glenn were talking about another noirish one on the way home from the Clarion West party on Friday.

Alas, Phantom Lady is not available on DVD. I watched it on a rental videotape.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I've seen The Wizard of Oz on big screen a couple of times. The second time was in an almost empty theater, and the only other people were pinheads who thought they were in their parents' living room, unfortunately.

I'd like to see a good movie version of Red Harvest some day. Incredible book.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Is Red Harvest the one that has been semi-adapted in various ways, for instance Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Leone's A Fistful of Dollars? That is, two warring camps being played against each other by the protagonist?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's been high-concepted, but I don't think it's ever been seriously filmed as it was written. It's a terrific, harrowing book. It might be where the Coen Brothers got the expression "blood simple" from. The narrator (the Continental Op) uses it in there.

[kdotdammit.livejournal.com]

GREAT list and post. I had so much fun reading and and second guessed you along the way. Like when you mentioned Robert Ryan in Act of Violence, I was reminded of Caught (my favorite Ryan film), and then there was Caught on your list. Many of these I have seen and love, a few I have not and am glad to know about. Also you reminded me of one of my all time favorites that I haven't seen in years -- Laura.

Scarlett Street? I love that movie, but I also wrote about it in college and watched it like twenty times in one week until I completely internalized the movie and it made me nauseous just to think about it. I wonder what reaction I would have now? I actually own it. It was a gift. But I haven't brought myself to watch it.

In A Lonely Place made me a Bogart convert. I never really got excited about him, but he is so incredibly hot in that movie. He and Gloria Graham have amazing sexual energy. He's totally a seductive sexual sadist in the movie, of the most delicious variety and I love how the women play of his quiet sadism.

Out of the Past is a terrific movie. So much is going on. It's so damn rich. I love how it keeps shifting gears.

Thanks so much for taking the time for writing this post. I'm bookmarking it right now so I can reference it in the coming weeks when I plan on watching the films I haven't seen yet. I watch a lot of movies, as you know, but at the end of the day, I will always look to noirs as my "comfort food." I'm very excited to have some new ones to watch to death.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Another great one by Otto Preminger that I recently watched is Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. As well as being beautifully constructed, it's interesting because the femme fatale is the one person who shows a hint of moral consciousness.

I'm not at all surprised to learn that you wrote about Scarlet Street, because the commentary on the art world seems right up your alley. Have you also seen Woman in the Window? Lang made the two movies back to back with Joan Bennett's production company. I've only seen Woman in the Window once and need to watch it again.

I like the idea of noir as comfort food. It's so true, and yet strange to be comforted by such an alienated, anxious view of the world.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it'd make a nice little season; I should hie me to a rental place, but probably won't get around to it. Although I know some of them really well there are a couple on the list I've not seen at all. I'll try to remember to keep an eye out for them.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

But wait, there's more! Why, just last night I was watching Night and the City again, which is set in London. Terrific noir atmosphere and doom, doom, doom. Also, Mike Mazurki, who is always a welcome sight in a movie. (See also Murder, My Sweet.)

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

I'm ashamed to say that Night and the City is another one I haven't seen. I've read lots about it, and it seems to have been mentioned often quite recently for some reason or other. One day...
I have seen Murder, My Sweet a few times, though you confused me for a minute there; it's Farewell, My Lovely over here, as per the novel.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

One reason you may have been seeing Night and the City references lately is that the director, Jules Dassin, died earlier this year. He was forced to leave the country because of the anti-communist blacklist, and that's why he filmed Night and the City in London. It's a really great movie. Some of the postwar urban wastelands in it are how I like to imagine Croydon looks.

I hadn't known about the different title for Murder, My Sweet in the UK. For that matter, I don't know why they used a different title than the book's over here.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, him dying, that was it.
I was going to try to talk Croydon up as some sort of veritable paradise but my heart's not in it, you're probably about right.

Changing the subject to an old favourite: beer!
Is there anything in the US section of this list, particularly the draught ones, that you'd consider unmissable? It's the Great British Beer Festival this week, and although I'll mostly be trying to tick things off from my 300 beers list I'm always up for suggestions.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Hm. I need to find a beer-related userpic. Anyway, I'm told that Firefox can't find the server for that link. I'll try to remember to check again later.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I've seen the list, and I've got to say that I haven't heard of most of the US draughts or even the breweries. I do like Stone Brewery's Arrogant Bastard Ale (which they have in a limited number of bottles), so I'd probably try their 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout, although it sounds awfully heavy.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Ta. I've been getting in to American beer a bit this year (and then distracted by Belgian ones) so I might try some. Although I fully intend to make the most of seeing some more obscure British stuff.
For some reason I always think Arrogant Bastard is a Rogue beer, don't know why. But I'll try to get at least one Stone in.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

On the subject of different titles (and I've just found this old post as I wanted to see what you'd written about it), I watched Out Of The Past the other day. Except it was called Build My Gallows High as per the book. Just thought I'd mention it.

Great film anyway.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, you know I want to be Robert Mitchum when I grow up. I believe, "Build my gallows high, baby," is one of his lines in the movie, too. Along with, "Baby, I don't care," which is what he ended up calling his memoirs.

[reverendjim.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a fine ambition.

There are certainly plenty of good lines in the film. I see James M Cain is supposed to have done some uncredited writing on it, which I can't say surprises me too much.
(Hm, now got Robert Mitchum by Julian Cope stuck in my head)