Alias Nick Beal (1949) and Night Editor (1946)

holyoutlaw and I saw this double feature on the last night of the Noir City festival at SIFF Theater. SIFF Theater, by the way, is a really nice venue, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in classic or hard-to-see contemporary films.

Alias Nick Beal was only marginally noir, as far as I'm concerned. As Eddie Muller said in his intro, it's a variation on "The Devil and Daniel Webster," in which a man -- in this case a politician -- who is trying to do good is seduced by the devil and led astray. So it's a supernatural or religious fantasy. A moral parable. The devil is played with wonderfully subtle menace by Ray Milland. The film does have a beautiful look, especially the densely foggy scenes around a wharfside bar, which reminded me of the French poetic realist movie, Port of Shadows (1938). Muller said that the negative for this film was only recently rediscovered, and that this new print had only been shown once before. The print certainly was flawless. The film is both eerie and funny, although it seemed to me to drag now and again with some predictable business. Wonderful self-aware moment at the end, when the devil (alias Nick Beal) complains, "I know what you're doing. You're trying to knock me into a morality tale!" You're soaking in it, dude!

The second feature was a B-movie called Night Editor. As Muller said, the only way to follow a heavy morality fable is with a raw slice of sleaze. Night Editor is a much more traditional noir, although a bit lacking in visual stylistics. It's about a frumpy cop who is having an affair with a sadomasochistic high society dame. They witness a murder, but he can't report it without ruining his and her marriages. She's turned on by the killing and wants to see the victim's bashed in head. Of course, in the best tradition of noir (see also The Big Clock), he's assigned to investigate the murder. William Gargan is a bit of a stiff as the lead, but Janis Carter as the kinky femme fatale is a riot. The story is perfectly lurid and leads to a wonderfully perverted climax. This isn't as well done as Ulmer's Detour (1945), but it's working similar territory. Muller said that Carter and Ann Savage competed to be the top bad girl at Columbia, and Carter won. A strong dose of nasty noir to send us out into the night streets of the big city.