This one's a real hidden gem of deceit
and twists and Humphrey Bogart turning in a solid performance in a
lesser-known noir from 1947. It's Dead Reckoning.
Bogey
plays Rip Murdock, former army captain and war hero. He's in a place
named Gulf City looking for his wartime pal Johnny, who mysteriously
hopped off a train in Philadelphia rather than receive a Medal of
Honor from Uncle Sam. The two are supposed to meet, but one fiery car
crash later, that's not going to happen, and Murdock runs afoul of a
local mobster named Martinelli (Morris Carnovsky) and the woman
Johnny was involved with. And what a woman Coral “Dusty” Chandler
(Lizabeth Scott) turns out to be. A husky-voiced blonde who was a
former singer at Martinelli's nightclub and is central to everything.
Directed by John Cromwell, the movie
with a very solid look. Some scenes really stand out, like the one
near the beginning where Rip chases Johnny in vain around some train
cars at night, the final showdown and a couple others. Its solid, but
there’s not a whole lot there that really pops out in terms of
camera tricks and so on.
So, story by Gerald Adams & Sidney
Biddell, adaptation by Allen Rivkin & screenplay by Oliver H.P.
Garrett & Steve Fisher. That’s quite a few names for a 100
minute picture. Character dialogue is actually really solid,
especially between Bogart and Scott. The best scenes are the ones in
cars where Rip & Dusty are talking. I’d say the downside is
that the plot is fairly easy to figure out at a certain point, though
the film doesn’t try and cop out on the ending at least.
one of the most interesting traits that
Rip has in comparison to other characters I’ve seen him play is
that there’s a surprising level of misogyny in our hero. Not just
like a “typical for the times” way, but the character’s got
some real bitterness buried in there. And then of course he ends up
falling in love with the femme fatale of the film and the
relationship goes to some REALLY interesting places.
Dead Reckoning might not bring a
whole lot of innovation to the table, but it is great seeing Bogart
and the severely underrated Scott (who made quite a few noirs
in her day) really get into things. Its a hidden gem of the genre.
Totally recommended.
I'm unrolling something I've wanted to
do for some time now: Noirvember. I've loved film noir ever
since I discovered the Maltese Falcon (the book)
in high school, and have wanted to do a month specifically dedicated
to it for a while, especially as an excuse to discuss lesser-known
noir. So here we are.
Does an outbreak of plague belong in
film noir? Offhand, I'd say no, but Elia Kazan proved me wrong with
1950's Panic in the Streets.
Dockside New
Orleans. A poker game turns sour when one of the players, a recently
arrived illegal immigrant, starts acting sick and leaves suddenly.
His cousin tries to calm him down, but Blackie (Jack Palance in his
first movie role) and his toadie Raymond Fitch (Zero Mostel in his
second movie role) take issue with that and try to get their money
back. One dead john doe later, they do, and dump his body into the
harbor, where it washes up the next day for the police to find.
Except the autopsy
reveals he was carrying pneumonic plague (a real version of the
plague that infects the lungs rather than the lymph nodes). With no
identity, no leads and a big port city to incubate it, Lt. Commander
Clint Reed of the US Public Health Service (Richard Widmark), has
three days to prevent an outbreak that could ravage the country.
Along the way he butts heads with Police Captain Tom Warren (Paul
Douglas) and strains his relationship with his wife, Nancy (Barbara
Bel Geddes).
This
was Kazan's last film noir
before moving onto bigger pictures (his next movie would be A
Streetcar Named Desire) and it
shows a confident, technically adept hand behind the camera. The
action sequences are few, but the ones that are there are excellently
executed in prime noir
style.
The middle bogs
down a little bit, but there's a constant tension as the stress takes
its toll on Dr. Reed as he tries to convince both government
officials and simple dockworkers of the seriousness of the threat.
Panic in the Streets
is a good film well executed. I'm not sure I'd put it in my film
noir top ten, but I definitely
enjoyed it more than Streetcar.
Okay, last film noir for a little while, and it’s a humdinger. Murder, My Sweet and The Maltese Falcon are great movies, fine examples of the genre and I love them, but they’re relatively... upbeat compared to 1944’s Double Indemnity, which is about as noir as film can get. Directed by Billy Wilder and co-written by Raymond Chandler himself, this film gets dark.
Plot
So there’s a cocky insurance salesman who pays a house call to a wealthy L.A. businessman about his auto insurance. He’s not there, but his bombshell wife is, and the sexual tension between them leads first to flirty innuendo, then to an affair where they plot the intricate murder of her husband where they would make a fortune on a life insurance plan they tricked him into signing. And then it all goes to hell.
Characters Walter Neff: Fred Mac Murray (another Hollywood nice guy acting against type here) is outstanding as our protagonist. A decent enough fella at the beginning, if a bit cocky, he gets seduced pretty hard by femme fatale and ends up doing some pretty bad stuff. Despite becoming a villain protagonist, he’s still pretty damn badass throughout, consistently lighting a match with his fingernails before putting it to a cigarette.
Phyllis Dietrichson: Barbara Stanwyck (yet another actress playing against type) is just so damn evil in this movie. Sexy evil. When Neff meets her, she gives off the vibe of a bored housewife looking for some excitement in her life, but as the movie goes on, you get a peek at the layers underneath the character, and my God is Phyllis a disturbing character. Stanwyck acts the hell out of her too, putting in probably the best performance in the film. Some of the looks she gets in her eyes are the stuff of nightmare.
Barton Keyes: Edward G. Robinson (who was a veteran of tough guy crime movies) is the Hero, Neff’s supervisor and mentor at work, and one of the best claim investigators at the company. Keyes is the kind of guy who puts up a gruff exterior, but deep down he’s a softie who tries to look out for his friends. Too bad one of them is a murderer.
Mr. Dietrichson: Tom Powers is the unfortunate businessman who gets bumped off in the name of lust. Not much to say about him other than while he’s kind of a codger, he doesn’t deserve what’s coming to him.
Lola Dietrichson: Jean Heather is the good and innocent daughter of Dietrichson from a previous marriage. She looks up to Neff after they meet, and he tries to look out for her as the movie goes on.
Nino Zachetti: Byron Barr is Lola’s boyfriend, a kid studying medicine who’s also a wannabe tough guy that’s important to some of the subplots that develop.
Visuals/Effects
Prolific writer-director Billy Wilder handles this film with steady hand. Shots are great, the pacing is great and the whole visual mood of the movie just brings the tension to the fore. Probably the real standout stuff is how he works with close ups of the actors to get maximum non-verbal cues to imply what they’re thinking.
Writing
James M. Cain wrote the novel about a 1920’s murderess (Double Indemnity in Three of a Kind) and Billy Wilder & Raymond Chandler wrote the screenplay. Apparently Wilder & Chandler hated each other, but that doesn’t matter, since the end result is probably one of the most riveting of the noir screenplays looked at here. I’ve got a bias toward Chandler’s quality, and Wilder is another solid writer, and here, they’re not working with established characters that have “franchise potential.” What that means is anything can happen to the characters in the film.
Sound
Miklós Rózsa’s score fits the dark and oppressive mood of the movie. Its good.
Conclusion Double Indemnity is another one of those awesome classics where all the ingredients work. Its definite required material for viewing film noir, and its outstanding. However, I’m not kidding about how grimdark and bleak this movie is. There is exactly one bright spot by the end of the film.
You can’t discuss film noir without The Maltese Falcon coming up. Its simply impossible. Released in 1941 with Humphrey Bogart leading the way in what has been called the "First" film noir.
Plot
The San Francisco detective firm of Spade & Archer gets a new client, a “Miss Wonderly,” who hires them to trail a man who ran off with her sister. Then things get complicated when Archer gets shot dead, “Miss Wonderly” hires Spade to protect her from whoever shot Archer, and a trio of criminals come looking for a mysterious enamel covered statue of a falcon worth millions that was once a gift from the Knights Hospitaller to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Characters Sam Spade: Humphrey Bogart nails it in his first heroic leading man role (before that he was usually playing tough guy villains), and everything he does is awesome as Spade. Tough, smart and a magnificent bastard who’s damn good at maneuvering through the bad situation he finds himself in, Sam Spade is not a nice guy. Hell, he’s not even a “good” guy, since he was having an affair with his partner’s wife, and he doesn’t even really like her. Doesn’t matter. Two minutes in and you can tell he’s the biggest badass of the picture. Its like the trailer says, "he makes crime a CAREER -- and ladies a HOBBY!"
Brigid O’Shaughnessy: Mary Astor (who led a notoriously…colorful personal life) is a classic femme fatale here. She hires Spade & Archer under a false name to follow a man named Thursby, then reappears after Archer is shot, seeking Spade’s help to protect her from people that might kill her. Then its revealed that she’s got a very strong connection to the black bird that everybody’s after.
Miles Archer: Jerome Cowan is in the film long enough to provide some motivation for Spade to do something about his death. Archer’s a lech himself, ogling our femme fatale from the minute he walks into the office.
Iva Archer: Gladys George is basically Sam’s baggage. After Miles’ death, she kind of expects Spade to jump right on in. Instead, he tries to avoid her at all times, which leads to some bad feelings on her side.
Effie Perine: Lee Patrick is Spade’s fantastically competent secretary. Sharp, competent and frequently going the extra mile to help her boss out, she’s pretty much the only real friend Sam’s got in the world.
Joel Cairo: The always awesome Peter Lorre plays a cultured, effeminate (he’s clearly homosexual in the novel, but, well, 1940s cinema shied away from that stuff) foreigner who’s willing to buy the falcon from Spade, but would prefer to hold him at gunpoint and search the office for it. Cairo’s a classic henchman.
Wilmer Cook: Elisha Cook Jr. is the other henchman in the movie, a tough talking, gun toting kid who is constantly being called out and taunted by Spade. He doesn’t take it well.
Kasper Gutman: Sydney Greenstreet is awesome as the affably evil “Fatman” who approaches Spade about the bird after Cairo fails to find it. He’s certainly dangerous, but also surprisingly jolly for a man who’s had several people killed in pursuit of that statuette. Watching the game of wits between him & Spade is one of best things about the movie.
Detective Lieutenant Dundy & Detective Tom Polhaus: Barton McLane & Ward Bond are the two cops investigating Archer’s death. Polhaus is generally willing to back Spade up, but Dundy has the detective pinned as the prime suspect.
Visuals/Effects
John Huston, who had a hell of a prolific career as a writer and actor, made his directorial debut with this movie, and damn did he come out swinging. Shot on a low budget, the polish of this film is outstanding. Camera angles and shots are iconic and efficient and the movie races along at an incredible pace. Every scene matters, and every scene works. Its absolutely incredible.
Writing
Original novel by Dashiell Hammett & screenplay by John Huston, the story hews closely to the novel. Dialog is sharp, the characters well defined (almost archetypal, considering this was the “first film noir”). Nothing is wasted, and the actors have some outstanding material to work with.
Sound
Adolph Deutsch’s score for the film is incredible. Big and orchestral flourishes that sidestep into some dissonance that undercuts the grimness of the storyline. Outstanding.
Conclusion
There is a reason why The Maltese Falcon has the reputation that it does. Simply put, its one of the best films ever made, where EVERYTHING that went into it is firing on all cylinders. The novel and the film were what got me into film noir back in high school, and if you’re looking for a way in, there’s no better place to start. If you haven’t seen this movie, do so now. And if you didn’t like it, get out of my sight.
Wave a gun in my face and ask me what my favorite genre is, and I’ll tell you its film noir, but only after I’ve managed to pick a few choice expletives expressing alarm and surprise. Its true though. More than Comedy, more than Science Fiction, even more than my beloved category of “Movies With Swords,” Film Noir scratches that storytelling itch like no other; where plot, characters and dialog get together and scheme some dirty business in a smoke filled room. Its also a genre so visually stylish that its always italicized. Now that’s classy. While the trench coat and fedora set is the accepted milieu, its not essential, just helps. What’s really important is the darker side of human nature, situations that get ugly and never wrap up neatly, and the gloomy grayscale presentation that’s devoid of all color.
One of the biggest names in the genre is Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler’s hard boiled private eye who’s more or less the guy who gets emulated the most in parodies and inferior rip-offs. Marlowe’s been put on the screen a bunch of times, and 1944’s Murder, My Sweet is a good place as any to start.
Plot
L.A. detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a petty crook just out of jail to find his old girlfriend. While that investigation begins, he also gets hired by a rich man to accompany him as protection on a midnight handoff of a good chunk of change in exchange for the return of some valuable jade. Marlowe gets socked with a blackjack and finds Mr. Fancy Pants dead in the car. The next day, he gets hired by the real owner of the jade to get it back discreetly, somehow. Then things get messy.
Characters Philip Marlowe: Dick Powell, who was previously typecast as a nice guy crooner, plays against type here as the narrator and hard-boiled guy who’s trying to figure out what the hell’s going on. Marlowe’s a complex character; a tough talking, cynical guy who’d cuff you one for calling him an intellectual without denying it. He’s also famous for having an unbreakable code of honor that gets the tar kicked out of him more often than not, and Marlowe takes quite a beating in this picture. They don’t get much more badass than him.
Mr. Grayle: Miles Mander is an old rich man with a trophy wife. The missing jade was a gift from him to his wife, and he’s the one who calls in Marlowe to find the piece.
Mrs. Helen Grayle: Claire Trevor is a beautiful, wealthy woman who’s the owner of the missing jade. The dead guy was one of her lovers on the side, and she…encourages Marlowe to recover the jewelry. You could cut the tension between her and the detective with a fork.
Ann Grayle: Anne Shirley is Mr. Grayle’s daughter from a previous marriage, and she hates Helen. She’s got quite a bit of tension with Marlowe as well.
Jules Amthor: Otto Kruger (from Dracula’s Daughter) plays some kind of psychologist who’s got a mystique of some mystical woogie-woogie to help his clients, but he admits to Marlowe that he’s a quack running a pretty lucrative racket. He’s crooked and connected to Mrs. Grayle.
Moose Malloy: Mike Mazurki is the heavy that hires Marlowe in the first place to find his girl. Moose is a big brute of a guy who’s slow on the uptake and has something of a temper, but he’s more a figure of pity than a villain. That may be so, but he’s not the kind of guy that takes well to being hit.
Dr. Sonderborg: Ralf Harolde is an associate of Amthor’s, a crooked doctor who’s involved in some pretty bad stuff. Marlowe gets drugged and put into his “care” for a stretch of time. Guess how please our hero is about THAT situation.
Visuals/Effects
Edward Dmytryk makes really good use of the standard film noir elements, but the film also goes for some more experimental shots. For instance, we cut to a nightclub, but the establishing shot is a spotlight cutting horizontally through a dark room and the camera pans down until it stops on a singer. There’s also a section where Marlowe gets drugged by some bad dudes and the movie goes into a really well done dream/hallucination sequence that uses a lot of camera and editing tricks. Then there’s my favorite scene where Marlowe’s waiting outside for someone and he’s standing next to a cherub statue, looks at it for a second, then lights a match on its ass.
Writing
Raymond Chandler wrote the novel “Farewell, My Lovely” and John Paxton wrote the screenplay, the story is chock full of that Raymond Chandler goodness. Double crosses, intrigue, femme fatales, whip-smart dialogue and at the center of it a good man in a dirty world trying to make something right.
Sound
Roy Webb did the score for it and the music works great for the mood and situation.
Conclusion
Raymond Chandler apparently called Dick Powell his favorite actor to play Marlowe, and I can see why. He’s outstanding in it, but so is the rest of the cast. Murder, My Sweet may not be the most famous film noir out there (we’ll get to some of those in a bit), but it gets major points for effort and experimentation. Totally recommended.
Welcome to a dystopian city where people go about their lives unaware that everything they do is closely monitored by…things that aren’t normal and a protagonist finds himself trying to piece together what’s going on while developing new powers. Now, if you’re thinking of The Matrix, well, not this time. This time its Dark City from 1998, a full year before The Matrix was released.
Plot
Our hero wakes up naked in a bathtub with a broken syringe nearby and a dead hooker in the other room (which is oddly enough, how a typical Saturday morning starts here at Castle--wait a minute, that’s not right) Then he gets a phone call from a guy who tells him some people, Strangers, are coming after him. He runs off into the night (clothed) and finds himself embroiled in a weird, film noir meets German Expressionism city where he finds himself a fugitive from both the law (he’s the main suspect for the murder) and from the Strangers, who are conducting experiments on people and he’s both resistant to their ability to induce sleep in people and is developing psionic powers like they have. Things proceed to get weird.
Characters John Murdock: Rufus Sewell (who was the bad guy in A Knight’s Tale) is our amnesiac hero. At first, he doesn’t even know who he is until he gets his wallet and starts piecing together his identity and what’s going on. He’s pretty good and fairly competent at things too, and as the movie progresses he starts piecing together what’s going on and reconnecting with his wife and eventually developing his “tuning” ability (what the Strangers call the ability to shape reality with your mind) to a degree where he becomes quite badass. He’s also very, very interested in how to get to Shell Beach.
Inspector Frank Bumstead: William Hurt plays the policeman investigating the serial murder of several call girls (the last one being in Murdock’s apartment). A rather fastidious fellow, he’s very deadpan and serious, but is also one to ask important questions. Unfortunately, Mr. Dithers does not yell at him for being late to work after crashing into the mailman on his way out the door. That’s a different Bumstead.
Dr. Daniel P. Shreber: Kiefer Sutherland is in full mad scientist mode here. Yes, Jack Bauer himself in a decidedly non-Jack Bauer role. He’s a guy who knows a lot about what’s going on because he’s working with the Strangers on their experiments. He is, however, really interested in the developments that happen with Murdock, because he’s the only person to be able “tune” like the Strangers can. An interesting and shifting character.
Emma Murdock: Jennifer Connelly is John’s jazz lounge singer wife. She apparently cheated on him in the past and feels bad about it, but the details of which get deliberately muddled. She’s just trying to figure out what’s going on.
Detective Eddie Walenski: Colin Friels plays a cop who’s also managed to wake up during a tuning session, but unlike Murdock, he’s neither developed powers nor has he kept his sanity. Something of a Cassandra figure, he’s seen the reality of the city and its driven him over the edge.
Mr. Book: Ian Richardson is the (more or less) leader of the hive minded Strangers, who are all bald, pale and wear black. A grim-faced, sinister figure with a booming voice, he’s the real power behind the goings on of the city.
Mr. Hand: Richard O’Brien (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) is the main Stranger who goes after Murdock. Something of a knife enthusiast, he gets injected with Murdock’s memories to better track him down. A thoroughly creepy fellow.
The other Strangers are mostly fodder material, aside from Mr. Wall, who’s teamed up with Mr. Hand, and then there’s Mr. Sleep, a little kid and a really freaky Stranger. Visuals/Effects
Directed by Alex Proyas (The Crow) the film layers on the grim, bleak and foreboding nature of the story. Owing a lot to Blade Runner, Metropolis and other films with similar themes, the film has a slick visual style helped by the fact that its always dark in the City, and there’s a very good reason for that. Fight scenes aren’t particularly flashy, but they are brutal and quick. The special effects are also fairly restrained. Tuning gets the lion’s share of the CGI with waves of “energy” representing the mental abilities, but also buildings will rise up and come down according to the whims of the Strangers, and it’s a really cool effect.
Writing
The script by Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer delivers a solid, thoughtful and efficiently told story. The movie moves well and while it doesn’t exactly blaze any new trails in the speculative fiction genre, it handles the material with deftness. Dialog is generally standard, except the Strangers have a peculiar verbal tic of ending sentences with yes, which is a pretty simple and effective way to separate them from the humans (aside from, you know, looking like bald freaks).
Sound
The original score by Trevor Jones is an appropriately moody and somber affair that fits the material well.
Conclusion
While Dark City shares a lot of themes with The Matrix (like the whole reality should be what you make of it, not what others make for you) it does present things in a much more thoughtful, methodical manner. Again, more film noir thriller than Kung-Fu spectacular. Boasting a solid cast, a fun trippy concept and some pretty freaky villains, Dark City is a worthwhile addition to the dystopian city genre and there is a director's cut that I've heard is superior.
