Hollywood Story (1951)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043646/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

** out of 5

William Castle brings more of his personal flair for the unusual to this film than to the previously discussed film Undertow, but it is also less noir in its overall mood than that film.  The script by Fredrick Kohner, who would go on to be perhaps best known for the Gidget series, and Fredrick Brady, who would go on to working mostly in television.  This film in many ways is a fair reflection of those later reputations - mostly light entertainment that has humor and not a great deal of depth to its drama.  I suppose it's to some degree to be expected from a story that has Mr Magoo as its narrator.

Despite the claims in the opening titles that any similarities to actual persons, etc, etc, the story is that this is inspired partly by the real-life tale of the mysterious death of Willaim Desmond Taylor, as well as having allegedly intentional similarities between the Richard Conte character and Orson Welles in their corresponding fictional and actual attempts as broadway producers to come to Hollywood and make a film based on real-life figures.

Richard Conte plays a stage producer who has come to Hollywood to make a film, and decides after a tour of the studio that seems as much for our benefit as for his, to make his story about the death of a silent movie producer/director who was killed on that lot many years previously, but whose murder was never found. Supporting Conte is an able and varied cast of characters.

Julia Adams plays the daughter of the woman in the cold case being investigated by Conte, and she spends a lot of time protecting characters she fears are being wrongly suspected or harmed by his digging up of the past for his film.  Henry Hull has an interesting part as Vincent St. Clair an old-time screenwriter with connections to the murder. who Conte digs up to craft his script for him. Fred Clark,  having just played a film producer the previous year in the great hollywood noir Sunset Boulevard, plays another one here, in a part that ranges from comedy to drama in equal measure.  Jim Backus, as alluded to earlier, is the narrator, telling the story from his character's perspective as Conte's old friend and Agent, bringing healthy doses of humor to his scenes, with dryly delivered lines like "Who would want to kill and agent?"

I made a joke on Twitter while watching this, basically saying I thought based on the opening sequence that the film could alternatively have been titled "Shoot the Player Piano," but as I got farther in I found that actually that player piano becomes an important plot point and clue that helps lead to the killer, so actually that joke title would have been quite a propos, though anachronistic since Shoot the Piano Player didn't come out until about 9 years later.

Much of the film feels crafted to appeal to the fans who wanted to get a peek at behind the scenes of old Hollywood, as well as giving them a nostalgic thrill with the silent movie history elements of the story.  Not only is there the studio tour previously mentioned, but we also get a glimpse of Julia Adams playing her character's mother in a scene where Conte is screening some old silent films.  Additionally, we have what is essentially a detour to include cameos by several old silent film performers, including Helen Gibson, Francis X Bushman, Betty Blyth, and  William Farnum. We also have a scene where Joel McCrea has a cameo as himself, shooting a scene with one of the characters who is a suspect in the murder.

The story never really build in tension to a point where the characters ever truly feel endangered, but while it is moderate in its dramatic aspects, it is a light and entertaining movie that is a pleasant enough way to pass an hour and a half.

Appointment With Danger (1951)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043292/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

"Go swallow a germ."

directed by Lewis Allen, this story takes the odd choice of US Post Office Postal Inspector as its hero.  Alan Ladd is the star as a man who admits he's not as good at being human or compassionate as he is at being a good cop.  Phyllis Calvert is a nun who teaches him how to be.  She is the one witness who can possibly identify the assailants who killed a postal inspector whose death Ladd is investigating.

The thugs in question are none other than everyone's favorite dragnet duo, Jack Webb and Henry Morgan, as  Joe Regas and George Soderquist respectively.  Webb is his usual edgy, lowlife mug, and Morgan give another of his quirky performances as a thug with a stammering problem and an instinct to help nuns with stuck umbrellas, even when he's in the middle of disposing of a body.

These two thugs are in the employ of a gang leader named Earl Boettiger (Paul Stewart), who is planning a big mail heist.  Jan Sterling is his quirky, music-mad moll, whose unique philosophical attitude toward life takes a change after the murder that makes an interest twist in the plot.

The story initially moves a little slowly while it shows a lot of the investigative legwork, but crescendos into high suspense by the climax. Ladd's efforts to get to the gang from the inside put him at risk of losing his own life trying to get the evidence he needs to put them away.

The story also features one of the more unusual murder weapons in film history-  a bronzed baby bootie, in a scene that has to be seen to be believed.  Another interesting side note is that Harry Antrim, who plays the local postmaster (and is best known as Mr. Macy from Miracle on 34th Street) , is doing so not first time - he also played a postmaster in 1936's Postal Inspector.  

He Ran All the Way (1951)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043625/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

***** out of 5

It seemed oddly fitting that on Black Friday I got around to taking in this 1951 film, written by, directed by, and starring blacklisted artists.  Scripted by uncredited Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler, and directed by John Berry(who would go into voluntary exile to France to escape the McCarthy era) this story is about as lean and mean as you are likely to find in a noir film of this era.

Add to those names the contributions of Franz Waxman's always-excellent noir score and the cinematographic genius of James Wong Howe, and you've got a recipe for greatness.  Topping it all off  is a top-notch cast that is headlined by John Garfield in his last screen role before his early death from heart trouble (and blacklist troubles) at 39.

Garfield here plays Nick Robey, a no-good, shiftless guy who lives in filthy squalor with a mother(Gladys George) who is as loving and motherly as a crocodile.  Their opening exchange is classic biting Trumbo dialogue.  the sample below is the more friendly of their words to one another:

Mrs. Robey: "If you were a man, you'd be out looking for a job."
Nick Robey: "If you were a man, I'd kick your teeth in."

He teams up with fellow lowlife Al Molin (Norman Lloyd, who still works in Hollywood today, most recently appearing in a bit part in Trainwreck earlier this year), and pull a poorly planned payroll heist, in which his dreams of running and having to shoot a man prove prescient.

Al is hit in a shootout, and Nick ducks into a public pool to hide, where he meets a somewhat naive blonde named Peggy Dobbs (Shelley Winters).  He tags along with her to her home, and ends up having to hole up there, keeping her family under his control at gunpoint.  This is where the bulk of the drama unfolds.  They go about their daily routine, but always with the threat of the frightened but dangerous gunman in their midst.

In varying degrees we see Stockholm syndrome occurring in each of the characters; Winters and Garfield begin to feel an attraction they don't know quite what to do with, and the tension between their feelings and their individual needs to survive form the central conflict of the story.

Wallace Ford is stirring in the role of the family's father figure, Fred Dobbs, a man who is initially unsure of himself in how to respond to this threat that has entered his home, but who ultimately finds the courage to face down the intruder. We see him fighting for the survival of his family, at times literally, at other times ethically, but always in a way that is human and relatable.  Selena Royle is also very good as his wife, showing bravery in the most challenging kind of situation a mother can face.  Bobby Hyatt completes the family unit as kid brother Tommy Dobbs, in an excellent junior performance that is genuine in its depiction of a child's conflicted emotional response to a situation he is unsure how to face - at times brave, terrified, and inquisitive.

The final confrontation is complex in its emotional and symbolic depth. The face-off between Ford, Garfield, and Winters is gripping and tragic for all three characters. Ford finally has had enough of cowering, and boldly takes his stand. Winters, too, must make a choice between her painful attachment to this killer and the true love of the family he threatens to destroy. And Garfield is heartbreaking in his inability to trust or love. We realize in these last moments that he never learned how, because his mother was never able to show him.  It is not the bravery of Ford or Winters that stops him, it is his own weakness that sends him crawling right back to die in the gutter he came from, just inches out of reach of the one chance he had at life and love.

Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042242/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

"You listen to me, Garris- you stick this in the back of your filthy brain and keep it there! We're gonna keep minding your business 'til you and your gorillas are tucked away in cages where you belong!"

This film plays out mostly as a Buddy Cop story spiced with grim noir action. The story follows two different threads, and the ways they intersect:  Mark Stevens and Edmond O'Brien play police partners and ex GI pals working together to  bring down a local crime boss, played by Donald Buka.
In their off hours, they team up to work their way into the affections of Gale Storm, who plays the girl on the radio dispatch.  They have a bet going as to whether her pretty voice matches her appearance, and when it turns out that it does, they convince her to go out on the town with them, which she does, but only once.  She has reservations about getting involved with a policeman, after seeing how the loss of her police officer father has affected her mother, who is played with a great blend of deep emotion and a mischievous side that works to see that her daughter gives the boys a fair chance.

Meanwhile. when the hunt for evidence that can convict Donald Buka's gangster character Ritchie Garris is successful, Stevens and O'Brien are the ones who get to haul him in.  All seems well, until he escapes, and turns out to be just crazy enough that, instead of lamming his way to safety, he goes on a hunt of his own to kill the guys who put him away.

And that's when things switch from cop comedy to genuinely dark noir.  When Buka manages shoot Stevens's character, O'Brien in turn becomes vengeful and even malicious in his attempts to find Buka, even at the cost of his own honor as an officer of the law if necessary.  After witnessing one particularly vicious assault, Gale Storm reproaching him mournfully with a speech that seems remarkably relevant today as it was to the story here. "A  brutal policeman is a terrible thing. He has too much power; too many chances of taking his vicousness out on helpless people."

However, the most shocking moment comes near the climax, when Garris, pinned down in an apartment building, uses a child as a hostage to bargain for his escape, dangling her from a high window where he gets cornered, and shouting at the police below to back off or he'll drop her.

At the start it feels a bit like two different movies playing simultaneously, but they eventually mesh and merge into one pretty good final product, with a lot of great performances and a satisfying resolution that ties everything up in a dramatic and compelling way. Especially interesting is the character arc given to Gale Robbins, who plays a singer and sometime moll to Buka's character, who puts up with the racketeering, but finds she just can't stomach the brute after she sees just how cruel and selfish he really is.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042643/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

"You're not going anywhere, Matt. You're not going anywhere again."

Coming only a few months after Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets, this film is less well constructed and more high-flown in its moments of pro-vaccine propaganda, but together they show just how long the anti-vax crazies have been around and in need of rebuke by basic medical science.

Evelyn Keyes is astonishingly good here, playing the titular character as a nightclub singer (as if there's any other profession for a working girl in film noir!) who comes into the country from Cuba, smuggling diamonds - and smallpox.

Charles Korvin is her husband, Matt, who planned her diamond scheme, but coldly betrays her confidence in her absence, wooing her younger sister, Francis (Lola Albright) and taking advantage of her sickness to claim the diamonds for himself.

Whit Bissell is her brother Sid, who runs a "flop house." He gives her a place to hide while the law hunts for her.  Investigators from both Customs and Department of Health desperately nose out her trail, both unaware they are seeking the same person.

Notable secondary performers include Jim Backus, uncredited as a club owner who steals a kiss full of germs from Evelyn before being slapped sensible by her, and Art Smith (so good as the Federal man in Ride the Pink Horse) is the diamond dealer who acts as the fence, but finds a conflict of interest can be deadly. William Bishop is the doctor who initially treats Keye's illness, unaware of the true severity of her disease. Dorothy Malone is also here, though underutilized as Bishop's nurse.
Connie Gilchrist also shows up as an intrusive, talkative apartment superintendent where Matt and Evelyn live.

Late in the film there is a death of a child that seems unnecessary to include (unless as a harsh warning to parents to get their kids inoculated). It is dramatic in itself, but it certainly adds nothing to the story as a contribution to the dramatic escalation of the plot, but feels more as like a detour in the story.

The most genuinely shocking part of the film is just how unglamorous Keyes is willing to become in her depiction of the growing illness of her character, going beyond a merely make-up-free face to an increasingly haggard, ghostly appearance, combined with a deadly intensity that is all the more startling when juxtaposed with the terror displayed by Charles Korvin's character when they finally meet again at the climax of the story.  She, though dying, is driven - while he, though healthy and inoculated, becomes frightened, squawking like the chicken he is when faced with the woman he betrayed.

Dark City (1950)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042379/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

**** out of 5

"Danny, you can't live without getting involved."
"I can try, can't I?"

Despite two previous film appearances, Charlton Heston here receives his "Introducing" credits for his starring role in this film, and he is delivers an impressive performance as Danny Haley, the jaded owner of an illegal gambling establishment.

With William Dieterle directing, Victor Milner as the cinematographer, and music by Franz Waxman, he has solid support behind the camera for this breakout lead role (his previous appearance had been as Antony in Julius Caesar, which came out only a month earlier the same year).  The rest of the onscreen performers are all solid noir stars in their own right, and ably fill out the cast.

Lizbeth Scott, who plays a singer in a nearby club, wants to be Heston's girl, but he always becomes distant and cold whenever she tries gets too close.

The film opens with a raid on Heston's establishment, leaving him and his cohorts with whatever cash they have on hand, and desperate to find a way to rebuild what they've lost.  The three main men who stick with Heston are played by Ed Begley, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.  Dun da dun dun!

Jack Webb is "Augie," (not to be confused with Augie Doggie) who is a practical joker with a mean streak, but sharp (and crooked) at cards.Ed Begley is the other card expert in the group, but gets a bit dyspeptic when troubles run high. as they quickly do in this film.  Harry Morgan  rounds out the trio as "Soldier," a good-natured ex-pug (but don't ever call him punchy to his face) who is a bit slow and innocent and good hearted unless provoked.

They quickly find a likely source of funds in Don Defore an ex-G.I. who's come to town with a $5,000 cashier's check that is supposed to be for the little league team back home.  When they con him out of the money in a card game, he goes back to his hotel room where he commits suicide out of shame.

Dean Jagger, a likable but persistent police investigator who had previously hounded Heston and his men as head of the vice squad soon reappears as a representative of the homicide squad, and informs the cons that someone is out to get them.

That someone is played mostly off-screen or as a shadow or a menacing hand by Mike Mazurki, who depicts the brother of Defore's character - psychopathic man who seems their con game as a murder, and hunts them down one at a time to exact his revenge.  His unseen but everpresent menace is highly effective as a means of building sense of dread, much like the hidden shark in Jaws.

Viveca Lindfors is Defore's widow, who holds the key to finding Mazurki before he can strike, but who, out of fear and distrust is reluctant to share what she knows.  Heston must use false pretenses to get close to her, but in so doing, increases the risks for everyone.

Their growing closeness is a danger that they can't escape, but it also is a key to unlocking his willingness to become human again.  Note the change that comes in the planetarium scene:

Linfors: "Sometimes I guess the stars are the only things that never change; that's probably only because we can't reach them."
Heston: "Sometimes I think maybe we can."

Incidentally, this scene made me wonder how many other films used Planetariums as a setting- I thought immediately of Rebel Without a Cause and K-Pax, and after a brief search found this nice list online: http://www.ips-planetarium.org/?movies

Dieterle masterfully ties together all these story threads into a rich tapestry that is full of mood and shadow, but also finds the light in the darkness of noir. The climax of the manhunt is explosive and tense, and the resolution of the romantic triangle is satisfactory and convincing, a masterful noir all around.

Union Station (1950)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043090/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

This Rudolph Mate-directed film has more of investigative procedural than noir about it, but even then there are many aspects of the plot that stretch credibility for that type of story.  Nancy Olsen witnesses some suspicious behavior on her train ride into town, and takes her concerns to William Holden, the head of the train station police/security team.  He's a sharp guy who doesn't miss a trick, and he quickly uncovers a link between Olsen's observations and a kidnapping/ransom plot involving a blind heiress (Allene Roberts).   Working in coordination with a cynical police inspector (Barry Fitzgerald), he must track down the suspects to find the girl before the ransom can be transacted and the girl killed by the kidnappers, who are led by a shifty Lyle Bettger, who shows more concern for the life of ease he can buy with the $100,000 ransom than he does for his cohorts or his moll, Jan Sterling.
For some inexplicable reason, Olsen goes along with Holden every step of the way, long after she is of any practical value to the investigation.  There is a loosely assembled romance tacked onto the plot between them, but the film works best when it focuses on the dramatic investigation, and the frequently frustrated efforts that go into rescuing Roberts.  There is also some tension wrung out of the girl's attempt to escape from the tunnels where she's been kept while the ransom is being gathered.  Also watch for an interesting chase scene in a cattle shoot, that ends with a grim death by stampede.