Gilda (1946)

Before watching this film, I took in some of the extra features on Criterion's (superb) bluray edition.   In the "appreciate" by Martin Scorsese and Baz Luhrmann, one comment by Luhrmann stuck out to me-  He made some comparisons between Gilda and Casablanca.  On the surface, this made some sense.  3 exiles in an exotic location far from home, caught in a triangle of passions; a married  couple bursts into the life of a man who has a secret past with the woman in the picture.

But as I watched the film I quickly saw just how superficial the comparison was.  Indeed, if anything, Gilda is a complete inversion of the Casablanca formula.  Gilda is Casablanca if Bogart and Bergman despised one another, and Paul Henreid were a preening, jealous, villainous scheming jerk.  Still, I suppose superficial comparisons ought to be expected from a director who is more skilled as a visual stylist than as someone who is known for his ability to draw out deep and subtle, genuine human performances from his actors.

But rather than comment on the commentary, let's dig right into the film itself.  Gilda is produced by former screenwriter Virginia Van Upp, who previously worked with the film's star Rita Hayworth on Cover Girl, and would work again with her on Affair in Trinidad, as well as working on the script for both those titles.  Collaborating on the script for this film, as she had with Cover Girl, is Marion Parsonnet. It is my opinion that the influence of these two had a definite influence on the films success in introducing an authentic feminine voice to the tale, which after all, is titled for the female lead.

Despite the outstanding performances delivered by all three leads, this in not titled Gilda, Johnny and Ballin, or even just Gilda and Johnny.  Gilda is Rita Hayworth's picture all the way, even with Glenn Ford's character Johnny Farrell providing the narrator's voice and the audience's window into the drama. All the attention is squarely directed toward her, delivered by the  careful framing and adoring direction of Charles Vidor and cinematography of Rudolph Mate. And why not, when you see what she is able to do with the part?  Beyond the way she torches the screen with her two musical numbers, (one of which, Put the Blame on Mame, I will confess to having had stuck in my head all day after watching the film.  It may not be her own voice doing the singing, but who's counting? It's Anita Ellis, if you're curious) she creates a character that burns into the screen with a dazzling brilliance that leaves an unforgettable impression.

The film opens with Ford as Johnny, a gambler, scratching for quick money on the docks of a city in Argentina, and introduces the circumstances that lead to his getting tied up in a subservient partnership with the German casino owner and cartel head Ballin Mundson (George MacReady), but it only really comes to life when Hayworth's character Gilda is introduced.  She bursts onto the scene like a spark into a powder keg.  She is introduced to Johnny as Mundson's wife, but we immediately pick up on a still raw and recent history between Gilda and Johnny.

So does Ballin Mundson.

He doesn't like what he sees.

Mundson is a man who is driven by a lust for power, and dominance over everyone around him. He refers to his trick switch-blade cane dagger as his "faithful and obedient friend," which apparently is he idea of what the word friend means.  Only absolute submission to him is grounds for being considered a friend.  Johnny understands this, and gamely plays along, working his way into Mundson's trust and into a position for himself that is significantly cozier than the position Mundson found him in the opening, being held up for the few dollars he had just cheated off a bunch of sailors. Now Johnny runs the casino for Mundson, like a faithful and obedient friend.

Gilda's introduction into this suddenly creates an unbearable tension that threatens to break up the happy family.  Their past is never totally spelled out, but that is part of the beauty of this story that revels in portents, shades of meaning, dark undercurrents, hints, suggestions, and innuendo that serves to heat up the pressure-cooker of dramatic conflict.  More is said by what the character leave out than what they say.  Even the narration is never willing to be expositional, but instead just adds to the blanket of ambiguity the film takes great pleasure in casting over its characters and its audience.

The only important thing about the shared history of Gilda and Johnny is that now they hate each other, or so they tell each other and themselves repeatedly.  Plot is less important to the point of the film than is the psychological warfare waged by the three characters.  The wire thin line between love and hate is the film's central theme, and everything else is subordinate to that,  cloaked in uncertainty and shadow, so the white hot passions of the central players are highlighted brighter than any of the subplots involving ex-nazi tungsten cartels or the rest of it.

When Mundson questions her about her past with Johnny, Gilda proclaims her hate for him. "Hate can be a very exciting emotion," says Mundson darkly.  Gilda repeats the phrase later to Johnny, but there is a striking contrast in context and subtext when those words are uttered the second time. Mate's camera echoes and enhances that vagueness of meaning, with several scenes of characters speaking in total silhouette or under dark shadows that hide the expressions of faces to obscure their emotions and motives.

There are many twists and turns in this three-way conflict- with murders, faked suicides, and more, as each of the three strive for supremacy over the others.  Johnny is seeking bitter revenge on Gilda for the unhappy way in which they had parted before; MacReady is seeking to preserve his Alpha Male status that he feels has been robbed by Johnny's prior relationship with Gilda; and Gilda seeks to punish Johnny for his wrongful suspicions, which have left her so hurt she is willing to destroy herself to break him down with her.  All three ultimately demonstrate the suicidal tendencies that hate and bitterness invoke in those who cling to them.

Only one person really seems to have an understanding of what's going on, Uncle Pio, the sage old washroom attendant played to terrrific effect by Steven Geray, who that same year starred in a memorable noir of his own, So Dark the Night.  Uncle Pio has these characters pegged from the moment he meets them, as Johnny finds out in their first encounter. A pretty girl passing by catches his eye as he leaves the washroom, but Geray warns him, "she's a harpy."  Startled, Johnny asks, "you can size a person up that quick?  What am I then? A Gentleman or a Peasant?"
"Peasant," Pio replies, following up this assessment with a characteristic raspberry.

The other clear-eyed character in the tale is the police detective Obregon, played by Joseph Calleia.  He says little but keeps his eagle eye on everything that goes on, and seems unsurprised by any of the many plot twists that occur in the course of the story. And between him and Uncle Pio, they play Jiminy Cricket to Johnny's Pinnochio, eventually pointing the way out of his darkness into the supposed happy final moments of the film.

I say "supposed" only because, after sitting through the 110 minutes leading up to that ending, it may be difficult for many viewers to believe the couple is headed to a real happy ending after the credits roll.  Still, following that preceding pitched battle, one can't deny they've earned a respite from it all.  And one can't help hoping things will all work out for them.

Gilda is dynamite, exactly the sort of ten-ton block-buster of passion and drama one expects from prime noir films, and deserves all the high praise it gets.

It is masterfully directed, tightly plotted (especially for a story whose plot is so secondary to its dramatic effectiveness), and well performed -  both by its leads, who hold nothing back in their viceral performances, as well as by its secondary cast, which, in addition to those previously mentioned, includes character bits by Joe Sawyer, Philip Van Zant, and Gerald Mohr, who would go on to portray Raymond Chandler's famous character Philip Marlowe for the radio series that broadcast in 1950-51).  Special props go to Don Douglas for his brief appearance as Tom Langford, which has a surprising range to play with for so short an amount of screen time as he is given.

**** out of 5
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038559/

The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)

"You know Letty, you look up at the stars, you feel awfully small.  Our problems seem so petty against all that space on space out there.  We're mere drops of nothing compared to the sun, that has a hundred million miles for a back yard.  So why do we torture ourselves trying to discover what's good and what's evil, what's right and what's wrong?  It's so unimportant."

These lines, spoken by George Sanders as the titular Harry Quincey, eloquently express the essential feeling of noir. The degree to which the rest of the film follows suit is variable.  Some of that may be due to Hays office meddling, but they were not entirely to blame for the mixed results seen here.

Certainly it's not for want of cast and crew with some hefty noir credentials.  Producer Joan Harrison has several key films of the cycle to her credit, including those she worked on in her formative years along side Alfred Hitchcock.  The director, too is an iconic name in noir - Robert Siodmak, whom we have to thank for just black gems as The Killers, Criss Cross, Cry of the City, and The File on Thelma Jordan.

And with a case that includes such names as George Sanders, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Ella Raines, one wonders what could have been missing.  Well for one thing, Sanders seems terribly miscast as a shy, socially awkward artist with little experience with romance, who works by day designing fabric patterns, and spends his nights ogling the stars through his self-made telescope. Even the avuncular title he is called by is supposed to point to his utter lack of interest to girls- illustrated in an opening scene when he complains to a girl who calls him "Uncle Harry," that he dislikes being called such by an entire generation of people with no such relation to him at all. If you thing any of those things sound like the makings of a good role for him, you must be thinking of a different George Sanders. Still, the premise is nothing if not firmly established by the script, even if Sanders never truly fits into the mold his character is supposed to break out of.  He bemoans his lack of excitement in his work, saying at one point, "I've painted so many rosebuds I see them in my soup." Indeed, there is so much talk of rosebuds, it might well be a sequel to Citizen Kane.

However, once one forces their way past their suspension of disbelief at his casting, the plot itself is certainly noir, though more suburban than most films of the genre.  He lives together with his two sisters, Hester (Moyna MacGill) and Letty (Fitzgerald).  Hester is widowed and a doting sister, if at times too caught up in self-pitying.  Letty is introduced as a sweet but frail shut-in, though what is wrong with her is difficult to guess by her hale appearance (another hurdle for us to overcome as audience). These characterizations are somewhat unevenly maintained by the script and the actors. As the story progresses we see more accurately what these two are really like.  We see the two sisters have a bit of personality conflict with one another, often over how to behave toward their brother.
Letty progressively reveals a protective and possessive attitude toward her brother that dances the line of being a bit more than mere sisterly affection, or even needy invalid behavior - especially when we see how little she is truly ill.

The real conflict, however, begins with the entrance of a NY fashion designer names Debra Brown (Ella Raines), who comes to their sleepy little Post-depression suburban textile manufacturing town of Corinth, to work with Harry at the mill. She begins to show him there is more to life than painting rosebud patterns every day. They spend a lot of time in off hours, going to softball games, dining out, etc.  Somehow, despite his supposed awkwardness with girls, the two are quite close.  Engaged, in fact.

This certainly does not sit well with Letty, though she successfully hides her dissatisfaction from her brother for a while.  Eventually, even he catches on, as she drags her feet in her task of finding a new home for her to live in with Hester once the couple are married.  She seems to believe that as long as she can delay that, she can delay their marriage.  As her plots take more desperate turns (including possibly poisoning his sick dog Weary!), it becomes apparent that she is the femme fatale of the tale.  Or should we say sœur fatale?

She finally drives the couple's patience to the breaking point when, the day before they have planned to go to New York for a honeymoon and marriage, she "has a spell" - an event that forces Harry to choose between staying with his sister or losing the girl he loves.

He stays.  She goes.

It is at roughly this point, that, driven to despair, Harry ponders what to do with his greedy, cruel sister, now that he has lost all purpose for living.

At this point, a certain plot point occurs that you wouldn't recognize as such until the end of the film.
There is a title card at the end warning viewers "Do Not Disclose the Ending."  However, since the film is now over 70 years old,  and since the noted contemporary film critic Bosley Crowther flatly refused not to reveal it, I feel no qualms about doing the same.

He falls asleep and dreams the rest of the plot.  Was this originally the intent of the tale?  Or was it the result of Hays Office censorship demanding changes?  Like The Woman in the Window that came out before this, it is probably the latter.

So here is what he dreams:

Debra goes off to New York to marry the barely-seen John J. Plothole (Craig Reynolds), a widower and would-be suitor who is only seen in one brief scene in the film early on.

Harry decides the only choice he has is to take Debra's leftover poison from killing Weary and use it on her. Unfortunately, the wrong sister gets it, in a classic which-mug-has-the-poisoned cocoa switcheroo. Then things get genuinely noir, in the more commonly thought-of ways.  She catches onto what he has done, but everyone believes she is the perpetrator.  She goes to prison, is tried, convicted and sentenced to hang.

There is a grimly macabre scene showing Harry's friends gathered at a fine restaurant to dine while they wait for the jury to deliberate. Like so many other rural/suburban noirs, such as Cover-Up. this scene paints an ugly portrait of small-town life and Americana. the depiction of these jolly townsfolks glibly discussing the case and their expectations for the verdict is sharply cutting. Similarly pointed imagery is painted in a scene involving a man who comes to asses Letty's belongings to buy from Harry once she is executed.

Harry ultimately is overcome with guilt and tries to submit a signed confession to free his sister, but is shooed away and praised for his sacrificial offering by the police, and sneered at by Letty, who says coldly, "I died months ago. Tomorrow is just routine."  She expresses her pleasure at the fact that he will be tormented forever by his guilt, while she will be free after she is executed.

Finally, at the breaking point,  at what ought to be the moment of most pitched drama, the dream ends.  He awakes to find his sister both alive (and behaving much more kindly than before), and Debra returned to his side, unable to stay away or marry anyone else but him.  Roll credits.

Does it work?  I suppose if you lower your expectations accordingly, you can find a great deal to appreciate in this film.  The actors, even when miscast, are engaging to watch, and the plot, while tangled beyond saving, is at least interesting.  There is minimal music for the most part, but the absence is only occasionally noticeable and wanting.   The supporting cast is colorful and entertaining, with reliable character actors such as Sara Allgood as the stereotypical Irish cook Nona, and radio announcer and comic actor Harry Von Zell has some memorable moments as Ben the druggist.

The final assessment?  Good but not great.  I was able to enjoy it for its pedigree even when its actual execution was less than stellar.

** out of 5

They Met in the Dark (1943)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036428/

** out of 5

This so-called "British Noir" seems in many ways to be an attempt to recreate the formula so well executed by Hitchcock's 39 Steps (1935), minus the pivotal pair of handcuffs that so prominently figured in that film.  James Mason plays a ship's commander who is accused wrongly of espionage for vital strategic information that is being leaked, apparently from his own crew or someone within his circle.  He seeks to track the source of the leak by first hunting down a manicurist named Mary (Patricia Medina), whose last name, for all the screen time she gets, might as well be MacGuffin.  She turns up dead, and he must continue pursuing a long and tangential trail of clues to find the spies.  In the course of his search, he continually encounters an inquisitive Canadian girl, Laura Verity (Joyce Howard), who throughout the tale alternates between suspecting him, helping him, and needing to be saved by him.  He is also aided by his mate, Mansel, played with hardy good humor by Edward Rigby.

The film, directed by the Austria-Hungarian Carl Lamac, is a bit disjointed, with a lot of people running around with very little explanation for why. It comes off as a series of situations in search of a plot.  Future Hammer director Terence Fisher is credited as an editor on the film, and no doubt he had his work cut out for him (heh heh).  The plot mainly follows Mason' character, but oddly switched focus about 45 minutes in, first to follow Joyce Howard as she does her own investigating, then, even less logically, to spoil for us exactly who the villains are, by revealing them as they are in the process of pumping one of Mason's crew for yet more information they can funnel to the enemies at sea.

Beyond the theme of the Wrongly Accused Man, and the central plot of the uneasy relationship he has with the girl in the tale, this film has other admittedly superficial similarities with the 39 Steps. There is a suspicious mind reader, known in the film as The Great Ricardo;  initially, he is played more as a fool, but is revealed to be in on the plot, along with the manager of a local talent agency, who uses his clients' various skill sets in the service of espionage-  a hypnotist, a magician, and even, somewhat unusually, a harmonica who performs in a code that is somewhat too easily cracked by the loyal members of Mason's crew who come to his aid in tracking the spies.

This film came out early in the noir cycle, and from Britain, beside, so the elements that distinguish the genre are not heavily featured here.  It begins darkly enough with Mason's court-martial, but he never is less than upright in his actions, and though there are a couple of characters that could easily have been written as femme fatales, there is little of that sort of thing here either.  The most noir it gets is that Mason has been unjustly accused of a crime, and must spend the film's runtime getting out from under the shadow of that judgement.  That is not to say it is unentertaining, just more as a spy mystery than as a noir.

Noirvember 2016 -a before and after pair of criminals

Well, it's that time of year again.  You know. Noirvember-  the one month that sounds good with "noir" portmanteaued onto it. Yeah, I just turned portmanteau into a verb. Well, I wrapped up my annual October horror-viewing marathon early, and got a jump start on this festive time of year with a pair of films that sort of bridged the transition in 2 odd ways: first, I watched the 1964 Bette Davis double-feature (sorry, bad puns are my thing) Dead Ringer, which, if you were going by the image on the posters (and dvd cover), you might think was some kind of horror film. The prominent skull-imagery there originally may have been meant to market the film to fans of Davis's previous creep-show, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, but now probably serves more to confuse folks who wanted to watch Dead Ringers, the Cronenberg-directed creeper from 1988 starring Jeremy Irons.

The second film I watched was closer in style to a genuine noir, but predates the prime years genre by a good 10 years, with a source novel that was written in 1866. I am speaking, of course, of the Peter Lorre- starring Crime and Punishment adaptation from 1935.  Neither of these films is, strictly speaking, film noir.  It was, however, interesting to me to watch them in the light (sorry) of the noir genre, as films influenced by and an early influence of the genre, respectively.

Let's talk about Dead Ringer, first.  Directed by Paul Henreid (who starred in a similar story of stolen identity himself, Hollow Triumph), this film also went by the working title, "Who Is Buried in My Grave?"  Considering how little time we get to enjoy two Bette Davises for the price of one, the working title might have been more appropriate.  However brief that bit of cinematic trickery may have been, it is just as enjoyable now as it was in 1946 when she starred vs herself in A Stolen Life.  This film however is not a remake or sequel to that, but a remake, of all things, of a Mexican film that starred Dolores Del Rio, called La Otra, or, The Other One.

In it, Davis plays estranged twin sisters, one living the high life the other by rights should have had.  The poor relation, Edie, in this case now runs a cheap cocktail lounge, and occasionally goes out with a police sergeant played by Karl Malden.  Naturally, she is dissatisfied with this life, and when she learns how her sister Margaret tricked her out of the husband and life that could have been hers, she plots a carefully executed murder and switched places with her sister, elaborately staging the death as her own suicide.  Then she discovers just how little she really knows her own sister.

This plot, if filmed in the height of the noir cycle, might have been told with the same details, but the tone is different than most films from that period, and places it clearly as being among the more polished, less moody 60's period.  The cool 60's graphics during the titles, and the cool organ-infused jazz played at Edie's place easily identify it as a film from that decade. As for mood, well, instead of the sense of foreboding darkness and disillusionment of the late 40's and 50's, we have a different tone set by both the cinematography and the score. Andre Previn's score is infused with strings and harpsichords in a way that seems intent on making this a sort of Gothic drama rather than a tale of a character who is swallowed up into her own darkness.  The run time also feels more slow-paced than most noir-  at nearly two hours, the film seems at times to drag its heels. Where noir might have tried to ratchet up the tension. this prefers to take us through every excrutiating detail of Edie's execution of her revenge, and the ultimate demise of all her careful plotting.

First we see her carefully arranging every detail of the fake suicide, and then removing the clothes from the corpse to take on the role of the rich society sister she has decided to replace. she changes her hair, jewelry, even stockings, to carefully adjust her appearance to that of her sister's. Then we watch her discover every important detail she has overlooked about her sister's life, and scramble to cover for the differences between them.  When her butler asks her if she'll have the usual, will she know what that drink is?  When she must open the safe, does she know the combination? Will she fool Duke the great Dane that her sister owns? What about smoking? To puff or not to puff? And can she fake the rituals with her newly acquired Catholic in-laws (which includes the humorous performance of Estelle Winwood, who I first enjoyed as Sheela Sugrue in Darby O'Gill and the Little People)?  Even the sleep patterns of the sisters are noticeably different.  She must find creative solutions to the question of signatures, not recognizing friends, and more.  Some of her solutions are more plauible (I started smoking again) than others (Duke was lonely and likes me now).

The one thing she definitely doesn't expect, however, is Peter Lawford.  Frankly, if I were better Davis in 1964, I might not expect him either.  Their age difference (15 years) is notable, but one must accept it to appreciate what follows his introduction into the tale, because with him comes the cruelest twist of all.  After successfully staging the murder as her own suicide, Edie learns her sister has a skeleton in her own closet; one shared by Lawford.

**SPOILER**

Lawford, it turns out, in Margaret's secret lover, and together they have killed Margaret's husband (who she had stolen from Edie under false pretenses all those years ago).  So just when it seems Edie has gotten away from one murder, she is embroiled in the fall-out from another.  Here we see most clearly the influence of the noir genre, as fate grabs the ankles of another sinner who thought she had gotten away scot-free, and drags her to her final demise.  This ending is not as effective as the best examples of that genre, with some anticlimactic courtroom scenes, a somewhat pointless moment in which the butler reveals he has known all along it was her, but who loyally vows to play it however she wants in court, but the coda that closes the film has definite noir feeling; as Edie is being taken away to be executed, she has one final confrontation with Malden's policeman, who simply must know-  is she really Margaret, or is she Edie?  The answer she gives is perfectly noir in its bitter irony.  "I'm Margaret DeLorca, Sergeant. As you said, Edie would never hurt a fly."

** out of 5

Crime and Punishment (1935) was the next on my double-bill.  I won't try to compare it to the novel, which I have not yet read. Josef Von Sternberg, the director, who was essentially forced to film the script by contract, reportedly dislike it as an adaptation, but I can only take the film on its own terms.  And on those terms, I found it a greatly enjoyable production.

Peter Lorre is first billed here as "The Celebrated European Star," and it is among the very first of his roles filmed in Hollywood.  Considering Peter Lawford's role in the last film, I might have titled this post "A Tale of Two Peters," but I doubt that would've gotten past my editor who has a notoriously dirty mind.

Lorre here plays Roderick Raskolnikov, a brilliant criminology student who becomes so disillusioned and broken by poverty that he turns to theft and murder to provide for his family, which consists of his mother and sister.

The mother is brilliantly depicted by Elizabeth Risdon, an actress whose versatility and chops in the realm of both comedy and drama are equally impressive.  Here she is given a wonderfully broad range of emotion to play from.  Her two most notable moments happen back-to-back When, in one scene she is seen consoling Lorre's character like a small child, and in the next scene, she is uttering heart-rending wails of grief when she discovers the evil crimes her son has committed.

The sister, played by Tala Burell, has plenty of material of her own to work with, not merely as a love interest for Lorre's charming old classmate, who is played by Robert Allen, but also as the object of the affections or desires of both Gene Lockhart, the wealthy possessor or TWO government positions, who promises her comfort and stability - at a price, and of the mysterious Douglas Dumbrille character who was formerly her lecherous employer, and later an apologetic and remorseful pursuer, and a character who is by the end a sympathetic figure who attempts to help the family and Lorre to get out of the troubles brought by Lorre's crimes.  

There are also interesting minor roles - for Thurston Hall as an editor who first takes advantage of Lorre's naivete, then later has the tables turned on him when Lorre summons courage to bluff his way into a better deal for the writing he has done for Hall's publications. Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who was once Eliza Doolittle in the original stage production of Pygmalion in 1914, here plays a very different role as a greedy, unsavory pawn broker who Lorre goes to for money, and later kills and robs.

However, the two principle characters with whom Lorre interacts are not among these listed.  The first is a tender yet strong performance of Marian Marsh as Sonya, disreputable young lady of the streets with the soul of an angel, whom Lorre meets at the pawn broker's home where she is selling her greatest treasure, a small family bible, in exchange for money to feed her young siblings.  The development of their relationship turns out to be the ultimate influence in bringing him back out of the depths of his depravity and back among the human race.

The second is the always superb Edward Arnold, here playing a police chief inspector with great panache.  Their first meeting established immediately the contrast between their views on life, crime, and humanity.   On one hand is Lorre, with his intellectual theories of the Ordinary and the Extraordinary, which is echoed by that of the two murderers in Hitchcock's film Rope. His idols are geniuses like Napoleon and Beethoven.  He fancies himself one of them, a pride that ultimately is hus undoing.  Arnold, on the other hand is more practical.  He depends upon the criminal's own sense guilt to eventually reveal himself, no matter how brilliant the man,

Watching Arnold bird-dogging Lorre, one is struck by the skillful way he plies his trade. sometimes canny and coy, then sly, then playing the fool to draw out Lorre's sense of superiority,  It is a brilliant depiction if a highly intelligent investigator, but even this is balanced by something deeper.  Despite a sneer early on that he has no need to "worry about a conscience," he ultimately reveals not only a conscience, but a heart, and a desire not merely for justice, but for redemption.  He plays tough to get his man, but plays even harder for the soul of the criminals he pursues.  

Lorre gives a similarly dynamic performance, with an astonishing array of emotion and attitudes on display; at times playful, petulent, feverish, wrathful, child-like and innocent, indignant and paranoid, then later guilty shamed, and ultimately humbled and repentant,  His character shows early promise in his field, but his pride in his own intellect is his undoing.  His fatal lack of humility is ultimately shown to be at the back of all his troubles, and not The System or The Man, or any other external force he attempts to blame.  Then, after he has has committed murder and theft, we see how it keeps him from confessing even when he is told that it will be better for him to do so, that extenuating circumstances and his own contrition would get a reduced sentence for his actions. He is paranoid and suspicious of everyone around him- not only Edward Arnold's chief inspector, but even his own family and friends, and strangers such as Dumbrille, who he initially thinks is a detective working for Arnold.  My descriptions cannot fully encompass the scope of what he does with this role, except to say weakly that is a bravura performance all around.

I said I would not get into comparisons with the book, and I won't except to surmise that despite the director's distaste for the adaptation, I think possibly it does for the novel what many such adaptations struggle to accomplish-  capture the essence of the philosophical underpinning of the writer's ideas without laying them on so thickly as the produce a work that is overwrought or excessively dense.  Where a writer can afford the space to opine and philosophize, a filmmaker must weave his ideas into the story so that the viewer receives it almost without recognizing it consciously.  It becomes embedded in the entertainment, and is told by the drama, rather than exposition and a talky, dialogue-heavy script that might drag down the pacing of the story. 

The truths the story wishes to convey are revealed not simply through opining narration, but in the actions of its characters.  Ideas of guilt, remorse, repentance, and more all are played out, and we don't mind watching, because it's not preachy like a sermon, but instructive like a parable.  And watching how the story plays out its moral lesson, we find ourselves not merely informed by entertained, a sure sign of great art.

While the film ultimately ends with an uplifting message of salvation though confession, it definitely has same the unflinching view as the later noir genre has of consequences of sin and how they drag a man under to his demise. A good summation of that idea is seen in a conversation between Lorre and Dumbrille, who comes to him seeking an opportunity to apologize to his sister for the trouble he's gone through.  "Haven't you ever done a wrong?" he asks earnestly. "If you have, you'll know - the worse consequences are the unforeseen ones. It's like dropping a stone in a pool, waves spread out in all directions and touch shores you couldn't see before."

**** out of 5

2015 Noirvember Cast and Credit Awards

I knew I wanted to call out my favorite highlights from this year's Noirvember viewings, but I didn't want to just do a bunch of lists.  Instead, I have decided to pit them against each other in an imaginary contest, like fantasy football, but with filmmakers instead of player stats, and little gold Noir statuettes instead of money for the prizes.  That's right, the points are just like Who's Line Is It Anyway.  You will notice that I list multiple titles by certain artists.  This is not because they are necessarily uniformly great in all of them, as I may be picking them for one particular film;  I listed multiple titles in these cases only to include all the ones they were in that were part of this year's Noirvember list. The honorable mentions lists afterward vary in length, as I only included the workers that I found especially noteworthy.  The thing I find most fun about this arrangement is that, given the range of years being covered, most of these performances and films would never have competed against one another in a real award contest.  So, anyways, here we go:

My Pick? Jules Dassin for Night and the City.

Honorable Mentions:
Carol Reed - Odd Man Out
Alfred J. Werker - Shock
Ted Tetzlaff - The Window, Riff-Raff
Roy Del Ruth - Red Light
H Bruce Humberstone - I Wake Up Screaming
Robert Rossen - Johnny O'Clock
Henry Hathaway - Fourteen Hours
Fritz Lang - You and Me
Fred Zinneman - Kid Glove Killer
Anthony Mann - Two O'Clock Courage
Rudolph Mate - Union Station, D.O.A.,
William Castle - Undertow, Hollywood Story
Richard Fleischer - The Clay Pigeon

Robert Wise - Mystery in Mexico, House on Telegraph Hill

Joseph L. Mankiewicz - House of Strangers
Gordon Douglas - Between Midnight and Dawn, Walk a Crooked Mile

My Pick? Anthony Veiller for The Killers.

Honorable Mentions:
Robert Rossen -  Johnny O'Clock
Walter Doniger - Rope of Sand
John Paxton - Rope of Sand, Fourteen Hours
Mel Dinelli - The Window
F.L Green/R.C. Sherriff - Odd Man Out
Carl Foreman - The Clay Pigeon
Eugene Ling - Shock, Between Midnight and Dawn
Martin Rackin - Riff-Raff, Race Street
George Bruce - Walk a Crooked Mile
Lawrence Kimble/Jerome Odlum/Dennis O'Keefe/Francis Swann - Cover Up
Philip Yordan  - House of Strangers

My Pick? Robert Krasker for Odd Man Out.

Honorable Mentions:
Ernest Lazslo - D.O.A., Cover Up
Victor Milner - Dark City
William O Steiner/ Robert de Grasse - The Window
Charles Lang - Rope of Sand
Joe MacDonald - Shock, Fourteen Hours
Paul Vogel - Kid Glove Killer
Harry J. Wild - Johnny Angel
Burnett Guffey - Johnny O'clock
George Robinson - Walk a Crooked Mile
Roy Hunt -  Race Street

My Pick? Franz Waxman for sheer volume of consistently outstanding work. 

Honorable Mentions:
Dimitri Tiomkin - D.O.A., Red Light
David Buttolph - Shock
Kurt Weill - You and Me
Leigh Harline - Johnny Angel
George Duning -  Johnny O'Clock
Frank Skinner - Ride the pink horse
William Alwyn - Odd Man Out
Hans Salter - Cover Up, Killer That Stalked New York
Daniele Amfitheatrof - House of Strangers
Alfred Newman - House on Telegraph Hill, Fourteen Hours

My Pick? Richard Widmark for Night and the City.

Honorable Mentions:
George Raft - Red Light, You and Me, Johnny Angel, Race Street
Edmond O'Brien - Between Midnight and Dawn, D.O.A., The Killers,  Two of a Kind
Bobby Driscoll - The Window
James Mason - Odd Man Out
Richard Conte  - House of Strangers, Hollywood Story
Victor Mature - I Wake Up Screaming
Vincent Price - Shock
Dick Powell - Johnny O'Clock
William Holden - Union Station
Scott Brady - Undertow
Van Heflin - Kid Glove Killer
Paul Douglas - Fourteen Hours
Richard Basehart - Fourteen Hours, House on Telegraph Hill

My Pick? Shelley Winters for He Ran All the Way.

Honorable Mentions:
Lizabeth Scott - Dark City
Corinne Calvet - Rope of Sand
Betty Grable - I Wake Up Screaming
Gale Storm - Between Midnight and Dawn
Pamela Britton - D.O.A.
Virginia Mayo - Red Light
Sylvia Sydney - You and Me
Marsha Hunt - Kid Glove Killer
Signe Hasso - Johnny Angel
Lynn Bari - Shock
Kathleen Ryan - Odd Man Out
Louise Albritton -  Walk a Crooked Mile
Marilyn Maxwell- Race Street
Jacqueline White -  Mystery in Mexico
Jane Frazee - Incident
Susan Hayward  - House of Strangers
Valentina Cortese - House on Telegraph Hill

My Pick? Francis L. Sullivan for Night and the City.

Honorable Mention:
Percy Kilbride - Riff-Raff
Herbert Lom - Night and the City
Wallace Ford - He Ran All the Way
William Bendix - Race Street, Cover Up
Ed Begley - Dark City
Barry Fitzgerald - Union Station
Arthur Shield - Red Light
Luther Adler - D.O.A., House of Strangers
Daniel Ferniel - Undertow
Paul Henreid - Rope of Sand
Claude Raines - Rope of Sand
Gene Lockhart - Red Light
Hoagie Carmichael - Johnny Angel
Fred Clark - Ride the Pink Horse, Hollywood Story
Lee J. Cobb - Johnny O'Clock
Robert Newton -  Odd Man Out
Walter Slezak -  Riff-Raff
Art Smith - Ride the Pink Horse, Killer That Stalked New York
Art Baker - Cover Up, Walk a Crooked Mile
Warren Hymer - You and Me

My Pick? Googie Withers for Night and the City.

Honorable Mention:
Margaret Wycherly - Johnny Angel
Viveca Lindfors - Dark City
Jan Sterling - Union Station
Allene Roberts - Union Station
Beverly Garland - D.O.A.
Marya Marco - The Clay Pigeon
Ruth Roman - The Window
Carole Landis - I Wake Up Screaming
Andrea King - Ride the Pink Horse
Doro Merande - Cover Up
Debra Paget  - House of Strangers, Fourteen Hours
Fay Baker - House on Telegraph Hill
Grace Kelly - Fourteen Hours

My Pick? Neville Brand for D.O.A.

Dishonorable Mention:
Paul Stewart - The Window, Appointment with Danger
Jack Lambert - The Killers
Donald Buka - Between Midnight and Dawn
Elisha Cook Jr. - I Wake Up Screaming
Marc Krah -  Riff-Raff
Frank Faylen - Race Street
Ricardo Cortez - Mystery in Mexico
Richard Quine - the clay pigeon
Richard Loo - The clay pigeon

My Pick? McGraw and Conrad for The Killers.

Dishonorable Mention:
Meyer Grace & Robert Osterloh - Incident

Two Special Awards:

Most Annoying Character Award: Joyce Compton for Incident
Runner Up: Ann E. Todd for Cover Up

Most Stentorian Narrator Award: Reed Hadley for practically every docu-noir ever

And now for the main event!

My Pick? Night and the City and The Killers in a tie.

So... how does your ballot compare to mine?

Fourteen Hours (1951)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043560/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

**** out of 5

"If he wants to jump, let him- he's better off.  Everybody's better off."

Henry Hathaway's suspenseful edge-of-the-window drama is as much a predictor of things to come as it is a noir in any real sense.  With the suicidal young man at it center, it points ahead to social dramas about troubled youth-- films like Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild One, East of Eden, and West Side Story.  But its multiple subplots involving the various players in the drama, and the intercutting with various onlookers and their individual troubles and responses to the drama unfolding far above them also foreshadows the ensemble disaster films like Airport, High and the Mighty, Towering Inferno, and Poseidon Adventure.

There are many notable faces in those crowds below:
Youthful Jeffrey Hunter makes an early impression as a nice guy who tries to pick up a girl in the crowd who catches his eye, pretty young Debra Paget.  A crowd of cab drivers trapped in the traffic snarl, who have a pool going on what time Basehart will jump, include among their number the future famous faces of Ossie Davis and Harvey Lembeck. Grace Kelly makes an indelible impression in her first film role as a woman headed for divorce, who is distracted from the settlement discussions by the drama unfolding in the building across the street. Even future film maverick John Cassavetes has an uncredited bit part in the film.

But the film ultimately belongs to the two people out on the ledge: Paul Douglas and Richard Basehart.  Basehart is magnetic in his embodiment of the terrified and suicidal young man who has edged out onto the balcony of a hotel but can't decide if he wants to jump or not.  Paul Douglas is the street cop who first calls in the incident, and whose honesty and kindness makes him the only person Basehart's character feels safe talking to.  A whole line of family and psychiatric experts (and even, briefly, a crazed evangelist!) try to talk him down, but he refuses to listen to any of them except this simple, unpretentious beat officer.

A crowd full of various and conflicting interests floods the hotel room behind the window where Basehart and Douglas are precariously perched.  Frank Faylen is the bellhop who first discovers that Basehart has gone out on the ledge.  Agnes Moorehead and Robert Keith are Basehart's self-interested and disfunctional parents, called upon to help talk him out of the suicide to which they bear much of the responsibility for driving him. Howard Da Silva is the frustrated police chief, who adds needed notes of humor to the otherwise tense drama. We also have Martin Gabel as Doctor Strauss, who functions largely as a dispenser of exposition, to help the characters and us understand the psychology of what's going through Basehart's mind.  And Barbara Bel Geddes is Basehart's angelic ex-fiancee, who makes an impassioned plea for life and love.

The film has strong notes of social satire; in addition to the gambling cabbies, opportunistic wolves, and voyeuristic throngs, we see harsh portraits of the news media scrambling in at every chance, trying to get the perfect shot, the best camera angles, and the first scoop as the story develops, with dramatic radio and television voices announcing colorful play-by-play descriptions of the unfolding drama with a callous lack of empathy for the human story at the film's center.  Are we participating and perpetuating those attitudes by our enjoyment of the film?  We aren't given a clear answer, but when relief finally comes at the story's close, we are promised by the end titles that police today have means of resolving similar conflicts in the future.  It is a promise that somehow rings hollow, but the story we've witnessed continues to resonate today.

The House on Telegraph Hill (1951)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043660/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

*** out of 5

With its story of a refugee sneaking into America with stolen documents and identity and marrying into a wealthy family, one could imagine a very different film if this were a movie being made today.
Today, it might be more likely to be a political drama or terrorist thriller. Then, it played out more like a cross between Hitchcock's two films, Suspicion and Rebecca.

In this film, the refugee is played the beautiful Valentina Cortesa, as a Polish refugee, coming to who takes on identity and child of her dead friend to escape from the terrible conditions of her homeland after th desolation wrought by WWII. Her friend, it seems, had sent her infant son ahead of her to "Aunt Sophie," a wealthy American relative who can better protect him from the war, then spent much of the war is the same horrible camp as our protagonist, who tried desperately to keep her alive, but, seeing her gone, took understandable advantage of the opportunity that affords, finally arriving in the states in 1950.

There, she meets  Richard Basehart, a seemingly well-intentioned relative who had taken over custody of the child (Gordon Gebert)  after the death of Aunt Sophie.  The two see money in each other's eyes. and quickly marry and together take care of the boy- and the estate of the late Aunt Sophie.  Also in the house is Fay Baker, as Margaret, the housekeeper/nanny, who is unnaturally protective of the mother-role she as played for so long in the absence of the child's real mother.

As life continues, however, signs begin to indicate that there is something terribly wrong in this house.  as the tagline of the trailer states so luridly, "Shame is the mistress of this house, and betrayal is its master."  At first Cortesa thinks it is just her own guilty conscience that is causing her terror, keeping her awake at night, and giving her a feeling that the imposing portrait of Aunt Sophie in the dark living room is staring right into her soul, condemning her for pretending to be someone she's not.

But there's more at work here.  The cable sent to inform Cortesa that Aunt Sophie is dead comes 2 days before her death.  The playhouse in the yard is burnt out from an accident no one seems willing to talk about.  As Cortesa begins to investigate these mysterious clues, and ask questions, the danger to her life increases.  Brake lines are cut on her car, leading to a terrifying sequence as she coasts downhill out of control through the steep streets of San Francisco.

She finds the one person she can trust is William Lundigan, whose character was the same Major who she had presented the stolen papers to in order to get to America.  It seems he is also a sort of friend of family, but one who is not all that fond of Basehart, and his quest for wealth.  Her dependence on him adds tension to the final third of the film, as, having discovered the truth about this house, she is unable to escape it, or make contact with Lundigan for help, and must save herself and the child, or die in the attempt.

Despite certain story elements that test the believability of the film, such as the unlikely way in which the child's playhouse is situated halfway out over cliff, more like something from a lemony snicket novel than a realistic drama, the story is ultimately successful in creating an atmosphere of suspense and tension.  Basehart is very good in a difficult role that could easily have been overplayed as an arch villain, but is ultimately relatable in its human ambition while still frightening in the avarice of its greed.  Fay Baker plays her role with a nuanced performances that ranges from domineering to sympathetic, and Valentina Cortesa is excellent at communicating the complex emotions of a person who is simultaneously guilt-ridden, protective, frightened, and ultimately stronger than she realizes.

The climactic scene, involving a deadly glass of orange juice is pulled off with a masterful art and suspense by the case and composed with perfect precision by director Robert Wise for a riveting finale.