Posted 10/26/2004 07:15:00 PM by Douglas

For the last couple of weeks, thanks to Lileks and Netflix, I've been stuck on film-noir from the 50s. The genre is easy to spot, and even easier to watch: The plucky broad looking out for herself, the fast-talking accomplice that's always too considerate for his own good, and the chain-smoking protagonist, whom would appear to have made a deal with the producers to save the film money by getting paid by the word.

I certainly don't want to start a "movie" blog (although I suppose some direction would be a nice change of pace) but these movies are just too wonderful to pass up. It's incredible that after over 50 years, these movies haven't been remade by the present Hollywood system that's bereft of ideas. The DVD is an amazing thing, and now anyone can step back in time when they actually paid writers to make movies, instead of computer programers that inflict different forms of destruction on
New York City. So here we go:

This Gun for Hire
What's not to like about Veronica Lake? Put her on screen against The Music Man and how can you lose? Anytime a hired killer is nice to kittens right after slapping some dame around, you know he's on the right track.

Gun Crazy (or, Deadly is the Female)
Sometimes you don't go looking for trouble, it just finds you. And when you're a guy that's just loved guns your whole life, you know it's just a matter of time before your buddies take you to a carnival, you fall in love with a woman that performs shooting exhibitions, and then you take to the road on a multi-state crime spree. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Great bank robbery scene (done in one take) and the only movie I've ever seen when a slaughterhouse gets robbed.

The Big Heat
Glenn Ford as a renegade cop with a wife and daughter who gets caught up on the wrong side of a crooked D.A. Of course, the wife and kid are soon offed, and Ford does whatever it takes to finish the case, and bring their murderers to justice. This one has it all, really, and is worth it just to see what kind of place passed for a seedy dive of ill-repute in the early 50s.

The Big Clock
Ray Milland is one of my favourite actors of the era, if for nothing else, for his eerie portrayal of a hopeless drunk in The Lost Weekend. This one has the two of the great noir devices, the double cross coupled with the mistaken identity. And, unlike The Big Heat or The Big Sleep, there really was a big clock in this one.

Pickup on South Street
What would a 50s noir movie be without the Commies, microfilm, and a three-time loser that lives down by the warf? Add a professional stool-pigeon and a flashy broad that's been knocked around all her life, and you get this masterpiece of storytelling.

The Killing
Early Kubrick at his best. This dialog hangs on the screen almost as long as his long, winding one-take shots. Plus you've got Sterling Hayden that seems to play Gen. Jack D. Ripper effortlessly in every single film he's in. The set-up of this heist is told in a series of flashbacks and other non-linearities, decades before Mr. Tarantino supposedly invented the art of film with Pulp Fiction. Kubrick shows his true art with incredible dialog (that's way too un-PC to be made today), compelling camera shots, and the obligatory twist ending that makes you want to say "damn, I should have bought a Delsey!"

Maybe I'm romantizing a past I never knew, but after watching these movies, it almost seems like today's movie-goers just end up at the theater, vapidly watching whatever drek is churned out before them, whereas 50 years ago, audiences expected a story. I would love to see Hollywood crank out a great noir movie today (like The Man Who Wasn't There), but if I had to sit through a horrible remake of one of these now classic films, I think I'd pull out my big teeth. Besides, Steve Martin already did the best remake you could hope for with Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

Labels: film noir