Posted 12/05/2004 06:08:00 PM by Douglas

Two of the best things about watching all these old movies:

• Cars - Back in the day before cars were designed by Dr. MPG and the wind tunnel, they actually looked cool. Who could look at any car out of a movie from 1949 and compare it to today's ubiquitous Taurus/Camry/Accord and not want to puke in their own mouths?
• Hats - One of the reasons these movies look older than they actually are is because everyone is wearing a hat. How cool is that? Like most overwrought college students, I too was laughed at when I showed up on campus one day in a fedora, and that's just wrong. Thanks a lot for ruining hats for all of mankind, JFK.

But aside from all that, you've got the movies. I honestly don't think I could watch every noir movie from the late 40s/early 50s, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try, although I've canceled my Netflix subscription for December, but I'll probably fire it up early in the new year after Christmas. So let's get to the flicks!

Black Angel
June Vincent, Peter Lorre, and the gold standard of noir, Dan Duryea really just seem to be going through the motions in this one, but it was pretty interesting, anyway. Hey, we've gotta find the guy that framed my husband for murder. . . let's get a job in a night club, see if any clues turn up? Peter Lorre and Dan Duryea are great, as usual, but this one skimped on the writing.

Too Late for Tears (AKA Killer Bait)
Probably the poorest quality movie I've seen in a while, but the plot was there to keep me watching the sub-par production values. It was made in 1949, but looked like a movie from the early 30s. You've got the classics of noir in this one: The payoff finds the wrong person, the anxious housewife, and of course, Dan Duryea. Good flick, but it's painful to watch a movie this good when even an idiot like me can see that it wouldn't have taken much to make it a great flick.

Criss Cross
Dan Duryea, again (was there a movie in the late 40s he wasn't in?) with Burt Lancaster, cast against type as a guy with a shirt on. Got your standard armored car heist in this one, and not much else.

Out of the Past
Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. What could possibly go wrong with this one? Nothing. Great flick all around, and one of the best lines I've ever heard in a movie:

Leonard Eels: All women are wonders, because they reduce all men to the obvious.

Meta Carson: So do Martinis

Damn straight on both accounts, Meta. At least I think it was Meta that said that. I really couldn't tell the two female leads apart in the 3rd act (more great [and I mean great] quotes here.) This one needs to be watched more than once.

Labels: film noir

Posted 11/13/2004 02:38:00 PM by Douglas

More gems from my own personal noir-fest. I don't think I've seen a movie made past 1960 in several months. Really, what's the point? Here we go:

Scarlet Street
I don't really think of Edward G. Robinson as a noir-film actor, but he ran through the gamut of his two facial expressions in this one. As a pussy-whipped clerk that fell for young working-girl, he doesn't elicit much sympathy when she starts playing him like a two-bit piccolo. But it's an interesting ride, but a disappointing ending.

Touch of Evil
Has Orson Welles made a bad movie? I think Citizen Kane is vastly overrated, but the man knows what he's doing, on both sides of the camera. And maybe it's just me, but Charlton Heston is forever typecast in my mind as Moses, and doesn't really make a believable Mexican narcotics officer, but Janet Leigh carries the both of them effortlessly. And then you've got Marlene Dietrich showing up in a brothel. How could go wrong there? But the opening shot with the camera crossing the border backwards is reason enough to see this one.

Don't Bother to Knock
I was really hesitant to get this one, because I thought it was going to be a 90 minute excuse to watch Marilyn Monroe giggle. (Is there a downside to that I'm not envisioning?) But man, she could really act! At least she could in this one, but I know some will say that she wasn't acting in this one, either. That she's really was that crazy. Either case, it makes for an excellent film. Interesting to compare her performance in this film with the jiggly trollops we're presented with from today's Hollywood. There's just no comparison.

Asphalt Jungle
I'm hesitant to say any of these old movies are the best I've ever seen, but this one is right up there. It's got it all. A crooked cop getting heat from the commissioner, an ex-con with the perfect plan for that last big score, the short-order cook with a game leg and a hunch back, and mouthy dame that just starts crying for seemingly no reason, and Sterling Hayden (could anyone say no to that man?) as the hooligan so deep in debt from betting the ponies he's willing to do anything for a buck. You've got the score, the double-cross, the take-down, and the get-away, and even though everyone watching the movie knows what's going to happen, you can't take your eyes off of it 'till the final credits. Marilyn shows up radiantly in this one, too, for about three minutes of screen time.

Labels: film noir

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