Monthly Archives: March 2015

Lady in the Lake
Directed by Robert Montgomery
Written by Steve Fisher from the novel by Raymond Chandler
1947/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Adrienne Fromsett: [to Marlowe] Perhaps you’d better go home and play with your fingerprint collection.[/box]

I went into this knowing that the “I am a camera” gimmick does not work for me.  Still, it’s such a noble experiment that I had to see it again.

Philip Marlow (Robert Montgomery) is not satisfied with the miserable fees he gets as a private detective so he decides to turn author.  He is amazingly successful with his first submission to a pulp magazine and called in for a chat with editor A. Fromsett.  This turns out to be the lovely Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) and she has more on her mind than the story.  She offers Marlow $300 to locate the missing wife of her publisher (Leon Ames), Chrystal Kingsby.  It is clear Adrienne has some ulterior motive as she clearly lusts after the publisher and, more precisely, his money.

Marlow’s quest leads to multiple beatings, a couple of murders, and assorted run-ins with police and is much too convoluted for me to explain here.  Throughout, one question is “How fatale is Adrienne’s femme?” With Lloyd Nolan as a hostile cop and Jayne Meadows as a survivor.

It is just amazing that MGM, of all studios, indulged Montgomery in this audacious bit of film-making.  Sadly, the gimmick results in a lot of “deer caught in the headlights” style acting (except on the part of Totter who does very well) and does not advance the story or improve the picture.  One thing MGM did hold on to, however, was its glossy production values so we get a very noir story told in high-key lighting.  I doubt that there is another film like it, though, and it’s worth seeing at least once.

Trailer

Boomerang
Directed by Elia Kazan
Written by Richard Murphy based on an article by Fulton Oursler
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Films Corp.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] [Camera close-up on an open book]: The primary duty of a lawyer exercising the office of public prosecutor is not to convict, but to see that justice is done. -The Lawyers’ Code of Ethics.[/box]

This is a solid, if unexceptional, film noir in the semi-documentary style favored by Twentieth Century Fox.

The story is based on a true incident.  The setting is a smallish Connecticut town.  There is an upcoming election that the incumbent reform candidates desperately want to win. One night a beloved Episcopal priest is shot down on the street in front of a number of witnesses.  The killer quickly gets away. The media begins to have a field day criticizing the police force for failing to apprehend the murderer or even turn up any clues other than that the man was seen to be wearing a dark coat and light hat.  The reform candidates and police are under incredible pressure to deliver the culprit.  Prosecutor Henry Harvey (Dana Andrews), a friend of the reform party and potential candidate for governor, is as anxious as anyone to find a suspect.

Although a hot line turns up many false leads the police get nowhere until a drifter is picked up in a distant state.   The man, an ex-GI named John Waldron (Arthur Kennedy), left town shortly after the murder and was found in possession of a gun of the same caliber as that used in the crime.

Waldrop maintains his innocence during an unrelenting interrogation and in face of identification by numerous eye witnesses and a report indicating that the fatal bullet came from his gun.  He finally confesses in a state of total exhaustion.

Harvey comes to believe that Waldrop is innocent.  Can he resist the political imperative to convict at any cost?  With Lee J. Cobb as the Chief of Police, Karl Malden as a detective, Jane Wyatt as Harvey’s wife, Sam Levene as a crusading reporter and Ed Begley as one of the politicos.

There are no surprises here but a cast such as this is always worth seeing and Kazan does quite a competent job keeping the story moving.  Fans of courtroom dramas might particularly like this film.

Boomerang was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay.

Trailer? or Montage of Clips?

The Upturned Glass
Directed by Lawrence Huntington
Written by John Monaghan and Pamela Mason
1947/UK
Sydney Box Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant

Michael Joyce: Up to this point in the present series of lectures, we’ve dealt exclusively with abnormal mentalities. I emphasise the fact that in civilised communities eighty percent of our murderers and violent criminals were those whose minds had been conditioned by exceptional nervous stress and unhealthy environment. Last Friday we dealt with the smaller group of strictly moronic criminals. And now we come to that much more interesting phenomenon – the sane criminal.

The rest of this film is just not up to James Mason’s awesomely brooding performance.

The film opens with prominent neurosurgeon Michael Joyce (Mason) lecturing an avid medical school class on criminology.  When he starts in on “sane” criminals his case study focuses on a doctor who killed and we segue into the voice-over narration that accompanies the long flashback that tells the tale.  Michael was an unhappily married man whose whole life had become his work.  Then he examines a young patient who is losing her eyesight and slowly becomes attracted to her mother, Emma.  The girl’s father is overseas on a work assignment.  The pair begin a friendship that quickly builds to love but Emma gets cold feet and it goes no further.

Then Emma dies when she falls out a window.  Michael blames the death on Emma’s sister-in-law and the rest of the story is devoted to his plans for revenge.

This had potential but just didn’t amount to much.  Despite Mason’s dulcet tones the lecture gimmick does not add to the drama of this oddly slight story.  I thought the ending was especially awkward and  anti-climactic.  Too bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA1iY4Mjv10

Clip

The Long Night
Directed by Anatole Litvak
Written by Jacques Viot and John Wesley
1947/USA
Select Productions
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Maximilian: You know, it’s not too easy to kill a man. I ought to know.[/box]

Despite the unfortunate Hollywood ending, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this remake of Le Jour se leve (1939).

The film begins with the sound of a shot and a man falling down the stairs dead.  It sets up the character of Joe Adams (Henry Fonda) barricaded in his apartment with no means of escape and contemplating how he got himself in this mess.  The story then segues into flashback.

Joe is an ordinary working class guy who returned from the war to take up his old job as a welder.  He meets young, naive Jo Ann (Barbara Bel Geddes) who comes to his workshop to deliver flowers.  The two are taken by how much they have in common, starting with their first names.  In addition, they were both raised in the same orphanage and seem to share a fundamental loneliness.  It is love at first sight for Joe.  The two start seeing each other.

Unfortunately, magician Maximilian the Great (Vincent Price) has already set his sights on the gullible girl.  He is the worst kind of cad  as is well known by his former mistress and assistant Charlene (Ann Dvorak).  Charlene ends the relationship and tries flirting with Joe but he only has eyes for Jo Ann.  Maximillian remains intent on getting into the pants of his victim and resorts to increasingly desperate lies and intimidation.  The rest of the story focuses on Joe’s disillusionment and rage.  With Elisha Cook Jr. as a blind man.

This film gets kind of mixed reviews but I really enjoyed it despite the corny Hollywood ending that undercuts the tragic tale told in the original.  I really like Fonda when his character is at war with the world and he is excellent here.  It was a treat to see Ann Dvorak back on screen after too long.  I didn’t even recognize her until I saw her name in the credits.  Price is suitably smarmy and despicable.  Added to all these pleasures is some gorgeous noir cinematography by Sol Polito and excellent staging by Anatole Litvak.

Clip -near the conclusion

Daisy Kenyon
Directed by Otto Preminger
Written by David Hertz from a novel by Elizabeth Janeway
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Mary Angelus: Want to tell me where you’re going, so I’ll have something to lie about?[/box]

I like Joan Crawford least when she is playing the most desirable thing on wheels.  Here she is all that and too old for the part to boot.

Career girl Daisy Kenryon (Crawford) has been having an affair with hot-shot attorney Dan O’Mara (Dana Andrews) for some time.  O’Mara is saddled with a neurotic wife (Ruth Warrick) and two children and with the extremely irritating habit of calling everybody of whatever gender or age “honeybunch”.  Daisy is conflicted about the relationship but doesn’t do anything to end it until she meets returning serviceman Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda).  Lapham is suffering from the after-effects of combat and the sudden death of his wife in an accident.

Despite little encouragement, Lapham falls madly in love with Daisy.  They marry and Daisy gradually warms to him.  Then O’Mara is caught trying to patch things up with his former mistress and his wife asks for a divorce.  Daisy must now decide between her two loves. That is basically the whole story.  Any one aware of the requirements of the Hayes Code will be in no doubt as to the outcome.

This is a very well-made product of the studio system with the class one would expect from director Otto Preminger, cinematographer Leon Shamroy, and composer David Raskin.  Your reaction will depend on your feelings about Crawford and the subject matter.  I was not keen on either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1dRwiSNpJM

Trailer

Johnny O’Clock
Directed by Robert Rossen
Written by Robert Rossen; original story by Milton Holmes
1947/USA
J.E.M. Productions
First viewing/YouTube

[box] Chuck Blayden: You get in my way and I’ll kill you.

Johnny O’Clock: You took the words right out of my mouth.[/box]

You can’t go too far wrong with a title like Johnny O’Clock.

Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell) is an elegantly-dressed, tough gangster who has managed to keep his nose clean for years.  He is a partner in an illegal gambling operation with muscle man Guido Marchettis (Thomas Gomez).  Although he has nothing on Johnny, Police Inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) keeps hounding him for the whereabouts of crooked cop Chuck Blaydon who is taking pay-outs from the mob.

Meanwhile, Johnny has befriended Blaydon’s pathetic girlfriend Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch).  She wants to make up with her man but he is having none of it.  Johnny is also being pursued by Marchettis’s wife Nelle (Ellen Drew), with whom he previously had a relationship.  He now wants nothing to do with the married woman but she won’t leave him alone.

The plot is fairly Byzantine from here on out.  The next major development is that Harriet is found as a presumed suicide.  This sparks a visit from her sister Nancy (Evelyn Keyes). Nancy and Johnny quickly become an item.  A bunch more stuff happens but this is more enjoyable for the dialogue than for the plot.

I’m a Dick Powell fan, especially in his noir incarnation and this did not disappoint.  He might rank next to Bogie in his ability to utter stylized hard-boiled dialogue with just the right mixture of deadpan and humor.  The ladies don’t quite match his aplomb.  It’s an entertaining outing though.

Trailer

Desperate
Directed by Anthony Mann
Written by Harry Essex and Martin Rackin; story by Anthony Mann and Dorothy Atlas
1947/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
First viewing; Warner Film Noir Classics Vol. 5 DVD

[box]Walt Radak: [ironically as he waits for midnight] Who was it said, “Time flies.”[/box]

1947 was Anthony Mann’s break-out year for film noir.  He would improve but this one is quite OK with some classic use of the style.

Steve Randall (Steve Brodie) is a happy newly wed who is about to celebrate his four-month anniversary with wife Anne (Audrey Long).  She has confided in a neighbor that she will announce her pregnancy at dinner that night.  Then Steve gets a call from a “friend” offering him a trucking job at a wage he can’t refuse.  When he gets to the location he finds out that the job is as getaway driver for a heist being organized by tough guy Walt Radak (Raymond Burr).  Radak’s little brother Al begs to go along for the first time.  Steve attempts to alert the police and Al kills a policeman during a scuffle.  He is hauled off to jail.

Walt threatens Steve with harm to Anne if Steve does not turn himself into the police for the murder.  Instead, Steve takes Anne on the lam.  Al is eventually sentenced to the death penalty.

When Steve gets Anne settled with her relatives in the country, he finally does report his involvement to police inspector Louis Ferrari (Jason Robards Sr.), who does not believe his tale.  He lets Steve go anyway in hopes he will lead him to ringleader Radak.  Now Steve and Anne find themselves relentlessly pursued by both the police and the bad guys.

The movie is only 75-minutes long but manages to lose steam between its dynamic opening and tense closing.  As usual the best thing about it is Raymond Burr’s intensely menacing villain.  Robards Senior is also very good as the sarcastic cop.  There are some really masterful flourishes in the camerawork.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3wfy8ociHU

Clip – check out that swinging lightbulb.  You don’t get much more classic noir than this.

Angel and the Badman
Directed by James Edward Grant
Written by James Edward Grant
1947/USA
John Wayne Productions/Patnel Productions
First viewing/Netflix Rental

[box] Territorial Marshal Wistful McClintock: You know, Quirt, I always figured on using a new rope when hangin’ you… because I kind of respected ya. You never took the best of things and all your men went down looking at ya.[/box]

Sometimes a rather corny old-time Western is just what the doctor ordered.

The wonderfully named Quirt Evans (John Wayne) is a famous gunslinger.  He gets wounded in a showdown and is rescued by the Worths, a Quaker family, who take him home and nurse him back to health.  The Penelope (Gail Russell), the daughter of the house, instantly falls in love with her patient and frankly tells him so the minute he is back on his feet.  Quirt has been a hard-drinking hard-loving rapscallion but the simple, loving ways of the family begin to win him over.

At the same time, Quirt is under threat from his long-time enemy Laredo Stevens (Bruce Cabot).  The local marshall (Harry Carey) is always hanging around predicting that Laredo will end up shot dead and Quirt will end up hanged or vice versa.  The local doctor keeps warning the family that Quirt is bad news.  But Penelope persists.  Can she reform her wild man?

This is just a nice, romantic Western to watch on a Saturday afternoon.  Some of the screenwriting is a tad overdone but nothing terrible.  All the performances are good.  I especially liked Harry Carey as the Marshall of Doom.

Clip