Category Archives: 1947

Dark Passage
Directed by Delmer Daves
Written by Delmer Daves from a novel by David Goodis
1947/USA
Warner Brothers
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box]Vincent Parry: You know, it’s wonderful when guys like you lose out. Makes guys like me think maybe we got a chance in this world.[/box]

My reaction to this one was colored by my dislike of the “I am a camera” gimmick.  Once Humphrey Bogart shows his face things pick up.

Vincent Parry (Bogart) escapes San Quentin, where he has been incarcerated since being wrongfully convicted for murdering his wife.  He has to deck a guy who offers him a lift after the man asks too many questions.  Then Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall) picks him up, having learned of his escape.  She followed his trial closely because the case reminded her of the wrongful conviction of her father.

A kindly taxi driver alerts Parry to a cut-rate plastic surgeon who gives people new faces on an outpatient basis (!!?).  The new face is to make Parry look significantly older than he is. Irene cares for him during his week-long recuperation.

Parry soon has to worry not only about finding his wife’s murderer but tracking down the killer of his closest friend while simultaneously fighting off the blackmailing driver he decked during his escape.  With Agnes Moorhead as a friend of the family.

The movie is shot from the Bogart character’s point of view for about the first third.  Then his face is covered in bandages for another good stretch.  Some might find the POV camerawork intriguing.  I find it extremely jarring and unconvincing.  I also had serious problems buying into most of the plot points.  But Bogart and Bacall’s chemistry is totally convincing and the movie might be worth seeing just to look at his face when he gazes at her.  My husband liked this movie much more than I did.

Trailer

Good News
Directed by Charles Walters
Written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green from a play by Buddy G. DeSylva et al
1947/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

[box] The moon belongs to everyone/ The best things in life are free/ The stars belong to everyone/ They gleam there for you and for me – “The Best Things in Life Are Free”, lyrics by Lew Brown and Buddy G. DeSylva [/box]

This college musical has the highest IMDb user rating of any movie released in 1947. The reason why will forever be a mystery to me.

Tommy Marlow (Peter Lawford?!) is captain of Tait College’s football team and Big Man on Campus.  Not knowing that he is also heir to a pickle fortune, new girl in town Pat McClellan, a self-styled diva, spurns him for a wealthy drip.  Not used to being rejected, Tommy is naturally fixated on Pat.  Meanwhile plucky sorority sister Connie Lane (June Allyson), who is working her way through school,  is secretly in love with Tommy.  Tommy wants to improve his French to impress Pat so Connie tutors him.  Tommy slowly begins to see the light and asks Connie to the prom.

But the mischievous Babe alerts Pat to Tommy’s wealth and Tommy foolishly throws off Connie for Pat.  You can bet Tommy and Connie will be dancing together in the closing number.  With Mel Torme as one of the gang.

As far as I am concerned, the most interesting thing about this movie is Peter Lawford’s impeccable French accent.  He certainly doesn’t convince as a football player!  Otherwise, this just strikes me as completely sophomoric.  I don’t even like the songs that much. There are a few OK dance numbers.  I’ve seen this before and my reaction was exactly the same.  But there is no accounting for tastes….

Good News received an Oscar Nomination for Best Music, Original Song for “Pass That Peace Pipe” by Hugh Martin, Ralph Blane, and Roger Edens.

Trailer – If this appeals, you might love this movie

Born to Kill
Directed by Robert Wise
Written by Eva Greene and Richard Macaulay based on the novel by James Gunn
1947/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Marty Waterman: You can’t just go around killing people when the notion strikes you. It’s just not feasible.[/box]

Born to Kill is a real noir lovers noir. Everyone in it is either bad to the bone or a complete chump. A ton of fun.

The movie begins on the day Helen’s (Claire Trevor) Reno divorce comes through.  She has been living in a Reno boarding house run by boozy ex-glamor girl Mrs. Kraft (the fantastic Esther Howard).  The other tenant is Laury Palmer (Isabel Jewell).  The three ladies sit around and bitch about men.  That night Laury plans to step out on her new boyfriend, Sam, with her ex-boyfriend in order to make Sam jealous.  It turns out that Sam is Lawrence Tierney and this is a bad, bad move.

Helen is the one that discovers the bodies.  She thinks better of calling the police and immediately takes off for San Francisco by train.  Sam is leaving on the same train and it is lust at first sight.  In San Francisco, they talk about getting together later.

Helen is coming home  to the mansion in which she lives with her wealthy foster sister Georgia (Audrey Long).  She reunites with wealthy but square fiance Fred.  Before long, Sam comes calling and hears the wedding plans.  He sets about wooing Georgia in revenge.  The gullible heiress is swept off her feet.

In the meantime, Mrs. Kraft hires sleazy private detective Arnett (Walter Slezak) to track down Laury’s killer.  This is a bible-quoting cynic who runs his office from the borrowed phone of a diner and will do anything to make a buck.  He gets his lead by observing Sam’s best, possibly only, friend Marty (Elisha Cook, Jr.) hanging around key locations to make sure there is nothing to tie Sam to the crime.  Arnett sets off for San Francisco and starts asking questions while working as a dishwasher during Georgia’s wedding.

The wedding vows are still warming the lips of the happy couple when Sam walks in on Helen drowning her sorrows in champagne and after some snappy sparring they are kissing.  I will not spoil the trail of delicious double crosses, vengeance, and dirty fighting that make up the rest of the film

When one of the most sympathetic characters in the film is somebody that goes after an old lady with a knife, you know you are watching film noir.  I don’t know which is better, the dialogue or the acting.  Most of these folks are giving career best performances.  A real treat and recommended.

I watched both this and Kiss of Death with my husband.  He liked Kiss of Death better, saying it was more human.  He’s right, but I’d probably go with this one.  I don’t know what that says about me!

The DVD has a commentary by Eddie Muller and Robert Wise. Noir guru Muller ended up kind of baby sitting Tierney at screenings when the latter was in his 80’s. He had many priceless anecdotes.  My favorite was when he was at a screening where Wise was doing a Q&A and answering a bunch of auteur type questions about why he decided to this and that. Tierney kept muttering “It was all in the script.” Finally, he stands up and says “Who wrote the f%*#! script Bob?”  The actor was a piece of work and not too far from the tough guys he played, even at an advanced age.

Clip

Kiss of Death
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer; story by Eleazar Lipsky
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Tommy Udo: I wouldn’t give you the skin off a grape.

This one is famous as Richard Widmark’s film debut but is a satisfying film noir in all respects.

Nick Bianco (Victor Mature), an ex-con and born loser, is forced to work yet one more hold-up to buy his kids Christmas presents.  When he is the only one caught in a jewelry store heist, Assistant DA Louis D’Angelo (Brian Donlevy) offers him a deal to snitch on his fellow gang members but Nick refuses to talk.  He trusts the gang’s pledge to look after his family and get him out on parole.  After a couple of years in stir, Nick’s wife commits suicide and his children are sent to an orphanage. He is now more than willing to tell all.

D’Angelo arranges to arrest him for an old crime committed by the same gang and to pin the tag of squealer on gang leader Rizzo.  The gang quickly shows how it deals with rats when it puts grinning hit man Tommy Udo (Widmark) on the case.  He can’t locate Rizzo so he settles for pushing Rizzo’s wheelchair-bound mother down the stairs in one of the most memorable murders in cinema history.

Nick is released on parole and settles down to happy married life with his kids and their ex-babysitter (Coleen Gray).  Then D’Angelo makes another offer Nick cannot refuse.  He wants him to help set up Tommy Udo.  Nick, who had previously known Tommy in jail, befriends him and gets him to confess to another murder and its details while high. D’Angelo demands that Nick testify at Tommy’s trial.  Nick balks but D’Angelo assures him that the case is airtight.

Of course, Tommy is acquitted and Nick is now in fear for the lives of his entire family.  Nick gives up on D’Angelo’s assurances of police protection and takes matters into his own hands.

Richard Widmark reportedly based his portrayal of Tommy Udo on the improvisational style of jazz music.  However he did it, his maniacal laugh is unforgettable.  This is probably one of the most effective over-the-top performances of all time.  He was stuck with this kind of character for several films but later the world would know what a versatile actor he was.

Less acknowledged is Victor Mature’s superb performance in Kiss of Death.  His Nick is a complex blend of stoic fatalism, tenderness, and repressed rage and really carries the film. Cinematographer Norbert Brodine’s low-key lighting is also up there with the best in the genre.  Recommended.

Widmark was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor.  Kiss of Death was also nominated for Best Writing, Original Story.

Trailer

They Made Me a Fugitive (AKA “I Became a Criminal”)
Directed by Alberto Cavalcanti
Written by Noel Langley from a novel by Jackson Budd
1947/UK
A.R. Shipman Productions/Alliance Films Corporation
First viewing/Amazon Instant

This is a superior British film noir.

Clem Morgan (Trevor Howard) misses the adrenalin rush he got being an RAF pilot in the war.  In a drunken stupor, he decides it might be fun to join a black market gang. The outfit uses a funeral parlor as a cover and brings in the goods in caskets.  Its tough-as-nails leader Narcy (Griffin Jones) thinks Clem will give the gang some class.  He also thinks Clem’s fiancee is cute.

But on the very first outing, Clem discovers the caskets also hide drug trafficking, which he wants no part of.  He says he is quitting after that night’s job.  Narcy uses the opportunity to get Clem out of the way by framing him for the killing of a policeman.  Clem is convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for manslaughter.

While in jail, Clem gets a visit from Narcy’s bitter ex-girlfriend Sally (Sally Gray).  She tells him Narcy has taken up with the fiancee and that she wants to help him clear his name. Clem does not take her up on her offer.  As soon as Sally gets home from the visit, Narcy and the boys beat her up.

Sally’s visit did awaken some will for revenge in Clem and he escapes.  The rest of the film follows Clem’s escape, reunion with Sally, and revenge attempts.  Narcy is definitely no pushover, though, and this is a truly dark and violent noir story.

I have loved every film I have seen that was directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.  I wonder that he is not better known.  This one was no exception and the director’s style shines through in every frame.  Howard is excellent and Jones makes one of the screen’s nastiest villains.

This is one of several British films focusing on social malaise immediately after the war. There is a strong sense that people who bore so much during the war were unable to accept continued privation after war’s end and started looking out for number one.  Recommended.

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

Clip – sturdy milk bottles they had back then!