Category Archives: 1955

The Big Combo (1955)

Posted on January 24, 2016 | Leave a comment

The Big Combo
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Written by Philip Yordan
1955/USA
Security Pictures/Theodora Pictures
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime

[box] Mr. Brown: Diamond, the only trouble with you is, you’d like to be me. You’d like to have my organization, my influence, my fix. You can’t, it’s impossible. You think it’s money. It’s not. It’s personality. You haven’t got it. You’re a cop. Slow. Steady. Intelligent. With a bad temper and a gun under your arm. With a big yen for a girl you can’t have. First is first and second is nobody.[/box]

As far as I am concerned, this is up there with Out of the Past in epitomizing all that is film noir.

Mr. Brown (Richard Conte) runs a crime syndicate. He ruthlessly took it over from a former crime lord and his own immediate boss Joe McClure (Brian Donlevy). Despite a decided lack of success so far, he is being doggedly pursued by detective Leonard Diamond. It seems that it is almost impossible to pin anything on Mr. Brown and Diamond’s own boss warns him off the case. But Diamond carries on, not least because he is in love with Brown’s blonde girlfriend Susan (Jean Wallace). For her part, Susan’s life disgusts her so much that she attempts suicide as the story opens.

Mr. Brown is fascinating in his sophisticated evil-doing and keeps getting away with murder while he takes revenge against Diamond in numerous ways. But Diamond is equally stubborn, if not more so.

This movie has everything. John Alton’s low-key cinematography is perfection. The acting, particularly Conti’s, is excellent and the dialogue is about as hard-boiled as you can get. We also get memorable performances by Earl Holiman and Lee Van Cleef as two hit men who are just a bit too fond of each other. This is a gritty and violent film that may even surpass Lewis’s other film noir classic, Gun Crazy. Highly recommended and currently available on YouTube.

Clip

The Desperate Hours (1955)

Posted on July 5, 2014 | 3 comments

The Desperate Hours

Directed by William Wyler
Written by Joseph Hayes from his novel and play
1955/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Warner Bros. Home Video DVD

[box] Glenn Griffin: I got my guts full of you shiny-shoed wise guys with handkerchiefs in their pockets![/box]

Bogie comes full circle from a career-making performance as hostage-taker Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936) to a similar role in The Desperate Hours, one of his final films.

Banker Dan C. Hillyard (Fredric March) lives an idyllic upper-middle class life with his Norman Rockwell perfect wife Ellie (Martha Scott) and two children, twenty-something Cindy and 10-year-old Ralphie. Drawn by the bicycle lying on the lawn, prison-escapees Glenn Griffin (Bogart), his brother Hal and dim-witted tough guy Kobish terrorize the family into giving them haven until Griffin’s girlfriend can deliver the cash necessary to get the trio to Mexico.

Hours stretch into days when the delivery is delayed and fraying nerves threaten to convert the uneasy truce between Griffin and the family into a bloodbath. The normally forceful Hillyard must use every bit of restraint at his command to keep the situation under control. With Gig Young as Cindy’s boyfriend and Arthur Kennedy as the town Deputy Sheriff.

It was a joy to see two of our greatest cinema actors, March and Bogart, go at it in this gripping story. Both were superlative. Bogie had reached the point in his life where there was a deep and moving sadness in his eyes that belied the tough guy surface. Wyler keeps the suspense high and the action moving in what could be a claustrophobic setting. There are few traces left of the story’s stage play origins. Recommended.

Trailer

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Posted in 1955, Noir Month

Tagged film noir

The Man from Laramie (1955)

Posted on June 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

The Man from Laramie

Directed by Anthony Mann
1955/USA
Columbia Pictures Corporation/William Goetz Productions
First viewing
#295 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Will Lockhart: You’re just a hard, scheming old woman, aren’t you?
Kate Canady: Ugly, too.

This is a Technicolor Cinemascope Western set in the wide open spaces of New Mexico. Its “noir” elements come from the revenge obsession of its protagonist and a psychopathic bad guy.

Will Lockhart (James Stewart) rides into town with a mule train bearing supplies from Laramie. His secret mission is to avenge the death of his brother, a cavalryman who was killed in a massacre by Apaches armed with repeating rifles. Will suspects that the rifles were supplied by white men.

On his way out of town, Will decides to load up his empty wagons with salt from a lagoon. He is soon set on by Dave Waggoman (Alex Nichol) of the Barb Ranch, who believes he owns everything within a 300 mile radius. Dave takes sadistic glee in hog-tieing Will, burning his wagons and shooting his mules. He is only restrained by the arrival of ranch foreman Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy). Dave is the son of patriarch Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp) and Vic has been raised as his brother and charged with responsibility of keeping crazy Dave under control.

Each attack on Will makes him more determined to stay in town. The rest of the film follows Will’s revenge quest, his numerous reverses, and the Cain and Abel struggle between Dave and Vic. With Cathy O’Donnell as Vic’s fiancée, Aline MacMahon as a neighboring rancher, and Jack Elam as the town drunk.

Man from Laramie 1

There were several moments during this movie when I had to scratch my head as things just did not compute. It seemed like portions were cut out and there was no exposition to prepare for some of the plot developments. This also featured more gratuitous and graphic violence than the modern-day noirs I have been viewing. There was nothing wrong with any of the performances or the directing but it wasn’t a comfortable experience for me. The music is very nice except for the truly lame theme song.

Clip – attack on the mule train

Diabolique (1955)

Posted on June 6, 2013 | 7 comments

Diabolique (“Les diaboliques”)

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
1955/France
Film Sonor/Vera Films
Repeat viewing
#272 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Alfred Fichet, le commissaire: The keys in the pool, the husband in the morgue! You dream too much about water in this house!

It is good to know as little as possible about this diabolical noir thriller before seeing it for the first time! Patrons were not admitted to theaters after the movie started and it ends with a plea for the audience not to reveal the ending. Far be it from me to break a promise.

The setting is a seedy boarding school in a Paris suburb, where all the main characters work. The owner is Christina Delassalle, a delicate Argentinian played by Vera Clouzot. She is dominated and abused by her sadistic, stingy husband Michel (Paul Meurisse). Lately, Michel has taken to beating his mistress Nicole (Simone Signoret) as well. The two women decide they have had enough. With Charles Vanel as a retired police commissioner.

Diabolique 1

The opening credits play over a shot of the scummy swimming pool at the school and establish the atmosphere of disgust and dread that pervades this excellent film. Clouzot is a master at manipulating audience emotion and horror is right up his alley. All the performances are spot on. The film is not quite as effective on a second viewing when the surprises have been revealed. Highly recommended.