Category Archives: Noir Month

The Verdict
Directed by Don Siegel
Written by Peter Milne from a novel by Israel Zangwill
1946/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

[box] Supt. George Edward Grodman: I feel as if I were drinking at my own wake.[/box]

This Sidney Greensreet/Peter Lorre locked room mystery didn’t grab me.

The story opens in 19th Century London with Superintendent George Grodman (Greenstreet) of Scotland Yard witnessing the execution of a man he helped to convict. Almost immediately his bitter rival Supt. Buckley (George Colouris) brings him the missing alibi witness that establishes the man’s innocence.  Grodman is forced to retire and Buckley takes his job.

At Grodman’s house, we meet his friends:  an artist with a taste for the macabre, mine-owning lout Arthur Kendall whose aunt was the murder victim, and a reformist Parliamentarian who is Kendall’s sworn enemy.  Naturally, these three all live in the same boarding house.  After the party breaks up, we see Kendall arguing with music-hall singer Lottie Rawson (Joan Lorring) about some fake jewelry he gave her.

The next day, the landlady finds Kendall’s door locked and cannot rouse him.  Suspecting foul play, she calls Grodman and the two discover Kendall’s murdered body.  All hypotheses on how the killer could have entered and exited the locked room prove impossible.  The rest of the story follows the inept Buckley as he investigates the murder with occasional help from Grodman.

I think it’s a stretch to call this murder mystery a film noir.  It’s competently made but didn’t make me care about the outcome.  It does give viewers the opportunity to see director Don Siegel’s (Dirty Harry)  first feature film.

Clip – Joan Lorring sings “Give Me a Little Bit”

The Street with No Name
Directed by William Keighley
Written by Harry Kleiner
1948/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Alec Stiles: What’s the use of having a war if you don’t learn from it?[/box]

This early semi-documentary style police procedural is enlivened by Richard Widmark’s performance as the germo-phobic gang boss and gritty location shooting on L.A.’s mean streets.

When two innocent civilians fall to gangland shootings, the FBI’s Inspector Briggs (Lloyd Nolan in his character carried over from The House on 92nd Street) suspects a Skid Row gang.  He assigns Agent Gene Cordell (Mark Stevens) to infiltrate the gang and Agent Cy Gordon as his backup undercover at a nearby flophouse.  Cordell insinuates himself into the local scene and soon impresses gang leader Alec Stiles (Widmark) with his boxing prowess at the gym.

Stiles wants to build his organization on “scientific lines”.  His operation benefits from a mysterious informant somewhere deep within the police department.  The story follows the FBI’s procedures in finding the evidence necessary to pin the murders on Stiles and Cordell’s dangerous maneuvers within the gang.  With Ed Begley as the Chief of Police.

Cinematographer Joe McDonald brings his noir expertise (Panic in the Streets, Call Northside 777, Pickup on South Street) to bear in lending interest to what might otherwise be a routine crime drama.  This was Widmark’s second film after his debut as the psychotic Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death.  He is fun to watch as the fastidious, neurotic Stiles, who is nonetheless ready to slap his wife down at the slightest provocation or none at all.  This is all balanced out by many scenes detailing FBI forensic procedures under the bright lights of Bureau labs.

Trailer – cinematography by Joseph MacDonald

The Prowler Directed by Joseph Losey
Written by Dalton Trumbo (originally credited as “Hugo Butler”); story by Robert Thoeren and Hans Wilhelm
1951/USA Horizon Pictures
First viewing/YouTube

[box] I am frequently told that my films don’t make money. Since I have averaged one film a year for thirty years – some of them expensive ones – I can only conclude that somebody is making money. — Joseph Losey[/box]

Joseph Losey turns film noir on its head with a homme fatale in this subversive chiller.

Susan Gilvray (Evelyn Keyes) has a nervous and lonely life with her apparently much older husband (we never see him) who cannot give her children and leaves her alone every night while he does his radio show.  She hears a prowler and calls the police.  The two cops that answer the call find no prowler but one of them, Webb Garwood (Van Heflin), immediately starts checking out Susan and her lovely home.  Later he returns alone and says department regulations require him to check up on her safety.  They find that they went briefly to the same high school.  Susan was from the right side of the tracks and Webb from the wrong side of Terre Haute, Indiana.  Webb hates his job as a policeman and bears a general grudge toward the world. The next night Webb shows up in his civvies.  He makes aggressive advances and Susan finally caves.  They begin an affair.

When Susan’s husband discovers the affair, Susan tries to break it off.  Webb wants her to go with him to Las Vegas where he has his eye on a motel, which he thinks is a way to make millions without working.  She refuses.  He starts agreeing they should call it quits and she starts pleading with him to take her back.  Finally, while Webb is on patrol, he starts making prowling noises at Susan’s house.  When Susan’s husband comes out to investigate, Webb shoots him.

A coroner’s inquest finds that the death was accidental. Susan and Webb both deny any prior relationship on the stand.  Although Susan is initially very suspicious – even calling out “murderer” at the inquest – Webb soon manages to sweet talk her into a wedding and they depart for Las Vegas.  Then Susan discovers she is four months pregnant.  The increasingly paranoid Webb has some mighty peculiar ideas about this….

I loved this movie though it made me really uncomfortable.  Van Heflin is seriously scary as the deranged Webb.  He is able to convey so much greed, scheming, and paranoia just with his eyes. You can almost read his thoughts and they aren’t pretty.  Evelyn Keyes makes a convincing lovelorn nervous Nellie, who turns out to have a  will of her own.

One of the things I loved most was the way Trumbo and Losey commented on police corruption and the emptiness of the American Dream without making any of this explicit. Some folks find the ending unbelievable, and I suppose it is, but this didn’t bother me. The edgy score adds to the tension.  Highly recommended.

I watched this on YouTube because I thought no U.S. DVD was available, but I now see that a restored version has been released with plenty of extra features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5r47Y6Zw0

Trailer – cinematography by Arthur C. Miller – don’t worry, the “voice of their conscience” is not in the film!