Category Archives: Films Noir

The File on Thelma Jordon
Directed by Robert Siodmak
Written by Marty Holland and Ketti Frings
1949/US
Wallis-Hazin
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Thelma Jordon: I wish so much crime didn’t take place after dark. It’s so unnerving.

I will watch anything with Barbara Stanwyck. This film noir did not disappoint.

Cleve Marshall (Wendall Corey) is an Assistant District Attorney. He is dissatisfied with his home life and his domineering father-in-law. His response is to get royally drunk and take his supervisor’s suggestion to find a “dame” to take his mind off his trouble.

A dame finds him in the form of Thelma Jordon (Stanwyck). She is seeking help from the prosecutor’s office with a string of robberies of her elderly aunt’s jewels. She gives a fairly unconvincing explanation of why she will not go to the police with these crimes. But Cleve doesn’t mind too much and the two gradually become an item.

I won’t reveal more except to say that by the end of the movie Cleve will come to regret his infidelity and trust in a big way.

Siodmack sure knew how to direct a film noir. He was assisted here by a strong cast and cinematography by George Barnes. I didn’t think the script was the strongest.

Night and the City
Directed by Jules Dassin
Written by Jo Eisenger from a novel by Gerald Kersh
1950/USA
Twentieth Century-Fox Productions
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Googin the Forger: If you ain’t got socks you can’t pull ’em up, can you?

This bleak and beautiful film noir got Jules Dassin out of the U.S. before he had his passport snatched.

The city is London.  Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) wants somehow to be a “big man”. Unfotunately for him and those who love him, he is a bad liar, a chronic whiner, and not too bright.  He is the despair of his girlfriend Mary (Gene Tierney), who he routinely cadges money from or outright robs.

Mary works as a singer in a gyp joint called the Silver Fox that is owned by Phillip Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan).  Harry freelances as a bar tout luring tourists to be fleeced at Phil’s place.  The morbidly obese Phil is obsessed with his wife Helen (Googie Withers), who treats him with contempt.  Helen is just waiting to get a license to open a competing nightclub so she can leave Phil.

Harry thinks his big break has come when he runs into Gregorius, the father of local crime boss and wrestling promoter Kristo (Herbert Lom).  Gregorius is a classical Greco-Roman wrestler who sees his sport as an art and is thoroughly disgusted by the exhibitions put on at his son’s ring.  Harry believes that Kristo will let him compete in the wrestling business because he will not do anything against his father.  He needs money though.  This he gets from Helen by promising to get her her nightclub license.

This is the blackest of noirs and the world comes crashing down around the ears of everybody concerned.  With Hugh Marlow as a token nice guy and Mike Mazurki as a wrestler called The Strangler.

This is quite good and strikingly shot.  Francis L. Sullivan is the standout for me.  I had only seen him in his Dickens roles previously. There he was amusing.  Here he is both sinister and tragic.  Gene Tierney has a comparatively tiny part for a big star.  Widmark is excellent as always as a man who never really grew up.

According to the commentary, Darryl F. Zanuck was the lone producer in Hollywood who did not support the black list.  Among other things, he sent Jules Dassin to film this movie on location in London.  It was so far along by the time he was accused of affiliation with the Communist Party that the powers that be did not cancel the project.  Dassin was ultimately reported to HUAC in 1951 by directors Edward Dmytryk and Frank Tuttle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crLKNVvft_0

Trailer

The Dark Corner
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Written by Jay Dratler and Bernard C. Schoenfeld; story by Leo Rosten
1946/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental

Hardy Cathcart: Lovers of beauty never haggle over price, Tony.

Pretty nifty film noir with a haunted private eye hero.  Lucille Ball fills the gap left by the missing femme fatal with her fine portrayal of his loyal secretary.

P.I. Brad Galt (Mark Stevens) is trying to start anew in New York City after mysterious circumstances caused him to leave San Francisco.  His secretary Kathleen (Ball) clearly has a big crush on him, motivated in part by the urge to mother his troubled soul.

But soon Mark is being followed by a man in a white suit (William Bendix).  When caught, the man tells him he was hired by Mark’s former associate Anthony Jardine (Kurt Krueger). Mark had to fire Jardine for his womanizing, blackmailing ways back in San Francisco.  Mark’s life is apparently in danger from this quarter.

In the meantime, we follow the story of art collector Hardy Cathcart (Clifton Webb).  He dotes on his trophy wife, the much younger Mari (Cathy Downs), who reminded him of the woman in his most treasured portrait.  Mari is in love with the slimey Jardine.  Push comes to shove and Brad finds himself neatly framed for Jardine’s murder.  He knows far less than the audience at this point and must scramble to discover the murderer and the motive.

This thing is supposed to be a Raphael!

Here we have another sterling performance by Clifton Webb in a part that is not so different from his role in Laura, perhaps a bit more restrained.  Though Lucille Ball reportedly hated everything about making this movie (MGM loaned her out as “punishment”) for trying to get out of her contract), none of that shows in her performance.  She is very appealing as the smart, practical secretary that bosses dream of.   The writers gave her and the other actors the snappy dialogue worthy of them and the story.   It’s a thoroughly enjoyable movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA1llnyRTsA

Trailer

The Letter
Directed by William Wyler
Written by Howard Hoch based on a play by W. Somerset Maugham
1940/USA
Warner Bros.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

Howard Joyce: Be flippant about your own crimes if you want to, but don’t be flippant about mine!

This gripping tale of deception and revenge features one of Bette Davis’s greatest performances and splendid moonlight-drenched cinematography.

The setting is a rubber plantation overseen by Robert Crosbie (Herbert Marshall) and his wife Leslie (Davis) in colonial Malaya. The story begins as Leslie stands over a man’s body in cold rage and pumps several bullets into him.  She later explains to her husband and a couple of officials that she shot the man, whom the couple knew but had not seen in several months, in self-defense after he drunkenly attempted to “make love” to her.  Her explanation is deemed so detailed and believable that arresting her is a mere formality.  Her acquittal is even more assured since the victim had committed the seemingly unpardonable sin of marrying a “Eurasian” woman (Gale Sondergaard).

The couple proceed to Singapore where they hire family friend and lawyer Howard Joyce (Robert Stephenson).  Joyce finds Leslie’s story a bit fishy but the jig is up when his law clerk (the appropriately oily Victor Sen Yung) tells him that the widow is in possession of a letter Leslie wrote the day of the murder begging the victim to come to her.  She is willing to sell the document for a sum that conveniently happens to be almost the entire balance of devoted Robert’s savings account.  The other requirement is that Leslie deliver the money in person.

Leslie initially denies the letter is genuine and then tries to make it appear innocent but Joyce isn’t buying it.  And Joyce has serious ethical and legal reservations to buying the letter either but reluctantly decides to do so out of friendship to Robert.  Leslie is indeed acquitted. Will justice at last be done?

This is a beautiful, beautiful movie with most key scenes taking place on moonlit nights amid shadows worthy of the best films noir.  Bette Davis is convincing as the utterly controlled Leslie, her emotions suppressed by obsessive lace tatting until they aren’t. There are almost no Davis mannerisms in evidence here.  Her tear-stained face after the climax of the film is utterly believable.  The supporting cast is equally fine.  Highly recommended.

The Letter was nominated by the Academy in seven categories: Best Picture; Best Actress; Best Supporting Actor (Stephenson); Best Director; Best Black-and-White Cinematography (Tony Gaudio); Best Film Editing; and Best Original Score (Max Steiner).

Trailer