Flickers in Time

The Blue Dahlia
Directed by George Marshall
Written by Raymond Chandler
1946/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing/TCM Dark Crimes DVD

Leo: Just don’t get too complicated, Eddie. When a man gets too complicated, he’s unhappy. And when he’s unhappy, his luck runs out.

Raymond Chandler famously wrote his original screenplay for The Blue Dahlia at home during shooting while he was on a drunken bender.  The plot doesn’t make much sense but the hard-boiled dialogue makes it nearly as enjoyable as The Big Sleep, which was released the same year.

Three buddies, ace Navy pilot Lt. Cmdr. Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix) and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont), have just been discharged from the Navy.  Buzz is volatile by nature and also has a steel plate in his skull.  “Monkey music” (basically any fairly loud music with a beat) causes his head to throb and he goes into a frenzy.  Buzz and George head off to a shared bachelor pad and Johnny goes to the apartment of his wife Helen.  There, he finds a noisy, drunken party and Helen in the arms of Eddie Harwood (Howard DaSilva) owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub.  After taking a slug at Harwood and breaking up the party, Johnny tries to start over with his alcoholic wife but when she admits their son died while she was drunk driving, Johnny pulls a gun on her, then drops it and storms out of the apartment.  Their argument is overheard by house detective “Dad” Newell (Will Wright).

After this, the viewer needs a high tolerance for coincidences and a keen state of alertness.  Helen calls Buzz and George at their apartment to report that Johnny has left her.  Buzz takes off for the apartment where no one is home.  He goes to the bar where he meets a lush, who is of course Helen, and who invites him up to her place.  While they are in it, Helen calls Harwood to say that Johnny is out of the picture but Harwood wants to call off the relationship.

Johnny leaves the apartment in driving rain and is picked up by good Samaritan Joyce Harwood (Veronica Lake), who naturally just happens to be the estranged wife of the man Helen has been having an affair with.  Joyce is immediately smitten with Johnny but he still considers himself a married man.  They end up spending the night in the same hotel and in the morning she hears Helen’s murder reported on the radio and sees Johnny behaving suspiciously.

Many double and triple-crosses follow, along with a number of fistfights and shoot-outs.  All the characters aside from the military men seem to have their hands out for a bribe.  Red herrings abound until the murderer emerges at the very end.

The U.S. Navy vetoed Chandler’s chosen ending so the plot makes even less sense than it would have originally.  But The Blue Dahlia illustrates that plot is less important that attitude, dialogue, and strong performances.  You don’t get much more hard-boiled than this.  And the supporting performances are wonderful.  I am more impressed with Bendix with each role I see him in.  He is just a volcano of explosive energy.  And Howard Da Silva shines as a mild-mannered, self-controlled gangster.  Ladd is no Bogart but I think he is even more convincing when it comes to fisticuffs. Recommended.

Raymond Chandler was nominated for an Academy Award for his original screenplay for The Blue Dahlia.

Trailer – cinematography by Lionel Linden

Lady on a Train
Directed by Charles David
Written by Edmund Beloin, Robert O’Brien and Leslie Charteris
1945/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Deanna Durbin Sweetheart Collection DVD

I couldn’t go on forever being Little Miss Fixit who burst into song. — Deanna Durbin

Lady on a Train is a beautifully photographed mystery spoof and one of Deanna Durbin’s better pictures.

Nikki Collins (Durbin) is reading a lurid mystery aboard her train from San Francisco to New York when she sees through the window a man being bludgeoned with a club in a nearby building .  Novel in hand, she goes to the police to report a murder but no one will believe her.  She turns to crime novelist Wayne Morgan but he is in thrall to his jealous girlfriend and is no help either.  Then a newsreel reports the accidental death of a shipping magnate by falling off a ladder.  This is the same man as the murder victim and Nikki is determined to investigate with or without Ward.

Nikki manages to enter the magnate’s isolated mansion where the will is being read. Everyone assumes she is Margo Martin, the victim’s night club singer girlfriend, who turns out to be the sole heir of his estate.  At the reading, she meets brothers Jonathan (Ralph Bellamy) and Arnold (Dan Duryea) Waring and Mr. Saunders (George Coulouris), manager of the Circus Club where Margo works.  She also manages to nab a pair of bloodstained slippers.  Nikki now has to avoid her own murder at every turn.  Her further investigations at the Circus Club, with the eventual aid of Wayne, give her an opportunity to sing.

The film was directed by Durbin’s husband and she never looked lovelier.  The entire movie benefits from the beautiful shadows and lighting created by noir cinematographer Elwood Bredell (Phantom Lady, The Killers).  While this is basically a comedy and lacks the angst characteristic of film noir, there are plenty of thrills.  The only downside is that Durbin’s trained soprano does not really suit songs like “Night and Day”. She is downright sexy while singing “Give Me a Little Kiss” though and there is even a little naughty double entendre at the very end.  I enjoyed this one.

Lady on a Train was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording.

Deanna Durbin sings “Night and Day” – cinematography by Elwood Bredell

The Mask of Dimitrios
Directed by Jean Negulesco
Written by Frank Gruber based on a novel by Eric Ambler
1944/USA
Warner Bros.
First viewing/Warner Archive DVD

Mr. Peters: [Repeated with small variations throughout the story] How little kindness there is in the world today!

This solid noir thriller moves Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet into starring roles and features the film debut of Zachary Scott as the mysterious title character.

The story begins in Istanbul in 1938 with the discovery of a body stabbed and thrown in the Bosporus.  The police identify it as the remains of master criminal Dimitrios Makropoulous (Scott) based on an identifying label.  At a reception that evening, Colonel Haki, head of the police, gets into a conversation with mystery writer Cornelius Leyden (Lorre) and begins to tell him Dimitrios’ history as a robber, killer, assassin and spy.  Leyden is curious and is taken to view the body.  He is so fascinated that he takes off on a journey throughout the Balkans to learn more about him.  Each witness he contacts makes the criminal seem ever more clever and despicable.

He is soon followed every step of the way by the menacing “Mr. Peters” (Greenstreet), a former associate of Dimitrios.  Later, Peters reveals that, between some undisclosed information Peters has and some also mysterious knowledge that Leyden has, the two can make a fortune.

This is an unusual setting for a movie of its period it and the filmmakers make the most of the shadows and sinister exoticism of the locale.  Scott is already outstanding at portraying a devious but charming lout and Greenstreet is at his oily and pontifical best. Lovers of Peter Lorre should check this out since the film gives him the rare chance to play a relatively balanced protagonist.

Trailer – cinematography by Arthur Edeson