Where the Sidewalk Ends Directed by Otto Preminger
1950/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing
[box] Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon: One false move and you’re over your head.[/box]
This film reprises Otto Preminger’s Laura pairing of Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney in a much grittier tale.
Dana Andrews plays Mark Dixon, a New York City detective who compensates for his father’s criminal past by overzealousness verging on police brutality. After many warnings about the rough stuff, he is demoted. Shortly thereafter, a gambler is murdered at a floating crap game organized by crime boss Tommy Scalise (Gary Merrill). The victim was last seen in a fist fight with Ken Paine, the no-good estranged husband of Morgan Taylor (Gene Tierney). Dixon is convinced Scalise or his henchmen murdered the man to retrieve his winnings but the police pin the blame on Paine and send Dixon to Paine’s apartment to pick him up. There, Dixon gets into an altercation with Paine and Paine is killed when he hits his head in a fall. Will Dixon somehow escape judgement?
The best thing about this as far as I was concerned was Gary Merrill’s performance as a sarcastic thug. He should have done more of that. I just can’t buy Dana Andrews as a tough guy. Gene Tierney looks beautiful but makes some pretty hokey romantic dialogue sound even hokier. I may be having a bad day. This has a high IMDb user rating of 7.6 and is probably worth a shot.
This Gun for Hire Directed by Frank Tuttle
1942/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing
[box] Philip Raven: You are trying to make me go soft. Well, you can save it. I don’t go soft for anybody.[/box]
Alan Ladd’s screen magnetism made him a star his first time out in this sometimes hokey but enjoyable early noir. The film also was the first in a series pairing Ladd with co-star Veronica Lake.
I honestly thought I had seen this one before but obviously had only heard the title as I thought Ladd played a private detective! In fact, his character, Philip Raven, is a hired assassin who does in a blackmailer who holds proof that a chemical company has sold defense secrets to the Japanese. Despite his cool killing, we know that deep inside he is good because he is kind to small kittens. The bad guys at the chemical company double cross him by paying him off in bills they promptly report as stolen to the police. Raven is now hell-bent on revenge.
Seperately, a U.S. Senator approaches nightclub singer Ellen Graham (Veronica Lake) to investigate the chemical company and its agent Willard Gates (Laird Cregar), who also happens to be a nightclub owner. Of course, Ellen is in love with the police detective (Robert Preston) who is assigned to the investigation of supposed robber Raven. All these coincidences reach a perfect storm of implausibility when Ellen and Raven chance to sit next together on a train. Ellen attempts to make a better man of Raven as he holds her hostage while attempting to evade the police and exact his revenge.
Despite several eye-rolling moments, there is much to like about this film. I especially enjoyed Laird Cregar as the cowardly, peppermint-munching Gates. Ladd had undeniable charisma, so much so that the filmmakers couldn’t quite make him a villain. This muddles the conclusion of the film quite a bit as the filmmakers couldn’t let him off the hook for his bad deeds either.
Clip – Alan Ladd meets Veronica Lake – and a historic pairing is born
Nightmare Alley Edmund Goulding
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Repeat viewing
[box] Stanton Carlisle: It takes one to catch one.[/box]
I radically revised my opinion of this deeply cynical carnival noir for the better after a several year hiatus. I liked it so much this time I can’t imagine what I was thinking before. I must have been in a bad mood.
Tyrone Power gives a career-topping great performance as womanizing carnival barker Stanton Carlisle, who seizes the main chance by romancing mentalist Zeena (Joan Blondell) to gain access to a code that enabled her and now alcoholic partner Pete (Ian Keith) to hit the big time as a mind-reading act. Stanton is not above pushing Pete over the edge with a quart of moonshine to get him out of the picture.
In the meantime, Stan is two-timing Zeena with Molly, a beautiful hootchy-cootchy dancer. When he gets what he wants out of Zeena, he promptly ditches her for Molly and they strike it rich doing a mind-reading act in big city nightclubs. But Zeena’s tarot cards have predicted a big fall for Stan and he may have met his match in the lady he seeks to exploit when he decides to turn spirtualist.
Molly
This is a profoundly bleak movie, haunted as it is by the specter of the carnival geek, an “attraction” consisting of a man-beast who bites the heads off of chickens, played by a carnie who has sunk so low he will work for a bottle a day and a place to sleep it off. (Funny how the word geek has morphed in the last 66 years!) It was not too surprising to learn that both the director and the author of the source novel committed suicide. This may have turned more people off alcohol than any movie but The Long Weekend.
Tyrone Power is a revelation in this. I had never really “got” his appeal but he is both absolutely gorgeous in his many t-shirted scenes and shows off some real acting chops here. Joan Blondell and Ian Keith are stand-outs as the over-the-hill vaudevillians. The story and dialogue are deliciously hard-boiled. Proceedings are slightly marred in the last 60 seconds by a ray of hope that appears from nowhere in Hollywood fashion.
The Narrow Margin Directed by Richard Fleischer
1952/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing
[box] Det. Sgt. Gus Forbes: What about this dame, Mr. Crystal Ball?
Walter Brown: A dish.
Det. Sgt. Gus Forbes: What kind of a dish?
Walter Brown: Sixty-cent special. Cheap, flashy. Strictly poison under the gravy. [/box]
Two L.A. detectives are assigned to escort a gangster’s widow on a train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles, where she is to testify before a grand jury in a corruption investigation. The crime syndicate will stop at nothing to stop the testimony and retrieve the payoff list. Unfortunately they do not know what the widow looks like. With Charles McGraw as a detective, Marie Windsor as the woman he is guarding and Jacqueline Ward as a mother on the train.
This nifty little “B” noir was filmed in only 13 days. Marie Windsor, “Queen of the B’s”, is fantastic as the sexy thorn in Charles McGraw’s side. The dialogue is priceless. This is 71 minutes of pure fun.
Murder, My Sweet (AKA “Farewell, My Lovely”) Directed by Edward Dmytryk
1944/USA
RKO Radio Pictures
Repeat viewing
#173 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Lindsay Marriott: I’m afraid I don’t like your manner.
Philip Marlowe: Yeah, I’ve had complaints about it, but it keeps getting worse.[/box]
This fun early noir is based on the novel Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler. The title was changed because studio executives worried that the film might be taken for a musical given Dick Powell’s starring role.
Marlowe (Dick Powell) is approached by thug Moose Malloy (Mike Mazurki) to locate an ex-girlfriend named Velma. Shortly thereafter, Lindsay Marriot hires Marlowe to accompany him to a remote spot to buy back a jade necklace that had been stolen from a lady friend. Marriot is murdered before the trade is made and Marlow is knocked out. The next day, Ann Grayle (Anne Shirley) leads him to the owners of the necklace, her father Mr. Grayle and his wife Helen (Claire Trevor). A series of twists and turns leads to the solution of both the missing-person and the murder case.
Philip Marlowe meets Moose Malloy
I think of this as “noir light” since it is short on the characteristic doom. All the actors do well in their parts. Claire Trevor makes a great femme fatal and Powell is particularly good at delivering Chandler’s sarcastic hard-boiled dialogue. It’s hard to believe that he’s the same guy that played the tenor in all those Busby Berkeley musicals. This is just a very entertaining detective story.
The Postman Always Rings Twice Directed by Tay Garnett
1946/USA
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing
#185 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
[box] Frank Chambers: With my brains and your looks, we could go places.[/box]
It’s back to a studio big-budget glamour noir for this installment of noir month. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it until today. This was based on the 1934 novel by the same name by James M. Cain. The novel had previously been adapted in the neo-realist style as the Ossessione (1942), Luchino Visconti’s first feature film. I saw Ossessione several years ago and, although I don’t remember it vividly, the story was quite a bit different. I’m now curious to read the novel.
Frank Chambers is a drifter who lands on the door of a roadside diner/gas station run by Nick Smith and his much-younger wife Cora and gets a job as a mechanic. He rapidly falls for the beautiful blonde Cora and she for him. Soon the couple is looking for a way to get the kindly Nick out of the picture. This being a film noir nothing goes smoothly, to say the least. With John Garfield as Frank, Lana Turner as Cora, Cecil Kellaway as Nick, Leon Ames as a district attorney, and Hume Cronyn as a defense attorney.
I liked this film alright but it doesn’t have the bite of my favorite noirs. Part of the problem for me may be Lana Turner’s performance. I have a problem seeing Cora as a proper femme fatale – for one thing she doesn’t seem clever enough. I was surprised to see Cecil Kellaway in the role of the husband. I would never have imagined someone British as Nick. John Garfield is always good. Probably my favorite performance was Hume Cronyn as the sleazy defense attorney.
Sunset Blvd. Directed by Billy Wilder
1950/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing
#229 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
IMDb users say 8.6/10; I say 10/10
[box]Joe Gillis: [voice-over] You don’t yell at a sleepwalker – he may fall and break his neck. That’s it: she was still sleepwalking along the giddy heights of a lost career.[/box]
Billy Wilder’s caustic indictment of the Hollywood dream factory and human cupidity is a classic in every sense of the word. From the opening showing the title painted on a curb with fallen leaves in the gutter, you know you are in the presence of a master.
The film is narrated by small-time screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) from the grave and tells the story of his last days. Joe is a true noir hero doomed by a moment of weakness and an underlying longing for the finer things. His fate is sealed when, in an effort to foil some men out to repossess his car, he drives into the garage of what at first appears to be an abandoned mansion.
Soon enough, Joe meets demented silent film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) who, having just lost her pet chimp, is looking for a replacement chump. Joe is not smart enough to figure this out, however, and thinks he has scored big time when Norma asks him to help her with the screenplay on her comeback vehicle Salomé. He barely bats an eye when without his knowledge Norma moves all his possessions to her home and installs him in an apartment over the garage.
Norma, alternately imperious and delusional, showers Joe with expensive presents but somehow doesn’t manage to keep him in spending money and allows his car to be repossessed. She is totally obsessed with her “return” to the silver screen and her memories of the glories of her day as one of the top stars in cinema. On New Year’s Eve, she declares her love and Joe flees to a friend’s party where he becomes acquainted with aspiring screenwriter Betty Schaffer (Nancy Olson), a close friend’s fiancée. A mixture of pity and guilt sends Joe back to the mansion, however, when Norma attempts suicide and a New Year’s Eve kiss signals that Joe has prostituted himself completely.
“All right Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”
Norma’s comeback dreams are raised to a fever pitch when Cecil B. DeMille’s office, to whom she has mailed the Salomé script, calls and the director himself offers a few half-hearted words that she interprets as encouragement. Meanwhile, Joe and Betty have started working on their own script and Betty gradually falls in love with Joe. A chain of events has been set in motion that will soon coming crashing down on everyone involved.
Gloria Swanson’s performance as Norma Desmond was her finest hour. She manages to invest her character with mix of toughness, vulnerability, insanity, and determination that makes Norma pitiable and horrifying all at once. The rest of the cast is equally wonderful.
It was really difficult to choose a quote from this movie since the screenplay is razor sharp and endlessly quotable. The Franz Waxman score is one of the greats. In fact, the film is flawless as far as I am concerned. You really should see it before you die.
Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three (for Best Writing, Best Art Decoration, and Best Score). Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Wings in the Dark Directed by James Flood
1935/USA
Paramount Pictures
First viewing
[box] Sheila Mason: What are you thinking about?
Ken Gordon: I was just thinking how crazy I was not to take a good look at you when I had the chance.[/box]
This improbable aviation romance is bolstered by the charisma of its stars. Sheila Mason (Myrna Loy) is a daring barnstorming pilot. She has a yen for fellow aviator Ken Gordon (Cary Grant), who is developing a plane that will be capable of flying “blind” without instruments. Ken is too busy to notice. When Ken is about to demonstrate his plane with a transatlantic flight, he is (temporarily?) blinded in a gas stove explosion. Ken overcomes his bitterness with the encouragement and help of Sheila and they fall in love. Can Ken realize his dreams of flying blind??
A picture with Myrna Loy and Cary Grant automatically has a lot going for it as far as I am concerned. They bring a lot of charm to a frankly melodramatic and utterly unlikely story. Roscoe Karns is good too as Sheila’s promoter.
The Steel Helmet Directed by Samuel Fuller
1951/USA
Deputy Corporation
First viewing
[box] Sergeant Zack: Look, Lieutenant, you got nuthin’ out there but rice paddies crawlin’ with Commies just waitin’ to slap you between two big hunks of rye bread and wash you down with fish eggs and vodka.[/box]
This Korean War noir is an ultra-low-budget gem from early in writer-director Sam Fuller’s career. I love Fuller’s off-kilter style. This was made in only the sixth month of the conflict.
Sargeant Zack (Gene Evans) is the lone survivor of an attack on his unit. A South Korean youngster unbinds his wrists and tags along and Zack tries to rejoin his regiment. They meet up first with a medic, similarly a lone survivor, and then with a ragtag unit who are headed to set up an observation post at a Buddhist temple. The group trades banter between facing attacks from the North Koreans.
This starts out characteristically odd but it soon turned taut and engrossing. The dialogue is sharp and hard-boiled. I liked Fuller’s commentary on U.S. race relations. Fuller was investigated by the FBI for this film’s critique of the detention of Japanese-Americans in World War II and a scene showing a U.S. GI shooting an unarmed POW. Recommended.
Sylvia Scarlett Directed by George Cukor
1935/USA
Radio Pictures
First viewing
[box] Michael Fane: [speaking to Sylvia dressed as a boy] “I say, uh! I know what it is that gives me a queer feeling when I look at you. There’s something in you to be painted.”[/box]
This box-office bomb has everything going for it but a coherent script. Sylvia Scarlett (Katharine Hepburn) has lost her mother and her father (Edmund Gwenn) is an embezzler. They flee France for England, Sylvia disguised as a boy for reasons that are pretty unconvincing. On the crossing, they meet Cockney con artist Monkley (Cary Grant). After Sylvia/Sylvester repeatedly foils every scam the men try to work in London, the trio hooks up with a singer and decides to work as a traveling theater company touring seaside towns. Sylvia becomes enamoured of artist Michael (Brian Aherne) and reveals her gender but Michael is in love with an unfaithful Russian. After more comedy and drama, everybody pairs off satisfactorily.
This never grabbed me. The dialogue is pretty fey and the story is all over the place. Grant’s Cockney accent is fairly bad but he does a good job as a rogue and it’s interesting to see him not as the love interest for a change. Everybody else tries mightily to overcome their material with varied success. With the cast and personnel it should have been a classic. Too bad.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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