In Film Noir, words are frequently cheap. No matter how witty Philip Marlowe's comebacks may be, it doesn't stop him from frequently punched out. But no matter how futile words at time may seem on the screen, every since movies learned to talk they've been producing line after line, but some movies take words to another level, Laura is one of those movie.
Based on the novel by Vera Caspary, Laura begins with the murder investigation of the titular Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who was killed by a shotgun blast in the face. Working the case is New York police detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), while investigating he interviews the important figures in Laura's life, beginning with her mentor, the venomous and articulate columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). He relates his history with her, rising from lowly office girl to the toast of socialite New York City with Waldo guidance. Waldo's remembrances also introduce us to Laura's fiancee, gold digging playboy Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). McPherson also questions him, discovering that Shelby was unfaithful to Laura, and that Waldo was also in love with Laura causing him to jealously despises Shelby. Also involved is Laura's aunt, Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), who is in love with Shelby. Each has a motive to commit the murder, and each clearly could have done it. A side story is McPherson falling in love with Laura himself, by hearing about her, reading her journals, and staring at the painting of her hanging in her room. Laura is just as much stage play as it is movie, heavy on dialogue and low on action, most of the movie takes place in the drawing rooms of New York apartments, with an occasional police precinct mixed in. It is a movie about talking, with McPherson playing the role of the straight-man, setting the table for Waldo's poisonous soliloquies, Shelby's playboy shallowness, and Laura's bitter resentments. Laura narrows it's focus on just the five main characters, allowing for them to be fully fleshed out, which is what makes the movie great, the deep and interesting characterizations, portrayed perfectly by the cast. This is accentuated with the simple, clean cinematography and the foreboding atmosphere, both from Otto Preminger's deft direction and David Raskin's haunting score.
Laura is a movie that asks you to believe that one woman could be so beautiful and fascinating that three men fall in love with her, including one who has never met her. When she appears on the screen, the pressure is on Gene Tierney to deliver a performance that transfixes the audience as much as much as the men in her life were, and Tierney delivers the finest performance of her career.
In the mid-1950s, communist paranoia in the United States was at an all time high, McCarthyism was in full prominence, and the power of the hydrogen bomb was a daily fear. Movies at the time reflected this, giant bugs bred of nuclear testing and ambiguous spy thrillers were just as common as romances and comedies. Even Film Noir wasn't exempt, with Kiss Me Deadly as the prime example.
The movie begins with a rush, as a young woman in a trench coat, Christina (Cloris Leachman) is running down the highway barefoot, trying to desperately to stop a car. She eventually stop Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), a private detective in Los Angeles, who helps her escape from the police who are searching for her. They are stopped by mysterious men, who torture Christina to death, then attempt to dispose of the pair by sending Hammer's car over the cliff. He survives however, and beings investigating the whole affair, leading him all across Los Angeles where he uncovers a vast conspiracy. Any more explaining of the plot would be a discredit to the film, which is one of the most twisting narratives in the a Noir canon. Even if the plot wasn't great, the rest of the movie is so good, it would still be great. Hammer is a fascinating main character because he is so dislikable, he is misogynistic, insensitive, and brutish. In Noir, private detectives are generally viewed poorly by the authorities, but Hammer is downright despised as a "divorce dick" who uses his secretary Velda (Maxine Cooper) to get dirt on husbands, while he seduces the wives, playing both sides against the middle for maximum gain. This is made even more repulsive by the fact that Velda is in love with him, yet he keeps sending her off to the husbands, despite it obviously making her uncomfortable. Yet, as despicable as Hammer is, he still tries to do the right thing and help Christina posthumously, which tentatively gets us one his side. Another tremendous part of the movie is the on-location shooting all over Los Angeles utilizing as many spots around the city as possible. Director Robert Aldrich puts the action outdoors as much as possible and it really puts life into both day and night scenes. He also makes great use of close up facial reactions and off camera action, as many times there is more power in the unseen than the seen.
Based on a novel by hardboiled author Mikey Spillane and adapted by A.I. Bezzerides, Kiss Me Deadly mixes elements of thriller and science fiction into the tried and true Noir formula with great affect. The dialogue is equally trashy, sarcastic, and sardonic and spoken by characters just as derisive. Aldrich was a master of the genre and expertly executes one of the most shocking and horrifying endings in movie history, fitting end to the film.
Film Noir has become synonymous with dark and gloomy city streets, but many of the best the genre has to offer go off that well beaten path. One of the most notable is Ace in the Hole, set in the Albuquerque, New Mexico and the surrounding countryside, it is Noir in harsh desert sunlight. It is also a shockingly current narrative that's message plays as just well today as it did when it was released.
Kirk Douglas stars as Chuck Tatum, a bombastic reporter who has been fired from several big city newspapers. He joins the small time Albuquerque Sun-Times, hoping to break a big story as his ticket back to the big time. After laboring in obscurity for over a year, Tatum, along with young photographer Herbie Cook (Robert Arthur) finally finds his story when the pair stop at an isolated roadside gas station built near an Indian burial ground. He discovers that the owner of the gas station, Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict) is trapped in the caves under the burial ground. Sensing a big story, he prints it as front page news and soon it becomes a national sensation, bring people from all over the country to see the "cursed caves" and their trapped victim. Tatum starts manipulating circumstances to prolong Minosa's entombment, as well as becoming involved with Minosa's discontented wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling) which begins to send his life, and his story, spiraling out of control. Director Billy Wilder is the master of effective, emotional camera work and the film ends with one of his trademark powerhouse closing shots. Wilder also wrote the script, along with Walter Newman and Lesser Samuels, and it is full of his signature, witty dialogue. He pulls no punches in his attacks of the media. The character of Tatum is a huge, dominating personality and it's hard to imagine any other actor than Douglas being able to play it better, while Sterling is equally well cast as the cheap and sleazy bottle-blond Lorrain.
Ace in the Hole is a scathing indictment on the press at the time, but it is even more relevant today. Wilder was shocked by the exploitative "vultures" willing to sacrifice morals and human decency for the sake of the story, but what would he think of the Internet, TMZ, and reality shows today?
While the major studios of Hollywood's Golden Age, such as MGM, Paramount, and Warner Brothers are well known and still operate today, there were many other studios producing movies in those day. Some of which were very small operations that had equally sized budgets so that they became known as "poverty row" studios. One these studios was called Producers Releasing Company, which was only around for 7 years. PRC, just two years before disappearing from movie history, produced a little, unheralded Noir on a threadbare budget that was released without note or fanfare, yet in 1992 was given the honor of being placed in the Nation Film Registry by the Library of Congress. That movie is Detour.
The plot of Detour follows Al Roberts (Tom Neal) a New York piano player who is dating Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake) a nightclub singer who leaves for Hollywood for fame and fortune. Al decides to follow her there, but has to hitchhike across the country. Along the way, he accidentally kills a man giving him a ride, but instead of calling the police, he steals the man's identity and property. Unfortunately, he is found out by another drifter Vera (Ann Savage) who wants in on the scheme. The rest of the movies records their partnership and falling out in dramatic fashion. All throughout the movie, the lack of budget is clear; the rear projection effects while driving are so poor that at one point the negative is flipped and cars are shown driving on the left side of the road. There is really only one major set, a cheap hotel room that is only made look more dingy by the low budget, which add to the movie. It looks like the kind of shoddy hotel room two desperate people like Al and Vera would stop in. There is no Hollywood glisten in this movie, just two lost characters clinging to life. Whether it was intentional or not, the hopeless nature of Detour reflected the situation that many people heading to Hollywood faced. Instead of being greeted by producers breaking down their door looking for the next star, they faced disappointment, poverty, and unachievable goals. It captures human condition in those times better than any big studio production, if Sunset Boulevard is about the skeletons Hollywood's closet, Detour is the rotting corpse in the basement.
Shot in less than three weeks with a tiny budget, no stars, and only 68 minutes long, Detour has no right being anything but a forgotten film that faded into complete obscurity long ago, however it is an unforgettable masterpiece. Few movies leave a lasting impression like this, effectively using the atmosphere, the feeling of dread and hopelessness in the lives of two unglamorous actors portraying two dead-end characters. Detour isn't just the best B movie ever made, it is one of the best period.
Convoluted plots are a common characteristic of Film Noir, influenced by the equally complex hardboiled crime novels that inspired them. Large casts of characters, webs of motivations, as well double and triple crosses are all staples of the genre. Sometimes this is to the detriment of the plot, which becomes too complicated for it's own good and distracting from the movie itself, while other's are too simplistic and don't hold the audiences interest. The Big Sleep is the rare movie that is able to both have a intricate story while still being completely entertaining and engaging.
Based on the novel by Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep features Noir luminary Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart), a Los Angeles private detective. Marlowe is hired by the rich and decrepit General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to find out who is blackmailing him, as well as keeping an eye on his wild daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers), who is the subject of the blackmail. Also a part of it is Carmen's older sister Vivian (Lauren Bacall), who helps Marlowe investigate and the two become involved. While on the case, Marlowe encounters multiple murders, larceny, kidnapping, and even more blackmail. It is a plot so full of twists and turns that at one point director Howard Hawks was confused about who had killed one character, so he asked the screenwriters but they didn't know either, so Chandler was called and he even he wasn't sure. Hawks was a veteran director of many big time Hollywood productions by this time and does a great job making the plot audience-friendly, but without having to dumb it down. His direction is understand but definitively classic Noir, with dimly lit interiors and a lush, upper-crust Los Angeles setting. Chandler's crackling dialogue is mostly intact, brushed up for the big screen by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman. The Big Sleep is at it best when Marlowe is shooting verbal daggers at everyone in sight and trading barbs with Vivian. Bogart and Bacall's famous screen chemistry is in full effect and the two embody the cynical Noir love story.
The Big Sleep, complicated as it is, is able to deliver plenty of small moments as well, which is the mark a true film. The movie is just as likely to give you a big shootout moment as it is a well delivered line of dialogue. It is one of the shinning examples of a big budget Film Noir, with an A-list director and actors that stays true to it's hardboiled heart.
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