Category Archives: noir

Movie Review: Night has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

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John Triton (Edward G. Robinson) a stage mentalist working with his fiancé and best friend instead of the manipulated performance begins having spontaneous and accurate psychic visions. After several come to pass precisely as he envisioned, Triton flees, leaving his fiancé and friend without an explanation, hoping his absence will avert her death that he foresaw.

Paramount PIctures

Isolating himself from humanity and surviving by making mail-order tricks, Triton desperately avoids contact with people, unwilling to foresee more tragedy. However, when circumstances bring him into the orbit of his former fiancé’s daughter (Gail Russell) and his visions again spell doom, Triton struggles to prevent the future that now seems predestined.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes is usually categorized as a film noir, but the paranormal aspects make this a difficult movie to place definitively into any single genre. Where noir is often propelled by human weaknesses such as lust or greed, Eyes finds its motivation in Triton’s deep desire to not be the herald of disaster. The seemingly doomed nature of his vision, presenting what appears to be a hard, unalterable future, gives this film a touch of horror. Triton is a tragic character and, like all really good tragic characters, he is very sympathetic. He never sought the power that came to define his life. He never understood it and wanted nothing more than to be rid of it. Fate commandeered his life leaving him as helpless as a leaf blown by a wind. Robinson gives a fine nuanced performance, and he is the heart of this film. had he been unable to exude the required pathos none of it would have worked.

When I began watching Night has a Thousand Eyes, even though it is not a terribly long movie, I expected to watch only a portion before going to bed, but instead it sucked me in, and I completed the movie in a single sitting. It is well worth the watch.

Night has a Thousand Eyes is currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.

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First Episode Review: MOBLAND

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Sunday saw the release on Paramount+ of Mobland, billed as ‘from the criminal world of Guy Ritchie.’

Paramount+

Set in the milieu of the present-day London world of criminal gangs and families of organized crime, Mobland seems to focus on the rivalry between competing families The Harrigans, led by Conrad (Pierce Brosnan) his wife Maeve (Helen Mirren) an assortment of their adult children along with the family’s chief fixer, Harry (Tom Hardy) and The Stevensons, led by Ritchie (Geoff Bell).

After an unexplained night out together between Eddie Harrigan and Tommy Stevenson leads to crisis the tensions between the family ramps up when Tommy Stevenson goes missing the open warfare is place in the table by his concerned father.

Amid the growing conflict Conrad Harrigan learns of a treason in his inner circle creating pressure on his organization in addition what is coming from the Stevensons.

The initial episode introduces a bewildering number of characters in the cast, some of which may turn out to be less consistent in their appearances than others but still requiring a sharp focus while watching. Mobland like much of Guy Ritchie’s crime movies, is not something one can take in casually while on a mobile device or performing household chores. To follow the intricate plotting and large cast demand attention.

In my opinion it is worth that attention. These are deeply crafted characters being performed by a very talented cast. Of course, an opening episode directed by a major director may not show the entire show’s true quality but so far this is something to look forward to each week.

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Movie Review: Diabolique (1955)

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At a run-down private school in France a cruel schoolmaster torments his mistress and assaults his wife prompting the women to conspire in his murder.

I was supposed to see this film on the big screen with the San Diego Film Geeks monthly screening at the Digital Gym but came down with a cold that weekend and was forced to miss it. Luckily the film is playing on the Criterion Channel.

Artwork: Criterion Collection

Diabolique is considered a classic of the thriller genre. Starring Vera Clouzot as Christina, the Spanish spouse of cruel headmaster Michael (Paul Meurisse) and Simone Signoret as Nicole a teacher at the school and Michael’s mistress. Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Vera’s husband, the film is a tight suspenseful production in the vein of a Hitchcock movie. (The novel which the film was adapted from was one Hitchcock wanted but Henri-Georges Clouzot beat him to it.) Murders never come off as planned and murderers rarely are truthful on their lives leading to a story with twists and reveals right up to the final shot. It is an ironic tragedy that Vera Clouzot, playing a woman with a serious heart condition, died suddenly from a cardiac event just 5 years after Diabolique’s release.

There is a reason why this is considered a classic. Every aspect of the production works, the performances, the cinematography, and the direction all take what is a fairly standard film noir set-up and play it to near perfection. I regret that illness robbed me of the chance to see it for the first time in a proper is small theater.

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A New Year a New 12 Month Film Festival

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A local cinephile club, Film Geeks San Diego, among other events they hold presents a year-long film festival hosted by the local micro-theater Digital Gym. Last year’s festival celebrated the 70th anniversary of the king of the monsters Godzilla and after a tie vote this year’s has two themes, neo-noir and Foreign Horror. The festival kicked off with the British neo-noir Get Carter.

MGM-EMI

Adapted from the novel Jack’s Return Home, the film follows Jack Carter (Michael Caine) returning to his hated hometown of Newcastle in the north of England to investigate the mysterious death of his brother. Jack, a mob enforcer, stirs up trouble with both the local criminal underworld and his employers to discover the truth about his brother’s automobile ‘accident.’

Both Director Mike Hodges and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky history of working with documentaries provide them with the skills to present Get Carter in a realistic and dirty manner. This is not a movie the idealizes its gangster characters or their lives but rather shows that their world is red in tooth and claw where life is nasty, brutish, and short. Jack is no hero. His motivations are purely familial and the pain, suffering, and death that follow in his wake have little weight on his conscience. The story and the mood remain deeply cynical right to the film’s dark and uncompromising final shots.

I have seen Get Carter before, at home on DVD but even in a tiny theater the film exudes power on this large screen that is often absent when viewed casually in the living room.

There have been two other cinematic adaptation of this novel a remake with the same title in 2000 starring Sylvester Stallone which jettisons much of the cynicism that make the British film so powerful and a blaxploitation adaptation The Hitman in 1972. (I must hunt that one down.)

Next month the festival continues with the 1955 French film Diabolique.

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Return to Twin Peaks, not Twin Peaks: The Return

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During spooky season I posted that my sweetie-wife and I were doing a rewatch of the 90’s television series Twin Peaks.

I had some exposure to the uniqueness of David Lynch prior to the series. As part of a double feature at a rep theater I had seen Eraserhead, and it never made sense to me. Then I saw his adaptation of Dune, a flawed but visually stunning film that to me is the least David Lynch he ever made. However, I fell in love with Blue Velvet a surreal neo-noir that was both crime melodrama and an exploration of the twisted darkness that hides in all of us.

When Twin Peaks hit the air my very first thought was ‘Oh, this is Blue Velvet for television.’ I had no conception of just how strange, cosmic, and beyond rational the series would delve.

ABC Television

Our rewatch has reached the second of half of season two and it has been quite a ride. At times the series is a less than middling nighttime soap opera, with poorly executed noir styled plots that quickly fizzle out, at other times it’s a bizarre comedy with such questionable material as a middle-aged woman delusionally going to high school and using her inhuman muscular strength to sexually hares teenage boys. And yet it always retains those elements that are pure horror, of worlds beyond our own intruding with sadistic demons and entrapping human souls not only in depravity but with elements of furniture.

As we swing into the final episodes air back in the 90’s and the terrifying nature of the Black Lodge, the possessing demons, and a cliff hanger that went unresolved for 25 years I can’t help, despite all its flaws, to salute the inventions of the series.

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Movie Review Brainstorm: (1965)

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Warner Brothers

Jim Grayam (Jeffrey Hunter, a year prior to his turn in Star Trek’s 1st failed pilot) discovers Lorrie Benson (Anne Francis) passed out in her car stopped dangerously on a railroad crossing. Jim moves the car second ahead of a speeding train and returns Lorrie to her home and her possessive and domineering husband millionaire Cort Benson (Dana Andrews). Eschewing any monetary reward Jim is pulled back into Lorrie’s orbit when she insists on his attendance at a party while her husband is away. Jim and Lorrie begin a torrid affair. (Tastefully off screen as the production while weakened still ruled in 1965.) Benson learning of the affair, deploys his wealth and contacts to destroy Jim’s life and the couple begin to plot their escape with the murder of her husband.

Directed by William Conrad who is best known as an actor, Brainstorm is a tight and fairly entertaining late film noir. There is enough flair in the presentation that make one regret that Conrad’s turned more to performance and less towards direction. Somewhat hampered by the jazz score, as many lesser budgeted films of this period were, the movie still is bolstered by fine performances and reveals that organically develop from the noir plotting.

Anne Francis is quite convincing as Lorrie the trapped spouse of an emotionally abusive man. Her character is not the conniving plotted femme fetal of film noir but rather a sympathetic and terrified woman desperate for escape, but ultimately too broken to stand on her own.

Jeffrey Hunter threw himself into the part of Jim Grayam. Skilled at portraying deeply internal characters here Hunter not only employs those talents but in the film’s third act get to let loose and devour the scenery with deliberately overly expansive performance.

Dana Andrews turns in a perfectly acceptable performance, but his character is one there to drive the plot and as such is the least developed of the core three.

Sam Leavitt’s cinematography is not particularly atmospheric nor is it overly pedestrian but rather balances neatly between the two.

Brainstorm is part of the Criterion Channel’s Hollywood Crack-up collection, a compilation of films dealing with madness and mental manipulation. Before this set appeared on the channel I had never heard of Brainstorm (1965) but I do not regret the one and three-quarters hours I spent Sunday evening watching this piece of cinema.

Brainstorm is currently streaming on The Criterioon Channel.

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Series Review: Monsieur Spade

AMC and Studio Canal

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Set some twenty-odd years after the events of The Maltese Falcon Monsieur Space follows famed private detective Sam Spade (Clive Owen) as a retired man of luxury in the South of France. Originally drawn to the small village of Bozouls fulfilling a task for a former flame Sam has settled into a comfortable life but dogged by loss. When brutal murders at as local orphanage, a missing child, and the teenage daughter of his former love becomes intertwined Sam is forced to once again practice his profession in a town bursting with secrets worth killing over.

Co-created by Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) and Tom Fontana (Oz) this series has the writing pedigree to be peak television but sadly stumbles right at the finish line.

Clive Owen does a quite good job in his portrayal of Spade, a man who has suffered too much emotional trauma and wants nothing more than to swim in his pool, alone. The cast, a collection of French and British actors for the most part, are well suited for their roles and inhabit their diverse, complex, and secretive lives quite well. The problem with the series really lives in the final episode.

It is said that every story begins with a promise. A contract between the teller and audience about what sort of story is being shared and violating that contract loses the audience. Genre often cements the nature of that promise. With detective fiction an element of that promise is that the detective will by reason, logic, and pure skill, untangle to the web of lies revealing the truth. Holmes will explain it all to Watson and justice arrives with our satisfaction.

Monsieur Spade breaks this inherent promise of mystery stories. The final episode, seemingly in a mad rush to wrap up all story and plotline before the hour has ended, resolves by nearly a Deus ex machina sidelining the protagonist with Spade no more essential to the resolution that the police detectives lectured by the private detective. Frank and Fontana are talented writers with enormous gifts for character and story, so this collapse of basic writing seems far out of character. Television and film are complex mediums for telling stories and all sorts of events can intrude on a production forcing last minute changes that degrade the final product. Perhaps that is what happened here. Whatever the cause Monsieur Spade after flying true for several episodes untimely missed the target entirely.

Monsieur Spade streams on AMC+.

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More Series Impressions: Monsieur Spade

AMC Studios & Studio Canal

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It is the early 1960s and private detective Sam Spade (Clive Owen) is a rich retired gentleman living in comfort and ease on an estate in the south of France. Spade had come to France’s Mediterranean coast delivering a young girl to a family that denied her paternity and ended up in a place where he believed he might finally find peace. However, with the return of a renowned troublemaker Same is thrust into the middle of a grisly mass murder and once again must prove himself the master detective.

I have been a fan of The Maltese Falcon since I was exposed to its brilliance in a film class back in the early 80s. I own a copy on Blu-ray disc and of course I have read the novel. When I heard that Scott Frank, the creator and showrunner for The Queens Gambit, was creating a series about a retired Sam Spade my interest shot up like a rocket.

Monsieur Spade, much like The Queens Gambit, reveals its story by use of a fractured timeline, covering both Spade’s arrival in the small French town and his comfortable life a few years after. One does not need to have seen or closely remember The Maltese Falcon in order to enjoy this well-produced series, but having such information fresh or well-recalled will enhance your viewing experience as characters and locals from that classic film and novel are referenced. The events of the adventure may yet play a major role in the unfolding mystery but as of the 90-minute pilot episode they provide color for the character.

Owen makes a very credible Spade. That are moment when the costuming, hair, make-up, and framing recall Bogart’s interpretation of the character quite strongly. The episodes were produced in France and utilizes a number of that nation’s actors helping cement a realism about the time and place of the tale. The premier episode, while carrying the heavy load of establishing characters and their history, and there is a large number of characters with interlocking backstories to follow, manages to be compelling drama in its own right and has hooked me for the rest of the series.

Monsieur Spade streams on AMC and AMC+.

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Spooky Season Finale: Mulholland Dr.

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I had planned to cap off Spooky Season with a re-watch of David Lynch’s masterpiece Mulholland Dr., but sadly sleeping poorly on the night of the 30th, having extra errands add extra stressors to the day, getting zero words down on my werewolf novel, and a minor headache in the evening left me with the brain capacity of a reanimated slug.

Mulholland Dr. is an amazing piece of cinema that the first couple of time I viewed it left deep emotional impacts while remaining just out of intellectual understanding. I think I finally have an interpretation that works for all the aspects of the film, but it could be something entirely of my own invention. Lynch’s work, with the exception of his adaptation of Dune, defies convention and straight forward representation.

The key to understanding Mulholland Dr. is knowing that one of Lynch’s favorite and formative films is 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, and this film is his most direct reinterpretation of that classic movie’s themes. Lynch’s film is the story of a young woman, Diane, played by Naomi Watts, who dreams herself to a magical setting, Hollywood, which she describes a ‘this dream place.’ In the land of her dreams Diane is instantly recognized for her tremendous acting talent and falls in love with a mysterious amnesiac woman, Rita, that loves her back. There are subplots with a vain director tormented by infidelity and criminals forcing his casting choices, but the locus of Diane’s dreams are her career and the love between her and ‘Rita.’ None of this is real and more than halfway through the film we are shown, but it is never explained to us, Diane’s real life, where she is Betty, her career is shit, the woman she loved, ‘Rita’ has left her to marry a man, and everything ends in murder and madness.

In The Wizard of Oz, we experience Dorothy’s real world before being shunted of to her fantastic fantasy. In the end we return to reality and the deeply uncynical message that there is no place like home. Mulholland Dr. inverts all this, we first experience the Diane’s fantasy, unaware that all the characters in it are reinterpretations of people she has already met, so when we meet them in the real world it is reality that is strange, threatening, and confusing. Our disenchantment with reality is the same as Diane’s. This is not the glittering land of dreams that Hollywood has always presented itself to be, and we do not like that. In the end Diane’s madness at what she has done in reality breaks down her ability to separate dream from reality and what had once been a dream transforms into a nightmare as she pursued by figures of innocence from her dream to her death.

Mulholland Dr. is rarely counted among the films or horror but the deep unease and unsettling nature the film places for me it squarely in that genre. It is a film of dreams and nightmares and how though those two things feel very different that are inf act the same thing.

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Classic Noir Review: Don’t Bother to Knock

 

Nell (Marilyn Monroe), a young woman shattered by grief and with only a tenuous grasp on

20th Century Fox Studios

reality, has, thanks to her Uncle Eddie (Elisha Cook Jr.) an elevator operator, been hired to baby sit Bunny, an eight-year-old, in a posh hotel while her parents attend a convention banquet. Elsewhere in the hotel Jed Towers (Richard Widmark) is coming to grips with his lady love, Lyn (Anne Bancroft) ending their relationship because Jed is not empathic with a cold heart. Spotting each other in their respective hotel room across a courtyard, Jed and Nell begin a flirtation that dangerously unhinges Nell from reality with potentially lethal outcomes.

On screen, I have seen Ms. Monroe in all sorts of emotional states, she has been ditzy, she has been sexy, she has been conniving but until last night I had never experience Marilyn Monroe as frightening. More than once in the film when Nell, disturbed and distraught, viewed her babysitting charge as an impediment the cold, calculating, and evil intent upon her face as she contemplated murdering a child was more horrific than many modern blood and gore movies.

The simple, spare direction of Roy Ward Baker, here simply credited as Roy Baker, elevates the taunt tension filled atmosphere of the film. With its brief running time and limited set, the entire story unfolds in the hotel over a single evening, Don’t Bother to Knock could very have been a B picture but there is nothing ‘B’ about Marilyn Monroe’s chilling performance.

Don’t Bother to Knock is currently playing on The Criterion Channel as part of the collection ‘Starring Marilyn Monroe,’ and available on VOD for rental elsewhere.

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