Reviews

The lively opening tacked-on credits scene with kids showing off how cool and rebellious they are while dancing to the John Barry groovy crime jazz theme will drag you in, and there is just about enough in here to keep you watching, but really only just enough. Don't worry if you miss any of the opening credits scene, it will be repeated later, and even that great theme song grows tired by the end of the film. The highlight is young minx Gillian Hills whose great performance makes me wonder why her career after this film consists of small parts and the odd TV show. I have a strange feeling the story of her life would make a much better film than this one. It's impossible to miss Oliver Reed as the non-speaking "Plaid Shirt" beatnik, and it's historically interesting to see just how much the British censors would let slide back then.

I'm a self-described noir nut and 9 out of 10 is basically my highest rating. That is except for those rare few films that touch me emotionally in a permanent way. 'In a Lonely Place' I saw for the first time on the big screen at a revival house about twenty years ago. When the curtain closed I literally couldn't move from my seat for several minutes. Since then I have revisited it dozens of times and it still turns me into a blubbering mess every time. Lots has been written about the style, setting, performances, dialogue, I'm sure it's all brilliant, but I am always too involved in the story to be bothered with any of that. So I'm not really going to review it properly since I can't be objective. For normal folks, who won't feel like they got hit with a ton of bricks by the end, I'm sure you will still be greatly entertained. But for nuts like me, watch out, it just might change your life.

There are just too many problems with this film for me to flip out about it like everybody else seems to. I don't think it should even be referred to as a pure noir. I have watched both versions and read the Cliff notes and the plot just about makes sense to me now. So OK forget the plot then, it is often less important than the style in noir. But the style isn't particularly memorable, it could have been a lot seedier even with the code restrictions. There is some great noir dialogue, at least in the 1946 released version, that alone clearly makes it worth seeing. I can't say if it the worst of the classic Philip Marlowe film adaptations but it is certainly not the best.

While reading all the dialogue of this silent film I found myself coming up with different accents for all the tough mugs inside my head. I couldn't help but act out the film myself using all the cliché gangster voices I've heard before in talkies. It's a nice way to engage with a film that got lost when sound came in. Other than that it wasn't terribly engaging, the story was a little convoluted and the focus was too much on the good honest cop and not enough on the gangsters. Louis Wolheim who plays the head mobster has a look that is so distinctive it seems he inadvertently became the model for the gangster caricatures in every cartoon that's been made since.

I didn't know anything about George Bancroft 48 hours ago, but after watching him star in two films in as many days, I'm impressed enough to seek out more of his work. Betty Compson was also terrific in a film that I can't easily fit in any category. I set out to watch it for the cinematography which puts it in the proto-noir category but I quickly found myself interested in what the actors were doing in the shadows and fog of this silent film. Unfortunately the story itself was something out of a Laurel & Hardy comedy but without the slapstick and jokes to help us suspend our disbelief. But you'll probably enjoy it, it's better than your average date movie.

I'm attempting to watch every film noir I can get my hands on in historical order, and this was supposedly the very first proto-noir. But after four hours of this I'm tempted to cancel the whole project. I'm sure students of silent German dramas will have tons of amazing insight about this film to share with you, but for me I just prefer concise stories and don't care much for characters with magical powers. It certainly did have it's memorable scenes and visuals but not enough to carry the story and keep me engaged. I will give Lang credit for the eccentric gang of characters he created who made up Mabuse's entourage, and in his future films he would take the best out of this experiment and leave out the rest.

This film was so completely forgettable I can't think of anything to write about it less than 12 hours after watching. But since my current project is to write a review for every single classic film noir I will give it a go. I'm sorry but I just can't get into a film with Angela Lansbury as the romantic femme-fatale lead. Maybe a case of reverse typecasting? I couldn't get all her later matronly roles out of my head. There was even a suggestion we might just see her swimming in the buff in an early scene, but you needn't worry, it was just a tease. Not even the loungey Les Baxter score can save this one, even though it's available as a free download your time is worth far more.

OK, first things first. This isn't a good film, no insights on the meaning of life here, not even a good proper noir ending. But with Raymond Burr playing a psychopathic "Lenny-type" villain who kidnaps a fetching young Natalie Wood, who could possibly not recommend this film? Filmed a year after her role in "Rebel Without a Cause" the alluring 18yo Wood is so at the top of her game that she reportedly coaxed the homosexual Burr into her bed during filming of this crime drama. Wood, whose drowning off Catalina Island back in 1981 was shrouded in such suspicion that the LA Coroner's Office was still investigating the case in 2013! Shame they don't make proper Noirs anymore, as the story of her final wild weekend would probably make a pretty good one. If Natalie isn't your cup of tea, feel free to pass on this film.

I've always seemed to enjoy films that were about a single event in real time. Archival time is obviously necessary for any story that spans more than a few hours, but real time films just seem to be inherently engaging. OK so the film isn't 14 hours long, but it does all take place in one spot on one day. This noir about a jumper on the side of a skyscraper in NYC is packed with great (if slightly cliché) characters, including the on-screen debut of Grace Kelly. Unfortunately many of the actors in this film were blacklisted during the HUAC witch hunt a few years later and would not be seen in films again. Uniquely, there is no score or music in the film outside of the titles which further adds to the realism.

This was an enjoyable, yet unremarkable, film that deals with a racket of women who marry multiple servicemen in order to collect their allotment benefit checks. It all seems like a rather elaborate way to earn a buck, and easily traceable. Playing the leader of the syndicate is actress Kay Francis in her final role. In the mid '30s she was under a Warner contract and was reportedly the highest paid actress in the world. But unfortunately by the end of that decade she had gotten the reputation of 'box office poison' and she had to finish her career in poverty row b movies like this one. The film also features Otto Kruger who plays his usual suave gentleman villain part, he is number 2 behind Francis at the top of the scheme. Walk, don't run to this one.

Certainly not an 'amazing' film, but enjoyable none the less. I would almost call it a skeptic movie since it pulls back the curtain on the tricks of a self-proclaimed spiritualist. I always enjoy films that expose 'mediums' for the charlatans they really are. There is nothing subtle about the cinematography of this film, there was a bit of an overkill on fog, shadows and low-angled shots. The film's cast got shaken up at the last minute and was originally supposed to star Carole Landis who died of an intentional drug overdose just two days before filming. This film is in the public domain and available to watch online for free.

This film was an unapologetic rip-off of "Double Indemnity" which has been called 'The First Film Noir' and was released a year earlier. Not a total failure, but without the star power and amazing dialog of 'Indemnity' there really is just no comparison. Of course you still get Hollywood rip- offs today, but seems they can't get away with anything so blatant as this low-budget rush job from PRC productions. The film does give you another look at Ann Savage who also played the femme fatale in another fantastic noir "Detour." Perhaps it is worth watching as a good example of what the lower tier or 'poverty row' studios could produce on a shoestring before they all gradually disappeared in the 50s.

Move along, there is nothing to see here. This was a completely forgettable film that takes place entirely inside a sadistic sanitarium. Now at first that may sound promising but with boring characters and ridiculous situations you will soon find yourself losing interest in this short b-movie. This film stars Richard Carlson who also featured in "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Do you remember his standout performance in that classic? Yeah, me neither. The directer Oscar Boetticher, would go on to direct many successful Westerns, but only after he changed his name to Bud. Apparently his new studio never bothered to Google him.

I've been in a few seedy nightclubs around the world and I have yet to find one where Rita Hayworth was saucily dancing in her bare feet. The rest of this mystery I've already forgotten and is just there as a vehicle for Rita's dance numbers (her singing was dubbed). The film was 'produced' by the Beckworth Corporation which was actually a front set up by Hayworth to reduce her tax bill. I'm not sure why they chose Trinidad as the locale, they didn't film one scene there and there weren't any Trini accents, music, or culture to be found in the movie. At the time T&T was simply a place in the Caribbean known for having a few US Naval bases and the subject of the song "Rum and Coca-Cola." This affair didn't end soon enough for me.

Remember when satanic cults were full of straight-laced middle-aged men and women sitting around in parlors wearing ties and wide brimmed hats? No I don't either, but according to this film that was the modus operandi of a group called The Palladists in Greenwich Village. We've probably never heard about them because they have stricter rules than The Fight Club, if a member talks about the Palladists outside the group their days are numbered. This creepy horror noir is enjoyable and worth a watch. If nothing else to see Hugh Beaumont show off his acting chops before he was typecast as Beaver Cleaver's father Ward. As it turns out, The Palladists was the alleged name of a secret society in France in the 19th century, so this film could claim it was "based on a true story" if it wanted to. When one of the members asks for proof that good is better than evil, I for one wasn't convinced by the protagonist's response.

This film should be required viewing in every journalism school. The one I went to made us watch "All the President's men" or some other self-aggrandizing garbage. But the truth is that there is little truth in the newspaper business and this Billy Wilder noir does a great job of driving that point home. It seems every generation gets their own "boy/baby/miner trapped in a well" story, so this film will remain forever timeless. I remember back in the 80s when it was Jessica McClure. This film drew it's inspiration from Floyd Collins who was trapped in a Kentucky cave in 1925 and three-year-old Kathy Fiscus who fell down a well in 1949, both were media circuses in their day. The media circus shown in this film happens on a huge set built behind a trading post near Gallup NM on Route 66 which itself became a roadside attraction for folks heading out west on the mother road for a few years after the film's release.

Long before 'The Parent Trap' we get some great split-screen special effects of Albert Dekker playing twins in this 1941 early Noir. But, it seems Dekker did such a great job of playing two starring roles in this film, that he spent most of the rest of his long career playing bit parts. He wasn't really that bad . . . or that good. Not the greatest film ever but worth a watch just for the wild vigilante mob that becomes the star of the show and is reminiscent of 'Frankenstein.' Plus how can you go wrong with a sweet innocent lead heroine named Mollie Pickens and several scenes with a newsboy walking down the street shouting, "Extra, Extra . . ." to help move the plot along?

This is yet another take on the Faust tale. Other then perhaps the addition of a femme fatale the film really offers nothing new to the mix. Ray Milland as the devil is the only reason to sit through this, he really plays it cool and he is certainly a demon I'd want to make deals with. When a reporter asked the Welsh Milland at age 80 if he had any big plans he replied, ''Just to go home now and sit in my black leather chair and read. I've read everything, I think. I've got 3,000 books at home, and, believe it or not, I've read every one of them, including the Bible. It turned out to be a pretty dirty book.''

With the great acting and script Alias Nick Beal is actually pretty enjoyable up until the conclusion. I don't know if the Hays Code demanded that they wrap it up in such an antiseptic fashion, but the ending was such puke it made me forget about anything good that may have come before.

This is an exciting quick-moving suspenseful film and I will recommend it even though I didn't care for the morally dubious conclusion. Highlights include the lead running from his stalker through a deserted 1948 downtown LA. We get a glimpse of The Angel's Flight railway, the extremely short funicular featured in about 20 films, it seems lots of directors thought it looked cool moving diagonally through the back of their shots. When it's not down for repairs you can still ride its' complete one block route today for two bits. The original was taken down and rebuilt in a new location a 1/2 block south. Janet Leigh was in this film, and she's apparently such a great actor I didn't even realize it was her until I saw her name in the credits, which very oddly for that era were at the end of the film instead of the beginning.

I had high hopes for this film. The screenplay is by Herman J Mankiewicz of 'Citizen Kane' fame and it's directed by Nicholas Ray and features actress Gloria Grahame. Ray also directed one of my favorite films 'In A Lonely Place' in which Grahame also starred. The great side-story on the film here is how the two of them met on the set and zipped off to Vegas so that Grahame could get a quickie divorce from her then husband and marry Ray. Maybe they should have focused on making this a watchable film instead of cooing over each other. Like most noirs this had tons of flashbacks, but generally in other movies they are used to reveal surprising clues, here they are a gimmick to tell every irrelevant detail of somebody's life which we could care less about. Avoid this film and watch 'In a Lonely Place' instead.

Perhaps the only film which could be called a "Shakespearean Noir." It features extended scenes from Othello, a play within the film, and maybe if I knew that story a bit better I would have enjoyed the film more. The movie does have a great look to it and a great conclusion so the literary among you will enjoy it. The film was nominated for four Oscars and won two including Best Actor for Ronald Colman, so the powers that be obviously didn't consider it to be just a typical grimy B film when it was released like most films we now label as noirs. It does include a scene with the typical gang of 5 detectives from the homicide squad. You know the ones, always full of colorful characters telling jokes. Loudly saying insensitive things like, "Looks like we got a very routine knock off here." as they enter a sensitive crime scene surrounded by locals who probably knew the deceased.