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What are the best openings in noir films? Touch of Evil has already been mentioned, I'd throw Kiss Me Deadly out there as well (also an amazing ending and a kinda mediocre middle if I'm being honest), what else do we got?
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Nov 2, 2023 06:46
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This one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film) My very first Noir film. The tone and cinematography got me in a way that I could not understand at the time (I was like 12) but it got me hooked on noir films before I even knew it was a genre.
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Nov 2, 2023 12:16
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Cat Army
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Air Skwirl posted:What are the best openings in noir films? Touch of Evil has already been mentioned, I'd throw Kiss Me Deadly out there as well (also an amazing ending and a kinda mediocre middle if I'm being honest), what else do we got? Sunset Boulevard and The Killers have to be way up there for the classic era.
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Nov 2, 2023 19:27
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I haven't fallen behind on noirs but I have fallen behind on posts. And we're only a few days into the month! Hopefully I'll catch up. A hint for the next two: one's a 1946 British noir centered around a murder mystery, and another is a 1949 noir with director of photography John Alton and a bit of a genre crossover. For now, though, we have British noir #2: Ministry of Fear (1944), dir. Fritz Lang  1943 London is being bombed by the Germans, but that's just one of the many things Ray Milland (whom we've seen in previous years in The Big Clock and Alias Nick Beal) has to put up with. He has just gotten out of an asylum and he's on his way to London when he gets drawn into some sort of convoluted scheme which he can barely begin to figure out. And the bodies are starting to pile up!  Quite decent overall. Milland is sort of straight down the middle, with the exception of some fun unnerving stuff right at the beginning, but that's fine. The movie cuts a lot of the tortured complexity of Graham Greene's novel, but that's also fine (although I think a movie with that stuff would be pretty dope. Time for a Nightmare Alley style remake/reimaginging I'd say). Fritz Lang of course has a flair for visuals and the movie coasts on the strength of the unnerving stuff plus a engaging spy narrative.  It loses a bit of steam in the last act but the climax is very nice. Noir mainstay Dan Duryea shows up for a few scenes which is always fun. The plot is I guess quite improbable but whatever. Cake plays a crucial role. 84/100
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Nov 3, 2023 17:25
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 The Verdict (1946), dir. Don Siegel  We're still in London, although now it's 1890 and it's quite dark and foggy even for a noir. Sydney Greenstreet (we saw him in Conflict), in charge of Scotland Yard, learns he has accidentally sent an innocent man to the gallows. He immediately resigns, which is unfortunate timing because one of his neighbors and friends, Morton Lowry, is murdered that night. Peter Lorre, another friend and neighbor (whom we last saw in The Chase, is naturally drawn into the case, as are various other people.  Another decent movie. This one leans quite a bit on the murder mystery, which involves someone being murdered in a locked room, which seems impossible, and there are some fun scenes with people hiding in closets or getting ominous notes delivered or whatever. The plot is not too hard to guess but it does keep things kind of open until the end, and everyone does a nice job playing their roles, especially JJoan Lorring, who rather broadly but aptly plays a music hall singer involved in the case.  This is Don Siegel's first movie: he'd go on to make stuff like Dirty Harry and Invasion of the Body Snatchers along with some more noirs and neo-noirs, like Private Hell 36 and The Killers. My main issue with this movie is that the noiry stuff is relatively muted: it's aptly dark and foggy but the plot itself doesn't get too dirty and desparate until everything is revelaed, which is a little while to wait for this sort of thing. Still, quite good fun. 80/100
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Nov 4, 2023 15:53
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 Crossfire (1947), dir. Edward Dmytryk  Mid-late 1940s Washington DC. A man is beaten to death in his hotel room and the chief suspect is George Cooper, who is mostly known for this film. Robert Young is on the case, helped by Robert Ryan, a soldier who was also there that night, and impeded by Robert Mitchum, who is convinced Cooper wouldn't hurt a fly. Cooper's wife, Jacqueline White, and working girl Gloria Grahame get involved, as does Paul Kelly in a couple memorable scenes. Also be on the lookout for Kenneth MacDonald, who has a one scne uncredited role.  Pretty great. The movie deals with a few themes, like soldiers coming home from war, infidelity, and prejudice, which is the big one. It's based on a book where the relevant prejudice was heterosexism. The Hays Code prevented overt mention of homosexuality so they changed it to anti-Semitism for the movie and it works just fine, if you ask me. The movie gets sort of preachy but if you can stand that, I think it's excellent. It often looks great (with some fantastic noir lighting), the three Roberts starring in the movie are excellent, and like I noted before, Paul Kelly is a standout in a couple scenes.  This is one of the few noirs ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (dunno if it's that good, but I'd have to take a look back at 1947 - honestly just from that year I think Body and Soul, Nightmare Alley, Born to Kill, Brute Force, and Out of the Past are better noirs, let alone better movies) and also one of the few to have a Best Supporting Actor win (Robert Ryan, who deserves it). Ryan you may recall from The Set-Up and Odds Against Tomorrow, two of my favorite noirs of all time, or On Dangerous Ground and Act of Violence, both excellent, or Caught and The Outfit, which are very decent. As you can tell he's got a pretty good noir CV, and that's only counting stuff I've posted in this thread over the years. 85/100
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Nov 5, 2023 15:03
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TychoCelchuuu posted:
goddamn that's a good year
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Nov 6, 2023 05:49
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Time for another from that year! I guess you could call this one a "repeat performance." Repeat Performance (1947), dir. Alfred L. Werker  New Year's Eve 1946, New York City. Joan Leslie, famous stage actress, shoots her husband Louis Hayward dead. She is not thrilled with the situation and wishes she could relive the past year, when everything went wrong. Luckily magically she goes back a year and that's the movie!  Decent. I think a lot of people like this more than me because it takes soem big bites out of some fun themes, like fate and especially the inevitability of bad stuff in noir films. The oddness of the central conceit makes the film feel interesting for a while near the beginning, and although it's all shot on sets, I think, it does basically feel like you're hanging out with high society in New York in the 40s which is always fun.  The main criticism is that it doesn't have a lot of cards to play so it repeats the same beats a few times. It basically runs out of steam and has to tread water until it gets to the exciting (albeit rather predictable) finale. Absolutely worth watching, especially if you find the central conceit interesting, but for me there's not much to make it a classic. 79/100
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Nov 7, 2023 13:55
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 Secret Beyond the Door (1947), dir. Fritz Lang  We're back with another Fritz Lang movie, this time starring Joan Bennett as a trust fund New Yorker who marries a guy she falls for very quickly on a vacation in Mexico. The guy, Michael Redgrave, seems suspiciously obsessed with murder, which is what we would refer to today as a "red flag." Other red flags become apparent as she moves with him to his home in New England and learns that he has a dead wife he never mentioned, plus a live son he also never mentioned. These are also "red flags." He also has a creepy secretary, Barbara O'Neil.  Pretty good. Sometimes a movie like this can get sort of tedious because you're like "listen, lady, you're a huge loving idiot" and you're just waiting for her to come to her wits and say "yeah sorry I'm moving back to New York, good luck with being a huge loving psycho. BTW we're divorced." But this movie does a good job explaining why she wouldn't do that, and it does a good job building the tension naturally and making the mystery interesting but not so all-important that you feel like you're watching a JJ Abrams puzzle box or something.  There's some silly psychology, which I guess comes with the territory for movies about crazy people, and the climax perhaps stretches on a little long. But it looks great, and the son that Redgrave never mentioned is kind if hilariously precocious (and barely in the movie, so he doesn't overstay his welcome) so that's fun. 80/100
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Nov 8, 2023 12:49
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 Border Incident (1949), dir. Anthony Mann  Anthony Mann (director of He Walked by Night, Raw Deal, and T-Men, all of which I think we've covered in previous years) brings us another of his "based on real poo poo that totally actually happens all the time man" noirs. George Murphy, a US border patrol agent, teams up with Ricardo Montalbán, his counterpart in Mexico, to investigate and take down a ring of criminals exploiting bracero migrant works from Mexico.  Pretty good. It looks very nice, thanks in part to John Alton, the DP who is famous for his noir lighting. The plot is much less predictable than many of your typical noirs and Montalbán is quite watchable. The movie is a little gung-ho about the cops (like Mann's other quasi-documentary noirs) but it makes up for it by being pretty sympathetic to the braceros and their plight. It goes to some relatively dark places, which of course you want a noir to do.  The end descends into a bit of a clusterfuck, albeit an entertaining one, and I don't know why all the Mexicans are speaking English in Mexico, but those are hardly a big deal. If you want a Western noir then this one absolutely fits the bill. Murphy later became a US senator but I do not know if he was particularly interested in border issues beyond this movie. 80/100
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Nov 9, 2023 15:26
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Love your noirvember posting
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Nov 9, 2023 15:38
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from t-men, raw deal, and border incident, anthony mann has some gnarly kills for the 40s and 50s
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Nov 9, 2023 15:59
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Winchester '73 and The Naked Spur are some nice Noir tinged westerns if you dig Anthony Mann.
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Nov 9, 2023 19:18
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 A Bullet is Waiting (1954), dir. John Farrow  We have another Western noir, this one directed by John Farrow (director of The Big Clock and Alias Nick Beal from previous years). Rory Calhoun is a prisoner of Stephen McNally, sheriff, who is being brought to trial in Utah, but the plane they're in crashes in Bumfuck Nowhere, California, and both men end up on a remote farm occupied only by Jean Simmons (and her dad, who is off for a few days on business). Obviously a rather tense setup.  Unfortunately the movie doesn't really wring much tension out of the setup. In lots of other movies you'd be wondering whether Calhoun is about to strangle everyone while they sleep or whatever but the movie is mostly uninterested in that. Rather, the story is a bit of a switcheroo, because Calhoun is a sympathetic guy and McNally turns out to be much less sympathetic, but even that doesn't lead to anything too crazy. Mostly they're just arguing with each other.  There's also a romance and some animals like an adorable little lamb. The movie looks decent but not amazing and although the three actors are great and the movie we actually get is fine, you can't help but wish it was noir-er and nastier. We've seen McNally in some movies from previous years (Criss Cross, The Raging Tide, Woman in Hiding) and we're going to see him more this Noirvember. (He's also in the above-mentioned Winchester '73.) 76/100
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Nov 10, 2023 14:24
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 The Tall Target (1951), dir. Anthony Mann  We're back with another Anthony Mann noir. It's 1861 and Lincoln is on his way to his inauguration. Dick Powell has discovered a plot to assassinate the new president, and via a series of events slightly too complicated to bother recounting, he ends up on a train with some of the plotters, probably, although it's not clear. Noir events ensue.  The is a fun suspenseful thriler with a neat setting and some nice noiry vibes. It's not super noiry - more of a 4 out of 10 on the noirometer - but it's definitely more noiry than not, and it's eminently watchable, especially in light of the novel situation the movie depicts.  Come for the decent movie and stay for the shoutout to Allan Pinkerton, the guy who started the Pinkertons (and who claims to have foiled the real-life plot this movie is based on, if there was such a plot in the first place). 81/100
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Nov 11, 2023 15:07
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 The Narrow Margin (1952), dir. Richard Fleischer  One year later and we're back on a train. Charles McGraw is a police detective, who, along with fellow detective Don Beddoe, must take Marie Windsor from Chicago to LA. Windsor is the wife of a recently murdered mafia guy and everyone wants to kill her, including the hitman who kills Beddoe like 4 minutes into the movie. McGraw is of course upset about this, and things get even more complicated once they're on the train and the killers on board mistake Jacqueline White, a random innocent lady, for their intended victim.  Very nice. The dialogue is sometimes pretty snappy, especially at the beginning, and the movie makes excellent use of the tension that the train setting generates. It rolls along faster than a speeding train, coming in at something like 77 minutes, and there's some innovative camera stuff (an interestingly shot and cut fight, plus a lot of handheld shooting on the train, although that's not often obvious).  The movie has no score, which is interesting both on its own and in light of most noirs which go pretty heavy on the strings and so forth. According to Wikipedia, Howard Hughes (who owned RKO Pictures, which made this movie) liked it so much he was thinking of reshooting it with famous people to make it a more impressive release. That never happened, although Fleischer was tapped to reshoot some stuff in another noir, His Kind of Woman, which stars Robert Mitchum, who was maybe going to be the one starring in the remake of this. This did eventually get loosely remade as a 1990 neo-noir, which, like Facebook in The Social Network, dropped the 'the' (it's cleaner). 85/100
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Nov 12, 2023 16:50
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 Split Second (1953), dir. Dick Powell  Stephen McNally is back, and he has just escaped from prison along with Paul Kelly. They are assisted by Frank de Kova and after a little while they end up with some hostages: reporter Keith Andes, hitchhiker Jan Sterline, woman Alexis Smith, and woman's lover, who is not her husband, Robert Paige, insurance salesman. They all end up in an abandoned town where an atomic bomb test is scheduled to happen in a few hours. Things are obviously tense.  I enjoyed it. It's not often there's a ticking clock for an atom bomb in a noir movie, and the relatively large cast of characters ends up interacting in a variety of ways. McNally is the glue to the whole thing, and portrayal of a murderous gangster war veteran who is nevertheless loyal to his friend goes a decent way. Another standout is Alexis Smith, who does a very good job playing "woman who does not want to be here."  The movie doesn't look like much (the nicest image is the title screen, seen above) and it doesn't leave much to talk about, either. There are some hints towards dealing with issues facing war veterans but it never really gets its teeth into that. The ending is fun and Arthur Hunnicutt at one point shows up as a wily prospector and somehow does not overstay his welcome, which is neat. I think I like this more than it deserves. 84/100
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Nov 13, 2023 15:40
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 The Dark Corner (1946), dir. Henry Hathaway  Mark Stevens, who is weirdly not top billed, is a private investigator in New York with a secretary Lucille Ball (whom we saw in Lured in a previous year). He has a bit of a checkered past and it shows up trouble him in the form of noir mainstay William Bendix (Detective Story, The Web, The Glass Key, The Blue Dahlia, just from stuff I've covered in previous years I think) who is tailing him, and some other involved characters, like Kurt Kreuger as a sleazy lawyer.  Pretty good. It's never drop dead gorgeous, but it makes excellent use of shadow. The performances are all nice, especially Ball, who has a relatively simple role to play but who sells it pretty well. Most of the movie seems like it was shot on sets or in nondescript locations, but sometimes you get a bit of decent New York character.  The plot is fine but not spun out ideally - for a little while some stuff is a secret to us and we're in the dark a bit for no great reason, and then for most of the rest of the movie we know almost everything, more so than the characters, so a lot of the excitement is muffled. Still, a nice little noir. 84/100
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Nov 14, 2023 15:30
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 Cover Up (1949), dir. Alfred E. Green  William Bendix is back, and presumably thanking his agent for getting first billed playing a sheriff in a movie where he's clearly in a supporting role. Dennis O'Keefe, the actual lead (and writer of the film), is an insurance investigator investigating a suicide which seems like obviously it was a murder, but everyone in the small town hated the dead guy so nobody really gives a poo poo. While Bendix gives him the runaround, O'Keefe hangs around and starts to get a crush on Barbara Britton, who is a woman.  Not bad. This is a Christmas noir, which is a fun little sub-genre. It does an okay job with the whole small town setting, although it could certainly have gone harder in terms of the conflict between O'Keefe, who wants the truth, and the town (and especially the sheriff) who would prefer things not come to the surface. It would also be nice if the romance had more conflict and were tied to the main plot more. Most of the movie feels like it's cutting between a noir and a Hallmark Christmas film, which is novel but maybe not ideal.  Also it never looks very nice. Still, it's a fun little ride. It could've been a very different kind of movie, but instead it's sort of a gentle noir-lite. And sometimes those are fun! They're a nice change of pace from the grim sadness you get in a lot of noirs. This is a noir where there are basically no bad guys except the dead guy, really. Wikipedia says this takes place in the Midwest. It might, but it felt more like upstate New York or some other northeast place to me. 81/100
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Nov 15, 2023 17:21
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MacheteZombie posted:Love your noirvember posting I wanted to second this. I may not post often in this thread, but I read all of it.
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Nov 16, 2023 04:02
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Glad people enjoy it! The Crooked Way (1949), dir. Robert Florey  John Payne, who looks a bit like Clive Owen after you've stuck his face in a microwave for 30 seconds, is a WWII vet who got some shrapnel in his brain and thus has amnesia. He can't remember anything about his past life. He headsback to LA, where he's from, and this turns out to have been a terrible idea because 30 seconds after showing up, the cops pick him up because they recognize him, and 30 seconds after he gets done talking with the cops, he runs into Ellen Drew, a femme fatale who is also from his past. He ends up involved with Sonny Tufts, crime boss, and various other people, like Percy Helton whom you may remember from some previous noirs.  Pretty good. It often looks great, care of DP John Alton, and it's kind of hilarious how quickly things go to poo poo as soon as this guy shows up in LA, which also features in some nice location shots every now and again. The plot is sort of similar to Somewhere in the Night which I covered back in 2019.  There's a cat, which is always welcome. The climax involves the LAPD doing perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've seen police do in a noir, and before that there are some pretty other egregious behavior, which is pretty funny. Extra bonus points for just treating the amnesia as plain amnesia and not some implausible ailment that gets cleared up in some kind of climactic moment of moral understand. 83/100
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Nov 16, 2023 14:14
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If I had movie amnesia while in a different country I absolutely wouldn't go back to where I was from. Especially as an injured GI where there's financial support not involving anyone who knew you and you don't know. Just take my disability checks and become like a line cook or something in a completely different state than what my dog tag says I'm from.
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Nov 17, 2023 12:56
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 Side Street (1949), dir. Anthony Mann  Farley Granger (from They Live by Night) is more or less out of work in Manhattan, which is unfortunate because his wife, Cathy O'Donnell (also They Live by Night, and Detective Story) is about to have a baby. In a moment of weakness he steals what he takes to be a bit of money but which turns out to be a lot of money, which as you can imagine leads to complications.  Another nice noir from Anthony Mann, my favorite so far. There is some really wonderful location photography in Manhattan, and some decent acting. Everything else is kind of serviceable (or a little unnecessary, like a voiceover at the beginning and the end). The climax is great too, I guess.  The plot is actually kind of interesting because outside of a few key choices/inciting incidents, very little actually happens, and even less of it happens on screen. A lot of it is just Granger catching up to what is going on. THat does kind of sap some energy from the film. Still, it's quite good despite the flaws, so there's not much need to complain. 84/100
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Nov 18, 2023 03:35
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 Desperate (1947), dir. Anthony Mann  Anthony Mann is back with another noir. Steven Brodie is a truck driver and unwittingly gets roped into crime poo poo. His wife, Audrey Long (from Born to Kill a couple Noirvembers ago) is along for the ride. Raymond Burr (Pitfall, Raw Deal) is the lead criminal.  Lots of good and lots of meh. The good: some stuff around the opening, the finale, and Burr's performance generally, plus perhaps some interesting stuff with the time the movie takes place over. The meh: most of the rest, like the middle of the movie, and also Brodie's refusal to just immediately go to the cops, which I feel like would've solved everything.  It sometimes looks pretty nice, and as someone on Criticker memorably puts it, "they blew all the budget on the actors [so] they couldn't afford a non swinging light." I guess back in 1947 doctors were recommending that pregnant women drink lots of milk. 82/100
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Nov 18, 2023 14:24
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Enjoying your posts tycho, and reading them all in a measured Ben Mankiewicz voice. Shame you didnt like Suspicion though, i saw it a few weeks ago and loved it. Maybe im just a sucker for Cary Grant
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Nov 19, 2023 11:43
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Speaking of Mankiewiczs: No Way Out (1950), dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz  Sidney Poitier is a newish doctor at the county hospital in Anywhere City, USA. His supervisor is Stephen McNally, whom we've seen quite a bit by now. Richard Widmark and his brother are brought in after getting shot by the police in an unsuccessful robbery, and Widmark, who is quite racist, decides that Poitier has mistreated Widmark's brother. Tensions rise, especially when Linda Darnell, who grew up with Widmark and his brother, ends up involved.  Very good. Widmark somehow gets first billing, which is maybe compensation for having to say the N word so many times; the movie doesn't shy away from racism, and most of the story is about racial tension and so on. Widmark also does a great job as he usually does, and Poitier is pretty great as a committed doctor, as is McNally as a guy who takes himself to be colorblind but who consequently doesn't want to quite see what kind of role race is playing.  The movie looks nice and there are some cool additional performances by big names like Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, in roles more substantial than you often get to see for black characters in noir. The poster is kind of interesting and the title is a classic noir one: a compelling sounding word or phrase that has sweet gently caress all to do with the movie. 85/100
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Nov 20, 2023 12:41
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Sorry about falling behind on posting - I've kept up the watching mostly but I'm rather busy this Noirvember and it's tough to find the time to write the posts! The Sniper (1952), dir. Edward Dmytryck  Arthur Franz is an incel in San Francisco who decides it's time to start shooting women. The police, spearheaded by Aolphe Menjou, are trying to catch him. (Like Do the Right Thing and Targets this is one of those movies with a very depressing synopsis because they could be made today without changing anything.)  Rather good. Franz's performance is the standout: it walks a fine line between making the character too sympathetic and too alienating. It looks nice enough and there are some exciting moments. The plot is pretty spare and there's your typical noir psychobabble about why someone would be like this but that's not so intolerable.  An adorable cat makes a few appearances. One scene takes place in a Chinese restaurant. 84/100
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Nov 25, 2023 07:32
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Tired of the "Die Hard is a Christmas Movie" discourse. Waiting for the "Blast of Silence is a Christmas Movie" discourse.
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Dec 27, 2023 00:47
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FreudianSlippers posted:Tired of the "Die Hard is a Christmas Movie" discourse. My grandfather did the narration for Blast of Silence!
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Dec 27, 2023 01:04
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Blast of Silence goes so loving hard — what a film edit: kingcobweb posted:My grandfather did the narration for Blast of Silence! and the narration is a huge part of it!! I can't get enough of this line reading: "You know the type. Second-string syndicate boss with too much ambition and a mustache to hide the fact he has lips like a woman. The kind of face you HATE." DasNeonLicht fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Dec 27, 2023 |
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Dec 27, 2023 01:29
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FreudianSlippers posted:Tired of the "Die Hard is a Christmas Movie" discourse.
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Dec 27, 2023 04:09
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 11:15 |
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https://twitter.com/frankieboyle/status/1739052316592877931?t=kCCiFk_f6m5DzjezIwdQnA&s=19
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Dec 27, 2023 06:15
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