Classic Noir Reviews — Page 3

Nancy Olson to appear at ‘Sunset Blvd.’ screening in LA

July 20, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

Academy Award Nominee Nancy Olson Livingston will participate in a Q&A with film critic Stephen Farber at a 65th anniversary screening of “Sunset Blvd.” The event starts at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, at the Laemmle Royal in West LA. By popular demand, an additional 7:30 p.m. show has been added.

For our part, we offer our top 10 favorite lines from this magnificent film noir movie, directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and starring (along with Nancy Olson) the incomparable Gloria Swanson, William Holden and Erich von Stroheim. The film garnered 11 Oscar nominations and won three (script, music and art direction).

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: Billy Wilder, Erich von Stroheim, film noir, Gloria Swanson, Nancy Olson, Sunset Blvd., William Holden

‘Double Indemnity’ plays nationwide on the big screen

July 18, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

Cissy and Raymond Chandler were married for 30 years.

Cissy Chandler (1870-1954) was married to Raymond Chandler for 30 years.

Just this morning, I finished reading “The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved” (Pantheon Books, 2007) by Judith Freeman. It’s a look at Chandler’s work and his 30-year marriage to a mysterious woman named Cissy Hurlburt Porcher Pascal, a sexy but refined redhead from the Midwest who was 18 years his senior. (It was her third marriage; his first and only.) Not that she bothered to tell him her real age, natch. Details, details …

In the book, Freeman describes a turning point in Chandler’s career: When he received the offer from Paramount Studios to adapt James M. Cain’s novel “Double Indemnity” for the big screen, working in partnership with writer/director Billy Wilder.

The film, starring Fred Mac Murray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson, was released in 1944. It earned seven Oscar noms, including screenplay, which was extremely rare for a film noir title.

Freeman writes:

“Ray didn’t get the idea of the whole thing at first. When Joe Sistrom, the producer, called and offered him the job, Ray said he could probably do it, but he wouldn’t be able to turn in the screenplay for a couple of weeks, and it would cost them a thousand bucks. Sistrom laughed. Was the guy being funny, or was he really that naïve about the way the movie business worked? Sistrom told him he’d be working with Wilder, in an office on the studio lot, that he’d have ten weeks to do the screenplay, and he’d be getting seven hundred and fifty bucks a week. Ray did the math. Ray liked the result. Ray saw the future … and Ray said, Yes. Sure. Why not?”

Precisely! So, why not treat yourself to a big-screen viewing of this genre-defining film? TCM, Fathom Events and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment are partnering to bring this classic to select cinemas nationwide on Sunday, July 19 and Monday, July 20.

“That tears it,” as Walter Neff would say.

See you there, noiristas. Meanwhile, you can read our review as well as 14 reasons we adore this flick.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: Barbara Stanwyck, Billy Wilder, Cissy Chandler, Cissy Hurlburt Porcher Pascal, Double Indemnity, Edward G. Robinson, Fathom Events, film noir, Fred MacMurray, James M. Cain, Judith Freeman, Raymond Chandler, TCM, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Film Noir File: TCM’s badass binge continues with darkside divas Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott and more

July 16, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard). All films without a new review have been covered previously in Film Noir Blonde and can be searched in the FNB archives (at right).

Pick of the Week: Summer of Darkness soldiers on

Barbara Stanwyck plays the tough-as-nails title broad in “Martha Ivers.” Kirk Douglas plays her husband.

Unless you’re a noirista who has been living under a rock, you know that TCM’s badass binge of film noir continues this Friday.

This week TCM’s list includes the spine-tingling masterpiece “Strangers on a Train” and the lesser-known but compelling melodrama “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” plus noir highlights by and with ace actors like Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan, Robert Mitchum, recent birthday gal Barbara Stanwyck, Lizabeth Scott, and Audrey Totter, brilliant writers like Patricia Highsmith, W. R. Burnett and Cornell Woolrich, and directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Joseph H. Lewis, Phil Karlson and Anthony Mann.

Lizabeth Scott and Van Heflin co-star in “Martha Ivers.”

Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one festival of classic dreams and movie nightmares, you don’t want to miss. As Raymond Chandler once said about Phillip Marlowe, in “The Simple Art of Murder”: “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid…”

Friday, July 17

7:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m.): “Tension” (John Berry, 1950).

Robert Mitchum

9:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m.): “Where Danger Lives” (John Farrow, 1950). Robert Mitchum is dragged to the bad side of the border and the law by second-tier femme fatale Faith Domergue. This one has its moments.

11 a.m. (8 a.m.): “The Woman on Pier 13” (“I Married a Communist”) (Robert Stevenson, 1950).

12:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m.): “A Lady Without Passport” (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950). Hedy Lamarr is an illegal alien who proves irresistible to secret service man John Hodiak. Stylishly wrought by the director of “Gun Crazy” and “My Name is Julia Ross.”

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Cause for Alarm” (Tay Garnett, 1951). Loretta Young, caught in a noir trap of lies and murder. With Barry Sullivan.

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.): “No Questions Asked” (Harold F. Kress, 1951). Barry Sullivan is an insurance agent gone bad. With Arlene Dahl and other temptations.

Farley Granger and Robert Walker have a wonderful weird chemistry in “Strangers on a Train.”

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Strangers on a Train” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951).

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “The Racket” (John Cromwell, 1951). Gangster Robert Ryan and tough cop Robert Mitchum duke it out in this moody adaptation of Bartlett Cormack’s hit stage play.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Too Late for Tears” (Byron Haskin, 1949). Recently restored by the FNF, this sleeper stars Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea. The film examines the evils of money. Seriously?

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (Lewis Milestone, 1946).

12:15 a.m. (9: 15 p.m.): “99 River Street” (Phil Karlson, 1953). Taut little thriller, with unlucky but feisty cabbie John Payne caught in a frame-up, directed with panache by B-maestro Karlson (“The Phenix City Story”). Evelyn Keyes co-stars.

2 a.m. (11 p.m.): “Conflict” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1945). Bogie in his bad mode, tormenting Alexis Smith and trying to evade Sydney Greenstreet.

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.). “Klute” (Alan Pakula, 1971).

Saturday, July 18

8:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m.). “Crime and Punishment” (Josef von Sternberg, 1935). Director Sternberg, in his Dietrich years, tackles Fyodor Dostoyevsky, with the young Lucien Ballard behind the camera, and a cast that includes Peter Lorre (as the gloomy, philosophical student killer) and Edward Arnold (as his nemesis, genial and persistent police detective).

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.) “Rebel Without a Cause” (Nicholas Ray, 1955).

5:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m.): “Lolita” (Stanley Kubrick, 1962). Kubrick’s superb film of Vladimir Nabokov’s classic comic-erotic novel about the dangerous affair of college professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) with nymphet Lolita (Sue Lyon). [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Alfred Hitchcock, Barbara Stanwyck, Eddie Muller, film noir, Film Noir Foundation, Lizabeth Scott, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Summer of Darkness, TCM

Film Noir File: Lupino, Spillane light up Summer of Darkness

July 9, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Pick of the Week: Summer of Darkness sizzles on

“Kiss Me Deadly” has an unforgettable opening.

You know the drill. Each Friday, throughout June and July, running from dawn to dusk and back again, TCM is screening practically every classic film noir you can think of. This week, the dark list includes “D.O.A.” and “Raw Deal,” plus the talents of writers Mickey Spillane and A. I. Bezzerides, director Robert Aldrich and actor Ralph Meeker (as private eye Mike Hammer), all of whom took part in that Eisenhower-era masterpiece “Kiss Me Deadly.” And though Spillane may have disliked the picture Aldrich made from his violent paperback best-seller, most noir buffs love it. Count us in!

Also, there are terrific turns by that magnificent dame Ida Lupino as both actress (in Nick Ray’s and Bezzerides’ “On Dangerous Ground”) and director (in Ida’s classic B suspenser “The Hitch-Hiker”). Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one festival of classic dreams and movie nightmares you won’t want to miss.

Friday, July 10

Who doesn’t love Gloria Grahame?

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “Follow Me Quietly” (Richard Fleischer, 1949). Neat little B thriller about the manhunt for a crazed killer. With William Lundigan and famed acting teacher/blacklist victim Jeff Corey.

7:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m.): “A Woman’s Secret” (Nicholas Ray, 1949). Nick Ray directs, and Herman Mankiewicz writes, a kind of cut-rate “All About Eve.” With Maureen O’Hara and Gloria Grahame.

9 a.m. (6 a.m.): “Side Street” (Anthony Mann, 1950).

10:30 a.m. (7:30 a.m.): “Black Hand” (Richard Thorpe). Gene Kelly vs. The Mafia.

12:15 p.m. (9:15 a.m.): “Armored Car Robbery” (Richard Fleischer, 1950).

1:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m.): “Caged” (John Cromwell, 1950). Before there was “Orange Is the New Black,” there was “Caged.” One of the best and grimmest of the “women’s prison” pictures, with Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Hope Emerson, Jan Sterling and Jane Darwell.

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.): “D.O.A.” (Rudolph Maté, 1950).

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Destination Murder” (Edward L. Cahn, 1950). Joyce McKenzie vs. The Mob.

6:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m.): “The Tattooed Stranger” (Edward Montagne, 1950). N. Y. murder, investigated. With John Miles.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Red Light” (Roy Del Ruth, 1949). A vendetta noir sandwich with George Raft and Raymond Burr. Hold the (Virginia) Mayo.

9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “Kiss Me Deadly” (Robert Aldrich, 1955).

11:45 p.m. (8:45 p.m.): “On Dangerous Ground” (Nicholas Ray, 1951). Ida Lupino plays a blind country girl who lives with her brother. She meets a psychologically scarred cop (Robert Ryan) when her brother becomes a suspect in a murder. With a taut script by A. I. Bezzerides and moody, poetic direction from Nicholas Ray, “On Dangerous Ground” is an unforgettable film noir.

1:30 a.m. (10:30 p.m.): “The Hitch-Hiker” (Ida Lupino, 1953).

2:45 a.m. (11:45 p.m.): “The Blue Dahlia” (George Marshall, 1946).

4:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m.): “Raw Deal” (Anthony Mann, 1948).

Monday, July 13

Bob Mitchum was an actor who had no fear, few limits and no false vanity.

9:45 a.m. (8:45 a.m.): “The Bad Sleep Well” (Akira Kurosawa, 1960). A great, savage crime drama, set in the world of corrupt and murderous Japanese corporate businessmen. With Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori and Takashi Shimura. (In Japanese, with subtitles.)

Wednesday, July 15

12:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m.): “The Night of the Hunter” (Charles Laughton, 1955).

4:15 a.m. (1:15 a.m.): “Pitfall” (André de Toth, 1948).

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: A Woman’s Secret, A.I. Bezzerides, Akira Kurosawa, André De Toth, Anthony Mann, Charles Laughton, D.O.A., Eddie Muller, film noir, Film Noir Foundation, Gloria Grahame, Ida Lupino, Kiss Me Deadly, Nicholas Ray, On Dangerous Ground, Pitfall, Raw Deal, Robert Aldrich, Robert Mitchum, Rudolph Mate, TCM, The Bad Sleep Well, The Blue Dahlia, The Hitch-Hiker, The Night of the Hunter

Film Noir File: Go deeper into depravity with the second month of TCM’s Summer of Darkness

July 2, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Pick of the Week: Summer of Darkness Chapter 5

Rita Hayworth went blonde for “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Each Friday, throughout July, running from dawn to dusk and back again, TCM is whistling up practically every classic film noir you can think of. Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other big bad towns where people prowl around after midnight, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one festival of classic dreams and nightmares you won’t want to miss.

Friday, July 3

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “Johnny Belinda” (Jean Negulesco, 1946).

8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “Key Largo” (John Huston, 1948). Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson are pitted against each other in this tense adaptation of the Maxwell Anderson play. Bogie is a WW2 vet held hostage (along with Lauren Bacall and Lionel Barrymore) during a tropical storm by brutal mobster Robinson and his gang. Claire Trevor, as a fading chanteuse, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “The Lady from Shanghai” (Orson Welles, 1948).

11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “The Bribe” (Robert Z. Leonard, 1949). Cabaret torcher Ava Gardner pours it on for cop Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton and Vincent Price. A lot of footage from this lesser-known black-and-white romantic suspenser wound up in Steve Martin and Carl Reiner’s film noir parody “Dead Men Don‘t Wear Plaid.”

1:15 a.m. (10:15 a.m.): “Scene of the Crime” (Roy Rowland, 1949). Van Johnson and Arlene Dahl in a sexy mystery thriller.

3 p.m. (12 p.m.): “They Live by Night” (Nicholas Ray, 1949).

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “The Threat” (Felix Feist, 1949). Charles McGraw takes a con’s revenge.

6 p.m. (3 p.m.): “White Heat” (Raoul Walsh, 1949). “Top of the world, Ma!” James Cagney screams, in one of the all-time great noir performances and last scenes. Cagney’s character is Cody Jarrett, a psycho gun-crazy gangster with a mother complex.

Edmond O’Brien is the undercover cop in Cody’s gang, Virginia Mayo is Cody’s faithless wife, and Margaret Wycherly is Ma. One of the true noir masterpieces.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Big Clock” (John Farrow, 1948).

9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “The Window” (Ted Tetzlaff, 1949).

11:15 p.m. (8:15 p.m.): “Shadow on the Wall” (Pat Jackson, 1950). A sensitive child (Gigi Perreau) thinks she’s a witness to a family slaying. With Zachary Scott.

12:45 a.m. (9:45 a.m.): “High Wall” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947). Murder and psychiatry, with Robert Taylor and Audrey Totter.

2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.): “The Long Goodbye” (Robert Altman, 1973).

4:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m.): “Marlowe” (Paul Bogart, 1969).

Sunday, July 5

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “The Band Wagon” (Vincente Minnelli, 1953). With a brilliant dance parody of Mickey Spillane with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. Also on at 4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.) on Wednesday, July 8.

5:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m.): “West Side Story” (Robert Wise, 1961).

Monday, July 6

6:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m.): “Pete Kelly’s Blues” (Jack Webb, 1955).

Tuesday, July 7

8:30 a.m. (5:30 a.m.): “Doctor X” (Michael Curtiz, 1932).

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “Mystery of the Wax Museum” (Michael Curtiz, 1933).

Thursday, July 9

8:15 a.m. (5:15 a.m.): “Finger of Guilt” (“The Intimate Stranger“) (Joseph Losey, 1956). A blackmail thriller about a persecuted director (Richard Basehart), set in the world of British studio filmmaking, and directed (under the pseudonym “Joseph Walton“), by blacklist victim Losey.

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “Time Without Pity” (Joseph Losey, 1957).

11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “Dead of Night” (Alberto Cavalcanti, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton, 1945).

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: film noir, TCM, The Lady from Shanghai

Film Noir File: Summer of Darkness keeps dealing out winners

June 25, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Pick of the Week: Another Friday Full of Darkness

It’s Chapter Four of TCM’s film noir binge-fest. As Bogie once said, “It’s the stuff that dreams are made of.” Each Friday, throughout June and July, running from dawn to dusk and back again, TCM is serving some deluxe stuff: practically every classic film noir you can think of, from “The Maltese Falcon” to “Born to Kill,” and (this Friday) from “Out of the Past” to “The Third Man.”

Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other big bad towns where people prowl around after midnight, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one season in Hell, and one festival of dreams and nightmares, you won’t want to miss. Wise up. Don’t let the Postman have to Ring Twice.

Friday, June 5

Lana Turner

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (Tay Garnett, 1946).

8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “They Won’t Believe Me” (Irving Pichel, 1947). Robert Young is accused of adultery (he did), and murder (he didn’t). With Susan Hayward.

9:45 a.m. (6:45 a.m.): “The Woman on the Beach” (Jean Renoir, 1947).

11 a.m. (8 a.m.): “Lady in the Lake” (Robert Montgomery, 1947).

1 p.m. (10 a.m.): “Out of the Past” (Jacques Tourneur, 1947).

2:45 p.m. (11:45 a.m.): “Possessed” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947).

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Act of Violence” (Fred Zinnemann, 1948).

Audrey Totter plays an editor in “Lady in the Lake.” Make sure your copy is clean, Marlowe!

Audrey Totter plays an editor in “Lady in the Lake” from 1947. Robert Montgomery stars and directs.

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “The Set-Up” (Robert Wise, 1949).

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Mask of Dimitrios” (Jean Negulesco, 1944).

9:45 p.m. (6: 45 p.m.): “Berlin Express” (Jacques Tourneur, 1948).

11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.): “The Stranger” (Orson Welles, 1946).

1:15 a.m. (10:15 p.m.): “The Third Man” (Carol Reed, 1949).

3 a.m. (12 a.m.): “Point Blank” (John Boorman, 1967).

Saturday, June 27

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (Albert Lewin, 1945).

Sunday, June 28

Anthony Dawson tries to do away with Grace Kelly in “Dial M for Murder.”

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Dial M for Murder” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954).

4 p.m. (1 p.m.): “The Birds” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963).

2 a.m. (11 p.m.): “Band of Outsiders” (“Bande a Part”) (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964). Three amoral and amateurish Parisian movie fans and would-be burglars (played with delightfully offhand bravado by Anna Karina, Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) bungle their way though one of the most amusingly eccentric, self-indulgent and utterly foolish of all film neo-noir heists. One of almost everybody’s favorite Godards, this is the one with the stunningly inept bar-room dance routine by the three musically challenged co-stars to that finger-snapping dance step “The Madison.” Based on Dolores Hitchens’ American crime novel “Fool’s Gold,” it’s like “Rififi” gone frou-frou. In French, with subtitles.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Dial M for Murder, film noir, Lady in the Lake, Out of the Past, Point Blank, Possessed, TCM, The Birds, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Third Man

Film Noir File: Summer of Darkness has strong second chapter

June 11, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Pick of the Week: Friday is Noir Day on Summer of Darkness

Nothing beats a stroll a down a dark slick street to cool off on a hot summer night. The second week of TCM’s Summer of Darkness boasts as strong a lineup as the first. Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one festival of shadowy dreams and gun crazy nightmares you won’t want to miss.

Friday, June 5

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “The Glass Key” (Stuart Heisler, 1942). Brian Donlevy, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake star in this stylish remake of the 1935 film based on Hammett’s popular novel. The story follows a ruthless political boss and his personal adviser, who become entangled in a web of organized crime and murder involving the daughter of a rising gubernatorial candidate. Akira Kurosawa once claimed this film to be the inspiration for his classic samurai flick “Yojimbo” (1961).

7:30 a.m. (4: 30 a.m.): “Laura” (Otto Preminger, 1944).

9 a.m. (6 a.m.): “Ministry of Fear” (Fritz Lang, 1944). Ray Milland, just released from a British mental institution, wins the wrong cake at a charity raffle and becomes ensnared in a nightmarish web of espionage and murder. Graham Greene wrote the source novel. Co-starring Marjorie Reynolds and Dan Duryea.

10:30 a.m. (7:30 a.m.): “Murder, My Sweet” (Edward Dmytryk, 1944).

12:15 p.m. (9:15 a.m.): “Danger Signal” (Robert Florey, 1945). More top-notch caddery from that expert lounge snake, Zachary Scott, pulling the wool over Faye Emerson’s and other eyes. 1:45 p.m.

(10:45 a.m.): “Detour” (Edgar Ulmer, 1945).

3 p.m. (12 p.m.): “Mildred Pierce” (Michael Curtiz, 1945).

5 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Deadline at Dawn” (Harold Clurman, 1946). Bill Williams is a sailor on leave who has just one New York City night to prove his innocence of murder. Susan Hayward and Paul Lukas are the shrewd dancer and philosophical cabbie trying to help him. Clifford Odets’ script is from a Cornell Woolrich novel.

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “Johnny Angel” (Edwin L. Marin, 1946). Middling noir with George Raft hunting down killers and Claire Trevor.

“Gun Crazy” is Joseph H. Lewis’ masterpiece.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Gangster” (Gordon Wiles, 1947). A sleeper. Good, neglected gangster noir, based on novelist (and later, screenwriter) Daniel Fuchs’ superb Brooklyn low-life chronicle, “Low Company.” (Read it, if you haven’t.) With Barry Sullivan, Shelley Winters, Akim Tamiroff, John Ireland and Harry Morgan.

9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “Gun Crazy” (Joseph H. Lewis, 1950).

11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.): “Tomorrow is Another Day” (Felix Feist, 1951). An ex-con (Steve Cochran) adjusts violently to post-prison life. With Ruth Roman.

1:15 a.m. (10:15 p.m.): “Nightmare Alley” (Edmund Goulding, 1947).

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): “Night Moves” (Arthur Penn, 1975). Underrated ’70s private-eye noir, set in the Florida Keys, with Gene Hackman as the tough P. E. and Melanie Griffith, Edward Binns and James Woods in fine support. Written by Alan Sharp and directed by Arthur Penn (“Bonnie and Clyde”).

Saturday, June 13

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Bullitt” (Peter Yates, 1968). One of the more stylish cop-movie thrillers. With Steve McQueen at his coolest, Jacqueline Bisset at her loveliest, Robert Vaughn at his slimiest – plus the car chase to end all car chases.

Sunday, June 14

2:15 p.m. (11:15 a.m.): “A Kiss Before Dying” (Gerd Oswald, 1956). A charming psychopath (Robert Wagner) preys on two sisters (Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith) in this tense adaptation of the novel by Ira Levin (“Rosemary’s Baby”). With Jeffrey Hunter and Mary Astor.

12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “Greed” (Erich von Stroheim, 1924). Erich von Stroheim’s silent masterpiece about the dark side of life in San Francisco and Death Valley, with Gibson Gowland, Jean Hersholt and ZaSu Pitts as an odd, deadly triangle. Mutilated and cut by nearly six hours by MGM and Irving Thalberg, this is still one of the all-time great films.

Monday, June 15

12 p.m. (9 a.m.): “The Fallen Idol” (Carol Reed, 1948). mesmerizing story of a little French boy (Bobby Henrey), a French diplomat’s son, who hero-worships the embassy butler (Ralph Richardson), but mistakenly comes to believe his idol has murdered his wife, and keeps unintentionally incriminating him. Graham Greene adapted the script from his short story.

5:45 p.m. (2:45 p.m.): “Bunny Lake Is Missing” (Otto Preminger, 1965). Bunny Lake is an American child kidnapped in London, Carol Lynley her terrified mother, Keir Dullea her concerned uncle, Anna Massey her harassed teacher, Noel Coward her sleazy landlord, and Laurence Olivier the brainy police detective trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The most important of those pieces: Was Bunny ever really there at all? A neglected gem; based on Evelyn Piper’s novel.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: A Kiss Before Dying, Bullitt, Bunny Lake is Missing, film noir, Greed, Gun Crazy, Laura Elena Harring, Mildred Pierce, Ministry of Fear, Murder, My Sweet, TCM, The Fallen Idol, The Glass Key

Film Noir File: Summer of Darkness starts off with a bang

June 4, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard). All films without a new review have been covered previously in Film Noir Blonde and can be searched in the FNB archives (at right).

Pick of the Week: Summer of Darkness starts Friday

Hold onto your hat, button up your raincoat (you guys) or slip into your slinky gown (you gals), practice your best sneers or sultry glances, shove your gat in your pocket, crush a cigarette in the nearest ashtray (but don‘t smoke it), gun your engines and get set for the ride of your life.

June is the month when all lovers of film noir get the treat of the year on Turner Classic Movies. All you have to do every Friday is remember what day it is, then switch on the set and gorge yourself on TCM’s great festival of classic crime and prime punishment, Summer of Darkness.

Some experts consider “The Maltese Falcon” the first film noir. Others say “Stranger on the Third Floor” holds that distinction.

It’s the station’s annual banquet of stylish movie murder and mayhem, of gunmen and gunsels, of whiskey and women and blues in the night, and of dark deeds on dark, rainy city streets. Each Friday, throughout June, running from dawn to dusk and late into the night (natch), TCM will show nearly 50 classic noir titles, including “The Maltese Falcon,” “Born to Kill,” “Out of the Past,” “The Third Man,” “The Killers” and “Detour.”

Curated and hosted by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other towns where people prowl around after midnight, TCM’s Summer of Darkness is one season in Hell, and one festival of dreams and nightmares, you won’t want to miss.

Friday, June 5

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “M” (Germany: Fritz Lang, 1931).

8 a.m. (5 a.m.): “La Bete Humaine” (France: Jean Renoir, 1938). Jean Renoir’s noir masterpiece is a dark, stark tale of railroads, adultery, madness and murder, with Jean Gabin as the train engineer who goes crazy with l’amour fou, Simone Simon as the woman who drives him there, and Fernand Ledoux as her rat husband and his boss. The source is a classic novel by Emile Zola.

9:45 a.m. (6:45 a.m.): “The Letter” (William Wyler, 1940).

11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “Stranger on the Third Floor” (Boris Ingster, 1940).

The great Peter Lorre stars in “Stranger on the Third Floor.”

12:45 p.m. (9:45 a.m.): “High Sierra” (Raoul Walsh, 1941).

2:30 p.m. (11:30 a.m.) “The Maltese Falcon” (John Huston, 1941).

4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.): “Journey Into Fear” (Norman Foster & Orson Welles (uncredited), 1942).

5:45 p.m. (2:45 p.m.): “Johnny Eager” (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942).

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Nora Prentiss” (Vincent Sherman, 1947). Ann Sheridan gives Doc Kent Smith all the oomph he can handle.

10:15 p.m. (7:15 p.m.): “Woman on the Run” (Norman Foster, 1950). Neglected noir with Sheridan sizzling as a murder witness’s wife.

11:45 p.m. (8:45 p.m.): “Dark Passage” (Delmer Daves, 1947).

1:45 a.m. (10:45 p.m.): “Born to Kill” (Robert Wise, 1947).

3:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m.): “L. A. Confidential” (Curtis Hanson, 1997).

Saturday, June 6

4:15 p.m. (1:15 p.m.): “The Big Heat” (Fritz Lang, 1953).

Monday, June 8

5 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Conflict” (Curtis Bernhardt, 1945).

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Man Hunt” (Fritz Lang, 1941). Big game hunter Walter Pidgeon goes after human prey Adolf Hitler – who was no friend of Fritz.

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Hangmen Also Die” (Fritz Lang, 1943).

12:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m.): “Saboteur” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942).

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: film noir, Summer of Darkness, TCM

Film noir takes center stage as Summer of Darkness returns

May 4, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

We are super excited that Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is going dark on Fridays in June and July with the return of Summer of Darkness, film noir screenings hosted by Eddie Muller, also known as “The Czar of Noir.”

The Summer of Darkness programming slate will feature more than 100 noir titles making it the most extensive catalog of noirs ever presented by the network.

Summer of Darkness titles include:

· “Nora Prentiss” (1947, Vincent Sherman), starring Ann Sheridan and Kent Smith.

· “Born to Kill” (1947, Robert Wise), starring Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor.

· “Nightmare Alley” (1947, Edmund Goulding), starring Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray and Helen Walker.

· “Gun Crazy”(1950, Joseph H. Lewis), starring John Dall and Peggy Cummins.

· “The Third Man” (1949, Carol Reed), starring Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard.

· “L.A. Confidential” (1997, Curtis Hanson) starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger.

TCM first featured Summer of Darkness programming in the summer of 1999.

In addition to the 24-hour on-air programming, fans will also have the opportunity to experience film noir on the big screen when TCM, Fathom Events and Universal Pictures bring Billy Wilder’s 1944 noir classic “Double Indemnity,” starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, to theaters across the country on July 19 and 20.

Count us in! Reviews for most of these titles are on FNB — just hit the search bar on the right.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: Born to Kill, Double Indemnity, Eddie Muller, film noir, Gun Crazy, L.A. Confidential, Nightmare Alley, Summer of Darkness, TCM, The Third Man

Film noir costume design and ‘Gilda’ highlighted this Saturday in Hollywood

April 23, 2015 by Film Noir Blonde

“Gilda,” arguably Rita Hayworth’s most famous role, will screen this Saturday, April 25, at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Preceding the movie, costume historian Kimberly Truhler will give a one-hour presentation called: “Femmes Fatales, Innocents and Intrigantes: Can the Costume Design of Film Noir Tell Us the Difference?” The talk will start at 2 p.m.

‘Gilda’ shows that if you’ve got it, you might as well flaunt it

First published on FilmNoirBlonde.com on Sept. 19, 2012

“Gilda” is all about Gilda and that’s the way it should be – for any femme fatale and particularly for Rita Hayworth the most popular pinup girl of WWII, a talented entertainer and Columbia Pictures’ top female star in the mid-1940s. This 1946 movie by director Charles Vidor is essentially a vehicle for the drop-dead gorgeous Hayworth to play a sexy free spirit who lives and loves entirely in the present moment.

Longtime friends Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth had a brief affair during the making of “Gilda.”

Hayworth revels in the sexual power she wields over any man who crosses her path, despite the fact that in post-war America a woman with a mind (and body) of her own spelled nothing but trouble. As the Time Out Film Guide points out: “Never has the fear of the female been quite so intense.” That said, the “independent” Gilda is only briefly without a husband and has to endure a lengthy punishment from her true love.

She first appears, after a devastatingly dramatic hair toss, as the wife of husband Ballin Mundson (George Macready). Suave, but aloof and asexual, Ballin runs a nightclub in Buenos Aires. Gilda passes the time plucking out tunes on her guitar and propositioning other men. Nice work if you can get it.

Enter Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), an American gambler who runs Ballin’s club. Johnny’s job extends to keeping an eye on Gilda when she’s carousing on the dance floor. Ballin isn’t around much because he’s off trying to form a tungsten cartel with some ex-Nazi pals. But babysitting the boss’ wife (Ballin calls her a “beautiful, greedy child”) is especially tough for Johnny because he and Gilda used to be an item and endured a bitter breakup.

Ballin (George Macready) and Johnny (Glenn Ford) have a tense relationship.

The script is laced with taunts, barbs and innuendo. For example, Gilda tells him: “Hate is a very exciting emotion, hadn’t you noticed? I hate you, too, Johnny. I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.” (And some see homosexual undertones in Farrell and Ballin’s relationship.)

Director Vidor, whose other films include 1944’s “Cover Girl” (also starring Hayworth), “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Joker Is Wild” (both 1957), holds his own in the noir genre. “Gilda” is a dark tale (alluding to sexual perversion and repression) and there’s some moody cinematography, courtesy of Rudolph Maté. But Marion Parsonnet’s script, despite many sharp, clever lines, doesn’t hold together and that throws off the pacing. The first third meanders along too slowly while the ending seems abrupt and slapped together.

The plot is thin and vaguely confusing – Ballin is up to no good and at one point is thought to be dead, only to turn up later at a pivotal point in Johnny and Gilda’s romance. They reunite of course and their push-pull tension is the engine that drives the story. Luckily, that tension, combined with solid direction and acting, save the movie.

(The legendary Ben Hecht is an uncredited writer on “Gilda” and if the storyline rings a bell, you might be thinking of “Notorious” also from 1946, written by Hecht, which is another story of ex-Nazis up to no good in South America. Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant play the wary, mistrustful lovers in Alfred Hitchcock’s superior rendering of similar material.)

The chemistry between Ford and Hayworth is about as real as it gets. Longtime friends, they had a brief affair during the making of the movie. In his book, “A Life,” Glenn Ford’s son Peter writes that Vidor coached Glenn and Rita with “outrageously explicit suggestions.” Peter Ford quotes his father as saying: “[Vidor’s] instructions to the two of us were pretty incredible. I can’t even repeat the things he used to tell us to think about before we did a scene.”

Hayworth performs “Put the Blame on Mame,” choreographed by Jack Cole.

According to Peter Ford, this off-screen fling stemmed from Hayworth’s unhappy marriage to Orson Welles. The romance also drew the ire of Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn, who reportedly lusted after Hayworth and whom Hayworth rejected. “Gilda” was the second film Hayworth and Ford appeared in together; they worked together three more times afterward as well.

“Gilda” wasn’t a critical hit, but it proved popular with audiences, especially the famous “Put the Blame on Mame” scene.

Choreographed by Jack Cole, a bold and brilliant innovator, the number is as close to a strip tease as was possible in 1946. Hayworth was dubbed by Anita Ellis in that number, though there is some debate as to whether it’s Hayworth’s voice when she runs through the song with Uncle Pio (Steven Geray) earlier in the movie.

Though “Gilda” cemented Hayworth’s celebrity status, her fame came at a price. “Every man I’ve known has fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me,” she said. But, despite her career ups and downs, five failed marriages and a long struggle with Alzheimer’s, she kept her sense of humor. In the 1970s, Hayworth was asked, “What do you think when you look at yourself in the mirror after waking up in the morning?” Her reply: “Darling, I don’t wake up till the afternoon.”

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: Charles Vidor, costume design, Egyptian Theatre, Gilda, Glenn Ford, Kimberly Truhler, Rita Hayworth