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: TCM’s Summer of Darkness wraps up
Friday, July 31
They’ve saved some of the best for last.
Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame sizzle in “The Big Heat.”
The last chapter of TCM’s Summer of Darkness binge-a-thon is one of the best of the whole series. During the day, the schedule includes a quartet of moody Teutonic-style thrillers directed by the great German Hollywood émigré suspense-meister Fritz Lang (the creator of “M”). It starts with the grim little mob masterpiece “The Big Heat,” featuring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin in the cinema’s most memorable sadistic hot-coffee triangle.
Completing the Lang lineup are crime sagas “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt,” “While the City Sleeps” and “The Blue Gardenia.” In the evening, Summer of Darkness deepens the shadows with Jules Dassin’s “Brute Force” (a definitive prison picture), Robert Siodmak’s “Criss Cross” and John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle“ (two definitive heist thrillers), Anthony Mann’s “Desperate“ (a definitive B chase movie) and Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man.”
Curated and hosted in the evening by the Czar of Noir himself, Eddie Muller of the Film Noir Foundation and the Noir City film festivals, TCM’s Summer of Darkness, right up to the last breath, is one festival of broken dreams and movie nightmares you won’t want to miss. Tell ’em Fritz sent you.
6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “The Big Heat” (1953, Fritz Lang).
7:45 a.m. (4:45 a.m.): “Suddenly” (1954, Lewis Allen).
9:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m.): “I Died a Thousand Times” (1955, Stuart Heisler).
11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” (1956, Fritz Lang).
1 p.m. (10 a.m.): “The Harder They Fall” (1956, Mark Robson).
2:45 p.m. (11:45 a.m.): “While the City Sleeps” (1956, Fritz Lang).
4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “The Blue Gardenia” (1953, Fritz Lang).
6:15 pm. (3:15 p.m.): “Party Girl” (1958, Nicholas Ray).
8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “Criss Cross” (1949, Robert Siodmak).
9:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m.): “Brute Force” (1947, Jules Dassin).
11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.): “Desperate” (1947, Anthony Mann).
1 a.m. (10 p.m.): “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950, John Huston).
3 a.m. (12 a.m.): “The Wrong Man” (1956, Alfred Hitchcock).
Saturday, Aug. 1
2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Whirlpool” (1949, Otto Preminger).
3:45 p.m. (12:45 p.m.): “Laura” (1944, Otto Preminger).
Sunday, Aug. 2
12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (1964, Robert Aldrich). This is the macabre follow-up to 1962’s Grand Guignol suspense classic “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” But in this Robert Aldrich-directed, Henry Farrell-written Gothic soufflé featuring dueling divas Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, Crawford didn’t make it to the finishing line. Taken ill (or something), she was a no-show when the shooting started and was replaced by Bette’s longtime Warner Brothers buddy Olivia de Havilland.
The resulting chemistry isn’t nearly as potent in this Deep South chiller, which is a kind of grisly sub-Faulkner lady-in-distress murder-in-the-magnolias shocker. But those ace movie villainesses Agnes Moorehead and Mary Astor lend some extra “Sunset Boulevard”-style grande dame atmosphere. And so does the movie’s stylish misfit male contingent of Joseph Cotten, Bruce Dern, Cecil Kellaway and the great fat mama’s boy from “Baby Jane,” Victor Buono. The title song is sung, with a “Tennessee Waltz” warble, by Patti Page.
Monday, Aug. 3
2:45 a.m. (11:45 p.m.): “The Tall Target” (1951, Anthony Mann).
Tuesday, Aug. 4
9:15 a.m. (6:15 a.m.): “The Steel Trap” (1952, Andrew L. Stone).
4:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m.): “Count the Hours” (1953, Don Siegel). Crisp courtroom thriller about migrant workers framed for murder and defended by Macdonald Carey. Siegel’s direction is B-movie sharp. Teresa Wright and Jack Elam are the film’s Beauty and Beast, respectively.
Wednesday, Aug. 5
12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “The Band Wagon” (1953, Vincente Minnelli).
Thursday, Aug. 6
12 a.m. (9 p.m.): “Get Carter” (1971, Mike Hodges).
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