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The Film Noir File: Ida Lupino Day, Dassin’s prison noir

June 12, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM). The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

Actress and director Ida Lupino was one of the few female moviemakers of the studio-era heyday.

No one could play a moll or a tough dame on screen like Ida Lupino – even though in life, she was a sophisticated British émigré from a notable theatrical family. (Her father was the famous stage and screen star Lupino Lane.)

She could look just right with a cigarette in her mouth and a highball in her hand, and she could trade quips with the best and toughest of them, including Humphrey Bogart, Robert Ryan, John Garfield, and her wry one-time husband Howard Duff.

She’s also a landmark lady in film history as one of the few female moviemakers of the studio-era heyday. In the early ’50s, Ida co-produced and directed a string of taut B noirs (“Outrage,” “The Bigamist,” “The Hitch-Hiker” and others) that were models of nervy, economical and socially probing American movie making.

Lupino tackled tough, ambitious subjects (rape, bigamy, crime) and handled them with lean expertise. Later in her career, she directed on television, where she was a mainstay helmer on the offbeat Western series “Have Gun, Will Travel” with Richard Boone.

We’ll always remember her, though, as a reigning queen of film noir.

Movies to be shown today (June 12) are: “They Drive By Night,” “High Sierra,” “The Hard Way,” “Outrage” “Beware, My Lovely,” “On Dangerous Ground” and “The Hitch-Hiker.”

The divine Burt Lancaster in “Brute Force.”

Friday, June 13

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “The Woman on Pier 13” (1949, Robert Stevenson). With Robert Ryan, Laraine Day, John Agar and Thomas Gomez. Reviewed in FNB on April 9, 2013.

3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m.): “Dementia 13” (1963, Francis Coppola). Stylish but tawdry little Roger Corman-produced cheapie about a murder rampage in an isolated mansion. With William Campbell (JFK mistress Judy Exner’s ex-hubby), Luana Anders and Patrick Magee.

Sunday, June 15

2 a.m. (11 p.m.): “Purple Noon” (1960, Rene Clement). With Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet and Marie Floret. (In French, with subtitles.) Reviewed in FNB on Feb. 5, 2013.

Tuesday, June 17

12:15 a.m. (9:15 p.m.): “Witness for the Prosecution” (1957, Billy Wilder). With Charles Laughton, Marlene Dietrich, Tyrone Power and Elsa Lanchester. Reviewed in FNB on Aug. 25, 2012.

Wednesday, June 18

6:45 a.m. (3:45 a.m.): “Brute Force” (1947, Jules Dassin). With Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Yvonne De Carlo, Charles Bickford and Jeff Corey. Reviewed in FNB on Aug. 15, 2013.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Brute Force, film noir, Ida Lupino, Jules Dassin, TCM

Film Noir File: Beautiful young Brando blazes in ‘Waterfront’

June 5, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

The Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK

“On the Waterfront”
(1954, Elia Kazan). 8 p.m. (5 p.m.), Saturday, June 7.

Elia Kazan’s socially conscious film noir masterpiece “On the Waterfront” is a touchstone of the American cinema, one of those movies you never forget. This powerhouse social drama, a film loaded with heart, brains and guts, pulls you into the crime-ravaged docks of New York City in the 1950s.

Karl Malden, as the crusading priest, talks with Brando’s ex-pug, Terry Malloy.

Shot in New Jersey and based on actual events, adapted by writer Budd Schulberg from a series of articles by Malcolm Johnson, the movie portrays an exploited band of longshoremen battling for their rights on a dock run by a corrupt union, gangsters and killers. Kazan, Schulberg and a wonderful ensemble give this story a stinging realism few other films of the ’50s can match.

In “Waterfront,” we get a ringside seat at a battle between good and evil, crime and the law. Pitted against the brutal, crooked union-boss, Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), is an idealistic, courageous priest, Father Barry (Karl Malden), and a washed-up, but eventually heroic ex-boxer, Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando).

Eva Marie Saint and Brando, gorgeously framed by cinematographer Boris Kaufman.

Among the movie’s other indelible characters: Rod Steiger as Charlie, Terry Malloy’s fancy-dressing mouthpiece-for-the-mob brother, and Eva Marie Saint, in her Oscar-winning movie debut as Edie Doyle, whose brother was murdered by Johnny Friendly’s thugs, and with whom Terry falls in love.

“On the Waterfront” is a knockout on all levels. It has great direction (Kazan), a great tough script (Schulberg), great black-and-white photography (Boris Kaufman), great naturalistic art direction (Richard Day), a great score (Leonard Bernstein), and, most of all, that perfect ensemble cast, with the extraordinary Brando at his youthful peak.

Brando makes every one of his scenes come alive, breathe and bleed, especially when Terry cries out to his brother Charlie (Steiger): “You don’t understand! I coulda had class! I coulda been a contender! I coulda been somebody! Instead of a bum, which is what I am.”

We’ll always remember that electrifying confession of failure and pain in the back of that cab, coming from the young brilliant actor playing the gentle-hearted, beaten-down ex-pug. He moves us so deeply because he was more than a contender; he was the champ. He had more than class; he had genius. He was more than somebody. He was Brando.

You can watch “On the Waterfront” on TCM of course. But if you’re lucky enough to be in Los Angeles this weekend, you can see the film on the big screen at 7:30 p.m., Friday, June 6, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Appearing on stage at that showing, to discuss the movie, will be one of its eight Oscar-winners, Eva Marie Saint.

Thursday, June 5

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “The Tarnished Angels” (1957, Douglas Sirk).

Dorothy Malone stars as a restless wife; Rock Hudson plays a roving reporter.

The setting: New Orleans at Mardi Gras. The source: William Faulkner’s novel “Pylon.” Scripted by George Zuckerman, who also penned Sirk’s “Written on the Wind” (1956).

The stars (who also played in “Wind”): Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone are a married couple; Rock Hudson is Burke Devlin, a drunken newspaper reporter at the Times-Picayune, who becomes enamored of them both.

With compassion and high style, “Tarnished Angels” focuses on life’s fringes and the ironies of heroism. Brilliantly shot by Irving Glassberg (who also shot Sirk’s “Captain Lightfoot”), it’s one of the best-looking black-and-white/widescreen movies of its era, a dark gem of noir style.

The one flaw is Hudson’s mostly un-drunk Devlin. But it’s not his fault; Hudson began the movie playing Devlin as soused, but Universal, fearful of harm to their big star’s image, ordered him to play it sober.

The film is a classic anyway. It was Sirk’s favorite of the films he directed and Faulkner preferred it to all the other movies made from his work, even the acknowledged 1949 classic “Intruder in the Dust.” Faulkner, no stranger to booze himself, even liked Hudson’s cold-sober Devlin.

Saturday, June 7

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “On the Waterfront” (1954, Elia Kazan). See Pick of the Week.

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “Rumble on the Docks” (1956, Fred F. Sears). A poor man’s mash-up of “On the Waterfront” and “Crime in the Streets,“ with rebel rocker James Darren (“Gidget”), Laurie Carroll and Robert Blake.

11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.): “The Mob” (1951, Robert Parrish). Broderick Crawford is an undercover cop, playing a bad guy to infiltrate a poisonous waterfront mob. The Mob includes Richard Kiley, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson and Neville Brand. Lesser known, but a good noir.

Sunday, June 8

6 p.m. (3 p.m.): “Notorious” (1946, Alfred Hitchcock). With Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains and Louis Calhern. Reviewed in FNB on Feb. 12, 2013 and Feb. 20, 2012.

Tuesday June 10

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Woman in the Window” (1944, Fritz Lang). With Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey and Dan Duryea. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 24, 2011.

10 p.m. (7. P.m.): “Scarlet Street” (1945, Fritz Lang). With Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 24, 2011.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, Elia Kazan, Eva Marie Saint, film noir, Fritz Lang, LACMA, Marlon Brando, On the Waterfront, TCM

The Film Noir File: A Day with Fritz Lang, Der Noirmeister

May 29, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

PICK OF THE WEEK: Friday, May 30: A Day of Noir with Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang lived in a world of nightmares: in 20^th century Germany during World War I, the economic collapse of the Weimar Republic, the turbulent sturm und drang of the 1930s, the murderous rise of the Nazis and the subsequent conflagration of WWII.

Lang created cinematic nightmares as well: crafting terrifying frescoes and mad (but sometimes all too true) visions of a world of crime and war. His movies, mostly done in the ultra-noir hues of high-style black and white cinematography, spanned the silent era, when he made “Metropolis,” “Die Nibelungen” and the “Dr. Mabuse” thrillers, and the sound era, when he made “M,” “Fury,” “Scarlet Street” and “The Big Heat.”

Fritz Lang was a noir master.

Lang, who started his artistic career as a sculptor, was equally great as a director of German art films and of American crime movies. He made cinematic classics in both countries. His early collaborator, and also his wife, was the brilliant scriptwriter Thea Von Harbou “M”), who ended up leaving him and joining the Nazi Party.

Lang managed to elude Fascist censorship and was once offered the leadership of the entire German film industry by Joseph Goebbels, who (like Hitler) was an admirer of Lang and Von Harbou’s spectacular science fiction epic “Metropolis.” (See below.) A leftist and anti-Nazi, and also a man who had Jewish relatives, Lang fled Germany and Europe instead, and wound up one of the top directors of the Hollywood studio system during its heyday. He was also, indisputably, one of the reigning masters of the movie style we call film noir.

Young French critic-directors (Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol) idolized Lang, as much for his American films as his German ones. Finally, in the mid-1950s, he returned to Germany. He made a last few German pictures, and co-starred, as himself. in Jean-Luc Godard’s French classic “Contempt.”

Fritz Lang, born in Vienna in 1890, died in Los Angeles in 1976, at age 85. Eight of his best pictures are screening on TCM this Friday.

(The Lang films without notes below have been reviewed previously in Film Noir Blonde. Next week, starting Thursday, seven Lang films will play on the big screen at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.)

“Scarlet Street” (1945) stars Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett.

“Scarlet Street” (1945) stars Edward G. Robinson (center) and Joan Bennett.

6 a.m. (3 a.m.): “Metropolis” (1927, Fritz Lang). The rich vs. the poor, the factory owners vs. the workers, and the mad scientist vs. the people and their heroine (Brigitte Helm as the human Maria and her double, the false robot Maria) in the greatest of all silent era science fiction epics. And it’s noir as well. With Alfred Abel and Rudolf-Klein-Rogge).

7:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m.): “M” (1931). With Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke and Gustaf Grundgens.

9:15 a.m. (6:15 a.m.): “Fury” (1936). Spencer Tracy, Sylvia Sidney, Bruce Cabot, Walter Brennan and Walter Abel.

11 a.m. (8 a.m.). “Scarlet Street” (1945). With Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea.

1 p.m. (10 a.m.). “Clash by Night” (1952). With Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas and Marilyn Monroe.

3 p.m. (12 p.m.). “The Blue Gardenia” (1953). With Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Raymond Burr, Ann Sothern and Nat King Cole.

4:45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.). “Moonfleet” (1955). A moody Robert Louis Stevenson-style costume adventure-romance, about a dashing pirate (Stewart Granger) who wins the hearts of a young lad (Jon Whiteley) and several beautiful and susceptible ladies (Viveca Lindfors, Joan Greenwood). Based on a bodice-heaving bestseller, with supporting turns by George Sanders and Ian Wolfe. They especially loved this one in “Cahiers du Cinema.”

6:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m.). “”While the City Sleeps” (1956). With Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Howard Duff, Rhonda Fleming and John Drew Barrymore. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Neo Noir Reviews Tagged With: film noir, Fritz Lang, TCM

The Film Noir File: Anthony Mann’s sizzling ‘Raw Deal’

May 21, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

The Film Noir File is FNB’s guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir from the schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK:

“Raw Deal“ (1949, Anthony Mann). Friday, May 23, 5:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m.)

The eternal triangle: Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt and Dennis O’Keefe in “Raw Deal.”

We’re in Washington state, on the run, surrounded by mountains, fog and guys with guns. Dennis O’Keefe is one of them: a tough, angry escaped convict named Joe Sullivan. Joe, need we say, got a raw deal. He took the rap and went to stir for fat, sleazy mobster Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr), a rat who double-crossed him and now wants him dead. Claire Trevor is Pat Cameron, the moll who loves Joe and sprang him from jail. She’s on the lam too. Marsha Hunt is a pretty legal caseworker who thinks Joe is innocent and got mixed up in the jail break; she also has a yen for the guy. John Ireland is bad news walking: Coyle’s murderous torpedo.

Here is a vintage, top-of-the-line B-movie film noir from the Golden Age and they don’t get much better or more noir. Director Anthony Mann was as much a master of this form as he was of the Western, or the epic, and he‘s at his peak in “Raw Deal.“ The cast is top-notch. The writers, a crack team, included Leopold Atlas (Wellman’s “The Story of G.I. Joe”) and Mann’s frequent collaborator, John C. Higgins (“T-Men,” “Border Incident.”) The photography – grim, moody, coldly romantic – was shot by the master, John Alton. These guys and gals all know what they’re doing, and the picture is a little masterpiece, the real deal.

Thursday, May 22

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The House on 92^nd Street” (1945, Henry Hathaway). With William Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Signe Hasso and Gene Lockhart. Reviewed in FNB on March 13, 2013. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Anthony Mann, film noir, Raw Deal, TCM

The Film Noir File: Howard Hawks and Raymond Chandler, Bogie & Bacall: As good as noir gets

May 15, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

PICK OF THE WEEK

It doesn’t get any better than Bogie and Bacall in “The Big Sleep.”

“The Big Sleep” (1946, Howard Hawks). Tuesday, May 20, 12:15 p.m. (9:15 a.m.) With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone, and Elisha Cook, Jr. Click here to read the FNB review.

Thursday, May 15

6 p.m. (3 p.m.): “The Night of the Hunter” (1955, Charles Laughton). With Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. Reviewed in FNB on Feb. 3, 2011.

Saturday, May 17

7 a.m. (4 a.m.): “Each Dawn I Die” (1939, William Keighley). With James Cagney, George Raft, Jane Bryan, George Bancroft and Victor Jory. Reviewed in FNB on March 10, 2012.

8:45 a.m. (5:45 a.m.): “Johnny Angel” (1945, Edwin L. Marin). With George Raft, Claire Trevor, and Signe Hasso. Reviewed in FNB on June 27, 2012.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.); “The Haunting” (1963, Robert Wise). With Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson and Russ Tamblyn. Reviewed in FNB on Oct. 29, 2013. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: film noir, Howard Hawks, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Raymond Chandler, TCM, The Big Sleep

Film Noir fills screens in Palm Springs, at Lacma and on TCM

May 8, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

Noiristas are spoiled for choices yet again! The Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival starts Thursday night, May 8, in Palm Springs and runs through Sunday, May 11.

The lineup includes: “The Window” (1949, Ted Tetzlaff), “Roadblock” (1951, Harold Daniels), “Too Late for Tears” (1949, Byron Haskin), “Sunset Blvd.” (1950, Billy Wilder), “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948, Anatole Litvak), “Southside 1-1000” (1950, Boris Ingster), “Storm Warning,” (1951, Stuart Heisler), “The Killers” (1946, Robert Siodmak), “Shack Out on 101” (1955, Edward Dein), “Deadline U.S.A.” (1952, Richard Brooks), “Laura” (1944, Otto Preminger) and “Out of the Past” (1947, Jacques Tourneur).

Special guests are: Barbara Hale, Nancy Olson, author Victoria Wilson, Susie Lancaster, author Kate Buford, Terry Moore and Susan Andrews.

Orson Welles and his oeuvre are honored at Lacma.

Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the stellar “Essential Orson Welles” series continues until June 7.

Says the museum: “Screen legend Orson Welles was a pioneering filmmaker and raffish public personality best known for the remarkable achievement of ‘Citizen Kane.’ Focusing on Welles as a trailblazing director, this series, presented by the Academy, showcases nine of the 12 films completed in his lifetime (several of them screening in brand-new restorations).

And, as always, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) offers plenty of retro darkness and debauchery. TCM times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

“Murder, My Sweet”
(1944, Edward Dmytryk). Saturday, May 10, 11:30 p.m. (8:30 p.m.), With Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Mike Mazurki and Anne Shirley.

Sunday, May 11

2 p.m. (11 a.m.): “Mildred Pierce” (1945, Michael Curtiz). With Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Ann Blyth, Zachary Scott and Eve Arden.

Tuesday, May 13

11:30 a.m. (8:30 a.m.): “Pitfall” (1948, Andre De Toth). With Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Raymond Burr and Jane Wyatt.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style Tagged With: Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, film noir, LACMA, Orson Welles, TCM

The Film Noir File: Wham, bam, thank you, Sam!

April 25, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Tuesday, April 29

Cigar-chewing, ex-New York City newsman Sam Fuller was one of the toughest of all the tough noir directors. He made tough crime thrillers, tough war movies, tough westerns, and even a tough period newspaper drama (“Park Row,” which was his own favorite). Eight of his movies are on tap this Tuesday.

American film executives and critics were often bewildered by Sam Fuller.

Offhand, we can’t think of another moviemaker who began his scenes and camera takes by firing off a gun, or who ended one picture (“Shock Corridor”) by flooding and destroying his own set and vamoosing from the studio.

Sam Fuller knew what real crooks, cops, Army men and news guys were like, and he encouraged his casts to play it hard, spiky and dark. American film executives were often bewildered by Sam, and so were American film critics. But the French loved him.

Fuller served as a soldier with the famed WWII infantry squadron The Big Red One (which he and star Lee Marvin portrayed, to the hilt, in their 1980 war saga of the same name). And he served as a 20^th Century Fox contract writer-director, under the formidable Darryl F. Zanuck, which may have been almost as dangerous.

Like Don Siegel and Phil Karlson, Fuller was one of the masters of B-budgets, though he did all right with a few “As” too, including “The Big Red One,” and the Venice Film Festival prize winner (with Richard Widmark), “Pickup on South Street.” He never made anything soft and he never made anything that put you to sleep.

7:15 a.m. (4:15 a.m.): “I Shot Jesse James” (1949, Samuel Fuller). With John Ireland, Preston Foster and Barbara Britton. Reviewed in FNB on July 13, 2012.

8:45 a.m. (5:45 a.m.): “The Baron of Arizona” (1950, Fuller). Vincent Price at his slickest, suavest and meanest, playing a real-life Arizona land-grabber who almost stole the whole state.

10:30 a.m. (7:30 a.m.): “The Steel Helmet” (1951, Fuller). A very dark, grim and relentless Korean war movie, about a platoon under fire bivouacked in a Buddhist temple, led by a hard-case sergeant named Zack (Gene Evans). One of the few times Fuller had most of the critics in his corner; “The Steel Helmet” is a B-movie classic. With Steve Brodie, James Edwards and Robert Hutton.

12 p.m. (9 a.m.): “Run of the Arrow” (1957, Fuller). The Civil War is over. Southern rebel survivor Rod Steiger is in Sioux country out west, trying to survive. This film and Forty Guns (with Barbara Stanwyck as a tough cattle queen) are Fuller’s best westerns, though “Run of the Arrow” has the stronger cast. Besides Steiger, who affects an outrageous Irish- Confederate brogue, there’s Charley Bronson, Brian Keith, Ralph Meeker, Sarita Montiel and Jay C. Flippen.

1:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m.): “Verboten!” (1958, Fuller). James Best, who usually plays sensitive cowboys, is a nosey yank soldier in post-war Germany, whose German girlfriend (Susan Cummings) leads him to a secret neo-Nazi group.

3 p.m. (12 p.m.): “Merrill’s Marauders” (1962, Fuller). Jeff Chandler, in his last movie, plays the real-life WW2 hero General Frank Merrill of the famed Merrill’s Marauders — fighting and suffering in the Burmese jungles, in what’s probably Fuller’s most conventional war picture. But it’s a good one anyway. Chandler is backed by much of the Warner Brothers TV Western repertory troupe: Claude Akins, Andrew Duggan, Ty Hardin, Will Hutchins and Peter Brown.

4: 45 p.m. (1:45 p.m.): “Shock Corridor” (1963, Fuller). With Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Gene Evans, James Edwards and Larry Tucker. Reviewed in FNB on Nov. 16, 2011.

6:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m.): “The Naked Kiss” (1964, Fuller). With Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Virginia Grey, Michael Dante, and Patsy Kelly. Reviewed in FNB on Jan. 16, 2012. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: film noir, Sam Fuller, TCM

The Film Noir File: Otto Preminger paints it black, twice

April 18, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney star in “Laura” and “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

Otto Preminger, a prickly auteur with a sometimes mean disposition, claimed not to know what “film noir” meant and often ridiculed interviewers who asked him about it. But in the ’40s and ’50s, the Viennese émigré and nemesis of censors and philistines directed a string of stylish black-and-white, gloomily fatalistic crime pictures that epitomized the whole genre. Two of Otto’s best are showing this Saturday, and you can watch them as a double feature, starting at 8 p.m. EST/5 p.m. PST.

First up is Preminger’s adaptation of Vera Caspary’s best-selling novel of murder and romance in high-style ’40s New York City, “Laura.” This classic is followed by the sharp, moody Ben Hecht-scripted drama of obsessive police and ruthless gangsters “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” Both movies star Dana Andrews as a tough cop and Gene Tierney as a glamour girl, and both of them helped define noir – even if Preminger couldn’t or wouldn‘t.

“Laura” (1944, Otto Preminger). 8 p.m. (5 p.m.), Saturday, April 19. With Tierney, Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price and Judith Anderson.

“Where the Sidewalk Ends” (1950, Otto Preminger). Saturday, April 19. With Andrews, Tierney, Gary Merrill and Karl Malden. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: Dana Andrews, film noir, Gene Tierney, Laura, Otto Preminger, TCM, Where the Sidewalk Ends

TCM Classic Film Fest embraces the black sheep: film noir

April 17, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

By Film Noir Blonde and Mike Wilmington

Words that we associate with family: Happy times. Togetherness. Loyalty. Fun. Laughter. Pure love. Film noir.

Film noir? Yup, film noir. This dark and cynical genre was surprisingly well represented at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, which was dedicated to the theme: “Family in the Movies: The Ties That Bind.”

Maureen O’Hara and Walter Pidgeon star in “How Green Was My Valley.”

Families, at their best, give us solace and joy. At their worst, they tear us apart. Both extremes showed up at the fest, from “How Green Was My Valley” on the sunny side to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” on the stormy, noir edge.

Other noir highlights were “Double Indemnity,” “The Thin Man,” “Touch of Evil,” “The Naked City,” “Freaks,” “The Lady From Shanghai,” “Johnny Guitar” and “The Godfather Part II.”

This year marked the fifth annual edition of one of the world’s great (and certainly one of its most lovable) film festivals. During its four-day run, hosted by TCM’s Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz with many special guests, this bounteous cinematic fest became a celebration of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons and other blood ties.

More than 70 movies, including some real masterpieces, were presented at first-rate venues, such as the TCL Chinese Theatres, Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, Disney’s flagship El Capitan, plus poolside outdoor movies at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Is there any more powerful or moving portrait, for example, of a loving family facing the vicissitudes of life and surviving the relentless march of change than director John Ford’s “How Green Was My Valley?”

Maureen O’Hara, who played Angharad, appeared on the El Capitan stage, still full of Irish sass and fire. At 93 and feisty as ever, she is our living link to the beauties and treasures of the celluloid past.

How green were our valleys then…

Other classic films, all shown in pristine and sometimes newly restored prints, included: “Gone with the Wind,” “The Best Years of Our Lives,” “East of Eden,” “Father of the Bride,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “The Quiet Man,” “City Lights,” “Written on the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

Granted, for movie lovers who prize a happy ending above all else, film noir could be a rebel, a tough child to love. But then just about every clan has at least one black sheep. Isn’t the outcast the one who needs love the most? Isn’t loving the hard-to-love the ultimate test of family bonds? Isn’t that the point of being a family?

Film noir is the cinematic equivalent of a prodigal son or spoiled baby – recalcitrant, yes, but also irresistible. Leave it to film noir to break the rules, steal attention and get its own way whenever it can.

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Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: Ben Mankiewicz, City Lights, Double Indemnity, East of Eden, family, film noir, Gone with the Wind, How Green Was My Valley, Johnny Guitar, Robert Osborne, TCM, TCM Classic Film Festival, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Godfather Part II, The Quiet Man, The Wizard of Oz, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Written on the Wind

Another great time at the TCM Classic Film Fest

April 15, 2014 by Film Noir Blonde

Thanks to everyone at the TCM Classic Film Festival. It was a great time: Movies, events, staff and fans were amazing! I’ll be writing a more detailed overview but for now, I just wanted to mention a noir factoid I recently uncovered.

“Double Indemnity” (1944, Billy Wilder) was a highlight of the fest. Both Walter’s place (the Bryson Apartments) and Phyllis’ house are still in LA. In the film, Walter reckons the house cost about $30,000; it would now cost more than $1.5 million. Read more about the house here.

Phyllis’ house was and is at 6301 Quebec Drive in the Hollywood Hills.

In 1944, Fred MacMurray bought the Bryson building for $600,000. Built in 1913 by real estate developer Hugh W. Bryson, the 10-story Beaux Arts stunner was where MacMurray’s character Walter Neff lived in “Double Indemnity.”