Skirball Cultural Center shows ‘The File on Thelma Jordon’ starring the grande dame of film noir

February 10, 2015 by

The Intriguante—Women of Intrigue in Film Noir series at the Skirball Cultural Center continues at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, with a movie starring the grande dame of film noir: Barbara Stanwyck.

Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck) asks: Why evade the law when you can simply seduce a lawman?

Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck) asks: Why bother to evade the law when you can simply seduce a lawman? Wendell Corey plays her snoozing companion.

In “The File on Thelma Jordon” (1950, Robert Siodmak), a film-noir melodrama, Stanwyck’s Thelma is a woman with a past and an ex-boyfriend who convinced her walk on the bad side. But rather than try to evade the law, she decides instead to seduce a married district attorney (Wendell Corey). When Thelma’s aunt is murdered, the DA is definitely the dude to have on her side. Still, guilt has a way of getting the best of a person, and it even gets to the cool, clever and mightily destructive Ms. Jordon.

Siodmak’s crisp, stylish directing paired with a tight script and Stanwyck’s powerful characterization make “The File on Thelma Jordon” a delightful big-screen treat.

Six years before “Thelma Jordon,” Stanwyck made “Phantom Lady” with Siodmak. Of course, one of Stanwyck’s most famous roles was as the murderous Phyllis Dietrichson in 1944’s “Double Indemnity,” directed by Billy Wilder.  Stanwyck and co-star Fred MacMurray took a risk by playing such dark characters in that they might alienate their fan base. But the risk paid off and they proved remarkably capable of playing a range of roles.

The exhibitions close on Sunday, March 1.

The exhibitions close on Sunday, March 1.

Stanwyck went on to star in many more film-noir titles, including “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” “The Two Mrs. Carrolls,” “Sorry, Wrong Number,” “No Man of Her Own,” “Clash by Night,” and “Crime of Passion.”

Admission is $10 general; $7 seniors and full-time students; $5 members. The exhibitions Light & Noir: Exiles and Émigrés in Hollywood, 1933–1950 and The Noir Effect will remain open until 8 p.m.

The exhibitions close on Sunday, March 1. If you haven’t seen them yet, what are you waiting for?! At 11 a.m. on March 1, the center will screen the PBS documentary Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood, which explores the impact of movie icons such as Wilder, Fritz Lang, Fred Zinnemann and Marlene Dietrich.

Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews, Noir Style, Out of the Shadows Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Film noir gets a Hawaiian punch Saturday at the Egyptian

May 26, 2013 by

New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago … these are the cities we usually associate with the grim, glamorous tales of film noir.

But when you get the rare chance to see a noir with a more exotic setting, it’s all the more memorable. The American Cinematheque is offering just such a viewing opp when it goes tiki on Saturday, June 1.

Noir stalwart Marie Windsor stars in this unusual example of the genre.

The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood is showing “Hell’s Half Acre” (1954, John Auer), which was filmed in filmed in Honolulu. Evelyn Keyes stars as a dancer combing the streets of Honolulu’s red-light district to hunt for her missing G.I. husband (Wendell Corey), who she believes is alive and writing songs in Hawaii.

Turns out, he’s also a gangster vying with Philip Ahn for control of the island’s vice rackets. Toss sultry, statuesque Marie Windsor into the mix, and it’s pulp nirvana, says the Cinematheque.

The party starts at 5 p.m. in the Egyptian’s courtyard, where there will performances from King Kukulele & the Friki Tikis and the Polynesian Paradise Dancers, tiki vendors and a cash bar with Polynesian drinks. A slide show and a 50th anniversary tribute to the Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room by Bob Baker’s Marionettes will precede the 7:30 p.m. screening.

Filed Under: Noir Style Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Wendell Corey astonishes as a doofus turned dangerous

September 30, 2011 by

The Killer is Loose/1956/Crown Productions, UA/73 min.

Michael Wilmington

By Michael Wilmington

Budd Boetticher, who didn’t direct nearly as many films as he should have, made a lot of them in the ’50s. And in 1956, he directed both a classic Western (“Seven Men from Now”) and a neglected semi-classic low-budget noir, “The Killer is Loose.”

Joseph Cotten plays a dedicated if disgruntled LA cop, Rhonda Fleming is his unwisely feisty wife, Alan Hale and John Larch are fellow fuzz, and, very memorably, Wendell Corey is the escaped bank robber who blames Cotten (correctly) for the death of his wife during his arrest.

Corey was a dependable, if often unexciting, sidekick and secondary guy in the ’40s and ’50s. In 1947’s “Desert Fury,” he plays John Hodiak’s right-hand crook, another great noir role. Corey gives an astonishing performance here as the psychotic vengeance-seeker – playing the character not as the usual cold-blooded, relentless Lee Marvin or Jack Palance type, but as someone you’d probably trust.

Wendell Corey plays the psycho as a polite, trustworthy type.

He’s a polite, preoccupied, considerate, somewhat clumsy, nice-enough-acting doofus, not at all maniacal or dangerous-appearing. He’s also seemingly unstoppable, as he breaks out of jail and moves inexorably toward Cotten and Fleming and their home in the suburbs, killing everyone in his way.

Corey’s loose killer and his last disguise, which in some ways anticipates Norman Bates’ mother in “Psycho,” are both absurd and scary.

The movie, like a lot of Boetticher, is immaculately well executed, the work of an extraordinary genre-bending talent. By the way, Lee Marvin had one of his all-time best heavy roles in Boetticher’s above-mentioned gem “Seven Men from Now.” In that movie, it was hero Randolph Scott who was the relentless pursuer, out to avenge his wife.

The cinematographer of “The Killer is Loose” was Lucien Ballard, Boetticher’s good friend and great collaborator. Ballard, an ace at both Westerns and noirs, shot this movie the same year he lit Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing.”

MGM Limited Edition Collection, available from online retailers. No extras.

Filed Under: Classic Noir Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,