Top Film Picks: 2020

 

At this time of year it is traditional to present top film lists. My list for 2020 is drawn from the past. Few contemporary films will stand the test of time.

In the past few years, I have become a big fan of a certain kind of American film from the 1940s and 50s. They are primarily black and white dark crime dramas that French film makers and critics called film-noir when they rediscovered American films after the liberation of France in 1945.The term film-noir refers not only to the dark themes of these movies but also to the nighttime settings and the often-startling contrasts between light and dark, black and white. 

Originally, these films were low budget productions often designed to be presented as the second feature on traditional Hollywood double bills. Nevertheless, today many are regarded as ground-breaking classics. They featured great directors, actors, writers, and film craftsmen and craftswomen. To fill the insatiable demand for movies in America, Hollywood even imported talent from abroad. In my opinion, film-noir represents a short-lived American film renaissance that came to an end with the advent of television and technicolor. 

Below find brief descriptions of eight of these films that I have viewed this year.* Not only are they gripping, extremely well-told stories with masterful directing and acting, but also, they bring me back to the days of my childhood. In the background I can see a world that is no more: the dark dingy streets, the small apartments, the old telephones, and the incessant cigarette smoking. 

 

Double Indemnity: Famed director Billy Wilder directed this classic 1944 film noir about an insurance salesman who falls for a client’s wife, and then joins with her in a plot to kill him and collect on his life insurance. Barbara Stanwyck, blond wig and all, stars as the devious wife, and Fred MacMurray plays the salesman. Edward G. Robinson is excellent as the suspicious claims' investigator. 

Phantom Lady: In 1944 Robert Siodmak directed a number of films that would later make critics regard him as one of the great masters of film-noir. Phantom Lady, a little-known thriller, is no exception. After a fight with his wife on their anniversary, a man goes to a bar to drown his sorrows. When he returns home, he finds that police are waiting to arrest him for the murder of his wife. His only alibi depends on a woman he met in the bar, but he doesn’t even know her name. The film stars Alan Curtis, Ella Raines, and Franchot Tone.

I’ll Be Seeing You: This 1944 film is a holiday drama with noir trappings. Two strangers meet on a train, but she is a woman with a past and he is a soldier suffering from war wounds, both physical and mental. The film stars Ginger Rogers, who turned to dramatic roles after the break-up of her famed dancing partnership with Fred Astaire; and Joseph Cotton, who was at the height of his career after appearances in Citizen Kane and the Magnificent Ambersons.  Director William Dieterle not only brings out the chemistry between the two stars, but also gets the most out of a fine supporting cast, including a teen-age Shirley Temple.

Detour: A down on his luck musician hitchhiking to Hollywood finds himself with a dead body on his hands. Things go from bad to worse when he gets entangled with the most vicious femme-fatale in cinema history.  Tom Neal played the musician, and Ann Savage, whose career as a Hollywood starlet was on the wane, became a film icon with her portrayal of the woman he picks up on the road. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, the master of low budget films, this 1945 film took just a couple of weeks to shoot. 

Ann Savage

The Big Heat. Glenn Ford stars as a rogue police detective conducting a vendetta against a crime syndicate in this 1953 film by famed noir director Fritz Lang. Lee Marvin portrays a sadistic gangster and Gloria Grahame is excellent as his unfortunate girlfriend.

I Want To Live: Susan Hayward won an Academy Award for her portrayal of a party girl who gets mixed up with a gang of thieves. When a botched robbery leads to murder, her associates implicate her, and she is convicted and sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Based on a true story, Robert Wise directed this 1958 film in documentary fashion. The film was a big hit and featured background music by legendary Jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.

Touch of Evil: Orson Welles directed this 1958 film about crime and depravity in a Mexican border town.  It is a mangled masterpiece since the studio made drastic cuts and revisions without the director’s permission. The DVD release restores many of the cuts. The opening itself is a film icon. Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh star, and a heavily disguised Welles plays a corrupt police chief. Some critics believe this film to be the last American film-noir.

Orson Welles

Le Samourai: Renowned French director, Jean-Pierre Melville, directed this 1967 mixture of 1940s American gangster movies, 1960s French pop culture, and Japanese lone-warrior mythology. Alain Delon, who looks and acts like the young Clint Eastwood, plays a contract killer with samurai instincts. Shot is subdued color; Melville’s masterpiece defines cool. 

 

Bonus pick. 

Remember the Night: Barbara Stanwyck and Fred Mac Murray co-star in this 1940 holiday romance with touches of film-noir. It is interesting to compare them in this film with their roles in Double Indemnity four years later. They were a great pair. Directed by Preston Sturges this film is full of warmth and charm with fine performances by the supporting cast. 

 

Many of these films can be streamed today but I prefer to use DVDs because they often include excellent commentaries, background information, and subtitles for people like myself who are hearing impaired.

Happy viewing and a Happy New Year.

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*Eight other noir films were featured earlier this year in a post on The Weekly Bystander.