Film Noir Favorites 2022

                                                                

Hollywood’s Golden Age refers to films made from the coming of sound in the thirties to the advent of TV in the fifties. These were the films my parents watched in theaters, and which I originally watched as a teenager when they began to appear on TV in the fifties. My favorites are the 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 startling contrasts between light and dark, black and white. 

Below find brief descriptions of some of these films that I have viewed in the past 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 that people always answer, and the incessant cigarette smoking. 

 

Shadow of a Doubt. Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright star in this 1943 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cotton plays a long-lost relative, Uncle Charley, who returns to a sleepy small town for a stay with his sister and her family who welcome him with open arms. He charms them and the whole town but his niece, played extremely well by Teresa Wright, begins to have doubts about her beloved uncle. Hitchcock decided to film on location in Santa Rosa , California, the epitome of a sleepy, ordinary American town. It was a wise decision as we get a look at an American way of life that hardly exists anymore, but also see what can happen when it is invaded by an evil presence. According to Hitchcock’s daughter, this was her father’s favorite film. 

The Suspect. Charles Laughton and Ella Raines star in this 1944 film by film noir master Robert Siodmak, one of the many German artists who fled Germany when the Nazis came to power. The film is set in a quiet London neighborhood in the early twentieth century. Laughton plays a  respectable office manager in a small business who also has been married for years to a shrewish wife.  When he falls in love with a sweet, young stenographer, his wife refuses to give him a divorce and threatens to disgrace him and the girl. When the wife is found dead by an apparent accident, the police become suspicious. Laughton is at his best in this film.

The Street with No Name. Richard Widmark  plays a gangster and Mark Stevens is an undercover FBI agent who infiltrates  the criminal gang in this 1948 documentary style film based on FBI files. Widmark rose to stardom by playing psychotic gangsters as no one else could. Older readers might remember his film debut in the 1947 film, Kiss of Death, where in a fit of rage, he pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of steps. The film is a tense, taut thriller with excellent noir cinematography. 

D.O.A. The title of this 1950 film means Dead on Arrival. Edmund O’Brien stars as an ordinary accountant who spends the last hours of his life hunting down the man who poisoned him. Originally not well received, it is now regarded as a noir classic.  Many of the scenes were shot on location in a San Francisco, enabling us to take a look back and see what the city looked like 70 years ago. In one amazing scene we get a view of a crowded Market Street as Edmund O’Brien runs through a maze of pedestrian who seem oblivious to the filming. D.O.A. is not among the best film noirs but you cannot count yourself as a fan unless you have seen it.

Panic in the Streets. In this 1950 film, Richard Widmark stars as a public health official desperately trying to prevent an unsuspecting plague carrier from infecting  the entire city of New Orleans. After rising to fame as one of filmdom’s greatest villains, Widmark  wanted to break out  and play a good guy. Still, he has a hard edge. His character is an underpaid, overworked and somewhat disgruntled government official. He can hardly pay his family’s bills and work keeps him from paying attention to his wife, played beautifully by Barbara bel Geddes, and young son. Things get even worse when the medical examiner finds evidence of plague in the body of a murder victim. Director Elia Kazan shot the film on location in neo-realist style as he plumbed the depths of the New  Orleans waterfront dives. The film also features Paul Douglas, Jack Palance, in his film debut, and Zero Mostel. This film is a precursor to On the Waterfront, Kazan’s masterpiece shot on the docks of New York City.

This Gun for Hire.  In this 1942 film Alan Ladd plays a hitman on the lam from both the police and his employer in a breakout role that made him a star. It also marked the beginning of his film association with sultry Veronica Lake. Based on a novella by famed British author Grahame Greene, the film and Ladd created a new kind of criminal.  The film humanizes the killer and explores the background that turned him into a hired gunman.

Key Largo. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in this 1948  film that marked the last of their four joint film appearances. The fine cast included Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In this film directed by John Huston, Robinson plays a notorious gangster who holds the residents of a Florida boarding house hostage while a hurricane rages outside. 

Chinatown.  Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway star in this 1974  technicolor tribute to the film noir crime dramas of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Set in Los Angeles in 1937, a private eye is hired by a wealthy socialite to see if her husband is having an affair. But a simple case of adultery soon turns into a dark world of conspiracy and murder. Directed by Roman Polanski, this film is often listed as one of the greatest films of all time.

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