Film Noir Favorites 2023

                               

 

As a Senior Citizen I find it very difficult to watch modern movies either in theaters or on TV. It is not only just the gratuitous violence and sexuality, but also the incessant and confusing image changes on the screen. Just as in TV commercials, no image seems to appear for more than a second or two. I can’t stand or understand the furious editing. What a difference from the films that people of my generation grew up with. A director could just set his camera down and let his stars act for a couple of uninterrupted minutes. Such scenes, so common in Hollywood’s Golden Age, would be unthinkable today.

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. 

Often, many of these films were low budget productions usually designed to be seen as the second feature on traditional Hollywood double bills. 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 some of these films that I have viewed again this past year. Actually, I have viewed them many times and always enjoy coming back to them. 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.               

 

Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo

Kiss of Death. Victor Mature and Collen Gray star in this 1947 suspenseful drama of betrayal and violence. Mature plays a hoodlum who goes to prison rather than squeal on his associates in a botched jewel robbery. In this film the criminals are sons of Italian immigrants, as in many of the films of this era, but the film depicts the good, the bad , and the conflicted among them. Directed by Henry Hathaway this film provided a breakout role for Richard Widmark who plays a psychopathic murderer with a cackling laugh that would become his trademark. 99 minutes. CC                        

High Sierra.  Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino star in this ground-breaking 1941 drama. Bogart plays a prohibition era gangster released from prison only to find himself out of place in a new world. Written by John Huston, and directed with gritty intensity by Raoul Walsh, High Sierra signaled a new era in film in its attempt to humanize the criminal. 100 minutes. CC.

The Narrow Margin:  Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor, the dark lady of film noir, star in this 1952 thriller where most of the action takes place on a speeding train. McGraw plays a cop guarding a dead gangster’s moll (Windsor) as they travel from Chicago to LA to testify before a grand jury. Also on the train are determined hitmen who know the moll is on the train but don’t know what she looks like. This low-budget film effectively dispensed with background music in favor of the sounds of the moving train. 71 minutes. CC.

The Killing: Sterling Hayden stars in a 1956 heist drama directed in revolutionary fashion by Stanley Kubrick at the start of his career. Classic femme fatale Marie Windsor heads up a fine supporting cast that also includes Elisha Cook Jr. as her wimpy husband. This tough, tense film is one of the greatest crime dramas ever made. 85 minutes. CC.

He Walked by Night. Richard Basehart and Scott Brady star in a 1948 police procedural about a manhunt for a cop-killer. The ending takes place in the incredible Los Angeles storm sewer system. This film became the prototype for the famed TV series, Dragnet. Jack Webb, the creator of Dragnet, appears in a supporting role.  79 minutes. CC.

Roadhouse.  Ida Lupino stars in this 1948 film about a sultry, nightclub singer who upsets the friendship of two men with tragic results. Lupino sings her own songs in this film and demonstrates how a skilled actress can put over a song without much of a voice. Cornell Wilde, and Richard Widmark, one of the premier noir villains, co-star. Directed by Jean Negulesco with extraordinary black and white cinematography by Joseph LaShelle. 95 minutes. CC.

 

Too Late for Tears: Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea, one of noir’s top villains, star in this 1949 tale of a beautiful, scheming housewife who will let nothing stand in her way after a fortune drops into her lap. This role places Lizabeth Scott among the top femme fatales in noir history. The film also features Don Defore who would later become famous in TV sit coms like Ozzie and Harriet and Hazel. Directed by Byron Haskin, the film was recently restored after years of being lost. 100 minutes. CC.

 

Impact: Brian Donlevy and Ella Raines star in this 1949 film about a successful businessman whose wife and her lover scheme to bump off.  The film features Helen Walker as the conniving wife, Charles Coburn as a detective, and famed Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. Directed by Arthur Lubin. 111 minutes.

Dark Passage: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in this 1947 film about a man who breaks out of prison after being falsely convicted of murdering his wife, and has to undergo plastic surgery to escape the law. Perhaps the least well-known of the four films that starred the famous couple, it ranks with their best. Based on a novel by famed crime writer David Goodis. Agnes Morehead is outstanding as the villainess, and Horseley Stephenson creates an iconic plastic surgeon who makes a man look like Humphrey Bogart in just 90 minutes, and for only $200. 106 minutes. CC.*

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*Note: I prefer to use DVDs when watching these films. CC means that close captioning is available for the hearing impaired on the DVD. Many of them can also be available from streaming services.  

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