Monthly Archives: July 2012

A novelist meets a woman, a friend of a friend, and falls for her right away. They get married quickly, and it turns out she’s a murderously jealous crazy person. The moral of the story, don’t marry someone you’ve known less than a week.

I didn’t particularly care for this one. It dragged most of the time, leaving me bored. Gene Tierney’s performance as the crazy woman was decent, but most of the time I found her character merely deplorable instead of chilling. The rest of the characters were poorly fleshed out, and pretty flat. I’m in the minority of people on this one, but I just couldn’t get myself interested in anything happening onscreen.

This is Glenn Ford’s second appearance of noir month, in a role that is the complete opposite of the character in The Big Heat. Ford plays cheating gambler Johnny Farrell. With a stroke of luck, he’s taken under the wing of a mysterious casino owner in Argentina, where things go pretty well. That is, until said casino owner takes a bride while on a trip abroad, and it turns out to be someone from Johnny’s past.

By reputation, Gilda is the story of the penultimate femme fatale. If you’re going to be destroyed at the schemings of a femme fatale, Rita Hayworth is a hell of a way to go. Actually, in reality, the idea that Gilda is a femme fatale is only true in part. She’s one small part femme fatale, and a much bigger part victim. It seemed to me that the male characters in the film were pretty hell-bent on self-destruction whether she was there or not. Sure, some deceit on her part got things turned in a bad direction, but if guys destroy themselves just because a woman is really sexy, that’s on them, not her. Most of the time she was just doing what she needed to do to protect herself some dangerous men, who certainly made her life pretty miserable, so she played games to keep some leverage for herself. During most of the second half of the film, it wasn’t even that she was dangerous, but more that the protagonist was an asshole most of the time.

Another solid noir film, and Rita Hayworth’s most celebrated and remembered performance.

Kiss Me Deadly is about a sleazy private detective, Mike Hammer, who picks up an ill-fated hitchhiker one night. The pair get run off the road, she turns up dead (but not from the car accident) and he gets busy trying to figure out who killed her. He does this both because they tried to kill him, too, and because he thinks there may be an angle for him in it.

I’m going to have to be honest and say it has been my least favorite film so far.

**Spoilers follow.** Mike Hammer was interesting enough as an anti-hero, and there are certainly some enjoyable bit characters, but as a whole I thought the whole thing was uninteresting. The plot is wildly implausible and senseless, the characters don’t make much sense, nothing much is explained to us, and the climax features bizarrely inaccurate nuclear science. The mystery never even gets solved, Hammer just pieces together the correct name of the villain and gets to his house in time to get shot in the gut and get his partner out of the house before the lady who opened the plutonium lights on fire. Yeah, you read that sentence correctly. WTF?

A huge cult favorite, and celebrated on a number of top film lists, it left me mostly underwhelmed.

Movie #8 is in the books, putting me 1/4 of the way through noir month.

First, we had The Big Sleep, something that sounds pretty nice to an insomniac like me… unless you’re talking about death. Now, we have The Big Heat, which is the sort of thing most of the country completely understands right now with this remarkable heat wave everyone has been experiencing over the last few weeks if they don’t live on the west coast.

In The Big Heat, a corrupt cop kills himself, leaving a long letter to the DA behind. His wife finds the body and the letter, then puts in a call to a crime boss before calling the police, hiding the letter from the investigating officer. The cop put on the case is an honorable, honest cop who gets pulled deeper into the story until it hits too close to home, after which he winds up on a mission to single-handedly take down a city-wide crime syndicate.

To begin with, you need to be able to look past one ridiculous plot hole: Why would the corrupt police force put one of the few intractable, honest cops on this case? If the cops are in the crime syndicate’s pocket, then they would have made sure one of their own guys ushered the case quickly out of view. Instead, someone decides that the only cop who might create problems on the case is the guy who gets the case.

Yet, beyond that, film style pioneer Fritz Lang takes control, the story gets moving, and it makes for another enjoyable noir film. There are several winning moments with a lot of heart, especially in the movie’s final third. A major highlight is Gloria Grahame as a villain’s girlfriend, who figures heavily into most of the plot’s most important events.

**Spoilers follow***

One interesting note I found about this film, but didn’t realize while watching it, was that the film subverts the femme fatale theme. This film, instead of having a deadly female character who consciously or otherwise brings nothing but death and destruction to a male protagonist, has a male protagonist who unwittingly causes destruction for all of the women he encounters.

Ace in the Hole stars Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum, a newspaper reporter who has been fired in just about every major city in America, so he takes a job in the ABQ to bide his time until a big story comes along that he can ride back into the big time. On his way to cover a rattlesnake hunt he happens upon some sightseeing caves where a man has just been pinned by a cave-in. Tatum just found his big story, but how far is he willing to go to get back to the big papers?

I’d never had much experience with Kirk Douglas as of two weeks ago, but during said two weeks I’ve now seen two of his more critically acclaimed roles, in this and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory. I now see what all the fuss was about. His charisma just pops off the screen. It was hard not to like his character in Ace in the Hole, even though he’s not what anyone would call “a good guy”, or “a swell fella.” It makes him perfect for this role, because we as the audience are drawn into his scheme, even while we know its wrong.

One of the best parts of doing months like this is that it opens all these other little avenues and tributaries into film history. The example here is that I know there will be more Kirk Douglas in my near future than otherwise would have been the case.

Ace in the Hole also marks the second Billy Wilder film so far (along with Sunset Boulevard). He wrote, directed, and produced this one. Wilder wrote and directed some of the most celebrated films of all time, and Ace in the Hole fits right in with greats like Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, and Some Like it Hot to name a few. He’ll also be making at least two more appearances this month, with the noir uber-classic Double Indemnity as well as The Lost Weekend. 

When the film came out it was a critical and box office failure, but since, folks have come to appreciate how strong the film is. It’s on some pretty impressive lists, including the Criterion Collection, Roger Ebert’s ‘The Great Movies’, 1,001 Movies to See Before You Die, Empire Magazine’s Top 500, and more.

Another great film, keeping the month a perfect 7 for 7 so far. Also, the last shot in this film is one of my favorites ever.

Wee-ow! I am just flying through noir month, and every new movie exceeds my expectations. Why have I waited so long to do this? Good question, Me… we may never know the answer.

Pickup on South Street opens with a man lifting a woman’s wallet out of her purse on a subway train. It begins as a simple pull, but he stole more than he bargained for, and his arrogance lands him in a deadly confrontation with communist spies. Sure, the love story in the film is particularly ridiculous (which by the standards of the 40’s and 50’s is really saying something), but almost everything else is great!

I really enjoyed Sam Fuller’s direction. The way he showcased faces captures how fantastic most of the film’s performances are. The best two performances are Richard Widmark (making his second appearance this month) and Thelma Ritter.

Widmark plays the pickpocket. The character is a huge dick, and is so different than Widmark’s character in Night and the City, yet he disappears into each role wonderfully.

Ritter plays a professional snitch, and offers all the film’s heart. She’s the only character you’d probably want to hang out with, even though she’d try to sell you a cheap tie she claims matches your personality.

Based on the sort of lists the film has been included on, it is delightful but not surprising that Pickup on South Street is another winner.