Fox Noir Collection

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tryavna
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:38 pm
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#26 Post by tryavna » Sat Dec 10, 2005 12:31 pm

davidhare wrote:Kiss of Death is simply Hathaways' best movie.
Whoa, David! Are you saying it's Hathaway's best noir or his best movie period? Cause the latter claim is highly questionable when one stops to consider that Hathaway also directed Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Shepherd of the Hills, The Desert Fox, and Garden of Evil. IMO, each of those four is just as good as (if not better than) Kiss of Death in its own way.

Narshty
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#27 Post by Narshty » Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:04 pm

Not to mention Hathaway's stupendous Peter Ibbetson.

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#28 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:50 am

davidhare wrote: Rififi strikes me as contrived and self-conscious, and the heist scene is really better done in Siodmak's the Killers (and of course later in Melville's Cercle Rouge.)
Boy o boy Dave-- we are two different people.

Interesting RIFIFI tidbit-- when Rialto circulated the restored print a few years ago at NYC's premeire art-house/revival cinema FILM FORUM, it set the record for longest hold-over, due to the crazy sensation it caused... this of course prior to it's CC release. I think the fucking thing is sublime-- about as much fun as a crime drama could be.

NIGHT AND... suffers from Dassin not being in the editing room. The thru-line of Nosserus (sp?), his gal, and Widmark, and how Nosserus knows beyond all shadow of doubt that googie gave him the coat (all from a non-underlined, rather underemphasized glance in the closet and a thrown away look out the window) to the certainty where he'd arrange his murder... it's a bit muddy for me. At least at my first glance. Some will chime in they got it right away-- and they probably did. It's just my feeling.

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HerrSchreck
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#29 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Dec 11, 2005 5:49 am

davidhare wrote:Mate! I always respect your observations and I will get back to Night (always a pleasure). But even if there were continuity issues (which I dont think there are) isn't Widmark's trajectory incredible, and incredibly realized?

But Rififi simply doesn't spark. (and I realize this is a far more controversial subject than barebacking for most of the posters.) Off the top of my head - for one thing the lead doesn't work at all. Leaves me dead. For another the women don't jell. And the "break" looks" mise-en-scene" self conscious (like an early Mamoulian Lubitsch poshlost imitation.) But let me look at it again.
Do you mean Jean Servais doesn't work as Tony Le Stephanois?
Respecting your obvious intelligence clearly good taste in cinema, I will acknowledge that rare opinion of Servais' performance with a salute to your individuality and pair of balls (for I know there'll be a good many on the board who'd take that as sacreligious, not even mentioning the break-in scene, and the consensus of how it's never been equalled no matter how many times imitated).

I've always admired Widmark, but I see his character in NIGHT as a touch one-dimensional, lacking depth. Servais character in Rififi for me radiates, via the slightest gestures, a lifetime of the experience and failure, ups & downs (acknowledging the slight age differences between them) which I feel Widmark didn't bring. Servais performance elevates his character to Greek tragic-levels.

I think the next door neighbor in NIGHT is a bit silly, I think the ending with Widmark being chucked into the river, with Lom implicating himself with his pulling up a seat for popcorn on the bridge with all these witnesses materializing around him... including cops. It all just feels a bit rushed & forced. I even find the relationship-- Tierney's love for Widmark-- a bit hard to believe. There's not the slightest hint of what she sees in him, or what she used to see-- beyond a framed 5x7 of he & she in a canoe-- that compels this beautiful & patient & talented & goodhearted wpman to remain in such a terrible relationship. Does Widmark know that how he's treating his woman is awful? Is he angry with himself for treating her that way? Is he truly angry at her for not giving him free money? I think it's a key 'empathy' issue that's missing, to help the audience identify who this guy is, clarify how they're supposed to feel about him, especially since they see the movie thru his eyes... and it's called into question for me because of the haphazard into of the neighbor. Is he a guy we should want her to be with? Is he wrong about Widmark, for thinnking she deserves better? It's a sloppy, loose appendage to the script, very unprofessional for FOX's (and Dassin's!) usually tight scripts during this period.

I doubt the movie would be so celebrated as a Masterpiece (a generous appellation in my book) if a) it wasn't photographed so incredibly, or b) another director's name was on it. Now on the other hand this does not mean I don't like the film. I watch it, own it, and enjoy it often.

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otis
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:43 am

#30 Post by otis » Sun Dec 11, 2005 8:34 am

HerrSchreck wrote:I will acknowledge that rare opinion of Servais' performance with a salute to your individuality and pair of balls
Let's have a big hand for david's balls! =D>

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HerrSchreck
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#31 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Dec 11, 2005 10:02 am

otis wrote:
HerrSchreck wrote:I will acknowledge that rare opinion of Servais' performance with a salute to your individuality and pair of balls
Let's have a big hand for david's balls!
o goodie-- web porn. Dave! Oat is gonna show you his top four!

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HerrSchreck
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#32 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Dec 12, 2005 3:15 am

davidhare wrote:More than happy with that! As for my balls - I would like to say I was shaving when I read that!

Schrecko have you watched the sequences from the UK version of Night and the City. While the music and credits background are a drag, Gene seems to playing her small role much more sourly. Is she part of your problem with the movie? Her character is cetainly minor and unsatisfactory, but Googie really takes up the slack - what a great performance from this neglected actress (love her in the two Hamers Pink String and Sealing wax and particularly It Always Rains on Sunday - Hamer's great British Noir.)
Sure of course I watched that really fascinating xtra on the disc comparing the two versions. I don't have a problem with Tierney as an actress in the film-- I think she's hemmed in by a flawed script. Plus remember she was on the verge of nixing herself at this point in her life, which is why she was shipped out there and written into the film to give her some work.

Fucking Googie is awesome as she always is. Plus the great Mr. Bumble himself, Francis Sullivan. These are the sort of all-round professional Adult Men And Women, stock company-type actors I very much miss from big budget films today. People who spent their whole lives onstage.

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Rufus T. Firefly
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#33 Post by Rufus T. Firefly » Mon Dec 12, 2005 4:48 am

HerrSchreck wrote:Fucking Googie is awesome as she always is. Plus the great Mr. Bumble himself, Francis Sullivan. These are the sort of all-round professional Adult Men And Women, stock company-type actors I very much miss from big budget films today. People who spent their whole lives onstage.
Though she's now 88 Googie was on stage again just last month here in Sydney, being interviewed along with her 91-year-old husband John McCallum. An old trouper if ever there was one.

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Donald Trampoline
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#34 Post by Donald Trampoline » Tue Dec 13, 2005 9:11 pm

The Whirlpool commentary is really awful (by Richard Schickel). Long pauses, and when he does talk, he's just telling you what's happening in the scene. It's really pretty annoying how few decent commentaries there are out there in general.

Overall the commentaries on these have been mediocre. I think the ones with the team of Ursini and Silver are the best on the Fox sets, although they're not exactly incredibly insightful. At best their banter is pleasant to listen to but with only 10% of it being useful information or helpful insights.

The granddaddy of bad commentaries on this (and beyond) are probably the two on Laura. Just shocking. I mean, I think it was Rudy Behlmer who spent 10 minutes elaborating in excruciating detail the reasons why you shouldn't listen to his commentary before watching the movie first. Hello, and welcome to the world of DVD commentaries, dumb-ass. And Basinger's was so incredibly vapid that I've blocked it from my mind and can no longer list my specific criticisms.

I was very surprised that Eddie Muller's commentaries were so poor, as his enthusiasm for film noir at his film presentations at the American Cinematheque film noir series was very infectious and he seemed to know his stuff. But his commentaries are piss-poor. His are of the variety of sharing his own reactions with you, as if you were watching it with your non-film-expert friends or something and they were commenting on it. That is my other pet peeve of bad commentaries, pretty much equally as annoying as the inexplicable "play-by-play" variety.

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Donald Trampoline
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#35 Post by Donald Trampoline » Tue Dec 13, 2005 10:24 pm

I've only heard the first two, House on 92nd Street and Somewhere in the Night. Isn't Where the Sidewalk Ends the only new one from him?

I believe I listened to all of House on 92nd Street and then listened to the first 20 minutes of Somewhere in the Night, followed by some jumping around sampling of it, as it seemed to be of about the same ilk as the previous commentary. And indeed any personal points of interest in the film I did stop at to hear his thoughts were incredibly inane and unhelpful. (For instance, he continuously mentions how he can't explain the plot of this movie and that it makes no sense to him. Then he chuckles. Thanks! That's helpful, bub! And while its plot is somewhat convoluted, he really is overstating it given how much time he spends telling us this useful fact: that he doesn't understand the plot very well. How is the information that the commentator finds the plot confusing helpful to the viewer?!?) All one can do is smile I guess.

I would say that it is painfully clear that he has done no research before these commentaries, otherwise maybe he might have found the original script and read it and might explain how certain elisions had affected the coherency of the plot (or not). It's just like he sat down in the studio and decided to impart, off the cuff, what "wisdom" he had gained from merely watching the film as we have just done. I'd say I expect a little homework to be done before someone records a commentary. Like, maybe he should have come up with all these questions he has about the film first, and then searched for answers on them that he could have shared with us, instead of sharing his questions and pointless observations of the self-evident. And even though the Urisini/Silver ones are slightly more interesting to listen to, they suffer from the same lack of preparatory research. (For instance, on Call Northside 777 one of them kept saying, "Oh, I think that's a fake backdrop. Oh, yeah, we think that's fake. Now that's the real location there. Well, I think it is. But in this shot I'm not sure. Yeah. Look at that. That's obviously a fake backdrop there in that scene." These are again just the kind of tentative personal observations any non-expert viewer of the film could make on their own.)

So, if you mean, is the second Muller commentary better than the first, nope, didn't seem to be. But if Where the Sidewalk Ends is truly an improvement, I'll give that a listen since it is one of my beloved Preminger noirs (and one I originally got to see at the Cinematheque film noir series coincidentally). But if it's not better in the first 30 minutes I'm going to give up since life is too short to waste time listening to a useless commentary.

I also see he will be on Preminger's forthcoming Fallen Angel.

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Donald Trampoline
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#36 Post by Donald Trampoline » Tue Dec 13, 2005 10:52 pm

davidhare wrote:In fact I wondered if Mueller hadn't been recovering from an illness and was still getting his strength back.
Surely this is a sign that the commentary is seriously lacking in some way if that's the impression it gives you! :D

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cafeman
Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:19 am

#37 Post by cafeman » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:32 pm

They should just call the Savant for everything. His commentary on the Gun Crazy disc is the best commentary of all these oldies. Plus, Greg Mank is usually good.

ka mai
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#38 Post by ka mai » Wed Dec 14, 2005 4:42 pm

The only Fox Noir commentary I've listened to so far is Ursini and Silver on House of Bamboo, and from comments here it seems like it is indicitive of the quality of their other commentaries in the series (about 30 minutes of interesting commentary surrounded by a lot of pointless, under-prepared banter). I was surprised by this because I remembered enjoying Ursini's solo commentary on Out of the Past.

The Savant's commentaries on Night and the City and Gun Crazy are by far the best I've heard on films noir. I think a lot of commentaries would be better if the people doing them had some experience listening to commentaries (good and bad) before they tried recording them.

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HerrSchreck
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#39 Post by HerrSchreck » Wed Dec 14, 2005 10:40 pm

davidhare wrote: Silver and Ursini on Nightmare Alley - in which Ursini says something as fact and Silver then contradicts him - this happens more than once!
Dude I got so angry at Silver on that commentary, for the first hour after I finished the commentary track I was convinced I was going to write to Fox & complain about that smarmy shtup. Hey Alan: that sure as hell was NOT violins, when you were so smug laughing at James chuckling saying that's a TOTALLY natural VIOLIN sound..

I thought I was the only dude whose on the brink of swilling Drano if he heard another half informed commentary with these two again.

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Nihonophile
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#40 Post by Nihonophile » Thu Dec 15, 2005 2:28 am

davidhare wrote: But in all honesty, how often do people listen to even a good commentary track. Twice? only once? Once I've gotten what I want from it I really don't to disrupt any more viewings of the movie.
how about if the commentary makes viewing that film a different experience? Such as the delight of watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Hunter Thompson. I listen to him talk about the film as often as I watch the movie uncommented.

Also, inept commentaries often ask for repeat listens. I dare those who complain about these Fox Noir Collection commentaries to hear the Persona commentary with Marc Gervais.

"Oooh, a spider!"

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lubitsch
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2005 4:20 pm

#41 Post by lubitsch » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:03 am

ka mai wrote:The only Fox Noir commentary I've listened to so far is Ursini and Silver on House of Bamboo, and from comments here it seems like it is indicitive of the quality of their other commentaries in the series (about 30 minutes of interesting commentary surrounded by a lot of pointless, under-prepared banter). I was surprised by this because I remembered enjoying Ursini's solo commentary on Out of the Past.
I thought Ursini's track on OUT OF THE PAST totally mediocre. Admittedly I love the film very much, but I could have delivered a better one unprepared. I find it a bit annoying that often the commentators are picked in a rather random way. It's like having a book (e.g. the BFI film classics) included with the DVD and I find it very disappointing if such a great opportunity is botched completely by the folks who make it.

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milk114
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#42 Post by milk114 » Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:15 pm

On the website for the Noir City Film Festival in San Francisco next month it says "Fox Home Entertainment, in the midst of its 24-film series of film noir DVDs, is also a proud sponsor."

Anyone heard of this collection being finite before this?

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HerrSchreck
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#43 Post by HerrSchreck » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:11 am

davidhare wrote:All praise Eddie Mueller!! The City that Never Sleeps! (Never seen and on the lust list.) The Fox cable print of City Streets is extremely impressive - this is presumably the restoration.
Christ I love that movie. Hearkens back to my APPLAUSE post from several weeks ago singing Mamoulian's praises-- for his initial run of features 1929 to the mid thirties. My print is a TV VHS passed to me from a collector, probably pre-restoration as the audio is filled with edit pops-- usually the first to go during cleanup.

One of the most moving scenes with Sylvia Sidney (I'd build a time machine just to go back in time to gulp in that womans body in mouthfulls) in prison getting her visit from "Kid", through the wire mesh.

Lee Garmes w Rouben M.... a combo that you don't get every day. A watershed like his work on Dr. J & Mr. H w the great Karl Struss.

Reminds me of another cruelly overlooked noir from the following decade whose title I used to be forever mixing up w this one: SIDE STREET, by Anthony Mann. This title I believe is also missing from the home video market. Love the old NYC location shots, especially the 3rd Avenue El.

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Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

#44 Post by Gregory » Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:42 pm

milk114 wrote:On the website for the Noir City Film Festival in San Francisco next month it says
" Fox Home Entertainment, in the midst of its 24-film series of film noir DVDs, is also a proud sponsor."
http://www.noircity.com/noircity.html
Anyone heard of this collection being finite before this?
It would be possible for them to go a little beyond 24 titles with their holdings, which are far more sparse in films noirs than Warner of course. Even if they were to do 30 it might be pushing the limits of what they consider releasable. After March we'll have 15 titles, and I predict almost all of the remaining 9 will be from among these:
The Lodger
Hangover Square
Blueprint for Murder
Vicki (released 8/29)
Road House (1948)
Night Without Sleep
Fourteen Hours (released 8/29)
13th Letter
House of Strangers (released 6/6)
Cry of the City
Boomerang! (released 6/6)
Brasher Doubloon (not coming)
I Wake Up Screaming (released 6/6)
Man Hunt
Swamp Water
Violent Saturday
Seven Thieves

Anchor Bay was going to release Road House but it's been delayed or canceled.
Last edited by Gregory on Sat Feb 17, 2007 12:10 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Ashirg
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#45 Post by Ashirg » Tue Dec 20, 2005 6:29 pm

Just beautiful! I'm glad they changed cover for No Way Out. The previous one was just Blah!

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HerrSchreck
Joined: Sun Sep 04, 2005 11:46 am

#46 Post by HerrSchreck » Sat Dec 24, 2005 12:08 am

Ashirg wrote:Just beautiful! I'm glad they changed cover for No Way Out. The previous one was just Blah!
Fucking thing looks like an episode of the Brilliant But Cancelled MARCUS WELBY'S INTERN from The Golden Age Of Television Brought To You By Crest (and the color plaid).

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Gregory
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:07 pm

#47 Post by Gregory » Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:59 am

In my opinion, all the covers in this series would look much better if they hadn't ruined the poster art by slanting them back and to the left, hideously contorting the images on the posters. What effect were they going for, the view from the last seat on the far side of the front row of the movie theater?

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Ashirg
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#48 Post by Ashirg » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:23 am

According to Amazon and TLA Video, the following noirs will be released on June 6th.

Boomerang
Extras: Deleted Scenes
Audio commentary (Film Historians Alain Silver and Jame Ursini)
Poster Gallery
Photo gallery

House of Strangers
Extras: Trailers
Audio commentary (Film Author & Historian Foster Hirsch)
Photo gallery

I Wake Up Screaming
Extras: Trailers
Audio commentary (Film Noir Historian Eddie Muller)
Production Stills Gallery; Unit Photography Gallery
Photo gallery

jcelwin
Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 2:09 pm

#49 Post by jcelwin » Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:11 pm

I just have to say that if you haven't purchased, or watched 'House on Telegraph Hill', do so immediately!

I just finished watching it. Everything about it is amazing. An excellent film.

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cysiam
Joined: Tue Nov 09, 2004 8:43 pm
Location: Texas

#50 Post by cysiam » Tue Mar 28, 2006 9:21 pm

I'm looking to pick up another noir title and I'm trying to decide between The Dark Corner, No Way Out, or Panic Streets. Any suggestions or opinions of these?

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