The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[Cold Bishop]

Well, dominoharvey has himself to blame. It's partly catching up with Community that's made me put my kevyip on the backburner.

And there's no way to make a final list without an order.

[swo17]

Just to be clear, Community is eligible for this (and all other) lists, yes?

[Mozart]

Surely Abed will refer to this Noir List in one of his meta-references very soon....

[Murdoch]

DOA - The strangest noir I've come across - of course, I still have The Thief in my kevyip - it spends the first 30 minutes with O'Brien leaving his wannabe girl for a solo "vacation" to San Francisco, which appears would have consisted only of him alone in a hotel room had he not been swept up in the company of boozing businessmen and their bored wives. It isn't until he's slipped "luminous poison" - it even glows in the dark! - that the noir angle kicks into full gear, the poison is a great sci-fi concoction that predates that other Cold War noir prop, Kiss Me Deadly's marvelous Pandora's box, and I'm wondering if Aldrich was at all influenced by this film during KMD.

Anyway, O'Brien runs through the film with a little too much cool for a man on a shortened clock being shot at. His temper isn't a Phillip Marlowe cool, but for a straight-edged guy pulled into what has to be the most elaborate scheme to kill off someone he plays detective pretty well. The plot goes through so many loops I was thinking The Big Sleep was easier to follow, but through this convoluted plot - which is in no way a criticism, confusion and noir go hand-in-hand - rings some brilliant moments. Most notably Neville Brand's sadistic thug who acts like he'd kill a baby if it looked at him. The sleaze this guy pulls off made me want to go wash my hands after, the way he describes in gruesome detail how he's gonna kill O'Brien and that crazed toothy smile that's etched onto his face, Brand does a lot with a mere stock character.

The central romance is half-baked to say the least, and the plot probably wouldn't make much sense if it was explained to me point by point. However, this has a simply superb finale with a burst of violence by O'Brien as he

SpoilerShow

pumps round after round into the Guy Behind It All with a look of manic pleasure, like he's scratching a furious itch that's been bugging him for days.

I'm a sucker for a great ending, especially one that exposes this everyday businessman as possessing a bit of Brand's thug in him. The film struggles to find its place in its first act, but it offers enough moments of sadism and well-staged violence - for instance a scene in a supermarket involving onlookers spotting a gun-toting criminal by his mere shadow - that it will find a place on my list.

[domino harvey]

Lists are starting to trickle in ahead of the new December 13th deadline and folks, there are some shocking exclusions so far-- this is gonna be one interesting final outcome

[Yojimbo]

there are some shocking exclusions so far--

The plot thickens!
(a Forum holds its collective breath!)

[Steven H]

I sent mine in. After spending most of the year catching up on noirs it felt odd coming up with a final list. Making it was like replaying the plots of them all together into one giant strange noir flick that never was. Definitely looking forward to the next genre project.

[knives]

There's still a couple of big ones I need to get to (Asphalt Jungle, I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang), but I'm pretty sure my list is set in stone. Though I'm mostly deciding on whether Thunder on the Hill, White Heat, and Secret Beyond the Door count as noir.

[Sloper]

I'm not submitting a list (just haven't seen enough films), but if I did The Asphalt Jungle would be at the top. Wish I had the time to write something more substantial about it, but I'll just say - don't miss it. Simply the best crime film ever made.

[domino harvey]

Can anyone recommend some noirs that are only out in R2? I'm going to place an order in advance of the deadline with Berlin Express, the Fallen Sparrow, While the City Sleeps, the Clouded Yellow, and the Man Who Watched Trains Go By and wondered if there were any forgotten or rare gems out there to add before I check out

[Yojimbo]

Can anyone recommend some noirs that are only out in R2? I'm going to place an order in advance of the deadline with Berlin Express, the Fallen Sparrow, While the City Sleeps, the Clouded Yellow, and the Man Who Watched Trains Go By and wondered if there were any forgotten or rare gems out there to add before I check out

Alain Corneau's 'Serie Noire', which stars Patrick Dewaere is definitely recommended, for one
I'll check my 'database' and see are there any others.

[domino harvey]

I should have been more specific, I meant UK R2 titles (Amazon.co.uk)

[Cold Bishop]

The Reckless Moment (I won't mention Caught), Cry of the City, The Glass Key... if they're still in print. The Ophul's the only one I'd consider great (and I think you've mentioned seeing it), but they're all worthwhile.

[domino harvey]

Got 'em all, but thanks!

Been thinking a lot about Siodmak lately, mainly Phantom Lady-- I know it's flawed and uneven, but Christ, it has two of the best set pieces in film history. And yet it's not the Krupa-one that's haunting me but the hypnotic sequence wherein Ella Raines literally stares-down a bartender to death. Something about the clarity wherein this crazy idea is executed is unshakable. This one's been gradually moving up my list and is currently hovering in the teens.

Answering my own question earlier in this thread, I checked out another Siodmak noir, the psychological thriller The Dark Mirror. Predating two better films that deal with the idea of playing on audience apprehensions re: psychology to far more success (Preminger's Whirlpool and Litvak's the Snake Pit, also starring de Havilland), this bit of exploitation masquerading as high art is quite effective. Olivia de Havilland takes on duel roles as twins and the special effects hold up remarkably well. Admittedly, De Havilland is pretty one note in either role and Lew Ayres is a non-entity as always, but Thomas Mitchell has some fun with his detective (though he disappears for much of the last half of the film, to its detriment).

Most of the credit for the stogy structure of the film certainly goes to Nunnally Johnson, whose work here predates his own directorial bite at the psych apple in the Three Faces of Eve a decade later. Johnson's work, both in front of and behind the camera, tends to follow a self-satisfied classiness and formal reliance on overeducated talkiness (though he was capable of molding these excesses and others into a masterpiece of his own, the avant garde nightmare of the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit), and its employment here is no exception. Siodmak directs with a steady hand and while the film's form lacks the insanity you'd think it would exert given the subject matter and director, its respectability makes it all the more weirdly fascinating.

Speaking of Whirlpool, I revisited it yet again the other day and while it's slowly been working its way up my mental list of favorite Premingers, I didn't anticipate it taking over my Noir list too. But it has, and while the Top 5 is constantly being reconfigured, it will surely figure heavily on my list, if not heaviest. Recommended, obviously!

[Yojimbo]

The Reckless Moment (I won't mention Caught), Cry of the City, The Glass Key... if they're still in print. The Ophul's the only one I'd consider great (and I think you've mentioned seeing it), but they're are worthwhile.

CB, I agree about 'The Reckless Moment', but I warmed to 'Caught' when re-watching it recently.
I think Robert Ryan gives one of his finest ever performances, here; probably in his Top Five, even though on the surface it might initially appear to be 'yer bog-standard' psychotic

[domino harvey]

He won't mention Caught because I once infamously proclaimed it to be "the worst film ever made by a great director"

[knives]

Worse than A Gentleman's Agreement?

[domino harvey]

Yes. Gentlemen's Agreement is awful for ideological reasons but is at least a well-made film, while Caught is genuinely inept. A more appropriate comparison would be something like The Cotton Club or Rollover

[Cold Bishop]

I love Caught, but domino harvey has some, erm, colorful opinions on it. Edit: there they are.

The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)

A rewatch. Last time I saw this film, I found it prototypical to a fault, the basic skeleton from which dozens of better films (and hundreds of worse ones) have hung from, the bridge between the film noir detectives and docudrama procedural unit on one side and the post-noir lone wolf cops on the other. A second look allows one to better see how well Lang works within that prototypical structure, although the final product is still dwarfed by its influential shadow (this time, it was fun to see how many things Michael Cimino lifted for Year of the Dragon, right down to Glenn Ford's dress attire), and I still don't think it quite reaches the cynical heights of his better films. It helps inaugurate the major problem with most cop films, namely the inconsistent relationship to their heroes, almost as if Lang can't or isn't willing to go as far as he could in exploring his darker side. Still, Lang's toughness still shines through; while it's thematically become the stuff of cliché, the "murder" halfway through this film is still among the most daring and shocking twists in mainstream American filmmaking. This is partly accomplished through the film's emphasis on the idea of the home as a refuge from criminality and darkness, speaking straight to 1950s anxiety: the idealization and subsequent destruction of Dave Bannion's suburban home; Lagana's mansion, which Bannion correctly notes he takes great pains to keep separate from his criminal enterprise; the broken Duncan home, which collapses as the film begins; and of course, Vince Stone's penthouse, where the barrier between crime/work and domesticity/home is completely breached. Even the way Bannion's home is filmed changes as he brings more of his "work" with him, until we end with the devastating final shot - a wide high-angle shot of an empty, desolate house that was one filled with life.

While it's Glenn Ford's film, the real heart and soul of the picture is Gloria Grahame; her Debby Marsh is of film noir's most touching characters. In her early scenes, strutting around the Stone penthouse, she's all bubbly lush joie de vivre and gyrating effortless sex appeal, yet with a simmering sadness and hard experience traced underneath. Her disfigured form, whether wearing bandages or scars, is, to me, one of the iconic images of American film noir. Her literal two-face demeanor not only representative of her own light/dark side and subsequent redemption (à la the redemptive whore of the Western, a genre which largely informs this film, which furthermore is almost a cousin to Rancho Notorious), but also as a double for many of the film's other characters: 1) Dave Bannion, acting as a sort of agent for his subconcious, doing the dirty work that he morally can't do 2) Katie Bannion; the film swaps leading ladies halfway through, and the film draws links between the two ("Tell them you married a heiress", Katie says. "What am I? An heiress?" Marsh says.) 2) The crooked and greedy Bertha Duncan ("We're sisters under the mink.")

It's a well-loved film which I don't quite love; I'd almost say its follow-up/rip-off, Rogue Cop is superior, and while its more consistent than The Big Combo, it doesn't quite reach its heights either.

[Yojimbo]

I love Caught, but domino harvey has some, erm, colorful opinions on it. Edit: there they are.

The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)

It's a well-loved film which I don't quite love; I'd almost say its follow-up/rip-off, Rogue Cop is superior, and while its more consistent than The Big Combo, it doesn't quite reach its heights either.

I always thought 'The Big Heat' was just too slick, and big budget looking, for both noir, and Lang.
For me, 'Scarlet Street' is Lang's No. 1 noir, but next is one that most people either hate, or don't really rate, 'Human Desire'.
It has its flaws as a film but I just love its whole seedy and sordid feel; the kind of feel that all true noir should have

[domino harvey]

Speaking of seedy and sordid, the Devil Thumbs a Ride is a dirty little number that hits a lot of noir sweet spots. The film gives Lawrence Tierney a great entrance: He tries to stick up a theatre employee depositing the night's receipts. The guy argues he'll lose his job if he hands over the money and BAM Tierney takes him out without a second thought. Tierney's thug is a lowlife, but has the wiles of a con artist and he quickly talks himself and two ladies into a regrettable car ride. This is a film where you remember fondly everyone but the protagonist, as the film is not particularly interested in the lightweight salesman whose naivete gets him over his head. But man does it love its supporting cast, from the riotous gas station attendant to the ineffectual nightwatchman who tries to drink Tierney under the table. But while there's a sense of play throughout the film, it takes a vicious turn in the final act with a brutal murder that is so unexpected and cold, particularly in how it takes place absently off-screen, that it instantly turns the parlor games into a sick joke. Rarely in studio product, even b-films, do I forget the rules of the code and start getting the queasy feeling that the villain is so slick that he really might get away with it! And what higher compliment can I pay the film?

[Yojimbo]

I remember being disappointed with that one, especially after reading Barry Gifford's book of noir essays which it inspired.
Paradoxically enough I thought its low-budget let it down here, compared to 'Born To Kill', perhaps because of Tierney's 'over-the-top' performance.
I may still have it on vhs though and I might give it another look since you're not the only person who will maintain I'm wrong about it

[tojoed]

DH, I think "They Made Me A Fugitive" is only available in R2, if you haven't got it already.

[Cold Bishop]

No, Kino put it out here. Although, I give it my highest recommendation if you don't have it yet.

Cavalcanti's Went the Day Well?, while not noir, is also a stroke of genius, and available in r2 land.

[domino harvey]

Sounds interesting, thanks! Also added Chase a Crooked Shadow to the mix as well.