The Noir List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[domino harvey]

For me, if there's no crime, there's no noir, so I'd exclude Clash by Night (if I remember the plot correctly) even though Warners went and stuck it in a Noir box. For me it's just a melodrama in the dark.

Hmm... Alienation of affection?

[Yojimbo]

In the vein of giving away awards for Best Femme Fatale, etc, I propose an award for best definition of 'film noir' by a forum member .

I don't know about a vote, but it might be interesting / useful for those submitting their lists to come up with a brief working definition if they have one. Off the top of my head, I suppose mine is something like "American crime film made between 1940 and the early 1960s that's characterised by darkness in one or more areas, such as visual style or character psychology."

.

,.....not forgetting 'Expressionistic lighting'.....'pioneered by emigre Germanic/Central European DPs/directors,.....femme fatale, deadlier than the male,.......'yadda, yadda, yadda

[zedz]

For me, if there's no crime, there's no noir, so I'd exclude Clash by Night (if I remember the plot correctly) even though Warners went and stuck it in a Noir box. For me it's just a melodrama in the dark.

Hmm... Alienation of affection?

I knew there was a way to include all those Astaire / Rogers musicals in here!

[Murdoch]

My definition won't fit all the films I vote for, it's more flexible guidelines than hard rules:

A fatalistic protagonist often indifferent to beatings, violence, even sex - the epitome of which is Mike Hammer; use of "low-key" lighting emphasizing heavy shadows and darkness; POV of film is from the criminal, private eye, someone drawn into a life of crime.

Those are the basics, features like a "downer" ending - i.e. protagonist gets killed - and femme fatale adding to the "noir-ness" of the the film but not necessary for inclusion.

[knives]

Really all I need is existential based horror with a plot surrounding criminal induced death in some sort of fashion. Being vague helps a lot.
On the side I'm surprised just how many noirs Price was in. Everyone knows Laura, but Shock and His Kind of Woman also seem very interesting and are at the top of my to watch list. No matter the role he could make anything great, just watch the proof.

[domino harvey]

...and Leave Her to Heaven and Dragonwyck, depending how liberal your noir bonafides are

[domino harvey]

Watched the aforepraised The Thief and was underwhelmed. Compared to that other, unfairly maligned gimmick noir, Lady in the Lake, this one is just no fun at all. The commitment to the idea of no dialog could have inspired a lot of interesting moments and choices, but this one plays it straight. Unfortunately, nothing on screen is of particular import and the plot mechanics are too dull to bolster interest in the film beyond the mere curiosity at it existing.

[Dr Amicus]

I would just like to add a couple of British Noirs to the list - although neither are perhaps as clear cut noir as they might be - both of which should make my list, especially the first.

The first is the Hammer film The Glass Cage (US: The Glass Tomb), which just might be best pre-Quatermass Hammer. It's not as visually stylised as many (US) noirs, but it has a suitably dark tone and, crucially, takes place largely in the archetypal post-war British liminal zone, a bomb site. Oh, and Sid James is in it - which I think must have been required by law at the time. I'll wait for another viewing before making any more comments on it - but I think that this has to become my swapsie for the list.

The other is the Ealing Pink String and Sealing Wax, directed by Robert Hamer (reminds me - Kind Hearts and Coronets... hmmm), victorian noir complete with femme fatale (the wonderful Googie Withers) and foolish man and poisonings, all set in Brighton - which, to use my term of the day, just might be the archetypal English liminal city/town. But maybe that's just me - it's where I lived for several years and so am more attuned to its oddness. Anyway, it's a fine film and worth hunting out if you want to step out of the 20th Century's mean streets for a couple of hours. And did I mention Googie Withers?

[cysiam]

Watched Kansas City Confidential. It takes the Hitchcock wrong man film, dirties it up and mixes in a heist. John Payne plays an ex-con framed for a robbery who decides to hunt down the real culprits. He does his best Clint Eastwood whisper growl while delivering ridiculous/great lines like, "I know a sure cure for a nosebleed: a cold knife in the middle of the back. " The gang is a great mix of character actors. Lee Van Cleef is all angular and oily, and Jack Elam and his crazy eyes do a nice job as a paranoid loser. A lot of the film is outside but Karlson does a nice job replacing window blinds with Palm Tree Fronds. It might make my list if I can reconcile myself to the ending.

[Sloper]

Does anyone share my love for Sorry, Wrong Number (Anatole Litvak, 1948)? God knows it has its flaws: the radio play is opened out and inflated with flashbacks within flashbacks, clunkily spelling everything out in tedious expository dialogue and giving the supporting cast little room to do interesting work. Hence, I guess, the surprisingly dull performance from Burt Lancaster. He only comes to life right at the end. But despite all this, Sol Polito's prowling camera keeps things from getting boring. The photography does a brilliant job of involving us in the protagonist's anxiety and panic, as well as sometimes adopting the position of the unseen killer lurking outside - and, later, inside - the house. There's also a wonderfully eerie sequence set on a beach on Staten Island.

And whatever the limitations of the plotting, the set-up is irresistible. "You know you're perfectly safe in that house," Leona's husband tells her. "You're in the heart of New York City and the telephone's right beside your bed." If you ignore all the 'opening out' scenes, it's amazing how much mileage, and how much terror, the film wrings out of this situation. As Leona says, she's "prey to every kind of horrible call", and the real drama of the film is a series of chilling phone conversations in which the people on the other end - the detached voices of Leona's father, of the doctor, of Mr. Evans, and especially of the various operators responding to Leona's cries for help with an unperturbed "one moment, please" - throw into relief the heroine's nightmarish isolation, her alienation from every avenue of relief.

So on some level it's good, even when it's bad. But at its best this is, simply put, the most suspenseful and frightening film noir I've seen. I've watched it countless times - especially the final scene, which I sometimes watch on its own - and it never fails to whiten my knuckles. I come away every time trembling a little, my eyes still wide for a good few minutes after it's all over. And of course a lot of this is down to Barbara Stanwyck, to whose inimitable voice the film serves a feature-length tribute. Like Cagney, she injects so much verve and subtlety of intonation into even the dullest lines, which in this case means that the bedridden, neurotic Leona - who as far as the script is concerned is not terribly sympathetic and has two-and-a-half dimensions at most - becomes a really memorable character. This is what makes the film so exquisitely painful to watch.

[Matt]

Does anyone share my love for Sorry, Wrong Number?

Only when I'm on the phone trying to get someone to do something for me and I feel like shouting "I'm a helpless invalid woman!"

[Yojimbo]

Just received my Columbia Noir, Vol. One set today, so I'll be checking out 'The Line-Up' asap!

[knives]

Got done with two on the swapsie list, both excellent
Not much to say on The Seventh Victim. It was oddly quick paced compared with what I've come to expect. Convention was thrown out the window expect in part of one scene that was basically there to show why it was taking this odd route. About half way through I started to play a drinking game with the sets left over from Cat People. All around good times.

Caged I managed to like a great deal more, but as it stands it won't make my list. I just don't see what makes it noir. The cinematography is the closest thing, but it almost feels like a facsimile of what noir should look like. A gorgeous facsimile that puts most films to shame, but a facsimile nonetheless. The film itself was an improvement over every expectation I had. The previous Cromwell film I'd seen, Dead Reckoning, was DOA for me and the premise sounds frankly Kramerish. The absolute bravery and intelligence of the script alongside the aforementioned cinematography though really did this one good. Three scenes in particular knocked me down, including one that under normal circumstances I'd find just mildly amusing and manipulative. Even with my reservations on how it fits into the genre I'd recommend it to anyone listening.

[Yojimbo]

Got done with two on the swapsie list, both excellent
Not much to say on The Seventh Victim. It was oddly quick paced compared with what I've come to expect. Convention was thrown out the window expect in part of one scene that was basically there to show why it was taking this odd route. About half way through I started to play a drinking game with the sets left over from Cat People. All around good times.

.

The Seventh Victim's ending is one of the most chilling in all of cinema but no way would I consider it noir.
Its Lewton Horror, Period!

[knives]

Hybrid? While it's true that the horror is suggestively all around it does manage to use noir as a sort of framing device or more appropriately skeleton for the horror. It's almost as if RKO asked Lewton to make a Noir, but he and Robson scoffed at the idea instead going down the Horror rabbit hole.

[Cold Bishop]

The Seventh Victim's ending is one of the most chilling in all of cinema but no way would I consider it noir.
Its Lewton Horror, Period!

There are no supernatural elements, the entire satanism plot line works because of how un-horror it turns out to be, and other than the late chase scene, it's not really a thriller. Like I mentioned before, it's "film noir" on the principle that calling it a "black film" is really the only way to describe it. As such, I think the movie is more Noir than most hard-boiled crime films, despite being a completely atypical, singular entry into the Noir cannon.

Frankly, I have a harder time considering it a real horror film.

[zedz]

Hybrid? While it's true that the horror is suggestively all around it does manage to use noir as a sort of framing device or more appropriately skeleton for the horror. It's almost as if RKO asked Lewton to make a Noir, but he and Robson scoffed at the idea instead going down the Horror rabbit hole.

Since there was no such thing as 'a noir' in 1943, I sincerely doubt it. I suppose that's another defining feature of films noirs for me: the people who were making them had no conception of the 'genre' - it was a subsequent critical inference. Lewton and Robson were making a low-budget horror film, simple as that. Though filmmaker intentions of making something else don't, of course, preclude anything being a noir - that's entirely the point: nobody was 'making noirs' at the time. As soon as the filmmakers became self-conscious about film noir as a genre, you get neo-noir, which is a different kettle of fish.

[Yojimbo]

The Seventh Victim's ending is one of the most chilling in all of cinema but no way would I consider it noir.
Its Lewton Horror, Period!

There are no supernatural elements, the entire satanism plot line works because of how un-horror it turns out to be, and other than the late chase scene, it's not really a thriller. Like I mentioned before, it's "film noir" on the principle that calling it a "black film" is really the only way to describe it. As such, I think the movie is more Noir than most hard-boiled crime films, despite being a completely atypical, singular entry into the Noir cannon.

Frankly, I have a harder time considering it a real horror film.

its 'horror' is more implicit than explicit, which was the essential ethos of those great Lewton films.

But, quite apart from arguing about specifics, perhaps you could provide a link to where any one of those French critics, who coined the phrase, either included 'Seventh Victim' among them, or listed similar criteria to yours.


I've always considered the term to refer, generally, to low-budget, or 'B' crime films where directors, or DPs, used German Expressionism techniques to convey mood, and/or compensate for budget shortfalls.
Although I've often broadened that definition, as notably with the relatively extravagantly-budgeted 'Double Indemnity', its always been, essentially, a crime film, and employed techniques I've referred to above

[knives]

Since there was no such thing as 'a noir' in 1943, I sincerely doubt it. I suppose that's another defining feature of films noirs for me: the people who were making them had no conception of the 'genre' - it was a subsequent critical inference. Lewton and Robson were making a low-budget horror film, simple as that. Though filmmaker intentions of making something else don't, of course, preclude anything being a noir - that's entirely the point: nobody was 'making noirs' at the time. As soon as the filmmakers became self-conscious about film noir as a genre, you get neo-noir, which is a different kettle of fish.

I didn't intend for my statement to be taken literally, but the fusion of genres is a interesting topic. Some genres like musicals can't seem to exist without another genre added on. While others, drama, don't seem to exist at all and is just a catchall for smaller tough to describe genres.

[Antares]

What the hell, I may as well chime in.

My favorite noirs are...

Out of the Past - Mitchum is a noir god, and Jane greer as Kathy is the femme fatale supreme.

In a Lonely Place - Love Gloria Grahame in this.

Night and the City - Dassin defintely did noir justice with this film. Great setting and great characters.

Act of Violence, Crossfire and The Racket - Robert Ryan, noir god villain par excellence.

Narrow Margin - Aside from his complete dismissal of the moll who was a cop (Marie Windsor), this is a great film.

[Yojimbo]

Just watched 'The Line-Up': another great piece of work by Don Siegel, with the tension-filled, beautifully-staged climactic scene at Sutro Baths being especially impressive.
Eli Wallach made a great psychopath, but I thought the most impressive piece of acting was by Robert Keith as his mentor, Julian, with Vaughn Taylor's eyebrows almost stealing the film from both of them.

It will certainly be in the shake-up for my final list but one Siegel film which will make my final list is 'Private Hell 36', which is a gem of a movie, as sweet as it is short, and hopefully I won't have to wait too long before it makes it to DVD
(UK and Irish posters should keep your eyes peeled as it occasionally pops up on Film Four)

Spoiler re possible influence on Dirty Harry:

Spoiler

And watching that final chase scene, and the school party, the school bus, the mad psycho with the children, and the route taken out of San Francisco made me wonder how much of a retread those climactic scenes in 'Dirty Harry' were?

[Cold Bishop]

But, quite apart from arguing about specifics, perhaps you could provide a link to where any one of those French critics, who coined the phrase, either included 'Seventh Victim' among them, or listed similar criteria to yours.

I don't know whether they ever describe it as such in print. I don't believe Borde and Chaumenton ever mention it in their book, if that's what you're asking. However, if their five elements of film noir were a film that was "oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel", then it fits the bill. Furthermore, Jacques Rivette certainly thought of the film as such, seeing as he screened it for his cast before Duelle, which was to be the film noir in the "Scenes de la vie parallele" series. With that said, plenty of modern film critics consider it noir (Jonathan Rosenbaum, for starters).

But that's beyond the point: my point wasn't that the original critics called it such. My point was that if film noir was originally a title used by critics to categorize a new strain of film that dealt with the darkness and pessimism of modern urban life, then Seventh Victim fits perfectly. It in fact does so to the exclusion of all other categorization; including horror film, or crime film.

Does it have horror elements? Sure. The movie is certainly Gothic and Macabre. But those elements aren't any more dominant than the more classically noir elements. Nor do I think those elements are completely opposed to film noir, or vice-versa. And Gothic and Macabre alone doesn't make a horror film. With out any elements of the supernatural or the monstrous, I really have a hard time considering it genuinely "horror". Sure, you could argue there are a few horror films without overtly supernatural elements (slasher films being chief among them), but even then, there's usually some sort of "monster" (the killer, in those cases). Except for the aforementioned chase scene, The Seventh Victim really doesn't conform to that archetype.

At the risk of making a large generalization, one which I'll admit is far from definitive, I'd argue that the major theme of the horror film is "the return of the repressed", while the major theme of film noir is man's existential crisis in the Post-War era. Thematically, I'd argue that The Seventh Victim concerns itself much more with the latter (as opposed to some of the other Lewton films, like Cat People or I Walked With a Zombie, which deal with the former). There are complicating features - the predominance of female protagonists for starter - and certainly the story isn't free from overtones of "repressed" sexuality (one could also argue that the film's idea of suicide is as much a "repression" as sex), but the film's major subject is the hopelessness and fear of modern urban life, a subject which is of a piece with film noir, and which it in fact examines further than nearly any classically "hard-boiled" noir that I can think of.

I'm not going to argue its archetypical film noir; it's is at best a completely singular entry into the genre, almost as sui-generis as Night of the Hunter or Hitchcock. It's certainly not a hard-boiled film - a deficiency which I'm sure might make some people reject it off-hand. But I don't see how you can incontestably reject the film as film noir, without doing the same for it as a horror film.

[Yojimbo]

I'm not going to argue its archetypical film noir; it's is at best a completely singular entry into the genre, almost as sui-generis as Night of the Hunter or Hitchcock. It's certainly not a hard-boiled film - a deficiency which I'm sure might make some people reject it off-hand. But I don't see how you can incontestably reject the film as film noir, without doing the same for it as a horror film.

While I appreciate the lengths you've gone to justify why you believe it deserves inclusion, and to persuade me and others, I'm perhaps too much of a traditionalist, where noir is concerned, to find a place for it in mine.
Hell, even 'The Line-Up', fine film and all that it is, and however much I love so many films of Don Siegel, its sweating it out right now because I'm humming and hawing over whether I should include it by virtue of the fact that it has just too many sun-kissed open air scenes and few, if any, gloomy and starkly lit night-time scenes.

'Private Hell 36', 'T Men', 'Where Danger Lives', these are the kind of films that will be the staples of my list.
And the more storied doom-laden Masterpieces like 'Detour' and 'They Live By Night' will be way up there on the top of the heap

[Cold Bishop]

Caged (John Cromwell, 1950)

How refreshing to see a "social problem" film that genuinely works and has the courage of its convictions. Not only does it eschew the condescending moralizing that ruins most of these films, but also completely avoids the over-earnest, self-important gloss that makes them absolutely unbearable (Stanley Kramer, Gentleman's Agreement, Fred Zinneman at his worst, etc). If the premise is "frankly Kramerish", the execution is anything but, almost consciously rebuffing his "tradition of quality" brand of liberal filmmaking (more on that later). It's almost a return to the more visceral and unpretentious, mostly pre-code, "social" films which Warner built their reputation on in the thirties (I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Heroes for Sale, Wild Boys of the Road, ect). Interestingly enough, for a film made in the 50s, it goes farther than most pre-code films in its uncompromising narrative trajectory. The wide-eyed innocent, forced to endure the horrors of prison, proves not to be incorruptible. The do-gooder activist proves ineffectual at every turn. It's major social issue may be one of prison reform - pitting a compassionate approach against a tough-on-prisoners one - but it (barely) never proselytizes for the former, almost exclusively concerning itself with scrutinizing the latter until it reveals its black, corrupt reality.

But what that "reality" turns out to be is of notable distinction. I think the "Kramerish" premise is actually quite deceptive, the "social problem" of prison hiding the film's much more radical agenda. In the final analysis, the film isn't about the problems of a women's prison, but the oppressive strain of the patriarchy on women. The true distinction of the film is that it takes its premise, distinguished by its near lack of men, and then uses it to blast those very men. Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker, who is amazing here) ends up in prison because of her husband, and this is the byline the film follows to its logical conclusion, until the black mark of the patriarchy - its corruption, its hypocrisy, its callousness, its brutality - is spread over the entirety of the film: the first of the few men of the film, seen staring down Marie Allen as she arrives. Allen's first encounter with the other prisoners, as every woman's hard-luck story is revealed to have a man behind it. The consistent presence of violence and exploitation in those stories. The constant assertion that Allen is "better off" for having a dead husband. Two of Allen's major traumatic episodes in the prison also come as a result from men. The loss of her child, after her mother refuses to take it in, the result of a controlling (and implicitly abusive) step-father who disallows it. Also, the horrifying parole hearing before the trio of apathetic male officials. While they ask her about her job status, it's interesting that their final verdict doesn't mention it, but rather mentions her lack of "home" and family - as such, no ties to the patriarchy. But even she was able to get the parole, the other women constantly assert that her lack of patriarchal ties would lead her back to ruin.

Even Ruth Benton's (Agnes Moorehead) social crusader is constantly undone by the patriarchy. She consistently asks for more money for the hospital to no avail. The moment a male doctor raises a stink over it, the issue is finally taken up by the commissioner. Her attempts at reform are constantly turned down, her career even threatened by the commissioner's envoy in, what else, boxing terms - an inherently male subject concerned with power and brutality. Their condescending attitude to her and her prisoners is even called out in the latter scene, when they attempt to write off Allen's abuse (the shaving of her head) as a trifle: "Of course, YOU wouldn't understand..." she tells them - and then she is forced into the defensive for attempting to assert herself, fired and fighting for her career. For a social reformer, she is left unable to get a single thing done.

That the patriarchal strain extends beyond the prisoners, but to Ruth Benton and Allen's mother on the outside as well, shows the true meaning of the film: that the bondage of the prison is nothing more than a microcosm, and that its small potatoes compared to the bondage of the patriarchy in society. When Allen tells Benton - among the final words of the film - that "you can't beat the system", where left no doubt what that system exactly is: the outside world of men.

While this reveals the film to be an extraordinary and subversive entry into the "social problem" film, it does raise the question: is it noir? Surely, the films chiaroscuro mise-en-scene is often of a piece with noir, and certainly the movie has moments that touch the nerve of darkness and hysteria which marks noir: Georgia Harrison's nightime breakdown, the prison montage with the constant ringing bells, Allen's attempted escape, the riot, the shaving, the murder - as well as some more quietly poetic passages, the passing train and the Christmas party being chief among them. If there's a problem of classification here, it's that the film's "social problem" premise, an examination of a women's prison, leaves it free from establishing a consistent narrative conflict, the fatalism, tension, and barely repressed menace they produce being central to noir. Film noirs are still based in the thriller, and while they can certainly play around with that form, they are always rooted in it. Caged, on the other hand, is largely episodic, following Marie Allen during her several months of prison and what occurs on the way. There is no prison break or riot driving the plot, such as the ones that propel Brute Force and Riot in Cell Block 11 into the realm of noir. The conflict between the prisoners and Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson) is certainly a major concern of the film, but it isn't until the end that it produces the fever-pitch tension which Hume Cronym produces throughout the duration of Brute Force. The conflict between Kitty Stark and Elly Powell is also a source of conflict, but it doesn't even crescendo, Powell left actually feeling sorry for her rival by the end. If this film can actually qualify as noir, it is only because of its final moments, where the movie transcends its trappings as a "social problem" film, and attains a note of pessimism and corruption that is genuinely film noir.

After spending the length of the film largely incorruptible, she finally breaks. While this can partly attributed to her solitary confinement (she does after all shout "Kill Her!" during the murder), it is really more telling that she does it right as she is already destined to leave the prison - driving home the point that outside world is the real corrupting agent. The final scene in the prison especially drives home the point, rebuffing the earnest positivity of most "social problem" films. Being tempted to become a "booster" she gives in after two events which should have the opposite effect occur: 1) The grandmotherly elder "lifer" of the prisoners (her name escapes me), admonishes their attempts to corrupt her, warning her, in a speech, that she should get out and get married 2) A group of affluent citizens - wealthy women - are given a tour of the prison, expressing concern for the conditions, and showing some hope of potential reform. One of the women stands around a little longer after the others leave, and Marie Allen stares her down - her naivety, her material possessions, her petrified expression at the prison - with increasing disgust. And while the lifers speech should, typically, compel her to do the "right" thing, it in fact pushes her to corruption, its message of salvation in the patriarchy proved completely impossible throughout the duration of the film. In one failed swoop, Cromwell's film admonishes both patriarchal morality (explicitly linking it with class), and the sort of progressive naivety which a person like Stanley Kramer personifies. If she chooses corruption, its only because the other alternative - marriage - has been thoroughly discredited in her eyes. When she drives off back into outside society, she does it in a car full of men (including at least one strategically placed hand on her knee), back into the world of men, and their exploitation of women. She runs towards her doom. This fatalism, this cynicism, this fixation on inescapable corruption - this is what raises the film from the "socially aware" into the existential. This is what makes it approach film noir. If in film noir, the hero is undone by a lone femme fatale, here she is undone by an entire male institution. But the message is now the same: if noir is a loser's genre, then here, more than ever, you just can't win: "You can't beat the system." Woman will always remain caged. I don't know if it's convincing enough a noir to make my list, but its sure an amazing film. So here's to you, dominoharvey.

Next up: I rewatch Force of Evil

[domino harvey]

Caged is shaping up to be the most successful swapsie failure of all time. Great writeup though!