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mteller wrote: Mon Apr 29, 2024 3:14 amShort Cut to Hell is pretty lame, inferior to This Gun for Hire in every way.

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FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF THE CINEMA XXII
• THE ENFORCER (1951) Starring Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia & Everette Sloane – Shot by Robert Burks (Strangers on a Train) – Directed by Bretaigne Windust & Raoul Walsh (Uncredited).
• THE SCARLET HOUR (1956) Starring Carol Ohmart, Tom Tryon, Jody Lawrence & E.G. Marshall – Shot by Lionel Lindon (The Manchurian Candidate) – Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca).
• PLUNDER ROAD (1957) Starring Gene Raymond, Jeanne Cooper, Wayne Morris & Elisha Cook Jr. – Shot by Ernest Haller (Gone with the Wind) – Directed by Hubert Cornfield (The Night of the Following Day).

domino harvey wrote: Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:57 pm the Enforcer (Bretagne Windust 1951) Some nice grim violent passages flavor this look at how Humphrey Bogart's team of lawmen tracks and prosecute burgeoning hitmen. The early passages where the audience is educated on terms and ideas long since fully ingrained in our national consciousness with regards to murder for hire hint at the film being something of a museum piece, but the later flashbacks to some of the hits and especially the clever finale help sell the whole endeavor on its own merits.

Red Screamer wrote: Tue Jul 09, 2024 6:04 pm Just don't stop before Black Tuesday, a great, incredibly bleak noir classic-to-be.

domino harvey wrote: Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:58 pmRope of Sand (William Dieterle 1949) Thank you lord for sending this film Claude Rains, who makes an otherwise unbearable African adventure tale (calling this a noir is really stretching it) tolerable. But Rains is also great in films which are also great, so go watch the Unsuspected or Notorious instead.

domino harvey wrote: Sat Aug 17, 2024 5:50 pm Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye is mediocre

Lowry_Sam wrote: Thu Aug 15, 2024 1:34 am I assumed that these would be a few mediocre police procedural sets when they first came out & so ignored them, but now that were on #20, I was curious if anyone who has watched these can point me to the best (either sets or individual titles, & genuine noirs as well as really good films) I might want to consider picking up before they start disappearing.

domino harvey wrote: Thu Nov 25, 2010 6:07 pm Union Station is a "Wow"-inducing top-tier noir that exceeded my expectations at all turns. I strongly suspect David Mamet gave it a viewing before making Heist, as this film's fingerprints are all over that one. Wonderful wordless choreography between professionals and the subjects they tail plays throughout the film, though perhaps the pic's best moments are probably in the virtuoso opening sequence, which finds William Holden walking through his train station and effortlessly spotting every graft and criminal act with the grace of a ballet dancer. The film counters the grace of this internal mechanism with a seedy, exceedingly negative worldview ascribed to both the criminals and particularly the police-- even Barry Fitzgerald gets to be dickish, and suspects are dangled in-front of approaching trains and literally stampeded to death! But even the innocents can't escape the film's dirty play, as evidenced by the blind kidnap victim who is placed into a proto-Saw predicament involving live wires and abandoned tunnels... Thank God for Olive Films rescuing this one from obscurity-- it's placing very high for me, and with good reason.

domino harvey wrote: Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:06 am

domino harvey wrote: Mon Oct 30, 2023 9:12 pm Imprint broke Beware My Lovely out of the Noir box into an individual release (as a double feature w/Jennifer)

I found Jennifer to be stylish and well made but ultimately pointless, with a dumb central mystery and a lot of corner cutting. There’s about 10 minutes of plot making up the 73 minutes, and while I liked a lot of the languorous moments, they ultimately only work if the purpose at the end justifies their usage

mteller wrote: Mon Aug 19, 2024 1:30 am Agreed on Union Station, it's superb. Haven't seen the other two.

therewillbeblus wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2023 3:53 am Union Station (Revisit): There's not much to say about this, other than it's as optimal a stellar old-fashioned crackerjack thriller as you can get. Though this viewing, the irregular pacing in the first act stuck out - namely how as soon as Holden gets involved, the steady flow accelerates to near-cartoonish limits until the case is in place for conflict. So many logical leaps are taken, the editing jumping past multiple steps in the process.. it plays so strange and out of step with the tone set around it. This idiosyncrasy supports the film's merits in two ways: It's an impressive maneuver by Rudolph Maté, cutting all the bullshit and just fast-forwarding through the 'boring' office deduction process so we can get back to slow-and-fast-burning the real action! And also, intertextually, Holden's insertion of himself into the objective narrative must feel this zippy to resonate. Such an abrasive sudden shift in energy works under either character's 'preferred narrative' of events: whether from Holden's perspective of himself as a grandiose hero on a mission to really see some action and be the center of a hot case, or from Nancy Olson's perception of him as an aggressive vehicle coercing her into a dangerous ride she didn't sign up for. This and other kinds of ridiculously self-serious interactions between the two amidst all the seedy, genuinely-serious stakes portrayed as such, reveal Olson's forced participation in the narrative is fantastical in a manner that's self-conscious to the filmmakers. Anyways, a curious element in an otherwise straightforwardly entertaining genre pic. Barry Fitzgerald steals scenes playing against type as a hard-nosed ethically-elastic police inspector, and there are at least a handful of set pieces that come off as genuinely novel and refreshingly surprising at each turn.

dwk wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2024 3:08 pm Three Film Noir Classics by John H. Auer

FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XXV

• THE FLAME (1947) John Carroll & Vera Ralston
• CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS (1953) Gig Young & Mala Powers
• HELL’S HALF ACRE (1954) Evelyn Keyes, Wendell Corey & Marie Windsor

domino harvey wrote: Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:30 pm City That Never Sleeps (John H Auer 1953) Narrated by Chicago itself, this noir unfolds over one long night as Gig Young's harried cop decides to go crooked for Edward Arnold (perfectly cast as the criminal lawyer who earns his title) with predictably unsuccessful results. Some interesting characters pepper this one, including William Talman's magician and one romantic interest who serves as a "mechanical man" in the window of a strip club.

Spoiler

This is probably the only noir film with the gall to actually drop an angel into the proceedings, and for good reason, but it's pretty obvious that Chill Wills' character is supposed to be supernatural given no mere mortal could be as unflappably upbeat and positive while still serving as a beat cop in Chicago, so at least the final reveal isn't too cheesy, only expected

domino harvey wrote: Thu Apr 09, 2015 11:57 pm Hell's Half Acre (John H Auer 1954) Ah, Hawaii, land of Wendell Corey and an expired-looking Evelyn Keyes jaunting about in locations that could not possibly be LA could they and participating in half-assed noir antics. The only thing of note in this awful, virtually unwatchable noir is the nice mix of Asian actors thrown into the mix, but even that is just window dressing on an empty storefront.

FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XXVI
• DR. BROADWAY (1942) Starring Macdonald Carey, Jean Phillips, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Lane, Eduardo Ciannelli & Gerald Mohr – Shot by Theodor Sparkuhl (Murder, He Says) – Directed by Anthony Mann (T-Men, Raw Deal)
• SMOOTH AS SILK (1946) Starring Viriginia Grey, Kent Taylor, Milburn Stone, John Litel & Jane Adams – Shot by Elwood Bredell (Phantom Lady) – Directed by Charles Barton (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein)
• THE GREAT GATSBY (1949) Starring Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, Barry Sullivan, Howard De Silva, Shelley Winters, Henry Hull, Ed Begley & Elisha Cook Jr. – Shot by John F. Seitz (Double Indemnity) – Directed by Elliott Nugent (The Cat and the Canary, My Favorite Brunette)

NOTE: THE GREAT GATSBY will also be released standalone