Film Noir HoF III

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With a noir like Crossfire, you realize the themes of death, betrayal, and the sinister undercurrents fail to show up as much as nobler themes of justice and nobility in the face of the evil. Unlike, say, Double Indemnity, or even L.A. Confidential (in which the "good guys" "win"), Crossfire roots out its evil swiftly, and morality and ethics is very much in the foreground.

So, yes, Crossfire deals with prejudice, specifically that against Jews. It is an important movie - albeit the story it is based on deals with a more relevant one now and then. Oh, the irony of the production of Crossfire. Here's a quote as how the original novel - The Brick Foxhole - was allowed to be made into a movie - "In the novel, the victim was a homosexual. As told in the film The Celluloid Closet, and in the documentary included on the DVD edition of the Crossfire film, the Hollywood Hays Code prohibited any mention of homosexuality because it was seen as a sexual perversion. Hence, the book's theme of homophobia was changed to one about racism and anti-Semitism."

Looking back, and then comparing the true events with the themes of the film - hatred and prejudice - it is bitterly laughable. The change in production of Crossfire proved the film's point more than the actual content did.

The message is strong and good, but it's also heavy handed. I wish they would have expanded more on it even, not in explaining it but by showing these dark undercurrents in our society. In the end, everyone just turns up happy, going for a cup of coffee. Nothing has changed in the minds of the soldiers, to them they just got out of another jam. That's fine, and that may be what people really did, but to me the film feels like it's saying "Oh, we've rooted out the evil, time to celebrate!"

Or maybe I'm just cold hearted. I still really enjoyed Crossfire. It's anti-Semitic message really sticks out, but there are some cool camera movements and angles. There's not much for character development, but for jamming such a complex plot into an hour and a half, I can't complain much.

Look, there's nothing wrong with Crossfire. It's a good movie, and relevant today (although more so with race and sexuality than religion) and I think people should still watch it. It's just not my favorite noir.

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The Stranger (1946)

Times up for Charles Rankin as Mr Wilson hunts down the former Nazi in the college town in Connecticut. The Stranger is a lesser Welles film, a noir that is focused on the roll of Nazi hunters (sadly though we get a "Wilson" because y'know 40's antisemitism). Still Orson Welles is a master story teller and the film is bookended with a pair of thrilling scenes...one of a nazi trying to escape a South American country the second a thrilling fight in a clock tower.

I admire quite a few things about The Stranger, to start off with the film mostly takes place in a quiet town, often time noirs choose to take place in the city with the goal to get away from that life. Rankin had effectively escaped and had now acquired the American dream, he had the job, wife, standing in community and even the dog and then they all fall apart.

One has to applaud Welles portrayal of Kindler you have a great moment when he declares that Marx was a jew not a German, and another moment when he declares that he was following orders. Attempting to create an image of a Nazi with nuance in 1946 is an impressive task and something that shouldn't be glossed over lightly.

My only real issue with the film was the casting. Loretta Young didn't feel like a noir actress in this film. She's given the responsibility of carrying the second act and I felt like other actresses would have done a significantly better job.

Le Corbeau (1943)

A cynical doctor is torn apart by mysterious letters in occupied France in Le Corbeau (1943). Henri-Georges Clouzot is a master of suspense and storytelling he's one of my favorite film-makers. While noir wasn't officially defined until a few years later Le Corbeau might be the first deconstruction of the genre. In 99% of noirs focus around a murder or a theft but Clouzot's work is more focused the elements of a crime rather than a major crime. In a lot of ways it builds towards what should be the film rather what we get is a prequel to a story we don't need to be told about.

Our lead is a doctor accused of sexual and moral crimes in a small town. He's giving women abortions and cheating on housewives, I'd imagine two huge crimes for the 40's. Germain is a strange man in himself a pitiless individual who is a stranger coming into town. Is this a man on the run (another theme in noir's)...well I'm not going to spoil that for you but for a subplot that's a pretty good one. Our narrator is unreliable which is really smart in a poison pen story.


Clouzot also refuses to give the audience any violence, all the death occurs off-screen we are only left with the results. Clouzot doesn't want you get tension from who lives or who dies it's more who's going to open and read a letter. It's subversion at it's best.

And yet even though it subverts and deconstructs it also does something even more important. The best noir's use metaphors that stand the test of time and in this film you can't help but see the comparisons to Nazi's taking in undesirables during this era. The film was funded by German's during the war and banned by the French after it...guess they missed the subtext. Fortunately the film and film-maker helped launch the French New Wave.

Warning: Potential Spoilers for Le Corbeau below.

I think this phrasing makes it seem like he was performing abortions for women looking to get rid of unwanted pregnancies, but that wasn't the case. The women had become ill or experienced complications during child birth, and he choose to save them instead of the unborn babies, which was what started the rumours.

I guess he was still technically aborting the fetuses, but I think the context is important, because that misunderstanding is what turns many of the townspeople against Germain. He gets a reputation as a child killer simply because he was doing what was best for the mother. They make assumptions about his actions, and ultimately don't care about the truth.

I said accused in the sentence before that Cosmic, though if you think about it.

Le Corbeau (1943)


In my review of The Stranger, I said that it didn't feel like noir. Le Corbeau, in my opinion, resembles my image of the genre even less. Compared to the three prior US films, it's also technically weaker (cinematography, audio, and acting). Even the script has its issues when it teeters between a thriller and a farce. There's no real suspense or tension in the film at all.

It takes a while to figure out what's happening, and then you realize the film is about someone trolling the townfolk with hooks on par an average internet forum. After accepting that people in the 1940s didn't know about the ignore option, the story itself is passable but a little silly (let's blame that on the Nazis, shall we). I had my #1 suspect from the start, but I was wrong (I still think my choice would have made more sense).

Honestly, I found the fact that Le Corbeau was made in occupied France more interesting than the movie itself. It's quite easy to see why the French people after the war didn't like the film (and Clouzot). I don't know if it really tries to underline the immorality of an average French, but under the circumstances, it's rather difficult to blame the people for thinking so.

This HoF is going to be very difficult to rank; after four movies I'm leaning to give three of them the same rating.

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I so need to watch Le Corbeau, well hopefully tonight I can get to it.

I'm watching it today!

I don't know what I want to watch next. Maybe Crossfire since a few people have reviewed that already.

When I think of Hayden I think of the dirty cop in The Godfather that Micheal shoots in the restaurant.

Really enjoyed the interview. I could totally see hanging out and drinking bourbon with that guy. Seems very down to earth with some interesting things to tell.
Moi aussi. Un peu de. Je connais beaucoup de mots - mais, pas beaucoup de phrases.
Still getting my head wrapped around the grammar to make full sentences on my own. I had to double-check what I wrote. Quite a number of mistakes lol

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

I know how you feel. French is mandatory here for nine years, and during that time they never once tried to teach us grammar haha. I learned more in my first 3 months doing German at University level than I did in nearly a decade of French during grade school.

When I took Irish it was similar to how we were taught French, where they kind of assumed we would organically learn how to form sentences without being taught the explicit rules. But to make it worse, the first Irish class was graded on 10% participation, 90% final exam, and before the final we had no other tests and hadn't done much reading or writing. Part of the exam was of course reading comprehension and a mini written essay.

Back on topic for the HoF, I did just finish watching Crossfire. Definitely won't be writing anything tonight though, as it's getting quite late.

I watched it last night too. It's getting really crowded on that "kinda OK" bracket in this HoF.

@edarsenal @Wyldesyde19 @Siddon @ahwell @neiba @Frightened Inmate No. 2; @CosmicRunaway @John-Connor @GulfportDoc

I forgot to mention: please don't send me your voting ballot until after I've posted that I'm done and my ballot is finalized. Thanks

I swear we need a noir smiley...

The Big Heat (1953)


One of the great things about these noir films is that it gives us a chance to go back and look up certain things. What I found out was that The Big Heat didn't get an Oscar nomination...shocking but Glenn Ford and Fritz Lang both never received acknowledgment from the academy. Funny how I watched this one after Le Corbeau as that film ends where this one begins. We start off with a dead cop and it plays out like a typical procedural until something happens at the end of the first act and the film changes drastically.


I almost don't want to go into details with the plot because the story is so good and the twists and turns are so well executed that you feel like the entire review would be in spoilers. You could call this film "character arc" because everyone in this film gets to go on their own little journey. The best performance in the film was Gloria Graham as the moll I've seen her in a number of films but this is the performance that sticks out.



One of the things I really appreciate about this film is the death count and violence. While it never feels repetitive or excessive it is stronger than most noirs. Having a large body count changes the stakes for the antagonist and quite frankly an argument could be made that Ford isn't really the antagonist but rather a different character is and he's just the narator of a portion of the story.



I've seen it before, I'll see it again but I love this movie.

Le Corbeau (The Raven) reminds me very much of a film I watched just a couple days back - The Given Word. They have totally different unique qualities, yet both have at their core a commentary on how little occurrences and disruptions can cause mass hysteria and make the public and media overblow the situtation.

This becomes particularly important when Le Corbeau is put into it's historical - it's a film made (and taking place) in Nazi occupied France, 1943. It's political undertones are subtle, but Le Corbeau makes comments on the upper class, the occupation, and I guess the French saw it as a stab at them since the director of this film got into a lot of trouble afterward.

That's the power Le Corbeau had upon its release, much like Battleship Potemkin or Stravinsky's the Rite of Spring. It doesn't retain that power today with it's slightly contrived plot and one-sided characters. Yet at the heart of Le Corbeau remains the grand mystery of who is the raven, and what is their motive, and what will come of this?

What Le Corbeau does so well is it builds a horrifying world out of something normal. Almost like Blue Velvet does, in that we get this underbelly of terrifying and mysterious events in an everyday town - those events lead to people pointing fingers, death from guilt, and eventual killings. It's the descent of this town from "happiness" to madness.

The raven is only revealed at the very very end, but we feel true justice hasn't been given. Laura is driven to screams as she is escorted to a mental hospital. Some of the townspeople's careers are destroyed. It's utter panic, and utter disappointment.

As I said, I wish the characters were a bit more fleshed out, and perhaps some scenes could have been cut/tidied up. But Le Corbeau remains biting commentary, ingenious in it's construction and infuriating in it's conclusion.