The Film Noir Years Quiz.

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Well it is not The Blue Dahlia. Pretty sure that has been remade. Up to the other three. My odds are getting better with each guess. Ok. I will say Angel Face. Is that the one with Jean Simmons?



Well it is not The Blue Dahlia. Pretty sure that has been remade. Up to the other three. My odds are getting better with each guess. Ok. I will say Angel Face. Is that the one with Jean Simmons?

You have accidentally chosen both correct answers. Despite your gut feeling that it must have been remade, The Blue Dahlia (1946) has not. It was the third pairing of stars Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, who had teamed memorably in the Noirs This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key four years before. It is also an original screenplay by Raymond Chandler, not adapted from one of his novels nor adapting the work of others as he had for Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (from the James M. Cain novel) and Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (from the Patricia Highsmith novel). Chandler didn't particularly like the finished film, it was rushed into production before the script was finished, and apparently he hated Veronica Lake. But despite that pedigree it has never been remade or updated in all these decades.

The real-life notorious and still officially unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947 Los Angeles was dubbed the "Black Dahlia Murder", one supposes playing on the title of The Blue Dahlia which had been released about nine months before. That case has produced many books, documentaries, and movies trying to unravel the mystery and darkness, including Ulu Grosbard's True Confessions (1981) starring Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall and Brian DePalma's The Black Dahlia (2006) starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, and Scarlett Johansson, both based on novels. But The Blue Dahlia has never been remade. The grisly mystery that bares a similar name has certainly been of more lasting interest.



Jean Simmons did indeed star in Angel Face (1953) with Robert Mitchum, one of director Otto Preminger's several Noirs. The plot is pretty standard for the genre, but it is elevated by the performances and Preminger knowing how to make these things really cook. Preminger had another Noir with angel in the title, Fallen Angel (1945). Laura (1944) is his most famous and enduring, but he also made Whirlpool (1949) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950). Laura has been remade and reworked, but none of his other Noirs have been.


The two others from my list have had remakes. Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947) which is considered one of the very best the classic genre had to offer if not the best was reworked as Taylor Hackford's Against All Odds (1984) with Jeff Bridges and James Woods standing in for Bob Mitchum and Kirk Douglas with the film's original Femme Fatale Jane Greer a cameo-sized role playing the mother of her character's analog, played by Rachel Ward. Other than a couple steamy sex scenes between the tanned and gorgeous Bridges and Ward, the film is probably best known today for the Phil Collins theme song that played during the closing credits. Safe to say it is not the classic that its predecessor was. Robert Siodmak's armored car heist picture Criss Cross (1949) starring Burt Lancaster was remade by Steven Soderbergh as The Underneath (1995) starring Peter Gallagher.


I didn't bother listing any remakes that kept the same title, though there are a bunch including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 & 1981), Kiss of Death (1947 & 1995), D.O.A. (1950 & 1988), Narrow Margin (1952 & 1990), The Desperate Hours (1955 & 1990), The Big Sleep (1946 & 1978), Brighton Rock (1947 & 2010), Cape Fear (1962 & 1991), Night and the City (1950 & 1992), and The Spiral Staircase (1946 & 1975).


__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



Well it is not The Blue Dahlia. Pretty sure that has been remade. Up to the other three. My odds are getting better with each guess. Ok. I will say Angel Face. Is that the one with Jean Simmons?

You have accidentally chosen both correct answers. Despite your gut feeling that it must have been remade, The Blue Dahlia (1946) has not. It was the third pairing of stars Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, who had teamed memorably in the Noirs This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key four years before. It is also an original screenplay by Raymond Chandler, not adapted from one of his novels nor adapting the work of others as he had for Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (from the James M. Cain novel) and Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (from the Patricia Highsmith novel). Chandler didn't particularly like the finished film, it was rushed into production before the script was finished, and apparently he hated Veronica Lake. But despite that pedigree it has never been remade or updated in all these decades.

The real-life notorious and still officially unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short in 1947 Los Angeles was dubbed the "Black Dahlia Murder", one supposes playing on the title of The Blue Dahlia which had been released about nine months before. That case has produced many books, documentaries, and movies trying to unravel the mystery and darkness, including Ulu Grosbard's True Confessions (1981) starring Robert DeNiro and Robert Duvall and Brian DePalma's The Black Dahlia (2006) starring Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, and Scarlett Johansson, both based on novels. But The Blue Dahlia has never been remade. The grisly mystery that bares a similar name has certainly been of more lasting interest.



Jean Simmons did indeed star in Angel Face (1953) with Robert Mitchum, one of director Otto Preminger's several Noirs. The plot is pretty standard for the genre, but it is elevated by the performances and Preminger knowing how to make these things really cook. Preminger had another Noir with angel in the title, Fallen Angel (1945). Laura (1944) is his most famous and enduring, but he also made Whirlpool (1949) and Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950). Laura has been remade and reworked, but none of his other Noirs have been.


The two others from my list have had remakes. Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947) which is considered one of the very best the classic genre had to offer if not the best was reworked as Taylor Hackford's Against All Odds (1984) with Jeff Bridges and James Woods standing in for Bob Mitchum and Kirk Douglas with the film's original Femme Fatale Jane Greer a cameo-sized role playing the mother of her character's analog, played by Rachel Ward. Other than a couple steamy sex scenes between the tanned and gorgeous Bridges and Ward, the film is probably best known today for the Phil Collins theme song that played during the closing credits and is not the Neo Noir classic that its predecessor was. Robert Siodmak's armored car heist picture Criss Cross (1949) starring Burt Lancaster was remade by Steven Soderbergh as The Underneath (1995) starring Peter Gallagher.


I didn't bother listing any remakes that kept the same title, though there are a bunch including The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 & 1981), Kiss of Death (1947 & 1995), D.O.A. (1950 & 1988), Narrow Margin (1952 & 1990), The Desperate Hours (1955 & 1990), The Big Sleep (1946 & 1978), Brighton Rock (1947 & 2010), Cape Fear (1962 & 1991), Night and the City (1950 & 1992), and The Spiral Staircase (1946 & 1975).


I love Phil Collins, i find this song so sad.



Nah, I'm not an noir expert, but I do love them. OK I will throw out one, but I do have to leave for dinner soon, so feel free to do a bonus one while I'm gone

I hope this one wasn't already done...

Detective Philip Marlowe is on the case only we don't see him because the movie is told from the first person.



Detective Philip Marlowe is on the case only we don't see him because the movie is told from the first person.
Meaning entirely from Marlowe's POV?
__________________
"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to kill you."
"You seem a decent fellow. I hate to die."



Nah, I'm not an noir expert, but I do love them. OK I will throw out one, but I do have to leave for dinner soon, so feel free to do a bonus one while I'm gone

I hope this one wasn't already done...

Detective Philip Marlowe is on the case only we don't see him because the movie is told from the first person.
Gotta say this film annoyed me. If it is the same one as you mean with Robert Montgomery as Marlowe. Lady Across the Lake. Or something similar was the title.



Meanwhile a fill in.
A small time con man tries to step out of his league and become a big shot wrestling promoter. Set in London with two well known Americans in the lead.



Meaning entirely from Marlowe's POV?
Yup that's the one.

Gotta say this film annoyed me. If it is the same one as you mean with Robert Montgomery as Marlowe. Lady Across the Lake. Or something similar was the title.
Close enough Lady in the Lake with Robert Montgomery. You nailed that one quick!



Meanwhile a fill in.
A small time con man tries to step out of his league and become a big shot wrestling promoter. Set in London with two well known Americans in the lead.
Hello! 😃



Meanwhile a fill in.
A small time con man tries to step out of his league and become a big shot wrestling promoter. Set in London with two well known Americans in the lead.




It was remade in 1992, starring Robert DeNiro and Jessica Lange, set in NYC instead of London and with boxing instead of wrestling.