Noirvember 2022

Loved those two shots that came back to back. First one is the private investigator (Mark Stevens) setting alone in his office pouring himself a drink by using two bottles at a time. I've never seen that done in a film before, very cool. Then when his secretary (Lucille Ball) enters the room she flips on the lights and we get those ominous hard shadows on the wall...telling us alot with no dialogue. I wish the print I'd seen had been restored. I could tell that the lighting and compositions were strongly noir but the quality of the video I seen made that less noticeable.

Like MKS said in his review, the dialogue is steeped in 1940s pulp detective speak, which is a fun aspect of the film. The colorful phrases flew by so fast I wish I could remember more of them. One of them was after a man takes a fall from a high skyscraper the taxi driver who drove him there says, "How'd I know he was going to take a Brodie?" I had no clue to what that meant, but I found out from reading the trivia on IMDB that it was a real saying.I'd say the story is squarely in the 1930s hard boiled, pulp fiction detective magazines style which later formed the basis for many of a film noir. Some compare this story to Laura, probably because of the casting of Clifton Webb. The Dark Corner reminded me of 'Dixon Hill' the fictional hologram detective played by Patrick Stewart in Star Trek The Next Generation.

I though this was worth watching, though I didn't care for the acting by Lucille Ball though oddly I did like her character. I didn't really like Mark Stevens much either as he was only OK, not a stand out. I kept wishing Dick Powell had been cast instead...I guess I had Murder My Sweet on my mind.

A worthy noir for the noir fan.

See that image...I went back and watched that moment twice and that composite shot seamlessly done. I couldn't spot any flaws. It really looked like there was two twins. I'm guessing that was done with two different shots being combined in an optical printer? Anyway I was sold that this was two different identical twins.

The story was intriguing as one of the sisters is accused of murdering a boyfriend and was spotted at the scene of the crime by three different people...Yet other people swear she was in the park miles away at a concert. The catch is neither twin will say which one was where and so the law can't arrest both for a crime committed by only one of them. I don't claim to know the real legal status of such a situation but the film made it seem plausible, as no one could tell them apart and they weren't spilling the beans either.

Oliva De Havilland was Oscar nominated five times and won Best Actress twice. She's no slouch here and her acting nicely differentiates the behavioral differences between the two identical twin sisters. I thought this was a well done film and I enjoyed it. I would say it was more of a mystery film than a noir, but that's OK because no one was setting out to make a noir film in the 1940s...it was just the style & themes that some studios levitated towards.

I need to watch more Oliva De Havilland!

I did like this and it had its moments...but it's hard to put a finger on why I didn't love Gilda...I think it's in part Rita Hayworth's performance. I know she was a huge star at the time and received top billing in the movie so maybe I was expecting more? I just didn't get that personal connection where an actor brings their character to life. Maybe it's the director's fault as most every shot of Gilda was done as a model glamour shot and of course she had worked as a model and was the most famous of the WWII pinup girls. Not that she was a bad actress, she was fine, I just didn't get a sense that she inhabited her character of Gilda.

Maybe the problem is the movie's story line. I read that Gilda went into production without a finished script and script pages were delivered daily which resulted in some plot elements not being fully fleshed out. I noticed in one odd scene two rather ominous German men who behave like Nazis, demand at gun point the returning of German patents for a process to make tungsten. The men force Glenn Ford to open the door to the casino's office where the safe is. Then the scene fades to black as the office door opens and no more is made of the demands for the return of the patents.

Still I did enjoy watching this. Glenn Ford really nailed a streetwise man who had once been jilted by Gilda. Ford is able to show self contained rage just under the surface while controlling his emotions with a forced smile, it's a very effective performance. I wish I could say I was enamored with Rita Hayworth but other than her pretty face and her hair tossing I never quite bought into the film's tag line 'There never was a woman like Gilda'.