The MoFo Top 100 Film Noir Countdown

I've seen Lady from Shanghai, but I only liked the ending. The rest was just okay. Orson Welles' Irish accent was pretty cringe.


I haven't seen Stay Dog.



Seen 12 of 70.

Seen both and thought they were good, but not great.

Seen: 69/70

The Lady from Shanghai was #44 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1940s and Stray Dog was #64 on that same list.

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"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

Missing Word: Film Noir Game

I blew one and it was even on my ballot! I knew the movie instantly but I thought the last word was a bit different.
100% on the titles, 0% spelling accuracy

Hey me too on both thoughts. Welles' Irish accent was too distracting for me to be able to get into Lady from Shanghai. And I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Stray Dog.

The Lady from Shanghai was one that just missed making my list. Some great scenes and iconic images, including Rita Hayworth! I'm happy to see that Stray Dog made it. I was beginning to wonder if it got snubbed and didn't make the cut. It's a quality film about a stray german shepard/husky cross that goes from town to town making friends and helping along the way - but he never stays in one place too long. I had it at #10.

10. Stray Dog (1949)
15. Bob le flambeur (1956)
17. Rififi (1955)
25. Nightmare Alley (1947)

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Both films are good, though neither of them made my ballot.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. That hall of mirrors shootout may be the most amazing sequence I've ever seen in a movie, but I can take or leave the rest.

Stray Dog is #19 on my list. I really enjoy Mifune and Shimura's partnership and how the detectives play off of each other.

The Lady From Shanghai should have been on my list to be honest. Whoops.

Stray Dog was pretty solid.

1 seen, but not on my ballot.

Lady from Shanghai is a fairly trippy and odd thriller that works on a lot of atmosphere and vibe. I enjoyed watching it, but it's not close to my top. I also should probably rewatch it. For what it's worth, Dr. Richard Edwards had it on his Top 5 Film Noirs when we did that episode on Film Noirs a couple of years ago.

I haven't seen Stray Dog.


SEEN: 17/70
MY BALLOT: 7/25

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From yesterday, I watched Nightmare Alley for the 13th HOF but didn't care for it. I haven't seen either of today's movies.

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Put me down as another person who felt that way about Lady from Shanghai. It's probably why I ended up including The Stranger on my ballot (I remember this one being good-ish/interesting, but nothing standing out in my memory as being obviously bad).

Two I would really like to rewatch at some point but haven’t so far.

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Letterboxd

Stray Dog is okay, but I have a resistance to Kurosawa and find myself struggling to enjoy his pictures. I'm sure there's a top-x something list out there where I'd start to include his films on my ballot (apart from the top-100 Akira Kurosawa films).

And I almost typed, "must be, probably today..."



Kurosawa's Stray Dog - 野良犬 was tenth on my ballot, good for a sweet sixteen of its 173 points. A new homicide detective (Tishoro Mifune) has his pocket picked on a crowded trolley, and the thief gets away with his small colt pistol. He teams with a veteran detective (Takashi Shimura) to try and track down the weapon as it changes hands around the black market edges of Postwar Tokyo during an intense heatwave. You can feel the muggy desperation throughout, only momentarily cooled by a tremendous rainstorm before the final confrontation.



Superb cinematography by Asakazu Nakai, one of Kurosawa’s favorite D.P.s also lensing Ikiru, I Live in Fear, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, High & Low, Red Beard, Dersu Uzala, and RAN. It was Kurosawa and Mifune’s second collaboration, following Drunken Angel. They would make fourteen more films together in their legendary partnership.

That makes a dozen of mine on the collective, and half of my Top Ten.

HOLDEN'S BALLOT
3. Too Late for Tears (#81)
4. The Set-Up (#46)
8. Odd Man Out (#47)
9. Criss Cross (#44)
10. Stray Dog (#32)
12. The Big Combo (#52)
13. Phantom Lady (#69)
14. Born to Kill (#84)
18. He Walked By Night (#88)
19. Fallen Angel (#80)
22. Panic in the Streets (#98)
24. Crossfire (#51)
25. The Crimson Kimono (DNP)

Stats: Pit Stop #7

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After hitting our seventh pit stop (70), here's were we are now:

Yearly Breakdown

• 1940 = 4
• 1941 = 1
• 1942 = 1
• 1943 = 1
• 1944 = 5
• 1945 = 4
• 1946 = 5
• 1947 = 10
• 1948 = 9
• 1949 = 6
• 1950 = 7
• 1951 = 2
• 1952 = 3
• 1953 = 3
• 1954 = 0
• 1955 = 4
• 1956 = 3
• 1957 = 0
• 1958 = 2
• 1959 = 0

And 1947 just pulled ahead, after 1948 got no votes this week. We also haven't had anything from 1954, 1957, or 1959. What film noirs from those years deserve to be here?


Repeating Directors

• Alfred Hitchcock = 4
• Orson Welles = 3
• Jules Dassin = 3
• Robert Wise = 3
• Henry Hathaway = 3
• Otto Preminger = 3
• William Wyler = 3
• Akira Kurosawa = 2
• Joseph H. Lewis = 2
• Robert Siodmak = 2
• Nicholas Ray = 2
• Jules Dassin = 2
• Fritz Lang = 2
• John Cromwell = 2
• Robert Rossen = 2

Several changes here this week. Alfred Hitchcock became the only one with 4 entries so far. How much he has left? Also, Orson Wells had two this week to jump into the 3-entries group, while Akira Kurosawa and Joseph H. Lewis joined the 2-entries group.

My old review of:
The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles 1947)

What might have been?...if only Orson Welles' vision for the movie had been released. Orson's rough cut of the film was 155 minutes. At 2 1/2 hours, Columbia Picture executives considered the film too long and ordered it cut to 90 minutes. Welles' then sent detailed instructions to the film editor on how and where to edit the film. Sadly his wishes were ignored.

What we get today is a choppy film with an hour missing from it. If one watches the film closely you can see where some of the scenes were shortened. At two different times there's a sloppy splice. One is a close up of George Grisby (Glenn Anders) towards the beginning of the film, he's in a car with Orson, if you watch closely the film jumps where the splice is. Latter in the film it happens again.

In several places, most notably on the yacht, the scenes are choppy with quick edits, the scenes feel unfinished. Once again the editing was out of Orson's hands. The most famous cut to the film is the fun house mirror scene. We can only guess at the symbolic, cinematic achievements Orson made here, what we can see of the fun house scene is potent.

Much of Orson's trademark cinematography is apparent in the film. The spy glass triple diffuse to Rita Hayworth via a closeup of Glenn Anders is amazing!

I'd give Orson a 5/5 for the material he shot, BUT I have to review the film I seen, the cut and chopped version.

Orson deserved better than the treatment he received in Hollywood. After The Lady from Shanghai he retreated to Europe. He would make only one more major Hollywood film, Touch of Evil.

for the edited version we have today.

1954 has a few good ones, the best probably being Don Siegel's prison flick Riot in Cell Block 11 and his Private Hell 36 with Ida Lupino. Crime Wave and Naked Alibi both with Sterling Hayden are fun. Fritz Lang's take on Human Desire with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford has a lot of fans. Suddenly, where Frank Sinatra plays a bad guy and again stars Sterling Hayden, may be the most-seen Noir of that year due to Sinatra being cast against type, but I would be shocked to see it this high on the collective list.

Wouldn't expect any of those to make it, at this point.

1957 has Sweet Smell of Success, which is definitely going to be on the list. Nothing else from that year will rise to the top.

1959 had my one-pointer, Sam Fuller's The Crimson Kimono, but I didn't really expect that one to have a lot of widespread support. Robert Wise's last Noir, Odds Against Tomorrow with the legendary Robert Ryan plus Harry Belafonte, Ed Begly (Sr.), Gloria Graham, and Shelley Winters, still has a legit shot. If it doesn't make it, it damn well should have been on the list of a hundred.

All good choices! Seen them all and liked them except I still need to watch Riot in Cell Block 11.
I watched The Crimson Kimono when I seen it on your ballot. Both my wife and I thought it was unique and interesting. Good noir.

Stray Dog was my #19.


I didn't care that much for Lady From Shanghai apart from the ending.