Film Noir HoF...Hall of Fame

The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible

01-04-15

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

So here's how this works.
We're all nominating what we think is the best of classic Film Noir.

Watch all the movie nominations, in any order that you like.

There's 1 week given per movie to watch it, which means the final voting will be done in about 11 weeks. BUT you can watch more than one a week if you want. This could wrap up faster, it depends on how fast we watch the movies. But no one should feel rushed, there's plenty of time.

When you watch a nomination post your thoughts on it on this thread. It doesn't have to be a review. Others then discuss the movie too. Even those who are not part of the Noir Hof are encourage to join in the discussion.

After all the movies have been watched everyone ranks the movies in order from #1 being the most deserving of the HoF, to #11 being the least deserving.

Here's the cool part! What we do here in the Noir Hof will matter!
The Noir nomination with the most points will be inducted into the MoFo Movie Hall of Fame.
http://www.movieforums.com/community...e+Hall+of+Fame

There's also a chance that at some point there might be a Hof List that would be included here:
http://www.movieforums.com/lists

We'll start as soon as the last nominations come in.

Forgive me if I may sound stupid, but why 11 weeks if there's only 9 movies?

Citizen Rules

Noir Time

01-04-15

Neiba that's a good question. The reason is there are 2 more people who are going to be submitting movies shortly.

neiba

The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible

01-04-15

My thoughts on In a Lonely Place (1950):

http://www.movieforums.com/community...48#post1232148

Apart from this one, I have seen Sunset Blvd. (my nomination) and Double Indemnity! I will get to the others as soon as I can!

neiba

The thing isolated becomes incomprehensible

01-04-15

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Neiba that's a good question. The reason is there are 2 more people who are going to be submitting movies shortly.

Ohh, I should hv read the whole thread probably!

Thanks!

Citizen Rules

Noir Time

01-04-15

I should have explained that 2 more people are going to submit in my other post, sorry.

Kaplan

A genuine idiot!

01-05-15

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

Of the 9 films that are posted already on the first page, how many has everyone seen already?

I've seen 7 of them, and they're all great movies. I'm really looking forward to seeing them again, plus the additional 2 movies that I haven't seen yet.

I've seen all nine and I love them all. Out of the Past and The Wrong Man I've only seen once, though I remember both fairly well. (And I've seen the remake of Out of the Past.) Looking forward to seeing each again. The others I've seen multiple times, with Shadow of a Doubt the one I've seen the most, maybe 8-10 times. It's my own as yet not nominated movie I haven't seen. Going to watch it now, and if it indeed ends up as my nomination, I'll probably watch it again.

I was really hoping for a bunch of movies people loved which I hadn't seen yet. Oh well. I guess people aren't as familiar with noirs that aren't the standard classics, like people are with horror films.

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

Kaplan

A genuine idiot!

01-05-15

Originally Posted by Citizen Rules

Yup, what Mark said.

Every movie that is added to the HoF...gives +1 week viewing time. So we have 11 movies = 11 weeks total time. But watch them when you want and in any order. But you don't have to do only 1 a week. I might watch 2 a week.

Or you could be like Mark, and watch all eleven in one day.

christine

Dreams is freedom

01-05-15

If any Brits are taking part or watching along, The Wrong Man is on TCM on Thursday at 5pm

Citizen Rules

Noir Time

01-05-15

We're ready to start!

All 12 classic Noir movie nominations are in! So start watching, post your thoughts on the film.....and have fun!

The 12 Film Noirs that we are watching are:

Out of the Past (1947)
The Third Man (1949)
Pickup on South Street (1953)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Laura (1944)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
The Wrong Man (1956)
Double Indemnity (1944)
The Big Combo (1955)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
The Set-Up (1949)

There's some strong Noirs in that list by some great directors and with awesome actors...

Anybody who hasn't joined is still warmly welcomed to watch these and/or comment on them.

Last edited by Citizen Rules; 01-07-15 at 12:17 PM.

Kaplan

A genuine idiot!

01-05-15

I was wondering why you didn't pick The Lady from Shanghai, Rules. But anyway I've been meaning to watch it for years. I have a copy of this from TCM from long ago. As for The Big Combo, you can watch it on youtube if all else fails. I know the version put up by Timeless Classic Movies looks very good.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

01-05-15

Originally Posted by Kaplan

What happened to Criss Cross? I DVRed it because I expected you to nominate it. Was it good, but just not good enough, or was it not very good?

Kaplan

A genuine idiot!

01-05-15

Originally Posted by gbgoodies

What happened to Criss Cross? I DVRed it because I expected you to nominate it. Was it good, but just not good enough, or was it not very good?

I was afraid I wouldn't be able to watch it until Thursday night late, so it was better to go with something else. I'm still watching it when it comes in, though. At least I picked something everyone can easily be able to see.

Citizen Rules

Noir Time

01-05-15

Kaplan thanks for posting that video of The Big Combo....The first thing I did this morning was to look for all the movies. I was able to get all of them from my library or Netfix DVD mail service....except I couldn't get:

The Big Combo (1955)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Out of the Past (1947)

I'm sure I can find them online. I don't watch movies on my computer or stream. I download them to a USB flash drive and then watch them on a Blu-Ray player. But I'm really new at downloading movies.

Erasmus Folly

That's okay. Nobody's perfect!

01-05-15

The Big Combo (1955)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Out of the Past (1947)

All are available from Amazon.com

__________________
You have to think like a hero merely to behave like a decent human being.

Frightened Inmate No. 2

ding-dong daddy from dumas

01-06-15

Besides mine, I've seen In a Lonely Place and Double Indemnity, and i love the former and i haven't seen the latter since i was nine so i'm looking forward to rewatching it.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

01-06-15

Originally Posted by Kaplan

Kaplan, I posted a challenge for you in the "2015 MoFo Challenges" thread.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...13#post1232813

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

01-06-15

Okay, let's try to get the ball rolling with some movie discussion. Some of us have already seen a bunch of the nominations, so we should be able to get some good conversations going here.

I re-watched Double Indemnity last night. I did a quick rating of it in my 2015 Logbook thread, but we can discuss it in greater detail here.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...07#post1232707

I liked the movie a lot, but I had a few small issues with the movie. Nothing major, just a few minor things that bothered me a little bit, but not enough to take anything away from the greatness of the movie.

Fred MacMurray was pretty quick to get involved in a murder scheme for the love of a woman that he just met. Unless I missed something, it seemed like it was only a day between the time they first met, and the time they discuss her husband and the insurance policy. They just met and already they can't live without each other?

The signal they use is 3 horn honks. Why not do something less conspicuous, like a specific word or phrase? It doesn't make sense to use horn honks and draw attention to themselves.

When Keyes told Neff that he figured out who the "somebody else" was, why didn't Neff ask him who was the "somebody else"? He didn't even pretend to be curious. Shouldn't that have raised a red flag for Keyes, who's supposed to be the best at finding phony claims?

Also, not an issue, but just something I noticed. I never noticed before how short Edward G. Robinson is. At 5' 7", he looks like a midget next to Fred MacMurray (who's 6' 3"). I noticed that Edward G. Robinson is usually standing next to Fred MacMurray while Fred's leaning or sitting on a desk.

gbgoodies

You can't make a rainbow without a little rain.

01-06-15

I re-watched In a Lonely Place last night. I did a quick rating of it in my 2015 Logbook thread, but we can discuss it in greater detail here.

http://www.movieforums.com/community...23#post1232723

I loved this movie. I think it's Humphrey Bogart's best performance, and one of his best movies. It seems to have gotten a little bit lost behind Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon and a few others over the years.

I thought Gloria Grahame was a little bit stiff at the beginning of the movie, but she got better as the movie went on. She didn't seem to hide her feelings about him very well, so I'm surprised that none of the characters in the movie picked up on her fears.

View Spoilers

WARNING: "SPOILERS about the ENDING!!!" spoilers below

I'm not sure that Dix and Laurel would have ended up together even if the killer had confessed earlier because Dix had such a violent temper, at some point he was going to turn on her for something, it just would have been something different than her trying to leave him.

View Spoilers

WARNING: "ANOTHER SPOILER" spoilers below

And I think the line "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me." is one of the greatest quotes ever.

Kaplan

A genuine idiot!

01-06-15

I'm just going in chronological order, so I started with Shadow of a Doubt, which has always been one of my three favorite Hitchcock movies. Only the last time I watched it, I just didn't feel any connection to it. I thought maybe I'd seen it too many times and become jaded. But my love for it returned with this viewing. So that's good!

It has things about it not usually typical for a film by Hitch and I love those things. I love the location work and I wish he'd been more keen to shoot on location. Usually he couldn't wait to get any location shooting done so he could do the rest in a studio. Santa Rosa is really another character in the film. I like how there's no glamorous blond at the center of the film (not that I don't love many of the glamorous blonds he cast in his movies) and I like how there's no central romance, though a romance does develop later in the film.

The characters in the film are lively and all are perfectly cast. My favorite secondary character is easily the brainy little girl, and some of the best moments in the film are the conversations between the father and Herbert. The input they got from Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town, I think really added to the script. The movie is dang near perfect. As for it being a noir, I think you could look at Uncle Charlie as being something of a noir character in his cynicism and desperation, and in the way he plays with the detectives and manipulates his own family. And of course the way he spits on society's conventions. The scene in the bank is the perfect example. The second of the two really cynical speeches from Charlie:

You think you know something, don't you? You think you're the clever little girl who knows something. There's so much you don't know, so much. What do you know, really? You're just an ordinary little girl, living in an ordinary little town. You wake up every morning of your life and you know perfectly well that there's nothing in the world to trouble you. You go through your ordinary little day, and at night you sleep your untroubled ordinary little sleep, filled with peaceful stupid dreams. And I brought you nightmares. Or did I? Or was it a silly, inexpert little lie? You live in a dream. You're a sleepwalker, blind. How do you know what the world is like? Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you rip off the fronts of houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it? Wake up, Charlie. Use your wits. Learn something.

neiba