Noirvember 2021

Tools    





A bored Sunday triple noirtastic feature:


Call Northside 777 - 1948
Road House - 1948
Pitfall - 1948

Would recommend all three.
I remember liking Call Northside 777 (that has Lucille Ball in it? I think)...Road House is a favorite and Ida Lupino plays a female version of a Bogie type character. I've not seen Pitfall.



The trick is not minding
Started watching The Woman in the Window from Lang. But…..colorized. Looks ugly.
Then I started feeling unwell, for some reason. Unrelated to the color I assure you.
Anyways, stopped and will finish it later.
Ace in the Hole is up afterwards. Maybe Sweet Smell of Success later.



I remember liking Call Northside 777 (that has Lucille Ball in it? I think)...Road House is a favorite and Ida Lupino plays a female version of a Bogie type character. I've not seen Pitfall.
Good picture, and good role for James Stewart. Helen Walker and Betty Grable were the female stars.

I liked the film, especially in the interesting way they discovered the witness's testimony was wrong. It's not really a noir, but a reporter investigatory procedural.



Good picture, and good role for James Stewart. Helen Walker and Betty Grable were the female stars.

I liked the film, especially in the interesting way they discovered the witness's testimony was wrong. It's not really a noir, but a reporter investigatory procedural.
Thanks Doc, I don't know why I had Lucille Ball in mind, she probably was in another noir. It's been awhile since I seen a Betty Grable movie, sounds like another noir I need to watch!



I remember liking Call Northside 777 (that has Lucille Ball in it? I think)...Road House is a favorite and Ida Lupino plays a female version of a Bogie type character. I've not seen Pitfall.
Pitfall is decent enough, Dick Powell has some great dialogue.

The Dark Corner is great if you need more Lucille Ball noir.



Pitfall is decent enough, Dick Powell has some great dialogue.

The Dark Corner is great if you need more Lucille Ball noir.
I do Like Dick Powell in noir, he's quite different than the usual tough noir guys.

Ah, that's it The Dark Corner, that's were I seen Lucille Ball at.



Hell's Island (1955)
Plays out like The Maltese Falcon, complete with a Sydney Greenstreet big guy type with a British accent and a wheel chair, which was kind of fun actually. Set in Mexico and shot in Technicolor, though filmed entirely at Paramount studio. Not a great film but this one gripped me with its mystery of who did what with the missing rubies and why...Very twisting turning. John Payne was good and so was the femme fatale and she's very fatale! Mary Murphy.




The trick is not minding
The Woman in the Window

Lang layers this with enough suspense to keep you guessing how it will end, but when we reach the end, I can’t help but feel slightly disappointed.

Robinson, Bennett and Duryea all perform well, each inhabiting their respective roles.

It would have been perfect had it not been for that ending…..still., it’s a very good noir.



@StuSmallz Nicely done write up on Femme Fatales in Noir! I enjoyed reading it...Is there a part 2 if so more pics please
Of course there will be more parts; like I said in the first post, I'm going to talk about the evolution of the Fatale after Classical-era Noir ended as well, so don't you worry, bro



Thanks Doc, I don't know why I had Lucille Ball in mind, she probably was in another noir. It's been awhile since I seen a Betty Grable movie, sounds like another noir I need to watch!
I loved Lucy.. The one good noir I'm aware of that she did was The Dark Corner (1946), with Clifton Webb, William Bendix, and Mark Stevens. I think you'd like it. Lucy was drop dead gorgeous.



Cross-post from my Movie Loot thread...

For any listener here, The Movie Loot - Episode 49 is out. Since it's Noirvember, we're getting into the seedy underbelly of cinema to talk about film noir. My guest for this episode is Film Noir expert, Dr. Richard Edwards. We talk about the birth of film noir, what makes a film noir, and also share our Top 5 Noir Films.

The Movie Loot 49: The Noir Loot (with Richard Edwards)

Spotify users can check it out here, while Apple Podcast users can check it out here, but the podcast is also available on all the main podcast platforms.
__________________
Check out my podcast: The Movie Loot!



Hell's Island (1955)
Plays out like The Maltese Falcon, complete with a Sydney Greenstreet big guy type with a British accent and a wheel chair, which was kind of fun actually. Set in Mexico and shot in Technicolor, though filmed entirely at Paramount studio. Not a great film but this one gripped me with its mystery of who did what with the missing rubies and why...Very twisting turning. John Payne was good and so was the femme fatale and she's very fatale! Mary Murphy.

I don't believe I ever saw this one, so I'll add it to my list. I see that Phil Karlson directed. He'd done Kansas City Confidential (1952) and 99 River Street (1953) -- both good noirs-- so he knew how to direct noirs.

I still can't wrap my mind around noir films in color and wide screen VistaVision, but that's my problem...



Cross-post from my Movie Loot thread...

For any listener here, The Movie Loot - Episode 49 is out. Since it's Noirvember, we're getting into the seedy underbelly of cinema to talk about film noir. My guest for this episode is Film Noir expert, Dr. Richard Edwards. We talk about the birth of film noir, what makes a film noir, and also share our Top 5 Noir Films.

The Movie Loot 49: The Noir Loot (with Richard Edwards)
...
Nice interview with Mr. Edwards! Listened to a good bit of it, will finish it later. Cheers!



Nice interview with Mr. Edwards! Listened to a good bit of it, will finish it later. Cheers!
Thanks! Appreciate the support.




I don't believe I ever saw this one, so I'll add it to my list. I see that Phil Karlson directed. He'd done Kansas City Confidential (1952) and 99 River Street (1953) -- both good noirs-- so he knew how to direct noirs.

I still can't wrap my mind around noir films in color and wide screen VistaVision, but that's my problem...
To be honest most all of the color noirs feel more like drama-crime-romance films than hard boiled noirs...except for the one I'm about to write up. Stay tuned.

I watched Niagara too but didn't care for it
Well, I guess I won't be nominating it for the 27th! Seriously I had considered if for the 27th, along with a dozen other films. I would've guessed you'd like it.




I Died a Thousand Times (1955)

Screenshots don't do this movie justice...and either will my meager attempt to review this film. But I'll try anyway.

Jack Palance can act! And he's much more than just a stone faced bad guy. At least in this movie he is. Palance put across pathos that reached across the screen and across many decades. I felt for his character and that says a lot.

I Died a Thousand Times
is a remake of High Sierra (1941) the film that propelled Bogart into the limelight. Jack Palance never quite achieved Bogart's cultural fame, but he does prove that he's more than just a towering menace with a stone carved face. Palance imbibes his character with enough soul that I could see his humanity and pain. That too says a lot for a noir.



Attachments
Click image for larger version

Name:	dac6981295010c18a707258986337ab3.jpg
Views:	149
Size:	115.3 KB
ID:	82821  



Went with a neo-noir tonight and rewatched Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. While Jarmusch’s style has always felt somewhere between Wes Anderson and Quentin Tarantino, I think his idiosyncratic approach to the genre really carves out something distinctly his own: an odd pastiche of Melville, Suzuki and Wu Tang Clan that only he could make.



To be honest most all of the color noirs feel more like drama-crime-romance films than hard boiled noirs...except for the one I'm about to write up. Stay tuned.
...
I agree. The big production noirs in the '50s I think were influenced by the heavy popularity of westerns during that era: new technical capacities like wide screen, vivid color and cinematography-- which oftentimes were the best feature of some of those films, at the expense of dialogue and story. Noirs should not feel extravagant or epic...



I'm still watching noirs...until December, then I'm watching XmasNoirs!


Criss Cross (1949)

The other night I watched yet another Technicolor noir film that I had found on a list of color noirs. It wasn't noir and even IMDB didn't have it tagged as such, though Wiki did. Anyway it wasn't much to write about so I won't, but it did put me in the mood to watch Yvonne De Carlo. Which brings me too Criss Cross. This was a rewatch and I had forgotten how good this is. It's good if one values acting...Burt Lancaster is good as always and Yvonne De Carlo was amazing at times.

The story in Criss Cross was a decent one and I was glad to see my man, Dan Duryea back in form. The love/hate relationship that Lancaster and De Carlo shared, worked wonders for the film as in true noir fashion I could see why Lancaster would head down a path to destruction, all thanks to his torrid relationship with his ex wife. The film ends strong and I admire what the director Richard Sidodmak did with it. I especially liked the shots in the long narrow bar that is part of the nightclub where some scenes take part and that screenshot above from the start of the film really sets the film's pace.

Attachments
Click image for larger version

Name:	Screenshot from 2021-11-20 18-06-31.png
Views:	98
Size:	120.2 KB
ID:	82913