Detour is a wild ride. The Vera character is just nuts. In some scenes, Ann Savage looks glamorously sexy, and in others she looks like a rat that just crawled out of its hole. She's a two-face!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Ann_Savage_in_Detour.jpghttps://2.bp.blogspot.com/--BZFf_JP3w4/XHp-djxGK7I/AAAAAAAARVc/sNi5Pge5mkkxuSE95jPZ1kpwCE-D4jL0ACLcBGAs/s1600/Detour.jpg
― TO BE A JAZZ SINGER YOU HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SCAT (Jazzbo), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 15:42 (four years ago) link
i didn't think much of detour (and i was excited to watch); it seemed like more of an experiment/accomplishment in economy than a "great" film
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 16:09 (four years ago) link
I'd advise catching Ann Savage's performance from a Guy Maddin film about 60 years later
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 16:15 (four years ago) link
Ann Savage in Detour is amazing!!
― Nhex, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 16:25 (four years ago) link
Ride the Pink Horse would make a good pair with Flamingo Road
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 04:16 (four years ago) link
Detour is one of my favorite films of all time. It perfectly captures the vibe of a “racy” paperback purchased at a seedy small town bus station sometime in the Great Depression.
― Album Moods: Rambunctious; Snide (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 15 April 2020 04:39 (four years ago) link
watched So Dark the Night last night based on this thread - came close to switching it off a few times in the first half, but the second half does indeed pay off as advertised itt, some great expressionist touches, particularly loved the shot where Steven Geray is at his desk & suddenly the foreground light disappears except for horror-movie underlighting on his face. Fun discovery.
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Monday, 27 April 2020 15:01 (four years ago) link
SPOILER so Dark the night SPOILER is really the dumb film that the twin brother in adaptation is writing
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 08:36 (four years ago) link
yup. also, it is oedipus rex.
― wasdnous (abanana), Wednesday, 29 April 2020 13:27 (four years ago) link
I'm reading James Harvey's Movie Love in the Fifties, and in advance of the Big Heat chapter, I watched it for the first time in ages. Great film. You have to put up with the domestic scenes between Ford and his wife for a few minutes--I realize their importance, but they're the Susie-Dallas scenes in Sweet Smell of Success, the anachronistic wholesomeness that belongs to some other movie. Lots of great lines otherwise--I'd forgotten Gloria Grahame's famous line when she walks into Ford's hotel room for the first time--and Dave Bannion very much belongs to the Ethan/Scottie line of '50s male obsessives who are borderline psychotic.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 May 2020 16:26 (four years ago) link
The Underworld Story is sorta misleadingly titled, in that its basically a proto-Ace in the Hole with a gangster character who plays a pivotal supporting role. It's a good one, though, thanks mostly to a solid supporting cast, including Herbert Marshall as a conflicted rich patriarch, Gar Miller as his creepy son, and the great Howard Da Silva as the aforementioned gangster. Dan Duryea is typically scuzzy as in the lead, and the credits assure me that Alan Hale Jr. is in there somewhere as a hired goon, but I didn't catch him. There is some awkward racial stuff that Eddie Muller explains was the product of director Cy Endfield (who also made the equally terrific noir The Sound of Fury the same year) wanting to inject some social commentary into the piece, only to have the studio intervene and demand the casting of a white actress as the "negro" maid charged with murder so the film would play in the south. It's...distracting, to say the least.
― A White, White Gay (cryptosicko), Sunday, 7 June 2020 17:07 (four years ago) link
How in the world had I never seen The Big Combo before last night. Dark, brutal, and perfectly cast.
― Orson Well Yeah (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 6 August 2020 12:08 (three years ago) link
Love that movie. John Hoyt as the world weary Swedish antiques dealer is a highlight.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 6 August 2020 12:12 (three years ago) link
My favourite half of a film noir is the first half of Dark Passage
― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 6 August 2020 12:32 (three years ago) link
Yeah, that blew my mind when I caught it on afternoon tv as a kid.
― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 6 August 2020 13:47 (three years ago) link
thanks for the big combo rec. had never heard of it and was amazed by how good it was! Was really surprised at how little standing it has, seemed a lot better than a lot of much more canonical stuff from the period, great performances and some really artful sequences. Helene Stanton as Rita was wonderful and I looked her up on imdb and she basically didn't appear in anything else?
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 18 August 2020 20:52 (three years ago) link
Yeah watched the big combo after reading this thread and really loved it. Gun crazy next I guess
― Heez, Tuesday, 18 August 2020 21:29 (three years ago) link
I watched Preminger's Whirlpool and Where the Sidewalk Ends recently, I was surprised to find out the former is more well known/well regarded. WTSE could use much more Gene Tierney but it kind of got me at the end with the turn in Dana Andrews' character.
― flappy bird, Wednesday, 19 August 2020 03:34 (three years ago) link
The extras in the Eureka disc of The Big Combo (in the Film Noir box) spend a lot of time bickering about whether the movie has an auteurist vision or whether ppl trying to say that are evidence of auteurism gone wrong and that it's actually more of a triumph of a lot of different players. The story of how it got rediscovered - UK repertory cinema got a hold of a copy in the 1970's and played the hell out of it - also entertaining.
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 19 August 2020 09:01 (three years ago) link
been patching up my noir blind spots. The Big Heat! amazing! Kiss Me Deadly! slightly overrated beyond the ending!
― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Saturday, 29 August 2020 20:06 (three years ago) link
also, Gun Crazy benefits tremendously from knowing nothing about it when you start in.
― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Saturday, 29 August 2020 20:07 (three years ago) link
I thought the same about Kiss Me Deadly at first, but check out this video about how much Robert Aldrich fucking HATED Mickey Spillane... besides the Cold War horror that runs thru the movie and explodes at the end, Aldrich and his co-writer saw Mike Hammer (who was in a bunch of Spillane novels iirc) as a fascist thug, and Meeker's performance shows that. jamming the guy's fingers in the drawer, I mean his cynicism and cruelty are emphasized over his values (if any) and his mission and his effectiveness in it, which is basically none, the bomb goes off... the most obvious nod towards this is the backwards opening credits. also how Cloris Leachman catching her breath eventually just sounds like aroused moaning.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 29 August 2020 23:39 (three years ago) link
One of the great things about KMD is just how amped up it is pushing against both the production code and Spillane/Hammer fan service expectations.
― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 30 August 2020 00:09 (three years ago) link
Panic In The Streets has become quite timely.
― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 30 August 2020 00:12 (three years ago) link
yeah I admired how bleak and cruel it was, I just didn't find it as riveting on a plot/character level as some of the others I've been watching.
flappy, was there supposed to be a video in yr post? :)
xp
― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Sunday, 30 August 2020 00:13 (three years ago) link
Yes and now I can’t find it 😭
― flappy bird, Sunday, 30 August 2020 01:42 (three years ago) link
I liked The Big Combo a lot (with that one particularly amazing moment about 3/4 of the way in) but found the lead a little too punchable.
― unpaid intern at the darvo institute (Simon H.), Monday, 31 August 2020 04:22 (three years ago) link
This is a very good list I thought, a season of women's picture noirs. I'm very interested in this overlap and me and my boyfriend often talk about the large contiguities between these two genres and I wonder if anyone has written extensively about it?
― plax (ico), Saturday, 19 September 2020 20:57 (three years ago) link
Sorry, list is https://docfilms.uchicago.edu/dev/calendar/2019/winter/fridays.shtml
― plax (ico), Saturday, 19 September 2020 20:58 (three years ago) link
Particularly intrigued by the insane-sounding fuller picture from 1964 that I have never heard of
― plax (ico), Saturday, 19 September 2020 20:59 (three years ago) link
the naked kiss bangs. it went public domain for a while so there are free/shitty/direct from VHS copies floating around that are varying shades of watchable - i think it's worth paying to see a good/criterion version
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Saturday, 19 September 2020 21:02 (three years ago) link
sudden fear is also dope
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Saturday, 19 September 2020 21:03 (three years ago) link
Yah sudden fear is amazing. I watched it on YouTube once (mistitled 'who is the cast and who is the mouse' out something) and was so delighted when I realised Gloria Graham was in it!
― plax (ico), Saturday, 19 September 2020 21:08 (three years ago) link
Both ophuls films are amazing, my favourite bel geddes performance and my favourite Joan Bennett performance. The reckless moment is the classic of this genre for me fuck Mildred pierce
― plax (ico), Saturday, 19 September 2020 21:10 (three years ago) link
The Naked Kiss is awesome, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
― Nhex, Sunday, 20 September 2020 00:10 (three years ago) link
THE STAR with Bette Davis & Sterling Hayden is the one that immediately springs to mind. Same year as Sudden Fear, Joan won over Bette I think
+ FLAMINGO ROAD !!!!!!
other great ones I can think of:
Leave Her to HeavenNot WantedDon't Bother to KnockAnother Man's Poison (not as good as Now, Voyager but noir & lots of overlap/same crew)Crime of Passion (minor Stanwyck, decent Hayden)Daisy KenyonLuredThe Petrified ForestLuredDead RingerStrait-JacketBlack Widow [1954]Thirst & Dreams by Bergman
― flappy bird, Sunday, 20 September 2020 04:44 (three years ago) link
thats a typo Lured isn't *that* good
Joan is the star of the genre for sure.
What is interesting i guess is how the women's noir sees the immediate post-war curtailment of women's social positions as a landscape of moral hazard. It is the moral ambiguity of this transitional moment of the late 40s that animates the peril of these films.
Joan was perfectly positioned for this, she was always playing a woman threatened to be cast back to wherever she came from (the bride wore red, the women, there are better examples from the 30s but I can't think of them this instant...). Her hardened stoicism in Mildred pierce and similar seems borne of something inherent in her earlier star image.
― plax (ico), Sunday, 20 September 2020 06:44 (three years ago) link
Marked woman is too early to be noir but feels like an early example of this.
― plax (ico), Sunday, 20 September 2020 07:12 (three years ago) link
On dangerous ground always feels like a very dark Sirk film to me
Ida lupino is Jane Wyman in magnificent obsession
― plax (ico), Sunday, 20 September 2020 07:13 (three years ago) link
IS Jane Wyman IN
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, 20 September 2020 14:45 (three years ago) link
daisy kenyon is one i had a very emotional connection/reaction to.
― wasdnous (abanana), Monday, 21 September 2020 06:25 (three years ago) link
Just watched Phantom Lady for the first time. The jazz/drumming sequence, holy crap! I’m on a mission to watch everything Siodmak directed.
― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 31 October 2020 17:01 (three years ago) link
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9e/38/47/9e38477364f486b9bf6bb1cf7d7f0b6b.gif
― scampo-phenique (WmC), Saturday, 31 October 2020 17:12 (three years ago) link
Elisha Cook gives it everything in that scene, the only way to go since he obv doesn't know how to play the drums.
― scampo-phenique (WmC), Saturday, 31 October 2020 17:14 (three years ago) link
He’s great in everything I’ve ever seen him in. Regis Rooney’s gum-chewing copper is a good bit part. And I don’t believe I’ve ever seen another film with Ella Raines, she was really lovely.
― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 31 October 2020 17:18 (three years ago) link
Toomey, damn spellcheck.
― Three Rings for the Elven Bishop (Dan Peterson), Saturday, 31 October 2020 17:19 (three years ago) link
And I don’t believe I’ve ever seen another film with Ella Raines, she was really lovely.
My fave noir-era actress. Phantom Lady is the first in a terrific run from '44 to '49 - also includes Hail the Conquering Hero, Tall in the Saddle, The Suspect, The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry, The Web, The Walking Hills
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 31 October 2020 22:03 (three years ago) link
Thought for a LONG time that Phantom Lady was the first time I'd seen GENE TIERNEY, not Ella Raines. Such a great movie. Cry of the City and, to a lesser extent, Criss Cross are both very good noirs by Siodmak.
watched The Big Heat for the first time the other night, obviously great. First time I've liked Glenn Ford in anything--cruelty suits him more than something like, uh, Gilda (so overrated)
― flappy bird, Sunday, 1 November 2020 04:19 (three years ago) link