btw just watched Red Rock West last night, it was a fun little western noir with nick cage and jt walsh and dennis hopper all hamming it up. it felt like a showtime adaptation of a jim thompson novel.
― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 3 August 2009 00:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh yeah, I got to see In A Lonely Place last Friday. Not quite the film I was expecting it to be, but a good film nontheless. What an ending!
― DavidM, Monday, 3 August 2009 14:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Movie Madness's film noir collection was like crack to me when I was studying in Portland, OR. The bulk of the most choice noirs have been mentioned already.
A few which haven't that immediately come to mind:
Ride the Pink Horse (massively underrated because it hasn't got a DVD release - would make a great double bill w/ Touch of Evil)Sunset Blvd (obviously not at all underrated but nobody's listed it yet - do you guys not consider it noir?)Touchez pas au grisbi (Jean Gabin classic, also see Pépé le Moko)On Dangerous Ground (Robert Ryan was never better)
Also very good:
His Kind of Woman (Mitchum and Russell reunited!)Kiss of Death (Widmark pushes infirm down stairs)Sweet Smell of Success (badass Burt Lancaster)Criss Cross (probably Siodmak's best)
The Narrow Margin is highly rated by some, but it's not in the top tier for me.
Sui generis but essential and noirish in their own ways:
Johnny GuitarVertigo
FYI, my absolute top four:
Out of the PastTouch of EvilThe KillingKiss Me Deadly
― Goethe*s Elective Affinities, Monday, 3 August 2009 19:34 (fourteen years ago) link
with noirs i always get mixed up with titles, all the noirs blend into one for me.
for example, what is the noir with a guy half-dead and dying at the beginning, relating his story in some kind of office, maybe even a tape-recorder (nah?) a typewriter hmm. i am sure it's famous.
― Ludo, Monday, 3 August 2009 19:42 (fourteen years ago) link
Ludo, sounds like it might be the previously mentioned awesome classic Double Indemnity, but there are a lot of noirs that have that sort of structure.
anyone seen Detour? I think its a great one that doesn't seem to get mentioned often.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Monday, 3 August 2009 19:54 (fourteen years ago) link
oops, i just ctrl+Fed Detour and i see its already been mentioned a few times...
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Monday, 3 August 2009 19:56 (fourteen years ago) link
exactly. i think that's the one though. it was one of the first noirs i saw. (ah it's a dictaphone!)
― Ludo, Monday, 3 August 2009 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
DOA has the dying guy sitting in an office with a police officer explaining how he came to be dying.
― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Monday, 3 August 2009 23:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Double Indemnity?
― ice cr?m paint job (milo z), Monday, 3 August 2009 23:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Absolutely it is. Double Indemnity is one of the top five noirs ever. Probably my #1.
― reared on Shakespeare (kenan), Monday, 3 August 2009 23:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Sorry, "films noir."
Ebert is very good on it: "Standing back from the film and what it expects us to think, I see them engaged not in romance or theft, but in behavior. They're intoxicated by their personal styles. Styles learned in the movies, and from radio and the detective magazines. It's as if they were invented by Ben Hecht through his crime dialogue. Walter and Phyllis are pulp characters with little psychological depth, and that's the way Billy Wilder wants it. His best films are sardonic comedies, and in this one, Phyllis and Walter play a bad joke on themselves."
― reared on Shakespeare (kenan), Tuesday, 4 August 2009 00:00 (fourteen years ago) link
anyone know if Key Largo features the song 'Moanin' Low' in full or just a brief extract?
― unban dictionary (blueski), Tuesday, 4 August 2009 18:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Just watched Sudden Fear. Worth it for Joan Crawfords facial expressions and Jack Palances acting.
― Grady Sizemore's elbow (brownie), Tuesday, 4 August 2009 18:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Young Jack Palance in that and 'Panic in the Streets' looks like an Easter Island statue come to life.
― When two tribes go to war, he always gets picked last (James Morrison), Wednesday, 5 August 2009 00:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Double Indemnity, sure as ten dimes will buy a dollar
― Stop wishing death on people just for the cool thread titles (Myonga Vön Bontee), Wednesday, 5 August 2009 02:11 (fourteen years ago) link
totally just watched Rififi...it's great! i wondered how they'd sustain it after the heist sequence...the second half of the film is even better, even more engrossing. the bit where the money was delivered and Tony clearly didn't give a fuck about it any longer = noirest of noir
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:04 (fourteen years ago) link
Carl Mohner dedicated a painting to me once.
― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:06 (fourteen years ago) link
Am watching Kurosawa's Stray Dog tonight.
― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:07 (fourteen years ago) link
Will be watching Le Cercle Rouge tomorrow. Saw Un Flic a few weeks back, and absolutely adored it. The stylish brilliance of the crooks. The mechanical, self-denying inexorability of the cop. Crime glorified in a way that only serves to heighten its tragedy, only serves to emphasise its ultimate folly. Morality plays, as they should be told.
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:23 (fourteen years ago) link
I need to get Un Flic next week. Have you watched Le Samourai yet?
― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:32 (fourteen years ago) link
not yet but it is in the offing
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:38 (fourteen years ago) link
All time fave tbh
― BIG HOOS's wacky crack variety hour (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:38 (fourteen years ago) link
Am slightly annoyed that said friend watched it the other night with a mutual friend. Will have to borrow it. He's generally not averse to re-watching films, mind.
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:39 (fourteen years ago) link
I love Double Indemnity, but it's too glossy and clean to be as purely noir as, eg, Out of the Past.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:41 (fourteen years ago) link
xpost
Even though I watched it on a beat-up VHS copy, IMO the most perfectly realized noir-ish Melville is Le Deuxieme Souffle.
― Goethe*s Elective Affinities, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Morbs - there's one line of yours concerning film that I really dig - the one about a film's greatness being assured if it still works well with the dialogue removed. This kind of film strikes me as the sort for which this might actually be truer than in other cases. Would you say that the best films noir stand up without their dialogue, in practice?
(cheers mr goethe)
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 03:53 (fourteen years ago) link
Forgot to mention, but I watched The Big Heat a couple days ago. That was some gritty shit. I don't remember Bogie ever dealing with a dead wife, a mob moll with disfiguring facial burns, dead hookers, etc etc.
― Jesus H. Crap (kenan), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 04:20 (fourteen years ago) link
Panic in the Streets is really great.
― free jazz and mumia (sarahel), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 04:21 (fourteen years ago) link
Un Flic I found not as good as the others, but still fun and stylish. But that train sequence...get one budget!
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 04:24 (fourteen years ago) link
the helicopter model attached to visible wires represents the impossibility of crime except as an artificial fantasy, dude
in all srsnss, scene is carried off by the acting and the in-train filming
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 04:25 (fourteen years ago) link
*impossibility of SUCH a crime, even
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 04:36 (fourteen years ago) link
This is such a boy genre.
― Kevin John Bozelka, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 09:24 (fourteen years ago) link
ilx's own Lauren P would beg to differ.
― dan selzer, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:35 (fourteen years ago) link
cm, especially with the chiaroscuro lighting effects usually featured, sure.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Great, now I have to use Google! ;)
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:41 (fourteen years ago) link
the starkly separated pools of light & shadow
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:43 (fourteen years ago) link
Jane Greer, oh brother!
http://voiceover.blogdiario.com/img/outofthepast.jpeg
― Aw naw, no' Annoni oan noo an' aw (Tom D.), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Yep, got it! When done well (Night Of The Hunter, anyone?) that technique can be dazzlingly tense.
― cockles (country matters), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 12:47 (fourteen years ago) link
The protaganist in this movie is the like the angel of death. Every woman he comes in contact with dies.
― ussr (brownie), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 13:53 (fourteen years ago) link
mob moll with disfiguring facial burns
Wasn't Jane Greer married to Rudy Vallee for a while? She was young, Vallee told her mom he would bring her out to Hollywood "under my auspices." He liked to have her dress up like a Marilyn Manson girlfriend. She eventually balked, although not before her marriage had got her into trouble with Howard Hughes, who was obsessed with her. She had a similar facial palsey to Sylvester Stallone, which gave her that intriguing expression.
― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 13:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Fans of OOTP should also see the "sequel" with Mitchum and Greer, The Big Steal. Here is an informative obit http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/jane-greer-729365.html
― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:02 (fourteen years ago) link
Janey Janey, what a gal
― Aw naw, no' Annoni oan an' aw noo (Tom D.), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:08 (fourteen years ago) link
a friend of mine used Greer for a radio narration job not long before her death. Apparently she turned down the Gloria Stuart role in Titanic.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:30 (fourteen years ago) link
I just saw "Laura" for the first time the other night. Oh my god, how could I have waited so long to see this movie? Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb are amazing, and it is so weird to see Vincent Price try to play a "Southern hunky gigolo" character. Plus the sets and clothes and lighting are scrumptious in every detail.
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh man, don't get me started on Gene Tierney
― Aw naw, no' Annoni oan an' aw noo (Tom D.), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:40 (fourteen years ago) link
No, you can't get started. Have you seen Leave Her to Heaven?
And how about that haunting David Raksin theme?
― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:50 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, I then watched that Biography documentary "Gene Tierney: A Shattered Portrait" about her life- really amazing/awful life story that makes you think again about what's going on with her performances, what was bottled up in there.
I've always known the Raskin theme, but the first version I ever heard was the Spike Jones parody version, perversely enough . . .
― Neotropical pygmy squirrel, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:52 (fourteen years ago) link
Gorblimey!
http://alabasterbrow.blogsome.com/images/gene7.jpg
― Aw naw, no' Annoni oan an' aw noo (Tom D.), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:54 (fourteen years ago) link
I've always known the Raskin themeNot to be a pain, I just learned how to spell it five minutes ago, but it's Raksin.
I wonder how Dadaismus feels about Linda Darnell.
― Horace Silver Machine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 August 2009 14:57 (fourteen years ago) link