The novel is kind of an orphan.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 5 December 2023 20:34 (four months ago) link
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0hC22q6VrsU/YPGRqq7kvXI/AAAAAAABwqY/5nTPtF0oPBci1-QrHrrMsa2rajzBTjzaQCNcBGAsYHQ/w640-h478/lady-in-the-lake-03.JPG
― Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable POST (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 5 December 2023 20:43 (four months ago) link
It is pretty remarkable how few successful experiments there are with first-person POV in film, or maybe how fundamentally ill-suited that device is to the medium. I went searching on ilx for a thread about it and sure enough there is one here, but it has scant examples, and the ones mentioned are the same few that I thought of off the top of my head. If any of you film aficionados in this thread wanna revive that one, would be interested to see if there's been further explorations of the conceit.
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Wednesday, 6 December 2023 20:39 (four months ago) link
A little pricey after shipping--what isn't?--but these look pretty great.
― clemenza, Sunday, 17 December 2023 18:55 (four months ago) link
I watched *Night and the City*. Like a lot of noir, I would gladly have every frame of the thing on my wall; something about it being London just amplified all of that. Widmark is so good in it. So frantic and doomed.
Aside: is there a film that contains more running? I'm resisting Run Lola Run.
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Sunday, 31 December 2023 13:21 (three months ago) link
Licorice Pizza?
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 31 December 2023 15:44 (three months ago) link
Forrest Gump?
― Godzilla Minus Zero/No Limit (morrisp), Sunday, 31 December 2023 16:30 (three months ago) link
chariots of fire obv
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 31 December 2023 16:31 (three months ago) link
Run Fatboy Run
― Dan Worsley, Sunday, 31 December 2023 16:56 (three months ago) link
To get back on topic, I watched this recently and it works both as a noir and a comedy. Appreciate Bob Hope isn’t to everyone’s taste but Dorothy Lamour is a pretty enchanting love interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgIZZfG22wQ
― Dan Worsley, Sunday, 31 December 2023 16:58 (three months ago) link
Lol what a weird cast!
― plax (ico), Monday, 1 January 2024 18:32 (three months ago) link
Sounds irresistibly horrible
― plax (ico), Monday, 1 January 2024 18:33 (three months ago) link
(Also Zohra Lampert.)
― dow, Monday, 1 January 2024 18:59 (three months ago) link
I have the urge to rewatch Douglas Sirk movies, and started with Lured (1947), the only one (easily) streaming. It’s described some places as a noir, but really really isn’t, by any measure. Lucille Ball is fantastic in it! It’s very well directed, naturally, though somewhat choppy…Anyway, the guy who wrote the screenplay, Leo Rosten – who sounds like a very interesting character (among many other things, he apparently coined that famous definition of “chutzpah”) – also provided the story (not screenplay) for a slightly earlier film with Ball – The Dark Corner – that one a true noir, it sounds really good, I’ll have to watch it soon.
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Saturday, 6 January 2024 07:22 (three months ago) link
…watching The Dark Corner now. Maybe I’m not in the right headspace, but it’s rough going… stilted, low-budget, dull.
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Tuesday, 9 January 2024 05:02 (three months ago) link
most noirs low-budge tho, i thought dark corner was solid of its type but maybe lucy in a different setting doing a lot of the work"The film earned $1 million at the box office, less than the $1.2 million cost of production"not even that cheap by 1946 standards, 20th Century Fox B Movies do tend to look a bit anemic compared to the other big studios back in the day
― buzza, Tuesday, 9 January 2024 06:18 (three months ago) link
Yeah, maybe “cheap-looking” is a better descriptor…
― Wooly Bully (2005 Remaster) (morrisp), Tuesday, 9 January 2024 06:30 (three months ago) link
Aw man, I’m sorry you didn’t like Dark Corner. I thought it was suitably shadowy and pulpy. Mark Stevens (who I don’t recall seeing in any other films) was good, Lucy is of course spunky, and William Bendix and Clifton Webb lend good support. I’ve watched far worse.
― Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable POST (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 03:29 (three months ago) link
Is there another corner of cinema that gets explored so thoroughly as noir does? I think of noir and westerns as relatively equal parts of the classic Hollywood era, but in terms of say boutique label box sets noir has westerns beat so hard it ain't even funny.
Is the fact that it's not a "real" genre and thus you can explore further afield part of it?
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, 10 January 2024 10:50 (three months ago) link
Fedoras have retained cultural relevancy longer than Stetsons
― craning to be leather (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 13:14 (three months ago) link
Smoking vs. chewing tobacco
― Little Billy Love (Tom D.), Wednesday, 10 January 2024 13:21 (three months ago) link
― Daniel_Rf, Wednesday, January 10, 2024 10:50 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink
I wonder if another way of thinking about this is 'is there a competing aesthetic within american cinema of this period that holds a similar status as diagnosis of social and political neuroses?' I wonder if a tentative answer is screwball but that is more tightly bound to genre than noir is and relies on a kind of 'success' in a way noir doesn't. just a thought.
― plax (ico), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:32 (two months ago) link
Screwball and noir don't overlap really in terms of chronology, screwball p much done by the time noir comes around so they're diagnosing v different societies I think.
The western would once again lend itself to this kind of lens but I guess a lot of it, "psychological westerns" and such, register as noir to some extent.
Of course in the 50's you'd also have sci-fi, not really a fair comparison in terms of the talent involved but certainly another niche that has been deeply explored.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:43 (two months ago) link
Yeah, I think noir casts the biggest, um, shadow.
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 13 February 2024 12:46 (two months ago) link
I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes, now on Criterion, is my kind of noir: pulpy Poverty Row murder mystery based on a Cornell Woolrich story, with a no-name cast (Don Castle and Elyse Knox) and where “Depressed and anxious, Tom impulsively throws his only pair of tap dancing shoes at howling cats outside his window” is a salient plot point.
― Requiem for a Dream: The Musical! (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 15 February 2024 05:44 (two months ago) link