Film-Noir Discussion/DVD Review Thread

[cigar joe]

Pickup on South Street (1953)  I saw this a couple of times some decades ago (dubbed on tv) but this time (on a big screen and undubbed) I liked it even more. The pace is just about perfect (82' running time: why films nowadays must be 2h long?), the love story is not an encumbrance because it reflects on the plot development, the actors give great performances (W., Peters and Ritter) with some great dialogues. Minor complaints about Richard Kiley: he's good but something is missing in his performance. The score is remarkable. 8\10

I like it a lot also, it's a bit of a puzzle to me why Fuller never quite reaches this visual caliber of Film Noir again, I'm leaning towards the demise of the whole studio apparatus and the reliance on package deals that put various creative elements together that obviously don't match up to what was well done before in part by pure rote. The caliber of acting talent in Fuller's later noirs doesn't quite match this and the Bamboo Curtain, Shock Corridor is good in some sequences with some powerful acting but in others not so much and not because of anything controllable, it was a victim of the restraints of the times.

The TV market and the use of Color probably also influenced the decline of the stylistic dark noir's.

[titoli]

Shock Corridor isn't that bad, is it? I should watch it again though.

[cigar joe]

Shock Corridor isn't that bad, is it? I should watch it again though.

Its just not the same visual stylistic noir feel.

[titoli]

Fallen Angel (1945) Only complaints about it are I don't like Dana Andrews : I find him depressing. And the murderer comes unexpected, yes, and so all the more incredible. For the rest this is nothing short of perfect, the plot constantly kept my expectations on a wrong track, great dialogues (especially between Andrews and Darnell: I am probably the only person around thinking more of her as an actress than as a looker. Alice Faye is nothing special and older but I take her over her) and of course great photography and direction. I give it 9\10 only because it was my first vision and I don't know how I would react to a second one being aware of the plot. The critic commenting in the italian dvd says that Faye was imposed on Preminger by the production. I think she's perfect for the part as anybody else in this movie (with the exception, as said, of Andrews).

[dave jenkins]

Fallen Angel (1945) Only complaints about it are I don't like Dana Andrews : I find him depressing.

Why is that a bad thing?

I like the film too, but a lot of interest goes out of it once Darnell leaves the picture. Not because she's so much better looking than either Faye or Bickford (although she is); she just has better lines and delivers them better than the others do (on that we probably agree). This is a Preminger, right? As I remember, there are also some impressive camera movements in evidence.

[titoli]

Why is that a bad thing?

Not a bad thing if it didn't happen in every movie he's in.  He never laughs or smile, or at least I can't remember him doing anything like that. That is rather a minus for an actor.

[dave jenkins]

It makes him a good noir actor, though.

Point taken, his range is rather limited, and now that I think of it the only films I like him in are his noirs and his war films. He's a bit of a mope  in, for example, The Best Years of Our Lives. And I can't imagine him in a comedy. Still, I'd rather have him as the lead in a crime flick than just about anybody (except, maybe, Conte or Cochran).

Fallen Angle continued here: http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=1822.msg150627#msg150627

[dave jenkins]

According to a poster over at criterionforum.org, this recent exchange transpired in Sony's Ask the Experts column:

Q: I’ve really enjoyed the first two Columbia film noir box sets - thanks for making them available. Can we expect a third film noir volume soon? Or perhaps some noir in the Classics by Request program??

A: Thanks for your feedback. We are indeed working on the next volume of Noir titles, and it will be a big one! Keep checking back for updates and more details to come. As for Screen Classics by Request, we’ll be adding some great Noir titles there too! Currently you can pick up New Orleans Uncensored, Pickup Alley, The Long Haul just some of Columbia’s under -the -radar noir, and next month the little-known but exciting Key Witness. We’ve got noir covered!.

Great news!

[cigar joe]

 

[titoli]

Cause for Alarm (1951) The funny thing for the italian viewer is that this couldn't have happened in Italy because:

SPOILER   SPOILER  SPOILER

1) the postman would have given back the letter without any lind of objection

2) the letter wouldn't have been sent back because of insufficient postage because that would have to be payed by the addressee.

Anyway it is a sunny thriller, which in the central part is very effective. 7\10

[titoli]

Laura (1944) The great asset of the movie is Clifton Webb in a perfect character played perfectly: an Oscar-worthy performance. I like the ambiguity of his relationship to the girl: he loves her and he is jealous but probably he's not able to possess her sexually (of course that couldn't be made plain in those times, exactly as Webb's own real life tendencies). The plot is so-so (I am 100% sure Caspary took some inspiration from Van Dine's The Canary Murder Case)  but it is not important, at least until the protagonist reappears. The classic tune always bored me after the first 10 notes.  7\10

[titoli]

The Blue Gardenia (1953) A minor Lang, with a song better than Laura's and a plot with a gimmick reminding me again of Van Dine's Canary (the record)! The plot actually is very poor, but I liked the sequence of Burr's (another gay like Webb in real life) courting of Francis. 6\10

[dave jenkins]

http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film3/dvd_reviews51/kiss_me_deadly.htm

[cigar joe]

Private Hell 36 (1954) Director: Don Siegel with Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, Dean Jagger, and Dorothy Malone, entertaining but you know whats gonna happen miles ahead of when it does, another not very noir-ish film with a twist at the end. Watch it for Lupino. 6/10

[titoli]

Private Hell 36 (1954)  Watch it for Lupino. 6/10

If that is the only reason I ain't gonna watch it.