Film-Noir Discussion/DVD Review Thread

[drinkanddestroy]

Friday nights in June, TCM will spotlight noir writers. First up, next week, June 7, will be Dashiell Hammett night, programmed by Eddie Muller. Schedule here http://www.tcm.com/schedule/index.html?tz=est&sdate=2013-06-07

Here is an essay by Muller about this Hammett program:


Eddie Muller on Dashiell Hammett
Anyone who has written a crime/mystery story since 1930, anywhere in the world, owes a debt to Dashiell Hammett. Raymond Chandler, certainly. But also bestselling contemporary writers such as James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Elmore Leonard and Sara Paretsky. All of us, really. Hammett's influential stories and novels set the structural template for almost every derivation of modern crime story. He also set the tone and tempo: the tough, terse, as-it-happens pace, the jaundiced and cynical attitude--always peppering the pages with bitter humor.

He only finished five novels, but they echo throughout the history of crime fiction: gangland sagas (Red Harvest), family intrigues (The Dain Curse), hardboiled detection (The Maltese Falcon), political thrillers (The Glass Key), and blithe, murderous farce (The Thin Man)--all originated with Hammett.

What made his work special, why it remains vital more than eighty years after it was first published, is that Hammett brought the real world into mystery fiction. Or, as Chandler put it so well, "He gave crime back to the people who committed it for a reason"--distinct from the armchair detectives for whom the genre was merely a puzzle-solving amusement. Sure, Hammett knew how to goose a story along with melodramatics, and he ramped up the sex and violence to sate the cravings of the pulp readers who were his biggest fans, but behind this low-brow product was a high-minded intellectual: insatiably curious, extraordinarily well-read, socially conscious, a serious-minded craftsman. He played at being indifferent, but knew he was changing the game.

He also was an alcoholic, a womanizer, and inveterate gambler. And a good husband and father. He was a patriot and a Communist. He absorbed a world of contradictions and had the keenness of intellect and the storytelling intuition to transform it all into prose that is still emulated today, if rarely equaled.

Oh, and one last thing. If you watch me hosting the Hammett tribute on June 7 and think I'm mispronouncing his name: I'm not. It's Dash-EEL, not DASH-ill, as it's been mispronounced for decades. His full name is Samuel Dashiell Hammett, the middle name honoring his mother's family, whose lineage stretched back to the Huguenots of 17th century France. If you've named your son or daughter after him, don't worry--you can pronounce it anyway you want. But for the record, he pronounced it Dash-EEL.

I've chosen to show: The Maltese Falcon (1931, novel), City Streets (1931, original story), After the Thin Man (1936, original story), The Glass Key (1942, novel).

By Eddie Muller


To read the full month's Friday Night Spotlight: Noir Writers program, drag the entire text that is inside the red brackets into your browser:

[  http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/614562|0/Friday-Night-Spotlight-in-June-Noir-Writers.html   ]

This will bring you to the homepage for the Friday Night Spotlight: Noir Writers program.

On the right side of that page is a full series of articles about each movie and each writer featured in this program.

Enjoy  

[cigar joe]

cool

[dave jenkins]

THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944) is coming from Warner Archive on 5/7!!!

Man, what a disappointment. The one sequence showing how the spies manipulate a government functionary into doing their bidding is well done, but the rest of the film is worthless. 4/10.

[drinkanddestroy]

Man, what a disappointment. The one sequence showing how the spies manipulate a government functionary into doing their bidding is well done, but the rest of the film is worthless. 4/10.

why were you so excited that the film was coming to dvd if you'd never seen it before?

you really have to get on TCM; they show lots of movies that haven't been released on dvd. I saw The Mask of Dimitrios a year ago (and liked it a lot http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=10975.msg156173#msg156173 )

[dave jenkins]

Holy Jaw-drop, Batman, Warner Archive's got Loophole! http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s4181loop.html

This I liked better, maybe because it was based on a true story. Also it had Dorothy Malone, in her pre-dye-job phase. Whoever convinced her to become a Bottle Blonde should have had his ass kicked.

[drinkanddestroy]

This I liked better, maybe because it was based on a true story. Also it had Dorothy Malone, in her pre-dye-job phase. Whoever convinced her to become a Bottle Blonde should have had his ass kicked.

First Rita Hayworth, then Dorothy Malone. What is it with you preferring redheads to blondes?

btw, on that note, I just happened to see parts of Blood and Sand today (the story didn't interest me much, but I made sure to watch the famous dance Hayworth has, first with Tyrone Power and then, with the stunning pink dress with Anthony Mann. It's the only movie I've seen Hayworth's red hair in color....  IMO her look as a blonde (in The Lady from Shanghai) is much hotter than her redhead: as a redhead, Hayworth is merely smoking hot; but as blonde, she's one of the very hottest girls ever in Hollywood. But she should never have cut the hair - Orson Welles should have been prosecuted for crimes against humanity for that.

[dave jenkins]

Cohen announces: Jean-Pierre Melville's Two Men in Manhattan on DVD and blu-ray on September 17

[drinkanddestroy]

just saw this crappy 1949 movie Homicide on TCM http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041482/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

It's a 1949 crime drama so I guess it would be called a noir, although it doesn't have any noir visuals.

I guess it would be called a cop noir or something like that; the crimes occur at the very beginning of the movie and the movie is about a maverick detective doggedly pursuing the case. It doesn't feature all the high-tech police stuff so I wouldn't call it a police procedural; just about one cop going out of town to solve a case.

Shitty little movie. Helen Westcott is cute as the love interest.

I'll give it a 6/10

[cigar joe]

just saw this crappy 1949 movie Homicide on TCM http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041482/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

It's a 1949 crime drama so I guess it would be called a noir, although it doesn't have any noir visuals.

I guess it would be called a cop noir or something like that; the crimes occur at the very beginning of the movie and the movie is about a maverick detective doggedly pursuing the case. It doesn't feature all the high-tech police stuff so I wouldn't call it a police procedural; just about one cop going out of town to solve a case.

Shitty little movie. Helen Westcott is cute as the love interest.

I'll give it a 6/10

Its not considered a Noir, this was something you were talking about awhile ago, you were on about how all 50's crime films were considered Noirs, and I think I replied that most of the good ones were Noir and are remembered, while a lot of the rest are mundane and mostly forgotten.

I also mentioned that Confidence Girl was a good non noir 50's crime film that was available for streaming on Netflix, check it out if it is still there.

[drinkanddestroy]

Its not considered a Noir, this was something you were talking about awhile ago, you were on about how all 50's crime films were considered Noirs, and I think I replied that most of the good ones were Noir and are remembered, while a lot of the rest are mundane and mostly forgotten.

I also mentioned that Confidence Girl was a good non noir 50's crime film that was available for streaming on Netflix, check it out if it is still there.

well I'm glad to hear that there are some crime dramas of the "noir period" that aren't considered noir. But in that case, why do you still maintain that there are "sun-drenched noirs" or whatever? So many of those late '50's crime dramas, for example The Lineup with Eli Wallach, are just straightforward crime dramas. Even forgetting the noir visuals, there's nothing otherwise noir about it, for example no narrrow streets or alleys, no noir characters – eg. a regular guy caught in a crazy situation beyond his control, or a regular guy who made one little mistake and is no in way over his head – no femme fatale, no particularly shady or creepy dark characters - criminals, yeah, but noir criminals have something else that makes them a "noir" sort of criminal. The Lineup is just a crime drama about a gang of drug dealers, plain and simple. Ditto for many of the others late 50's "sun-drenched noirs." You can try to distinguish "red meat crime cycle" or "noir soleil" or whatever other terms you like to use, but IMO, once you acknowledge – as with Homicide – that you can have crime dramas of the 40's-50's that aren't noirs, then I don't see why you wouldn't put The Lineup (and many others like it) into that category.

(Yeah yeah, I know the term "noir" is imprecise and its hard to fit movies into a style-category easily ex post facto. To me, it seems easiest to just use the term noir for the very obvious ones, and not start going down the very slippery slope of "sun drenched noirs" like The Lineup or Ace in the Hole).

p.s. Here is another crime drama I saw that is not a noir, though this is from the very end of the noir period: Inside the Mafia (1959)
IMDB:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052927/  
TCM: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17175/Inside-the-Mafia/articles.html
It's a hilariously awful movie, loosely based on two true Mafia events: the Apalachin Meeting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachin_Meeting and the assassination of Albert Anastasia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Anastasia#Assassination

I wrote about the movie briefly here http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7645.msg156964#msg156964

[cigar joe]

well I'm glad to hear that there are some crime dramas of the "noir period" that aren't considered noir. But in that case, why do you still maintain that there are "sun-drenched noirs" or whatever? So many of those late '50's crime dramas, for example The Lineup with Eli Wallach, are just straightforward crime dramas. Even forgetting the noir visuals, there's nothing otherwise noir about it, for example no narrrow streets or alleys, no noir characters – eg. a regular guy caught in a crazy situation beyond his control, or a regular guy who made one little mistake and is no in way over his head – no femme fatale, no particularly shady or creepy dark characters - criminals, yeah, but noir criminals have something else that makes them a "noir" sort of criminal. The Lineup is just a crime drama about a gang of drug dealers, plain and simple. Ditto for many of the others late 50's "sun-drenched noirs." You can try to distinguish "red meat crime cycle" or "noir soleil" or whatever other terms you like to use, but IMO, once you acknowledge – as with Homicide – that you can have crime dramas of the 40's-50's that aren't noirs, then I don't see why you wouldn't put The Lineup (and many others like it) into that category.

(Yeah yeah, I know the term "noir" is imprecise and its hard to fit movies into a style-category easily ex post facto. To me, it seems easiest to just use the term noir for the very obvious ones, and not start going down the very slippery slope of "sun drenched noirs" like The Lineup or Ace in the Hole).

p.s. Here is another crime drama I saw that is not a noir, though this is from the very end of the noir period: Inside the Mafia (1959)
IMDB:  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052927/  
TCM: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/17175/Inside-the-Mafia/articles.html
It's a hilariously awful movie, loosely based on two true Mafia events: the Apalachin Meeting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachin_Meeting and the assassination of Albert Anastasia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Anastasia#Assassination

I wrote about the movie briefly here http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=7645.msg156964#msg156964

It's just a way to classify them nothing more, nothing less.

[drinkanddestroy]

yes, I think "noir" can be a very useful classification of a certain style of crime drama, if the term is used only when referring to that specific style. Once it's expanded to mean everything, it means nothing.

Anyway, I am sure I asked you this before, but how do you define "red meat"? 

[cigar joe]

I think, but I could be wrong, "red meat", may have meant, cheap "B" flicks for mass consumption, something the public can "chew on", as opposed to "A" prestige flicks.

[drinkanddestroy]

just saw Danger Signal (1945), with Zachary Scott and Faye Emerson. It was a good movie until the end.

The always-good Scott plays a con artist/seducer who charms women, gets their money, and then does away with them. On the lam, Scott rents a room in the home of Emerson, and starts reeling her in to be his next victim, until he learns that her younger sister has some dough, and then decides to go for her instead.

The movie is good but the ending was done very poorly. Overall, I'd rate it a 7.5/10

[cigar joe]

just saw Danger Signal (1945), with Zachary Scott and Faye Emerson. It was a good movie until the end.

The always-good Scott plays a con artist/seducer who charms women, gets their money, and then does away with them. On the lam, Scott rents a room in the home of Emerson, and starts reeling her in to be his next victim, until he learns that her younger sister has some dough, and then decides to go for her instead.

The movie is good but the ending was done very poorly. Overall, I'd rate it a 7.5/10

I saw it also, Scott is his weasily self, agree 7-7.5/10.