A Film Noir retrospective, Part One

A look at some great (and not great) noirs

The last thing I want to do is litigate what is or isn’t film noir—everything I had to say about noir (not much) is in the introduction to Vancouver Noir. Suffice to say, “old crime films with dark subject matter” covers the genre well enough.

What makes film noir exceptional is its absence of bullshit. The films are usually short, shot on the cheap, and with a lack of glamor, even when big stars are involved.  None of these are rules—all can be transgressed—noir itself is transgression.

This isn’t a film noir primer, or even a top ten. Just a list of films I saw recently with a few thoughts on each. Some are obscure, some classics of the genre. Most of them are excellent.

He Walked By Night

Richard Basehart (also great in Fixed Bayonets!) plays a baby-faced burglar-turned-cop killer two steps ahead of the law. A nail-biting procedural with Jack Webb in a small role as a crime scene tech—the film inspired Webb to create Dragnet. Allegedly co-directed by Anthony Mann (who did Raw Deal, as well as five excellent westerns with Jimmy Stewart).

B+

Cornered

Great premise—Dick Powell searching postwar France for the Nazi collaborators who betrayed and murdered his wife. It meanders a little too much, the kiss of death for a good revenge plot (Hamlet aside). Powell has been better, and in better films—he’s a good Philip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet—but he has a hangdog charm and a lack of actorly beauty that makes him hard not to root for.

C+

Armored Car Robbery

67 minutes of heists, betrayals, scheming burlesque dancers and traps set by the cops to catch a master thief (William Salman) and the crew he assembled to knock over an armored car. If you like Richard Stark’s Parker novels, or Heat, this is a must-see.

A

Jeopardy

Barbara Stanwyck is maybe the most talented old Hollywood star—it’s hard to think of anyone else pulling off Lady Eve, Double Indemnity, Forty Guns and something like Jeopardy. Here she plays a wife sent for help when her husband ends up trapped under a collapsing pier on a Mexican beach. She has until the tide comes in to find help—and instead she finds Ralph Meeker, playing an escaped killer. And is there chemistry between them? John Sturges (Bad Day at Black Rock) directed.

A

Woman in the Window

Mild-mannered professor Edward G Robinson sees a painting of a beautiful woman, then runs into the real thing (Joan Bennett). She inadvertently leads him down a nightmare path of murder and body disposal, where he’s caught between his DA friend (Raymond Massey) and a blackmailer (Dan Duryea). Spot-on casting for every role, and the private club were Robinson and Massey hang out is the ideal –a library that allows cigars and alcohol.

(Spoiler: my friend Charlie Demers called Woman in the Window “the only film with a justified ‘it was all a dream’ ending. It’s true, because in a way, having this is all lurking in Robinson’s head makes things even worse.) Fritz Lang directed.

A

Raw Deal

A richer than usual cast. A convicted robber (Dennis O’Keefe) breaks out of prison intent on getting his share of heist money from crime mogul Raymond Burr. In love with both an innocent caseworker (Marsha Hunt) and a gun moll (Claire Trevor from Stagecoach and Key Largo), and with Burr and his henchman (John Ireland) after him, O’Keefe has more problems than even an escaped convict deserves. Anthony Mann directed.

B+

The Hitch-Hiker

Two fishing buddies (Edmond O’Brian and Frank Lovejoy) pick up the wrong drifter (William Salman again) on a trip to Mexico. The hitchhiker has been carving his way across the country, murdering anyone who gives him a ride. With their execution only a matter of time, and the hypervigilant killer watching their every move, they have no choice but to drive him to the coast. Suspenseful as hell, and expertly directed and co-written by Ida Lupino (who starred in a couple of excellent noirs, High Sierra and On Dangerous Ground).

A (and it’s available on Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Hitch-Hiker.webm

Port of Shadows

An army deserter (Jean Gabin) tries to set up a new identity to flee the country, befriending a young girl whose boyfriend is missing presumed dead, and who’s receiving unwanted attention from both a gangster and her own caretaker. Directed by Marcel Carné, the look of Quai des Brumes influenced both Ingmar Bergman and Carl Dreyer. Gabin is in some great films (Grand Illusion) and played Inspector Maigret three times.

A

The worst of these (Cornered, by far) is still pretty watchable.

At least two of them are based on real cases—The Hitchhiker was inspired by Billy Cook, who said when arrested, “I hate everyone’s guts, and everyone hates mine.” He Walked By Night was inspired by Erwin Walker, who tried to hang himself a day and a half before his execution and was granted a reprieve by reason of insanity. When caught, he told the police, "All right, now, you have me. Do a good job."

With film noir, spaghetti westerns and poliziotteschi especially, there are so many films with similar names (and often the films were released under several different titles) it can be tough to keep track. Almost any of these could have been called Cornered, or Jeopardy, or Raw Deal.

Post your favorite in the comments, if you like. And thanks for reading.