Tag: filmnoir
Double Indemnity
Double Indemnity. This one is very good. Very cynical, not as nearly as complicated as some other noir, just a tight, direct story. You have to wonder why the characters let themselves get caught up like this. They might wonder the same thing. Good performances all around, but again I find myself especially impressed with Edward G. Robinson. The other time I saw him was in Key Largo.
Le Samouraï
Le Samouraï. When I came across this I was thinking something along the lines of “Alain Delon as assassin ≈ Cary Grant as Treadstone asset”. Count me in. Four minutes into the movie we get a bit of pulsing ostinato organ riff and somehow I knew I’d love it. (There’s also some great diegetic jazz later in the film.) Early on, Delon goes out to do a job BUT he screws up pretty big. He gets arrested, we get a long, fascinating ensemble interrogation scene (François Périer is great) and the rest of the movie unfolds in a taut but not frenzied way. Great movie. David Thomson’s Criterion essay.
The Gangster Film vs. The Western
Notes from Robert Warshow’s “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner”. The full essay is in Film Theory and Criticism.
Barry Forshaw on Film Noir | FiveBooks
Five books about one of my favorite genres.
Blast of Silence
Blast of Silence. A Criterion essay cleverly calls it “the best movie ever made about a common, important, and unjustly neglected American experience: the really bad business trip”. It’s a great film noir that will only take 77 minutes of your time. It came out near the tail end of the genre’s peak, but in some ways it feels prototypical. Distilled. Lovely shots of New York City as he wanders in a sort of malaise. The hard-boiled voiceover really drives the misery home. Gangsters, dames, old friends-who-aren’t. Loneliness and disaffection. You know the clock is ticking on this guy from the very first moments. Nice appreciation at Bright Lights.
À bout de souffle (Breathless)
À bout de souffle (Breathless). This was Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature-length film and one of the first of the French New Wave. At least it’s a trim 90 minutes. I didn’t find it all that interesting but some viewers think otherwise.
Untitled by James Dodd
This frame looks like the opening shot of a movie I want to watch.
Amen.
Sunset Boulevard
Joe Gillis: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
Sunset Boulevard. Not as good as I had hoped, but still interesting beginning to end.
This Gun for Hire
This Gun for Hire. This is a very average movie. But it does have Veronica Lake. It’s also fun to see some of the cliches we still use 70 years later: evil paraplegic businessman; tense stand-off in a chemical plant; escaping from police pursuit via jumping on a train from a bridge; poorly aimed gunfire piercing barrels, which then leak; etc.
The Maltese Falcon
The Maltese Falcon. This movie is really, really good. Sydney Greenstreet is hilarious. Peter Lorre does the usual vaguely-creepy foreigner bit. Mary Astor is a tricky little devil. Bogart is Bogartian. None of the characters are entirely likeable, or hateable. Thumbs-up.
The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep. It’s got a twisty-turny plot where every encounter turns up some new intrigue. Not bad, but I didn’t fall in love with this one. Out of the Past is still the reigning film noir champion for me.
Out of the Past
“I don’t want to die.”
“Neither do I, baby, but if I have to, I’m gonna die last.”
Out of the Past is a wonderful, wonderful movie. Great shots, some really snappy dialogue, a perfect villain, a dame that can’t do right, a guy who tries to convince himself he can. The best I’ve seen in a while. Roger Ebert’s review
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I Wake Up Screaming
With a title like I Wake Up Screaming, it should have been so much better. I’ve noticed that a lot of these old soundtracks tend to loop and repeat and reprise the same melody over and over. In this case it’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. But there were some nice shots:
I also have a new crush on Carole Landis.
Gun Crazy
A recent screening: Gun Crazy, continuing my old-school kick after watching Laura and The 39 Steps a while ago. I didn’t like the female lead character in this one much, but the guy was cool. Some of these old movies still feel so weird in how they just END. There’s not a lot of the modern-day closure process that I’m used to.
Mark Larson 