DVR Alert: Film Noir Triple Feature

On Thursday, March 26, Turner Classic Movies will show three classics of film noir:

“Crime Wave” at 1:30 p.m. (EDT);

“The Killing” at 2:45 p.m.; and

“The Asphalt Jungle” at 4:15 p.m.

All three star tough-guy Sterling Hayden. Two are heist movies in which Hayden plays one of the robbers.

In Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” from 1956, he is the leader of a

crew out to rob a race track. The picture was based on a Lionel White novel.

In John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle” from 1950 and based on a W.R. Burnett novel, he is the muscle protecting the master-mind of a jewelry store heist.

Hayden plays a cop in 1953’s “Crime Wave,” which I reviewed here.

All three are well worth the time.

If you miss any or all of them, sign up for Watch TCM, the Turner Classic Movies streaming site. Most films shown on TCM land on the site a few hours later and stay there for a week or more. The streaming site is free with your cable subscription.

DVR Alert: The Window, film noir

At 4 a.m. Friday, Turner Classic Movies is scheduled to show the 1949 film noir, “The Window.”

This movie, adapted from a Cornell Woolrich story, is about a boy who makes up stories, tells whoppers and outright lies, only to find no one will believe him when he says he witnessed the upstairs neighbors killing a man. But the murderers believe him, and they come after him.

This was by far the scariest movie I ever saw on TV when I was a kid. The 73-minute picture holds up today. And, about a dozen years ago, I found it had the same effect on a new generation.

“Crime Wave” is Gritty Film Noir

The 1954 film, “Crime Wave,” was one I had never seen until this summer when it ran on Eddie Muller’s weekly TCM program, Noir Alley.
As Muller said in his introduction to the film (which you can watch here), “Crime Wave” could not be a simpler story. What makes it a terrific film is the way it is told, the tension, the snappy dialogue, and the cast.

Gene Nelson, a dancer who appeared in numerous musicals, does a good job playing an ex-con trying to go straight and live a quiet life with his wife, played by Phyllis Kirk. One night, some guys he knew in the joint barge in on them. They need a place to hide, but when the heat is turned up on them, they kidnap the couple and force the guy into participating in a bank robbery.

The cop turning up the heat is played by tough, towering Sterling Hayden. Muller said Hayden in this movie was author James Ellroy’s model for the brutal police detective, Bud White, in Ellroy’s novel, L.A. Confidential.

The bad guys are played by Ted de Corsia and a young Charles Bronson under his real name, Charles Buchinsky. In a small role, the amazingly odd Timothy Carey, plays a weird hood ordered to watch the wife while the others pull the job. Phyllis Kirk being left alone with Carey is one of the creepiest scenes in film noir.

Every moment of this 73-minute, black and white movie is tough, thanks to the direction of Andre De Toth.

Muller obviously liked this movie and had a lot to say about it before and after the picture. (You can see his post script here.)

Noir Alley is a Program to Watch

Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel showing old movies, uncut and commercial free, created a series with Eddie Muller, author and founder of the Film Noir Foundation. The show is called Noir Alley.

Saturday nights at midnight (Eastern time), and repeating Sunday mornings at 10, Muller, the host of the show, presents classic films that fit the definition of “film noir.”

The French term meaning dark movies was adapted from the name of a line of crime novels, including many American books, published in France starting after World War II called série noire.

Film noir generally identifies – and there are a lot of definitions – American crime movies produced from the mid-1940s to the late-1950s that often feature men with sketchy pasts trying to go straight, but who either get sucked into committing crimes or become victims.

The movies usually have dark, high contrast, black and white photography, often framed at odd angles. Some say this look traces back to German Expressionist films of the silent era.

For years, film buffs have argued over film noir, trying to establish an exact definition. But the genre seems to defy rules and provides all kinds of exceptions. If film noir requires black and white photography, what about “Leave Her to Heaven” from 1948, directed by John H. Stahl? Or, “Niagara” from 1953 directed by Henry Hathaway? If film noir requires the unreal world of movie studios where even exteriors were built on sound stages, what about the documentary style of “The Naked City” from 1948 directed by Jules Dassin, filmed on location in New York?

The debate goes on and on. So I will sum up my definition of film noir by using Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s quote about pornography: "I know it when I see it."

Eddie Muller, introduces each of the films, some of them restored by his foundation, and he always gives an informed and entertaining preface and postscript to each showing.

For movie buffs, this is a great series, and for film noir fans, this program is not to be missed.

To check out the Noir Alley site, click here. To see the program's schedule, click here. And for the Film Noir Foundation, click here.

Noir Suspense Film “The Narrow Margin”

A little, black and white movie from 1952 with no big stars may be one of the best films in several categories.

“The Narrow Margin” is a terrific suspense picture, it is a good crime movie, and it is a classic of film noir.

While it was made on a small budget it is as good as any big-budget A-picture, and it may be the best B-movie ever produced.

Detective Walter Brown is assigned the thankless task of escorting and protecting a prosecution witness on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles. Brown, played by tough-guy-actor Charles McGraw, the man with the sandpaper voice, does not like the job and does not like the witness, a Mrs. Neil, played by B-movie bad-girl Marie Windsor. Mrs. Neil is the wife of a slain gangster. Brown hates gangsters and their relatives.

Minutes into the movie, Brown and his partner are ambushed by hit-men aiming to knock off Mrs. Neil. Brown’s partner is killed and Brown’s nerves start buzzing like high-tension wires.

Most of the film takes place on the train where the claustrophobic quarters, tight corridors and no-place-to hide situations tear at Brown, as he spots one, then another, and finally a third gunman on the train.

Charles McGraw does an excellent job of projecting a sense of duty-bound courage and almost overwhelming fear. The assignment is eating him alive.

His job is made no easier by Mrs. Neil, who is nearly impossible to protect. She is a wisecracking pain in the neck who does not seem to realize the mortal danger she is in. At one point, when Brown is trying to keep her hidden in her compartment, she starts blasting her record player.

“The Narrow Margin” is full of crazy twists and moments of suspense.

The film was directed by Richard Fleischer, and is one of his earliest productions. Fleischer makes the most of his opportunity, coaching strong performances out of his cast and employing a camera style that projects the sweaty unease of Brown right off the screen and into the audience. His direction is the work of a young, energetic director proving he is worthy of handling bigger budget films. In a sequence at a station stop, one of the few times Brown gets outside, Fleischer’s innovative camerawork keeps Brown uncomfortably close to the audience while framing and reframing a host of suspicious characters lurking about, all keeping an eye on Brown.

For a fight scene in a compartment, Fleischer uses a hand-held camera before that technique was readily accepted. It gives the fight a brutal feeling. Watching it, I wondered if British director Terrence Young recalled “The Narrow Margin” when staging the fight scene between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in a train compartment in “From Russia With Love."

In "The Narrow Margin," Charles  McGraw (1914-1980) gets one of his few chances to play the lead. For about four decades, McGraw played supporting parts, usually as gruff military men or gruff cops. He is also remembered as one of the hit-men sent to kill Burt Lancaster in 1946's "The Killers."

Marie Windsor (1919-2000) had a long career in movies and television, often playing tough women in crime films like Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing.”

Richard Fleischer (1916-2016) was the son of cartoon producer Max Fleischer, and nephew of Dave Fleischer. He had a long and varied career making all sorts of films from the late 1940s through the late 1980s, including “The Boston Strangler” with Tony Curtis and the big-budget, action-picture “The Vikings” with Curtis and Kirk Douglas.

“The Narrow Margin” was scripted by three writers: Earl Felton, a long-time Hollywood screenwriter who worked on several films with Fleischer, including 1950’s “Armored Car Robbery,” which also featured McGraw; Martin Goldsmith, who also wrote original story of the classic film noir “Detour” and; Jack Leonard, a screenwriter who died two years later at age 41.

The film was produced by Stanley Ruben (1917-2014) who started his career in the Paramount mail room in the 1930s and went on to produce movies and television programs into the 1990s.

“The Narrow Margin” is a lot of movie packed into a small, 71-minute package.

(For more posts on film and TV, check out Todd Mason’s blog.)

Film Noir: The Street With No Name

“The Street With No Name” is a great noir title of a good noir movie. It comes from a mid-century statement by then FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover.

This 1948 film features Mark Stevens as Cordell, an agent sent into a city to find and infiltrate a criminal gang run by Stiles, played by Richard Widmark.

With the help of a phony criminal record, Cordell edges his way into the gang.The gangsters have been so successful, Cordell learns, because Stiles has a crooked cop on his payroll providing all sorts of valuable information. As Cordell closes in on Stiles and his contact, the contact and Stiles become suspicious of him. All this leads to a tense climax with Stiles setting up Cordell to be killed.

A decade earlier, a conclusion like that would have had no suspense at all. But “The Street With No Name” was made in the post-WWII, film-noir era, when anything could happen, including the death of the hero

Of the sub-genres of film noir, “The Street With No Name” would fall into the category of docu-noir. Much of the film was shot on location, giving the picture and extra gritty feel. The dark, shadowy look of the film is courtesy of cameraman Joe MacDonald.

Veteran Hollywood director William Keighley, kept the whole thing moving at a rapid pace that never let up. Sometimes, the tempo and the jaunty acting of the gang had the slick, fast-paced feel of a 1930s Warner Bros. movie. Not a bad thing, very entertaining, but not really in keeping with the tension of film noir. This is a minor quibble considering Keighley cranked out many films at Warners in the ‘30s.

“The Street With No Name” is an above average crime picture with many good scenes between stars Stevens and Widmark. And, thankfully, director Keighley restrained Widmark from doing his manic giggle, which the actor used to great effect in “Kiss of Death,” but then overused in several subsequent films. Widmark was a fine actor who could portray cold-blooded villainy as well as cowardly panic better than most of the actors of his era. Mark Stevens seemed to have a spotty career. In the 1950s, he went on to act and direct in television. He also made an interesting noir Western called “Jack Slade."

Also featured in “The Street With No Name” were Lloyd Nolan as Cordell’s FBI superior, John McIntire as another agent on the case, Ed Begley as a senior police official, and Barbara Lawrence in the thankless role of Stiles’ wife, who spends all her scenes being abused verbally and physically.

(For more posts on film and television, check out Todd Mason’s blog.)

The Tall Target (1951) a Civil War noir

Director Anthony Mann transitioned from making some of the best noir films of the 1940s to making some of the best westerns of the 1950s. Around the time of that transition, he made the noir period piece, “The Tall Target.”

It is the story of a New York police detective in 1861, who gets wind of an assassination plot against the newly elected president, Abraham Lincoln, and rushes by train toward Baltimore to intercept Lincoln, who is headed for Washington, D.C., before the plotters can get to him.

The detective, John Kennedy, is played by Dick Powell. Powell at that time in his career made a successful transition himself, from juvenile lead in Warner Bros. musicals to film-noir tough guy in movies like “Murder, My Sweet.”

Much of “The Tall Target” takes place on a train. Its passengers are the suspects. Many of them are Southerners traveling back to their home states.

Actor Marshall Thompson plays a West Point cadet who has resigned to join the Southern cause. He is traveling with some serious weapons, his worried sister, her maid, a young slave woman, played by Ruby Dee.

Also on board is a uniformed Northern militia major, played by Adolphe Menjou, a politician who glad hands Kennedy, but seems only to help if he himself can benefit.

Will Geer plays a tough but tolerant train conductor who grows weary of the many hassles and scrapes detective Kennedy finds himself in.

Leif Erickson, a large actor with a booming voice, plays a dangerous baddie in a startling turn in the film.

This small, dark, 78-minute movie from 1951 is filled with complex characters, and while it has some hokey moments, it is mostly a taught, well-made and suspenseful mystery.

Credit goes to Anthony Mann for the pacing, the tension, and the look of the film. Here he worked with cameraman Paul Vogel with great results. But at that time, Mann often worked with John Alton who shot some of his great noirs like “Raw Deal,” “T-Men,” and “Border Incident.”

“The Tall Target” is an average title for an above average film.

Film Noir: Alias Nick Beal

The 1949 film noir, “Alias Nick Beal,” is a movie I waited decades to see again. This month, I got my chance thanks to a late-night showing on Turner Classic Movies.

Foster, an ambitious district attorney, lacking evidence to prosecute a slick racketeer, states aloud he would sell his soul to nail the guy. Right on cue, he receives a note to meet a mysterious and sinister man named Nick Beal who claims he can help.

Beal’s help is strictly illegal, but Foster gets the evidence he needs and never questions how Beal accomplished the impossible. Beal continues to help Foster win cases and eventually become governor. Before calling for the ultimate payment, Beal insists Foster appoint certain people to influential offices.

Foster is in too deep, but a close friend, a local pastor is on to the devil in disguise and steps in to help his friend.

Nick Beal is played by a quietly understated Ray Milland, who is usually the sophisticated lead, sometimes the comic hero. Foster is played by character actor Thomas Mitchell, who was Scarlet O’Hara’s father in “Gone with the Wind” and the drunken doctor in “Stagecoach.” The pastor is played by George Macready, who usually portrayed villains. Audrey Totter is a woman recruited by Beal to lead Foster astray, and Geraldine Wall is Foster’s strong, upstanding wife.

“Alias Nick Beal” plays out in deep shadow, fog and settings straight out of German Expressionism. A waterfront dive Beal uses as his meeting place with Foster is literally crooked, with a sloping floor, a bar angling downhill and cockeyed tables. The saloon, with its sketchy lighting, is as disorienting to the viewer as it is to Foster.

Director John Farrow displays some of the fluid camera work that made his 1948 film version of “The Big Clock” – also with Milland – so interesting. And the subtle, low key tone of the film adds to the mystery and menace.

“Alias Nick Beal” is well worth a look, and now that TCM has shown it, let’s hope it is not decades before it airs again.

“It Always Rains on Sunday” Kitchen Sink Noir

As a fan of British films, particularly those of the post-World War II period, I waited a long time before catching “It Always Rains on Sunday”.

The movie is a surprising combination of styles, one that was near its height when it came out in 1947 and another not quite a style yet. “It Always Rains on Sunday” is a crime picture, a thriller with film-noir touches, and an early example of “kitchen sink” drama, a style that would catch on a decade later with the “angry young man” dramas.

This film could be called an angry young woman film. In fact it has several angry young women in it.

Rose, played by Googie Withers, is a former barmaid whose boyfriend proposes to her just before getting arrested and shipped off to prison. She settles for a man 15 years her senior whom she marries. When the picture opens, she is living with him and his two grown daughters and little son in a tiny attached house. A good deal of Rose’s life, and this movie, is spent in the cramped kitchen which doubles as the dining room, laundry room, and bathroom – that is, the tub is in there, too. The other fixture, I am guessing, is out behind the house.

One night, Rose’s former boyfriend escapes from jail and hides in a shed in her backyard. She finds him, takes him in, feeds him and lets him sleep in her bed while the rest of the family is out on a rainy Sunday. But family members keep returning to the house, giving Rose and the con several scares and breaking up a rekindled romance.

In the meantime, one step-daughter is seeing a shady, married man. The shady man’s brother, a small-time gambler and fence of stolen items, is putting the moves of the other, more naïve step-daughter. And the married man’s wife, who catches on to the affair, is the fourth angry woman in this film.

This moody, edgy film has some unusual twists for its time. It is as crowded with story as its streets are crowded with people. In a subplot, three petty criminals try to unload stolen goods and immediately attract the attention of a police detective, played by Jack Warner (not the Hollywood mogul, but the British actor who looked a bit like Jack Hawkins). The detective is happy to pinch them, but he is busy on the trail of Rose’s old boyfriend. The circle quickly closes in on Rose and the con.

The man makes a run for it and Rose considers suicide in a subtle but horrifying scene in the kitchen.

This rough, crude drama winds itself up with an exciting finish in a railroad yard.

“It Always Rains on Sunday,” based on a novel by Arthur Le Bern, was directed by Robert Hamer, and was produced by Michael Balcon and Henry Cornelius at Ealing Studios. Ealing was famous for its Alec Guinness comedies, but the company produced a variety of very good dramas in the 1940s and 1950s. “It Always Rains on Sunday” was one of them and it is well worth seeing.

(For more posts on film and television, check out Todd Mason's blog.)

Quirky Crime Film: Blast of Silence

Frankie Bono, an out-of-town killer hired to take out a New York crime boss, spends several days stalking his intended victim, learning the man’s routines, and picking the best spot to do the job in the off-beat, low-budget, noir film, “Blast of Silence.”

The grim, stoic Frankie, played by Allen Baron, who also wrote and directed this independently made, 1961 feature, goes about his business during the Christmas season and the contrast between the hired gun moving among the happy shoppers is striking.

More striking is the divided nature of Frankie. While he is a cold-blooded pro, he is also a lonely hitman. Accidentally running into an old buddy, Frankie is invited to a party, meets a girl, and desperately goes after her, stopping just short of rape. This makes for a very strange tangent in this odd, intriguing movie.

The many scenes of Frankie doing his job – contacting the man who hires him, buying an illegal gun, and following his target – are accompanied by strangely poetic narration. But it is not the usual first-person narration commonly found in film noir. It is second-person narration delivered, uncredited, by once-blacklisted actor Lionel Stander – he of the distinctive, gravely voice, who later co-starred on TVs “Hart to Hart.” The narration was written by once-blacklisted writer Waldo Salt, under the pen name, Mel Davenport. Salt later wrote the screenplays for “Midnight Cowboy,” and “Serpico.” The voice-over comes from an omniscient character who is talking to Frankie, commenting on his thoughts and actions, rather than informing the audience.

Shot entirely on the streets of New York in a documentary style, “Blast of Silence,” has the look and feel of early John Cassavetes and Stanley Kubrick films and is nearly a decade ahead of Martin Scorsese’s first efforts.

The movie was co-produced and photographed in gritty black and white on dark dreary days by Merrill Brody, a friend of Baron’s since grade school. Another plus is the film’s jazz score by Meyer Kupferman.

This excellent, 77-minute movie was originally released by Universal-International and has recently been given a new life on DVD by Criterion.

Film Noir: The Crooked Way

Amnesia stories require an enormous suspension of disbelief, at least for me, and yet they can be such great yarns.

“The Crooked Way” from 1949 is one of those stories.

Eddie, played by John Payne, is a returning World War 2 veteran with a brain injury that erased his memory. He believes he was originally from Los Angeles and so returns to that city to see if there isn’t something he might recognize that will help him recover. Shortly after arriving, he is harassed by cops who claim he is a gangster, a woman who tells him she is his wife, and some thugs who work him over for cheating them.

If the amnesia premise was not hard enough to overcome, why Eddie would not turn around and get back on the train – any train – and get out of there, is an even bigger mystery than the one proposed in the film. But then, if he did that, there would be no movie. So Eddie sticks around and takes a lot more punishment at the hands of gangster, Vince, played by Sonny Tufts.

Tufts has the usual beef with his former colleague in crime, but even more interesting here is the very strong suggestion that Vince is a drug addict. Drug addiction in movies was strictly forbidden by the Hollywood production code of the time. The filmmakers get around this with a quick explanation that Vince is taking meds for his nerves. They even show the audience his prescription bottle. And somehow they got it past the censors.

Director Robert Florey provides a fast pace and a lot of violence in this 90-minute movie. And not just movie violence, but people getting the living snot kicked out of them. This was a rare thing for movies of the 1940s, a little less rare in noir films. Still, in this production, the violence is intense. Perhaps the code enforcers paid less attention to modest little pictures than they did to the big studio productions.

Cameraman John Alton – the man who really puts the noir in film noir – keeps everything dark, intriguing and menacing. Even ordinary moments, like three gangsters going up a staircase, is so interesting in its angle and use of light and shadow that it exudes tension. Alton also had a technique in close ups of placing a speck of light in the lead actor’s eyes which somehow created a subtle star burst that gave the players’ faces a special life. He used this technique on leading lady Ellen Drew. He was also great at lighting the villain. Vince always looks crazed and dangerous.

There are a lot of clichés in “The Crooked Way”, and John Payne is not too convincing as a tough guy – not like Robert Mitchum or Robert Ryan could be – but the movie is worth watching, especially for fans of the genre.

(For more posts on movies and television, check out Todd Mason's blog.)

Storm Warning, musical-comedy cast in film noir

“Storm Warning,” a Warner Bros. picture from 1951 about the Klan in a southern town, is a combination of “Black Legion,” the studio’s 1937 Bogart movie on that subject, and “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Marsha, a fashion model, played by Ginger Rogers, traveling across the country makes a detour to a small town for a quick visit with her sister Lucy, played by Doris Day.

Marsha is not in town 10 minutes before she witnesses a gang of Klansmen drag a man from the county jail and shoot him down in the street. Hiding in a doorway, Marsha plainly sees two men whose hoods have come off.

Shaken, she meets her sister, Lucy, and Lucy’s new husband, Hank, played by Steve Cochran. Hank was one of the men she saw.

To protect her sister and to get away from her new brother-in-law, Marsha plans to get out of town early the next morning. But county prosecutor Burt Rainey, played by Ronald Reagan, has Marsha picked up and questioned as a witness.

Things heat up for Marsha, Lucy and especially Hank, who is part bully, part simpering coward, when both the prosecutor and the leader of the Klan lean on them.

And when things could not get worse, Hank tries to rape Marsha.

From there, the film slips into an old formula and while not a happy ending, it is not as hard-hitting and memorable as it could have been.

One of the problems is Ronald Reagan. His part is not well written and Reagan was always better as an amiable second lead to stars like Errol Flynn. Doris Day, on the other hand, was a good choice for the young wife so in love that she cannot see that her hubbie is a lout. Ms. Day was a much better actress than people remember. This is also one of Steve Cochran’s better films. Usually cast as a gangster in movies like “White Heat,” here he gets to do a lot more with the part of a wannabe tough guy.

The picture was directed by Stuart Heisler, a Hollywood veteran, who in 1940 made the excellent feature, “The Biscuit Eater.” Heisler does a good job with the material he is given, and brings a taught, noir feeling to the film. The night scenes leading up to the killing are dark and moody, thanks to cameraman Carl Guthrie.

“Storm Warning” was written by Daniel Fuchs, who wrote the screenplay for the 1949 noir classic, “Criss Cross,” and Richard Brooks, who had a long career in Hollywood first as a writer and later as the writer-director of films like “In Cold Blood” and “Blackboard Jungle.”

This fast-moving, 93-minute movie is well worth a look.


(For more on film and television, visit Todd Mason's blog.)

MOVIE: Noirish crime film Shield for Murder

Old Hollywood could not produce a film with a lead character like Barney Nolan, at least not the Barney Nolan of William P. McGivern’s 1951 novel Shield for Murder.

In the book, Philadelphia police detective Barney Nolan is a bad cop who hits rock bottom. In the 1954 movie, “Shield for Murder," Barney Nolan, as played by star and co-director Edmond O’Brien, is a complex man, not particularly good or bad, just human, who makes a series of bad – really bad – decisions and goes down the moral drain.

Both book and movie start with Nolan killing a bookie in order to rob the man and then claiming it was an accident, a warning shot gone wild. Nolan, in both versions wants the money to win a girl.

In the book, Nolan needs the money to lavish expensive jewelry on a nightclub singer who has no romantic feelings for him. In the movie, he wants the money to marry a nightclub cigaret girl, buy a small house in the suburbs, move there and live his own vision of the American dream.

Characters like Nolan who make criminal choices for women are a staple of film noir. In the hands of a director like Fritz Lang or Anthony Mann, this movie could have been a great addition to that genre. But as it is, “Shield for Murder” does not reach that level. Still, it is not a bad little crime picture.

The movie might get a better grade from me if I had not read the McGivern novel right before seeing it. (A post about McGivern’s book is here.)

Aside from Nolan’s motivation to commit murder, there is another interesting difference between the book and the movie. In the book, the man who starts suspecting Nolan is a murderer is Mark Brewster, a young newspaper reporter. In the movie, Mark Brewster is Nolan’s police partner. The change may have been dictated by the old Hollywood production code.

O’Brien, who co-directed with producer Howard W. Koch, may have miscast himself in the movie. Robert Ryan and Robert Mitchum could play hard guys on the edge and capable of going over to the dark side. In McGivern’s book, Nolan is a big, violent thug who scares the hell out of everyone. The movie’s Barney Nolan is a softer, almost sympathetic guy, thanks to O’Brien’s personality and skill as an actor. (O’Brien deserves a post about his career.)

As Nolan's partner, actor John Agar is wooden and not nearly as good as he was in his first film - John Ford’s “Fort Apache.” Also in the cast is the great, gruff Emile Meyer as a captain of detectives who also suspects Nolan. The cigaret girl is played by Marla English, who did a handful of films in the 1950s. Carolyn Jones has a nice supporting role as a woman in a bar trying to pick up Barney Nolan. Others in the cast who became regulars on TV are Claude Akins, William Schallert and Richard Deacon.

Overall, “Shield for Murder” is an OK picture, but the book is a lot better.

(For more posts on movies and television, check out Todd Mason’s blog.)

MOVIE: Noir prison-break picture Canon City

Released in 1948, “Canon City” is a modestly-budgeted prison picture with several things going for it.

First, this docu-noir film is based on a true story from 1927 in which a gang of convicts broke out of the Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility at Canon City, Colorado. Part of the movie was filmed at the prison and around Canon City (which should be called Canyon City according to the Spanish spellings used there). Built in 1871, in the harsh landscape of rocky, treeless hills, the CTCF is still there and is the oldest prison in the state. Photos Googled up show a stone structure with guard towers that looks more like a movie set than a real place.

Next, the star of the picture is a young Scott Brady. Brady in real life was the tall, tough brother of tall tough actor Lawrence Tierney who was the tough old gang leader in “Reservoir Dogs.” Brady’s character is forced to participate in the prison break. Once on the outside, he does all he can to keep the others from killing anyone or harming local residents.

Next, there are a couple of sequences that make “Canon City” a thriller. One scene would have done Alfred Hitchcock proud. The men who bust out of prison, split up and because it is winter, and because they need a sure way out of the area, the men barge into several homes looking to steal guns, cars and food. In one sequence, a group of cons holds a family hostage and demands food. The old granny goes into the kitchen to fix them something to eat and while there and out of sight of the baddies, she must decide whether to feed them or to bash in the ringleader’s head with a hammer. It’s a great scene.

And last, the film was photographed by John Alton, the great cinematographer of so many moody black and white noir films like "The Scar" from the same year.

“Canon City” was written and directed by Crane Wilber and produced by Bryan Foy. Also in the cast were Jeff Corey, Whit Bissell, and DeForest Kelly, 18 years before he played Doc McCoy on “Star Trek.”

(For more posts on film and television, check out Todd Mason’s blog.)

Tuesday’s Film: Out of the Past

“Out of the Past,” the 1947 noir film starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas, is one of those great, atmospheric, black and white crime pictures that leaves a permanent image on the mind even if the story is nearly impossible to recount.

It all starts off simply enough when somewhere in rural America a sinister city guy arrives in a big car and starts asking around for the owner of the local gas station. The owner, played by Mitchum, knows his past has caught up with him and so goes to correct things with a gangster played by Douglas.

For some unfathomable reason, Mitchum takes his current girlfriend along on the ride and tells her the tangled story of how Douglas once hired him to find the woman Douglas lived with, played by Greer. Douglas says Greer shot and wounded him and ran off with sizable amount of his money. Douglas wanted the girl and the cash back.

Mitchum tracks Greer to a Mexican seaside village where he not only finds her, but falls in love with her. They decide to duck Douglas and live together. During all this, there is sleuthing and snappy dialogue and scares when Douglas and his henchmen almost catch up with them.

From that point, about half way through the movie, the plot goes wild with double and triple crosses, beatings, killings and a subplot that, like a dream, would take far longer to explain than to see.

It somehow all adds up and concludes with a big violent finish that also, like a dream, would take too long to explain.

And what a dream “Out of the Past” is, with three young movie stars at the start of their careers. Mitchum at age 30 is the cool, confident anti-hero. Douglas, then 31, is the charming and dangerous bad guy. And the stunning, 23-year-old Jane Greer is the girl they both want. Greer is given one of the greatest introductions any screen character ever had when she ends Mitchum’s long search for her by walking out of the hot Mexican sunlight into a cool, shadowy café wearing a sleek summer dress and a wide-brimmed hat.

Director Jacques Tourneur, the son of a silent film director, was a master of composition, tone and pacing, and this may be his best picture. Credit for the dark yet smooth look of the movie also goes to cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, RKO's go-to guy for film noir. 

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: The Prowler

“The Prowler,” a rarely seen noir film from 1951, is the story of a corrupt, immoral and dangerous Los Angeles cop, played by Van Heflin, who starts an affair with a suburban housewife, played by Evelyn Keyes, and together their passions run out of control.

Heflin by this time was a movie star who had played villains in supporting roles and anti-heroes in noir films like “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers,” and here he projects sleazy depravity from his first scene in which he responds at a report of a prowler at Keyes’s home.

Heflin’s character – a former jock and high school hero – is now an ordinary patrol cop who believes he deserves more from life and that he has the right to take what he wants. His badge and gun give him the power to threaten and intimidate others. When Heflin and his patrol-car partner are sent to the home of Keyes, we see that he is a predator. As his partner talks to Keyes at her front door, Heflin walks right into her living room and starts checking out personal items on a desk. This man cannot be trusted. He is up to no good.

By coincidence, he and Keyes know each other. They grew up in the same town. She had a crush on him. He moves in on her and is not rebuffed as Keyes is unhappy in her marriage to a successful radio personality. This is typical of film noir, but several things stand out to make “The Prowler” a very different kind of film. First, few if any cops in movies of that time were depicted as corrupt and immoral. Second, the film takes several turns making the plot unpredictable.

Unlike many noir films which start in the calm, placid daylight of post-World War 2 America and grow darker as the story does, “The Prowler” starts in the night and grows lighter, leaving the characters in the bright sunlight where there is no place to hide.

The film has many subtle elements to set an audience on edge, things like the oddly long hallways in Keyes’ suburban house, through which the characters move, creating an uneasy feeling.

“The Prowler” was directed by Joseph Losey, who right after making this film fled HUAC (the U.S. Congress’ communist witch-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee) and went to England where he remained and directed many good films including “The Servant.” In “The Prowler,” Losey presents most of Heflin’s and Keyes’ scenes in long, unbroken takes, displaying the skills of two very good actors. The tension Losey creates is never broken for the length of this 92–minute movie.

The movie’s screenplay was by black-listed Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo, who at that time was still turning out scripts, but submitting them to producers by having friends put their names on the cover pages. Several years earlier, Trumbo and a handful of black-listed film people refused to provide HUAC with names of suspected Communists and all were sent to prison for contempt of Congress. He and the other nine were dubbed “The Hollywood Ten.” Trumbo’s problems with HUAC are the subject of a new movie, with Bryan Cranston (of “Breaking Bad” fame) playing him.

“The Prowler” was produced independently by Sam Speigel, through Horizon Pictures, the company he owned with director John Huston. Evelyn Keyes at the time of this movie was newly divorced from Huston.

The sleazy story of a corrupt cop sounds like the work of crime writer James Ellroy, but predates his book L.A. Confidential by nearly 40 years. Ellroy said “The Prowler” is one of his favorite films. When author Eddie Muller, head of the Film Noir Foundation, heard that, he tapped Ellroy for money to help restore the film, and Ellroy came through.

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: “The Killers” (1946)

“The Killers” from 1946 is an acknowledged film-noir classic. In fact, if it is not No. 1 on the list, it is surely in the top five.

It has all the elements of the genre: crime, conflicts, betrayals, violence, plot twists, boxing, a heist, a femme fatale, and a tough, cynical detective. It also has all the techniques: flashbacks, voice-over narration (bridging the flashbacks), deep shadows, beautiful, expressionistic black and white photography, claustrophobic sets (some with ceilings).

One of the masters of film noir was at the helm. Director Robert Siodmak came up in the German cinema of the 1920s and 30s, then fled the Nazis, landed in Hollywood and directed many films including the noir classics, “Criss Cross” and “Phantom Lady.”

The film also has star-making parts for Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, an excellent role for Edmond O’Brien, and a great supporting cast: Albert Dekker, Same Levene, and Jeff Corey as a hoodlum junkie. (Drug abuse in a 1940s movie? How did that get by the Hollywood censors?)

But what “The Killers” does not have – and here I am going anger all the loyal fans of this movie – is a good opening.

Two button men show up in a small town looking for a man they have been hired to kill. They cannot find the guy, so they go into a diner, order dinner, bully the counter man, the cook and a teenager, and tell the locals exactly what they plan to do. People love this opening which is lifted directly from an Ernest Hemingway short story. They praise the tough, clipped dialog and the menace.

But look again.

The story by Hemingway has two highly unprofessional professional killers. Would a couple of hitmen walk around town, talk to the locals, tell all what they are going to do, and allow everyone to get a good look at them?

Hemingway needed Martin Scorsese to straighten him out. Even the attempt at humor, when the bad guys order fancy dinners, falls flat.

That a scene like that was allowed to stand is surprising, seeing as Mark Hellinger produced the picture. Hellinger was a long-time newspaperman who became a famous New York columnist in the 1930s before going to Hollywood. He should have known better. But, then again, he and Universal bought the rights to a short story by the very famous Hemingway and used the story and the name to promote the movie.

The reasons the opening does not kill "The Killers," are that it is played to the hilt by two great character actors: William Conrad and Charles McGraw. And director Siodmak takes his time setting a tone of danger and anxiety. Photographer Woody Bredell presents the most noirish of noir settings, making placid, middle America look dark and creepy because evil has come to town. Composer Miklos Rozsa pulls it all together with his hyper, chaotic music, underscored with the hitmen’s pounding theme, which is unforgettable.

The following 90 minutes of “The Killers” is terrific and was created by screenwriter Anthony Veiller, and, according to the IMDb site, by John Huston and Richard Brooks, who are uncredited.

Is "The Killers" a great film? You bet it is. So, don’t let my criticism keep you away.

(For more links to films, TV and videos, see Todd Mason’s site.)

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: “La Bete Humaine”

“La Bete Humaine” is a 1938 French film from Jean Renoir, based on an Emile Zola novel, about obsessive love, passion, murder and mental problems.

Jean Gabin plays a tough, stoic, train engineer whose desire makes him a danger to women. Simone Simon plays a cheating wife whose husband kills her lover and the only one who can nail them is the unwitting witness Gabin.

Gabin falls for Simone. Simone Simon, often described as kittenish, is today best known for her role in the 1942 movie, “Cat People.” Gabin promises Simone he will keep quiet, and from there the story twists and turns with passion, mistakes and guilt piling up in scene after scene.

French films like “La Bete Humaine” and a handful of others, known as Poetic Realism, were also the predecessors to American film noir along with the German Expressionism movies of the silent era. Gabin, a sort of James Cagney of France, who could also out cool Bogart, was a frequent star of Poetic Realism (“Quai des Brumes,” “Pepe le Moko”).

He and all the actors play their scenes in a low-key manner, but the emotions bubbling beneath the surface are feverish. The sex, while tame by today’s standards, must have been sizzling in the 1930s, especially for American audiences subjected to Hollywood’s Hayes code. But audiences here may have seen a censored version. A 1940 New York Times review noted the film’s running time as 90 minutes, while the complete film runs 99 minutes.

Renoir, the son of the French Impressionist painter, was a director known for his deft handling of social settings, so it is surprising to see how well he integrates the many fast-moving train sequences.

How much symbolism can be read into shots of large, powerful locomotives hurtling down the tracks with their blazing hot, coal-fired engines? Yet one of those shots was almost comical. Following a dispute between Gabin and Simone, Renoir cut to two engines in a rail yard heading for what looks like a sure collision.

“La Bete Humaine” is one of the great films of its era, and with its attractive stars and snappy pace, it holds up surprisingly well today.

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: “Laura” Noir or Not?

“Laura”, the glossy, intriguing, 1944 murder mystery, appears on many lists of the best noir films.

But is it really film noir?

The setting is not the seedy neighborhoods of American cities, but tony uptown apartments and restaurants. There are no wet cobblestone streets, no bowling alleys, not even a shot of Angels Flight.

The main character, played by Dana Andrews, is not a criminal, nor an ordinary guy who makes a fatally criminal mistake. He is a police detective.

The look of the picture is not particularly dark. There are no deep shadows and odd camera angles. The settings, lighting and camera work are smooth and in the best tradition of old Hollywood. "Laura" was produced by 20th Century-Fox with the studio's A-list players and directed by Otto Preminger.

Even the music is smooth. The theme song of “Laura” is the beautiful David Raksin tune, not the pounding scores of Miklos Rozsa or Bernard Herrmann.

So what makes “Laura” a noir?

A good portion of the story is told in flashback as the detective questions friends of a murdered young woman, played by Gene Tierney. That is a noir technique.

From these flashbacks and from the alluring portrait of Laura hanging in her apartment, the detective finds himself attracted to and soon obsessed with the dead girl. OK, now we are entering noir territory.

The cop returns often to her apartment, the scene of the crime. He reads her letters, he helps himself to her liquor, and he gazes at her portrait. One of the girl’s friends even chides him for falling in love with a corpse.

At this point in the film, viewers really have something to worry about. From routine work, to curiosity, to obsession, the detective could be lost in noirland.

But is "Laura" a noir piece, or not?

Tuesday’s Overlooked Film: “The Scar”

“The Scar” (also known as “Hollow Triumph”) is a heavily atmospheric, film noir from 1948 starring Paul Henreid.

Henreid, best known as the stoic hero, Victor Lazlo, in “Casablanca,” or as the romantic lead in “Now Voyager” who can light two cigarettes simultaneously, here plays a brilliant criminal running for his life from the powerful gangsters he ripped off. By chance, he learns that he is nearly the double of a noted psychiatrist, and he sets out to hide by impersonating the doctor.

The tone and pace of “The Scar” help suspend disbelief that this man could not only kill and take the place of the psychiatrist, but also do it without anyone ever noticing that he is a different guy. Henreid, who plays both parts, lends a suave intensity that drives the 83-minute film. The cast of supporting players all think bad-guy Henreid is actually head-doctor Henried, however, it is a stretch to believe that the shrink’s own secretary, played by Joan Bennett, who is also in love with the doc, would not notice the switch.

“The Scar” was directed with much style by Steve Sekely, a Hungarian filmmaker in Hollywood since the late 1930s. Sekely was able to build tension and create a genuinely creepy atmosphere in the picture, especially in a stomach-turning sequence in which Henreid, in order to convincingly switch identities, must give himself a long scar on his cheek. He sits before a mirror and sets out his medical instruments, which, under the expressionistic lighting of the great cinematographer John Alton, take on a sinister personality of their own: a scalpel, a vial of numbing agent, and a sickeningly large glass syringe. His tools in place, Henreid sets to work on himself. 

This film shows director Sekely had talent. He might have become one of the great auteurs of film noir. (Wonder why he didn’t?)

“The Scar” is a fun little noir, and that scene of creating the scar is worth the price of admission (which is free, since “The Scar” is available on YouTube).

Under its other  title, “Hollow Triumph," the film is scheduled to show Friday, June 19, on Turner Classic Movies.