Killers Kiss (1955), an early B noir from Stanley Kubrick has been reviewed by Cinepinion.

There is another review of Killer’s Kiss on the Noir Files, and other great articles on these films noir:

FILM NOIR
The Letter (1940)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Detour (1945)
The Lady From Shanghai (1948)
Niagara (1953)
Criss Cross (1949)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
The Bad & the Beautiful (1952)
The Big Heat (1953)
Pickup On South Street (1953)
Killer’s Kiss (1955)
The Killing (1957)
Touch of Evil (1957)

NEO-NOIR
Vertigo (1958)
The Killers (1964)
Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964)
Un Flic (1972)
American Gigolo (1980)
Body Heat (1981)
Dance With A Stranger (1985)
House of Games (1987)
Bitter Moon (1992)
Noir, Now & Then (2001): feature book review

Boomerang, an early movie from director, Elia Kazan, is famous for its then innovative quasi-documentary style. Based on a true story, it is a sharp and well-acted film where a small-town DA in a novel reversal of role determines the innocence of a troubled WW2 vet wrongly charged with murder. The movie feels dated but the story of integrity in the face of political corruption and police expediency remains strong.

How others have classified this picture as a noir has me stumped. Yes, the accused is a war veteran struggling to catch up in the “parade of life” after 5 years in the army, but this is peripheral and does not a film noir make.

Stanford University’s Continuing Studies program is offering a 10-week course in film noir commencing September 25 co-presented by John Billheimer and Eddie Muller:

The Politics, Passions, and Personnel of Film Noir ( Course: FLM 48)
From its origins in the early1940s with such films as The Maltese Falcon, Laura, and Double Indemnity, to its decline in the late 1950s, to its resurgence in such “neo-noir” films as Chinatown and Body Heat, the cycle of American cinema known as film noir has become one of the most influential movements in film history. This course traces the social conditions that gave rise to the cycle, examines its literary, artistic, and philosophical underpinnings, and tracks its critical themes, reception, and cultural influence. Well-known and little-known films in the noir canon will be discussed, and film clips will be used to illustrate the individual contributions of studios, directors, writers, cinematographers, and actors.

You can register on-line.

Film Forno has posted a lengthy review of Act Of Violence:

The issues in this film are so real it elevates the story from the genre to a lofty psychological plane. Once it starts I dare you to try and stop watching it! Noir was a B genre, they were made fast, a lot of the conventions of noir , the stylish shots were partly created to save time as for example when you have two characters talking to each other but both facing the camera, this saves the time of doing reverses, moving the camera, relighting, etc… “

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.” - Raymond Chandler

Beyond The Valley of the Cinephiles has published a wide-ranging article on screen adaptations of Chandler’s detective fiction: Philip Marlowe on the Silver Screen.

“A brilliant arrangement of cause and effect…
unique as a mirror of the morbid psychology of
crowds… revolting but incontrovertibly true.”
- New York Times

“Terrific drama. Grim tale of a big city reporter
who capitalizes on a disaster to ride himself back
to the big time. Unrelenting in its cynicism.”
- Steve H. Scheuer, Movies on TV and Video.

Ace in the Hole (aka The Big Carnival) is a savage critique not only of a corrupted but also corrupting modern mass media. Perhaps Billy Wilder’s best film, this subversive morality tale was not a box office success when first released. As Wilder said of the audience response at the time: “Americans expected a cocktail and felt I was giving them a shot of vinegar instead.”.

Kirk Douglas as the self-seeking journalist, Chuck Tatum, dominates the screen and develops by the climax as one of Wilder’s more complex characterisations. There are noir elements in the movie, but classifying it as a noir unfairly limits its scope and the depth of social criticism. Only the poor trapped man, his inconsolable parents, and the owner of the small town newspaper, have any true decency. Everyone else, is either corrupt or corruptible, if not downright stupid or plain evil - the trapped man’s floozy of a wife included, and Tatum’s naive young photographer is easily seduced by the reporter’s phoney charisma. The corrupt sheriff who actively conspires with Tatum, even after he is told the poor trapped man is doomed, wants to use this turn of events to his political advantage.

The power of this film resonates today, when countries go to war on manufactured evidence and manipulative spin. Innocent lives are as expendable today as they always have been in the cause of political ambition and warped ideological agendas: a world where the spin doctor rules.

This is a must see movie.

“One of the highest summits of film noir…
without a single trace of pity or love.”
- Charles Ingham, 1971

Double Indemnity, Billy Wilder’s classic proto-noir from the pot-boiler novella by James M. Cain, is a great melodrama with snappy dialog and a tight script from Wilder and Raymond Chandler. All the elements of the archetypal film noir are distilled into a gothic LA tale of greed, sex, and betrayal. The casting of the inscrutable Fred MacMurray as the anti-hero, a seductive and transparently vile Barbara Stanwyck as the femme-fatale, and Edward G. Robinson as the garrulous claims manager is inspired.

I have lost count of how many times I have watched this movie, and it has been over 30 years since I first saw it on TV as teenager, but with each viewing I come away with something new. It attests to Wilder’s skill as a film-maker that the dramatic tension is sustained until the last frame even though the whole story is told in flashback - we know Walter Neff is a goner from the go. The opening fluid shots of the wounded Neff’s car careening down the dark LA streets with Miklos Rosza’s musical counterpoint, wonderfully establish the dark dramatic mood before any character is seen on the screen.

But there are some nagging weaknesses. The only rounded character is Robinson’s claims manager, Barton Keys. Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson are flat protagonists and our interest is sustained mostly by their early banter and poisoned repartee in the brutal climax. Neff says he loves Phyllis, but I all I see is a murderous conspiracy based on greed and lust. He has no real remorse and elects to clean up the unravelling of the crime by plugging Phyllis - despite her last minute conversion. Half-way through, the picture is nearly lost by the over-long and ludicrous scene in the office of Barton Keys’ boss, who is played so badly that the otherwise deft attempt at comic relief falls completely flat - I was reminded of Zeppo Marx…

That said, Double Indemnity is great entertainment and a recommended introduction to the film noir genre.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

The sixth annual Rewind/Fast Forward Film and Video Festival, held at the Miami-Dade Public Library will Friday screen a restored print of Leave Her To Heaven (1945) with Gene Tierney.

From a preview by Scott Cunningham in the Miami New Times:

“…the festival is showing a range of cinematic realism, beginning with a restored print of the 1945 film noir classic Leave Her to Heaven, starring a 24-year-old Gene Tierney. Delightfully fake, this potboiler, washed in Technicolor and painted backgrounds, tells the melodramatic tale of Ellen Berent (Tierney), a rich woman driven to madness by her possessive love for her novelist husband Richard (Cornel Wilde). The realism in this case comes from the intersection of Tierney’s character with her own life. The actress suffered from bipolar disorder and was lobotomized a few years after the filming of the movie. Who’s to say if she was overacting, or acting at all?”