In a 1954 interview Jean Renoir said of Hollywood: “Don’t go thinking that I despise “B” pictures; in general I like them better than big, pretentious psychological films they’re much more fun. When I happen to go to the movies in America, I go see ‘B’ pictures. First of all, they are an expression of … [Read more…]
UK film writer Philip French in the Observer in 2009 related that Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) “was the favourite film of Jean-Pierre Melville, who saw it 120 times before directing his noir masterwork Le deuxième soufflé [1966]”. I can share this enthusiasm…
Ubiytsy (‘The Killers’ USSR – 1956) Directed by: Marika Beiku (Instructor) Aleksandr Gordon Andrey Tarkovsky Writers: Ernest Hemingway – short story Aleksandr Gordon and Andrey Tarkovsky – screenplay Cinematography by Aleksandr Rybin and Alfredo Álvarez Cast: Yuli Fait -Nick Adams Aleksandr Gordon – George Valentin Vinogradov – Hitman Al Vadim Novikov – Hitman Max Yuri … [Read more…]
This is the first in a series of posts in which I will cover books on film noir that I have been reading, and which aficionados of film noir will find interesting. For this first post, I have chosen DRIVEN TO DARKNESS: Jewish Émigré Directors and the Rise of Film Noir (Rutgers University Press, 2009 … [Read more…]
In this early Jean Renoir film with a magically delicious femme-noir and a brilliant car chase at night, were sewn the seeds of French poetic realism that flourished later in the 30s in the films of Marcel Carné and others. La Nuit du Carrefour is a largely faithful adaption of Georges Simenon’s gloomy pulp policier … [Read more…]
When Strangers Marry (aka Betrayed 1944) King Bros/Monogram 67 mins Director: William Castle Cinematography: Ira Morgan Score: Dimitri Tiomkin “as When Strangers Marry illustrates, it is precisely through the triggering of sensations that film noir speaks most eloquently. A mode of signification that privileges connotation over the denotative, cause-and-effect logic of linear narrative, the highly-wrought … [Read more…]
“Renoir’s second talkie, La Nuit du carrefour (1932)— my all-time favorite French noir, and the sexiest movie he ever made… his edgy adaptation of Georges Simenon’s Maigret at the Crossroads, filmed in a foggy suburb that vibrates with off-screen sounds and a mysterious Danish heroine (Winna Winifried), cries out for discovery.” – Jonathon Rosenbaum In 1931 Georges … [Read more…]
The Big Night (1951) Director Joseph Losey | DP Hal Mohr Joseph Losey’s last American movie is a powerful and affecting drama of a boy crossing into manhood one dark noir night.
Orson Wells in 1939 under contract to RKO developed a screenplay for a film adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness’ (1899) , which sadly was never made. Film scholar James Naremore in an on-line article discusses the book and the development of Welles’ script, which sets the story in the present day and … [Read more…]
There is a certain irony in this excerpt from the novel by Italo-American Pietro Di Donato, Christ in Concrete (1939), a story of Italian immigrant building workers and their families in Brooklyn during the Depression. In 1949 a film adaptation of the novel by director Edward Dmytryk, featured teeming tenements and residential streets shot with … [Read more…]