Summer of Darkness on Turner Classic Movies

RooksBailey · May 27, 2015, 10:15:11 PM

It's funny: when I wasted a semester in college taking a film history course to satisfy an elective, I had a professor who tried to get me excited about cinema noir. At the time I didn't see what the fuss was all about, but now I am addicted to it.

I blame Turner Classic Movies - somebody clearly loves the genre over there as they show the best quite a bit. I also blame the deplorable state of modern cinema and television. In the words of the late Bob Grant, "it is sick out there...and getting sicker." Even though these movies can be dark in content, I always find it interesting how there is some sort of morally uplifting message that is woven through the plot - it really is a striking contrast to the immoral and/or vacuous content of the vast majority of contemporary film. I am also struck by the quality of these productions. The camera work, the snappy dialogue, the classy dames who were sexy without being slutty, and the wonderful fashion (men "going fishing" in three piece suits! ;D ), it all makes for an intoxicating mix unmatched by later efforts.

Anyway, not here to gush as much as to give a heads up to other noir fans: Turner Classic Movies posted an announcement on Facebook that starting in June and extending through July, TCM will be showing all the great noir movies every Friday, 24 hours straight! You can read about it here:

http://www.tcm.com/summerofdarkness/

"Summer is cooler in the shadows." 8)

They are also offering a FREE online course about Film Noir that you can sign up for here:

https://www.canvas.net/browse/bsu/tcm/courses/film-noir

There is no obligation, but if you complete the course you get a certificate! I signed up today (they just want an email address and a password).

Anyway, I just thought I would share this here if there are others who like this stuff.

BTW: The last two films I watched (Amazon Prime has tons for free viewing!) were:

I Walk Alone:

This was an excellent thriller staring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster matching wits over control of a supper club (I wish there were still supper clubs). My favorite quote: [Stuffy woman]: "My name is Mrs. Alix Richardson." [Burt Lancaster]: "You say that like it was spelt in capital letters." LOL! ;D They just don't write dialogue like that anymore. I also loved how after the opening scene the audience never sees the sun again. A literally dark movie.

and

I Wake Up Screaming:

In the preface to a noir omnibus I was reading, it mentioned that this movie was the one that kicked off the noir craze in America. I watched it tonight and, yeah, it is great! An "old fashioned" mystery in every way, complete with the requisite haunted criminal. Only two complaints: if I had to listen to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" one more time, I would have screamed (maybe that is the origin of the title? ). Literally every time Betty Grable was on the screen, that song was played...prominently.

Secondly, just who woke up screaming? The movie never once referenced the title! LOL! Minor quibbles. Great movie.

JasonPratt · June 02, 2015, 01:50:35 PM

Expecting a noir film title to make sense == setting up for disappointment. ;)

RooksBailey · June 03, 2015, 01:22:28 AM

Quote from: JasonPratt on June 02, 2015, 01:50:35 PM
Expecting a noir film title to make sense == setting up for disappointment. ;)

LOL! Good point! I am starting to discover that! ;D

TCM released a cool graphic today that makes for a great wallpaper:

Last night I checked out another noir movie called The Pretender. This was just a "B" movie, but a good one nonetheless. It almost had a Twilight Zone twist to it. It is about a financial adviser by the name of Holden who is swindling his client. In an attempt to cover his crime, he plans to marry the girl but soon learns that she is engaged to an unknown man. In desperation, he takes out a hit on the unnamed/unknown suitor by telling the mafia kingpin to check the papers for when the engagement is officially announced. Well, noir fate intervenes when the girl dumps her original suitor and agrees to marry him! Guess whose picture winds up in the paper? Holden's! He just took out a hit on himself! The rest of the movie is about his desperate attempts to cancel the hit while he slowly descends into pathological paranoia. Fun stuff!

QuoteCritic Dennis Schwartz liked the film and wrote, "Billy Wilder's lesser known elder brother William Lee Wilder...directs this striking film noir about a successful man becoming paranoiac and placing himself in entrapment. In one amazing characteristic noir scene, the protagonist is seated on the floor of his unlit, locked room eating crackers and canned food, afraid of being poisoned. This is one of the first movies to score for theremin, an effectively chilling mood music which later became a cliché for many 1950s sci-fi films about aliens. John Alton's dark film noir photography sets the proper mood for the melodrama. The film noir is absorbing despite stilted dialogue and flat direction."

Agreed!

Here is a clip:

RooksBailey · June 07, 2015, 02:57:21 PM

Anybody catch any of the movies from this first noir Friday (#NoirSummer)? I managed to fill a few holes in my collection. Here are the ones I caught:

1) Journey into Fear:

This was something of a disappointment. Not a bad movie, mind you, but just by the numbers. It involves an American engineer working in Turkey to help the Turkish navy modernize for WWII. He soon learns he is targeted by the Nazis to stop his vital work. Good premise. Unfortunately, the movie never delivers any twists. Pretty much all the characters are exactly what they appear to be, something that removes some of the paranoid fun and leads to a blase ending. Still, worth seeing once.

2) Woman on the Run:

I watched this because TCM was proud that host Eddie Muller restored this film to its original condition after it was damaged in the 2008 Universal fire. Good story particularly for the twist: here we have a female playing the part of the tough-as-nails protagonist out to locate her somewhat cowardly husband who is on the run from the mob. Some good gender-bending stuff in here. This movie was partly Ann Sheridan's baby, and it shows.

3) Dark Passage:

This was interesting because it was noir meets art house. In the first third of the film we get to hear Bogart but never see him as this portion is shot almost strictly from his POV. In the second third we get to see Bogart but not hear him as his mouth is taped shut due to plastic surgery. The last third we finally get to see and hear Bogart in what will become one of his more iconic roles. Yeah, this movie plays with the audience quite a bit.

4) Johnny Eager:

This is now one of my favorite films, and I don't just mean in the genre. This was just a fantastically poignant tale of a very bad man who gets one last chance to do something good. In a way, it is like a negative print of a traditional noir tale in that it turns the formula on its head: here we start with a crime kingpin (Robert Taylor as Johnny Eager) who gets in over his head when he meets the reverse of a traditional femme fetal (Lana Turner as Lizbeth Bard - and I am finding it true: Marilyn Monroe was just a low rent Lana Turner) who gets him into trouble by getting him to do the right thing. It is an excellent twist. But what sealed the deal for me was the unexpected tear-jerk ending where the rat became the hero for a brief, shining moment. An absolutely fantastic moral tale. I also have to compliment Van Heflin's Jeff Hartnett who acted as Eager's Virgil. Highly recommended.

RooksBailey · June 12, 2015, 01:26:31 PM

Second noir Friday is here! Woot!

The classic Detour now showing:

Rest of the day's schedule:

Quote1:45 PM DETOUR (1945)
3:00 PM MILDRED PIERCE (1945)
5:00 PM DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946)
6:30 PM JOHNNY ANGEL (1946)
8:00 PM THE GANGSTER (1947)
9:45 PM GUN CRAZY (1950)
11:30 PM TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY (1951)
1:15 AM NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947)
3:30 AM NIGHT MOVES (1975)

And the fans have spoken:

Silent Disapproval Robot · June 12, 2015, 01:58:02 PM

Is that Ed Wood on the bar stool?

Centurion40 · June 12, 2015, 02:06:13 PM

Quote from: Silent Disapproval Robot on June 12, 2015, 01:58:02 PM
Is that Ed Wood on the bar stool?

RooksBailey · June 12, 2015, 08:45:33 PM

LOL! I haven't seen Double Indemnity yet, but I do find myself wondering how she could tempt a man to murder. Must be a charisma thing as Barbara Stanwyck is no Lana Turner or Lizabeth Scott.

Lizabeth Scott...yum

:

What a difference from the half silicon freaks coming out of Hollywood these days....

RooksBailey · June 13, 2015, 02:47:00 PM

NPR has a good little overview of #NoirSummer, as well as the importance of film noir to American cinema.

http://www.npr.org/2015/06/12/413438779/mystery-loves-company-and-tcms-noir-movie-marathon-has-plenty-of-both

"It's very, very important that younger people ... understand not just the value as entertainment, but its value as American history," Muller says. "I think it's very helpful and useful for people to understand all that because it will affect their appreciation for the film."

Yup.

RooksBailey · June 25, 2015, 03:03:21 PM

**double post** Feel free to delete.

RooksBailey · June 25, 2015, 03:06:21 PM

In the book, Phil Marlowe comes across as something of a loner. While he does have an occasional brief fling with a girl, he never stuck around for long. In the movie, they turned Marlowe into much more of a womanizer.
In the book, Geiger was a loathsome pornographer. In the movie, you would be hard pressed to figure out what he did. While there is lots of talking about "pictures," the movie never comes right out and says what those pictures were like. :) Hays Code.
Carmen Sternwood was a great character in the book because Chandler brought her insanity to light in a very real, very scary way. Sadly, in the movie she comes across as more of a impulsive brat. Because of this, the ending doesn't really emotionally deliver in a way the book's ending did, especially with that classic scene where Marlowe and Carmen go to a very spooky abandoned oil field.
One particular character was murdered by the gay lover of another character. Needless to say, there was no mention of this in the movie, leaving the motivation for the character to be unclear at best.
The movie's ending involved a showdown with the main bad guy - that never happened in the book. Typical Hollywood ending of trying to put a neat bow on everything.
Where was the classic chess scene from the book? "I went over to a floor lamp and pulled the switch, went back to put off the ceiling light, and went across the room again to the chessboard on a card table under the lamp. There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn't solve it, like a lot of my problems. I reached down and moved a knight, then pulled my hat and coat off and threw them somewhere....I looked down at the chessboard. The move with the knight was wrong. I put it back where I had moved it from. Knights had no meaning in this game. It wasn't a game for knights." Classic noir. 8)
Chandler put in some great, mood-setting weather. It was October, and SoCal was suffering from some unusually warm weather that was triggering storms. Chandler used this setting to great effect by having stormy weather present whenever something shady was going to go down. Sadly, the movie, with the exception of one early scene, just ignored the weather. >:(

QuoteDaily Dose #12: Calling on Four Million Dollars (Opening Scene of The Big Sleep)

Curator's Note: Our final Daily Dose this week finishes with the impact of literary precursors on the noir style, by exploring Humphrey Bogart as the iconic noir private detective. On screen, Bogart portrayed both Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. But in the novels, their respective authors describe Spade and Marlowe differently. Hammett describes Spade as "look[ing] rather pleasantly like a blond Satan." It's doubtful many would use those words to describe Humphrey Bogart. And here are the opening lines of Marlowe's first person narration from Chandler's novel The Big Sleep: "It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my power-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars." The film The Big Sleep starts at the same point as the novel, minus the first person point of view used by Chandler (but watch for a short nod by director Howard Hawks to first person point of view in the opening seconds of the clip). As The Big Sleep opens, Philip Marlowe arrives at the Sternwood mansion, meets the valet and then Carmen Sternwood (Martha Vickers) in an encounter filled with double entrendres. Then the scene shifts to a hothouse behind the mansion. When Marlowe meets General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), Hawks is faithful to the way the scene is depicted in the novel as he turns up the heat. [Curated by Richard Edwards]

Further Reflections: After watching the clip, please go to Twitter (#NoirSummer) or the TCM Summer of Darkness Message Board to continue your reflections on this clip. Here are a few discussion starters (though feel free to come up with your own):

-- How does this opening sequence establish Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe? What do we learn about Marlowe in these first few moments of the film?
-- Do you see a difference in Bogart's portrayal of Marlowe compared to his performance as Spade in The Maltese Falcon?
-- In what ways can the opening of The Big Sleep be considered an important contribution to the film noir style?

[/list]

JasonPratt · June 26, 2015, 08:26:25 AM

Back a year or two ago when I was on a binge collecting unusual genre silent films (some famous, some not), naturally Fritz Lang came up occasionally, leading me to look into picking up some of his lesser known sound noirs. One is While the City Sleeps -- 1956, not to be confused with another noirish film from 1950 -- which is primarily about (1) the transition of print to broadcast journalism, especially in regard to the wildly inflated new importance of the television newscaster; and (2) how investigative journalism, especially in a competitive news environment, can impact criminal cases. The framing story for looking into how these ideas mix involves a currently uncaught serial killer, and the promotion offered by a media mogul to whichever of his reporters does a better job covering the story, ideally being instrumental in catching the killer to drive up his share of the viewing market.

Which for a film hardly anyone remembers is a pretty heady high-concept story! They do a decent job of it, too. We're at a period where it might be worth trying to remake it, since internet journalism is starting to make major inroads on broadcast journalism, yet print journalism still has a high cultural regard.

This, along with the other I bought, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, were his last American films, and close to his last films at all. (The other two-or-three-or-four, depending on how you count them, being The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and his color remake of his own silent film duology about the Indian Tomb, originally released in two parts in 1959 and then re-released as a trimmed combine apparently in 1960.)

"Beyond" is another noirish story (both films are however somewhat light on noir), made and released the same year ('56), which also examines the interaction of press and criminal justice -- both films arguing that the interaction is quite one-sidedly negative, by the way -- from a rather more Hitchcockian angle, though also a more self-conscious one. The hero is a journalist crusading against capital punishment (essentially agreeing with the movie's thesis on this point by the way), who decides to troll the justice system to make his point (and to score big readership naturally) by framing himself for a standing cold case murder; the idea being to get himself convicted on circumstantial evidence and then reveal in detail how he faked being guilty for it. His boss, and soon-to-be-father-in-law, thinks this is a great idea -- but then complications ensue. ;)

RooksBailey · June 27, 2015, 09:40:09 PM

Quote from: JasonPratt on June 26, 2015, 08:26:25 AM
Back a year or two ago when I was on a binge collecting unusual genre silent films (some famous, some not), naturally Fritz Lang came up occasionally, leading me to look into picking up some of his lesser known sound noirs. One is While the City Sleeps -- 1956, not to be confused with another noirish film from 1950 -- which is primarily about (1) the transition of print to broadcast journalism, especially in regard to the wildly inflated new importance of the television newscaster; and (2) how investigative journalism, especially in a competitive news environment, can impact criminal cases. The framing story for looking into how these ideas mix involves a currently uncaught serial killer, and the promotion offered by a media mogul to whichever of his reporters does a better job covering the story, ideally being instrumental in catching the killer to drive up his share of the viewing market.

Which for a film hardly anyone remembers is a pretty heady high-concept story! They do a decent job of it, too. We're at a period where it might be worth trying to remake it, since internet journalism is starting to make major inroads on broadcast journalism, yet print journalism still has a high cultural regard.

This, along with the other I bought, Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, were his last American films, and close to his last films at all. (The other two-or-three-or-four, depending on how you count them, being The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse and his color remake of his own silent film duology about the Indian Tomb, originally released in two parts in 1959 and then re-released as a trimmed combine apparently in 1960.)

"Beyond" is another noirish story (both films are however somewhat light on noir), made and released the same year ('56), which also examines the interaction of press and criminal justice -- both films arguing that the interaction is quite one-sidedly negative, by the way -- from a rather more Hitchcockian angle, though also a more self-conscious one. The hero is a journalist crusading against capital punishment (essentially agreeing with the movie's thesis on this point by the way), who decides to troll the justice system to make his point (and to score big readership naturally) by framing himself for a standing cold case murder; the idea being to get himself convicted on circumstantial evidence and then reveal in detail how he faked being guilty for it. His boss, and soon-to-be-father-in-law, thinks this is a great idea -- but then complications ensue. ;)

Fritz Lang was a genius. "M" was great - I would love to see that remade for the modern era - and Scarlet Street is one of my favorite noirs of all time. Lang brought the German Expressionist movement to America in a big way. I never saw While the City Sleeps nor Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, but both sound good! Thanks for the leads!

EDIT: Looks like Whole The City Sleeps is available on Amazon, but Beyond is not on Amazon or Netflix. Oh wait, it is available for rent on Youtube! O0 I think my list of films noir that I mean to watch now numbers around 75 between Amazon and Netflix ! ;D

How did you get into silent films?

Yesterday's Summer of Darkness line-up included the great film, Act of Violence. This was directed by Fred Zinnemann. I have to say this one of the most powerfully shot film noirs I have ever seen. The movie begins in the sun but soon you actually get to see the shadows close in on the protagonist as his dark secret starts to surface. By the end of the film, Zinnemann creates an absolutely nightmarish landscape using elements that remind me of French Poetic Realism. Check out this great scene:

It doesn't get more Escher-esque than that!

I really love this genre. Every movie, even the "Poverty Row" B flicks, seem to be filled with daring imagination and artistry. They loom over the rubbish being put out there today.

JasonPratt · June 30, 2015, 11:35:23 AM

I forget how I got into the Silents... plopped a significant amount of money on picking up a respectable silent library, though.

Some of the emphasis on artistic composition in the noir films came as a weird by-product of a bit of artistic competition between North American markets which didn't have as much access to color film as the European markets did: effectively North America (especially US critics) shut down the burgeoning color film development by arguing that b/w film was artistically superior in visual composition. It sounds insane today, but it was a serious issue back then, and changed the whole face of industry development. (And it started back in the silent era, which is how I heard of it while listening to commentary tracks. O0 )

RooksBailey · July 01, 2015, 02:56:02 PM

Quote from: JasonPratt on June 30, 2015, 11:35:23 AM
I forget how I got into the Silents... plopped a significant amount of money on picking up a respectable silent library, though.

Are they hard to find on DVD? I don't know much about that era, but that is what I said about film noir once, too! :)

QuoteSome of the emphasis on artistic composition in the noir films came as a weird by-product of a bit of artistic competition between North American markets which didn't have as much access to color film as the European markets did: effectively North America (especially US critics) shut down the burgeoning color film development by arguing that b/w film was artistically superior in visual composition. It sounds insane today, but it was a serious issue back then, and changed the whole face of industry development. (And it started back in the silent era, which is how I heard of it while listening to commentary tracks. O0 )

That is interesting. I wasn't aware that color was more readily available in Europe. Was there a reason why that was so?

As for critics arguing b&w was artistically superior, that might not be as crazy as it sounds. Now, don't get me wrong, I do not think color is inherently inferior to b&w, but as I watch these old films part of me suspects that they wouldn't be as engaging if they were in color. TCM's noir Fridays are interesting in that the majority of the day they run the classic b&w noirs, but the last one or two movies are neo-noirs that are color productions from the late 60s and 70s. In every case (so far), I do not find them nearly as interesting. This is partly due to what I consider the inferior writing of the neo-noirs (by the early neo-noir period, the dialogue has already been dumbed down with profanities and banalities, and the stories have swung from wry cynicism to outright pessimism and nihilism), but also due to color. I've always believed b&w film is like black words on white pages: it reminds us that we are entering a story. Color is like real life. As such, I just find it less engaging. Now, I am not saying I am planning on selling my color tvs :) but I am saying that I think dark stories like those found in film noir have benefited immensely from b&w film because of the powerful chiaroscuro that it generates so effortlessly.

A good example of this is found in Out of the Past:

QuoteCurator's Note: In our first Daily Dose this week, we will watch a key early scene from Out of the Past. Scholar James Naremore does an excellent job analyzing this scene in his book More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. As Naremore sets up: "RKO's Out of the Past…derives some of its most captivating moments from the fact that it was produced at a studio where nearly everything was composed of rich, India-ink blacks and silvery highlights. Photographer Nicholas Musuraca and director Jacques Tourneur, who had collaborated on the Val Lewton pictures at that same studio, were especially good at creating a lyrical or sensuous play of shadow, and their considerable talents are visible throughout." (175) Naremore continues: "[Out of the Past] represents…an impressive use of what had become standard Hollywood procedures. The best place to begin is with the major technical problem that affected Musuraca or any studio photographer working in low-key black and white: the need to keep the various objects on the screen from blending into one another…[A] striking example…can be seen early in the film, when Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) enters the story. Wearing a pale dress and a matching straw hat, she walks out of the Acapulco sun, moving through a dark archway, and into the cool shadows of a cantina." (175-178) You can see that full scene in today's Daily Dose, as Musuraca and Tourneur create a stunning entrance of a major character that moves from bright light into silouhette and then into a visible form against a shadowed wall. Kathie's entrance to the cantina displays the filmmakers' technical virtuosity and storytelling prowess. Out of the Past is a quintessential film noir, made at RKO, that influenced many films noir that came after it. [Curated by Richard Edwards]

You can watch the whole movie here: https://youtu.be/Gd_ow4KXn0Q

My favorite quote: "You are like a leaf that gets blown from one gutter to another." Ouch!