cigarjoe

Yes it was a bit long winded towards the end. I was hoping to get more detail on the code they used.

You should try and get a hold of the novel Nightmare Alley, that one is pretty outrageous and quite a bit more explicit, than the film.

There was a spoof of this in a Western with John Astin (from The Addams Family) he's Mexican bandit and he's got a sheriff's badge, and he's saying the line while pouring whiskey on it and hammering at it with his revolver.

First with the topic of Film Noir it's all subjective. Noir is in all of us. Think of us all as having an internal tuning fork, these tuning forks are forged by our individual life experiences which are all unique. When we watch these films their degree of Noir-ness resonates with us differently, so we either "tune" to them or we don't. The amount of "tuning" (I'm appropriating this term from the Neo Noir Dark City (1998)) to certain films will vary between us all also." To one extreme some folks do not consider a film a Noir unless it has a detective and a femme fatale, the other end of the scale has hucksters and promoters declaring practically every Crime film a Noir as a "cool" selling point. But in it's original coinage, films noir, ran a gamut of subjects other than just Crime films. I hold the Visual aspect in ascendance along with story, and consider Noir a style of filmmaking rather than a pure genre. Let's start with the origins. The original circa 1930s French coinage "films noir" (from French right wing and religious publications associated film noirs with the poetic realist movement that was closely associated with the leftist Popular Front) definition, i.e., "the content contains murder or suicide and the other social taboos that are a mainstay of the film noirs." this was applied, at the time, to those particular poetic realist films that the publications did not approve of, i.e., Pierre Chenal’s “Crime and Punishment” (1935), Jean Renoir’s “The Lower Depths” (Les Bas-fonds) (1936), Julien Duvivier’s “Pépé le Moko” (1937), Jeff Musso’s “The Puritan” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Port of Shadows” (Le Quai des brumes) (1938), Jean Renoir’s “La Bête Humaine” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Hôtel du Nord” (1938), Marcel Carné’s “Le Jour se lève” (Daybreak) 1939, and Pierre Chenal’s “Le Dernier Tournant” (1939). If we take the original coinage to the extreme the ultimately bleakest, purest in essence Noir Films would be Snuff Films, Propaganda, and Porno. The second coming of the term was when it was used in Nino Frank and Jean Pierre Chartier's articles describing a handful of visual and thematically dark 1940s American Films that first reached France at the end of WWII. This is the usage that we are familiar with. Most of the films cited by Nino Frank and Jean Pierre Chartier were Cime films but one "The Lost Weekend" was a psychological noir about addiction. Other later addiction noirs are, "The Man With The Golden Arm", "Stake Out On Dope Street", there are probably more. A few serial killer Noirs were made also one right from the get go, Stranger on the Third Floor (1941), others Shadow of a Doubt (1943) Follow Me Quietly (1949). M (1951), The Sniper (1952), While the City Sleeps (1956), of course the success of Psycho (1960) combined with the demise of the MPPC kicked the door wide open to psychological based noirs. From IMDb "It was unprecedented in its depiction of sexuality and violence, right from the opening scene in which Sam and Marion are shown as lovers sharing the same bed, with Marion in a bra." (more from IMDb) The public loved the film, with lines stretching outside of theaters as people had to wait for the next showing. This, along with box office numbers, led to a reconsideration of the film by critics, and it eventually received a very large amount of praise. It broke box-office records in Japan and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States, and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period..... Psycho was, by a large margin, the most profitable film of Hitchcock's career, earning over $12 million for the studio on release, and $15 million by the end of the year. I've said this before, I think, what was going on post 1959 is, as the Motion Picture Production Code weakened and independent poverty row and low budget film creators were allowed more artistic freedom. So those Visual Stylistic Film Noir that went too far over the line depicting violence started getting classified as Horror, Thriller (even though they were just say, showing the effects of a gunshot wound, or dealing with weird serial killers, maniacs, and psychotics, etc.). Those that went too far depicting sexual, drug, torture, etc., situations were being lumped into or classed as various Exploitation flicks, (even though they are relatively tame comparably to today's films). The the noir-ish films that dealt with everything else, except Crime, concerning the human condition were labeled Dramas and Suspense. Those that tried new techniques, lenses, etc., were labeled Experimental. Some films are so so bad in all aspects that they acquire the "so bad it's good" Cult status.

Rosemary DeCamp in her brief appearance is great

You know come to think of it I remember liking the film, but can't remember how it ended, maybe it was that unaffecting.

A very, very dark and claustrophobic noir, with good performances all around, especially by the more creepy than usual Palance, it has to be the lighting that is enhancing his train wreck of a face. It's a veritable juxtaposition of grotesques the ghoulish Palance with the almost buffoonish Crawford. Crawford no matter how you slice it looks downright clownish (wearing a nightgown inspired by Uncle Fester) while she runs about chewing the scenery with ape like hysterics that makes you feel like throwing her a banana. It's hard to root for a leading lady that looks like this: Palance in one of his better closeups I can only imagine what Joan's eye bulging school of acting must have looked like on a full 60' screen. Some great noir cinematography ominous convertible All in all it has great atmospherics, the Kino DVD is bare bones, too bad, I have a feeling that a running commentary would have been hilarious. I'll subtract 2 points for the post plucked eye browed Crawford, final tally 7/10

Well I agree with that too, On Demand over Roku seems to stall out once or twice every 2-3 films.

R.I.P.

I forgot it's going to be on Monday, when I posted about it yesterday i was under the impression it was the next day but it wasn't Sunday was it

So anybody watch The Narrow Margin today?

I actually have more problems with on demand than with regular streaming.

Just watched La Bête Humaine (1938) again tonight, compared to American remake Human Desire the two films are quite different. <spoilers> The murder of Grandmorin the railroad executive occurs practically at the beginning of the film, it happens soon after Roubaud, who sent Séverine, his wife, to ask Grandmorin to smooth things over with the complaining customer, finds out that she was his mistress beginning at the age of sixteen. After the murder Séverine tells Roubard that she does not love him anymore, but Roubard is now a changed man, he doesn't seem care anymore what Séverine does, and spends his nights gambling. Jacques Lantier, the engineer is indeed a bit of a nut case, he loves his engine, I guess it's always there for him. The times he gets involved with women the family "sickness" unpredictably takes over, or maybe it's just a finely tuned instinctive reaction to women in general (just kidding). When Jacques meets Séverine it is in the corridor just after Roubard has killed Grandmorin. She goes to talk with Jacques who becomes smitten with her, and later at the inquiry, tells the cops that he saw no one on the corridor. One thing leads to another and they eventually become lovers and Séverine tells him that she won't be free of Roubard until he's dead. The film is a bit unclear (at least to me and from reading the subtitles) whether Séverine has been cheating on Roubard all along, there is one sequence where a man comes to the door bringing lace from "his wife" for Séverine, which gets Roubard all bent out of shape, then later at the railroad ball this same man is dancing with Séverine. So is she or isn't she? Jacques makes the first attempt to kill Roubard with a lead pipe but finds that he can't do it. Séverine tells him that she can't go on as they are and that it is over. At a railroad ball Jacques is watching Séverine dance with another man. Out of jealousy Jacques rekindles the romance with Séverine and tells her that he will kill Roubard this time, tonight. He and Séverine go back to her apartment and wait for Roubard. Jacques with Roubard's own gun with kill him and make it look like a suicide but just as they prepare for Roubard to walk in the door (it turns out to be a neighbor) the tension triggers Jacques' sickness to return and he in turn attacks Séverine first by choking her, and then stabbing her with a knife. The sequence is intercut with shots of a crooner at the ball singing about this coquettish Ninette and shots of the lifeless body off Severine. Distraught Jacques walks the tracks all night, getting back to work with two minutes to spare. He tells his best friend, the fireman of the locomotive what he did. Later at top speed going down the tracks he jumps off the engine breaking his neck. Of course Human Desire has the "Happy Hollywood" ending with Glen Ford going out with the good girl.

Yea I watched this the other day also, but didn't think it was anything worth mentioning, lol.

Here is a partial answer from a Five-O interview: Stanley Rubin (SR) What happened with "Narrow Margin" was kind of interesting. We finished the picture in '51. Howard Hughes had taken over the studio. He ran the finished cut, our cut of "Narrow Margin," one midnight, which was rather typical of Mr. Hughes. By the way, I never met him. I did get memos, but never met him in person. Hughes had bought the studio while we were making "Narrow Margin," but later he brought in Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna to head up production at the studio. In any case, Hughes ran the picture, which had gotten very good word of mouth already. I got a memo from Mr. Hughes, saying he thought it was a very good film, but that he wanted to hold it — instead of releasing it when it was due to be released, the memo stated that he wanted to hold it for a while and he wanted me to think about some way to turn "Narrow Margin," which we had shot for under $250,000 and in under 15 days, into an A-picture. Well, there wasn't any way to turn "Narrow Margin" into an A-picture unless you just scrubbed the picture and recast it with A-names and shot it all over again. I communicated that feeling to Mr. Hughes, but he persisted in thinking that there might be some way to turn it into a big picture. And he held it under his arm or in his vault for a year and that's why "Narrow Margin" was released a year, year and a half after it was finished. Five-O: Was the Hughes cut much different from yours and Fleischer's? SR: Hughes added at least one additonal heavy. I think Dick Fleischer shot those scenes. I was gone. I was already at Fox. Hughes added one heavy, and then he did another thing which was not smart, it was just an oversight, I guess, on his part and we didn't discover it until one night at Cinematheque at the Egyptian. They ran "Narrow Margin" and someone asked: 'How come Charlie McGraw and Jacqueline White didn't go to pay their respects to Marie Windsor, who'd been shot and killed in the line of duty?' And I said, of course they stop to see her, before you saw them sneaking off the train to go down the tunnel to get into town. Well, we looked at the picture again and that scene had been removed. That moment we had shot was gone. That was a bad, bad, bad oversight on the part of Mr. Hughes. Nonetheless, the picture was a good picture. We were all very proud of it, and people were impressed with the performances, the pace, with the plot turns... The picture was screened by Darryl Zanuck and that motivated Fox to make me an offer to come over there. Dick Fleischer went on to do "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" for Disney. Both of those things came from "Narrow Margin."

Looking at Today's schedule Out of the Fog (1941) and The Long Night (1947) are films I'm sort of ambivalent about, the first is on some Noir lists the other on most but is a remake of Le Jour se Leve (1939) both versions are decent but not on my top 100 list.

The second film 1990 lost my interest with the helicopter and actions sequences. Film Noir were fairly simple as soon as remakes forget that and get too ambitious they lose that overall Noir zeitgeist, in my opinion.

No there are new apartment buildings on the old site, across the driveway to the apartments to the south is 644 N. Hill Place that, is still standing (just quick checked on Google maps).

Yea I guess Angels Flight and the two tunnels 3rd & 2nd are all the remain, the new skyscrapers are like Bunker Hill's tombstones. What I didn't check out this last time was the location of the Clover Trailer Park for Cry Danger, that is North of Bunker Hill on North Hill Place.

Just saw the promo The Narrow Margin (1952) Monday at 10:00AM (EST) "Sunburn wear off..... on the way out?" The majority of the film takes place upon the RKO "Golden West Limited" set as it rattles and rolls through movie magic very believably towards Los Angeles. It's a work of Studio/Stage/Special Effects Art, the great design of the various rail car sets, the lighting effects, plus an all immersive sound design. This is all intercut with second unit exterior location material and stock footage that convey the illusion of " the jornada", a road picture on rails. There are not many road pictures as tight as this one just judging it visually and audibly alone. One of my favorites 10/10

This looked promising written by a friend and co-worker, Suicide Blonde is the biography of a quintessential figure in the great American film noir of the 1940s and 1950s. I have a copy of this. It glosses over a lot of the juicy stuff unfortunately. It does depict on the cover the slightly pouty look that Gloria was always shooting for in her own obsessed quirky way by either stuffing tissue paper under her upper lip or through plastic surgery.

I was just there (your home town) at the beginning of August. I had a bunch of spots to see on my bucket list. I went to Union Station checking out the tunnels to the platforms (end of The Narrow Margin, the waiting room and entrance beginning of The Crooked Way, Cry Danger, and others Union Station, and Neo Noir Marlowe. From there over to City Hall, lots of films have that iconic tower, too many to mention. Then went over to 3rd St. and visited the Bradbury Building, it was featured at the end of D.O.A., was in the first I,The Jury, and again in Marlowe, and Neo Noir Blade Runner. Then I paid my respects to Bunker Hill going to one of its last remaining vestiges the 3rd Street Tunnel head wall, many films used the tunnel, the North side of the East headwall was where Indus Arthur left the body of one of her victims in 1964's Angels Flight. Half a block away on Hill is the real Angels Flight, it was running, probably sort of a breakdown test for it's September re opening, It was featured in countless Noir, Criss Cross, The Hollow Triumph, The Unfaithful, The Money Trap, Act Of Violence, and others. I then headed over to the bridges over the L.A. River, plenty of films used them (quite a few like The Case Against O'hara used them as a stand in for either New York's FDR Drive or the West Side Drive). The concrete L.A. River was used for the end of Road Block, for Point Blank, for To Live And Die In L.A. We then walked down Broadway, then drove back to Chinatown and checked it out, drove over to Hollywood and then down Sunset Blvd, to the PCH and up it to Malibu, finished the day driving on Mulholland Dr. to catch the sunset and to see L.A. at night. Will definitely go back Dargo, a lot more to see.

Well for film noir it will probably be a muscatel wrapped in a brown paper bag. no?

Yes it doesn't match his zeitgeist. From watching some of his spots, he looks a bit bemused, sort of a fish out of water as he tries to match a wine with say Hitchcock.

The Crooked Way (1949) The Most Graphic Noir John Alton's chiaroscuro cinematography imparts upon The Crooked Way what could arguably be the most Graphic Novel look to a Classic Film Noir. Director Robert Florey (The Vicious Years (1950), Johnny One-Eye (1950), segued into TV early did some Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zones and Outer Limits), Director of Photography was Master Cinematographer John Alton (about fourteen Classic Noir to his scorecard). Music was by Louis Forbes. The film stars John Payne (Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Larceny (1948), Kansas City Confidential (1952), 99 River Street (1953), Slightly Scarlet (1956), Hidden Fear (1957)), Sonny Tufts (No Escape (1953), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), The Seven Year Itch (1955)), Ellen Drew (Johnny O'Clock (1947)), Rhys Williams (Nightmare (1956)), Percy Helton (nine Classic Noir), and John Doucette (eight Classic Film Noir), Ester Howard (Murder, My Sweet (1944), Detour (1945), Born to Kill (1947), No Man of Her Own (1950), Caged (1950)), Frank Cady, Charles Evans, who also had some Noir on their curriculum vitae. Cady I just watched the other day in The Asphalt Jungle. Payne plays a convincing amnesia victim, Drew is good as his ex wife, but Sonny Tufts as the mob boss is excellent, he is very convincing as an unhinged, wild eyed, mad dog, barely in control when angered, hood. He should have been in more Film Noir, his performance here is both impressive and very memorable. He spits, snarls, and I wouldn't be surprised if he bit, actually after checking his bio, he does bite. "In 1949 he had been found drunk on a Hollywood sidewalk. In 1950 he was sued by two women for allegedly biting each of them in the thigh." (IMDb mini bio) This film may also have the distinction of being one of the only Film Noir to feature some Western Swing its diegetic soundtrack. The screencaps are from the Geneon DVD, it's cheap, adequate but featureless, still a personal 9/10 for me. Full review in Film Noir/Gangster and with more screencaps here: https://noirsville.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-crooked-way-1949-most-graphic-noir.html