[Improve the Magnificent Seven?]

Improve it? No such thing.

 

Yes, it can be a more realistic move -read dirtier. Or it can have a lot more action, more blood, more stunts, more imaginative killings.

 

But it can't duplicate the reverence that the original inspired. The world has changed too much. The flawless characterizations put forward by McQueen, Wallach, Vaughn, Bronson, will not be matched with today's propensity for less character development in favor of ooh and ahh action.

 

Then again, maybe once my generation has passed away, the original will be less revered than something newer.

Westerns that were made in the 1939-1973 "Golden Age of The Western" (both in film & TV) have a certain pallet, part of it is a look that we who lived through that period or those of us that are Western Aficionados or just have seen a lot of Westerns recognise as being the "correct look"  a feel that is the "correct feel" and certain traits that comprise the "correct deportment"  for a Western.  Once you get those conventions correct then you can, within those conventions,  try and push the envelope in a creative way.

 

Granted that during that time period there was a gradual flexibility in character motivations between 1939 and and the early 1960's, look at the controversy surrounding the psychological Westerns and notably "High Noon". Later a more jarring one with coming of the anti hero in the Spaghetti Westerns, but the conventional look stayed generally within the same boundaries. We also had a more realistic depiction of violence ratcheted up over that period. 

 

Our stable of actors now that could make a convincing lead in a Western are limited.  In the Golden Age the lead actor had a weary weathered leathery look and was usually in his thirties or older and was shown to be wise beyond his years.  The actors in their twenties played the young hot heads or the naive and inexperienced kids who usually made a fatal mistake and got blown away early. Nowadays the scheme is turned on its head,  it's the young adults and teens who are showed to be more knowledgeable than their elders, it may be playing to today's audience demographics but it doesn't ring true.

 

On top of all that you had a stable of conventional character actors who made a career of just appearing in film Westerns and in TV Westerns who also contributed to that same "correct look" over the transitional change from cowboy as boyscout to cowboy as antihero in the span of their lives.

 

Forget the hewing close to historical accuracy BS, or trying to hard to get the archaic speech patterns correct, the more modern directors attempt to make a Western too true to the actual historical West the farther they get away from the classic Western and its Mythic look. 

 

Watching a Western should be like slipping into a comfortable old pair of shoes.

[Looking for Mister Goodbar (1977)]

Seen it once barely remember it, recorded it though.

[Smarmy Not Marmee]

Dan Duryea can be at times also.

[The Noir Canon - a different way of looking at it]

Just thought of another great Film Noir I saw recently. IT is the '54 film called Blackout with Dane Clark, Belinda Lee and Eleanor Summerfield. It has some interesting pathways we follow to the end.

It's been awhile since I've seen it.

[I Just Watched...]

Pool Of London (1951) Nautical Noir

 

 

 

Directed by Basil Dearden, excellent cinematography by Gordon Dines. The film stars Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, Susan Shaw, Renée Asherson, Moira Lister, Max Adrian, Charlie Vernon, Joan Dowling, James Robertson Justice, Michael Golden, Alfie Bass, Christopher Hewett Christopher, and Leslie Phillips.

 

Tow sailor buds get mixed up smuggling and murder.

 

Pool of London rivals Night And The City (1950) cinematically. If you need a Noir visual fix this film will not disappoint. 7/10

 

Full review  in Film Noir/Gangster board and with more screencaps here:http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/07/pool-of-london-1951-nautical-noir.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Pool Of London (1951) Nautical Noir

 

 

 

Directed by Basil Dearden, excellent cinematography by Gordon Dines. The film stars Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, Susan Shaw, Renée Asherson, Moira Lister, Max Adrian, Charlie Vernon, Joan Dowling, James Robertson Justice, Michael Golden, Alfie Bass, Christopher Hewett Christopher, and Leslie Phillips.

 

 Dan (Colleano) and Johnny (Cameron)

 

The film's story revolves around  two crewmen of the small merchant ship Dunbar. The Dunbar arrives in the Pool of London and docks near the Tower Bridge. All the crew members are given shore leave, but first they must pass through H.M. Customs and the stern no nonsense Customs Officer (Golden).

 

 

Dan MacDonald (Colleano) does a sideline business smuggling small items past customs in post-war London. He deals mostly in cigarettes, and nylons. Dan is an expat yank, an over confident cocky wisecracker, he'll remind you a bit of James Cagney. He's quite the ladies man. Johnny Lambert (Cameron) is a native of Jamaica, he's mild mannered and passive. Johnny follows Dan around like a kid brother follows his older sibling. They are good friends. On shore leave they hang together in the same waterfront bars with Johnny also following along with Dan and his floozy girlfriend Maisey (Moira Lister) on his dates to dance halls and cabarets.

 

Maisey and Dan

 

In the course of 24 hours, Dan agrees to smuggle a small package to the continent for a friend of one of his regular underworld acquaintances Mike. Before leaving the Dunbar, Dan is caught by customs trying to smuggle some pairs of nylons off the ship. Dan asks Johnny if he will take the package on board for him in his place. Johnny agrees. Going to a theater with Dan to meet his new contact, Johnny befriends the box office gal Pat (Susan Shaw), they hit it off and this interracial relationship is the first ever portrayed in a British film.

 

Johnny and Pat

 

Dan's new contact is Vince Vernon (Max Adrian) an acrobat who has devised a scheme (with inside information from his brother George Vernon) to rob the safe of a import export diamond exchange by using his acrobatic skills to jump the gap from a destroyed WWII blitz-bombed building to the roof of the exchange, and from there gain access to the interior through a skylight. Once Dan agrees to carry the package to Rotterdam on the continent the heist is on. Vince gets into the exchange, knocks out the watchman, and opens the front door for his safecracking team. The safe blown, Vince grabs the diamonds and leaves by the roof while the safecrackers and their tools get picked up by their wheelman driving a Jaguar.

 

 

While the heist is going on, a local constable on his rounds by the exchange, notices a bottle of milk left on the steps by the door of the exchange. The watchman usually retrieves it at 10:00 AM. The milk is for his pet cat. The constable uses a call box to report the oddity. When the safe is blown the alarm sounds off and we get an exciting chase through the relatively deserted Sunday streets of London. 

 

As pre arranged, at a church service, Vince passes a gift wrapped cigarette pack sized package to Dan. Scotland Yard is now on the case and with "all the wheels working" for them they are "checking on all the likely ones".

 

 

Meanwhile, Dan is bragging to Maisey about the 50 quid he made for agreeing to convey the package to Rotterdam, with more to come when he makes the drop. Maisey asks him what is in it. Dan says he doesn't know, tells Maisey he "gets paid not to know," and Maisey  replies that then it's probably worth 10 times that amount. Opening the package they see the diamonds. Maisey connects the diamonds to the diamond heist and tells Dan that the watchman cracked on the head died. Dan now has second thoughts and tells Maisey that he asked Johnny to carry the package since the incident with the nylons. All this is overheard by Maisey's younger sister Pamela who soon sends it all to Noirsville.

 

 

 

 

Pool of London rivals Night And The City (1950) cinematically. If you need a Noir visual fix this film will not disappoint. 7/10

 

Full review with more screencaps here:http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/07/pool-of-london-1951-nautical-noir.html

[Dumb question]

"SUTS"...which stands for "Summer Under the Stars", CJ.

 

(...was this a trick question or somethin'?)

 

Btw, here's a link to this year's 2016 SUTS honorees...

 

http://immortalephemera.com/64820/tcm-summer-under-the-stars-2016/

No trick question, I honestly didn't know.

 

Anyway I was watching Decision Before Dawn (1951) and thought that Gary Merrill might make a a good SUTS, 

[I Just Watched...]

Miami Blues (1990) Pastel Noir

 

 

Director: George Armitage, written by Charles Willeford (novel), and George Armitage (screenplay). Miami Blues is the first film based on Willeford's series of novels featuring hard boiled detective Hoke Moseley. According to Lawrence Block "Quirky is the word that always comes to mind, Willeford wrote quirky books about quirky characters, and seems to have done so with a magnificent disregard for what anyone else thought."

 

The film stars Fred Ward (Hoke Moseley), Alec Baldwin (Frederick J. Frenger Jr.), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Susie Waggoner), Charles Napier (Sgt. Bill Henderson), Obba Babatundé (Blink Willie), José Pérez (Pablo), and Shirley Stoller (Edie Wulgemuth), Paul Gleason (Sgt. Frank Lackley), Martine Beswick (Noira, Waitress) José Pérez (Pablo) and Nora Dunn (Ellita Sanchez).

 

Miami Blues is a Film Soleil Noir that cinematographer Tak Fujimoto infuses with a bright sunny tropical pastel pallet. 

 

Story basically boils down to an ex-con runs amok with a Miami police badge.

 

 

 7/10 More  in Film Noir/Gangster. Full review with NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/07/miami-blues-1990-pastel-noir.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Miami Blues (1990) Pastel Noir

 

 

Director: George Armitage, written by Charles Willeford (novel), and George Armitage (screenplay). Miami Blues is the first film based on Willeford's series of novels featuring hard boiled detective Hoke Moseley. According to Lawrence Block "Quirky is the word that always comes to mind, Willeford wrote quirky books about quirky characters, and seems to have done so with a magnificent disregard for what anyone else thought."

 

The film stars Fred Ward (Hoke Moseley), Alec Baldwin (Frederick J. Frenger Jr.), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Susie Waggoner), Charles Napier (Sgt. Bill Henderson), Obba Babatundé (Blink Willie), José Pérez (Pablo), and Shirley Stoller (Edie Wulgemuth), Paul Gleason (Sgt. Frank Lackley), Martine Beswick (Noira, Waitress) José Pérez (Pablo) and Nora Dunn (Ellita Sanchez).

 

Miami Blues is a Film Soleil Noir that cinematographer Tak Fujimoto infuses with a bright sunny tropical pastel pallet. 

 

 

The story. Freddy Frenger ex con. Petty thief. Con artist. Freelancer. Narcissist nutjob. Wings to Miami. In air identity theft. Get's a Hare Krishna come on. Breaks the cultists finger. Krishna goes into shock. Kicks the consciousness bucket. Krishna croaked. 

 

Freddy with new identity. Hermann Gottlieb. Cruises the airport. Steals suitcase. Checks into hotel. Bellhop Pedro is the man to see. Orders some local talent. Susie knocks. Young. Looks like High School. Looks like jail bait. Waifish. Okeechobee outcast. Cracker clam. Dispenses fifty dollar sucks. 

 

Freddy asks for ID. Freddy tries to trade her the suitcase clothes. Slow on the uptake. Susy will do it for a suitcase dress. Easy to BS. Easy to string along. Just what Freddy needs, and she can cook too. A perfect pair. They get it on. 

 

Freddy and the clueless Susie have now become part of a long tradition of various combinations of couples on the run/lam that stretch from Gable and Lombard in It Happened One Night (1934) through Classic Noirs, Out Of The Past (1947), They Live by Night (1948), Gun Crazy (1950), Where Danger Lives (1950), Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951), Roadblock (1951), right up to Classic Neo Noirs, The Getaway (1971), Kill Me Again (1989), Wild at Heart (1990), True Romance (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994). 

 

Freddy begins to roam Miami like a land shark, ever watchful for easy marks, pulling small jobs, he watches a classic pickpocket team boost a wallet, follows the drop man to a men's room and sucker punches him for the cash. 

 

Meanwhile back at the baggage claim crime scene the Detective Hoke Moseley and Sgt. Bill Henderson investigate the case of the dead disciple. Hoke is a rumpled, coarse, depressed boozer. He wears store bought teeth, is strapped for money and lives in rundown residence hotel. Deco decadence. 

 

 

 

Rudimentary detective work, eyewitnesses, and following leads gets Moseley to Freddy. Freddy follows Moseley back to his fleabag cold-**** and steals his badge, gun, sap and teeth. It doesn't get lower than stealing his teeth. 

 

Freddy now begins a career as a fake cop. He's cruising. Sharking the drags. Freelancing. Bracin' crooks. Routing lowlifes. Shakin' down con artists. Out thievin' thieves. Flashing his badge he metes out vigilante justice. He drops his calling cards all around town. He leaves two drug dealers handcuffed to a garbage can with Hoke's handcuffs. 

 

Getting more out of control and upping the volume Freddy begins to gundown goons gratuitously. He dispenses dirt naps. Low wattage Susie finally begins to see that she is shackin' with trouble. It all goes South to Noirsville when Freddy uses Susie as a wheelman for a pawnshop robbery. 

 

 

 

Baldwin plays the quick to take advantage ex-con with bravado. His intense bright blues spotlighting a hair trigger sociopath tendency. Ward is great as the laid back Hoke, but you wish he had even more screen time to develop his character. Leigh is adequate as the hooker with a heart of gold, she may fit somebody's idea or type of hot but to me she seems almost too plain jane and a bit ****. She does effectively convey the storybook girl who hopes her prince charming will rescue her from a life of going down on losers. 

 

 

 

 

For me Armitage or the suits, made the mistake of spending too much time on the Freddy-Susie relationship and that robs us from getting more of Hoke Moseley who should have been the main star. Music by Gary Chang. 7/10 Full review with NSFW screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/07/miami-blues-1990-pastel-noir.html

[Dumb question]

They have SOTM what do they call the one day tributes?

[I Just Watched...]

Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966)

 

 

Le deuxième souffle is a French Neo Noir policier/gangster thriller. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambeur (1956), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Le Doulos (1962), Le Samouraï (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970),  Un Flic (1972)). The film stars Lino Ventura as Gustave Minda, Paul Meurisse as Inspector Blot and Raymond Pellegrin as Paul Ricci, Marcel Bozzuffi as Jo Ricci, Christine Fabréga as Manouche, Michel Constantin as Alban and Pierre Zimmer as Orloff. Cinematography was by Marcel Combes, and music by Bernard Gérard.

 

Lino Ventura is memorable as Gustave, the hardcase criminal who faces all bad choices. Paul Meurisse is great as the sarcastic and assertive Inspector Blot. 8/10

 

 

Full review  on Film Noir/Gangster board and with screencaps from the Criterion DVD. hear: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/le-deuxieme-souffle-1966.html

[I Just Watched...]

They Came to Cordura (1959).

 

Not an advertisement for DuPont's polymer fabrics, but a movie that tells us it's going to address the two great fundamental questions that affect mankind: Who am I? and How did I get myself into this movie?

 

Gary Cooper stars as an Army Major in the campaign to find Pancho Villa; due to an act of cowardice he's been made the awards officer, looking for people to write up citations for the Medal of Honor. He winds up with five (Van Heflin, Richard Conte, Tab Hunter, Michael Callen, and Dick York), as well as a military prisoner (Rita Hayworth). He has to take them all back to the fort at Cordura, but complications ensue....

 

The movie is filled with all sorts of tropes. The difficult slog through the desert seems taken from Immortal Sergeant; Cooper's imperative that he not fall asleep is clearly stolen from Along the Great Divide; falling for the prisoner is a crib of 3:10 to Yuma; and on and on.

 

It goes on for two hours, which is at least a half hour too long, and has a nonsense ending, stealing from a scene in The Best Years of Our Lives.

 

Not one of Cooper's best. 5/10.

I liked it a bit better. It has a recreation of the last US cavalry charge in North America, with the soldiers in the newer Khaki (since 1898) uniforms, and . Hayworth gives her all (literally) to Heflin to get him to sleep. 6/10

[Recently watched Noir]

Le Deuxieme Souffle (1966)

 

 

Le deuxième souffle is a French Neo Noir policier/gangster thriller. Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (Bob le Flambeur (1956), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Le Doulos (1962), Le Samouraï (1967), Le Cercle Rouge (1970),  Un Flic (1972)). The film stars Lino Ventura as Gustave Minda, Paul Meurisse as Inspector Blot and Raymond Pellegrin as Paul Ricci, Marcel Bozzuffi as Jo Ricci, Christine Fabréga as Manouche, Michel Constantin as Alban and Pierre Zimmer as Orloff. Cinematography was by Marcel Combes, and music by Bernard Gérard.

 

Crash out!

 

Gu Minda (Ventura)

 

Gu Minda (Ventura) Public Enemy No. 1. Ex-Big shot. Gold train job. Doing life. Ten Years so far. Crashes out of Maximum. On the lam. A decade older. He's slowing down. But still tough. Heads for Paris.

 

Paul Ricci (Pellegrin) Marseille gangster. Nightclub front. Plans inside job. Platinum armoured car ambush. 1,100 pounds.

 

Manouche (Christine Fabréga)

 

Manouche (Fabréga) ex-girlfriend of Gu runs a Paris cafe. She's palling around with Jacques, "le notaire" who runs the illegal cigarettes rackett with Jo (Bozzuffi) and Paul Ricci. But Jacques is a screw up and Paul wants him out.

 

Paul Ricci gets some relatives to whack Jacques. Jacques is cowboyed down in front of Manouche at her cafe. Alban good friend of Gu and Manouche's bartender/bodyguard protects her shoots it out with the assassins. 

 

The shootout brings the big heat. Inspector Blot (Meurisse). Blot is a hardboiled vet of the Paris underworld. He knows he's dealing with various factions of the mob and that he'll get no info from all involved. It's all a comedy routine with him as he pokes fun at the principals involved at the crime scene.

 

Crime scene investigation Alban and Blot (Paul Meurisse)

 

Manouche without Jaques is shaken down by Jo Ricci. An attempt is made three days later after closing time by two thugs pretending to be crooked cops at her Paris house. They gun whip Alban. He sees stars. Hears birdies chirp. He goes down. They confront Manouche asking for money but they are interrupted by the arrival of Gu who gets the drop on them. Gu and Alban take the two for a ride.

 

Paul Ricci meanwhile plans his armoured car capper. He's got two trusted goons Pascal Leonetti (Pierre Grasset) and gypsy Antoine Ripa (Denis Manuel) in Marseille but he needs a second shooter. He knows that freelance gunman Orloff (Zimmer) is passing through town and thinks that the chance to make 200 million francs will convince him to join them. Orloff says he needs a week to think it over.

 

 

 

Gu wants to take out Jo Ricci but Blot and the cops figure it out and stake out Jo's bar. Gu gets a second sense about the setup and backs out. He heads to Marseille to catch a boat out of the country where he runs into Orloff who tips Gu to the platinum job. Gu sees $$. So Gu agrees to help Paul Rossi. The job goes well but things go South to Noirsville in the aftermath.

 

 

Lino Ventura is memorable as Gustave, the hardcase criminal who faces all bad choices. Paul Meurisse is great as the sarcastic and assertive Inspector Blot. 8/10

 

 

Full review with screencaps from the Criterion DVD. hear: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/le-deuxieme-souffle-1966.html

[I Just Watched...]

You mean Harry Belafonte could act?

 

(I've seen The World, the Flesh, and the Devil and some of Belafonte's other movies, and he comes across as the weak link most of the time. Particularly in Carmen Jones.)

he's great in Odds Against Tomorrow.

[I Just Watched...]

Woke up earlier than usual this morning.  Couldn't get back to sleep, so I had my morning coffee while watching a couple of old "Beverly Hillbillies" episodes on METV.

 

One was the one in which Jed, Granny and the clan all head for the seashore to save the country from the invasion of grunions, which they didn't realize were a species of fish.

 

I don't recall ever seeing this one before,  plus I've never heard of the fish called grunion.  But what tickled me about it was.....

 

In elementary school and through Jr. high, I knew a guy( And hung out with all summer of '65) named RICK GRUNION.  And HIS big dream in life was to be an oceanographer!  Sadly, he never made it, but it's OK. He became an airline pilot instead.

 

 

Sepiatone

There's another funny episode where Jethro meets a bunch of hippies in Griffith Park. They think he's really cool a guru. They get all excited when Jethro tells them that he and granny smoke a lot of crawdad.  They want to do so too, so Jethro brings them a gunny sack full of crawdad, the groups leader sticks his hand into the bag to get a smoke, and gets pinched. He exclaims that Jethro is too weird for them because "these things are alive, man!"

[Recently watched Noir]

I haven't seen Kill Me Again yet, but I have it to watch soon. I'm happy to see your recommendation.

What tips it for me is femme fatale Fay (Joanne Whalley) she's much more fun to watch than Lara Flynn Boyle.

[Recently watched Noir]

I remember Red Rock West getting a lot of positive word of mouth during the early 90's indie movie boom, and it was one of the poster child films for a wave of small budget neo-noirs, a trend that segued into the lamentable "erotic thrillers" that glutted the market for the better part of a decade. I was working in a video store when it was released on video, and it was a popular rental. I liked it okay, but thought The Last Seduction was better.

Actually I think both Dahl's Kill Me Again and The Last Seduction are better. 

[I Just Watched...]

Damn, I love Red Rock West  !  I remember being absolutely delighted the first time I watched it, and subsequent viewings have not disappointed  (well, I think I've seen it a total of 3 times.)

 

It makes me sad to  see Nicholas Cage in something like this, when he was still respected and considered a major acting talent in both mainstream and "indie" movies. Now everyone dismisses him at best, outright laughs at him at worst. But his performance in Red Rock West shows Cage when he was still cool. I think he's pretty darn good in the film.

 

I also really enjoy Dennis Hopper here. He could always be counted on to give just the right touch of intensity and maniacal sadism. (Blue Velvet of course being the prime example of this,but he reprised that character many times...)

 

And let's not forget the fine performance from J.T. Walsh, always reliable as a character actor, always memorable.

 

Red Rock West may not have the usual noir setting, filmed as it is in the American South-West ( as you say, cigarjoe), but its plot is classic noir.  I enjoyed this film so much I purchased it. In fact, cigarjoe's review has put me in the mood for it, I might just go and throw it on the player tonight.

 

Neo-noir at its best.  

Check out Dahl's  Kill Me Again it's a lot of fun also.

[I Just Watched...]

Red Rock West (1993) Lone Star Loser
 

 
Red Rock West was the second shoe string budget Neo Noir directed by John Dahl. It was written by John Dahl and Rick Dahl. The film stars Nicolas Cage (The Cotton Club (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Wild at Heart (1990), Leaving Las Vegas (1995)), Dennis Hopper (I Died a Thousand Times (1955), Naked City TV Series (1958–1963), The American Friend (1977), Blue Velvet (1986), Black Widow (1987), True Romance (1993), Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks TV Series (1990–1991)), J.T. Walsh (The Grifters (1990)) and Dale Gibson. Music was by William Olvis. Cinematography was by Marc Reshovsky. 
 
Cage is believable as Michael, he plays the part with the right mix of honesty, humility, chagrin, and boldness. J.T. Walsh is excellent as the bar owner/sheriff with a shady past. Dennis Hopper is entertaining as Lyle the Dallas hit man, doing his slightly over the top schtick, almost homaging/reprising his Frank Booth character from Blue Velvet. Dahl seems to have a penchant for dark brunette Femme Fatales they feature in all three of his Neo Noirs. The films only speed bump is Lara Flynn Boyle, who is merely adequate in her role. She just seems to simmer along sedately, never quite matching the delicious seediness of Joanne Whalley in Kill Me Again, or the sexy cunning intelligence of Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. Her attire is 90% unattractive, which I don't quite get. It was a poor decision by the costume department. 


 
The film is entertaining, but I still consider it the weakest of Dahl's Neo Noirs. Filmed mostly in Arizona, with a bit of Montana. The closing freight train sequence before the credits roll looks an awful lot like the old Northern Pacific (now Montana Rail Link) spur that runs up to Polson. The shot is near Charlo, Northwest of St. Ignatius on the Flathead Indian Reservation, with the Mission Mountains in the background. I should know I ran a wrecking yard just North of that location back in the 1980s. 8/10 
 
Full review in Gangster & Film Noir board and with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/red-rock-west-1993-lone-star-loser.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Red Rock West (1993) Lone Star Loser
 

 
Red Rock West was the second shoe string budget Neo Noir directed by John Dahl. It was written by John Dahl and Rick Dahl. The film stars Nicolas Cage (The Cotton Club (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Wild at Heart (1990), Leaving Las Vegas (1995)), Dennis Hopper (I Died a Thousand Times (1955), Naked City TV Series (1958–1963), The American Friend (1977), Blue Velvet (1986), Black Widow (1987), True Romance (1993), Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks TV Series (1990–1991)), J.T. Walsh (The Grifters (1990)) and Dale Gibson. Music was by William Olvis. Cinematography was by Marc Reshovsky. 
 
Michael Williams (Cage). Wounded warrior. Sempre Fi. Bum leg. Beirut barracks bombing. 1st Battalion 8th Marines. 241 dead. 128 survivors. Michael's busted. A Texas transient. Lone Star loser. Dirt poor drifter. Down but not out. Looking for work. Takes a flier. A buddies tip. Wyoming wildcat roughneck. Ramblin' man. 
 

 
Cadillac Cowboy. 67 Coupe Deville camp out. State Rt. 487. Asphalt accommodations. Casper-Medicine Bow two lane. The backroad boonies. 
 
He gets a stock tank shave. Puts on his cleanest dirty shirt. Drives a dirt track to the drill site. Honesty is not the best policy. His gimpy knee gets him shot out of the saddle. Screwed. Blew his wad gettin' there. ****. Lays out a contrail of dust. Almost outta gas. A fin to his name. Gas station codger points him to Red Rock. Nearest town with prospects. Check the local watering hole. 
 

 
Michael blows into town. Pulls up to the Red Rock Bar. Bar just open. Owner Wayne Brown (Walsh) on duty. Spies Michael's Texas plates. Michael walks in looking for work. Wayne says "I thought you were supposed to be here last friday, I thought I would have to find somebody else. You are here for the job ain't you?" Michael scopes the back bar, sees a "Welcome to Wayne's Place" sign. Michael asks "you Wayne?" Michael plays along, he's desperate, he's interested. Wayne asks if he's Lyle, from Dallas, Michael says yea. It's case of mistaken identity. It's Michael's luck day. Wayne takes Michael back to the office. 
 
Wayne was expecting a Dallas, Texas hit man named Lyle. Lyle is a pro. Lyle is supposed to whack his wandering **** wife Suzanne (Boyle). Wayne gives Michael $5,000. Half now. Half later. His address and directions. Wayne tells him she's out riding. Wait at the house. Kill her and make it look like a breakin. Michael goes out and scopes the job. She's riding alright, her horse and a ranch hand Kurt (Gibson) who lives in a nearby trailer. 
 

Suzanne (Boyle)
 
Michael waits for Suzanne at the house. She's stunned. Michael gives her the bad news. Your husband wants you chilled. She doubles her husband's offer. Michael's stunned. She wants Michael to ice Wayne. 
 
At this point in the tale Michael has $15,000 in hundred dollar bills and decides get the hell outta Dodge. Good idea. But as he's gettin' he accidently hits Kurt who lunges out into the road in front of him. Doing the right thing, Michael brings Kurt to the local band aid station. This gets Michael his wild ride into Noirsville. Sharp twists and curves ahead. 
 
Michael (Cage)
 
Cage is believable as Michael, he plays the part with the right mix of honesty, humility, chagrin, and boldness. J.T. Walsh is excellent as the bar owner/sheriff with a shady past. Dennis Hopper is entertaining as Lyle the Dallas hit man, doing his slightly over the top schtick, almost homaging/reprising his Frank Booth character from Blue Velvet. Dahl seems to have a penchant for dark brunette Femme Fatales they feature in all three of his Neo Noirs. The films only speed bump is Lara Flynn Boyle, who is merely adequate in her role. She just seems to simmer along sedately, never quite matching the delicious seediness of Joanne Whalley in Kill Me Again, or the sexy cunning intelligence of Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. Her attire is 90% unattractive, which I don't quite get. It was a poor decision by the costume department. 
 
Lyle (Hopper)
 

Wayne (Walsh)
 

 
The film is entertaining, but I still consider it the weakest of Dahl's Neo Noirs. Filmed mostly in Arizona, with a bit of Montana. The closing freight train sequence before the credits roll looks an awful lot like the old Northern Pacific (now Montana Rail Link) spur that runs up to Polson. The shot is near Charlo, Northwest of St. Ignatius on the Flathead Indian Reservation, with the Mission Mountains in the background. I should know I ran a wrecking yard just North of that location back in the 1980s. 8/10 
 

 
Full review with screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/red-rock-west-1993-lone-star-loser.html

[Laura (1944)]

It has been suggested that everything that happens after Mark falls asleep is a dream.  Has anyone else considered this?

No. But I'll pay attention to it now for sure 

[I Just Watched...]

Le salaire de la peur (The Wages Of Fear )(1953) Road Trip to Oblivion

 

 

 

Directed by  Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique (1955)). The film stars Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter Van Eyck, Véra Clouzot, and William Tubbs. Cinematography was by Armand Thirard, music was by Georges Auric.

 

A Film Soleil Noir based on the 1950 French novel "Le salaire de la peur" (lit. "The Salary of Fear") by Georges Arnaud a French expatriate who in 1947 went to Venezuela, working various jobs, a cross-country trucker, a saloon waiter, a taxi driver, a contrebandier and conman. He met many of the wild characters in the tropics who eventually made it into his novels.

 

Clouzot was given the script for Le salaire de la peur after an extended trip to Brazil where he filmed an unfinished documentary Le voyage en Brésil (1950). That trip informed the setting and the various locations/sets for Le salaire de la peur. The delta of the Rhône, Bouches-du-Rhône, France was chosen aptly to represent the desolate South American backwater flytrap.

 

A bunch of oil boomers gone bust scramble for the jobs of driving two Nitroglycerin laden trucks across treacherous terrain to put out an oil well fire 

 

 

Clouzot, does a fantastic job of creating edge of your seat suspense. The trucks crawl along through potholes and ruts, and speed through washboard stretches (it smooths the ride), and have to do a see-saw maneuver around a switchback by backing over a dilapidated platform. A huge boulder blocks the road at another bend in the road.

 

You are constantly expecting the works to all get blown to hell at any moment.  The screencaps are from the Criterion DVD. 10/10

 

Full review with many screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/le-salaire-de-la-peur-wages-of-fear.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Le salaire de la peur (The Wages Of Fear )(1953) Road Trip to Oblivion

 

 

 

Directed by  Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique (1955)). The film stars Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter Van Eyck, Véra Clouzot, and William Tubbs. Cinematography was by Armand Thirard, music was by Georges Auric.

 

A Film Soleil Noir based on the 1950 French novel "Le salaire de la peur" (lit. "The Salary of Fear") by Georges Arnaud a French expatriate who in 1947 went to Venezuela, working various jobs, a cross-country trucker, a saloon waiter, a taxi driver, a contrebandier and conman. He met many of the wild characters in the tropics who eventually made it into his novels.

 

Clouzot was given the script for Le salaire de la peur after an extended trip to Brazil where he filmed an unfinished documentary Le voyage en Brésil (1950). That trip informed the setting and the various locations/sets for Le salaire de la peur. The delta of the Rhône, Bouches-du-Rhône, France was chosen aptly to represent the desolate South American backwater flytrap.

 

 

Las Piedras & El Corsario Negro

 

Las Piedras, San Miguel is a tropic Southern Oil Company (SOC) dirt street, shanty boom town. But the oil booms gone bust. The town's overcrowded with international boomers turned moochers. Human trash. Unemployed. Running up tabs. They desperately wait for either jobs or a way out.  It's Hot. It's squalid. It's fetid. The only connection to the outside world is the airfield and the planes that land infrequently.

 

The film's opening shot is of string bound cockroaches. A half naked "cockroach" Boy/God pokes at them with a stick. A poignant metaphor for the film's main characters. Mario (Yves Montard), is a jobless French drifter who rooms with Luigi (Folco Lulli), a husky Italian who works as a mason. Linda (Vera Clouzot), is a cute, waifish, but simple minded, servant with benefits for saloon/hotel keeper Hernandez (Darío Moreno). Linda and Mario are sweet on each other. Bimba (Peter Van Eyck) is a German expat stranded in town, he runs the taxi for Hernandez. Jo (Charles Vanel) is an ex-Parisian gangster a recent arrival who blew into town on a DC3 looking like a bigshot. Looking like money. He's as broke as the rest but puts on a good con. Hernandez buys his schtick. Bill O'Brien (William Tubbs) is the SOC project manager, a former shady contraband runner pal of Jo's now turned legit.

 

El Corsario Negro (The Black Privateer) the town dive bar. Grandly located upon the dirt and mud puddled "municipal plaza" of Los Piedras. It's a human fly ribbon that has captured the town's dreggs. They sit, sprawl and sweat upon its lath slatted porch. The barred shadows symbolically emphasizing their entrapment.

 

El Corsario Negro's lath slatted porch

 

When the Parisian ex-gangster Jo arrives with a bit of fan fair the delicate balance of life on the skids for Mario is thrown askew. Mario abandons his shanty digs with Luigi in favor of his fellow countryman Jo who has scammed a more upscale flop at El Corsario Negro. Jo has some nefarious designs on the town and he questions Mario about the local setup. Luigi resents Jo's pushy gangster style and the two get into a showdown one night at the El Corsario Negro cantina.

 

Jo's arrival

 

The film spirals into Noirsville when an SOC oil well catches fire out in the boonies. The only way to put it out is with explosives. The only explosives on hand is Nitroglycerin and its all in Las Piedras, two hundred some odd miles away. Bill O'Brien and his team decide to offer a suicide job paying $2,000 apiece to four truck drivers to take the two truck loads of gerry cans up to the fields. To paraphrase one of O'Brien's men "we'll get those losers to do it for peanuts."

 

 

 

 

Of course there is a mad scramble to apply for the jobs, which means liberation out of Las Piedras, and the field is eventually weeded down to Mario, Luigi, Bimba and Jo.  The trek will be intense, nerve wracking, and highly dangerous. The unpaved road following the pipeline up to the fields goes through marshes, plains, bamboo jungles, and switchbacks across rocky mountainous terrain.

 

The wages of their fears will be their salvation. Who will survive?

 

 

Clouzot, does a fantastic job of creating edge of your seat suspense. The trucks crawl along through potholes and ruts, and speed through washboard stretches (it smooths the ride), and have to do a see-saw maneuver around a switchback by backing over a dilapidated platform. A huge boulder blocks the road at another bend in the road.

 

You are constantly expecting the works to all get blown to hell at any moment.  The screencaps are from the Criterion DVD. 10/10

 

Full review with many screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/06/le-salaire-de-la-peur-wages-of-fear.html

[I Just Watched...]

QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE (1958) Saw this as a kid, it's ridiculous but fun.

[Movies Made for Television]

Two of the best Neo Noirs were originally TV/Cable Movies:

 

The Last Seduction (HBO 1994) starring  Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman

The Wrong Man (SHO 1993) starring  Rosanna Arquette, Kevin Anderson, John Lithgow