[Recently watched Noir]

Never Let Go (1960) Seedy Brit Noir

 

 

Directed by John Guillermin, written by John Guillermin (story), Peter De Sarigny (story) and Alun Falconer screenplay. The film stars Richard Todd as John Cummings, Peter Sellers as Lionel Meadows, Elizabeth Sellars as Anne Cummings, Adam Faith as Tommy Towers, Carol White as Jackie, Mervyn Johns as Alfie Barnes, Noel Willman as Inspector Thomas, David Lodge as Cliff, Peter Jones as Alec Berger, John Bailey as MacKinnon, and Nigel Stock as Regan. 

 

Cinematography was by Christopher Challis. Music by the great John Barry (Body Heat (1981), Hammett (1982)) this was his first film score. 

 

"What makes a Noir/Neo Noir Film is an individual internal factor. It's subjectivity. Noir is in all of us. Think of us all as having an internal tuning fork, these tuning forks are forged by our life experiences which are all basically 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." 

 

 

Never Let Go is a "tuning" case in point. My wife's step father owned and ran a wrecking yard in Montana. He had a mild heart attack and wasn't able to continue with his business until he recovered. I was laid off at the time and volunteered to help out doing the grunt work. I barely knew anything about cars but I learned fast. I got to the point where I could pull a motor in twenty minutes. We used to buy non running junkers for either $50 for cars or $100 for pickups as long as they had titles. Then we'd part them out, taking the high ticket items, i.e., the carburetors, starters, generators/alternators, radiators and batteries and shelve them. The remainder we'd put in rows segregated by make. So we'd have a section called Chevyland, Dodgeland, Buickland, Fordland, etc., etc. This was back in late 1970s early 1980s so there were even some Studebakers, Nash, and Ramblers. These sections were "walk around" for the customers to see available body parts, trim, and glass. I know the background setup for the film. Previously the only Classic Noir that I readily recall having a wrecking yard sequence was The Big Heat (1953). 

 

Never Let Go is about the auto wrecking/salvage business, I guess called auto "breakers"/salvage in the UK, but an illegal aspect of it. When a late model car is wrecked it's title is saved and the car's engine number, chassis number, and body serial plates are transferred to a stolen car which is then resold under the wrecked cars title. Lionel Meadows (Sellers) is the kingpin of an auto theft ring. Titles are collected from wrecks by MacKinnon (Bailey), make, model, and year are put on a list. This list is given to Lionel who then gives the list to his boys who then steal the exact matches. These cars are then driven to Reagan's (Stock) auto body shop where the serial numbers are changed and the cars repainted to match the wrecked titles. The altered cars are then driven to Meadows Garage and sold. 

 

John Cummings (Todd) is a milquetoast barely making ends meet as a London cosmetics salesman. He works for Berger and Co. He has a doting wife two children, a boy and a girl. Lives in a high rise Council House. Two weeks ago they bought a brand new Anglica that John used for his sales rounds. One night he stops at Berger for a few hours to do some paperwork before heading home. While inside his car is pinched by Tommy Towers (Faith) who drives it to Reagan's (Stock) auto shop, where it will be altered. 

 

 

John is devastated, he didn't get it insured for theft, just third party risk. He asks the corner newsstand man Alfie (Johns) if he saw anything. Alfie says no but John is not convinced because Alfie notices everything. John goes to the police. They tell him that 80% of stolen cars are recovered, but also that stolen vehicles not found within forty-eight hours stand little chance of being found. He goes home to tell his wife about the loss. John tries to get by but his sales suffer from having to use public transportation and as a result he is missing appointments. He gets demoted and sacked. John is desperate and he becomes obsessed with investigating the theft. He goes back to Alfie's apartment. After getting on the old man's good side by admiring Alfie's pet fish and terrapin, Alfie tells John that Tommy Towers took it and that he hangs out at the Victory Cafe. 

 

When John arrives at the Victory Cafe he finds Towers hanging around with his chums and a cute blond named Jackie (White) who is dancing at a juke box. As John watches them, a 1956 Oldsmobile 88 drives up outside and someone lays on the horn. Jackie grabs her coat and runs out. John confronts Towers who denies any wrongdoing. 

 

 

The next day Alfie's flop is trashed. John calls the police. Alfie doesn't talk, but an associate of Towers sees the police at Alfie's. He tells Towers who in turn tells Meadows about the "nob" (John) who is asking questions. 

 

Meadows asks how did this happen. Tommy tells him that Alfie saw him steal it. Meadows gets **** that Tommy stole a car within five miles of the garage. He slams his hand in the lid of a phonograph. Meadows then drives over in the '56 Olds to see Alfie himself. John standing outside sees it's the same car that was at the Victory Cafe. Meadows threatens Alfie dumping his fish bowl and stomping on his terrapin. Alfie, his whole world gone, gasses himself to death. John puts two and two together and informs the police. The police head to Meadows Garage and confront him with Johns accusations about the Anglica theft and that he was the last man to see Alfie. 

 

 

John's wife wants him to forget about trying to get the car back. She's becoming distressed about his actions, actions which she, in a backhanded way, ignited. She told John that he was always chasing pipe dreams that he never caught and made reality. That sets John off, determined to "never let go" until he gets his Anglica back. 

 

 

John's obsession and alienation from his wife increases steadily throughout the remainder of the film. This change is convincingly well acted by Todd who goes from soggy milquetoast to hard crust burnt toast. Peter Sellers though is practically unrecognizable. His Meadows character looks like his pudgy evil twin. He's frighteningly different, very twisted from the comedic Sellers we are used to. He sports a push-broom mustache. He is petty, vicious, vile, and has the facade of an outwardly polite charmer. Meadows pseudo smiles, only with his mouth not his eyes. He's a fastidious over the top neat freak, complaining about Jackie's untidiness, placing coasters under drink glasses and ranting about lit cigarettes left on veneer. He also has a sexual sadistic kink with his mistress Jackie. He's a pressure cooker slowly building as things in his little world go awry. He has startlingly violent outbursts. Like a safety valve he's letting off steam, but it's not helping, you know there will be the inevitable explosion as he rages on about the "little nob, lipstick salesman" , and how he's going to "kill him. put him in his car, and burn it!" 

 

 

Never Let Go builds nicely to an inevitable showdown punctuated by John Barry's score. It's what a noir should be, about interesting small time characters and simple conflicts that spiral bizarrely of control. Screencaps are camera images from paused frames of a recent TCM showing, but there is an MGM DVD out there. Bravo 9/10 

 

 

For full review with screencaps: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/05/never-let-go-1960-seedy-brit-noir.html

[I Just Watched...]

Just ten minutes or less ago, I finished watching THE DEVIL'S BROTHER with Laurel and Hardy.

 

I must say, as a long time L&H freak, I've never either heard OR saw this one before, so, as is usual with those two, it was a delightful discovery.

 

And I'm not too proud to admit Inearly lost an eye trying to do "Kneesie, Earsie, Nosie"! 

 

Sepiatone

This one was one of my favorites, it used to play on Saturday afternoons back in the late 50s early 60s.

 

I caught the last quarter of it also.

[I Just Watched...]

Down By Law (1986) - 8/10 - Slightly off-kilter character study from writer-director Jim Jarmusch. John Lurie is a small-time New Orleans pimp who gets busted in a set-up with an underage girl. Tom Waits is a radio DJ who gets busted in a setup involving a stolen car. They get housed in the same cell in prison, and are soon joined by Roberto (Roberto Benigni), an Italian man with little knowledge of the English language. They mope, fight, get on each other's nerves, and eventually plan an escape. As usual with Jarmusch's films, the plot is incidental, while the characters are key. All three leads are good, and the black & white cinematography by Robby Muller is excellent. Also featuring Benigni's wife and frequent co-star Nicoletta Braschi, and a small bit with Ellen Barkin.

 

 

First time watched.    Source: DVD.

Yea it's a good film.

[I Just Watched...]

Stakeout On Dope Street (1958) Dobie Gillis Breaks Bad

 

 

Directed by Irvin Kershner, written by Andrew J. Fenady and Irvin Kershner, Tom McGrath, and

Irwin Schwartz. The great cinematography was by Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night (1967), Matewan (1987), Mulholland Falls (1996)), The jazzy/beat score was by Richard Markowitz.

 

The film stars Yale Wexler as Jim Bowers, Jonathan Haze, as Julian 'Ves' Vespucci, Steven Marlo as Nick Raymond, Abby Dalton as Kathy, Allen Kramer as Danny, Herman Rudin as Mitch Swardurski, Frank Harding as Capt. Richard R. Allen, and  Herschel Bernardi as gangster Mr. Fennel.

 

You may not remember the film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), but it's spin off TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–1963) was in rerun rotation for years, even as recently as this year it's been on cable. The series was about a sensitive, cerebral, teenager, Dobie, and his beatnik buddy Maynard, and his **** pursuit of all things female. Dobie lived above the Mom & Pop grocery store that his folks owned. But I've been digressing.

 

A Tail Fin Noir, Stakeout On Dope Street is like Dobie Gillis Breaks Bad man, you dig? 

 

The cinematography is impressive, the Cold Turkey sequence is almost surrealistic.  It's also well acted and narrated by Allen Kramer. This was Haskell Wexler's first feature film and it shows great promise. The film is adeptly directed by Irvin Kershner who went on to a long career in TV and film.

 

The film functions quite well as a anti-heroin message that's also thoroughly entertaining. A nice little sleeper of a film, originally a Warners release. 7/10 

 

Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/05/stakeout-on-dope-street-1958-dobie.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Stakeout On Dope Street (1958) Dobie Gillis Breaks Bad

 

 

Directed by Irvin Kershner, written by Andrew J. Fenady and Irvin Kershner, Tom McGrath, and

Irwin Schwartz. The great cinematography was by Haskell Wexler (In the Heat of the Night (1967), Matewan (1987), Mulholland Falls (1996)), The jazzy/beat score was by Richard Markowitz.

 

The film stars Yale Wexler as Jim Bowers, Jonathan Haze, as Julian 'Ves' Vespucci, Steven Marlo as Nick Raymond, Abby Dalton as Kathy, Allen Kramer as Danny, Herman Rudin as Mitch Swardurski, Frank Harding as Capt. Richard R. Allen, and  Herschel Bernardi as gangster Mr. Fennel.

 

A Tail Fin Noir, Stakeout On Dope Street is like Dobie Gillis Breaks Bad man, you dig? 

 

You may not remember the film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953), but it's spin off TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959–1963) was in rerun rotation for years, even as recently as this year it's been on cable. The series was about a sensitive, cerebral, teenager, Dobie, and his beatnik buddy Maynard, and his **** pursuit of all things female. Dobie lived above the Mom & Pop grocery store that his folks owned. But I've been digressing.

 

Lt. to rt. the leather satchel, Nick (Marlo), Ves (Haze), Jim (Wexler)

 

Los Angeles. Ves (Haze) shacks with his pop above Connie's Grocery store. He uses the back store room as a sort of social club for himself and his homies, Jim (Wexler) a budding artist, and Nick (Marlo) an ex high school athlete, weightlifter, and already has been boxer. They hang out at the local bowling alley where Jim has a girl Kathy (Dalton) who works the cash register.They are all pretty much stuck in dead end jobs, but they all have dreams.

 

Night. Alley. A stakeout. Two cops pick up a mule. Looks legit. Looks like a salesman. Dressed in a suit. Carries a fancy leather satchel. It's filled with cosmetics.  Cops do a toss. One tin can has Big H. Two pounds pure. Retail 400Gs. Cops are jacked. Big collar. They radio in. Latch/lock satchel. Put it in the back seat. They wait backup.

 

A mule collar

 

It's Dark. Cavalry Coming. Sirenes. Shots ring out. One cop blasted. Head shot. Dead. Mule panics. Struggles with cop. Cop two is wounded. Mule is still handcuffed. Can't get away. Grabs satchel. Tosses it. Gets blasted too. Satchel gonesville. Hoods search. It's nowhere. Gotta split. Cops close.

 

Daytime. Ves has route. Drives a 1951 Plymouth Concord Suburban. Groceries. He spots satchel. Grabs it. Finishes route and heads back to the ranch. Jim and Nick are in the back, hanging out. Ves comes in drops satchel. Starts bullshitin'. Time wasting. They finally check out the satchel. It's locked, It's heavy. They force the lock. It's woman's stuff. They check it out. Split it up. They toss a two pound can marked face powder around. Juggle it. Toss it back and forth. They make a basket in the trashcan. Score! Satchel may be worth something. Head for the swap shop. Score a few bucks. They split for the lanes. They bowl, play pinball, Jim gives Kathy some perfume, all is well, life goes on.

 

Both mob and police are looking for the dope. The HEAT is on. Cops on prowl. Cops shakedown EVERYONE. The mob has muscle. The word is out. The mob leans on EVERYONE.

 

The Big Heat

 

 

 

The story slips out. It's headline news. Jim spots the story. Jim runs to store. Shows Ves and Nick. CRAP! We're RICH! Where's the dope? Ves dumped it in the TRASH. Check the trash. It's GONE.

 

The boys SCRAMBLE. Jump in the Concord.  Mad DASH to the DUMP. Garbage trucks VOMIT. Rubbish in piles. The boys are diving through the loads. The landfill dozer is chugging. Against all odds they FIND it.

 

Of course, being a noir, instead of turning it in they decide to sell it. They don't call it DOPE for nothing. Nick who has a bit of a wise guy bent, knows a junkie named Danny who hangs around the garage he works at. The boys go to see Danny. Danny lives in a tar paper shack. Danny was geezin' it. Danny has crashed and burned. 

 

They wake him up. Danny is paranoid. Danny is leery. Nick shows Danny a bindle. Danny takes a taste. Danny WANTS it. Danny WANTS it BAD. Nicks says there is more. Nick says you sell it you get MORE. Danny says come back tonight. 

 

Deal is done. Danny DELIVERS. The boys are getting FAT. The Doe is rolling in. They begin to flash wads around. Everything is COOL, everything is good until it all goes BAD.

 

The film has a great flashback sequence that occurs when Danny is telling Jim about the effects of horse and about the times he was busted put in jail and had to go cold turkey and suffered through horrendous agonizing effects of withdrawal. 

 

 

 

The cinematography is impressive, the Cold Turkey sequence is almost surrealistic.  It's also well acted and narrated by Allen Kramer. This was Haskell Wexler's first feature film and it shows great promise. The film is adeptly directed by Irvin Kershner who went on to a long career in TV and film.

 

Noirsville

 

 

The cinematography is impressive, the Cold Turkey sequence is almost surrealistic.  It's also well acted and narrated by Allen Kramer. This was Haskell Wexler's first feature film and it shows great promise. The film is adeptly directed by Irvin Kershner who went on to a long career in TV and film.

 

The film functions quite well as a anti-heroin message that's also thoroughly entertaining. A nice little sleeper of a film, originally a Warners release. 7/10 

 

Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/05/stakeout-on-dope-street-1958-dobie.html

[I Just Watched...]

Cape Fear (1962) Southern Tail Fin Noir

 

 

Director was J. Lee Thompson, the writers were, John D. MacDonald (based on his novel The Executioners), and James R. Webb (screenplay). The film stars Gregory Peck (Spellbound (1945), ), Robert Mitchum (8 Classic Film Noir), Polly Bergen (Champion (1949), ), Lori Martin, Martin Balsam (On the Waterfront(1954)), Jack Kruschen (Gambling House (1950), Confidence Girl (1952),  A Blueprint for Murder(1953)), Telly Savalas, and Barrie Chase (Party Girl (1958)). Cinematography was by Sam Leavitt (Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Crimson Kimono (1959)), and music by the great Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Psycho, Taxi Driver to name just a selection) .

 

Cape Fear was filmed around Savannah, Georgia, Tybee Island, Georgia, Ladd's Marina, Northern California, and Universal Studios.  

 

 

Cape Fear is a Psychological Revenge Noir. Max Cady (Mitchum) is out. White Trash. Ex jailbird. Eight years. Beef rape. Baltimore. Caught in the act by Sam Bowden (Peck). Bowden testified. Bowden clinched it. Cady is ****. Figures Bowden owes him. Owes him a lot.

 

Mitchum is positively reptilian in this. There is something Mesozoic about his performance. He's a brutal, relentless, ruthless, sleazy, slimy, silver tongued devil. He plays a truly frightening, borderline insane, maniac pedal to the metal. It's one of his best performances. 

 

The Bowdens, Peggy (Bergen), Nancy (Martin), Sam (Peck)

 

Cape Fear is a shocking calculated buildup of terror. Cold blooded menace combined with vividly suggested sexual deviant behavior. You'll want to take a hot shower after its conclusion. Robert Mitchum should have been nominated for an Oscar. A 10/10

[Recently watched Noir]

Cape Fear (1962) Southern Tail Fin Noir

 

 

Director was J. Lee Thompson, the writers were, John D. MacDonald (based on his novel The Executioners), and James R. Webb (screenplay). The film stars Gregory Peck (Spellbound (1945), ), Robert Mitchum (8 Classic Film Noir), Polly Bergen (Champion (1949), ), Lori Martin, Martin Balsam (On the Waterfront (1954)), Jack Kruschen (Gambling House (1950), Confidence Girl (1952),  A Blueprint for Murder (1953)), Telly Savalas, and Barrie Chase (Party Girl (1958)). Cinematography was by Sam Leavitt (Anatomy of a Murder (1959), The Crimson Kimono (1959)), and music by the great Bernard Herrmann (Citizen Kane, Psycho, Taxi Driver to name just a selection) .

 

Cape Fear was filmed around Savannah, Georgia, Tybee Island, Georgia, Ladd's Marina, Northern California, and Universal Studios.  

 

 

Cape Fear is a Psychological Revenge Noir. Max Cady (Mitchum) is out. White Trash. Ex jailbird. Eight years. Beef rape. Baltimore. Caught in the act by Sam Bowden (Peck). Bowden testified. Bowden clinched it. Cady is ****. Figures Bowden owes him. Owes him a lot.

 

Mitchum is positively reptilian in this. There is something Mesozoic about his performance. He's a brutal, relentless, ruthless, sleazy, slimy, silver tongued devil. He plays a truly frightening, borderline insane, maniac pedal to the metal. It's one of his best performances. 

 

The Bowdens, Peggy (Bergen), Nancy (Martin), Sam (Peck)

 

Sam Bowden is a very successful attorney, practises in Wilmington (though it's never made clear) lives with his wife Peggy, daughter Nancy, a maid, and their dog Marilyn in a big house on the shore. They have two new cars, a 1961 Chrysler New Yorker Town & Country wagon and a 1961 Chrysler Newport. Everything is juice for the Bowdens until it goes seriously Noirsville.

 

During his stretch Cady's wife splits. Divorces him. Marries up with a plummer. Moves away. Ex wife is number one. Cady tracks her down. Cady waits for hubby to go plumbing. Cady need his pipes cleaned. Cady wants a second honeymoon. Grabs the ex. Makes her write an I need a vacation letter. Takes her away. Shacks up at a motel. Beats her. Gets eight years worth of sex in three days. Grabs most of her clothes. Takes off, Tells her she can work her way back to her plummer. Nice guy. Max is crazy. Max is nuts. Max is EVIL. Max is DEVIANT.

 

Max Cady: I got somethin' planned for your wife and kid that they ain't nevah gonna forget. They ain't nevah gonna forget it... and neither will you, Counselor! Nevah!

 

Bowden is number two. Max visits Sam. Lets him know. Max is here. Max has a plan. Shadow the family. Terrorize the Bowdens. How low can he go. Lower than whale poop. Max poisons the pooch.

 

Sam calls Mark. Chief of Police. Cops haul in Max. Strip search. No hop. No contraband. Has money. Has bank account. Can't hold him. Max is smart. Studied in Stir. Studied "The Law". Stays clean. Stays cool. Knows his rights. Can't be railroaded. Bowden is stymied. Mark says hire a private cop. Sam calls Sievers (Savalas). Sievers tails Cady.

 

Max has an itch. A sexual itch. The Boar's Head. A beachfront hot spot. Lots of action. Max sits at the bar. Max has a Busch. Max spots Diane. Diane is cute. Diane is a B Girl. She's imported talent. Probably come as far as the next fly speck up the coast. Diane is one of those women who are magnetically attracted to bad boys. It's a daddy issue. Diane plays peek-a-boo with Max. Bad idea. Max gets ****. Max picks her up. Very bad idea.

 

They leave the Boar's Head with Sievers following.

 

Diane Taylor: [Diane is cuddling with Max as he is driving] Why are we going this way?

Max Cady: Better scenery.

Diane Taylor: What would you know about scenery? Or beauty? Or any of the things that really make life worth living? You're just an animal: coarse, lustful, barbaric.

Max Cady: Keep right on talkin', honey. I like it when you run me down like that.

Diane Taylor: Max Cady, what I like about you is... you're rock bottom. I wouldn't expect you to understand this, but it's a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower.

 

"it's a great comfort for a girl to know she could not possibly sink any lower."

Famous last words....

 

Max drives Diane to her apartment house and they have sex (this is 1962, so it's off screen and implied) Diane is laying on the bed spent, but Max is not finished. Max is not finished by a long shot.

 

Diane is beaten and sexually brutalized. When Sievers and the police arrive Cady is gone and Diane is found naked lying by the bed, covered by a sheet, her face is swollen black and blue. She won't talk to the police or press charges.

 

Sievers: Why not protect yourself. (from Cady)

 

Diane gets up and call a cab to the corner of Sherman and Desoto. She wants to go to the bus station.

 

Sievers: Well leave town if you have to and, as I said no one will blame you. But before you go would you help us put this man away? All you have to do is come down to police headquaters and sign a complaint. Won't you do that? If not for your sake for somebody else's?

Diane: Protect myself? Nobody can protect themselves against a man like that. I'm scared. You can't help me.

Sievers: But I can! Now you file an assault charge and Cady will get six months in jail.

Diane: Six months. And after that? When he walked out of this room, he said... he said to consider this only a sample. From my limited knowledge of human nature, Max Cady isn't a man who makes idle threats. Anyway you said you weren't a policeman. What do you want?

Sievers: I have a client Sam Bowden, Mr. Sam Bowden. Cady has threatened his wife and his daughter. Never mind the reasons. Mr. Bowden is worried and I can't blame him. You know Cady.

Diane: You believe that I could ever...ever.... in my whole life...step up and repeat to another living soul...what that man--What he did? What about my family? I'm someone's daughter too. What about the newspapers in my home town? Do you think I could bear to have them read about--....

 

San is desperate. Sievers suggests muscle. San bites. Three punks to take care of Cady. But Cady is tough. Cady kicks ****. One of the punks squeals. Cady gets lawyer. Lawyer is shyster. Lawyer wants disbarment.

 

hire muscle

 

Sam makes plan. Use Peggy and Nancy as bait. Houseboat. Cape Fear River. Lure Cady. Get on plane. Fly to Charlotte. Dive to back to dock. Join family. San and one deputy wait. Cady bites.

 

NOIRSVILLE

 

 

Cape Fear is a shocking calculated buildup of terror. Cold blooded menace combined with vividly suggested sexual deviant behavior. You'll want to take a hot shower after its conclusion. Robert Mitchum should have been nominated for an Oscar. A 10/10

 

Full review with screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/cape-fear-1962-southern-tail-fin-noir.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Body Heat (1981) Irresistible Impulse

 

Jazz. Smoke. The slow lazy roiling of a decaying fire. Bodies writhe in silhouettes.

 

 

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Lawrence Kasdan and stars William Hurt as Ned Racine, Kathleen Turner as Matty Walker,  Richard Crenna as Edmund Walker, Ted Danson as Peter Lowenstein,  J.A. Preston as Oscar Grace, Mickey Rourke as Teddy Lewis, Larry Marko as Judge Costanza, Kim Zimmer as Mary Ann. The jazzy/bluesy score is by John Barry, the stylistic cinematography by Richard H. Kline (The Boston Strangler (1968)) .

 

Ned Racine low rent playboy

 

An Anachronistic Noir. A Southern Noir. Once upon a time Lawrence Kasdan created a noir-ish world of one part James M. Cain's Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, one part, the tropical pulp of John D. MacDonald with a dash of Raymond Chandler. Shake in a cocktail mixer and pour over rotting ice. It's a 50's atmosphere that doesn't know that 30 years has passed. It's hazy, foggy, smokey. Body Heat exists in it's own world, a world where certain modernities have gotten stuck in time. More artifacts, as the years pass seem to be added, amusingly so. But yet the film remains timeless.

 

 

The Florida Treasure Coast. Miranda Beach (Lake Worth) and Pinehaven (Manalapan), straddling the Inter Coastal. The towns are stuck in a monumental heat wave. It's Hot. It's Humid. It's Sweaty. It's Sultry. Air conditioners seem scarce, like back in the Fifties only theaters, bars, and diners seem to have them, and feeble ones at that. Or it seems as if  our strange noir landscape is plagued by an eternal brown out. Fans are the cooling technology in vogue. They are everywhere. A certain whirling madness is just hanging there.

 

Our yarn is about a bottom feeder. Lowest of the low. A lawyer, what else. Attorney at Law, Ned Racine (Hurt). Ned gets by comfortably on the misfortunes of his clients. He lives high enough on the hog to have an office and a receptionist. He's treading water. Winning a few losing a few. He's not the sharpest tool in the lawyer shed but hey, he's arrogant. He's reached his level and is living at it. He's smug, a little bit slimey a bit of a shyster. He is cynical. Ned seldom smiles. He smokes. A cigarette coolly dangles from his lip. He sports a porn star mustache. Drinks Bourbon on the rocks. Drives a 1964 Chevrolet Corvette. **** magnet. A low rent playboy. Nails all the squab in town. Law clerks, secretaries, nurses, waitresses. Doesn't discriminate. Doesn't commit. You know the type. Get's more **** than a toilet seat.

 

Cool listless jazz. Hot breeze. Dark Night. Ned prowling the boardwalk. He's casting eyeball for tail. Outdoor concert crowd. Programs fanning. Matty (Turner) is a higher class babe. She is alluring. She has money. She arises from the audience transcendent. Venus from the half shell. She is unmistakably the film's center. Her clothes cling in the sea breeze. She's gorgeous. She's sultry. She is sexually intoxicating. She is desirable. She knows it. She is way out of Ned's class. The 100 proof Femme Fatale.

 

the sea  breeze caresses her tresses

 

Matty glides past an awestruck Ned to pause at boardwalk rail. She strikes a come hither pose. The sea breeze caresses her tresses. She dangles the bait. She's a feline in heat. Her motor runs hot. Ned is lured. Ned can't help it. Its an irresistible impulse. He stands by her. He's nonchalant. He plays his best game.

 

Matty and Ned converse as adults without the old Hayes Code, "coded words" to get around the obvious, conventions of Classic Noir. There's no cute allusions to racing horses, or of how fast your going over the sexual speed limit. It's sharp direct, naturalistic dialog that is mature, clever, and refreshing.

 

Ned: You can stand here with me if you want but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat.

Matty: I'm a married woman.

Ned: Meaning what?

Matty: Meaning I'm not looking for company.

Ned: Then you should have said I'm a happily married woman.

 

Matty drifts along the boardwalk. Ned shadows.

 

Matty: You aren't too smart, are you? I like that in a man.

Ned: What else do you like? Lazy? Ugly? ****? I got 'em all.

Matty: You don't look lazy.

 

After buying her an ice...

 

Ned: I need someone to take care of me, someone to rub my tired muscles, smooth out my sheets.

Matty: Get married.

Ned: I just need it for tonight.

 

Matty does a spit take getting a stain on her blouse.

 

Matty: Would you get me a paper towel or something? Dip it in some cold water.

Ned: Right away. I'll even wipe if off for you.

Matty: You don't want to lick it?

 

Ned comes back. Matty's ankled. Split. But mission accomplished. Ned got a taste. Ned is hooked. Ned is obsessed. Ned will be her patsy. He spends a week of searching before she lets him find her again.

 

Body Heat was Turner's first film. She plays her part with a confidence way beyond her 27 years as if she has been 27 for a thousand years. She is every woman that ever lived, a sensual, ageless, eternal female. Her voice is husky, smoky, silky, enchanting. She is the embodiment of every Femme Fatale that ever used sex to get what she desired rolled into one. She knows exactly what buttons to push.

 

Ned "finds" Matty at the Pinehaven Tavern. Ned's libio is in overdrive. Matty leaves. Ned follows. Corvette tailing Mercedes.

 

At the big house. Matty teases Ned.  She gives green light/red light signals. She tells him to leave. Ned is ****. She locks him out. He prowls about like big cat. She stares. She smoulders. He breaks in. She ignites.

 

Sizzlin'

 

Matty arouses a lust in Ned that is practically insatiable. This longing is a powerful drug that addicts Ned to her varied charms. Like a junkie Ned will do whatever it takes to keep mainlining on Mattie.

 

Hurt is excellent in this, he plays, very convincingly, the over **** dope who is literally screwed stupid, and completely out maneuvered by a much more conniving manipulator who has had years to adjust her twisted moves.  Matty hangs back and gives Ned just enough reins to let him think he's coming up with the ruthless plan to kill her husband.

 

 

Matty turns up the heat. Ignition. She wants out. She wants MONEY. A prenup screws her out of it. Hubby must die. Ned must do it. Ned complies. Ned plans. Edmund owns the Breakers. A beachfront property. The place is abandoned. A fire bug magnet. Make it look like arson. Make Edmund the torcher. Make it looked botched.

 

It went well.  An inferno. Edmund a crispy critter. Everything's copacetic. Days pass. Edmund pushing up daisies. Ned nailing Matty. Openly, with regularity. But something's WRONG. There's a call from a lawyer. There's a new will. Ned drew it up. Witnessed by Mary Ann. ****. Ned didn't draw it up. It's a mess. Ned looks bad. The will is null and void. Matty gets it ALL. GREED.

 

But there's more. A tip. Police are stirred. Hornets nest. Edmunds glasses. Where are they? They should have been seared into what was left of his face. Arrows point to Ned.

 

 It's going bad. It's going NOIRSVILLE.

 

Matty (Turner)

 

The supporting actors in the film are very believable. Mickey Rourke is a professional arsonist who in a great sequence tries to give his lawyer some good but unheeded advice. Richard Crenna is Matty's husband he's an unscrupulous businessman. Ted Danson is Peter, a D.A., a good buddy of Ned's whose quirk is a penchant for Fred Astaire dance routines. There is another excellent night scene where Danson briefs Ned on the case building against him. J.A. Preston is great as Oscar the cop, another good friend of Ned, who reluctantly must go after him and then later listens sympathetically as Ned tries to explain.

 

A curio of the film is the depiction of our dwindling tribe of Tobacco Smokers. Practically everybody smokes, it's emphasized. Is tobacco a drug that balances euphoria with anxiousness. Was it a gateway drug for promoting an artificially induced culture that prevailed everywhere?  Is it an ancient sacred sacrament of the Americas, exploited and degraded from ritual to banality? These thoughts run through my mind.Think about it.

 

“Here’s what film noir is to me. It’s a righteous, generically American film movement that went from 1945 to 1958 and exposited one great theme and that theme is you’re f-d, You have just met a woman, you’re inches away from the greatest sex of your life but within six weeks of meeting the woman you will be framed for a crime you did not commit and you’ll end up in the gas chamber and as they strap you in and you’re about to breath the cyanide fumes you’ll be grateful for the few weeks you had with her and grateful for your own death.” 

 

-James Ellroy 

Novelist, L.A. Confidential 

 

In my opinion, Body Heat is the Noir where, Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice wished they could have gone if they had been untethered from the Hayes Code. Not for prudes, not for everyone. An adult noir done artistically, easily a 10/10

 

[I Just Watched...]

Body Heat (1981) Irresistible Impulse

 

Jazz. Smoke. The slow lazy roiling of a decaying fire. Bodies writhe in silhouettes.

 

 

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan, written by Lawrence Kasdan and stars William Hurt as Ned Racine, Kathleen Turner as Matty Walker,  Richard Crenna as Edmund Walker, Ted Danson as Peter Lowenstein,  J.A. Preston as Oscar Grace, Mickey Rourke as Teddy Lewis, Larry Marko as Judge Costanza, Kim Zimmer as Mary Ann. The jazzy/bluesy score is by John Barry, the stylistic cinematography by Richard H. Kline (The Boston Strangler (1968)) .

 

An Anachronistic Noir. A Southern Noir. Once upon a time Lawrence Kasdan created a noir-ish world of one part James M. Cain's Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, one part, the tropical pulp of John D. MacDonald with a dash of Raymond Chandler. Shake in a cocktail mixer and pour over rotting ice. It's a 50's atmosphere that doesn't know that 30 years has passed. It's hazy, foggy, smokey. Body Heat exists in it's own world, a world where certain modernities have gotten stuck in time. More artifacts, as the years pass seem to be added, amusingly so. But yet the film remains timeless. 10/10

 

Full review here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/body-heat-1981-irresistible-impulse.html

[Film Noir to Neo-Noir: Transitions and Modern Noir]

I thought the successful crash-landing was improbable.

I would guess the producers decided on the lesser of two improbable scenarios.

I tend to agree.

I don't, I think like with Kiss Me Deadly's ending it would have been Iconic.

[I Just Watched...]

City By The Sea (2002) Director: Michael Caton-Jones, stars, Robert De Niro, James Franco, Frances McDormand. Estranged cop's junkie son kills his dealer and bring his life into the crapper. 7/10.

[Film Noir to Neo-Noir: Transitions and Modern Noir]

 

Mulholland Falls (1996)

dir. Lee Tamahori

 

Four well dressed men wearing sharp, tailored, three piece suits and fedora hats, enter a fine dining restaurant, looking for Jack Flynn (William Petersen) and walking like they own the world.

Max: Jack Flynn?… I’m Maxwell Hoover. I’m with the Los Angeles Police Department… We came here to deliver a message…

Moments later the four detectives and Jack are riding in a convertible police car (!) headed to the airport by way of Mulholland Falls.

 

These detectives get their swagger as a result of a squad they belong to, set up by their chief.

Max: Bill, when we set up this squad, we answered to no one but you. That was the deal. Four men, no politics, no favorites, we answer to no body.

Chief: When we set it up it was organized to do two things; get rid of gangsters and criminals.

 

The story here revolves around the mysterious death of Allison Pond, (Jennifer Connelly) whose body is found embedded into the ground near a construction site.

 

1. Chiaroscuro for black and white films, intense or muted color in movies filmed in color (In either black and white or color, the technique is used to enhance the mood and/or the emotional content.) Yes.

There are shots of the blazing sun and arid desert. Tints of light olive, grey and orange/brown dominate the hues in the film. Sporadically, we see green trees and grass then blue skies to contrast the toned down hues.

 

2. Flashbacks Yes.

The film opens with a b&w 8mm film focusing mostly on Allison Pond. We learn of Allison by two means; that film and several visual flashbacks from those recalling her past or events with or of her.

 

3. Unusual narration N/A

 

4. Crime/planning a crime (usually—but not always—murder) Yes.

Assault

Conspiracy

 

5. Femme fatale and/or homme fatale N/A

 

6. The instrument of fate Yes.

Colonel Fitzgerald’s fate (Treat Williams) is decided by his actions involving the case being investigated. Sort of the Golden Rule.

 

7. Angst (for example, guilt, fear, self-doubt, confusion, and so on; in other words, anything that contributes to angst) Yes

Max Hoover (Nick Nolte) fears that an amateur film (wanted by many) may be made public and it has him in panic mode for most of the film.

 

8. Violence or the threat of violence Yes.

Murder

 

9. Urban and nighttime settings Yes.

Los Angeles in the 1950s with the wardrobes and cars of the times. There is also a view of Mulholland Drive overlooking the city at night.

 

10. Allusion to post–World War II (or any postwar) themes (optional) Yes.

Post war nuclear testing and its affects on civilians, play a small but intricate part in the story. An Army General and Colonel are characters in the story.

 

11. Philosophical themes (existentialism in particular) involving alienation, loneliness N/A

12. Psychology (hypnosis, brainwashing, manipulation, amnesia) N/A

 

13. Greed Half. Not greed of money, but certainly an element of selfishness or self interest involving the amateur film. We see threat of blackmail, assault, deceptions, lies all because of the film.

 

14. Betrayal Yes.

Max carried-on a 6 months affair with Allison and then defends his actions to a fellow cop:

Max: Let me tell you, …you meet somebody. Maybe they’re a little off center, but they tell you the truth and you like them for that. Then one thing leads to another and you end up in bed. Now that’s weak…Nobody gets hurt. Now you go home and you see your wife and you feeling bad. You want to unload and you want to get it off your chest and so you tell her and now she’s hurt. Now that’s weak too, but it’s also cruel. Here is something that doesn’t cost you $25 an hour. You carry your own water, Elleroy. You understand? Carry your own water.

 

15. No stark contrast between “good” and “evil” (characters, forces, emotion, and so on) N/A

16. Expertise triumphs, perhaps rather than “good” N/A

 

This may be trivial, but amusing just the same. Some of the characters have names associated with U.S. Presidents: Hoover, Coolidge, Arthur, Fitzgerald, Jimmy, Jack, and Bill.

The film opens with much promise; the introduction of the four detectives in the restaurant, the cinematography at the nightclub and  Mulholland Drive, even an old tune by the Platters, Harbor Lights, sung by Aaron Neville, but the rest of the film does not continue the wonderful start. Still, there are two reasons to see this film; the neo-noir cinematography by two-time Academy Award winner Haskell Wexler and the ensemble of many established actors appearing together in the film.

 

9.5 of 16 on our list of characteristics. A sound neo-noir

 

The nuclear test angle of the story is a nod to Kiss Me Deadly but I've read that the film's original ending was for Hoover and Coolidge, after surviving an emergency landing too near a test site, were to be incinerated by a nuclear blast.  Now how utterly noir would that have been? 

[I Just Watched...]

Blast of Silence (1961) New York Tail Fin Noir

 

 

 

Blast of Silence was mostly shot "guerrilla style" without permits on the streets of New York City for roughly 20,000 dollars. This de facto neorealism imbues the film with an aura of believability that bigger Hollywood productions often did not acquire. 

 

It's a simple story based on an updated Murder Inc. 

 

I've written countless times that most of the films depicting New York's quintessential Film Noir hardboiled detective Mike Hammer, are less "New Yorkie" than eight films that are not Hammer films, but films that captured both a Film Noir Style and wallow in the true gritty NYC ambiance that every Hammer film demanded. These eight are The Naked City (1948), Killer's Kiss (1955), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)* only partially set in NYC, Blast of Silence (1961), Something Wild (1961), Aroused (1966) and The Incident (1967). Watch these and see what could have been. 

 

The film belongs to that late '50s early '60s group of Noirs I like to designate "Tail Fin Noirs" for the predominate auto design feature that's unmistakeable and visually quite prominent. 

 

Blast of Silence is a character study of loneliness, obsession and alienation. It's noir pulp poetry that's cinematically illustrated expertly, on the cheap. A classic that can sit comfortably right beside poverty row's Detour (1945). Bravo Allen Baron! 10/10 

 

Full review with screencaps here:http://http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/blast-of-silence-1961-new-york-tail-fin.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Blast of Silence (1961) New York Tail Fin Noir

 

 

Director was Allen Baron, the film was written by Allen Baron (screenplay), Waldo Salt (narration). Starring Molly McCarthy (Lori), Allen Baron (Frankie Bono), Larry Tucker (Big Ralphie) (Shock Corridor 1963)), Peter Clune (Troiano) Danny Meehan (Petey), Charles Creasap (Contact Man) Dean Sheldon (nightclub bogo singer), Bill DePrato (Joe Boniface), New York City in all its gritty glory, and a Voice Over, second person narration by Lionel Stander (uncredited). Cinematography was by Merrill S. Brody and cool jazzy score by Meyer Kupferman. 

 

 

Blast Of Silence didn't quite come out of nowhere. Allen Baron was an artist who attended the School of Visual Arts and was an illustrator, he got the bug to make a movie after visiting a soundstage in Hollywood. He learned rudimentary camera work while working on a film down in Havana in 1959. 

 

Blast of Silence was mostly shot "guerrilla style" without permits on the streets of New York City for roughly 20,000 dollars. This de facto neorealism imbues the film with an aura of believability that bigger Hollywood productions often did not acquire. 

 

On a side note, I've written countless times that most of the films depicting New York's quintessential Film Noir hardboiled detective Mike Hammer, are less "New Yorkie" than eight films that are not Hammer films, but films that captured both a Film Noir Style and wallow in the true gritty NYC ambiance that every Hammer film demanded. These eight are The Naked City (1948), Killer's Kiss (1955), Two Men in Manhattan (1959), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)* only partially set in NYC, Blast of Silence (1961), Something Wild (1961), Aroused (1966) and The Incident (1967). Watch these and see what could have been. 

 

When bar room buddie of Allen Baron, actor Peter Falk who had agreed to play the lead for a deferred salary, actually got a paying gig for Murder Inc (1960) Baron was left without a star. Mel Brody, a school chum of Baron's, who was converting an old firehouse into a sound studio (which the production utilized), suggested that Allen himself act the part of Frankie Bono in the film. As Allen put it, “…I was the best actor available to me at the time, and I was the only one I could afford. So I wrote it, directed it, and was forced to act in it. The truth is I didn't want to play the role.” 

 

Lionel Stander the only bona fide Hollywood star connected with the film, though uncredited, was trying to get his career back on track in 1960 after being Blacklisted by HUAC. Again quoting Baron, “Lionel Stander was a blacklisted actor. He did the narration, and he wanted $1000 if we used his name. Or, $500 if we didn't use his name. Well, naturally, with the amount of money we had we took the $500 deal. So that’s why he doesn't receive a credit.” 

 

"Baby Boy" Frankie Bono (Baron), an icy hearted contract killer out of Cleveland, has arrived in New York City to give second string syndicate boss Troiano (Clune) a Christmas "gift" in the form of a couple of rounds of lead in the head. 

 

 

But Frankie was raised in an orphanage in New York City, so this trip is a sort of a reluctant homecoming and also a reckoning with his past. The whole commercial holiday ambiance, i.e., Christmas carols played on the intercom in Penn Station, the Salvation Army Bands on the streets, the decorations in the store fronts all bring back sour memories of a kid who had nothing, was alone in the world, who grew up tough with some hard bark. Christmas gives him the creeps. 

 

Frankie checks into a dump, the Valencia Hotel. Heads downtown. He rides the Staten Island Ferry to meet his wise guy contact. The contact asks for a light. He gets 25 G's and photos of his mark. He gets the other 25 G's when the job is done. Sounds like cake. 

 

So Frankie does what he always does. And what Frankie does he does best. He tails Troiano. He dopes out his patterns. He eliminates possibilities. He hones in on others. Troiano lives out in Nassau County. He's always picked up by bodyguards. Guys with HOODS stamped on their foreheads. 9:30 on the dot. Always drives into the city. Cross Island Parkway, Grand Central Parkway, Triboro Bridge, Harlem. Or the deviation, Northern Boulevard, Queensboro Bridge, Greenwich Village. Troiano runs the girls, the dope, the book, and the numbers. The type of guy Frankie hates. Frankie has got to make the hit when Troiano is alone. 

 

 

Frankie needs a piece for the job. .38 with silencer. He goes to see an old Harlem *beep* Big Ralphie. Big Ralphie is a skel, a gavoon, a real fat slob. He lives in a one room flop. He keeps sewer rats for pets. He's got their cages all Christmas doodad-ed. He's eating pizza with his rats. He skeeve's out Frankie big time. But Ralphie's got contacts. He wants half a G. Frankie says two bills. They compromise on three. Frankie say he'll go him a yard and a half now and the rest on delivery. Ralphie squeals. Frankie throws in another fifty. Deal done. 

 

 

But Frankie can't pick up the gun till after Christmas, he kills time walking around Rockefeller Center. Remembering. While eating dinner on Christmas Eve it's Frankie's misfortune to run into pal Petey from the orphanage. He's about to give him the brush when Petey's sister Lori shows up. Lori was something special, Lori is Frankie's femme fatale. Frankie makes the mistake of going to Lori's Christmas Eve Party and having a good time. His second mistake is falling all over again for Lori, who is definitely hot to trot with him too. But Frankie, out of normal circulation for so long, is speeding down love's highway way over the limit, trying get past third base way too quickly. He gets rough. Forghedaboudit. Lori shoots him out of the saddle. 

 

 

Frankie with Christmas out of his system is back on the job and finally finds out where Troiano is alone. Troiano has a "gumare" a babe he shacks up with that he keeps in a brownstone down on East 30th St. When he's with her he's alone. 

 

Shadowing Troiano, Frankie ends up at the Village Gate, a "Beat" nightclub with a bongo playing vocalist and band. Troiano is giving a party. Unfortunately for Frankie going right in before checking the joint out was his third mistake. Ralphie spots him watching Troiano. Ralphie dopes out the hit. Frankie is going after "big Game". Ralphie braces Frankie in the john. Ralphie wants "luxury prices." Frankie tells Ralphie forghedaboudit. 

 

 

**** that Ralphie is trying to skive their deal, Frankie leaves and stakes out the club and waits. Ralphie jets. Frankie tails. Ralphie is loaded. Ralphie waddles back to his pad. He fumbles the door open. He crashes on his bed. Frankie is out in hall. Frankie spots the fire ax. Frankie is going to cusinart Ralphie. Ralphie takes a chop, His left arm dangles. He grabs Frankie by the neck. The rat cages smash. Rodents scatter. Frankie grabs a lamp. Lamp smashes Ralphie's head. Frankie gets both hands on Ralphie's neck. Ralphie's eyes bulge. Ralphie is rat food. 

 

 

Killing Ralphie of course flushes everything down the toilet to Noirsville. Frankie gets the job done but getting spotted by Ralphie at the Village Gate and its final consequences broke his contract. 

 

 

The film belongs to that late '50s early '60s group of Noirs I like to designate "Tail Fin Noirs" for the predominate auto design feature that's unmistakeable and visually quite prominent. 

 

Blast of Silence is a character study of loneliness, obsession and alienation. It's noir pulp poetry that's cinematically illustrated expertly, on the cheap. A classic that can sit comfortably right beside poverty row's Detour (1945). Bravo Allen Baron! 10/10 

 

Full review with screencaps here: http://http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/blast-of-silence-1961-new-york-tail-fin.html

[I Just Watched...]

"Garden of Evil" (1954)--20th Century Fox film starring Gary Cooper, Susan Hayward, and Richard Widmark.  Cooper and Widmark's boat breaks down on the way to the California gold fields--they have to stop in Mexico.  They head to a local cantina--Hayward comes in and says she is offering one thousand dollars in gold to anyone who will help her save her husband, who was trapped in a cave-in.  She says the mine is right in the middle of cursed country called "Garden of Evil"--film proceeds from there.

 

The uneven screenplay is credited to Frank Fenton.  Bernard Herrmann contributed a score that supplies more drama than the screenplay; the handsome cinematography is credited to Milton Krasner and Jorge Stahl. Jr.

 

Widmark is especially good as the man who's not used to being a good guy.  Cooper and Hayward are as effective as the script allows.  The rest of the cast is adequate.  Look for a young Rita  Moreno in the cantina.

 

Critics yawned when the film was released, but GoE made a healthy profit, especially considering GoE had cost around two million dollars to film.  GoE is maybe the most beautiful film Cooper made in the 1950's, and the most underrated.  A fine watch in spite of the choppy script; 3/4. 

This movie is a bit dopey though the natives were costumed like your typical North Eastern woodland tribes, (usually in films depicting natives vs settlers in Mexico if they weren't using Apaches they used the Yaqui),  looks like they grabbed extras from Last Of The Mohicans. 

[Actress Doris Roberts has died]

Here she is with Carroll Baker in her debut film Something Wild (1961)

 

[I Just Watched...]

Something Wild (1961) New York Kitchen Sink Noir

 

 

A psychological noir directed by Jack Garfein, written by Jack Garfein and Alex Karmel, stars Carroll Baker (Baby Doll (1956), Ralph Meeker (Kiss Me Deadly (1955)), Mildred Dunnock (Kiss of Death (1947), Baby Doll (1956)), Jean Stapleton, Martin Kosleck (The Spider (1945)), Clifton James, and Doris Roberts. Cinematography was by Eugen Schüfftan (Port of Shadows (1938)) and music by Aaron Copland.

 

The tale is about a young woman who gets raped, keeps it to herself, becomes traumatized and alienated to the point of suicide.  As she climbs up on the rail of the Manhattan Bridge about to go over she is stopped by by Mike, an alkie, sad sack, slightly whacked in the head auto mechanic. Her knight in rusty armor has a few screws loose himself. 

 

He keeps her a prisoner in his basement apartment, telling her that he needs her.

 

Fuller review in Film Noir/Gangster board here and with many screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/something-wild-1961-new-york-kitchen.html

[Recently watched Noir]

Something Wild (1961) New York Kitchen Sink Noir

 

 

A psychological noir directed by Jack Garfein, written by Jack Garfein and Alex Karmel, stars Carroll Baker (Baby Doll (1956), Ralph Meeker (Kiss Me Deadly (1955)), Mildred Dunnock (Kiss of Death (1947), Baby Doll (1956)), Jean Stapleton, Martin Kosleck (The Spider (1945)), Clifton James, and Doris Roberts. Cinematography was by Eugen Schüfftan (Port of Shadows (1938)) and music by Aaron Copland.

 

The tale is about a young woman Mary Ann (Baker). She still lives at home with her mother (Dunnock) and step father.  She is attending college in New York City. One night after riding the Jerome Avenue line subway back to Kingsbridge Road Station, she takes a shortcut home through St. James Park.

 

 

Near the Southeast corner she is grabbed from behind. Dragged into the bushes she is brutally raped up against a retaining wall by a grunting panting slob. Bruised, sore, and traumatized, she gathers up her books and belongings and runs home.

 

She quietly enters her house and tells no one. In her bathroom, frightened and shivering, she strips her clothes off, gets into a tub, and washes away all the evidence. She takes scissors and cuts the soiled clothes and undergarments into small pieces and flushes them down the toilet.

 

 

She hides the rape from her parents and tries to carry on with her life. She now recoils from physical contact with all people. While riding the subway to school, the crush of people in the morning rush hour is too much for her to bear. Felling sick she rushes from the train and faints on the platform of the 103rd St. Station. The NYPD brings her back home and her uptight, whining, insensitive mother who is always concerned about "what the neighbors think", is mortified that she has been brought home in a police car.

 

Continuing in the following days to wallow in a morass of self deprecation and despair Mary Ann snaps. She just takes off from her Morningside Heights school, leaves her books on a sidewalk bench and walks downtown through Harlem, The Upper West Side, Times Square, Greenwich Village to the Lower East Side.

 

 

In the Lower East Side she rents, from sleazy slumlord (Kosleck), a five dollar a week flop in his rundown tenement, and finds a twenty-five dollar a week job at a five-and-dime. She has a loud, obnoxious, two bagger prostitute, Shirley (Stapleton) as a next door neighbor, who offers to fix her up with some "gentlemen friends."

 

 

Continuing her downward spiral she becomes increasingly alienated from the world and decides to end it all. To Mary Ann the conveniently nearby Manhattan Bridge has a big imaginary sign that says "JUMP ME." As she climbs up on the rail about to go over she is stopped by by Mike, an alkie, sad sack, slightly whacked in the head auto mechanic. Her knight in rusty armor has a few screws loose himself. He walks her back to the Manhattan side and talks her into resting at his place while he goes to work. He doesn't trust her in the condition that she's in, thinking that she try something again, so he locks her in his basement apartment. Mike, slow on the uptake, never quite understands why Mary Ann doesn't want to be held there against her wishes.

 

 

When Mike comes home late that night sloppy drunk he tries to get a little "friendly" with Mary Ann but with what she just went through and in the condition she's in she naturally totally freaks and kicks him in the eye. When Mike comes too the next morning he has no recollection of the night before thinking he got into a fight at a bar. He's a blackout boozer. He loses the eye as a result of her kick and has to wear an eye patch.

 

 

When Mary Ann tells Mike that she has to go back to work, he offers to match what her boss pays her at the store. So we ask ourselves why does Mike behave this way? Did he also contemplate doing a brodie into the East River? Is he aware, on some gut level, of the certainty that letting her go now in this condition would be fatal, but just mentally disabled enough not to realize the "benies" of getting her professional medical attention. He "knows" in some weird way that fate has bound them together. He  actually NEEDS her in his own twisted way.

 

So Mike continues to hold Mary Ann prisoner, telling her that he likes "the way you look here." She is held there in Mike's apartment for months having, at times, surreal nightmares. One night Mike does it up big, he cooks steaks, buys wine sets the table with flowers, and fixes a nice dinner for the both of them. He proposes to Mary Ann and she rejects him. She tells him that it was she who kicked him in the eye. Mike says that he didn't know, but insists the she is "his last chance." Mike is a damaged person also. He gets up heartbroken and goes out the door leaving it ajar.

 

Mary Ann grabs her coat and is out the door. Free at last she wanders the city eventually sleeping in Central Park. Her destructive funk is cured and she returns to the apartment to be back with Mike. These two damaged souls manage to find each other and bring into the equation what the other needed.

 

They get married and as our story ends Mary Ann has a bun in the oven. Life is strange indeed, there are a million stories in the Naked City.....

 

 

The cast is excellent, the first half of the film is pretty much all Baker, and besides the obvious iconic Classic Noir creds that Ralph Meeker brings to the table, watch for a bit of cinematic memory, Mildred Dunnock played Rossi's mom, the one that Tommy Udo sent down the staircase in the wheelchair in an iconic Noir sequence from Kiss Of Death.

 

Screencaps are from the MGM limited edition DVD. Aaron Copland's score is adequate, but I would have preferred something more jazzy/bluesy that would have fit NYC better, hell I would have loved say a variation of the NYC classic Street Scene, another bit of cinematic memory.

 

Depending on my mood a 7-8/10.

 

Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/04/something-wild-1961-new-york-kitchen.html

[I Just Watched...]

 

Somewhere in the Night (1946)

 

 -  a psychological thriller, directed and co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With John Hodiak, Nancy Guild, Lloyd Nolan, Richard Conte, Sheldon Leonard, Whit Bissell, and Harry Morgan.

 

A wounded WWII Marine recovers and is returned to the States suffering from amnesia. He has told no one about his condition as he goes about tracking down his identity. A mysterious person by the name of Mr. Larry Cravat has left a trail for him to follow - he follows.

 

By film's end he has met and fallen in love with a beautiful entertainer, recovered $2 Million in questionable funds (all in $1000 bills U.S.), uncovered a Nazi operation, solved a murder, trapped the bad guy with a nice piece of trickery, and discovered his identity. Not a bad day's work.

 

Nancy Guild's appearance kept reminding me of Margot Kidder - these two could have been sisters. She also has the best, and funniest, line in the movie when she retorts a snide remark from a lady of the evening. That alone made this an enjoyable film.

 

*  *  * ^7/8 *  * 

 

You mean of course the line to Phyllis "if it's around you'll catch it." 

[Laura (1944)]

I hope so too.  I really enjoyed this version.  I enjoyed the film that looked at the disaster from the perspective of the other ship that actually saw them but thought that their use of fireworks to get their attention was actually just a party.

 

They did not realize it was an S.O.S.

 

 

 

Webb had quite a long career and I've enjoyed his performances most of the time, even  when the overall film did not impress me.  There are several actors and actresses who give good performances even when the material is lacking.  Webb was one of them.

Your thinking of the other Titanic film A Night to Remember (1958), this one did have the rockets shot off, but didn't show the crew of the Californian just 10 miles away thinking they were celebrating something, nor the ship the Carpathia that got the radio signal and was steaming towards the Titanic.

[I Just Watched...]

Speaking of funny vampire flicks, check out Andy Warhol's Blood For Dracula (1974) directed by Paul Morrissey starring Joe Dallesandro, Udo Kier, and  Vittorio De Sica. Dracula is stuck in New York City and he must have as he calls it "wergin blood" but he can't find any virgins in the city, it's pretty funny.

[I Just Watched...]

The Come On (1956) Director: Russell Birdwell with stars Stars: Anne Baxter, Sterling Hayden, John Hoyt, Jessi White. Con woman Rita (Baxter) finds love with fisherman Hayden, to the detriment of her partner Kendrick (Hoyt). Baxter is pretty hot 6.5-7/10

[Anne Jackson 1926-2016]

doan hold your breath waitin' for tcm to show 'the tiger makes out' from 1967 starring eli wallach and anne jackson.

I doan waste my time waitin' on tcm to do things that are sensible.

It's just recently been in rotation on either Get TV or Movies! channel, within the last couple of months I've seen it. nice film.

[Laura (1944)]

Webb plays sort of the same type of character as the husband of  Barbara Stanwyck in a film I watched yesterday Titanic (1953).

[I Just Watched...]

 

Tap beer or Tap Dancing? to very different mental images there,