cigarjoe
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Posts posted by cigarjoe
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The Nickel Ride (1974)LA Smog Noir, circa 1974, directed by Robert Mulligan (The Rat Race (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Summer of '42 (1971),) Cinematography was by Jordan Cronenweth (Blade Runner (1982)). It was written by Eric Roth (The Drowning Pool (1975)) and stars Jason Miller as Cooper, Linda Haynes as Sarah, Victor French as Paddie, John Hillerman as Carl, Bo Hopkins as Turner, Richard Evans as Bobby, Bart Burns as Elias, Lou Frizzell as Paulie, Mark Gordon as Tonozzi.
Cooper "Coop", is a small but successful cog in the LA underworld. He on top of his world, He is a fence, receiving stolen goods which he stores in the various warehouses around 5th Street in downtown LA. He is known as the "Key Man" for the large ring of keys he always carries. Business is booming, and there is a serious shortage of storage space.
Jason Miller is practically a double for Charles McGraw without the gravelly voice, there are some great believable performances here from Victor French (who you won't recognize) he comes off as an interesting mix of Art Carney and Walter Matthau, and from Linda Haynes the smalltown born, ex Vegas showgirl. The side story of Coop and Sarah and their affection for each other is well done. John Hillerman is the "Hollywood-ish" mob underboss, and Bo Hopkins is outlandish as the politely creepy "Cadillac Cowboy" hit man. This film builds slowly in tension much like Night And The City (1950) does.
The noir-ish cinematography is excellent, emphasising gritty, smoggy, downtown LA, an LA that's slowly succumbing to high rises and parking lots, but it also is juxtaposed by nicely composed 2.35 : 1 widescreen closeups and also throws in a sequence reminiscent of the Big Bear Lake segment featured in the Van Heflin-Robert Ryan Noir Act Of Violence (1948) The subtle soundtrack nicely compliments the storyline. 8-9/10. The DVD is from Shout Video.A fuller review in Film Noir & Gangster thread
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The notebooks help me keep track of what I've watched. At one point I kept that info on a computer, but I lost it all. Notebooks don't crash and erase their pages.
Another bonus of watching films from the same year together is that it makes it easier to appreciate a film within the time period it was made. Watching three 1975 movies together, you see trends and understand the tech and style of the times. Watching a 2013, then a 1943, then a 1973, can be jarring, and I found I would be less likely to appreciate the older films within their context. If you watch one movie a day, or every other day, this isn't really an issue. But I watch 3 to 5 movies in a day.
understandable
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Hey LawrenceA, are you actually watching these back to back or just posting them that way?
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"A Boy and His Dog"--(1975). Despite the title, it is Not a sweet film. It's after WW IV--which lasted five days--just long enough for politicians to drop multiple bombs and destroy the planet. An opening title says (I'm paraphrasing): "Politicians have finally solved the problem of Urban Blight." Don Johnson and his telepathic dog, Blood, are among the survivors. Picture is deeply cynical; not for all viewers. Film has hilarious back-and-forth dialogue between Johnson and Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire). I've read ABAHD was done on a budget of $20,000 dollars: film is a sci-fi classic, or near to it. 8/10 stars.
Yea I liked this one.
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Trapped (1949) "The only thing better than money are the plates that make it"
Trapped has one of those dreary quasi documentary style, stentorian narrated intros with US Treasury Department stock footage showing the printing and inspection of money. Once the propaganda sequence is over we segue nicely to a vignette between a bank teller and a matronly woman who is trying to transact with a $20 dollar bill. The vigilant teller spots the fake bill and confiscates it from the protesting woman stamping it with a large "Counterfeit". He tells her something to the effect that "if you are handling a lot of cash it's your duty to make sure it's good". I guess she goes without the groceries for a week.The tale is similar to T Men, but it's a good 78 minute film noir from Contemporary Productions, by RKO contract director Richard Fleischer, who later filmed The Narrow Margin (1952). The film was written by Earl Felton and, George Zuckerman. Cinematography was by Guy Roe (Armored Car Robbery, The Sound of Fury) The film stars Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, John Hoyt, Douglas Spencer, James Todd, and Russ Conway. The finale at the Los Angeles Trolley Car barn is a classic. It's a second tier Noir but still a good one, need a restoration. 7/10
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Trapped (1949) "The only thing better than money are the plates that make it"Trapped has one of those dreary quasi documentary style, stentorian narrated intros with US Treasury Department stock footage showing the printing and inspection of money. Once the propaganda sequence is over we segue nicely to a vignette between a bank teller and a matronly woman who is trying to transact with a $20 dollar bill. The vigilant teller spots the fake bill and confiscates it from the protesting woman stamping it with a large "Counterfeit". He tells her something to the effect that "if you are handling a lot of cash it's your duty to make sure it's good". I guess she goes without the groceries for a week.A good 78 minute film noir from Contemporary Productions, by RKO contract director Richard Fleischer, who later filmed The Narrow Margin (1952). The film was written by Earl Felton and, George Zuckerman. Cinematography was by Guy Roe (Armored Car Robbery, The Sound of Fury) The film stars Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, John Hoyt, Douglas Spencer, James Todd, and Russ Conway.Once we get that fake $20 at the bank it is sent to the Treasury Department where the agents determine that the counterfeit was a re-emergence of the same counterfeit bills from the Stewart Case. Tris Stewart (Bridges) is doing time, 14 years, in stir. In Atlanta The Treasury agents grill Stewart about the bills he replies "what do you think I'm doing, floating them out the window?" Stewart has been a model prisoner and is coming up for parole but the Agents tell him he'll do the rest of the 7 years if he cooperates. He tells them he's not a stoolie, but the agents are sure he'll come around. Bridges' Stewart, is handsome, smart, and suave, instead of smoking he's constantly chewing sticks of gum. Bridges reprises the same cocky character type in 1950's The Sound Of Fury.
A cross-country bus, with Kansas City on the destination board is stabbing the desolate dark with hi-beams. Inside Stewart is handcuffed to a sleeping officer. A sedan passes but pulls momentarily alongside and the driver gives a signal to Stewart. Stewart reacts by grabbing the officer's gun and telling the driver to pull over. The Sedan does a U-ie up ahead and drives back to the bus. Stewart hops in and they speed off.
The escape was a hoax for the Newspapers, Radio, and Newsreels. The sedan's driver was also a Treasury Agent. In return, Stewart and the agent will find Stewart's former partner Sam Hooker (Spencer) and suss out who's responsible for the new dough. Stewart fakes a cut from a broken glass and sucker punches the agent then lams out on the whole scheme.Stewart hit's smoggy Tinseltown and tracks his loser stupe of a partner Hooker to his seedy residence hotel flop. There is a great acting sequence where Douglas Spencer shows his range, his down and out wino character Hooker is in an alcoholic fog and at first doesn't recognise Stewart, then after a few slaps he does, paling up to Stewart, then breaks down in terror completely when Stewart smacks him around while bouncing him off the furniture. Hooker ran out of money blowing it on women, cards, and horses, then he sold the plates to gangster Jack Sylvester (Todd) whose legit cover is the Citrus Land & Investment Company. When Stewart asks for his cut from the plates he tells him pathetically "I lost it".
Meg Dixon (Payton) is Stewart's blonde gal pal with benefits. She's been biding her Tris down time trolling for tips by flashing her pins and breasts as a skimpily attired Chesterfield cigarette girl in the Chanteclair, an LA nightclub. Agent John Downey (Hoyt) is undercover as a dapper dan, putting the moves on her and tipping ten spots for decks of cigarettes.
He's first posing as a loaded oil man, then as really a gambler/confidence man who wants in on the deal with Stewart to buy counterfeit money. He has $30,000 (that a fake newspaper clipping claims Downey chiseled from the Mojave Club) that they will use to by the money from Sylvester. Downey has the genuine hots for Meg, but is another undercover G-Man. The treasury agents are covering all bases and also have Meg's digs bugged.
With the deck stacked against Stewart, it all comes tumbling down. One fault of the script is that at the one hour mark the script switches the action from Stewart (Bridges) who gets booked in jail to Sylvester (James Todd) in the denouement, he doesn't quite measure up. The finale at the Los Angeles Trolley Car barn is a classic. It's a second tier Noir but still a good one. 7/10Full review with screencaps here: http://http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/01/trapped-1949-only-thing-better-than.html
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One of the most vivid childhood memories The Little Fugitive recalled was Joey's enterprising method of fundraising, which (a few years later, in Washington) we used to call "bottle collecting". In the movie, Joey just roams around the beach, picking bottles from trash cans, crevices, and temporarily abandoned picnic areas, redeeming them for a nickel apiece in order to keep riding his favorite pony. In Washington, we'd just grab them off of our neighborhood back porches during the day, when the occupants were off at work. We could sometimes make a buck or two over the course of a morning, although in DC we only got two cent a bottle rather than a nickel, so we didn't have it quite as easy as Joey. I imagine that the Coney Island deposit was set at a nickel in order to deter what otherwise might have been mass littering.
But what really grabbed me about this movie was the look of Joey's neighborhood. I don't know exactly where it was, but in many ways it could have been almost any West Side neighborhood in the Manhattan of that period, before the gentrifiers took over and gave all the Joeys the heave-ho.
The little things all rung so true: The clotheslines stretched across the alleys, the sidewalk graffiti evocative of Helen Levitt's photographs, the generally rundown look of the buildings and the apartment itself, the dirty T-shirts (dirty in great part because of the soot that permeated the city air), canvas sneakers and cuffed jeans....That was the New York I knew as a boy, and I've never seen any other film that depicts it with such a perfect eye for reality.
The Window (1949) a Film Noir does a great job of depicting New York tenement neighborhoods also.
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Since this movie's about to begin in 5 minutes, all I can say is: Don't miss it. It's the most perfect slice of life film about what it was like to be a boy in the New York City of the 1950's that I've ever seen. I was there and I know what I'm talking about. It's an absolute gem of a picture, and I hope they put it into the TCM regular lineup.
Agree, I was there too, nearer the end of it though, I was born in 1953.
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Here are a few from the Christmas Noirs list on the Film Noir/Gangster board and a few others that I thought of:
Christmas HolidayRoadblockCrime WaveI, The JuryBlast Of SilenceRepeat PerformanceBackfireMr. Soft TouchTwo Men In ManhattanLe Monte-ChargeLa cité des enfants perdusSome may have been already mentioned. -
Somewhere In The Night (1946)
The first Amnesiac Noir. Lots of twists and turns in this entertaining film, some great lines also:Phyllis: "Who is the character with the hair" (to Christy) "that is why I haven't seen you around" (to Taylor)Christy: (to Phyllis) If its around I'm sure you'll get it".Great Noir but not very stylistic, almost pedestrian in that department, one location shot of what looks like The Sunshine Apartments on Bunker Hill, across from Angels Flight which does not make an appearance, most of the rest looks like backlot sets 8/10
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Somewhere In The Night (1946)In our POV we see a light, at first it's unfocused we hear the voice of John Hodiak wakening in a military field hospital. We find out in side conversations that he caught a grenade in the jaw, it's wired shut, he can't talk. In Hodiak's voice over narration we learn that he doesn't know who he is, but everyone keeps calling him Taylor, who is Taylor? An orderly comes by and gives him a shot of morphine, he goes under again the light goes out. He awakens in a military hospital he searches the draw by his bed and finds a wallet. It's George Taylor's wallet and in it is a hate letter from a woman who concludes with the line that she hopes he dies. We cut to s scene where Taylor is discharged and during his last interview he's asked if he wants his belongings shipped to his home town Los Angeles. Taylor hesitates since he doesn't know who he is or where he lives. The orderly conveniently reads off the name of the hotel he gave as his last LA address.In this, the first of the amnesiac trope based noirs, George Taylor becomes an amateur detective trying to find out who he is. Now some may argue that 1942's Street of Chance was the first but in that film Burgess Meredith's hit on the head returns his memory, it's kind of in reverse.
A Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation release Somewhere in The Night was directed and co-written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and based on Marvin Borowsky's original, unpublished story "The Lonely Journey" and his accompanying screenplay. Cinematography was by Norbert Brodine. The film stars John Hodiak (Desert Fury, The Bribe)as George W. Taylor, Nancy Guild (The Brasher Doubloon ) as night club singer Christy Smith, Lloyd Nolan (Lady in the Lake ) as Police Lt. Donald Kendall, Richard Conte (12 Film Noir) as nightclub owner Mel Phillips, Fritz Kortner (The Brasher Doubloon , Berlin Express ) as Anzelmo aka Dr. Oracle a con man spiritualist, Sheldon Leonard (Decoy, The Gangster, ) as Sam, Margo Woode as hooker con woman Phyllis. The film also has cameos by Whit Bissell (Brute Force, Raw Deal, He Walked by Night, Side Street) as John the Bartender and Harry Morgan (The Gangster, Red Light, Appointment with Danger ) as the Public Bath attendant.When George gets to LA he checks the hotel he gave as his address, they don't have a record of him. From the baggage he checked before entering the service he finds an automatic pistol and a letter of introduction to himself to a bank with $5000 in an account under his name that signed by a Larry Cravat. As he sleuths his way about LA's seedy side, a public bath, a skid row mission, a cellar nightclub, a phony fortune teller, a looney bin, and a come on from an overtly friendly hooker. He discovers that some people don't like him asking about Cravat and that others are looking for Cravat also.
Hodiack (Taylor) and Guild (Christy)Taylor befriends a chanteuse Nancy Guild after he breaks into her dressing room while on the runfrom thugs. She introduces him to her nightclub owner/boss Richard Conte, and also to a friendly police detective Lloyd Nolan.
Woode as hooker PhyllisHe finally discovers that the reason for all the interest in Larry Cravat is that he dissapeared with $2-million in Nazi money. Lots of twists and turns in this entertaining film, some great lines also:Phyllis: "Who is the character with the hair" (to Christy) "that is why I haven't seen you around" (to Taylor)Christy: (to Phyllis) If its around I'm sure you'll get it".Great Noir but not very stylistic, almost pedestrian, one location shot of what looks like The Sunshine Apartments on Bunkerv Hill, across from Angels Flight which does not make an appearance, most of the rest looks like backlot sets 8/10
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Me, I like the original so much better, De Niro comes off as too buffoonish and the strapping himself to the underside of the car is a bit much (as mentioned),
Mitchum is downright scary and the noir-ish cinematography is great Mitchum should have got an Oscar.
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Two of the last Black & White film noir Aroused 1966 and The Pick-Up 1968.
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Yes it does.
THE UNFAITHFUL is a film I've caught bits and pieces of before; basically a remake of THE LETTER, but pretty loose translation....it was, I think, directed by Vincent Sherman- who was a very stylish director who, IMO, never made a fully satisfying film.
Yesterday was, I believe, the second time within a six month period that there has been an all-day Lew Ayres tribute- which compounded with the fact that there have been numerous DR. KILDAREathons over the years- leads me to wonder: who in the scheduling department has the hots for Lew? and more importantly: WHY?
I know I've been a real Negative Nancy lately, but honestly- he was not a very good actor at all. And it's not entirely his fault- no doubt as a result of his being Dr. Kildare, he is given numerous clinical, didactic soliloquoys in every role he did afterwards; there always comes a moment in every Lew Ayres film where you expect the other actors to hold while the lights dim and a spot shines on Lew as he breaks the fourth wall and illuminates the audience on any number of issues- from the nature of marriage to the importance of medical research in the area of the s p a s t i c colon.
He has one such moment near the end of THE UNFAITHFUL and it is SO CORNY it stops the film dead in its tracks.
ps- yes, "sp as tic" is censored.
I know the moment you mean it's Lew's sermon about marriage.
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Caught the last half of The Unfaithful (1947) yesterday it had some great location shots of Bunker Hill Angel's Flight, and smoggy LA. This one I'd like to catch from the beginning.
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I thought Ivan Reitman's Dave (1993) was quite derivative of The Phantom President (1932) with George M. Cohan. No credit given.
Then there are a whole slew of Italian films that just plain ignored copyright laws and went about making or remaking without any credit stories from other writers: Ossessione - The Postman Always Rings Twice, A Fistful of Dollars - Yojimbo.
And how about Yojimbo not acknowledging Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, or to take it full circle neither acknowledging Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters 1746.
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I Wake Up Screaming (1941) A Gateway Noir
The biggest problem of some critics and chroniclers of Noir with the film I Wake Up Screaming is that they don't know how to categorize it. It doesn't fit the carefully crafted "German Expressionism" influence scenario that they have worked out as the origin of Noir. It's Director H. Bruce Humberstone, never made another Noir, it's brilliant cinematographer, Edward Cronjager, never filmed another Noir so conceptually and visually it's a one off, one of a kind.I'm calling it a seminal "Gateway Noir" because the film serves the same purpose as a gateway drug, it functions as a sort of gateway to Noir for those unfamiliar, at that point in time, with what eventually came to be known stylistically, and hard boiled narratively, as Films Noir.Look at the film in chronological context, only Stranger On The Third Floor (1940) approaches it in Noir visual stylistics, while The Maltese Falcon (1941) released only twenty eight days ahead of it on October 3, has the hard boiled story by Dashiell Hammett, but barely any of the signature visual stylistics. I Wake up Screaming not only was based on the hard boiled novel by Steve Fisher and also has the brilliant Noir stylistics in abundance but it has much much more. You can say that the film has dissociative identity, multiple genres if you will. It's also a bit of a Screwball Comedy, a Romantic Drama, and almost a Musical. This seamless genre bending provides the "gateway" for Comedy, Romance, and Musical audiences at that time into the films that eventually will be pigeonholed into the future Noir cycle.
Cornell (Laird Cregar)My assertion is that if you've screened I Wake Up Screaming after the various other Noirs it will seem a strange hybrid indeed, because of the conceptions you've already amassed. But, experiencing it as audiences did in 1941 it would probably seem fresh and innovative.I Wake Up Screaming was Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, though the original novel was based in Hollywood the studio switched the film to a New York based Noir, and though filmed on 20th Century Fox Studio sets the film is given a real feel of NYC you could possibly say "informed" by NYC born cinematographer Edward Cronjager. The second unit rear projection shots of Times Square blend smoothly and complete the illusion. The film stars Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar, Alan Mowbray, Allyn Joslyn, and Elisha Cook, Jr.The credits flash against a Noir New York Skyline the titles are written in marquee lights and we hear a the musical equivalent of a shrill klaxon horn blasting out a danger warning. It segues into Street Scene one of the signature New York City themes. Street Scene was used by 20th Century Fox for the films Street Scene, Cry of the City, Kiss of Death, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Dark Corner, and as the overture to How to Marry a Millionaire. The story even actually starts with a street scene a newsboy hawking the murder of a model. We then cut to a dark police interrogation room bright spot lights are sweating a suspect, classic Noir. Professional promoter Frankie Christopher (Victor Mature) is being grilled, surrounded by shadowy figures barking questions.
Frankie (Mature) above looking like Kramer (Michael Richards) from SeinfeldFrankie then begins to relate the story, and in a flashback we are transported to a Times Square restaurant and we are brightly lit again and into screwball comedy mode. Frankie and his two pals, over the hill actor Robin Ray (Alan Mowbray) and gossip columnist Larry Evans (Allyn Joslyn) flirt with hash slinger Vicky Lynn (Carole Landis). In a nod to Pygmalion Frankie makes a bet that he can transform Vicky into a celebrity inside of six weeks. Cut again to a classy nightclub where Frankie introduces Vicky, now dressed in evening gown and sable, to cafe-society. Throughout the film the sequences that feature Vicky or are in some way connected to her also have the Street Scene theme in various arrangements jazz, muted trumpet, etc., it becomes her leitmotif, and suggests the Musical genre. In a later sequence in a police projection room we see Vicky singing on her screen test.
Vicky (Landis) with Robin (Mobray), Larry (Joslyn) and Frankie (Mature) at the Pegasus ClubWe cut back to the police station, back to the present, and back into Noirsville. We now see Jill Lynn (Betty Grable) being questioned in the dimly lit squad room. As Jill tells her story we again go into flashback. She tells us how Vicky came home that first night and told Jill that she was through slinging hash and that from now on she had other things to sling. She had offers for modeling, commercials etc., etc. Jill tells her it's just easy money "your picture is on a magazine one day and in the ash can the next." Vicky is unfazed she snaps back that she knows what she wants and how to get it..
The weeks pass and Jill finds herself falling in love with Frankie. Every time Jill and Frankie are together Over the Rainbow plays in one form or another as their "love" leitmotif another nod to musicals. Street Scene is not only Vicky's leitmotif but also it represents the New York, anything goes, sophisticate. The juxtaposition between it and Over The Rainbow which also brings to mind innocence is interesting for this Noir.During another session with the cops Jill remembers a stranger she saw staring at Vicky throught the window of the restaurant one night. It turns out to be Lt. Cornell (the name a nod to Cornell Woolrich) who is unhealthily obsessed with Vicky Lynn. Cornell also has a moody, sinister leitmotif.Cornell is trying hard to pin the murder on Frankie, going as far as withholding and planting evidence. Elisha Cook Jr. is Harry Williams the nervous Nellie desk clerk at the residence hotel where Vicky and Jill have their appartment.
We get another Screwball Comedy sequence when Vicky tells her three "creators" that she's signed a long term contract for Hollywood and that she's leaving for the West Coast. We see Frankie, Robin, and Larry are seated on bar stools drowning their sorrows and taking pop shots at one another.Frankie eluding the police shows Jill how to hide out at an all night Adult Theater it's a nice little sequence. At one point a beat cop enters the theater, Jill has her shoes off and her legs up on the seat in front of her. Frankie sees the cop and begins to make out with her so that his face is not in showing. The cop goes down the aisle then on his way back up uses his nightstick to tap her on the soles of her feet. He takes her for a hooker and tells her to "get your shoes on sister".The cat and mouse game between Frankie and Cornell plays out to the end with some nice interesting twists. The screencaps are from the Fox Film Noir DVD. The film is like an early flyover Noirsville 9/10.
Full review with more screencaps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/01/i-wake-up-screaming-1941-gateway-noir.html
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I Wake Up Screaming (1941) A Gateway Noir
The biggest problem of some critics and chroniclers of Noir with the film I Wake Up Screaming is that they don't know how to categorize it. It doesn't fit the carefully crafted "German Expressionism" influence scenario that they have worked out as the origin of Noir. It's Director H. Bruce Humberstone, never made another Noir, it's brilliant cinematographer, Edward Cronjager, never filmed another Noir so conceptually and visually it's a one off, one of a kind.I'm calling it a seminal "Gateway Noir" because the film serves the same purpose as a gateway drug, it functions as a sort of gateway to Noir for those unfamiliar, at that point in time, with what eventually came to be known stylistically, and hard boiled narratively, as Films Noir.Look at the film in chronological context, only Stranger On The Third Floor (1940) approaches it in Noir visual stylistics, while The Maltese Falcon (1941) released only twenty eight days ahead of it on October 3, has the hard boiled story by Dashiell Hammett, but barely any of the signature visual stylistics. I Wake up Screaming not only was based on the hard boiled novel by Steve Fisher and also has the brilliant Noir stylistics in abundance but it has much much more. You can say that the film has dissociative identity, multiple genres if you will. It's also a bit of a Screwball Comedy, a Romantic Drama, and almost a Musical. This seamless genre bending provides the "gateway" for Comedy, Romance, and Musical audiences at that time into the films that eventually will be pigeonholed into the future Noir cycle.Victor Mature as Frankie looking an awful lot like Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer (am I right? lol)
My assertion is that if you've screened I Wake Up Screaming after the various other Noirs it will seem a strange hybrid indeed, because of the conceptions you've already amassed. But, experiencing it as audiences did in 1941 it would probably seem fresh and innovative.The film is like an early flyover Noirsville 9/10. Full review with lots of screen caps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/01/i-wake-up-screaming-1941-gateway-noir.html-
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TCM ran an Edgar Ulmer documentary last year (I think) in which it was pointed out that the 6-day shooting schedule for Detour is actually an urban legend and that it was something like 16 days, not 6.
Yea its a Hollywood Legend Savage said in an interview that the film was shot in four six-day weeks. I fixed it.
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Detour (1945) Let's Blow This TrapA shoestring 67 minute production that effectively distilled 100 proof Noir.While the credits roll we see the desolate landscape of the desert from a vehicle barreling down a two lane highway, What's unusual about this barren landscape is that we are driving away from it. The scenery is passing us and receding into the distance, we are leaving what we know behind and we don't know what lies ahead. We are on a Detour and speeding towards oblivion, a Detour that's a metaphor for Destiny. The Destiny of one Al the Piano Player, late of the Break o' Dawn Club, Upper West Side Manhattan.
Al had a steady gig tickling the ivories of the coffin with a bunch of hep cats in a combo, nightly at the Break O' Dawn Club, a smoke choked West side hole in the wall lounge. What made it bearable was Sue the cute peroxide canary, a real looker, and love of his life, as Al put it, he was a healthy American male and she was a healthy American babe and they had a healthy romantic relationship. One night as the club is closing Al, smoking like a Con-Ed stack, is pounding out a classical tune solo while waiting for Sue to change. When she arrives she tells him that" he'll make it to Carnegie Hall someday," he snaps back cynically, "Sure, as a janitor. Maybe I'll make my debut in the basement, Yeah, someday if I don't get arthritis first." He closes the fallboard and with a cigarette sticking to his lower lip declares "Let's blow this trap."
As they walk uptown through the Hudson River fog (a clever low budget sequence that show just the tops of passing street signs sticking up through the dry ice fog) Sue gives Al the brush, she tells him that she wants a shot at the Big Time, Hollywood, Tinseltown.For Al, life without Sue makes him feel blue and dejected, playing for the café society patrons nets him an occasional ten spot tip. After a few months he decides to blow, he calls Sue from the club's phone booth and finds out that she's a waitress slinging hash in a beanery. Al tells her that he'll be right out, but he doesn't tell that he has no bread and will have to hitch.In Arizona he gets picked up by a pill popping bookie driving a 41' Lincoln convertible, name of Charlie Haskell, and he's traveling from New Orleans to LA. It's Al's lucky day, or is it?
As they speed across the desert Charlie asks Al to get him the box of pills in the glove box, he does this a few more times apparently Charlie has some ailment. In the evening after buying Al a meal at a truckstop, Al notices some fresh scars above Charlie's wrist as he drives down the highway. Charlie notices Al looking, and tells him that a crazy broad he picked up gave them to him. A few hours later Charlie asks Al to drive. As Al tools along, in a nice noir stylistic sequence we see Al's eyes through the rearview mirror which segues into what is Al's last happy memory. We see Sue singing "their song" against a backdrop of shadow musicians.It's late night, Al is beginning to fall asleep at the wheel, we see his head nodding. A few sprinkles soon turns into a downpour. Al pulls over, they have to put up the top, hetries to wake Charlie who is unresponsive. Al gets out, and goes around to the passenger side, he opens the door and Charlie's dead body slumps out of the seat and caves his head in on a boulder. Al just bought a one way ticket to Noirsville.
Al panics in genuine fear and desperation, he reasons that dressed they way he is and with no scratch in his pockets the cops will tag him for Charlie's murder, they'll never believe his story of what actually happened. Al decides to drag Charlie into the bottom of a gully, grab his wallet, assume his identity and toss his own suitcase and wallet down in with Charlie. He'll take the 700 clams and drive the car to LA then sell it.Al pulls off at the next motel and gets a room, the next morning he's showered, shaved, and dressed in Charlie's clothes. Back on the road to LA, Al stops to add water to the radiator. He sees a woman, Vera, (Ann Savage) standing at the side of the road hitching and yells out to her, even though "she looks like she just got thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world". Deciding to give her a lift, that ticket to Noirsville just got upgraded to express.
Vera looks like she was ridden hard and put away wet, greasy dirty blond hair, rumpled and stained sweater and skirt, a lot of rough miles on her chassis. She's quite at first almost stone like but turns verbally ferocious practically spitting and hissing her razor sharp dialog, your worst nightmare a 24 year old Medusa who will turn your heart to stone. Savage is, quite possibly, the most terrifyingly vicious Femme Fatale of Classic Noir. Vera's arrival brings the film to a whole new level
Vera also brings one of the greatest Noir twists to the plot of Detour, if you thought it couldn't get any worse for Al, your in for a shock. Detour can also be deciphered from a different perspective, Al could be guilty as sin for both murders and all we see is a classic unreliable narrator tale. Its fun to watch whatever your take.Detour, a "Poverty-Row" production was shot on a few cheap sets in 6 days. But it was a flare at the end of a dark tunnel showing a way to other cash strapped film-makers to make something out of nothing. Music by Leo Erdody, Sound engineer Max Hutchinson. a 9/10Again full review with more screen caps here: http://noirsville.blogspot.com/2016/01/detour-1945-lets-blow-this-trap.html
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Detour (1945)
A shoestring 67 minute production that effectively distilled 100 proof Noir.While the credits roll we see the desolate landscape of the desert from a vehicle barreling down a two lane highway, What's unusual about this barren landscape is that we are driving away from it. The scenery is passing us and receding into the distance, we are leaving what we know behind and we don't know what lies ahead. We are on a Detour and speeding towards oblivion, a Detour that's a metaphor for Destiny. The Destiny of one Al the Piano Player, late of the Break o' Dawn Club, Upper West Side Manhattan.
Al had a steady gig tickling the ivories of the coffin with a bunch of hep cats in a combo, nightly at the Break O' Dawn Club, a smoke choked West side hole in the wall lounge. What made it bearable was Sue the cute peroxide canary, a real looker, and love of his life, as Al put it, he was a healthy American male and she was a healthy American babe and they had a healthy romantic relationship. But Sue gives Al the brush, she tells him that she wants a shot at the Big Time, Hollywood, Tinseltown.
For Al, life without Sue makes him feel blue and dejected, playing for the café society patrons nets him an occasional ten spot tip. After a few months he decides to blow, he calls Sue from the club's phone booth and finds out that she's a waitress slinging hash in a beanery. Al tells her that he'll be right out, but he doesn't tell that he has no bread and will have to hitch.
In Arizona he gets picked up by a pill popping bookie driving a 41' Lincoln convertible, name of Charlie Haskell, and he's traveling from New Orleans to LA. It's Al's lucky day, or is it?
It's late night, Al is beginning to fall asleep at the wheel, we see his head nodding. A few sprinkles soon turns into a downpour. Al pulls over, they have to put up the top, he tries to wake Charlie who is unresponsive. Al gets out, and goes around to the passenger side, he opens the door and Charlie's dead body slumps out of the seat and caves his head in on a boulder. Al just bought a one way ticket to Noirsville.Al panics in genuine fear and desperation, he reasons that dressed they way he is and with no scratch in his pockets the cops will tag him for Charlie's murder, they'll never believe his story of what actually happened. Al decides to drag Charlie into the bottom of a gully, grab his wallet, assume his identity and toss his own suitcase and wallet down in with Charlie. He'll take the 700 clams and drive the car to LA then sell it.Back on the road to LA, Al stops to add water to the radiator. He sees a woman, Vera, (Ann Savage) standing at the side of the road hitching and yells out to her, even though "she looks like she just got thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world". Deciding to give her a lift, that ticket to Noirsville just got upgraded to express.Vera looks like she was ridden hard and put away wet, greasy dirty blond hair, rumpled and stained sweater and skirt, a lot of rough miles on her chassis. She's quite at first almost stone like but turns verbally ferocious practically spitting and hissing her razor sharp dialog, your worst nightmare a 24 year old Medusa who will turn your heart to stone. Savage is, quite possibly, the most terrifyingly vicious Femme Fatale of Classic Noir. Vera's arrival brings the film to a whole new levelVera also brings one of the greatest Noir twists to the plot of Detour, if you thought it couldn't get any worse for Al, your in for a shock. Detour can also be deciphered from a different perspective, Al could be guilty as sin for both murders and all we see is a classic unreliable narrator tale. Its fun to watch whatever your take.Detour, a "Poverty-Row" production was shot (Hollywood Legend) on a few cheap sets in 6 days, but Savage in an interview has stated said the film was shot in four six-day weeks. But regardless it was a flare at the end of a dark tunnel showing a way to other cash strapped film-makers to make something out of nothing. Music by Leo Erdody, Sound engineer Max Hutchinson. a 9/10-
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Thanks for mentioning the great shots of L.A. I do not know where the Bradbury Building was, but something else is probably now where it stood. Raymond Burr had a small role, speaking in a different voice, and wearing the ugliest neckties.I always enjoy seeing films that are shot on location, so we can appreciate the architecture of past decades. We will never see this look again.
I'm sure The Bradbury is still there.
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Underworld USA begins and ends on New Year's Eve if I remember right
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I think you are asking about the schedule for the evening of Tuesday December 29. The focus that evening is "In Memoriam" for those who have passed and have not yet been recognized with a movie tribute. There is one movie scheduled for each honoree - Too Late For Tears is shown as a tribute to Lizabeth Scott who passed away on January 31. You can see the full list of honorees and their movies at
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/1146497|0/In-Memoriam-12-29.html
Hope this helps - sorry if I misunderstood your question.
Yea I meant Lizabeth Scott, sorry but that answers the question
Recently watched Noir
in Film Noir--Gangster
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