cigarjoe

Inserts (1975)

Poodle Springs (1998) Last Marlowe - Retro Tail Fin Noir I've always heard negative things about Poodle Springs. Its BS... the negative comments. They are made by people who don't know what they are talking about. This film is a great addition to the Philip Marlowe detective film "universe." I like it better than Altman's unconventional The Long Goodbye. Poodle Springs was the novel started by Raymond Chandler that was unfinished at the time of his death. He knocked out a handful of chapters before kicking the bucket. It was eventually completed by Robert B. Parker. I've heard that some Chandler fans even refused to read it out "respect" for Raymond Candler. Hey! News Flash! It was the Chandler estate that requested that Parker finish the last Philip Marlowe novel. Directed by Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces (1970), Black Widow (1987), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)). Excellent cinematography was by Stuart Dryburgh, and and beautiful score by Michael Small. The teleplay (it is an HBO film BTW) was written by Tom Stoppard based on the aforementioned book by Robert B. Parker and Raymond Chandler. Stoppard made some changes that work very well. He advanced the time period 3-4 years setting the tale within 19 days between November 3 and November 22 1963 the day of the Kennedy assassination, and that ending date could very well be called the end of what some like to think of as the conservative old school 50's and the dawning of the "Age of Aquarius." The film stars James Caan as Philip Marlowe, Dina Meyer as Laura Parker-Marlowe, David Keith as Larry Victor/Charles Nichols. Joe Don Baker as P.J. Parker, Tom Bower as Lt. Arnie Burns, Julia Campbell as Miriam "Muffy" Blackstone-Nichols, Brian Cox as Clayton Blackstone, Nia Peeples as Angel, La Joy Far as Lola Faithful, Sam Vlahos as Eddie Garcia, and Mo Gallini as J.D. James Caan is great as the aging Marlowe in a changing era. He makes this Marlowe just as believable as Mitchum did in the more traditional period piece Farewell My Lovely and in the updated and re-imagined The Big Sleep (1978) that had a contemporary 1978 Marlowe who had served in WWII and then resettled in the UK after the war. Once you get over the time and location change you find the plot follows the original story much better than the Bogart - Bacall version. Both of those films should be checked out if you haven't seen them. Dina Meyer (Laura Parker) gives off a very Jackie Kennedy-ish vibe in the flick. She's smart and confident, she knows what she wants, a harbinger of the women's empowerment movement that's to come. Meyer and Caan are reminiscent of Bogie and Bacall. Meyer is stylish and believable. Other cast standouts are David Keith, Tom Bower, Julia Campbell, Brian Cox, Nia Peeples, Sam Vlahos, and Michael Laskin. Another standout for me in the film is the attention to detail in recreating 1963. From tobacciana -ashtrays, matchbooks, Camel cigarettes and table lighters, to Googie signage and architecture. Home interior are 60's chic. There is also a plethora of tail fin cars. Marlowe tools around in a 1957 Plymouth Plaza, Laura drives around in a turquoise 1959 Imperial Crown. Blackstone's goons drive a 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, Krauss drove a 1962 Ford Thunderbird. Also making appearances are a 958 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe, a 1959 Cadillac Ambulance. a 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special, and a 1960 Buick Invicta Convertible Coupe. The film pretty much follows the novel with a few changes that make the story even more cynical. i.e. changing the time frame to 63 brings in a bit more of a gritty, decadent, sleazy, sixties feel to it all. Fuller review with screen caps in Film Noir/Gangster pages. Screenshots are from an online streamer. Could use a Bluray release 9/10.

Poodle Springs (1998) Last Marlowe - Retro Tail Fin Noir "I clean up for my guy... you clean up for yours." I've always heard negative things about Poodle Springs. Its BS... the negative comments. They are made by people who don't know what they are talking about. This film is a great addition to the Philip Marlowe detective film "universe." I like it better than Altman's unconventional The Long Goodbye. Poodle Springs was the novel started by Raymond Chandler that was unfinished at the time of his death. He knocked out a handful of chapters before kicking the bucket. It was eventually completed by Robert B. Parker. I've heard that some Chandler fans even refused to read it out "respect" for Raymond Candler. Hey! News Flash! It was the Chandler estate that requested that Parker finish the last Philip Marlowe novel. Directed by Bob Rafelson (Five Easy Pieces (1970), Black Widow (1987), and The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)). Excellent cinematography was by Stuart Dryburgh, and and beautiful score by Michael Small. The teleplay (it is an HBO film BTW) was written by Tom Stoppard based on the aforementioned book by Robert B. Parker and Raymond Chandler. Stoppard made some changes that work very well. He advanced the time period 3-4 years setting the tale within 19 days between November 3 and November 22 1963 the day of the Kennedy assassination, and that ending date could very well be called the end of what some like to think of as the conservative old school 50's and the dawning of the "Age of Aquarius." The film stars James Caan (Naked City TV Series (1958–1963), The Godfather (1972), Cinderella Liberty (1973), Dick Tracy (1990)) as Philip Marlowe, Dina Meyer as Laura Parker-Marlowe David Keith (The Two Jakes (1990)) as Larry Victor/Charles Nichols. Joe Don Baker (Charley Varrick (1973)) as P.J. Parker, Tom Bower (River's Edge (1986), The Killer Inside Me (2010)) as Lt. Arnie Burns, Julia Campbell as Miriam "Muffy" Blackstone-Nichols, Brian Cox as Clayton Blackstone, Nia Peeples as Angel, La Joy Far as Lola Faithful, Sam Vlahos (Powwow Highway (1989), Lone Star (1996)), as Eddie Garcia, and Mo Gallini as J.D. James Caan as Philip Marlowe Dina Meyer as Laura Parker-Marlowe Tom Bower as Lt. Arnie Burns David Keith as Larry Victor/Charles Nichols Julia Campbell as Miriam "Muffy" Blackstone-Nichols BTW Poodle Springs is of course fictitious. a spoof on Palm Springs but located way farther East and North, somewhere between Baker and Las Vegas and roughly two miles from the California/Nevada border. The Story First day back from his honeymoon Marlowe is lured to a crime scene by a phoney call from a radio phone from Paul Krauss another P.I. asking for some help on a stakeout down in San Pedro, berth 60. He tell's Marlowe that he's driving a fire engine red '62 Ford Thunderbird convertible. Marlowe hears two shots over the phone. He calls his pal Detective Lieutenant Arnie Burns on LAPD and reports a possible homicide. Marlowe hops in his 1957 Plymouth Plaza gets to the waterfront finds the red rag top. Inside the car is Krauss. Inside his head is a slug. He's looking through Krauss' wallet and notebook when Burns shows up. Marlowe tells him the story. The homicide squad arrives and starts investigating. the dead Krauss "find the other slug?" Marlowe: Hey you find the other slug? LAPD Detective: There's just one entry. Marlowe: You sure? LAPD Captain: Something troubling you Marlowe? Marlowe: Yea there were two shots. LAPD Captain: Tell me again how you know? Marlowe: I was counting... Marlowe is arrested when the cops tell him Krauss couldn't have made the call. All radio calls go through an operator and the last call Krauss made was last night. Marlowe immediately finds out how strong political pull really is when he's suddenly released when some brass on the LAPD finds out he's P.J. Parker's son-in-law. However once the brass splits his buddy Arnie, who doesn't want anybody to think he rolled over for P.J. Parker, has Marlowe handcuffed again and still sent to a holding cell until his wife and her law partners get him out. From the name and address he found in Krauss' notebook Marlowe checks out a photographer named Larry Victor. He's not in his office so Marlowe jimmy's the lock on the back door and snoops around. He doesn't get far. Larry Victor come in through the back door of his office. Larry Victor: Any idea what breaking and entering can get you? Marlowe: One to five in Soledad... Marlowe questions Larry after identifying himself as a private eye. Larry tells him that he doesn't know why his name was in Krauss' address notebook. Larry gets a phone call and Marlowe splits. But he circles around the hall and sneaks back in through the front door to listen to the conversation. He finds out that Victor is going to meet someone at Sam's Hof Brau at 9:00PM. The Hof Brau is a hole in the wall strip joint. Marlowe follows Larry inside and eavesdrops on Larry and a stripper. From the stripper's dogs collar Marlowe gets her address. The stripper is blackmailing Larry with photographs, but she also has the negatives. Larry gives her a few bucks for the photos. Grabs the envelope they are in and splits. He rips up the envelope outside the club and throws the pieces in the gutter. Marlowe gtabs a fragment and follows Larry to the apartment of a woman named Angel where it looks like he's spending the night. Marlowe heads for 6605 Willowby, the address on the dog tag, to snoop around. He finds the place tossed and he's startled by a dead cat spinning from a ceiling fan. He loses his composure and gets hit over the head. Later back at his apartment he's got reservations about private eyeing. He confides to Arnie... "I never had that, this was fear." Marlowe's reflections and changed directions. Detective Lieutenant Arnie Burns: What's going on with you? Marlowe [pouring himself a drink]: I don't know, something. I had an experience tonight Arnie, I was shakin', I could see my hand... I was shakin' . I went up those stairs and I was thinking about Laura, I was so busy thinking I wasn't thinking and somebody come and hit me in the head. Detective Lieutenant Arnie Burns: It happens. Marlowe: I never had that, this was fear. [sitting] I know what kept it out. Detective Lieutenant Arnie Burns: What was that? Marlowe: Belonging to nobody. I found something out about this job... It's a loners job.... I ain't that guy anymore. Detective Lieutenant Arnie Burns: So? Marlowe: So... The hell with it. I got a wife I don't deserve loves me. Got four good suits. I got a Plymouth, a .38 under my arm, and I buy my own drinks. There's other places. He opens up an office in Poodle Springs. It's filled with snooty women and retirees. Marlowe wearing a sport shirt has changed his image. Poodle Springs However trouble seems to find him. While looking for a light for his cigarette he gets almost hijacked by two thugs who tell him that "Lippy wants to see him." Here Marlowe pulls a neat trick. He asks the thug that pulls a gun on him "Hey how am I going to get back? Why don't you ride with me?" The thug agrees puts his automatic back in his holster and goes to get in the car. Marlowe gets in the driver's seat first and pops a gun out from under the dash and pulls it on the thug. We realize that this is Marlowe's regular routine in a situation like that, when this trick is repeated later on. The fracus causes a small commotion on the streets of the "Springs." Before he tells the thug to beat it he asks again for a light. The thug gives him a box of wooden matches that come from the Agony Club. Marlowe heads to the Agony Club to confront Lippy Lipshultz. Lippy tells Marlowe he's looking for a guy named Charles Nichols. Nichols left a maker for 100,000. He wants Marlowe to find him. Marlowe agrees to find Charles Nichols for Lippy. Marlowe visits Charles' wife Maryam "Muffy" Blackstone Nichols. He tells her that he's been employed to find him from someone who claims that he owes him a hundred thou. Muffy tells him that that is absurd. She tells Marlowe that her husband does not gambol. Marlowe tells her that he'd like to hear that from Charles himself. Muffy tells him he's off working, and that he basically prides himself on not living off her money. A kindred soul to Marlowe in his present situation, made more poignant considering Lippy's comment about rich ladies with "rented" husbands. Sitting at Muffy's home bar, Marlowe casually glances down at the collage of images beneath the glass bar top. He sees homey pictures of, surprisingly, Larry Victor and Muffy together. Marlowe asks her if the man in the photos is her husband. She replies yes. We cut to Marlowe almost calling Arnie in L.A. the double identity of Larry/Charles to tell him what he's discovered, but he doesn't. Old habits are hard to break he decides to split for the city to shake things up for himself. This leads to Phil and Laura's first tiff. It's a well done scene. She says he told her he was through with the Larry Victor case, Phil tells her Larry and Charles are the same person and "ain't is a gas." But Phil tells Laura that he doesn't have to go tonight. They have makeup sex. Back in L.A. Marlowe finds Lola Faithful dead in Larry Victor's office. He calls Arnie. The Homicide squad arrives Arnie grills Marlowe. Arnie wants to know **** Marlowe is doing back in L.A. Marlowe tells him he's working on a missing persons case. He's looking for Charles Nichols son in law of mining magnate Clayton Blackstone. Marlowe tells Arnie that if he's your guy he'll give him to him gift wrapped. Marlowe in the course of their conversation also asks Arnie about that mobile phone call he got. Arnie says the phone record only showed only his office his doctor and the Posada Motel a cathouse in Silverton. Marlowe meets with Larry at a bar to shake him up. He tells him about Lola dead in his office. Tells him he knows about Muffy. Larry says that Angel is his wife. Marlowe tells him Charles Nichols is married to Muffy and that Charles Nichols is you. Larry asks him if he's told the cops Marlowes says not yet, because he doesn't think he's a killer. So Larry spills that way back when he and Lola were in the porno business. He also relates that Lola started blackmailing him when she found out he was married to Muffy Blackstone. The twist is that the pictures that Larry ripped up outside the Hof Brau were actually of Muffy who was into posing porno as a kink. Marlowe gets hijacked again this time by goons working for Clayton Blackstone. His evasive car related trick doesn't work and he's driven to Blackstone's place. There, Marlowe breaks some interesting news to Blackstone. When Blackstone asks Marlowe who hired him, he tells him that he did, in a way, through Manny "Lippy" Lipshultz manager of the Agony Club which Blackstone owns. Manny gave him some story about an I.O.U. It comes out that Blackstone is paying Charles to be married to Muffy, Charles was spending more time away from home and she was getting distressed, he wants her to be happy. Blackstone: I give him an allowance certainly... he's not what you'd call successful. Marlowe: He probably makes twice what I make. Blackstone: That's what I mean. Marlowe: I also been thinking that you hired Paull Krauss who'd been following Lola around. Blackstone: Why should I have someone follow Lola Faithful? Marlowe: Lola was trying to raise some money on a pronographic photo of your daughter. But what I'm thinking is why you're going to all this trouble to talk to me. What did Lola have on you Blackstone? Blackstone: My daughter was a sick woman for a while after her mother died. A nervous breakdown. Her behavior became extreme. Maybe you should stick to your own case. Did you find my son-in-law? Marlowe: What do you think of Charles now that we call him Larry? Blackstone: My daughter loves him, and as long as she does I will support him. I will intercede with those that bear him ill. Blackstone tells Marlowe he will pay for information on who hired Krauss. Marlow Marlowe: It's cold out, colder than the city. Laura: You seem different. Marlowe: I am. Laura: Did everything go alright? Did you find who you were after? Marlowe: I found him. Remember that happy couple I told you about dancing to the radio? The guy I risked my license for? Turns out he's a bigamist, pimp, and a liar and she is a hooker and an addict, otherwise they didn't fool me one bit. Of course it all goes spectacularly Noirsville. Noirsville Tail Fins Tail Fins Tail Fins Tail Fins James Caan is great as the aging Marlowe in a changing era. He makes this Marlowe just as believable as Mitchum did in the more traditional period piece Farewell My Lovely and in the updated and reimagined The Big Sleep (1978) that had a contemporary (1978) Marlowe who had served in WWII and then resettled in the UK after the war. Once you get over the time and location change you find the plot follows the original story much better than the Bogart - Bacall version. Both of those films should be checked out if you haven't seen them. Dina Meyer (Laura Parker) gives off a very Jackie Kennedy-ish vibe in the flick. She's smart and confident, she knows what she wants, a harbinger of the women's empowerment movement that's to come. Meyer and Caan are reminiscent of Bogie and Bacall. Meyer is stylish and believable. Other cast standouts are David Keith, Tom Bower, Julia Campbell, Brian Cox, Nia Peeples, Sam Vlahos, and Michael Laskin. Another standout for me in the film is the attention to detail in recreating 1963. From tobacciana -ashtrays, matchbooks, Camel cigarettes and table lighters, to Googie signage and architecture. Home interior are 60's chic. There is also a plethora of tail fin cars. Marlowe tools around in a 1957 Plymouth Plaza, Laura drives around in a turquoise 1959 Imperial Crown. Blackstone's goons drive a 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, Krauss drove a 1962 Ford Thunderbird. Also making appearances are a 958 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe, a 1959 Cadillac Ambulance. a 1962 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, 1959 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special, and a 1960 Buick Invicta Convertible Coupe. The film pretty much follows the novel with a few changes that make the story even more cynical. i.e. changing the time frame to 63 brings in a bit more of a gritty, decadent, sleazy, sixties feel to it all. Screenshots are from an online streamer. Could use a Bluray release 9/10. Full Review with more screecaps at Noirsville

If I remember right he's about to roll the dice that come up Snake Eyes. 😉

So we got Woman On The Beach (1947) coming up Sat/Sun. Directed by Jean Renoir. How can you go wrong with noir in your name? Seen it once. Joan Bennett, Charles Bickford, and Robert Ryan. Love triangle type of plot. From what I remember, minimal sets, sand, fog, etc., etc. Ryan doing his stock damaged individual shtick. Bickford a blind artist. More a Drama/Mood Noir. If you like In A Lonely Place it's more in that vein. I went back and checked, and I never even wrote a review about it. I wasn't too enthused with it the first go round. Maybe it will be more impressive on the big screen TV with a restored print, I guess we'll see. We'll see if Eddie can inject some hook into it to make it more interesting.

I have favorite directors for Westerns, SyFy, Drama, and for Film Noir and Neo Noir and for different decades, there is no "all" time favorite.

Correctamundo! Its fun and a nice surprise to find a title that you think you'd have to buy and see it steaming free on Amazon Prime. I usually check sites like Youtube, Internet Archive, rarefilm, and others I found a new one the other day called HDFlex just searching for a title. I'll also break down and actually rent something If I want to see it badly enough. Heck, three or four dollars a title is a lot cheaper than going to a multiplex and it's something I want to see not something I'm dropping ten or twelve dollars for and taking a chance on.

What about your connections? Using coaxial cable direct to a cable box then to a TV or wifi? Could be a buffering problem. I cast to my TV. I've noticed that if I'm casting from my computer and I have a lot of tabs open on the screen if i start scrolling it will freeze the stream on the TV. it's as if scrolling a screen uses enough large amounts of memory to screw things up. If I cast from my phone and just leave it streaming to the TV while I use my lap top I have no problems. I'm not a technical guy but I suspect that using too much data through a wifi must create some type of bottleneck. The program signal is going from the cable to the wifi to the laptop (where I'm controlling in my case Sling TV) back to the wifi them to the TV. If I cast from my phone I may be going straight from a cell tower to the phone to the TV. There might be a limit to the amount of data a particular wifi device can handle.

For those nostalgic for Sgt_Markoff here enjoy..... Total presence breaks on the univocal predication of the exterior absolute the absolute existent (of that of which it is not possible to univocally predicate an outside, while the equivocal predication of the outside of the absolute exterior is possible of that of which the reality so predicated is not the reality, viz., of the dark/of the self, the identity of which is not outside the absolute identity of the outside, which is to say that the equivocal predication of identity is possible of the self-identity which is not identity, while identity is univocally predicated of the limit to the darkness, of the limit of the reality of the self). This is the real exteriority of the absolute outside: the reality of the absolutely unconditioned absolute outside univocally predicated of the dark: the light univocally predicated of the darkness: the shining of the light univocally predicated of the limit of the darkness: actuality univocally predicated of the other of self-identity: existence univocally predicated of the absolutely unconditioned other of the self. The precision of the shining of the light breaking the dark is the other-identity of the light. The precision of the absolutely minimum transcendence of the dark is the light itself/the absolutely unconditioned exteriority of existence for the first time/the absolutely facial identity of existence/the proportion of the new creation sans depth/the light itself ex nihilo: the dark itself univocally identified, i.e., not self-identity identity itself equivocally, not the dark itself equivocally, in “self-alienation,” not “self-identity, itself in self-alienation” “released” in and by “otherness,” and “actual other,” “itself,” not the abysmal inversion of the light, the reality of the darkness equivocally, absolute identity equivocally predicated of the self/selfhood equivocally predicated of the dark (the reality of this darkness the other-self-covering of identity which is the identification person-self).

Here are the USSR/Russian WWII films, remember them?, they played a big part in the conflict. 25 Great Soviet and Russian Films about World War II Posted on May 10, 2015 by Leo Poroshin Mashenka (1942) Dir. by Yuli Raizman This brief, chamber film stands out among the Soviet productions leading up to war. Here, the focus is trained not on the Great Collective, or the march to the shiny future, but on personal experience. Throughout the film, it stays on the heroine, showing her life, joys, and sorrows. A simple telegraph girl who trains as a nurse, Mashenka finds love and loses it, laughs and cries, hopes and grieves. And then, the war happens. In the picture, it’s the Finnish war, but because the film wasn’t finished and released until 1942, it came to symbolize the despair of the ongoing war and the hopes that its ending may offer. There are many scenes of note, but the ambiguous ending is the most striking part of the film. After briefly reuniting with her love on the war-time road, and parting with an understanding that they’ll meet again, Mashenka’s happy and waving figure is framed by silhouettes of cars and the galloping cavalrymen. The viewer is left with a mix of concern and hope. Much like Waterloo Bridge and Brief Encounters, Mashenka remains watchable by concentrating on the human and the humane. The happiness shown here is private and personal. By continuously lingering on the face of the heroine, catching both the shadows of sorrows and rays of joy that it emanates, this poignant melodrama remains a shining example of lyricism and hope. Two Soldiers (1943) Dir. by Leonid Lukov The two titular soldiers are simple machine gunners at the Leningrad front. They fight the enemy, they go on rare leaves into city, they sleep, eat, and sing in the trenches. Then, there is a rift between them, but it’s mended on the battlefield. The end. What, then, makes this simple film so watchable? The excellent characterization and focus on the simpler things in life. Not glory, valor, or life for the party and/or Motherland, but-friendship, camaraderie, songs. One of them is a blacksmith from the Ural mountains, a surly and burly fellow. The other-a shipwright from Odessa, lightning-quick with emotions, jokes, responses, quips, and songs, much in the spirit of his hometown. The highest brass we see is their battalion commander. The songs deserve a special mention, as they are still performed in Russia. One is heart-wringing “Dark Night”, of a night at war and hope to return home. The other-“Boatfuls of Mullet”, a half-klezmer, half-underworld ditty about a lucky fisherman of Odessa. Nothing about those songs is political, everything-human. As is this film. Special mention must be made of the realistically filmed combat sequences (although they were all done at the studio lot). Rainbow (Raduga) (1943) Dir. by Mark Donskoy This film was influential on both sides of the Atlantic. It’s remarkable in its emotional and powerful depiction of life under the Nazi occupation. Harrowing scenes follow each other-a woman walks barefoot in the snow. A newborn’s life is brutally ended hours after birth. A 10-year old is shot for trying to sneak bread to the prisoners (with his family watching from the window, and his death being marked by his little sister’s emotionless “Mama, Misha fell.”). Later, his family buries him beneath the dirt floor in their hut, and they all walk back and forth to level out the hill. A bored and cold German soldier plays a game of “eenie-meenie-miny-moe”, aiming at a group of children, most too young to even comprehend the danger. The titular rainbow appears only in the end as the glimmer of hope, after the grieving mother’s ordeal is over at the gallows. The writer, Wanda Wasilewska, also wrote the screenplay, and the decision to focus the attention on the plight of women and children amid the violence pays off. It was shown to acclaim in America, garnering an honorary Oscar. And, even though it was largely filmed on the studio set, its style was an acknowledged influence on Italian neo-realists. 70 years later, it lost none of capacity to move to tears, and none of its power. Soldiers (1956) Dir. by Aleksandr Ivanov After a prolonged period of officialdom, where comrade Stalin and The Party were hailed as primary heroes, a new way of looking at the not-distant war emerged. Viktor Nekrasov’s novella “In the trenches of Stalingrad” came out to acclaim in 1946, and 10 years later he was able to make a humanistic, de-heroizing screenplay out of it. As the title suggests, it’s a story about soldiers, about their lives in combat and in rare moments between fighting. The main characters, a lieutenant and a couple of privates, retreat from Kharkiv to Stalingrad, are reassigned, go from defense to offense and back again, eat, drink, sleep, smoke, are wounded and hospitalized-all the day-to-day details are here, presented matter-of-factly and without pathos. More than that, the cost of the war and the attitudes and costly ignorance of higher command are questioned. Additionally, this film gave the great Russian actor Innokenty Smoktunovsky his first notable role (he would go on to play Hamlet, Tchaikovsky, and Uncle Vanya to great acclaim), and it’s symptomatic-the new aesthetic called for actors who live the part rather than act it, which Smoktunovsky was more than able to do due to his own wartime experience. The Cranes are Flying (1957) Dir. by Mikhail Kalatozov This extraordinary film singlehandedly gave Soviet cinema a new creative jolt. Elements here a perfectly combined-humanistic screenplay by Mikhail Rozov, contemporary and real acting by the leads, Kalatozov’s sure-handed direction, and, of course, the dazzling bw cinematography by Sergei Urusevsky. The story of a love ruined by the war, of a family shattered, and of Veronika’s ultimate redemption draws in, keeps on the emotional edge, and provides a whole range of sensations. After about two decades of suspicion towards “formalism”, the form here strikes back with a vengeance, recalling the giddy days of Eisenstein, Vertov, Kuleshov, Dovzhenko, and other early masters of montage shaping the language of cinema. Urusevsky, a cinematographer with a painter’s education (and a talented painter in his own right), here brings back the powerful mobility of the camera and the striking imagery. Deserves to be seen as a whole, but several scenes particularly stand out-the lovers greeting the morning together, the scene of Veronika rushing past the mobilized crowds to say goodbye, the moment where she is confronted with her bombed-out flat and loss of family, and, of course, the legendary death scene for Boris, where by the miracle of swirling shots and multiple expositions the experience of life cut short untimely is brilliantly conveyed to the audience. The Palme d’Or is not its true reward-but its continuing relevance and artistry is. Ballad of a Soldier (1959) Dir. by Grigori Chukhrai Continuing the good tradition that The Cranes are Flying began, this humane and well-made film stirred emotions well beyond the Iron Curtain. While not as technically stunning as Kalatozov’s masterpiece, its structure and cohesion make it a very worthy equal. Further continuing the youthful spirit of Khruschev’s Thaw, it features two very young actors in leading roles. The soldier of the title is Alyosha. More out of fear and self-preservation than courage, he commits a heroic act and is rewarded with a week’s leave. He travels on the rails back to his native village. But the journey and the encounters he makes take up most of his leave time. On the way, he encounters Shura, a young girl travelling alone. Together, they meet different kinds of people-some good, some unhappy, some downright ugly. Alyosha is able to help those in need due to his openness and positivity. Especially memorable is the scene where they encounter a recent amputee who feels worthless and suicidal. The talented actor Yevgeny Urbansky virtually steals the scene with his intense performance. Alyosha and Shura part with hope and understanding of their feeling toward each other. He is only able to see his mother briefly before having to return. Spoiler alert-there is a spoiler in the beginning, where the voiceover mentions that Alyosha will perish at war. But at the end, the viewer is still left with the good feeling of hope. The film’s success at the San Francisco Film Festival and the Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay are well-earned. Destiny of a Man (1959) Dir. by Sergei Bondarchuk Together with The Cranes are Flying and Ballad of a Soldier, forms an informal and influential trilogy of the Thaw period. It slightly leans towards monumentalism (plenty of low-angled shots of the lead character), mostly due to the fact that the debuting director was one of USSR’s lead actors who cast himself in the lead role. But it more than makes up for it with its important and novel message of compassion towards the POWs, who under Stalin were vilified and persecuted. Mikhail Sholokhov’s story is faithfully adapted to the screen. A Russian man creates a family, overcoming his alcoholism in process, but loses everyone he loves during the war, and goes through the POW concentration hell. He becomes a lonely and empty-souled trucker, until he adopts an orphaned boy, thus gaining a new reason for living and reshaping his destiny. For a debut, Bondarchuk’s direction is solid, and his acting is powerful as usual. The concentration camp scenes are staged liked an expressionistic horror movie, with the strength of human spirit persevering and overcoming the hardships. The scene where the hero wins his life in the drinking game the Nazis force him to partake in is central in the film (we can’t help but applaud him when he says “I never chase the first shot”). Overall, a moving film that continues the humanistic spirit of the Thaw and de-Stalinization. Peace to Him Who Enters (1961) Dir. by Aleksandr Alov and Vladimir Naumov In Japanese theatre, there is a concept of “michiyuki”, literally translated as “to go on the road”. Michiyuki scenes are performed by travelers going from one place to another. Nowhere is the road more important than at war, where each step can be challenging and treacherous. It’s well presented in this pacifist road film. A young lieutenant fresh out of officer’s school arrives in Germany days before peace is signed. He is eager to go to the frontlines. Instead, he gets a very unheroic task of supervising a transportation to the hospital of two patients-a shell-shocked soldier and a German woman due to give birth. The miscommunications here are astounding-the lieutenant knows little of life and warfare, the German woman only speaks German, the happy-go-lucky driver is a chatterbox who just gabs away about everything under the sun. The most silent character is a wounded deaf-mute soldier (who also just learned he has no family to come home to), a war-scarred zombie (a powerful silent portrayal by the actor). And the miscommunications continue along the way as they travel through war-torn Germany. They get lost, they encounter concentration camp survivors (only one of whom speaks very broken Russian), as well as a lively American GI (played by a frequent Tarkovsky actor Nikolai Grinko), who, naturally, only speaks English (but loves life, beer, and to dance Charleston). On their way, the young lieutenant comes to understand life, war, and peace a little better, while the German woman and the wounded soldier exorcise some of their demons. The final shot, of a newborn relieving himself on a pile of decommissioned weapons, is a powerful symbol of life’s triumph over death and destruction. Full post here Taste of Cinema

Anyway anybody wanting to delve into the whole 21 page discussion on Major Dundee its here on the Sergio Leone Web Board - Major Dundee

Glenn Erickson (aka DVD Savant) link, detailing the original script of "Dundee" and comparing it to both versions of the film: DVD Talk In short, still missing (if filmed at all) sequences include: - The opening massacre scene - Sgt. Gomez telling Dundee that he had been kidnapped by Apaches as a boy and lived with them for several years - Several scenes where Captain Waller tries to send a runner to have Dundee arrested. Apparently Dundee has Sergeant Gomez rough him up, or at least that's the intimation of the script. - Lt. Graham robbing the supply train (alluded to but not shown in the film) - The beginning of the expedition is chaotic, the animals are undisciplined. Tyreen shoots a bird and gets the feather for his hat. There's a joking fight scene between Union and Confederate troopers, but it's not serious. - After the river crossing scene. Captain Waller arrives at the border with a party to arrest Dundee, but they run into the Confederate patrol and are chased off by them - The drinking scene, where Dundee offers whiskey to the command for the river crossing. Dahlstrom toasts the Union, Chillum toasts the Confederacy, and everyone except Slim Pickens' character Wiley ends up dumping their whiskey onto the ground in protest - Some scenes in the build-up to the river ambush, Gomez leaving the command with the Rostes boys, the Old Apache informant disappearing right before the ambush, Tyreen whistling Dixie, but the answer coming from behind him. - Dundee tries to ride a mule to raise morale and show off his expertise, but his thrown off - Tyreen and Dundee talking about their days at West Point, and about their admiration for Robert E. Lee (a scene which would have reinforced the point that Dundee was a Southerner) - Some brief scenes with Tim and Linda, and Dundee and Teresa on the night of the fiesta - The kinfe fight between Potts and Gomez, available in part on the DVD as an extra - Dundee formally granting Graham his command after his wounding - Dundee chases after Teresa after she discovers him with Melinche. Melinche leaves the bar/hotel and is arrested by the French - Gomez contacts Dundee in the bar but is unable to save him because there are too many French soldiers around - Dundee has a nightmare flashback scene of the events in the film - After the conference of Dundee and his officers (in the restored cut), the Apache leaders have a similar meeting, trying to determine what Dundee's next plan of action is - More lead-in to the ambush, including Potts and Gomez relieving the pickets so that they would in danger instead of the pickets - After the final battle, Dundee and Potts find another Apache trail marker left by Guerro, Charriba's subordinate, who has apparently survived the battle. How much of this was shot, and how much was just in the script, isn't clear. But this still makes for interesting reading.

The Charge of the Peckinpah Brigade By J. HOBERMAN Published: April 3, 2005 HERE is a particular sort of movie that the French call "film maudit." Cursed by an unhappy destiny, such a movie is ripped from its director's womb and mutilated by its studio; misunderstood or reviled on release, it usually proves ruinous at the box office. Sam Peckinpah's 1965 cavalry western, "Major Dundee" - opening Friday for a 12-day run at Film Forum in a restored, extended version - is a legendary maudit. The British critic Jim Kitses called it "one of Hollywood's great broken monuments." Peckinpah, who tried to have his name removed from the film when Columbia released it 40 years ago this month, characterized the movie's making and unmaking as "one of the most painful things that ever happened in my life." "Major Dundee" was conceived as a deluxe vehicle for Charlton Heston and a potential reserved-seat road show, like the 1962 spectacular "How the West Was Won." John Ford, first choice to direct any cavalry movie, was busy with his final western, "Cheyenne Autumn." Thus, the script found Peckinpah, a director of television shoot'em-ups whose 1962 western, "Ride the High Country," attracted attention for its autumnal deployment of the veteran cowboys Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. Peckinpah was fascinated by the spectacle of smashed ambitions - he had wanted to make a movie about General Custer as a perverse hero whose greatest triumph was a legendary defeat - and he spent the summer of 1963 elaborating a scenario that cast Mr. Heston, America's pre-eminent epic star, as a maladroit, overreaching loner. He would never inhabit a juicier role than the megalomaniacal Dundee. Nor would Peckinpah have another protagonist whose obsessions dovetailed so well with his own. A Southerner in the service of the Union, Dundee commands a Texas prison camp, where he was transferred for trying to "fight his own war" at Gettysburg. When a band of marauding Apaches massacres white settlers living nearby and takes their children captive, Dundee repeats his pattern by illegally commandeering weapons and assembling a motley regiment of Confederate prisoners of war, Union deserters, Texas horse thieves and free black soldiers to pursue them into Mexico. Dundee's army is integrated, though violently yet grossly divided. All that binds these Americans is their fear and loathing of a racial foe. After five weeks, the Apaches deprive Dundee of his rationale by setting their captives free. Still, fueled by the major's vanity and a certain giddy inertia, the quest continues.. "Major Dundee" was itself a misadventure. In February 1964, two days before filming began in Durango, Mexico, Columbia underwent a corporate shake-up and the film's budget was slashed from $4.5 to $3 million. Still, Peckinpah fought to keep production in Mexico, where he recapitulated the reign of terror occurring back in Hollywood. He imagined a new sort of Western: savage, violent and charged with magical desire. (The movie's 25 stuntmen were, according to an article about the production in Life magazine, the most ever assembled for a single movie.) No less than his arrogant antihero, Peckinpah led his men beyond the law. Gordon Dawson, a production assistant, recalled being "scared to death." Peckinpah, he told the director's biographer David Weddle, "was firing people right and left," 15 crew members in all. Columbia's new regime feared that they had inherited a runaway production with a lunatic at the helm. Mr. Heston confided in his diary that he didn't know what "Major Dundee" was supposed to be about. Yet midway through filming, he intervened. To save Peckinpah's job, Mr. Heston returned his salary, a gesture with few if any parallels in Hollywood history. "Major Dundee" wrapped 15 days late and $1.5 million over budget. That summer, Peckinpah found himself banned from the Columbia lot. His 2-hour 44 minute-version - including slow-motion battle sequences inspired by Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" - was cut by 30 minutes by the producer Jerry Bresler. After a disastrous Hollywood preview in February 1965, complete with Peckinpah smashing a pint of whiskey outside the theater, Bresler shortened "Dundee" again. These cuts, amounting to 12 minutes, have now been restored. Grover Crisp, Sony Pictures vice president in charge of film restoration, found the trims in the 1990's but was not able to fit them into the existing movie until an earlier audio track turned up, mislabeled, in a British storage facility. (Bresler had done his last edit in London.) The extended "Major Dundee" is the preview version, with one exception. A new, more somber musical track has replaced the inanely exuberant existing one commissioned by Bresler that featured the Mitch Miller chorus. "The studio is trying to make amends," Mr. Crisp told me over the phone, noting that both scores will be available on the DVD. The extended "Dundee" is richer and more coherent, but it remains a fascinating wreck. It not only represents a debacle, it embodies one and, in that, remains extraordinarily attuned to its historical moment. "Dundee" acknowledges the racial and social divisions of the mid-60's while conjuring the hubris of the Great Society. Any cavalry film is both a western and a combat movie, but Peckinpah contaminated the classicism of Ford's "Fort Apache" (1948) with the interventionist thematics of "The Magnificent Seven." And as the historian Richard Slotkin notes in "Gunslinger Nation," the result "translates the political and ideological paradoxes of the Vietnam War into mythic terms." The evening of April 7, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson appeared on television to explain the "war of unparalleled brutality," which had escalated dramatically during the past few months. "Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping," he said, "women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to their government. And helpless villages are ravaged by sneak attacks." "Major Dundee" opened in New York that day and, in characterizing Vietnam, Johnson might almost have been describing the torched, corpse-strewn settlement with which "Dundee" begins, just as the movie imaginatively prophesied the geopolitical debacle that the war became. The film's most sympathetic review called it "ugly," "brutal" and "gory." Just as liberal intellectuals were reversing themselves on Johnson, the candidate they supported in 1964, so Newsweek, which had named "Ride the High Country" the best movie of 1962, turned on Peckinpah: "Think of Yosemite Falls or suicides from the top of the Empire State Building, or streaking meteorites downward toward the earth and you'll get some idea of the decline in the career of Sam Peckinpah." The magazine noted that Peckinpah had been fired from his next movie, "The Cincinnati Kid," after a week. Peckinpah seemed finished. But three years later he would shake the curse of "Dundee," return to Mexico and make a movie about Americans at war that many people, myself included, consider the greatest Hollywood production of the 1960's: "The Wild Bunch." To see the extended "Major Dundee" is to see the smoking ruin from which Peckinpah's masterpiece arose.

Press Release From Film Forum (April 2005) MAJOR DUNDEE: THE EXTENDED VERSION, a new restoration of Sam Peckinpah’s Civil War/Western epic, starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, will run at Film Forum from Friday, April 8 through Tuesday, April 19 (twelve days). Originally released in 1965 in a severely butchered version, MAJOR DUNDEE can finally be seen in a cut that closely restores Peckinpah’s original vision. Grover Crisp, Sony Pictures Vice-President in Charge of Film Restoration, who oversaw the project, will introduce the 8:00 show on opening night, Friday, April 8, along with composer Christopher Caliendo, who wrote a brand new score for the extended version. “Until the Apache is taken or destroyed...” Continue rotting in a Civil War prison camp or join with hated Union jailers in pursuit of three children kidnapped by massacring raiders: that’s the deal Charlton Heston’s eponymous martinet Dundee — himself with something to prove after a miscue at Gettysburg — offers his prisoner and ex-friend, Richard Harris’s cavalier Captain Tyreen, successively Irish potato farmer, cashiered Union officer and Confederate renegade. Volatile enough, but as Dundee further fleshes out his command with a friendly Indian, Negro volunteers, and one-armed James Coburn, it’s clear that for the obsessive Major, this will be a kind of land-locked Moby Dick, a quest after the Apache across the Rio Grande into occupied Mexico — and a confrontation with Emperor Maximilian’s French lancers. Sam Peckinpah’s first large-scale Western was complete with epic sweep, his own stock company (a stunning array of Western icons, including Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, and Slim Pickens), and blood-soaked violence anticipating the director’s later The Wild Bunch. But it also became one of the screen’s most notorious films maudits (Horizons West author Jim Kitses called it “one of Hollywood’s great broken monuments”). When the studio — which had cut the budget by a third just before the start of shooting — threatened to shut the picture down early, Heston offered his own salary back to allow missing scenes to be shot. The studio took the money but still didn’t film the scenes. Then an additional 20 to 50 minutes — estimates differ — were hacked away, a complete butcher job that ran roughshod with the continuity, confusing both audiences and critics. To compound matters, the studio imposed a music score on the film that the director objected to vociferously. Forty years later, Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures, matching color separation masters with a still-extant soundtrack for a longer version, has located and restored all but six minutes of Peckinpah's original cut. To help bring the film more into line with Peckinpah's vision, a new music score was commissioned from composer Christopher Caliendo, with the entire track now recorded and re-mixed in 5.1 Dolby Digital. The result is that rare event in film history and restoration: the rescue of a once-mutilated masterwork. A SONY PICTURES REPERTORY RELEASE. Running time: 136 minutes

I remember seeing one. Probably this one Dick Tracy

Hunted (1952) (aka The Stranger in Between) Gritty Britt Noir A Kids Noir, a Road Noir, a nice surprise. We first see Robbie excellently played by Jon Whiteley running in a panic with his teddy bear through the streets of London. He runs almost under the hooves and wheels of a Watneys Keg wagon carrying Reid's Stout. He darts off and climbs up into the ruins of a still bombed out rubble filled section of the city. He runs down into a ruined cellar and almost into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde). Chris grabs him in mid run. Robbie startled drops his teddy when he sees the other man's body. Chris asks him what is he doing down here. Robbie tells Chris that he set the house on fire. We hear the happy voices of playing children. Chris takes Robbie's hand and they run out through a ruptured cellar wall and out into the daylight. The two unlikely fugitives one only in his mind, the other for real hit the road and escape from London headed for the "wild" North. A very well acted film directed by Charles Crichton, based on an idea of Michael McCarthy and a screenplay by Jack Whittingham. The excellent cinematography was by Eric Cross. Music was by Hubert Clifford. The cast stars Dirk Bogarde as Chris Lloyd, Jon Whiteley as Robbie, Elizabeth Sellars as Magda, Kay Walsh as Mrs. Syke, Frederick Piper as Mr. Sykes., Julian Somers as Jack Lloyd, Geoffrey Keen as Detective Inspector Drakin, and Douglas Blackwell as Detective Sergeant Grayson. It's a gem of British Noir 9/10. Full review with more screencaps at Noirsville. Hunted is a part of Great British Movies - Film Noir [DVD] along with 21 Days, Sapphire, So Long At The Fair, and Turn the Key Softly. PS - You'll need a third party converted region free DVD player to watch these in the U.S.

Hunted (1952) (aka The Stranger in Between) Gritty Britt Noir "Why do girls marry a sailor for?" A Kids Noir, a Road Noir, a nice surprise. We first see Robbie excellently played by Jon Whiteley running in a panic with his teddy bear through the streets of London. He runs almost under the hooves and wheels of a Watneys Keg wagon carrying Reid's Stout. He darts off and climbs up into the ruins of a still bombed out rubble filled section of the city. He runs down into a ruined cellar and almost into Chris Lloyd (Dirk Bogarde). on the run Robbie (Jon Whiteley) Chris grabs him in mid run. Robbie startled drops his teddy when he sees the other man's body. Chris asks him what is he doing down here. Robbie tells Chris that he set the house on fire. We hear the happy voices of playing children. Chris takes Robbie's hand and they run out through a ruptured cellar wall and out into the daylight. Chris (Dirk Bogarde) and Robbie We cut to Robbie's apartment. His step mother arrives opening the door. She calls out for Robbie. She immediately smells the smoke. Robbie's been playing with matches again and has set a lace kitchen curtain to smouldering, it didn't ignite enough to cause much damage, but Robbie doesn't know that. She rips the curtain down and dumps it into the sink dousing it out. She looks around for Robbie but he's vanished. She begins a worried search. Kay Walsh as Mrs. Syke Back out on the streets of London Chris and Robbie and walking swiftly down the sidewalk. Suddenly Robbie begins to drag his feet he wants to go back for his teddy. Chris wants no part of that and tells him to come on. At this point a fire truck goes by and in a panic Robbie tells Chris that he doesn't want to go home. He breaks free and runs away in the opposite direction. Chris catches up to him and tells him that he's not taking him home. The head to the Thames waterfront where they hide out in a tarp covered barge. Robbie's adopted parents Mr. and Mrs.Sykes, are reporting his disappearance to the police. They report the incident with the curtains. Later that evening a man an a woman, a prostitute perhaps, are embracing outside of a saloon. A man emerges and they move off through the blitz ruins ending up down in the cellar with a little bit of the old "in-and-out" in mind. Before they can get it on the woman spots the dead man and screams. Scotland Yard arrives and begins investigating. The dead man is a Charles James Mills and the police are questioning the Saloon's barmaid. They find out that he left with a bloke called Lloyd a third engineer or mate or something on a ship. That he used to come in once or twice with his girl. The next morning Chris reads in a paper that they have discovered the body. While sitting eating a breakfast roll with Robbie, Chris asks Robbie why he doesn't want to go home. Chris: You don't like me, do you? Robbie: No. Chris: Well, why don't you go off home, then? Robbie: I don't want to go home. Then Chris puts two and two together and figures out that Robbie burned his house down. Chris cons Robbie telling him that if he wants Chris to get him out of this jam, they are going to need money. Chris tells Robbie that he must go to Chris' place and get his money. Chris takes him to the building with his flat. Gives him instructions to ring the bell and if no one answers, to let himself in with Chris' key. Tells him to get his money out of a draw, it's in a pay packet tucked under some shirts. Robbie follows instructions, but while inside the flat Chris's wife Magda returns home with some inspectors from Scotland Yard. Robbie dives under a bed and when they pass into another room runs out of the flat and back to Chris without getting his money. He runs back to Chris telling him about the bobbies. Trying to raise some money Chris tries to sell his trench coat outright. The pawnbroker is wise to him from a police description, and telling Chris that he knows someone looking for a coat, goes back to his office and calls Scotland Yard. Chris realizes what's going on and runs off with Robbie hiding out in a Amusement Arcade. Later that night Chris and Robbie go back to Chris' flat. Chris has Robbie case the joint out for bobbies. Robbie tells him the police are staked out at the entrances of his building. Chris goes over a wall and tightrope like walks along it's top to a balcony. Over the railing and he's in the building. However another stakeout man is in the hall outside his flat so Chris goes up to the roof and shimmies down the buildings facade to a ledge where he enters his flat through an open window. He goes into his bedroom and puts a hand over his wife's mouth waking her up. Magda (Elizabeth Sellars) Chris: One squawk out of you. [releases her mouth] You rotten little.... Magda: Chris, Chris why did you do it? Chris: You ask me Chris goes to the dresser taking his money. Magda gets out of bed comes over to him and asks him what is he going to do? She tries to embrace him, tries to get him to stay. She tries to explain her infidelity. Magda: You were always away, I couldn't help it I couldn't... Chris flings her on the bed. We see on the wall a publicity shot of a stripper/belly dancer, probably Magda. Magda offers Chris a string or pearls for extra getway money. Chris knocks them out of her hand and slips back out the window and back up over the roof. He just eludes the police who now give chase and he joins Robbie. They run down a street and hop into the back of a lorry stopped at a red light The two unlikely fugitives one only in his mind, the other for real hit the road and escape from London headed for the "wild" North. Noirsville Potteries Loop Line at Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, pottery factories of Stoke on Trent Obviously the tale is in a similar vein to Stevenson's Treasure Island, parts of Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and films like Chaplin's The Kid (1921), the more contemporary (1959) and modern takes like Paper Moon (1973), Gloria (1980), A Perfect World (1993), Léon: The Professional (1994) A very well acted film directed by Charles Crichton, based on an idea of Michael McCarthy and a screenplay by Jack Whittingham. The excellent cinematography was by Eric Cross. Music was by Hubert Clifford. The cast stars Dirk Bogarde as Chris Lloyd, Jon Whiteley as Robbie, Elizabeth Sellars as Magda, Kay Walsh as Mrs. Syke, Frederick Piper as Mr. Sykes., Julian Somers as Jack Lloyd, Geoffrey Keen as Detective Inspector Drakin, and Douglas Blackwell as Detective Sergeant Grayson. It's a gem of British Noir 9/10. Full review with more screencaps at Noirsville. "It really is a superbly made drama and I read somewhere that, of all the many Rank films Dirk Bogarde made during his long career, this was his personal favourite. It is also a film record of a bygone post-war Britain; from its bomb sites and tramcars and horse drawn traffic in the capital, to the now long gone pottery factories of Stoke on Trent, belching forth their black smoke from huge bottle ovens and covered with industrial grime. The railway scenes in the film were filmed on the equally now long gone Potteries Loop Line at Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, one of hundreds of lines that fell under the Dr Beeching axe in the 1960's. All completely gone now, but captured for posterity on 35mm black and white film in Hunted." (DavidW1947 IMDb) Hunted is a part of Great British Movies - Film Noir [DVD] along with 21 Days, Sapphire, So Long At The Fair, and Turn the Key Softly. PS - You'll need a third party converted region free DVD player to watch these in the U.S.

Another factor with Nocturne is its lack of the usual suspects in the supporting cast. After Lynn Bari who was in The Amazing Mr. X and Virginia Huston in Sudden Fear, The Racket, and Out of the Past, I don't recognise anybody from other Noir (I'm sure there are some though) they are like the "C" team. Myrna Dell was in The Strip (1951). Mable page in Hollow Triumph (1948), Queeny Smith was in a few too, but not standouts. You'd think you'd have the RKO "B" support.

Its a phone number Dial 1119

That opening zoom looked like a big still photograph or matte painting with a rectangular cut out for the house interior which was film like a rear projection through that cut out. There must be a name for that process. It was similar to that shot in a Film Noir that takes place mostly in a bar full of hostages. In it there is a shot of what looks like a big screen TV in a bar it's rectangular rather than what a 1950s era TV screen looked like. The Noir had an address for a title that was five numbers long and started with a 1____ or 11____ I just can't remember it or the actors but a few were famous more in the 60s and 70s.

I agree with They Drive By Night, haven't seen the 1935 Glass Key

Forgot to mention that the only George Raft Noir I've liked so far was Red Light (1949). Lynn Bari was great in The Amazing Mr. X (1948)

Yea I haven't been too impressed with George Raft.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Nocturne should be a treat.

I'm with jamesjazzguitar What does a BOGEY 15 HOUR FILM FESTIVAL have to do with Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid or Play It Again Sam or The Cheap Detective, they are not really Bogey films?