cigarjoe
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Posts posted by cigarjoe
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The Moving Finger (1963) Beatnik Noir
Directed by Larry Moyer.
Written by Carlo and Larry Moyer with cinematography by Max Glenn music by Shel Silverstein and Teddy Vann.
The film stars Lionel Stander (Call Northside 777, narrator Blast of Silence, Once Upon a Time in the West) as Anatole. With Barbara London, Art Smith (Framed, Brute Force, Ride the Pink Horse, Body and Soul, T-Men, Caught, Manhandled, Quicksand, In a Lonely Place, The Killer That Stalked New York, and The Sound of Fury) as Doc Savartz, Wendy Barrie, Alan Ansara, and Barry Newman (Vanishing Point).
Cafe owner Anatole (Lionel Stander) 
Doc Savartz (Art Smith) 
Bank robber (Alan Ansara?) 
Anatole's gal pal Angel Barbara London ? 
Mason (Barry Newman) lt.
The Story
Bank robbery gone wrong. Three men rob a downtown bank in Manhattan. They filter in and at the designated time pull their guns.
Go time! 
The robbers empty out the cash draws. One of the guards starts shooting back. The robbers take off out the door and out on to the streets.
Unfortunately for them a squad car is nearby and gives chase...
Two of the bank robbers are killed trying to scale a wall. The third one wounded with a gut shot headed in a different direction and gets away with the sack of loot. $90,000 dollars.
The wounded robber Ansara gets away on a Greenwich Village bound tourist bus.
Anatole (Lionel Stander) is a cat who runs a dive Village beatnik, tourist trap, coffee house. A tourist bus is on the way. His workers are a bunch of actors he hires for the real beatnik atmo. They get get three hots and share cots with each other and their pet rat that they keep in a bird cage. (I wonder if they inherited one of Ralphie's pet rats from Blast Of Silence)
Anatole and the beats it's almost time for the tourist bus Anatole heads to the basement to rouse his weed smoking crew.The tourist bus passes street artists their works against fences/walls, Washington Square, etc., etc. It pulls up
Down at the coffee house Anatole is reading his poetry, the actors are at the tables as square john tourists filter in. The bank robber sneaks down into the basement crash pad.The lights go down and Anatole recites one of his god awful poems, Howl it ain't.
Tourists A police detective arrives at the end of Anatole's recital. The detective uses Anatole as a sort of watchdog. The police are canvasing the neighborhood businesses asking to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious.
Anatole and Police Detective
Anatole: Your're becoming a regular customer.
Police Detective: Hello Anatole.
Anatole: I know you didn't come down here for the poetry.
Police Detective: It's about the bank job.
Anatole: So?
[Lt hands Anatole a picture of the robber]
Waitress [bringing coffee looks at it]: He's not bad looking for a bank robber.
Anatole: A bank robbery is good for the Village it builds up business tourists love it.
Police Detective [taking a sip of coffee]: This coffee is the worst.\
Anatole:Whata ya expect the Waldorf-Astoria? They don't come down here for the coffee. They can get that at home. They come here to suffer makes 'em feel artistic.
Police Detective: Well anyway I would like you to keep your eyes open because I figure he's still in the Village somewhere. A lot of people come through your place especially the weird ones. If you hear anything let me know.
Anatole: Look, I have enough trouble trying to make a living down here without trying to play cops and robbers. That's your problem.
Police Detective: As a personal favor I'd like to get it over with before my vacation starts.
Anatole: OK if he comes down here and orders a cup of espresso I'll send up a smoke signal.
Police Detective: Thanks, I'll see ya.
The detective heads out to speak with other denizens of the Village. He approaches Moondog a real genuine NYC character who dressed up in a Viking outfit.
Moondog Moondog was the real deal. I actually knew Moondog. Though for me it was three years later than this film. I knew him between 1966-1970. I used to pass him on my way to school. In 1966 he stood like a medieval viking sentinel rain or shine on the Northeast corner of 6th Avenue and 54th Street in Manhattan right in front of the Warwick Hotel. My friends and I would always say "Hi Moondog."
Moondog's real name was Louis Thomas Hardin (May 26, 1916 – September 8, 1999), and he was an American musician, composer, theoretician, poet and inventor of several musical instruments. He was blind from the age of 16. He often just standing silently on the sidewalk. But occasionally he played music or sold music. He was widely recognized as "the Viking of 6th Avenue."
He was no bum. He had an apartment someplace uptown and a country house upstate. He rubbed shoulders with the likes of Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini, as well as legendary jazz men Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman. This was back when he used to stand on the corner of "The Street," the 52nd Street jazz -nightclub -strip club Mecca.
He had a strong interest in Nordic mythology, and maintained an altar to Thor in his country home in Candor, NY.
BTW, some of Moondog's music was used in The Big Lebowski read more here Moondog
Back to the film......
When the tourist bus and it's passengers takes off the actors take off back to their crash pad in the basement. They find the loan surviving bank robber hiding out. They are cool with it, being anti-establishment etc., etc., they let him crash on a mattress, and bandage him up and get drug dealing pharmacist Doc Savartz played by Art Smith to give him morphine for the pain.
Art tells Mason that it doesn't look to good for the robber.
So, the beats do their various counterculture beatnik things, like crashing gallery openings to stuff their faces from the deli platters, stealing milk bottles in the early mornings from in front of apartment doors. Getting stoned. Popping pills. Showering regularly with friends, i.e. altogether at a rich old art patrons digs when they are dirty. Attending wild avant-garde loft parties, etc., etc. The film is sprinkled with candid Neo Realist sequences of real people doing their thing.
All the characters, Anatole and Angel included, while doing all this, keep checking on the robber down in the basement and the $90,000 he has. They all want a piece of it. He is sinking fast. but is functional enough to still be able to wave around his revolver.
Noirsville
Angel: It's against the law.
Anatole: The bank took it from its customers, the hood took it from the bank, we take it from the hood- that's life, the survival of the fittest, the law of the jungle
Its a piece of preserved Greenwich Village Beat nostalgia that has crappy coffee house bad poetry readings, jazz music, folk music hootenannies, weed smoking joint passing sessions, belly dancers, gay couples, authentic Village weirdos and as a bonus has some real footage of Little Italy's Feast of San Genaro Festival. Watchable 5-6/10
Won the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco for Best Director in 1963. Full review with more screencaps at Noirsville-
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7 hours ago, Vautrin said:
I always thought Gloria was hot, odd or not.
I'd do her....
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4 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
Barefoot in Athens (1966) - 7/10
Filmed theater performance of the Maxwell Anderson play that charts the final days of the life of Socrates (Peter Ustinov), including his trial. Also featuring Geraldine Page, Anthony Quayle, Salome Jens, Lloyd Bochner, Shepperd Strudwick, Eric Berry, and Christopher Walken. The performances are pitched at theater-level, but Ustinov is still magnetic as the great thinker. 23-year-old Christopher Walken has one of his earliest adult roles; he had been a child actor under the name "Ronnie Walken".
Source: YouTube
Whoa, whoa, whoa! If you're going alphabetically through 66 What happened to Aroused (1966), one of the best early Sexploitation Neo Noir's and one of the last B&W films.
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1 hour ago, Vautrin said:
still find it entertaining, probably as much for how parts of the country looked and the mores
of the early 1960s than for the plots themselves.
Sort of something similar to the Early 50s seasons of Dragnet. You get a lot of the L/A. you see in 50s film Noir.
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5 minutes ago, Hibi said:
I haven't seen that one. Any good?
It's descent about a 7/10. Here is a production still with Jerry Hooper the director and Gloria
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4 minutes ago, Hibi said:
YES! What film is that from?
Film Noir The Naked Alibi (1954) with Sterling Hayden and Gene Barry.
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2 hours ago, Dargo said:
Good points I suppose, James.
But in my case, Gloria Grahame never did a thing for me. Good actress, but I always thought her a bit "strange looking".
(...and her lisp never did a thing for me either)
She looks mighty good here.....
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5 hours ago, SansFin said:
Pencil leads are a mixture of graphite and a binder. The clay used as a binder in cheap pencils would dry when exposed to the air. This meant that the first line would be as if you are trying to write with a brick. It would not mark well or it would be crumbly and might fall off the paper. Licking the end caused the particles of clay to separate and go into suspension so that they would come off the point with ease and carry the graphite particles with them.
And now we know, thanks.
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Rafles sur la ville (original title) Sinners of Paris (1958) Paris Noir
Directed by Pierre Chenal. Written by Paul Andréota, Pierre Chenal, and Jean Ferry.
It was based on a novel by Auguste Le Breton. Cinematography was by Marcel Grignon, and music was by Michel Legrand.
Charles Vanel is crime boss Léonce Pozzi known as "Le Fondu", and no it doesn' mean the "hot melted cheese dip, lol, it means "Mr. Fade." Vanel's first film credit was in 1910. I first saw him in The Wages Of Fear, then in Diabolique. Mr. Fade's ace up the sleeve is his trademark hand grenade that he carries between his legs, sort of like a third ****.
Bella Darvi is Mr. Fade's stipper/dancer gal pal Cri Cri who dances at the Pegasus Club in the Pigalle According to her mini bio on IMDb Darvi was "a self-destructive brunette beauty, her life was full of misfortune. Of Polish/French descent, she miraculously survived the tortures of a WWII concentration camp as a youth, only to get caught up in the phony glitter and high-living style of Monaco's casinos as a young adult in Europe. An inveterate gambler and drinker, she was, by chance, "discovered" by movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck and his wife, Virginia Fox, who thought she had a foreign cinematic allure à la Ingrid Bergman. Despite her lack of acting experience, the Zanucks paid off her gambling debts and whisked her away to Hollywood to be groomed for stardom. Her marquee name "Darvi" was derived from the combined first names of her mentors.... After three high profile roles in The Egyptian (1954), Hell and High Water (1954) and The Racers (1955) opposite three top male films stars (Victor Mature, Richard Widmark and Kirk Douglas, respectively), Darvi's limited abilities were painfully transparent. Not only was she hampered by an ever-so-slight crossed-eyed appearance, she had a trace of a lisp which, combined with a foreign accent, made her speech appear slurred and difficult to understand. It didn't take long for the actress to go off the deep end. Within a short time, a major sex scandal involving Mr. Zanuck had wife Virginia packing Darvi's bags and any "career" she once had here in America was over."
Léonce Pozzi "Le Fondu" (Charles Vanel) 
Cri Cri (Bella Darvi)
Michel Piccoli is L'inspecteur Vardier, de la P.J. his breakthrough came after Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) he was also in Is Paris Burning?, Belle de Jour, and The Phantom of Liberty.
Le commissaire divisionnaire Brevet (Jean Brochard) and L'inspecteur Vardier (Michel Piccoli)
Danik Patisson (The Accident (1963)) who was usually cast as a vamp, is vixen "Loose Lucie" Barot, the roundheels wife of François Guérinis (Eyes Without a Face (1960)) who plays L'inspecteur Gilbert Barot, de la P.J.
Lucie Barot (Danik Patisson)
Lucien Donati "Le Niçois" (Marcel Mouloudji)
Marcel Mouloudji is pimp Lucien Donati, aka "Le Niçois" translated "Mr. Nice." Jean Brochard (Diabolique (1955)) is Le commissaire divisionnaire Brevet, de la P.J., Georges Vitray is L'inspecteur Albert taillis, de la P.J. Georges Douking (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie(1972)) is "Le fou" "The Fool," Marcel Lupovici is Dédé, and Monique Tanguy is the young prostitute of Mr. Nice Lucienne, aka "Loulou."
Vardier and LouLou (Monique Tanguy)
The Story
Mr. Fade, a French mobster, is in a hospital room with barred windows. A nurse comes in and checks on him. He looks bad, but as soon as she leaves he's hopping out of bed and getting dressed.
There is a police officer with a machine gun on guard. Mr. Fade goes to the door and opens it. Curious the police man enters and is hit over the head with a chair. Mr. Fade grabs his machine gun covers it with his jacket and slips down the hallway and out of sight.
Mr. Fade heads up to the roof and while trying to cross to another building and make his escape that way he collapses. A cop following his trail comes upon Mr. Fade laying on the roof. Mr. Fade calls out that he's done for.The cop approaches and Mr. Fade machine guns him down. The dead cop was the long time partner of Inspector Vardier. Vardier vows to get Mr. Fade, but they have no idea of where he's holed up. Mr. Fade has a lot of underworld friends.
Vardier besides dealing with trying to locate Mr. Fade is also burdened with a rookie partner fresh out of the police academy, Inspector Gilbert Barot. Barot has a pretty young wife Lucie who catches Vardier's eye.
Old Hooker
Vardier now has to contact his stoolies, and try and get a line on Mr. Fade. He contacts The Fool, who works as a bartender in the Quartier Pigalle. It's on the border between the 9th and the 18th arrondissements. The Pigalle is the Paris equivalent of Times Square. The district is full of theaters, sex shops, strip tease joints, con artists, and hookers. The Moulin Rouge is in the Pigalle. During WWII it was called "Pig Alley" by the allies soldiers.
From The Fool Vardier finds out that Mr. Fade has a nephew Lucien Donati who is a pimp who goes by the nickname "Le Niçois," Mr. Nice and that he operates out of a Pigalle hotel. As soon as Vardier splits however, The Fool makes a call to the brother of Mr. Fade, and tells him to tell Mr. Fade to be careful of Mr. Nice.
Vardier traces Mr. Nice down to a dive hotel where he is shacked up with LouLou his hooker. Vardier and a squad arrest them and haul both down to headquarters.
Vardier through bribery finagles Mr. Nice and LouLou into signing incriminating documents against each other. Vardier uses this leverage over Mr. Nice to get him to rat out where his Uncle Pozzi "Mr. Fade" is hiding out. Mr. Nice tells Vardier he doesn't know where he is hiding nor has he heard from him. Vardier tells him to start looking.
Meanwhile Vardier occupies his partner Barot with interviewing various underworld figures, while Vardier starts an affair with Barot's wife Lucie.
Mr. Nice visits Cri Cri at the Pegasus Club but she tells him that she hasn't seen Mr. Fade.
Cri Cri hasn't seen Mr. Fade Eventually He goes to visit his shopkeeper uncle and asks him about his brother Mr. Fade. Down in the basement Mr. Fade who has been hiding there for weeks is hanging out with his girlfriend Cri Cri a Pigalle stripper. Mr. Fade shows himself to Mr. Nice and tells him he's moving out. Mr. Fade wants Mr. Nice to drive him to his new hideout.
It's a test. When Mr. Fade enters the building of his new hideout, Mr. Nice takes off for the nearest phone and calls Vardier.
A police raid is set in motion but Mr. Fade is staked outside watching the police enter the address, and he knows Mr. Nice set him up. Mr. Fade goes looking for Mr. Nice. He finds him at a poker game. Mr Fade tells Mr. Nice that he changed his mind and he wants Mr. Nice to drive him to a new hideout.
Mr. Nice ratting out Mr. Fade
police raid 
Mr. Fade watches the action 
Mr. Fade is taking Mr. Nice for a ride. In some remote French Noirsville back alley Mr. Fade tells Mr. Nice to stop. Mr Fade tells Mr. Nice its a shame because he liked him as he blasts away with his automatic.
Lets go for a ride...
goodbye Mr. Nice Will Vardier find Mr. Fade? Will Barot discover his wife's infidelitis? Will Mr. Fade use his third ****? There are some nice twists, turns and surprises leading to the denouement.
Noirsville
Sinners of Paris was a nice surprise to find. Its a routine policer that manages to stay interesting. There's got to be a lot more out there mostly unknown to aficio-noir-dos. They never had international releases and probably are in French only. 7/10-
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1 minute ago, LonesomePolecat said:
That's unmistakeably Blithe Spirit (which you must have seen on a b&w TV because it's in color).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blithe_Spirit_(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038363/
Rex Harrison has a fake seance with Margaret Rutherford as the medium and she accidentally brings back his first wife as a ghost. The ghost wife bugs the second wife, then, just like you said, cuts the breaks so the husband can join her, and accidentally kills the second wife instead. Rex has to bring Maggie back to try and get rid of both wives, but at the end they kill him and he's a ghost too.
You beat me to it, lol
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1 hour ago, Shopkins said:
Hi! For years now I have been trying to find the title of a film I watched with my mom when I was young. I can not remember the title or any of the actors. What I do remember are parts of the movie. It was a black & white comedy that centered around the ghost of a man's first wife that comes back to sabotage his relationship with his new wife and ultimately cause him to become a ghost with her. I remember towards the end that the ghost wife cuts the brake line of his car in the hope that the husband will wreck, die, and join her next time he went for a drive. To her dismay, the new wife drives the car instead. People have suggested Topper, Blithe Spirit, of My Favorite Wife as options, but none of those is the movie I'm looking for.
Any help would be so greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Give us a time frame if you can. Also remember if, say you saw the film in the mid sixties on a TV it may have been a B&W TV and the film is actually in color.
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Of course its a medium. In that medium you can have different techniques and genres.
Say you got Bugs Bunny cartoon set in the West. Bugs and Yosemite Sam are the actors and would be a Comedy Western. Just like Way Out West with Laurel and Hardy is a Comedy Western. Raph Baskshi's Lord Of The Rings was an Adventure Epic, Bakshi's Fritz The Cat was an Adult Toon, his Coonskin was a Blaxploitation ficlk, but the technique was inked frames and rotoscope. Disney did the Legend of Sleepy Hollow a light Ghost story all inked frame. Mr. MaGoo's Christmas Carol was a Musical drama. The Rabbit of Seville is a Bugs Bunny Warner Bros. Looney Tunes Cartoon that was an Comedy Opera.
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4 hours ago, TomJH said:
And you have to wonder, why, what happened to them?
Looks like she segued right into TV making a movie occasionally. She's got comparatively a substantial bio on IMDb
"Miller's last television appearance was as Ruth Hudson in the 1961 episode "Prince Jim" of NBC's Tales of Wells Fargo (1957), starring Dale Robertson. Of the genres and cross-genres spanning her film career, Miller participated in making five traditional noirs, one noir-thriller, four Westerns, two noir Westerns, one religious Western, three military dramas, two comedies, one comedy-drama, one soap opera, one religious drama and one musical. Seven of Miller's roles were walk-ons or deleted from the final film. Her television work involved similar genres. In contradistinction to being only a supporting actress as described by most film historians, she was leading lady in six of 22 films.
Due to demands of family and her husband's business, Miller retired from acting. The Schuylers left Los Angeles for the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1960s. Previous to the move, her husband was setting up television stations throughout Northern California, such as Sacramento's KSCH and KTVU in Oakland. Together with William they founded two television stations in Monterey-KMST and the Spanish-language KSMS. The Schuylers eventually settled on the Monterey peninsula in 1969, where William became president of the Schuyler Broadcasting Corporation. The Schuylers later lived in Idaho during the 1990s, where they started two television stations. They returned to Monterey in June 2001. Ever civic-minded since her Hollywood days, Kristine Miller has lectured on her experience in film and television in Monterey as well as participating in local charitable activities." IMDb
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4 hours ago, TikiSoo said:
My grandmother had Alzheimers when I moved here to take care of her. She LOVED The Simpsons and Futurama and laughed whenever Bender came on. I asked why and she said "because his name". ??
She then explained "Bender" meant "a drunk". ?? "You know, an ELBOW bender!" and gestured bending her elbow to bring a glass to her mouth. First time I ever heard that.
I've heard the expression "going on a bender" for being drunk, now I know where that came from, thanks.
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Rafles sur la ville (original title) Sinners of Paris (1958) Paris Noir 7/10
Directed by Pierre Chenal. Written by Paul Andréota, Pierre Chenal, and Jean Ferry. Mentioned it before in I just watched but here is a bit more about the film.
It was based on a novel by Auguste Le Breton. Cinematography was by Marcel Grignon, and music was by Michel Legrand.
Charles Vanel is crime boss Léonce Pozzi known as "Le Fondu", and no it doesn' mean the "hot melted cheese dip, lol, it means "Mr. Fade." Vanel's first film credit was in 1910. I first saw him in The Wages Of Fear, then in Diabolique. Mr. Fade's ace up the sleeve is his trademark hand grenade that he carries between his legs, sort of like a third ball.
Bella Darvi is Mr. Fade's stipper/dancer gal pal Cri Cri who dances at the Pegasus Club in the Pigalle.
Michel Piccoli is L'inspecteur Vardier, de la P.J. his breakthrough came after Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963) he was also in Is Paris Burning?, Belle de Jour, and The Phantom of Liberty.Sinners of Paris was a nice surprise to find. Its a routine policer that manages to stay interesting. There's got to be a lot more out there mostly unknown to aficio-noir-dos. They never had international releases and probably are in French only. Full review with screen caps in Film Noir/Gangster.
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Hardcore (1979) L.A. Skin Trade Noir
A straight laced man from the Midwest goes looking for his runaway daughter in L.A.'s seedy porn scene.
Written and directed by Paul Schrader.
Schrader was one of Hollywood's top screenwriters. He had a good run in the seventies and early eighties. He wrote The Yakuza, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and directed American Gigolo, and the recently reviewed here Neo Noir Auto Focus (2002). Cinematography in Hardcore was by Michael Chapman (The Last Detail, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Fugitive). Music was by Jack Nitzsche (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Moulin Rouge!).
The film stars, George C. Scott (Anatomy of a Murder, The Hustler, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) as Jake Van Dorn, Peter Boyle (The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Taxi Driver, Hammett) as P.I. Andy Mast, Season Hubley (Vice Squad) as Niki, Dick Sargent as Wes DeJong, Leonard Gaines as porn producer Bill Ramada, Dave Nichols as Kurt, Gary Graham as Tod, Larry Block as Detective Burrows, Marc Alaimo as Ratan, Leslie Ackerman as Felice, Charlotte McGinnis as Beatrice, Ilah Davis as Kristen Van Dorn, Paul Marin as Joe Van Dorn, Will Walker as **** Jim, and Hal Williams as Big Dick Blaque.
The seedy sides of L.A. and other California locations are well depicted as is the adult entertainment industry with its adult bookstores, peep shows, massage parlors, trippy drug using actors and prostitutes. 7-8/10
Screen caps and fuller review in Film Noir/Gangster Pages
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Hardcore (1979) L.A. Skin Trade Noir
"Turn It Off!"
Written and directed by Paul Schrader.
Schrader was one of Hollywood's top screenwriters. He had a good run in the seventies and early eighties. He wrote The Yakuza, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and directed American Gigolo, and the recently reviewed here Neo Noir Auto Focus (2002). Cinematography in Hardcorewas by Michael Chapman (The Last Detail, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Fugitive). Music was by Jack Nitzsche (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Moulin Rouge!).
The film stars, George C. Scott (Anatomy of a Murder, The Hustler, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) as Jake Van Dorn, Peter Boyle (The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Taxi Driver, Hammett) as P.I. Andy Mast, Season Hubley (Vice Squad) as Niki, Dick Sargent as Wes DeJong, Leonard Gaines as porn producer Bill Ramada, Dave Nichols as Kurt, Gary Graham as Tod, Larry Block as Detective Burrows, Marc Alaimo as Ratan, Leslie Ackerman as Felice, Charlotte McGinnis as Beatrice, Ilah Davis as Kristen Van Dorn, Paul Marin as Joe Van Dorn, Will Walker as **** Jim, and Hal Williams as Big Dick Blaque.
Jake VanDorn (George C. Scott) 
Grand Rapids, Michigan Square john Jake Van Dorn is a single parent, a Calvinist. A Calvinist believes that God causes everything down to the minutest detail. There is no free will under Calvinism. This critique is according nut job believers of other equally suspect religious sects. But it really doesn't matter to the tale anyway, his strict religious beliefs are just a counterpoint to any big city's open culture of freedom. Jake owns a company that manufactures wood furniture in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jake is
wound so tight that even what he considers loud colors are a tad too much for him.
Jake's teenage daughter Kristen goes on an church sponsored field trip to Bellflower, California and disappears. She splits for the bright lights of the big time. When Jake gets the call from the chaperones, he flies to California. Nobody from the group has a clue. The local police suggest he head down to L.A. cause that's the magnet for runaways, they tell him to check with the L.A.P.D. The missing persons bureau hits him with statistics on how many runaways are reported each year.
Kristen lt. (Ilah Davis) 
Andy Mast (Peter Boyle) In L.A. Jake hires a private detective Andy Mast. Andy armed with photos starts to snoop around and eventually turns up an 8mm stag loop "Slave of Love" starring his daughter and two guys. Jake asks who made it.
Andy Mast: Nobody makes it. Nobody shows it. Nobody sees it. It's like it doesn't even exist.
Andy rents a small adult theater for a private viewing. Jake views the loop with much angst, practically rending his garments, no, just kidding.
Jake VanDorn: Turn it off! Turn if off! TURN IT OFF!
In The City Of Angels, Jake pays a surprise call on Andy where he finds him doing "research" with a stag film actress. Jake goes ballistic and fires Andy. Jake begins to "investigate" himself. His Odyssey takes him into the sleazy porn underworld of adult bookshops, massage parlors, peep shows, sex shops and theaters. His uptight look and bull in a china shop approach pretty much translates as "cop." Forgedaboudit, he gets nowheresville.
Andy Mast: A lot of strange things happen in this world. Things you don't know about in Grand Rapids. Things you don't want to know about. Doors that shouldn't be opened.
That Kristen would prefer to make a living doing porno films rather than live with the strict Jake is a testament to the degree of his repression, and of the confines of the strict religious society in which she resided. Jake can't handle the truth.
He directs Andy to continue on the case and he flies back to Grand Rapids. After no word from Andy for a few months, Jake heads back to L.A.
Jake eventually gets the idea to pass himself off as a wanna be porno investor as his ticket into the biz. He makes an appointment a porn producer named Ramada (Leonard Gaines). Ramada is all decked out in the latest hipster outfit. He has a standard issue gofer/yes man, following him around like a puppy dog. Ramada invites Jake to a shoot. When Jake remarks on the abilities of the cameraman Ramada exclaims "The kids a good director, U.C.L.A! baby." It's an inside joke, director Paul Schrader was a graduate of U.C.L.A.
Ramada 
"U.C.L.A. Baby!"
Jake picks up the lingo and gets a handle on how to act and poses as Jake de Vries a porn producer, getting himself decked out in a loud shirt a wig, a fake porn-star mustache, sunglasses, love beads and gold chains. He looks a bit over the top ridiculous.
Jake VanDorn as Jake de Vries Anyway Jake runs an audition add in the Los Angeles Free Press. He stars to interview male actors looking for the dudes in the film with his daughter. The sequence is amusing.
Finally an actor who goes by the moniker **** Jim who was on of the actors in the film with his daughter Kristen shows up and Jakes lays into him. From ****, Jake gets a lead to a hooker/porn actress named Niki (Season Hubley) who may know where Kristen is. Jake hires Niki to help him search for Kristen.
Niki (Season Hubley)
They hear a rumor that Kristen is making porn films in Mexico so they head down to San Diego and check into a motel. During this symbiotic relationship Jake gets a more nuanced inside scoop of the porn rackets while Niki feels like she's got the kind of protection she'd get from having a pimp without the attached strings. Jake confides in Niki, and tells her about his wife leaving him. They talk about sex.
On the search for KristenNiki (Season Hubley) Niki: Look, how important do you think sex is?
Jake VanDorn: Not very.
Niki: Well then we're just alike. I mean, you think it's so unimportant that you don't even do it. I think it's so unimportant that I don't care who I do it with.
Jake also explains to Niki his TULIP Calvinist beliefs. ****? you ask.
OK here they are, the five points in a nutshell (apologies if they are not quite spot on), Total Depravity (people are born basically bad), Unconditional Election ( God saves whomever He is pleased to save.), Limited Atonement (redemption of specific sinners was an eternal plan of God), Irresistible Grace (divine operation called rebirth or regeneration is the work of God alone), Perseverance of the Saints (If you have it—that is, if you have genuine faith and are in a state of saving grace—you will never lose it. If you lose it, you never had it.).
Niki: And I thought I was **** up.... So I guess we're both ****, huh? Least you get to go to heaven. I don't get ****.
The trek takes Niki and Jake to San Francisco. There they get a lead that Kristen may be with an S&M and "snuff film" maker named Ratan.
Meanwhile Mast is back on the job hired by Jake's best friend Wes DeJong (Dick Sargent) to act as a bodyguard.Now that they are close to their goal Niki thinks sugar-daddy Jake'll cut her loose. She wont tell Jake the address of the connection to Ratan. Jake gets angry and smacks her around until she spills the address of Tod. Tod is forced by Jake and Mast to tell them where Ratan hangs out. They go to a live sex show it all goes Noirsville when Jake finds Ratan and Kristen.
Noirsville
Scott's performance as Jake VanDorn is effective up until he begins posing as a porn producer, his transformation is a bit too good, he's too resourceful. Like a duck takes to water. I find it the one discordant note. He should have been played a bit more fumblingly inept and clumsy at it. Peter Boyle is believable as the crummy bottom of the barrel P.I.
Hal Williams playing a porn actor known as "Big Dick Blaque, has an amusing sequence at Jake's porn audition describing his sexual prowess, when Jake tells him he's looking for another "type" Big Dick accuses him of being a racist.
Season Hubley was excellent as Niki, the hooker/porn actress who was banking on a way out with the help of Jake, but her hopes are dashed when Jake finds Kristen. She's discarded like yesterdays trash. The ending seems a bit too pat.
Kristen at first tells Jake that she wants to stay and be with the people who love her. But then she abruptly changes her mind and leaves with him. But, I'd doubt that Jake would change all that much especially back in his cloistered religious community, or that Kristen will be allowed to be independent enough to strike a balance between the two totally different lifestyles. Will she really be content, as they used to say "back on the farm now that she's seen Paris."
The seedy sides of L.A. and other California locations are well depicted as is the adult entertainment industry with its adult bookstores, peep shows, massage parlors, trippy drug using actors and prostitutes.
Some interesting trivia (from IMDb)
- Paul Schrader originally had Scott's character discover that his daughter has been killed in a totally unrelated car crash, at which point he simply goes back home. He changed it to Scott finding her against his better judgment.
- Real adult actress Marilyn Chambers was considered for the role of "Niki" but was turned down because producers felt she didn't look enough like a porn star.
- The movie was based on a real true life story. As a high school student, writer-director Paul Schrader had heard about a local teenage girl in Grand Rapids, Michigan who went missing and who eventually was found to have appeared in an adult movie. This local mini scandal organically evolved into the screenplay for this picture.
Screen caps are from an online screener. 7-8/10 Full review with more screencaps here Noirsville.-
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2 hours ago, TheCid said:
Have seen Night and Terror both - didn't care for them. Ironically I am a big fan of trains. Have never cared for Peter Sellers in any movie.
My loss, Pilgrim.
It sure is too bad, I for one and probably I'm sure others would rather watch something new rather than the same ol same ol.
BTW if you love trains you should watch the original opening sequence of La Bête Humaine, remade as Human Desire, it's got a nice sequence of a steam locomotive picking up water on the fly from a track pan, its pretty cool.
PS there are some great Japanese and German Noir and probably others out there also
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56 minutes ago, TheCid said:
From the British Noirs I have seen, I would prefer they keep doing American. I have watched a few and always been disappointed. As for French, I assume they would all be in French with subtitles, so I would pass on that as well.
Your loss pilgrim.
I'm sure you like Night and the City (1950) with Widmark, Tierney, Hugh Marlowe, Googie Withers, Francis L. Sullivan and Herbert Lom. If you do its sort of a gateway Noir to other British Noirs along with Terror on a Train (1953) with Glen Ford.
You probably haven't see the right ones. I Became a Criminal (1947) with Trevor Howard is excellent. The Long Memory (1953) with John Mills, Brighton Rock (1948) with Richard Attenborough, Pool Of London with Bonar Colleano, Earl Cameron, For Them That Trespass (1949) with Stephen Murray and Richard Todd, are also good. Another great one is Never Let Go (1960) with Peter Sellers and Richard Todd.
But there are plenty others that we never see. The Blue Lamp (1950) is one that is highly thought of, but I've never seen it.
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37 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
Spoilers for those who haven't seen Eddie's material -
Yes, he does briefly mention the child actress Gigi Perreau in the intro, and spends a significant portion of the wrap-up discussing her career (as well as the careers of her siblings).
OK thanks.
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8 minutes ago, cmovieviewer said:
I recorded Eddie's material Saturday evening and saw the same repeat at the end that you did. For those with access to WatchTCM, the proper post-material is there, so Eddie did not cut out in the middle of the film 😊
Maybe they'll get it right for the rerun Sunday morning.
Did he talk about the child actress twice or not, I remember his outro but not the intro, lol.
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12 minutes ago, Sepiatone said:
The only(sort of) experience I've had with this was some people calling someone a "maroon". And it wasn't a case of anyone "showing off", but just having fun with it. We all knew where they got it from, and they knew we knew, and that WAS the fun in it after all.
Sepiatone
Heavens to Murgatroyd! (BTW nobody knows the origin of that, probably an in joke among the animators)
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Didn't he talk about the child actress at the outro? I could have sworn he did. I usually watch on Sun since I invariably fall asleep, (I usually wake at 5-5:30 AM), that makes for a long day trying to stay up if I don't catch a nap.
However attempting to watch Marriage on the Rocks took care of nap time, lol. I was ready to stay up for last nights viewing.
I've seen the film before. So far the only Noir that I hadn't seen on Noir Alley was The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950).
It would be nice if TCM would invest some $$$ into Noir Alley and sprinkle some little seen French & Britt Noirs into the mix. A lot of us have seen most of the TCM library Noirs, the saving grace for them is of course Eddie's commentaries.
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13 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:
Those all sound like fun. The first three are likely Something Weird releases.
Now I got even more stuff to be on the look out for.
The first three are Something Weird releases. Flesh and Lace has Joe Santos in one of his first films. Hot Skin and Cold Cash is a day in the life of a Times Square hooker. The Love Statue has some great Greenwich Village nostalgia, while Tell Me In The Sunlight is Steve Cochran's last film before his tragic death.
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I Just Watched...
in General Discussions
Posted
The Moving Finger (1963) Beatnik Noir
Directed by Larry Moyer.
Written by Carlo and Larry Moyer with cinematography by Max Glenn music by Shel Silverstein and Teddy Vann.
The film stars Lionel Stander (Call Northside 777, narrator Blast of Silence, Once Upon a Time in the West) as Anatole. With Barbara London, Art Smith (Framed, Brute Force, Ride the Pink Horse, Body and Soul, T-Men, Caught, Manhandled, Quicksand, In a Lonely Place, The Killer That Stalked New York, and The Sound of Fury) as Doc Savartz, Wendy Barrie, Alan Ansara, and Barry Newman (Vanishing Point).
Bank robbery gone wrong. The wounded robber Ansara gets away on a Greenwich Village bound tourist bus.
Anatole (Lionel Stander) is a cat who runs a dive Village beatnik, tourist trap, coffee house. A tourist bus is on the way. His workers are a bunch of actors he hires for the real beatnik atmo. They get get three hots and share cots with each other and their pet rat that they keep in a bird cage. (I wonder if they inherited one of dead Ralphie's pet rats from Blast Of Silence)
Its a piece of preserved Greenwich Village Beat nostalgia that has crappy coffee house bad poetry readings, jazz music, folk music hootenannies, weed smoking joint passing sessions, belly dancers, gay couples, authentic Village weirdos and as a bonus has some real footage of Little Italy's Feast of San Genaro Festival. Watchable 5-6/10
Won the Golden Gate Award in San Francisco for Best Director in 1963. Full review with more screen caps in Film Noir/Gangster pages.