[Daily Dose of Darkness #3: Under a Full Moon (The opening scene of The Letter)]

Quite possibly my favorite movie of all time.  The moon seems to be the stand-in for urban noir street lights and neon signs.   But the moonlight is much more powerful and elemental, so in this colonial noir, it appears that nature (sky, land, jungle) takes on the corrupting role assigned to machines and buildings in urban noir.   At first the film seems to be sending the message that the "civilized" (white European) characters, now removed from urban civilization where nature has been "conquered", are reverting to their "baser" instincts because of their proximity to nature.   It's sort of the opposite of The Asphalt Jungle, where the city is the corrupting environment and the characters want to return to the purifying rural environment (the horse farm, the beaches of Mexico).   But the real message is that the "natives" in The Letter aren't driven to this same level of depravity as a result of their environment; it's only the colonials, who by their own nature are base and depraved:  grabbing entire countries for themselves, enslaving the natives, exploiting and destroying the land.  That Leslie kills "one of her own" signals the decline of the colonials as a result of their own moral decadence at this point in European history.  The fact that Hammond's death was avenged by the native woman he loved when she stabbed Leslie signals that the colonized people will rise up and destroy their oppressors.   

[Daily Dose of Darkness #3: Under a Full Moon (The opening scene of The Letter)]

Davis is literally a femme fatale in this opening--but also the symbol of class privilige. Class differences/distinction is playing out here--we can see it in other classic Noir films such as The Asphalt Jungle (the newly bankrupt lawyer bankrolling the heist) and in The Big Sleep (General Sternwood and his daughters). Here, Davis is the priviliged wife of a plantation owner. The Camera shows the full moon and clouds, pans through the open sleeping quarters of the rubber plantation workers, and finally the Big House. Davis calmly comes out shooting to death a white man, Mr. Hammond. The workers approach, but only the head honcho is ordered to come inside wiby Davis, who tells him to find the new district officer and her husband. With her back turned to the head honcho, she shows that she's not very concerned about facing a murder rap--why should she? She's a white, rich colonial. Coupled with her lies, her social status and color will acquit her .

 

But that moon! Moving out from behind clouds, the moon reveals her and her crime like a prison spotlight, and foreshadows her attempt to cover the crime in lies. Where Noir film more often focuses on the seedy underbelly of urban life, it can just as well reveal the same criminal acts by the upper classes. The moon knows better.

Absolutely!  This film is a prototype for the rich-woman-as-murderer in film noir.  Complex femme fatales are such a staple for film noir that I have to ask:  would film noir even exist without Bette Davis, who created the prototype for these types of characters?

[Daily Dose of Darkness #2 The Arrival of a Train (The Opening Scene of La Bete Humaine)]

I'm a little behind on this forum--and this has probably been said many times in previous posts--but it does strike me how trains are so essential to film noir.  While we can have contemporary noir films with airplanes and cars, the passenger train is a fundamental element of original noir:  that sense of a powerful machine that carries people yet allows them some sense of mobility and the physical space for dramatic action and interaction (unlike the confined space in airplanes--which is why the "drama on a plane" genre is so formulaic and ultimately, kitschy).  The sense of mobility is an illusion, though, since the train is in control, just like the noir characters' destinies are out of their control.    I watched Key Largo the other night on TCM, and while there isn't a train shown in the film, "Dad" Temple refers to the train that was destroyed by a previous hurricane, and this is the story that really frightens Johnny Rocky, giving him his first hint that his own destiny is not necessarily in his own hands.  

[Daily Dose #1: The Nasty Man in Black (The Opening Scene of Fritz Lang's M)]

It strikes me that the parents waiting at the school are all well-dressed and prosperous-looking while the working-class mothers (with no men at home?) are too weary and busy to pick up their children, leaving them vulnerable to M.  The neighborhood is so claustrophobic and barren and while there's the illusion of safety (police, nurturing mother, waiting parents), the murderer can approach children without fear of detection or intervention.   This reveals that the safeguards are a facade and exposes how inadequate the traditional social systems and institutions are for protecting the most vulnerable.   (This foreshadows the true "heroes" of the film, the underworld denizens who know the world that M lives in, a dark world that is intruding into the daylight, in true noir fashion.) 

[How did The Shining Hour end?]

I DVR'ed The Shining Hour, and it cut off the film before the ending. Last thing I saw, they were hauling off Fay Bainter after she confessed to setting fire to the house. How did it end?! This is driving me nuts!

 

Thanks!

 

Judylala