The Day The Earth Stood Still - almost every genre of film can have a Film Noir

[cigarjoe]

Enjoyed tonight's showing of The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Noir is a style for me not a genre, a style that has a visual component that combines a dark story line or subject matter. 

Everybody knows at least some of the archetypes of the style/stories called Noir, the detective and the femme fatale are the most recognized. Quite a few others though in the Classic stories. You know, the ordinary Joe blow who is in the wrong place at the wrong time or the babe who makes one wrong decision, or falls for the wrong lug.  Or the GI who gets hit in the head with a piece of schrapnel or kissed with a wrench who has amnesia and has to trace his past. The boxer, the truck driver, the druggist, the actress, the singer, the stripper, the housewife, the nurse, the crook, the con man, the psychic, the junkie, junk man, the taxi dancer, the waitress. Though Crime stories are the core of Classic Noir there are other stories about about untidy, unpleasant, and dark subjects that combine with the visual stylistic cinematography that we tune to as Noir. 

There are Noir Westerns Pursued (1947), Blood on the Moon (1948) The Furies (1950), The Great Silence (1968), Screwball Comedy Noirs The Grand Central Murder (1942), Deadline at Dawn (1946), His Kind of Woman (1951), Shack Out On 101 (1955), and even Lady In The Lake (1946), has some of this quality, there are probably a few others lurking in the Classic Noirs. Neo Noir contenders are Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Seven Beauties (1977), The Late Show (1977) After Hours (1985), Down By Law (1986), Delicatessen (1991) and The Big Lebowski (1998).

Noir Dramas, The Lost Weekend (1945), In A Lonely Place (1950), Sweet Smell Of Success (1957), I even consider much of Tennessee Williams filmed plays at least the darkly filmed ones pretty noir-ish, especially A Streetcar Named Desire  where Stanley is the homme fatale to Blanche and The Fugitive Kind. Also All Fall Down (1962). 

Fantasy/Supernatural/SiFi/Horror Noir  The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), ,Repeat Performance (1947), , The Amazing Mr. X (1948), Fear in the Night (1947), The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948), Alias Nick Beal (1949), Dementia (1955), and Nightmare (1956), there are probably a few more. Neo noirs Night Tide (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seconds (1966) The Psychic Killer (1975), Blade Runner (1982), Angel Heart (1987), Delicatessen (1991), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Lost Highway (1997), Dark City (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001), Sin City (2005)  Dark Country (2009), and Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014).

Bio/True Story Noirs Dillinger (1945), Young Man with a Horn (1950), I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), The Wrong Man (1956), Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), The Bonnie Parker Story (1958), I Want To live (1958), Baby Face Nelson (1957), In Cold Blood (1967), The Honeymoon Killers (1970), Lenny (1972), Raging Bull (1980), Auto Focus (2002) The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) Quasi Bio Noir and Lovelace (2013).

Hope you enjoyed The Day The Earth Stood Still also.

 

 

[Dr. Somnambula]

25 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:

Hope you enjoyed The Day The Earth Stood Still also.

I had to pull the plug. Talked to Comcast twice today. I do not have TCM anymore. Comcast blames the owners of various channels. I will be back again one day and it will feel Christmas.

[cigarjoe]

18 minutes ago, Michael Rennie said:

I had to pull the plug. Talked to Comcast twice today. I do not have TCM anymore. Comcast blames the owners of various channels. I will be back again one day and it will feel Christmas.

If you have high speed internet get Sling TV. I pulled the cable plug a few years back.

[Sepiatone]

10 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

 

Noir is a style for me not a genre, a style that has a visual component that combines a dark story line or subject matter. 

 

I've long felt that too.  I too believe when the French critic NINO FRANK referred to certain films with that phrase, he was describing their style.  And TDTESS certainly fills THAT bill.  As well( and IMHO) as 1951's SCROOGE( A Christmas Carol) .  But be sure.....

There's a lot of "experts" here that'll give us a hard time about that. 

As far as SLING goes, those ridiculously creepy "Slingers" on the service's TV ads keep me from any interest in it.     

Sepiatone

[speedracer5]

12 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

Enjoyed tonight's showing of The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Noir is a style for me not a genre, a style that has a visual component that combines a dark story line or subject matter. 

Thanks for that great list! I agree with you completely that noir is a style, not a genre.  I think that is why it is so hard to define what is noir and what isn't.  I'm sure that it could be argued that many films feature noir elements.   I was wondering about comedic noir.  I didn't think of His Kind of Woman as being screwball, but Vincent Price's presence does bring some comic relief to the film. 

Do you think there are any noir musicals?

I would argue that there are noir dance numbers, but I don't know about full fledged musicals.  The "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" routine between Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen in Words and Music is fairly noir-esque.  Also the dance number between Kelly and Cyd Charisse in Singin' in the Rain I think has noir elements as well. 

[Dr. Somnambula]

Almost all the Live TV streaming services have settled in around $50/month. Sling TV is a little better for "cherry picking." I stay with cable because I can't receive anything with an antenna.

I mentioned having to give up TCM on this forum because Xfinity/Comcast will eventually price others out.

I talked with two Comcast employees yesterday. I got my digs in both times.

"All the popular streamers but one (Philo) have TCM. All but one (Sling TV) include it at no extra charge. East/West feed plus On-Demand. HD/DVR. 50 bucks and done!

Comcast Derrick said, "Say that again."

Streaming isn't for me terms of replacing cable.

The new streaming service from WarnerMedia is pushed back to 2020. They expect the HBO brand to do all the heavy lifting.

Xfinity/Comcast has TCM in a lower priced Latino Economy+ package. No sports. (LawrenceA?)

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, speedracer5 said:

Thanks for that great list! I agree with you completely that noir is a style, not a genre.  I think that is why it is so hard to define what is noir and what isn't.  I'm sure that it could be argued that many films feature noir elements.   I was wondering about comedic noir.  I didn't think of His Kind of Woman as being screwball, but Vincent Price's presence does bring some comic relief to the film. 

Do you think there are any noir musicals?

I would argue that there are noir dance numbers, but I don't know about full fledged musicals.  The "Slaughter on 10th Avenue" routine between Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen in Words and Music is fairly noir-esque.  Also the dance number between Kelly and Cyd Charisse in Singin' in the Rain I think has noir elements as well. 

Yep, and although filmed in vivid Technicolor instead of B&W (and thus perhaps then more a "neo-noir" musical), I'd say the film West Side Story would fit this bill.

[cigarjoe]

2 hours ago, speedracer5 said:

Do you think there are any noir musicals?

Party Girl is and Pennies From Heaven with Steve Martin is a Neo Noir one.

[cinemaspeak59]

Two movies set in the 1940's that I loved, odes to Classic Noir and both in gorgeous B&W:

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) directed the Coen Brothers

The Good German (2006) directed by Steven Soderbergh

[cigarjoe]

19 minutes ago, cinemaspeak59 said:

Two movies set in the 1940's that I loved, odes to Classic Noir and both in gorgeous B&W:

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) directed the Coen Brothers

The Good German (2006) directed by Steven Soderbergh

Saw the first, haven't seen The Good German yet.

[Vautrin]

While TDTESS has some noir visuals I still think of it as a sci-fi film. I didn't watch it last night

as the FMC has been showing it a number of times over the last month or so. My favorite

line is when Jaffe asks Klaatu how he knows his theories will work. Well I find they work well

enough to get me from one planet to another or something along that line. 

[JamesJazGuitar]

[JamesJazGuitar]

Just love Patricia Neal in the film;   Having someone of her caliber as well as Jaffe,  makes this my favorite Sci-Fi film.    (as well as those noir visuals as pointed out by Joe).

 

[Dargo]

"Holy crap! My mind suddenly went totally blank. Now what WAS that again? 'Claptrap Bravado Nixon' or something like that?!!!"

[cigarjoe]

8 hours ago, speedracer5 said:

Do you think there are any noir musicals?

There was another one more recent 2008 called

 

It was good to a point then I lost interest for some reason, I'll have to give it another look-see.

[cigarjoe]

2 hours ago, Vautrin said:

a sci-fi film

A SiFi film, yes. But you're not getting the jist. Si Fi shot in a Noir Style, Noir is not a genre it's a style with a dark story. There are not many, they are Si Fi  stories first but quite noirishly filmed. 

[JamesJazGuitar]

34 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:

A SiFi film, yes. But you're not getting the jist. Si Fi shot in a Noir Style, Noir is not a genre it's a style with a dark story. There are not many, they are Si Fi  stories first but quite noirishly filmed. 

Old Zen saying applies here;  A little man can't think big.

 

[overeasy]

One of the staples of noir was always the duplicitous femme fatale and the "hero" who loses in the end. I don't see any of that in The Day....  I'll grant you that the shooting is similar and that it has a certain moodiness, but it sort of ends there, IMHO.  That said, I have loved this movie since I first saw it as a kid on Saturday Night At the Movie on one of the NYC TV stations.  Scared the hell outta me!  

Last night was a delicious feast of sci-fi and I loved it

[Vautrin]

5 hours ago, jamesjazzguitar said:

Please sit down, Mr. Klaatu. I have several thousands questions I want to ask you.

The first is, can you do anything about my hair?

[Vautrin]

5 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

A SiFi film, yes. But you're not getting the jist. Si Fi shot in a Noir Style, Noir is not a genre it's a style with a dark story. There are not many, they are Si Fi  stories first but quite noirishly filmed. 

I think I get the gist. Noir is not a genre or a certain set of plot elements but a visual style.

I would disagree with that, though not completely. While some of the scenes in TDTESS

are noirish, I still see it as a sci-fi film. Another thing that's interesting is that the old style

Noir Alley type movies deal with the dark side of human nature while sci-fi films often deal

with non-human aliens, though the human reaction to the aliens is also part of sci-fi films.

[speedracer5]

13 hours ago, cinemaspeak59 said:

Two movies set in the 1940's that I loved, odes to Classic Noir and both in gorgeous B&W:

The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) directed the Coen Brothers

The Good German (2006) directed by Steven Soderbergh

Thanks for reminding me about “The Good German.” I’ve been wanting to see this film. I’m sure the library will have it. 

[cigarjoe]

6 hours ago, Vautrin said:

I still see it as a sci-fi film.

So do I, what's the problem? Reducing the world to a "cinder" is a pretty dark plot point. When you compare TDTEST to many other 1950s SiFi that are brightly lit it stands out. 

[cigarjoe]

7 hours ago, overeasy said:

I'll grant you that the shooting is similar and that it has a certain moodiness, but it sort of ends there, IMHO.

That above is again the whole jist of Noir being a style. There are plenty Noirs without Femme Fatales, and detectives, some even without murder. 

[Sepiatone]

19 hours ago, Michael Rennie said:

Almost all the Live TV streaming services have settled in around $50/month. Sling TV is a little better for "cherry picking." I stay with cable because I can't receive anything with an antenna.

I mentioned having to give up TCM on this forum because Xfinity/Comcast will eventually price others out.

I talked with two Comcast employees yesterday. I got my digs in both times.

"All the popular streamers but one (Philo) have TCM. All but one (Sling TV) include it at no extra charge. East/West feed plus On-Demand. HD/DVR. 50 bucks and done!

Comcast Derrick said, "Say that again."

Streaming isn't for me terms of replacing cable.

The new streaming service from WarnerMedia is pushed back to 2020. They expect the HBO brand to do all the heavy lifting.

Xfinity/Comcast has TCM in a lower priced Latino Economy+ package. No sports. (LawrenceA?)

I don't get that.  That night I informed a brother in law about the movie coming on TCM,(it's a favorite of his, but he doesn't gravitate towards "classic" movies in general)  and he has Xfinity/Comcast AND TCM at NO extra cost!  

OK a few other things in answer to some other posts....

A buddy of mine had?and still has) a cousin who back in the day rarely spent more than one day a year sober.  So one night, when we knew he'd be "blitzed" by his favorite bud, we found some weird sounding "white noise" on the stereo, moved the phone next to a speaker and we called him.  When he answered, I, speaking across the top of a coffee cup, said, "GORT.  Klaatu barada NICTO!"  We did this about five times.  When asking him next day if anyone called for my buddy, he said, "I just got some weird calls from some a**hole looking for someone called NICK."   

And....noir COMEDIES?   How about....

 

Sepiatone

[Det Jim McLeod]

I always loved "The Day The Earth Stood Still", below is one of most "noir" moments in it. Plus it was directed by Robert Wise, who had made one of the toughest noirs a few years before "Born To Kill"