Noir Alley

[misswonderly3]

7 hours ago, Hibi said:

 

Thought Lockwood was a hoot and was constantly laughing at her remarks. Bogarde was perfectly cast.

 

I really like Margaret Lockwood, although I haven't seen her in those films you and others have mentioned here. I love her in The Lady Vanishes.  She's also in a great little noir / spy  film directed by Carol Reed,   Night Train to Munich, which is almost as suspenseful and fun as the Hitchcock film.

It's funny,  Lockwood was so pretty in The Lady Vanishes.  It was made in 1938,  Cast a Dark Shadow  in 1955.    Seventeen years later.  She looks so different.  I think Eddie mentioned she was 39 in the latter film, but she looks ten years older.  Probably she's supposed to,  Bogarde's character goes after women of a certain age.  I like to think they made Margaret Lockwood up to look like a widow in her 40s .  She's attractive, in an "older woman" way,  but doesn't look much like the exceptionally pretty girl she was in those earlier films I mentioned.  I know people age over 17 years,  but I did not even recognize her at first.   As I said,  I think the make-up people on purpose made her look older; also,  gone is her beautiful dark hair,  it's a vague light colour   ( of course hard to tell in a black and white film....)

I agree with Hibi that her character in Cast a Dark Shadow is very clever and funny...she's always saying odd, funny things, sometimes they made me laugh out loud.  Like when "Teddy" asks her about burying her husband ,  and she says, matter -of-factly,  "well, he was dead".  !

The one thing that didn't really make sense to me about her character was,  it was clear she was supposed to be a savvy,  experienced woman, nobody's fool.  She says several times that she won't be taken advantage of by a gold-digging man who wants to marry her for her money,  in fact she keeps saying it has to be equal between them,  "pound for pound".

Yet it looks like she doesn't  check Teddy's claim that he himself is rich and not after her money,  or she would soon have discovered that he definitely could not match her bank account,  "pound for pound".

Here is a pic of Margaret Lockwood for The Lady Vanishes,  a highly enjoyable and entertaining early Hitchcock  ,  one of my favourites.  Look how pretty she is:

[misswonderly3]

23 minutes ago, Dargo said:

 

Nope, won't work here, Cid.

Nope, ya see, first of all, the word "someone" doesn't rhyme with the word "eight". You know, and like "quarter to three" and "you and me" does in the original version.

Nope, and besides "Then he goes out, gets in a car and kills someone" has two more beats to it than does "There's no one in the place except you and me".

(...oh wait...maybe this wasn't where you were goin' with this, huh)  

 

Dargo,  I'm a little annoyed....credit where credit is due.   It was I who wrote that post about "One for My Baby"  and the how it wouldn't work if the opening line were "it's a quarter to eight".

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, ElCid said:

Now,  this scenario just wouldn't work if the first line were "It's a quarter to eight"....

WAIT MissW! I think I've figured out the new lyrics here!

So, how does THIS sound to ya?

"It's a quarter to eight, and everyone but me is feelin' just great"

(...not bad, HUH?!...okay okay, so maybe not good, but not bad anyway, RIGHT?!)

 

 

 

[Thompson]

Nighthawks at the Diner.  Tom Waits. 

[cigarjoe]

Black History Month Noir

A list celebrating the contributions of Black Actors / Directors to All Films Noir

https://noirsville.blogspot.com/2022/02/noirsville-bonus-black-history-month.html

[Dargo]

On 2/28/2022 at 4:10 PM, misswonderly3 said:

Dargo,  I'm a little annoyed....credit where credit is due.   It was I who wrote that post about "One for My Baby"  and the how it wouldn't work if the opening line were "it's a quarter to eight".

Well SURE, you deserve credit here, MissW!

BUT, then I on the OTHER HAND took your comment as a direct CHALLENGE to come up with some alternate lyrics here, ya see!!! 

(...what, got somethin' against "challenges or somethin'???...heck, now that I don't have that little part-time shuttle drivin' gig anymore, THESE are the only kinds of little "challenges" I've GOT anymore...ya wanna take THIS away from me now TOO???!!!)

LOL

 

 

[Thompson]

Hold up now . . .

this is a song intro by Tom Waits

 

[Vautrin]

13 hours ago, mkahn22 said:

I, too, thought that Teddy had true affection for Moni - they had a good relationship in ways - but unfortunately, trade-offs and compromise were not his strong suit. He'd have been better off making an okay life with her and waiting for her to die, but again, that just wasn't his way.

Yes, he seemed to have a  special sympathetic bond with Moni, at least until he killed her.  He just  couldn't wait to get the money and the

life style that went with it.  But that plot wouldn't have made much of a movie.

[ElCid]

16 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

No.  Not funny.  Not even noirish.  Don't try and spoil a really great song like that.  

What does the guy do next?  He lurches out of the late night bar and stumbles to his brownstone NYC apartment, where he pours himself another straight whisky and puts Billie Holiday on the record player.

How do you know he does not get into a car and drunkenly kills someone?  Even people in New York drive cars.

Regardless, a song does not dismiss the problem with drunk drivers in America.  While limiting hours of alcohol sells won't stop it, it sure would help a lot.

As for people working third shift and so forth, they can wait to get home to drink - can't be that long a wait.  Takes very little planning to stock up at home, so no need to stop by convenience store and so forth.  Incidentally, I have worked second and third shifts and saw no need to stop off for a drink after work.

Far too many late night shoppers at convenience and similar stores, "pop the top" as soon as out of parking lot, chug a few down and throw the cans or bottles out the car window.

[Hibi]

16 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

I really like Margaret Lockwood, although I haven't seen her in those films you and others have mentioned here. I love her in The Lady Vanishes.  She's also in a great little noir / spy  film directed by Carol Reed,   Night Train to Munich, which is almost as suspenseful and fun as the Hitchcock film.

Wicked Lady turns up from time to time on TCM, but not often. Keep an eye out for it!

 

16 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

It's funny,  Lockwood was so pretty in The Lady Vanishes.  It was made in 1938,  Cast a Dark Shadow  in 1955.    Seventeen years later.  She looks so different.  I think Eddie mentioned she was 39 in the latter film, but she looks

Yes, she looks a lot older than the fresh faced ingenue in The Lady Vanishes. Unsure if it was age, or make up to make her look that way. Probably both.

 

 

ten years older.  Probably she's supposed to,  Bogarde's character goes after women of a certain age.  I like to think they made Margaret Lockwood up to look like a widow in her 40s .  She's attractive, in an "older woman" way,  but doesn't look much like the exceptionally pretty girl she was in those earlier films I mentioned.  I know people age over 17 years,  but I did not even recognize her at first.   As I said,  I think the make-up people on purpose made her look older; also,  gone is her beautiful dark hair,  it's a vague light colour   ( of course hard to tell in a black and white film....)

Yes. That part is a little hard to swallow, but maybe Bogarde had other qualities to keep her occupied. She does say at one point it was her misfortune to be in love with him.

 

I agree with Hibi that her character in Cast a Dark Shadow is very clever and funny...she's always saying odd, funny things, sometimes they made me laugh out loud.  Like when "Teddy" asks her about burying her husband ,  and she says, matter -of-factly,  "well, he was dead".  !

LOL. She had some great lines!

16 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

The one thing that didn't really make sense to me about her character was,  it was clear she was supposed to be a savvy,  experienced woman, nobody's fool.  She says several times that she won't be taken advantage of by a gold-digging man who wants to marry her for her money,  in fact she keeps saying it has to be equal between them,  "pound for pound".

Yet it looks like she doesn't  check Teddy's claim that he himself is rich and not after her money,  or she would soon have discovered that he definitely could not match her bank account,  "pound for pound".

Here is a pic of Margaret Lockwood for The Lady Vanishes,  a highly enjoyable and entertaining early Hitchcock  ,  one of my favourites.  Look how pretty she is:

 

[JamesJazGuitar]

I assume the make-up team made Lockwood look-older to align with the overall storyline.    I also find it interesting that a gay man was cast. 

This sends an additional  signal that the guy really doesn't like women.       Note that he doesn't have an attractive woman on-the-side like most of these scammers do.    He makes love to women as a necessary duty to get their money,  but his heart isn't into it.   (since they didn't have little-blue pills I wonder how he was able to do that, ha ha!).

 

[King Rat]

5 hours ago, JamesJazGuitar said:

I assume the make-up team made Lockwood look-older to align with the overall storyline.    I also find it interesting that a gay man was cast. 

This sends an additional  signal that the guy really doesn't like women.       Note that he doesn't have an attractive woman on-the-side like most of these scammers do.    He makes love to women as a necessary duty to get their money,  but his heart isn't into it.   (since they didn't have little-blue pills I wonder how he was able to do that, ha ha!).

 

Well, he did have his physical culture magazines!

[cigarjoe]

Just an opinion, but Noir Alley should be showing all Films Noir.  Trying to keep it to just the TCM library or occasional Paramount and Fox and other studio offerings of the Classic Hollywood Period  is a big mistake. Its nice that we get Foreign Noir also. But they got to start offering Neo Noir and Transitional Noir or they are going to run out of films fast and they already have repeats. Case in point, last Friday Night they showed two Cohen Brothers Neo Noir back to back Blood Simple and Fargo with Ben hosting and not mentioning the "N" word (NOIR) once.  Those two films easily slip into the Neo Noir slot. Now maybe it was planned that way or maybe its a contractual thing with Ben Eddie and TCM.  And then we have 31 days of Oscar, Lost Weekend was shown the other night hosted by Alicia again nada about it being one of the original  films the two French critics cited as being American examples of Film Noir. There should be plenty of Oscar Noir that could easily be incorporated into Noir Alley.  

It doesn't make any sense.

[unwatchable]

On 2/28/2022 at 7:08 PM, misswonderly3 said:

Here is a pic of Margaret Lockwood for The Lady Vanishes,  a highly enjoyable and entertaining early Hitchcock  ,  one of my favourites.  Look how pretty she is

Yes, Hitchcock, like Howard Hawks, always had the babes in his films.

[txfilmfan]

12 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

Just an opinion, but Noir Alley should be showing all Films Noir.  Trying to keep it to just the TCM library or occasional Paramount and Fox and other studio offerings of the Classic Hollywood Period  is a big mistake. Its nice that we get Foreign Noir also. But they got to start offering Neo Noir and Transitional Noir or they are going to run out of films fast and they already have repeats. Case in point, last Friday Night they showed two Cohen Brothers Neo Noir back to back Blood Simple and Fargo with Ben hosting and not mentioning the "N" word (NOIR) once.  Those two films easily slip into the Neo Noir slot. Now maybe it was planned that way or maybe its a contractual thing with Ben Eddie and TCM.  And then we have 31 days of Oscar, Lost Weekend was shown the other night hosted by Alicia again nada about it being one of the original  films the two French critics cited as being American examples of Film Noir. There should be plenty of Oscar Noir that could easily be incorporated into Noir Alley.  

It doesn't make any sense.

My understanding is the Noir Alley, unlike most of the rest of the TCM schedule, is Eddie's baby.  In promos he's stated that he "curates" (our favorite word) the films shown on NA.  I would think Jacqueline Stewart also has a great deal of input on the silent films chosen for Sunday nights, as well, given her credentials.  But the rest of it is done by some invisible programmer (or, more likely, a team of them), and the intros and outros for the 3 main hosts are written by others as well.  Ben M. even named one of these mostly anonymous writers in an intro he gave last week.   Surprised me when he said it.  

[JamesJazGuitar]

Just watched the British noir Spin A Dark Web - 1956 (Soho Incident title in Britain):   The film stars Faith Domergue,  Lee Patterson,  Martin Benson,  and Rona Anderson.

This was a good Domergue film;  Her character in the film has to rank as one of the all time femme fatales.       E.g.   when an innocent bystander has to be murder her comment is something like "this was like killing a bug".     She is one very bad girl.     She is very stylish in this film and looks real nice.     Distributed by Columbia pictures and a good example of what C-Joe says above;  The type of noir film Eddie should be showing as part of Noir Alley (instead of repeats).

Well worth a spin!

 

[jameselliot]

On 3/3/2022 at 8:47 PM, JamesJazGuitar said:

Just watched the British noir Spin A Dark Web - 1956 (Soho Incident title in Britain):   The film stars Faith Domergue,  Lee Patterson,  Martin Benson,  and Rona Anderson.

This was a good Domergue film;  Her character in the film has to rank as one of the all time femme fatales.       E.g.   when an innocent bystander has to be murder her comment is something like "this was like killing a bug".     She is one very bad girl.     She is very stylish in this film and looks real nice.     Distributed by Columbia pictures and a good example of what C-Joe says above;  The type of noir film Eddie should be showing as part of Noir Alley (instead of repeats).

Well worth a spin!

 

This was a neat B  crime movie that the British were making non-stop until the mid-60s. Butcher's Films, Britain's oldest movie company, produced and distributed hundreds of them.  Domergue was a vicious dame in this one. What's a movie like this without Martin Benson? When a producer needed an oily club owner in a tux, like a good neighbor, Benson was there. Americans know him as Mr. Solo, crushed by a car compactor in Goldfinger.

[Johnny2Bad]

I don’t know why Noir Alley disappears during 31 Days of Oscar (and Summer Under the Stars).  I’m sure you could find four films (one a week) from the Noir genre that won Academy Awards and have Eddie introduced them.  Don’t you?? 
 

[unwatchable]

You have a point. The film noir canon is supposed to comprise something like 800+ films in the classic period of 1941 to 1959. Surely there are at least 4 films in that canon, which TCM has in its catalog, which were nominated for at least one Academy Award.

When TCM airs fluff like Kisses for My President in previous 31 Days of Oscar, for being nominated for a category which no longer exists (Best Costume Design, Black-and-White), then surely they could find 4 films for Noir Alley. Granted, much of the film noir canon is comprised of B films, but there are some A pictures in it.

Has anyone here researched this?

[ElCid]

I have never liked 31 Days of Oscar.   I have already seen the films  enough times that I consider worth watching and have no desire to see them again.    I realize they may be new to many newer viewers and others may want to re-watch them and that is fine.  But why pre-empt good features such as Saturday morning cartoons and "B" Westerns and Noir Alley?

One problem is that 31 Days of Oscar sounds impressive until you realize that the Oscars were usually for some often minor category, some I never even knew existed.

[Dargo]

7 hours ago, Johnny2Bad said:

I don’t know why Noir Alley disappears during 31 Days of Oscar (and Summer Under the Stars).  I’m sure you could find four films (one a week) from the Noir genre that won Academy Awards and have Eddie introduced them.  Don’t you?? 
 

Damn good point here, Johnny.

However, word is Eddie always wants this time of year off or else he loses his time share spot at the Gentle Breezes Resort in Maui, and particularly that one fabulous little 3 bed/2 bath oceanfront condo there that he always prefers each year.

(...naaah, jus' kiddin' here, of course)

 

[Dargo]

6 hours ago, unwatchable said:

You have a point. The film noir canon is supposed to comprise something like 800+ films in the classic period of 1941 to 1959. Surely there are at least 4 films in that canon, which TCM has in its catalog, which were nominated for at least one Academy Award.

When TCM airs fluff like Kisses for My President in previous 31 Days of Oscar, for being nominated for a category which no longer exists (Best Costume Design, Black-and-White), then surely they could find 4 films for Noir Alley. Granted, much of the film noir canon is comprised of B films, but there are some A pictures in it.

Has anyone here researched this?

Yeah, I have, unwatchable. And I discovered that Jane Greer was nominated AND won the Hottest Femme Fatale Oscar in '47 for her performance in Out of the Past.

(...they only had that category for that one year, just in case you might be wonderin' here)

[Thompson]

Jane Greer wore that lipstick as red as you can get.  Being in black and white didn’t matter a bit.  

[Dargo]

49 minutes ago, Thompson said:

Jane Greer wore that lipstick as red as you can get.  Being in black and white didn’t matter a bit.  

Yep...

(...and btw, the reason The Academy retired that category after just this one year, would of course be because they knew even then no other actress would ever be as hot OR as good at playing this bad than Jane here did in that movie)

[JamesJazGuitar]

Not sure I agree with that.