Noir Alley

[Cigarjoe cellph]

TCM should put on a public service/information clip. You know the kind that they used to put out for "letter boxing" about the best way to watch a film that has subtitles.  What I tell people is that  all you have to do is watch the film "On Demand" with the pause button in your hand and just stop the film when the subtitles pop up. Read them and then un-pause the film. It would be like reading any Graphic novel, and you won't miss anything.

[Thompson]

Anne was enticing, but the woman bartender (don’t know her character name or credit name) really stood out to me.  She was a scene stealer.  She had that sad empathy thing going on.  The music never got bogged down, always seemed fresh and varied, added a pep to things.  I liked the black break between scenes, that worked, along with the moving to a new scene abruptly without the black.  I also liked a lot of the cinematography, especially those ‘from above’  angles.  On the left drinks undrunk subject, nothing egregious there.  If everybody in the room is smoking cigarettes it detracts from the aesthetic of the smoking act.  In other words there was too much smoking and not enough individual smoking style.  The safecracker smoked a cigar, which was cool.  I doubt I’m going to forget that bedroom scene with Anne in that . . . what do you call that ( with the black undies, and garters? ) any time soon.  That was killer.

[Vautrin]

Even for a  stylish French  thriller with a mostly likeable anti-hero, and a sexy young lady, and a stark look at the Parisian

underworld and  its various inhabitants, seeing it after a number of  viewings brings on that old ennui. 

[Thompson]

Ennui, what the hell does that mean?  Oh, boredom.  That old ennui. You hang a round here and learn a buncha cool noir words.

[Vautrin]

I figured  since it was a French film ennui was apropos. 

[ElCid]

12 hours ago, Thompson said:

Ennui, what the hell does that mean?  Oh, boredom.  That old ennui. You hang a round here and learn a buncha cool noir words.

I tried to watch it since it was on Noir Alley.  Gave up as like all French movies to me there was way too much talking to the point of being boring.  Having to try and follow the subtitles didn't help any.

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, ElCid said:

I tried to watch it since it was on Noir Alley.  Gave up as like all French movies to me there was way too much talking to the point of being boring.  Having to try and follow the subtitles didn't help any.

Actually Cid and specifically in the case of this film, I found that especially Bob the lead character talked relatively little in it, as I noticed many scenes throughout this film where camerawork alone moved the story along by itself, and not to mention that most of the dialog spoken by all the characters in this film was done in a classic noirish short and clipped style. And in fact, this seemed evermore prevalent as the story progressed.

(...and so maybe it's a bit of a shame that you didn't stick with it, as I found by the end that doing so was definitely worth the bother of having to read what I thought was minimal subtitling)

[Thompson]

Yeah, it would be good to know the language, but good luck with that. Ya gonna get that ‘how to’ audio tape and voila you know French?  I doubt it’s that simple.  I guess there is a universal understanding though of “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,”  That Japanese director did that.  The subtitles were unimportant, it was something else that grabbed you, the cadence or the rat tat tat of language that’s foreign, you don’t quite understand the meaning, but you get the gist.

[laffite]

On 4/10/2022 at 11:01 AM, Thompson said:

Anne was enticing, but the woman bartender (don’t know her character name or credit name) really stood out to me.  She was a scene stealer.  She had that sad empathy thing going on.  The music never got bogged down, always seemed fresh and varied, added a pep to things.  I liked the black break between scenes, that worked, along with the moving to a new scene abruptly without the black.  I also liked a lot of the cinematography, especially those ‘from above’  angles.  On the left drinks undrunk subject, nothing egregious there.  If everybody in the room is smoking cigarettes it detracts from the aesthetic of the smoking act.  In other words there was too much smoking and not enough individual smoking style.  The safecracker smoked a cigar, which was cool.  I doubt I’m going to forget that bedroom scene with Anne in that . . . what do you call that ( with the black undies, and garters? ) any time soon.  That was killer.

Do you mean Yvonne? I liked her too but I didn't think anyone else would, particularly. The lady that offered Bob money in return for an old favor, yes? I like the plot. Often heist films get sort of procedural in a sense, the planning and execution and the little twist at the end.. This one had plot twists before that, the on-the-fly femme fatale and the elevator operator, as well as the favor owed to the police chief by the guy who got the item from the young thing who was squealed to by Paolo. I loved the visuals, great pictures of the city. I had in mind that Bob would escape scot-free since he has such a good alibi, inside the Casino winning a fortune. The police knew about him but that was just hearsay, yes? Maybe I am missing something and therefore couldn't have happened that way.

[Dargo]

24 minutes ago, laffite said:

...I had in mind that Bob would escape scot-free since he has such a good alibi, inside the Casino winning a fortune. The police knew about him but that was just hearsay, yes? Maybe I am missing something and therefore couldn't have happened that way.

No, you got it right, laffite.

And so perhaps the only things you might be forgetting somehow here would be, first, while Bob's friend the cop is taking him away at the end of film, Bob says to him that with a good lawyer, he could later even possibly get off scot-free, and which secondly, is something I think I remember Eddie mentioning during his outtro. 

(...and which IIFC, was something Eddie also said that he's always liked about the ending of this film, and as this leaves open to the viewer of how they'd like to think Bob's fate would play out after his arrest)

[laffite]

43 minutes ago, Dargo said:

and which IIFC, wa

IIFC ?

[Dargo]

1 hour ago, laffite said:

IIFC ?

Sorry laffite, I meant "IIRC", and as in of course "If I recall correctly".

(...hmmm...guess I never really realized before how close that "R" button on my keyboard is to that "F" button here?!) 

LOL

[TomJH]

I hate the common use of acronyms. So many times it results in confusion as to what the writer means. IIRC (while I appreciate Dargo spelling it out for me now) is a good illustration of it because I didn't know what the heck it meant.

If you're talking about a film with a long title, once everyone knows the name of the film being discussed, the use of an acronym is understandable. Otherwise, I find many of them a pain on these discussion boards.

[Thompson]

16 hours ago, laffite said:

Do you mean Yvonne? I liked her too but I didn't think anyone else would, particularly. The lady that offered Bob money in return for an old favor, yes? I like the plot. Often heist films get sort of procedural in a sense, the planning and execution and the little twist at the end.. This one had plot twists before that, the on-the-fly femme fatale and the elevator operator, as well as the favor owed to the police chief by the guy who got the item from the young thing who was squealed to by Paolo. I loved the visuals, great pictures of the city. I had in mind that Bob would escape scot-free since he has such a good alibi, inside the Casino winning a fortune. The police knew about him but that was just hearsay, yes? Maybe I am missing something and therefore couldn't have happened that way.

Yes, Yvonne.  Thanks Laffite.  I agree there was something about her.  Working crossword puzzles today is frustrating because those acronyms that are strictly from our new computer lingo do not exist in a memory file.  No idea what they mean.

[Thompson]

BFF?  That sounds pornographic.  IMHO?  Is that some kind of health insurance, or perhaps a rival of IHOP?  And there’s that 7 or 8 letter acronym that’s impossible to remember for the gay and lesbian group.  

[King Rat]

On 4/10/2022 at 6:27 PM, Thompson said:

Ennui, what the hell does that mean?  Oh, boredom.  That old ennui. You hang a round here and learn a buncha cool noir words.

Think of ennui as the graduate school seminar equivalent of boredom. Regular folks have boredom, but A-List intellectuals have ennui. Boredom isn't a fashion statement, but ennui is.

[ElCid]

2 hours ago, Thompson said:

BFF?  That sounds pornographic.  IMHO?  Is that some kind of health insurance, or perhaps a rival of IHOP?  And there’s that 7 or 8 letter acronym that’s impossible to remember for the gay and lesbian group.  

Is IMHO the opposite of IMDO?  (In My Dishonest Opinion).

Oh, and BFF could be big fat fanny.  Line in a song by Jerry Lee Lewis.

 

[Thompson]

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47534/dream-song-14

[Thompson]

That didn’t work, but it’s Dream Song #14 by the poet John Berryman.  The first line is “Life, friends, is boring.  We must not say so.”  
 

After watching/listening to a terrific Bob Marley live performance, I from now on will add teeth to my reviews of the noirs.  

[King Rat]

5 minutes ago, Thompson said:

That didn’t work, but it’s Dream Song #14 by the poet John Berryman.  The first line is “Life, friends, is boring.  We must not say so.”  
 

After watching/listening to a terrific Bob Marley live performance, I from now on will add teeth to my reviews of the noirs.  

That's such a great line. Thanks for quoting it.

[Thompson]

KingRat, yeah man just google Dream Song 14 and the whole poem comes up.  Berryman was big on the blues singer Bessie Smith.  I’ve noticed that all these great singers have that “grimace” at times that show their teeth.  In order, I guess, to reach that note.  Bogart has realistic and cool looking teeth.  

 

[laffite]

Frank Sinatra refers to "the ole ennui" in a famous song. It's near the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSrHvNr8QQQ

 

[Thompson]

Good, I know how to pronounce it now.  That poet I thought his name was pronounced Rimbod.

[txfilmfan]

59 minutes ago, laffite said:

Frank Sinatra refers to "the ole ennui" in a famous song. It's near the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSrHvNr8QQQ

 

Thanks be to Cole Porter...

This version has had its lyrics sanitized for TV of the era.  Seems Ol' Blue Eyes can't deliver the line "Some like the perfume from Spain" with a straight face, though that substitute lyric was written by Porter himself, for the 1936 movie version of Anything Goes.

[Tikisoo]

On 4/12/2022 at 12:43 AM, Dargo said:

(...hmmm...guess I never really realized before how close that "R" button on my keyboard is to that "F" button here?!)

Yeah, I notice when you ruck up!

On 4/12/2022 at 8:27 AM, TomJH said:

I find many of them a pain on these discussion boards.

PIA. Poor Pia Zadora, her name is acronym for being one.

I dislike using abbreviations, it's like slang - can confuse newbies, seniors or those whom English is not their first language. Noir scripts are full of crazy slang terms, though.