Noir Alley

[misswonderly3]

Nice to see so many posts the first day we get back to Noir Alley.

Re. The Locket:  I'm usually pretty open to sticking the label "noir" onto films that some might not think fit that genre (or style), but I think it's stretching things a bit to call The Locket a film noir. Ok, it had some nice black and white cinematography, and yes, some of the main characters were troubled, to say the least. That's about the extent of the noir elements. I would call it more a melodrama, or "psychological drama", something like that. A kind of sub-genre that was popular, as Eddie pointed out, in the late 40s and early 50s.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the film. I always like Robert Mitchum, and Laraine Day was convincing, not to mention so pretty in this.  (Laraine fans, check her out in Foreign Correspondent, she's quite good. Fun Hitch movie.) And yes, the Russian nesting doll flashback thing worked, I agree with everyone who says it was not hard to follow at all.

I do have a few questions, though:  Like others here, I had to wonder how she ended up with the brother of the rich little girl who'd befriended her when they were children. We don't see that it's the same family until almost the end, when the mother puts the locket around her neck.  !  !  That mother was a bee-atch. Horrible snobbish nasty woman. So, how come, if Nancy's going to marry this guy, she'd never met the mother before? Or if she had, did the mother really not recognize her?  I know it's supposed to be  20 or so years  (Nancy's about 30?) since they laid eyes on each other, but still...seems odd neither one would recognize the other.

Here's another question:  What really happened back when she was 10 and the horrid rich woman was bullying her to confess she'd stolen the locket?  Nancy tells Norman (the Robert  Mitchum character) that she did not take it, that her mother the servant found the locket while straightening out the rich little girl's party dress. Hmm.   Ok, maybe. 

But aside from anything else, this kid needs to get a life. It's not normal to covet something to that extent that you feel your life is ruined if you don't have it. I suppose some would argue that the locket is just a metaphor for Nancy's wanting something, maybe not a piece of jewellery...security?  respect from b1tchy rich people?  love? two slices of birthday cake?

Another question: How come Mitch's character offs himself?  I don't believe he was that in love with Nancy; he seemed to be a guy who had his feet on the ground, his suicide does not feel authentic to me. Plus, if he were as concerned about the execution of an innocent man as he claimed, he could have gone to the authorities and told them he lied when he testified about where he and Nancy were when the murder victim was shot. Whether Nancy confessed or not, they would have at least staid the execution to investigate. But of course, the poor butler or whoever he was who was wrongly executed was just a mcguffin. And everyone seemed more concerned with Nancy's kleptomania than her indifference to allowing an innocent man to be sent to his death.

Anyway, these are quibbles. And in spite of them, I enjoyed The Locket.

[ChristineHoard]

15 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

also also, MAN, the scenes with the little girls were SO WELL DONE and SO WELL ACTED, and so outright HEARTBREAKING.

not just the child actors, but the character actors who played the children's mothers (one of whom, I think, was Jenny in THE WOLF MAN...?)

Katherine Emery, who played the mean rich mom, was in Val Lewton's Isle of the Dead (also RKO).

The little girls' acting was very natural.  I liked them, too.

I think what works for me in The Locket are the performances and the flashback device which may sound confusing but isn't when you watch it.  I don't know if it's true noir; it has noirish elements.  Maybe more of a psychological drama.  I enjoyed it and Eddie brought up an interesting question about the ending.  Did Nancy know this was the same family from years before?  Had she reconnected on purpose or was it fate or just weird?   

[LornaHansonForbes]

4 hours ago, ChristineHoard said:

Katherine Emery, who played the mean rich mom, was in Val Lewton's Isle of the Dead (also RKO).

AHA!

Thank you.

Who was Jenny from THE WOLF MAN (aka FAY HELM) in THE LOCKET then?

[LornaHansonForbes]

in re: Miss Wonderly's question about the fate of ROBERT MITCHUM's character in THE LOCKET:

It was a little glib of the makers to have MITCHUM just sort of toss himself out the window; but i point you to the authoritative camera work of director JOHN BRAHM in the scene (which really was outstanding) in not giving you too much time to ask questions. from that point on, the film really starts hurtling towards its conclusion. in the years before the concepts of psychology got to be better understood- there is a sort of "5 cents, the doctor is in" quality to psychiatric diagnosis in films, he was an artist, he had long bangs, he was prone to fits of melancholia, he was "morbid" or he had insanity in the family.- all of those were enough reason (at the time) for him to be an impulsive suicide.

the film did get a lot of other things about psychiatric disorders right tho, so i let that one slide.

[lavenderblue19]

11 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

AHA!

Thank you.

Who was Jenny from THE WOLF MAN (aka FAY HELM) in THE LOCKET then?

Fay Helm played Mrs. Bonner, the one in the wheelchair. Nancy steals her necklace when they are at the party at Helm's and Ricardo Cortez's ( Mr. Bonner) house. Mr. Bonner probably walked in on Nancy stealing the necklace so she shot him.

[cigarjoe]

5 hours ago, ChristineHoard said:

I don't know if it's true noir; it has noirish elements. 

There really is no "true noir." What makes a Noir/Neo Noir is an individual internal factor. It's subjectivity. Noir is in all of us.

Think of us all as having an internal tuning fork, these tuning forks are forged by our life experiences which are all unique. When we watch these films their degree of Noir-ness resonates with us differently, so we either "tune" to them or we don't. The amount of "tuning" (I'm appropriating this term from the Neo Noir Dark City (1998)) to certain films will vary between us all also."

For some, if there is no Detective or Femme Fatale they don't consider it a noir....

For me personally I give more weight to the noir stylistic cinematography or the interesting location work.

[LornaHansonForbes]

23 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:

There really is no "true noir." What makes a Noir/Neo Noir is an individual internal factor. It's subjectivity. Noir is in all of us.

Think of us all as having an internal tuning fork, these tuning forks are forged by our life experiences which are all unique. When we watch these films their degree of Noir-ness resonates with us differently, so we either "tune" to them or we don't. The amount of "tuning" (I'm appropriating this term from the Neo Noir Dark City (1998)) to certain films will vary between us all also."

For some, if there is no Detective or Femme Fatale they don't consider it a noir....

For me personally I give more weight to the noir stylistic cinematography or the interesting location work.

that is beautiful.

i know i keep bringing up RASHOMAN, but THE LOCKET would make a good companion film with it...an exploration of what it means to be  a witness, a viewer, and the subjective nature of art vs. what the literal truth of a situation is and the slippery slope of what VARIOUS DIFFERENT ACTORS IN THE STORY (oops, caps lock) remember vs. what actually happened vs. how certain things are left for the audience to answer for themselves in the car ride back from the theater.

in the end, we have to either throw up our hands or formulate our own opinions as to just what was truth and what was lie and what was a lie that was genuinely believed to be a truth in THE LOCKET.

and that, combined with the fact that THE LOCKET is literally a dark film- I know the print they showed could use a cleaning, but I think it was still deliberately shot to have a lot of shadows and a real dominance is given to the color black throughout- makes it enough of a noir for me.

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

if i am overpraising THE LOCKET, part of that might also come from the tremendous respect I have for the film's director JOHN BRAHM, whose 1945 HANGOVER SQUARE with LAIRD CREGAR and LINDA DARNELL is one of my 10 favorite films of the entire decade.

Years ahead of its time.

[Hoganman1]

Maybe I mis-heard this (if that's a word) but I thought Eddie said one of the actresses in The Locket is the mother of Joan Fountaine and Olivia de Havilland. Is that right and if so which part did she play?

UPDATE: I just went to Wikipedia and learned Lillian Fontaine was in the film and she played Lady Wyndham.

[LornaHansonForbes]

31 minutes ago, Hoganman1 said:

Maybe I mis-heard this (if that's a word) but I thought Eddie said one of the actresses in The Locket is the mother of Joan Fountaine and Olivia de Havilland. Is that right and if so which part did she play?

UPDATE: I just went to Wikipedia and learned Lillian Fontaine was in the film and she played Lady Wyndham.

this is her:

there is a decided resemblance to Olivia, I think.

also, wasn't BRIAN AHERNE married to JOAN FONTAINE at one time or another?

Nice of the de Havilland girls to look out for Ma and an ex when they didn't get the part.

[misswonderly3]

2 hours ago, lavenderblue19 said:

Fay Helm played Mrs. Bonner, the one in the wheelchair. Nancy steals her necklace when they are at the party at Helm's and Ricardo Cortez's ( Mr. Bonner) house. Mr. Bonner probably walked in on Nancy stealing the necklace so she shot him.

Thanks for that info, lavender. Oddly enough, wiki does not mention her in its cast list, even though it includes bit part actors with fewer lines than she had.

I do think it's interesting that the fact that Nancy is responsible for the deaths of two people -- Mr. Bonner, whom she killed directly,  and the hapless servant who was blamed for the murder and subsequently executed -- is of less importance to the other characters in The Locket than the fact that she was a thief and a liar.

[misswonderly3]

By the way, people, take a look at the promo poster for The Locket. The supposed image of Laraine Day looks oddly modern, and uh, just wrong - doesn't look a bit like Laraine. Now, I know the posters back then often gave a very different impression of the film they were advertising than what met the reality, but really, this image of the woman in the film looks like a totally different person.

 

Waddya think?

[Hoganman1]

I love these old movie posters. I guess they don't use them that much anymore with everything being online. I have replicas of the Casablanca and Gone with the Wind posters. I displayed them in my office before I retired. I think they're still available for purchase for those of us who want them.

[misswonderly3]

22 minutes ago, Hoganman1 said:

I love these old movie posters. I guess they don't use them that much anymore with everything being online. I have replicas of the Casablanca and Gone with the Wind posters. I displayed them in my office before I retired. I think they're still available for purchase for those of us who want them.

Right, I like them too.

But do you think the woman in that poster even remotely resembles Laraine Day, the woman who stars in the film?

[Emily Emerac]

At first glance I actually thought it was Nina Foch. 

[misswonderly3]

30 minutes ago, Emily Emerac said:

At first glance I actually thought it was Nina Foch. 

Looks more like Nina than it does Laraine.

[laffite]

How does Noir Alley work? Is there a night of the week where they do this? I consulted the schedule for this month and couldn't see anything like that? Or does simply consist of Muller doing the intros whenever a noir is naturally on the schedule? I don't have TCM or would know the answers to these questions. I would help me select movies to see what's coming. Thanks.

[LawrenceA]

3 minutes ago, laffite said:

How does Noir Alley work? Is there a night of the week where they do this? I consulted the schedule for this month and couldn't see anything like that? Or does simply consist of Muller doing the intros whenever a noir is naturally on the schedule? I don't have TCM or would know the answers to these questions. I would help me select movies to see what's coming. Thanks.

It's on Saturday nights at midnight, and then repeated Sunday mornings at 10 AM. Those are Eastern Times. The same movie is shown both times each week. It originally only aired on Sundays, but due to complaints they added the Saturday night showings.

[lavenderblue19]

3 minutes ago, laffite said:

How does Noir Alley work? Is there a night of the week where they do this? I consulted the schedule for this month and couldn't see anything like that? Or does simply consist of Muller doing the intros whenever a noir is naturally on the schedule? I don't have TCM or would know the answers to these questions. I would help me select movies to see what's coming. Thanks.

Hi laffite- Noir Alley with Eddie doing the intros and outros is on Sunday at 12 am(midnite) and shown again at 10 am Sundays.

[misswonderly3]

Maybe The Locket is all discussed-out, but there's one last thing I wanted to say about it, which I don't know if anyone else posted about here.

That portrait of Cassandra !  Cassandra, as y'all probably know, is a figure from Greek mythology. She was given a gift / curse. The gift was, she could foretell the future. The curse was, nobody would believe her.

Anyway, so Mitch/ artist Norman Clyde, fascinated as he is by Nancy, paints a portrait of this ill-fated mythological woman, Cassandra, using Nancy as his model.

Here it is:

 

Pretty scary, eh?  Guess he left the eyes blank to show she's looking into the future, or something. But damn, it 's a weird and oddly compelling painting. And I think it's supposed to show that even before he consciously knew it,  he sensed on some level that Nancy would be a Cassandra-like figure in his life, someone who would bring him no good.

[laffite]

3 hours ago, misswonderly3 said:

She was given a gift / curse. The gift was, she could foretell the future. The curse was, nobody would believe her.

Oh, those Greeks, they knew how to make them up. Shirley Rod Serling could have used this. Maybe he did. This sort of irony was his forte. Anyone really wanting something real bad, don't ask Rod.

[laffite]

Thanks to Lav and Laurence for the info. I had thought there would be a number of movies each week, but there seems to be just one. I had thought the enterprising was a bit more lavish. But not complaining. So the thread is fundamentally a noir thread with a special emphasis on the featured weekly offering with Muller. Is that about right?

I'm trying to wrangle Cable into the budget, I'm tired of going without. Or maybe I'll try TCM on Demand whatever that is. I will have a look. Or that does that require a cable company? Life is tough.

[LawrenceA]

4 minutes ago, laffite said:

Thanks to Lav and Laurence for the info. I had thought there would be a number of movies each week, but there seems to be just one. I had thought the enterprising was a bit more lavish. But not complaining. So the thread is fundamentally a noir thread with a special emphasis on the featured weekly offering with Muller. Is that about right?

I'm trying to wrangle Cable into the budget, I'm tired of going without. Or maybe I'll try TCM on Demand whatever that is. I will have a look. Or that does that require a cable company? Life is tough.

Well, the remaining Noir Alley features for the month of September are:

• Desperate (1947) 9/9
• Angel Face (1953) 9/16
• The Stranger (1946) 9/23
• The Gangster (1947) 9/30

Maybe you could rent them from Netflix or your local library if you haven't already seen them, and then join in with the discussions. I say this despite rarely joining in this thread myself.

[misswonderly3]

15 minutes ago, LawrenceA said:

...I say this despite rarely joining in this thread myself.

Interesting, Lawrence baby...I'm kind of the opposite. This is about the only thread on the boards that I consistently participate in.

[LawrenceA]

3 minutes ago, misswonderly3 said:

Interesting, Lawrence baby...I'm kind of the opposite. This is about the only thread on the boards that I consistently participate in.

My lack of participation is not a conscious act of disapproval, but more a matter of how and when I watch movies. Since I follow a fairly regimented schedule, I don't see the Noir Alley films until long after everyone else is done discussing them. Either that, or it's something that I saw so long ago that I can't recall enough specifics to add anything to the conversation. Of the remaining movies, I fairly recently watched Desperate, and I saw Angel Face and The Stranger many years ago. I have not seen The Gangster, and will be recording it.