Noir Alley

[laffite]

7 minutes ago, CaveGirl said:

Tell me about it; I got up way after midnight, the other evening to watch the over three-hour long Fassbinder movie!

Wow, I'm impressed. I am enthused by your enthusiasm. Did you have a potful of coffee? Snacks? Beef Strogonoff? Did you stay awake? If you tell me it was fun, I may scrap the DVR. What movie? I might know that if I were a Fassbinder minder but alas ... I mean, I like what I've seen but I haven't seen one that long. Which'n izzit, danke.

[CaveGirl]

24 minutes ago, laffite said:

Wow, I'm impressed. I am enthused by your enthusiasm. Did you have a potful of coffee? Snacks? Beef Strogonoff? Did you stay awake? If you tell me it was fun, I may scrap the DVR. What movie? I might know that if I were a Fassbinder minder but alas ... I mean, I like what I've seen but I haven't seen one that long. Which'n izzit, danke.

Well, though I'm usually a late night person did not know if I could make it to around 6am with no sleep, so took a nap at around 8pm to 11pm. Then I got out some aids to curing sleepiness like a 2-liter of Coke, and some peanut M&M's. I did start to dose off after Part One of "World on a Wire" ended, but forced myself to sit up straight as Part Two started. Oh, yeah...I forgot, I got my kitchen timer out and set it to go off every 15 minutes just in case I would nod off. It all worked out swell and I made it to the end, Laffite and thanks for asking!

[speedracer5]

1 hour ago, laffite said:

It may spoil you. I've got so used to its wonderfulness that I won't have cable without it. Wouldn't even consider it. The idea that anyone has to stay up for a movie or to make free time for some other movie is quaint. Now getting up at 2am for a movie is not at all quaint. It is sheer horror.

I wouldn't be able to get by without my DVR either.  I like being able to watch what I want at the time I want.  TCM Primetime starts at 5pm for me, and often times, I am not ready to just stop for the day and spend the evening watching movies.  But I don't want to miss out on things I want to see.  And sometimes, there are movies I want to see that are airing, but that particular day, I might not be in the mood for that film.  Oftentimes, movies that I want to see are on at an inconvenient time, like when I'm at work or when I'm asleep.  There are other evenings when I'm limited for time, but want to watch a movie, so it's nice that I can go through my movies and find something short. 

Re: Filmstruck.  I've looked at the offerings and some look good, but many of them are movies that I already have.  I'm not going to subscribe to a service to watch movies that I could watch for free.  I also don't like that you're restricted to watching on your device or on the computer.  I want to watch movies on my TV, not on my phone and not on my laptop. If Filmstruck were to come up with a smart TV app or an app that can be installed on Playstation or XBOX then I maybe would consider it.  I wish Watch TCM was also available via an app that can be installed on the TV or on a video game console. 

[Hibi]

36 minutes ago, TheCid said:

Our local paper used to have a comment feature for its online version. It would not let you type in Dick Cheney.  At one time this site would not either, so we will see what happens hear.  Who ever heard of Richard Cheney?

Not to mention his ties.  I have one like ones he wears that my father wore when he was a young sport in the 30's.

All of my VCR tapes eventually deteriorated.  Also, even a good video tape pales in comparison to a DVD.  I have a DVD/VCR recorder and the tapes I used for recording have deteriorated.

Since I can record DVD-RW discs I do not DVR.  If gets to point where I can't or DVD recorder dies, guess I'll have to learn to DVR-and pay Spectrum for the privilege.

Yes, I wish I'd invested in a vcr/dvd converter years ago. I lost so many tapes.

 

I guess Cheney isnt censored here!

[LawrenceA]

17 minutes ago, speedracer5 said:

Re: Filmstruck.  I've looked at the offerings and some look good, but many of them are movies that I already have.  I'm not going to subscribe to a service to watch movies that I could watch for free.  I also don't like that you're restricted to watching on your device or on the computer.  I want to watch movies on my TV, not on my phone and not on my laptop. If Filmstruck were to come up with a smart TV app or an app that can be installed on Playstation or XBOX then I maybe would consider it.  I wish Watch TCM was also available via an app that can be installed on the TV or on a video game console. 

I've watched dozens of movies off of FilmStruck in the past few weeks, and none on a device or computer. By device I assume you mean a tablet or smartphone. I watch via the FilmStruck app on FireTV. However, I believe that I've heard that the app isn't currently available on the game systems. 

I wouldn't be watching FilmStruck if it wasn't available to watch on my TV. I use the laptop for viewing only on the rare occasion that I have no other choice. There are also various programs/apps available that allow you to send what's playing on your desktop/laptop/device to your TV, if you have a smart TV with WiFi. 

I've noticed some people mentioning dumping TCM for FilmStruck. If you are mainly or only interested in classic American films, then FilmStruck may be disappointing. Yes, they have far more classic film titles available than most other streaming services, but there's not nearly as many as you get in a month or two of TCM. I personally like FilmStruck due to the Criterion partnership and the availability of large numbers of foreign and arthouse movies, which aren't going to be of any interest to many TCM viewers. 

[RoyCronin]

The conversation about smoking and drinking has been interesting to follow.  In fact, about a year ago while watching "All About Eve" I thought of starting a thread and ask about the habit of one Smoking in Bed Alone in film.  Alone is the operative word.  I think that even back then, despite the general acceptance of smoking, the fire marshalls would have frowned upon this.

Now, Margo lights up after the call with Bill, so I suspect she is so pumped up she isn't going to doze off.  And later, Karen does the same in her single bed when Lloyd flees the apartment to visit Eve.  She won't sleep the rest of the night either.

I'm pretty sure Barbara Stanwyck smokes in bed in  "Sorry, Wrong Number', but with the tray of pharmaceuticals at her bedside, I'm not sure if they'll put her to sleep even if she is hyper-excited on the phone.

Are there other noteworthy solo smoking episodes in bed which might have led to disaster?

[laffite]

2 hours ago, CaveGirl said:

I think you are thinking of Tom Brady,

I congratulate you in using the name Tom Brady in a sentence without saying something about football.

[cinemaspeak59]

I enjoyed The Locket (1946). The question, of course, is whether Nancy (Laraine Day) killed Mr. Bonner (Ricardo Cortez). At the conclusion, Nancy is shown going away for psychiatric treatment, not jail, so perhaps she didn’t commit murder. The film had a dreamy look, and some great framing devices, in particular Nancy’s horrified expression, in the third act, when she looks down at the music box, her wedding veil distorted.  Another was the closeup of a mad-eyed Nancy, when her husband discovers the bracelet belonging to Lady Wyndham, that was buried in the rubble.  It was interesting to hear this was a hot script going around Hollywood, with Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland wanting to play the lead.

[misswonderly3]

This is unusual...12 hours after the evening screening, and over 1 hour after the morning one, of this week's Noir Alley offering, and nary a comment. Didn't anyone watch Angel Face this weekend?

Ok, I'll start. There may be spoilers.

   I really like the two leads, Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons. It's a particularly interesting role for Miss Simmons, as she often played more sympathetic characters. But as Eddie says in his outro, here she's top-of-the-line femme fatale.  As for Mitch, how can you not enjoy everything the guy does?  Must be those sleepy eyes.

I think a lot of us film fans like to compare movies, and I'm afraid I was doing this a bit with Angel Face.  A couple come to mind, most notably Leave Her to Heaven. We've got a woman, an exceptionally attractive one, ( hey, Jean and Gene ), with a Daddy obsession. She transfers this obsession, or fanatical devotion, or whatever you want to call it, to a new man who comes into her life. And she won't let anything stop her or get in her way, this man is hers'. As is her father.  (In LHTH, the daddy is already dead; in Angel Face, he's still around for about half the movie, so Jean distributes her desire to control and possess the men in her life between both Daddy and Mitch.) Both women in both films are pathologically attached to the men in their lives, and both will stop at nothing to ensure these men stay under their ontrol.

Anyway, enough of the comparison. Angel Face stands on its own as a prime example of the noir trope of a decent man being led astray by a woman who holds an inexplicable sway over him. Sad thing is with AF, Mitch's character realizes fairly early on that she's poison, yet he sticks around. You want him to go running back into the arms of the nice, smart, and equally-pretty-but-more-wholesome girl he was with before he met Diane, but of course by the time he does, it's too late.

I think the writing for Angel Face is exceptionally good. The writers have nailed Diane's character. People like her, who want to manipulate everything and everyone they come into contact with, are very clever. Although they are deceitful, they also know that a little bit of honesty mixed in with the deceit works better than outright lying. So you get scenes like the one where Diane meets her rival  ( pretty, wholesome Mary- Mona Freeman) and takes her to lunch. She's very open about the fact that she was with Frank  (Mitch) the evening before, and she's the reason why Frank broke his date with Mary. She thinks this kind of disclosure will disarm Mary- and maybe with a dumber woman, she'd have been right.  Diane does this continually throughout the film, mixing truth with lies, knowing that this strategy works far better than complete fabrication. 

Something I noticed, maybe it's just my imagination, about Jean's appearance in this film was, she's not as beautiful as Jean Simmons normally is. I know the title of the film is Angel Face, and  yes, that title refers to how bizarre and interesting, yet very possible it is, that a woman who looks like an angel can be evil underneath. A very common theme in movies, not just noir. Yet Jean's face had a hardness to it that she doesn't usually have. I wondered if this was because of what Eddie spoke of,  Howard Hughes and Otto Preminger conniving to give Jean a hard time, including filming her in a less flattering way than normal. Jean Simmons was a very beautiful actress, but in Angel Face, despite the title, she looks older than her 23 years. However, I'm doing something I actually don't like, which is feeling free to critique and analyze female actors' looks, in a way male actors are rarely subjected to. I only mention it because I wondered, as I said, if Preminger filmed her on purpose to look less lovely than she actually was.

As for the ending   -SPOILER  -  Poor old Frank; this is one noir where the hero has done no wrong, except to allow himself to be misled by an evil scheming woman, yet he pays the ultimate price in the end. You do have to wonder what he was thinking, to get into that car with Diane in the end. And he never got to drink the champagne !

Anyway, I enjoyed this film a lot, and would recommend it to all noir fans, but especially those who like those "pathological character" type noirs, the ones that are more about an obsessed mentally ill woman ( or man) than a crime. The crime here is almost incidental to the disturbed state of mind of the lead female character.

 

[ElCid]

Angel Face.  I actually recorded it to DVD several years ago, but haven't watched it since.  Mitchum and Simmons are good, as are the other cast members.  Screenplay is not bad.  But somehow it just does not click with me all that much.

Watched it primarily for Eddie's intro and outro.  The intro got me hooked into watching it again.  I liked Eddie's description of Mitchum's acting style and how it was misunderstood and criticized at the time.  Forgot the exact expression.  Others called it sleep walking through roles or something?  We would now term it easy going or laid back or something.  It does fit him though and it was a very effective acting manner.

Spoiler for Eddie's comments:  Jean Simmons wears wigs because she cut her hair off before filming began.  Howard Hughes kept harassing her about it so she just cut it off.  Also Mitchum slapping Preminger and then telling him to back off his ill-treatment of Simmons.

The whole Hughes-Simmons (any woman) scenario is really interesting.

[lydecker]

1 hour ago, misswonderly3 said:

Something I noticed, maybe it's just my imagination, about Jean's appearance in this film was, she's not as beautiful as Jean Simmons normally is. I know the title of the film is Angel Face, and  yes, that title refers to how bizarre and interesting, yet very possible it is, that a woman who looks like an angel can be evil underneath. A very common theme in movies, not just noir. Yet Jean's face had a hardness to it that she doesn't usually have. I wondered if this was because of what Eddie spoke of,  Howard Hughes and Otto Preminger conniving to give Jean a hard time, including filming her in a less flattering way than normal. Jean Simmons was a very beautiful actress, but in Angel Face, despite the title, she looks older than her 23 years. However, I'm doing something I actually don't like, which is feeling free to critique and analyze female actors' looks, in a way male actors are rarely subjected to. I only mention it because I wondered, as I said, if Preminger filmed her on purpose to look less lovely than she actually was.

 

I noticed that as well and one of the things thing that made her look especially bad was that really, really unflattering wig   --  another "punishment" from Hughes via Preminger, I'm sure.  I also think they deliberately lit her poorly   --  again, to screw with her.  Preminger probably had "plausible deniability" about the poor lighting since they were on such an accelerated shooting schedule but I'm sure he did his best to make her look as bad as possible. No doubt Hughes was hoping to completely scuttle Simmons' career by putting her in a film looking less than her usual gorgeous self, playing such an evil character but, the joke was on him!  --  Her performance showed other studios that she had a lot more range than they might have originally thought. In any event, Eddie M's remarks about what she went through at the hands of Hughes and Preminger (especially that slapping incident) was pretty hard to take though, I have to admit, Mitchum's taking on Preminger:  "Is that slap hard enough for you, Otto?" absolutely cracked me up. 

[LornaHansonForbes]

(Sorry, Hurricane has me away from usual TCMViewing habits)

also, while I LOVE the four principle actors, especially HERBERT MARSHALL and BARBARA ONEIL, I’ve always been a little bored by ANGEL FACE.

[LornaHansonForbes]

Although, the movie does make me think of the rose variety ANGEL FACE, Which in turn somehow reminds me a little bit of the movie. There is a slightly film noir tint to the lavender hue or do I imagine that?

edit: For some reason my phone will not let me attach images.

[Vautrin]

I've seen it two or three times before. Once you know the surprise ending, where Bobby

doesn't even get a chance to take a sip of his champagne, that puts a bit of a dent in

a second viewing. It bogs did a little in the middle, but things pick up after Dad and 

Step Mom go over the edge and the trial starts. Drop me off at Wiltshire Blvd. and over

they go. Funny. I always enjoy Herbert Marshall in his ultra macho, strong silent type

prime. Don't mess with this dude. Yes, Jean's wigs were awful, especially that Beatles/

Prince Valiant job she wore at the beginning. Ouch. Mona Freeman came off much

better than Jean did. Bob should have stuck with her, instead of letting dull old Kenneth

Tobey move in. Angel Face isn't bad, but it's never been one of my favorite noirs. Still,

not a bad way to spend 91 minutes. 

[cigarjoe]

had to work today ?

[lydecker]

2 hours ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

(Sorry, Hurricane has me away from usual TCMViewing habits)

also, while I LOVE the four principle actors, especially HERBERT MARSHALL and BARBARA ONEIL, I’ve always been a little bored by ANGEL FACE.

Totally agree. And, be safe!

[ChristineHoard]

Eddie said there he had thought of the 5 greatest femme fatale noir performances of all time including Jean in Angel Face.  I'm thinking of Barbara in Double Indemnity and Gene in Leave Her to Heaven for two of those top 5.  Any opinions on who Eddie said they were (I'm not on Facebook so I don't know his top 5) or who they should be?  Jane Greer?  Lana Turner?

[Thenryb]

2 hours ago, ChristineHoard said:

Any opinions on who Eddie said they were (I'm not on Facebook so I don't know his top 5) or who they should be? 

He has not posted anything on Facebook so all you have missed is the same sort of speculations and opinions you can see here.

[cigarjoe]

My candidates for what it's worth.....

 

Betty Davis as Rosa Moline in Beyond The Forest

Jane Greer in Out of the Past

Yvonne De Carlo in Criss Cross

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity

Gene Tierney in Leave Her To Heaven

Marilyn Monroe in Niagara

Faith Domergue in Where Danger Lives

honorable mention

Evelyn Keyes inadvertently in Killer That Stalked New York 

[LornaHansonForbes]

12 hours ago, cigarjoe said:

had to work today ?

Yup, the adult bookstore ain’t gonna run itself.

KIDDING!

KIDDING!

(although I bet it’d be meticulously organized and have great selection)

[LornaHansonForbes]

48 minutes ago, cigarjoe said:

My candidates for what it's worth.....

 

Betty Davis as Rosa Moline in Beyond The Forest

Jane Greer in Out of the Past

Yvonne De Carlo in Criss Cross

Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity

Gene Tierney in Leave Her To Heaven

Marilyn Monroe in Niagara

Faith Domergue in Where Danger Lives

honorable mention

Evelyn Keyes inadvertently in Killer That Stalked New York 

Also Ann Sah-vage in DETOUR. 

[cigarjoe]

3 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

Also Ann Sah-vage in DETOUR. 

Yea forgot about Ann.... my bad

[cigarjoe]

6 minutes ago, LornaHansonForbes said:

Yup, the adult bookstore ain’t gonna run itself.

KIDDING!

KIDDING!

(although I bet it’d be meticulously organized and have great selection)

Actually work is a good thang, I'm a fly fishing guide and floated the Delaware River Sat and Sun, this client was happy. PS fish was released.

[LornaHansonForbes]

?only Rosa Molina is meaner than Ann Savage in DETOUR?

 

 

[LornaHansonForbes]

A handsome fly fishing guide!

Although releasing the fish is SO NOT film noir (but the fish thanks you)

ETA- oops, I reread and see your client is in the photo. Anyways, he’s handsome