Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Past chats with our guests.
The Swede
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by The Swede »

ChiO wrote:Welcome, Shannon --

Do you see a change in the narrative arc, theme, focus or iconography of film noir from the '40s to the '50s and beyond? If so, what do you consider those changes to be and to what do you attribute those changes?

Thanks for hanging out at SSO.
Great question ChiO. I do indeed see a change, and noir was doomed as many of the anxieties underlying began to fade by the late 1950s.

I think reading my last post, on the nature of the femme fatale, will go a long way in responding to this question. The great motifs and character types of film noir were tied to specific anxieties that arose during and just after WWII. This is also the reason we had a great resurgence of "throwback" hard-boiled writing at the beginning of the millennium, with authors like Megan Abbott, Reed Farrel Coleman, Charles Ardai and Christa Faust bursting on the scene, and movies like THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE and BRICK coming out. Many of the same anxieties arose when we were reminded that the U.S. is vulnerable, that some wars can't be won in any objective terms (or a completely uncompromised fashion), and that life in the suburbs wasn't all we had been hoping for the last 50 years.

In my opinion, noir began to peter out by the mid '50s, as wartime anxieties and the economic hardships of those years went away. We started to see noir move into the domestic sphere, where the raw force of those anxieties is sapped by more mundane domestic concerns. We also saw noir morph into more crime procedurals, where police procedure becomes the focus and order is too often restored.

For me, the glory years are the 1940s, peaking in '46 and '47--as soldiers came back from war with all the horrors fresh in their mind; as women who had been working, and running the household, struggled to simply be domestic partners; as the world economy sputtered, and tried to decide what to build if not the machines of war.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by The Swede »

Well, I think we've gotten into some pretty dark corners of noir--really teasing out the underlying world view, the nature of femmes fatales, etc.

Now, the other thing we should mention is that noir is just flat out FUN! Who doesn't enjoy seeing Mitchum say "Baby, I don't care," and kiss Greer? Who doesn't want to watch John Dall and Peggy Cummins pull of heists like Bonnie and Clyde, but dressed in campy cowboy outfits?

If there are any favorite noir moments you want to discuss, I'm game! I have to duck out until this afternoon, but I'm looking forward to catching up later.

Thanks for all the great questions.

Shannon
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by The Swede »

One other thing I'd love to add. I've published and podcasted on noir, which is, no doubt, why the conversation turned the way it did. But like all of you, I'm a MOVIE FAN, first and foremost (I'm a big fan of Screwball, for example). I'd be happy to chat on other topics as well!

Thanks again for the great questions, and I'll check in a bit later!
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by moira finnie »

Thanks for your detailed responses, Shannon, and for being our guest this weekend. I have two questions right now, though I'm dying to ask more.

1.) I was one of the crowd at your introduction to Mildred Pierce at the George Eastman House last year. I was particularly interested in your appreciation of one of my favorite actors--Jack Carson! In discussions about Mildred's life and loves here in the past, I've always maintained that Wally "I'm so smart it's a disease!" Fay was the only male who did anything useful for the heroine. Having read Cain's book recently, I was delighted to discover that Wally may have been a bottom feeder, but he was even more pivotal in the novel. Could you please discuss how Carson's character anchored the movie?

2.) Also, why do you think that so few children appear in true crime-laden film noirs? There are lots of examples of grown-up kids who are real trouble in films like Murder, My Sweet, The Big Sleep and The Accused, but under-18 rug rats are sparse or peripheral to the action.

Of course there is Satan's spawn aka Veda (Ann Blyth), so vividly portrayed in Mildred Pierce, though I still watch Mildred Pierce every time hoping that Kay (JoAnn Marlowe) will recover and start slinging hash with Mom down at the restaurant once she can see over the counter. Other noirs with good roles for kids are few, though The Window (1949), Shadow on the Wall (1950), Talk About a Stranger (1952), and Night of the Hunter (1955) stand out for their ability to describe a dark reality through the eyes of children. Are there so few film noirs with kids because of the bleak, adult nature of the material?

Thanks in advance for your observations.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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We are adoring your comments about films noir here at the SSO!

Bringing up Baby (1938) is obviously considered a hallmark of Hawks' foray into the romantic comedy genre, and delivers a frothy, latte-laced vision of delightful happenstance to two unorthodoxed people who are estimating each other's worth against societal coupling norms.

The more I revisit "Baby" the more I accept that Hepburn's character, Susan, has summarily orchestrated her "capture" of David through her scheming.

But as we move on to Hawks' His Girl Friday in 1940, character motivations are reversed. Walter is the seeming schemer, and Hildy the hapless rube trapped by her vocabulary and her vested interest in connubial bliss.

The first part of the miracle of His Girl Friday, for me, is rooted in my childhood recollections of my parents' repartee. They actually had discussions where they would step on each other's lines, engage in one-upsmanship targeting some personal slight, and ultimately decide it was a frivolous foray denying their undying appreciation and love for each other. So I was preconditioned to admire such verbal volleyball, but the second miracle for me is the Charles Lederer screenplay of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's The Front Page. How The Front Page was reconditioned for a former married couple whose witticisms outweighed their personal knowledge of each other's foibles was a moment of genius for me as a writer and "idea-generator."

I was wondering how you might view these two Hawks' films set against the backdrop of what is considered true "romantic comedy," and elaborate a bit on your own motivations for admiring this genre, as well as Hawks' propensity for "stealing a scene from himself" that generates tension and laughs like Elsa Martinelli's first big cat encounter in such later efforts as Hatari.

Thanks, Shannon!
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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Holy cow Moira...is that any way to talk about Satan's spawn? :shock:
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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Good question, BTW, Cinemaven, about femme fatales, and I loved the images.

And Moira, I think your query about Jack Carson as the anchor of Mildred Pierce brings up an excellent point.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by moira finnie »

CineMaven wrote:Holy cow Moira...is that any way to talk about Satan's spawn? :shock:
Yes it is. Let's see...she ate her mother's food and wore the clothes that she put on her back, even if she did sneer at her pie-making and the "dreadfully common" clothes that Mom sweated to buy for her. She seemed to think that the roof that was over her head appeared as if by magic. She made Butterfly McQueen wear one of her mother's waitress uniforms around the house. She condescended to Eve Arden (a mortal sin). She was on the make with any male (Wally, Monte, the poor rich kid she conned into believing she was preggers) who might spend money on her. She never did a stroke of work in her life...and no, I don't count wriggling her hips at Wally's dive as "work." She slapped her mother, Mom slapped her, and--as Shannon pointed out in one of his earlier remarks about film noir--that significant event took place on a staircase! And she fooled around with her wastrel step-father. Yup, that's our Veda, Devil's spawn.

On the upside, she shed a tear for her sister when the kid croaked. She left her father alone (well, that is, after he took off for Mrs. Biederhof's house). And yes, many of the character-shaping experiences in Veda's life could be blamed on Mildred's pretentiousness, naivete, and materialism.

In the book there is more about Veda's alleged musical talent, so I won't criticize her playing of Valse Brillante or her snarky "that's French, you know."

All that being said...Veda is a great villain.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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moirafinnie wrote: She condescended to Eve Arden (a mortal sin).
Now that's a mortal sin!
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The Swede
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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[quote="moirafinnie"]Thanks for your detailed responses, Shannon, and for being our guest this weekend. I have two questions right now, though I'm dying to ask more.

1.) I was one of the crowd at your introduction to Mildred Pierce at the George Eastman House last year. I was particularly interested in your appreciation of one of my favorite actors--Jack Carson! In discussions about Mildred's life and loves here in the past, I've always maintained that Wally "I'm so smart it's a disease!" Fay was the only male who did anything useful for the heroine. Having read Cain's book recently, I was delighted to discover that Wally may have been a bottom feeder, but he was even more pivotal in the novel. Could you please discuss how Carson's character anchored the movie?

2.) Also, why do you think that so few children appear in true crime-laden film noirs? There are lots of examples of grown-up kids who are real trouble in films like Murder, My Sweet, The Big Sleep and The Accused, but under-18 rug rats are sparse or peripheral to the action.

So glad to hear you were at the talk Moira, and I wish we'd had more of a chance to chat.

I am also a fan of Carson's. I'm not sure why movie history hasn't been as kind to people who play a role straight, but I have a lot of respect for that. It always strikes me as very unselfish.

I agree with you that Fay (Carson) is pivotal in MILDRED PIERCE. I actually prefer the character in the book, because he's so delightfully sleazy; in the movie he's basically decent, just a touch self-serving. But Carson played it just right for the film, given the way the movie took liberties with the source material. The film made Mildred a heroic character, blind to the depths of Vera's selfishness, perhaps, but fighting valiantly for family. In the book, she is snobbish, bitter and relatively unimaginative--a far cry from Crawford's Mildred. Carson couldn't have played Wally as in the book because in the film Mildred's world is a better place than any that would have spawned a Wally like that. So instead, Carson is a master of innuendo who plays the fairly decent fellow the film requires but hints at all sorts of motives (beyond the obvious one, which he hints at all the time). That takes a fine actor.

I'm not quite sure how to answer the second question, about noir and children. I sense the answer may be related to what I said earlier about the nature of noir justice--an abstract and all powerful force. As human as these tales are, every detail seems to resonate with allegorical value, and I suspect the sort of innocence children represent rarely has a place in such complex and compromised tales. Also, these are almost always the stories of people who don't get what they want or need, and I suspect common perceptions of family in the wartime years wouldn't have seen stories involving children as stories of tragic lack. Finally, noir was always in a two-step with censors, and I doubt many of these tales would have made it to screen if they'd thrown a child in with the grifters, cutthroats, connivers and schemers.

Interestingly, once kids do start to appear, we really move away from noir and towards police procedurals and other crime tales where order is restored. That's why a film like THE BIG HEAT, as noir as it is at times (and you have to love Grahame's performance) feels a more film gris than film noir. It has lost some of the darkness.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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Sue Sue Applegate wrote:We are adoring your comments about films noir here at the SSO!

Bringing up Baby (1938) is obviously considered a hallmark of Hawks' foray into the romantic comedy genre, and delivers a frothy, latte-laced vision of delightful happenstance to two unorthodoxed people who are estimating each other's worth against societal coupling norms.

The more I revisit "Baby" the more I accept that Hepburn's character, Susan, has summarily orchestrated her "capture" of David through her scheming.

But as we move on to Hawks' His Girl Friday in 1940, character motivations are reversed. Walter is the seeming schemer, and Hildy the hapless rube trapped by her vocabulary and her vested interest in connubial bliss.

The first part of the miracle of His Girl Friday, for me, is rooted in my childhood recollections of my parents' repartee. They actually had discussions where they would step on each other's lines, engage in one-upsmanship targeting some personal slight, and ultimately decide it was a frivolous foray denying their undying appreciation and love for each other. So I was preconditioned to admire such verbal volleyball, but the second miracle for me is the Charles Lederer screenplay of Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's The Front Page. How The Front Page was reconditioned for a former married couple whose witticisms outweighed their personal knowledge of each other's foibles was a moment of genius for me as a writer and "idea-generator."

I was wondering how you might view these two Hawks' films set against the backdrop of what is considered true "romantic comedy," and elaborate a bit on your own motivations for admiring this genre, as well as Hawks' propensity for "stealing a scene from himself" that generates tension and laughs like Elsa Martinelli's first big cat encounter in such later efforts as Hatari.

Thanks, Shannon!
Let me start by saying I wish I'd had your parents! :D Jokes aside, I do sometimes feel that as stylized as the dialogue was in Screwball, it wasn't so far off from the truth of the day. I wish I were old enough to know that for sure, but I can say is I'm pretty quick in conversation and I could never match wits or lines with either of my grandmothers.

The screenplay for HIS GIRL FRIDAY is nothing short of a national treasure. I was reading it a few months ago, and it is a marvel even on the page (which is not always the case with Screwball: some dialogue only worked because of the timing of the delivery). That said, I have a slightly different reading of Hildy in the film. I agree that Walter (oh, is Grant at his best!) is much more the schemer in the film, but I've never been able to decide how hapless Hildy is. Russell was such a master of the sly glance that I sometimes feel all her motives run counter to all her words. And if she is "trapped" back into this relationship, I can't decide if it's because she's helplessly in love with Walter or helplessly in love with the newspaper business.

In other words, there are lots of ways for these ladies to be in control of the situation, and I love Screwball and film noir equally because in those two genres women get to use every possible means to run their men's lives--and the men rarely seem to know what hit them (whether to comic or tragic ends).
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by Lzcutter »

Shannon,

I am enjoying your comments and insights! I've got a question for you- how did you get interested in film? Also, what's your favorite genre?

Thanks in advance!
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

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:lol: Moira, you are an absolute RIOT! :lol: Calling Veda "the Devil's spawn" is really too good for her after reading your description.

Mr. Clute, do you see what we have to contend with here at the SSO? Ms. Finnie can succinctly, hilariously and with laser-beamed accuracy, distill any character or genre to its essence.
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by The Swede »

Lzcutter wrote:Shannon,

I am enjoying your comments and insights! I've got a question for you- how did you get interested in film? Also, what's your favorite genre?

Thanks in advance!
It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for all the great questions.

Like so many people, I had someone special in my life who introduced me to the world of classic movies. In my case, that person was the grandmother I was closest to--my mother's mom. First, she introduced me to contemporary films that she thought were well made (by which she meant, I now realize, films that had stories and narrative structures like studio era movies). Two of the first that I clearly remember watching with her were BREAKER MORANT and RACING WITH THE MOON, and I still have a special affinity for both of those films (partly because I watched them with hear, but largely because they're both great movies).

As we watched, she would tell me stories about moviegoing in her youth--what a social experience it was, the live music, how it was THE form of entertainment (along with going to dances). (Now that I know more about movie history, I realize that she was born at the perfect time--1910. Imagine the things she saw in the theatre, from silents through the best of the studio era.) Bit by bit, we drifted towards more and more old films--pretty much whatever was showing on PBS nights and weekends. She was a fan of Jimmy Stewart, not such a fan of Rooney. While she was never a gossip, I sense her movie opinions were formed as much by what she read of how these people conducted themselves in their private lives as by what she saw on the screen.

She would often lament that characters and stories were no longer the focus of movies, and that was the big reasons things weren't what they used to be. I agreed, and still do.

Together, we watched a lot of romantic comedies and historical dramas. I preferred the former, and later I realized that Screwball comedies were my favorite sort of romantic comedy (along with those films that drew on the quick repartee of Screwball but didn't quite fit the genre, like THE PHILADELPHIA STORY). Later, I fell in love with film noir, but that started with a love of hard-boiled literature. I did a PhD in French and Italian Lit at Cornell, and around my fifth year I was really burning out. I stumbled on Raymond Chandler while looking for a little diversionary reading, and it was love at first read. That lead me to James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, Dashiell Hammett, etc. Then I went looking for the adaptations of their novels, and fell hard for film noir. I think those are my two favorite genres, but now that I'm a parent I like even simpler diversions now and then, and lately am starting to develop a real taste for early adventure films. And, I still love French and Italian cinema from all my foreign language studies (especially French Poetic Realism and Italian Neorealism).
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Re: Welcome to Shannon Clute, Our Guest Star for September

Post by The Swede »

CineMaven wrote::lol: Moira, you are an absolute RIOT! :lol: Calling Veda "the Devil's spawn" is really too good for her after reading your description.

Mr. Clute, do you see what we have to contend with here at the SSO? Ms. Finnie can succinctly, hilariously and with laser-beamed accuracy, distill any character or genre to its essence.
I had noted the pitch perfect sarcasm of that comment! Veda is so rotten she almost spoils a perfectly good film. :D
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