Noir Films

[Rita Hayworth]

RAW DEAL was a big hit at this year's TCM film festival and was repeated on the last day. I'll agree with everything both of you have said. The film historian Eddie Muller pointed out how unusual it was for a woman to narrate a film noir, especially one like Claire Trevor's character.

I like RAW DEAL ... Hey Kingrat, I did not know that ... being deaf and hard of hearing ... I glad you told everyone that a woman was narrating a film noir. I consider this out of the ordinary and most of all ... different in every way shape and form. I learned something new today ... that a woman was narrating a film noir.

Thanks for sharing this Kingrat!

[feaito]

I'm glad that you agree with me Kingrat, Kingme and Red River...It's been a huge discovery for me. The friend who gave it to me as a B'Day present saw it during the TCM Festival and loved it....

[ChiO]

PICKUP (1951) was the first American movie directed by Hugo Haas (he also was the producer and co-writer). And a fine start it is.

Jan Horak aka Hunky (No, I'm Czech, but it's easier for Americans to say I'm Hungarian.) (Hugo Haas) is a widower and railroad employee who lives in an old ratty house at a train tank stop. He goes into town to buy a puppy at a carnival, leaving his new truly hunky assistant, Steve Kowalski (Allan Nixon), to mind the train water tank. At the carnival, he is among a group of men gawking at the fish-netted gams of Betty (Beverly Michaels), who is riding an outside horse on the merry-go-round sidesaddle, stems facing outwards. Failing to buy the dog because the seller (Bernard Gorcey) wanted too much, he has a bite to eat. Betty spies him...and the wad of money he's carrying...and, being without funds herself and having absolutely no hesitancy about using his, she introduces herself and, one thing leading to another, they're married about two or three weeks later.

Life is lonely, boring and loveless for Betty. Jan loves her and she loves money, but Jan is "an old geezer" and pretty tight with his money to boot. She tries to convince him to claim a disability and retire so that they can move to the town, but he's too honest for that. Then it gets worse (or, is it better?) when Jan goes deaf. Now he can retire and, somehow, Betty can get his pension and savings. When he's in town to finalize his disability retirement, he is hit by a car that he doesn't see or hear. The shock of the collision restores his hearing, but rather than withdraw his filing, he hears Betty's voice and feigns deafness. He knows that Betty is the only person he can share his secret with, but, before he can tell her, he figures out that Betty and Steve have some chemistry. So deaf he stays, hearing all of their coo-cooing, and refusing to make his accounts into joint accounts. Betty now knows that there is only one way for her to get his money...she must become a widow.

One night she goes to Steve's shack in the back. She tells him that she loves him and that Jan beats her. I'll kill him, says Steve, but Betty has a plan. When Jan takes Steve out to show him how to check the tracks, Steve can push him off a cliff. Steve fears that he can't do it, but will try. The time comes and he can't. Back at the house, Jan discloses the secret of his hearing. Steve, enraged that he fell for Betty's love-talk, tries to strangle her. Jan says, She's not worth ruining your life. Betty grabs her suitcase and heads down the track toward town.

And a friend brings Jan a puppy.

PICKUP's narrative is the precursor to Haas' later HIT AND RUN (1957), reviewed right here on June 27. In PICKUP, however, it is tough to have any sympathy for the femme fatale, Michaels being hard-edged and irredeemable, whereas Moore is softer and not all bad. Also, here, one generally has sympathy for Haas' character; in HIT AND RUN he's a stinker. Similarly, here Nixon's bad boy isn't really totally a bad boy, but Edwards' bad boy is a bad boy.

Haas provides some marvelous touches. When Jan is losing and regaining his hearing, the sounds are muffled and there is some irritating ringing. When Jan is deaf, and Haas wants the viewer to identify with him, there is no sound except the irritating ringing. Paul Ivano's cinematography is striking throughout, the highlight being a scene of Betty and Steve. The camera is in the shack, framing them in the door against the night sky. They are backlit, giving them a halo effect. It is as beautiful as any shot from a '30s or '40s romance. I love you, Steve.... And she explains how he is to murder her husband.

Haas and his co-writer were nominated by the Writers Guild of America for the award for Best Written American Low-Budget Movie.

[movieman1957]

I'm going to have to watch some of his films. As I may have mentioned before I first caught Haas's name when I had a Leonard Maltin type encyclopedia and every time I saw his name it was either a "bomb" or 1 star rating. The occasional 2 stars was met with mocking praise.

There must be something more.

[ChiO]

Here's a trailer and a scene.

[youtube][/youtube]

[youtube][/youtube]

Mr. Maltin's and my taste differ substantially.

[RedRiver]

This sounds like a delightful crime story. Come to think of it, it sounds like several other great movies! Seeing those pics, I initially the lady was Marilyn Monroe.

[ChiO]

There were moments where I thought she was a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters.

[CineMaven]

Hi ChiO,

I couldn't even read all of your review of "PICK-UP" b'cuz you made it sound soooooooooooo interesting I didn't want to spoil it for myself. Is this out on DVD yet?

[ChiO]

Is this out on DVD yet?

Not officially. But the copy I have is as close to pristine as one could hope for.

[ChiO]

Tall, dark and...murderous.

Roger Lewis is a tall, dark publisher of a scandal rag who is trying to get jewels from the estranged wife of a once well-to-do Broadway impresario. Outside of her apartment, he bumps into the husband who has just taken back the jewels to save them from Lewis' clutches. So Lewis does just what anyone would do...he strangles her and frames the husband. The chase is on and involves: Lewis' secretary who is in love with him; the impresario's daughter who hated her step-mom and despises Lewis; the cop who falls for the daughter; a petty thief who Lewis engages to further frame the impresario, but who double-crosses Lewis by getting the jewels and trying to hock them with a big time criminal; the big time criminal whose brother is killed in an attempted prison break because the petty thief leaked that plan to Lewis; the impresario who commits suicide when he thinks the cops are going to grab him; and other assorted miscreants. That is UNMASKED (George Blair 1950) from Republic Pictures.

There are moments of atmosphere, undercut generally by acting worthy of a high school senior class play. But the dialogue is also up to that caliber, the highlight being Lewis' final words as he uses the daughter as a shield while engaged in a shoot-out with the cop: You'll never get me, Webster. Webster got him...with finality.

There are, however, two socially redeeming values: (1) the estranged wife, portrayed by Hillary Brooke, is fine in an appearance that gets the thing going, but is unfortunately short; and, (2) Roger Lewis, aka Raymond Burr, who is full of wide-eyed murderous menace and oozing charm as the body count mounts.

[ChiO]

The local theater last night screened an absolutely gorgeous 35mm print of THE BIG NIGHT (1951), a rarely screened Joseph Losey film and his last film made in the U.S.

George LaMain (John Drew Barrymore), a motherless teenager, is humiliated and unmercifully teased about his manhood by a group of hip teenagers. He retreats into the corner bar owned by his father, Andy (Preston Foster), where the typical midday denizens of such bars have bellied up. His father brings out George's surprise birthday cake and tells him to make wish. George blows out all but one of the candles. Suddenly, the slickly dressed and sinister Al Judge (Howard St. John) appears. He humiliates Andy, demanding that he remove his shirt (I want to see some skin.) and get on his hands and knees. Andy complies silently. Judge then unmercifully beats Andy with his cane. The crowd is silent and George is horrified. As Andy drags himself upstairs to their apartment, he tells his son to close up. George finds a revolver in the cash drawer. He takes it. Thus begins George's journey to find Judge and discover why he would beat his father and why his father allowed it to happen.

What a great start to a premise with much potential.

There is some fine camera work by Hal Mohr (THE WILD ONE, THE LINEUP, UNDERWORLD U.S.A.), both location (L.A. at night) and interior (lots of mirrors with Barrymore variously looking at himself, full-length, convincing himself he's a man and from angles making him unable to fully look at himself). Barrymore is convincing. And, in two relatively short scenes, Emile Meyer -- a man who makes every movie a bit better -- is marvelous as a penny-ante con man. But such scenes are surrounded and interrupted by ponderous and seemingly endless exposition. The program notes credited Hugo Butler and Dalton Trumbo as the ghostwriters, but IMDb lists Butler and Ring Lardner, Jr. -- either way, it was written by persons who were blacklisted, as were Losey and Dorothy Comingore (some love interest). The two final scenes wrap up the mysteries via St. John, then Foster, explaining everything -- apparently because it was time to end the movie and there was no other way to convey the answers to the audience. In short, George discovers nothing...but he (and we) is told everything. Life is not simply black and white, and things are rough all over...or something like that.

It could have been great, and it certainly won't make anyone forget Losey's other U.S. films, especially THE PROWLER and M.

As a trivial point, there is a scene at a boxing match where a rather paunchy fellow is drinking from a pint bottle of whiskey. He offers some to George and another guy. The fellow looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. Listed on IMDb as an uncredited "Ringsider at Fight" -- Robert Aldrich. Bingo!

Edit: Just looked at the program notes again. Apparently when I see R-i-n-g L-a-r-d-n-e-r-, J-r-., I read "Dalton Trumbo". The program notes and IMDb both have Mr. Lardner. This getting-old-thing is for THE BIRDS.

[JackFavell]

Gosh, the premise sounds so good! It seems hard to believe they couldn't follow through on it.

I don't know why but Preston Foster getting beat up by some guy just seems wrong.... Wallace Ford, yeah, but Preston?

[moira finnie]

Gosh, the premise sounds so good! It seems hard to believe they couldn't follow through on it.

I don't know why but Preston Foster getting beat up by some guy just seems wrong.... Wallace Ford, yeah, but Preston?

Preston Foster is exceptionally good in this movie and part of the reason is the actor's history with the audience as a stalwart "don't tread on me" type. That background makes his character's willing submission to a beating and humiliation so disturbing. His character goes through a horrific ordeal willingly due to his own inability to escape from the emotional choices he feels compelled to follow. Seeing this movie, which may still be available in a Region 2 DVD made me re-think my attitude toward Foster, Howard St. John, and John Drew Barrymore. I wish TCM would find a way to air this movie. Mauri Lynn's brief scenes are well worth seeing as well--she's outstanding as a torch singer who enchants the sensitive Barrymore, who hurts her so deeply with his qualified praise as the "most beautiful woman I've ever seen" even if she "is a Negro." The exhausted pain on her lovely face is unforgettable.

Btw, while firmly set in a noir world, you can see some of the elements that flowered in Losey's English film, The Servant a decade later.

[Robert Regan]

Though not quite on the level of The Prowler, The Big Night is still one of Losey's best American films. All the actors are good, and Drew's father is one of the under rated actors of that time. Incidentally, Losey and his contemporary Nicholas Ray both liked to include in their movies songs sung by African-American women. They sure needed the work.