HOUSE OF NOIR

[moira finnie]

P.S. One of my problems getting on board here is that I must tatoo my password and way of signing my cyber handle, onto my wrist. I keep forgetting and have to go through hoops to get in here with you guys.

CM, several of our members have had this problem since we upgraded to this nifty new software. Here's a suggestion for anyone having this issue: Look at the very bottom of your SSO page. Please look for the hyperlink that says "Delete all board cookies". If you click on that and leave the site, you may login again with fewer return visits requiring going through the hoops to get here. Hope this helps. Btw, I also empty my Temporary Internet Files regularly and my Cookies on my computer as well. The location of this differs depending on your browser, IE, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome, etc. I find it makes traveling the internet highway much smoother. I hope that helps. I'll forward this info to Jon, our technical Admin too in the hope that he may have more to offer about this matter.

Thank you for being patient and persistent.

[Dewey1960]

Hitchcock—a name that conjures up images and aspects of…Hitchcock,
you say? But was he as noir as Lang or Siodmak or Fuller or Ray or
Welles? Funny how his name seldom comes up when talk turns to noir
and its classical roots. Yet he could be as downright dark and fatalistically
true to the style as the rest of them. Here he is at his most noiriest:
shadow of a doubt - 1943
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notorious - 1946
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strangers on a train - 1951
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the wrong man - 1956
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And what of his color pictures? Were they noir as well? Can color be
black as well as blue?

[CineMaven]

"But was he as noir as Lang or Siodmak or Fuller or Ray or
Welles? Funny how his name seldom comes up when talk turns to noir
and its classical roots." - Dewey

I have to agree with you sir. Hitch's not a true noir master like the other directors you mentioned. He might've been dark and twisted, but not noir. There is a distinction.

[Dewey1960]

Twisted? Did someone say...twisted?
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[ChiO]

Hitchcock twisting with the Father of Noir Fiction.
(Klondike -- Don't watch!)

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[Dewey1960]

Hitchcock and Woolrich is a remarkable mix: a brimming tumbler of
twisted emotions and violence. There probably should have been more
marriages betwixt the two, although there are several interesting foot-
notes: a long-time Hitchcock writer, Joan Harrison took to producing in
the 1940s and cooked up Siodmak’s seminal version of Woolrich’s noir
masterpiece PHANTOM LADY for Universal. In 1957 Hitchcock himself
directed a one-hour TV episode for his anthology series “Suspense”
called FOUR O’CLOCK, based on a short story by Woolrich.
That author's REAR WINDOW again; sustained darkness masquerading
as merely suspense…
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Cornell Woolrich wasn’t the only significant noir scribe to have their
Work translated by Hitchcock. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN featured
Patricia Highsmith’s uniquely terrifying blend of macabre humor and
dark-edged suspense as adapted by Raymond Chandler…
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All-time pulp noir master Robert Bloch was the source of the
director’s blackest film…PSYCHO.
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Woolrich, Highsmith, Bloch…further incontrovertible evidence that
Hitchcock’s association with noir might be something more
than casual.

[Dewey1960]

A House of Noir EXCLUSIVE! In its entirety, the one-hour 1957 television
episode directed by ALFRED HITCHCOCK for the series Suspicion:
FOUR O’CLOCK, based on the short story “Three O’Clock” by Cornell
Woolrich, starring E.G. Marshall and Nancy Kelly.
Part 1
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Part 2
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Part 3
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Part 4
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Part 5
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Part 6
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[ChiO]

Thank you, Dewey, for that marvelous presentation! Woolrich's biographer, Francis Nevins, wrote: It is the most unremittingly suspenseful picture Hitchcock ever made and the most faithful adaptation of Woolrich for the visual medium. It was also the fourth adaptation of Three O'Clock for television, the others being: Three O'Clock, The Actor's Studio (1949); Three O'Clock, Mystery Playhouse (1949); and, Three O'Clock, Robert Montgomery Presents (1951). I couldn't find them on YouTube.

Having E.G. Marshall, one of my favorite actors, and a young Harry Dean Stanton didn't hurt either.

[klondike]

Hey, Boss, this is Lefy; sorry to ring ya up on yer private office line, but I just had this real jinky cat in here, askin' for ChiO; I told him King Shyster's not usually around much 'fore midnight, he said he might be back through later, but he was particular about where he parked!
See if you can squint him out yer window . . maybe you've seen him around before . .

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[ChiO]

He Shoot Horses, Don’t He? Expectations were upset, thinking it would
instead be the scene with Sterling Hayden and Timothy Carey where Mr.
Carey is stroking a beautiful pussycat, proving that he truly is a lover of
the finer creatures. But yesterday must have been James Edwards Day
because I watched him two other times, both being in a favorite docu-noir.
Unfortunately, he does not appear in these clips from Phil Karlson’s
THE PHENIX CITY STORY.

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[klondike]

World's full of wacky individuals, fer sure; first that spooky dude stops by, askin' for ChiO, then I get a visit from my buddy/fellow barkeep Mike Ryan, just gettin' off shift over at the track, tells me all about this big dust-up he had over there today . . after I heard about this donnybrook, I went & got another Louisville slugger, to put under the other end of this bar, as well!

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[MissGoddess]

Hi Dewey,

You keep a nice house.

I just saw the most amazing movie, THANKS TO OLLIE!! I never
even heard of it before but it really got to me. Maybe I was just
in the right mood. Anyway, if any movie compares to it, it would
be The Three Faces of Eve, made several years later---but only
in subject matter. I believe this film is superior, yet scarcely
known.

Have a look at a scene from Arch Obeler's BEWITCHED:
[youtube][/youtube]

[MissGoddess]

I just watched another Arch Oboler goodie, The Arnelo Affair. Again,
THANK YOU OLLIE!!! I thoroughly lapped up every minute. Frances Gifford
is lovely and sad (and I love her wardrobe---sorry guys) but what I have found
so far in Oboler's work (I've seen four of his movies now) is that he has a
slick way of getting under the skin of the main characters and whatever is
tormenting them, I mean, he gets the audience under their skin, so it suddenly
feels as if that could be YOU up there in that harrowing situation. Wonderful.
He also seems to like to make a point that whatever happens to these characters
can and does affect all of us.

The Arnello Affair reminds me of The Letter and its remake, The Unfaithful but
I don't know but that I kind of like TAA the best (don't tell CineMaven!). Maybe
because TAA makes the character of John Hodiak (Tony Arnelo) more three
dimensional than just a hood with a rough way with dames.

Here is a trailer:[youtube][/youtube]

[CineMaven]

"The Arnello Affair reminds me of 'The Letter' and its remake, 'The Unfaithful' but
I don't know but that I kind of like TAA the best (don't tell CineMaven!). Maybe
because TAA makes the character of John Hodiak (Tony Arnelo) more three
dimensional than just a hood with a rough way with dames." - MissGoddess.

So THAT's how it is, ey? Guess I've got to see this movie that wins you over. I saw "Cry Havoc" a coupla weeks ago, and was fascinated by one of the actresses in there. In the mix with Blondell and Sothern and Marsha and Sullavan (and my favorite) Ella Raines, there was an actress that really caught my attention: FRANCES GIFFORD.

Aaaaah, it's nice and peaceful here.

[Ollie]

Oboler's films 'gets us under the character's skin', eh? Hmmm. I'll have to watch for that when I see these. ARNELO gave me strange characters, all richly built not only from their appearance (including wardrobe choices for the beautiful damsel-who-gets-in-distress) but we know all the forces that are pushing them around.

George Murphy's casting is just about perfect, although for most of the movie, I think he's totally wrong. He is SO 'not right' for Gifford's husband-choice, but he shows he works for her and their dreams, not realizing that working is the biggest club on their relationship's head. He's a winner, in her book, but she still wants something other than Him Working For Dreams - what about Now?!! And John Hodiak is just the perfect snake that sneaks up on his prey. Even the seduction of her is well-constructed. He holds out the apple, he tells her what will happen, she turns away and then comes back after feeling like her marriage pushes her back to him.

And Murphy The Mouse proves to be perfectly cast. On his hind legs, he presents a formidable challenge to Hodiak who, like all predators, never want to risk any injury, always preferring the easiest prey of all with zero effort - like, get the wife to run away with him - he won't even have to fight for her!

And the detective who's put two and two together, and believes he knows the whole truth. All he thinks he has to do is twist the right arms, even when that means further victimizing victims. I really hate that, by the way.

Eve Arden almost turns in an Agnes-Moorehead-JOHNNY-BELINDA role. Almost. Not quite that powerful, not quite that decisive. I really thought she might have been the calvary-charge heroine in the end.