Some noir for November

Another noir for a Tuesday evening, this one quite apropos to current events. This is The Killer that Stalked New York (1950), directed by Earl McEvoy. The killer in this film is a woman who has just returned from Cuba and, along with some diamonds she is smuggling, she unknowingly carries a deadly disease, small pox. The film tracks her movements in the city as she comes in contact with various people, including children. Soon hospitals are receiving patients with similar symptoms, soon the city becomes a hot zone of fear as authorities, both the police and health officials scramble to get the situation under control and to find the person who started the epidemic. Soon the health system runs out of vaccine and scrambles to find the money and the means for more. What makes this film work is the plot that involves not only the outbreak of small pox among 8 million people, but also the machinations of a small time crook who is the sick woman's lout of a husband. The characters are tough and raw coming from the hard knocks side of the city. Evelyn Keyes as the small pox carrier is convincing. Even Jim Backus turns up as a seedy night club proprietor whose lascivious actions get him more than he bargained for. The film has fine cinematography, perhaps most striking in the opening credits with the huge silhouette of a woman looming over the city. This is another film to watch during a pandemic!

The Reckless Moment (1949), directed by Max Ophuls (credited as Max Opuls). Ophuls is best known for films such as La Ronde (1950), Lola Montes (1955), and Le Plaisir (1952). His signature is a fluid camera, constantly moving and tracking characters as they move about. In The Reckless Moment, a noir that has a woman as the trapped central character, the camera follows prim Mrs. Harper (Joan Bennett) of Balboa, California, as she discovers a dead body, a man she thinks her daughter has murdered (she hasn't). After finding and disposing of the body, Mrs. Harper soon finds herself confronted by an insistent blackmailer (James Mason speaking with a light Irish lilt). The plot moves along with sufficient tension, but the most arresting aspect of the film is the camera work as it tracks, climbs, descends, moves in or out, all the times following things as if it was carrying out an intricate surveillance. The sets in a small coastal town with houses and boathouses that have many stairs and docks also with stairs give the camera opportunity for moving up and down. Meanwhile, shots inside automobiles or oppressively furnished rooms give the impression of entrapment. All in all, this is a pleasant little exercise in the noir mood.

Racket Busters (1938) directed by Lloyd Bacon. This is one of the many Warner Brothers gangster films of the 30s and 40s. This one is about union corruption in the trucking and produce business. John 'Czar' Martin (Humphrey Bogart) is the boss of a gang that sets up a rival union to the proper truckers' union. The film focuses on the people whose lives suffer because of the criminal infiltration into the unions. This is not one of the more powerful of the Warner crime films, but it does nicely remind us that corruption seeps into pretty much all areas of life. The main character, Denny Jordan (George Brent), finds himself compromised because he needs money to pay for his wife's hospital and medical bills. If this sounds familiar, it is. More recently we have TV series such as Breaking Bad or Good Girls that contain a similar plot line - the debilitating effects of a health system that can bankrupt patients and their families. Denny Jordan is caught between the mob and a system that demands he put himself and his family in danger. He is in a position of what we now think of as precarity. In other words, what this film presents has its contemporary applications. A final note: Alan Jenkins as Skeets finally has a role that gives him something to work with. His character knows both the trucking business and the produce business from the inside. His character also has strength of character. As for Bogart, his character wants to control the food chain!