A couple of noirish films as November comes to a close.

Exposed (1947), directed by George Blair. This small picture from Republic has a female detective, Belinda Prentice (Adele Mara) in the Marlowe mould. It also has some snappy dialogue: “He’s as stiff as a laundered collar.” “He’s a tough egg.” Send him over and I’ll scramble him.” And so on. It also has one of the most frantic vicious fights I have seen on film from the early days; this one involves the baddie Chicago (Bob Steele aka “Battling Bob”) and Belinda’s helper Iggy Broty (William Haade). Aside from these notable features, the film is a standard mystery. To be honest, the plot left me a wee bit bewildered, but the film was amiable nonetheless. There are plenty of suspects for the murder of businessman William Bentry (Russell Hicks): the butler (of course), the daughter, the son, the lawyer, the family doctor, the ex-business partner, and the gangster. The police detective, Inspector Prentice (Robert Armstrong), just happens to be the private eye’s father. She, of course, proves to be much better at sleuthing than he is.

 

The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957), directed by Howard W. Koch. If you like whodunnits, then this low budget murder mystery just might keep your attention. A bunch of troubled and troubling people gather at a Utah lodge, and one evening as guests dance, two young lovers discover the body of a murdered woman. Who among all the guests is the killer? And will he or she kill again? Yes, is the answer to the second question. Sheriff Jess Holmes (!), played by John Dehner, arrives to sort things out, but not before three more people turn up dead, including Harriet Ames (Mamie Van Doren). For some reason Mamie Van Doren appears prominently in promotions for this film. Other familiar faces in the cast include Lex Barker, Anne Bancroft, Stuart Whitman, Dan Blocker, and Marie Windsor. Ron Randell plays Edmund Parry, owner of the lodge who is a paraplegic. Mr. Parry’s confinement to a wheelchair is the result of a psychosomatic condition. Some years ago, Parry’s lover left him. His embitterment was so acute that he lost the use of his arms and legs. He is now a misogynist of the first order. Of course, he is a suspect. All of this is quite fun, if somewhat tepid. The camera work is efficient and has a noirish edge. The characters are quirky. And finally, the solving of the mystery proves to be, I think, unexpected. 

 On Dangerous Ground (1951), directed by Nicholas Ray. Another noir for November, On Dangerous Ground begins on the gritty city streets at night. We meet jaded cop Jim Garrison (Robert Ryan) who is lonely, worn out, and psychologically damaged by the “garbage” he has to deal with in his job. He is prone to violence and to cool him off his superior sends him on a trip north to help a country sheriff solve a murder. The film, then, has two parts, one dark and city-bound and the other light and snow-bound in the country. Light and dark permeate the film in ironic ways. The woman (Ida Lupino) whom Jim meets in a lonely farm house lives in the dark; she is blind. The farmer (Ward Bond) whom Jim meets is as prone to violence as Jim is. In other words, the film focuses on Jim and his coming to terms with his demons when he meets these two people in an isolated landscape. The plot is incidental; the characters are central. Ryan’s cop is a typically flawed and paranoid noir hero, but he is also a familiar Ray character, a rebel without a cause, a man in a lonely place, a Johnny without his guitar; he is in an odd place. He has been living by night. His victory is bitter and his blood is hot. He blunders into the blind woman’s house and knocks things asunder. By the end, he has attempted to put things back together, but whether he has been successful is doubtful. This is, after all, a noir. 

They Live by Night (1948), directed by Nicholas Ray. This film was later remade by Robert Altman (Thieves Like Us). Ray’s version of the story is his first feature film, and it stars Farley Granger as Bowie Bowers and Cathy O’Donnell as Keechie Mobley, two young people star-crossed, and on the lam as the film moves along. The opening shot from a helicopter, followed by a few other helicopter shots in the film, give the sense of a large world that these two youngsters will not be able to navigate. Their fate is sealed, as it were. Ray was fascinated by young people caught in a world of betrayal and crime and misunderstanding. His most celebrated look at such a world is, of course, Rebel Without a Cause. Here, in They Live By Night, we have Rebel Without a Cause mixed with Gun Crazy or Bonnie and Clyde. Keechie and Bowie are not like the protagonists in those two films, but they are in a similar world. Ray’s penchant for images that are, for lack of a better word, symbolic is evident in Chickamaw (Howard da Silva), the one-eyed Cyclopean figure, in various shots through grill work or bars, in close-ups intended to reflect innocence or its opposite. Scenes at the garage with Bowie at work on changing a tire are suitably touched with grit and grease. Bowie is both sweetly innocent and yet clearly fallen into an underworld he does not try hard enough to repudiate. For the most part, this noir eschews those dark and damp city streets, choosing the open road, the country cabin, and out of the way places for its action. Still, they live by night because they cannot risk travelling by daylight when someone might recognize young Bowie. As it turns out, someone does recognize young Bowie anyway, and someone else who has ties to the gang of thieves Bowie has become part of proves to be a snitch. As for us, the viewers, we just hang on for the ride.

 

Knock on Any Door (1949), directed by Nicholas Ray. This is a noir film with both a difference and a purpose. The difference is that this film lacks much in the way of damp dirty and dark city streets with stark lighting, although it does have plenty of scenes in Skid Row, New York, and it does not have a femme fatale, and it does not have the usual gaggle of gangsters and detectives. What it does have is two main characters, one a successful lawyer (Humphrey Bogart) and the other one of Ray’s troubled youth from his gallery of young men who find themselves in big trouble (John Derek in his first role). The purpose is to direct our attention to the effects of poverty and a failed justice system. This is essentially a court room drama in which the story is filled out in extensive flashbacks. To provide the film’s message concerning delinquency and injustice with punch, Ray delivers a story that is relentlessly downbeat. Perhaps the courtroom confrontation between “pretty boy” Nick Romano (Derek) on trial for murder and scar-faced prosecutor  Kerman (played by George Macready) is too obvious or even devious, and perhaps the depiction of life on the streets is not quite as gritty as it might be, but the film nevertheless delivers its message effectively, especially after the verdict when Bogart delivers his final words to the court and to the viewer. Oh, and young Nick’s credo is: “Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse.”

 

A Woman’s Secret (1949), directed by Nicholas Ray. This film is often categorized as a film noir, but it has more in common with the cheap mystery films made at the time by small studios such as PRC and Monogram. It has a not-quite murder mystery, a Miss Marple-like woman detective, a likeable detective (not hapless, as in so many of the cheapie mysteries), and a plot that spills things wily-nilly, taking us from New York to Paris to a luxury liner, locations we do not often associate with noir. If this is noir, it is noir light. The narrative has its interest in its use of flashbacks, flashbacks that include more than one telling of the near fatal incident. For me, what makes this film interesting is the pairing of two quite different women – Maureen O’Hara and Gloria Grahame. This plays out, or so it seems to me, as a precursor of the female struggle Ray reprises, with quite a different result, in his later film, Johnny Guitar. In both films, two women strive against each other; they are opposites often shown wearing clothing that is either dark or light. Although these women are adversaries, there is a tension between them that suggests their attraction for each other. In A Women’s Secret, the Maureen O’Hara character goes so far as to say that the Gloria Grahame character is living her (O’Hara’s) life. They meet when Grahame falls on some steps, and O’Hara picks her up and brings her to life, as it were. The backdrop to all this is performance. Both women are singers (shades of Gilda here). In a nice touch, O’Hara loses her voice to a strange kind of laryngitis and Grahame has her voice dubbed (no, the audience is not supposed to know this, but it is a nice touch anyway). The performances are good, and despite the tepid noir touches, the film manages to hold our attention. And it does have Gloria Grahame.

 

Born to be Bad (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray. Here is another Ray film on the edge of noir. It is also a sly presentation of Randolph Hearst (Zacharay Scott’s character is very wealthy, has a pencil-thin moustache, likes to fly, and pursues a young woman played by Joan Fontaine). And again, Ray gives us two women, opposites who compete for the same things. Those same things here are money, position, and men. Joan Fontaine’s Christabel is more accurately a Geraldine, if you get my drift. Her adversary, Donna (Joan Leslie), is the innocent here. Donna is intelligent, an editor for a big publishing house, but of course she does not see the duplicity at work in Cristabel’s manipulations. As for Christabel, she is a drop-out from business school who wants the wealthy man, and she also wants the dashing young novelist, Nick (Robert Ryan). She wants the two of them, and she wants them at the same time. Both the wealthy guy, Curtis (Zachary Scott), and Nick are taken in by the cunningly winsome Christabel. Well, this is not precisely the case; Nick sees through Christabel’s character, but he doesn’t care that she is a manipulator and a cheat. The same might be said of Gobby, the gay painter who is a hanger on in high society. Gobby likes Christabel because she is interesting as a study. Meanwhile we have a rich uncle and an ailing aunt for Christabel to either court or ignore depending on what she might need at the time. All this is, perhaps, more the stuff of melodrama than noir. I am not sure why this film finds itself included on lists of noir films. This may have something to do with the tangled web that always ensnares people in the noir world. Endings in film noir, even when they are ostensibly happy, leave us with a sour taste.

 Some Anthony Mann noir for November.

Railroaded! (1947), directed by Anthony Mann. John Ireland plays the heavy who perfumes his bullets. Hugh Beaumont plays the detective who smells a rat. These two and not the hapless fellow who finds himself railroaded for a crime he did not commit are front and centre in this classy noir that has a touch of the procedural about it. We have some scenes in which the police forensic fellow explains his findings, including a perfumed bullet taken from one of the early victims of Ireland’s hoodlum. This is vintage noir with the dark shadows, the brutal violence, the death of innocents and innocence, the city streets, dark rooms, night clubs, and duplicitous characters. This film features a fight between two women that is more vicious than the one in Destry Rides Again. Most of the characters are cast in shades of grey. Not so John Ireland whose bad guy is as ruthless and self-serving as they come. He smirks from his hiding place as he watches the women fight, tracing their movements with his pistol. He disposes of men and women without compunction. He even seems to enjoy getting rid of people. His moll runs a beauty salon; she is also a bookie who runs a gambling joint in the room back of the salon. This film has aggressive males and dangerous females, and a young man who is helpless to extricate himself from the frame-up in which he finds himself entrapped.

 

T-Men (1947), directed by Anthony Man, cinematographer John Alton. This is a semi-documentary noir with an annoying voice -over that guides us through the Treasury Department’s various areas of interest. The plot concerns a counterfeit ring operating in Detroit and Los Angeles, and two undercover agents who infiltrate the ring. About half way through things pick up and we have familiar noir touches such as brutal slayings and beatings, the dark city night locations, and the interest in gangland’s big bosses. One especially gruesome scene has one of the undercover agents watching his partner get killed in cold blood. What sets this film apart from run-of-the-mill noirs is its cinematography. John Alton made two more noirs with Anthony Mann, and he also shot one of my favourite noirs, The Big Combo (1955). He won an Oscar for An American in Paris (1951). Here he gives us great shots inside steam baths (one of the major characters dies in a steam bath), and camera angles that twist our vision. Made on a miniscule budget, T-Men makes us squirm in that second half.

 

Raw Deal (1948), directed by Anthony Mann. Once again the cinematographer is John Alton. This noir serves up earth, air, fire, and water. It is elemental. The anti-hero Joe (Dennis O’Keefe) longs for a breath of fresh air. His adversary Rick (Raymond Burr) plays with fire, even tossing a chafing dish of flaming Cherries Jubilee in his girlfriend’s face. The two women, Pat (Claire Trevor) and Ann (Marsha Hunt) enjoy camping in the woods on the damp earth. And then there is water on which a boat waits to take our two fugitives away from all their troubles. Joe begins in prison, breaks out, finds trouble and more trouble. Early in life he had saved some kids from a raging fire. In the end he will save a woman from a raging fire. He saves the woman, but gets burned in the act. This is noir at its most dark and pessimistic. None of the characters, with the possible exception of Ann, is what you might call “good.” They are criminals all. Alton shoots Raymond Burr from floor level to accentuate his bulk. He also keeps the lighting menacing and action takes place mostly at night, even in the countryside. Along for the ride is a creepy John Ireland who is as cold as they come. Like many noirs, this film has a voice over narration, only here the voice is not that of the male lead. The voice we hear is that of Pat (she notes sarcastically that she is a Patsy), Joe’s girlfriend (until Ann begins to tickle his fancy) who has helped him escape from prison and who plans to take that boat with him to South America. She speaks in a quiet monotone that nicely captures the mood of this story of fog and cigarettes and bursts of violence.

 

Border Incident (1949), directed by Anthony Mann. Once again, the cinematographer is John Alton, he of the sharp contrast, darkly lit monochrome. This is a film about the smuggling and exploitation of migrant Mexican farm workers who work in California. Everything about the look of this film spells noir, despite the absence of city streets. This is something of a noir/western cross, with the landscape of westerns and the closed in feel of noir. Perhaps the “canyon of death” serves as metaphor for this story. The canyon of death is a closed in area in the desert with a thick pool of quicksand-like bog that slowly draws disposable workers to their deaths. As they are dragged under, they suffocate. They also conveniently disappear. As these workers, desperate to make a living, are drawn into their life of slavery, they suffocate and many die. The film has Mann’s penchant for brutal violence, one person dying in a field of lettuce as a combine crushes and slices him. The two heroes are a Mexican policeman (Ricardo Montalban) and an American policeman (George Murphy). Both go undercover to discover the person at the head of the smuggling organization. Bad guys include two of Hollywood’s stalwart creeps, Charles MacGraw (he of the distinctive gravel voice) and Jack Lambert. Given recent news of a wall on the Mexican/American border, this film resonates even after 71 years. It is also a fitting segue into the series of westerns Mann will begin the following year with Winchester ’73. This film is also something of a precursor to one of the last as well as one of the finest noirs, Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958).

 

Side Street (1950), directed by Anthony Mann. The film opens with a helicopter shot of the Manhattan skyscrapers and maze-like streets. It ends with more aerial shooting as small cars below chase through the narrow maze of streets. Down below we have unassuming Joe Norson (Farley Granger), part-time mailman whose wife (Cathy O’Donnell) has recently given birth, driving wildly followed by police vehicles. In the car with him is the body of a murdered woman and a thug with a pistol aimed at Joe's head. Shots ring out, tires screech, Joe’s vehicle overturns, and things come to an end. Oh, Joe is okay, don’t fret. But before this thrilling finale, we have a story of young Joe, who lives with his pregnant wife and in-laws, and his moment of weakness when he steals what he thinks is $200 from a shady attorney, but what turns out to be $30,000. Trouble ensues as Joe finds himself on the run and sought by the police for murder. Joseph Ruttenberg’s cinematography is masterful, delivering documentary-like shots of the streets of New York that feel gritty and authentic. The action in the first half of the film takes place in daylight, but as things move along, shots become darker and more expressionistic as Joe sinks farther into the morass of evil. Mann delivers some brutal action before everything plays out. As film noir goes, this one is gripping. Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell had starred in Nicholas Ray’s They Live By Night (1948), and the two of them play young innocents well. In Side Street, Granger is the hapless veteran just trying to make a living for his growing family, and O’Donnell is the sweet trusting young wife anxious to save her marriage. Paul Harvey, as the police detective, provides voice over for the proceedings.