A few recent films.

 The Limehouse Golem (2016), directed by Juan Carlos Medina. Here is another Jack-the-Ripperesque murder mystery, a film reminiscent of a number of earlier films such as the Hughes Brothers’ From Hell (2011). In this one, the detective is John Kildare (Bill Nighy) who is unliked by his colleagues and superiors because he is not “the marrying kind.” He strikes up a relationship with the Music Hall star Lizzie Cree (Olivia Cooke) who is on trial for poisoning her husband. Meanwhile a series of grisly murders has taken place in the Limehouse district of London. Kildare thinks Lizzie’s husband, John (Sam Reid), is the Limehouse Golem, as the murderer styles himself, and he sets out to prove this and find an extenuating circumstance for Lizzie’s poisoning her sinister husband thereby getting her off from the gallows and proving himself capable of solving an unsolvable mystery, unsolvable because there appears to be no motive or pattern to the random murders. The plot is convoluted, just like the last sentence. I found the film a bit tedious, but it does have its moments. It also has a subtext of sexual tension, abuse, and repression that is important. Oh, and it has Karl Marx and George Gissing as two suspects in the unpleasant murders. 

Bombardment (2021 – The Shadow in My Eye), directed by Ole Bornedal. This Danish film is timely in that it recounts the story of an air raid gone wrong late in World War Two. Instead of bombing Gestapo Headquarters, some RAF planes drop their bombs on a school killing many children, teachers, and civilians. The planes saw smoke from a plane that had clipped a tower, lost a tailpiece, and crashed into the school. Anyway, the film presents this incident carefully. We get to know a few of the people involved from a trio of children, to a nun questioning her faith, a young Danish policeman who has collaborated with the Germans, the children’s parents, and a couple of British pilots.  The scenes after the bombing are excruciating. The devastating effect of war on the innocent is in full view here, reminding us, perhaps, of what is happening every day in present-day Ukraine. The children here are very good. I especially like their visits to the bakery where a Brothers Grimm-like shopkeeper terrifies the children because of the way she looks. The opening of the film is also powerful and distressing. This scene, in which a plane mistakenly shoots a car filled with women going to a wedding, sets up what is to come.

 

The Good Nurse (2022), directed by Tobias Lindholm. This film reminded me of Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999). Both films are thrillers without flash, without dramatic turns of violence, and both are about corporate malfeasance. The difference lies in focus. The focus in The Good Nurse is on the two main characters, Charlie Cullen (Eddie Redmayne) and Amy Loughren (Jessica Chastain), and the acting is subtle and effective. The low-key performances work well until Charlie’s burst of maniacal shouts of “I can’t, I can’t,” etc, etc. and so on and on. The examination of for-profit medical care is muted, but insistent. Much of the action takes place during the night shifts in a hospital, the characters stalking (well, at least one is stalking) dimly lit hallways. Perhaps the most precise word for the film is “procedural.” The insistence of the two detectives to carry out an investigation against obstacles stemming from the stonewalling hospital officials to the detectives’ bosses on the force is a welcome relief from the crooked cops we have in so many films. The two detectives are Danny Baldwin (Nnamdi Asomugha) and Tim Braun (Noah Emmerich). The story is, as they say, based on a true story. Conclusion: stay out of hospitals.

 

Belfast (2021), directed by Kenneth Branagh. Sentimental and nostalgic, yes; effective and even compelling, yes. This is a film about the early days of the Troubles in Northern Ireland told from the point of view of nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill). Buddy is a bright innocent wide-eyed kid who loves the movies – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, One Million Years B.C., High Noon, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance all appear in snippets here. He also has an eye for schoolmate Catherine (Olive Tennant). Buddy’s family are Protestant and live in a neighbourhood where most families are Protestant. There are, however, a few Catholic families. Trouble begins when some young thugs attempt to burn out the Catholic families, and then barricade the street to keep the unwanted other away. Buddy finds all this somewhat bewildering, and he begins to be drawn in to the growing melee when the thugs loot a local grocery story. Buddy comes away with a box of soap and confusion. Meanwhile his parents begin to debate whether they should leave their country for somewhere else safer and calmer. The film begins in colour with shots of contemporary Belfast, but soon the colour drops away leaving us with a vivid monochrome courtesy of cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos. The monochrome is a stroke of genius. The hint of black and white underlines the ”either you are on our side or you are the enemy” mentality of the two sides of the conflict, but the muted quality (almost surreal) of the monochrome gives us the sense of mixture, of something soft amid the hardness of things happening in this Belfast neighbourhood. As a film about childhood in a place of troubles, this is absorbing.

 

Miss Meadows (2014), directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins. This is a distaff version of Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974) and its clones. It is also cloying. Katie Holmes plays the eponymous Miss Meadows who clips through her suburban neighbourhood on tap shoes, talks to a blue bird, skips over a young girl’s hopscotch design, does a twirl or two, and shoots a bad guy in a pick-up (literally) truck. This is, mostly, the first scene. The film begins with a quirky sense of the surreal, but it cannot maintain this sense despite trying its best. Ultimately, what we have here is another valorization of gun culture and championing of the vigilante. Pass on by this one.

 

 Some Ishiro Honda to start the year!

Rodan (1956), directed by Ishiro Honda. This is the first of Toho Studio’s “Dai Kaiju” series shot in colour and it looks fine. The film is short on character development and it re-uses footage several times, but the special effects are attractive. The insect-like Meganurons are suitably hokey, and the pterodactyl-like Rodan (actually there are two of them) that eat the Meganurons are just great. They fly and swoop and whip up wind storms with relish. This is all good fun, except that this is all the result of humans creating nuclear weapons and using them. The early scenes in the coal mine before Rodan turns up are handled well and give us a sense of the life of these workers. I like the notion that human ingenuity and science produces such a primitive, visceral, and shocking reaction. The final scene is actually poignant. You will have to see the film to take in what I mean.

 

Varan the Unbelievable (1958), directed by Ishiro Honda. Of the several kaiju films we have seen, Varan the Unbelievable is the least interesting. Yes, we have a guy in a monster suit, a monster that has a passing resemblance to Godzilla, a gathering of ships, tanks, planes, cannon, rockets, and soldiers, and a futile attempt to stop the rampage of the monster as it stomps huts, houses, and sundry other things. It never does get to Tokyo or any other large urban centre. We have no back story for the monster. Where did it come from? Why is it so angry? Why does it not knock down any famous buildings? We have no back story for the few characters we follow as they attempt to deal with the emergency brought on by Varan. The thrashings and crashings are okay, as far as such things go, but the whole affair is rather tepid. Reviews, however, do compliment the film's score by Akira Ifukube.

 

The H-Man (1958), directed by Ishiro Honda. Think “The Blob,” the American film that came out the same year, except that his one is far more colourful, pulpy, and neon-soaked. Perhaps “adult” is a pertinent description. The nightclub sequences and the gangster angle made me think of Seijun Suzuki’s films of the 1960s. The plot has the Tokyo police looking for some nasty drug dealers, but finding themselves following the trail of a strange series of melting persons. It seems fallout from H-Bomb testing mixed with rainfall is melting a few people and turning them into a green gelatinous substance that seeks out other humans to melt them. The film is curious, but effective. The final sequence in the Tokyo sewers has to be seen to be believed. The garish nightclub sequences with their erotic dances are also noteworthy. The not so savoury influence of America seems evident here. In short, we have a hybrid, a mix of monster movie with film noir. The mixture, although odd, is deftly handled by the director Honda. The special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya (Godzilla and many in that franchise) are masterful, with melting people and oozing slime. 

 

Mothra vs Godzilla (1964), directed by Ishiro Honda. This is the one about the clash between Godzilla and a giant moth, and also the giant moth’s two larvae. This is an example of the Japanese kaiju film, most famous for Godzilla (1954). The plot has something to do with the environment, big business, and human stupidity (except for a trio of good guys). Most appealing to me are the Shobijin, twin small girls (fairies?) who often travel about in a box. These twins come from an island in the Pacific that is also home to Mothra, and to a people who dance and chant and dress in extravagant ways. As usual with these films, the surface fun contains serious matter beneath, most obviously the threat of nuclear damage to the planet. The monsters have camp charm, and the battles are furious. Godzilla does manage to destroy a few buildings, but not as many as in some of his appearances. This is a pretty good outing for the big guy, and his expression in this one is particularly menacing.

 

Frankenstein vs Baragon (1965), directed by Ishiro Honda. Imagine a Japanese monster flick that sports Nick Adams as a central character and “Frankenstein” as one of two large creatures duking it out, and you have this film. Really. It seems that during the Second World War, the Germans secretly give the Japanese the beating heart of “Frankenstein” (Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, not the zany doctor himself). Years later this heart is the focus of research at a laboratory that specializes in radiation. Somehow, this heart becomes a boy who escapes and runs about as a large feral child, large and growing larger. The authorities capture the boy and place him in a cage; soon he is outgrowing the cage. Meanwhile an earthquake in another part of town unearths a burrowing creature with a radioactive breath and glowing horn. This is Baragon. We all know that Baragon and the wild boy are fated to clash. They do while Nick Adams and his two cohorts look on with worried expressions. We have much rushing about and much thrashing and tossing of trees and boulders. Young Frankenstein is smart enough to make fire and this he uses to his advantage. Behind all this is, of course, the nuclear past that Japan has experienced. The German/American/Japanese connection is a reminder of the war that resulted in unleashing the nuclear nightmare, and that collectively these countries are responsible for the state of things as Baragon and Frankenstein battle. Thanks again Cole and John for passing this gem along. Baragon spitting feathers and the pig-on-a-rail scenes are worth the price of admission.

 A few films for December.

Pinocchio (2022), directed by Guillermo del Toro. This version of Pinocchio takes place in the years between the two Great Wars. Fascists lurk about, as a wicked carnival makes its way through Italy thrilling audiences with its magical puppetry. The basics of Collodi’s story are here, although del Toro may signal any changes when he names Geppetto’s first son Carlo. Carlo dies, the victim of an errant bomb in the first war. What follows is a dark take on the familiar story. Anyway, this is an impressive outing by del Toro. He delivers a film that gives nods to the likes of James Whale, Edmund Goulding, Walt Disney, Lewis Carroll, and Tex Avery. The off-kilter antics of the wooden boy are echoed in the rough workmanship that went into the shaping of him (he only has one ear, for example). The song and dance routines are a parody of Michigan J. Frog.  The animation is stunningly good. I suspect many of you will have watched this film; I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

 

The Duke (2020), directed by Roger Michell. Remember those Ealing Studio romps, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955) and Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949). The Duke is a throwback to those Ealing comedies, and is an enjoyable romp that focuses on an unlikely art thief, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) and his family. In 1961, Bunton was charged with the theft of Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The film focuses on the eccentric Bunton, his various crusades for social justice and the welfare of humankind, and his hard-working wife (she works as a charwoman), Dorothy (Helen Mirren). The plot involves the theft of the Goya painting, the actions that precede the theft, and the trial that ensues. Perhaps a bit more treacly than those earlier Ealing comedies, The Duke nonetheless works because of the fine performances of the lead actors and the quite fine script. “Feel good” is perhaps often tossed out as a way of dismissing a film, but in this case, the term is spot on. The film manages to deliver a clever story with likeable characters and a championing of the common person who sets out to speak truth to those in power. 

The Green Knight (2021), directed by David Lowery. Based on the 14^th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the film sends a rather immature young Gawain (Dev Patel) on a journey to the Green Chapel where he is to receive a blow from the Green Knight, whose head Gawain removed at the outset of the film in a “Christmas game.” On the journey, Gawain proves less than heroic, chivalrous, or honorable. He encounters a talking fox, giants, brigands, and a lord and lady who take him in, seduce him, and send him on his way. He also has a sash that is supposed to keep him safe. He eventually arrives at his destination where the Green Knight, looking like a large Groot, prepares to swipe off Gawain’s head. All of this happens slowly over 130 minutes of film time. The cinematography is suitably dark and mysterious, and the various locations – moors, rocky landscapes, forests, castles – are both grounded in reality and otherworldly. Mark Kermode in the Guardian calls the film “sumptuously elusive,” and this pretty much sums it up. What we have is a riff on the original story that throws in visual allusions to things as disparate as Blade Runner 2049 and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Some of what we see is arresting, and yet the action moves slowly to try the patience. I suspect this 21^st century take on the chivalric romance has something to do with notions of masculinity, although just what the message might be eludes my grasp.

Remember the Night (1940), directed by Mitchell Leisen. This script for this film is by the great Preston Sturges, and he said of the finished film that it "had quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz, and just enough schmutz to make it box office." This is a feel-good Christmas movie with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray. Stanwyck plays Lee Leander, a thief/shop lifter who finds herself caught stealing a bracelet just before Christmas. The District Attorney, John Sargent (MacMurray), has the trial delayed in order to assure that he can get a conviction. He learns that Lee has no money and no family and so he takes her with him to Indiana for Christmas. The idea is to drop Lee with her mother, and then for John to proceed to his mother’s for Christmas and New Year’s. Of course, things go awry, Lee ends up staying with Sargent’s family, romance springs up, and everything is so nice. The supporting cast is, as in Sturges’s other films, superb. It includes Beulah Bondi and John’s mother, Sterling Holloway as the farm helper Willie, Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Emma, and Fred Toones as Rufus. John and his family are just about the most friendly and agreeable people in cinema, making for a delightful and, dare I say, heart-warming filmic experience. There is some silliness here, but it makes for much fun.

Spirited (2022), directed by Sean Anders. Clayton Dillard, in Slant, opines: “To say that the film grows tedious quickly would suggest that it wasn’t already trite from frame one.” Dillard’s review might deter readers from watching this latest reiteration of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, but I hope not. The film is a buoyant throwback to Hollywood in the heyday of musicals. Sure, as Dillard says neither Will Ferrell nor Ryan Reynolds will win Grammys for their singing, but their singing is part of the fun. The film is chocked full of references literary, musical, filmic, and just plain hokey. For example, things begin with a reference to Vancouver – wink, wink. The dance sequences are high energy. The playful use of the Scrooge story is clever. The acting earnest. The two principal characters, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Ferrell) and the cynical PR guy Clint Briggs (Reynolds), are attractive. The inclusion of a variety of body shapes is noteworthy, and also praiseworthy. Okay, we have Benjamin Lee in The Guardian offering this: the film is” an atonal grab bag of inharmonious notes (an uneasy third act suicide proves to be the flattest). When stretched to a two-hour-plus runtime (with more musical bits during the credits), we leave feeling bloated, a 10-course Christmas meal we wish we’d never started.” May I say that the grammar error here might warn us away from such an opinion? The film is high-spirited and fun. Roll with it.

 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.

 A Generation (1954), directed by Andrzej Wajda. This is Wajda’s first feature film and the first of his war trilogy. The opening panning shot is worth the price of admission. Here the camera takes us on a tour of the outskirts of Warsaw as we observe the daily life (drudgery?) of the local people. Then it comes to rest on three young men playing with a knife. One of these young men, Stach (Tadeusz Lomnicki), provides a voice-over and also will be the film’s protagonist. This is a coming-of-age story following this young man and also a group of young people who become involved in the Polish resistance during the Second World War. One of the group of youngsters is played by a teenaged Roman Polanski. Anyway, the filming is beautiful, providing an ironic counterpoint to the action that involves young people learning to kill. The camera is fluid as it ranges through neighbourhoods and workshops and homes and streets. The scene with the spiral staircase is powerful. The film has the sensibility of post-war neo-realism. The look of the film reminded me of Hollywood noir films, and the beginning reminded me of Ford’s The Informer. For a first feature, this film is assured and absorbing. 

Kanal (1957), directed by Andrzej Wajda. This is the second of Wajda’s war trilogy, and it ups the ante considerably. A passing reference to Dante lets us know, had we somehow been oblivious to this, that we have entered the underground in all its filthy ugly violent and punishing horror. The last third of the film takes place in the sewers of Warsaw, and a ragged troop of resistance soldiers try to make their way to the centre of the city. A voice over at the outset of the film, lets us know their fate; nevertheless, no viewer can be prepared for the way this fate plays out. Again we have Wajda’s fluid camera; the film begins with a four minute tracking shot that introduces us to the troop we will follow on their doomed journey to the underworld. Actually, they are in the underworld from the beginning (or is this purgatory?), but they simply go deeper as the action moves along. This is as harrowing an anti-war film as we could ask for. We get to know most of these soldiers and knowing them makes what happens more difficult to accept. The scenes in the sewers must be some of the most powerful in cinema. Perhaps the tone of the film is set early when one member of the troop stops to talk with a wounded girl who lies covered on a stretcher. He asks what her mother said about her joining the resistance. We have a pause. The girl then replies, “She’s dead.” The solider then asks about the young woman’s wound, and she says, "It’s nothing.” At this point, a couple of soldiers lift the stretcher and the woman’s blanket falls away revealing her legs. One leg has been amputated (or blown off) above the knee. 

 

Man of Iron (1981), directed by Andrzej Wajda. Using documentary footage folded into a fictional narrative, this film chronicles the days of the strike at the Gdansk shipyard that spread throughout Poland in 1980. Through the perspective of a reporter, Winkel (Marian Opania), we learn about the life of activist Maciej Tomczyk (Jerzy Radziwilowicz), from his early days as a student to his work with the shipyard union. The film manages to merge historical events with the personal lives of its main characters. Lech Walesa even makes an appearance. What strikes me as important about this film, is its peek at state-controlled media and state-controlled life in general, something uncomfortably close to what could happen in our own time and our own place. The film has an intensity born of anger and a mixture of hope and dread. Unlike Ashes and Diamonds, this film is less interested in cinematic experiment than in historical urgency.