ReReview: Female on the Beach (1955)

OH MY GOSH LADY CALL THE COPS. (throw him out first). (and before that, make him give you back his key.) (and then, buy a gun.) OH MY GOSH. This isn’t going to end well.
EFF OFF, YOU CREEPY LITTLE F*CKER!

Although it’s no wonder he’s got an inflated opinion of himself, if he knows he’s able to drive women to attempted murder-suicide and this isn’t even a chick he slept with….this really isn’t going to end well.

Ladies, when you are talking to a creepy little f*cker, even if he’s managing to be less creepy and explain himself, DO NOT APOLOGIZE FOR BEING QUOTE RUDE UNQUOTE. Especially when he’s explaining to you that he’s a gigolo who is chasing you for your money and oh yes he was involved with the previous tenant, who, BY THE WAY, fell to her death mysteriously FROM YOUR BALCONY. Two days ago. I mean, seriously, they haven’t even fixed the railing yet, good grief!

(This isn’t going to end well.)

Zing! I like this detective. He’s going to be the guy who picks up all the pieces afterwards, isn’t he? (Unless he’s the AKTUAL MURDERER, but I doubt that.)

EFF OFF YOU CREEPY LITTLE F*CKER! AND TAKE YOUR PUSHERS WITH YOU…oh good, she sent them packing. BUT NOT HIM, SHEESH LADY. Oh, this isn’t going to end well….Oh. Kay. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Getting zinged by the cleaning lady: you ain’t doing well.

Lady, that’s just embarassing. All that? At your age?

OKAY, the detective is definitely smelling fishy, and it isn’t because of the shark hook.

Okay, we have now progressed to a) romantic bridal carrying, b) the detectives now have binoculars. What the heck is up with this movie?

You pimps are annoying.

I’m on Team Detective….

This scene in its native tongue:
– Meow grr hiss.
– Meow?
– Hissss
– Meow, mew, mew, licks paw.
– HISS! HISSSS YOWL GRRRR! YOWL!
– licks paw, cleans ear, licks paw again: mew?
– Hissssss, flicks tail, leaves, tail still flicking.
As entertaining as that was, in hindsight, it’s kind of obvious that the writers didn’t actually know how to end this script and were fishing around for an actual villain.

AGGH GROSS IT’S A KISSING SCENE FAST FORWARD IT ewww!

Ugh you pimps are really annoying. Ahaha. Gosh. That guy’s even more of an obvious loser than Drummond is.

Okay, explain to me how you managed to knock him all the way to the floor with one slap? He’s a foot taller than you and made of stacked muscle. Seriously? You also gave him a concussion??

Gah, I really hate you catty lady. Oh no! She switched them! She set them up it was her doing OH MY GOSH!

Oh, and the detective is watching.

(Oh whew she’s okay. ((How did she make it out the water without even getting her hair wet?)))

Ugh gross it’s another kissing scene.

Well, that was underwhelming. I expected someone was going to die.

Rated: it’s a romance, we’ll be generous. 3/5 stars.

Quik(re)review – The 13th Letter (1951)

So I (re)watched The 13th Letter – a 1951 movie directed by Otto Premiger (you know, the name you know from lots of better movies such as Fallen Angel, Laura, Where the Sidewalk Ends and…River of No Return? Huh.) and starring an underwritten Linda Darnell, a bored Charles Boyer, and Michael Rennie’s cheekbones as the hero.

It’s about a (very) tall, handsome, young, unmarried doctor who has set up in a small Canadian town and is just starting to settle himself and his clock collection in comfortably. The settling-in process is interrupted by a series of poison pen letters accusing him of an affair with Charles Boyer’s wife. This is, of course, nonsense, because Rennie has Linda Darnell throwing herself at him in a negligee and it’s getting harder and harder to dodge. But things get decidedly serious when one of the letters’ receivers commits suicide on being told he has cancer. Everyone is a suspect now–from the incompetent hospital nurse who is Boyer’s spurned ex and Boyer’s sister-in-law, to Darnell’s snide younger sister, to Linda Darnell herself. And what is the terrible trauma which lurks in our hero’s past…?

The reveal is two-fold, and actually rather more satisfying than you’d expect. It’s even been cunningly foreshadowed by Boyer’s doctor character explaining to another about this weird psychological condition known as folie a deux…

All that said, it’s still a bit underwritten. There’s enough story here for a TV episode, not really for a movie. Linda Darnell has barely anything to do except look alternately sultry and sulky, and there’s nothing whatsoever to make the romance between her and Rennie interesting other than both parties’ good looks. The central mystery is, fittingly, the most intriguing part of the story; but it’s a little hampered by the fact that there are really only two strong suspects and neither of them get any focus. Inserting more plot–such as making the “investigation” less laughable–would have provided more interest, and more room for all characters to explore and expand. It didn’t, it wasn’t, they couldn’t, and ultimately this movie is….a bit underwritten, and its cast members–who totally did have the ability to take what they were given and deliver on it–were good-looking but underserved.

Rated: I’m going to do something productive with my day any minute now. Annnny minute now.

Watchlist: noirish

– Vicki (1953) – a noirish film starring Richard Boone, Jeanne Crain, and…others. Quite good, except I started mentally screaming for everyone to GET A LAWYER YOU IDIOT about three minutes in and never stopped. Apparently a remake of I Wake Up Screaming. 

– Ten Wanted Men (1955) – Richard Boone, Leo Gordon,  Lee van Cleef, and Randolph Scott. Not very good, even though that’s an excellent Western bad-guy lineup.

– The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) – also a noirish film, starring….Richard Basehart? Possibly.

– Episodes of Have Gun, Will Travel – Why can’t we make TV shows like this any more? They’re short, intelligent, interesting, and they seem to have been made on a shoestring budget that mostly went to Richard Boone’s wardrobe and stunt doubles.

– Sailor of the King (1953) – starring Michael Rennie, and a mostly-shirtless Jeffrey Hunter.

– Currently working on Shockproof (1949) – with what looks like Cornel Wilde – instead of going to the gym.

QuikReview: Whirlpool (1950)

So I also watched:

Whirlpool (1950) – starring Gene Tierney, Charles Bickford, Richard Conte (the poor man’s Gary Merill), and Jose Ferrer. It was directed by Otto Preminger, who also directed a bunch of other famous noirs you may have heard of and I have watched.

This is a melodrama, not a noir, and this is made evident by the climactic gunfight and desperate chase through alleyways of shifting shadows and muy chiaroscuro completely not happening.

Basically, Gene Tierney is the loving–but deeply troubled–wife of a doctor who has gained prominence and fame as a psychoanalyst. He’s kind of a jackass, though, because although she comes from money, he’s insisted that she take up with him from scratch as a poor doctor’s wife (….what a doofus) and this has combined with her previous money/daddy/control issues. Her form of lashing out is kleptomania, but the side effects are anxiety and severe insomnia. And unfortunately an attempted theft brings her into the orbit of hypnotist and conman “Dr” Korvo.

Tierney is persuaded that Korvo can cure her insomnia via hypnotism. Naturally, he has additional plans: to whit, framing her for murder–and her efforts to make their meetings platonic and public end up backfiring….especially to her husband. Korvo, meanwhile, has what looks like an air-tight alibi: while the murder occurred at eight o’clock, he was having his gall bladder removed at six. Everyone also proceeds to not ask obvious questions such as, “what about accomplices?” “could a physically unimpressive woman have strangled another woman without any signs of struggle whatsoever?” or, “If there’s a police doctor who is also a psychologist, why doesn’t Ann just talk to him? Or even her lawyer?”

Nevertheless, the movie’s great strength is Gene Tierney. Someone who struggled with mental illness and personal tragedies, she’s incredible watchable and sympathetic as someone struggling with mental illness and the resultant incredible difficulty that having to doubt everything your brain tells you causes. Also she’s incredibly beautiful and intensely charismatic. Watching her, you’re in it for the character and her troubles, instead of the (honestly pretty thin) plot.

The rest of the cast fades in comparison, but is still pretty darned good when considered alone. Jose Ferrer is controlled and eternally-smug, even while bleeding out. Conte is far less sympathetic than he could be, but that’s rather the point of his character. Bickford, playing the homicide detective and faced with the over-the-top emotional shenanigans, is wry rather than ascerbic and fair when he could be harsh.

Still, honestly, the lack of fistfights, gunfights, car chases, or at the very least some intense interplay of light and shadow while walking down the street to an old-school orchestra while bad guys are lurking at the other end–or something–really does add up.

Rated: Just one gunfight. Just one.

Readlist

– The Tale of Genji (the public domain translation via Project Gutenberg) is unexpectedly engrossing and readable. 

– Alternating between Judith Herrin’s Byzantium and (sigh) Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass. 

– Watching: the 1957 Noir-Western Man in the Shadow with Orson Welles and Jeff Chandler. (Also starring Leo Gordon as, what else, burly bad guy who beats people up.)

The Tattered Dress (1957) ((repost review))

The Tattered Dress is a 1957 noir-slash-courtroom drama. And it’s an excellent little movie.

The opening scenes show a smiling woman in a torn-up dress waltzing home, not particularly concerned about this, but, in a nicely framed sequence (the camera remains outside the house, looking in through the opulent glass doors, without sound), the wind gets taken abruptly out of her sails when her husband grabs a gun. They ride back into town, and her husband coldly shoots down the man who ripped her dress.

Enter Jim Blane, a hotshot trial lawyer from New York (the setting is small-town Nevada). He’s damn good and he knows it. When the Restons (the couple from the opening scenes) wanted the best damn sleazeball criminal lawyer they could get, they went out and got him. But Jim, for better or worse, is isn’t merely a total heel, only mostly one. The next twenty-odd minutes are Blane setting up for the trial, making the acquaintance of the avuncular-but-way-smarter-than-he-looks Sheriff, Nick Hoak, making the much closer acquaintance of Mrs. Reston, and dodging the verbal jabs of his old friend/nemesis, a reporter who Has A Conscience and doesn’t mind tweaking Jim’s a little. (pwahaha, sometimes these old movies are adorable.)

Jim, an attack dog on the stand, interrogates Sheriff Hoak mercilessly, and manages to create enough of a doubt about Hoak’s credibility and the deceased’s character.  He gets the Restons off, and wow, he’s worth every penny they paid him, because that was textbook first degree murder.

Nevertheless, this is when the trouble really starts. See, Nick Hoak wasn’t pleased to be made a fool of on the witness stand. He’s especially not happy to have it done by an out-of-towner whom he made friendly overtures to earlier in the picture. He’s probably also not happy that the murderer of his friend got off scot-free, but mostly, it’s just the dent to his own prestige and power that smarts. A grand jury has subpoenaed Jim for bribing a juror–and with Hoak on the team doing the investigating, it seems incredibly unlikely to turn up any exculpatory evidence. Jim, to put it bluntly, is screwed unless he can (spot the irony) find a really good lawyer to defend him.

Spoiler: You know that old saying about a lawyer who defends himself has a fool for a client?  Yep. Jim’s closing statement (after his aggressive tactics blow up in his face…twice) boils down to a naked plea to the jury: “Yes, I am a slimy criminal defense lawyer. I know it. I’m not proud of it. (Anymore). Also, I’m not guilty of the crime I am accused of, and you guys know it; please don’t put me in jail just because I deserve it on account of my other actions.” Another reviewer pointed out that he probably got off only because everyone in town knew how crooked the Sheriff was already. Nevertheless.

This is a movie driven by its performances: Jim, a mostly-heel who gets the wind knocked out of him and is forced to confront who and what he is, is well-portrayed by the chiseled Jeff Chandler (also see: Sign of the Pagan, Flame of Araby, Female on the Beach, although come to think of it, he’s a heel in all of those. I believe Chandler was somewhat more heroic in his Westerner roles). He’s someone who has enormous gifts, who has worked for them, and takes their rewards for granted–until they get him into trouble and there is no sign of them getting him out.

Nick Hoak (Jack Carson), the genial and corrupt ex-football player Sheriff is really good.–he’s exactly the mix of good-ol’-boy playing dumb, geniality, and concealed nastiness to make it clear from the outset that he’s way smarter, way tougher, and way more dangerous than he seems.

The third outstanding performance in this movie is by Jeanne Crain, as Diane Blane, Jim’s estranged, long-suffering wife. She won’t stand for her husband sleeping around on her, but she will stand with him to protect his future and their children’s. She’s really an excellent example of what Caroline Furlong designated a Type 3 heroine (click through for discussion on types 1-2 also): one whose power is in her emotional strength, and whose influence on the plot comes indirectly through her influence, rather than directly, through her actions (or action scenes.) Diane keeps Jim’s ego in check, encourages him, and gives him hope and strength when he needs it.–and does it all without sacrificing a shred of her self-respect, or once raising her voice or her hand. (At one point, Jim, hoping he’s going to get lucky, reminds her that they are still legally married. Diane matches his bedroom eyes and murmurs calmly back: “Did that stop you with Charleen Reston?” Burn unit, stat.) And, if that still sounds like faint praise, let me add that the proof might be in the viewing. I ended the movie with a resounding admiration for Diane Blane, because she is one strong, classy lady in a way you don’t often see.

Also playing her part quite well (but with only a few scenes to do it in) is Gail Russell (also see: Wake of the Red Witch), who mostly has to look frightened, and then also to look (spoiler!) murderous. Also of interest: the trampy Mrs. Reston was played by Elaine Stewart, who played Audie Murphy’s good-girl love interest in Night Passage. Okay, maybe not that interesting, but interesting that’s a good little movie, too. It also has Dan Duryea and Jimmy Stewart. Man, we used to have actors, didn’t we…

Rated: Five rigged poker games out of five.

Tribute film noir

Hardboiled review: Laura – by Vera Caspary (repost)

Laura is a 1942 novel by Vera Caspary, better known for the movie starring the lovely Gene Tierney and the “Ohhh, okay, ooooo, I’m seeing it now. He fiiiine” (direct quote) Dana Andrews, not to mention Cliffton Webb, Judith Anderson, and a pre-horror icon Vincent Price. The movie is a film noir classic, for a very good reason, but the book is pretty darn good too.

Plot: up-and-coming detective Mark McPherson is assigned to the murder of advertising executive Laura Hunt, who has been killed at the door to her apartment…by a shotgun blast to the face. That nails down the means; the opportunity came due to some rather inconsistent behavior on Laura’s part–canceling two dinner arrangements and ostensibly leaving town, only to return to her own home afterwards.

The obvious suspects are the two closest men in her life: the smug and supercilious Waldo Lydecker, her mentor; and the charming but resentful Shelby Carpenter, her fiance. Not on that list but rounding out the cast are her loyal maid Bessie, and an aunt (Judith Anderson fleshed out the role a lot more in the movie.)

As for the motive, there isn’t one. Laura was, McPherson discovers, sincerely valued by her relations, employees, peers, and many friends; owed money to no one but her (already wealthy) aunt, and had, overall, no shadow on what McPherson can’t help but realize was an attractive, vibrant character.

And then Laura turns up, alive–she did go out of that night, on vacation, and hasn’t been back since; had no radio or newspapers, took no phone calls, and didn’t see anybody or receive visitors at her country cottage from the time she left the train station. One hell of a weak alibi–especially when the body is identified as a model from her ad agency–a model who had a completely public and unrequited crush on Shelby Carpenter. And then evidence appears that shows the crush was not, in fact, unrequited.

But if Laura didn’t kill Diane Redferne, who did and why?

Pros:
– Fast, solid story with a hell of a twist (…now spoiled beyond belief, alas),
– Strongly drawn characters
– Evocative mystery
– The initial reason for murder is much clearer in the book than the movie: the sequence of events that pushed (spoiler for a 60+ year old novel) Waldo over the edge the first time is set up nicely. In the film, the murder is just kind of…random.
– There’s quite a bit of snarky humor, especially in Waldo’s portion; but some of the situational humor had me snickering.
– Strong female characters existed before #CurrentYear. Laura manages to be convincingly sweet, kind, and thoughtful, while also being ambitious, clever, hard-working, a self-made woman–who also struggles with jealousy, disappointment, and poor taste in men.

Cons:
– The multiple first-person POV doesn’t work all that well. What makes it worse is that Waldo is a twerp and a third of the novel is from his perspective.
– It’s unfair to add this, but Ms. Caspary couldn’t really write action scenes. Still, there is a nice finality to how Lydecker finally goes down.
– McPherson in the film feels a lot more proactive than the book, not to mention did we mention Dana Andrews was fine? 

Rated: Four shotguns out of four.

Watchlist: The 13th Letter & Seven Cities of Gold

So my alphabetical watchlist got derailed somewhere around the time I had a hankering for ninjas. I only just got it back on track (Friendly Persuasion), but in the meanwhile I also watched:

The 13th Letter – 1951. Directed by Otto Premiger (you know, the name you know from lots of better movies such as Fallen Angel, Laura, Where the Sidewalk Ends and…River of No Return? Huh) and starring an underwritten Linda Darnell, a bored Charles Boyer, and Michael Rennie’s cheekbones as the hero. It’s about a (very) tall, handsome, young doctor who has set up in a small Canadian town and is starting to settle in, albeit he’s having to dodge quite a lot of forward women in the process. The process is interrupted by a series of poison pen letters accusing him of an affair with Charles Boyer’s wife. This is, of course, nonsense, because Rennie has Linda Darnell throwing herself at him in a negligee. But things get decidedly serious when one of the letters’ receivers commits suicide on being told he has cancer. Everyone is a suspect now–from the incompetent hospital nurse who is Boyer’s spurned ex, to Darnell’s snide younger sister, to Linda herself. And what is the terrible trauma which lurks in our hero’s past…?

The reveal is two-fold, and actually rather more satisfying than expected. It’s even been cunningly foreshadowed by Boyer’s doctor character explaining to another about this weird psychological condition known as folie a deux…

All that said, it’s still a bit underwritten. There’s enough story here for a TV episode, not really for a movie. Linda Darnell has barely anything to do except look alternately sultry and sulky, and there’s nothing whatsoever to make the romance between her and Rennie interesting other than both parties’ good looks. The central mystery is, fittingly, the most intriguing part of the story; but it’s a little hampered by the fact that there are really only two strong suspects and neither of them get any focus. And I think that playing up the unspoken theme–that no matter how meek the woman, she has it in her to be ruthless and merciless in pursuit of what (who) they want–would also have put more of a memorable twist on it.

Rated: 10/13.

Not sure why Anyhony Quinn is shirtless here.

– Seven Cities of Gold (1955) – Now, this one has Anthony Quinn, Richard Egan, Michael Rennie, Jeffrey Hunter, and Rita Moreno. Everyone is quite good, despite the fact that Jeffrey Hunter and Rita Moreno are wearing brownface and usually warpaint. Quinn and Egan are the leaders of a Spanish expedition to the interior of Mexico, searching for the titular cities; Rennie is the expedition chaplain, Father Junipero Serra, there to save souls, prevent massacres, admonish greed, and uplift the savages. This one is, I assume, loosely based around the actual events (apparently Junipero Serra is a candidate for sainthood, presumably because someone’s watched this movie).

This movie is a fairly straightforward example of its type: there’s a group of people (represented by their leader, here Anthony Quinn) which is trying to do something or go somewhere, and then there’s a contrarian (Michael Rennie); and then there are the outside circumstances that put pressure on the relationship between the leader and the contrarian. In this case, Priest Quinn wants to get to the city of Cibola and doesn’t mind shooting natives to do it. Priest Rennie finds both his tactics and his ulterior motives–greed–abhorrent and doesn’t mind saying as much. Rennie also has a tendency to wander off after flowers and get lost, so there’s that.

In each case where the men butt heads, though, each side is given the ability to make their case clearly, without any of the histrionic theatrics that would be in evidence today. In fact, the pragmatist usually has the stronger case: Father, we’re going to need space for ammunition. Father, paying off Indians with shiny beads only works if they’re not mad and you have plenty of beads. Father, have you actually baptized anyone yet? At all? And while Rennie usually has sufficient logic on his side to not sound ridiculous, the overarching theme of his character is that he is someone who believes in miracles.

Meanwhile, Richard Egan is making time with Rita Moreno, sister of the Indian chief. Usually, this kind of romance is fine, but Egan is something of a cad who really has no intentions of continuing his flirtation…which leads to an accidental but very damning-looking death, and then all hell breaking loose in fine and predictable fashion.

All in all, it would take a miracle for the white men to escape from this situation alive…

The straightforward style and script are an enormous benefit to this movie, which could only have become insufferable if it tried to be cunning and subtle in getting its message across. The other great benefit is that it has a cast who are very good at the straightforward, untheatrical, brisk style of filming. They’re also quite good actors overall, an additional plus.

And that’s basically all there is to say about it.

Rated: 7 church bells out of 9.

Reblog: Happy Birthday to Leigh Brackett!

WORDPRESS YOU PIECE OF EFFING JUNK

Cirsova observes that the Queen of Mars and hard-boiled Babe of Film Noir would have been 106 today and that there are plenty of ways to celebrate, whether by watching one of the many award-winning movies she scripted (HATARI! happens to indeed be an excellent choice, bravo Cirsova; but so is The Big Sleep, or Rio Bravo, or Rio Lobo, or Eldorado), or by reading one of the many memorable books she has written.

Stranger at Home is a possibility, if you want a combination hard-edged melodrama or romance-infused noir; or No Good From a Corpse if you just want straight-up, hard-boiled, smack-talking, straight-shooting, private-detective-starring noir.

Or perhaps, if you are in the mood for a glimpse of another future, where time has worn even the dust of aeons away from the shattered palaces and crumbling walls: there is Shadow Over Mars/The Nemesis From Terra.

Or if you want just plain space opera, the stories of dangerous, laughing women and grim, conquering men, evil geniuses and star traders and space-sickness and stowaways, try Starmen of Llyrdis.

Happy Birthday, Ms. Brackett. Thanks for the stories. You gave us a glimpse of the stars as they should be, not as they are.