*Saucy and Sexy- The Wicked Old World of James M. Cain- "Baby In The Icebox"- Short Stories Not For The Faint-Hearted

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American novelist James M. Cain..

Book Review



Baby In The Ice Box, James M. Cain, Penguin Books, New York, 1984



I have reviewed James M. Cain’s two major works The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity elsewhere in this space. He is justly famous for those little literary potboilers. Not as well known, although they should be, are his short stories that are of the same caliber with the same kind of plot exploration and with quirky little endings, a la O. Henry. The definitive example of this little collection is the title work- Baby In The Icebox. Here we have the inevitable California male drifter of indeterminate morals, the adulterous housewife of vague if intense longings, the seemingly inevitable symbolically meaningful wild cats that populate many of Cain’s works and the intense, almost too intense, sexual stirrings that make the term potboiler very apt. The other stories follow with their own little twists. And hovering just below the surface is a literary examination of class, race and sex in 1930’s America that seldom gets this kind of inspection not matter what period we are in. These will keep you glued to the page, read them.

*Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe- An Encore- "The High Window"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Raymond Chandler's The High Window.

Book Review

The High Window, Raymond Chandler, Random House, New York, 1992

Phillip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's classic noir hard-boiled private detective, forever literarily associated with Los Angeles and its means streets, is right at home here in his search, at the request of a dipsy dowager looking for solutions on the cheap and with no questions asked , for the inevitable “missing” (person or thing, fill in the blank). In this case a missing thing, a coin, a rare gold doubloon that has been stolen by, she claims, her no good gold-digging, newly-minted daughter-in-law. Along the way to the “truth” old Phillip finds more "conveniently" dead bodies, which may or may not connect in with the case, more kooks and more smarmy police officers than one can shake a stick at. The only things missing in this one are that whiff of perfume from some remote icy dame that has Phillip in a dither and ready to "chase after windmills" for and he takes no saps to the head. He will thus live to fight another day. There is plenty of sparse but functional dialogue, physical action and a couple of plot twists, particularly around the identity of the killers of the various dead bodies.

Have no fear, however, the intrepid Marlowe will figure it out in the end and some kind of 'rough' justice will prevail. At this point in the Chandler Marlowe series our shamus has been around the block more than a few times but he still is punching away at the 'bad guys' and the absurdity of the modern world. How does this one compare with the other Marlowe volumes? Give me those background oil derricks churning out the wealth while looking for General Sternwood's Rusty Regan (and that whiff of perfume mentioned above from the dizzy Sternwood daughters) in The Big Sleep or the run down stucco flats in some shady places in pursuit of Moose's Velma (and her whiff od perfume too, come to think of it) in Farewell, My Lovely any day. There no one to really root for here (except, a little, the much put upon dowager's secretary/ “wounded sparrow”, Merle). Nevertheless, as always with Chandler, you get high literature in a plebeian package.

*Blood Simple, Natch- Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Dashiell Hammett's early Continental Op detective novel, Red Harvest.

Book Review

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett, 1929

Dashiell Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930's and 1940's. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn't mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick and Nora Charles, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective. However, on the way to creating these literary works of art Hammett did journeyman's work at the detective genre in various pulp detective magazines. Moreover, in the beginning he hid his detectives behind the anonymous, although not faceless or without personality, average,somewhat realistic detectives of a national detective agency (shades of his own past).

The unnamed universal Continental Operative (Op) who is the central character of here is the is the prototype for Hammett's later named detectives. He has all the characteristics that mark a noir detective-tough, resourceful, undaunted, and incorruptible with a sense of honor to friend and foe alike that sets him apart from earlier, fumbling, detectives. The plot line here requires all the resourcefulness of the Op as he tries to cleanup a new Western boom town tied together by many a criminal enterprise and the greed (and complicity) of the local bourgeois big shot who let things get out of hand, when profits dictated the action. The twist and turns as Op tries to mix and match with the various interests at play drive the drama of the book. Along the way, of course, just like in the Old West, there is plenty of shoot-‘em-up action before the town, Personville (aka, Poisonville ) is fit for respectable folks to make an honest dollar in. If you want a well-thought out story, although not as memorable as The Maltese Falcon or the The Thin Man, that is also well-written, although without the numerous unforgettable lines of the above-mentioned novels, from a member of the second echelon of the American literary pantheon, this one is for you.

****
This note is being placed with all reviews of Dashiell Hammett's classic noir detective novels.

Note: It is not altogether clear to me what Hammett’s political sympathies (or rather more to the point, organization connections) were in the period of his great detection-writing period, the early 1930s, although one can speculate they were at least progressive. I should note for those who are only familiar with the detective novels and crime short stories that Hammet was a make-no-bones-about-it supporter of the Communist Party during the hard, don’t turn eye from your neighbor, see reds under every bed, your Mommy is a commie turn her in, prison house, American night of the red scare, Cold War, post World War II period (and earlier as well, during the Popular Front all the way with FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), Joe Stalin, our father can do no wrong, Moscow Trials liquidate the Old Bolsheviks, the makers of the revolution, time but this post-war period is what concerns me here).

This was period when anything to the left of Herbert Hoover, including probably red tablecloths on restaurant tables, was suspect. This is also the period of the unlamented Joe McCarthy, the equally unlamented Richard Nixon, the deep, fatal, anti-communist purges in the labor unions from which we still suffer today (and anti-red purges in many other political and cultural institutions as well), and of the time of “the naming of names.” The high watermark time of the “fink” and of the “blacklist.” I have vilified, rightly so, no, righteously so, the likes of movie director Elia Kazan (Viva Zapata, On The Waterfront) for their “stool pigeon” scab actions before the "committees".

Kazan was, unfortunately, not alone in that dark, witch-hunt, keep your eyes down, keep walking straight ahead with blinkers on, tell them what they want to know although they already know it, night. I have also heaped tons of well-deserved praise on the heroic Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, for holding their ground under intense pressure and under penalty of paying the ultimate price, their lives, for their steadfastness. For defending the Soviet Union, not in our Trotskyist way, but in their own honorable way, and didn’t complain about it when they were called on it, unjustly, by the American imperial state.

Dashiell Hammett was called, tooth brush in hand, before the “red scare” committees and just said no. Hats off. Now there is no need to get mushy about it, and one should not forget that in the end Hammett’s Stalinist politics (and vilification of leftist political opponents like our Trotskyist forbears) made us not less political opponents, but isn’t there something in old Hammett’s actions, that sense of “tilting to the windmills,” that leads right back to Sam Spade. Yes, I thought you would think so.

*Nick And Nora To The Rescue- Dashiell Hammet's "The Thin Man"

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Dashiell Hammett's classic detective novel, The Thin Man.

Book Review

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett, Alfred A. Knopf, new York, 1934

Dashiell Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930's and 1940's. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn't mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick Charles (and wife Nora), Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective. Hammett, on the way to creating these literary works of art did journeyman's work at the detective genre in various pulp detective magazines. Moreover, in the beginning he hid his detectives behind the anonymous, although not faceless or without personality, average detectives of a national detective agency, the Continental Op series(shades of his own past). One of those efforts is an early almost totally unrelated version of The Thin Man that those who have read the later version (or know Nick, Nora and Asta only from the film series) would not recognize.

Dashiell Hammett is perhaps better known for creating the classic modern proto-typical detective, one Sam Spade the detective-hero (or anti-hero, if you prefer) of the literary (and film) noir The Maltese Falcon. With The Thin Man he took a different tack in providing a model detective- the urbane Nick Charles, his side-kick society wife, Nora, and their ever present faithful dog companion, Asta. The story line here centers on a missing eccentric inventor/businessman who it is suspected has been a victim of foul play. Enter Nick, Nora and Asta at the request of his wondering society family (wondering, that is, about the fate of the dough necessary to keep them in their luxuries) and after a series of misadventures and false leads Nick grabs the villain. That is what old Nick has in common with the illustrious Mr. Spade-the dogged (not pun, intended) and tenacious search for the truth and the killer, come what may. If you like your detectives with a light touch this is for you. If you like your detective novels to be minor works of literary art this is also for you. Hammett (along with the above-mentioned Raymond Chandler) practically reinvented the previously rather shabby art of the early detective story into literature. Kudos.

Note: It is not altogether clear to me what Hammett’s political sympathies (or rather more to the point, organization connections) were in the period of his great detection-writing period, the early 1930s, although one can speculate they were at least progressive. I should note for those who are only familiar with the detective novels and crime short stories that Hammett was a make-no-bones-about-it supporter of the American Communist Party during the hard, don’t trust your neighbor, see reds under every bed, your mommie is a commie turn her in, prison house, American night of the red scare, Cold War, post World War II period (and earlier as well, during the Popular Front all the way with FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), Joe Stalin, our father can do no wrong, Moscow Trials liquidate the Old Bolsheviks, the makers of the revolution, time but this post-war period is what concerns me here).

This was period when anything to the left of Herbert Hoover, including probably red tablecloths on restaurant tables, was suspect. This is also the period of the unlamented Joe McCarthy, the equally unlamented Richard Nixon, the deep, fatal, anti-communist purges in the labor unions from which we still suffer today (and anti-red purges in many other political and cultural institutions as well), and of the time of “the naming of names.” The high watermark time of the “fink” and of the “blacklist.” I have vilified, rightly so, no, righteously so, the likes of movie director Elia Kazan (Viva Zapata, On The Waterfront) for their “stool pigeon” scab actions before the "committees".

Kazan was, unfortunately, not alone in that dark, witch-hunt, keep your eyes down, keep walking straight ahead with blinkers on, and tell them what they want to know although they already know it, night. I have also heaped tons of well-deserved praise on the heroic Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, for holding their ground under intense pressure and under penalty of paying the ultimate price, their lives, for their steadfastness. For defending the Soviet Union, not in our Trotskyist way, but in their own honorable way, and didn’t complain about it when they were called on it, unjustly, by the American imperial state.

Dashiell Hammett was called, tooth brush in hand, before the “red scare” committees and just said no. Hats off. Now there is no need to get mushy about it, and one should not forget that in the end Hammett’s Stalinist politics (and vilification of leftist political opponents like our Trotskyist forbears) made us not less political opponents, but isn’t there something in old Hammett’s actions, that sense of “tilting to the windmills,” that leads right back to Sam Spade (and Nick and Nora in an oblique, half-funny way). Yes, I thought you would think so.

Out In The Be-bop 1930s Crime Noir Night- Dashiell Hammett’s Ur-“Maltese Falcon”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1931 film version of the classic Dashiell Hammett crime novel, The Maltese Falcon.

DVD Review

The Maltese Falcon, starring Bebe Daniels, Richard Cortez, Warner Brothers, 1931


Well it is possible for even a devoted actor Humphrey Bogart and crime novelist Dashiell Hammett aficionado to learn something new. For many years I had assumed that the 1941 hard-nosed Bogie as Sam Spade version of The Maltese Falcon was the original screen version of Hammett’s crime noir classic. Then an acquaintance, the old time radical journalist Josh Breslin whose by-line for half the progressive press and alternate vision journals in this country for the past forty years that some readers may know, informed me that an older version (or rather versions existed). That discovery however had to go unchecked until the age of the Internet. Now I have found the film via a very helpful lead from Wikipedia. Kudos.

Of course after reading Hammett’s crime novel countless times (if for no other reason than that great dialogue even after the plot line wore thin) and viewing the 1941 Bogie version almost as many times certain prejudices were bound to show up. The key is the role of Sam Spade as the world weary scrappy avenger of his partner’s murder while “in the line of duty”. If for no other reason than for professional pride. And the well-known plot line, basically murder and mayhem by parties known and unknown searching for a bid, “the stuff of dreams,” is what let’s Sam save the day, his professional pride, and his roughhewn sense of justice.

The 1931 Spade (played by handsome Richard Cortez) is less concerned with those gritty issues, more brazenly cynical, and much more of a womanizer than Bogie’s Spade (although he is not immune, temporality at least, to femme fatale charms). That as I found out was a result of the change in what was deemed acceptable to the general audience (the so-called Production Code). In the 1931 version it is clear, very clear, why Spade is ready to chase after windmills for the femme fatale (played Bebe Daniels). Sexual tension and adventure were rife. In the 1941 version I was always wondering what there was about Mary Astor (after all she didn’t seem Bogie’s type on the face of it) that made him all that intrepid. It was never spelled out. Now I know. No question though, despite that new information, that Bogie’s Spade is the cinematic standard and Hammett would agree.

The Slumming Streets Of 1950s L.A.- Joseph Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential”

Click on the headline to link to an interview article on crime novelist
Joseph Ellroy

Book Review

L.A. Confidential, Joseph Ellroy, The Mysterious Press, New York, 1990

Crime writer Raymond Chandler, and his detective creation Phillip Marlowe, owned the slumming streets of 1940’s Los Angeles and in the process set the standard by which to judge modern crime novels (along with the work of Dashiell Hammet, of course). However, as time moves on, others have set themselves up to take the challenge posed by these forbears. The author of the book under review, Joseph Ellroy, has thrown down the gauntlet with a series of Los Angeles –based crime novels. Although I believe that Raymond chandler is still king of the mound out in those wavy brownish-yellow western hills and shorelines Ellroy is pushing him, and pushing him hard.

On other occasions I have noted that I am an aficionado of crime book and film noir, although that designation has previously been somewhat limited to the 1940s-1950s period mentioned above, the golden age of black and white film and grainy, sparse language detective novels. I, frankly, was not that familiar with Mr. Ellroy’s work, although I had seen the film adaptation of L.A. Confidential several years ago and had heard about the Black Dahlia case, the basis for another book in the L.A. series. Perhaps, strangely, I took up his works after reading a review of his memoir in The New York Review of Books out of curiosity, if nothing else. Thus this is the first book that I have actually read of the several that he has produced thus far. As I intend to read others this review will act to fill in a little why, as I stated above, I believe that Raymond Chandler is still king of the L.A. seamy-side night.

Chandler’s 1930s-1940s L.A. was still a rather sprawling, sleepy town, an old West town just becoming a magnet for, well, for everyone and with every kind of dream, and dream thwarted, imaginably. Ellroy has moved up to set him material in the 1950s when, in the aftermath of the great post-World War II expansion, the place was the stuff of dreams, the stuff to cash in on. And that is a basic premise behind the plot here, as well as the usual human motives that drive crime novels in general. The plot centers on L.A.'s finest, represented by three distinctly different types of cops, uncovering (and occasionally covering up) present crimes, in their also very distinct ways- you know the usual murder, mayhem, pornography, drugs, prostitution but also, of necessity coming up against an age-old crime from the 1930s. Thus an on the face of it inexplicable mass murder at a diner pinned on three black men turns out to be a five hundred page look, and a revised look at an older crime. And in the process it dives into human greed, police corruption, political appetites, vengeance, sadism, and just plain perversity. At five hundred pages it may be a bit too long to carry the plot but Mr. Ellroy has put a few nice twists in to keep us guessing for a while, always an important test for a crime novel.

No question that Mr. Ellroy has professional police language, motivation, angst down pretty well and can tell a story. My problem off of reading this first book is that using the three professional city cops (Bud, Edward, Jack) approach to the plot doesn’t have the same feel as getting inside private investigator Phillip Marlowe’s motivation for his keeping on tilting at windmills even after taking his usual several beatings in his search for justice. None of the characters here “spoke” to me in that sense. Maybe L.A. crime is just too big a story to be amenable to what comes down to a police procedural. More later.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-“The Dark Corner”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, The Dark Corner.

DVD Review

The Dark Corner, Clifton Webb, Lucille Ball, William Bendix, Mark Stevens, directed by Henry Hathaway, 1946

As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this crime noir genre I am an aficionado, especially of those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Dark Corner, is under that former category.

And here is why. The dialogue, even though the film itself was under the direction of Henry Hathaway a more than competent noir director, if not of the first order, is, well, way too smaltzy for a good crime noir. First off the love interest between the framed-up detective, Brad Galt (played by Mark Stevens), and his girl Friday secretary (played by Lucille Ball) is played up front and without subtly and lacks the dramatic cat and mouse build-up of classic noirs. In any case whatever Ms. Ball’s later recognized talents as a screw-ball comic, and they were considerable, here as a lower-class "good girl" with all the right morals, all the right world-wiseness for her joe, and all the right instincts to stand by her man set my teeth on edge. That lack of tension between two such leading characters spills over into the rest of the doings. This one does not even have the cutesy “Oh, you devil Sam” of Sam Spade and his girl Friday secretary, Gladys, in The Maltese Falcon.

A little summary of the plot line is in order to demonstrate that lack of tension. Said detective is being framed again in New York (and had already been framed before, although not in New York but San Francisco) by, he believes, his SF ex-detective agency partner. That, however, is merely a blind ruse used by a certain high-powered high society art dealer (played, naturally, by Clifton Webb, a central casting fit for such a role if there every were one), an art dealer with a young wife. After all the other misdirection this one was telegraphed the minute that we see the “divine” pair together, and that fact is cemented when we see said ex-partner and lovely trophy wife ready to take off right under the nose of Mr. High Society. But a high society art dealer, with a young wife or not, does not get where he is without a strong possessive desire and so the frame is on and our detective is made to fit the frame, and fit it very easily until our real culprit is discovered and dealt with. And dealt with forthrightly, as all overwrought, possessive older husbands are dealt with in noir. By the pent-up hatred of that trophy wife, after she finds out that dear hubby has killed her man. You don’t need to know much more to know what that will mean, or that the framed guy and his good girl Friday will eventually walk down the aisle together. Doesn’t this sound a little too familiar? Like, maybe a low-rent Laura in spots? Hmm.

Note: Clifton Webb, as mentioned above, seems to have been a gold-plated central casting stereotype for the repressed, possessive, and, well, psychopathic high-powered high society swell with an eye (or maybe two eyes) for lovely young women. As seen here, and more famously, in the classic crime noir, Laura. Apparently Mr. Webb never learned that those 1940s lovelies may be wily enough to latch on to a rich man for fame and fortune but are a little headstrong about being roped in, roped in completely by, well, an old lecher, high class or not. It doesn’t take a Mayfair swell to know this is not a country for old men. Any young joe could have told him that.

Out In The 1930s Crime Noir Night- Dashiell Hammett's "Thin Man"-Goes Home-Kind Of

The Thin Man Goes Home, starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Asta, 1945

I am a devotee of the hard-boiled detective writer Dashiel Hammett. I believe that Nick and Nora Charles in the original Thin Man represented interesting transitional figures from the old amateur drawing -room detectives to the modern hard-boiled detectives but enough is enough. As in current blockbuster films the desire to go milk an original idea beyond its point of saturation is clear in this the fifth in the series. Oh, yes Nick and Nora are in love. Asta is, well Asta is Asta. Beyond that Nick’s return home to solve a murder and make papa proud, all without alcohol, should have send everyone scurrying back to New York or San Francisco on the next train-make that the next plane.

*In the Time of the Thin Man-Dashiell Hammett's Noir Detective, Of Sorts

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for American detective story writer extraordinaire, Dashiell Hammett.

BOOK REVIEW

Crime Stories and Other Writings, Dashiell Hammett, Library of America, New York, 2001

Dashiell Hammett, along with Raymond Chandler, reinvented the detective genre in the 1930's and 1940's. They moved the genre away from the amateurish and simple parlor detectives that had previously dominated the genre to hard-boiled action characters who knew what was what and didn't mind taking a beating to get the bad guys. And along the way they produced some very memorable literary characters as well. Nick Charles, Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe are well known exemplars of the action detective. However, on the way to creating these literary works of art Hammett did journeyman's work at the detective genre in various pulp detective magazines. The series of stories produced here in one volume is from that period. Kudos to the Library of America.

The unnamed universal Continental Operative who is the central character of the stories is the prototype for Hammett's later named detectives. He has all the characteristics that mark a noir detective-tough, resourceful, undaunted, and incorruptible with a sense of honor to friend and foe alike that sets him apart from earlier detectives. Although the stories are mainly set in San Francisco the Op branches out to other locales in some of the stories but he, however, keeps those same virtues. Although the stories ran from murder and mayhem, on a mass or small scale, the psychological motivation behind the crimes, and the criminals gets a little workout in such stories as Two Sharp Knives, The Golden Horseshoe, The Assistant Murderer, and The Tenth Clew.
If you want mainly well-thought out stories that are also well-written this one is for you. Additionally, and this may be as good a reason to read this book as the stories mentioned previously, there is an early version of his classic Thin Man. A very different take on the plot from the one we know and love. Read it and compare.

**********

Note: It is not altogether clear to me what Hammett’s political sympathies (or rather more to the point, organization connections) were in the period of his great detection-writing period, the early 1930s, although one can speculate they were at least progressive. I should note for those who are only familiar with the detective novels and crime short stories that Hammett was a make-no-bones-about-it supporter of the Communist Party during the hard, don’t turn the other cheek on your neighbor, see reds under every bed, your mommie is a commie turn her in, prison house, American night of the red scare, Cold War, post World War II period (and earlier as well, during the Popular Front all the way with FDR (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), Joe Stalin, our father can do no wrong, Moscow Trials liquidate the Old Bolsheviks, the makers of the revolution, time but this post-war period is what concerns me here).

This was period when anything to the left of Herbert Hoover, including probably red tablecloths on restaurant tables, was suspect. This is also the period of the unlamented Joe McCarthy, the equally unlamented Richard Nixon, the deep, fatal, anti-communist purges in the labor unions from which we still suffer today (and anti-red purges in many other political and cultural institutions as well), and of the time of “the naming of names.” The high watermark time of the “fink” and of the “blacklist.” I have vilified, rightly so, no, righteously so, the likes of movie director Elia Kazan (Viva Zapata, On The Waterfront) for their “stool pigeon” scab actions before the "committees".

Kazan was, unfortunately, not alone in that dark, witch-hunt, keep your eyes down, keep walking straight ahead with blinkers on, tell them what they want to know although they already know it, night. I have also heaped tons of well-deserved praise on the Rosenbergs, Julius and Ethel, for holding their ground under intense pressure and under penalty of paying the ultimate price, their lives, for their steadfastness. For defending the Soviet Union, not in our Trotskyist way, but in their own honorable way, and didn’t complain about it when they were called on it, unjustly, by the American imperial state.

Dashiell Hammett was called, tooth brush in hand, before the “red scare” committees and just said no. Hats off. Now there is no need to get mushy about it, and one should not forget that in the end Hammett’s Stalinist politics (and vilification of leftist political opponents like our Trotskyist forbears) made us not less political opponents, but isn’t there something in old Hammett’s actions, that sense of “tilting to the windmills,” that leads right back to Sam Spade. Yes, I thought you would think so.

Out Of The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Drifter’s Farewell- “Moontide”- A

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Moontide.

DVD Review

Moontide, starring Jean Gabon, Ida Lupino, Thomas Mitchell, Claude Rains, 20th Century-Fox, 1942

There are a million ways, a million ways cinematically and maybe in life too, that boy meets girl, crime noir or not. Even if that “boy” is a not so young drifter sailor, Bobo (played by Jean Gabin last seen by this reviewer in the incredible French film, Max Ophuls' Children of Paradise), whose been around, and thinks he wants to stay been around. Except fastened to the California waterfront like glue by his profession he is called upon to save a damsel in distress. A young woman, Anna, who serves them off the arm in some hash house (played here by Ida Lupino last seen by this reviewer in High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Pard) who was, at wits end for some unknown reason, sets out to drown herself. Naturally sea-worthy Gabin saves her, and the romance is on.

But wait a minute this is a crime noir as well as a boy meets girl story. And Bobo is set up to fit the frame while he was drunk by his friend Tiny, a serious ne’er do well and slightly psycho, after Tiny has killed a denizen of the waterfront over some trivial matter. So the boy meets girls setting up house (on a barge of course out on the breakwater) part keeps on getting set back by the Bobo frame-up part. All, by the way, done in high 1940s melodramatic style.

But there is more. This film’s script is filled with little philosophical reflections by one and all, Bobo most of all. For Bobo about leaving the high seas adventure life and its down time waterfront dive existence and settling down. By Anna about whether she is “worthy” to be Bobo bride and find happiness in their cozy little barge by the breakwater. And by other charactersas well like Doc (a boat owner) and the night watchman, Nutsy (played by Claude Rains). Hell, even Tiny makes a pitch that he just needs a new life up north to break out of his psycho ways. Like I said very melodramatic but as always with Gabin you get some incredibly expressive acting and Ms. Lupino does her misspent working class unworthiness existence whine to a tee.

Out In the 1950s Crime Noir Night- A Grifter’s Farewell- “Dark City- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, Dark City.

DVD Review

Dark City, starring Charleston Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Dean Jagger, Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, Paramount Pictures, 1950

No question after running through a seemingly endless run of crime noir films that not all the films in the genre are equal. The classics like The Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, Gilda, and Out Of The Past speak for themselves with fine plot lines and slightly awry femme fatales to brighten things up. The film under review, although not in that category, could have been better had it not gotten caught up in some melodramatic flim-flam and stayed the hard-boiled, gritty classic grifter story that it set out to be. The outlines of the plot surely gave more promise that was delivered.

Down in those post-World War II means streets out West a lot of war-weary, war-tousled, war-scarred guys tried to do, well, the best they could. And the best they could usually was some grifter scheme to make a score off some bozo mark and hit the road, hit the road fast, and leave no forwarding address. That is the substance of the plot here. Ex-soldier (World War II just in case you might have forgotten, or were not sure what war I was talking about since there are many to choose from these days) Dan Healy (played in an understated, post-war alienated, existential man kind of way by Charleston Heston before he became Moses or Ben Hur or whatever big screen techno-color champ he became later) make his downwardly mobile way to grifter-dom in some seedy skid row town.

Dan's thing is gambling and, of course, for such an endeavor you need suckers with dough, easily parted with dough. And, as well, some confederates in on the scam. That is the case here as Dan and two fellow grifters (one played by Jack Webb before he got “religion” and became Sergeant Friday on the 1950s television show, Dragnet) rope in the sucker, a guy holding a five thousand dollar check (serious money, serious money down on mean street then) although the money is not actually his. Needless to say a fool and his dough are soon parted.

And that is where things start to go wrong with this film (as well as in the lives of our three gamblers). Filled with remorse the mark (played by Don DeFore) can’t face the horror of going back and confessing to his employers that he blew the dough on gambling, and instead hanged himself in his lonely room. Not for him the easy road of blowing town and changing his name, toughing it out, or even filing a court claim against the miscreant gamblers. In short, nobody, nobody this side of Hollywood takes the rope on the facts presented here. And then it gets worst. See the mark has an older dominating brother who watches out for him. Now this suicide business once he finds out the cause gets him a little exercised. See the brother is a stone-cold psycho and he is out to even the score-three dead, very dead gamblers.

Well, if you have been paying attention you know that Charleston Heston, the star and therefore kill-proof, is one of those marked for extinction so the other two get their just desserts and old Heston squeaks by after some close moments. The problem is when we see finally see who the killer-brother is there is no way that anyone could believe, or at least I could believe, that this gorilla was anybody’s brother. Come on.

The other place where the film goes wrong is on the inevitable love interest angle. Now Danny boy, who spends a good part of the film moodily cutting up old torches from back in the day, has a sort of girlfriend. A very fetching smoky-voiced chanteuse, Fran, (played by Lizabeth Scott) girlfriend who wears her heart on her sleeve for him, although he is mostly indifferent to her. No femme fatale here-just a what you see is what you get gal who can sing the blues, while having them over her man who done her wrong. The problem is that the chemistry between Danny and Fran is all wrong, all wrong alls ways. Fran is the girl next door and Danny, is well Danny, a grifter and the two don’t mix. And the plot gets further muddied when Dan, trying to get a lead of where the mark’s brother is, starts to play footsie with the dead mark's non-grieving widow. So you see now what I mean when I say that not all crime noirs are created equal.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Robert Mitchum Watch Out For Berserk Femme Fatales, Will You- Angel Face- A Review

Click on the headline to link to Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, Angel Face.

DVD Review

Angel Face, starring Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, directed by Otto Preminger, RKO Pictures, 1952

Some guys never learn, never learn to leave well enough alone, and stay away, far away from femme fatales that have that slightly mad look in their eyes and lust in their hearts, as here in the Otto Preminger-directed crime noir, Angel Face, with Robert Mitchum. See, it is not like Brother Robert hadn’t been down that road before and had all the trouble he could handle and then some with femme fatale Jane Greer in Out Of The Past. Ms. Greer “took him for a ride” six ways to Sunday in that one. But you know when a guy gets heated up by a dame, well, lets’ just leave it at you know, okay. Needless to say Brother Robert is set to get “taken for a ride” six ways to Sunday here too, although the femme fatale here is a little younger, and maybe has better manners. Maybe. But that all goes for naught when the heat rises. Yes, we know, we know.

The plot here takes a little something from James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. The “fair damsel” (played by a young dark-eyed, dark-haired piano-playing Jean Simmons who, before seeing this film I might have taken a run at her myself, in my dreams anyway. But see I know how to take a lesson), after she gets her hooks into Mitchum, furthers her plot to get rid of her dear stepmother so she can have her father to herself (take that anyway you want but you do not have to be a Freudian to know that she is seriously hung up on her novelist father, a probable cause for some of her youthful, ah, monomania). But unlike the femme in Postman she just “forgets” to tell him he is part of the plan. Of course when the foul deed is done (the old "wire cut on the steering wheel of the car and off the cliff you go, dearie" gag that has been around, well, been around since femmes figured out automobiles aren’t just for driving) the pair are the obvious suspects. But with some razzle-dazzle legal work, including marriage to evoke the jury’s sympathy, they get off. (Ya, I know on that one too. But those were more romantic times than ours, I guess. I want the name and e-mail of that lawyer, by the way, just in case.) Of course what guy in his right mind is going to stick around and see, well, what is in store for him and his lovely bride after the court battles are over? Like I said though, this is Robert Mitchum, the guy who can’t learn a lesson.

Note: Naturally with a hunky guy like Robert Mitchum, he of the broad shoulders to fend off the world’s troubles, or at least any women’s troubles, those smoldering eyes, and that glib world-wary cigarette and whiskey manner, the ladies will surely be flocking to his door. And not just femme fatales. In this film, as in Out Of The Past, there is the “good” girl waiting in wings. And Mitchum tries, tries like hell, to stay in that orbit but when those maddened eyes and ruby red lips call that speak to some dark adventure, well, what’s a man to do?

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Corner Boys Grow Up- Richard Widmark’s The Street With No Name.

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1940s crime noir The Street With No Name.

DVD Review

The Street With No Name, starring Richard Widmark, 1948

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip-synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.).

Some, like the film reviewed here, The Street With No Name, starring well-regarded bad guy character actor Richrad Widmark, while classified as crime noir are no more than propaganda films. In this case a paean to the FBI, to its so-called scientific effectiveness, and gritty no-nonsense crime fighting personnel, and to its unlamented (for civil libertarians, anti-fascists, and just plain, garden variety believers that the cops, local, state and federal need to be reined in) founder and long time chief, J. Edgar Hoover. Interspersed throughout the film, including an introduction that had an early docu-drama quality to it, are various pieces of footage touting the efficiencies of the organization in the battle against crime, in this case street crime, not the more notorious “red scare” political crimes that it was infamous for, and that its efforts helped cause a political ice age in America in the 1950s

Without addressing the propaganda aspect of the film further, after all in the end every crime noir is about some aspect of how crime does not pay, this one is saved by three things, Richard Widmark’s performance as a tough post-World War II gangster on the make trying to parlay those organizational skills learned in the war-time military. You know, standing around and waiting, here for the next criminal caper, acknowledgement of hierarchy, here Widmark is the max-daddy boss, and, oh yes, how to use weapons, and use them to deadly purpose.

The long and short of it was that just after World War II there was no shortage of corner boys looking to make a score. I know of corner boys from back in my own working class neighborhood later, in the 1950s, but their stuff was penny-ante compared to the serious massed armed robberies (of the Mayfair swells, mainly) that Widmark planned and executed. The plot thus evolves around a cat and mouse game to break up this gang after a spree of murder and mayhem that draws the FBI in. Of course bringing in an agent-informer, having him win Widmark’s confidence (for a while), putting him in right in the center of harm’s way, and also, in the end, winning against the mob finishes the story. Oh, except, crime does not pay. Yes, we get it.

On The Question Of Jury Nullification- John Gresham’s “The Runaway Jury”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entey for the film The Runaway Jury.

DVD Review

The Runaway Jury, from the book by John Gresham, starring John Cusack, Dustin Hoffman, and Gene Hackman, 20th Century Fox, 2003.

In a sense every legal thriller (as well as the more mundane psychological and political thrillers) requires a suspension of disbelieve to draw the audience in. And many times the plotline is twisty enough to have us hanging on the edges of our seats as we watch the real villain (or villains) receive sweet, blind-eyed justice. No so here in the film under review, The Runaway Jury. And that title tells exactly what the problem is with the plot line. Just too many of us have been summoned into the real jury selection processes to take this one with anything but the grain of salt. And also, probably as a misbegotten result of watching just one or two too many legal thrillers, the actual legal twists would have had the trial in this case set up for mistrial about fourteen different ways.

And in a way that is too bad because John Cusack as one of the avenging angels (along with his fetching girlfriend) who plot the demise of the gun industry, at least make them subject to produce liability, as a result of a previous innocent victim-filled shootout gun spree that hit close to home and Gene Hackman as the over-the-top “hired gun” (metaphorically of course) jury selection consultant are more than competent in there roles, roles they have produced sparks with in other films. Here though the high moral ground drama (including a major role by a gun control freak lawyer played by Dustin Hoffman) about the question of product liability for inherently dangerous weapons, the slanted issue behind the civil action, the Second Amendment right to bear arms (since codified as an individual right by recent United States Supreme Court decisions), the ethics of jury selection (or rather of pervasive jury tampering), and, oh yes, the winning of the legal battle at whatever cost represented in their respect roles, gets lost in the convoluted and confused plot line. Better luck next time.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-From Rags To Riches- John Garfield’s Blues- “Force Of Evil”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film, Force Of Evil.
DVD Review

Force Of Evil, starring John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, M-G-M, 1948

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me their plot lines stand on their own merits, although I will make some comment here. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from the late 1940s starring John Garfield, Force of Evil, offers very little of either. It is not for lack of trying but rather that the stilted dialogue of the main characters, relentlessly hammering us with clear cut choices between good and evil when a lot of life is very gray, very gray indeed, gets in the way. And it is certainly not that John Garfield can not carry off a crime noir film. Hell, he and femme fatale Lana Turner burned up the screen in the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, a film that I will review in the near future in this series. The plot line and dialogue just got in the way here. It is as simple as that.

Here is the scoop. John Garfield, through his brother’s Great Depression-era sacrifice went to law school and became a high-priced lawyer (silly brother, right?), made the New York City big time. A Wall Street lawyer big time. Well, almost big time, because the way he got there was through a very lucrative association with a crime boss who was looking to control the numbers racket in 1940s New York City (the numbers racket, now called the lottery, is now respectably controlled by the state, whatever state) and make it a legal business like any other self-respecting capitalist adventure. The trouble is said sacrificing brother is running a numbers “bank” slated for the dustbin as part of the crime boss’s consolidation plan. Capitalism 101, okay. This makes Brother Garfield queasy and filled with self-doubts and regrets (in between bouts of greed fueled by the dough to be made by a poor boy New York City slum corner boy). The tension between those two forces (ah, good and evil, got it) aided by a “girl next store-type (good force, right?) gnawing at his innards forces dear John to come clean at the end. Especially when said crime boss, through another criminal associate, offs his brother. Like I said, a little thin in the story line.

What is not thin though, and as is usually the case when New York City is the locale, is the black and white cinematography that gives some very interesting footage to the dramatic tension here- the good versus evil thing mentioned above. Additionally “the girl next store” character almost breaks out and becomes something of a human we can recognize when money, wealth and fame enter the picture. Although she never quite does break out of the good angel stuff. Still it is always good to hear John Garfield struggling with some cosmic message in his corner boy heart. But wait and see him in Postman if you want really gritty, attention-getting performance. This one is just very, very average.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-Come On Now, Get With The Program- Crime, I Repeat, Crime Does Not Pay- Richard Basehart’s “Tension-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a site that reviews and details the plot lines of crime noir films

DVD Review

Tension, starring Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Barry Sullivan, Paramount Pictures, 1950

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy: films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. (Be still my heart, at the thought of Rita Hayworth, ah, dancing and singing, okay lip synching, and looking, well, fetching while doing those difficult tasks.) The film under review, 1950’s Tension, falls somewhere in the grey area, the plot line while it started out with a certain amount of promise got dragged in the end toward a standard police procedural, a kiss of death for most crime noir films in my book. And the femme fatale is neither fetching (a la Rita) nor wicked (except for an involvement in murder and mayhem, but they all, the femme fatales that is, are involved in that, one way or the other, it comes with the territory).

A quick review of the plot will explain my bewilderment at where to place this one in the crime noir pantheon. Warren (Richard Basehart), a Walter Middy-type, married to Claire (Audrey Totter), a second-rate gold-digger who attached herself to Warren in harder times (her harder times) out in Southern California when that locale was becoming the homeland of the dreams- the post-World War II suburban sun-drenched tract dreams. And Warren is a prime number one prospect for that dream working nights like a mad man to get Claire those things he promised her, or half of them anyway. But Claire, the little round-heels, is looking for speedier stuff now that she is settled into a good thing, and a plaint husband. And sweetheart Claire is flouting her stuff right in front of Warren with a guy of unknown resources (Barney) with some dough, a nice car, and a place on the beach in up-scale Malibu to sun herself. Well, a girl has to look out for herself, a round-heels girl anyway, right?

The plot thickens when Warren, no longer content to be a door-mat, decides to kill somebody over this transgression (Barney, heaven’s no, not lovely, wicked, maybe just misunderstood Claire). The long and short of it is that after planning the perfect murder by changing his identity (new idea, right?) he gets cold feet, as Walter Middys do, or maybe a slug of rationality that maybe, just maybe, sweet Claire ain’t worth it and good riddance. Especially after, as part of his change of identity, he meets a honey, Mary (played by the leggy Cyd Charisse), who is more his speed and, well, is happy to think about that suburban house and that white picket fence with 2.2 kids, and a dog, one dog.

But see the story would become really tedious if somebody didn’t kill somebody, and so old Barney winds up dead. And of course Warren (or his changed identity self, Paul) is fit six ways to Sunday for the frame. Someone is going to the chair for this one, this murder one job, and Warren better start making a list of his last requests.

Except of course, crime noir or not, guys who don’t commit murder and mayhem are not stepping off for such crimes, at least in 1950s movies. And that is where the tedious police procedural aspect of this film meets low-rent femme fatale when L.A.’s finest get on the case and “entrap” if you can believe that about the police in 1950, or now, everybody connected with the crime (except of course, the deceased Barney, although he too might have had a motive, who knows). And guess who is going to take the fall for this one? Well, guess. But you could see where this one was headed from a long way off. Hey didn’t Phillip Marlowe work these slumming L.A. streets in those days. Taking a little off-hand beating before swinging the scales of justice back where they belong. He could have been used here to tell Claire what’s what, and to spice this one up.

***Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Stanley Kubrick's crime noir, The Killing.
DVD Review

The Killing, starring Sterling Hayden, Coleen Grey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, United Artists, 1956

As I have mentioned to start other reviews in this crime noir genre sure I am an aficionado, especially those 1940s detective epics like the film adaptations of Dashiell Hammet’s Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Nothing like that gritty black and white film, ominous musical background and shadowy moments to stir the imagination. Others in the genre like Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and Out Of The Past rate a nod because in addition to those attributes mentioned above they have classic femme fatales to add a little off-hand spice to the plot line, and, oh ya, they look nice too. Beyond those classics this period (say, roughly from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s produced many black and white film noir set pieces, some good some not so good. For plot line, and plot interest, the film under review, The Killing, is under that latter category.

Okay, okay we know crimes, crimes, large and small do not pay. We get our noses rubbed in that hard fact from almost infancy by parents, churches, and schools. Okay we get it, kind of. But in this little grade B crime film noir from the hills of Hollywood we are going to get our noses rubbed in it just one more time, although the way that the plot line sets up it looks like a sure thing that this time the thing will succeed. At least it had me rooting for the “bad” guys for a minute. And every kid from every misbegotten housing project, from every no dough neighborhood has secretly (or not so secretly) had to have been rooting for the caper to be pulled off too.

See here is the lay of land on the caper. Johnny (if it is not Joe in these crime noirs it's Johnny but we will let that lie, okay), fresh from stir (prison) Johnny (played by Sterling Hayden) wants to go straight, well, wants to live on easy street is more like it. And live on that easy street with neighborhood childhood sweetheart Coleen Grey. And, of course, Johnny had a little time to thing about it up in stir (prison, for those who forgot). So, naturally with that easy street goal in mind (and all that time on his hands) he plans to rob the local race track on the day of the big race for a cool couple of million. Now that might seem like pocket change today but back in those days, that was dough. Hey, I’ll take a cut of that, no problem.

But also see such a caper requires all kind of help, inside and outside, to pull it off and that is where, even if you are hoping against hope that Johnny scores big, you can see that things might get a little dicey. The cast of characters, black and white-etched film characters, is like a rogue’s gallery of every soft “hard” guy character actor that populated the be-bop 1950s television and movie screen (and at least one from the 1940s, Elisha Cook, Jr. as the insider ticket cashier, going back to Hammett’s Maltese Falcon film days, starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade). But we will let that go for now, as well. What is important once the motley crew is gathered is that the thing works like clockwork. And, from Johnny’s end, it does. The idea (a little loony in retrospect, if you thought about it) was to create a diversion to get into the track cash room where all the dough is (Johnny got that part right anyway), said diversion being the shooting of a famous race horse during the race to create the momentary confusion necessary so smart guy Johnny can get in and get all the dough. And, guess what it actually gets pulled off, and fairly easily.

But weren’t you paying attention- crime does not pay, get it. So, just as easily as the caper gets pulled off it starts to unravel. And all, or almost all, because of a two-timing dame. Figures right, figure right in a crime noir anyway. And the dame is no femme fatale like Gilda, no way, but some bar stool blonde wife that insider ticket cashier(Cook)is crazy about and blabbed the whole scene to. And said bar stool blonde tells the guy she is two-timing with and there you have it. See boyfriend is going to knock off the heist (a theme that has been done before, by the way, plenty, too plenty of times) and Ms. Two-timer and he are going to live on easy street. All this does is set up the inevitable all points police manhunt as Johnny (who still has the dough) and his honey try for easy street via the local airport. No dice, not even after such a fool-proof plan. Ya, now that I think about it though I wish Johnny had pulled it off.

Note: I mentioned above that Coleen Grey had a small role here as Johnny’s old neighborhood honey (and future easy street resident). I have now seen her in several of these film noir things starting with Kiss of Death. What I notice is that she is almost always type-cast as the angelic (yes, angelic) working class stick-with-her-guy-through-thick-and-thin-even-if he-is-a-wrong-gee gal, eternally waiting, it seems, for her guy to get out of stir (you know now what that is, right?). Ms. Grey didn’t your mother ever give to the word about wrong guys, wrong corner boy guys. Ya, I know, when you got it bad you’ve got it bad, wrong gee or not.