Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out In The 1950s Crime Night-The Rich Are Different From You And I-“Blackout”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Turner Classic Movies entry for the 1954 film, Blackout.

Blackout, starring Dane Clark, Belinda Lee, Hammer Film Productions, 1954


There is a fall guy born every minute, especially fall guys who will jump through hoops when they are down on their luck. Especially when said hoops are held by foxy-looking young blonde dames (although they do not have to be blonde, okay). That is the premise that drives much of the film under review, Blackout. That boy meets girl story and the hard fact of life that the just rich, very rich, and super-rich are different, and in this case, very different from you and I.

Now here is the “skinny.” Casey (played by Dane Clark) is a down and out American looking, well, looking for something in the post-World War II and he figures London is just as good a place as any to land. Naturally a down and out guy has to figure things out and what better place to do so than at a bar, a bar that just happens to have a fetching and rich blonde damsel in distress, Phyllis (played by Belinda Lee), looking to get married and willing to pay for that status for her own reasons. He accepts, although as fate would have it he winds up with a case of blackout (hence the title of the film) dumped in some doorway groggy for his efforts (and befriended by a very independent starving woman artist who lives on the other side of that door, who is only tangentially connected with the nefarious doings going on). And the chase is on. Why? Phyllis’ rich, very rich, father has been murdered that very marriage night and guess who the prime suspect, the numero uno fall guy, is?

Needless to say, patsy or not, this calls for drastic action to recoup his honor (and to stay out of the slammer) by our boy Casey. But, as usual, everybody and their brother (or sister) has a motive, and an ax to grind including that fetching blonde who lured him in. Who to trust (or not trust) while evading the coppers in the black and white dreary streets and cooped-up apartments of 1950s London drives the plot. And what drives the main villain, by the way not the blonde beauty no way although she makes Casey think twice about it a couple of times, is the need to have plenty of dough. That is where that point about the rich being different, very different, comes in and you can watch the film to figure the why of that out.

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Alan Ladd Held Forth-“Appointment With Danger”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir film Appointment With Danger.

DVD Review

Appointment with Danger, starring Alan Ladd, Jack Webb, Jan Sterling, Paramount Picture, 1951

No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film 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 they stand on their own merits. I would add here a couple of earlier Alan Ladd vehicles, the film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire both also starring classic femme fatale Veronica Lake (be still my heart, sorry Rita Hayworth). 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, Rita Hayworth. Be still my heart, am I forgiven, Rita Hayworth? I have even tried to salvage some by touting their plot lines, and others by there use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the edgy musical score, with all the zither music you could want or need, as well). And that brings us to those, like this film under review, 1951's Appointment With Danger, starring the above-mentioned Alan Ladd that have no redeeming film noir qualities.

Now as I mentioned in a recent review of another lesser crime noir, William Holden in Union Station, it is not like Alan Ladd did not know how to play hard-boiled crime noir on either side of the crime line as he did in The Glass Key and This Gun For Hire (as well as the Raymond Chandler-scripted The Blue Dahlia) so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Ladd may have been a little tired from holding Veronica Lake's hand (or playing playfully with that big wavy hair falling over her right eye). What is missing here in the film under review, Appointment With Danger, is any spark to get interested in actors or plot.

The plot line in any case is rather conventional. Ladd plays a hard-nosed postal inspector (what? yes a postal inspector, and hard-nosed to boot) who is sent out to crime-ridden Indiana to seek the killer, or killers, of a fellow postal inspector (what?, again a postal inspector-who would have known it was such a dangerous life) and the only clue that he has to go on is via a sister, no not a dame, a nun who can identify (and be identified by) one of the men last seen with said postal inspector. Between the pair hard-boiled, obviously Protestant, postal inspector with a narrow sense of his job, and narrower regard for the human species and Catholic nun good who sees only good, Ladd tumbles into a big time heist, a million dollar heist (that was big dough ten, if only pocket change now) involving the postal service. Is nothing sacred?

Part of the tumbling by Ladd is that he gets inside the job through wit, wiliness, and an occasional drawing of the gun, although this is the weakest part of a weak plot. If one assumes a certain amount of finesse by Earl, a hotel owner looking for, well, looking for “easy street” and an end to changing towels for the masses, then Ladd’s working his way into the scheme should have put out signals big time. Moreover some of Earl’s confederates have more than a few problems, especially the combination that later in the decade would do yeomen’s service as detectives in Dragnet (Jack Webb and Harry Morgan). Of course in this one the message was telegraphed from the very beginning, crime doesn’t pay, especially if you go after the big boys, the postal service. Or people who walk around with guardian angels to protect them.

Note: As is usual with crime-addled guys they need their molls, sometimes gun molls, but sometimes just for company in the sometimes long wait between jobs. Here the moll, a blonde one as well, although blondeness is not required for the job, just the craven desire for a share of the ”easy street” dough is played by the same moll from Union Station, Jan Sterling. Ms. Sterling actually “steals” the show here as the hard-boiled but smart “be-bop” moll with the quick answer who also has enough sense to come in out of the rain. In short, to know when the deal goes down that her man, Earl, ain’t going nowhere fast and so she blows town, just in time. Nice work. But this is where my interest was perked; she also was into the 1950s be-bop jazz night and brought tin-eared Ladd up to her digs to listen to some platters. If Brother Ladd had had any sense he would have followed her out of town. Willingly.

Upon The 50th Anniversary Of The Death Of "King Of The Beats" Jack Kerouac-Out Of The Be-Bop Film Noir Night- The Crime Noir “Kansas City Confidential”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime film noir, Kansas City Confidential.


DVD Review


Kansas City Confidential, John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Jack Elam, directed by Phillip Karlson, United Artists, 1952


I have said this many times. Sure I am an aficionado of film noir, 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, Kansas City Confidential, is in the former category.

And why shouldn’t it be. One fall guy Joe (fall guys seem always to be named Joe, regular Joes I guess), played here in a understated way by John Payne, a little the worst for wear in post-World War II America, having had a few legal problems of his own, gets caught up in the dragnet after a major heist (over a million dollars, a lot of money then but just pocket change today) of a bank, in of all places Kansas City. Now all of this, aside from the criminal intent and cash reward, has been set-up by a disgruntled, vengeful ex-cop (played by Preston Foster) who masterminds the whole thing. Of course such a major heist then (as now) requires several, um, “associates”, in this case masked associates (for their own and Foster's self-protection against the dreaded “stoolie’ syndrome. Said associates are not anyone you or I would want to hang around with, these guys are strictly losers, especially one grafter extraordinaire, Pete Harris, played to manic perfection by Jack Elam. (The others are perennial bad guys Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand).

Now Joe, as one might expect, takes umbrage, yes, umbrage at having taken a beating from the cops, and also for being set up as the fall guy. So, naturally, as any crime noir hero worth his salt would do, he is going to get to the bottom of this thing come hell or high water. And the rest of the plot line centers of following the clues, and following the sun to sunny Mexico (low film budget faux Mexico, to be sure) to undo the bad guys, and maybe catch a reward. Or at least a stray gringa or senorita. Naturally he does, the gringa part anyway, although she turns out to be mastermind ex-cop’s daughter (law student daughter, by the way, played by Coleen Gray). Other than the inevitable tacky ending ( I won’t spoil your fun by telling what it is) this one moves along nicely, is filled with some nice twists, and is, as usual with black and white noir films great on those shadowy takes which reveal evil in the making. Especially those loser, grifter, chain-smoking Jack Elam takes. Some noirs you watch for the magic camera work, some for the femme fatales that drive the story line, some for the tough guys and their gaff. This one you get for the plot line.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night- Ernest Hemingway’s “The Killers”- A Film Adaptation

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Killers.

DVD Review

The Killers, starring Edmond O’Brian, Burt Lancaster, and Ava Gardner, based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, 1946

As I have mentioned before at the start of other reviews in this genre I am an aficionado of film noir, especially 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 also 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, femme fatale interest and sheer duplicity the film under review, The Killers, is under that former category.

Although the screen adaptation owes little, except the opening passages, to Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name this is primo 1940s crime noir stuff. Here, although Hemingway left plenty of room for other possibilities in his plot line, the question is why did two professional killers, serious, bad-ass killers want to kill the seemingly harmless “Swede” (played by a young, rough-hewn Burt Lancaster). But come on now, wake up, you know as well as I do that it’s about a dame, a frill, a frail, a woman, and not just any woman, but a high roller femme fatale. In this case that would be Kitty Collins (played by sultry, very sultry, husky-voiced, dark-haired Ava Gardner) as just a poor colleen trying to get up from under and a femme fatale that has the boys, rich or poor, begging for more.

As I have noted recently in a review of the 1945 crime noir, Fallen Angel, femme fatales come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. But, high or low, all want some dough, and man who has it or knows how to get it. This is no modernist, post-1970s concept but hard 1940s realities. And duplicity, big-time duplicity, is just one of the “feminine wiles” that will help get the dough. Now thoroughly modern Kitty is not all that choosy about the dough's source, any mug will do, but she has some kind of sixth sense that it is not the Swede, at least not in the long haul, and that notion will drive the action for a bit. And if you think about it, of course Kitty is going with the smart guy. And old Swede is nothing but a busted-up old palooka of a prize fighter past his prime and looking, just like every other past his prime guy, for some easy money. No, no way Kitty is going to wind up with him in some shoddy flea-bitten rooming house out in the sticks, just waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Let’s run through the plot a little and it will start to make more sense. You already know that other shoe dropped for Swede. And why he just waited for the fates to rush in on him. What you didn’t know is that to get some easy dough for another run at Ms. Kitty’s affections he, Swede, is involved along with Kitty’s current paramour, “Big Jim”, and a couple of other midnight grifters in a major hold-up of a hat factory (who would have guessed that is where the dough, real dough, was). The heist goes off like clockwork. Where it gets dicey is pay-off time. Kitty and Big Jim are dealing the others out, and dealing them out big time. And they get away with it for a while until an insurance investigator (ya, I know, what would such a guy want to get involved in this thing) trying to figure out why Swede just cast his fate to the wind starts to figure things out. And they lead naturally to the big double-cross. But double-crossing people, even simple midnight grifters, is not good criminal practice and so all hell breaks loose. Watch this film. And stay away from dark-haired Irish beauties with no heart, especially if you are just an average Joe. Okay.



Note: This is not the first Hemingway writing, or an idea for a writing, that has appeared in film totally different from the original idea. More famous, and rightly so, is his sea tale, To Have Or Have Not, that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay and that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall turned into a steamy (1940s steamy, okay) black and white film classic.

Out In The 1950s Be-Bop Crime Noir Night- Humphrey Bogart’s “Beat The Devil”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the anti-film noir Beat The Devil.

DVD Review

Beat The Devil, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Peter Lorre, directed by John Huston, 1953

When Humphrey Bogart was in his prime, say from the time of Petrified Forest in the late 1930s until say 1947’s Dark Passage, he was hands down king of film noir hill. No question. There were prettier faces (Clark Gable), there were better actors (Spencer Tracey), there were actors with more angst per ounce (Montgomery Cliff) but for sheer gritty, grizzled, gnarly (nice, huh) film presence Bogie was the one. Of course even those who have not kept up with their history know that every king (or queen) has his (or her) day. And then-done. Well, not exactly done but since actors, like some generals, only fade away and hang on for just as long as studios think they have “start” quality to put in the bank. In the film under review, Beat The Devil, our man Bogie is in such a quandary. Clearly, on the screen, it is almost painful to see his physical decline from his prime (only slightly hidden by “make-up magic”) if not his ability to throw off a few off-hand devil take the hinter-post lines in this one.

Fortunately this film, directed skillfully to enhance the black and white features, by John Huston, is not desperately in need of “high” Bogie to carry it along. The story line, about a motley crew of “desperados” seeking fame and fortune in post-World War Africa is fairly straight forward and mundane. Unfortunately, for them, they are stuck in an out-of the-way port in Italy. The keys to the kingdom that this crew is trying to corner in the heated up Cold War world- uranium (or some other equally precious commodity, if thinks turn out badly). If in earlier times gold or diamonds stirred men’s (and women’s) greedy thoughts just then in that red scare night it was that particularly important produce. However not for one moment can any of the parties (and those like Ms. Jennifer Jones and her down-at-the-heels British husband who wonder what this crew is doing out in the sticks) take one eye, much less two, off the others. And that, more than the thin plot line, is what carries the day here. The collective day, with likes of Robert Benchley, Peter Lorre and Ms. Jones, playing off against Bogie’s world-wary, world-weary performance. Add into the mix a little off-hand undone infidelity for the good of the cause and that makes a very interesting mix. If you need classic “high” Bogie then go to Casablanca, To Have or Have Not or The Big Sleep. But if you want to see him play against type and in an ensemble performance watch this one.

Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Night-When Primitive Man “Wins”- “Petrified Forest”-A Film Review

Out In The Be-Bop 1930s Night-When Primitive Man “Wins”- “Petrified Forest”-A Film Review

By Brad Fox  

Okay here is the genesis of this review. Recently, being on a something of a film noir tear, especially a crime noir tear, I reviewed a little light puff of a noir film, Moontide, where well-known 1940s French film star Jean Gabon tried to break into the Hollywood film racket with a role as a tough hombre, seen-it-all dockworker who is really, just ready, to settle down after all the wine, women and song escapades have worn thin. And settle down in 1940s movie parlance (and maybe life too) was with a good woman and a white picket fenced house (or in this film a barge, it’s near the sea, see). The good woman, a kind of eternal working-class version of everywoman also happened to be down on her luck, and in that film was played by Ida Lupino.

Well, seeing Ms. Lupino in that role got me to think about a similar role that she played trying to be a good “wifie,” (and “mother” to the dog Pard) to Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra. In that film the grizzled Bogart played a serious desperado, a three-time loser desperado, Roy Earle, looking to “retire” to that picket-fenced house except the cops would not let him. Let him, especially after a certain messed-up resort hold-up caper went awry. And when Mr. Earle bought it, as it had to be since crime does not pay, grizzled wised-up gangster or not, Ms. Lupino was left to keep his memory fresh and keep moving on.

Of course all of that high Bogartism got me to thinking about other grizzled gangster roles (and grizzled detectives too) that the bad boy actor Humphrey Bogart played, and that led naturally to the film under review, Petrified Forest, where as Duke Mantee Bogart put in his bid for king of the gangster hill. In fact this film (he had also played the role on Broadway, I believe) first established him for that challenge. The story line here has him on the run from, what else, a busted bank robbery, and every cop in the Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dellinger, Bonnie and Clyde American untamed West was looking for him and his confederates. He winds up in a flea-bitten café located, where else, next to the Petrified Forest, a great symbol of humankind’s age old struggle to deal with nature, and to break with the primitive past.

And that isolated, flea-bitten café setting is important because there is a young serving- them-off-the-arm waitress, Gaby, played by a very young Bette Davis, as the owner’s daughter, trapped there, full of dreams, literary dreams, and a very, very strong to desire to put those silly tree rocks behind her. And, as the film opens, a very well-turned out gentleman/intellectual/ hobo/alcoholic, Alan, played by Leslie Howard, on his uppers trying to get off that dusty road. And that little tension, a tension that was palpable to audiences in the 1930s, between Bogart’s gangster take-everything-you-can-grab-and-grab-it-quick and Howard’s ordered intellectual world gone awry with the times, the 1930s despair times what they were, is what drives the theme of this one. Alan, knowing his time has passed, in any case, makes a pact with the devil to insure Gaby’s future hold on her dreams. And while Bogart, perhaps, played more memorable roles later he certainly was believable as the primitive man gangster trying to claim his rightful place in the modern world. Naturally, in movie life he must pay, pay big-time, with his life because we all know, or should know, that crime does not pay.

Out In The Be-Bop 1940s Night- Free, Ya, Free- High Sierra- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir, High Sierra.

DVD Review

High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, and, of course, Pard, directed by Raoul Walsh, Warner Brothers, 1941


Funny how a character, or performer, in one film will lead you to remember about or to investigate another. Recently I viewed and reviewed a film in which Ida Lupino starred, a kind of off-beat sweet fluff working-class thing in its way from 1942 entitled, Moontide, where she played alongside French actor, Jean Gabon, as down-at-the-heels hash-slinger seeking a little white house with a picket fence. In that role there was no question of her being a femme fatale-type that guys get all, well, nervous over but just a reliable dame when the deal goes down, good or bad. A rare thing in crime noir world, especially with dames. Here in the noir classic, High Sierra, Ms Lupino picks up some of the down-at-the heels aspects of that role of hash-slinger as she plays along side Humphrey Bogart as that reliable shoe good guys and bad guys both use for their own purposes

Of course at this stage of his career Bogart was the king hell actor getting choice roles as the grizzled whatever from Sam Spade in Maltese Falcon to Captain Morgan in To Have Or Have Not so his presence is the driving force of the film. Ms. Lupino is just along for the ride, and to pick up the pieces when the deal goes south. Here Bogart plays the three-time loser, Roy Earle, just out of prison and heading west to get some fresh air, and maybe a new start. A new start in his old racket, armed robbery, big-time armed robbery. Along the way west he is befriended by an Okie-type family heading to California just like the Joads before them. But Roy gets hung up on the young daughter, some lame Janie, and helps fund her operation to fix her foot. Naturally Janie is nothing but ungrateful and spoils Roy’s rehabilitation program. Needless to say, also along the way, brought along by one of the confederates, Marie, the role Ms. Lupino plays, is the smitten dish- rag gangster’s girl who stands by her man, although why with Roy the way he treats her is not apparent on the face of it.

As always in these crime noir adventures, in the end, crime doesn’t pay. In this case the big-time resort heist is fouled up by the inside man and Roy his confederates have to go on the run. Moreover Roy and Marie are forced to split up. Law enforcement keeps crowding Roy. One thing a three-time loser knows, knows deep in his bones, if he goes back to prison he ain’t coming out. That knowledge drives the suspense of the last part of the film as Earle’s world becomes smaller and smaller. And, as they say, it’s a dog’s world that does him in at the end. Ya, but he was free, free like the starry nights that he had time to dream about in his prison nights. And Marie? Who knows but that some other heel may need a reliable shoe.

Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-The Stuff Of Dreams- Humphrey Bogart’s “The Maltese Falcon”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir classic, The Maltese Falcon.

DVD Review

The Maltese Falcon, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorrie, based on the crime novel by Dashiell Hammett, directed by John Huston, Warner Brothers, 1941

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 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 early 1940s, The Maltese Falcon, offer parts of both.

Generously offer parts of both here as an exemplar of the genre with one of the classic detectives of the age, Sam Spade. The plot line works because it is a prima facie, hard-boiled example of the lengths that humankind will go in pursuit of “the stuff of dreams.” As for femme fatale energy, although my personal 1940s favorite is Rita Hayworth, it is provide by the fetchingly wicked Mary Astor. Yes, I can see where old Sam Spade will jump through a few hoops, hell, many hoops, to get next to that one once she starts making her moves. Watch out Sam.

Although every serious crime noir aficionado should know the plot to this one by heart I will give a short summary for those three people in the classic crime noir world who have not seen (or read) this one-yet. It is, frankly, about a bird, and not just any bird but a historically significant gem –ladened statue of a one, and one moreover that will bring a good price on the black market where such things are traded as a matter of course. That is where the “stuff of dreams” gets everyone evolved in trouble. Who has it (or doesn’t have it), for how long, and what they will do in order to get it (and keep it) provides the driving force of this film as it did with classic noir detective writer Dashiell Hammett when he wrote it. The film is fairly true to the spirit of the novel, including much of the dialogue. Of course, along the way certain alliances are made (and unmade) as Sam Spade tries to maneuver among the parties interested in the object, including the aforementioned Mary Astor, a band of high- end brigands led by Sidney Greenstreet, and maybe others who have fallen by the wayside in pursuit.

Dashiell Hammett was known, correctly known, along with Raymond Chandler, for taking the crime detective out of the police procedural/ society amateur detective milieu and permitting their detectives to take a few punches, give a few punches, flirt with the femme fatales, and use the sparse language of the streets to bring some rough justice to this sorry old world. Sam Spade here takes more than his fair share of hits in order to make sense out of the mess that Ms. Astor brings to his door (and initially his partner, the late Miles Archer). And that is the rub. The various characters here are willing, more than willing, to murder and maim to get the damn bird and so Sam has to, on more occasions that he probably wished, weigh what to do about it. See that is where the femme fatale to muddy the waters part comes in, that damn perfume and that dangerous sassy manner that will drive a man, even a rough justice seeking man a little too close to the edge. But in the end the code of honor, or just an idea of it, drives Sam away from the perfume and back on the straight and narrow. Later when he thinks about that perfume he still will be wondering if he did the thing the right way. Ya, dames will do that to you, tough detectives or just regular joes. I know I was ready to throw my lot in with her, share of the bird or not.

Note: This will not be the last time that Humphrey Bogart played the classic noir detective. Or work with Lorrie and Greenstreet. He got his shots at playing Phillip Marlow in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. In a sense Bogart as an actor, a strange sense since he was not “beautiful,” defined that kind of detective- the “tilting at windmills” guy not too fragile to take a punch, give a dame the once over, and bring a little of that “rough justice” to the world, especially a world where the stuff of dreams went awry more often than not.

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1980s-Style

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-



Click on the title to link to a Wikipedia entry forThe Postman Always Rings Twice.

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin
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DVD Review

The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Jack Nicolson, Jessica Lange, written by James M. Cain

I admit to being a film noir fan of long standing. Maybe it was the fact of growing up in the time of black and white television and watching all those late night movies which were freely available at the time. Maybe it was that tight, if improbable, dialogue, the relatively simple plots and the dramatic effect of the shadows of black and white photography on mood. In any case, the Postman Always Rings Twice fits nicely into that mix. The plot line is fairly simple- unhappy California house wife, an older overbearing uncaring husband and a younger man at the door that turns out to be handy with a wretch- all the ingredients for a murder. Of course, as always the guilty parties will have to face justice. You know this is a modern morality play, after all. This remake starring the always watchable Jack Nicholson and forbiddingly sexual Jessica Lange is probably truer to Cain’s wicked designs but to my mind the old noir classic black and white starring John Garfield and Lana Turner is the definitive Postman. In any case one should read the book by James M. Cain to get a better feel for the language, the steamier sexual tension and better insight into the motivations of the parties.

Writer's Corner-From The Pages Of "Socialism Today (September 2011)"-DASHIELL HAMMETT: HARD-BOILED WRITER, COMMUNIST FIGHTER-A Review

Click on the headline to link to an American Left History post on the crime noir writer, Dashiell Hammett.

DASHIELL HAMMETT: HARD-BOILED WRITER, COMMUNIST FIGHTER-A Review Socialism Today No.151 September 2011

EARLIER THIS year it was announced that 15 previously unpublished short stories by the US writer Dashiell Hammett had been discovered in a university archive in Texas, provoking much excitement among fans of the hardboiled detective fiction genre.

Hammett is regarded by many literary critics as one of the most important writers of the 20th century. His most famous book, The Maltese Falcon, featuring the immortal detective, Sam Spade, was made into a film three times in the 1930s and 1940s. The best known version featured Humphrey Bogart, turning him into an international film star. His stories are still used by writers and film-makers today as a source and inspiration. The Coen brothers' film, Miller's Crossing, for example, lifts ideas from both The Glass Key and Red Harvest, books written by Hammett 80 years ago.

Hammett was also an antifascist activist and a member of the Communist Party of America. He went to jail rather than hand over evidence that could have been used against other activists during the anti-communist witch-hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

Hammett was born in 1894, growing up in a working-class area of Baltimore. He left school at 13 and had a variety of jobs, including a freight clerk, a newsboy and a messenger for the B&O railroad. It was on the Baltimore waterfront that Hammett first came across socialist ideas, though he did not become active at that time. Instead, he made a contradictory career move when, in 1915, he joined the Pinkerton Private Detective Agency.

The Pinkertons carried out 'traditional' detective work but they were more often used as a private strike-breaking force by bosses. From the 1870s to the 1930s, labour movement activists were beaten up and many killed fighting for their rights. For example, in the 'Homestead' strike in Pittsburgh in 1892 pitched battles were fought between steel strikers and the Pinkertons, leading to 16 deaths.

Hammett worked for the Pinkertons until 1922, interrupted by service in the first world war. In 1920, he was sent to the Anaconda copper strike in Butte, Montana, in which copper workers led by the Industrial Workers of the World were battling for increased wages and the eight-hour day. Hammett revealed much later that he had been offered $5,000 by the mine-owners to murder one of the workers' leaders. In another incident, a striking miner was shot in the back, probably by a Pinkerton agent. The experience at Anaconda, together with his poor health - in 1919 he was a victim of the influenza epidemic that swept the world and was later struck down with bronchial pneumonia -seems to have been decisive in leading Hammett to leave the Pinkertons.

While recovering from illness, Hammett began writing the detective stories that made
his name. In the early 1920s, a key starting point for an aspiring writer was the short
story magazines. Many of these magazines, aimed at a working-class readership, were
printed on cheap pulp-wood paper, hence they became known as 'pulps'. Typically, they cost ten cents and were made to be read and then thrown away. Pulp fiction writers were paid by the word. The more a writer wrote, the more he or she got paid. Not surprisingly, the quality of much of what was produced was questionable.

Hammett's decision to start story writing coincided more or less with the appointment of a new editor at what was to become the most important of the detective pulp magazines, The Black Mask. Joseph Shaw, or Cap Shaw as he became known, transformed The Black Mask magazine into a pulp that featured a new 'hard-boiled' style of writing. Hammett became the master of this style and type of story.

Hardboiled detective fiction differed from earlier 'cosy' detective stories in that they tended to feature a more violent career "criminal than the lords, ladies, retired colonels, vicars and rich aunts who cropped up in stories typified by those written by Agatha Christie. Hardboiled stories tended to be fast paced, often narrated through the first person private investigator.

It was not accidental that the hardboiled detective story developed in the USA in the 1920s. Prohibition (the alcohol ban) had created an opportunity for gangsters to add to the huge profits they were already making from prostitution, protection rackets and gambling. Organised crime would often control or at least have a significant influence over the police and city politics. This was the America of Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. Violence and corruption were everywhere.

This violent backdrop provided the perfect canvas on which Hammett could write his stories. While the traditional detective fiction featured an eccentric 'thinking machine' like Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, the hard-boiled detective had to be good with his fists and a gun. Hammett's short stories mostly featured an anonymous private detective known as 'the Op'. He is certainly intelligent but not exceptionally so. The people he encountered were often ordinary and spoke with the language of the street. Hammett's brilliance was in capturing the language of ordinary Americans and putting it on the page. This, together with a crisp style of short staccato sentences, gave a pace and authenticity to his stories.

While not politically active during the bulk of his writing career, many of his stories brilliantly expose the link between crime and the nature „ of capitalist society. As Hemet has Sam Spade say in The Maltese Falcon, "most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken".

In Red Harvest, Hammett's first novel, the Op is sent to Clean up a town called Person-ville. The opening paragraph typifies Hammett's genius: "I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte. He also called his shirt a shoit. I didn't think anything of what he'd done to the city's name.

Later I heard men who could manage their r's give it the same pronunciation. I still didn’t see anything in it but the meaningless sort of humor that used to make richard-snary the thieves' word for dictionary. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better".
Personville/Poisonville is loosely based on Anaconda but is a metaphor for America: "Don't kid yourselves that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself. For Hammett, it was not just a case of cleaning up a town or removing a few bad eggs. Corruption and violence are structural in capitalist society.

In the 1930s, Hammett gave up writing and became more politically active. He joined the Communist Party (CP) although his membership was kept secret because the party leadership thought that he would thereby be able to reach a wider audience. Instead, he was involved in a number of CP front organizations. Hammett wanted to play a more active role and volunteered to fight against the fascists in the Spanish civil war by joining the International Brigade. The CP stopped him, however, preferring to use him as a spokesperson in the USA.

Unfortunately Hammett, like many CP members, loyally followed the 'party line', dictated by the Stalinist bureaucracy that had removed all vestiges of workers' democracy in Russia. He publicly supported the Moscow purge trials that were used by the Stalinists to attack Leon Trotsky and other opponents of Stalinism. He followed the CP line in condemning the second world war up until the Nazi invasion of Russia. Once Russia had been invaded, Hammett was among the first to volunteer for army service.

Hammett was not a 'bohemian communist' who joined the CP because it was trendy. At the height of the cold war, when hundreds of ex-communists and former sympathisers were desperate to distance themselves, he loyally stood by the party and his comrades.

Hammett was a trustee of the New York branch of the Civil Rights Congress, a CP front set up to provide legal and financial assistance for activists. In 1951, the McCarthyite witch-hunt was at its height. Hemet was subpoenaed to appear in court. Asked to name any contributors to the civil rights fund he refused. He was then asked to hand over the records of the fund. This would have meant giving the names of thousands of activists to the state, potentially leaving them vulnerable to the witch-hunt. Again he refused.

The court sentenced him to six months in jail. Hammett offered no defence. After his release, he was blacklisted. His books that had sold in their hundreds of thousands were removed from public libraries. Screenings of film versions stopped. He became a non-person, dependent on the support of a few loyal friends for accommodation and food in his final years, finally dying from lung cancer in January 1961.

Dashiell Hammett was a principled though at times mistaken socialist who believed in a better life for all. We should remember him for his courage in standing up to the American state and going to prison rather than reveal the names of his comrades. However, most of all we should treasure the marvelous legacy of his writing, which is as entertaining today as it was when he wrote it. O

Mick Whale

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 1950s Crime Noir Night- Aldo Ray’s “Nightfall”- A Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir Nightfall.


DVD Review

Nightfall, starring Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, Columbia Pictures, 1957

As always there are crime noirs and there are crime noirs. Big time ones like The Big Sleep, The Lady From Shang-hai and The Killers (early Burt Lancaster version) and small time one like the film under review, Nightfall, from the 1950s. Some have wicked femme fatale like said Lady and other just gals down on their luck, or, if you can believe this, not even femme fatales but, like here with the Anne Bancroft role, gals who aren’t even down on their luck and can pay their own tab. What makes this one a cut above some other lesser crime noir efforts though is not femme fatales, great plotline, some nice outdoor cinematic shots, or anything like that but two very, very stone-cold killers who keep the film moving along with their manic antics.

As to plot, Aldo Ray, just a regular guy as is his usual role in most of his films, and his doctor buddy are off in the wilds of Wyoming (from the Windy City, natch) catching up on nature and such when their luck runs out. A couple of wise guy big time bank robbers ,our stone-cold killers, led by one Brian Keith, have an slipshod car accident out on those Great Plains roads and our friendly campers try to help. And for their get helped to death, almost. Our boy Aldo survives but he has to go on the lam because everybody thinks he offed his friend. But here is the funny plot twist part. In the process of attempting to off the potential witnesses (our campers) our stone-colds “forget” the dough, the three hundred Gs dough. And guess who has it, or who they think has it. Ya, you have got it.

And the love interest? Come on now this is a 1950s noir, and you can’t not have that tangle angle Oh ya, that is provided by one fetching Ms. Bancroft, a store model who makes the serious mistake of asking for a loan from Aldo at, well, a bar okay. And for her “mistake” she gets caught up in way more than she bargained for, bargained for initially anyway. But the real deal is to keep your eyes on those bad-ass stone-killers because they are relentless. Let’s put it this way if you owe either of these guys dough, or even think about owing them dough, I would put newspaper on the floor around my bed just to be on the safe side. Got it.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review

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


DVD Review

Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951

No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film 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 they 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 name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.

Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.

The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).

So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. See said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hijinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.

From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- The Lady In Shay’s Pond

Joshua Lawrence Breslin, Josh, to all but crazed aficionados of his by-line in the publishing world, and recently “retired” from the rigors of the public prints in such progressive and radical newspapers and journals as the East Bay Other, The Eye, Climate Change Quarterly, The National Digest, and Thompson’s Review, has agreed to share some of his insights into the ways of the world in this space. Oh, and by the way, he happens to be a long-time friend, raconteur,, and mad monk compadre of mine ever since we set eyes on each other up in some noble San Francisco hill in the summer of love, 1967 version, when he donned the name and persona of the Prince of Love and I, Be-Bop Benny, and from then on we were together “on” Captain Crunch’s magical mystery tour yellow brick road bus. Enough said-Markin

Joshua Lawrence Breslin comment

I had not seen Peter Paul Markin in a while when he invited me to make some comments in this space. The immediate cause of our recent reunion was his appearance at a conference up in Portland, Maine near my old growing up, and current, home town of Olde Saco. The subject of that conference, unlike the million and one anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-oppression (name your flavor of the month) conferences that we have wound up at together, was on film noir/ crime noir, a subject we both have shared as a life-long passion. And while I am foggy on exactly how Pee-Pee (except for a short time in the 1967 summer of love when I, and everybody else, called him Be-Bop Benny, the name I have always called him) came by his passion mine actually came out of my early professional work, when as a cub city desk reporter for the Portland Daily Gazette (now long gone), I covered the police beat and needed a break from that mundane assignment to relax and deal with some “real” cinematic and literary crime. Especially after reporting on this one story, the story of the Lady in Shay’s Pond that drove me deep into the genre.

Funny, everybody today thinks, you just go to some swanky journalism school, or school of communications like over at the university, and presto you are a print/internet/television instant icon. Not so in the old days, the now old early 1970s when after getting “off the bus” out on the West Coast I headed back east to make my name, and fortune. Although I had no journalism degree I had always wanted to be a journalist and had done some free-lance work while “on the bus” for different West Coast alternative newspapers and journals that Captain Crunch had connections with through Ken Kesey’s circle of friends. So I wrote a few things about this and that, mostly in a drug coma (or in the throes of love, it could be six-two-and even on either proposition) for The Los Angeles Free Express, The East Bay Other, Ramparts, etc. Nothing big, nothing fancy but I had the bug, had that small scratch resume, and had a notion that if I worked the back roads of journalism I could find some niche to start off with without the degree that I was, frankly, too old and too antsy to go back to school for.

I actually got my East Coast start up at the beloved Schoodic Times, a weekly local newspaper that covered the Bar Harbor area and points north. I was the all-mister-everything there. You know writing up how some Mayfair swell was giving a party for his little girl, Bessie, and he or she, mainly she, wanted all the known world, the known swell Bar Harbor world to know, that hard fact. With each and every participant’s name listed. Correctly listed, or there would be hell to pay. Or maybe covering the monthly town meeting in bustling Schoodic Point or some other meeting convened to vote on (vote against, mainly) some public welfare issue. Or write up some ad copy (mainly in tourist –heavy summer) for Aunt Betty’s Diner, explaining exactly why this local “hot spot,” a piece of authentic New England charm was a “must eat” stop on that hard-earned yearly two weeks’ vacation.

Best of all was covering the “crime” scene news. You know how lobsterman Woodson and lobsterman Eppings went at it tong and nail over who rightfully owned some derelict untagged lobster trap. And that tongs and nails fight wound up in front of the local justice of the peace. That last type work, little of it as there was, and mainly off tourist-heavy season (everybody was on their best behavior for the “guests”), is what got me that first real job at the not missed Portland Daily Gazette. Remind me to tell you about those Schoodic days some time. They really were something else but now I have a murder, or some murders, to solve so let me press on.

Now everybody figures, and figures maybe rightly, if you land in a big city newspaper, say Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, you are among royalty and have entre everywhere. Just snap, flash the badge, point to the camera man and presto you have your story. Ain’t necessarily so, and most definitely was not in my case. I was thrilled, thrilled beyond words, as I recall that I was going to be a cub reporter on the city desk at the Gazette. I figured a couple of articles and I would be talking to the mayor, the governor, the president, who knows, on a first name basis just like the big boys and girls.

Forget that. Podunk (sorry Portland) cub city desk reporter meant you were at the bottom of the feeding chain. Below, well below, the drunken career copy editor who they stashed there because at one time he had won some prize for some odd-ball thing that nobody exactly remembered but is agreed upon by all not to bring up. Below the Woman’s Page lady busy manicuring her fingernails waiting on the latest recipe to file, the latest tidbit about what a certain very much married Mr. So-and-So and Miss Somebody were seen doing at some social event, or writing up somebody’s a party complete with a detailed list of what went on and who participated (I hoped that she spelled each and every name correctly, or else she was doomed). Below the publisher s daughter who was “stashed” there to keep her out of harm’s way (read: away from the night life at Jimmy Jake’s Blues Club down at Olde Saco Beach in high French- Canadian ooh-la-la summer) before she marries the son of the Augusta (Maine) Journal. And that cub reporter below also meant nothing but to mainly cover the police “beat” press room at the main station on the off-chance that every known Mafioso don, every know jack-roller, every known mug, yegg, drifter, grifter, and midnight shifter intended to descend on Portland in a fit of hubris.

Or maybe to cover, just maybe, that one time, off-hand odd-ball murder, or really before it was all over, murders, that has the whole town stirred up for months. That’s the one that broke me out of the bottom of the chain, out of writing novels at my police station desk to keep my eyes open. Yes, that day, October 23, 1973, the day they dragged the lady out of Shay’s Pond over in Ocean View.

That day I was just writing my fifth re-write of chapter three of my novel, The Third Wife, a novel to end all novels, to put Hemingway on cheap street, to let Fitzgerald go back and sulk, and have another drink with Zelda, to nuzzle Mailer out for that great American Novel prize when the police call came in. [We knew when a call, silly, obtuse, or important came in, because a green light flashed three times in the press room to alert us, quaint.] Some kids had been traipsing in the woods over at Shay’s Pond in Ocean View and come across a very badly decomposed body of what latter turned out to be a woman who had been strangled, a woman known in Ocean View although not as a full-time year-round woman but a “summer guest” (with the emphasis squarely on summer, and squarely on barely tolerated) as the native Mainiacs like to call them.

I didn’t know much about Ocean View then, although it was only a few miles south of my old hometown, Olde Saco. But it might as well have been a million miles away. Although they didn’t have gated communities then as they do now Ocean View was strictly for the Mayfair swells. Not, maybe as swell as the old time Bar Harbor set with their two last name middle and last names and stuff like that but strictly swells and strictly no murder capital of the world swells. In fact the town had no police force (except for summer rent-a-cop college boys, really just life-guards, who wanted to impress the junior girls swells and maybe catch an off-hand “wild girl” waiting to break-out before marrying another two last name middle and last name guy.) So the State Police out of Portland, along with a couple of special deputies from the Portland Police Department who knew the area, had to deal with the body, deal with the publicity (or rather keeping a lid on it), and deal with solving the crime, or what they thought was the crime. One cop in particular, Detective Garcia, had worked on a case there before (it didn’t come out until after it was all over that the case was over some “he said, she said” things between a big time stockbroker and his estranged wife, kid’s stuff, strictly kid’s stuff).

Here is what the “Staties” picked up right away after a couple of days hard work. The woman, Eleanor, the young wife (twenty-six) of J. Eugene Murry, yes, that J. Eugene Murry, the CEO of Murry Industries, the ancient big defense contractor, had been reported missing by Mr. Murry back in late August, whereabouts at the time unknown, possible destinations unknown, last known companion (s) unknown, cash in hand, plenty, love of J. Eugene Murry, nil. Of course Mr. Murry might just a have been the slightest bit more helpful since he had a rather large mansion over on not-gated but might as have well have been Atlantic Street, Mrs. Murry had called him from that locale several times asking for (and receiving) money in early August, and she was seen by various mansion employees with one (or more) males, young males, closer to her age that Mr. Murry’s.

All that, of course, didn’t come out until later after the case was nailed. Oh, ya, and Mrs. Murry, or someone who sounded very much like Mrs. Murry had called Murry Industries, specifically Mr.Murry’s personal secretary asking for (and receiving) cash six times between late August and the discovery of the body in the pond. The last time just four days before the very, very decomposed (I had to avert my eyes when I first saw it) came to the surface, or whatever dragged it to shore.

With that last bit of information in hand the previously laconic Mr. Murry determined to hire a private detective to get to the bottom of this case. See the regular cops were going too slowly for him all of a sudden. Yes, Mr. Murry was that kind of man. He didn’t care what his wife did, or didn’t do, in public or private, as long as she remained Mrs. Trophy-Wife but now that she was gone, long gone, something had to be done, and done quickly. And, no, no, a thousand times no J. Eugene Murry did not kill his wife, and his alibi, naturally was that little blonde personal secretary who was feeding somebody dough to keep her away.

Now this private detective thing, the stuff of crime noir legend is nothing but a shill. Look, most of these guys can’t tie their shoes, can’t spell murder, and couldn’t make it on the police force (because (a) they couldn’t keep quiet about the graft, (b) didn’t give Johnny Rico or some guy enough protection, or (c) couldn’t keep quiet about the free doughnuts and coffee in the locker room provided by Milly’s Diner) and got the boot. And not knowing any other gainful profession set up shop in some flea-bag office building with failed dentists, repo men, and insurance coverage chiselers. Hats off to Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler but that is the stuff of dreams, opium dreams from what I can gather.

I guess our Mr. Murry just went to the nearest telephone directory and placed his finger on the first name he came to, Alan Albert, because that is who Detective Garcia (who knew Albert when he was on the Portland force before he was canned for taking more than his cut of the protection money and “forgetting” about the Precinct Six captain, a fatal mistake) introduced me to him as Mr. Murry’s new private hired help. His main previous work, upon interview by me, was some rough-edged divorce work. That work, keyhole peeper work, rather than solving police platoon-sized murders, is what keeps most private dicks in coffee and cakes, and the wolves from the door.

But here is the funny part, funny after the big pin in the balloon I have put in the private- eye sleaze business. Alan Albert actually did solve the crime, crimes actually, the heinous crimes of murder, although not in the two-fisted, take a couple of slugs for the cause, maybe save a damsel in distress, or get bopped by some femme fatale out for her own kicks way. Here is how.

When Albert went over to be interviewed by Miss Grayson (the name of that, ah, blonde, very personal secretary belonging to one Mr. J. Eugene Murry) he recognized a photo on her desk as belonging to a girl he once knew from the Sea and Surf Club over at Olde Saco Beach (I remembered that club, and its mainly hell motorcycle “wild men” well). That girl in the photo, Emily Greer, happened to be a very close friend of Miss Grayson, according to what she said at the time. Upon request, after being given the job of finding Mrs. Murry’s killer (or killers), Alan was given a photograph of Mrs. Murry. He noted, although he kept quiet about it then, the striking resemblance between Eleanor Murry in the photograph and Emily. Enough to follow a certain lead.

See this Emily Greer, wild as hell, a “motorcycle mama” is what we called them in old Olde Saco time (and maybe they still do), was at one time the girlfriend of that Detective Garcia who introduced us a few days back. But after squeezing the Detective for all kinds of stuff, including getting her brother to walk on a murder rap, she dumped him and left him for some white trash biker from Ellsworth. But Detective Garcia still had it bad for his Emily. So, every once in a while she would squeeze him, squeeze him hard for information about the swells in Ocean View. See he had worked that stockbroker and wife feud that he had investigated into a little affair with the slumming wife (the “sleeping around and caught" cause of the stockbroker “he said, she said” argument that he broke up). So he gave up the Mrs. Murry information from Mrs. Stockbroker to Emily, and presto, Eleanor Murry is nowhere to be found. And, as it turned out, a few other “summer guests” would also turn up in that stinking Shay’s Pond.

Private Detective Albert and Public Detective Garcia, after rounding up Miss Grayson (real name, Alice Greer) at Murry Industries Headquarters (she was feeding the so-called Mrs. Murry dough out the door to her sister, Emily) and placing her safe and sound at Police Headquarters took a little ride over to the Sea and Surf Club to collar Miss Emily. No guns, no fights, no car chases, no whipping chains, just a plain ordinary “come with us, sister” arrest. And if you saw spiteful Emily you could see that she would have taken a couple in the chest if he she had been sober just then, but you could also see that she had the wherewithal to dunk those five bodies found in that small pond, without remorse.

So you see why I got into “real” crime noir after all this matter-of-fact-stuff. Let me tell you about some real crime stuff up in old Schoodic Point, a titanic fight between two lobstermen over the spoils of a daily catch. That will get the hairs in the back of your neck up. Oh, I guess I have run out of time. That is a story for another day

The Night Of The Living Dead- “Edmond O’Brian’s Crime Noir –D.O.A.

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry from the crime noir classic D.O.A.

DVD Review

D.O.A., starring Edmund O’Brian, directed by Rudolph Mate, Cardinal Pictures, 1950

Hey, over the couple of years that I have been periodically reviewing crime noirs I’ve seen it all. Bad gees getting away with murder, almost. Good gees getting the wrong end of the deal and just barely getting a little justice in this wicked old world before the scales turn, slightly. I’ve seen tough guy detectives take every beating imaginable before they, at the last second, grab the brass ring. I’ve seen more two-timing twisted sister femme fatale dames pile the corpses high and some skirt crazy guys grinning saying they were just misunderstood, almost. Ya, I’ve seen it all, brother. Well, not quite all, as the film under review, D.O.A., starring rugged looks 1950s actor Edmond O’Brian makes fatally clear. I‘ve never done a review a where the dead guy is still walking. That is usually saved for a genre, horror films, that don’t interest me, almost.

Let me back up (as is done in the film to explain that last point, otherwise this would be an exceedingly short review of an exceedingly short film). Average notary (for our purposes) Frank (played by the aforementioned Mr. O’Brian) needs a holiday bad. Bad from his closing in honey ready to make her kill (marriage and white picket fence cottages for two, okay). So naturally being a California desert guy and wanting to go wild he heads for be-bop 1950s San Francisco (just as the beat geist begins its climb up those seven hills, or whatever number there are). But Frank picked a wrong day, a wrong weekend, wrong month, hell, and a wrong millennium to “break out.”

Seems a regular work-a-day notary (accountant too) can know just a little too much. So in the language of the genre, he has to take “the fall.” And he does, as a nefarious guy who has something to hide slips him the mickey. But what a mickey, a totally fatal, no cure, done, dead, if still walking dose done while, well, while he is preoccupied picking up one of those high-flying “beat” hanger-on women that were filling up the town just then. So that is why our boy Frank is a dead man walking. And the rest of the film, the fast-paced film, by the way, with great black and white shots (especially of a be-bop jazz group blowing that high white note to kingdom come in the fog-bound ‘Frisco night- shades of some Jack Kerouac dream song, or maybe Allen Ginsberg, a young Allen Ginsberg), is spent frantically unfolding how Frank got himself killed. And some remorse over not treating his honey back in the desert so good.

A great film but I still have this lingering question. Since he knew (including getting a second medical opinion on the question) he was doomed in a day or two, a week at the most, why was not reveling in wine, women and song, especially that high-flying frail from the bistro, instead of almost getting himself “killed” (early) trying to find the truth? And you will be scratching your head also after you see this one. And you should.

Out Of The 1950s Crime Noir Night-French-Style- Jules Dassin’s “Rififi”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the French crime noir Rififi.

DVD Review

Rififi, starring Jean Servais, directed by Hollywood black-listed director Jules Dassin, 1955.

Recently I went out of my way to honor the French cinematic crime noir tradition in reviewing Jean Gabin’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi, a film right out of the Hollywood gangster shoot-em-up and ask questions later genre. The film under review, Rififi, reflects another French cinematic homage to a different aspect of that tradition, the well-planned (almost) heist saga. In fact, given the approximately one half hour depiction of the heist itself, I would argue that it more than put paid to that homage. Maybe the fact that the film was directed by American red scare black-listed director Jules Dassin was key to those dramatic, skillful and realistic scenes. While reading his Marx in the morning Dassin, maybe, spent a few afternoons at the local two films for the price of one movie theaters of the day watching, intensely watching those heist scenes.

So, as I have already telegraphed,, this one revolves around a heist, a big jewel heist, naturally at an almost impossible to bust, high tech (for the day) protected establishment. Of course to take on such a risky task you either have to be very smart (street smart) or desperate, or both. Enter one Tony, just out of stir, with no prospects, no dough, and no pension (occupational hazard of the profession). And with about seven chips on his shoulder, number one chip being two-timed (who knows maybe more) by his woman. (Ya, I know, two-timing women, and the crazy way they turn smart (street smart) guys goofy in the plot lines of crime noirs, are a dime a dozen.) Tony is ready though to go for the brass ring. And he grabs it, almost.

See, while two-timing women may be a dime a dozen, two-timing women who take up with rival boss gangsters and live to tell about it, are not. So said rival boss gangster, once he cops to the fact that our Tony has “scored” is ready to move heaven and earth to get the jewels, and get them cheap. Cheap? Ya, easy, just kidnap one of the heist guys’ kids and that will have them squealing and handing over jewels ASAP. Well no, not at all. Remember Tony is not going back to stir, no way. And come hell or high water he is not leaving his buddy (and his buddy’s wife) in the lurch. Without giving the whole thing away let’s just put it this way, Hollywood or Paris, film wise anyway, crime does not pay. RIP Tony.

Out In The 1950s Crime Noir Night-French-Style- Jean Gabin’s Touchez Pas au Grisbi

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Jean Gabin’s Touches Pas au Grisbi

DVD Review

Touchez Pas au Grisbi, starring Jean Gabin, 1954

Hey, I have been touting crime noir films for the past couple of years so why not review, as here with Jean Gabin’s 1954 Touchez Pas au Grisbi, a French crime noir in honor of, well, the name of the genre. And a later generation of French directors who went crazy for Hollywood gangster epics in such films as “Breathless” and Don’t Shoot The Piano Player. Especially when said this crime noir stars Jean Gabin, last reviewed here in a very different film, Children Of Paradise.

Well, let’s cut to the chase (literally, as this plot unfolds). It seems that long- time crime boss Max (Gabin) has pulled a caper (heist, okay) to set himself and his confederate Riton up for a well-deserved retirement from the rackets. And everything was going along just fine until old buddy Riton got a loose tongue over some show girl (played by a very young Jean Moreau) and spilled his guts out to her about how he could keep her in clover. Problem is that young showgirls are as fickle and calculating as any other woman mixed up with bad actuarial table criminals and she has another crime boss on the hook, one Angelo. Naturally she mentions the loot to Angelo and sets off an explosion of maneuvers by him to get the kale, and by Max to keep it.

The cat and mouse of this pair drives the rest of the movie with old Max showing one and all why he was (and is) the king of the hill, even if he may have lost a step or two. Angelo’s big mistake (besides thinking that Max was over the hill and easy pickings) was kidnapping Riton, an act that set Max on a fight to the finish. See the film to get the details of that fight to the finish. What is important though is the use by the director here of the many tough guy moves made by Hollywood gangsters in the heyday 1930s including a few off-hand beatings of opponent gangsters to get information, a few off-hand slaps at show girls (by Gabin of all people but that is part of being a boss and no chump), and a car chase, natch complete with machine guns ta-ta-ta-ing. Ya, the French picked up the genre very nicely. Gabin might be a little too suave (except for those off-hand girl slaps) to be an American 1930s gangster but he fit the more demure 1950s just right.

Visions of Cody- James Cagney’s “White Heat”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film noir White Heat.

DVD Review

White Heat, starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, Warner Brothers, 1949

Every parent, every mother in particular, wishes nothing but the best for his or her son or daughter and will do everything within their power to help out. Now usually those best wishes revolve around going to college, starting a legit business, or learning a legit craft but not as the film under review the classic gangster film, White Heat, amply demonstrates aiding and abetting run-of-the-mill criminal activities like murder, mayhem and armed robbery . See in this film noir mother dear is part of the problem, part of sonny boy’s problem, and drives some of the psychological aspects of the film (psycho aspects, really)

The usual run of the mill gangster is just a guy up from nowhere and through striving, striving hard, in the underworld thicket works his way to the top, or dies in the attempt. Usually that race to the top is done solo but here gangster Cody Jarrett’s (played by James Cagney to a tee) Mom is right there to egg her boy on. And that is not without consequences because in the long drawn out process of becoming king of the hill Cody has become nothing but a stone cold psycho-killer as part of his resume.

However even stone cold killers with “heartbreaking” back stories need kale, dough and so this film is, of necessary, is about a few heists to keep him and his boys in clover (and of course his split cut 50-50 with Ma). And because the theme of crime noir, in the end, is always about how crime doesn’t pay about how the good guys (the fed T-men in this case) foil his plans poor boy Cody has got to fall. Along the way we get to see the way that the G-men bring old Cody down (have a man, played by Edmond O’Brien, infiltrate the gang), about his marital problems keeping his two-timing wife (played by fetching Virginia Mayo) focused and about how he gets even with dissidents in his organization (bang-bang, okay). But this one really is about, as always, how the parents always get blamed for the errors of the kids. Oh, and about why James Cagney was the king hell king of the gangster films back in the day.

When The Frame Won’t Fit- Won’t Fit Big Time- Jimmy Stewart’s “Call Northside 777- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Call Northside 777.

DVD Review

Call Northside 777, starring Jimmy Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte, directed by Henry Hathaway, 20th Century Fox, 1948.

Hey, I ‘m just like the next guy I don’t want to see a right gee step off, step off big time, on a murder one rap and maybe a quick jolt, although in this case he caught 99 years (99 years of hell by the way) but these crime noir film noir police procedurals leave me cold. No guy wronged by some wicked femme fatale or some wrong gee getting his just desserts for being a blight on the community leaves me decidedly chilled.

Worst is a story where the right gee wronged is championed by the fourth estate (ya, the press for the clueless) in order to see that some rough justice (and an increased circulation) is done in that aforementioned wicked old world. And then to have mild-mannered, intrepid, if off-handedly seen-it-all (at first anyway), Jimmy Stewart come out of left field to save the day, save the gee, save motherhood, save apple pies and save the American way of life, well, like I say give me a wrong gee or a wicked femme to chew on anything.

Here is the skinny on this one though for those who like this kind of crime noir plot line (and there must be plenty given the large number of film and television police procedurals far more sophisticated that this slightly soapy one). Frank nobody from nowhere 1932 high-wire “wet” Chicago steps into a frame, a frame set just for him, when a copper is killed in the “line of duty.” He gets that quick 99 and that is the end of it, right? No, Ma has to see that her boy, her innocent boy, is set free after she has scrubbed floor for eleven years to buy a little piece of mind. So she ponies up some dough for information about the murder, the press (in the person of Stewart and Editor Lee J. Cobb) takes an interest and bing bang bing (added no little by modern photo enhancement technology) an hour or so later Frank nobody from nowhere Chicago 1944 is free, free as a bird, And likes it, likes on the outside just fine. Yawn, I wonder what femme fatale Gilda is up to these days.