The Street With No Name (1948)

The documentary-style noirs were quite popular in the second half of the 40s. Instead of glamorizing crime and showing flashy but still sympathetic criminals as was so common in the 30s, they depicted hard-working government agents in their struggle against criminals, focusing on the dangerous work these men did and how they defeated crime. The manner in which these movies did this, with not-so-subtle patriotic and pro-government messages, can come across as overly moralistic/naive these days. But with WWII just over and a general sense of disillusionment in the US, it maybe helped people feel more secure again. An early example was 1945's 'The House On 92nd Street', whose box-office success opened up a new avenue for its studio, 20th Century Fox, leading to a string of docu-noirs, including 'Call Northside 777' with James Stewart. One of the FBI agents from 'The House..', agent Briggs, played by noir regular Lloyd Nolan ('Lady In The Lake'), returned again a few years later in 1948's 'The Street With No Name', another Fox docu-noir.

The street on which crime flourishes is the street extending across America. It is the street with no name.

The movie takes place in fictional Center City, where the investigation into a violent robbery/murder turns up a suspect. Briggs (Lloyd Nolan) from the FBI is called in to interrogate the guy, who keeps denying involvement. After the guy ends up dead himself, shot with the same gun as the original murder, they decide they need an undercover agent trying to wriggle his way into Center City's underground world. They turn to promising young agent Gene Cordell (Mark Stevens) for this dangerous job, with veteran Cy Gordon (John McIntire) as his contact-person. They both check in in some cheap hotels on Center City's seediest, but popular, street, Cordell under an assumed name, George Manly. By proving his chops in the ring of a local boxing club owned by Alec Stiles, who is also behind the robbery, Stevens gets some attention. Stiles has an insider in the local police department and has a background check done on Manly. The FBI anticipated this and a custom prepared document ends up in Stiles' hands, showing Manly's fabricated criminal background. Manly is enlisted into the gang, who are planning another robbery. On the night of the robbery Stiles receives word however that the police are awaiting him and he realizes he has a snitch among his ranks. Cordell needs to get a hold of Stiles' gun fast to see if it can be linked to the murders. And who is Stiles's inside man?

This movie is one of the best examples of the documentary-style noir. Besides the segments that focus on the FBI, including a few telex messages from J. Edgar Hoover 'himself', the movie also uses stock footage of the FBI records archives. The movie makers even had access to the crime labs and training grounds, where Cordell gets to impress Briggs with him shooting skills. Shooting on real locations, let aline non-public ones such as the FBI locations, wasn't yet all that common at the time, a lot of movies, including noirs, were shot on studio lots. In contrast, only a handful of days were spent on studio lots for this movie.

After making his movie debut in 1947's 'Kiss Of Death' as crazy psychopath Tommy Udo, which earned him an Oscar nomination, Richard Widmark quickly became a go-to guy for playing weird  and creepy villains. 'The Street With No Name' was his second role, and again he plays an unusual, scene-stealing, villain. Stiles is a control-freak and a germophobe carrying nasal spray with him at all times (even a small sneeze from one of his men nearly sends him into an outburst). He also has an unhealthy disdain for women, despite being married to Barbara Lawrence ('Thieves Highway') in a small, but memorably sleazy part. Why she never played more of these roles, I don't know.

Mark Stevens ('Time Table', 'The Dark Corner') plays his Gene Cordell with a gritty tone, but with a playful edge. Cordell takes his undercover assignment seriously, but he also enjoys the opportunity to distinguish himself. I have a soft spot for Stevens, and he once again proves he's an underrated and unjustly 'forgotten' actor. The pairing of Stevens and Widmark works great, they play characters at opposite sides of the spectrum, not just in the legal sense but also in the personality sense, and both are great in this movie and play well off each other.

Lloyd Nolan ('Lady In The Lake') has very little to do in this movie, but he's always a pleasure to watch and was a real professional. As a bit of trivia, both Lloyd Nolan and Mark Stevens would go on to play private eye Martin Kane on TV. One of the people in the gang is played by Joseph Pevney. After a brief acting career (including 'Thieves' Highway' and 'Body And Soul') he switched to directing, and became a very successful TV director. He also directed a few noirs, including 'Shakedown' (he also had a small role in the movie) and 'Female On The Beach' with Joan Crawford. One of the other hoods in the gang is played by Donald Buka ('Between Midnight And Dawn'). He has several memorable scenes in this movie and is truly scary as the knife-wielding 'Shivvy'. Ironically, in the 50s he would be the host of the 'Crime Does Not Pay' radio show.

Director William Keighley directed several classic 30s gangster movies, including '"G" Men' (which can be easily seen as a prototype for movies like 'The Street With No Name') and 'Each Dawn I Die'. He retired a few years after this movie, which is not surprising given he was already in his late 50s by the time he made this movie! Keighley's solid directing is helped tremendously by the expertise of director of photography Joseph MacDonald. The man is not usually mentioned in the same breath as noir cinematographers like John Alton and James Wong Howe, but his noir work, which also includes 'The Dark Corner', 'Call Northside 777', 'Panic In The Streets' and the vivid color noir 'Niagara', speaks for itself. 'The Street With No Name' is worth watching just for the gorgeous visuals and the vintage locations.

'There's only one scientific way to get rid of a stoolie: let the cops bump him off.'

Some years later, in 1955, the movie would be remade by Samuel Fuller, as 'House Of Bamboo'. You wouldn't be able to tell tho if you didn't know, as the movie is set in Japan and changed a lot of the elements from the original. Joseph MacDonald would also sit behind the camera for the remake, which was shot in lush Technicolor. Robert Stack and Robert Ryan play the Stevens and Widmark roles in this remake, but overall I prefer the original, even with its preachy crime-does-not-pay angles. In all respects, 'The Street With No Name' is a great noir that doesn't get mentioned nearly as often as it deserves.

8/10

The Argyle Secrets (1948)

Strange as it may seem nowadays, radio plays were hugely popular back in the 40s, before TV really started to take off. Popular movies would be performed live on radio, often with some or all of the original movie stars reprising their roles. But the reverse also happened, with radio plays being adapted into movies. A hugely popular radio series called 'Suspense', aired a radio play called 'The Argyle Album' twice, first in 1945 starring Robert Taylor and again in 1947 starring noir icon Edmond O'Brien. Its author, Cyril 'Cy' Endfield, would later on turn the radio play into a screenplay and even direct the movie adaptation. Released in 1948 under the new and slightly more provocative title 'The Argyle Secrets', the low-budget B-movie, made in 8 days time, is another great example of the workmanship and efficiency of the independent B-studios of the era. BTW, for those interested, both radio plays, as well as many other 'Suspense' episodes, can be found here.

Oh, it's great to be on the winning side... All you respectable crooks hang together, and we... we just hang.

The Argyle album is an album owned by popular newspaper columnist Allen Pierce (George Anderson). After promising to reveal its scandalous contents in an upcoming column he has a heart attack and is hospitalized. Fearing he might die soon, he tries to give the full details to newspaper reporter Harry Mitchell (William Gargan). But after showing Mitchell a photo of the cover of the album, and before getting to its contents or whereabouts, he has another heart attack. When Mitchell returns with a doctor, they find Pierce with a knife in his stomach, as well as Mitchell's photographer also stabbed to death on the floor. Mitchell immediately becomes suspect #1, and he decides to make a run for it, so he can try and find this elusive album as well as the real killer. But he still doesn't know where the album is, or what's in it. As he soon finds out however, he is not the only one looking for the album. There is the shady Southerner Panama Archie (Jack Reitzen), the threatening trio of Winter (Jack Banner), Scanlon (Peter Brocco) and Hobrey (Mickey Simpson) and the femme fatale Marla (Marjorie Lord). At first Mitchell is offered money in exchange for the mysterious album, but soon the stakes get raised and become more life threatening... And he still has no clue where the album might be, despite everybody else thinking he has the album.

The movie moves at a breakneck speed, as Mitchell runs across town in search of the Argyle album, whose contents are eventually explained to Mitchell by Marla. The album contains a list of collaborators and men who profited from the Nazis during World War II, including prominent businessmen. So while its contents are highly volatile, the viewer, nor Mitchell, ever actually sees the real album. Not even at the end of the movie when he's given a bag, he doesn't even bother to check whether it contains the album or not! A macguffin if ever there was one!

As times this movie comes across as a variation on 1941's 'The Maltese Falcon', and not just because it centers around an elusive object which the main character has never seen but is trying to locate and which everybody else wants. It even seems to directly reference, some might say copy, the 1941 blockbuster, with for instance the Panama Archie character looking remarkably like Sydney Greenstreet's Kasper Gutman, and Marjorie Lord coming off as, and at times even looking like, Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy. But it's also quite different and does feel like it's more than a mere copy of said classic.

Gargan's Mitchell is also more of a bastard than Bogart's Sam Spade. Early on in the movie he knocks out Pierce's secretary Ms. Court (Barbara Billingsley) with a punch to the face. But it gets worse, as he even chokes Marla unconscious. Admittedly with her consent, but it's still a rather disturbing scene to see in a 40s movie! Made even crazier when we are made aware of Mitchell's thoughts in voice-over as he's strangling her:

It was a funny experience, choking a woman deliberately. I squeezed pretty hard, scuffing bruises at her throat to make it look good. I got so mixed up I didn't know what I was doing and I stopped once and kissed her very hard.

The voice-over was done by Gargan, and is used throughout the movie to great effect. A one-time Oscar-nominee, William Gargan's career in Hollywood had moved to B-movies and character roles by the time this movie was made, but he was a solid actor who could play parts like this one effortlessly. His look, and especially his pleasant but slightly worldweary voice, worked well in noir and detective roles. He played in a few more B-noirs like 1946's 'Behind Green Lights' but as private eye Martin Kane he really came into his own. He first played Kane on a radio series, and then played him again on 2 separate runs on TV in the 50s (other noir actors also portrayed Kane on TV, like Lloyd Nolan and Mark Stevens).

Co-star Marjorie Lord gives a great performance as a beautiful femme fatale who is initially conspiring with Winter but eventually falls for Mitchell, or does she? As with any good femme fatale, you can never be too sure of where she stands. It's shame she didn't do more noir, at least that I'm aware of, she really impressed me here. The rest of the cast are adequate, but almost all of the principal baddies have quirky accents, giving the movie a slightly silly edge, incidentally adding another 'The Maltese Falcon' hint. Altho appropriate for their characters and origins, the accents themselves sound too forced and put on, and not natural at all.

For a B-movie made in just over a week's time on a tight budget, it certainly pushes the envelope in terms of sets. Maybe they were also recycling sets from other movies, but the movie definitely has a lot of noir visuals, with plenty of deep shadows. Its cinematographer, Mack Stengler ('Fall Guy', 'I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes') also makes effective use of the set-ups. The best example happens when Mitchell is trapped inside a dingy office with Winter and Hobrey trying to gain access to the office using a blowtorch. The blowtorch is the primary source of lighting used in this scene, and it works well to add a threatening atmosphere. But the movie looks like noir heaven from start to finish really, there's even a small dream sequence with faces moving in and out of Mitchell's blurred state. Unfortunately the print I saw was rather murky and washed out, but even so it's clear that visually this movie offers first rate noir visuals.

Oh, I forgot to tell you... Never offer a cigarette light to a woman of uh... questionable background.

Director Cy Endfield ('The Underworld Story') would soon find himself blacklisted by the HUAC. He spent the remainder of his career in the UK, where he directed the great and gritty trucker Britnoir 'Hell Drivers' (1955) as well as the British classic 'Zulu' (1964). He was also a prolific screenplay writer, both credited and uncredited, and this movie shows he had a real knack for good, snappy lines and dialogue.

What can I say? I really enjoyed 'The Argyle Secrets'. It's far from original, and yes, there are more than a few resemblances to 'The Maltese Falcon', but the movie does work. It's got some pretty solid acting, it looks great, has some good lines and dialogue and at just over an hour is a lot of fun. You really cannot go wrong with this one. I hope someday a decent print of this movie is found and cleaned up, because it really deserves it. Recommended!

7/10

You can watch this movie on youtube, just keep in mind it's in pretty rough shape:

Secret Beyond The Door... (1948)

Fritz Lang was one of the big directors of the German Expressionist movement, which would prove to be a major influence on filmmaking in general, and film noir in particular. Movies such as 'Metropolis' (1927) and 'M' (1931) set new standards, especially in visual aesthetics. So it's no surprise that when he left Germany and moved to the USA in the mid '30s, he would end up making several films noirs and noir-ish thrillers including 'Ministry Of Fear' (1944) and 'The Big Heat' (1953).

In 1941, sultry Joan Bennett starred in his espionage thriller 'Man Hunt', the first of 4 collaborations. After their 2nd movie together, 1944's 'The Woman In The Window', they formed a production company, Diana Productions, named after her oldest daughter. The third party in this company was Joan's husband and successful independent movie producer Walter Wanger. The company's first movie was the classic noir 'Scarlet Street' from 1945, followed in 1948 by 'Secret Beyond The Door...', both directed by Fritz Lang and starring Joan Bennett. 'Secret Beyond The Door...' was based on the story 'Museum Piece No. 13' by Rufus King from 1946, and adapted into a screenplay by Silvia Richards ('Possessed'). Cinematography was handled by Stanley Cortez ('The Night Of The Hunter') and the dramatic score was composed by Miklós Rózsa ('The Killers').

Felicitous \fi-ˈli-sə-təs\

1. well chosen or suited to the circumstances
2. pleasing and fortunate

In 'Secret Beyond The Door...', Joan plays wealthy socialite Celia Barrett, who is off on a vacation to Mexico, her final fling before settling down. There she meets mysterious architect Mark Lamphere (Michael Redgrave), and within days the two are married. However, Mark cuts short their honeymoon when he has to leave unexpectedly, leaving Celia to go to his mansion by herself. There she finds out she doesn't really know all that much about Mark or his past. Mark's overly protective sister Caroline (Anne Revere) meets her at the train station, but she is only the first of many surprises for Celia, and the only happy one. Mark is broke, and maybe out for her money. And that's only the beginning...

It turns out Mark is a widower with a son, David (Mark Dennis) who despises him and blames him for his mother's death. Then there's Mark's secretary Miss Robey (Barbara O'Neill) who always covers part of her face due to a burn scar. And the 'felicitous' rooms Mark collects that he told Celia about, turn out to be rooms showcasing rooms where historic murders took place. Not quite what Celia assumed... And there's one murder room that Mark keeps locked at all time, one she's not allowed to enter, ever...

The movie looks stunning, with exquisitely atmospheric cinematography and sets. If the plot might seem quirky and silly, and it certainly does at times when you are watching this, there are still the visuals to draw you in. The sets, the lighting, the direction, everything is top-notch. And Fritz Lang's Expressionist past even makes an appearance in the form of a strange dream-sequence where Mark is put on trial, with himself as the prosecutor as well as the accused, and the judge and jury all obscured by shadows. It is a very odd scene, but it helps in conveying Mark's unstable mental state of mind, as well as a more terrifying idea for the viewer, that of Celia's murder.

The cast does well for the most part. The gorgeous Joan Bennett usually played the savvy femme fatale in her darker/noir movies, so this more passive and subdued part feels different. But she pulls it off well, aided by her very strong voice-over narration, which is often more whispered than spoken and adds a very spooky mood to the movie. It also helps in establishing Celia's internal insecurity and tendency to overthink things. The always dependable Anne Revere ('Fallen Angel', 'Body And Soul') is sympathetic but somehow secretive as Caroline, and Barbara O'Neil ('Whirlpool', 'Angel Face') is just plain creepy as Miss Robey who has a few secrets hidden behind her scarf.

- My main thesis is that the way a place is built determines what happens in it. [..] Certain rooms cause violence, even murders.
- Mark, my sweet lamb, you're tetched in the head.
- Yeah, maybe I am.

The major letdowns acting-wise are Michael Redgrave as Mark and Mark Dennis as his son David. We'll let Mark Dennis off the hook because he was only 14/15 at the time of shooting and his character is rather silly. But Michael Redgrave is simply miscast in my opinion. The romance between him and Celia/Joan Bennett lacks chemistry of any sort, and he just never exhibits the dark emotional undercurrents that his character has. Redgrave was far from a bad actor, but he was just not the right choice here.

Director Fritz Lang and cinematographer Stanley Cortez fill the movie with beautiful dark shadows and striking shots, accentuated effectively by Rózsa's melodramatic score. The movie's tension builds up nicely throughout into a climactic finale. Unfortunately the final resolution is let down a bit by the old fashioned approach to psychoanalysis and who's to blame (hint: it's always the mother), but it's a minor gripe really. If you are willing to deal with the somewhat wacky ensemble gathered in the Lamphere mansion, a miscast male lead, and a plot that seems to borrow several elements from better movies (like 'Rebecca'), it's a pleasant viewing experience.

'Secret Beyond The Door...' was a commercial failure however, which together with marital issues (eventually leading to Wanger shooting Bennett's agent, and lover, a few years later) and a strained working relationship between Lang and Bennett, led to the end of Diana Productions, after only 2 motion pictures. Both Lang and Bennett later considered this movie a minor, even forgettable, effort but do not let that detract you from this movie. It's an entertaining movie that can even be watched purely for its visuals. An uneven movie, but worth checking out.

7/10

Inner Sanctum (1948)

'Inner Sanctum Mysteries' was a popular radio show between 1941 and 1952, it was based on a series of novels under the same name. The radio show then was the inspiration for a number of movies under the 'Inner Sanctum' moniker which all starred Lon Chaney Jr., in the mid 40's. In 1948, poverty row studio Film Classics, decided to try their hand at it as well. They didn't even bother coming up with a title, they simply called the movie 'Inner Sanctum', adding 'Mystery' as subtitle to the poster, and making a few more references to the radio show, as can be seen on the poster to the left. An obvious and deliberate attempt to lure a few more movie goers into the theater for this cheapo B noir. This 'Inner Sanctum' was directed by Lew Landers, an incredibly prolific director of mostly B movies. In the 40s alone he directed 75 movies! He did not direct too many noirs tho, besides this one he also directed 'Man In The Dark' and maybe one or two more. The story was an original screenplay by Jerome Todd Gollard, who has only 3 writing credits on IMDb. Cinematography was handled by Allen G. Siegler, who'd been working as a cinematographer since 1916! The score was done by Leon Klatzkin, his first score for a movie, most of his work was done for TV series, including 'Rawhide' and 'Gunsmoke'.

'Fight yourself and the part that wins doesn't count, it's the part that loses.'

The movie starts in a train, with an older man, who is a clairvoyant, and a woman talking on a train. The man tells the woman a story: Late one evening a man and a woman exit a train and end up in a fight, with the man accidentally killing the woman. The man, Harold Dunlap (Charles Russell, 'Behind Green Lights') doesn't know what to do and dumps the body on the observatory platform of the departing train. A kid saw him put the body on the train but thinks it was a bundle or a package. Dunlap tries to leave town, but finds himself stranded due to floods blocking off all roads and railroads that night. He finds a room in a local boarding house, but fate would have it that the kid who saw him at the train station also lives in that house, Mike (Dale Belding). Dunlap is even given Mike's room to sleep in. Another occupant in the house is a young woman, Jean Maxwell (Mary Beth Hughes, 'The Great Flamarion', 'The Lady Confesses') who is tired of the boring town and wants to get out, and she immediately takes a shine to the mysterious & handsome stranger. As news about the dead woman's discovery and the subsequent murder investigation reaches the town, both Mike and Jean draw the same conclusion, but the kid is scared he'll end up dead too and the woman doesn't care, she just sees a handsome ticket out of town and she's attracted to bad guys anyways. And Dunlap finds out the town and his fate share a common trait: he can't escape either of them.

Charles Russell is decent enough as Harold Dunlap, who might be an accidental killer, but who also definitely has a dark and sinister side. Russell plays him as a tough man who barely moves his lips when he speaks, and who has anger brewing up inside him, but  can't let his guard down. It's a fairly one-dimensional portrayal, but also does the trick well here. Mary Beth Hughes is not very effective as the femme fatale Jean Maxwell here. Jean's been stuck in the small town of Clayburn, where the movie takes place, for 2.5 years and wants to move back to San Fransisco where she's originally from. She sees an opportunity to escape in Dunlap, and once she realizes the connection between Dunlap and the murdered woman on the train, she implies that he'd better get her out of there and back to San Fransisco, or else... Unfortunately however, that threat is not carried through to greater effect. As she tells Dunlap: 'You're pretty awful, you're even too bad for me.' So much for the femme fatale in this movie.

'When you tell a woman that's over 40 she is beautiful, you ain't a liar, you're a philantrophist.'

Mike's mother Ruth, is played by Lee Patrick, who played Effie, Sam Spade's secretary in 1941's 'The Maltese Falcon'. She is very protective of Mike, but Mike enjoys nighttime walks in the park and watching the trains, which she does not approve of one bit. He wasn't supposed to have been at the train station that fateful night, and he's afraid he'll receive some harsh punishment by his mother, or 'walloping' as he calls it, should she find out. So when he's convinced Dunlap is the killer, he's very reluctant to come forward. Unfortunately Mike is such an annoying kid, you soon wish he would get that 'walloping' he's so afraid of. On the other hand however, his mother is also quite annoying, when Mike musters up enough courage to tell her, she interrupts him constantly, until he can't tell her anymore. They deserve each other, and the movie could do without them.

'You're pretty... when your lips aren't moving.'

The movie ends in a fashion that betrays its origins, with a nice twist as the clairvoyant ends his story. It gives the movie more than a bit of a serial feel, one can easily see the old clairvoyant that bookends this movie as a recurring character introducing and summarizing each episode. But unlike the earlier movies with Lon Chaney Jr., this was a one-off movie.

As mentioned earlier, the movie was made by Film Classics, a poverty row studio whose film output consists of a mere 15 movies, including 'Blonde Ice' and 'Guilty Bystander'. Of course poverty row studios have done their fair share of great mystery and noir movies, and 'Inner Sanctum' has plenty of elements of both. This is far from a classic however. Landers makes effective use of the handful of sets, no doubt already used for other low budget movies, by having almost the entire movie take place either indoors or at nighttime and using more than his fair share of close ups of faces. And the story itself is pretty decent, it could've done with a better screenplay however, to turn the fairly cardboard characters into more compelling ones. It has some decent elements and a few nice shots such as the opening scene inside the train and at the trainstation, and its short length of just over an hour helps things move along quickly as well. Overall the movie has too many weak elements to elevate it out of the quagmire of mediocrity tho.

6/10

Blonde Ice (1948)

A lot of reviews of this movie will mention its tagline at some point, and it's a pretty good one indeed, so let's get it out of the way, shall we?

ICE in her veins - ICICLES on her heart

Now, if that isn't a film noir tagline, I don't know what is. It is immediately clear this movie has a true 'femme fatale', a fatal woman, and a blonde one as the movie title suggests. The movie is based on a novel by Whitman Chambers and supposedly, but unconfirmed, the screenplay was written by Edgar G. Ulmer ('Strange Illusion', 'Detour') and not Kenneth Gamet as the credits suggest. It stars Leslie Brooks as one of the deadliest femme fatales to grace the 40s film noirs. It would also be one of her final roles before she retired at the age of 26. Leslie Brooks plays Claire Cummings here, a columnist for a newspaper who wants it all, power, money and social standing, and she'll stop at nothing to get what she wants. Even though she's short on writing talent, she's positively bursting with ambition and has managed to work her way up to the position of columnist. But her ambition is not in the area of journalism, but in the area of becoming a wealthy and powerful socialite. And she'll take no shortcuts in getting there, come what may.

The movie starts in a mansion on the outskirts of San Fransisco where Claire's about to get married to Carl Hanneman (John Holland). Two of her co-workers, Les Burns (Robert Paige) and Al Herrick (a slimey James Griffith who looks like a weasel) are also there and it becomes painfully clear they're both former lovers of Claire who got nothing to show for it but having identical cigarette cases with almost identical engravings, save for the first names, that she gave them. There's a nice shot where Claire descends from the stairs and gives them both a smile. She then extends her arm right after the camera shows Les' face, making it seem she's offering Les to walk her down the aisle. But alas, her newspaper chief Hack Doyle (Walter Sande), takes her arm and off they go. Claire gets married to Carl and so far things are looking quite normal. But to show the true nature of Claire, a few minutes after the wedding, right before the newly weds are off on their honeymoon, Claire meets up with Les on the balcony right next to the room where she got married, and after some chit-chat they make out. The groom notices but she manages to make it seem innocent enough. Les know she's not in love with him or with the groom, and is only after material gain, but he is in love with her despite everything, so he puts up with her antics. And as the movie progresses, he puts up with a lot.

On their honeymoon, Carl accidentally sees a letter she's writing to Les, despite Claire even preparing a less steamy letter for Les' secretary. The letter starts with 'My darling Les' and how she can't wait to see him again. Carl realizes she was never in love with him and is only interested in his money and returns to San Fransisco, to file for divorce. But Claire has something else in mind, and buys off a local airplane pilot to fly her to San Fransisco and back again, all within the night. She also has a physician prescribe her some sleeping pills at a local pharmacy to give her an alibi as well as make sure a hotel employee notices her in the morning, to make it seem like she was in her hotel room the entire night. Carl ofcourse never wakes up that morning, or any morning thereafter for that matter. Her devilish character doesn't stop there, as she cleverly manages to implicate Les in Carl's death, because she knows Les will do anything for her. Les is a tough and masculine sports columnist but with Claire he's also a meek little lamb and against better judgement he cannot let Claire out of his heart, even tho he is fully aware Claire will let nothing stand in her way.

The chief of police who is investigating Hanneman's death knows he's dealing with murder and not suicide, which his death was made out to look like, but he can't make a case against either Les or Claire so eventually the case ends up in a desk drawer. Claire then sets her eyes on a local up & coming attorney who's running for senator, Stanley Mason (Michael Whalen), and he falls for her, hard. But things get complicated when the airplane pilot she hired the night of Carl's murder comes back to blackmail her. She eventually manages to get rid of him tho, in the most permanent of ways. After Mason wins the poll to run for senator he announces his upcoming marriage to Claire, but that same evening she goes over to Les' apartment who's distraught over her. She explains she does love him, but that he could never give her what she wants. The senator comes over and catches them as they're about to kiss, and tells her the marriage is off. Les takes off to drown his sorrows in booze and when he returns, Claire's already stabbed the senator to death and he just picked up the penknife she did it with. Claire might love Les, but Claire looks out for only one person, herself. The movie then rushes to its end. The ending of the movie is a complete disaster, one moment yer pretty much glued to the screen and a minute later yer wondering what the hell just happened. I won't spoil it for you, but it definitely came out of nowhere and makes no sense whatsoever. It appears that whoever wrote the ending had a slightly skewed idea about psychoanalysis (and possibly was a bit too concerned about the Hays production code). In any case, it's not the ending I was hoping for, and definitely not the ending this movie deserved.

The movie was directed by Jack Bernhard ('Decoy') and cinematography was done by George Robinson, who mostly worked on horror movies before that, such as 'House Of Frankenstein'. Robinson did a lot of work for Universal, which might explain the very nice look of the movie and the use of tracking shots. It was made for Film Classics however, a short-lived poverty row studio and while the actors weren't exactly A-list actors either, and their acting is not amazing, they do an adequate job. Leslie Brooks won't be mistaken for a Shakespeare actor, but she's pretty and certainly was able to smile and glance in a manner that made her role memorable and convincing. She would marry actor Russ Vincent not too long after making this movie and unlike so many marriages of actors and actresses at the time, they stayed married for the rest of their lives. As an interesting sidenote, Russ Vincent plays Blackie, the blackmailing pilot, in this movie. Robert Paige gave his character enough character to not come off as a complete loser while also not being too soft to be the macho sports buff he was if it hadn't been for Claire. James Griffith is great as Al who cannot say a sentence that isn't implying something or isn't some sort of snide remark.

What I like about this movie is that the typical gender roles have been reversed, at least for the two main roles (which is not exactly uncommon for films noir). Claire is in power, all the time, and she can work everybody in a way that's to her advantage. And if someone isn't willing to do what she wants, well, they'll be sure to regret it. Les on the other hand is like putty in her hands, despite being a man's man when he's not around her. Even when he knows exactly how deadly she is, and how far she'll go for what she wants, he cannot give her up to the police. The female is masculine here and the male feminine. But don't get me wrong, there are plenty of steeotypes left. All the men, at least when they first get to know Claire, like her or even fall for her, while all the women, even those who don't know Claire, instantly see her for what she truly is. Men love women they cannot possess and women hate women who outmatch them in looks and sexuality/sensuality. Then there's also Les' homely secretary who ofcourse has a secret crush on him, and ofcourse Les is too blinded by Claire to notice. There's the psychoanalyst with the slightly foreign accent, to add more gravitas to his words. In fact, pretty much all characters besides Claire and Les are fairly one-dimensional and you can get a pretty good idea of their general actions based on their first appearance in the movie.

There's more to like about this movie tho. It's simply a lot of fun to watch Claire get away with everything and to watch how she plays with Les. You do often wonder why Les puts up with it all and how dumb he must be, but it's fun to watch anyway. Which is all the more reason why the ending is so bad, it really brings down the overall effect of the movie. Not that this movie would have been a classic film noir if the ending had been any different, most of the characters are too obvious for that, but it could have been a more memorable movie anyway. It's not recommended viewing, but don't pass up on it either if you get the chance to watch it.

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Radio plays were quite popular in the first half of the 20th century, and movies were regularly adapted into radio plays (often with the same actors even), and vice versa. 'Sorry, Wrong Number' was a popular radio play, written by Lucille Fletcher, which starred Agnes Moorehead in what was pretty much a one-woman show. Moorehead performed the radio play several times between 1943 and 1960. It was such an over-night success that Lucille Fletcher turned it into a book as well as a screenplay for a movie. In 1948, the movie was released but not with Moorehead in the lead role even though she was a movie actress in her own right, having already played in movies such as 'Citizen Kane', 'Jane Eyre' and 'Dark Passage'. Paramount Studios felt that Moorehead didn't have enough star power to carry the movie tho, so Barbara Stanwyck took the role and she did so well she was nominated for an Oscar. Fletcher's screenplay added a big additional plot to the movie, which the radio-play didn't have.

Stanwyck plays Leona Stevenson, a spoiled woman who is bedridden due to a weak heart and she has a lot of problems walking or even moving her legs (which, as we learn along the way, is all inside her head). She is the daughter of James Cotterell (Ed Begley) who owns a pharmaceuticals company, and she is married to Henry Stevenson (Burt Lancaster). Henry and Cotterell don't get along, Cotterell thinks Henry is below Leona's standards and Henry is unhappy with the (pretty cushy) job Cotterell gave him in the company. The fact that they're still living at her father's house doesn't help either. The movie takes place in a single evening, but in true film noir fashion, has plenty of flashbacks, even flashbacks within flashbacks. This particular evening Leona is in her bed waiting for Henry to get back home, the maid had already left for the day, so she is all alone inside the big house because her father's at a party. The telephone rings and naturally Leona answers. However, it seems some lines are crossed as she ends up listening in on another phone conversation between 2 unidentified men. The conversation details the murder of a woman that will happen at 11.15pm that same evening. Before Leona can hear who is the target, the line gets cut off. She tries to frantically get the details of the callers from the operator but is unsuccessful. Calling the police also doesn't do her much good, because she has very little details. Slowly but surely, by calling her husband and various other persons close to her, she becomes more and more convinced that the 2 men she overheard were talking about murdering her. Slowly but surely the hour of 11.15pm approaches...

That is the basic plot of the radio-play. What was added by Fletcher was a story-line that explains how Leona met Henry and Henry's involvement with the telephone conversation Leona accidentally intercepted. Leona finds out from Henry's (nosey!) secretary that Henry had seen his old sweetheart Sally Hunt (Ann Richards) earlier that day, she was his sweetheart right before Leona got her hands on Henry. As it so happens, Sally's current husband Fred Lord (Leif Erickson) is a lawyer working for the district attorney's office on special assignments. He is investigating Henry's involvement in a case he's working on, which Leona overhears parts of as she's calling Sally. Sally later calls Leona back and explains as much as she knows about the investigation, including following her husband and his associates to a remote corner of Staten Island. By following up on new leads given to Leona by the people she talks to, Leona slowly finds out about the case Lord is working on. As it turns out Henry has started a little business on the side, selling stolen pharmaceutical ingredients from her father's company, with the help of Waldo Evans (Harold Vermilyea) who works in one of the company's labs. When Henry decides to cut out the middle-man, Morano (William Conrad), things start to go awry for him and Evans, which leads to the connection between the intercepted call and Henry, and to Leona. At 11.10pm Henry and Leona finally get to talk on the phone and everything comes together in the movie's final few minutes, which are incredibly tense and exhilarating as the clock approaches 11.15pm. Even as I watched the movie for a second time, I was on the edge on my seat. The bombastic & dramatic musical score was also very effective in bringing across the intensity of the scene. A great ending to a pretty good movie.

Barbara Stanwyck does a really good job at portraying Leona. Leona's been spoiled rotten by her father, aided by her health. She has a tendency to fall ill whenever she gets too distressed, so her father pampers her. Because Leona's spoiled and used to getting what she wants, Stanwyck gives her a manic, overly dramatic edge which works great in those scenes when Leona is losing all control and starts to panic. Stanwyck's not an actress I would really watch a movie for, but she is a very good actress nonetheless, and I enjoyed her greatly in this movie. I can see why some people think it's too over-the-top however. This movie is all about Leona/Stanwyck, make no mistake about it, and Stanwyck carries the movie. In 1950, Barbara Stanwyck starred in a radio-play adaptation of the movie adaptation of the original radio-play.

Burt Lancaster's role is much smaller than you'd expect, seeing as he's billed second on the poster.  Lancaster is fairly decent as Henry Stevenson, but also unremarkable. Stevenson's almost a wallflower, but even after he starts up the illegal side-business, he seems sullen. To be fair, most of the other roles are fairly one-dimensional, which might be a consequence of Fletcher having to create all these characters as well a (pretty decent) side-plot for the movie. So Lancaster might have felt too good for the part? Either way, besides Stanwyck, only Harold Vermilyea as Waldo Evans really stands out. I quite enjoyed his characterization of an employee who's worked diligently for many years, trying to save up some money only to lose it in a bad investment, and being given a chance to make up for all of that and make quite some money before his retirement.

The movie was directed by Anatole Litvak with cinematography by Sol Polito and the musical score was done by the great Franz Waxman. They manage to give the movie the right claustrophobic edge that is necessary, both visually as well as aurally/musically. There is a really nice long shot where the camera moves away from Leona's terrified face as she's making a call for a nurse, it then exits her room through a window, and pans down to the first floor where the shadow of a man is moving towards the house. It really exemplifies her solitary confinement and how the walls of her room are closing in on her, as well as creates a lot of tension. Masterful shot. But most of the shots inside Leona's room are effective at showing her claustrophobic surroundings, despite the size of the room, which is also emphasized by the large empty, echo-ey staircase when somebody rings the doorbell and Leona cannot come down to answer it.

One of the recurring themes in film noir is that a lot of the main characters, even if they're 'good' people, aren't 100% good or even likeable. Just like in real life, people are flawed, nobody's perfect. This can certainly be said for 'Sorry, Wrong Number'. None of its characters, apart from Waldo Evans and Sally Hunt maybe, are very likeable. Leona is a spoiled brat who's used to getting what she wants, Henry Stevenson is spineless and spiteful and Leona's father is overbearing and likes to boss people around. For me, it works, I don't need to identify fully with a character or even feel sympathy, or empathy, for a main character to enjoy a movie. In the case of 'Sorry, Wrong Number', it's the story and the way it develops and is shown that keeps me intrigued. It's not a classic film noir, but it is certainly a very enjoyable one, which I intend to re-watch every now and again.

The Amazing Mr.X (1948)

This is a very nice little oddity. 'The Amazing Mr.X' from 1948, also known as 'The Spiritualist', is not exactly a prime example of film noir, but it's got enough noir elements to warrant review on this blog. What it is however is simply a fun movie with outstanding noir lighting and cinematography with an interesting combination of horror, mystery and film noir with a psychic/supernatural edge that is quite unique but in my opinion works remarkably well.

The Mr.X/spiritualist from the titles refer to Alexis, a con-artist who calls himself a 'psychic consultant'. He uses some pretty neat trickery as well as research into his victims, psychology, his natural charm & way with words and a keen ability to read people to lure in unsuspecting victims, predominantly wealthy widows, and make a nice profit out of their gullibility and grief. His latest 'prey' is Christine Faber. She lives in a huge mansion on top of a cliff overlooking the sea, together with her much younger sister Janet. Her husband Paul died 2 years earlier in a car crash and she's about to be engaged to Martin Abbott, even though she still misses Paul and is haunted by memories of him and hears his voice calling out to her from out on the beach. As it turns out, the voices are more real than Christine, or Alexis, thinks. Alexis might be after Christine's money, but a far more dangerous shadow is planning to take a lot more from Christine, as Paul turns out to not be as dead as initially thought.

While not exactly a classic example of film noir, this movie directed by Bernard Vorhaus does have noir elements. The use of stark contrasting shadows and lighting is definitely one of them. As 'low budget' as this movie was, the cinematography as well as the visual ideas are outstanding. The lighting and cinematography was done by John Alton, who once said 'the most beautiful photography is in a low-key, with rich blacks'. He sure lived up to those words with his work for this movie! This was a low-budget movie by all means but Alton made it a work of beauty. There are many fine examples of his outstanding work throughout this movie. Some that come to mind:

• The opening scene where Christine is standing on the balcony and the shadow of a person holding a gun moves in, but which turns out the be Janet holding a hairbrush. It's very effective in its simplicity and is a sign that something bad will happen to Christine.
• After Martin proposes to Christine and gives her an engagement ring, she goes to a lamp to look at it more closely. The lamp is switched off and the wall behind it is dark except for the face of Paul, overlooking the shot. As she switches on the lamp we see it's a painting of Paul sitting at his piano. Once Martin comes over as well, we see Christine and Martin on either side of the lamp, with Paul in the middle, as if he's judging their relationship.
• At the seance with Christine and Janet there's a similar shot where the only illumination comes from the crystal ball with Christine and Janet sitting on either side of it, and for a few moments a 'third eye' appears right above the crystal ball. Very creepy! These seances also have hands flying around through the air and other ghostly effects. Good stuff!
• Almost every scene at Alexis' house, especially during the various seances, is filled with beautiful lighting and innovative visual effects.
• One shot is filmed through the bottom of a sink in Christine's bathroom. I have no idea why they did the shot that way, but it's quite striking. The same concept is used, more effectively in my opinion, during the seances where the camera looks from below the table through the table at the people sitting around the crystal ball. It is a very clever trick to add a phantasmal element to those scenes, almost as if we're looking through a spirits eye, right before the spirit makes itself known to the people sitting at the table.

Another stand-out aspect of the film is Alexis and the actor playing him, Turhan Bey. Alexis is shown to be a phoney early on in the movie, which works quite well here to me, now we can enjoy his tricks even more unabashedly. Alexis is incredibly enjoyable in how he goes about deceiving people. I found some of his methods to be quite convincing not to mention very entertaining to watch. He uses a tame raven for a sinister touch to his persona, he uses shadows and lights in really clever ways to create a mystic and ghostly atmosphere, and he uses more 'modern' tricks such as automatic sliding doors, carbon paper and a one-way mirror to get a good idea of people's intentions and get inside their heads. Not to mention he's incredibly charming, great with words and has a lot of confidence in his own ability to read and deceive people. He also has a partner helping him out with researching people so he's better prepared. As to Turhan Bey, I am unfamiliar with his other movies but from what I read he was usually typecast into stereotypical villain roles. While he's a villain here as well, his character is quite complex and he is definitely not a stereotypical ruthless villain. Bey is truly great here, he obviously greatly enjoyed playing Alexis and gave Alexis a lot of depth and a three-dimensional character. There's smoothness, charm, wit, playfulness, deviousness, even heroism in Alexis. Some might say Alexis is quite the slimey smooth criminal, but I found him too entertaining and enthusiastic in his methods to really dislike him. He's quite the character!

Christine is played by Lynn Bari. I don't know if this was the director's intent but she stares almost directly into the camera quite a bit, which felt awkward to me. Maybe that was the intent however, giving Christine a more 'dreamy' character who cannot help but pine for her dead husband. The problem for me however is that she's a bit too one-dimensional. Lynn Bari plays her role well enough but her character just comes across too flat and absent-minded for me, Christine hardly questions what's happening with and around her. It's as if she's on sedatives half the time.

Janet is played by Cathy O'Donnell who was already in her 20s at the time, but Janet's character could be 16, she could be 21, it is unclear. Whatever age she is however, she's much more skeptic than Christine is as she doesn't believe in Alexis' powers for one second, and she is also far more industrious than Christine. She does also have a naive, impressionable side to her, as she's completely taken in by Alexis when she meets him and she even develops a crush for him. I also have to say that her performance would not be so effective anymore in modern movies, her wide-eyed puzzled look is a bit too comical for current-day thrillers.

Martin Abbott is played by Richard Carlson, but his character is not really fleshed out. He's there, and that's about it. His main contribution to this movie consists of involving detective Hoffman, together with Janet, to look into exposing Alexis. Detective Hoffman is played by Harry Mendoza (real name: Harry Bernard Solomon), who was a real-life magician and his background is used quite effectively here, as that is also Hoffman's background. He does some cool sleight-of-hand tricks when Janet and Martin first meet him and his magician's background is used to give his character a deeper motive for exposing frauds. He is also the person who knows the sort of tricks Alexis pulls off during his seances, but due to circumstances he doesn't quite manage to, quite literally, pull the trigger on Alexis in one of the scenes.

As mentioned, the real villain of this movie, and one who was thought to be dead at the start of the movie, is Paul, played by Donald Curtis. Unlike Alexis, he is ruthless and callous and will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. It is unclear why he faked his own death and why he waited two years before going after Christine's estate and money, also because when he does explain his intentions to Alexis, he blackmails Alexis into helping him out, seemingly because he needs an accomplice. There are some gaping plotholes when it comes to Paul's character, but oh well... It didn't bother me all that much.

There is also a recurring (almost minimalist) musical piece, a prelude, in this movie. It was Paul's favorite piece and it becomes this creepy soundtrack that adds to the overall atmosphere whenever it is played.

This is a fun movie, and while I originally rated it 7 out of 10 on IMDb, after watching it again for this blog, I changed my rating to an 8. Yes, it's unashamedly B and low-budget, but it's a lot of fun, it keeps you drawn in, and the lighting is simply beautiful. Don't pass up on this one, it's got something for everyone.

I watched a version of this movie that is available on archive.org. However, it is not the best copy around and even misses some (very short, but noticeable) parts. A better copy is available from Sony, as evidenced by this clip (I've not seen the full version of this DVD tho):