The Chase (1946)

'The Chase' from 1946 is one of several films noirs based on Cornell Woolrich stories, in this case on his novel 'The Black Path Of Fear'. Other films noirs based on his work include 'Deadline At Dawn', 'Black Angel' and 'No Man Of Her Own'. For 'The Chase', Philip Yordan turned the novel into a screenplay. Arthur Ripley directed this movie, he did most of his work, as a director but especially as a screenwriter, in the 20s and 30s. The music was done by Michel Michelet ('Impact', 1951's 'M') and cinematography was handled by Frank Planer ('Criss Cross', 'Champion'), one of the many moviemakers who fled Germany after Hitler came to power and brought the German expressionist movement to Hollywood, which was a major influence on the look and feel of film noir in general.

The rest of this review reveals and discusses the main plot twist of this movie, because it's almost impossible to discuss this unique movie without doing so. Please keep that in mind.

Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings, 'Dial M For Murder', 'The Accused') is a Navy veteran in Florida who's down on his luck, out of a job and out of money. One morning he finds a wallet loaded with money lying on the pavement. After buying himself a big breakfast he returns the wallet to its owner, gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran, 'White Heat', Private Hell 36') who lives in a mansion together with his wife Lorna (Michèle Morgan, 'Passage To Marseille', 'The Fallen Idol') and his side-kick/business associate, the slimy Gino (Peter Lorre, 'M', 'The Maltese Falcon'). Roman appreciates Scott's honesty and hires him as his new chauffeur. Chuck also becomes Lorna's chauffeur for evening trips, usually to the seaside. Lorna is unhappy in her marriage to the violent & ruthless Eddie, and she dreams of escaping to Havana. She asks Chuck if he can help her, and he accepts, as they've slowly grown closer and closer. The next morning, he buys them tickets and in the evening they board the ship to Havana. On the boat they finally admit their feelings for each other. In Havana they end up in a busy nightclub, but it is there that Lorna dies in Chuck's arms with a knife in her back. Nobody saw who did it, and Chuck is interrogated. When Chuck explains he bought a similar, but slightly different, knife that same day, he becomes the police's only suspect, even more so when the shopkeeper confirms he bought the knife that killed Lorna. Chuck manages to escape from the police however, but when he backtracks to the shopkeeper's place later that night, Gino is there, they were on to Lorna and Chuck the entire time! Chuck's been framed for Lorna's murder, and even worse, Gino spots Chuck and kills him... And then Chuck wakes up from a feverish nightmare, it's still the afternoon after he bought the tickets to Havana, he's dizzy and nauseous and doesn't know why he's wearing a chauffeur's uniform or why he's in a room next to the mansion's garage. The whole trip to Havana was nothing but a dream, one which Chuck can't remember either. Chuck calls his Navy shrink, Commander Davidson (Jack Holt) and goes over to see him. Davidson realizes Chuck has had another bout of 'anxiety neurosis' which he suffered from during his time in the Navy and takes him to a bar to have a drink and calm down. There Chuck slowly puts together the pieces of the puzzle and makes his way to the mansion to pick up Lorna to go to Havana after all. But Roman and Gino, sitting in the same club as where Davidson and Chuck are, are made aware of Lorna & Chuck's plans by sheer coincidence and drive off to the harbor to stop them...

The plot of the movie contains the major, and highly unexpected, twist of the whole escape to Havana which culminates in the deaths of both Lorna and Chuck being nothing more than a dream sequence. It turns the movie upside-down, from a fairly straight-forward noir thriller about Chuck and Lorna trying to escape from Eddie Roman's crooked ways with them eventually ending up dead, to a weird amnesia-like noir where Chuck might or might not relive/escape the events in Havana once again. It is a weird, but very intriguing twist, but not exactly the only crazy thing about this movie. Another unique thing is Eddie Roman's car, which has a James Bond-like gadget: it has an extra set of pedals fitted in front of the backseat, so Eddie can take over and control the speed of the car. It provides for a memorable scene where Eddie tests Chuck's nerves, as well as Gino's, trying to overtake a speeding train. Yet another unusual aspect of this movie is the use of repetition, which happens not just with the whole escape to Havana plot which Chuck is set to relive again after waking up. The scene with Eddie taking over the car controls occurs again near the end of the movie, using similar camera angles to emphasize the repetition element. And when Chuck first arrives at the mansion to return Eddie's wallet, Chuck has the exact same conversation twice to the person peering through the door's spyhole, first to the servant, and then to Gino.

While Robert Cummings is better known for playing in more lighthearted movies, he does okay here, although he's a bit bland here as Chuck. Michèle Morgan doesn't convince all that much either as Lorna, she's beautiful but too much of a demure wallflower for me to see how Eddie Roman ever fell for her, nor does she come off as sultry, even though it's clear she's supposed to. Morgan was a far more successful actress in her native France than in the USA, this was the last movie she did in the USA. To her credit, she has only the slightest foreign accent in this movie.

Per usual, the villains are the more interesting, and in this case also convincing, characters of this movie. Steve Cochran as Eddie Roman is suave but ruthless and violent. The first time he makes an entrance in the movie he verbally abuses 2 women, a barber and a manicurist, and when the manicurist accidentally scratches his finger, because he moved but she didn't, he gives her a vicious slap around her face. Later on in the movie he demands some perks from a wealthy businessman, and when the man declines, Roman casually invites the man into his wine cellar where the unsuspecting man dies a gruesome death when Roman's huge and beastly dog is set loose on him. Gino is equally callous and ruthless but is much slimier, something Peter Lorre excelled at. His role is pretty small here, but he has a few good oneliners and the typical cigarette dangling from his lips, and Lorre is always a treat in noirs. The relationship between Cochran and Gino is never fully explained in the movie, but it is clear that Cochran is closer to Gino than he is to Lorna, who he sees more as property than as a real person.

The movie, despite being weird and unique in places, is also dark and pure noir. Lorna is the femme fatale here, and the plotlines are as noir as they come. Visually it's also pure noir, there are tons of looming shadows, providing an ominous atmosphere throughout the movie, especially during the dream sequence in Havana. And the use of repetition, sometimes down to using the same camera angles or dialogue as mentioned before, gives the movie an even more creepy & dreamlike atmosphere than the dream sequence already does. The camera and lighting work is well done, with a few great shots and even some nice tracking shots, especially in the nightclub in Havana.

The movie's story is really good and quite clever and the weird aspects of it make it a pretty unique movie. But while Cochran and Lorre are good and convincing, Morgan and especially Cummings are a bit too lightweight to take this movie to the next level. So it's a bit of a frustrating movie as well, because it is also clear this movie had potential to be a lot mmore, with better actors for the protagonists and maybe some more work on the camera work. It's still a good and enjoyable film noir tho, and pretty unique. After re-watching it again I started to appreciate and see the quirkiness and small clues about the dream sequence much more. Definitely one to watch if you're a noir aficionado.

In A Lonely Place (1950)

1950 was an amazing year for film noir. A number of great noirs, including some genuine classics, were released that year: 'Sunset Boulevard', 'D.O.A.', 'The Asphalt Jungle', 'No Way Out', 'Night And The City', 'Where The Sidewalk Ends' and so on. Another noir classic from that year is 'In A Lonely Place'. It was directed by Nicholas Ray ('Knock On Any Door', 'Rebel Without A Cause'), with cinematography by Burnett Guffey ('Johnny O'Clock', 'Nightfall') and music by George Antheil ('Knock On Any Door', 'The Sniper'). The story was based on a novel by Dorothy B. Hughes, which was adapted by Edmund H. North and turned into a screenplay by Andrew Solt.

Humphrey Bogart plays Dixon Steele, a Hollywood screenwriter who hasn't produced a decent screenplay in a decade, also due to having served in the US army during WWII. One evening his agent Mel Lippman (Art Smith, 'Quicksand') gives him a mediocre, but best-selling, book to read, so he can turn it into a screenplay. Steele is not exactly interested and takes hatcheck girl Mildred (Martha Stewart) home with him, who just finished the novel and is raving about it. He wants her to give him a summary, and sends her home afterwards. The next morning he's woken up by his old army friend Brub Nicolai (Frank Lovejoy, 'The Hitch-Hiker'), who's now a detective. Mildred was found murdered, strangled and then thrown from a moving car. Steele is suspect #1, at least for police captain Lochner (Carl Benton Reid, 'Convicted'), as he's the last person to have seen Mildred and he has a long list of assault charges indicating a violent disposition. At the police station Steele shows very little interest or remorse for the murdered girl, but his new neighbor and actress Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame, 'Crossfire') gives him an alibi as she saw Mildred leave his apartment. Steele and Laurel fall for each other, hard. But Steele treats the murder almost like a joke, never really denying his involvement, and Laurel is feeling more and more doubts about Steele's innocence as time passes by, also because Dixon Steele has a volatile personality that can turn to violent rage in a matter of seconds.

The movie acts out in 2 halves, the first half is more concerned with Dixon Steele and his possible involvement in the murder, in the second half the murder takes a bit of a backseat and this part is more concerned with Laurel, as the romance between Dix and Laurel intensifies and she sees more and more of Dix's dark side and starts to doubt his innocence, or at least her own feelings about his possible involvement. The movie ends with a dramatic, intense and moving finale that is an acting tour-de-force. Those who say film noir and romance don't mix, need to see this movie.

The movie title reflects Dixon Steele's position in life, he's in a lonely place, created by his own persona. He's intensely cynical, moody, defiant (even when there's no reason for it) and seemingly always ready to burst out in anger and rage. The police records on charges filed against him for assaults and fights only speak against him. But despite being unlikeable and hard to deal with he also has a loyal side to him. In his own way he's also a rebel without a cause (Nicholas Ray pun intended). Steele doesn't deal well with stress and frustration, he lashes out and takes it out on anybody who happens to be in his vicinity. Steele has plenty of demons within, and is not afraid to let them out every so often. But he also sees Laurel as his last shot at a real relationship, a shot at redemption, which also makes him feel obsessive over her. Bogart, who shared a number of Steele's traits in real life, is perfect here, as the deeply flawed Dixon Steele who you should dislike and even hate but who you still care for, because there's a glimmer of humanity inside him, and his love for Laurel is so genuine.

Gloria Grahame is amazing as Laurel Gray, I might even prefer her performance here over Bogey's. Grahame was able to convey her beauty in sleazy ways like in 'Crossfire' (which earned her an Oscar nomination) and 'The Big Heat' as well as in classy ways like here, and she was a very gifted actress, more so than she's usually given credit for. Bogart, naturally, wanted his wife Lauren Bacall for the part of Laurel Gray but Warner wouldn't lend her out for the movie. But Grahame's own failing marriage at the time with director Nicholas Ray ended up giving her performance a very real and personal edge that shines through. Laurel's background story of her previous relationship isn't given a lot of attention, but enough so to make her character vulnerable despite her quick-witted remarks and general confident and very classy demeanor. Suffice it to say, Bogart and Grahame have incredible chemistry in this movie and their romance is as real and alive as any classic cinematic romance.

Steele makes a very good point in the movie when Laurel and him talk about a love scene he's written and he remarks how it is such a good scene because it is clear the two characters love each other without having the need to say 'I love you' constantly, comparing it to him preparing breakfast for them while she's sitting there half-asleep, claiming anybody can see they're in love. It is touching because of the lack of 'I love you's, not despite it. He's also written a few sentences for the screenplay that sum up their romance, and thus the movie as a whole, very succinctly: 

I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.

The cast does a stellar job throughout really, every character has a distinctive personality, and the actors are all doing a great job. Aside from the already mentioned characters, there's a small but memorable part for Robert Warwick as the almost forgotten actor-turned-drunkard Charlie Waterman, one of the very few people that Dixon Steele does not feel any contempt for. Steele jokingly, and lovingly, refers to him as 'thespian'. Which had a connection to real life as well, Bogart had the part of Waterman written specifically for Warwick, who helped Bogart out during his early years on the stage, well before his movie career.

Visually the movie is less noir and heavy on shadows than more traditional noirs, but it is used more subtly here to show the darkness in Steele. In one scene Steele is having dinner at Brub's place and has Brub and his wife Sylvia (Jeff Donnell) act out the way Steele envisions the way the murder happened. The light that falls on his face changes subtly in this scene to highlight his manic eyes as he gets wrapped up more and more in the scenario. He keeps telling Brub to squeeze harder, almost choking Sylvia, while he watches on with clear glee and excitement. Similarly, in other scenes where Steele shows his dark side, the light becomes a touch more contrast rich, changing the overall mood of the scene together with Steele's changing mood.

'In A Lonely Place' is a truly great movie, one that lingers on inside your head for a long time. It is a noir about the darkness of the soul, not the darkness of a criminal's soul but that of a damaged individual, who has a good heart, but one which might be damaged beyond repair. A must-see movie.

Dear Murderer (1947)

1947's 'Dear Murderer' is a great British noir thriller. It was directed by Arthur Crabtree with cinematography by Stephen Dade and music by Ben Frankel. The screenplay was co-written by Muriel & Sydney Box and Peter Rogers based on a play by John Legh Clowes.

Lee Warren (Eric Portman) is in New York for over half a year on a business trip, and he made his wife Vivien (Greta Gynt) promise to write him a letter every day. She's been unfaithful to him in the past so when letters start arriving erratically and eventually no longer arrive he grows suspicious. One night in a bar he sees a picture of his wife and one Richard Fenton (Dennis Price) in a tabloid-like magazine. He puts two and two together, and returns back home without telling Vivien, with murder on his mind. When he gets back home, Vivien is out, and he finds a stack of cards signed 'Love always, Richard' in her desk. He goes over to Fenton's place and confronts him. After making Fenton write a suicide note, he kills Fenton and organizes things so it does indeed look like a suicide. But as he's about to leave, Vivien and her new lover Jimmy Martin (Maxwell Reed) pay Fenton a visit for a drink. Warren hides in the kitchen with the dead body, as he waits for Vivien and Martin to leave, who have a quick drink and leave again. Warren can't resist the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, and re-organizes things, framing Martin for the murder of Fenton. Fenton's sister Avis (Hazel Court), Martin's former girlfriend, doesn't believe Fenton's suicide note and inspector Penbury (Jack Warner) also senses something fishy is going on, but after his assistant sergeant Fox (Andrew Crawford) finds a damning piece of evidence in Martin's car, Martin is arrested. Vivien realizes what Lee has done and promises to stay faithful if Lee will clear Martin's name. Lee comes up with an inventive story of how he followed Vivien and Martin that fateful night and arranged Fenton's suicide to look like a murder committed by Martin, to get rid of him. Penbury doesn't believe it and is now convinced Lee is responsible, but he has no evidence to back him up. But Lee isn't off the hook, as Vivien has a few tricks up her sleeve as well.

'Dear Murderer' boasts a very dense & twisty plot, which is executed in a very tight and effective manner, with very few filler scenes. It is similar to 'The Unsuspected' in many ways, it also takes places in relatively upper class circles, the main character is a polite, extremely clever and witty but ruthlessly calculated killer, there is a devious woman with an agenda of her own, and a lot of the fun of watching this movie comes from the sparks that fly off the razorsharp, yet civilized, dialogue and the seemingly clever murderous plans and the ensuing twists. There is also a lot of very black humor sprinkled throughout the dialogue in this movie. As this is a fully British movie, the hard-boiled dialogue of US crime/noirs of that era has appropriately been replaced by posh dialogue with a British accent with an almost innocent-sounding matter-of-factliness to the words, which hides the malice under a thin layer of polite veneer. When Warren holds Fenton at gunpoint and tells him to go lie on the sofa, he tells him he has 15 seconds to do so, despite the sofa being about a meter away from Fenton. I love this weird type of polite maliciousness, but I can also see how somebody else might just see it as contrived and ridiculous.

Eric Portman is perfect as Lee Warren, he's icingly charming and extremely polite even when he insults people, yet it is clear he is a ruthless and calculated killer. He is also extremely possessive and jealous, at no point during the movie does he seem to really love Vivien, but they're married so she's his property. Greta Gynt is equally impressive as Vivien, and is also equally unlikeable with her vile ways, and you almost feel like they deserve each other. They maintain their 'loving' image towards Penbury, but you can see and tell they loathe each other. I can see how some people find it unpleasant to watch such vile creatures as the main characters of a movie, but I thoroughly enjoy it, especially because they're so 'civilized' and 'polite', it makes for a very nice contrast, emphasizing their true natures.

The other actors do a pretty good job too, although they are less interesting as they are given less personality to work with, and let's be honest, the villains are almost always more interesting to watch. The exchange between Warren and Fenton however during Fenton's final night, is quite nice. Fenton's a barrister, a lawyer, and he is a typical stiff upperlip Englishman, polite through and through. Coupled with Warren's need to detail his 'perfect crime' plan on how to kill Fenton to him to see if Fenton can find a hole in it, it makes for a very exciting first third of the movie.

The scene where Warren goes to Penbury and explains to him how he intentionally tried to frame Fenton's suicide as a murder committed by Martin, is done in a wonderful manner. Warren is so quick with his mind, and clever, that during the course of this movie he's able to fairly convincingly turn Fenton's murder into a suicide, then into a murder committed by somebody else, and then back into a suicide again. It is to the credit of the screenplay (and ultimately the original play) that everything comes off fairly believable.

Visually the movie feels a bit cramped, due to the confined spaces where most of the movie takes place in, which is further aided by the dark shadows, when someone enters a unlit room during nighttime, it is indeed dark, not semi-lit by offscreen lights. It helps make this movie feel claustrophobic and adds tension and suspense. Also, as is not uncommon in noirs, when lights do get turned on, they only manage to light up a part of the room, leaving other parts still obscured.

Near the end of the movie, Lee says to his wife 'I don't like putting things on paper, you never know what people will make of it afterwards.' which bookends the start and end of this movie perfectly with an ironic twist of events, or a reversal of fortune if you will. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie with its witty posh dialogue, clever story and some truly nasty characters. Highly recommended!

Alias Nick Beal (1949)

'Alias Nick Beal' from 1949 is the film noir version of 'Faust'. In this case, Mephistopheles, the Devil's servant, is Nick Beal (Ray Milland) and Faust is Joseph Foster (Thomas Mitchell). The movie was directed by John Farrow ('The Big Clock' also starring Ray Milland, 'Night Has A Thousand Eyes'), with a screenplay by Jonathan Latimer ('The Glass Key', 'The Big Clock') after a story by Mindret Lord. The music was done by the great Franz Waxman ('Sunset Blvd.', 'Sorry, Wrong Number') and cinematography was handled by Lionel Lindon ('The Blue Dahlia', 'Quicksand').

Joseph Foster is a successful and honest District Attorney who is working on a big and highly publicized case against a local mobster, Hanson. Unfortunately the main incriminating piece of evidence that he's about to lay claim to, Hanson's financial books, ends up burned to crisps. Without it he doesn't have a case. In desperation he cries out 'I'd give my soul to nail him!', at which point he receives a message that someone named Nick Beal can help him. Nick Beal miraculously knows where Foster can get the evidence he needs, a copy of the books, albeit in an illegal manner. But Foster goes for it, convicting Hanson is more important to him than a little case of theft. And from that moment on, he's firmly stuck in Beal's clutches, but Foster doesn't realize it yet. In fact, his career skyrockets, and he gets asked to run for governor after the successful trial. Beal begins to meddle with Foster's run for governor and closes a few deals that Foster would not have made himself including a deal with another criminal, Faulkner (Fred Clark), to buy votes. Foster doesn't like it at first, but the deals are beneficial to the election, so he accepts them. This does alienate Foster from his closest friends however, including Reverend Thomas Garfield (George Macready) who thinks he's seen Beal's face before. But as Foster finds out after he's become governor, when you sell your soul to the devil, you really do sell your soul, and the devil intends to collect.

There are various ways in which Beal manipulates Foster, some more obvious than others. Beal picks up a prostitute, Donna Allen (Audrey Totter), and puts her up in a modern-looking apartment, complete with impressionistic art painted on the walls. He gives her expensive clothes and jewelry encrusted with sapphires. Even the maid's name is Opal. He sets her up with a central position in Foster's campaign, instructs her how to behave around Foster, and before he knows it, he's fallen for her, and neglecting his marriage to Martha (Geraldine Wall). Another way is setting up Foster as the prime suspect for the murder of Hanson's bookkeeper, who burned the original books that Foster needed, and then making sure Foster is cleared, right after explaining to him how he has become the main suspect. Foster does realize he's being blackmailed by Beal at various points in the movie, but he's unable to do anything about it and unwilling because his career is still moving towards the sky, because of Beal. But the biggest manipulation happens when Beal has Foster sign a contract that he will give Beal a meaningless post in his governor's administration, with an innocent-sounding clause should he fail to do so. And of course Foster fails to do so, because lo and behold, he finally realizes all he's done and let happen around him to reach the position of governor, and so he resigns... What a fool.

Ray Milland is outstanding as the icy cold, sinister, calculating and suave Nick Beal who is seemingly one step ahead of everybody else. There's a running gag throughout the movie where Beal appears in a scene seemingly out of nowhere. In one scene Foster is pacing a room, stands still and when he moves again Beal is standing behind Foster. In others, he appears from behind a curtain or just happens to stand in a corner of a room, unnoticed by everybody else in the room and unseen until the camera shifts position slightly. Or Foster entering an empty room with Beal rising out of a lazy chair all of a sudden. It adds to the creepiness surrounding Nick Beal. In that particular scene Foster is looking for ice for some drinks he's fixing and Beal casually mentions 'There isn't any ice my friend', hinting at the place he intends to take Foster to.

Audrey Totter shines here as well with her great facial expressions. Totter was an actress with a unique look, she had a very expressive face, her eyes especially speak volumes, and she makes good use of it here. At one point in her/Beal's apartment Beal instructs Donna on how she should sway a conversation she's about to have with Foster in a certain direction. Beal gives her a word-by-word play of the upcoming conversation, and Donna pays attention, half-heartedly. But during the actual conversation she realizes Foster is saying verbatim what Beal said he would, and her face and eyes are full of amazement but also fear for Beal, who's eavesdropping from the next room. Another fine example is when she's sitting half-drunk at a bar and constantly asks the bartender what time it is, in what is a quite funny scene until Nick Beal makes his eery entrance. It is done beautifully, both visually and Totter's acting.

The rest of the cast are solid throughout, playing parts that they have seemingly played dozens of times before, Mitchell as the good and somewhat naive guy, Clark as the slimy criminal. Macready is cast against type, his noir roles were usually as a villain, but he does a good job as the reverend who eventually comes to believe that Beal is the devil.

Visually the movie's best parts are in and surrounding Beal's favorite hangout, which is a shoddy bar at a bay, which seems perpetually covered in a thick fog, making for some very noir shots. The way Beal first enters the movie, appearing through the fog while whistling a tune, sets the mood perfectly. In a similar fashion he appears before Donna after she's been kicked out of the bar, sudden and out of the fog. The ending sequence of the movie also happens there, in the thick fog, as he's about to lead Foster away to his final destination, but not before the reverend and Foster's wife Martha catch up with them. It's a bit of a letdown to be honest (altho it is to be expected), with Beal of course leaving empty-handed. But it doesn't take away from an otherwise fun and good movie with great performances by Ray Milland and Audrey Totter. Don't pass up on this one!

Nightfall (1957)

Jacques Tourneur is mostly known in film noir circles because of his classic movie 'Out Of The Past' from 1947, and rightfully so. But that's not his only contribution to film noir. One of his other contributions is 1957's 'Nightfall', which while very much a film noir, could very well be called a 'film blanc' or a 'film neige' as key parts of the movie take place during the daytime in the snow-covered mountains of Wyoming. 'Nightfall' was adapted into a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant after the novel by David Goodis. Burnett Guffey ('In A Lonely Place', 'Johnny O'Clock' and a ton more noirs) was the cinematographer and George Duning scored the music. The title song, a rather boring laidback crooner sung by Al Hibbler, makes it sound like the city scenes take place in Las Vegas, but it's Los Angeles.

The story is a take on the oft-used 'innocent man on the run' story. Aldo Ray plays Jim Vanning, this story's man on the run. His real name is Art Rayburn but he's changed his identity and whereabouts several times after a hunting trip he made with his best friend, Doc Gurston (Frank Albertson). During that trip, in the mountains of Wyoming, and right before snowfall is expected to render the area they're in inaccessible, they see a car skid off the road. They go over to help out, but it turns out the men in the car are 2 bankrobbers, John (Brian Keith) and Red (Rudy Bond), who are on the run with a bag filled with $350,000. They kill Gurston and leave Vanning for dead, making it appear like Vanning shot Gurston, and take off in Vanning's car, but with Gurston's medical bag instead of the bag with the money. Vanning comes to and takes off with the bag before John and Red discover their mistake and return to the campsite. During his flee Vanning loses the bag but afterwards has no idea where exactly that happened. He manages, through a few odd jobs, to make his way to Los Angeles where he works as a commercial painter for ads and such. There he waits for the day that the snow is cleared from the Wyoming mountain area so he can go back and try and find the bag of money. Of course John and Red are trying to find him, to tell them the location of the money, as well as insurance agent Ben Fraser (James Gregory) who has been assigned to the case by the bank's insurancy agency to retrieve the money. The night before the snow is supposed to be cleared Vanning meets model Marie Gardner (Ann Bancroft) in a bar/restaurant and they hit it off. But as they are leaving John and Red have finally caught up with Vanning, setting off a chain of events that ends up with Vanning, Marie, Red, John and Fraser all travelling to Wyoming in search of the bag of money.

There's a suggestion of a possible affair between Vanning and Doc Gurston's wife Eva, who's 20 years younger than him. During a heart-to-heart conversation at the campsite (well, Gurston's heart to Vanning's 'meh') Gurston thanks Vanning for not treating the age difference between him and his wife any different than had it been 1 year and respecting their marriage. Vanning doesn't really answer it and walks away, suggesting things are maybe not as innocent as Gurston thinks. This possible affair is again hinted at later on as Vanning explains to Marie that Gurston's wife had written him some indiscreet letters, which he kept in his apartment rather than threw away, which the police found after Gurston was found murdered and searched his apartment, making him at the very least a man of interest to the police. Add that to the way Gurston's murder was set up, with Vanning's fingerprints the only ones on the gun that killed Gurston, and there you have your typical innocent man on the run.

What sets this movie apart from most other noirs is obviously the outdoors setting. The snow-covered mountains give it a distinctive and different look to the usual shadow-filled darkness of film noir (much like Tourneur's 'Out Of The Past'). Even so, this movie still feels like a film noir. Besides the landscape, the real stars of this movies are Jacques Tourneur and Burnett Guffey, their visual direction and cinematography are outstanding. Not flashy or elaborate, but highly effective, beautiful and clever, and much slicker and more stylish than the movie's low budget would suggest. Around the 20 minute mark where Vanning is roughed up and interrogated by Red and John there is a clever transition to Ban Fraser and his wife having a nighttime conversation about Vanning, and then another clever transition back to Vanning and the robbers, both transitions happening so smooth and seamlessly, you don't really take notice of them until you realize you're in a completely different scene again. It's small things like that that make this movie so great to watch.

Aldo Ray gives a bit of a weird performance as Vanning. He shows hardly any emotion and while he has the perfect gruff husky voice and physical build for a great noir protagonist, he's simply not very believable to me here. Rudy Bond as Red also didn't do much for me, he tries to give his character a crazy and maniacal edge but it's not done very well in my opinion, an actor like Timothy Carey could have done this far better. There's also a lack of sparkle and electricity between Jim Vanning/Aldo Ray and Marie Gardner/Ann Bancroft, who is pretty good here however like most of the cast. Bancroft is beautiful here, in an understated, almost serene, way. Apart from Ray and Bond's not-so-impressive performances, the rest of the cast are solid here, I particularly like Brian Keith as the obvious leader and brains of the bank robbery, he has a great menace-filled aura around him.

The dialogue should be addressed too. When Vanning first meets Marie Gardner and they strike up a conversation, there's a perfect description of a noir protagonist:

Gardner: You sound like a man with a problem.
Vanning: [..] Yeah, I got problems. Who hasn't?

He doesn't say it in a hard-boiled, tough manner but more so in a matter-of-factly, almost defeatist, way. Gardner later on has some more great lines that touch on the building blocks of film noir:

Things that really happen are always difficult to explain.
&
I'm always meeting the wrong man. It's a talent, forming what the psychiatrists call "doomed relationships". 

Having said that, the dialogue does come off as staged and fabricated at times. I didn't mind it, but it did strike me as such a few times, which is never a sign of greatness.

But don't let that keep you from watching this movie. Overall, it's a pretty good and entertaining movie which is beautiful visually. It's got its flaws but in my opinion they're outweighed by the good parts, so it is still a recommended noir in my book.

Johnny O'Clock (1947)

As I noted in  my review for Dick Powell's first noir, 'Murder, My Sweet', he attempted to switch up his career by taking up less light-hearted roles compared to his musicals and romantic movies that made him a household name. 'Johnny O'Clock' from 1947 was his third noir (after 'Murder, My Sweet' and 'Cornered') and as in 'Murder, My Sweet', he succeeds remarkably well. The movie was directed by first-time director Robert Rossen ('Body And Soul', 'The Hustler'), who also wrote the screenplay after a story by Milton Holmes. Rossen was known already for his screenplays, including 'Marked Woman' and 'The Roaring Twenties' which are both considered proto-noirs, and he also wrote the screenplay for noir 'The Strange Love Of Martha Ivers' right before 'Johnny O'Clock'. The cinematography was handled by Burnett Guffey ('In A Lonely Place', 'Private Hell 36', 'Nightfall') and the music was done by George Duning ('Scandal Sheet', 'Nightfall').

The plot of the movie is pretty twisty and convoluted but revolves around essentially 2 storylines, which are of course connected in various ways.
The first storyline revolves around Johnny O'Clock (Dick Powell) who runs an illegal gambling joint together with Guido Marchettis (Thomas Gomez). Marchettis is married to borderline alcoholic Nelle (Ellen Drew), O'Clock's ex-girl who still wants O'Clock but married Marchettis because he can provide her with the lavish lifestyle she wants. Nelle gives O'Clock a watch with an engraving as a gift, but he doesn't want things to get any more complicated than they already are. He drops off the watch with hat-check girl Harriet Hobson (Nina Foch) to return to Nelle. But the next morning Harriet is found dead, she apparently killed herself. The connection to the second storyline is Chuck Blayden (Jim Bannon), who's Harriet's boyfriend and wants to replace Johnny as Marchettis' partner in the gambling outfit.
The second storyline revolves around inspector Koch (Lee J. Cobb) and his search for Blayden, who is a crooked cop and wanted for several murders (which are suspected to be ordered by Marchettis). In his search for Blayden he finds the dead body of Harriet. Harriet's sister Nancy Hobson (Evely Keyes) flies into town to deal with her sister's death, and ends up falling for Johnny, who took a liking to Harriet. Blayden however turns up dead and Koch is convinced O'Clock knows more than he's willing to share.

Dick Powell is great as Johnny O'Clock with an arrogant, cocky and self-assured demeanor. He keeps everybody at bay with hard-boiled retorts, veiled insults and sarcastic quips while keeping a very suave air around him. He's not gritty and tough like Sam Spade or Mike Hammer however, which gives his hard-boiled talk a smoother and different edge. But he does also have his soft side as well, he seems fond of Harriet, and he's taken in a former delinquent as a roommate. This roommate, Charlie (John Kellogg), and him have a weird mentor/pupil-like relationship going on which might be meant to suggest a homosexual side to O'Clock', who does play it real cool, ice-cold even, around the ladies... Until Nancy enters his life, and even then he cannot help but build a brick wall around himself, despite falling for her. Evelyn Keyes ('The Prowler', '99 River Street') does a solid job with her portrayal of Nancy, the only downside is that they don't seem to really connect, there aren't any real sparkles between her and Powell/O'Clock.

In that respect, Ellen Drew is better, she gives a great performance as Nelle, who flirts a lot with Johnny, and seems to take even more pleasure in it when Guido is around, and their innuendos seem real. Lee J. Cobb ('Thieves' Highway', 'Call Northside 777') plays his usual type of role, that of a smudgy trenchcoat-wearing detective/cop with a cigar hanging from the corner of his mouth and the tenacity of a bulldog. He's solid but at the same time, it's almost a caricature part, the second you see him, you know his entire character. Not that I mind, Cobb was great at playing these types of characters. Thomas Gomez ('Key Largo', 'Macao') is pretty slimey and sleazy as Marchettis, he's fun to watch in this movie.

The movie looks beautiful, there are some great shots and the play with shadows, (cigarette) smoke, staging and lighting is impressive. At times it even looks like the visuals and atmosphere of the scene are more important than the actual story, which does make the movie hard to follow at times. But it doesn't mean the movie is slow, it's well-paced and moves along rapidly. It's highly enjoyable and I'm surprised/disappointed that this movie hasn't had a proper DVD release yet. It certainly deserves it.

D.O.A. (1950)

Edmond O'Brien is one of my favorite actors when it comes to film noir, and 1950's 'D.O.A.' is one of the reasons why. It's a classic film noir with a very noir protagonist, a man who simply cannot escape his doomed fate. The movie was directed by Rudolph Maté, who was better known as a cinematographer ('Gilda', 'Foreign Correspondent'), this was one of the first movies he directed. Cinematography was handled by Ernest Laszlo (1951's 'M', 'Stalag 17'), the music was done by Dimitri Tiomkin ('I Confess', 'Dial M For Murder'). The story was written by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, who worked together in different capacities on a number of movies, including noirs 'The Well', 'The Thief' and 'New York Confidential'.

The movie's opening scene is a noir classic. The camera follows a man from behind as he enters a large police building and walks down seemingly endless hallways, with the dramatic music's tempo almost in sync with his footsteps. He finally reaches his destination, room 44: homicide division. There he has a classic conversation with the chief:

'I want to report a murder.'
'Sit down... When was this murder committed?'
'San Francisco, last night.'
'Who was murdered?'
'I was.'

It is only until right before the last line is said that the camera shows the man's face. It is Edmond O'Brien. His name is Frank Bigelow, and he recounts to the policemen the story of how he was murdered and his investigation into the murderer's identity and reasons.

Bigelow is an accountant in a small town, who has a girlfriend, Paula Gibson (Pamela Britton), but isn't too committed and he enjoys looking at other women (shown/heard in a rather awkward way by the sound of a wolfwhistle whenever he spots a nice-looking dame early on in the movie). He is going on a week-long vacation to San Francisco, without Paula. There he joins a group of people who are staying in the same hotel as he is, and they end up in a small bar. When he's trying to talk to a woman at the bar, somebody switches his drink. He remarks how the drink tastes funny, but thinks nothing of it. The next morning he doesn't feel too well, and decides to get checked up by a doctor. There he gets the rather unexpected news that he's dieing, he's got a week to live at most. Bigelow has 'luminous toxic matter' inside his body, a poison that affects his organs and for which there is no antidote. Understandably upset he runs off to a hospital, only to have the diagnosis confirmed. The doctor there even shows him a testtube filled with the luminous poison, apparently extracted from his body, and indeed, it lights up in the dark! The doctor wants to inform the homicide department because Bigelow does not know where he ingested it, and as the doctor explains: 'I don't think you understand, Bigelow. You've been murdered'. Since the poison's been in his system for 12 hours and there's a lot of alcohol in his system, somebody must've spiked a drink the night before. This doctor gives him a week at most. But Bigelow wants to find his killer before he dies, and why he needed to die, so he goes off in search of the truth on his own. His first stop, the bar from last night... And then there's also this mysterious man that kept calling his office profusely during his absence, who committed suicide soon after...

The movie hints at the nuclear/radioactive paranoia of the time by using a 'luminous poison' (it even lights up in the dark) and later on in the movie a bill of sale for a shipment of iridium shows up which turns out to be critical to the plot and Bigelow's fate. It's not a far stretch to think of radioactive iridium isotopes, but this angle is not as obvious though as in for instance 1955's 'Kiss Me Deadly'. Still, it seemed pretty deliberate to me.

The aforementioned wolf-whistles are a strange and awkward sound that appears in the first quarter of the movie. But they were possibly added to make a quite melodramatic scene near the end of the movie even more melodramatic, when Bigelow finally declares his love for Paula to her. Through his predicament, he discovers that Paula is indeed the woman he truly loves. It is by far the least interesting part of the movie to me. There is also a hoodlum later on in the movie played by Neville Brand, who comes off as a second-rate copy of a more memorable hoodlum like Tommy Udo from 'Kiss Of Death', Brands' character is more laughable than crazy and menacing really.

The rest of the movie is extremely entertaining however. O'Brien gives a great and intense performance here, as usual. Bigelow is a doomed man with nothing left to lose, so he doesn't care that he has to ask direct and painful questions to a woman about her husband who just committed suicide, which of course isn't a suicide at all. There is also the, fairly stereotypical, suave villain with the foreign accent, played here in competent manner by Luther Adler. His part isn't big enough to leave much of an impression however, the movie focuses squarely on Bigelow.

There are plenty of memorable scenes here. There is a beautifully shot scene where Bigelow faces his killer inside the Bradbury Building in Los Angeles. Also, after Bigelow hears about his inevitable death, he runs from the hospital, and the camera follows him as he runs across San Francisco, seemingly for miles. He finally collapses against a newpaper stand, which ironically just happens to sell a lot of Life magazines. There is also a cool and suspenseful stand-off between him and the killer, who is never seen in this scene, in an abandoned industrial complex (which oddly enough has a lively photo studio next to it).

All in all, 'D.O.A.' is indeed a noir classic, it starts off with a bang, then briefly turns into a weird slapstick-like piece but quickly changes back again to a tense noir once Bigelow gets the bad news. Highly recommended!