Chicago Deadline

/ Colin McGuigan / 4 Comments

According to Aristotle, our characters are the result of our conduct. Supposing that to be true, what better way then to arrive at the measure of an unknown individual than to delve into what they have done. Chicago Deadline (1949) takes that assertion as its premise and runs with it. It’s something of a retrospective approach to storytelling, traveling further into the past than into the future, resulting in a story which has perhaps moved only a few paces forward by its conclusion in contrast to its frequent and lengthy sorties into what went before. As such, it lends itself well to the detective or mystery story and succeeds on that level while falling short when it comes to the broader question of exploring the character of the woman whose spirit haunts the protagonist and the picture as a whole.

Chicago Deadline is a film of questions. Who was Rosita Jean d’Ur? How and why did she come to die in a cheap boarding house in Chicago? What is the significance of the notebook she left in her purse? And what of all the names and numbers contained within its pages? All of those questions are raised inside the first few minutes and most of them are answered by the end of the movie, some more satisfactorily than others. On the surface, the first question ought to be the easiest to tackle. In a sense, it is as the basic background of Rosita (Donna Reed) is established quite rapidly. Her body is chanced upon by reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) and, as would be the case with any newsman worth the name, he is mildly intrigued at first, especially when he notices the crammed notebook she kept. As he starts to casually make his way through that book, out of idle curiosity as much as anything at this stage, he is struck by the fact that his calls to the numbers listed elicit a range of responses, from suspicion and mild panic to outright hostility. If the varied reactions weren’t enough, the eclectic nature of the names and their social standing add a deeper layer of interest – Rosita apparently had the ear, as well as the numbers, of all types, from the upper reaches of society to the lowlifes circling the gutter. A spectrum as broad as that commands attention in itself, and then a growing number of people named in Rosita’s little book begin to turn up dead…

I’ve seen Chicago Deadline compared to Otto Preminger’s Laura, mainly due to the fact it involves an investigator researching a dead woman’s past although here the questions of identity and obsession are absent. While this makes it a much less emotionally complex piece of work, there is enough in the concept to hold the attention. It is, after all, a well constructed mystery. Lewis Allen was no Preminger, but he was more than competent, knew how to shoot attractively and made a number of highly entertaining movies. He makes sure this flashback heavy production with a plot that grows increasingly convoluted as it goes along remains lucid. The basic thrust of the narrative never gets lost among the switches and turns of the plotting and he blends in a sprinkling of suspense, atmosphere, and gentle melancholy as required. As I said at the top of this piece, the movie works fine on those terms. However, it does not manage to get across a true sense of who Rosita really was. We see her, via the memories of those who knew her, move through the stages of her life and from one relationship to another without getting a strong handle on what made her tick. She appears to have meant different things to different people yet, by the end, I had no sense of which of those contrasting impressions was the real one. Perhaps that was the intention?

Alan Ladd was at his peak around this time with a string of good performances behind him and plenty of variety still ahead. That laconic, self-contained quality of his was often employed in tough guy parts and while I can see why, I also think his quiet introspection expressed a powerful empathy, a sort of instantly recognizable and tacit decency. His character follows up the story of Rosita not only because it is his job but also because the pitiful end of a human life touched something inside him. In short, Ed Adams experiences an emotional itch that has to be scratched and Ladd was able to capture that. Donna Reed is fine too as Rosita, but the writing never gives her enough to work with – she is still largely a cipher at the end of the movie, clearly exploited yet curiously lacking that spark that must surely have been present to have drawn so many to her in life. I’m left wishing June Havoc had been featured more prominently in the movie. She was excellent in her scenes with Ladd, knowing, weary and funny all at once. Arthur Kennedy does some nicely judged work as Rosita’s brother even though he too only appears intermittently. Berry Kroeger portrays another of those reptilian types he excelled at as the principal villain, and there are nice turns, silky and nervy respectively, from Gavin Muir and Shepperd Strudwick.

Chicago Deadline was only viewable in extremely poor quality for a long time, so poor in fact that it was a chore to be endured rather than a movie to be enjoyed. However, Kino have since released it in one of their film noir collections – along with Iron Man and The Mystery of Marie Roget. As a result, what is available to watch now is streets ahead of those dreadful, blurry prints of the past. All in all, it is an absorbing noir mystery, briskly and professionally directed by Lewis Allen and anchored by a solid Alan Ladd performance. It’s by no means perfect and I’m not sure it achieves all it sets out to do. Bosley Crowther, a man who rarely seemed to sleep in a bed with a right side, was sour on it. Nevertheless, I think most noir and/or mystery fans will get something out of it.

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The Rawhide Years

/ Colin McGuigan / 34 Comments

I like westerns. I like writing about them and I like talking about them. And I like good westerns. There of course is the rub, and while it’s not the existential crisis faced by Hamlet it is hard to say with any degree of certainty what precisely constitutes a good western. Is it one which lingers long after we’ve viewed it? Or is that asking too much and are we straying into the territory of the greats? If not, then is it one which has a point to make? Is it a serious affair that provokes equally serious discourse? Or is it a movie which simply seeks to entertain? Perhaps I’m indulging in cakeism here, but I feel it’s all of the above at different times. The Rawhide Years (1956) is not a great nor particularly serious western, but it is a good one.

I couldn’t even begin to guess at the number of westerns which have navigated the hard and twisty trail leading to that last stop called redemption. It’s a path which practically defines the genre; if it’s not an essential ingredient, then I think it’s fair to say it enriches any western that features it. There can’t be many instances though of redemption being won early, and won with a smoothness that takes little effort, and then promptly ignored for the duration. Well, that’s basically what happens in The Rawhide Years, where riverboat gambler Ben Matthews (Tony Curtis) quickly realizes the error of his ways after swindling a hopeless dupe out of money he had no right to be playing with. It takes only the stern rebuke of a crusty straight arrow rancher (Minor Watson) and a subsequent invitation to try out honest work that sees Matthews abandon his current trade. His determination to make good is not shaken by the killing of his unexpected benefactor by river pirates, nor by the suspicion that is automatically directed at him and his partner – the latter falling victim to a lynch mob. Instead, he sets out first to make money on the up and up, then to win back his girl, and ultimately to achieve justice both for the man who was murdered and for his own tarnished reputation.

Rudolph Maté made a notable western debut with Branded but his later contributions to the genre were not quite as  strong. While The Violent Men is very good it probably should have been even better considering the kind of talent on display, and Three Violent People is patchy, though some of that is down to the writing. What all of those movies have in common is a serious, even sombre, tone. Beyond the western trappings, The Rawhide Years offers a complete contrast in that it’s a very lightweight affair, at least after the opening section is out of the way. It’s tempting, though actually unjust, to attribute that to the presence of Tony Curtis in the lead, a man who is not at all someone one would associate with westerns even though he did appear in a handful right at the start of his screen career. Curtis blends into the genre fine – a phenomenon noted before now is the way westerns had a tendency to absorb actors who, on paper at any rate, appear ill-suited – does not feel out of place and plays it absolutely straight. On the other hand, Arthur Kennedy brings a broad, swashbuckling amorality to his role as the sidekick who is forever on the make and always with an eye on the main chance. He gets some of the best lines and brings a real exuberance to the part, providing  much of the momentum to a loose and fast moving plot.

Colleen Miller catches the eye in a showy and relatively uncomplicated part as Curtis’ saloon girl sweetheart. She gets to play a few dramatic scenes but what sticks in the memory are her musical numbers, they never sound like anything that would have been performed in a frontier saloon yet they are colorful and attractively staged with Miller showing off some great looking gowns. Peter van Eyck is another who sounds like an odd choice for a western  – he did make a few more later on, the German/Italian Duel at Sundown as well as Shalako for Edward Dmytryk. Again, his casting works surprisingly well and his civilized, urbane air adds polish to his role as the principal villain. William Demarest was no stranger to westerns, or to any genre for that matter, appearing in a fair few throughout his long career. However, the fact he was in all those Preston Sturges movies means I automatically expect to see him produce a comedic turn. As such, it jars a little to have him play a supporting villain – this is not to say he is poor or weak, just an acknowledgement of my own preconceptions. And in his last feature role, the versatile William Gargan appears as the marshal .

The Rawhide Years was mainly shot on the backlot and on sets, with a few scenes on location at Lone Pine, and cinematographer Irving Glassberg has it looking well for the most part. As a piece of cinema this is pure confection, nicely packaged and hugely enjoyable from beginning to end but with very little substance. Nevertheless, this frothiness isn’t something that should be taken as a demerit or regarded as a criticism. The truth is the strength of the movie derives from the unbridled sense of fun that permeates it. Try it.

The File on Thelma Jordon

/ Colin McGuigan / 24 Comments

“I’m fed up. Ever heard that phrase? No, you wouldn’t. You’re not married.”

There’s that unmistakeable air of the mid-life crisis which pervades The File on Thelma Jordon (1949). It is clearly stated that the male lead is just 35 years old, but his attitude, his mindset, the cloud of vague dissatisfaction that dogs him all evoke a sense of middle-aged ennui. This is a classic noir setup, the monotony of finding oneself plowing along a rigidly defined rut, the soul-sapping realization that the adventurous promise of youth has yielded to the safe predictability of a humdrum existence. When a man becomes aware of this then the danger signals start to flash insistently. Maybe it’s a timeless affliction, but the postwar male was particularly susceptible to it. The struggles and sacrifices of WWII were supposed to lead to freedom and certainly something better than a dull and unfulfilling life, weren’t they? And this is the premise that underpins the drama which unfolds, the disillusionment felt by a man who finds himself hemmed in.

The File on Thelma Jordon works its way through a range of styles and touches on a succession of different genre conventions. It opens in a semi-comedic style, with Assistant District Attorney Cleve Marshall (Wendell Corey) painted in broad, almost farcical, strokes as he ties one on and revels in self-pity on the evening of his wedding anniversary. If he could be said to be unhappily married, it’s not so much that his discontent stems from his feelings (or any lack thereof) for his wife (Joan Tetzel), more that he is overwhelmed by his overbearing father-in-law.  When Thelma Jordon (Barbara Stanwyck) stops by the chief investigator’s office to report fears about burglaries at the home of her elderly and extremely wealthy aunt she is mildly amused. Soon though, a romance develops between Cleve and Thelma, an illicit one given his marital status and the gossipy instincts of people in general. At this point, the story has moved on via the furtive intensity of such love affairs to become something of a doomed romance picture, before taking a sharp left turn into thriller territory. This occurs when the old lady is discovered shot dead in her own parlor, with Thelma left in a distinctly tricky position – accused of murder in fact. What follows is a classic courtroom drama, one where Cleve contrives to have himself installed as chief prosecutor in the hopes of sabotaging his own case against Thelma. Finally, the story segues into full throttle melodrama with a truly startling climax.

Robert Siodmak could be said to have played one of the most instrumental roles in the development of film noir. One only has to look at the string of superb movies he made through the 1940s, starting with Christmas Holiday and finishing off with Deported, to see the quality of his work and how influential it remains. Even if it does not quite mark the end of that cycle, I think The File on Thelma Jordon counts as his last truly great film noir. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, the core of the story catches that post-WWII mood neatly: it is shot evocatively with deep chiaroscuro shadows, and plenty of noir visual motifs on show – bars, railings, blinds and tilted angles – and features a marvelously calculating femme fatale in Stanwyck. Siodmak frequently leant into melodrama in his films noir and the tendency is especially evident in this movie. Of course, a good deal of that is likely down to screenwriter Ketti Frings, whose work was notably strong in that direction. Around this time she also wrote the script for The Accused, another noir with a high melodrama quotient, not to mention a plot which is predicated on the notion of poor judgement and questionable choices. As such, visually, thematically and in terms of core concepts this represents a solid basis for a classic film noir.

Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey made three films together, all Hal Wallis productions for Paramount: this one, The Furies and Sorry, Wrong Number, the latter being the only one where they were not romantically paired. Does the relationship work? I would say it does as Corey is very successful at tapping into the more gullible or credulous aspects of his character. He is ultimately the dupe in a complex scheme and much depends on his ability to convey the transition from initial naivety, through suspicion, to eventual realization. In a way, the movie, via the characterization of Cleve, traces something of a circle – he starts out frustrated and disappointed and winds up arguably more disillusioned by the end, albeit in a very different way and for different reasons. Stanwyck turns in a performance of  great slyness and subtlety, the craftiness with which she carries off her part is something that becomes increasingly apparent with repeat viewings of the film, and therefore adds up to another finely judged piece of work from her.

The supporting cast all inhabit their roles satisfactorily too. Paul Kelly essays great sincerity as the investigator who is also Cleve’s friend. Stanley Ridges is deliciously slippery as the defense counsel who has pretty much everyone’s number right from the off. His early consultation with Thelma as both of them fence and dance around their suspicions is played with consummate skill, and again the layering and shading are even more impressive when the movie is viewed more than once. Joan Tetzel (Duel in the Sun, The Paradine Case) ends up slightly overshadowed in a role which is more straightforward than those around her, but she acquits herself well enough. Finally, Richard Rober does another solid job as Thelma’s old flame – he doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time but he was always a convincing noir presence. Without wishing to be glib, I have to to say there’s something almost eerie about the parallel between the shocking demise of his character in this movie and the way his own life was to be cut so tragically short just a few years later.

The File on Thelma Jordon was released on DVD and Blu-ray by the now defunct Olive Films, though it is still available to buy. I bought the DVD myself when it came out years ago and I feel the transfer still holds up well. The only disappointing aspect was the fact there were absolutely no supplements on the disc, which seems unfortunate given the quality of the cast, the director and indeed the movie itself. Even so, this is well worth tracking down if you can lay your hands on a copy. All told, it’s a smooth combination of melodrama and noir where no one comes away unscathed yet also one where the idea of redemption is still present.

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Six Black Horses

/ Colin McGuigan / 30 Comments

“There are some things a man can’t ride around.“

And there are some lines a writer can’t help revisiting, some setups as well when one thinks about it. Six Black Horses (1962) is about as close as we’re likely to get to a Budd Boetticher western without it actually carrying his name in the credits. Clearly a lot of that is down to the fact it was written by Burt Kennedy, the man who scripted Boetticher’s best films with Randolph Scott. Anyone familiar with those movies will instantly recognize the lines he recycled from those scripts – the one at the top of this piece has undoubtedly embedded itself deepest into most western fans’ consciousness, but there are plenty of others which, with minor tweaks, were first uttered by Scott, Claude Akins, Lee Marvin etc.

A dusty, sun-baked landscape, a man stoically making his way across it not on horseback but on foot, his saddle hefted on his shoulder. This is the first image on screen as the credits roll. The man is Ben Lane (Audie Murphy) and he’s badly in need of a horse. Just as he pauses to rest it seems as though his luck is in – a group of wild mustangs are approaching and a man in his position would be a fool to pass up the chance to rope and ride one of them. However, every story has a shape to it, and in this case it’s a repeating pattern of deliverance and danger. Every time salvation appears to be at hand its evil twin adversity is but a few paces behind. So it is that he finds himself on the end of a rope, accused of stealing horses and about to pay the traditional frontier penalty. It would be a short movie indeed, or a courageous approach to writing, were the hero to depart so early and unexpectedly. He doesn’t; his neck is quite literally saved by the intervention of Frank Jesse (Dan Duryea), a garrulous and amoral gunman who by his own admission has never done an honest day’s work unless it’s absolutely necessary. Together these two ride to the evocatively named town of Perdido and another brush with death. It is here that they meet a woman named Kelly (Joan O’Brien) who offers them the unimaginable sum of $1000 apiece to escort her on a four day trip across Apache infested badlands to rejoin her husband. With a bunch of thwarted mustangers hot on their heels, this is certainly an offer that’s hard to refuse. Once again though, it’s something of a toss up between prize and peril as the trio head into the desert and, to the viewer anyway, it soon becomes apparent that Kelly has something else on her mind.

Harry Keller directed a number of movies I like – Quantez, Seven Ways from Sundown, Man Afraid, and served as producer on others such as Mirage. He was comfortable making westerns and he uses the landscape well here, much of the action takes place out in the wild country and it serves to add scale to a story which is really limited to the interactions of just three people. Nevertheless, and despite the script by Kennedy, it never reaches the heights of those classic Scott/Boetticher/Kennedy films. And I think that’s largely down to the writing. Kennedy, as I have noted, borrows extensively from his own armory, as he did on a number of occasions. However, the success of the Ranown movies was due to a combination of Boetticher’s spare style, the laconic yet authoritative presence of Scott, and the way that star’s characters all had a powerful and compelling drive within them. What Six Black Horses lacks is the kind of implacable inner fire of the Scott figure – one could say some of that has been transferred to O’Brien’s character but it doesn’t work in the same way. Murphy’s Ben Lane is the lead after all and he simply is not motivated in the way Ben Stride, Ben Brigade (Kennedy clearly had a thing for the name Ben) or Jefferson Cody were.

Audie Murphy entered the 1960s in some style. He had done some of his finest work towards the end of the 50s in movies such as The Quiet American and No Name on the Bullet and was looking to build on that. The Unforgiven, Hell Bent for Leather, Seven Ways from Sundown and Posse from Hell certainly did that. In short, he was riding high at this stage and this movie must have looked like a solid way to follow up. He’s as reliable as ever in the lead with that ever present hint of edginess lurking just below the surface, but the fact is the part doesn’t place that many demands on him. He does everything the script asks for, it’s just that the script could have asked for more. Dan Duryea was appearing for the the third and last time alongside Murphy and every one of their collaborations is a pleasure in itself. Both of these men worked well together and their presence alone automatically elevates anything. The role of Frank Jesse was a comfortable fit for Duryea, drawing out that wheedling, weaselly charm he traded on so profitably throughout his career and also affording him the opportunity to dip into the well of pathos – the title itself has more resonance for his character than anyone else after all. Finally, Joan O’Brien holds her own as the third arm of the triangle, maintaining an air of mystery for a long stretch and then presenting a steely core when her true aims are revealed.

For a long time Six Black Horses was almost a lost Audie Murphy picture. I say almost because although it could be viewed the prints available were very poor – faded and frequently cropped. It’s hard to appreciate or even enjoy a movie under those circumstances. However, the film can now be seen as it should be as a result of a recent Blu-ray release in Australia from Via Vision, licensed from Universal. This is not a full restoration and some minor print damage is present, but the movie is in the correct aspect ratio, has strong colors and a sharp image. In brief, it is streets ahead of any of the ropey prints which had previously been circulating. It comes paired on a BD with an equally attractive presentation of Murphy’s The Wild and the Innocent and I heartily recommend it.

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Flamingo Road

/ Colin McGuigan / 47 Comments

“He’s the only man I know that can make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. Somehow I always hate to see it happen.“

Graft, greed, ambition , manipulation, betrayal… and that’s just a representative sample of the themes and ideas explored in Flamingo Road (1949). The list of descriptors that could be applied to the plot machinations and gyrations of prime melodrama is practically an endless one, all of which goes some way toward explaining how endlessly fascinating the genre tends to be, not to mention how compatible it is with other genres and styles of filmmaking.

The familiarity we all have with those aforementioned themes is part of what makes melodrama such an identifiable form; even if the status of those portrayed is far removed from that of the viewer, the core principles that drive the narrative have that everyman quality that allows an almost intuitive understanding of how the characters act and react. The opening lines of the movie reinforce that sense, reminding us that every town, big or small, has its Flamingo Road, one of those thoroughfares where those with money, power and influence reside. And all the other areas that make up a typical settlement, from civic centers to fleshpots, are to be found in the town of Boldon City. After dangling the promise of easy, gracious living on that titular street, we are transported to “the wrong side of the tracks” to the patch of ground occupied by a traveling carnival, one replete with freak shows and exotic dancers. Lane Bellamy (Joan Crawford) is eking out an uncertain living as one of those dancers, going through the moves under the dispassionate gaze of gum-chewing adolescents. With the show hastily being given the bum’s rush, she finds herself high and dry, so to speak.

When the reluctant and unmotivated sheriff’s deputy Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott) is sent to ensure the carnival has upped stakes and left, he finds only Lane reclining on her bunk in a shabby tent listening to the radio. Probably more out of pity than anything else at that stage, he takes her into town, buys her some food and even manages to wangle a job for her as a waitress in the local diner. None of this escapes the attention of the calculating sheriff Titus Semple (Sydney Greenstreet). Gross and glowering, this seersucker-clad kingmaker has lined Carlisle up as rising star in the local political landscape and seeing him mixed-up with a lowly carnival dancer is decidedly not part of the plan. To cut to the chase, the burgeoning romance is nipped in the bud, Lane is not only fired but also tossed in prison on a trumped up charge of soliciting, and the sheriff presses ahead with his ambitions. Yet Lane is made of sterner stuff and she gradually claws her way back into society, latching onto and marrying political boss Dan Reynolds (David Brian). Amid the occasional slights and the snobbery of a small town, Lane continues to butt heads with Titus and both of them warily circle each other as wheels turn within wheels in the background and the scene is relentlessly set for a zero sum game of revenge where the biggest casualties are likely to be Reynolds and Carlisle.

The screenplay of Flamingo Road was adapted from his play of the same name by Robert Wilder. While I’ve not seen the source material, I think it’s safe to say some alteration had to be made and euphemisms put in place to tiptoe around the inevitable production code objections to some of the developments. As I watched this I couldn’t help wondering whether Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus was at least a partial inspiration for the naming of the sheriff. Did Wilder have that tale of implacable and terrible revenge and rivalry between Titus and Tamora in mind when he came up with the character’s name? Either way, the film does descend incrementally into ever deeper darkness as the protagonists cut and parry at each other in their personal arena. The longer it goes on the more it shifts toward film noir. Michael Curtiz had already worked to great acclaim with Joan Crawford and Zachary Scott on the classic noir melodrama Mildred Pierce and leans into some of the same ideas here. He employs tried and tested noir imagery and techniques – reliance on shadows, blinds and frequent deep focus composition, particularly in the last act.

One of the great strengths of the studio system was its ability to make use of a pool of stars and cast them in roles that fit them like a glove. Of course that didn’t always come off and we can all probably think of instances of poorly judged casting. However, a movie such as Flamingo Road clearly demonstrates how successful it could be. The role of Lane Bellamy would have been meat and drink to Joan Crawford in the wake of her career resurgence in Mildred Pierce. The part offered plenty of scope to exploit the persona of style, grit and personal integrity she had honed by that stage. She was a powerful screen presence and needed someone equally strong to act as a foil – step forward Sydney Greenstreet. He was fast approaching retirement but his relatively short cinema career saw him grow into characters where his bulk and brooding threat was never less than memorable. He’s a superb villain, Machiavellian and dangerous with not even the faintest trace of a scruple. Zachary Scott was able to easily occupy roles defined by weakness and dissipation, and if his character’s downward spiral is not charted in as much detail as one might like, that’s down to the constraints of the script rather than any deficiency on the part of the actor.  The tragically short-lived Gladys George played the roadhouse owner in that style of hers characterized by a toughness born of personal honor. Maybe she doesn’t attain the level of pathos she did in The Roaring Twenties but she still turns in a performance that feels very credible. David Brian is terrific in his debut, fully invested in his part and with none of the stiffness that he could occasionally display.

Flamingo Road was available as a good DVD from Warner Brothers and has since been issued on a very attractive Blu-ray by the same studio. The movie is a wonderfully entertaining blend of melodrama and noir that is packed with interesting themes and developments, as such it’s not hard to see why it was picked up and expanded into a TV series in the early 1980s. Recommended viewing.

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Armored Car Robbery

/ Colin McGuigan / 30 Comments

Sometimes a title will intrigue, sometimes it will beguile, and sometimes it’s just self-explanatory. Armored Car Robbery (1950) by Richard Fleischer lets us know exactly what the subject  matter will be right off the bat. I guess if one wanted to be pedantic, the real focus of the movie is on the aftermath of that robbery in the title. Even so, there’s not much doubt about what you’re going to get and the film itself is a model of the same kind of pared back economy. It is most refreshing to spend time with a movie that can tell an absorbing story in a little over an hour without the narrative feeling rushed or unduly compressed.

We are thrown straight into the tale from the off, witnessing the finishing touches to a plan being applied by its mastermind Dave Purvis (William Talman). Nevertheless, even as we  watch him recording the response time of the LAPD to a reported incident at Wrigley Field ballpark, there’s that sense that all will not go off exactly the way he’s reckoned. It’s the way of things in crime movies, and maybe more tellingly the way of things in relation to human interaction. No matter how meticulous the planning, there’s no getting away from the foibles and vagaries of that most incalculable of all elements, the human heart. The illogicality, and in this case perhaps the emotional dysfunction, of humanity is neatly illustrated when the attention shifts to Purvis’ associate Benny McBride (Douglas Fowley). He is first glimpsed in a box seat in a burlesque theater with a big grin all over his face. Why? Because he’s getting a massive kick out of watching his estranged wife Yvonne (Adele Jergens) stripping on stage. It’s apparent too that he’s maybe deriving even more enjoyment from the fact he’s looking at an auditorium full of baying strangers lapping up the view. When we learn that that she wants no more to do with him, the spectacle of a man reveling in the pleasure of strangers watching the woman he can no longer have undressing in public is quite sobering. You just know this cannot end well, and it’s hammered home with greater force when yet another wrinkle is added – Purvis is romancing Yvonne behind McBride’s back. As such, when the heist alluded to in the title hits the inevitable snag, there’s no real surprise to be had. Somewhat perversely, given the tangle of personal affairs, the glitch comes from the outside, the combination of an unexpected error in the timing as well as a couple of stray shots. The result is a dead detective, a mortally wounded McBride and a panicked getaway. The rest of the movie follows on from that, with the tough and rasping Lieutenant Cordell (Charles McGraw) hell bent on running in the hoods who have left his friend dead on the sidewalk. It devolves into what we would now term a police procedural, as clues are painstakingly collated and woven into a net that will be drawn inexorably tighter.

Richard Fleischer’s early films noir are all enjoyably pacy movies, all coming home at around an hour with only Trapped stretching as far as 80 minutes or thereabouts. There’s a directness to them, a kind of relentlessness that drives them on toward a no nonsense resolution. That’s obviously a product of their B status, but Fleischer brought a style to his presentations that wasn’t always apparent in other budget features. His close-up shots are particularly effective, that focus on Fowley’s reaction to his wife’s performance has a certain shock value once it’s known what their relationship is. And the director gets mileage too from having Talman, Steve Brodie and Gene Evans scuttling round piles of lumber and freight on a shadow drenched dockside while McGraw’s squad tries to ferret them out. The later interrogation of Steve Brodie after he’s been picked up is tightly framed, emphasising how little wriggle room he has, and when McGraw thrusts himself aggressively into the shot there’s no doubt whatsoever how neatly he has been snared. None of this requires expensive or complex setups, just a good eye for composition and lighting and the awareness of how to catch a mood and portray it on the screen.

The best of the early Fleischer noirs are the two starring Charles McGraw – Armored Car Robbery and The Narrow Margin – both of which cast the hard-edged actor in what appear to be uncharacteristically heroic roles. So successful had he been as tough enforcer types for Anthony Mann and Robert Siodmak that he seems to have been born to inhabit such parts. Yet these two Fleischer movies use the man’s natural abrasiveness to excellent effect while still placing him on the side of the angels. The gruff, bulldog demeanor is fitting for a man in charge of a dangerous assignment, and one with a strong element of personal interest too owing to the death of his long-serving partner. He never comes across as unnecessarily belligerent, rather he is as forceful as any particular situation demands. William Talman was another of those supporting players who could shade his work according to the requirements of the script. He could be terrifyingly dangerous as in The Hitch-Hiker, combative and adversarial as Hamilton Burger in TV’s Perry Mason, or even selflessly heroic in The Racket. Adele Jergens had the right brassy quality as the femme fatale of the piece; maybe more could have been done with the triangle between herself, Talman and Fowley, but there’s enough on screen as it is and too wide a detour in that direction might well have slowed some of the story’s momentum. In support, one can’t ask for much better than people of the caliber of Douglas Fowley, Steve Brodie and Gene Evans.

Armored Car Robbery is what might be termed a textbook RKO film noir, tough and tight as a drum, and immensely satisfying to watch. I think that studio’s B movies were in a class of their own with high levels of craftsmanship on show on many occasions, and no little artistry to found in some of them too. Armored Car Robbery may be a small movie and a modest one at that, but it’s also straight out of the top drawer.

Mirage

/ Colin McGuigan / 18 Comments

A journey from darkness into light. That is as succinct a description of Mirage (1965) as any I can imagine. It is a slickly told tale of confusion, loss of identity and amnesia all wrapped in an almost dizzying aura of disorientation, which is perhaps only reasonable given the fact the movie was made right in the middle of the socially, artistically and politically tumultuous 1960s.

The titles appear over a nighttime tableau of a brightly lit New York skyline. And then, just as the film proper begins, one high rise building is abruptly plunged into darkness and so too is the world of our protagonist. In the gloom and flickering shadows cast by hastily struck matches and cigarette lighters David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) emerges into a corridor of bustling and chattering silhouettes, phantom forms looming out of and retreating back into the darkness, men and women wrenched suddenly from their corporate conviviality and left to flounder in an environment which has been rendered simultaneously bewildering and alluring by the simple expedient of a random power cut. Stillwell exchanges some banter with strangers and colleagues alike before heading for the stairs. There he runs into a young woman, Shela (Diane Baker), who appears to know him yet also talks in apparent riddles. Descending from the 27th floor, their conversation veers from dime store philosophy to coy flirtation, and in among it all is an intriguing reference to a mysterious Major. By the time the they reach the street level, suspicion and obfuscation has overtaken them. The girl has become inexplicably indignant and Stillwell is about to come face to face with the fact he is something of a cipher, not least in his own eyes.

When practically everything one thinks one knows is thrown into question, when sudden death and the ever present threat of further violence start to become commonplace, when one’s normally assured awareness of self is challenged at every turn, then doubts about sanity and reality start to creep in. There is the dreadful realization on the part of Stillwell that, quite improbably, he has no memory of the last two years of his life. He knows his name, and where he’s supposed to live, but that’s about it. The job he’s supposed to do feels unfamiliar, he has no friends he can recall and odd images pop up in his mind: a conversation beneath the boughs of a tree in a place far from the city, the shocked face of a man plummeting from a window high above the unforgiving sidewalk. With complexities and confusion piling on top of each other, with the girl drifting in and out of the picture, he consults first a rude and bellicose psychiatrist (Robert H Harris) and then a novice private eye (Walter Matthau) in his quest to discover who he actually is.

Adapted by Peter Stone (Charade) from a novel by Howard Fast, which I haven’t read and thus can’t comment on the script’s fidelity or otherwise to the source, Mirage is probably the last good movie made by Edward Dmytryk. It is what we have come to refer to as “Hitchcockian”, a twisty thriller with an everyman lead adrift amid a baffling set of circumstances, replete with a MacGuffin about chemical formulae and profiteering. Stories built around episodes of amnesia tend to grab the attention and there is a natural curiosity about what is really going on. The movie captures the perplexity of a man who cannot be sure of who or what he is, although the fear that should accompany it isn’t as well developed. The old noir staple of the flashback sequence is in evidence, or maybe it would be more accurate to speak of flashback moments. Isolated instances of the past regularly intrude on the present – a snatch of conversation, a word here and there, a man moments away from death. All of this evokes the feeling of knowledge swirling around the periphery of the mind, of memories darting glances at consciousness before retreating again to the security of oblivion. It works in that it keeps the viewer off balance and provides a kind of connection to the character on screen groping his way toward the truth.

The role of Stillwell wouldn’t have been a great stretch for Gregory Peck, a star who audiences generally trusted from the get-go. He had the air of a man you want to believe in yet he could also project internal conflict and pressures quite convincingly. In short, he came across as a guy it was possible to imagine getting himself tangled up in a mess such as this. Diane Baker is fine, but perhaps the role as written could have provided her with a bit more mystery, another layer of uncertainty for the hero to contend with. Walter Matthau again charms and amuses as the detective who blunders around nearly as blindly as Peck, using his hangdog weariness to excellent effect. On the other hand, Kevin McCarthy is wasted as Peck’s colleague, which is not to say he plays his part poorly. His screen time is limited and the role is underdeveloped – he does the slippery smarm well but flits in and out of the narrative too much to make any impression. Jack Weston and George Kennedy are enjoyably odd as enforcers, the former all craven obsequiousness while the latter is as belligerent and boorish as usual. Solid backup is provided by Robert H Harris, Walter Abel and Leif Erickson.

All told, Mirage is an admirable attempt at channeling the process of memory recovery, depicting a psychological struggle using the visual language of the cinema. That’s on a  purely technical level, but the movie works quite successfully as an entertaining thriller too. The film has long been available on a well authored DVD in the US and it has also been subsequently released on Blu-ray. I have this German BD, which I can heartily recommend.

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Lonely Are the Brave

/ Colin McGuigan / 25 Comments

My previous post was a brief perusal of two westerns from just before what can be seen as the cut off point for the classic western era. As with most if not all the genre efforts from around that time, there’s that sense of trying to look in two directions at once. If we do take 1962 as marking the last year for the truly classical western, it’s also interesting to look at a movie from that year which not only retains a strong feeling for the legacy of the genre but is also one which cast ahead in a way I increasingly feel was the path that ought to have been followed rather than the self-defeating one that grew out of the Spaghetti and revisionist versions. The film in question? Lonely Are the Brave.

The opening scene perfectly encapsulates the paradoxical situation at the heart of the story. Is there anything more evocative of classical western imagery than that of a weary rider stretched out on the open plains, resting up after a hard ride and a long day, gently warmed by the glow of the camp fire he’s built next to him – a man at peace and to all intents and purposes practically a part of the landscape he inhabits and works? And then the jarring intrusion of the modern world, the boom and roar overhead, drawing our eyes and his upward to focus on vapor trails carved across the sky by a passing jet aircraft. The message is simple: the world has changed, inevitably so, morphing into one of noise and urgency, where the travails and pleasures of an earlier time have been supplanted by an updated variety, and the only frontiers still unconquered are those the marvels of technology haven’t quite reached yet. All of that raises a question too, namely whether these two perceptions of the world can co-exist, or whether one must naturally wipe away the other. By the end, the latter is very strongly indicated, but I’m not sure if Dalton Trumbo’s script has entirely closed the door on the former. Even in the ultimate tragedy lies a grain of hope, and perhaps no more than half a grain at that, reflected in the bittersweet admiration of a lawman who sees the futility and waste in the contemporary world’s need to impose itself on a free spirit. One could argue that the last shot heard in the movie represents the one which killed the western, a coup de grâce for a genre which was about to slip into sharp decline. I do think that is mainly what Trumbo was expressing, although I also reckon he left the door not quite ajar but still open just a crack.

“A westerner likes open country. That means he’s got to hate fences. And the more fences there are, the more he hates them…Have you ever noticed how many fences there are getting to be? And the signs they got on them: no hunting, no hiking, no admission, no trespassing, private property, closed area, start moving, go away, get lost, drop dead!”

Whatever one’s opinion of the destination, the journey that gets us that point is a fascinating elegy to a myth. If the myth of the Old West had any meaning, it was as a celebration of freedom. Like all myths, however, this cannot be entirely true. Unfettered freedom is neither practicable nor possible once populations grow beyond a given point and societies, even on a rudimentary level, take hold. In the final analysis, there’s no getting away from the truism that one’s freedom extends only to the point where someone else’s begins. All of this is part of what makes the western such a compelling narrative vehicle. The entire concept has conflict built in, and conflict is the essential ingredient of drama after all. So many westerns have had as their foundation the idea of fences, be they physical or mental.

Jack Burns (Kirk Douglas) is one of the last holdouts against the relentless encroachment of contemporary life and the fences it brings with it. The first glimpse of the man confirms the impression of someone who is a walking anachronism. The attitude, appearance and lifestyle hark back to a time long gone, and his bemusement at the clamor and restrictions of the world around him makes the viewer wonder whether it’s one he has been dropped into rather than grown up with. His almost comical effort to navigate an insanely busy highway foreshadows the deeply unsettling conclusion of the picture, but it also serves to underline just how out of his depth this man is in the latter half of the 20th century. The film throws out these contrasts all the time – the way Burns is befuddled, abused and finally struck down by the brute force of modernity, juxtaposed with those scenes showing him in his element, resourceful and formidable in circumstances that favor his talents. Sure he sets himself up for difficulties in his efforts to make contact with his imprisoned friend (Michael Kane) but the way he falls foul of a bitterly aggressive one-armed man (Bill Raisch of The Fugitive) and then George Kennedy’s sour and sadistic jailer are more the result of his unfamiliarity with a world he shuns.

That world is one made up of prisons of various kinds. There is the literal one where his friend has wound up serving a two year sentence for trying to do the decent thing by some illegal immigrants, plus ça change indeed. Even Walter Matthau’s sheriff seems to spend a lot of time early on framed behind bars, albeit those set protectively into the walls of his own office. Always an immensely crafty performer, Matthau revels in the absurdity of life around him, musing on the enslavement of routine and regulation which even appears to extend to the neighborhood stray who marks his territory with near military precision on a daily basis. It’s a lovely character sketch, by turns dyspeptic and droll, and satisfyingly empathetic by the end.

Then there are the virtual prisons, those of their own making, which both Gena Rowlands and Kirk Douglas inhabit. She has locked herself into a marriage with a man who, by her own admission, she probably only half understands and from whom she is now unwillingly estranged due to his incarceration. Her affection, and maybe more, for Douglas is always apparent though in the little looks and gestures. The same applies to Douglas himself, the untamed loner who, like it or not, knows he’s beyond the point where he can change. In a movie ripe with poignancy, the touching little scene played out on the porch of Rowlands’ house before Douglas departs for the last time is superb – regret, longing and a love acknowledged and treasured yet still resisted all combine beautifully.

“Jack I’m gonna tell you something. The world that you and Paul live in doesn’t exist, maybe it never did. Out there is a real world and it’s got real borders and real fences, real laws and real trouble. And either you go by the rules or you lose. You lose everything.”

There is a great deal of loss in the film. At various points, dignity, freedom, and eventually even that tenuous hold we try to maintain on the past all are wrested from the grasp of the characters. This should mean it’s all relentlessly downbeat, but there are genuinely uplifting episodes sprinkled in among the grimmer ones. Douglas’ struggle up the rocky mountainside is an epic affair where his grit and cunning is put on trial repeatedly. It carries some of that Anthony Mann symbolism in the upward thrust, and the moment when he finally crests the peak and spurs “Whiskey”, his stubborn and recalcitrant mount, towards the treeline on the other side and the promise of salvation is truly joyous. What follows shortly afterwards is heartbreaking of course, but that neither negates nor dilutes the emotion captured in that instant.

So where does all this leave the movie within the genre’s evolution? As with the other great westerns of 1962 – here I’m thinking specifically of Ride the High Country and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance – a line is drawn beneath the genre, a sense of closure achieved. It makes its point about the doomed romanticism inherent in looking back, and if it doesn’t look ahead with positivity, it does underline the fact that progress cannot be halted. I found it interesting too to note that although the director of the movie David Miller was not someone associated with westerns – the only other he made was Billy the Kid decades earlier – it stands out as his best piece of work. I have wondered before now whether the western wouldn’t have been better served exploring its core themes in a contemporary setting once the classical era had passed, and it’s an idea I continue to find intriguing. Maybe the fact that recent years have seen the contemporary western enjoy considerable success via television, ironically the medium that once contributed to its slow demise, provides proof of that?

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A Last Hurrah?

/ Colin McGuigan / 109 Comments

No, not The Last Hurrah, Ford’s peek behind the scenes at local politics, and not necessarily the last word from myself either. What I’m talking about here is the western and in particular that brief period of time when it was still recognizably classical in form and feel, and not long before the changes which saw it rapidly evolve away from its roots towards something quite different would begin to become more apparent. So, the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning? The answer to that will of depend on how one regards the direction and impact of those changes.

I have settled on taking a look at two movies from the same year, the date carries some significance in itself, which have at least one element in common. They also happen to be movies that I found myself watching as a result of recent revisits to a couple of others. The year in question is 1961, right on the cusp of the transition to the next stage of western filmmaking. That is not to say these films represent the end of the classical era of the western; that tends to be broadly accepted as coming about a year or so later, but they are poised (or teetering, if one feels less charitable about the subsequent years) on the edge of a major shift. The titles are Posse from Hell and The Comancheros and the most obvious link between the movies can be found in the writing: Clair Huffaker wrote both the original novel and then the screenplay for the former and produced the initial screenplay for the latter, before James Edward Grant finished it off. These films have something of the Janus aspect to them, casting wistful glances at the glories of the preceding years and simultaneously squinting ahead into the glare of a less certain future, even the characters within seem unsure in which direction they ought to be gazing.

Posse from Hell is one of Audie Murphy’s better westerns from the 1960s, none of which are actually poor, and taps into the implacability that formed the core of the man. His reluctant deputy has a steely independence about him, a coldness he was able to slip into when required and which is always credible. His dogged pursuit of Vic Morrow’s gang of four fugitive killers reminded me of the similarly relentless way Gregory Peck went about tracking down four men (incidentally, one of whom was played Lee Van Cleef in both cases) in Henry King’s magisterial The Bravados. Perhaps the fact I’d seen that movie again not long before had planted the seed in my mind, but the driven determination they both feature struck me. And yet the contrast was apparent too; King’s film had a more personal vibe, and the solid moral point it successfully hammers home is more powerful. In Posse from Hell even the motives of Morrow and his companions is abstruse, they seem to do bad things simply because they can and with no particular goal in sight. That is not to say the script has no ethical aim, Murphy’s rejection of the puritanical judgements of others and the final realization by him and Zohra Lampert that intolerance isn’t necessarily universal refute that charge. Nevertheless, it all plays out like a less anchored and more sensationalized version of tales told before.

The Comancheros, quite literally the last hurrah for Michael Curtiz to the extent he was so ill that some of the director’s duties fell to John Wayne, while enjoyable enough was already starting to feel slightly dated. There’s an unevenness to its tone that jars occasionally and dilutes what is at heart a harsh story. The whole concept of arming people to allow them to carry out atrocities has a certain unpleasantness about it, and the process of hunting down those who indulge in this sits uneasily next to some of the knockabout comedy on show. Even having Wayne’s undercover Texas Ranger take part in one of those cartoonish brawls with Lee Marvin feels odd given the nature of the latter’s half-scalped renegade character. There are also scenes of the aftermath of a Comanche raid, replete with corpses strung up and these are juxtaposed with more semi-comedic actions by Stuart Whitman wielding a shovel. Similar criticisms can be leveled during the climax at the Comanchero hideout, with hideous punishments sitting side by side with scenes of comically drunken Indians. As such, the script feels indecisive, unable to make up its mind as to what kind of movie it wants to be. This is very likely down to the way it was started by Huffaker and then rewritten by Grant.

Another viewing of Rio Conchos, which adapts a Huffaker novel and tells a somewhat similar story, served to highlight these inconsistencies. That film of just a few years later maintains a much tougher and harder-hitting focus. Of course, by that stage, the redemptive nature of westerns was being increasingly challenged – not entirely wiped out but certainly infected with a strong dash of cynicism and hints of the full-blown nihilism that the influence of the Spaghetti western would allow to drift in. Looking at these films and the involvement of Huffaker in their production has me wondering whether, if one is prepared to accept them as part of the transitional process, the author himself here should be thought of as part of the transition that was underway in the the genre. Answers on a postcard…

So there you have it, two quite different movies in theme and style yet both produced in the same year and from the same pen. That in itself makes them interesting to me, and then when you factor in how reflections of the past can be discerned alongside harbingers of the future it adds some further food for thought. The process of change is a fascinating one, it is after all the connecting fabric of life, and while the way it can be traced in westerns may not always be satisfying it is something which draws me back time and again.

Initially, I had intended to take a look at three movies here, including one more from the following year with the aim of examining the development underway and, hopefully, making some point about where things were heading in the genre. However, I found it was all growing far too long and the risk of boring readers led me to break it up into two separate posts. The other movie therefore gets its own entry, perhaps deservedly so, and will be posted in due course. As such, while this post can be read as a stand alone it can also be taken as the first of a two part look at a pivotal moment in the western genre.

The Sellout

/ Colin McGuigan / 40 Comments

Initially, I had planned to post something different today, but that can wait. Sometimes circumstances just produce odd little coincidences, we end up viewing a movie or reading a book or story that quite by chance seems to hold a mirror up to events unfolding before us. The very fact this occurs without our actively having sought out some visual corollary makes the effect all the more striking. It is sobering to remember too that 76 years ago people were warning of the dangers of complacency, ringing alarms over the way corruption and graft can creep surreptitiously into the fabric of life, how bullies and self-serving chiselers can threaten and intimidate while hiding behind the cloak of laws they manipulate and soil rather than respect. Even more unsettling is the fact The Sellout (1952) painted its picture of contemptuous authoritarianism as a localized, contained phenomenon. It should give us all pause when we realize that virtually the same unsavory themes are now being played out in real life both nationally and internationally.

Structurally, The Sellout feels like a film of two distinct halves for the simple reason that the action plays out through the eyes of two quite different protagonists – newspaper editor Haven Allridge (Walter Pidgeon) and ambitious state attorney Chick Johnson (John Hodiak). It opens with Allridge, with the stoicism, stability and straight-down-the-line respectability an actor like Pidgeon effortlessly projects. That a man such as this – successful, comfortable and with a solid family life – should end up being rolled by a sly grifter (Thomas Gomez), tossed behind bars in a cell full of lowlifes and humiliated is supposed to shock, and it does so. That he is forced (in a scene that is as suggestively unpleasant as the production code of the time would allow) to witness the degradation of his companion, a man he generously offered a ride home, hammers this point home even more resoundingly. His sense of outrage is palpable and, using the tools available to him through his profession, he embarks on a campaign to expose the rottenness which has been growing steadily in his state. And then, just as he appears poised to land the killer blow, he stops, dropping out of sight for a time before inexplicably deciding to relocate and take up a new job in Detroit. The reason for this sudden reversal is eventually revealed through the diligent and relentless investigative work of Johnson, resolutely assisted by local cop Maxwell (Karl Malden).

Gerald Mayer had made the tense and tightly confined Dial 1119 a few years earlier and he does sound work here, certainly good enough to leave me wishing he had racked up a few more titles in his relatively modest feature filmography before moving into his long and prolific career directing for television. Exposé movies can become dull affairs at times, sometimes due to the limited nature of whatever issue it is that’s being highlighted, or maybe the one-dimensional characters that can populate them. The Sellout avoids those pitfalls due to both the quality of the acting and the (probably unexpected) timelessness of the script. Both Pidgeon and Hodiak bring subtle shading to their characters, the former especially, and aren’t just the impossibly noble figures that one sometimes sees.

A strong supporting lineup is always a boon, adding weight and interest to those scenes where the main players are absent or otherwise sidelined. The Sellout has genuine depth in support with Karl Malden, Audrey Totter, Everett Sloane, Cameron Mitchell, Thomas Gomez and Paula Raymond all making significant contributions at various vital points in the narrative.

However, even a stellar cast working well can struggle to make an impression if the material they are handed is subpar. There is forever a risk of any issue driven picture dating badly, in the sense that the themes explored may be tied inextricably to situations which have since lost relevance. Normally, I would say it’s fortunate that concerns depicted still resonate and clamor for attention today. In the case of The Sellout, I can’t help feeling that any comment acknowledging that fact really ought to be preceded by the word ‘unfortunately’. That said,  this is a fine film, one that is in the unusual position of being an even more worthwhile viewing experience today than would have been so when it was made. With that, I shall leave you, without further comment, with a transcription of the speech John Hodiak makes during the climactic courtroom scenes:

“In the mute parade of these frightened citizens. Weak men and strong men who have become weak and big men who have become little. All frightened. Their very silence testifies to that more strongly than shouted words… Their first protection was the law. Out of the domination of brutal and ruthless men, the law was turned against them. There is another protection: public opinion. Public Opinion finds its voice in the press, the free press. Here, a courageous editor brought his newspaper to the battle: he fought. His blows began to hurt. And little men who’d been fooled or frightened began to stir… to fall in behind his waving banner. But then something happened. Exactly what happened we don’t know. We may never know. But we do know that the voice of the public was stilled. The press had been enslaved… and when the press lost its freedom, these people lost their freedom. And Freedom is no idle phrase, it’s close and personal. It’s the right of Wilford Jackson, Walter Higby, Bennie Amboy. These people… of you and me… weak and strong… big and little to follow our normal pursuits in peace and without fear. Your Honor, the situation I’m covering here today is a symptom of civic cancer. We smell its malignancy not only in the terror-stricken avoidance of civic duty by this parade of bribed and intimidated witnesses, not only in the treasonable misconduct of public officials, not only in the violence, abuse, and even death we’ve observed… but in the growing helplessness of all decent people and their apparent apathy to the tightening grip of these ruthless men. This cancer must be traced down to its roots. It must be cut out or it will spread. And when it spreads far enough… the community will die. I therefore plead that this court free the people of Bridgewood County from the dictatorship of fear by finding cause to bind these defendants over for trial. The state rests.”