Dan Duryea

Storm Fear

/ Colin McGuigan / 24 Comments

Confinement breeds volatility. And confinement, be it physical, emotional, spiritual or social, is a key element in film noir. As space is limited, so is the room for maneuver and so are the options available to the protagonists. This is provides a situation ripe with dramatic potential – take a small group of characters menaced by an external threat and simultaneously squeezed by internal pressures and sit back to watch what happens. This is the essence of Storm Fear (1955), and it’s a formula which has been employed on and off by filmmakers in productions as diverse as Day of the Outlaw, The Small Voice and Key Largo.

Storm Fear has its characters in uncomfortable places all the way through, right from the beginning when young David Blake (David Stollery) and Hank (Dennis Weaver), the hired help, come in from the snow, into the remote mountain cabin. David’s mother Elizabeth (Jean Wallace) is guarded and somehow restrained while her husband Fred (Dan Duryea) is even more detached. The mood and atmosphere of the cabin and its occupants is wrong, discontent and dissatisfaction pervade like some insidious form of emotional dry rot. Fred is a man bowed and broken by personal and professional failure, a shuffling, shambling figure forever burrowing deeper into the oversized scarf he twists and kneads, his comfort blanket in a world from which he has retreated. Elizabeth is a martyr to duty and disenchantment, going through the motions in a barren and loveless marriage. Suddenly, this chill facade is shattered by the arrival of Fred’s brother Charlie (Cornel Wilde). Charlie is a hood, a no-good type with a long history of crime following him around, and on this occasion he’s also got two accomplices in tow (Lee Grant & Steven Hill). He is on the run after a bank raid has netted him a sack full of money, a bullet in the leg and a looming murder rap. All of that ought to amount to a fair amount of pressure within and without yet there is the added complication of the tangled relationship which links Charlie, Fred and Elizabeth.

Cornel Wilde made his debut as a feature director with Storm Fear. He was also the producer and had Horton Foote adapt the novel of the same name by Clinton Seeley for the screen. In fact, Wilde assembled some impressive talent behind the cameras, with Elmer Bernstein providing the score and Joseph LaShelle taking care of the cinematography. As a result, this movie has a polished and highly professional look. Wilde paces everything well, drawing ample tension from the lengthy scenes within the cabin as the characters fume and feud. The climactic scenes out on the mountain, as the cold and weariness takes their toll, open things up somewhat, but that’s only in a superficial sense. The stark landscape and harsh conditions impose their own restrictions and in classic noir fashion the poor choices these people have been making throughout their lives narrow all their avenues of escape. It’s not so much a matter of being unable to stop what’s coming as being unable to outrun what went before.

Wilde’s acting is solid, he adds a slight stammer to his character’s delivery to indicate his core insecurity. It’s an affectation of sorts but it fits the character and he never makes it feel forced. Jean Wallace, who was married to Wilde, is especially strong in a difficult and multifaceted role. She is called upon to range from guilt and remorse to resilience and resolve. It amounts to a tricky balancing act on her part and she carries it off successfully all told. I guess most viewers will be accustomed to seeing Dan Duryea take on showy parts. As such, his portrayal of Fred Blake could be regarded as something of a departure. It’s a comparatively quiet role, contemplative and reproachful to the point of being ineffectual, with a hint of puritanism lurking below the surface. I’m not sure it works though. Lee Grant, making a rare screen appearance in the middle of those lost years when she was victimized by the blacklist, is almost unrecognizable as the bleached moll with a considerable thirst. I’ve seen largely positive reactions to Steven Hill’s turn as Wilde’s psychotic sidekick, but I can’t say I appreciated his work here. Hill was an alumnus of the Actors Studio and that is very apparent here. I’ve never been a fan of method acting although I’ll concede some such as Montgomery Clift made it work for them. Hill, a little like Rod Steiger at his most excessive, never leaves the viewer in any doubt that he is giving a Performance, and not for one moment did I feel he was anything other than an actor playing a part.

Kino released Storm Fear in the US years ago and it’s a handsome looking production. LaShelle’s crisp cinematography comes across well and the pacy, self-contained story never outstays its welcome. It’s a late-era film noir that harks back to the previous decade’s focus on personal rather than wider societal conflicts. While I have some reservations about a few of the performances, there are a lot of good things going on and the movie is certainly worth a look.

River Lady

/ Colin McGuigan / 19 Comments

Movies that exist at the periphery regularly catch my attention. They may be movies that occupy a place on the margins of a particular genre, they may be transitional efforts that straddle different eras, or they may even be a bit of both. Such is the case with River Lady (1948) a film which is not entirely successful, partly as it’s difficult to pin down the genre – a hint of the western, a dash of riverboat melodrama, and a pinch of the frontier adventure – and partly due to the time it was made. While it might not be the kind of movie that broke new ground or made a strong enough impression to encourage frequent revisits, it is still engaging in the way so many of George Sherman’s titles are.

I’ve lost count of how many westerns have turned a spotlight on the encroachment of civilization on the frontier. Sometimes it’s a matter of the railroad hammering out an iron clad tattoo across the plains and relentlessly shoving the old world to one side. At other times it is the stringing of the telegraph line, or the gradual extension of the reach of the law itself. River Lady concerns itself with the expansion of organized business interests, in particular the conflict between small, independent logging outfits and the hungry syndicates. Nevertheless, corporate kerfuffles of any type have a limited appeal at best and it’s always advisable to bring the human drama and the human faces of the players and antagonists to the fore. So it is that attention is focused on a roughneck logger called Dan Corrigan (Rod Cameron) and Sequin (Yvonne De Carlo), the owner of the titular paddle boat and undisclosed boss of the syndicate which is buying up all the struggling outfits on the river. This allows for a double-edged conflict, both the tangled business affairs and the romantic tug-of-war between a hardheaded free spirit such as Corrigan and the ambitious and manipulative Sequin. And any time the mixture looks like drifting off the boil the silky and stealthy Beauvais (Dan Duryea) is on hand to stoke it up once again.

As has been stated, in terms of genre, there’s a fluidity to the movie that mirrors the flow of the timber down the river. I guess that could be seen as versatility in the script, or even as a determination to resist the imposition of boundaries on the part of the filmmakers. However, it makes it hard to get a handle on the movie, a situation I’ve found can crop up from time to time in mid to late 1940s westerns, where it’s possible to detect elements of breezier B pictures rubbing shoulders with themes that carried a bit more weight. One could even say something similar about George Sherman’s career trajectory itself at this point. The rights to the story drifted around Universal for many years before the movie was finally made and perhaps this fairly lengthy gestation period has something to do with the feeling that the finished product imparts.

Rod Cameron is third billed but has the leading role. He provides a strong physical presence, although he does end up on the receiving end of a terrific beating meted out by Duryea at one stage. His acting is adequate overall, but the way his character is written is problematic. I think it’s clear enough that the intention is for a redemptive arc to be traced, which is fine as far as it goes. The thing is though that, as written, Corrigan isn’t really a likeable figure for much of the film’s running time. He’s not just a man who is on a learning curve, he’s downright unpleasant to the women in his life and comes across as spoiled and petulant instead of grittily independent. Duryea, as the villain of the piece, actually brings more nuance and therefore more interest to his part. I suppose it comes down to the fact that Duryea, even when we was showboating shamelessly or backstabbing with the worst of them, had a soulful air about him. Top billing went to Yvonne De Carlo but she is off screen for far too long and her role ends up largely undeveloped. Helena Carter is her romantic rival for Cameron’s affections and actually gets the more rewarding part. In support, John McIntire, Florence Bates and Jack Lambert all have their moments.

As a Technicolor production, River Lady might be expected to look better than it does. I have a German DVD that is acceptable all told, but there is a certain muddiness to it too. Perhaps the fact the movie is part of a George Sherman box that has it packaged alongside solid Blu-ray versions of The Last of the Fast Guns and Red Canyon serves to draw attention to its weaknesses.

Johnny Stool Pigeon

/ Colin McGuigan / 55 Comments

It’s interesting to watch movies that might be described as halfway house efforts, they have an air about them of remote outposts on clinging on at the frontier of genres, one eye fixed on a particular set of circumstances and the other looking in a different direction like a sort of cinematic Janus. Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949) has a touch of that, casting ahead to the rapidly approaching decade where the focus would shift firmly to tales of a society under threat from shadowy but large scale criminal organizations while still retaining a concern for the battered and bruised individuals who represent the life blood of the genre.

A federal sting aimed a netting a drugs courier just off a boat in San Francisco leads to the suspect taking a bullet during a chase through a dockside warehouse. The agent who had been hoping to make an arrest is Morton (Howard Duff) and he’s the insistent type. Running down the man who did the shooting is easy enough, but picking him up in order to apply a bit of pressure proves trickier. Organized crime is dependent on tip offs and betrayals, and so it is that word filters through of what the authorities have in mind. The result? Another mouth silenced and another link cut out of the chain leading back to the narcotics suppliers. This is all routine stuff so far, but the apparent brick wall confronting Morton calls for some creative thinking, and enlivens the story as a consequence. His reasoning is that if the organization can’t be broken from the outside, then it will have to be done from the inside. The problem of course is how to get in. The key to unlocking that particular door rests in the hands of Johnny Evans (Dan Duryea), a hood and gangster serving time in Alcatraz thanks to the efforts of Morton, and nursing the kind of deeply felt grudge one might expect. Conveniently, from Morton’s standpoint at any rate, Evans’ wife has recently died from the effects of drug addiction so there’s plenty of emotional leverage on hand. Forming an uneasy alliance, Morton (now going under the name of Doyle) and Evans head first to Vancouver in Canada and then back down south to Arizona on the trail of the head of the syndicate. While all this is taking place, there is an added complication provided by Terry (Shelley Winters), a girl keen to escape the clutches of the mob.

Frankly, the gangbusters element of the story is by the numbers stuff, well enough executed but hardly riveting. Any plot that makes use of the lawman going undercover trope naturally generates suspense and tension, and that is certainly true here. I guess the involvement of a potentially hostile figure such as that portrayed by Duryea adds a touch of uncertainty, although there aren’t really any jaw-dropping twists in store. For all that, the movie is entertaining in the way so many Universal-International crime pictures are. It displays a brisk lack of pretension, a utilitarian stylishness that is alluring. William Castle is best known these days for those horror and thriller movies he concentrated on from the late 1950s onward. However, his credits in the preceding years show the breadth of his body of work. He worked in many genres and deserves more recognition for the frequently tight and fast-moving westerns, adventures and crime movies he cut his teeth on. When Johnny Stool Pigeon was made he had just moved to Universal-International after spending years working on a number of series for Columbia, such as Crime Doctor (somebody please release a set of these enjoyable B pictures!) and The Whistler. The economical shooting and storytelling style of these low budget movies would stay with him and inform much of his subsequent work.

I have  seen and enjoyed so many Dan Duryea performances over the years. Broadly speaking, he tended toward two characteristic types. On the one hand, there was the sly, wheedling good-for-nothing, slouching from one cheap subterfuge to another. On the other hand, he could be a loud, booming braggart, a strutting peacock daring all to challenge his brashness. His role in Johnny Stool Pigeon is something of a hybrid, with a couple of real firecracker scenes that have him cutting loose and barking at Barry Kelley and Howard Duff respectively, as well as more subtle, yet paradoxically more powerful and affecting, moments such as his visit to the morgue to identify the body of his wife. Threaded trough the whole performance though is that air of tough melancholy he always wore. He had about him the aura of a man assailed by wry bitterness and relentlessly pursued by some nameless regret.

Howard Duff enjoyed a fairly successful run from the late 1940s till the middle of the next decade as a lead of the square -jawed variety. I wouldn’t say he had great range but he was an agreeable screen presence. He is rather aloof in Johnny Stool Pigeon, distant and frankly stiff in many scenes. In his defense, the role he was playing was that of a man in an especially precarious position, one who would have needed to maintain a cool and icy grip on himself at all times. Still, the contrast with Duryea’s full-blooded performance is marked. Shelley Winters weighs in with a credible mixture of street-smart and vulnerable, and her character’s influence on both her co-stars and the eventual resolution of the story is noteworthy. In support, John McIntire is typically impressive, his back-slapping bonhomie masking a dry, cold core. Tony Curtis, in one of his earliest appearances, has the role of a mute assassin. He may not have had any dialogue but he gets plenty of screen time to glower and brood.

Johnny Stool Pigeon was another movie that was impossible to view in anything other than the crummiest condition until Kino released it recently. It’s not going to make anyone’s list of the best films noir, and just about everyone involved would make stronger movies. Nevertheless, it is very watchable and enjoyable, brief and pacy and possessed of that appealing Universal-International vibe this viewer generally finds irresistible.

Foxfire

/ Colin McGuigan / 81 Comments

On the outside looking in doesn’t do anybody any good.

That one casual line in Foxfire (1955), spoken by one of the most hard done by and neglected characters in the movie as it happens, goes a long way towards catching the spirit and flavor of the entire picture. In a sense, all of the characters are outsiders in their individual worlds, some by chance and others by choice or design. This is a strong theme, one many of us will be able to identify with at some point in our lives and thus a solid bedrock on which to construct this story which I’d say is three parts melodrama and one part modern western. That part picks up on and weaves into the blend perhaps one of the more interesting, challenging and progressive thematic threads to be found in the fabric of the 1950s western, the clash of cultures which was inevitable in a new land and the dramatic tension growing out of that.

A desert highway, one of those arrow straight and seemingly endless thoroughfares that we viewers have traveled many times. Our companion on this occasion is a lone woman, Amanda Lawrence (Jane Russell), speeding along until she gets a flat tire. With no help available, she sets off on foot, burdened with what look like the assorted fripperies of a shopping expedition. There can’t be any doubt that this chic and carefully coiffed lady is very much an outsider in the primal landscape, a refugee from 5th Avenue cast adrift in the dust and heat of the southwest. Then out of that shimmering haze comes a jeep carrying two men – miner Jonathan Dartland (Jeff Chandler) and doctor Hugh Slater (Dan Duryea) – and we’re off. Amanda is clearly taken with Dartland and he’s at least interested in her.  What follows is a love story but it’s not a smooth one, and I think it’s questionable in the end what all of the protagonists are in love with. In fact, despite the relatively neat conclusion, those questions are only partly answered and I feel there’s a suggestion that they will rear their heads again.

As far as I can see, the characters are being pulled in different directions partly by their disparate backgrounds and partly by their status as outsiders. Beginning with Dartland, or Dart as everyone refers to him. We learn very early on that he is half Apache, with a mother who has returned to the reservation and wholly integrated herself back into tribal life after the death of her husband. He is forced to endure some bigoted and prejudiced attitudes – including one thoughtless gaffe on the part of Amanda before she learns about his heritage – but tends to brush them aside. He insists it means nothing to him but a couple of understated moments call this into question – the brief flash of hurt in his eyes when Amanda makes that crack about Indians, and then later the diffidence and self-consciousness he displays when entering the club for their first date, not to mention the haste with which he beats his retreat.

For all Dart’s claims of not being affected by his background, he’s very much aware that he is outside looking in. And he cannot fully break with his past; he avoids talking about his mother’s people, keeps his memories quite literally locked away and reacts with petulant sensitivity to their discovery. Nevertheless, the tone of his relationships, especially with Amanda is dictated by his upbringing, his instinctive prioritizing of self-reliance as well as his resorting to the physical as opposed to the emotional act of love when confronted with conflict. As I mentioned  above, I’m unsure whether he’s confident what he’s in love with – his wife or his ambition, and that siren song of kith and kin holds a powerful attraction.

What of Amanda? Is she any less an outsider? A socialite on vacation drawn to something attractive, and she does refer to Dart time and again as pretty in a neat subversion of traditional objectification. She labors hard to adapt to the harsh conditions of the mining town and also has to deal with the whispers of her own past tempting her to throw it all up in favor of the ease and plenty she was accustomed to. Again, does she really know what she wants – the rugged ideal of her imagination or the the reserved figure of reality?

You can always tell a script has depth when it adds meat to the bones of the supporting characters ; this one is from the pen of Ketti Frings, who had already written a few very good films noir as well as another Joseph Pevney / Jeff Chandler picture Because of You, and I’m keen to track that one down now. Dan Duryea’s boozy doctor could have been a mere caricature, a sidekick with a bottle who bumbles in the background. However, the character isn’t written with such broad strokes, there are layers present which are only gradually uncovered. He doesn’t truly belong either, another blow in from another world, a drunk as a result of personal trauma and casting around for a means to escape his circumstances. Duryea excelled at playing heels and it’s therefore not much of a surprise when his cunning and manipulative side rises to the surface. The one who arguably suffers this most, albeit with almost superhuman stoicism, is his nurse/lover played by Mara Corday. Like Dart, she is half Apache yet the barriers separating her from white society are even more entrenched. There’s something both outrageous and touching about her quiet patience and devotion to a man who habitually neglects her to the point of naked disrespect. Then there’s that wedding scene, where she is looking in in every sense, relegated to a place outside in the company of hookers and other undesirables. She is in a very real way a peripheral figure and is assigned only a limited amount of screen time, but her presence and its effect on the viewer is significant. Somehow, the casual acceptance (by herself as well as by the other characters, and perhaps even more so on her own part) of her regular social exclusion and the flippant exploitation of her affections do as much to highlight prejudice as some of the more direct and overt references involving  Dart.

I’ve watched and featured a number of Joseph Pevney movies this year and Foxfire is probably the most enjoyable one so far. I appreciated the understated way the drama unfolds and this is particularly true of the key scenes. The film has that appealing look that is so characteristic of Universal-International productions and William Daniels’ Technicolor cinematography honestly is quite breathtaking at times. The setting matters too, it feels entirely appropriate in this case that everything revolves around a mining settlement in the Arizona desert. The location offers a tangible link to the classic western and then there is that sense of the ephemeral, of a place hastily built amid a permanent wasteland – Chandler’s character dreams of making it a lasting settlement but there’s that nagging doubt again, as in his personal affairs, over how sure the foundations will be. Somehow the raw purity of the scorched backdrop offers a contrast to the transitory desires, ambitions, jealousies and angst of this group of people, none of whom appear to genuinely belong.

As for availability, there is a Blu-ray which has been released in the US and I understand it offers a fine presentation of the movie. Sadly, I’m Region B only when it comes to Blu-ray so I had to find other options. There has been a DVD release in Italy that is hard to fault as far as the picture quality is concerned. It might be standard definition but the 2.00:1 widescreen image is sharp as a pin, clean and colorful. Sure there are better melodramas to be found and the theme here may not have the kind of universal resonance that typically adds greatness. Nevertheless, this is a good movie, and it mostly worked for me, raising a number of issues I could relate to as well as providing an hour and a half of polished, solid entertainment. My recommendation is that anyone able to access this title should check it out.

Larceny

/ Colin McGuigan / 66 Comments

Larceny (1948) spins a yarn which revolves around a scam, a con. The con man, the grifter if you like, is one who naturally, and as the name implies, trades on confidence. There is of course his own polished brass exterior, his professional mask, but of greater significance is the confidence he inspires, wins, and ultimately betrays in the mark. It’s a dirty business when all is said and done, the sacrifice of something as pure as trust for something as cheap and mired among our base instincts as greed  is the stuff of disillusionment. A famous parting line spoke of the stuff that dreams are made of, but then again it could be said that it’s only a short step from dreams to disillusionment, and therein lies the essence of film noir.

It opens with a sting almost gone wrong. Two sharp and smooth types, Rick Mason (John Payne) and Silky Randall (Dan Duryea), have been bleeding a wealthy Florida citizen and his similarly well-heeled friends, for a yacht club that will never be. They have amassed in the region of a quarter of a million dollars by the time their victim grows suspicious enough to confront them . And so it’s time to move on, this time to small town California and a grieving and gullible war widow. The goal this time is broadly similar: sell the notion of a fictitious war memorial to a scarred soul, and skip out when as much cash as possible has been obtained. A wholly reprehensible scheme, but one with a fair chance of success in a uniquely receptive social landscape, one still reeling from post-war mourning and confusion and casting around for some grain of hope to latch onto. Yet within the soft soap of Randall and Mason there are other gritty little grains: the uncontrolled passion and wandering eye of Randall’s trashy girlfriend (Shelley Winters), the professional and personal jealousy of two mistrustful rivals, an almost impossibly credulous widow (Joan Caulfield) and, most important of all, something called a conscience.

George Sherman is not a man one would normally associate with film noir. This is not to say he wasn’t suited to the form, the movie here is proof he was more than capable of handling its tropes and motifs with great skill, but his real forte lay elsewhere in terms of genre. Sherman’s westerns, particularly those from the golden era of the 1950s, are almost all (those which I’ve seen anyway) imbued with the spirit of redemption and renewal. It’s his apparently natural affinity for and empathy with these positive attributes which make him such a fascinating director of westerns. When it comes to film noir though, these strengths may, for some anyway, be regarded as a handicap. Personally, I don’t buy that; this is partly due to what I’d like to think of as an open-minded or expansionist approach to the genre. Essentially, I’m not keen on locking myself into absolutist positions since it rarely seems to offer us much as viewers if we start excluding and proscribing certain movies as a result of their failure to adhere to rigid, imposed dogma on what should or shouldn’t be permissible. That’s not to advocate a total free-for-all of course, but a little flexibility never hurts.

Just as the director of Larceny didn’t spend his career confined to one genre, neither did its stars. The personnel at the time may not all have been fans but the beauty of the studio system lay in the diversity of material it allowed (or forced, if you prefer) contracted actors and crew to become exposed to and familiar with. John Payne was a personable presence in musicals and romances, but the post-war years saw him shift the focus of his career radically. Larceny represented his first foray into “tough guy” territory and film noir, alongside westerns, saw him do some of his finest work. He’s in great form here, scamming Caulfield, fencing with Duryea and trading clinches and barbs with a spiky and sexy Shelley Winters. And Winters is possibly as good in her role as I’ve ever seen her, firing off some of the finest one-liners anyone was ever handed in a film noir. Duryea is as compelling as he always was (Silky is a superb name for a character and sums up the actor’s manner perfectly) and he displays a marvelous sense of menace. I remember not being all that impressed with Joan Caulfield’s range in The Unsuspected and I found myself having similar thoughts here – I can see how her character needs to project the kind of purity necessary to push the plot in the direction it ultimately takes, but I felt her innocence was overdone at times. But that’s just my take on it. As for support, it’s worth mentioning some fine contributions from Dan O’Herlihy, Dorothy Hart, Percy Helton and Richard Rober.

I would be utterly delighted were I able to post here that I had managed to track down a sparkling and pristine release of Larceny, one which could be eagerly snapped up by fellow movie fans. Sadly, that is not the case; the movie remains, to the best of my knowledge, unavailable for purchase. I watched it online, viewing a print that was very far from optimum condition. This is most certainly not the ideal way to see anything and I only resorted to this as no other option exists at the moment. At the risk of sounding like a hopelessly scratched vinyl recording, I can only reiterate my ongoing dismay at the absence of so many Universal-International title on DVD and/or Blu-ray.

I think it’s worth noting here at the end of this piece that it appears to be the 100th title I have tagged as a film noir, a small milestone. Mind you, I’ve no doubt that a number of those I’ve included over the years will be regarded by some as marginal entries. Ah well, so be it.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue

/ Colin McGuigan / 24 Comments

Graft and gangsters on the waterfront probably evoke thoughts of Brando, Kazan et al, but there was more than one movie to make use of that particular milieu. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1957), while naturally incorporating  some social commentary, follows the template of a more traditional crime story. To add some further confusion the title is borrowed from Richard Rodgers’ ballet. The film features the composer’s music throughout but it has no direct connection to the on screen events; one could perhaps make a case for both having something to say about the pernicious and tragic effects of crime and poverty on the lives of the underprivileged, but I”m not convinced it’s worth heading too far down that route. No, this is essentially a solid crime/noir exposé that sits comfortably alongside, and actually a few notches above, a number of other 1950s  productions which looked at how deeply the gangs and racketeers had embedded themselves in post-war society.

The opening is businesslike, shot impersonally from above,  as a car purposefully makes its way  through the streets of New York, on its way to a killing. While we don’t get the stentorian narration that frequently accompanied these socially aware noir pictures, there is a matter of fact feel to the way a grubby little hit is treated as just another part of the daily routine, another minor affair to tick off the agenda before the day begins in earnest. As Solly Pitts (Mickey Shaughnessy) lies, bleeding his guts out on a  tenement staircase, and his distraught wife Madge (Jan Sterling) tries to comfort him, the gunmen responsible melt away as unobtrusively as an early morning mist.

Enter Bill Keating (Richard Egan), an inexperienced assistant D.A. and a two-fisted product of the coal mining country of Pennsylvania. He’s full of vim and vigor, and the kind of righteous faith in justice that the audience must know will be sorely tested before the credits finally roll. His principal police contact is Lieutenant Vosnick (Charles McGraw), an insider in a neighborhood and beat where Keating is most assuredly an outsider, and something of a tarnished knight whose gritty manner acts as a thin veil for the principles to which he remains true. These two form an idealistic bond, the goal of which is to break the power of the mobsters and their corrosive hold over the blue collar dockworkers, and the means will be the prosecution of those who came to visit Solly Pitts in the early morning.

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was adapted from Keating’s own autobiography The Man Who Rocked the Boat, and directed by Arnold Laven. It rates as one of this filmmaker’s best efforts – part noir, part social justice picture, part melodrama, and completely human. Crime stories can sometimes distance themselves from the viewer, the plot twists seeming to relate to intangible “others” rather than to people like ourselves. However, the sense of empathy is never lost in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, and the characters feel real at all times, the major and minor tragedies touching on their lives perfectly believable.

I mentioned the brisk, no nonsense beginning already, and the courtroom scenes in the second half are also of note, never overcooked as can sometimes be the case. Then there is the ending, which has the courage and imagination to avoid any anti-climactic reaction from the principals. Instead, this is extraordinarily well realized, with the camera soaring in tandem with Rodgers’ music, panning out to reveal a now deserted dock as a bruised and disheveled Nick Dennis, the radio announcer’s news of the verdict still ringing in his ears, stumbles off towards a hopefully better future. In one hand he’s clutching a bottle of hooch, in the other the lawyer’s crammed briefcase; truth and justice side by side, as always.

One of the first things to grab the attention about Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is the cast – it’s deep and rich, a movie lover’s dream. Egan is top-billed, and he was very much a star property at this stage. He had the right kind of quiet brawn to suit the part of the white collar guy who still hasn’t put too much distance between himself and his working class roots. Julie Adams, who only recently passed away, makes the most of her limited role as his wife who sticks faithfully by him despite the growing pressures from friends and enemies alike. She has a couple of subtle yet telling scenes with sparse dialogue, not the least of which is the aftermath of the dockside brawl when she tenderly caresses Egan’s livid bruises. She doesn’t say a word but those simple gestures and looks convey all the character, and we the viewers, needs to know. It’s little things such as this that I find very cinematic, very discreet, and very effective. Charles McGraw is typically gruff, although atypically white-haired, and offers a reassuringly pugnacious presence.

Jan Sterling was highly skilled at playing the kind of slightly shop worn dames that were the staple of many a film noir, and she brings  that world weary quality to the part of the tough waterfront wife. One becomes accustomed to seeing Dan Duryea in either villainous or slippery roles. He only shows up after the hour mark and, while he is on the side of the villains here as the lead defense lawyer, he gets to play an essentially straight up figure who may wheedle but balks at outright cheating. The real bad egg is Walter Matthau, ruthless and malicious in his determination to  maintain control over the longshoremen. It’s a masterclass in the art of mean and a fine portrayal of the ugly side of corruption.

Sadly, Slaughter on Tenth Avenue is yet another of those Universal-International films that nobody seems willing or able to release on disc. At the moment, one has to rely on catching the movie if it happens to show up on TV. I feel there is enough depth and quality in the story, direction and cast to warrant wider availability. Lesser works than this have been shown to have an audience so let’s hope somebody somewhere gets around to this neglected movie before too long.

Manhandled

/ Colin McGuigan / 39 Comments

It’s not the first time I’ve found myself looking a movie that seems to have been marketed as a film noir, or at least as a hard-boiled crime yarn in the days before filmmakers and critics had acquainted themselves with French terminology. I’ve also made the point before that I think of myself as inclusive in my own attitude to what precisely constitutes an entry in this somewhat nebulous category. At a glance, Manhandled (1949) looks like it’s earned its place in the lineup, but the truth is it’s more of a decoy than the genuine article. However, that’s not necessarily any bad thing, just so long as one knows what the score is going in.

Everything begins furtively, the camera hugging the ground and slinking  cat-like around the shadows, revealing only the legs of characters whose voices indicate a jealous, insecure man waiting up for the woman he fears may be cheating on him. They meet, there’s a confrontation, and then a killing. It’s looks stylish and gripping, and the sudden knowledge that it was all a dream recounted by an anxious writer (Alan Napier) to his analyst (Harold Vermilyea) only adds to the noir trappings. When it then looks as if the dream were in fact an omen of the tragedy to come, well one would be forgiven for believing we’re firmly entrenched in cinema’s darker corner. Yet, it’s at this point that the tone alters, despite the presence of noir regulars Dan Duryea and Sterling Hayden, to head off (for the most part) down a lighter path more in keeping with a whodunit murder mystery with a hint of a 30 s or early 40s series picture about it.

I have a hunch there are those who will dismiss this movie for not being a true noir, or perhaps for strongly hinting that it is and then delivering something rather different. I can understand that; the film does appear unsure of exactly what it wants to be and the tone can veer radically from scene to scene, and even within a scene. Frankly, I’m happy to regard it as a mystery which flirts with the trappings of noir without ever fully committing. On that level, it works fine and the jokey, vaguely bumbling cops (Art Smith & Irving Bacon) don’t feel out of place in such a world. I’m being deliberately cagey about the plot in this case as I think any discussion of a film which is essentially a whodunit should steer as far away from spoiler territory as possible, out of respect for any reader who is unfamiliar with the material. Suffice to say, Dan Duryea has a field day trading on his characteristic fake bonhomie, acting as a role model for aspiring chiselers everywhere. Dorothy Lamour does distress well and only Sterling Hayden is a tad disappointing, his typical gruff abruptness not really suiting his role here.

That opening sequence where cinematographer Ernest Laszlo and director Lewis R Foster pull out all the stops is a wonderful hook but, at the same time, it’s perhaps setting up a different picture to what they were planning to present. Ultimately, I have no issue with a film not being as dark as it promises – I like noir a lot but wouldn’t want to see every crime or mystery movie forced to conform to its requirements. As a mystery, Manhandled works well enough, sprinkling suspects and red herrings around to maintain interest. Still, it misses the mark to some extent due to the shifting and uncertain tone.

As with a lot of Pine – Thomas movies, availability can be tricky. I watched this online recently but there has been a DVD released in Italy – I haven’t seen it so can’t make any comment on its quality. So to get down to brass tacks, would I recommend it? Well, I’d have to answer with a qualified yes. The quality of the cast should speak for itself and the mystery at the heart of the story is solid enough to hold one’s interest. Yet that variability in the script has to be noted – if you can accept that and take the film on its own occasionally muddled terms, then there’s fun to be had with it.

Walk a Tightrope

/ Colin McGuigan / 27 Comments

poster2017_zpswordvshh

The B movie tends to get a bad press, attention is often drawn to the cheapness, caliber of stars or sometimes just out and out trashiness. Such criticisms can certainly be justified on many occasions but blanket dismissals are unwise generally and cinema has a habit of throwing out plenty of exceptions to muddy things. The thing is a B movie can work very well so long as certain elements are in place. The lack of funds can encourage economy not only in the nuts and bolts of production but also in the storytelling and pacing. And of course the presence of one or two good actors is able to overcome shortcomings elsewhere. Walk a Tightrope (1965) is very much a B picture, but its two stars and a reasonably intriguing plot help to elevate it considerably.

Carl Lutcher (Dan Duryea) is obviously a man down on his luck, living in a decrepit bedsit with a naive woman (Shirley Cameron) and slightly bemused as to why she should profess to love him. Later we learn that Lutcher is a dockworker by trade but when he heads off to complete a job it’s work of an entirely different nature he has in mind. Lurking opposite a movie theater, he watches Ellen Sheppard (Patricia Owens) bidding farewell to a couple of girlfriends and then follows her as she walks off towards a nearby pub. Ellen’s behaviour seems a little odd – she’s aware of someone tailing her, and then there’s the panic attack she succumbs to upon accidentally running into her new husband (Terence Cooper) and his business partner (Richard Leech). All of this leads to the two men insisting on escorting her home, although she clearly dislikes the idea. Shortly afterwards the doorbell rings and Lutcher forces his way in. To Ellen’s horror, he pulls a silenced pistol and calmly fires three rounds at her husband at point-blank range. Lutcher behaves as though it had all been arranged while Ellen is verging on hysteria due to the shock. So why would a man like Lutcher assassinate a man he’s never met and then ask the victim’s wife to pay him? Everything points to a contract killing but Ellen’s reaction doesn’t fit. Lutcher will have to be tracked down and a trial will need to take place before any indication of what’s really going on becomes apparent, and even then we’re still talking suspicion and surmise until a final twist reveals all.

£7

Frank Nesbitt has few credits as a director, and only a few more as assistant director but he made two thrillers with Dan Duryea, Walk a Tightrope and Do You Know This Voice?, both written by actor Neil McCallum. I haven’t seen the latter but, despite Nesbitt’s rather anonymous direction, I’m quite keen to do so now. McCallum, who also pops up as the prosecutor in the trial sequence, produces a tricky little thriller here which ensures the story develops steadily and at a satisfying pace. Of the other crew members, cinematographer Basil Emmott should be familiar to anyone with a fondness for post-war British thrillers.

I said at the beginning of this piece that a couple of good actors can make a significant contribution to the success of even a modest production, and that’s precisely what happens with Walk a Tightrope. Both Dan Duryea and Patricia Owens were experienced Hollywood performers and it’s their work that adds interest to this thriller. Frankly, I like seeing Duryea taking a leading role in any movie, regardless of whether it’s heroic, villainous or something in between. I think what made him such a fascinating actor was his ability to put a genuinely human face to whatever part he played. His role in this film isn’t an attractive one, he’s a killer after all and nothing we learn about him suggest he has too many redeeming features. However, we do care about him, especially during the trial which dominates the last half, and his turn in the witness-box as he makes no attempt to deny his guilt but becomes increasingly frustrated and desperate to convince the court of the fact he wasn’t acting alone. Patricia Owens appeared in a number of films which I admire, The Law and Jake Wade and The Gun Runners among them, and I think she did excellent work here as well. Her part called for a good deal of subtlety and some fairly complex emotional shifts as the plot weaves its way towards the conclusion, the kind of performance which demands skillful playing in order to remain credible. I feel she nailed the enigmatic aspect of her character and her acting at the climax carries extra punch as a result. Absorbing as the story is, I don’t believe it would be anywhere near as effective were it not for Duryea and Owens.

£6

UK company Network’s releases in their The British Film line continue to impress me, both the selection of titles and the quality of their transfers. Walk a Tightrope is presented in the 1.66:1 ratio and looks very nice. The image is crisp and clean and doesn’t display any particularly distracting damage. The sole extra feature is a gallery but it should be remembered these films are all very competitively priced and represent excellent value for money. This may well be a B movie but it’s also a solid example of a pared down and well paced crime thriller. OK, perhaps it’s not a classic of the genre but it never aspires to that anyway. I enjoyed the basic plot and the two lead performances give it a bit of class – definitely worth checking out.

Rails Into Laramie

/ Colin McGuigan / 44 Comments

There are so many Universal-International westerns that you could pretty much run a blog devoted entirely to the studio’s output alone. With such an abundance of titles, it’s only natural that there should be a wide range in terms of type, budget and overall quality. Some had more spent on them, some featured significant amounts of location filming and some were shot largely on sets. Personally, I like them all, and can generally find something positive to take away from all varieties. Rails Into Laramie (1954) is one of the lower budget efforts, using stock footage and filmed on studio interiors for the most part. It’s a movie that eluded me for a long time and I want to express my gratitude to Jerry E for his help in ensuring I finally got around to seeing it.

The railway, that powerful symbol of westward expansion and the unstoppable advance of civilization, has been at the heart of many westerns. To chart the progress of the railroad is to chart the course of the American west itself so it’s obviously going to feature heavily in pictures set on the ever shifting frontier. When the iron horse appears to have stalled at the Wyoming town of Laramie questions arise as to why this should be so. Someone in Laramie has a vested interest in seeing the work come to a halt, some who’s making plenty of money out of the hard-drinking and hard living construction gangs. And so the army decide to send someone, just one man and not the detail of soldiers the local bigwigs have requested, to investigate and try to get the operation up and running again. The choice is Jefferson Harder (John Payne), a sergeant nearing the end of his stint in uniform but a man familiar with and comfortable among the kind of saloon detritus likely to be responsible for the delays. Harder isn’t exactly welcomed with open arms by Laramie’s dignitaries, partly due to their disappointment at not getting a full detachment and also because of his friendship with Jim Shanessy (Dan Duryea). Shanessy and Harder are old army buddies and former rivals for the affections of the former’s wife, Helen (Joyce Mackenzie). It’s clear enough from early on that Harder is going to have to go up against his friend as he’s the one behind the stoppages. What remains to be seen though is how he’s going to achieve much with virtually a whole town against him, the machinations of the slippery Shanessy to contend with, and the uncertain allegiance of saloon owner Lou Carter (Mari Blanchard).

One thing which immediately struck me when watching Rails Into Laramie was that there were a few passing similarities to the classic Destry Rides Again. There’s the basic set up of a corrupt town, the ignominious arrival of an improbable savior, the tough female saloon owner, and the leading role undertaken by women in the implementation of justice – and I’ll return to that last aspect presently. At least some of this can probably be attributed to the fact screenwriter D D Beauchamp also worked on Destry, George Marshall’s remake of his own 1939 original. All these elements are very welcome of course and add a lot to the entertainment of the piece, but there are problems, or weaknesses anyway, present in the script too. There are a few plot strands which are introduced and promise to be interesting yet are dropped almost immediately and lead nowhere in particular. There would appear to be potential for an added layer of conflict stemming from the triangle created by Payne, Duryea and Mackenzie, not to mention the allure of Blanchard drifting in the background. We learn that both men wanted Mackenzie in the past but that’s it, no more mileage is gained from that, or the possibility of Blanchard causing Duryea to consider straying. And then there’s the selection of an all female jury to try Duryea, an example of women’s rights which was ahead of its time compared to the rest of the country. Aside from the opportunity for further social comment, there was a suggestion that the women’s actions in participating in jury service would endanger their men. Again though, this is not followed up on and simply peters out.

I tend to think of Audie Murphy when Jesse Hibbs’ name comes up due to his having taken charge of a number of the star’s best films. Hibbs was one of those stable hands who could be relied upon to turn in a solid piece of work and that’s more or less what we get with Rails Into Laramie. There’s nothing flashy on show but it’s a competently directed film. With the so-so script, the responsibility on the performers is increased, though the likes of Payne and Duryea were quite capable in this respect. I’ve seen more of Payne’s noir work but he makes for a personable and convincing enough western lead too. There’s not so much of that bruised quality on display that he used to such good effect in film noir, still the toughness remains and you don’t doubt his ability when it comes to mixing it with the villains. Duryea could play charming, dissembling bad guys in his sleep and his role here honestly is a walk in the park for him. There’s not much physical threat posed by him, it’s more a behind the scenes schemer and fixer this time, and that aspect is left in the capable hands of a sneering and dangerous Lee Van Cleef. Of the two female performers Joyce Mackenzie had a largely thankless part, offering sympathy and support but seeing little development in her character. Mari Blanchard got dealt a far stronger hand and played it to the hilt too. She brings an edgy ambiguity to the part – leaving both Payne and Duryea (and the viewer too) unsure exactly what way she’s going to leap. Then there’s the marvelous James Griffith who adds such value to every film he appears in – I just saw him in a delightful little cameo in Kubrick’s The Killing the other day as it happens – and turns in one of the most memorable bits of work in the movie as the nervous but loyal marshal.

The last few years have seen more and more Universal-International westerns becoming available in various countries. However, Rails Into Laramie remains unreleased anywhere to the best of my knowledge. It’s a modest picture and it wouldn’t rank as one of the top tier efforts by the studio. Even so, it is solidly entertaining and I’d certainly appreciate a release. Again, my thanks to Jerry for making this piece possible.

The Underworld Story

/ Colin McGuigan / 43 Comments

Things are tough all over. Pretty soon a man won’t be able to sell his own mother.

There are plenty of examples of film noir weaving contemporary social issues into the tales featured. Through the 1950s it’s noticeable how the whole matter of organized crime came to play a more significant part in the world of noir. Cy Endfield’s The Underworld Story (1950) is an early example of this trend, although it also takes a look at journalistic ethics, racial prejudice, class divisions, and oblique references to the blacklist. This all adds up to a potent and varied cocktail, one which could easily have become overwhelming in its efforts to cover so many bases. However, the script remains clearly focused throughout and the end product is therefore very satisfying.

Mike Reese (Dan Duryea) is the classic slick city reporter, a man for whom the chance of a scoop and the accompanying paycheck trumps all other considerations. This absence of moral qualms is clearly illustrated by the opening scene of the movie, which sees a mob informant gunned down on the court steps. The responsibility for this killing is laid largely at the feet of Reese, who wrote the story tipping the gangsters off to the location of the stool pigeon. Still, Reese is one of those guys who’s not quite as smooth as he thinks he is – all the angling and sharp patter can’t disguise an unfortunate tendency for things to blow up in his face. While his exclusive story had lethal consequences for one man, it also leads to Reese getting his marching orders. Worse is to come though when he finds his name is poison and he can’t get a job on any paper in town. So what’s a guy to do under the circumstances? In this case, he pays a visit to Carl Durham (Howard da Silva), the mob boss he unwittingly helped out when he put the finger on the informant. With a modest payoff in his pocket from Durham, Reese takes himself to a small town where he can purchase a half interest in a local newspaper. Almost immediately it looks like our “hero” has landed on his feet again. No sooner has he talked the owner, Cathy Harris (Gale Storm), into accepting his offer than a major story breaks right under their noses. The daughter-in-law of a local blue-blood publisher, E J Stanton (Herbert Marshall), has been murdered and Reese scents the opportunity to make journalistic capital out of this. Initially, it looks like a gift, and the revelation that the deceased’s maid may have been involved adds a bit of spice. In reality though, it’s another situation which Reese has misjudged and he soon finds himself getting out of his depth. The draw of a society killing and the allegations that the perpetrator may have been a black woman offers the chance for exploitation and therefore money. But it’s soon made clear to the viewer that the real killer was someone else, someone much closer to the victim. Reese’s cynical and insincere crusade is about to backfire on him as dirty family secrets, racism and an unholy alliance between the mob and old money combine to present the kind of threat his sharp spiel won’t be enough to deflect.

The Underworld Story was one of the last films Cy Endfield made before the blacklist and the HUAC hearings would force him out of Hollywood and send him across the ocean to pursue his career in Britain. It’s easy to see how, in the volatile and paranoid climate which prevailed then, a film like this would have drawn some unwelcome attention. The main protagonist is a man who has himself been essentially blacklisted by his own industry, who digs under the apparently respectable facade of a pillar of civilized democracy (the free press) and reveals corruption, duplicity and outright criminality. The racial aspect adds another layer of unpleasantness, though this is only a small part of the story and handled in a fairly half-hearted fashion anyway. No, the real issue here is the subversion of the press and moral bankruptcy of those holding sway over public opinion. Essentially we’re shown three separate yet interrelated faces of the fourth estate: the weakness and ethical ambivalence of Marshall, the crass opportunism of Duryea, and the naive idealism of Storm. Endfield contributed to the script sourced from a story by Craig Rice (which probably accounts for the touches of light humor sprinkled throughout) and the critique of a society manipulated by corrupt and powerful men is always to the fore – the scene where Marshall sits around with local dignitaries and cronies working out how best to rid themselves of the troublesome Duryea is effective in its repugnance. The cinematography was handled by Stanley Cortez, resulting in some nicely lit images which add to the noir atmosphere.

Dan Duryea was a fine piece of casting in the role of Reese, his frequent portrayal of charming villains setting up the ambivalence of his character well. Reese, at least until he experiences a late change of heart (or maybe even an acquisition of one), is basically an anti-heroic figure. His main concern for most of the film’s running time is the state of his own bank account, and Duryea was very good at getting across the chiseling soul of Reese. Even as he’s doing his level best to sell out sympathetic characters, you can’t help but like him – not an easy role to pull off but one which was tailor-made for Duryea. Herbert Marshall was another guy skilled at playing complex figures, and he had a real knack for displaying a kind of outraged dignity. Again, you shouldn’t really feel anything much for him but Marshall’s talent for bringing a human face to Stanton means his dilemma becomes understandable. For me, a large part of the film’s success comes down to the way both Marshall and Duryea portray the various shades of gray of their respective characters.

There’s good support provided by Gale Storm as Duryea’s partner in the newspaper and love interest, but her role is essentially one-dimensional. The same could be said for the other cast members I guess: Howard da Silva has a high time chewing up the scenery as the grinning and uncouth gang boss and acts as a great contrast to Marshall’s refinement, while Michael O’Shea’s DA is mostly driven by vindictiveness, particularly where Duryea is concerned. One of the oddest casting choices was Mary Anderson as the black maid everyone suspects of the murder. The fact that Anderson is actually white, and never really looks anything else (there was no overt black face make-up involved) despite everyone alluding to her race, is a bit distracting. The racial matter does form part of the story but it’s of secondary importance at best. Had it been more central, then the whiteness of the actress would have been more problematic. Anderson’s work is perfectly good but I did wonder why she was chosen for that part in the first place.

The Underworld Story is out on DVD via the Warner Archive in the US and also on pressed disc in Spain from Absolute. I have the Spanish release and it looks pretty good – there are a few isolated instances of print damage but overall the image is quite strong. The  picture is sharp throughout and the contrast levels show off the noir cinematography nicely. There is a choice of the original English soundtrack or a Spanish dub and subtitles are optional – they can be disabled from the setup menu. This is a solid film noir from a director I like and it’s always a pleasure to see Dan Duryea in a leading role. He’ll be best remembered for his villainous turns but I enjoy watching him in those rare movies where he got to play the good guy. The Underworld Story isn’t the best known film noir out there but it’s a good production and worth checking out if you’re a fan of the genre, director or star.