Category: Lobby

Follow Me Quietly is a an RKO b-noir directed by Richard Fleischer from a story by Anthony Mann, who legend has it was also involved in the direction.  Fliescher directed a number of b’s for RKO, including Bodyguard (1948),  Trapped (1949),  The Clay Pigeon (1949),  Armored Car Robbery (1950), His Kind of Woman (1951uncredited), and  The Narrow Margin (1952).

At 60 minutes Follow Me Quietly packs a powerful punch. In an unusual story, an obsessed cop chases down a serial killer, who in notes left at the murder scene refers to himself  as ‘the judge’.  Sharp dialog  peppered with irony and sardonic humor adds significantly to the entertainment quotient.  A solid b-cast does well and the story is deftly propelled by the screenplay to a climactic shoot-out on an industrial site.  With the able assistance of DP Robert De Grasse (Crack-Up (1946), Bodyguard (1948), and The Clay Pigeon (1949)), Fliescher fashions wonderfully expressionistic expository scenes that are quintessentially noir. Highlights are scenes where the obsessed cop ‘talks’ to a facsimile dummy of the suspect,  and the interrogation of a suspect in a dark police station.  The tight editing by Oscar-winning editor Elmo Williams adds to the pace and the effectiveness of the shoot-out sequence.

I have chosen Follow Me Quietly to illustrate the aesthetics of the b-movie, as the essential features of the category are clearly evident and skilfully executed. The essential features of a b-movie are a small budget and a tight production schedule.  These constraints necessitated second-string players and real demands on the director to deliver on time and on budget.  For these reasons b-movies were used as a training ground for the film-making team.  The renowned French director, Jean Renoir, who spent time in Hollywood in the 1940s – his last Hollywood picture was the cerebral noir The Woman On the Beach (1947) – in a 1954  interview said: “Don’t go thinking that I despise “B” pictures; in general I like them better than big, pretentious psychological films, they’re much more fun. When I happen to go to the movies in America, I go see “B” pictures. First of all, they are an expression of the great technical quality of Hollywood. Because, to make a good western in a week, the way they do at Monogram, starting Monday and finishing Saturday, believe me, that requires extraordinary technical ability; and detective stories are done with the same speed. I also think that “B” pictures are often better than important films because they are made so fast that the filmmaker obviously has total freedom; they don’t have time to watch over him”.

What then are the the aesthetics of  a b-movie?  With the assistance of the Schirmer Encyclopedia Of Film (2007), we can identify these traits as being determined by two essential constraints:

1. A low budget, and
2. A short shooting schedule

which meant the length of the picture did not usually exceed 60-70 minutes, and this in turn imposed a further constraint.

These constraints dictated the film-making techniques the director of a b-movie routinely used to deliver a picture:

• Overt exposition: through (overwrought) dialog and voice-over; montage; collages of newspaper headlines; radio broadcasts and news
• Production efficiencies: cheap sets; day-for-night shooting; use of stock footage; repeated shots; rear-screen projection
• Shooting techniques: dialog scenes filmed by framing all players; tracking shots kept to a minimum (giving a static quality); avoidance of retakes (with the risk of wooden performances, and in thrillers, poor choreography of fight scenes).

In Follow Me Quietly we can see these constraints and techniques exemplified.

For economy, the opening credits are displayed over the opening scene, which is highly expressionistic. The legs of a young  woman in high heels are seen pacing the pavement in the rain at night – she is wearing a transparent raincoat.  After the credits have finished the camera moves up to show her in full profile: she is smoking and it is revealed she is pacing in front of a bar.  She flicks the cigarette away with a very déclassé gesture and enters the bar.  A dubious moral tone has been established.  As it turns out, the woman is not a b-girl, but a reporter for a sleazy tabloid ‘true crimes’ magazine – I wonder if she is wearing the same raincoat worn by Joan Bennett in Fritz Lang’s  Scarlet Street (1946)?

Soon, the history of the case and the lead cop’s obsession are related through some labored dialog between the cop, his buddy, and their boss at the latest crime scene.  This scene is typical of the movie’s dialog scenes: the players are all within the frame and facing or partly facing the stationary camera.  Schirmer describes this approach as follows: “rather than shooting dialogue as a series of complex shot/reverse shot combinations (shooting over the shoulder of one actor, then the other), which requires multiple set-ups, relighting, and time in the editing room to assemble the footage, B directors would cut corners.  Dialogue scenes were often filmed by framing all of the actors together facing each other, but turned slightly toward the camera. The conversation unfolds in a single, extended shot— effectively eliminating the time necessary for additional set-ups and the editing needed to achieve shot/reverse shot combinations. Moving camera shots were usually kept to a minimum because of the expense and time needed to mount them.  As a result of these factors, the majority of B movies have a relatively static quality.”

Follow Me Quietly uses a few basic internal sets, which are mostly darkly lit.  Stock footage of suspects being rounded up and police cars in traffic are used throughout. One scene of  cop cars speeding towards the camera and delivering suspects to a police station I have seen in at least three other RKO features, and as  late as Joseph.  Lewis’  1955 noir  The Big Combo.

There is a wonderfully done montage of shots depicting the deployment of cops in the manhunt triggered by a shot of a police photographer taking a photo of  the facsimile dummy of  ‘the judge’, cutting to scenes of the mass production and distribution of  the photo, then cops and  squad-cars hitting the streets, and finally suspects being apprehended and hauled into a line-up.

There are other examples in the movie, but I will leave it to readers to explore them when they get a chance to watch this very entertaining and well-made noir.

99 River Street (1953) Essential Phil Karlson b. Pulp poetry from DP Franz Planer. Matches the best of Anthony Mann and Sam Fuller. Evelyn Keys is hot! A cab-driver fights a murder wrap after his cheating wife leaves him for a ruthless hood.  Keys steals this picture as a budding actress who helps the cab-driver in a night of noir entrapment.  Her ‘seduction’ scene with the hood is the stuff of dreams – leaving Ella Raines in her jazz scene in Phantom Lady (1944) in the mud.  Chiaroscuro lensing of Franz Planer is a revelation.

Brighton Rock (1947 UK) Greatest British noir is dark and chilling. A cinematic tour-de-force: from the direction and cinematography to top cast and editing. As brutal as any noir any time any country.  A cheap young psychopath playing the hoodlum boss leaves a bloody trail as he tries to cover up his murder of a ‘rat’.  Adapted by Grahame Greene from his pre-WW2 novel and brought to the screen by the talented Boulting brothers, the story has a venomous counter-point  involving a gullible young waitress who ‘knows too much’.  The picture has to contain one of the most chilling lines in all of noir when a nun  speaks of  “the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God”.

Drunken Angel (aka Yoidore tenshi) (1948 Japan) “Too many useless sacrifices” A great Kurosawa noir.  A loser doctor with soul takes on the fetid moral swamp of Yakuza degradation. The Japanese master in one of his early films has created a classic noir.  He fully comprehends the meaning of noir: from his story and a total control of his mis-en-scene he fashions a tragedy from the back alleys and stinking open sewers of urban degradation. An alcoholic slum doctor tries desperately and in all the wrong ways to cure a young consumptive Yakuza hood.  Kurosawa makes bravura use of ambient music to juxtapose and telegraph the meaning of the drama as it unfolds: from a jazz band playing St. James Infirmary Blues, to a  loudspeaker atop the “Happy” Supermarket blaring the Cuckoo Waltz in an endless loop…

Of Missing Persons (aka Section des disparus)(1956 Argentina) Lurid adaptation of 1950 pulp novel by David Goodis. Appalling yet mesmerizingly torrid latin melodrama. Playboy husband opportunistically fakes his death to flee the clutches of his neurotic wife and fall into the ample bosom of his dancer girlfriend.

The Phenix City Story (1955) Expose confidential based on true story. Unrelenting and chilling portrayal of decent people fighting crime. One of the better 50s ‘confidentials’ based on fact. A good b-cast exudes realism in on-the-streets confrontations filmed as newsreels.  The killing of a black child is particularly brutal, and a sympathetic portrayal of blacks is noteworthy.

Scandal Sheet (1952) Lacklustre realisation of Sam Fuller’s expose novel on yellow journalism. Broderick Crawford is strong as the bad guy, but the rest of  the cast is adequate 0nly. No tension or surprises from by-the-numbers direction.

The Second Woman (1950) From producer Harry M. Popkin (DOA and Impact) A neat b-noir lensed by Hal Mohr has you guessing with a nice twist. Interesting psycho-drama starring Robert Young as a disturbed architect (or is he?) with a love angle, but the pace is a little slow and the drama labored.

The Sleeping City (1950) Sleep inducer about drug racket in NY hospital. Could have been interesting if made by talented film-makers. NY cop goes undercover as an intern in a large city hospital to investigate a murder. Richard Conte’s mind is elsewhere…

The Sound of Fury (1950) Great noir from Cy Endfield outdoes Lang’s Fury and brilliantly prefigures Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. Climactic mob scenes mesmerise. Frank Lovejoy plays himself – an everyman down on his luck who takes to crime after hooking up with homme-fatale Lloyd Bridges, who then frames him for murder. Crazy scene of a lynch mob trying to storm a jail full of rioting in-mates is a must-see tour-de-force.

They Drive by Night (1938 UK) On-the-run ex-con tries to beat a murder rap on dark London streets and long-haul lorries. Abrupt ending though. Quaint English who-dun-it with noir atmospherics and a  loopy camp villain. Not to be confused with the US-made Bogart vehicle.

The Unsuspected (1947) Camp noir! Curtiz directs, Woody Bredell lenses, Waxman scores, Claude Rains over-acts, and Audrey Totter is a hoot! Radio-host of a radio true murders program investigate his own crime!  Predictable but fun. Checkout the vinyl…

Voici le temps des assassin (1956 France) A young twisted femme-fatale and  her off-the-wall mere try to destroy aged Paris restaurateur. Climax a bitch. Jean Gabin is a master-chef and and all-round good guy, seduced by the daughter of his ex-wife. This dame is a text-book psychopath. Lies and more lies and layer upon layer of  cruel  manipulation.  A dark hysteria pervades and look out for the young woman whipped by the dominatrix mother-in-law swathed in mourning!

The Web (1947) Entertaining thriller with dumb lawyer framed for murder. Snappy patter from solid leads, but about as noir as an albino cat. Hapless lawyer moonlights as bodyguard for a corporate type, and gets into trouble. An ensemble cast serve up a fizzy martini: Ella Raines, Edmond O’Brien, William Bendix, and Vincent Price.  Guess who plays who!

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) Preminger’s elegant direction and La Shelles’ crisp noir lensing are aloof.  Dan Andrews in the lead is wooden. Andrews is a cop on a short fuse, who accidentally kills a suspect, and covers it up, then falls for the daughter of the cab-drover charged with the killing. Over-rated and it has all been said before.  Gene Tierney as always is engaging as the love interest.

The Woman On the Beach (1947) Intriguing cerebral noir melodrama from Jean Renoir… what’s left of it after hacking by RKO suits. A moody ‘art-house’ noir where a love triangle suffused with suppressed rage, anger, and eroticism is played out in an isolated beach-side setting. Top cast make it interesting: Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan, and Charles Bickford.

World For Ransom (1954) Dan Duryea a good guy! Robert Aldrich takes a boys own script and fashions a noir take on love, loyalty and illusion. Set in Singapore with a shootout finale in the jungles of Malaya.  Story while solid does not support the heavy psychological sub-text.

1948 was a signal year in the film noir cycle, which saw the move towards on-the-streets filming and a shifting focus on police operations, heralding the police procedurals that became dominant in the 1950s.

Jules Dassin’s The Naked City for Mark Hellinger carries the banner for this nascence of a cinema-verite style of filming. Dassin’s picture is set in New York and tells the story of a murder investigation by homicide cops with a gritty realism. But thematically, there is little to distinguish The Naked City as a film noir. It is the city of New York and its people that hold your attention, and the several bit-portrayals of people going about their lives are truly engaging. The final scene where a street-sweeper in profile scoops up yesterday’s papers from the gutter and moves on into the New York night gives an arresting hard-bitten closure.

In the same year Fox released Call Northside 777, a ‘newspaper’ noir set in Chicago directed by Henry Hathaway (The House on 92nd Street (1945), The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss of Death (1947), and Niagara (1953)). The film is an adaptation based on true events in Chicago during prohibition and recounts a newspaper reporter’s 1944 investigation into the conviction in 1932 of two young polish immigrants for the killing a policeman. A solid script by Jerome Cady and Jay Dratler, and the exceptional cinematography of DP Joseph MacDonald (Shock (1946), The Dark Corner (1946), The Street with No Name (1948), Panic in the Streets (1950), Niagara (1953), Pickup on South Street (1953), and House of Bamboo (1955)), mark this picture has having at least equal standing with The Naked City. The streets of Chicago are explored as never before.

A top-line male cast attracted an a-budget: James Stewart plays the reporter, Richard Conte is one of the convicted, and Lee J. Cobb is Stewart’s editor. Stewart is cast against type, and it doesn’t quite work. He is not hard-boiled. Rather he is too sober, happily married and middle-class, and while his reluctance to pursue the story of a ‘cop-killer’ marks out a certain prejudice, his persona jars. Conte has a relatively small role as the convict but is convincing, and Cobb is in his element.

But these guys are out-classed by the dames in this picture. They are all bit-players that shine in their characterizations. Helen Walker (Nightmare Alley (1947), Impact (1949), The Big Combo (1955)) is charming and intelligent as Stewart’s knowing wife. Betty Garde (Cry of the City (1948) and Caged (1950)) is convincing as an aging hard-bitten low-life whose hostile testimony convicted Conte. Kashia Orzazewski (Thieves’ Highway (1949), I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951), and Deadline – U.S.A. (1952)) as Conte’s mother is a revelation – she IS the guy’s mother– scrubbing floors and saving nickels & dimes for 11 years to save $5,000 to offer as a reward for whoever can get her son released. Joanne De Bergh (in the first of only two film apperances) as Conte’s ex-wife steals the scene where she is interviewed by a cynical and aggressive Stewart. Her unflinching integrity shines from her unwavering eyes – she has total control of the situation – in the living room of her home where she has built a new life for herself and Conte’s son.

The picture is compelling even though the pace is slow and melodrama is kept at bay. The dramatic development of the reporter from a reluctant investigator to an impassioned crusader for justice impels the first half, and the second half is carried forward by the need to get credible evidence before a deadline agreed with the authorities. Stewart at one point castigates the blindfolded statue of justice for having a two-edged sword: the enforcement edge is sharp, but the other edge that deals with over-turning injustice is blunt. There is a duality too in the portrayal of the newspaper business in the movie, where the pursuit of sensational headlines and circulation compromises the search for truth. Early in the film, after Conte has read Stewart’s early tabloid stories, one of which splashes a photo of his wife and son on the front page, he tells Stewart to drop the story:

I sent for you
to tell you that…
I don’t want you
to write anymore…
about me or my family.

I’ve read what you’ve written.
I’ve seen the pictures
of my mother…
my wife and my boy.

We’ve poured our hearts
out to you…

(Well, you wanted help, didn’t ya?

That’s the only way you can get people
interested in the case

Nobody’s gonna read a little two-line ad
like your mother ran in the paper.

A half a million people
have been followin’ this story.

Now somebody might know
the killers and get in touch with us.)

I don’t want that kind of help.
I’ll stay here a thousand years.

But you must not
write anymore…
about my wife
and my mother and my boy.
My mother is doing this for me,
not to sell your papers.

(Oh, now, wait a minute. Wiecek.)

I made my wife divorce me…
so my boy has a new name.

Now you put his picture in the paper,
spoiled everything for him.

(I don’t know.
I thought I was doin’ a good job.)

No! This is writing
without heart…
without truth.

Before, I thought maybe
some crook lawyer…
would try to get the dollars
from my mother.

But this, I never figured.

Yes, I say it.
I’ll stay here. I’ll stay here
a thousand years.

But never write anymore
about my family.

Leave them alone.

Leave alone my wife and my boy.

Like in The Naked City, the use of new technology in police operations is significant, but here it is used to gather evidence to quash a conviction. Conte undergoes a lie-detector test, and a good amount of screen-time is spent on a useful description of how the machine works. The evidence that exonerates Conte relies on blowing up a newspaper photo to reveal the date it was taken, and the transmission of the blow-up is over telephone lines using the then ‘wire photo system’. Also, unlike in The Naked City, the cops are portrayed as obstructionist and not above illegally withholding public records in an attempt to stymie Stewart’s efforts on behalf of a ‘cop-killer’.

Call Northside 777, like The Naked City, has noir elements but is thematically less concerned than traditional noir with the fate of the criminal protagonist. Conte is free at the end, but he has lost 11 years of his life, his former wife and his son are no longer his, and his future is uncertain. While there is a definite irony in the last words spoken in the film (apart from those of the narrator) when Conte says, “It’s a good world… outside. Yes it’s a good world outside.”, these words are spoken without irony – but not without a trace of regret.

Riff-Raff (1947) is a routine RKO comedy-adventure movie that has a certain flair with snappy dialog and an engaging cast. It would be  a stretch to call it a noir, but the opening sequence is so visually noir and accomplished that it should not be missed.  The movie opens at an isolated air-strip late at night in pouring run, as a plane waits for a passenger who finally arrives late.  This sequence running for 5 minutes  is totally without dialog, and brilliantly establishes a mood of dark mystery.

The kudos must go to DP George Diskant  (A Woman’s Secret (1949), They Live by Night (1949), Port of New York (1949), The Racket (1951), The Narrow Margin (1952), On Dangerous Ground (1952), and Kansas City Confidential (1952)) and first-time director Ted Tetzlaff  (The Window (1949), Johnny Allegro (1949), and Gambling House (1950)), who formerly had a long career as a cinematographer starting in the silent era.

John Alton was one of the great noir cinematographers.  Alton’s visual poetry in a stunning chase climax in underground city drains in this edited final sequence from the pulp-b He Walked by Night (1948) attest to his greatness.

A select film noir filmography for Alton as DP:

T-Men (1947)
Bury Me Dead (1947 )
Raw Deal (1948)
Canon City (1948)
The Amazing Mr. X (1948)
He Walked by Night (1948)
Hollow Triumph (1948)
Reign of Terror (1949)
Border Incident (1949)
Mystery Street (1950)
The People Against O’Hara (1951)
Talk About a Stranger (1952)
Count the Hours (1953)
I, the Jury (1953)
Witness to Murder (1954)
The Steel Cage (1954)
The Big Combo (1955)
Slightly Scarlet (1956)
Elmer Gantry (1960)