Category: Films

The young daughter of a lady casino operator falls for a racketeer
(1947 Paramount. Directed by Lewis Allen 96 mins)

Despite the use of lavish technicolor and high production values, Desert Fury only has any spark in the last 20 minutes culminating in a three-car car chase across the Nevada desert at dusk, which is made even more exciting by great musical scoring from Miklós Rózsa.

The big name stars are wasted and the screenplay from the otherwise dependable A. I. Bezzeridis and Rober Rossen lacks punch, and the dialog is sadly pretty sappy.  But the story did hold my interest to the end.

The debut performance of Wendell Corey as the possessive homme-noir to Lizabeth Scott and her racketeer boy-friend is impressive: his relationship with the racketeer played by John Hodiak has an undertone of sublimated homoerotic obsession, and it this that sustains the drama and is the trigger for the final denouement.

The Good Die Young (UK Remus Films 1954 Directed by Lewis Gilbert 100 minutes)

The Good Die Young  is an interesting British noir that employs the unusual homme-noir motif and the more common disillusioned war veteran theme in an original treatment.

“Four men with four guns” the voice-over narrator intones as four guys in a stolen car prepare for a heist on the dark streets of London, before a series of flashbacks traces how each of these four men, with no priors, find themselves in a stolen car, each with a gun in their hand. All four are WW2 vets in financial straits, with three in need of some quick cash and easy targets for the fourth, a wastrel toff cum homme-noir: a man so venal he is loathed and despised by his own father.

While an uneven film, the actual heist and denouement are very strong with deep focus location night-for-night shooting on dark sombre London streets, the London underground, a symbolic sequence in a grave-yard, and expressive tilted framings that break the linearity of the narrative.  The opening scene, which regrettably is obscured by the credits, coupled with a dramatic musical score, is evocative of US noirs of the period with the heist car speeding towards the camera on a rainy London night .

The strongest of the four stories are that of a washed-up boxer played beautifully by English actor Stanley Baker and that of the wastrel played with suave menace by a young Laurence Harvey.  The other two men are Americans whose stories are less convincing, and Gloria Grahame as the cheating starlet-wife of one of them is wasted in a tacky role.  The ‘seduction’ scene where the toff connives to get the others into the caper is marred by redundant and silent-era close-ups of Harvey’s exaggerated facial expressions and arch eye movements.

Interesting historically, and it is worth wading through the first 80 minutes to get to the final action-packed 20 minutes.

The love between a sultry cabaret singer and the manager of a road-house is thwarted by the jealous and vengeful owner (1948 20th Century Fox Directed by Jean Negulesco 95 mins)

A melodrama made memorable by a bravura performance from Ida Lapino as a cynical cabaret singer who finds love.  Her rendition of “One for My Baby” with a bluesy solo piano accompaniment is arresting, and her sensuality is palpable and provocative. She delivers her cynical lines  with a world-weary cigarette-smokey voice and her one-liner put-downs are delivered with perfect timing.  She is one hot dame, and the passions she arouses are very believable.

Richard Widmark is strong in only his third role as the schizoid road-house owner who covets Ida, but a stolid Cornel Wilde as Widmark’s manager and rival for the singer’s affection is a damper on the action.

The movie is set-bound and it shows, but veteran director Jean Negulesco composes interesting and fluid takes with almost-noir lighting.

A young psychopath with an Electra complex tries to murder her step-mother
(1952 RKO Directed by Otto Preminger 91 mins)

Angel Face is a dark and occasionally chilling gothic melodrama with Jean Simmons effectively cast against type as an ‘enfant-terrible’, and Robert Mitchum as her hapless object of desire and manipulation.  While well-made and with high production values, the film moves too slowly and Mitchum’s trademark laconic persona is a further drag on the action.  The final denouement though half-expected is still a shocker.  But on balance, Preminger’s sardonic detachment, which usually finds favor with film critics, makes the film look and feel one-dimensional.

An interesting costuming twist telegraphs the repression of forbidden sexual desire on the day a fatal plot is executed: the protagonist contrary to her usually modestly feminine attire on this day sports a very tight sweater and a waist-hugging belt.