***Out In The 1930s Jazzy Be-Bop Night-A Girl Has Got To Do What a Girl Has To Do-“Baby Face”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the 1930s forbidden film classic, Baby Face.

Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck, written by Darryl Zanuck, 1933

A girl has got to do what a girl has to do, circa 1933. That is the overarching theme of the film under review, Baby Face. And what a down in the dregs speakeasy life, pimped off on by a money-grubbing Prohibition father girl does then, and now for that matter, is the best she can. And the best she can is to use her sexual attractiveness, her feminine wiles, and her gold-digger’s heart to move up the social ladder. The film traces Baby Face’s (played by a young and fetching, fetching more before she gets her hair all marcelled, Barbara Stanwyck) hard grind up the social scale using those talents. Starting from an “easy rider” on a tramp train up to the high and rarified airs of the CEO of a bank she single-mindedly get what she wants, or what she thinks she wants.

Now this story of a girl doing the best she can is hardly a new one but what makes this film stand out is its rather explicit and upfront look at social reality and sexual themes. No question Baby Face is a kept woman, no question she will exchange her sexual favors for money, jewels, and maybe power, power over upscale men. These themes usually in the past have been kept under veil and this film, or rather films if you watch the two versions provided, is a no holds barred affair in the scramble to get out from under. The other version is a more sanitized offering, more up to Hollywood 1930s code.

The companion films would make for a good cinema student’s class project. Moreover, the underlining “philosophy” presented is rather startling for a “fluff” movie as Baby Face is early on exposed to a nutty professor-type (really a shoemaker and maybe no so nutty), a foreign nutty guy, who is touting the virtues of Nietzsche’ Will To Power and his various war of all against all notions. That in 1933 (as Hitler starts kicking some Nietzsche doors down in troubled Germany). So all this socially significant material in an hour and one half film. Whee!

***Out In The 2000s Crime Noir Night-“Sin City”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Sin City.

DVD Review

Sin City, starring Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, co-directed by Frank Miller, 2005

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Of course when I think of noir it is 1940s-50s noir, black and white in film and in the good guys-bad guys constellation with a little murder and mayhem mixed in to keep one’s eyes open just in case there is no femme fatale to muddy the waters. Neo-noir, such as the film under review, Sin City, is another matter, perhaps. Here’s the why of the perhaps.

Central to the old time crime noir was the notion that crime did not pay and as stated above the bad guy(s) learned that lesson the hard way after a little mussing up or a date with a bullet. Kids’ stuff really when compared to the over-the-top action of this three vignettes series on modern day good guys versus bad guys. Three separate male characters, all tough guys and guys you would want to have at your back if real trouble headed your way, are trying, trying within the parameters of common sense or believability, to clean up slices of Sin City. Sin City as the rather obvious name implies, is in the grips of corruption from the top down, including in virtually every civic institution. Our avengers are trying to cut a wedge into that bad karma by individually, one, tracking down a bizarre, politically connected heir whose thing was slice and dice of very young girls, two, avenge the death of a high class call girl who was kind to one tough guy, and, three, keep the pimps and cops at bay in the red light district where the working girls have set up their own Hookers’ Commune.

All of this doing good is, of necessity in today’s movie world, linked up with, frankly, over the top use of violence of all sorts from cannibalism to barbaric death sentences, well beyond what tame old time noir warranted. Apparently the succeeding crime waves since the 1940s have upped the ante and something like total war is required to exterminate the villains. That and some very up-to-date use of cinematography to give a gritty black and white feel to the adventures. And also a not small dose of magical realism, suspension of disbelief, and sparseness of language to go along with the plot and visual action.

But here is the funny thing, funny for an old-time crime noir aficionado, I really liked this film. Why? Well go back to the old time crime noir premise. Good guys (and then it was mostly guys- here some very wicked “dames” join in and I know I would not want to cross them, no way) pushed their weight around or tilted at windmills for cheap dough or maybe a little kiss. They got mussed, up, trussed up, busted up in the cause of some individual justice drive that drove the “better angels of their natures.” Guess what, sixty years later, a thousand years advanced cinematically, a million years advanced socially (maybe) and these guys are still chasing windmills. Nice, right.

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-“The Naked City”-A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for The Naked City.

DVD Review


The Naked City, starring Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Universal International, 1946

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, The Naked City, offer neither although the stark New York City cinematography and the voice-over narration place it firmly in the genre. This film is that old noir stand-by from the period, the police procedural with its never-ending cautionary tale about how “crime does not pay.”

A little plot summary is in order. Yes, New York City, well the New York City of the 1940s and 1950s had eight million stories, although maybe really just two, rich and poor, or maybe better getting richer or sliding down poorer, but that is the subject for another day. Of course telling eight million stories, other than as a few seconds relief slice-of-life scenes, would make me very sleepy, very sleepy indeed. So the plot line reduces the sleepiness to a minimum by telling one story, or rather one murder story that wraps quite a few people in its tentacles, including one major city homicide squad. A squad led by perennial Irish actor Barry Fitzgerald as the foot-sore but worldly-wise detective in charge. The grift (profit motive) that drives the story line is stealing jewelry from those self-same getting richer New York City swells, including an inside society swell finger man. But things turn awry when one drop-dead beautiful model (maybe I should not have used just that phrase, but I will let it stand) winds up being murdered by her some of her thieving confederates.

The twists and turns, such as they are, revolve around a mystery man lover, suitor, whatever it was never really clear, except he was daffy over that drop-dead beautiful model, and finding him as the logical guy to have done, or ordered the murder. In New Jack City and elsewhere that is hard to do, one and one half hours hard to do. But in the end Barry and his homicide squad cohorts get their man, a strangely agile bad man for noir who are usually just straight thugs. And the city moves on to the next…murder, mayhem or whatever. Not exactly my cup of tea in noir but if I recall this film was the model for a television series of the same name so somebody must have though well of it beyond the slice-of-New York life scenes interspersed in the story and the great black and white cinematography of the Big Apple just after the end of World War II.

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night, Kind Of-“Undercurrent”-A Film Review

 

Click on the headline to link ot a Wikipedia entry for the film Undercurrent.

DVD Review

Undercurrent, starring Katherine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, directed by Vincent Minnelli, 1947

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime film noir, aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1946, Undercurrent, frankly baffles me. A pyscho-drama, no question, a famous director, no question, but also a very non-femme fatale in Kate Hepburn, and a very non-tough guy (street or detective) role for classic 1940s tough guy and a good guy to have at your back, Robert Mitchum.

A little plot look will help explain my bafflement. Robert Taylor, a ruthless, driven high-tech capitalist who made big dough during World War II is also a little mad, well, a lot mad. However he is able to cover that little problem up while courting, well not beautiful, but let’s call her handsome, Kate Hepburn. Seems he needs a trophy wife and Kate fills the bill. And that is where the problems begin because Brother Taylor has a brother whom he is insanely jealous of for the usual Freudian, or pseudo-Freudian, reasons that drive the plot lines of these pycho-dramas. Kate, however, loves the big lug Taylor until he starts going over the edge about his brother (and some other things like a little murder of an employee that goes a long way to allowing him to be that ruthless high-tech capitalist). Of course, as in all such dramas old Robert will get his comeuppance, have no fear.

But where is the noir in this noir? No femme fatale, no tough guy throwing his weight around or tilting at windmills to right the world’s wrongs, no problem that requires quick thinking to right those wrongs. Well when you go on a tear on a subject as I am on crime noir not everything will come up Out Of The Past or The Big Sleep. Not this one anyway.

***Out In The 1940s Crime Noir Night-Brother, Build Them Gallows High - Robert Mitchum’s “Out of the Past”

Click on the headline to link to Wikipedia entry for the crime noir classic Out Of The Past.

DVD Review

Out Of the Past, Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, 1947

No question I am a film noir, especially a crime noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various crime noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been better left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy and usually need no additional comment from me as their plot lines stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching, or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass. Some, such as the film under review from 1947, Out Of The Past, get a double pass for the plot and for the femme fatale. And what a femme fatale.


A little summary of the plot line is in order to make my point. A young Robert Mitchum plays a not too choosey, just south of the shady-side but street smart, well street smart for a while, detective Jeff Markham (along with his gumshoe partner Fisher who enters into the scheme of things just a little, just like Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon ) hired by mobster Whit (played by a young Kirk Douglas) to find his mistress, Kathy, (enter drop-dead beautiful Jane Greer) after she off-handedly shots him (and takes his dough, a lot of dough, although the amount to him is not the issue it is the fact of the taking that hurts his pride, hurts his pride big time). That mix, that flammable mix, of a malleable gumshoe, a touchy mobster, and drop-dead femme fatale who has the morals of an alley cat, maybe fewer, is what drives this one, especially the doings of that femme fatale. Well, a girl has to take care of herself in this wicked old world and the boys, well, the boys, can figure the angles for themselves, if they can ever think straight for a minute when she is within fifty yards of them.

Now no question if one had to think, and not think hard, of a 1940s movie star to play a detective who had to get his hands dirty, had to move his heft around, and take a few punches, if necessary, Robert Mitchum (along with Humphrey Bogart) would head the list. But he is strictly in over his head here, like all guys when it comes to tackling a dame. So naturally Jeff, while off-handedly chasing Kathy around Mexico on Whit’s dime, falls, falls hard for Kathy. Once he smells the perfume, eyes her shape, well let’s call a thing by its right name, once she gets under his skin he is a goner. And nobody could blame him really, life is short and how many times are you going to get a chance at a drop-dead beauty that, for the minute, is on the loose. Not me.

The problem is that Whit has his own sense of honor, or revenge, take your pick. And the fact of the matter is that Kathy has her tentacles into him as well, whatever mischief she may have done, whatever off-hand shot he might have to take when she is within fifty yards. So Whit will move might and main to get Kathy back, no questions asked, no quarter given. And Jeff, poor sap Jeff, will wind up behind the eight- ball. See, after another off-hand shooting by Kathy (this should have warned the boys off, a dame with a quick trigger finger should be given a wide berth, but what are you going to do when that perfume smell starts coming your way. Besides it’s a dangerous world anyway), this time fatal, against Jeff’s old detective partner Fisher who was now in the employ of Whit, Kathy winds up back under Whit’s wing.

Whit, with Kathy back in tow and no stranger to intrigue, plots to frame Jeff, plots hard, and frames him big time, while getting out from under some blackmail from an accountant that has the goods on him. That frame drives the last half of the movie, but what really drives the thing is the now “reformed” Jeff’s lingering taste for wildcat Kathy, although he has another honey, a non femme fatale honey, Ann, waiting for him in the wings. So like a moth to the flame when Kathy beckons Jeff is half-way there already.

And, no question, under ordinary circumstances, Jeff would have been able to get out from under but as he said in the course of trying to get out from under Kathy had “built those gallows high.” So the lesson is clear, stay clear of femme fatales, especially wicked ones. Unless of course you think you are smart enough to keep up with them. If you think so though, build those gallows high, brother, build them high. See this beauty, see it several times, I have.

*** In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review

*** In The 1950s Crime Noir Night- When Willy Held Forth-“Union Station”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film Union Station.

DVD Review

Union Station, starring William Holden, Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures Studios, 1951

No question I am a film noir aficionado. Recently I have been on a tear reviewing various film noir efforts and drawing comparisons between the ones that “speak” to me and those that, perhaps, should have been left on the cutting room floor. The classics are easy; films like Out Of the Past, Gilda, The Lady From Shang-hai, and The Big Sleep need no additional comment from me as they stand on their own merits. Others, because they have a fetching (or wicked, for that matter, femme fatale to muddy the waters also get a pass, or as in Gilda a double nod for the plot and for the femme fatale. Be still my heart, at the name Rita Hayworth. I have even tried to salvage some efforts by touting their plot lines, and others by their use of shadowy black and white cinematography to overcome plot problems. Like The Third Man (and, in that case, the bizarre zither-drenched musical score as well). And that brings us to those films, like the film under review, 1951s Union Station, starring William Holden and Nancy Olson that have no redeeming film noir qualities.

Now I mentioned the stars and the year of this film for a purpose. 1951 also saw this pair in one of the great film noir, no, flat-out great films of all time, Sunset Boulevard, so it is not the acting capabilities, although Brother Holden may have been a little tired from playing Norma Desmond’s pet or maybe just a little bloated from being in that swimming pool too long. What is missing here is though is any spark in order to get interested in actors or plot.

The plot line, in any case, is rather conventional. A con, or rather ex-con, who had plenty of time on his hands up in stir, decides that from here on in he is going to live on easy street and so whiled away those lonely prison cell hours devising a plot to get, what else, some serious dough. Easy street, after all, is no place for chump change. So naturally the idea is to kidnap a wealthy guy’s daughter (who is also blind, so a conveniently easy target), hold her for ransom, and easy street here we come (of course, said con has a moll, a moll who in the end he does wrong as such bad guys will do out of habit, a blonde moll, although such molls are not always blonde).

So you see, a pretty conventional plot, played out very conventionally. Said con used to work at, where else, Union Station (Chicago version), and so the swap (dough for daughter) is to take place there. What brother con did not figure on was that head railroad detective Willy Calhoun (the part played by William Holden, but don’t call him Willy to his face, okay) is like some avenging angel-god when criminal hi jinks take place in his precinct. A fatal mistake, a very fatal mistake, for brother con. But it takes time, too much time, for him to learn that sad lesson. Oh, and along the way, Willy (remember don’t’ call him that to his face) “falls” for Joyce (played by Nancy Olson), who is the one who tipped him to the possible criminal enterprise that was looming at his place of work. I will take any five minutes, no, any two minutes of Sunset Boulevard over this whole one and one half hour stew. I guess Willy (oops, William)and Nancy needed dough that year themselves.