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I am a huge enthusiast of film noir style films and especially those of the 40's and 50's. I decided to finally begin this category dedicated to noir films. I have seen plenty and have a decent DVD collection to review. I might add that for me film noir is not limited to tough talking detective films, though those movies represent the core of what film noir is noted for, but can include boxing films such as The Set Up and Requiem for a Heavy Weight, and in a stretch even westerns such as High Noon or Gregory Peck's The Gunfighter. Some newer films such as the excellent Body Heat and L.A. Confidential draw from the film noir tradition but are not really film noir to me for one big reason: they are not in sensational black and white. Color just eleviates the despair and suffering to a tolerable point. The soul is to so dark and stained any longer and you cannot get those great smoke rings against the black background any longer. Lets begin this category with triple doses of the underbelly of life, beginning with pretty boy Tyrone Power's experiment in carny angst:

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Nightmare Alley

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1947/Director: Edmund Goulding/Screenplay: Jules Furthman , William Lindsay Gresham (novel)

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Cast: Tyrone Power , Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Mike Mazurki, Ian Keith

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From what I understand Tyrone Power bought the rights to Lindsay Gresham’s novel for something like $60,000 and wanted it to be a vehicle to shed his romantic lead image and establish him as a legitimate actor. The studios at first felt the material was unfilmable but Powers and prospective director Edmund Goulding were persistent and the movie was filmed. Powers plays a traveling sideshow carnie on the look out for his big break who he finds in the sideshow fortune teller. They team up after her alcoholic husband or boyfriend drinks a bottle of wood grain alcohol and do a mind reading act that soon grows too small for Powers. He is shotgun married to the strongman’s (Mike Mazurki) naïve but sexy daughter played convincingly by pretty Collen Gray.

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He crosses paths with smart and sultry Joan Blondell who plays the typical film noir femme fatal who is always one step ahead of the desperate and haunted male lead. She plays a high class psychiatrist whose clientele include the social elite that Powers targets for his big scams. The movie plays with moral issues and big questions in the way a good film noir film would, and that is with great photograhy, tough dialog and cool acting. The films never become pompous or overblown because the people suffering from these existential calamities are people on the edge of life, living pay check to pay check who live by their wits and luck and flexible morals.

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His transformation into “the geek” is excellent and there are plenty of great lines. There are some problems too that require some added suspension of disbelief, for example, that the so called code Powers and Gray uses to dupe the audiences could be so effective based on how it is used in the film is far fetched. It just could not work but we have to accept that it would work in order for the story to be propelled along. Another problem is that Blondell uses a vinyl record and old style phonograph to record all her therapy sessions when in fact records and phonographs can only be used for playback. Again we must accept this for the plot to work. Sometimes some things like this can ruin a movie for me but in this case it did not.

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Despite these minor flaws and the fact I usually hate carnival movies (except for La Strada and few others) the movie works well and Powers in fact becomes a legitimate actor and left his pretty boy image behind for the most part. The black and white is marvelous.

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Panic in the Streets

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1950/Director: Elia Kazan/ Screenplay: Edward Anhalt

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Cast: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes. Jack Palance, Zero Mostel

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While this is not one of Elia Kazan’s best films it is nonetheless a good movie and you can see many of his signature touches in some of the scenes, especially in the indoor shots. The opening shots of the poker game are similar to the ones shot for A Streetcar Named Desire, a remarkably great movie only a couple years down the road. Richard Widmark plays a civil service employed doctor working in New Orleans who comes across a case of Pneumonic Plague brought in by an illegal alien on one of many cargo ships. The movie becomes a race against time story as both Widmark and murderous hooligan Jack Palance look for the same man for different reasons; Widmark to stop the highly contagious and air born spread form of plague from killing thousands and Palance to get information on an imaginary fortune in something he feels the dying man is hiding. Zero Mostel is good and sweaty a Palance’s partner in crime with a little more of a conscience.

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The acting and dialog are pretty good although Widmark is a little over the top at times. He is ready to blow a fuse even when he seems to be getting everything he asks for from the local police chief (Paul Douglas) who puts his career on the line to help. This is okay since this is that Widmark does best. Even better is Palance who hisses and menaces his way from scene to scene and seems lacking in any scruples at all but is street savvy and lethal from the opening scenes where he kills a guy for just wanting to leave a poker game. While far from a flawless movie it is difinently worth a watch or two.

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The Big Knife

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1955/Director: Robert Aldrich/ Screenplay: Clifford Odets (play), James Poe (screenplay)

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Cast: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters

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Based on a play this movie takes place on one set for the most part, that of a large living room with a huge wet bar every one mingles around. The talking is fast and tough and the acting is pretty good if not a little over blown in some parts, but I liked the movie alot. Palance plays a burned out actor with no way out from under the thumb of movie boss Rod Steiger because of Palance's stained past. Ida Lupino plays his tormented wife and Shelly Winter's is a lushy starlet whose only role is that of party girl for the movie execs. Everyone is jaded and on edge. The confrontations between Palance and Steiger are terrific. Palance is the A-list actor who has gotten everything he was promised and everything he desired but who suddenly does not want to renew his contract, much to the chagrin and consternation of movie mogul Steiger who is not letting him out of the deal without a battle to the end.

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There are some great moments int he film. One great scene where Palance imitates a growling crocodile and then a skimpering, slithering lizard that is worth a few replays. I have to admit I like him more as the heavy in a film,as in Panic in the Streets, than as a wishy washy, whiny sentimental actor with budding principles but the movie is fine. I found some of the interaction with his physical trainer a little unintentionally (I assume) homoerotic really and sort of silly. As far as noir style films go it is not what I like the most, but I can recommend it. It is a scathing look at the greed and vanity of Hollywood behind the cameras.

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