Film Noir, Part II

 

 The first part of this post focused on Film Noir set in San Francisco.  That post can be found on my San Francisco blog:  https://sfbaygirl.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/san-francisco-film-noir/

This post covers my favorite Film Noirs not set in San Francisco.

Film Noir refers to a genre of films made from the 1940's and on.  Films were typically shot in black and white, with juxtaposition of light and heavy shadows, unusual and distorted camera angles (think 1960’s Batman or Star Trek), an underlying sense of dread and moral uncertainty, and an eerie soundtrack.   The protagonist was either a person guilty of circumstance, or a moral degenerate; psychologically unstable or neurotic.   There is typically a murder.  There is the omnipresent “femme fatale”, who is either involved in the crime or draws the anti-hero into the mystery requiring rescue.  And there is usually another character that adds pressure causing the criminal’s plans to go wrong, such as a detective or private investigator.  For me, there is also a bit of comic undertone, although I am not sure if it is intentional.

 Here are highlights from my favorite Film Noirs (see Part I above):

 Murder by Contract, 1958, Vince Edwards

Vince Edwards plays Claude, a man in desperate need of money for an investment.  He agrees to take a job as a hired hitman.  He displays ridiculous patience waiting in his apartment for the phone to ring with his first assignment.  If he isn’t there to take the call, he won’t get the job.  He sits inside his apartment for weeks, doing pull-ups, ordering delivery.  He maintains an orderly record of his income after each hit, and how much he still needs to earn.

Claude is calm and cool.  He doesn’t use a gun.  He kills various people in various ways, including the man who hired him. 

He is notified that he is to kill a witness in a trial and takes a train to Los Angeles.  There are two men waiting for him to give him at the train station with details of the job and to escort him until the job is complete. The movie becomes utterly hysterical at this point.  The three men all squeeze into the front seat of a convertible driving on the Pacific Coast Highway.  The two men are all business, worried about how many days they have to complete the job and wanting to discuss the details with Claude and show him the location.  But Claude isn’t interested.  He has never been to the west coast before.  He has never seen the Pacific Ocean.  He wants to go fishing, go swimming, and play golf.  The two men take him on all of these side trips, getting more and more agitated that Claude is stalling and that they are losing time.

Claude finally tells them he is ready to see the location.   They get there and Claude finds out the mark is a woman.  She is under police protection and home bound until the trial.  He goes ballistic!  He demands to be paid double because women are unpredictable and “double the trouble”.   Claude then goes through elaborate attempts to murder this woman (think Wile E. Coyote and his complicated Acme Company traps).  First Claude creates a complex electrical plan that will cause an explosion when the victim turns her television set on.  What he didn’t know was that she used a remote control.    Then he came up with a scheme using a bow and flaming arrows.   Finally he thinks that he killed her, but he actually killed the female cop instead.  Claude later goes on a rampage killing his two handlers and finally gets caught escaping from inside the house after attempting to strangle the witness. 

The other notable character in this movie is the man behind the music:  Perry Botkin, Sr.  The recurring music that plays throughout the entire movie is as entertaining as Vince Edwards.

 

Martin Scorcese’s career was greatly influenced by this movie.

 

Double Indemnity – 1944, Fred McMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, & Edward G. Robinson

I would say this one is my favorite Film Noir, maybe because Billy Wilder is one of my favorite directors and writers (ie, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, Sunset Boulevard), and maybe because the story is done mainly in the first person, as Fred speaks directly to the audience, and the story is told in reverse.  Fred he has been shot and is making a confession into a dictaphone. Fred plays Walter Neff, an insurance man who tries to sell a policy to Barbara Stanwyck’s (Phyllis) husband, who detecting his attraction to her, enlists Neff’s help in devising and carrying out a plot to kill her husband so that they can collect on the double indemnity policy (double the payout if death from a train).  Together, they get the husband to sign the policy unknowingly, stage an “accident” from a train, and then must deal with the increasing suspicions of Walter’s manager, Keys. Phillis is the ultimate femme fatale.  She is so deliciously evil, getting Neff to do her dirty work for her, all the while never intending to share the money, and the unforgettable stand-off at the end, where they shoot each other. 

 

The Third Man – 1949, Joseph Cotten & Orson Welles

This one is a cinematic masterpiece.  As in Murder by Contract, there is another character in this movie and that is the zither-playing music of Anton Karas.  The soundtrack plays almost non-stop through the entire film and is impossible to ignore. 

The film takes place in post-war Vienna.  Cotten (Holly Martins), an author of American westerns, arrives in Vienna at the request of his friend Harry Lime, who has a job for him.  Cotton is confused when his best friend Lime isn’t there to pick him up at the train and heads to his apartment.  The porter at the apartment tells him that ten minutes ago, Harry Lime’s body was carried out in a coffin.  Martins heads to the cemetery, attends the service, and is quickly drawn into a mystery.  He sees a beautiful woman and engages in conversation with local policeman, Calloway.  Martins and Calloway go to a bar where Martins proceeds to become very drunk.  Calloway informs him that Lime was a racketeer and gives Martins some money to stay at a local hotel.  We meet an unusual Englishman, Crackett, who asks if the author would agree to do a speech at his institute. 

Martins receives a call at the hotel, asking him to meet our next unusual character, Kurtz, who claims he has read Martin’s book, and asks if they can meet at a café.  Kurtz is carrying Martin’s book and a small dog.  His story about Lime’s death differs from what the porter at Lime’s apartment witnessed.  Lime was crossing the road, was hit by a car, died instantly and three men carried him across the street to a statue.  According to Kurtz, Lime wasn’t dead right away and there were only two men who carried him (Kurtz and a Romanian named Propesco).    At a bar, Kurtz and Propesco advise Martins to go home and stop asking questions.  Martins finds the girl, Anne Schmidt, at a theater and befriends her.  Martins visits the coroner who indicates there were only two men, and the small dog from the café is there.  There is a little boy holding a ball who overhears. 

We learn of another character, Joseph Harbin who worked at the hospital and has now disappeared. 

There is a large crowd outside Harry’s, the Porter has been found dead and the little boy fingers Martin for the crime. 

We learn that Lime was involved in a penicillin racket, stealing penicillin, watering it down and thinning it out, causing meningitis and death to many.  Harbin led Calloway to Kurtz and Lime. 

Martins becomes fond of Anna and at her apartment, he learns that her aloof cat only liked Lime.  The cat jumps out the window, walks down the cobblestone street and rubs up against a leg of someone hiding in shadow.  As Martin exits Anna’s, he sees Lime and learns he isn’t dead.  The body inside the coffin was that of Harbin.

There is a memorable scene aboard a large ferris wheel where Lime and Martins rendezvous and where Lime tells Martin that he is safe as long as he is dead and wants Martin to stop helping the police.  The exciting climax takes place in the sewer tunnels under Vienna, as the police chase Lime to his death.

The majority of the scenes are shot at an angle, as if the scene is going to slide right off camera.  There is great contrast of light and shadow, textures of cobblestone, brick and old architecture and ruins of Vienna.  In the sewer scenes, there are streams of water running across the screen, draped in ribbons of light, against the dark cold tunnels. 

 

 The Stranger-Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson 

Franz Kindler, a concentration camp Nazi, escapes to small town Harper, Connecticut to take on a new identity of Charles Rankin, marry a judge’s daughter and become a professor at the local boy’s school.   His lieutenant, Meineke shows up and tells him he must come clean and confess.  Head of the commission to punish war criminals, Edward G. Robinson (Wilson), follows Meineke to the small town so that he can capture Kindler.  Wilson befriends local know it all, Potter, Judge Longstreet, his daughter Mary Longstreet, and her brother Noah Longstreet, and the local doctor, and becomes suspicious when Meineke disappears and that like Kindler, Rankin has a hobby of fixing clocks. 

There is an imposing church and steeple that is continually shown, and we learn that the clock has been broken for years.  Rankin is working on the clock. 

During a secret rendezvous in the woods between Rankin and Meineke, Rankin strangles Meineke and on the night of his wedding, he buries Meineke. 

Rankin repairs the clock and for the first time, and it will continually mark time throughout the rest of the film.   The clock has mechanical angels that move in a circle about the clock face when it is chiming. 

While taking Mary’s dog Red for a walk in the woods, Red begins to dig the body of Meineke.  Rankin kills Red. 

As the heat increases from Wilson and Mary, Rankin saws one of the topmost rungs on the step ladder that leads up to the clock, and tells Mary to meet him at the clock.   Wilson climbs the ladder and narrowly escapes death.  When Mary learns that Rankin was prepared to kill her, she goes to the clock to kill Rankin.  Rankin steals the gun from Mary, but Wilson shoots him, sending him backwards out of the belfry onto the oncoming track of the mechanical angel, whose spear goes right through Rankin’s stomach, causing him to fall to his death. 

 

Other notables:

Laura – 1944, Vincent Price & Clifton Webb

This is another example of a crime that had already been committed, and we learn of the crime through Clifton Webb narrating.  Detective Mark McPherson has been assigned to investigate the murder of Laura.  Clifton loved Laura and was jealous of her relationship with Shelby (Vincent Price), despite the fact that he was responsible for her career and her mentor.   McPherson becomes obsessed with Laura as he unravels the mystery.   He is at her apartment when Laura herself walks in and they discover it was Laura’s friend who was killed.   McPherson finds a gun hidden inside Laura’s grandfather clock, and Clifton Webb attempts to kill Laura again, but instead is killed by the detective.
 

The Trial – 1962, Anthony Perkins & Orson Welles

The adorable Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates, Psycho) is a citizen accused of an unspecified crime, even unknown to himself, and must defend himself at a trial.  Orson Welles plays his lawyer.  The entire film is shot with unusual camera angles, and great distortion of height.  In scenes, it looks like Anthony Perkins’ head will hit the ceiling and in others he looks very short against those who is up against.

 

Learn More:

·         Film Noir Foundation:  http://www.filmnoirfoundation.org