The Noir File: Bogie as Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe, Meeker as Mike Hammer

November 10, 2012 By 3 Comments

By Michael Wilmington and Film Noir Blonde

The Noir File is FNB’s weekly guide to classic film noir, neo-noir and pre-noir on cable TV. All the movies below are from the current schedule of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), which broadcasts them uncut and uninterrupted. The times are Eastern Standard and (Pacific Standard).

PICK OF THE WEEK

“The Maltese Falcon” (1941, John Huston) Wednesday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. (5 p.m.)

Bogart leads an unbeatable cast in “The Maltese Falcon,” directed by John Huston.

Dashiell Hammett’s supreme hard-boiled detective novel, with Humphrey Bogart as private eye Sam Spade, and an unbeatable supporting cast that includes femme fatale Mary Astor, genial fat man Sydney Greenstreet, perfumed crook Peter Lorre, patsy Elisha Cook Jr., and tough cops Ward Bond and Barton MacLane – all turned by writer-director John Huston into “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

Sunday, Nov. 11

12 p.m. (9 a.m.): “Witness for the Prosecution” (1957, Billy Wilder).

2:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m.): “Pickpocket” (1959, Robert Bresson). Bresson’s celebrated French art film borrows from Dostoyevsky to tell the story of an alienated young Parisian pickpocket (Martin LaSalle) who enters a shadow world of crime, punishment and strange redemption. With Marika Green (In French, with English subtitles.)

Monday, Nov. 12

5:15 p.m. (2:15 p.m.): “The Leopard Man” (1943, Jacques Tourneur). From a story by Cornell Woolrich: the nervous noir of a city plagued, it seems, by serial killings and a runaway wild leopard. Dennis O’Keefe, Margo and Abner Biberman.

8 p.m. (5 p.m.): “The Man with the Golden Arm” (1955, Otto Preminger). As a man struggling to give up his heroin habit, Frank Sinatra leads a superb cast in this riveting adaptation of Nelson Algren’s novel. Kim Novak plays his ex-girlfriend. Sinatra earned a Best Actor Oscar nom; the film’s music (by Elmer Bernstein) and art direction-set decoration also were considered for Oscars.

12:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m.): “Lolita” (1962, Stanley Kubrick).

Tuesday, Nov. 13

5 p.m. (2 p.m.): “Anatomy of a Murder” (1959, Otto Preminger).

Wednesday, Nov. 14

6:15 p.m. (3:15 p.m.): “Born to Kill” (1947, Robert Wise).

10 p.m. (7 p.m.): “The Big Sleep” (1946, Howard Hawks).

2 a.m. (11 p.m.): “In Cold Blood” (1967, Richard Brooks). From Truman Capote’s legendary true-crime novel: the shattering chronicle of killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickok (Robert Blake and Scott Wilson), the Kansas family they destroyed, and the deadly destiny they shared. With John Forsythe, Charles McGraw and evocative black-and-white cinematography by Conrad Hall.

4:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m.): “Kiss Me Deadly” (1955, Robert Aldrich).

Thursday, Nov. 15

10 a.m. (7 a.m.): “The Mask of Dimitrios” (1944, Jean Negulesco). An engrossing thriller based on Eric Ambler’s classic novel of intrigue, espionage and crime, “A Coffin for Dimitrios.” With Zachary Scott, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Faye Emerson.

4 p.m. (1 p.m.): “A Kiss Before Dying” (1956, Gerd Oswald). A charming psychopath (Robert Wagner) preys on two sisters (Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith) in this tense adaptation of the novel by Ira Levin (“Rosemary’s Baby”). With Jeffrey Hunter and Mary Astor; directed by Gerd Oswald (“The Outer Limits”).

6 p.m. (3 p.m.) “Strangers on a Train” (1951, Alfred Hitchcock).

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Free stuff from FNB: More chances to win Bogart movies

July 7, 2012 By 2 Comments

The reader-giveaway prize for June was the Humphrey Bogart set, which contains “They Drive by Night,” “Across the Pacific,” “Action in the North Atlantic” and “Passage to Marseille,” from Warner Home Video and Turner Classic Movies. I am extending this giveaway to July so that I can run a review of “They Drive by Night.”

In August, I will give away the WHV/TCM Greatest Gangster Films: Humphrey Bogart set, featuring “High Sierra,” “The Petrified Forest,” “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” and “All Through the Night.” I will run a review of “High Sierra” in August. Each set is $27.92.

All who entered in June are still eligible to win. To enter the July giveaway, for the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set, just leave a comment on any FNB post from July 1-31.

We welcome comments, but please remember that, for the purposes of the giveaway, there is one entry per person, not per comment.

The June-July winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early August. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck!

Here’s more info on the movies in the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set. [Read more...]

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Free stuff from FNB: Classic Legends Bogart set

June 6, 2012 By 11 Comments

Warner Home Video (WHV) and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) are adding two new sets to the TCM Greatest Classic Legends line. The newest additions feature Humphrey Bogart and Joan Crawford. (On the Crawford set is “Mildred Pierce,” “Humoresque,” “Possessed” and “The Damned Don’t Cry.”)

Humphrey Bogart

Courtesy of WHV, I will be giving away the Bogart set, which contains “They Drive by Night,” “Across the Pacific,” “Action in the North Atlantic” and “Passage to Marseille.”

(Additionally, WHV and TCM will release the Greatest Gangster Films: Humphrey Bogart set, featuring “High Sierra,” “The Petrified Forest,” “The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse” and “All Through the Night.”)

Each set is $27.92 and will be available on June 26.

To enter the June giveaway, for the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set, just leave a comment on any FNB post from June 1-30. We welcome comments, but please remember that, for the purposes of the giveaway, there is one entry per person, not per comment.

The winner will be randomly selected at the end of the month and announced in early July. Include your email address in your comment so that I can notify you if you win. Your email will not be shared. Good luck! (Josh is the winner of the May reader giveaway, a Blu-ray set of “Body Heat,” “L.A. Confidential,” and “The Player.” Congrats to Josh and thanks to all who entered!)

Here’s more info on the movies in the Classic Legends: Humphrey Bogart set.

THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT (1940) – Bogart and George Raft share a driving ambition in a feisty tale of brothers trying to make it as independent truckers in this fine example of Warner Bros. social-conscience filmmaking that’s also a film noir. Ann Sheridan and Ida Lupino also star.

ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942) – In this wartime thriller, Bogart plays U.S. counterspy Rick, who trades barbs with Mary Astor, matches wits with Sydney Greenstreet and swaps bullets with saboteurs of the Panama Canal. John Huston directs this reunion of the three stars of “The Maltese Falcon.”

ACTION IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC (1943) – This World War II salute to Allied forces stars Bogart as First Officer Joe Rossi, who, along with his captain (Raymond Massey), matches tactics with U-boats and the Luftwaffe. The tactics are so on target that this became a Merchant Marine training film.

PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE (1944) – Bogart reunites with director Michael Curtiz and other key “Casablanca” talent for a tension- and controversy-swept story of a French patriot who escapes Devil’s Island, survives a dangerous freighter voyage and becomes a gunner in the Free French Air Corps.

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Noir City’s final weekend: Pre-code ‘Maltese Falcon,’ Gary Cooper and a special appearance by Marsha Hunt

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Gary Cooper

FNB shot by Halstan Williams; www.halstan.com

Noir City at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre wraps up this weekend with a first-rate slate of films. Tonight is the Dashiell Hammett double feature, starting with the 1931 (pre-code) version of “The Maltese Falcon,” starring Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels, directed by Roy Del Ruth. In “City Streets” (1931, Rouben Mamoulian) a young Gary Cooper goes crooked in order to free his love (Sylvia Sidney) from prison. It should be great looking, given that the cinematographer is Lee Garmes.

The Saturday matinee is the noir classic “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946, Tay Garnett), starring Lana Turner as one of the all-time best femmes fatales opposite a smoldering John Garfield; based on James M. Cain’s novel. Before the film, Denise Hamilton, noir novelist and editor of the Edgar-winning Los Angeles Noir short story anthologies, will discuss the genesis of film noir and the cross-pollination between Hollywood and its noir bards.

John Garfield

Lana Turner

Saturday night is a terrific pick: two films from the underrated director Jean Negulesco. First, “Three Strangers” (1946) tells the cynical tale of a trio bonded by fate and a winning lottery ticket: Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Geraldine Fitzgerald. To read more about this film, I recommend this piece by my friend, writer/producer Barry Grey.

Fitzgerald also stars in 1946’s “Nobody Lives Forever,” scripted by W. R. Burnett. Here, she’s a war widow getting conned by scheming ex-GI John Garfield. There will be a discussion between films with Fitzgerald’s son, Michael Lindsay-Hogg. At 6:30 p.m., in the Egyptian lobby, Lindsay-Hogg will sign his book “Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond.”

Geraldine Fitzgerald

Marsha Hunt

Next up is the Sunday matinee: “Circumstantial Evidence” (1945, John Larkin) a father-son noir starring Lloyd Nolan and Michael O’Shea. This will pair with “Sign of the Ram” (1948, John Sturges).

Says the program: This unusual film was fashioned as a vehicle for star Susan Peters, who plays a sociopathic, paraplegic matriarch bent on destroying her family. Peters, injured the year before in a hunting accident, gives a remarkable performance – all the more haunting for the fact that her paralysis is real. Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett wrote the screenplay.

And closing the fest is a special appearance by actress Marsha Hunt. The films shown are an ultra-rare B, “Mary Ryan, Detective” (1949, Abby Berlin), and “Kid Glove Killer” (1942, Fred Zinnemann) in which Hunt plays a police forensics expert juggling a cop (Van Heflin) and a gangster (Lee Bowman). Scripted by John C. Higgins, “Kid Glove Killer” is Zinnemann’s feature film debut. Ava Gardner plays a car hop.

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‘The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse’ combines music, dance and drama to explore infamous Black Dahlia case

September 7, 2011 By 2 Comments

Elizabeth Short

“She’s a very noirish character,” says musician/writer/director David J. Haskins of Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia. “She’s a blank screen on which anything can be projected. She was a mysterious, glamorous, romantic figure.”

Indeed, very little is known for sure about the brief life of the Black Dahlia, who in death attained the fame she dreamt of in Hollywood. Some say she was an aspiring actress; other accounts portray her as a confused drifter.

Her brutally mutilated and severed body was found, artfully arranged, in a vacant lot near Crenshaw Boulevard and West 39th Street in Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 1947; she was 22. The mystery of her death remains unsolved, though there have been numerous theories and potential suspects.

David J. Haskins

Haskins (formerly a member of the band Bauhaus as well as Love and Rockets) puts forward his contention about the murder in his new play, “The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse.” It opens Thursday at the Bootleg Theater in Los Angeles.

The production uses three interwoven devices: a dramatization; live music from Haskins, Ego Plum and Ysanne Spevack; and butoh dance by acclaimed performer Vangeline. The songs were originally composed for Ramzi Abed’s 2007 film about the Dahlia called “The Devil’s Muse.”

Madi Comfort's boyfriend lived in this house on Franklin Avenue in Hollywood.

Central to the story is real-life singer Madi Comfort (played by Daniele Watts with Tracey Leigh making special appearances throughout the run). Comfort’s lover was a suspect in the Black Dahlia case. Douglas Dickerman plays cop Frank Jemison, a straight arrow determined to get to the bottom of the slaying.

A longtime fan of German Expressionism and film noir, particularly its “very clipped, smart, sharp dialogue with fast delivery,” Haskins names “The Maltese Falcon” as one of his favorite movies and Orson Welles as a much-admired director.

“The Chanteuse and the Devil’s Muse” runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. through Oct. 1 at the Bootleg, 2220 Beverly Blvd., 213-389-3856; tickets are $25, $18 for students and seniors. Run time is just under one hour.

Stay tuned – I’ll be posting video snippets from my recent interview with Haskins.

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8mm sizzles with noir-tinged rock: Friday at the Roxy

May 31, 2011 By 2 Comments
With a haunting voice, retro-glam sexiness, and material both subtle and raw, Juliette Beavan of 8mm melds a femme fatale’s sophistication with flinty rock energy. From the first searing notes, often punctuated by smoke and shadow, the songs draw you in like a Hitchcock thriller; lyrics linger in your head well beyond the show’s end. This part of “Crawl,” for instance, is hard to forget: “or maybe there’s another/ trick, another spell/ and I could change you/ and I’d draw you to me/ pull you to me, crawl to me./ draw you to me/ pull you to me/ call you to me/crawl to me.”
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Her bandmates include her husband Sean Beavan (guitar, vocals) and Jon Nicholson (drums). They describe their sound as “trip-hop influenced pop-rock.” First-rate musicians, the guys are the perfect complement to Juliette’s vocals and keyboard.
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Juliette Beavan of 8mm. Photo by Critter Newell

“That’s right, blame it on the girl,” she might tease them between songs, before adjusting her mic or straightening a cord. A New Orleans native, she’s fond of bringing beads, candy and banter to toss to the eager crowd, many of whom clutch cameras the way people used to flick lighters as preface to an encore.
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Together since 2004, 8mm has an impressive resume that includes four albums and several tours (the US, Canada, the UK and Chile). Sean Beavan, who hails from Cleveland, formerly worked with bands such as Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails and God Lives Underwater. He and Juliette write the songs; their work has been featured in the 2005 film “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” as well as in a number of TV shows, including “One Tree Hill,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Moonlight,” “Dirt,” Road Rules,” and “The Real World: Sydney.”
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You can see 8mm for yourself Friday, June 3, at the Roxy Theatre, with the Kidney Thieves, Cage 9, The Shakers and DJ High Voltage. The show starts at 8 p.m. and 8mm goes on at 9 p.m.
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I caught up with Juliette recently to chat about the band’s penchant for noir.
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Film Noir Blonde: The band’s name is a film reference, your shows are richly atmospheric and your songs often deal with mystery, secrets, betrayal and hidden desire, much as a film noir would. Can you talk about how the aesthetic of film noir in general has been an influence for you?
Juliette Beavan: Yes, a reference to the film stock, because for us, 8mm film brings to mind smoky back rooms of 1930s Berlin, the first stag films, the early home movies … in other words, secrets, memories, longings (secret and professed) and decadence … all the things we try to bring to our music. They also happen to be things that are part and parcel to any good film noir. In addition, the look, the sleek styling, elegant and dangerous players, well, that sounds like a band to us!

8mm plays the Viper Room. Photo by Billy Howerdel

FNB: Any femmes fatales that stand out for you?
JB: Hahaha, are you gonna ask any questions with short answers? Where to start … Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, Gene Tierney, Lauren Bacall, Joan Crawford, Anne Baxter, Nora Zehetner in “Brick” does a wonderful job, not to mention (I know they’re not femmes fatales, but I would be remiss to leave the men out) Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives Bogey a run for his money in that film. And for the men, of course, there is the one and only Humphrey Bogart.

FNB: Of ’40s and ’50s singers or bands, who are your top favorites?
JB: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf, Bing Crosby, to name a few.

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8mm's Jon Nicholson, Juliette Beavan and Sean Beavan. Photo by Herwig Maurer

FNB: Do you essentially get into character when you perform, especially Juliette as the frontwoman?
JB: In a sense, yes, and it varies from song to song, because each one is a different story, character, sort of mini movie for us. I’m a storyteller not a character (like a GaGa or Madonna), so the approach is a little different. It only takes a note or two for me “see it” in my head again, to step into “her” shoes … from there it’s just natural.

You kind of have to use your whole body to tell the story, and the story becomes my own for that time.

FNB: Raymond Chandler said a good story cannot be devised; it has to be distilled. Do you think that’s true for writing songs and music?
JB: Certainly at times … what Sean plays makes me see stories, so I suppose you could say that is a bit of a distilling process to bring the story down into its key emotional components for a 3 minute song. However, there are other times when you get a “cosmic FedEx” (a term we’re stealing from Scott Russo of Unwritten Law). That’s where the song comes to you almost writing itself and you have to grab and get it down before it moves on. You know, the muse will find another host if you aren’t paying attention.

[Read more...]

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