Down These Mean Streets A Man Must Go - The Film Noir Thread

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

Good choices.

Yeah, I suppose I could slip some more gialli into March if I need to.

I was also thinking of doing a 'Sci-Fi September'.

Sci-Fi September sounds good.

The Inspectors suggestion of Juggs out July sounded intriguing too.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Sci-Fi September sounds good.

The Inspectors suggestion of Juggs out July sounded intriguing too.

We have taken his suggestion of 'Ape August' under advisement for now though.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Now i've seen it, i'm sure the talky opening will go down better on future viewings.

As you mentioned in your review, the amount of detail verbally passed between characters is essential to your understanding of the heist, and why the tension is occasionally so unbearable second half of the film. It's also essential to creating fully rounded characters, the interplay and relationships between them, plus the payoff at the end – I don't mind it at all and think The Killing is a masterpiece.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Young Man With a Horn (1950)

Gripping drama showing a boy develop into a man with a real flair for the trumpet, but the desperate search for that elusive high note that would put him up with the the true jazz greats and the fateful meeting with Lauren Bacall's sultry dame send him off the rails and into a spiral of drink and depression.

I really didn't know what to expect with Young Man With a Horn. Knowing it was directed by Casablanca's Michael Curtiz promised good things i just didn't know how good.

Kirk Douglas is excellent as Rick, the red-hot trumpeter, as is Bacall, who by now does the film noir style broad to a tee, all husky voiced and positively smoldering. Doris Day almost steals the film playing a Broadway singer who befriends Douglas and who's voice almost outshines the jazz accompaniment.

As for the score, well if you like jazz it's superb. Hoagy Carmichael, bandleader, songwriter and pianist also stars in this film and adds a touch of class to an already excellent film. Douglas at one point plays a version of Silent Night in a down and dirty mob run joint one Christmas Eve and it's the highlight of the film. Dirty, smoky... a single jazz trumpet...film noir heaven. Naturally it's not actually Kirk Douglas playing the trumpet, that honour is dubbed on by legendary trumpeter and band leader Harry James.

Young Man With a Horn is a dark, noirish drama. Highly recommended.

[Inspector Abberline]

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Not a noir film but fits in well with the genre.

Tells the story of Rocky (James Cagney),starting in 1923 we see a young Rocky Sullivan played by Frankie Burke,who amazingly even looks and acts like a young Cagney.Caught stealing from freight train Rocky is convicted but his pal Jerry Connolly (William Tracy) manages to evade arrest and takes the fall for the robbery. This then see's the steady rise of Rocky's career until again he is arrested for armed robbery and his dodgy lawyer Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart) promises Rocky $100,000 if he takes the blame,Rocky is sentenced to 3yrs in prison. Of course on the day of his release Frazier doesn't have his money,so Rocky visits his childhood friend Jerry who is now a Catholic priest Pat O'Brien who is trying to keep the local boys on the straight and narrow,this includes the local gang called The Dead End kids,consisting of Soapy (Billy Halop), Swing (Bobby Jordan), Bim (Leo Gorcey), Pasty (Gabriel Dell), Crab (Huntz Hall), and Hunky (Bernard Punsly) who all worship and aspire to be Rocky. Jerry (Pat O'Brien) struggles to keep his boys from going down the same road as Rocky,especially when Rocky pays them for hiding his $100,000 he got for kidnapping Frazier.Jerry starts to see the bad influence Rocky has over the gangs head and also the corruption in the police force which seems to let gangsters do as they please.Well it goes without saying that James Gagney is remarkable in the role as Rocky,he manages to be a likeable rogue that goes from rags to riches and then finally death row.Humphrey Bogart as Frazier doesn't really do much apart from chain smoke and look decidedly shifty,but then again this is Cagney's film so Bogart is basically playing second fiddle. The only one who comes close to Cagney is Pat O'Brien as the priest,who desperately tries to save Rocky and the local boys from there inevitable downward spiral.Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) is a fast and at times funny gangster flick that makes most modern gangster films look pale in comparison.

out 5

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Inspector Abberline

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Not a noir film but fits in well with the genre.

Indeed it does.

I hope we see this one get the Blu treatment from Warner Archive soon. They seem to be on a roll with the Noir at the moment.

[Inspector Abberline]

White Heat (1949)

Roy Parker: You wouldn't kill me in cold blood, would ya?
Cody Jarrett: No, I'll let ya warm up a little.

James Cagney as Arthur "Cody" Jarrett is a psychopathic gangster who suffers from terrible migraines and violent episodic outbursts,on top of this he relies heavily on the advice of his equally crooked mother, "Ma" Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly . Cagney gives us a tour de force of a performance as Cody Jarret,a pure mean spirited tough guy who grimaces and bullies his way through the film. Cody is simply one of the looniest screen gangsters,who manages to keep control of his gang through sheer meanness.He is also a psychopathic killer he thinks nothing of killing witnesses and does because he enjoys it,when he asks Parker who is locked in the boot of a car he says
How ya doin', Parker?
Roy Parker: It's stuffy in here, I need some air.
Cody Jarrett: Oh, stuffy, huh? I'll give ya a little air. Then blasts the boot of the car with his gun. The film White Heat is a really fast paced roller coaster of a ride that sees Cody go from robbing a mail train to try and trick the police by taking the rap for a lesser crime which happened at the same time of the mail train heist. The cast includes the rather sexy Virginia Mayo as Verna Jarrett,who isn't so much a femme fatale but more of a trashy slut who is unfaithful to Cody with his right hand man Big Ed" Somers (Steve Cochran). Also with Edmond O'Brien as an undercover cop trying to infiltrate Cody's gang while helping him escape prison and organise his latest heist.
This is rightly seen as one of Cagney's finest performances,and it is a memorable and powerful portrayal.And as for the ending ,well its one of the most iconic of any film from any genre.
Made it, Ma! Top of the world!

[Inspector Abberline]

Bad Day at Black Rock. (1955)

Based on a short story Bad Day at Black Rock is a slow burning western noir directed by John Sturges who would then go on to film Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and The Great Escape (1963). Not a bad resume by any bodies standards. Bad Day at Black Rock sees John J. Macreedy (Spencer Tracy) arrive in a small western town looking for Komoko, a Japanese-American, but no one in the town will cooperate with him looking for Komoko. Sturgess mixes the lone stranger coming into town with what would of been at the time a fairly sore subject ,Japanese-American's who were interned during World War II after Pearl Harbour. Bad Day at Black Rock has a pretty impressive cast,notably Lee Marvin, and Ernest Borgnine as a pair of hired henchmen.Robert Ryan as Reno Smith,the towns big shot with a secret he wants kept hidden.And of course Spencer Tracy as John J. Macreedy the one armed stranger on a mission.Bad Day at Black Rock takes the hard boiled detective story and plonks it straight into south west,swapping the dark streets of the city for tumble weed and the California hils. Black rocks story of how Japanese-American's were treated during world war 2,was probably more hard hitting at the time of release and something which seldom gets mentioned these days. What's also interesting is it's nearly an all male cast except Anne Francis ( love interest and Robby the Robot owner) as Liz Wirth, who has very little to do in the film except get shot towards the end,that you wonder why they even bothered to include her in the first place. But like The Thing the all male cast adds to its pressure cooker like atmosphere as the truth finally gets outed. Bad Day at Black Rock is a great classic thriller helmed by one of the greatest film directors ever.John Sturges .

out of 5

[Inspector Abberline]

Ace In The Hole.(1951)
Billy Wilder's Ace In the Hole sees Kirk Douglas playing Charles Tatum,a washed up,once big newspaper journalist.So whats better than a hard boiled detective,well probably a hard boiled newspaper man,(see also The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart as ex-sportswriter Eddie Willis turned boxing promoter) who is willing to risk a man life just so he can drag the story out and get what he wants.While working for a small newspaper,Tatum (Douglas) and his photographer are heading for a rattle snake hunt,along the way they stop at a deserted desert petrol station.What they find is Richard Benedict as Leo Minosa a man trapped inside a local mountain full of Indian burial artefacts.Its Leo's predicament that then starts what will be a massive rescue attempt and local carnival as people from all across the country come to witness Leo's rescue or death from inside the mountain.
It has to be said that Kirk Douglas does some of his best sneering in this film,if he is not sneering at his boss,then he's sneering at the local sheriff and just about anyone who gets in his way.The only person he actually feels compassion for is Leo,the man trapped literally at the centre of the story. Tatum see's the opportunity to make this story bigger than it is and also a way of him getting back into the major league newspapers,unfortunately for Leo this also means that instead of being rescued sooner its much much later. And as the story breaks across the country more and more people appear,until the whole country side is turned into a massive fun fair come carnival.Add to all this Leo's wife Jan Sterling as Lorraine Minosa ,a peroxide blonde who nearly runs out on Leo while he is trapped,only to realise that there is money to be made from his misadventure ,(Tatum sneers allot at her) . You really have to feel sorry for poor old Leo, even Ray Teal as Sheriff Kretzer, is in on the act,persuading the construction contractor to change tact and drill from the top of the mountain,thus taking twice as long. You would have to imagine that Billy Wilder has a low opinion of people and journalists in particular,its a very cynical view of how people can be in such circumstances.
Charles Tatum: I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news, I'll go out and bite a dog.

[Inspector Abberline]

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Now I know The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) is not a Noir Movie as such,but rather a 1970's crime thriller set among the low level gangsters,bank robbers and stool pigeons of Bostons criminal fraternity. What does connect this film with the whole noir genre, is its lead actor Robert Mitchum,a man steeped in the world of noir and crime thrillers of the past.But like Mitchum Eddie Coyle is a man with a past of crime,who now faces another conviction which could see him being put in Prison,a prospect he realizes he is to old to face.Throughout the film Coyle (Mitchum) reminisces about his past ,whether its about marriage or his criminal associates.Its like one of Mitchum's old noir characters has finally managed to survive into the 1970's,Mitchum was at the time around 56 years old. In a conversation with Jackie Brown,played by the late Steven Keats (1945–1994),a much underrated actor,Mitchum's Coyle tells Jackie about the punishment that was dished out to him when some guns he was buying for a man got traced by the police and the man got fifteen years prison. So Eddie gets his knuckles smashed in a draw as punishment.Its this and seeing how he wasted his past while other people managed to make the big score,and in his words Next time, it's gonna be me goin' to Florida.Peter Yate's The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a very naturalistic and realistic portrayal of the not so glamorous life criminals and there associates.Even the bank robberies that Coyle supplies the weapons for are done in a fairly mundane and workmanlike manor,they all go like clockwork apart from when a bank teller sets the alarm off.Unfortunately when Coyle decides to become an informant,hoping to get himself off the hook,his days are numbered. Mitchum gives us one of his best performances of his later career .

Eddie 'Fingers' Coyle: Count as many as you want. As many as you got, I got four more. You know how I got those? I bought some stuff from a man. I knew his name. The stuff was traced. The guy I bought it for, he's at MCI Walpole for fifteen to twenty-five. Still in there. But he had some friends. I got an extra set of knuckles. They put your hand in a drawer then somebody kicks the drawer shut. Hurt like a bastard.
Jackie Brown: Jesus.