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

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Inspector Abberline

yeah that steel-book is going for £ 32 on Amazon,buy why no ordinary blu release in UK?

They did the same with a lot of the classic Warner titles, they released them all as steelbooks but not as standard releases (I still regret not picking up The Treasure of the Sierra Madre!). Warner seems to like ignoring the UK market... then again I'm still bitter that they didn't release House of Wax here. The import prices on that one is ridiculous because of the ****ing 3D!

[Inspector Abberline]

Originally Posted by bizarre_eye@Cult Labs

They did the same with a lot of the classic Warner titles, they released them all as steelbooks but not as standard releases (I still regret not picking up The Treasure of the Sierra Madre!). Warner seems to like ignoring the UK market... then again I'm still bitter that they didn't release House of Wax here. The import prices on that one is ridiculous because of the ****ing 3D!

As pretty as those steel books are,I would much rather see a standard release of those titles in the UK,I mean these are not exactly niche films.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Inspector Abberline

As pretty as those steel books are,I would much rather see a standard release of those titles in the UK,I mean these are not exactly niche films.

Yeah, they should definitely release both editions to give people the option.

[Inspector Abberline]

Brighton Rock (1947)

Before I had seen Brighton Rock,it had never occurred to me that there was this British underclass,and a British gangster film,especially considering this is set in the 1930's. I suppose we are more use to American films,with Cagney and the whole history of prohibition. The film is based on the gangs that frequented the race tracks of Brighton and this is summoned really welll in the scene where Pinkie (Richard Attenborough) betrays one of his own gang Wylie Watson as Spicer, unfortunately for Pinkie the surrounding mob not only attack Spicer but also Pinkie,its a tremendously ominously scene,as the mass mob surround there victims with straight razors. And set around the slum like housing that Pinkie and his gang live,is the bright lights of Brighton Pier and the sea front,where all the holiday makers verge,not knowing that there is gang war about to erupt. Its a marvelous look at another kind of England,one which without the likes of Ealing films and The Boulting Brothers,we would probably never see.Its fascinating looking at the British criminal class at this period in time,but the films main story is the romance between Pinkie and Carol Marsh as Rose Brown,Pinkie's only reason to court Rose is that she would not be able to testify against her husband ( obviously a loop hole in the law which I assume no longer exists) .But poor old Rose is seemingly blind to Pinkie's psychotic behavior and its her love for Pinkie that make's the ending ever so tragic. Of course like all bullies Pinkie is eventually found out to be the coward he really is, Richard Attenborough's portrayal of Pinkie is a flawless piece of work,Before DeNiro cornered the market with his gangster portrayals, Attenborough managed to portray someone as equally brutal as his American counterparts at the time,not until 10 Rillington Place would he be this evil again. I must get around to reading the Graham Greene novel.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

As you like that, I highly recommend some other British films noir from that period: They Drive by Night (1938), The Fugitive (1939) and Gaslight (1940).

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

The Big Knife (1955)



Melodramatic Noir thriller that takes a stab at '50s Hollywood, as an unscrupulous film producer blackmails an up-and-coming star.

Written for the stage - and it really shows, as the action is often bound to a localised, interior, stately home environment with all its lavish trappings - and is by extension very talky and steeped with theatrical flourishes.

Far from Aldrich's best but a very strong cast ensure The Big Knife is carried towards its poignant finale.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Bugsy (1991)

The story of how Ben (Bugsy) Siegel visited an area in the empty Nevada desert and built the Flamingo hotel in a place soon to be known as Las Vegas.

Whilst not really Film Noir as such, Barry Levinson's Bugsy has a similar feel to it as L.A. Confidential (1997). Crime, mainly of the gangster variety with a hot streak of Hollywood showbiz of the forties and fifties thrown in. In fact Joe Mantegna plays the actor George Raft in the film and has quite a big role as Siegel's studio buddy in the city of angels.

I didn't think i'd like Bugsy if i'm honest. The casting of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening kind of put me off however both prove to be really rather good. Beatty stars as the villainous crime boss and surprised me at how well he portrays him. Charming and charismatic one minute and brutally vicious the next. A couple of beatings he gives out are really quite strong. The film's cast is one of it's selling points. Annette Bening is excellent as Bugsy's muse, the actress / whore Virginia Hill (It was on this film Beatty and Bening married) i should have known how good she can be in this type of role from the excellent Noir The Grifters from the year previous.as is Harvey Keitel as racketeer Mickey Cohen. Ben Kingsley's mob boss from New York is also a reassuringly menacing presence.

Despite being well over two hours the film has quite a pace to it. It's historically accurate and paints an uncompromising and brutal portrait of life in the 'mob' even for someone has high up as Siegel as the Flamingo's grand openings fail and the crowds hardly flock to the place, Siegel's debts spiraling and the mob ready to take control. It was interesting to note that the Flamingo cost $6 million to build, $6m of mob money for which Siegel received no mercy from his superiors when it came to paying it back, however by 1991 the hotel had made over $100 billion.

Come the final credits my apprehension regarding the film had completely dissipated and i really enjoyed it.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Evelyn Prentice (1934)

Another film only loosely classed as Noir. Whilst it may not be formulaic Film Noir Evelyn Prentice could be one of those films that set the standards with it's storyline of extortion and murder that the genre would grab with open arms in later years. Proto-noir if you will.

The story is complex and riveting especially it's final twenty minutes in the courtroom. Evelyn Prentice (Myrna Loy) is a wealthy socialite married to famed criminal prosecutor John Prentice (William Powell). Evelyn gets mixed up with an attractive charmer who turns out to be a predator who preys on women as targets for blackmail. When he's found dead in his apartment apparently killed by Evelyn, another woman who he assaulted on a previous occasion is charged with the murder.

The film's key points of extortion, murder, neglect and womanizing are tropes that were used throughout cinema and certainly crop up in Film Noir of the forties and fifties and perhaps even more so in Italian giallo cinema of the late sixties and seventies. The two stars Powell and Loy made 14 films together and are mostly associated with The Thin Man series of crime films, the first of which came in the very year this was made. Whilst not in the same league as The Thin Man, Evelyn Prentice is still a taut, gripping affair that is well worth seeing.

Myrna Loy as Evelyn Prentice

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

Experiment in Terror (1962)



Long, but lean and tense thriller from Blake Edwards concerning a woman who is being terrorised and blackmailed by a mysterious wheezy stranger who wants her to help him steal $100,000 from the bank where she works. Her teenage sister will pay with her life if she refuses.

Part creepy terroriser, part FBI procedural, Experiment in Terror is a strange mixture of ideas, including (for the time) shocking violence, hints of sexual assault and cross-dressing. However, none of it feels random and it all works well to create a suspenseful little pot-boiler with a great Henry Mancini score.