The Long Wait (1954)

The Long Wait is a 1954 Mickey Spillane adaptation but it’s not a Mike Hammer film. Between 1947 and 1952 Spillane wrote half a dozen Mike Hammer books which sold in immense quantities. Spillane went on to be one of the biggest selling novelists in history.

And in 1951 he wrote the noir novel The Long Wait. I haven’t read the novel but apparently several structural changes were needed to make it work as a movie.

The movie opens with a guy getting smashed up when a car plummets down a hillside and bursts into flames. We will later find out that the guy, played by Anthony Quinn, is Johnny McBride. McBride ends up with severe burns to his hands and total amnesia.

He tries to make a new life for himself but he can’t settle down. He’s quick-tempered and brooding. Then he comes across a clue that suggests that he hails from a town named Lyncastle. He heads for Lyncastle in hopes of rediscovering his identity and his past.

This turns out to be a big mistake. Johnny didn’t know he was wanted for murder. He also didn’t know that a big-time racketeer named Servo wanted him dead.

He knows he has to find Vera. He doesn’t remember her but he does know that she was his girl in his old life.

He soon finds himself with way too many blondes in his life (of course some would say you can’t have too many dangerous blondes in your life). Any one of these blondes could be Vera. He doesn’t remember what Vera looked like.

All the blondes seem to like Johnny a lot. Blondes just seem to find him very attractive. Dames in general seem to find him very attractive. Of course Johnny is played by Anthony Quinn, an actor with plenty of charisma and animal magnetism, so we don’t find this too difficult to believe.

Johnny finds out a few things about that murder. He doesn’t know for sure whether he committed the murder or not but he’s starting to have a sneaking suspicion he may have been framed. Lyncastle isn’t quite the idyllic place it seems to be on the surface. Racketeer Servo owns almost the whole town. There’s endemic corruption.

People start shooting at Johnny, which naturally leads him to believe he’s on to something.

The plot is very contrived indeed. I don’t mind that too much. To me film noir is a bit like melodrama. It doesn’t deal with reality, but with a kind of heightened or exaggerated reality. In the world of film noir once fate decides to destroy a man there’s no escape and if some coincidences are needed to bring that about they can be accepted. The plot is contrived but it does come together at the end.

There’s enough in this movie to qualify it as a true film noir. An ambiguous protagonist caught in a web. A whole raft of femmes fatales. An atmosphere of existentialist angst. Corruption. And lots of sexual tension.

And visual style. There are some absolutely superb visual moments in this film, especially in the latter stages. There are some wonderful combinations of inventive staging and noirish lighting (by cinematographer Franz Planer). There are also nicely staged action sequences. The late scene in the abandoned power station is one of the best visual set-pieces in all of film noir. It really is magnificent.

Anthony Quinn has the necessary star quality and the right tough guy vibe. Peggie Castle is truly excellent as Venus, the most glamorous of the blondes. There’s an excellent supporting cast.

Victor Saville does a very very fine job as director. This is a supremely well-crafted movie.

For my money The Long Wait is the best film adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel. Gripping, tightly plotted with some decent suspense, terrific atmosphere and lots of noirness. Very highly recommended.

The Classic Flix Blu-Ray release looks lovely. You get the movie on 4K as well - I have no interest in 4K so I’ll be using the 4K disc as a drinks coaster. But the Blu-Ray does look great. There’s an excellent audio commentary by Max Allan Collins.

Vice Squad (1953)

Vice Squad (AKA The Girl in Room 17) is a 1953 crime film. It’s included in one of Kino Lorber’s film noir boxed sets so you know there’s very little chance it will be a film noir. It isn’t. It’s a straightforward police procedural.

You might assume that this is a B-movie but the 88-minutes running time is a clear indication that that is not technically the case although it’s clearly a rather low-budget production. It’s a United Artists release.

Captain ‘Barnie' Barnaby (Edward G. Robinson) is chief of detectives. His day begins with a cop getting shot when a car is stolen, but circumstances suggest there might be more to it. There’s a witness but he’s smart enough not to talk to cops without having his lawyer present.

Barnie receives some information about a planned bank robbery. He stakes out the bank.

Meanwhile he works on that reluctant witness. Barnie uses the standard police methods, denying the witness his legal rights, detaining him illegally, harassing him and framing him for crimes he did not commit. It’s all in a day’s work for this cop.

Barnie also thinks he might get some information from Mona Ross (Paulette Goddard). Mona runs an escort service. It seems to be semi-legal, with the girls being no officially call girls. She still gets regular harassment from the cops. The arrangement seems to be that she’s allowed to stay in business as long as she acts as a snitch for the cops.

Barnie’s stakeout goes badly wrong, putting members of the public in danger. Two of the gang members make their getaway with a girl as hostage.

My problem with this movie is that we’re supposed to accept Barnie as a noble cop hero but he tramples all over citizens’ legal rights, intimidates a witness into giving phoney evidence and abuses his powers in every way imaginable. Almost everything he does is unethical, illegal, immoral and unconstitutional. We’re supposed to think this is OK, that it’s perfectly acceptable for cops to be above the law.

Of course viewers today may be tempted to see this as a deliberate attempt at moral ambiguity, with the cops breaking the law just as much as the crooks. You do have to be careful not to read things into old movies, things that may never have been intended. On the other hand you also have to be careful not to assume that movie-makers of the past were incapable of making movies that worked on more than one level, or that dealt with moral murkiness.

I think it’s reasonable to assume that screenwriter Lawrence Roman (and the author of the original novel Leslie T. White) did have some awareness that the cop hero here is in danger of becoming morally compromised.

This gives the movie perhaps a very slight noir flavouring.

Edward G. Robinson didn’t want this part but he needed the money. At times he’s good, at other times he seems to be just phoning it in.

Paulette Godard is the standout performer here, showing some enthusiasm and flair.

The supporting players are all quite competent. Lee van Cleef makes an appearance in a minor supporting role.

There’s a reason you’ve never heard of director Arnold Laven. He spent most of his career in television. He does a fairly sound job here. Cinematographer Joseph F. Biroc manages some noirish atmosphere.

So Vice Squad is a flawed but interesting police procedural. Recommended.

Kino Lorber have provided a very nice Blu-Ray transfer. Gary Gerani’s audio commentary is a worthwhile extra.

Nightmare (1956)

Nightmare is a 1956 film noir written and directed by Maxwell Shane. It is based on a Cornell Woolrich novella and it’s very difficult to make a bad movie when you have a Woolrich story as your source material.

What’s interesting is that Shane’s first feature film, Fear in the Night (1946), was based on the same Cornell Woolrich novella. A decade after that film Shane decided that he could do a much better job with the material and Nightmare is certainly more ambitious and more accomplished. Nightmare would be Shane’s final feature film so his directing career began and ended with the same story.

For his 1956 remake Shane switched the scene of the action to New Orleans which was a rather good move. For some reason New Orleans had been under-used as a noir location but it’s the perfect setting for a movie with a slightly spooky mysterious vibe.

It also offered the opportunity to give the movie a more jazz-fuelled feel.

Stan Grayson (Kevin McCarthy) is a jazz musician and he’s just had a terrible nightmare about killing a man in a strange mirrored room. In the struggle (in the nightmare) Stan rips off one of the buttons of his victim’s coat. What worries Stan is that when he wakes up he is clutching that button. He also has a key which he has never seen before. Could Stan be a murderer? But why would he have killed a man he has never seen before?

Stan decides to ask his brother-in-law Rene Bressard (Edward G. Robinson) for advice. Rene is a Homicide cop. Rene assures Stan that he’s just suffering from overwork. Then Rene, his wife Sue, Stan and Stan’s singer girlfriend Gina (Connie Russell) go on a picnic. Trying to avoid a downpour they are led by Stan to an empty house. Stan has never been to this house but he knows how to get there and he knows where the spare key is hidden. There’s a mirrored room in the house - the room from Stan’s dream. And that mysterious key fits the locks in that room.

Rene now figures that Stan really is a murderer and Stan figures the same thing. But there are major plot twists to come.

Stan of course has considered the possibility that he has gone crazy. There are other possibilities. The nightmare was obviously very significant.

Changes were made to the plot for the 1956 remake and both film versions differ in some ways from Woolrich’s story.

One thing that should be noted is that the poster for the movie (reproduced on the Blu-Ray cover) gives away the entire plot of the movie. I’m not going to do that but if you’re concerned about spoilers just don’t look at that disc cover!

Kevin McCarthy is excellent as the confused and worried Stan, a nice guy whose whole world is suddenly falling apart. Edward G. Robinson gives one of his kindly wise older man performances, mixed with one of his aggressive tough guy performances.

The actresses are fine but the focus here is very much on Rene and Stan and McCarthy and Robinson are both so good that the female stars inevitably get overshadowed.

This is a visually rather impressive movie. The New Orleans locations are used well. The camerawork combines with the music to give that crazy disturbing jazzy feel that the story requires. There’s a nice use of mirrors. Not just the mirrored room, but there’s another very cool mirror shot early which doesn’t advance the plot but just adds subtly to our sense of unease.

There’s a lot of Freudian stuff. It’s half-baked Freudianism, but Freud’s Freudianism was half-baked as well so it doesn’t matter. Freudian nonsense always adds some fun.

You might think I’m being persnickety about that poster but I do think it weakens the movie. The movie works better if you don’t know the answer to a couple of the key questions which cause Rene and Stan so much anguish and bewilderment, and the poster makes those answers much too obvious. Perhaps Shane really did want us to know the answers, but the way he structures the movie suggests to me that that was not the case.

Is this film noir? I would say no, but it’s definitely noirish. Always bear in mind that the movie was made in 1956 when no-one had heard of film noir, so it was never intended as a film noir and there’s no sense complaining that some of what are now seen as essential noir ingredients are missing. This is an entertaining psychological crime thriller and it’s recommended.

Kino Lorber have provided a very nice Blu-Ray transfer.

Whistle Stop (1946)

Whistle Stop is a 1946 film noir starring George Raft and Ava Gardner.

Mary (Ava Gardner) arrives back in her home town. Ashbury is a small town with the railway station being its only valid reason for existence. Throughout the movie we hear train whistles in the background. Trains play a vital part in the story. This is not a train thriller in the sense of taking place on a train but the railroad is always a presence.

Mary had gone to Chicago in search of glamour, excitement and money. She found those things and she found disillusionment.

She has returned to see Kenny (George Raft). Kenny is a rudderless loser but she has always loved him. Kenny has never been motivated to find a job although he can always summon up the motivation to find a card game or a beer joint. Maybe he wouldn’t have turned out to be such a loser if Mary had stayed. Or maybe he would have. Maybe Mary just couldn’t see a future with him.

There’s a complication, in the person of Lew Lentz (Tom Conway). Lew is a rich businessman. He’s not a mobster but we get the impression that his business methods are ruthless and may be at times just a tad ethically slippery. Lew has always wanted Mary. Given that Kenny and Lew both love Mary it’s hardly surprising that the two men are at daggers drawn.

Another complication is Gitlo (Victor McLaglen). He’s Kenny’s buddy but he works for Lew. Lew knows something about Gitlo which gives him a hold over the man. Gitlo hates and resents Lew, but he grovels to him.

Kenny is convinced that Mary would choose him over Lew if only he had lots of money. Lew has lots of money. He carries large amounts of money on the train to Detroit. It would not be difficult to rob him. Kenny is a loser but he’s not a criminal. But he is tempted. He wants Mary so badly.

So we have a classic film noir setup, with Kenny as the potentially easily manipulated schmuck, the typical noir protagonist. And with Mary as the classic femme fatale.

And that’s why so many people misunderstand this movie and are unable to appreciate it. They want to view it through a noir lens. They forget that nobody in Hollywood in 1946 had the remotest idea what film noir was so they were not conscious of the need to follow the conventions of a genre that did not exist. The makers of this movie were making a movie that combines crime thriller and melodrama elements. The fact that it happens to contain so many of what are now seen as essential noir ingredients does not imply that is is is film noir. It can be seen as conforming to some of the modern expectations of noir, but not all of them. It also conforms to some of the conventions of melodrama.

Director Léonide Moguy and screenwriter Philip Yordan knew what they were doing, but what they were trying to do was not necessarily what modern critics would have liked them to do.

Every online review I’ve read complains that Mary’s motivations for leaving Chicago remain unexplained. I can only assume that these reviewers are used to modern Hollywood spoon-feeding them. They need everything explained in detail, with diagrams. Her reasons are obvious, and are made obvious. She had been a kept woman, and she grew tired of feeling like a whore.

The same reviewers complain that Lew’s motivations for hating Kenny are unclear. They are perfectly clear. He wants Mary. He knows that Mary feels an incredibly strong sexual attraction to Kenny. Lew might be able to buy Mary but she will never want him with that aching desperate sexual need she feels for Kenny. That’s a blindingly obvious motivation.

I’m a huge George Raft fan and he is excellent here. It’s a typical effective low-key George Raft performance. There’s some self-pity in Kenny, some bitterness and plenty of jealousy. But he has settled into a loser pattern of life.

Tom Conway as Lew is fine. He makes Lew sinister but without making him a straightforward villain. Victor McLaglen is quite effective in getting across Gitlo’s simmering resentment, the resentment of a coward.

Ava Gardner gives the standout performance. Mary is a complex woman. She seems to be a femme fatale but we can’t be sure.

Raft and Gardner have no trouble convincing us that for all their doubts and hesitations and conflicts Kenny and Mary just can’t stop wanting each other.

You can see early on where the story is going, but that isn’t where it’s really going. You can see early on what the character arcs are going to be for all the players in this dramas, but the script has some surprises for us.

I liked Whistle Stop a lot. Just try to approach it without getting too locked-in to genre expectations. Highly recommended.

Hold Back Tomorrow (1955)

Hold Back Tomorrow was produced, directed and written in 1955 by Hugo Haas, a filmmaker who is arguably unfairly overlooked. It’s one of several Haas movies which starred Cleo Moore.

It’s a movie that had to tread fairly carefully to avoid the ire of the Production Code Authority.

A killer named Joe Cardos (John Agar) is to be hanged the following morning. The warden tells him he can have a last request. No matter what it is it will be granted. Joe asks for a woman for the night.

The warden is horrified but feels that he has no choice. The cops are given the job of finding Joe a woman.

That proves to be rather difficult. Most girls are not keen on the idea of spending the night with a guy who is about to be hanged for strangling three women. Even ladies known to have flexible moral standards are not interested.

Finally they get a lead on a girl who might be a possibility. The proprietress of an escort service suggests that Dora (Cleo Moore). Dora is down so low and is so desperate she would do anything for money, and since there will be two hundred bucks in it for her she might say yes.

We have already been introduced to Dora, in the movie’s effectively moody doom-laden opening sequence. She was trying to drown herself. She really is at rock bottom. Not surprisingly she says yes. She hates the idea but she hates life and she hates herself and she hates everything and she figures she’s got nothing left to lose.

Dora and Joe don’t exactly hit it off at first. Eventually they begin to talk. About their pasts. About why their lives have been so disastrous. I can’t say too much more without risking spoilers.

Almost the entire movie is shot on a single set, Joe’s cell. By its nature it’s a very talky movie. It also inevitably has a slightly artificial feel but that works to the film’s advantage - it’s as if for one night these two people are locked in their own private world.

And it is totally focused on Joe and Dora. That puts a lot of pressure on the lead actors. They carry it off pretty well. John Agar plays Joe as a man filled with seething resentment and he does a decent job.

Cleo Moore never quite made it to the top as an actress. She didn’t quite have that extra something that transforms a promising actress into a genuine A-list star. I’ve seen a few of her movies and she was always quite competent. This is by far the best performance I’ve seen from her. She’s very very impressive and never makes the mistake of pushing things too far. Dora is not a woman likely to have an emotional meltdown or burst into tears. For her it’s much too late for that. Moore captures her mix of resignation and despair exceptionally well.

Now back to my earlier point about this movie’s fascinating attempts to sidestep the Production Code. First off, what would a guy in Joe’s position want to do with a dame on his last night on earth? Maybe he’d like to play gin rummy, or talk about literature, but even in 1955 no audience was going to buy that. But of course there was no way the movie could suggest that he might want to have sex with her. Perish the thought. Joe just wants a woman to talk to. It kind of works but it is obviously a bit unlikely, especially given that Dora is a stunning blonde and is wearing a slinky dress.

When the cops talk to the woman who runs the escort service Haas is careful to make sure we see a prominently displayed sign which explains that the agency provides girls as dancing partners only, but at the same time we get the very strong impression that these young ladies are call girls.

Of course when the cops had trouble finding a girl to agree to share Joe’s cell on his last night the obvious thing would have been to look for a prostitute. Even if it was going to be made clear that no hanky-panky was going to happen it would be fairly obvious that a prostitute would be more likely go for such an idea than a respectable girl.

And at this point it would seem that Haas decided to take a risk. He threw in a line that tells us that Dora is in fact a call girl. It’s just one line and presumably he hoped that somehow the Production Code Authority (PCA) would miss it. And apparently they did. So Dora is indeed a prostitute, and we also learn (in that same single line of dialogue), that like most such girls she’s been persecuted by the criminal justice system and that might well explain why she’s been reduced to poverty and despair. All of which means that her character makes more sense, and her actions make more sense.

Haas was clearly trying to make a grown-up movie and to a surprising extent he succeeds. He knew that the really grown-up stuff would have to be limited to one or two crucial lines of dialogue that the PCA might not notice. My interpretation of this movie is to a large extent based on these throwaway lines, but given that Haas had by this time been writing and directing movies for 30 years I figure that if he included a line of dialogue he did so for a reason. There’s that one line that suggests that Dora is probably a call girl. There’s another line that indicates that Dora assumes that Joe’s murders were sexually motivated, that he strangled women because that was the only way he could get sexual pleasure.

What’s really interesting is that Dora simply doesn’t care if Joe kills her for his sexual pleasure. To her that would be a fitting end to her life.

The prison authorities leave Dora completely alone in the cell with Joe. There’s not even a guard posted outside. He could do anything he wanted to her. That’s obviously a bit of dramatic licence, no prison warden would allow such a thing, but it’s dramatically necessary. We have to believe that Dora’s life is in Joe’s hands.

This is a story of a man in need of redemption, but he doesn’t know it. And a woman in need of a meaning to her life, but she doesn’t know it. You’ll have to watch the movie to find out whether either achieves those goals.

This is a slightly odd movie but it’s engrossing. Highly recommended.

It’s included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII boxed set although of course it isn’t film noir.

I’ve reviewed a couple of Cleo Moore’s other movies - One Girl’s Confession (1953) and Over-Exposed (1956).

Outside the Wall (1950)

Outside the Wall (1950) is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII. These sets are excellent and include lots of fine movies that are very much worth seeing but most of the films have at best only the most tenuous connections to actual film noir.

Larry Nelson (Richard Basehart) has just been released from prison. He served fifteen years for murder. He went into prison at the age of fourteen. Now he’s almost thirty. He’s no longer the hot-headed punk who was sentenced all those years ago. Whatever demons were driving him in his youth have long since departed. He’s now a good-natured rather pleasant young man. For years he has been a model prisoner, working in the prison infirmary.

He is also very confused and very scared. He has been totally institutionalised. He is horrified by the world outside of prison. Why are people so nasty to each other? Why is everyone in such a hurry? Why is everything so loud?

Seeking peace and quiet he finds a job in a sanatorium in a tiny Pennsylvania town. He is assured that nothing ever happens in this sleepy little village. That suits Larry just fine.

One major problem he has is women. Having been in prison since the age of fourteen he has of course zero experience with women. Not only is he obviously a virgin, he has never kissed a girl, never held hands with a girl, never danced with a girl, never dated a girl. He is terrified of women.

Unfortunately the first dame he encounters on the outside is a lady of easy virtue who tries to relieve him of his bankroll. Now he’s really suspicious of these dangerous creatures.

There are two young nurses at the sanatorium. They’re very scary. They have all these curves, which is rather disturbing. He really gets off on the wrong foot with Charlotte (Marilyn Maxwell). He totally misinterprets everything she does. He thinks she’s rude and obnoxious. In fact, having performed the pre-employment medical exam on him, she is actually rather besotted with his manly physique. Poor Larry doesn’t understand how flirting works. The other nurse is Ann Taylor (Dorothy Hart). She seems friendly but Larry doesn’t know to respond.

Now some noirness enters the story. A new patient arrives at the sanatorium. Mr Stoker is seriously ill with TB and may or may not live. Only Mr Stoker isn’t Mr Stoker, he’s Jack Bernard who has just netted a cool million dollars from an armoured car holdup. Larry recognises him. They knew each other in prison. As far as Larry is concerned it's none of his business.

The real trouble for Larry comes, naturally, from a dame. He’s decided Charlotte is kind of exciting. She makes it clear that she’s available, but only to guys with lots of money. And then Jack Bernard makes Larry a proposition. It’s not exactly legal but it doesn’t involve doing anything really bad, it sounds safe and with that kind of money Charlotte would be his.

Larry is a classic noir protagonist. He has a shady past but he’s a basically decent guy. He’s just a bit naïve, he’s very vulnerable when it comes to dames and Charlotte is the kind of dame who is not going to have any problem getting Larry to dance to her tune.

Larry doesn’t really understand how it’s happened, but he’s getting sucked into the noir nightmare world.

Richard Basehart is excellent. It would have been easy to make Larry seem like a pathetic sucker but Basehart ensures that we never lose sympathy for the guy and we never lose respect for him.

Marilyn Maxwell as Charlotte is fairly effective although Charlotte isn’t evil, just totally selfish. One of the most interesting things about this movie is that although she fulfils the plot function of the femme fatale she isn’t really a femme fatale. She is totally honest with Larry. She is totally honest about the kind of girl she is. What she wants in a man is money. The problem is that Larry just doesn’t know enough about women to realise that he should forget all about her. He should go after Ann, a sweet girl who is practically throwing herself at him.

Dorothy Hart as Ann is OK in the good girl role. There’s a fine supporting cast.

There’s very little in the way of noir visual style but all the other noir ingredients are here. Of course you can have all the right ingredients and still not end up with a genuine film noir. Outside the Wall certainly does have noirishness.

Not a masterpiece (Crane Wilbur just isn’t a very inspired director) but a reasonably enjoyable movie. Recommended.

Kino Lorber have come up with a very nice transfer for their Blu-Ray presentation.

Undertow (1949)

Undertow (1949) is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVII and it’s a real surprise - it’s just about the only movie in any of these sets that is actually slightly film noirish. Don’t get me wrong. These sets include lots of fine movies that are very much worth seeing but most have no connections whatsoever to actual film noir.

Undertow is an early directorial effort by William Castle, later to become legendary for his imaginative promotional gimmicks for his low-budget horror films.

Tony Reagan (Scott Brady) has just been demobilised from the army. He seems like a pretty nice guy. At a casino in Reno he meets a rather sweet young lady schoolteacher, Ann McKnight (Peggy Dow). Ann seems like the sort of girl who’s waiting for Mr Right to come along, and she seems to think that Tony might qualify. Tony however is not interested - he’s heading to Chicago to marry his sweetheart Sally Lee (Dorothy Hart).

There’s nothing more than harmless flirtation between Tony and Ann.

We now learn that seven years earlier Tony had left Chicago under a cloud. He had been involved in organised crime and had run foul of Big Jim Lee. This could be a problem now - Big Jim is Sally Lee’s uncle.

Tony finds himself framed for murder and he has a minor gunshot wound. He needs to hide out for a while but the cops have all his old friends under surveillance. Then he remembers the cute lady schoolteacher. She lives in Chicago. She is keen to help. She just knows that Tony could never have murdered anybody. He’s not her man but she’ll stand by him anyway.

The biggest problem with this movie is that we don’t really feel that the odds are stacked against Tony. He’s in a jam but he has people on his side and we figure he’ll be OK. The movie also reveals a bit too much information too early.

Tony does qualify to some extent as a noir protagonist. There’s some moral ambiguity to him. He’s been a bad boy in the past but he’s tried to keep out of trouble since. He’s a basically decent guy in danger of being drawn into the noir nightmare world.

There is also a femme fatale of a sort, but not enough is done with the character.

For me film noir should take place in a rather hostile world - an unforgiving world in which a guy makes one mistake or gets one bad break and he’s doomed. The world of Undertow is a bit too ordered and fair. It doesn’t feel particularly like the world of film noir.

The bad guys are all that sinister. The femme fatale does some femme fatale stuff but she’s not all that seductive and she doesn’t have the full-blown evil spider woman vibe.

There’s also not much in the way of genuine noir visual style (although there is some).

Watching it today this movie seems like it has the ingredients for a film noir but they’re not sufficiently exploited. But of course nobody in 1949 was consciously trying to make film noir. Castle was just trying to make a crime thriller.

Judged in that light he does a very competent job.

The acting is solid but none of the main players has real star presence or charisma.

A few more nasty plot twists would have been nice but there’s nothing particularly wrong with Undertow. It’s only marginally film noir and it’s no masterpiece but it’s an enjoyable enough B-movie and it’s worth a look.

Kino Lorber have provided a very pleasing transfer.

Chicago Deadline (1949)

Chicago Deadline is a 1949 Paramount release that is difficult to classify. It’s definitely not film noir. There’s a mystery, but not of the usual type. There are crimes, but they’re peripheral to the main plot. Perhaps it’s best to think of it as just a hardboiled newspaper movie.

Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) is a reporter for the Chicago Journal. He comes across a young woman, dead in her apartment. Her name was Rosita. There’s no mystery to her death. She died of tuberculosis. And this is not one of those movies in which what appears to be death by natural causes turns out to be murder. She really did die of tuberculosis.

Ed finds her address book. Being a reporter he naturally steals it before the police arrive. It’s unethical but no big deal. This is not a suspicious death.

This is at best a very minor human interest story. A pretty young woman dies alone in a seedy apartment. Ed, being a reporter, decides to track down some of the people in her address book. He discovers something that interests him as a newspaperman. All of these people suddenly get really nervous when Rosita’s name is mentioned. Maybe there might be a bit of a story here after all.

He slowly uncovers Rosita’s story through the people in her address book. We see Rosita (played by Donna Reed) in a series of flashbacks.

Rosita seemed to have lousy luck with men. Some of these men are now having lousy luck. Getting murdered certainly qualifies as lousy luck.

Some of these people have colourful backgrounds of a less than strictly legal nature. Some are important people. It seems more and more likely that there’s a real story here. Ed wants that story, but he gradually becomes obsessed with Rosita herself. How did her life fall apart? It’s a mystery that Ed wants to solve.

Alan Ladd is in good form. Ed Adams is the hero but he’s a slightly tarnished hero. He’s a reporter, which means he has never had any morals. A story is a story. He’s hardboiled and cynical and that has never bothered him but as he uncovers Rosita’s story he starts to like himself a lot less. He starts to become slightly uncomfortable with the idea of treating people’s lives as nothing more than material for stories. Rosita was a real woman. Ed wants her story told fairly.

The touch of cynicism about newspapers adds some interest.

Rosita is supposed to be an enigmatic figure. That’s the whole point of the story. Was she a bad girl, a femme fatale, a victim or an innocent? Or just a very ordinary young woman whose life got out of control? Donna Reed’s performance reflects this. It’s not a showy performance because it’s not supposed to be.

The plot is perhaps a little over-complicated, with perhaps too many characters. That of course is to some extent the point - Rosita met her destiny as a result of all kinds of involvements with all kinds of people, good and bad. Some used her. Some loved her. You do have to pay close attention though.

There’s no need to worry too much about spoilers here - the movie tells us how Rosita’s life will end right at the beginning. Of course there could be no question of a happy ending - we already know that she has died alone and unloved. The pay-off at the end is satisfactory but it is just a tiny bit bleak. No-one was saved. This is is probably the movie’s only valid claim to being borderline noir. The one moderately bright spot at the end is that Ed has perhaps become a bit more of an emotionally mature human being.

Chicago Deadline is pretty decent entertainment. Recommended.

This one is included in Kino Lorber’s Film Noir: Dark Side of Cinema XVI Blu-Ray set (I’ve 
also reviewed Mystery of Marie Roget from that set). Chicago Deadline gets a lovely transfer.

Union City (1980)

Union City, released in 1980, is a bit of a puzzle. It attracted mild interest at the time since it marked the real beginnings of Debbie Harry’s career as an actress (she had played a few minor roles prior to this). This film then sank without trace. It got a DVD release nearly twenty years ago and then disappeared once again into obscurity. There is still no sign of a Blu-Ray release. It’s rather bizarre. You would think that being a neo-noir starring Debbie Harry would make it well and truly viable as a Blu-Ray release. And it is a very good and extremely interesting movie.

I suspect the problem is that it’s also a slightly weird very quirky movie, the kind of movie that critics are always inclined to treat harshly. It’s also the kind of movie that would have presented a few challenges to the marketing guys. The usual response of studios to such movies is to simply not bother promoting them. And the usual response of critics (including today’s online reviewers) is to assume that such a movie is not worth bothering with.

It probably also didn’t help that this was the only feature film made by writer-director Marcus Reichert. The fact that it was made by a Hollywood outsider was another reason to dismiss it.

Union City was based on a 1937 Cornell Woolrich short story, The Corpse Next Door, and this is a very Woolrichian movie.

It is 1953. Lillian (Debbie Harry) and Harlan (Dennis Lipscomb) live in a seedy apartment in a generic fictional city, Union City. Their marriage is not a great success. Harlan is neurotic and dissatisfied with life and inclined to obsess over trivial things. Lillian has tried to be a good wife but she feels unloved.

Harlan’s latest obsession is the milk thief. Somebody is stealing his milk. He lays an elaborate trap for the thief, with disastrous consequences. As a result his fragile grip on reality becomes ever more tenuous.

Lillian seems to be drifting into an affair with the building’s super, Larry (Everett McGill). Lillian is not really that kind of girl but she’s starved of affection and Larry is much nicer to her than her husband.

Also living in the building is The Contessa (Irina Maleeva). She’s not really a contessa. She’s crazy, but likeable and harmless. She does however add to the movie’s atmosphere of weirdness.

Harlan is in a total panic because of the corpse. He has no coherent plan to dispose of it. His solution is for them to move to another apartment, which would simply make the corpse’s discovery a certainty. He is descending into a world of madness and paranoia.

As I said, this is all very Woolrichian.

I admire Debbie Harry for taking this role because, considering that she was seen at the time as perhaps the sexiest most glamorous woman in the world, it’s a very unglamorous part.

It also requires a very low-key performance. Harlan is the one who is cracking up in spectacular style and Dennis Lipscomb is the one who is called on to deliver a totally over-the-top performance (which he does very effectively).

Debbie Harry has to counter-balance that. Lillian is just a very ordinary woman. She just wanted a happy marriage. She doesn’t daydream about being a movie star or a fashion model or living in a penthouse. She just wants a bit of romance and affection, and it would be nice to have a husband who actually wanted to make love to her occasionally. She doesn’t want very much out of life, but she knows that she needs more than she’s getting.

Debbie Harry’s performance is believable and touching.

Look out for Pat Benatar in a small role. Yes, you get two pop queens in this movie.

Union City certainly has very strong neo-noir credentials but it has a feel that is quite different from other neo-noirs. It has its own totally distinctive style, possibly another reason for its neglect. It doesn’t look or feel anything like other neo-noirs with period setting (such as Chinatown, The Postman Always Rings Twice or Farewell, My Lovely) or other neo-noirs such as Body Heat or Basic Instinct.

Union City has an incredibly claustrophobic feel. It also has a very non-realist look. The use of colour to create mood is extremely interesting. There is no reason in plot terms for this movie not to have been set in 1980 - I suspect the period setting was chosen to achieve a further distancing from reality, from the everyday world. This is a movie that takes place entirely within a nightmare world. This is very obviously true in Harlan’s case but both Lillian and the Contessa can also be seen as inhabiting a world of unreality. Theirs is not a world of paranoia, but but it’s still a world of unreality. For these two women it’s a world of frustrated hopes and thwarted love.

The Tartan Video DVD is long out of print but affordable copies can still be found. I found my copy without any great difficulty. The anamorphic transfer is OK. The only extras are Debbie Harry’s screen tests and it’s easy to see why Reichert wanted her - she nailed the part perfectly right from the start.

Union City is a very unconventional neo-noir but it is still very much a neo-noir. It’s a slightly arty very moody film that makes no concessions to the conventions of cinematic realism. It’s a strange brilliant little movie and it’s very highly recommended.

Lady on a Train (1945)

Lady on a Train is a 1945 Universal release included in Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray boxed set Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema IX. Now I really don’t mind that hardly any of the Blu-Ray film noir releases these days are genuine noir. I understand that it’s a marketing thing. Slapping a film noir label on a movie makes it a viable physical media release and as a result lots of unfairly neglected movies are now seeing the light of day. That’s a good thing.

But the sheer brazenness of trying to pass off Lady on a Train as a film noir is awe-inspiring. This movie is not noir. It’s not noirish or noiresque or noir-adjacent. It does not contain even trace elements of noirness.

Lady on a Train is a lighthearted comic murder mystery with a decided screwball comedy flavour. It’s also a rather delightful movie in its own way.

It was based on a Leslie Charteris story and if you’re a fan of Charteris’s Saint stories you know that he was all about clever plotting, style, wit and fun. And this movie contains all those ingredients.

Deanna Durbin plays Nikki Collins and she is most certainly a screwball. She’s on a train and she’s reading a murder mystery by her favourite writer of detective stories, Wayne Morgan. She spends a great deal of time reading detective stories. She looks up from her book, out the window of the train, and she witnesses an actual murder. It’s not her overheated imagination.

The problem is that the police assume she’s a ditzy blonde who reads too much detective fiction and they don’t believe her.

She decides she’s going to need some help from a real expert, and surely no-one knows more about murder than Wayne Morgan. The writer is naturally flattered by the admiration of a cute blonde but his girlfriend, fashion model Joyce Willams (Patricia Morison), is less happy about pretty blondes taking an interest in her man. In fact she’s very disgruntled indeed.

Nikki does have a lead. She is sure that the murder victim was a wealthy industrialist named Josiah Waring. He is indeed deceased, although his demise has been attributed to a freak accident with a Christmas tree.

Waring left an odd will. His two nephews, Arnold Waring (Dan Duryea) and Jonathan Waring (Ralph Bellamy), were left nothing. The entire vast fortune went to Waring’s mistress, nightclub chanteuse Margo Martin (Maria Palmer).

There are plenty of other dissatisfied would-be heirs so there’s no shortage of potential suspects for murder.

There's a solid mystery plot but the emphasis is on lighthearted fun, and on watching Nikki’s attempts to play the part of an ace girl amateur detective. Her attempts turn up some clues but cause a good deal of amusing mayhem. She has a knack for blundering into situations with all the overconfidence of an enthusiastic schoolgirl.

The part is tailor-made for Deanna Durbin. She gets to be feisty, smart, accident-prone, cute and adorable. All things that she did supremely well. Her likeability factor is high enough to keep us interested in her adventures.

Naturally she has to sing and since for much of the movie she’s pretending to be a nightclub singer the songs slot neatly into the film and they’re pretty good. When she sings Night and Day she’s as close as Deanna Durbin ever got to being sultry. And she does a very sexy version of Silent Night. Yes I know that sounds bizarre but she manages it.

You might think that Dan Duryea’s presence in the cast would add some noirness but Duryea displays little of his trademark sinister presence. He’s very good, but he’s not playing a heavy.

You just have to accept that this is not going to be a film noir, and enjoy it for what it is. It’s a decently plotted murder mystery combined with a screwball comedy. Nikki is totally a screwball comedy female protagonist and Wayne Morgan is a classic screwball comedy male protagonist. Initially she drives him insane and threatens to reduce his well-ordered life to a shambles. You know that eventually they’ll realise that since they’re both screwballs they might as fall in love.

The Circus Club (where Margo is the headliner) makes a fine visually interesting setting for much of the later action. Durbin gets to wear some very fetching costumes.

The murder mystery and screwball comedy elements are nicely balanced. The mystery plot works satisfactorily, the screwball comedy elements are genuinely amusing. And Deanna Durbin’s sparkling performance is the main attraction. A charming and delightful movie, highly recommended.

The Kino Lorber Blu-Ray offers a very nice transfer. There is no audio commentary, and given the very dubious quality of most of the audio commentaries that Kino Lorber offer that’s probably a blessing.