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noir fest notes
Sep. 26th, 2023 05:59 pmMy long weekend off work is nearly over. Probably post some more pix shortly, but first, excerpted from a scrapped draft of a catch-up post I started earlier, I wanna save my notes on what I caught at this year's noir fest (all films from 1948).
Eddie was back this year, after being sick last year, but I went only to 2 of the double features, having seen the other films a lot and having conflicting baseball to see. Sorry, Wrong Number was better than I thought it'd be (guess I'd just seen snippets, after having read it in high school, at which time I remember only Starnes talking about telephone exchanges---there's a Murray Hill exchange in it, at least as written). It ends darkly, with some irony, but/and in a way that's satisfying, not upsetting. It's tight, with some surprises. Eddie told a few of us in the lobby later that Stanwyck (his idea of the best movie actress ever) asked that her bed scenes be shot in order, to help her pull off the progressive unraveling. Which she sure does.
Road House was okay, but kind of a one-note for Ida Lupino, though it was certainly fun to see her low-energy blasé-jaded chanteuse, about whom the affable Celeste Holm character says "She does more with no voice than anybody I've ever heard". The titular lodge-like entertainment mecca, with its old-school bowling alley within and wood-sided van out on the small-burg streets, is arguably one of the stars of the movie too. Somehow the love triangle plot didn't grab me at all, and Richard Widmark's maniacal laughter was so over-the-top as to be comical, at least through the lens of decades hence. Still, I'd not seen it, and I'm glad I did.
Sunday's double feature (as Eddie pointed out) had two films with Henry Morgan (Colonel Potter on the M*A*S*H TV show) in large-ish non-speaking parts---one as a "deaf mute", and one cuz he's "muscle", with no need to talk. That one was The Big Clock, the day's opener, which I liked notably more than when I'd seen it on TV before. For one thing, its opening shot is great, tracking from outside a spankin'-mod building exterior in to the offices and all the way into the epoymous clock's interior, not cutting until the cut to the flashback that makes up the bulk of the film. Guess I just missed that on the TV (maybe looking away, multi-tasking, etc.). The film also has a marvelous turn of the marvelous Elsa Lanchester, as a quirky painter whose work, and witnessing, is big in the plot:
Elsa's character is also casually sexually free, which we pick up only cuz she has lots of children, from various husbands, the last of which she hasn't actually married yet, as she's lost track of him. You gotta love her living/working space and her funny role in the plot wrap-up, in which she's of course sympathetic to the guy on the run, for no apparent reason other than kneejerky not gonna turn somebody in to the "authorities", partcularly someone who appreciates her paintings.
That somebody is the lead, Ray Milland. I can't see how Eddie thinks Ray Milland had something of the Cary Grant playboy sophistication to him, or even how this role is calling up that flavor, but I'm the first to admit I don't have a standard take on the degree or full variety of exuding sexinesses in men, in the movies or otherwise. I was more drawn to the lettering & numbering (very nice on the big screen) and the fleet of magazines and all the bits with the elevator and the shiny silver travel trailer (how'd they get THAT in there?) and goofy Elsa (along with her darling real-life gay hubby, Charles Laughton, as the publishing magnate bad guy and ultimate domineering boss, even with his fey little finger gestures). Plus the props and character actors and dialogue. But, fer real, Ray Milland just doesn't have the fetching twinkle in the eye of Cary Grant. That said, it's good it wasn't Cary Grant in The Blg Clock. That wouldn't have worked at all.
Finally, the show closed with Moonrise, a fairly obscure Republic picture, that flopped at the box office. The lead, Dane Clark, was apparently oft called "the poor man's John Garfield". He's got the sad puppy-dog eyes, though, and not the Garfield edge. This picture is noted now for its occasional striking visuals, but it still flopped with me. Like Road House, it felt like it was shot throughout on claustrophobic sets, even with a big swamp chase scene at the end. The structure and plot are pretty "eh", entirely apart from the good woman trying to rescue the troubled guy, in an also-not-convincing way. And it's got nothing like an Ida Lupino in it. Plus the Henry Morgan "dummy" character doesn't add a thing. Just another version of the literal dogs one can judge a guy about for how he treats 'em. And the Magical Negro is off in the woods being a Magical Negro in the woods, with a guitar and wisdom and his own appreciation for the poor shlub, who (as he predicts) will eventually do the right thing and more or less turn himself in. Sorta ho-hum, in the end. Probably ultimately cuz I found it impossible to suspend disbelief. Not that I'm not still glad to have taken it in. A couple of days at the old movies, after my jaunt to Cleveland, and amid my current medical adventure, were just the ticket.
Here's this year's attempt at shooting a day-for-night version of the marquee, complete with Photopea-faked light:
Better than( the one I did in 2019. )
Eddie was back this year, after being sick last year, but I went only to 2 of the double features, having seen the other films a lot and having conflicting baseball to see. Sorry, Wrong Number was better than I thought it'd be (guess I'd just seen snippets, after having read it in high school, at which time I remember only Starnes talking about telephone exchanges---there's a Murray Hill exchange in it, at least as written). It ends darkly, with some irony, but/and in a way that's satisfying, not upsetting. It's tight, with some surprises. Eddie told a few of us in the lobby later that Stanwyck (his idea of the best movie actress ever) asked that her bed scenes be shot in order, to help her pull off the progressive unraveling. Which she sure does.
Road House was okay, but kind of a one-note for Ida Lupino, though it was certainly fun to see her low-energy blasé-jaded chanteuse, about whom the affable Celeste Holm character says "She does more with no voice than anybody I've ever heard". The titular lodge-like entertainment mecca, with its old-school bowling alley within and wood-sided van out on the small-burg streets, is arguably one of the stars of the movie too. Somehow the love triangle plot didn't grab me at all, and Richard Widmark's maniacal laughter was so over-the-top as to be comical, at least through the lens of decades hence. Still, I'd not seen it, and I'm glad I did.
Sunday's double feature (as Eddie pointed out) had two films with Henry Morgan (Colonel Potter on the M*A*S*H TV show) in large-ish non-speaking parts---one as a "deaf mute", and one cuz he's "muscle", with no need to talk. That one was The Big Clock, the day's opener, which I liked notably more than when I'd seen it on TV before. For one thing, its opening shot is great, tracking from outside a spankin'-mod building exterior in to the offices and all the way into the epoymous clock's interior, not cutting until the cut to the flashback that makes up the bulk of the film. Guess I just missed that on the TV (maybe looking away, multi-tasking, etc.). The film also has a marvelous turn of the marvelous Elsa Lanchester, as a quirky painter whose work, and witnessing, is big in the plot:
Elsa's character is also casually sexually free, which we pick up only cuz she has lots of children, from various husbands, the last of which she hasn't actually married yet, as she's lost track of him. You gotta love her living/working space and her funny role in the plot wrap-up, in which she's of course sympathetic to the guy on the run, for no apparent reason other than kneejerky not gonna turn somebody in to the "authorities", partcularly someone who appreciates her paintings.
That somebody is the lead, Ray Milland. I can't see how Eddie thinks Ray Milland had something of the Cary Grant playboy sophistication to him, or even how this role is calling up that flavor, but I'm the first to admit I don't have a standard take on the degree or full variety of exuding sexinesses in men, in the movies or otherwise. I was more drawn to the lettering & numbering (very nice on the big screen) and the fleet of magazines and all the bits with the elevator and the shiny silver travel trailer (how'd they get THAT in there?) and goofy Elsa (along with her darling real-life gay hubby, Charles Laughton, as the publishing magnate bad guy and ultimate domineering boss, even with his fey little finger gestures). Plus the props and character actors and dialogue. But, fer real, Ray Milland just doesn't have the fetching twinkle in the eye of Cary Grant. That said, it's good it wasn't Cary Grant in The Blg Clock. That wouldn't have worked at all.
Finally, the show closed with Moonrise, a fairly obscure Republic picture, that flopped at the box office. The lead, Dane Clark, was apparently oft called "the poor man's John Garfield". He's got the sad puppy-dog eyes, though, and not the Garfield edge. This picture is noted now for its occasional striking visuals, but it still flopped with me. Like Road House, it felt like it was shot throughout on claustrophobic sets, even with a big swamp chase scene at the end. The structure and plot are pretty "eh", entirely apart from the good woman trying to rescue the troubled guy, in an also-not-convincing way. And it's got nothing like an Ida Lupino in it. Plus the Henry Morgan "dummy" character doesn't add a thing. Just another version of the literal dogs one can judge a guy about for how he treats 'em. And the Magical Negro is off in the woods being a Magical Negro in the woods, with a guitar and wisdom and his own appreciation for the poor shlub, who (as he predicts) will eventually do the right thing and more or less turn himself in. Sorta ho-hum, in the end. Probably ultimately cuz I found it impossible to suspend disbelief. Not that I'm not still glad to have taken it in. A couple of days at the old movies, after my jaunt to Cleveland, and amid my current medical adventure, were just the ticket.
Here's this year's attempt at shooting a day-for-night version of the marquee, complete with Photopea-faked light:
Better than( the one I did in 2019. )
