SIGforum
TCM : Noir Alley with Eddie Muller
March 30, 2017, 01:24 PM
SIGnifiedTCM : Noir Alley with Eddie Muller
Any notable films on the radar for this subject? I always seem to miss the suggestions ... I scanned into Sunday for Noir, but not sure if the movies on TCM are on the "recommended" list. TIA!
"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein March 30, 2017, 11:40 PM
YooperSigsBlue Gardenia next Sunday. Fritz Lang. And Raymond Burr before Perry Mason.
Pretty good.
End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
March 31, 2017, 08:25 AM
parabellumYes,
The Blue Gardenia on Noir Alley this Sunday morning. Aside from
The Big Heat, I'm not much of a fan of late Fritz Lang films (just look at the preposterous premise of his very late
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt). Lang was one of germany's greatest directors during the Weimar era, and most of the great directors make better films as they mature. I'm not sure what happened with Lang, but
The Blue Gardenia is most definitely film noir. Photographed by my favorite cinematographer of all time, Nicholas Musuraca.
Wasn't
The Morning After based upon the same premise? You think you murdered someone but you didn't and you were framed. John Farrow's
Where Danger Lives (noir icon Robert Mitchum, again) uses the same premise.
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
March 31, 2017, 11:10 AM
SIGnifiedThanks fellas - have the DVR set to record that one, so I look forward to it.
"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein March 31, 2017, 11:52 AM
parabellumThe following week on Noir Alley, they air another Fritz Lang film noir-
Scarlet Street. This film is an example of how film noir managed to circumvent the Production Code. The code says that murderer's must be punished, and in
Scarlet Street, well, that doesn't actually happen. Spirit/Letter of the Law
The following week comes an example of the ".99" I alluded to on the previous page.
After that, we get Jules Dassin and then the incomparable John Alton. (Why is it that the greatest cinematographers are almost always born in some country other than the one in which they achieve their fame? It's something to do with how they view the world, I guess.)
March 31, 2017, 05:02 PM
parabellumOh, I didn't see this on the schedule-
Possessed is coming on TCM right now. Joan Crawford.
That's film noir.
1947 was the year 'subjective camera' was in style. Great use of it at the beginning of this film.
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
March 31, 2017, 08:34 PM
ZSMICHAELquote:
Fritz Lang film noir- Scarlet Street.
Loved that film. I was impressed with the versatility of Edgar Robinson. In many respects it shows that some things have not changed in this world, when it comes to relationships.
April 02, 2017, 09:17 AM
parabellumDid you guys catch Muller's introduction to
The Blue Gardenia? Muller didn't get any of that out of the trivia section of IMDB, unlike much of the information in the introductions these days from other TCM hosts.
Just a few posts up from here, I said I was puzzled by the films Lang directed late in his career, and Muller explained it; HUAC. "Are you now or have you ever been..." I wasn't aware that Lang had been "grey-listed" by Hollywood. He was having a very hard time getting work.
This series, Noir Alley, and its host are the best thing on TCM right now. As far as I'm concerned, it should air twice a week.
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
April 02, 2017, 11:30 AM
YooperSigsI like Muller. He knows Noir. Heads above everyone else on TCM.
End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
April 03, 2017, 11:46 AM
SIGnifiedI had forgotten that I had seen
The Blue Gardenia, but it was enjoyable regardless as I always see/pick up something new which I missed; moreso was that my better-half really enjoyed it and wanted more "noir". She was the one that guessed that the killer in TBG was pregnant, which I completely glossed over.
I have
Tension recorded from the prior week, but will be pleased to have more to watch as they are presented.
Is the TCM website worth reading on the "Noir Alley" bits?
"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein April 04, 2017, 04:34 PM
YooperSigsNext week: Scarlet Street. My take on this is how versatile an actor Edward G. Robinson was. He plays a mild mannered clerk turned killer to the T.
Week after: The Set-Up. Possibly Robert Ryan's best role. And some have said the best boxing movie ever made. I wont go that far but it is well worth watching.
End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
April 09, 2017, 09:12 AM
parabellumSo,
Scarlet Street is now playing. Watch the end of this film and you'll see how the film makers managed to circumvent the Production Code.
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
April 09, 2017, 10:24 AM
parabellumI noted that Eddie Muller in his introduction to
Scarlet Street stated that this film is "the best movie Fritz Lang made during his Hollywood career." Notice that Muller didn't just say it was his favorite American Lang film- he said it was the best. Since the film was an independent production and was something of a remake of Lang's 1944
Woman in the Window, I suppose I've never considered this to be the greatest American film of one of the greatest of film directors, although it is most certainly and emphatically one of the finest examples of the style of film noir.
Here's a list of Lang's 24 American films which were made between 1936 and 1956. The list is in reverse order, with his last American film listed first. Lang's first American film,
Fury from 1936, starring Spencer Tracy, is an indictment of mob violence and is every bit the equal of Mervyn Leroy's
They Won't Forget, from the following year.
Looking over this list, I have to say that I think Lang's 1944
Ministry of Fear, starring Ray Milland and from a novel by Graham Greene, is his best American work.
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
While the City Sleeps
Moonfleet
Human Desire
The Big Heat
The Blue Gardenia
Clash by Night
Rancho Notorious
American Guerrilla in the Philippines
House by the River
Secret Beyond the Door
Cloak and Dagger
Scarlet Street
The Woman in the Window
Ministry of Fear
Hangmen Also Die!
Moontide (uncredited)
Confirm or Deny (uncredited)
Man Hunt
Western Union
The Return of Frank James
You and Me
You Only Live Once
Fury
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
April 10, 2017, 12:14 AM
YooperSigsAnother great anti mob violence film:
The Oxbow Incident.
Both Fury and The Oxbow Incident stand up well, despite their age.
End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
April 16, 2017, 08:59 AM
parabellumBe sure to catch
The Set-Up coming on right now. Robert Wise was a skilled and
very versatile director. Cinematographer Milton Krasner also shot last week's
Scarlet Street and he makes the seedy boxing world portrayed in the film look, well, beautiful, at least to my eye.
As I said previously, this film is an example of a film noir which is missing an element that is
almost essential to the style. I don't want to give it away, do I'll point it out afterwards.
April 19, 2017, 12:26 PM
SIGnifiedquote:
As I said previously, this film is an example of a film noir which is missing an element that is almost essential to the style.
OK, time to give it up Para ... drop a dime.
"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein April 20, 2017, 04:58 PM
parabellumOh, hai!
In
The Set-Up, something
didn't happen that happens in almost all other films noir. What is it?
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
April 21, 2017, 06:05 PM
SIGnifiedOK, you made me watch it again. I'd see it somewhat recently and put off watching it thoroughly this past week.
Here are my guesses of what was missing, in order of which I thought might be correct:
#1: No murder/ Dead body
#2 No presenting of a .38 spec/gun
#3: No Feme Fatale
#4: No Booze
#5 No Shamus
#6: No DA/prosecutor
#7: No Cop car
Reading your question again though - I might have been on the wrong tracks ...
Also, did you see the sign on the wall of the ring that re:
"Over 35 try Via…" [view blocked by some crowd/people]. lol
"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein April 22, 2017, 08:52 PM
parabellumOK, the answer tomorrow.
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023
April 23, 2017, 12:28 PM
parabellumquote:
Originally posted by SIGnified:
#1: No murder/ Dead body
#2 No presenting of a .38 spec/gun
#3: No Feme Fatale
#4: No Booze
#5 No Shamus
#6: No DA/prosecutor
#7: No Cop car
Pick any element associated with film noir and you can find examples in the canon which lack that particular element. Flashbacks within the film? No. A private detective? No. A Prosecutor/trial scenes/jailhouse scenes? No. The presence of firearms? No.
In some films noir, the setting is not contemporary, as in the case of
Blood on the Moon (Hey, look! It's Robert Mitchum again[/i]), which is set in the 19th American West. So, this is a film in the Western
genre done in the film noir
style.
Black & White cinematography? Come on, that's gotta be it. Nope. Leon Shamroy won an Oscar for his gorgeous
Technicolor cinematography in the 1945 film noir
Leave Her to Heaven.
So, what's the element that's
almost always present in film noir?
Homicide
The
schedule for Noir Alley makes a good example. Take a look at all the films on that list. Of all those films listed,
The Set-Up is the only one without a homicide.
If homicide is not a truly essential element of film noir, then what
is the one essential element that makes a film, film noir? It's nothing you can latch onto. Hang on to your hat: It's the
atmosphere of the film.
Yep
Please, please do not throw things at your screen.
If you'll allow me...
These are two excerpts from the introduction of English translation of the first book on the subject of film noir- Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton 's
Panorama du Film Noir Américain published in France in 1953:
empahasis added:
It was during the summer of 1946 that the French public experienced
he revelation of a new kind of American film. In the course of a few weeks,
from mid-July to the end of August, five films followed one another
on the cinema screens of Paris,
films which had an unusual and cruel atmosphere
in common, one tinted by a very particular eroticism: John Huston's
The Maltese Falcon,
Otto Preminger's
Laura , Edward Dmytryk's
Murder, My Sweet, Billy Wilder's
Double Indemnity, and Fritz Lang's
The Woman in the Window.
.....
That for years there might have been a noir series within
Hollywood production is seemingly beyond question. It’s an-
other thing to define its essential traits.
We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric,
strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel.
All these qualities
are present in the series, but sometimes it's the oneiric quality
that predominates — and we get The Shanghai Gesture; sometimes
eroticism — and we get Gilda; sometimes the cruelty of a strange
act. Often a film's noir side has to do with a single character, a
single scene, a single decor. The Set-Up is an excellent documen-
tary on boxing: it becomes film noir in the sequence of the
final showdown, that terrible beating at the end of a blind al-
ley. The spellbinding sadism of a psychological film like Rope
links It per se to the noir series. On the other hand,
The Big
Sleep, This Gun for Hire, and
The Lady in the Lake seem to be
typical thrillers. This problem of definition will be evoked first,
by referring to productions the critics have most often deemed
to be "film noirs."
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"films which had an unusual and cruel atmosphere in common". A "cruel and unusual atmosphere." That's it. That's what makes film noir,
noir.
I know, I know. What are you supposed to do with an idea like that? It sounds like film buffs are just making shit up as they go along.
But, it's true. This is why film noir is a
style and not a
genre. It's all about the attitude of the film. Homicide is almost always there, but it's not an essential element.
The Set-Up "becomes film noir in the sequence of the final showdown, that terrible beating at the end of a blind alley."
____________________________________________________
"I am your retribution." - Donald Trump, speech at CPAC, March 4, 2023