underrated or personal fave film noirs

[AllenLowe]

am I remembering correctly, or was that not the one with Hoagy Carmichael (Hong Kong Blues)?

also, of course, Walter Brennan, Bacall, Boagart...

Edited June 14, 2007 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

some more nominations:

In a Lonely Place (Bogart and Gloria Graham) - so good I wrote a song about it -

The Big Heat (Fritz Lang directed; Lee Marvin, Glenn Ford, Marlon Brando's sister Jocelyn - she gets blown up in a car bomb meant for Ford - and Claire Trevor. Marvin throws a pot of hot cofee in Gloria Graham's face) -

Gloria Graham is one of the sexiest women in the movies -

Edited June 14, 2007 by AllenLowe

[AllenLowe]

also - Key Largo - with Bogart, Bacall, Edward G Robsinon, Lionel Barrymore - so good someone else wrote a song about it. I think John Huston directed -

Edited June 14, 2007 by AllenLowe

[brownie]

Some favorite French films noirs (the French coined the expression Film Noir):

Jacques Becker's 'Touchez Pas au Grisbi' (with the great Jean Gabin)

Jules Dassin's 'Rififi'

Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Bob le Flambeur', 'Deux Hommes dans Manhattan',, ' Le Doulos', 'Samourai', etc...

Claude Sautet's 'Classe Tout Risque' (with Lino Ventura and a young Jean-Paul Belmondo)

Edited June 14, 2007 by brownie

[ghost of miles]

am I remembering correctly, or was that not the one with Hoagy Carmichael (Hong Kong Blues)?

Yep, that was Hoagy. And IN A LONELY PLACE had a scene featuring Hadda Brooks.

BTW, the story that Andy Williams dubbed Bacall's singing parts in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT is not true, according to Todd McCarthy's Hawks bio, though his dubs nearly were used. The relevant passage:

To find a singer who would match up plausibly with Bacall's husky tones was not easy, and quite a few were tried, including the deep-voiced black singer Lillian Randolph, Dolores Hope, and the teenaged Andy Williams. Williams finally prevailed, and it was his voice that emanated from the playback machine on May 1[1944] when Hawks at last came to filming "How Little We Know." As was customary, Bacall sang along while Carmichael tinkered away on the silent keyboard, and as she did, Hawks liked what he heard and told her to keep going. When she was done, he decided to record her again singing the song, so, despite the legend that has come down over the years that Andy Williams's voice was dubbed over Bacall's (a legend so generally accepted that it became a correct answer on Jeopardy), the truth is that Bacall sang her own numbers in To Have and Have Not.

[ghost of miles]

I've been reading James Naremore's MORE THAN NIGHT:

FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS, and I began to think about

a movie I saw on AMC years ago that doesn't seem to

get too much attention: THE BIG STEAL (1949), with

Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and William Bendix.

Mitchum plays a soldier wrongly accused of stealing a

payroll; he goes on the lam to Mexico, taking the

always-alluring (to me, anyway) Jane Greer. Remember

her in OUT OF THE PAST? She's not so much a femme

fatale here, just has a quiet, sexy smartness about

her. William Bendix (what's a noir flick without

William Bendix, that omnipresent big lug of the 40's)

is the man pursuing Mitchum. A lot of great dialogue

and a chase-driven plot.

Coming out on DVD! July 31

[skeith]

In my opinion a very underrated film noir is "Laura"

[brownie]

Don't know about the States, but 'Laura' is not underrated but is considered a masterpiece in France.

Perfect direction by Otto Preminger and superb acting by Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price!

It plays regularily in art cinemas here!

[BruceH]

I've been reading James Naremore's MORE THAN NIGHT:

FILM NOIR IN ITS CONTEXTS, and I began to think about

a movie I saw on AMC years ago that doesn't seem to

get too much attention: THE BIG STEAL (1949), with

Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, and William Bendix.

Mitchum plays a soldier wrongly accused of stealing a

payroll; he goes on the lam to Mexico, taking the

always-alluring (to me, anyway) Jane Greer. Remember

her in OUT OF THE PAST? She's not so much a femme

fatale here, just has a quiet, sexy smartness about

her. William Bendix (what's a noir flick without

William Bendix, that omnipresent big lug of the 40's)

is the man pursuing Mitchum. A lot of great dialogue

and a chase-driven plot.

Coming out on DVD! July 31

About time! I'm looking forward to that---I've been waiting for a DVD release of The Big Steal for many a year. A fun film that just never lets up.

BTW, I'd hardly call Laura "underrated" by any definition. I assure you, it's considered one of the undisputed classics of 40's cinema in the U.S.

Actually, another personal favorite is "Crime Wave," a punchy little Andre de Toth B-movie from the early 50's with Sterling Hayden and great location shooting. I'm pleased to see that it's going to be released on DVD in the same box featuring The Big Steal. Nice.

Edited June 14, 2007 by BruceH

[Larry Kart]

Some favorite French films noirs (the French coined the expression Film Noir):

Jacques Becker's 'Touchez Pas au Grisbi' (with the great Jean Gavin)

Jules Dassin's 'Rififi'

Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Bob le Flambeur', 'Deux Hommes dans Manhattan',, ' Le Doulos', 'Samourai', etc...

Claude Sautet's 'Classe Tout Risque' (with Lino Ventura and a young Jean-Paul Belmondo)

'Touchez Pas au Grisbi' with Gabin is fantastic; so is Becker's "Casque d'Or," which is kind of a 19th Century noir. Here's something I once wrote to a friend:

"Watched "Touchez Pas au Grisbi" last night. Struck me that one way to take it is that it's a movie about a man who becomes, or is forced to realize that in this life he only can be, his theme song. The final scene, in which Gabin, informed of his old sidekick's death, not only must continue to remain in public view at the restaurant where fellow criminals hang out but also must present and maintain a reasonably cheerful countenance to his somewhat ritzy female companion (which Gabin subtly struggles to do) is very moving."

Another interesting (and I think little known) noir is "Desert Fury," with John Hodiak, Wendell Corey, Lizbeth Scott, and Burt Lancaster -- directed by Lewis Allen, script by Robert Rossen (the likely autuer)? To me, it's the quintessential pre-Hollywood Ten movies because its chief theme, transformed into a gangster mileu, is loyalty on the part of actual or would-be intellectuals to the Communist Party no matter what (or rather to some degree because the loyalty the CP required was of the "no matter what" sort). This comes through in one element of the plot -- the belief (held by some committed CP members) that the ultimate test of virtue was one's "hardness" (not only as in toughness but also as in willingness to do any deed in the name of submission to discipline -- especially if its dictates ran counter to the promptings of one's personal [i.e. bourgeois] conscience, convenience, or morality.) Thus Hodiak's character is a handsome, narcissistic frontman (a star gambler) who shies away from the doing the rough dirty stuff, while Corey, his sidekick who does the rough dirty stuff when that's necessary (actually, as I recall, he deeply enjoys doing it), is at once is in love with Hodiak's character and his "star" aura and is enraged by the gap between what Hodiak's character thinks he himself is too good to do and what Corey's character both has to and, in some sense, chooses to do instead. Corey, playing a deeply twisted man, gives a terrific twisted performance.

[BruceH]

Some favorite French films noirs (the French coined the expression Film Noir):

Jacques Becker's 'Touchez Pas au Grisbi' (with the great Jean Gavin)

Jules Dassin's 'Rififi'

Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Bob le Flambeur', 'Deux Hommes dans Manhattan',, ' Le Doulos', 'Samourai', etc...

Claude Sautet's 'Classe Tout Risque' (with Lino Ventura and a young Jean-Paul Belmondo)

Love "Grisbi," love Rififi almost as much, and Bob le Flambeur has been a cinematic touchstone of mine for (gulp!) over 20 years. Don't know Classe Tout Risque; will have to check that out sometime.

[Quincy]

Enjoyed this one, which floats around as a budget-line DVD:

Storyline is one somewhat prevalent in postwar noir: a down-and-out WWII vet getting the shaft (framed for a robbery he didn't commit). John Payne, who plays the vet, will be more familiar to most of you as the lawyer who got Santa off the hook in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET.

Yes, I saw that a few weeks ago. Bought a very cheap film noir 10 pack from deepdiscount last fall & it was part of the package (along with the excellent The Red House & Scarlet Street, both featuring Edward G. Robinson.) K.C. also includes a very young Jack Elam. He looked so young I didn't recognize him right away. In fact I thought for a moment it might be a young Abe Vigoda.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned "The third man". That must have been the first film noir I ever saw and I can still feel it, though I haven't seen it since the fifties.

Another I liked a lot, though it was in colour, was "Sait on jamais", aka "No sun in Venice" - for which the MJQ did the music. That had terrific atmosphere.

MG

[Chuck Nessa]

Don't know anything "darker" than this.

[Kalo]

Great thread! I could post a lengthy response to just about any of your posts here, had I the time.

One thing I might suggest, however, is that there aren't any underrated film noirs left. In fact, it seems to me that film noir as a whole is, of late, perhaps a bit overrated.

That being said, I love 'em!

I'm a big fan of most of the movies mentioned above, and I own most of them on DVD. I'm looking forward to the forthcoming 10-film box set from Warner Brothers, slated to come out later this summer. It includes, as folks have mentioned above, two long-time favorites of mine: The Big Steal and Crime Wave, about which Larry Kart, ghost, and BruceH have written eloquently above. I love the French noirs, too. Bob le Flambeur is a touchstone for me. Touchez Pas au Grisbi was a fairly recent revelation on a par with my also fairly recent discovery of the Budd Boetticher Westerns. Man, I love that long sequence in the safe apartment where Gabin and his friend eat pate and brush their teeth! There's something almost priveleged about being a witness to this sheer behavior by Gabin.

Shortly after Robert Mitchum died, I received an assignment from American Movie Classics Cable Channel Magazine to write about his early noirs. At the time, I was less of an aficionado of Mitchum and of noir than I am today, though I was certainly already a long-time fan. Writng this article allowed me the opportunity to interview Jane Greer, Rhonda Fleming, and Laraine Day about working with Mitchum in the 1940s. I wish I could interview them again today in light of all I've learned about the genre in the interim.

Perhaps I'll post the article in this thread when I get the chance to transcribe it. ( I wrote it on a computer with an obselete OS, just before the days when the internet became ubiquitous.)

[Quincy]

Perhaps I'll post the article in this thread when I get the chance to transcribe it. ( I wrote it on a computer with an obselete OS, just before the days when the internet became ubiquitous.)

That would be great if you have the time. You weren't an Amiga user per chance, were you? (Still have a 1000 that I hope to get working again someday, not that I'm working hard at making that happen.)

[Kalo]

Don't know anything "darker" than this.

S'funny.

I also wrote a piece for American Movie Classics Cable Channel Magazine on the remarkable filmic ouevre of Mr. Elvis Presley, which referenced the very film Nessa highlights above. The article began like this:

"Elvis Aron Presley, the king of rock and roll, never ruled the movies.

Of course, with charisma to burn, he was box-office from the git-go -- and in the mid-'60s, the highest paid actor in Hollywood.

But, by then, Presley's reputation rested less on actorly prowess than on affability, arresting looks, and stylized singing, along with lingering memories of his explosive impact on popular music. Film historians barely mention him, yet even the most casual tourist of Movieland must sooner or later visit the charmingly backward province known as 'Elvis Movies.'"

[Kalo]

Perhaps I'll post the article in this thread when I get the chance to transcribe it. ( I wrote it on a computer with an obselete OS, just before the days when the internet became ubiquitous.)

That would be great if you have the time. You weren't an Amiga user per chance, were you? (Still have a 1000 that I hope to get working again someday, not that I'm working hard at making that happen.)

Not an Amiga user. Actually, I wrote it on a Mac Classic. So even if I had saved it on a disc, and even if the current Mac I own could read that file, there's no computer anymore that can even accept a floppy.

(Eww! That sounds disgusting...)

[Shawn]

Great news that The Big Steal is coming to DVD! Although I'm not sure if I would classify it as a "film noir"...it's more like a fun little action flick.

Jane Greer...man oh man, I could watch her all day.

Another tasty little film noir with Jane is "They Won't Believe Me" with Robert Young & Susan Hayward. Jane Greer & Susan Hayward are 2 points of a love triangle I could deal with!

[AllenLowe]

glad Larry mentioned Lizbeth Scott - to me she's the other sex symbol of the 1950s - along with Gloria Graham. And I believe she's in one of those Elvis movies. As for Bob The Gambler, don't want to start a fight, but for me that represents the unfortunate formalist side of film making and cineastes - beautiful construction, technical virtuosity, bad script (yeah, there he goes folks, riding that issue - formalism - again). And I recall Richard Gilman's line about much of the academic writing on the new cinema and the whole cine/arts movement of the 1960s - he said a lot of it sounded like Sam Goldwyn trying to talk his way in to see Immanuel Kant.

As for me, I love Rules of the Game, though it probably does not qualify as noir -

Edited June 15, 2007 by AllenLowe

[robviti]

some other personal favs:

Edited June 16, 2007 by jazzshrink

[Hot Ptah]

I am not sure if some of these films are strictly film noir, but they are among my favorites:

The already mentioned "The Big Sleep"--my idea of a perfect film.

Three Strangers

The Maltese Falcon

Shadow of a Doubt

Notorious

Spellbound

Strangers on a Train

Rebecca

Gaslight

Double Indemnity

Edited June 15, 2007 by Hot Ptah

[BruceH]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned "The third man". That must have been the first film noir I ever saw and I can still feel it, though I haven't seen it since the fifties.

Though I see your point, I never really thought of The Third Man as film noir (too much irony and humor, perhaps) though it's one of my favorite films of all time.

some other personal favs:

One of the truly great late noirs! Geat location shooting by the terrific James Wong Howe, crackling performances (was Curtis ever better? or as good?) and wonderful overheated blank-verse dialog. AND a jazzy score by Elmer Bernstein and an appearance by Chico Hamilton!

I am not sure if some of these films are strictly film noir, but they are among my favorites:

The already mentioned "The Big Sleep"--my idea of a perfect film.

I hear you, though it's The Maltese Falcon that comes close to my idea of the perfect film.

Edited June 15, 2007 by BruceH

[BruceH]

I remember those articles you wrote for AMC Magazine, Kalo, back when AMC still didn't have commercial interruptions and showed old movies. I think you sent me copies, but I'm not sure I still have 'em. Any posting you can do would be appreciated!

I remember the following line in particular:

"...yet even the most casual tourist of Movieland must sooner or later visit the charmingly backward province known as 'Elvis Movies.'"

In fact, it's popped into my mind, unbidden, on several occasions.

Edited June 15, 2007 by BruceH

[medjuck]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Gun Crazy or the other great Joseph H. Lewis film, the Big combo. And no Sam Fuller fans here? How about Pick Up on South Street or the Crimson Kimono?