National Classic Movie Day: Four Favorite Noirs Blogathon

UPDATE: This was my 500th blog post!

The National Classic Movie Day Blogathon hosted by the Classic Film & TV Cafe every year is one of the highlights of every blogger's calendar. This year the topic is Four Favorite Film Noirs. 

Not long after the very first National Classic Movie Day Blogathon, I wrote a post on my top 5 Film Noirs. A month later I lengthened it to ten (#6 and 8 would no longer have any chance of being on that list). However, at the time, I had hardly seen any, as it wasn't particularly my favorite genre - some of them were a little too violent or dark for my taste. As I got older though I discovered that they were actually really good. Like, REALLY GOOD. Becoming a Robert Ryan fan also helped ;) Anyway, without further ado, here are four of my favorite Noirs.

(1948)

I loved Act of Violence (1948) so much I rewatched it again a month later and took over 300 screenshots (you can see them here on my blog Facebook page - don't go all the way to the end if you haven't seen the movie). On the surface, war hero Frank Enley (Van Heflin) has a great life. He has a beautiful young wife (Janet Leigh) an adorable baby, and is well respected by his community. But when a mysterious man with a limp begins to stalk him, Enley's life quickly unravels and his dark secret is exposed. He confesses to his wife that during his time in a POW camp he became an informer in exchange for food. The man who is following him (Robert Ryan), was his friend Joe, who suffered torture because of Heflin's actions. Joe is out for revenge, intent on killing Enley and punishing him for his actions. Enley tries to run from Joe and even hires a hit man, with the help of a woman he meets in a bar (Mary Astor). Of course, being a Noir, the viewer already knows that Enley is doomed to his fate.

The deft cinematography of David Surtees is a visual depiction of Enley's worsening nightmare. It "shimmers with sunlight" at the beginning of the film and gradual descends into something "straight out of a Freudian nightmare"(Film Noir FAQ, David J. Hogan, p. 343). This is also aided by on-location shooting. The director, Fred Zinnemann, had "learned the value of authentic locations, and this new picture gave him and Surtees a chance to photograph the real LA, where Enley flees and descends into the criminal underworld." This "sense of realism extended to the actors as well. 'No makeup of any kind was used on any member of the cast,' wrote Surtees. 'We tried to maintain on the screen a high standard of skin texture.' This technique heightened the hard set of Ryan's face, with its lined brow and sneering mouth" (The Lives of Robert Ryan, J.R. Jones, p.84-85).

(1956)

Nightfall (1956) is what I call a "snowy noir." There's something about black and white cinematography and snow that I just love. Also, this film stars Aldo Ray (anybody else think he has a sexy voice? lol). Vanning (Ray) is a commercial artist who has been wrongly accused of murdering his friend while on a hunting trip in Wyoming. Not only that, but he's also accused of robbing a bank. Following from town to town is an insurance investigator for the bank and the two real bad guys, the pistol whipping, trigger happy Red and John (Brian Keith), the brains of the outfit. Vanning meets a model, Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft), at the bar one night and let's his guard down a little. As they exit he is intercepted by John and Red, who intimate that Marie was helping them. He manages to  escape and heads to Marie's apartment to confront her but she assures him of her innocence. He tells her his story and then the two of them take the bus to Wyoming to try and find the money that can clear his name. The movie climaxes with an epic shootout/fight involving a snowplow. You can watch it on YouTube. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur(who directed another favorite of mine, Cat People) with cinematography by Burnett Guffey. 

Love this shot of Brian Keith.

(1944)

In Phantom Lady (1944), a man is accused of murdering his wife. The only person who could provide him with an alibi is a "phantom lady" with an unusual hat. His secretary, Kansas (Ella Raines), sets out to clear his name. I was blown away when I first saw this movie and Raines became an instant favorite. Rather than me try and describe it, please just do yourself a favor and watch it. 

My favorite shot from the film.

Elwood Bredell was selected as cinematographer. He was advised by director Robert Siodmak to "study Rembrandt's paintings as an example of how dark shadows could attract the eye of the viewer toward a certain portion of the composition." There is a "contrast between the bright, well-organized business world inhabited by Carol and her boss and the city's distorted, menacing underworld, as Carol slides even further down the rabbit hole," and a "nightmarish atmosphere through highly stylized moments, rich textures, and claustrophobic settings... Siodmak favored low-key lighting, which would lend itself to sharply contrasting shadows and large areas of black" (Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, The Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock, Christina Lane, p. 147-148). 

(1946)

Nobody Lives Forever (1946) stars one of my favorite actors, the ever-troubled John Garfield. It is unusual in that much of the film takes place in the sunlight instead of the typical Noir darkness and on the beach instead of the city streets. Even then, the dark scenes are shrouded in mist instead of bathed in garish neon lights.

I'm going to cheat a little here and link up a post I wrote on the film several years ago. There are lots of great screenshots on the post.

And Then There Were None (1945)

Ten people are invited to an isolated island, only to find that an unseen person is killing them one by one. Could one of them be the killer?

That is the premise of one of my favorite mystery stories by the Queen on Crime, the great Agatha Christie. Originally written in 1939, the book, a best seller with over 100 million copies sold, has been made into a movie more times than any of Christie's other novels and has appeared as a television production even more, attesting to the popularity of the story through the decades. You can read more about the book and it's adaptations here.

The Island "prison."

The story was first adapted for the stage, with a alternate ending. This ending is the one mostly used in the film adaptations, the first of which was And Then There were None (1945) starring Barry Fitzgerald, Walter Huston, Roland Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Richard Haydn, and Judith Anderson. The young couple and romantic interest in the film is played by Louis Hayward and June Duprez. Like the book, the story takes place on an island (changed to the Alps in the 1965 film titled Ten Little Indians). A group of strangers are invited there by a Mr. U. N. Own (get it - "unknown"), of which none of them has ever actually met. They arrive by boat and are informed that it will be back to pick them up in a few days. The guests are met by two servants, husband and wife, whom they learn have just been hired and also do not know their mysterious host. Everyone is settled in their rooms and have dinner, where they begin to get to know one another. After dinner, a record begins to play. A voice identifies itself as their host and proceeds to tell them why they are there. It seems that everyone has a shady past, whether it was murder or some other sort of crime. The guests are indignant and attempt to tell their stories to clear their names of their supposed crime.

Judith Anderson, the perfect person to put in the middle of a Christie story.

It is then that things begin to get interesting. Prince Nikita Skarloff (Mischa Auer - the protégé from My Man Godfrey) begins drunkenly playing the piano and suddenly collapses, poisoned. Someone notices that one of the Indian statuettes they had only just been admiring on the dining room table has been smashed. They also realize that there is a statue for each of them, totaling ten. Vera Claythorne (Duprez) suddenly recalls a rhyme about "Ten Little Indians," in which the first choked to death. At first everyone thinks there is a killer hiding in the house but suspicion quickly turns to each other as one by one each person meets a terrible fate until finally there are only two people left alive.  Which one of them is the killer? Will he or she kill the other and then hang himself, as the poem says? You'll have to watch the movie or read the book to find out!

Here is the rhyme (the word Indians has since been replaced with Soldier Boys):

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

One choked his little self and then there were Nine.

 

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

One overslept himself and then there were Eight.

 

Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;

One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.

 

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

One chopped himself in halves and then there were Six.

 

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

A bumblebee stung one and then there were Five.

 

Five little Indian boys going in for law;

One got into Chancery and then there were Four.

 

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.

 

Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.

 

Two little Indian boys were out in the sun;

One got all frizzled up and then there was one.

 

One little Indian boy left all alone;

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none

 

 

Released on Halloween of 1945, the film was highly successful. Unfortunately it has fallen into the public domain so copies of the film are extremely poor.

 

Although I really like this movie, I highly recommend reading the book first, as it is superbly written and with a truly thrilling climax. You can watch the movie in its entirety below:

 

 

This post is part of The Agatha Christie Blogathon hosted by Christina Wehner and Little Bits of Classics. Be sure to read all of the other suspense-filled posts!