Underworld U.S.A.

Written by Joe D on June 15th, 2008

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Akira Kurosawa sued Sergio Leone claiming that Leone ripped off Yojimbo and based his Per Un Pugno De Dollari on it. Leone claimed that it was a common story used many times before notedly by Dashiel Hammet in his novel Red Harvest. A story about a gangster who infiltrates a gang and plays one side against the other.

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Samuel Fuller, Maverick
That is exactly what happens in Sam Fuller’s excellent Underworld U.S.A. Cliff Robertson grows up on the wrong side of the tracks, as a youngster he witnesses his father’s demise at the bloody hands of a group of thugs in a back alley. The young protagonist swears to take vengeance on the men who offed his old man and when he grows up he starts tracking down the killers. They have moved up in the world becoming big time gangsters and Cliff uses everyone to set them up, the police, the gangsters themselves, even the woman he loves. This movie pulls no punches, a hit man runs down a 10 year old girl after befriending her and giving her some gum.
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Richard Rust, Psycho Killer with Cliff Robertson
It seems her bookkeeper father has disappeared with some sensitive information about “Mr. Big”. Robert Emhardt the large guy with the snide attitude is great as the Big Boss, after Cliff (Tolly) sets up one goon, Richard Rust the happy hitman douses the poor slob with gas and lights him up. Emhardt is watching from the back seat of his his ’60 Caddy , he leans forward with a cigarette, “Gimme a light.” he orders.

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Last One In Is A Rotten Egg!
This film is great, it really demonstrates how to make a lot out of a little, something Fuller was a master of. It inspired many filmmakers and is chock full of great ideas executed with style and power. Check it out.

Poorman’s Process

Written by Joe D on May 18th, 2008

Here’s a little behind the scenes footage that demonstrates how we did our poorman’s process shot in my film One Night With You. Joe Montgomery met a couple of old time Hollywood Cameramen and learned a lot of the techniques perfected during the film noir days. This is one of them. You get to see the set up and then the final scene. Check it out!

Night And The City at The American Cinematheque

Written by Joe D on April 25th, 2008

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What a pleasure to see this great film projected in glorious 35mm B&W! One of the most beautiful noirs of all time splashed across the silver screen, Richard Widmark running like a cornered rat in a checkered suit through the alleys and back streets, under the bridges, along the waterfront, through the dives, the clip joints, the crooked nooks and crannies of London’s underbelly. Beautiful! Some of the coolest locations, so atmospheric, fog, magic hour photography, this film is a textbook of urban atmosphere.

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Julie Dassin- Master of Cinematic Atmosphere

The noir guy (Alan K. Rode) gave a spiel at the beginning of the show, he spoke about Dassin’s uneasy relationship with Hollywood and how he formed a love/hate alliance with Darryl Zanuck. This film was produced by 20th Century Fox under Zanuck’s aegis. Mr. Z shipped Dassin off to London to escape the Commie witchhunts then igniting in Hollywood. Darryl also persuaded Dassin to put Gene Tierney in the film so she could get away from an exploding marriage and have something to do to occupy her mind. Zanuck told Dassin to write her into the script and he did, it’s pretty obvious, after a stellar opening of Widmark being chased through the seamy streets of London, he makes it home to a long dialouge scene with Tierney, not a great 2nd scene, obviously inserted to give Tierney a part.
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Widmark and Tierney- tacked on love interest
I’m sure in the original script Widmark’s love interest was the fat club owner’s chick Helen, who he screws royally.
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Widmark and Googie Withers aka Helen- original love object?

Also Hugh Marlow was tacked on as Gene Tierney’s other love interest, the patient good guy neighbor, waiting for Widmark to dump her so he can be there in the wings, rush out and pull her off the railroad tracks or whatever. His character Really does not belong in this movie. But forget all this fol de rol, this is a great movie! The wrestler Gregorius and Mike Mazurki have an epic battle that is unique in all of Cinema! It’s terrific!
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Battle Royale- Gregorious (Stanislaus Zbyszko) Vs. Mike Mazurki!
And you can feel the noose inexorably tightening about Widmark’s neck, no matter what mad desperate genius scheme he comes up with, and he comes up with some brilliant twists and turns to avoid destruction. Probably one of the best hustlers ever to hit the screen! He makes Sidney Falco look like a chump! There is a montage of the word spreading across London ” Get Widmark! Big Reward!” that is pure cinematic bliss, locations, action, characters, genius. Like something out of Dickens or a scene from Fritz Lang’s “M”. Beautiful! Watching this film I was reminded of Mike Hodges “Get Carter” an English noir from 1971. I wonder if Mr. Hodges is a fan of Night and The City? Hats Off to The American Cinematheque for showing this masterpiece in all it’s silver nitrate glory! There was a big crowd on another Thursday night in Hollywood, the Center Of The Noir Universe!

Tomorrow Is Another Day

Written by Joe D on April 18th, 2008

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A Still From Highway 301, the 2nd half of the double bill
Scarlett O’Hara uttered this line in GWTW. It doesn’t have anything to do with this movie. Thank God. This noir gem starts out with brooding tough guy Steve Cochran being released from prison after an 18 year stretch. The kicker is he went in when he was 13 for killing his old man, Oedipus baby. The story zigs and zags with more turns than an anaconda doing the twist. He gets befriended by a guy in a greasy spoon, the guy buys him some pie, takes him to where he can get a job, then writes an expose about “the youngest killer in state history getting out of jail” complete with recent picture. Steve Cochran kicks the slimy reporter’s ass then he’s off to NYC for a 10 cent rendevous with destiny. He slides into a rent-a-date dance parlour and falls for the hardest chippie in the joint, Ruth Roman.
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Ruth Roman, Va Va Voom!
He pursues her like a hound dog in the swamp and in spite of her acid edged personality, he makes progress. She invites him up to her pad where Bingo! An older dude is waiting, this angry cat tells Steve to blow and begins slapping the shit out of R.R. so Steve being a red blooded American convict starts slugging Mr. A-hole. The guy pulls a gun but Ruthie breaks a dish on his hand and Steve gloms the heater. He’s got grandpa covered but he has a flashback to when he plugged his old man and freezes up. The older guy slugs S.C. knocking him cold. R.R. grabs the rod and when hot head comes at her it goes off accidentally. The cool thing is when the guy gets up you can see a bullet hole in his back, the exit wound! Now this is a similar scenario to Fritz Lang’s Woman in The Window with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, but in that earlier film you don’t see any blood or wounds at all. Anyway it turns out Mr. Bad was a cop, a detective. So Steve tracks down Ruth, Steve doesn’t remember what happened so Ruth blames him! She says he did it!
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More Ruth Roman, Can You Ever Get Enough!
He buys it and they’re off, a killer sequence has them hiding in a sedan on the back of a big car transporting rig. They head out cross country and the movie switches gears in a super cool way, up till now it’s been a typical 40’s type noir, all urban night, smoke, gunshots, hard dames that’ll get you strapped in the electric chair on the first date, the usual, now as the two star crossed lovers cross the big old USA it transforms into a 50’s movie, like a socially conscious teen angst James Dean type thing. They switch from double breasted suits and strapless chiffon numbers to blue jeans, leather jackets, Ruth even dyes her hair brunette, her real color. They’re like beatnik dharma bums living in a migrant farm workers camp picking lettuce and falling in love for the first time, Steve because he spent his entire adolescence in jail and Ruth because she had to fight off every guy that got within two feet of her. Things are looking good when the devil’s bargain rears it’s ugly head.
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Steve looking like the Cat that swallowed the Canary
I won’t reveal what goes down but it’s a good predicament that ensnares the innocent as well as the guilty. Felix Feist did a great job with this epic. It’s got some excellent performances, a whole lot of story and several scenes that work like gangbusters. I didn’t like the end that much but other than that it’s pretty damn good. Check it out if you can, by the way the theater was pretty full, old Steve Cochran can still get people in off the street, even on a Thursday night in Hollywood!
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Ciao Baby!

Steve Cochran Double Bill at The American Cinematheque Noir Festival

Written by Joe D on April 15th, 2008

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The American Cinematheque is holding the 10th annual festival of Film Noir, Return to Noir City. This Thursady April 17th at 7:30 they’re screening two rare gems starring the late, great Steve Cochran. Tomorrow Is Another Day Felix Feist’a masterpiece featuring a delicious performance by Ruth Roman and Highway 301, Andrew L. Stone’s early location crime feature, one of the first, “docu-thrillers” shot on real locations in a quasi documentary style.
Cochran is probably best remembered as Big Ed Somers, the double crossing henchman in White Heat. But this cowboy from Wyoming made it over to Italy to star in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Il Grido as well!

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Il Grido
He is also reputed to have been hired as a pipe layer by Mae West and later heated up the screen and the dressing room with Mamie Van Doren. Cochran died under mysterious circumstances, he set out on a sailboat with 6 women, none of the women knew how to sail, Cochran keeled over from a coronary and the boat was found drifting off the coast of Mexico, the women had to be rescued after floating around with Steve’s corpse for a week! He’s a legendary character with a powerful screen presence. Check out this double bill, I sure as hell will!

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Maybe Steve’s Good Friend, Max Baer, Jr. will be at the screening, I hope so!

Jules Dassin

Written by Joe D on April 1st, 2008

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Jules Dassin as the Informer Cesaer in his masterpice “Rififi”

The great filmmaker Jules Dassin has dies at age 96. I grew up watching Brute Force , a masterful prison drama with Burt Lancaster and a fascistic warden, Hume Croynin,

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and The Naked City on WOR’s Million Dollar Movie. The Naked City is a groundbreaking film, shot on location in NYC, it’s gritty, real,and a genre creating film. It spawned a TV show of the same name and countless cop shows and films.

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Angry Mob Of Convicts in Brute Force

But it’s Dassin’s two foreign noirs that really get me. Rififi, the classic heist film shot in Paris. It’s a model for all caper movies and it’s 30 minute wordless burglary sequence has never been equalled.Economy, style, pace, drama, musical editing and use of natural sound make it a timeless heist gem that will be studied as long as people watch film.
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Jean Pierre Melville was pissed off that he didn’t get to make Rififi and his response was the sublime Le Circle Rouge. Dassin wound up in Paris after an auspicious Hollywood beginning, he was apprenticed to Alfred Hitchcock and Garson Kanin, and he directed several studio pictures before he was blacklisted as a Communist. It took 5 years of scuffling in Paris to get Rififi, he was dead broke, he hated the book it was based on but he needed a job. He took it, wrote the script in a week (based on a small episode in the book) and made the film. At the last moment an Italian actor cancelled so Dassin played the part of Cesaer (under the psuedonym Perlo Vita), an interesting choice as Ceaser informs on his fellow conspirators and is murdered in retribution. Edward Dymytrk and Frank Tuttle named Dassin a Communist at their trials.
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The other great noir Dassin directed abroad is the fantastic Night and The City set in London and starring the recently deceased Richard Widmark.

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One of the most beautiful Noirs ever made. All Dassins films and his noirs in particular are incredibly photographed. He would wait for the right light, an overcast day, he took the time to make it right and it shows.

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Night and the City will screen at the American Cinematheque as part of their up coming film noir series. There’s an interview with Dassin on the Criterion dvd of Rififi, he tells of going to Cannes with the film. He was absolutely flat broke and he asked the producer of the film to give him some money so he could enjoy himself a little. The producer forked over a small sum. Dassin and his wife went to the roulette table and put all the dough on a number, the wheel spun, their number came up! They had some money to enjoy themselves and the film won the Palm d’Or!

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A while back I was working at a trailer company in NYC, a place where we made Previews Of Coming Attractions for films. I was talking to a fellow editor named Nick Meyers and I mentioned Jules Dassin. At the time I thought he was French so I pronounced his name Francophonically “Jhooles Dahsan”. Nick says “Who?” I repeated it. ” Oh, you mean Julie Dassin, he’s from the Bronx.” Nick’s dad Sidney Meyers was an old pal of Julie Dassin from NY theater and a fellow Lefty. Sidney went on to be a founding member of NY’s Editor’s Guild. So Fare Thee Well Jules Dassin, your films will be watched till the end of time.

Goodbye Tommy Udo! Heh Heh Heh ! Richard Widmark Exits at 93

Written by Joe D on March 26th, 2008

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Richard Widmark, the blonde, cool killer has died. He was the quintessential film noir protagonist, running down a dark street at night, chasing or being chased. His career really blasted into orbit with Kiss Of Death, a 1947 (that magical year!) noir directed by that talented curmudgeon Henry Hathaway. The story goes that Hathaway didn’t want Widmark for the role of Tommy Udo, sociopath killer with a snickering laugh, but Big Boss Darryl Zanuck overrode Hathaway’s objections and Widmark got the part. A pissed off Hathaway made it tough on Widmark and messed with him every chance he got. But so what, once Tommy Udo pushed a crippled old lady down a flight of apartment house stairs in her wheelchair, Widmark ascended to the stellar firmament atop a hugh geyser of pop culture appeal! Instant Stardom!
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Tommy Udo’s Push To Stardom

He later appeared in some more classic Noir’s like Sam Fuller’s Pickup On South Street, a no holds barred tale of a sleazy pickpocket, Commies after Atomic secrets, floozies, patriotism, Thelma Ritter, murder, and an apartment on a barge in the East River! Check this one out for yourself!
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Also one of my favorite’s Jules Dassin’s Night And The City, a down and dirty tale of a two-bit hustler turned wrestling promoter in London. (Dassin was fleeing the Commie Witch Hunt Trials and had to make films in Europe) This film features some of the best B+W noir Cinematography of all time! It is a pleasure to look at, you can get drunk, revelling in all that silver nitrate!
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They are showing this masterpiece at the American Cinematheque as part of their upcoming Noir City film festival. Be sure to make it if you can! This is an incredible film, it unspools April 24th at 7:30 pm. I will be there, drinking a glass of Nebbiolo, toasting that gone blonde genius of darkness, Richard Widmark. May you never be chased down a dark alley in Film Heaven.

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The Sound Of Fury, aka Try and Get Me

Written by Joe D on February 27th, 2008

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I just watched a powerful film noir. Made in 1950 it features some great locations and an outstanding performance by Lloyd Bridges. For my money this is one of his best. He plays an amoral killer named Jerry and he steals the show.
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Is This The Same Alley Where The Dude Would Learn To Bowl?

We start out following the story of Howard Tyler( Frank Lovejoy). he’s an out of work regular schmoe whose wife is pregnant and who owes the grocery store and the landlord. He can’t get a job to save his life and when his wife starts bawling he grabs his coat and hits the street. Unfortunately for him he drops in at a local bowling alley for a beer and bumps into Jerry Slocum (LLoyd Bridges). If only he hadn’t gone into that particular bowling alley at theat particular moment. But it’s a Noir Universe our schlubby hero has fallen into and as such, he’s Out Of Luck.
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Don’t go in there! Get out while you can!

Howard watches Jerry roll a strike and they start talking, within instants Jerry is ordering Howard around. ” Get My shoes, will ya.” He tantalizes the poor schnook with the offer of a potential job and Howard is hooked like a trout in a lake.
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The Reporter and The Incipient Criminal coincidentally rub elbows at the Bowling Alley Of Destiny.

Meanwhile in the very same bowling alley Gil Stanton (Richard Carlson), Ace Reporter for the local paper is kibitzing with the barkeep. His story is told in parallel with Howard’s although you don’t know why until later. So by now Jerry has Howard back at his flat where he proceeds to show off his expensive wardrobe and treat Howard like his personal valet. ” That’s real silk! Feel it. Those cufflinks are platinum, button’em up for me.”
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The composition of this Shot says it all!

Jerry plays Howard like a fish and when he tells Howie the job he has in mind for him is driving the getaway car while Jerry sticks up gas stations, Howard gets cold feet. But Jerry gets mad, calls Howard a loser, throws 10 bucks at him and tells him to beat it. It plays out like a seduction and Lloyd is amazingly good at it. His character is so well drawn, so true, it’s a mind blower.
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The 1st Stick-Up

The heat builds and Jerry and Howard pull off a kidnapping. This is the big score, they can make some real money now. Unfortunately Jerry smashes the trussed up young rich guy’s head with a rock before the horrified Howard’s eyes.
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Murder Most Foul!

The newspaper man writes a sensationalistic piece calling for blood and when the two crooks are caught a lynch mob descends upon the jail and tears it apart.
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Sensationalistic Journalism, Go Peddle Your Papers

Just before this happens the reporter has a change of heart, due partly to an emotional visit from Howard’s wife. He tries to change his latest bloodthirsty editorial but the greedy publisher just wants to sell more papers and he’s not about to change his headline!
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The Wife’s Best Scene, where she confronts the rabble rousing reporter

This movie is a real indictment of mob violence and the social responsibility of the media.
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The Mob Wants Blood!
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Jerry in Jail with a Lynch Mob Howling For His Head!
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Here’s a switch, The Mob Uses A Fire Hose On The Cops!
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Howard is carried like Jesus to Golgotha!

It also hit home for me on a personal note. I had a friend , a very nice guy, he was a musician. Like a lot of musicians he augmented his income by dealing drugs, pot, then blow. He turned a big rock star onto some coke and the guy reciprocated by turning my pal onto some high grade heroin. My buddy got strung out in no time flat. The rock star had to suddenly split and my pal was cut off, no dope. He was cracking up. He told me he drove a getaway car for a stickup guy, a junkie like himself, just to get some money so he could score drugs. Now this was a guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was an artist, peaceful, really a great guy. So when I see Howard roped into crime because of need, I flash on my pal. I could see how it could happen. My buddy’s dead by the way. He straightened up, got sober, got married and then found out he was HIV positive from sharing needles.
Sound Of Fury was directed by Cyril Endfield. He ended his days in England, forced to move there after he was blacklisted in the 50’s for being a Commie. This story was concerned with Society and the different types of people interacting in it, and how they viewed their morality , their responsibility to society, their identity. Cy Endfield later directed the excellent Zulu, the film that launched Michael Caine’s career. And if you think about it, Zulu is about a microcosm of society, a regiment of soldiers, hopelessly outnumbered, that perseveres through working together, a great story for a Socialist to tell.
Also of note, this film was written by Jo Pagano, based on her novel. I’d like to find out more about Ms. Pagano. A woman writing this ultra violent noir in the 50’s? She sounds pretty unique to me.
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After writing the above line I captured this frame, it says based on his novel, so I guess Jo Pagano was a man. Although there is some confusion on the IMDB.

The Friends Of Eddie Coyle, Peter Yates, Robert Mitchum, Bob Marcato

Written by Joe D on January 18th, 2008

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Thanks to the crazy cats at Popcorn and Sticky Floors I found this trailer from The Friends Of Eddie Coyle which by the way I feel is Peter Yates best film. I like it better than Bullitt. Robert Mitchum is great in it , an incredible understated performance complete with believable Boston accent. Peter Boyle is excellent as well. This is a gritty crime film with great acting, how can you top that! Kind of a cross between a John Huston film and an Umberto Lenzi politziotto! I worked with Peter Yates a few years back, travelling with him to Chicago to preview Suspect, he’s a real gentleman and he said he had a great time making this film. It was edited by the cigar smoking ex-wife of Roy Schieder, Cynthia Schieder. The trailer brought back some memories for me, hearing that snarling rasp of the narrator I immediately recognized him as Bob Marcato. I worked as an editor at a trailer company in NYC back in the 80’s and used Bob all the time. His voice is plastered all over exploitation trailers from the 70’s. He has such a distinctive snarl once you hear it you can never forget it. For some reason (probably a contractual thing) this film has never been released on dvd, I’m not sure if it ever came out on VHS! I had a copy somewhere but it was made from Peter’s own transfer. Maybe through my pals at Triage Motion Picture Services I can ask a mucky muck at Paramount what’s up with this unreleased gem and if I get any news I’ll post it here.

Added bonus! Here’s a link to Whitey Watch, a fascinating study of Boston organized crime and the elusive fugitive Whitey Bulger.

Mystery Street, The Black Dahlia, Red Manley, The Lady In The Dunes

Written by Joe D on November 25th, 2007

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Another gem from The Film Noir Collection, Vol.4, Mystery Street by John Sturges, who also directed Bad Day At Black Rock and The Great Escape. Mystery Street intrigues me for several reasons. First and foremost it’s a good film. Excellent Cinematography by that master of Noir, John Alton. Also great Editing by Ferris Webster,my friend Pablo Ferro knew Ferris and really liked him. He edited a lot of great films. The Great Escape, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot etc., etc.

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Crackerjack performances by such greats as Ricardo Montalban and Elsa Lanchester. Killer Boston locations from 1950. A lot of forensic detail since this story involves a skeleton found in the dunes of Cape Cod and a pathologist at the Harvard Medical School helps solve the case. Actually there are a lot of lurid details in this movie. It’s almost like a 50’s tabloid newspaper come to life. Several details reminded me of the Black Dahlia case which took place 3 years before this film came out. A woman’s body is found, through some sleuthing they find the guy she was last seen driving away with. Sure he spent some time with her but he didn’t kill her. He’s recently married and doesn’t want his wife to find out. Just like Red Manley, the first suspect in the Dahlia case. Manley was let off the hook but it eventually destroyed his marriage and he committed suicide.

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Red Manley. Dahlia Suspect,Family Man, Suicide Victim Gets Frisked

The newspapermen hounded Manley and his wife and they do the same here with Henry and Grace Shanway. The girl,Vivian Heldon, was a rent-a-date type who was impregnated by a rich, upper crust clown. She tried to shake down the elitist snob James Joshua Harkley, who knocked her up, and she got killed by him instead. A similar scenario to the one proposed by Donald H. Wolfe in his book The Black Dahlia Files. He claimed Betty was snuffed by Bugsy Siegal because a rich Norman Chandler had gotten Betty pregnant and she wouldn’t have an abortion. So watching this movie is kind of like looking back in time at a similar murder investigation, much more interesting than watching Brian De Palma’s film.

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Vivian Heldon, Pregnant Murder Victim, I told you this Film Was Lurid

Ricardo Montalban is excellent and it’s really cool to see a Latino lead in a movie from that time. Especially since he’s not playing Zorro or a Mexican Spitfire or some other stereotype. Montalban is a detective, hard nosed, dedicated, an asshole at times as he digs for the truth. He’s even convinced the wrong guy did it, an accurate portrayal, cops think everybody’s guilty. I guess that comes from spending so much time with criminals. The fact that the woman was murdered on Cape Cod and her remains discovered in the dunes reminded me of another real life case. The Lady in The Dunes, a famous unsolved case from 1974. An unknown woman’s body was discovered, her head was smashed in and almost severed. They couldn’t ID her from fingerprints because her hands had been chopped off and were never found.

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Reconstructed Face of The Lady In The Dunes
The psycho that did this was never found. He or She could still be around today, it’s highly unlikely that whoever did the Dahlia is still kicking. I guess it’s possible but they’d have to be around 80 or 90. If you’d like more info on The Lady In The Dunes click the link below.
http://www.doenetwork.org/

The Asphalt Jungle, John Huston, Jean Pierre Melville

Written by Joe D on November 18th, 2007

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I watched The Asphalt Jungle again after not seeing it for a long time. It’s an influential movie. Especially to Jean Pierre Melville. It might even be his favorite film.
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A Street Out Of Melville

The DVD was part of a film noir collection and include some interesting extras, first was an introduction by the man himself, John Huston. It must have been filmed right after the film was made, it’s in B+W and Huston looks like he’s in his late 40’s. He says the movie is all about the characters, summing up with something like ” you might not like them but I think you’ll find them fascinating”. Now that’s my kind of movie!
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The City=Hell
And the movie really is all about the characters, the way it’s filmed, the action, the details, it all serves to illuminate these beings, their strengths and their weaknesses or “Vice”. From the opening frames, the MGM logo with the roaring lion, the music creates a sense of foreboding, dread. The score is by Miklos Rozsa, it sets the mood and then there’s almost no score until the end. But it works very well. Melville did not use much music in his crime dramas, perhaps influenced by this. The first scenes are shot early on a foggy morning in what looks like Bunker Hill. “Crook Town” according to Raymond Chandler. A patrol car prowls the streets like a rouge shark hunting for the scent of blood. A figure ducks behind a pillar, it’s Dix, the magnificent Sterling Hayden in what I believe is his greatest role.
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He’s One Intimidating Fellow

He’s pulled in by the cops and put in a line up. But he intimidates the eyewitness, staring him down with murder in his eye, and the corrupt cop can’t out intimidate the guy so Dix walks. We are introduced to a group of criminals, an underworld association of safe crackers, wheelmen, hooligans, brains, bookies, and a high priced mouthpiece.
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Lon The Mouthpiece and Cobby The Bookie

Also a rough police commissioner, he tears up the corrupt Lt. Ditrich’s ass in an early meeting. I can’t help compare this angry top cop to the Inspector in Melville’s Le Circle Rouge. But the Inspector is more cynical, sure everyone is corrupt while the american is still believing in some, still naive in a way that feels distinctly american. Dix to me is the hero of this piece. He is the post war, traumatized American male. He dreams of the Kentucky horse farm he grew up on. How great it was, his only goal in life is to get enough money to buy it back and to do that he must struggle in the dirty city, the asphalt jungle.
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Doll loves Dix, The Only Guy Who Treated her Square

He tells Doll, his taxi dancing girlfriend, of his life back in Kentucky, of a particular Black Colt, the best horse they ever raised, and how everything went bad one year, the corn crop failed, the colt broke his leg and had to be shot, and his father died whereby they lost the farm. He is every American, naive, not understanding the horror that can overtake them at any moment. I’m referring to WWII and the devastating effect it had on our collective psyches. Dix just wants to get back home but as Doc Riedenschneider and Thomas Wolfe would tell him, you can’t go home again. Home to Dix is innocence, clean water, air, 30 acres of blue grass, heaven.
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Doc, The Big Brain

Anyway this is a caper movie , a brilliant plan by the “Doc” (Sam Jaffe). Interestingly played as a German complete with accent. A mastermind, he’s figured out this heist down to the smallest detail. Unfortunately when you add violence to the mix, things can go wrong and they do. Huston keeps the action simple and real. I love his fight scenes. My favorite is the bar fight in The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, when Bogie and Tim Holt take on Barton MacLane. You feel the struggle, the brutality just like a real fight, it ain’t pretty.
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Dix Slugs The Watchman, His Gun Hits The Floor and Goes Off. The Safecracker with a New Baby catches it in the Gut. Just Unlucky, I guess.

The Doc’s vice is chicks, young, beautiful babes. Huston sets this up with a revealing detail. Doc can’t help scope a girly calendar when left alone in the bookie joint.
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Doc’s Vice

James Whitmore plays Gus, the hunchback wheelman. He likes Dix, going out of his way to pay Dix’s gambling debt, to keep Dix from pulling another heist.
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Gus The Hunch Loves Cats

Louis Calhern is Uncle Lon, the crooked lawyer that lives beyond his means and Marilyn Monroe is Angela, Uncle Lon’s plaything. Man is she sexy, just the way she shifts around on a divan makes your temperature rise.
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Marilyn Sleeps On Uncle Lon’s Couch

The movie is shot beautifully. A lot of low angle two shots with one character in the foreground that show the ceiling of the room, creating a claustrophobic sense of everyone being trapped in little boxes, Dix’s room, the bookie joint, Gus’s luncheonette. Greg Toland and Orson Welles shocked the film world by showing ceilings in Citizen Kane. Sets were usually built without ceilings, a throwback to silent days when light came from glass roofed studios. Huston took that idea and ran with it. Maybe the ceiling represents the city, especially to Dix who grew up on a farm, outdoors with the sky for a roof. Harold Rossen did a great job, so atmospheric. It’s true Noir camerawork, with characters facing the camera as another speaks behind them. Rossen was nominated for an Oscar for Cinematography but lost out toThe Third Man! Gee, were movies better then?
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Classic Noir Composition

And as the film progresses and the only characters still on the loose are Dix and Doll, Huston moves into Close Ups.
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Huston moves in closer

Now that he’s got the audience invested in these people he shoves them in your face. It works like gangbusters.
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And Closer

Another thing, watch the heist carefully. Where another director would focus on the drill bits and tools, Huston keeps us on the faces, the heist is portrayed purely through character.
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The Heist Plays Out In Faces

There are a lot of little details about everybody that creates more 3 dimensional beings out of them. The fact that the safe cracker just had a baby, that Gus loves cats, that Lon has a sick wife. Backstory for everyone. The sets are great too, bare lightbulbs, pints of whiskey, dirty glasses. It gets under your skin. There’s a street at the begining that looks exactly like one in Melville’s Le Samourai. This nighttime world of people knocking on each other’s doors at 3AM, Melville’s milieu. Also, horses play a big part in Huston’s films. Reflections In A Golden Eye and The Misfits come to mind immediately. Towards the end of Le Doulous Belmondo stops off at a barn and checks out his horse before heading up to the main house where his killer is awaiting him. Is this an homage to Huston’s horse obsession? Quentin Tarantino has said that Melville did for the Crime Film what Leone did for the Western. I guess so, took elements from the Hollywood films they admired, stylized the heck out of them and revitalized a genre. This is one of Huston’s top two films, the other being The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. In the end Dix makes it back to his farm, he gets to lie in the green grass under the beautiful sky surrounded by the horses he loved.
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He Loved Horses More Than Anything

But he had to pay a high price, the price we all have to pay to get to Heaven.
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Heaven

Jack Nicholson, James Hong, Jere Huggins, The Two Jakes

Written by Joe D on November 5th, 2007

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They’re releasing a new DVD of Jack Nicholson’s directorial effort The Two Jakes. I always liked this movie, maybe I’m a sucker for anything set in 1940’s/50’s L.A. but I enjoyed it when it came out and thought it was unfairly condemned by critics. Sure it’s not Chinatown but what is? Only Chinatown! There are a lot of cool elements to this film, the locations (the Dresden Room!),
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Are Marty and Elaine Still There?

the actors,( James Hong reprising his role as the faithful Manservant Kahn),
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Jack & James, Hey! Wasn’t that guy in One Night With You!

the kind of overall melancholic atmosphere set against the boom town oil/real estate bonanza that was Los Angeles. I even like Van Dyke Parks music. I once had lunch with him and my old pal Bud Smith at Musso & Frank’s. He is a very funny guy!
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But let me get on to Part II of my tale. Jere Huggins is an old friend. He’s an editor, he worked on Woodstock and a lot of other films. He worked with Robert Towne on Personal Best and was hired to edit The Two Jakes when Towne was going to direct and the two Jakes were to be Nicolson and Robert Evans. Jere was even going to play a small part in the film. He looks like a guy from the ’40’s tall, all American, a little Clint Eastwoodian. So Jere goes to work on the first day of shooting, he gets his period costume goes to the set, nothing happens, finally they call lunch. The caterers serve steak and lobster. After lunch they call a wrap for the day. Jere goes home, he gets a call, the film is cancelled! I guess Towne would not proceed with Evans playing the other Jake. So the film languished in turnaround for a while until they hashed out a compromise- Evans doesn’t act, Towne doesn’t direct. Jack does and Harvey Keitel plays the other Jake. And Jere Huggins doesn’t get to edit or play a bit part. That’s Hollywood!
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I knew this re-release was in the pipeline a while ago, I know the brother of the colorist who did the new transfer for this DVD, he said Nicholson was supervising the color correcting himself so I figured it was for something big. I haven’t seen The Two Jakes for a long time, so I’m looking forward to this new release, why don’t they make a new print as well and show it in the theaters too! Hey Jack, my friends over at Triage Motion Picture Services will give you a great deal! But seriously, I love the attention to detail in this movie, I think it’s Nicholson’s directorial masterwork. You can tell he took this story to heart and gave it his all. It shows in every frame. I especially like the ending , it’s emotional tone is unique in Cinema. It expresses loss in a rare human way for such a larger than life character. There’s a third screenplay Towne wrote called Cloverleaf. The unproduced third act of the Jake Gittes Trilogy. I hope they make it soon.

Two Jakes Trailer