Dark City (1950)

“Guys like you ought to be put away.”

WWII still echoes in the 1950 noir film Dark City starring Lizabeth Scott and Charlton Heston. Dark City was Heston’s first major role and here he is cast against his later mould, and instead of playing General Gordon, Michelangelo, Julius Caesar, Ben Hur, John the Baptist, El Cid and Moses, here Heston plays the damaged and slightly nasty bookie, Danny Haley. Danny owns a piece of a bookie joint and looks forward to the day he’ll have enough cash to leave the city and go… somewhere else.  

The film begins with a raid on the bookie joint, and as luck would have it Danny isn’t caught up in the raid but he watches it happen. While he escapes arrest, he watches as his pals Barney (Ed Begley) and Augie (Jack Webb) are carted off to jail. The group’s slightly slow sidekick, Soldier (Harry Morgan) cleans up after the raid and then Danny appears and makes phone calls. The raid wasn’t supposed to happen and Danny and his pals paid big bribes to ensure they were safe. This is the second raid in three months and it’s left Danny and his pals in a bad spot.

Although Danny owns just a piece of the bookie joint, he has a leadership role with Barney, Augie, and Soldier. Augie is a cheap thug who gets his kicks out of tormenting easy targets while Danny is the brains of the operation. But there’s something wrong with Danny, and just what that is begins to become evident when he goes to see his girl, Fran Garland (gorgeous Lizabeth Scott), a singer at local nightclub Sammy’s. Fran sings sweet love melodies to a room full of mesmerised men, she’s really just singing her heart out to Danny as he sits at the bar and listens. But while Fran gazes at Danny like a love-sick Cocker Spaniel looking for a new home, Danny continually warns Fran to give him space, not to question him, and not to expect too much. It’s clear that where women are concerned, he has a giant chip on his shoulder.

At Sammy’s, Danny runs into a pleasant, friendly and guileless stranger, Arthur Winant (Dan DeFore), an athletic director from Los Angeles who’s there to buy gym equipment, and they strike up a casual conversation about their mutual WWII  experiences stationed in England. Danny spots a $5,000 cashier’s in Arthur’s wallet and invites him to a friendly little card game with Barney and Augie.

After the card game goes sour, the players are picked off one at a time in this tense noir tale of revenge. At one point, Captain Garvey (Dean Jagger), the vice cop responsible for raiding Danny’s bookie joint begins hauling Danny in to the cop shop in an effort to make him see the error of his ways. Danny, it turns out, is the son of one of those American blue blood families, a Cornell grad to boot. Garvey’s dressing down of Danny is one of the best played scenes in the film.

Heston plays a great jerk. He’s sarcastic and his superior air is underscored by a disdainful sneer. Lizabeth Scott acts her heart out as she tries to get Danny to love her, but Danny has a lot of lessons to learn along the way, and some of these come from the sweet and complex Mrs. Winant (Viveca Lindfors). The film’s moral centre is found in the characters of Mrs Winant and Soldier–with both characters tweaking Danny’s conscience. Soldier, damaged by one too many punches considers Danny to be worse than his pals Barney and Augie because he ‘knows better.’ Somewhere buried in Danny’s brain, there are the remnants of a conscience but he’d rather leave it hidden–along with his painful past.

One of the film’s severest faults is its underutilisation of Scott. Scott’s singing scenes (that’s someone else’s voice) are delivered with stiff moves. With sappy lines and a lovesick gaze, Fran isn’t given much scope beyond becoming Danny’s doormat. Although the plot hands Fran the ability and the insider knowledge to affect what happens, her fairly cardboard cutout figure role is limited to convincing Danny to go back on the straight and narrow, and she doesn’t act beyond cajoling and pleading. If Fran’s role were written differently, Dark City would have been a much better film.  The plum roles here are reserved for Heston as Danny–a man who had the best start in life and proceeds to flush his advantages down the toilet, and Viveca Lindfors as Mrs. Winant, a kind, patient and understanding woman. Dark City is directed by William Dieterle.

Noir Quotes-His Kind of Woman (1951)

“This story didn’t happen in Italy. It only started there.” (voice over)

“Guess what upper crust crumb just bought a plushy villa looking over the Bay of Naples?” (radio)

“I went down there to cure a cold and wound up doing thirty days.” (Dan Milner)

“I’m going to go home and go to bed where I can’t get into trouble.”(Dan Milner)

“I never bet on a race in my life that wasn’t fixed.”(Dan Milner)

“Are you in the oil business or are you spending all your alimony at once?”(Dan Milner to Lenore Brent)

“I’d rather sing than clip coupons. But then I have a million dollars, so no one takes me seriously.”(Lenore Brent to Dan Milner)

“Given enough time and ammunition, you might very likely rid the world of all animal life.” (Lenore Brent to Mark Cardigan)

“I’ve forgotten a lot of things, but you’ll never be one of them.” (Mark Cardigan to Lenore Brent)

“I want information and I’m beginning not to care how I get it.” (Dan Milner)

“I was just getting ready to take my tie off. Wondering if I should hang myself with it.” (Dan Milner)

“The boys know not to mess up his face.”

“That’s nice. You’ve got good hands.” (Lenore Brent to Dan Milner)

“Every once in while, a good man like a good horse, gets into a slump.”

“You know, you can’t take his opinion on anything. He’s an intellectual.” (Myron Winton to Mark Cardigan)

“If I don’t hook my man in two weeks, I might be hitting you up for a job.” (Lenore Brent)

“Were you in love with me last night?”(Lenore Brent to Dan Milner)

“It’s too bad we both have to die for something so rotten.”

“The fireworks start any time now.” (Dan Milner to Lenore Brent)

“Stick with me, Bucko. This is my private hunting ground. I know it like an owl knows his tree.” (Mark Cardigan to Dan Milner)

“I stole a gun for you.”(Lenore Brent to Dan Milner)

“One of your fellow Americans need help, and all you can do is stand there gaping.” (Mark Cardigan)

“Wake up little boy, wake up. I want him to see it coming.” (Nick Ferraro)

“I haven’t met as many rich dames as I’d like to, but I know one thing–they all have a terror of talking about their dough.” (Dan Milner)

“But I don’t like to shoot a corpse. I want to see the expression on his face when he knows it’s coming.” (Nick Ferraro)

“I was going to kiss it all goodbye for you.” (Lenore Brent to Dan Milner)

‘You’re not going to find a thing except yourself.”

“Ok, so you’re a man. How could I tell?”
“Don’t feel so bad. There are a lot of places in the world. They’ve all got women in them.”

“There’s only one way to handle welshes.” (Nick Ferraro)

“Here’s one anesthesia where death doesn’t follow in one year. It follows right now.”

His Kind of Woman (1951)

“I was just getting ready to take my tie off. Wondering if I should hang myself with it.”

His Kind of Woman begins in a beautiful villa in Italy where exiled drug czar and psychotic crime boss Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) paces the marble floor like a trapped animal. One of Ferraro’s minions listens to a radio broadcast that states that Ferraro should be rolling in dough–even on Italy’s far-flung shores, but while Ferraro is trapped in Italy, the boys back home aren’t sending along those ill-gotten gains from all the gambling and narcotics scores. And so Ferraro decides it’s time to get back to America and straighten out his rackets. But the problem is he’s been deported and as an undesirable, he’s not allowed back in….

Meanwhile gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) returns to his Los Angeles haunts after thirty days in the slammer. He strolls into one of his favourite late night diners to order milk, but there’s something wrong. Sam, the server seems tense and nervous, and Milner takes the hint, strolling back to his apartment where he finds three hoods waiting for him. The hoods are there to collect $600 dollars that Milner doesn’t owe. After being beaten up, Milner receives a phone call asking him to go to the home of a local crime boss and here Milner gets an offer he can’t refuse. He’s offered a cool $50,000 if he just goes down to Mexico and stays there for a year.

Although Milner hadn’t planned on going to Mexico, he realises that he can’t refuse, so he takes the downpayment and heads to Nogales. In a tatty Nogales bar, he runs into Lenore Brent (Jane Russell), a woman who claims to be a millionairess. While Milner, is strongly attracted to Lenore, she brushes him off as she sniffs that he’s not in her league, but nonetheless the pair find themselves on a chartered plane heading for Morro’s Lodge, an exclusive, isolated coastal resort.

Upon his arrival, Milner makes it a point to try and discover why he’s in Mexico, and he does this by trying to mingle with the guests. Striking up relationships with some of the guests proves difficult, and no one seems to be quite who they claim. There’s writer Martin Krafft (John Mylong)  a man who plays solitary chess games against himself in a distinctly anti-social way. Another man Myron Winton (Jim Backus) has the persona of a buffoon, but he’s a card sharp intent on separating a pair of newlyweds.  Meanwhile Milner is closely watched by a couple of hoods who refuse to give any information but don’t want him mingling with the guests too much.

The resort is obviously the hangout for millionaries who don’t want the hassle of publicity, and the guests seem to be a strange blend of the extraordinary wealthy along with a few playmates. Milner doesn’t make much headway in the information department but thinks that at least he can while away the time massaging suntan oil onto Lenore’s shoulders. And then married Hollywood actor Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price) shows up for a tryst with Lenore.

From the very first scene as Ferraro menacingly walks through his villa, His Kind of Woman is great entertainment. The film is an interesting blend of hardboiled noir laced with comic elements, and most of the film’s humour comes from Cardigan–a thwarted Errol Flynn type who can’t wait to act out his heroic fantasies off screen using real guns for a change.

The film’s strength is in its well-fleshed characters. There’s a strong sense of just who Milner, Lenore, Cardigan and the psycho Ferraro are, and even minor characters are given quirks that make them fascinating and three-dimensional. Mitchum–as always–is superb. Cool and laconic, he never breaks a sweat until the film’s final scenes. Milner knows that he’s been set up from the very beginning, but he doesn’t fight it and goes along for the ride until that ride gets too bumpy. The film’s title His Kind of Woman refers to the fact that Milner recognises Lenore as his type of dame from the moment he sets eyes on her. When Mitchum first sees Lenore, he buys her a bottle of champagne and carries it over to her table. While he may be hoping to impress her, the way he holds the bottle looks like he intends to slug someone with it. She may act as though she’s slumming by hanging out in a scruffy Nogales bar, but she’s more at home singing in bars than she is sporting with the rich and famous at Morro’s Lodge. Jane Russell as Lenore has a fantastic wardrobe–with gowns that look as though they’ve been poured on to her luscious full curves. The scenes between Mitchum and Russell snap as dialogue is exchanged. One of my favourites scenes involves Lenore discovering that Milner likes ironing his money. Milner is a tough guy but he’s so tough, he doesn’t have to worry about displaying that toughness at every turn.

The comedy takes over at a few points during the film. The Shakespeare-quoting Cardigan becomes the focus of some of the scenes, and with a captive audience made up of Mexican police and American holidaymakers, the opportunity for real-life adventures swell his already impossible ego. But it’s all great fun and Cardigan’s very genuine relationship with Milner–a relationship of contrasts plays well on the screen. Similarly Milner’s relationship with Lenore believably simmers while she struggles with the idea that she needs to nail Cardigan to a commitment in the next two weeks.

Raymond Burr as savage crime czar Nick Ferraro is suitably psychotic, and as it turns out Martin Krafft is a Nazi doctor, so there are all these characters who may have disguises and fake names but who in the end run true to type. The film’s final scenes involve some rather convoluted back and forth fighting, and while some of these scenes drag out the ending, it’s all to allow the film to conclude in splendid, no-holds barred Errol Flynn fashion. 

The film, from Howard Hughes RKO studios, is directed by John Farrow.

Noir Quotes–Naked Alibi (1954)

“Stinking cops. Nobody socks me around like that. Nobody. I get even. I always do.” (Gene Barry as Al Willis)

“I don’t want to go downtown. They’ll beat me.” (Gene Barry as Al Willis)

“Shooting off at the mouth is one thing and killing a guy is something else.” (Gene Barry as Al Willis)

“They’ll get you copper. One of those trigger-happy bulls you used to boss around is going to blow your head off.” (Gene Barry as Al Willis)

“Make believe it’s another business trip.” (Gene Barry as Al Willis to his wife)

Noir Quotes-Dead Reckoning (1947)

“Right now the cops are after me. Not that I’ve done anything wrong, father.” (Bogart/Murdock to priest)

“If I can’t work this out, I want somebody to know what happened.” (Bogart as Murdock to priest)

“Didn’t I tell you, all females are the same with their faces washed.” (Murdock to Sgt Drake)

“Stalled again like a jeep on synthetic gas.” (Murdock voiceover)

“He’s as crisp as bacon.” (Copper to Murdock in morgue)

“Not doing much business for the one cool spot in town.” (Murdock to copper in morgue)

“All that’s missing is the sledgehammer highball and a pair of snake-eye dice.” (Murdock voiceover)

“Think I fell for that fancy tripe? Let’s have a new story, baby.” (Murdoch to Coral Chandler)

“I’m not the type tears do anything to.” (Murdock to Coral Chandler)

“I never think when I gamble. I just feel and I feel snake eyes.” (Murdock)

“Keep the motor running and the headlights on.” (Murdock to Coral Chandler)

“As a good last gesture, just shoot straight and make it fast, will you?” (Martinelli to Murdock)

“All mushy outside and hard at the core, eh?” (Murdock to Coral Chandler)

“When a guy’s pal is killed, he ought to do something about it.” (Murdock)

“Here’s a little melody for you. One of my favourite tunes.” (Murdock KOs Krause)

Megan Abbott’s Favourite Noir Film List

 Megan Abbott, author of Die a Little, The Song is You, Queenpin and Bury Me Deep graciously sent me a list of her all-time favourite noir films, and here they are:

 1. In a Lonely Place

2. Kiss Me Deadly

3. Sweet Smell of Success

4. Naked Kiss

5. Double Indemnity

6. Sunset Boulevard

7. Laura

8. The Killing

9. Fallen Angel

10. DOA

11. The Locket

12. Phantom Lady

Film Noir Quotes–The Velvet Touch (1948)

“Love…I don’t even know how you spell it.”

“I’ll tell him things he won’t be able to forget and believe me, what I can’t invent I’ll leave to his imagination.”

“When I get finished talking, if he ever touches you, he’ll wash his hands.”

“You toss around affection as though it was in mass production.”

“Success and money, that’s what runs the world.”

Film Noir Quotes–The Scar aka Hollow Triumph (1948)

“It’s a bitter little world full of sad surprises, and you don’t go around letting people hurt you.“

from The Scar (1948)

Film Noir Quotes–Double Indemnity (1944)

“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money–and a woman–and I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?”

“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell of Honeysuckle.”

Walter Neff in Double Indemnity (1944)

Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

“We’ll only be together in the headlines.”

Director Louis Malle was just 25 years old when his first non-documentary feature Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l’echafaud) was released in June 1958. With two shorts and a documentary feature he co-directed with Jacques Costeau under his belt, Malle set out to make a commercial B-level movie in order to get funding for future films. The result is the suspenseful, perfectly crafted and beautifully photographed Elevator to the Gallows re-released in 2006 by Criterion. Based on the French pulp fiction novel by Noel Calef, and with the story set to a haunting Miles Davis score, this noir tale of adultery and murder is tempered by a chain of ill-fated events. No matter how slick a plan is, no matter how well it’s executed, it’s always the unexpected events, the things that you can’t plan for that ultimately trip up the murderer’s scheme.

The film begins with a phone call between Florence Carala (Jeanne Moreau) and her lover Julien Tavernier (Maurice Ronet). It’s a frantic phone call with more than an edge of desperation. The camera focuses on close ups of the mouths of these lovers as they pour their anguish and passion into the telephone. But aside from all the words of love, Florence and Julien are finalizing their plans to murder her husband, wealthy middle-aged arms dealer Simon Carala (Jean Wall).

It seems to be the perfect plan. Julien, who works for Carala, is a former paratrooper in the French Foreign Legion. He’s served in Indochina and Algeria, and his experiences have left him fit, bitter and more than capable of murder. Combined with the fact that he despises Carala for reaping fat profits from war, he also wants his boss’s wife, and so with the motive and justification, Julien now waits for the perfect opportunity. His proximity to Carala gives him that opportunity, but he needs an alibi.

Julien’s well mapped out plan depends on precision timing and easy access to Carala. Julien is supposedly working in his office with a secretary outside in the next room when he uses a grappling iron to climb up to Carala’s secured office. Here he murders Carala but stages the crime to look like a suicide. After positioning the body, he looks back at his work to check the details. As he looks at Carala’s corpse, a black cat–a portent of bad luck–passes in the background and walks along the railings of the high rise building. And this is the very last moment that events are in Julien’s control.

At this point in the film, the plot splinters into three segments–one segment follows Julien, another follows Florence as she wanders the streets of Paris, and another section of the plot follows the fate of two young Parisians who embark on a joyride that ends in murder. These components of the plot are then woven together to accentuate suspense and the idea that Julien and his lover, Florence are plagued with bad luck and ill-fated timing.

Elevator to the Gallows is an extremely clever, well-made film. Many crime films rely on coincidences that defy credibility, but Elevator to the Gallows is not formulaic and avoids coincidence by replacing it with sheer bad luck and ill-fated timing. The murder of Carala takes place efficiently and exactly as planned at the beginning of the film, but the scheme begins to unravel from the moment of Carala’s death. A plan is just a plan until a killer commits the irreversible act of murder, but once at the point of no return, a murderer has no choice but to try and repair a botched scheme. Julien’s decision to return to the crime scene is correct, but trying to repair the plan–once it’s gone awry–complicates matters, and the odds of Julien pulling off the murder successfully become slimmer as the night wears on. It’s a bitter irony that Julien’s sure-fire alibi will spring him from one murder scene but will land him firmly in another.

Florence is Julien’s partner in crime, yet interestingly, the film emphasizes Florence’s desperation and emotional fragility. These facets of her character are underscored by cinematographer Henri Decae’s naturalistic style. Accentuating her youth and vulnerability, the camera visualizes Florence as a delicate femme fatale shot in close-up, with her face without make up often filling the entire screen. As Florence wanders through the night looking for Julien, she’s wet and cold and takes shelter in a series of cafes where lone men sit and wait like predatory wolves. These camera techniques and plot devices place Florence in a sympathetic position of victim hood, and yet this is a woman who plots the murder of her husband and can’t wait to dash into her lover’s arms once the deed is done. This portrayal of Florence is in contrast to some of the greats in American noir that typically include a hard-edged dame whose plans to rid herself of the inconvenience of a husband do not include a lasting bond with the male tool who aids in the process (Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity, Jane Palmer in Too Late for Tears). While another infamous femme fatale, Cora Smith (Lana Turner) in The Postman Always Rings Twice appears to genuinely desire to be with hapless handyman Frank Chambers (John Garfield), there’s always the uncomfortable feeling that the lover she manipulates to set her free from the bonds of matrimony may very well just have been the first sap who walked through the door.

The camera also emphasizes space and distance–beginning with the film’s very first scene of the lovers who can connect only via telephone. Some of the most spectacular shots include the scene in which Julien drops a piece of lit paper down into the elevator shaft in an effort to judge the height of the stranded elevator car. Another brilliant scene involves Julien and two police interrogators as he is questioned in a room full of dark shadows and lit only by a single light bulb that dangles from the ceiling.

Anyone interested in noir or Jeanne Moreau, will find the film riveting. On top of that, the Criterion print looks great and is well worth the purchase.