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Claude Rains

Unsuspected Noir

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So here it is, Monday night. My book just came out (if I repeat it enough it may sink in) … I spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon at the Hayward Public Library on a Sisters in Crime panel with the lovely and talented Camille Minichino, Michelle Gagnon and Peggy Lucke … great company, great audience, great library, and terrific hospitality. I’m getting ready for a signing trip to the Seattle Mystery Bookshop and Portland’s Murder by the Book. And now, as I type this, I’m waiting for the repairman to tell me what is wrong with our nearly-new dryer.

Yup. It’s appliance noir.

Noir strikes you unexpectedly, from the failure of computerized mechanisms we rely on, as well as the rain-streaked and shadowed streets of Los Angeles. Yeah, we’ve got a graphite colored (you expected white?) top-of-the-line eco-dryer, but appliance noir hits you between the eyes, baby, and kiss your evening (and laundry) goodbye.

At least I’ve got my blog.

Though situations like this beg for depressing poetry and a bottle of Scotch, I’ll refrain. And instead, tell you about The Unsuspected (1947), a deliciously nasty little Warner noir TCM aired the other day.

Directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and starring the most sympathetic and urbane villain to grace the screen — Claude Rains — along with noir stalwarts Audrey Totter (how do you define noir? Audrey Totter) and Jack (The Killers) Lambert, it’s a highly charged and extremely suspenseful tale about a radio host of crime dramas who is implicated in some shenanigans of his own.

The opening scene–the first murder–is powerful and chilling film-making, even on a small screen. A bit later, Curtiz makes full use of the power of voice-over, shadows and light, in a tour-de-force sequence showing the effect of Rain’s broadcast on a number of characters we’ve yet to be introduced to. The director does shamelessly purloin Hitchcock’s famous teacup shot from Notorious toward the climax of the film, but since Claude Rains is in both movies, I guess he’s entitled.

Joan Caulfield is the good girl here (Audrey, of course, plays the slut) and Constance Bennett takes on an Eve Arden-type role, and does it with panache. Ted North’s stiffness as a mysterious young man who claims to have married heiress Caulfield is well-suited to the part … is he Dudley-Do Right or Bar Sinister? Hurd Hatfield (Dorian Gray) ably rounds out the cast as Audrey’s debauched and drunken husband.

The script, from a novel by Charlotte Amstrong, snaps and sparkles with lines like these:

Someone comments on the painting of Joan Caulfield above the mantle piece, asking whether it was a particular artist’s Blue Period (not Picasso).

Audrey replies: “My husband. His drunk period. Began right after our marriage.”

Or Ted North as Steven Howard: “I like matches. You never have to refill them. And when you’re through with them, you simply throw them away… like people.”

The Unsuspected is another gem thus far unavailable on DVD or video. Look for it on TCM, and don’t forget to set your Tivo.

And my own unexpected unsuspected appliance noir? The part won’t be in for ten days. Yup, you got it. *Bleeped* on page one.

Where Does Danger Live? Noir City, of course!

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There are times that I think I’d like to live in Sea Cliff, the ultra expensive San Francisco oceanside community where you’ll find luminaries like Robin Williams. I do live in the city, and actually have an ocean view, but not one from a multi-million dollar house.

Then I remember noirs like Where Danger Lives (1950) and The Man Who Cheated Himself (also 1950) and figure “exclusive” is just another word for “nut case.” In Noir City, Sea Cliff is a synonym for too much money, too much power, and too much in-breeding.

Case in point: Where Danger Lives. My subtitle for WDL is “Never Date a Suicide.” Even if she looks like Faith Domergue, or maybe especially when she looks like Faith Domergue. But hey — if you can picture Mitchum as a doctor (and not for the first time — he played one in My Forbidden Past (1951) and She Couldn’t Say No (1954) — maybe you will also believe that Domergue’s character tried to kill herself because she was gorgeous and rich and lonely. Me, I think one of the things money can buy is company.

So the doctor gets suckered, but good, and there’s a terrific little scene that looks like it was filmed at one of the Trader Vics or the Tonga Room at the Fairmont. OK, I admit it, I’ve got a weakness for tiki noir. The dame’s “father” just won’t let her enjoy her freedom. Still Mitchum doesn’t get it. His eyes are dazzled by Domergue’s assets and whatever he’s sipping in that coconut shell.

Disillusionment follows and it looks like Claude Rains. I wish disillusionment always looked like Claude Rains; I love the guy. He gives a bravura (and all too brief) performance, absolutely pitch perfect (and I mean it–the movie is worth watching for his scene alone), as Domergue’s husband. The only daddy giving her trouble uses a first name of Sugar.

The rest of the film is a suspenseful trip into low and lower life, the kind of predators that take advantage of you when you’re on the run with a beautiful dame who tells you you murdered her husband. There’s a race against time before Mitchum, the good young doctor who took a hard fall for Domergue, knows he’s going to literally fall down from a concussion. He’s better off with the headache, trust me.

Like any really good noir, the supporting cast is terrific. Phillip Van Zandt, who plays the smooth club owner in His Kind of Woman the next year (part-noir, part Vincent Price comedy) is a sleazy circus owner, Ralph Dumke is a crooked pawn shop dealer (are there other kinds?), and Tol Avery turns in a memorable bit as Honest Hal, Used Cars. If you want to know whether you’re watching a noir, look for Honest Hal. He’s a noir barometer, and only shows up when it’s truly dark.

Ably assisting Mitchum is Maureen O’Sullivan as a sympathetic nurse/love interest. She wears a mask for much of the movie, and unfortunately looks old enough to be Mitchum’s mother. But watch what she does with just her eyes (when a mask is covering the rest of her) for a lesson in good acting. The film, incidentally, was well directed by her husband John Farrow (yes, father of Mia).

Where Danger Lives is available on DVD, so queue it up for Netflix — it’s a keeper, even if Domergue isn’t. He shoulda known not to fall for a jumper.

On another note, Charlton Heston passed away last night at the age of 84. Unfortunately, he may be remembered more for his politics than his performance in Touch of Evil, which is how I like to remember him. Sure, he played Moses and Michaelangelo and Ben-Hur and maybe even thought of himself as the Almighty. But Welles elicited a powerful performance from Heston as a Mexican cop in Touch of Evil, and the film — as baroque and stylized as Welles himself — is an absolute triumph (on my top ten list, no less).

Watch this film carefully for the bull-fighting imagery … Orson plays the bovine to Heston’s matador. And like another great director, Hitchcock, he cast Heston precisely because of that upright, stiff quality that ’50s epic used with such felicity.

Touch of Evil is so great that I can forgive Heston the extremism of his later years. Whether or not I can forgive him for The Omega Man is another story. But hey–maybe he made up for that one with Soylent Green.