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The Big Clock

Noir City Wrap Up

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Those who know me know I take film noir very seriously. I was honored to find our friends at The Rap Sheet give a nod to WID and my Noir City reporting in late January. And then … and then …

What happened? Did I drop off a log? Did my fedora fall over my eyes? Did I (gasp) not go to the festival?

None of the above. What happened was … well … there’s no other way to explain it. GOOD NEWS. And–as any noirhead knows–good news–particularly the kind of toe-squirming, technicolor, Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and Busby Berkeley musical dream-come-true good news–is not conducive to the dark and usually wet streets of Noirville.

Here’s what happened. Right before the last weekend of the festival, I accepted a two-book deal with Thomas Dunne/St Martin’s Minotaur for my 1940 San Francisco PI noir, RICE BOWL. And, to tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling a little, well, musical-ish ever since. More like Maria in The Sound of Music than Mildred in Mildred Pierce. More like the first book’s Harry Potter than the fifth’s. I am thrilled beyond belief, and wake up telling myself that it’s real and it’s fabulous, and that it’s not all a flashback from an unreliable narrator.

So naturally, I had to let some time pass before I could stop seeing rainbows and properly tackle my normal habitat. I write noir, after all. And RICE BOWL is both of the noir world and upends it. But more on it–lots more on it–later. We’ve got time, and this post is for the smash-bang closeout of the greatest film festival in the world.

Now keep in mind that I’m still a working girl, and I unfortunately can’t see everything. I squeezed in Thursday to see The Big Clock (1948) on the big screen, and a treat it was. Based on the terrific novel by Kenneth Fearing (I bought a tattered first edition last year)–the movie was shot beautifully by the underrated John Farrow (Mia’s dad–he married Maureen O’Sullivan, a co-star in the film, during the shooting).

Ray Milland was charming, debonair and reassuringly confident in the midst of tension (the script sported several light-hearted touches), Charles Laughton was delightfully controlling and villanous, femme fatale Rita Johnson (They Won’t Believe Me) more appealing than the rather pallid Maureen, George Macready (the creepy Nazi Ballin in Gilda) appropriately smarmy, and Elsa Lanchester stole every scene she was in with a comic role as an artiste. Rounding out the cast was Henry Morgan as a murderous masseur/thug (and if you’ve only thought of him as Sherman Potter, prepare yourself) and Louis van Rooten as a radio actor (which he was in real life).

For me, the real star of the movie was the set design by Hans Dreier, which was truly a marvel to behold. Sort of prefigures the Bond sets in terms of size equalling threat, yet with a Deco panache that was quite beautiful. All in all, a classic, and not to be missed.

Perhaps even more enjoyable (and like The Big Clock, this was not my first viewing of the film) was the Claude Rains’ vehicle The Unsuspected (1947), which aired the next evening.

Why Michael Curtiz has never been accorded auteur status is due to the fact that he was brilliant in every genre. Here, his Expressionist background in light and dark gradually draw us into a gothically forbidding world of dread and suspense. Rains has never been better or more charming. The plot concerns a radio show host (think of “Suspense” or “Escape” or “The Whistler” if you know classic radio) whose secretary is found hanging above his desk. But we know it’s not suicide from a brilliant opening sequence that makes full use of the audio and visual to create a panoply of noir beauty and thrills.

Audrey Totter steals every scene she’s in … sashaying around and calling everyone “lover” but her husband. Constance Bennett proves wonderful and an equal scene-stealer in an Eve Arden like role. The movie is so well-directed and acted by these three–and the always enjoyable noir heavy Jack Lambert–that you overlook the woodenness of Michael North, who apparently retired from acting after making it. Hurd Hatfield (title role in The Picture of Dorian Gray) chews the bar in half as the debauched painter husband of Audrey. And Joan Caulfield is charming, if not particularly memorable, as Rain’s niece. But it really works … and it’s not on DVD but occasionally is shown on TCM, so watch for it!

Second billing that night was Desperate (1947), which I’ve also seen (this is what comes of watching noir all the time), albeit not on a big screen. An early Anthony Mann effort, the cinematography and shot set ups prefigure his greatest work, and the film is worth seeing if only for one spectacular “interrogation” scene by gangster Raymond Burr. Steve Brodie plays a truck driver gulled into participating in a heist. After a threat to his wife (the appealing Audrey Long), he’s determined to get her somewhere safe before going to the cops (even if it means stealing cars along the way). His character makes the words “trust me” a bit comical, but the film is great entertainment, with a lot of interesting touches (a Czech wedding!).

Finally, my last foray into Noir City was the Fritz Lang thriller Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956). Again, this was the second time I’d watched the film, and on the big screen–and with a second viewing–my appreciation and admiration for it grew enormously … just as Foster Hirsh, who introduced the film along with Noir Czar Eddie Muller, said it would. Joan Fontaine is the independent love interest of a writer (and I’ve got to say, I really enjoyed the lines about deadlines and writing and publishing) played by the always noirish Dana Andrews. Her father–his soon-to-be father-in-law–is a newspaper man vehemently opposed to capital punishment (Sidney Blackmer). Dad’s got a great idea–how about if someone innocent frames himself for murder, gets convicted, is sentenced to death, and then produces evidence of innocence … wouldn’t that prove the folly of relying on circumstantial evidence and make people hesitate before sending convicts to the chair? Sure it would, Dad-in-law … sure it would.

The film has been remade for release later this year, with Michael Douglas and the young Amber Tamblyn, who has the excellent taste to name The Asphalt Jungle as one of her favorite movies. Director/writer Peter Hyams also helmed the Gene Hackman/Anne Archer remake of The Narrow Margin. So see the original before you see the remake.

And watch it more than once … it’s really terrific, though filmed on an incredibly cheap budget. As a bonus, the delightful Barbara Nichols–real life former model and burlesque queen, always memorable and a scene-stealer in The Sweet Smell of Success–plays the role of (you guessed it) a stripper. She steals these scenes, too.

The festival closed with The latter film–maybe Burt Lancaster’s greatest performance–and a new print of The Killers … but alas, it was a Sunday, and I was wrapped up in work and good news.

I’ll be back with more films noir–and more of everything–later. In the meatime, keep your cigarettes dry and your bourbon wet, and if someone asks you to frame yourself … think twice!

Of Books and Broads

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Old books and old movies. Two passions of my life, and I got a little of both this weekend.

The San Francisco Antiquarian Book, Print and Paper Fair was held at the Concourse down on 7th and Brannan this weekend … and in case you think it’s all giant tomes of Vasari or esoteric German philosophers, think again.

These are book collectors, and like book readers, they come in all varieties. Some like cookbooks, some like children’s books, some like art and prints, and some like it noir.

I got to drool over an ARC (advanced reading copy) of Raymond Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep. Price? $6,500. Still cheap by comparison to a first edition Harry Potter (one pricey version was something like $40,000 … yeah, those were four zeros).

You can drift down the aisles, peeking at booths offering a first of The Maltese Falcon (complete with gorgeous dust jacket), British editions, paperback editions, obscure editions of books that sound familiar because you know the movie better.

There will be authors you know that are still active and writing, like Robert B. Parker, and authors who invented a world that turned into a multi-billion dollar empire, like Ian Fleming. Thriller writers, traditional mystery writers, noir and hard-boiled pulp writers … to quote Hamlet, words, words words … and all of them choice.

It’s a fantasy for me on a lot of levels. First, as a collector and fan –“Wow, look at that pristine copy of Chandler’s Smart Aleck Kill!” — and secondly, as a writer myself. Because some of the books were written by people I know or have met, and you’re thinking … maybe it’s within my grasp. Maybe, one day, someone will have a first edition of my first book at a book fair, complete with mylar cover.

Y’see, the reason the books are valuable is because these are writers who have achieved major success (and for some, a demi-god status). But when they began, they were like every other debut author with dreams of a career … they had high hopes and low print runs. Consequently, as they wrote more and more books, each one building on the success of the next, those early editions became scarce … because the demand outstripped the supply.

And that’s the author’s dream … to sell as many books as possible, and enough to keep getting published and sustain a career … but to always have more demand. Because that’s what sells the next book … and gets you behind a glass case at an Antiquarian Book Fair.

By the way, I picked up a somewhat tattered first edition copy of The Big Clock by the legendary New Yorker scribe, poet and founder of The Partisan Review, Kenneth Fearing. Noir, of course, published in 1946, “the year Hollywood went dark” (the theme of Noir City 4). Filmed in 1948 with Ray Milland, Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Sullivan and Rita Johnson, and as No Way Out in 1987.

Chandler said this about the book:
I’m still a bit puzzled as to why no one has come forward to make me look like thirty cents. But except for an occasional tour-de-force like The Big Clock, no one has.

I can’t wait to read it … look for the review here. Oh, and the price? I got lucky. I found a booth with a sale, and paid … ten dollars. Yet another reason to go to book fairs!

So where do the broads of my title come in? With the noir I watched this weekend, after my inspirational purchase. Jeopardy (1953) , starring Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Sullivan, and a Ralph Meeker as an escaped convict with Stanley Kowalski overtones.

I’ve always figured “broad” to be a rather complimentary term, implying a mutual (and sometimes begrudging) respect … almost a buddy, if she weren’t a dame.

At least that’s how it always sounds to me when Sinatra sings it, and when you hear it applied to Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck — two of the archetypal broads of Hollywood. And in this taut, suspenseful 68 minute film by John Sturges, Stanwyck doesn’t disappoint.

It’s an odd little number. Shown by Noir City this year, I missed it (fell on a weekday), so watched it on the small screen. Barry is a typically bigoted, patronizing and sexist husband of early ’50s film. But that’s only on the surface.

After establishing the attitude early on that Barbara is hopeless, helpless, and that the only family member he really can depend upon to get things right is his seven year old son — because he is, after all, a male (and even a child male is more capable than an adult female) — he gets his foot trapped underneath a fallen pier post, and is in imminent danger of drowning unless his “hysterical” wife can drive for help.

Now, Barbara Stanwyck could play almost anything … except helpless. So the casting belied his attitude, even for the ’50s. Next, up steps Ralph Meeker, murderer and escaped convict, who–unlike her husband–treats her physically rough, but with an appreciation for her strength and toughness. Things happen from there, and the ending is atypical and a little unexpected.

Throw in Mexico, thought of as America’s exotic and mysterious neighbor at the time, and location of many a great noir (Out of the Past, Touch of Evil), and you have a fascinating little film. The tagline was “She did it … because her fear was greater than her shame!”

Watch it … and see if you think that’s what really happened.

Next up: always more noir. I’ll be in Seattle for Valentine’s Day, and will try to blog from the home of the best coffee (and, incidentally, my home state).