The Usual Suspects (1995) dir. Bryan Singer
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollack

****

By Alan Bacchus

I can still remember the reaction of the audience in that final moment in “The Usual Suspects”. Kevin Spacey’s overlapping voiceover revealing the identity of Keyser Soze, culminating in Spacey’s final words ‘and like that he’s gone’. The cut to black along with John Ottman’s brooding music sting sent the audience in an uproar of spontaneous applause.

Bryan’s Singer bysantine neo-noir still has the ability to send shivers down my spine in those final moments. The film launched Singer’s career, as well that of Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro as well as some of his key creatives like John Ottman (editor/composer) and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel.

The film opens in the present in the Los Angeles harbour, as we witness the final moments of what appears to be a notorious and wanted criminal Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne). A cloaked gunman shoots him dead then blows up the entire ship. Customs officer Dave Kujan bent on proving that his nemesis Dean Keaton is dead interrogates the only witness, a hapless cripple named Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey).

An elaborate series of flashbacks during Kint’s interrogation unfolds revealing a deadly game of criminal vs. criminal. Five men, including Keaton and Kint, conspicuously get holed up together in a police line-up, with their association masterminded by a legendary criminal spook story named, Keyser Soze.

Christopher McQuarrie’s screenplay is a pitch perfect example of noir storytelling and Singer and his collaborators drench the film with ice-cold crime slickness. The various tough guy posturing of the characters, sharp oneliners, Hungarian mob, Turkish coke, billowing smoke from dimly lit cigarettes, corrupt cops, shifty lawyers, and the perfectly manufactured myth of Keyser Soze make for a great genre film dripping with texture and intrigue.

As Singer’s second feature, he shows remarkable confidence and command of all aspects of the medium. McQuarrie’s convoluted script doesn’t exactly dot all its Is and cross its Ts. But a degree of confusion is acceptable for the genre. Classic noirs like “The Big Sleep” and “Touch of Evil” continue to confound audiences and part the mystique of the genre is the idea of ordinary men engulfed in an ever expanding and confusing world of crime.

There’s a constantly changing point of view, which Singer manages to make clear and accessible even with its numerous flashbacks, and flash forwards. McQuarrie’s dialogue crackles as sharp as any noir ever written. Even after several viewings I still marvel at the intricate dialogue. One of its most underappreciated but expert performances belongs to Giancarlo Esposito, whose lines are read with the rhythm of a machine gun. My favourite line of his: “I got a guy trying to walk out of the hospital on a fried drumstick to get away from Soze. I’ll run it up the flagpole” or “…I need to send me someone who can speak Hungarian. He’s talking like a Thai hooker.”

Wit, intelligence and a genuine love for cinema fuels this unmistakable classic which has survived with all its grandeur intact.

The Usual Suspects is available on Blu-Ray from MGM Home Entertainment

Cape Fear (1962) dir. J Lee Thompson
Starring: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Martin Balsam, Telly Savalas

****

By Alan Bacchus

It came as no surprise that Martin Scorsese’s version of J. Lee Thompson's original classic ‘Cape Fear’ was as closely aligned to the original as it was. Considering his integrity for the history of cinema Scorsese's version was reverential to the original, a masterful remake, tinkering only a few narrative plotting, but just enough to expand and re-evaluate and thus make the film his own.

Going back to J. Lee Thompson’s original film, written by scribe James Webb from a novel by John D. Macdonald, ‘Cape Fear’ plays out a terrifying psychological cat and mouse game between a released criminal hell bent on revenge and the witness that sent him to prison.

After 8 years incarcerated, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) has returned to a quaint town in North Carolina to find and torment Sam Bowden (Gregory Peck), a humble lawyer and family, who barely even remembers the incident when he testified against Cady for a sexual assault. With utmost steely-eyed intensity, Cady lasers in on Bowden with a force as relenting and focused as ‘the Terminator’. With an education in law from his jail cell, Cady’s revenge is beyond mere physical intimidation, but a psychological torment under the rights of law, which threatens to send Bowden over the edge.

Martin Scorsese’s movie blurs the lines of a hero and villain more than Thompson’s which makes a key delineation between right and wrong, good and evil. In Thompson’s version, in one of the half dozen or so exchanges of dialogue between the adversaries we learn of Cady’s domestic family life which was destroyed by Cady’s incarceration. This background leads to a compelling confession of the effect of Cady’s incarceration on his wife and child who doesn’t exist in the Scorsese/De Niro version.

Some surprising character depth is revealed in the scene after Diane is raped by Cady. The Illeana Douglas character who is named Diane here, is just a random prostitute/barfly who is picked up and beaten by Cady. While it doesn't have any horrific face-biting gruesomeness Thompson directs the scene masterfully nonetheless. We don’t ever see the act, but the aftermath is horrific and the pain visible in the bruises on her face. With direction from Thompson, the shame Diane feels and expresses with few words but emotionally devastating glances to Telly Savalas’s private eye characters is imbued with real-world complex sophistication. Instead of prosecuting, Diane feels shame for succumbing to Cady’s advances which becomes another victory in his calculated psychological games.

Scorsese adds some more depth to the plotting of Bowden’s daughter Leigh. As played by Juliette Lews, she’s less vulnerable and more attracted to Cady’s charm and magnetism. This direct threat to Bowden’s family admirably increases the stakes in the 1991 version and at Cady and Leigh’s first meeting in the vacant high school, allows Scorsese and De Niro to craft a stunning scene of intense stillness.

What Scorsese gains with this scene he loses by removing Thompson’s thrilling chase between Cady and Leigh. It’s a different kind of intensity, Hitchcockian chase action replaced by subversive and teasing sexual terror, capped off with a clever moment of misdirection.

Thompson couldn’t have cast the film better than having Gregory Peck, the righteous Gary Cooper-like integrity. The film was made the same year as ’To Kill a Mockingbird' and the two roles fit into each other naturally. And of course, Mitchum, one of cinema’s great villains, is played with frustrating affability and Southern charm. Though Mitchum is a few inches shorter than Peck his confident swagger, and imposing broad chest and upright posture commands the space even more than his 6’3” frame.

Where Scorsese and Thompson sync up perfectly is Thompson’s constant sense of terror. Even in the daylight, in public places Cady’s amiable presence hides a palpable threat with complete freedom under his rights as a regular citizen. Cady uses the law to his advantage, outsmarting a lawyer, getting under his skin to the point of reversing the stakes and getting Bowden to implicate himself. It’s a brilliant and terrifying psychological game.The escalation of events plays out wonderfully, the intensity, fears and stakes get stronger as the film goes along - a narrative perfection Scorsese was smart not to mess with.

The Disappearance of Alice Creed (2009) dir. J. Blakeson
Starring: Eddie Marsan, Gemma Arterton, Martin Compston

****

With only his first feature film we can immediately sense special things to come from J. Blakeson - an ingenious three-hand kidnapper noir conceived and executed with the same kind of cinematic confidence as a young Christopher Nolan or David Fincher.

There should be very little said about the plot of this picture other than 2 kidnappers grab and hold for ransom the daughter of a wealthy man. That’s it. That’s all you should know before diving into Blakeson’s razor sharp, twisty and utterly beguiling chamber drama.

Blakeson takes one of the most basic of Hollywood genre-premises, the kidnap-ransom plot, distills everything extraneous to the three main characters, and boils the picture down to its essential emotions. We don’t meet any of the characters before the kidnapping, never see a money exchange or any conversations outside of the room, and never ever do we see a policeman.

There’s only three people in the film: Vic (Eddie Marsan) the alpha-criminal who goes about the business of crime with steely-eyed efficiency; Danny (Martin Compston), the apprentice, who follows orders from Vic and the only one who appears to have a conscience in the affair; and of course, Alice Creed (Gemma Anderton), the poor victim who spends most of the film gagged and bound to four corners of a bed.

The opening sequence is marvel of thriller montage scenes. Blakeson cuts together a stunning preparation sequence as we see Vic and Danny go to the hardware store, buy all the necessary tools and supplies for the job and construct their kidnappers' layer inside some kind of vacant apartment flat.

Blakeson’s formal and precise compositions, pacing and ultra-sharp lighting scheme resembles a David Fincher-like attention to detail, a style which compliments and subliminally establishes the precision of Vic and Danny’s plan.

The duo seems to have everything covered including a bed pan for Alice to pee in when required. What they don’t plan for is the emotional attachment to the job. As much as possible Vic commands Danny NOT to think, to remain focused on the work, Danny just can’t do that and when his motivations for the job are revealed, it becomes the first wrench in the works. Just when we think we know where the film is headed we learn about Vic’s motivations for the job. Even Alice’s needs and presence complicates things. Soon it becomes a complex Mexican stand-off, each one trying to hold their poker faces as best they can to get out alive. And by focusing on character as much as the procedural details as the scheme starts to unravel we’re never quite sure who, if anyone, will come out on top in the end – Vic, Danny, or Alice.

Many great directors have begun their careers with this type of noir. Blakeson’s work stands tall beside neo-noir classics such as “Bound”, “Shallow Grave”, “Memento”, “Blood Simple”. Watch for great things in the future from this guy.

P.S. On the IMDB it appears Blakeson is the writer for the 'Descent' sequel, which instantly puts that film in a whole new light.

The Big Sleep (1946) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall

****

One Hollywood’s classic products, highly influential, a landmark film of the noir genre is still a beguiling and elusive picture.

Whether by design or not, part of the fun of "The Big Sleep" is attempting to follow along with the byzantine plotting. I admit, I can get about half way through following along clearly and at a certain point always get lost.

Cool and confident private detective Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) is called in by rich tycoon General Sternwood (Charles Waldron) to investigate an extortion scheme against her daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers) for her gambling debts by local bookie Arthur Gwynn Geiger. Marlowe is led to Geiger’s bookstore where he tails him to his home, only to discover he’s been killed. Carmen's (Lauren Bacall) sister joins the fray and attempts to secure her own ransom money further complicating the predicament. Nefarious figures pocket every corner of the seedy Los Angeles underworld Marlowe uncovers.

It’s fun to watch The Big Sleep as a template for Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential”, while the lude and nasty sexual elements were put into the subtext of the Faulkner/Brackett/Furthman screenplay, all the elements of the seedy Los Angeles milieu of porno, gambling, drugs, prostitution are there. Bogart’s discovery of Carmen confused and stammering in Geiger's house after the murder suggest influence of hallucinogenic drugs, and her oriental outfit as a sexual fetish for Geiger’s porno racket. None of this is told to us, but inferred through subtle clues which enhance the richness of multiple viewings.

Marlowe only scratches the surface of this grim underbelly. Many of the key characters are discussed but never seen or turn up dead before we ever get to meet them. The most famous is the Owen Taylor character who is killed in a car crash, a murder or perhaps suicide which is never solved in the film, nor, according to some sources, in the mind of it’s original author Raymond Chandler. Same goes with Sternwood’s former heavy Sean Regan who had disappeared prior to Marlowe entering the picture. Regan is discussed as the reason for Sternwood's hiring of Marlowe, but someone we never meet. Even Geiger himself, who is only glimpsed from afar yet remains key to the motivation and plotting.

Bogart and Bacall, a legendary Hollywood couple, sear the screen, not so much because of sexual chemistry or sparks, but as equally cunning adversaries. Bacall’s dialogue is line-for-line delivered with as much snarky conviction and confidence as Bogart’s - a female match for his swaggering cocky persona.

As a Jack Warner (Warner Bros) production, his stamp of tough hardboiled attitude is there, putting the film beside some of his toughest crime films with Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Max Steiner, Warner's #1 composer, delivers a glorious and grand score, as always, heightening all the melodramatic suspense and tension of the picture.

Like Bogey's "Casablanca", the experience of "The Big Sleep" improves on each successive viewing. The initial occasion will certainly cause much confusion and even frustration, and though the confusion remains time and again, frustration soon gives way to gleeful delight. Enjoy.

Man Hunt (1941) dir. Fritz Lang
Starring: Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, John Carradine, George Sanders, Roddy McDowell

**

During WWII Hollywood produced a number of great propaganda films under the guise of traditional cinema entertainment. Unfortunately Fritz Lang’s Hollywood production of "Man Hunt", recently dug up and cleaned up by Fox, is not one of them.

Fritz Lang, the German ex-pat who made some of the greatest German films ever, is the ideal person to fight back against the Nazis with cinema propaganda. Unfortunately it’s a slapdash affair, an unfocused, poorly acted and sometimes completely illogical spy story. Taking place just before the war, in the opening we see a British sharpshooter, Capt. Alan Thorndike, (Walter Pidgeon) perched on the crest of a hill in the Bavarian mountains taking aim at none other than Adolf Hitler. Before he gets to take his shot he’s captured. His captor, a monocled Gestapo man Quive-Smith (George Sanders) – Note: Lang himself, was famous for wearing a monocle - desperately tries to beat out a signed confession that he was acting on behalf of the British government, but to no avail. Thondike escapes, thus beginning the ‘man hunt’.

The hunt takes him from the Bavarian hills eventually finding a British freighter ship bound for England. In pursuit is Quive-Smith and his tough assassin, Mr. Jones, played by John Carradine. Though he makes it to England, he’s still not safe. When he runs into a kindly cockney street gal, Jerry (Joan Bennett) he’s forced to bring her along in the chase. Jerry and Alan form a platonic bond, which might just be Thorndike’s Achilles Heel for the Gestapo.

Even beyond the presence of Mr. Lang, all the ingredients would suggest a cool little studio production. Fox vet Arthur Miller’s cinematography is top notch, most of the exteriors shot with a wonderfully moody layer of thick London fog, dramatically lit like Lang’s expressionistic days. Alfred Newman, one of cinema’s all-time great composers delivers a decent suspenseful score, some of the cues sounding eerily similar to John Williams' work in Star Wars.

None of these technical elements can distract us from the ridiculous adventure plotting. The opening act sets up a clever nod to “The Most Dangerous Game” – a world famous hunter trying to score the world’s most dangerous prey, Da Fuhrer himself. When Alan moves to the British freighter, young Roddy McDowell’s appearance in the film as a deckhand changes the gears toward relationships and comedy, but with the close quarters, an even greater threat against Alan. For the second and third acts, Thorndike is in London, his home turf, a place one would think he would be safe. Somehow he feels as endangered as he was in Germany. In the real world the chase could have ended in a split second if he just ran into a police station and pointed his finger at his pursors.

Walter Pidgeon makes an uncharismatic hero, though a Canadian, not a Briton, his accent wavers constantly. And Joan Bennett, a New Jerseyian playing cockney? Yikes. Only John Carradine’s menacing and imposing figure is on the mark. The propaganda is laid on thick from the opening song La Marseillese, to the theme of xenophobic distrust at home. Lang constantly shows us cutaways to random people on the streets of London, watching Thorndike with shifty eyes, warning us of the subversive enemies who may lurk among us.

The final scene which has Thorndike hiding out in a cave (in Britain??) under siege by Quive-Smith is plain old head-scratching. And his finishing move against him, a makeshift bow and arrow made from Jerry’s hatpit, is simply pathetic.

There’s nothing wrong with Hollywood war propaganda – “Casablanca” smelled badly of it too – but in “Man Hunt” without real characters and legitimate suspense it smells even worse than a regular studio bomb.

“Man Hunt” is available on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Sin City (2005) dir. Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, Benicio Del Toro

****

The most subversive of mainstream films in recent years has to be Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s “Sin City”. Perhaps only the genuinely independent Rodriguez isolated from Hollywood in his self-sustaining mini studio operating out of his home in Austin could pull off such a feat. With fine cinematic recklessness Rodriguez shows us some of the most violent, vile and misogynistic portrayals of violence ever put to screen and made it successful.

Rodriguez takes several of Miller's storylines and combines them together to form a unique episodic narrative. There's Bruce Willis as Hartigan, a former cop, who, while saving a child from kidnap, rape and murder, unjustly takes the blame for the rap and is jailed. When he gets out he must race to save the girl, now grown up to be Jessica Alba, from the same maniacal perpetrators. Also being chased throughout the city is Marv (Mickey Rourke), a bruiser of a man whose lover is killed in bed by a mysterious sicko cannibalist played by Elijah Wood. Clive Owen rounds out the triptych as Dwight who desperately tries to stop the city from imploding under a brewing street war between the cops, mob and street whores.

It’s all told with an eye popping extreme expressionistic style – a mixture of hard boiled noir and comic book fantasy sensibilities. The dialogue from each of the three stories’ protagonists is read with heighten self-awareness. Like the narration in “The Watchmen”, Marv, Hartigan, and Dwight, speak with grandiose melodramatic eloquence to an audience aware of the noir-speak of cinema past.

If these out-of-this-world characters weren’t played with complete seriousness and integrity, the dialogue would have drowned them in ridiculous overindulgence. Before the so-called comeback or 'resurrection' of Mickey Rourke, he managed to stun us with his portrayal of Marv with sympathy and surprisingly genuine sincerity. Beneath the heavily made up false nose and boxtop haircut, Rourke somehow managed to humanize the muscular-bound monster figure. And has Bruce Willis’ expressive eyes been used to greater emotional effect than in “Sin City”? Perhaps only “Pulp Fiction.” The third anchor, Clive Owen, has the most difficult role. It’s the most talky and least heroic of the three roles, but a testament to Owen’s talents to breathe life into Dwight. And in every corner of the picture is a fun supporting performance, my favourite being the surprisingly passionate performance of Brittany Murphy as the spunky waitress from Kadie's bar.

Years from now the filmmaking philosophy and literal adaptation of the graphic novel medium will be seen as a benchmark in filmmaking. And the immersive blue-screen production methodology has never been used better. With any camera angle Rodriguez can think of at his disposal, it’s his brevity and his adherence to Miller’s frames which elevate the material to high pop art.

The new Blu-Ray edition is a must-have for any fanboy. In addition to the already in-depth special features on the well-packaged extended/recut edition from three years ago, some added goodies make it worth while. Stunningly pristine image quality aside, perhaps the gem of the BD version is a fun ‘audience audio track’. With this clicked on you get to hear the proper 5.1 mixed audio along with the recorded audience reaction to the film’s premiere at the legendary Alamo Draft House in Austin TX. More than just some canned laughter, it's a neat way to bottle the movie experience you can only get from a darkened theatre.

Now I just wish Rodriguez would get going on "Sin City 2"...

"Sin City" is available on Blu-Ray from Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Our Man in Havana (1959) dir. Carol Reed
Starring: Alec Guinness, Maureen O’Hara, Burl Ives, Noel Coward, Ralph Richardson

***

“Our Man in Havana” reunites after 10 years the team from “The Third Man” – once again Graham Greene adapts the screenplay from his own story and Carol Reed, that venerable British filmmaker, directs. While not the memorable classic of the former “Our Man in Havana” plays well as a companion piece– a satirical spy film subverting the seriousness of “The Third Man”.

Alec Guinness is Jim Wormwold, a lowly vacuum salesman living in Havana Cuba with his daughter Milly (Jo Morrow). As a single father his personal aspirations and the dream life he imagined were put on the backburner for long hours and hard work. One day, a British secret serviceman offers him a job as a spy for the government. Suddenly this regular working class schmo is learning secret codes and other covert spy-novel tactics. His job – to infiltrate the Cuban elite and recruit more spies to work on his behalf – like a pyramid scheme for spies. When Wormwold starts having trouble finding recruits, he invents them in a series of tall tales of surveillance and espionage fed back to London.

One day a secretary (Maureen O’Hara) assigned to him from London shows up. Suddenly he has to prove that his contacts exist deepening further his web of lies. But when one of his fake recruits is killed by real covert agents Wormwold has to become a real spy to protect himself and Milly.

“Our Man in Havana” links up with “The Third Man” in a number of clever ways. Alec Guinness, like Joseph Cotton, is an innocent man caught up in an ever-deepening web of intrigue. With Wormwold characterized as an affable everyman the tone plays more as a satire of the spy genre - a time before the James Bond films, but when Ian Fleming’s novels were popular. Greene and Reed are not so subtle at mocking the naïve stubbornness of British government whom Wormwold cons with ease.

Reed’s glorious black and white wideangle frames capture all the authentic sights and sounds of the real Havana locations. Even the in-car scenes are shot with a properly mounted camera rig, forsaking the in-studio process technique. Reed has fun dutching the angle of his camera at appropriate times, continuing with the same visual language he used with “The Third Man”. And Guinness’ final confrontation with his nemesis Carter, reminds us of Harry Lime’s famous sewer chase through Vienna.

If you notice the year the film was made, it coincides perfectly with the year of the Cuban Revolution. Remarkably the film was shot mere months after Castro took power. How could this happen? Since the film was made before Castro aligned with the Soviets, once the script was oked by the new regime the filmmakers were allowed complete freedom. The result is one of, if not the last, ‘Western’ film production shot with complete freedom in Cuba. Enjoy.

"Our Man in Havana" is available from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment" packaged in their new set of 'Martini Movies'.

The Garment Jungle (1957) dir. Vincent Sherman
Starring: Kerwin Matthews, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Gia Scala, Robert Loggia

***1/2

The 1950’s produced a number of notable labour-themed pictures (ie. “On the Waterford”) and one of the least known but most entertaining is Vincent Sherman’s “The Garment Jungle”. As the title suggests the setting is the New York fashion industry at a time when unions were moving their way into the sweatshops of the ‘dress-making’ shops in the Garment District. A fight to keep the union out of Walter Mitchell's business results in violence and murder.

Kerwin Matthews plays Alan Mitchell, the son of New York City fashion entrepreneur Walter Mitchell (Lee J. Cobb). Alan comes home to join his father in the family business. Immediately Alan gets in the middle of a bitter labour dispute with the local dressmaker's union shop, which has recently taken the life of Walter's business partner.

As Alan gets to know the labour leader, Tulio Renata (Robert Loggia), he develops sympathy for Walter's bitter enemies. The conflict causes a rift in their relationship and ultimately brutal violence within the family.

The fashion industry milieu provides an interesting setting for this pseudo-noir. The plot doesn't boil as customary with the genre, and the dialogue and characterizations are kept to the side of realism. Instead of genre conventions, the anchor of the film is the reconciliation of father and son. Character actor Lee J. Cobb, who specialized in gruff and imposing men like in “On the Waterfront” or “12 Angry Men”, is the clear antagonist early on. As his son enters the business and sees both sides of the labour battle, the batte becomes father against son.

Walter Mitchell, though stubborn, is given enough depth to understand his predicament. A self-made man, in a family-owned business, who legitimately wants to keep full control of his company. But understandably he’s out of touch with the realities of big business. And so Mitchell’s redemption and then quick punishment hit all the right dramatic buttons.

By the end Walter Mitchell changes from bullish, profit-hungry slave driver to compassionate working class hero - a classic arc in literature and a strong throughline which elevates this film beyond mere pulp fiction.

Though the central conflict is about union vs. non-union the film never brings up the issue of the workers, their working conditions or wages. There is no character at the level of seamstresses, or tailors grinding out the work for Mr. Mitchell. Inadvertantly the film could make the point that, in an era of labour-corruption, often worker-well being wasn't always the incentive for unionization. This isn’t the case in this picture though because clearly the filmmakers stand on the left in characterization the organizers as near saintly working class heroes.

What's notably absent are any homosexual characters (whether covert or overt). Sure the Production Code was still in full effect, but that never stopped Hollywood from portraying gay characters. Despite being the fashion industry, it's full of hetero-males. Of course, it's also about a dominantly hetero labour organizations, but there is a missed opportunity to show contrasting personalities at work.

"The Garment Jungle" turns out to be a surprisingly well-crafted and emotionally involving story about reconciling father and son. Joseph Biroc’s classical and unflashy but crisp B&W cinematography sparkle on a Sony's clean and well-transferred DVD, which is packaged under their "Martini Movies" moniker. Enjoy.

Touch of Evil (1958) dir. Orson Welles
Starring: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Marlene Dietrich

****

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of “Touch of Evil” Universal Studios has released a new 2-Disc box set featuring three versions of the film as well as the famous 58 page memo Orson Welles wrote after viewing the studio’s cut. The film is an astonishing work of art and labelling it a mere noir film doesn’t do justice to the innovative and thoroughly unique cinematic style Welles applied to the pulpy story of police corruption on the Mexican-American border.

Charlton Heston (in perhaps his finest role) plays Mike Vargas, a Mexican cop drawn into a cross border investigation of the bombing death of an upstanding American businessman. Butting heads with Vargas is Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) the drunken corrupt Sheriff who plants evidence and frames criminals into getting his convictions. Welles intercuts this investigation with the movement of Vargas’s American wife Susie (Janet Leigh). While Vargas is off doing his job the neglected Susie becomes brutally terrorized by local gangsters who may or may not be working with Quinlan.

Typical to his style, Orson Welles uses exclusively wide angle lenses for every shot. The lens accentuates the motion of everything from the movement of the camera to the actors and objects in the frame. Take the scene when Vargas is followed by the assassin who tries to throw acid on him. Watch the movement of the discarded pages of newspaper blown across the ground in the background before the assassin strikes - a minor piece of set dec which adds so much texture and tension to the scene. And watch the effect of his uncompromising wide angle close-ups. During the violent rape and strangulation scenes the camera is shoved right into Janet Leigh and Akim Tamiroff’s faces, the effect of which make the violence extra brutal. Brutal even by today’s dulled senses.

Important to these scenes is the pulsating rhythms of Henry Mancini’s percussion-heavy score. Welles even makes specific note of the importance of the source music in his memo. And who could forget the ironically romantic theme song played on the pianola which ends the film?

One of other innovations Welles used throughout is overlapping dialogue. With the extreme wideangle lens, traditional coverage was not necessary (everything is viewable in the frame). So Welles allowed and encouraged the actors to talk over the end of other people’s lines. The result is a heightened pace, but also much confusion. Important lines containing vital information to the story are often missed and talked over, or said under one’s breath.  And so the film demands constant attention.

Perhaps the only stain on the film is Dennis Weaver's character and performance. He plays the hapless nave who works the front desk at Susie's motel. Weaver chews his already engrossed screentime with an annoyingly twitchy stammer and dim-witted gawky droll. The idea of a slow-witted nightwatchman is fine, but as Robert Downey Jr.’s character in “Tropic Thunder” would say, Weaver goes ‘full retard’. It's a small but annoying crutch on the film.

Having watched it a number of times, and once with the subtitles on, the complex plotting still confuses me. I still haven’t figured out why the Grandis were after Susie so early in the film, nor how the opening bombing fits into the plot. Did Quinlan plan it? I'm still not sure. But "Touch of Evil" is more about flow and movement - a visual and auditory experience pulling the audience through some of the darkest moments in studio filmmaking up until then.

Part of the Welles' genius is the tone he sets at the end. During the impeccably staged climax which has Vargas following and listening to Pete Menzie’s wiretapped conversation, Quinlan seals his fate with a confession. While it solves the case for Vargas we also get to know more about Quinlan than we knew before. Despite being a liar and a murderer Welles is sympathetic to him.  We’re reminded that Quinlan was a great leader of the community before the death of his wife corrupted his ethics, a remarkable depth of character we rarely see in traditional Hollywood genre films. This is why "Touch of Evil" is so special. Enjoy.

"Touch of Evil - 50th Anniversary" is available on DVD from Universal Studios Home Entertainment

PS I haven't even mentioned the opening shot, which is still one of the greatest shots in the history of cinema. Here it is:

Roadhouse (1948) dir. Jean Negulesco
Starring: Ida Lupino, Richard Widmark, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm

***

No, this isn’t the Patrick Swayze cult classic, it’s a 40’s noir genre film which is soon to be available on DVD for the first time. Its part of 20th Century Fox’s “Fox Film Noir” series, one of a continuing series of well packaged resurrections from their vaults.

The film stars Ida Lupino as Lily Stevens, a singer who is hired by small town bar owner Jefty Robbins (Richard Widmark) to be their new attraction. Jefty has ideas beyond mere entertainment, as he intends on courting and marrying the gal. But Lily falls in love with Jefty’s business partner Pete Morgan (Cornel Wilde). When Jefty finds out, he takes revenge by cooking up a trump burglary charge on Pete. Pete is legally trapped by Jefty’s conniving games and it will take a violent confrontation for Pete and Lily to free themselves from his web of entrapment.

Negulesco introduces Lily with classic noir mysteriousness. She’s a smart talking gal who loves to play solitaire. She loves it so much she carries a pack and starts up a game on the bar. In the noir language this means she’s a loner, who plays really hard to get. She’s coy when asked about what her act is. She’s silent at one point I thought she was a prostitute – disguised under the production code. She’s not. She actually is a singer, short on talent but has a natural stage charisma. At one point Susie the waitress says, “She does more without a voice than anybody I've ever heard!”

In the opening Negulesco establishes a sumptuous noir atmosphere. He blankets the nighttime bar in cigarette smoke and a myriad of shadows crossing the frame. Negulesco intercuts Lily’s swooning tunes with the reactions of an internally seething Pete. It’s an unspoken tension elevated to great melodramatic heights.

After Pete and Lily meet they provide some fun unintentional comedy. There first courtship is in a bowling alley. It's so completely ridiculous from fresh modern eyes, but perhaps in 1948 the thought of a man teaching a beautiful lounge singer to bowl is natural. It was probably as silly then as now, but it serves to provide some great sexual tension and piercing sexual dialogue and double entendres.

The second act plays as sordid melodrama. The film devotes it’s screentime to establishing Pete and Lily’s love affair. It needs the time as well, because of their extreme antagonism in the opening. Their attraction grows naturally – rare for a high speed genre film - and by the time Pete is framed we desperately want the two loverbirds to get away and live in bliss.

The elephant in the room is the character of Susie Smith (Celeste Holmes). She appears to have a relationship with Pete at the beginning, but when he starts courting Lily, she voluntarily steps aside. Maybe it was platonic all along – either way it is unclear. Susie continues to get in the middle of the love triangle, and I assumed her participation and relevance will be revealed later on. It never comes and so she remains the fifth wheel throughout the entire film.

“Road House” is Ida Lupino’s film, a Brit working in Hollywood. Her strange attractive quality causes the fight between friends – an indirect femme fatal. A central and strongly developed female character is a rare commodity in modern Hollywood, but back in the hey-day of film noir, the female lead was the engine which drove all drama and conflict. Enjoy.

“Road House” is available on DVD from 20th Century Fox on Sept 2.

Dark City (1998) dir. Alex Proyas
Starring: Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connolly, Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt

***

“Dark City” was Aussie Alex Proyas’ follow up to the successful “The Crow”. A masterpiece of visual design, the film has maintained its cult following thanks in part to the persistent flag waving of its biggest fan, Roger Ebert. A new director cut in glorious Blu-Ray is now available.

“Dark City” was slightly ahead of the curve in 1998. The existential themes were explored in a number of comparable films made in the late 90’s. The most obvious is the “Matrix”, made one year after, which tells almost the exact same story, except with mondo bullets, fights, and chases. David Cronenberg’s alternate reality mess, “eXistenZ” also made in 1999.

The story involves a man, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), who wakes up in a tub next to a dead body in a hotel room. He has no memory and by instinct flees the scene trying to figure out what the hell has just happened. It’s a classic film noir set-up. The authorities, led by Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) are hot on his trail. His wife, Emma (Jennifer Connolly) is concerned when a stranger, Dr. Schreiber (Kiefer Sutherland), comes knocking on her door claiming to be John’s doctor.

Murdoch is also hounded by a group of mysteriously clocked men who conspicuously resemble Max Schreck in “Nosferatu”. We come to learn the men are part of a group of beings with special powers who ‘stop time’ to perform mind-altering experiments on humans. When Murdoch starts to exhibit these powers too, suddenly he becomes the only man who can save the city from its perpetual darkness and despair.

Ten years later the visual design, cinematography and special effect of “Dark City” are still as stunning as then. The ornately textured world Production Designer Patrick Tatopoulos creates is lit with a sharp high contrast style by polish Cinematographer Darious Wolski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) - a Ridley Scott influenced world – a combination of “Alien” and “Blade Runner”.

Alex Proyas, in the introduction to the DVD, questions the common critics’ critique that the film was style over substance. Indeed, Proyas is right in that the film is actually quite heavy on substance. The overarching story is a deep spiritual examination of human nature. But he’s also wrong in that “Dark City” suffers most because of its style. Ironically, the vital missing piece of the puzzle is its heart. It’s ironic because Murdoch mentions this in the final line to his nemesis, Mr. Hand, before entering the daylight exterior. He says something like, “you wanted to know what it was that made us human… well you were looking in the wrong place” (referring to his brain, as opposed to his heart).

By drenching the film with such a dark, cold and detached tone Proyas strips away all emotional investment in its characters. An interesting comparison would be Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show”, a completely different film but one which explores similar themes of the human spirit and willpower to triumph over control. Like Murdoch Truman is subjected to a prison to which he doesn’t know he’s a part, yet his indefinable human instincts compel him to escape somehow. Yet “The Truman Show” creates such a warm welcoming quality to the journey of its hero. Truman’s grand moment of discovery is infinitely more dramatic and involving than Murdoch’s. Thus, “Dark City” never moves beyond the sci-fi/noir genre elements to truly connect on a visceral and emotional level.

“Dark City” showcases best the robustness of the Blu-Ray format. Unlike the standard definition version of the film, the fine line between darkness and light of “Dark City” almost as it was intended on the big screen. Enjoy.

“Dark City” is available on Blu-Ray from Alliance Films in Canada and New Line Home Entertainment in the U.S.

Framed (1975) dir. Phil Karlson
Starring: Joe Don Baker, Gabriel Dell, John Marley, Brock Peters, John Larch and Connie Van Dyke

***

Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw

In contemporary cinema, when all or some of the properties that normally characterize the genre (or, if one prefers, movement) of film noir are present in the work, pains always appear to be taken by those who write their analyses of said pictures to use phrases such as “noir-influenced”, “noir-like” or “contemporary noir”. Seldom will you see anyone daring to refer to “Sin City” or its ilk as film noir, but will, rather utilize one (or variations of) the former descriptive phrases.

During the 1970s, a number of pictures burst on the scene that – aside from their contemporary settings and dates of production – bear considerable traces of those properties usually attributed to film noir. Arthur Penn’s “Night Moves,” Francis Coppola’s “The Conversation”, Michael Ritchie’s “Prime Cut”, Peter Yates’s “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”, Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown”, Sam Peckinpah’s “Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia” and numerous others could all be characterized as film noir – especially with their emphasis on such properties as: hard-boiled heroes, the power of the past and its unyielding influence upon the present, the unique and stylized visuals (even those emphasizing visual “realism” have style to burn with their harsh lighting and mega-grain), post-war and/or wartime disillusionment and, amongst others, an overwhelmingly hopeless sense of time lost (and/or wasted).

One picture from the 70s that could also fit the noir tradition permeating that oh-so-rich-and-groovy decade of dissent is one that has largely been forgotten. Since it was neither a hit, nor critically regarded in its year of release, Phil Karlson’s grim, violent crime melodrama “Framed” is a movie that’s long overdue for discovery, or, if you will, re-discovery.

Produced and written by Karlson’s creative partner Mort Briskin (they previously delivered one of the hugest box office hits of the 70s, “Walking Tall”), the world of “Framed” resembles a cross between Jules Dassin’s “Brute Force” and virtually every other revenge-tinged noir fantasy one can think of including Karlson’s 50s noir classics like “Kansas City Confidential” and the “Phoenix City Story”. In fact, “Framed” comes close to being a remake of “Kansas City Confidential” (elements of which also appeared in “Walking Tall”), but where it definitely departs is in the permissiveness of the 70s and the levels of wince-inducing violence it ladles on like so many heapin’ helpin’ globs o’ grits into the bowls of hungry Tennessee rednecks patronizing the greasy spoons of the Old South.

And indeed, Tennessee is where “Framed” was shot and is, in fact, set (not unlike the Karlson-Briskin Buford Pusser shit-kicker “Walking Tall”). While this down-home haven for rednecks seems, if I may, “a might” incongruous for a film noir thriller, it’s actually in keeping with the sordid backdrops of numerous noir classics – many of which are set against the small mindedness of middle America. Not all noir was in the big cities – the sleepy suburbs, seedy tank towns and just plain wide-open spaces – could all provide ample atmosphere for any number of these dark crime classics.

Not that “Framed” qualifies as a classic, mind you. In fact, it’s definitely one star rating below the aforementioned 70s noir from the likes of Coppola, Peckinpah, and Penn et al, but it’s damned solid and delivers the goods one expects from a workmanlike kick-butt kind of director like Phil Karlson.

“Framed” recounts the gripping saga of Ron Lewis (Joe Don Baker) a beefy, semi-amiable (albeit semi-smarmy) gambler and club owner who arrives home with a satchel-full of cash he’s just won in Vegas. His lover and partner in the club, platinum ice-queen country singer Susan Barrett (frosty, sexy Connie Van Dyke) begs him to stop gambling and quit while he’s ahead. If he did, there’d be no movie. Instead, beefy-boy takes his satchel and enters a high-stakes poker game and cleans up even bigger.

On his way home, someone tries shooting at him and when he pulls into his garage a redneck deputy harasses him. A brutal fight ensues (with eye-gouging – yeah!) and the lawman dies, whilst our hero, a mangled heap o’ beef, slips into a coma. Ron wakes up to find that he needs to plea-bargain his way out of a sticky situation wherein he faces life imprisonment for murder. He also discovers that his money has been stolen and that he’s been set-up big-time. (Granted, he DID actually kill the redneck lawman, but it was in self-defense.) Ron’s ice queen is roughed-up and raped by some bad guys and soon, our hero is sent up the river to a maximum-security prison.

Luckily, once he’s firmly ensconced in the Big House, he hooks up with a friendly hitman (former Bowery Boy – I kid you not – Gabriel Dell) and an equally amiable mob boss (John Marley – the producer in “The Godfather” who wakes up to find a horse’s head in his bed). Time passes with relative ease, and soon, our beefy hero – with a little help from his new prison pals – is on the loose and on a rampage o’ sweet, sweet revenge.

Loaded with violence and plenty of dark, seedy characters and locales (and a few welcome dollops of humour), “Framed” is a nasty, fast-paced and thoroughly entertaining crime picture. Joe Don Baker is a suitably fleshy hero and Gabriel Dell a perfect smart-ass sidekick. What’s especially cool about the movie is just how amoral a world ALL the characters move in and frankly, how their shades of grey don’t actually confuse things, but work beautifully with the noir trappings of the story and style.

“Framed”, by the way, is a picture I had not seen since I saw it on a big screen as a teenager. I even remember seeing it with my ex-cop Dad. We both loved it and I always had fond memories of it. Alas, it was one of those movies that I wanted to see again, but it had been out of circulation for so long that I suspected I might never see it.

Now, thanks to Legend Films, “Framed” is finally available. While it is yet another barebones DVD release from Legend and one can lament the lack of extra features, it’s becoming plainly clear that this is a company with more taste and savvy than the studio it is leasing product from.

“Framed” is the second Paramount Picture I have seen on DVD (the first being the magnificent “Mandingo”) to come from Legend. I can hardly wait to see more. Some of the more interesting titles Paramount made in the 70s are finally getting their due – thanks, of course, not to Paramount, but to Legend.

Interestingly enough, I recall seeing “Framed” on the same picture-palace screen I eventually saw “Mandingo” on.

Do wonders never cease?

No, they don’t. “Framed” also features a nude shower scene with Joe Don Baker.

Get thee to a video store, damn you!

Basic Instinct (1992) dir. Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzunza, Jeanne Tripplehorn

***1/2

In 1992, Paul Verhoeven shifted gears away from his previous two action films, “Robocop” and “Total Recall” to shoot a beguiling investigative slasher picture which was already famous for being the most expensive scripts ever sold in Hollywood. "Basic Instinct" is now a naughty and notorious classic. It’s b-movie material but with an ultra-slick gloss provided by the moody/serious Hitchcockian tone and Jan De Bont’s luscious cinematography. Now, arguably “Basic Instinct” is the quintessential erotic thriller.

Fans of Verhoeven’s work in Holland will instantly recognize thematic and genre similarities with his early Dutch film “The Fourth Man” (1983). Like “Basic Instinct”, the protagonist is a man who is seduced by a multiple-widowed sex-pot angling for another victim. Some of the action and violence is identically staged, specifically one sex scene where instead of an icepick Sharon Stone’s equivalent does her nasty work with a pair of scissors.

“The Fourth Man” is great practice for creating the erotic thriller to beat them all. Michael Douglas plays Nick Curran, a cop currently under investigation by internal affairs. He’s assigned to the case of a dead rock star who has been stabbed to death with an icepick. The chief suspect is Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone) a paperback novelist with a degree in psychology, or as the police captain says, "a degree in fucking with people's heads". Catherine does just that, and seduces Nick with gradually increasing sexual teasing. As Nick gets closer to Catherine, the more he’s convinced she didn’t do it. Before long Nick is caught in a deadly web of death with him as the next intended victim.

Jan De Bont has a lot to do with the success of the film. He was one of Verhoeven's two favoured DOPs from his native land. His two action films were both lensed by Jost Vacano, who had a style completely wrong for this different kind of film. The erotic noir genre calls for a different skill set and Jan de Bont’s classic big screen Hollywood style was the right kind of gloss needed. Unfortunately it would de Bont’s second last feature as DOP. Of course, he would go on to direct some major blockbusters ("Twister" and "Speed"), but it’s a shame, because we’ve also missed on some great collaborations.

The late Jerry Goldsmith, one of the great music composers in Hollywood - ever - provides a wonderful swooning music score. He injects just the right amount of Bernard Herrman to compliment the Hitchcockian feel, without resorting to complete theft.

From the San Francisco locale, to the psychoanalytical themes, to the camera work, "Basic Instinct" is one of the best Hitchcock-influenced films, and perhaps a film Brian DePalma should have made - it even features an elevator-death climax. The DVD features a great commentary by Paul Verhoeven and Jan de Bont revealing all the Hitchcockisms they injected in the film. Rediscover this naughty 90's classic. Enjoy.

Daisy Kenyon (1946) dir. Otto Preminger
Starring: Joan Crawford, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews

**

There's a bit of false advertising labelling "Daisy Kenyon" as a 'Fox Film Noir'. Though it was made by 20th Century Fox, it's not a film noir. It's one of those domestic melodramas, that Douglas Sirk perfected in the 1950's - a so-called 'woman's picture'. In this film Joan Crawford plays a woman torn between two men - Mr. Right and Mr. Wrong. Her head and heart make the decision a difficult choice. The film is no classic and fails to generate much intrigue, excitement or even general interest.

Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford) is an artist, a single woman, who's stuck in an affair with a married man, Dan (Dana Andrews). Even though she calls off the affair Dan keeps coming back and Daisy just can't resist. One day a soft-spoken war veteran Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda) enters her life. The courtship is one-sided as Peter expresses his love with unwavering certainty. Daisy is fond of Peter, and some sparks are there, but she still feels something for Dan. Daisy needs to move forward in life and she decides to marry Peter. All is bliss until Dan announces to Daisy he's divorcing his wife Rosamund (Peggy Ann Garner). Daisy is back at square one.

Which guy will she choose, is the central drive of the film. But it's barely strong enough to hang your hat on. Dan is a complete shit, lacking in all moral fibre. He's introduced as a bloodsucking lawyer. When he does decide to take on a case pro bono, it's more of an effort to please Daisy. Peter, on the other hand, is played by Henry Fonda - Nice-guy-personified. Sure, he lacks the fast-paced self-important career of Dan, but he's grounded and secure and everything Daisy needs. Unfortunately Peter is too apathetic about his relationship. He takes no stand, when Dan comes back into her life.

Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda is a great pairing - on paper. But on screen they are like fire and ice. The pieces just don't fit, and their on screen scenes together lack spark. As the lead Crawford is as confident holding the film together as she always is. Few, if any, female stars can match her screen presence - ever. Unfortunately "Daisy Kenyon" is no "Mildred Pierce", or "Flamingo Road"

This is certainly no noir either. There is no threat, violence, danger or intrigue - elements which define the genre. Even as a woman's picture there's just not enough melodramatic juice to whet my appetite. I had the privilege of discovering "Imitation of Life" (click for my review). Watch either the 1934 version or the Douglas Sirk 50's version for a woman's picture that singes your moral extremities. "Daisy Kenyon" is for Joan Crawford fans only.

"Daisy Kenyon" is part of the Fox Film Noir Collection from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Black Widow (1954) dir, Nunnaly Johnson
Starring: Van Heflin, Ginger Rogers, Gene Tierney, George Raft

***

The second film in my series of Fox Noir postings is “Black Widow” – an effective whodunit mystery, which will keep you guessing all the way to the end.

Nancy Orway is an ambitious social climber who ingratiates herself into the New York upper class elite through a friendship with a big shot Broadway producer Peter Denver (Van Heflin). But with Denver’s wife Iris (Gene Tierney) out of town the friendship brings silent accusations of infidelity. It’s all very innocent until Nancy shows up dead in Peter’s apartment. Suddenly Peter’s seemingly innocent actions take on a whole new meaning. With the police quickly leaning towards a murder charge, Peter takes it upon himself to find the real killer.

The fundamental question which drives the film is whether a married man can develop a true platonic friendship with a single woman. Peter apparently does this out kindness to aid a young writer to get a foot in the business. But writer/director Nunally Johnson never makes Peter out to be a saint. Though he appears to be honest in his philanthropy there’s a darkside of Peter that keeps the audience on edge. In fact, everyone’s intentions are kept hidden from the audience. For the first half we’re not sure if Nancy is a crazed psychopath, if Denver is truly attracted to her, or whether he’s trying to exact revenge for his wife’s affair a year ago. Johnson plants all the right seeds which will pay off in the third act.

The film is presented in colour cinemascope, a format not traditionally associated with noir, but it works. The use of widescreen is fabulous. Johnson and his DOP Charles Clarke along with the legendary photographic effects man Ray Kellogg bathe New York in eye-popping colour and bold visual beauty. It’s rare to film a noir in colour, but remember, most of Hitchcock’s great colour films were essentially film noirs.

Van Heflin, whose prominent brow frequently got him cast as the bad guy in westerns, is completely believable as a reserved but confident Broadway producer. Ginger Rogers, though over the top, has fun with Lottie - a snobby elitist actress who bullies around everyone including the cops. Peter’s wife, Iris (Gene Tierney), is the most underdeveloped of the characters. Once the accusations of infidelity start Iris never once questions Peter’s story. It isn’t until a confessionary letter in the mail from Nancy that sends Iris over the edge, but even with this information she is still inactive as a character. But then I watched the special features of the DVD and learned the great noir actress Gene Tierney was suffering from severe depression and was heavily medicated during the time of the filming.

Two thirds into the film, I thought I had predicted the ending, but I was wrong. Johnson’s cinematic approach turns what could have been “Murder She Wrote” material into a tight, unpredictable whodunit with strong characters, that stands out against most other films of its kind. Enjoy.

“Black Widow” is part of the Fox Film Noir Collection from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Image courtesy of DVD Beaver

Dangerous Crossing (1953) dir. Joseph Newman
Starring: Jeanne Craine, Michael Rennie

****

“Dangerous Crossing” is not so much a noir as a Hitchcockian psychological mystery. A newlywed is suspected of going crazy when her husband mysteriously disappears without a trace. Part of Fox’s Noir Collection, “Dangerous Crossing” is one of the lesser known classics of the genre – a thoroughly entertaining slice of pulp fiction.

A newly married couple John and Ruth take an ocean liner cruise for their honeymoon. When they arrive in their cabin, John asks Ruth go ahead and meet up in 15mins at the bar before dinner while he runs an errand. Ruth obliges, but at the bar John is a no-show. In fact, he's disappeared from the entire ship. The ship’s crew search the boat, but to no avail. When asked for identification, ticket, or evidence of John, Ruth can’t produce anything. Suddenly everyone’s suspicious eyes turn on Ruth.

Did John really exist, or was he a figment of her imagination? When she reveals the painful period in doctor’s care after the death of her father, the evidence weighs toward psychosis. But when Ruth starts getting mysterious phone calls from John from aboard the boat warning her about their safety, something more devious and sinister rears it’s ugly head.

Ruth (well played by Jeanne Crain) goes through an agonizing journey of torturous frustration. It’s a difficult performance, one which could easily have spilled over into emotional overdramatics, but Crain puts the reality of the situation in all her reactions.

"Dangerous Crossing” is a technically-perfect genre film. Director Joseph Newman has a great studio shooting style - a Michael Curtiz-influenced look with sweeping crane shots, and elaborate dolly moves to accentuate and heighten the drama. Newman sets the tone of mystery and suspense brilliantly. The location and design of the ship provide the confining clausterphobia within which Ruth’s paranoia can bubble over. The scenes in fog-shrouded night along with the monotonous fog horn lay on the noir-intrigue extra thick. The best scene in the film is a sequence worthy of Brian De Palma's theft. Ruth hears a knock on her door, but when she answers it, no one is there. She looks out into the hall – no one in sight. Just then a door from down the hall slowly opens by itself. Then slowly closes. And of course, Jeanne Craine frightening reaction sells the drama.

“Flight Plan” and “Bunny Lake is Missing” tell the same story, an unexplainable disappearance with no evidence to prove the missing person ever existed. Both films are flawed and could not wrap up satisfactorily the ‘is she crazy or not’ conundrum. “Dangerous Crossing” provides the most satisfying resolution of all three films. With the film clocking in at 76mins, there’s not much room for extraneous plotting or lengthy explanations, and so the climax and resolution comes rather suddenly. But the brevity serves the material best.

One of the remarkable aspects about the production was the studio's use of economies of scale. “Dangerous Crossing” doesn't look like it was shot for $500,000 in 19 days, but it was. 20th Century Fox creatively recycled sets, costumes and actors from much bigger pictures also in production – “Titanic” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” - to bump up the production value. Combine this with best aspects of the genre - fog, shadows, sound, shady characters and a slowly revealing potboiling plot – and you have a top notch film noir. Enjoy.

"Dangerous Crossing" is part of the Fox Film Noir Collection, which also includes "Black Widow" and "Daisy Kenyon". Look for reviews of these films in the coming weeks.

No Country For Old Men (2007) dir. Joel and Ethan Coen
Starring: Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson

****

Hollywood has just done the unthinkable - given the Best Picture Oscar twice in a row to two of the more darker, nihilistic mainstream films we’ve seen hit our multiplexes (including 2006’s “The Departed”). I welcome this trend as revenge against some of the more egregious Oscar choices over the years.

“No Country For Old Men’s” masterfulness lies in its sparse depiction of two men fueled by greed to find a lost satchel of money – a head to head battle with a dozen or more corpses left in their wake. But despite all the praise, “No Country For Old Men” frustrates me in almost equal measure by its unnecessarily obtuse ending that on second viewing feels even less satisfying.

Tommy Lee Jones narrates the film like an omniscient observer of the events about to take place (like Sam Elliot in “The Big Lebowski” or Moses the Clockman in “Hudsucker Proxy”). He’s a sheriff with a wealth of knowledge and experience about the violent nature of man. His opening speech describes a teenage boy he sent to the electric chair without any second thoughts. The boy was made of pure evil –the Michael Myers type of evil that has no rational thought, emotion, or sanity.

Our hero is Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who, while hunting in the desert, accidentally discovers a dope deal gone wrong – a half dozen dead bodies as well as a dead dog. Left over is the classic briefcase full of money - $2 million worth – enough for Moss and his shy wife, Carla (Kelly MacDonald) to retire. Moss is an intelligent character established by showing the details of his thought-process. He knows someone will eventually come looking for the money. And so, like a great chess player he calculates several moves ahead of his adversaries. But for most of the film, he doesn’t know who’s pursuing him – just a relentless force of nature – echoing footsteps in a hall, or a vacant voice on the phone.

This force of nature is the evil Jones describes to us at the beginning. The Bubonic Plague with legs - Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). The Michael Myers (“Halloween”) comparison is appropriate not only in his actions, but also how he is shot by the Coens. He is slow, methodical and literally impossible to kill. His weapon of choice is an oxygen tank and a silenced shotgun.

Like “Fargo” the Coens leave style and cleverness on the cutting room floor and tell the story with a sparse cinematic technique. The performances and characters lead the story. Josh Brolin has never been better – and to think the brothers didn’t want Brolin for the role. It took an audition tape directed by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez to convince them to let Brolin in the door. And now, I couldn’t imagine anyone else in that role. Oscar-winner Javier Bardem’s showcase scene is his confrontation with a gas station attendant. The rhythm of dialogue is off-putting and tense. Bardem sets a new bar for sadistic maniacs. Move over Hannibal Lector – you’ve been trumped.

Three quarters of the film is a quid pro quo chase through Texas and into Mexico. Like the detailed mechanics of the events in “Blood Simple” the Coens craft a series of masterful sequences of predator and prey. The piece-de-résistance of sequences – which should win the Coen’s their first directing Oscar - is a scene which starts with a hotel room confrontation between Moss and Anton and ends out on the street amid a hail of bullets and blood.

But after achieving greatness for three quarters, after a key death the film slowly peters out with little action or drama that significantly affects the story. The film turns into Tommy Lee Jones’ story at the end, which still frustrates me. Though the voiceover in the film is Jones’ he is virtually inactive and doesn’t affect the plot or events in the story. The book is an anti-climax, and so is the film. The Coens, on the DVD featurette, describe to us, with verve this fact. But recognizing this fact doesn’t make it any more satisfying or great. And for a film so inspired Jones’ final speech and obnoxious ‘cut to black’ is just a slap in my face. A film this great deserves better. Enjoy.

"No Country For Old Men" is available on DVD this week from Miramax Films and Alliance Films"