Close-Up

No, Close up isn't at all a film noir as stated higher, it begins with 25 minutes of lousy comedy (and lousy casting with lousy dialogues), then turns in a spy part trying desparetly to be tough, and ends in a big lousy laugh. I really don't see any evocation of film noir nor crime in one of the few movies directed by Donohue who mostly worked for TV.

Alan Baxter is a newsreel photographer, with an eye for a good set of legs and a sideline in snappy patter. Coming back from a shoot of local lovelies on the streets of New York, a messenger from another newsreel company almost takes his cartridge by accident; then Richard Kollmar comes to his company's office, where Virginia Gilmore is interviewing him for an article on newsreel photographers while Baxter is trying to date her up. Kollmar explains that he's in the footage Baxter shot, and if his wife sees him in a newsreel with a young woman, well, you know. So he gets the footage.

Loring Smith, Baxter's boss, takes a look at the negative. Kollmar isn't a nervous husband. He's a Nazi bigwig thought dead, and wanted in as many countries as a piano has keys. Suddenly Baxter isn't a character in a Runyonesque 1930s comedy-thriller, he's in over his head in a film-noir world, where newsreel executives get shoved out of windows, and failed actors turned hood slap their girlfriends and leave scars, where gun-battles take place on the streets of Manhattan, full of newsies and comedy drunks and cars passing by, not knowing what is going on, because they're too busy to turn their heads and look at it. Baxter's not wise-cracking any more. He's too busy being handcuffed in a coal bin, wondering when he's going to be shot.

It's a startling bit of film-making from Eagle-Lion, climbing its way out of its PRC roots. Director Jack Donohoe had started out as a dancer, had acted in a few movies, did some choreography and stage directing, and would wind up directing some popular and trivial movies. He would end his career directing hundreds of episodes of Lucille Ball sitcoms. Here, in his first movie, he balances things just right.

A newsreel cinematographer, Phil, is taking shots of pretty models on the streets of New York. Unbeknownst to him, while filming the ladies, he accidentally captures some footage of a Nazi war criminal who is assumed to be dead. A short time later, the Nazi's buddies try to get this footage from the studio...and ultimately, Phil is even briefly kidnapped by some of the gang who pretend to be detectives. Fortunately, some quick thinking helps him to escape...and Phil and his boss realize they are dead men unless the gang is captured.

While the idea for this low budget film is interesting, occasionally the story has some logical lapses. For example, when Phil escapes, why doesn't he IMMEDIATLEY contact the real police? And, when the film is stolen and the police recover it, why would they give it back to Phil and tell him to drop it off at the police station?! You'd THINK they'd either take it there themselves or contact the FBI and give it to them since it's so important. You'd ALSO think that after Phil escapes and he does meet up with the police that they'd assign cops to protect him. But none of this happens and the movie ends up being about Phil taking on the Nazis AGAIN! You also wonder if after the evil Nazi Butcher is discovered on the film that they really wouldn't need the film. After all, it was taken in 1948....only three years after the war AND the wanted Nazi looks the same as he did in old footage the studio owned already....just give the old footage to the authorities! And then there's the girl...her character simply makes no sense. Overall, the movie is not really very good...when it really should have been based on the interesting story idea. It's a highly flawed film that you can find on YouTube...and after seeing it, I can understand why the filmmakers don't apparently care that it's posted there to watch for free.

I love this film. It's so full of surprising turnings and brilliant innovations that you actually must enjoy being taken for a ride. The story in itself is ingenious, by accident an ordinary news reel camera man gets someone like Martin Bormann into the picture, and naturally those Nazis having just come out of the bank after some major transactions want to get hold of that film as a matter of life and death.. What follows is a tumultuous roller-coaster of a hunt for the negative, which involves no end to confuisons, and naturally there is a double-crossing dame involved also, and the poor journalist in all his innocence has every reason to get mad. Fortunately he has a cheerful assistant who always manages to keep him happy after all.

There are some striking shots on the way that Hitchcock would have enjoyed, and of course some major close-ups. This is one of those films that in all their confusing up and down turnings leaving you more bewildered than the hero. you must look forward to seeing it some time again.

Close-Up is an okay film noir with several points of interest.

Alan Baxter stars as Phil Sparr, a newsreel reporter busily filming models outside of a bank.

Later on, he is approached by a man who explains he was photographed with a woman not his wife during the modeling session, and he begs for the film. He gets it, but it's not enough - he wants the negative too.

Turns out Phil accidentally filmed an escaped Nazi known as The Butcher exiting the bank, and the chase is on to retrieve the film.

What I enjoyed about this movie, although it was very grainy, was all the New York locations. The other thing I liked were the things we old-timers take for granted that are gone, like pay phones, newsreels (though I'm really not old enough to remember them), and men wearing hats.

Virginia Gilmore, who reminded me of Jane Greer, plays a magazine writer attempting to do a story on the newsreel office.

Alan Baxter, who later moved into character roles, was very likeable. The acting was okay, but the atmosphere and locations really made this film.