Énigme policière

"The Scarlet Hour" is an outstanding surprise for noir fans : directed by Michael Curtiz in 1956, it is so rarely seen. And it deserves to be rediscovered on DVD.

Carol Ohmart uses Tom Tryon to get rid of her husband. And there are so many tricks and twists growing violently crescendo all through the movie, you get stuck on your seat. That crescendo is brilliantly enlightened by Lionel Lindon ("Quicksand"), each frame being in perfect adequacy with all the events and accidents.

Frank Tashlin is another great talent of this forgotten jewel. He is a specialist of comedies, "The Girl Can't Help It" and Jerry Lewis movies. "The Scarlet Hour" is his only participation to film noir. The second screenwriter is John Meredith Lucas, the foster son of Michael Curtiz, who had written Dark City in 1950.

"The Scarlet Hour" must be one day available on DVD.

The Scarlet Hour is directed by Micahel Curtiz and written by Rip Van Ronkel, Frank Tashlin and John Lucas. It stars Carol Ohmart, Tom Tryon, E.G. Marshall, Elaine Stritch, Jody Lawrance and James Gregory. Music is by Leith Stevens and cinematography by Lionel Lindon.

It has been a hard to locate film noir for may a year, which when you consider it's directed by such a titan of classic cinema comes as a surprise. The plot dynamics are very familiar to noir fans, and coming as it does late in the original film noir wave it does lack a bit of freshness, but there's little deviations in the shenanigans of the principals to at least give this its own identity.

We essentially have an abused wife (Ohmart) having an affair with one of her husbands (Gregory) employees (Tryon). They plan to run away together but need money to do so. As it happens, during one of their love sessions in a parked car they over hear crooks planning a jewelry robbery and she convinces her man to hold up the thieves so as to take the jewels for themselves. In true noirville form this becomes a road to nowhere and danger lurks on every corner, with dodgy alibis, unrequited passions and a few twists and turns to keep the narrative perky.

This is no shoddy production either, it comes out of Paramount and the presence of Curtiz shows you that the studio wasn't merely making a contract filler. Though the absence of chirascuro from Lindon is a shame, we do get some nifty sequences such as violence enacted that we only see via shadows. There's moments of humour as well, while there's also a musical surprise as Nat King Cole turns up to croon Never Let Me Go. Cast are fine, Ohmart has classic fatale looks and legs from heaven, but her character trajectory is a little muddled in the writing. Tryon plays the dupe competently, Lawrance sparkles in a secondary role, as does the scene stealing Stritch.

I'd stop at calling this a hidden gem, as some other amateur reviewers have, though it does rather depend on how many other similar noirs you have seen previously. This doesn't come close to Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice or Thérèse Raquin, but that doesn't stop it being a good film, because it is and for sure it's well worth noir fans tracking it down. 7/10

E.V. "Marsh" Marshall (Tom Tryon) is an up-and-coming sales manager for the Ralph Nevin (James Gregory) real estate empire but little does Ralph know that his top employee is having an affair with his slinky wife "Paulie" (Carol Ohmart). Parked in a lover's lane one night, Marsh and Paulie overhear plans for a quarter million dollar jewel heist and high tail it out of there but it does plant a seed. Paulie's husband beats her and she wants out but she came from the tenements and doesn't want to go back so she begs Marsh to help her break free by ripping off the jewel robbers...

There's twists and turns galore in Michael Curtiz' suspense-filled '50s noir that for some reason remains unsung. This was no B-movie, either; it's a Paramount film in VistaVison produced and directed by an Academy Award winner with a sure hand for this sort of thing from a story by Frank Tashlin, of all people. The film "introduces" Tom Tryon, Carol Ohmart, and Jody Lawrance and although none of them went on to major stardom, Tom and Carol had respectable second tier careers. Ohmart was a very sexy lady with the kind of cruel beauty that lent itself well to femme fatale roles and handsome Tom conveys "conflicted" convincingly. Elaine Stritch (her feature film debut, as well) adds heart as Paulie's floozy friend from the old days before she married well and E.G. Marshall's on hand as the investigating police detective. Nat King Cole croons "Never Let Me Go" in the Crystal Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Recommended.

Michael Curtiz had quite a few successes in his directorial career: Casablanca, Adventures of Robin Hood, Sea Wolf, Captain Blood, Mildred Pierce, Night and Day all are so well known that they obscure to some extent a true gem like THE SCARLET HOUR.

David Niven famously quoted Curtiz's order on the set as the title to his first autobiographical book: "Bring on the empty horses!" By which he meant the riderless horses. There is nothing empty about THE SCARLET HOUR. It opens with infidelity by a married woman, causing the couple to hear someone's plans to steal $350,000 from a house in Baja California, and it ends suitably openly.

I admire Curtiz's courage in going ahead with this project despite the unknown leads. In fact, the female lead, Carol Ohmart, debuts as Pauline in THE SCARLET HOUR. She is a dish, too (the camera lovingly films her curvaceous figure and long legs) and she certainly has no hangups about cheating on her rich hubby - accomplished performance from James Gregory - corrupting her standup lover, and seeking revenge on the secretary, Kathy, who catches lover Marsh's eye with her honesty and unambiguous love.

Marsh, played convincingly by Tom Tryon - also debuting, though that is not mentioned in the credits - is a well-meaning fellow who wants to do the right thing but is blinded by his love for the gorgeous Pauline. To complicate matters, Pauline decides that $350,000 is exactly what they need to elope and have a good life elsewhere on the planet. Unbeknown to the lovebirds, hubby Gregory suspects something and gets himself in the line of fire, whereupon police duo E. G. Marshall and Edward Binns arrives on the scene with a bang, almost stealing the show with their sharp inquisitiveness.

As Marsh puts it, Kathy is the sole clean character in this remarkably crisp and logical script, further buoyed by extremely competent cinematography from Lionel Lindon, and Curtiz's exacting and intelligent direction.

I recommend THE SCARLET HOUR to anyone interested in film noir.

Warner Brothers 30s 40s director Michael Curtiz was well past his prime when he made this lower tier work rich in both mood and atmospherics for Paramount. Grazing in Billy Wilder Double Indemnity territory it lacks the first string line-up of Stanwyck, MacMurray and Robinson but the second team acquits itself well enough to make this a pretty suspenseful piece.

"Marsh" Marshall (Tom Tryon) and his boss's wife Pauline are having some illicit recreation at a local lover's lane when they overhear three men planning a major heist. Pauline, the spine in the relationship concocts an idea to rob them after they pull the job. The pliable Marsh (mellow?) blinded by Pauline's sexiness and passion reluctantly goes along.

Well paced Scarlet Hour runs on deception and betrayal with plenty of double cross along the way weaving in the thieves subplot to the major theme of the adulterous leads seamlessly as fatale Pauline must manipulate three men to her grand plan.

Tryon and Ohmarht are fine if inconsistent at times while a supporting cast of hang dog looking pros (James Gregory, EG Marshall, Edward Binns, Elaine Strich, Rene Aubuchon, James Lewis) add sober gravitas.

Special mention goes to the camera work of Lionel Liddon who keeps us in the dark (a majority of the film takes place in the evening) with some bold chiaroscuro compositions that up the noir tenor and elevate Scarlet Hour to an impressive overachiever.