Crossfire: Classic Noir, Sterling Cast

Crossfire
Warner Bros. // 1947 // 86 Minutes // Not Rated

Reviewed by Steve Evans

“Hate is like a loaded gun!” ~ From the Promotional Poster.

Opening Shot
RKO Pictures became the first studio to deliver a dramatic condemnation of racism in America with this taut film noir attacking anti-Semitism. A fine cast of tough, cynical actors and an insolent femme fatale breathe life into the tawdry material. Warner Brothers delivers a nice package in this lesser-known noir.

A Bit of Plot…
Investigating the murder of a Jewish man, police investigators and an Army sergeant at the nearby military base come to suspect enlisted men.

Homicide Capt. Finlay (Robert Young, Father Knows Best) narrows his inquiries to three soldiers, including the brooding Montgomery (Robert Ryan, The Wild Bunch), who was in the victim’s room the night he was beaten to death. The detective is, by turns, aided and impeded in his investigation by Sgt. Keely (Robert Mitchum, Night of the Hunter), who wants to protect his soldiers when it becomes apparent that circumstantial evidence could send one of the men to the electric chair.

But soon Finlay and Keely realize they are investigating a hate crime. They join forces to capture a murderous bigot on the Army base.

Trashy barfly Ginny Tremaine (Gloria Grahame, It’s a Wonderful Life) plays a pivotal role in the climax, providing an alibi for an innocent man. Because he is married and dallying with this woman, the soldier initially refuses to talk. The resulting complications threaten to derail the investigation and let a killer go free.

Historical Context and Significance
Oscar nominated for Best Picture in 1947, Crossfire is based loosely on the novel The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks, a prolific writer whose wildly divergent screenwriting credits include Key Largo, The Last Time I Saw Paris, and The Blackboard Jungle, which he also directed. Decades later, he would write and direct Looking for Mr. Goodbar, starring Diane Keaton the same year she made Annie Hall.

The Brick Foxhole, Brooks’ first novel, was actually about the pick-up and murder of a gay man by a group of drunken GIs. RKO Pictures wouldn’t touch that theme in the 1940s, which is explicitly stated in a studio memo reprinted on the special features section of this disc. Instead, the script was written as a screed against racism, specifically anti-Semitism, with a noir overlay to give the story added bite. In an old video interview included on the disc, director Edward Dmytryk (Murder, My Sweet) says he opted for a noir lighting style because of its inexpensive simplicity. Quick lighting setups allowed Dmytryk and his crew to complete principal photography in a mere 20 days, the director says, which enabled RKO to beat other studios to the market with the first major Hollywood production dealing with racism.

The film features an interesting narrative structure, with Act One unfolding mostly in flashback, Act Two cross-cutting between the killer’s plans to cover his tracks and flashbacks from his perspective, and concluding in Act Three with a game of cat-and-mouse leading to the final confrontation and chase.

There’s fine acting all around, especially from the sensuous, enigmatic Grahame and sleepy-eyed Mitchum.

The Contrarian View
There’s no whodunit aspect to the film, as most viewers will correctly guess the killer well before Act Two (indeed, he is all but identified on the back cover of the DVD keepcase). On the upside, the detectives devise an elaborate trap to catch their suspect. One of the film’s great pleasures is watching this clever scheme unfold — but to a rather perfunctory ending.

Coda
A tense noir, Crossfire throbs with tough, baleful characters spitting vicious invective and throwing punches around like compassion went outta fashion. Terrific, nihilistic entertainment. Watch it with your favorite misanthrope tonight.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Wrong Number: Call Northside 777

Call Northside 777
Fox // 1948 // 111 Minutes // Not Rated

Reviewed by Steve Evans

Opening Shot
Jimmy Stewart saves a slow-moving noir with an early display of the intensity he would later bring to now-classic Hitchcock films.

A bit of plot…

Loosely based on a real Chicago incident, Call Northside 777 opens in 1932 during Prohibition with the murder of a patrolman in a speakeasy. The cops shake down a bootlegger who fingers small-time crook Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte, whose best-remembered role, as mobster Don Barzini, would come nearly a quarter century later with The Godfather). With swift justice and cinematic economy (no more than three minutes), Wiecek is arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 99 years in Joliet Penitentiary.

Flash forward to 1943 and Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb, The Exorcist), world-weary editor of the Chicago Times. Scanning the proofs for tomorrow’s newspaper, he pauses at a classified ad offering $5,000 to anyone who can find the killer of a certain Chicago cop 11 years ago. He assigns hard-boiled news reporter P.J. McNeal (Stewart, Vertigo) to locate and interview the person who would pony up such a huge reward. Turns out, Wiecek’s mother has saved the money by scrubbing floors for 11 years while her son languishes in prison. She believes her boy is innocent.

At first skeptical, McNeal gradually comes to believe Wiecek may be innocent. Applying his tenacious investigative skills to the task of cracking the Chicago underground, McNeal reopens the 11-year-old murder case and writes a series of news articles with an increasingly editorial slant in an attempt to sniff out someone—anyone—who might provide the missing evidence that would exonerate Wiecek.

Historical Context and Significance
This picture was directed by the moderately talented Henry Hathaway, whose more famous noir Kiss of Death had been released a year earlier. Call Northside 777 (the title refers to a telephone number) is also the first movie shot on location in the Windy City, using buildings and outdoor sites that figured in the actual case on which the film is based. Hathaway strives for utter realism, but he achieves it with achingly slow pacing and long stretches that seem to unfold in real time. Perhaps Hathaway was just following the trend he started with Kiss of Death, forcing his actors to give the naturalistic performances that were de rigueur in postwar Hollywood. But in his quest for authenticity Hathaway overlooked what audiences crave most in a crime thriller: the desire to be thrilled.

What we have, then, is an extremely well-written noir that plods along to the final act and a perfunctory ending undermined by embarrassingly silly narration. With sharp dialogue and believable characters, Call Northside 777 is absorbing to a point, but it’s no classic. It may be the most overrated noir ever made.

Some movie guidebooks claim that poor Wiecek is on death row, awaiting execution while Stewart’s newspaper reporter scrambles to save him. This is not correct. If it were, that might give the plot a measure of tension and suspense. There is never a sense of urgency to Stewart’s investigation. Instead, Stewart grumbles and occasionally gets agitated in his inimitable way as he deals with lowlifes and an indifferent bureaucracy. Modern audiences may grow restless, even annoyed.

Still, Stewart shimmers in the tailor-made role of a righteous reporter on a crusade, ably supported by a solid cast. Character actor John McIntire, memorable as Sheriff Chambers in Psycho, here plays a doubting district attorney growing impatient with McNeal’s investigation. McIntire’s droll delivery and bemused expressions are a highlight of any film graced with his presence.

What's on the Disc, Steve?
I’ll tell ya. Extras on the disc are decent if unspectacular, which is probably to be expected with a budget-priced title. The commentary track by film historians James Ursini and Alain Silver offers many interesting insights into the production, such as the decision to shoot principal photography on location. The Movietone news reel is footage of the premiere, with blaring narration and grinning celebrities. The image is scratched up pretty good, too.

The Contrarian View
Distressing amounts of digital artifacts mar the picture at key dramatic moments. Several awkward pauses between chapter stops also seem unnecessary and avoidable, suggesting an inferior compression to DVD. Nothing shatters the suspension of disbelief like a film that pixilates and pauses at the most inopportune times. Audio is serviceable and dialogue-centric.

We cannot overlook the ludicrously solemn narration that opens the picture and nearly ruins what might otherwise be a tight, unsentimental ending. Director Hathaway violates the cardinal rule of film narrative—show us, don’t tell us—especially when the narrator merely explains and overstates what we can see for ourselves.

Loose ends still abound in the final reel, leaving the film with a less than satisfying conclusion. For example (spoiler alert!), after all the trouble McNeal endures to prove the innocence of a wrongly convicted man, we are left with the nagging question: who was the real killer?

Coda
Call Northside 777 ranks among the lesser noirs. Its value exists mainly in Stewart’s finely drawn characterization of a cynical man with a nagging conscience. This was the template he would develop to perfection in a quartet of classic films for Alfred Hitchcock: Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window and, most memorably, Vertigo.

The movie is worth a look for Jimmy Stewart’s transition from glib leading man to haunted obsessive, with World War II standing as a bridge between the two personas.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Billy Wilder's Stalag 17

Stalag 17: Special Collector’s Edition
Paramount // 1953 // 120 Minutes // Not Rated

Reviewed by Steve Evans
Today we explore an acclaimed World War II drama of spies and sabotage, honor and bravery. Our setting is the German prison camp Stalag 17, unwelcome home to American POWs. Some want to escape, others merely want to survive, and a few have private agendas of their own.

Opening shot…
William Holden earned an Oscar at last for his performance in this classic dramatic-comedy of prisoners of war. Legend has it that Holden flung his Academy Award backstage after his victory speech, muttering that he should have won for Sunset Boulevard (the story may be apocryphal, but he was right). Still, Holden’s work in Stalag 17 remains a masterpiece of unwavering, smart-ass cynicism. This was back in the day when the Academy still dished out Oscars based on ferociously good acting, rather than politics or sentiment.

A bit of plot…
U.S. Air Force officers and enlisted men scheme to survive as prisoners of war in Stalag 17. Cynical Sgt. J.J. Sefton (William Holden, The Wild Bunch) bribes the German guards and trades cigarettes for fresh eggs and other luxuries. His philosophy is dog-eat-dog. While the other prisoners plot to escape, Sefton cuts deals and sells shots of homemade hooch in exchange for his fellow prisoners’ Red Cross packages.

Escape from Stalag 17 appears impossible. The first two U.S. officers who try to break free are machine-gunned to death seconds after crawling out of their tunnel. The German guards always seem to be one step ahead of their prisoners. When the barracks leaders realize there must be a spy in their midst, suspicion falls on Sefton, who’s always paying the Nazis in exchange for favorable treatment. The caustic Sefton ridicules accusations that he’s an informer, but his reputation for verbal abuse and shady dealing hasn’t made him any friends in the barracks.

Historical context and significance
Director Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, The Apartment) worked in every film genre. He also directed one of the first pictures formally recognized as film noir: Double Indemnity. A Jewish émigré who fled Nazi-occupied Austria, Wilder took on quite a challenge when he decided to co-write the screenplay for Stalag 17, adapted from a 1951 Broadway play. But Wilder had an unerring ear for bitterly cynical dialogue and he was a genius at blending pessimism with comedy. The result three years earlier had been the celebrated Sunset Boulevard — still the best movie ever made about Hollywood. So perhaps a dramatic comedy set in a POW camp wasn’t too much of a stretch for the ambitious director. The result earned Wilder his fourth Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Holden is the standout in a perfect cast that includes a young Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible) and Robert Strauss, reprising his Broadway role as “Animal” Stosch, the deranged POW with a Betty Grable obsession. Strauss received an Oscar nomination for his show-stealing performance.

What’s on the Disc, Steve?
I’ll tell ya. Some of the casting decisions raised eyebrows half a century ago, but today come off inspired. Wilder hired director Otto Preminger (Anatomy of a Murder) to co-star as the casually cruel camp Kommandant. Like Wilder, Preminger was a Jew who fled the Nazis as they rose to power. Unlike Wilder, Preminger was extremely uncomfortable with this material and especially his prominent role as a German officer (above left, at center). These concerns are detailed in the 25-minute feature on the making of the film, included as an extra feature. This is worthwhile viewing, as the short documentary makes it clear that Wilder’s persuasive personality brought out the best in his collaborators. We learn that Holden wasn’t interested in the project and even walked out after the first act of Stalag 17 during its Broadway run. At that point Wilder toyed with the idea of casting Charlton Heston in the lead, but contractual obligations and conflicting schedules blocked that plan. So the director went back to Holden and put on a full-court press.

Other disc extras include a making-of featurette, and a feature-length commentary from two of the surviving actors and co-playwright Donald Bevan, who shares his thoughts about the adaptation of Stalag 17 from stage to screen. More poignant is a short series of interviews with actual survivors of Stalag XVIIB, as it was called. In chilling detail they recount the monotony and misery of that existence. Hearing their stories, we’re left with the sobering realization that few tragedies in life could be greater than rotting away so many lost years inside a Stalag. A photo gallery of production stills rounds out the extra features.

The Contrarian View
If a German prison camp seems an inappropriate setting for a comedy, just remember that the long-running television show Hogan’s Heroes — which was inspired by this film — carried the concept practically into slapstick.

Coda
A Billy Wilder classic, Stalag 17 endures both as middle-brow comedy and bracingly cynical character study.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

Seeing With Fresh Eyes

By Steve Evans
I recently encouraged a friend to see Truffaut’s Jules and Jim for the first time and she returned with a glowing, radiant smile, and offered a wildly enthusiastic response to this seminal film from the Nouvelle Vague.

While happy for her and pleased that she liked the recommendation, I felt a curious pang of jealousy that got me wondering: how many beloved films would I like to experience again, with fresh eyes, for the first time?

Surely, North by Northwest (still my favorite motion picture), Taxi Driver and O Lucky Man!




Also Chinatown, of course. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. M. City Lights. Steamboat Bill Jr. Psycho. The Wizard of Oz. The Quiet Man. It's a Wonderful Life. A Clockwork Orange and 2001 and Dr. Strangelove. Yes, and The Wild Bunch. Let's not forget The Godfather and its first sequel. Goodfellas.

King Kong (1933), although I would also wish to be eight years old again, as that is an optimal age for viewing this creaky old monster movie.

Most of the films noir from the classical period, especially Sunset Boulevard.

Jaws, though it frightened me senseless 34 years ago.

Even Die Hard – one of the few films I have seen that lived up to its tagline: “It will blow you through the back of the theater!”

Oh, this list could go on indefinitely.

Which films would you wish to experience again, unseen, with all their secrets and surprises waiting to unfold and make you smile or think or cry or enjoy wild, electrifying exhilaration?

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.

White Heat: Film Noir to Scorch the Screen

White Heat was the last, great film noir of the 1940s, a picture that has lost none of its power to astonish and amaze.

James Cagney stars as Cody Jarrett, a mama-obsessed psychopath on a rampage of robbery and murder. White Heat ranks among the greatest films of the genre, unfolding with shocking violence (for its day), incredible dialogue, and a story lifted from Sophocles.

A bit of plot
Jarrett and his gang stage a daring daylight train robbery, murdering the railroad employees as they seize the loot. One of Jarrett's gang is mortally wounded in a freak accident during the raid. Decamping to their hideout, the robbers mull over what to do with their dying colleague. Jarrett's bug-eyed psychosis becomes obvious as he suffers a crippling seizure while arguing with an underling. But his devoted Ma (Margaret Wycherly, The Yearling), who is almost as dangerous as her grown son, comforts Cody and makes sure the gang does not see him in this compromised state. Any sign of weakness could lead to a power grab by Jarrett's associates: thieves and killers all.

Jarrett decides to take it on the lam with his sultry but duplicitous wife (Virginia Mayo, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and calculating mother. As the cops close in, he hatches a plan to take the rap for a lesser crime committed by a hood in another state so he can avoid a death sentence for the railroad caper. His psychosis worsens in prison as undercover cop Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien) joins the inmates in an attempt to ingratiate himself with Jarrett and finagle a confession out of this killer. (Side note: A versatile character actor, O'Brien played Gringoire in the definitive 1939 version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He worked steadily during a 40-year career, collaborating with such cinematic luminaries as Cecil B. DeMille and John Frankenheimer.)

The men escape prison and plot a final heist as Jarrett creeps around town, settling scores with the double-crossers in his old gang. But stupid blunders by his colleagues, and even his aging mother, allow the police to triangulate Jarrett's position and corner the gang at an oil refinery for the justly famous, climactic confrontation.

Under the taut direction of Raoul Walsh (High Sierra), Cagney and the rest of the cast create an indelible portrait of criminals whose honor and trust exist only at gunpoint. Today the film is best remembered for Cagney's harrowing performance as a crazed psychotic, quick with a crude quip and a volatile temper that finds release only in murder. Cagney was a three-time best-actor Oscar nominee, winning for Yankee Doodle Dandy in 1943. That film and White Heat represent his most enduring work, followed by The Public Enemy (1931), a positively feral film in which Cagney famously mashes a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face.

As Cody’s morally flexible wife Verna, Virginia Mayo isn't quite a femme fatale in the classic mold, although her shifty opportunism keeps viewers guessing about her motives and schemes. Margaret Wycherly's performance as Ma Jarrett is a small treasure of the cinema. Her beady eyes, practically shimmering with madness, provide the first of many clues that Cody’s own deranged state has its origins in heredity. It is a stunning performance, every bit the equal of Cagney’s work. Wycherly had won an Academy Award in 1941 for another maternal role, that of Gary Cooper’s kindly mother in Sergeant York – the very antithesis of her work as Ma Jarrett in this classic gangster flick.

White Heat offers much more to amaze the first-time viewer. The violence is outrageous for a film made during the censorial reign of the Hays Code. Dialogue drips with venomous sarcasm. And in the 60 years since the film's release, no other mainstream movie has explored madness and unpleasant Oedipal obsession with such grim relentlessness. White Heat weaves the stuff of Greek tragedy into the hardest noir of the 1940s.

The screenplay by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts was inspired by crime writer Virginia Kellogg's short story. She earned an Academy Award nod for Best Story, the film's lone nomination (it's unclear why Goff and Roberts were omitted). And what fabulous writing it is: Characters bristle and bark at each other in spectacular torrents of verbiage that was simply unheard-of in 1949 and remains amazing today. A taste of that dialogue:

Gangster (voice trembling): “You wouldn't kill me in cold blood, would ya?”
Jarrett (sneering as he pulls the trigger): “Naw; I'll let ya warm up a little.”

At a fast-paced 113 minutes, fans might wish White Heat would unspool for another hour or more.

Thoughts on the DVD
Warner Bros., the studio from Hollywood's Golden Age that specialized in violent gangster pictures, unleashes White Heat with a superb set of disc extras:

Film critic Leonard Maltin introduces "Warner Night at the Movies 1949," an enjoyable time capsule featuring a newsreel, a comedy short, a Bugs Bunny cartoon (“Homeless Hare”), theatrical trailers, and White Heat, our feature presentation. Like the Night at the Movies features on other Warner discs, these selections can be played individually or in succession, which approximates the theatrical experience more than half a century ago when a ticket cost 25 cents, audiences actually got their money's worth, and they didn’t have to sit through asinine commercials.

Film historian Drew Casper delivers an insightful, feature-length commentary on an alternate track, dishing on all manner of production information and trivia for the true fan.

There's also a 17-minute featurette, White Heat: Top of the World, exploring the historic importance of the film, with insights from Martin Scorsese and other filmmakers who speculate on what was wrong with Cody Jarrett. Migraines? Epilepsy? Full-blown psychosis? Whatever his affliction, this short feature is informative and entertaining.

Coda
White Heat is a genuine noir classic. The print and sound on this DVD are pristine, the quality extras are comprehensive, and Warner packages the disc in a smart-looking case at an attractive price.

As for Cody Jarrett, his fate is sealed in film immortality: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”

Ka-boom.

Copyright © 2009 by Steve Evans // dba Cinema Uprising. All rights reserved.