*** Official Film Noir Discussion Thread - Page 14

Scott, welcome back to the world of noir! In answer to your question, and to avoid this list's tendency to rehash earlier discussions , I suggest you consult Robert's arc on 5 Greatest noirs-3 Historically important noirs-2 Otherwise interesting noir films. It started here: http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...37#post2289337

If that arc doesn't exactly capture what you're looking for, I'm sure we'd be happy to respond to your (or anyone's) personal interests. For instance, of the noirs you've already seen, were there certain plot themes, character types, or production values that particularly struck your fancy, and that you'd like to see in other films?

These 5 would be essential viewing.
White Heat
The Big Heat
The Big Sleep
Murder, My Sweet
The Postman Always Rings Twice


Then go with
Gun Crazy
Criss Cross
Shadow of a Doubt
High Sierra
This Gun for Hire
Brute Force
Dark Passage
Detour
He Walked By Night
Kansas City Confidential
Kiss Me Deadly
Scarlet Street
Gilda
In a Lonely Place
The Big Clock
Spellbound
Odds Against Tomorrow
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers



Your mileage may vary but I really didn't care much for these two.
Black Angel
The Stranger

Haven't seen Dead Reckoning & Killer Bait yet.

The Narrow Margin is great but it's not out until July.

To Have and Have Not is also great but it's not a noir flick IMO.

There are plenty more great noirs on DVD but these should keep you busy for a while.

Come back when you're done with these and I'll recommend some more for ya.

In order:

Chinatown overlooked
To Have and Have Not
The Big Sleep
The Postman Always Rings Twice
L.A. Confidential overlooked
Out of the Past overlooked
Gilda
Shadow of a Doubt
This Gun for Hire
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid overlooked
Criss Cross
Dark Passage
The Blue Dahlia overlooked
White Heat
Spellbound
High Sierra
The Big Heat
Dead Reckoning
The Stranger
The Big Clock
The Mask of Dimitrios overlooked

Oh wait. nevermind. Forgot it was April Fools Day.
Almost had me there.

Scott,

Welcome to the thread. I've read many of your posts and you're no different than the rest of us ... just a bunch of film lovers.

I like Jim and George's selections (thanks for the omissions or I was about to start waving my tattered old flag ) as well as Glenn's suggestions about earlier posts in this thread.

I just hope that you work through noir at a pace that allows balance with other types of films so that you don't get burnt out on noir.

You're disagreeing that Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid should be seen? While not strickly a film noir, it is a brilliant parody of the genre, incorporating wonderfully scenes from some of the best film noirs ever, and captures the spirit, admittedly with the unconventional addition of humor, of film noir perfectly. Any film noir fan, who has any sense of humor whatsoever, should definitely see and enjoy this film.

Oh wait! It's April Fools Day. You were just kidding. Whew!

For those (like myself) trying to catch up on noir films that we haven't seen or don't remember well. TCM in April is doing their Darkness After Dawn series of films at Saturday morning at 8:00 EST. Today was Nora Prentiss (which is not out on DVD or VHS.

Others in order will be:

Johnny Angel (VHS only)
High Wall
Conflict (VHS only)
Ride The Pink Horse (which is pretty easy to catch as it seems to be a fan favorite (TCM has it on frequently).

Others may have mentioned this in the past but it bears repeating. A fairly comprehensive listing of film noirs to be shown can be found at:

http://www.tv-now.com/stars/filmnoir.html

This is a 30+ day listing of most film noir films coming up. (editorial note lists Experiment in Terror (1962) (Blake Edwards). Yes the Blake Edwards, who did some things besides comedies and this noir film deserves more attention than it gets)

One that I overlooked in my list of recommendations:

Body Heat

Thanks for the recommendations, fellas. Consider my queue duly re-arranged.

Over the weekend I was able to sit down and savor Gun Crazy, Out of the Past, and The Set-Up. Great films, great commentary tracks, good times all around.

Yeah, that Warners noir box set is tight. Warners noir box #2 = sold, even though I haven't seen any of them (I'd only seen Asphalt Jungle going into box set #1).

Herb/All,

After watching it last night, I don't see how anyone could possibly consider CAUGHT a film noir.

CAUGHT seems to be a blend of (1) classic romance (the tall, dark and handsome brooding knight of industry taking the girl from a poor background to his huge mansion in New York - think Richard Gere in Pretty Woman) and (2) Melodrama. Love triangle, the wrong man's baby in the belly, sad violins in the background and (3) drama.

The only elements that it appears to share with film noirs is poor lighting and strong use of shadows. Note: I think some of the night scenes were processed daylight scenes. That and the artistic creepy sidekick of the captain of industry (in those days, no one is gay merely "artistically creepy").

Not much more to say as the film doesn't deserve much more attention. Avoid this film. By the 10-15 minute mark you know exactly where this is going and just waiting for the end ... any end.

Unfortunately it is listed in every film noir book, but since the term doesn't make sense ...

I've yet to make my private little Max Ophüls retrospective and didn't see the film yet though I have it on tape, but CAUGHT is mostly considered a rather good film.

I wasn't impressed with the OUT OF THE PAST commentary. I admit I'm a huge fan of the film, read much about the actors and the director and naturally feel I could do the job much better , but nevertheless I often thought while listening that Ursini could add even more observations on the characters, the style or the folks who made the film, e.g. his Jane Greer career sketch is too short and unclear. He spent too much time pointing out what about OUT OF THE PAST is typical for film noir which is quite funny since OOP is among the films who helped to define the term film noir. It's a bit of circular reasoning.

Yeah, Armin, I didn't like the Out of the Past commentary very much either. Alain Silver on Murder, My Sweet is quite good, and Glenn Erickson's track on Gun Crazy is really great.

On a somewhat related commentary note, I really liked Dana Polan's track on Angels With Dirty Faces, definitely the best of the Gangster collection commentaries, IMO. He also did the commentary for the upcoming Bad Day at Black Rock DVD.

I did listen to very few commentaries until now, but Polan's was among them and it's exactly what I want to hear, a perceptive discussion of the story, the characters, the style AND information about the filmmakers, about the production with script changes, memos and so on. Loved it. He did also say some critical words which I greatly appreciated since I always thought the movie is quite bad written and suffers greatly from the Code. He is also very right in refuting the possibility that Cagney is NOT pretending that he's a coward at the end of the film.

If Warner will ever release the Noir set in Europe ... contact me, I'll record a new commentary for free ... though I'm afraid I'd spend too much time rhapsodizing about the eternal goddess of cinema and one of the most beautiful women and greatest actresses of all time, the divine Jane Greer :b.

I thought Angels was great, maybe the main difference between Polan's preferences and mine being that I thought Pat O'Brien's character was pretty good.

You're certainly right about Jane Greer, she was THE BOMB in Out of the Past. The old-style DVD cover art appears to have someone who looks sort of like Bette Davis, so I actually had no idea what Greer looked like before I saw the movie. Haven't been that overwhelmed by a new (to me) face in any movie for a really long time.

Let's talk about her only in verses ... looking in these eyes and then dying ...

Could Warner please release THEY WON'T BELIEVE ME??? There aren't that many pictures with Jane Greer around.

Has anyone seen PANIC IN THE STREETS? It is out on DVD. It sounds interesting to get.

Hey Rich,

Sorry for my delay in responding – just got back from vacation. Also sorry to hear that Caught wasn’t to your liking. I quite enjoyed it, although I admit, I can see where many would have a hard time accepting it as noir – even though it tends to show up in many noir writings.

Caught is rather similar to Clash By Night – only somewhat more upscale, although the ending is a bit darker. I suspect your feelings for CBN might be very similar.

I still want to buy the PANIC IN THE STREETS DVD, bUT I opted for something else at the moment (while still wishing I bought PANIC IN THE STREETS too). I am in the mood for watching some film noir. Too bad not much film noir is on TCM this week.

NIGHT MOVES (1975) is a great modern Film Noir. It will be released by Warner on July 12th.

I was asking myself this same question while watching it. Is HOB noir? No, not really.

As for House of Bamboo, I'd say it's one of those borderline films, but that it does feature some characteristics of noir, in my opinion enough to hesitantly call it film noir. It's not something I'd list if someone asked me for quintessential film noirs though. I thought it was a lot more along the lines of a Hitchcock-esque thriller than it was a true film noir. Either way, it's a gorgeously shot movie and I'm glad to own it, even if I did find the script/plot to be a bit generic.

Having just seen Fox's fine presentation of the House of Bamboo on DVD, my first reaction was puzzlement as to why this film is classified as film noir. When I first began reading about the subject, probably about thirty years ago, the respected critical opinion was that such films covered a specific period of American film production; mainly the forties, that they were filmed in black and white and had various identifying aspects such as a crime background, frequently flashbacks, rain sodden dark streets and often a femme fatale.

It seems that the definition of noir has extended since the term was first conceived in 1946 to cover all manner of diverse films as is shown by many of the titles indicated in this thread but I really cannot accept that a film in Cinemascope and color and set in Japan has anything in common with classic film noir such as Double Indemnity. The only commonality House of Bamboo has with noir is a crime background, which on that basis could cover a multitude of films.

What are your opinions on White Heat as a noir?

I was having this discussion with friends the other day to conflicting perspectives.

Would you guys consider this a film noir?

But than can a film as clearly defined in a certain genre, perhaps even one of archetypal influence and referance in regards to that specific genre, be considered of a completely different class of film at the same time?

For instance, can a melodrama or screwball or swashbuckler be considered a film noir based purely on aesthetics when they are so clearly defined in their categories?

What aspects of White Heat do you find "noirish", is it based on the cinematography and effects alone.. or does the story and direction play a hand in it as well?

I'm just curious because I'm of the opinion, as others in this thread have asserted, that a noir picture can touch on and transcend any genre or theme as long as it subscribes to certain aesthetics of "noir" along with somewhat relevant and related topics and subconext. Be it satirical, dramatic, hard edged, whatever. I try to relate it to animation on a broader scale, in that it is almost a medium in and of itself that can absorb any number of identities within a certain general criteria and time frame.

A few of my friends were arguing against this according to the recorded commentary by Drew Casper on the DVD release and by stating that the film is too bright and "rational" and does not fit the criteria of noir. Also the fact that it is defining cinema of the 1940's Hollywood gangster film, somehow negates it falling into the film noir "camp".

I'm not 100% sure whether I agree or disagree. I haven't listened to that running commentary on the DVD yet so I can't comment on that angle, but I'd liek to hear more why you would/wouldn;t consider this to fall into the noir category?