Film Noir lists and resources

Just a bit of fun I thought I’d share here - this is the ringtone I use for txt message notifications.

Nice and short – it is the first 6 seconds of the opening theme to Double Indemnity and I think works well as a notifier ringtone.  Used as a ringtone for calls, your phone will probably repeat it with a 1 second gap  for the 20-30 seconds before it goes to voicemail.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ll probably add a few more Noir themes ringtones, please feel free to send your own and any other bits and pieces just as wallpapers etc…

The Web is one of my favourite Film Noir movies, but is often over-looked or under-rated by critics, making a studio release highly unlikely.

Do you have a Film Noir which has been forgotten entirely or is under-rated or dismissed by the critics?

Let me know either by e-mail to info@noirlists.com or through a comment to this blog.

5 DVD copies of The Web will be given to the 5 best suggestions courtesy of rarephiled.com

If you already have a copy of The Web, or would simply like a different title, you can request this.

Offer closes on 1 December 2009 – All entrants will be subscribed to the noirlists newsletter, which is a monthly roundup of news and you can  unsubscribe from using one-click

Review of The Web – 1947

The Web is a low-budget crime film from 1947 directed by Michael Gordon, who was also responsible for The Lady Gambles and Woman in Hiding before being blacklisted in the early 1950s Communist Witch-hunt.  His best known film is probably Pillow Talk starring Doris Day, directed after his return to Hollywood in the late 1950s.

The Newsweek review from June 1947 notes that The Web has ‘no involved puzzles to be solved no psychopaths running around loose with improbable problems and no geniuses solving them in the name of law and order’

Robert Ottoson in his 1981 book ‘The American Film Noir’ notes that ‘What it does have is a plethora of betrayal and deception so common to the film noir’

Ottoson also notes that The Web is one of the more efficiently turned out and underrated film noirs of the late forties.

I would have to agree with him on both points, as it is not even included in Alain Silver & Elizabeth Ward’s Film Noir Encyclopedic Reference (third edition).

Michael E Keaney did note the film was ‘entertaining and, at times, suspenseful, with noir icon O’Brien and the masterful Price providing enjoyable performances, but then only rated the film 2.5 out of 5 in his Film Noir Guide.

The Web firstly has a very strong cast perfectly suited to the roles -

• Edmund O’Brien plays Bob Regan, a brash young lawyer
• Vincent Price is rich industrialist Andrew Colby
• Ella Raines is his live-in secretary Noel Farraday
• William Bendix is the suspicious cop, Lt. Damico

The film opens with O’Brien going to Price’s office about a minor incident involving one of his clients.  Price is obviously very powerful with a host of assistants and associates surrounding him, but O’Brien barges his way into a meeting to confront Price, before then flirting with Raines.

The dialogue from the start is snappy, O’Brien’ s hot-headed lawyer meeting Price’s unflappable businessman and Raines cool, in-control secretary.

O’Brien impresses Price with his style and the loyalty he shows to his clients and is offered a job to protect Price for $5,000 – ‘I’ve heard of that kind of money’ is his response.  Price is concerned about a former associate, Kroner, who may hold a grudge having just been released from prison after serving 5 years for counterfeiting bonds worth $1million.

To get a permit to carry a gun, he visits an old acquaintance on the police, Bendix, who begrudgingly arranges the permit.  Later that night in Price’s house, O’Brien hears a gunshot and rushes into Price’s private office in time to shoot  Kroner as he struggles with Price.

The DA accepts the testimony of Price and O’Brien that Kroner confronted Price with a gun and threatened him, the gun went off as the two men struggled before O’Brien entered and shot Kroner is self-defence.  However, Bendix has other ideas and asks to see O’Brien straightaway.

Bendix has been a cop long enough to see that everything doesn’t add-up or adds-up too neatly.  What was the pay off? he asks -  Kroner went to prison for forging bonds worth $1million, but the money was never found – If Kroner hid the money, its still waiting  for him, so what’s he so sore about? – A permit for a gun is approved and used later the same night – Kroner is released and the next day dead -  All the time there’s no sign of the $1million.

O’Brien collects the $5,000 from Price but turns down the offer of a permanent job.  O’Brien’s suspicions are increased when Kroner’s daughter (after breaking in, pulling a gun and being disarmed)  tells O’Brien that her father didn’t break-in but was invited to Price’s house that night.

O’Brien, believing he may have been used as a ‘patsy’, has the dilemma that he can only straighten everything out and get to the truth by jeopardising himself.  Why would he risk proving that the killing was in fact murder, when he had been the one pulling the trigger?

What follows is a series of plot turns as O’Brien and Price try to out-smart, trick and deceive each other, with Raines caught in the middle.

What makes The Web so enjoyable is that the storyline never seems contrived.  The tension is left to build between the main characters with a believable ending.  All done without the need of introducing a new character or new evidence that ruins so many film noirs.

Unfortunately, I cannot do justice to the dialogue in The Web, which sets it apart from most B-movies and is the reason I would recommend this film to any noir fan.

Raines is a real treat as Ottoson notes – ‘Ella Raines was probably the closest actress in films to be a real Raymond Chandler heroine, especially in her no-nonsense manner, which made her the equal of any man.‘

O’Brien was always a dependable actor and Bendix remains one of the most underrated actors of this era. Vincent Price is well suited to the charming, handsome businessman role, with just the hint of a sinister undertone.  In truth, Price doesn’t have to do much physical acting here, his magnificent voice taking care of  the role for him.

The Web is unfortunately not available on a studio release DVD.

It is available from some of the collectors on the noirlists.com website.  There are also 5 copies to be given away to the best recommendations for other often over-looked or under-rated Noirs – more details in the next blog post.

This appears to be a very welcome release by Sony from the Columbia archive.

The 5 films included are -

• The Big Heat
• 5 Against the House
• The Lineup
• Murder By Contract
• The Sniper

Extras include;

Like the character played by John Cusack from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelty, I have yet to out-grow the teenage boy’s fascination of the Top 5 list.
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My Film Noir Top 5 always includes Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Blvd & The Web. The 5th entry is interchangeable depending on mood, how recently I’ve seen the movie or anything I’ve read or watched that reminds me of a scene or plot in a movie. But it is usually Out of the Past, DOA, The Killers, Rear Window, Strangers on a Train or Laura.
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The first 3 are of course masterpieces of cinema. You don’t need to understand anything about Film Noir to enjoy Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon or Sunset Blvd. The same goes for Out of the Past, The Killers, Laura and the Hitchcock movies.
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DOA is probably not a must-see movie for anyone but Noir fans, but it turns up regularly on TV and its innovative plot-line makes an enjoyable viewing.
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The Web therefore sticks out like a sore thumb. I won’t try to convince anyone that this is an essential film, a cinematic masterpiece or anything that it isn’t. It is simply a low-budget crime film, with a decent storyline, good acting and a good script.
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It doesn’t try to be overly clever, intricate or important. The plot, script and acting all work well with a good cast. Too many films are spoiled with over-acting, unbelievable lines in the script or a plot that is overcomplicated, trying to trick the viewer so that the ending is an unexpected climax.
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For me, The Web is a perfect Film Noir.
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I will review The Web in the next blog, with an offer of free copies.

The wrong man is a recurring theme in Film Noir Movies and Noir Fiction – an innocent suddenly finds himself the main suspect of a crime, usually murder, through bad-timing, rotten luck or more sinister reasons.

In nearly every instance, the innocent must evade capture and clear themselves, usually by confronting and often dealing with the real villain. The prospect of surrendering to the police, explaining the circumstances and letting the police sort it out is seldom considered and rarely the option taken.

In a short story, Dusk to Dawn, published in Black Mask in 1937, Cornell Woolrich provides the mental arguments of a young man suddenly suspected of murder.  The young man had been attempting to steal a dollar from the pocket of a sleeping man, unaware he was already dead from a knife in the back.  He was spotted by a witness but managed to get away and had to figure out what to do next.

” And finally this argument presented itself:

If they once got hold of him and believed he’d done it, that might satisfy them, they mightn’t even try to look any further, and then where would he be?

A clear conscience doesn’t always make for courage, sometimes it’s just the other way around.  The mystic words ‘circmstantial evidence’ danced in front of his eyes, paralyzing him.”

Film Noir – examples of The Wrong Man

• The Blue Dahlia
• Bodyguard
• Boomerang
• Call Northside 777
• Circumstantial Evidence
• Crime Against Joe
• Double Jeopardy
• Highway Dragnet
• Loophole
• Man in the Net
• Man on the Eiffel Tower
• Man With My Face
• 99 River Street
• People Against O’Hara
• Phantom Lady
• Price of Fear
• Shadow on the Wall
• Stranger on the Third Floor
• Sun Sets At Dawn
• Terror Street
• They Won’t Believe Me
• Thirteenth Hour
• Unmasked
• The Web
• Whispering Footsteps
• The Wrong Man

For links to copies of these films on DVD, visit www.noirlists.com

As I plan to write some articles on Noir Fiction in relation to Film Noir, I think its best to give a bit of background about my reading habits first.

I have been known to state (repeatedly) that I read the Maltese Falcon before having seen the movie. I was probably aware that there was a film of that name, but I didn’t know what it was about, who was in it or even if it was any good.

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Anything in black and white meant a boring Sunday afternoon when I was growing up the 1980s.

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Also, I was never a reader as a child and only attained an interest at college, when I borrowed a copy of a Elmore Leonard novel and was instantly hooked.

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I’d never had any interest in the books we studied at school, and then suddenly here was someone writing about an adult subject in such a way to make me giggle like a school-kid.

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So, I tried a few other writers and I recall trying a Terry Pratchet novel. I like Terry Pratchet as a person, he’s always entertaining on TV or radio and I have no doubt he is a very talented and funny writer – I do remember laughing at parts of the novel – but I could not care less about the characters in his book. Science Fiction or Fantasy in books, on TV or films has always left me cold.

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The appeal of the Elmore Leonard novels were the real-life aspects of the characters, they talked like real people, made mistakes like real people and as in real life things never seemed to go just as planned.

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After running out of Elmore Leonard books to borrow I had to start looking for other authors. I tried many, many different authors and genres over the next few years, but I started to notice that the authors I kept returning to – Jonathan Kellerman, Kinky Friedman & Lawrence Block and later James Ellroy and Ian Rankin – had one thing in common, Crime!

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The review quotes on the covers of the novels by Lawrence Block and James Ellroy kept referring to Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, and off I went on a crime novel spree that has lasted more than a decade and shows no sign of slowing.

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Somewhere in the middle of reading the Chandler and Hammett novels, followed by a few of James M Cain, Jim Thompson & Horace McCoy’s, I became interested in Film Noir movies – their appeal is much like the fiction, good film noir movies have believable characters, plots and dialogue.

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However, unlike my taste in films which remains nearly 100% Noir, my tastes in novels are much more varied.

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Lawrence Block remains my favourite author with his Scudder & Burglar series of novels, but you can’t really get further apart in the crime genre. The Scudders are hard-boiled noirs, whereas the Burglars are traditional whodunits in the Agatha Christie vain updated to a contemporary New York setting.

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Kinky Friedman’s wise-cracking country and western singer turned unofficial private eye alter-ego, takes up about the same space on my bookshelves as James Ellroy, the king of modern noir.

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Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus novels, as well as Henning Mankell’s Wallander, Sjowall & Wahloo’s Beck and Indridason’s Erlendur provide a distinctly different, Northern European voice from the American novels.

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Elmore Leonard still has a place on the bookshelf, but he is now outnumbered by Charles Willeford, Joe Gores & Paul Auster.

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When browsing in a book shop, I have easy test to see if its worth spending much time – simply go the crime section and compare the Christie’s with the Chandler’s. More often than not, there’s a whole line of Christie’s and if you’re lucky one or two Chandler’s. Sadly, its all common to go through a whole crime section without spotting a single Hammett, Chandler or Cain.

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Do you know a bookshop worthy of recommending to Crime & Noir fans?

Make your suggestions by adding a comment to this blog or e-mailing info@noirlists.com

Review of the Price of Fear – 1956

Available from rarephiled.com - http://www.rarephiled.com/35.html

The Price of Fear is a minor noir, given 2.5 stars our of 5 by Michael F Keaney in his Film Noir Guide.

The opening scene at a dog-track is accompanied by the voice-over -

“This Dog Track is nothing to do with the story, but without it there wouldn’t be any story, because a racketeer’s desire to get control of it, set forces in motion that caused a man and a woman who had never met, and were not likely ever to meet, to converge on each other like express trains, and with the same result”

Thus setting forth the film’s Noir credentials with a plot full of double-crossing and a hint of corruption.

Former Tarzan, Lex Barker play the straight part-owner of the dog-track.  A gangster has just bought out his partner’s stake in the track, whom Barker confronts and threatens in the gangster’s club.  In a taxi leaving the club he is tailed by the gangster’s men and gets the taxi driver to stop, so that he can slip the tail.  He gets into a car conveniently left on the street with the keys in it.

Unknown to him, the car had been involved in a hit and run earlier that night.  The car’s owner, a successful businesswoman played by Merle Oberon, watches her car being taken from a nearby phone box, where she was about to report the accident, but instead now reports the car stolen.

Meanwhile, Barker’s former partner is gunned down outside the club and Barker is the main suspect.

The police start to look for Barker in connection with the murder, but he is picked up for Grand Theft Auto, with the hit and run charge tagged-on.  The time of the hit and run proves that whoever was in the car could not have gunned down Barker’s partner, and Barker is happy to let the police charge him with the hit and run.

Oberon, knowing that Barker can save her from the hit and run charge that could ruin her reputation and career starts an affair with Barker.  The gangster wants the hit and run charge dropped, so that he can get Barker charged with the murder rap and assume control of the dog track.

This is where the promising plot starts to falter – there is a race to find the taxi driver who can clear Barker of the hit and run, the pawnshop owner who states he sold Barker the gun the night before, the hit and run victim’s daughter who wants justice and Barker’s policeman friend who doesn’t believe Barker is capable of either charge.

All the double-crossing, new characters and sub-plots fail to add further intrigue or tension to what turns out to be a very predictable ending.

In September, the BBC in the UK ran a short series of Film Noir films, including Stranger on the Third Floor and Lady from Shanghai.

To accompany this, they produced an hour-long documentary entitled ‘The Rules of Film Noir’.

For a limited period rarephiled.com are giving away a free copy of this documentary with all orders. visit rarephiled at http://rarephiled.com/services_43.html

The documentary was written and presented by Matthew Sweet with contributions from George Pelecanos, Roger Deakins, Paul Schrader and Sarah Churchwell amongst others.

Clips from numerous Film Noirs were used to illustrate points made in the documentary, in particular Out of the Past, Double Indemnity & The Big Heat.

The premise of the documentary is what rules would you follow if you were making a Film Noir? And the rules they came up with were –

• Choose A Dame With A Past And A Hero With No Future
• Use No Fiction But Pulp Fiction
• See America Through A Stranger’s Eyes
• Make It Any Colour As Long As Its Black
• It Ain’t What You Say It’s The Way That You Say It

Overall a very enjoyable, but certainly not indepth look at Film Noir, well presented with good contributions from the experts.

Film Noir was a term first used by French Journalist Nino Frank in 1946.

He was describing the darker feeling he saw in the early batch of movies arriving in France after the end of the second world war.  These movies would have included Stranger on the Third Floor from 1940 and Double Indemnity from 1944.

There are a number of common themes found in the movies considered to be Film Noir – an ambiguity in the traditional good guy/bad guy Hollywood hero and villain, strong femme fatale characters and a backdrop of corruption in the police and politicians.

The question of what separates Film Noir from other crime films has been widely commented upon and written about over the years.  Rather than try to create a list from scratch, Noirlists.com attempts to provide a definitive list by drawing on the previous writings of critics and scholars.

But Noir is not restricted to the movies.  After all many of the Film Noir movies started as works of fiction, as novels or short stories and serials in the pulp magazines of the 1920s to 50s.

Raymond Chandler credited Dashiell Hammett with updating the crime novel in 1920s – Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish.

Chandler, with James M Cain and Cornell Woolrich continued this tradition creating many works that would be turned into Film Noir movies.  Chandler & Cain also worked in Hollywood as scriptwriters and Woolrich is credited with over 20 stories that were filmed during the 1940s and 50s.

Modern use of the Noir term continues in both Fiction and Movies.  James Ellroy’s novels certainly continue the classic Noir themes and film makers have always returned to crime and gangsters for their storylines.

Particularly in fiction, the term Noir is constantly applied to crime novels, sometimes accurately and sometimes simply as a marketing tool.  For example, the term Tartan Noir has been used to describe a new wave Scottish crime-writers.  While some may genuinely have Noir themes, like Val McDermid or Ian Rankin, it is indiscriminately applied to any new scottish crime writer.

Over the following weeks and months, I will post further information on the theme of Noir, the films and novels.

In the meantime, please visit www.noirlists.com and please let me know of any errors, corrections or suggestions.