DVD Review: Film Noir Classic Collection, Volume 4

Warner Brothers continues its outstanding Film Noir series by including 10 films, on five double feature disks, that includes films from Warners, RKO, MGM and even an extremely rare and hard to find Monogram film. Most of these films are not what one would classify as essential A noir films like Out of the Past, Double Indemnity, the original D.O.A., The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep but there are a number of them that are in the high B+ range. Until now, many of these films hadn’t even had a VHS release.

The term “film noir” or (dark film) was derived from the French in the 1950s. It was used to describe films that contained and explored paranoias and lost faith after World War II. These movies were particularly popular in the United States where they depicted a dark, depressing, grim atmosphere where nothing and no one was moral. Corruption, apathy and fear were the order of the day. The visual aspects usually included decaying or graphic urban cities highlighted by uses of hard light and shadows, and smoke/mist/rain. The main characters usually involved a male protagonist that fit into an anti-hero mold rather than the traditional good-guy hero.

The male was typically a burned out detective/cop, disillusioned WWII veteran or unsuspecting everyman caught up in a web of lies and deception that he has no control over. These situations were usually set in motion by the protagonist’s insatiable sexual attraction to an alluring, mysterious, gorgeous woman that spelled danger and possibly death for the male protagonist. These women were referred to as femme fatales. They were almost always untrustworthy, greedy, sexually promiscuous and ruthlessly willing to do whatever it took to achieve their goals even if it meant murder.

Each of the films are paired up two on a disk and include extras for each film such as trailers, commentaries, and brief 4 ½ to 6 minute featurettes giving some background on the films containing interviews with directors Oliver Stone, Christopher Coppola, film historians Richard Jewell, Eddie Muller and Drew Casper, film critics Richard Schickel and Glenn Erickson, Patricia King Hanson of the AFI, film noir experts Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward as well as some archived interviews with the featured film’s stars, writers and directors.

Director Fred Zinnemann, who would go on to direct Marlon Brando’s screen debut The Men (1950), High Noon (1952) and won Best Director Oscars for From Here To Eternity (1953) and A Man for All Seasons (1967), gives the film a classic noirish look with his use of hard shadows and light. Watch for how he starts out Enley’s character in the bright sun/daylight to convey his sunny, perfect life then contrasts his mental disintegration and guilty conscience by intensifying the dark, drab look of the film, particularly when the film shifts to Los Angeles. Watch for a classic, haunting scene in a dimly lit L.A. street tunnel where Enley is literally being chased by ghosts and cries out to Parkson.

The extras include a theatrical trailer, the 5 minute Act of Violence: Dealing with the Devil, which includes interviews with Alain Silver, Christopher Coppola, Oliver Stone, Richard Schickel and a commentary by Dr. Drew Casper.

Mystery Street, released in 1950, is unique in the sense that it introduced CSI-type forensics to film noir. In a scene that Spielberg no doubt used at the beginning of Jaws, a human skeleton is discovered on a beach. Boston police Lt. Peter Morales (Ricardo Montalban) takes it to a Harvard where forensics expert Dr. McAdoo (Bruce Bennett) deducts that it was a pregnant, murdered woman. That would be one hot little blonde (Jan Sterling) whom we see gunned down during the film’s opening. Morales eventually traces the girl back to Henry Shanway (Marshall Thompson) who has foolishly tried to conceal his involvement with the girl the night of the murder which of course leads to him being charged with the crime. While all this transpires, the nosey busybody Mrs. Smerling (Elsa Lanchester), the landlady of the murdered girl, is doing some back room maneuvering when she discovers who the killer is before anyone else.

Which the exception of the actual title of the film and the cover art used for the DVD, everything works well here. Montalban brings a sense of authority and youthfulness for what, at the time, must have been a landmark part for a Hispanic actor. The scene stealer here though is Lanchester who proves to be quite the despicable blackmailer beneath her sweet, innocent exterior. She walks off with every scene she’s in. Director John Sturges, who would go on to direct The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963), uses real Boston locations including Harvard to give a real eastern flavor to the film. There is nothing that will blow you away here. Mystery Street is a fairly standard murder mystery yet it holds up well. There are some noir elements in it, i.e. just about everyone except Montalban and Bennett, have something to hide and lie about. It is fascinating to watch Bennett’s character, using his forensics background to literally construct a human from a skeleton. The title however could’ve been better and the cover art, which shows Montalban and actress Sally Forrest as sweethearts couldn’t be more wrong. She plays Grace Shanway, wife of the accused Henry Shanway, and spends the majority of the film loathing Montalban.

Along with the trailer and commentary by noir experts Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, there is the 5 minute featurette Mystery Street: Murder at Harvard with interviews by Patricia King Hanson, Richard Schickel and archived footage from cinematographer John Alton.

Next up is the double bill of Crime Wave and Decoy.

Crime Wave, released in 1954, is one of the better films in the set. Amongst others the film showcases the little known director Andre De Toth as an expert in the noir genre. Escaped convicts Doc Penny (Ted De Corsia), Ben Hastings (a young Charles Bronson listed here though as Charles Buchinsky) and Gat Morgan (Nedrick Young) are on a crime spree knocking off gas stations. Upon arriving in L.A. they murder a policeman while robbing yet another gas station. Gat gets wounded in the process and stumbles to the doorstep of ex-con Steve Lacey (Gene Nelson) and his pretty wife Ellen (Phyllis Kirk). They are forced to become complicit in the gang’s next deal, which involves knocking off a bank in Glendale. All the while, Sterling Hayden’s tough, relentless cop Det. Sims is obsessed with bringing the gang down and putting Lacey, whom he believes has gone back to a life of crime, back behind bars.

All the characters are perfectly cast and are prototype noir. Hayden is perfect as the gruff, mean cop who might have been an inspiration for Tommy Lee Jones in his portrayal of Sam Gerrard in The Fugitive. Even though we know that Lacey is being pressured, Hayden is relentless in his belief that Lacey has strayed. Nelson plays Lacey as a true anti-hero. He is neither completely cynical nor completely trusting of anyone save for his wife. All the crooks are brutal and watch for a bit part by the wonderfully creepy character actor Timothy Carey, a Kubrick favorite, as one of the gang’s goons.

DeToth wisely shoots most of the action at night in the hypnotic L.A. streets and there is uncertainty and fatalism in almost every scene. DeToth also puts the viewer squarely in the action. At the beginning you are riding shotgun with the crooks on their latest heist and in another scene that was certainly controversial for its time, you are given a scene of Ellen removing Steve’s hand from a phone. It is implied that they are in the process of having sex, which is made obvious in the next scene where they are smoking their post-coital cigarettes.

Along with a very enjoyable and funny commentary by James Ellroy and Eddie Muller, there is a theatrical trailer and the 6 minute featurette Crime Wave: The City is Dark with interviews and insights from Richard Schickel, Oliver Stone, Alain Silver, Christopher Coppola, Elizabeth Ward and an archived interview from director Andre De Toth.

Decoy from 1946 is, by far, the biggest revelation in this set. This was a very low budget B movie from Monogram pictures that had only been shown in film revivals and had never seen so much as a video release. There were no stars in it and the lead actress Jean Gillie only made one other film before dying at age 33. This movie pulls no punches in terms of its somewhat campy, outrageous plot, immoral characters and extreme violence especially on the part of Gillie’s character.

Laconic cop “Jo Jo” Portugal (Sheldon Leonard) arrives at Margot Shelby’s apartment to find her dying on the sofa, shot by Dr. Craig (Herbert Rudley) who himself is dead next to her. The entire story is told in flashback as Margot literally looks into the camera and begins to tell us how things ended up the way they did.

Margot, who is a master manipulator with men, has gotten one boyfriend, low-level gangster Jim Vincent (Edward Norris) to help her get the whereabouts of a large loot stolen by another boyfriend, death row inmate Frankie Olins (Robert Armstrong). Frankie is due to be executed and won’t give up where it is unless someone gets him out. Margot then seduces Dr. Craig to help her. He does this by claiming Frankie’s dead body AFTER HE’S BEEN GASSED without an autopsy and revives him back to life by shooting him up with a chemical called Methylene Blue so that he’ll reveal the location of the money. While completely implausible this plot aspect is very entertaining and contains a great deal of laughs when Frankie is brought back to life.

The director Jack Bernhard opens the film with one of the greatest shots ever in noir history that being of a dirty gas station bathroom sink and pulling back to reveal the near death face of Dr. Craig. The film was obviously shot quickly and on the cheap as most of the sets and locations are minimalist to say the least. However, it adds to the bleak, immoral landscape that ALL the characters inhabit. With the exception of JoJo and the Doctor at the end, no one has any soul.

The dialogue and some of the plot is ridiculously inadequate but one is willing to overlook it for the performance of Jean Gillie whose Margot Shelby no doubt inspired Lawrence Kasdan when he wrote Matty Walker in Body Heat so memorably played by Kathleen Turner. Margot is shamelessly committed to one thing only: MONEY. She uses her considerable sex appeal to manipulate then murder every man who can possibly help her without so much as batting an eyelash. Every man, including JoJo the cop, is in love with her and she knows it. It’s no wonder the tagline for this film was “She Treats Men the Way They've Been Treating Women for Years!” It’s a shame that Ms. Gillie passed away without appearing in more films.

In one particularly brutal sequence, she runs over one of her boyfriends with a car then shoots another one as he digs up the money. The scene where she runs over the boyfriend has been trimmed in the DVD however. In the original Monogram negative she runs over him then back up and runs over him two more times. Points are deducted for Warner Brothers not including this footage. Despite the missing footage, the transfer is remarkable for a film that had been thought to be lost.

An interesting side note to consider with Decoy; the screenwriter was one Nedrick Young who just happened to be one Gat Morgan in Crime Wave the other half of this double bill. Unfortunately Young was blacklisted during the HUAC witch hunts of the 50s. Although he was able to find some work after, it was frequently uncredited. One of the other screenplays he wrote and eventually got credit for was one of Elvis’s more popular films, Jailhouse Rock (1957).

There is no trailer unfortunately but there is an informative commentary by Glenn Erickson and Stanley Rubin, the author of the original story. The 5 minute featurette Decoy: A Map to Nowhere includes back story interviews with Stanley Rubin, Erickson, Dick Cavett, and Molly Haskell.

Next is the double bill of Illegal and The Big Steal which contain two of the biggest stars of the genre; Edward G. Robinson and Robert Mitchum. While neither is up to par with the aforementioned truly classic noir performances like Robinson’s in Scarlet Street or Mitchum’s in Out of the Past, both are highly riveting.

Illegal, released in 1955, was actually the second remake of 1932’s The Mouthpiece. The first remake was 1940’s The Man Who Talked Too Much. Illegal features Edward G. Robinson at his best, getting to showcase his tough guy, Little Caesar persona while also showing a sympathetic edge as well.

Of particular note would be the brief but VERY memorable and delicious screen debut of one blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield. She’s only in a few brief scenes as one of Dekker’s bimbos who happens to play a mean piano. Her resemblance to Anna Nicole Smith is eerie and her delivery of her few lines are equally disconcerting. But let’s be real, she wasn’t cast for her acting chops. She was cast because she had two sizeable assets that could make a blind man see and a gorgeous face.

In addition to the commentary by AFI’s Patricia King Hanson and actress Nina Foch, there is the theatrical trailer, and the 11 ½ minute featurette Behind The Cameras from the Warner Brothers TV series which features Gig Young interviewing a legal advisor to films, attorney Gene Williams, as well as a brief interview with Robinson to plug the film. The 4 ½ minute Illegal: Marked for Life featurette points out that the co-writer of Illegal, W.R. Burnett, was also responsible for co-penning some of the great gangster/film noir pictures of the time including Little Caesar (1931), the original Scarface (1932), High Sierra (1941) and the novel of The Asphalt Jungle (1950), which also happened to contain a small but breakout screen role of another blonde bombshell; Marilyn Monroe.

The Big Steal (1949) reunites the stars of one of the greatest noir pictures Out of the Past (1947); Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer. The Big Steal doesn’t come close to their previous collaboration and is more of a screwball comedy/chase picture than noir. Of particular note aside from the acting pair is that it highlights the early directing career of Don Siegel who would go on to greater heights with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and of course his collaborations with Clint Eastwood including Coogan’s Bluff (1968), the underrated The Beguiled and Dirty Harry, both released in 1971.

Hollywood lore has it that The Big Steal was a desperate attempt by Howard Hughes to save Mitchum’s career following his highly publicized marijuana bust. Many actresses turned down the film until Jane Greer signed on as she and Mitchum had a natural rapport and were friends. Much of the film takes place and was shot on location in Mexico, which gives it a different flavor albeit light hearted.

You’ll either love or hate the fact that for the first 20 to 30 minutes, you aren’t sure what is happening and who the good guys and bad guys are. It involves double crossing and the theft of some mucho dinero. Mitchum and Greer both have a stake in finding it so they reluctantly join forces and hightail it after the money. I found it to be somewhat enjoyable although it seemed to be just an excuse for Mitchum and Greer to verbally joust with one another and do the typical screwball arc of initial resentment, grudging respect, trust, and of course LOVE. Not that they are bad at it, it’s just that it takes the forefront of the film, therefore you never really quite buy the suspense until the very end. Even still, you know how the film will end right from the start. But with such great actors as Mitchum and Greer doing their thing and seemingly having great fun, you can still find a guilty enjoyment in the film. Mitchum at this point could play his traditional laconic, anti-hero persona in his sleep and still be fascinating to watch.

All the Mexicans are presented respectfully, maybe too respectfully. It almost seems like Hughes and the other producers went out of their way to appease the Mexican government so that they could shoot there. Ramon Navarro steals the show as the suspicious but patient Inspector Ortega who has a good running bit of him learning English and William Bendix provides some laughs as an Army Captain hot on Mitchum’s heels.

The 4 ½ minute The Big Steal: Look Behind You featurette contains interviews with some of the usual contributors in this set, the commentary is provided by Richard Jewell and there is also the trailer.

The next double bill is Where Danger Lives and Tension. Both films emphasize the femme fatale aspect of the film noir genre to various degrees.

Where Danger Lives, released in 1950, features Robert Mitchum, in a change of pace role for him and the drop dead gorgeous Faith Domergue who just happened to be another one in the long line of Howard Hughes’s starlets/girlfriends with questionable acting skills that he immortalized on the screen.

Dr. Jeff Cameron (Mitchum) has a growing practice and a nice (read GOOD GIRL) girlfriend Julie (Maureen O’ Sullivan.) Yet, he throws it all out the window upon laying eyes on the suicidal yet alluring Margo Lannington (Domergue). In a drunken stupor, Jeff faces off with Margo’s so-called father Frederick (Claude Rains) only to find out that he’s her husband. An ensuing fight leaves Frederick dead and Jeff with a bad concussion which leads him to make one bad choice after another, all involving Margo. As the two make a desperate attempt into Mexico, Jeff’s concussion worsens and Margo slowly starts to show her truly unstable colors.

When she runs off with the boyfriend Barney Deager (Lloyd Gough) an enraged and physically outmatched Warren devises a brilliant murder scheme to get rid of Deager. This involves creating a separate identity as Paul Southern and moving into a new apartment where he meets the delicious photographer Mary (Cyd Charisse) whom he falls for. This causes Warren to have a change of heart regarding his vengeance, which leads to an interesting plot twist that finds Warren having to stay one step ahead of the law while trying to conceal his concocted other identity.

Tension provides plenty of its title. The story is a genuinely absorbing one and after the first half twist, you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen. Director John Berry, yet another unfortunate victim of the Hollywood blacklisting as well as Orson Welles’s successor at the Mercury Theater after Welles left to do Citizen Kane, does a masterful job of building the main characters up then letting the suspense run the rest of the film. He successfully blends several of the noir themes including the disillusionment and difficulties of returning WWII vets that involved broken dreams, dead end jobs, an ungrateful public and untrustworthy spouses which blends in with the femme fatale aspect. Basehart’s Warren Quimby is a believable character that you instantly sympathize with and root for. His transformation from a man of limited confidence and distrust due to Claire to one of confidence and faith due to Mary is fascinating to watch. Noir icon Audrey Totter, had starred in several noir classics as the trampy “bad girl” such as Lady in the Lake (1947), The Unsuspected (1947), Alias Nick Beal and The Set-Up, both released in 1949. As the vain, sexual Claire, Totter is instantly loathsome as she plays any man who can possibly help her. With her voluptuous figure on full display, it’s easy to see how she could toy with men at will. The equally gorgeous Cyd Charisse does what she can as the “good girl” Mary and provides a warm contrast to the evil Claire. For some reason as the film goes on, Mary gets prettier and prettier while Claire becomes more and more repulsive.

Along with the trailer and enjoyable commentary with Audrey Totter, Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward; there is the 6 minute featurette Tension: Who’s Guilty Now that highlights the director John Berry’s troubles with HUAC, features an archived interview with Totter and explains how the film personifies the noir genre better than most.

Last up is the double bill of They Live by Night and Side Street both of which star Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell. They Live by Night, released in 1948, was actually held up for 2 years by Howard Hughes after he took over RKO. Along with masterful, heartbreaking performances by Granger and O’Donnell, this film marked the directing debut of Nicholas Ray. This would be one of the first post-war films depicting alienated youths which Ray would perfect seven years later with James Dean providing the immortal template for troubled, disaffected youths in Rebel Without a Cause. The film also was a clear inspiration for Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty when they made Bonnie and Clyde. There are several shots in They Live by Night that you can notice Penn borrowing from. They Live By Night is certainly one of the more romantic of film noirs which the film wastes no time pointing out. The opening shot is that of the two lovers kissing in a trippy, dream-like haze while the words “This boy…and this girl…were never properly introduced to the world we live in.”

They begin a life on the run with few moments of peace. They marry and find a cabin to lay low for a while. It is only a matter of time though before T-Dub and Chickamaw track Bowie down and force him to do another heist with them. Bowie is resistant but his former partners won’t take no for an answer and he learns that Keechie is pregnant. Unlike most noirs, there is no femme fatale here. In fact, the only “good” people are Bowie, despite being a criminal, and Keechie. Both are young and inexperienced yet have been hardened by their surroundings. Bowie has spent most of his childhood in prison and Keechie has become hardened and cold due to her living with an alcoholic father her entire life. Both are virgins and even remark that they are not familiar with kissing. It is precisely this type of raw innocence that makes this film the most emotional of the set.After Bowie returns from a heist with a watch for Keechie, they are like young children experiencing the joys of live and love for the first time. While the central story revolves around the relationship, Ray shows how the peripheral “grown-ups” are the ones that are responsible for the couple’s eventual downfall. Keechie’s father rats them out to the police. Bowie’s partners won’t leave him alone. A corrupt marriage parlor owner gladly takes their money and even sells them a car with a $500 finder’s fee for himself. A bitter accomplice of Bowie’s, Mattie Mansfield (Helen Craig), betrays the couple at their weakest moment. Perhaps the most telling line comes from a policeman near the end where he remarks that they are responsible for Bowie’s life of crime and Ray subtly uses this as an indictment of a prison system that was unable to reform a young child which Bowie would have been when he first went in. The layers of social context here are revelatory and it’s easy to see how Ray would take them to the ultimate, iconic level in Rebel. The conclusion is noirishly predictable yet despite the tragedy, there is a strange almost spiritual type of hope for the future. That alone makes They Live by Night one of the standouts of this box set. There is a commentary by Farley Granger and Eddie Muller, the 6 minute featurette They Live by Night: The Twisted Road, but no trailer. The other end of the Granger/O’ Donnell double bill is Side Street, released in 1950. This time, Granger and O´Donnell are married from the beginning. WWII vet Joe Norson (Granger) works a menial job as a letter carrier after he has lost a gas station that he invested in. His young wife Ellen (O´Donnell) lives with him at his family´s home in relative poverty. This gnaws away at Joe who dreams of providing the good things in life for his wife. Ellen is about to give birth to their first child yet because of their poor financial status, will have to deliver the child in a county hospital. This is unacceptable to Joe, who decides to steal $200 from a shady lawyer’s office on his route. The $200 actually turns out to be $30,000 and this sets off a chain reaction of events that spirals Joe’s life out of control.Very much like another noir picture released in 1950 that deals with the innocent “borrowing” of money, Quicksand with Mickey Rooney and Peter Lorre, Side Street is very much about the average American “Joe” which just happens to be Granger’s name. Out of touch with society after returning from the war and on a streak of bad luck, he figures there is no harm in “borrowing” a little money. This is precisely what sets off the nightmare that he finds himself getting immersed in as the film progresses. When Joe tries to return the money, he sets off another chain of events that finds him a murder suspect and desperately trying to find the murderous fugitive Garsell (James Craig) that can prove his innocence. You wouldn’t be wrong in saying that films like this are trying to hit you over the head with a certain type of morality; that being “crime doesn’t pay.” Because of that, you know where the film will head. Granger does his best with Joe but he seems too stupid in many of his actions to be truly sympathetic. He’s not a bad man and is supposed to be representative of a certain faction of post-war Americans. They all couldn’t have been this brain dead though. O’Donnell, unfortunately, doesn’t have nearly as good as role here as she did in They Live by Night and is relegated to being in the dark as to what her husband is doing and preying for his safe return. Watch Jean Hagen steal the film near the end as a boozy, heartbroken lounge singer that will haunt you.

One of the saving graces of the film is director Anthony Mann, who helmed the noir classic Border Incident (1949) and was infamously fired by star Kirk Douglas during the filming of Spartacus to be replaced by Stanley Kubrick, and cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg’s work. Shot on location in New York City, Side Street has an excellent nourish look and feel to it. From the opening panoramic shot of the city to darkly lit shots of rooftops, smoke billowing from towers and the Brooklyn Bridge, you can FEEL and SMELL the grit of the city. Side Street isn’t a bad film. Coming on the heels of They Live by Night, however, it is no competition. You do find yourself with an interest in Joe’s fate, even if it’s because you don’t want Ellen to suffer anymore than she already has. The film does get particularly vicious and violent at the end, which culminates with a spectacularly filmed car chase through the streets of the city. The extras include Richard Schickel providing the commentary for the film, a trailer and the 6 minute featurette Side Street: Where Temptation Lurks. Once again Warner Brothers has delivered another masterful set of classic films from the vault that hadn’t seen light in decades. With the exception of the missing footage in Decoy not showing up, this is what a box set should be and is a must buy for any film lover. Film Noir Classic Collection, Vol. 4 is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.