Noirvember: 5 Against The House (1955)

Isn't it always the way. You come up with a jape that involves the perfect robbery, with a casino as your main target, and then someone thinks it's a serious idea, meaning they want to see it all played out for real. That's the basic premise of 5 Against The House, a lightweight and fun noir that props up a weak cast of males with a supporting turn from the lovely Kim Novak.

Al, Brick, Ronnie, and Roy are all university students, and all making their way through the education system after already doing their bit for Uncle Sam in the military. While having a fun time at a casino, our leads see an attempted robbery. This leads to Al (Guy Madison) thinking about how the attempt could have been successful. It's all fun and games, until Brick (Brian Keith) keeps chewing over the idea like a toothpick. Al just wants a nice life, and hopes to marry his swell gal, Kay (Novak), but the gang are about to be drawn into a criminal plan that Brick now thinks is foolproof.

Based on a story by Jack Finney, this is a surprisingly tame and sweet noir from director Phil Karlson, who has more than one or two superior gems tucked away in his lengthy filmography (including Kansas City Confidential and the excellent Scandal Sheet). The screenplay, credited to Stirling Silliphant, William Bowers, and John Barnwell, seems to make the mistake of assuming that all of the cast members are charismatic enough to carry viewers through some dull patches (sadly, that's not the case), but it is helped by the many moments that involve one or more interaction from Madison, Keith, or Novak. Alvy Moore and Kerwin Mathews are Roy and Ronnie, respectively, but they never feel like a vital part of the main group.

If you don't like the criminal plot at the heart of things then maybe you'll like the student shenanigans when our leads are trying to convincingly act like they're not too old to be getting up to such hijinks, or maybe you'll like the look at PTSD affecting one of the main characters (which is interesting to see as a main plot point, considering how long it took to really start acknowledging it as an issue). Sadly, however, you may just find that the film jumps between different tones without settling on anything that keeps you truly satisfied. I enjoyed the strange mix, but I can see many others being very disappointed.

Novak shines in a role that could otherwise have been easy to overlook, and she almost completely steals the movie away from everyone else. Keith is an enjoyable force to be reckoned with though, and makes the arc of his character more interesting and entertaining with the force of his presence, which allows Madison to impress opposite him by simply remaining calm and stoic. Moore adds some levity, Mathews adds not very much, and there's a selection of nondescript, but dependable, supporting players filling out the rest of the cast.

I'm unlikely to ever revisit this one (never say never though), and I'm not going to rush to recommend it to others seeking some darker film noir thrills, but I had a good enough time with it, there are a few decent set-pieces, and anyone already a fan of any of the leads should at least watch it once.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Tales That Witness Madness (1973)

If you can't settle on what one movie to watch at any time then you may as well pick an anthology movie. That is my motto . . . that I just made up for the sake of starting this review with some kind of justification for my choice here. But there's some truth to it. I always tend to enjoy anthology horrors whenever I stumble across one that I have yet to see, and the format allows me to remain optimistic even if one segment isn't working for me. Not every anthology is a winner though, and Tales That Witness Madness is one of the bad ones, which perhaps explains why I never made time for it before now.

The framing device may sound familiar to those who are fans of a certain other, much more celebrated, anthology horror film from the mighty Amicus (and it should be noted that this is decidedly NOT an Amicus film, despite sharing certain qualities). A psychiatrist (Donald Pleasence) is guiding a new colleague (Jack Hawkins) around the Asylum he is due to work in, and tales are told that show a number of key patients being housed there after incidents that would appear to feature the supernatural.

Although I was unfamiliar with writer Jennifer Jayne (credited here as Jay Fairbank), I was very familiar with director Freddie Francis, a legendary figure in British cinema who worked well as a director on films of highly varying quality, but who is also celebrated for his cinematography in films he didn't helm (perhaps most notably on The Elephant Man). Francis did some of his best work throughout the 1960s, especially when working with Hammer or Amicus, and initially seemed as if he was going to do just as well throughout the 1970s, but 1973 feels like the starting point for a downward slide. This may have been due to a lack of the right material, or it may have been the case that Francis was floundering, alongside many colleagues from the big British studios that he worked with, as great changes in the tastes and limits of acceptability rippled throughout the average horror movie viewers.

Aside from Jayne and Francis, this suffers from having a cast that just doesn't have enough star power to make up for the quartet of weak tales. Hawkins and Pleasence are very good, but sadly not onscreen enough, and other positives are Suzy Kendall, Joan Collins (hampered by the fact that she's in what is surely one of the most bonkers horror anthology segments ever), Kim Novak, and Leon Lissek. I am not saying everyone else is awful, although one or two are, but they're generally just there, unable to do anything to distract from the poor writing.

I was hoping that I would watch this and then be able to recommend it as a bit of a forgotten gem, but that was not to be. This is dire, although the first tale did remind me of a short story by Ray Bradbury, which gave me a glimmer of hope that was soon dashed, and the third tale (that one featuring Collins) is memorable for the hilarious lunacy of the central concept. Nothing here is really worth witnessing, sadly.

3/10

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Noirvember: Pushover (1954)

A man and a woman meet in the kind of encounter that could lead to the 1950s version of a rom-com. She is having car trouble. He can offer her somewhere to stay while it gets fixed. But she may have another man in her life. And, as viewers find out in the next scene, her latest admirer is actually a cop. 

Directed by Richard Quine, Pushover is an enjoyable film noir that pairs up Fred MacMurray (as Paul Sheridan, the cop) and Kim Novak (as Lona McLane), allowing them to struggle against their attraction as if both were magnets trying to join together as opposing forces keep showing how they should stay apart. McLane is a woman who is due a visit from her fella, a criminal who has hidden the money from a recent bank robbery somewhere, and Sheridan is one of the cops trying to ensure his arrest, but love complicates the whole situation. And greed. Love and greed. A classic film noir combination.

While not as dark and gritty as many other film noirs, Pushover is an excellent depiction of a man making one bad decision and then seeing events spiral way out of his control, causing the kind of damage that he soon realises there’s no coming back from. Apparently based on a couple of different source texts (“The Night Watch”, by Thomas Walsh, and “Rafferty”, by William S. Ballinger), the script by Roy Huggins continually builds momentum as everyone is dragged towards a tense finale. Quine ensures that everyone can see the pieces moving into place, and he does so without anything feeling rushed or illogical.

MacMurray does a great job of being the dependable guy we’ve seen him play in so many other movies (a man without malicious intent who is changed by the unfolding chain of events that he kickstarted), and Novak is already a shining star in her first credited feature role. If anyone is going to get themselves in big trouble then doing so for Novak feels like pretty good motivation. Philip Carey, Allen Nourse, and E. G. Marshall make up other members of the force who are focused on cracking the case, and all of them do well in very stereotypical roles, and Dorothy Malone stands out as a woman who inadvertently puts a spanner in the works of the unstoppable scheme.

This is never going to crack a list of top 10 film noirs, I doubt it would even crack a top 50, but Pushover is well worth your time. The leads have great chemistry, the supporting characters are all memorable in the right ways, and the tension keeps getting ratcheted up nicely as soon as one small error creates a tragic butterfly effect. I REALLY liked this, and hope others check it out.

8/10

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Bell, Book And Candle (1958)

One of two 1958 movies in which James Stewart finds himself bewitched by Kim Novak, Bell, Book And Candle may be the less-mentioned of the two (the other being Vertigo, of course), but I am sure that those who love this film would sneer at anyone labelling it as a lesser work. In fact, I am now one of those people who love the film, and I know that I would sneer at anyone labelling it as a lesser work. The only label you should put on this is one that says "absolute treat".

Novak plays Gillian Holroyd, a woman who owns a small store in New York. She takes an interest in her upstairs neighbour, a publisher named Shep Henderson (James Stewart), and decides to make a move on him, despite the fact that he is engages to Merle Kittridge (Janice Rule). Shep is helpless to resist the charms of Gillian, largely because she's a witch able to cast a love spell on him. Encouraged by her aunt, Queenie (Elsa Lanchester), and her brother, Nicky (Jack Lemmon), Gillian gets a bit carried away with her scheme, also engineering a meeting between Shep and a writer (Sidney Redlitch, played by Ernie Kovacs) he was eager to work with. If it's really meant going to be a genuine love story, however, then Gillian knows that she has to tell Shep the truth. But will they stay together if the spell is broken?

Based on a play by John Van Druten, Bell, Book And Candle is brought to the screen by writer Daniel Taradash and director Richard Quine. Both may have other contenders for their best films, but this one should be fighting for a spot very near the top. It doesn't feel hampered by the adaptation from stage to screen, it fairly zips along through the 106-minute runtime, and there isn’t a weak link in the central cast.

Stewart does what he does so well, being a level-headed and generally swell guy, while Novak manages to be as constantly mesmerising as she needs to be, especially in the shots that show her using her powers with the help of her familiar, a cat named Pyewacket. Lanchester and Lemmon are both great fun, far less coy about using their magical powers than Novak’s character and happy to play tricks on unsuspecting humans in their company. Kovacs is also fun, especially when he is relaying his “expertise” to characters that he doesn’t realise know far more than he does, and Rule does her best in a role that requires her to be pushed aside very early on. Hermione Gingold also needs mentioned here, portraying the powerful Bianca de Passe, someone who may be able to prove the unbelievable truth to our leading man, and may also be able to break the spell.

I am sure that there are great essays out there about this film, with so much to explore under the rom-com surface, but I am just here with a brief and light review. I will mention the wonderful dialogue, the delight viewers will feel as they watch the plot strands weave together, the great score from George Duning, and the sequence that has Jack Lemmon energetically playing the bongos. But I would also encourage fans of the film to check out more in-depth examinations of it, because it certainly rewards further exploration.

“Double double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble”, I may have got myself in a bit of a muddle, trying to end by encouraging people to see this . . . on the double.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Vertigo (1958)

When I first saw it, many years ago, The Birds used to be my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. I have since changed my mind on that film. Despite the superb set-pieces, there are some other aspects to it that make it a surprisingly weak feature from the master of suspense. And so I moved my love to Psycho. And then Rear Window. Oh, and North By Northwest. The point I am trying to make is that ol' Hitch has a number of contenders that could easily be viewed as his very best. Vertigo should always be in the running.

James Stewart plays a detective, John Ferguson AKA Scottie, who is hired by an old acquaintance to follow his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak). There's a building sense that Madeleine is going to do herself some harm, a notion that solidifies into a reality when Madeleine tries to jump into a bay and drown herself. This is only a temporary reprieve, and Vertigo really kicks into gear after the halfway point, which sees Scottie encountering a woman named Judy Barton (Novak), a woman who seems very much like Madeleine in many ways.

It's always easy to admire the works of Hitchcock while also unfairly dismissing them as nothing more than exercises in thrills and tension, yet so many of his movies have a lot more to them than that. It just so happens that it's usually easier to recommend his films without having to go into too much detail. The real exploration and discussion of his classics is left to people who want to write essays, or even whole books, on them. If you think I am going to try and change that with this brief review then you can think again.

What I will do, however, is try to emphasise just why this is one of the greatest films of all time. Because it most certainly is.

Things have a good grounding in the script, by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor. Although it's structured in a way that makes some of the 128-minute runtime feel like padding, very few scenes fail to provide food for thought, either in terms of the plotting, the characterisations, or the psychological turbulence of the leads.

Then you have a cast all doing excellent work. Stewart gives another wonderful performance for a director he worked well with, moving from his likeable everyman persona into something darker as the film whirls and dives into ever-darkening waters. Novak gives two performances that are almost flawless, particularly as things develop in the second half of the movie and viewers start to wonder if Judy IS Madeleine, or just someone who looks very much like her. The third main player here is Barbara Bel Geddes as Marjorie Wood AKA Midge, a close friend to Stewart's character, and someone who has similar difficulties to him in processing some complex feelings that she at least manages to manage in a slightly more healthy manner (at least outwardly anyway). There are others (Tom Helmore as the husband of Madeleine, a number of very small roles for characters populating the world that these characters move through, but the focus stays tight on the central pair, for the most part).

Add the masterful direction to this and you have quite the heady brew. Hitchcock isn't afraid to show the psychological cracks deepening and affecting the environments around his leads, and he also manages to show the effects of vertigo with a dolly zoom effect, still used best in both this film and Jaws. Love, obsession, control, regret, madness, all of these things and more are explored in Vertigo, in a flowing and beautiful series of scenes, accompanied by yet another one of the best music scores from Bernard Herrmann.

Watch it, take it all in, watch it again, take more in, and be sure to have it to hand whenever you want to enjoy an absolute classic.

10/10

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