Noir-vember: Strangers On A Train (1951)

It's a classic conceit, but only because this Alfred Hitchcock movie did it so well. Two strangers end up in conversation on a train (hence the title) and one puts forward his idea for a perfect murder: two people who aren't really connected commit a murder on behalf of the other party. So begins this enjoyable thriller, based on a tale by Patricia Highsmith and worked into screenplay by a few different people, including Raymond Chandler.

Farley Granger plays Guy Haines, a minor British celeb on the tennis circuit, and Robert Walker is Bruno Antony, the stranger who starts talking about a plan that he actually wants to put into action. Guy is having a hard time trying to arrange a divorce from his wife, Miriam, which would free him up to marry the lovely daughter of a US Senator, while Bruno seems to have spent many years carrying around a hatred of his father. Time passes, and it's not long until Bruno has done what he sees as his part in a confirmed deal. Guy is shocked, and also afraid. He doesn't know how to best explain the situation to the authorities, especially while Bruno has his personalised cigarette lighter in his possession, ready to plant at the murder site to incriminate him much more than the circumstantial evidence.

Although the central idea was very familiar to me, and will be very familiar to anyone who has even the most cursory knowledge of the film, or the many films/TV show episodes it has influenced, I had no idea that things would cut to the chase so quickly. Bruno is a psychopath, which becomes clear after those initial scenes, and that makes it very easy to believe that he starts off this chain of events after the most non-committal conversation with Guy.

As expertly constructed as you would expect from Hitchcock, this arguably sits alongside his lighter offerings. While there is danger for our guilty-looking hero, it always feels as if Guy will find some way out of his predicament. It helps that he eventually confides in his understanding partner, Anne (Ruth Roman), and that he has the truth on his side, even if it won't really seem like the truth when he tries to explain it to the authorities. His actions may seem a bit silly at times, but it's hard to think of other ways in which he could have sought to clear his name and get everything resolved satisfactorily.

Granger is decent in his role, required to look nervous and sweaty for most of his time onscreen, and Walker is very entertaining as someone who quickly casts off any semblance of normalcy once a sliver of his dangerous madness is shown. Roman is lovely, just the kind of person you would want on your side if trying to clear your name and maintain a smooth course on a journey of true love, Leo G. Carroll is as good as ever as her father, the Senator, and Patricia Hitchcock (daughter of the man in the director's chair) has fun in her role, the younger sister of Roman's character, prone to saying whatever she thinks, without considering whether or not it is something others may want to hear.

I can't say that this would rank up there with the very best of the Hitchcock movies I have seen, and I have seen a great many of his works, but it's absolutely worth seeing, and makes up for a lack of major set-pieces throughout with a finale that features the police firing a gun far too carelessly at a funfair, a carousel on superspeed, and a villain who remains unrepentant even as some major evidence comes into plain sight.

8/10

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Noir November: The Long Goodbye (1973)

Also known as THAT Philip Marlowe movie that starts off with an extended sequence that shows him trying to feed his cat, The Long Goodbye is to noir what Blow-Up is to traditional whodunnits. Director Robert Altman, working from a script by Leigh Brackett (which is based on the tale by Raymond Chandler), keeps a lot of familiar touches here, but he derives a lot of subversive fun by placing Marlowe as a man out of time. He's an anachronism who can still manage to get results, mainly because he's underestimated by everyone he comes into contact with,

Gould plays Marlowe, and that famous opening sequence leads straight into the first main plot point. It's the middle of the night, but a friend named Terry (Jim Bouton) turns up on Marlowe's doorstep, looking for a favour. He's in a bit of trouble and would like a lift to Tijuana. Marlowe obliges, because that's the kind of friend that he is, but that just leads him into trouble over the course of the next few days. It turns out that Terry is supposed to have murdered his wife, and he owed a lot of money to someone who doesn't take kindly to being taken advantage of. Meanwhile, the detective is also hired by a woman (Nina van Pallandt) who wants to find out exactly where her husband (Sterling Hayden) has got to. The two situations soon start to intertwine, and Marlowe starts to suspect that there are connections he has yet to figure out.

As much a product of the time as the many classic noirs that influence it, The Long Goodbye is a fine example of how to have your cake and eat it. Altman has his fingerprints all over the thing - the camera movement, the overlapping dialogue, the focus on characters taking precedence over the plot getting from A to B - but he also keeps everything that makes Marlowe who he always has been. Of course, a lot of credit should go to Brackett's screenplay, but there seems to have been a lot of improvisation on the set (particularly from Gould and Hayden) and leaving in what worked is as beneficial to the movie, of course, as cutting out whatever didn't.

Gould gives a fantastic performance as Marlowe, and I'd go as far as saying it may well be his career-best. Making the most of the chance given to him by Altman (his behaviour had led to him being slightly ostracised from major productions for a while), he makes the character his own, yet retains the essence of the character. Smart, laid-back, funny, cynical - he and the film are one and the same in their approach. Van Pallandt and Hayden both do brilliant work in their supporting roles, with the latter particularly memorable, thanks to his character being louder and slightly larger than life. Mark Rydell is the man who wants the money owed to him, and he's pretty good. Initially coming across as not particularly threatening, he has enough heavies to back him up anyway, but shows just how ruthless he can be with a shocking moment of violence that really hammers home the point about just how far he is willing to go to deal with any problem.

Despite the style of the movie seeming to push against the entire history of noir, The Long Goodbye earns its place among the classics. It's a GREAT Philip Marlowe film. It just happens to be a very different type of Philip Marlowe film.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Goodbye-Blu-ray-Elliot-Gould/dp/B00MYMTANU/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1416503530&sr=1-1&keywords=the+long+goodbye

Noir November: The Big Sleep (1946)

Directed by Howard Hawks, and with a cast that includes Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers and Elisha Cook Jr, The Big Sleep is a movie that I'm sure many could automatically rate as an outright classic. And it is one. Having said that, it's not perfect, with the main weakness seeming to stem from the source material (by Raymond Chandler). Perhaps I'm being slightly blasphemous, but there's never any real sense of danger here, or even anything that crops up in the second half of the film that causes you to care any more about how things will turn out. Of course, that's partly because everything is set up so brilliantly in the first half, with great characters given great dialogue.

Bogart is Philip Marlowe, that most famous of American private detectives. He starts to get himself into trouble, as usual, when hired by an elderly man (General Sternwood, played by Charles Waldron) to investigate a case of blackmail. The old man has two daughters, one a bit of a wild child (Vickers) and the other a real tough cookie (Bacall). Marlowe wants to ensure that neither one ends up being the focus of any unwanted attention, but he soon ends up with a corpse or two added to the mix, at least one missing person he wants to track down, and some heavies intent on stopping him from sticking his nose where it doesn't belong.

Hawks is a good director, as fans of classic cinema already know, but it's hard to appreciate his craft when the leads are stealing your attention throughout the movie. The script, by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman, absolutely crackles during every exchange of dialogue. I can't think of one major scene that doesn't have some eminently quotable lines in there. It's just a shame that it can't remain as pitch perfect when it comes to the twists and turns of the plot, and the resolution. The climax, in particular, feels a bit rushed and, well, anti-climactic. Perhaps that's because the case itself doesn't have too much to interest the viewer, or perhaps it's inevitable after so many great scenes filling up the rest of the runtime.

Bogart is brilliant for every second that he's onscreen, as he so often was with this type of role. Tough, verbally dextrous, smart, and cynical. Bacall matches him almost every step of the way, although her character does have weaker moments, as the plot demands. Everyone should know by now that the two have a chemistry together you can't manufacture so the real surprise comes from seeing how much fun occurs when Bogart shares scenes with Vickers (who is wonderful), the gorgeous Dorothy Malone (not in it for long, but long enough to make an impression), or Sonia Darrin. Waldron is very good in his relatively small role, Elisha Cook Jr. pops up for a few scenes, and John Ridgely makes for a decent antagonist (but is he a villain or a red herring?).

It's not a perfect film, not to me, but it comes close. Very close.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/TCM-Greatest-Classic-Films-Collection/dp/B002945DUM/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1416317112&sr=8-6&keywords=the+big+sleep

The Blue Dahlia (1946)

While it's no classic, and certainly a rung or two below The Glass Key (a film sharing many of the cast members), there's some easy fun to be had with The Blue Dahlia, a film written by Raymond Chandler and directed by George Marshall.

Alan Ladd plays Johnny Morrison, a man who gets home from military service to find that his wife (Doris Dowling) hasn't exactly been sitting at the window with a lamp on, awaiting his return. She's been living it up, particularly enjoying the company of Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva). The husband and wife argue, the husband storms out, and later that night there's a murder. It looks like Johnny is the man the police desperately want to get a hold of, but his friends, played by William Bendix and Hugh Beaumont, don't want to see him imprisoned. Even if they suspect that he may have done it. Johnny also finds an ally in the shape of a woman (Veronica Lake) he doesn't realise is actually Mrs. Harwood.

The Blue Dahlia may not have the best script or the most thrills, but it's an enjoyable enough watch, thanks mainly to the characters populating the onscreen world. Ladd has always been more of a stoic than charismatic lead, but that suits just fine in a film such as this. Lake is always captivating, Da Silva is enjoyably slippery and nobody does the big lug quite like Bendix. Will Wright, Tom Powers and others all help to keep boredom at bay.

There aren't any surprises here, no twists and turns beyond those that fans of crime flicks will see coming a mile away, but everything moves along well enough. There's a final scene that ties up any loose ends, without spending more time than necessary on each detail, and every element onscreen is at least competent and satisfying, despite being unspectacular and a bit lacking in excitement. Still worth a watch though, especially for anyone who enjoys the movie stars of this era.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Noir-Collection-Kirk-Douglas/dp/B000UWXM1C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384710199&sr=8-1&keywords=film+noir+collection

Murder, My Sweet (1944)

AKA Farewell My Lovely

Dick Powell stars as private eye Philip Marlowe in this adaptation of a Raymond Chandler novel that entertains while never really attaining greatness.

Marlowe's day starts when he's asked by a big moose of a man (Moose Malloy, played by  Mike Mazurki) to track down a woman he loves. Moose turns out to be a bit of a hard man to keep passive, but that's only the start of Marlowe's worries. He then agrees to accompany a man (Lindsay Marriott, played by Douglas Walton) as an exchange is made - cash for a stolen necklace. The exchange doesn't go according to plan, and Marlowe finds himself getting deeper and deeper in trouble, thanks, he suspects, in no small part to Mrs. Helen Grayle (Claire Trevor) and her step-daughter, Ann (Anne Shirley).

Adapted for the screen by John Paxton, and directed by Edward Dmytryk, Murder, My Sweet has some decent dialogue and an entertaining cast of characters (with Moose Malloy particularly reminsicent of some Dick Tracy hoodlum), but nothing feels quite as sharp as it could be.

Powell isn't terribly charismatic in the lead role, which ultimately drags the whole film down a notch, and the two main ladies also fail to really create any sparks, although both do slightly better than anyone else onscreen, with the exception of the enjoyable Mazurki. Donald Douglas is good as an exasperated Police Lieutenant, but Otto Kruger and Ralf Harolde are both instantly forgettable as soon as they move offscreen.

Fans of this type of movie WILL find enough to enjoy here. The plot twists together nicely, a few one-liners tickle the earlobes and the finale is enjoyable and satisfying. But there are many other movies more deserving of your time.

6/10

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