In a Lonely Place

Editor’s note : this review is a translation of one of the first reviews to ever appear on this blog back in 2009. Those were less than a 150 words long and were written immediately after the viewing of each film. This is as aforementioned a translation and a longer edit of this original film review.

In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. But she begins to have doubts...

One of the many films of the 1950’s that is considered as part of the Film Noir genre with crisp black and white, legendary director Nicholas Ray, and Humphrey Bogart. Add to that Ray’s wife at the time, Gloria Grahame, and you have a great film on paper.

The opening scene is a piece of anthology by itself in Bogart’s filmography, his character Dixon Steele, a drunk screenwriter on a dry spell, is in a bar and gets to punch a man, insult another one, and gets into a fistfight. All of that at noon. He represents the wounded man that Bogie always succeeded to portray in films. The perception of this actor can be compared with this character as a man that is mysterious and a bit rude like a wild animal that struggles to be around his peers.

Bob le flambeur

Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956)

Bob (Roger Duchesne), an old gangster and gambler is almost broke, so he decides in spite of the warnings of a friend, a high official from the police, to rob a gambling casino in Dauville. 

As one of the French directors who orbited around the French New Wave without being really in it because he made films before and during the period of this revolution, Jean-Pierre Melville was a strong supporter of the young generation of filmmakers that were coming from Les Cahiers du Cinema emulating American films and threw a big rock into the calm pond of French films.

Melville's films are stylised gangster films widely inspired by Fritz Lang, Anthony Mann, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, and many other directors he regarded as true authorists and forefront names of the Film Noir genre. With Bob le flambeur, Melville does more than just a simple homage to the films and directors that he admired. He brought a French charm of the sexy women of Paris into the Femme Fatale element with Anne (Isabelle Corey) and a much more pessimistic view on gangsterism and transgressing the law. Yes, Bob is cool and his gambler friends have a hype around them, they get beautiful women and are all interested in easy money and low life living.

Having only seen Le samourai before visiting this popular entry in Melville's filmography, I was afraid that Bob didn't stand up as good as his other near masterpiece of coolness staring Alain Delon and one of the most interesting guns and hat movie ever. I have a vivid feeling that Melville's films were huge influence on filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. The latter with an even more prominent presence in his films. Knowing that, Melville's films have a contemporary freshness that their stories and vibe carry along.

Bob le flambeur easily fells into the recommended films category that can be appealing to the film buff but that can also appeal to a wider audience in the way that its storytelling, its qualities, and its value as a piece of entertainment is untouched. 

Ace in the Hole

Ace in the Hole aka The Big Carnival (Billy Wilder, 1951)

American film noir starring Kirk Douglas as a cynical, disgraced reporter who stops at nothing to try to regain a job on a major newspaper.

The Big Heat

The Big Heat (Fritz Lang, 1953)

Homicide detective Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is an honest cop who investigates the death of fellow officer Tom Duncan. It would seem to be an open-and-shut case, suicide brought on by ill health. Bannion, however, is contacted by the late cop's mistress, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), who claims it could not have been suicide. From her, Bannion learns that the Duncans had a second home which would not have been possible on his salary.

Du rififi chez les hommes

Du rififi chez les hommes (Jules Dassin, 1955)

A band of French gangsters plan a heist to rob for 240 millions of francs worth of jewelries. This pretty film is regarded as widely influential on the French New Wave with its two jump cuts. It also was a clear influence on Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. The scene at the middle of the film setting in details the robbery was made without any dialogues and the omnipresent music of composer Georges Auric. It is rumored that the techniques pictured in Rififi was used many times by robbers from all around the world. 

Night Moves (1975)

Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a retired professional football player working as a private investigator in Los Angeles. He is dedicated to his job, but is also following his wife Ellen (Susan Clark) because she and a man named Marty Heller (Harris Yulin) are having an affair.
Aging actress Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward) hires Harry to find her trust-funded daughter Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith), distracting Harry from his marital problems. Harry goes to a Hollywood film set to interview a stuntman he knows, Ziegler (Edward Binns), about an unsolved death during the shooting of a film, and a mechanic, Quentin (James Woods), who knew the lascivious teen Delly before she took off for Florida.

Gilda

Gilda (Charles Vidor, 1946)

Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is an American gambler who just arrived in Argentina to have a new life. After a succesful dice game a mysterious man, named Ballin Mundson (George Macready) saves his life and Johnny says that it is his rebirth. They quickly became partners in Ballin’s gambling house and they share a friendship that may flirt towards a couple. After a trip that Ballin takes he comes back with a beautiful and sexy wife called Gilda (Rita Hayworth). It is more than clear that at the first gaze of each other, Gilda and Johnny, they are sharing a troubled past together. But they keep it quiet to hide it from Ballin and not loose his trust towards both of them.

The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

This article is part of a series ofself- imposed movie reviews set in the participation of this film critic to the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Club. It is an attempt at catching up the reviews that I’ve missed in my recent period of inactivity in the blogosphere.

The only directing credit of respected actor Charles Laughton, The Night of the Hunter is an uncompromised masterpiece of visual beauty, perfect acting, and sociological malaise. The choice of Robert Mitchum as the Reverend Harry Powell who preaches by marrying his former cellmate’s, Ben Harper (Peter Graves), wife Willa (Shelley Winters) and trying to get the stolen money the husband has been hanged for is perfect in this bizarre film. A difficult actor like Mitchum that had a mitigated reputation brings something that no other actor of the time would have had. His gravel voice, tire eyes, and debonaire attitude helps to add that he represents evil in an agent of God’s costume. Getting back on the plot, Powell is sure that Harper has told his children where he hid the money.

Killing Them Softly

Killing Them Softly (Andrew Dominik, 2012)

Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.

Being invited to a premiere is something, but like the last time I got into a premiere it was for Tree of Life, a film I adored at the first sight and that I was expecting blissful things. And believe me seeing that monument of a film in Theaters was quite something. On the other side, getting into Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly was not a film I was expecting that much but I still had high expectations since the last collaboration between the director and Brad Pitt was something that we can easily relate to a near-masterpiece. This movie was called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and boy, what a film it was. A meditative Western on guilt, admiration, and the passage from boyhood to manhood filled with superb performances from Pitt and Casey Affleck.

Our feature, Killing Them Softly, just like the popular song almost titled the same way, describes how Jackie Cogan (Pitt) prefers to kill his victims, he hates the agonizing and the feelings that it brings to him. He is an enforcer called by the local mob of a small town to get rid of the people of who stole the money of the whole mobsters in a card game. Just like Roger Ebert stated in his review: This is a five stars cast in a two stars movie. With the likes of Richard Jenkins, James Gandolfini, and Ray Liotta, all faces of gangsters, one would expect a high quality crime/gangster film. It is indeed a crime/gangster flick, but the label stops here.

The Shanghai Gesture

The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg, 1941)

A young woman, Poppy, out for excitement in Shanghai, enters a gambling house owned by "Mother" Gin Sling, a dragon-lady who worked herself up from poverty to buy the casino. Sir Guy Charteris, wealthy entrepreneur, has purchased a large area of Shanghai, forcing Gin Sling to vacate by the coming Chinese New Year.

Getting into the works of director Josef von Sternberg is something engaging and for some viewers alittle bit exhausting. His visual prowess and richness has never been equalled even compared to a master like Max Ophüls. Sternberg’s films are like a huge snowstorm; it is beautiful to look at but very tiring to try to drive through it. His most distinct work was with star Marlene Dietrich during the 1930’s, most notably with The Blue Angel, Scarlet Empress, and Morocco. With The Shanghai Gesture, Sternberg makes one of his final notable films. Known as a difficult and stubborn director, he fought to keep his artistic vision intact and to stay the only master aboard. Clearly being successful at his craft, he is on the very select list of Pantheon Directors of the late film critic Andrew Sarris.

This extravagant fresco of peculiar characters depicts a young globetrotter called Poppy (Gene Tierney) and her father (Walter Huston) on a business trip in Shanghai. While Poppy wants to enjoy life and meet interesting people, her father purchased a great deal of land in Shanghai and forces its owner to vacate her casino for the Chinese New Year’s Eve. We slowly discover that Mother Gin Sling (Ona Munson), the casino owner, is linked with our two other characters. The story passes from Drama to Film noir and never sticks to one genre in particular. This gives a genuine pace to the film and a unique structure.

The Sternbergian signature is at every corner of every frame and every camera movement. The overcrowded frames of opulence and saturation of Sternberg’s touch can’t be denied. It is sometimes very hard to distinguish a film from a director or another when it comes to the films of this era. However, like Orson Welles or the aforementioned Ophüls, we don’t need the credits to recognize him.

As Jeffrey M. Anderson noted, Tierney captures the role Dietrich may have had in real life with Sternberg. The downfall of Poppy recalls how the director felt hard to recover from the split with his long time collaborator.

This being the third Sternberg film I’ve watched and I can say that it is my least favorite; this spot is still held by Scarlet Empress with The Blue Angel not far behind. The Shanghai Gesture is above a whole lot of other movies of its era, and lesser Sternberg is better than any film worth a look. 

You Only Live Once

You Only Live Once (Fritz Lang, 1937)

The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.

Fritz Lang’s second American feature, the first being Fury, continues on building the themes that will become the cornerstone of Film noir and Melodrama. Starring Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda as the Taylors, Eddie and Joan form a young couple of an ex-prisoner and the secretary of the public defender. This unique union of “good and bad” is linked by the fact that Lang exploits the Rousseau principle on the beliefs of Joan that she believes that every man is born good and that society brings him to do bad things. In fact, the plot of the film slowly evolves into proving that it is quite right.

Wrongly accused and judged of robbing a bank and killing six persons, Eddie goes back to prison to wait for his eventual execution. But before these things happen a strong depiction of how a person is marked for life and that forgiveness isn’t always a given when someone has sinned. Lang’s themes in You Only Live Once revolve around the Catholic themes of guilt, innocence, forgiveness, and unconditional love. The criminal life of Eddie follows him all along the film even if he did not commit a crime to get inside. However, Joan knows that he is good and knows that is feelings for her are pure. For that, she will get into deep trouble as a showing of her love and dedication. Even if someone is not acquainted to Catholic values, the moral dilemmas and observations exposed enriched the keen qualities of the script.

Shot in a crisp black and white, You Only Live Once marks the fact that Lang is establishing himself as one of the most talented storyteller of his time. His mise en scène is methodical and nothing is useless or superfluous. It is easy to take this Fonda movie and to compare it with Alfred Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, also starring Fonda and based on a crime that he may or may not have done. While Hitchcock’s film was a pale attempt to direct a Neorealist film. On the other hand, Lang directs a genuine film that will reverberate itself for decades. There are many similarities between both directors but at some point, Lang is a better storyteller and he is more apt to direct actors and infuse believable characters.

Finally, since Fritz Lang was more of a hard tempered director he had some troubles to get the recognition amongst Hollywood and since he was German this never helped him to fully get the respect he deserved. In the upcoming weeks many Lang movies will be reviewed and have a full spot on them.

Suddenly (1954)

Suddenly (Lewis Allen, 1954)

 Film noir is one of my favorite genre, some will say it's not even a genre because their creators were not aware of making them at the time. They were making thriller/cop/betrayal and mostly B-Movies.

Suddenly directed by Lewis Allen with Frank Sinatra and Sterling Hayden. The story is, Tod (Hayden) a cop is in love with the single mother widow Ellen Benson (Nancy Gates) living with the father of her later husband. They live in the town called Suddenly aka Anytown USA, where the President is supposed to stop with the five o'clock train. In the history of the Town it's the most important event it never happened. A visit by the President includes strong security measures and many precautions. The CIA is there and prepares the "secret" coming of the President. But veteran John Baron (Sinatra), has other plans...


The synopsys of Suddenly won't be detailed muchmore because there are many twists in the plot. The tension is palpable and the action is well executed. Sometimes the acting is way too far but from a film of the 1950's we can forget this flaw and adjust to it. It keeps the viewer on the edge of his seat and it makes Suddenly a very good effort from a good but not great director. Meanwhile, Lewis Allen was a Key Noir filmmaker and his other films are worth a look. Suddenly is far from being a masterpiece but it has its strenght and it delivers!

Scarlet Street

Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang, 1945)
Fritz Lang had an unique life, he escaped Germany when the Nazi party took the power. He was the greatest filmmaker at that time and his life is sprinkled with many twists. However, some historians prouved that he invented or romantized many elements of his tremendous life. Somehow, this does not make him a worst or a better filmmaker. It's even his ability has a great storyteller that's reflected from those mythomanic inventions.

In the first years that Lang lived in America he struggled a lot to be able to do a project in Hollywood. His strong personnality on the set was blocking him and his reputation as a great director did not followed him on this side of the Atlantic. Fritz Lang had to wait to get the chance of directing Fury in 1936. After this film he worked constantly and directed at least a film per year.

We will stop our sight on his very personnal 1945 offer; Scarlet Street. The major themes of Fritz Lang's oeuvre are present in this masterpiece of Film Noir.

The story: A cashier, Christoper Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is married to a manipulative repressive woman, Adele. To escape from his miserable life Chris met a seductive young woman or read here the femme fatale, Katherine March (Joan Bennett) and tells her that he is a painter like Cézanne. But Kitty (Katherine) is only interested in Chris's money especially with the intervention of her boyfriend Johnny. The boyfriend decides to sell Chris's paintings and deceive the art critics by signing them with Kitty's name on it to take advantage. When Chis discovers that he was fooled by Katherine and she doesn't love him and that she is Johnny's lover he murders her and Johnny gets accused of the midemeanor.

The plot is build so tight and every element is so important that it is a real masterpiece only for the story. There are many interesting moments the fade from Johnny to a painted snake represents the temptation of miserliness that Johnny always ask to Katherine. Later we see Chris taking money from the safe of his job, and he puts it into an enveloppe at the same time his boss asks him to withdraw some money, while he waits the boss put his hand on the enveloppe and taps his fingers on it; it creates a great suspens.

The major theme that we can find from Lang's oeuvre, is the assassination of a loved woman. Many historians proved that Fritz Lang with the concourse of his mistress would have killed his first wife Lisa Rosenthal. He haven't been accused of this murder, this is a case closed as a suicide.

I must add that of the many films of the 1930's and the 1940's I been watching recently they all have a Christmas time ending! I am asking myself: Why that much interest around Christmassy endings?

Scarlet Street is withoout a doubt a great film from one of the greatest director of all time. Even with its depressing ending and the raw non-restored copy I watch I think it is a must see!

A review by Michaël Parent

The Asphalt Jungle

The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)


From the director who practically "invented" the Film Noir genre, without even knowing it was a genre at the time, John Huston delivers another classic noir with The Asphalt Jungle. The visual qualities of this 1950 thriller are awesome.


With The Maltese Falcon Huston made his debut as a filmmaker. In his first feature, the story was told from the point of view of the private who was looking to find the famous falcon. In The Asphalt Jungle, it's the side of the diamond bugglars and the other side of the law that is seen. Many characters interact with each other and except for the two women of the film few are innocent. The films of John Huston are all well written and well directed, the ones I've seen include The African Queen, The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon, Moby Dick, and The Asphalt Jungle. The photography of The Asphalt Jungle is inspired and gives a lot of space to the faces of the many characters that habits this film.

Without being my favorite Film Noir or my favorite John Huston film, The Asphalt Jungle deserves a special mention because it is too often overshadowed by The Maltese Falcon.

The Third Man

TSPDT Greatest Films #30 The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)


The Third Man stands as one of the greatest film of all time and considered as the best non-American Film noir.

It’s the story of Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) an unemployed fiction writer going to Vienna after the Second World War for a job offered by a good friend; Harry Lime (Orson Welles). On his arrival, his friend has just been killed by a car while crossing the street in front of his home. The mysterious death of Lime is slowly revealed to Martins as the story goes by.

The set-up of the film is perfect, in 10 minutes the story brings us in a foreign city split by the winners of the war, the many foreign languages spoken and the many levels of authority. Just like Holly Martins we are destabilized by these elements and the viewer will easily identify himself with him. Joseph Cotten as Martins is as usual excellent and perfectly casted. Opposed to Orson Welles, like in Citizen Kane, he is the guy next door, the potential hero, the guy who falls in love with the beautiful widow.

The score performed by Anton Karas consists of only a zither played that reminded me some Spanish traditional guitar performances. It gave a unique casual feeling to the film and fits perfectly with the story. On the visual side, Robert Krasker‘s cinematography is so perfect that every frame could make the poster of the movie. The lighting gave such texture and depth to the images that sometimes the sets seem surreal. The techniques of the German expressionism heritage are noticeable in the visual touch.

The story is credited to Graham Greene but Alexander Korda, Carol Reed and Orson Welles all worked on the story. When we look at the quality of the script it is palpable that all these talents have been blend together. There aren’t any useless scenes and every moment is important for the story. The grand finale of The Third Man demonstrates how every facet of filmmaking is perfectly mastered. The story ends at the place it began and like we say in French: la boucle est bouclée.

The Third Man is considered as a masterpiece of the Seventh Art by Mediafilm and I completely agree with this statement. It stands on the Top 250 of IMDb, the 1001 films you must see and the TSPDT 1000 Greatest Films and entirely deserves its place on these lists. Even with today’s fast editing / zapping / fast food movies that Hollywood has to offer to the public The Third Man is still an entertaining film and not just an “old movie” only critics refer to!