Film Journal Podcast
George (Film Journal) and Ryan (Cinecrisis) dig through film history one oddball pick at a time—hopping from cult horror to forgotten blockbusters, art house to trash fire (sometimes in the same episode). Whether it’s dissecting Hammer Horror, roasting the latest Studio Flop, or revisiting 70's exploration fare- they bring sharp takes, deep trivia, and the kind of banter only good pals can pull off!
No film school snobbery. No hot take clickbait. Just smart, funny conversations for people who like movies and think they actually matter.
Film Journal Podcast
Film Noir: Shadows in Cinema Part 1
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What exactly is film noir? It's a question that has plagued film scholars and enthusiasts for decades, and one we tackle head-on in this deep dive into four classic examples of the style. While many mistakenly label film noir as a genre, it's more accurately described as a distinctive visual and thematic approach to filmmaking that emerged primarily in the 1940s.
Through our examination of The Glass Key, Laura, Double Indemnity, and The Big Sleep, we uncover how film noir evolved from gangster pictures and Depression-era pulp fiction rather than simply representing post-war anxieties. We explore the fascinating character archetypes that define these films – from the "classless" detective who moves between social worlds to the dangerous femme fatale who uses men to achieve her goals.
Double Indemnity emerges as perhaps the quintessential noir, with Barbara Stanwyck's unforgettable performance, razor-sharp dialogue crafted by Raymond Chandler, and Billy Wilder's masterful direction. We examine how the film's visual style – with its high-contrast lighting, venetian blind shadows, and smoky interiors – became synonymous with noir aesthetics. Meanwhile, The Big Sleep demonstrates how even a convoluted, nearly incomprehensible plot can be transcended by electric chemistry between leads and brilliant dialogue.
What makes our conversation particularly fascinating is our attempt to define something that inherently resists easy classification. Film noir exists in that shadowy space where good and evil blur, where characters make questionable choices we find ourselves rooting for, and where the visual language of light and shadow reflects the moral complexity of the stories being told. Whether you're a noir aficionado or just discovering these classics, our exploration offers fresh insights into why these films continue to captivate and influence filmmakers today.
once again, everyone, thanks for coming out. If you're tuning in live, we really appreciate it. It's fun. Um helps make these. Uh, I guess it puts you on edge a little bit. Right, you want to perform?
Speaker 2a little bit. Yeah, there's no editing anything out you know.
Speaker 1What's our goal tonight?
Speaker 2Talking about a distinctive style of cinema tonight. I say style specifically because, although some people might say genre by accident, this is not a genre, this is a style of filmmaking. Film noir.
Speaker 1Could you call it a cycle of filmmaking, Meaning that like because I don't you know to say style means you're kind of going for something, Whereas I think a lot of these guys made these unwittingly. So in a way, it's sort of like a post hoc definition for like a phenomenon. That's a very valid point. Yes, but I think the nomenclature is is kind of, this is like all semantics and stuff.
Speaker 2So yes, I think what you just said is 100, true, um, but I think uh, the way it's described in most uh literature seems to be that it is a distinct thematic and visual style of filmmaking. That, yes, when it came in a very distinct wave of time period, right 100 I think, a big interest of ours when we're talking about film noir.
Speaker 1First of all, we like film noir movies and ryan, if you could sort of extrapolate uh, we picked four films to talk about tonight the glass key, the big sleep, laura and double indemnity, which are all three of them are definitely hard and fast top 10 classics of the genre. Now I, I picked the glass key. Um is considered a noir, sure, uh, by richard shickle, anyway, he talks about his double indemnity bfi book that I was just reading. But um, it sort of doesn't fit super comfortably. But in that way, by talking about it, we will kind of move towards a definition of film noir, which I think is interesting to me because I like to classify stuff and put things in little boxes. If you watch a lot of my videos, a primary interest of mine is discovering why a movie resonated at a certain time or out of what social circumstances made this movie possible. So in that way, the mystery behind film noir and its origins has always been very compelling to me. But what do you like about these movies?
Speaker 2Well, I personally am attracted to these movies because other than and I've talked about this a lot in the past obviously my gateway into the world of vintage cinema, old school films, was the horror genre, right, so I was talking about universal monsters and all that kind of stuff, all that good stuff. Well, that only gets you so far. And the next step in, you know, pursuing an interest in this, you know beyond, just, you know, casual, was film noir. So, um, one of the, uh, one of the movies we're gonna be talking about tonight, laura was one of the first film noirs that I encountered.
Speaker 2It was when, um, I think my mom was buying all these like dvds at costco which were like the fox film noir collection they put out you know probably what is this? Like late 2000s, mid to late 2000s, and um, they were just cranking out every catalog title they had and you could get them pretty cheap at costco and um, the first one I popped in was laura and I was hooked. I mean, this is like I I hesitate to call it like a perennial noir, because in so many ways it is a noir, in so many ways it is not, so it's uh it's kind of it's kind of fascinating in that regard.
Speaker 2It's it's ha as a exemplary film noir but yet you can make the case that it's not at all so. In that regard, I have a personal connection to that film that serves as a gateway drug to all these other movies.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's sort of a famously irascible genre. It's kind of like that. I know it when I see it defense, right. There's sort of a feeling to it where you get the idea that you're watching a film noir, right. But yeah, I think to come up with a particular definition of it is difficult, because we were talking last night about how they get pretty liberal with the definition. I mean, you talked about how you saw Casablanca was characterized as a noir, because I guess it takes place at night and there's light coming through, you know, window shades, but it's definitely not a film noir movie, because I think for a film noir, well I mean, go ahead, go off, go off.
Speaker 2No, no, no, no, you please, please, give me your, me your.
Speaker 1I mean, I've heard notorious talked about as a film noir, it just. But you can't get to the stage where everything that's black and white, that has an element of crime in it is somehow a film noir. That can't be the case.
Speaker 2No, not at all, and I, and as I was telling you in, one of the books. Even it's a it's, you know, a pretty hardcore book. This, the passion book on film noir. Um include movies like vertigo and psycho as film noirs, and I think that's just absolutely crazy, uh, to do that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I agree, because it's moved out of. I think film noir definitely exists within a specific time and place, like people put sort of arbitrary dates on it, like well, it started in 1940, um, and it ended in 55, or it started in 45 and ended in 55, right. But I do think that it is definitely the it's like the product of a seminal time, right, and I think by the time you get to the 60s it's over. You know, and I guess if I had to think about it, there are certain I wouldn't say there's one holistic idea behind film noir, like, oh, if there's an element of fatalism, that's film noir. No, because I mean, that's in vertigo, right. But I think that if we were to jump into our discussion of the glass key, I think we can, we can touch on some of this stuff. Would you mind if we just jumped right in?
Speaker 2one second though, I would say, and I think, the great point, though, is that the glass key serves as a good example of a transitional film.
Speaker 2I think, in order to really understand the noir concept, you have to understand what came before, and so, as you look at 1930s movies, what's very popular, what was a very popular trend at the time especially Warner Brothers was the pinnacle studio for this was the gangster film, the, the pinnacles, the, you know, pinnacle studio for this was the gangster film, right, I mean, that was a very, very popular genre. That kind of um exemplified the times that people were living in, you know, in the great depression era and all that um. You had movies like the public enemy and little caesar, where criminals were, you know, kind of vaulted as uh, as heroes to a certain extent, but you always knew that they were bad. Their intentions were never shrouded as having any kind of goodness or altruism to them. They were looking out for themselves, number one, and if they took some of their heat out on the establishment and the powers, that be so much the better. The audience got a thrill of it, but they were always punished for their crimes at the end of the movie, right?
Speaker 2right correct as we move, as as things move on and things get a little bit more complicated. The protagonists of film noirs sort of can be like that, but we now add many, many shades of gray to those, to those personas, to those protagonists, where now we, as the audience, are being subverted and asked to identify with those characters on a different level that we maybe, perhaps, were not, as somebody in Little Caesar or you know any other gangster film right.
Speaker 1James Cagney robbing the bank and, like you know, acting as an affront to the police, is sort of vicarious entertainment, right, and the filmmakers could justify themselves by saying, well, he gets shot in the end. You know, Mother of Mercy is just the end of Rico, right, Sort of to disregard the past hour and a half of mayhem and insanity that we've witnessed as these guys go on like a rampage. But with this, yeah, you're asked to identify or be in the position of, basically, I think a hallmark of film noir. A lot of times a definition that I liked is that you either have a seeker hero or a victim hero, right. So in the Billy Wilder film Sun boulevard, or or a double identity, you have a victim hero, right. Average guy gets roped into some kind of scheme, I mean oh god, would you, would you call?
Speaker 2would you call walter neff a victim, though I mean, that guy is.
Speaker 1That's a bad dude in and of himself, though come on yeah, but I mean, what if he had committed the crime if it wasn't for the nudge right? I mean, he is sort of a victim here. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's a I mean victim of. You can be a victim of your own vices too, right I like to think of um.
Speaker 2We're not talking about this movie tonight, but since you brought that point, I think the uh john doll in um gun crazy is much more a victim hero than Walter Knapp. Would you, would you agree with that?
Speaker 1Yeah, sure, cause Walter kind of comes up with the whole plan, right. I mean he, you know he. Yeah, I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying, but he's a victim of circumstance. He's a victim, you know what I mean. It's like it all leads to his, his ruin. You know what I mean. It's like it all leads to his ruin. You know what I mean. So, therefore, he's a victim of circumstance, of society, whatever it might be right, these characters make a decision and they're doomed, right.
Speaker 2I like that. Better is that he is a victim of society. He's been pigeonholed into this world of and now we're getting too much into the movie but's been victim, pigeonholed into this world of the insurance business right, where he sees all the horrible things that people do to each other and how the insurance companies then also screw over the individuals too, and he wants to subvert that right sure, sure, um, let's get into the glass key, because I think talking about gangster movies is really important to to set the stage here, cause we could just keep going like this forever.
The Glass Key: Gangster Film to Noir
Speaker 1But I think by talking about some of these movies we'll excavate some more information. So I'm going to pull up this really rad PowerPoint. Sebastian Urbano says sin of crisis, back at it. Yes, sir, we're back. Thanks for tuning in. Appreciate it. This is the glass key.
Speaker 2It was directed by some guy who, uh, went on to do a lot of tv shows, right, to be fair, I, I, you know, I thought about the exact same thing, but then I realized I've seen multiple movies that this guy has directed. This guy's name is stewart heisler and they're not anything great, but, um, he did make the um, paramount uh, monster horror movie, the monster and the girl, which is about a uh, I think it was. If I recall correctly, it's about a criminal who gets his brain transplanted into a giant ape so look out for that one and uh, what was the other tokyo joe with?
Speaker 1oh yeah, you did tokyo, joe, which is good With Humphrey Bogart.
Speaker 2Very good, very underrated.
Speaker 1That's a very cool movie.
Speaker 2I mean, you could sort of classify that more as a noir Than the Glass, key Almost, to a certain extent.
Speaker 1Yeah, because I didn't think there was that much. It's not a romantic movie, if you get what I'm saying. It's not as sentimental as a Casablanca, though it has a very similar character, which is sort of a Western transplant to a foreign country where he can kind of get along with the locals and knows the scene right. Yeah, tokyo Joe is cool. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember really liking it. Go ahead.
Speaker 2Oh no, but back to the glass key. You picked this movie, so I'll let you go first.
Speaker 1Yeah, I did pick this movie because I remember watching it and I really enjoyed it and thought it was awesome and I loved Alan Ladd and I loved his, his rapport with Brian Donlevy. I really like their relationship. It's a very unique relationship to where you have this. I don't want to say Alan Ladd is sort of a subservient character but you get the feeling a lot of times that he's smarter than Brian Donlevy, who is sort of a heavy gangster. He's kind of like a boss tweed style guy right or a Huey Long style political organizer gangster. You know what I mean. I've heard accounts saying that the story was based on Baltimore, which was Dashiell Hammett's hometown, which was Dashiell Hammett's hometown. Dashiell Hammett, along with other authors like Colonel Woolrich and James M Cain and Raymond Chandler, will discuss more as it pertains to the origin of film noir. That started basically in pulps of the 30s. But this movie, the Relationship, basically inspired the movie.
Speaker 1Have you ever seen Miller's Crossing, the Coen Brothers film? No, I've not. One of their absolute best and it's basically a remake of the glass key with a few more, uh, extra steps thrown in there. But, um, I like that idea of the of the alan ladd character being um, like he lives to serve this guy basically, and you get the idea. I mean, he's loyal to him and he likes him and he'll basically do anything for him, but not in like a ass kissing way. It's almost like he does what's best for his friend. You know, he's just an absolute trooper and incredibly stoic and focused. It's very much almost like a ryan gosling style character today, like a drive type character, like a nicholas reining revan type character. Uh, because he submits himself to just like absolute brutality throughout the entire film.
Speaker 2But go ahead, which is shocking to me and there's a comment says I was surprised to see cinecrisis gave it a low rating.
Speaker 2I I gave it, I guess, a two and a half when I when I first watched it I watched it I watched it a second time and I I liked a little bit more, but I I like this movie, but I don't love it. Um, I agree, um about the the perception of the alan live character. It's a very interesting dynamic between the two of them, but I think that's that's something that's born out of respect that he has for someone who is in a, uh, a position of superior, uh authority, right he is he, he does.
Speaker 2He has a level of respect for his boss, so to say so much that he will. He wants to do things but he knows he should not do them and he needs permission from the boss even to get the girl at the end of the movie, right?
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2So he knows what boundaries he should and should not cross. But he's always looking out for his boss in the end. And it's interesting, we're back at Brian Donlevy again, dr Quatermass right out for his boss in the end. And it's interesting. Uh, we're back at brian don levy again. Dr quater mass right, you know, all things come full circle what you're right.
Speaker 1Brian don levy is dr quater mass yeah, you didn't, you didn't realize that I didn't make that connection.
Speaker 2No, holy I've never seen a movie with brian donnelly. Now I've seen like multiple ones in the last, you know, a couple months.
Speaker 1I did not even make that connection, but you're absolutely correct, I didn't even. He's Quatermass. Wow, okay, that's interesting. Okay, great Thanks, brian. No, he's good in the movie, it's fun. It was a surprisingly dark movie, in my opinion, surprisingly violent. We have William Bendix here, who was a great actor and will make another appearance in the film the Blue Dahlia, also written by Raymond Chandler. He's a returning veteran who has a metal plate in his head which causes him to have momentary amnesia and lose control, which is really fascinating. But he is a very maniacal, tenacious thug in this film who basically just beats up alan ladd like brutally and I was shocked at the application of like the makeup for alan ladd's face after they got done beating him senseless for like two days. There's a sequence in the film in which alan ladd allows himself to be captured in order to get information and sow seeds of discord in the rival camp of gangsters that are trying to undermine his boss, and they just beat him senseless, which is kind of shocking to me when I first saw it.
Speaker 2And how often is it that you would see the ramifications of that, where the character actually ends up in the hospital afterwards and that's a significant part of the story afterwards, actually ends up in the hospital afterwards.
Speaker 1And that's a significant part of the story afterwards, and also, too, the sequence in which the publisher of the newspaper is convinced to kill himself because Alan Ladd shacks up with his wife right in front of him.
Speaker 2That's the scene where he really asserts himself as the true alpha male of the movie, right.
Speaker 1He's a stigma male for sure.
Speaker 2The way we described him at first, you would almost seem to imply that he's, he's a sigma male, for sure he, he's. Um, the way we described him at first, you would almost seem, uh, to imply that he's like a beta, right to to brian not at all but he's not at all. In fact he's, he's the alpha, but he is, he knows his place right. It's almost like they're it's because there's a respect, there's a respect and admiration for each other that they have he knows he'll be better as a number two.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, and that's a good point. That's, that's a respect and admiration for each other that they have.
Speaker 2He knows he'll be better as a number two. Yes, yes, and that's a good point, that's. That's a really really good point, too, is that some people are destined to be in charge and to lead and some people are really good, as that right-hand man they have. They know they don't have the aspiration or the the do the know-how to be on top.
Speaker 1So why bother? Right or just the gravitas to, to just you know. Supplicate yourself to the public like brian don levy has to do right. That's not. That's not alan ladd's game, you know he's. He's a chief of staff guy.
Speaker 2Part of the reason part of the reason that I did give the movie a lower rating the first time I watched it is, um, some of the motivations of the characters are a little off and kind of sketchy, right? I mean, the whole motivation of Brian Don Levy's character throughout the movie is that he's infatuated with Veronica Lake, right? Just?
Speaker 2just one time meeting her where she slaps him in the face and now he changes his entire life to to appease her, to suck up to her family, to get her father elected to the whatever county commission or whatever it is, and it seemed a little flimsy to me just on that. And then the second thing was okay, now I lost it but I'll I'll come back to it, but that was, that was one of them.
Speaker 1I've not read the book but I'm sure it's. Maybe it's a very complicated plot, right Like it kind of whisks you around really fast and all of a sudden you're with this wealthy to do family and they have a sort of ne'er do well son who gambles, and then there's a sister character that's involved with her and then he's murdered and Don Levy becomes sort of like he's very he becomes a s very about the guy being killed, but like he didn't do it, so it's just like.
Speaker 2It's sort of like you're right, there's sort of weird motivations going on there's a lot of like incestuous relationships but like kind of Don Levy has a sister and the sister is romantically involved with Veronica Lake's brother who's the murder victim. So Don Levy is implicated as a suspect in the murder because he didn't like him and it becomes all this, you know circular connection between the people. So it gets a little much and, as I said, some of the motivations are kind of like didn't really buy into it. And you know, oh, I was going to say you mentioned William Bendix, who I'm also a very big fan of. If you look up most things about the Glass Key, you're going to find his performance is one of the standout. You know parts of the movie which I agree with. It's a pretty remarkable performance, for what otherwise is is pretty bland. Um, you know, sorry, no offense, but like um, also a big fan of, uh, him in lifeboat I think we've talked about lifeboat yeah yeah, not a big fan of lifeboat for some, or am I?
Speaker 2no, it's good, I like it, it's fine he plays the uh, one of the passengers um, who's like a german extraction, and the uh, the, the german um captain, is like baiting him into your allegiance to which country and all that. So it's kind of it and he throws himself overboard, uh like, kind of like he can't take or no, I think the german captain throws him overboard right and says like he, he threw himself.
Speaker 1Or something like that, yeah, he was always a very volatile presence on screen. Right, trying to think of what other films he's been in. He's been in a lot. He was in a lot of new hours as a heavy. The big steel with Robert Mitchum and, yeah, trimly colored says I'd sent for Veronica Lake. Probably I can't blame him. Yes, veronica Lake Gorgeous Started a lot of film noir's. Uh, probably her most famous film, sullivan's travels, maybe with joel mccray yeah, I say her biggest movie.
Speaker 2And then, um, she starred in four films with alan ladd, including, uh, this gun for hire, which is really good but do you think, besides her, her obvious attractiveness, um, she's, she's pretty, she's pretty dull and stiff and she doesn't have much I would agree with you.
Speaker 1She has kind of this cute pouty voice and obviously her signature hairstyle, but nothing like Bacall. There's no smoldering energy there. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2there's no or even if you wanted to compare her to someone like Marilyn Monroe, for instance, who I would not, because I think Marilyn Monroe had so much more talent than this. You know you're talking about someone who's known for their you know just became a star because of their look, their attitude, all this.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2Lake was kind of more like a flash in the pan for my money. Yeah.
Speaker 1And I think, yeah, I think that, think that unfortunately, with Veronica Lake she sort of died penniless. If I'm not wrong, I think she ended up having to become a cocktail waitress.
Speaker 2Yeah, she died at 73 at age 50, so not a very long life.
Speaker 1No, it's terrible.
Speaker 2We'll get to another actress that also had a very tragic life when we talk about gene tyranny. That's also another one.
Speaker 1That's uh right pretty sad story to her life um, okay, yeah, the glass key, I uh, I really I really enjoyed. I like the mood and the vibe. Um, I think it has something in film noir that would be sort of an emerging phenomenon, which is that I have a quote here from a film scholar named Vivian Sobchak who wrote an essay on film noir that's considered rather seminal and in this she sort of tries to dismantle the idea that film noir was a product of post-war malaise or whatever kind of thing they try to make up right, I think I read a quote to you from eddie muller, obviously the famous, you know, tcm noir alley host, where he had said something to the effect of uh, yeah, I got it underlined here in this great book called um pulp fiction, from pulp fiction to film noir, which examines yeah, and you have eddie m Muller's book there, I have Eddie Muller's book there which this basically examines like the connection between, like you know, how did film noir, how depression era pulps really informed film noir? Right, and Muller says I think the notion that film noir grew directly out of the Second World War is a little specious, a is a little specious, a little too convenient for grad student theses, and I think that's right.
Speaker 1Something else that gets mentioned a lot is oh, women were in the workplace and so the emergence of the femme fatale is sort of like a Freudian reaction to the idea of women gaining power within society. Right, and I read an interesting essay that's included in the Criterion Blu-ray for Mildred Pierce. That sort of knocks that idea down too. But Sobchak makes the case that she thinks film noir is sort of born of, uh, a time after world war II where there was a housing crisis right, too many people are there was.
Speaker 1There was a lot of, um, movement into the city and you see the emergence of a lot of non-familial spaces in the city and these are places where film noirs take place Bus stations, I think. She mentions here roadside cafes, that's always boarding houses, hotel rooms, diners, nightclubs, bars. And even when you have homes in these film noirs, they're always either incredibly palatial or, like Laura's house, they just kind of look like a really fancy, like swanky cocktail lounge kind of right. Um, so there's sort of this absence of like familiarity and home in these movies and everything takes place in public areas at night, and she thinks this is because people had more expendable income and so people were spending more time in these places and it's definitely more the extremes of those public places.
Speaker 2So either you have a very, very high end high class and you showed the disparity between the two right. You have people in the extreme upper echelons of society and then the haves and then you have the have-nots who are living in you know basically tenements, or you know kind of sleazy areas of town slums, and that becomes a big part of driving the wedge between these two groups, and as people try to mobilize their position in society as well, this becomes a means to an end right.
Speaker 1And there you have enter the character of the detective, which the reason why the detective is so interesting, whether it be Mickey Spillane or Marlo or Sam Spade, is that the detective is a sort of classless noirs have their origins in some of these writers pictured here James M Cain, hammett, chandler, guys writing during the depression. Dashiell Hammett was a famous Hollywood leftist right. I mean he was a communist right Called up in front of the HUAC hearings, but a lot of his writing was very much almost like the Upton Sinclair style. Like I'm going to stick it to the, to the, you know the, the forces of capital and stuff, right. So he has sort of like a chip, you know a little bit right. I mean this was a sort of famous like a political leftist. So I think a lot of that idea of the have and have nots and that sort of dichotomy sort of ends up bleeding into the forties because of the source material. But that's my sort of.
Speaker 2And that's a great way to think about the glass key as well. Right, it's kind of ironic what the entire plot of the movie is before we get into the murder, and all that is that you have this very shady character, right.
Speaker 2Brian Dunleavy plays a, basically a you know an organized crime boss to a certain extent, right, and he's going to throw his weight behind this you know legitimate candidate for office who's running to you know sweep up corruption and all this. So the irony of that character helping to elect this other guy does that taint his reputation as well? Or is he trying to come clean? Uh, you can kind of have that, that dynamic between the characters as well.
Speaker 1So yeah, absolutely. But yeah, hammett was famously married to lillian hellman, who, uh, she wrote the film. Uh, dead end. You ever seen this?
Speaker 2uh 1937.
Speaker 1It's a william weiler movie and it's got joel mccray and humphrey bogart. It's shot basically it was adapted from a play that she wrote. It's set on the docks in new york city. It's tremendous. It's a great movie but very much a sort of social, uh commentary movie about, um.
Speaker 1You know, I'm saying so this, this, these stories sort of emerged from here and I was reading in this book, um, that I picked up at a bookstore called the Censorship Papers. It's from like the 80s, sort of like a. This is sort of an out of date book. You wouldn't make this now because you can look this stuff up, basically right. But I know that Columbia and MGM wanted to adapt Double Indemnity and the Postman Always Rings Twice, the James M Cain novels when they were published in the 30s. But the Breen office just wouldn't allow him to do it. And Chandler, because his story, or Cain because his story was so popular and it supposedly increased the circulation of Liberty Magazine, where it was first published by almost 8 million people, was expecting 50,000. But they told him we can only give you you 15, because there's a likelihood that we buy this. And then Breen shuts us down and says no. So a lot of these were put on hold until after the war, to be made but anything else.
Speaker 2I was going to say since we like, how would we classify this movie in the?
Speaker 1in the style so I think more thematically it fits in.
Speaker 2stylistically it's a little lacking and bland, would you say. Our our friend, mr Director. Mr Heisler is not exactly, you know, an auteur here, but I think thematically it fits into the to the style rather well as a proto prototypical noir.
Speaker 1no yeah, I think it does. And I think it does, for first of all, uh, trembling color says speaking of locations, I love that old warehouse or whatever where it was, where the thugs were holding and beating up alan ladd. Yeah, like that's a great film noir location, that shitty bar apartment above right. Um, uh, yeah, it's, it's. It doesn't have necessarily the themes of film noir, but I think it maybe. Shitty bar apartment above Right. Yeah, it's, it's. It doesn't have necessarily the themes of film noir, but I think it maybe does in the fact that Veronica Lake is the I was going to say would you consider her to be a femme fatale at all?
Speaker 2I personally would not.
Speaker 1No, she's not entirely truthful, but you could see the seeds right.
Speaker 2She's very iffy. She's more good than bad by any means in the movie. That's what I'm saying. When I said the themes, I meant more like the overarching themes of political corruption and the Alan Ladd character fitting into overarching themes of political corruption and, uh, the alan ladd character fitting into this kind of in-between world where, yes, he um operates on the wrong side of the law, perhaps by working for, for don levy, but that's all part of, like an established system of uh, criminality, right, so it's, it's kind of like it really falls right along the lines.
Speaker 2I don't know how else to describe it yeah, it's.
Speaker 1It's a transitory film from the gangster picture to the film noir.
Laura: A Different Kind of Film Noir
Speaker 1I think, because you have this sort of proto detective, right, he's a gangster detective yes and then you have this sort of proto film noir gal, right, who is coming to visit everyone in offices, very much like the call would in the big sleep. You have this like very nasty, very dark underworld element to it, right, and some of the cinematography and things you would associate with film Nora, which I don't think is is nothing right. I think the visual style is, you know what I mean. I don't think that's nothing. I don't think that's nothing.
Speaker 2I don't think that's just what visual style was there in this movie. I didn't.
Speaker 1Are you kidding me? The set design where he's getting beaten up is like tremendous.
Speaker 2I mean, was there anything specific Like usually? Okay, so we didn't talk about the visual styles of what you expect from a like a double indemnity would be like the pinnacle the like, the pinnacle, the classic example. Right, it doesn't hold the candle that it's very stock cookie cutter kind of like let's get this thing filmed exactly there's no real.
Speaker 2It's like a cagney gangster movie, yeah yeah, there's no real light and dark contrast, high contrast, uh example of that. Or there's no uh shading. You know there's no chiarioskuro shading or anything like that no, not, not particularly no very fancy uh movie it's more. Yeah, like you said, boilerplate or cookie cutter, kind of like let's, let's. So I mean, would this be a b movie more?
Speaker 1yes, I think so, and I think the fact that it was so popular elevated, I mean, I think the blue dahlia maybe is better. Um, that was a film that was written by raymond chandler Chandler. He came and adapted a lot of his books and wrote scripts and helped punch up dialogue in Hollywood. He was a notorious drinker and when he wrote the Blue Dahlia he told I think it was Paramount that made that film that he just needed a case of whiskey and he was just going to drink for three weeks and then he'd have it done Right, and he would just drink, pass out, have someone wake him up. He would write for like an hour and then drink again Right, famous, famous alcoholic.
Speaker 1But the blue Dolly is a is a great kind of haunting little movie. This gun for hire is very sort of Hitchcockian and it starts out as like a film noir and then becomes like a international espionage caper, which is kind of surprising. And then I have not seen Saigon. I can't imagine what Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake get up to in Saigon, but it does look kind of cool. Yeah, but yeah, sorry if I misled you here, but I think it was a. If there's a few takeaways, watch William Wyler's dead end, written by Lillian Helmet Dashiell Dashiell Hammett's wife. And then watch the Coen Brothers Miller's Crossing, which is, in my opinion, one of their top five movies.
Speaker 2I mean, I definitely, I definitely. I'm happy that I saw this movie, but this is not like one that I would recommend to people if they wanted to get into noir. I would say watch the Glass Key first. I would say. This is after you've seen a lot of the other big ones which we're going to talk about. I think those would be ones to recommend off the bat.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think you're right, so let's move on. Okay, we were talking about the depression and the sort of origin here of film noir and Black Mask magazine, and then we will move into Laura. You go ahead and explain. Laura, ryan. Yes, so Laura is a murder mystery film.
Speaker 2It stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews. Gene Tierney plays the titular character, laura, who is the murder victim. So the movie begins that this character has been found murdered in her apartment and we meet Dana Andrews as McPherson, a police detective who is investigating said murder, and he encounters a wide variety of colorful characters who are all suspects in this murder along. Dana Andrews' character may realize that he is falling in love with the dead murder victim as he puts together the pieces of her life. So there's an unexpected twist which occurs midway through the movie Spoiler for a movie that came out what like 70 years ago.
Speaker 1Don't say that Like oh spoiler, you haven't seen it yet, dude I can't watch the entire 100 year back catalog of the history of cinema go ahead so um.
Speaker 2Laura was not actually the murder victim, so someone else was murdered had her face blown off the shotgun yes, so understandably. Uh, they actually do realize this at a certain point in the movie, but as the first like 24 hour, 24, 48 hours, they don't realize that and Laura had gone away into hiding, or something like that.
Speaker 2And she just to get away just to get away from the from the hustle and bustle. She's being kind of pressured on all ends from these different male suitors that she has to get married and hook up with her. So we have one of them is Vincent Price, who's basically I guess you could call him like a gigolo. He's definitely someone who's after her for all the wrong reasons, right. He's after her for status in society's after her for money, uh and all that. And he's constantly playing around with other women. And then we have the other uh male suitor is clifton webb, as, uh, waldo leidecker, probably one of the most colorful uh characters in uh in film noir history.
Speaker 2Right, it's kind of a an older, somewhat effeminate to a certain extent Very vile.
Speaker 1Both of her suitors are rather effeminate. I thought Vincent Price was supposed to be gay, because when they were originally interviewing him, I think he said something to the effect of like I'm not a usual man, or something. I was like what?
Speaker 2See, I didn't pick up on that, but I thought the exact same thing of Clifton Webb's character.
Speaker 1Yeah, he seems like kind of an old gay guy.
Speaker 2Yeah, very, very vile, biting, sinister kind of character, one that would hold a grudge for 100 years and would get back at you, and that is the basic setup and premise of this. So, like we were saying at the beginning, is that is this or is this not a noir? And you can make the case either way, because it is in that, stylistically, it has a lot of the elements that we look for. But Laura is certainly not a femme fatale in any way, shape or form. She's victim. Yeah, she's kind of a little shady here and there, but, um, she lies to the police, for instance, and things like that, but there's not anything horribly wrong with her and, um, you, know, oh, go ahead have you ever heard of this derisive term?
Speaker 1um, that's that's been used online? Um, the manic pixie dream girl? No, you ever heard this? This is like a. This is like a pejorative term for um, a way like a man would write a, a female character that everyone pines after, like not talking about derrick 10 kind of thing, but I'm talking like 500 days of summer, um style character where it's like she's just so magical and everyone's in love with her because she's like unique and different and funny and, like you know, likes the smiths, like you do it or whatever. Is laura the og that? Because, like she acts unorthodoxly and, um, men just fall at her feet and are in love with her.
Speaker 2Right, everyone everyone's after her. Everyone falls in love with her madly, although you know, that's the thing with Vincent Price's character Shelby. Is he actually in love with her or not? I don't think he is. I think he's using her as a means to.
Speaker 1For what, though? She didn't have any money?
Speaker 2I think there's. Think there's some kind of status.
Speaker 1Status okay, Don't you just work for it?
Speaker 2He's a mover and shaker, right, he wants to move up in the world Because otherwise he's going to end up with the older aunt character, right, you know.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Playing around with her too.
Speaker 1Here comes Trembling Colors with my back. Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim is the ultimate example of that trope. And this whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl thing. That's not a phrase that I would ever want to be seen using, but I know it's out there and exists and it does describe sort of a certain phenomenon. But yeah, laura seems like the proto of that. I also thought that maybe she reminded me a little bit of like Laura Palmer from like twin peaks too.
Speaker 2You know what I mean. Yeah, I think that's a good. That's a good comparison as well.
Speaker 1Potentially an homage there For me, though, Ryan, I have to tell you I found this movie to be really boring. Really, how yeah, I didn't I.
Speaker 2I couldn't care less at the backstory of Laura if he wanted to be a pen spokesman. No, he's. He's a goose quill dipped in uh, dipped in blood, or something like that?
Speaker 1yeah, because because ultimately and I'm sorry I have to say this I expect a little more out of auto premature, because anatomy of the murder is one of, like, my favorite movies. I think it's like amazing. Um, there was. I didn't find that there were any real like layers to this thing. I mean, like we have all these extensive flashbacks of her life, but you're watching them and I'm waiting for like clues to be illuminated about. You know why she was killed, or maybe who did it right and it's. You really don't get that. You just get the story of everyone's relationship with her, but had the screenwriters decided that they wanted vincent price to be the murderer, it would have worked too Right. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2No, I disagree. I think if you watch it more and more, multiple times, you'll see the clues are being set up to incriminate Waldo. I think more and more.
Speaker 1Well, I mean, obviously there's those little bits where he's like well, I'm taking my clock back, right, yeah, okay, fine.
Speaker 2He does it very subtly, but it's also in his nature and his personality, right. So as you get to know the Vincent Price character, you seem that for all this high talk and yes, he's a very suspicious character based on his actions he's constantly covering up where he is and where he was. But it's a red herring right where he was, but it's a, it's a. It's a red herring, right. So the Waldo character is inherently just a bad person, right. He's always gotten what he wants and it's. And the reason he kills her is basically, if I can't have you, no one else will, right, that's the entire motivation he's. So I don't even think he's really in love with her at a certain point. None of these guys are, I think they. They think they want her, but if they can't have her, waldo will kill her so that someone else can't.
Speaker 2Um, you know, I I thought the the interpersonal dynamics between the characters were fascinating to watch. I think gene tyranny has a real strong screen presence. Uh, the chemistry with the other characters is really really um, powerful. Um, dana andrews is also one of my favorite actors. I really really enjoy him, anything he's in um as a noir lead, though again, I was getting back to the point is he's pretty much a straight and narrow, straight arrow kind of detective, is he not right? He's never, he's not doing anything um below the level like he's.
Speaker 1He's pretty, no, I like I admired his sort of like driven nature and like his frankness. But yeah, there's really not a lot to him really he's, I was waiting for maybe more, but you, you had mentioned that you thought he started to fall in love with the dead woman. I don't, okay. No, of course he does. That's that's started to fall in love with the dead woman?
Speaker 2I don't, okay. No, of course he does. That's the whole twist of the movie. Right? As he further explores the life of this character, he falls under her spell too. Right, he becomes the third victim of Laura. Right? If Clifton Webb and Vincent Price both were infatuated and taken under by her, he becomes even so, without ever having met her, he just sees the portrait.
Speaker 2He finds out about her life. And then when he does meet her, I mean, did you not see the sigh of the gleeful look in his face when he asked her did you decide, are you going to marry Vincent price or not? And she tells him no, and he has, gives us like very faint smile and it's like he's he's, he's very excited, you know, because now his chances are up.
Speaker 1I get that. I just didn't. I didn't. I get that. Why you would like Laura? She's very attractive, Gene tyranny is very attractive, but I didn't. I didn't find there to be any sort of like. I mean, I don't. I don't get what everyone saw in her. That was so amazing that they fell in love with her painting you know what I mean.
Speaker 2Like it, I don't. I don't. You know, she's a um, she's kind of like she's just like nice she's not high society, but she's. She's cutting it close. Right is this is this the house of a dame or a doll? You know, that's what Clifton Webb said yeah, yeah. I think he says something like oh, good-looking dame, he goes do you ever know any.
Speaker 2Is this the house of a dame? Have you ever known any girls that aren't dames or dolls? You know, if you have that dynamic between the different types, the different men that are all suiting after her, and the different types, the different men that are all shooting after her, and, um, how do they classify this woman? How did they? They all have different perceptions of her, do they not, like? They all think of her in different ways, yet they're all madly in love with her.
Speaker 1I just think it's kind of interesting, uh no, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't hate it, I just was a little underwhelmed by it. I was expecting I mean, her coming back and being alive was interesting. But I was thinking, oh boy, you know what happened, right. If she in on this too, this is a bigger conspiracy. But then she's just like, oh, I just, I was just gone, what happened Right?
Speaker 2Basically, yeah, a friend was living, I was staying in her apartment. Well, no, actually that's not true. Vincent Price and this other girl were in her apartment, you know doing who knows what right. And uh, waldo comes to the door to confront laura, because she knows, he knows that you know she's not going to be with him and, um, under the cover of darkness, he shoots and kills her, kills the woman who he thinks is laura yes, yes, which is plausible, and I didn't think it was a total cheat, because you know.
Speaker 1Then they say, hey, we did the lab test. It's not laura, right? And he goes yeah, I know, she's right here, right, yeah, yeah um whatever right but then you know, she goes off and he's like don't leave the house. And then like she goes with uh, vincent price, yeah, and I'm thinking, oh, is laura like a murderer? Were they trying, you know? I mean, what's going on here, that?
Speaker 2no, it's just no see, this is like the glass key in reverse for us yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1I just thought there'd be a little more going on here, because I've heard about this movie ad infinitum. That's so good, or whatever, but, and I I thought it was okay. Um, and now tell me the story of gene tyranny oh, man, man, what a sad life.
Speaker 2Do you have the DVD or Blu-ray for this?
Speaker 1I do not no.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, Because if you do, there's an excellent biography, a featurette, on there, both of her and of Vincent Price, which are worth watching. So Gene Tierney became a big star but was very much under the control of her parents, her father. Her father actually stole a lot of the money that she earned during a time where he was controlling her income and her funds. But as she got older, later in life she developed severe mental illness, depression, I believe, bipolar disorder and actually was committed for a time and underwent electric shock treatment. So had a very, very, very troubled personal life. I believe she married multiple times. She did live a pretty decent long life, though she lived to age 70, died in 1991.
Speaker 2But you know just seemed like not a happy life, and it's sad for someone that starred in a lot of great movies and contributed a lot to film. There's not all happiness behind the scenes, right?
Speaker 1That's very sad. I suppose that her sad story, I think maybe in retrospect adds a little more gravitas to the idea of Laura, where this is obviously the ultimate Testament to her as an actress and as a as a screen presence. So there can be a little more there. As far as it is this in a war yeah, yeah, it is. I mean it's like had she been killed at the end I think it would have been more.
Speaker 2So it would have been like slam dunk, yes, like perfect Right. Or if, like you said, she had been implicated in the murder, that would have been. Yeah, but this is, this is leading more to a, a happy feeling. This is a happy noir right, this is like this is more of Rome, a romantic noir, though I mean. This is much more uplifting in the spirit of what it's going for the happy ending.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, I get it. Glass Key did have a happy ending.
Speaker 2Glass Key sort of had a happy ending.
Speaker 1Oh, I'd say Glass Key is totally happy. It's like all right kids you're going to get together.
Speaker 2Not with that rock. You're not.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2Give me back my ring.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, trembling Colors here. Veronica Lake had a very similar sad life, and I was thinking also too about Gail Russell. You know, gail Russell?
Speaker 1she was in the Uninvited with Ray Moland Mm-hmm, she was a similar tragic love yeah really bad drinking problem and drove her her car into like a roadside diner by accident and um john wayne liked her and hired her in in um some movies to keep her working, you know, uh, incredibly beautiful, but then she ended up. There's a song that she sings in the uninvited um for stella by starlight, and she called into the radio station in Los Angeles and requested that song and then she took pills and died. That's really sad.
Speaker 1It is sad. Yeah, now I have a question on Vincent Price. Was this an unusual role for him? Did he start out playing straight roles, kind of like Leslie Nielsen, and then just sort of fell into the horror thing?
Speaker 2Yeah, he started out playing these very, very innocuous, kind of like Leslie Nielsen and then just sort of fell into the horror thing. Yeah, he started out playing these very, very innocuous kind of bland roles and started taking anything that he could get. Um, he did star and a another noir. That is kind of more up his alley. If you've ever heard of or seen shock, that is a it's a much more. Vincent price type of of role, but in the 40s, in that that noir style um, and then he was in, he took he took anything right.
Speaker 2He was even in like the 10 commandments and stuff like that. And then in the 50s he started doing the william castle movies, other things like the fly, and then he hit full-on you know horror stardom by the late 50s into the 60s got it, got it, yeah this is one of his. I mean it's.
Speaker 2It's sad to think if he hadn't um developed that persona, he would have been a very largely forgettable actor whose career no one would probably remember I agree he's okay in this oh yeah, this is just very cookie cutter um unimpressive yeah he's toning down his what he became known for, which is the vincent price mannerisms, the voice, the personality like he tries to get like this Southern draw a little bit. Yeah it's.
Speaker 1it's a very odd role for him, but he's a very familiar character to the, to the sort of playboy and Mildred Pierce right, where he's just sort of this like society layabout. You know, this sort of dilettante right.
Speaker 2He's a social climber Right, I mean at the end of the day. I think that's. I think that's what he, what he is, more so than he's a. He's like a gigolo, uh, mixed with a social climber. So he wants to.
Speaker 1He thinks he can get move up into society with laura and he'll have some fun along the way with, you know, whatever woman he can find exactly, yeah, hey, would you mind if we took a break and then I think we're going to come back and and talk about two movies that we both really liked.
Speaker 2Sounds good that we both agree on.
Speaker 1Is that true?
Double Indemnity: The Ultimate Film Noir
Speaker 2I think so no-transcript.
Speaker 1No-transcript. It's quoted in this book, somewhere in the Night, a very interesting exploration of film noir genre. It's not exactly what I would call a film history book. It's sort of like a tone poem, psychoanalysis essay book sort of about the effect of film noir on the you know, the effect of the environment on film noir at the time. Here's a quote from Georges-Louis Bourge the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does. Like a dream, right. But that was pretty profound in in the sort of way that in film noir movies, when nighttime seems like the place to exist and inhabit when things happen, the day almost seems like a dream in a film noir, because all the characters that exist in these worlds during the daytime seem totally out of place right, these are characters that thrive at night exactly.
Speaker 1Oh, here's auto premature see, I have all these nice slides that we totally missed. Here's auto premature doing his thing, filming laura um double identity. What do you think?
Speaker 2one of the best one of the best no doubt about it terrific a classic of epic proportions. If you're going to watch any of these movies, this is the one to watch.
Speaker 1I would say okay, yeah, I think I'd probably agree with you. I think I would probably agree with you. I, I think this this would be the ultimate victim hero, one to watch. I might be a little well, I don't. Yeah, I think Double Identity is terrific.
Speaker 2I think this one checks all the boxes that you want from one of these movies. It is consistently the best across all the different criteria of regular, you know, uh, movies that that you you would expect. I mean all these other movies. You can find fault more with um story or character motivations or, uh, you know, visual style and all that. I mean certainly the big sleep.
Speaker 2The plot is beyond convoluted I mean it doesn't detract from the movie per se but if you're going to analyze the movie on strict criteria grounds, this double indemnity holds up on story, characters, visuals, style, music, everything is just top notch. So if you haven't seen any of these movies, I would say, start with this one, because I think you'll be impressed.
Speaker 1It's really terrific and I was lucky enough recently to see it, about two weeks ago at my local art house theater. They were doing a noir retrospective and I got to go see it and it was just terrific. I mean, it's, it's. It just works like crazy. The dialogue is just whip smart, thanks to Raymond Chandler here, who you can see in this New Yorker cartoon article working with Billy Wilder, the famous and terrific director. Right, but this movie is just it's. So I'm trying to think of a good word menacing, vile. You know just all the people in it are so.
Speaker 2They're so sleazy.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's it, but it's terrific. I mean it's an absolutely terrific movie.
Speaker 2They're vicious, they're killers, they're vicious and they make no bones about it. What's really interesting is, I was going to say, the motivations behind the characters are fascinating and I think you don't maybe see it the first time is that you think fred mcmurray as walter neff he's. He's into barbara stanwick. Obviously there's. There's a sexual um connection there, right, absolutely on a certain level. Is there? I don't even think there is at a certain point. I think at a certain point. I think at a certain point he's. Have you ever considered his motivation being from working inside the insurance business, he wants to commit the perfect crime. Do?
Speaker 1you not see that also as another? Motivation I do think he likes her, though, and is not as rotten as she is no, not at all, I think if he can have her he'll.
Speaker 2He's more than more than happy to have her, but he's also happy to cut her loose too well, especially when she he realizes she's sort of treacherous right.
Speaker 1But this movie I couldn't believe it. I was sitting on the edge of my seat during the moment in which they staged the murder. So if you guys haven't seen the movie, double indemnity is about Frederick Murray. He's an insurance man. His boss is an incredibly scrupulous and in like in he's very in depth, like what would you say?
Speaker 2He's very detailed and very he's a, he's a statistics man. He a detailed, very number cruncher. He's a statistics man. He's a very thorough investigator.
Speaker 1And he encounters Barbara Stanwyck. He's going door to door. He's trying to re-up the insurance policy of her husband, who's some sort of oil man who's recently struck out on his own and his business is not going as well as it used to, and he's not the nicest, I guess. According to her, she beats it, he yells at her, ignores her and just she's sort of a kept woman, right, according to her. We don't know that, we don't know that. You want to believe it at the time, right, because you're like Fred.
Speaker 1So they concoct a scheme to basically have him take out an insurance policy without him knowing it. And then they're going to plan his murder by using the occasion of his college um reunion to throw him off the back of a train. Right now he hurt himself in the oil fields and he has a cast which sort of helps. It seems to help their story more, because it's more likely that he would trip and fall. And so, fred McMurray, they hit him over the head and throw him on the railroad tracks and kill him. And then Fred McMurray disguises himself as the husband with a cast and leaps off in front of a witness, right, or he disappears after the witness is sent to get his cigarettes Right and it all seems like it's going to work out.
Speaker 1It's a pretty cut and dried case. But Keyes, edward G Robinson, says why didn't he file a claim when he broke his leg? Yes, he must not have known there was an insurance policy on him. And it all starts to unravel. And the element of the story that I forgot about was that after they complete the murder, how they start to turn on one another, how they can't talk to each other because if they do, there's a line. Keyes says where he goes, you're drawn to each other. After this murder they're stuck straight down the line, they're stuck together on this thing and they start to turn on each other and squabble and bicker and get torn apart and ultimately betray each other and it leads to their doom. It's terrific.
Speaker 2What's really great here is the dialogue. That's one of the key features of this movie, which makes it a absolute highlight is not only is the dialogue all done in this very like, staccato, sharp delivery for everyone, it also has highly sexualized innuendo and everything is not a double entendre but like a thinly veiled you know of a thinly veiled sensual nature, For instance, when they first meet.
Speaker 1Oh, let's see if we can do this. There's a speed limit in this town, Mr.
Speaker 2F. Oh yeah, yeah, there's a speed limit. How fast was I going?
Speaker 1I'd say about 35 miles an hour.
Speaker 2Try about 90.
Speaker 1Yeah, suppose, I give you a ticket.
Speaker 2Suppose I take that ticket and rip it up.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't remember the rest.
Speaker 2Yeah, suppose I cry on your shoulder. Oh, suppose you cry on my husband's shoulder. Oh, that tears it.
Speaker 1It's just great and it's all. Raymond Chandler I mean Cain obviously was a master at these kind of steel trap plots, right, this is basically. I mean, if you were to read Double Indemnity and the Postman Always Rings Twice, they're both great books. Very short, like 110 pages each, they're sort of both variations of the same story. Postman was very popular so he did it again, basically as Double Indemnity. They both involve insurance fraud. They both involve a sort of husband that the wife wants out of the picture so she ensnares a sort of a traveling ne'er do well into her scheme and it's but. But Chandler was there to punch up the dialogue. I mean, that was all him. I mean, if you're impressed by the dialogue and the big sleep, it's all there verbatim in his book Verbatim.
Speaker 2The big sleep is another one with great, great dialogue. I don't think it matches quite what's here, because this is much more sexy. This is much more hard-boiled. The Bogart Bacall stuff it's much more romantic and the way they play off each other it's of a different kind. This is very raw and kind of dangerous, I know but everything Marlo says is so great.
Speaker 1Suppose it was your business, my business, you wouldn't like it. That pays too low, right.
Speaker 2But that's so much more just flirtatious when this is very, very heavy. This is more hardcore. They're going to get it on. It's a very sexy movie, yeah yeah, barbara stanwick is absolutely phenomenal here. I love her. I love pretty much anything she's in, but she's she's at her finest here. Um, she is one of the I mean, if not the greatest one, of the one of the greatest femme fatales in in film noir. I mean, would you not?
Speaker 1yeah, absolutely, absolutely, especially with the revelations about her, her past, possibly killing the wife as her nurse, right, and how she was going to frame, you know, walter neff, right I mean, and all right, and basically kill the daughter too, right, yeah, yeah, she was, she was trying to rile up the the uh, the daughter's boyfriend to murder, to murder her and get her out of the picture too a true spider woman yeah, um interesting choice for fred mcmurray who was not really a dramatic actor, by any means more of a comedic light-hearted guy and, of course, went on to my three sons.
Speaker 2Um, but uh, I really enjoy seeing actors like that choose roles like this to see them out of their element doing something that is totally out of character.
Speaker 2I know, I know they always fear that it's gonna ruin their career or typecast them or something like that, but I think it adds to their range. I always, I always enjoy seeing um comedy actors do dramatic roles. It's it's same, it's fascinating to a certain extent, you know, thing like that, but I think it adds to their range. I always, I always enjoy seeing um comedy actors do dramatic roles. It's it's same, it's fascinating to a certain extent, you know, like when he did dramatic roles it's always brilliant, I mean adam sandler.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah same. Yeah, absolutely yeah um yeah no, it's, it's I mean, but I just think of so many great scenes, the scene where she comes up to his apartment but keys is there and she hides behind the door and hug on the knob to let him know that she's there, like that makes your heart race and come on.
Speaker 1that is like when they when, when the camera pans over to Barbara Stanwyck, when you know Fred McMurray is in the backseat and we don't see him killing the husband, but we hear it and we just move over to her face and she kind of has this look of like ecstasy, like just blank ecstasy, like yeah, you know, and you're you're just like whoa, are they going to make it? You know she's talking to the porter on the train.
Speaker 2He's hiding with his hat, with the crutches. It's, it's, it's phenomenal, it's phenomenal. Um, what else was gonna say? Um, visually, this movie also throws in all the flares for what you typically think of film noir right, very, very high, um, sharp contrast, light and dark.
The Big Sleep: Complexity in Crime
Speaker 1The venetian blinds motif is there on full display, um or just when he walks into the, into her house for the first time and into the living room, and there's almost like this, like smoky, there's like this smog and it's like yeah, you know it's not quite still yeah it's like a house that is just built for to be seen and viewed. It is not really a home. You know what I mean. It's got all these like ornate trappings and trinkets, but it's like. It's like it's like a haunted house.
Speaker 2It's like a ghost house, right yeah, but I think also, when we get back to walter neff as a character, he is not a good person at all. I mean, not only does he go along with this, he basically comes up with most of the idea for it. She nudges him into submission, but he comes up with all the details. She uses him and he's also using her to a certain extent, but it seems very transactional. It seems, you know, we want to use each other. That's what I'm saying, that's. I don't think the, the, the romance or the.
Speaker 2It's more like a lust, lustful relationship they can use each other they'll, they'll have, you know they'll have relations, but it's, it's, there's no, they're not going to be together for very long, even if they go through with the whole thing, right yeah, it's going to flame out, yeah yes, exactly, and I think he's, I think he's more interested in in gaming the system at a certain, to a certain extent as well. In that way he's kind of like the reverse keys. He wants to see if he can game the system to a certain extent as well.
Speaker 1In that way he's kind of like the reverse Keyes. He wants to see if he can game the system rather than fight the people trying to game it right.
Speaker 2I think so. He sees how people are screwed out all the time. Keyes finds a loophole in every situation and every policy to deny payments to people that submit claims.
Speaker 2Sometimes they're fraudulent and that's fine. But it seems like he sees the insurance company and industry just screwing over people right and left. So hey, I know how the system works from the inside. I can bypass all of this and get the money. And you know what? Not only are we going to get the money, we're going to use this very, very obscure loophole in the system for a double indemnity clause. That never happens. It's designed to not ever give you any money Right, because it's so ridiculous that how would this ever happen?
Speaker 2But we entice people to to buy plans because of this and we'll work it out perfectly and he sees that a little bit, but you know, it's only because of the cast. That's the only thing that he didn't think through.
Speaker 1His little man.
Speaker 2Something right. It's only one thing and it only takes one thread to unravel the entire thing.
Speaker 1Here you have two characters who are deracinated from everyday life. Right, they're sort of loners, um, but there's nothing about this movie that that that cries um. This is a post-war reaction right?
Speaker 1I don't think so, no no, so like I just I just roundly reject that kind of thing. And I'm going to quote here from this, this essay in the mildred pierce um by imagingogene Sarah Smith, where she says it's often said that men's discomfort with women's entry into the workforce during World War II conjured the figure of the femme fatale, which demonized strong, ambitious women. This theory makes no sense, since the femme fatale is never a woman who works or is independent. She is always a woman who uses men to get what she wants, relying on the most traditional of feminine wiles. Um, so I think that's that's very true. So where is this anxiety coming from exactly? Why does this trope repeat so many times in these films? I'm not sure. I have to think about that a little more.
Speaker 2Um I think it's more like a very basic level, um kind of like, would you say a reaction to your id? Right, you see? You see the most beautiful woman of your dreams, right? The most sexy, beautiful woman, and she's a snake, she's a venomous viper that's basically going to kill you and eat you at the end. Right, I mean it's Do you?
Speaker 1think it has something to do with. I mean, I know I have a statistic somewhere about the massive influx of people to cities around the turn of the century, right? Do you think it has something to do with the fact that, like, these are two characters that can only exist within a large city. If they lived in a small communal town, this sort of thing wouldn't happen, right? You can't, you can't be like a freewheeling character going out. You know, it sort of deracinates you from like a community in which you sort of are. The other people rely on you and you're an integral piece of this small system, whereas when you're in a city you're just a cog in the machine, you're a tiny piece you can kind of you're not really accountable to anybody because the place is so big and decentralized that you're sort of adrift. You, you know, I think maybe that's a motivating factor in film noir, but I also really liked that this movie.
Speaker 2Everything takes places in the, in the upper echelons of I mean they're not, they're not super rich, they're not super high class. But they are they're wealthy and these are not low class people. These are higher end people and they're all involved in these horrible machinations and they're very, very you know sinister and wicked people, I mean it shows you that they're rotten to the core.
Speaker 1But they're likable and you want them to succeed in a perverse way. You know when you want that scam to go off when you're watching it, right? Yeah, Because they've worked so hard on it.
Speaker 2It's a great idea yeah, because they've worked so hard on it. It's a great idea also um one of the few movies where I'll say um, overhead narration really does um work to its advantage and we've talked about that. When I was cutting up the orca review to post again, we were railing on a narration from the main character as like a crutch that filmmakers rely on and stuff. But I think for this movie it really actually benefits it a lot because you really get into the head of this character and also those stories being told in flashback.
Speaker 2Um, so he is, we start with him, you know, kind of limping into the insurance office to record his story and his confession, and so now we're immediately hooked into this world because something bad has happened. He's confessing. How is it all gonna? How is it all gonna end up?
Speaker 2and we also get a sense of who he is where did he come from and where where is he now? By by him speaking, he has a cadence to his speech, it's not. It's not that it's um filling in some extraneous amount of background. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1Yeah, keyes, you got to be right. Right, I mean. But I like that idea too, because that framing device is in a lot of film noir movies Right, it's in a movie called DOA, in which a character is poisoned and has to solve the mystery of his own murder before he dies Right. And it starts out with him in the police station saying here's what happened to me. And it's sort of like this fatalistic idea that doom is a foregone conclusion. It's almost like a warning to somebody else Don't make the mistakes I did. And then it's over. And I think everyone knows they shot a scene in which Fred McMurray was supposed to go to the gas chamber, which was a little much.
Speaker 2I didn't know that, I didn't know that actually.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, yeah, I think it's available somewhere, but I know there are still photos of it where they were going to make sure that he was justly punished, good and hard, and there was going to be a scene of him in the gas chamber. I think the movie ends perfectly where Keyes is constantly needing fred mcmurray, uh robinson to uh needs fred mcmurray to light his cigarette for him, and at the end he lights it for fred mcmurray and he chastises him and he says, yeah, you fucked up, but in the end we're still sort of a have a sort of paternal relationship, right that was a very touching moment, yeah, it's great and it would have been ended now I think we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1Next. We talk about big sleep. Um, there are a lot of deleted scenes from that film that I think are good, but just the last thing.
Speaker 2It's. I like I love that moment at the end because it's yeah, you did all these horrible things, but you don't, just you don't throw. You don't throw everything out with that person. Yeah, you can, you can condemn them, you can say you can help turn them in, you help turn them in. You can do all these things, but at the end of the day, there's still someone that you did care about. So you know, if you can provide just that one comforting moment, it's. It shows your he has, he's more human, he has more humanity in him than Fred McMurray had throughout the entire movie, you know.
Speaker 1And there's kind of that code. I mean we're not going. But if you remember that movie, sam Spade is, he's trying to solve the mystery of his murdered partner, right, yep. And what does he say If your partner's murdered, you ought to do something about it, even though we didn't really like the guy, right.
Speaker 2He barely cares. I think he's more. Yeah, he feels an obligation to the, to him, to to solve his murder and also to clear himself, I think.
Speaker 1And also to ruin his own shot at happiness out of principle, right. So there's this idea too, of this sort of code right. Yes, which reappears Double Indemnity is terrific. It's a great movie. And then also watch Sunset Boulevard, the other Billy Wilder movie, which is terrific. This movie's just really fun. There's never a dull moment. The narration's terrific, it's.
Speaker 2It's incredibly well written um so I would say, watch this one. Um, definitely. I always. I always think like if you're going to open the dictionary and they had film noir, I would put a picture of double indemnity next to it. That that's.
Speaker 1That's my personal I think you're probably right. I don't know if it's my favorite when we talk about lady from shanghai. That's one personal. I think you're probably right. I don't know if it's my favorite when we talk about lady from shanghai. That's one that I have a oh, that's a really good one I like that more just for all of orson welles is like experimenting, which doesn't always work right I.
Speaker 2I read in one article the irish brogue described as insufferable in that movie, which I would disagree yeah, I disagree entirely, but like it was an interesting choice, which that'll be for the next time.
Speaker 1It was an interesting choice forrest and wells.
Speaker 2I'm trying to do it I guess I just just a quick. Would you consider citizen kane a noir? No I would not either, but it's all over these books too. Since we were talking about orson welles there for a second. I just find it fascinating what is and was what is not considered by some people.
Speaker 1It's like an Epic biopic of a you know what I mean Like. Why would that be a film?
Speaker 2You know, a political drama to a certain extent, or a tragic life story, yeah.
Speaker 1And, like I promise everybody, we will come up with our own film journal and cine crisis definition of film noir here by the end of this. We're going to work through this. This is sort of like a thing, right? Yeah, oh, hey, kino Corner, thanks for stopping in. Man, I see Stanwyck on screen. Yes, and we were just talking about Double Indemnity, but I think we're ready to move on to the Big Sleep, are we?
Speaker 2Big Sleep about double indemnity, but I think we're ready to move on to the big sleep.
Speaker 1Are we big sleep? Let's go. Uh, another great movie. Liked it more this time than uh when I first saw it, which I think was in college, and I thought it was boring because I didn't know what was happening. But um, doesn't matter. Wow, I love this movie.
Speaker 1I watched it twice and I read the book oh, nice okay and listen to the audio drama that bb BBC did in the 70s, but there's a reading of it on YouTube for free, the book with Elliot Gould doing it. And, as you know, elliot Gould made one of the other great Philip Marlowe adaptions in the Long Goodbye Robert Altman's movie from 73, which is awesome if you haven't seen it. So, but yeah, thoughts dude.
Speaker 2Oh, I love this movie. I saw this for the first time, probably also in high school. I really liked it then, even though I did not understand anything that happened in the movie at that time. I just thought it was wonderfully complex and I thought I just wasn't understanding what was going on.
Speaker 2I remember years later, I think, I watched it again and I still didn't understand it and I read the wikipedia article and my I think it's been since removed, but that, this line, but I remember the first line of the plot synopsis. The plot of the big sleep is intentionally complex and convoluted and I was like, oh okay, well, that's great, I'm glad that's not the only one that didn't understand.
Speaker 1There's the famous story too, where where Hawks called up Chandler and goes hey, who killed the, who killed the chauffeur? And he goes, fuck, I have no idea. And he poured himself another drink and he's like who gives a shit. But that's not the story, you know.
Speaker 2But it doesn't matter, right, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's it's, I think I think you can understand it for the most part right, and I think that this has been a template for a lot of detective movies going forward is that. The joy of the detective film is not necessarily, in my opinion, especially as we get into like sort of like the Ross McDonald, like Harper's Archer books and things. It's like it's the characters you meet along the way. It doesn't matter, like why does the big Lebowski have to go to Jackie tree horns house and get knocked out with a drugged white Russian who gives a shit right? It's just like right. What does Larry have to do with the plot? Who cares?
Speaker 2Right People place too much emphasis on a procedure and solving the mystery or whatever, and this is not. This is not about that.
Speaker 1This, not. This is not about that. This is not what it's about. I don't think. Yeah, one of the reasons why it is sort of hard to like figure out what's going on is that it's a pretty lascivious subject matter. So it's like, um, you know, uh, the younger sister is basically getting drugged in and like being forced to make pornography, right, yeah, which in the book is much more explicit, like when he walks into the house of uh, gillis g, ag, gillis, or whoever the guy that gets killed. He's the fake bookstore owner. Um, when he goes into his house, she's naked and there's a camera, geiger, geiger, yeah, um, and she's naked and he, you know right, and he wraps her up and takes her home, whereas in the movie she's just kind of sitting there and I mean.
Speaker 2And there's a photograph that is we don't. It's implied what's in it.
Speaker 1You get the idea, but if you were like a regular person watching this who doesn't have to take into account the fact that they can't show things that they would on HBO today, it might confuse you as to what's going on. She's tied up in a drug and pornography sort of racket, cobra. Malibu said, it's not about the destination, it was about the bookstore thoughts. We banged along the way, which is true. There is a surprising amount of almost Matt Helm style attractive women served up for Marvel.
Speaker 2Oh, my God, yes.
Speaker 1The librarian is hot and into him the bookstore gal, the cab driver. I mean this is almost sort of a proto James Bond kind of thing.
Speaker 2Yeah, the amount of like sexy librarians in this movie is like off the scales, right, I mean.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah. Kino said. My favorite part is when he pretends to be a snob. Yeah, I think. Yes, yeah, uh, yeah.
Speaker 2keno said my favorite part is when he pretends to be a snob. Yeah, I think, yes. Oh. When he goes into the bookstore right when he's asking for her in 1960 with like a scribble on a certain page or some some stupid thing, a ninth edition of ben-hur, where the thing is blotted out on this page, or something like that yeah, and trembling colors says it's more explicit.
Speaker 1in the 70s mitchum won yes, which is. Mitchum did two movies as Marlowe in the 70s. He made one called Farewell my Lovely, which is actually really good, and then he made one called A Big Sleeper Remake, and Jimmy Stewart plays the old man.
Speaker 2Oh nice.
Speaker 1It's okay, it's contemporary. It's weird because the first one, fare, my lovely, they did it period and then for the sequel they went cheap, filmed it in london and it was in the 70s, okay.
Speaker 2so it's kind of it's kind of a weird deal, but, um, go ahead, we've been on a tangent here. No, I was gonna say just, I think more macro, what, what? What's the movie about?
Speaker 2right, so so, humphrey bogart plays a private eye named Philip Marlowe, who's hired by a general named Sternwood to help out his family. Specifically, he has two daughters. He has a younger daughter named Carmen, who's the one who's being blackmailed by someone. She's being blackmailed because, as we find out, she's being roped into this, this world of pornography. Now he meets the general's other daughter, named Vivian, who's played by Lauren Bacall, who also has some shady you know problems of her own, which she gambling problems.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, it's involved in the world of gambling. She has a lot of debts, so is she sort of connected to this or not? There's some weird implications. What she covering up is what she is. What she's covering up related to her sister, or does that have her?
Speaker 1own stuff in mind um money all over town, including to known pornographers in the past of our times.
Speaker 2Exactly. Bogart gets roped into this investigation and he sort of saves the girl he finds, carmen, brings her home, gets rid of the negatives, and then they try and sweep it under the rug. At that point, but for some reason maybe because he's in love with Bacall's character, or maybe he just has an itch to scratch he decides to dig a little bit deeper into the situation and then covers a you know more tangled web of lies and conspiracy that the other characters are involved in. So at the end of the day he can get the girl.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it's uh, it's awesome, it's a great story, terrific dialogue. Kino corner says Lauren McCall was so hot in it. Yes, she was. And actually, um, this movie was made before to have and to have, not the, the Hemingway adaption, um, which is nothing like but um released after though yeah, released after because it was put on a shelf and the studio heads thought that there wasn't enough bakal bogart steaminess on screen.
Speaker 1So there's actually a terrific scene that's cut from the movie. Um, after bogart originally saves what's the younger daughter's name, carmen carmen. There's just a scene where he's driving with her in the rain and she's passed out in the car and he looks over at her and he just drops her off with the, with the butler, and goes home. But when they reshot it they made Bacall be there, so he like took her, you know, I mean took her into the bedroom when they have a little bit of a back and forth scene there. But it's too bad because I mean it's a fine scene with them together, with them together. But, um, the moment when he's driving her home in the in the rain is very moody and atmospheric and cool and kind of builds tension for, like you know, so there were some good things. There's also a scene that they cut where he goes in, he gets called into the uh, chief of police office or the and and like or something like that, yeah they give him a more cohesive run down of the plot.
Speaker 1That kind of helps you. They just kind of explain it. But they cut it out because they were like fuck it right yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2I think it's, uh, worth noting why all this happened, right. So, um, this movie was shot and completed, but world war ii was coming to an end, right? So warner brothers wanted to push all of the movies that had a war-related plot to the forefront and get them out before they became irrelevant. So that's why they put this one on the shelf and they said this will, this will keep you know. There's, there's nothing timely in this that we need to release right away.
Speaker 2So and as they were about to do that, somebody else was reviewing the film or something like that and they said Lauren Bacall's performance was they didn't consider it very good in this movie, like initially. They said she had this huge breakout with To have and have Not and they said that there wasn't that chemistry on screen between Bogart and Bacall like there was in another movie, which is surprising because now they're married they're actually a married couple.
Speaker 2So they convinced Howard Hawks to add those new scenes and they changed some of the dialogue there's adr in certain scenes as well that they um yeah, to facilitate those changes and one of the scenes that they added is the scene where they're in the restaurant and they have that very, very um you know which is great uh, intense conversation which is very, very sexy depends on who's in the saddle.
Speaker 1Yeah, exactly yeah which is one of the highlights of the movie, I mean terrific, because originally she just went back to his office and like they have the same conversation, but there's just no spark.
Speaker 2Yes, right, exactly and that's what really ignites this movie is the chemistry between the two leads. I mean that sells the movie right there. It doesn't matter what the plot's about, what the convoluted nature of the gambling and the blackmail and all this stuff. I mean it's so confusing. You need an atlas to keep track of all the different players and the missing detective, Irish detective and his wife oh yeah yeah, other guy and then I.
Speaker 1I don't understand who. Who was the guy that killed you remember they were in the apartment and the guy answers the door and he gets shot. Who, who killed him and why?
Speaker 2some other guy that ends up getting killed, I believe yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1And then there's, obviously, we have our, our film noir. Um, oh god, what the hell is this guy's name? He's like the uh fall guy in every film noir movie uh, who drinks poison and dies. Oh my god.
Speaker 2Yes, elijah cook jr, yeah yes, and wait, is that also um wilmer in? Uh, the maltese falcon the yes the guy that bogartart just beats into submission verbally. Yes, he littles, him constantly, yes, that's him.
Speaker 1He's constantly suffering indignities nonstop.
Speaker 2Yeah, there's way too many plot twists that come out of nowhere, but they're all great. I love it.
Speaker 1No matter yeah.
Speaker 2It's just what else you got. It's like how else can what else you got you know? It's like how else can we throw, throw a monkey wrench into this?
Speaker 1um, yeah, it's a journey into the underworld.
Speaker 2Man exactly, exactly and again high society's been corrupted by um more kind of, uh, undesirable elements. So now, um, they're trying to work their way up into this, this general sternwood's family. They're, they're corrupting the, the daughters, and getting them into these. You know gambling and and other unsightly. You know world and.
Speaker 1Marlo love high society. Oh, I have a problem where the lower class sort of criminal element is fucking with my. I love that kind of genre. Yeah, Like you ever seen Harper with Paul Newman? No, okay, very similar. Lauren Bacall is actually the rich lady who hires him to solve the case in that movie and she's, it's terrific it's. It's based on the Archer novels by Ross McDonald. They made two, the drowning pool and 76, but like that's my favorite sort of sub-genre of detective is is um, I'm gonna go to the rich guy and he's got some kind of issue. His daughter's in trouble. You know she's shacking up with the wrong crowd, right, and to a certain extent I was gonna talk about the big sleep in my conan review because sort of the same plot there where the king goes uh, my daughter's run off with all these fucking thulsa doom weirdos. You gotta go get her back right.
Speaker 2So pope traditions there you like this or the multi-stomkin more? This for sure really I'm kind of torn between the two. Um, this definitely has, uh, the romantic element, which, which is much more an interesting hook. But the Maltese Falcon has, I think, more interesting characters, more kind of a wide band of colorful characters that just pop in and out. All the time.
Speaker 1Yeah, you got Sydney Greenstreet and you've got all the Casablanca players. All the Casablanca players, yeah.
Speaker 2And they're constantly backstabbing each other and trying to one-up each other and trying to all get this. You know, the trinket, the MacGuffin, basically, which is the bird I don't know the Lauren Bacall stuff.
Speaker 1I mean, she's just so much better than Mary Astor in my opinion, oh yeah yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2But I think that element of big sleep beats it by leaps and bounds. But I think for the other supporting characters, the Maltese Falcon has an edge in that, in that arena.
Speaker 1I think maybe I've always and I'm not an expert by any means, but I've always just kind of liked Chandler more than Hammett. So I really like Raymond Chandler. I've read a lot of the Philip Marlowe books the high window long goodbye. They're all really good. So I really like Raymond Chandler. I've read a lot of the Philip Marlowe books the High Window Long Goodbye. They're all really good. What do you think of the other?
Speaker 2Bogie and Bacall movies.
Speaker 1What do we got Key Largo?
Speaker 2Dark Passage and Key Largo.
Speaker 1Yeah, dark Passage is super cool and I think we were toying about talking about that, because the entire first 30 minutes is Humphrey Bogart voiceover. Only you know first person POV.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Which we also get in a film, in another Marlowe adaption called Lady in the Lake, which is shot entirely in first person POV from the 50s as well, but in Dark Passage it really works and I love, I love that movie. It's awesome.
Speaker 2I love it. I'm not a not a huge fan of Key Largo, to be honest.
Speaker 1It's okay, I like it with G Robinson in it. I like the. Have you ever heard the Bernie Higson song, key Largo from the seventies?
Speaker 2Oh yeah, the one, just like bogey and bacal yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, we had it all down in key largo yeah great, great music video yeah, yeah, yeah of course I'm gonna post it to the chat.
Speaker 1Terrific music video. You guys haven't heard this one. If you guys don't like yacht rock, you need to be out of the chat immediately, but uh for sure, for sure, but uh, yeah I think, uh, the big sleep.
Speaker 2It might be a little intimidating, um, for some people new, if you're exploring this, because you might feel overwhelmed by the the plot yeah you have to realize that the plot is not important no, I mean it's.
Speaker 1It behooves one to pay attention a little bit, but like oh, come on, I on, I paid it.
Speaker 2I've watched this like three or four times now and I still get confused. I still forgot that that Sean, uh, what's his name? The Irish guy Sean, uh, sean Regan, was a character.
Speaker 1Yeah, we never see a picture of him or like, and everyone keeps going back to Geiger's house all the time, Like constantly and like who's whoiger's house all the time like constantly yeah, exactly To the scene of the crime Eddie Mars and like who's Eddie Mars?
Speaker 2again, it's like which one is that?
Speaker 1Eddie Mars is a top bad guy. He's the top I know he's got like a secondary guy who was working with the other gal that worked at the bookstore. Yeah, who right, who's?
Speaker 2dating the good bookstore and the bad bookstore, and then agnes, agnes and uh, like you know, it's just there's a lot of stuff going on here.
Speaker 1It's good, though. That's why I like it oh no, it's great.
Speaker 2I love it. I absolutely love it. Um, I like it more than to have and have not. I'll say that yeah to have and have nots great, but I mean, this is much, much.
Speaker 1I always think of to have and have not, as just a Casablanca in the Caribbean?
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think you're probably right about that.
Speaker 1Have you ever read the book to heaven? Have not the Hemingway book. It's like 150 pages long. It's basically almost like a old man of the sea style story, where it's just a guy that's gotten shot and he's trying to drive a boat and then they I don't know how they turn that into the movie, which has nothing to do with it. But um keno says I had all my actors watch the big sleep before shooting my short last month. Huh, what were you hoping they would get out of it? Just curious, that one in the trial orson welles, is the trial, I'm guessing which is also good uh, we didn't mention that.
Speaker 2William faulkner wrote uh, helped yeah like for this, which is interesting in and of itself, one of the great american authors, um who, who dabbled in in movies for a little bit but didn't didn't really take off right a lot, yeah, a lot of them did like um.
Speaker 1You know, obviously we have chandler um, but uh, I know that um f scott fitzgerald also dabbled in writing. I think hemingway did too you had a lot of guys that were trying their hand at hollywood as the new place to make money yeah, it just didn't work didn't take for some guys. Yeah, they couldn't take it.
Speaker 2And howard hawks, I mean a very versatile director of many genres, every genre pretty much right, I mean right I just handed everything and was good at pretty much everything too great everything.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, I really want to talk about his movie. Only angels have wings at some point. That's one of my favorites and a great example of like the hoxian trio. But and I like all of you know, maybe this is just totally um out of bounds. But I like john wayne, I like howard hawks is john wayne westerns more than I like john ford's on the whole, like I like rio, bravo, like more, yeah, for sure. Sorry, I think those are some of wayne's best. I think the search is just overrated.
Speaker 2It's I mean, I wouldn't say it's overrated, I think it's, I think it's excellent, but I I I get what you're saying um but for me I mean his girl friday is yes that's. That's up there. One of the howard hawks is awesome. I actually have a book on it that I have to read that's up there.
Speaker 1One of the Howard Hawks is awesome. I actually have a book on it that I have to read that I've been sitting on my shelf for like two years. Um yeah, red river, so good.
Speaker 2Yeah, and the thing as well, right. I wish I had not seen the thing I mean yes, he, yes, he didn't really direct it, but he sort of did.
Speaker 1Right, and I know I was a male war.
Speaker 2Bride was just on TCM like last week and I caught a little bit of that, but yeah, I still, I looked into that thing you were saying about the TCM on YouTube TV or whatever like that, but you have to pay for YouTube TV subscription, right, which is like $70 a month or something like. So it's basically like getting cable again.
Speaker 1I still have my old man, wonderful, wonderful.
Speaker 2I don't have my old man, I use his login Wonderful, wonderful.
Speaker 1I don't have my cable plan then yeah, I don't have cable.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm a. I'm a boomer at heart here, so I know you are, I know you are Um.
Speaker 1can we? Can we give people a preview of what's next?
Speaker 2Yes, oh, interesting, I love only angels have wings, and I refuse to believe it wasn't influenced by terry and the pirates. Oh, that's an interesting wonderful comic strip. That's interesting. I've never thought about it like that, but uh, I could absolutely where it's like the gang that like all hangs out.
Speaker 1Uh, their little. I love that movie so much. I love All Angels have Wings. It's so good, great sense of place. Yes. So, next Like Geiger's house, the next like Geiger's house.
Speaker 2Yeah, the next one. So remind me again what we're doing. I know we're doing. Lady from Shanghai.
Speaker 1Gun Crazy.
Speaker 2Gun Crazy. Oh my God, so good Mild Gun crazy, gun crazy.
Speaker 1Oh my God, so good.
Speaker 2Um Eldred Pierce, and one of yours, another one of yours.
Speaker 1Um, um, oh my.
Speaker 2God, oh, uh, kiss me deadly yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, which is have you watched that yet?
Speaker 2Yeah, I've not rewatched it, I watched it a few months ago, or maybe almost a year ago. At this point, You're the one who turned me on to that a while ago. Uh, you had mentioned it and I I had it, and I didn't even know that I had it and I never watched it.
Speaker 1So I watched it and I loved it, Uh definitely it was not expecting it to be what it was um, so I need to watch it. It's pretty interesting and I think that we can talk a little bit more about um the bomb, as it relates to maybe post-war anxiety and that film oh yeah, for sure that's.
Speaker 2That's one that that almost crosses into like atomic age.
Speaker 1Uh, uh yeah yeah, it's actually probably a good just transition out of of noir, right, yeah, um, and then we can talk about I think gun crazy is a great example to talk about film noirs that aren't in the city and the merits of that, because I know, like we have another famous one that we didn't talk about, that we probably could have out of the past, which maybe might give you a run for double indemnities money as one of this maybe the most seminal dictionary picture definition, noirs, but that's one that doesn't take place primarily in a city either, right?
Speaker 2well, also. Yeah, and have you seen, or symbols?
Speaker 1the stranger, that's another one, that's in kind of suburbs no, all town, I'm not yeah, that's one where he is a I know I'm going to talk about touch of evil too uh, touch of evil.
Speaker 2I god, I'm sorry, I feel with a third man.
Defining Film Noir and Final Thoughts
Speaker 1There's so many good ones sorry keno says out of the past is keno, but do you have the strength to call um the jeff bridges, james woods, remake, uh, keno as well. The Jeff Bridges, james Woods, remake Keno as well. You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2I do not know.
Speaker 1Against All Odds. Against All Odds is the remake of Out of the Past with Jeff Bridges.
Speaker 2I have not seen that.
Speaker 1Every Horse in.
Speaker 2Wolves movie is great. I'll buy that that's true, varying degrees Lady from Shanghai is dope. I'll buy that.
Speaker 1That's true, yeah, varying degrees right. Yeah, bitty from Shanghai is dope.
Speaker 2Including his final performance as Unicron.
Speaker 1Oh, unicron. Yes, yeah, you're right, that's true. I guess Tall Odds is pretty trash. They had a killer Phil Collins song. Dude, you got anything else, man, big Sleep.
Speaker 2I loved it. I just uh, I highly recommend it. Um, it it's um. It allows you to re-watch it multiple times because you're trying to figure out what, what you missed and what you didn't see the last time. But it's all, just you're just soaking in more and more details every single time, which I love do you like phil collins? Of course, who doesn't like phil collins? Fucking love phil collins I mean preferably with genesis.
Speaker 1But oh really, you see, peter gabriel put a new album like uh a few days ago yeah, but I like, I like.
Speaker 2Sorry this may sound uh heresy, but uh I like genesis after gabriel I, I, that's okay yeah, yeah that's okay, that's my that's my jam there yeah, invisible touch of course that's a great album.
Speaker 1And uh the uh abacab, that's another great album there hey, I don't really play video games or anything, but you've ever played la noir?
Speaker 2nope, I don't play video games either, so yeah, um except for, like you know, super nintendo or whatever.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think I'm gonna probably download this thing on steam and play it, because it's supposed to be really good and it's set, but I would encourage you to look up the score for the movie on youtube and listen to it while you're studying for our next episode.
Speaker 2And then I was going to say what do you think about modern noirs or the neo-noir? What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 1What are my thoughts? Trash, throw it in the garbage, fuck it. I'm out, boom, no, I suppose that's a really big question. Dude, can't drop that on me with like five minutes left in the show.
Speaker 2Or any. Do you think it can be as good as it's?
Speaker 1different, it's different, it's different. But I don't think we have established for our audience here a tangible definition of film noir, film noir. So I don't think that I can necessarily understand what's going on with neo-noir until I know exactly what's going on with og noir, which I don't know yet and we're still trying to work out so let's, let's each give our own, I guess, criteria or definition.
Speaker 2So if I, if I were to do mine, I would say it's a distinctly american style of filmmaking, a style of filmmaking that can cross over into different genres. Right, that involves a world where characters blur the lines between good and bad. Right, thematic issues of nihilism, corruption, feelings of entrapment, usually involves a femme fatale, as we previously described, and characters are involved in some kind of shady activity that we, as the audience, feel attracted to and feel complicit in, and root for them to do something that's not so great. And visually, it should include these motifs of darkness and light, highly contrasted with each other.
Speaker 2And you know, I think that's where I would vaguely define the category. You will probably disagree entirely, or?
Speaker 1No, I don't disagree entirely, I just need.
Speaker 2Do you need criteria?
Speaker 1No, no, no. I need the golden sentence. That's what.
Speaker 2I'm working for. You can't define it in one sentence.
Speaker 1You could give it a shot. We can try. I'm going to keep thinking.
Speaker 2I don't think it's, you don't think it's doable, it's um, it's uh, it's. It's clear, cut enough. It's so vague, you can make it whatever you want.
Speaker 1No Cause we established at the beginning of the movie of this show that you can't just be going around calling psycho and vertigo a fucking film noir, because you're just going to lose all meaning to the phrase. If any movie with crime in it is a film noir, right? Well, that's why I put all those qualifiers in there a lot of qualifiers and not a lot of them, I feel are in the big sleep or in laura none of them are in laura.
Speaker 1Laura is like I don't even know, it was okay or the glass key.
Speaker 2glass key, I mean no, they're not.
Speaker 1No, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 2I guess for sure.
Speaker 1They're double identity, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 2I mean in the big sleep.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2There's characters involved.
Speaker 1I mean I guess every movie is a deracination from from like family and order and society and tradition and and like moral values you have. I guess you would have characters that are sort of isolated in their own world and who are having, who may have trouble forming relationships that aren't um born out of some sort of something lascivious right well, there you go, you you got Psycho Norman Bates. Yeah, exactly. You got anything else? Before we wrap it up, I'm going to work on one. I'm going to work on the definition.
Speaker 2You know it when you see it.
Speaker 1You know it when you see it. Build Oliver Wendell Holmes. Yeah, okay, this has been great, dude. I had a good time. I've had a really fun time watching these movies and I'm going to keep watching more of them too. So I think we had some. We had some recommendations in the in the chat here. What do we got? There were some good ones here. Yeah, he walked by night and crime wave haven't seen him been watching. Thanks, appreciate it, bro. A really obscure one that I would highly recommend and I, timewave, haven't seen him Been watching him. Thanks, trembling Colors. Appreciate it, bro.
Speaker 2A really obscure one that I would highly recommend, and I need to rewatch it, but it also has Vincent Price in it. It's called the Web, and it was put out by Kino Lorber maybe last year or something like that.
Speaker 1Yeah, the Web. The Web Is that the Nathan Fielder movie.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 1Do you ever?
Speaker 2watch nathan for you. Huh, do you ever watch?
Speaker 1nathan for you. I don't know what that is. Uh, no, it's a. It's a comedy show but he makes a fake movie called the lab. That's just funny. But uh, keno says, join discord voice chat and keno kingdom after show. I wish I could. I'm sorry. I have to get up really early tomorrow for work, so I have to. I have to have a hard out here um before nine o'clock to go to sleep. But thank you very much for the invite. I appreciate it and I will uh follow up with I'll.
Speaker 2I will be on one of those eventually I don't even know what does that even mean?
Speaker 1oh uh. It's like a keno has a, has a discord server and he's got like a, like a voice chat where people hop on and like talk. Check out Keno's channel if you don't know him, ryan. He's got really good stuff.
Speaker 2I don't think I do.
Speaker 1And he's huge. He's like a huge channel. The fact that he's like dating us with his presence here is like a huge win for us.
Speaker 2Oh, wow.
Speaker 1Yeah, he's like a really popular person.
Speaker 2Okay, he's got sh yeah he's like a really popular person.
Speaker 1Okay, his shit's real good yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2Anything else. You did not see Killers of the Flower Moon yet, correct?
Speaker 1No, I haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon yet. I saw the holdovers, which I really liked, and I saw Napoleon, which I moderately liked.
Speaker 2Thumbs up for the holdovers.
Speaker 1Thumbs up. Big time for the holdovers, oh shoot.
Speaker 2We can't use the thumbs up. We'll get sued by the estate of Roger.
Speaker 1Ebert Of Ebert. Is that true yeah?
Speaker 2Sorry, no thumb, it's cut off. But yeah, definitely. If you're looking for a modern movie, the holdovers definitely the one to see. If you have three and a half hours, go and watch killers of the flower moon.
Speaker 1If not, wait for that to come on. I want to go see it. It's. It's evaporating from my local theaters, though, so I haven't had time to.
Speaker 2I think it's on. I'm on demand now, though you can probably find it.
Speaker 1I want to see it in a theater though.
Speaker 2I just to carve out four hours anymore. The guy next to me in the holdovers was burping and belching and crinkling his candy wrappers. Just people are so disgusting anymore.
Speaker 1Sorry, why would you sit by someone? I always try to sit as far away. Why?
Speaker 2they're their tickets after you and they sit next to you oh gross yeah you have to pick your seat somewhere else, dude you have to while we moved, because it was, it was empty, but after he started burping, you know that's weird. I didn't think that the burping people would want to go see that well, the problem is because, because all of these theaters have renovated to become these luxury you know of using quotes luxury dinner theaters, you know, with the reclining seats and all that?
Speaker 2yes, yes they reduce the seat count in the movies right and you have to pick the seat in advance so you can pick a seat where there's nobody sitting next to you, and then other people are like, oh, I'll put these seats and they sit right next to you. It's like horrible have they?
Speaker 1no shame. Do you have an alamo draft house by you? No okay, that's the one place where I don't mind um food and drink, because it's kind of a fun deal and they do a decent job with it. But yeah, anywhere else with the food shit like. And I had there was a theater that like it had like a little like wooden tray desk in front of you so you could eat your food and watch them. It's just it's fucking.
Speaker 2And the worst is when they actually do the ones where they um. They come and take your order at the seat because waiters are coming in and out and people turn on the light during the movie to check the menu and they ask the waiter about the menu options, or they got to order something more and it's like come on Dude, go see the movie and then go have dinner and talk about it at the dinner.
Speaker 1Yes, thank you, it's go see the movie and then go have dinner and talk about it at the dinner.
Speaker 2Yes, thank you. It's not like the food at the theater is any good either. It's like crap.
Speaker 1Or over a piece of pie like Travis Bickle.
Speaker 2Sorry, that was my angry rant.
Speaker 1That's your gripe on the yeah. Yeah, all right, brother, it's been fun, always good, chatting with you.
Speaker 2Until next time, I don't know what are we doing as the interim here?
Speaker 1Two weeks, oh wait, I don't know, maybe we can probably fit it in next week. I think I've mostly watched it.
Speaker 2You think we can do it next week.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think we can, and then we'll take a little holiday break and we're going to come back reviewing Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the 60s. We're going to talk about Johnny Quest and Space Ghost stuff that I'm very much looking forward to yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2Thanks everyone for tuning in yes, thank you all and uh, great discussion and until next time good night, absolutely see you, buddy.
