Some movie talk for Sunday morning.
Posted on 01/15/2023 4:27:11 AM PST by Rummyfan
There's a temptation once you've started sorting anything into a genre to start making lists, of the most typical, the most essential, or simply the best. Film noir, a genre whose tangled roots begin somewhere in the early '40s and ends – by general critical acclaim, though your mileage may vary – with Orson Welles' A Touch of Evil in 1958, begs for these kinds of rankings, if only because its hardboiled subject matter tends to attract a male fandom, and everybody knows how much men love lists.
If you were making a list of most typical noir films, you'd have to include Out of the Past or The Asphalt Jungle; for most essential noirs, The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity would make most lists. As for the best film noir, the competition would be more heated, not to mention subjective, but you'd probably find Detour or The Killers on a lot of those lists. From where I'm sitting, though, you could grit your teeth and put The Big Combo on any three, perhaps all of them. And then sit back and wait for the shouting to start.
Released in 1955, The Big Combo was directed by b-picture stalwart Joseph H. Lewis, whose Gun Crazy (1950) would probably be an essential noir, but hardly a typical one. It was made for half a million dollars in twenty-six days and includes countless iconic shots that end up in nearly every documentary about noir ever made. It was the first picture made by a production company started by Cornel Wilde and his wife Jean Wallace, and released by Allied Artists, which had recently changed its name from Monogram Pictures, a fixture on Hollywood's Poverty Row.
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Some movie talk for Sunday morning.
I had to look up “film noir” to get some idea of what this is about. Fairly certain The Three Stooges are out. Maltese Falcon was one of my brother’s favorites, but it flies right over my head. Will try to watch The Big Combo later today.
I would include the movie Body Heat from 1981.
Body Heat was my favorite too. Kathleen Turner was especially good. The older movies always seemed to feature the male characters. Hers in BH was the attention getter.
Body Heat is questionable, but there is room for debate on what is Film Noir and what isn’t. TCM is showing Thunder Road at 9:00. It’s a little different but good.
Lady in the Lake is another example.
An influence on Scorsese and ahead of its time. The killer's quirks, attention to detail (e.g., the scene in the knife store), etc. - IOW many elements that became tropes for the later practitioners of the genre.
Naked is good. It’s amazing how many different movies they could make that still fit into that genre.
I would go with Double Indemnity or Gilda as the best. Hubby would go with The Third Man.
I’ll have to watch your reccomendation again since it’s been awhile since I saw it, thanks.
LA Confidential is probably one of the better modern era films in this Genre. By modern era I mean films produced after 1980 (though LA Confidential is a period piece).
My favorite is Out Of The Past. Second place is every Noir film with either Lizabeth Scott or Gloria Grahame.
Double Indemnity is one of my faves. My specialty experience of Fred McMurray growing up was him as Steve Douglas the ideal dad. So quite a difference seeing him In DI. And Barbara Stanwyck was a great femme fatale.
The Third Man is great too. So atmospheric being filmed in a destroyed Vienna.
I've seen a few others.
Well made, but nothing I'd watch again. Not for enjoyment, anyway.
Dark Passage, with Bogart and Bacall.
All these films hold up really well in modern times.
That’s the thing, there are so many you don’t have to repeat often.
Digital video, Computer graphics, and Woke, have ruined most movies and streaming TV shows for me. You can’t even find a comedy anymore.
I only saw the edited TV version.
The ending was something else.
I agree.
We were the last people we knew to get a color TV and a VCR.
By quite a while.
(Hubby is a one man geek squad, but if doesn't die or become inefficient, it doesn't get replaced.)
The first two movies we got on tape were Leslie Howard's The Scarlet Pimpernel and the other was the 1950's version of The Thing.
We've got our favorites on DVD and Blu-ray now, but the vast majority of what we have is decades old.
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