We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
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We figured it was time to have a place to talk about Steve’s latest video subjects that do not have an UMR page.
MY PICK OF THE STILLS/LOBBY CARDS IN STEVE’s 1947 FILM NOIR VIDEO
1/The Long Night
2/Love from a Stranger
3/Calcutta-Laddie at his most debonair
4/Solo of Vincent in Moss Rose
5/Framed
6/1st for Lady in the Lake
7/2 for 2 Mrs Carrolls
8/2 of the Great Royal Dano
9/Nora Prentiss
10/The Unsuspected
11/The Web -Edmond billed before Vincent – O’Brien’s leading man heyday
12/2 for Possessed
13/T Men
14/Dark Passage
15/Boomerang
16/2 for Body and Soul
17/Out of the Past
18/set of very classy ones for Welles’ lady from Manchester
19/ALL including a WOW! For Nightmare Alley – one of Power’s few heyday financial flops. Paltry US adjusted gross of $37 million according to Bruce.
20/Johnny O’Clock. Johnny was a great character name in film titles of the classic era: Dan Duryea as 1949’s Johnny Stool Pidgeon; Curtis as 1954’s racing driver and engineer Johnny Dark;; Dana Andrews as 1966’s cowboy Johnny Reno; 1948’s Johnny Belinda, Jane Wyman’s son in the film of that name; Cagney as 1943’s Johnny Come Lately; Allan Jones in the title role in 1942’s When Johnny Comes Marching Home [the theme music for Oscar-winning Golden Holden’s 1953 Stalag 17] Sterling Hayden as the 1954 Johnny Guitar of Joan Crawford.
No matter whether he’s dead and buried
No matter whether he’s near or far
I know there’ll be no other like my Johnny
The one they call Johnny Guitar
With a massive 40 entries and many classy vintage pictorials Steve’s 1947 video is great ‘value for money’ and well-worth a 99% rating in my book. There was in fact so much good stuff in it that I had great difficulty in making my final selections. Here starting with the POSTERS though is my best shot at it which of course will be better than anyone else’s! FL= foreign language versions of the posters
1/FL for The Long Night
2/FL for Singapore –Wow!- remade in 1957 as Istanbul with Errol Flynn/Cornell Borchers
3/ALL for Calcutta
4/ 2FLs for Kiss of Death
5/FL & 1st for Framed
6/FL for The Unfaithful
7/1st for Woman on the Beach
8/FL for Repeat Performance
9/FL for High Wall
10/Both FLs for 2 Mrs Carrolls
11/ALL for Red House
12/FL for The Unsuspected
13/2FL for Dead Reckoning
14/2nd one for A Double Life
15/1st and FL for T Men
16/ALL for Welles’ Lady from Manchester-wow!
17/1st for Body and Soul
18/1st one for Brute Force
19/1st for Joel Thumbs a Ride. Lawrence Tierney [elder brother and mentor of Scott Brady] was of course famous for playing the gangster John Dillinger who reportedly idolized Myrna Loy – or did someone on this site imagine that in a dream?
20/1st and 2FLs for Out of the Past – I prefer as a title the aka of Build my Gallows High
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooh) info and song lyrics, much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
Glad the video was worth the wait, it was a big one with about 150 pictures squeezed in there. I had enough posters and stills left over to make an ‘alternate’ 1947 noir video. But I think one is enough, now on to the next noir year. I might produce a bonus video when I finish the series using stills and posters that didn’t make the final cut, a gallery of noir, maybe.
40 noir films in one year and not a stinker among them, going by the ratings which start off with a score of 6 out of 10, impressive.
Your Royal Dano reference made me snigger as usual. I like that word ‘snigger’ there is a variant ‘snicker’ might be a US/UK thing.
Three films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Crossfire, Body and Soul and Out of the Past. Three more scored 9.
My Video Top 5 –
Out of the Past 8.35
Body and Soul 8.2
Brute Force 8.1
The Lady from Shanghai 7.9
Nightmare Alley 7.8
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
Out of the Past 8.8
Nightmare Alley 8.6
Body and Soul 8.4
Brute Force 8.4
Dark Passage 8.4
IMDB Trivia – Out of the Past. Jane Greer recalled that the laconic Robert Mitchum projected an equally cavalier attitude off camera. She got the impression that he came to the set unprepared, in order to give a more spontaneous performance. She explained, “I remember him saying ‘What are the lyrics?’ to the script person. ‘I never know the lyrics,’ he’d say, and she would give him the lines. I said, ‘You don’t learn your lines beforehand?’ and he’d said, ‘Naah.’ Gosh, I learned mine a week ahead of time. I thought that might be part of why he seemed so much more spontaneous, why he was so easy and underplayed. I decided I’d do that, not be letter-perfect. So I tried learning my lines under the dryer in the morning. I hoped I’d look as though I was thinking. But I blew take after take, and he was letter-perfect. Well, I figured out later that, of course, he knew the lines.”
“By all accounts, it was obvious that an undeniable tension developed between Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum early on during the filming. Certainly the acting styles of the two men could not have been more different. Mitchum’s relaxed, laconic manner contrasted with the aggressive, grandstanding Douglas. In the first scenes to be shot with the two actors, Douglas attempted some scene-stealing by manipulating distracting props, such as swinging a key chain or flipping a coin, George Raft style. Jacques Tourneur saw through these ploys and put a stop to them. For his part, Mitchum would retaliate by making faces when the camera was behind his head, so as to throw off Douglas’ reaction shots. Eventually the one-upmanship faded, and the two let their natural styles complement each other.”
One of the memorable lines of the film, “Baby, I don’t care,” was used by author Lee Server as the title of his 2001 biography of Robert Mitchum.
I have seen 25 Top Film Noirs of 1945.
Favourite noirs are Notorious, The Big Sleep, The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Gilda, The Spiral Staircase, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Humoresque, The Blue Dahlia, The stranger, Deception, The Dark Mirror, The Dark Corner, Nobody Lives Forever, The Verdict, Black Angel, The Locket, Three Strangers, The Chase, Deadline at Dawn, Nocturne, and Crack Up.
I have also seen Undercurrent, Night Editor and Two Smart People.
Favourite posters and stills are from Notorious, The Big Sleep, The Killers, Gilda, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Spiral Staircase, The strange love of Martha Ivers, Humoresque, The Blue Dahlia, The stranger, Deception, The Dark Mirror, The Verdict, Three Strangers and Crack Up.
Hi Flora, 25 out of 30 is another impressive tally from you, your favorite genre I think you said. I’ve only seen 6 which is embarrassing, maybe I should stick to science fiction and horror. 😉
My favorites are Notorious, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia and The Killers. I also enjoyed Postman Rings Twice and Gilda.
I will probably start including color noir when I get to the 50s, though they are not genuine noir. According to one film noir writer- “The classic film noir period is considered as being from the early 1940’s until the late 1950’s. The films that qualify as film noir cinema feature low-key, black and white photography inspired by the chiaroscuro lighting of renaissance art and German Expressionism.”
Thanks for commenting, much appreciated. Glad you liked the posters and stills. More noir next week.
VERY BEST STILLS/LOBBY CARDS IN STEVE’s 1946 FILM NOIRS VIDEO
1/Whistle Stop
2/2 for 2 Smart People
3/Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler with a whip – wow! What’s she gonna do with THAT?
4/2 for Undercurrent
5/The Chase
6/2 for The Locket – Big Bob on his way up the star ladder.
7/Black Angel – love that title
8/2 for The Verdict
9/2nd one for Dark Corner
10/2 for The Stranger- Edward G Nazi hunter!
11/ALL for The Strange Love of Myrna Ivers. Wonderful montage.
12/ALL for Postman Always Rings Twice
13/Solo of Burt in The Killers
14/ALL for The Big Sleep
15/Hitch directing Al Leach and Ingrid – another great collector’s item from Steve.
16/ALL for Gilda – Charlie Bill didn’t even merit equal star billing in 1946
17/2 for Nobody Lives Forever. Garfield sure gets some coverage overall in Steve’s 1946 video. “Before Brando there was John Garfield!”
18/Humoresque. Say what IS the big deal about this guy Garfield? HIM again with arguably his greatest-ever female co-star – indeed maybe EVERYBODY’s greatest-ever lady co-star!
19/2 for The Blue Dahlia-Veronica of course beautifully photogenic. But forget about her: look at that sexy-looking guy!! I am reminded of the critic who opined that handsome Richard Gere looked even more “beautiful” than Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman!
VERY BEST POSTERS IN STEVE’s 1946 FILM NOIRS VIDEO
[FL = Foreign Language version]
1/1st one for Whistle Stop
2/The Night Editor – wow!
3/1st one for Undercurrent
4/1st one for The Chase
5/2 for 3 Strangers
6/1st one for Black Angel – Dan top-billed for once.
7/FL one for The Verdict
8/Final one for Dark Mirror
9/FL for The Stranger
10/FL for Humoresque
11/The Strange Love of Myrna Ivers
12/1st one for Spiral Staircase – a real chiller. Glad it’s so high.
13/FL for Postman Always Rings Twice
14/FL for The Killers
15/2 FL ones for Big Sleep
16/ALL for Notorious – I thought Big Sleep and Blue Dahlia should have been above it for entertainment value.
17/Both for Dark Corner- attempting to turn Mark Stevens into a major star. He didn’t last long as a lead performer. Hung around for a while in B movies and/or secondary roles and his final project was an uncredited role in a 1972 Spanish horror film Fury of the Wolfman [possibly nestling somewhere in Steve’s collection.]
18/Crack-up. It actually chilled me 1st time I saw it but when I watched it again 10 years later I thought it a bit of a bore.
19/ALL for The Blue Dahlia: Audiences are kept guessing as to the identity of the murderer in The Blue Dahlia and of course when the suspense is that great an eternal length of time seems to pass before one learns the truth.
It is ironic therefore that the movie concludes with two of the detectives who solve the murder laughing between themselves with one of them saying “And to think that was one of our easier cases!” as figuratively-speaking Ladd and Lake ‘walk off into the sunset together holding hands’ all lovey-dovey. I simply love an old-fashioned “mushy” end to a movie – sorry Steve!