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.
So it’s goodbye to the Alan Ladd 1950s film noirs but well-done STEVE with everything that you HAVE entertainingly provided us with in the 1950s series – and see my parting Laddie comments in post 3 This has been a great series which relating to the 1950s as it does has brought back to me numerous nostalgic memories so I am sad to see it ending.
However this final video [98% rated by me] in the 50s series has ensured that the series is closing with the same high standard of visuals as were those with which it opened.True the entry numbers are low in this final one but all the more credit to you that I have been able to highlight so many classy posters and stills [often in multiples] from relative lean noir years of 1958/9; so well-done too STEVE on also maintaining the high consistency of standards over so many videos.
I forgot to say STEVE last time that I enjoyed the Blue Danube instrumental lead-in to your first-class 1957 noirs video. It has long been one of my instrumental favourite pieces of music added to which I have in my musical collection the lyrical version of it sung by the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber.
Weave on old dreams
Where moonlight gleams
In memories dear
To me you appear
By light of the stars
That gleam above
Until I return
To the home I ever love.
Oh let us then away
Where the moonbeams gently play
On the waves so fair and blue
For my love is ever true
Yeah let us glide on the stream
Gently by the moon’s beam
Away on the Danube so fair
Where life becomes a dream
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, kind words, generous rating, info, trivia, quotes and lyrics, always appreciated. Glad you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
The end of the road for my noir videos. They did sort of peter out at the end of the 1950s, but it did end with a strong title – Touch of Evil (1958).
Alan Ladd was one of the noir icons of the 1940s so I’m glad he made an appearance in the last video along with Widmark and Mitchum.
My father was a fan of Ladd’s and he used to tell me that he never smiled in his films. I’m sure he did, maybe a smirk or two? But not grinning or laughing helped to make him even more popular.
Burt Lancaster was the opposite, any excuse to smile and display those pearly whites. In one of his last films ‘Tough Guys (1986)’ there’s a scene where old Burt proudly shows off his teeth to Kirk Douglas. 🙂
One film scored 10 out of 10 from my sources and that was ‘Touch of Evil’. Two films scored 9 – Party Girl and I Want to Live!
My Video Top 5 –
Touch of Evil 9.1
I Want to Live 7.8
Odds Against Tomorrow 7.5
Party Girl 7.2
The Lineup 7.2
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
Touch of Evil 8.9
I Want to Live 8.3
Odds Against Tomorrow 7.7
Party Girl 7.0
Thunder Road 6.6
IMDB Trivia for Touch of Evil – “Orson Welles said that this was the most fun he’d ever had filming a picture, unlike most of his Hollywood films, because he wasn’t troubled by studio interference until after he finished shooting. He was given a healthy budget, and he was working with some of his favorite actors on a script that didn’t involve as much symbolism and all-out cinematic trickery as something like Citizen Kane.
Orson Welles was originally hired only to act in the film, but due to a misunderstanding, Charlton Heston thought that Welles was to be the director. To keep Heston happy, producer Albert Zugsmith allowed Welles to direct. Welles made major changes to the already-completed script, including changing Heston’s character from a white district attorney to a Mexican narcotics agent, and changing Janet Leigh’s character from Mexican to American.
The entire film was shot on real locations, apart from the ten-minute take in the Mexican shoe store clerk’s apartment, which is actually a set. The studio wanted the entire film to be shot on sets, even going so far as to build numerous locations on its lots, but Orson Welles insisted on filming in a real city, settling for Venice, California, when he couldn’t get his initial choice of Tijuana.
Orson Welles stated that his goal with the film was to infuriate the audience with the plot, in much the same way that Howard Hawks did with The Big Sleep (1946). The story became even more confusing once the studio recut the picture.”
Happy Easter Bob. I’m taking an extended break but I will be back with new videos. Take care and thanks again for all the reviews.
HI STEVE: Terrific feedback as always. I was glad to see a Chuck movie topping your 1958/59 noir ratings: I was beginning to think you had deserted our mutual great idol! Nice that Welles respected him enough to appease him by personally directing and not just starring in Touch of Joel. You also say-
1/ “My father was a fan of Ladd’s and he used to tell me that he never smiled in his films.” Hey! – you kept your father’s interest in Laddie dark. All I can say to that is “like father like son”: HE too had good taste in relation to movie matters.
Actually one critic thought that Ladd’s Philip Raven [the cold-blooded hit man] smiling at the end of This Gun For hire almost ruined the movie; but I agree that part of the Ladd tough guy persona was not to smile a lot. After all he was in competition with his friend Bogie for the tag “The screen’s toughest tough guy.”
2/”Burt Lancaster was the opposite, any excuse to smile and display those pearly whites.” Actually I am reminded that years ago when I was with the RAF in England I said to my then girlfriend about Burt’s white flashing teeth something like what you have just said and she replied “Are your sure they’re his own?”
As you know I am not great fan of action movies but to keep my grandson company I watched 2003’s The Italian Job the other day and noticed that whilst Matt Damon, Charlize Theron and Edward Norton were all billed above the title Jace was in smaller letters below it. I guess he never could “hang out with the Big Boys”.
Jace’s most recent movie where he had a full-length role [2021’s Wrath of Man] grossed just $27 million overall in the US so I was tempted to say that Jace’s best days were behind him; but maybe help is at hand because he’s currently filming Meg 2: The Trench and as you know The Meg has form for packing em in at movie theatres.
3/ “Welles made major changes to the already-completed script.” When Lancaster and Douglas arrived on the set of 1957’s Gunfight at OK Corral they read the already-finished script; raged at the scriptwriters and the “suits”; threw it in the bin; and locked themselves away together in a dressing room and rewrote it.
Kirk retorted afterwards to the amazed and indignant studio executives who were protesting about the 2 stars’ antics: “I agree with you that Burt and I like to shoot our mouths off – but the difference between us and a lot of you guys in suits is that WE know what we are shooting-off our mouths about!”
Anyway keep safe and enjoy the rest of your weekend including your Easter.
I have seen 10 noirs from 1958 and 1959. Favourites are Touch of Evil, I Want to Live!, Odds Against Tomorrow, Party Girl, The Lineup, Thunder Road, The Trap and Cry Terror!. I have also seen The Crimson Kimono, and Murder By Contract.
Favourite posters and stills are from Touch of Evil, Odds On Tomorrow, Thunder Road, The Trap, Tread Softly Stranger and Cry Terror!
Looking forward to the next set of videos and its theme. I loved going over noir films.
Hi Flora, no more noir videos, it’s sad innit? *sniff* 😉 Your tally on the 440 noir films was excellent, did you say it was your favorite genre, or one of your favorite genres? I did badly on these 16 videos. I did much better on westerns.
Your tally on this one, 10 out of 20, very nice. I’ve seen just 2 that I know for sure – Party Girl and Touch of Evil. I have Odds Against Tomorrow in the collection but haven’t watched it yet.
Thanks for all the comments, much appreciated. Happy you liked the posters and stills. Take care and Happy Easter!
Yes, it is my favourite genre. Other favourites are crime films in general and musicals. Happy Easter!
HI STEVE: Thanks for the reply; most enjoyable.
The Work Horse has Sweet Smell as his 2nd highest review rated movie in all of 1957 behind 12 Angry Men: 92%-95% respectively with both films being rated above for example the blockbusters Golden Holden’s Bridge on River Kwai [88%] and Brando’s Sayonara [83%]. I think that I too would go with 12 Angry Men shading it for the top spot. WH’s 92% for Sweet Smell is of course identiaal to your own rating.
Good trivia about Sweet Smell. In addition to what you have said I can recall at the time of its release Burt going public and lamenting the fact that his pairing with Bernie in Sweet Smell made just about 30% of the total domestic box office that the same duo’s Trapeze made the year before. The Work Horse’s adjusted domestic grosses for those 2 Lancaster/Schwartz movies are respectively $105 million/$345 million.
I’m sad that the noirs are coming to an end as I have immensely enjoyed watching the visuals and commenting on them. However as Jack Lemmon kept saying in 1960s The Apartment “That’s the way it crumbles – cookie wise!” Anyway please enjoy the rest of your weekend.
VERY BEST STILLS IN STEVE’s VIDEO
The movies selected are largely B fare and/or of just solid pieces of entertainment where they are not merely routine.
Steve’s visuals though are a different kettle of fish with many collector’s items among them and so 99%-rated in my book after 3 views by me to date.
1/Affair in Havana – lovely!
2/Hit and Run
3/ALL for Unholy Wife
4/My Gun is Quick
5/2 for Chicago Deadline
6/2 for House of Numbers
7/2 for The Brother’s Rico -I saw this on double bill with 3.10 to Yuma
8/2 for Baby Face Cogerson
9/2 for Crime of Passion
10/2 for The Long Haul
11/ALL for Garment Jungle – wow!
12/Slaughter on 10th Avenue
13/1st one for The Midnight Story aka Appointment with a Shadow
14/ALL for Hell Drivers – a pre-Bond Sir Sean! Who would have thought back then watching this that he would ever have become the mega-star that he eventually did?
15/Hidden Fear. Payne was a big B movie idol of mine but even at just the age of 16 I could sense that his heyday was on the wane when I watched this one. In fact possibly because of near-death in a traffic accident he appeared in only 2 more movies one of which was made for television and in a 1975 episode of the TV detective series Columbo after which he retired.
16/Nightfall – a forgotten gem of which I will always have fond memories. I can’t though recall Aldo Ray doing anything of note after it. An earlier career appearance by “Mrs Robinson” of course who ultimately DID go on to greater things! In those early roles she didn’t get maximum opportunity to display the talent for which she was later applauded
17/Istanbul – a remake of 1947’s Singapore which starred Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner.
18/Short Cut to Hell. As Steve highlights Cagney directed this one; and it was his only directorial assignment ever which he did as purely a favour to his great pal A C Lyles. Therefore in my book this PHOTO is one of the many collector’s items that Steve has flushed out.
19/Sweet Smell of Success. In 2002 the movie Sweet Smell of Success was adapted for the stage as a musical and by coincidence last week I was sent a photo of a thespian relative of mine playing Lancaster’s J. J. Hunsecker in a current local production of the musical adaptation on a stage in England. The film version is arguably the only serious major classic in the video.
VERY BEST POSTERS IN STEVE’s 1957 FILM NOIR VIDEO [FL=Foreign Language version]
1/1st one for Hit and Run – wow!
2/2 for Hidden Fear – wow again!
3/FL for Unholy Wife
4/1st one for Shadow on Window
5/FL one for Hellbound
6/1st one for Chicago Confidential
7/1st one for Baby Face Cogerson
8/FL for The Burglar
9/FL for Plunder Road
10/ALL for Slaughter on 10th Avenue
11/Edge of the City aka A Man is Ten Feet Tall
12/Sweet Smell of Success
13/The Long Haul. Forgotten Mature actioner from his heyday.
14/Affair in Havana
15/1st one Istanbul
16/Crime of Passion-Forgot Raymond Burr was in this – he’s one of my fave TV actors
17/1st one for House of Numbers-Palance on a roll of top-billed lead parts following his great Shane success. That roll didn’t last over-long
20/Short Cut to Hell. Short Cut to Hell is a remake of Alan Ladd’s 1942 classic This Gun for Hire with equally diminutive Robert Ivers in the Ladd role. This Gun for Hire of course turned Ladd into a mega star but Short Cut did nothing for Robert Ivers who remained in obscurity as a star.
In fact Robert Ivers’ final film appearance was not too long after Short Cut to Hell, a tiny role in A C Lyles 1965 Town Tamer starring Dana Andrews; the following year Ivers retired from acting altogether. I saw Short Cut To Hell on a double bill with Elvis’ Loving You the 2nd film in The King’s movie career.
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, generous rating (ooer), info and trivia, always appreciated. Happy you liked the posters, stills and lobby cards.
The end is in sight, as you can tell from this lot most are not very well known and only one top rated ‘selected for preservation’ classic. Next weeks video will be the last in the series and will include noir from 1958 and 1959.
Two films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources, and they are ‘Edge of the City’ and ‘Sweet Smell of Success’. Four more scored 8 out of 10.
My Video Top 5 –
Sweet Smell of Success 8.9
Edge of the City 7.3
Hell Drivers 7.2
Nightfall 7.2
Time Without Pity 7.0
The UMR Critics Top 5 –
Sweet Smell of Success 9.2
Edge of the City 7.1
Baby Face Nelson 6.9
The Burglar 6.6
Slaughter on 10th Avenue 6.5
IMDB Trivia for Sweet Smell of Success – “The character of J.J. Hunsecker is based on famed New York columnist Walter Winchell. Burt Lancaster blamed screenwriter Ernest Lehman’s withdrawal due to illness for the film’s box-office failure. At the after party for the premiere, Lancaster said, “‘You didn’t have to leave – you could have made this a much better picture. I ought to beat you up”. The witty scribe replied, “Go ahead, I need the money.” Cinematographer James Wong Howe spread a film of Vaseline on Lancaster’s glasses to create a shine and make his stare more menacing.
Hunsecker’s line “I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic” was voted as the #99 of “The 100 Greatest Movie Lines” by Premiere in 2007. As parallels to real life in this film, Walter Winchell was so obsessive about his daughter’s love life that he had her institutionalized as being emotionally unstable, and with the help of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had forced her lover to leave the country. “