With working titles such as Woman Confidential, Pleasure Girl, and The Blonde in 402, each should give you a decent idea about what 1959's Vice Raid is all about. A B-movie with some bite, director Edward L. Cahn brings scandal, racketeering, and corruption to the forefront of this late era film noir crime feature. Meet Sgt. Whitey Brandon (Richard Coogan), an officer that is akin to a dog on a bone. Desperate to get to the root of a massive prostitution ring run by best dressed mobster Vince Malone (Brad Dexter), he and partner Ben Dunton (Joseph Sullivan) seem to constantly get ohsoclose, yet so very far from getting a true lead.
You know you’ve got a budgetary problem when you find yourself on Poverty Row. For those of you who do not know, this was the slang term used for a group of low budget Hollywood B movie studios that existed in the City of Angels from the 20s to 50s. Transcending these financial constraints to make a quality film noir, director Edgar G. Ulmer used all the proverbial tricks in the book to develop Detour (1945). Told in a most unique way, a quasi-soliloquy narration transitions to nightmarish flashbacks as Al Roberts (Tom Neal) recounts his fatefully nihilistic tale (you might never see a more downtrodden visage). A cynical man, even before his girlfriend (closing in on fiancée), Sue Harvey (Claudia Drake), decides to leave him to make her own breaks in Hollywood, he is the prototypical down on his luck protagonist. It’s not like he doesn’t have a skill – a piano virtuoso, he can only find a job tinkling the ivories at a crummy nightclub in fog strewn NYC (fog was a useful tool for low budget productions that didn’t have the money for sets).
A young woman’s cold dead body lays on a bed – an apparent suicide (there is a note); a man taking the wedding ring off her hand, then stealing money from her purse; he hops out of the window with his luggage, tweaking his leg in the process... this is the dark and intoxicating opening to 1945's Danger Signal, directed by Robert Florey. Based upon a novel of the same name by Phyllis Bottome, the above mentioned man is Ronnie Mason (Zachary Scott), he’s as smooth as silk, as silken as velvet, as velvety as velour... in other words, he’s a slick chameleon bluebeard that women should be wary of (but never are).
By now, most film fanatics have discovered the works of playwright turned film maker Martin McDonagh, starting with the 2004 short film Six Shooter (it earned him an Oscar), he then went full length with 2008's In Bruges (it quickly became an acclaimed cult classic), next heading Stateside with the rather violent 2012 comedy Seven Psychopaths (again, garnering much praise), only for his fourth, and to date, final effort, 2017's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, to earn multiple Academy Award nominations (including two wins. . . while many believed it should have won Best Picture as well). While we wait for his still untitled next feature (which is currently in pre-production), perhaps some of you have yet to discover his very talented brother, John Michael McDonagh. Today, I’ll introduce you to the short film that started it all, as well as the full length feature that blossomed out of it.
Only Bong Joon Ho’s second movie, 2003's Memories of Murder already shows the masterful brush strokes of a confident young artist, writing a thought provoking, multi-layered script (based upon a series of real life murders as well as Alan Moore’s graphic novel “From Hell”) that is paired with a mesmeric visual onscreen presence. Set in a rural town in South Korea, this is a location that has been left behind. Usually a peaceful, quiet place (except when the trains pass through), October 1986 has brought with it the dead body of a young woman – both raped and murdered. Riots and protests routinely pop up in this fractured time and setting.
A return to his roots after more than a decade making big budget studio pictures, Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen (2019), recaptures that unique mixture of crime and comedy (all done in a hyper-stylized visual way) that put him on the map back in 1998 with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (the successful follow up Snatch would come in 2000). If you don’t like Ritchie’s visual style and Limey-centred crime stories, then this likely won’t win you over, but if you’ve missed his unique method of film making since his last gangster flick (2008's RocknRolla), this one should feel as comfortable as a finely made bespoke suit.
If you’ve delved into the world of film noir, you’ve likely seen a number of unusual ones. . . some may be set in other countries, or in a winter wonderland (a far cry from the expected asphalt jungle that is Los Angeles), even a nuclear bomb can be found in a mid 50s example. . . yet one set during the holiday season? That’s right, 1944's Christmas Holiday, directed by the great Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady; Criss Cross), might mislead a few with its title (but more on that later). A vehicle for two very unexpected stars for this type of picture, Deanna Durbin (a name perhaps less known today), was a child actor turned girl next door who is often credited with helping save Universal Studios during the Great Depression. Close to bankruptcy, the teenage star took the world by storm, her musical numbers a massive draw in features like Three Smart Girls (at the age of only 14) and One Hundred Men and a Girl, it all leading to an Academy Juvenile Award in 1938. Her first role in which she attempted to break out of this child-like ingenue typecasting, you might be able to guess that there were many who were shocked and unimpressed by this new Durbin.