A Deadly Good Time

A triumvirate of friends – bosom buddies, longtime pals... and hardcore criminals – though we all know the idiom ‘as thick as thieves’, that is not always the case, for especially in film noir, friend can quickly become foe, and femme can often become fatale. Case in point – Hell’s Half Acre (1954), directed by John H. Auer. Meet Chet Chester (Wendell Corey – Rear Window), supposedly dead at Pearl Harbor, the criminal used the event to change his name (he was originally Randy Williams) and make it rich in the racketeering underworld in Hawaii (with his two buddies). Now the owner of a swank nightclub and transformed into an amateur songwriter, his past soon comes knocking when he is confronted by sketchy eyed business partner Slim Novak (Robert Costa), who is looking for another payout... and he’s not afraid to shoot for it. The problem is, Chet’s protectively dangerous dame, Sally Lee (Nancy Gates), has a just as itchy trigger finger, offing his former buddy quite quickly.

Almost as if designed to be a scripted crime version of a PSA for the greatness of armoured trucks, Guns Girls and Gangsters (1959), directed by Edward L. Cahn, is a late era film noir that still has some bite. Voice-over narrated by the above quoted Chuck Wheeler (Gerald Mohr), he’s the hardened criminal with the plan. With a dead-eye shot that can blow out a moving tire from fifty yards and a mug to match said blown out rubber, he plans on knocking off an armoured truck carrying two million dollars.

A man, whose five o’clock shadow (after several drinks) is seemingly approaching midnight, kills another at last call in a drunken fit; evading chasing parties, he slips through an unlocked window and gazes upon a beautiful sleeping woman – a singular moment that will forever change and intertwine their lives... this is the mysteriously alluring introduction to the film noir Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948), directed by Norman Foster. The man is Bill Saunders (Burt Lancaster) – an American concentration camp survivor who is grifting in and around London; the woman is Jane Wharton (Joan Fontaine) – a highly educated yet lonely nurse who lost her sweetheart during the war, together they are quite the unlikely pair.

Coming off as a low grade imitation of a Steven Seagal style movie... but without the flair, 1989's Red Surf, co-written and directed by H. Gordon Boos, is perhaps most intriguing for featuring George Clooney in one of his first cinematic starring roles, and Gene Simmons as his demented moral compass and kick-ass compatriot (or maybe it should be kiss-ass). Beating Point Break to the surfer storyline by a full two years, Clooney plays former hang ten icon Remar, who, after some knee issues, has decided to get his highs from smuggling and using drugs instead. Surrounded by a team of just as impressive low lifes, including number two Attila (Doug Savant) – funnily enough, ‘hun’ works quite well to describe him

Wow – what a tagline: “One will die tonight! The girl on the loose, the smart secretary... they’re too teasing...too tempting...too easy a target for a crazed killer!”. 1957's The Girl in Black Stockings, coming from famed producer and sometime director Howard W. Koch, is a B budget film noir that really demonstrates its influence as a precursor to the gialli and slasher films that would follow some fifteen or so years later. Nearly entirely set in one location, welcome to the small town of Kanab, Utah... a population of three thousand that houses within it the relaxing Parry Lodge – a perfect place for those looking to escape their stressful lives. Run by a brother and sister, Edmund Parry (Ron Randell) is a clench jawed cynic (likely stemming from the fact he is a quadriplegic), often spouting cheerful lines like, “I’d like to get so drunk I’d look in a mirror and spit in my own face”, while Julia (Marie Windsor – The Killing) is everything to him but wife (but that doesn’t mean she’s not jealous when a woman shows him any attention).

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).