The Whistler, which was first heard on the Columbia Broadcasting System on May 16, 1942 and ran for more than 13 years, was one of the best mystery and suspense programs on the radio. It didn’t feature the well-known Hollywood stars of Suspense (also broadcast on CBS), but its scripts were some of the most clever and satisfying that old-time radio had to offer, and its final twists were always satisfying, whether or not you saw them coming.

The program was hosted by a mysterious character embodied by the sounds of footsteps and an eerie, whistled theme song. Each program began the same way, with the narrator saying, “I am the Whistler and I know many things, for I walk by night. I know many strange tales hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless terrors of which they dare not speak.” There were no recurring characters, but the situations were fairly similar from week to week. Greedy or vengeful people driven by dark impulses endeavored to commit perfect crimes, but were undone by a single overlooked detail or their own overreaching. Quite often, each story would contain more twists than just the one at the end. For instance, one program from October 1945 told the story of a man who killed his underworld partner and got away with it. He always wanted to reveal to the police the details of his clever scheme, but of course could not do so and remain a free man. After inadvertently faking his own death when a drifter steals his car and identification, crashes, dies, and is believed to be him, he changes his name and moves out of town. He then writes a mocking letter to the authorities laying out all the details of how he got away with murder. Immediately after mailing it, he hears on the radio that the police have determined that the body in the car wasn’t him after all, so he goes on furious chase through the state in an attempt to retrieve the letter. He eventually attracts the attention of the police for tampering with the mail and is caught and confesses, only to find out at the end of the story that his letter was returned to his boarding house because it had incorrect postage.

Like Inner Sanctum Mysteries (another popular CBS suspense program), The Whistler was adapted as a series of B movies after it had been on the air for a couple of years. Starting with The Whistler (1944), which was directed by William Castle, the series continued with The Mark of the Whistler (1944), also directed by Castle, and The Power of the Whistler (1945), which was directed by Lew Landers. Each film starred Richard Dix, although he played a different role in each. The films did a great job of capturing the essence of the radio show. The Whistler was seen in shadow, just a man in a coat and a hat haunting alleyways and the dark parts of the city at night. As on the radio show, the Whistler’s voiceover often addressed the characters in the story, speaking in the second person, although he never interacted with them directly. (A typical bit might go, “You’ve really done it now, haven’t you? If you leave, they’ll see you, but if stay here, you’ll perish along with your victim. What are you going to do, George? What are you going to do?”)

Voice of the Whistler, which was directed by William Castle and written by Wilfred H. Petitt and Castle, working from a story by Allan Radar, tells the sad story of a successful industrialist named John Sinclair (Dix), whose fabulous wealth failed to provide him with either friends or health. After a breakdown, Sinclair changes his name to “John Carter” and goes away to lose himself. He sees a doctor who advises him to go to the sea coast, get some fresh air, a job, and enjoy himself. “And above everything, try to make friends,” the doctor tells him. “And never forget, Mr. Carter, that loneliness is a disease that can destroy a man’s mind.”

Sinclair moves to the coast of Maine and takes up residence in a lighthouse that has been converted into a private dwelling. Believing he doesn’t have long to live, he convinces a beautiful young nurse named Joan Martin (Lynn Merrick) to marry him. In exchange for her companionship during his last months, she will inherit all of his wealth. Although Joan is in love with a handsome young intern named Fred Graham (James Cardwell), they have been engaged for four years, and have no plans to be married until Fred can make enough money. Against Fred’s protests, Joan marries John, partly because she likes him and pities him, but mostly because his money can give her and Fred the life they’ve always wanted. After John and Joan have been married and living in the lighthouse with their jovial friend Ernie Sparrow (Rhys Williams) for several months, John’s health dramatically improves, and it looks as if Joan might have trouble collecting on their bargain. Meanwhile, John falls more and more in love with her. Eventually Fred shows up for a friendly visit that will have murderous consequences.

Richard Dix, a Hollywood star since the silent era, is great in each Whistler film I’ve seen him in so far. His glory days were behind him, but he was still a fine actor, and was equally adept at playing sympathetic protagonists and villains.

Versucht man David Lynch wikepadiatorisch zu definieren, kommt folgendes dabei heraus: “David Keith Lynch (* 20. Januar 1946 in Missoula, Montana) ist ein US-amerikanischer Regisseur, Maler, Fotograf und Animationskünstler.”

Ein Multitalent also, dessen Durchbruch ihm mit Filmen wie Eraserhead im Jahre 1977 gelang (und er wohl deshalb die Frisur noch heute in Ehren trägt?), Blue Velvet, der ihn 1986 weiter auf dieser Welle reiten lässt und er mir persönlich mit Lost Highway und Mulholland Drive 1997 und 2001 zwei meiner Lieblingsfilme beschert: “Als Regisseur hat er eine unverkennbare Filmsprache gefunden (der SPIEGEL)”.Was einige seiner Filme, speziell Mulholland Drive, angeht, klicke ich mich noch heute durch alle Foren, um die Intetionen aufzuspüren. Der Meister selbst sagte einmal in einem Interview, das ich vor Jahren las, er verstehe seine Filme als Bilder bzw. Gemälde, bei denen jeder Betrachter einen jeweils anderen Eindruck gewinnt und er ihnen deshalb seine ganz eigenen Interpretationen abgewinnt.
David Lynch ist ein Meister des surrealistischen, grotesk anmutenden Kinos, das sich mit atmosphärischen Elementen des Film Noirs vereint und somit eine Art vertontes Kunstwerk schafft. Sohingehend verbindet er immer Kunst, Film und auch seine Leidenschaft zu experimenteller Musik, die er für seine Filme zu großen Teilen selbst produziert.

“Der Film entwickelte sich für mich aus der Malerei.”

Nun gibt er erstmals in Deutschland sein Werk als bildender Künstler preis und zwar im Max Ernst Museum in Brühl. Seine Bilder sind wie erwartet grotesk, gewohnt verstörend und ein bisschen anders. Die Einflüsse eines Francis Bacon sind sofort erkennbar, sieht man sich die sogenannten “Distorted Nudes”- Werke an, bei denen es sich um verzerrte und teilweise verstümmelte Frauenkörper, am Computer bearbeitet, handelt und auch etwas verstörend wirken. Die ältesten Werke Lynchs stellen die Aufnahmen der schmelzenden Schneemänner dar, die er zu den Dreharbeiten seiner Twin- Peaks Serie fotografiert hat. Auch gibt es großformatige Portraits und kunstvoll gestaltete Materialbilder.

Seine Bilder sind so zugänglich wie seine Filme, entweder man lässt sich darauf ein und die Interpretation erstmal aussen vor, oder man versucht  einfach nicht hinzusehen und verpasst dabei die ihm eigene und phantasievolle Art, filmischen Spielraum kunstvoll zu Nutzen.

Hier eine kleine  Auswahl seiner Bilder in Brühl, die ich hier leider nicht, wie er vor Ort, musikalisch unterlegen kann (was die surrealstische Stimmung noch authentischer erscheinen lässt):

    Produced by Collier Young, Ida Lupino’s husband at the time, “Beware, My Lovely” is an odd little thriller that will keep you on edge for all of its short 77 minute running time. Along with Lupino, the film stars Robert Ryan as Howard Wilton, a former World War 1 veteran, and schizophrenic handyman who we first see running away from his previous job after finding the lady of the house dead. He soon arrives in a new unnamed town where a sympathetic widow, Helen Gordon (Lupino) hires him; its Christmas time and she needs the help at her boarding house. It does not take long for Howard’s perceptions of reality to become twisted as the kindly Mrs. Gordon is soon viewed by Howard as suspiciously hostile, and soon becomes a prisoner in her own house. Howard, paranoid, delusional, has locked the doors, pulled the phone out of the wall, cutting off our heroine from any outside contact.

    The film is simply constructed, yet engulfs the viewer with a creepy atmosphere primarily driven by Ryan’s outstanding off kilter performance. The film has some striking visual touches that contribute to the eerie mood. One outstanding scene has Helen, believing Howard has left the house, sitting down in a chair next to the Christmas tree, obviously exhausted by her recent ordeal. Suddenly we see a reflection from a couple of hanging Christmas ornaments, its Howard, slowly coming down the stairs unknown to Helen.

    The talented Ida Lupino gives a wonderful performance as a hostage in her own home however; it is Robert Ryan’s performance as the emotionally disturbed handyman that is the real highlight. Lonely, confused, psychotic Howard Wilton is a template for many movie crazies yet to come. The couple work well together having just completed Nick Ray’s excellent “On Dangerous Ground.”

    With a strong screenplay and story by Mel Dinelli (The Window, The Spiral Staircase, Cause for Alarm), produced by The Filmakers, the company founded by Lupino and her husband Collier Young, “Beware, My Lovely” is a gripping thriller. Contributing to the atmosphere is the art direction by Albert D’Asgostino who creates a homey atmosphere set against the terror that is played out. The husband and wife team gave production designer Harry Horner the opportunity to direct, though Lupino did direct a few scenes when Horner’s wife was ill in the hospital. In many ways, the film does reflect Lupino directed films with its arresting camerawork and stark black and white photography. As most probably know. Lupino was already a fine director of low budget psychological thrillers like “The Bigamist” and “The Hitch-Hiker.” This film fits nicely into the same pattern. It is a shame Lupino’s movie directing career was short lived as she was soon regulated to directing television series. Her television work did include though Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller and a few Twilight Zone episodes. “Beware, My Lovely” is also helped greatly by cinematographer George Diskant who whose work includes “On Dangerous Ground”, “The Narrow Margin”, “Kansas City Confidential”, The Racket and Lupino directed “The Bigamist.”

    When the “Beware, My Lovely”, opened in New York in September of 1952, the ever off the mark, New York Times critic Bosley Crowthers shrugged off the film as having “no other positive purpose than to send shivers chasing up and down the spine.” Well, it is a thriller, what else did he expect. It does the job admirably.

High school noir-comedy, tak można najzwięźlej opisać ten film. Pomysł: kryminał typu film-noir wsadzić w mury szkoły średniej, okrasić pewną dawką pastiszu wspomnianego gatunku i dodać kilka sprośnych komentarzy i sporo gagów w stylu filmów dla nastolatków. Fajne jest to, że bohaterowie zachowują się jakby byli dorosłymi graczami w jakiejś kryminalnej rozgrywce. Mamy tu famme fatale, zamach, narkotyki, brutalność i reportera szkolnej gazety, próbującego rozwikłać wielką zagadkę. Jeśli chodzi o estetykę i grę aktorów jest całkiem spoko. Zrobiony jest dobrze i jest w pewnym stopniu szalony, a fabuła pokręcona. Jakby tego było mało dyrektora szkoły gra Bruce Willis, a MTV lansuje ten film porównując go do takich tytułów jak Rushmore, The Usual Suspects, Chinatown, Sixteen Candles, czy Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Ale czy film jest spoko?

Nie jest. Jest średni. Troszkę sympatyczny ale średni.

Ogólnie jest to lepszy film typu high school niż ten z Megan Fox, ale dużo gorszy niż wszystkie wspomniane. Porównanie jest bezcelowe, your argument is invalid.

Beware, My Lovely, from 1952, is somehow a much forgotten noir even by those who are fans of the genre. What makes this so odd is the fact that it stars two of the most notable noir actors of all time. Robert Ryan, whose noir credits are as long as anyone’s, plays the psychopath Howard Wilton. Ida Lupino, who has an equally impressive noir resume, plays the widow Helen Gordon. 

The film also includes Taylor Holmes as Walter Armstrong and Barbara Whiting as Ruth Williams. Holmes appeared briefly and often uncredited in several other noirs while Whiting had a brief film career and is more well-known for her television appearances. Harry Horner directed Beware, My Lovely and is a relative unknown, though he did also direct Vicki, which is somewhat of a Laura knockoff.

Plot Outline 

Howard Wilton is a drifter who does odd jobs, mainly for widows, to make money. He moves from job to job and town to town. He is a version of the invisible man. The film begins with Wilton finishing up a job and when he goes to see the lady to collect his wages, she is no where to be found—until he opens the closet to get his coat. She has been murdered. 

Howard flees to the rail yard and jumps a train. He eventually shows up at the doorstep of Helen Gordon looking for work. Her husband was killed during the war (WWI) and she now runs a small boarding house. She could use a hand around the place and quickly puts Howard to work scrubbing the floors. 

Everything begins okay as Howard goes to work, but things quickly deteriorate. It doesn’t take long to realize that Howard has issues. He is antagonized by the picture of Helen’s husband in his soldier uniform and becomes incredibly paranoid over the tiniest things. The tension is quickly ratcheted up when you realize that Howard has locked all the doors from the inside and is holding the key in his pocket. Helen is trapped all alone in the home with Howard and he is becoming increasingly unstable. 

Elements of Noir 

This film is similar to Don’t Bother to Knock in that the elements of noir are concentrated within the psych of the characters. There is a murder, and probably many more, but there is no femme fatale, the lighting is standard and virtually the entire picture takes place during the day away from the city. 

However, Ryan’s Howard Wilton is a bonafide disturbed human being. He is fragmented from the rest of the world. “I can’t remember anyone caring about me,” he says to Helen. He has no friends. He is a rambler and is most certainly not a man in control of his own fate. Ryan is emasculated because he was not fit enough to serve in the war and this is heightened by the young Ruth Williams taunting him for cleaning the floors. “I don’t see many men polishing floors.” 

Howard Wilton seems to be someone who is not even in control over his own nature. He doesn’t appear to be a violent person at his core, but it seems to happen in spite of his own real desire to be normal. 

Ida plays a widow, who is a regular role in film noir, who is forced to take care of herself. She is not focused on happiness or the more trivial matter like the younger Ruth Williams. Helen Gordon has to focus on making ends meet and survival. She is an example of the war coming home and inflicting its pain on those not directly involved. It is somewhat rare for the story to be set in 1918, but that fact that it is the aftermath of a war offers the same effect.   

Recommendation (Spoilers) 

Beware, My Lovely is not a top tier film noir, but it is a good movie and has some excellent elements that make it worth watching.  It is a film that makes you uncomfortable as the viewer. Even though Helen’s home is large, there is a definite claustrophobic feeling to watching the movie. This comes from Helen being trapped in the home and because you as the viewer are rarely shown anything outside of the home once Howard arrives. 

The tension in the film is similar to what you would get in a Hitchcock film. You keep expecting Howard to completely flip and do real harm to Helen. Beware, My Lovely has its twists but they are not really shocking, you see them happening, but they reinforce the tension. You want Howard out of that house and it seems so close several times. 

This film is basically Robert Ryan versus Ida Lupino. These two great actors do an excellent job handling the bulk of the work. Lupino is one of the best looking old maids you will ever see and Ryan looks like his head is going to explode any minute, of course he made a living in those roles. In this role, however, he is much more vulnerable than normal but just as volatile. 

The script is a little dry and the cinematography is lacking any sort of real style. There are some attempts at style: the wide shot of Howard running through the rail yard is nice and Horner attempts a few strange angles in the home. 

I do recommend this film, mainly because of Ryan and Lupino, but also because of the way it holds the tension throughout the film and by the way it keeps you interested even though you rarely get a glimpse of anything but the inside of the home.

“I wonder if you wonder.”

Great layers of inuendo and connotation in an exchange of wits between Barbara Stanwyck and Jimmy Stewart in the film noir classic, Double Indemnity (1944):

And here’s another great example of insinuation in a different genre:

Guy Ritchie en noviembre del año pasado se divorció de Madonna. Esta peli fue lanzada en diciembre del año pasado pero su lanzamiento estaba preparado para octubre. No sólo el lanzamiento fue el más afectado en la peli creo Ritchie como director tiene un producto iconoclasta que raya muy fuerte en esta ocación con aburrimiento y poca sorpresa.

Una peli sin ritmo, sin un protagonista claro, sin una consistencia bien establecida, una historia medianamente hilada pero con todos sus personajes súper desarticulados. La mayoría de la peli viene sin audio protagonista y es precisamente cuando hay un “flashback” o momento recordado en el pasado de la historia cuando se muestra el robo a los rusos donde se prende la banda sonora y volvemos a recordar que es una peli del director, con humor negro, excelentes tomas, valga la repetición, una muy buena banda sonora.

El reparto tampoco es el mismo equipo de siempre de Ritchie, se siente la falta de su actor fetiche Jason Statham que aunque encasillado en el mismo papel siempre es mejor narrador que Mark Strong o Gerard Butler quien está completamente perdido en la historia. El reparto lo encierran el magnífico Tom Wilkinson que es el que medianamente salva la peli y la bellísima Thandie Newton que definitivamente paga la boleta o, en mi caso el alquiler.

No es más lo que se pueda decir de esta peli más allá que los créditos son hermosamente manufacturados y que esperemos que esté completamente recuperado de su divorcio para que Sherlock su siguiente peli sea más interesante.

While I realize this is mostly talking about motion pictures/film, all the techniques can apply to digital still life and photography. I thought with the interested to Film Noir that’s been going on and the fact that I just published a photo spread in this issue of FDQ that was all Film Noir, that it was a good idea to share this.

And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

Surprise is a 1 1/2-minute stylish short thriller directed by Ben Dodd, which was commissioned for a special showcase at the Tate Modern Museum in London. The film tell a very tragic story as it unfolds from the end to the beginning.  It’s a “Hitchcockian” dark film-noir, where a  vengeful romantic murder is not at all what it seems. The dramatically circuitous and shadowy film leaves you wondering about just who did what to whom…Surprise!!

And Just Who Did What to Whom? Surprise!!

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Groundhog Day, Harold Ramis, director, 1993

 HOOK: A trip into the romantic comedy Twilight Zone.

 LINE:  She: Do you ever have déjà vu? 

                 He: Didn’t you just ask me that?

SINKER: Seize the day!

SPANKY: Weird how the only guests on TV are plugging movies. Whatever happened to books, plays, magazines, even other TV programs? Then you go to the theater and the seats are empty. My take is that we want it to work. More than any other media movies can make us part of the process. The fact that most don’t or that we are so critical even of those that do, shows we want and need at least some of them to succeed. In a way they are like the story of Groundhog Day, recycling plots of movies that work. And once in a while, through this repetition we grasp something that changes our lives. Let’s face it, we start out not wanting the smarmy Bill Murray character to get the girl (Andie MacDowell, a symbol of some higher plane). We don’t like him because we don’t like ourselves. Given a life free of consequences we would also be reckless, depressed, suicidal, drunken, dishonest, etc., etc. But by the end of the movie we are cheering him on and looking at the missed opportunity of our own rather repetitive lives as well.

 BARK, BARK, BARK, BARK (4 BARKs out of four)

 JOHN: I agree, Spanky, we leave the movie changed. And this is a clever fable about movie-making as well. Actors endure endless retakes of the same scene, trying to keep it fresh. And our lives too, like the weatherman Phil’s are repetitious, with the tiniest variations of pleasures and annoyances. And yet, we can make something out of this. “Today is the first day of the rest of our lives” (Arrrggg, I never thought I would ever say that). Most movies are escapism, this one ends up being just the opposite, like Dickens’ Scrooge or A Wonderful Life. The fact that it does this without making a big deal of it, let’s us assume ownership of our own transformation. Brilliant, quirky, wildly original Groundhog Day says, “Make the most of your time on earth.” And by God, that is what we come away from it determined to do. 

GO GO GO GO (4 GOs out of four) 

Naja, oder so ähnlich. Sonderlich aufwendig sind die Änderungen nicht, da die entsprechenden Stellen größtenteils noch nicht eingebaut waren, aber mit Sicherheit waren sie notwendig. Ich habe also gerade eine Szene erweitert und einen bereits eingebauten Dialog verändert, damit er nun etwas neutraler wird. Zudem werden sich in nächster Zeit die Beschreibungen aller drei bereits vorgestellten Charaktere ändern. Das ist notwendig, da die Story in den letzten Tagen ein wenig umgekrempelt wurde, das allerdings nicht zum Nachteil. Ich denke, dass sie nun etwas mehr Spannungsmomente enthalten wird, als das ursprünglich möglich gewesen wäre. Lasst euch überraschen

Neues gibts auch von der Levelfront zu berichten. Die Planungen des ersten Spielabschnitts werden langsam konkreter, sowohl in Spiel-, als auch in Gestaltungstechnischer Sicht. Die Maps werden nun, zumindest hier, nichtmehr nur durch Chip- und Charsets dargestellt, sondern auch durch Panoramamapping, was uns einiges an Gestaltungsfreiraum lässt. Erste Tests wurden schon durchgeführt und für ansehnlich befunden. Vielleicht kann ich ja demnächst mal einen kleinen Screenshot rausrücken *g*

Soweit aber erstmal von mir.

Muh

Thought I’d better pop in with an update, let you know what I’ve been working on in my little office at the top of the stairs.

Editing, mostly, with a little bit of music and sports talk radio to help ease the pain.  Aw, it hasn’t been so bad.  I’ll admit to experiencing a lot of trepidation when I decided to give my novel So Dark the Night another run-through before I published it as a print-on-demand book next year.  I posted it on this blog two years ago and since then have received numerous requests from readers that I release a “dead tree” edition of my supernatural thriller (and I do try to please my readers).  Probably a smart idea:  between this site and Scribd, So Dark has been downloaded a couple thousand times…a situation that pleases me beyond measure.

But I was worried that the interval of two years would rub some of the lustre off the book, reveal flaws, expose slipshod writing.  Fortunately, that hasn’t been the case.  The changes I’m making are cosmetic and are mainly due to how hard I was bearing down as I completed my final edits.  I had been at work on So Dark the Night for three years and I wanted to make sure it was exactly right.  I think it seems too tight in places and I am trying to loosen it up a tad, enhance Nightstalk’s narrative voice.

I’ve given myself a some firm deadlines to have this manuscript polished up and the book released by a certain date (more on that later).  Delighted that the book is holding together very well (thus far) and that my faith in it, my love of the two central characters, is more than justified.

I’m also pleased that both my cover artists, Ado Ceric and Adrian Donoghue, have agreed to allow me to use their art when I release So Dark the Night and Of the Night in 2010 (likely through Lulu.com).  The books have each been assigned ISBNs and we’ll soon finalize cover design and jacket copy.  Feels good to be an indie publisher again–it’s been more than ten years since we released The Reality Machine and that’s too long.  Gotta make up for lost time.

Stay tuned.  2010 is gonna be a busy year.  Gotta celebrate my 25th year as a professional writer in style.

Break out the bubbly, string up a pinata…hell, folks, let’s have ourselves a party!

I have had this in my head for weeks and finally made it yesterday. I used pieces of Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu and made this little tribute to one of my favorite songs off of Diamanda Galas’ La Serpenta Canta. When I can’t seem to get any real work done and I need to unwind, making these video montages becomes my art therapy.

A lot of people consider The Usual Suspects to be a great movie.  I don’t even consider it good.  Here’s why:

Imagine you were watching a movie (not hard to imagine), and in the vein of Citizen Kane, there is a question that keeps getting asked over and over and over again (E.g. What is rosebud?  Why Rosebud?).  That one’s a little more difficult.  Better yet, think about it in terms of a mystery–Who is the serial stalker?–and people keep asking “Who did it?” over and over and over again.  You expect that from some movies.  In the case of mystery movies, it really drives the plot, it’s the essential question that motivates why the story movies along and what goal the investigator has.

In a more complicated (not that most mystery movies aren’t complicated), movie like Citizen Kane where you have a guy at the beginning of the movie calling out “Rosebud!  Rosebud!” and people wonder what it is, the essential question works  a little differently.  In Citizen Kane, it was a starter to the almost epic biography of a man, his life, and what he most valued, which it turns out is Rosebud–this isn’t answered until the end of the movie, as a big reveal to explain what he really valued in life even though he couldn’t have it.

The Usual Suspects

Then there’s The Usual Suspects, which operates like a high class caper film.  It’s like a mystery, a mystery with the driving question: “Who is Kaiser Soze?”  (And, if you’re familiar with the restaurant Moe’s, which I love, then you’ll know the movie was popular enough for them to make a ‘Who is Kaiser Salsa’ salsa flavor after the movie.  That’s some pretty big stuff.  You know a movie has real popular weight when it’s satirized in restaurant food names.)  And, if you know the tricks of mystery capers, the solution will be one of three.

1. Kaiser Soze will be a character we know, possibly the character we know the best in the film. (E.g. Fight Club)
2. Kaizer Soze will be a minor character introduced at the beginning of the film with a small motive that is referenced at the end of the film with a big reveal.
3. Kaiser Soze will be a character we don’t see until the last scene of the movie, a reveal that gives satisfaction to a something like a real life chase. (E.g. Zodiac)

But we know the answer before we start the film because the film was directed by Bryan Singer.  And Bryan Singer is a film nerd.  He’s actually a nerd in many senses (e.g. comic book) but he’s a film nerd.  He probably knows movie history in and out, has seen all the film noirs like Laura, The Big Sleep, and The Maltese Falcon that defined The Usual Suspects.  So he knows which way the pendulum must fall.  The greatest, and most personally pleasing solution for directors like Bryan Singer (please note any movie by M. Night Shayamalan).  The most pleasing solution is to have the answer in front of you the entire time.  He will always choose option one.  No questions asked.

This makes the movie, plotwise, almost boring to watch because we’re only introduced to one main character that plays through the entire movie–Verbal.  So the answer is staring (literally, staring) at us right from the beginning. Also, the plot doesn’t make much sense.  We are told a story from the beginning through Verbal, but I couldn’t not really keep track of the story.  At once we were in California, then New York, and characters saying things that should mean something but meant nothing.  They decided to kill someone.  I knew not who the person was or what their importance was.  I was bored.

Thank goodness Singer is an excellent filmmaker.  Because technically, the movie is quite creative and interesting to watch.  He sets his film shots up very well, does a lot with color, tone, and mood in his scenes, and though unevenly edited, has a good overall flow to his film.  He made a great film noir, in the tradition of The Big Sleep, and for that I can fault him nothing.  The Big Sleep is so twisted with its own plot complications that the movie itself doesn’t actually make sense–this is a pretty well known fact in the film community.

But, let me say this.  I think the movie is pretty good–if only for the knowledge that it does well what a filmi noir is supposed to do.  That being, confuse, confound, confirm the dearth of life, and potentially have an interesting reveal at the end.  But the plot isn’t there, and it should be there.  A movie is in essence a story in pictures first.  And if I like the pictures, but don’t really get the story, why should I care?

At least The Big Sleep flowed.  A movie I consider to be only a step below The Usual Suspects is The Black Dahlia, which is a pretty awful movie in its own right–a film noir like The Usual Suspects, with too much plot for an audience to care.  Usual Suspects is a far cry from the much more carefully laid out, and classier film noir, LA Confidential.   It does not, cannot compete.  So, while The Usual Suspects may have its thousands of die-hard fans, this guy here isn’t, and there’s a reason why: it’s just not interesting enough to be good, let alone great.

You judge for yourself.  6/10.

New release from Cheap Makeup! These are the Femme Fatale Fingerless gloves. They’re made with black lace and are inspired by the super sexy ladies of Film Noir. The perfect accessory for just about anything, and at 45 lindens, you can’t go wrong!

TP TO CHEAP MAKEUP

<3 Stella Semaphore

(raw bones leotard-piddidle by brutus martinek-unreleased)

Orson Welles is usually overlooked as one of the great directors of film noir. There may be good reasons for this. Welles was accomplished in so many fields–as an actor, director, radio star, magician and bullfighter– it would be too reductive to classify him as merely a film noir director. However, Welles directed two of the greatest film noir movies, The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Touch of Evil (1958), and his contribution to the genre should not be forgotten.

Welles divided the critics and was frequently dismissed as an overrated has-been. His contribution to film noir is also divisive, as neither The Lady from Shanghai or Touch or Evil bears any resemblance to the novels they were adapted from. Both movies were also subject to significant studio interference, and Welles was unhappy with their final cuts.

Then, there is Wells’ unfinished projects. Welles started filming adaptations of Don Quixote and The Deep amongst others, but funding and legal problems left his projects unfinished. Welles did finish shooting The Other Side of the Wind, the story of an aging, cantankerous film director (played by John Huston and modelled on Ernest Hemingway), who is trying to shoot one last picture which he intends to fill with scenes of sex and violence. Filming for The Other Side of the Wind was completed but the editing process was not. The project was never finished because of complex legal problems which included Welles’ daughter Beatrice, his partner Oja Kodar and the brother of the Shah of Iran! Welles.net has an excellent breakdown of the history of the project, and the recent efforts of the director, actor and friend of Welles, Peter Bogdanovich, who acts in the film, to finish and release the film on Welles’ behalf.

Two scenes of The Other Side of the Wind have been released, and are now widely available on the internet. The scene below features the actors Oja Kodar and Bob Random having sex in a car (viewer discretion is advised). Again, I will not try to categorise this film as noir, but the scene certainly has noirish undertones:

Directed by Phil Karlson from a story by Samuel Fuller. With Broderick Crawford, John Derek and Donna Reed. Cinematography by Burnett Guffey.

If you’ve only seen the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s 1941 novel Mildred Pierce, you’re forgiven for never wondering whether the striking murder set piece that opens the film and informs the entire picture was an invention of the producer and the screenwriters that never occurred in the novel.

It was. But it’s a brilliant invention. Even though long stretches of Mildred Pierce (told in flashback) are essentially melodrama, the sequence that opens the film is one of the greatest examples of film noir I’ve ever seen. It is nighttime. Heavy shadows fall over caddish playboy Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), resplendent in a tuxedo, as he is gunned down in a Malibu beach house. Not every shot hits him. A few smash into the mirror behind him. But enough hit him to kill him, and he falls to the floor. Mildred Pierce (Joan Crawford) flees from the house, walks down the boardwalk, and looks as though she is contemplating suicide by jumping into the Pacific Ocean, but is stopped by a policeman. She talks her way out of the situation and later entices the beefy and amorous Wally Fay (Jack Carson) back to the house on the beach and locks him in, with the intention of pinning the murder on him. The scenes in which Wally realizes Mildred has left him alone in a locked house with a corpse and a revolver and he attempts to escape are stunning, and are one of the greatest noir sequences in film history.

Unlike Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), another noir classic adapted from a novel by Cain, Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce takes a lot of liberties with its source material. This is partly due to necessity. I loved Cain’s novel, and found it every bit as good as his 1934 crime classic The Postman Always Twice and more believable than his 1937 novel Serenade, which is about a male opera singer who loses his voice after he gives in to homosexual temptation. Cain’s Mildred Pierce contains no murders, just plenty of bad behavior, and the most despicable character waltzes off at the end with no punishment in sight. Apparently the moral tone of the novel was troubling to the Breen Office, so producer Jerry Wald devised a murder plot with a culprit who could be punished, which sufficiently palliated the concerns of producer and studio head Jack L. Warner, and he purchased the rights to the novel in 1944. The script for the film went through eight different versions before Ranald MacDougall’s version was accepted. William Faulkner and Catherine Turney both made uncredited contributions. (And we can all thank our lucky stars that Faulkner’s scene in which Mildred’s maid, played by Butterfly McQueen, consoled Mildred while singing a gospel song was either never filmed or was left on the cutting room floor.)

Mildred Pierce is a fantastic film. Crawford’s longtime nemesis Bette Davis and fellow fading star Rosalind Russell were both considered for the lead role, but both turned it down. It’s impossible for me to imagine anyone but Crawford playing Mildred Pierce. She brings not only her finely controlled histrionics to the role, but her own life history as a woman who crawled up from nothing.

When the picture opened, it was a huge hit, both with critics and audiences. It was nominated for best picture, best actress, best supporting actress (for Eve Arden, who plays Mildred’s wisecracking best friend), best writing, and best black and white cinematography. Joan Crawford won the Academy Award for best actress, and accepted the statuette at home, where she was sick in bed. (Her adopted daughter Christina claims she was faking, but this is hardly the worst accusation she has lobbed at her mother.)

In my reposted blog on panic attacks http://clarespark.com/2009/11/16/panic-attacks-and-separation-anxiety/, I mentioned the use by Eric Gill of Durer’s famous image (umlaut over the “u”). Here is the image as drawn by Eric Gill’s son-in-law Denis Tegetmeier for Gill’s book Unholy Trinity (1938). Opposite the illustration is this text:

pastiche of Durer's Melencolia I by Denis Tegetmeier

MELANCHOLIA—This is a very gloomy picture, and quite right too. There is no remedy for our troubles. The sick ‘old lady’ has got to die someday. I think any kind of mass conversion–as when Ninevah repented with three days of sackcloth and ashes–is not to be expected. Perhaps some kind of healthy barbarism will follow the war, pestilence and famine which are upon us. That is very likely. Nations and states go through a life cycle just as humans do, and though many will endeavour to soften our last days—it is astonishing how we cling to the deception that horrid things only happen to other people & not to us—we must today recall the words of St John in the Apocalypse:

   ‘Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee. And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great men of the earth’ . [there is no more text on the page]

    Is there not a popular Hollywood genre of the apocalypse brought on by those commercial values foisted upon the world by merchants (a.k.a. Marx’s Jewish hucksters)? Would there have been a Renaissance, or an Age of Discovery, or the expansion of the West without them? Would we have great cities of the type anathematized by such as the arch reactionary Eric Gill without these dread traders? How much has this antimodern narrative penetrated into the popular consciousness to the detriment of mental health? And to what extent did the genre of film noir reflect such fears? Or such recent films as Revolutionary Road?

     In my view, we neglect such questions to our peril. If we cannot recognize “progress” where it has actually benefited humankind, how can we even begin to talk about appropriate remedies for emotional distress (depression! anxiety!), let alone public policy in such crucial matters as health care reform?  Just asking. For more on the popularity of “Melencolia I” in the last two centuries see the passages on James Thomson (“B. V.”) in http://clarespark.com/2009/10/23/murdered-by-the-mob-moral-mothers-and-symbolist-poets/ , part one of a two-part essay that shows the links between antisemitism, misogyny, and antimodernism.

[Added in the early evening, submitted to one of the H-Net discussion groups:] 

     I want to launch this hypothesis: that antisemitism, like sexism, is underweighted as a cause of social malaise or what used to be called ”neurosis/neurasthenia.” Those who subscribe to the History of Antisemitism list have done decades of work on the history of antisemitism, yet if it is taken up at all in the media, some crucial facet of it is neglected. Why?  Here are some suggestions:

 1. Probably most of the Left does not want to admit that Marx was anti-Semitic in his early essay “On the Jewish Question.” Taking that further, the very notion that “capital” is inherently exploitative would seem to come from the old and incorrect notion that Jews loved money more than their neighbors. (Were there bitter Jews who fit the stereotype? Why would there not be? But if we reject the idea of race and national character, it is insane to attribute such avarice and heartlessness to all Jews who ever lived.)

 2. The New Left and the counter-culture of the 1960s defined themselves against the soul-less cities (see the blog), celebrating rootedness and other tropes of the agrarian ideology. Remember the class base of utopian socialism in the 19^th century? It was not the working class, but would-be patricians of the kind once identified as aristocratic backwoodsmen by G. C. Webber in his book on right-wing factions. Do I detect the color Green in their vaporings?

 3. The Jews, in league with certain Scotsmen, are blamed for the disenchantment of the world. This was brought home to me by the J. C. Squire papers at UCLA. (Squire, a Tory poet, traveled from Fabianism to support for Italian Fascism. He was part of the English Melville revival.) It is also spelled out in Herman Melville’s sketch of a Dissenter in his late poem, _Clarel, a poem and pilgrimage in the Holy Land_ (1876). These works build upon the pervasiveness of the mad scientist in popular culture, made famous in spin-offs of Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein_.  The best book I ever read on the subject of disenchantment was Tillyard’s short work, _The Elizabethan World Picture and Shakespeare’s History Plays_. As the Biblical higher criticism proceeded in the 19^th century, Melville nervously complained about the loss to imagination by historical analysis of the Bible. His despair reflected that of James Thomson, author of _The City of Dreadful Night_ . We are back again to Dürer’s Melencolia I and the panicky reaction by Church and King to the advent of the scientific revolution, the Reformation, and other seemingly apocalyptic events. If the Jews are constantly seen as the vanguard of modernity (either implicitly or explicitly: think of the diabolic trinity of Marx, Einstein, and Freud), they get the blame. And a scientific outlook becomes “reductive” and an abomination.

 4. If one is an upwardly-mobile assimilationist Jew (on the lam from mom?), it is probably little comfort to acknowledge the persistence of genteel antisemitism in the canyons of Manhattan, or in the heart of the non-Jew one has snagged. This hardly needs elaboration. Better to repress the entire subject.

     If we underweight antisemitism as a destructive force in the human psyche, imagine how bad is our underestimation of the power of sexism and patriarchy. To what lengths will the ‘feminist’ ‘anti-imperialist’ go to minimize the desire to control women and mothers in particular, and not just in the Muslim world? I will not belabor this point here, except to note that for Eric Gill,  Melencolia is a sick old lady who would be better off dead than modernized/urbanized. History for these antimodernists is not susceptible to human understanding and agency, but is a subset of “natural history.” When we understand that, there might be some progress in the teaching of the humanities.

The short clip was an experimation with in motion and sounds. I was inspired by Opera In A Small Room by Jannet Cardiff and George Miller.

today’s movie is brought to you by teh SO, who said “how about The last seduction?”

it has elements of film noir, but it is also a thriller, a psychological thriller, and some damn hot sex: neo-noir, as it is sometimes called.
to movie buffs, The last seduction is also known as that movie where Linda Fiorentino was robbed, as she indeed was.  because of an Academy rule, ms. Fiorentino couldn’t be nominated for an Oscar for her performance in The last seduction because the film had been released on TV (HBO) before a film release and was thus automatically ineligible for nomination.  a shame, since Fiorentino’s went for broke in The last seduction playing the driven, amoral, sexually voracious Bridget to the hilt.  an amazing performance.

trailer:

<object width=”425″ height=”344″><param value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7bjucyft55A&hl=en_US&fs=1&”></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/7bjucyft55A&hl=en_US&fs=1&” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”425″ height=”344″></embed></object> The last seduction trailer some of the story: Bridget is living in New York and married to a doctor.  a doctor who she talks into selling drugs to some unsavory characters. she then absconds with the money, leaving dr. husband in not a very good position. he hires detectives to find her; she has moved upstate to some ‘cowtown in cowcountry’, where she goes through the local male population akin to a shark in a pond of guppies.

an exchange with Mike, whom she meets in the town’s bar

Bridget : Could you leave? Please?
Mike : I haven’t finished charming you yet.
Bridget : You haven’t started.
Mike : Gimme a chance.
Bridget : Look, go find yourself a nice little cowgirl and make nice little cowbabies and leave me alone.
Mike : I’m hung like a horse. Think about it.
[ pause]
Bridget : Let’s see.
Mike : Excuse me?
Bridget : Mr. Ed, let’s see.
Mike : Look, I tried to be nice. I can see that’s something you’re not…
Bridget : No, I’m trying. I can be very nice when I try. Sit down.
Mike : OK, maybe we just got off to a bad start. I know plenty of people -
[ Bridget unzips his fly]
Mike: What are you doing?
Bridget : I believe what we’re looking for is a certain horse-like quality?

so maybe you want to see what happens after that exchange.  the following montage begins there, and moves to other sex encounters including MAJOR SPOILERS.  it is also NSFW and graphic.

<embed src=”http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/3068426/sex_the_last_seduction.swf” width=”400″ height=”345″ wmode=”transparent” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowFullScreen=”true” allowScriptAccess=”always”> </embed><br><font size = 1><a href=”http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3068426/sex_the_last_seduction/”>Sex The Last Seduction</a> – <a href=”http://www.metacafe.com/”>Awesome video clips here</a></font> Bridget gets it on

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Classic film noir adapted from James M. Cain’s novel, details the relationship of a woman in a marriage of convenience and the aimless drifter she’s attracted to. Serpentine plot is riveting from start to finish, mostly due to the chemistry generated between Lana Turner and John Garfield. One might quibble over their first kiss which happens so abruptly it’s actually humorous. However, their mostly smoldering attraction and dialogue is the very definition of sexual tension. The film is a stunning reminder that an erotic thriller is often more potent for what it doesn’t show.