Primera aparición por aquí pero no la última del admirable profesional Sergio Martino, director por el que siento cierta debilidad y que cuenta con una filmografía durante los años 70 nada despreciable especialmente en los terrenos del “psicogiallo” (o “guarrigiallo” según salerosa nomenclatura de Carlos Aguilar) con títulos tan deliciosos y sugestivos como “La perversa señora Ward”(1971), “Vicios prohibidos”(1971) o la más célebre pero no mejor “Todos los colores de la oscuridad”(1972), trilogía a mayor gloria de la sexy miope Edwige Fenech (para quién también facturó un puñado de comedias eróticas) que continuaba con la línea entre escabrosa y rocambolesca abierta por Umberto Lenzi a finales de la década anterior. Eso descontando otros dos títulos tan excelentes como “La cola del escorpión”(1971) o la ya mítica “Torso”(1973), trabajos ambos que certifican las inquietudes de un director decidido a profundizar en los márgenes del género y a dar una visión personal del mismo alejándose de lo imitativo pero nunca de lo comercial. Dejando estos “gialli” pero otra (cercana) ocasión prefiero ahora desenterrar un “poliziottesco” casi fundacional o más bien eje (junto a por ejemplo “La policía detiene, la ley juzga” de Enzo G. Castellari) entre los “spaghetti-denuncia” con los que Damiani prefiguró el sub-género (con “Confesiones de un comisario” de 1971 a la cabeza) y el advenimiento de las nuevas, más elementales y demagógicas (pero no menos disfrutables e incluso extrañamente lúcidas en su progresiva brutalización) maneras de los “poliziotteschi” de Lenzi, Castellari o Stelvio Massi.

En este “Milán tiembla: la policía pide justicia” el asesinato en plena calle del más honrado y cabal comisario milanés acabará por poner fuera de sí a un indoblegable policía que tiene problemas para no excederse en sus métodos, la larga escena de presentación consiste en una aparatosa fuga de un tren durante la que los criminales asesinan a una niña, de tal modo que cuando sean finalmente cercados el protagonista no tendrá empacho en tirotearlos por las bravas. De tal modo que por esta acción (y por su empeño en desentrañar el asesinato de su amigo, algo que parece no sentar bien a sus superiores, como siempre vamos) será apartado del cuerpo y decidirá infiltrarse en el sub-mundo lumpen (donde no faltan golfantas de buen corazón, revolucionarios de vía estrecha y por supuesto drogatas medio hippiosos) y en el crimen organizado de la ciudad alquilándose como conductor (lo que da pie a que Martino se luzca en unas célebres escenas de persecución que serían reutilizadas en no pocos títulos posteriores) para descubrir al asesino. Topándose con una intrincada red de corrupción y terrorismo con ramificaciones incluso dentro del propio cuerpo y es que no es sino su superior directo quién dirige (en escalafón intermedio) una conspiración de extrema-derecha con la colaboración necesaria del crimen organizado que busca propiciar un posible cambio de régimen a base de oleadas de delincuencia y acciones terroristas de falsos  grupos izquierdistas. Algo que no estaba alejado de lo que ocurría en la realidad, donde ambos grupos utilizaban similares métodos de confusión ideológica. Es decir unas sutilezas y complicaciones que superaban el confusionismo ideológico un punto viscoso que poco a poco iría medrando en el substrato del “thriller a la italiana”.

Así se cruza el ya mentado “spaghetti- denuncia” que aprovechaba este clima de galimatías sociopolítico y la violencia de los tristemente celebres “años de plomo” con las “Brigate Rosse” actuando a pleno rendimiento y la “strategia della tensione” entre grupos de extrema derecha e izquierda radical, mezclados con oscuras tramas gubernamentales, infiltraciones mafiosas y todo tipo de intereses cruzados hasta conformar una era especialmente opaca y siniestra de la historia reciente de Italia. Este clima de urgencia, de inmediatez de crónica de sucesos se agitaba alegremente con y sin empacho alguno con de los réditos del exitoso “Harry el sucio” al más puro estilo del siempre atento y oportunista cine italiano de género, dando forma al arquetipo del “comisario di ferro” que con tanta fortuna encarnaría en breve Maurizio Merli, aquí aun rebajado o más bien enfocado de una manera más compleja al arrastrar todavía la tipología anterior, la de Franco Nero como policía honesto y sufriente perpetuamente torpedeado desde “arriba”, es decir el delineado de un carácter individualista, tenaz e indoblegable que no atiende más que a la justicia, un personaje fuera de un sistema que le asquea y que termina por luchar por un concepto de justicia primitivo y propio.

Martino pone en juego una realización ágil y con oficio explicitada en esa contundente secuencia de apertura y en las ya mentadas persecuciones automovilísticas y el guión resulta estar muy bien hilvanado, cortesía del fundamental Ernesto Gastaldi, mostrando una panorámica vigorosa de la ciudad de Milán influenciada por las novelas del excelente escritor Giorgio Scerbanenco y salpimentado con sus buenas dosis de violencia (sádica y gratuita por supuesto) y el agradable concurso de una gloria otoñal en pleno retiro europeo como Richard Conte ejerciendo de jefe mafioso. Desafortunadamente el rol principal es perpetrado por el cetrino Luc Merenda, un ¿actor? con la expresividad de una pared de cemento recién cargada y que se mueve robóticamente dentro del encuadre y con quién Martino reincidió en otro par de thrillers bastante olvidados, “La polizia accusa: il servizio segreto uccide” y “Gambling City” ambas en 1975. Una lástima, por que el personaje de policía que se degrada y obsesiona con la justicia hasta darse cuenta de que el sistema lo aplastará sin remisión resulta excelente (o al menos tiene verdadero potencial) y merecía un interprete del talento del enorme Tomás Milian o al menos del carisma de los divos italianos frecuentadores también del sub-género como Fabio Testi o el mismo Franco Nero. Aun así el conjunto no está nada mal, se sigue con interés gracias a su buen ritmo y  su pesimista final (una imagen de cierre fantástica, encima) que eleva la película sobre la media de un cine a recuperar y analizar con detenimiento, que no solo servía un espectáculo feroz y colorista sino que ejercía como testigo y cronista ambiguo y gritón de un momento de la historia, por lo que ahora resulta un documento de no poco valor.

Milán tiembla: la policía pide justicia (Milano trema: la polizia vuole giustizia)

Director: Sergio Martino

Año: 1973

País: Italia

104 min.

Fotografía: Giancarlo Ferrando

Música: Guido De Angelis y Maurizio De Angelis

Guión: Ernesto Gastaldi

Reparto: Luc Merenda, Richard Conte, Martine Brochard, Silvano Tranquilli, Carlo Alighiero, Lia Tanzi

Lady In Cement is a 1968 detective film, directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Dan Blocker, Martin Gabel and Richard Conte. A sequel to the 1967 film Tony Rome, and based on the novel by Marvin H. Albert, Lady In Cement was released on November 20th 1968.

Trivia:

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Released near the beginning of film noir’s golden age following the end of World War II, 1946’s Somewhere In The Night includes a lot of the elements that would eventually help to identify, if not exactly define, noir as a genre: the embittered and spiritually lost war veteran protagonist, his torch singer with a heart of gold love interest, the shifty criminals with murky motives and odd personalities, and the sexpot femme fatale with a heart made only of money. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (A Letter To Three Wives) meticulously directs the film with an eye for the intimate, giving each scene a sense of cloistered self-containment that helps define the protagonist’s senses of isolation. While not exactly essential noir viewing as a result of some serious story flaws, it’s still a mesmerizing viewing experience and a great example of noir’s potential for psychological drama.

The film begins as Army soldier George Taylor (John Hodiak) lies in a medical tent, reeling from a concussion and with his face covered in bandages. With no memory of his life previous to waking up, in time he finds the only clues to his identity are his army discharge papers and an unsigned note written from someone who hates him. Taylor follows the note to Los Angeles, searching for his previous life – effectively searching for himself. An early big break comes in the form of a checked suitcase, containing a gun and a note from a “friend” named Larry Cravat directing him to a bank account containing five thousand dollars.

Taylor goes to the bank but is met with suspicion by its employees. After another dead-end, he finds himself pursued through a swanky basement nightclub and cornered in the dressing room of singer Christy Smith (Nancy Guild). Later, following a kidnapping and beating by thugs employed by the mysterious thief and occultist Anzelmo (Fritz Kortner), a creaky plot contrivance leaves him dazed and injured at Smith’s door. The good-natured singer nurses him back to health, falling in love with him in the process.

Together the two pursue fringe-like clues to Taylor’s identity and the whereabouts of the vanished Cravat, despite the machinations of Anzelmo  and a tawdry con woman (Margo Woode) who may or may not have known Taylor in his previous life. Eager to help the vulnerable Taylor, Smith enlists the help of her boss and potential suitor (Richard Conte), who in turn brings in a homicide lieutenant (Lloyd Nolan) who’s a lot smarter than he lets on. The lieutenant tells Taylor that his “friend” Cravat was in possession of stolen Nazi funds when he disappeared three years previous – the same time Taylor joined the service. Taylor and the lieutenant both begin to suspect him of Cravat’s murder, escalating the desperation in uncovering Taylor’s true identity. (Spoiler: the solution bears a strong resemblance to a similar revelation in Alan Parker’s 1984 horror noir Angel Heart.)

Mankiewicz bends the noir aesthetic towards establishing a vague and mysterious air around even the simplest locations, giving the film a dreamlike quality that eerily conveys Taylor’s growing paranoia and self-loathing. But the complicated and rambling plot is freighted with diversions and vignettes that, while dramatically effective, don’t always serve to move the story forward. One scene in particular, in which Taylor confronts the daughter of a potential witness to Cravat’s crimes, is achingly acted and beautifully shot but nevertheless slows the movie’s momentum to a crawl. And the film is dialogue-heavy to a fault, with characters reeling off whole paragraphs even in the most mundane conversations. Conversely, the script has an annoying habit of never having characters answer a direct question with candor, lengthening the time needed to bring facts to light while working too hard to sustain suspense.

More troubling, at least regarding the script – adapted from Marvin Borowsky’s story by Mankiewicz and several others, including legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg and equally legendary British author/playwright W. Somerset Maugham – are the voids that leave vital information unanswered. Because the film is chiefly Taylor’s journey, the story most often takes pains to establish each step along his way. Yet how he came into possession of the search-igniting claim ticket is left unexplained, while the rapid growth of Smith’s affections is left underdeveloped and somewhat superfluous as a result. Such details feel important in retrospect, and unfortunately a second viewing doesn’t fill in their sizeable blanks.

Despite those failings the cast is hardworking, committed, and effective. Hodiak, wide-eyed and sweating bullets throughout, conveys his character’s mounting panic while still retaining a sense of determination and composure – a perfect example of the relentlessness common to noir protagonists. Making her debut appearance with wardrobe and makeup apparently crafted to make her resemble Lauren Bacall as much as possible, Guild is sweet and convincing despite some corny dialogue of the “Can’t you see I’m nuts for the guy?” variety. (She and Kortner reteamed the following year in another noir, The Brasher Doubloon, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window.)

Richard Conte, still several years from headlining Jules Dassin’s masterful Thieves’ Highway, is underused as a foil and friend to Taylor’s respective romance and quest, appearing in only a few scenes. Finally, Woode’s minor radar blip of a career is puzzling given her sweet/predatory smile and crackling screen sexuality. Her character’s affected sophistication, communicated chiefly through sprinkling French expressions into her come-hither game with Taylor, gives the film both edge and a strange sense of resonant sadness. Nobody is who they seem to be somewhere in the night, but nobody is who they want to be, either.

- Michael Kabel

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Entretenida mezcolanza/contraposición de “polar” francés, no solo por la presencia de Delon en su periclitado papel de “hitman” glacial , lo que ya es casi un géro en si mismo, sino por su aire distanciado, por un toque estético diferente en definitiva y abrupto “poliziesco” italiano, ahí quedan momentos de brutal sadismo como la paliza a la amiga de Arzenta o la compresión de un seiscientos con ocupante incluido, que recuerdan al Fernando di Leo más asilvestrado, y con este también al universo criminal del gran escritor Giorgio Scerbanenco, pero con una intensidad mucho menor y desde luego sin el genio puro del director de “Milan calibre 9” o “La mala ordina”. Desde luego lo más interesante del invento nace de esta tensión estilística y tonal que logra un film de cierta distinción, una película apreciable aunque finalmente más esquemática que estilizada, repleta de acción y cierto gancho (ese final tan cortante que tendrá un curioso eco en otro film de Delon: “El derecho a matar” adaptando “Volver al redil”, un novelita nada menos que de Jean-Patrick Manchette) pero que tampoco resulta substancialmente memorable aunque si disfrutable de principio a fin, además de mostrar con buena letra como se hacía las cosas en la zona media de la tabla durante los años dorados del cine de género en Europa.

Un pistolero decide abandonar la “organización” tras un último trabajo, pero alguién de arriba no parece dispuesto a ponérselo facil. Una bomba colocada en su coche matará equivocadamente a su esposa e hijo (antes emos presenciado unas enternecedoras y tirando a empalagosas escenas familiares), a partir de aquí Tony Arzenta será una maquina imparable de matar dispuesto a destruir a sus antiguas jefes.

Dirigida por el estajanovista de la cámara Duccio Tessari, artesano confiable capaz de atacar cualquier género y responsable de la serie de “spaghetti-westerns” de “Ringo”, especie de alternativa desenfadada a la mugre y la violencia hiperbólica, acompañado de su actor fetiche Giuliano Gemma, que planifica y rueda con énfasis, convencimiento y verdadero conocimiento de causa, aportando cierto agradecido barroquismo en la puesta en escena e incluso un puñado de momentos memorables como la persecución mientras cae la niebla, el acercamiento a Delon mediante un montaje de planos progresivamente cortos o el potente asesinato en el tren, con el cadáver colgando por la ventanilla y golpeando contra las luces rojas que iluminan el túnel.

Acertadamente fotografiada en tonos grisáceos y luz otoñal (sin negar que este estilo neblinoso, entre la sordidez y la melancolía, se popularizó durante la época en “gialli” como la estupenda “El día negro” de Luigi Bazzoni u otros tan rescatables como “¿Qué habéis hecho con Solange?” de Massimo Dallamano, o “¿Quién la ha visto morir?” de Aldo Lado) que prolongan con coherencia estética la tristeza profunda del protagonista, apuntalada por una columna sonora ejemplar de Gianni Ferrio (dos características fundamentales de los mejores años cine popular europeo) y enlucida por un soberbio plantel de secundarios, destacando el trío de villanos de postín interpretados nada más y nada menos que por el veterano Richard Conte (presencia habitual durante esos años de semi-retiro), el hombre que engaño a la muerte para Terence Fisher, Anton Diffring y Roger Hanin, tigre perfumado con dinamita para elChabrol “periodo pop”  y un “cast” femenino sensacional que junto a Claudia Gravina como sufrida amiga de Arzenta alinea en breves papeles a la siempre desaprovechada Erika Blanc o a la incandescente Rosalba Neri.

Tony Arzenta (Big Guns)

Director: Duccio Tessari

Año: 1973

País: Italia/Francia

97 min.

Fotografía: Silvano Ippoliti

Música: Gianni Ferrio

Guión: Franco Verucci, Ugo Liberatore

Reparto: Alain Delon, Richard Conte, Umberto Orsino, Claudia Gravina, Roger Hanin, Anton Diffring, Marc Porel

Five films we recently recorded and then stayed up too late checking out.

What film insomnia sometimes feels like.

For the movie addict, DVR’s are the enemy of sleep. With their easy to use onscreen plot summaries and simple recording features, it’s nothing to set something to record, day or night, and come back to it when you’ve got the time. Besides the premium networks, Fox Movie Channel, American Movie Classics, and the incomparable Turner Classic Movies all show dozens of films a week, most of them – to us, anyway – too tempting not to hit the jolly, candy-like record button.

We’ve recently checked out these five films, going over them in multiple sittings and then browsing the web for background information to give their virtues and faults some (often much-needed) context. A few of them are markedly better than others, while one or two are just about at their proper level as a late-late-LATE feature. But, we realize every old film is probably somebody’s favorite, and the opinions below are just our own.

FM (1978): Long on style and short on character development, this loose dramedy is a pleasant enough romp about disc jockeys at a freewheelin’, free-format Los Angeles radio station, one seemingly a million miles away from both the disco and punk revolutions. The rambling plot sometimes tries too hard to embrace Robert Altman’s formlessness via legendary cinematographer John A. Alonzo’s (Chinatown) direction, while too many characters clutter up the proceedings. Cleavon Little and Martin Mull do impress, however, as jockeys using their star power mostly to get laid. Thoughts before turning off the light: A missed opportunity to make a true cult classic, unfocused and trying too much at once to settle on a tone or meaning. Like the vanished AOR format it celebrates, it’s only fun until something comes on you don’t care for.

Music Within (2007): A feel-good, true-story movie that wants you to like it, and you want to, too, except it doesn’t quite come together like it should, despite a hell of a lot of advantages. Ron Livingston (Band of Brothers) stars as Richard Pimentel, who overcame a strained childhood with a schizophrenic mother and then almost total deafness sustained during the Vietnam War to crusade for disabled persons’ rights. The film follows Pimentel as he gives up a safe corporate job to follow his dream and talent of public speaking, as well as his long friendship with a writer almost completely debilitated by cerebral palsy (Michael Sheen). Thoughts before turning off the light: Too many cliched scenes and too much underwritten dialogue spoils a great story. Though it’s not exactly the case, in retrospect two-thirds of the film seemed to take place in musical montage. Pimentel, for all his accomplishments, probably deserves a better tribute. Livingston is almost always better than the films in which he appears.

Thieves Highway (1949): When his truck-driver father is crippled by a crooked San Francisco fruit merchant (Lee J. Cobb), war veteran Nick Garcos (Richard Conte) drives a truckload of apples up the pre-freeway California coast to get even. Gorgeously directed by noir master Jule Dassin (The Naked City) and tautly written by A.I. Bezzerides, adapting his own gritty novel. The performances are all flawless, especially Valentina Cortese as a hooker put into Garcos’ line of fire and Millard Mitchell as the doomed trucker trying to do right by the Garcos family. Thoughts before turning off the light: Criterion deserves props for including this film in its catalog; the chase sequence was riveting.

A Woman’s Secret (1949): A singer with a burned-out throat (Maureen O’Hara) stands accused of shooting her more successful, though far more uncouth, protege (Gloria Grahame). Her piano player lover (Melvyn Douglas) sets out to prove her innocence, instigating a series of flashbacks. Director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without A Cause) does the best he can with the potboiler material, though there’s a going-through-the-motions feeling throughout. Grahame, always disdainful of her singing voice, lip-syncs her musical numbers. (The film’s production brought about Ray and Grahame’s disastrous marriage). Thoughts before turning off the light: Were it made today, this sleek little b-movie would be a centerpiece of any ratings period for the Lifetime Movie Network, or even a comeback project for Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony.

Deterrence (1999): Set in the then near-future world of 2008, the nation’s first Jewish president (Kevin Pollak) and his staff scramble to deal with Iraqi aggression while stranded in a snowbound Colorado diner. Far from having a mandate, President Emerson is an appointed veep who came to the office through attrition, and his races, ethnic and campaign both, only complicate the rapidly escalating tension. Critic-turned-filmmaker Rod Lurie (The Contender) wrote and directed this, his debut feature, and his grasp and reach haven’t quite come together yet. Pollak is energetic, while Timothy Hutton is convincing as his pragmatic chief of staff. Thoughts before turning off the light: The ending is a total cheat, as frustrating as a lesser episode of The Twilight Zone but without the creepy ambience; Pollak’s presence is missed on the current movie landscape.

For what little it’s worth, here’s what up next in our DVR queue: The 70s sci-fi classic Westworld; The ebullient mystery Shadow of the Thin Man; Noir heavyweights Sterling Hayden and Dan Duryea facing off in Manhandled; and the early-career Marilyn Monroe suspenser Don’t Bother To Knock. Feel free to post your own recommendations below.

- Michael Kabel
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Comme nous aimons la polémique nous allons croquer la pomme à pleine dents…

Quand l’Art, l’Histoire et l’Agriculture se rencontrent nous obtenons une série d’oeuvre de Richard Conte.

Certains d’entre vous, je suis sûr, regardent JP Pernot. Ils ont donc à l’occasion d’un sujet sur les vergers et leurs mystères, pu voir ce type de pomme:

Le procédé est différent mais bon en tant que Geek je ne pouvais pas passer à côté.

Ou bien celles-ci :

Le cultivateur japonais appose un autocollant sur chaque pomme 1 mois avant la récolte.

Bon, trève de digression, je rentre dans le vif du sujet.

Richard Conte est un artiste plasticien protéiforme, il alterne entre la peinture, action, photographies, et videos.

Cette fois son travail se centre sur la reproduction de gravure érotique du XVIII° siècle sur des pommes. Il a donc créé tout justement un partenariat avec les vergers du roi du Chateau de Versailles et a mis au point des pochoirs pour marquer ses pommes puis les exposer au soleil. Quoi de plus normal comme projet à Versailles…

Cette technique est la base de la photographie : exposer une image sur un support photosensible afin de créer un dessin.  Ce que j’aime ici, c’est la fugacité de ce moment artistique, une oeuvre imaginée, portée, murie et disparue pour la beauté de l’art. Il ne reste que des traces photographiques, mémoire de l’ instant éphémère.

Vous pourrez déguster à l’oeil ces oeuvres à la Galerie Deborah Zafman jusqu’au 30 juillet
Du mardi au samedi de 14h à 19h (et sur rdv)

3-5, passage des Gravilliers
75003 Paris

Et plus d’infos :
galerie@zafman.com
http://www.deborahzafman.com/

THE BLUE GARDENIA (Warner Brothers) Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern, Nat Cole, Raymond Burr. A just-jilted woman agrees to date a ruthless womanizer, and the date ends in murder.

With TV booming in the early 1950s, this is the sort of stuff the big studios turned out to keep the theater screens lit up even though few were attending. Baxter is pretty and a good actress while Conte glides through and Burr is a caricature as the playboy. Sothern wisecracks but finds little to do. The title song, promoted throughout, is mediocre even with Nat Cole singing.

The story was obviously just tossed together, but it may keep you mildly interested. I was distracted by the fact that everyone was constantly puffing on a cigarette while downing booze or coffee. And that’s the way it was.

Scale of 10: I give it 3.

Στα πλαίσια του σεμιναρίου “Film Noir” της Τετάρτης 6/5, στις 20:00 θα προβληθεί η ταινία The Big Combo του Joseph H. Lewis.

On May 2nd two must see films will be making rare appearances on the Fox Movie Channel and TCM.  First up is Jules Dassin’s classic film noir “Thieves Highway” on Saturday May 2nd at 11:30AM and again on May 13th at 9:45AM on the Fox Movie Channel.

Released on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection “Thieves Highway” is Dassin right in the middle of his best period with “The Naked City” and “Brute Force” behind him and “Night and the City” and “Riffifi” still to come. This was Dassin final American film until his rare 1968 film “Up Tight”,  a black cast remake of  “The Informer.”

Here’s a review I wrote for Halo-17.

Later that same day, TCM will broadcast the 1932 classic prison drama, Mervyn LeRoy’s  “I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang” at 8PM. A repeat broadcast is scheduled for June 20th at 7:15AM.  Based on a true story this is one of Warner Brothers classic social dramas that they did so well back then.

Here’s a quick link to the review I wrote a short while back.

Don’t miss the chance to see this two classic works.

Perhaps it is simply a lesser-known sub-genre of film noir, but the American immigrant setting of Jules Dassin’ Thieves’ Highway seemed quite unusual for a film of this type. One wonders if the film knew exactly what it was doing; popular racial stereotypes at the time, prevalent within film, often conflated the difference between an ethnicity and its newborn version once it settled into the Americas. That is to say, there is a difference between “Italian” and “Italian-American”; as if they really eat spaghetti and meatballs on red-and-white checkered tablecloths in Italy, and the like. This author is confident that the San Francisco Bay Area Italian-American attitude captured in Thieves’ Highway accurately corresponds to that which still exists today, or at least to what remains of old-school Italian-Americans. Of course, the protagonists in Thieves’ Highway were Greek-Americans, and that may be another story. But how fitting that the antagonists be Iberian. (No offense is meant here, as this author counts himself fortunate to be among the few, the happy few, reared in a largely Italian-American world and still embracing certain aspects of it.)

Of course, Jules Dassin’s eventual blacklisting would imply that he did know what he was doing with regard to the immigrant plight in the US and the failures of capitalism. Along with colonialism, capitalism is likened to the fateful fruit truck in the film: careening down a hill, gaining speed, holding precious cargo, brakes failing, and bound for destruction. The ride is exhilarating until one realizes the inevitable tragedy at the end. Of course, this is a simplistic analogy. For even if capitalism is bound to fail (and that is still a very live debate, despite our present times), it’s not bound to fail like the truck in Thieves’ Highway. Ups, downs, plateaus, and generally operative brakes have so far kept things in check alright. All this being the case, traveling and movement are obviously themes in the film. Aside from the title, the film begins with its main character, Nick, arriving back home via taxi from a global expedition. In an interesting twist, this son of Greek immigrants has conquered the world through tourism (that great American sport), bringing back artifacts from all the corners of the world for his family. After presenting them all with their gifts, Nick’s piece de resistance is showering his new fiancée in cash. Herein the film sets the stage for Nick’s severe lack of cash at a later point. That the conflict centers around apples is nearly comical, as the film utilizes tropes from crime noir that usually have to do with much more scandalous things. Still, the apples ground the narrative in real life and reflect pressing social concerns in the postwar US.

As for the highway, precious little of the film actually takes place at the titular location, other than a couple of breakdown scenes and the aforementioned truck accident. A variety of spaces are presented, however. The film begins in a suburban domestic household, then shifts to a corresponding work location: a delivery truck yard. We then shift to the rural, into an apple grove where business haggling mirrors the clash of rural migrants (broken English) with suburban second-generation immigrants (relatively articulate English). Then we have the highway in all its darkness and Nick’s fight to stay awake. This dreamy sequence illustrates a disconnect between suburban, organic southern California with the urban artificiality of San Francisco. (Having made this drive numerous times, it can be said that the haze of reality depicted here is quite accurate, especially at night.) Once Nick arrives, there is the urban marketplace, the apartment, and the notorious waterfront where, naturally, he is mugged. Finally, there is the famous scene re-shot by the film’s producer, who insisted that some “law and order” be promulgated in an otherwise anarchic depiction of capitalism. The scene is a diner with a long bar, effectively allowing some deep-focus shots and concluding the film with the highway (i.e., perpetually stretching) motif, even as the producer’s rather happy ending somewhat clashes with the genre and the dark narrative.

Via

    The story of two men from the same neighborhood who go off in different directions in life, one on the right side of the law, and the other on the wrong side of the law.  We have seen this so many times in films such as “Angels with Dirty Faces” with Cagney’s Rocky Sullivan and Pat O’Brien’s Father Jerry Connelly, two Irish kids who grew up together in the slums of New York and took opposite paths in life.  In the 1948 film noir “Cry of the City”, we get the Italian-American version. Marty Roman (Richard Conte) and Candella (Victor Mature) grew up together in New York’s Little Italy. Candella became a cop and Roman a cop killer, a charismatic loser who defies death’s odds.

    Rome escapes from a prison hospital and is pursued by Lt. Candella (Victor Mature) and his partner Lt. Collins played wonderfully by Fred Clark. Rome wants to clear his young girlfriend Teena (a young Debra Paget) of any involvement in a jewel robbery of a Mrs. DeGrazia, an elderly woman who was tortured and murdered. Niles (Berry Kroger), a crooked lawyer threatens to implicate Teena in the crime if Rome does not admit to the jewel robbery and murder to clear the lawyer’s innocent client. What difference does it matter anyway, the lawyer Niles says since he is getting the chair for the cop killing and has nothing to lose.

    Teena is in hiding, however, Rome still fears that Niles will still find and implicate her.  After his escape, Rome heads to Niles office where he finds the stolen jewels in secret compartment in the lawyer’s safe. Niles gives Marty the name of his accomplice, Rose Givens, before he pulls a gun and tries to kill Rome. Marty sticks a switchblade knife through the lawyer’s leather chair stabbing him to death.

    Rome meets up with Rose Givens (Hope Emerson) a sadistic masseuse who is willing to trade for the jewelry by giving Rome money and a way out of the city in exchange. The trade will be made at a subway station where Rome has the jewels secured in a locker. Rome notifies Candella where Givens will be for the pickup, his plan was not to be there but Givens wants Rome at the station fearing a setup. As Givens opens the locker, the police close in on her. There’s a struggle. Givens pulls a gun and a wild bullet hits Candella as he was jumping over a turnstile t assist with the arrest. As the police arrest Givens, Rome manages to escapes and meets Teena in a church where he tries to persuade her to run away with him. Candella, still wounded shows up at the church and tells Teena how everyone who has ever helped Marty has been hurt. That he’s left a trail of physically or emotionally wounded souls. Teena decides not to go with him. As Candella and Rome leave the church, Rome tries to escape but Candella shoots him dead.

    The film is loaded with sleazy low life’s from the sadistic masseuse to the creepy abortionist, to Niles, the crooked lawyer. Directed by Robert Siodmak, the film is well paced maintaining a tense dark moody atmosphere. While not quite on par with some of Siodmak’s other noirish works such as “Crossfire” or “The Killers”. “Cry of the City” provides a realistic look at the squalor of the inner city.

   Richard Conte was riding high in his career when this film was made. He had just completed “Call Northside 777″ and also had under his belt “Somewhere in the Night”, “A Bell for Adano” and “A Walk in the Sun.” Conte was a staple in some of the best noir films of the 1940’s and 1950’s including “Thieves Highway”, “Whirlpool” and “The Big Combo.” Billed second to Victor Mature in this film Conte not only has the larger part but also steals the show as Marty Roman, a magnetic, woman chasing cop killer.

Victor Mature, an actor of limited talent actually gives a good performance as Candella, the tough yet sensitive cop. The rest of the cast is loaded with many familiar faces including Shelley Winters, as an ex-girlfriend, the previously mentioned Fred Clark, Debra Paget and Hope Emerson who is especially memorable as the sadistic masseuse who almost strangles Rome with ecstatic pleasure.