2014 Noir City

Noir City ran from January 24 to February 2 at the Castro Theater.  The program was billed as "International Noir" as there were films from around the world.

I saw 18 of the 27 films on the program.

Journey Into Fear starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio & Orson Welles; directed by Norman Foster & Orson Welles (uncredited); (1943)
Border Incident starring Ricardo Montalban & George Murphy; directed by Anthony Mann; (1949)
In the Palm of Your Hand starring Arturo de Córdova & Leticia Palma; directed by Roberto Gavaldón; Spanish with subtitles; (1951)
Victims of Sin starring Ninón Sevilla; directed by Emilio Fernández; Spanish with subtitles; (1951)
Too Late for Tears starring Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea & Arthur Kennedy; directed by Byron Haskin; (1949)
The Hitch-Hiker starring Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy & William Talman; directed by Ida Lupino; (1953)
Stray Dog starring Toshirô Mifune & Takashi Shimura; directed by Akira Kurosawa; Japanese with subtitles; (1949)
The Murderers Are Among Us starring Hildegarde Knef & Wilhelm Borchert; directed by Wolfgang Staudte; German with subtitles; (1946)
Berlin Express starring  Robert Ryan & Merle Oberon; directed by Jacques Tourneur; (1948)
Death of a Cyclist starring Lucia Bosé & Alberto Closas; directed by Juan Antonio Bardem; Spanish with subtitles; (1955)
Death is a Caress starring Claus Wiese & Bjørg Riiser-Larsen; directed by Edith Carlmar; Norwegian with subtitles; (1949)
Never Open That Door starring Ángel Magaña, Roberto Escalada & Ilde Pirovano; directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen; Spanish with subtitles; (1952)
Hardly a Criminal starring Jorge Salcedo; directed by Hugo Fregonese; Spanish with subtitles; (1949)
The Black Vampire starring Nathán Pinzón; directed by Román Viñoly Barreto; Spanish with subtitles; (1953)
Two Men in Manhattan starring Pierre Grasset & Jean-Pierre Melville; directed by Jean-Pierre Melville; French with subtitles; (1959)

Rififi starring Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel & Jules Dassin;  directed by Jules Dassin; French with subtitles; (1955)

Singapore starring Fred MacMurray & Ava Gardner; directed by John Brahm; (1947)

Macao starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell & William Bendix; directed by Josef von Sternberg & Nicholas Ray (uncredited); (1952)

Never Open That Door consisted of two films - Somebody on the Phone (Alguien al teléfono) and Hummingbird Comes Home (El pájaro cantor vuelve al hogar).

The Black Vampire was a remake of Fritz Lang's M.

Journey Into Fear, Border Incident, Too Late for Tears, The Hitch-Hiker, Singapore & Macao were Hollywood productions.  Berlin Express was filmed in Germany after the war but was a RKO film.

Of the Spanish language films, In the Palm of Your Hand and Victims of Sin were Mexican productions.  Never Open That Door, Hardly a Criminal and The Black Vampire were Argentinian films.  Death of a Cyclist was made in Spain

Stray Dog is, of course, Japanese.  Death is a Caress was made in Norway and The Murderers Are Among Us was the first German film made after WWII (sponsored by the Soviet Occupation Forces).  Two Men in Manhattan and Rififi were French made films.

I had previously seen Border Incident, Stray Dog & Rififi at the Castro.  I believe those are the only three "repeat" films of the eighteen I saw this year.

I had previously seen the nine films (in a movie theater) which I skipped at this festival - The Third Man, Drunken Angel, It Always Rains on Sunday, Brighton Rock, The Wages of Fear, Pépé Le Moko, Jenny Lamour, Riptide and The Shanghai Gesture.  Jenny Lamour screened under its French title (Quai des Orfèvres) at the PFA's Clouzot series in 2012.  Elliot Lavine screened Riptide under an alternate title (Such A Pretty Little Beach) in 2012.

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The 2014 Noir City was the 12th annual rendition of the festival.  As mentioned, the theme was international noir and the audience was receptive.  The audience is always enthusiastic but seemed extra so this year.  Attendance seemed up from previous years.

They screened a Serena Bramble video like have for the past several years.

They also screened an episode of Noir House which is a on-line series based out of Australia.

I recall a pair of tango dancers on the night they screened a pair of Argentinian films but I cannot recall their names.

Miss Noir City 2014, Evie Lovelle, performed a burlesque routine on the Castro Theater stage.  It was clear from her movements, costume, props and assistant that she was an experienced burlesque performer.

Czar of Noir Eddie Muller announced the creation of the Nancy Mysel Legacy Project. The project was created by the family of the late film preservationist whose restorations have screened at Noir City. The inaugural honoree, Ariel Schudson, knew Mysel and will work on restorations for Noir City.

The alcohol was flowing throughout the 10 day festival.  Eddie has become quite adept at getting liquor donated to Noir City.  I believe he mentioned that his temporary license to serve hard alcohol during Noir City only allowed him to serve 2 consecutive days.  Every third day was wine only.

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My favorite films were two that I've already seen - Stray Dog & Rififi.

I've long stated that Stray Dog is one of my favorite films by Akira Kurosawa.  I almost skipped the screening.  I didn't really gain much from this viewing so I 'll stand by what I wrote in this post.  I enjoyed it just as much as I did during my previous viewings.  Stray Dog holds up to repeated viewings.  By coincidence, actress Keiko Awaji, who played the self-conflicted girl the killer was in love with, died at age 80 a few weeks before Noir City.  She was only 16 (like her character) when Stray Dog was made.

I saw a 35 mm print of Rififi at the Castro several years ago (before I started this blog).  Now that I think about it, Rififi and Stray Dog would make a great double feature.  Whereas Stray Dog is a policier which transcends the genre, Rififi is a caper film which approaches the sublime.

The plot centers around a jewel heist involving four career criminals -  Tony le Stéphanois (Jean Servais), Jo le Suédois (Carl Möhner), Mario Ferrati (Robert Manuel) and director Jules Dassin as César le Milanais.  In true gangster film style, three out of the four are identified by their home towns:  Tony from Saint-Étienne, Jo the Swede and César the Milanese (resident of Milan).

Tony just gets out of prison and is met by his friend and protégé, Jo.  Jo has a wife & son so Tony didn't rat him out to the cops which resulted in his extended prison term.  Grateful for his silence, Jo proposes a jewelry heist to Tony who passes.  Tony instead looks up his old girlfriend Mado (Marie Sabouret) only to confirm that she has taken up with the gangster Grutter.  As an aside, Grutter runs the nightclub L'Âge d'Or (reference to Luis Buñuel?).  Second aside, at some point, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival has adopted an image L'Âge d'Or to accompany their tagline True Art Transcends Time.  The image is from an infamous scene of a woman (Lya Lys) sucking on the toe of a statue in a suggestive manner.  Is there a non-suggestive manner to suck on a toe?

Back to Rififi, after confronting his ex (Tony has some anger management and communication issues), Tony agrees to the heist but not any old smash and grab job.  Tony wants the contents of the safe so he can make enough money to lure back his ex.  I would think the belt-whipping he gave her would have ended any possibility for future rapprochement but who knows in 1950s Paris.  The job now requires a safecracker and Jo & Tony's friend Mario knows just the guy - César le Milanais.

Most of the film deals with the planning and actual execution of the heist.  I thought it was fascinating and the film was banned in several countries out of concern that it was a "how to" manual.  The highlight of the film is a 30 minute sequence without dialogue (and complete silence for much of the time) during which the actual burglary occurs.

The undoing of plan occurs when César le Milanais impulsively steals a diamond ring from the jeweler for a showgirl he lusts after.  The girl works for Grutter, Tony's sworn enemy.  When Grutter finds out who gave her the ring and reads about the jewelry heist, he puts two & two together and tries to muscle in.  One by one, the thieves are killed while Grutter holds Jo's young son hostage.  I won't give away too much of the ending except it's hilarious and sad.  Jo's son looks like he is on a sugar high while Tony, in agony from the bullet Grutter put in him, drives the boy back home.  The dichotomy between the grizzled criminal and his namesake is made comically clear.  When I saw the scene, I wondered if Dassin directed the boy to behave that way or if the actor was bored and fidgety and Dassin decided it would work better that.

Rififi has three things going for it.  First is Jean Servais in a role that I have to believe Jean Gabin was considered.  I'm sure Gabin would have been fine in the role, Servais plays the taciturn with a "still waters run deep" intensity.  Tony doesn't lose his cool except when he beats his ex-girlfriend which I guess is misogynistic expression of sexuality.  Even then, he barely says a word.

Next, the plot of Rififi is stripped of everything that could become extraneous; most obviously women.  The actresses play small and rather inconsequential roles in Rififi.  The film is about these four guys, the crime they plan and execute, and the criminal code of honor.  I wonder how a twentysomething woman in 2014 would react to Rififi.  The men in the film are a long way from vegan, tablet totting, New Age, metrosexuals.  I don't know if men really behaved this way in 1950s Paris, but they are entertaining as hell.

Rififi is a less is more approach.  By stripping away any direct or extended dialogue about the emotional state of these men, Dassin allowed the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions.  Tony is crazy for Mado and resentful that she didn't wait for him.  Jo is settled into marital life.  Mario has this earthy, Italian woman who he adores probably because she has a healthy sexual appetite that matches his own.  César doesn't get much action so when a showgirl gives him some attention, he breaks from the plan to pocket a diamond ring to impress the girl.

Finally, Dassin is meticulous in his direction.  The plot is laden with these scenes where the focus is on the action and not the dialogue.  He makes spraying fire retardant into an alarm box exciting.  He gave himself the difficult role of comic foil.

Strong performance by the lead actor plus a sharply focused plot plus detailed direction equals a great film.

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Journey Into Fear - set in WWII Istanbul (and later a tramp steamer bound for the Soviet Union), Joseph Cotten is an American weapons engineer who is drawn into intrigue involving a Turkish secret police officer (Welles), Nazi spies, an assassin and a sexy magician's assistant (Dolores Del Rio looking incredible considering she was 37 years old during filming).  Journey Into Fear was paired with The Third Man on the Noir City schedule.  The latter film captured the intrigue of post-WWII Vienna (in large part because it was filmed there).  Journey Into Fear looks like it was filmed on a sound stage.  In addition, the plot had a few too many false leads and twists; too clever by a half.  In comparison to The Third Man and many other films on the Noir City program, Journey Into Fear suffers.

Border Incident - a Mexican Federale (Ricardo Montalban) and US Border Patrol agent (George Murphy) go undercover to bust a illegal immigrant smuggling operation.  The film is not as powerful as I recall from my first viewing.  Actually, considering it was directed by Anthony Mann, filmed by John Alton and featured the incomparable Charles McGraw in the supporting role, Border Incident was slightly disappointing.  However, I will readily admit that high expectations and foreknowledge of the plot from my previous viewing were to blame for my mild reaction to the film.  The film presented a surprisingly sympathetic view of illegal immigration for 1949.

In the Palm of Your Hand - a astrologer/scam artist learns from his wife (who eavesdrops at the upscale beauty salon where she works) that a wealthy man has died just after learning his beautiful wife has been having an affair.  He targets the widow or does she target him?  I liked this film about a criminal getting in over his head due to greed, love & overconfidence.

Victims of Sin - a cabaret singer/dancer (the stunning Ninón Sevilla) rescues another dancer's baby from the garbage which puts her afoul with the cabaret owner/pimp/baby daddy.  Forced to be a streetwalker, she raises the baby boy as her own until a another club owner meets her, marries her and adopts the boy as his own.  All is well until the pimp kills the husband.  In a crowd pleasing scene, Sevilla kills the pimp with guns blazing.  You get the gist of the film.  Victims of Sin was a too melodramatic to be great noir and Sevilla's character was too selfless for my liking.  The musical numbers were smoking hot...just like Sevilla.  Victims of Sin is definitely worth a viewing if you haven't seen it.

Too Late for Tears - Lizabeth Scott plays a happenstance femme fatale.  Jane Palmer (Scott) and her husband are driving on a road one evening when a passing car throws a suitcase into the backseat of their convertible.  The suitcase contains a large sum of money.  Jane's husband wants to turn it over to the police but Jane convinces him to keep it for awhile.  The access to such a large amount of money brings out a new attitude from Jane.  She starts spending the money, lying to her husband, manipulating the criminal (Dan Duryea) who comes looking the money and ultimately t killing men left & right.  It's quite a showcase of Scott and very enjoyable in an "only in Hollywood" way.

The Hitch-Hiker - directed by Ida Lupino, this film involves two American buddies in Mexico on a fishing trip.  The pick up a hitch-hiker who turns out to be psychopath escaped from a criminal mental asylum.  The remainder of the film is a psychological drama as the two men's loyalty is tested by the sadistic killer.  Even at a modest 71 minutes, the film dragged at times.  Keeping the three men together in a car or on foot became an anchor on the plot.  The performances are fine but the script could have used another draft or two.

The Murderers Are Among Us was the first German film made after WWII.  It was filmed in the bombed out ruins of 1945 Berlin.  A young woman returns to her family's apartment.  She is a concentration camp survivor.  There, she discover an alcoholic doctor squatting.  Unable to displace the unsettled doctor, the woman befriends him.  The relationship is good for the doctor as his nightmares and obsessive behavior dissipate...until the chances upon his SS captain from the war.  The man committed war atrocities and the doctor's own complicity has haunted him.  He decides to kill the former officer who is now a wealthy businessman.

The backstory to the film is more interesting than the film itself.  The original ending had the doctor killing the man but the filmmakers were concerned about their Allied Occupational Forces censors so in the final version, the woman convinces the doctor to allow the man to stand trial (like the Nuremberg Trials which ended just as the film was released to German theaters).  The actor who played the doctor  (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert) had lied about his Nazi affiliation so his name was struck from the credits and promotional materials.

A film like this must be viewed within the context of its production.  The moral tone in the film was a result of collective German guilt and efforts to please the Occupational Forces.  On the flip side, for a concentration camp survivor, Hildegarde Knef (spelled Neff in her Hollywood films) was exceeding healthy looking and well dressed.  The Murderers Are Among Us must have been place on the Noir City program due its historical significance because I thought the film was mediocre at best.

Berlin Express - a bit of gimmick film.  The premise sound like a setup for a joke:  an American, an Englander, a Frenchman and a Soviet search for a German physicist.  That was the reality of postwar Germany.  If The Murderers Are Among Us was the first German film made in Germany after the war then Berlin Express is the first Hollywood film made in Germany after the war.

In the film, the German scientist is kidnapped from a train station in Berlin and the four occupiers search their respective zones for him.  Again, it was fascinating to see the bombed out city nearly three years after the war ended.  I can't recall much before a big showdown in a brewery.  I also recall the Frenchman was the perfidious one which surprised me a little since I would have assumed the Soviet would be cast as the villain.  I wonder what that says about US relations with France in the late 1940s.

Death of a Cyclist - one of my favorites from this year's festival.  Directed by Spanish actor Javier Bardem's uncle, Death of a Cyclist is a masterpiece tale of self-destruction.  Two lovers are driving on a deserted road back to Madrid when the strike a bicyclists.  Knowing that calling an ambulance or police will expose their extramarital affair (the woman is married), they leave the cyclist to die.  The resulting guilt and paranoia that an acquaintance (Carlos Casaravilla in a great supporting role performance) turn the two lovers against each other with fatal consequences.

Death is a Caress - in many noir films, a man meets a femme fatale who is married.  They decide they must kill the husband.  Sometimes the woman has duped her boyfriend and sometimes the guilt from the act (or fear of being caught) break the couple apart.  In this Norwegian film, the husband is quite amenable to stepping aside when his wife falls for a young car mechanic.  In fact, the mechanic's girlfriend doesn't squawk much either.  It doesn't seem to be much of a noir but the tension ratchets up after the couple weds.  The insecure man is unable to adjust to married life; specifically marriage to an older, poised woman.  Let's just say that for this couple divorce is not an option.

Never Open That Door - Never Open That Door was an anthology which consisted of two films:  Somebody on the Phone and The Hummingbird Comes Home.  Watching these Argentinian films, I realized how certain plot devices are ingrained in my consciousness.   Somebody on the Phone felt Hitchcockian to me.  A brother overhears her sister on the phone and assumes the other party is blackmailing her and takes appropriate actions; appropriate by noir standards at least.  The Hummingbird Comes Home has the prodigal son return home to his blind mother.  The young man has gotten involved in crime and has his associates with him.  They pretend to be something they aren't to fool the mother but a mother always knows; even a blind one.

Hardly a Criminal - another gem from this year's festival.  A bank employee learns that the maximum sentence for embezzlement is six years in prison.  Considering how much he can embezzle, he plans to steal the money, hide it, do the time and reclaim it after his sentence.  As is usually the case in these films, his perfect crime doesn't go as planned.  Nice exterior shots of Buenos Aires.

The Black Vampire - first there was Fritz Lang's M, then Joseph Losey's Hollywood remake (also called M) and then The Black Vampire from Argentina.  Having seen all three, I am partial to the original but The Black Vampire is very good.  The film follows a psychopathic pedophile (Nathán Pinzón who bore a resemblance to Peter Lorre).  Like the other two films, Vampire has the criminal underground policing themselves.  There is a subplot involving a cabaret singer witnessing the killer and a flirty police inspector which seemed out of place but otherwise the film sticks close to the major plot points of M.  If memory serves me correctly, Pinzón even whistles In the Hall of the Mountain King which Lorre used as his leitmotif in M.

Two Men in Manhattan - director Jean-Pierre Melville casts himself and Pierre Grasset as a news reporter and photographer searching for the missing French delegate to the UN.  The film functions as a NYC travelogue as the two men pass by all the tourist landmarks and nightlife spots.  As they follow the missing man's steps, they discover mistresses, suspicious characters and a corpse.  Melville makes 1959 NYC look fabulous on film and his characters (particularly Grasset's character) remind more of his later French noir films than the standard cast of American noir films.  On its own merits, Two Men in Manhattan is a good film but it was paired with Rififi which may have colored my thoughts.

Singapore - Fred MacMurray is Matt Gordon, a pearl smuggler returning to Singapore after the war.  Returning to retrieve some pearls he hid as the Japanese were attacking, Gordon is shocked to encounter his wife (Ava Gardner) whom he thought was dead.  Instead, she has amnesia and does not recognize him.  Gordon must evade the local police and other criminals who suspect he will try to smuggle the pearls out of Singapore while simultaneously trying to win back his wife who has married another man in the intervening years.  Don't they bigamy laws in Singapore?  It takes another whack to the head for Gardner to recall her previous life.  The amnesia was a little too much for me and I didn't think MacMurray and Gardner had much chemistry either.

Macao - Jane Russell had some serious sex appeal in the early 1950s!  Three foreigners arrive on a tramp steamer in Macao:  Jane Russell as a sassy, headstrong lounge singer; William Bendix as a  pantyhose salesman and Bob Mitchum as an ex-GI  who wore out his welcome in the US.  One of them is a NYPD undercover agent sent to lure Brad Dexter out to international waters so he can be arrested for a murder in NYC.  No extradition treaty?  Anyway, Jane gets a job singing in the club Dexter owns and making Gloria Grahame jealous, Mitchum sticks around for no particular reason except Jane Russell is nearby (I would too) and I can't recall what Bendix does.

Although Josef von Sternberg has the director's credit, Nicholas Ray finished the shoot.  Macao seems to simply be a vehicle for Jane Russell to sing and look good and for Bob Mitchum to be paired up with Russell.  The best I can say about Macao is that I liked it better than Singapore.

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Now that I've completed this post, it occurs to me that the Hollywood films were the weakest on the program.  Of course the first time out, they were able to cherry pick the best films from each country.  I'll be curious to see what the festival programs next year.  They could run with the international theme for many years before running out of steam.  As long as I've revisited Stray Dog, I'll put in a plug for another of my favorite films by Kurosawa - High and Low (based on a Ed McBain novel).  Melville's Bob le flambeur would also be a welcome sight on the program.

I noticed that this year's Noir City poster uses the star and crescent image to dot the "i"s.  The star and crescent is most associated with Islam and appears on the flags of several Muslim nations.  That makes sense since there are several minarets behind the sheer curtain that Eddie is emerging from.  Typically Eddie is the victim in these posters.  However, with black glove on his right hand and his left hand ominously in his overcoat, it appears as those Ms. Lovelle is the one in danger.  Also that globe and airplane statuette seems familiar.  Was it in Gilda?

2014 Noir City Poster

Surfers, Psychopaths & Sexy Cyborgs

I spent most of a weekend at the Castro Theater in August watching three films.

Big Wednesday starring Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt & Gary Busey; directed by John Milius; (1978)
M starring Peter Lorre; directed by Fritz Lang; German with subtitles; (1931)
Metropolis starring Alfred Abel, Brigitte Helm & Gustav Fröhlich; directed by Fritz Lang; silent with intertitles; (1927)

Big Wednesday played on a Saturday night double bill with Apocalypse Now but I couldn't spare the time for both.  I saw M on Sunday afternoon with the intention of not seeing Metropolis again but once I was in the theater, I was hooked.  I was hoping for the Alloy Orchestra soundtrack but it was not.  I cannot recall the composer or performers of the soundtrack.

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The director of Big Wednesday, John Milius, was a prolific screenwriter in the 1970s.  Notable credits include Jeremiah Johnson, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean & Apocalypse Now. He also wrote the screenplay to Big Wednesday, a semi-autobiographical film for Milius.  Milius famously traded "points" or a percent of box office with his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.  Milius' film was Big Wednesday, Lucas' film was Star Wars and Spielberg's film was Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  If you haven't heard of Big Wednesday, you aren't alone as the film was a flop although it has become a cult classic among surfers.

Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt & Gary Busey are Matt, Jack & LeRoy "The Masochist," respectively.  They are three surfers in Southern California in early 1960s when the film starts.  Matt is the troubled one, Jack is the responsible one and LeRoy is the crazy one.

Although the characters go through life changes, the film seems more about societal changes that occurred between the JFK administration to the winding down of the Vietnam war in 1974.   The title refers to The Great Swell of 1974 during which legendary waves created ideal surfing conditions off the coast of Southern California.

Milius was an avid surfer so you would have expected the film to have a deeply personal feel.  The opposite seems true.  Milius seems to have set out to make an epic film and forgot to create characters we could care about.  There is one scene towards the end where Matt is invited to a screening of a surfing documentary in which footage of him appears.  Matt, Jack & LeRoy are longboard surfers.  By this point in the film, shortboard surfers like Gerry Lopez are popular.  Matt's footage is greeted by silence by the audience in the film.  This is set up as a minor tragedy but I couldn't tell the difference between them.

The film reminded me of Point Break except none of the three spouted Zen like aphorisms like Patrick Swayze's character.  However, all three characters in Big Wednesday took pleasure and maybe therapeutic value from surfing.  Surfing was a form of meditation to them.

The plot seemed formulaic but I don't know if that is because of all the films that have come after Big Wednesday or because Milius wrote & directed so many films.  There is the big fight scene where the house gets trashed, there is the fight scene in a Tijuana bar, there is an impressive scene where the protagonists try to get out of the draft by faking illnesses both mental and physical, etc.  The most memorable scenes are the surfing scenes which leads me to believe Vincent, Katt & Busey were actually quite accomplished surfers.

Milius, who would go on to direct Conan the Barbarian and the original Red Dawn, appears to have been too personally invested (emotionally not financially) in Big Wednesday for his own good.  A little more objectivity would have served the film better.  I cannot recommend this film and will not see it a second time but there are worse ways to spend a Saturday night than watching Big Wednesday at the Castro.

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I've long wanted to see Fritz Lang's M.  I'm quite certain I saw Joseph Losey's 1951 remake of M at the PFA in March 2010.  I cannot find the corresponding entry on this blog.

M is the story of a child murderer.  Interestingly, the killing is specified but the sexual abuse is only hinted at.  Losey's remake move the action to Los Angeles but Lang's original is set in Berlin with Peter Lorre as Hans Beckert, the killer.  Not just a killer but a serial killer and not just a serial killer but one who taunts the public with letters to the newspaper about his crimes.  This sends the city into a panic and the cops respond by pressuring organized crime.

Tired of being harassed by the police, the crime bosses react by setting up their own manhunt.  Beckert's downfall is caused by his incessant whistling of  Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King.  A blind beggar recalls someone whistling that song around the time one of the girls was murdered.  Beckert seems to whistle the tune when he is stalking young girls.  The beggar tips off a friend who organizes a posse to follow Beckert who is on foot.  One of them marks him with a chalk letter "M" on the back of his shoulder.

When Beckert realizes he is being followed, he takes refuge in an office building as work is letting off.  With their suspect trapped in the building, the crime bosses send an army of criminal to break into the building and methodically search for Beckert.  When they find him cowering in the attic, they drag him to an abandoned building to face a trial with the crime bosses as his judge, jury and likely executioners.  He is assigned a "defense council" and the questioning begins.

It's in the 2nd half of the film that Lorre begins to shine.  He is squared animal in the storage room of the building when the criminals close in on him.  Under trial for his life, he is still frightened but recognizing his situation he attempts to deflect blame and rationalize his actions.  It's only when the inevitability of the guilt becomes clear that Lorre breaks down and you see what a miserable person he is - tormented by his compulsion, grotesque by his actions and unpardonable by society's standards.  It's like that the final breakdown of Beckert launched Lorre's storied acting career.

Lorre is what makes M a classic film.  It is a career defining role for him.  Beckert is such a pathetic human being and Lorre shows all his shortcomings, perverted thoughts and cunning.

Watching the film, I recognized that Lang was filming in Germany in 1931, a few years before Hitler would become Chancellor and the Nazis would come to full power.  These characters and actors would confront even greater monster than Beckert in a few years.

The ending of M is very powerful.  The police bust up the proceedings before the verdict is announced.  The screen goes dark and the mother of one of the murdered girls says that nothing can bring her dead child back and that we need to protect our children.  M is still an excellent film to watch.  It was more powerful than Losey's 1951 remake.

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I believe this is the fourth time (if you count Moroder's version) I've seen Metropolis in the movie theater since I started this blog.  I can't add much to what I've said before.  Brigette Helm is more sexy each time and her performance more wanton.

In my opinion, the Alloy Orchestra soundtrack is still the gold standard for Metropolis.

A Third Death Note, Nazi Resistance, Alice Creed, Alice Reed and Olivia de Havilland Times Two

Over the three day Labor Day Weekend, I caught a trio of double features. I previously wrote about the Death Note films. By the way, there is a third Death Note film called Death Note: L, Change the World (2008). Ken'ichi Matsuyama reprises his role but the plot is largely independent of the events in the other Death Note films.

I saw Death Note on Saturday. On Sunday, I went to the Balboa and saw

Army of Crime; French & German with subtitles; (2009) - Official Website
The Disappearance of Alice Creed starring Martin Compston, Eddie Marsan and Gemma Arterton; (2009) - Official Website

On Monday, I drove to Palo Alto and went to the Stanford Theater to see

The Woman in the Window starring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett; directed by Fritz Lang; (1944)
The Dark Mirror starring Olivia de Havilland and Lew Ayres; directed by Robert Siodmak; (1946)

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Army of Crime played at this year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It was well received. The film is based on the real events involving a Nazi resistance cell led by French Armenian poet Missak Manouchian. The cast is large as several of the resistance fighers and their families are profiled. The very beginning of the film consists of a voice over roll call of the individuals with the declaration that they died for their country. Off the bat, you know thing won't end well for Manouchian and his group.

The film was a taut thriller but I didn't find it particularly memorable. Virginie Ledoyen who played Manouchian's wife stood out. I also found it ironic that the teenage Jewish girl informed on the cell. Actually, that part of the plot was the most interesting. Marcel Rayman (played by Robinson Stevenin) is a young man who is the most ardent of resisters. His girlfriend, Monique (Lola Naymark), escapes the roundup of the Jews but has to provide sexual favors from a French police inspector (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) to survive.

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The Disappearance of Alice Creed was memorable in the extreme. One of the best films I've seen this year, Alice Creed is lean thriller in which only three people appear on screen - Danny (Martin Compston) and Vic (Eddie Marsan) are two well-prepared kidnappers and their victim is Alice Creed (Gemma Arterton). The film chronicles the preparation of the crime, the period Creed is held hostage and the resolution of the events. On first impression, Danny is a little nervous, Vic is rock steady and possible sociopathic and Alice Creed is terrified. As the film unfolds, the backstory is revealed and there are several surprises which I won't reveal. The relationship between the three changes as the film progresses and there are enough twists to keep one guessing as to how the film will end. The three actors and director J Blakeson do an excellent job in prolonging the heightened sense of anxiety.

I've seen quite a bit of Marsan in the past couple years. Recent credits which I've enjoyed include a small role in the Red Riding Trilogy, a supporting role in The Illusionist and the unhinged driving instructor in Happy-Go-Lucky. I think he is quite a talented actor and his character in Alice Creed shows his range.

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The Woman in the Window was tremendously entertaining. Edward G. Robinson plays a bored college psychology professor whose family is away for the summer. Professor Richard Wanley dines nightly at his private gentlemen's club with his best friends: Frank Lalor, the District Attorney and Dr. Michael Barkstane, his physician. Next to the club, Wanley notices a painting of a beautiful woman. One night, while gazing at the painting, the woman appears behind him as she likes to admire her own image. Her name is Alice Reed (Joan Bennett). She and Wanley strike up a conversation which leads to Wanley having a nightcap at her apartment. Suddenly a man bursts in and starts attacking Wanley. In self-defense, Wanley kills the man. Alice informs him that he is a man she has dallied with. The only point of disbelief was at this moment. Instead of calling the police, Wanley & Reed decide to dispose of the body. I can half-way believe it since it would have been a scandal for the married Wanley to be involved in the death of a beautiful woman's acquaintance. Less believable is why Reed would go along with it.

Once we move past that sticking point, the film moves into high gear. Wanley is fed information about the case in the form of gossip from Lalor. Repeatedly Wanley reveals information which only the killer would know but it is dismissed as coincident since Lalor would never expect his old friend of such a crime. Slowly, the investigation closes in on Wanley but a real monkey wrench is thrown into the works when Dan Duryea shows up to blackmail Wanley & Reed. Watching Robinson sink while desperately trying to keep his head above the fray was immensely enjoyable. The ending was a huge disappointment which would only be tolerated in Hollywood during the Production Code. However, Lang infuses the scene without enough tongue-in-cheek to make it barely palatable. Despite that, the film is one of the best suspense and even noir films I've seen.

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The least fulfilling of the four films was The Dark Mirror which stars Olivia de Havilland in dual roles. She plays identical twins - one good and one evil (and a killer). Fortunately for the audience, they wear monogrammed accessories to help distinguish them. That is until the decide to fool the psychiatrist (Lew Ayres) who is interviewing them for his research...and falls in love with one of them. But does he know which one is which? You get the gist of the plot. De Havilland wasn't bad but the plot was so contrived that it was difficult to appreciate the film for its merits. Thomas Mitchell, who I've recently seen in Stage Coach, High Noon and Dark Waters, shows up as the befuddled police detective. He provides some comic relief.

Coffee and Grapefruit

The Castro had a Blonde Bombshell series in late August/early September. Marilyn Monroe featured prominently in the series but I only caught two films where the bombshells were Gloria Grahame and Jean Harlow.

The Big Heat starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin; directed by Fritz Lang; (1953)
The Public Enemy starring James Cagney and Jean Harlow; with Joan Blondell; directed by William Wellman; (1931)

Both films are well known and regarded. The Public Enemy along with Little Caesar (1931) with Edward G. Robinson kicked off the era of the gangster films in the 1930s and solidified Cagney and Robinson's careers. For years, the two of them (and to a lesser extent Humphrey Bogart) would be typecast as gangsters and tough guys. These films would be the progenitor of noir proper of which The Big Heat is a well regarded example.

Both films have famous scenes depicting violence towards women. In The Public Enemy, Cagney smashes a grapefruit in Mae Clarke's face. In The Big Heat, Lee Marvin throws hot coffee onto Gloria Grahame's face.

I don't recall seeing The Big Heat before. I have seen portions of The Public Enemy on television but it was so long that I couldn't remember the plot.

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The Big Heat features Glenn Ford in his tough guy persona. I never found Ford as believable in those roles as he was when he played the "ordinary man." In The Big Heat, Ford plays Dave Bannion, a cop investigating the death of another police officer. Warnings from his boss & gangsters, his resignation from the police force and even a car bomb which kills his wife are insufficient to dissuade him from investigating the suspicious circumstances regarding the man's death. The main suspects in the murder are gangster Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) and his vicious lieutenant Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) is Stone's saucy and sauced girlfriend. Marsh flirts a little too much with Bannion and the infamous coffee in the face scene is her punishment.

Grahame and Marvin dominate the screen when they are on it (separately and together). I saw Grahame and Ford together in Fritz Lang's Human Desire (1954) at the Roxie in September 2009 as part of their Columbia Noir series. The difference between the two films shows the range Grahame and Ford had. The film follows Bannion's dogged pursuit of the killers and the redemption of and revenge by Marsh. Grahame's transformation in the film is remarkable.

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The Public Enemy is the story of the rise and fall of gangster Tom Powers (James Cagney) during Prohibition. Painted in broad strokes, it's not clear to me what leads Powers into his life of crime and misogyny. As a boy, his cop father is distant and his mother uncritical of his behavior but that doesn't fully explain his descent into the underworld. Once Powers decides to be a gangster, he decides to be the best gangster he can be. At the time the film was released, Prohibition was still in effect and the depiction of the family life of Tom Powers must have seemed a realistic portrayal of a real-life problem.

Viewed nearly 80 years later, the film seems like a vehicle for "Cagney being Cagney." His twitchy mannerisms and distinctive speech patterns are present. Indeed, this was the film that made Cagney a star. Harlow's role is smaller. She doesn't show up until midway through the film. She plays a floozy who gets her hooks into Tom Powers but Tom is no one's fool except his own. That is to say that Powers isn't fooled by anyone because he doesn't trust anyone. However, Tom thinks himself invincible even as he kills and sees his friends and cohorts killed.

The grapefruit scene is a small part of the film and relates more to Powers growing dissatisfaction from his girlfriend (Mae Clarke) who will soon be replaced by the more venal and manipulative Jean Harlow. The legend is that the scene was a gag for the crew but director Wellman liked it so much that he kept it in.

The more iconic scenes are Cagney dodging machine gun fire by running around the corner of a building while his best is shot and the final scene where Cagney's corpse is left on the doorstep of his mother's house. Allegedly, real bullets were used in the scene where Cagney was dodging the bullets. He tripped during the filming so the bullets missed but if he hadn't the bullets would have struck him in the head and shoulders. Cagney laughed off the incident but it was the genesis for Cagney's later activism in the Screen Actors Guild.

Another interesting note is that in a scene where Tom's brother punches him, Wellman instructed Donald Cook to actually punch Cagney but he didn't tell Cagney it was going to happen. Cook punched Cagney so hard that he chipped one his teeth but Cagney stayed in character.

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Both films were enjoyable. I have a decided preference for old films so my judgment may be biased. Cagney's death in The Public Enemy predates the Hays Code so there was no need for him to die. His death along with the social commentary via title cards made the ending distastefully moralizing for me. The story was entertaining and Cagney was charismatic.

The Big Heat was worth it to see Lee Marvin terrorizing everyone around him.

2010 San Francisco Silent Film Festival

The 2010 San Francisco Silent Film Festival ran from July 15 to 18 at the Castro Theater.

I saw all 12 feature length programs and only missed two programs (excluding the two free Amazing Tales from the Archives).

2010 SF Silent Film Festival - Feature Films
The Iron Horse starring George O'Brien; directed by John Ford; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Dennis James; (1924)
A Spray of Plum Blossoms starring Ruan Lingyu; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Donald Sosin; (1931)
Rotaie; silent with Italian intertitles and reader; accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1928)
Metropolis directed by Fritz Lang; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Alloy Orchestra; (1927)
The Flying Ace; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Donald Sosin; (1926)
The Strong Man starring Harry Langdon; directed by Frank Capra; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1926)
Diary of a Lost Girl starring Louise Brooks; directed by G.W. Pabst; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra; (1929)
Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages directed by Benjamin Christensen; silent with Swedish intertitles and reader (Stephen Salmons); accompanied by Matti Bye Ensemble; (1922)
The Shakedown directed by William Wyler; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Donald Sosin; (1929)
Man With a Movie Camera directed by Dziga Vertov; silent; accompanied by Alloy Orchestra; (1929)
The Woman Disputed starring Norma Talmadge & Gilbert Roland; silent with intertitles; accompanied by Stephen Horne; (1928)
L'Heureuse Mort; silent with French intertitles and reader; accompanied by Matti Bye Ensemble; (1924)

Before most of the features, they screened a George Méliès short.

George Méliès Short Films
A Crazy Composer (1905); with A Spray of Plum Blossoms
Panorama from Top of a Moving Train (1898); with Rotaie
The Inventor Crazybrains and his Wonderful Airship (1907); with The Flying Ace
An Impossible Balancing Feat (1898); with The Strong Man
The Spider and the Butterfly (1909); with Diary of a Lost Girl
The Infernal Cauldron (1903); with Häxan
The Prolific Magical Egg (1902); with The Shakedown
A Trip to the Moon (1902); with Man With a Movie Camera
The Eclipse, or the Courtship of the Sun and the Moon (1907); with The Woman Disputed
The Kingdom of Fairies (1903); with L’Heureuse Mort

The programs I missed were a program called The Big Business of Short, Funny Films which consisted of Fatty Arbuckle, Laurel & Hardy and Max Davidson shorts and Variations on a Theme: Musicians on the Craft of Composing and Performing for Silent Films during which the festival's accompanists performed and discussed their craft.

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Before I speak about the films, a few notes about the festival itself.

The (SF)^2 Festival is becoming notorious for starting the films late. Metropolis started over an hour late and Häxan must have been close to an hour late. I'm not sure what causes the delays but the festival needs to do a better job. I don't think they budget enough time to clear the house and allow the musicians to do a sound check between films. Eddie Muller who interviewed the Argentinian duo responsible for finding the Metropolis footage made a joke of the tardiness. He said something to the extent, "If you have waited 83 years, what's another 75 minutes?" I stayed in the theater between screenings so I was able to read in relative comfort. However, if I had been standing in line outside the theater, I may not have been so amused.

In fact, when I entered the theater for Rotaie at around 5:30 PM, there were two women in line. I kindly informed them that they had already opened the theater for Rotaie. They replied that they were there for Metropolis which was scheduled to start at 8:15 PM. I don't think they opened the house for Metropolis until after 9 PM. Those poor women stood outside for approximately 3.5 hours.

Stephen Salmons and Melissa Chittick were honored for their founding of the festival. Salmons even reprised some of his emcee duties when he announced the winner of the raffle. I miss the admittedly silly banter between Salmons and announcer Ron Lynch. It served as a nice distraction during the time between the films.

In between films, workers (or maybe volunteers) sold panini sandwiches from Poesia Oesteria Italiana. I don't see paninis on their restaurant menu but the ones they sold in the theater were delicious. My favorite was the caprese whose main ingredients are tomatoes and mozzarella.

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The centerpiece of the festival was undoubtedly the screening of the restored version of Metropolis. The version screened at the festival restores the film to its original cut (150 minutes). I saw a version (at the Castro) a few years ago which clocked in around 2 hours if I recall. I enjoyed that version quite a bit. The version they screened at the festival didn't reveal too much. Most of the cuts seem to be to transition scenes or shortening some of the action scenes. It was easy to recognize the restored portions because they were grainy 16 mm whereas the rest of the film was in amazingly crisp 35 mm. However, the Alloy Orchestra provided a muscular and rhythmic score which enhanced the film immeasurably. Their beating of drums literally resonated through the floor and up my legs.

I think this was the fourth time I've seen Metropolis and I'm always impressed. The wanton dancing by Brigitte Helm as the robot caught my attention this time. The overt references to Christian iconography and large set pieces always catch my attention.

The fully restored version of Metropolis which screened at the festival is screening at the Castro Theater from August 13 to 15.

A recurrent theme throughout the festival seemed to be the sexual exploitation of women or prostitution. In Rotaie, a poor couple on the verge of mutual suicide find a wallet full of money. They vacation at a posh resort where the boyfriend loses everything (and then some) at the roulette table. A wealthy womanizer offer to pay off his gambling debts in exchange for one night with this girlfriend.

In Diary of a Lost Girl, Louise Brooks becomes pregnant. After giving the baby up for adoption, she is sent to a school for wayward girls. She escapes and becomes a high-end prostitute. In The Disputed Woman, Norma Talmadge (playing a French woman) whores herself to a jilted Russian suitor in order to save the life of a spy and save her country.

Other thumbnails:

While in the men’s room between screenings, I go to the urinal and think the man next to me looks familiar. After a few seconds, I realize it’s Leonard Maltin. I didn’t say anything but it seems odd to see people that I associate with television in real-life. It’s almost as if I view them as fictional characters who reside inside my television and then to see them at a place I go to so frequently is disjointing.

Dziga Vertov’s Man with Movie Camera was a dizzying documentary about Soviet life in the 1920’s. The film is filled with quick cut edits, geometric patterns and exhilirating images. When I read the synopsis, I didn’t think I would enjoy it but decided to give it a shot. Once again, the Alloy Orchestra comes through. Their fevered and rambunctious score perfectly complemented the film. Vertov’s techniques were ahead-of-their-time as they looked like modern editing.

Louise Brooks, resplendent with her black bob, lived up to her reputation in Diary of a Lost Girl. In the film, she transforms from innocent, frightened, courageous and decadent while never losing her charm. Truly a movie star, Brooks moves through the film like no one else can. Also noteworthy were Fritz Rasp as the slimy assistant who seduces and impregnates Brooks’ Thymian and Andrews Engelmann and Valeska Gert as the couple who run the facility Brooks is banished to. Engelmann is a hulking presence while Gert’s character seems to become sexually aroused by the girls’ physical torment.

I previously saw a 1968 re-release of Häxan which was narrated by William S. Burroughs. Honestly, I enjoyed that version more. Voice-over narration is well suited for describing various books and diagrams which is the first part of the Häxan. The Matti Bye Ensemble’s score was well suited to the film but given the late start time and late hour, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to fully enjoy the film. The film seemed to drag for long stretches but I will same some of the scenes with the devil (portrayed by director Benjamin Christensen) were still disturbing.

I notice that acting styles in Chinese films are frequently more demonstrative than what Western audiences are accustomed to. A Spray of Plum Blossoms fits that mold. The villain (Wang Cilong) does some thumb-to-nose gesture (as opposed to twirling his mustache) that is absurd. Actually, his whole performance seems to be a caricature. The plot was forgetful but what I found interesting is the film was originally released with both Chinese & English intertitles reflecting the targetted audience of Shanghai films in the early 1930s.

The Strong Man and The Shakedown were entertaining comedies from Frank Capra and William Wyler, respectively. I didn't find anything particularly noteworthy about them. The Strong Man starred Harry Langdon, a screen comedian who was briefly considered an equal of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd. The backstory about Capra and Landgon's falling-out seemed more interesting than The Strong Man.

The Flying Ace was notable for its all African American cast and that it was shot in Jacksonville, Florida which for period rivaled Hollywood in terms movie making. I found the comedy tedious and dozed off for a bit.

L'Heureuse Mort was a French comedy made by Russian expatriates. It seems like I've seen it before although I don't see how that is possible. The premise has been frequently re-used but there were scenes where the setting and landscape invoked deja vu. I found the film amusing although a strange pick for the closing night film. The plot involves a failed playwright who is presumed drowned at sea. His death prompts a cavalcade of praise and interest in his work. Wanting to capitalize on his posthumous notoriety, the man allows the charade of his demise to continue and assumes the identity of his brother who is conveniently located in Senegal...that is until he decides to return to France to pay his respects to his late brother.

That only leaves The Iron Horse to discuss. Certainly epic in nature, I was underwhelmed by the bloated film. Director John Ford probably could have edited 30 minutes out of the film to good effect. Rather than make pointless suggestions, I will say that the cattle drive is emblematic of the shortcomings of the film. Throughout the film, there are cutaway shots of this (modestly sized) herd of cattle being driven on the open range past various scenic landscapes. The sole and belated purpose of the herd seems to be to placate some Italians on the railway gang who refuse to support their Irish co-workers unless they are paid and fed. Fortunately, the cattle drive arrives just in time and the newly unified Irish-Italian horde descends on and massacres some Indians.

Chock full of racial stereotypes that don't seem as amusing and quaint as I remembered from She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or Fort Apache, The Iron Horse looked older than its 86 years in terms of what entertained movie audiences back in the day.