ADAM'S RIB
***½
ALL THE KING'S MEN
***½
THE BIG STEAL
****½
USA
Because it re-teamed Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer (and their
scriptwriter) two years after the great Out of the Past,
a lot of people have categorised this as a noir. It couldn't be further
from noir. It's more reminiscent of Hitchock than Tourneur. Set in sunny
Mexico, it's really a fast-paced, action-packed romantic suspenser. And if
it wasn't all those things, it would still make for a perfectly satisfying
comedy. The stars have great chemistry, the dialogue crackles and there's
even some local colour.
dir: Don Siegel
wr: Geoffrey Homes, Gerald Drayson Adams
cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Patrick
Knowles, Ramon Novaro, Don Alvarado, PascualGarcia Pena
BORDER
INCIDENT
***½
USA
A semi-documentary B-noir about the Mexican and US governments joining forces to squash
the racketeering of illegal immigrants. There is too much exposition and factual
reconstruction, but by the third act the tension escalates to an
uncomfortable degree and builds with one violent, uncompromising setpiece
after another.
dir: Anthony Mann
ph: John Alton
cast: Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard da Silva, James
Mitchell, Arnold Moss, Alfonso Bedoya, Teresa Celli, Charles McGraw
GUN CRAZY
*****
USA
A femme-fatale seduces a gun nut and takes him on a wild crime spree.
And similarities with Bonnie and Clyde are presumably not incidental. A
quintessential B-noir, this even proved influential with the French New
Wave crowd. The shoestring budget forced its makers to be both economical
and inventive, hence the exciting and memorable bank robbery sequences are
filmed on location in a single take with the camera in the back seat of
the getaway car.
dir: Joseph H. Lewis
wr: John Charles, Millard Kaufman
cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Barry Kroeger, Morris
Karnovsky, Anabel Shaw, Harry Lewis, Nedrick Young, Trevor Bardette
THE HEIRESS
***½
USA
A wealthy spinster is unexpectedly wooed by a
handsome man her father disapproves brands as a fortune-hunter.
A bona-fide star vehicle and a fine literary adaptation in its own
right, with Hollywood polish reserving room for some psychological
character development as well.
dir: William Wyler
cast: Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift,
Ralph Richardson, Miriam Hopkins
HOLIDAY AFFAIR
****
USA
A young war widow with a child befriends a
drifter in a department store around Christmas time.
The characters' psychological motivations are all efficiently
summarised in a gallery of monologues, but the film still flows
wonderfully, heartwarmingly well, skipping past all sorts of cloying,
sentimental traps, thanks in no small part to the glowing leads.
dir: Don Hartman
cast: Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, Wendell Corey,
Gordon Gebert, Griff Barnett, Esther Dale
HOUSE OF
STRANGERS
***
I WAS A
MALE WAR BRIDE
***
USA
Cary Grant is the male war bride and he spends the movie's oddest ten
minutes in drag. Otherwise it boasts some snappy innuendo and a decent
poke at bureaucracy, but it's sloppier and much more forced than is usual
for Howard Hawks concoctions.
dir: Howard Hawks
cast: Cary Grant, Ann Sheridan, Randy Stuart, William Neff, Marion
Marshall, Eugene Gericke, Kenneth Tobey
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JOUR DE FÊTE
****½
KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS
****½
A LETTER TO THREE WIVES
*****
LITTLE WOMEN
**½
LOVE HAPPY
***½
ON THE TOWN
****
ORPHEUS
***½
PASSPORT TO PIMLICO
****½
QUARTET
***½
THE RECKLESS
MOMENT
***½
THE SECRET GARDEN
**½
THE
SET-UP
***½
USA
A moderately flashy B-noir with a bloated reputation. The story goes
through the washed-up-fighter's-one-last-shot-at-glory motions in 'real
time', so the film both covers and wraps up in 72 minutes.
dir: Robert Wise
wr: Art Cohn
ph: Milton Krasner
cast: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter,
Wallace Ford, Percy Helton, Hal Baylor, Darryl Hickman
SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON
***
STRAY
DOG
*****
Japan
A bit like a Japanese film noir, but with a social conscience. Toshiro
Mifune plays a young, committed cop, who feels guilty when his gun is
stolen and used in a series of crimes. The story is tight and engrossing,
but it's the social details and observations that elevate the picture from
excellence to brilliance. Everybody looks parched and overcome. Stifling
heat is blamed for it, but there are strong, poignant hints that the war
may have had something to do with it too.
dir: Akira Kurosawa
wr: Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa
ph: Asakazu Nakaii
cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko
Miyoshi, Noriko Sengoku
THE THIRD MAN
*****
UK
An American pulp fiction writer
arrives in post-war Vienna only to find an old friend has died under
suspicious circumstances.
Cinema at its most transcendent. Immaculate crafting, a gripping mystery, superbly,
memorably drawn characters, an irresistible zither score and an
intoxicating evocation of Cold War Vienna lead up to a breathtaking finale.
dir: Carol Reed
wr: Graham Greene
ph: Robert Krasker
ed: Oswald Hafenrichter
m: Anton Karas
cast: Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, Orson Welles,
Bernard Lee, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Ernst Deutsch, Siegfried Breuer, Paul
Hoerbiger, Erich Ponto, Hedwig Bleibtreu, Annie Rosar
WHISKEY GALORE
****½
WHITE HEAT
***½
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