TSPDT placing: #125
Directed by: Jacques Tourneur
Written by: Daniel Mainwaring (novel and screenplay; as Geoffrey Homes), Frank Fenton (uncredited), James M. Cain (uncredited)
Starring: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore, Ken Niles
WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!
Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past (1947) has all the required ingredients for the archetypal film-noir: a bold and charismatic hero, wearied by a lifetime of violence and corruption, but reluctantly hauled back into his old world by a past he can't escape; a seductive femme fatale, a seemingly-innocent, pretty enchantress whose loyalty can never be counted upon; a sleazy and vengeful gambler, who's silently holding all the cards that will determine our hero's fate. Daniel Mainwaring's dark and tragic narrative {credited under the pseudonym Geoffrey Homes} combines a linear storyline with reminiscing flashbacks, the latter narrated in a tired, laconic tone of voice by Robert Mitchum {who, after frightening roles in The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Cape Fear (1962), finally convinces me that he can effectively play a hero}. Complete with bleak, shadowy cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca, and no shortage of double- and triple-crossings, Out of the Past – along with Billy Wilder's masterpiece Double Indemnity (1944) – remains one of the purest examples of the film noir style.
If Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) thought he could escape his old enemies by purchasing an old gas station in a small American town, then he was sorely mistaken. A previous employer, Whit Sterling (Kirk Douglas), a seedy and sly gangster, has sent for him, and, more than likely, the meeting has something to do with Kathie (Jane Greer), the beautiful seductress with whom Bailey {back when he was called Jeff Markham} fell in love when he was supposed to be capturing her. Bailey is a smooth, shrewd operator, and recognises that plans have been drawn against him, but he responds to the situation as one whose judgement should never be doubted. The romance described early in the film, as Bailey recounts his doomed love story to local innocent girlfriend, Anne (Virginia Huston), is deceptively touching, and, despite the clear framing device around which the story is structured, I was completely fooled into sympathising with Kathie, only to be left feeling foolish and hollow as her initial betrayal is revealed.
In the United Kingdom, Tourneur's film was released under the title Build My Gallows High, also the name of the novel from which the screenplay was adapted. There are enough sharp, bitterly-ironic snippets of dialogue for me to spend all day listing them, but lines such as "Baby, I don't care," "…if I have to, I'll die last" and "you dirty double-crossing rat!" are pure noir, and serve as an excellent introduction to the style of American film-making that was most prominent from 1941-1958 {basically from John Huston's The Maltese Falcon to Orson Welles' Touch of Evil}. The story comes to a successfully downbeat conclusion, with each of the three main characters meeting a messy and tragic end in a suitably Shakespearian fashion. Though Jeff Bailey was ostensibly our story's hero, he had already committed enough sins by the film's beginning to avoid a happy ending, and his fate was effectively sealed from the moment he chose to revisit his past employer, despite obviously having little choice in the matter. Such is film noir.
8/10
2) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
3) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourner)
The Cranes are Flying is both an invigorating visual feast and an audacious, humanistic portrayal of war. Unlike many Soviet war-themed films of the time, it was less constrained by the archetypal figure of the traditional war-time hero, and more concerned with the futility, brutality and, indeed, the inevitability of conflict. Love, as a cinematic concept, is too-often idealised as a notion that somehow conquers all and endures endless hardship, and yet the reality is substantially less romantic. In the film, two lovers, Veronika (Tatyana Samojlova) and Boris (Aleksey Batalov), separated by the advent of the WWII {widely known in the Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945}, pledge to marry after the war, but tragedy denies the couple their wish. Driven to betrayal by the unending torment and uncertainty of waiting, Veronika agrees to wed Boris' cousin, Mark (Aleksandr Shvorin), a handsome but unworthy youth. The film may conclude with the proud victory of the Soviets, and a patriotic flag-waving parade, but the optimism of this sequence is overwhelmingly eclipsed by the bittersweet tragedy of our young female protagonist, who wanders soullessly through the celebrating crowds.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of The Cranes are Flying is Sergei Urusevsky's inspired and dynamic hand-held cinematography, which realistically and dizzily captures the chaos and confusion of war, not necessarily in the hail of gunfire and the cries of dying comrades {in fact, only one of the film's sequences joins Boris on the Eastern Front}, but from the perspective of the family and friends who are left behind. In one particularly impressive, oft-cited long shot, the camera follows Veronika as she frantically searches for Boris in a crowd of departing recruits and their families. The hand-held camera smoothly follows the girl off a bus, jostles through the crowd alongside her, capturing momentary snippets of loved ones saying farewell to their sons and husbands, before unexpectedly craning above the crowd as Veronika disappears into the dust of a passing squadron of army tanks, a breathtaking movement that offers scope and urgency to the dramatic episode. Urusevsky first acquired his filming experience as a military cameraman during the war, and obviously fell in love with the storytelling possibilities of handheld photography: "The camera," he once declared, "can express what the actor is unable to portray: his inner sensations. The cameraman must act with the actors."
Howard Hawks, perhaps Hollywood's most versatile master director, was a considerable fan of author Ernest Hemingway, but didn't think all too highly of his 1937 effort, "To Have and Have Not." Taking it upon himself to improve the story, Hawks set his writers upon Hemingway's "bunch of junk," and created what is considered by some to be one of his best films. With its abundance of pistol-clad gangsters and Bogart's legendary noble tough-guy, comparisons with other pulp film-noirs {such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Hawks' own The Big Sleep} are perfectly justified, as are the noticeable parallels with Michael Curtiz's 
What ultimately separates a good film like To Have and Have Not from a masterpiece like, say, Casablanca, is the depth of the characters. By the end of the latter film, we feel as though we've known Rick (Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) for their entire lives, and we feel pain for their romantic sorrows. Howard Hawks has always been more concerned with witty dialogue than character development, and, though there's no doubting the sheer entertainment of his pictures, they are rarely able to strike a chord close to the heart. Most of this film's characters are little more than two-dimensional caricatures, and the camera, in order to avoid distracting from the excellence of the screenplay, does little of any interest. To Have and Have Not is certainly a solid film, but it's not exactly "exciting" film-making, with the exception, of course, of the coupling of Bogart and Bacall, which was a stroke of genius on Hawks' part. Also notable is the musical soundtrack, with Hoagy Carmichael appearing as a hotel piano player to perform “Hong Kong Blues,” and Bacall singing “How Little We Know.”
Meanwhile, Gypo is plagued with guilt for his friend's untimely death, and descends into a bout of heavy-drinking that rivals Don Birnam in The Lost Weekend (1945) in its excessiveness. As Gypo drowns his sorrows in copious volumes of alcohol, trapped in a vicious little circle of depression, his extravagant spending captures the attention of the investigating IRA members. For the one time in his life, Gypo finds himself surrounded by admirers (including an amusing J.M. Kerrigan), who enthusiastically clap him on the back and christen him "King Gypo" for his physical might. However, it's obvious that these people feel no affection for the man, and are simple showing him attention to exploit him for money. The additional £20 brought by Frankie's death could never buy Gypo an assembly of friends – indeed, in a bitter twist of irony, the money was only made possible by the betrayal and loss of one of his only good companions. A relatively simple fellow, Gypo could not possibly have fully considered the consequences of his actions, and is eventually offered forgiveness on account of his "not knowing what he was doing," but his foolishness must not go unpunished. 
Cooper, aged 51 at the time of the film's release, won his second Oscar for his portrayal of Kane, an aging hero who finds that he simply can't run away from a confrontation, not so much because he wants to be heroic, but because he knows that he'll never be able to live with himself. As he marches across the dry, dusty roads of the small town – abandoned by those he considered his friends – Kane's ravaged features exhibit a sad loneliness, the pain of rejection and betrayal all too tragically evident on his face {Cooper was suffering from stomach ulcers and back pain at the time of filming, which presumably assisted the actor in demonstrating such pained emotions}. Also starring is the lovely Grace Kelly in only her second film role, and, though she isn't really given much to do, her mere presence is enough to add some warmth to the picture. The story itself unfolds almost in real-time {105 story minutes compared to 85 minutes of running time}, and Zinnemann exploits this to heighten the tension. The camera frequently cuts to a shot of the nearest clock, which steadily and inevitably ticks away towards noon, every second bringing Kane ever-so-closer to his moment of judgement.
High Noon proved one of the most influential Westerns of its time, and films such as Delmer Dave's 3:10 to Yuma (1957) surely could not have existed if not for its inspiration. However, and I suspect I'll be alone in this assessment, I consider the latter to be the superior picture, not because its better acted or directed, but simply because I felt that Dave did a finer job of drawing the odds against the film's hero. Both pictures achieve excellent suspense by continually keeping one eye fixated on the nearest time-piece, but High Noon lacks an intimidating villain for the audience to fear. Indeed, most of the running-time builds up towards Frank Miller's arrival, but MacDonald unfortunately fails to live up to our worst expectations. High Noon was Carl Foreman's final film before he was affected by the Hollywood blacklist, and many critics view the story as an allegory for the McCarthy era witch-hunts: Kane obviously represents the solitary, stoic American citizen who is unfairly abandoned by his friends and colleagues, and leaves the town as a lonely, embittered soul, disillusioned by the cold, dishonourable community that he had once called home.
By 1950, director Jules Dassin had already released a string of well-received American film-noir thrillers, before falling victim to the Hollywood blacklist. Considered un-backable by the bulk of the European studios, Dassin languished in poverty for a period of five years, before he was offered the opportunity to direct a low-budget French thriller based on Auguste Le Breton's novel. Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) {which loosely translates to "of brawling among men," a suitable description for the destructive male behaviour that devastates their well-laid plans} proved Dassin's redemption of sorts, becoming an incredible critical and commercial success and winning Best Director at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Then-critic François Truffaut famously referred to Dassin's film as "the the best film noir I have ever seen," a lofty word of praise if there ever was one. Though the film differs from classic film noir in that the story unfolds in Paris, it contains sufficient elements of the movement to easily qualify. Indeed, Jean Servais' character, Tony le Stéphanois, might conceivably have been played by Humphrey Bogart – he may be a man past his prime, but he's proud, shrewd and decisive, and it'd be a mistake to get in his way.
Rififi takes a few minutes to fully swing into motion, and, though our introduction to the fellow team members is quite interesting, I found little importance in Tony's relationship with former girlfriend Mado (Marie Sabouret). It was possibly included to further flesh out his character, and to interestingly define the role of women in this particularly story, but I felt that Mado simply distracted from the caper that we were all here to see. However, the undisputed centrepiece of the film is undoubtedly the breathless 33-minute heist sequence, which is entirely devoid of all music and dialogue. The crime unfolds in almost complete silence, the thieves' quiet movements barely audible in the hushed atmosphere of the empty jewellry store. Every unexpected sound leaps out at the audience like a dagger, the single resonating note of a piano acting as the men's mortal enemy. Their ingenious heist unfolds like a meticulously-staged ballet {somewhat reminiscent of the extended pickpocketing sequence in Robert Bresson's Pickpocket (1959)}, every man completely and silently aware of his role in the operation. Following the successful jewel theft, composer Georges Auric is finally allowed to spread his musical wings, and Dassin begins to toy sadistically with the fates of his characters.
Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart) is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter, an unsuccessful artist who resents being pressured into writing hackneyed, unoriginal scripts, which are guaranteed money-makers for the studios but possess zero artistic integrity. The morning after he brings home a bar hat-check girl (Martha Stewart) to recite the plot of the novel he is to adapt, Steele is hauled into the police department to explain why the girl was found murdered, her strangled body dumped from a moving vehicle. Appearing almost indifferent to the crime, Steele declines all knowledge of the homicide, and his story is shakily corroborated by a neighbour, Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), with whom he forms an intimate relationship. As Steele begins to pen his latest screenplay, he uncovers an outlet for his pent-up aggression, however, when Laurel betrays a lingering suspicion that her love might possibly have perpetrated the horrific murder, he threatens to lash out in a fit of violence, only further cementing her misgivings. By the film's end, the tragedy of the couple's relationship is revealed: whether or not Steele actually did commit the murder is almost irrelevant; what ultimately dooms their romance is that he conceivably could have.
In an obvious critique of the Hollywood studio system, Steele bitterly condemns the career of a successful producer, accusing him of remaking the same movie twenty times and of being a "popcorn salesman." The producer, apparently comfortable with his prosperous but creatively-deficient profession, snidely reminds Steele that everyone in Hollywood is inherently a "popcorn salesman," so why fight it? It's this notion of creativity – or, rather, the lack of creativity in film-making – that forms the heart of In a Lonely Place. There's no doubt that Dixon Steele is a talented screenwriter, but his reluctance to allow his work to be influenced by popular opinion makes him feel trapped and alone, as though Hollywood is attempting to stamp out his genius. His frustration with the film-making business is allowed to accumulate steadily within, before being unleashed in adrenaline-charged explosions of aggression and violence. From here is born the dilemma of Laurel's relationship with him: it is Steele's creativity with which she most assuredly fell in love, but this gift is intrinsically linked with the hostility of which she is so frightened.
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