A more normal film marathon to start things off. The theme is a pretty simple one: Classic film[s] noir[s] from the heyday of such things. No self-referential neo-noir attempts to reconnect with Hollywood past. Just pure fucking film noir from the time our grandfathers were young. These are all films from a generation of people who woke up to the sound of their own hacking lungs, chain-smoked their way through their first four cups of coffee and then spent the rest of their day abusing their livers, lungs, and minds with scotch, nicotine and raw repressed self-loathing. Films from Hollywood’s artistic peak.
I have a pretty big library of this sort of film. Big enough that I sometimes lie awake at night, wondering how I can justify having spent so much money on DVDs when right now, somewhere, there are children starving. But that’s the cross that I have to bear. This marathon is designed to mop up films that the other Joe hasn’t seen yet. We’re kicking off with two stone-cold classics – Out of the Past, The Asphalt Jungle, Murder My Sweet, finishing up with A Touch of Evil. But it’s not enough just to watch them. In order to understand these films better, it’s necessary to get into the minds of the scriptwriters, actors and men who made them - it’s necessary to become our grandfathers. To this end, for the duration of the marathon, we’ll be on a strict regimen of as much black coffee, nicotine and corn liquor as our bodies can stand. In order to compare our efforts, we’ll be keeping a strict tally of the number of cigarettes smoked in each film.
OUT OF THE PAST
The marathon is kicking off with a favourite from 1947. Out of the Past is as classic as classics come. It’s got the lighting. It’s got the lines. It’s got the doom. It’s got a leading lady who defined femme fatale before it was ever a cliché. It’s got the world-weary voice-overs. Most of all, it’s got Robert Mitchum. It’s a good film with which to kick off, because it benefits a razor-sharp mind. If I remember, it also has a vaguely Mexican-ey bit, so I decided to deploy some chilli I had made earlier.19:10 Film starts and credits roll, most of which I miss in the kitchen setting fire to things. No big loss.
19:11 Joe seems too excited by all this. I'm here for the chilli.
19:12 The film kicks off in the colourless town to end all colourless towns. Something about colourless small towns has an almost mystical significance to Americans which as a Londoner I can’t even begin to fathom. The idea of a world-weary hero retiring to open a petrol station in Bletchley or Grantham wouldn't inspire anyone.
The film kicks off with the main bad guy’s henchman, a Joe Stephanos, coming into town and noticing the petrol station that Mitchum’s character owns. Mitchum’s left it in the hands of an actor playing a young deaf boy. I’m not a pederast or nothing, but the kid’s hot. Unfortunately he not a skilled actor. Joe eventually meets up with Mitchum, who’s not pleased to see him.
The film kicks off with the main bad guy’s henchman, a Joe Stephanos, coming into town and noticing the petrol station that Mitchum’s character owns. Mitchum’s left it in the hands of an actor playing a young deaf boy. I’m not a pederast or nothing, but the kid’s hot. Unfortunately he not a skilled actor. Joe eventually meets up with Mitchum, who’s not pleased to see him.
19:12 He already asked if I’m picking up on the symbolism. I say yes but little does he know I have no intention on picking up on the symbolism. Or even the plot. Why? Well, as Think Lizzy would say... I'M A ROCKER!
19:17 Robert goes to a lake with his ladyfriend. Technically she’s a ‘sweetheart’ though, rather than a ladyfriend. I don’t think they’re having sex. It just doesn’t seem likely. She’s pretty colourless too. Maybe it’s not her fault, maybe she’s only colourless and boring because the town she comes from is colourless and boring. I forgot that this film starts slow.
Luckily Robert’s on-screen and is busy drawling away. I could listen to the man drawl forever. He manages to make even throw-away lines carry a worldview that is doom-laden yet somehow laughing through the tears. Not that there are many throw-away lines in this film.
Luckily Robert’s on-screen and is busy drawling away. I could listen to the man drawl forever. He manages to make even throw-away lines carry a worldview that is doom-laden yet somehow laughing through the tears. Not that there are many throw-away lines in this film.
19:19 Robert and sweetheart are in the car, going to meet the bad guy, Kirk Douglas Jnr. I’m pretty certain that Robert lit one cigarette after another without bothering to smoke the first.
The film proper kicks off here, to my relief. Basically, Mitchum’s character Jeff Bailey and his deadbeat partner are PIs in San Francisco. They’re hired by gangster Kirk Douglas and his gunsel Joe to track down Jane Greer, Kirk’s ex, who had shot him and run away with his money. Robert sets to work.
The film proper kicks off here, to my relief. Basically, Mitchum’s character Jeff Bailey and his deadbeat partner are PIs in San Francisco. They’re hired by gangster Kirk Douglas and his gunsel Joe to track down Jane Greer, Kirk’s ex, who had shot him and run away with his money. Robert sets to work.
19:27 Robert goes to an African-American bar. This scene alone probably sets some sort of record for number of black people in a pre-seventies Hollywood film. Plus barely any of them are musicians. Through some rather improbable questioning, Mitchum finds out that Jane Greer’s character Kathy Moffet is hiding out in Mexico.
19:28 The first hard-boiled v/o. “And then I saw her…” he says. This is all so noir I might shit myself.
19:29 The film moves to Acapulco. The film mines Mexico for exotica so hard that you can practically hear Martin Denny plinking away. Being in Mexico, Robert immediately finds Kathy. Greer’s not so hot at first, but she’s a grower. The bourbon is starting to work its magic.
19:31 Mitchum is doing something or other in Mexico. He’s dressed in a frankly ridiculous pair of trousers (waistline at teeth) and a tie that is so short you would have thought he would have noticed.
19:33 Bailey and Moffet are drinking bourbon in some authentic Mexican bar that looks like a shit unpainted-brick bar from New York or something.
This scene reminds me of a theory that I’ve always had about bourbon. The theory is that it’s actually a close cousin of tequila, and that it resembles that drink more than other whiskeys. Unlike whiskey or scotch, it works really well in a hot climate and has herbaceous undertones much like the Mexican drink. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with me, because Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer do, and so do their broken faces and soulful eyes.
This scene reminds me of a theory that I’ve always had about bourbon. The theory is that it’s actually a close cousin of tequila, and that it resembles that drink more than other whiskeys. Unlike whiskey or scotch, it works really well in a hot climate and has herbaceous undertones much like the Mexican drink. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with me, because Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer do, and so do their broken faces and soulful eyes.
19:35 Nothing to report. Robert Mitchum looks like the missing Baldwin brother. But a good Baldwin brother - somewhere between Alec and Stephen in value.
19:36 Kathy and Jeff have fallen in love. They kiss on a beach to the accompaniment of the ridiculous Mahler-esque strings that infest this sort of film. Kathy claims that she never took Kirk Douglas’ money.
19:37 Mitchum’s profile is giving me indigestion. At what point does his forehead end and his nose begin?
19:49 The first 1940s clunking visual metaphor. A door swings open in a storm. You should be aroused right now because it symbolises DIRTY INTERCOURSE!
19:40 Kathy and Jeff are having sex. They are both now going to die later in the film. That’s what the 1930 Hays Code requires happen to people unmarried folk who fornicate. Good riddance. If only people still had basic family values nowadays perhaps my children would still agree to talk to me. Anyway, we now know that they are going to die.
19:44 Mitchum is now in love with Greer and has decided to double-cross Kirk Douglas, when suddenly Kirk and buddy Joe turn up in Mexico. Joe, who’s supposed to be Italian-American, has Jewish nerd hair and looks like my dad when he was young.
19:45 Straining eyes. Many of these shots are so damned noir that the only light sources on screen are Jane Greer’s eyes and Mitchum’s brylcream.
19:46 Mitchum’s ass is huge. That would be a hindrance to his career in this day and age. It's hard to work CGI around a huge ass. My brother's an animator.
19:47: The gangsters move on, suspecting nothing, and Mitchum and Greer relocate to LA, where they continue happily living in sin. Up to the point that Mitchum’s old partner spots them and decides to shop them in.
19:48 Kirk Douglas is onscreen calling everyone’s bluff.
Uncanny right?
19:50 “Why don’t you break his head Jeff?” Greer wonders aloud. Mitchum could do it too. He looks and sounds a lot like Clive Owen. That wasn’t meant to sound as cruel as it did.
19:51 Mitch and his old partner get into fisticuffs. Kathy shoots the partner dead and splits. Mitchum does lights a cigarette, checks his old friend is dead and then notices that Kathy has left her pocket book (or whatever the fuck it is) behind and realises that she has actually stolen Kirk Douglas’ money. She’s a bad sort.
19:53 We’re back in 1947 now. Flashback over. Mitchum has now gone to meet his old employer.
19:54 “Cigarette?”
“Smoking.”
“Smoking.”
19:57 Kirk Douglas’s character Whit wants Mitchum to go and meet some lawyer in San Fran. It’s a blatant double-cross. Robert can smell it but is trapped by his own sense of doom.
20:00 In SF, Jeff Bailey meets the lawyer’s super hot secretary:
“Do you want a gin and tonic?”
“That’d be nice.”
“You could have a whiskey.”
“That’d be nicer.”
I’m not really sure why this exchange tickles me so much.
“Do you want a gin and tonic?”
“That’d be nice.”
“You could have a whiskey.”
“That’d be nicer.”
I’m not really sure why this exchange tickles me so much.
20:04 Smoking hot secretary with added boobs saunters in. Mitchum impresses her by snubbing gin for bourbon.
20:07 Mitchum has a good line in grabbing women roughly by the upper arm. There must have been a lot of bruising on set.
20:11 At this point, the plot ceases making any sense at all. The lawyer has been shot by Joe. Mitchum’s being blamed for it for some reason. Jane Greer is clearly on Kirk’s side. Robert gets some document that Kirk Douglas doesn’t want him to have. It all seems convincing though.
20:15 Mitchum busts out his uncompromising “make me breakfast” Tongan death grip again – this time on Greer. Like a regular Casanova he goes on to tell her he “hates” her and, as an afterthought, mentions he "might kill" her in the future. This prompts her to say she loves him. Romantic times.
20:20 Jeff Bailey bursts into some dude’s room, knocks him out and then lights a cigar. That’s how they used to roll.
20:29 Back in Grantham/Bletchley equivalent. Robert’s on the run from the run. Everyone blames him for killing the lawyer except for his deaf and dumb catamite.
20:30 A man is fished to death .Too hard, (and implausible) to explain.
20:31 Joe finds Mitchum in a canyon. He’s trying to shoot him when the deaf and dumb kid notices him and fishing rods him to death by catching him by the sleeve and pulling him to his death, real nasty-like.
20:44 Line of the film. Her: “You’ve only got me to make deals with now.” Him: “I build my gallows high baby.”
20:45 Greer just called Mitchum a “clumsy flirt”. What kind of standards does she have? He talks solely in tangy one-liners and has enough raw masculinity to make Doris Lessing start ovulating wildly. Sorry that was disgusting.
20:46 Its all moving pretty fast now. Kathy double-crosses and kills Kirk to be with Mitchum, but Mitchum no longer trusts her and so calls the po-lice to tell them about her two murders. The strings start up again, and start to get pretty insistent. They drive off when they run into a police barricade arranged by Mitchum. Kathy realises and gut-shoots him before getting mowed down by machine-gun fire.
CLOSING CREDITS SWEEPINESS 5/10 (not bad, starting well but falling to a whimper before halfway through the credits).
TOBACCO TALLY 37 cigarettes smoked on screen.
NEGRO NUMBER A huge 23 black people. They were all in a single scene though.
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
The second film of the night is the The Asphalt Jungle from 1950. We’re on a roll here. Out of all noirs, it’s probably the best heist movie, full of great characters going about their business under a general sense of doom. A lot of the French film noirs like Le Doulos and Rififi crib from it a bit, although the French films are generally a bit more macho, a bit more pretentious and generally a bit less good than this one. For a film from 1950, the acting is pretty top notch, with barely any hamming in sight. The whiskey’s being doing its evil work so I’m already far gone at this stage. I really thought that I’d last longer then this, but I’m a puny limp-wristed weakling. My grandfather would be ashamed if he could see me now. Luckily he can’t, because he’s in South Africa and has been dead for twenty years. On a side note, this film gave the world Marilyn Monroe’s first film role as a married man’s bit of jailbait on the side. She’s not in it that long, but you wouldn’t know it if you look at the DVD case, which is about 85% Monroe’s face.21:02 This one is all New Yawk up in my ass. I’m going to start trying to let the whiskey speak for me.
21.03 Kick-off. The film starts with a great shot of a man running from the police through an industrial cityscape filled with huge pillars. It’s Sterling Hayden as Dix, a yokel gunman from Kentucky marooned and alone in the megalopolis. We’re armed with more whiskey, another pot of coffee and some slightly stale prawn crackers.
21:04 Joe is banging on about some guy called Sterling. He’s trying to convince me he’s famous. Sterling, not Joe. I know for a fact Joe's not famous. AT ALL.
21:05 Everything’s stronger now. This coffee is stronger. The whiskey’s stronger. There’s a guy that looks like an uglier Tony Sporano sweating on screen. Even his palpable man-stench is stronger.
21:12 The quintessential film heavy just lumbered on screen. He’s about eight foot tall and clearly is, or should have been, a professional wrestler.
21.13 The German sex fiend criminal mastermind behind the whole heist, Doktor Riedenschneider, has shown up and arrived in a dimly lit gambling house run by Cobby, a jumpy man with truly horrific acne. He’s come up with a plan to steal, wait for it, half a million dollars. Dr Riedenschneider is presumably German for Dr Evil.
21:15 Joe still banging on about Sterling.
21:18 This Dix character is a Robert Redford/Pierce Brosnan hybrid. Let’s hope he has Redford’s acting talent, charm and screen presence and Brosnan’s uh… can-do attitude.
21.20 Dix is hiding out at home from the cops after a hold-up. His moll Doll shows up. Classic moll. She looks a bit like the butch but strangely arousing woman from Third Rock from the Sun. I remember now that she’s the one person in this film who can’t act for shit.
21.22 Doc and Cobby pitch the idea for the heist to Emmerich, who’s basically an evil lawyer. He’s going to bankroll the job and then arrange to fence the jewels later because he’s the successful one. Only problem is Emmerich pretends to be successful, but isn’t. That is, at least not in degraded earthly terms. Inside though, he is a man possessed of untold spiritual riches due to the inner nobility of his mind, his calm stoic demeanour and the fact that he’s banging a young Marilyn Monroe.
21.25 Jesus shit, Marilyn Monroe is hot. She’s 24 at this point (I think), but she’s playing someone younger. She’s like a weird slightly retarded sex child who Emmerich keeps holed up in a love nest. She keeps calling Emmerich "Uncle Lon". I’m not sure if this is meant literally or just meant to be creepy.
21:26 Marilyn Marilyn. So sexy. When she says “breakfast” it’s sexier than 10 Scarlett Johansonns saying “felch”.
21:27 Old man Emmerich holding Marilyn’s high heel. Why isn’t he smelling it?
21.29 Dix is chatting to Doll about KY and his preference for horses. You couldn’t make it up.
21:30 Subtle homo subtext. “Dix” talking about “riding a big, black colt back in Kansas”.
21.32 Dix’ home country apparently makes the best bourbon in all Kentucky. "It’s the water that makes the whiskey fit to drink", apparently.
It occurs to me that Dix is the only character in this film, apart possibly from Doll, who is a WASP. I think that’s part of his power: he may be a dumb violent hick, but he’s got a weird code of honour, and a connection to his land. The other characters just seem like shady fellaheen in comparison.
It occurs to me that Dix is the only character in this film, apart possibly from Doll, who is a WASP. I think that’s part of his power: he may be a dumb violent hick, but he’s got a weird code of honour, and a connection to his land. The other characters just seem like shady fellaheen in comparison.
21.33 Joe is lagging and I’m having to force him to knock the coffee and whiskey back. I haven’t resorted to violence yet, but I make no promises. This film is a weird mix for the fifties. There aren’t that many good lines, but the script is generally excellent and the acting is really good all round. No hammy nonsense.
21.34 Wow. A big, ugly, corrupt policeman is knocking Cobby around. We’re talking probably the first corrupt policeman on film. Don’t quote me on that though.
21.40 The caper’s coming together now. The team are:
Doc – Mastermind and sex pest. Tiny and German.
Cobby – fast talking heap of Italian American acne, providing organisation and funding
Gus – tough hunchbacked getaway man with a heart of gold. Loves cats. Not a realistic character in the strictest sense.
Ciavelli – safe-cracker who keeps talking about his kids, not realising that in doing so he may as well be gluing a fucking target to his head. Joe insists that he looks like Dan Aykroyd, presumably because he looks absolutely nothing at all like Dan Aykroyd. He’s a dead-ringer for Frank Sinatra though, with just a touch of acne to set him off.
Dix – Hooligan from the sticks who’s been recruited for muscle. Wants to get money so he can open a farm for studs in KY. Everything this man does is a gift from the sniggering gods of innuendo.
Emmerich – lawyer who is supposed to be buying the loot and fencing it. Actually has no money and no idea how to fence the jewels. Probably doesn’t need to care, because he’s schtupping Marilyn Monroe.
Doc – Mastermind and sex pest. Tiny and German.
Cobby – fast talking heap of Italian American acne, providing organisation and funding
Gus – tough hunchbacked getaway man with a heart of gold. Loves cats. Not a realistic character in the strictest sense.
Ciavelli – safe-cracker who keeps talking about his kids, not realising that in doing so he may as well be gluing a fucking target to his head. Joe insists that he looks like Dan Aykroyd, presumably because he looks absolutely nothing at all like Dan Aykroyd. He’s a dead-ringer for Frank Sinatra though, with just a touch of acne to set him off.
Dix – Hooligan from the sticks who’s been recruited for muscle. Wants to get money so he can open a farm for studs in KY. Everything this man does is a gift from the sniggering gods of innuendo.
Emmerich – lawyer who is supposed to be buying the loot and fencing it. Actually has no money and no idea how to fence the jewels. Probably doesn’t need to care, because he’s schtupping Marilyn Monroe.
Unbelievable!
21.41 This film has a low cigarette count, disturbingly low. Almost all the tobacco I’ve counted so far has come from Doc’s cigars.
21.42 Dix drawling away about something in his Kentucky drawl. He sounds like a motorcycle revving up.
21.47 We meet Emmerich’s wife. She’s a little old now, and vaguely aware that things aren’t as they used to be. To entice Emmerich back to her she’s wearing a flayed dead rabbit on her back. Uncle Lon’s not feeling up for any yiff tonight though.
21:50 The coffee is getting to me. Joe is acting kind of shifty. Like he’s some kind of big shot. He keeps rubbing his chin and glaring out the window. What’s he planning? He’s eating a lot of the prawn crackers. Really loudly. More prawn crackers. I should kick his damned head in.
21.51 The heist begins. They’re using nitro-glycerine to blow the safe. Ciabelli keeps calling it "the soup".
21.53 Sterling’s probably the only star in this film, and guess there was a clause in his contract that there had to be a set number of shots of his almighty face, brooding in the foreground and taking up a minimum of ½ the screen. Its worthy of classic Phil Collins album covers.
21:54 A man in the 1940s was prescient enough to reference Judas Priest: “Here’s the electric eye…” Protected, detective, electric eye!
21:55 This film does for facial scarification what 2 Fast 2 Furious did for cars. Everyone’s acne-ravaged.
21.57 The heist is over now. It all went smoothly until they meet a security guard who drops his gun, which goes off and gets Ciabelli in the stomach. Bourbon outlook is extremely pessimistic.
21:58 Dan Akroyd, the film’s family man, is gunned down. Serves him right for showing photos of his kids to the rest of the cast. That triggered the death clock. I guess this was pre-Vietnam war movie so the convention had yet to be invented.
21:521 Dammit, all I can think about is Judas Priest.
22.10 Everything’s going wrong. Doc and Dix went to give the jewels to Emmerich, only find that he’d double crossed them, along with a sleazy private eye called Bob. Dix ends up shooting Bob, but getting hurt himself. Doc and Dix are now on the run, sleeping in some doss-house, currently eating a miserable plate of bachelor spaghetti.
22:12 “You’ll have six more kids – fat as pigs with black rings around the eyes and thick hair.” Children in the 40s were judged on how disgusting they looked.
22:13 Film noir staple: Making every expanse of water look like thick tar.
22.15 "Crime is merely a left handed form of human endeavour", says Emmerich, giving us probably the best quote of the night.
22:16 Cause of death? “Plugged in the pump.” You have to pay good money for that in Soho.
22.25 The corrupt cop has tracked Cobby down again. Cobby spills the beans after being kicked around a bit.
22.27 Emmerich’s in for a fall now too. The police know all about his involvement and are trying to break Marilyn Monroe into telling so that Emmerich’s alibi will fall apart. This all gives Marilyn a fair chunk of screen time. Miss Norma Jane’s still pre-acting ability at this point, but it’s all forgiven; Joe’s looking ever so slightly sweaty on my right.
22:28 Marilyn’s back – this time in a shoulderless black number. This may be the bourbon talking but at this point in the evening I would eat the corn out of her faeces.
22:221 Arthur Miller = lucky man.
22:30 Joe DiMaggio = lucky man.
22.33 Everything’s gone to pot now. Ciabelli’s dead, Gus and Cobby are in Prison, Emmerich has blown his brains out and Dix is clearly bleeding to death, slowly. Worse, the bourbon’s all finished. We’re on to scotch now – everything’s changed.
22:35 That’s what I’m going to say the next time someone offers to make me a cup of coffee: “MAKE IT OR SHUT UP ABOUT IT.”
22.36 Doc’s making a bid for escape by getting a taxi to Cleveland. His luck’s in, because the driver is a soft and revolting German from Munich, who looks like he stepped right out of the Beer Hall Putsch and into the New York cab.
22.37 Dix is heading home, with Doll bleating in the background.
22:38 1940s teens acting and dressing like 1950s teens must have been the epitome of cool at the time. They’re probably dead by now those teens. Makes you think. About Judas Priest.
22.41 Doc stops the cab to perv over a suspiciously middle-aged teenage girl dancing to jazz music, allowing the cops to grab him. As Romans says, the wages of sin are death. Just another ordinary person let down by their insatiable lust for fornication. Shame on you Doc, shame on you. The Police won’t even let Reidenschneider smoke one last cigar, the CRUELLEST moment in all cinema.
22.44 Joe looks curious. Probably flushed with bourbon and life.
22:45 I’m not here to judge but here’s what’s lying around in Joe’s bathroom: Books about Nazi occultism, books about obscene monks, empty bottles of whiskey and a diamante sex aid. I made one of those up and it’s NOT the sex aid! (It was the sex aid.)
22.50 Dietrich, the corrupt cop, gets his comeuppance from his superiors. There follows a painfully earnest scene where the chief commissioner or whatever turns on all the police radios in the city (four apparently), which are for some reason linked into his office, then symbolically turns them off, thereby showing us how if there were no police everything would be quiet or something. I don’t know. Its one of those sickeningly moral speeches that infest films of the period (see the "Hate, is like a loaded gun" speech in the otherwise great noir Crossfire if you think I’m lying).
22:51 It seems the measure of a man’s character in the 1940s was how much blood he was capable of hemorrhaging before he lost consciousness. Dix is doing well.
22.52 Dix finally arrives back in ole KY, almost dead from massive internal bleeding. He sees some of his beloved horses grazing in a field, stumbles out of the car and runs at them. They amble over in his direction, at which point Dix collapses and dies. The horses then set to work kissing him or eating him or something. That said, they could be doing anything. I’m from the city and I can’t claim to know horses.
22:53 I’m from the city so I don’t know what horses eat. But horses in Kentucky apparently love eating Dix!
CLOSING CREDIT STRING SWEEPINESS 7/10 – pretty heavy strings, getting even more full on when Dix dies.
TOBACCO TALLY 30 - of which most are really cigars.
NEGRO NUMBER A waxen 0.
MURDER MY SWEET
The marathon was meant to be three films, but flushed with success after The Asphalt Jungle we decided to add another film. Call it hubris, because that’s what it is. Murder my sweet is one of the best Raymond Chandler adaptations, and is the only one where Marlowe comes across like he does in the books – weaselly and grubby, with the wise-cracks coming like a defence mechanism. We’ve powered through our cigarettes already, so before starting we make a quick dash to the newsagents. Back at my flat I make another jug of coffee, despite the fact that I have no desire whatsoever for more coffee, or more cigarettes, or scotch. Really, I feel a little ill.23.22 Kick off, with Marlowe, played by Dick Powell of all people, temporarily blinded, sitting in a smoky interrogation room. The story’s told in flashback.
23:25 So many Trilbys. I don’t know how much more I can take to be perfectly frank. A man throws down money on a table. The thing about Rob Halford’s voice is that it’s timeless. And you can’t – CAN’T – count him out. Ever.
23.26 Marlowe’s in his office. Chinese characters are reflecting off his window, giving everything a proper noir feel, like in Blade Runner. Suddenly in busts Moose Molloy, an enormous man who looks a bit like a vaguely Native American gorilla in a sharp suit. He’s looking for Velma Valento, his ex, who was "as cute as lace pants".
The actor playing, Mike Mazurki, was actually Ukrainian, and was a real life Beast from X-Men, smashing people up on screen and then quoting poetry at witty dinner parties when off work.
The actor playing, Mike Mazurki, was actually Ukrainian, and was a real life Beast from X-Men, smashing people up on screen and then quoting poetry at witty dinner parties when off work.
23.27 With a "lets youse and me go up and nibble a few", Moose takes Marlowe to the bar where Velma used to work. In the book it’s now become a ‘shine joint’, but because the film’s from 1944 and having a bar full of African Americans would have been a near avant-garde statement, it’s just an ordinary bar full of white people.
For some reason the police chief from the Asphalt Jungle is the barman. I think - IMDB says I’m wrong, but that could have been hacked into by the CIA or Mossad in a bid to confuse me. They’re getting sneaky like that.
For some reason the police chief from the Asphalt Jungle is the barman. I think - IMDB says I’m wrong, but that could have been hacked into by the CIA or Mossad in a bid to confuse me. They’re getting sneaky like that.
23:30 A wrist lock that would make even Steven Segal smile to himself.
23:31 I may pursue this whole gum shoe thing. I need some extra work. People hand them tens and say things like “Who was it you said you wuz, mister?”
23.32 The bar experience didn’t end well. Marlowe’s now following another lead. He’s at the home of the widow of the man who used to own the bar where Velma worked, a very vaguely mixed race woman who really cannot act. That said, she’s meant to be hiding something and acting shifty, so maybe the bad acting is actually the work of a great actress who’s acting the part of a woman who can’t act. From my position at this point in time it’s just a hall of mirrors, and it’s all going right over my head.
23.32 The acting conundrum is settled when the widow Florian comes out with the least believable stage sneeze ever.
23.35 Back at Marlowe’s now, and we’re leaving the Moose storyline behind. We’re introduced to a stylised forties idea of a homosexual. He’s wearing a cravat and what is apparently a double-breasted dressing gown.
The coffee and the whiskey are acting together now, ganging up on me. The coffee is making me go up and the whiskey is making me go down. The whole experience is really disconcerting and not at all pleasant. It would be okay if it wasn’t so localised, but I really feel like my left hand side, and especially the face, is lifting up towards the ceiling. While my right shoulder pitches to the floor.
The coffee and the whiskey are acting together now, ganging up on me. The coffee is making me go up and the whiskey is making me go down. The whole experience is really disconcerting and not at all pleasant. It would be okay if it wasn’t so localised, but I really feel like my left hand side, and especially the face, is lifting up towards the ceiling. While my right shoulder pitches to the floor.
23.39 Dick agrees to go with the man to wait in a field to get a necklace from robbers. This sounds like a flimsy euphemism for gay sex to me, but those were more innocent times. It also occurs to me that Dick Plowell would make one of the all time best porn names.While hanging around, Marlowe gets blackjacked. "I fell into a black pool" he tells us, before the film treats us to some special effects carved out of human poo. Special effects made out of poo are actually a hall-mark of this film: more on them later.
23.44 Marlowe is awakened by Anne Grayle, a girl who wears glasses and is therefore ugly in a clever move that predates a hundred noughties teen comedies. Lindsay Marriot, the gay guy, has been beaten to death for reasons we don’t understand. Marlowe’s in a bad way too: "I felt pretty good. Like an amputated leg".
23:47 Sorry, zoned out for a while there. The quintessential blonde takes a withering glance over her shoulder. She’s no Marilyn, but at this point in the evening she’ll do. This film is harder to follow than one of those parcour guys.
23.48 The jade necklace, it turns out, belonged to Marriot’s friend Mrs Grayle, who was Anne’s trophy-wife stepmother. Marlowe goes to investigate. The Grayle’s are rich, which you can see by the fact that they have knock-off Greek statues in their house, the international sign of rich. Mrs Grayle is a bit of a looker, and her husband is old and slavishly in love with her, despite the fact that she clearly sleeps around.
At this point, way too late, I remember that this film isn’t really a noir, it’s a slightly hokey crime comedy. It doesn’t have the feel of darkness that you need for a noir. Even the lighting is wrong. The whole thing is closer to the screwball comedies of the time. It sits awkwardly, and we’re getting tired as the various conflicting waves of nicotine, corn liquor and caffeine wash us around.
At this point, way too late, I remember that this film isn’t really a noir, it’s a slightly hokey crime comedy. It doesn’t have the feel of darkness that you need for a noir. Even the lighting is wrong. The whole thing is closer to the screwball comedies of the time. It sits awkwardly, and we’re getting tired as the various conflicting waves of nicotine, corn liquor and caffeine wash us around.
23:49 Joe just made a startling boast about the “billion nymphs” in his family. I talk him down before he lets the cat out the bag. The incest cat.
23:50 Oh wow, this pizza looks sensational. Or to quote Canibus: "suberb... truly superb!"
23.59 Marlowe has arranged to meet Mrs Grayle in a club that was probably designed to look like a degenerates’ hang-out. It’s got Chinese dancing, fez wearing musicians and a general Hawaiian theme. Diocletian would have felt at home. Instead of Mrs Grayle, he meets Miss Grayle, Anne, who sets him on the trail of a doctor who specialises in "the field of psychic treatment".
00.08 The shrink wasn’t so friendly. Marlowe gets pistol-whipped and then injected with heroin, leading him to drift off into a "crazy coked up dream". This is where the special effects really come into their own. Its one of the strangest but curiously also one of the least imaginative sequences in old cinema. Marlowe shouts a bit, then gets chased into a whirlpool by a huge version of Moose, there are lots of doors and needles, and a curious cobweb or mist effect that looks more like the camera lens is broken. Somehow the whole doesn’t come across as clever. It looks a little retarded.
00:09 It was sensational. On screen a large American-Indian man throttles a smaller man.
00.12 Dick Powell comes to, tied to a bed. "They were just a bunch of bananas that looked like fingers". There’s still the mist/cobweb effect. It’s hard to tell whether it’s meant to still be there to show that Marlowe’s still groggy or whether they just forgot to take the filter off, but didn’t have time to film the scene again. both seem plausible.
00:13 This shit’s getting psychedelic in the extremis. Multiple doors, cobwebs, syringes. Some other stuff. When we come back our hero has stubble and he’s sweating something serious. “The doors… are too small,” he says. I know how he feels. Then again I hand drew the plans for my own home and explicitly told the contractors that I wanted doors the size of cereal boxes. It's hard moving around the house but I tell you what - if ever you want to push a cereal box into the next room it's absolutely perfect.
00:14 Joe burned himself badly taking the pizza out the oven. I didn’t say anything but secretly I think it’s great! It really took him down a notch. Someone on screen falls down a flight of dramatically-lit stairs. That’s like a metaphor for my life. Only in my life I fall UP the stairs. On purpose!
00.17 Stumbling around what turns out to be a mental institute, Marlowe meets another shrink. This is a film is more loudly anti-psychiatry than a thousand scientologists all trying to justify why society persecutes scientology.
00:17 Joe thinks I’m writing about the overlay effect they’re using on the cameras. I’m not! I’m writing about Duck Tales (Woo-oo!)
00.21 Marlowe’s out of the clinic. He calls Anne to pick him up and drive him through a drearily awful looking version of California.
00:23 The main squeeze in this film has no ass. No ham! Or hams, or whatever they said in the 40s.
00.27 They go back to Anne’s house. She thinks she’s strong and doesn’t need a man, but still needs to get Marlowe, who’s been brutally beaten and injected with opiates for a number of days running, to open a jar for her. It’s lucky for her that there was a man around because otherwise she’d have probably starved to death. That’s the forties. Its fast becoming clear that Anne’s going to be the film’s tacked on love interest.
00:28 This is one overlit film. Everyone looks like they’re about to be beamed into heaven.
00:35 Raymond Chandler got high writing this scene. “I hate the blondes, all babes and bubble baths and blue moons.” Wut?
00.39 I’ve lost track of the story now, good and proper. It turns out that Mrs Grayle was Velma all along. She kills Moose, then Mr Grayle kills her, then he kills himself. Marlowe gets blinded by the flash when trying to stop it all. Anne survives the bloodbath.
00:40 Don’t make a short man walk up a steep hill. No one comes out of it a winner. Not even the hill.
00.47 Back to the present. Convinced by this rather fabulous story, the policemen let Marlowe go. But who’s that behind him? It’s Anne, and she’s not wearing her glasses. Oh my god. He can’t see of course, but you can imagine the realms of physical comedy that are opened up by a blind man being followed through a police station by a girl? Can you?
I’d basically happily do away with the whole ending bit, because it’s a little bit shit and because it doesn’t make any sense, what with Anne being recently bereaved and there having been no chemistry between her and Marlowe at all up to this point. Oh well.
I’d basically happily do away with the whole ending bit, because it’s a little bit shit and because it doesn’t make any sense, what with Anne being recently bereaved and there having been no chemistry between her and Marlowe at all up to this point. Oh well.
CLOSING CREDIT STRING SWEEPINESS 3/10 – quite sweepy, but not the sweepiest.
TABACCO TALLY A political-correctness-gone-mad 21.
NEGRO NUMBER ½.
A TOUCH OF EVIL
That’s it. We made it. Almost. Only one more film to go. And it’s a good’un. A Touch of Evil from 1958 is generally considered the last true Film Noir. It’s also the last good film that Orson Welles made and, unlike other film noirs by Welles, it’s not just two hours of chubby navel gazing. If that’s what you want I direct you to The Lady from Shanghai, which stars Orson Welles as a working class Irish rover, loved by women, feared by men, armed only with quick fists, a heart of gold and a stubborn refusal to give Rita Hayworth the screen time she deserves. The finale is a shootout in a hall of mirrors that doesn’t make any sense.A Touch of Evil is nothing like as stupidly pretentious as that film, even though it does star Charlton Heston in blackface pretending to be a Mexican. Actually, for once, Orson’s acting is the best thing about it. He plays the role of an enormous bloated and corrupt American policeman as a counter-part to the slightly bland Senor Heston. I remember really admiring it, rather than loving it. If I remember, the whole thing is beautifully shot and plotted, but that’s all liable to go over head at this point in time.
01:05 It’s the big famous tracking shot. This is the shit. It’s like my face is in Orson Welles’ mind. Or nestling under his jowl. The coffee machine is hacking away in the kitchen. It could all be too much, this coffee. I’m feeling greasy and twitchy. The Scotch is now being poured and somewhere a dame is crying out for a guy with ten knuckles and no future. A guy like me.
01.05 The film opens in Mexico with a famous tracking shot. Its one of the longest shots in film history, following a car through a Mexican town to the US border. It’s all wasted on me at this point in time. I feel tired. And old.
01:09 Mexicans? Rapists!
Principled! Mexican!
Trad jazz is playing in the background, to give the town a degenerate feel. There are also some shots of goats, presumably to contrast with the ultra-sophisticated jazz music. Unfortunately at this point I’m seized by a sneezing fit for a few minutes and miss the car exploding just past the border. I get these fits sometimes when my body wants to tell me that I’ve reached my calorie limit and should stop eating, but my body’s not too smart and is easily confused by a half a bottle of bourbon into thinking that I’ve had a full meal.
01:11 Joe won’t stop FUCKING SNEEZING. Snuff? QUAALUDES? Oh Lord, don't let it be Quaaludes. I can't lose another friend.
01:15 Orson Welles looks about 115 years old and he’s as fat as Karl Rove gone to seed to the power of ten.
01.17 Orson Welles’ character, Hank Quinlan, is a massive chunk of blubber and has a really bizarre way of speaking. It being Welles, he’s also quick with the old meta-references, accusing someone of having "seen too many gangster movies". Hoo hoo.
01:18 Welles: “Whaddya mbn THE D.A.! Until… mbnb T-man wi’ a bonfire. Some kind of Mexican. Bhjdsa… a blonde. OW MY LEG!”
01.19 Vargas’ wife has an amazing bosom. It’s powerful and comforting, yet somehow scary at the same time. It makes me feel like more of a man, yet simultaneously a tiny child.
01.22 Some Mexican street punk hurls acid at Vargas, leading him to chase them into a cabaret, and eventually meet Uncle Joe Grandi, the local crime boss and owner of a magnificent toupee. Somewhere along the way, with all our emphasis on technology and self-expression, my generation has lost the secret of a good toupee. Men of Grandi’s generation have a lot to teach us. A whole lot.
01:25 Newspaper blowing across alleyway = film noir tumbleweed.
01:26 Gypsy! (Like how Dio sings it!)
01.28 Some good shots of massive oil donkeys ploughing away at the landscape. They play a big role later if I remember. The scotch isn’t going down so well after the smoothness of the bourbon.
01:29 Welles has given up acting and instead he just maintains a vowel sound, occasionally adding a noun: “Aaooouuugh… chilli… Eeeeooooar.”
01:34 Charlton Heston isn’t Mexican! I won’t buy it Welles. Not even if you cover him in Marmite.
01:38 Every incidental character looks like a rapist.
01.39 Things are hotting up back in Mexico, so Vargas has decided to hide his wife in an isolated motel on the US side of the border, intelligently. The only person there is Dale, a mentally retarded hillbilly who is always preceded by the sound of old time fiddle music. Vargas leaves his wife alone in middle of nowhere protected only by the simpleton comedy character so that she’s not in danger.
01:42 As Heston busts out the aviators Joe pours yet more filter coffee. Please, no more. I think he’s lost his mind. What’s he writing about? Let’s see if I can guess. If it turns out I was right I’ll buy everyone that reads this a DVD of their choice. I think he’s writing about... Vin Diesel! Fingers crossed…
01:46 Cheesecake alert. Sultry blonde lying across a bed in her lingerie. To be honest it’s quarter to two and I could do with a lot more of this.
01:47 Charlton Heston is morphing into Matt Dillon. Orson Welles’ mouth is… a trapezoid?
01.49 We’re into a masturbation minefield here. The shot keeps swinging between Charlton’s wife in a sexy fifties basque and then contrasting it with Heston and some hideous blind inbred.
01.51 Charlton has a way with aviators.
01.56 Hank Quinlan is convinced that the car was blown up by some generic Mexican guy and plants evidence on him to prove it. Charlton’s having none of it. Schwarz, a DA who looks a bit like Burt Lancaster with glasses is vaguely convinced and comes onside.
01.59 Back at the motel, some Mexican street punks with a connection to Grandi have taken over and are listening to some serious rocked out jump blues.
02:00 I wish I could drive that fast down alleyways while having conversations. I wish I could drive.
02:04 Mexican greasers are a bad sort.
02:06 Tarantino-esque use of music throughout this film. Tarantastic!
02.07 Oh yeah. This film has weirdo drug dykes. They’re one of the least appealing parts of the film. More on them later.
02:08 “They take it... in the vein!” Drug talk courtesy of some pretty tough lesbians. I dread to think the kind of the damage they could do with their fists.
When they're punching, I mean.
When they're punching, I mean.
02.10 There’s some meaningless pigeon killing going on at 2.10am. Oh yeah.
02:11 Welles fingering egg yolk is an image that will, and should, stay with me.
02.13 Orson’s pissed off at Vargas for sticking his blacked up nose into Orson’s business, and so is trying to frame him as a dope fiend: "He’s a drug addict!"
02:15 Trilbies, shadows, jowls, more shadows, sweat, darkness I CAN’T TAKE IT NO MORE!
02:16 I could iron my shirts on Marlena Dietrich’s cheekbones. And not my small shirts either.
02.17 The Grandi’s street punks and the bull dykes bust into Mrs Vargas’ room and inject her with something that we assume is heroin. It’s all very rapey and unappetising and the lesbians are enjoying it too much.
02.25 Quinlan now has to get rid of Grandi who, it turns out, arranged the drugs stuff on his orders to make Mrs Vargas, and thus Vargas, look like he’s on drugs. Cue OTT lights cutting out and Orson Welles directing himself going psycho. This film’s plot is nowhere near as complicated as Out of the Past or Murder My Sweet, but it still makes precious little sense.
02:28 I’m fading fast. Orson Welles is killing Joe the Mexican. He loves to strangle. Crazy freak out trad-jazz with added bongo-exotica complimented by hyperactive light bulbs.
02.33 Hank left his walking stick behind when he murdered Grandi, which is pretty shoddy for an experienced corrupt policeman.
02:35 Welles backshot by mounted moose head on wall. Refreshing lack of vanity from the director.
02.36 It turns out that Mrs Vargas was only injected with "that truth stuff" – sodium pentothal, which always seems to turn up in crime stories and films from the period.
02.38 Quinlan, drunk for the first time in years, is rampaging through a house owned by Marlene Dietrich. Its not really clear what Marlene Dietrich does or why she has a pianola and a bar in her otherwise empty house. She’s supposed to be some kind of gypsy, so maybe that explains it.
02.42 We’re almost at the end. Charlton’s running around on oil donkeys trying to get a recording of Orson admitting that he framed the Mexican. This film is donkey-tastic. Screw There will be Blood. It’s amazingly directed and choreographed. This is one of the reasons why Orson Welles was so well loved, rather than the other crap he shat out.
02:47 Heavy-ass denouement as Welles staggers around in the sewage, shot from a variety of increasingly oblique angles, while shouting “VARGAAAAS!” He ends up collapsed and defeated, gimlet-eyed and half-drowned, forced to listen to his own confessions played out into the night air.
02.51 It’s all over now. Quinlan gets shot, as does some other police hack. Vargas gets his tape. It turns out that Quinlan was right in his racist framing of the Mexican kid all along, because it turns out the Mexican done it. Best not to dwell on the conclusion.
CLOSING CREDIT STRING SWEEPINESS 1/10 – useless. But then it was 1958 and sweepiness was getting old.
TABACCO TALLY 21 - pretty respectable.
NEGRO NUMBER One blacked up Charlton Heston.
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