SCFZ

Anyone watching noir this month?

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Yup! Just finishing up my 4th noir of November, the mediocre Hunt the Man Down. Best I've seen thus far is Lew Landers's only Whistler entry, The Power of the Whistler. Bunco Squad is good too, though not as good as its poster.

I have been doing Noirvember for the past 3-4 years, but I'm not sure about this time.. I've got so many Sci-Fi films lined up, also 1971 poll.

And yet, I have an urge to watch at least a few noirs. Some titles from my noirish watchlist:

Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder)
Kid Glove Killer (Fred Zinnemann)
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)
Angel Face (Otto Preminger)
The Harder They Fall (Mark Robson)
The Long Night (Anatole Litvak)
Brute Force (Jules Dassin)

Dug on OUT OF THE PAST the other night. Mitchum in a trench coat. Kirk Douglas being nasty. What's not to like.

dang. totally forgot about noirvember. already had a bunch of stuff lined up for the scifi and '71 polls. killin me here...

Since I didn't end up watching any of my October horror movies, I'll set more realistic expectations for Noirvember and just choose just one noir out of the blue, let's go with My Name Is Julia Ross (Joseph H. Lewis, 1945), to see if I get around to watching that before I make a big list and get overwhelmed by the choices.

Watched The Limey at the beginning of this month. feels like rough cut at first but end up being my favorite soberbergh movie along with Che..

gonna watch some noir this month but not sure how much..

i watched inn of evil and i think it should count

i'll see what else i've got lying around

edit: i read a conversation between qt and scorsese where they both praised this one

i've seen the threat! might be my second favourite felix feist film, after the devil thumbs a ride (though there's a big gap between them). the man who cheated himself is pretty good too.

charles mcgraw is the baddest man since lawrence tierney!!

yay i found an anthony mann i haven't seen yet

My first great noir of this November, one I know several champs have enjoyed: Decoy (1946). Wowza - this one knocked my socks off.

don't know if i'm watching noir for the month but reading some, and holy shit manchette's fatale...

I agree with you, Evelyn. Decoy is a mighty fine noir.

MARATHON MAN on the Criterion Channel. Noir? Whatever. Some fine performances from Scheider and Olivier, but despite a couple of good scenes ("is it safe?") the holes in the plot only get worse as the film progresses. Still, Olivier's Szell makes it worth some of the time invested.

scandal sheet (karlson 1952) based on a novel by sam fuller!~ it's pretty great -- esp broderick crawford. not long ago i thought i'd seen all the good noirs

^ neat, I've liked everything I've seen from Karlson so far.

if anyone needs any ideas, lol:
A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir: The Essential Reference Guide (3,249 films)

Code Two (1953) -- Ralph Meeker as an unrepentant sleazeball vigilante cop. A film I didn't much care for but did find interesting all the same! I forever REFUSE to believe that this is from the Lassie director, lol... Much much thanks to dear liquidnature for bringing it to my attention/dash.

A couple memorable noir images in this one: a vat of smokey gooey something-er-rather like a moral chasm or the Gates of Hell, and then a cross-fade out of its Los Angeles Hell's Kitchen into its idea of Los Angeles Heaven:

ok i'm gonna do it a bit this year

started things off with some neo-noirs

rewatched DRIVE. it's great. i thought, before the rewatch, that i might put it in my t125 films, but no, it's not that godly. just regular godly

i also watched BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE. it sucked. but the colours were actually pretty as fuck. i think i would like the movie more if it were shorter, and not historical. to create a neo-noir that takes place in noiry times is to attempt to dance a fine line between self-awareness and pastiche...and this guy didn't do too well with that imo

watching restored touch of evil and there is quite a bit of new footage! enough that i noticed it even after not seeing the film for years



i don't really have a problem with charleton heston as a mexican but marlene dietrich as a mexican always seems like a bridge too far

If I thought about it at all, I perceived Dietrich as a foreigner who found the sin town at the end of her trail and set up shop there.

that's a good take and explains the accent. i gotta say this restoration makes a lot more sense, too bad he didn't live to see it




given the way he looks in this film it's a wonder he lived to 1985. i remember writing something about the seven deadly sins. sometime, somewhere...glad i've finally seen this deserves it's reputation

gotta respect orson. dude was the og gerard depardieu. straight up said fuxk it. props for that

rewatched OUT OF THE FOG by anatole litvak. this used to be one of my fav noirs, in spite of the ending. this time i found it... well whatever. if you've seen it, you know what i mean. still suspenseful as fuck tho. and that fog!

anyway, it's def the best noir whose title starts with "out of the"

the hell you say

one more noirvember watch! the long night by anatole litvak is a remake of carne's le jour se leve. with hank fonda in the gabin role



vincent price nearly made it worth watching



per wikipedia: When RKO acquired the distribution rights to Le Jour Se Lève in preparation for remaking it as The Long Night, they also sought to buy up all available prints of the original film and destroy them. For a time, it was thought that the French film had been lost completely, but copies of it re-appeared in the 1950s and its classic status was re-established wtf hollywood

RKO shenanigans aside, I'm gonna say The Long Night is better and much bleaker than Le Jour Se Lève, so take that Francophiles!

CAIRO STATION youseff chahine 1958

going into noirvember I wasn't expecting a Marxist biography of Elliot Rodgers, featuring some narrative hints of The Shining and Immortal Technique's 'Dance With the Devil'... and if i were, i wouldn't've expected to fucking love it, yet, well, here we are. discourse on patriarchy and male entitlement might seem a tad didactic as it's a bit dated for 2019, but it's aeons ahead of what one would expect for 1958, and the lens through which this film focuses on the exploitation of labour (both physical and emotional) and the body is worth examining now more than ever

certainly the best classic-period noir from outside america/france/japan i've ever seen. can't recommend highly enough

4/4 + into my top 125 films of all-time

DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD richard quine 1954

the gringo never fails. this is fucking amazing and such a unique gem of the classic noir period

4/4

THE KILLER INSIDE ME michael winterbottom 2010

the most interesting jim thompson source material, but the least engaging adaptation of one of his books i've seen. the way the story is told is pretty horrible, although i imagine it would be hard to adapt a book that's so based on one's inner thoughts. but it was really disjointed and pacing was weird and i imagine if you hadn't read the book you'd wonder "what the hell's going on" a lot and sometimes but not always get an answer eventually. still, captures that self-loathing cynicism re: one's own masculinity that is so special to jim thompson works, and maybe does so better than the other adaptations i've seen... still not great though

2/4