SCFZ

Polling the films of director Robert Siodmak

The rules:

- your list can include no more than half of the Siodmak films you've seen, up to a maximum of 5. So if you've seen seven of his films, for example, you can list only a top 3. It's only if you've seen ten or more of his films than you can list the maximum of five.

- i'll assume ballots are ranked unless you tell me otherwise. unranked ballots are fine.

- deadline for ballots: next Friday, in seven days, whatever day that is

- if anyone is watching films for these polls, then i'll extend the deadline up to three days, if someone requests an extension

- next poll: whoever posts the first ballot in this thread is free to nominate the director we poll next, unless you've nominated in this round already (everyone should get a chance). Already nominated this round: no one

umbugbene created an index on letterboxd of all of our previous polls here: letterboxd.com/umbugbene/list/index-of-all-scfz-director-polls/

one rule for nominees: at least 3 scfzers need to have seen 10+ of a nominee's films, or at least 4 scfzers need to have seen at least 8 of the nom's films, so if it isn't clear if that will be the case, we'll confirm that's true before moving forward

if 24 hours pass after a poll opens, and no one eligible to nominate has posted a ballot, then i'll nominate someone, and then we'll start over, and everyone will be able to nominate again

The Killers!

...but that's the only one I've seen, so my vote doesn't count; and I didn't know he was the guy who did it because I have no idea who he is. ...or in other words, who?

Phantom Lady
The File on Thelma Jordon
Cry of the City
Christmas Holiday
The Crimson Pirate

but also want to vote for the killers, the spiral staircase, and the dark mirror, the man in search of his murderer, might reconsider later... seen thirteen

Phantom Lady
Christmas Holiday
Cobra Woman
The Night Before the Divorce
Tumultes

5.

Phantom Lady
Criss Cross

Gonna try and watch Cobra Woman before the deadline.

Seen 6.

Der Mann, der seinen Mörder sucht
Cry of the City
The Killers

PEOPLE ON SUNDAY

Seen enough to rate more. Not worth the keystrokes.

Seen 12, I feel competent for a change.

Phantom Lady
Le Sexe Faible
The Dark Mirror
Cobra Woman
The Spiral Staircase

Wonderful director!

my favorite masterpieces of his

01. Custer of the West (1967) - harsh, nihilistic western with "Custer [as] a sadist of Shakespearean depth".
02. The Great Sinner (1949) - Dostoyevski's "The Gambler"
03. Farewell (1930) - early German sound Kammerspielfilm and wonderful try at poetic realism before it became a French thing
04. The Suspect (1944) - a dark love story and Siodmak's way of giving the US production code the finger
05. The Crimson Pirate (1952) - pirate comedy

Siodmak seen: 16

Phantom Lady and Criss Cross are two of my favourite noirs. And I must confess an undying love for Cobra Woman ("Give me that cobra jewel!") I will try to watch several more for the poll, so I can have a full list and include everything I love.

Seen 7

1. The File on Thelma Jordon
2. The Dark Mirror
3. People on Sunday

seen 5 now

Phantom Lady
The Killers
(sorry for Criss Cross...)

Only seen 2 (The Killers and Criss Cross), but both are amazing and some of my favorite films of the 40s.

Will try to watch a couple more before voting.

just 2

people on sunday

so very few Siodmak fans on this forum?

I'm surprised, cause I always thought his US noirs (of which he made many and I've seen few) were highly regarded around here, and thus many might have ventured into his other vast non-noir areas.

I mean that guy was not only prolific but an outstanding director over the course of 4 decades, adapted to several national film industries without any problems (Weimer era, France in the 30s, Hollywood in the 40s, West German film industry in the 50s, etc.) and was commercially successful in all of them.

Robert Siodmak was an early director crush of mine when I got into film and went through the standard noir phase. Seen 15, though only 2 or so in the last decade (both from his French work in the 30s, the great Mollenard, and the more forgettable Tumultes). I see no special rules are added here, so here's 5:

1. Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam
2. Mollenard
3. Cry of the City
4. The Killers
5. The Dark Mirror

greg x wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 9:47 am Criss Cross (Jump! Jump!)

Seen 15.
1. Christmas Holiday
2. Phantom Lady
3. Criss Cross
4. The Suspect
5. The Killers

phantom lady
mollenard
criss cross
the killers
cobra woman

the dark mirror is a lot of fun too

.

seen 10

UNORDERED LIST

the killers
criss cross
phantom lady
cry of the city

Seen 4, will abstain as I don't remember anything about them.

Looks like a really interesting and passionate filmography with a personal (to Siodmak) mix of genres, eras, and cultural influences. Plenty to explore.

Been watching Siodmak's early Hollywood movies and they're pretty fun, short, lowish budget B stuff that tread around the romantic comedy genre I guess, but aren't really that caught up in the romance angle itself, more about the manipulations involved to get to the desired end. Siodmak gets to play around a bit with the camera, nothing too fancy for the most part, but some nice well considered effects and the similarities in how the stories play out lends them all some sense of likeness, though how much of that was in the scripts and how much in how Siodmak chose to film them is hard to say. Still, the unusual way the movies ignore some of the more common genre choices lean towards Siodmak having some hand in what did and didn't get emphasized.

The Night Before the Divorce is I guess what Stanley Cavell might deem a comedy of remarriage, but it's as much a quick and witty little take on male fragility. A chemical engineer, George Nordyke, is married to a woman, Lynn Nordyke, who is better than him at virtually everything and his ego can't take it. The movie opens with George waking up to find Lynn having corralled a would-be burglar and calmly holding him at gunpoint while she waits for the police. A row ensues over her not even bothering to wake him to deal with the situation and escalates later when he finds she's also much better at golf then he is despite just having taken it up recently. George drives away from the house angry only to end up meeting a woman, Lola May, in an "accident" who plays incompetent and dumb, just what George wants and he falls for her and eventually comes to ask Lynn for a divorce. Lynn starts dating a famous conductor, who by chance happens to be murdered on the night before George and Lynn's divorce is to be finalized. Lynn sees this as the perfect opportunity to convince George she needs him, so, naturally, she pretends she's the murderess getting George to protect her. Lola May sniffs out the shenanigans and a competition of manipulation occurs, with a little help from the police detective who is also friend to George and Lynn and thinks George is being a dope. The few people who've seen and reviewed the movie on IMDb and Letterboxd don't like it much, seeming to think the movie is somehow pro-George's attitude rather than making light of it, so no guarantees anyone else will find it as amusing as I did. I thought the lesser tier stars did a fine job selling the concept in a way that might not have worked as neatly with bigger stars and Siodmak did a fine job with the comedy bits and got good use from the whole cast for a movie that is only a little over an hour long.

My Heart Belongs to Daddy goes with more of a "fairy godfather" angle to its romance, of the sort Charles Coburn used to star in. The tag for the movie could be the line "Bubble dancing and Nobel prizes just don't mix." as the basic premise is a omni-competent cabbie named Alfred picks up a pregnant woman in a snowstorm to take her to the hospital. He chooses a shortcut and the cab breaks down right in front of the house of a Nobel prize winning astrophysicist, where the woman ends up delivering the baby. The woman, Joyce, is a widow, as is so often the way in production code era movies that want to add a baby to the love interest, and she's trying to escape her former in-laws who want to take the baby from her now that their son is dead because they don't think she'll make a suitable mother because she's a bubble dancer. Alfred figures this all out and rigs things so Joyce has to stay on in the house be feigning being too weak to move. Complicating things is Professor R.I.C. Kay's in-laws who have been living with him since the death of his wife, hoping to get the Professor to marry his former wife's sister. Alfred stays on as butler and Chauffeur for the professor and with the assistance of a pushy nurse and reluctant participation of Joyce a competition of manipulation once again ensues.

Interestingly, the first half of the movie barely shows the Professor and Joyce together, focusing almost entirely on Alfred and the In-laws trying to get their way, when the professor does finally get directly involved he is shown to have a strong core of convictions despite how easily he is able to be manipulated, which makes for some rather surprising and clever genre twists Siodmak plays up well in thwarting audience expectation. Siodmak also is able to slip in some really nice cuts in the action, showing some investment in the film beyond just churning out an hour of frivolity. Once again he also gets some nice scenes from additional cast members and gives everyone in the main cast their moments to shine. It's pleasing, but somewhat slight.

Someone to Remember is the most unusual of the three I've watched so far, taking a vaguely Make Way for Tomorrow tack I suppose, in focusing the story on an older woman who lives in what was an apartment complex for senior citizens that is converted into a dormitory for male college students. The movie opens with an Ambersons like narration and view of the building and its inhabitants as they were just before the sale, speaking of the "old ways" and "time passing" before jumping to the new situation. The owners of the building try to get Mrs. Freeman, the old woman who is the main character of the film, to move out in order to convert the building, but she continually outwits them through a very genteel femininity aided by the fact she actually owns her apartment, unlike the other former residents of the building, so she stays on amidst the young college boys, who she also bends to her will by the same polite steadfastness of manner.

It turns out she doesn't want to leave the building because she is waiting for her son who disappeared many years ago and she maintains the belief he will someday want to return to her, so she waits where he would expect her to still be. By chance, a young woman tries to sneak into Mrs. Freeman's window one night thinking it is the room her beau is staying in, a freshman who also with the name Freeman. Mrs. Freeman becomes convinced this young man is her grandchild and she will be able to finally see her son again when he comes to visit the freshman later in the school year. Mrs. Freeman invests her energy into looking out for the young man and his girlfriend as she waits for that day to come.

There isn't much to the story beyond that, some minimal conflict between the girl's parents, who prefer another young man for their daughter, and some other equally small issues that Mrs. Freeman is able to overcome with ease drawn from her long history and experience. The movie is really just an appreciation of this character, a rare enough one for Hollywood, and the tone the film takes is pretty much the main attraction. Siodmak does an excellent job of making the movie the equivalent of a page turner, keeping the viewer strongly engaged with what will happen next even though not much really does happen in the usual sense and there isn't even much doubt how the movie will play out, but still the pull remains strong to follow it to the end and see it exactly. Other than a bit too heavy handed score, the work here is again quite good Siodmak is invested in the story and keeps the whole cast involved giving it more depth than one might expect. The story itself is one that feels like ti could have come from the Saturday Evening Post or Ladies Home Journal, but that isn't really to its disadvantage given how comparatively rare this kind of story is from Hollywood and even more so for movies that are remembered at all from the studios. And unlike The Night Before the Divorce, the few people on Letterboxd and IMDb who've seen Someone to Remember really like it a lot. Siodmak's "noirs" might hold the privileged place in his body of work, but this film and the others show he was good doing other work as well.

greg x wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 9:47 am Still need to watch Christmas Holiday dammit

some interesting casting in that one!

you can pick our next director, greg

Deanna Durbin! And I haven't seen it. Very wrong.

Let's go with Zhang Yimou. I think he had enough views last time I gave some options, so he should work.

I have 10. Good choice.

gene kelly too!

yes zhang yimou will work (and i happen to have seen two more since he was last suggested) so i'll start that poll today.

Yay, Zhang!

Seen 7. My final votes:
1.The Spiral Staircase (1945)
2. Criss Cross (1949)
3. Phantom Lady (1944)
zhang yimou is a good choice. Have 6.

Seen 6, now.

1. Cobra Woman (1944)
2. Phantom Lady (1944)
3. Criss Cross (1949)

I've been busy and, sadly, haven't watch more from Siodmak.

Seen 2:

The Killers