Post by london777 on Dec 10, 2018 2:42:49 GMT
**** SPOILERS ****
Mikef6 has brought me up to affirm that The Maltese Falcon (1941) is the first true Film Noir. If so, On the Night of the Fire (1939) dir: Brian Desmond Hurst is unlucky to be disqualified.
An ordinary guy, a barber (Ralph Richardson), with generous impulses but impatient with his lot in life, commits an opportunistic theft in order to buy gifts for his much-loved but over-worked wife, then gets sucked into a vortex of blackmail and murder, with a bleak conclusion ("suicide by cop").
Most scenes are nocturnal or in murky confined spaces and the picture of his working-class neighbors is far from sentimental or sympathetic. The spreading of malicious rumors and the eventual hue and cry scenes are surely modeled on Fritz Lang's "M" (1931) and "Fury" (1936). The portrait of the huddled masses is a generic one. The predominant accent is Estuary or Cockney, but some of the outdoor locations are stock footage of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Richardson's accent could pass for artisan-class but his wife's, Diana Wynyard's, is bafflingly upper-middle class. I do not know if that is to suggest she has fallen low in society, or whether the film-makers were so keen to cast her that they just did not care. Wynyard was an absolute star of London theater in the 1930s and made few movies. I think she was too mannered for the big screen. She was great in "Gaslight" (1940) but her somewhat stilted manner suited the part of a "gaslighted" (or should it be "gaslit"?) upper-middle class female but here she is over-eager to keep her best profile to the camera (as in the poster below
).
There is no real femme fatale in this movie (a possible disqualifier for Film Noir status) but Wynyard, who first appears to be a humble and supportive spouse in the sentimental tradition of silent movies, is actually an enabler of her husband's destruction, for it turns out that she has recklessly got into debt (during what we might now term "post-natal depression"), and this triggers events.
The film is based on the novel by F.L. Green who also wrote the novel (and in that case also the screenplay) on which "Odd Man Out" (1947) was based.
The score is by Miklós Rózsa and the DP was Günther Krampf (Murnau's "Nosferatu" and Pabst"s "Pandora's Box"). The cinematography is more reminiscent of German Expressionist and French Poetic Realism ("Quai des Brumes") than the forthcoming wave of American Film Noirs with their sharp chiaroscuro and black/white contrasts, although I might have to revise that comment were I to see a restored print. One shot of the street gossips' talking heads against a black background is pure Caravaggio.
Another thing which makes it less "Film Noir" is the naivety of the protagonist. We are used to our anti-heroes being a little street-wise, even the born losers. Having grabbed a lot more cash than he at first realized, Richardson starts on a shopping spree and handing out banknotes to friends and the deserving poor, all in his own small neighborhood, walking distance from the crime scene. Surely he would have noticed that they were new, and consecutively numbered, banknotes? He is several times referred to as a clever man by his neighbors, but I guess all things are relative. Strange that there was no examination of fingerprints, which was standard police practice by the 1930s.
His surname was Kobling, which is not at all English. It sounds Scandinavian, but I wonder if it was meant to suggest Jewish? He was already viewed as "not one of us" by his neighbors because he was a cut above. If he was thought to be Jewish (even if wrongly so) this would further explain how quickly people turned against him.
Romney Brent plays an idler (Jimsey Jones) whom Richardson befriends but who betrays him. (I was not clear at the end whether he tries to undo his betrayal). Brent was a new name to me. Born as Romulo Larralde in Mexico, he was a playwright and producer who worked in numerous countries. He wrote a successful musical with Cole Porter, volunteered for the Canadian Army in WWII and made Captain, then toured the world acting and teaching before returning to Mexico for his final seven years. Interesting guy!
The film had the misfortune to appear just as WWII broke out, and the public were not in the mood for such pessimistic fare so it disappeared from sight.
It was released in the US as "The Fugitive".
Please watch this movie and tell me why it is not a Film Noir.
Mikef6 has brought me up to affirm that The Maltese Falcon (1941) is the first true Film Noir. If so, On the Night of the Fire (1939) dir: Brian Desmond Hurst is unlucky to be disqualified.
An ordinary guy, a barber (Ralph Richardson), with generous impulses but impatient with his lot in life, commits an opportunistic theft in order to buy gifts for his much-loved but over-worked wife, then gets sucked into a vortex of blackmail and murder, with a bleak conclusion ("suicide by cop").
Most scenes are nocturnal or in murky confined spaces and the picture of his working-class neighbors is far from sentimental or sympathetic. The spreading of malicious rumors and the eventual hue and cry scenes are surely modeled on Fritz Lang's "M" (1931) and "Fury" (1936). The portrait of the huddled masses is a generic one. The predominant accent is Estuary or Cockney, but some of the outdoor locations are stock footage of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Richardson's accent could pass for artisan-class but his wife's, Diana Wynyard's, is bafflingly upper-middle class. I do not know if that is to suggest she has fallen low in society, or whether the film-makers were so keen to cast her that they just did not care. Wynyard was an absolute star of London theater in the 1930s and made few movies. I think she was too mannered for the big screen. She was great in "Gaslight" (1940) but her somewhat stilted manner suited the part of a "gaslighted" (or should it be "gaslit"?) upper-middle class female but here she is over-eager to keep her best profile to the camera (as in the poster below
).There is no real femme fatale in this movie (a possible disqualifier for Film Noir status) but Wynyard, who first appears to be a humble and supportive spouse in the sentimental tradition of silent movies, is actually an enabler of her husband's destruction, for it turns out that she has recklessly got into debt (during what we might now term "post-natal depression"), and this triggers events.
The film is based on the novel by F.L. Green who also wrote the novel (and in that case also the screenplay) on which "Odd Man Out" (1947) was based.
The score is by Miklós Rózsa and the DP was Günther Krampf (Murnau's "Nosferatu" and Pabst"s "Pandora's Box"). The cinematography is more reminiscent of German Expressionist and French Poetic Realism ("Quai des Brumes") than the forthcoming wave of American Film Noirs with their sharp chiaroscuro and black/white contrasts, although I might have to revise that comment were I to see a restored print. One shot of the street gossips' talking heads against a black background is pure Caravaggio.
Another thing which makes it less "Film Noir" is the naivety of the protagonist. We are used to our anti-heroes being a little street-wise, even the born losers. Having grabbed a lot more cash than he at first realized, Richardson starts on a shopping spree and handing out banknotes to friends and the deserving poor, all in his own small neighborhood, walking distance from the crime scene. Surely he would have noticed that they were new, and consecutively numbered, banknotes? He is several times referred to as a clever man by his neighbors, but I guess all things are relative. Strange that there was no examination of fingerprints, which was standard police practice by the 1930s.
His surname was Kobling, which is not at all English. It sounds Scandinavian, but I wonder if it was meant to suggest Jewish? He was already viewed as "not one of us" by his neighbors because he was a cut above. If he was thought to be Jewish (even if wrongly so) this would further explain how quickly people turned against him.
Romney Brent plays an idler (Jimsey Jones) whom Richardson befriends but who betrays him. (I was not clear at the end whether he tries to undo his betrayal). Brent was a new name to me. Born as Romulo Larralde in Mexico, he was a playwright and producer who worked in numerous countries. He wrote a successful musical with Cole Porter, volunteered for the Canadian Army in WWII and made Captain, then toured the world acting and teaching before returning to Mexico for his final seven years. Interesting guy!
The film had the misfortune to appear just as WWII broke out, and the public were not in the mood for such pessimistic fare so it disappeared from sight.
It was released in the US as "The Fugitive".
Please watch this movie and tell me why it is not a Film Noir.