NOTW 9/28/09: BLONDE ICE (by DAN IN THE MW)

BLONDE ICE

1948/USA

Director: Jack Bernhard
Screenplay: Kenneth Garnet from the novel “Once Too Often” by Whitman Chambers. Uncredited co-workers on adaptation: Dick Irving Hyland, Raymond L. Shrock, and Edgar G. Ulmer
Cinematography: George Robinson
Lead actors: Leslie Brooks, Robert Paige, John Holland
Supporting actors: Russ Vincent, Michael Whalen, Walter Sande, Selmer Jackson, Emory Parnell

Blonde Ice is a decidedly low rent film noir that highlights the criminal exploits of a femme fatale played by Leslie Brooks. Claire Cummings is a ruthlessly ambitious social climber who uses and discards men in order to secure wealth, security and social position.


When the picture opens, Cummings is late for her own wedding to Carl Hanneman, a furnace manufacturer. Among the wedding guests are several of Cumming’s colleagues from “The San Francisco Tribune” where Claire worked as a society reporter. In addition to the newspaper’s editor, Hack Doyle (Walter Sande), sportswriter Les Burns (Robert Paige) and reporter Al Herrick (James Griffith) are also in attendance. Burns and Herrick are two of Claire’s former suitors. Herrick discovered Claire working as a stenographer and helped her secure a position on the newspaper before losing her to Burns.

No sooner than the brief wedding ceremony is completed, Claire asks her husband to excuse her so that she can say goodbye to members of "the old gang" and she joins Burns on the terrace where she suggests that her newly acquired marital status should not be an impediment to their continued extramarital relationship. Burns accuses Claire of deriving a "sadistic kick" out of inviting him to attend the ceremony. After exchanging a kiss and an embrace with Les, which arouses the jealous suspicions of Hanneman, Claire assures Carl that she thinks of Burns as "a brother" and she is simply grateful to him for helping her during her journalistic career. As the Hannemans depart for their honeymoon, Burns tosses his engraved cigarette case, a gift from Claire onto the lawn at the Hanneman mansion.

While in Los Angeles, the newlyweds begin quarreling when Hanneman objects to his wife’s expensive habits. When Claire wins a wager at the race track, Carl is shocked to learn that she risked $100.00 on a single race and questions the wisdom of her placing such large bets. Back at their hotel suite, Carl discovers that his wife has been secretly corresponding with Les. He seizes one of the incriminating letters, packs a suitcase and leaves for San Francisco to institute immediate divorce proceedings. He announces his intention to cut off Claire without so much as a single cent in alimony.

One day later, Claire calls Les at the newspaper office and asks him to make plane reservations for her and to pick her up from the airport that same night. She informs him that her husband has been called away on business. When they drive to the Hanneman residence, Les discovers Carl’s dead body in a neatly constructed tableaux which indicates that the man may have committed suicide.

Police Captain Bill Murdock (Emory Parnell) and District Attorney Ed Chalmers (Selmer Jackson) are not so certain: the gun found near Hanneman’s body bears no fingerprints and his coat does not have any powder burns. Claire insists that she and her dearly departed husband were "supremely happy" throughout their marriage. Murdock reminds her that the entire duration of her marriage was "one week."

While the investigation is pending and her late husband’s sizable estate is tied up in probate, Claire fixes her attentions upon a prominent attorney, Stanley Mason (Michael Whalen), who is also favored to win a seat in Congress. Initially, Claire claims to be interested solely in protecting her legal rights in the probate case, but, of course, she has other designs as well.

Soon Claire is actively romancing Mason, but she begins to receive threatening calls from a blackmailer. She buys off a charter pilot named Blackie Talon (Russ Vincent) temporarily by giving him some of her jewelry. Blackie has a gambling problem of his own, so he has no intention of going away without securing a larger payment at a later date.

In short order, Claire dumps Les for a second time and becomes engaged to Mason the lawyer/politician. Unfortunately, Claire did not anticipate that one of Mason’s closest friends is Dr. Geoffrey Kippinger, a psychiatrist who takes a special interest in studying Claire’s manners and morals. Kippinger is convinced that Claire is mentally unstable and that her problems relate back to her impoverished childhood which occurred as the result of her father abandoning his wife and daughter.

Blonde Ice is an over the top delight that allowed Leslie Brooks a rare chance to showcase her viciousness after a Hollywood career spent in largely supporting roles. For example, Brooks played one of the women who was a romantic interest of Paul Henreid in Hollow Triumph but Joan Bennett had the more important role of the female lead. She makes the most of her opportunity despite a somewhat trite and clichéd script.

One of the amusing features of Blonde Ice is how all of the male cast members seem to be completely smitten with Claire and totally oblivious to her cunning and manipulative nature while many of the female cast members seem to recognize her for exactly what she is and drop casual comments about her that go unheeded by the clueless men. June Taylor, played by Mildred Coles, is Burns' loyal and devoted secretary. Although she is privately in love with him, Burns completely ignores the brunette "Girl Friday" while chasing after the selfish blonde with an ice cold heart.

This is one of those enjoyable movies in which the dialogue is pleasingly overripe and the audience is always several steps ahead of the dim witted on screen actors. The climactic scene which rapidly ties up all of the loose ends has to be seen in order to be believed.

A persistent rumor about the film suggested that Edgar Ulmer had a hand in creating the scenario for Blonde Ice or at the very least he gave the script its shooting title. Ulmer made a passing reference to the film in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, but also seemed to confuse the plot of Blonde Ice with that of another Producers Releasing Corporation knock off production Apology for Murder. While film scholars have argued as to whether or not Ulmer was mistaken about the origins of Blonde Ice, I am inclined to believe that he may have seen the scenario at some point in time. The prodicer was Martin Mooney, who worked with Ulmer at Producers Releasing Corporation, most notably on Detour and Club Havana. A few years later, both men worked for the short lived Film Classics Studios, which ultimately released Blonde Ice.

Blonde Ice was thought to have been a lost film until its rediscovery several years ago. The last known prints had been televised in the Seventies. The best currently available print of the film was restored by Jay Fenton, who was able to replace missing footage and recreate a most serviceable print of the movie.

NOTW 9/14/09: THE THIRD MAN (by RAND)

THE THIRD MAN

1949/UK

Director: Carol Reed.

Screenplay: Graham Greene, from his novel.

Cast: Orson Welles as Harry Lime, Joseph Cotten as Holly Martins, Alida Valli as Anna Schmidt, Trevor Howard as Major Calloway.

Cinematography: Robert Krasker.

Soundtrack (since everyone obsesses over this): Anton Karas.

The Third Man was filmed on location in Vienna and on a sound stage in London. 

Vienna was in ruins after World War Two, controlled, as was Berlin, by the four allied powers, the US, Britain, France, and the USSR. The devastation wreaked during the war is emphasized in the opening of the film, as the condition of the city, moral as well as physical, is narrated for the viewer by the director, Carol Reed:

" I never knew the old Vienna before the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the black market. We'd run anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay. Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs."

All this accompanied by shots of baroque old buildings and rubble, with a body (an amateur?) floating in the Danube for good measure. 

Holly (Rollo in the book) Martins is a hack western writer who has come at his old college classmate's request to Vienna, apparently with an offer for employment. But Harry Lime has been run over and killed by a truck in front of his apartment. Martins is numb and shaken but embarks on a quest to learn all he can about the circumstances of his friend's death. He makes the acquaintance of Major Calloway (who he insists on calling "Callaghan") at Lime's funeral and accepts a ride back to town where they engage in the following conversation: 

Martins; "It was a shame." Calloway; "What?" "Him dying like that." "Best thing that ever happened to him." "What are you trying to say?" "He was about the worst racketeer that ever made a dirty living in this city." 

Martins takes deep offense at this speaking ill of the dead and becomes combative, upon which he is decked by Calloway's aide, Sergeant Paine. Immediately solicitous, Paine helps Martins up and offers this:

"Please be careful, sir. Written anything lately? I'm so glad to have met you, sir. I've read quite a few of your books. That's what I like about them, sir. You can pick them up and put them down any time."

Damning with faint praise, a fact not lost on Martins, who has no self-illusions, about his writing anyway. But Paine, being a fan, offers Martins as a speaker to a Mr. Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White) whom they encounter at Martins' hotel. Crabbin heads the Cultural Re-education Society and explains to Holly; 

"Last week we had Hamlet. The week before we had....mmmm...something...." "Striptease, sir." offers Paine, helpfully. "Ah yes, the Hindu dancers! Thank you, sergeant." 

This engagement offers a way for Martins to stay in Vienna so he accepts, showing his knack for getting in over his head. He meets Lime's neighbors, friends, and lover but finds more questions than answers about Harry's death.

There seems to have been an harmonic convergence at the scene of the tragedy of his doctor, his driver and two friends plus a mysterious third man, whom no one can identify, who helped carry the stricken Lime to the curb. Martins is too experienced with poorly written scenarios to believe this one.

Martins seeks out Harry's lover, Anna Schimdt (Alida Valli), who also expresses doubt as to the details of Harry's death, but seems not interested in pursuing the matter. Martins, in his blundering way, seeks out one of the two friends who carried Lime off the street, a Baron Kurtz, played wonderfully by Ernst Deutsch. His evil is palpable (my nine year old daughter, walking by, asked, "Is he a bad guy?").

Deutsch reminds me of another European noir stalwart, Victor Francen. They share a pompadour hairstyle, a haughty demeanor, cruel eyes, and a thin-lipped smile that offers no cheer. Krasker even manages, in a black and white movie, to give Deutsch the pallor of a ghost. The second friend, Popescu (Siegfried Breuer) is produced, and offers Martins some advice; "Everybody ought to be careful in a city like this." 

Holly Martins is anything but careful and soon finds his sources falling like leaves. A witness to the accident is murdered and Anna is found to have a false passport and is to be "repatriated" to the Russian sector of Vienna.

At this point, in one of the most iconic scenes in any film noir, Martins spots the feet of someone spying on him from a darkened doorway across the street from Anna's apartment. His shouts of anger waken a woman who, in throwing open her window, illuminates the face of.......Harry Lime. But a car interrupts Martins' dash across the street and Lime escapes.

Martins goes to Calloway with the information and Lime's use of the storm sewer is discovered, but Lime is not found. Martins finally faces the reality of Lime's racketeering, involving the theft of penicillin from hospitals, the dilution and then resale of the drug on the black market, causing additonal trauma and death to the buyers.

Martins manages a rendezvous and comes to understand the full extent of Harry's perfidy. Lime is completely amoral, willing to kill children for profit, willing to kill to have a corpse to hide behind, even willing to turn Anna over to the Russians to ensure his safe haven in their quarter. Martins decides to play the Judas goat for Calloway, but Anna shows up and throws a wrench into the Major's plan to finish Lime's career once and for all...... 

The Third Man is remarkable for a number of reasons. Greene's dialogue sparkles with wit and irony, Krasker's use of lighting is textbook noir and the tilted camera gives a strong sense of the unsteadiness of life in occupied postwar Vienna.

The Third Man won awards in three different years because of a delay in its release in the US, taking the Grand Prize at Cannes in 1949, the Directors Guild Award in 1950 for Carol Reed, the BAFTA Best British Film the same year, and the Cinematography, Film Editing, and Director Oscars in 1951.

Anton Karas' zither did not win any awards, for good reason. It is the only weak point in the film. Often too loud and used to emphasize dramatic scenes so ham-handedly as to make it parodical, Karas' zither is an abomination in an othewise perfect example of noir style and storytelling. What a soundtrack there could have been with the classical music of Vienna as inspiration! 

Amusingly, the film also gave birth to a radio show, The Lives of Harry Lime, which opened with Orson Welles as Harry Lime narrating the intro from the grave. Lime was presented as an irresponsible but loveable adventurer in episodes that predated the events in the movie. The only creator from the movie mentioned in the show's opening was.....Anton Karas. 

NOTW 6/5/2009: BRIGHTON ROCK (by FLOYD aka OLD FEDORA)

BRIGHTON ROCK

1947/UK

Directors/Producers: John and Roy Boulting (twin brothers who alternated directing and producing chores on many films: John directed and Roy produced Brighton Rock).

Screenplay: Terrence Rattigan from the novel by Grahame Greene

Cinematographer: Henry Waxman

Cast: Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell, Alan Wheatley

Brighton Rock is another of the British post-WWII "noir" films that were eagerly consumed by a public weary of rationing and deprivation. It may be the best. A very young Richard Attenborough stars as "Pinkie" Brown, a psychopathic, razor-wielding "spiv" (small-time criminal) who, along with his small gang, runs a protection racket at the racetrack in the seaside resort of Brighton.

The film is broadly based on fact and is beautifully written and photographed, with a strong storyline and great dialogue. The bleak and cynical outlook of the script is well matched by a marvelously suitable score by Hans May.

The sunny, festive resort of Brighton seems an odd setting for this type of film, but cinematographer Waxman and writers Greene and Rattigan achieve an underlying tension and palpable sense of menace. The film's realism revived memories of pre-WWII gaing violence in the city and prompted a disclaimed at the beginning (at the request of Brighton's town council) that the film depicts a "time between the wars" when crime was a problem in the city--"a Brighton happily no more."

Pinkie, the youngest member of the gang but the most dangerous, has taken over as leader following the death of his "chief" Bill Kite, murdered by a rival mob who believe that he had betrayed them by revealing facts to a newspaper reporter for an exposé article.

The movie centers around Pinkie's revenge killing of the reporter who wrote the article and the resulting fallout. Pinkie feels the heat from both the police and rival gangsters--and from within his own gang as his henchmen begin to doubt his ability to lead them out of the morass. The storyline follows his increasingly desperate attempts to beat the murder rap and retain his gangland status.

Attenborough is riveting as the ambitious young hoodlum whose monomaniacal pursuit of the newsman (Wheatley) and those he perceives as threats leads to disaster for all involved. Carol Marsh (in her first film) does a good job of portraying Rose, a young waitress whose testimony could convict Pinkie. To prevent this, he first weds her and then sets about plotting her demise.

Marsh's character was difficult to portray: she is so unbelievably lovestruck that she falls for the repellant Pinkie even after he tacitly threatens to blind her with acide on their first date! Throughout the film his treatment of her is cruelly contemptuous, yet she naively follows him into marriage--and she nearly pays the ultimate choice for her decision.

The rest of the cast is excellent, especially Hermione Baddeley as Ida Arnold, a brassy boardwalk performer who had briefly befriended the newsman and appoints herself his avenger, setting about to gather evidence against Pinky; and veteran heavy William Hartnell as Pinky's right-hand man Dallow, a thug capable of chilling brutality (like his boss) but who also possesses principles (which will, in the end, redeem him).

An intersting noir side note: the murder of Bill Kite is described in another, earlier Greene novel, A Gun For Sale (1936). The killer's name? Raven. You can connect the dots.