BLACK ANGEL

Dan Duryea and June Vincent

BLACK ANGEL (1946). Director: Roy William Neill. Based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich.

When sexy singer Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling) is murdered, the chief suspect is her lover, Kirk Bennett (John Phillips), who was being blackmailed by her. In spite of his affair, his wife, Catherine (June Vincent), remains loyal, as well as convinced that he is innocent. When he winds up convicted and on death row, with time running out, she makes up her mind to uncover the real murderer, and winds up working with the victim's ex-husband, Martin Blair (Dan Duryea of Terror Street), who was investigated by police and cleared. Catherine and Martin get a job as a singer and accompanist at a night spot owned by Mr. Marko (Peter Lorre of The Verdict), whom Martin swears he saw at Mavis' apartment house the night she was killed. Can the couple uncover the truth before they become more of his victims ,..? Black Angel is an absorbing, nominal film noir with some fine performances and a degree of suspense. Although June Vincent [Shed No Tears] is better cast as a bad girl and at first seems out of place in the movie, she has her typically sharp and unusual delivery to set her apart from the standard heroine. Duryea is, as ever, first-rate for the most part, and Lorre, in another in a long line of supporting roles that wasted his talent, is effortlessly excellent. Broderick Crawford plays the investigator on the case and is about as usual. There's a good score by Frank Skinner, and a snappy number called "I Wanna be Talked About" warbled by a dubbed Vincent. The ending is strangely moving, but you may be scratching your head at a couple of loose ends that make the denouement a bit suspect.

Verdict: Credible mystery with interesting cast. ***. 

REAR WINDOW

Hitch does his cameo in Rear Window.

REAR WINDOW (1954). Director: Alfred Hitchcock.

Photojournalist "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart) is stuck in an apartment with a broken leg and a cast when he'd rather be out covering action in far-flung places with exotic names. Jeff has a beautiful girlfriend named Lisa (Grace Kelly), but he fears proposing to her because he doesn't think her patrician, elegant manner will go well with the places he has to travel to [although nowhere is it written that the wife must accompany her husband on such assignments]. Bored and needing distraction, Jeff begins observing his neighbors (on a marvelous, detailed set that shows many different kinds of apartments and tenants), such as the voluptuous dancer across the way, a pair of newlyweds who disappear behind the shade after moving in, a frustrated composer of romantic music, and a woman he calls "Miss Lonelyhearts" (Judith Evelyn) who talks to imaginary dates while she's having supper and gets drunk in bars. Eventually Jeff focuses on a man named Thorwald (Raymond Burr), whose nagging wife disappears one afternoon and never comes back. Jeff has reasons to believe Thorwald murdered the woman -- and eventually gets both Lisa and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) on his side -- but his smug detective friend Doyle (Wendell Corey) assures him that he checked and the woman really is out of town. But is she? Jeff and the ladies begin an investigation of their own that leads them into some serious danger. Some viewers of this wonderful film don't like being put in Jeff's position all the time, peering through windows, and find the film claustrophobic, but I can't agree. The movie, while imperfect, is very cinematic and well-made. It does take a while for the basic mystery plot to begin unfolding, but the two main characters and their dilemma -- two very different people in love but uncertain of how it will work out -- are interesting enough to hold the attention, and Stewart and Kelly give fine performances, along with Ritter, Evelyn and others. [This is another film like The Tingler in which the talented Evelyn gets across a character without really saying a word.] The movie builds in suspense and has a creepy and exciting finale. One thing Rear Window is missing is a great score by, say, Bernard Herrmann, but you can't have everything. John Michael Hayes' screenplay is full of black humor, even relating to the dismemberment of the woman's corpse, which is a plus or a minus depending on how you look at it. Based on  a story by Cornell Woolrich.

Verdict: Smooth, unusual suspenser from the master. ***1/2.

SUSPICION VOLUME 1

SUSPICION Volume 1.1957 TV series.

Fifteen of the filmed episodes (apparently half of the show's episodes were taped live) of the mystery/suspense series Suspicion have been collected on three discs in an initial volume. The show was produced by Alfred Hitchcock's TV unit, and the Master directed the first episode, "Four O'Clock," himself. Taken from a Cornell Woolrich story it concerns a jealous husband (E. G. Marshall) who plants a time bomb in his basement to kill his wife and her alleged lover. (Frankly, Hitch seems a little disinterested with the material until the nail-biting final minutes; still this is a good episode.) Other memorable shows include: "Heartbeat," a sad tale in which David Wayne gets a misdiagnosis from a heart specialist and doesn't realize how much he is in danger if he exerts himself (also in this episode is that very weird actress Barbara Turner); "Protege," an All About Eve variation with an excellent (as always) Agnes Moorehead  as an alcoholic actress on the comeback trail bedeviled by a viper-like, ambitious assistant (Phyllis Love); and "Death Watch" in which witness Janice Rule and protector-cop Edmond O'Brien learn that the former is to be targeted by a dirty cop whose identity is unknown. (The only trouble with this suspenseful episode is the highly illogical wind-up). 

The best episodes in this collection are "The Way Up to Heaven," a Roald Dahl concoction in which a wife (the wonderful Marion Lorne), who desperately wants to fly to Paris to see her grandchildren, is continuously stymied by the selfish manipulations of her husband (Sebastian Cabot) until he gets his amusing comeuppance; and especially "Doomsday," which features a knock-out performance by Dan Duryea as a notorious criminal planning a major bank heist -- with major complications. Other guest-stars on the show include Donna Reed, Audie Murphy, Michael Rennie, Rafael Campos, Rod Steiger (excellent in "The Bull Skinner"), John Beal. Joseph Cotten, William Shatner, and Bette Davis in the fairly awful "Fraction of a Second," in which she gives another of her pretty terrible latter-day performances.

Verdict: Good old show with more hits than misses. ***.

NO MAN OF HER OWN

NO MAN OF HER OWN (1950). Director:Mitchell Leisen.

Based on Cornell Woolrich's novel "I Married a Dead Man" this stars Barbara Stanwyck as Helen Ferguson, who is pregnant and abandoned by her faithless lover Steve (Lyle Bettger). She meets a lovely young newlywed couple (Richard Denning and Phyllis Thaxter) on a train, but after a train crash finds herself a victim -- or lucky recipient -- of mistaken identity. Taken in by a family who thinks she's someone else, she wonders how long she can pull off the deception. She falls for Bill Harkness (John Lund) and then the scummy Steve shows up ... This is not the great suspense film it might have been had Hitchcock been at the helm, but it is quite entertaining and full of interesting twists courtesy of Woolrich. Stanwyck gives yet another terrific performance, and there is a solid supporting cast, including Jane Cowl as Bill's mother. Leisen doesn't do that much with the more tense sequences in the film and Lund is only adequate, but Stanwyck's performance puts this over if nothing else. The novel was adapted on other occasions, being the basis for a French version and the much lighter Mrs. Winterbourne with Ricki Lake. I believe there was also another American version under a different title.

Verdict: Another example of Stanwyck's superb thespian ability. ***.

FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 5

FILM NOIR CLASSIC COLLECTION VOLUME 5.

Warner Brothers has just issued a new collection of classic film noir: 8 movies on four DVDs.

Cornered (1945)stars Dick Powell as a man who travels to Buenos Aires to try to uncover the mysterious man who is said to be behind the murder of his wife and many others in the French underground.

Desperate (1947) stars Steve Brodie as a man involved in a botched heist. Raymond Burr co-stars.

The Phenix [sic] City Story (1955) looks into corruption in an Alabama city and is directed by Phil Karlson. Widescreen.

Dial 1119 (1950) deals with a deranged escapee who holds hostages at a dive bar. William Conrad and Marshall Thompson star.

Armored Car Robbery (1950) features a battle of wits between a gun moll (Adele Jergens), a gangster, and a hard-boiled cop.

Crime in the Streets (1956) has a gang leader deciding that they must kill someone who blabbed a little too much. John Cassevetes stars. Widescreen.

Deadline at Dawn (1946) has a dancer helping a sailor prove that he didn't murder a gangster's sister. Bill Williams and Susan Hayward are the stars. This fine movie is based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich and has a screenplay by Clifford Odets.

Backfire (1950) has a veteran and his nurse-girlfriend encountering all kinds of characters as they try to prove that his buddy didn't commit murder. Gordon MacRae, Virginia Mayo, and Edmond O'Brien star and MacRae's future wife Sheila has a strong supporting role as well.

The movies are crisp, digitally re-mastered, and none have ever been on DVD before.

Check out the official Warner Brothers site.

Verdict: Entertaining and varied collection of hard-boiled movies. ***.

NIGHTMARE

NIGHTMARE (1956). Director: Maxwell Shane.

Stan (Kevin McCarthy) is a jazz musician who has a vivid nightmare in which he murders a man in a room full of mirrors. When he wakes up he's convinced that the event actually happened and there's blood on his hands. He takes his story to his brother-in-law Rene (Edward G. Robinson), a homicide detective, but the cop thinks he's making too much of a particularly disturbing dream. Or is he? Although based on a novel by Cornell Woolrich, Nightmare meanders along without much suspense, and becomes increasingly ridiculous. McCarthy's okay performance occasionally lacks the proper intensity, considering the situation he finds himself in. Virginia Christine of “Mrs. Olsen” coffee fame and The Mummy's Curse plays McCarthy's sister. She also appeared with McCarthy in the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers as Wilma. Oddly, the picture is at its most boring when it's supposed to be at its most exciting. You're always three steps ahead of the characters. Connie Russell gets to deliver an interesting number as Stan's singer girlfriend, Gina.

Verdict: This one may not put you to sleep, but almost. *1/2.

DEADLINE AT DAWN

DEADLINE AT DAWN (1946). Director: Harold Clurman.

"Golly, the misery that walks around in this pretty, quiet night."

Alex (Bill Williams), a sailor who has to catch a bus at six am to report back to duty, is on leave in Manhattan when he discovers that a woman (Lola Lane) with whom he dallied earlier in the evening has been murdered. A hard-boiled, disillusioned taxi dancer named June (Susan Hayward) feels sorry for him and helps him find out who the real killer is before he has to catch his bus -- or is arrested. They are aided by Gus Hoffman (Paul Lukas), a sympathetic cab driver. Along they way they encounter cops, blackmail victims, shady ladies (one played by Osa Massen), the dead woman's nasty brother (Joseph Calleia), her blind ex-husband, and a sad man (Steven Geray) with white gloved hands who is smitten with Hayward. This isn't much of a mystery -- the identity of the killer is pretty obvious -- but it has an undercurrent of loneliness and lost souls that gives the film a poignant and disturbing edge. Considering that New York is essentially a major character in the film, it's criminal that the movie was clearly shot on Hollywood sound stages and not on location. Clifford Odet's screenplay, awash in great dialogue and interesting characters, was based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich (William Irish). Jerome Cowan demonstrates his versatility as a nervous if exuberant blackmail victim. Hayward offers an interesting portrait of a tough, unpleasant woman who slowly allows her humanity to shine through. Joe Sawyer, who's only seen in the distance, makes an impression as a drunk friend of the dead woman's. The entire cast is excellent.

Verdict: More here than meets the eye. ***.