Kino Lorber Studio Classics: Film Noir: the Dark Side of Cinema I-XX

[domino harvey]

Well, you gotta hand it to KLSC: They would package the best film yet in one of these sets with two of the absolute worst!

Man Afraid is one of the stupidest films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through, a confused sketch "fleshed" out to feature length about a reverend who kills a young burglar (by pitching a snowglobe at his head, no less) and then finds his own kid stalked by the silent father of the victim. Every last character is annoying or stupid or both, and the film ends with as much excitement as it generated throughout, which is to say none.

The Girl in the Kremlin can not sustain its awfulness with as much consistency as Man Afraid, but it spends it all in the first five minutes with one of the most bizarre, offensive, disturbing, and jaw-dropping things I have ever seen (Is there a domino harvey hyperbole drinking game? You'll need it to sit through this one): A peasant girl is summoned to the hotel suite of Stalin, who has just faked his own death (and I mean "just," the body isn't even cold in the other room) and the audience is shown, in excruciating detail, as the poor actress called upon to deliver this scene slowly, meticulously, has all of her hair cut off, then buzz cut bald, and then, somehow, shaved bald with a straight razor, all while she looks directly at the audience and whimpers and bawls. This is not entertainment. Let me be clear: this is pornography, and it is framed and presented as such. I am not exaggerating. What follows has, of course, nothing at all to do with this girl, who showed us something akin to the casting couch in Hell for literally no benefit of story. After that, who possibly cares about Stalin's plot to... uh... actually, I sadly watched the rest of it and I'm not sure what his plan was after this. Open a Fantastic Sams in the mountains of Greece?

Most of the 1950s Universal noirs that find their way into these sets are so awful that I was really starting to wonder if it was even physically possible for the studio to make a good one, but they did and it's the Tattered Dress. This film sets itself apart from the pack by blessedly being about two characters who are, thank the lord, smart and face off against each other in ways that feel just, earned, and evenly at odds. Jeff Chandler's New York Lawyer learns all about what lies beneath friendly southern smiles when he acquits a jealous husband of shooting the protege of local sheriff Jack Carson. At the impromptu victory party, Carson immediately delivers Chandler a subpoena for allegedly bribing a member of the jury, and we're off to the races. Carson's casting is the film's masterstroke, his friendly demeanor so pleasant and accommodating that even the audience finds themselves at times questioning what they know must be so (...right?). I was also tickled to see Carson's fellow former Warner studio player also ran George Tobias in the mix as well. Also worth mentioning that while Elaine Stewart mostly disappears from the film after the first act, her come-ons as the wronged man's cheating wife early in the pic are incredible and so hilariously overwrought that I was dying for her to come back for more than some reaction shots as the film wore on-- I especially loved the shot of her slowly ascending into the sky on an automated diving board, rising like Bimbo Aphrodite from the chlorinated seafoam.

[domino harvey]

Behind the High Wall: Tom Tully's interim warden is kidnapped by escaping prisoners and later hides their loot after the gang bites it in their getaway. Tully is quite good here in a leading role as the kind of everyman characters Noirs just adore fucking with, though the film has a larger than average plot hole that strains credulity more than most: the innocence of John Gavin's driver hinges on the ability to produce a sheet of drawings that were in the car and which Tully used to wrap the cash when burying it. At no point in the hoary mechanics to follow does Tully just... go back and leave the drawing at the crime scene. Despite that silliness, I enjoyed this on the whole

the Night Runner: Oddly sympathetic portrait of schizophrenic Ray Danton being returned to society from an institution too soon. There are parts of this that work, including the inevitable murder, but the supporting characters are too broadly sketched, the central romance wayyyyy unlikely, and the film too thin to really hang any kind of morality beyond cheap lip service onto it. This also had the misfortune of being seen by me only a few days after the far more unsettling beach-set ingratiating maniac noir, Edge of Fury (which is probably forthcoming in volume CXX of this series)

[domino harvey]

VOL XVI

BOX SET CONTENT:

The Mystery of Marie Roget (1942)

Description: The haunting film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Mystery of Marie Roget stars Maria Montez and Patric Knowles. A successful actress in the City of Light, Marie Roget (Montez), has a sinister dark side: she is plotting the death of her younger sister (Nell O'Day). When Marie goes missing and the maimed corpse of a young woman is discovered, amateur detective Dr. Paul Dupin (Knowles) works to track down the killer. Filled with suspense and intrigue, this gripping classic was inspired by a real-life unsolved murder.

Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM A FINE-GRAIN
NEW audio commentary by Film Historians Tom Weaver, Gary L. Prange and Tom Zimmerman, Author of The Queen of Technicolor: Maria Montez in Hollywood
NEW audio commentary by novelist/critic Kim Newman and writer/editor Stephen Jones
Original trailer
Optional English subtitles
Chicago Deadline (1949)

Description: When reporter Ed Adams (Alan Ladd) finds himself in the same hotel as the beautiful but dead Rosita Jean d'Ur (Donna Reed), he becomes obsessed with her and takes her diary. Although Rosita seems to have died from tuberculosis, Ed keeps digging, discovering that there were many men in Rosita's life, and some of them were from the wrong side of the law. With help from Rosita's former roommate, Ed starts to put together the pieces of Rosita's life but also finds his own in danger.

Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM A FINE-GRAIN
NEW Audio commentary by author/film historian Alan K. Rode
Original trailer
Optional English subtitles
Iron Man (1951)

Description: Depressed by his impoverished small-town existence, miner Coke Mason (Jeff Chandler) agrees when his brother, George (Stephen McNally), urges him to box a fellow miner. Coke initially takes a beating, but when he grows angered, he fights viciously and wins. George and Coke's wife, Rose (Evelyn Keyes), convince Coke to train professionally, but despite the guidance of boxing trainer Speed O'Keefe (Rock Hudson), his new career and soaring income are marred by his inability to fight cleanly.

Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM A FINE-GRAIN
NEW audio commentary by film historian/screenwriter Gary Gerani
Optional English subtitles

[FrauBlucher]

Domino, any opinion on these?

[domino harvey]

I’ve seen Chicago Deadline but remember nothing about it other than my two stars on Letterboxd indicating that’s probably fine to keep forgetting. I have a copy of Iron Man but haven’t watched it yet. Haven’t seen the Montez movie (and I thought the third film in this set was originally announced as something else)

[FrauBlucher]

Coming Soon!

FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XVII

CITY OF SHADOWS (1955)
Directed by William Witney- Victor McLaglen
CRASHOUT (1955)
Directed by Lewis R. Foster- William Bendix, Arthur Kennedy, Luther Adler, William Talman & Gene Evans – Shot by Russell Metty
FINGER MAN (1955)
Directed by Harold D. Schuster- Frank Lovejoy, Forrest Tucker & Peggie Castle

[domino harvey]

I thought the Edward G Robinson box was 17?

Crashout was previously released on Blu by Olive, here’s my write up:

Crashout (Lewis R Foster 1955) Tough and mean-spirited flick about six inmates who escape prison and gradually get picked off either by cops or each other as they make their way to a hidden stash of loot. The film gets softer as it progresses by unwisely painting one of the men with a kinder brush, but the film is stronger in the early passages when all of the characters are bad men and it looks like there will be no one to root for. I especially liked William Talman's religious fanatic, who is set up as being the kind voice of reason and then of course commits the most atrocities. The ending has one of the more obvious and unnecessary Code appeasement reshoot inclusions of the era, as one character's redemption is totally undermined by the necessities of punishment.

[FrauBlucher]

Crashout sounds interesting. It's a shame it doesn't maintain the edginess all the way through. I'll have to give it a watch

[mteller]

My take on Chicago Deadline:

When a reporter finds a beautiful girl dead of tuberculosis in a cheap hotel room, he pockets her little black book to learn more about her… but no one’s talking, and the ones that try to have a nasty habit of getting killed. The basic detective story template in the Hammett vein with a touch of Citizen Kane and Laura as Rosita’s life is revealed through flashbacks. Alan Ladd is fun to watch, and there’s some pretty good supporting parts. Donna Reed gets second billing, but she only appears in snippets for maybe about 10 minutes total. The film has good atmosphere and makes nice use of locations, but is so convoluted that it can be tough to follow. The lousy copy I watched didn’t help. I’d like to see it again in a decent presentation. A solid and moody film but a little too confusing. 74/100

Finger Man is pretty good and Crashout is even better. Haven't seen City of Shadows, but that might be a set worth getting.

[swo17]

Behind the High Wall

This helped me finally piece together that Sylvia Sidney from those early Lang and Hitchcock films is also the case worker Juno in Beetlejuice, because here she's about halfway between those two stages of her career

[domino harvey]

True! She already looked startlingly old as Joanne Woodward’s mom in Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams and that was released about halfway between this and Beetlejuice. The perils of young starlets being instructed to smoke cigarettes to lower their voice…

[colinr0380]

Don't forget Sylvia Sidney's memorable roles from the late 70s and early 80s, particularly in Larry Cohen's astonishing God Told Me To, where she gets the lunatic explanatory flashback (major spoiler):

SpoilerShow

in which she was abducted by aliens and impregnated with a foetus that grew to be the hermaphrodite reincarnation of Jesus, who is psychically influencing random people to go on shooting sprees in the streets of New York! (I love that the video of the scene on YouTube has a little 'context' box relating to the veracity of alien abductions!

, another suspicious soon-to-be victim of the Devil child in Damien: Omen II, as well as taking Fredric Forrest's self-insert Dashiell Hammett character to task for his terrible writing in her character's meta-aware single scene in Wim Wenders' 1982 Hammett!

[domino harvey]

Kino announced in an interview that there will be 5 or 6 more Noir sets coming via their Paramount deal. I’m guessing a lot more OOP Olive titles will be part of that, because I’m not sure how many more unreleased noirs are even with Paramount (though Kino has a far looser definition of noir than me or any sane human, so maybe there are)

[therewillbeblus]

But would Kino ever allow a noir as good as Union Station to slip into one of these sets?

[FrauBlucher]

More Noir Coming...

Coming Soon on Blu-ray!
FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XIX
Dark City (1950) 2022 HD Master by Paramount Pictures - 4K Scan of 35mm
Negative and Fine Grain - Starring Charlton Heston, Lizabeth Scott, Viveca Lindfors, Dean Jagger, Jack
Webb, Harry Morgan, Don DeFore, Ed Begley & Mike Mazurki
- Shot by Victor Milner (The Palm Beach Story)
- Music by Franz Waxman (Sunset Boulevard)
- Directed by William Dieterle (Rope of Sand)
No Man of Her Own (1950) 2020 HD Master by Paramount Pictures - 4K Scan of
Negative and Fine Grain - Starring Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger, Jane Cowl, Phyllis
Thaxter, Henry O'Neill & Richard Denning
- Shot by Daniel L. Fapp (The Great Escape)
- Music by Hugo Friedhofer (Violent Saturday)
Screenplay by Sally Benson (Shadow of a Doubt) & Catherine Turney (My
Reputation)
Based on a Novel by Cornell Woolrich (Rear Window)
- Directed by Mitchell Leisen (Midnight)
Beware, My Lovely (1952) 2020 HD Master by Paramount Pictures - 4K Scan of
35mm Negative and Fine Grain
Starring Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Taylor Holmes, Barbara Whiting, William
Talman & O.Z. Whitehead
- Shot by George E. Diskant (On Dangerous Ground)
Music by Leith Stevens (The War of the Worlds) Written by Mel Dinelli (The Spiral Staircase)
Produced by Collier Young (The Hitch-Hiker)
Directed by Harry Horner

[therewillbeblus]

I don’t remember anything about Dark City, but the other two are good - That’s a bingo

[FrauBlucher]

Coming March 26th!


FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XVIII
• NEW Audio Commentary for CITY OF SHADOWS by Film Historian/Screenwriter Gary Gerani
• NEW Audio Commentary for CRASHOUT by Author/Film Historian Alan K. Rode
• NEW Audio Commentary for FINGER MAN by Professor and Film Scholar Jason A. Ney
• Optional English Subtitles

CITY OF SHADOWS (1955) B&W 70 Minutes 1.37:1 Not Rated
2022 HD Master by Paramount Pictures! Their Business Was “Legitimate”—Because the Law Couldn’t Touch Them! Iconic screen tough Victor McLaglen (The Informer, Klondike Annie) is Big Tim Channing, a small-time racketeer who makes a living supplying old, out-of-date slot machines to businesses. He strikes up a prosperous partnership with newsboy Dan Mason when the precocious kid shows him how to corner the slot-machine racket and, at the same time, put his crooked competitors out of the running. But when Dan grows up and graduates from law school, it thrusts old Tim into a compromising position. From William Witney, director of the legendary serials Daredevils of the Red Circle and Adventures of Captain Marvel, and co-starring John Baer (We’re No Angels), Kathleen Crowley (Curse of the Undead) and Anthony Caruso (Never Steal Anything Small).

CRASHOUT (1955) B&W 88 Minutes 1.85:1 Not Rated
2022 HD Master by Paramount Pictures! It Blasts the Screen with Violence! Six ruthless convicts break out of prison and frantically try to avoid an extensive manhunt. Arthur Kennedy (Bright Victory) co-stars with a legendary lineup of Hollywood heavies: William Bendix (The Web), Luther Adler (D.O.A.), William Talman (Big House, U.S.A.), Gene Evans (Fixed Bayonets!) and Marshall Thompson (It! The Terror from Beyond Space). Once the coast is clear, they set out on a long and dangerous journey by foot, train and car to retrieve bank loot. After barely surviving two deadly incidents, the gang seeks refuge in a farmhouse as the action reaches a fever pitch. Ironically, the men start to realize that it’s not the law that they need to worry about. A hardboiled, edge-of-your-seat noir produced by Ida Lupino’s Filmakers Releasing Organization for director Lewis R. Foster (Those Redheads from Seattle). Cinematography by the masterly Russell Metty (Touch of Evil).

FINGER MAN (1955) B&W 82 Minutes 1.85:1 Not Rated
2017 HD Master by Paramount Pictures! I Put the Finger on Public Enemy Number One! Frank Lovejoy (The Hitch-Hiker, House of Wax) stars as ex-con Casey Martin, who is caught red-handed while heisting a truck shipment. When he discovers that his sister has now become a desperate drug addict after working for gruff bootlegger Dutch Becker (Forrest Tucker, Sands of Iwo Jima), Martin accepts the deal that the T-men offer him and goes to work undercover to nail Dutch and his gang. Peggy Castle (99 River Street) plays Gladys Baker, the gangster’s associate who falls for the finger man. Timothy Carey (The Killing) plays Lou Terpe, the finger man’s former cellmate and a particularly sadistic member of Dutch’s crew. A crime-busting noir yarn spun by director Harold D. Schuster (Loophole).

[FrauBlucher]

Here's a good one!...
Coming June 18th

FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XIX (1950-1952)
• 2020-2022 HD Master by Paramount Pictures – From 4K Scans
• NEW Audio Commentary for DARK CITY by Author/Film Historian Alan K. Rode
• NEW Audio Commentary for NO MAN OF HER OWN by Film Historian Imogen Sara Smith
• NEW Audio Commentary for NO MAN OF HER OWN by Film Historian/Writer Julie Kirgo and Writer/Filmmaker Peter Hankoff
• Audio Commentary for BEWARE, MY LOVELY by Professor and Film Scholar Jason A. Ney
• Theatrical Trailers
• Optional English Subtitles

DARK CITY (1950) B&W 98 Minutes 1.37:1 Not Rated
A Tense, Tough Drama of Underworld Violence and Revenge! After losing his company’s $5,000 cashier’s check in a crooked card game, a stranger in Chicago commits suicide. The other gamblers—including Danny Haley, played by steely screen legend Charlton Heston (Touch of Evil) in his Hollywood debut—worry about the dangers of cashing the check, but this soon becomes the least of their concerns when the head of the group is found hanged. Police Captain Garvey (Dean Jagger, Pursued) concludes the hanging to be a case of homicide and discovers that the stranger had a mentally deranged brother (Mike Mazurki, Murder, My Sweet) who is out for vengeance. Fran (Lizabeth Scott, Pitfall), a torch singer who is desperately in love with Danny, begs him to run away with her before it’s too late. This stunningly cynical morality tale also features the stars of TV’s Dragnet 1967, Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, as Danny’s gambling partners. Directed by the dynamic Willam Dieterle (Portrait of Jennie, Rope of Sand) and bathed in black-and-white by cinematographer Victor Milner (The General Died at Dawn).

NO MAN OF HER OWN (1950) B&W 98 Minutes 1.37:1 Not Rated
Every Door Closed Against Her…A Woman Faces the Age-Old Problem of Her Sex! The incandescent Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers) shines as a woman torn between a comfortable lie and the painful truth in this heart-wrenching noir classic. Helen Ferguson (Stanwyck), penniless, pregnant and dumped by her slimy boyfriend Steve (Lyle Bettger, Union Station), assumes the identity of a pregnant woman who was killed in a train crash. Eventually Helen’s sordid past catches up to her when Steve arrives demanding money to keep her true identity a secret from the man who loves her (John Lund, Night Has a Thousand Eyes). Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Daniel L. Fapp (The Big Clock, The Great Escape) and directed by Hollywood ace Mitchell Leisen (Death Takes a Holiday, Murder at the Vanities), this pitch-black masterpiece of harrowing melodrama was adapted from the book I Married a Dead Man by crime-writing king Cornell Woolrich (The Chase, Rear Window).

BEWARE, MY LOVELY (1952) B&W 77 Minutes 1.37:1 Not Rated
Trapped by a Man Beyond Control! Screen heavyweights Ida Lupino (Woman in Hiding) and Robert Ryan (Odds Against Tomorrow) square off in this stylish and atmospheric thriller. Wealthy widow Helen Gordon (Lupino) hires drifter Howard Wilton (Ryan) as a handyman to do chores around her rambling mansion. What she doesn’t know: Howard Wilton is insane. Insecure and paranoid, Wilton thinks everyone, including Helen, is against him. He suffers from memory lapses and extreme mood swings. She’s soon a prisoner in her own home after Wilton locks the doors and tears out the telephone. His mood swings from violence to complacency but after Helen gets a message to the police via a telephone repairman, she finds he is still in the house. Beware, My Lovely is a spine-chilling suspense story shot by cinematographer George E. Diskant (On Dangerous Ground), written by noir specialist Mel Dinelli (The Spiral Staircase, House by the River) and helmed by noted art director Harry Horner (The Heiress, The Hustler).

[dwk]

And in July the next volume:
FILM NOIR: THE DARK SIDE OF CINEMA XX
• Captain Carey USA (1950) Alan Ladd in a Film by Mitchell Leisen
• Appointment with Danger (1951) Alan Ladd in a Film by Lewis Allen
• Make Haste to Live (1954) Dorothy McGuire in a Film by William A. Seiter

[domino harvey]

I just watched the Olive Blu of Captain Carey USA a few months ago for the first time, it's an absolutely DREADFUL film and probably only remembered, if at all, for introducing the standard "Mona Lisa". And while it sounds like a noir on paper, in action it's a bit of a stretch. Appointment With Danger is a miss as well (and also previously released by Olive on Blu)-- here's my writeup from the Noir list:

Appointment With Danger (Lewis Allen 1951) The trend of Naked City-inspired procedurals scrapes bottom with this tale hilariously introduced with false pomposity as finally telling the thrilling story of… US Postal Inspectors? The only real interest here is seeing Jack Webb and Harry Morgan working together as the heavies (one lighter than the other, though). Lots of people getting either knocked off or threatened with such, and the Bells of St Mary’s-ish sideplot with the world’s most foolhardy nun doesn’t help matters.

Haven't seen Make Haste to Live