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| Gaby Rodgers, "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955). |
This Post Contains Spoilers
By Paul Parcellin
American films noir changed a lot after the end of World War II. The standard setups — a guy, a girl, a gun, a pile of cash, gave way to new storylines and different kinds of characters. We began to see G.I.s returning home from the war with debilitating physical and psychological wounds that made adjustment to civilian life difficult. Films such as “Crossfire” (1947), “Act of Violence” (1948), “High Wall” (1947) and “The Chase” (1946) focus on returning servicemen and their tortuous reentry into everyday American life.
In “The Blue Dahlia” (1946) ex-bomber pilot Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) returns from the war to a less than stellar reception. His wife, Helen (Doris Dowling), has been partying and carrying on with another man in Johnny’s absence. In fact, it seems that a significant portion of the civilian population has been on a bender and has little appreciation for the sacrifices service people made to preserve their freedom.
But the cruelest blow Helen dishes out to him comes when Johnny learns about the death of their child. It wasn’t due to illness as Helen had written him, but as the result of an accident she had while driving drunk. Stunned, Johnny picks up his bag and leaves. Later, Helen is found murdered and Johnny is the prime suspect. But suspicion turns to his service pal Buzz (William Bendix), who has bouts of uncontrollable rage and seizures as the result of a wartime head injury. Early versions of the script had Buzz as the killer, but the U.S. Navy forbid it, saying that portraying a wounded veteran as a psychotic killer was unacceptable, so the script was rewritten. Still, the film conveys a sense of discomfort and outright fear the civilian population experiences with war scarred veterans.
While films along this theme continued to make moving statements in post-war America, particularly William Wyler’s “The Best Years of Our Lives” (1946), the plight of ex-servicemen was overshadowed by events on Aug. 29, 1949, when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb. Noirs began to reflect the growing hysteria over the prospects of nuclear war.
In 1950 the country entered the Korean War and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) investigated alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organizations suspected of having fascist and communist ties.
Some citizens, it was supposed, including war veterans, posed an existential threat to the American way of life. Government censors would paper over any suggestion that a returning veteran might be a deranged killer, but if he was perceived as a communist sympathizer the hammer of justice would strike swiftly. The threat of nuclear war seemed to justify any action deemed necessary.
Here are some films noir made during the Cold War that reflect the mood of the times:
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| Janis Carter, John Agar, Thomas Gomez, "The Woman on Pier 13" (1949). |
“The Woman on Pier 13” a.k.a. “I Married a Communist” (1949)
“The Woman on Pier 13” previewed in 1949 with the straightforward but unintentionally silly title, “I Married a Communist.” RKO Pictures changed it after test audiences gave the thumbs down. Even with its new title, “Pier 13” is every bit the melodramatic tabloidesque B-picture that the original title suggests. But it reveals a lot about the country’s mood in that most unsettling era.
While the Soviet Union conducted its first successful atomic test in 1949, the film came together a bit too early to press the nuclear annihilation panic button. Instead, it envisions a conspiracy of homegrown communists driving a wedge between labor and shipping industry management. “Pier 13” uses the communist threat in place of more typical forces of evil we see in noir — organized crime, corrupt politicians, police on the take and the like.
As the film opens we meet San Francisco shipping executive Brad Collins (Robert Ryan), once, a card-carrying commie who labored as a stevedore in New York during the Depression. Later, he changed his name and fled to the West Coast. A communist no more, he fits comfortably within capitalist society. Brad’s ex-flame, Christine Norman (Janis Carter), who’s secretly working for communist cell leader Vanning (Thomas Gomez), shows up unexpectedly and causes tense moments with Brad and his new bride, Nan (Laraine Day).
Christine’s arrival isn’t a coincidence, she’s helping to put the squeeze on Brad. The local communists hold evidence that could send him to the gas chamber, and they want Brad’s cooperation. These days, “Pier 13” may seem like low comedy or self-parody, but it neatly maps out the hot-button issues still before us, including home-grown and foreign conspirators, infiltration of government institutions, shadow governments seeking to undermine our way of life, while dishing out hefty portions of paranoia-inducing melodrama. The film ends on an optimistic note while serving as a cautionary tale of what might befall us if we aren’t more vigilant. That probably soothed frayed nerves back in 1949.
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| Frank Gerstle, Edmond O'Brien, "D.O.A." (1949). |
“D.O.A.” (1949)
Above all else, “D.O.A.” is a sobering, paranoid meditation on nuclear radiation’s deadly effects on the human race and the pitfalls of self-absorption and hedonism. Small-town accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) comes to the big city and by chance meets a bunch of traveling salesmen and their lady companions who are all staying at his hotel. They persuade his to come to a bar, and it turns out to be a hipster scene. Frank, a bit of a square, came to San Francisco to let his hair down before making up his mind whether or not to propose to his sweetheart back home. So he’s tantalized to check out this pre-beatnik era hangout for the bohemian set.
He mingles with a lady at the bar and makes a date to meet her later that night. All the while a jazz combo is blowing up a storm on the bandstand. The excitement builds until the musicians and the crowd are in a frenzied state. The nightclub practically levitates as both the band and club patrons get caught up in the frenzied beat to the point of madness.
The bartender, inured to the cacophony, shrugs it off. They’re “jive crazy. That means they go for this stuff.”
Frank doesn’t much understand the hipster crowd, but it looks like he’s gotten lucky, and that plus the booze are clouding his better judgment. He’s too distracted to pay much attention to the man slipping something into his drink. He takes a big sip of his tainted cocktail and things start to go sideways. It turns out that Frank has been poisoned with a "luminous toxin” and only has a short while to live. He goes on a mad scramble in an effort to find out who slipped him the deadly mickey and why they did it.
The poison is a radio active substance whose delayed effect turns Frank into a walking zombie of sorts. He finally tracks down his killer, but the story is almost too convoluted to understand. The short explanation is that Frank just had a stroke of extraordinarily rotten luck. But the message is simple: the nuclear threat is all around us and can be unleashed at any time.
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| Lee Marvin, Terry Moore, Keenan Wynn, "Shack Out on 101" (1955). |
“Shack Out on 101” (1955)
A humble diner along the Pacific Coast is a hotbed for post war espionage and the proprietor, George (Keenan Wynn), is clueless about the drama that is percolating in his hash house.
Short order cook Leo (Lee Marvin), whom George has sarcastically nicknamed “Slob,” is a rude, obnoxious masher — his sobriquet fits him well. In a rare moment when Slob and George aren’t bickering, they lift weights together and debate who has the mightier physique. In this, a parable of spies and atomic bomb secrets it’s easy take their muscle flexing contest as a sly comment on the arms race. The two together are pure comic relief.
Frequent customer Prof. Sam Bastion (Frank Lovejoy) teaches at the local university and works on top secret defense projects. Slob and George both have eyes for waitress Kotty (Terry Moore), who the professor is romancing. Odds are that the three Romeos are on a collision course.
In what seems to be an unconventional pairing, Slob and the professor allegedly have a common interest in seashells, and the professor collects ones that Slob, a part-time beachcomber, retrieves. But their hobby is a coverup for darker matters. We don’t begin to see Slob’s true character until he admits to the professor that he wants do something that will make people look up to him. The professor chides him about being a burger flipper and Slob’s comeback is arresting. “Hitler was a paperhanger,” he mutters, suddenly sounding determined and not the dolt he’s been pretending to be. “A man makes his own destiny,” he says. It seems a shadowy figure, Mr. Gregory, has buying nuclear secrets from the professor with Slob as the middle man.
But there’s more to this underground operation that what first meets the eye. It turns out that the professor is not onboard with Slob’s covert operation after all, and he sums up the burgeoning conspiracy that’s afoot while summarizing the country’s worst fears. “The apes have taken over,” he says. “While we were filling our freezers and watching television they’ve moved in. And what’s worse is they’ve begun to dress like us and pretend to think like us.”
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| Ruth Roman, "5 Steps to Danger" (1956). |
“5 Steps to Danger” (1956)
We know almost nothing about John Emmett’s (Sterling Hayden) background except that he’s driving from California to Texas when his car breaks down. The first time we see him he’s sitting in his car’s driver’s seat, ambling down the highway. As the frame widens it turns out that the car is being pulled be a tow truck. It’s just a preview of the surprising developments that are in store as this road movie picks up speed. His car is in need of heavy repairs so he accepts a lift from Ann Nicholson (Ruth Roman), a woman he meets by chance at the repair shop. Soon, he’s swept up into a web of espionage intrigue.
We learn about Emmett through his actions, not from anything the taciturn every-man has to say about himself. He isn’t wealthy but won’t accept money as payment for his selfless deeds and insists on sharing travel expenses with Ann. Her life, on the other hand, is fraught with danger and adventure. She’s escaped from Germany with nuclear secrets etched into a pocket mirror. What’s more, at a roadside stop a woman claiming to be Ann’s nurse tells John that Ann is a former mental patient who is still healing from emotional trauma. Emmett sticks with Ann even when she vigorously tries to persuade him to go his own way.
A mysterious Dr. Simmons (Werner Klemperer), purportedly Ann’s psychiatrist, lurks in the background, and so do CIA and other government agents. The air of high stakes international conspiracies hang in the Southwest desert’s air like buzzards circling a carcass. Ann’s destination is New Mexico where she intends to deliver the nuclear secrets to a Dr. Kissel (Karl Ludwig Lindt) but, as with each new development in this Cold War tale of paranoia, something is off — much like the mood of the country in the dawning days of the nuclear age.
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| Willis Bouchey, Murvyn Vye, Thelma Ritter, "Pickup on South Street" (1953). |
“Pickup on South Street” (1953)
In "Pickup on South Street" (1953), pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) swipes microfilm from a spy ring courier. Street peddler Moe (Thelma Ritter) can help G-Men recover top-secret information after she figures out that Skip is their man. But her info ain't free. Moe is savvy enough to cut a better deal when she realizes she’s got insider’s knowledge that the police desperately want. Unfortunately, once involved in this high stakes game she’s in over her head, and the bad guys are a lot less forgiving than the street urchins she’s used to dealing with.
McCoy is the story’s keystone. His smart-talking self-assuredness is at once galling and irresistible. He knows where he stands, living from one purloined wallet to the next, and he’s got no interest in anything beyond the meager living he makes combing through subway strap hangers’ valuables. His world is limited to the city’s street and the shack he inhabits on the waterfront. He’s an unlikely player in this drama that has put the fate of western civilization in his grimy hands.
FBI Agent Zara (Willis Bouchey), who has been trailing him, tries to pressure him into turning over the microfilm he boosted, saying “If you refuse to cooperate you'll be as guilty as the traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb.”
McCoy smugly retorts, “Are you waving the flag at me?”
The fast-talking pickpocket sums up his ethics when at another point he blurts out, “So you're a Red, who cares? Your money's as good as anybody else’s."
Despite his bluster, McCoy begins to see the light. Strangely enough, he becomes emotionally involved with Candy, the courier from whom he stole the microfilm. Her thuggish boyfriend means to do her in, and against all odds McCoy is then ready to stand up and do the right thing.
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| Maxine Cooper, Ralph Meeker, "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955). |
“Kiss Me Deadly” (1955)
In "Kiss Me Deadly," Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), the private detective hero of Mickey Spillane's pulpy novels, is on the trail of a suitcase full of hot nuclear soup. He's not quite sure what it is, and neither are we, but he knows it packs a bad-ass wallop.
Like"Pickup On South Street," with Richard Widmark as a pickpocket who unknowingly harvests some national security secrets from a mark's handbag, “Kiss Me Deadly” is a mad scramble for some H-bomb secrets that could help decimate the entire country and possibly the world. Director Robert Aldrich effectively conveys the tensions and uncertainty that existed in the Cold War era. Hammer uses bullying tactics — he’s always ready to slap around uncooperative witnesses who have critical information — to get to the bottom of the nuclear "whatsit" he's after. And he must, because the future of the planet is at stake.
The setting is transported from New York, Hammer’s stomping ground in Spillane novels, to the sunny climes of Los Angeles. This is a story without heroes — nearly every character we meet is sleazier than the last, and Hammer himself is far from squeaky clean.
Hammer’s search for Velda, his secretary, who is being held captive at a beach house — the briefcase full of nuclear lava is there, too — brings him face to face with Gabrielle (Gaby Rodgers), who wrests control of the hot stuff. This sets the stage for the film’s most famous scene, when Gabrielle, in a Pandora-like gesture, opens the briefcase despite warnings to the contrary.
As Hammer and Velda escape, both Gabrielle and the beach house are consumed by flames. Hammer and Velda, who seem in remarkably good health for two who have just experienced a nuclear disaster up close, make their getaway. The rest of us should be so lucky.
Here are some noirs saturated in Cold War paranoia that deserve honorable mention:
“Hangmen Also Die” (1943)
Dr. Frantisek Svoboda (Brian Donlevy) assassinates the notorious "Hangman of Europe" and hides from the Nazis in the home of a history professor and his daughter. But the enemy has a deadly plan aimed at flushing him out to face the consequences.
“Walk a Crooked Mile” (1948)
G-Man Dan O'Hara (Dennis O'Keefe) and Scotland Yard Det. Philip Grayson (Louis Hayward) team up to smash a spy ring infiltrating a So. California atomic research center. Smart money says a scientist at the lab has turned commie fink.
“The Red Menace” (1949)
A former soldier joins the American Communist party, but soon learns that he’s made a mistake. When he and his lady friend try to leave the party is out for blood.
“The Whip Hand” (1951)
A vacationing journalist stumbles upon a Minnesota lake filled with dead fish. A band of Nazis-turned-Communists have purchased a lodge on the lake and have set up a laboratory there.
“I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.” (1951)
An F.B.I. agent works to bring down the Communist party. Unfortunately, his brothers and his teenage son think he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Red.
“Captain Scarface” (1953)
The Soviets have ship containing an atomic device and they plan to sail it to the locks of the Panama Canal and detonate the bomb.
“A Bullet For Joey” (1955)
A police inspector discovers a plot to kidnap a nuclear physicist. Mobsters, foreign spies, and a blonde seductress, all play a role in the drama.
“I’ll Get You” (1951)
After leading nuclear scientists are kidnapped and smuggled behind the Iron Curtain, an FBI man and a British agent are assigned to catch the kidnappers.
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