Life and Death in L.A.: Barbara Stanwyck
Showing posts with label Barbara Stanwyck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barbara Stanwyck. Show all posts

Sunday, March 24, 2024

Is It or Isn’t It? “Clash by Night” is a Gripping Drama, Alright, But Some Insist It Doesn’t Make the Cut as an Authentic Noir Because It Lacks One Crucial Element

Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan,
"Clash by Night" (1952).

Contains Spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

“Clash by Night” has  the look and feel of noir, but not everyone thinks of it that way. It stars Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Ryan, two giants of the shadowy crime dramas of the 1940s and ‘50s that define those dark films. Some might say they make the perfect brooding noir couple.

If that’s not enough to establish the film as noir, note that Fritz Lang, dean of saturnine German expressionist films and American made noirs, directed. The Austrian-born Lang came to America in 1934 and brought the angst and shadows of German Expressionism with him. With an immigrant’s objective eye, he saw beyond the glossy surface of American life depicted in Hollywood films and instead turned his focus to the alienation and desperation seething within common folk. 

Fritz Lang,
master of noir.
He directed noir classics such as “The Woman in the Window” (1944), “Scarlet Street” (1945), “The Big Heat” (1953) and “Ministry of Fear” (1944), not to mention his German expressionist masterpieces, “M” (1931) and “Metropolis” (1927), among many others. Set in Monterey, Calif., “Clash by Night” is about working class people who toil on fishing boats and in a cannery, away from the big cities where noir tales typically unfold. 

Director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich, speaking on the DVD’s commentary track says that, although he’s a fan of “Clash by Night,” it’s not a noir. Unfortunately, he doesn’t explain his reasons for that judgment call. The disc was released as part of a box set called “Film Noir Classic Collection, Volume Two,” and Bogdanovich’s pronouncement must have dismayed the distributor.

What others who doubt the film’s noir pedigree say is that because no one gets murdered it’s not noir. 

Hand to hand combat with the intent to murder erupts at one point, and there’s even a kidnapping, although neither turns into much of an actionable offense.

Even if the film comes up short in the homicide department, it’s got atmosphere galore and conflicted, alienated characters living under a cloud of existential dread, all of which makes it an awful lot like a noir.

The story begins when Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) returns to town after a decade long absence. Her hopes of marrying a rich man and enjoying the good life somewhere far from the fish cannery have turned to ash. She runs into Jerry D’Amato (Paul Douglas), a kindly but unsophisticated bachelor fisherman who wants nothing more than for Mae to be his wife. She warns him it would be a mistake, but Jerry is too smitten to take her advice. 

Meanwhile, his friend, Earl Pfeiffer (Ryan), a projectionist at the local cinema, turns up. He’s the polar opposite of teddy bear Jerry. Earl is arrogant, disenchanted with life and he harbors a hatred of women — he’s separated from his burlesque dancer wife. In his typically sardonic sense of humor, Earl mutters, “Some day I’m going to stick her with pins and see if blood runs out.” He’s joking, of course, but with Earl there’s a fine line between comedy and tragedy.

Earl is attracted to Mae, but she deflects his bravado and thinks he’s a lout. Earl harbors contempt for his so-called buddy Jerry, and it’s obvious to everyone but Jerry, who remains oblivious to the emotional stirrings around him. Mae resents Earl’s condescending attitude toward Jerry, probably because she secretly harbors similar thoughts and feels guilty about it.

She finally agrees to marry Jerry because she wants a safe harbor that will protect her from the uncertainty and disappointments life dishes out. Earl may be the more exciting of the two gents, but he’ll never be the protector that Mae believes she needs. But we know she’ll have trouble sticking to her promise to be the kind of wife that Jerry wants.

Later, Mae’s brother, Joe (Keith Andes), gets engaged to his sweetheart, cannery worker Peggy (Marilyn Monroe), and for a while she shares Mae’s darkest view of marriage, that of being trapped in the small fishing village with nothing to relieve the dullness.

When Peggy’s doubts surface, Joe tells her he’d kick down the door to get her back, and with that her indecision is vanquished — a testimony of true love if there ever was one, she feels.

Marilyn, scandal followed her.
This was Marilyn’s first above-the-title billing, and in her small role she makes a fine showing as the naive but plucky hometown girl. The casting was tough luck for Andres, however. Whenever Marilyn’s on the screen everyone else in the shot might as well be invisible. 

Adding more spice to the mix, Marilyn was the source of a scandal during production. The actress was on loan to RKO from Fox, and during production some nude photos she’d posed for a few years prior came to light. Fox protected her reputation and kept the photos under wraps. But RKO, then headed by Howard Hughes, had no long-term investment in the actress and leaked the story to the press to reap publicity from it. Consequently, reporters mobbed Marilyn and the film’s star, Stanwyck, got the short end of the publicity stick. Stanwyck took it all in stride and continued to perform like the trouper that she was. 

It’s easy to imagine Stanwyck rolling with the punches and getting on with the job, and that same sense of self-reliance carries over to her characterization of Mae. She’s in control and unflappable in the face of temporary agitations. But even Mae has her limits. As the story progresses she stoically resists Earl’s advances. Now married to Jerry and the mother of a baby girl, Mae puts the boorish Earl in his place. She calls him “crude” when he suddenly comes on too strong. “You impress me as a man who needs a new suit of clothes or a love affair and he doesn’t know which,” she tells him. 

Clifford Odets,
poetic dialogue.
The streetwise poetic flair in the dialogue comes in part from playwright Clifford Odets — others worked on the screenplay — whose play was adapted into the movie. Typical of Odets, words coming out of the characters’ mouths are strangely flamboyant and display the writer’s idiosyncratic manner of capturing the cadence of working class speech.

Verbal fisticuffs ensue when Jerry invites Earl to visit the couple, Earl has had too much to drink and is allowed to sleep it off. The next morning, with Jerry away at work, Earl, still impetuous as ever, tells Mae that she and him are alike, “You’re born and you’d like to be unborn,” he says. His gloomy outlook is an apt description of both her and him, and that shared sense of alienation causes Mae to let her guard down. 

Tensions among the three grow stormier like the roiling ocean just beyond their doorsteps, and the film’s occasional cutaways to the briny deep signal trouble on the horizon. Partly shot on location, the film opens with a montage of fishing boats in the harbor, Jerry and Joe hauling in a catch and Peggy laboring in the cannery, in essence we see the community in a nutshell. 

Lang’s career began in the silent era, and it shows in the way he tells stories without dialog. It’s a cliche to say that you can almost smell the air, but this composition of coastal shots have just that effect.

If you’re still in doubt that “Clash by Night” is in fact noir, consider this:

In the absence of felonious behavior — murder, robbery, assault — other forms of anti-social behavior — adultery, violence, betrayal and corruption are at the core of noir. Add to that the sense of existential dread and misanthropy that runs throughout “Clash by Night,” and yes, it is noir, through and through. In the end, it’s the emotions, not the murder that counts.


Friday, January 12, 2024

Two Couples Who Murder: “Double Indemnity” Faces Off Against “Body Heat” — And It’s Not Even Close

Left, Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, "Body Heat" (1981).
Right, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, "Double Indemnity" (1944).

Warning: Contains Spoilers

By Paul Parcellin

After I moved to L.A. in 2008, I got together with a Meetup group that was going to see a screening of “Double Indemnity” (1944) at the ArcLight Theater in Hollywood. I was chomping at the bit in anticipation of watching one of my all-time favorite films with a group of cinema enthusiasts. I pictured us moving enmasse to the theater’s cafe after the screening and having a long discussion about the film, going over its finer points, savoring the subtlety of Billy Wilder’s direction, analyzing the screenplay co-written by Wilder and consummate grouch Raymond Chandler. Then there were the performances — Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson — how great was that cast?!

My fellow viewers were younger than me — let’s face it, almost everyone is these days — ranging from early 20s to around 30 or so. After the movie unreeled we drifted into the cafe. I was set for a stimulating, caffeine fueled conversation about classic film, old Hollywood and the like. But the banter took a dark turn. Not dark, as in noir-like shadows of venetian blinds on the wall. Dark as in, “Who the hell saw this coming?” The general reaction, saturated in Millenial social-media-ingrained ennui, was, “So, like, why is that supposed to be so great?” 

MacMurray as Walter Neff, spilling the details of his crimes.

The film’s opening scenes follow the mortally wounded insurance salesman Walter Neff (MacMurray), who makes his way to the office of his boss, claims adjustor Barton Keyes (Robinson) and records a voice memo on a Dictaphone machine in which he confesses to two murders, that of his paramour Phyllis Dietrichson (Stanwyck) and her husband (Tom Powers). It’s an emotional sequence that draws us into the story leading up to the confession, but the discussion went off the rails from the get-go. 

One young woman in the cinema group in her early 20s opined with incredulity, “Somebody shot him and he goes to make a recording? Nobody’s going to do that!”

Another noticed that MacMurray was wearing a wedding ring and the character he plays was unmarried. “Yeah, I noticed that, too!” another added. (MacMurray refused to remove the ring, and it was visible in that scene).

The conversation went on like that for a number of depressing minutes. I didn’t say a thing. Finally, someone noticed I was keeping it shut and asked me what I thought of the film, and I said I think it’s a masterpiece. That got their attention, but not in the way you’d hope. They looked at me with a mixture of pity, curiosity and annoyance, with annoyance being the dominant reaction. 

Explaining myself, I said that the film is witty, dramatic and character driven. It contains dialog that is the very definition of smart noir repartee. I called the script a marvel and, borrowing Barton Keyes’s description of the insurance scam Neff masterminds, noted that it “all fits together like a watch.”

Most of them paused for a nano-second to consider this, then silently dismissed my insightful, cleverly worded summary and began talking amongst themselves. 

A hellish red glow is the backdrop for Hurt and Turner in "Body Heat."

The 30ish guy hadn’t fully bailed on the discussion just yet, and he said he’d seen “Body Heat,” with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner and noticed the similarity between the two movies — “Body Heat” is based on “Double Indemnity.” 

In “Body Heat,” hack attorney Ned Racine (Hurt) kills Matty Walker’s (Turner) husband, Edmund (Richard Crenna), much like MacMurray in “Double Indemnity.” There’s a snag in both killers’ plans, however. In each movie an eyewitness is brought forward for questioning. Both Neff and Racine are present in the same room as their respective witnesses. 

For Neff, a man who saw him at the scene of the crime, and for Racine, a little girl who saw him in a passionate encounter with Matty. The tension has both perps on tinder hooks, but somehow they escape a close scrape with the law, temporarily, at least.

The 30ish guy in the cafe said that “Body Heat” did a better job of depicting that spine tingling encounter with justice, and the “Double Indemnity” version just wasn’t as good. 

Quelling my mounting apoplectic rage, I strongly disagreed, but it was pointless. He joined the discussion with the others about a current super hero film. Case closed.

I resisted the temptation to launch into a heated defense of “Double Indemnity,” realizing that I'd probably sound a lot like the old codger who shouts, “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!” But the encounter also made me think about those two movies.

I’d be the first to admit that Lawrence Kasdan’s “Body Heat” (1981) is a fine film. William Hurt, Kathleen Turner and Richard Crenna, as the unfortunate husband, all put in terrific performances. The script is a tightly modulated work of emotional tension and release, and the twist at the denouement sews up the loose ends ably. 

But better than “Double Indemnity”? I think not.

Ruth Snyder, Henry J. Gray, murderers who inspired James M. Cain's novella.

The film “Double Indemnity” is adapted from James M. Cain’s 1943 novella of the same title. The book is based on a real-life 1927 murder perpetrated by Ruth Snyder, a married woman from Queens, N.Y., and her lover, Henry Judd Gray. They conspired to kill her husband, Albert, and both went to the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison.

Wilder and Chandler crafted a script rich in detail with finely realized characters, including the murderous couple. 

Kasdan crafted the “Body Heat” screenplay, which is rich in twists and turns and includes an erotic encounter between Ned and Matty that could only be hinted at in “Double Indemnity.” But there are big differences between the two that in my not so humble opinion demonstrate why “Double Indemnity” is by far the superior film:

 D.I. — Phyllis and Walter meet by chance; she seems to begin plotting the murder only after their second meeting, when she asks Walter about accident insurance.

Matty has long-range plans in mind.

B.H. — Matty has been playing the long game. She steals and assumes her best friend’s identity, and begins searching for a sloppy, careless attorney with questionable morals. Ned’s name comes up, and she figures out a way to meet him that will seem like a randon encounter — quite a far fetched turn of the plot.

Phyllis and Walter’s meeting is more plausible than that of Matty and Ned. Plausibility is not necessarily the most critical element in a film, but chance and character are all important in "Double Indemnity.” In “Body Heat,” Matty merely fabricates the illusion of a chance encounter to attract Ned into her web of deceit and murder. 

Fate is the big kahuna of film noir, and “Double Indemnity” wins points for its adherence to this existential tenet.

D.I. — “Double Indemnity” has a far greater emotional range than does “Body Heat,” especially in a scene between Walter and Mr. Dietrichson’s daughter, Lola (Jean Heather), that takes place after the murder. Neff’s conscience — yes, we learn that he does actually have one — begins to get the better of him. This is an element that’s crucial to the film’s ending, by the way, but more about that later. 

Phyllis, savoring the moment as her husband is strangled.

Phyllis, however, may as well have Freon coursing through her veins. The depths of her sociopathic personality is beautifully revealed in the gruesome scene in which Neff strangles her husband while she sits inches away from him. The camera cuts away from the film’s most disturbing scene, which government censor would surely demand, to a closeup of Phyllis’s face. She’s not cringing, as any normal person would. Instead, she’s barely able to suppress a smile. 

Wilder’s brilliance shows through here. Rather than waste the cutaway shot, he uses it to give us more information. We see Phyllis’s insanely calm reaction to her husband’s horrible death, but Walter doesn’t see it — he’s busy attending to business. This is the first time in the film in which we have more information than does Neff. His ignorance of Phyllis’s true demeanor allows him to continue on with their plan without reflecting on her abnormal behavior. Later, in voiceover, he says he expected Phyllis might fall to pieces, but is relieved that she’s managed to keep her composure.

Neff and Phyllis, a chance encounter.

Getting back to the disappointing discussion at the ArcLight, I’d answer that young woman’s disbelief that the wounded Neff — Phyllis plugs him before he returns the favor — would take the time to leave a confessional recording, with a clear and simple explanation — the kind that never seems to occur to me in the heat of a discussion:

The reason why Neff returns to record a confession despite the fact that Phyllis popped a cap in his chest, is two-fold.

First, he needs to explain himself to his father confessor, Keyes, who’s about the only one in the film who genuinely cares about him.

Second, he needs to save Nino Zachetti’s (Byron Barr) life. Who is Nino Zachetti? He’s the abusive jerk who’s secretly dating Lola. Neff realizes that Zachetti is the perfect dupe to frame for both murders. Keyes believes Zachetti might be guilty of killing Mr. Dietrichson and that gives Neff the perfect opportunity to keep his trap shut and let Nino go to the chair. 

But he can’t. 

Lola (Jean Heather) makes an unwelcome office visit to Neff (MacMurray)
and his stoic facade begins to crack.

Unlike Phyllis, Neff has a conscience. He’s been fighting off feelings of guilt for killing Lola’s father ever since the day she came to see him in his office. Her appearance throws a monkey wrench into his plan to keep his head down and remain stolid. 

But Neff can’t bear to send Lola’s boyfriend to the chair after all of the pain he’s caused her by killing her father. Instead, he plans to tell the whole truth to Keyes by leaving him a voice recording he’ll hear the following day. By then, Neff plans to be a free man in Mexico. He can’t explain himself to the cops, for obvious reasons, but Keyes is the perfect recipient of the message. There’s as much apology as confession in Neff’s memo to Keyes. He’s finally contrite for his deceptions and horrible behavior. 

So, the reason why Neff drives like a madman to the office and pours his heart out into a Dictaphone machine is because he feels that he must. It’s the final decent act he can perform in his foolishly wasted life. His confession will prevent Zachetti, whom Neff passionately dislikes, from paying for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s a moral judgment that shows us that, in the end, Neff does have a suppressed sense of morality that finally comes to light. But it’s too late to save him from the debt he must pay for his evil deeds.

We don’t see anything close to Neff’s moral journey in “Body Heat,” which is a clever story with a clever ending. But where’s the emotional and moral conflict? Both Matty and Ned are cold and calculating, with no visible remorse. 

Christian Bale is the killer Yuppie in "American Psycho" (2000).

In a sense it’s the perfect adaptation for its time, the early 1980s, when materialism and consumerism were at full dudgeon. Matty and Ned are like remorseless Yuppies who kill, maybe with a greater affinity to murderous investment banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) in “American Psycho” (2000) than to Walter Neff. 

“Body Heat” is still fun to watch now and then, but I don’t rewatch it like I do “Double Indemnity,” which I’ve seen innumerable times and will probably continue to do so. 

I wish I’d had all of this stuff in mind when I encountered the “Double Indemnity” doubters at the ArcLight. But if any of them are reading this — highly doubtful — I’ve laid out what I should have said. Not a quick answer, but better late than never. 

Fortunately, there’s always the option to rewatch “Double Indemnity” and give it another chance. I hope that they do.

 

Thursday, August 10, 2023

Ripped From the Headlines: True Crimes Explode onto the Screen in Noir Movies

Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, “Double Indemnity” (1944)

By Paul Parcellin

It’s no wonder that Hollywood in the 1940s and ’50s scooped up lurid true crime stories and made hard-hitting, gritty dramas out of them. Following the war, the public’s appetite for rough textured tales could not be surpassed. Cold, savage murders that bled off the front page of tabloid scandal sheets was the stuff that fueled screen dramas full of deceit, adultery and homicide — in other words, film noir. 

The pulse of noir is driven by morally complex characters who land in deep existential trouble sometimes by accident, other times due to hubris and their own unsavory choices. The line between truth and fiction is not always cut and dried in fact-based noir. But the characters who inhabit the real world often have a lot in common with classic noir anti-heroes. Both live in a shadowy world of crime, mystery and ethical ambiguity. Miscreants caught up in true crime stories and those in fictional film noir fit together like bullets and a revolver.

More compelling still, fact-based noirs may seem more plausible than purely fictional yarns because in the back of our minds we know that the tale we’re watching is, at least in part, objectively truth based. Real people made these choices, acted reprehensibly and perhaps paid for their misdeeds. The weight of that knowledge helps keeps us engaged until the end. We want to see the protagonist’s fate play out even if we already know the “true” facts — will Hollywood’s version agree with the sensational headlines, garish news photos and breathlessly recounted real-life courtroom dramas that the media beamed across the nation for mass consumption? The answer is often yes and no. Exaggerations, embellishments and rewriting of the facts are not unheard of. Usually this is done in the spirit of enhancing dramatic tension and clarifying the story. See if you agree.

Here’s a sample of films based on pulp fact, usually with a chaser of fiction served up on the side — or perhaps it’s the other way around.

Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, “Double Indemnity.”

"Double Indemnity" (1944) 

Claims adjuster Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) has a theory about the murder plot that drives "Double Indemnity” and it fits together like a watch, he says. The same is true of this film. It’s crafted and assembled like the movement of a fine Swiss timepiece. In it, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) trick Phyllis’s husband into signing an accident insurance policy. They plan to do him in and collect the proceeds, but things don’t go exactly as planned.

The film was adapted from James M. Cain’s novel of the same title, which was loosely based on the 1927 murder of Albert Snyder. The real-life case involved a devious collaboration between Snyder’s wife, Ruth Brown Snyder, and her lover, Judd Gray.

Ruth and Albert’s marriage was on the rocks. She wanted money and financial independence, so she hatched a plot to murder her spouse and claim a big insurance payout. Much like the film in which Phyllis seduces Walter, Ruth manipulated Gray, persuading him to help kill her unwitting husband.

They chloroformed Albert, rendering him unconscious, staged his murder as a burglary gone wrong and positioned the body to mimic an accident. Like Phyllis and Walter, they were after a larger payout allowed by a double indemnity clause in the accident policy.

But the police saw through inconsistencies in Ruth and Gray’s stories. Evidence began piling up against them and the couple was finally arrested.

Unlike the film, they were tried and the proceedings became a media sensation. They were both found guilty and sentenced to death. 

In 1943, director Billy Wilder and writer Raymond Chandler adapted Cain’s novel into a screenplay. The film cleverly intertwines facts from the original case and adds layers of suspense, psychological tension, and intricate character development. Fred MacMurray’s portrayal of Walter Neff and Barbara Stanwyck’s embodiment of Phyllis Dietrichson further immortalized the characters inspired by Ruth and Gray.

The convergence of reality and fiction in “Double Indemnity” made an indelible mark on American filmmaking and helped set the pace for noirs that came after it.

Burt Lancaster, “The Killers.”

"The Killers" (1946)

Based in part on the 1927 short story of the same title by Ernest Hemingway, the film focuses on an insurance detective's investigation into the execution by two professional killers of a former boxer who was unresistant to his own murder.

A pair of hitmen, Max (William Conrad) and Al (Charles McGraw), enter a small-town diner in search of ex-prizefighter Ole “Swede” Anderson (Burt Lancaster). They manhandle the locals to squeeze information out of them and finally leave, only to locate their quarry and shoot him dead.

The next day insurance investigator Jim Reardon (Edmund O'Brien) arrives in town to investigate Swede's death. He interviews the diner's patrons and staff and tracks down Swede's girlfriend, Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner), but no one knows much about the murder. Reardon's investigation eventually leads him to mobster "Big Jim" Colfax (Albert Dekker). We learn in flashbacks about a payroll robbery that Swede took part in. When it was time to divide the loot Swede realized that others were trying to grab his share.

Hemingway’s short story, on which the film is based, was modeled after a real-life killing ordered by the Chicago mob. Popular boxer Andre Anderson, who once defeated Jack Dempsey, was the target. His killer, Leo Mongoven, went on the run and was captured following a traffic collision that killed Chicago banker John J. Mitchell and his wife Mary Louise.

Apart from its compelling story and strong performances, “The Killers” is notable for its dark, moody photography — shadows and light create a deep sense of unease and dread. Cinematographer Elwood Bredell, who also shot classic noir “Phantom Lady” (1944), fills the frame with inky black shadows that project a palpable atmosphere of doom. 

In addition to its classic noir status, “The Killers” helped usher in the filmic era of the hitman, echos of which can be heard in films such as “Murder By Contract” (1958), “Murder, Inc.” (1960), “Pulp Fiction” (1994), and many others.

James Stewart, “Call Northside 777.”

"Call Northside 777" (1948)

“Call Northside 777” is a fictionalized account of the true story of Joseph Majczek, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of a Chicago policeman in 1932. 

In the film, crusading reporter P.J. McNeal (James Stewart) risks his life to prove Majczek's innocence — Majczek is renamed Frank Wiecek in the film and is played by Richard Conte. McNeal is at first reluctant to pursue the story, believing that the convicted man probably is a cop killer. But his boss, Chicago Times city editor Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), prods the skeptical McNeal to dig deeper into the case. After chasing down down witnesses and attempting to interview uncooperative police officials, McNeal becomes convinced that the wrong man was imprisoned, and so begins his crusade to undo the injustices suffered by an innocent victim.

Veteran director Henry Hathaway, who previously shot many westerns, action pictures, war movies and thrillers, employed a documentary-style opening sequence for the film, much as he did with “The House on 92nd Street” (1945). Paying great attention to detail, he filmed most of the scenes at or near sites where the true events took place. A side note: the film is credited with being among the first to include the use of a fax machine, cutting edge technology at the time, which plays an important role in the plot.

The real-life events that inspired the film began on Dec. 9, 1932, when Officer William Lundy was shot and killed during a robbery at a delicatessen in Chicago. Two men, Joseph Majczek and Ted Marcinkiewicz, were arrested and convicted of the murder. However, there was significant evidence that pointed to their innocence, including eyewitness testimony that placed them elsewhere at the time of the crime.

Majczek's mother, Tillie, was convinced of her son's innocence and spent years trying to clear his name. In 1944, she placed a classified ad in the Chicago Times offering a $5,000 reward for information about the real killers. The ad caught the attention of Times reporter J. Watson Webb Jr., who began investigating the case and soon uncovered evidence that Majczek and Marcinkiewicz were innocent.

Webb's investigation led to the reopening of the case and in 1946 Majczek and Marcinkiewicz were exonerated. The real-life P.J. McNeal was a major factor in their release, and he was even present in the courtroom when they were finally declared innocent.

“Call Northside 777” was a critical and commercial success and it helped raise awareness of wrongful convictions. The film also earned James Stewart an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, “Rope.”

Rope” (1948) 

“Rope” is a fictionalized account of the Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb case, a cold, senseless murder that took place in Chicago in the early part of the last century. When the perpetrators were caught, a sensational, highly publicized trial followed. 

In the film, philosophy professor Rupert Cadell (James Stewart) is drawn into the world of two wealthy young men, Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Philip Morgan (Farley Granger), who, unbeknownst to Cadell, have committed the “perfect murder.” The professor is initially fascinated by the two young men but eventually realizes that they are dangerous.

The real-life events that inspired the film began on May 21, 1924, when 14-year-old Bobby Franks was found strangled in a vacant lot in Chicago. Franks had been lured to the lot by Leopold and Loeb, who had planned the murder as an intellectual exercise.

The two were brilliant young men who were fascinated by Nietzsche's philosophy of the Ãœbermensch, or "superman." They believed that they were superior to other people and that they had the right to kill anyone they deemed inferior.

The pair were eventually arrested and convicted of the Franks murder. They were sentenced to life in prison, where they both died.

“Rope” was a critical and commercial success and was praised for its suspenseful plot and its psychological insights. The film was also controversial because it appeared to be filmed in a single take. Director Alfred Hitchcock cleverly choreographed camera movements, which allowed continuous filming of scenes up to 10 minutes in duration. Stage hands silently moved scenery and furnishings during filming to accommodate cast and camera movements. When spliced together the film, which takes place in a single location, appears to unfold in real time, much like the stage play on which it is based. James Stewart acknowledged that few director besides Hitchcock would attempt to shoot such an experimental film, however Stewart said he felt that the continuous-shot concept used in “Rope” didn’t really work. Many would disagree. As with any Hitchcock film there are always elements that make it a worthwhile viewing experience.  

This is Part I of True Crime Noirs. Read Part II and Part III.











Wednesday, April 12, 2023

‘Double Indemnity’: Two On a Conveyor Belt Toward Doom

Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, 'Double Indemnity' (1944).


This article contains many SPOILERS, so if you haven't seen the film yet be forewarned.

By Paul Parcellin

In “Double Indemnity” (1944), housewife Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) seduces insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and gets him to kill her husband. She’s after a big payout from a policy that Neff sold him under false pretenses. It’s a classic noir — maybe THE classic noir. The story’s got all the right stuff — murder, sex and the promise of a bundle of cash for the two lovebirds. Naturally, it all goes horribly wrong and they both pay dearly for their misadventures. 

Neff and Phyllis swear allegiance to one another, repeating several times throughout the film that they’ll stick together “straight down the line” — words that prove all too prophetic. For a while, the scheme seems to have come off without a hitch, but later Neff realizes that a double-cross is in the works. Worse still, his co-worker and friend, claims supervisor Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), is doggedly working to crack the case, and for Keyes, this case is like red meat to a lion.

When Keyes begins to suspect that Phyllis and an unknown man are behind her husband’s death, he also invokes a train trip. When two people commit a crime together it’s not twice as safe, it’s ten times more dangerous. "It's not like taking a trolley ride together where they can get off at different stops,” he says. “They're stuck with each other and they've got to ride all the way to the end of the line and it's a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery.”

Like the rows of canned goods in Jerry’s Supermarket where the two conspiring killers meet clandestinely to plot their moves, Neff begins to realize that he’s been used by Phyllis and is nothing more than a commodity on a conveyor belt whose ultimate destination is a meeting with the executioner.

It’s all rather dire, but beneath the surface of a crime film lies a satire of modern day life — can the drudgery of the workaday world that Neff slogs through be enough to transform a morally challenged worker bee into an adulterer, embezzler and a killer? The answer is a resounding yes, here in Neff’s world, at least.

Also just beneath the surface is the film’s extremely subtle comments on big Hollywood and its tendency to crush the creative spirit of its faithful servants — it’s there but you might need a magnifying glass to see it. 

Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder.

Director Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler, who co-wrote the screenplay, were not fans of the City of Los Angeles, and the film echos their disdain for the metropolis. They thought of the place as hyper-capitalized, highly industrialized and morally bankrupt. Chandler once said that Los Angeles has “no more personality than a paper cup.” He viewed the City of Angels as a modern day Sodom filled with greasy burger joints, phony spiritualist and fast-talking hustlers trying to make a dishonest buck.

James Naremore in his book “More Than Night” lays out some of the film’s underpinnings. Putting aside the heinous crimes Neff commits, the author views him as a cog in a machine, namely the insurance industry, and his foray into a murderous scheme is a doomed effort to break away from the shackles of his job and a rootless existence. After years of faithful service he wants to crook the system and go far away with his newfound lady love. 

Wilder’s satirical portrait of the drab assembly line that is modern industrialized civilization is that of a wasteland teeming with alienated masses. And the insurance business is not much different from the movie industry. Naremore points out that the insurance company offices where Neff works, which we see in the film’s opening sequence, is a near duplicate of Paramount Pictures’ New York offices. And Neff’s Hollywood apartment is a carefully constructed copy of Wilder’s suite at West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont hotel, where he lived while shooting the film. Wilder’s in-joke is that, like Neff, he’s become an automaton for the big money people. 

We see both Neff and Keyes suffer through a painful meeting with their oafish boss, Mr. Norton (Richard Gaines). A self-righteous airhead with little hands-on experience in the insurance industry, Norton tries to worm out of making good on the Dietrichson insurance policy only to have his clumsy maneuvers blow up in his face. It’s not hard to imagine that Norton is a stand-in for the executives the director was forced to report to — the kind that offer unwelcome and usually unhelpful advice all in the name of putting their imprint and a project that would do just fine without them. In this environment one could imagine upper management quoting Samuel Goldwyn when he implored his screenwriters to “Come up with some new cliches.” 

Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson. The end of the line for Walter Neff.

Wilder faced studio pressure both when trying to put his script into production and after filming got under way. The Breen Office complained about an initial script, which was closer to the James M. Cain novel on which the film is based. That one had the two murderers die at each other’s hands instead of being arrested, tried and punished appropriately by the courts and penal system as the Hays Code strongly suggested. Wilder revised the screenplay to include an execution scene with Neff in the gas chamber, which he shot. It was reviled by studio brass as too gruesome. Ultimately, Wilder cut the scene, saying that it was unnecessary, but Naremore speculates that it would have played an essential role in the film. 

Stills of the scene show Neff, the condemned man, through the death chamber’s plate glass window as he’s obscured by clouds of cyanide gas and Keyes is one of the execution witnesses. 

The payoff scene after the execution, which was cut from the final print, would have added an even stronger ending to the film. After the execution is done, Keyes, alone, obviously grieving at the loss of a friend, is emotionally conflicted. He’s a straight shooter who is pained by the whole ordeal. Throughout the film we’ve seen a repeated ritual between Neff and Keyes, who smokes cheap stogies. He’s never got a match to light his cigar, but Neff comes to the rescue, flicking a wooden match to light up Keyes’s smoke. As a somber Keyes files out of the death chamber he takes out a cigar and pats his pockets looking for a match. He comes up empty and we see in his eyes the void that Neff’s death has left in his life. Too bad that such a touching moment ended up on the cutting room floor, especially since Wilder said it was one of the best scenes he'd ever filmed. But Naremore is hopeful that the excised film is sitting in a Paramount vault and will one day be restored to the film, although there’s no reason to think that this will ever happen. 

It’s open to question whether Wilder cut the scene due to pressure from his studio bosses or if he decided that the scene was truly unnecessary as he claimed. It’s all speculation because few people have actually seen the footage. But if Naremore’s description of it is accurate it would add an additional layer of emotional complexity to Keyes — his friendship with Neff being at odds with his dedication to doing the right thing. It’s an intriguing proposition.

Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck.


Thursday, June 30, 2022

Out of the Shadows (and onto the Cathode Ray Tube)

Raymond Burr in 'Pitfall' (1948).

Film noir heavies and second bananas of the 1940s got respectable in the late ‘50s and ‘60s when they morphed into TV doctors, lawyers and sitcom moms and pops. But could they ever wash the stage blood off their hands?

You mean Mom and Pop were once arch criminals? Jeepers!

Yup, those affable folks we’d tune in to see on weekly TV series followed twisted paths in their younger days, when noir filled movie screens across the country. 


The Actors of Film Noir

In the 1940s and ’50s they murdered, robbed and kidnapped. Some were cops who chased, collared and manhandled hoodlums — Miranda rights weren’t a thing yet. Ever in close proximity to the scum of the earth, they were the ones in low-budget, gritty crime stories, always in black and white, relentlessly exploring the seedy underbelly of urban life. The dramas unfolded mostly at night, lit by neon signs and police spotlights. They chain-smoked cigarettes, bet on the ponies and kept a flask of hooch and a racing form in their coat pocket.

But by the late 1950s these denizens of the night left the silver screen — by choice or otherwise. Some made their way onto the small screen and starred in network television shows. Their transformation may have been a jolt for noir fans. The straight-laced characters they played on the boob tube were a far cry from the jackals and cutthroats some portrayed in films. No more brass knuckles and suitcases stuffed with loot. Instead it was family picnics, PTA meetings and touch football. Knuckle-dragging tough guys were replaced by wacky neighbors.

So, here’s a far from exhaustive list of some of the actors who made the leap into TV roles that starkly contrast with their former noir selves:

William Bendix and Hugh Beaumont in
The Blue Dahlia' (1946)
Hugh Beaumont played Ward Cleaver in the popular family sitcom “Leave It to Beaver” (1957 – ’63). But his TV sons, Theodore (Beaver) and Wally, and wife June, would be shocked to learn what skullduggery he was up to before he went straight. He was the shady Michael Dunn in “Bury Me Dead” (1947), where he may have been involved in a bludgeoning murder. His other noir roles were milder, but he persistently roamed among rough characters. In “Railroaded” (1947) he is police Sgt. Mickey Ferguson, investigating the murder of a fellow officer. In “The Blue Dahlia” (1946) he was George Copeland, whose Navy buddy, Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), is accused of murdering his wife. He also appeared in “Tokyo Joe” (1949), “Phone Call from a Stranger” (1952), “The Fallen Sparrow” (1943), “The Lady Confesses” (1945), “Night Without Sleep” (1952), “Apology for Murder” (1945), “Money Madness” (1948), “Pier 23” (1951) and “Alias Mike Hercules” (1956).

William Bendix, an actor who pulled off stunning personality changes, also appeared in “The Blue Dahlia” (1946) as Buzz Wanchek, Navy buddy to George and Johnny. Buzz, shell-shocked in the war, has painful seizure-like episodes and he just might have murdered Johnny’s wife during one of his fits. Among the numerous roles in crime films Bendix that played was the sadistic henchman Jeff in “The Glass Key” (1942), who gleefully beats Alan Ladd to a pulp. He also appeared in “Detective Story” (1951), “They Drive by Night” (1940), “The Web” (1947), “Macao” (1952), “The Dark Corner” (1946), “The Big Steal” (1949), “Calcutta” (1946), “Dangerous Mission” (1954), “Cover Up” (1949), “Crashout” (1955), “The Hairy Ape” (1944), “Race Street” (1948), “Johnny Holiday” (1949) and ”Gambling House” (1950). Who would have guessed that Bendix would turn up as the good-natured, occasionally put-upon, bumbling pop in the TV sitcom “Life of Riley” (1953 – ’58) — could Jeff be Riley’s evil doppelganger?  (Just a thought).

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray
in 'Double Indemnity' (1944)
And then there were Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), who plotted to ice Phyllis’s blowhard husband in “Double Indemnity” (1944). In the chilling murder scene, Walter pounces on the hubby and throttles him in the front seat of the family sedan as Phyllis calmly drives — ice water flows through her veins. In “Borderline” (1950), MacMurray plays an undercover cop trying to bust a drug smuggling ring. He was a corrupt cop in “Pushover” (1954) and a man in search of a stash of pearls in “Singapore” (1947). How odd it was to see him pivot to the role of widower Steve Douglas in the family sitcom “My Three Sons” (1960 – ’72). His roles in light-hearted family-friendly Disney movies were also a hoot.

Speaking of Barbara Stanwyck, she appeared in countless film noir roles, including the murderous Phyllis in “Double Indemnity” and the bedridden victim of a deadly plot in “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948). Her other noirs include “Clash by Night” (1952), “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” (1947), “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946), “No Man of Her Own” (1950), “Crime of Passion” (1956), “Witness to Murder” (1954), “The File on Thelma Jordon” (1949), “The Lady Gambles” (1949), “The Other Love” (1947) and “Jeopardy” (1953). She later portrayed family matriarch Victoria Barkley in the TV western drama “The Big Valley” (1965 – ’69). It wasn’t her first western. She appeared in many, most notably as Jessica Drummond in Samuel Fuller’s “Forty Guns” (1957). But “The Big Valley” was among her most successful series, running four seasons. She also hosted a TV anthology series, “The Barbara Stanwyck Show” (1960 – ’61).

Robert Young and Jane Wyatt.
Robert Young played Larry Ballentine, a fast-talking, slippery character who ends up on trial for murder in “They Won't Believe Me” (1947). In “The Second Woman” (1950), he’s Jeff Cohalan, a guy who’s plagued by bad luck, persecution, or maybe paranoia. In “Crossfire” (1947), he’s Finlay, an investigator looking into a murder of suspicious circumstances. Later, he ditched the trench coat and put on a cardigan and portrayed average middle-class American dad Jim Anderson, father of Betty, Bud and Kathy, in TV sitcom “Father Knows” Best (1954 – ’60). Later, he starred as the kindly, wise physician in “Marcus Welby, M.D.” (1969 – ’76).

Jane Wyatt played Jim Anderson’s wife, Margaret, in “Father Knows Best.” Before her days in the Anderson household she was middle-class housewife Sue Forbes in “Pitfall” (1948), Marjorie Byrne in “House by the River” (1950), Lois Frazer in “The Man Who Cheated Himself” (1950), all solid noirs. 

An actor famous for portraying disreputable characters, Raymond Burr played numerous louts, sadistic mobsters, corrupt detectives and murderers in “Desperate” (1947), “Pitfall” (1948), “Raw Deal” (1948), “I Love Trouble (1948), “Walk a Crooked Mile” (1948), “Red Light” (1949), “Borderline” (1950), “His Kind of Woman” (1951), “The Blue Gardenia” (1953), “Rear Window”(1954) and “Crime of Passion” (1956). He finally ended up on the right side of the law as the eponymous Los Angeles defense attorney in the TV drama “Perry Mason” (1957 – ’66).

His “Perry Mason” co-star, William Talman, played District Attorney Hamilton Burger, the poor stiff who never won a case against Perry — except one, but Burger’s record was otherwise pitiful. He was something less that pitiful when he played sadistic killer Emmett Myers in “The Hitchhiker” (1953), the murderous Bailey in “The Woman on Pier 13” (1949), Dave Purvis in “Armored Car Robbery” (1950), Officer Bob Johnson in “The Racket” (1951) and Hayes Stewart in “City That Never Sleeps” (1953). Other noirs he appeared in include “Big House, U.S.A.” (1955), “Crashout” (1955) and “The Man Is Armed” (1956).

Vince Edwards in 'The Killing' (1956).
It wouldn’t be unfair to label Vince Edwards a punk, a thief and an adulterous murderer — in his early film roles, that is. He was double-crossing holdup man Val Cannon in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” (1956), paid killer Philip Pine in “Murder by Contract” (1958), a murderous mechanic in “Hit and Run” (1957). His noir credentials also include “The Night Holds Terror” (1955), “Dark Passage” (1947). As the 1960s arrived, Edwards reformed and became the “against the medical establishment” Dr. Ben Casey in the TV drama “Ben Casey” (1961 – ’66).

Harry Morgan went from playing average guy Pete Porter on TV sitcom “Pete and Gladys” (1960 – ’62), to crime fighter Officer Bill Gannon alongside Sgt. Joe Friday in “Dragnet” (1967 – ’70). Later, he was Col. Sherman T. Potter in the Korean War-based TV sitcom M.A.S.H. (1972 – ’83). But in his pre-television roles he was often an unsavory character — a thug, a stooge, a flunky, and what have you. He appeared in “Dark City” (1950), “Not as a Stranger” (1955), “The Big Clock” (1948), “Somewhere in the Night” (1946), “All My Sons” (1948), “Scandal Sheet” (1952), “Moonrise” (1948), “Red Light” (1949), “Appointment with Danger” (1950), “Strange Bargain” (1949), “The Gangster” (1947), “The Saxon Charm” (1948), “Race Street” (1948) and “Outside the Wall” (1950). 

Agnes Moorehead.
Agnes Moorehead co-starred with Humphrey Bogart when she played Madge Rapf in “Dark Passage” (1947). She earned her noir credentials playing characters such as Ruth Benton in “Caged” (1950), Christine Hill Cosick in “14 Hours” (1951), Juliana Borderau in “The Lost Moment” (1947) and Mrs. Matthews in “Journey into Fear” (1942). Later, she played overbearing witch-mother-in-law Endora in TV sitcom “Bewitched” (1964 – ’72).  

You may know him as the grumpy, bigoted working-class word-mangler Archie Bunker in TV sitcom “All in the Family” (1971 – ’79), but Carroll O’Connor played crime boss Brewster in ‘Point Blank’ (1967) and an uncredited role as a prison guard in “Convicted” (1950).

Donna Reed found herself in dicey company in “Chicago Deadline” (1949), “Scandal Sheet” (1952), “Ransom!” (1956). Later, she became a doctor’s wife Donna Stone and an all-American mom in “The Donna Reed Show” (1958 – ’66). 

Lucille Ball in'The Dark Corner' (1946).
Before she starred in one of the most popular TV sitcoms of all time, “I Love Lucy” (1951 – ’57), and all of the other iterations of the series that followed, Lucille Ball was rubbing shoulders with underworld mugs. She played Kathleen Stewart in "The Dark Corner" (1946), and appeared in “Blood Money” (1933) and “Lured” (1947). 

Herbert Gillis (Frank Faylen) was Dobie’s dad on the TV sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” (1959 – ’63). But before that he was Stan in “99 River St.” (1953), John Payne’s fellow cab driver/dispatcher/boxing trainer. Other noirs he appearing in include “The Lost Weekend” (1945), “They Drive by Night” (1940), “Detective Story” (1951), “The Blue Dahlia” (1946), “Convicted” (1950), “You Can't Get Away with Murder” (1939) and “Riot in Cell Block 11” (1954).

Sitcom “The Patty Duke Show” (1963 – ’66) featured identical twin cousins. Patty Duke played both roles — and you thought “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Genie” were far-fetched? Patty's dad (and Cathy's uncle) Martin Lane (William Schallert), was the gas station attendant who gets bumped off in the beginning of "Down Three Dark Streets” (1954). He also plays the assistant D.A. in “Shield for Murder” (1954). His other work in noirs includes “Cry Terror! (1958), “M” (1951), “The Reckless Moment” (1949), “Riot in Cell Block 11” (1954), “The Tattered Dress” (1957), “The People Against O'Hara” (1951), “Black Tuesday” (1954), “Hoodlum Empire” (1952) and “The Girl in the Kremlin” (1957).

Walter Brennan, left, and John Garfield
in 'Nobody Lives Forever' (1946).

Walter Brennan was Grandpa Amos in “The Real McCoys” (1957 – ’63). He was the lovable but gruff old codger who often gave his family unsolicited advice. Who would suspect that the occasionally ornery Amos led a double life? In “Nobody Lives Forever” (1946) he played penny-ante con man Pop Gruber who teams up with ex-GI Nick Blake (John Garfield) to fleece suckers and make a big score. He was Humphrey Bogart’s sidekick in “To Have and Have Not” (1944) — “Was you ever stung by a dead bee?” He also appeared in “Hangmen Also Die!” (1943), Fritz Lang’s “Fury” (1936), “Nobody Lives Forever” (1946), “The Racket” (1928) and “Grief Street” (1931).

A Final Word …

No doubt about it, mom and pop’s younger selves kept unsavory company and may have even bumped off, robbed or terrorized a few unfortunates. On the plus side, their later TV selves became model citizens. All of which proves that sometimes it’s better to forget the splintery past and focus on the present. 







Friday, May 6, 2022

In 'Double Indemnity,' A Stalled Car is a Flash of Genius

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, in 'Double Indemnity.'

 As many times as we pore over "Double Indemnity," there are still important bits that may be missed. Sometimes that leads to revelations that change our understanding of the film.

I'm not talking about the Raymond Chandler cameo that went unnoticed for decades — that was a whopper of a find. It's those scenes that we've watched countless times that are entertaining, gripping even. But it's not until the umpteenth viewing that we have an "A-ha!" moment. 

By the way, for those who have yet to see "Double Indemnity," you'd be well advised to do so. In the meantime, let's summarize the story without giving too much away. However, if you're particularly sensitive to spoilers, you might want to stop reading here.

The story goes like this: An ethically wanting, rather shallow man, insurance salesman Walter Neff, falls for a married woman, and she for him. Together, they decide to cash in on a life insurance policy. Neff gets her husband to sign on the dotted line without his knowing what he's putting his John Hancock on.

The femme fatale, Phyllis Dietrichson, and Neff plot to do away with the unsuspecting hubby and leave his body in a lonely spot. After the deed is done, they make their escape. Or, at least they try to. 

It's one of many scenes in which director and co-writer Billy Wilder's flashes of genius take hold. The murderous pair hop into the getaway car, turn the key ... and it won't start.

A look of dread crosses their faces. Neff tries coaxing the engine another time. Finally, it catches. Relief.

An Unforeseen Turn

But something unexpected happens, not to Neff and Phyllis, but to us, the audience. We collectively, and perhaps subconsciously, white knuckle it until the motor at last turns over. Then we sigh with relief. Bear in mind that these two perps have just committed as terrible and cold-blooded a murder as one could imagine. Sure, Phyllis's husband was a lout, but did he deserve to die? 

Yet, we hold our breath, hoping against hope, that the engine will start and the two can leave before being discovered. In other words, that short scene crystalizes where we stand — we're slowly and subtly being lured to the dark side. It's a small but important moment.

Wilder revealed in an interview that he shot the scene as it was originally written. The two get into the car and leave. But overnight, he realized that he'd missed an opportunity to ratchet up the tension. So, he reshot that sequence, this time with the uncooperative engine, and it certainly does increase our level of stress as we watch it.

The result is that we worry about Neff and Phyllis's wellbeing; two criminals who kill for money. That's a pretty neat trick. When we fret about their safety, the director has fulfilled his intention, at least in part. Wilder knew that audiences must empathize with, if not admire, the lead actors. That's no mean feat with this pair of degenerates.

So, why does the sequence have this effect? Most of us have felt tension when a car threatens to stall just when we need it most. It's a powerful emotional experience. Powerful enough, it turns out, to make us pull for the other team even if we don't remotely like them.

That Wilder rewrote this scene, squeezing all of the agonizing tension he could out of it, is further proof of his impeccable dramatic instincts.

Of course, by noir's very nature our anti-heros are unlikely to be model citizens. Part of film's allure is that we get to walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Someone who may be quite different from us. Maybe even someone we wouldn't let into our homes.

So our desire to empathize with shady characters for 90 minutes is explainable. But not all anti-heroes are created equal, and few are as alluring as Walter Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson. Billy Wilder created a couple of doozies, and we can't stop watching them.