This is Noir: I’m Supposed to be On the Edge of My Seat, So Why Am I Smirking?

A wigged out Barbara Stanwyck, "Double Indemnity" (1944).

By Paul Parcellin

Film noir is chock full of death and destruction and that’s the way we like it. There are other factors at play, of course — dramatic tension between characters and nifty heists meticulously planned and sure to fall apart once it’s showtime. We love alluring femmes fatale who make us fight off the temptation to holler at the screen and warn the dupe that he’s about to fall for her toxic charms, the equivalent of stepping onto a spring-loaded bear trap with big, sharp steel teeth. 

We love to see a poor sap struggle to pry himself out of the mess he’s gotten into thanks to his unabashed hubris or just plain bad luck. 

A house that "must have set someone back
30-thousand bucks, if he ever finished
paying for it."

It can all get pretty grim, so whenever a fleeting moment of comic relief pops up, either intended by the filmmaker or not, it stands out conspicuously, like “a tarantula on a slice of angel food cake,” to paraphrase Raymond Chandler. 

I’m talking about jokes that fall flat. They aren’t funny now and audiences probably weren’t bowled over by them back in the day. There are lines of dialogue that have aged badly and certain references that are wildly out of date. Don’t forget the technical gaffs that cheap-o productions didn’t have the scratch to redo, and strange, awkward moments that are probably due to a star’s unreasonable demands and the director’s lack of gumption to fight back.

Here’s a sampling of some film noir moments that are cherished by smart alecks such as yours truly who now and then can’t help but notice when things on screen just don’t add up:

Sometimes it’s the small observations that put a different spin on things. 

Except for a police squad, Sunset Blvd.
is disturbingly quiet.

Take, for instance, a traffic-free Los Angles main drag in the opening sequence of Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard” (1950). The scene takes place as dawn breaks over the city, but on a roadway where, in reality, every hour is rush hour. Frankly, the lack of bumper-to-bumper vehicles casts a post-apocalyptic pall over the terrain. Maybe that was intentional, and now that I think about it, what better way could there be to suggest the end of civilization as we know it beneath the smog choked skies of Los Angeles?

Speaking of traffic, there’s a witty, self-aware moment in neo-noir “L.A. Confidential” (1997), which is set in the 1950s. Local dignitaries hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for the then new extension of the 10 freeway, announcing that the super roadway will allow motorists to go from downtown to the ocean in 14 minutes, or something wildly optimistic like that. In L.A., audiences jeer. It’s a fair bet that the first automobile to use that stretch of roadway made it to the ocean in 14 minutes. Since then, only helicopters and jet packs come close to that speed. 

Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) straightens out
his boss, Edward S. Norton (Richard Gaines),
in "Double Indemnity" (1944).

One of noir’s most beloved crime dramas, “Double Indemnity,” (1944) has a number of moments that give us a chuckle. In fairness, most of the humor is due to a first-rate cast and the masterful work of director Billy Wilder and co-screenwriter Raymond Chandler. For example, in one scene Edward G. Robinson, as crusty insurance adjuster Barton Keyes, fires off smart rejoinders and clipped observations that hit the mark. This is one between him and his annoying boss, Edward S. Norton (Richard Gaines). Keyes gets in a subtle dig at the pompous executive:

Edward S. Norton: That witness from the train, what was his name?

Barton Keyes: His name was Jackson. Probably still is.

But then there are a couple of moments in which some unintended comedy occurs: When insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gazes at the upscale Spanish Colonial Revival home owned by one of his clients, he remarks in voice-over that it must have set the owner back “30-thousand bucks,” which elicited a knowing cackle from the audience at the Brattle, a Cambridge revival house where I saw it. It seems that there’s nothing like outdated real estate pricing to put an audience in a buoyant mood.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gets his drink on.

Another guffaw out loud moment comes when Walter, fresh off a couple of strings at a bowling alley, stops for a cold one at a car hop diner. He’s behind the wheel of his auto, a tray hooked onto the window ledge holds a partly filled beer bottle as he tosses back a glass of suds. The crowd got a sarcastic laugh out of this one, too.

Wilder was responsible for one production misstep. He said he realized too late that plunking a blonde wig on Barbara Stanwyck, who portrays femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, was a mistake. He wanted her to look cheap, but instead, he admitted, she looked like George Washington. 

The plot of Alfred Hitchcock's “Strangers on a Train” involves tennis star Guy Haynes (Farley Granger) who encounters deranged gadabout Bruno Antony (Robert Walker). Bruno’s delusions lead him to commit a murder that he eventually tries to pin on Guy. 

Farley Granger, Robert Walker.
"Strangers on a Train."

At the film’s stunning conclusion in an amusement part, a tense struggle between Guy and Bruno ends with an out of control carousel careening off its axis and sliding across the amusement park’s midway. 

Cops arrive and the mortally wounded Bruno clutches a key piece of evidence that would tend to clear Guy of the murder he’s suspected of committing. The police size up the situation and declare that Guy is innocent. No questions asked. No trip to headquarters required. Badda-bing, badda-boom, he’s free to go.

In “Shield for Murder” (1954), Barney Nolan (Edmond O’Brien)
lures bookie Packy Reed (Herbie Faye) down an alleyway.
Note the boom microphone shadow that somehow snuck into the frame.

My favorite visual blooper is what must be the most visible boom microphone shadow in all of noir. In the opening scene of “Shield for Murder” (1954), crooked cop Barney Nolan (Edmond O’Brien) takes bookie Packy Reed (Herbie Faye) down an alleyway and gives him the works. On the way, an undeniably crisp shadow of a piece of sound equipment comes into view. Noir is supposed to be shadowy, but not like this. We can only conclude that a beer-money budget prohibited reshoots.

In "D.O.A." (1949) Frank Bigelow checks out
the local talent while checking in.

An embarrassingly bad bit of sound in “D.O.A.” (1949) temporarily mars the otherwise spotless noir it is. In it, everyman Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien) is living under a death sentence after someone slips him a dose of slow-acting poison with no antidote. But before all that happens he’s on vacation in San Francisco and he ogles some attractive women. Director Rudolph Maté saw fit to add a cheesy sound effect of a wolf whistle, just in case we didn’t get the point. Maté is best known as a cinematographer, and in helming this low-budget classic he created a minor masterpiece. But, oh, that cringe-worthy slide whistle!

Sometimes a character is so rotten that we can only chuckle in admiration of her sheer audacity. In “Decoy” (1946), another low budget thriller, Margot Shelby (Jean Gillie) earns her spurs as perhaps the most cold hearted dame in all of noir. A sample of her frosty demeanor goes as follows: 

 Edward Norris, Jean Gillie, Herbert Rudley, "Decoy" (1946).

Motoring toward the site where a large cache of money is allegedly hidden, Margot’s car gets a flat. One of the two men riding with her changes the tire. As he lowers the jack beneath the front bumper, Margot slams the car into forward gear and runs over the unsuspecting sap. She hops out, rifles through the dead man’s pockets, grabs the tire changing tools and gets back behind the wheel. And why not? No need to share the jackpot with another schmo.

With her brazen disregard for the sanctity of human life, Margot earns a standing ovation. They don’t get much more fatale than that femme. 

So, those are a handful of cherished moments of ironic comedy. Surely, you’ve found a few that brought a smile to your face. Feel free to share them in Comments. I’d love to hear about them.

 

An American Story: Murder In the Living Room

Left: Gloria Swanson, William Holden, "Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Center: Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk, Sterling Hayden, "Crime Wave" (1953)
Right: David Janssen, "The Fugitive" (1963).

By Paul Parcellin

The first time I saw a film noir I didn’t know what I was watching. Sure, I could tell that it was a crime film, a detective story, a mystery, but no one I knew called those movies “film noir.” The term did exist back then, but it was used by French critics, vintage film fans and the literati. To me, they were just movies. 

I didn’t see noir in an art house theater, either. These black and white prints were shown on television — “Dialing for Dollars,” if you want to be specific. It was a weekday afternoon broadcast in my berg and on any given day you might see a war picture, a western or a romance. Sometimes you got straight-ahead crime and gangster films, and those were the ones I liked best.

The show’s gimmick was a cash jackpot that lucky viewers could win. During breaks for station identification the host picked a random number out of the phonebook and dialed it. If he reached someone — usually no one picked up the phone on the other end — and they knew how much money was in the jackpot they’d win the cash. It was often a measly amount of dough, around 25 bucks or so and hardly anyone ever won.

If you could put up with commercial breaks and station identification you could see scratchy prints of old movies, and that’s where my film education began.

If you were lucky you might see William Holden’s car get a blowout with automobile repo men in hot pursuit. Holden ditches them by turning into a stranger’s driveway. He thinks he’s in the clear but his troubles are just beginning (“Sunset Blvd.” 1950).

Then there was Sterling Hayden as Det. Lt. Simms, chewing on endless numbers of toothpicks, one after another, as he sweats down suspects in L.A.P.D. headquarters. A compulsive smoker, Simms got the bum news from his doctor: Drop the coffin nails. So he chews toothpicks instead, hundreds and hundreds of them (“Crime Wave” 1953). Incidentally, Lt. Simms was James Ellroy’s inspiration for L.A.P.D. Det. Bud White in “L.A. Confidential” and other crime novels he authored.

Even though I didn’t see any connection between these films, it was clear to my youthful eyes that there was something different here. They weren’t like the spoon-fed pablum that was going out over the airwaves. The stories were darker, the characters were more desperate — these movies seemed to create an alternative universe where all hope goes to die. I was intrigued.

Gloria Swanson, "Sunset Blvd." (1950).

My afternoon movie oasis showed other noir titles, the details of which are blurred by the passage of time. Of course, I had no way of knowing that I’d be seeing those films again one day, except in later years there were crystal clear restored prints. And they’d be shown in theaters with large screens and good sound systems. Hell, you could even own a copy that you could watch at your leisure. But that was a number of years off.

In that pre-Internet era, “Dialing for Dollars” was our YouTube and Archive.org, offering an opportunity to see films that weren’t being show in many movie houses, certainly not in my town. But all was not lost. 

Little did I realize that a lot of the prime time TV shows, some dating back to the 1950s, were short noir movies with dozens of episodes each season.

When noir’s classic period peaked near the end of the 1950s, and fewer noir titles were shown in theaters, radio and television had already absorbed the genre and was broadcasting noir influenced shows with dark themes, intricate plots and moody cinematography. Notable examples include “Dragnet" (1951-’59) a pioneering police procedural series that showcased gritty urban landscapes and complex investigations. It helped set the tone for future TV crime dramas. Also influential was "The Twilight Zone” (1959-’64) and “The Outer
Limits” (1963-’65), both of which skillfully blended science fiction with elements of noir, creating thought-provoking narratives that reflected the moral ambiguity often found in noir. 

Jack Webb, "Dragnet" (1951-'59)

Other early TV shows that contributed to the evolution of storytelling by incorporating the shadows and mysteries of film noir include: “Johnny Staccato,” “The Man With a Camera,” 
“77 Sunset Strip,” “Naked City” and “The Untouchables.” Yes, this is nothing like a complete list of noir-influenced TV. Tons more were broadcast, not to mention the noir influenced episodes of anthology series that broadcast various kinds of stories including noir-like faire. Like early soap operas, these anthologies were broadcast live and so viewers were treated to the occasional boom microphone swooping into the picture and corpses that awoke from the dead and walked off camera.

But getting back to the weekly shows captured on film, one noir-laced series, “The Fugitive” (1963-’67), caught the viewing public’s attention and was perhaps the first such network drama that ended with a finale episode that brought the series to a conclusion. 

“The Fugitive” demanded a satisfying denouement. Each chapter of the story seemed to point toward an inevitable outcome and the show delivered on that promise. The last episode was ratings dynamite, with 78 million people tuned in. 

Based on the true story of Dr. Sam Sheppard, who like the fictional character Dr. Richard Kimble (David Janssen), was wrongly convicted of murdering his wife. Sheppard was later acquitted after spending years in prison.

The fictional Dr. Kimble isn’t quite so fortunate. He’s convicted and sentenced to execution. But the train carrying him to the death house goes off the rails and wrecks. Riding with him is Lt. Philip Gerard (Barry Morse), the officer responsible for his arrest. Kimble escapes and stays on the lam for the remainder of the series while Gerard pursues him with the obsessiveness of Capt. Ahab hunting the great whale.

Ed Asner, David Janssen, "The Fugitive" (1963-'67).

Why single out “The Fugitive” among a sizable array of noir-influenced crime shows? With the possible exception of “Run for Your Life” (1965-’68), the story of a terminally ill man who has two years to live, “The Fugitive” may be the most noir of all 1960s American TV shows. Yes, there are other mind-benders, such as the British series “The Prisoner” (1967-’68) that inspired a cult-like legion of fans and became a favorite of stoners everywhere. Like “The Prisoner,” “The Fugitive” considers the plight of a man who has lost his identity. Both tend to land in some tight spots, but for very different reasons. 

As a fugitive from justice, Kimble cannot return to his normal life and must assume false identities, labor at minimum wage jobs and somehow remain invisible as he searches for the man who killed his wife. 

In one shot, foreshadowing the doctor’s unexpected transformation into a drastically different persona, he’s on the train bringing him to his execution and is seated next to the window. A cloud of cigarette smoke swirls around him, adding to the scene’s surreal quality. We see him and his reflection in the glass. The double image is the first indicator that he’s about to experience a split in identity.

He’s transformed into a loner who can never become attached to people or locales. Each day he risks discovery, and discovery means a return trip to the death house. 

Because of his precarious existence, existential dilemmas crop up. In the pilot episode a relationship between himself and a woman (Vera Miles) he meets begins to blossom. She’s married to an abusive man (Brian Keith) whom she’s trying to leave, but he won’t have it. Kimble knows he must protect her, but by doing so he’s taking his life into his hands.

Patrick McGoohan, "The Prisoner" (1967).

Like “The Prisoner,” Dr. Kimble’s misadventures are one long story told in multiple episodes. It’s something akin to an hours-long movie and it held the viewing public’s rapt attention for several seasons. The show wrapped at a good place in its run. After all, how long can a fugitive flee without getting caught?

No, it isn’t a private eye show or a police procedural, but “The Fugitive” gets to the heart of noir — loss of identity, alienation from society and the victimhood of the individual who is railroaded into paying for a crime for which he’s innocent. It's nightmarish stuff — the stuff that noir is made of.